adrianism…

Aha! I had stir fried kangaroo sausages with green peas for lunch today (aiya, should have taken photo). Well, you might wonder what kangaroo meat taste like: to me it is somewhat like beef - just not as tough. Not bad actually Actually i did not intend to buy kangaroo meat sausage - i saw some cheap meat which i assumed was beef and just bought it. Luckily it was not dog meat or cat meat….

Oh, my final year project is again changed and thus finalised - this time it is more of something that i am interested in: solar panels. The project involves the designing of a single-axis tracking system for a PV array. So must start doing my research already. My supervisor will be Dr. Sumedha Rajakaruna.

Also got the chance to attend daily Mass at campus today. There were only 5 of us there. What a joy to be able to attend Mass right in campus, to receive Jesus Planning to go again tomorrow Here, there’s Sunday Mass at 1130am in one of the lecture halls in the architecture building and also daily Mass from Tuesdays-Fridays at 1210pm at the campus’ prayer room. The RC chaplain for Curtin is Rev. Fr. John Gandini, a Salesian Priest.

In the evening, went cycling with Sam. We first cycled to the banks of Swan river near Victoria Park. Man!!! The river is full of jellyfishes of all sizes!! I wonder if they are poisonous. That aside, the best thing is that Sam and i managed to cycle to the city side nearer the river banks. So we made a big round from my flat to Vic Park, crossed the causeway, into Riverside drive, and then aross another bridge into South Perth and from there back to the flat.

At the moment it only gets dark at about 830pm in Perth. And shops here generaly close at 5pm…so missing the times where i could go for a late night supper in Miri - to one of the kolok mee stalls. Well, new life GET USE TO IT ADRIAN!!!!

I’m finally in Perth! And yeah, i’m trying to revive this blog again See how it goes.

Let me start with some personal reflection. As I look back into my almost 24 or so years on earth, i realised that when i was younger, i never dreamt of going to uni, taking an engineering course, and what more to say of coming to Perth to study. And just a few days ago, i received a call from Shell regarding the outcome of my internship: the outcome is positive, which means i passed the assessment and will be offered a job once i graduate (of course if i meet the conditions attached). Again, it was never my dream to do an internship with Shell or to work with Shell…

Considering all these, i really thank God for all the opportunities. My years of uni studies wasn’t a smooth one - but the experiences gained from it is invaluable. Somehow through all these, i begin see two things:

1) God constantly guiding me and providing a way for me, be it directly or through my family and friends.

2) I need to learn to dream and take the necessary steps to achieve the dream.

Important to add is the that God must always be a part of my dream. Just sticking to no. 2 will make me my own god. Thus no. 1 and no. 2 must always go hand in hand. However, no. 1 is most important of all.

Okay, enough reflection. "So how are you in Perth?" many people ask. Here’s my standard answer:

I’m fine here Just getting use to:

1) weather - it can range between 15 degrees at night to 38 degrees in the day during summer. Some nights are hot too though. And the sun is merciless - so daily ritual includes applying sunblock (SPF30), and the air is dry (and so are my eyes and nose - the "taik hidung keras2", hehe….)

2) food - food here is super expensive (if i start converting). Actually if i don’t convert it still IS expensive. Imagine spending on average AUD$8 per meal which is about RM24 per meal… And of course i dearly miss mum’s food, kolok me, laksa sarawak, roti canai, mee hoon goreng arrrggh!!! I feel like hiring someone from home and starting a stall here in Perth

3) Money matters - learning how to budget aka manage my money, which i never do back home. Just being here for a week, my bag tore, so had to buy a new bag. The shoes i brought from Miri also started to show signs of premature aging, and so i got a new shoes. And then there’s the new bike and lock and lighting (spent $420).

