The Epitome of Frog-Singing

If there's such thing as a singing frog, I think I must be it.




We sang our stress away. We sang our lungs away. It seems that the pathetic frogs finally found some digs to do their 'thing'.

I sang "One Sweet Day" in the end; so much for a happy day.

Not only the singing skills do we lack, we're certainly the biggest loser when it comes to camwhoring. Where the hell was half of my head?

But well, I love you all. Without you, Bintulu would've been bleak. And I'm being honest here.

I wanna do it again.

p/s pictures courtesy of Doro and Emmi.

Faizal Hamssin

2009 2010 2011

2009 go away, don't come again another day, little Faizal wants to stray.
Life seems to be full of promises now that this great year is going to end.
When a being is happy, his soul will definitely yearn for the flavors of challenges,
And I know that 2010 will be full of them.
As the shadow of the nightly past peters away.
And the endless nights of slaving myself to cast those negativities away seem to be a million light years away,
A new day beckons,
Turning hope into a magical star.

I have nothing but optimism.


Random rambling on a Sunday night. Everyday is weekend now that holidays are in charge. What Monday blues?

Enjoy this classic. Good night ;)


Faizal Hamssin

Of Uneuphoric Relief

iThe 2nd Semester results have finally been released and yay, I've officially survived the first year of uni ;)

Here the 'gory' details go;
Chemistry 2: 88 H1
Linear Algebra: 71 H2B
The Earth, Atmosphere and Oceans: 82 H1
Introductory Macroeconomics: 76 H2A

Total WAM: 79.3/100

[Another kind of so-close-but-so-far-away drama struck me again. Just 3 freaking marks- that's all I needed, and I could've gotten an 80 WAM straightaway. Dammit]

Overall mood regarding the results: Relieved, but not so happy.

But hey, at least I did pass my Linear Algebra and scored respectable okay in the subject. Lord knows how much I hated the subject, and its syllabus being totally irrelevant to my major (Geology) just exacerbated that feeling. Seriously, I never hated a subject that much, what more with the annoying MATLAB component of the subject that didn't help much. With that in mind, I kinda left everything till the very last minutes, and voila. God had been nice to me this time around. Thank you ;)

And yes, that 76 in Macroeconomics really disappoints me. I really didn't know what went wrong, actually. The paper wasn't, at all, hard, and I loved the subject so much that I really hoped I'd ace it hands down.

With that being said, my result this time around ain't as great as my first semester's, but well, I can tell you all that I had THE time of my life on the second sem. That was the period when I started to learn more about life and got closer to like-minded people who made the uni hardship bearable and colorful. The study meetings we all had in Baileu, Old Eng, ERC - they were all fun, and not at all strenuous.

Well, life is not all about getting straight As, I guess. Life's about living the moment.

May the good vibes keep on rolling in next year. Melbourne peeps, I miss you. Really.


Faizal Hamssin



p/s to my well-performing friends, congratulations! Especially to that alien-brained juwie Farouq who managed to score straight H1s. Seriously, that's fantastic ;)

Reincarnation

I'm in Malaysia now! Gonna be here for all through my summer break. 3 months, baby!

Feeling: Refreshed. Upbeat.

I miss Melbourne! I guess I'm pretty much a workaholic who doesn't know when to stop working. I kind of miss the smell and characteristic ambiance of unimelb's lecture halls. Anything that's got anything to do with uni, including the putrid sushi lunches back in those busy days, and the crowded Bailleu Library that caused claustrophobia-related feelings to flush through my veins seem intriguing now ;p

I guess I should not treat my summer break the way polar bear treats its 6 months of wintry darkness. I gotta do something. Any ideas, out there?


Faizal Hamssin

Honeydays Are Over, Reality's Looming

Well, back to serious business here. I'm having finals in roughly a month's time, so I guess I'll seriously need to buck up for the papers while I still can.

Since I've made a promise to upload some pictures I'd taken in Canberra/Sydney during the trip last week, voila. Here we go!



*Off to studying for finals! Wish me luck cos I need it bad.


Faizal Hamssin

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

Irrevocable Mess

If you guys don't know how weird my biological clock is, here it goes;

your afternoon is my midnight. your 3pm is my 12am :)

yeah it's true. that's me. nocturnal me!

