Final exams are coming soon, so is my summer break

Yes, my final exams are coming soon.

In less than 2 weeks time, I will have the most intense 4 days of the semester.

On 2nd November, I have my Biology Paper.
On the 5th, I have Biotech.
I have Chemistry on the 6th.
And finally Statistical Reasoning on the 7th.

I know that the toughest paper for this semester is most likely gonna be the Chemistry paper, I should be putting more attention into that.

The Biology paper is a multiple choice paper which marks accounts for 40% of the total grade in the subject as compared to the other 3 subjects' 60% of the total grade. So, it shouldn't be hard to handle. But I'll still need to do well for it

Biotech has a mix of multiple choice and short answers. Needless to say, revising the tutorial questions should help a lot. It's useful to have this subject as studying it, along with Bio and sometimes Chem will help each other one way or another since there are some similarities in the things that are taught.

And statistics, a paper which I think is as tough as if not slightly easier the chemistry paper, which is not much. But it's math (sorta), and remembering the formula is key (or at least, the method of answering the questions since it is quite direct).

So once I get pass this 4 day gauntlet then I all set for a summer holiday. I do hope that I did not screw up any of my subjects. But when it's holiday, it's holiday, and I have some plans line up for the summer break.

I'm gonna get a 3DS. I could have gotten it earlier, but I fear it may interfere with me and my studies so I didn't get it so soon.
I'm gonna celebrate 2 decades of my existence on earth. Yes, I'm growing older now, but I still feel young so that is a good thing.
I've made a promise to take my Mauritian friend for a drive around town, and I have to keep my promise.
I'm also gonna visit my Singaporean friend, and stay there for a week or longer.

So, yeah. Now I just hope that I will prepare myself enough for the four papers that I'm about to face.

Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, and a brief history of my experience in Pokemon games

I've been a fan of Pokemon since the anime came out. But I've never played a Pokemon game from start to finish until I was 13-14. My first game was a Gen III Pokemon game called Pokemon Leaf Green, which is a remake of Pokemon Red and Blue of the first generation. 

It was fun, but I was lacking in skills as a trainer. Everyone except Blastoise and Mr. Mime was severely underleveled, and Mr. Mime is overleveled. 

Then I played Pokemon Emerald, it remains till today as one of my most frequently played Pokemon game as I played it with all three starters at least once, get all the silver symbols in battle frontier at least once, and also beat it in a Nuzlocke challenge at least once. 

I also played Fire Red, and I beat Gary with a team that is 10 levels lower than him.

Then I played Platinum (yeah, I skipped Diamond and Pearl), and it was awesome (even though I never replay it till now). One of the most awesome moments I ever had in a video game came from Platinum. My friend was having a hard time catching Giratina, so he asked for my help. I recalled a walkthrough by Youtuber Marriland (an awesome guy who just finished his Pokemon White 2 Walkthrough) and initially had a strategy of using his Staraptor (due to his immunity to Ghost attacks), but for some reason I decided to lead with his Vaporeon at the last minute. 

Turn 1, Giratina used Dragon Claw. Okay, decent damage, but Vaporeon could take a hit. I decided to weaken it with Ice Beam, and it got frozen. 

Turn 2, throw a Dusk Ball, it broke free, still frozen.

Turn 3, weaken it with Aurora Beam, still frozen.

Turn 4-9, throw Dusk Ball, it broke free, still frozen (yeah, notice how long it got frozen?)

Turn 10, caught it with a Dusk Ball.

When we were catching Giratina, me and my friend were both surprised on how lucky it was to catch it so easily. 

Then Generation V came. It was da bomb. Serperior was awesome, Excadrill was awesome too, Haxorus is badass as well. Yeah, I like some of the Pokemon design for the Gen V Pokemon. Deal with it, Poke-Nostalgiafags. It had a plot twist towards the end, which was pretty sweet, For the first time in Pokemon history, you do not defeat the champion to beat the main campaign. 