4) Transport - i miss my car…so now i’m fully utilising my legs, and occasionally with the help of my bicycle, the bus or the train. Public transport here is super good (well, at least to me :P)

The prep-week and orientation event was good - it really helped me to get use to the uni and also to Perth. The campus here is also very much alive as compared to the Miri campus. There are so many organizations/clubs and many freebies to get during the Guild O-Day, hehe

Accomodation - I’m staying in Erica Underwood house (EUH), together with 5 other guys: 3 Malaysians and another 2 Australians. I’ve no regrets staying here because the flat is nice, the surrounding is nice, it’s near a shopping centre (Waterford Plaza), it’s pretty close to campus, and my housemates are nice people too Thank goodness!

Church - There’s Mass on campus evry Sunday at 1130am, and there’s even daily Mass from Tuesdays till Fridays on campus!!! And there are a few churches not very far away.

Classes have begun - and i can feel the stress slowly creeping in. My final year project (FYP) will be on Renewable energy - Hydrogen fuel cell (again not a topic which i dreamt of). I just pray and hope (and of course do my part) that everything will work out fine.

Since i mentioned that i must learn to dream, so my dreams (erm, let’s term them goals now - sounds more concrete) so my goals for this sem are:

1) Do well for the semester.

2) Find a part time job during the sem (don’t worry - i won’t work long hours).

3) Attend World Youth Day in Sydney this July and volunteer (i’m waiting for final confirmation from the volunteer office).

Hope all goes well. Wishing everyone the best for the new sem! God bless us all.

THIS IS MY 100TH POST!!! I’ve not been posting for a long time.

Anyway, Gen was telling me something interesting she read from a book. I paraphrase the author (and Gen - Thank you for sharing Gen :D):

1) Do we believe something because it is the truth?

<or>

2) Do we hold it as the truth just because it is our belief?

The next question we might ask is then, what is truth? Can we know truth? Is truth objective or is it subjective? Something for all of us to think and ponder upon…

Yup it is……

"Adrian, do you know that today is Valentine’s day?"
"Is it? Oh ya…hehe :D"
So far for me, every 14th of February has just been like any normal day, although i do connect this day with a very special day for people in love Besides that, i would also connect this day to St. Valentine, the reason behind this day. One story maintains that he was a priest serving under an emperor who forbade his soldiers to marry. So St. valentine, taking pity on these poor soldiers would secretly continue to perform their marriages. The emperor soon found out, and Valentine was put to death, hence the connection of love with St. Valentine’s Day. Anyway, since i’m still single (and enjoying it :P), so i do not have to worry about doing anything ‘extraordinary’ on this particular day, haha! But this year, i bought a medium chocolate bar each for my sisters (Decided to show my love for them - very rare for Adrian to buy things for his sisters and that’s the only extraordinary thing i did!) Anyway, on that day too, i fetched Joel from the airport. On the way back, he wanted to buy something from ToysWorld. I spotted this funny sign posted at the teddy bear section:

WHAT??? DO THEY NEED SUCH A NOTICE? YOU MEAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KISSING THE BEARS? LOL! I just couldn’t believe my eyes. If the notices stated ‘DO NOT CUDDLE/HUG/TOUCH THE BEARS’ i could understand, since it’s normal for people to look, select, hug, touch the bears. But to kiss the bears…..my gosh. The management must have recorded quite a number of people kissing the bears on the surveillence video camera

And time flies…..it was Chinese New Year’s eve. People have been starting to play firecrakers and fireworks, and i noticed that some of the fireworks display were awesome! So i decided to fully utilies my digi camera and take a few shots of the ‘free’ fireworks display. It was quite hard to capture the fireworks in action, because my house is surrounded by other houses, but anyway, thanks to the tripod and whoever played the fire works in that ‘particular’ spot, i managed to capture quite a colorful and beautiful display (of course it would be much nicer to be there and witness the display live! :D)

I really enjoyed the show which started a bit before 12 midnite and lasted for about 20 minutes or so. My neigbor on the left was also snapping pictures/video (eh yakah Bonus?) and some other neighbors were also playing firecrakers. But soon, i discovered that another group of creatures were also enjoying themselves - in fact having a good, sumptous buffet supper - yes mosquitos feeding on my blood. So i decided to go in my house. Furthermore, the air soon became pretty smoky, as you can see from the picture.

