elvy's little world

Second Life

2008-04-16T21:01:00.002+02:00

In Marketing class last week, one of the topics discussed was marketing mediums. The prof gave some examples like web 2.0 (and web 3.0, web 4.0... WTH? i've never heard of these terms before!? (i can hear louis saying "lame...")) and second life. I've heard about this game since a few years ago through joi ito and another blog that I used to visit daily, but have never been interested in playing since it's just daily life in virtual world. So what's the point?

Now that my prof mentioned it as a popular medium for ads, I got curious, so I visited the site to find out more about the game.

" The Creations

The Second Life world is a place dedicated to your creativity. It's about dreaming of something one moment and bringing it to life the next."

Heh.
That means I could make my own clothes and wear them anytime, anywhere I like! yesh!
So I registered (why can't we choose our own last name? meh!), activated the account, downloaded the software and installed it.

Now I'm ready.
Let's see if I can make gothic lolita and keira-knightley-as-a-man-in-PotC style clothes. Hihihi...

The Job

2008-03-28T11:47:00.001+01:00

I finally got a job. yippee!!!
The pay is low, but at least I'd have some income. I'd be working as a kitchenhand in an asian restaurant. I went there last night for a trial. What I did was mainly dishwashing, but I helped with rolling sushi and other stuff as well, so I guess the job is actually dishwashing + a standby.

I'd love to learn how to make sushi (and sashimi and maki and any other variations of them :D), theirs are really good. The sushi chef gave me the one with smoked eel to try. Yummy!

For dinner the other chef made me a bowl of udon with salmon. It was also very good, but the portion was much too big for me. And there was too much salmon for my taste, even if I'm a fish fan. hehe...

The Missing Flatmate

2008-03-27T11:38:00.001+01:00

I've just realized that the only other female in the flat went missing. :D

Well.
Apparently she got accepted at the uni in her hometown, so she went back there. I heard that the new flatmate is also a girl, so at least I won't be the only female in the flat. She should be moving in today, if everything goes as planned.

The First Day @ Uni

2008-03-25T15:44:00.000+01:00

Today's Program: Welcoming Speech 10:00-13:00

No point of getting there early, right?
So. The bus that I was planning to take would arrive there at 9:54. Should have enough time to walk to the building since the bus stop is quite close.

But I forgot my ticket and I realized that _after_ I got to the bus stop :(, so I had to take the next bus. It would arrive at 10:04, so it shouldn't be that bad. Except that the bus was a few minutes late, and then I went to the wrong building. :D
When I got to the right hall, it was so full there weren't even places on the steps to sit. So I stood close to the door with some others. We couldn't even see the board from this side. *g*

After some speeches from a couple of professors, the know-it-all lady and a Brit who teaches English classes in the Language Center, came the students from the Fachschaft (student council). They talked about their organisation, who's in charge of what, that they need some new blood to continue their works and so on. At the end, they divided us into groups for a campus rally.

So we ran around the campus to get to know the "important" stuff, like where the Fachschaft office is, how many steps are there from the basement till the observatory, how many points this student with student ID no. 911*** got in his/her spanish test, etc etc. But first, we had to drink a shot of berentzen and made fun of ourselves by putting our feet in sacks and jumping around in a sort of estafet. yippee!!

After all that, our group didn't even win any prizes. Meh.
But at least we got a bag of goodies...

The Sound System

2008-03-17T10:36:00.000+01:00

is fabulous!
A Harman Kardon amplifier with JBL surround sound speakers! Woohooo!!

I spent a couple of hours sitting in the kitchen last night listening to my favorite songs while singing and dancing along. Too bad I didn't have beer or vodka martini. :(

It's Bridget Jones!

2008-03-16T12:28:00.004+01:00

The Flat

2008-03-14T22:53:00.000+01:00

I share this flat with 5 other students: 4 guys and a girl. I guess I've met them all, but during the first two days there were so many people come and go, I'm not sure which one of them is the missing flatmate (he's currently not here). The others are all here the whole time, so I've talked a bit with them. They seems quite nice, but I haven't made the effort to really get to know them yet.

