big shoulders

So, spring break is finally over.

Tomorrow, the sacred boilermaker campus will be swarmed by proud insomniac Neil Armstrong and Brian Lamb wannabes yet again. With the sun shining gloriously after a long hiatus, and the basketball team advancing to the sweet 16 , there’s a lot to look forward to, other than the classes with Korean instructors.

Anyways, it was a well spent-low-productivity-level break. We learned playing mahjong Hong Kong style, played poker, had barbecue, watched basketball games and movies, went to Chicago, played soccer and football, and most importantly, we slept well.


Ok, let’s talk about the impromptu Windy City trip. First of all, Chicago is a very cool big city; the air feels cleaner and the traffic is really not that bad compared to NYC or KL. And if you’re into architecture, you should really go see Chicago (the SEARS tower et al). And what I think I like the most about the city are the cool sculptures all around the city, and the gorgeous parks down the long Lake Michigan shore-line. And just so you know how windy and cold the city is, random local people were talking about how warm and beautiful the day was, when the temperature was at 1 degree centigrade, and the wind was gushing constantly into our faces.


and i've actually upgraded to a point-and-shoot...


And talking about sculptures, at last, I had the chance to see the god bless america sculpture up close. I was excited about the sculpture because I was trapped in a conversation about the American Gothic Painting (which the sculpture was based on) with some guys some time ago, so, yeah, it was cool to see a piece of art and actually knowing something about it.



Btw, I’ve been to Chicago for at least a dozen times before, but being a lousy tourist and all, I haven’t really visited the City of Big Shoulders until recently. And i'm glad i did.


So, if you’re planning to go to the Second City for a visit, you could do the usual tourist stuff like go up the Sears Tower, go visit the Museums and the Aquarium, go to one of the beaches, visit Navy Pier, see the cool stuff in Millennium Park, go to the Planetarium, enjoy the parks, and walk and shop along Michigan Avenue. And if you have some extra cash, go see a theatre or go see the Bulls, or the Bears, or the Cubs or the White Sox play in their respective stadiums. And if you go on St. Patty’s day, you’ll have a chance to see the parade and the river dyed green.


So, yeahh… everyone will miss doing nothing.
The team will play the other Husky this Thursday, and let’s prove Obama wrong.



Wazza, I feel you man… and BTFU!!!!!

people with no other options

hmmmmmm……...

It’s Monday again. So, let’s start out with something good. I came across this entry on MM’s blog. I’m not very fond of motivational writings nor am I a fan of new age affirmation, but maybe some of you would find it inspirational. And I’m putting it up because the guys on the team thought it was pretty impressive for a single straight guy to be able to recognize a certain designer’s name in a song. But to my defense, I’ve never seen any of his shoes nor have I stepped in into any of his boutiques including the online ones, and heck, the guy was born in Penang!!!!!... So, like any other Malaysians, of course I’ve heard about him from somewhere. Btw, the nice entry dedicated specially to the Monday-haters out there was written by Jimmy Choo’s son.

Enough with Monday, let’s move on to something much more thrilling…. like the economy. News has it that the unemployment rate in the US could go above a staggering 9% by year’s end. And I’m assuming that as people are losing jobs and all, green issues have lost its appeal. And heck, even Rupert Murdoch has been said to be losing his magic touch, which explains why the media has more important things to focus on.

Anyways, let’s leave that to the pros to elaborate. Let’s talk materials economy. Well, maybe you should just click on the link and just watch and listen to Annie Leonard’s cool presentation on The Story of Stuff. This project has been around for quite some time I guess. To those who haven’t seen it yet, enjoy, and to those who have, sorry I got nothing to crap about; I have my own linear system on a finite planet to worry about.

And just what on earth is going on with the country?



Just my 2 cents, I think this guy has a point. Well, my dad used to tell me a couple dozen of times on how they should’ve stopped Khir Johari (if I’m not mistaken) from pulling out jawi from the system. And whatever the resolution might be, let’s just hope that it will be in the favor of the country, the rakyat and the generations to come.

And one more thing, let’s not make ‘taking it to the streets’ a trend; because you pull up the same trick too many times, the opponent wouldn’t have to rely too much on his reflexes to make the tackle anymore, not to mention it loses its WOW factor. Mannn, we are one twisted nation. Mr./Mrs. Politicians, you can start cleaning the mess up by pulling your heads out of your arses.

