My Journey in 2018

2018 has been a good year for me. I am thankful for the personal growth and career growth I've experienced last year. I've been looking back at my life to remind myself of who am I and what I've been through.
6 - 10 years ago, I was still an immature young girl, stumbling and bumbling around, thought I knew what I wanted, but looking back now, I didn't know what I wanted back then.
2 - 5 years ago was important to me, not just what happened to me, but what I learned from those few years. It was a rocky and hard road to walk through, but the valuable lessons I've learned from the experience helped me to realise what I actually wanted, and what I am capable of.
So this past year (2018), I've been constantly going out of my comfort zone to continuously learn how to be better, more confident, more stoic. It also means less anger, less insecure, and less complaining. (boy, I was such an angsty whiny kid back in my late teens and early 20s)

I've been to 3 different countries in 2018, and it's my first time travelling to foreign countries just by myself or with some friends. I'm learning how to deal with crisis, why it's bad to over-plan, what makes a good plan, and connecting with my friends on a deeper level. I still suck in making conversations, but I'm getting better at it. I'm glad to be able to knock a lot of items off my bucket list last year - Tokyo, blooming Sakura trees, Munich, Oktoberfest, Neuschwanstein Castle, travelling alone, travel with a friend who is not family. These are memories I'll treasure for the rest of my life.

I'm grateful to be able to learn a lot more in programming in 2018. I've quit my previous job and went out to be a full-time freelancer, working with my programming mentor on cool projects. Learned more on server architecture and backend optimisation - skills that I wanted to improve on.

There's more to learn, and more to experience in 2019. I'm happy for all the good and bad moments that led me here and shaped me to who I am today. I want to be more independent, and take on life head on without fear pulling me back. I thank God for helping me throughout this journey. I thank my family for supporting me when I'm at my lowest point in my life a few years back, and during my lonely times. I thank my friends for still sticking around after so many years. Looking forward to a good 2019 and beyond.

I'm pretty sure a few years later when I look back at this post, I'll squirm because of the cheesiness and sappiness of it all.

Nerf Longstrike Xplorer Zombie Slayer Kit Mod

Just done the Nerf Longstrike Xplorer Zombie Slayer Kit Mod with Jon last week. It's a direct plunger mod with reinforced plastics and upgraded springs. It is the bomb!

We've noticed the absence of mod guides for this kit, so I thought of documenting the process down in case anyone needs it. I don't have my own photos so I guess written instructions will be provided for now. Refer to OMW Longstrike Mod Guide for the name and configuration of the internals. (Some photos were taken from the guide)

Materials needed:
Nerf Longstrike
Xplorer Longstrike Zombie Slayer kit
Artline pen
Pipe cutter
Superglue
Ruler
Screwdriver
Allen key / Hex key
Nail file / normal iron file
Pliers

Step 1: Unscrew and take off the Longstrike shell.

Step 2: Unscrew the spring rest cap.

Step 3: Take out the jam door, breech, bolt sled, plunger, spring, reinforcement plate, trigger catch, and the trigger lock.

Step 4: Knock the bolt sled pin out with a screwdriver and pliers, with the pliers acting as the hammer. Now you have the bolt sled and breech as separate pieces.

Step 5: Measure your breech from the bottom lip towards the breech plunger end. Measure it to 11.1cm and mark it.

Step 6: Use a pipe cutter to cut the breech at your 11.1cm mark. You should have the breech at 11cm after cutting it. The 1mm leeway is for the pipe cutter because the blade is not a laser cutter.

Step 7: Measure 2mm from the breech mouth upper lip. Use your pen to mark both sides.

Step 8: Use your nail file or normal iron file to file the breech mouth down to the markings. Make sure to follow the contour of the original breech mouth curvy shape. This part has to be filed down so it will not block the insertion of your Nerf clips.

Step 9: Glue the breech end cap from the Xplorer kit to the cut end of the breech. This is similar to the direct plunger system in Nerf blasters like Retaliator.

Step 10: Put the breech and the bolt sled from Xplorer kit together by knocking in the bolt sled pin.

