What makes this experience here in the United States so special is the locals and I believe that in traveling it is the local people that will make the trip a more fulfilling one. Those that I have met should it be either our graduate mentors, our lecturers, our host family or even the local towns people, they have really gave me the opportunity to learn so much about them.

After all that is said and done, I have only one conclusion and it is that the American people are one of the nicest, most honest and strong people I have ever met.

Thank you Dr.Foster, Dr.Jackson, Mrs. Foster, Mrs. Jackson, Drew, Cary, Onur, Joel, Jennifer, Dr.Brown, Emily, Selin, the Wagners and to all those who had work so ahrd to made our experience an unforgettable one.

To the people of the United States, I say this to you for I shall return…one day.

From left: Dr. John Jackson, Dr. John Foster and Dr. John Jackson's wife

It really is interesting on how much I love attending classes compared to the ones back home. Not only that the topics are ridiculously interesting, the way that it is presented really pulls my interest and stimulates the mind. I so hope classes would last longer here which is such an opposite back home. Now I see why the education system here is of such high standards.

They and I mean the system isn’t designed to kill your interest and create mindless subservient drones, they nurture it. I’ve asked more questions in class than I have ever done in my entire primary and secondary education combined. It’s been almost a week of classes and I’m always looking forward for more.

Our gradute mentors. From left: Joel, Selin, Jennifer, Cary, Drew and Onur.

A small reception was also held in our honor with the mayor of Carbondale Brad Cole and various staff past and present from the university attending. It was a small get to know each other session as we were also introduced to our lecturers who would be getting more than they had hope for teaching us for the next few weeks.

The Malaysia delegation with the president of SIU. From the right: Faizal, Sabina, Joanne, Glenn Poshard, Fareeza, Farah, Ridwan and me of course. XD

1. A full formal suit.
2. Playstation 3. <—–I foresee this coming sooner then I expect.
3. A wardrobe upgrade. <—-I so need to get better clothes.
4. A new handphone!!! Preferably an Iphone but not likely.
5. A HD pc monitor with a new 1T hard disk.
6. My internets….

Why 6 you might add? Its because I can.

I’m now having my so called holidays after months of controlled chaos. Its starting more like becoming a driver ferrying people around and doing random task here and there. I need to get some 12 hours sleep and lie down marathoning anime the entire day to call it a holiday. Hopefully its gonna be more relax in the coming weeks. Still have to deal with quite a few backlogged work. Urgh…

In other news, looks like I’ll be heading off to Illinois in a months time. Well, its Southern Illinois University Carbondale to be exact for the Study of the US Institute program in New Media I got selected for not long ago. Looks like I’m gonna be going right smack to the center of the North American Continent. This is gonna be one very interesting 5 weeks of my life and I’m gonna mention it again by saying that I’ll be sharing with you my few readers on what I will be learning about, seeing and experiencing on my blog and also on Twitter(hopefully) as log as i have an internet connection that is.

Speaking of internet connections, I’m upgrading my internet connection which has one very troublesome process of doing to a higher speed so no internet at home for the meantime while the upgrade is being done. This is such a bitch in having go through internet withdrawal every few hours. Urgh…but it does feels nice to post random stuff though. XD

*This is a pre-scheduled post.*

The beginning of the year started off really bad with heartaches after heartaches. Living everyday was like a zombie living with the only purpose of eating brains. Sad. Pathetic really.

Then came the build up to Daicon. The event that I put my heart and soul in. It was all fun and dandy until politics kicked in and people who I once though as my friends became my foes. It pains me to see such an occurance but alas that is life.

My internship was a first taste of a standard salary man lifestyle. Very stable if I do say so myself but very boring as well.

Cosplayers. Geez…this was the year I finally came out of my shell and met so many great people in the cosplay community. Seeing them giving their best from making their costumes to trying their bestest in being in character really encourages me to organise more cosplay related events for them.

AFA09 was great other from me going all crazy at the end due to amassing tiredness. Apologies to my cousin Janice and Crystal if I scared you there. I feel if I was more energized it could be even more fun. My first full attempt at cosplaying as well. Not very well executed. Need more practice.

Cosplay photoshoot. I’ve been learning alot from every photoshoot I get invited too. Really happy got to meet many photographers as well like Aoshi and Linkinstreet and cosplayers alike too. Now I really need to upgrade my equipment cause I’m at my limits at what I can and cannot do with what I have. Any sponsors?

Last but not least….I’ve met someone. That certain someone was the one who lifted me up from all my deepest depression period ever. All these unexpectedly too for the both of us and I’ve never been happier in my entire miserable life…until today. Its about 2 months till the time of this writing since we’ve been together. No regrets. Thank you dear.

But what do I see in 2010? Organizing one of the biggest event I’ve ever conducted in my life, finally finishing my studies and starting my own company might be somewhere in there I guess. But anyway, Happy New Year to all my readers and all my family and friends and I wish you all a good health and great prosperity!!! Time to think of a new resolution this year. Maybe loosing weight may not be such a bad idea i think…

P/s: I wish a slow and painful death to all my enemies. XD

The more I think about it the more I feel confused. What am I trying to achieve here? Where am I going? What is the reason for all of this? All these done and to what extent of such said benefits? Seriously? None. Met a lot of people, learned a whole new bunch of stuff but I still do not feel…happy?

Never ending questions float around in my head everyday seeking to find some sort of a satisfying answer. But then again no answers on life are never clear. There are things that bothers me and often times it does alot and I have to find acceptance somewhere along the long road ahead. Things never ever goes my way and though I’m never the lucky person to ever being associated with I’ve tried my best. I’m tired. Mentally and physically.

