Farewell Class of 2008 (Part 2)

This is the picture of my classroom back in PSDC (Penang Skills Development Centre). For those of you in the dark, the university that I went to (Multimedia University) actually rents the classrooms in PSDC during the weekends to conduct the part time classes. The lecturers are flown in every Friday for the Friday night classes and leave after our Saturday classes. That is why I have never looked forward to Friday nights before, for the past 2 years. *LOL* Now I can!

Classroom with projector and whiteboard

The pictures in this post were taken during our last class of the semester, also the last class of the course (we hope!). Vickna as usual, always arrived the earliest! And always with the newspaper as well. :)

Vickna with newspaper

These are another 2 of my classmates, Thomas and Kent. Thomas is the proud daddy of Gwyneth, of which I'll show you the picture next time. I really admire Thomas for being able to cope with work and studies at the same time while taking care of his newborn! Incredible eh?

Thomas and Kent

Here's Allan again, not sure why he's always captured with a red face. :P

Allan and Vickna

Such a candid shot! Of course they're not so hardworking... Have you ever seen people studying with a smile? :P

Manager P and Allan

Oh this is the vending machine in PSDC. The one and only. It's the place where students come to get drinks during break times. I only started to be a loyal customer of hot Milo since the final 2 semesters I think. It's really useful when you're sleepy or hungry. :P

One and only Vending machine

This is the condition of the class during break times. Doryfish and me would usually be gossiping about someone during this time. :P

Just before class started

After our first session of class from 9-12pm, we had a one hour lunch break, before our lab continued from 1 to 5pm. *phew* During our final class, we went to Old Town Kopitiam for lunch. It was packed as expected, but what I didn't expect was for them to be out of toasts! Poor Vickna who was vegetarian that day had to make do with only curry puffs. How could a kopitiam be out of toasts after only 2 hours of business (we reached at 12pm)?

Lunch at Old Town Kopitiam

Pictures taken during lunch:

Group picture taken:

Group pic: Melvin, Allan, Vickna and witch (my hair is too long!)

Our food pictures:
I like the 'Xi Mut milk tea'. Did you know that 'Xi Mut' in cantonese means those long women stockings? I suppose they named the drink that way because the milk tea is supposed to be as smooth as the stockings. *LOL*

Food pictures

This post is meant to share with you the condition of my classes and what we usually do during breaks. In fact, I miss everything about the classes except for the assignments, exams, labs and tutorials. What's left?

I've won beads!

I won this contest about 2 months ago by sheer luck! The blog author's son picked me as the winner! ME! It's almost like a lucky draw and I've never won any lucky draws before! I was so elated when I found out about it. I was even MORE glorious when I saw the amazing prize that I won! I knew the prize was going to be beads, but I didn't know it was going to be that much! I only got my parcel after 3 weeks of delivery all the way from the US! But it was all worth it. :)

The package

Check out what is inside the box. There were many packets of different beads of different shapes and colours. Definitely so much more than I expected! Apparently these beads are from all around the world, so they're exotic.

All types of beads

Well what do I do with so many beads?? Making them into accessories of course! I bought the necessary tools required from the bead shop and off I went creating the work of art. :P Look at the final outcome so far! What do you think?

Bracelets


Bead necklace

It's the first time I attempted something like this, and I'm definitely not someone who's artistic to say the least! The very irritating part about making bracelets is that some of the beads are so tiny that you tend to drop them while trying to hook them together. Then, they'll bounce and bounce and roll to god knows where. I think I've lost a few beads in the process already. The worst case was when I tried to tie the knot of the bracelet, and since it was my first one, it wasn't so strong. The string being elastic, just exploded and all the beads in my bracelet flew all across my room!! *sob* Thankfully my room isn't big, so at least, my search and rescue process was confined. *sigh* But fear not, my dear friends. After much practice, I can say that I'm comfortable enough to tie a strong knot to the bracelets. :) And I certainly know of tricks to keep the beads from bouncing away. *LOL*

A zoomed in version of individual bracelets.

Anyone wants one? *winks*

Change

The Mother of all elections has just come to an end. Were you all waiting with bated breath for the news announcement yesterday? I know I was! But I had no doubts in Anwar though, from the first announcement of the partial results, he was already leading by more than 3000 votes, which was significant. If you didn't know yet, Anwar Ibrahim finally won with a landslide victory, landslide because of the huge majority that overpowered the previous win by his wife Wan Azizah. Anwar Ibrahim garnered 31,195 votes, Arif Shah Omar Shah (from BN), 15,524, and Hanafi Hamat, 92. Anwar won with a majority of 15,671. (From malaysiakini) Some people say that we should salute the Malays in this election, because they're the majority in terms of Permatang Pauh population. Apparently, Malays have always been subject to immense pressure to vote for BN candidates so as to ensure the future of Malay race is safeguarded. However, today, it shows that they are not afraid of the pressure anymore, and they have come out from their shells and daringly practised democracy to fight for change.

