Matfoo’s Weblog

Shapes. Another product from Arnotts.

Coles and Safeway from time to time will have promotion for Shapes such as 2 box for AUD 4, 1 box for AUD 1.50 etc. Whenever that happens, the craze for Shapes will hit both us.

The Tomato & Chilli (bottom left) is one of my favorite. But anything with cheddar cheese is also nice. For Flora, she still stick to BBQ (top left) after trying out so many different flavors. What’s your favorite flavor?

After so many incident, I thought I can’t keep quiet and decided to post something about this. I’m still “virtually” back home. It can be very tiring and frustrating dealing with all these kind of unnecessary things which is a waste of time and money.

Incident 1

I was notified that I was given a teaching workload back at MMU after I had gone for my study leave for almost 3-4 months.

Incident 2

Again, after a notification from a friend, I had to invigilate for final exam.

The worst was incident 3. I have graduated from my master degree since 2004. And this is what I got.

Incident 3

Come on. Please give me a break. PPPPlleeaasseee!!!!

It’s almost the 30 hours mark. I have yet to sleep for 30 hours straight. I had my hardest exam paper in my life. A 24 hours take home exam. It’s very very tough.

After submission, honestly, I don’t know whether can I pass. Now my future is really in God’s Mighty Hand. Thanks for those who had prayed for me. Sorry if my best wasn’t good enough.

Going to sleep now. Extremely tired.

ZZZZZ……………..

In the midst of making a decision to buy a bass guitar. This is because the church’s bass guitar is currently “sick” and yet to be medicated. Last week, thanks to Rohan that he lent me his bass guitar that I can use during the worship service.

This led me to think to get myself a bass guitar. After browsing through the websites of available music shop in Melbourne and strike out those bass guitar beyond my budget, I’m left with the only option.

Ashton Bass Guitar Starter Pack cost about AUD 260 (approx RM 820) (Promotion Over ) Now: AUD 320 (approx RM 1000)

Honestly, I don’t know much about the brand of a bass guitar. After “googling” for the review, it’s not that bad. The only question I’m battling with whether to buy or not to buy. Hhmmmm……..

What say you all?

We went to the Melbourne Museum (see Flora’s post here) and it was fantastic. It’s worth the visit. For students, its’ FREE. All you need to do is just to show your student card.

In the museum, there’s one section about Melbourne. The history of Melbourne from 1800s till today. I never knew that I have developed strong interest in history. One particular corner caught my great attention was the Coat of Arms of Australia. While reading the descriptions and studying the designs of the Coat of Arms, I began to appreciate the meaning of all the symbolic natures placed on the Coat of Arms. Nothing occurred to me TILL I got home eating my dinner and then “DING! DING! DING!” Something struck me. There’s something familiar about the Australian Coat of Arms and then I realised that the symbolic natures are almost 95% similar to Malaysian Coat of Arms! Let me first show you both the Coat of Arms here.

Australian Coat of Arms

The Australian Coat of Arms is supported by two Australian animals (Kangaroo & Emu). At the top of the shield, there’s a 7-pointed stars representing the 6 states and 1 unit of 2 territories. The shield have 6 different designs representing the 6 states of Australia (Top left to right: New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Bottom left to right: South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania). The plant you see (Golden Wattle) is the national floral of Australia.

Now let us look at the Malaysian Coat of Arms.

Malaysian Coat of Arms

The Malaysian Coat of Arms is supported by two Malaysian animals (Tigers). At the top of the shield, there’s a 14-pointed stars representing the 13 states and 1 unit of 3 territories. The shield have something that represents the 13 states of Malaysia. Top 5 Keris: The Non-federated States of Kedah, Perlis, Johor, Kelantan and Terengganu. Middle 4 colors: The Federated States of Selangor, Perak, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan. Side two designs with plant: The Straits states of Penang (left) and Malacca (right). Bottom: The states of East Malaysia: Sabah (left) and Sarawak (right). The flower you see (Hibiscus) is the national flower of Malaysia.

How interesting….. (Add to my another reason to add to my post on why you found a lot of Malaysian in Australia)

Guess what’s shown in the picture below.

What is the first thing that come to your mind?

Yup. That’s a pager. Why am I holding a pager? This is the most “canggih” system I’ve encountered in my life visiting a pharmacy! Yes, a PHARMACY.

