At last, I can blog!

After so much waiting to be able to open the posting page, at last, I could post an entry to my blog from my room! It's about time, too, you know? Sigh...

For the past few days, we have done some serious work. Our SPM results are expected to be issued on the 13th or 14th of March 2006, therefore our student leader has thought that perhaps we should apply for a leave to obtain our results. The leave has to be applied because that week itself might be affected by our tests. We have to ensure that no tests are being held on the week when our results are issued. In order to have proper planning, our student leader has decided to appoint representatives from every programme, so I am appointed as the representative for the Civil Engineering Programme whereas Jared is appointed for the Information Technology and Business Information System representative (why two programmes, you say? Because there are only 80 students in both programmes).

We had to discuss about the reasons to why we want to have a leave, drafting of the letter to our Programme Head, etc. There is quite a lot of work and planning to do, and all of us pray that we will be granted the leave that we are applying.

During the discussion, I had a pleasant surprise! Our lady student leader happened to be passing by the cafe, so we asked her to join our discussion, which she did. We briefed her quickly and concisely about our plannings, and she seemed quite attracted to our plans. Then towards the end of our discussion, we began to exchange telephone numbers. Out of nowhere, suddenly she said, "Ni de hao ma?" And I was like, "I beg your pardon?" She repeated the same words and after a while did I realise that she was asking for my telephone number in Mandarin! Her words actually translates into, "Your telephone number?" My jaw dropped instantly! After all, who would expect a Malay girl (oh, I didn't mention that she's a Malay girl, huh?) to converse so proficiently in Mandarin? I told her that I was immensely surprised and impressed (and er... Jared... never mind). I wanted to know how long and since when has she learnt Mandarin. She told me that she was educated in Mandarin during her primary school life in Port Dickson, but didn't continue anymore during her secondary school education (for your information, she's the daughter of a prominent member of society [Who you may ask? Find out yourself!])

Sigh... from that moment onwards, I find myself conversing with her in Mandarin more than English or Malay, much to Jared's chagrin (*shakes head*). Just this evening, I was about to say something to her in English when she spoke to me in Mandarin, "Going for dinner?" I forgot at that instant that she knows Mandarin, and I was quite blur. Then, my memory came back and I answered her back, "Yes... to dinner." Hmmm... strange. I'm in a university where students are strongly encouraged to use English while communicating, and here's a Malay girl who would like to converse with me in Mandarin!

I'm going to be busy for the next few weeks, with co-curricular activities now and all the what-nots. Oh, by the way, I've just discovered that there is an mIRC server for UTP. I discovered that we can download songs and movies from mIRC, much to our joy. I first tried my hands on downloading some mp3 songs. Then, I saw that the queue was quite long, so I thought that it's going to take a very long time for the queue to reach me (because the Internet connection here is extremely slow!). After a while, I realised that the queues became shorter and shorter (I thought that somebody else cancelled their queues; I thought that they couldn't wait any longer). Then, after a few moments, I was asked if I wanted to receive a file from the server. I clicked, "Accept" and much to my surprise, and especially Jared's, it took only one or two seconds to download a 3 MB file! My reaction was, "WOW! That was SO FAST!" (I can't print Jared's. You ask him if you want to know.) I lost no time trying to download movies. I downloaded Madagascar in mIRC. It's a 700 MB file, and it took me only 10 minutes to download it. Surprised? Well, so was I.

Then, I got to know from Jared that mIRC is actually illegal because it takes up most of the Internet bandwidth (now that explains why the Internet connection is so slow... oops!) But, the Student Representative Council (SRCUTP) has discussed and wanted to propose to the Information Technology and Media Services (ITMS) Department to allow students to subscribe to their own broadband services, at their own expenses, of course. Well, it's good news to many, if not all.

OK, I'd better stop here now. Jared is waiting patiently for me to finish my last sentences. He wants to download songs, too (who wouldn't want to now?). OK, I'm done! *At this point, Jared is looking rather apologetic* (He was looking at me typing all the while. Kind of strange you know? Well, there's a first time for everything. By the way, I once looked at him writing a testimonial for me. Now, that would be even weirder, huh?)

P/S: Jared, no need to look apologetic. I've nothing to write either.