2006 - 2007 (with lots of pictures!)

Well, it’s 1 hour to the New Year in Malaysia and another 9 hours more to the New Year here in England. Therefore, it’s time to recap the year that is going to pass.

2006…

January 2006.

Started my 1st year Chemical Engineering twinning course with University of Birmingham in Taylor’s College, Subang Jaya, Malaysia. (3rd)

Got to meet many new friends too.

Febuary 2006.

Workload starting to pile up to the ceiling. Lab reports, assignments, revision, quizzes, mini-projects, essays etc. Wasn’t an eventful month for me.

March 2006.

Engineering Fair I (22nd)

The School of Engineering even got into the papers for the first time ever second time since it’s founding through this fair due to the wonderful discovery of generating power through potatoes.

Starting to get worried about my UCAS application to the University of Sheffield. Running around everywhere to get my reference done from Miss Ng (she’s such a wonderful teacher) to sorting out my immigration forms to getting my air tickets booked etc.

April 2006.

Mid-year exam. Was horrible but managed a second upper.(3rd-7th)

Roberta’s 19th birthday.(11th)

Trip to Genting Highlands with coursemates. (12th-13th)

That’s us after conquering the Solero Shot (in the background)

May 2006.

Hon Wai moves into his new home in Bandar Utama and I went to his house and scrutinized every inch of the house. (1st)

2nd term of my 1st year Chemical Engineering course begins. (2nd)

Start receiving offeres from univerisities in the UK.

Hon Wai organizes a birthday-cum-house-warming-party at his new home. (27th)

June 2006.

Second last month of the term. Here is where I focused more on my studies.

Engineer’s BBQ (30th)

July 2006.

Engineering Fair II (13th)

Finals! (24th-28th)

1st year Chemical Engineering twinning course with University of Birmingham is officially completed. (28th)

August 2006.

Received an offer from the univeristy of my choice, Sheffield! (7th)

Final preparations before leaving to Sheffield next month. Did lots and lots of shopping. Went out with friends countless of times and settled everything needed for me to leave the country (legally of course!)

Got my very first laptop, a Dell Latitude D620. (19th)

Chemical Car competition organized IEM (Institute of Engineers, Malaysia) at APCCHE (Asia Pacific Conference for Chemical Engineers). Didin’t win anything though. But it was pure fun. (27th)

Finally free from the bonds of Taylor’s College. No more a Taylor’s College student officially. (27th)

September 2006.

Farewell dinner. One last dinner before we depart from each other never to see each other again for some time.

Last day in Malaysia before leaving at Sheffield. (16th)

Fresher’s Week. (18th-22nd)

University term starts! (25th)

October 2006.

Trip to IKEA, Leeds. Organised by MASSOC. (Malaysian & Singaporean Society)

Dan’s 18th, celebrated at The Place pub.

The birthday boy.

My birthday! Nothing much though. Just had a nice lunch in Nando’s on West Street with a couple of close friends. (3rd)

November 2006.

Trip to Birmingham. (3rd-6th)

My first ever attendance to a live orchestra performance by the Sheffield University Wind Orchestra. (19th)

December 2006.

Attended the Sheffield University Symphony Orchestra performance in Firth Court. (3rd)

Last lecture of the term. (14th)

Christmas Crackers in celebration of the last day of the term. (15th)

Trip to Skipton for 8 days. (16th-24th)

Christmas eve dinner party at EiLeen’s flat in Broad Lane. (24th)

Boxing Day shopping at Fargate and the Moor! (26th)

Well, that was basically my year for 2006. So wishing everyone reading this a very happy new year 2007! Forget about new year’s resolutions. They hardly work for everyone unless the resolution is I want to get older one year this year…

Weather

The weather…

Very unpredictable thing. Especially English weather. It just rains for 20 seconds then stops after that. Later, it’ll get very foggy and then it’ll rain heavily again for a few minutes. Totally unpredictable.

What I heard the weather this year has gone inside out. This year, Britian is experiencing a warm winter. It’s already January and it hasn’t even snowed a snowflake yet! Heck, even the temperature up north in Edinburgh is hotter than the temperature in London!

