ah... how i miss my polytechnic days... was reminded that i did a couple of videos during my polytechnic days, and i went to dig them up. simple videos using a simple program, but i put in a lot of effort to make them.

enjoy!

video on my final year project: wireless vascular doppler recorder. sounds sophisticated, eh?

1 minute promotion video of my club : )

Unpolished Gem

ive been feeling lethargic ever since coming back from genting. sometimes i dont even feel like using the computer for a long time. ive also lost the mood to blog, but im writing today because i want to introduce a good book - unpolished gem, written by alice pung.

dont know who is alice pung? i didnt know either when i purchased the book. there were tons and tons of books on sale at where borders parkway used to be located. plenty of books of all genres, but upon reading the synopsis, i ended up picking this memoir of someone i never heard before.

synopsis

with a home-grown accent and an imported heritage, alice pung grew up stradding two worlds. by the time she was born, her family had already made the perilous journey from revolutionary china and the killing fields of cambodia to the new home in a prosperous australian suburb. but even as alice dives headfirst into life in the only country shes ever known, she also understands her fathers wonder at the magical workings of escalators, her grandmothers fervent blessings for the generosity of father government, and her mothers determination to toil every hour of the day and night. warm-spirited and wonderfully wise, unpolished gem is a vibrant, irreverent portrait of the foreigners fumble, the everyday successes and the bittersweet bonds that hold one small family together in a big new country.

okay, it wasnt just the synopsis alone that decided it for me. the book also included snippets of reviews from various sources, and that made the book sound very interesting.

unpolished gem is the debut work of alice pung, who is a chinese of cambodian descent. or is it a cambodian of chinese descent? anyway, besides sharing stories about her interesting childhood growing up in a traditional asian family, her book also talks about the life of her family of immigrants in australia, how they adapted but somehow still failed to fit in. in a way, her book is a voice for all the immigrants, whose stories of hardship were never made known to others.

alices style of writing is very different from john lawton, the author of riptide (my previous book). while john lawtons riptide, peppered with alien words, can be sort of burdensome to read, unpolished gem is written simply and pleasantly. in her own way, alice pung is a great storyteller. injecting humour into her somewhat difficult, heartbreaking and inspiring life story, the book is just so interesting to read. you would want to go on finding out what happens in her life.

its indeed $6 well spent ^^

to end off, heres a short video of alice pung talking about unpolished gem and the migrants story in general.

Genting Trip: As It Happened

friday

20:50 - things packed and ready to go!

21:15 - we reached golden mile shopping centre, the pick-up point for the coach. the coach is schedule to leave only at 23:00, and its not even here yet, but we came early to ensure that we can all sit close to one another.

21:25 - my cousins family, who are also going with us on the trip, arrives. mum is happy because now she has someone to talk to.

22:23 - woah, i met my friend from polytechnic! he is going on a trip with his friends, but to kuala lumpur.

22:50 - we are finally settled on the coach! its my first time taking such a classy coach to malaysia. there are even in-ride entertainment systems! 출발!

23:38 - clearing the singapore customs is an absolute breeze. at this timing, it seems the customs is operating for no one but us.

23:55 - takes just a bit longer to clear the malaysia customs. time to store some energy for tomorrow! good night!

saturday

01:00 - woke up to find that we are actually doing a pit-stop at yong peng. i was impressed by the stopover place. still plenty of food available despite the hellish timing. we ate fishball noodles. for an area famous for its fishballs, the balls are just okay, but the noodle is nice.

04:30 - we are already on our way up towards genting highlands! the super-curvy roads are fogged up. visibility is rather poor. its really a test of skills to drive up. dad said before the road used to be much worse than now. if its current condition is bad enough for me, what was it used to be like before?

04:56 - gosh... it didnt know it would take so long for us to reach the top, despite having a pretty skilled driver who kept overtaking other vehicles on our way up. this place is colder than my office, and i see clouds below me!

scaled down model of genting highlands in the hotel lobby

06:16 - we could only check into our hotel at noon, and most shops/attractions arent open yet. basically all we could do is sit around and eat. and eat. and eat. so sinful...