Then we have 3 epic battles in a row. The first with the legendary on the cover. 

The second with N, leader of Team Plasma (the bad guys), who has a LEGENDARY Pokemon and an EVENT ONLY Pokemon. 

The final battle, with N's adoptive father, Ghetsis, oh that asshole of a father. Calling N a freak and his true intentions of (you guessed it) take over the world. He must have took some advice on raising dragon Pokemon from Lance as his Hydreigon is underleveled by 10 LEVELS. It's an intense battle, but defeating him is satisfying as hell.

Oh, and I played Soul Silver and beat both Lance and Red at their best with a team 3 Pokemon with their level at their early 60's and 3 HM Slaves. 

Then N bids farewell, and cue the credits. This game has the BEST credit song in all Pokemon games so far. It's awesome sounding as hell. The credits is sleek, without animations or any pictures, just scrolling credits with an epic music, and I'm fine with that. I think there will never be a credit song as great as this one. Black and White is fun to play, with all new Pokemon to use.

Now, old Pokemon and new Pokemon meet in Black 2 and White 2 with the ability to catch previous gen's Pokemon. Also, this is the first time where a Pokemon title is a numbered sequel and not a remake. I can't wait to play challenge mode when I beat the game. Yes, you can adjust the difficulty setting in this game with some 'keys' that are can be traded via infrared. 

Now that I'm a more experienced trainer, I always plan my team before I even play the game. Since I never used Oshawott before, so I use it in my playthrough of Black 2. 

I got a male Oshawott, so I named it Kenshi (yeah, I like naming my Pokemon). I named it after the main character of Ruroni Kenshin.

The second Pokemon I got is a male Mareep I called Rossi (I also got a male Ampharos called Rossi in my Soul Silver playthrough). I caught it at Floccesy Ranch. I named it Rossi after the last syllable in Ampharos' name since it's a guy.

Then I got a male Growlithe in Virbank Complex. I named it Missile, after the Pomeranian in Ghost Trick (which is a great DS game by the way).

I got my fourth Pokemon at the Castelia Sewers. It's a female Zubat called Tabitha (I also got a female Crobat named Tabitha in my Soul Silver Playthrough). 'Bat' spelled backwards is 'Tab', and 'Bit' is a past tense of 'Bite', which is why I think the name suits the Zubat.

I got my fifth Pokemon at the Castelia Gardens (I think that's what it is called), it's an Eevee who is now an Espeon called Psynx. A psychic Pokemon that looks like a Lynx, so Psynx.

I do not have a sixth Pokemon yet, but I know what I will get - N's Zoroa. Yup, I'm doing this for N (lol).

Anyway, that's the end of this long post. 

Got Green Day's New Album!

Yes, I've been a fan of Green Day for a while now.

It all started during the release of American Idiot. Then my Uncle (who lives in Australia and is an avid concert goer who loves alternative bands) found out that I like Green Day from my mom, and he bought me some of Green Day's older albums like Dookie, Nimrod, Insomniac and Warning, and I like their songs even more.

So this album is a trilogy, with and is the first of the three (which is pretty obvious as all the albums are titled after numbers.

What I've notice in this album is that now Jason White is part of the band! That's pretty awesome, considering that he's been with Green Day as a touring member back then, and also appeared in some of Green Day's music videos like 'When I Come Around', 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' and '21 Guns'.

The album is pretty expensive here in Malaysia (around RM 45 or 15 USD), but I found the album in a local bookstore which sold it cheaper by a few bucks and I could use the membership card to get a further 10% off. So I paid only RM 37.35 which is around 12 USD, almost the same price as the one sold in the US if I remember correctly.

Overall, the whole album is good, not great. But it's too early to tell how great is the trilogy gonna be as you need all 3 albums in order to piece out the story and concept behind the album.