Weather in Malaysia has suffered a great decline in condition too. From what I read in the news, a large part of Johor is underwater! My dad’s workplace, Kota Tinggi, has been inundated underwater for 10 days already and still no sign of receeding.

Not only this year the weather is bad. Last year, the world has seen the most number of tropical hurricanes on record. Most outstanding of all hurricanes was Katrina. Everyone knows her by the trail of destruction she left behind her tracks especially over New Orleans. Her destrcution is still visible this very day after more than a year later.

Many of the world’s weather experts has foreseen this change in global climate a long time ago. All due to global warming. What have we done to stop global warming? Not enough is the answer. The Kyoto Protocol was signed for one sole purpose, to stop global warming. And sadly, the country which contributes the highest carbon dioxide emmision isn’t part of it. the United States, a world superpower in politics, trade, investment but a dim wit in the environment. No matter how much it’s population tries to go green, it wouldn’t make much of a difference as most of the carbon dioxide comes from it’s factories and industries.

Same story goes to Australia. The reason was it wasn’t in the best interest of the country’s industry to cut corbon dioxide emmisions.

It’s either we grow more trees, cut carbon dioxide emmisions or the entire world goes green. Of course the best is all three but that would have a probability of an unthinkable scale.

I’m sure no one wants to experience what happened in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow”…

Happy Christmas!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS to everyone!!

Christmas is finally here and this means that the year is coming to an end in just a week’s time. How time flies is just incredible.

I do apologize for the lack of updates during the past week as I was holidaying in Skipton (Dan’s house) with Dan being the host of course. Wonderful family I must say. His mum (and dad) can cook good food in a matter of minutes! They can cook up a storm in the kitchen and come out with wonderful, drooling, delicious, scrumpcious meals!

Besides that, this house has the most number of game consoles I’ve ever seen! Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, Nintendo DS… Too bad there isn’t the Nintendo Wii and the PS3. If not it’ll be a blast! But heck, 4 game consoles is more than a blast already! Oh, I must admit that I just fell in love with the game Burnout 3. Such an addictive game. It may be violent and pointless but what the heck! It’s fun! Crashing cars of my choice and the more damage I cause and the more vehicles that crashes the higher the amount of money I generate and so far my highest record was $2,000,000.00, 34 vehicles! There’s also road rage in the same game. It’s kinda like a racing-cum-remove-other-opponents-game. You’ll be racing on track of your choice and there’ll be other cars racing together. All you need to do is try to remove as many opponents as possible from the race with you crashing as little as possible. Wonderful game I tell you.

During that week, we went to Leeds too! Shopping haven. Much better than Sheffield of course since Leeds is a much bigger city than Sheffield. Many shopping centres but those are nothing compared to what we have in Malaysia. But it’s still great fun! Lots of things to see too. Wanted to buy clothes but then I might as well wait for the Boxing Day (which coincidentally is tomorrow!) sales. It’ll be better that time.

Well, here are some random pictures I took in Skipton.

The church with the big clock!

A nice piece in the middle of the roundabout.

Sir Matthew Wilson Baronet, first MP for Skipton.

Skipton’s High Street.

The canal passing through the town.

A panoramic view of Ermysted’s Grammar School.

Well, aside from the pictures, I arrived back in Sheffield yesterday at 1pm and then I had to go straight to Somerfield to shop for food and groceries for today if not I’ll be starving today. Yesterday night, had a small dinner party at EiLeen’s flat. Cooked together for the first time. Karen cooked curry chicken with lots and lots of vegetables. EiLeen made grilled chicken wings and I made grilled mushroom and cheese wrapped in ham. Had white wine together with it and to top it off, we had ice cream with chocolate sauce and chocolate cake! Yum yum! Watched 2 movies, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Billy Elliot. And the funny thing I am going to say is, I spent Christmas taking photos! Haha! Wanted to buy Christmas crackers but they were all sold out! But it was real fun last night! Here are the pics we took last night.

Karen and her curry.

Me and my dish.

Group pic taken at precisely 12am on Christmas.

Me and my pressie!

Hmm, I guess I’ll stop here. This post is getting a little long and monotonous with pictures. Anyways, a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a very HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007 to everyone again! Have a great holiday!

