From Huffy to Progear

Huffy is the name of my first bicycle. (Read here and here for recap). Huffy served me well for the past two years. Recently, Huffy’s been quite sick. It all began 12 months ago when Huffy was injured in a self-inflicted injury due to slippery road condition. Huffy thought he is a tough lad and can withstand the pain. 12 months later, it’s no longer seems to be the case. The long term injury sustained seems to take its toll as that injury is starting to affect other parts of his body. I tried to make Huffy as comfortable by giving him some first aid (e.g repairing the flat tyre, adjusting the brakes, attempt to true and adjust the spoke etc) as I can but Huffy is just too sick to continue. To avoid potential danger to myself, I decided to rest Huffy and get myself a new bicycle. It is a hard decision considering that it’s not cheap to get a new bicycle. But for the sake of my safety (in particular the brake condition), I guess there is not much choice.

Many of you did ask me why don’t I send Huffy to the hospital for the doctor to take a look at him. Looking at Huffy’s condition, I thought the medical bill would be as good as getting a new bicycle. That’s why I decided to get a new bicycle. After much research on the internet, I finally found Huffy’s replacement. I present to you, Progear.

FYI, Huffy cost (< $100) and Progear cost (> $200).  My first ride on Progear was like…..WOW!!!!! I can now understand the difference between a better bicycle and a normal bicycle.

I’ve decided to let Huffy go by placing it outside the house on the main street, unlock. After one night, it seems Huffy survive the ordeal. No one seems to be interested in Huffy and I decided to keep him back in the garage for spare parts, or practice my repair skill. Thanks Huffy for all your service. Rest well my friend…..

 

Yokohama, can I come?

My supervisor suggested that I should write up something for a conference. After browsing through the list of conferences that is suitable for us to submit a paper to, we decided to try for IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control. The venue is Yokohama, Japan.

Japan is a country that I always wanted to visit (after hooked to the anime, manga, drama series etc). This could be an opportunity for me to finally visit Japan. Flora is excited as well.

Yokohama….. can I come?

 

Catchup, August to November

AUGUST

After holiday from the Gold Coast, it is back-to-work time. I worked through my conversion report for months! Writing, correcting, writing, correcting…and the process went on and on.

SEPTEMBER

The last coursework I’m doing is Introduction to Optimisation. However, the course material is more on Abstract Mathematics. Man, this course is really tough. The terrible thing was you were given sets of lecture notes that are not going to be examinable because the lecturer basically teaches what he feels like teaching! This is the first time I attended a lecture where the lecturer teaches whatever he likes and without any structure. Taking down notes is also a painful experience because his notes were here and there. I can’t imagine how the final would be…..

OCTOBER

I am 30. We had a simple celebration at Lebanese restaurant. You can read more at Flora’s post here. It was a short celebration because I have two assignments to finish, conversion report to finish and final exam to prepare. My scheduled conversion seminar was supposed to be in the middle of November. However, when I had issue with re-enrolment process, the seminar was brought forward to first week of November.

NOVEMBER

This was one of the toughest months (yet) I need to endure. First week of November, I gave my conversion seminar and praise God I passed. I was “grilled” quite a lot during the seminar that I needed to skip about 10 plus slides because of the time constraint. I did manage to handle those grilling except for 1-2 questions. There were some constructive comments given by my supervisor and the committee. I’m grateful for those comments because those are the areas that I need most improvement. Nonetheless, I passed. My supervisor even treated me lunch as a simple celebration.

Next, it is the final exam. The paper was really really really really tough. There are 9 questions to be done in 3 hours. The 9 questions have sub and sub-sub questions. A simple maths will tell you that you need to spend 20 minutes on 1 question. I couldn’t finish all the questions. I think I had two questions BLANK, unanswered at all as there is not enough time. The 7 questions that I attempted, I wasn’t even sure that they were correct. I think I am going to fail. I am preparing for the worse either for a re-sit paper (if there’s one) or worse case; I’ll do another course next semester. On the positive note, I thought I learn a lot through this course. Even though I’m not good at it but I felt that I was exposed to a lot of things which I might never had a chance to learn them under normal circumstance. I really thank God for this opportunity despite not expecting the possible outcome. Results will be out in mid December and I’m going to remind myself with this verse from 1 Thes. 5: 16-18, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

It took me two days for me to get over the exam’s ordeal. On the third day, it is back to business as there is one more assignment to finish. Weird yea, that the assignment due after the final exam. Don’t ask me why.

The highlight of November however is that Siaw Ling came to Melbourne for vacation (thanks to Air Asia for the super cheap fare). We met up for a Greek dinner and after that she is off to her Australian East Coast road trip. They (she and her friends) started from Melbourne and drove all the way to Sydney and then to Gold Coast. That is 10++ hours and 10++ hours journey.

Now that the hectic months are over, I can start updating my blog again. Cheers.

 

Will be back soon

Wow…. just realised that my last post was in JULY!!!!

I’ll update all the happenings month by month in December. I’m at the busiest stage of my research. After November, things will ease off a bit (I hope) and that’s when I’ll resume my blog.

Will be back soon……

 

Talking about budget airline

My recent two trips around Australia has been good. Thanks to budget airlines that made my trip possible. People tend to be sceptical about budget airlines and always tend to compare with commercial airline.

When the comparison failed, phrases like, “…this is my first and last trip…”, “…I’ll never fly with XXX airline anymore…” are often heard.

To me, as long it can take me from “A” to “B”, I’m fine with it. For poor students like us, that’s the only practical way that we can travel. I’m sure most students can agree with me on this statement .

How can one even start the comparison? You get what you pay for.

Today, I want to talk about Tiger Airway. Tiger Airway is a Singapore based budget airline that have a base in Melbourne.