And after some long depressing hours of Youtube-ing, trying to reestablish a connection to home which I haven’t been back to for quite a while, jumbled in the middle of the long list of videos of FRUs and tear gas shots, new legendary tree stories, samseng-like raids in the parliament compound, and some local soccer talk, I found this.

So, have a great week everyone……

March Madness is coming…..

bulan 2.0

Being here, at the cradle of astronauts, I’ve had the privilege to see the first man who walked on the moon from 20 yards out, and meet a couple of other ‘real’ astronauts along the way, including Mark Polansky and a couple of his friends.

And quite recently, the geek club had the opportunity to meet up and have a rocket-science discussion with a prominent rocket scientist and the CEO cum the president of an aerospace company. They were here to talk about the company and how they are progressing with the lunar x-prize competition. You can look it up here.

And yup, there’s a Malaysian team competing too. And what is more exciting is, is the fact that the team is based in Semanggol, which is just about a 30 minute drive away from boring PB. A launch pad in PB then?.. ..lol. I’m guessing that they’re looking at going as a payload on someone else’s rocket.

Anyway, before you people start hating and throwing bad words at the company for wasting money on this random competition, keep on reading. Firstly, by now, you should already notice that the competition is for privately-funded companies only, so, there shouldn’t be much problem with wasting the rakyat’s money and all.

But then, you might not be naïve enough to not think that the government might be funding it anyways. So, to the next point, as I was informed, the $20 million is really not the main catch as most of the teams are looking at working on a $100 million cost. It is more of a chance to make a statement and to build reputation and credibility; it’s more of a long-term investment. Though the solar panels on the moon don’t sound that realistic and all, there is more beyond the prize money I guess. But again, if you have the money, and you got the management part right, then, you’re probably on the right track. As we were told, it is more of a project management thing than it is rocket science.
And google’s catch? I heard that they are going to put a webcam on the moon. I don’t know.

Anyhow, I had an interview with the company the next day, which I did pretty badly in. They won’t be hiring me anyway because they have investments in some defense related stuff. And since they won’t allow internationals to join the US based teams because of some safety and top secret technology regulations and all, to the rest of the teams out there who are interested in having an additional leech on the team, do leave me a message. I have a couple of possible proposals we can work on; probably adopting Robert Full’s work on the rover maybe?



Keyser Soze dah jatuh nombor 2
Back to the job hunting part, given the so-so economic condition right now, the job hunting game has just got a little tougher. A couple of my friends just got informed that they’ve lost the positions they were guaranteed to fit in after graduation. These people have been taking every summer job possible for at least 2 years in every imaginable big corporation around, so you can just imagine how hard it is going to be for people like me who has no prior industrial experience and with not a very sturdy academic standing. I get invited to interviews and all, and I even went on to the more advanced 3rd and 4th round interviews, but in the end, my visa just won’t allow me to go further. But the most frustrating part is that they only tell you that they won’t be hiring after the 3rd or the 4th stages, but, what the hell, it’s never a bad thing to give it a shot right? But there goes my dream car….. ahah

Anyways, it’s a good thing that I’m here, and am in this department. Because our FYP, as most of you would call it, are the coolest kinds of FYPs available in the whole wide world. Because we’re a different breed of engineers, we don’t do much stuff like inventing underwater walking robots or frequency converters or such. So, we need to go out and take projects from cool companies who offer benefits such as sponsored private jet rides for site visits, travelling allowances etc, and act as consultants. Initially, my group was assigned to the coolest project available this semester, involving the biggest semiconductor company in the world and a prestigious medical school nearby in making improvements on a new system. However, we were assigned to take on another project at the very last minute. So, there goes the golden ink on my resume.

Anyhow, the new project isn’t really that bad. I haven’t heard of the company before either, but it turns out that it is the biggest player in the wireless device supply chain business. And I hope that everything’s going to go on smoothly. And better, at least the other 2 members in the team have got some pretty decent industrial experience on their backs. So, if I get lost along the way, leeching is still an option. ahah.

So, sebelum subuh esok, I’m off to Indy, 630 in the freaking morning.

