My Summer

So I made a list of things I wanna do during my summer holidays in one of the previous posts, and now my holidays are almost over, classes starts early March :-(
Let's go through the list and see which of the things I actually did manage to do

1) Get a job (likeliness = low)
I didn't really expect to get one, as I really didn't make much effort to try finding one, but I guess I was just lucky that the opportunity came my way

2) Join a gym (likeliness = moderate)
I didn't end up joining a gym after all... but it's mostly because I told myself I'll just go the the gym at the club, which I didn't do very much either... I really wanted to go through with this, but I know 1 person who is probably more upset about this than me... *rolls eyes*

3) Work on my music (likeliness = moderate)
Nothing at all other than writing a few rhymes... bah...

4) Watch all the TV shows I've been meaning to watch (likeliness = low)
Went to Penang for the PTQ and I spent like almost RM200 just on DVDs of TV shows that I thought I'd never watch, but turns out that I did manage to watch lots of it :-p

5) Play Magic (likeliness = very high)
LOL, not even gonna answer this one

6) Catch up with friends (likeliness = high)
Not too bad I guess, met up with quite alot of people

7) Start the scratching class (likeliness = low)
Didn't do this either, quite a shame :-(

8) Go on a holiday (likeliness = confirmed)
Like I said earlier itself, confirmed! Went to Beijing, it was quite alright, shopping was good too

9) Drive up to Penang with friends for PTQ (likeliness = high)
Did this! Was quite an awesome trip too, had great food(duh), awesome seafood dinner that one night, and I even Top 8 the PTQ! Didn't win though, lost at Quarters in less than 5 minutes... My brother went to Semis though.

10) Go on a trip with Kel (likeliness = moderate)
Didn't do this one, understandably so, it's quite difficult to plan, given the circumstances, plus she's like flying off somewhere every other week! She just went to Bangkok, and tomorrow she's flying to Vietnam, busy lady that girl :-p

11) Perform (likeliness = low)
No events to perform at, it is the holidays after all

12) Be exposed to sunlight (likeliness = unknown)
Plenty of sunlight these days, going to work and all. It's quite awesome too, directly behind where I sit is a glass window and I have an awesome view, with KLCC being visible and all.

7 out of 12, haha, actually more than I expected :-p

All in all, I really had a great summer holiday and am naturally dreading going back to college...
I know lots of people will be flying back to to Australia or whatever soon, so I hope I get to see most of them before they fly back.
I'm actually thinking of going there for holidays sometime this year, since theres gonna be a Grand Prix there and all. Really hope that works out!

Alright, back to work... :-(

Take care and have a nice day!

Icky the Intern

And so I started working, Interning actually. Started in January, in this Islamic Bank called Kuwait Finance House. Funny thing, I actually was just up for any job cos I was bored and my lifestyle was quite rubbish (sleep at random hours for random period of times and eating random food at random hours), so I figured that a job would help get me diciplined for when college starts. Anyways, so Jeff was already interning here and I asked him if I could too and so I had to write a resume, send it in and everything and I got the job. I started work on the first day still not knowing what company it was, I only figured out that it was actually a bank when some of them were thinking of how to get more customers and let people know that Kuwait Finance House is a bank. At that point I was like "aaaahhhhh!"

I told myself I'll never be one of those dudes to work in KL and drive back and forth through the jam everyday and here I am, hahaha. It's not that bad though, music helps the drive alot. Also, I'm sleeping at a more consistant time now. Lacking alot of sleep, but consistantly :-p
It's been making me think though, about how it's gonna be if I end up having an office job like this for after I graduate. Let's see

