Avian Flu

Saw a dead crow lying "peacefully" on the grassy area beside the pavement while I was walking to school today.

The fact that it is "RIP-ing" beside a tree makes me wonder how it died:

1. It was a mata sepet crow; it flew and crashed into the tree trunk head on and landed beneath the tree for a few days suffering from a concussion. Eventually it died as the ambulance failed to reach in time. So sad.
2. It was having a wild time on one of the branches with its mate one night and suddenly had a stroke or heart attack and plunged. Seconds before it hit the ground, the entire story of its lewd life flashed by in it head...and piaak, reach ground floor.

Whichever it is, please don't let it be bird flu...

般若波罗蜜多心经

观自在菩萨。行深般若波罗蜜多时。照见五蕴皆空。度一切苦厄。
舍利子。
色不异空。空不异色。色即是空。空即是色。受想行识。亦复如是。
舍利子。是诸法空相。不生不灭。不垢不净。不增不减。
是故空中无色。无受想行识。无眼耳鼻舌身意。无色声香味触法。无眼界。乃至无意识界。无无明。亦无无明尽。乃至无老死。亦无老死尽。无苦集灭道。无智亦无得。
以无所得故。菩提萨埵。依般若波罗蜜多故。心无挂碍。无挂碍故。无有恐怖。远离颠倒梦想。究竟涅槃。
三世诸佛。依般若波罗蜜多故。得阿耨多罗三藐三菩提。故知般若波罗蜜多。是大神咒。是大明咒。是无上咒。是无等等咒。能除一切苦。真实不虚。
故说般若波罗蜜多咒。即说咒曰。
揭谛　揭谛　波罗揭谛　波罗僧揭谛　菩提萨婆诃。

准提咒

准提咒

稽首皈依苏悉帝，头面顶礼七俱胝

我今称赞大准提，唯愿慈悲垂加护

南无飒哆喃。三藐三菩陀。

nā mó sà duō nán，sān miǎo sān pú tuó,　　

俱胝喃。怛侄他。

jù zhī nán, dá zhí tuō,　　

唵。折戾主戾。准提娑婆诃。

ǎn, zhé lì zhǔ lì, zhǔn tí suō pó hē.

愿以此功德，普及于一切。众生与我等， 皆共成佛道。

Just Had My English Test

Ahhh...........here I am, sitting in front of the PC with a cup of crysanthemum tea. Yes, I am drinking the crysanthemum that you prepared for me in Penang, my dear. It's so amazing that how well you could take care of me even when we are apart. Thank you so much and I appreciate it :)

Just had my English test in the Engineering Auditorium from 10am - 11.30am. Think I did okay and so now I am quite relax.

Yesterday, I actually got an A for my data commentary assignment and the teacher actually requested for the softcopy so that she can share it with the other classes. I am proud! And so, for those who pass the test with flying colours today, you guys owe me breakfast, morning tea, lunch, noon tea, dinner, supper and late night supper :p

Ok, here's the piece on quality of leisure life of international graduate students at NUS:

The purpose of the survey is to investigate the quality of leisure life of international graduate students at the National University of Singapore and to determine if the quality of leisure life improves with their length of stay.

Table 1 shows the amount of time international postgraduates spend on leisure per week. As can be seen, the graduate students who have been studying at NUS for at least a year have more leisure time on average than graduate students who have been studying for less than a year. This is the case as fresh international students may require some time to adapt to the new environment and education system. As a result, they tend to focus more on their academic developments and spend less time on leisure. Nevertheless, it is important to note that none from the two groups would spend more than 15 hours on leisure per week.

Table 2 shows the popular leisure activities international postgraduates take part in currently.
One salient trend from the survey shows that regardless of the length of stay, netsurfing appears to be the most popular leisure activity with more than 80% of participation from both groups. As can be seen from Table 2, there are 6 times more graduates who stay for at least a year who attend social activities as compared to the meager 5% of fresh graduates. This is probably because the fresh graduates from different countries would need some time to get acquainted with people and make new friends whereas the senior students have already established stable relationships with a larger social circle.

Table 3 shows the satisfaction of the international graduates with their leisure life while studying in NUS. Overall, there has been a significant difference in satisfaction between both groups of students. Only one out of nine fresh graduates is satisfied with the amount of leisure time. Relatively, all of them are not happy with the range of leisure activities available. The reason for this could be that some activities are not available to them because of the problem of affordability such as buying a TV and going to the movies. In addition, the lack of spare time further lowers the quality of their leisure for certain activities such as swimming and watching TV. On the other hand, every one out of two senior graduates is contented with the amount of leisure time and nearly half of them are pleased with the range of activities. These are strong indicators that the quality of leisure life for international graduate students at NUS will eventually improve with the length of stay.

In a nut shell, my leisure time per week is pathetically short, but it is quality time:) How I spent my leisure time:

1. Google talk - I enjoyed this one the most:)
2. Blog - When I don't feel like moving.
3. Jogging and Squash - When I want to get sweaty and sexy.
4. Sketching - When I am in the mood of an artist.

Ok, got to resume my experiment from where I left off last night.

Drowning in Assignments

1 for Neural Network
endless from Intermediate English
hopefully no more for Magnetic Recording

I need more time for my research...No wonder fresh graduates has less leisure time. wtf.

