Life of Yaz

Goodbye Cambridge

2009-07-09T04:34:00.002+01:00

I hate moving.

Well, I don’t exactly loathe the act of transferring myself from one place to another. In fact, the whole flight journey back home was quite pleasant. It’s actually the preparations that are making me anxious. Emptying drawers that are usually filled, clearing shelves that are usually adorned by souvenirs from countries I visited, throwing away stuff that I’ve used over the years, looking at the sight of a bare room… it can get too much sometimes, more so than the actual leaving.

I’ve always liked the student life. Of course, spending those years in the best places (MCKK, Atlantic College, and Cambridge) doesn’t hurt either. But now, since I’ve graduated with a Master of Engineering and everything, guess I have to move on to the next phase in life. This reminds me of what the Master said during the graduation dinner (which happened to be my birthday as well):

“People always refer to life after university as the real world,” he began, “but there’s nothing shadowy or unreal about the time that you spent in Cambridge.”

Might not be an exact quote, but close enough.

I started the blog after being prompted by someone (I think it was you, Adam) and because I thought it was nice to have a little something chronicling my life in Cambridge. Of course, I didn’t get to jot down everything mostly because of time constraint or laziness in my part. But then again, it was good enough of an effort. However, what this also means is that I don’t think I’ll be continuing this blog afterwards. Several reasons: firstly, I don’t think the blog’s meant to go on forever and while it’s nice to have my Cambridge life documented I’ve always thought of finishing it after graduation. Secondly, when I’ll be working I don’t think the company appreciates it if I give every little detail of what I do day after day, might be giving away company secrets you see. Also, I think my life after being a student will probably be less… eventful compared to university. Although at the moment that’s not yet true, considering in the past few days I’ve just tracked my lost baggage from Heathrow to KL, got involved in an identity fraud and having to go to the station to make police reports, but let’s not get into that.

So anyway, I guess this is where I’ll stop maintaining a semblance of regular postings. I’ve been toying with the idea of having infrequent, once-in-a-while kind of updates but hmmm… don’t think that’ll happen. Therefore, this is it then, the last post. Although, I most probably will be tempted to start again if I managed to land a place for PhD in a university somewhere, so wish me luck for that. In any case, I’ll still keep the blog up on the web in the off-chance that it might be useful to some people.

Well then, it’s been nice sharing and filling this space.

Adieu,

Yaz.

Getting Used To a Mac

2009-06-30T13:27:00.005+01:00

Right, so I’ve had my MacBook Pro for over a week now and I must say, it works great. Really, really great. Maybe it’s because I’m comparing it to my four-year-old Dell laptop but still, it’s nice to not wait over a minute for startup and having to close background applications for the more demanding programs (I used to have to close McAfee and Samurize everytime I wanted to play games). The transition is not all smooth, of course, and I miss some aspects of Windows but overall, I must say I’m loving my Mac.

Several things/issues that I’ve encountered:

· Transferring files from my PC to my MacBook Pro went without much trouble, thanks to my 320 GB external hard drive. Moving the iTunes library between the computers went alright, thankfully. I used to transfer iTunes between PC’s and that just involves replacing the whole iTunes folder with the one containing your music (I used iTunes to manage my music files, so all the files are located in the iTunes folder instead of scattered all over the computer). However, I found that this doesn’t work when I transferred my music from PC to Mac. So what I did instead was to transfer the iTunes Music folder (just the subfolder containing the music, not the parent folder with the library files and everything) to my MacBook Pro. Then I transferred the iTunes Library.itl file and rename it to just iTunes Library, without the itl extension.

I found that this method retains my original playlists and play count (which is the most important thing). However, it doesn’t keep the album art. This is not a problem though, since I just made iTunes re-download the album arts from the iTunes Store. That took care of most of them. For album arts that aren’t available from iTunes, well, I made a habit of keeping them in the album folder itself, so I just looked for and re-added them manually. It’s just a bit of a hassle but not that much of a deal, since my play count is what matters most and if that’s intact, then it’s fine.

I found the above method in the comments section of the Lifehacker website. I don’t have the link now but thanks to whoever suggested it.

· Since I’m switching from a 17” to a 15” laptop, the smaller screen size bugged me a bit in the beginning, ESPECIALLY with the dock taking up some precious screen real estate. So I made the dock hidden, at all times. In Windows I used Launchy to launch applications and open files and folders, which explains why I hardly have anything on my desktop, and why I rarely use the Start Menu. I used a similar application, Gnome Do, while I was using Ubuntu. So of course, on my Mac, I installed Quicksilver and forgo the dock completely.

Quicksilver is AWESOME (just want to put that in)!!!

· I’m still trying to get used to the keyboard on my MacBook Pro. When I started using it, the first thing I noticed is that it doesn’t have a Delete key! Noooo! Nor the Hash key (#), nor the Home, End, Page Up and Down keys. I do realise that some of these keys are available on the full Apple keyboard, but until I buy one of those, guess I’ll just have to make do. For Delete, I use Cmd+Backspace; spacebar and Shift+spacebar for Page Down/Up. I’m not sure whether to remap the Return key for opening files instead of renaming them or stick to the Mac way of opening files with Cmd+Down. I know a lot of people will say things like if you’re changing to a Mac, you should stop trying to do everything the Windows way cause otherwise you might as well stick to Windows but still, I use ‘open file’ more than ‘rename’ and no matter what people say, one key is more convenient than two, especially if they require both hands.

I missed the Hash key because I use Gmail often and now to delete an email I have to reach for the mouse and press the delete button instead of using the keyboard. You can get hash on the MacBook Pro but it doesn’t function as a keyboard shortcut anymore.

· Finally, I miss the ability to cut and paste files. On a Mac, you can cut and paste text but apparently this function is disabled for files. When I went to search about this online I found some (very patronising) Mac users who said things like “Why would you want to have such a stupid feature on a Mac? If you cut a file and then forget about it and you cut another file, then the old file will be lost. So be glad you don’t have that dangerous Windows feature.”

What the HECK?!

I thought everybody knew this, but apparently not. When you cut a file in Windows, apart from the file being greyed out, nothing will happen to it. So if after that you shut down your computer or cut/copy another file, the initial file will remain where it was. It’s only when you use the Paste command that the file will be moved. Seriously, some people should really stop, think and do their research first before criticising something.

In any case, I miss the Cut/Paste feature since it’s more convenient than drag and drop. Not sure how likely, but I hope Apple changes its mind on this. At the moment, I use Quicksilver to map the ‘Move To’ command to a keyboard shortcut, essentially acting like a Cut/Paste command, though this only works for folders indexed by Quicksilver. I still use the drag (and Cmd) and drop for the one or two odd cases.

Those are several quirks that I encountered while changing from PC to Mac. Even so, despite them I haven’t regretted buying a Mac since my new MacBook Pro is AWESOME! Guess there’ll always be some transitioning issues when you change to something new, so I just have to adapt.

Oh, and just to mention, the iPod Touch that comes with the Mac is wonderful. I’m still trying to get used to not having easy access to the buttons (I had a Shuffle before this) so I have to take it out of my pocket to pause it whenever I need to talk to people. But it holds my whole library, so I don’t have to make a separate playlist on what I wanted to put on my Shuffle like before. I haven’t used much of its other features though. I wanted to surf the internet the other day while I was in Starbucks but then I found out that you have to pay for the wireless. Drat!

Just bought a new Sennheiser in-ear earphone to go with the iPod Touch. In retrospect, maybe I should have chosen an earphone that’s more towards rich and detailed sound rather than bass heavy since I don’t often listen to the kind of music with thumping bass but, oh well, this is good too. It is true when they say you can hear things that you can’t hear using normal cheap earphones. Also, now I can listen to music in trains and other noisy places since it tends to block outside noise. Yay!

The only downside: I have a feeling I need to be more careful in crossing busy roads. These earphones can be a bit life-threatening like that.

Yaz.

Marks Breakdown and Graduation

2009-06-26T13:03:00.004+01:00

So yesterday morning my Director of Studies placed a sheet containing my marks breakdown for the final year exam in my pigeon hole. And from this sheet of paper apparently my best subject is Rheology and my worst is Electrochemical Engineering. And I did far better in the research project than I expected. And, to my delight, I was ranked 8^th in the year (out of 45) which I think is the highest I’ve ever gotten in Cambridge. Yay, go me!

I also had my graduation yesterday, which was quite an experience. In Cambridge, graduation is done according to college. Trinity is one of the first ones while some other colleges will not have theirs until Saturday. At 8:15, we all gathered in Nevilles Court to take a graduation picture, and then we formed a procession for the march towards the Senate House. The M.Eng people with their gown and gold hood (actually it looks more copper-ish to me) were at the front, followed by the M.Sci people with their pink hood, some vet and medic degrees, and finally the B.A. people. At 10, we walked from Trinity through the streets of Cambridge before finally entering the Senate House. The ceremony was a bit weird and involved finger-pulling, kneeling and the Master clasping my fist while reciting some phrases in Latin. After that, we were released onto the Senate House Lawn where we took pictures, mingled around with other people and their families, and paid for expensive photographs and frames in which to put our degrees in.

So after the ceremony finished, I ended up with two degrees: the BA and the M.Eng.

Yay to the fruit of four years of hard work. Hope this is worth it.

Yaz, M.Eng.

The Formal Breakfast

2009-06-22T14:10:00.001+01:00

This might have been mentioned before, but I was part of the Trinity breakfast club. Well, it’s actually a bunch of people who are usually hungry in the mornings so we tend to go to breakfast everyday. And of course, it’s cool to refer to ourselves as the breakfast club. We even got a facebook group, heh heh.

Anyway, since the year is about to end, and me and some others are going to leave, we thought it would be nice to have a bit of a formal breakfast on the last Saturday of term. So, on Friday night, an email was sent around, telling people to wear formal attire and gowns as well to Saturday’s breakfast. Now, there might be rules against wearing the gown for totally made up formal events but heck, screw it anyway.

So we went to breakfast with suits and ties (dress for girls) and gowns and generally looking very formal and academic. Unfortunately not many Trinity students were there, this being end of term and all, and those few who were weren’t that fazed by a bunch of people in gowns. Drat! (Yes, we secretly crave the attention). Anyway, it was a good breakfast nonetheless, and we stayed there for quite a while until the kitchen staff started giving us glares which means get out of here already so that we can start cleaning the place! So we moved on to Starbucks. Yeah, in gowns and all.

Since it’s Saturday, more townspeople were up and about and giving us strange stares (which we secretly liked) and we relocated to Starbucks, taking over some of the sofas, drinking coffee and frappucinos and the small blueberry cream thingies that they gave out for free, which most of us don’t like except for me but maybe that was because I have a sweet tooth. And it felt nice being able to do this. Just chilling about with friends drinking coffee before we start the day (well, technically this is late morning so the day has pretty much started but that’s not the point) and I wonder how it’ll be when I go back home and start working. We’ll see.

Yaz

Of May Ball, MacBook Pro and Cancelled Volleyball Tournament

2009-06-19T12:31:00.003+01:00

Right, quite an eventful week. Now, where do I start?

The Trinity May Ball was held last Monday night. In preparation for that, I've been staying up until about six for a few nights before. Yeah, you can tell how excited I was. The last time I went to the May Ball was in my second year, and since this is my final year I won’t have any other opportunities to go after this. Not with people I know also attending, anyway.

The May Ball went well, despite some slight rain when I was queuing. When we entered, I went straight towards the oyster stand to have a few. In retrospect, I guess I should have gotten more of the oysters, and the sushi, and the stuff from the chocolate fountain, since you can eat as much as you want. My appetite is just not voracious enough at night compared to during the day.

There was a firework display early in the night, with music and all. Unfortunately this year, for some reason the smoke was obscuring the view to some extent, so we couldn’t see the firework in its full glory. I’m not sure what caused it, maybe it was the rain. Still, it’s nice to watch anyway, and you can see the number of people in punts on the river who gathered to watch them (who are not paying, I might add!).

We had a one day volleyball tournament yesterday. Or, at least, we’re supposed to. Unfortunately, only me, Lennart and two other teams (out of about six) turn up, so we ended up just going home. It was a pity, but I guess the tournament was organised at a very short notice, and yesterday was the last day of term anyway so most people were busy packing and leaving Cambridge. Oh well.

Finally, my MacBook Pro and the iPod Touch arrived yesterday! I’m really, really thrilled. If I haven’t told you before, I ordered them a day before Apple announced new models for the line. However, when I went to cancel it, I found that Apple has automatically upgraded my order to the new model. So now I got a 3.06 instead of 2.99 GHz dual core processor and 500 instead of 320 GB hard drive. It worked out to be around £30 cheaper than if I buy the new model in the first place.

Heh heh, so now I’ll be spending the day playing around and configuring my new Mac. Guess my next post will be from that =D

Yaz.

Yay, Happy, Yay!

2009-06-12T11:50:00.000+01:00

Apparently, the day after I ordered my MacBook Pro, Apple had announced new models for the line. Talk about bad timing! I really should have paid more attention to these kinds of things. In any case, my friend advised me to cancel my order and just redo it again.

So I went online to check the order status and cancel it but, lo and behold! They have upgraded my order to the latest model. I was pleasantly surprised. That’s very considerate of them. For some reason I don’t think this will happen if I were to buy a PC. So yeah, my respect for Apple has gone up some more.

On an unrelated topic, my final year exam results were supposed to be out today (Friday). I was preparing for the worst, considering my anything but satisfactory results last year. However, a friend of mine called yesterday, saying that the results are already out at the Senate House. That’s a bit earlier than expected. Now, guess what I got?

Ta daaa!!

Yeeeaaah!! FIRST Class baby, yeah! FIRSSSSSTTTT, FURST, FIRST, FIRST, FIRST and FIIIIRRRSTTT!!!!!1!

Heh heh heh, a first class degree from Cambridge. Although that’s not quite true. Cambridge degrees don’t have classes associated with them, so it will just say that I graduated with an M.Eng, full stop. The B.A. degree doesn’t even have a subject associated with it. Nevertheless, since a lot of people e.g. potential employers will probably ask, it’s much easier to quote the final year results than to go into a lengthy explanation. Which is why I think having good final year results are quite convenient.

So anyway, I’m really, really happy right now, and I can finally enjoy the May Ball in bliss. Yay!

Yaz.

An Indulgent Investment

2009-06-08T15:51:00.002+01:00

My laptop that I’m using right now is four years old. It was my first computer ever, bought using my computer allowance money the summer before I went to Cambridge, because at that time I thought all university students should have one and also because I can’t stand the prospect of a whole summer without something to occupy myself with. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 9300 and it served me well enough for the past four years. However, three or four years is the typical lifetime of a laptop computer, I guess. Are there actually people who use their computer for more than five years?

So in any case, I was thinking of buying a new one to be my second laptop. Guess what computer did I chose?

Ta daa!

It’s a MacBook Pro! Yeah, I know Macs are a bit more expensive but considering that I’m probably gonna use it for the next four years, I think that’s a good investment. Plus, my internship money from last year was sitting untouched in the bank anyway, heh heh.

I did a price comparison between buying it in the UK and back home in Malaysia and it turned out that it’s cheaper here. Two main reasons: Firstly, after the economic crisis the pound was less high with respect to RM compared to what it was before (did you know you can use Google to check the exchange rate? I knew they can convert units but currency as well? Wow!) Secondly, the Apple store gives around 15% discounts for university students here in the UK. So overall, it works out to be cheaper. Plus, I’ve never tried it but I heard you can claim VAT at the airport for stuff you buy in the UK. If that works then I can probably reclaim around £250 or so.

I was thinking of getting a 17’’ screen since I’m used to one (my current laptop is 17”) but a few people advised me to get the 15” one, which is about £200 cheaper, and used the money saved to buy a 20-plus inch external monitor instead. I think that’s a good idea, but I might buy it in Malaysia instead since I have to consider shipping if I buy it here.

