Balancing

Approaching my second week of lecture, things are not as hectic as I expect them to be. Labs and tutorials will start at third week, a few classes are postponed due to absence of lectures, so this week is gonna be a breeze for me. :)

Last semester had been quite hectic so this semester I’ve been trying to achieve a balance in my academic life before I’m caught in another vortex. In other words, time management.

Having only 15 credit hours this semester, apart from lectures, tutorials, and labs, I presume I’ll be having plenty of free time at hand.

OCM Convofair Performance and this year’s BookFair will occupy some of my time, only temporarily though, so I feel the need to sign up for something extra to do.

Stumbling upon that chance today in Pocket D, where Minggu Mesra Kampus has started this week with plenty of clubs to join, I signed up for the Rotaract Club and International Cultural Club. There’s going to be an I-Cheme Recruitment Drive tomorrow too so I’m going for a shot at it.

Studies, sports, co-curriculum, events, and clubs are few of the things on my balancing scale. Of course, there’s need for fun with friends and time for myself as well. It feels good to know you are in charge of your own life. Planning what to do and what need to be done for the day ahead always help.

If things do get hectic, it’s a sign that there’s a need to trim and cut down part of my schedule somewhere. For instance, the Dota temptation is coming back, and I need to exercise some self-control and cut down on it before I get addicted like last semester!

Rain rain come again

Yeah, I do hope it will rain again soon.

It’s Friday, so soon in approaching my first weekend in UTP.

I woke up this morning greeted by a fine drizzle. The weather was cold and chilly like in Cameron Highland.

Minus the rain, this weather is perfect for lecture, of course better still if I can remain cuddled in my warm bed. It was a much sought-after relief contrary to the usual hot and dry days that we get here.

I was in a good mood for lecture this morning, despite having 3hours of lectures in a row. But my attention span only last for the first 2 hours and I found myself almost drifting off to dream land during the 3rd hour. Then, class finished and I’m free!

The rest of the day past quite peacefully. After lunch, I took my sweet time having a nice long nap the whole afternoon.

In the evening, Eric was not available today so I went jogging with Hon. I used a new route today with Hon, circling the whole UTP campus. It was a long route, equally challenging and demanding as running around a few times around the sport field’s jogging track.

At night, after dinner, I spent my whole night dotaing. Can’t believe I just spent my one night like that. Anyway, the more I played, the more I’m getting fed up with the game. I dunno why, it’s like Dota is not fun and fulfilling anymore. It’s probably good that I quit completely someday, at least it’ll give me more free time to do other more beneficial stuff. Anyway, I planned to join less events and clubs this semester.

That’s the update for today’s diary. As for this week, the Chindians had another get-together night to kick-start the new semester. We also celebrated the birthdays of January to July babies. The cake was delicious! For the pictures, visit Graham's and Liang Yi's posts. Yes! We even design our own T-shirt.

That’s all for now. It’s raining again as I end this post. Perhaps it has been raining every night without me noticing. Goodnight. Signing off..

Back to academia

Leaving behind the comfy and happy-go-lucky lifestyle at home, it’s time to return to UTP again. Of course, typically, like every new semester, each of us return brandishing a new spirit to study and do better, regardless of how our results turn out to be last semester.  

Speaking of results, I’d FINALLY been able to know mine, after being unfairly barred from knowing my results due to an unsettled fine which in fact I’d settled before the exam.

Really, it had been a painful four days for me, going around in circles trying to find the right person to look into this matter as everyone seem to shift this problem to another department or person. Luckily, I managed to call the right person and he took immediate actions and a few hours after that I was able to view my result. I really thank him from the bottom of my heart. :D

My results was OK overall and I’m satisfied with it. I can do better actually, because I score badly in some subjects that I expected myself to score well, and the vice versa happened too. @_@

Anyway, I’m still staying in V1 but I’d changed room. Love my new room. There’s sufficient sunshine and the room is not as hot as I’d expected. :)

First lecture for the week had started and things are still not hectic for now as there’s no lab for the first week. Plus, things are looking up this semester and the lecturers seem promising too.

If things DO get hectic, I won’t be spending too much time blogging. I can try of course, but priorities come first. There’s new commitments to look into and old commitments to prune. One of them would be Dota. Yup, I’m playing less of dota this sem. Let’s hope I don’t get addicted to other games instead.  :P

That’s all I guess, bye for now! 

The Sarawak Trip (1st-10th July 2009)

The near-end semester break had been well-spent by me joining my fellow batch mates to Sarawak! It was a fun-filled vacation and I hope there would be another trip as enjoyable as this one in the near future.

Anyway, sorry for the late update. I’d been busy with some stuff lately. This is a long trip so I’ll try to keep the writing as short as possible and more pictures! Btw, most of my pictures are in my facebook. I can’t possibly upload them here. I had almost 1k of pictures!

28th-30th  july

Prior to the trip, eric, yiherng, jj, and mike stayed overnight at my house. We went touring around KL city and patronised the giant malls such as Times Square and Mid Valley. We met up with Lim, Sandeep, and Calvin and watched Transformer at IMAX theatre. The visual effects are cool but the storyline is a mess, so overall it’s so-so only. Besides that, I’d also brought them to the cybercafe in Puchong. On 30th, met up with Jay Sern who also stayed at my house for the night.

