Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Wrapping Up

And once again, the end of the year has come around, and the new year is staring me in the face, rushing along to collide into me. I think I bring this up often, but I feel it ever more increasingly: Do you ever get that feeling that time just seems to speed up?

I'm serious. The days, months and years are just blurring by so quickly for me it's like I'm 16 one day and 19 the next. Scary, too.

And I still have all these things that I haven't done yet either. But hey, anyway.

2008 was hmm, not a bad year I guess. Probably better than the previous years of my life. It's always great when you can say that, you know, when every year gets better and better. It's almost as if your life is like a bottle of fine wine or something. I definitely had fun, that I can say. And hey, a whole year coming to terms with an insanely hard-to-quash crush can be kinda refreshing on your viewpoints of life ah? I feel rather liberated actually.

I think I kept my drinking under wraps, mostly... Some people I know would beg to differ though, but seriously, with all honesty, I definitely think I kept it under control. I mean, I only had one real slip-up when I drank far too much, started chucking my guts all over the place and had the mother of all hangovers the next day. And it was just that one time too.

So, what am I looking for in 2009? I don't really know to be honest. I think my journey of self-discovery is far from over though. I feel sometimes like I never understand myself in the way I do things, so maybe I should figure it out. Hm, might shop a little less next year too, since I'm finally starting to be happy with my wardrobe. Well, a few more additions can't hurt, but shopping heaps is definitely going to go away, and be replaced by just shopping.

And no, I'm never going to make a resolution to drink less, that never works. But I will think I will be trying to stick to my gym routine this time round, maybe working harder to overcoming that ever-so-dreaded plateau I keep getting to around 5 weeks into training. It's annoying.

But yeah, I think I won't expect much from the new year, and maybe that way it'll suprise me. Besides, it's more fun this way too.

So anyway, I'm off to town. I'll be going to dinner later, and then who knows? The beach? Town? The night is young, and so am I.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Broken Strings

I was listening to James Morrison's recent album Songs For You, Truths For Me. I really do like James Morrison as a singer. His songs are rather soothing. Anyway, give this song, "Broken Strings" a try if you feel inclined.

You can't play on broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that ain't real

The truth hurts
A lie is worse
I can't like it anymore
And I love you a little less than before

Beautiful lyrics. I don't know why, but I like it.


Thursday, December 25, 2008

I'm Dreaming of...

A white Christmas. Yep. But it's summer over here, so I guess I don't really mind either. My god, I spent quite a fair bit yesterday on food items. Sigh.

Wow, and boy did I have a helluva busy session cooking the Christmas Eve dinner last night. I ended up finishing late, so I pushed dinner back by a good hour to 8, haha. Oh well. And I probably consumed half the bottle of wine, as well a decent amount of gin and tonics too. Paying for it with my slight hangover this morning, but hey, it's all good. Not like I drank tons anyway, just forgot the water.

Christmas day for me tends to be a little dreary, mainly because stores are closed and I have nothing to do. My guess it this is why they have Christmas dinners, but I've personally always favoured Christmas Eve dinners anyway, since it's a lot easier to do. In the very least, I have a bottle of wine should I feel like having some tonight.

In some odd, bizarre way, as soon as I have a public holiday, I normally feel like going back to work, or university, or something. I reckon the main reason is just because I don't like public holidays all that much. I like to just be able to take a break and observe people (in a sense), when I'm pretty much the only one on a break doing a shopping thing, or being at a cafe, and so on. Whereas on a public holiday, it's sorta different. I can't, for example, go shopping. Neither can I really go for a coffee with friends at the cafe. I suppose I chafe at the implied restrictions that arise from these sort of things.

Anyway, my rant for the day is done, I guess. I'm gonna do some post-dinner cleaning, as well as maybe some TV watching and calling of friends, you know, the proprietary Christmas things. Ciao.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Bugger... Got Tagged

Got tagged by Chris on his blog, so here goes...

1. What’s your ambition?
To succeed and be prominent in what I enjoy and have an interest in. To somehow be in more control of things, but maybe from the shadows rather than directly.

