Matfoo’s Weblog

Finally Malaysian can choose their mobile operator of choice at the same time retain their number.

This is a good news as everytime one want to switch operator in Malaysia say from Digi to Maxis to Celcom, you have to inform the whole world (in your phonebook) that you switch your number. That is still alright. The main hassle is to call up more important bodies (e.g. banks) to update your contact details.

Kudos to the mobile operators in Malaysia for making these possible.

Dialog 1

“You are doing PhD in XXX-field? Why are you doing your degree in that XXX-field? It is lesser value than PhD in Engineering.”

Dialog 2

“I want to register my PhD in Engineering. No class-lah if I register my PhD in XXX-field.”

Yup, those are the conversation I engaged with/heard of my friends recently.

Does PhD in Engineering has higher value compared to PhD in XXX-field? How do you justify this “VALUE”?

I think this comparison is based on the mentality of “If you are studying this kind of degree, then you are “classier (if there’s such word and if I may use it here in context)” else you are “not so classier“. I was pretty baffled after hearing this kind of remarks. To me, this remark suggested that one is comparing an apple with an orange.

So what if a person registered oneself into PhD in Economics or in Finance or in Bioscience or in IT etc. Does that mean that person’s PhD is lesser value or lesser ‘class’ compared to PhD in Engineering? Does it really matter? My two cents…

Updates on MMU FOE Dean.

MMU FOE has a new acting dean. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yow Ho Kwang has been appointed as the acting dean for FOE. Here are the list of MMU FOE Deans.

This is the news that I have been waiting for.

Thank you Datuk Tony Fernandez for making this possible.

After Gold Coast and then Perth, now it’s Melbourne! Woohooo! This is also good news too as it was announced that Jetstar will stop Melbourne-Kuala Lumpur route starting 01 September 2008. I am left wondering are these two events correlated? Regardless…. this is indeed a very good news for me.

Not only I can afford to go back at the same times our parents can afford to come and visit us. Praise the Lord.

The Bible says,

“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. – Heb 10:25″

Based on that verse, three leaders named of Charles, Samuel and Ik Tse decided to start a meeting in a small group basis every Wednesday at 7pm. There were about 10 of us at that time i.e. Charles, Samuel, Ik Tse, Duncan, Tony, Lee Eng, King Hong, Flora and myself (sorry if I miss out anyone, as my recollection of memory is rather limited). The year was 1999 in MMU Cyberjaya campus, the birth of MMU CCF. We were all from Chinese speaking churches background and hence, termed CCF. (There’s also Chrisitian Fellowship, (CF) running that time but comprised mainly English speaking students).

It has been almost 10 years since CCF first started. Today CCF has grown so much and becomes a great blessing to the students in MMU Cyberjaya particular those come from Chinese speaking background. Recently, I was browsing through their website – (MMU CCF) and I was very touched by God’s love and His blessings. Only through God’s blessing and love that the CCFers had grown so much in terms of their activities to reach out.

This picture, taken from their most recent activity entitled Love Music Cafe which shows how much God blesses CCF.

MMU CCF today [2008]

In conjunction of MMU Christian Society recently being recognised as an official club/society in MMU, more exciting and challenging thing will soon to come for the CCFers. God has opened the road and it’s the time to cease this opportunity to share God’s love.

Thank you for all those who were part of the CCF leadership team since 1999 till present. Thank you for all the MMU lecturers-advisors and Campus Crusade staffs who continuously support and guided the CCF. And MOST importantly, thank you Lord for His blessing upon the CCF. May He continues to use CCF to reach out to those Chinese speaking students. All glory be unto Him.

After 11 years of prayer and seeking for God’s best timing, finally, MMU Christian Society is recognised officially in the list of clubs in MMU. Praise the Lord for this wonderful news. To celebrate, here I include their first (I think is the first) official bulletin.

Glory be unto Him. Thank you Abba Father!

It was a hectic night for me. In order to search for live streaming on the internet so that I can watch Lee Chong Wei play Lin Dan in the Olympic Badminton final, I stumble an unsafe site which infected my laptop with some tracker/worm. This happened 2 hours before the game. Despite all the effort to rescue it, I fail and resorted to recovery using the recovery disc. The good news is everything is restored to normal. The bad news are it took almost the whole night to reinstall and recover everything and I took a double blow seeing the internet live score to see Lee Chong Wei lost quite badly to Lin Dan

From the internet live score, (pity us man…. have to resort to internet live score) I can sense the shakiness of Chong Wei and he made a lot of error and not himself when playing Lin Dan. This (Chong Wei not himself) was confirmed by our reporters from home (mom, sis-in-law, Flora’s colleague) using chat and phone.

On the positive note, Malaysia got a silver medal and I must say Chong Wei did a fantastic job to get to the final. To add to the positive note, a friend put a status on his chat – “It’s ok, Singapore Ping Pong also didn’t win Gold” (no offense to Singaporean) was another added consolation.

