Believe in your dreams ...

This is about a true story of a lady from Britain who has believed in her dream to be a professional singer. With regardless of her age, she stood on the stage of Britain's Got Talent 2009 which eventually made her dream come true with her stunning voice which got shock anyone. Salute to you, Susan Boyle !! Never give up your dreams, at least you must try ...

Here's the link of her amazing performance on Britain's Got Talent, enjoy !!

Leaving ...

The day is approaching, 3 days more (28 December 2009) I'll be leaving Malaysia to start a new journey in a whole new place, Hong Kong, for at least 3 years. There are so many things I wanted to do before I leave. However, I only managed to do portion of those in the wanted-things-to-do list due to time constraint. Below is the managed & unmanaged things:

Managed:
1. Farewell with my colleagues and students. Thanks for all the wishes.

My colleagues

With IB students I taught earlier

S.H.E?

The memories

2. Visited my Karate master in Malacca.
3. Managed to move to new office for about a week :p

My new office

4. Paid a visit to some friends who are working in Singapore including a friend whom I've lost contact for more than 3 years after we graduated from MMU.

Friend whom I lost contact for many years

Secondary school's friends

Snowman standing on Orchard Road

Unmanaged:

1. Failed to meet a friend due to I had to rush to airport to pick up my uncle.
2. Failed to meet up with one of my mentors in MMU Malacca.
3. Failed to meet up with some buddies from MMU in KL & Penang.


Goodbye, Malaysia ...

The belated cake ...

Dol hareubang

Sorry to deliver the birthday cake 6 months later as I promised to buy one on your birthday. Sorry for failing to do so on your big day. Unfortunately, it was another regret for not being able to pass you the belated birthday cake personally. Anyhow, wish you all the best and hope able to meet you again ... take care.

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.

September ...

1. I went back home for a couple of days due to the Merdeka Day. Luckily this time I had some companies followed me back to my hometown and most importantly they shared the traveling cost with me :D. They are actually the students of UTAR from the same hometown as me, and one of them is actually the sister of my friend. On the way back to BP we stopped by at Melaka and had our dinner there. After dinner, I showed them to Jonker Walk which is one of the attractions in Melaka. It had been years I did not put my step to this place after I graduated from Multimedia University.

Jonker Walk at Jalan Hang Jebat, Melaka

2. I've got myself a new handphone though not an advanced one but have got all the features I wanted like GPS, WiFi and 3.5G. This new toy offers a lot more features like it supports *.pdf, *.doc, *.xls, and *.ppt file formats. However, the GPS software was not come along with the handphone itself although I'd requested the seller to install for me but got rejected by him as the shop is selling only the genuine handsets and never provide such kind of services. Of course you can pay for installing the GPS software from any of the handphone accessories shops, but the software installed is a pirated copy and they will still want to charge you from about RM50 - RM100. I don't really want to pay such amount for just getting a pirated software so I spent a couple of days on researching how to install the software myself. Thanks to the Internet and now I've had the GPS software installed on my handphone :p. Not only that, I can start to do the "dirt" job to install the GPS software on your mobile devices and charge you at a cheaper rate than other shops, haha ...

3. This would be the biggest thing happened in this month though today is still 24. I've sent out the PhD application. The entire process was just taken 2 days, from the moment I approached the professor, talked to him on phone, and finally sent out the application. Currently still waiting for the further notice whether I can secure the scholarship or not. Wish me luck then.

Finger-crossed

August ...

It has been quite sometimes since the last time I blogged here due to the busyness plus with a little bit of laziness. It was so many things happened within these period. Therefore, I decided to give a short view of what had happened in these 2 months.

1. I had moved to a new place, not too far from what I had previously stayed. The room is bigger and the rental is cheaper. However, the main reason was because the old place had the direct sunlight shone to the room from the afternoon till the evening. I couldn't imagine I had been stayed in an oven for a few months then only made up my mind to shift out.

2. First time in my life I attended to a concert named "Super Band" held at Bukit Jalil with my colleagues. SuperBand is formed by four veterans: Luo Da You, Emil Chau, Jonathan Lee and Zhang Zhen Yue. I've no regretted to attend to such a wonderful concert.