By the way, i’m sure we all know that the playing (and buying and selling too) of fireworks and firecrackers are actually banned in Malaysia. Few years ago, this law wasn’t in effect. in only came into being following cases of injuries and fires due to fireworks and crakers. On this issue, i feel that the government should not totally ban it. This practice is part of culture and in fact the playing of fireworks and crakers only adds beauty to the celebration. I just feel that people should be extra careful when playing with them.

Then came Chinese New Year. As usual, the round of visiting friends. On the 2nd day, went out with a group of friends. Visited Gen, then Sharlene, then back to Gen’s. At Gen, we had a really good time snapping photos sing Bonus’ camera - his cool camera could do all kinds of things, the most famous being the ‘10-shots’ Besides that, Larry was asking tips of what to do on a first date and meeting a girl’s parents for the first time. We all came out with funny scenarios and answers which kept us laughing all night! I hope to get some of the photos soon Anyway, here’s a picture of us at Sharlene’s place:

Driving in town on the 3rd day, i spotted a banner outside CB (Cherrie Berries) by Guiness Stout. It was a Chinese new year greeting, but with some extra message:

I couldn’t agree more with those words of wisdom. Personally, i feel that drinking alcohol-based drinks are okay, as long as one knows how to control him/her-self, and they realise heir own limitations, as an elder man once mentioned "i’ve seen people drinking and drinking, but yet they are in the office tomorrow morning". ‘Drinking’ has long been associated with merry and joyful occasions. It is sad that many do not know how to control themselves, and end up becoming ‘high’, drunk, and doing lots of stupid stuffs which makes them look like fools, big fools, which they later regret (this includes figthing, having sex, some even killing, or peeing in their pants, talking nonsense…….yeah, as if i know but that’s what i’ve heard and read). So know yourself, know your limits and drink responsibly. Don’t blame the drink - blame yourself for not drinking responsibly. If you think that a bit is enough to make you go wild, then don’t drink! (ah, easy said than done. Ah well).

Later in the night, i attended a friend’s thaksgiving dinner. She recently graduated, and so in thaksgiving to God and all those who helped and supported her along her acadamic years and life, she hosted a Chinese-style dinner in Grand Palace hotel. The food was great, although i didn’t eat much (my stomach wasn’t very good). Then there was the Karaoke session (my gosh, Mel, her bro and sis can sing so well!), Mel’s brother joked that he only sang to Oil Palm trees in the estate, and my friend Gen whispered to me saying that "no wonder the trees so ’subur’" HAHAHA!!!! SO FUNNY LA GEN! I decided to represent my table to go and sing. Now, this is the first time i did karaoke (if singing in the bathroom doesn’t count), and i was a quite nervous. But for the sake of my friend, and also to try karaoke (otherwise when?), and since the crowd was pretty small (about 40 people), i gathered the courage to go up and sing. I sang "MY WAY" and a Malay song by Ella "GEMILANG" (which i learnt 10 years ago in one of the camps - KEM BINA INSAN 1997). Haha! What a night! Anyway, i’m so proud of my friend Imelda who is now a medical Doctor "You’re an inspiration!".

Before ending this post, a picture to share. Don’t be surprised soon if you find ‘Made-in-Curtin’ pineapples in DPS or E-mart or in the market (JK) Look what’s growing in our university’s garden (so cute i spotted 2 fruits, but they’re pretty small though):

p.s. the season of lent has come. I attended Ash wednesday Mass at St. Joseph’s Cathedral. The Church was packed, and there were many ‘outstanding’ Catholics (i.e. Catholics who stand outside during Mass). Well, couldn’t blame them because the church was packed.