I'm doing science and I'm still alive

In 17 days 919 Palestinians were killed by Israel including 284 children & 100 women, while 4260 others were injured

anyway, remember primary school language classes, when we had to write essays on ‘my most humiliating experience’ or ‘pengalaman yang tidak boleh dilupakan sepanjang hidupku’? Everyone or at least those not adventurous enough would write about their first day at school, wetting their pants because they were too terrified to ask the evil teacher to go out to the loo, or better, how they cried like a baby under the wooden desk when the dad had to leave?

btw, I didn’t make up the crying under the desk part, but let’s keep that for another day shall we. Man, I can’t stop laughing, sorry eh…. hahaha.. And I still can’t stop laughing.

And because we were not trained to be adventurous, and the one example that the teacher gave is supposed to be the best one, I had to write down some lame lies every time we had to write something about the aforementioned topic. Though it was a good way to learn fiction, it was still pretty lame.

But I digress…..

Anyways, I was just trying to enlighten you that I didn’t cry at all on my first day of school. Ahah…. I did look back the instant my dad left, right after dropping me at my desk, when all the other parents waited for their kids outside the class. But I didn’t shed a single tear.
Because the class teacher thought I was so brave, and anarchism was yet to be integrated into my dictionary, I was appointed the ‘penolong ketua kelas’. Farhan was the class rep, only because he was the biggest and the tallest kid in class, and because Mrs. Chew, our class teacher knew his dad, Mr. Wilson Yeo. But no hard feelings, we went on to be best friends up until today.
But thinking back on it, I think I didn’t cry because I didn’t know we should or we were expected to cry on our first day at school. And I didn’t know that parents were expected to wait for us outside the classroom the whole first day of school. But I’m glad I didn’t know. hehh…..

And today was the first day of school all over again; supposedly the last first day of school for some of us. I’ll probably be staying for the summer, I don’t know yet. Anyways, back to today, it went pretty well I guess, except for one of the classes. I think the professor is a psycho, I don’t know. And I’m in a modeling class again, mathematical modeling to be exact... ahah... lame gile…..


I've experiments to run, there is research to be done… (lagu rockband smlm)

And to some soccer, most of the ‘liga competitive malam jumaat’ guys are back in snowy WL. So, we had a game just now, but we had to stop early because the roller-hockey guys wanted to play on the court we’re sharing with them. And just so you know, every time the two groups come at the same time, tension will flare, but thank god, tonight, only bad language was used, and no punches were thrown. I’ll be writing to the paper tomorrow. But I had to stop playing early anyway; I pulled a muscle in my right thigh. And AJ, the guy I’ve been playing with for at least a year now, actually lives opposite my apartment. hampehh….

Anyways, welcome back to school. Let’s hope Friday will come by in a flash.

bye-bye coach Dungy.


yang lapar dan sakit kena sepak.

*terdelete entry sebelum ni.

flossing

So, other than the other penniless international students who can’t afford to get a ticket home for christmas, and those less fortunate to have an exam on the last Saturday of the semester, the rest of the population has gone balik kampung. WL is nearly empty.

anyways, just so you people know that I’m still alive, let’s get something posted. And yup, like miss aphrodite, say if I die, I don’t want anyone to leave any comments or leave anything on the shoutbox. And I’m fine btw; I don’t think I’m having any suicidal thoughts at the moment. Don’t worry.

hmmmmmm………… OK.
so, feynman is a genius; he is so smart that he uses his brain to charm the ladies. When he was younger, he likes to read the encyclopedia, and he uses the little cool stuff he knows to get to the girls.

But I digress.

anyways, if you’re a knowledge junkie, or if you think that the Feynman way may help you with the opposite sex, this site may interest you. TED. So, basically, it used to be an exclusive club for the very cool people. But thanks to the WWW, now, everyone can enjoy the pleasure of getting their fix of some cool new knowledge of the pineapple express grade. So, through personal experience, I have to say that I didn’t have much luck with the girls, but for the ego and for the ‘feel good’ purposes, this site is surely one of the best. So, do check it out.
But just don’t come running to me tomorrow and start talking like you really know the shit. There’s a very big difference in ‘being informed of something’ and ‘really knowing something’.
Sorry about that, but I just get annoyed when people go all gung-ho with the little new thing they just read out of somewhere, and start making some stupid and simplistic conclusions and arguments that just doesn’t make sense sometimes.
But to the rest of you nice rational people, still, just check it out.