2. Who is more important to you? Friends or boy/girlfriend?
Friends. Although there would be situations when I'd go with the latter.

3. How often do you think of committing suicide?
Its been a long long time since I've done that, although I've had disturbing dreams lately of being overwhelmed by some enemies, or rather being hunted, and then dispatched.

4. Do you think you have enough confidence?
Yeah. Mostly.

5. How many babies you want?
If I can have twins, twin boys and 1 daughter. Otherwise, just 1 of each.

6. Favorite perfume/fragrance?
Currently, lots. Hmm, Infusion d'Homme by Prada and Fahrenheit by Christian Dior are my two most favoured at the moment.

7. What do you think will be your greatest downfall?
My lack of ethics for some things.

8. Do you believe in eternal love?
Eternal... Its too long lasting for me to believe in. Long-lived love? Yeah, definitely. Eternal? Hm, I'm not so sure.

9. What's a perfect girlfriend/boyfriend like to you?
Perfect in that they have little imperfections that I don't care about; that they have some mannerisms that make me love them more; that they make me feel secure and cherished.

10. What are your bad habits?
I have a weakness to spending money on food and clothes.

11. Is there anything you wanna tell the people who hate you?
"I don't really understand why you'd hate me, but really, the only person its affecting is you, not me. So why not get along with me? I'll even buy you a drink."

12. Do you cherish every single friendship of yours?
Yeah, sure.

13. What do you hate most in others?
Lack of initiative and courage/confidence to do things.

14. What do you crave for the most currently?
Money to go on a shopping spree.

15. What features/quirks do you find totally sexy on a guy/girl?
Uhm, hot bod? Eyes, hands, hair. Pretty much, if I find you sexy, I find you sexy. Why ask?

16. Describe the person who tagged you in 7 words.
Asian, amusing, fun, teetotaller, lighter than me!

17.What have you done to yourself to make yourself happy?
Improved my sense of fashion, went to the gym, and get myself noticed.

18. What will you become in another 10 years to come?
Hm, I don't know. With enough luck, rich, successful, and happy? Like a fairy tale?

19. Whats your guilty pleasure? (something you usually wouldn't admit out loud)
I admit to most of my guilty pleasures anyway, so I wouldn't know off the top of my head what guilty pleasures I do not admit out loud.

20. I tag:
No one. Because, unlike Chris here, I have no wish to impose the joys of answering 20 questions on anyone. But... that being said, I tag you if you wish to be tagged.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Beer, beach, and pranks

Well, today was the Bioengineering Institute Christmas function, and boy was it fun! First off we had the Biomimetics Lab Secret Santa (which was efficiently organised courtesy of me). God I chafe under the imposed limitation of a $5 budget for the gifts, but I think I managed to pull through. My recipient was Alex, and I got him two pottles of rather nice jam. He was pretty happy about it too, so I think I did a good job there. Yeah, so if you're ever stuck with a Secret Santa that's on a low budget, and your recipient is a flatting guy or whatever, get him jam. It does well.

Alex's gift was probably one of the more amusing ones. He bought biscuits, and wrapped them up in the morning using not wrapping paper, but rather, rubber nitryl gloves. Yes. It was all too amusing especially when I saw him doing so. 

All in all, I'll say I had tons of fun. Forgot to bring my cam, so no pics sadly (really bad habit of mine with this actually). Played touch for a good hour or so, then helped myself to a good amount of beers, sat in the sun for ages, you know... That kinda stuff. It's summer, and summer's good. I'm now sitting in my chair feeling slightly warm. Not sunburnt though, just very very warm. 

Oh yeah, naturally, it being a Christmas function and all, my Head of Department dressed up as Santa with a slight twist, this one being a gorilla suited Santa. And he gave presents to the little kids! I wanna be a kid too! 