So yeah, I just ordered my MacBook Pro yesterday and I really can’t wait for it to arrive. That and the iPod Touch (they have a £145 rebate offer if you buy it with a Mac). Hell yeah!

Yaz.

P.S. It’s June but Cambridge is getting colder. Why, why?!!!!

A Dorm Reunion

2009-06-01T21:26:00.003+01:00

When you went to a boarding school in Malaysia, it’s hard to see your friends outside of term because they’re all over the country.

When you went to an international school in Wales, it’s hard to see your friends after graduation because they’re all over the world.

Add the fact that I’m really bad at keeping in touch, you can imagine what happens.

Luckily, not everybody is like me. My former dorm mates at Atlantic college organised a reunion last Saturday since we all happen to be in the UK (usually three of us are here in Britain, only one is going places). I was free after my exams are finished, so I dropped by at London to meet them.

I arrived early so I bought some lunch and ate at Hyde Park. It was a nice day and lots of people were lazing about on the grass. There was a French family sitting next to me and one of them was having her birthday, so they had lots of cakes and stuff. They offered some to me, and though I politely declined, they really insisted on me having some. So yeah, in the end I was basically force-fed by some French people.

I met up with my dorm mates shortly after. We prowled the British Museum (don’t ask!), went for a pizza, chilled out at Leicester Square and visited a pub afterwards. It was nice meeting them, especially since I won’t be in the UK much longer so it might be impossible to meet up after this. There were also talk about organising a trip before I left, so hopefully that will happen.

Countdown for leaving UK: 1 month 3 days.

Yaz.

My Final Exam in Cambridge…

2009-05-30T09:54:00.002+01:00

… has finished about 18 hours ago.

So with this, I’m now done with the chemical engineering tripos. No more lecture notes, reports, or research projects. All that’s left now is to get my degrees: M.Eng. in Chemical Engineering and also the overdue B.A. Degree.

The exam went okay, I think. For some reason I don’t feel very excited when it’s over. Maybe it’s because I did average on all the papers, which is enough to get me a 2.1 but probably not a first. Some of the papers were okay (like Rheology and Catalysis) but some were unexpectedly quite hard (Fluid Mechanics and Colloids). In any case, the results will not come out until after mid-June, so until then I probably shouldn’t worry too much about it.

They organized a punting post-exam celebrations for us part IIB’s yesterday. It was good, except for the fact that they only rented three punts from Magdalene College, which is not enough for all of us. So I had to go back to Trinity and get two more. But apart from that, it was fun. Not a few people fell into the river yesterday, and some even did it purposely.

Now that I’m free, it’s time to catch up with my computer games, watch some films etc. I’ll probably drop down to London at some point as well. Yeah, good times!

Yaz.

P.S. My 4-year-old laptop has been emanating some strange whirring sound from the hard disc. Maybe it’s time to buy a new laptop. Should I get a Macbook Pro or wait for Windows 7?

Exam in Two Weeks!

2009-05-11T11:36:00.002+01:00

Yikes!

I just had the final year report deadline last week and now that that’s out of the way I still have the exams to worry about. Yup, it’ll be my last exams in Cambridge ever and it probably influences my job offer, so I’m really anxious about this. And I’m especially keen not to repeat last year’s disaster, so I’m gonna be working hard from now on.

Postings are probably gonna be sparse from now on, if any. Wish me luck!

Yaz.

Summer Cuppers

2009-05-02T21:30:00.003+01:00

Today, the long awaited event for Easter term (to me at least), the summer cuppers is starting. For those who don’t know, the cuppers is a competition in league format between the Cambridge colleges. Trinity sent one team this year and we are placed in division 1 with several other strong teams but today we beat three of them. Yay!

I feel a bit guilty playing all afternoon since I still have two reports to be handed in next week, but come on! Volleyball beats working every time.

Hmmm... where have I heard that before?

Due to some circumstances, I was appointed the temporary acting-captain for the Trinity team, even though I have my final Cambridge exam ever coming up and I’ll be graduating soon. But yeah, it seems like we don’t have any new faces this year that can take up the captain mantle, which is quite unfortunate. And being acting-captain is quite unnerving when most of the people in the team are more skilful than you.

Oh well. In any case, the cuppers will last for four weekends, so I’ll blog about it from time to time.

Yaz.

Punting beats revision every time

2009-04-25T20:04:00.002+01:00

Yay! I’ve finally finished writing the 1^st draft of my research report. This is the first time I’m using LaTeX for a coursework, and I can safely say that it turned out well. I needed to keep the documentation nearby the whole time so that I can refer to it, but it’s actually quite easy to use. The only trouble I had was with the nomenclature, though I suspect that has more to do with me using the command line in Windows wrong (Windows and command line aren’t exactly synonymous). In the end I just manually made a table for nomenclature, so that’s one problem sorted.

The thing with LaTeX is that it is supposed to typeset documents beautifully, and I must say I like how my report turns out. However, I visited a friend the other day (who also uses LaTeX) and I saw that his report is much, much more beautiful than mine. Damn, how can that happen?! Guess I’m still a novice after all.

The weather was very nice this whole week. It’s warm and sunny, but the downside is that I realised my room is sweltering in this kind of warm weather, up to the point where it’s really uncomfortable to study. Hence, in appreciation of the nice sunny day, I went punting! Yeah, I did felt guilty of not using the time to do work but, come on! Punting wins every time.

Yarr, matey!

Yaz.

Eyesore

2009-04-18T13:17:00.003+01:00

Yay! People are coming back to Trinity.

Boo! Holiday’s almost over.

I can’t believe the break is about to end. In fact, the new term will start next week. That’s so soon! Well, technically Easter term has already started on the 10^th but the full term will only begin next Tuesday. Where have all the time gone? My report is only half complete and I haven’t even been procrastinating. No, I want the holiday back!

On the plus side, Cambridge is getting lively again. And then there’s the volleyball summer cuppers to look forward to.

On another note, people who have been reading this blog for a while will have known how Trinity Great Court looks like. I’ve put the pictures up often enough.

See how nice it looks?

Even in the snow...

How majestic, how grand...

How amazing...

Okay, that last one was actually from Vienna. But you got my drift.

My point is, sometime before the break there was this construction going on at a corner of Great Court. People I spoke to said it is a temporary shed or something for the kitchen which is currently under refurbishment. Still...

I can imagine tourists walking into Trinity, taking in the view of Great Court (and taking pictures, like they always do) and suddenly exclaimed, “What the heck is that!”

Yes, the orange doesn’t exactly mesh with the rest of the building. I hope the kitchen refurbishment will end soon.

Yaz.

Holiday?

2009-04-12T21:39:00.003+01:00

What holiday?

Hello people! Sorry for not writing anything for the past week. It’s just that since now is the Easter break, there isn’t much going on. Adding to that, I’m busy with reports and revision, so I’m at the department almost every day working. It’s basically like term time but without the lectures. For the life of me I don’t know how all those people who went back home manage to cope with the amount of work. It’s just insane.

For my main research report, I’ve decided to use LaTeX this time. For those who don’t know, it is a typesetting program and document preparation system. Whereas in Word whatever you type on the screen will appear exactly the same way when printed out, using LaTeX you just type your report and let it handle your formatting i.e. you don’t have to worry about layout, image placements and the rest. It will do it for you. LaTeX is known to supposedly produce beautifully typesetted documents, so we’ll see how it goes.

On an unrelated topic, you guys noticed recently there’s been an inundation of stupid quizzes on Facebook? They are annoying because they clutter my news feed and make it harder to actually notice other real and more important feeds. Honestly, nobody cares how Malaysian you are or which superhero is most like you. This is just like the time when applications were newly introduced and people got bombardments of invitations to become zombies, vampires, werewolves etc. Remember those?

In any case, this tip is courtesy of Imran a.k.a. Black. First, you need Firefox with greasemonkey installed. If you don’t use Firefox, then why the heck not? Unless you use Chrome, in which case... have they rolled out add-ons like greasemonkey yet? But anyway, once that’s settled, then just install a blocking script like the one found here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/44459.

Finally, on another unrelated topic, the punting station of Trinity should be open by now. Unfortunately, the weather this week seems to be gloomy (doesn’t it always?) but if it gets nicer then I think I’ll organise a punting trip soon. In the meantime, gonna build up those arm muscles, heh heh.

Yaz.

Favourite Subjects pt.2

2009-03-30T18:45:00.003+01:00

Ta daa!

That’s Ubuntu 8.10 for the uninitiated. As you might know, my computer is a four-year-old Dell laptop with Windows on it. Until last year, I had no reason at all to use Linux on my machine. However, this year I’m taking the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) course as one of the subjects for the broadening materials option (the other subject being French). The CFD software resides on some high-speed Linux servers in the department, which means that if you want to do the work in the comfort of your own room, then you have to use Linux or a Mac to connect to them. Windows computers won’t work.

One way to install Linux (Ubuntu in my case) to a laptop is to partition the hard drive. However, my laptop doesn’t come with a Windows recovery CD when I bought it. Instead, it has a hidden partition in the hard drive that can be used if I want to restore the laptop to factory settings. The problem with this is that I don’t know if the hidden partition will still work if I make a new partition to install Ubuntu, so I’m not taking the risk to find out.

Hence, I’m doing it another way. I installed Ubuntu on a virtual machine and run it from there! For those who don’t know, a virtual machine is like a computer inside a computer. Whatever you do in this virtual computer will not affect your real computer. The downside is that you’ll only be able to use a portion of your total RAM, but for me it doesn’t really affect performance that much.

Anyway, back to CFD. For those unfamiliar, the course is basically about using computers to solve fluid flow problems, because doing it by hand or analytically is virtually impossible except for really, really simple cases. This course is probably my second favourite subject of the year after French, mainly because I get to play around with computers and also produce these kinds of diagrams:

A side effect of CFD is that I’m also getting familiar with the basics and workings of Linux. So now I won’t just be staring blankly when people are talking about the command-line or shell-scripting or the jaunty jackalope. Who knows, maybe it’ll be my main OS later in the future.

Yaz.

The Next Step in Life

2009-03-26T20:36:00.004Z

Hey ya! How’s it going? Here, it’s the second week of the Easter holiday and a lot of my friends have already left, but there are still numerous things that kept me occupied. For example, today and yesterday I went to London for an interview. Nothing much really, just an interview that will determine the next ten years of my life...

Yeah, notice the sarcastic nonchalance. In any case, this is my final year in Cambridge, which means that I’ll be leaving this place soon. Gosh, can’t believe it’s already been four years since I stepped foot at the Drummer Street bus station and was handed a map of Cambridge by the overseas welcoming committee. It was such an enjoyable time, being a university student in Trinity and Cambridge. I mean, how can you not be reluctant to part with a nice room...

... and a grand college...... and a nice view of the river and the backs...

... among other things.

Well, I suppose people will have to move on eventually. I’ve applied for a job as a researcher, and I think the interview went well, since I emphasized the fact that I did a fair bit of computational modelling before and the interviewer mentioned that the company probably needs somebody who’s good at that to ensure smooth plant operation, and he gave an example of how they managed to fix the problem with a urea treatment column using computational modelling. I sure hope that’s a good sign for me.

So yeah, that’s how it goes. I’ll not know the results of the interview until much, much later. So for now, let’s just not worry about it, shall we?

Yaz.

Favourite Subjects pt.1

2009-03-20T21:14:00.001Z

If somebody were to ask me what my favourite subjects are this year then I most certainly have a definite answer. In the 4^th year Chemical Engineering, apart from the compulsory core subjects and six optional modules, we are also required to take two broadening materials (subjects which might not be strictly related to Chemical Engineering). My most favourite subject is one of the broadening materials that I’m taking: Foreign Language, more specifically, French.

Cambridge University has a language centre where you can learn foreign languages in small classes, but you have to pay. However, there is also a Language Unit in the Engineering Department, which is more geared towards the scienc-y bit of the languages instead of aspects like literature. Us 4^th years have an option to do a foreign language for free here. It’s examinable of course, and if you want to learn more than one language then you do have to pay for it. I chose foreign language because I don’t like the other choices: entrepreneurship (eurgghh!) and product design. It turns out; this is the best decision I’ve made this year.

The course lasts for two terms, Michaelmas and Lent. Considering how I learnt Arabic in school for six years and am still unable to speak it in the end, I don’t know what to expect from this course (although to be fair, I think it’s more of the teaching method in my previous schools that are ineffective rather than anything else). However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the course. A lot. And frankly speaking, after six months I can converse far better in French than in Arabic.

One thing that really helps, in my opinion, is the abundance of resources on the web. There are translation tools, French dictionary, French Wikipedia etc. The one that I use the most is probably the BBC website. It has a language section and for French, there are several flash slideshows/videos depicting everyday situation, together with grammar notes and vocabulary exercises. I’ve finished the beginner’s bit of the French section and now I’m moving on to the post-beginner one, Ma France. So if you’re learning French (or German, Spanish and others) this is a great complementary material.

We had a written and an oral exam last week. I think I did alright in them, though you can never really tell. Also, that means the end of the formal classes. I’ll miss them, but I’ll continue learning on my own, I guess. And since I’m still at beginner’s level, if I get the chance to go back to Cambridge again I’ll definitely go and register for the intermediate class. Come to think of it I’ll register for the Japanese class as well, since that’s the second foreign language that I want to learn.

That’s all for now. I’ll tell a bit about my second favourite subject in the next post.

Au revoir,

Yaz.

They Have Something Against Me

2009-03-15T11:52:00.002Z

Last Friday marked the final day of Lent term in Cambridge, which means now is officially the Easter holiday. A few of my friends have already left for their respective homes while some are staying here for a few weeks to do a bit of revision. For me, I wouldn’t really call it a holiday since I have to write a research project report, a CFD report and finish some supervision work, not to mention I have an interview coming, but for once it’s nice to study without having lectures crammed into your timetable as well.

Anyway, let’s get back to last Friday. In case you don’t know, Trinity College has this thing called the Commemoration Dinner, held annually, in which we propose a toast to the college for all its contributions and the things that it provided us with. Another name for this event is the Scholar’s Dinner since from the whole student population, only Scholars (Junior and Senior) are invited. Well, usually they do have a few extra spaces so they might invite some other students, but that’s a minor point. And Research Scholars are most probably invited as well, though I don’t know any so I’m not sure.

Because I was a Scholar since my 2^nd year, this year is my third year attending the commemoration dinner. And the way the event is held is like this: Trinity has this great hall that it used for dining, so most of the attendees are sitting in here. However, there’s also this smaller room nearby, called the Old Kitchen where the rest of the dinner attendees and the choir sit. The disadvantages of being in the Old Kitchen are that you can’t enjoy the dinner under the grandeur of the Great Hall; you only get to listen to the speeches from a speaker since the important people will all be in the Hall; and lastly, you have to move into the Great Hall during the intervals if you want to listen to the choir singing, since they will sing from a balcony there.

The seating in the Commemoration Dinner is supposed to be random, so in some years you might be in the Hall and in other years you won’t. However, the number of people seated in the Old Kitchen is far less than in the Hall, so you’re more likely to end up in the Hall. However, in all the three years that I attended the Commemoration Dinner (and in my Matriculation Dinner as well, so that makes it four dinners in four years) I’ve always been seated in the Old Kitchen. Every. Single. Time.

So yeah, I think they have something against me. Grrrrrr...

Sigh... oh well. At least the food was good. I remember this one time they made some smoked salmon with orange sauce for starter. That was dreamy. And this year for the main course I had mushrooms in some herb sauce. It tasted delicious, albeit being too rich so I didn’t managed to finish all that’s on my plate. Maybe it was because they put too much there, since most other people chose the non-vegetarian option, so they have a lot of the mushrooms left. And I drank three cups of the coffee served at the end, which probably explains my tossings and turnings in bed later that night.