A Post Without a Title

Well, today’s the last day of the term. And I can say that three quarters of the hall residents are gone already. In fact, I’ve seen some already leaving on Wednesday. Seriously, all of them are so eager to go home. Those that have lectures today, the minute their lecture ends, they’re going straight home! Now that’s really desperate to me.

Anyway, looking how everyone looks so joyful and eager to go back home back with their families while I am staying back here throughout Christmas in an almost-deserted hall would be a very challenging psychological feat. Loneliness for a total month. Okay, I’m making it sound so bad. At least, a good friend offered his place for the holidays and I took up the offer. So tomorrow, I’m going to Skipton for a week! Yay! Well, I can’t say that Skipton is comparable to London or even Edinburgh, it’s just a small town of 14,000 inhabitants but at least I have some place different to go to for a nice week-long holiday. Away from books, stationery and lecture notes. The almost-perfect getaway.

Aside from that, Christmas Crackers is taking place tonight! Yay! 3 venues, 3000 people, 1 wristband. 10.30pm - 4am (uhh, I sound like I’m advertising something here). The last day of the term celebration of the year. Finally I can attend an event without feeling guilty that I have other prior commitments. Definitely going to be a great night without guilt.

Well, if I don’t blog tomorrow before I leave for Skipton, I might blog in Skipton itself or I’ll come back a week later and of course post up some pictures for all to see! *charges camera batteries*

Till sleep do us part…

12 Days (edited)

Sorry for the lack of updates. I fell terribly ill the past week. Due to this illness, I missed two of the most exciting events happening this semester. First, I missed the Halifax Christmas Ball which I already bought the ticket to. Cost me GBP3.00. Although it may be much much cheaper than other balls which are around GBP20.00 or more, it’s still money. the second thing I miss was the York trip!!! T_T This is the event that I’ve been waiting for weeks for it and when the time came, I must fall sick. GBP7.00 gone just like that. According to those who went, it was wonderful and all I did was sleep in bed the entire day just because of something I ate.

Anyway, there’s an announcement to make. IT’S THE LAST WEEK OF THE SEMESTER! Yay! *throws confetti in the air*

Thursday will be my last day. One lecture from 9 - 10 am and that marks the end of the Autumn semester for 2006. I can’t believe this I’m saying this again for the 2oth time. Time passes SO FAST that it flew past both my eyes and i didn’t even notice it. In fact, I think this is the fastest 3 months I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. A busy 3 months too.

As the week come to an end, there’s only 12 days left to Christmas! Yay! I can’t wait for Boxing Day sales! Shop till I drop. Hmm, that will depend on how much money I have left at the end of the month. Lately I can’t really save that much money at the end of every month. The money given to me is just enough for my day to day activities. I guess I’ll have to refrain myself from spending any money at all for these few weeks. But then, you and I know that’s impossible. I need to find food this Christmas holidays and that needs money. Well, there goes my shopping…

That’s not important. The important thing is IT’S THE 2ND LAST DAY OF THE SEMESTER and there’s 12 DAYS LEFT TO CHRISTMAS! Oh, the University’s Carol Service is taking place tomorrow at the Octagon Centre too! Now this time I’ll make sure I’ll stay fit as a fiddle so I won’t miss this wonderful Chirstmas-y event.

Malaysia’s Generous!

Word has spread that Malaysia’s government is considering to donate a total sum of MYR 500million.

Guess who is going to receive this half a billion? You’ll never guess it. Seems that the Malaysian government is going to donate this HUGE sum of money to the University of Cambridge! Can you believe this?!

Why on Earth does Malaysia wants to donate half a billion to Cambridge? Cambridge isn’t a charity foundation neither that it contributes anything to Malaysia except for taking our student’s money for highly overrated fee rates.

According to Lim Kit Siang’s blog, this million is part of the government’s “smart partnership” plan with foreign universities to achieve excellence in tertiary education.

Smart partnership?! What kind of smart partnership will involve such big sums of money? If it is a smart partnership, what is Malaysia going to benefit from this partnership?