Step 11: Insert the plunger tube rail stops from Xplorer kit into the plunger rail. You should see a slot on the rail stops and a black piece glued at one side. Arrange it so the slot faces downwards, a.k.a. facing outwards, and the black piece should face to the right a.k.a. towards the butt of the blaster. Put this rail stop at the left side of the plunger rail a.k.a. in front of the plunger tube that we will place later. Repeat this for the other shell.

Step 12: Insert the spring rest cap adapter into the stock reinforcement plate.

Step 13: Assemble the Xplorer bolt sled with breech, Xplorer plunger tube and rod, Xplorer trigger catch with spring, Xplorer spring and the modified reinforcement plate into the Longstrike. I don't have a photo for this, but you can check the Retaliator internals to figure it out. It's not that hard to know which part goes where.
The configuration sequence will be like this - Xplorer bolt sled with breech > plunger tube rail stop > Xplorer plunger tube and rod > Xplorer trigger catch with spring Xplorer spring > modified reinforcement plate.

Step 14: Screw the modified reinforcement plate in.

Step 15: Make sure all parts are in their place and screw the other shell back in.

Step 16: Slide the Xplorer priming bolt rod in. Use the allen key / hex key to screw the Xplorer priming bolt handles nice and tight.

And now you are ready to go!

If you get the official instructions from Xplorer, they said to cut the breech at Step 5 & 6 at 10.8cm. We tried that before on Minerva (Jon's Longstrike) but we think it is not a stable fit for the breech plunger end and the plunger tube. If we do it at 11cm, the breech can rest inside the plunger tube deeper when the breech is in closed position, hence more stable. Just don't go longer than 11cm because you might not be able to prime completely then. To compensate for the extra 2mm on the breech, we filed the breech mouth by 2mm so it will not block the Nerf clips when you want to insert them in when the breech is open. You can try not filing it down first, and try inserting the clip. You will find that it is hard and loud when you insert the clip, and this actually means you are forcing the breech mouth into the clip head opening, and that is bad bad bad. So, file it down, it won't hurt. Just remember to file according to the original shape. No pointy edges. It's up to you to follow the official instructions or mine. Both methods work anyway.

Hope this written guide can help you when you install the Xplorer Longstrike Zombie Slayer kit!

Hakka Folklore - Yung Ga Ma

I've been searching around for documentation of a horror folklore that my grandmother used to tell me when I was a kid, but I can hardly find any. It's about a child-eating granny monster named Yung Ga Ma. The only source I found was here in this link: http://dylansung.tripod.com/sapienti/zunggama.htm

But the version that my grandmother told me was slightly different, so I just thought of documenting it myself so this Hakka folklore gets passed on.

Yung Ga Ma
Two sisters were walking in a forest but they got lost. Night time is nigh and they were getting afraid. By chance, they found a small wooden hut, with a glowing candle shimmering behind the windows. They make haste and sped towards the hut to look for shelter. The older sister knocked on the door and asked, "Are there anybody inside? My sister and I got lost and need shelter for the night so we can continue our journey tomorrow. Can you please let us in?"

Shortly after, the door creaked open, and an old lady walked out. "Why, of course! Come in, come in!" She said, with a frail but high-pitched voice. The two sisters quickly went inside the hut with the old lady. The old lady asked them to sit down at the table and offered dinner to them. "Have some dinner. You must be very hungry. Eat up, eat up."

"Thank you, po po (we call our grandmas and generic old ladies 'po po' in Hakka). What shall we call you?"

"I am Yung Ga Ma." The old lady answered. "Eat, eat. It's getting late, so let's get to bed quickly. I'm old and I can't stay up too late anymore."

The sisters ate their dinner and went inside Yung Ga Ma's bedroom. There is only one small bed that can only fit two people. The older sister let the younger sister to sleep on the bed with Yung Ga Ma while she slept on the floor. The candles were snuffed and they all went to sleep.

"Crunch crunch crunch..."

The older sister was awaken in the middle of the night by a loud crunching noise, as if somebody was eating something hard. She asked, "Who's eating?"

The old lady answered in the dark, "Oh, I'm just eating peanuts, darling. Get back to sleep now."

