An Unforgettable Trip to Penang

Yesterday I was attending to a wedding function of my colleague at Penang. The function was scheduled at 7pm at Sunway Hotel, Seberang Jaya. However, a few colleagues and I had planned to go there earlier so that we could have sightseeing before attending to the function.

Sunway Hotel, Seberang Jaya

We were car pooling and depart to Penang from Kampar at 9am. The traffic was smooth on the way heading to Penang and took us about 2 hours to arrive at the Auto City. After that, we met Dr. Lee LH at Sg. Dua and had our lunch at a Thai Food Restaurant before crossing to the island.
After lunch, we departed to the Penang island to meet up with Dr. Cheng and his wife at Queensbay Mall.

From left: Dr. Cheng WK (Michael) and his wife, Wong CS, Dr. Lee LH

Performance show at Queensbay Mall

At around 5pm, we (Dr. Choo & his wife, Dr. Lee LH, Wong CS, me) were heading to Sg. Dua again as Dr. Lee needed to fetch his wife to attend to the function later. As been recommended by Dr. Lee, we paid a visit to a temple which has been known to be built at the cost of 8 million Ringgit Malaysia. Here are some photos taken.

The function started at around 8pm and ended at around 10pm. We departed from Penang back to Kampar at around 10.30pm. The trip back to Kampar was unexpected longer than I thought in term of time spent on the traffic. It took me 6 hours to get back to Kampar as the traffic was terrible in the North-South highway. The traffic started jamming just passed after the Tambun Exit and the flow was almost not moveable at all. We were trapped in the traffic for a few hours and decided to exit at the Kuala Kangsar to take the normal road back to Kampar. It was around 2++pm that time. It took an hour plus to get all of us back to Kampar including sending my boss and his wife back at Mambang Di Awan. I was home at around 4am and that time I was almost exhausted as I had not been slept for more than 25 hours.

Insane, isn't it?

Taken during the function at Sunway Hotel

PhD Studies

Soon, I'll be leaving my current position and off to oversea again to further my PhD study as a full time student with full scholarship at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Having back to Malaysia for just a year and 4 months, I'm leaving again, for at least another 3 years. Initially I was planning to go at the end of November, however, the plan has been postponed for another month due to the delay of the visa application.

Department of Computing, PolyU

Some people have asked me, why can I just leave my family, friends and career behind and go oversea? The answer is quite subjective and depends on how you look on the issue. I'm leaving none of them. Although I'll be in oversea but it doesn't mean I'll never come back. Family and friends are the one who always giving support to you whenever you need helps from them, although we may not meet that often. I'm not forgetting anyone of my friends, but just expanding my network to knowing more friends from around the world. I've left my career as I prefer to be a full time PhD student so that I can pay full concentration on doing research and hopefully can get my PhD done on time. I've heard from some of my friends their supervisors have promised the PhD could be done in about 2.5 years, on a part time basis. I hardly can believe that as when come to the world of research, there's no guarantee that you could find your answer within a specific period. I'm not sure about the requirements to be awarded for a PhD degree in that university but I believe most of the universities having almost the same criteria - at least 2 Thomson ISI journals. Unless someone has extended his/her master's research otherwise is somehow difficult to complete the PhD within 2.5 years, at least not applicable to me.

Did I so lucky to obtain a scholarship? In some sense, I did. I'm lucky to have met with a few person whom have changed the direction of my life since I was an undergraduate student and they have been my mentors since then. Without them, I definitely wouldn't have the courage to pursue higher degrees. So to some of my juniors from MMU, the scholarship won't automatically come to you, please try to move your first step. Do you know how many emails I'd sent to approach the potential supervisors and also to seek for the sponsorships? The opportunity you must seek by yourself, but not the other way round. There's no harm to have a trial and I see no point of what are you worry and scare of? Worry or scare of being rejected? Worry or scare of lacking of knowledge to pursue higher degree (master)? Those are nonsense. Life is full of failure, more importantly is how to face the failure. You would find yourself know even lesser after you've done your master's degree. Confuse? But is truth.

Good luck.