.:Simply Funtasy:.

Yep I admit this post is to help increase my blog's pageviews with the keywords and whatnot... On the first week of 2013, I got an unexpected WhatsApp from my undergrad buddy, Juju. The first message sounded surprise. "I heard a big news", she said. "What big news?", I asked. "Unimap invite Nobel Laureate to give talk." I was like, "Who is Nobel Laureate??", as I never have that word registered in my vocabulary database, totally illiterate. "Unimap invite Nobel prize winner bagi talk la," she shouted virtually, and continued "Anthony Leggett his name." ...and our conversation continued about her (and her groupmates') 'jealousy' because it's quite a big thing to be able to invite a Nobel Laureate over for talks and visits by an un-prestige university , and she reminded me not to miss it because it's a rare chance. I, for one, was totally clueless as I didn't hear any news from anyone. Email was...

My blog progress is just like my PhD progress - 'Procrastination'!! Put away the Vietnam stuff, let's talk about the recent stuff I've been into. Went to UTM last Monday for a conference with 4 other postgraduate students, and one driver. Yup, for some reason, Uni 'geniusly' sent ONE driver for a 800++km driving journey. Perlis-Johor, literally from the most North to the most South, bu shi kai wan xiao de!! We arrived there safely, and the pakcik driver was ultimately tired. Accommodation was prepared for us, the UTM's hostel. This hostel reminded me of my good old days in Politeknik Shah Alam's hostel, yet it was too creepy to compare with it. It was so old-looking inside out, it feels 'haunted'. The conference was packed with talks by the Professors, topics ranging from scholarships, graduate office, postgraduate students' issues, publication game, interdisciplinary graduate education, and my MOST favourite part - Graduate on Ti...

LOL Oh goodness I've found yet another funny comic website to share... Piled Higher & Deeper posts comic strips about the ongoing chronicle of life (or the lack thereof) in grad school (Malaysian term - postgraduate). I am surprised by the duration of their PhD route as it takes as long as 9 - 10 years! Anyway, I must say, I sincerely agree to most of the comic strips in it, providing it tells the tale of my own life too, and many other postgrads' life... Newton's law:

The super hot sunny weather has come back!! When I drove back to Perlis last Monday, the 5pm sun was like a 2pm sun, high up the sky and super hot! I almost melt... I overreacted when my application for MyBrain15 scholarship was unsuccessful during the first phase. So now the screen showed the huge 'TAHNIAH' , Cheshire Cat grin appears~ ^Got it finally!! Hehehehhehe.... picture courtesy of tvtropes Today was the settling-the-documents-and-stuff day: 1. clinic for medical checkup; 2. Jabatan Bendahari to submit the scholarship offer letter; 3. Bank Islam to open a new account; 4. Bus station to buy bus ticket (going back KB on weekend to settle some more stuff...) The day was hot, as usual. I hardly drank any water when going around the town. The clinic was full house! Submitted the offer letter (first time being hold back by the security guard!) , walking to Bank Islam. Since it was already middle of the day and a lot of traffic, despite the hot weather, I decided to walk rath...

Best drama ever!! ... ... ... so far ... ... Doing an event, regardless the size of the event, we have to work in a group/community/whatever you call it. Working with a group of people, regardless the size of the group, we often see a lot and different kind of funny/disgusting/irritating/whatever-you-feel attitude and behaviors among the people. I think you may have meet some of the weirdest people in your life. Those that you really want to whack his/her head with a hammer. Today, a funny little incident erupted among our little committees group. I'm not the victim nor the 'prosecutor' in this scenario, just an audience with popcorn on her hand. *Cheshire cat smiles* Apparently, someone felt offended by the emails, and replied in hatred and anger. The point is: 1. It's not really a big deal, as if we can get credit in terms of cash or prize for doing this 'charity' work. Why so serious? 2. Even if you want to write angry email, make sure you che...

Always treating us as a bunch of almighty captain brainaches, Boss gave us a mission impossible today: to complete (our part) the research grant form and submit by the very same evening. Yes. Meeting at 9.30am, submission date at 4.00pm that evening. See? All of us squeezed billions and billions neurons to complete our part. Well, the partial thing (our part) was done at around 5.00pm, so the submission thing will be done by Boss lah... Tired. Yet, sleeping late again tonight. Sigh~ P/S: I had an anxiety attack again. My job in the Bursary Committee of the postgraduate conference is way overdue. Sigh~ Blame myself though... Calling for sponsorship here! Who/Which company is kind and generous enough to help? =)

How does the indicator work? It is greatly related to the level of noise in the lab: When it is really noisy (level 5 - 10) = the lab is crowded with people = Boss is in Kangar but at some place else When it is rather quite (level 0 - 4) = Boss is either IN the cluster (the cluster is crowded yet everyone is very quiet) OR = Boss is very far far away (the lab is empty) LoL. Hope boss doesn't see this, or else we're so dead.

