Life in Pictures.

Meet Albert R. Duncan. He’s our local liaison here in Miri. He knows every nook and cranny there is to know about this city of Sarawak. His hobbies are admiring expensive cars and studying. Apart from putting outrageous ringtones in his cell phone.

Here’s Kameel Zafran. Fuzzy hair, mature moustache and goatee, and a personality not easily forgotten. Like my dad, he’s from Kedah. If seen in a formal picture, he’ll seem like someone ready to graduate. Don’t let that fool you, deep down inside he’s one peaceful little wide-eye.

Here’s Lazarus. Big friendly guy who loves to watch movies and socialise with everyone he meets. Especially locals though, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t interact with other people too. He’s the only guy who cooks in our house and one of two people who smokes. Hey, at least he does it outside. Haha.

Here’s Patrick J. Neville. Part time DJ, full time Scottsman. He’s my lab partner for physics. Texts with his phone more than anyone in that class. Even though he’s got that wicked Scottish accent with him, it’s not hard to understand him, surprisingly. He sometimes performs at the local club on weekends as a DJ.

Here’s Conie Choo. No, I didn’t mispell her name, she really is missing an ‘N’. We both have this thing where I call her aunty and she calls me grandpa. Which doesn’t make sense because she’s always walking around with a stick up her butt and I’m still 20 years less mature than her. Thus, my statement of ‘aunty’ is more viable.
Apart from being highly intellectual, making her laugh is really easy. She’s also active in sports and keeping her body fit by jungle trekking and running. Which for one, I have yet to see happen with my own eyes.

If you recognise, that’s Albert behind the Retort Stands. Not here to talk about him. Not about Kasthuri either, who is in the middle. I’m gonna talk about Mr. Jason Chia. He’s our eccentric lab instructor and knows everything you need to know about Chemistry. He’s tough on the outside, but I know deep inside, he’s a softie. It shows really. He really knows how to make you get off your butt and start working. Gotta love him. He has artwork pasted outside the lab of things happening in his life. Which I really can’t describe, you’ll just have to see.

Meet Nadira Akmel Zurin. Her birthday is coming up soon and she’s asking me to buy her something (yeah.. right). She’s a KL girl and likes to watch anime and read manga, especially Naruto. Her favourite colour is blue and her favourite snack is karipap. She likes to draw. Up to an extent that she posts them up on Deviantart.com. She doesn’t eat her vegetables and eats more rice than I do (simply cos, I don’t eat that much rice, ahha).

Let’s post this before I delay any longer.

Hello World,

Hi there,

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Been a lot happening recently. Who am I kidding? There’s always a lot happening. From classes to some event hosted by some society. A lot of pictures I want to show too, but I’ll wait till I have the Escape room’s signal strenght. Where Nadira says it’s pretty strong. Oh well.

First things first, my laundry is finally done. My Chemistry lab book checked. And fasting month has finally started. Only part I won’t like in the next few weeks would be everything involving grades. @.@

Thursday was our chemistry lab session. Over a course of miscommunications and lack of information, our lab book was not good to be seen. So I stayed up all night writing up the book. Which was pretty easy if you have some scientific know-how. The book didn’t turn out so bad on the mark sheet. I’m happy with it.

I’m thinking of buying some cooking utensils for the house. The halal kind. A saucepan, chopping board and spatula should do the trick. I already have a knife. Could make some omelettes and ask to use Lazarus’s rice cooker in case I felt like having some home-cooked stuff. Gosh I miss cooking . Thinking of going over to Azizi’s place to use his stuff. Azizi was my housemate till he moved. Ahha.

Today we finally get some sun after 5 straight days of rain. Did my laundry and it dried within 2 hours. Apparently today is spring cleaning. Everyone in my house is doing laundry or sweeping something. Better get to doing the dishes. Ahha. Later

Haze Case in Desa Senadin.