During the inspection I had the impression that it's a quiet flat, since they mentioned about a Vietnamese girl living here who studies Medicine and that she has to learn a lot, so she needs a peaceful environment. Turns out that she doesn't live here anymore. >.<
Almost every evening the guy living across my room blare his stereo. I won't mind if I can enjoy the music, but I guess I'm just too old for this kind of music. I hope he won't do that much during the semester, otherwise I need to talk to him about it.

The kitchen is quite spacious, we could all have dinner together there if we want.
The furniture are all new, just like the furnitures in my room. We have a stove with 4 ranges and an oven, 2 fridges and a home theater set with a projector. Yeah, you read that right. A home theater! :)

But this flat doesn't only boast on modern appliances.
We have here a couple of cute bunnies, one with beige fur called Barbara and the other with dark grey fur. They've just been castrated yesterday, so I haven't got the chance to play with them yet.
Will post some pics of them.

And now I have to go to bed. Need to wake up early tomorrow, as I'm going to Lübeck.

Recipe: Baked Salmon

2008-03-14T21:22:00.003+01:00

i found this recipe in chefkoch.de a few weeks ago and it has been one of my favorites since then. it's very easy to make, doesn't take long, but the result is very tasty!

what you need (for 4 portions)
1 kg fillets salmon
5 tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
2 small onions
a few sprigs fresh rosemary
1 lemon
olive oil
salt, pepper

what you do

cut the salmon into 4 portions, put into a baking dish, sprinkle with olive oil and lemon juice, then some salt and pepper.
peel the onions and cut into rings, blanch in boiling water for a few minutes, remove and drain. peel the garlic and cut into thin slices. blanch the tomatoes, peel and cut them into small cubes.
preheat the oven (200°C).
spread the garlic, onion rings and tomato cubes over the salmon portions. place a sprig of rosemary between them. cover the baking dish with aluminium foil. bake for about 30 minutes.

serve with baguette.

make sure you have a bottle of white wine chilled. ^_^
guten appetit!

Fanfiction: Spark

2008-03-13T22:30:00.002+01:00

author: Jane St Clair
fandom: harry potter
genre: angst
length: short short
summary: molly weasley, on a mission for the order. first war.

link

~~°~~

when i think about molly, it makes me think about big hugs, a warm house with many children and lots and lots of food.

but not here.
it's probably not canon, but as an order's member she surely has a role to play in the war?

a powerful story. it made me shiver...

The Arrival

2008-03-12T10:42:00.002+01:00

After nearly 9 years living and studying in Karlsruhe, I had to apply to another Uni and move out from BW... all just because I'm too lazy to study properly. And now I'm ended up in Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, in the north part of Germany close to the Danish border. It takes at least 6 hours with ICE from Karlsruhe, so the tickets are quite expensive. Normally it costs 121€ one way, but until the end of this year DB has special offers, so we paid each 59€ for one way.

We went on Sunday, late in the evening, with most of my possessions squeezed into a couple of trunks and a travel bag, including my CPU and his flat screen monitor. :) We had to change trains twice, but for the most journey we sat comfortably in ICE. (Note to self: make sure to reserve a seat next time for long journeys!) We managed to sleep a bit. I promised Philip that he could go back to sleep once we reached the flat.

But of course it didn't work like we expected, though it's really my own fault this time

I received the offer for this room on Thursday, February 28 and had to sign the contracts and send them in 8 days the latest. I sent them on Wednesday afternoon. Until Saturday morning, I didn't get my copy of the contract. I was very sure that there won't be a problem with them, that I surely get this room that I wanted. But it is quite insane to come here without a contract on my hand.

So what happened was, we arrived here some time after 8, with no contract and obviously no keys on my hands. The office opens at 10, so we had to wait about two hours. Luckily it's a flat with 6 rooms, so there's always someone here, which means that we could get into the flat, but not into the room.

Poor Philip.
He was so tired and I didn't let him sleep until after he finished setting up my computer. Hihi...

Happy Chinese New Year 2008

2008-02-06T12:39:00.000+01:00

wishing you a prosperous year!
and of course for me too. hihih...

so, do you guys have anything special planned to celebrate? here it's boring as always, there's no hints of chinese new year at all. my sister cutie is in dortmund and nanobabe is in zurich for a conference, so we can't even meet up for dinner. >.<'

so i've put some videos from youtube into a playlist and let it run on the background while waiting for cctv's spring festival gala. am thinking of wearing my one and only shanghai dress later tonite. just to get into the spirit of celebration. ^_^ but it's all red and so tight that i can't even sit. ^^;

ah, gotta go... to watch the cctv.
have fun guys...

and btw, here is my playlist for the chinese new year songs if you're interested.

