First Paycheck is Like First Sex... Need Help

Wooooooow... Chinese New Year comes early-la for me! Yahooooooo...!

I don't care if you think I'm making a fuss over something as common as this for the average ordinary citizen, but for hell, there's only a few handfuls of 'first time's in your life (like first word or first civil arrest) so I really got to plan how to spend this memorably.

Especially being that it’s the first hard-earned cash I’ve been given that didn’t come straight out of a wallet *cough* Ayah *cough*, I just thought I’ll photograph it for memory’s sake (and to remind myself how damn cheap these people are, even for an intern).

The amount is only about RM$455 though. But as compared to my previous choices to work at, I’m still better off, I think. Companies with exposure to trouble-shooting, customer service and networking. Actually, I hate networking but I picked it out because that way, I build character (Character = Grumpy). Most internship jobs fluctuates between RM$200-RM$600 I’ve heard, but I didn’t do much research on that part though. I was more interested in a fast graduation and formally call myself a graduate.

Oh crap that. Please excuse me while I do money-check-porn.

I have MONEY! I freaking have money that’s mine! Mine, mine, mine, myyyyyyyiiine! All mine!!

Okay, I confess. I already know how to spend a bit of it already.

It's a trip to Majlis Bandaran Petaling Jaya.

To pay my parking fine.

Yeah, talk about a deflating orgasm.

Hey, why don’t YOU try to find a parking space around TTDI on every freaking weekday morning. Previously, I had resorted to get myself parking at the residential area near the Damansara Specialist Hospital. Unlucky me, it came the day when the men-in-uniform left me a pricey love note on my windshield. Of course I didn’t tell my dad. He had the bad habit of blowing things out of proportions when it comes to money (my first money, what's more).


The office party at MYGO. These were the leaving interns posing with the 2 bosses.


The project I had worked on is so top secret, even one of the major characters is not allowed to be seen in the intro screen *laughs*.

Still, the resulting three hundred bucks is nothing to sneeze at. But now I’m at a bind. As I had been living the beggar-student life, I have completely no idea what to do with the extra cash (I don’t pay taxes yet).
-I already got new shoes
-And a second-hand laptop
-My current favourite game is a free-to-play (heh...)
-I haven’t read my hefty new novel yet; Twilight

All that’s left is to eat something different. Maybe I’ll try Wendy’s at Giant Kota Damansara. Blearg, put it at the bank until further ideas. Or the next paycheck (hehehe!).

MySis and Abang Arsenal told me how lucky I was since they weren’t being paid for anything during their internship (both had internships close to their universities). Then again, my older siblings and I had a wide age gap between us so times must have changed since then.

It did got me wondering about other people’s internship jobs, particularly since it’s so interesting that nowadays, you can actually get paid to learn a real hands-on-skill, whereas back then, interns doing a good job is its own reward. Based on the current situation, how much do interns of today actually get paid?

Can anybody tell me about their first jobs? And what to do special with the first paycheck?

Harry Potter vs. Harry Dresden

VS.

Alas! I’ve finally finished reading the latest book from my favourite series, White Night of The Dresden Files. It took me several trips to Borders and about RM$50 worth of petrol money to read through all those chapters. Numerous trips, I was surprised the security guard didn’t kick me out for being ABONEY (Always Browsing Never Buying).

Once I get my hand of the Jim Butcher’s real paperback copy then I can start spending extra RM$50 petrol money on either his Codex Alera or maybe Robin Hobb’s latest. I’m getting tired of reading via Wikipedia (sob!).

For those of you without Sci-Fi channel or Torrent (what do you mean ‘what is Torrent?’), you wouldn’t have heard of its TV series either. The Dresden Files series highlights the life of one Harry Dresden, a certified wizard living the life as a Chicago private investigator. He helps innocent normal people fight against the forces of evil and the general public misconception that he does bunny tricks at kids’ birthday parties.

But then he gets involved in all sort of juicy magic mayhem; a vampires’ war, a Summer-Winter faeries conflict, a wizards’ council politics, a Christian knight’s crusade and otherworldly menace dripping ooze in his shoes. He also had to deal with the Chicago police, the undercover mafia, the globe-trotting mercenary, his semi-possessed ex-girlfriends (note plural), his gun-ho apprentice and a partridge in a pear tree.

All he wants is to pay his apartment rent on time, afford insurance for his Volkswagen Beetle, date a nice girl and NOT get shot/burned/thrashed/haunted/booed at every other week. To put it simply, think of it as an alternate Harry Potter, if Harry Potter was born in USA and there’s no clear Voldemort; everybody’s out to get him for two or three reasons.

I found the series long before Harry Potter Book 6, when I wasn’t looking for anything new to read. But MySis’s husband left his books behind after her little family moved to their not-so-new home and I was hooked from Dresden book one.

