Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Hectic Schedule

I received my FYP schedule a few days ago. Have a look.


Items 4 and 5 especially caught my attention.

4. Completion of bench work - 3 Jan 2011
5. Submission of project report draft to supervisor - 31 Jan 2011

And this simply means one thing.. No sem break for me.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Will I Be Graduating?

What is the worse thing that could happen to a person?

What is the worse thing that could happen to a student?

What is the worse thing that could happen to a final year student?

What is the worse thing that could happen to a final year student working on her final year project?

What is the worse thing that could happen to a final year student working on her final year project in the effort of graduating with good grades?

 Answer : 1) She graduates with bad grades.
               2) She doesn't graduate!!

Earlier this afternoon while I was walking back to the lab from lunch, a friend broke a shocking news to me. What she told me was that we (as in my group mates and I) might not be able to complete out projects. You see, since my supervisor, Dr. Wong is a new lecturer, he doesn't have his own lab yet, which is why we under him are using the common lab. Luckily for us, this lab is not in use this sem because the juniors went for their industrial training.

However, next sem, when they return, they will need to use this lab. I don't know why but the lab officers decided not to allow us to use this lab anymore next sem. Which means, we have no lab to work on our projects! We are only half way through our projects. It's impossible to complete them with only weeks left. Even if we could, some of our ingredients have not arrived yet. I have 2 genes to work on and so far, only ingredients for 1 gene arrived.

It is clearly not our fault! We only have one short sem which is 7 weeks for our project. Other students are doing their projects this sem and can still continue next sem. Some even have one whole long sem last sem and they are still working on them this sem. 

So how does this affect me (or rather, us under Dr. Wong)? We write our thesis till where our projects are force to stop. Which maybe only half way through our projects. Then we'll only get half the grade due to incapability to complete the assigned project. If we did our project well, then we'll graduate with low grades for our fyp. If, God forbid, we did badly, we might not graduate at all.

Rubbish!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Roots

On the 27th of October, a few of my family members went back to where we originated from (or rather, where my ancestors originated from), China. My family tree started from Pheng Hu, Xiamen and when my great grandfather was a young man, he took his wife and sons (my grandpa and his siblings) to Malaysia to escape from the communists. My grandpa was only 7 back then. My great grand uncles stayed back in the village.

My grandpa's house.

The altar. 

A room in the house, I don't know what room though.

My dad promised to bring me to visit my ancestor home but unfortunately, I wasn't on sem break. So instead, I only get to look at photos and listen to their stories. In the olden days, it took 7 days for my ancestors to walk from Pheng Hu to Xiamen city but now, it only took several hours by modern transport.

Ancestor's home.

The ancestor tablets are arranged according to the generation.

I heard that my grandpa shifted out from the main house and live on his own. Maybe with his parents and siblings and typically, they were farmers. The tradition carried on. Some of my cousins are still farmers but some of them are craftsmen.

The farm. Used to be a big farm but a big portion of the farm were used as land for houses.

Cousins and relatives crafting Buddha statues.

Since I didn't experience that place myself, I have nothing much to tell. So I'll have more photos instead.

The best part of the story was getting to know my cousins and other relatives. My cousins and nephews/nieces are way older than me. Have a look at these photos and prepare to be shocked!

As labeled. Be shocked!! My cousins are even older than my uncle!

From left, my 6th aunt, 3rd cousin sis-in-law, 5th aunt, 2nd cousin sis-in-law,
 eldest cousin sis-in-law, 4th aunt, my mom and the small boy is my great grandnephew. 

My niece and her husband. Guess what, that guy is 23 and he's a grandfather already!
Shock! SHOCK!!

Apparently, I am already a great grand aunt! And I'm only 20!

Besides this family tree story, my parents told me about a Hakka village they visited. It's a remote area, high up in the mountains and it took about 4-5 hours by modern transport to get there from the Hok'kien village (my family village) which means up to 8 hours from the city. It's a really old village. They built it hundreds of years ago and as you can see from the photo, it's rounded. The reason for this is to prevent robbery. There's only one entrance to this village and no windows on the lower floors. The walls are 3 feet thick, thick enough to prevent the robbers from making a hole to enter the village. Only the higher floors have windows because the thieves couldn't climb up that high. Inside this huge circle, there's another smaller circle of rooms and then another circle inside this circle until there is no space left. There are about 400 rooms in this village and occupied by 600+ villagers but in the modern days, only 200+ are left.

Hakka village architecture.

Beautiful, isn't it? I love it.

My dad said that there are couple of Ph.D holders from that village and they donated money to build a better village. And due to exposure to the outside world, they no longer build circular houses but square ones and not that high.

Modern Hakka houses.

I really enjoy listening to these kind of stories, stories about ancient world but at the same time, it made me a little sad knowing that these kind of lives do not exist anymore due to modernization.

The tree my grandpa planted before he came to Malaysia.
This tree is a hundred years old.

But anyway, I'm proud to know the roots of my family, especially when one of the great warrior Lu Bu (from Romance of the Three Kingdom) share the same surname as me. Lol! Isn't it just so interesting and exciting to know where you originated from? :)

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Time (And People) Destroys Kampar

I think I've figured out the reasons I kept complaining how hot it is in Kampar. Of course, it may be because of the world climate change, green house effect, thinning ozone layer and etc.. But I think the reason why Kampar is getting hotter day by day is because of UTAR's fault, mainly. Lol.

