K27, meet F2T6!

To all my new classmates in K27, I'm pleased to introduce to you my ex-classmates from KMK. They were my friends and family, my brothers and sisters.

This picture is taken on the last day of the final exam. Everyone looks puffy due to lack of sleep.

[The night we had a BBQ to celebrate a whole year in KMK]

reduce stress in 3 minutes

Meditation, relaxation and visualisation are the standard recommendations for reducing stress, and they are all beneficial and useful to us in many ways, however, they are not so easy to put into use when stress strikes with it’s disruptive companions frustration, confusion, and anxiety in full attendance.

Here’s some simple steps I read from an article in ladypens.com. You can try them to diffuse stress quickly and easily, anytime and anywhere.

1. rub your forehead with both hands in vertical lines from your eyebrows to your hairline for a few moments

2. about an inch above each eyebrow you will find a bump – rest your fingertips there lightly and hold

3. take a deep breathe in and lighten the pressure of your fingertips until they are touching those points very softly

4. breathe deeply again and allow yourself to sink into how you are really feeling right now – focus clearly and specifically on the one thing that is mainly causing you stress, or anxiety

5. allow yourself to think the truth of the matter, hold the points and breathe and remain that way for a couple of minutes

6. concentrate on the area you are holding and feel for pulsations under your fingertips as the blood flow, previously diverted by stress, is restored to your forebrain. Now you can begin to think clearly again as you feel stress drain away and find yourself in control and able to choose how you wish to respond to what’s at hand.

ways to spend less

I know you guys LOVE to shop especially the girls. So here are a few tips on how you can spend less:

-make a list. When you go to the store, buy ONLY what is on your list!

-get rid of the credit cards. Keep one for emergencies if you must.

-don't go window shopping when you are bored or depressed. You will buy more than the window!

-set dollar limits. If you are going to buy a second hand car, electronics or an appliance, set a dollar limit and stick to it!!!

-sometimes buying name brand is good, because you get the quality, like tennis shoes or tools, but again, set a limit.

-avoid shopping with your rich friends or friends who shop like they are rich! You will just try to keep up and end up buying things you don't really need and that you can't really afford.

-always think practical whenever you are shopping. Always ask yourself, "do I NEED this?", or ask yourself, "is this absolutely necessary?" If your answer is yes to either or both of these questions, then you are being practical, but you HAVE to be honest with yourself!

-make a budget and stick to it! Putting the numbers down on paper will show you just where all your money is going!

RO water is NOT good!

There are some folks out there who believe that it is safe to drink distilled and reverse osmosis water, claiming there are no potential health risks - although there is never any supporting data associated with these claims, only to the contrary. These same few folks also claim that distilled water has a neutral pH... even though any litmus paper or a pH meter can see the pH is usually between 5.2 - 6pH, and drops lower as it sits exposed to open air. Why then would anyone say that it is safe to drink distilled and R.O. water, even though basic chemistry tells us differently?

Zoltan P. Rona Md MSc stated that "fasting using distilled water can be dangerous because of the rapid loss of electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride) and trace minerals like magnesium, deficiencies of which can cause heart beat irregularities and high blood pressure. Cooking foods in distilled water pulls the minerals out of them and lowers their nutrient value." He also mentioned that "distilled water is an active absorber and when it comes into contact with air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, making it acidic. The more distilled water a person drinks, the higher the body acidity becomes."

It is ok to take RO water every once in a while (once in a week) to cleanse or detoxify the system but be careful not to drink too much of it as it can be deadly.

Beware of beggars!

This actually happened to me and my friends when we were having lunch at a restaurant located somewhere in Kuantan. We were enjoying our nasi lemak and suddenly came a woman aged around 30. She asked us for RM1 and said that she was old and unable to work. We were hesitant as she seemed well enough to work. Not at all old and very healthy. We decided not to give her the 1 ringgit she asked us. After finishing our lunch we headed to Mega Mall to buy the usual necessities of a student. To our immediate shock, we saw the same woman who begged us for money walking around the mall, her hands full of Parkson plastic bags. We found out that she went shopping using the money that she had begged for earlier. So dear friends, please be careful with the strangers you meet out there. We will never know what's on their mind and we can never be too careful with them. Whenever you are going out, be aware of this kind of people. I'm not asking you to be selfish or stingy but think wisely before you act. Donating is good only if it is to the rightful receiver.

anachronism

An anachronism (from the Greek "ανά", "against", and "χρόνος", "time") is anything that is temporally incongruous in the time period it has been placed in—that is, it appears in a temporal context in which it seems sufficiently out of place as to be peculiar, incomprehensible or impossible. The item is often an object, but may be a verbal expression, a technology, a philosophical idea, a musical style, a material, a custom, or anything else closely enough bound to a particular period as to seem odd outside it.

too many questions...

In one of our previous class we played a game of questions. I do not know the actual name of the game but according to it's one rule, we had to answer a question with another question. So we played the game and started asking questions. The questions were answered with another question and that question was answered with yet another question. So after too many rounds and too many questions my brain was getting exhausted and tired of hearing another sentence that finished with a question mark. Then one of my classmates came out and the battle of questions was on...again. She was good (no doubt in that) and she did beat me. But in the end I just felt that too many question can be plain boring. And for once I would really like to hear a sentence that ends with a fullstop.

A Special Relationship

Since before I came to UMP I've been reading a book by Douglas Kennedy (for those who didn't know, he also wrote the best-selling novel-turned-movie Pursuit of Happyness). It took me quite a while to finish it as the beginning was a bit too slow. Not too mention the lack of free time I have here in UMP. Only recently did I have the chance to finish reading it. The story only gathered it's pace after two thirds of the whole paperback book and suddenly I felt like I can't let go of it.

So, the story was about a single anti-marriage American journalist who finds herself thrown into a foreign life in a far more foreign world. She suddenly find herself pregnant and married to a British foreign correspondent whom she only knew for a few months. She eventually had to move to England and try to adapt with the totally different lifestyle. She had the most difficult delivery and was shocked by her husband's sudden act of trying to separate her from her baby. Left with literally nothing she tried to win her son back.....and she finally did.

The story made me think of how unexpected the world, or life, could be. We can plan all we want but in the end it depends on the will of God, or karma, or whatever you want to call it. Things can go our way all the time and suddenly there's a drastic change of luck...and everything can just seem so wrong.

my first technical english class in UMP

For our first period of English we were suppose to introduce ourselves. In order to do that we had snowball fighting. The snowballs were made of a piece of paper on which we each wrote something about ourselves and they were thrown randomly. At the end of the fight we each got a 'snowball' with the description of one of my new classmates and we had to write a poem for him/her. So here's what I wrote about my new classmate, Dilla..

I got a clue that she's wearing a golden ring on her left finger,
I found out later that it was given by her mother.
She introduced herself to me as Dilla
and she looks a bit like my friend Mashitah.
She came all the way from Penang
but I seldom hear her speak with a slang.
She said if she had one wish
she would like to be an angel,
So that while the world is getting hectic
she can fly high from the troubles.
She is about 155cm tall but her dreams are way taller,
She loves chicken rice because to her it's like her favorite platter.
Dilla is one of my cheerful classmates
and I hope we'll forever be friends
if not good, then great.


written by Nurul Afiqah Abdul Rahim (K27)