For what’s its worth at least knowing that I’ve tried my best to the fullest of my extend all this while might not give me any regrets when I’m down 6 feet under one day. Well, maybe.

In other news, I’ve finally upgraded to the latest version 3.8.2 of Wordpress after seemingly too lazy to upgrade from version 2.6. I have to say that it looks pretty nice. Now I have to start redesigning the site to something more visually pleasing. Speaking about the site, its almost time for me to renew the domain name and the site itself. Which also means it gonna be Clowonline.com’s first anniversary. Yeah!

But…should I maintain the domain name or should I change it to something more catchy and memorable? Any ideas?

Me? A peon? Not quite true!

After 3 weeks of work I’m finally getting used to it. Although there is the matter of sleep debt and a whole lack of it I still have to say it beats having to study for exams. For the past couple of weeks I’ve tend to realized a couple of things while working. For starters, I’m apparently addicted to the internet in a sense that if you take it away from me at the office I’ll go crazy after a while killing everyone in the office then curling up into a fetal position at the corner of the room and then die slowly withering like a flower without water. Okay, no not really but still it becomes unbearable when you have nothing to do between assignments workloads.

Eating alone is so much fun! No, not really. Since I’m the ONLY intern here its kinda expected. I could eat with my fellow co-workers but seeing how I’m always on a shoestring budget(or until the end of this month) I do not see a point in doing so. On a side note, having cold pre-packed chicken rice from Carrefour for 3 days straight does not make it taste any better nor addictive at all. Well, at least it gets the job done by filling up my stomach. Kinda. How I wish there’s a nasi campur stall nearby at a time like this.

Just like how most people like to read the newspaper in the morning I have the tendency to check out bbcnews.com for the latest news reports…in the office. Unfortunately, I try not to access a certain Sankaku Complex due to its *ehem* non-work safe news. Other than the occasional workload that I usually complete in no time at all (freaks surprises my supervisors out every time), I’m pretty much quite free in the office. Heck, I even got some DaiCon work done as well.

Going to work in the morning takes me 30ish minutes to get from my house to the office door but it takes twice that time to go home. I hate rush hour traffic.

Overall, I’m still learning new stuff everyday but I still miss the ol’classrooms and the same consistent food around campus. Pffft…hell no.

I won’t really call this a honeymoon break but I do hope it becomes that way in a sense. I need a rest. I have stuff carried forward in my head that would make a can of Surströmming to shame. Hopefully, I’ll have more time on my hands to so what I want but its gonna looks like a long shot. I’m also gonna be working during the weekends for Lolitech Logitech again till the end of June.

Working 7 days a week non-stop. Heh. I sometimes wonder why do I punish myself like this. I just hope I’ll keep sane till the end of the month and not go into a murderous rampage of mass self destruction.

But looking back at the progression of the exam I realized that it reminded me of an RPG style scenario typically found in most Role Playing Games that I used to play. Therefore, I have taken the liberty in describing my experience in such a manner as if you are playing a RPG which can be seen/read below.

“…It was time at last. After level grinding for what can be seen as an eternity(4months) and multiple side quest later(in which some side quest were basically abandon or failed completely) Ihad finally reached the front gates of the ultimate FREAKING lair of the FINAL boss of the game. Seeing how this was not a typical Square-Enix RPG you are to fight and end the game all by yourself. So basically helping your other party members to level up and get the best equipment of the game is a waste of time.

So in a typical fashion you  go pass the short dungeon before reaching every boss fight. So last minute leveling are definitely a must(every night). The first boss was scary, at first I thought that I did not bring enough items, leveled enough or even used the best weapon and armour I can find but then again surprisingly the battle was quite okay. Second boss was a bit tricky. Barely defeated that one. 3rd one wasn’t a problem. 4th one was a bitch and it said “THIS IS NOT THE END!!!” when it went down. Typical boss death quote I tell you but I do hope it stays just that.

Anyways, after the 4 previous bosses are what we usually call in RPG’s as sub-bosses who appears before the main boss fight to soften you up before the final battle. The fifth one? The ultimate uber boss that you fight of the entire game. Over 9,000,000,000 HP, high stats and also multiple status and element resistant. It was INSANELY HARD. Really, it was. I died. The only action I was able to do was to select the ‘attack’ command once and I got stepped on for a whopping 99999 damage. WOOT! My damage inflicted? Well…1…maybe. And I suspected it was pitying me for that. I could have sworn i saw it shed a small tear.

Interestingly, I was allowed to sit for a battle with the six boss which was in fact can be considered a mini boss fight. Any boss fights or battles after the final boss are mainly just for show in RPG’s cause you’ll definitely win. End of game.”

Anyways, it seems I have to fight the final boss again from the last save point to unlock the ultimate game achivement of being able to proceed to the next level. Not to mention, apparently all this while I have been fighting the wrong 3rd boss. It seems to be an optional boss that I was not suppose to fight and now I have to refight the REAL 3rd boss in order to get the FULL TRUE ENDNIG. Heh. They both look and named almost the same. It was confusing. I blame the game maker for making such confusing menus.

Sigh. I hate my life…and here I thought I had it all figured out and yes my words are cryptic.

Maybe I’ve lost my purpose in life. Maybe I’ve forgotten what is my life purpose. I know what I have to do and need to do that’s for certain but…what’s my reason for being?

In anycase, I need to find back my raison d’tre.

Well, from what I heard apparently we CANNOT bring it on a plane. Heh, maybe the airline company sees it like this instead:

I so need to get some proper sleep…