I seem to notice that many people from Malaysia were looking for Adi’s old blog, which I used to host since early 2008. Please be informed that I am no longer hosting his blog after he declared that he wanted to say goodbye to it. Yup, this blog is all me now, and all deleted subdomains (including nonexistent subdomains) will show the main page of my blog.
Sorry for the inconvenience. It feels weird that some people called me (or at least thought that I am) Adi because they misunderstood.
- With a few ESOL students @ Avondale College, and the flag Maria brought to class (120609) -
Other than admitting to the fact that I am hopelessly in love with my own name (this has nothing to do with narcissism, thank you very much), nothing particularly interesting has been going on around me lately. I’m back to being snappish, easily annoyed, feeling like wanting to sleep the whole day without doing anything and anything else that you can associate wih extreme laziness. The weather the past few days were not helping either. Waking up to a white blur out of the tall window was not a pleasant experience, just like having temperatures above 15 degrees celcius during winter was kind of uncool (literally).
I’ve been switching from books to books, one piece of writing to another, sites to sites – unable to focus on anything. Even this entry feels forced. I haven’t been updating my other journals as well. Those are just a few examples of my laziness at the moment. The biggest accomplishment during this reign of ultimate boredom is probably that I’ve managed to write over 10,000 words of fiction in a week. They’re actually pieces that I really had fun writing too.
I guess I should go back to my DS. It’s been a long time since I updated my gamelog. What a shame. It’s time to go hunting for good DS games again. I’m also putting DSi on hold. Nope, not going to buy it anytime soon, at least until they find the proper flash cart for it. I’m still extremely happy with my red DS~ I’d rather buy a second Wii or a new UMPC.
I’ll be back to feeling very, very bored after this. Huffs.
- Chocolate Steam Pudding, Chocolate Waffles, etc @ Chocolate Boutique, Parnell, Auckland, NZ. -
I went to Atie’s place with Mira at around 6.30pm last Thusday and waited for our friends from Australia to join us for a little sinfully chocolatey indulgence time at Chocolate Boutique. There were Rozi, Sarah, Umai and Kak Fad (Kelsey’s not there, though). I’ve only been there once, and I went alone last time; so it wasn’t that interesting. Since I knew we would be going as a group, I just knew it was going to be fun. I’m not the type who’s comfortable walking in a crowd, but they’re a bunch of lovely friends. Being able to join them while being known as the not-so-sociable girl (at least not anti-social) eating, talking, laughing and just having a good time with them is something I consider precious.
We took the link bus and arrived a little bit further than our destination, but it was okay. It was a short walk down, no worries. After a random camwhoring moment, we ordered for our chocolatey treats. Yummy, yummy chocolates in all forms. I ordered their Chocolate Waffles because of my sudden craving for waffles (saw the easy-cook waffles at Foodtown, but it’s not in my budget at that time), and a glass of Mocha Affogato (melted milk chocolate + 2 shots of espresso + ice cream) to slurp. Poor Atie took my espresso as chocolate and got the strong taste of coffee burn her tastebuds. Sorry dearie~
Acap arrived way too late to join the feast. The funniest think he said was probably “Where are the other guys?”, because there weren’t any (though I kind of expected Dyau to tag along, but I guess he was sleeping?) After the food, we camwhored for a while and walked all the way back to the city from Parnell. It was a pleasant experience it you don’t count the cold. My back was sweating under my jacket and sweatshirt, so no probs there. Mira pointed out to a fancy shop selling equally fancy stuff.
“Look, it’s like the Phantom of the Opera!”
That was what set Atie, Sarah and me into a long conversation about our Foundation days back in IPBA in which we parodied PotO in small groups, under the supervision of Miss Pat. I was the Phantom in my group. Sarah was a memorable La Carlotta. I still remember LOLing at her ‘Where’s my doggie?!’ lines, and the part where the (imaginary) grand chandelier fell atop her (imaginary) doggie. Fun times! We agreed that we kind of miss those days. I hope I still have the video recording of our parodies at home. I know I took them, so they must be there!
Before going home, Mira and I went to Foodtown for minor grocery shopping (because I already did most of them the ther day). Sweet night was sweet indeed, and our house was not that cold. That’s about everything for now. Some photos have been uploaded to FB, and are available for viewing here.
Myself (left), Atie and Kelsey @ Hulu Cat Tea House, Auckland, New Zealand (170609).
I have revamped the entire blog, minus the jumbled up tags, as a silent promise to make this blog more active from now onward. Yes, yes, I say that all the time, but I really hope I’m able to keep it. Why is it so hard to spend at least 10 minutes per day to write a journal entry that I can go back to in the future? I really need to work on my poor time management skills and my ability to write more serious stuff – fandom doesn’t count.
I’ve finished practicum in New Zealand last Friday. While I’m glad to not have to commute from Auckland City to Avondale College, I do feel a pang of sadness. Just a tiny wee bit. It’s not because I miss the school or the students; it’s just that it is a reminder that I now have less than a year and a half to graduate. It’s a reminder that this is my last year in the university, doing headache-inducing third stage courses, preparing for another year of training back in Malaysia. Mmhmm. It makes me nervous. So, so nervous.