Yaz.

I want a sports centre!

2009-03-11T21:37:00.002Z

My sentiments exactly!

Yaz.

Poster

2009-03-08T11:49:00.002Z

In case you don’t know, the Part IIB students (that’s fourth year Chem. Eng.) have to do a research project this year, either alone or in pairs. This is really one of the more interesting aspects of the final year syllabus as it exposes us to research in general, and for most of the projects we also get to meddle with novel technologies or new applications in chemical engineering. However, apart from a report at the end of the year which will constitute a quarter of our marks, we also need to prepare a poster presentation about our project to other people in the department. Not surprising, since most PhD students have to do it as well after their first year of research.

How it works is that every group will have to make a 4-minute PowerPoint presentation summarising their project and trying to entice people to go visit their poster. After all the PowerPoint presentations are finished, each group will stand next to their A0 size poster, the examiners will go around asking questions and everybody’ll try their best to answer them and defend the poster.

In order to prepare for this, last week has been very busy for most of us. However, it was quite fun too. We made our poster using PowerPoint, printed them off A3 papers and laminated them. See the laminating machine below? First time I used one of them. We had nine A3’s to laminate; I did seven while Alastair did two. I told him he doesn’t have dainty enough fingers to do the job quickly, heh heh.

After laminating, we put them all together and hang them on a board using Velcro strips. That’s my hand that you see in the picture.

What strikes me as really amazing is this: throughout the year when we did our own respective design projects, I always heard some people having problems with their projects. They’ll be like, “Nooo, the rig’s not working!” or “The apparatus is broken. Now I have to wait ages for a new one,” or “Damn it, the data doesn’t come out quite right!” However, looking and listening to everybody’s presentation, they all sound really... professional, and well-researched. All of them are presenting their projects really well and you can never guess the difficulties that they’ve gone through in the year to get the final results. It’s remarkable, really.

Yaz.

Things Detrimental to Your Health

2009-03-02T22:55:00.003Z

At the moment, there are a few things happening in Cambridge that are definitely not good for your health. The first one is the norovirus. Apparently around 80 people in Sidney Sussex College had been infected. The symptoms, according to TCS (one of the student newspapers) include diarrhoea and explosive vomiting. I was laughing when I read that description, but the thing as a whole is certainly quite serious. Especially considering the measures they now take: you have to use some alcohol hand wash before going into the hall for meals.

The second detrimental thing is mugging. There has been quite a scare recently with reports of mugging incidents near the Burrell’s Field area. In fact, I received the same email about mugging from three different sources. The college started to provide a minibus service from New Court to Burrell’s Field, which I think is probably a bit too much, considering they’re just like, what, one and a half minutes away from each other? Oh well, it’s not like the college doesn’t have enough money to spend anyway.

Finally, we have the research project poster. It’s definitely not good for your health, and the reason why I’ve been so busy lately. I and Alastair (that’s my research partner) were in the department until 5 a.m. last Wednesday night to finish the poster. We also had to produce a PowerPoint presentation as well. However, the end result looks good, don’t you think?

Yaz.

Week 6

2009-02-19T20:38:00.000Z

Apparently it’s week six tomorrow in Cambridge. I’m not sure why, but for quite some time I’ve been unaware of when in the term I am exactly. Might have something to do with supervisions not being regular anymore. Instead of it being once every two weeks or so, this year we have more leniencies in when and with whom we are having supervisions with. Which reminds me, I need to finish the last rheology supervision leftover from last term.

I just came back from a talk about Gaza. This one’s organised by the Cambridge University United Nations Association and it focused on the international law and legalities of the conflict in Gaza. Quite an interesting talk and though as usually the case with law people might end up more frustrated or have more questions than what they start with, it does raise some good points and provide some insight. In fact, I think one hour is too short for the talk, and considering we ran over by about twenty minutes I guess it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

In another news: last Friday night. Volleyball match. Lots of people can’t come. I pleaded on Facebook. Still not enough people. We lost. By default. Sad.

Oh well, I’ll be sure to recruit some more people in advance for next time. Especially for the match with Leys School. We lost to them the last time, and losing to a secondary school team doesn’t bode well with me. Grrrrrrr...

Yaz.

Winter Cuppers

2009-02-15T19:17:00.003Z

Last Saturday was the volleyball winter cuppers in Cambridge. As usual for the winter cuppers, it was held indoors at Leys School.

(Slightly off topic, but I wish the University of Cambridge would just build a sports complex already so that we don’t have to borrow other places’ facilities to host events like this, or to have to swim with the local people in a packed pool. Didn’t they just raise at least £800 million for the university’s 800^th anniversary? What the heck are they waiting for?)

Anyway, back on topic, Trinity entered two teams for the cuppers. However, due to reasons which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that it was held on a Saturday morning which happened to be Valentine’s Day, only me, Lennart, and four other people from Trinity were there. Hence, we had to withdraw one team from the competition. But apart from that, it was great fun. We beat Pembroke and one other team (was it Emmanuel?), which means we’re qualified for the semifinals next week.

The cuppers only lasted until midday, but I had volleyball practice in the afternoon, so at the end of the day I was all sore with bleeding thumbs and everything. Not that I can escape the practice, seeing that I’m the one in charge of the balls. Nor would I want to, as I have a lot of things to say about this year’s UCCMixed attendance record, but we’ll save that for another day.

In any case, it was quite a fun morning, and it made me really look forward to the summer cuppers in Easter term. Can’t wait!

Yaz.

Snow!

2009-02-02T14:54:00.004Z

This was what I was greeted with when I woke up this morning.

The weather forecast did mention that it will get very cold this week, but I never imagine it would be like this. The snow fell sometime yesterday night and now it’s the afternoon and it’s still snowing! This is certainly better than anything we had last winter break.

This is how the Trinity Great Court looks like this morning. I arrived early enough for breakfast that they haven't started shovelling the paths yet.

Talking about snow and winter, the volleyball winter cuppers will be held in two weeks time. I always thought it’s funny to call it winter cuppers when it’s in February, but now it sounds fitting.

Yaz.

A Week Chock Full of the Middle East

2009-01-29T23:16:00.003Z

Right, so… since last Wednesday there has been a lot of things going on in Cambridge related to the Middle East. There was a talk on Friday evening by someone from ‘Jews for Justice for Palestine’ in the Cambridge Union, which I attended. There weren’t as many people there as I expected, but that was probably due to another event about the Middle East on the same night. And later on the ‘occupation’ in Cambridge started. You might have heard how similar occupations happened in other UK universities, in which the students occupied a certain place in the university and made demands for the university to take actions in the recent Gaza conflict.

In Cambridge, they occupied the Law Faculty. It was peaceful, of course, and there aren’t just Muslims or Arab students taking part. In fact, last Tuesday there was a reunion of my former school (the UWC’s, to be precise) and somebody suggested that we should meet up at the occupation and take part in it, since it is the sort of thing UWC students get involved in anyway. We didn’t go in the end but it’s good to know a lot of people are aware of these sorts of things going on. As for the occupation itself, I felt quite uncomfortable with using this method to get the university to accept the demands, but I think that’s obviously not the point. They are basically taking the piss out of the real occupation, drawing attention to it and proving to people how annoying an occupation can be to the people being occupied. Of course, ‘annoying’ is putting it really mildly.

Yesterday night there was a talk organized by the Israeli Society titled “Understanding Israel” at King’s College. I went there with an open mind to find out the Israeli perspectives on this issue, but to be honest, I don’t think the speaker convinces me that much. She mentioned that Israel has a right to defend itself from the thousands of ‘warheads’ and ‘missiles’ being launched for the past eight years, but she didn’t put this into context. She didn’t mention that not all of them were unprovoked attacks and she also didn’t mention the decrease of rockets in the ceasefire. The gist of her talk is basically that Israel has exhausted its means and now has to resort to war to defend its citizens. I very much doubted the ‘exhausted its means’ bit, but still, assuming that Israel does have a right to defend itself, it doesn’t mean they have a free permit to do whatever they like.

Just as an exaggerated analogy, if let’s say in school you have been bullied for some time by somebody, then you fighting back is probably understandable. But retaliating by say, maiming or killing the person is definitely overstepping the bounds. The same applies here. You may started out by saying that you’re defending yourself but you reacted using bigger violence and at some point you’ve crossed the line and what you did is not justifiable anymore.

Today there was an event called ‘Phonecall to Gaza’ in which basically we called the Head of the United Nations Development Programme in Gaza to ask about the situation there. Needless to say, it wasn’t very good… with people dead, injured and infrastructures destroyed. I asked him the question, “What is Israel doing to help rebuild Gaza?” The answer he gave was “Nothing.” He even mentioned that some of the aids supplies can’t get through because of the constraints that are imposed by Israel in getting them across the border.

So there you go. A lot of things happened this week. I think there’s one more next Monday about a debate on one-state vs. two-state solution, and I’ll probably go to that one.

Yaz.

Gaza Protest and Cambridge 800th Anniversary

2009-01-19T15:28:00.005Z

On Saturday at noon, there was a protest in front of the Cambridge Guildhall about Palestine and the events in Gaza. It was a peaceful protest, obviously, and there weren’t just Arabs and Muslims holding the banners. They were all chanting, “Free Palestine” and after an hour, the protestors marched along the streets of Cambridge. I’m very delighted that there are people in Cambridge who make their voices heard about the massacre that’s happening.

Behind the protest lines:

In the evening, the Cambridge 800^th anniversary celebration started. Pictures were being projected onto the Senate House walls and the St Mary’s Church bells are rung. The rings are composed by a Cambridge alumnus, though to my untrained ears they don’t sound any different compared to normal bell rings. There was a huge crowd, with old people, students, and little kids on their parents’ shoulders. The light show was on repeat about every ten minutes so even though it’s crowded, people are coming and leaving all the time and I was able to watch the whole of it, though of all the pictures, the only one I understand well is the one of Newton sitting under an apple tree.

Yeah, the fence is somewhat getting in my way.

Yaz.

Start of Term, 800th Anniversary Preparation and Gaza

2009-01-15T16:30:00.006Z

So on Thursday morning, the Lent term kicks off with three hours worth of lectures. What a way to get into term mode and distinguish the illusion that we can still relax a bit.

The night before, I went to King’s College for a fundraising event about Gaza. On the way, I saw some things being projected on the Senate House. It turns out that Cambridge will start its 800^th anniversary celebration this Saturday and there will be some bell ringing at the St Mary’s church (with the rings being composed by a Cambridge alumnus) and some light shows as well, with pictures related to Cambridge achievements being shown on the Senate House walls. So on Wednesday night they were setting up the projector equipments and everything… and here’s a glimpse of it:

Now, on to some more serious world issue… the events in Gaza are of course unforeseen, for us Cambridge students at least. However, ISOC (that’s the Cambridge Islamic Society) was brilliantly swift in organizing a fundraising event. On the Wednesday night, there was a film showing titled ‘Occupation 101’, which is an award winning documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, followed by a talk by the chairman of Interpal. There were also stalls selling food made in Palestine, and the profits will go towards aids for Palestinians.

Of course, on a short notice, ISOC only managed to book a venue that can hold about 150 people. The turnout, however, was amazing with about 200 plus people showing up. Partway through the film showing, the King’s porters came and asked for some of the audience to leave the hall for health and safety reason, since it was quite crammed. They were very nice about it, though. As an ISOC member, I had to give up my seat since the priority is to reach out to the general people who want to know more about the conflict. It was alright, though, because when the film was resumed the Interpal chairman gave an informal talk and Q&A session just outside for the people who had to leave the hall.

I think the reason why I went to the event was that I have met a lot of obnoxious people. Granted, most of them are anonymous commenters on the internet (and we all know how everybody, including uninformed ignorants can spout nonsense on the internet) but it sure is annoying to see them freely spewing out words like terrorists and anti-semites around. It’s irritating, but I don’t think I have enough knowledge to provide effective counter-arguments, so that’s why I’m going to these events.

I mentioned the Gaza fundraising event to a Korean friend of mine during lunch today. What started as a simple mention escalated into a discussion about Middle East, sustainability, free market, voting, and the US political scene. For someone who is considered quite apathetic about world issues, that sure is the most socio-politically intensive lunch I’ve ever experienced.

Well, now excuse me while I put the weight of the world off my shoulders for a while and focus on the next fluids mechanics example sheet like a normal chemical engineering student.

Yaz.

Happy New Year

2009-01-08T18:51:00.003Z

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s the 8^th already, but surely it’s not very late yet. So we’ve shed 2008 away and welcomed a new year, new low temperature for the UK, new Lent term at Cambridge, new HSBC credit card (heh heh)... and so on. Cambridge is being populated again and I started to see some familiar faces around, though certainly not all. For example, our friend the Chronophage is still on holiday:

Juhan, a friend of mine asked me what my resolutions are. Well, I don’t have any, but there are things that I want to do and achieve in the year, like trying to be fitter for the upcoming winter and summer volleyball cuppers. While we were discussing this, one thing lead to another and before I knew it, I was made to sign a declaration saying that I will try and do 63 consecutive push-ups at some point to show that I’ve achieved my goal. Drat! Now that it’s in writing I can’t squirm my way out of it.

Oh well. To the gym/pool/other fitness places we go then. Have fun fulfilling your New Year resolutions too!

Yaz.

A Cambridge Christmas

2008-12-30T14:56:00.003Z

Without so much as realising it, my final December as an undergraduate is coming to an end. I was hoping for a longer holiday, but time moved so fast between blinks, as they tend to do. I was also hoping to get a lot of work done, but instead I’ve been totally unproductive ever since they closed the department. Not surprising, considering I grew up under fluorescent lamps, and I find it awkward to study with the yellowish light bulbs in my room. Well, that, and the presence of a computer is a bit distracting. Still, I think I managed to cover a lot in my revision, my research project is on track and my French is going along nicely.

Unlike previous years when I always found myself in London, this year I spent my Christmas in the quaint city of Cambridge. It wasn’t very eventful. Of course, not being a Christian, I didn’t go to the midnight mass or anything like that, so there wasn’t much to do. However, Trinity College was generous enough to invite us foreigners who can’t be bothered to go back home to some meals with the fellows. Free, I should add. And there was only one fellow, so it wasn’t that formal. But it was nice, with things like lobster soup, fish pate, cakes and stuff. Guess I didn’t have to worry about starving when the shops were closed.

For Boxing Day, it goes without saying that London is not for the weak-of-heart. From my previous experience, there will be a mass of crowd flooding Oxford Street and nearby areas. It’s certainly something to be avoided if you’re claustrophobic. By comparison, Cambridge’s Boxing Day is relatively milder. Of course, you can’t get the myriad of selection offered by London’s high street shops but it’s still decent. I went out at around 10:30 a.m. and while there were a bunch of shoppers present, it wasn’t suffocating. Plus, a lot of the shops opened on the 27^th instead.

So here’s the end result of the two days. Overall, I spent about £160. Not too bad, I’d say. Especially those two jackets that I got for half price.

Well, that’s it then. Looking forward to 2009. Have a happy New Year people!

Yaz.

Mad at IE

2008-12-19T16:06:00.006Z

Well, not exactly at IE since I haven’t used it for ages. But have you heard about the recent IE vulnerability exploit that affected a few million people and made Microsoft release a security update? The update is what I’m mad about.

I was running some reactor simulations using a finite elements software on several computers in the department. The simulations typically last for 12 hours so I left them on overnight. When I came back in the morning, I found that because of the security update, the computers have restarted and so my simulations are lost.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a security issue and the restarts have to be done but damned if I’m not annoyed. Especially since the department will be closed next Tuesday so I won’t be able to do any more simulations from then until the 5^th of January. Grrrrrr!

Talking about Christmas breaks, I’m not travelling anywhere this year so I’ve ordered several fiction books to get me through the holiday. It’s nice to just curl up in your bed and read, maybe also with a cup of hot chocolate next to you. Ahhh, bliss!

