PotChin's Log Book

Bad Luck Again

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:56:40 PST

Couple of months ago, I’ve encountered many strange and less fortunate events. For starter, I have my bike stolen and then returned the next day at the place I parked it. How strange was that? And on top of that, I bought a new bike for GBP36 before I recovered the stolen bike. Never mind that. Just a day ago, the first day of term in 2012, I was surprised to find that MY BIKE WAS GONEE!!! The bike lock was found with a clean cut. I really love that bike very much. There is nothing I can do about it but to grieve.. How sad.. I hope that this person (The Thief) who stole my bike will be punished and feel sorry for what he or she had done.

Annoyed

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:46:38 PST

Today I felt so annoyed with everything and anything that’s around me. Woke up in the morning (oh well sort of in the afternoon) tried to use Skype to call the UK German Rail Agency to purchase the Inter-Rail Ticket but failed due to some stupid issues between skype and 0871 number. So then I use my mobile to call. Guess what, no one pick up my phone for almost 5 minutes and I tried calling again and again and eventually paying 6 pounds without gaining anything from it. That really took my mood off for the whole day while having to completed a few planned activities.

Lost and Found

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:46:50 PST

It had been a busy week with all the research for my final year project, meetings, lectures and preparation of my project plan report. Just last Friday, I lost my bike but I found it a day later. This is what happened on that day, I woke up late and rushed off to Uni. Like every other day I cycled my 2 years old bike there and it literally took me about 5 minutes compared to 15 to 20 minutes of walking. So I parked my bike at my favourite spot in that particular morning. Things went well for the next 8 hours and when I was heading back home, I couldn’t locate my bike at the bicycle parking lot. First thing that struck my head was, “Shit I lost my bike” and I came up with a few theories:

I did not lock my bike properly in the morning.
So then someone saw it unlocked and decided to get him or herself a free ride home
OR Someone saw it unlocked and decided to hand it to the unversity security guard.

There was nothing I could do at that time so I decided to look for a new bike from EBay. I found one bike in good condition that cost me about GBP35. I was still hoping that someone was just putting a prank on me and gave me back the bike the day after. On Saturday, I walked to Uni in the morning to check on the same parking lot before head off for a group discussion in my department but my bike was nowhere to be seen. So I thought that it is time to just buy the bike I saw in the EBay. So I bought it for GBP 35 and it required me to collect the bike from Isleworth, some place west of London near Heathrow.

On my way back on Saturday, I decided to check on the same parking lot again. And to my surprise, I saw my bike parked there unlocked. I was very confused and mixed with a little bit of happiness because I found my bike back but also regret I spent the money for a new second hand bike. Question is, what happened to my bike? Till now I still cant solve this mystery.

Beautiful Sunday morning

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:56:48 PDT

Last Sunday, sawo and I decided to take some time off from doing work and head to the Malaysian Hall (a place you can find authentic Malaysia Food). We took a slow walk across Hyde Park passing by the Round Pond. I am still see the wonderful autumn trees..

A beautiful day in the town of Eel

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:32:58 PDT

Last week was beautiful. Sawo and I explored the Ely in Cambridgeshire UK. We had been planning for about 2 years before we finally managed to execute the plan. We took a train to Ely from Cambridge; 15 minutes journey through the national rail network (check it out in www.nationalrail.co.uk) which cost us about GBP 4 for a ‘day return’ ticket.

During the journey I took a picture of the tranquil scene of a beautiful blue sky and a dark landscape with my iPhone 3GS camera.

So we arrived in Ely and started to explore the town. At first I was thinking of taking a bus and get to the town centre (where the cathedral and the house of Oliver Cromwell located) but I came to think that having a slow walk there would be more rewarding.

I managed to do some research on the locations to be visited. First off, the Peacock Tearoom; we had some fantastic breakfast with the complement of a wide selection of tea. I started with the Sherlock Holmes (Earl Grey with Lapsang Souchong; our own mix: its elementary & good) and my Sawo start off with the Pleine Lune (Our favourite French tea; almonds, vanilla, honey etc; OTT & wonderful.).