Change. That is the only thing we're hoping for right now. The only thing we can do. As the people of Malaysia, we can only go so far as to voice out our choices in the elections and I believe that we've done so bravely. We have done our job. Now, it is the time to sit back and marvel at our chosen leaders doing their part of the deal. We will never know whether they are going to do what they promised earlier, or whether they're going to be better with the current leadership. But what we all know is, we're definitely not going anywhere right now. So, why not?

Farewell Class of 2008 (Part 1)

As with all things containing the number 8, the Chinese always believe it brings them luck and prosperity and everything good. Indeed, the year of 2008 has brought me good by bringing me another step closer to completing my masters. :) Here is the first part of my trilogy on the last few classes before we parted different ways. I must say again, that I'm truly honoured and bestowed with luck to be granted such great course mates, who later became friends (quote from Thomas).

Here is the picture of our computer lab, during our second last class. We went to this lab almost every weekend just to do our design projects and facebook (for me) :P.

Computer lab

Here are the three of the very good friends that I've made during the past 2 years, the wonderful guys from Kulim, except for Vickna on the right, who's an ex-Kulim member. :) They are the most fun guys to be with, serious enough but with sufficient amount of crap. And they're definitely smart people! Vickna is known to them as the Teacher, and Paraveen in the middle is known to us as Manager P (he has a platinum card okay :P ) and Allan is the one on the right most. Don't they look serious here? I bet they're looking at something from malaysiakini. :P

Intense discussion ... NOT!

On the same day itself, it happened to be Allan's 30th birthday! We went out for lunch to celebrate the demise of his 20s. He doesn't look a day over 29 now, does he? *LOL*

witch and Allan

We went to Secret Recipe to try their RM10 lunch. Vickna as usual had this vegetarian meal, while most of us had the chicken chop with rice. Each set came with a glass of iced lemon tea. Not too bad I suppose. But I must say the star of the day was definitely the brownie with ice-cream on top!

Food (from top): Iced lemon tea, vegetarian soba, chicken chop with rice and walnut brownie with ice-cream

Look at the ice-cream... and the brownie! Makes me salivate just by looking! It's the best combination ever! Beats any cheesecake you can find in Secret Recipe, in my humble opinion. :)

Now for more pictures, here is Vickna again, followed by doryfish and witch. Vickna, as I mentioned earlier is an extremely smart guy, who apparently tutored the rest of the Kulim-members in the last few days before the finals! He is also a very devoted family man, and cannot stand Penang anymore. :P Oh, he's also a supporter of Firefly! Yay! I've known doryfish ever since I did my internship in Penang, more than 4 years ago. And since then, our bond was ever lasting. :) She's my buddy at work and in class, and we could talk, ok more like gossip, for hours non-stop even though we see each other everyday at work! That is the wonder of us. :) I'm glad both of us managed to finish the course together and I definitely look forward to walking on the stage to take our scrolls on the same day!

Vickna, doryfish, witch

Here is Allan again, with Melvin. Melvin's Chinese name got me confused one time, when he sent out an email to the whole class. I was looking at the sender's name for the longest time and I kept wondering why did I not know there's another girl in our class? (Our class has only 4 girls and I knew the names of all the girls, you see). Then I looked at the surname and the company, and it hit me! So sorry Melvin, but your Chinese name gave me the impression that it's a girl's name! Not going to reveal it here, don't worry. :P Anyway, both Melvin and Allan are really smart people. They appear to skip classes or come in late because of the long 'roti bakar' breaks, but never let their appearances deceive you. :) Both are wonderful guys, with equally great hearts, and loyal fans of Malaysiakini. Especially Allan. Allan, if you become a politician one day, I'll support you 110% ok!

Melvin and Allan

Finally this is Paraveen aka Manager P. He's one of the guys I admire and salute because he's studying something totally different from his first degree! He's from a Chemical Engineering background, and took Masters in Microelectronics with us! And he's done a fantastic job so far, I must say. I bet no one would even notice the difference if he didn't say he's a Chemical Engineer. Another great guy and fan of Malaysiakini. Oh, don't forget the 'roti bakar' as well. :P

witch and Manager P

So this is Allan, the birthday boy, on our second last week of classes. Hitting the big 3-0 doesn't seem to have any effect on him! *LOL*

Birthday boy Allan

To be continued.

Class of 2008

Finally, after 2 years of struggle, this is the day. The day the class of 2008 could proudly say 'We've made it!'. It wasn't easy, that's for sure, and it definitely wasn't all smooth-sailing. There were a couple of us who dropped out due to different priorities or lack of time, but us, we stood by each other strongly. We went through the obstacles, no matter rain or shine and now, reap the results, we shall!

