End of Chapter 2012

One simple question I always asked myself this time every year. What have or haven't I accomplished for the year? Well, the answer is Yes and No. Why so?

Yes for:

1. I've managed to get my final year and overall degree results with distinction and I managed to obtain an indirect PhD offer from my supervisor in uni and I am graduated with honours from one of the most prestigious university in the world. 
2. In addition to that, to my personal gain, I became an emcee for a wedding for a very first time and that was really fun and eye-opening to myself and my self-confidence. 
3. Apart from that, I've also broke my comfort zone by venturing europe alone for 12 days across 5 different countries. It was an amazing experience where I met people from around the world and interacted with decent and less-decent people. 

No for:

1. I can't accept the PhD offer due to my bond with my education sponsor (sadly). 
2. I have not done anything other than academics throughout the whole academic year. 
3. I didn't went for my Graduation in the UK due to my bad financial background and also because it is dead expensive to fly there, it was a pity, really.. sobs

What was basically all I have and have not done in a year. Not that much but I hope next year would be a better year and it will be. 

Newton 3rd Law in Life

Have you ever heard of the Newton 3rd Law from your Physics teachers. Well, that theory doesn't just apply to physics or science alone, but it does happen in real life. Just today I went to the bank to collect my card and unfortunately, the name printed on the card was a little off from the exact spelling I wrote in the application form. So I went to the person in charge and ask with a nice and warm smile ( at least that is the impression I thought I gave that lady) and asked for a replacement. She apologise and told me that the replacement will be placed under the "Urgent" status due to their mistakes.

This might sounded as an ordinary scenario but if I had reacted differently to the misspelled card, that lady might not be so nice to me and place my replacement order under low priority status. So, the moral of the story is, be nice to people if you want them to be good to you. This is like the physics law where applied force equals to the reaction force.

[I think this post is crappy, just felt like writing something due to extreme boredom] 

Euro Trip Plan - Slovenia, Italy, Czech Rep., Austria and Hungary

Last week at this time, I was thinking if I should go travel in the Europe. One of my housemates went travelling with family and the other with her course mates around Ireland, Eastern and Western Europe. So that left me alone at home but I had a wonderful trip to Seven Sisters near Brighton but that was only for a night stay, though it was very fun.

So, back to the question of whether or not I should travel Europe. First question I asked to myself - Am I willing to spend some money for this trip. After much consideration, I decided to put a sum of budget and work things out from it. I started to look at the places around Europe especially Eastern Europe cause it's relatively cheaper in all aspect - currency, foods, accommodations, etc. After much of reading and research, I finally came out with a list of places that I will be visiting in my 13 days trip and can be illustrated below.

Euro Trip - 13 days

My first destination is Bled and Bohinj in Slovenia. These two places are very popular with their beautiful lakes and surrounding areas. I will be touching down at Trieste Airport at around 1435hr, which leaves with two options. First wait for 6 hours in Nova Gorica to board the train (Euro 5.00) to Bled-Jezero OR take a bus to Trieste then change to Ljubljana and take a train to Lesce-Bled which in total cost about 20 Euro. Obviously I am not going to just sit around and do nothing, so I've decided to take a longer route which will allow me to explore Trieste town before heading to Ljubljana. 3 nights will be dedicated these two places.

The next stop would be Venice, Italy. The accommodations here are expensive - as a backpacker, I always look for cheaper alternatives. Fortunately I found one but the location wasn't that great. It is called the Camping Jolly. This place will have facilities such as the swimming pool, open door gym great for relaxations.

The next day I will be travelling to Lake Como via Milan. From Venice to Milan, I booked a train which only cost me for 9 Euro under the Super Economy ticket category trenitalia.com . A regular ticket would have cost me 35 Euro. Lake Como is located near the Switzerland-Italy border. I am planning to rent a bike to tour around the lake and provided I have enough time, I will try to cross border to Switzerland and bike around Lake Lugano.

On the next day early in the morning, I will be heading to Bergamo by train and then transfer to the airport to catch my 1205hr flight to Brno. Upon arrival in Brno, I will be heading to Prague by bus. The bus that I am taking in no ordinary bus. It has very advanced entertainment system on the bus with free coffee and tea provided to all passengers. The company that owns this bus is called the Student Agency bus, first founded by students.

After Prague, I will be staying one night in Vienna, Austria and head to Budapest for the Saturday night thermal bath event before taking a train in the morning to Siofok, Hungary which is located near Lake Balaton. In Budapest, one of the most popular activity is spa and public bath. I am looking forward for a good experience in this. Also, they have quite good party locations around the town.

Until then...