Looks like our government is on a public funds spending spree this year. First is MYR 500million for the Sports Centre outside London, then is another MYR 100million to send a Malaysian into space to make a cup of tea, then is the MYR 400million for a brand new palace for the King and now it’s going to be another MYR 500million for this donation?

That’s a total of MYR 1.5billion of public funds spent for purposes other than nation building. Imagine what could 1.5billion do to help our country. We can build hundreds of new schools and improve existing schools in appalling condition. Improve research quality and teaching standards in Malaysian public universities, thousands of new low cost houses for the poor, providing scholarships for smart poor students who deserve them more than the children of government officials. Perhaps, it could be used to spread the word of national unity to create the one “Bangsa Malaysia” (Malay for Malaysian race) our fore fathers talked about.

It’s a shame that most of this 1.5billion is going to be spent outside the country where the country desperately needs it more than ever.

Related posts - New, bigger Palace, While Malaysia fiddles…

Aims of My Life

Well, I’m feeling a little stressed out now. So I thought I might as well decide on my lifetime goals that I might and would love to and hope that I will one day achieve them.

Just a simple list.

1. Finish my degree with more than just a scroll of paper.
2. Get a job in a multi-national company.
3. Progress from an engineering oriented position to a management position.
4. Earn my million before 26, and my second before 29.
5. Open an Engineering firm in New York.
6. Own a house in Beverly Hills.
7. Own several more houses in other highly desirable areas of the globe.
8. Retire before 50 and having more than enough assets to live the remaining of my life happily.
9. Travel the world in 120 days.
10. Live a happy life with a happy family.

Okay, the last one is kinda obvious. Everyone wants that. Who wouldn’t want to live a happy life unless one is mentally unstable and unable to think of what’s best for himself.

Come to think of it, why do we work so hard to achieve all these material-related goals but yet at the end, these materials won’t follow us when we depart from the third dimension? It’ll all end up in our children’s hands and the probability of them fighting over who gets what is pretty high these days, so what’s the purpose? We are such material-orientated species. That’s what we are. We lust for material things. Gold, jewellery, houses, cars, estates, big businesses etc. I have to admit, I am one of them.

Anyway, back to work!

Censorship?!

I’ve just read the most outrageous article in The Star newpaper.

Cyber Law Mulled to Block Lies in Blogs

The Star (thestar.com.my)

December 3, 2006

SITIAWAN: Registering bloggers may be a “stricter” way to stop cyberspace writers from spreading disharmony and lies.

Acknowledging that the registration of bloggers was a difficult task, Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Kong Cho Ha said that it needed the cooperation of other countries.

Kong said: “We need to have stricter cyber laws to prevent these bloggers from disseminating disharmony, chaos, seditious material and lies.

“We are talking about creating cyber laws to control those who misuse the Internet,” he added.

Kong noted that the high number of bloggers in the country was a good development if they used the Internet constructively.

However, he said, some of them would put up sensational or controversial articles or images to attract readers to their blogs.

“We want our bloggers to be responsible, to keep within the rules and not put up seditious articles that can create disharmony and chaos,” he said.

Citing the example of the recent picture of Gombak MP Datuk Dr Rahman Ismail and Senator Datin Paduka Norhayati Onn, Kong said it reflected the irresponsible acts of some bloggers.

“Now we have cyber laws to check such misuse but the laws need to change to keep up with the times.

“This is because technology changes faster than our laws,” he said yesterday after opening the inaugural computer fair at Dewan Merdeka in Seri Manjung, near here.

The fair was organised by the Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom).

What happened the promised “no internet censorship” for another 10 years agreement?! I’m beginning to fear that Malaysia is going to be included into the list of enemies of the internet which will bring the total to 14. Not only the government is throwing words at other (click here and here) writers in other countries, the government now is taking away the freedom of the internet which each and everyone single person on this surface of the planet deserves a right to own. What has our country become? Totalitarian…

How can this be the only way to solve a problem like this?! I guess that’s what the government sees as the fast and easy way to temporarily silence the problem. How can we be progressing forward when each and every day, our rights are taken away from us by our very own government?! Is this in the best interest of the nation and all of it’s people? T_T

Related post - 13 Enemies of the Internet, While Malaysia Fiddles…, Malaysia Bites Back…