After a great great morning breakfast, we head off towards the town centre directions. Stopped by an antique shop and a Saturday market I believe – near the Ely Cathedral and finally we arrived at the Apple Market of the year. This market is located very new to the cathedral. We were very lucky to have such unique chance to be part of the event.

Basically, the Apple Market will have some fun special events such as children apple and spoon race, longest apple peel and the apple shy. There will have food stalls selling sausage-like-burger served with apple sauce, story telling to the children of a story from long long time ago. I was amazed by the participant of the Apple Market and hope for it to go on for years to come.

We went to the Oliver Cromwell Museum (located not too far of the Apple Market).

Still full of energy, we decided to walk along the riverside, we managed to find a spot for fishing and also very calm for the both of us to rest our legs while enjoying the quietness of the river. We sat for at the river bank for a while before heading to get our second round of tea but this time with different type of tea.

My sawo chose the Marco Polo which she so fell in love with while I tried the Chocolate Imperial. Both were great but one thing about the Chocolate Imperial is that it is not very suitable to be taken with a sweet chocolate brownie. Cause then it can’t be appreciated as much as how it should be.

By the end of the day, due to our satisfaction on the tea from this shop, The Peacock Tearoom, we bought some of the tea for ourselves. So, Sawo chosen the Marco Polo (which cost quite a bit because it is rare) while I chose Sherlock Holmes. The day just passed by so swiftly that the day starts to get darker and darker. This trip has been very fun and I wish to visit another place in the land of England in the near future.

Start of term

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:51:06 PDT

Blink blink blink and summer holiday has come to an end. I felt that this summer had been exceptionally short compared to the previous years, oh well I will be starting my final year and it also means that this is my last summer holiday.

Let me summarise what I had achieve throughout this summer. My summer holiday started the moment I finish presenting my DMT (Design, Make and Test) projects in a so called the seminar week in mid June 2011. During that time I was also participated into a teaching/mentoring program with the collaboration with an organisation named Excitecs. In short, I was posted to a local government school near New Cross Underground station for 3 weeks and got paid GDP600. Not too bad I would say. So then I flew back to Malaysia for its wonderful weather. Back for less than a week and I had to start my 10 weeks internship with a company in adhesive industry. In this 10 weeks, I met a lot of amazing people (when I mention amazing in here – they amazed me in many different ways) and learned a lot about how to deal with people from different industries, background and origins. It had been eye-opening when I was given the opportunity to join my boss in a few clients’ meetings and allows to contribute in some of the projects preparations during the course of this internship (not going to further boost my boss). Ha ha.

So finally busy time is over. Next up was helping my sawo’s dad to set up a website – so here I learned a lot about html and css. Wanna check out the website? www.pkmh.com . But it is still incomplete as for now since I faced some difficulties in arranging the information needed. So that is my masterpiece for the past 2 weeks. Not very impressive but can be improved.

Now, 2 days before going back to the UK to start my final year term. I was thinking of doing something that Malaysia is popular with: EAT!!! FOOOOODDDD!!!!

Interesting blog I found

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:50:05 PDT

Recently, I’ve been looking for a travel blog around and found one with great recommendations. Thought it would be good if I share with the world:
http://barefootirreverence.blogspot.com/
Check it out :)

Cathay Cineplex Promotion

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 05:20:45 PDT

Hey readers in Malaysia, check this out. I found this advertisement by Cathay Cineplex about a promotion for the Platinum Movie Suites. Normal price for Platinum movie suites is about RM40 permovie. Buy hey, check the poster out. Check this out in the Cathay Cineplex Facebook and also their website.

