EARTH HOUR!

Toffee Apple bought from Clayton Town

EARTH HOUR. Spend an hour and a half with the lights off with 15 other people in a 21 X 8 feet room at Richardson Hall, also known as (a.k.a.) Wei Ning's room. Lights off, snack packets open. Munch and drink Lemonade (SOLO) for the entire one and a half hour duration thus exceeding the time period of Earth Hour. It's our part in catching up the awareness of climate change in Melbourne through extensive reduction in our carbon footprint.


Picture above : Sia Yee Mei have rabbit teeth that can chew out the skin to form designs on an apple. Shocked of my life. This girl has powerful teeth man, don't play play.


The 15 people excluding me is: The hostess: Wei Ning,
The guests: Nicole Chee (a.k.a. Nicoleta), Kai Ling, Vietnames dude (a.k.a. Edmund's friend), Edmund, Lloyd Chee (a.k.a. Datuk Lloyd Chee), Wilson, David Koay (a.k.a. David Beckham, Jack (a.k.a. Jack Sparrow), Sarah Kew (a.k.a. Sarah Brightman from Cameron Highlands) , Joanne Khoo, Wee Nee, Yee Mei (a.k.a. Mata sepet) and Kirin.

EARTH HOUR

EARTH HOUR is approaching. Both Clayton and Caulfield is having the 1-hour-all-lights-off programme from 8pm-9pm this Friday, I think. Should I be there? It's fun to just see darkness although we see it frequently. Haha. Australians seriously do conserve resources from their daily lifestyle. Amazed by that. Mayby we're reluctant to do so, because of our abundance of water in our country compared to here especially with the recent drought, bush fire, water rationing, etc.

EARTH HOUR is just pure propaganda and gimmick. Not really going to save the environment by just switching off lights for an hour. It's more of a party event then conserving energy and resources.

General Election, so what? Back to same old' shit!

My physical body may be in Australia but from time to time on a daily basis I do browse through our local newspaper web page, The Star Online. Political hyped up again as the UMNO General Assembly Meeting commences on the 24th March 2009 till 26th March 2009. Well let me redefine the word 'everyone'. First and foremost I bet no one in their rightful mind cares about the upcoming UMNO internal general election, although in exact we're looking at the selection process of a future Prime Minister or to be more precise, the handing over of power between current Premier to his successor. There is no difference between now and after the handing of power. Nothing to be anticipated about. No revolution, no reformation, whatsoever compared to the previous handing of power ceremony between Mahathir Mohammad and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. During that time, people in general as in the working classes are hoping for a new era of heavy reduction in corruption among the bureaucracy of our administration. Reduction of red tape, and so forth, but unfortunately Abdullah himself had landed his ass in the hotpot after the 12th General Election. According to some statistic which I can't really prove because I can't find it but I'd certainly read it couple of days ago, that 65% of the Malaysian population do not agree that Najib bin Razak would function as a good Premier. As they say, he may have excellent pedigree lineage or we call it 'blue blood", from having a father and an uncle both being former Prime Minister before and a younger cousin as the current Education Minister, yet he lacked the primary drive to further push his position upwards in the eyes of many rakyat and that is people's support. I placed my bet that the upcoming three by-elections would be swoop up by the oppositions, unless some hanky-panky happening. Which ever, I am never proud of my nation's caretaker (a.k.a. government). Speaking of that who does? Bruno, Marco, and Ellena from Italy hated their government, especially their Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Ellena once told me "We're never proud of our government, especially Berlusconi". And my reply "I'm also never proud of my government". Romain aspirant to be a future politician, currently studying Master of Political Science, stress that he never really bother the work of his President, Nicolas Sarkozy. Eddie Moore from Bendigo, Australia, hated their previous government under the leadership of John Howard. According to him, he's the worst Prime Minister Australia had ever had. Justifiable with the tremendous humiliation at the loss of a general election. The Australian government under the Rudd administration is just slightly better. Eddie stresses that, he doesn't agree with the remark and programmes of Kevin Rudd to curb global warming because it gives privilege to the industry players which ultimately means giving them opportunity to pollute the environment, which is back to square one again. Over the years, democracy may just be a form of government that is slightly better than Dictatorship or Monarchy rule. However the case, we can never satisfy everyone with one solution.

"No man breath the same amount of air with another man at the same time" (THUM, 2009)


For a moment of thinking, I kind of thank Dr Santha for teaching and grilling us on citation and referencing when we're back doing SAM at Taylors. She will usually get so boiled up, when we can't cite correctly. The horror in her class, but then again we manage to pull through. S7 people can tahan punya from harsh treatments. HAHA!

