Seattle and Vancouver, here I come!!

Finally...finals are over. No more Econ 401, no more professor Kuhn...haha. Will be going to Seattle and Vancouver for this break. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!!!

Super saiyan

It’s amazing how a person can be so busy and so free at the same time. As if the impending finals are not enough, I still manage to find time to do stupid things; my stupidity culminates in my using photoshop to create a super saiyan (超级赛亚人) me…(okay, my mother is so going to scold me when she sees this…)


super saiyan!!!!

It's snowtime!!

Actually, it started snowing quite a long time ago (a week before thanksgiving). Snow can be quite beautiful, when it is in its most pristine form, untouched and unsullied. Watching flakes of snow materializing out of the sky always elicits a sense of tranquility in me, especially when the precipitation is not heavy. It is as if the world has been reduced to "bullet time" akin to those slow motion scenes in "The Matrix"; millions of snowflakes seemed to float in the air as if their movements are frozen by the time. It is certainly a surreal experience, one that distantly reminds me about those forgotten fantasies; so vague, so obscure, yet so painfully beautiful and pure in their nature.


A view from my window...

Martha Argerich's Rach 3

Recently, when I was surfing through the piano forums, I came across this wonderful thread which included a link to download Martha Argerich’s Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto no.3 video. The video quality was not bad, and aside from the dazzling piano playing, the conductor’s (Riccardo Chailly) expressions were very entertaining too. Thought of sharing it:

Argerich's Rach 3

Minimalist-modern design

Amidst all the assignments and impending finals, my brain still works wonders. I mean, amazingly, I still have the leisure of fantasizing when I am supposed to figure out what the heck does all the unbiased estimators and variance stabilizing transformations mean. I thought of, if I were rich enough to design my own house, how would I want it to be? Interior-wise, I would definitely apply the minimalist-modern design. I tried googling for the images, and I found this to be appropriately suitable for my taste:


minimalist design: clean, simple and cool.

Speedcubing...

I am able to solve rubik's cube now!!! HAHHAHAHA.... Thanks to the master of rubik's cube, tanqf (can refer to the link on my page), who has taught me. Now, my fastest record is 2 min 47 seconds. Another skill learned!!

Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break was long gone when I am writing this post. It's weird that I couldn't update my blog when I was supposed to have ample of time to do so, and now that I am busy with all the schoolwork, I can afford to spend some time on writing something....

Basically, this thanksgiving was a relaxed one. We went watch Harry Potter on the first day (Jinye, Renjie and I), and I had my first "sleep of the century" that night. Totally refreshed after almost 12 hours of deep slumber (from 10.30pm to 10am). Haven't been doing so for ages.

Aside from that, I managed to finish a tvb series (20 episodes long), attend a church thanksgiving dinner, celebrate a friend's birthday (Joshua is his name, his blog's link is on my page), do some room-cleaning, and cook two meals (tom yam and sukiyaki, which mel did a good job). Rather uneventful for a student staying in US, but I was rather satisfied as I was able to rest after the hectic two-thirds of semester.

Too bad, it's too short a break...wonder when will I be able to rest like this again..haha!

Another long post...

Exams are finally over!! This is the moment that I had been waiting so eagerly…thanksgiving break!! But now that I have nothing to do, suddenly I feel so empty. What’s wrong with me?? Guess I’m another guy who suffers from “pondering-on-what-is-the–purpose-of-life-syndrome” lately. So, what do I believe? What do I think about religion?

As a free-thinker, I do not reject the possibilities that religion might be real and not just another big Santa Clause story told. To certain extent, I even think that the existence of religions is good for us. It gives us a sense of purpose. It assures us that death is not the end. It exhorts us to do good and live our life to the fullest. Without these, our souls might be long dead before our physical demise. We need something to support our existence in this world. We need something out there, something omnipresent, something that is able to hear our deepest voice, something that is watching over us. Such yearning manifests itself especially when we are weak, when we are lonely, when we sense that the most dreaded moment is near. We hate to feel forsaken. We hate to feel that we are perishable beings.