My prayer and hope, that we may continue to grow deeply in the Lord and also bring that growth to others - spritually, materially, emotionally.

oh no!!! it seems that in friendster blogs, i can’t upload a picture with the same file name, even though they are in different post. Because if i upload a picture with a similar name with a previous picture, it will overlap that picture. Hmmmm…. *adrian is contemplating to use a different blog service*.

Went cycling again. I wanted to go to the beach near Sribima, but the tide was high. There was practically no shore to cycle. So i turned back. This time i noticed there was a lane through a bush which had some ‘radioactive’ sign. So decided to check it out, since there was no sign saying ‘NO TRESPASSING’. Gee….i wonder what do they store there…. Hopefully it’s properly stored, otherwise humans or even the land might get contaminated.

From there, i cycled past the tank farm (Miri Crude Oil Terminal). I don’t know why that particular stretch of road is always in a bad condition - potholes, stagnant water. I once saw a van got stuck in one of the deep potholes. Since then, the road was resurfaced, but now it’s back to square one. Very near the spot where i took the picture of the road, i noticed some more things….. CABLE COVERS! I’ve written about telephone cable thefts here and here, and here i saw cable covers! However, i don’t know if these covers belong to telephone or electric cables. It seems that the cable covers have landed here, along the road, and among the bushes. Hmmmm, interesting. Moving on, i cycled towards the old Lutong Airfield. I was just recalling how beautiful the airfield used to be. When i was a young boy, i used to enjoy looking at the twin-otter planes landing and the Puma helicopters flying in workers from their off-shore platform. In fact, i’ve travelled to Labuan using this airfield too…ah the good old days Now, only the airstrip remains. The control tower and the adjecent buildings have long been demolished. The airstrip is now often used for racing purposes (legal and illegal :P). Sadly, the end of the airstrip has also been used as a dumping ground. From there, i decided to head home. Along the way, i saw some logs that have been washed ashore (i guess during one of the nights when the sea was high). I also passed by the Petronas Head office and marvelled at the tall telecommunication structure. I took a short cut through the Lutong Mosque, Masjid An-Naim and also marvelled at the beauty of the building basked in rays from the evening sunset. As i arrived home, i washed my bike and was surprised to see a beautiful butterfly in the garden! What an interesting day!

And the summer i’m referring to is the summer course, to be more specific, the Electrical System 204 (ES204) Summer Course. summer course refers to units offered to students for study during the summer break. I was thinking about this course right after my finals in 2006, so much so i brought the course materials to Australia during my holiday (at least i studies a bit there.It helped a lot with my understanding process suring the summer course).

Whenever people in campus meet me and ask what i’m doing, i’ll say that i’m taking summer course. "Ei, but i though you’re engineering. Engineering got summer course meh?" Haha! Yeah, i guess first time in history - SUMMER COURSE FOR ENGINEERING! The fees we pay is for a 25credits subject (i.e. RM2500 + RM150).

In the past, i used to wonder why summer courses were only offered to Commerce and Business students. I envied them because they had the chance to either speed up thier studies (by taking units in advance), or space it out (by dropping some units during the normal semester and take it during summer) or take things a little easy (because if they failed a unit, there is a possibility the particular unit be offered during summer…hehe)

But soon i began to realise that unlike engineering units, commerce and business units runs more of like typical clasroom setting - lecture, tutorial, perhaps some presentation. On the other hand, engineering units will include the usual lecture, tutorial, and labs (and reports) - and i tell you labs are BIG things for an engineering student. Just to figure out something sometimes take so long! Add on the assignments, mid-term test, quizzes… So imagine a summer course for an engineering unit. But still, why not offer summerfor units that do not require any lab experiment, such as renewable energy principles?

