Now we know why...

Song of the day:

Melee

"Imitation"

I was thinking a few days back about the chaos the world has been facing lately.

The USA financial crisis, the milk and melanin incident, and in football, the various unresolved problems like racial abuse etc.

I've been searching for a phrase to explain why all these have been happening and are still left unresolved.

Today, a super quote from my idol, Arsene Wenger, came up with the best quote I've ever seen in my entire life.

"Arsene Wenger: Stupidity IS contagious, from Setanta Sports", as shown on Newsnow.

Ya, Monsieur Wenger was referring to the racial abuse Sol Campbell has faced at Fratton Park in last weekend's game against Tottenham "I'm a top 4 team" Hotspur.

I mean, the Frenchman is correct about this.

From the beginning of the human race, it has been bragged that humans, Homo Sapiens, are the most intelligent spesies in the world.

Well, I don't admit it but nor would I deny it.

However, let's fast forward to today's world. Will you still see humans as the most intelligent?

Let's see.

Financial crisis? Do animals really have such problems?

Note that the current financial crisis is all man-made disaster.

The entire financial system are made by the so-called "intelligent" humans.

And they play with the system to earn profit, gain personal benefit etc.

So the "who cares about the future" attitude is always there, ever present.

Once the consequences of such attitude come in, we then have a man-made crisis, i.e. this financial crisis.

A lot of these crisis actually happen due to human's stupidity.

I don't know how to describe it but stupidity can be very contagious.

Another thing I wanna talk about is the mentality of "what the majority do is correct".

This one is stupidity at the highest level.

Take the average Malaysian society for example.

A lot of Malaysians are very inconsiderate when it comes to car-parking.

They resort to all sorts of parking methods, be it legal or illegal.

Some even don't care about their vehicles blocking other people's way or endangering other people's lives.

And the worst thing of all is that people do it because others do it.

Isn't it stupid for them to say that? 

What the society always does IS NOT ALWAYS CORRECT!

I mean, this is the consequence of a democratic society. Looking at what the majority do. So the minority follows the majority.

If I continue with this, I'll end up slamming democracy because I'm not really a big fan of this system.

Don't get me wrong. This system is good but it requires an extremely ideal environment and people to implement this system.

Well, like I've said, when people put the blame on society when they do something wrong by saying others do it too, these people have already contracted what I call stupidity.

Think about it.

The power of rock!

Song of the day:
Foo Fighters"Best Of You"

This is an example of rock music transforming a rap song.

Firstly:

 

Eminem - "Lose Yourself"

Then, we have:

The Script - "Lose Yourself"

Which one sounds better? 

You be the judge. (:

Waiting for a...

Song of the day:
Yellowcard
"Gift and Curses"

I've a very simple wish.

Out of so many wishes, I think this is the simplest wish.

Of all these years, I've been waiting for just one thing.

Of all these years, I've been giving out this one thing that a lot of people might have received every year from friends.

Of all these years, I am still waiting.

Of all these years, I've not given up hope of waiting for it.

So, what is that simple thing that I wish for?

People always wish for more money, more this and that especially stuff that they like, during their greatest day which they always celebrate.

I tried to fulfill theirs by giving them a surprise, and an item of surprise.

I love their surprised expression when they get them.

I love their "thanks" when they get them.

However...

I don't love the time when it is my turn to receive "it" from friends when my great day arrives.

I waited for... seconds... minutes... hours... then days... years.

Despite that, of all these years, I've not given up hope of waiting for it.

I wonder, "is it so hard to wait for this only one simple wish, just from friends?".

I wonder, "when will it be my turn?".

I wonder, "am I being to desperate?".

My ponders might be overboard.

Just a simple wish, and what is it?

Just a simple birthday gift from a true friend, that's all.

Can't Get Over It... - The Last 12 Months

Song of the day:
Within Temptation
"Angel"

Part 1: Labbies

Next was industrial attachment/training but honestly, nothing interesting ever happened during the entire duration.

However, I managed to gain knowledge on a commercial micro-controller known as PIC micro-controller.