Oh, and apart from simulations, revisions and reading, I’m also plant-sitting this winter break. Here’s a basket of hyacinths which belongs to my friend Jamie who at the moment is off somewhere in Ireland.

What a scintillating holiday companion, he he he.

Yaz.

Some Winter Reading

2008-12-13T16:05:00.006Z

It was raining this morning.

It’s been raining a lot recently. The kind of weather that is perfect for one to curl up in bed with a book to read.

And that’s all very tempting, if not for the fact that I have supervision work to do, computer simulations to run and groceries to be bought.

Talking about books, I recently bought The Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. It’s a sequel to a trilogy, which I suppose makes it a tetralogy then.

You can tell a good book by the speed that you read it. In this case, I started two days ago and now I’m almost finished. It's really good. But this means that I’m running out of reading material for the winter break. Oh well, of to Amazon we go then.

Yaz.

A Week in December

2008-12-09T09:31:00.004Z

A certain week in December might prove nerve-wrecking for a number of people. No, not me, but some other people. I can see them during breakfast wearing suits... holding maps of the college... looking lost and nervous...

Yup, the interview period is here again. It’s quite fun watching them scurrying about. It brings back memories.

On an unrelated note, Cambridge’s 800^th anniversary is looming near. And so, in conjunction, CUSU (the student union) published a book that they give to students for free. I collected my copy from the CUSU office, and it was quite a task to bring it back to the college.

As you can see, it’s quite big and heavy.

I showed it to Lennart, and we tore the plastic covering and opened the book. As it turned out, the book wasn’t quite what I expected.

I was expecting pages upon pages of Cambridge history, details, achievements, all those stuff accompanied with pretty pictures. What I don’t expect is to discover that two-third of the book is filled with description of companies, law firms and banks which might or might not have anything to do with Cambridge at all. I can’t believe I’ve been lugging advertisements back to college.

While I was crestfallen, Lennart just laughed. And then we found that his school was featured in the book and he was like ‘Yay!’. Of course, my school is not in there on account of it not being a famous British public school, but who cares. But then we turned the pages and I found that my previous place of employment, the BP Institute was there, so I was also like ‘Yay!’

See how thick it is?

Yaz.

The End of Michaelmas

2008-12-03T16:18:00.002Z

And there you go. Term’s finally coming to an end. We had the Chemical Engineering Dinner last week, the Trinity Christmas formal a few days ago, and the final lecture today. The end of term is not that abrupt of a change, mainly because people will stay for another week or so to finish work and revision, so there will still be students around. Also, I will still be in the department running computer simulations and organising a supervision or two. Yup, work to be done, as always. Except now, things are less hectic and I can probably take a breather or two.

Well, that’s all I guess, now that you know I’m alive. Oh, and have a good winter break.

Yaz.

P.S. Can you see Newton staring smugly at me?

The Twelve-Hour Simulation

2008-11-19T22:13:00.002Z

Yes, yes, I know. I haven’t written anything since the beginning of November. But then again, there wasn’t much going on during the first two weeks. It was always work in the morning, work in the afternoon, and some volleyball in the weekend. Typical Cambridge weeks for me. Also, for the past few days I haven’t been well. It started as a sore throat but turned into a cold. I’m feeling a bit better now but this means I have to catch up on the things that I didn’t do when I was sick.

Our research project has moved on to the next stage: running simulations. Of course, I still haven’t fully understood the entirety of the codes. I didn’t write it myself. Instead, we were given codes from a previous project and were told to modify it accordingly. If we have lots of time, I would have preferred to fully non-dimensionalise the codes but our supervisor said that it is probably too much for a 4^th year research project. Plus, according to her, when we rewrite the code a lot of the time spent later will be on debugging (apart from running the simulations) so it’s probably not a good idea if you’re not a PhD student and have other things to worry about apart from the project.

We did our first full run yesterday night. We were trying to simulate 35 seconds of a reactor system. However, it turns out that after two hours of real time, only six seconds of simulation time is done. So this means that we have to leave it running overnight. Compare this to my paint drying project in which I modelled a layer of paint from the time it was applied to the time it dried in 20 seconds real time.

Well, that’s it then. I’m off to process the raw data. Will write more later.

Yaz.

The Confidential Project

2008-10-29T20:31:00.002Z

This is Wednesday.

In Cambridge, Wednesday is the last day of the week.

This means, today is the end of the third week of term and tomorrow is the start of the fourth week. We’re almost halfway into the term already, since Cambridge only has eight-week terms.

And in this term in my fourth year in Cambridge, there are fewer lectures, but it does not get less busy.

One reason is because I'm taking French this year, and that requires some extra out-of-classroom hours if I want to be any good at it. It’s been a while since I last learnt a language but so far, everything’s good. In fact, I think I’m enjoying it a lot.

Another reason is that this year we have the Part IIB research project. It’s something that we will spend most of the year working on, either alone or in pairs. My research partner is a Northern Irish guy from Fitzwilliam College (I might have mention him in the blog before) and he’s pretty good at this, which means I have to work hard and can’t slack off otherwise it’ll make me look bad. But I don’t really mind because that’s a good thing.

Oh, guess what my project is?

Nope, it’s not watching paint dry, even though I’m doing something along the line of my last summer project. We are modelling chemical explosion, and it’s a purely numerical/computational project. No experimental components at all, which may be a good thing for obvious reasons.

I just got told by my supervisor that the project is confidential. I can say what it’s generally about but delving into details is a no-no. Of course, people normally don’t blab about every intricate details of things they’re working on anyway, at least until the poster presentation or paper publication stage. Still, being told you’re working on something hush-hushed is really exciting, it’s like you’re in a team of scientists working on a secret project and you can’t let the documents fall into the wrong hands...

... or something like that.

Anyway, there’s one aspect of the project that got me really really excited about, but I won’t say it just yet, in case I jinxed it (and it might not happen anyway). We’ll just see in a few months time.

Yaz.

All Hail Chronos

2008-10-24T23:11:00.001+01:00

And it so happened that earlier this week I was being emailed by a cult worshipping Chronos and according to them there’ll be a Chronos worshipping ceremony this Sunday. The ceremony will last for one hour, from 1 a.m. to 1 a.m. and we will wander around Cambridge with candles and stuff in this magical hour that does not exist.

Okay, the email was actually from Cambridge’s science fiction society. I’m severely tempted so I asked some of my friends to go with me. However, even the craziest of them (which happens to be a female English student with a hyperactive imagination) would rather choose the comfort of their beds than devoting their souls to Chronos.

Oh well...

Yaz.

Let’s Step On the Grass

2008-10-19T18:10:00.004+01:00

Right, so as you probably know, the grass in the Trinity College’s Great Court is sacred and is not to be tainted by the footprints of mere mortals i.e. you’re not to step on it. That is unless you happen to be a fellow of the college, or maybe a gardener.

However, there is one occasion that sees the exception to this rule and if you bothered to check the archives (or here if you’re lazy) then you’ll know that this momentous occasion is called the Great Court Run, 2008. And what basically happens is a race against the clock, literally. The new freshers will start running when the clock chimes at twelve o’clock and they’ll try to complete the run around the Great Court before the last chime ends.

I don’t think anybody managed to break the record this year, but still, it was a lot of fun. I was watching the race from a friend’s window, hence the angle in the following pictures. Oh, and somebody ran in a chicken suit. Like, holy crap, a CHICKEN SUIT!! If he doesn’t win the best fancy dress prize I won’t know what to say.

It’s ten minutes to twelve. Almost time.

People are starting to appear.

The serious runners take their position near the Great Gate.

The race is on. For some reason in this picture the runners look like they’re skipping.

And apparently the slowest species include a red-green caterpillar and a bunch of scientists.

Finally, it’s a bit far away but you can see Mr Chicken running. He’s the yellow blur in the centre.

Yaz.

Let’s Kick the Door

2008-10-17T19:48:00.002+01:00

In Q7, Blue Boar’s Court on Thursday, there was a conversation going on and a snippet of it goes like this:

“So, you’re planning on kicking your room’s door later on?” asked my DoS (Director of Studies).

“Oh, I’ve already done that ages ago.”

Apparently, what I’ve found out after my first DoS meeting of the year is that the difference in marks between me and the person who got the lowest first class is 6 (out of 600), which means there’s only 1% difference between me and a first class. Also, I’m not the highest among the 2.1’s, so there are people with less than 1% difference from a first.

This can be a happy or sad news, depending on how you view it. I suppose it can be very frustrating knowing you’re this close to having an unblemished academic record. On the other hand, it puts into perspective that getting a 2.1 doesn’t mean I’m inferior compared to some people. The students’ marks are close together, and you have to put a grade boundary somewhere.

So all in all, I’m actually feeling pretty relieved. Consider the door safe from any physical assaults for now.

Yaz.

It Died!

2008-10-13T14:58:00.005+01:00

Remember the clock that I talked about in a previous post? The one that costs about one million pounds and had some of its parts built in a secret underwater military facility? Well, I was walking back from the department at around 2:30 p.m. today and as I walked pass it, I saw this:

The pendulum has stopped, there’s no light whirling around in circles, the chronophage is still.

The clock’s dead.

I saw one student put a dandelion there, much like you’d put flowers on a grave.

It’s not likely that a clock like that will be down for maintenance purposes, especially not a mere few weeks after its unveiling. Still, they’re probably working on it right now, so I guess I’ll check back in a few hours and see how it goes.

Yaz.

I’m a BA student

2008-10-09T10:21:00.003+01:00

... apparently.

I just found out about this when they charged me more to eat in the hall. It was too much to be attributed to inflation so I rechecked things and found that I was charged the BA price. It seems that the same thing is happening to all the fourth year students even though a lot of us haven’t graduated yet.

If you don’t know what I'm talking about, here’s how it works in the UK. Well, Cambridge at least. A number of the undergraduate courses (law, English etc,) last for three years and you’ll get a B.A degree at the end. Most of the engineering courses are four years leading to an M.Eng. degree, but you can stop after three years and graduate with a B.A. since you’ve fulfilled the requirements for a B.A degree already. Some people do this if they want to go into something else like banking but most people stay for a fourth year. Of course, you can graduate after the third year to receive a B.A degree AND continue for a fourth year to get an M.Eng.

So anyway, it seems like we’re all treated as BA’s for billing purposes. Even though it’s like I said before, we haven’t graduated and had the B.A title bestowed upon us, so I don’t think I can write my name as ‘Yazid Jay, B.A’. It’s like the Junior Steward said, “We’re all fake BA’s.”

There are certain perks of being a BA student in Trinity, like the BA dinner and the BA common room. I’ll see if a fake BA like myself can gain access to these things.

Yaz.

Open House and Fresher’s Squash

2008-10-06T19:57:00.003+01:00

It happened that on Sunday there was this open house organised by the Malaysian Student Department (MSD). So the Sunday morning saw me boarding the train to London to get some helping of Malaysian food.

As it turned out, my first hour there was a bit... awkward. I don’t really know anybody and so I just ate on my own. Well, I did talk to a few random people but nothing compared to all the others there who were sitting on the floor in groups, chatting amiably. After some time, I realised there’s no point in getting all uncomfortable about it so I went into ‘not giving a toss’ mode. I did, after all, go there just for the food.

An hour later my friends arrived and we all sit and chatted amiably. And everyone was happy.

I went back to Cambridge sometime late afternoon because the fresher’s squash was happening that night, and Lennart asked me to help out. For those who don’t know, the squash is where all the freshers go to sign up for all the interesting, diverse and fun clubs and activities that Trinity has to offer. Yeah, right. Anyway, I was in charge of the volleyball signup list, Lennart manned the tennis one (although since he is the volleyball captain I redirected all questions to him), and on the same table is also the signup sheet for the Varsity Ski Trip, which I have to admit sounds a lot cooler than ours. Anyway, at 9:30 p.m., the freshers were let out of the hall into the (very) dimly lit Neville Court’s cloisters and we were all shouting and waving and standing on the tables (not me, other people, but I did shout) to attract them. I don’t think I shouted that much since my cheerleading days in MCKK.

It was good fun, though.

Yaz.

Turn the Heating On

2008-10-05T09:24:00.003+01:00

It’s October, and it’s cold. The central heating system has been turned on but only intermittently, which annoys me to no end because my room last night was really chilly. People are back so turn the darn thing on already!

On another note, some of the Malaysians in Cambridge organised an Eid open house in Churchill College yesterday. It was good fun, I got to eat food that reminds me of home (haven’t eaten a bergedel for such a long time) and I got to meet some new people. It made me realise that in Cambridge my social circle doesn’t coincide much with other Malaysians so I probably should get to know people a bit more.

After some eating and picture-taking, I was about to leave Churchill when I bumped into Phil, my friend and fellow coursemate. We spent some time chilling out (was it in the Churchill bar?) talking about our summer and sipping tea and coffee that may or may not be meant for the new freshers. Oh well, I’m sure they don’t mind us having a few cups.

I passed the river Cam on the way back and I saw this:

A string quartet! They were playing Pachelbel’s Canon, and I stopped to listen. The whole thing may or may not be arranged so that the guy in the punt can woo his date. In any case, it was nice.

Oh, and I'll be off to London in a few minutes for the Malaysian Student Department's open house. More eating then. Yay!

Yaz.

Back In Cambridge

2008-10-04T09:27:00.006+01:00

\rant{

First off, I meant to post this earlier, but I got caught up reading The Cambridge Student and Varsity, which are the two Cambridge student newspapers. They both have articles about how the Cambridge Vice Chancellor commented on government meddling in the university application process. She said something along the lines about universities ‘are not engines for promoting social justice’. And she is quite right, except a lot of people have taken this way out of context and perceived it as if she said ‘It is not our place to help the poor’.

Varsity mentioned an article in the Guardian by this woman called Barbara Ellen and she basically said that Oxbridge should be ashamed for being such elitist institutions with no intentions of being accessible for people with less privileged backgrounds. Then she touted the significant difference in ratios of state and private school students in the UK and in Cambridge. And for this article I would say (like what my former AC chemistry teacher used to say): What a load of rubbish! I got angry just by reading it. What Allison Richards, the Vice Chancellor means to say is that students are accepted because of merit, regardless of social backgrounds. The purpose of Oxbridge is to teach the brightest students, it is one of the best universities in the world and it should not be dumbed down just so that the student population become proportionally representative of the outside world. There's no need for positive discrimination.

What grates me even more is that this idiotic piece of article seems to convey the message that Oxbridge is only for the socially privileged. Far from it. My coursemate was the Access Officer in Trinity and you wouldn’t believe the amounts of events they organised to let state school students know how Cambridge is like and how it is not really that daunting. I’ve also read enough stories about teachers, not knowing anything about Cambridge, discouraged their students from applying. To quote something I read from one of the student papers last academic year, ‘We can’t accept you if you don’t apply.’

So there you go. I don’t know why I get all pumped up, I’m not even British! And I’m usually pretty apathetic with these kinds of things (yes Casper, I still don’t know what the symbols of UK political parties are, maybe they should advertise it more?). I guess I’m in a socio-political awareness mode tonight.

}

\section{normal blog post}

Right, so I’m now back in Cambridge (and so is everybody else apparently, including the freshers) after two days in Norwich in which I visited Casper, my former roommate in AC. It was a good trip, I got to see the (small-ish) city of Norwich and the University of East Anglia, which is probably the second UK university that I visited after Imperial, not counting open days and interviews of course. Gosh, I really should get out more.

Unfortunately I didn’t take that many pictures, so here’s some of the Cow Tower and the Norwich Castle.