Poster - Super Band Live In Malaysia Concert

3. The first Korea gang gathering after I got back to Malaysia for 1 year plus. The gathering was intended to gather those had attended to Dongseo University no matter for doing their postgraduate studies or industrial training. However, the attendance was not as good as expected due to some "unforeseen" and "technical" and whatever kind of reasons :p. Anyhow, we still managed to have twelve person attended to this big event as shown in the picture below:

Daorae

(left) Seongyee, Rong, Shin, Wei Liam, Shiew Woei, Shin Keat, Della, Kok Shin, Shu Yun, Yu Shu, Me, HM

We had our dinner at one Korean restaurant named "Daorae" situated at Sri Hartamas. The taste of the foods was quite close to what I had eaten in Korea so I've no hesitation to recommend this restaurant to you.

4. I've been assigned to a new faculty with the department remained the same. The previous faculty I attached to had finally split into three new faculties due to the expansion of number of students. The former one was considerably too big to represent three major disciplines namely engineering, science and technology.

Basically these are the major events happened in August and I shall continue with the story for September in the next post.

One Night In Ipoh

Few weeks ago a few buddies of mine had come to Ipoh to attend their colleague's wedding ceremony. Thus, we'd grabbed this opportunity to schedule a meet up after the function. This has been my first time to drive to Ipoh alone late at night as I'm not quite familiar with the Ipoh downtown except a very limited places.

Undoubtedly I'd spent quite sometimes to find the way to the restaurant they were having the function with the help of their friend by giving instruction through the phone. Perhaps with this time's experience has signaled me to get a GPS, so that at least I've something to refer to and wouldn't get lost easily.

After met up with them outside the restaurant, we first made move to the hostel the groom rented for them to unload their stuffs before we went out for drinks at a cafe somewhere near to Jaya Jusco. I like the decoration and also the ambient of this cafe and found it quite comfortable to have a few friends sit in to have some drinks and chit chat together. I think this would be the first time we all gathered together after got back from Korea, am I right, EY & SY? Should we schedule a gathering that summons all of the DSU graduates and trainees?

Friends Cafe

Middlesex University

Few days ago, I had a short conversation with the deputy dean (DD) of my faculty when I accidentally met him at the staircase as he was on his way heading back to his office. It had been my honour to have the precious moment to talk to him about my PhD plan.

I am quite appreciated of his concern about my progress to preparing for my PhD studies. During the conversation, he had referred one of his friends whom will be joining UTAR soon and has the close connection with the Middlesex University in UK to me. According to him, due to the close connection of his friend with the Middlesex University, I can actually register my name under that university as a part time PhD student under the supervision of his friend and I do not required to reside in the UK for the entire PhD period except viva. The tuition fee is quite acceptable as if compared to those foreign universities in Malaysia. At the end, I would get a certificate issued by the Middlesex University. What an attractive deal, isn't it?

The next day I received an email he sent to his friend and CC to me. I was quite surprised that he had recommended me to his friend about the story he mentioned to me earlier. I really appreciated of his concerns and kindness to recommend me a potential supervisor for my PhD studies. Although I prefer to be a full time PhD student to enjoy my last student life, I would take his advise into the consideration especially during this time of economic crisis which seems quite difficult to obtain a scholarship.

Thanks DD.

Hello World

The words "Hello World" have been used in almost every computer programming literature to introduce the very first programme to the readers. By taking the idea to name the title of my first article posted in the cyberspace to fulfill its ultimate purpose "introduce".

In fact, I have owned this space a couple years ago without posting any single word since then. Reason? It could not be simpler, the laziness! Perhaps, I should quit from this habit to invest some of my times to start blogging, regardless whether it is a long or short article. If you look at others' blogs, it is not difficult to find that they share some similarities. You may curious to ask me, "What are they?" Theme. You must set a theme to shape what your blog is all about. It could be about your works, about the foods you tried, about the hang-out places and many more. Therefore, a theme is important to be identified before start blogging which gives you ideas what would be on your blog.

Perhaps, "general" could be considered as one of those themes as I have no favor in any specific topic that to craft my blog.