Forgot to mention this, but Tom got one of those trick pens for his Secret Santa gift. You know, the one that shocks you if you hold down the top? Yeah, it was kinda fun. I took it and shocked Alex (him being a most unwilling participant) in the crook of his elbow. Then I took some paper, and went to the HoD and asked him for his email address, proffering him the trick pen. Naturally, he got a nice shock from it, and I kinda kept my distance after that. I tried it on Mike O'Sulivan Jr. (another of the lecturers) as well. Oddly enough, he never seemed to figure out that it was shocking him for the first two tries. He did eventually figure it out though, and that was awesome too. Haha great times.

Oh, Todd got this awesome kids' bow and arrow set! We had a blast shooting people with that too! And I probably drank too much then as well, but then again, I wasn't the only one, so hey, all good =)

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Of Names That Don't Matter

You could say I'm really bored. Alright, I am actually really bored. So bored that I was thinking of a pseudo alter-ego for myself. Well, since I feel like Damian as my alter ego is kinda odd. Almost as if I've outgrown it ever since I have no idea what Alastair calls me now.

That aside, I decided that I might as well keep my original name in this alter ego, well, at least in its initials, just changing everything around. Hmm, here goes...

G. W. C. L.

Right. Unfortunately, Gabriel is the only name I could settle for with a G. I'm sorry, but I feel weird taking others. Hmm... 

W's tricky. Walker. Warren. Whitlaw (kinda weird, I know, but I like it). Wyatt. 

C's just as bad. Chase. Christian. Corey. Cyril. Cyrus. Gah. 

Maybe this wasn't so good an idea...

L... hmm... meh. Since it's a last name... Logan! Why ever not? It brings to mind Gabe Logan. Hahaha. I actually could live with that. 

Actually, come to think of it... I've already been called Gabe Logan quite a few times anyway. So maybe not so random after all. Apparently Loh sounds somewhat like Logan (owing to it being pronounced as low with a bit of an 'h')

Friday, December 12, 2008

Paid!

I have been paid! YUSSS!!! Uhm, that aside.... Casey's back in town (finally), so we got off to a productive day at work today, which was a great change.

I got complimented once again for my clothes. Maybe I should drop engineering and just offer my services as a personal shopper (fashion-wise). And I got chucked on the "fashion committee" for the Biomimetics Lab. Apparently they're making some T-shirts for this convention they would be attending, and they seem to think I have good taste in clothes, so.... yeah.

I'm also in charge of the Secret Santa we'd be having. Oddly enough, the rest of the Bioengineering Institute aren't included, but I'm sorta glad for it, since it gets kinda large to organise after. So yeah, next week looks fun. Secret Santa, LaserStrike, Christmas dinner (Biomimetics) and Christmas lunch (Bioengineering). Awesome!

Mm, also, I got Marc Jacobs (the lecturer) to get me a bottle of scotch duty-free when he gets back from his trip to San Francisco. YAY! It's cheaper than getting a 700ml bottle of Laphroaig for $57 I guess. Hm, time to head off for now. Cya later!

P/S: I'm getting alot better at using the espresso machine now. Still making flat whites though, mostly.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

An Encounter with Bell Gully Initiates

I was picking up my suit today at Working Style when I saw trouble. Yup, trouble. You can always spot trouble in High St when you see a group of 5 guys, and a chick with a videocam, and especially when the guys are in suit pants and wifebeaters. Definitely not standard High St dress code. And suprisingly, they were right behind me when I walked into the store.

Turns out these fine young gentlemen were from Bell Gully, one of the biggest law firms in NZ, probably the top I believe, and freshly recruited too, from the sounds of it. They were making a video skit as part of their initiation rites for the Christmas presentation or something, and it involved them replacing some Backstreet Boys melody with their own lyrics and video. 

So this one guy took off his wifebeater and got one of the girls at the shop to take measurements. All the while they had the other guys crowding around him, and doing borderline homoerotic stuff, like one guy touching his belly or something. Let's just say the people manning the store were amused, the other customer with me was profoundly disturbed, and I was veering between both. Naturally, I felt the urge to stir up the pot a little, so I threw a suggestion their way to make the video more homoerotic by having more hands and sensous movements on the poor dude in question. Which of course brought more laughter his way. Ah well. Glad to see that I don't really have to do that in Engineering, since we get all that sort of stuff out of the way during our study years. Not to mention there's alcohol involved, making all of it more forgettable and fun, of course. Haha.