Teaching Experience

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 04:50:04 PDT

For the past 3 weeks, I had been doing my placement as a student ambassador in a Secondary School. The experience I obtained through the period was very rewarding. It opened my eyes how different the education system in the UK as compared to my home country, Malaysia. Students have more freedom and the education are more diverse with a little bit of everything. In GCSE for example, students are given the opportunity to learn one foreign language; French, German, Spanish and etc. Unlike the UK, students in Malaysia focussed very much on Science and Mathematics.

I've also managed to taste some of the difficulties faced by teachers in shaping the students into a better future. Like any other countries, students tend to be influenced by the media. There was once I asked a student about what he want to be in the future. Typical answers given: footballer. For the ladies, they love singing and acting.

One of the question that I received from the teachers in the school was, "So, what do you think of teaching as a profession in your future?". Oh well, it depends, I would say it is a good and noble job and your have both hard work and free time. As a teacher, I think the hardest part is to plan a lessons that could cater to the students. Different teachers will have different teaching styles and approaches but has the same objective which is to cover every learning elements for that particular year group set by the national curriculum. All for the sake of preparing the students for that one exam. Overall, I think teaching is interesting and rewarding to a certain extent, but I would really want to get myself involved in a profession I dreamed of in engineering and consulting services.

Time to grow up

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:31:09 PDT

Blink blink and when you realise it, you are now a year before your working life begins. As I had work in variety of jobs such as a few temporary job in Honda Warranty, part time salesman for TMNet and also some internships in the past few years, I felt that working life is not fun at all. First of all, I will be holding great responsibilities in day to day tasks and chasing some endless deadlines. It is similar to studying, only difference is that when you are a student, you have the option to slack and fail but in a working world, you are constantly being assessed by your supervisor and I think that's a bit scary:( well until I get a job, let's put this imagination aside. Enjoy while you can :)

~potkage~

6am and I am still awake

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:53:47 PDT

I could neither sleep nor concentrate on my revision. So what should I do? Really have no clue but I know I have to keep going otherwise I will not be able to make it in time for my exam. A little bit more and I will be allowed to sleep. :)

The Royal Wedding

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:40:32 PDT

Congratulation to Prince William and Kate Middleton

Reading exam unrelated articles :(

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:07:26 PDT

Few days ago, I started to read a lot of news on Bloomberg, The Star Malaysia News, BBC, and YouTube quite frequently during exam time. I wonder why? This phenomena had been happening to me since I first came to the UK and I believed that it only happened when my year exam approaching. I have the tendency to read exam-unrelated articles from the internet to keep myself motivated for revision. However, this is a bad bad habit because of my anxiety to know more about a particular issue, I will spend a lot of time researching about it when I should do more on my revision. I categorise this phenomena as wasting time.

For example, the current issue about the Apple using iPhone and iPad to track users’ location by storing a bunch of location history in a hidden file in the device. What are the implications of this issue on users in the future if retained? Apple claims that these data is used for improving user experience by having the user location tracked faster and more accurate. Well, my opinion is that the given excuses by Apple are not consistent. First Apple claimed that they didn’t realised the device is tracking and storing such massive amount of location history but they suddenly claimed that these data are for iPhone or iPad improvements in the future. This matter concerning user privacy will cost the company some legal issues if unresolved. Legal = lost of money (that is what I was told in Finance class).

Now, try to think of what can a user history do to the user if the device is being hacked and the data falls on the wrong hand. Firstly, the various locations you have visited will be identified. This indirectly predicts where you live, work, shop, eat and many other things. If you are poor, there is noting to lose, but if you are rich, you might not want to reveal your house address to the bad guys. On the other hands, this data can be positive in terms of tracking crimes around the globes. Well, not going into details on how to fight crimes.

On another story that interest me is that Mr Trump the Billionaire who owns the “The Apprentice” demanded President Obama to prove that he possess US citizenship by pressuring Obama to release his birth certificate. Why on earth does he want to do that? Questions is what is the motive of Mr Trump’s act? Is there any hidden agenda behind Obama’s birth certificate. Well, one of the comments he gave was “I managed to do something no one dare to do”. To be honest, I was quite impressed by his courage but what is the point?

