I still vividly remember last Thursday when a bunch of crazy Master year students suddenly made up their mind to spend 60 ringgit on a meal. It took us thirty minutes to inform all my friends, another thirty minutes for brush up and another thirty minutes to drive down to Johor Bahru aka the Gateway to the famous Singapore.

Shogun Japanese Buffet! Our crave for fantastic Japanese food.

This gathering was our final gathering. All of them except me will be leaving UTM soon. They have successfully completed their Master by Course programme. On the one hand, I am still stuck with my research. I shall cut the story short and focus more on pictures.

Sashimi is thinly sliced, raw seafood. Sashimi, while similar to sushi, is distinct for its absence of vinegared rice. We usually have sashimi pieces dipped into a dish of soya sauce (with wasabi) before being eaten.

Did I mention that the fish were RAW? Eww… You may not like it raw but I enjoy them. Apart from raw food, you can still order cooked food. We tried squid (I even counted its legs), “kerang”, grilled salmon, and grilled fish.

No one bothers to try sushi anymore. Who would want to stuff their own tummy with vinegared rice?

Some ice-cream to cool our tummy down.

In case my parents or my relatives are reading this post, I would like to take the opportunity to introduce some of my friends here. On the left: How Ing, Ching Ching, Chong Keat and See Peng. On the right: Vui Jen, Daniel and Chow Ern.

This Vui Jen, is sure a funny guy. I can’t help but LOLed very loud.

Girls, take up Civil Engineering. It’s not really that hard. You can see Ching Ching is so happy.

This is what happened when you are educated the Malaysian way - spoon feeding. Spoon feeding doesn’t encourage creativity at all. Not me.

Again, this is not a paid post. But I am offering the following details for those who would like to try this shop. I rate the food 4/5!

Business Hours
12.00pm - 3.00pm Lunch
6.00pm - 10.30pm Dinner

Premise
No 80, Jalan Kuning, Taman Pelangi, 80400 Johor Bahru, Johor.

Unlike a lot of other blogs, who easily strike their 100th post mark in their first few months, As It Is sure is a blog which has taken time to build its contents and inviting readers to contribute their voices.

Since the attainment of my own domain, this site is already 2 months and 2 days old. I am not sure if you would feel comfortable to see some of the stats which I am going to disclose. You can do a comparison with the provided information to see where does your blog rank or how does my blog under-perform, somehow something is telling it is the latter.

1. PageRank has ranked from PR NIL to PR 0.
2. 1,016 Absolute Unique Visitors.
3. 2,863 Visits and 11,831 Page Views.
4. Referrals (friends) make half of the visits while the other half from direct traffic and search engines.
5. This blog is only worth $240 at the moment (evaluated by dnScoop).
6. The total number of pages that contain links to my site is 2651.

Note: Visitors, visits and page views from my previous blog were not included.

This blog is still pretty much a Malaysian taste with about three-quarters of my readers arriving from several famous cities in Malaysia. Other than that the United States and Australia are the first runner-up and second runner-up respectively.

Ipoh ranks the top when it comes to the demographic pattern of visits to my blog. I am sure you have heard that Ipoh is not only famous for it’s ‘Ngah Choy Kai’, but also for its beautiful maiden.

Some of the most visited posts which I have written (let’s not talk about comments because the comments were lost during the database crash) are:

1. Football is so gay
2. Demonym for Malaysians
3. Six word memoirs
4. Emerging influential blogs 2008
5. Preventing perverted uncle
6. Thai cuisine at Johor Bahru
7. The power of commenting
8. Spot the difference
9. Get up, dress up, speak up and show up
10. The call

So you see, I am still very much a new blogger here. Share with me your tips on how to get more traffics or if you happened to read any crazy ideas on building traffics from others’ sites. If you are thinking of asking me to refer to so-and-so, then forget about it. Just one or two tips from you won’t hurt, right?

I just think I am too cocky and “kiamsiap” when it comes to commenting on others’ blogs. But hey, that is just me, I only comment when I want to say something or to express my view. Maybe it is this stinginess (in other words not being a commentwhore) has made me going against the flow.

PS: I just found out that I have another 4 months to build up 100 unique visits/day as required under this domain and sponshorship program. My palms are getting SWEATY now!!

Monday is not always easy, so does our lives.

We often have Monday Blues, so do I think in certain point of our lives we experience the bluish. Monday Blues are always associated with laziness or indolence. We all try to do what’s easy and avoid hard work, thanks to the weekend effect.

At the first day of work and as July is coming, it is timely now to remind our ownselves to once again work hard (if we have been lazy), to be self-disciplined (if we have been disorganized), and most of all enjoy after our hardwork.

Six months have passed and we still have another six months to go before we welcome 2009. If you have your New Year Resolution fixed (I assume you have, at least one), take your butt off your comfortable chair and find those resolutions which you have written. Read them out loud and stick them close to your heart. Revise them if things have gotten off the track.

“When you discipline yourself to do what is hard, you gain access to a realm of results that are denied everyone else. The willingness to do what is difficult is like having a key to a special private treasure room.” writes Steve Pavlina.

I am not making any vows or for any reason saying that I want to fight procrastination, a pledge is hard to keep but reminder is not. I have been lazy at times, I admit that. Sometimes I put important matters behind just because I do not want think about them, that’s total laziness.

As we are celebrating the Year of Saint Paul, the apostles of the Gentiles, we ought to be self-disciplined and work hard as they have. St Paul used to tell the Thessalonians this, “Whoever refuses to work is not allowed to eat.” He also warned them to lead orderly lives and work to earn their own living, yet never become tired of doing good. (2 Thessalonians 3: 10-13)

You see, whenever we have worked hard enough, it is alright for us to give ourselves a small treat (a slice of pizza perhaps) or even give ourselves a big hug.

At the end of the day or perhaps at the end of our lives we would say “I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

Some may want to ask why work so hard? That’s a good question.

Steve wrote this. Being healthy is hard work. Finding and maintaining a successful relationship is hard work. Raising kids is hard work. Getting organized is hard work. Setting goals, making plans to achieve them, and staying on track is hard work. Even being happy is hard work (true happiness that comes from high self-esteem, not the fake kind that comes from denial and escapism). Hard work goes hand-in-hand with acceptance.

Work hard my friends. Determine the domains or the areas you want to improve and work on them. Off shall I go with my work, I am still analyzing my data and there are tonnes of them.