To me, it is very possible that there is such entity; an entity that is superior to us, an entity which might have possibly created the world. However, I highly doubt that such entity is as omnipotent, as omniscient, as good as we are told in some scriptures. The Creator, if exists, must be a not so superior one considering this world is such a fiasco. I am always amused and confused when someone praises the God so highly. First of all, if God is so powerful, why does evil prevail and even exist? Why the supposedly perfect image of God is so subjected to the temptation of the dark side? The free will theory is purely bovine excrement to me. Why do we have something bad to choose from at the first place?

The purpose of us being created is another thing worth thinking. Is the world created out of sheer boredom? No no no. I suppose God is too overwhelmed with love, and He hopes to create beings that understand, share and practice His love. Surprisingly, the all-knowing He never figured that His image would be the most vengeful creatures on earth. Ok, He tried to rectify things. He send this son the warn us all. How effective and how clear the message was sent…. His theology itself has now become the source of hate. Why? There is an easy answer. Blame everything to evil. This must be the work of Satan.

Ok, this is starting to sound like a particular religion-bashing. I’m not against anything here; I’m just questioning the superiority of Creator, if there’s one. I do strongly endorse the values spread by religions though, among all, love. If practiced, this world will definitely be a better place to live. Hmm. Such beliefs guarantee me a place in hell I assume, by a loving God who strangely has wrath too. So human a God.

(shoot me if you think i'm too opinionated. open to ideas)

Tagged?

I was tagged, and I don’t even know what the meaning of tagging is. Here, I would like to respond to one of the question:

Things I Plan to Do Before I Die
1. Travel around the world (standard answer), including places (countries, cities, attractions) like: Rome, Paris, London, Cairo, Istanbul, Tibet, New Zealand, Angel Fall, Eilean Donan Castle, Grand Canyon, Athens, Alexandria, Switzerland ….
2. Listen to Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 2 and 3 live.
3. Fly (or at least to get the idea of flying, like doing parasailing, bungee jumping…)
4. Have enough money to lead the life I want.
5. Be able to play Chopin’s Ballade in G minor and other master pieces.

Surprisingly, these are the only things that I can think of right now. Looks like I still don’t quite know what I want in my life….:)

Revelation

Lately, there was a hot issue among the Malaysians studying in the U of M in Michigan – the coming of a famous ex-politician to the grounds of AA to give a speech.

Actually this event was already planned since weeks ago, but not only until a few days ago that I was revealed his visiting to our university. Such revelation, of course, was not a pleasing one; apparently efforts had been poured into insulating the exceedingly immature Malaysians from such devilish information that might put them into dire conditions. The veil of secrecy cast, although sickening, was surprisingly similar to the obscuration of news we once despised - bad information must be contained, as people do not have sufficient wisdom to handle them. Lack of transparency, was in fact a de-euphemism for benign-intentioned tales/concealment to prevent chaos.

Though the situation had been rectified, this serves as a reminder for those in power, who once decried corruption and sworn to create a utopia what their initial agendas were. Again, this is not to blame or to belittle anyone who’s leading the group. In reality, I salute those who bear the courage to take the responsibilities. We are just humans anyway, prone to a multitude of mistakes thanks to our omnipotent and omniscient creator.

Before ending this ramble, I would like to post a disclaimer: the writing might be partly apocryphal and is in no way meant to attack or hurt anyone. It is just a random thought put into words by a disoriented mortal who just screwed up his midterm. I certainly do not anticipate that the last thing I see is red laser dots on my body in the middle of the night.

Another week...

Another week passed…A quite hectic one, as I did my stat 426 homework last minute AGAIN…Luckily, I managed to hand it in on time…

Last Monday was Halloween. Did not attend any parties, but could see people wearing weird costumes around in the campus. Look at what my geosci professor wore in class (photo attached below).