Hush hush!!! enough of reading. Back to Fracture Mechanics and Thermodynamics…

Exam Stress: Revision Venues

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:21:21 PDT

As a student, when is your least favourite time? Well, I bet 99% of the student population will agree with me that it is the exam preparation. Well, not to say it is extremely stressful but managing stress is one issue, finding the right place to study is another issue. I soon realised this morning when I was using the toilet and found out that it was actually a pretty good venue to concentrate when you wanted to understand something difficult. Well instead of poo-ing, you study in it. This might sound ridiculous but let me compare the pros and cons of typical study venue students usually chose:

Venue	Pros	Cons
Library	Quiet Good lighting	Too many people = extra stress –> distraction
Garden or Park	Good lighting and fresh air –> Good for your brain but the weather is uncertain at times.	Too many hot boys OR girls walking around during Spring time –> distraction
Home (Your room)	Safe time = no need to walk to the college or library	You sit in front of a computer and start using Facebook or reading financial news
Home (Dining Hall)	Spacious –> Some people find it helpful in revision.	Distractions from housemates . If you have any..
Toilet	Good lighting No distraction Quiet and internet free (unless you bring in an iPhone and start Facebook or Angry Bird)	- Depends on your toilet cleanliness- might be smelly - People might want to use the toilet.

Based on the comparison made in the above table, it seems like Toilet is actually pretty strategic venue to study when you wish to concentrate. Anyway, why on earth am I comparing toilet with other venues? Sigh, Back to revision !!!

Great website for student

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:16:19 PDT

A little knowledge to share here. I went to the MIT Open Courseware website and accidentally clicked on one of the link that led me to the URL below

openstudy.com

Try it, you might find it useful as there are relevant topics being discussed by students around the world. Or you can just practice maths by helping the newbies :P (It is not like I am good at it :P)

-Okie Time to get back to revision-

Update of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:48:58 PST

I am Happy.

Why?

I am happy because I just came back from dancing with my Sawo in the Empress Ballroom of Winter Garden in Blackpool :).

... Happy ...

Lunch with housemates

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:17:21 PST

Woke up in the morning (more like afternoon) of the first Christmas holiday weekend feeling very unproductive. Cooked some lunch and ate with my housemates. Presenting our lunch as shown in the picture. We are lazy people .

Lunch with housemates

Chinese Noodles cooked with chicken and mushrooms

Top View of my lunch.

Snowy day.

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 09:16:01 PST

This morning I went to Brent Cross (somewhere in London Zone-3 North) for a volunteering work. It was supposed to be a fun job in giving free services in helping the shoppers to pump up their tires. But heavy snow hit London. It was quite disappointing to know that it affected my lovely volunteering activity on Saturday.

At the same time, I heard that many of my friends’ outbound flights from London were cancelled due to the severe snow storm. Looks like the weather isn’t favourable for any travels on Winters holiday. I hope my trip in January will not get such misfortune. PRAY HARD!!! And yup, the pictures shown in this post is the underground station in Brent Cross. Covered with snow.

Unstoppable

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 21:10:11 PST

This movie was inspired by real incident happened in Pennsylvania where a runaway freight train. The real incident happened on the 15th May 2001 where an unmanned train, CSX 8888 portrayed as the AWVR777 (nicknamed Triple sevens) headed from Stanley Yards in the direction of Stanton at speed of about 71 miles per hour or equivalent to 114KM/h without an air brake. The freight train carrying about 45 cars, with only 22 loaded cars. Unfortunately, 8 of the cars contains hazardous material, molten phenol (reported for about 80 Gallon). In the movie, it was shown that the main focus of the mission to shop this train from passing Stanton. This is due to the extremely small radii curve rail track that might cause the freight to turned over and hit the fuel storage next to it.

