Mockery? More like fuckery.

I don't hate exams. There are papers that I look forward to and there was even once I arrived a day earlier. Just imagine the sheer excitement and anticipation! Exams give you the chance to prove that you're good at something and introspectively, there's something in you which goes like, oh, I've actually learned this much throughout the semester! It's feelings like these which made you sense growth. And you also don't feel ripped off because education these days is all about money making. At least there's something worthwhile after letting them leech so much. That said, there are papers which are just atrocious. They're so abominable to the extent I don't even consider them exam papers anymore.

What's the most common route to a good grade? Cram as much as you can from the textbook and purge it out in the exam hall. It's like students expected to operate their brains like external hard disks. There's even something worse. Tertiary education has really opened my eyes to the absurdities of the current exam formats.

Imagine questions like these :

1. Which person below wasn't discussed in class when we covered chapter 2?

2. Which person's picture was placed next to the monkey in my slides?

3. Which movie was played to illustrate -insert any theory you want- during my first class?

4. In the movie played during the introductory class, what's the role of the main character? A pirate? A slave?

IMPORTANT NOTE : ANSWERS ARE NOT RELATED TO CONCEPTS AND ANSWERS CAN'T BE FOUND ON GOOGLE OR ANY BOOKS RELEVANT TO THE SUBJECT.

Evidently, the lecturer wants to test your memory more than your understanding of the subject. Are you serious? Is that the whole reason behind exams? Because in dictionaries, exams is defined as a set of questions or exercises evaluating skill or knowledge. I don't see how these questions serve to test any of our skills or knowledge pertaining to the subject itself.

If I could answer all the questions above, does that I mean my comprehension of this subject is 100%? Does that I mean I could stand in front of everyone and proudly declare that I'm an expert at this? N-o. Fuck, no. These questions are totally irrelevant and they serve as what I would call filler questions or more like questions to punish those who didn't make it to class, at the same time rewarding those who were present. Plain injustice. What about students who couldn't make it to your class because they had other things to attend to but in the end they still attempted to apprehend the subject itself?

There's no evaluation of skills or knowledge going on here. These questions are completely memory-based; hence, for students who really took the effort to read the textbooks and understand the core concepts, too bad for you. What irks me most is futility of trying to grasp the essence of the subject. If I knew these kind of questions were coming, would I even bother so much about the textbook? Once again, n-o.

I just think such wtf-questions are ludicrous, even more when there's more than one out of 75 questions. Imagine how much marks are lost and the paper isn't an exam anymore. It's a memory test conceived by lecturers who thinks it's amusing. (Or maybe just too lazy to construct better questions to test the students?) Such mockery! Either way, somebody please direct me to the customer service of Dept. of Psychology because I earnestly plan to write a letter of complaint.

how musicians' hiatus can be detrimental to fans

If you like an artist, how do you gauge it? What draws the line between an ordinary and a die-hard? For me, it's simple. This doesn't necessarily have to be a musician, it can be anything. My obsessions/fascinations draw out the 'little kid' in me who's more excited, happier and speaks illogically; quite the opposite compared to the usual indifferent me. (Oh btw my mom calls me a tree, no idea how's that related but apparently it has something to do with the branches being blown by the wind). 

So last week during one of the classes, a guy suddenly walked in with this black shirt which looks like this.

Photo isn't very clear because it's a direct scan from somewhere; I've forgotten where. Not like that matters (my apologies to the one who scanned it). Anyways, it's an official Utada shirt which was released prior to her hiatus. There's a drawing of 'kuma' or in English-- bear. Fans will know well how Kuma is representative of Utada. (There's a song dedicated to her bear-- which I really dislike, she takes photographs of her bear, the bear gets to travel with her on her tours, she bathes her bear and the list goes on). 

The point is this, the guy was wearing this shirt and I got so excited; hence, the processing in my mind went haywire. Apparently, I said 'Oh My God' very loudly for a few times because I didn't think that someone in Malaysia would be wearing it. (IIRC, the procedures are pretty tedious, not all credit cards work and so forth; on a side not, it's fucking unfair how Japanese people always get the coolest things). So I kept probing that guy for more information which really led to a negative outcome. I think I kinda scared him because he doesn't look like one who's very fond of talking. And I thought Utada fans should love each other and stop being so mean to each other. Anyways, the guy was even using Metal Gear Solid file. So, I'm envious beyond words.

That's that. Prevalently, Crystal won't go around screaming her head off and grinning stupidly unless there's something which really aroused her emotionally.

Back to the issue of being a fan. Most fans can't tolerate it when others speak ill of their their idols. Haters gonna hate so why bother much? But I think what makes a fan a true fan is this, willing to accept your idols' shortcomings And if it's okay with you, it's even better when you're fine with making fun of them like this.