Fanfiction: Blood Magic

2007-12-20T22:30:00.000+01:00

author: GatewayGirl
fandom: Harry Potter
genre : drama, angst
rating: R
length: novel, 84 chapters
warning: implied slash (LM/SS, SS/RL, JP/RL)

Blood magic was supposed to keep Harry safe, but his relatives are expendable. Blood magic was supposed to keep Harry looking like his adoptive father, but it's wearing off. Blood is a bond, but so is the memory of hate -- or love.

link

~~°~~

right before his sixteenth birthday, harry received a time-spelled letter from james, telling him that james wasn't his biological father. it's severus snape.

both james and lily decided to keep this a secret from everyone because they didn't want to endanger both harry and severus. so they put a charm on harry to make him look like james. but this charm is not permanent, starting on harry's sixteenth birthday it would begin to weaken.

harry thought that this letter was one of the weasley's twins' prank.

three days after harry's birthday, severus received a similar letter from lily. just like harry, severus was equally shocked to learn about this, but he knew this to be true.

and so began severus' and harry's struggle to learn how to be a father and a son, to keep this secret from their colleagues and friends and especially from their enemies.

~~°~~

this is the best fic that i've read so far in this category, where severus is harry's biological father.

gatewaygirl is really awesome. first she managed to make a solid and believable "how" and "why" it happened. the paternity charm and the herem were so original too.
the herem is very interesting, i wonder if a tradition like this ever exist somewhere. without the time-lock of course.

Using Herem, a man has sex with a woman, but time-locks his seed, so that she may release it later. This is generally used by men leaving for war. In the most common variant (which we used) the woman may not end the time lock unless the man is dead or near death. It is most commonly used between a man and his wife, but, traditionally, an unmarried man with no heirs may ask a close friend for his wife or kin for this purpose.

the reactions from both harry and severus were in character. they finally accepted the fact that they were father and son, but didn't mean that they like it. when dumbledore forced them to live together, severus went all "i hate people, don't expect any interaction, or god forbid, affection from me. i might be your father but i won't go parental on you. i don't know how to be a father." to which harry replied with "as long as you feed and cloth me, not force me into danger, you'll make a better guardian than the dursleys."

and then, bam.
"you're not going out in that! put on some decent clothes!"
"or what?"

hihihi... not parental indeed. ^_^
poor severus, to get a child of rebellious stage, bypassing all the obedience and affectionate years. hmm... probably not so bad. can you imagine severus snape doing affectionate? ^o^

it's such a delight to read this fic. the plot is good, the pace is just right, the story is interesting. if you have nothing planned for the long holiday, this is an alternative to spend your time. with 84 chapters--and they're long chapters mind you, chapters 70-84 alone is about 150 pages long, with font size 10!--it would take you quite a while to finish it.

one thing that i learned from this fic is about porridge. i used to think that porridge is equal to bubur, so i grimaced whenever the subject of porridge came up in this story.

Back in Snape's kitchen, Harry had a bowl of porridge with milk and bananas, which the house elves sent up from the kitchen, and tea, from a pot Snape made himself.

ewww...

Google's Knol

2007-12-19T20:18:00.000+01:00

last week google announced a new project dedicated to encourage people to share their knowledge by providing a well-organized, easy-to-use tool. this free tool called knol. perhaps it sounds weird, but it's going to be very easy to memorise, because this knol stands for a unit of knowledge.

There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that.
[..] Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it.

unlike wikipedia, every knol is written by one author only. but it doesn't mean that once an author wrote a knol for a particular topic, others aren't allowed to write knols for this topic. which means that, there will be many knols for each topic.

readers will be able to write comments and reviews, submit questions, edits, additional contents and rate a knol. these will bring more competition between knols for the same topic, which would increase the quality of the writing and knowledge shared.

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors.

this would attract experts to share their knowledge there. in return, the author's credibility would surely attract readers to their knols. comments, reviews and rates would further ensure the high quality contents.

i think knol would make a good complement to wikipedia.