Finally, I got my new speakers!! Cost me only 17 bucks. Good deal I think…

Despite having tones of homework, manage to read Da Vinci’s Code by Dan Brown. A very interesting book indeed, but the story plot and style was disturbingly similar to his previous novel, Angels and Demons. I actually find the previous book more exciting and enjoyable to read. Yet, the brilliance of the author was still manifest through his inclusion of real artifacts and monuments in the book, making the historic claims in the story seemed incredibly credible (although there were a lot of fallacious facts in fact…wow, double usage of words!). And his ability to link seemingly unrelated pieces together again marveled me. A book not to be missed…

Don’t really know what to write. Does this mean that my life is boring? Indubitable...haha. Econs midterm coming up next week. Need to do some serious study again. Wish me good luck! Till then, ciao…

my new speakers!!! (philips) cool, aren't they?? hahaha...

The weather cow...(my geosci professor)

Random post

This past Friday, when I stepped out of the graduate library after working for 2 hours, guess what? I bumped into Senator John Edwards (John Kerry’s vice presidential running mate in the 2004 presidential campaign)!! Okok, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. Actually, he was giving a talk in front of the library, and when I saw him, he was surrounded by a huge group of students. Too bad I did not bring my camera again. Maybe I should make it a point to take it around, since I might one day bump into some famous celebrities. :)

Did nothing much for this week except study, study and study. Decided where to go during the winter break though. This year I will be going to Seattle, and possibly Vancouver (not confirmed yet because I still have to apply visa to enter Canada). Hopefully everything will turn out fine…

MSD officers came to umich for “pemantauan prestasi”. I’m not going to talk bad about anybody since this blog might be watched and I won’t want my scholarship terminated. Anyway, we had some Malaysian food (Nasi Biryani) for the night. Not too bad a dinner…

Pemantauan Prestasi meeting 2005

Fall break trip - Day 2 (Mackinaw City - Mackinaw Island - Ann Arbor)

This day, we woke up early in the morning to watch sunrise. To get a good view of the Mackinaw Bridge and the sun, we went to the coast of the Upper Peninsular. The morning air was bitterly cold, but in order to get good photos and watch my first sunrise (always wanted to do this but to lazy to wake up), I brave the cold and chose a spot where i could find something to put my camera on (those who know me well will know why - my hands tremble all the time and therefore not suitable to hold cameras for long exposure photos). Still, most of the photos turned out bad...hmm. Maybe it's the camera's problem? (hahhaha...)

When everyone was satisfied and had taken enough photos, we went back to the hotel for free breakfast. We checked out after that, and set off for the pier to get a ferry to Mackinaw Island. The ferry fare was 19 bucks for round trip, and it departs from the port every hour.

Mackinaw Island was basically an island with 500 permanent residents and a favorite tourists spot. The natural beauty of Mackinac Island State Park was honored by National Geographic as one of the ten finest in America. The first thing that we see upon stepping off the ferry dock was a Victorian village. There was almost no vehicle on the island, and people there traveled mostly by bicycle or horse. Because horses are everywhere, their wastes are "omnipresent" too. I even witnessed a horse peeing right on the street!! The unbelievingly huge amount of water running down in a cascade was definitely a scene not to be forgotten...

We rent bicycles to move around the island. The rate was 5 dollars an hour for a 7-speed bike. The ride around the island was 8 miles long, which we finished in 2 and a quarter hour. The scenery was indubitably beautiful, and we had had a good exercise cycling. We managed to visit a few gift shops on the main street after that, and I have bought a shot glass. We went to a fudge shop too, where I bought peanut fudge.

We left the island at 3pm for Ann Arbor. The two-day trip ended with a bang when we filled our stomachs late at night (about 10 pm) with those authentic and delectable dim sums from a restaurant called Shangri-La in Farmington Hills.

Mackinaw City's sunrise 1

Sunrise and Mackinaw Bridge (taken from Upper Peninsular)

View from Upper Peninsular

Mackinaw City's sunrise 2

Gateway to Mackinaw Island!!!

A nice view from the island

Main Street

Dock of Mackinaw Island

haha...