A total of 1,400 km, 24 hours in total, I am hebat ness overload! :) Four of us, under same supervisor, attended the conference held in TATiUC in Kemaman, Terengganu. Due to some unavoidable circumstances, although I was at Kota Bharu a week before the conference, I still needed to go back to Perlis to start driving from there. For the whole 1,400 km journey, I was the sole driver, because: One don't have license; One has license but forgot how to drive (due to lack of practices); One can't drive manual car. For some moment, it do make me feel very proud of myself because there's almost nothing that cannot be done by me! :p The going trip was terrible. The time was a little rush so we decided to complete the journey within one day. BIG mistake I felt woozy from 1/4 of the journey because of early hour wake up time, plus the hot weather, I didn't even know how did I get through all this. Worse part was that the whole journey was on the 1 and/or 2 lane c...

Last week, Prof. Keigo Watanabe from Okayama, Japan came for one-week visit to our cluster as Cluster Advisor. On his fifth day here, the higher-rank AJK brought him to visit around Perlis, with us as escorts. The first stop was to Harumanis Orchard located not far from the town. The orchard belongs to and under control of the state government (or something like that). Harumanis is a name for a type of mango, which is also trade mark of Perlis. It is big, yellow, juicy and sweet. Since the orchard is so huge-ass vast, Prof. and the higher-rank AJK got to sit on the 4WDs to go around the orchard, while us wandering around the park. ^Rolls and rolls of Harumanis trees Most of the fruits were wrapped in a plastic bags. The size of the fruits are temptingly big, so things got a little crazy among us... ^This big sis started to go around the area to pick up those on the floor! ^...and this is the outcome! All of them were on the floor. We couldn't tell either they f...

One of my cluster buddy quits, she left proudly yesterday. I did try to persuade her to stay, however, since I was the one went along with her to meet Prof, we asked the same thing, we listened to the same thing, we were told the same thing... When I realize the way I understand things Prof said is quite different way from what she understood, I knew I am not the best person to talk to her. The only role I can do is listener. Everyone has their own perspective, their own way to interpret things they see or hear. People will only listen to what they want to hear. It's how the mind of an individual works, and it's not easy to change it. The same sentence or question or statement, when it is presented to different ears, it carries the different meaning. For example: " I don't want to do this anymore. " Some might understand it as " he/she doesn't want to do this anymore "; for some, it might sound like " he/she changes 他变了! He/She is not the same p...

Besides being a boring place, there's one thing I love about Perlis is the cheap food! Chinese food to be precise, zap fan literally. ^Both are RM3! Do you believe it? 2 veggie + 1 meat! Yum! *********************************************************** Auntie Hong came back home last Saturday for a wedding dinner, then off she went to her mother's house the next day and to Singapore that night. Before she went off, she gave permission for me to use her motorbike too. Haha! So now I get to use her bike 'legally' and watch her Astro! :) The other day, I planned to wash the filthy bathtub. It's quite odd about the filthiness of the water because it's different from any other kind of filthiness I've ever seen. (Helped Auntie Hong to clean the bathtub few times when she's not around) When I took a scope of water, it freaked me. The red small lines were actually worms!! I don't really know what type of worm it is and don't know where they come from, ...

For some reason, font colors editing is not working in Google Chrome, and I wonder why... The seminar yesterday was a success ?! For me at least... It's a good place to know exactly what other postgraduates are doing - their title, the objectives, what they have done etc etc. A good guidance for me the newbie. The panels in my group, Prof Naga and Dr Khatijah, are good, gentle and mild. I was so relieved and happy after my presentation because the only comment during the Q&A session was 'You should refer your Prof's papers!' My bad, I left out all his papers in my reference, both slide presentation and abstract. No such luck for the other group though. When I saw the name 'Dr. Haftirman' and 'Dr. Merdang' on the panel list of that group, I gave an evil grin to my fellow postgraduate friends who were under that session. I was so damn right. All of them in that session was badly injured by the harsh and ridiculous attacks from the 'lovely couple...