So far, my flights with Tiger Airways has been good so far. The longest delay I had was 30 minutes, which is not too bad. What I found amusing was how “budget” Tiger Airways can be. Let the pictures do the talking.

That’s the toilet at the Baggage Collection area. To me, it looks like a cargo container being modified to a toilet. But the toilet is clean. No worries.

Yes. This is where you collect your baggage. And yes, that’s the normal road. They just build a roof over the “road” and put the baggage carousel. That’s what I called “budget”.

However, I thought the idea is cool. Behind the fence, you can actually see the staff putting your luggage on the carousel. At least you know whether they throw your luggage or handle it with care

Anyway, I will still fly with Tiger if their fare is cheap. At times their fare can be 50-60% cheaper than the remaining budget airlines flying the same destination at the same time. To me, when flying budget airlines, make your expectation as LOW as possible.  In that way, you will somehow feel that your flight can be a pleasant one.

 

Shorter Post

I know it has been ages since I last blogged. Apart from the short weekend escape to Adelaide where you can read it in Flora’s blog HERE and HERE, I’m pretty occupied with final exam preparation (I’m not setting the exam but sitting for the exam), and rushing my PhD conversion/confirmation report.

Thank God, everything’s over; I finished my exam where I dated Lyapunov for almost a week. First draft of the conversion/confirmation report is also done. Waiting for comments from my supervisor.

And yes….off to Gold Coast tomorrow for a week (1 July – 8 July) to get meself afresh before resuming my work. Cheers

 

Another reason why Air Asia rocks (for me)

We all know that Formula 1 merchandise/apparels are expensive in general. For a F1 fan like me, the excitement to get a hand on the team’s T-Shirt is just indescribable. I do have some collections of Minardi, BMW and Jaguar. Some of those shirts, I won from contest and some that I bought, I do have to think it through really a lot before putting hands down to get hold of these shirts, cause it’s just too pricey.

When Air Asia announced its partnership with Williams F1 team, I’m so excited, because I know one day, there would be Williams-AirAsia merchandise on sale. And not only that, it would be at a reasonable price. And I was right

Welcome to Red Megastore Air Asia. (Particularly, AT&T Williams F1 Merchandise)

NOTE: I’m not advertising for Air Asia.

I just want to tell the F1 fans (particularly Williams die-hard fan sinces Mansell, Hill, Villeneuve time), that you can own this Williams F1 shirt for a very reasonable price. Of course, I had got myself the T-Shirt, and the cap and recently the Polo T, which I bought straight away the moment it was out

For the price of RM39-49++ (++ means delivery), I thought these apparels are cheap compared to the one I saw here in Melbourne, Australia. The F1 shirts sold here ranges from AUD 50-90. I just can’t buy it. It’s just way beyond my budget. But with AirAsia, it’s possible now. I should add to their slogan….”Now everybody can own a piece of F1 shirt”

So F1 fans….for the pride of yourself, log on to redmegastore now!

 

Good deal home

Managed to get a very good deal to go home. That would be my first time home after 27 months.

Yes, I’m talking about Air Asia recent MYR 0.00 fare. Praise God, that we managed to secure that fare home for Chinese New Year till after Cap Goh Meh.

So all in all, for the return tickets for both of us cost us AUD 300.00 (approx. MYR 810.00).

 

My mates!

I’m working on developing a simplified mathematical model to describe the behaviour of a river system.  With the model, controller can be designed to adjust the appropriate release of water to the designated user so that water loss can be minimised. That’s the basic idea.

Working with hydraulic system means I get to know some ‘mates’ in this area.

Introducing, Barré de Saint Venant.

The Saint Venant equations best describe the one-dimensional hydraulic flow under certain assumptions.

Next, I present to you, Claude-Louis Navier and George Gabriel Stoke.

C L Navier

G G Stoke

The Navier-Stoke equations, which can describe the three-dimensional hydraulic flow under certain assumptions is credited to them.

These are my mates that I will be working with

 

I see snow…

I was just telling Flora that I hope to see snow as I have never seen one before. I told her that this year Melbourne could have snow in winter considering Victoria had had the hottest summer in its history, the coldest winter in its history may just seem realistic.

And, snow did come to Victoria pretty early this year (now is mid-autumn). Mount Buller, one of the place where Victorians go to enjoy winter sports had snow. In addition, one of the cell group member suggested that we go there for a day trip and I quickly answered yes.

Mount Buller management gave special rate to enjoy winter activities. When I said special rate, it’s really special. Everything inclusive unlimited ski lift and equipments rental for the whole day cost us less than AUD 50 (~RM 135) per person. Initially, our (Flora and I) plan is just to see snow. Since our friend came with the purpose of skiing and snow boarding, we decided, why not. Honestly, we especially me are not prepared for ski at all. I’ve never seen snow needless to say to ski!!! But I did it anyway. Thanks to Jason for short tutorial.

First lesson in skiing is normally to learn how to stop. Well, I sort of did learn to stop quite well…..by falling. I think I fell at least 6 times. Thank God the snow is soft and it didn’t hurt that much as you fall. Being a beginner, I think I’m pretty optimistic to take the ski lift all the way to the top of the hill and tried to ski down. As soon as I disembark from the lift, I skied and fall…..HAHA. To cut the whole story short, at the end of the day, I ski only at gentle slope and walked down hill at steep slope, cause I can’t even stand still at steep slope.

It was an experience. And here’s the pictures…

Ski lift.

Posing

Ready..set..go...not

This is at the bottom of the hill. Took me almost 2 hours to get fall down

The weather is superb.

The village nearby the skiing area I

The village nearby the skiing area II

Skiing area at the back of me….

Snow….

Group photo: From left, me, Flora, Wen Li and Jason