the wacky wombat weblog

Suddenly I’m beginning to feel the pressure of school again.

Last few weeks have really been ladida for me. After 6 months of cheap labouring (in the name of gaining experience), and 2 months of just generally lounging and loafing around in Tokyo and KL, I never really got back into the rhythm of school, or even feel the least stress. Probably ‘cos a 3-day school week allows me more time to shop, sleep, AND loaf around even more. hehe…

But now suddenly there’s a lot more to do. Final year project is slowly picking up speed. Story treatment must be done soon — my poor future short film has only a beginning and an ending, and everything in between is well, unknown for now. eecks. Any takers out there to become my muse(s) for some inspiration and ideas? :p

As for today’s studio session, overwhelmed and confused are the words I have for this class’ project. So rusty from not having done directing in eons. >.<

So I gotta have a nice little chat with my brains and tell it to wake up. Somehow it's only at its most alert during makan and shopping times. hmm...

Also on my to-do list: media law readings, french homework (oui oui), finish setting up this blog, do my laundry, clean my room, shopping, *cough* return to jogging routine. Lots to do!

p/s: Am really happy that I finally remembered to bring my posters back from KL and mount it up on my room. Now I have Pulp Fiction and Fight Club on my walls.

Once again today, awoken myself this morning to blinding sunshine that got me panicked. OMFG! Am I late for work? Did I miss my alarm? Only to realise that it’s only just 6.10am. Gargh, this must stop - I should start wearing sleeping mask to bed…

So yeah, these days the sun rises at 5.10am and by 6am, it’s as bright as 9am back in KL, which is near the equator line. I’m still not used to it, many a times I panicked for nothing. And sometimes worse, I go back to bed, only to panic again for nothing - thought I really missed the alarm…

These days coming to early Autumn season, the sun sets much earlier, nowadays around 5.10pm - which is kinda sad, coz by the time I get off work (should I ever manage to get off work on-time, that is) it’ll be dark, gloomy, depressing.

Somewhat, growing up near the equator makes one ignorant about the dynamics of sunrise and sunset. Always assumed that around 6.45am = sunrise, 7.45pm = sunset.

It rained this morning here in Tokyo, and temperature now drops to a more comfortable 26 degrees Celcius. With the weekend fast approaching, it seems that the temperature will start to cool down a bit over the next week. That is much welcomed, given that the past few nights I have been sleeping without the air-conditioner on.

When it starts to get cold end of December, I’ll be coming back to KL! w00t!

Yeap, got my leave approved - gonna be out of office from Dec 23 to Jan 8. Gonna finalise my travel itinerary and purchase my air tickets next week. Will be flying NRT-SIN-NRT route, so will probably spend a couple of days in Singapore then travel by bus back to KL with tsewei. And then, travel back to Singapore by bus on Jan 5 or 6 before flying back to Tokyo on Jan 8. That’s the tentative plan anyway.

Anyone available for meet up, do contact me. I’ll call you guys once I get back and get a DiGi prepaid SIM pack

Update: just booked my air tickets! w00t! NRT-SIN on Dec 23, SIN-NRT on Jan 8. Flying the super sucky United Airlines though

Woohoo! I feel so accomplished, hehehe.

I just managed to change my own faulty fluorescent lights!!

Ok, wipe that -_-” look off your face. It’s a big deal for me k!

Prior to this, I didn’t know what a starter looks like, or how the fluorescent tube is attached to the ceiling. 0_o

Geez I sound like a spoilt lil’ girl. But really, when I lived at home, my parents were the ones who fixed the faulty lights in the house. And as for the halls in NTU, no sweat lah. Just call the maintenance dudes!

With my own place now, guess I gotta do it on my own. But turns out, it’s not that difficult. Just twist stuff around, and pray that it doesn’t break in mid-motion haha.