I liked the similarities between HP and HD, the latter story is much deeper, more adult, more mystery-involved and more wise-ass talking. If you’ve read HD, you can see how often I try to emulate Jim Butcher in my blog entries (hehehe!).

There are an unusual number of similarities between HP and HD stories. Unable to find a Pensive and needing somewhere out of my head to put this (and to spoil your HD reading pleasure so you better stop reading now), I’ve made a comparison list. So if you haven’t read HD, you better stop reading now.

Both are orphans.
Both are wizards.
Both have issues with the narrow-minded body of goverment.
Both have close ties with a family of seven children (and a Molly in each).
Both have a godparent going through prison.
Both have teacher-student issues.
Both have girlfriend issues.
Both are out to protect innocent people from the forces of darkness.
Both are outnumbered, outgunned and underminded.
Both have werewolf friends.
Both have former pretty visions of their never-met parent shattered.
Both have allies ready to fight to the death.
Both are acquainted with a large intelligent cat.
Both use Latin verses.
Both often get bad rap from the press.
Both are used to non-technological environment.
Both have a piece of unwanted evil magic within them that they can't get rid of (yet).
Both get bullied a lot in their earlier childhood.
Both have normal humans acquaintences who just don't like them. Really don't like them.
Both felt betrayed by their idol-teacher at some point even though it was for the best.
Both nearly got killed sometime in their past.
Both knows places to shop for wizard parts.
Both seem to have problems holding on to their wands.
Both are acquianted with a girl with multi-coloured hair.
Both are rescued by a big dog once.
Both knows a big cat who is generally on polite terms with a big dog.
Both have enemies that uses dead people.
Both are responsible for an enchanted sword at some point.
Both have the normal human communities kept in denial.
Both are already doing rescue work before the body of goverment approached them.
Both had a chance to deal with a huge thundering female lizard.
Both had hidden in an accomplice's old family house.
Both had problems with their hair at some point.
Both carry a significant scar-mark at some part of their body.
Both have half-human allies.
Both had problems at some point with an overly-righteous member of the body of goverment.
Both have a smaller-sized magical creature under their service at some point.
Both had said smaller-sized magical creature who liked to dress in odd things.
Both had discussed plot-based mysteries with a disembodied female while taking a bath.
Both had been commented to have their mother's eyes.

Harry Potter may have sailed into the bright sunset of ‘The End’s but Harry Dresden is still going strong at book 9. The author plans to write all the way to Book 20 and a finale trilogy. In full, the author is planning world domination starting by having an entire shelf dedicated only to him in every bookstore.

Hmmmm...

That’s alooooooooot of petrol money to go back and forth between house and bookstore. Maybe I’ll just find a job there instead.

Internet Connection Hibernation ... I mean, Merry Christmas!

Poopy Blog Entry!!

No I haven't been De-Evolutionized. But there will be a blogging stall for some time.

It's that time I've been getting ready for; my abstinece from the Internet. Unlike most lucky (rich, obsessive, society-deprived) people, I'm on a tight budget, thus can't afford to have an internet connection.

In fact, I have yet to pay for the previous rent from *MySis, back when I had an internet connection. MySis is great. She's practically supporting my Celcom's service and still lets me use her router at her house when she and her husband is out at work.

Not that I call or SMS'd a lot of people on a regular basis, mind you. Most of my pals communicate in online forums and are across oceans anyway.

We're decorating a Christmas tree desktop by putting random pictures on a Christmas tree background with no particular graphic rule except the theme has to be Christmas. It's still not finished though but I've made my contribution.

This is the actual desktop image for GW's Christmas tree, at the current stage of decorating. I'll post a new image when we finally get it done on Christmas Day, if ever (bah, humbug!).


Mine's the kid in the rocking horse and his two aunts helping him learn how to use it.

As you can see, we're a bunch of cheap art-character spriters having no sense of proper art. Just having the stupid fun of it all.

So just as I had forewarned you guys, I'm going offline for a while; reducing my blogging to Mondays or Sundays. So I won't be around for any Christmas Specials.

But hey! In the spirit of gift-giving and gift-getting (and all that multi-cultural-thingy our goverment had been trumpetting about), if you guys want a present from me, I got something in my Santa's sack that might appeal to all.

You know when you download a game's full version from Yahoo! or Big Fish Games but you can't play the full game itself unless you pay money? There's a couple of software tricks around that with no aversions to your PC and I got the download in my Mediafire service provider.

I should know because I'm still using the damn, awesome (strictly illegal) thing. Just put your name here and I'll have a reason to steal cyber cafe money for Tuesday morning.

With that said, enjoy your Malaysian Christmas!