So the most exciting part of the movie is when the train approach the curve at Stanton. It was shown in the movie that the engineer suggested to use the Dynamic Braking system using another locomotive to engage from the back of the unmanned train. Dynamic braking is a system of converting the traction motors to generators to produce voltage and current, which will then be dissipated as heat through the resistors in the braking grid.

Well for the rest of the story, watch it for yourself by the links down there.

CD1: http://www.zshare.net/video/8400145588701a78/

CD2: http://www.zshare.net/video/84001760c6b5f775/

Internship: End

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 01:49:51 PDT

Yesterday was my last day of internship with a consulting firm. Huh.. what a relief. I learned a lot from this internship. Nothing engineering though but I think it will came in handy in the future. Now is the time for me to start do some heavy duty shopping and packing my bag – my flight back to the UK is 2 day from now. Damn man… I want more holiday T.T.

Stupid Restaurant in Bayu Puteri Apartment, Petaling Jaya

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 05:49:23 PDT

Everything has been good today until dinner time. I was planning to go out to pack some food but it was raining. Well, I don't have a car only a motorbike. So I decided to eat at the restaurant (I wouldn't call it a restaurant - cause it is sell shitty food and charged people like mad ass) in the condominium (Bayu Puteri Apartment, Petaling Jaya) I am staying right now. I entered the "restaurant" and it is basically quite empty (as I expected) and there are not much food around. So I asked for a plate of rice and chose a drumstick cooked with chilly and a Neslo drink (mixture of chocolate and coffee).

Expecting it to be at very low price, I was dumbfounded when he told me that it cost me RM 6.50. So I was quite shocked and asked about the price of a rice + a skinny chicken drumstick.. That guy give me a fierce look and said "rice + chicken is RM4 and the drink is RM2.50." I was like speechless man. This is ridiculous!! Really? I think this shop can just go to hell. Charging the customer with such price will only pissed the customer off (that's me). Now I understand why this restaurant is so empty.

I think the owner of this "restaurant" doesn't have a brain in his or her head. Really man, if I were to run a restaurant, I will put some efforts into it. At least make your food better before you dare selling it. You readers might not get the idea unless I post up some pictures of this place. With the thousands of people living in this condominium, the business of this restaurant could explode like a big bang. Sigh, no point saying it to those shit head. I don't think I will be buying anything from that bloody "restaurant" again unless I have no other choice.

-Angry and disgusted Customer-

Bad Day

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:41:44 PDT

Today is a bad bad day. During day time, I did something wrong and get scolded by my supervisor due to some mistakes I did. I was asked to do a knowledge transfer to one of the client at the project site by giving verbal presentation and send the relevant file to the person via email. In the process of sending the file, I had to ensure two main persons in the CC list. Guess who, one of them must be my supervisor and another is the person's supervisor. So that's about the first part of my bad day.

The second part of the bad day begins right after I packed my chicken rice. I nearly got knocked by a car trying to come out from a parking lot when there were ants lot of cars moving right behind the car - of course that included my poor motorbike. I would blame the stupid driver instead of the car. The butt of the car just zoom out, nearly knocked me down. I was lucky enough to speed up in time to avoid the car ass. It was bad adrenaline rush. Really lucky in an unlucky day.

That's it. Bad day. Wonder why? A HA... Today is the Ghost Festival eve. May be that had something to do with all these unlucky events of the day.

God Bless Me!!