Work starts at 8.30am, it takes about an hour to get to work, meaning I have to leave the house by 7.30am.
Allocating about 30 minutes to get ready, I have to start preparing at 7.00. It is idealistic to think that if I set my alarm at 7am, I will wake up at 7am, so as it is now, I set my alarm at 6.40am, allowing me 2-3 trips to the snooze button
Work is from 8.30am to 5.30pm, that is 9 hours (including lunch break) spent being at work.
After work is the drive back home which is also about 1 hour, meaning that if leave work at 5.30pm, I will reach home by 6.30pm. Sometimes when it rains or is the last day before a long weekend (like before CNY holidays) its a little more jammed, therefore I will reach home at 7pm.
Upon reaching home, stretching out chilling and showering would take about an hour, making it 8pm.
Then theres dinner, which I will also allocate about an hour, so that brings us to 9pm.
I don't know what is the universally accepted average hours of sleeping, but in my books, a good sleep is at least 7 hours (8 hours is ideal)
Having to wake up at 6.40am, that would mean that I should be in bed by 11.40pm
Which means, after dinner at about 9pm, that would give me approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes to do whatever I want. whoa...

So lets say I see a friend for dinner, maybe from like 8pm, I can chill for about 3 hours and 40 minutes (of course, this is the ideal way). Take into consideration that there are other things that I wanna do like watch TV shows, go online, talk on the phone and etc, that would leave me with not much time at all. So I've been pushing back my sleeping time, sleeping at about 2am, giving me about 4 hours + of sleep everyday.
This fatigue obviously piles on and sometimes I find myself accidentaly dozing off during work (not while driving, don't worry) and this cycle repeats itself until the weekends, where I cash in all the "lack of sleep" coupons and try to get well rested. This of course is not always the case as there's always something to do during the weekends.

I'm gonna stop with all the time calculations because I am boring myself (and making me feel sad at the same time) so I think it will suffice to say that working like this takes up all your time.
After a while I'm sure I'll get hit with the reality of all the things that I've been missing or miss doing, be it going to the movies (which I used to take for granted) or meeting up with friends.
This is kind of how people lose touch I think, not specifically through work, but more through being occupied with so many different things that need more priority. I can't even imagine how much more complicated the time equation will become when you start a family!

I don't really like the direction this kind of job will take me, maybe it's just not for me, or maybe it's one of those things I'll start doing for a bit, telling myself its only for a bit, and wake up from the daily routines 5 years later and wonder, "where did all the time go?"...

Depressing? You bet! All the more reason to work hard for a job that you'll love though! I guess it's good that I took this job, it helps in figuring out what kind of life do I want 10 years from now.
I hate growing up :-(

Take care and have a nice day.

Sober MTGOholic

"Hello, my name is Icky, I'm a MTGOholic, I've been 1 week sober..."

I've been wondering since the 24th on why I haven't been able to connect to magic online and why the connection has been completely terrible since then, and I just found out why...

TMnet has announced that there will be service interruption from 20th December to 31st December.

"Dear Valued Customers,
Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) wishes to announce that there is a disruption of its Internet services due to circuits fault on Southeast Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 4 (SMW4) submarine cable network between Palermo (Southern Italy) and Alexandria (Northern Egypt) linking Malaysia to Europe. Due to this, customers using Internet services may now experience slow browsing while accessing websites hosted in Europe."

It's been so annoying but I have to say, it has been getting me out of the house, so that's something good.
Niki just got back from UK, I picked him up from the airport, he decided to surprise his family again so he didn't tell them he was coming back.
Also, Senthil just got back from Indonesia as well, he seems well.

I also recently submitted my resume (which I had to make for the first time ever) for an interm position I'm trying to get. If all goes well I should start in January and that would be the end of me bumming around at home. Hope I get it!

Overall it's been a pretty good month (other than my losing streak) and Christmas was fun, let's hope that New Year's Eve will be good too!

Although, I still can't wait for this whole Streamyx thing to be okay again... :-/

Take care and have a nice day! :-)

Street Lights

Let me know
Do I still got time to grow
Things ain't always set in stone
That be known let me know
Let me
Seems like
Street lights
Glowing
Happen to be just like moments
Passing
In front of me
So I hopped in the cab and
I paid my fare
See, I know my destination
But I'm just not there
All the street lights
Glowing
Happen to be just like moments
Passing
In front of me
So I hopped in the cab and
I paid my fare
See, I know my destination
But I'm just not there
In the streets
In the streets
I'm just not there
In the streets
I'm just not there
Life's just not fair...

