Cambodia Trip: Day 2, 6-12-2008 (Phnom Penh)

For the second day, we had a new tour guide, whom I had forgotten name. First, we went to visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The museum is a former high school that was changed to a prison by the Khmer rouge. This place really gave me an impact on foolishness and cruelty of human. I also realised that I actually had very little knowledge regarding the history of Cambodia even though it is very near to my country. I was ashamed of myself for being so ignorant of the sufferings of the people in Cambodia. In the museum, I learned a lot about Pol Pot and the Khmer rouge because the tour guide was very good in explaining things to us. She also stated that many of the high ranking people in Khmer rouge is still hiding in the jungle near Thai border. The Cambodian government is still trying to catch them. As for the normal Khmer rouge soldiers, they are not punished and still lives among the Cambodians. I want to quote some of her words ,' Cambodia is a Buddhist country. We forgive people for their wrong doings. We want to catch the high ranking Khmer rouge not because we want to punish them, but rather to find out exactly why they did those horrible things.' Later, we went to visit the killing fields where they uncovered the death bodies of the victims that were killed by the Khmer rouge. In the afternoon, we visited the royal palace. I noticed that all the tourist went inside using the side door as the main door will only be open when important people came to visit. The royal palace is a beautiful place. As Cambodia is a Buddhist country that is heavily influenced by Hinduism, we could see many statues of Buddha and also paintings of Ramayana story on the walls. In this day, I learned more about the history of Cambodia and also enjoyed myself in the royal palace.

Cambodia Trip : Day 1, 5-12-2008 (NTU – Phnom Penh)

We departed from NTU at 4am in the morning to Changi airport. After a two hours plane flight, we arrived at the Kingdom of Cambodia. Auntie Esther was there to welcome us. She introduced our tour guide for that day, 'Pixels' (I dunno how it spell but the pronunciation is something like this). He is a third year uni student studying tourism coming from Baray, the place we were going to offer our help. He brought us to go shopping in the Russian market and central market. As I sucked at bargaining, I didn't get a lot of good deals. It is fun to see how my fellow team mates bargained. The sellers charged us a higher price as it was evident that we were tourist and all us were wearing the same LDP shirt, marking us as 'water fish'. But if you are good at bargain, you should be able to lower the price by 30 to 50 percent. After shopping, we went for a boat ride on Mekong river. It was an enjoyable boat ride. We were watching the sunset on the boat while eating our dinner. My impression of Phnom Penh is that it is a city of contrast. The basic facilities there such as condition of the road, lamp post, buildings are worse than my home town, which is just a small town in Perak, Malaysia. However, as this is the capital city, I can see a lot of high tech gadgets being sold here. I even saw a advertisement showing that Macbook Air was sold in the shop. My feeling is that even though Phnom Penh the capital city and is full of shops, the basic facilities there fail to reflect the status of the city. This I think is the responsibility of the government of Cambodia.

Going to Cambodia

On 5th of Dec 2008(that is tomorrow), I am going to Cambodia for 11 days. This is under LDP Project L.O.V.E. In less than 24 hours, I will be boarding the aeroplane for the first time in my life. I, however, am not too excited at the moment. Maybe just before the event I will feel something. Anyway, the purpose of this trip is to help the Cambodian people in Baray. I just hope that I can do anything in my power to really help them. Wish me luck!

In need of tuition teacher!

Ok, I don't really need a tuition teacher but tuition is really popular among Malaysian and Singaporean. Just yesterday, while I was at the Woodlands MRT station, someone approached me. Following is our conversation.

She: Hello Sir, do you have time? I am conducting a survey.
Me : Ok, no problem. ( I am always willing to help out)
She: Are you currently studying or working?
Me : Studying.
She: Where are you studying now?
Me : NTU.
She: Oh, now should be exam period right? Are you final year student? ( Do I really look that old?)
Me : I am just first year. I just finished my exam today.
She: What is your source of income, as in where do you get your money from?
Me: My parents. ( Is she doing some research on the financial status of students?)
She: Then, do you have any savings? Do you save any part of the money from your parents?
Me : No, usually it's just enough.
She: Then do you want to do any part time job to earn some extra money, like tuition? ( She revealed her true purpose)
Me : Not now.
She: Ok.

Then she just walk away. What about the survey?

NOTE: I am now back in Kampar, enjoying my holiday. I left Singapore straight after exam. Homesick is incurable!

'Get Real' , 'Be Rational'

Just something I want to share. I have seen this before on someone's desktop and find it really interesting.

'Stuck Piston' Problem

Today, I had just finished my Physic paper. At first, I was very happy cause the paper is quite easy and I can do all the question( not sure correct or not lah ). But after gearing from Joseph, Wai Ming and Tim, the question 4(a) actually is more complicated than I think.

This is a standard thermodynamic question with a piston and cylinder of different cross-sectional area, bigger in the upper part and smaller in the lower part. Then they add a weight on the piston to increase the pressure adiabatically and the question ask for final pressure and temperature. I just calculate the pressure, P1 and then the temprerature T1 using formula. According to them, when pressure increases to P1, the volume V1 is actually smaller than the V of the smaller part. Meaning, the piston actually 'stucked' in the upper part. The V will be the volume of the smaller part. And the pressure, P1 is wrong cause the piston is supported by the wall of the lower part. Then, we have to use the V of lower part to find new P2 and T2.