So yeah, that was my brief experience with the boys from Bell Gully, future solicitors and defenders of justice. I shudder a little to think of it.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Strange Dreams

I've been having odd dreams lately. They always involve me being a survivor of some sort by freak chance of some apocalyptic event, like an ice age, nuclear fallout, rapture, etc. And the world is always in ruins of some sort, and really dystopian (as one would thus expect). Society has broken down to basic banditry, and violence is rather common. Somehow people manage to cling on to certain oddities of society, such as currency. 

Last night was no different. Every night I have different companions in this dreamworld, and this time it was Richie. I suppose I "entered" the dream at the same time I awoke in it in a groggy state from having been near a patch of some weird gas being emitted from some cracks in the ground. I think it registered in my head at the time that it was carbon dioxide and some other miscellaneous gases, and that they somehow caused nausea and/or extreme drowsiness.

Iain was fashioning some sort of device to let the gas build up around the area, since it's a rather dense gas, into a sort of pseudo-fence about some wider area. I think it was the area we lived in, or maybe it was some sort of place we wanted to protect. It seemed to make sense at the time, but I wouldn't know for the life of me now what would have been in it. Obviously it was important.

So anyway, me and Richie were going down to the nearest settlement to buy food. I don't remember how long we were walking along, or where we were. I do remember that looking at the bush and shrubs about the place, it could have been any temperate country, no jungle stuff. Although it was a little warmer than one would expect for a temperate country. And the earth looked a little baked. I remember things being rather yellowed somehow.

So anyway, along the way are all these decrepit buildings, some of which are in obvious states of disrepair. Somehow there was a carpark which was rather intact, but I'll get back to that later. We get to the settlement which looks a little like some old town center. Here's the one oddity I remember from the dream. Somehow, Burger King and MacDonald's were operating. No idea what they were serving, but I remember regarding it with disdain, although I regard it with some disgust in real life anyway, so maybe that wasn't relevant aye?

We get to some place which behaved like a supermarket I guess. Not that it was anything close to it, kinda weird and stuff. Hm, I guess it was about now I realised that the sun was a little hotter than normal. Me and Richie buy some food, and somehow (I have absolutely no idea why) decided that a good form of protection would be to get some sort of syringes with very strong tranquilisers in them. Sorta like darts I guess. I think it had something to do with us not being to afford guns, or maybe guns were rare. I don't remember why, but I knew it wasn't possible for us to get any. Although now that I wonder about it, why not knives? I guess we must have had knives.

We begin the long trek home, and back through the carpark. Along the way, we realise that we're being followed. Its kind of obvious really, I guess, since he wasn't making any effort about it. Big hulking fellow. Scary in the way that he's just tall and huge. And he had this grin on his face, as if he knew he was going to catch up to us somehow. And he walked fast too. Us hurrying along didn't help much either, since he somehow closed the gap by the time we reached the second flight of stairs.

Here comes the second part which didn't make sense. Richie suddenly said something like... "Hey Gabe,...." followed by a string of numbers. Well, this string of numbers was something in the logic of the kind of numbers that you input into a calculator and turn upside down, and it forms a word? Like how 01134 makes hello? Anyway, no idea what the numbers were, but the gist of it was something along the lines of "We're in trouble". And that we were too.

He had definitely caught up to us, and there was no knowing what he wanted. I guess he wanted our money and food and whatnot, but like we'd want to get robbed, knowing we'd probably die as well. Thing was though, he was kind of big, and there would be no way we could take him down. Unless those tranquilisers would work. And they're pretty obvious, you know. 

We got them out anyway, since you know, might as well try. And he charged. 

I then woke up, feeling utterly confused.

Yeah, no idea where these dreams are coming from, but they're pretty weird. Not weird enough to spook me, but just somewhat disquieting. The strangest thing I found is not that I wake up just as something is about to happen to me, but its more of the fact that I kind of wake up as if I told myself to wake up. I don't really know how to explain it, but it just felt like I had to wake up, and I did. Not that it was a vivid dream, since it didn't feel completely real, and I hear in vivid dreams you can control things around you, but it certainly somehow seemed real, and yet surreal somehow.