Brighton and Seven Sisters

Over the past few months, life had been a little bit hectic with all the coursework and preparation for my final exam followed by the completion of my final year project report and presentation. I realised that after the exam and all the coursework will be a period of transition between the old and the new chapters of my life. But before that chapter arrives, I am planning to use the time wisely - treat myself something good after the 4 years of hardship in Imperial, hence decided to do a 1 night trip at the Seven Sisters with some of the Mech Engers. This is an all guys trip to Seven Sisters, located approximately 30 km from west from Brighton. The original plan was to catch some fish and BBQ them have a short nap in the car and camps before heading back to London. There were 7 of us headed for Brighton from London, took about 3 hours of slow drive (stopped by Croydon to buy a 4-men tent). One of us has his own car and we decided to rent another ZipCar from London. It was a fun journey on the way to our destination. We first head to do some fishing and catch as much mussels and crabs as possible for dinner. 

Fab the Pro

Unfortunately, I am not a pro in shore fishing, so as expected, we failed to catch any fish. But Fab, my Italian friend was very skilled in catching mussels and crabs, showing us the bunch of Asians on how to do it. We next drove to one of the national reserve - the Seven sisters. There is a reason why this place is called the Seven sisters. Look at the picture below. You can see 7 bumps at the cliffs in the picture shown below.

The Seven Sisters

Upon arrival we set up some of the cooking facilities for BBQ and tent. Weather on that day was wonderful and we did not face any problem cooking near the beach. It took us awhile before we could sleep at night. Looking up the sky and talking like we know how the future will be. At the same time, we competed on counting the shooting stars that entered in to the atmospheres and eventually slept without knowing. Next morning, I woke up at around 0500hrs, took a short walk around the area and decided to snap some photos of the morning scenery. That is me in the photo trying to be in the picture while setting the camera on timer.

The river and Me

City-Get-Away house

The river bank with man-made structure

River towards the sea

The path along the river

Around Seven Sisters

Where all the rabbits lives

Went fishing around 9 am. Super sunny. That my friend trying to fish.

 

Tired of fishing, we decided to take a break

We decided to stop by Brighton for lunch before our journey back to London

Most of us took the Harry's Challenge.

Our Winner of the Harry's Challenge

 

My checklist

Here are a few stuff that I have and haven't accomplished:

1. Final year examination = DONE
2. Final year report submission = DONE
3. Final year project presentation = DONE
4. Hangout with the Mech Enger's at BBQ = DONE
5. Mech Eng trip to 7 Sister's = DONE

So now, what is next before I start my busy working life back in Malaysia? More hanging out with friends before we part our ways in pursuing our new dream, which are making loads of money and building a happy family. What will things be after 10 or 20 years. I hope all of us will still be in touch with each other on facebook (if facebook still exists at that time). 

The morning of Advanced Stress Analysis Paper

Woke up in the morning, felt OK with a bit of confident

Walked to UNI, arrive chit chat with some friends feeling confident..

.

Enter the exam Hall

.

First Question!!!!!!

.

.

.

.

By the end of the first Questions

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

By The End of The PAPER!!!!!

New Obsessions

During the time approaching exam, I tend to have obsession on certain activities. An example from last year was “reading Bloomberg every day during meal time and before I sleep”. For my final year (which is this year) my obsession changed and expanded to a few activities. First is playing HON, also known as Heroes Of Newerth. This is a game similar to DoTA but I found it very interesting, mainly due to the new hero concepts that differentiate this game from DoTA. I tend of make excuses to myself that I am allowed to play 1 or 2 games every time I finish 3 chapters of revision. But to my surprise my obsession to this game has no limit. I always end up wasting 4 to 6 hours playing the game. I am going to delete the game for the time being and resume after exam -  that’s if i am still interested to play HON.

My second obsession is playing basketball. Early in this academic year,I started joining the Malaysia Society Basketball sessions. I realised that I knew nothing about basketball apart from throwing the ball into the basket. So I start to research on the fundamental on how to shoot the ball in a consistent manner, drills for ball handling, offence and defence strategies and learning some of the wonderful signature moves from popular basketball players such as Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. I have a lot more to learn but that will take time.

Alright enough of confessing my obsessions. It’s time for me to get serious on revision.. BACK to REVISION!!!!!

Bad Luck Again

Couple of months ago, I’ve encountered many strange and less fortunate events. For starter, I have my bike stolen and then returned the next day at the place I parked it. How strange was that? And on top of that, I bought a new bike for GBP36 before I recovered the stolen bike. Never mind that. Just a day ago, the first day of term in 2012, I was surprised to find that MY BIKE WAS GONEE!!! The bike lock was found with a clean cut. I really love that bike very much. There is nothing I can do about it but to grieve.. How sad.. I hope that this person (The Thief) who stole my bike will be punished and feel sorry for what he or she had done.