Putting that aside, Mira and I left the cocoon of our warm house (not that warm, but warmer than the pre-winter chill outside, at the very least) to join Atie, Felicia, Wira, Dyau, Hijrah, Danial and Kelsey at Hulu Cat. Kelsey and Dan are here for he term break, over from Brisbane. Once there, I had a sudden craving for kare- ramen. The closest thing they have there is kare-udon (seafood, of course), so I settled on that. Yummy. The worst part, though, was the Caramel Latte. For $6, it sucked big time. It tasted exactly like Nescafe Freeze. I’ll never ever order that drink again.
Alright, that’s it for now. I have to catch the Link Bus to Chocolate Boutique, with Mira and Atie, as well as a few others. Ciao.
I seriously need to work on my holiday and practicum entries, but I’m feeling extremely lazy for lengthy recaps. And some people who asked me these questions left me thinking:
Friend A: Why aren’t your journals on Blogspot?
Friend B: What’s Livejournal?
They’re so internet savvy, so it appals me that they don’t know about Livejournal. I can be sure they have no ideas about the LJ Strikethrough that shook the blogosphere or the recent development and emergence of Dreamwidth. If you ask me to compare Blogspot with Wordpress, Livejournal and most recently Dreamwidth, I’d say Blogspot is MOST DEFINITELY on the bottom of my list. Heck, even Vox is at least ten times better.
Purpose of A Blog, and Privacy Level
Is it personal or commercial? Why are blogs suddenly popular after a few years of it’s initial existence? Why do everybody have blogs now? Some keep blogs for commercial purposes, but some wants it to be personal. It makes me wonder why personal blogs are kept on Blogspot, which offers no post privacy filters. If I want to keep it personal, and allow only a few to read my entries, or even keep the blog entries to myself, I would choose a blog provider which allows me to control ‘who can certain entries’. It’s more effective than making the entire blog private. Sometimes, you want to share your entries with select friends. Sometimes, you just want to keep them to yourselves. Sometimes, you want to share your entries with anyone at all.
This is why I love Livejournal (LJ) and Dreamwidth (DW) so damn much. Of course, I love InsaneJournal, Greatestjournal, JournalFen (IJ, GJ and JF respectively) and other LJ-based providers too, but my best experience had been with LJ and recently DW. I can make it so that my blog entries can only be read by friends who also have accounts there. I can make it so everyone in the WWW can read them. I have that freedom.
The new development of Dreamwidth (currently in open beta) is even more wonderful. New privacy options let me have greater control of my journal entries. If you were to have a look at my DW now (http://adlina.dreamwidth.org), you can only see one entry when I actually have a total of 5 entries. Same with my Livejournal. Out of 325 journal entries (I’ve been using LJ for six years~ 325 is a small number, sadly.), the public eye can only read 160 of them. The rest are either private or shared with friends, who are DW/LJ users.
Ongoing Conversation and Meaningful Discussions
LJ and DW makes me feel alive. You write something, someone clicks reply, and you can click reply on the person’s comment. In other words, the wonders of threaded comments (like Wordpress, but we all know WP is a bit slow to implement this features). Have a look at a sample comment thread from my LJ:
It’s an ongoing conversation, people. It looks alive. If you have something you disagree with, you can always argue. The arguments can continue. Other people can also join in the discussion. The thread doesn’t have to be between two people.
If you want to one person’s comments invisible to other commenters, you can screen the comments. This way, no one knows about your private discussion with the other person. You can also delete their comments if you want to.
Sense of Community
You can join and create communities with LJ-based journals. What’s the point of keeping your short stories or poetry or even songs to yourselves? Joining specific communities can help promote your artistic pieces. Share them with other people and get into discussions about them. It’s your chance to get feedbacks and even constructive criticisms. The latter is hard to come by these days. Comments of “Wow, it’s cool!” is getting so old and lame and bleh.
One of the communities I’m in helps me with my language learning. It’s very useful when you have native speakers correcting your works and help you improve. Information exchange, file sharing – you name it. We have it all.
Friends Page / Reading Page
You don’t have to individually open each blog to read your friends’ newest entries. You don’t even have to subscribe to their RSS feeds if you don’t feel like it. Just click on your friends page, without the apostrophe, (or ‘reading page’ in DW) and then you can read the entries of everyone you have access to. If you want to comment, just click on comment straight away. Easy as that. Your friends page will also show newest posts in communities you subscribe to if you don’t filter them out. I usually filter communities and individuals
You can always go to your profile and click on ‘view entries’ for friends or communities. Instant filter 
Conclusion to Friend A: No, I will never have a working journal on Blogspot.
To Friend B: I hope you have a clear idea now.
Adlina. September 26. 21 y-o. Short and on the plump side XD. Malaysian. University of Auckland. Part witty, part sarcastic. Part angsty, part carefree. Occassional and recurring DGAD (Don't Give A Damn) attitude which I never bothered trying to get rid of. Polyglot. Ambidextrous. Gamer. Creative writer. Poet. Musician. Lyricist. Cartoonist. Designer. Most importantly, future English teacher.
- W.I Adlina, W.A