And still to the knowledge junkies out there, or if you’re just someone who is just tired of reading about gay rights, Obama, China, terrorism, bailout issues and India, Mental Floss might be the magazine for you. It’s a fun read, loaded with cool facts and trivia, with a little Freakonomics touch on it. I picked one up a couple of weeks ago, and I literally read every single page in it, cover to cover. So, anyone has any idea where to find free magazine subscription deals?

And yup, since I’ve been fondly ‘collecting’ books instead of actually reading them, anyone kind enough with extra pocket money, I won’t feel bad to find this in the mailbox. hehhh….


adoiii... mane nak pegi cuti ni? We went Bear Grills in Yellowstone last summer. Maybe I should try doing it Samantha Brown’s or Anthony Bourdain’s or Andrew Zimmermen’s way this winter. Leceh betul ramai-ramai ni. Maybe I should take a plane to the Amazons.


-yang pancit main rockband2-

going postal

It was a tough week. It was TOUGH, tough. Everyone was going postal. Everyone was angry, and stressed out, and disappointed and just simply uptight. And multiply those negative moods and emotions with the depressingly still, cold early winter weather; you can just feel the grimness in the air once you set your eyes on the first brown-brick building on campus. It’s very close towards the last day of the semester, crunch time; which means minimal sleep, no weekends, 12 hours in the lab, and 3 hours at home a day kind of week. Heck, everything is due on the same day.

So, what better way to get rid of all the foul emotions? Go hook up with some crazy people.
Here, we have this cool tradition called the Breakfast Club. People dress up in Halloween costumes and get drunk as early as 7 in the morning on game days.
And what better Saturday to at last cross that one out from the ‘25 before you graduate to do list’ than on the last game day of the season, on your last rivalry game as a student here. BTW, I don’t drink, and the slightest smell of liquor makes me sick.
Anyways, I didn’t have a costume, so I went along with a couple of ‘light-drinker’ mates dressed up as King Cantonna. We met up with some friends at one of the bars on the strip I had some coke, left 15 minutes later, and went straight home, back to bed before waking up later in the morning for the game. Sleeping time don't come easy these days...

And heck, it was one of the best games ever. We got them right in the face. What better thing to do after a hellish week than to scream your hearts out for your team on a cold depressing Saturday afternoon along with 68000 other spectators and see the other team get a beating?

The game, it should rank somewhere up there, probably tied for the top spot with the game against Michigan some weeks ago, in my personal all time most memorable Ross-Ade games. It is probably the best clash between two sub-.5 teams ever. The energy was amazing, though more free hugs were given out during the Michigan game I guess.

And the game was the one last one for the seniors, and more importantly, the last one for the living legend, the coach.
It didn’t snow as I hoped it would, but it was one perfect last one for everyone.

one!!!.. two!!!.. three!!!... four!!!... 1st down B***H!!

one for the record books

it was always gonna be a special day, so let's bring 3 of those today... why not?... lol

the bucket is somewhere in there

they took a beating

one for the legend

one last speech...

one last song...from the man who restored the pride back himself

where pride happens

And as football season commences, comes basketball season. The team is in the NIT preseason tip-off final game tomorrow, and everyone is looking forward to the game against the Blue Devils next week.

And yeah, next time, get VIP….

The girl reading Kierkegaard, who are you??...

leg breaking

So, I was facing this big dilemma. I don’t like to choose, especially when it comes down to choosing people. If it were a staffing decision, then, a simple linear model would suffice, but this one is way beyond complicated.

But a man has to do what a man got to do. And Dawes’ and Ben Franklin’s long explanation on prudential algebra brought me down to this decision which cost me $20. I chose a Polish-born Nobel Prize winner over my favorite scientist, who also happens to be one of the coolest physicist, science idol and writer ever; Rotblat over Feynman.

And after reading one of the best composed and sincere writings by a scientist or a philosopher I’ve ever came across, I signed the pledge.

And then paid the $20 membership fee, and got my cool t-shirt and other ‘free’ stuff.