Also, when I heard Billie Joe was in The Voice as a guest mentor, it was pretty awesome news to me since now I feel like The Voice could be the next singing competition US needs (American Idol was dead to me for long time, even before the realisation of the WGWG trend in winners).

Another thing I found out a while ago was Billie Joe's 'meltdown' at the iHeartRadio festival. I wouldn't consider it a breakdown. I think what he did was pretty awesome, even if people think that he's taking drugs or something. Of course he's pissed, and I think he has the right to be pissed.

Now for one last thing I found out. One of Green Day's track from the albums coming out soon will be in the soundtrack of Breaking Dawn Part 2. Seeing the word 'Green Day' and 'soundtrack' and 'Breaking Dawn' together made me die a little inside.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Obligatory rant on music

Yeah, you read the title, and this rant is long overdue.

It is true that many have consider mainstream music in recent years to.... you know, suck. This is still true after a few years later. Only difference is it's getting worse.

So yeah, this is a rant, and these are my opinions.

I dunno about you people around the world, but I think that most of the music being played on the mainstream media (ie radio and tv) are really crappy. I just dunno why. Every year I hope that mainstream music will get better next year and I just see it gets shittier than the stuff coming out of my ass from my most recent and rather horrible food poisoning incident.

The first question to ask about me is what kind of music do I listen to and what genre do I like the most?

I mostly listen to pop and rock and most things that the radio spews out but my favourite genre is punk rock and video game music (if that counts). I used to like a lot of songs the radio plays, but now I'm stuck with my video game tracks. With the exception of Gotye's 'Somebody that I used to know', nothing has really hit me as an awesome song in recent months.

Now listening to the radio makes me feel like Simon Cowell as I listen and criticize the song that is playing. Though, there are some songs that I truly can't stand, and they'll most likely be rated less than average in my rating scale of 1-10. So what type of songs are they?

1. Songs with repetitive lyrics with the exclusion of dance-type songs. Songs like Grouplove's 'Tongue Tied' (I rate it 4/10), where most of the part of the songs are repeated lyrics.
2. Anything to do with K-Pop. I don't understand what's the big fuss of the craze. So I do not rate any K-Pop songs, not that they're bad, I just don't. Only exception of this rule for now is Oppa Gangnam Style, a dance song which seems to be the latest craze and being the new 'Party Rock Anthem'. As catchy as it is, I still do not get it. It gets a 6 from me. This doesn't mean it's good since I can't and will not listen to K-Pop unless the mainstream english radio station forces me to, it's just slightly above average to me as a dance track.
3. Anything that has an annoying tone to it, whether the singer sounds annoying, or the theme and lyrics of the song. Things like Nicki Minaj's song which I do not get why is it so popular, or the lyrics to Cher Lloyd's 'I want u back' (3/10) and her singing that annoys the shit out of me. 
4. Excessive autotune that is noticable. Like Lil' Wayne in his songs and mostly T-Pain. I know that autotune is a hell spawn of a device that can make a person with a shitastic voice to a person with a voice of a saint, and I know that some singers use it. Usually if I can't detect it then I won't be bugged by it, but if I do, it pisses me off. 
5. Any rapper who can't have a hit song without featuring someone else. It's not a major gripe of mine, but I feel like a rapper is a great rapper if he could at least have one hit song without having to collaborate with someone else. I know most rappers can't sing, but it's good to have one out there, just to show that they can rely on their own. Eminem's 'Without me' is a great song without any collaborations, and it gets an 8. I also liked Flo Rida's later hit 'Whistle'. Last time I thought he couldn't come up with a hit without collaborating, but I was wrong. This is a pretty good track (8/10).
6. Not something common but still annoys me. I dunno how to explain this so I'll go straight to the example - Alexandra Stan's 'Mr Saxobeat'. So my local radio station played a song which is claimed to be the acoustic version of this mentioned song, I got appalled by it. The singing is exactly the same as the original, only changes being the background music and instruments used. This really pissed me off as it's as though no effort was put into singing this version of  the song, just changing the instruments. I gave it a shitty 2/10.