To Be or Not To Be

2007-12-12T06:54:00.000+01:00

we started last night with the indonesian lesson. it went quite well, IMO. after the lesson, philip asked what's the indonesian for "to be". i said that we don't have them, not in that sense. he was so confused and asked, how do we say "to be or not to be" in indonesian then?

i admit i've never thought of that. and i've never read shakespeare in indonesian. any of you have any idea what's the answer to this question? ^^;;

Promote Your Blog

2007-12-11T18:10:00.000+01:00

patung of indonesia matters has been compiling a list of "indonesian blogs" written in indonesian, english and javanese. he made a ranking system based on google page rank, yahoo link counts, RSS subscribers using bloglines, bookmarks on del.icio.us, technorati blog rank and alexa traffic rank.

the list is updated once a day. right now my blog is ranked #64, while netsharc's is #41 and ragil's is #96. you can see the full list of the blogs written in english here.

if you'd like to submit your blog, you can just leave a comment here or use the "add a blog" function here. i'm not sure what's the category here, but it seems like you can submit any blogs written by indonesian, blogs about indonesia, or blogs written by people who lives in indonesia. so i guess we'll see a very long list soon. which means that i won't stay in the top 100 for long.
hm.

Water Jug Riddle

2007-12-10T23:13:00.000+01:00

this one is another classic, i first saw it in die hard 3.

~~°~~

there are two jugs, one can hold 3 litre and the other one 5 litre. how to get 4 litres water using these two jugs?

there are two ways to solve this.

~~°~~

the answer for last quiz
marggu's hat is red.

john said that he didn't know what's his hat's color. if both krabby and marggu had black hats on, then he would've known that his was red. since he didn't, that means that krabby and marggu had either (1) a black and a red, or (2) both red hats.

krabby said that he didn't know either. if marggu wore a black hat, krabby would've known that he had a red one. but he said that he didn't know, which means that marggu wore a black hat.

That's What Friends Are For

2007-12-09T15:32:00.000+01:00

a couple of days ago i got an sms from a friend who's jobbing at the same place as i am, saying that she's been in a hospital in heidelberg for the last 9 days. she lives here in karlsruhe, but goes to uni heidelberg and is currently doing internship in a small clinic there (she's studying psychology). it was during the internship that she fell ill.

she had no cash and no credit on her mobile. luckily the interne who went with her to the hospital had some cash, so she borrowed some to get some credits for her mobile. then she called her friends and asked for their help to get her some clothes for her stay at the hospital.

how scary it must've been for her, listening to the doctor explaining about her condition (she said that her blood is low so the heart worked too much to pump/circulate the blood... if i understand her right). how sad it must've been, if she was all alone there. i hope her friends were there with her.

Randomness

2007-12-08T23:07:00.000+01:00

one of the famous software firms around karlsruhe held this year's christmas party last nite. the theme was james bond, especially casino royale. they set some tables for poker, black jack and roulette around the stage. there were also some chips on every dining tables, but i don't know if they're real or only decorations.

the band that they hired was unfortunately very bad, i have no idea why they picked this one out of so many. it has three singers, but not one of them is really good. they either don't have the vocal range required, or they do but the voice is not that pleasant to hear, or they can't really sing. >_<

after dinner, they had a james bond quiz. the two MCs asked for volunteers from 10 random tables. instead of drawing numbers from a box to pick these random tables, they of course had a program to do this, being a software firm. but the program came up with the same numbers for 2-3 times. ihihihi... i hope they were all the workers last night, and no clients. *g*

Almost Ready

2007-12-07T13:41:00.001+01:00

so far i've found 3 sources on the net about learning indonesian:

indonesian @wikibooks
i'm going to use this book and the script from ragil for the start.
if we manage to do this regularly, i'd go on with the next two:
the indonesian section @northern illinois university's center for southeast asian studies
this site has lots of interesting flash games and quizzes to test the readers, especially in the vocabulary lessons. the grammar section has only a few topics, but they're important ones. the reading and conversation section is quite advanced, i'm not sure if it's suitable for a beginner... even the beginner's section. have a look at this. hihi... but it has very interesting stories there.
this site has a very good indonesian-english dictionary.
beginning indonesian @university of victoria's dept. of pacific and asian studies (canada)
it features interactive exercises to help learning indonesian.