I was informed that Chemist Warehouse (a name of a pharmacy) in Australia offer the cheapest prescribed medicine. Hence, I decided to pay them a visit to get my prescribed medicine restocked. When I gave my prescription script to the pharmacist, he gave me a pager. I was wondering why they gave me a pager for. They told me that once the medicine is ready, they will “page” me. The pharmacy was quite big (by a pharmacy standard and if my perception of size is correct, the pharmacy is about the size of THREE badminton courts). So, by handling me a pager does make sense.

Being a “Sua-Ku” (Hokkien:I think the closest translated meaning would be Not Much Exposure) that never use a pager before, I was wondering what would happened to the pager once the medicine is ready. After 5-7 minutes of waiting, the pager “BEEPS” and vibrate. It surprised me for a while. In my heart was like, “Canggih-nya” (Malay: That’s very sophisticated)!

The final two assignments that were handed to us were really really tough (at least for me). It was like staring at the questions, flipping through notes and reference books BUT the mind is still blank. REALLY REALLY BLANK! Just in case you are interested what assignments was I required to solve. Well…, I have solve questions involving H2 Spaces, Riccati Equations, KYP Lemma, Youla Parametrisation and H2 Optimal Control. I enjoyed Control 101 in undergraduate but those “jargons” above was way way beyond me.

I literally broke down due to pressure. Even now as I am writing this, I can still relive the memory of my “break down” few days ago. Sorry for those who often see me online but disappear for almost a week. I was really busy trying to understand on how to solve those problems.

After the break down, I had cell group. Thanks for the prayer from the cell group members. I was slowly patched back together. Through prayers, God sent different people that can understand those stuff to teach me and guide me. He also sent ideas generated during group discussion among course mates. The subject lecturer is helpful though the questions he set were (are still) tough.

At this moment, I’d managed to understand 80-85% of the whole assignments. My happiest moment (at least for myself) is able to understand the concept of optimal control. I want to thank you for all those who had prayed for me and helped me. God is awesome!

I managed to start my book reading during lunch hour. And just recently, I finished reading another James Patterson’s book – Step On A Crack.

The story was about a high profile hostage holding of VIPs in a high profile function. The story began with what seems to be an accident-murder of a VVIP and eventually led to the situation mentioned above. The “gang” demanded certain ransom for the release of the hostages but the way the gang worked puzzled everyone including a detective-negotiator, the main hero of the story.

What was nice for me about this book was that the character of the this detective. Not only he battled with this crazy gang but also he had a dying wife due to cancer and with almost a dozen of him little adopted children (the eldest being 12, if I’m not mistaken) to take care. It’s a heart warming and touching scenarios that this detective chose not to lose himself in front of his children and keep it holding till the end. I was full of emotion when reading the part where the wife was about to die and how he and the children react to that fact.

For me, although there’s curiosity of knowing why the gang did all these, I was actually more interested to know more about the detective’s family after the passing of his wife. The children portrayed in the story took care of each other and were very very obedient to their parents. Eventually for me, the crime story became the secondary issue while reading this book.

Not much a suspense in this book. The plot was pretty “standard” with not much of twist. But the heart warming story in the detective’s family was a good one to give this book a try.

Four months after the audition as a bassist in the church, I’ve finally made my debut on this week’s church service.  God is awesome.  The team was fantastic. They are very encouraging and each of them commended each others great job. And all glory be unto Him.

The practice was on Tuesday night. Oh boy, it was a nervous practice for me. First of all, I didn’t know the songs. Secondly, there’s no music scores/sheets/charts for the songs they are singing! I really have to thank the keyboardist for guiding me all the way throughout practice as she changed her chords on the keyboard so that I can follow closely. Not only that, she will show me what chords to play next on the keyboard so that I can follow as closely as possible. I thought I did alright for the two slower songs but for the faster songs, I did have difficulty remembering the chords/keys.

On Saturday, the first service, thanks to the group team leader that he managed to prepare all the music charts for the songs at least I can refer to when playing during the service. The team was really professional. The main focus is God and they all complemented each other very very well. Praise the Lord. One thing that matter is singing praises and worship to God and Him alone. I was very encouraged and blessed by the worship even though I’m playing. The atmosphere was amazing with God’s presence in the sanctuary.

On Sunday, the second service, with the choir joining in, the whole praise and worship atmosphere was amazing. The senior pastor felt God presence while singing the last song and made an invitation to those who want to come forward to feel His presence and be ministered too.

As for me, I had some shaky start on both services but the team were really good to cover it up. It’s an exciting experience serving Him. Thank you guys for all the help and encouragement. You all are fantastic. All glory be unto Him.

After didn’t play bass for almost 6 months, I brought back home some price from playing. BLISTERS!!! On my fingers. Hahaha…. But it’s all worth it when God is the one your are serving.