Anyways, the Student Pugwash is all about engaging students to promote the socially responsible use of science and technology, and in order to create effective social change, students must first understand the issues at stake, and then contemplate their ethical and moral responsibility to themselves and to society as a whole.

And as I can’t really get a consistent 10 hours of sleep a day and not that much soccer or football or sweat anymore this semester because of schoolwork and all, I decided to take the passenger’s seat for this particular intention, by the door in the backseat. Well, I didn’t get myself all messy with the administration stuff, but I’ve learnt some pretty cool and great new stuff from the very people who are pioneers and the crème de la crème in their respective already cool fields.
Seriously, after the short an hour or so lecture, you’ll get out feeling a little bit more intelligent, which is good to feed the deflated ego after having to do too much schoolwork and projects that make you feel dumber than a 12 year old giraffe. And some of the lectures even helped me change my stand on certain issues. Anyway, the most important lesson I’ve got so far is that, information, small or little goes a very long way. For $20 (actually the lecture series can be attended for free), now I’m a big advocate of nuclear energy, I have a pretty good idea on what to feed my wife during and even before pregnancy, how calico cats and women are the same, a new dimension on the black gold, corn and the energy issue, and I get to meet some new cool geeks.

So, yup, Feynman is still the favorite and the coolest scientist ever, but Rotblat, Einstein and a couple of their scientist friends made the better choice. Well, consistent to what Erick Erikson suggested, people in between their teen years, up to their early 20’s usually have this Identity vs. Role confusion. So, choosing what’s cool and what you’re supposed to be and do is pretty confusing at this age.

And talking about another favorite writer, I had a chance to hear a lecture and get my book signed by Mr. Tom Friedman some one month ago, the same night I saw Frank Duong at the Union, the night before he scored a touchdown out of an interception. He talked about his book which I yet to get a chance to read beyond page 34, and a couple of his personal experience which was great. And with this entire APEX thing going on, maybe the particular university back home should really look into this energy engineering technology thing, which according to Freidman, is the new ‘it’ thing, the new big tomorrow. And as I was 12th in line out of the nearly packed 6,025 capacity Elliot Hall of Music audience during the book signing, I get to have a little chat with him, but I forgot to ask him to sign his other book I brought along.
Ohh, again, if you somehow managed to find this humble blog, thanks for the book……

We went to see my classmate take the basketball court during the halloween night exhibition game last night. We were pretty good. The future is bright.

And for one last time, let's go slay some wolverine for lunch.

-the best indoor kicks yet--

-The tired, deflated, stressed, and in need of a pair of new kicks, a new graphic card and to break some legs-

Hoppípolla

The House of Representatives or the UN should pass a law or some kind of an international policy stating that the purpose of school breaks should be solely for chilling out and relaxing, and the assigning of schoolwork or projects during the breaks should be made illegal unconditionally.
As a friend of mine would say, this is happening because people like ‘us’ are merely watching from the sidelines; we should have more of ‘our kind’ be directly involved in this nerdy business. And until that happens, our species will have to suffer.

Anyways, I was watching Planet Earth encore on Discovery Channel, and I remember watching the kind of documentary during school breaks when I was younger, aired on TV3, during the Alam Ria Cuti Sekolah slot, at 1130 in the morning. As far as I could remember, even back then, at that level, teachers have been violating the purpose and the spirit of school breaks.

Getting back to the documentary shows, I particularly like the series on the Great Plains, especially the savannah and the prairies and also the one on the great Nile. And the animals can be broken down into three categories, the good ones, the cool ones, and the evil ones. The good animal group includes the whales, elephants, antelopes, zebras, buffalos, caribous, rhinos, any kind of bears including the grizzlies, and the hippopotamus. On the other hand, the cool group consists of the lions, the orca, dolphins, tigers, leopards, the big horn, platypus, the silverback, white m furred mountain goats, and at times baboons and crocodiles. And the usual suspects include the great white, sometimes the seals, herring birds, Nile crocs and the ever ugly hyenas.