And yes, Happy Ramadhan to everyone out there! May Lord's grace fall upon you guys! Let's spread our love and affection towards humanity in this holy month. Let's make this month a heath for deep thoughts to thrive and flourish. Let's celebrate the power of human kindness in overcoming adversity throughout this month of greatness.

This will be my first month of fasting in the foreign land. Pathos are here, there, and everywhere, but well, it's pretty good an experience, either. No one knows how badly do I miss the sinful murtabak and refreshing ABC that I'd always had during Ramadhan. If I happened to have had enough of those, there were always other treats like satays, nasi ayam, mihun sup, and kuihs to tackle my desire. So, for Malaysians out there, be thankful that you guys are still able to live in such a heaven of food, with its plethora of gastronomical greatness. OMG I think I should've included Laksa Sarawak on the list, too! Now I can't wait for summer to taste it all!

Being a polar bear is downright cool. Trust me.

Faizal Hamssin

of An Epic Reunion :)

Liying was in the town baybeh! So yeah, we had a reunion dinner at Sofia. The food was, as expected, downright awesome, and the portion was HUGE that we all went home satiated as hell (yeah seriously). Will definitely dine there again next time. Here are the pictures (courtesy of Zara)

Sham's Japanese girlfriend who happened to be in Melbourne at that time for a visit was also present.

After dinner, we all went to crash at Aggie's place, hanging out there. Some of us played cards while the rest camwhored and lounged around, feeling the bliss of being in each others' company. That was very cool. Too bad little Zara was so tired that night (menstrual pain, I suppose!) that she had to sleep in Aggie's room while we all had a blast outside at the living room.

When the party was over and everyone was on the verge of leaving the place, all eyes were on Sham who was also to leave the place for her girlfriend's digs. It was a cold wintry night when someone gave him words worth of advice. "Play safe," she said. We all laughed naturally :D


Faizal Hamssin

Pardonnez-moi, mon blog!

Hey there. I love my blog. It's been the journal of my life; I started this blog just a few months after I started doing IB, so it's nearly 3-year-old by now. The 3 years filled with moments of immeasurable depth, with regards to its impacts towards molding the current me. The 3 years that have been my most exciting and inspiring years I've had, after all the relative lethargy of my highschool years. The 3 years of transitory period, the years in which my real self was finally found. The period of metamorphosis, as we may call it, the process that made my life as interesting as it seems today. It's just great, and this blog will remain here forever, as it is an important tool to remind me where I came from, and how far have I gone through the seemingly incessant sinuosity of human life. I just love it.

So dear my lovely, adorable blog, pardonnez-moi if you feel ignored or neglected these days. I really wanna write new posts, keeping you updated with my fruits of thoughts etc, but inspiration has yet to stream towards me at the moment. Yes, I seriously wanna update my blog regularly, but the mojo seems to have petered away at this very moment; I just don't know what should my next post really be all about.

But above all, at least I'm very happy with my life currently. 2nd sem seems to be awesome so far, with the new challenges and perks that it offers. I've also regained my passion in reading, and I have several unread books sitting in the case, waiting to be read soon. Studies have been fine, and friends have been awesome, so far. My Friday nights are always full of fun-filled dinner, gathering, party, or whatever that occupies my time and makes me happy, and I'll always find some time for myself (my real friends know how much do I cherish my privacy). It's just fine. Not much of a rollercoaster ride, whatever.

Perhaps when you're truly contented with your life, you'll find that it gets less interesting and pretty monotonous by day. And when life gets less interesting, there's no way that you'll come out with personal posts on your blog. Trust me it's true.

Quote of the day: Acquaintances come and go, but true friends stay.

Enough with my life story. I just got 'The Pianist' DVD from Rowden White a few days ago, and went on to watch it yesterday. The movie touched me so much it made me cry. It's a shame that I didn't get to watch this wonderful movie earlier (it was released in 2002, I guess). And it's a bigger shame for those who have the hear to deny the atrocities inflicted towards the innocent public during the World War II and Holocaust. What's wrong is wrong, that's it.

p/s I'm planning to write a personal journal to sum my 3 years up. That'd be nice, indeed. The journal will, of course, be private :)

Faizal Hamssin