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.
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.
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 7th 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.
Late last week, I got an email from the accommodation office saying that I should move to my room next year before Monday the 15th, 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 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.
Hello! So now’s the 2nd 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 =)
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.
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.
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.“...You know, we were just mentioning your name yesterday and saying that you will produce a 1st class act as usual/expected. So you see, what a let down from you!!”
And this is what I felt like:
Erk!
Yaz.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
...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.