明天我们的School将举办一个让人唾弃的研究生seminar。 所谓‘唾弃’是因为这个研讨会的出发点有点自私 (p/s:我也是听大哥大姐们的,表告我) , 所以大多数人都很不情愿参加。 就单单看email都很显了，负责的那位教授少说也来了个几十封email了，都是些一样的内容和连接不断的Soft reminder... 我这个小人物也不想参加，但大姐说怕老大怪罪下来，所以我们都乖乖做了... 有参加的都意兴阑珊地写Abstract，做slide show; 没有参加的人都埋头苦干地做research，尤其是我们的组，因为不知不觉中, 老大 快回来了!! 话说，有好几个人没收到email，所以都由收到email的人负责‘传话’。 坐在我这一边的老兄可妙了。 在我这一边，除了我，其他人都是在同一个supervisor之下。一个大马印度人D，一个正统印度人B和两个厚胸毛中东人K & J (...吧...因为我没问过他们的国籍) 他们今早的对话: D:"明天的Seminar，你们去吗？Slide做了吗？" K:"什么Seminar?" D:"... ...我forward你的email，没收到吗？" K:"...噢!那个! 我什么都不知道，什么都没做。" D:"... ...怎么会不知道？你没读吗？" K:"...读!? 你应该告诉我啊，应该跟我讲要做什么啊。我没读那什么email" D:"... ... ... (三条线狠狠划下来) " p/s:一样的事情也发生在我身上。forward mail给朋友，她也没读 -______- ************************************* 话说我对这两位K & J都有些许意见。也不知道为什么会这样。可能是他们的胸毛吧。 真的看到!! 不是我夸张! 尤其是J，长得矮就算了，还要少扣几个纽，给人家看那一小团的胸毛... -____________________________________- 我想讲的是，那两位老兄起码也是PHD student，这些事，你还要人家一个一个告诉你啊!? 几岁啦你... p/p/s: 虽然完全不管我的事，可是这一切发生在我...

It is the one-month anniversary of the super great flood, and the second wave has yet to come. Some said on Raya Haji lah, some said on end of Nov lah, some said around this time lah. Sigh~ I hope it can come again though because I want to play water!! Haha! And I have learned my lesson -- just throw everything on my bed will be good. That's the advice from my landlady too. Lately, the relationship between my landlady and me is getting better, but I don't know why, nowadays I have a sin of watching her Astro while she's not in, and when she comes back, I freaked out and quickly escape into my room like somebody doing something inappropriate. 做贼心虚. I never feel so though before the flood. Don't know why... The aunty neighbor never call me or come to chat with me again ever since the flood incidents, although we still greet each other when we meet. Honestly, I am glad. *evil smile* Do you know she would call me in the weekend to chat for a whole hour although we are just ...

前几天跟朋友聊天，她告诉我的东西让我很严重性地啼笑皆非和无言以对。 Note:这位朋友是我的Degree coursemate,现在是我的Master cluster mate. 我们都under同一个supervisor... 她告诉我，我们几位同学辞职了，打算深造。辞职和‘想要’深造的原因很简单:" 工作很显 " -_____________________- 炸到! 在听她说这些事情之前，我也有听到一些相关的话题，或从以前教授的blog里读到一些。 在blog里面读到的就真的是超级好笑了。那位同学刚辞职了，想要深造，理由是:" 他/她是公司里的唯一一个马来人,受不了 " 他到底是谁我不知道，可是... ... ... Come on dude!! 这个是什么烂借口??? 你以为你是谁? 有什么鬼屁股资格挑工作?? 话说，我从一开始接触这一群‘小弟弟小妹妹’们，我就有些许反感，一小群除外。 日以继夜，年复一年，我已经speechless到最后我只想给个同情和可怜的眼神给他们。 而且他们也就跟我妹妹一样大也!!! (不是要赞自家儿花香，可是真的咯，我妹妹也不至于这么很傻很天真咯) 如果要算我每次因为他们的speechless举动而吐血的话，很早以前我就已经严重性贫血了吧。 真的很不明白他们到底在想什么咯... 如果他们真的是深造了，更好玩的是如果他们都在unimap深造了，我很想看看他们怎样死法!! 以为Master是开玩笑的是吗... *奸笑-ing* 最后，我只希望 -- 你们好自为之啦

This flood is reported as the worst ever in the history of Perlis, especially Kangar. Almost whole Kangar is soaked under the flood for about 3-4 days. I managed to escape the flood the next day, by the time the flood invaded Seriab. It was horrible to see how terrible the condition was as we never imagine it could be this worse. ^See, the padi field behind the bus was like a river or lake already... I intentionally decided to come back on Tuesday as to make sure the water is easing and I don't stuck somewhere in the middle of the journey, but this decision triggered a small quarrel between me and the aunty neighbor. *********************************************************************************** A short advertisement: I have this particular aunty neighbor who has been extremely care about me. She called when she saw my car's still at home at 8.40am (as I usually off to cluster at 8.05am plus minus); she called when she saw me coming back at 11am or 4pm (which is quite odd t...

It started raining since last Thursday, and my friend said she saw the so-called twister around Jejawi area that day! Here's the story I was away last weekend, and by the time I came back to Perlis on Monday, aunty neighbor told me it's been raining non-stop for 3 solid days and reminded me to be prepared for worst case scenario, eg to move my stuffs higher etc. I thought she was just being kua zhang as she usually is and proceed my usual housework which I usually did on weekends. This morning, I still couldn't feel anything unusual, besides the sunny day after a whole day of raining. I went to the research cluster to find only a handful of people were there and others were either trapped in the flood or their house became islands (their house is safe but there's water all around it) . It was quite a messy morning for me as the air-cond began its water-leaking routine, but this time, it just wouldn't stop at all, and soon my desk was flooded. I had to move to the ot...

