The classes for my first year in Carnegie Mellon are done. All left are the finals which leave many of us unsettled, restless, panicking, worrying, etc. Yet there is this dance performance night thing called Dancers Symposium tonight. I almost bought the tickets to go with James and friends but I decided that with 4 finals ahead, this shouldn't be the time to admire the physical feats of the dancers showing off their finely toned bodies. This is the time for a struggle - a capstone struggle after all that was done for the past 16 weeks. For some, the good grades of their midterm exams awardedto them with the exemption of the finals. Yes, congrats to my friends taking Principles of Econs for their late night attendance of past review sessions have granted them the very prize of academic excellence - an A for the course.

Yes, I will be enrolling in summer school.
Yes, it will be for both summer.
And yes, it will be in Carnegie Mellon.

[ Click here ] to read my roommate, Kenneth K. Eng's speech marking the last few days of our Freshman year.

"I shouldn't have known her at the first place"

i'm done with all my assignments for this semester. thursday was crazy. i had 5 tasks to do. 2 assignments - chem and calculus which i rushed through in the morning. i just hope i don't get deducted a lot for careless mistakes. then i have to practice Bye Bye Blackbird at Mudge since today is my last day of Jazz Piano I class with John D'Amico. I practiced so hard for the improv but the tempo I practiced with turned out to be the wrong one. It was supposed to be swing but my improv was based on a latin tempo. So, when i played for the class, it didn't worked out well and i was forced to come up with something simple and mundane improvs on the spot. There was my physics lab notebook due after that. My last notebook.No class but Professor Linsuain was there to collect the notebooks. Back at home, I spent the entire night finishing my final 15-111 assignment. 8 points which is very much influential on whether I'll get an A or not.

Good weather today. Lots of people with shorts and short skirts. Still, the clusters were packed with people finishing last-minute papers and assignments. Just like me. I had to walk all the way to the 5th floor of fine arts building to print my graphs for Physics. I was lucky to get a vacant machine.

The Naked Music label rocks. For the past 2 days, I've been feeding my two Kayan ears to the sounds of Miguel Migs, Blue Six and Aquanote. The albums: Bare Essentials Vol II, Nude Dimensions Vol I. All from Napster. Penn State people,you guys are freaking lucky. Good stuff.


All in one day. It's finals time. 107% for it. Intro to Chemical Engineering this Tuesday. Less time should be spent on blogging now.

p/s: Kenneth wrote something very cool tonight but I've yet to page it into HTML.

I was so tense before the 3rd 15-111 Exam today that I practically couldn't smile or be cheerful anytime before 11.30am. It went okay I guess. I just hope my code doesn't fail me.


The main event of the day for me was the Chemical Boat race held at the Fence. Sunny day today and the weather was cool. I like it. There was quite a crowd of Chemical Engineering undergraduates witnessing us freshmen racing our Styrofoam boats.

The length was 45 ft. 0 load.

Ours went like this: our first try was only 33 ft and we believe that the bottle was not shaken very well. The jet went slow. I panicked of course. So, on our second try, we made sure the bottle was shaken really well till white foam was seen inside the tube. It really went faster than any other competing boats but we lacked the amount of liquid so it stoped at 40 ft. It was really a boost of confidence and on our third try, we added an 50 mL of acid. It didn't went further. 39.8 ft I think.

Anyway, we were glad that it went striaght. To tell the truth, we were more worried on it not going straight than the amount of chemicals needed. Calvin's group was the winner and they deserve it after all their effort. We worked hard too but not as hard Calvin's. Anyway, glad that it was over. The race was more memorable than my Mech E race last year. Designing a boat is much easier than a car definitely.

Our boat didn't really go what we expected. Calvin's group is doing really well. They could ask for a distance and get the boat to go there chemically. Our team needs to get the data right today.



It's last week of class. Less time to blog.

Lucky for me to have to go out and send the F.C.E. for Prof. McElfresh. I realized that it's chilly outside and I need get a jacket for the outdoor testing of chem boat.