I bought the Cambridge Reporter Class List today. It’s basically a booklet with names of students and what grades they got for the previous examination. It has the names and grades of all the students in all the subjects, except those who fail. I bought this every year because it’s nice to see my name in print with my exam grade. However, as you may know, last year was a big disappointment, so it hurt a bit to buy the booklet today. Oh well, I’ll be fine, plus it’s ridiculous not to buy it since I’ve already bought the booklet for the past two years already.

And, I think I haven’t mentioned it already so... Eid Mubarak!

Yaz.

P.S. Yeah, I know, I just finished learning LaTeX.

Oooh, Another One!

2008-09-29T13:01:00.004+01:00

In case you missed the previous one, you can find it here.

Saw this one on my way back from the dept, just in front of the Senate House. I think it’s a different company, albeit offering the same, errr... service.

And yes, apparently I don’t have anything better to do during the fasting month than putting up perverted posts like this.

Yaz.

Today, Tomorrow, Oh Well...

2008-09-28T21:45:00.000+01:00

For some reason, I thought they are looking for the new moon today instead of tomorrow. And so, I spent tonight waiting and refreshing certain web pages for the announcement to appear. By nine, I was furious.

Why the heck is nobody saying anything?

And then I texted a friend in London, and he told me Eid might be on Tuesday or Wednesday, and I felt really stupid afterwards.

Anyway, this will be my sixth Eid in the UK. Goes to show how long I’ve been here.

Yaz.

Summer Holiday, PhD, and Clocks

2008-09-22T11:32:00.006+01:00

Right, after twelve weeks of working on a research project, I’m finally having my (long overdue) summer holiday. It feels so good not to have to walk for half an hour every morning to West Cambridge and have sandwiches for lunch instead of a proper hall meal. Not that I’m having lunch anyway since now is the fasting month. Still, it was a good experience and I learnt a lot, though I secretly envied Will, my engineering colleague who got to play around with the finite elements method in his research project whereas I’m only using the simpler finite difference method. But I suppose it’s only fair since he learnt about it beforehand in his course so he got to use the more advanced one while I don’t really know anything in the beginning so I got to handle the less complex method.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, the finite elements/difference methods are usually used in computer modeling to solve differential equations. And if you can’t make heads or tails what that last sentence is about, then don’t bother.

So anyway, as much as I love the summer project, I’m just about bursting to have a proper holiday with no obligations to do anything whatsoever. And I reckon I have about two weeks worth of holiday from now until the 7^th of October. It’s probably a bit too late to call it summer holiday though, but who cares? And my plans for this holiday is to rest, play games and catch up on my reading, since I seem to have accumulated several fiction and bunches of Economist magazines on my bookshelf that I haven’t read yet. Also, I think I’ll learn LaTeX, since everybody around me seems to know how to use it. I’ve already installed the necessary components on my computer and borrowed a book from the library. While we’re at it, I’ll see if I can learn AutoCad too, and I’ll try to fit Photoshop in there as well. Is that a bit too ambitious, you think?

Yesterday, Lennart asked me if I want to do a PhD. My supervisor also asked me the same thing about ten days ago after he said he’s impressed and satisfied with my work, and I realized the subliminal message behind his question is Would you be interested in doing research in this field, in this institute after you graduate? I told him I will be going back to Malaysia to work. But really, the answer to the question of whether I want to do a PhD or not is of course yes! Those who know me will probably have guessed how I feel, but the thing is… I will graduate with an M.Eng Degree, and there’s this one more step, one more academic level just beyond that. It’s just… there, the end of the conveyor belt. And it’s not like it’s rare or very difficult, since tons of people are doing their PhD every year. So I feel that if I don’t do it, it’ll be something that I regret, like I haven’t completed the journey that I’ve started. I guess I'll ask around and see what opportunities are available for me, so we'll see how it goes.

Aaaaanyway, I was walking around Cambridge this morning when I spied this strange golden apparatus at the corner of Corpus Christi College. There were also other people around, staring and taking pictures. I know I’ve seen this in the news recently, but I can’t remember much except that it involves Stephen Hawking and clocks and stuff. So I checked back and this is what I found. And this.

Here's a photo that I've taken:

And here's a closer look:

Cool, huh? Albeit a bit odd.

Yaz.

Edit: If you want to know more on how it works, there's an excellent youtube video about the clock here.

Moving Rooms

2008-09-14T21:16:00.005+01:00

Late last week, I got an email from the accommodation office saying that I should move to my room next year before Monday the 15^th, or else. And so, I packed my stuff over the weekend and managed to find two volunteers to help me move them. Well, they might not be totally voluntary, but let’s pretend we don’t notice that. What I failed to do was to check whether the big trolleys are available, so in the end we had to use this small-ish wheelchair type trolley and made several trips back and forth, but oh well.

Anyway, thanks Lennart and Bao for helping me carry my stuff even though you guys are either: a) tired from a volleyball game or b) sleeping. It’s much appreciated.

So here are some pictures of my new room. It’s much bigger than my previous one with a kind of wall dividing the living room and the bedroom. There’s also an en-suite shower and the kitchen is just next door. It’s on the third floor and next to a busy road but if I close the windows then I can hardly hear the people down below so that’s fine. Please excuse the mess, I haven’t had time to unpack everything yet.

My stuff in my old room

The living room

Living room from a different angle

The bedroom

The only thing I don’t like is that the room doesn’t come with its own fridge like mine last year. I know it might be a luxury but I think I was spoiled a bit by living in Trinity. Well, not having a fridge is probably a good thing as pointed out by Lennart, who hinted not so subtly about the environmental impacts of refrigerators. Okay, okay... I’ll just learn to share the fridge in the kitchen then.

On a different note, this week will be my last week for the summer project. So after this I’ll be free. What’s sweeter is that my supervisor is gone to a conference in Germany for the week so I don’t have much to do at all. Just one or two more experiments, collect my salary and that’s it.

Talking about experiments, as you might know I’m watching paint dry. And the typical duration of me watching paint dry is about four to five hours. So the other day I brought a book with me to read and this book is ‘The Subtle Knife’ which is the second in the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. Anyway, there was this post-doc who’s also working in the lab at that time (which I’ve mentioned about before here) and he saw me with the book and we started having a conversation about books. It turned out he read ‘The Subtle Knife’ in his second year undergraduate when he was taking a break from revision. I was surprised because I thought the book only came out recently. After all, I’ve only heard about it last year or so. But it turned out the book was published in 1997. Well, what do you know. Seeing me there reading must have brought him back to those times, I guess.

He recommended a book called Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. However, since I’m not particularly interested in science fiction I’m not sure if I’m gonna read it. We’ll see, I suppose, after I finish with His Dark Materials, and the Watch tetralogy, and Jasper Fforde’s latest, and others.

Yaz.

It’s Getting Cold

2008-09-08T17:06:00.002+01:00

It was cold and rainy for the past couple of days, so I was staying inside most of the time. But the cold is really not just because of the rain. It’s September already, and I guess the summer months are finally behind me. For my first summer in the UK, let’s say it’s not quite what I expected (or rather, what I should have expected). There was one week when it was really hot but the rest were normal or rainy.

There are still two more weeks before my summer project ends. I’m actually looking forward to it. Not that I don’t like my project, but it’s just that I haven’t had a proper summer holiday yet. For a summer work, twelve weeks is just a bit on the long side.

On a happy note, some of my friends are coming back to Cambridge, so I’m not as lonely anymore. Also, I took a look at my room next year. I can’t see the inside, but they’ve put my name on the door so I can move in when I want. There’s a kitchen right next to it, which is really sweet.

I’ll post some pictures of the inside when I move in. Also, since my friends are here, that means I can get some cheap (free) labour to help me move my stuff. Yay to exploitations of human labour!

Yaz.

It’s the Fasting Month Again

2008-09-02T10:31:00.001+01:00

Hello! So now’s the 2^nd day of Ramadan in Cambridge. So far, everything’s going alright. It would be even better if I don’t have to go to work but that can’t be helped, I guess. Three more weeks to go, and then I’m free (the work, that is, not Ramadan). This year, the fasting time is longer than back home. Iftar is currently around 8 p.m. and subuh is about 4:30 a.m. So I wake up at 3:30 to eat and then go back to sleep again.

I remember when I first came to the UK, subuh was around half past six and iftar was amazingly around 4:30 p.m. Plus, it was cold so fasting during those times was really nice. Furthermore, when I was in AC, I have a bunch of people eating together with me for sahur. Not just the Muslims, but some Christians, Jews and others as well. Ah, those were good times.

So anyway, have a good fasting month for those who are fasting, wherever you are. This year’s Eid will take place before term starts so I wonder who’ll be there in the UK to celebrate with me. Guess we’ll just have to see.

Yaz.

Early Morning Reading

2008-08-29T04:01:00.000+01:00

Right, I always heard some people have a habit of reading before bedtime. I usually don’t, but last night I found this really interesting science fiction story and started reading. The plot became really suspenseful and I was reluctant to go to sleep but I went to bed anyway, around eleven since I was tired.

Anyway, what must have happened is that subconsciously I became agitated for not knowing how the story turns out. This explains why I woke up twitchy at 3:30 a.m. And so, here’s me at the early hours in the morning, reading.

For all the benefits touted, I suppose sometimes reading is detrimental to your health.

Yaz.

Geologists’ Olympic Medals

2008-08-18T16:20:00.001+01:00

While I’m not particularly interested in the Olympic Games per se, I am somewhat paying attention to Malaysia’s performance in the games. I was hoping we could get a gold, just so that I can write on the Facebook wall of my friend slash ex-roommate who lives in Beijing: Hey, how are you? Are you watching the Olympic Games live? Guess what, my country got its first gold ever. Yay!

However, since we only got a silver, I guess I’ll change the ‘gold’ on my comment. And probably skip the ‘Yay’.

Anyhow, you might not know this but the BP Institute is under the Earth Science Department, which also includes Geology and the like. Hence, we sometimes get e-mails sent to the Earth Science mailing list. This afternoon while I was working, I got an e-mail about a Geologist getting a bronze in the Olympics for the women double sculls. Not too long after that, another e-mail was sent about another geologist guy who got a silver in the Men’s eight.

I had a feeling Malaysians in general were quite excited about getting an Olympic medal. Hence, it is somewhat disheartening to see how easily other people do it. In the space of one afternoon, I found out that my Earth Science Dept of the University of Cambridge had done better in the Olympics than my country, which is funny in a sad way.

Oh, and to end on a funnier note, I found this on the Kensington Victoria blog. I don’t play WoW, so the effect is probably lessened on me, but it’s still funny nonetheless.

Yaz.

Fun Watching Paint Dry

2008-08-15T12:05:00.004+01:00

A strip of paint

“It was a fun read,” I said to my supervisor, referring to a paper I just digested about paint drying. As you probably know if you follow the blog, I’m doing a research project about paint drying. The paper is about paint drying in 1D, I’m doing my project in 3D. Both involved watching actual paint dry. Well, maybe not the paper since it’s numerical in nature, but I bet the authors have done the watching just to make sure.

“Ah, so you like these kinds of stuff.” We spent the next fifteen minutes or so discussing aspects of paint drying with me asking questions and him answering them and showing me his previous work about paint and how they dry. I stored the information on my mind, knowing that they’ll prove useful the next time I spend four hours in the lab watching paint dry.

Well, that pretty much sums up yesterday. Yeah, yeah, I know, why the heck do I want to do a research project about the drying of paint? To be honest, I applied to do a research project here not knowing what kind of project I’ll get and I can’t really choose. But that aside, let me share with you something that I read recently:

Scientists are involved in all kinds of research. Sure, there are those popular ones like stem cells, renewable energy and the like. However, for every one of those, there are lots of others that normal people might think of as less ‘colourful’ but each of them still have their own importance and significance to the world.

Not really an exact quotation, but I can’t find where I read it so that’ll do. In any case, I learnt lots of useful techniques which I’ve probably mentioned before like finite difference analysis, linear stability, asymptotic analysis, how to use Mathematica etc. And all these are general in the sense that they will be applicable to a lot of other stuffs that I’ll encounter in the future and I’ll probably use them again.

This summer, a lot of people I know are working in industry and gaining experience. A number of the rest are doing banking and earning lots of money. Some have even started work for real (hey Adam!) and some are doing nothing (hello, my next year’s project partner). As for me, I’m glad I’m doing this, even if I’m describing it as like watching paint dry.

Yaz.

Week Seven

2008-08-11T15:33:00.001+01:00

Well, this is the seventh week of my research project and there are six more weeks to go before I have my summer break (which is about two weeks, how sad is that?). I have to make a 15 minutes presentation about my project on the ninth week but I guess I’ll worry about it the week before. So far, everything is well.

A few things happened today. I finally beat my summer student colleague, who up until now always arrived first to the Institute, but only because the dining hall is not open for breakfast today so I decided to go to work straightaway. The spreader which I used to make a thin paint film stopped working because the paint made it stuck (and because I never cleaned it afterwards) but fortunately there’s this post-doc in the lab who’s nice enough to help me clean it with acetone.

Another thing happened today which drives home an important lesson: if you want to do scientific research, then make sure you have a strong relevant maths foundation. My supervisor and I have been working on this linear stability analysis calculation which I can’t seem to get my head around. So today I rechecked the calculation only to find out that they’re wrong! There goes a few days worth of work.

Oh well, I suppose these things happen in research. One of the lecturers I talked to mentioned that she discarded all of her first year PhD data because she found that the lab apparatus was not actually working correctly. So there you go.

Yaz.

P.S. Am I the only one who’s excited about the upcoming Diablo III game? I love the previous one so much I’m still playing it. Who cares if it came out eight years ago?

My First Paycheck

2008-08-05T13:54:00.001+01:00

Hi there! Yup, I haven’t updated in about three weeks or so. Sorry about that, it’s just that nothing much is happening in Cambridge at this time, apart from my work. I can tell you all about modelling polymer films and taking pictures of paint drying or playing around with the graphical colour schemes in Mathematica, but I’m not sure if it will not bore people to death. And no, I don’t find watching paint dry to be extremely fascinating, just the science and the numerical aspects of it.

Oh, anyway, this is the sixth week of my summer research project, which means that I’m halfway through it. Yay! And on this week, they gave us the first instalment of our salary. What makes this more special is that this is my first salary ever. Yup, I never worked before. Still a wide eyed naive student in the face of the real world.

So, what am I gonna do with the money? For some time, I was thinking of buying myself a 17 inch Macbook Pro, but I guess I’ll wait until my current laptop is truly dying before I do that. Hmmm... maybe an iPod Touch, or an iPhone if I can get out of the contract. Or maybe I can be a good boy and save it all in my saver account. Then again, nah!

Yaz.

P.S. Oh, if in this post I sound like somebody who has never held any money in his hands before, then stop worrying. I’ve been managing my own money in this country for five years already, so I’m not gonna spend it all on high-tech gadgets, though that’s quite a tempting prospect =)

Workplace Update

2008-07-16T15:54:00.001+01:00

Hello,

And here’s Yaz updating his blog from his workplace today. No, he’s not slacking off. It’s just that he managed to solve a problematic computational problem, so he’s feeling a bit proud. Hence, he’s rewarding himself with a little break.

And who cares if I’m slacking off? It’s research, remember? One can set one’s own working time, as long as one is producing satisfactory end results, heh heh heh.

So anyway, the experimental bit of my research is not going well, since my supervisor has to fill in some extra paperwork before I can start, and the technician who’s supposed to cut my bits of Perspex is on holiday for two weeks. Therefore, it looks like I have to wait a while. On the other hand, I just learnt how to dabble and produce calculation loops in Mathematica yesterday, and I’m able to produce a (debatably) working Mathematica notebook today, so that’s quite an achievement. The thing wasn’t working very well this morning due to instability issues, but after some pointers from my supervisor and my fellow research student (who’s doing engineering) I managed to get it working perfectly now.

Oh and I found out from the fellow engineering research student that they (engineers) have already learnt about programming, loops and instability criteria, and it makes me wonder how come I don’t know all these stuff? What it is exactly that they teach us in chemical engineering?

