This, is... Taylor's Lakeside Campus!

Try mimicking Ryan Seacrest saying, "This, is... American Idol!" and you will get my post's title.

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After 3 short weeks of studying at the PJ Campus, we shifted to the Lakeside Campus. My first impression when I stepped into the campus a few months ago to check things out, I thought it was pretty and huge. The stairs and the open space leading to the lake were designed in a way to make people feel free; in my opinion anyway. With the grass so green and sun so bright, I felt like it was a perfect picture-taking spot and started snapping away.

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I am quite alright with the shifting - downside is, the prices of the food are costly. Finding our way to class was fairly easy and it was not at all that huge of a building. Maybe it is just the number of floors. Having said that, there are a lot of people in this campus indeed. I have bumped into a lot of old friends and seniors in just a couple of days. Some were surprised, some were excited and some just played it cool.

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At first, I was wondering why there were so many people in office wear. One of my ex-schoolmates who is in the School of Tourism told me that it was compulsory for them to wear formal clothes every single day. Imagine that; long-sleeved collared shirts, slacks and tie (for the gentlemen) and pretty blouses, skirts and high heels (for the ladies). Just wearing a simple tee and putting on a pair of jeans already makes me sweat. How would I survive wearing formal attire like the School of Tourism students? But I must admit, they look smart and good in those outfit.

Block E - where the classrooms for most of our lectures and tutorials are conducted. I like the olive painted walls because it is similar to my favourite colour! *green*

Thinking that we were the earliest to class, we found bottles, files and bags already put into place. The classrooms are fairly bigger in width.

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And they say the thing about the Lakeside Campus is its parking.

11a.m. on a Monday morning.

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Here you have it, a campus with almost ten thousand students with parking for only 20% of the students. Even if you are having classes at 8a.m., the parking is almost full at about 7.40a.m. and therefore you will have to park near the basketball court - on the sandy area. I wonder what is in store when the timetable for the next semester changes. *cricket chirps*

View from the library.

I witnessed an accident on Tuesday morning when it was my turn to drive to college. Well, let's not get to that shall we. All I remember was that I was in the Sunway area at 7.35a.m. and could reach in 3 minutes but the jam was insane that it turned into a 30-minute long drive. Experience? Totally.

The famous Malaysian delicacy - nasi lemak from Sisters Crispy Popiah. Not a bad meal. Though I must say, the sambal was quite spicy even for a chilli/sambal/belacan lover like myself.

Assignments are piling up! Gah.

On holiday!

Can I get another Amen? (Amen!)

There's a flag wrapped around a score of men (Hey!)

A gag, a plastic bag on a monument

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies

This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

On holiday!
- Green Day's Holiday

Holidays. A word which may sound like bliss to almost everyone. The period of time where you can go on a vacation, catch up on your sleep or a particular television series you are following or just laze. This holiday was pretty uncalled for because Taylor's was having their shifting to the new campus done.

My holidays were not too productive, to be honest. Was I getting my assignments done? Not really. I remember going places - running errands, eating and that is it. I went for my dental appointment to check my post braces teeth. The dentist said in order to get my lower front teeth straighter, I would have to put on braces again on the 6 lower front teeth for 6 months. Either that or I will have to wear my retainers 24/7 unless I am eating or brushing my teeth which is quite a hassle, I must say. So, I will be putting on braces (again, sigh) next Tuesday. Let the 'torturing' pain begin, once again.

The road to KLIA on a Friday night.

When I was younger, we used to travel to my mum's hometown in Seremban to visit our relatives. We would come back home at night with some jazz songs or some other sleepy songs playing and me feeling nauseous. Maybe I was car sick. I would be fast asleep by the time we got home and either one of my brothers or my dad would have to carry me into the house.

Pantai Seafood Restaurant.

The name of the restaurant says it all. Having a variety of seafood to choose from, small wine cellar, a nice ambience, what more could you ask?

First try of the Taiwanese gourmet in One Utama.

It was a pretty decent place. There were a lot of babies/little kids around in fact. I have no idea why, but the places I have been to over the past few days had small children. I could not help myself but to look at them (not in a stalker way, of course!).