"Crunch crunch crunch..."

The older sister can't get back to sleep because of the constant crunching noise. Since she can't sleep, she decided to go out and take a dump. "Yung Ga Ma, I need to poop. I'm going out for a while." When she stood up, she saw the lifeless body of her younger sister without her head, and Yung Ga Ma lying beside the body with a bloody mouth and chewing on what's left of her sister's head. Terrified by the sight, she screamed and ran out into the forest. Yung Ga Ma chased her relentlessly.

"For an old lady, she ran nothing like one!" The older sister thought. She thought of an idea to stop Yung Ga Ma and climbed up a tree. Yung Ga Ma followed. "Don't be afraid, I am just eating peanuts. Just come back with me and rest." The old lady said.

"You ate my sister! Why should I follow?" The older sister shouted back.

"No no no, it's just too dark, you didn't see properly. I am just eating peanuts, see?" Yung Ga Ma dug out a few peanuts from her pockets and showed them to the older sister.

The older sister still did not believe in Yung Ga Ma, but inside her head, she knew how to trick Yung Ga Ma so she will not be eaten as well. "Ok, peanuts it is. But Yung Ga Ma, your hair is so messy from chasing me, let me comb your hair for you first before I follow you back to your hut." She said.

Yung Ga Ma let her comb her hair in the tree. While the older sister was combing Yung Ga Ma's hair, she tied the hair to the branches with each stroke of the comb. After she finished combing and tying, she jumped down from the tree and ran off, leaving Yung Ga Ma shouting and struggling on top of the tree.

Disadvantages of texting

Sometimes I feel it's better that everyone just communicate by talking to one another on the phone instead of sending texts, because when you scroll back to see certain past messages, it hurts.

Dumbest Bug Ever

Been looking all around on how to solve this particular bug for the whole day today. The problem is the field in the form does not auto-convert the datetime object to local time, even though I've declared USE_TZ=True and set the correct TIME_ZONE in the settings.py

Turns out it's because I used forms.DateField instead of forms.DateTimeField inside my forms for those DateTime fields.

*facetable*

Reminder to self: Look for the most obvious things first when debugging. Compare whether the fields in the models and forms are declared properly. Check other similar forms and see whether this problem occurs or not before assuming this is a global bug.

Acquired Blues Harp

I've been looking around for an affordable blues harp for a while now, because I want to learn how to blow that harmonica like a bosssss...

I like blues, and I enjoyed playing the old tremolo harmonicas that my late grandpa owned. After months of toying with the tremolo harmonica, I found out that it's not that suitable for playing blues because you can't bend the notes on a tremolo harmonica. Some people can do it, but it's not designed to do that. So I figured, might as well get me a 10-hole diatonic blues harp.

Just 'cause I want to play those blues riffs.

And so, I searched lots of places for this. Went to Woh Fatt twice but they aren't open for business for both times. Went to a few music stores but they either sell expensive Suzuki and Hohner harps, or they don't have stock. 

Final resort - Lelong.com.my

Found a vendor that sells RM15 SX Blues, and I heard that this China-brand harmonica is actually quite decent sounding and affordable for beginners like me.

"What are you waiting for? Buy it lah!"

And so, I bought it. And here it is! 

Damn fine.

Love it.

Learning process:
God, I didn't know I'll face difficulties in playing the 2 hole draw.
And bending notes, that's hard too. I know, it's too soon to learn bending when I'm just starting out. But I like to challenge myself.
Got a few successful tries, but still not stable yet.

I'll train to become an awesome note bender! (bonus points if you noticed the Avatar parody/reference)

FlatWhite

Just yesterday, I was messing around with the blog's template, and got the inspiration to create a very basic website template. I'm naming it FlatWhite, because it's flat, and it's pretty white overall. And I've just realised this laptop I'm using does not have Sublime Text 2, no XAMPP, no bootstrap libraries, no nothing. Oh well, good opportunity to start creating a template right at square one.

It's still very basic though.

Screenshot of Flat White

You can download it here and try.

FlatWhite
Unzip it and open up index.html.