上个星期,老板下了指示,在他离我们而去 (去朝圣啦~) 的当儿，我们得帮忙改小学弟小学妹的assignments. 他倒也没给个限期,只是放下句狠话 “你们要慢慢改也可以的,只是两个星期后又会有新的要改罢了嘛,看你们应付得来没有咯...” ... 好一句典型的老板话... 就在这种‘紧要关头’,我才发现到,原来我超级热爱安静的环境. 当然，每个人都喜欢安静的时刻. 有些人可以在吵闹的环境中工作; 有些人一静下来就做不了东西; 有些人就只喜欢吵吵闹闹,压根不想做东西。 偏偏我这个死脑筋,做事向来都要看自己的东北风。 风来得正巧嘛做起事来特别起劲; 风不太对劲嘛速度就慢得要命; 狂风暴雨时嘛鬼神都不敢靠近... 话说回来，我们的研究室本来就属于‘严重拥挤’的状况。几个青春洋溢的少女青年和数位大哥大姐，分成两边来坐。 就在这人潮里，有几位‘重量级’人物的嗓门都像装了大声公一样响亮宏伟，再加上时不时会有三两个小客人到访，天生就好像没懂过如何调声量，说话时深怕隔两栋楼的朋友没听到他们说的故事似的，说话几乎都用喊的了。还真不知道他们是如何保养如此洪亮的嗓门。 平常再怎么吵也就算了,偏偏就要在这水深火热之时就来闲话家常,huuuiyoooh.... 也还好他们都是在 那 一边吵,坐在 这 一边的我虽然也遭殃,也没比坐在 那 一边的朋友惨。 所以有时候，我挺喜欢一个人呆在研究室。虽然有时会安静得有点诡异,我很享受这种安宁的时刻。至少我可以很自在地做我爱做的事情而不用担心有人往我的电脑银幕盯 (也不见得人家有兴趣看,可能只是我想太多了) 在加央家里,我也享受了绝对的宁静。 房东aunty在几个星期前去了新加坡，另一个帅哥housemate每次都不回来，所以具体上，我一个人拥有了整间家。 房门打开，电脑声量开得不怕被人骂的程度，没有穿bra (有穿衣!) 在家里乱乱走。爽! 只是有时候邻居aunty会跑过来跟我串门儿，我们还试过讲1个小时的电话(虽然我们就隔一间家)... 但，最近，我觉得家里太静了。少了房东aunty的福建连续剧 而且Astro smart card竟然inactive!害我也没得看 :( , 少了个人在家, 我连晚上睡觉都要在房间里开个小灯才敢睡觉... 也不知道为什么，最近老爱想有的没的，害自己的心里都毛毛的... 好，开始扯远了... 总之，除了怨别人吵，我也很...

It's my second trip in this year, and about the fifth or sixth overall, but it's the very first time for the girls. Plus, it's also the fastest trip deal I've made ever. Decision made within 5 minutes, 2 hours later, I was at the jetty waiting for the ferry already. Being the lao da jie and the only one in the group who been to the island few times, I was assigned to be the tour guide, driver, nanny etc etc. It was rather a rushing trip, since we had a night and another day in the island, not to mention almost half of the day needed to be spared for the island hopping tour. So I was like a mother chicken chasing her baby chicks around the places to chase the time, hope the girls didn't hate me at the end of the day. It was pretty late when we arrived Langkawi. Since everyone was hungry to the max, we had our first meal in Langkawi at a chinese restaurant in Kuah town. ^They served very nice dua bui mee aka hokkien mee!! It's quite surprising to find that this ...

I get a lunch treat from Su Natasha! Love love ^^ That girl was just arriving Perlis on Monday morning after a trip to Kuantan. We had our lunch at Anjung Keli, a 'kinda' famous restaurant in Kangar with pricey meals. We chatted like there's no tomorrow, shared some stories and the time passed without we realising it. She even managed to write a blog post for me . Touched! :) At night, I had another meal gathering with juniors at Secret Recipe. I played a big role in brainwashing them. Haha!! ^Chocolate Strawberry! ^The cakes! ^with Jen Shin :) ^With Wan Zheng :) It's pretty tiring, I guess, to take pictures with me because I just don't like to take a stereotype pictures. Haha! Plus, with so many thick chocolates on the cake, it's pretty much impossible for me NOT to do my usual crazy stuff - the granny teeth. The girls literally resented it. Talking about ruining own image huh~ :p ^Wan Zheng's Veggie Soba. It's quite oily but the smell and taste is nic...