1st-3th july   

Flight to Kuching. Reached around noon. Yi Herng, Steward, Jonathan, Eric, Jay Sern and I stayed in Kerry’s house. Kuching is really a big place and there’s a lot of good food around (and the best food gotta be Kolo Mee!!) We went to many places: Boulevard, The Spring, Kuching museum, Cat musuem, Riverfront, Friendship Park, Semenggor National Park, Cultural Village, Civic center, and also took some shots with the famed giant cat statues. We also had a tremendous BBQ night at Graham’s. Overall this trip had been an eye-opener because I’d never really explore and venture around Kuching like this before although I’d been to Kuching once in a while to visit my grandparents. Thanks to Kerry, Graham, Vyner and their folks for their hospitality and generosity.

  Kuching Museum

 Riverfront: The pointed structure is a building for parliamentary purposes if I’m not mistaken.

 Friendship Park

Semenggor National Park. Can you spot the orang utan?

Happy family in cultural village!

 Cat museum. P.S: The cat-like archway is horrible and not cute at all!  plus one of the teeth is loose.

 BBQ night!!

Civic center. You get to see nice views of Kuching at the top

 These giant cat statues are one of the famous landmarks in Kuching.

A monument park near the riverside.

 

4th-5th july

Flight to Bintulu, my flesh and blood, my old hometown.  I’d so many fond memories here. Everything looked almost the same as if I’d left this place just yesterday. Of course, there’s some minor changes and a few developments here and there but I’m glad it’s still the peaceful and quiet town I used to know…

Went to the ‘Pasar Tamu’, a busy marketplace. Also went to the temple. They finally finish the renovation and the place looks great! We also went to Park City Mall and I had a chance to meet up with my old school mates.  Also visited Taman Tumbina, a zoo. Then, we went to Tanjung Batu beach. At night, another BBQ night!! This time at Serena’s place. The next day, we went to Similajau. The beach was really nice and clean.

   A typical busy day in Pasar Tamu

temple

 Hanging out in Summer Tea after shopping in Park City Mall. Clockwise from middle (me): Myself, Tze Zhan, Mei Yan, Shi Ming, Shi Yong, Cindy, Jong

In Taman Tumbina, those deers look so forever starved :(

 Tanjung Batu, lots of rocky cliffs to climb here!

Picture of a picture taking moment ;)  BBQ!

 Some of us slacking in the house :P

 Similajau, a great place for nature lover. Most of us are on this hang-bridge although the limit to 10 person!  

Difficult to get that perfect ‘jump’. Never mind la, it’s the beautiful beach in the photo that matters :p

6th july

Gua Niah! Yes, this is the first time I set foot here although I’d been a Sarawakian for more than 10 years!

Before this we took a bus ride and stayed overnight in a stingy resort that cut off their power supply at night thus forcing us to befriend our torch lights that night. How we finally managed to have our dinner that night is another unlucky episode that I will keep on hold for now lest I strayed away from the main topic.

Frankly, Gua Niah is not as grand as I thought. Perhaps we only explored a fraction of it and its real beauty lies deep elsewhere where we need more experienced tour guides to take us there. Nevertheless, it was a tiring but satisfying hike through the cave and some of the rock formations are truly unique and beautiful.

After the Niah hike, we encountered another unlucky episode in which we took a wrong turn and end up walking more than 3km to visit a long house! That’s not the worse part. The worst part is we turned back after reaching a kampung, thinking that’s all of it, while the real long house is a few minutes away after the kampung! Luckily we still had enough stamina left to visit the Niah museum after that.

A signboard that we saw before the hike  

 Another cave before the Gua Niah,

What’s with the spread-my-wings-and-fly pose?

Kings of the world!

The last photo while entering Niah cave. Too dark to take any good pictures after that =.=

Everyone’s tired faces after walking for several hours

the rural village..there’s some intimidating children there that do not seem to welcome us :(

Nice view of the village from here. 

 They are very health-conscious too.

Niah Museum

A replica of Gua Niah

 

7th-10th Miri

Not willing to suffer another night, we headed off to Miri sooner than planned. JJ, Lim, Vyner and I stayed at Harold’s house while the rest stayed at Lawrence’s house. The last time I came to Miri, it was not even a city yet. Miri is a big place to explore as well. We went to many shopping malls, played at the game arcades, eat plenty of good food (especially food at the Selera beachfront) and it was my first time playing snooker. We visited the Science Museum, Grand Old Lady, and the Taman Awam.  We also visited Lawrence’s shop and the Sarawak pepper is the hottest on the most-wanted list! Thanks to Harold, Lawrence and their parents for making this trip enjoyable and wonderful. :) 

I love snooker!

In the Science Museum

A model of a platform, imagine how cool is the real thing..

An earthquake simulator, not scary enough I think hehe

The Grand Old Lady

The bar is blocking the view!

On top of the building..

Taman Awam

Great view! 

Monkey Bars! Show your strength! 

So risky!

If Kuching has giant cats, Miri has giant seahorses!

 

Our flight from Miri to KL is at night and we reached at almost 11pm. The rest boarded another flight to Penang. Jay Sern stayed at his uncle’s house while YiHerng stayed overnight at my place before going back to Ipoh the next day.

That marked the end of my Sarawak Trip. Plenty of other stuff to update like the exam result but that’s all for now. Signing off!

Dropping by..

Hi!!

I'm currently in Kuching on a trip with my fellow chindians.

I had had a fun day. Will update my trip soon. :)