In the end it’s really not too bad, especially since my landlady had spare light tubes, which spared me the trouble of going to DIY shops and acting dumb to the salesperson: “erhm, I really dunno which one is suitable leh, how? how?”

Okay, anyone else needs someone to unscrew and change their faulty lamps? :p

So I drove the company car (whee!) out to customer’s site today. Driving in Japan can be quite a challenge. Though there are quite a lot of K-cars here in Tokyo, but it doesn’t feel like it’s as much as the Kancil and Kelisa we see driven by young tudung-clad girls with their driver’s seat adjusted maximum to the front. So far in front that it’s further than the steering wheel and dashboard, pretty much sitting between the windscreen wipers and the front bumper - and that they can never see the rear/side/make-up mirrors.

Okay, shall not digress. So driving in Tokyo, we’ve gotta be on alert all the time. There’s the incoming lane rights that we’ve never experienced, much like in Singapore and US. Then we’ve gotta always be on the lookout for bicycles - they’re much more notorious than our mat motors back home. Parking in tight spaces is a daily test of skill (and if you can’t even side park, forget about parking in Tokyo, either pay thru the roof to parking attendants, or drive non-stop). And of course, the ever-distracting phone calls, SMSes, on-board TV, make-up sessions, boogers-mining sessions, and that annoying female voice of a navi system that keeps insisting you take the highway eventhough it’s jammed right to her nostrils.

And today it was about crazy taxi drivers. Comparable to those in New York. I almost got killed twice thanks to 2 idiotic taxi drivers. They seem to be so much more interested in every opportunity of a customer flag-down, than to care for his rear bumper. Twice today I had 2 taxi drivers in less than 50 metres in front of me, swerving from the 4th lane to the 1st lane (and stopped his car 45 degrees off the lane at that) just to ferry new customers. WTF? Do they really think that whenever they press the Hazard light button (it seems like Hazard light is used for all reasons except during a hazard/emergency situation) after noticing a customer flag-down, that the world would come to a slow motion and he can safely swerve past 3 lanes? Of course, the taxi driver’s actions will generally cause cars directly behind them to brake so hard that they could flatspot all 4 tyres (and maybe even the spare in the trunk, should it get bumped from the car behind who can’t stop in time) locking up under braking.

I’m sure this is much worse than Fernando Alonso being held up on track. And I’m even more sure that if was Alonso facing such taxi drivers, he would not just show the finger and curse from his car, but get down and headbutt the taxi driver with his helmet. He’d gladly give up his World Championship title defence just to get even at these taxi driver.

You would wonder why on earth these taxi drivers would risk their taxi and their lives with such moves? Well, the motivation of ferrying a customer with the meter starting at 660 yen (approx USD 5.70) for the first 2 kilometres would be enough. I’m sure the profit from that alone can afford them 10 rear bumper replacement a month, and downpayment for new taxi in a year. Hmmm, I bet if I search for “taxi bumper” in Yahoo! Japan auction site, I can find bulk packs of 1 dozen taxi rear bumpers for a steal!

Not like there’s much to pack in the first place anyway. Well, here we are. We have decided to let our existing weblogs remain as it is, for archival purpose but we will no longer post any new entries there (actually, I’m just too lazy to migrate both blogs into 1. Too much logistical nightmares, so this gave me a good excuse to just leave that as it is and start fresh).

This is now a combined weblog for both auyongtc and tsewei. We have decided to combine our blogs since we’re always physically-separated from each other, and that we spent so much time online together (VoIP makes LDRs much easier to work on, and OpenTTD does help to some degrees too.. LOL). So yeah, this is our home on the cyberspace. Which is somewhat much larger than my tiny pad in Tokyo.

Now that we’ve moved in together on this blog, let’s hope there’ll be no cyber-arguments in this household. And if we can co-exist together in cyberspace, perhaps we would stand a chance to make it work in real-life.

Oh yeah, nuestra casa es su casa, so don’t hesitate to comment and participate on this weblog of ours