High School Friends reunion 2010

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:06:34 PDT

Just yesterday, I met up and had dinner with some of my old friends at Full House, in Sunway Giza Damansara. Interesting place but food were bad and small portion. Had some food and chit chat about the past. It was a small reunion cause there were some people missing due to unavailability. One of them went back to the UK early and one of the had family dinner at home. But it was still quite happening :P. The fun part started after the dinner. We went to the floor above in Full House and tried some very old school clothing for pictures. Ha Ha after all these years we were still able to pose like when we were in MRSM. Anyway, that's about the posing part. Next thing was we went to some cafe called the M.BUJI. This restaurant is named after the Mount Buji in Africa. Why? I dunno why but foods sold inside this shop is not nice either. Maybe Africa food is not suitable for my malaysia taste :P. We chatted for like a few hours in the cafe. Apparently, we realised there were a bunch of ladies at their 30's chatting and laughing at high pitch. Ha ha, so Val was like suggesting to laugh louder than them. A lot of reminiscing and also future baby jokes (MAKAN and MAKAN).. Really enjoyed it. I wonder when will the be next meeting in the future. Next year or I don't know.. OR may be after everyone had families and bring some children for some kind of showcase :P. Hope the days will come again. Well that's about yesterday and now moving forward, I need to clean my room and get something washed up and do some work. Am not looking forward for tomorrow :( Don't really like working life.. 5 weeks to go.. Come on I can do this.

My future in Career?

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:25:20 PDT

I am currently a Mechanical Engineering student in Imperial College London. It sometimes makes me think back why I choose Mechanical Engineer as my future career. Why? This is one question that I could not answer till now. There are many possibilities, for example, I follow my brother's footstep or friends' influences or I just take a course that I thought it's cool. Well, I really thought Engineers are cool. Now that I am a second year student, which means 2 more years to go be become a fresh graduated engineer. Problem is, what is my future in engineering working world.

The one thing I am very curious about is, do I get to choose what job I want ? Well that's depends :P. I need to impress many people which I don't at the moment. And will I apply whatever shit that I learned in this course in my future? Many students from engineering background diverted into banking or any other career but not engineering. I found that's pretty sad. Why do I say so? They could just take banking course or Finance course or any Business related courses for that banking job. Why suffer 4 years of engineering and don't use it?

In the UK, engineering firms develop something big. So I thought that would be the case in my country. BUT, I just found out that they don't really do development but maintenance, which equals boring job. Sigh, Now that I feel less motivated to continue study after thinking of the future I will have soon. Pray hard and work hard...

Till next time.

Holiday Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (PotChin) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:36:55 PDT

I've just finished 3 weeks of internship with my sponsor company. I was being placed in one of the Oil Palm Mill Factory in Negeri Sembilan and introduced to the operation and management of the factory. I was exposed to three part of the operations. Firstly, quality control - I was just playing around with chemicals and nothing else. Pretty boring job I would say. Secondly, boiler control room - Terrible place to be, why? There are too many people smoking in an air conditioned room without any window. Instead of a boiler room I would rename it to "smoking room". And there is only one computer in this showing the pressure and flow rates of the boiler. In the last week, I was placed I the workshop. Here is the place I learned most of the things that’s related to my Mechanical Engineering course. Not that much though but a lot more than those previous two weeks. I was being introduced to welding procedures and also some safety aspect. I was assigned to a mechanical fitter as an assistant in pipe maintenance. So you can actually imagine me holding nut and bolt and spanner. 3 weeks long in this factory was torturous, what if 3 years? I just can't imagine that. So that's about my first internship in this summer.

My internship does not end as yet. I somehow manage to get another internship in a consultancy firm in KL. How wonderful? I don't have to be in the "jungle" but a city of everything ( at least in Malaysia, KL is everything:P). This internship has no relation to my current study but I think I've learned a lot judging from the pass 3 weeks. Not Thermodynamic or Fluid Mechanic but more like people behaviour of all position in an organisation. Having to be exposed to this kind of experience really opened up my eyes to the working world. Seen stuff like problems, politics, work stress, Lady Boss and many more. I still have around 5 to 6 weeks to go before I fly back to continue my boring course.

Oh this holiday has been just about working and working and working. Haven't been spending much time with family members :( I miss my granny and grandpa and aunty and uncles and oh oh my cousin is getting married this coming September. So that's quite an even for me. So that’s all for today.

Night..