Camera decisions

After the incident that I have yet to tell you guys, I'm now left with a decision to buy a camera. Although I'm slowly getting use to not having a camera everywhere I go and not having the urge to whip out my camera to take pictures of everything, I really want to get one to replace my *sigh* "lost" camera.

A blogger needs a camera. Period.

How else is she not to blog about stuff?

I need a camera. Period.

How else am I going to capture my memories of being an undergraduate and when I'm traveling around the world? I'm going to Peru in January and dropping by Manchu Pichu.

I NEED A CAMERA.

Amazon.com is my best friend now. I am constantly on that website checking to see if the prices of the camera that I want has gone down.

It actually did. Initially the camera that I wanted was around USD 245, but now it has dropped to about USD 229! That's around USD 15!!!

But I'm still waiting for Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Who knows I may get a super super crazily cheap deal..

There's two cameras that I'm kinda contemplating.

One is the Lumix TZ5 camera.

It has 10x optical zoom and that is super important for me since my old Canon S5IS had 12X optical zoom.

And I have always been complaining how my old camera was soooo bulky. This camera cost about USD 229.






The second camera that I'm thinking of is the Nikon D40. I have always thought of getting a DSLR but since I already had a semipro camera, my Canon S5IS, I couldn't really get another DSLR because it was the same shape.

But now...

And the pictures that this camera takes is awesome. Its currently ranked no.3 on the Amazon list of DSLR. The only drawback is that its old. There's new series out now, like the D80 or D90 which of course cost around USD 1300!!! CRAZY!

But if I'm really serious about taking pictures, I should get this.

But I want a compact camera too...

And I don't really know how to use the functions of this camera. I would probably only use its auto setting. I have no idea what is aperture, shutter speed, white balance, ISO settings, and stuff. So reading the reviews doesn't really help.

Oh yea, and this camera cost USD 430. Big leap from my USD 230. But...







Ah... my fellow blogger friends.. please help me to decide.

How?

Increasing appetite

Swimming has increased my appetite soo much its scary!!! You can't believe how much I'm eating right now. I don't know if its a good thing or not but because I'm swimming, I don't care how much I eat anymore.

I swim Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and right after these practices, I just can't wait to get into the cafeteria and start my breakfast. I eat a bowl of rice with a sunny side egg, white omelette with sausage, tomatoes and onions, nato (Japanese fermented beans), a bowl of miso soup, a few harsh browns, a glass of apple juice and sometimes if they have it, a bowl of grapes. I end up feeling so full after that but its soooo satisfying.

And you know what's weird? My shit recently has started to "float!". ahha.. =.= can you tell if that's a healthy sign?

Do you think I should go on a detox plan for the stuff that I eat? I barely eat vegetables actually because veggies here are all raw unlike Chinese food. I don't really like salad. Urgh... Maybe I should try the orovo detox. But my shit looks healthy. Hmm...

Television Maniac

I know this is super bad but having a TV in my room is really a luxury for me. =) Although I can safely say that I'm not exactly super addicted to my TV but it does take up some of my time that can be used for reading or doing my never-ending homework. But I certainly do learn stuff from it though, especially with the news and the recent election craze. All the weird proposition advertisements are kinda amusing. Prop 8 which aims to ban gay marriages, prop 3, and so on.. I can't remember them. I wonder how can people remember what prop stands for what when they go up to the election booth?

I usually watch TV 20 mins before I sleep. When the lights are off and I'm ready to go to bed. This way, I wont feel too guilty for watching TV and not doing my homework although it usually doesn't make any difference because even if I don't watch TV, I end up doing something else.

*That was a long sentence!* Haha..

My TV is considered quite large actually. And I'm super happy with it. But I wonder how it will feel like to have Viewsonic monitors? Hmm... not that I want it at any moment.. =P

We are now considered dinasours!

Remember the time when we used to have to bring around large hard drives to save our stuff? And USB flash drives were around USD 50? Now you can get one for less than USD 20 depending on the size! And the memory storage is getting bigger and bigger. I remember when I was in high school, the maximum was 1GB! Now it can go up to 64GB! Crazy!!!

Memory sticks are so convenient now. You can bring it around anywhere you go and copy your friend's pictures or send a document without having to bring your laptop everywhere you go. I wonder what will people invent next?

Goodness always prevail

I was browsing through New York times a while ago and I came across this article that brought my attention. I normally am only interested in world news and I was interested in this particular article because the guy's picture was next to the title "Chinese Activist wins Rights Prize."

