Greetings from Canberra!

Hey there. I'm here yay! It's a so-called getaway retreat to a city I once knew as a mere ghost town. I now know I was wrong all these whiles. Canberra is small, but I just couldn't think of a city more livable than it is. Its air is clean, its arts and cultural scene is vibrant, its streets are spotless and amazingly pedestrian-friendly, and its mall ain't bad at all. Canberra is just fine for me, it's simply a peaceful spot right in the heart of Australia. I'm staying over Pau's place here in Unilodge. It's a decent studio, smaller than my College Square unit, but spacious enough for single occupancy I guess.

I also went to Sydney for a day-trip on Saturday. The bus journey from Canberra to Sydney took me around three and a half hours, but it was simply worth my time and money. I wished I had more time to spend with Fyda and Ju Anne there. The city was pretty cool, too, but I got a feeling that it was too hectic to my liking. It also lacked the charm that made Melbourne such a wonderful city it's always been. The three of us took a hell lot of pictures together, and we just had great fun catching up with each other and stuff. A fine dinner was had at Pancake on the Rocks, and great memories were left to be kept for a long, long time.

I also had a free lunch at Pn. Zaidah's Open House in Sydney! Well, best things in life are free, aren't they?

I'm flying back to Melbourne tonight, and I can barely wait for that. Home sweet home, as one may put it. I'll try my best to spare some time uploading some of the of pictures I've taken throughout my spring trip onto my blog after I get back. A few days ahead will surely be a busy one for moi, as I'll have to juggle between finishing the bunches of assignments I have and working on the annual dinner, for which I'm acting as the chief organizer. Well, being an important person doesn't always ring coolness I guess :p

Faizal Hamssin

Bon Eid selamat hari raya wot wot!

It's over. Yeah the auspicious month of Ramadhan, with its fasting and holydoings is over. It's time to celebrate!

HAPPY EID TO EVERYONE OUT THERESELAMAT HARI RAYA tout le monde! yes everyone, as God's love is universal. So, let's spread the love this Eid in the spirit of humanity. For love and friendship is a prerogative of every being who walks upon the face of Earth.

The cool 'Happy Eid' greeting picture above was taken from here. Merci beaucoup!

And no Eid is cool without your family by your side. Seriously. This is making me homesick out of a sudden. Thank goodness we have Skype nowadays!

Faizal Hamssin

The Silent Killer

Cellphones are very much the 'must have' stuff that are had by simply everyone in the world today, be him a peasant from Bangladesh, or a Sydneysider who twitter frequently using his more-advanced PDA or Blackberry. They're just so important that we can never dream of getting rid of them, regardless of the known side-effects that these gadgets are carrying to us users.

Being well-informed of the apparent danger of shortwave radiation, which cellphones can easily emit to us everyday without most of us realizing it, I got freaked out a little, but there seemed to be nothing I could do to help me alleviate my anxiety before.

But I just found an extremely useful website that would make it easier for me to protect myself and the ones I love. The site contains a comprehensive list of thousands of mobile phones available in the market, together with the descriptions with regards to the phones' respective "Specific Absorption Rates (SAR)", which is a "measure of how much radiation is absorbed by the body when the phone is sending a signal to the network." Apart from having detailed descriptions on the level of hazard that each phone model exerts on us users, the site is also amazingly user-friendly. It has been designed to make it easier for us to make comparisons between a phone model to another. The is also a list of 'the Safest Phone', and vice versa. Therefore, it can be said that this site gives you proper guidelines on the most 'harmless' cellphone options out there; something that sounds trivial at first, but it can indeed increase your lifespan for a few years, I guess!

I took the opportunity to check for my phones' SAR, and the results left me terrified. I'm currently using two cellphones; Nokia 6500 slide, as well as Sony Ericsson s500i, which I got as my birthday present 2 years back but still functions well.



The results shows that SAR while held at the ear for my SE phone is 1.35W/kg, with the hazard bar being


You might think that my older SE phone must've its hazards explained by its relative age compared to my newer Nokia, but the result for the latter didn't seem to be comforting, either. Its SAR while held at the ear is 1.28W/kg, which makes it meekly safer to use compared to my SE. Looks like another trip to a mobile phone store is truly justified this time around.

So, if you feel like purchasing a better, safer phone, Samsung Impression SGH-a877 is for you. Not only does it look sleek, it exposes you to the least amount of SAR among its peers. With its SAR value while held at the ear being as low as 0.35W/kg, it's just the safest bet for the people out there, whose safety is put at their highest priority.

The worst phone out there is clearly Motorola's MOTO VU204. Its value of SAR is as high 1.55W/kg while held at the ear. A clear no, no.



And it is, to be honest, ugly, too.


Faizal Hamssin

Of Perceptions

Just got on a train of thought leading to some random musings of my mind. Don't read this if you're expecting something light and cooler, which the following text just isn't.


It's not my fault that your mind is constricted. It's not my mistake that your view is veiled. It's not of my valor that your brain stays behind the bars. It's not my power to shed some light to your dark alley of life.

They say perception is powerful. Some even say that perception is more important than reality. I say that Man can only live when they manage to overcome the power of perception and the needs to please others to perfect the dimension on which their views are centred. If one is unable to be emancipated from the greed of human eyes that culminate into others' perceptions toward him, there's no doubt he's dead inside. Void of soul.

So for those people out there, stop doing things for the mere sake of pleasing others. Stop barring yourself from expressing yourself along your quest of garnering approval from others. Stop playing sinuously on the phony stage to feed your incessant insecurity with regards to how do others view you. It's their visions, not yours. Life is too short for us keep running for the mirage of perfect public perception towards us, since it is part of people's instinct to keep on peeping for every single imperfection that you have, so stop camouflaging who you are, and be yourself. You can't change the way others view the world, but you can surely change your inner self to be more appreciative to who you actually are.

There's no need to keep explaining everyone out there for everything that we've done to our heart's content. Right or wrong are subjective. There's nothing you can do to change that.

And I'm not scared if people think of me being somebody I am not. Cause I know who I am, and so do the ones I love.


Random ramblings on a Friday night :)

Faizal Hamssin