Cycling in Mackinaw Isle...

inside devil's kitchen...(the name of the cave)

Fall Break Trip - Day 1 (Ann Arbor - Traverse - Mackinaw City)

After more than an exhausting month of studying, I finally got what I deserved – a break! For this break, I went for a short but fun two day-one night trip to Traverse City and Mackinaw Island. Five of us (Mike, Pohyi, Jinye, Kaikiat and I) were in this trip.

The journey started early in the morning. It was still 5.15 am when I dragged myself out of my bed. Mike rented a car earlier, and he drove us around most of the time during the trip, with me taking over only when he was tired. As promised, Pohyi fixed us some sandwiches for us to eat on the road. So, cheerfully, (fortunately not studiously, as no one study stats 426 in the car ) we headed to our first destination – Traverse City.

It was a four-and-a-half-hour drive before we reached Traverse City. The scenery on our way was picturesque, as it was fall and the leaves of the trees had all turned to an orangey color. Upon reaching Traverse City, we went to the visitor’s information center before going to a farmer’s market. There was a variety of goods in the farmer’s market: pumpkins, apples, walnuts, flowers, honey, meat, and so on. I had never known that visiting a market can be that fun. The reason of my appreciating this visit was probably because the market somehow reminded me of the pasar in Malaysia.

We proceeded to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes after that. It was a national park where one can see desert out of nowhere. We went for a “hiking trip” up the dubbed (by me, because can’t find another way to describe it) cliff of sands and another scenic drive in the area. The stop at the 9th and 10th station of the scenic drive was particularly memorable, as wind gusting from the lake mercilessly rained us with sands when we tried to go to the lakeside. However, the “ordeal” proved to be worthwhile as the view there was simply breathtaking.

We went for a late lunch at a nearby town. After that, we went to a winery before heading for Mackinaw City, where we would spend a night there (too bad that I was underage and could not taste the wine there). In Mackinaw City, we explored the town a bit at night and took some pictures of the famous Mackinaw Bridge that connects Michigan mainland to the upper peninsular. Wearing just two sweatshirts, I was almost frozen to death at the lakeside…Called it a day after having dipper (dinner + supper, a word “created” by Jinye) in KFC.

that's michigan lake!!!

i took the advice...

on the top of the world...

"oasis"

the "sand cliff" i mentioned

a lakeview on our way (not michigan lake or huron lake though)

Some weird stuff sold in the farmer's market

Bill Gates

Bill Gates came to my university this morning to give a talk on the future in computer science career. (Yes, it's him, the founder of Microsoft and the world richest person) Actually, more than a week prior to his arrival, the Michigan Daily had already announced his plans to visit Umich. Tickets could be obtained free from the Michigan Ticket Office, but to my dismal, they were all given away well before 9am (I reached the office at 12+pm). To console the disappointed students like me, they opened up an overflow hall so that we could watch the talk live via video.

Because the talk clashed with my GeoSci class, I decided to skip the lecture just to sit in the overflow hall and listen to Bill Gates. My skipping of class proved to be worthwhile as the talk was really interesting. Bill Gates was more humorous than what I had initially thought, and he even showed us a skit that he acted in. It was really hilarious as he did many stupid things in the video clip, including dancing!! (kinda like the solo free style dance) Difficult to imagine huh? He tried out a racing game too during the talk, which he sucked big time in.

Too bad I couldn’t get the main hall ticket. Photos of this event can be seen in Voon Seng’s blog (damn, that guy got the tickets!! Said his photo copyrighted wor…) under this link

http://voonseng.blogspot.com/2005/10/bill-gates-michigan.html

Opus Clavicembalisticum

Let's talk about classical music :)

In piano forums, the FAQ is: which is the most difficult piece ever written?

There are a few favorite answers, among them the famous (but infamously difficult) Rach 3 written by Rachmaninoff. But still, the Opus Clavicembalisticum is the generally accepted answer. Written by Sorabji, this monstrous composition is almost impossible to be performed. Not only it requries demanding techniques, it requires sheer determination and courage for a pianist to even attempt it(the length of the full performance of this piece is an astounding 4 hours+, and it varies with intepretations from different pianists). Only few pianists have managed to play this piece in its entirety, and even fewer recordings are exist.