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Before entering college, I had a long "holiday." If getting REJECTED for my application to transfer to the first batch for National Service is not bad enough; I found out that I was in the third batch. If I were to be in the first batch, I would have gone for it. That alone frustrated me, but I decided to let it go and defer it.

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3 months, almost 4 - may sound like a pretty long 'holiday' but I managed to go through these few months (December '09-March '10) without working or whatsoever. I went for driving lessons, I swam, I read books, I helped out with the chores at home, I hung out with friends, I slept at the oddest hours... Time passed just like that.

I did wonder how I was going to go through college days with my haywire sleeping hours. The day before the 29th of March - morning rather, I only got to sleep for 2 hours. Maybe it was the anxiety.

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All in all, it was a great holiday spent.

I played with dry ice too!

Bubbles forming. A mini experiment at home.

Christmas at a friend's place. The turkey meat was literally hella good. Do not get me started on the awesome gravy.

Till then.

Needles, foosball, missing seats and a pupil

My door is left ajar, but the neighbourhood is still in the night; probably because it is already midnight. Back at the old house, dogs will be barking at this hour. I wonder why... My room is echoed with the wild whirring sound of the fan, the click-clacks of the keyboard and music on the player. It is a Friday morning. A week ago, I was still in class, only attending a 2-hour tutorial class (IT class was cancelled). Where did time go? I have not the slightest clue.

Kicked off my Tuesday with a medical check up. Upon my mum's request anyway. At 9pm on Monday night, I was not allowed to eat or drink anything except for clear water until the next day; after the doctor took my blood. I cannot remember how early I slept but I think it was 1a.m. (Yes, it is considered early for a night owl like me). I woke up at about 8.30a.m. and got myself ready. It was a grey and gloomy weather even in the day; the clouds were pregnant with water but the rain would not fall. I was the third patient of the morning, greeted my doctor, took my seat and waited.

The doctor checked my pulse and heart rate.

"Good, good..." he said.
"I swim," I replied with a grin.

Waiting for the hypodermic needle to be poked into my vein and getting it over with took long. My doctor asked whether I was a left or a right-hander. I told him that I was a right-hander and he looked at me in surprise. It was because my inner elbow had not-so-visible veins; and since I was a right-hander, there should be more visible veins on that arm. Slowly, he injected the needle into my vein as I looked away as usual. I have a needle phobia (except for sewing needles) because evidently, it hurts. I glanced to my right to see thick dark red blood leisurely streaming and occupying the spaces in the syringe. It was done in less than 2 minutes.

I had to measure my height and weight as well; I have not grown since 2007. Now, THAT is a bad thing. Maybe it was caused by joining a gym in October of the same year. Anyhow, I am a healthy child. Only that matters most.

Not a very clear picture of the shot.

I went to Bread Story which was nearby and had my first meal in 15 hours. Pretty much gobbled down my food as I was feeling tad bit hungry. My parents dropped me off at the mall soon after.

Caught a movie and lunch with some friends. Played a round of foosball before the movie...

...with a twist!

Another series of strange events. Missing seats this time around.

I love The Simpsons, like many others. I was reading the newspaper to find words for my CSS assignment and stumbled across this 'lovely' page. Why 'lovely', you may ask. Lisa Simpson has missing a pupil in her EYE; that is not a very pretty SIGHT, Lisa. Pun intended. Oh?

Of moving and hosting

3 floors down.

Another new beginning was moving into a new home. I have only shifted twice in my whole life. The first was when I was 1 and a half years old, from Taman Melur in Ampang to Bandar Utama in PJ. I have lived in BU1 since then and have done most of my growing up there. I never really thought that we would shift again; I was quite upset because I was so used to living in BU1 (for 14 and a half years). Our new home was in BU6 but yet, I was holding on... To nothing. I told myself that this was a fresh start. On the 3rd of January 2009, the packed boxes were brought in. I felt quite at home after a few days because we did not buy too many new things. The rooms were a little bigger, there was an extra floor (with a balcony!), the house looks almost the same as before and most of all, I had my own room. Before moving in, the amount of things that were needed to get done was... Merely madness.