Well, happy programming!

Yaz.

My Working Life

2008-07-11T15:25:00.006+01:00

Cambridge has been a bit rainy lately, which generally means problem to people doing drying experiments like me. As such, my supervisor had to find a place for my experiments which we initially planned to carry out outside, not that that’s a good idea in the first place, what with the wind and falling leaves and all. So in the end we found a lab which other people don’t use but I need to be inducted first, hence my experiments can only be started earliest next week.

On another note, sometimes I really feel like I should be paying the BPI instead of the other way round. I learnt quite a bit in the research project: new scientific concepts, ways to organise experiments and filling out paperwork, insights into research life. Currently, my project has branched out from being experimental to experimental and computational, which means apart from just lab work, I’m also being taught how to do numerical analysis on a computer. I might also learn some programming if there’s time. This will be really useful since my fourth year project is purely computational, and it will help me and Alastair (my project partner) a lot. In short, there’s so much that I benefited from the research project that I’m really glad I made the decision to apply here.

Oh, and I got a new computer. Ahem, I mean... I was bought a new computer by my supervisor. Isn’t he kind? Heh heh heh.

Since we have to do computational stuff, my supervisor figured I need a computer and instead of using one that’s already there, we thought we’d buy a new one. Isn’t that cool? Unfortunately, I will not get to keep it when I finish the project. Awwww....

Yaz.

Open Day

2008-07-04T19:12:00.006+01:00

Last Thursday and Friday were the Cambridge University Open Days. And on these days, we could see lots of young teenagers with their parents going around Cambridge with their red Cambridge University plastic bags and visiting the different colleges and departments. It was a nice change from the Cambridge that’s a little bit empty because all the undergraduates went away. Unfortunately, I had to work on both days, so I couldn’t observe or help out much.

Also, yesterday, someone wrote me this:

“...You know, we were just mentioning your name yesterday and saying that you will produce a 1^st class act as usual/expected. So you see, what a let down from you!!”

And this is what I felt like:

Erk!

Yaz.

Summer Work

2008-07-02T22:46:00.002+01:00

Yo ho ho!

Okay, from last Monday I’ve officially started my summer research project. This is probably the first time I’m getting paid for working and it sure feels a bit different. Oh, I’m also getting paid to study in university but that doesn’t count. Anyway, I’m working in the BP Institute in Cambridge doing a research project. The project will last for twelve weeks which means I’ll finish in mid September. This also means that this year I will not be going back to Malaysia. Not that I’m terribly upset about that since I always end up getting bored with nothing to do (and getting fed up with horrendously slow dial up internet) anyway whenever I go back home so this makes a nice change. Plus I get to see what summer in the UK is like.

So far it’s been good. There are no set working hours so I can essentially turn up and leave whenever I want. Of course if I spend so little time on the project then my supervisor will get mad at me so let’s not do that. Furthermore, I can work wherever I feel like whether it’s the Institute, the library or my room, even though being in the BPI gives me access to my supervisor and the labs so it’s the most convenient. Today is my third day and so far I’ve been revising theories and deriving math formulas. We haven’t done any experiments yet since the required apparatus haven’t arrived but I like the things I’m doing so far since it’s the work-wherever kind of stuff.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what I am doing, let’s say it’s like watching paint dry, literally.

Yaz.

Graduation Time

2008-06-29T11:08:00.003+01:00

Unlike some other universities that hold the graduation ceremony very late that students are inconvenienced *coughimperialcough*, Cambridge’s graduation ceremony is held after May Week. Of course, a reason for this is that everybody’s finished already so there’s no point in waiting further. This year, it was held starting from last Thursday. They do it based on college, so the more prominent colleges (Trinity etc.) get to graduate first, followed by the rest. The would-be-graduates will gather in their respective colleges and then make a procession towards the Senate House where the ceremony will take place.

If you can see it in the picture, the gown with white lining is for normal undergraduates. There are also other gowns but I can’t remember what they mean.

And since this is my third year, it means a lot of my friends are graduating. This includes the chemical engineering people as well, since a number of them are off to do other stuff non-engineering related. Nooo, I’m so gonna miss them!

Yaz.

Visit To The UL

2008-06-27T09:54:00.003+01:00

So, as I’ve mentioned, I went to the Cambridge University Library for the first time last Monday. Frankly, I'm quite surprised that I was only there after spending almost three years in Cambridge, considering I used to like libraries so much. Well, those that has fiction sections, at least. So anyway, my friend Adam found out that I’ve never been to the UL (University Library) and throughout the year he kept suggesting that we go there. Or was it from last year, I can’t really remember.

I always thought the UL is unattractive. It sort of resembles a prison in my opinion. But architecture aside, it has six floors brimming with books. I don’t know what is contained in the central tower. More books? Somehow we can’t access it during our trip there.

Somebody told me that the UL is a copyright library. This means that it has the copies of all the books published in the UK. My Oxford friend said the same thing when I visited him, so I guess there’s one in Oxford as well.

The library’s so large that I think people can get lost in them. I wonder how it’ll be like to play hide and seek in the UL. Should be fun.

Yaz.

Recovery

2008-06-23T20:52:00.002+01:00

Something that I learnt during Saturday night was being alone while you’re miserable is not a good thing. At around this time, a lot of Cambridge students have gone home already, which means that knocking on people’s doors to find someone to talk to is a bit fruitless.

Anyway, somehow I managed to calm myself down a few hours after seeing the results. And since at this time the Senate House was closed, I went to the department to look at the results again since I didn’t notice what other people got the first time around.

At this point, I think I should tell you something about (one of) my supervision partner. He’s one of the smartest people I know in my year, and I should know since I’ve been his partner for two years already. I think he’s smarter than me, and most definitely smarter than some of those who got a first this year. But it was a surprise to find out that he got a two-one since he never got less than a first before. For some reason, that made me feel a lot more relieved. It’s as if the results this year don’t quite reflect people’s capabilities. Don’t get me wrong, most of the people who got firsts are brilliant, and I can never compete with some of them. It’s just that somehow some very capable people don’t quite shine in this year’s exam.

At least, that’s what I told myself. True or not, in the least it helps me get through the disappointment this year. And today I felt much, much better. I spent the day with a very good friend of mine, Adam (no, not you, Adam, this is somebody else) visiting the Botanical Garden and the University Library. It was good fun. I could almost forget about the exam results. Almost.

Is it wrong to wish for the new academic year to start already so that I can take next year’s exam sooner and try to get better results?

Yaz.

Failure

2008-06-21T16:36:00.003+01:00

First, let’s get some things out of the way. I visited Oxford yesterday and it was great. I saw the city which is probably bigger than Cambridge, went to a formal, and punted Cambridge style. Unfortunately, there weren’t many people on the punting route that we took, so I didn’t get on a lot of people’s nerves. It was nice, though, to visit ‘the other place’.

Anyway, while I was on the bus, I got some calls from friends about the exam results. Apparently, the results were out on Friday instead of next week like I first thought. So, not wanting to hear my result from other people, I came back to Cambridge today to check the Senate House.

And the verdict is... it was a failure. I got the worst result ever since I entered Cambridge. I know for some people, getting a second class upper is a blessing, and that a two-one in Cambridge is higher in standard than some other places, but still... it’s hard accepting a two-one when getting a first was totally within my capability. Heck, I got nothing but firsts since my first year. So now I’m in a miserable state with a crappy result and knowing that I can blame the shitty design project all I want but ultimately it’s my own fault and lack of effort that landed me this result just makes it worse.

Guess I better stop before I sound like a whiny, annoying person. I'll give myself a few days for this to sink in.

Yaz.

The Week Ahead

2008-06-15T22:51:00.003+01:00

So, the significant thing happening in Cambridge right now is that the May Week is now about to commence. And the May Week is named so because this is the time when the May Balls are taking place. This will all occur in June, of course. Confused? Well, read here.

Because most colleges are preparing for the May Balls, in this period they are often closed to visitors. Hardly surprising, since I will not want to show my college to visitors when they’re erecting tents like this all over the place.

Since I’ve been to the Trinity May Ball last year and will go next year (because it’s my final year), I originally decided not to go this year. However, last Friday I was offered a ticket by a friend. It was a hard decision, but I finally declined since I figured I...

Don’t drink
Don’t like dancing to loud music
Don’t like to disturb my sleeping pattern

...so I’ll probably not enjoy the ball as much as some people. Instead, I’ll be spending Monday going to the Camden Market where I once bought one of my all time favourite t-shirt (and I’ve been told it suits me).

A few friends will be visiting me on Tuesday, volleyball match on Wednesday, the UWC gathering on Thursday... looks like it’ll be an eventful week. Oh, and on Friday I’ll be going to Oxford to do some punting. And on this trip I plan to punt Cambridge style, much to the chagrin of all those Oxford people. I’ll tell you if I get chased out of the river.

Yaz.

Rooftops & River Singing 2008

2008-06-10T21:29:00.003+01:00

On Sunday there was this annual Trinity College choir singing from the rooftops of the Great Court at noon and singing on the river in the evening. At twelve o’clock, a lot of people have gathered in Great Court to watch the event. It was good, except the first few minutes were marred with the noise of this plane circling overhead.

The whole thing lasted about ten minutes. The one at the river lasted much longer with a twenty minute interval in the middle of it. We all just sat there amongst the crowd on the riverbank and listened to the choir singing in the verge of twilight, when their voices are heard even more clearly.

An ex-MCKK student should be able to recognise this:

Yaz.

And It’s Done!

2008-06-08T11:33:00.001+01:00

Phew! After five weeks of hard work, the Design Project had come to an end. We had to submit the final report on Thursday and make a PowerPoint presentation on Friday. Oh, the best presentation got £300 as a prize. Unfortunately, that’s not my team but then again, I don’t care that much.

To me, this is the worst report that I’ve ever done. I think most of us don’t have a clear idea of how much work is demanded from us, at least in the beginning. I saw the people in charge of the reactor section staying in the computer lab from day one until the last week, inundated with spreadsheets. I thought I was ahead of my work when I finished the main body of both my reports, only to find that a lot have to be put into the appendices and calculation folder, and that I don’t have enough time. If it’s just two or three people, then you can say they have bad time management, but out of the fifty-something chemical engineering students, around twenty stayed in the department from midnight until six a.m. on the last day trying to complete their work. The design project really put a strain on us all.

Fortunately, unlike some stories that I hear about last year’s students (and some of this year’s), my group doesn’t have any internal discordance, which is good. We have enough on our plate already without any added problems.

Anyway, I’m glad that it’s over. Even though we really did learn a lot from it, I prefer a normal exam any day. Let’s hope my exam marks are high enough to compensate my would-be-low marks on the design project.

That’s all for now, I guess. I’m off to listen to some singing on the rooftops at Trinity College. It should be good. See ya.

Yaz.

These Hectic Few Days

2008-06-02T23:45:00.000+01:00

Hello, I’m still alive, and for those of you who don’t know, the design project is in its final week and everybody’s busy finishing their reports. That explains why I’ve been silent for a while.

I’ll write a bit more on Friday when we’ll all be free. In the meantime, let’s hope I’ll survive these last few days with the least amount of brain damage.

Yaz.

The Tea towels Are Here!

2008-05-24T09:51:00.006+01:00

Remember a while back I mentioned about the Trinity 3^rd year tea towels? Well, they’ve arrived last weekend. And the towels look like this:

And so, let us scrutinize it in more detail and observe the artistic talents of Cambridge's Trinity students. This is me:

Anime influence:

A bit of an overkill for a tea towel:

The resident alien:

What the heck??!

Yaz.

Gaylord?!

2008-05-20T09:19:00.001+01:00

So I was doing some internet research on the reactor operating procedures for the hydrotreating plant that we’re working on for our group design project (basically a plant to reduce the amount of sulphur in diesel). Then I came across this:

I was wondering, with a name like that, can the company ever be taken seriously?

Yaz.

An Oops Moment

2008-05-17T21:41:00.000+01:00

I guess sometimes, people (UK students) forget that Cambridge or other universities for that matter is an international place. In my case, going to a school with people from 70 different countries tend to make you aware of what you’re saying and how it can be perceived by others. However, for a number of UK students, I suppose university is probably the first contact that they have with lots of international students in one place, and sometimes they forget that the people they’re talking to have different nationalities, cultures and views on things.

I usually have breakfast with a group of people, dubbed ‘The Breakfast Club’ by us. This morning, I saw a friend of mine, an exchange student from France in the hall so I beckoned him to sit next to me. We conversed with the people in my table when one of them stated, “I think Paris is an unattractive place.”

My eyes almost bulged out. Oops, the person who spoke didn’t realise my friend is French! I can’t say anything without being obvious, so I fervently hoped that the person would shut up or talk about something else.

“Yeah, I agree, it’s not that nice. But southern France is beautiful,” quipped my friend.

Phew! He didn’t take offence. That was fortunate. Bloodshed avoided. Though in the future, some people might want to screen what they’re saying to avoid potentially awkward moments.

Yaz.

Trinity Punts

2008-05-11T10:20:00.004+01:00

So, the thing about Cambridge nowadays is that it gets extremely hot. The sun shines brightly and it hasn’t rained for a few days now. Furthermore, these days I also tend to be woken up by the warmth and brightness of day rather than my alarm clock.

Before the exams, I made plans to spend my post exam days with lots of punting practices, cooking and catching up with my readings. Unfortunately, with me being the project coordinator and all, it seems I only have enough time to do these things sporadically. Let’s hope things get less intense from now on since the weather is so nice and if there is a time when I should get a life, it’s now.

Talking about punts, as you may know, Trinity has its own set of punts for us the college members to use. Not for free, of course but it’s still cheap as hell. What you may not realise is that these punts’ names are all related to the number three. For example, ‘Ménage’ refers to ménage a trois and Wise Man is the three wise men in biblical stories. See if you can figure out all of them. Give the answers in the comments if you want to.

The punt names:

Wise Man
Peace Sweet
Fury
Hat Trick (this is obvious)
Harry Lime
Little Maid
Little Kitten
Diabolus in Musica
Codon
Step To Heaven
Ménage
Mad George
Little Pig
Sheet to the Wind
Fate
Close Encounters
Catherine

Yaz.

The Group Design Project

2008-05-06T20:34:00.000+01:00

And so, what’s happening is that we are all being yanked out of our post exam stupor and idleness back into Chem Eng world. And this happens via the means of a design project, the first ever done in a group (if you don’t count the Weblab computer exercises) and it will last for a whole of a month until the 6^th of June when we have to present to a panel of jury and answer questions from them. Hmmm, sounds familiar, when have I done this before?

Anyway, we’re all divided up into groups of six or five, supposedly at random but with staff moderation, which means that it’s not really. Our job is to design a hydrodesulphurisation plant, with each of us in charge of an area of the plant. We also each have one extra task to do. Mine is the project coordinator, which means I put everybody’s little mess together into one gigantic tangling mess. Sounds fun? A friend of mine in the year above specifically warned me about the project coordinator being the most stressful of all the tasks but I guess I’m just too stubborn to listen.

In any case, the first coordinator’s meeting was held today. I missed the first half of it. Not a good start, eh, for somebody who’s supposed to organise everybody else.

Yaz.

P.S. Not quite my fault. The schedule says 12:00 but they moved it to 11:40 and just told us orally. Oh well.

Summer Cuppers

2008-05-04T11:02:00.004+01:00

Yesterday was the start of the volleyball summer cuppers in Cambridge. As per usual, it’s held in a grassy area called Jesus Green. The weather was sunny, hot and perfect for volleyball. This year, because of the turnout, the Trinity captain decided to send two teams instead of one. This also means I have more playing time than usual, which is good.