Sex-ed up titles of Utada's songs.
Seriously, fans can get really bored when their favorite musicians go on hiatus.

Heart Station - Virgin Station

Can You Keep a Secret? - Can You Keep it Hard?

Simple & Clean - Sex & Cum

Tokyo Nights - Tokyo Nights (I Hope I Get Raped)

Show Me Love(Not a Dream) - Show Me Dick(Not a Dildo)

Be My Last - Be My Fuck/Come At Last

Colors - Condoms

Wait and See - Wait and Pee

Fight the Blue - Fight the Juice

Kremlin Dusk - Kremlin Fuck

First Love - First Dick

Boku wo Kuma - Boku wo Cuma

Keep Tryin' - Keep Fuckin'

Uso Mitai Na I Love You - Uso Mitai Na I Fuck You

Gentle Beast Interlude - Gentle Breast Interlude

Kiss and Cry - Kiss and Cum

Goodbye Happiness - Goodbye Virginity

Flavor of Life - Flavor of Cum

Stay Gold - Stay Hard

You Make Me Want to Be a Man - You Make Me Want to Fuck a Man

Beautiful World - Beautiful Whore

Addicted to You - Addicted to Blow

Devil Inside - Dick Inside

valentine's dinner with mom

Despite my love for most pastas, I don't really fancy Spaghetti much and that's also why I don't order Bolognese Spaghetti whenever I dine out, even more so when it's not a Italian restaurant because they'll use lots of ketchup together with pre-made sauces for this dish. Major disaster. Before I started adhering to this rule, I always felt ripped off whenever this happens.

Since then, I made it a point to only eat Bolognese Spaghetti prepared by mom. Not pure Bolognese, there's a bit of fusion to it. Nevertheless, it tastes way better than most restaurants out there.

Photos courtesy of mom's.

Take note of the amount of veggies, prawns, mushrooms and garnishing which are usually kept to the minimum when I eat out. They usually give you really little of these and to compensate, lots and lots of noodles-- which really irks me. But my mom's the exact opposite. That's why I love it when she cooks for me. To be frank, that's also why I sulk or put on faces when she changes her plan to eat out during the last minute. Very nasty thing to do but it can't be helped.

Speaking of food, my tastes has changed once again. I'm beginning think Lou Sang/Yee Sang as pretty acceptable. Used to detest it a lot when I was a kid. Would only take the keropok and pamelo bits. This year I've been indulging in 2 servings whenever possible though I must say it's more enjoyable if we do take away because grated carrot will be added in. Chinese New Year ends this week so most probably there will be one last session because my mom really fancies it.

Sites better than your typical social networking

It's a tad late to talk about new year resolutions but if a survey was done, I believe the results would reveal that a high percentage of us aim to get more things done, which also means less procrastination. Whether the task is something small or big is not the issue here. And since we're all so dysfunctional without the internet & we 'face it more than we face our family', it would be great if we could fully use the internet to our advantage.

Because my laptop is practically on 24/7 with access to the internet connection whenever I'm at home, I find TeuxDeux to be extremely useful. I've only started to use this a week ago and it has helped me to get more shit done than before. At least minor tasks won't slip off my head (provided if you remember to jot them down in the first place). Take a look.

 
 Very clean interface, completely no-frills without unnecessary features. Extremely user-friendly and has the right editing options. You just have to input what you need to do for the day and as you go along, cross out the tasks you've done. Tasks can also be dragged to another day. You know yourself best, if you're gonna keep dragging them to the next column (or day), procrastination is taking place so of course, you gotta have adequate discipline and self-control. Registration isn't time-consuming at all because they don't ask for unnecessary shit. Why not give TeuxDeux a try and see whether you can really get more things done, at the same time become a happier person?

Another site that I've recently started using again is LastFm. Was inactive for a few years because ever since I switched from the ancient chunky desktop to this laptop, I got too damn lazy to install a plugin which tracks what you listen to. Because my hibernation period was too damn long, I decided to delete my 'listening history' during secondary school and started from scratch all over again a few days back.

So what's the point of this site? If you're someone who listens to music as much as I drink coffee--uhh. Bad example. More like how much I think about coffee but I'm sure you get what I mean. And also if you're one who likes discovering new artists and music, this site works wonders! From what you've been listening, they recommend similar artists. That way, you get to broaden and diversify your listening experience.

Each artist also has a page which means you get to see top tracks and albums. This feature is what I love most because say I'm new to this particular band and I'm interested to listen to more of their songs, I get to see which tracks are the better ones (or more like which are the overrated ones). Besides, like every other place on the internet, you get to see people fighting over the smallest things and it's pretty entertaining because some fans really go all out to defend their opinions or favourite artists.

If you have other sites which you find to be incredibly helpful in any areas, please recommend them, I'd be glad to try them out.