Matfoo’s Weblog

Don’t be fooled by the title. There’s nothing much honeymoon related to the story (maybe a word or two). I thought this story was just so-so. This the latest edition of James Patterson’s novel that I’ve completed.

The story is centered around a beautiful lady, Nora who has her dark secret. Her secrets involved around her husbands. Yes husbands with ’s’. This dark secret somehow interest the FBI. Why would FBI took interest in Nora?

For me, there’s not much suspense from this book. There are some twist and turn but it didn’t blew me away. But the ending was pretty satisfying in a way. At least it clearly tell why and I really mean why the FBI is interested Nora.

Pretty fair entertaining value.

Richmond AOG had their Elevate Night. A night where new and existing creative ministry team (comprises of choir, singers, musician, multimedia etc) gathered to know one another and reinstated the new vision parallel to the church vision for 2008. We were split into different groups according the area you want to serve. I went with the musician groups and was briefed about ways the system runs in Richmond AOG. It’s pretty interesting to see how the musician practices. Nonetheless, I am yet to be scheduled for audition and/so I still wait for my turn.

On Thursday night, coincidentally Chap Goh Meh night too (15th Day of Chinese New Year), Flora and I were invited for dinner to one of my colleague’s place, a research fellow in my research group. She is from Algeria and we had Algeria cuisine! Pretty exciting for both of us as we never really encountered any Algeria food before. We had vegetable salad, cous cous, chicken stew and Algeria pastry with tea. Flora had blogged about it and you can check it out there for more details.

My supervisor came back after a 3 weeks vacation. Spent 2 hours with discussing about what I had done during his absence and some work ahead. It was a pretty fruitful and exciting discussions. Everytime after meeting him, part of me feel like, woohhhh so much things to do, but another part of me I felt really charged up and excited for there’s always something interesting to look into.

The highlight of the meeting was actually when I asked him these two things:

(1) I told him about my certain struggle at this moment due to lack of foundation. He was pretty understanding and he told me that all the work he had given me to do so far is to build up my foundation indirectly. Looking back to what I’d done after he told me that….I was like….hhmmm…..yeah…..I understood more things than the 3-month ago of myself. I began to understand why this was done, why that was done and etc. Honestly, there’s still a mountain to climb for me but at least I’m starting to know a little bit more. I will even work harder.

(2) I asked him about conference matters. He would want me to at least go to one or two conferences to build up my network and know people. I did mention about one good conference in France in 2009 and he agreed that it’s a good conference. So, I have to work real hard within this 4-5 months to have something to be submitted to that conference. What make that conference more relevant to me is that my master degree’s supervisor will be targeting that conference as well. By God’s grace, we all can meet in France in 2009. Pretty excited about that and another reason for me to work harder.

Saturday was the ups-and-downs day I would say. While doing my weekly groceries shopping, I saw an advertisement in KMart displaying, iPod shuffle for AUD 64!!!!! No catch. Really AUD 64 (approximately RM 190). The usual selling price so far is AUD 99 (approximately RM 294). I was really tempted to buy but a living in a tight budget of us, I pass that idea cause my MP3 player still running well. Upon returning home, we forgot to buy something, so we went back to KMart. While putting on my MP3 player, no sound. I was like checking this and that. Still no sound. Man….. don’t tell me it’s spoilt. It was running fine 24 hours ago and the time I saw the iPod shuffle of AUD 64, it stopped working! This whole thing was like telling is a sign to get that iPod shuffle. I was pretty reluctant to be honest. Finally after almost 2 hours of deciding, I went back to KMart to get that iPod shuffle. And this is what my new iPod shuffle looks like.

Yup, it turned out to be a bicycle. When I went back to KMart, the iPod shuffle was sold out!!! The first time I saw it (2 hours ago), there’s still 3 units in the display case. 2 hours later, it was sold out!!! I was pretty disappointed. Oh well, maybe I wasn’t meant to have an iPod after all. As how did it turn into a bicycle? Well, it’s time for me to start cycling to the university (main reason to save on public transportation). KMart has promotion on bicycle and to compensate my disappointment, and in addition to the persuasive KMart salesman, I gave in and bought the bicycle. The original plan was to get it next week but fearing the “targeted” bicycle may sold out next week like the iPod shuffle, I decided to get it first. So, yup……my small iPod shuffle turned into a gigantic bicycle. So, to substitute my soundless MP3 player (there’s only no sound, but I can still use it as a thumbdrive), I resort to my mobile phone. To my surprise, my SE Z610i mobile phone played very nice sound. I’ll make use of that till maybe another iPod shuffle promotion?

Sydney Road (the main road where I stayed) was closed on Sunday to make way for the Sydney Road Street Party. It was a day full of musics and dances from all different cultures almost all over the world. Those who know about Melbourne’s Sydney Road, Brunswick, it is the place where lots of culture gathered in one place. You can find Greeks, SE Asians, Indians, Italians, West Asians etc there. So the street party is the day where these cultures come out in terms of their musics and dances It was a pretty interesting concept, so Flora and I went to check it out. For me, it was interesting in a way at first to see lots of things but on the other hand, it gets pretty dull in a way because at the end of the day it’s just musics and dances. To see more pictures on this, you can check out Flora’s blog when she post it up. As for me, I’ll just post this picture summarising the whole atmosphere of the street party.