Summary, for a 6 marks question, first use the extra weight to find P1, V1 and T1. Then, V1 is smaller than V so it is illogical. We had to use the V of lower part as final volume. This make the P1 and T1 wrong. Using the V, we find another P2 and T2 as answer.WTH!

Ok, if you are confused, sorry. Just ranting. :)

Hotel Infinity

I heard about this from Wen Cin a few weeks ago. After reading more about it, I have decided to write a short post about it in my blog. However, I am not good enough in maths to understand this thoroughly so please forgive me for any inaccuracy in my post.

Lets assume there is a hotel of infinitely many rooms and every room is occupied.
Case 1: A new guest comes and requests for accommodation.
Solution: Guest in room 1 shifts to room 2, guest in room 2 shifts to room 3 and so on ( meaning guest staying in room n shifts to room n+1 ). Then the new guest will stay in room 1

Case 2: A bus carrying a countable infinite number of guests arrive at the hotel and all of them request for accommodation.
Solution: Guest in room 1 shifts to room 2, guest in room 2 shifts to room 4 and so on (meaning guest staying in room n shifts to room 2n, leaving all the odd number room empty). Then all the new guests will accommodate the odd number room.

Case 3: A countable infinite number of buses, each carrying a countable infinite number of guests arrive at the hotel and all of them request for accommodation.
Solution: Guest in room 1 shifts to room 2, guest in room 2 shifts to room 4 and so on (meaning guest staying in room n shifts to room 2n, leaving all the odd number room empty). All the passengers from bus 1 will accommodate rooms 3ⁿ for n = 1,2,3 ... The passengers from bus 2 will accommodate rooms 5ⁿ , and so on ( meaning passengers from bus i will accommodate rooms pⁿ where p is the (i+1)-th prime number).

Source: Wikipedia

Responsibility

Today, I went to LDP room to have a 'meeting' with Roy and Siew Ping about the fund-raising activity. We are supposed to draft a letter to be sent to the MAE professors asking for donation. After reaching there, Siew Ping told me that the meeting was actually held yesterday. I quickly called Roy and he told me that he had finished the letter. Ok, this is settled but my mind wont settled down. I began to think about a lot of things. How on earth can I forget about the meeting? Have I no sense of responsibilty? Have I slacked too much that I forgot what I should do?

I still remember my vow long time ago. I had once vowed that I would never run away from my responsibility. Looking back at what I have done in this sem, I realised that I had achieved nothing and did not fulfill my responsibility. I had been a ghost Red Cross First Aid Subcom, never attend any first aid duty. Even though many things are not in my control, I can't help but feel that I had contributed nothing to Red Cross this sem and I feel bad about it. I had been a semi active LDPian, helping out a bit in some occasion but I am not satisfied. I feel that I should have done more. As for MAE Publication Subcom, I am just an ordinary guy who submit his work on time. Nothing bad but nothing spectacular either.

I am not satisfied with myself this semester, and this is just the CCA part, I haven't even talk about the academic part. Nothing can be done now but to remind myself of my mistake and do better in the next sem.

People in NTU

Yes!!! I have finally finished my CAs today. But that also means that my final exam is coming near. In fact, it is just less than 5 days before my final starts. Why am I still writing this? Some may ask. I am still slacking because it is not my style to suddenly become hardworking or studious. I prefer to tale it slow and easy. For example, I revised my Life Science last night. Even though I havent revised the last two chapters, I still went to sleep cause it was already half past twelve and I started feeling sleepy. This is insane, some will say, but this is me.

After coming in NTU, I had met different kinds of people. Some are very disciplined, always studying and revising, but still can sleep early.This type of people are quite rare and most of them can get good results(I think). Some like to slack in the first half and start to work hard in the later hallf of the semester. In some of the extreme cases, they will isolate themselves from the outside world and just engulfed in their studies. In this period, many people also become very sensitive to noise and disturbance. Everyone you see may eventually transform into a violent beast if you disturb their studies. Another strange phenomena is that the usually empty Study Room is now crowded with people who only study at the eleventh hour.

I am not saying all this things are entirely new and strange to me. But coming from a small town where people work and study at relatively lower pace, this is consider to be mind opening. Enough talking(or writing) already, start study!

Blog Hiatus

Haven't update my blog for a month. In this one month, I had been quite busy with all the CAs and ECA. More importantly is that I have nothing to write about. My life in NTU has been so uninteresting that I don't even feel like talking about anything. Anyway, I have spent some time thinking and pondering. Have I changed? Is this the real me? Who is the real me? I use to be a quiet and innocent boy who is very shy. I also had a bad attitude. When I grew up, I become more talkative and more readily to compromise. But I still have the bad attitude and arrogance. I am thinking, am I changing little by little? Is compromising and politeness a sign of maturity or alert of losing my personality? Or being arrogant is just a way to hide my weakness and insecurity? I am still learning and changing. There is still a long way for me to go. To all my friends and families, I cannot promise that I will become a better person who is always polite and kind. But I can swear that I will always be sincere and honest, no matter how I change.