To get an idea of how the piece look like, here is the music sheet of

Opus Clavicembalisticum

More info about the work

Opus Clavicembalisticum

(p.s. gosh, why the heck am I blogging at this time? Tomorrow got GeoSci midterm!)

Blow Blue!!!

School life started again, and it's predictably boring. This semester I'm taking 4 subjects:

GeoSci 122 Extreme weather
Econ 401 Intermediate microecnomic theory
Math 316 Differential Equation
Stats 426 Introduction to Theoretical Statistics

which total up to a mere 13 credit hours. Still, I feel like there is not enough time to complete my assignments and readings...(Econ 401 is definitely a killer...tonnes of homework!!!). Hmm...maybe it's time to stop complaining and change my old cogenital habit - procrastination.

Ok..so back to topic. What's blow blue?? It's not blowing something until it turns blue...It's actually one of the activity in the Big House Event organized by our extreme weather profesor - Perry Samson. Oh yeah, the venue of this event was in the much famed Big House - a football stadium which was boasted to be the biggest in the United States. And it's the home for our varsity football team - the Wolverines. (ahem...we just lost to Wisconsin Badgers. Great.)

In this event, all the students were asked to invite friends and participate in a couple of experiments that determine the temperature and air flow in the stadium. Each person would be given credit for involving in the preperation, bringing a friend or joining an experiment. It was only then I found out that I had no friends...what a sad thing! (Hmm..should I feel sad for such petty stuff?) Anyway, if everything turned out well, a student should be able to get 10 points out of this event. Of course, the ever-smart donation collectors were there to raise funds for Katrina relief. (They were actually part of the reason this event was organized)

So, basically we had lots of fun there, tying balloons to seats, taking temperature around the stadium, and blowing of course (a fun job huh). Apparently, some friend of mine blew so hard until she felt dizzy (haha).

The event ended around 1.30pm, and I went back with an extra thing - a free T-shirt. Woohoo!!

I'm part of the M!

Blow blow blow...

Lotsa balloons...

Me in the "colossal" stadium. Blow Blue!!

The biggest stadium in the States?!? Come on US...you can do way better than this...

Back to school...

So, after 13 weeks of struggling, i was finally emancipatetd from the most difficult chapter in my life (which i hope it holds true forever). About two days before we hit the road, nature had unleashed its fury through Katrina. New Orleans was forcibly made to Venice, and the gas price shot up as a result of the damages on oil rigs. It went up as high as 5 usd per gallon in Atlanta, and we had received rumours that the gas stations nationwide were going to strike for a week. Of course, those were just rumours, but they indeed cast an ominous shadow on our journey back to Ann Arbor.

We went to Missisipi first to check out. It was a long drive (about 13 hours), and we reached there pretty late. So, after checking out, Mr Ramesh (the boss of the internship company) invited us to spend a night in his house. We continued our journey back the next day. It was another 12 hour drive. On our way, we stopped by at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC).

In UIUC, we managed to meet up with our msian friends (Yik Han, Billy, Jing Jet). We had our lunch/dinner there at a Korean restaurant.

We reached Ann Arbor at 1.00 am that night. And that marked the end of my saga...

Atlanta

Stopping by Georgia

Duke University

During the extra week (which i practically didn't work at all, coz it's extra), we managed to take time to visit the famous Duke University located in Durham, North Carolina (which was about 2 hours drive from Roanoke Rapids). Three of us went for the trip (qi ming, renjie and i), and actually we intended to meet up with the malaysians there. But due to some reasons, qi ming couldn't contact shen ling and other friends of his which were studying there. So we ended up walking around in the huge university, not really know which part to visit.

Duke University was basically as big as the University of Michigan (which was my personal opinion but others don't think so), and they had a medical center which was equally famous. In fact, a lot of my Mrs.Jones had paid visits to the center for various illness.

Our visit to university conincided with the first day of school in Duke. We went to the bookstore, and there each of us had the chance to get a free organizer (yay!) and other freebies. That night, we had dinner at a pizza place. Thinking about it, there was indeed nothing much to say about this trip...

a chapel in the main campus...