Taxation turns me on

Waleuh, Company reporting chapter 4, week 3 killed me. "Accounting for Income Tax" based on AASB 112 Income Tax. This is just the start of taxation. I'll be taking Taxation Law next semester. It's going to be a killer.

Deferred Tax Asset
Deferred Tax Liability
Taxable Temporary Differences
Deductible Temporary Differeces
Tax Base
Carrying Amount
Future Taxable Amount
Future Deductible Amount

They are all interlinked. Screwed up big time.

Disgusting New York fat cats

AIG bonuses 'higher than thought'

US insurance giant AIG paid out a total of $218m (£150m) in bonuses after accepting bail-out cash, according to a senior US official.

Documents obtained by Connecticut's attorney general showed AIG's payout was $53m, or 32%, more than was previously estimated.

Papers obtained by subpoena showed 73 people got more than $1m each while five received more than $4m.

The US has rescued AIG with a $170bn bail-out package since September 2008.
But revelations about the size of bonus payments made by the organisation since the bail-out was agreed have sparked a furious reaction among US lawmakers and the general public.

'Distasteful'

For much of the week the total amount AIG paid out in bonuses was reported at $165m.
But documents obtained by Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut, now appear to raise that figure by some 32%.

AIG: QUICK FACTS
Founded in 1919
30 million US policy holders
Operates in 130 countries
Provides insurance to 100,000 companies and other entities
US lawmakers vote for bonus tax
AIG chief asks for bonuses back

Connecticut was among 19 states demanding that AIG reveal details of bonuses paid to executives, in an effort to begin recovering the funds.

AIG has made no comment on Mr Blumenthal's findings.

But Mr Blumenthal said on Saturday that large bonuses were "showered like confetti" on AIG employees.

He said the newly-revealed number would "further fuel the justified anger and revulsion that people feel", and he planned to ask AIG bosses to explain the discrepancies in bonus figures, AP reported.

"Unless the number can be explained, it will undercut any lingering rationale the company may have for these unjustified payments," Mr Blumenthal said.

Earlier this week US President Barack Obama described the bonus payments as an "outrage", before state legal figures and congressmen also weighed in.

Even AIG boss Edward Liddy - who underwent questioning by a congressional committee on the issue - has described them as "distasteful".

Reports from the US say that AIG executives are now living in fear of a violent public backlash.

Protest bus
Many are reported to have received death threats and have been advised to take extra security precautions even in areas around their homes.

A group of about 40 protesters have hired a coach to tour executives' homes in Connecticut - home to AIG's main offices.

There they delivered letters highlighting the plight of ordinary families during the current recession.

The bonus money may not seem like a great deal to AIG or its top executives, the letter said, "but for Connecticut families struggling to make ends meet, for those of us who are losing our homes, losing our healthcare, losing our jobs, or our life savings, that much money could do tremendous good".

(Extracted from BBC homepage/business, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7956903.stm)


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This is utterly disgusting. People are suffering and they are getting bonuses utilising bail-out payment by the US government which are collected from ordinary working people tax money.

MULO

Monash University Online Lecture (MULO) is damn useful!! Have to admit that.

Problem:

It's quite difficult to catch what the lecturer is saying at the same time jotting down notes during lecture, because we won't be able to move at the same pace as the lecturer's words.

Remedy:

Listen carefully without taking down notes, then head back to room, download the online lecture and re-listen again, while this time taking down notes cause the lecture can be paused, replay, forward and stop. Great help. Moreover the lecture can be re-listen again and again to really reinforce the material presented. Sometime it could be really hard trying to catch what they (lecturers) are trying to say especially CommBank - Ms Kathy Avram, Cost Info - Dr Berekat Redda and Company Reporting - Ms Jacquline Birt (She's the second lecturer who teaches from week 2 till week 4, cause first one is Ms Wen Qu who teaches in lecture week 1 and back again to teach in lecture week 5 or 6 till week 13). Ms Wen Qu is good but a little impatient, while Ms Kathy Avram has too much patient like a grandmother that she sometimes seems to be mumbling in her own words which makes it difficult to capture what she meant.

Once again reiteration: MULO is damn good!

Quite arbitrary to just come up with this kind of typing, anyway have a good day. Sunday, hiding in room listening online lectures and researching for assignments. Cultivating the nerd lifestyle.

Daily light saving is coming to an end. Approx. around 4th April, all clocks in Melbourne would be switching/synchronise back by an hour, thus making Melbourne 2 hours ahead of Malaysia compare to now which is 3 hours ahead of Malaysia.