Trinity 1 won both their matches in the first division. Kudos to them. Trinity 2 (my team) went up against the Cambridge Air Squadron and Girton 3 (honestly, how can a college smaller than us have so many players that they send in three teams?) and we also won both matches. Yay!

The next matches will be on the following three Saturdays. Looking forward to those.

Yaz.

I Lost My Pots

2008-05-04T10:06:00.001+01:00

Somebody stole the new shiny pot that I bought at TESCO from the Junior Parlour kitchen. Bastards!

While looking for it, I found my old one in the upstairs kitchen, the kitchen used by a few mathmos. Aha, I’m keeping an eye on you now, suspects!

Yaz

Death Of A Blog

2008-05-03T22:27:00.000+01:00

I am feeling quite sad. Some time ago a blog that I often read is deleted by its owner. Apparently it was mentioned by somebody in another much popular blog and within hours, lots of visitors from this popular blog visited his site. Unfortunately, despite several nice comments, he was bombarded with lots of other nasty anonymous comments and e-mails full of vitriol that he decided to shut it down. I won’t go into details about the blog. There’s not much point now anyway. It’s suffice to say that I’ve lost a valuable source of wisdom just because there are some nasty people out there who prefer to spew unfounded hatred behind the anonymity of the internet.

Yaz.

Exam’s Over!

2008-05-01T22:26:00.004+01:00

And so, this concludes my four-day exam period. A quick summary is given below.

Day 1: Hmmm, not my best attempt at an exam paper.

Day 2: That was horrible! Someone please kill me now...

Day 3: That was alright. Stats question was a bit harsh, though. If you don’t remember one definition then you’re screwed. Good thing I revised.

Day 4: It was okay. Not too bad.

So as you can see, day 2 was the worst for me and everybody else. I will probably not get more than 50% on that paper. But then again, exam’s over now and we don’t talk about exams when they’re over, do we?

We had a little post exam celebration where we went punting on the Cam. Went up to Magdalene Bridge and then down to Kings. For some reason, whenever I go punting I never got as far as Queens. Hmmm, I should remedy this in the future. Good thing I’m in a college that has its own punts.

In other news, last December/January I ordered some volleyball kits since I’m part of the Cambridge UCCMixed team and hence am eligible to wear a track top that has “Cambridge University Volleyball” gracing it. Of course, whether I deserve it or not is another matter. So anyway, after eons of waiting the stuff finally arrived last week. And thus, here are my two kits posing for the camera:

As some of you may know, I’m not really any good at volleyball, so I will feel very self conscious wearing these in Cambridge. Wearing them in Malaysia is of course, a different thing altogether.

Yaz.

A What Specialists?!

2008-04-25T14:46:00.004+01:00

And so, to break the mounting tension of exams, here’s a little comic relief. This was sighted in front of Trinity Great Gate today.

Yaz.

It’s Approaching

2008-04-23T22:11:00.003+01:00

So it’s hereby announced that my exam is next Monday! The whole shebang ends on Thursday so until that time, expect me to be busy like a bee. Out of 11 subjects, I still have three more to revise. Not too bad, except for the fact that I got so annoyed at my separations course today (because revising it is such a pain, what’s with all the charts manipulation and everything) that I just aborted it and studied something else. But I’m calmer now, so we’ll see how it goes.

Oh, and because you’ll probably be bored hearing about exams by now, here’s a good news about something else. A while ago I applied to do research at the BP Institute (BPI) in Cambridge for the summer, which is ideal for me because it’s in Cambridge so I don’t have to worry about finding accommodation or food, and because I really want to see how working on a research is like. Well, yesterday they got back to me and gave me an offer! Yay! So that’s what I’m gonna do for 12 weeks this summer. The pay’s (obviously) less than if you work in industry, but it’s good enough so I’m not complaining. Furthermore, the research projects will be centred around energy/oil and gas/ carbon sequestration/ all that jazz, so I’ll probably help combat global warming too.

Wish me luck for the exam.

Yaz.

Making Good Progress

2008-04-14T11:53:00.003+01:00

So now, it’s two more weeks before my finals (and yes, I’m still alive). I think I’m making good progress. There are about eleven subjects altogether, and I’ve finished revising three.

Okay, that doesn’t sound good, but they’re not of the same weight, so I’m doing fine really. I’m focusing on the important ones first. This morning I felt satisfied for being able to do a few past papers that I took a break and just sat next to the river, enjoying the calmness, the fresh air and the ripples on the water surface interspersed with punts going by. I did a light revision there but then it got cold so I had to return to the department.

Wish me luck for the exam!

Yaz.

A Three-Week Countdown

2008-04-07T11:23:00.001+01:00

Well, in another three weeks, I will be having my end of year exam. Hence, I will be spending my April revising for it. So if the blog posting is sparse or you don’t hear from me in the meantime, you’ll know why.

Wish me luck!

Yaz.

Music on a Sunny Afternoon

2008-03-31T10:08:00.002+01:00

Okay, so now I’m safely back in Cambridge after spending about six days in Benelux (that stands for Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). It was a good trip, the only drawback being the weather. We were hoping for a spring trip, but the weather in Luxembourg reminds me of the UK, just with the rain replaced with snow. It rained in Brussels and Amsterdam, so it’s a good thing that I always carry my umbrella in my backpack. Guess being in the UK for some time (about five years, to be more precise) will do that to you. Fortunately for us, the last day (which we spent by looking at tulips) was quite sunny. I might have cried otherwise.

Also, there won’t be any pictures until the person responsible for compiling and distributing them to us is finished with his task. So you guys have to wait a while for them.

I arrived back in Cambridge on Sunday. And the thing that I can say is that it feels... invigorating, to be back here. The familiarity of the town, the comfort of my own room, the presence of people I know. It sure is nice to be back.

Busking is a regular occurrence in Cambridge. Especially on weekends, you can often see people playing music all around town. I was on my way to the Lion Yard’s O2 shop (to replace my phone, which you know was lost) when I saw a group of people performing in front of the Great St. Mary’s church. They were called the Thudbox, and they were playing with drums and percussions. Unable to resist savouring the moment, I just stood there, enjoying the drumbeat, the music and the warmth of the afternoon. It felt good. It was about twenty minutes before I continued on my way.

Oh, and by the way, the Trinity punting station is open. So if you fancy a punting trip, then drop by.

Yaz.

Off On A Trip

2008-03-24T00:46:00.001Z

Right, so I'm going to Luxembourg, Brussels and Amsterdam. See you guys in a week's time!

Yaz.

Lazing Around

2008-03-22T21:17:00.003Z

And how can I not? For starters, it wasn’t a very good weather in the morning. Might have rained for a few minutes, but still okay enough for me to walk across the Great Court for breakfast. Afterwards, it hailed. And then it kind of snowed. Not enough to accumulate, unfortunately. This kind of weather continued throughout the afternoon.

View from my bedroom window:

I was planning to do some revision, but I guess it’s just the kind of weather that makes you feel cosy indoors. I was tempted to just snuggle up in bed with a cup of hot chocolate. In any case, it seems there’s no studying for me today. Oh well, I can relax, exam’s still a month away.

(Yeah, that’s what they all say. And then suddenly the Tripos is tomorrow and we’ll all be panicking).

The kind of weather that makes me feel the cosiest (which unfortunately you can’t get in the UK) is when there’s a really heavy rain and the temperature drops and it just spatters on the window pane and you just sit there and you can smell the rain. When I was in AC, my bed was just next to the window. So what I sometimes do is that I sit on the windowsill and just calmly enjoy the moment. Oh, and I always draw the curtain so that if somebody walks into the room, he or she will not realise I am there. Unless you can see the silhouette.

I wish I’m able to do that a lot more now. Just blank my thoughts, forget everything and savour the moment.

Yaz.

A Taste of Freedom

2008-03-20T20:21:00.000Z

It is actually pretty painful when everybody else around you is packing and going back home for the Easter break or planning a trip to somewhere and you’re stuck with a coursework that you have to do. Unfortunately for me, since I was absence during the last week of term, I got an extension for the last exercise deadline, and that means staying in Cambridge until yesterday. Although to be frank, my friends remind me that one exercise only counts for about 1.4% of the final exam marks, so I can not finish them and it will not affect my grades much. But honestly, who’s really gonna do that? I don’t think I’ll be able to live with myself if I take the easy way out (god, that sounds so cliche!), so the past few days have been full of staring at the computer screen and working with Word and Visio and basically just making my exercise report look pretty before the Wednesday deadline.

And hence, starting from today I’m essentially free! No more lectures and supervision work or exercises to worry about. And here are my plans for Easter break:

- Study. With exams at the start of next term I’ll be crazy not to.

- I’ll be travelling to Luxembourg, Brussels and one other city I can’t remember for next week.

- Learning some software such as Photoshop, Hysys and AutoCad in more details. This might involve watching a lot of Youtube vids. After all, you’ll be amazed what they can teach you (I learnt how to tie a bow tie from there)

- Punting!!! I need to work on not going in zigzags anymore. The Trinity punting station is supposed to open after Easter, although I have no idea when that is. So, if you know me and fancy a punting trip then drop by!

Yaz.

Back From Paris

2008-03-15T20:23:00.002Z

Hey guys! I’m now back in Cambridge after four eventful days in Paris. They’re worth it, though, so I’m not complaining. If you don’t have a clue on why I was there, well... the short story is that Cambridge won the UK level of the L’Oreal Ingenius competition, an engineering competition with energy efficiency as its theme; and hence the Cambridge team (three chemical engineers including myself) represented the UK in the International Finals which was held last Wednesday until Friday.

We arrived in Paris on Tuesday and stayed in the Holiday Inn Hotel, where I found that the price per night is around €130, equivalent to £100 and almost about the price of a May Ball. Not that I’m paying for it, but I’m still astounded on how much is spent on bringing us here, not to mention all the food they’ve been feeding us. I remember stuffing myself with sushi for lunch, and tasting the best apple juice in my life sometime on Thursday night, and eating a lot of other tasty food as well.

Anyway, back to something more relevant, they were 11 teams in total: us, Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Belgium, France, Spain, Poland, China and India. Germany was supposed to be there as well but for some reason they dropped out. On Wednesday, which for me is the most enjoyable day in the whole program, all of us were split up and put into groups. We then went on a team-building rally/some kind of treasure hunt around Paris where we went around locating places with GPS, singing to a person with a cowboy hat in French, playing petanque, looking for lions, having a rendezvous with a skeleton, among other things. For me, the reason why it was so fun was that we have all sorts of people in the group and we all get to mingle and know each other and do stuff together, something that for some reason was missing in the UK level. I found that my thought was also shared by other members of the group, and one of them (from Poland) remarked that it’s so amazing how now you can meet all sorts of people of different nationalities compared to a few decades ago where this is highly unlikely.

The main event was on Thursday, when we presented our solutions to a panel of judges. To cut to the chase, I’ll just say that we lost. However, in our defence I should probably mention that this is the first year that the UK has entered and things might have been different otherwise. Regardless, all the teams have performed very well and shown a high standard (it is an international competition after all) and hence, any one of them could have won. The winner of the day was the Canadian team and they grabbed a €10,000 worth of a trip to a city of choice.

Well, that’s the long and short of it. I had a really enjoyable time there and despite not winning, it really is worth all the effort that we put into it. To tell the truth, it’s not really the competition itself but the people we met that makes the whole thing so memorable. Like one of my team member said on the train journey back, she missed them already.

Yaz.

P.S. Just one thing that marred the experience: I lost my phone. And this is the first time ever that I lost my phone too. Oh well.

The Stomping Dinosaur

2008-03-10T19:11:00.007Z

And on those occasions that I got bored or can’t comprehend the snippets of wisdom that they impart during lectures, I tend to do these things:

- Daydream

- Watch other people, see if they are concentrating or not

- Write backwards (mirror writing) with my right hand

- Write normally but with my left hand

- Write song lyrics, either with my right or left hand

Today about ten minutes after the start of our 9 o’clock lecture, a friend of mine walked into the lecture theatre. He probably doesn’t notice it, but he stomps his feet, thus announcing to everybody the arrival of his royal highness. And since I was in a daydreaming mode, I thought of a dinosaur, or maybe Godzilla; and I drew these on a piece of paper:

When he walks in:

When he sits:

The SHE on the picture refers to ‘Safety, Health and Environment’, the course we’re having at that moment. Oh, and if you noticed, there’s an arrow pointing to Mr Dino, but it’s blank. I erased the name to protect privacy, heh heh.

He inadvertently saw the drawing later on in the day so I had to come clean. Oops!

Yaz.

P.S. I’m going to Paris tomorrow. Yay!

A Nightly Interlude

2008-03-07T21:52:00.001Z

At this moment, it’s dark in Cambridge. Friday night, so people are abound. Two policemen are prowling Trinity Street, catching unaware cyclist offenders who ride the wrong way up the street. The lights are mostly off in the Chemical Engineering department, with the exception of the computer room. There, three sad people are working on some kind of project/work/assignment, and one person is typing this blog.

Hello! If you felt that you haven’t heard from me for a while, that’s because I've been a bit busy. Just came back from Wales on Wednesday, where I’ve been giving a presentation. Got an exercise to hand in next week, except one of my L’Oreal team members asked for an extension until Monday the 17^th, and we got it. We are going to ask for more, though, since it seems like we may need it. And oh, because of the Wednesday presentation, I missed the UCCMixed volleyball dinner. And I was really looking forward to that one too! On the other hand, I’ve decided to leave Paris early so that I can make it to the Commemoration Dinner.

Wait a minute, didn’t I tell you? Yup, I'll be going to Paris for the L’Oreal Ingenius competition on Tuesday next week until Friday. All expense paid, isn’t that nice? And I hope I can win, so wish me luck!

Yaz.

My First Earthquake

2008-02-28T23:05:00.004Z

So what really happened was that on Tuesday night I went to bed at about twelve or so and at around one I woke up because I felt some shaking. Being in the subconscious state between sleep and awake, I wasn’t really able to discern what was going on. I thought it was the people in the room above me jumping up and down and I remembered thinking, ‘Why can’t these people sleep like everybody else?’

It’s only later in the day that I found out that the tremors were really earthquakes. Apparently it was around 5 in the Richter scale and the strongest that the UK has felt in about 25 years or so. My first earthquake! Don’t know whether I should feel happy or scared.

In other news, a friend of mind brought one of those brown, about A4 sized envelopes with him to the department. In the tea room, he opened the envelope and brought out... lo and behold, a Macbook Air! I don’t know how to use a Mac and I’m not fond of laptops with small screens, but even then, I can’t keep my jaw from dropping! It was so thin! Other people in the tea room saw it and they were fascinated as well. It really is an amazing design.

Yaz.

Indecent Exposure

2008-02-26T22:40:00.008Z

And so it is the case that in the University of Cambridge, there are two student newspapers, The Cambridge Student and Varsity. The former comes out every Thursday, while the latter on Fridays. Normal national newspapers are supplied in the common rooms every weekday, but I often don’t have time to read those.However, I made it a habit to read the two student newspapers since a) they come out weekly and it doesn’t take much of my time and effort to read them, plus they’re kinda fun to read; and b) more often than not I find them very informative of all the happenings in Cambridge that I might not realise or know about.

But anyway, I guess sometimes even the most eagle-eyed editors will miss some things that shouldn’t appear in a paper. The last issue of TCS features a picture of the Christ College’s rugby team posing for the camera and one of the guys is, errr... exposing himself more than he should. It’s not obvious at first glance. I wasn’t aware of it until a friend who visited my room today pointed it out to me. We had a great laugh out of it. Add the fact that one of the other team members is clearly staring at it. My friend pointed out that he’ll be forever known as the guy who stares at the other guy’s exposed anatomy in a newspaper.

The hilarity of it just made my day.

Yaz.