Went to mIRC for the first time in like...a year? Met my second cousin Fabian @ #iban. We've not met for around 5 years I think. Maybe more. I updated me with his current life in UPM Bintulu and on his cousin Freddy. Told me he has a gf so chun that he's jealous. Haha. We spoke Iban on text which is kinda awkward at first. My spoken Iban sucks coz I tend to stammer in that language. I think my brother's and sister's mastery of the language is better than mine. Partly because they have more Iban friends in school and they speak Iban with them. For me, I spoke Malay with my Iban friend. What a shame.



In Iban, the word for "Malay" is "Laut". I was thinking on the origin of the term. I don't think it sounds any near to the Malay word for "sea". Also, I don't think Malays live near the sea. One possiblity is that the Ibans brought along the term from the origin in Sumatera a couple hundred years ago. Maybe they interacted with the Malays in Sumatera. Another possiblity that the Ibans must have referred them to the people who lives near the sea. The Malays and Melanaus in Sarawak generally live by the sea especially along the Kuching and Sibu division. So, I guess when the Malays first meet the Iban, they were introduced as people who lives near the sea. "Kami orang tinggal dekat laut sana." The Ibans might have nodded with partial confusion so they referred them as "laut" since the Malays said they live near the sea.

"Maybe she just wants to be my friend...."



I'm done with my Physics formal report. Everything typed out and the diagrams are done. All I need now is to check them tomorrow by rereading it 10 times. Haha. The amount of error-checking I have to do is twice the amount that an ordinary person has to do. My fierce and strict English tutor when I was in Primary 3, Ms. Wee, said I'm a very careless students. What else could she expect from me? I was only a 9-year-old studying English with 13-year-olds. Hahaha. Here I'm showing off.



I just hope my 2nd last programming assignment that I've just submitted will get full mark. It's 8 points but it seems easy. The easiness makes me feel uneasy. 8 points for creating a basic BST? I had worse time coding previous assignments whose full points were only 5.



I just bargained for a desktop computer from another student. I just hope he takes my offer. I'm hoping to run a server in room. There's so much things to learn in Linux and PHP.

Wish it could be real



I'm feeling really cold now. I think it's because of the surge in caffeine in my bloodstream now. I dranked a half-bottle of DIET Pepsi an hour ago. I just wonder why caffeine makes you feel cold after a while.



Irwan is moving into the apartment for the summer. I rushed back from my campus to help him moved his stuffs into the room. When I saw his self-assembled PC with a flat panel display, I was very much tempted to go order a motherboard right away. In fact, I've been trying to surpress the temptation to build a desktop. But look at how much I've spent on my IBM Thinkpad, I should tell myself that a desktop can wait. Probably after the summer when the unspent allowance accumulates.



Nice weather today but I did nothing outdoors to take advantage of the warm temperature. The only time I spent under the sun was watching Prof. Powers and Matt fixing the the trough for Wednesday's Chemical Boat Competition.

This weekend shall be Physic Lab Formal Report weekend. I've just completed the introduction part which I made for nearly 2 pages. I had to relate the principle of equipartition with the the ratio of specific heats, gamma. I'm kinda satisfied with what I explained. No gray area but I need some physicist to verify it.



Still worried about the outcome of my final grade...

I'm just so frustrated with my 15-111 (Java) quiz 3. I just couldn't get the deleteFirst method to work. It worked on 5/7 test cases. Even worse, I ran out of time so I didn't check the previous methods and questions.



I just don't want to get a B for this course. I really don't want...

"What are you smoking, man?"



I was walking back from the University Center (our student center building) after lunch when I saw this bunch of guys giving out free Marlboro cigarrettes on their "SmokAThon" campaign. "I'll go for one," said one black guy with braided hair as he pulled out a stick from a generous campaigner. I'm not sure why are they doing this neither do I know who sponsors it. It's kinda cool, you know. After all these stop-smoking ads that you see on TV, billboards, newspapers etc., it's nice to have the health campaign's antithesis. I was tempted to get a free smoke but I'm scared I'll embarass myself for not knowing how to smoke.