06:38 - long queue of poeple wanting to make the genting card. possibly for gambling purpose. my mum is the one who wants to try the slots machine, but she forced me into the queue for her : (

07:35 - we are heaving a buffet breakfast. some food on offer reminds me of the breakfast onboard star cruise. and ikea.

08:45 - having stayed indoor since arriving, we finally made our way outside!

09:56 - i just lost rm10 through the slots machine. maybe because i didnt have a tinge of red on me to give me luck. i realized gambling is really not the thing for me. the slots machine is no fun, and its takes so long to get the table games going, and i didnt have the patience for that.

the best part of the casino experience? getting checked by the security not once, but twice! i must have looked young xD

11:12 - theres a group of youths putting in a hip-hop performance at the hotel lobby. no pictures to show. my mum has got the camera with her.

12:49 - we finally got to check into the hotel room! the room is quite small, but just nice for 3 (my sis, my mum and me). im contented. hotel sweet hotel ^^

excellent view from the window.

13:41 - having our lunch in the hotel room. there was no need to lunch outside, as we brought way too much food up here.

15:00 - having taken a nap, we continued exploring the place. aimlessly Oo

im pretty proud of this picture

me making my sis hold up the bridge

16:27 - i just had my first ever cable car ride! the ticket, at rm10 for a two-way trip, is great value for money.

not a camwhore, be still pretty good :P

whos taking this picture for us?!!

16:57 - the cable car brought us from the top to the middle part of the mountain. theres nothing much to do here at all, so we are already making our way back.

resting after wandering about

smile~ 30 dollars please.

this is not the longest cable car ride is southeast asia for nothing. the trip back seemed like eternity.

17:30 - my friend told me to try baskin robbins while im here, and try i did.

18:55 - just ended the tour for ripleys believe it or not. lots of fascinating stuff. its a little like paying to enter a museum, but there are some interactive attractions inside. a good experience!

the luckiest chair in the world, made with horseshoes

my mum, seemingly unfazed by the dropping books

heads and heads and heads and shoulders above the rest

19:35 - on the contrary, ripleys haunted house is TERRIBLE. my secondary school does it way better.

19:47 - late dinner at kfc. another sinful meal.

20:34 - some acrobats putting up a show for the crowd.

up goes the pottery

and the table as well

21:25 - arcade time!

the arcade was also disappointing. i have no idea how much credit the machines robbed us of. we had to constantly call for the operators because the machines are giving us problems. two thumbs down.

sunday

00:54 - back in the hotel room. my mum and sis have already turned it. and im about to do the same, after finishing my outdated version of readers digest.

08:54 - having our buffet breakfast at the same venue. having tried a variety for food the day before, im sticking to just french toast and chicken sausages today.

10:20 - theres still a little time before we have to check out from the hotel room, so we decided to go bowling. my sis and i are amateurs, while the rest are first-timers.

fit for the camera, despite this being his first time

oops... a little over the line?

more like doing hip-hop than bowling

12:15 - took me a torturous 20 minutes of lift-waiting before i finally make my way down from 23rd floor to the 1st. everyones rushing to check out at the same time.

14:28 - it rained in the morning, so the temperature outside is really low. if you exhale hard enough, you can even see your breath smoking!

after a torrid time waiting at the cold and overcrowded bus terminal, our coach finally arrives. no in-ride entertainment system this time, but it doesnt matter to me. im just going to concuss myself for most part of the trip back : )

conclusion: i was too young the first time i went to genting, so i didnt know what was the place about. i only remembered the cold weather, the hotel suite and that i was underheight for a certain water attraction. now i have a better idea about the place. didnt try the theme park though, as we only had one full day to explore, and i didnt want it to be a mad rush. maybe if there is a next time...