Yeah, so that was my weird dream today. Thought I'd share, since well, I got rather bothered this morning over it.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Breakfast Bars Galore

Haha, that went well.. I now have 16 breakfast bars! Yay! I'm quite pleased with the way they all held up, so yeah. Looks great. Hm, work early tomorrow, better sleep now. Cya later!

Baking

Making myself breakfast bars at the moment. If my oven works the way I intend it to, and if I didn't fuck up the thing, I should end up with 16 breakfast bars. I could have flattened the mixture a little more, but I was feeling a little lazy, plus those bits kept sticking to my spatula!

I'll update on my breakfast bars in a while.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Okay... Work... Definitely.

Perhaps I spoke too soon. I had barely walked in to see my supervisor for 10 minutes today, when I got plonked down with Tom to "re-design" the experimental rig for the project. Turns out Tom already has a solution he thought up, and so did my supervisor, so I was supposed to create working prototypes of them (first with a drawing, then SolidWorks, then print it onto perspex using the laser cutter). 

Problem was, the ideas were far from completed, hence the "design" aspect. And I had no clue on how to approach this problem either initially, considering that it was a problem from the aspect of mechanical engineering. Let's just say, I get the feeling Tom already knew what he was expecting, or rather, was thinking of the solution as I continuously bugged him with daft questions. More like, I was learning to think of mechanical solutions and then seeing if my ideas were sound. I'll just say that most of it wasn't sound, and I came up with a lot of solutions that didn't make sense. On the other hand, I learnt a tiny smidgen more about the materials we're using for the linear force actuators. They're made from DEAs (Dielectric Elastomeric Actuators), a material that's apparently been around for some time now. Problem was, these actuators generally transmit compressive strains if you hook them up the way we planned for it, so some very ingenious solution was required to make them into tensile forces. Naturally, I floundered for the longest time before Tom rescued me, yet again by suggesting that I use a piece of Perspex as a sort of level to transmit tension. I feel retarded.

So yeah, I'm getting used to having a espresso machine at work now, although my coffee making skills are lacking somewhat. Still can't froth the milk to the state I want it to be. Pointers anyone? All I can remember is that you froth until it's just too hot to touch, but I can't remember how much to froth/which depth to froth at, and so on. Oh well.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Work... or maybe not

I'm pretty beat ah. And it's all from gym really, probably because I went early this morning. Yes I know, not the smartest thing I could've done but hey, it fits into my schedule. I just have to get used to it.

Work today was kind of... placid? For one, Casey was out of town, and Iain (my supervisor) was out in meetings for the day, so I was pretty much left to my own devices. I spent the better part of 4 hours getting well acquainted with Casey's reading materials ie. the journals he was looking at, as well as his logbook, which he seemed to have left lying around on his desk for some reason (I'm not sure if it was deliberate or him being careless). I also spent 10 minutes trying to work the coffee machine, since it looked kind of different, and also since I'm a bit of an idiot sometimes. Hehe.

Did I ever mention that we have a laser cutter at work as well? I had to learn to use it too, although that only took about 10 or so minutes, especially if you already know how to use some sort of CAD software (like SolidWorks, which was used here). I'm pretty bored too, since there was nothing else I had to do, so I took an extended 1 hour lunch break, and left work early at 3. Not to mention the fact that I only started work at about 9.30... so... I only spent 4.5 hours working really. Real productive day, I can tell.

I shouldn't gripe so much, personally. I guess its good that I'm quite free, although I sorta wish I had some contribution to make to the project, which I find rather fascinating. Problematically, I have no idea what I have to do still. There's so much to do, that I sort of need some direction in this. Maybe I have no initiative of my own to begin work, but I reckon I just need to be pointed in a direction to begin with first before I start finding my way.

Oh well, I'm pretty sleepy already anyway, so I reckon I'll just head off to bed for the moment. By the way, did you hear "Spaceman" by The Killers yet? I think its a great song. Anyway, good night.