Penalty for skipping class

The penalty is that you will sit in for 3 hours like a bloody fool, don't know what the lecturer is blabbling about and you start to fall asleep. Of course this would not happen if I do some forward studying.

Getaway in Penang

Took the night bus on 19th March to Penang. Managed to complete a simple experiment for a senior before I ran off with my luggage and backpack at 4pm. Reached JB City square at about 6.30pm. Enjoyed my Irish lamb stew at Secret Recipe while browsing through an outdated magazine I bought earlier till 8.15pm. The waiter failed to serve me my carrot slice. Arghh, forget about it. I paid my bill and made my to the ticket booth to get my ticket. The receptionist requested me to be there by 8.30pm as the bus will be there to ferry us. Waited till 9pm, the bus was not in sight. Instead, I will need to take a van to the Larkin terminal bus station to board the bus. Damn Malaysian Rubber Time (MRT), the bus departed from JB only at 10pm. While waiting for the bus, I had to endure with some discourteous douche bag who long to contract lung cancer. Nonetheless, I felt glad that I am going through all these instead of my baby.

Okay, so I was on the super coach, spacious and comfortable. I immediately dozed off and when I opened my eyes, the coach was on its way to Butterworth. I dropped off at the junction turning in to Megamall and Chiew Mei was minutes away to fetch me. Back at my sis place, we rested for a while before we went to Sungai Puyu to savor the delicious little chicken (which is known as burung puyuh in Malay), steam fish, he pia and lala:) Which after, we went to Sunway Carnival Mall to watch "An Empress & The Warrior". Strangely, when we went home that evening we slept from 6pm till the next day - Good Friday.

We woke up fresh and fully rested. There were numerous plans we contrived weeks before and decided to accomplish all of them within one day. First was to go to BP Lab as Chiew Mei wanted to complete her medical report. Too bad, the BP Lab at Butterworth is poorly operated where we had to wait for half and hour just to see the doctor, and then we need to wait for the technician who was supposed to perform the X-Ray. In the end, we gave up and decided to postpone the health screen and to fill our stomach instead. Who has the American time to wait from 8.30am to 10am for a checkup? We went for the normal coffee+toast bread+half-boiled egg, nothing like the one back in Kluang.

Then off we went to the isle. Needed to convert some SD to MYR (heard that Penang offered the best rate = 2.29) and deposit the cash into the bank. Next, we went to Public Mutual to print out some statements, change my corresponding address. The weather is so hot that we decided to drop by Abu Siti Lane for some coconut juice.

By the time we were done, our stomach were growling for food again. We went to Salsas at upper Penang Road (recommended by Soo). We had a sumptuous but not over-filling set lunch. Chiew Mei chose the seafood platter while I took the grilled salmon with butter rice. The bun with butter were simply a wonderful combination, in fact any western restaurant that I have patronized before (of course not those western food stall in the usual hawker centre la, duh!), I have no complaints on the bread and butter. Next up on the table was the pumpkin soup, served just at the right time after we spread the butter on the bun, so that we can tear bits of the bread and dip in the soup:) The portion of the main course was just nice. For the seafood platter, there were two king prawns and mussels each, a slice of grilled salmon and a huge scallop. As for mine, it was a slice of salmon with butter rice and ratatouille. Last on the menu was the yummy-licious tiramisu topped with strawberry. All together, it was only RM40++.

After a fulfilling lunch, we went to Gurney Plaza for a movie. Chiew Mei practically booked every session of the day for 10,000 BC, we took the 3.20pm show. We expected to see more than just manaks and sabre tooth tiger. I will leave out the plot with one advice, buy DVD or download la:)

Feet reflexology for an hour...aahhh...shue fok sai. My second time and Chiew Mei's first.

Dinner at Jurin - the quality of the sashimi has plunged tremendously and we could observed that the business is bad. So it's sort of like karma: food quality dorp -> less people patronize -> circulation of fish stock is slow -> stale shashimi -> even less customer...so on so forth. Last chance given, and we decided to stick with Sakae Sushi.

Raining, nearly spoil my plan. Hang around at Midlands. Then head to Batu Ferringhi. Too bad, Casuarina Beach Resort was closed for renovation. We had to sneak in to the beach through the Bank Negara rest house and it is there I made my proposal:) Revealed my little booklet - 私達の物語. We sat on the beach together, browse through our story and I presented the coconut band and popped the question. Alas, I didn't get a green light to my dismay...Well, guess I need to try harder next time...

On the way home, Chiew Mei was too exhausted after the long day and slept while I drove home.

On Fire

Have been hectically busy for the past few days...strictly following the extremely tight schedule to complete all my assignments before 19th March, so that I can depart for a short vacation up north in the pearl isle with my girl without any worries.

Too bad, despite my hard work to finish all the assignments ahead of schedule, more are pouring in like the tsunami from different modules all of a sudden. It’s like sheer pressure from the approaching final exam is not sufficient enough to crush one’s fragile mind, they just had to add salt to injury, just had to rub it in, huh. wtf

Well, I actually felt quite fortunate as I have cleared some of them sort of sub-consciously, what’s left to be done needs to be done. And my boss needs help from me suddenly on a small project to be included in an escalation of conference paper to a journal article. It’s time to learn from this opportunity, but this is bad time :(

Well, enough of the ranting. If I had the time, I’d better be putting good use to it than to blog, right?