Exactly two years ago, about 19 of us registered for the Masters of Engineering in Microelectronics course with Multimedia University (MMU). At that time, we were all but strangers. We were also told of many scary stories from the lecturers, saying that many students in the past couldn't cope with the pressure of part-time studying and decided to drop out after a few semesters. We did get demotivated a little bit, but we still went on despite all odds. Sure a couple of us did drop out at the end, but we're still the largest group that has prevailed throughout the history of MEng Microelectronics! In fact, we're a famous group among the lecturers, for being the 'smartest' bunch and the most resilient, I would say. I'm definitely proud to be one of this group.

Today will mark our last paper of final examination of our last subject of our last module. EVER. I know we've all sweated it through and all for this moment. I do not know how I will feel yet right after the examination but I am sure we'll all be joyous and beyond happy. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my classmates and lecturers (if they ever read my blog) for making the past 2 years easier than it could have been. I must admit I don't really remember all the names of my classmates (fine, you're right Allan), but I certainly remember how everyone looks! So I'll not forget to give a warm smile if we ever cross paths again in the future. :) <-- Big Warm Smile.

We'll have a post-exam dinner soon and I'll definitely write more about my classmates (with pictures!) in my next post. Till then, wish us all luck! ;)

Stan's homecooked dinner

Just a few weeks ago, my dear friend and fellow sickawan was kind enough to cook us an amazing meal because he was going to leave Penang soon. It was sort of like a farewell dinner, but with a special twist, because it's home cooked! Other than the part that he was actually down with a flu that night, everything went very well. I took my time to snap pictures of the food before everyone reached. :) The spread was lovely, and mostly centered on seafood. First up was the clams:

*Warning: Pictures may make you salivate :P

Clams

Both chiaoju and I thought there were sand within the clams. It was funny because when we were eating the clams, we heard the cracketty sound, somewhat like we're eating crackers. *LOL* But otherwise, the taste was superb!

Then there was the lamb stew, which was marinated for god knows how many days, because it turned out really fragrant and tasted nothing short of marvellous! The radish was perfect in complimenting the taste of the whole dish, and I enjoyed drinking the small amount of soup/gravy very much!

Lamb stew

Then it was the revolutionary 'blue vege', as Stan would call it. Apparently, this dish was supposed to be blue in colour, but something went wrong with the amount of eggs used. However, it was indeed my first time eating purple cabbage. Tasted nothing different from the normal cabbage, except that it's slightly crunchier.

Purple cabbage

Oh and here's the star of the night! Chilli crabs! The funny thing was Stan bought 4 of these crabs from the store and they were still alive when he put them in the sink, only pincers tied up. Apparently, when he wasn't looking, the crabs were walking all over his place and he found one almost committing suicide near his apartment's window! But the funny part was he lost one of the crabs and couldn't find it even after searching high and low in his apartment. Only the next day, he told us the crab was found from the neighbour's apartment! What an adventurous crustacean eh? Trying to save its dear life, I suppose.

Chilli crabs

I told you the theme that night was seafood right? So we definitely did not miss out on prawns. Thank goodness prawns can't walk or we'd have lost a few of those as well. :P The prawns were fresh enough for them to be steamed, complete with egg white. I absolutely LOVE the smooth steamed egg white with the prawns. Just like eating chawan mushi, only with strong prawn taste. :) chiaoju, you're really missing out on something great here ok.

Steamed prawns

Then, there was also soup, which is common for us Chinese. This was the chicken meatballs herbal soup, concocted by none other than Stan himself. Apparently the balls were not just made of chicken, but from a host of other meats as well. Didn't really matter as long as they tasted fantastic! And the soup was certainly broiled long enough such that the aroma was strongly scented with the herbs and chicken balls. Fabulous!

Herbal soup with chicken meatballs

Finally, there was something prepared which was a little out of place, but still tasted great. Amidst of all the Chinese-styled dishes cooked on the table was this lonely-looking, stand alone potato salad. It was more lonely because chiaoju refused to eat once she found out there's egg in it. *shakes head*

Potato salad

After the wonderful dinner and great company, it was time for a group shot. I was busy setting the camera angle and thought I'd put on the timer mode when I pressed on the shutter button... Only to realise that I forgot to switch it to timer mode! But it was so funny to catch this candid shot. So this is usually what happens when people are restlessly waiting for their pictures to be taken. I should really do this more often. :P

The candid shot!

So now, for a proper picture. From left: Stef, Stan, Yen, witch and chiaoju.

Proper shot :)

Thank you so much Stan, for taking the trouble to prepare such a fantabulous meal for us!!! We'll certainly miss you very very much once you leave Penang for your new job. *sob*