Besides the animals, the other most interesting part of this kind of documentary is when they fast forward the video to show how the plants bloom when seasons change. First, a lot of rain will flood the barren land, and then after the flood clears up, new greenish life would sprout out from the seeds brought in by the flood or from the ones buried in the ground the whole hot torturous summer, after that, the sprouts would grow taller and bigger, and then beautiful colorful flowers will bloom, and suddenly, in a snap,the boring barren land would turn into this beautiful lush greenish heaven where more lives in the forms of mammals and birds and reptiles will dwell in again, until the next step in the cycle repeats. But technology has made things even more fascinating. In one of the episodes of Planet Earth, this one scene, in which a great white was shooting out of the surface after snapping a seal in between it’s jaws, instead of fast-forwarding, the scence was slowed down to 40 times, because it couldn’t be seen clearly at normal speed. And not to mention that the series are all in HD.

And the nice music arrangement and the cool, macho narration are the glue or the cherry on the icing to the shows. And all credits to the producers, the tireless camera crews, the researchers and the Ah Longs.

geeks~

And I was watching travel channel just now, and indigenous nudity is the phrase of the day.

School won’t start until Wednesday, but the closest to a vacation that i could get is to move in to the apartment downstairs whose tenants went out traveling. The valve is half-way done, the Cadillac thing went pretty well, the GPS stuff is not going so well, and not to mention the lab stuff and the homework all need to be taken care of. and heck we suck in football. Basketball season starts in 2 weeks.

WIP

Its freaking 130 am in the morning, and it’s funny how full the lab is still is. Everyone else is trying to decipher stupid looking codes dengan muka tertekan….wahahaha.. nasib baik esok paper accounting je. Your major is my freaking Gen-Ed….. so, shut up!!!
No doubt, reading bahasa manusia, even stupid never-heard-of jargons, is much easier than reading ridiculous high-level or high-low programming languages or some raw dull numbers.

Though I think that being Brian Cox is still much cooler than being Jason Chambers,
I’ve made up my mind….I want to be a MMA fighter when I grow up….
Or when I graduate…

I didn’t know that you could make a career out of kicking the heck out of someone else. I used to want to be a pendekar, out of watching cool Rusdi Ramli and Eman Manan pendekar dramas on TV2 & TV3. Pendekar Kundur and Keris Hitam Bersepuh Emas are the best. But since I’ve already developed a chronological sense of a time line by then, then it’ll only go against my nubile plebian logic to want to become a Pendekar. And being in the silver screen industry has never been that appealing either. If only Mrs. Chew, my standard 1 class teacher were to enlighten us students much earlier about a career in fighting, then by now, after some altercation with the parents, I’ll probably be standing besides or being kicked the hell out of myself by Fedor Emelianenko or Tito Ortiz, or Anderson Silva or Chuck Lidell or my favorite Randy Couture, or at least by now, my biceps should be as big as theirs, and am already half-way through the path of becoming the ultimate killing machine.

Let’s see what O*NET has to say about being a fighter.

Last week was quite disappointing, I did pretty well on the paper on the 2nd day of raya, but I think I failed the one on the 3rd day of raya. And we freaking embarrassed ourselves on national TV…. were you serious???? Anyways, the Colts and the reds are the stories of the week, with their impressive and entertaining comebacks in their respective football games.

Suggest me a nickname…… the asian assassin? The meat grinder?

in one piece, not in pieces.....

Jon wrote this nice pantun on our mount rushmore-salam perantauan thingy.

Kajang pak malau kajang berlipat,
Kajang hamba mengkuang layu,
Raya tuan raya bertempat,
Raya hamba musafir selalu.

So, Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin, to whomever and wherever you may be.
And have fun.

I don’t know why, but I haven’t been excited about raya for quite some time. But, no matter what, how or where, the 1st of Syawal must be celebrated.

And drive safely. My grandparents got in a car crash somewhere in Tapah sometime last week. I don’t really know about the details, because when people get sad, they don’t talk much, and when people get sad, I tend to get angry.
The grandma had to get some metal implanted into her hip or somewhere as the result of the crash, while my grandpa who was fine the first time around was again admitted to the hospital because of some problems with his lungs, but at least it was confirmed that it wasn’t caused by any internal bleeding from the crash. So, the family is going to celebrate raya rather lowly this year, at the hospital.