I tried it before but never got hook to it. Thank God. I remembered hanging out with friends D & D at my old kindegarten's playground on Saturday evenings. Actually, I smoked 6 sticks of Marlboros during my very first try. Went back home and luckily my family was not in. I got really dizzy after that that I slept from 7 p.m. till the next morning. After that, I tried a stick or two once every 4/5 months but my friends would just laugh at me coughing the first puff of smoke.



I have Calc II exam tomorrow. Wish me luck. Spent the evening at my TA Al Cohen's review session. Before that, I got the final piece for my jazz class. Chords and improv by next Thursday.

Where is she? I just leave my heart in two



Haha. I got the 1GB gmail account coz I'm active blogger because blogger.com is owned by Google! I thinking forward every e-mail I get on Andrew (my CMU account) to this google.



Got my Physics II test back yesterday. the worst of 3 exams. 80. but then, Prof. Nagle promised to scale up the grades since the mean is 65. My partner of last sem's Intro to Mech E class, Josh, told me that Prof Quinn will not curve the class and the final will be far tougher than any of the 3 hour exams.



Just spent the whole evening on my second last assignment. The first of 2 binary search tree assignments. Worth 8 points. Getting my hands dirty in doing the code helps me better understand the elegant algorithms. There's a 15111 quiz on Friday and I think I need to study the big Oh for BSTs.



Stupid OLR (OnLine Registration). I can't register for next fall's courses the whole day due to an extremely slow server today. I just couldn't understand how on earth could the server crawl in a small university with a mere population of 5000 and yet has the respect for being one of world's most premiere computer science schools? I guess the CMU community embrace the Internet a lot but the sad fact is that, some internet tools we're using are slightly antiquated. Another thing, how on heck can there be a waiting list over 100 students for Macroeconomics? The combined maximum enrollment for both sections is 200 and yet by 3.30pm, there were over 63 and 58 people on the waiting lists. Kenneth is luckier than me to be on the 20 something spot of the WL. Probably there will be adding another lecture or two for the course.



Why didn't Kim blog yesterday?

I just had lunch with James, Hassan, Bo and Diong. We were discussing about the NS back in Malaysia how terrible it's going since I told them what Kim wrote in her blog. How could the trainee be raped her instructor? The crime is as evil as a father raping his daughter. I think we should publicly hang or can these NS rapist like organize a public caning at Dataran Merdeka since the place is Malaysia's symbol of freedom. Maybe to avoid future tragedies, the government should only have guys do the NS. Separating the girls and guys into different camps is a good idea too but right now, only 15% of the instructors are women. I guess this would also avoid the instructors and soldiers from the dating the innocent young girls.

My Fall schedule might be of the following courses and sections:



15211E

18100C

73200A

73248A

18202B

She was there but didn't look at me. I just walked past her



Again and again, I tried to be productive with my spare time. I didn't really much work last night with the distration of the computer and a History Channel documentary on the Holy Grail. Kim's NS blog seems to be really popular. I can't wait for her next entry. What I predicted came true... the trainers will hook up with the trainees. Girls shouldn't be allowed to join the NS!



Now anxiously waiting for my Physics 2 3rd Hour Exam grade. I missed today's recitation. I went to find Madhur but he was not in the office.



Dear reader, whoever you are, please do send me an e-mail telling me to discipline myself and start working for my cal exam, physics formal report and BST programming assignment. My e-mail address is at the bottom of this homepage.



This is the worst time of the semester. You know you have lots of work due but you need that time to study for the finals.]



- Cal Homework

- Study cal exam

- BST Assignment on Monday

- Study for Java quiz on BST this Friday

- begin formal report

- register for courses

- finish Chem E boat

- go through all possible questions for Java Mastery Exam



arrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

damn. i have been doing my physics lab notebook since 3 p.m. It's 2.07 am now and the only rest I had was for a long dinner and printing the results in the cluster. There are 2 blank pages left and I think I need a new notebook. This is the first time I am using more than one. Have to e-mail the professor for permission to use a new notebook.



I was wrong about the gender of that NS trainee who blogs everyday during cybercafe hours in the camp. She's a girl actually. Reading her chronicles seems to give me an impression that she's a guy until I read an archived blog saying that her aunts commented on her bra!



