The Christmas spirit

3 blogposts in 4 days, now that is a record!

Christmas is around the corner, and in a few hours time, I will be on my trip up north, to Scotland!

For this year's Christmas, I think I have felt the spirit much more than in previous years.

I am really enjoying my holiday, which is great; I sent X'mas cards to few people, which I have never done before; and there is a big possibility that this will be a white x'mas since I am in a 4 seasons country this festive time.

For me, since X'mas is really near the new year, it should be a season where everyone is happy and joyful, forgiving and confessing, & gathering and reminiscing old times. It is just like Chinese new year for the Chinese and Idul Fitri for the Muslims. For me, I have done just most of them. I am currently enjoying this season, forgave some people, asked for apology for people who I might have offended, and I would be visiting my friend later :)

Sadly today, I guess some people might still have their grudges on me. I do not know what I did to him, I never even talked to him directly before. Instead, met him in the mall and he gave me the sourest look that I have seen this year ( and this year is almost ending). Even my housemates were like "What's wrong with this dude?" I KNOW why the guy hold grudge on me, but seriously I don't think I deserve it at all, since it has no direct relations with him. For the story, I would not post about it for now, as this should be a joyful season, not a season where people hold their grudges and show their sour faces ( this is not world war II for goodness sake ). All I can say is, this has got to do with a relationship which goes waayy back to Pre-university.

Anyway, I don't have grudges with him any more, and since he is quite irrelevant, I would just like to continue with my next chapter in life.

I hope that in these few days, I would be able to do a year end-review on my life as well as to do a quick preview for the following year.

For now, Merry X'mas to whoever is reading this, have a good time and enjoy the awesome season !

Cheers,
Mr. Win

It's not about the price tag

These few days have been so relaxing.

No group design project, no literature review, no concrete design assignments, and no meetings..

It gives me much more time to blog on things that are happening..

Just recently, in these two days, I have received two x'mas presents. They are actually very simple indeed. Got a Terry's Chocolate Orange from a housemate, while another one is a badge which has "I am fluent in SARCASM" words printed on it. The second gift is sent all the way from Malaysia!

These things might not be expensive, or they might not even be the most practical x'mas present that you can get from.. Heck, they might not even make it to your top 100 x'mas wishlist. But no matter how big or small, cheap or expensive the thing is, I will always feel appreciated for these gifts.

I still believe in the fact that in this world, it is not only about the money. Sadly, the reality really differs from the ideal world. Money actually takes into account in almost everything that we do. It is quite saddening that this is pure fact. Just look at the professional footballers, if before they play for the sake of entertainment, to play good football and to enjoy themselves as well as the spectators, now it is all about winning, winning and winning. Yup, I believe that the winning mentality is important, but I dont think it is appropriate to win in the expense of entertainment.

My ideal world would be a world where money is not the main issue for people to make their decisions. Good example: future job. A lot of people now choose their degree based on their future prospects and not based on their interest. Good prospects: Good money: Good degree.. Which I really disagree. For me, every degree is good, as long as you enjoy studying it. Sadly, again.. in the reality, these decisions are not made by us. We could be stubborn and study what we want, but if we don't have the money, do we really want to take the risk?

Back to my initial topic, I haven't eat the chocolate yet.. I dont even know when I will eat it.. I bet it will taste good though.. cause it has my name on it.

And I think for the badge, it is really cool.. But Am I really fluent in sarcasm? It is not me to decide... Guess one way to know is to talk with Sheldon Cooper to check whether we are sarcastic enough for him to notice it or not :D

Just another trip to London

This is just a short post, I am not good at explaining journeys.

Just two days ago I had a trip with my housemates / coursemates to London.

It was my 2nd trip there and during the trip, I added another three keychains to my collection. Madame Tussaud's, London Underground and m&m keychains. 

The trip was nonetheless great. During my first trip there, I went to places like Westminster and London Bridge and Buckingham palace to look at famous landmarks. On this trip, the motive was different. We went to China town (Leicester Square), Bond street and Madame Tussaud's. We also went to the Hyde Park during the night for their X'mas market.. It was super huge compared to the one in Nottingham.

And after I take a look at my expenses during this trip, I realised I really spent a lot on food this time. It is all about food and I think I might have gained a few kgs along the trip.

I think these three keychains really resemble my trip well, as I went to both m&m store (which is 3 storeys) and Madame Tussaud's on this trip, which was really great. Madame Tussaud's is quite expensive though, but I guess it is really worth a visit. Got to look at wax figures which really looked real, and I even got fooled once or twice.. For the m&m store, the chocs there are expensive, didn't buy any, except their keychain. What amaze me is that a chocolate shop can have three floors, and the decoration inside is really wonderful.

For the London underground keychain, that was our main transport throughout the trip. Anywhere we go, we relied on the Underground ! :)

Make it mine

I have not been blogging as much as I wanted to during these past few weeks.. The main reason, as usual is because of my studies, which is taking a lot of my time, and secondly, I had not much inspiration to write..
Anyway,
1st semester was officially over yesterday.