It's not that UTAR uses more electricity compared to any other buildings in Kampar, it's not that UTAR students spend all night awake hence, their laptops/lights/TVs on. It's not that UTAR indirectly built McDonalds. Well, maybe these contribute as well.

Area after the flyover, 2007.

Just less than an hour ago, after breakfast, I went to a place I haven't been for years. I went to the other side of the bridge. You must be wondering, what bridge? Well, for those of you who are aware, there's this flyover before the turning into UTAR. I've been there a couple of times years back. I went there with Leon, Guat Shan, Ah Wei and Sito to fish. There were 3 small lakes over there and full of greenery. I still remember how we got bitten by mosquitoes and stuff.

Area after the flyover, today. (Bad quality photo taken using my hp)

So, while Eric and I was riding on his bike around, we spotted a lorry went across the flyover. Curious of what such a big lorry doing over there and where it is going, we decided to follow the lorry (yea, like some detectives ==). What greeted me was a wide plot of white sand dessert. What happened to the lakes and the greens? I don't see any lake, I don't see as much greens as before. Everything are covered with sand!

 As you can see, Harvard didn't exist until 2 and a half years ago.

Another one of our sacred fishing spot, Batu-batu China, 2007.

Apparently, developers realize that they are able to make big money from students by building more accommodations. Shops and more houses will be built on this once-green-and-beautiful land. Isn't Harvard enough? Isn't Westlake enough? As if they aren't, the once 'Batu-batu China' (as what Leon named this place) is now Beijing.

The so-called Batu-batu China is called Beijing today. 
Rows of houses instead of water and plants.


It's not that I don't support all these developments in Kampar but I just hope developers know the limits. Instead of developing Kampar, they are destroying Kampar. When I first came in here 4 years ago, I remember I need to put on a blanket every night and how I shiver every morning when I bathe. Now, I wear as thin as I could to bed and woke up sweating.

Please, Kampar has a life too!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Another Accident, Another Student, Another Death.

Two Fridays ago, I received an sms from Guat Shan saying, "Accident in front of our house."

Shocked, I text-ed her back asking if it was her involved in the accident. She then replied me saying no, which made me feel so relief but soon, excited (no, not exactly excited but I can't find another word more suitable. More like curious?) about the accident. I was told the accident took place in front of my house, along the Westlake main road to UTAR. It was about 9.15 p.m. and being such a 'kepo', I went and have a look.

When I arrived there, there were lots of cars and people. There was an ambulance and a tow truck as well. I saw a black Mercedes ran into the fences of Westlake and 2 young motorcyclists, a guy and a girl, lying on the road, both motionless. By that time, I've already figured out that the motorcyclists were students. The motorbike was parted into 2, the body was near them but the head was thrown several feet away.

I was there for about an hour then I went home.

Next day, I check on J-on (click!), which is a website by UTAR students on UTAR-related news, for any news or update about this accident. Then I head from my friends that the guy was okay but the girl has a dislocated leg. She was sent to Ipoh hospital and then there was some news about she had clot in her brain. She had a surgery and went into coma.

She was supposed to awake from coma on Monday but she didn't and she was on life support. I then got to know that she passed away on Sunday evening, a week later.


The sad thing about this accident is, we'll never know the real story behind this. There's a story from the Mercedes driver that protects herself and there's another story that supports the motorcyclists from other sources. Then, from Chinese newspaper, the information was so false. I was there during the scene (I mean, I was there after the collision). It took place in Westlake but the newspaper reported that it took place somewhere near Tesco, which is in the Eastlake.

This is the 4th accident in Kampar involving UTAR student's death and the nth accident involving death in Kampar. I update on this because of how false information given in newspaper can be. I do not understand why newspapers report on information they are unsure of and why won't they get the reason behind the accident rather than reporting that the victims had their dinner and were going for revision. How important is that?

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Suddenly A Chic-Lit-A-Holic

You knew that in my previous post I said that I can finally start on my FYP and all. So logically, I ought to be reading journals, articles, anything my FYP-related. Indeed..

But instead, I'm suddenly so into a slightly different genre


Before this, it took me up to months to finish reading a moderately thick novel. Surprisingly, it only took me a week or two to finish a book. Hmm.. was it because I'm bored? But hey, I could spend some time on journals but... 

Yes, there's always 'buts' and ironically, the sentence usually ends after the 'but' with no apparent reason for the 'but'. But what? But I can't find the journals? But I can't get connected to the internet to find journals? But I don't know which and what journals to look for? But I don't understand the journals? But I'm LAZY? You choose the best answer.

I've finished reading and left with none, so I borrowed 2 from the library earlier today. I went to the library for these books instead of looking at thesis. Yes, job well done, Eliza.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Yay! Finally!

I've been waiting for this day to come..

MY PRIMERS ARE FINALLY HERE! I CAN START ON MY FINAL YEAR PROJECT!!

I was back in Kampar for my final year project (FYP) since the 11th of October... only to be told that my primers (one of the 'ingredients', actually the main ingredient needed for my fyp) hasn't arrive yet.

Having no other choices, I waited...

And waited..

And 2 weeks later, my supervisor told me that the officers have just sent out the order list. WTH?!?!?

Thus, I waited again..

And waited..

And, finally, 1 month later, my primers have arrived!! Can't wait to start my fyp! :D

I might be saying this now.. I just hope I won't say the opposite when I get too busy or frustrated with my project.

P/s : Just in case you're curious about what my project is all about, I'll explain it.. in another post XD