I need a shower in this warm weather. The aircond seems not work. Ding and Wendy just left. Kenneth is asleep. It's Monday again...urggghhh...

I spent the morning reading the blog of some Sabahan guy who is now in the Malaysian National Service. Glad that they have cybercafe hours. Really detailed chronicles of his life in the camp. There was another blog that Max forwarded, Cheryl, our former O.C. when we first entered Shah Alam nearly two years ago.



My room is again in a mess. I think after studying so hard for the Physics exam, I lost all the energy to continue being academically productive. I really have lost interest in finishing my notebook although it's due on this coming Tuesday.



Kenneth is nowhere in his room. He must have gone to church with Ken Yu. I have to go mine next day.

Joe is now 22>



Happy birthday to Joe Wong who turns 22 today.

Sigh, all the hard work we put into the our mobot went into the drain. Despite some improvement last night, it didn't move today. Anyway, the past 2 semesters working on it was a learning experience. I got to learn how to program a microcontroller. Only a few of the many competitors made it the finish line through all the gates.



I watched buggy as well today. I think it was an event more for the less geeky people of the campus. The buggies went really fast especially down the road at Flagstaff Hill. TV Cameras were mounted at almost every streth of the course and it was like watching an Olympic race. There was a crash on the last race of today and it occured right in front of my eyes at the corner. Fortunate enough there were haystacks at edge of the roads to prevent the buggies hitting trees or whatever large stationary objects there were. I kinda like the idea that the drivers are women who are short and light while the pushers are guys. The finals is going to be tomorrow.



Oh crap! Yet to start on fininishing my Optics notebook.

The 3rd and final 1-hour exam for Physics II. I'm really nervous because I think it will be tough. Just tried 2 of the 4 past exams and most of the time, I can't understand the question. The questions were not like the homework ones.



Pray for me!

finally, i'm done getting my mergeSort to work... i couldnt come up with my code so i sought help from my textbook. to understand it was troublesome enough. there was one example that i googled which was easier to understand.



i brought 7 of my friends for Easter Vigil mass today. I've never been to any Mass that as traditional and grand as tonights. The choir was accompanied by the Carnegie Brass Ensemble who plays only during important masses. The last one I attended was for the farewell mass of the auxillary bishop. I could feel the floor vibrating by tonight's brass performance. The civility of the congregration here impress me. As we entered the Cathedral after the Service of the Light, not even a single person talked or even whispered. We took the middle row so we could fairly see the Bishop and his priests on the sanctuary. As soon as we entered, the lead cantor sung the Easter Proclamation One of the best hymns in Christendom I must say. A chant it is but the lyrics is a grand exultation of God's glory. "This is the night when first you saved our fathers; you freed the people of Israel from their slavery and led them dry-shod through the sea.... This is the night when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin and freed from all defilment are restored to grace and grow together in holiness..." Then there were the 7 readings after each a psalm was sung by the cantor. I didn't realized the gloria until half of the song was gone through. It was not the usual one sung by the choir. There were not many people baptised as compared to back home. Here, it was around 15 people. In Bintulu, it's 200 per year on average. My uncle, who leads the RCIA in Kuching, said it's around 400 every year. Either the population is bigger there or perhaps my uncle is really an evangelist! Tonight was the first time I saw a fixed, marble font was used for baptism. Before the final hymn was Mendel's Hallelujah sung by the choir. It was really like that version sung by the Mormon Tarbenacle Choir. I don't think any church choir in Malaysia can execute such hymn.

behind planned schedule for the weekend.



i must finish my homework by Monday.

2 Java assignments (Tues & Thurs), Physics 2 (Tues), Cal II (Tues)



Physics 2 Exam on Wed

"We sat one seat apart today. Wish I sat nearer."



I've been planning my future courses for the next few days. Summer school registration is this Monday. Thinking of doing Calc3D and Concepts but I'm doubtful whether this summer is going to be summer or hell if I do that. For summer session II, I have 15-113 C Programming in mind with Differential Equations. I have been advised by some seniors that doing math courses in summer teach you nothing but I'm really tempted to do so since I'm behind in my Calculus thanks to being dumb in the placement test.