So how come i’ve got summer course?
Answer:Because we asked for it.
"Your class must be quite big in number, like 20 or so" some say.
NOPE! THERE ARE ONLY 5 OF US IN OUR CLASS!
"WHAT?!!" (so surprised!)
Yeah. It all began like this. Once upon a time, i mean 2 years ago (2nd sem 2005), a group of us failed this unit. Somehow, some of my friends had a brilliant idea to request from  our lecturer, Dr. Nader, to consider giving us summer course for this subject. After submitting a formal letter of request to him, amazingly, he agreed to it, on condition that we can find a minimum of 5 people from our batch. And yes, we got 5 people So instead of resitting this unit in the 2nd sem of 2006, we were to take this unit during the (southern hemisphere) summer break of 2006. I guess he agreed to give us this course partly because we have gone through the unit previously - we weren’t a newbie to the course.

So what’s so ‘nightmarish’ about this course? What makes it a nightmare:
1) The time frame of the unit
2) The workload of the unit
3) I just dread studying… (have to fight this feeling)

Believe it or not, although the course is run through 3 weeks (only), the number of class-day contacts are only 9. In other words, WE ONLY HAVE 9 CLASSES!!! Generally, we have lecture in the morning, followed by tutorial, then lab in the afternoon (we need to write report for the lab). We also have quiz (worth 10%) and a mid-term (worth 20%).

Well, actually i personally feel that having been through this unit before, i can sort of grasp the knowledge much better, This is true for me - every time i repeat a unit, i seem to get much higher marks as compared to my previous marks.

But this time, really thanks to David & Victor, who are so kind to assist me by lending me their study material for this course. Also thanks to Dr. Nader. You know, this course made me realise that Dr. Nader is a nice guy - he’s actually very willing to help students pass. their units (although he appears moody at times. Who doesn’t anyway?) On my part, i hsould study and try my best. Thanks also to Hafis and Adrus who made this summer course possible by coordinating our request. Thanks to Navyin and Don for signing the letter too :D.

As i write this, i’ve gone through 95% percent of the course time - what’s left is our final exam (worth 50%) this Thursday. We will be sitting the exam together with those sitting for their supplementary exam. Wishing all my mates the best for the finals & supp!

A lesson learnt from the whole thing:
1) Don’t be afraid to ask for help with regards to studies.
2) Have a preview and a fast read-thru of the subject before studying the actual unit.
3) Just try my best.

I hope to be able to continue to apply the lesson i’ve learnt from here. I MUST!

"I’m dreaming of a…." let me rephrase that. "I’ve been dreaming to cycle to the ASEAN Bridge" and i did it yesterday (does standing 200m from the bridge counts? hehe!).

I came home early from campus and doing some errands. i felt rather bored, and since the internet service is dead, aha! why not go cycling? after all it wasn’t too hot, and the wind wasn’t blowing that strong too (in other words, it was quite cool).

Since it was my maiden trip to the bridge by bicycle (if i arrive, it’ll be history!), and the journey is quite far, i packed my tripod and camera, and also decided to use my helmet since i would be travelling the main road most of the time. I also grabbed some coins (i’m broke ok) just in case i needed to buy some drinks (on top of the 500ml of H2O i brought).

The route i took: Lot xxx Lutong Baru -> E-mart (via TUdan road. Bought a can of isotnic) -> Bus stop in front of some blue-roofed training institute (oh boy, i was cycling agaisnt the wind! Got pretty tired, so rested) -> trafficlight junction to the bridge (rested & took pics) -> arrived 200 meter from the bridge -> Senadin (via the junction) -> Promin Jaya -> Back to Lutong Baru via the Lutong-KB road.

The journey to, was hard (i kept on wanting to give up along the way). The journey back was much much smoother - maybe because after warming up in the initial journey and after resting near the bridge, but mostly because i was cycling in the same direction as the wind.

Actually. it’s quite dangerous to cycle along the road toward the bridge - people speed and overtake, and huge trucks frequent that road. But well, it’s an experience, and i’ve taken necessary safety measures and also i ask God, the saints and angels to protect me along the journey.

It took me a total of 2 hours to complete the cycling journey today. But i think actual cycling time one way should take abut 40 minutes only (beacause the journey back was much shorter, about 40 minutes only). But my stamina really not good la…..have to improve.

One day, perhaps can try to cycle into Brunei