Eg. Malaysia 8pm, Melbourne is 11pm (Now)

Malaysia 8pm, Melbourne is 10pm (April 4th onwards)

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Queensbridge Hotel Club

Security guards, patrons hurt in nightclub brawl
March 22, 2009 - 11:30AM
About 10 security guards and three patrons were injured in a brawl at the Queensbridge Hotel this morning.
The brawl believed to have broken out at the nightclub after a woman was asked to leave the hotel about 1.25am.
Were you at the Queensbridge Hotel or do you have information about the brawl? Email scoop@theage.com.au
A security guard was forced to the ground and assaulted, while security personnel who went to his aid were attacked by about 30 people, police said.
Police believe the brawl continued outside the venue until officers arrived.
All patrons were ejected from the venue, which was shut down immediately after the incident.
Police are investigating the brawl, with detectives yet to review CCTV footage. No arrests have been made at this stage.
Anyone with any information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit http://www.crimestoppers.com.au/.
(Retrieved from The Melbourne Age, http://www.theage.com.au/national/security-guards-patrons-hurt-in-nightclub-brawl-20090322-958w.html
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Went there once on the 24th February 2009 (Post is downwards). Phew dangerous place man.

Introduction

I almost forgot that I haven't really explain my current situation here at Clayton, Melbourne. So I'm living in the Halls of Residence.It's an on-campus residence. The name of my hall is Howitt. The others are Farrer, Richardson, Deakin, Mannix, Roberts, and Normanby. It's the tallest hall located around the other halls, standing at 12th stories high. So if I'm walking back from campus centre (The so-called happening area), upon looking up and spotting the tall building, well that's my hall. It's like a primary landmark for most of the students staying there. The tall characteristic is essential especially while walking back during the night, because with that landmark, you know you're walking the right way. CLAYTON campus is damn huge alright. It's also a useful for people coming back from the Nott. The Nott is the local bar/pub where most students will go during Thursday nights. So far no one, even the locals can give me an answer as to why go to the bar on a Thursday and not Friday. My guess is, cheaper rate for beer and other alchoholic drinks for students. I just went to the Nott with Zax, Chieh Ai, Kane and Jun yesterday.

Alright back to Howitt Hall. I'm staying on the 10th floor, and of course we do have lifts here. Howitt is the only hall with lifts, because we're not going to climb flight after flights of stairs to our rooms. It's 12 floors man!. And damn I'm staying on the third highest floor. Not to say a very great view. I'm facing a Toyota Technical Centre and it can get quite noisy when cars passes by. But the view can be quite nice during the night (seeing street lights lah).

Now to my floor mates. The 10th floor has 19 residence. By the way, we don't share rooms, it's every room for a single person. I'll start by naming my floor mates: Romain from France; Tidja Joseph from Queensland, Australia; Debbie Dong from China; Caitlin from Australia (Saw her twice throughout my stay so far); Patrick Hutchens from New South Wales which is part of Australia; Jie Si from China; Bruno from Italy; Alex from Australia; Dale Cram from Australia; Veenah from Malaysia; Kane Tan from Malaysia; Zoe Sellwood from Autralia; Mitchell from Australia; Gracia from Singapore; Pear from Bangkok, Thailand; Bushan from Mauritius; Tiffany Chao from Canada; Eddie Moore from Bendigo which is part of Australia and finally me from Malaysia.

I'm staying in room 1011, which means 10th floor, room 11. My neighbours are Debbie and Tidja. Every floor has a Residential Advisor (RA), sort of a leader for the floor and they are not elected from us but part of the overall Howitt Hall administration-bureaucratic system. My floor's RA is Patrick. He's the one who we must find if there's any problem throughout our stay in 10th floor. He's studying journalism at Caulfield. Nice dude, and all RAs are like mentors to us, which includes Patrick.

My room is not very big, but it's definitely very small. It's furnished enough to keep me survive, but take note that, there's no fan at all in my room or any other rooms. Freaky at first sight but after staying for more than a month, the weather is not that bad, especially on the 10th floor. Could get quite cold after raining or during gloomy days. I do have a radiator though to keep warm, but definitely inadequate for winter. I'm planning to buy a blower which can adjust to blow hot air or cold air. Anyway now it's ending summer. It's quite weird to see the sun sets around 8pm. YES! 8pm and the sun only starts to set. Damn weird at first encounter, but slowly will get used to it. Apart from that, everything is really good. I do enjoy very much staying so far away from home. People asked occasionally whether am i homesick, and I say NO!. Why would I be homesick if I can contact home through msn. Moreover it wouldn't be wise to cultivate such attitude cause I've big plans to travel and work around the in the foreseeable future. During days which i have classes, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I'll walked for 20 minutes to the bus loop to take the FREE shuttle service to Caulfield campus. The bus journey usually takes about less than 15 minutes but could get up to 20 minutes during peak hours. That's why i selected my classes to start at weird timings.