Daymn!

Would you look at that!

Daymn! :-)

I love you babe, and very proud of you!

Btw, my internet connection is somehow busted and its very annoying, so I'm at Old Town now. I hope it gets fixed soon, I don't know what's the problem, it was working just fine last night... *sigh*

Take care and have a nice day.

Icky Is Old

Well, my papers was a bitch. I guess that's what you get for studying last minute... haha.

But, it's over! :-) Free till February, can u imagine that? I think our holidays are waaaay too long, but I'm not complaining :-p

Finished my last paper on 5th November, 1 day before my birthday, sounds like awesome timing? Not so much. My last paper was so depressing. But.Oh.Well. At least it's over! And I'm old now. 22 years old. Damn.

Anyways, so I've been thinking of what I should do during this holidays. Obviously I'll need a list of plans that I will regret not doing by the time the next semester starts, it's just tradition! haha.

Let's see:-

1) Get a job (likeliness = low)
2) Join a gym (likeliness = moderate)
3) Work on my music (likeliness = moderate)
4) Watch all the TV shows I've been meaning to watch (likeliness = low)
5) Play Magic (likeliness = very high)
6) Catch up with friends (likeliness = high)
7) Start the scratching class (likeliness = low)
8) Go on a holiday (likeliness = confirmed)
9) Drive up to Penang with friends for PTQ (likeliness = high)
10) Go on a trip with Kel (likeliness = moderate)
11) Perform (likeliness = low)
12) Be exposed to sunlight (likeliness = unknown)

Can't think of anything else, hmmm...

Anyways, things are pretty good right now and I hope it stays that way! I know I've been quite a loner for a while now and it's 10000% my fault, but I plan to change that cos I don't think this lifestyle is very good for me, haha

I was just thinking of what Zac said the other day, "Icky, I won't let you turn into an MTGO (Magic the Gathering Online) geek, you're too cool for that!" haha, well, he's right, and I plan to be more productive!

Let's see if it works out :-p

Btw, my money from the check is still not banked yet. You know how long it takes to clear the cheque? 1 month. No kidding. Something about having to clarify with the Australian bank and convert the US$ or whatever... boo hoo, it takes 2 seconds to call, seriously. Oh well.

Take care and have a nice day :-)

Icky The Cardboard Geek

It's here! Finally!

I got an email from FedEx yesterday saying that a package for me was scheduled to arrive today and when the details said "GP Manila" I knew it was my cheque!

So I got home just now and there it was, and even though I know that I won and I knew that it was coming, it gave me a sense of realism when I held the cheque in my hand. I thought to myself, "I won $500 for playing a card game!" muahahahahahaha :-p

It's a different feeling, for me at least, after winning a tournament, and after receiving the prize. When I won a 160GB Apple TV in a side event tournament during Pro Tour KL, after winning the last round, it was exciting, but after holding the Apple TV in my hands, it was like "whoa!"

I think that it's the whole prospect of, as I mentioned earlier, getting rewarded for playing a game that I love. Thinking back to my first tournament, I have definitely gone a long way.

Call me a loser if you like, but I've been playing Magic for 10 years now! 10 freaking years!

I may be a super cardboard geek, but at least I'm happy :-)

My first "success" of winning something "big" was a side event at Grand Prix KL, I think it was in 2002. It was nothing great, just a little side event, but I had gotten my 1st ever 1st place finish! The prize was just a box of boosters (RM320 retail) but it was just so exciting for me!

I'm happy at where I am right now, and although I don't expect to be a full time pro player (because there's just no money in that), I do hope to be playing in higher level events.

Things I have to do before I can quit playing Magic:-

- Win a Nationals Championship trophy
- Top 8 a Grand Prix

- Top 8 a Pro Tour

- Qualify and play in Worlds under the National Team

Ambitious? You bet, but if I don't set a goal, I won't achieve anything!

Oh well, current goal right now? Pass my exams... hahaha

Take care and have a nice day!