Last year, today, I was in NYC, celebrating raya with my sister, and that was pretty cool. Though no one came over from home to celebrate together this time around, I think the people here have made this particular first of Syawal a rather enjoyable one. They served good food, and turned this rather cold day into a warm and an enjoyable one.

jemput dtg, i'm serving famous amos cookies this raya....

Next year, makan lemang panas!!!!

Tomorrow morning and khamis, 474 and 486!!!!

Of it being a sinusoidal function…… that we have to debate…..

Are you freaking kidding me? We’re going to have a debate on some useless bunch of numbers and Greek letters with an equal sign somewhere in between them?

Anyways, you’ve probably have heard of Hans Christian Handersen’s the ugly duckling or another version of it at some point of your life. I was watching this talk show the other day, and I’ve just realized that all this years, I’ve failed to grasp the very nucleus of the story, which Mr. Handersen called his autobiography, in which the ugly duckling was already a cygnet in the first place. The big egg came up rolling from nowhere ending up as the 7th or 8th egg in the mother duck’s nest. He was an outsider from the very beginning. Anyways, being different shouldn’t be that bad should it?

And more duck stuff. The game against the ducks last week was all in all very entertaining, and it’d definitely be better if we could get the win. But heck, we lost after a big lead at half time. Man, we suck!!! That’s why we should never punt on 4th and 1 from midfield. However, the home team did put on a hard fight. But Summers, missing the supposedly winning kick with 2.1 seconds left on the clock? Are you serious? We were this close from a nice win. Nevertheless, the defense was outstanding.

And, life has been interesting. It’s 4:46 in the freaking morning, and I’ve just finished keying in the ‘N1050’th line of the G&M code for the manufacturing lab. The pig drawing had too many tangents on it, so, I ended up designing something else. And still, I have 2 more undone assignments both due tomorrow morning, and I have no freaking idea on what’s going to be on the accounting quiz. Outsourcing sure sounds appealing.
Yup, busy Thursdays are the best. And there are still at least 20 more sleepless Thursday and Friday nights along the way.

And you politicians better make our miserable Thursday nights worthwhile; enough with all the trash talking. Do something. Bring in more jobs instead of chasing investors out.
One interesting fact, when the internal problems get worst, the economy gets tough. And when the going gets tough, the tough go to grad school. And I personally am already tired with all this education shit. So, yeah…..
And with the Lehman Brothers going bankrupt and AIG getting bailed out for a humongous amount of $85 billion, the current local political scene can’t be more fitting.

belanjala..

It’s the last day of green week.
And I got 2 tickets to Tom Friedman’s lecture and book signing tomorrow evening.

mann… da pening…

Nadal and a Platypus Walk into a Bar

The school's football season kicked off yesterday, with the team chalking up a rather unconvincing win over a championship subdivision team. We won big, but it could've been bigger, and we were expecting a lot more particularly from the QB, especially when you stupidly spent the day basking under the freaking hot sun at the stadium when you're fasting.
This season is kind of special because it's the coach's last season here in WL and the last one for the seniors too. Anyways, the team will be playing #14 Oregon next week, and it better be interesting.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to October for basketball season. The team is ranked as high as #3 in the pre-season polls, and we're scheduled to play Duke this season. Btw, Duke's coach, Coach K , was the coach of the USA National Team who won the gold medal in the recent Olympics.

And the schoolwork, assignments and projects have just started to kick in as the 3rd week of school resumes. And like the midterms, once it starts kicking in, like an avalanche, it just won't stop falling onto you. But the good part is that there's only 14 more weeks of classes left. So, let the countdown begin…..

And right after the football game, we were invited to a friendly with the Indonesian team which we lost to by a goal from a penalty kick. I got an assist, and hit the post twice from long range…hehhh….
We could've won the game, really….. But we were experimenting with the newer guys, and it turned out to be horrible, just as expected. Anyhow, it was still a good start for the team.

Anyone with any good tips to keep focused? I don't think I have ADD, but I do procrastinate a lot, and I really can't keep focused on a task (schoolwork that is) for more than 5 minutes.