P.S. No, I'm not gonna post the picture, so don't ask =)

Dinners and Tea Towels

2008-02-22T22:32:00.006Z

Okay, so sometimes in Trinity (or any other Cambridge colleges for that matter) they have these dinners for special occasions and more often than not, not everybody can go to them. Sometimes you’re randomly invited, sometimes you have to be invited by a fellow and sometimes you have to be a scholar. So I was complaining and whining to my friend the other day on how I wasn’t invited to the Rice Exchange dinner for two years now and how some of those who were invited by the fellows got to do things that are not usually allowed e.g. walking on the grass or going on the roof with the said fellow’s permission. Then, just the other day I got an invite to the Commemoration Dinner and this invitation is only extended for scholars but unfortunately enough, I can’t go because I’ll not be in the UK at that time. Great. So I don’t get invited to the ones I can go but was asked to go to the ones I can’t go.

There’s this particular Trinity third year who got the bright idea of producing tea towels with everybody’s faces on them, like those tea towel projects that were done in primary school. Well, maybe their primary schools, I certainly can’t remember having done such a thing. So anyway, the third years all got this small piece of paper each and everybody’s doing a drawing of themselves on them and submitting them to the person in charge. I can’t remember myself ever being artistic, so forgive my humble soul if the drawing doesn’t even closely resemble the subject matter:

Can you recognise me when you see the picture?

It's a small drawing so I'm sorry for the blurriness.

When I was handing mine in, I got the chance to look at all the other submissions. Some of them were bloody hilarious.

I am so buying the tea towels.

Yaz

Frank Morton day

2008-02-20T01:36:00.001Z

Well, it’s Frank Morton today (yesterday, actually, since I’m writing this early in the morning). For those of you who don’t know, Frank Morton is sort of a sports day for chemical engineers in UK universities. I wrote about it too last year. This year they’re having it in Leeds and the same as last time, I didn’t go. Why? Because one, they don’t have volleyball and I suck at other sports. Two, last year I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered waking up early in the morning to take the bus to Manchester. So if I go this year to Leeds which is even further up north, that’ll be an inconsistency, will it not? Hehe.

Anyway, because of Frank Morton we don’t have lectures or anything else in the department today so I took the opportunity to finish all my work. Overall it’s quite a productive day. I essentially finished the two exercises that are due on Thursday. Oh, and when I say exercises, I don’t mean jogging or aerobic. I also don’t mean something like a few easy practice questions either. Exercises, in Cambridge chemical engineering speak means coursework or assignments; they typically take two to three weeks to finish. There was a relatively new supervisor who told me that she was surprised when her supervisees (is that even a word) complaint that they cannot have supervision at this particular week because they were all busy finishing some ‘exercises’. She now knows that the exercises are more serious and stressful than the name might suggest.

It’s nearing two in the morning now. I guess it’s been a while since I last worked past midnight. Usually I’ll stop doing anything that requires heavy thinking straight after dinner.

Yaz.

Impending Doom

2008-02-18T21:37:00.002Z

Ever since the incident where I have to wipe out and restore my hard drive, I have this feeling of impending doom in which my laptop will just fail and refuse to start up again. It is nearing three years since I first bought it, so I think the end of its lifetime is looming in the horizon, just that I can’t see it. It might be another one (or two) years if I’m lucky, might be another few months.

Lately there’s this weird noise coming out of the hard drive sometimes. It made me worry. Despite that, the laptop’s actually working well. I guess the wisest step for now is just to backup everything of importance and hope for the best, that it will not fail anytime soon.

Yaz.

It’s Half Term

2008-02-13T21:51:00.001Z

Well, now (actually tomorrow) is the fifth week of the eight weeks of term, so we’re halfway there. I’m feeling the pressure of things, which is noticeable because I just complained to a few people today about work. I never complain about workload so you can tell how ‘under pressure’ I feel. Don’t you ever wish that there exists a device that you can press a button and time goes by really fast and then in the blink of an eye the term is over and you don’t have to do anything anymore? If it’s just lectures and course-related work I can handle it but I have to finish the L’Oreal project with my team on top of that so things get a bit crazy.

The May Ball tickets are now on sale so people have started asking Trinity students whether they have any spares. Unfortunately, since I’ve been to the May Ball last year and will probably go next year, I don’t think I’m attending it this time around. So, for people asking me for tickets, tough luck.

Four more weeks to go... maybe I should start a countdown.

Yaz.

Mathematician’s Cake Hunting

2008-02-08T22:56:00.002Z

Yesterday there was a career fair called The Works in the New Museum site where my department is and it’s all about alternative paths like voluntary works and environment and the like. There I met two other Cambridge students from my previous school (Atlantic College), one of which I haven’t seen in quite a while, the other I haven’t seen at all since I left the school. That reminds me of the fact that unlike in my first year, this year we haven’t had any UWC meetings or gatherings where we can get together and see each other’s faces, which is a pity really. I guess I might meet up with one or two other people later at some point and organise some reunion kind of thing. That would be nice.

I was having some difficulties with my stats course because the notes weren’t very clear, so I thought I might be able to get extra help by visiting the stats website. My lecturer is the head of this Computational Modelling group in Cambridge and he puts all his supplementary materials on the CoMo website, so I looked there. In the middle of this, I found out that they put an Easter egg on the site. There were several images on the site that contain pictures of cakes, and when you click on the cakes you’ll find a link to their recipes. There were eleven cakes in total. As it turned out, instead of looking at the supplementary materials, I spent my time hunting for these cake recipes within the site and didn’t manage to do any work at all.

Well, at least I got all the cakes.

Yaz.

Pancake Day?!

2008-02-06T19:39:00.000Z

My friends were cooking pancakes for dinner yesterday. I thought it was a bit odd because unless they’re savoury pancakes, people don’t normally eat them for dinner since they’re not filling enough. Didn’t really say anything though, since I enjoyed watching them spent their time tossing the pancakes into the air.

Turned out that yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. That explained it, even though such a concept sounds strange to me. Oh well, guess you learn something new everyday.

Yaz.

It’s Been Hectic

2008-02-01T19:36:00.001Z

Hello there! Didn’t mean to be reclusive for quite a while but life has been busy lately. Some people from L’Oreal came to discuss with us about the International level competition which will be held somewhere around 12-14 March in Paris. Apparently, we also need to write a four-page report on our solution by the 28^th, which we will present during the competition itself. Furthermore, our current solution, while sounding good initially, doesn’t seem to be working very well (and this also seems to be the opinion of people in the Chemical Engineering department, that it’s not very practical) so we have to either modify it or come up with a new one. If we don’t come up with something good it’ll be very embarrassing (the competition being international and all) so this sets us off to a busy week with researching, meeting people and other stuff. Plus I have assignment deadlines on top of that. Oh, how I miss the first 20 years of my life when I’m never so busy.

People from Mars came to the department today (the chocolate company, not the planet). Well, actually it was just one person and he was a recent graduate of Cambridge and a friend of mine. Anyway, the point is, today during break we enjoyed ourselves with free chocolate bars and all that he brought with him. There’s also a free draw with more chocolates as prizes, the largest being a tin of Celebrations chocolate. Guess who won?

He he he.

Yaz.

Dub?! Sub?!

2008-01-25T17:30:00.001Z

My order from Amazon has arrived today, yay! Well, half of them anyway. I’m still waiting for the box set of His Dark Materials trilogy, but the rest are here, safe and sound. I probably won’t be reading them for a while, though, since I started Winter’s Heart yesterday.

Day Watch and Twilight Watch is the second and third book from a tetralogy, the first and fourth book being Night Watch and Last Watch respectively. I recently watched Night Watch (a film adaptation) and enjoyed it, even though there are some significant deviations from the book. Wanted to watch Day Watch but restrained myself, since I haven’t read the book yet. I think that since the plot can be quite complex, reading the books are actually useful in order to better understand what’s going on.

Now, I’m a firm believer of watching something in its original language. Dubbed version just pisses me off. In the case of films, you get to hear the actor’s real voice. If it is some voiceover instead, the whole film will feel fake to me. The character's voice will not match the lip movement and in some cases, the way they say things are completely different. In the case of anime, the argument gets quite complicated since the characters are, well... animated so the lip movements will not be exact anyway. But, I suppose most anime production companies in Japan will collaborate to a certain extent with the manga authors, so the Japanese character voices will be closest to what the original manga author intended them to be. Anyway, it’s certainly not that hard to use a few spare brain cells and read subtitles.

So, I was extremely aggravated when I found a few comments on the web about Night Watch:

“Hopefully the second one will get dubbed someday so I can watch it also.”

“Now I will be able to understand this.” – referring to the dubbed version.

“I went and saw this at the movies, and walked out cause I couldnt be f*cked reading the subtitles.”

Okay, is it so hard to read subtitles? Do you actually go to the extent of not watching it if the dubbed version is not available? Are you kidding me? Lots of foreign films are not (nor would I hope that they will be) dubbed, so if you can’t be bothered to read subs you’re actually missing out. Which is a shame really, since there are many good ones that deserve people’s attention.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I just get annoyed sometimes, because not making an effort to read subs just seems like being lazy to me.

Yaz.

Starting of Term, and Refilling the Bookshelf

2008-01-21T19:53:00.000Z

Okay, a few things happened between my last post and now. I’ve chosen my room for next year and it’s in Bridge Street, which is a place that I’ve never actually considered living for my final year in Cambridge. Oh, it’s a nice place and is not dilapidated or anything. It’s just that I can’t get over the fact that to enter the building you have to use your swipe card and pass through a small old-looking blue door with non-functioning doorbells, unlike this year in which if somebody wanted to visit me they can go straight up to my room and knock, no swipe card nor old doors required. But apart from that, the inside of Bridge Street is quite modern and nice. I actually chose the most expensive room there: a set (separate sections of living room and bedroom) with en-suite bathroom and a kitchen next to it. Still, an eleven-week term costs about £1000, so it’s not like it’s pricey compared to London or some other places.

Start of term was the 17^th January, which was last Thursday. My new year/term resolution is to study hard, and I thought if I put it here it’ll motivate me more since now you guys know about it.

Oh, and stop pestering me about the study hard/smart thing: about how you’re supposed to study smart instead of hard and all that jazz. It’s rubbish anyway.

I realised that I haven’t been reading a lot of books for a while, and felt guilty about it since there are books that have sat on my bookshelf for ages without me touching them. So my second resolution is to read more, and in keeping with this spirit I also bought some more books from Amazon today. The second and third book of the Night Watch series, Mark Haddon’s second novel, and the His Dark Materials Trilogy (which lots of people in Cambridge say is good; and the first book, Northern Lights was made into a film called The Golden Compass, though I have no idea why they change the name). I bought them in bulk to take advantage of the Amazon’s free delivery for above $15 purchases.

Here’s my current bookshelf which I intend to fill. Don’t comment on how few books are there, since I brought home a lot of the books during my last flight to Malaysia.

Finally, I forgot to collect Nectar points on my Amazon purchases. This always happens! Drat!

Yaz.

A Layman’s Guide

2008-01-16T22:35:00.000Z

I watched An Inconvenient Truth a few days ago. I know, I know, as a chemical engineer, I should have watched it ages ago, but then again, I’ve always been aware of the detrimental impacts of global warming, so it’s not like the film’s bringing me a shift of perspective or anything. Still, I did gain a few pieces of information that I didn’t know beforehand. Actually, make that a lot of information. I think before, I was just aware. Now, though, I am informed and aware, which makes a huge difference.

If you haven’t watched it, then I suggest that you do, if only to gain a better understanding of the current issue. I would describe An Inconvenient Truth as a layman’s guide to understanding global warming, so even if you don’t have a deep enough scientific knowledge, you can still follow the arguments. That is to be expected though, since the film is mostly directed towards American viewers, of which (unlike the rest of the world), there still exist a fraction of them that actually denies or are sceptical about global warming, and most of these people don’t have deep scientific knowledge.

Of course, being a documentary film that tries to present a point of view, I noticed that there are parts here and there in the film that are susceptible to embellishments and exaggerations. Plus the fact that Gore actually pours a lot of his emotions throughout the film. However, overall, it’s a well balanced and quite accurate depiction of the issue of global warming and unlike a dry science presentation, the fact that the film is interlaced with emotions actually keeps us interested to watch the film until the end, thus making it effective. So go and watch it, if you haven’t. It’s good for you.

Yaz.

The Day I Restarted Everything

2008-01-11T22:14:00.001Z

Okay, as you guys can tell from my previous blog post, I was having troubles with my laptop when it suddenly crashes and gives me the blue screen of death while I was consolidating my music files. I then restarted everything and while no files are lost, the computer became very sluggish and jerky. I tried defragmenting it the next morning but it gave me the blue screen of death again, which is really annoying. Sensing an impending doom, I quickly backed up all my media and important files onto my external hard drive.

Right, there wasn’t anything much that I could do at that moment. The computer was slow but even with several restarts, I can’t fix it. During breakfast a friend of mine said (probably joking in an evil way) that three or four years sounds about right for the lifetime of a computer. I was like... nooooo! I am planning to buy a brand new laptop before I graduate, now that I have a credit card and all, but certainly not this soon. And to top it all, this is my first computer! I bought it using my own money. Well, computer allowance money actually, but it’s still my own.

Still, since nothing is working (the computer’s operational, it can surf the internet and everything, I just don’t know how to get rid of the lags) I considered wiping the hard drive clean. Erase everything and just start all over again. Of course, the problem with this is that I don’t have any Windows XP installation disks. Somehow, when I bought the computer, they never gave me one. Therefore, if something goes wrong during my hard drive reformatting, I’ll be stuck.

Of course, there’s the wonder of the internet (and Lifehacker). I searched their site and found that somebody has posted a comment on an article about hard drive reformatting: Dell computers (some of them anyway) have a PC Restore function. Basically, they have a hidden partition in the hard drive that contains an image of the drive when they first shipped it to you. This can be accessed by pressing CTRL+F11 during start-up and it will erase everything on your hard drive and restore it to the original condition like when you first take it out of the box.

So, I spent the whole of today’s morning thinking about it. Should I, or shouldn’t I? It’s irreversible, so if something goes awry I can’t really do anything at all. But then I’ve backed up most of my data anyway. So my fingers hover on the figurative big red button until...

... I pressed it.

I restarted the computer, waited until the big Dell with the white bar came up, and pressed CTRL+F11.

The PC Restore thingy came up. It asked me if I want to restore or reboot (normal start-up). I clicked restore, confirmed it and...

This is it, then. No turning back.

Finally, after about five minutes, it’s over. And no, I’m not kidding, getting rid of everything takes just five minutes.

Rebooted again, and I was greeted by the computer thanking me for purchasing Dell. Yay!

What do you know, I have a spanking new computer! Well, new in terms of the ... things inside it anyway. So, after the initial fill this and that, getting rid of the crap software that Dell bundled into my computer, and downloading 86 Windows automatic updates, my computer's ready to be used! Of course, I then have to install all the necessary programs again (McAfee, Firefox, WinRar, iTunes etc) and copy all my pics and music back into the computer but they’re not too bad. So now (since it’s ‘new’) it’s going really fast again.

Well, that’s all that I did today. It’s a good thing, the PC Restore feature. Next time something goes terribly wrong and I can’t be bothered to figure out what’s going on, I’ll know what to do.

Yaz.

A bit of trouble

2008-01-09T17:34:00.000Z

I have quite a haphazard way of organising my music, remnants from the day when I first bought my laptop and didn't know any better. The files are sorted in random folders and some of them are all over the place. Never got round to actually organising it properly, until today.

So I opened iTunes and pressed the consolidate library button to copy all my music under the iTunes folder and I was planning to delete the redundant haphazardly-organised original music files afterwards. But then suddenly everything went into slow motion and my computer presented me with the Blue Screen of Death!!

I managed to get everything under control now (well, barely) but my computer is currently being very sluggish and so it seems like I will have my hands full trying to fix this. Sigh... this might take all night.

Yaz.