Monday: 1pm-5pm
Wednesday: 2pm-4pm
Thursday: 11am-3pm
Friday: 9am-11am (This once exceptional)

Traveling to Caulfield takes alot of my time. So considering and will be applying to course transfer again to Clayton for next semester. Hopefully.

I shop my groceries at Brandon Park Shopping Complex. There are Coles supermarket, ALDI and K-Mart for me to get everything I need. If not enough I can go to Clayton Town to shop Asian groceries but that'll cost me some bus fee (AUD$ 2.80 for 2-hour usage), whereas Brandon Park is free cause, Monash Residential Service provides free shuttle service to Brandon Park during Saturday from 9.15am-1.15pm. Tomorrow will be heading to buy food to cook. Will be sharing cooking with 8 people, namely Arik, Kane Tan, Zax Teh, Lucien Chuah, Chieh Ai, Duvyn and Jun. I'll be supervising to cook Peppered Chicken Soup on this coming Tuesday. The other days would be different people supervising. Either Saturday or Sunday we going to cook Bak Kut Teh. Wohoooo!!! Unfortunately, besides this hyping moments, I have tons of workload to be done. Assignments lah, tutorial work lah, listening to online lectures lah, blah blah blah lah and etc. Won't be going out anyway this weekend except shopping for groceries. Oh yea, Howitt hall, ground floor got Nintendo Wee. So can play guitar hero. Wee. I prefer the drums though. ahaha!

I guess the light introduction would be sufficient to call it an overall introduction. Have a good day everyone. Oh ya, since arriving here, I had met a few people who share the same surname as me. I know it sounded lame to be so proud, but I had never met in my life anyone outside my family who shares the same surname as me. Altough the spelling may be different but the chinese calligraphy is exactly the same. They are Victor Tham and Suzzane Tham. I don't think they both know each other but I definitely know both of them.

Signing off

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Second round of earthquack.

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Korumburra rattles to its second quake in two weeks
Bridie Smith and Paul Millar
March 19, 2009
THE state shook for the second time in as many weeks yesterday as a 4.6 magnitude earthquake hit the south-east, with authorities warning that aftershocks would last up to a week.
Geoscience Australia senior seismologist Clive Collins said the epicentre of yesterday's earthquake, which occurred at 4.28pm and lasted a few seconds, was five kilometres north-west of Korumburra.
The earthquake follows the 4.6 magnitude quake on March 6 - then the largest in Melbourne in 36 years. Like yesterday, the epicentre was near Korumburra, 96 kilometres south-east of Melbourne.
"It looks very similar in size and location to the last quake," Mr Collins said. "Although, it's unusual to get a quake of a similar size in the same spot after such a short period."
He said this indicated the pressure had not been fully released by the first earthquake, which had the potential to be a lot worse.
"It's possible that instead of releasing (the pressure) in one large earthquake, it was released in two smaller ones."
Mr Collins added it was not clear if there were more earthquakes to come.
Reports of the earthquake came from a wide area, some as far as 200 kilometres from the epicentre.
Grahame Brown, owner-manager of the Korumburra Tourist Park, said he was in the shower when the earthquake rolled through his property on the outskirts of town.
"It felt like an explosion in the quarry, the whole house shook back and forwards a few times," he said. "Then the power went off for five to 10 minutes. But we've had four or five of these since January, so I suppose we're getting used to it by now."
He said there was no damage, just photographs on the walls moving to a tilt.
Teacher Ross Besley had been at a meeting at the local primary school in the town's centre.
"The whole room started to shake, and it gave us a shake; the whole street was talking about it," he said.
Rachel Waycott, working in the town's Austral Hotel, said about 15 patrons looked at each other and expected the worst as the two-storey building began to move.
"It was as bad as the last one," she said. "I was sitting in the bar and serving and the whole pub shook. I was ready to run out, as you hear things about whether the next one could be a big one."
She said the earthquake on March 6 was the talk of Korumburra and locals feared it was leading to a second, larger quake.