Some random building in East Campus

Probably the founder of Duke Uni...(see that bunch of nice cirrocumulus behind me?? hahaa....)

Duke University!!!

Corolla Beach Trip

During the last few weeks, when the motivation was low and the fighting spirit was significantly lesser, there was one thing that kept us moving on - the trip. We were promised a free trip to some beach, which was not decided yet until the 9-10th week of our internship. The trip was scheduled on the end of 11th week, and the location, which we later found out, was the Corolla Beach at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The Outer Banks was a thin strip of land that lies in between the Atlantic Ocean and the continent of the America. Hence, it was an excellent place to have all sorts of activities: water sports (jet skiing, para-sailing, kayaking etc) on the sound (a body of water seperated from the ocean by the outer bank) and surfing on the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It was in fact a famous tourist-attraction in the States.

It took us about 5 hours to drive there. To make a long story short (as i am too lazy to write everything out in detail), we had a good time there. We managed to have tonnes of seafood (blue crabs, Alaskian king crab legs, snow crabs, crab cakes, shrimps and of course, beer :D )for the first dinner. Plus, i had my first jet-skiing experience...It was exhilarting (not to mention the part i fell in the water) as we sped our way on the sound, racing to be the first to reach an imaginary line marked by buoys. I got the chance to surf too(not standing but hugging the surfing board). The waves of the Atlantic Ocean were nothing like the amiable ones that pat the shore gently in Redang or Batu Feringghi; they are marching walls that smashed ferociously on the beach. It was kind of a terifying experience just watching at the inexorable waves crashing thunderously on the shore.

Aside from that, we had a party night to on the second day. Different types of alchohol were served, and the beach house was made to a party hosue. Since partying was not my cup of tea, i didn't drink much or dance...

Oh yeah, and did i mention that something unforgettable happened on our way back? (spices up our trip further...hahaha). That's all i can say for now. I'll post some photos...

after jet skiing...

group photo

i love new york....

Corolla Beach...

a full-course soul food dinner cooked by a very kind lady! (delivery week)

another group photo...

Sunday meeting (rookies)

My housemates in Roanoke Rapids

Life as a bookman

Ok, when i'm talking about selling books, what do i mean?

Selling books is nothing like setting up a book stall in the middle of a shopping mall, waiting people to come and buy your books. When i said i'm selling books, what i meant was selling books door-to-door. I worked like a salesman actually...(but we preferred to call ourselves "bookman")

The books we sold included:
a study bible, an illustrated bilbe in stories, a set of bible reference books (which includes a handbook, dictionary and concordance), a black history set, and a homework handbook set.

So, everyday, i drove 30-80 miles to my county (the distance varies, as i worked in 4 counties in 2 states). Once i had reached my county, i had to look for areas where the african americans stay. Yup, in this job, my main focus was on the african americans, or blacks (some ppl found this word offensive, but most don't). The main reason for my choosing of blacks as my customers was because they were generally more friendly and more religious. The whites were indubitably richer, but most of them, YES, MOST OF THEM (at least most of the whites i had met) were VERY DEFENSIVE, SNOBBISH, COLD and RUDE. (I don't blame them though, coz who would be friendly to a foreigner that knock on your door and try to enter your house??)

Once i reached the area, i would start knocking on doors. To make sure that we could enter the house to show our books, we were taught to do a "set-up" using our "salestalk" (which we were trained over and over again). The key was to make people to like you and trust you. Once they like you and trust you, most of them will let you show the books if they have the need. And whether they buy it or not depends on the closing skill, which i think i seriously lacked it...

Hence, i worked 10 hours a day, 6 days a week (mon-fri). Sunday was my only off-day, but i had to attend a group meeting which normally took place in Cheasepeake, VA. We went to Raleigh, NC twice to have a combined meeting (which 3 organizations met). In such meetings, we called number (an activity which compared the sales of the students) and discussed ways to improve our sales. Of course, before each of the meetings, we had good lunch (either chinese buffet or Golden Coral).

