MASCA National Conference & Games 2004

Today I went to La Trobe University (Bundoora Campus) for the MASCA Games 2004 (MASCA = Malaysian Student Council of Australia). This year Victoria was elected to become host, and hence all delegation from other states came over. We left Arrow Heights Apartment around 8:30am (scheduled departure was 8am - a little bit improvement on Janji Melayu). We arrived at Bundoora around 9:10am. The games was supposed to start after 20 mins of our arrival, but due to some miscommunication between the organizers, the games were delayed about 1 hours 30 mins. All we did during that time was sit around looked stupid.

Later we found out that the same court for basketball will be used for volleyball and badminton. Since the whole event started late, playing time for each game had to be truncated. A decent basketball game which is supposed to be played 20 minutes per half, was shorten to 10 minutes per half. This was still understandable. Later, the organizers decided that they really need more time for other games, so the next basketball game was shorten to 10 minutes per game. After that, it seems they still need MORE time for the other events, the following basketball games were played 5 mins per game. Now, tell me what kind of sane man plays a basketball tournament for 5 minutes per game? The other states were definitely pissed by the fact that they travelled hours across the country to play a 5 minutes game.

Anyway, team Victoria managed to get 3rd (Adelaide was really strong!). For the MASCA website, click here.

Autumn Bridge

After 13 days of reading I was able to finish Autumn Bridge. It was a spectacular book, and it would not be too much an exaggeration to say that it was way better than its predecessor. The storyline was superb, with suspense and thrills so brilliantly written that most of the time I can't put down the book without completing a chapter.

I really hope that Takashi Matsuoka would come up with another book. Anyway, tomorrow is my last class of the week before going for a 1 week break. :)

Melbourne City Bath

I went for a swim at the Melbourne City Bath today. The pool wasn't as big as I expected it to be. Rather than a huge olympic size pool, it was a medium size pool with 4 lanes (slow, medium, fast, recreation). Not to mention that there were quite a lot of people compared to the pool at uni. But it's okay, since I wanted to give it a try anyway.

The picture above shows how the Melbourne City Bath looks from the outside. When I first got here, I didn't occurred to me that this building is a public swimming pool after all. It looks more like the KTM building, or the Sultan Abd Samad building.

Cloud of Sparrows

I have just finished reading Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka. The book is so interesting that I can't wait to buy Autumn Bridge, a continuation of the first book mentioned earlier.

It is now week 6 of semester 2, 2004. Time really flies. Another 6 more weeks before the semester ends. No, wait, that means there's another 2 weeks before my mid-semester break. Now, that is something to look forward to.