I’ve been getting bad weather for the past week for one and only one reason. It’s not stormy (though how I wish it was) and it wasn’t too hot (I’d prefer it being hot). It was the smoke so thick, you can’t see the car just 100m in front of you. Pretty much, I’ve found part of the cause to the haze, and it’s this…

A burning stretch of shrubs just next to a roundabout, just a stone’s throw away from my house. Smoke went straight into the neighbourhood and there were ashes littering the streets. I had a weak connection, so that’s why I’m posting only one picture. There were a few pictures I took of the thick haze but all you could see in those is grey pigment with outlines of cars.

The fire was apparently caused by some phenomenon involving the heat from the sun. Maybe someone left a glass bottle on the ground somewhere and it acted like a magnifying glass. Who knows. Sometimes its intentional.

But what really peeves me off is the unbelievably slow response the authorities have in handling this situation. I took that picture last night and it was only this morning that I saw water being sprayed into the burning shrubs near Curtin. I hope that this problem is being taken into account by those in charge. The CO2 content here is getting way too dangerous. I heard that 8 people were hospitalised due to haze. DO SOMETHING!

Dear Blog,

I almost missed the bus to college today but I made it to class. I had a mild stomach ache during Engineering Maths class due to a breakfast eaten with a can of coffee and Lemon Tinge. Later I shall be going to back to back lab sessions of Chemistry and Physics. Yippee.

Matter of Observation

Trying to get into the internet has been harder than ever. An unbelievably thick haze has been formed for the past 2 days now and its causing everyone to turn into ninjas (face masks, very stealthy). I wear one whenever I can get my hands on one. Its not like I have a stash of them or anything like that. Today I got a temperature screening and I got the green light (make that sticker). They gave out green stickers to those who have been through the screening and doesn’t have any fever.

Scary thing is, a friend of my housemate’s recently came down with a really serious sickness. He figured it might be dengue. Sounds really bad, delusional.

About my classes, I have 4 straight days packed with classes and very little time to stay home and do my laundry. Therefore, I’m down to my last 2 pairs of boxers and its only tuesday. Sigh. I have a feeling Chemistry shall again be my favourite subject, but won’t really be my best. Its hard, strict lecturer but with a very perky personality. First time I’ve met anyone with that. Its like, even the bad decision of not being able to pick our lab partners couldn’t be argued with her. When she means something, she means it, but she’s nice enough for us not to argue with her. There’s Madam Ting for you.

Other than that, Maths is soon to be one of my least favourite subjects seeing that the lecturer is the widest-eyed Chinese lady I’ve ever met. Not that I mean that metaphorically, but she seriously has wide eyes. Scary in fact. Doesn’t really remind me of Mrs. Yong, but Madam Chai really puts a meaning to the saying, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Physics is yet to be judged. Seeing that the hot bod’d lecturer, Ms. Lai won’t be doing tutorials with us. The tutor Mr. Samson will. Nice guy. His office is in the very scary Mechanical Engineering building which is normally dark and deserted.

Malaysian Studies, which is basically History done in English has also yet to be judged. The lecturer, Ms. Valerie is one of the most eccentric of the lecturers I suppose. Always pointing out the people in the lecture theater and calling them out to do demonstrations on how political and social stuff were done.

Probably one of the most interesting lecturers is Mr. Foad, our Programming in C++ lecturer. Always knows how to make us listen. But he won’t be our tutor, Ms. Nong will be.

Last but not least, Alison Robson, our Research and Writing Skills, or WRS lecturer/tutor. Dressed to impress and always brings a certain confidence with her even though sometimes she looks sick. In fact, she was missing last week due to illness. Thank God there’s no case of swine flu yet in Curtin.

Anyways, I have about another 30 minutes to recollect my Physics lecture notes from a friend before going into WRS tutorial. My printer credit is down to just 6 prints. T_T

Oh yeah, my new motto in life is “Calculating uncertainties won’t find you the final answer”. I like proverbs that are mathematically and scientifically proven. Remember that one the next time you have doubts about the success of life.