Sports wise. Fairuz Fauzy gave Malaysia best results of the season so far in the A1 GP at the street racing circuit of Durban, South Africa. Finishing 9th in Race 1 and 5th in Race 2, Malaysia finally is back to its familiar A1 GP zone. I do really hope this form will continue to the end of the season. With not many races to go A1 Team Malaysia has to salvage as many points possible to at least restore part of the pride of the nation where were once feared in the previous two seasons. I thought Fairuz is now on top of his form. The strike seems to start since his pole position in World Series of Renault back in 2007. And not to forget his recent win the GP2 Asia series. Keep it up for the pride of the nation!

Badminton wise, Malaysia won the Thomas Cup preliminary matches after beating South Korea 3-2 in the final. Malaysia lost all the doubles but fortunately won all the singles that deliver the winning point. The lost includes KK Koo and BH Tan. I began to felt that this pair is really unpredictable and vulnerable. Crossing my fingers now for them.

Liverpool beat Inter Milan 2-0 in champions league. The goals came in the last 5 minutes with superb strike from Kuyt and Gerrard. Liverpool dominated the game but couldn’t score much earlier as Inter played so defensive after Materazzi was sent off only 30 minutes of play. Anyway, the final score counts.

Was on our way to do some “marketing” in the tram when I saw this. The tram was moving fast that I thought I’d miss this shot. Fortunately, there’s a passenger wanted to stop at the next stop. Without much delay, I quickly took out my SE Z610i to snap this interesting scene. Is it a bear? Is it a bus? No….it’s super dad! (This may sound so lame but whatever….)

Pushing one of his kid in the buggy, another one standing on the buggy and another one on his shoulder. This is the real deal of super dad!

There are several ‘first’ in this week. First ‘first’ was I went to Richmond AOG’s worship team this week. Despite mentioning this 2 weeks back, I only went last Tuesday for that night suppose to be the “Encounter Night” session where new comers are invited. However, due to last minute changes, the “Encounter Night” session was postponed to the following week. So, I didn’t have a chance to be auditioned. And no worship team practice that night. Only singers practice with backup choirs. I stayed on and learned a new song. It was a nice and awesome environment. Will blog more when my audition comes.

The second ‘first’ was we went to the cell group for the first time. The connect group (in Richmond AOG, cell group are called connect group) resume their meeting after a long summer break. It was a time of prayer and thanksgiving for the 2007 and new vision for 2008. We prayed for the leaders of the connect group that they can implant the church vision through the connect group. It was refreshing time before the Lord in time of prayer and thanksgiving and “fei-louship” after the meeting as one of the member brought nice dessert that we enjoyed after the connect group.

The third ‘first’ was Flora has started her casual job. I won’t elaborate further here as I will leave it to her to blog about it. Praise God for this job as it was quite relaxing and she only need to work 2-3 days a week. That’s what she wanted – a not too committed job.

Last ‘first’ which doesn’t involved both of us is the first win for Fairuz Fauzy in GP2 Asia series. I thought Fairuz has really really up himself in motoracing since joining World Series of Renault in 2007. He had shown that his superb form towards the end of the World Series of Renault in 2007 was no “one-time” thing with 4 successive points finished in the 4 races of GP2 Asia so far with one podium and one win! Well done! He does make Malaysia proud. As GP2 Asia goes to Malaysia for race 5 and 6. I do hope he can shine in Sepang.

Personally, I thought the standalone book James Patterson wrote was pretty interesting and entertaining. The first of his many standalone book that I read was Cradle and All and it was superb.

I’ve just finished reading Beach Road. I highly recommend it. At first glance, the story is just about lawyer defending his client and yada yada yada.

Why Beach Road as the title? Well, the whole story happened at the beach-road neighborhood. What could happened at such a scenic neighborhood?

What’s interesting about this book are twofolds. Firstly, the story is told by sort of narration style from several key person point of view. It’s sort of like the TV-series Boomtown style. Secondly, the story was built up very nicely with a very very bang ending. I was eager to finish the story to find out what would happened to the defendant but instead I’m served with something even more at the end of the book. To find out, I strongly suggest and recommend you have a read of this book.

Is Chinese New Year week! There’s no holiday in Australia. Even the celebration in Chinatown is not on the actual day itself but on the weekend i.e. 9-10 Feb 08. I supposed it was to accommodate those working people during the weekdays.

On the Chinese New Year eve, we celebrated over a very simple dinner. We invited a friend over since we have not many friends yet. So, we had mix vegetable, chicken curry, sweet sour fish and jelly and fruits for dessert. Upon nearing bedtime, we called back home for the night is still very young back in Malaysia.

On Chinese New Year itself, I still go to the university. In fact lots of work to do. So, didn’t actually feel the effect of the Chinese New Year till my friend SW Jong IM me. He reminded me of the Chinese New Year food back at home. But it was just for a slight moment for when reality sips in, I still have lots of work to do.