GIMP

GIMP( GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free alternative for Adobe Photoshop. As I am a noob in computer graphic design and image editing, I don't know the difference between this two software. However, I want to learn more about image editing and GIMP is the perfect tool for me as it is free. I tried some of the tutorials and this is what I get. Don't make fun of it cause this is just my first try. Hope I can progress in this :)

Lack of awareness in Open Source Software among NTU students

Today is the NTU Software Freedom Day. Although a lot of activities are planned by the NTU Open Source Society throughout the whole day, nobody really knows about this particular event. In most of the talks and workshops, there were just around 10-20 people in the lecture theatre It's partly due to the lack of publicity but the main reason is that many NTU students are not aware of the free and open source software development. I am no expert in computer but I use a lot of FOSS in my daily life. In my opinion, open source is the future for all software. And as students, we may not have enough money to buy proprietary software like MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and so on. In this case, free and open source software can be a perfect solution for the students who are not financially independent. After writing this, I hope that free and open source software will continue to develop and to all NTU students, let us embrace the world of FOSS.

Banner Painting

Today, out of boredom, I went to help my Block Manager, Wei Le to paint the block banner. I was not very helpful, just doing petty things. This was the first time I tried painting a banner. It was a new and fun experience for me.

Mid Autumn Festival

This is the first time I am celebrating Mid Autumn Festival away from my home sweet home. No special feeling, just another usual day. Last night, Chinese Society of NTU organised a grand MAF Celebration. My friends and I went there and had a enjoyable time. Therefore, I want to thank all the committees in Chinese Society for making this a success and providing us with great entertainment. We tried paper-folding, made mini mooncake, and also went to the fortune telling stall. According to them, I can only improve in my studies if I work hard. So true, but is this considered fortune telling cause even I can say that :) Well, I had a good time there. It is always fun hanging out with friends.

Lost and found

Yeah, today I finally got back my Class T-shirt. Actually Chong Wei mistook it during the LDP orientation and I totally forgot about my clothes. As a result, his clothes was left in the toilet. When I went back to look for my clothes, I found a bag which contained his clothes. I didn't take it then cause I was not sure whose clothes were those. Now, I am feeling guilty cause Chong Wei lost his clothes. Nevertheless, I am thrilled to have my class T back. Going to hug it for the whole night!

An Eventful Day

Today is the LDP Orientation. Like any other orientation, we began with games, talked about serious stuff and went to Sentosa. I had a good time there, made some new friends and sabo a lot of people by throwing them into the water. But then, sad things happen. When I was busy 'saboing' people, I forgot that my handphone was still in my pocket. As a result, my phone was spoiled and now giving out a strange smell. Not to mention it is not working at all. Then, after going back to my room, I was shocked to see that I didnt bring back my clothes. It looks like not a big deal but it is because the T-shirt is my Form 6 class T. At 7.30 pm, I took the 199 bus from Hall 11 to Boonlay, MRT to Harbour Front, then Sentosa bus, and walked for 15 minutes from Beach Station to East Pahlawan Clothes. And my clothes was not there. Damn it, who is the bastard that took my shirt! Dissapointed and crestfallen, I went back to NTU gloomily. This is a just a rant. The class T means alot to me. I had a great time in Form 6 and the T-shirt reminds me of those time. Although the T-shirt is gone, I will still treasure those precious moment in my heart. That is the most important time.

In conclusion, all the unfortunate events happened due to my carelessness. I hereby swear that I will never be careless again. Hopefully :)

A normal day in NTU( But with an interesting video)

Today I attended a lecture about molecular diagnostic. At first, it seems like a boring lecture but the video shown to us is very funny. I just want to share it. The link to the video is here . Go watch it if you have time. It shows that science is not always dull and boring. I also attended the meeting for MAE Publication Subcom. I have always been an avid reader but not a writer, so I think I will have a tough time. Nevertheless, I will have to work hard and brush up my writing skills so that I will not be a burden to the publication team.

Life in NTU

I have been in NTU for more than six weeks now. Can't really describe my feelings at this moment. I had never left home for such a long period, so this is really a new experience for me. Life in NTU is quite fun, I have met a lot of people, made some new friends, and learned a lot. I am sure all these experiences will not be the same if I had choosen to study in UKM. I am grate ful to have a chance to study here and I will definitely live my university life to the fullest!

Some pictures of NTU

My room

My study table

My hostel, Hall of Residence 11

LKC Lecture Theatre

Chinese Heritage Centre

My first blog

Hi, everyone. This is the first time I try to write a blog. Why would I want to write a blog? No real reason actually, just following the trend. To anyone out there who bump into my blog just by chance, please bear with my poor English and random rant. This is not a blog where you can find insightful articles or constructive thoughts. This is just a diary written by a bored University students who is trying something new. That's all for the introduction to my blog. Enjoy!

Extra: Some article about me i.e. just want to brag :)
Article
Article
Article