I did blog about my industrial attachment under the title “Programming Nightmare! / A little bit of this and that...” so just read about my rants in that blog entry. Hehe.

4th year was the final year of my entire course.

It started off with a busy laboratory session, where problem based learning, or simply PBL, laboratory.

This PBL lab is first of its kind in my faculty but not in UTM as other faculties had been implementing this for a while already.

So, students were put into groups of 5 and throughout the semester, groups had to go through 3 different laboratories.

In each laboratory, groups have to follow a 4 week schedule, where

1. 1st week: Collecting Information
2. 2nd week: Designing experiment procedures/preparing necessary equipments
3. 3rd week: Implementation of experiment
   
4. 4th week: Presentation and demonstration

Not only that, we had to do group meetings at least 3 times (but mostly 2 times for my group as 3 times might be too many times for us).

So with such a busy schedule, adding to the other subjects, I was pretty busy during 4th year.

Not forgetting the first part of my final year project, final year students also had to meet with their respective supervisor for at least 7 times a semester, chose their final year project topics and also did presentation at the end of the semester.

It was a hell of a time for us but I did enjoy the whole process as I’d learnt sooooooo much from doing presentations all semester long and working with my group mates.

*****************************

Part 2: F.Y.P.

Then came the 2nd semester of 4th year, which would probably be a hell of a time for some final year students, depending on their projects.

It never get any easier when one has to deal with software and hardware side of an electrical engineering project which I’ve endured.

Adding to the fact that I’m pretty lazy sometimes, things got even harder and worse.

Earlier on, I planned to start assembling the components in my project during the one month holiday in between 1st and 2nd semester of 4th year.

Well I did do that but I didn’t really take much time to research on the hardware specs of the micro-controller that I would be using though.

So problems started to pile up even at the beginning of 2nd semester when I realised that there were too many obvious differences between the micro-controller I’ve used to meddle with (PIC16F876A) and the one I intended to use in my project (PIC18XXXX, i can’t remember the code).

Therefore, I was forced (by circumstances) to change my core micro-controller to PIC16F876A.

Well, I mentioned that the problems started to pile up, right? Next was the programming (software) part.

You know, looking for the relevant computer program (with the C language linker) was a tough job unless you have $kaching$ (money).

So it took me the first few weeks to get hold of the required programs before proceeding with my program writing process.

I was at first shell-shocked by the difficulty of interfacing the program I’ve written with the actual micro-controller. Note that the program would be “inserted” into the micro-controller so that it would function accordingly.

However, PIC micro-controllers were such a hassle to deal with. And those chores took me another few weeks, which eventually reduced my available working weeks to nearly half of 15 weeks.

While dealing with my own problems, I still had the chance to look at my friends’ problems.

Chanuri was probably my only friend who was super duper troubled by her final year project.

Well, not that my other friends weren’t facing problems, but Chanuri’s was indeed a true hassle.

Her supervisor was already a huge question mark as he was known to be bias and discriminated females (as she’s the only female under him).

Note that my best-est friend, Dy, was also under him so it wasn’t only one side of the story.

Then, she didn’t get the help which was very much needed from her supervisor too. Therefore, she had to do all the things on her own.

And eventually, during the final week of the project, she somehow managed to obtain some result, which was only to be rejected by her supervisor who also humiliated her in her face by saying “throw your project away.”

Oh my gawd! Ridiculous, right? I mean, the title given to her was not even suitable for our level and yet he was being so mean to Chanuri!?

Well, a real lesson was learnt. Please choose the correct lecturer as your final year project supervisor before you even regret it.

So, throughout the 2nd semester, 4th year students also needed to meet their supervisors at least 7 times. BUT, I met mine less than 7 times. Muahaha..

At the end of the semester, all final year students would do a final presentation and demonstration in front of a panel of evaluators.

I was scheduled for Wednesday morning (16th April 2008) and was supposed to be the 2nd fella to present in Group 2 in the same laboratory (Power Electronics Lab).

But I was pushed forward instead as the first fella did not print out the latest evaluation form so I headed Group 2 to be the first to present.

