Officially Ended My Degree

So, I've officially finished my degree with my recent convocation on Saturday.

I remember it was such a big day for my brothers and sisters. They were getting all excited days before the convocation. As for me, I actually felt nonchalant. It was like, "Well, just a ceremony." I don't feel the excitement some of my friends have. Why? I don't know. Probably I thought it is going to be boring or probably it because of the location etc.

Turned out, the day wasn't that boring after all. I get to meet my friends and snap plenty of photos- that's for sure. I have the opportunity to have a couple of pictures with the VIPs on that day, Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik and Dr. Leonard Yong. Also, I met unexpected people like my friends from foundation and back from secondary school.

It was very nostalgic how memories of my first day in foundation flood my mind while I was in the hall. They were still fresh in my mind. It was as if they were just last week when I was in foundation. When did time actually rocketed pass me?

All the hardship (well, not that hard actually. I was partially enjoying my youth as well.) of mind torturing for exams, squeezing time between tests, assignments and reports, copying and doing last minute tutorials, sleeping in lecture calls or skipping class. They were suddenly forgotten on that day. Suddenly, it felt as there were no hard times throughout the 4 years. Even the hard times were made fun of and they became a joyful event.

The end of degree doesn't mark the end of learning. What did I learn in degree? Plenty. It's not just academic. It's a whole a lot more than that. There are friends, stress, being crazy, family, being away from home and money. Most importantly, I think is that degree taught me how to be think. When I mention 'think', I don't simply mean everyday thinking like what to wear, what to eat or how to finish a homework.

I can't teach you all those. They are something with no theory to read or practical to understand. Therefore, these are the real valuable stuff I learnt in my degree.

Touched

For the lack of updates, you can definitely guess it's (as always) because of my schedule. I'm in my final year final sem which explains everything. I'll be graduating very soon and some of my senior friends have already graduated.

When I came back from class just tens of minutes ago, I logged in to my Facebook account and the notification said that I was tagged in a post. I clicked it, got linked to Chee Choon's blog and read a post which touched me.

Chee Choon is my Photography Society's chairman since I was in Foundation. He's a really talented photographer and what makes him more special and memorable to me is that he's humble and not selfish. To me, it's like his passion for photography is so deep that he's like a pastor, travel to preach about his teachings. Of course, we're not talking about religion here.

He's the type of guy so ideal that you're dying to find a flaw in him but that one flaw is hidden so deep that only his intimates knew it. I just can't tell you how much or how ideal he is. He came to  my place once before he graduated and told Sito and I about his dreams. I hope he'll achieve it one day, I really do :) There was once when I visited Penang with my family members, he was so helpful that he told every interesting spots in Penang, where to eat good food, the directions and special events that time. At night, he offered to fetch me around Penang island on his motorcycle. A very simple action but means a lot to me and always appreciated.

Here's the link to his blog post about Photography Society members he worked with. It really touched me that he remembered event the smallest detail I told him years back. It made me feel appreciated and it's the kind of feeling that will put a smile on my face for the whole day and every time I read back.

Mr. President's touching blog post.

Thank you so much, Mr. President.. for everything and anything.

Flat Tyre

I woke up this morning, all prepared to go to lab. I went into my car, start the engine, warm it up and put my gear on Reverse. I put my hand brake down and weird, how come my car did not reverse like it usually does? I step on the accelerator a little and found the car not moving still.

I went down and check on my tyres. Great. I have a punctured front right tire. First thing I did was... guess what? Update Facebook. Lol. Then I text messaged several friends and then got Jo to fetch me to uni. Thanks, Jo!

About 5 p.m., I left my lab to get my tire fixed. In order to fix my tyre, I need to change the tire first, right? So, Wei Khiang, Prince and Edwin followed me home to help.

It was kind of an easy process, I think but it certainly need strength! We had such difficult time trying to loosen the nuts. After about 45 minutes, we finally managed to change my tire and then we went to a nearby mechanic to patch my tyre and changed it back. It took less than 3 minutes as opposed to the 45 minutes that we took and cost only RM 5.

Well, this is man-power versus technology, as what Prince said. But hey, they got free dinner after that. Lol.

Thanks so much, you guys!

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? :)

Life Is Beautiful, Live It.

Just when I felt life is totally bullying me, I received motivation and insipration.

I went to uni early this morning to settle some stuff and some things went wrong somewhere and when small parts of problems come together at once, call me weak or impatient or whatever, but I felt it suck!

When I reached home, Prince sms-ed me informing me that he's expecting a parcel today and asked me to sign for him when it arrives. Not long after that, the postman came but not with a PosLaju parcel but it a normal A4 sized enveloped and it is addressed to 'Eliza Loo'.

I carefully opened the envelope to reveal a letter with a poster that totally cheer up my current situation.

"Whatever comes to you in life, just accept it, and you'll see happiness in almost everything." -Yang, April 8, 2010.

As if he knew I was down and all, he cheered me up. Thanks so much, Y! :D

From this, I learnt that it might not be your main intention but words spoken or action taken at a particular moment might mean an entirely different thing to another person.

Not The Luckiest Day

Since this morning...

It was damn freaking hot at night and I could not sleep very well.

I did a stupid mistake in my Molecular Biology test.

When I tried to snap a group photo for my Moral assignment report, my camera battery died on me.