Anime: Seirei no Moribito

2007-12-06T15:51:00.000+01:00

[aka "Guardian of the Sacred Spirit"]
26 episodes
adventure, drama, fantasy

.storyline
the main character here is a wandering warrior name balsa. she's a 30 year old spearfighter who's taking jobs as a bodyguard to save people, as an atonement for her "past sin".

the story starts with balsa going back to yogo country after two years being away. on her way there, she happens to save yogo's second prince, chagum. she was then invited to the palace where his mother, the second empress, begs her to take the prince away and protect him from the emperor's assassins. chagum is possessed by an water spirit and the emperor wants to prevent this fact to reach the people.

and so the journey begins: getting chagum to get used to the lives of normal people, finding out about the spirit that possessed him, balsa juggling between protecting him and preparing him to face his destiny...

.comment
this anime has beautiful art and animation, even better than mushishi.

[..] how pretty it is.
Candles flicker... in the reflections off their eyes. Mating dragonflies fly past in the background. You can really feel the money pouring out of every frame.

the fighting scenes, which are just a few, are superb! the choreography is very well done, the kungfu lover in me cheered each of those scenes.

but SnM is not just about prettiness.

the main plot is the growing relationship between balsa and chagum.
balsa had to play the roles both of a father and a mother to chagum. (actually, i think she's like the father, while tanda--the medicine man, shaman-in-training, who's been in love with balsa since forever--playing the role of the mother. *g*) being single with no kids, raised in a very unusual way, balsa was very ill prepared to raise a kid herself. but along the way, chagum grew to trust her and not just depend on her.
there's no character development on balsa, but it's interesting to see how chagum changed bit by bit: the way he sees the world, himself and his role to play in this "new world". balsa revealing her past helped chagum to decide what to do about his fate.

enough spoilers.
another thing that i like from this anime series is the OST. the main theme is track #8, which is also my favorite. track #25 is the same song but with vocals.

.links

official website -- in japanese

@ANN

@wikipedia

trailers@youtube

To Teach Indonesian

2007-12-05T09:50:00.000+01:00

i finally managed to convince philip that indonesian is very easy to learn, that he would manage that even if he's not talented in language. so now the question is, where do i start?

should i start with daily conversations?
or should i start with the basic grammar like sentence structure?

if you have any suggestions or any experience on teaching indonesian, or any other language actually, please share them here?

A Very Interesting Title

2007-12-04T08:46:00.000+01:00

i planned to update the monday quiz, but our internet connection was down on sunday and monday, so you'll have to wait another week for the answer to the last quiz, lou. ^_^

with no internet on sunday, i spent the time working on my project. and harassing philip with lots of questions. hihihi... now i got a mysql and php book on my desk.
haven't started yet on the data input thingy, this time i was just working on to show the data on a html page. bit complicated with all those relationship tables connecting my main table to other tables, sometimes even through 2 relationship tables.

hmpf.
myshoutbox was being stupid, instead of posting my message it ate both ragil's last message and my reply to it. >_<

btw, hanky and his choir is throwing a concert tomorrow in rathaus, and it's free.
wanna meet up there? if it's not interesting we can just go out and drink some mulled wine in the christmas market.

A Little Bit of History

2007-11-30T15:38:00.000+01:00

i went blogwalking to priyadi's place last night.
apparently there's a new blog celebrity in indonesia, namely yusril ihza mahendra who held various positions in three cabinets under abdurrahman wahid, megawati sukarnoputri and susilo bambang yudhoyono presidencies, managed to finish only one term.

it all started as someone wrote comments in one of the popular blogs using his name which made people wonder if it's really him. after they're convinced that it was indeed the real YIM, they suggested that he started his own blog, which he did. after a small gathering with some famous names in the community, one of them, vavai, set up a blog and a domain for him here which has now more than 3000 visitors in just 20 days. *g*

the post where he wrote those comments was about zheng he, a legendary chinese admiral in 15th century. he came from hui ethnic group, a minor ethnic in china who are typically muslim. as a young boy he was taken by the army and castrated, he became a eunuch serving the imperial court and later on a close confidant of the yongle emperor.