That is 12 weeks, which equals to 84 days, which equals to 2016 hours.
And, as cliche as it sounds, it seems only like yesterday that I was here in the UK finishing my undergrad studies.

But even in this past 3 months or so, there are so many things that I wished I had done, and some things I wish I had not.. In fact, life is full of decision making, and some decisions are just hard to made..

Sometime last week, I began to question myself again, for nth (n= a lot of times) in my undergrad course, why did I choose 4 years of studies? To begin with, engineering courses in the UK is quite unique, because you can either finish it in 3 years or 4 years. The main difference is, for 3 years of studies, you will get a BEng degree (Bachelor of Engineering) while if you study for 4 years, you would have a title of MEng (Master of Engineering). To make things simpler, the 4 years studies will give you a title of MASTER, but you are just an undergraduate, it is an undergrad masters programme. In Indonesia, I guess you could call it S1.5, if there is any..

These questionings began again mainly due to the overwhelming assignments that the MEng students have, especially the group design project. It was crazy, it was ridiculous and to finish 20 credits in one semester in one module is rather  very exhausting. Thus, I asked myself, wouldn't it be better if I graduated last July, and then take an MSc programme instead in Civil Engineering in the UK ? Not only do I have a title of S2, but I wouldn't even need go through the group design project module .. Besides, the tuition fees are very similar as well as the optional modules. What is more, I got to choose my researches and my student Visa will allow me to stay in the UK until 2013, at least.. Did I just made a horrible decision to take MEng programme, instead of BEng + MSc?

Might seems like it, however after everything was done on Wednesday, magically all these questions are gone. Sometimes, it is just the tiredness and the stress that is playing with our mind... Most of the time, our mind will try to find an easy way out, or will try and blame other stuff such as past decisions, people around us, surroundings, or luck. But, are we really sure that if we had made different decisions, our life would be much better? if people around us are better, would we have an easier life? if luck is on our side, would we be happier?

Maybe we would.. Indeed, I think we would have much better life if we have made all the right decisions and everything else.

The fact is, we didn't and that is life. We should just get on with it, and do our best based on what we have. If we are able to do that, once we are done with everything and completed all these exhausting missions / projects / assignments / whatever it is, we would not need to share these accomplishment with other people, or credit it to luck, or the surroundings. THAT accomplishment is for us, and us only to take, and THAT is pure satisfaction :)

Chain is the key

Just wanted to write on one of my favourite past times, or you could call it obsession :)

The Keychain Obsession

I am a fan of key chains. I think this obsession started like 4 or 5 years ago when suddenly I realised I have more than enough key chains for my keys.. It's like I only have 1 set of keys, but had like 4 or 5 key chains with it. And how do I get those key chains? Well, they are one of the popular souvenirs that people can get when they do travelling, along with postcards and fridge magnet, and people - such as friends & family - had been travelling here and there and I had over dosage of key chains.

And when I receive something from someone, let it be gift or souvenirs, I would feel bad throwing them away, although I may not use them for the rest of my life. Besides, there is something about these key chains, they actually represents something so huge or big in magnitude, into something so small, something which you can carry around, something cool, and something which I believe, would never get old-fashioned or out of trend. And besides, it is not expensive, easily accessible and again, they are COOL, just COOL..

With the five key chains I got from different places, which IF i am not mistaken from Shanghai, Bali, Vietnam, Singapore and New Zealand, I decided to start collecting them, which I thought would really be a unique obsession. One of my ways to collect them is that when I travel to a place, I would try to get a key chain from there, while another way is to ask my friends and family to buy for me when they are travelling. So far, I think 70% of my key chains are from other people, and I am really glad that all of them actually supported me on collecting these, even my parents - although my dad was like "it is a waste of money, but go ahead and do what you want" - while my mum was more supportive and even got some for me when she went travelling just recently.

So far from my journey to the UK until now, I have bought three different key chains. One from Dubai - which has an awesome story behind it - and two from London - another unforgettable experience. I haven't bought one in Nottingham yet though, but I will, soon enough, and I hope I can get some more during my x'mas break which will start in 3 weeks time.

For now, time to get back to bridge designing, would not want to design something that will fail after ten years, like the one in East Kalimantan, condolences to the families affected. The engineers that designed this bridge, as well as the project managers and companies that are involved should be investigated to ensure our nation's integrity, or at least to improve it.

The Hyperopia Syndrome

hy·per·o·pi·a  (hp-rp-)

n.

An abnormal condition of the eye in which vision is better for distant objects than for near objects. It results from the eyeball being too short from front to back, causing images to be focused behind the retina. Also called farsightedness, hypermetropia..

Let's say one day, you wake up in the middle of the night and you realised everything just doesn't go your way. Eg. you have too many assignments, you are broke, you are late to classes, and your friends do not seem to care about you. Furthermore, you realised everything is going everyone's way. Your friend recently found a new partner in life, the person that you dislike has above-average results on his assignments, your annoying ex-colleague got a promotion and it makes you feel worse. Worst of all, you start to blame it on everything in this world.