So my laptop? After going through all the process of restoration, I was expecting a good news from Lee Chong Wei to console all the troubles I have to go through but didn’t get one.

The moral of the story. Internet live score rocks!

My sister had her convocation on 11 Aug 2008. Congratulation to her. I am very happy and proud of her. After all the toils and hard works, this moment is all worth it. Can see the happiness in my parents face. It’s so unfortunate that I can’t be there as well to celebrate.

Proud moment for dad and mom! Congrats sis!

This is the second posting of the transfer from Fotopages to WordPress. This time is about our Scuba Diving Lesson. We did our dive in Pulau Dayang. Not many people know where is Pulau Dayang. So, we often have to say it’s near Pulau Tioman. I think only those who loves fishing and scuba dives would know where is Pulau Dayang. Before this trip, we also didn’t know where is Pulau Dayang.

Even Google map do not have Pulau Dayang shown. But because the opposite island is Pulau Aur, hence, I suppose the arrow I’ve made is Pulau Dayang. Of course, I included Pulau Tioman as well as reference of where is Pulau Dayang.

From the map, you can say, Pulau Dayang is South East of Pulau Tioman.

We departed from Mersing jetty and here’s our “journal”:

“It was an exciting, wonderful, adventurous, memorable and superb 5 days 5 nights diving trip to Pulau Dayang.

17th April:
12.30noon: Departed from Pudu Bus Station to Mersing. Reached there around 5.30pm. Butt nearly flat. took early dinner.

7pm: Departed Mersing port to Pulau Dayang. Took 5 hours just to reach the island ok? Felt so extremely excited for the first 2 hours. The next consequtive hours… we nearly died… kept on whining whether we’re reaching already or not. Felt a little sea sick already!!

11.30pm: Reach Pulau Dayang. Looked ok cause at night can’t see much mah. Quickly took shower and straight to bed.

18th April:
3 dives today. Actually nearly regretted we came for the diving trip, cause the oxigen tank was super heavy man! The first Giant Stride we took into the sea… that was something. Like jumping off a building (chinese say tiao lou) but this one is jump sea (tiao hai).

19th – 21st April:
The dives was just superb, great, wonderful..etc… Cannot describe the great experience that we had. God’s creation is just so wonderful. Saw lots of fishes, turtles, nemos, dorys, baracuda, school of baracudas, bumhead parrot fish, parrot fishes, giant sea cucumbers.. alot lah. Just beautiful. Oh yeah.. did one night dive, that was pretty scary

Overall, really was a great experience.

And here are some of the snapshot of Pulau Dayang. As you can see, the beach is still very nice and untouched. Hopefully it is still like that now.

This is from Mersing Jetty about to depart for Pulau Dayang

Look at the beach and the water. Fantastic! We must preserve this wonderful creation of God.

Ready to dive!

Sunrise in Pulau Dayang

Pulau Aur, just opposite Pulau Dayang (refer back to the map on top)

Scuba Class of 2005 with the instructors

NOTE: For those who have seen these pictures from Fotopages, just bear with me again

I decided to import all those pictures and activities that Flora and I posted in Fotopages to WordPress. Main reason is simply for easier management. Instead of updating on two sites, might as well do it in one site. This post may be “old” but as I said, it’s basically a transfer from Fotopages to WordPress.

I’ll start with my first ever European trip to a little town north of Italy called Como in 2004 for my first international conference. If you look at the map of Italy (taken from Google Map), it is indicated by the letter “A”. It’s very near to Switzerland.

If Como sounds familiar to you, recall the movie Ocean 12, one of the scene was shot in Como.

So, me, being first time travelling to Europe, ALONE, I was pretty nervous. In fact, I was very nervous. I didn’t spend much time exploring around. The main reason is that I have to rush back home for our wedding! Ironic right? This could be our honeymoon trip but the timing was bad. This conference is 2 weeks before our wedding so can’t make it our honeymoon. Secondly and 3rdly, 4thly….reason are not as important to mention any further. To cut the story short, I spent 5 days in Como with 2 days in airport. Basically, I was there for 3 days only.

In short, Como is a very nice and scenic town. So, I won’t describe much further but to use picture to do the talking. And if you want more details about my experience (4 years ago), you can click on this link here. I’ve converted my “naive” experience in church article and you can read the details there if you are interested.

The signs of hotel in Como with their stars rating.

Albergo Posta, the hotel I’m staying. A 2-star hotel and cost EUR 80 per night. One thing about hotels in Europe, those 1 to 3-star hotel are actually very clean and comfortable to stay. So, don’t be tooooo concern about the rating.

Snapshot of Como

I managed to visit another nearby town called Menaggio. To get there, you have to take their ferry service.

Snapshot of Menaggio

And the visit to Italy is not very complete without trying their Pizza and Pasta. Had those for two dinners and each cost EUR 6.

Traditional Italian Pizza

Italian Pasta