tedsta.com >> tedy

im sorry for not being able to post anything at all while i was away to QLD. it was a hectic trip with meetings everywhere and yet no internet access. I recalled that i managed to get online only twice in Uni of Queensland, and Griffith Uni (Goaldcoast), with about 15 minutes each to get my emails.

yesterday as soon as i arrived from the airport, i had to suffer the ‘i hate uni on monday’ syndrome till about 6.45pm (when my last class ended). when i reached home, i quickly decided to get online again.. just to find out that i had and still have problems with my internet connection. for some odd reason, i couldnt access any internet sites which are not hosted in Australia.. there goes my access to pretty much everyting (mail, blog, cnn, etc.)

here i am sitting at the reception table of NUS (sharon is using a computer and adrian’s mouse is not working), while the new receptionist is out of lunch. im scrambling through my mails and at the same time writing this blog.. with people busy-ing around, preparing for tomm’s NDA.

AS i look to the wall on my left, i found funny inserts:

- The four stages of Life:
1. You believe in santa claus
2. You dont believe in santa claus
3. You are santa claus
4. You look like santa claus

-Success
>At age 4 success is ……. not peeing in your pants
>At age 12 success is …… having friends
>At age 16 success is …. having drivers license
>At age 20 success is….having sex
>At age 35 success is …… having money
>At age 50 success is …… having money
>At age 60 success is….having sex
>At age 70 success is …. having drivers license
>At age 75 success is …… having friends
>At age 80 success is ……. not peeing in your pants

Ok.. i better stop hogging the iMac now……

hmm… i have been pretty down for the past few days… dun really know whats goin on really.. haha.. one of those times… and tomorrow, i might have to hand in another case study… but i havent made an attempt.. and looking at it now, will not make any attempt at all…i might bank in on the luck factor of not being collected tommorrow, oh well…

job application has been cruel. i received my second rejection letters today. so its not really encouraging. but who cares…

something funnie happen to me today, unexpectedly:

ceramics-plates,bowls,vases……: yedy?
ceramics-plates,bowls,vases……: tedy
tedsta.com: yea
ceramics-plates,bowls,vases……: heyy u know nelson??
tedsta.com: which nelson?
ceramics-plates,bowls,vases……: ur ex hsemate
tedsta.com: yea
ceramics-plates,bowls,vases……: haha he’s my cell grp member now lorh
tedsta.com: really??

then i got his number and decided to make the long overdue phone call… catchin up on thngs in the past.. we promised to catch up soon….

and yesterday, I met Allan, the bloke from berkeley. he is currently duin his PhD in maths….

Dun know why for the past week, i have met numerous ppl i wouldnt expect to meet or talk to…. its a small world…

Ok i better pack my stuff for tomm…will be a busy day (i hate Thursday).. and i have to rush to the airport after my last class to catch the flight… God, i havent even packed!… But anyway.. Brisbane.. here i come!

there are at least two people so far who have labelled me as having confused politics. this is my chance of rebuttal, and i will show you why. I like to call myself being ‘pragmatic’ but people despise me for it. On different issues, here are my take:

1. Abortion

I believe abortion should be illegal in a general sense. I believe in life on conception. However, i think that if giving birth to the child will jeopardise both, there should be strict legal protection on how this should be carried out. I think people have used tooo losely on the terms ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’. It is more of ‘pro-birth’ and ‘pro-abortion’. If it is about choice, what about the baby’s life to choose? And yes, i am a man not a woman so i will never be able to feel how it is to bear one and give birth to one. But i believe that being able to carry one, and give birth to another human being is one of the most noble thing this life has to offer to us. Regardless whether you like to have one or one too many.

2. Gay marriage

I believe that the word ‘marriage’ is reserved for the union of man and woman. I believe that the sanctity of marriage should be protected for we as human beings, have to survive and we have to reproduce. While we cant go around and make babies as we wish, they should be deferred to family and family only. By this, the family values should be protected.

However, I believe in legal union between two individuals. They should be granted equal protection before the law as well as all the benefits as if they were united under marriage.

3. Capital punishment

I reject the ability of government to ‘kill’ other people as a punishment. The government does not have the right to take another person’s life.

4. Education

I believe that education should be free for every citizens no matter where you are and at whatever cost it should be. Idealistic? Yes, but arent we living to achieve our ideals.

5. Economy

I believe in privatization and globalization only to the extent necessary. I believe in protectionism of commanding heights that are used not to benefit certain individuals or political constituents, but more of leveling the playing field.

6. IMF

I despised IMF to the core. There is no other world organisation that i hate more than this organisation. They are arrogant, self-centered, who want to be hero but fail miserably in every single occasions, if not immediate, gradually.

7. Human Rights

I believe in human rights and should be applied equally not by convenience. I strongly condemn various developed countries who coin this term only to their advantage on developing countries.

8. Defense

I believe that government should be able to protect their territorial integrity and state sovereignity. I dont agree in unilateral action nor preemptive action. I dont believe in war even though sometimes war is a necessary evil.

9. Social Welfare

I believe that government should be able to protect its citizens through various forms of social and welfare supports. Be it in health care, superannuation, minimum wage, etc.

10. Collectivism

I believe in freedom of association, freedom of speech and freedom of information. People should not be denied any of these rights. Only through collectivism we can achieve a common result towards a common goal.