This was my life as a bookman for three months...

my "bed" (protected by all my stuff!)

my "home" for three months...(we lived in the left side)

Pittsburgh - Roanoke Rapids

05/28/2005

We left Pittsburgh in the afternoon, and soon enough we found oursevles driving endlessly again on the highway. On our way to Roanoke Rapids, the hub cap of my car flew off. I did not know it until Renjie called me. Luckily, the hub cap was just the decoration part of the wheel.

We reached Roanoke Rapids at about 11.00 p.m. Upon reaching the single-storey duplex, a brick house which will be our "home" for the next three months, we were welcomed by Hon Boon and Sime. They had cooked us some chicken, which we gladly finished it. Little did we know that we were about to face the toughest chapter of our lives in no time...

Ann Arbor - Pittsburgh

05/27/2005

We (RenJie and I) left Ann Arbor for North Carolina on the 27th of May. My car was practically packed with all of my belongings (i left two boxes of academic stuff with voon seng. thx vs!) Before we left, we went to the plymouth Shell to do an oil change. To my dismay, the mechanic found out that my car needed some repair. There was something wrong with the axel thingy, and i was told that the wheel might fly off when i am driving. Knowing that the parts won't be available until the next day, i decided to take my chance. I had a feeling that the mechanic was exaggerating again. (coz remember that i once did a used car inspection here?)

The journey to Roanoke Rapids, a place 710 miles from Ann Arbor was pretty boring. It was estimated that we would need at least 11 hours to reach there (according to mapquest). Since i cannot listen to the radio or play any cd, i have to fight my sleepiness by chewing gum or singing. (the singing method was quite effective, it acted like some sort of shock treatment) We stopped a few times to refuel our cars, and when it was dark, we decided to find some place to park our cars and have a sleep. We stopped at a parking lot of a church near an exit of the interstate highway.

The very next day, we continued our journey after refreshing ourselves in a service station at the highway (i bought myself a hot chocolate). Since we would pass by Pittsburgh in our way, i figured it would be nice to visit my buddy, hong tuck, in the Carnagie Mellon University.

Probably due to the weather (cloudy and moody), i did not really like the atmosphere in Pittsburgh. The city was indescribably weird, somewhat possessed the aura that only a disgruntled old man will exude. Hong tuck still looked the same when we met him (haha). He brought us to the place he stayed, which was a room in his senior's dorm. After that, we walked around in the university and had lunch (chinese buffet) in the downtown. Other than CMU, there was another university in Pittsburgh - the University of Pittsburgh (of course).

(i will post the pictures later...)

Hong Tuck and I in Pittsburgh..

University of Pittsburgh...

Mitsubishi Mirage 2001

Hahaha...long time since i last posted anything. Currently i'm still in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, but since i'm not doing anything now (i lent my car to Priscilla coz hers is in the bodyshop. a good excuse for not working right?), i'll try to tell what exactly i have been doing for my first summer in the states...

*this post is a continuation from my last post* &pardon me for my grammer..sigh~~&

So, after much trouble, i finally got myself a car (haha..don't really remember about the details...it happened about 3 months ago). It's a Mitsubishi Mirage 2001. I bought it from a dealer in Saginaw, MI, with 3100 usd cash, and i think it's a pretty good deal. The car is extremely good on gas. The only thing im not so happy about the car is that i can't use the cdplayer, because i don't have the access code for it (high-tech huh?) Of course, i can go to the nearest Mitsubishi dealer to retrieve the code, but doing that will cost my another fortune (about 68 usd). Hence i decided that i would be better off if i just sing and entertain myself in the car.