Top Ten Things Airlines Don't Tell You

an article from away.com

10. Even Pilots Have to Pee
"Anyone who has sat near the front of the plane since 9/11 has surely noticed when the pilots are ready to take a bathroom break, or 'physiological needs' break, as the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) calls it. When nature calls we alert the flight attendants on the intercom. The attendants set up a barrier to the cockpit and give us an all-clear signal to open the door, as we don't have a separate bathroom and have to use the same one as everyone else. A few months back my fellow pilot picked up the wrong handset and accidentally asked the entire aircraft if we could 'come out and pee?'"

9. There Is Such Thing as the "Good Seats"
"If you are susceptible to motion sickness, your best bet is to sit over the wing. An airplane is like a teeter-totter. When the pilot moves the nose of the plane up or down, the seats in the extreme front and back are going to move a greater distance. And as a rule, the tail tends to move more than the front, so stay away from the rear if motion is a problem for you."

8. The Fasten Seatbelt Sign Is No Joke
"Turbulence isn't dangerous to a jet aircraft, but it is to the people in it. Past incidents of severe turbulence have slammed people into the ceiling and then dropped them to the floor, causing very serious injuries. If your flight crew tells you to be seated because of turbulence, I highly recommend you heed their warning."

7. There Are No Free Lunches
"Thanks to the airline bankruptcies starting in 2000, few U.S. domestic airlines still provide food to its crews. As pilots we are allowed to eat in the cockpit once we're at cruising altitude, but we're usually eating something from the food courts in the airport terminal: pre-prepared wrapped sandwiches, slices of pizza. Not quite the glamorous lifestyle it used to be."

6. And You Thought Filling Your Car Was Expensive
"The number-one expense for an airline is fuel, which isn't going to get any cheaper. And because the cost of gas fluctuates so much, so does the price of the flight. Your average two-engine, narrow-body aircraft burns about 15 gallons of gas per minute at cruising altitude. So you can imagine what the gas bill would be on a transcontinental flight."

5. The FAA Has a Sense of Humor, Sort of
"Airplanes follow an invisible map of highways and avenues in the sky in order to make it to their destinations. There are thousands of virtual points in the sky that pilots follow on their route, each with unique names so the air-traffic controllers can tell us where to go and how to get there. The FAA has gotten creative when naming some of these points (which must be five characters), like these over southern Florida—UFIRD, DONLD, and TRUMP over Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club, or FINNS, PYRUT, and BUFIT for Florida native Jimmy Buffett. My favorites are at the Kansas City Airport, honoring its local cuisine on the arrival procedure with SPICY and BARBQ."

4. The Deal With Electronics
"Nothing has ever been proven, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that electronics really interfere with an aircraft's flight instruments. The most likely culprits are things that transmit a signal, like a cell phone or a computer operating in Wi-Fi mode, which emits an electronic pulse or wave. But new aircrafts are being engineered for the wireless age so you should see more and more allowance of electronic devices in the future."

3. Your Co-Pilot Could be More Experienced Than You Think
"The turmoil of the airline industry over the last 20 years or so has caused many airlines to go out of business or shrink in size, thus laying off massive numbers of employees. If an airline captain loses his job at one airline and goes to another, he or she will start over as a co-pilot at entry-level pay and will be given no credit for their experience."

2. The Air Isn't Immune to Office Romances
"All the crew stays at the same hotel, but I remember a couple years ago the pilots' wives pushed for flight attendants to be at a different hotel than the pilots because they didn't want to make it easy for their husbands to cheat."

1. Crews Are Trained in More Than Just Emergency Exits
"Terrorism is a big deal nowadays. Most flight attendants and pilots are trained for those instances and taught self-defense as well as how to detect certain behaviors. Pilots are also able to sign up for a voluntary intensive program that is held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. For one week they learn things like how to shoot a gun and disable someone carrying one. When they finish the program they're licensed to carry a gun into the cockpit with them."