to expand chinese influence, yongle emperor sent zheng he to expeditions to display the glory and might of the chinese ming dynasty and to collect tribute from the "barbarians from beyond the seas". he led seven voyages between 1405 and 1433, and said to commandeer up to 300 ships at one time, consisting of treasure ships, troops transports, horse ships, supply ships, water tankers and patrol boats with over 27000 crew members on board, including navigators, explorers, sailors, doctors, workers, and soldiers. the biggest treasure ships is said to be 130m long and 50m wide with 9 masts (there's a nice illustration in timeasia.com: go there, scroll till middle of the page, you'll see a small box with a few links. click on "A Fleet Built to Impress"). many people said that this size is a work of fiction,

However, in 1962, the rudderpost of a treasure ship was excavated in the ruins of one of the Ming boatyards in Nanjing. This timber was no less than 36 feet long. Reverse engineering using the proportions typical of a traditional junk indicated a hull length of around 500 feet.

(Ancient Chinese Explorers by Evan Hadingham--nova online)

on these voyages, zheng he visited vietnam, thailand, malaysia, west indonesia, sri lanka, india, oman, yemen and kenya. (see map and table).

in his comments, YIM mentioned about starring a colossal tv series "admiral zheng he" as zheng he himself. this series is produced by kantana Ltd (Thailand), hengdian movie corp (china) dan jupiter film (indonesia), involving about 6000 actors from 6 countries where it was shot: china, vietnam, cambodia, thailand, malaysia and indonesia. another indonesian ex-minister, saifullah yusuf, and some famous indonesian actors are also taking parts in this series: christine hakim, slamet rahardjo, nurul arifin. according to YIM, the 32-episodes tv series would be aired in indonesia starting at the beginning of february 2008 to celebrate the chinese new year.

links:

Wikipedia: Zheng He

Zheng He's Voyages of Discovery

The Asian Voyage: In the Wake of the Admiral

Ancient Chinese Explorers

Nu?

2007-11-29T19:34:00.000+01:00

uhm... hi! *waves*
remember me? ^_^;;

been thinking about updating this blog since last week, but needed to change the layout first. the last one was too... cheery and out of season. wanted to make a delirium (it looked much better live; the show was a combination of modern circus, music and lighting show. i liked the lighting show best, it was a very clever play of lighting and layers of screens, both opaque and transparent) style banner with snowflakes as background, but my photoshop knowledge is not on par for the demand. so i came up with that thing above instead. and then i was too lazy to create a new layout, so i just pick a template and put the banner on top of it. hihihi...

so how have you guys been doing? any interesting things that i missed? please do tell.

as for myself... well, i stopped playing travian since a few weeks ago. i didn't plan it though, one day i was just so fed up with it and didn't feel like playing for the whole day. then it became two, and three, and on and on until now. haven't even said a word to my (ex)teammates. >_< at first because i was afraid that if i came back, i'd stay on playing. but now it's been too long, i feel so guilty about it. i'm afraid of what they might say. not very mature of me, i know. ._.

and i've just installed xampp and started a small project. i've more or less finished the database structure, now in need to make a front-end to make it easier to insert data. it's so bloody complicated to insert them directly to the database.

other than that, i've been quite a recluse, so i have no interesting stories to tell.

The Bourne Ultimatum

2007-09-18T22:59:00.000+02:00

when you're going to watch this movie, i suggest you take a deep breath before the movie starts.

it opens with a shaky chasing scene (is it now a trend to make those chasing scenes so shaky? or is it only in bourne movies?), followed with short not-so-calm real start of this sequel, exciting catsss-and-mouse scenes, car chasing, bomb, roof hopping, fighting, car somersaulting... *phew*

the non-stop action scenes made me kinda breathless yet noisy with some expletives i rather not repeat here. ^_^

my favorite scene is the one where bourne and desh struggle against each other in a cramped apartment. it was so goood! i love watching great hand-to-hand combat scenes, but they're quite rare nowadays.

i don't want to put any spoilers, so.
nice plot, thrilling actions, chilling tortures (ugh), great casts. really satisfying.
8.4 in imdb, 93% in rotten tomatoes. a must see action movie of summer 07.

and you get to see what people use nowadays instead of breadcrumbs to leave trail...