He looked familiar because I wrote a paper about him last semester in my Intro to Human Rights class. That time, we were given assignments to write our views on a newspaper article. And the article was about Hu Jia, who was arrested because of what he wrote in his blog about the communist government on violation of human rights. I remember writing about how the Chinese government was violating the civil rights of the people by not giving them freedom of speech. I even remember reading about his poor wife who just gave birth at that time and was put into house arrest. Imagine stumbling upon the same guy again and this time, he is winning a prize for his actions.

Good always triump huh!

Too bad the Chinese government isn't happy about this.

Economic Crisis

I'm not a big fan of economics and certainly am not an expert on economics either but one of my professor has been talking about the economic crisis that is plaguing the US almost every class. It doesn't really affect me right now but I know its a big thing. Newspapers have written it to be the biggest economic crisis ever, comparable to even the Great Depression. And even when I watched the news, sales in California have dropped over 1.7 percent!!!

People are not shopping as much anymore! They interviewed people on the street and these people were saying how they are now only buying really basic necessities!

How scary is that???

I really don't understand economics and how this can happen. If US economy is falling, the whole world will definitely be affected. But how can this happen? Why is the whole world facing financial crisis at the same time? If it is the whole world, why does it matter? I'm not even sure if you get what I mean.

Anyway, one thing I know, according to the web hosting blog is that the internet is the one that is least affected by the economic crisis. More and more business are growing from the internet and people are making money out of it. Its interesting how people can gain millions just from a website. I wanna do it too. I'm sure you want to too!!! But how?

Creativity definitely helps! Passion and commitment too!!! If you found a good idea, remember to call me! =)

Did u notice that?

Check this out!!! Its hilarious!!! Haha...

Did you manage to count it?

Did u see anything interesting?

wahahaha...

Kinda scary at the same time right? There are so many things around us that we don't notice and bad things happen to us because of it. I know I didn't notice what I was suppose to see..

Did u?

Where did my swimming pool go?

Ahhh... my university's pool has no water inside!!! How am I going to swim??? Ahhhh... Help!!!!




Its been like that since I came back in September. Something to do with piping system.. Not sure what's the problem. But main thing is, its summer and I can't f*cking swim!!!

Boohooo...

And you know what the swim team is doing now? Instead of starting our practices at 7am in our own pool, we have to now meet at 6am to drive down to a nearby high school to use their pool!!!



Less one hour of beauty sleep is really important!!!

Argh!!! I can't wait for our pool to be fixed! No more disgusting gums stuck on the walls of the pool, hair floating around and weird bread on the floor of the pool.

High school students are disgusting. >.< No offense.

My coach told us he predicts it will be done by next week. Hopefully sooo!!!

Four-eyed you!

I used to be very jealous of people with perfect vision. Though I still am sometimes because of the inconvenience associated with wearing glasses but now, I kinda treat wearing glasses as part of my everyday accessory. Kinda like my big-hoop earrings.

I just bought a red Armani glasses during the summer holidays and I absolutely love it. Though it wasn't cheap and I didn't really think I deserved it but.. Hehe.. Thanks mum!

I used to wear contact lenses when I was in high school and I still do occasionally but its getting less and less now. I think its has been over 3 months since I last wore my contact lenses. Its such a nuisance wearing them especially if you're late for classes and my eyes get sooo dry wearing them!

Eyeglasses can be really cheap nowadays. Did you know you could actually get a pair of prescription glasses online for only $8?

This cost $8!

I don't really know what is the in-trend for frames now but I always have a soft spot for dark-rimmed glasses.

Not those thick plastic ones but those stainless steel ones.

Nerdy but sexy! =)

ZenniOptical.com sells all sorts of frames online, from single vision lens, to sunsensor lens, tinted sunglasses lens, bifocal lens, and progressive lens. They have such low prices is because they sell their own manufactured frames directly to the customer, without going through any middleman.

Breaking my "Promise"

I know I'm gonna sound very bimbo-ish in this post but.... I HAVENT SHOPPED IN A MONTH!!!!

Haha.. Can you believe it? Maybe you don't know me or you basically don't really care but for a crazy shopoholic like me, its a super BIG deal!!!!

Do you know how much I have shopped in the past few months? Especially when I was back in Malaysia. I basically bought like 10 tops every two weeks!!!!!!!

Even after I got back from the US during the summer holidays and realized how much of my parents' money I have spent during my year in US, I still continued to shop like crazy.