Anyways, rant over. If there's anything extra, I'll add on to my next music rant. But for now, let's just pray for good music.

I have to get a 3DS soon.

So the Tokyo Game Show recently ended, and that made me wanna buy a Nintendo 3DS real badly.

I've wanted to buy a 3DS when it came out but I didn't buy it sooner because there weren't any games for the 3DS that I want to play then. A year plus has passed and there still isn't any game I want to play on it, but I still wanna buy it since I do not own a DS and I want to play DS games.

Yes, I've played the DS before through my friend's DS and I enjoy those games, but I never really owned one. I've played the all the Pokemon games in the DS, Advance Wars Dual Strike, Megaman ZX and ZX Advent (but I didn't like Advent), Professor Layton and Ace Attorney games.

So what games do I wanna play on the 3DS? Here's the list.

Fire Emblem: Awakening
I never liked Shadow Dragon. It's the art style they used in the game (which looks kinda weird to me compared to FE, FE:SS and FE:PoR. I liked the art style of Awakening so I plan to play it. I heard there's DLC characters and some of them looked awesome as hell. But I wonder of all the DLC characters why put Eirika's class a bride?! WHAT THE HELL MAN!! Other than that, I have no problems with the game as I see it.

Project X Zone
Oh yeah! Sega, Namco Bandai and Capcom. This game looks awesome as hell. Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Batsu, Alisa, Akira, Pai, Jin, Xiaoyu as a team of fighters! And Arthur the badass knight from Ghost and Goblins. X, Zero and Tron from Megaman! Dante! This game looks awesome! Now lets hope it gets an English release.

Prof. Layton 5 & 6
Aww Yeah! I love the Layton games. Cool puzzles. Some were interesting, some just troll the hell outta me. But I still love it. And there's gonna be 2 Layton games for the 3DS! Oh wait, there's another Layton game, and that is....

Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney
Oh yeah!!!!!! A crossover between 2 awesome games. Hershel Layton and Phoenix Wright and the witch trials. This game looks awesome. The 3D models are great! And there's gonna be voice acting for the cutscenes, which is a normal thing for the Layton games, but an awesome thing for the Ace Attorney games. Also, animation will be done by Bones, which are the guys that brought you the 2 Full Metal Alchemist anime, and the Cowboy Bebop movie, which is gonna be great! There's one more game left, and this game made me more hyped up than the all the mentioned games above, and that is.....

Ace Attorney 5
My god, the trailer looks awesome! Older Wright looks like a boss. I really hope this game will be great. Also, really hoping that they tie all the loose ends in this game like what happened to Apollo, Trucy, Maya, Ema, Edgeworth, Gumshoe and Kay (if possible). Guess what? This game is confirmed for an English release, which is freaking awesome.

So yeah..... I should get my 3DS by the end of this year. I dunno whether to get a second hand 3DS or get a 3DS XL since from what my friend told me the XL would be more comfortable to hold. I personally think that I should get a normal 3DS, and it would be better if I got it second hand. I don't see a point of a 3DS XL since the 3DS is suppose to be a hanheld console. making it bigger defeats the purpose of being a hanheld console. Being so big, will you be able to fit the 3DS XL in your pocket? I thought so.

Anyways, that's all for now.

Extremely tiring few days

Well, there's a few things that makes these few fays tiring.

My house is currently undergoing renovations by parts. They started with me and my sis' room. And now it's done. Finally, I can sleep in my own room after 2 months of sleeping in the living room.

However, that could also mean one more thing. The next phase of the renovation begins, which is my parent's room. And so, apart from moving stuff into my room, I have to help move stuff out of their room.

But wait, there's more.