Another good Spring weather today although a bit chilly but the sun is up bright with very few clouds. I attended Good Friday service at St. Paul's right after class. Another ceremony steep in tradition I must say. The diocese really take the liturgy very seriously and "accurately" here. I remembered one priest mentioning once that he was the Liturgical Master for the diocese. That reveals how big the liturgy is to them. I don't the Miri diocese has a proper priest in charge of it. The garments worn by the priests, deacons and altar servers here are real proper ones. Tailored to perfection and quality. Back home, our cassocks were made of regular white sheets. I wish I can tape of the high masses on cable and send it back home for my altar server friends to watch.



Oh, there was this cute little girl behind Bishop Wuerl during the procession today. Later I found out that she's the altar girl who holds his Mitre (the "hat" won't by the bishops and cardinals).

the formal report for physics lab is really a pain on the arse. there's so much things to be look at and make sure they are right. more technical reports to read and write as a future engineer.



It's Holy Week this week so I tonight, I went for the Holy Thursday mass at St. Paul's next door to Webster. My brother and I have always look forward to the high Masses on the Holy Week. Probably because we're altar servers who got to serve with the priests then. Even now, I was excited to attend this evening's service. St. Paul's celebrates Christ's Last Supper very steep in tradition with the gothic interior of the Cathedral as well as the choral music provided by the choir. It's an experience that touches the faith I must say especially during the transfer of the blessed sacrament. Unlike back home, the diocese of Pittsburgh takes the liturgy very seriously. Every priest who celebrates mass here have their hangs closed like Mother Mary does. Their movements across the sanctuary are graceful. Very much like temple worship, something that the modern church has missed especially back home in Malaysia where the renewal movement is much more active. I can't wait for tomorrow's Good Friday service and Saturday's Virgil Mass.



My mother was very surprised when I told her that Americans don't have good Friday as a holiday. Fortunately, Professor Powers cancelled tomorrow's afternoon class. I guess our Jewish brothers are away at home celebrating Passover.



Got tonnes of work to do though especially for Java.

Nice weather! Always have been keen in doing something outdoors but couldn't find anyone to do it with.

"Why must I be dazzled by her silky smooth hair?"



Why Pittsburgh's weather must be this cold again? Sun was out bright but step out and you'll feel the artic chill. Back to wearing my wool coat to class again.



Screwed my Intro to Chem E exam I think. Took 3 hours to finish the exam. The Professor was more than helpful for giving tips and an hour of extra time during the exam itself. Still, I got the wrong answers for M4 and M6.



Things to do:-

- 15111 1st Recursion Homework: write a function

- Experimental Physics: Lab Report 2.. correction of the screwed 1st

- Physics 2: finish homework 11 and get everything right

- *Faith: go for confession

- write letter to MARA

- call AT&T



* it's Holy Week

Spent the whole saturday cleaning the apartment with Kenneth. Rearranged the furniture and the house looks more spacious now. Borrowed the floor's vacuum cleaner and vacuum the dirt-filled carpet. In the evening, both of us hosted a dinner for our freshmen friends. It's his idea so I just backed him up with fried rice.



Very unproductive this afternoon. Chem E exam tomorrow but I've yet to start on any solid revision. Must look for a basketball jersey for the 10 points.



Need to run for review session.

Spent the whole saturday cleaning the apartment with Kenneth. Rearranged the furniture and the house looks more spacious now. Borrowed the floor's vacuum cleaner and sucked every single foreign particle from carpet. In the evening, we cooked dinner for our freshmen friends. It's his idea so I just backed him up with fried rice.



Very unproductive this afternoon. Chem E exam tomorrow but I've yet to start on any solid revision. Must look for a basketball jersey for the extra 10 points.



Need to run for review session.

It's getting cold again and I'm back to wearing wool coat to class today after leaving it in the closet since Spring Break. The shorts and skirts are gone again. Sigh.



