A RIEview on Life and games

In this second post of the 'Surviving Overseas' series, I cover a topic that is common for us independent university students out there – Finding a place to live for a year or the whole duration of your degree. Most students will shift homes every year, while a few will stay at the same accomodation for the entire length of their degree. Moving so often could be because of: insulation is not warm enough (seasonal countries), falling out or change in housemates, can't afford the current rent, or just want to move closer to the university to cut on commute time or cost.  First-year students, except for locals, are usually arranged by the university to stay in a university-owned dormitories (or colleges, as known in New Zealand) to ease concerns of accomodation and meals. The downside is that students have to fork out more to pay for accomodation + meals provided by the university than if they were staying on their own. I have heard friends and classmates who mentioned that th...

This post is part of a 3-part series that revolve around my 4-year period of university in New Zealand. To give a brief background, I'm a Malaysian who went to New Zealand for my undergraduate degree (3 years) and later Masters (1 year). The culture in Malaysia is vastly different from the culture in New Zealand, which is often the case for most international students as they leave their home country to study in another country of different culture values and traditions. While international students like me have the struggle of adjusting to a new environment, us and local/domestic students alike share a common obstacle – the transition from high school to university. In this post I will share my experience on how I dealt with university life, and also some important things that I've missed out – but you don't have to! While my experience is unique to New Zealand, this also applies to university students everywhere in the world. (Note: Different countries and univer...

Before I begin my review + guide in proper, I have never read the original novel before. My brief knowledge of the Phantom of the Opera consists of fleeting awareness of adaptations (movie, musical, games), and of course Wikipedia. With the decision to be a bit more cultured (ha!), I decided to download MazM's Phantom of the Opera, an interactive visual novel game based on the original novel of the same name. I might have hesitated when I read the precautions So to keep in mind, you can actually play the whole game for free. You do have to purchase episodes in each chapters to read them, but you can earn the currency (silver and gold) by watching ads. 3 ads daily, with the last ad giving both silver and gold currency Special ads, also refreshed daily, are only found when you are playing the episode Note, the special ads are found when you click on the kitty in the episode (might have to move about to find one!).  SPOILER :  Kitties are found only aboveground...