(i will post a pic of my car later)

my baby...

my baby...(rear view)

Car...

ok. other than studying, i have gone to have a look at a car which i intended to buy.

about a month ago, i came across an ad featuring a second-hand car for sale. it's a maroon nissan sentra 1995, and the price was about 2600 usd. although i was quite interested in having a look at the car, the approaching finals and the lack of money (means i wouldn't be able to buy the car even if i like it) prevented me from doing so. and it was not until last week that i got the time to set up an appointment with the owner of the car to inspect the vehicle.

the appointment was at 9.00 am in the Willow Tree Apartments. qi ming drove me there, as he needed to get his car repaired somewhere near there too (a shell auto shop on plymouth rd). we managed to reach there in time, and to my surprise, the owner of the car appeared to be an indian (i thought i would be a chinese). he was a graduate student about to leave ann arbor.

the 4-door sedan was parked right outside of the apartment. it looked pretty new from outside (although this was not true. qi ming later told me that he saw some scratches on the door, and i later discovered myself that the front headlights was broken) . and again, to my surprise, the car was a manual car.

not convinced that i can actually drive a manual car, (huh?) he demonstrated to me how to drive it. after a short trip, i asked him to drive me to baits 1 so that i can test-drive it in the large open car-park there. after getting familiarized with the car, i drove it around (in the northwood area) and felt that it was quite a good car. pretty satisfied, i called the auto shop (the one which qi ming repair his car at) and set up an appointment for a car inspection. it was scheduled at around 11.30 am.

when the time came, i went to willowtree and drove the car to the auto shop. the owner looked quite worried, probably doubting my ability to handle the car (which i don't know why). i was quite sure i would buy the car if everything turned out fine. but about an hour later, my initial dream of owning a car was shattered. the reason was that the car needed some serious work before it could be used safely on the road:

two front axles 420
frond and rear pads + rotors 440
all belts 120
front crank seal 175
tune up 59
clutch 450
a/c compressor 600
(all the figures are in USD)

....man, 2400 USD for such a car?? luckily i did an used-car inspection (which cost me 45 bucks)...of course, i can't rule out the possibility that the mechanics there were exaggerating. yet, the repair costs were too high for me, and i would not want to take the risk of buying a car which will financially burden me too much (because the insurance will cost a lot too. a 3-month full coverage is about 600 usd).

hence, i gave up the idea of buying that particular car. (though he offered 1900 usd later, which was still quite high as i have asked the mechanics how much the car would cost. they said 1500.)

Study week...

hmm. where did i stop? ok...here i will give a brief (probably will end up not so short) summary of stuff i have done in this week...

basically the whole week is about study, study and study...preparing myself for my first actuarial professional paper. why do i need to study that hard?? there are a few factors:
a) this exam is yet the most important one in my neverending studying life.
b) only 30% of the candidates can pass this paper.
c) people do not take this exam just because it is fun. they spend 100+ USD for it, thus meaning that they will take it seriously. very seriously. and this is not a good news at all.
d) i did outlandishly bad in my intro to probability class, and this seems pretty much like a precursor to my failing this paper.

hence, despite the odds of me passing the paper, i spend a great portion of my daily time immersing myself in the confusing world of probability, striving hard to understand theories which attempt to systematically explain the chaotic world of randomness. knowing that i have little, or should i say virtually no interest in this field frustrates me the most. how im i going to live my future life dealing with all of these abominable excrement with a stench i abhore so much? (haha, pardon me for my wording. venting my frustration here)

mind over body man. your brain is a powerful tool. these are what i have been using to hypnotize myself. i am currently trying to make myself believe that i love math. actually the fact is, i used to. hmm. maybe the passion is still out there, somewhere in my mind, hiding mischieviously (which i don't find it amusing) in between my greyish folded cerebral mass. all i need to do is to dig the damn passion out. then life will be so much better...

where thou art?? my passion to math??

Angels and Demons

just finished reading my second dan brown's book - angels and demons. really intereting...now looking foward to read the next book, the most famous of his work to this date - da vinci's code...

i found the ambigrams in the book particularly interesting. An ambigram, to those who doesn't know what it is, is a word written in such a way that it is legible both rightside-up and upside-down. Ambigrams are an ancient artform and play heavily into the mysteries of Angels & Demons.

here's an example of an ambigram...(the title of the book) it's legible upside down!!! don't believe? have a look!!

angels and demons