Lobo's Lessons

Got my new Dell Inspiron 1464 about 2 weeks back. Paid about RM2600 for it. That was after paying about RM2300 getting a second Macbook to replace the one that got stolen from my car 4 months back. Ouch... Anyhoo, back to my new Dell Inspiron. Loved the whole thing. Looked awesome. Performed good on graphics and video editing. In short, all that I was looking for for that price range in a laptop. Except for one... The batteries absolutely SUCKED! I only managed to get about 2 hours doing the most basic tasks. Then I read up on them, and found that they should last about 2.5 to 3 hours. Felt I was being shortchanged. Looked up on the website. Registered for this and that. Filled in the forms. Sent the complaints, Felt confident as they said they would respond within next working day. Waited 2 days... Nothing. Got agitated, and spent 30 minutes on the website, trying to figure out who to call. Finally got a number. Was asked to key in my Express Service number or something. Keyed that in...

Image credit here It's funny how during the semester there's never enough time. It's classes, then consultations, then meetings, then vetting, then preparations for the upcoming LSP Conference in KL, then preparations for NZ... The list just goes on and on... Throughout this whole time you're thinking to yourself I'm just so busy, and I can't take this anymore, and I wish it would stop. And then it does. Suddenly before you know it, you're saying your farewell speech, and wishing the students good luck for their final examinations. The students hug you and with tears in their eyes, telling you how much they have enjoyed studying under you... They give you cards and presents, and stuff you with food... And then it hits you that you are going to miss them... A lot... No more joking with them... No more ordering them to sing when they come late for class... No more slagging them when they slack off... Even though it happens every semester, the cycle rarely chan...

Technorati Tags: New Zealand It’s been a long 6 months. Every day dedicated to a singular purpose – to make sure I could get the scholarship to New Zealand, and to make sure that I can actually get to go. In the past 3 months I have had to make countless trips to KL to find a guarantor, to get his signature, to come down again to Johor only to find out that I missed one line which required me to get the signatures of both my guarantors, which inevitably meant going back up to KL to get them again… And also to Putrajaya to get a letter of good conduct, by which I had to prepare a statutory declaration in court of my good behaviour… Not to mention going to countless trips down to the panel clinic for immigration to New Zealand and Australia (which can only be found in one place in the whole Johor state), getting referred to the specialists for some anomalies in my bloodwork (of which is attributed to fatty liver)… And finally the trip to Orchard Road in Singapore to apply for...

SCENE 1: CAMERA VIEW: POV Me at Woodlands Checkpoint. Singapore customs clearance. Filling in disembarkation form. I finish writing everything and hand over my form, along with my Passport and IC to the rather stern-looking female Indian Customs officer. She takes my documents. She looks at the documents. She looks up at me. She looks at the documents again, and says "Abdullah Mohd Nawi... Ooooo... Melayu kaa? Saya ingat Cina...." (Translation: Abdullah Mohd Nawi... Ohhhh... You're a Malay? I thought you were Chinese...) CAMERA VIEW: My face (Closeup) ...wtf?... FADE