Hmmmm…. when I feel annoyed or angry, I feel like punching certain people right in the face, and most of the times, the same faces keep coming up. And right now, I really feel like doing just that. But for now, I really don't know if the act of punching someone in the face could help me with my level of anger or annoyance.
But being a student of science, I think I really should put the hypothesis to the test. And because doing a computer simulation is not really feasible in this case, so, I think I should just go say 'hye' to these buggers, give them the punch, and then tell them about this theory I was trying to prove. Or should I tell them about the theory first, and only then give them the punch?.... I think it doesn't matter, because them knowing or not knowing about the hypothesis is not relevant to the study….
So, I should really go punch someone now…….

mahu

Huarghhhhhhh~

juicy lamb, chicken, and seasoned rice

the tok imam at the masjid told us this one story last night. he liked the story so much that he has told the same story thrice in the past 3 Ramadans.

the story goes something like this...
one day, a teacher told his/her students that they were about to go on a field trip somewhere in the mountains...
and they were told to collect some rocks along the way. but then the teacher continued, that they'll regret it either way; whether they collected as many rocks as they could, or if they didn't bring anything home at all..

so, off they go...
through simple observation, (to simplify matters, the Hawthorne effect is considered to be absent..lol), the students could be classified into 2 groups... the lazy ones who were so lazy that they didnt pickup even a pebble home because they thought that they'll regret it anyway, so, why the extra effort?
and the 2nd group, the more adventurous and rajin ones, who out of curiosity took some rocks they found along the way home...

and when they got back, to their amazement, all the rocks turned into precious stones; rubies, emeralds, diamonds... you name it.

so, it was true, as the teacher said earlier, either you did what was told or not, you'll still regret it...

in conclusion, the tok imam said that the case is relevant to the month of Ramadan.. so, we need to do our best.....

anyways, i still think that a differrent outcome can be observed if the teacher were to told the students about the not-so-precious rocks turning into rubies and emeralds in the 1st place..
or will it still be the same??...

selamat beramal, berpuasa dan berbuka.....

cool gile

lama gile xpg bazaar ramadan....

lightning does strike twice in the same place

Men are not created equal. Since forever, nations, organizations and people of different ethnics have tried to prove and verify their supremacy; the Bani Israel, the Nazi, the KKK, and the ‘ketuanan melayu?’ to name a few.
Thick history books have been written on the wars, small and great, and all the struggles and confrontations the world has gone through.
Other than wars, ethnic cleansing and holocausts, sports is another way to to verify just that.
And this Olympic series is just as important as the ones during the US vs. Soviet cold war era. And to China, this series is critical not just in proving to the world on how well they can deliver as the hosting-nation, but beyond that, to cure the inferiority complex that has been institutionalized in them. Go google up the Chinese history of humiliation.
And the abacus war between the US and China shows how uptight this Olympic series is. Yahoo!, NBC and the other US broadcasting companies are using the total medal count system in determining the top rank nation, obviously so that they could appear on the top of the table, though some other countries may prefer to use the gold medal count to determine whose better. That just shows on how big of a propaganda agent the Olympics or sports itself can be.

Anyways, back to the good stuff. At last, Chong Wei won the nation’s 1st Olympic medal after a long 12 year wait. And Usain Bolt’s and Phelps' superhuman efforts were just amazing. And in the field hockey event, the theory is once again proven to be true, that the star flicker will be the one who’ll miss, as taeke taekema’s flick was saved by the German goalkeeper in the semifinal penalty-stroke shootout. I was particularly glad to be able to watch a live hockey match on tv after not being able to watch any for quite some time. And the other personal favorites, gymnastics (remember El Regina Tajuddin?), swimming, diving, basketball and wrestling are just as interesting. and yeah, my favorite runner, Jeremy Wariner only managed to score a silver. And that kick to the referee’s face was awesome!!!!! and i didn't manage to catch any of the boxing matches(US lemau, so xde slot on air)...

And just like how the wars have helped us human achieve the impossible, sports, this Olympic series in particular has proven to give that big of an impact as well. From new marketing strategies (the big swoosh vs the 3 stripes duel) and cool and awesome engineering feats and inventions (the bird’s nest, OR, security etc.), to new training regimes and better than sub-10 100 meter sprints.

The dream team will be playing Pau’s Spain in a few minutes….mengharapkn upset...
Danggg!!!…Terlepas opening ceremony…….




School opens Monday…. adoiiii