Until I came back for the new semester, unpacked my stuff and realized how much more stuff I actually owned compared to the normal student in the university! I was shocked for the first time and faced with the prospect of "what the hell am I going to do with all the stuff that I have collected when I graduate?"

Its only a year and I already have 4 big boxes of rubbish! Multiply this with 3 more years and by the time I graduate, I'll have 12 boxes!!! What am I going to do with them?

That's when I told myself that I will refrain from shopping.. tooo much.

I told myself I will not get into my favorite clothing store without a proper reason to buy something of a necessity! And I succeeded! I didn't step into Forever 21 for one whole month!!!

And I didn't buy any clothes for one whole month either!!!

Yay!!! Congrats to Princess Shin.

And the funny thing was, the other day, I felt enough was enough and I should reward myself for being such a good girl. Adding to the fact that I felt homesick too. I told myself I'm going to buy something for myself that day.

But I walked into Forever 21, and I couldn't bring myself to buy anything.

For the first time, I walked out of Forever 21 empty handed!!!

Hooray for the month of September!

Unfortunately I walked into another clothing store last Sunday and found this cute black baby doll dress for $10 and I bought it! Whahaha...

Bad Luck in gadgets

Ahhh... Time and time again shows me that I have terrible luck with gadgets. First my 6 month year old blackberry was broken by me. Yup! Clever me right? I was trying to take out the sim card from the phone and suddenly, the whole sim card slot came out. And there goes my precious blackberry.

I then used my old Samsung phone again but within months, something went wrong with the antenna and I couldn't receive any signal anymore. Someone suggested cell signal booster but I don't think that would have helped my 3 year old phone.

Then, my dad gave me a new phone and it was snatched away by a very evil man which I will one day elaborate further.

Cody gave me his ancient Nokia phone which actually is not bad because at least it functions but just recently the screen doesnt show pictures anymore. I have no idea why.

Am I destined to live in the stone age? =.=

Safety First

I have always had a car since I started to drive. It was not my own personal car but my parents' car but I had the freedom to use it anytime I want. However, I didn't really take any particular safety measures besides locking my car.

I know of people that lock their steering wheels with those long stick stuff, ball lock pins, or even lock their gears. I don't know but I never felt the need to do that. Its that a little too paranoid?

But now.. I don't really think so anymore. Can we be too safe? Especially with the world now? Sigh..

Holiday anyone?

Me and my friends have been spending almost the whole year discussing what we can do during the holidays. We actually have a few holidays, summer holidays being the longest, winter break, spring break, and the short ones being Thanksgiving holiday and so on.

College time is the best time to travel. Once u get past this stage, when you have a career and all, its hard to take off days from work to travel. I know my working friends have only around 20 days a year to take leave. And even then, they may not be able to get it. Its crazy!!!

One of the suggestion is to go on cruises. I always liked the idea. Being on a beautiful ship, living in luxury, doing everything on that ship. Though I wonder don't people get bored? I know there's a cruise that goes to Alaska. That would be interesting. I wanna try that someday.

My professor's love story

We were talking in class today about how different genre's of movies affect our lives.

Comedy in the sense that it is a natural procession of life, hero faces obstacles, hero grows from it, and hero marries the girl of his dreams and have lots of children. If you notice, all comedy ends in marriage.

Did u notice that?

Melodrama are basically stereotype lives and full of cliches. It is always predictable. How many times have u watched a drama and guessed correctly what was going to happen next? I know I did. Then why do we continue watching it? Its because we want to be assured that we are not alone in this world, that the problems that we face are also faced by people everywhere!!!

What about farce? Farce essentially blows things out of proportion. It mocks life, do the opposite of what is supposedly demanded from society and make it excessive.

Its breaks nature.

And you know what example my professor gave to show what is an example of farce? He told us that it is his wife birthday today and she doesn't want anyone to know her age because she feels sad that she is no longer as pretty and youthful as she was in her 20's, 30's, 40's and even 50's. Yup, I'm guessing she's around her 60's. She doesn't want anything to do with her birthday.

And do you know what he does?

He celebrates her birthday all the same, not for one day, but for A WEEK!!!! He gives her present every single day for the week to make her happy and feel good about it.

And he has done if for many years already.

He say he will do it no other way. Coz this makes her feel good. At least she is here or else he would be left all alone.

What is the alternative of growing old?

Dying.

You have to be alive to grow old.




How romantic is that?

Sigh.. I want to have this kinda husband too.. *hint*