Year of the Dog

It's the time of the year again! The time for food-binging, and the time where all your one-year worth of gym workout get washed down into the drain. It's the Chinese New Year!

It's the year of the dog, and this year it doesn't seem like things will get much better. But that is beside the point. The point is, during CNY, all you can do without much guilt is: eat!

Well, the truth is I don't enjoy food-binging anymore. I've reached an age where I should begin to control my calorie intake else my tummy is gonna take the shape of a ball soon. I'm starting to be a little health conscious now - I'm trying to cut down eating meat, but so far I cannot resist tidbits and kerepeks. Those are damn hard to resist, but I've got to learn.

Anyway, happy Chinese New Year guys! Do remember to hit the gym, or resume exercising now!

Acting on Impulse

I did something I did I will regret, but I did it on impulse anyway. The truth is, there is no way I can decide now. There're pros and cons of it and I don't have enough information for me to make a sound decision, so I did it anyway. In a few weeks time, I'll know the outcome, and I'll know whether my future will thus be officially charted. Fingers have got to cross, I guess.

【那些年，我們一起追的女孩】電影主題曲《那些年》

7 year on, this song is still the best Chinese song I have ever listened to.

Legend would always stay as a legend.

Dr Chen and His Romance

Well, the show was entertaining (at least for local film standard), and I wasn't willing to watch one episode per day until the end of the month. I hesitated, and I actually decided to pay RM5/month to be Tonton VIP member. Being a subscriber, I could watch the entire series before they're aired. And shockingly I have finished the series! Well, since it is still being aired on 8TV at the moment so I'll not be spoiling anything here, but my comment is that, while the show is indeed entertaining, the conclusion seems a bit rush and I am not very happy about that. On Instagram, from what I read, it seems like 8TV is going to make short films as alternative endings to the show, and it should be interesting how it is going to be. Else, the current ending seems a bit sloppily done. It definitely could have been better. Plus, it seems all characters get some plot about them, but Dr Chen has none. Which is a bit odd. Usually, the main character gets a self-centric plot. I was thinking there might be stories like Dr Chen fainted or got into an accident and Xiao Xian got worried or something a bit cliche, but there was none. Nonetheless, as a Malaysian product, it's a great show. And I like it very much, especially since no local-produced series have caught my attention for years.

Rita Ora - Your Song

I don't know why but this song has become sort of an earworm for me.

It's catchy and nice to listen to. And it certainly is a nice song to indulge in.

The Ugly Side of Civil Engineering

I'm now voluntarily involved in an internship in a civil engineering firm that is relatively small. It has less than a dozen staff and handles small projects compared to where I did my mandatory internship previously. The thing about small companies: significantly less workload - too relaxed to the point I am sure this is not what I want in my life, so my experience effectively helped me a made a choice: after my graduation, I will not start my working life in a small company. Well, at least not this small. There is no design work now. Even the drafters are quite relaxed. The only thing keeping them busy now is the paperwork for submission, which isn't something I can do because authorities submissions require delicate handling and I obviously am not prepared for that.

I also learn quite a lot of insights in the world of civil engineering. To sum it up: ugly. When it comes to land handling, constructions and when it intertwines with politics and finance, everything goes very ugly. This is a world where political interference is dominant and omnipresent, and political ramifications from a very little mistake could become national news due to its fragile status. That's why, like the Ir in my firm says, young people refrain from entering civil engineering. It's ugly. It's tough. It's not respected. And it certainly isn't worth spending too much time in.

But I am already in this world. I'll stride on. And I'll survive.

Dr Chen's Diary

I chanced upon this local produced television programme few days ago and have been following it since. It's now only at its fourth episode and I do not know how many episodes are there left. So far, what do I think? Well, it's a bit retarded. But in a comical and flavourful way. Obviously, without much mentioning, Malaysia's local programme has lots of room for improvement, but at least in this television programme we see something authentically Malaysian.

For a long time, we finally have a drama series that features actors speaking in a true Malaysian accent, despite how inaccurate or unpleasant they are to our ears. They don't pretend to speak in pure Mandarin like how the Singaporeans tend to do, and while it reflects our substandard Mandarin in the world, it reflects a very real Malaysian situation. We Malaysians speak that way, just accept it and forget that we don't speak as great and pure as the Taiwanese or Chinese. Trying to speak like them, like how the Singaporean dramas are scripted, is just a little pathetic and make the entire show unnatural and unrealistic.

The acting is a bit poor and the story, like I said, is retarded. It has a lot of illogical and unrealistic scenes and some which appear to be comic/anime-like, but other than that the story is itself quite entertaining. So far, it has accurately portrayed an actual Malaysian life. I know it's unusual in our local entertainment industry to do such a thing, but I like it and I don't think it's bad. It's just an embracing of our local demography and society.

So far so good, will keep watching until the end or I cannot afford to continue watching. (Working life is picking up pace sigh...)