You would start to think that, your friend's partner is only interested in his money, that person who got that assignment result is close with the lecturer, that colleague of yours is a shoe-licker and many other stuff that you can come up with. You would even start to blame it on luck; why other people are so lucky and you are not, family; why you are not as rich as other friends, or 2nd chances; "if only I got to do that assignment again", "if only I have more time"... You would start to blame it on everything, except yourself.

A lot of people I know always has 10000 different reasons on why other people is luckier than them, or better than them or smarter than them ... But most of these reasons are mostly on other people's fault, not self's. People tend to be able to see other people's (distance objects) mistakes better than self's (near objects).

"Why is he a first class student and you are not?"
"He studied so much last year, whilst I played around enjoying my life. Believe me, if i study as much as him, I will get first class as well, even better than him."

The question is now then, why don't you put more effort? why don't you study more? why don't you increase your own productivity? why don't you be more ready for chances?

Complaining and ranting on other people's accomplishments would not get you anywhere.. In fact, those words of jealousy will only pull yourself back down the ladder. If you think those people are not worthy of their achievements or luck, what makes you think you are? Have you worked hard enough for it? Were you determined enough to get it? What did you sacrifice for it?

Wisdom words said that we create our own luck. I would not agree to that, but I believe that everyone has the same amount of luck, just on how much do we utilise on those lucks, those chances, so that we would be taking advantage of it.

Most of the time, the problem is not with other people, but the problem is within yourself. Before you start to blame the world, you should do self-inspection first. I am not suggesting you to be a depressed person who always blame on him/herself when something goes wrong. But before you put the blame on other people, you should really try to self-correct yourself. Cause no matter what, that is the only way for us to improve in our life.

Or maybe you can get a far sighted glasses from your nearest optician.

Swinging through chances

The other day, I read an article about people's behaviour in the internet. It was about how people are actually more afraid of losing something than actually more confident of gaining something. It was a very interesting article, and I was relating it to a lot of things in life that I have experienced before.

The article starts off with an experiment of how people with react on two different conditions with the same idea. In the first condition, the participants are given the chance to earn some cash, while in the second condition, the participants are given the cash, then they have the risk of losing it..... Or something like that, I can't really remember how they went, but it concludes the hypothesis that they had, where humans tend to overvalue things that they have, and undervalue things that they do not have. In another term, they prefer not to gain anything than lose something.

Makes sense, and this theory could really be used in a game of casual poker, where normal people like us play.  Maybe that's why some football teams prefer to defend till draw then try to attack. They would think that at least they are not losing, and if somehow their attack failed, and they got counter-attacked, they will lose something they already have. In a rational point of view, 3 points = win, 1 point = draw, thus 3 points should be the more sensible choice.. Or as Jose Mourinho said, it's better lose 1 game and win the next one rather than having 2 consecutive draws.. which is true ..

In life, I thing I have encountered these situations before. Maybe I was too afraid to lose any marks in negative marking tests that I did not answer some of the questions, or maybe I was too afraid to lose my hard-earned chips in poker and I folded when I should have called... 

Maybe this what makes the difference in people.. whether they are ready to make the step forward, to take a giant leap, and to dare to gain something with the risk of losing what he/she already had, with a calculated risk of course.. 

And that is why, the next time I have an equal chance of gaining/losing something with the same value, I would rather take the chance then to skip it.. Because although the feeling of losing something is really painful, the satisfaction of gaining something is much more satisfying :)

Room temperature coffee

Tomorrow I will be having this test which carries 20% marks for one of my final year modules.
20% is a lot and thus I have prepared myself to study as much as I could today to score tomorrow.

But,

have you ever had this feeling where you get very nervous when test is coming near, you are scared to death since you haven't been studying at all, you know you will just fail if you don't study and come back home empty handed ... OR that you are full of excitement as you know you can do the test, you will go in to the classroom full of confidence and you bet you will score high?

I have neither... It's not that I am good at the module, indeed I could say I am not as ready yet, but It's not to say that I know nothing about the module.. I still have more than basic knowledge of it.. yet, there is no excitement around, there is no nervousness around.. Hmm, what's up Terry?

It's like a glass of room temperature coffee, not hot, not cold..  and it sucks.

It's never too late

My desire to blog has been around for almost a decade.. When I started, it was at Xanga.com but everything falls apart after 2 weeks.. After not blogging for almost 8 years, I have decided to start this, with 3 reasons in mind. 1. Most important of all, I like to express my thoughts, this is why I always had blogging in my mind. However, not everyone can understand what I think, moreover to waste their time and listen to it. Writing blogs would be an ideal way to express these thoughts out .. 2. Sometimes I have brilliant ideas, and most of the time I forgot about these ideas.. I would make a pledge to myself that I will blog these amazing ideas once I thought of it, so that in case I forget about them, I could always refer back to this blog. 3. I am in the UK ! Far far away from home and this might be the only time that I will be here. Thus, I would do my best to write out my experiences here, as I know they will be valuable and important.

These three fundamentals will shape how my blog looks like. It will mostly be about my thoughts and experiences, as I stated in the self-explanatory title. Sorry if the flow of the blog is stiff, as this is how an engineer writes.... :D

As for the blog, I would try to update it at least once a week .. (my 2nd pledge to myself)

For now, I will continue on with my university work...