The highlight of the week was the Chinese New Year celebration with the cell group. We met at one of the cell group member’s house at Box Hill. It was a pot bless. We had Yee Sang, roast chicken, steam fish, chicken-mushroom soup, prawn, steam tofu, mix of something I also don’t know what it is, black sesame starch dessert and cheese cake.

After that we played games called Cranium. Pretty Australian version so, is kinda hard for me and Flora to play at times but it was fun. The fun was a bit too much that around 10pm, an angry neighbor came over to knock on the door asking us to be quiet for she has a baby who couldn’t sleep. We apologized and continue at a very much lower decibel range.

On Sunday, Chinatown is the center for every Melbournian as the main celebration begins to take place. There’s lion dance, firecracker, performances and so on. To me, it was nothing really spectacular. Just a very very busy and congested Chinatown with lots of activities.

The greatest highlight of the week was Manchester City beat Manchester United 2-1 at Old Trafford! The second time in this EPL season. The first time where United lost 0-1 was at City of Manchester Stadium at the beginning of the season. This sort of handed the run for the title back to Arsenal.

Finally I finished reading another James Patterson’s book. This time is his Women’s Murder Club (WMC) series book. In fact this WMC has been made into TV series and showing in the US now.

6th Target indicated this is the 6th WMC book by James Patterson. In fact the way James Patterson named this WMC series is quite interesting. He started with 1st To Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree, 4th of July, 5th Horsemen and 6th Target. In this book, 3 cases were written i.e. (which I termed) The Ferry Killing Spree, The Child-Nanny Kidnap and The Noise Sensitive Killer.

While I was reading, I was wondering why this book is called 6th Target. Readers will realised why at the end of the book. For me, the story line wise is quite standard for any crime stories. The only thing kept me reading is to find out the reason why all those murders/crimes are committed.

Met quite a lot of new friends this week. On Friday, we met a couple from Malaysia also just arrived in Melbourne sometime in November. They are new here, we are new here too, so we met up over dinner and have some time chit chatting.

On Sunday, a group of young adults approached us in church and wow, they are so friendly and I can feel the warmth talking to them and knowing them. It was a fantastic moment starting to meet people possibly joining their cell group to build up friendship. Through the conversation with these group of young adults, I got to know that one of them know my ex-colleagues from MMU! What a small world. Notice the ’s’ in the colleague. Yup, not one but two of them.

Richmond AOG is having “recruitment” to those who want to serve in various ministry. Flora is keen with the Kids Alive ministry while I am keen on the music ministry. While talking to the person in charge of the music ministry, it seems the music team is short of bass guitar player. I was invited to come for an audition on Tuesday. Oh boy. That’s pretty fast for I was just asking and looking around.

We had lunch at a Shanghai-style restaurant after church with one of the cell group. This cell group comprises of mostly medical background people. There are doctors, nurses, pharmacist…..you get the picture. They invited us over Chinese New Year dinner on Saturday. So looking forward to this gathering. As CNY is not a “big” thing here, that’s why the gathering is on Saturday rather than on the day (Thursday) itself.

Australia hosted the 6th round of A1GP. With Fairuz Fauzy taking over the driving role from Alex Yoong (who injured himself in the racing incident in New Zealand). With Fairuz strong performance in World Series by Renault and securing podium in the recent GP2 Asia series, I was expecting this good momentum will spring Team Malaysia back into points contention. Sadly, it wasn’t so . Another weekend to forget as the team will be now looking towards the race in Durban, South Africa. With a street circuit, I do really hope things will get better from there.

After so much of reading throughout the past few weeks. I hit the lowest energy point of my life in Melbourne. I was completely drained. Although I had plans laid ahead for the weekend on what to achieve, I was completely tired and I only completed one task out of the four tasks I had planned. Partly LaTeX took the whole of my Saturday and partly, I was really really tired. I slept throughout the whole Sunday after church and that’s how I ended my week with…..full of ZZZZZZ

Got this tag line from the famous/infamous reality show, So You Think You Can Dance? Recalling back to my primary, secondary and undergraduate time, math has always been my favorite subject. In primary school, we raced each other to finish the problems and rush to the submit it to our teacher. In secondary school, we threw math problems from any reference books we can find at each other as a challenge to one another. In college and university, we discussed math’s assignment problems like a conference. This is just to illustrate how much I like math at those time.

So, how much is my fondness towards math today?

Just recently I stumbled across this article by a famous professor of mathematics in USA. One particular statement he said, which I quote,

“Math is hard. The idea that somehow we’re going to make math just fun is just a dream.”
- Dennis DeTurck, an award-winning professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania

and I totally agree with that.

With so much research materials that I read involving complex math, I’m starting to see the other side of math. Math is hard. Really hard. In fact, I’m starting to get @_@ of math. And now I realised too that a simple matrix calculation which look so innocently simple in high school turned out to be one of the most powerful math tools mathematician ever created and one of the most complex thing to deal with.

So you think you can math? Not so for me yet…..