(Retrieved from: The Melbourne Age- http://www.theage.com.au/national/korumburra-rattles-to-its-second-quake-in-two-weeks-20090318-926o.html, 18th March 2009)

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Another round of earthquake felt here at Clayton, Melbourne. My friends felt the shake but I was on my way back from Caulfield campus. Living in the 10th floor is starting to give me the creeps. What is happening to the tectonic plates? It's no fun if earthquack happens from time to time!!

Studies are back.

My Semester 1, Year 2 subjects: Cost information for decision making (Lecturer: Berekat) ; Company reporting (Lecturer: Wen Qu) ; Accounting information system & financial modelling (Lecturer: Beaman); Commercial banking & finance (Lecturer: Kathy).

I tried relistening lectures for week 1 for company reporting and commercial banking by downloading them at Monash website, conclusion...the lecturer for the latter one is horrible. she sounded so lack of confidence about what she's trying to say. On the other hand, the former one is understandable after second hearing commence. Next is Accounting information system & financial modelling (This lecturer is good eventhough only done with the first hearing, clear and concise) and Cost information for decision making (Need to really catch he's slang- not Australian but i think is from Sri Lanka or Pakistan).

Weather is getting colder, around 13-15 degrees every morning and now it's gloomy for the past 3 days already. Autumn is approaching, and I've gotten my AUD 89.95 winter jacket from DFO, Melbourne City. It's good in the sense that it's not overly huge untill like those North Pole expedition kind of wind breaker. Just nice and can you believe I bought the size XL. Weird size isn't it, considering the Australians are generally way bigger in size compare to their Asian counterpart.

Most companies offering internships are closing their application around mid April and I haven't start writing my Resume yet. Shit! PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young, KPMG, General Electric, Credit Suisse, UBS and many more employers. Offering and marketing myself to be employed for internship experience although not required at all for my course but since I've been working since after SAM, so why not just continue on. Speaking of it, hope I'll stand a higher chance to be employed considering of my petite exposure to the corporation governance since 2 years ago.

Alright, hopefully weather is fine on Saturday, consider of heading to Clayton Town for cheap Asian groceries. I got bored with the varieties at Brandon Park every Saturday, 9.15am-1.15pm. Coles Supermarket is certainly not offering the cheapest price eventhough with the home brand products onsale. I'm going for the even more cheaper once at Clayton Town. My capital budget for the week is around AUD 30 max. for a full week of suppplies from junk to real home cook breakfast/dinner/lunch meals. Yes, I've started cooking 2 weeks ago, reason is Halls Cafe's meals are not that cheap also, AUD 5.40 for a meal compare with what I cook which cost around AUD 4 for a meal, thus saving AUD1.40 a meal, which times with average exchange rate is 2.5 times. That makes up to saving RM3.50 per meal which times around 2 meals a day is RM7 and again times 7 days a week is RM49, time again 4 weeks a month is RM196, times again 10 months is RM1960 saved and that is by approximation only because I don't cook EVERYDAY. Sometimes lazy then go down to eat for AUD 5.40 per meal. Speaking of that I've been here for more than a month. Wohhooo! Easter is coming and I can't wait to see what are the Easter Eggs as in sweets or chocolates offered here. Wonderful delight junkies. I also found the Australian made sweet "Sugar" during my visit to the city again last week Sunday. It's a very interesting sweet. Buddies back home, I'll be carrying some to your doorstep when i returned. Something to share with you all. Till then cheers again from the land of the Aussie and kangaroos and wallabies and also wombats. Have a good day!


I've join 5 societies scattered with 4 of them based at Clayton and 1 at Caulfield. Namely are: Economic & Commerce Student Society (ECSS); Monash Finance Association; Monash University Malaysian Student Union (MUMSU); SIFE and ASEAN (Caulfield). ECSS is organsing a Corporate Cocktail Night at Rydges on Swanston Street, Melbourne City from 6pm-9pm. I bought the ticket (AUD$ 10) but the problem is returning to the Howitt, because no bus operates during the night. Yes, no bus operates around 9pm. This is Australia, things closed around 5-8pm. No night rider for me to hope in, and taxis is massively expensive. Walk is dangerous considering I'm in a foreign land. Last 2 weeks ago while walking with 10 of my friends, some drunken people threw eggs at us while driving pass us. All eggs were missed, fortunately, but heck of an experience cause I've heard alot of things about eggs threwing/flying and I've gotten my dose of it. Peace man. That makes me a FUCKING foreigner in their typical language. Come'on every locals hated foreigners that comes to their country to steal their jobs considering now with the full blewn impact of the global financial crisis.

ALRIGHT FINAL BYE!