A Friend’s Artwork for the Year’s End

Lately, I’ve been using this blog partially as a developer’s log for this project. Consider that as part of my motivational reward since it’ll be a freebie by next year’s end. Afterall, where else am I going to promote this project but in my own site?

Naah, I’m fooling with you folks. I just don’t want to think about my exam that’s coming up in a few hours. Yeah, let’s put the blame on that.

And so the artwork for this week is somewhat of (not to say lower quality, but...) a younger experienced artist by whom I had been ‘glomp’-ing out on a regular basis, Nessiah.

Nessiah aka Enexodia aka Archeia aka Jasmin aka Expialidocious is a Filipino girl who just moved to Findon, Australia and is probably getting ready for her first Christmas outside of South East Asia. She’s working on Unlocking Pandora’s artworks for free.

A freelance artist (who could be paid to do this thing) is actually making my game project for free (Let’s emphasize on the word, ‘for FREE!’). And I only gave her some illegal key-generators programs as Christmas presents to unlock those pesky 60-minutes-only downloaded games, so what does that say about me? Cheap? Oww...

It started on some help on battle animations but then I decided she’s really got great art sense so I asked her to do some artwork and character art. Hey, I didn’t expect Marvel comics or Hong-Kong-type mangas but this one’s actually very nice.

Nessiah did this one in GW.net forums. It’s a portrait of my female protagonists parents, Feladie and Iqeas. In the project storyline, the portrait will play a strong role in Act03 on plot discovery and character development.

What kind of plot development? Oh, puh-leze. That’s a major spoiler. Even Nessiah doesn’t know what the mini details of the portrait actually represents (haha!).

But I’m glad she liked the project. She even made an MS Paint tutorial about them. But as usual, clear-headed as she is (cue lightly implied sarcasm here), she wrote in Feladie and Keea, instead of Iqeas.

But I supposed that there’s no harm done because Keea, my main character, is named after her mother, Iqeas. Sort of. The Wolf and the Wildflower story tells another tale though, but I ain’t telling you fellas that either. Not yet anyway.

All part of the ‘hyping’ rule (Hype! Hype! Hype!).

If you will excuse me, I declare this week’s image blog entry done. Now I got to run for the watch-shoppe because though I remembered to bring my calculator, I forgot to buy batteries.

Crap.

Trying to understand the HINDRAF

Now I’m not one for politics. Never had. Nope. No sir-ee. I’m practically mindset on the stuff that I just went Country-Leader?-Whatever during any kind of elections.

In fact, the only thing about politics I’ve ever come close to is this really cute and sophisticated guy I had a major crush on in secondary school; at 17 and already had aims for a high position in Barisan Nasional (that’s a political party for you non-my-countrymen).

And no, I’ve never heard from him since I left school so there’s no sudden re-acquaintanceship that might had invoked this new interest in the current political events. I suppose I’m just like every other sheep in the flock that just grouped together in the currents of a moving force.

It’s the HINDRAF movement.

So far I’ve only got a mildly half-hearted sense of curiosity on the What’s-The-Big-Deal, but I feel like it’s really something I should know about. Really, really know about. I’m neither politically-minded nor Hindu (nor being anti-Hindu for that matter). But I do support, steadfastly support, the right to freedom of speech.

Because I believe that suppression to freedom of speech leads to suppression of the individual mind. If you don’t say something (say an opinion), you loose your right to voice your ideas, your support. Thus, loosing your chance to make your life as part of your nation.

But the HINDRAF confuses me. Sure, I got the idea behind it. A race of people which the nation’s former colonial paleskins had brought over from India to turn into part-slaves as the paleskins suck the money-milk out of the rubber trees, laboured studiously by the part-slaves.

Now the descendents wants their money back from... the English? At least around 8 figures too. And they did a street protest last November 25th, even though their permit to protest peacefully had been rejected. It ended bloodily but not in a bloodbath. From what I’ve heard, it seemed that riot the police got the most injuries.

But then again, it’s probably hard for the newspaper reporters to interview members of the HINDRAF when they’re still running all over Kuala Lumpur, throwing sticks and stones. I was working on my thesis report during that riot event (it was due the following Monday, all 120+ pages of it) so I didn’t read the news fresh-of-the-press.

What interest me were the ones the newspaper did not report. There were no physical damages to the surrounding shops other than business having a slight down-time. The only vehicles damages were the police cars themselves. Nobody set anything on fire.

And Newton’s Law said that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction; thus the police had reported injuries but the newspaper didn’t report the injuries of HINDRAF members though. Maybe soaking wet and tear-bombed but that was just it.

More evidence that our newspapers are biased. Of course, if I were a really prejudiced girl, I’ll say that the government is completely controlling the hardcopy media, just as they did for years and years in Tun Dr. M’s reign of supremacy. In some ways that are subtle, I believe it so.