And in terms of Australian political landscape, here is where i stand:

how bout u?? take your test here

catchin up with last minute works that i have been neglecting since the weekend. i had different priorities. last night, i had a one to one rematch with Shan on the Zambia-Indonesia pool competition. For the second time, i was defeated. The final score was 10-8. It was a good night. Except few Australian Idols wannabe at the karaoke room next door, who were shouting like mad. Every foul shots almost certainly were caused by the off the pitch singing… or more like… off the pitch screaming….

for some reason, i couldnt access google from this wireless thingy. either the site is down or unimelb prefers yahoo. but that wouldnt be possible. only last week i did access the site, and it worked fine.

Adrian called just now, askin me to watch Fog of War. He wanted to go at 4.30 but i wont be able to make it. We settled for a 7.05 show. It should be good. The movie is about McNamara, a Secretary of Defence in Kennedy and Johnson administration. He later became the president of the World Bank.

Anyway… off to my work again now!

The fail assasination attempt seemed to work its magic. Before the election, the incumbent President of Taiwan was projected to lose as much as 1.5 million votes in today’s election. Garnering sympathy votes, his DPP party is ahead by only 30,000 votes. He gathered 6,472,510 votes cast for the head-of-state and 6,441,912 for his opposition Nationalist Party’s leader Lien Chan. Mr Lien, is already calling for a recount. With such a slim margin, people will start questioning the mandate of the office… But for the time being, its Ah-bian again in the office! China wouldnt be happy!

today is the first year anniversary of US war on Iraq. I decided not to join the rally. I was in the rally at San Francisco and in Berkeley when US declared war last year. It was such a sad day. Everybody was making the last attempt for peace. They were unheard. Similarly like today. And what Minister Hill said, “Everybody has right to freedom of expression”.. What about the right to live???? Their justification? The world is such a better place now Saddam is gone… What a rethoric… what bullshit!!! Let me tell you something… When you went to war, what did you tell people? They have WMD, that are ready to be dipatched within 30 minutes…. NOw you are justifying the world is a better place?…..God bless…. 10,000 Iraqies are dead, 700+ US soldiers are dead… and guess what?? NOt a single Weapon of Mass Destructions…. Stop lying to us… and for your own sake STOP LYING TO YOURSELF… you actually believe in your own lies….

Enough of my rants… so what have i been doin over the weekend? Work..im so proud of myself. I havent been touching Ms Project self study for Project Management subject. Been going though all the self study sessions and im nearly finishing…. (yea.. about 150 more pages…haha)..

Tommorow, im goin to have meeting with the rest of National Office Bearers as well as the Education Officer of NUS. Yes, we are planning a National Day of Action for Fights the Fees. Bloody Howard governments dont listen to students. They were educated under a free tuition regime and yet now they are charging us more and more….They always think Education = $$$.. Thats wrong, when you start putting Dollars Value on education, thats when things spiral out of control. Yea, dun tell me about income and expenses, i am commerce student, i know enough about balancing government budget and that sorta stuff. Education is NOT an Expense. It is an Investment. The return cannot be reaped immediately. But the nation will only prosper if you have educated workfore. No study can ever denied this, not a single one!!! Oh well, so bottom line is.. we are taking them to the street on March 31st. Dunno how the turnout would be, hopefully there would be enough students and international students for that matter, who care enough!!

Just recently, the President of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian and VP Lu have been shot on the campaign trail leading to the weekend Taiwanese election. His condition was declared as not critical where little was known on the condition of VP Lu. The election will still go ahead and the President has appealed for calm.

Taiwanese and Malaysians will go to poll this weekend!

today on my way to uni, our tram has a really funky tram driver… he actually talked to the trammers through the PA system. About 30 seconds on the tram, he was like ‘ok everybody… hold on… we gonna roll….”. Everybody kept their smiles to themselves. Realising that no one really responded, he went on to say (or sing) ..’we are goin to rock and roll to uni… yea all you uni students…”. By that time, you have few giggles, and everybody burst out in laughter…

As the tram reached the uni, he wished us well “goodbye everyone…. enjoy your day in uni”… nearly everyone replied.

Amazing how a friendly tram driver changes your day. today supposed to be one of my worst day of the week, but that friendly tram driver spinned it all over for me…..

I have only one thing to say, ‘Thank you Mr Tram Driver. You made my day!!”

im still feeling guilty for not finishing (or even attempting to) my case study. its 1am now. my eyes fixed the stares at the blinking cursor. at the background, dido sounded as if she is screaming.

my screen been idle for the past 2 hours. my mind isnt at peace. i wish she was here. God, i miss her.

Got this on my email yesterday….

—————————————————————————

Travel Itinerary For:
MR ADRIAN WONG MR TEDY GUNAWAN
—————————————————————————

THURSDAY QANTAS AIRWAYS FLIGHT QF 636 CONFIRMED
25 MAR 04 – DEPART – MELBOURNE/TULLAMARINE A 2005 NON-STOP
Terminal: TERMINAL F
25 MAR 04 – ARRIVE – BRISBANE/BRISBANE INTL 2110 02HRS
05MINS
Terminal: TERMINAL DOMESTIC
– AIRCRAFT – BOEING 737 PASSENGER JET
– CLASS – STANDARD

Yea.. its one of those business travels…prolly gonna spend a weekend talking with the conference secretariat..havent confirmed the ticket on the way back, not sure of the dates, depending on how hectics we would be…. i have to also start planning for all the national executive’s travels to Sydney…. grrr.. most of them havent given me their travel details yet… they are soooo slow… annoyin!

This would be my first travel to queensland… i have been to all other states except Qld and NT. I dont think i would ever be able to travel to NT. After Sydney, i would probably head to ACT, SA and TAS. Thats my preference…i love travellin and meeting people…. escaping from reality to another reality.. hahha.. its like you feel to be in control of your life…but then, there will always be time when you have to return…