One of the things was picking out paint colours. Being "Little Miss Secretary" (a nickname I made for myself for my family), I helped out because I was having holidays.

Had this picture on my main blog. My 1st brother was being funny, that explains my missing head. That is the wall colour of my main wall, Lime Fizz. The rest of the walls were painted in a faint shade of green. Wondering about the hole in the wall? That is for the power socket.

The living area.

Helped my dad assemble these pieces in the China cabinet.

My old room (which I used to share with my sister).

My room as of today. Yes, that is a 'Winnie The Pooh' jigsaw puzzle hung up on my wall which I fixed (with some help) 7 years back.

Chinese New Year was around the corner too, gone over to one of my friend's house. We headed to One Utama soon after by foot.

Had my second Chili's dinner in the same week.

The Curve had pretty decorations, so my family and I decided to drop by.

I had a Chinese New Year gathering over at my place on the last day of January. It was a first, because I rarely host things like these. I remember getting a voucher from Domino's Pizza for my birthday the previous month. Coincidentally, it came in handy when I used the voucher on the last day of its offer. Good timing? You can say that again. I went to collect the pizza in the late afternoon while some of my relatives and friends started coming over. Everything went pretty well. There was lots of laughter in the air. We went up to the balcony after our meal and started jumping (see picture above), trying to imitate High School Musical and settled down for a bit for some pictures. It was one of the memorable days I do not think that I will forget.

It has been a year, 3 months and 16 days... Time flies. What a beginning to everything.

Lights will guide you home

2 SEPTEMBERS AGO.

Every ending leads to a new beginning. One that I have to start looking forward to, the beginning that I was to mould. When you were young, you had big dreams. Indeed, I HAD. Back then, things were easier. As years went by, I looked around me. Things were not as easy. As Chris Martin from Coldplay puts it, "You get what you want but not what you need."

Over the past year, I have been having frequent dreams involving familiar faces. Were these dreams telling me something? As paranoid as I may be, I moved on.

I had to remind myself that I was not in the same environment anymore. There were things you want to keep but have to let go of. The thought of growing up and being an adult still scares me sometimes. There will be experiences to be gained and life lessons to be learnt. I have learnt some the hard way.

Being in college meant having more responsibilities and to be more mature. I was having mixed feelings about college. I can say it turned out pretty well. Made some friends during orientation. Drove to college for the very first time on the last Wednesday of March; walked up to the 5th floor, took the lift from the 5th floor up to the 10th floor and reached just in time for my first lecture. Things fell into place quite instantly. So far, so good. Other than that, I have gotten the green light from my dad to drive to college on my own. I am still pretty intimidated by the cars on the road even after getting my license in mid-March, but I guess it will pan out by itself soon.

I was not expecting a gift from one of my classmates that quickly. But this just made my day. "I was out yesterday; I saw this and instantly thought of you so I bought it." Thanks, JKML!

And, of course, this car caught my attention at the campus. It is really petite and adorable. I could not help myself; hence, the shot.

Side view of the car.

I was waiting for my ride home on one of the days; the owner of the car was just arriving at the jockey area and got down from the car. He took his belongings out of the trunk. That is how small the car is.

Some of my classmates. Loving this bunch already, even in 3 short weeks. Looking forward to more happy times. :)

A random shot by someone who took my camera. View of the Leisure Commerce Square campus from the 8th floor.


This was something that was bothering me since Day 1. Curious, I waited for the jockey person to park one of the cars. The space between the cars were immensely too near but the jockey person managed to park the car, get down from the car after parking half the car and then pushing the car into place. So, that was one curiosity gone.

Tutorial group for CSS.

New faces, new environment, a new me? Will get back to you on that.

I will/MIGHT be putting up my old chatbox on this blog soon. Took it down from my main blog 2 Septembers ago because it was dead. Heh.

Till the next post (which will be soon, hopefully BEFORE Tuesday/the next theme), goodnight readers.