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……

 

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

 

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

 

Consultant

We encounter lots of “consultants” in our daily lives.

For examples, Business Consultant, Engineering Consultant, Medical Consultant, Academic Consultant etc.

Had a chat with someone recently and found out that the word “consultant” is pretty amusing in some sense.

Here’s how he defined CONSULTANT……. They CON and inSULT you blaTANTly……

How convenient…..

 

Immaturity?

I came across a blog about someone who had just obtained the STPM’s (equivalent to A-Level) result and deciding on which course to pursue for undergraduate.

This blogger blogged about all sorts of “interesting” courses name such as…

This blogger was giving his two cents in regards to the name of the courses above. For him who is not in the academic line, I totally understand his “lamentation” as stated in the blog.

What strikes me the most was the comments commented to this post. Here are the comments… (PARDON THE LANGUAGE)

For these (I presumed) students (i.e. Chindiana & pilocarpine), Bachelor of Technology with Education (Home Skills) is about milking goat and making cheese. Two thoughts came to my mind upon reading that comments. (1) They are making fun of such a noble job which is totally rude and (2) They are really immature.

Thanks to the “Anonymous” who tried to clarify things.

But then came Chicken saying studying that course for 4 years is a waste of time and he got an “A” in Home Skills subject. What Chicken may forget is that his/hers teacher that taught him/her Home Skills spent that 4 years studying that course so that he/she can get “A” in the subjects. Does getting “A” in Home Skills mean that you are already an expert? Grow up! Learning is a process that never ends. It only ends when you stop learning.

It’s sad to see these thoughts from these younger generations. And this is my piece of lamentation….

NOTE: I applaud this blogger for considering doing Bachelor of Education for we do need good teachers to teach the young Malaysians.

 

White board mania

Never knew that scribbling equations and ideas on white board can be that fun and addictive. Now I understand why every researchers have a white board in their room.

Here’s a picture of my scribble on the white board (or wall to be exact) in my office, of which the work I’m working on.

Now I am tempted to get myself a white board so that I can do my scribbling at home……

 

Victoria’s tragic day

As Melbourne and the rest of the Victoria embraces the record high temperature of (47-48C), tragic things had happened.

BUSHFIRE. It claims 100++ lives and thousands homeless. They literally left with what they wear.

I don’t know what to say but let these links tell the story.

BUSHFIRE PICTURES

 

It’s hamper time

Christmas is coming. As usual during this time, churches will have lots of activities planned out to tell the world the birth of Christ and spread the God’s around.

This is the first time both Flora and I will be celebrating Christmas with Richmond AOG church. One particular interesting thing practiced in Richmond AOG church which is new to me is the Christmas Hamper. Richmond AOG has the tradition to give these hampers to the Richmond community. That means, 1-2 weeks before Christmas, the church will gathered all the hampers and distribute it door-to-door around the designated neighbourhood near Richmond suburb.

Back from the churches that I came from (both in Kuching and Subang Jaya), the church normally take cares of the hamper. Certain groups of people will be taking charge of the hamper. In Richmond AOG church however, they let everyone participate in the packing of the Christmas hamper. The church provides the empty hamper boxes to all of us to fill it up and returned to the church by certain dates. In other words, it is like you personally packed that hamper to be given away. So, it’s more on the personal level.

The best thing is that you can even invite your friends and colleague to participate along. So, it can be like the whole office/college/groups packed the hamper to given away to the Richmond community.

Our cell group leader decided to do it on the cell group level. We took 25 empty hamper boxes and it’s shopping time. We (around 15 of us) did the whole thing on Saturday and finished everything in less than an hour. Here are some of the pictures of the hamper we had packed. Yes… the box looks like KFC box. That’s what our Senior Pastor said when he first saw it.

Non-tangible items preferred

Christmas At Richmond

All the 25 boxes of hamper

 

An Exam In The Museum

Had my exam in the Royal Exhibition Hall beside the Melbourne Museum. This is something new to me as going to a place which is not in the university for a university examination. The exam hall is about 10-15 minutes walk from the university.

The ‘cool’ feeling in me turned to confusion. The crowds were huge. Students ranging from undergraduate to postgraduate all in the same hall having examinations. I applaud the excellent crowd control by the invigilators but I was quite disappointed with the PA system used for the announcement outside the hall. If I’m not mistaken, there were only 4 speakers (quite old one) used to project the voice of an invigilator against 1000s of student. Sigh….I can’t hear a thing Ok, enough of describing the outside. Let the pictures do the talking.

Crowd of students waiting outside the hall.

Check out the speakers on the right of the picture. Imagine that’s the speakers used to talk to the thousands around. How can we hear what’s been said?

Moving inside the hall, I thought the whole 3 hours of examination is filled with activities. One can’t really control the urge to answer nature’s call so every 15-20 minutes, you’ll hear footsteps of students (including myself at the second hour of the exam) going to the loo. Again, the PA system for announcement, sigh….. The hall is so big and one would expect a terrible echo. Yup, I can’t hear a word the chief invigilator saying thanks to the echo. Anyway, it’s an experience to share with you all.

Seatings everywhere

NOTE: All the pictures were taken BEFORE the exam begin. The mobile was later SURRENDERED to the invigilator before the exam begin.

 

Prof. Ghauth now UM Vice Chancellor

This may be an old old news but since I just got to know it, I’ll post it here.

Prof. Ghauth is now the Vice Chancellor of University Malaya (UM). I am happy for him. Being my former university President and also my former boss, I can say I that I am proud of his achievement.

I like his quote in TheStar interview recently,

“I can’t wait to start work to get UM back into the top class again, – Prof. Ghauth Jasmon”

That quote sums up everything I’ve been holding on to. I know politics or whatever connection may be involved but I don’t care. I know I’m being naive or you can call me one, but I don’t care.

The most important thing is to create a good and healthy competition in Malaysian education with one aim, i.e., to place Malaysia a competitive competitor in the world of academic and research. This journey is still far but with this new leadership, I hope we are getting there…soon.

Congratulation, Prof. Ghauth.