So now that the HINDRAF are claiming ethic cleansing of many, many of their people and they’re taking that matter to international level. The government then counters by saying the HINDRAF has links with the terrorist groups in India and Sri Lanka. And maybe that’s why New Delhi refuses to meet the HINDRAF leader. It’s turning into an ugly spitting, scratching contest.

Beyond the Fight Club agenda, I’m trying to get more information, for myself, about the group, its objectives and the motivation behind it. I want to know why they’re doing this, how peaceful or violent can they be. I want to hear more about it beyond the newspapers and the blogs that were full of strong words that’s actually more euphemistic than informative.

Most of all, I wanted to be in the Know, right Now. I don’t want to keep to the old stupid Malay attitude - since it doesn’t affect you, there’s no need to think about it. I want to know how the current interactions between HINDARF and the government might affect me as a Malay and a student.

In retrospect, I suppose my old crush had something to do about it. He was in the popular student’s category, way, waaaaaay out of my league. But he was passionate and likes to express strong but concrete views. He cited facts not coloured by opinions. He was open-minded and loved being so.

It was the kind of attitude I liked in a guy, and he made me think more about myself and the advantage of freely expressing the individual voice, having the power of the individual mind. Where ever he is right now, he’s probably collecting every kind of resource about the HINDRAF he could get his hands on (between getting his law degree). Thanks Ibrahim (yes, that’s his real name, by the way).

Friends just made it all better...

You can tell from the not-so quick update that my presentation of my project was a dud. I’m still recovering from the devastating assault from the *Super-supervisor. I was at a disadvantage, as I had not briefed my own supervisor on plan of attack. All worked up to protect my system but he got sneaky and struck at my documentation. Foiled by a graph technicality. Already on my downside and the worse thing happened.

My support died.

The backbone of my system, my support, experienced some difficulties on their own and so I cannot give Super-supervisor what’s getting to him with full power. Which is a veritable b**ching problem. So I had to make do with my backup system and my secondary support but the effect just wasn’t the same.

In the end, I think, was a draw. He liked the system, asked for a copy and I gave him the location of my backup. He’s cool, rated my report as ‘Acceptable’ but the system’s true fate has yet to be determined. As for my dead main support, well, that’s screwed. I’m never going to use that server-hosting provider ever again.

Between writing this blog and bolstering my (fortress) second system, I’m going to put all my feelings in a nutshell.

Okay so it’s not a nutshell. Google images didn’t have a visually appropriate graphical content so I had to make my own. By hand and cellphone camera. Geez, don’t get confused. Internally, I’m very grateful. Beyond Happy-Days-jig-jiggity kind of grateful. I got my system to work, be presented and set for approval.

But what made it even better is the company support. In fact, 3 of them. *LingTwitch, *ZuBest and *ShellGal. Yes, again, names had been changed. It’s not protecting their privacy. It’s just that I’m weird that way. We all met on a group project way back and had stuck together for a year now.

LingTwitch is taking up the same thesis project as I am and she completely forgot about the presentation and thus, wasn’t ready at all. She got approved for extension for next semester so she’s cool.

ZuBest had already taken the thesis paper and knows the whole load of crap that took to make hers work. She and I will be taking the second thesis project. ShellGal had just done all her projects and will be taking her job-training next semester, a whole new (and bigger) load of crap.

So what did we do to cheer up? Well, we could hand out at that new coffee shop, Old Town, which just opened right across the street. Instead, we did what a lot of single, unattached female computer nerds do. We hung out at the workstation and downloaded every pretty games we can stick an illegal keygen program and cracked full versions out of them.

Considering that my future is now something I can’t change (unless, maybe I’ll lace sleeping pills in Super-supervisor’s milo-drink and hypnotize him to give me an ‘A’), I’ll take my quick-euphoria dose anyway I could. And some things are just more fun when doing it in a group. Like downloading cracked games software.

Since LingTwitch is extending her thesis to next semester, it’ll just be ZuBest and me to take the next thesis project (along with about 3+ majoring courses). I need to graduate as soon as possible since I’m running out of money.

And hell no I’m going to take up PTPTN’s money (it’s a student loan program, for you non-my-countrymen out there). ShellGal is still looking for a job that could pay her loans back in the quickest method.

That’s even if I do get a passing grade at my current thesis paper. But I’m trying not to think about that now since I don’t have control over it anymore. What I do have control is downloading that new game, Depths of Peril, and cracking it to full version (us nerdy girls are looking for the crack software as we speak). It’s an rpg-based game, which I as the character get to save the world.

Generic maybe, but there’s a whole load of baddies to kick-a** at and to me, they all as ugly as the Super-supervisor.