To me, it was a fun experience doing presentation as the panel consisted of a few lecturers who knew me.

The worst part would always be the question and answer session for every final year student, depending on the panel of course.

Fortunately enough, my panel weren’t full of inquiries.

Group 1 was different. The panel included my supervisor, who was an associate professor and so it was understandable that he would ask a lot till you drop.

Well, the demonstration was conducted at the end of the whole Group 1 presentation session. One by one, we did a demo on our project and explained whatever the panel asked.

Fun is the only word I’ll use la. Hehe.

FYP ended well for me luckily, as I got an A for it. My initial expectation was to get a pass so obviously it exceeded my expectations. 

********************************

Part 3: Unexpected Events

To be honest, I really didn’t expect some things to happen.

I did mention in “2nd and 3rd Year Tales” that I didn’t have the chance to know people from other courses.

Firstly, I got to know some faculty mates better through the use of technology. What I’m talking about here is MSN of course.

And also, there were lotsa shocking developments in terms of gossips, you know those “A is together with B” or “C breaks up with D”.

SEE gang had our last gathering at Tebrau City, watching Iron Man and also had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant before the movie date.

Well, I would also like to thank Eng Xiang, Lyeyong and Jia Hwang for the last yumcha session I had (with UTM people before the end of my whole UTM experience) as it marked the ending of my 4 year experience.

Adios to all and may all of you have a great career ahead of ya!

Can't Get Over It... - The Joy of Extra Curricular Activities

Song of the day:
Jimmy Eat World
"Work"

In my varsity, 2 credit hours of our bachelor degree life were dedicated to extracurricular activities. 

Therefore, I’ve to take 2 activities in separate semesters and choose from a list given to students.

In the application form, students were required to fill in their top 5 activities but there was no guarantee of getting your most favourite one as the places were always limited.

I remembered taking my first one during the second semester. As there was a fixed date to obtain form and register, I was a bit late for the registration and had to be contented to queue up at the back of a super massive line.

It was the first nightmare I faced in UTM. I’m talking about the super massive crowd and queue of course.

In the end, I managed to get into swimming, which wasn’t my top 2 choice anyway. Ang and his room mate from SEL, Jia Hwang also joined swimming.

Swimming was fun under a lecturer from FKM (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) who’s also a swimming instructor during leisure hours, but was also strict as his marking scheme was not easy at all.

All the swimmers had to learn the 10 skills listed by our swimming instructor and then take the tests after mastering them.

So in the beginning, we learnt the basics and then tried mastering the 10 skills required. I only managed to master 8 of the skills and was able to obtain a B minus at the end of the whole course but I was pretty contented that I didn’t fail the whole course.

The other credit hour for extracurricular activity was SCUBA diving. I purposely applied for it as

I was super duper interested in water activities.

So, I attended the indoor lessons but I still wasn’t ready for the full license lesson (which requires students to take 2 extra lessons with higher fees of course and extra outdoor lesson and test) so I took the incomplete course.

After 3 indoor lessons, we were put into groups based on the schedule for the outdoor lesson, which is sort of like a practical lesson to learn how to deal with the SCUBA equipments and applying diving skills.

My scuba group

I was grouped with different people from different faculties and altogether there were 8 of them including myself.

The practical lesson started with our instructor explained the uses and procedures to handle the equipments. Next we followed the procedures and learnt to use the equipments.

Next, we were guided to make ourselves comfortable in the water and then learn how to dive underwater using the equipments as well.

The whole lesson was broken into 2 sessions; morning and afternoon sessions. Morning session ended at roughly 12 while the whole lesson ended at roughly 3 pm.

Scuba meeting! Attention! Scuba meeting!

This is an alien fixing his goggles... I'm the alien! Muahahaha...


Me and my scuba buddy... Part 1...


Me and my scuba buddy... Part 2...

I still have the pictures with me but I forgot to blog about it. Hehe. Enjoy the pictures though.

*Note that the pictures of me were taken before 2008 as I was fat then.