Anyway, my weekend sort of started last night since nothing was due today. I joined James, Hermain and Hui Ling for a late dinner at P.F. Chang's @ Waterfront. There were a lot of patrons despite the lateness of our arrival at the doors of this Asian Bistro. I like the "guest caller" device that the server gave us that blinks when our table is ready. I really like the atmosphere, the charm of this sleek restaurant. The food is good although they are labelled "Asian American" dishes" In fact, they are Asian American dishes that you don't get at the regular Chinese takeaway. I ordered the mango chicken which was fantastic. Fantastic. Fantastic. The appertizer was even more fantastic. Lettuce wrap with mince chicken inside with the special sauce made at the table by the server.



I really want to open a restaurant one day. Maybe watching Emeril's Live a lot inspires me.

i can't believe she sat next to me then



apu!!! i can't believe i got 17/25 for my first formal report. sob sob sob. i'm terribly scared now. what if i perform poorly for my next 2. sure get B already. the only consolation i had this evening was my conclusion was read aloud by my professor. Personally, explaining mechanical oscillation by saying that oscillations occur because there's inertia and elasticity in the system is simply elegant.



i guess i should share my recipe of my quick early morning supper. recently, i'm back into eating fried rice which can be prepared in 15 minutes (excluding time taken to cook the rice).



Ingredients:

2 cups of Jasmine rice (available in most Asian groceries in Pittsburgh)

3 sausages (cut each into half and then dice them)

1/4 of a whole red onion (red onions here are HUGE)

*if you have a jar of Lee Kum Kee minced garlic in your fridge, use garlic. even better. emerile loves garlic.

2 (sticks?) of green onions

some light soy sauce

around a tablespoon of salt



Usually, my hunger signal doesn't come immediately. Around an hour before I really get hungry, I could foresee that I'll be craving for food. So, I'd head to the kitchen and cook that 2 cups of Jasmine rice. While it's cooking, I would do some work, do laundry or even take a shower.



Once the rice is cooked, I would transfer the rice into my frying pan for temporary holding. I like using the rice pot to cook (tell me if it's not good to do so) since with its tall cylindrical walls, the rice would not jump out as I use my wooden laddle violently to stir it.



I don't use tablespoons to measure the amount of oil. Instead, I have my measurement technique which I name the "circle technique". Make a quick circle of pouring the vegetable oil from its bottle. The oil must not flow out too much and not too little. The trick is by having the right angle between the tip of the oil bottle and the horizontal plane (30 degrees below the x-axis?).



With the stove's knob at high, heat the oil for around a minute. Not too hot because you'll char (not the Java primitive type) the onions and garlic in ten seconds if you do. not ten seconds but seriously, too hot of oil will turn them into carbon. Then, throw in the onions/garlic and give a good stir for 20 seconds. Then, throw in the diced sausages. Give another good stir for a minute. When the sausages and onions start to turn dark in color, throw the rice in. Give a third good stir. Make sure the rice, sausages and onions are well mixed. If you have another laddle, give the mix a toss like you do to a salad bowl.



once your mix look like fried rice, you must make sure it taste like fried rice. bring in the soy sauce, salt and some seasoning (shh... don't tell your mummy or your girlfriend). Give another good round of stir. I think this time, you have to stir the fried rice really well. The more violent your stir is, the better your midnight supper will taste. My Chem E lecturer, Prof. Powers, always mention that the engineers' way of beefing up the production of a chemical plant is by putting more pressure and more motion to the mixing. Thus, anologous to a physical mixer, a good fried rice is when the cook stirs it well.



After 5 minutes of Chinese-restaurant-style stirring and making sure the bottom is not burnt, I would turn off the stove and transfer the rice pot to a neighboring, unheated stove so that I could leave it there without worrying it getting more cooked. Throw in the sliced green onions and give it a final stir. Get your plate or bowl and serve your fried rice in it.



If you're a fan of eggs who doesn't give a damn on cholestherol, you can fry on with the yolk half-cooked and top your fried rice with it. Ketchup goes well as a sauce to it but right now, I have a contianer of sambal which I tried making last weekend and it goes perfectly well with any food.



Bon apetite.

I was just told that I can't take 18-100 in the summer. I regretted not taking the course this Spring. Now I have to delay taking 18-220 to FALL JUNIOR YEAR!



I feel so down.



Anyway, 06-100 is a fun course thanks to Prof. Powers.