It's also a coincidence that this week is one of the busier weeks I'm having at uni. With assignments due soon and me having a strong sense of scoring well for the paper, it's really tough to continue do the assignments, study, do other homework, while having your mom ask you to help her out cuz she thinks you're playing video games with your laptop, and do more other regular chores. Yeah, it is rather exhausting.

Oh, there's extra stuff.

My Chemistry lecturer has been absent for two classes last week - the same thing happened a few weeks back. Which means her class needs replacement. But unfortunately for me, her replacement classes are terrible. During the first time we had replacement classes it was during 6-7pm on Wednesday and Thursday, which sucked, especially the Wednesday one. I had no class from 1 to 6, what the fuck do you expect me to do for the whole 5 hours. Sure, I can study in the library (which I did then), but I still feel it's a huge waste of time to wait for her replacement class to start. I had no problem with the Thursday one since I finish at 6 so ending one hour later wasn't that bad.

With semester break coming next week, I really hoped she replaced it on a weekend or any day during the break. But no, she had to do the same thing she did last time, with Thursday's replacement tomorrow (20/9) and the Wednesday one after the semester break (3/10). What the hell man. This is just horrible to me.

But it's not like I have a choice do I? I know I could skip it, but I think I'm too much of a goody-two-shoes to skip it. Furthermore, its Chem, something I don't think I'm really good at (although my A Level results proved otherwise).

Anyways, that's all I have to say. I can't wait for semester break. Then I can..... wait for it........ Study!! Yeahh.... I don't have a life....

New Phone!

Yes, people. I finally have a legit smartphone!

For those who're wondering what's my previous phone, it's a Nokia X3-02, or this thing right here.

While it can use Facebook, Google, and all that stuff, I never really use those, which is why I don't consider it a smartphone. The sole reason I had this phone was because it was slim. I like slim phones as they don't take so much space in my pocket, and I have some room for keys and other stuff in the same pocket.

I've been using this phone for almost 2 years now, and I don't see myself changing phones anytime soon, unitl I started university.

I noticed that a lot of things could be done with more convenience with a smartphone like checking for a last minute sent email by a lecturer saying that class is canceled and some other stuff. But I have not thought of what smartphone to get for me. In fact, I was having a dilemma on deciding whether to get a smartphone, a tablet, a new laptop, or a Nintendo 3DS (the 3DS was my gadget of choice, cuz of the games I wanted to get once the games are released).

In the end, I got a Huawei Ascend P1 last Thursday, or this:

So you must be thinking 'Wow, Sun. You're such a hipster! Apple, Samsung (even Blackberry) and some cases, HTC are too mainstream for you that you settled for a smartphone from this unknown brand called Huawei!'

Well...... no. I'm not a hipster. But yes, why did I settle for this phone?

My dad has this friend, whose family is quite close to ours (of all his school friends). This friend works in a PR firm (google that if you dunno what it means). So, one of his clients is a Chinese networking and telecommunication equipment company called Huawei, which has launched their own line of phones in recent years. 

Last Thursday was the unveiling of the Huawei Ascend P1 in Malaysia. It was sold at a discounted price of RM999, 300 bucks cheaper than the original retail price of RM1299. My dad's friend was there as he was in charge of PR. He asked us whether we wanted one. My mom suggested to get one for me. I refused at first. But my mom's gonna buy it anyway as a standby phone in case someone's phone is not working.

My mom asked me to try using it. In the end, I tried it, and it was alright, which means I'll be using it from now. It's as slim as my previous phone, which is good. Like I mentioned, I like slim phones. Other extra features are alright, but I won't be using them as often as others. So yeah, that's my phone.

By the way, many assume that if any electronic device made by a Chinese company will be really low quality as there is a stereotypical view of the Chinese being great at copying the look of the real phone but with a functionality that is so horrible. This phone however, isn't those phones that people expect it to be. So do be aware of that. Not all electronic device made by Chinese companies are sub-par. 

Anyways, that is all.