My bottle cap broke and water spilled on me. Twice.

After class, my car couldn't start. The battery was dead thanks to me, forgetting to off the lights.

With Jo's help, we tried to jump-start my car but failed.

It was hot as hell.

Went to old town in Jo's car to get help from mechanic only to be told the foreman was out in Jeram (about 15 minutes drive back to Kampar)

Waited in a drink stall for what seems like an hour.

Went back to UTAR with the mechanic to fix my car, done in less than 5 minutes.

My friend called and my phone battery died on me.

Came back home, hoping I could rest for an hour and a half before returning to uni but Prince told me the dean wanted to meet us and I was left with no time to rest.

Dad called and started questioning me about the new and old batteries when I was so inexperience about all these.

When I was trying to post a new status in Facebook, a security check appeared. Even a website was trying to bully me?!

As a result from this series of misfortune, I...

Got sun burnt.

Broke a nail.

Allergy reaction got worse.

Spent RM 180.

And it's only half a day now. Great.

To all who helped, physically, emotionally and mentally, Thanks a Mil!

Missed Shot

While Guat Shan, Ah Wei and I were happily having our outing last night, I received an SMS from Kenji saying 'Check ur result'. The 3 of us were supposed to head to SS17 for our 'tong sui' but decided to skip that and went straight home after I announced that short message.

So, the whole of last night was spent refreshing UTAR intranet to check my result but alas, I was only able to login this morning.

I got my result. It was a downturn and nothing to be happy about.

My dad was in Singapore when my result was published. He arrived home earlier this evening and told me my result was okay. The best line he said was,

"Even Ronaldo missed his shots at times."

Amazing analogy. Kind of reminded me of the penalty Ronaldo missed during 2008 Champions League finals against Chelsea. He missed the shot, but Manchester United won after all. Let's hope I'll have a happy ending as well :)

Thanks a lot to everyone else for last night- Sardin, my daddy in Setapak, J, Khai Chiah, Kenji and Edwin.

Also, congratulations for Mr. Ch'ng Khai Chiah! :D

Being Unbias

I actually learnt this in my Political Science. Since we were dealing with people manipulating symbols, we had to guard ourselves against biases. Now that I do not have anymore politics to study, I found the 4 techniques pretty useful in life. Which is why I'm sharing.

You see, when we're told something by someone, we tend to take in the information either raw or filtered. If the information are filtered, most of the time, only 70% filtered because human mind will always favor what he or she likes. Nothing can limit what a person wants to think or believe except that person him/herself.

Another thing is, one would usually see right in him or herself. For instance, if you had an argument with your mom, you would surely say your mom is the one at fault. But how sure are you? You see, an argument occurs because there's one or more conflicting ideas. So, where do all those conflicting ideas come from?

Reasoned
The first thing you need to consider when there's an argument or when you need to make a decision, is reasoning. Reason is a technique where you make an assumption.

Think of lots of maybes'

For example, when your mom scolds you all of sudden for something you do not understand, make an assumption. Maybe something like, 'Okay, she misunderstood something.' or 'She's in bad mood, I can see.'

I know you might think that if your mom scolds you just because she's in foul mood, certainly she's at fault. Yes, but think about it. If you're in bad mood, you want a release too. The only difference is, your mom is being more irrational by releasing it on you. See, another assumption. The assumption may be wrong, but it definitely make you feel better.

Balance
Balance, to me, is a very important technique whenever you deal with people. Because everyone have different thinking, we cannot run away from this technique. In balance, we were taught to see things from different angles.

I strongly practice this. By the way, the picture above was one of my wallpaper.

Let's say you heard a gossip about yourself circulating in school. And you heard that gossip was started by one of your friends. What do you do? Cut your ties with that friend? Well, maybe but before you do anything irrational, think of why would that friend of yours said such gossip?

Perhaps in his or her opinion, that gossip wasn't wrong. Maybe, in her opinion, she was telling the truth and not a mere gossip. But what she saw was a mistake which makes her true statement a gossip. You might say, well, if it isn't her matter, then don't bother. Like I've mentioned earlier, we can't control a human mind, now can we?

So, in other words, in balance, what may seem right in your eyes might not be the case for another. Look through different perspectives!

Theoretical and Supported with Evidence
The remaining two aren't very applicable but might be useful in certain situations.

Theoretical tells us that not everything in life is an argument. When someone tells you something and you're not pro with it, there's no need for you to correct that person. S/he is just stating her/his opinions. If you did, however, corrected that person with your idea, an argument starts.

The same thing when you're making a decision. When person A tells you that person C is talking shit about you because s/he was jealous of you and person B tells you that person C did so because she wanted to betray you, you don't need to purposely choose one to believe in. They're just stating their opinion or what they heard from some other people. There's no need to support any side of the argument.

Do research before concluding what you think is right.
Don't be surprise when the truth might not turned out what you think it was.

Supported with evidence, well, it's basically about doing a little research before concluding something. This is useful, for me, at least, during shopping, to avoid overspending. LOL. Well, at least I'm no bias towards the things I want to buy or have bought.

They say you only live once. So, live it as you like.
True, but others only live once as well.
So, don't let how you live (making decisions) effect other's life.

The bottom line is, whatever argument there is, whatever decision there is no make, stay neutral. Don't take sides. It'll make your day. Well, at least it works for me :D

Have a nice day!