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

dinner...

Driving test

as usual, today, i woke up at around 9, had my breakfast and then went to work in the library. nothing much interesting happened...for lunch, since there was some overnight rice, i decided to try out the "golden fried rice" which i learnt in malaysia by watching a drama by wong hei (so much to learn from tv :P). the way of preparing this fried rice is to first extract the egg york from the eggs, beat them evenly and then pour the golden liquid on the rice. after that, it is crucial to make sure that every single grain of rice is coated in the egg york, thus making the rice looked yellow (hence the name "golden"). then, it is to be fried with onions, garlic and chicken. today, this dish turned out to be a little bit dull without carrots and other stuff, but edible nonetheless.

i was scheduled to take a road test at 6.30 pm in ypsilanti today. as a practice, i drove qi ming's car all the way from ann arbor to ypsilanti, and there, renjie took over and drove for a few rounds. then, we went to a carpark to practise some parking. time progessed inexorably, and the dreaded moment arrived very soon. too soon indeed.

we let hon boon drove us to the carpark (where the parking test would be hold). there, we submitted the paperwork, and after filling out the forms for a while, the examiner signalled me (since i was the first one) to start.

first, i had to check whether the vehicle was safe to use. there was nothing tough in this part, and then i was instructed to drive to a line. very good so far (although i was asked repeatedly to drive nearer to the line because probably my car was too far away from the line). the second part became a little bit more challenging when i was asked to do a reverse parking. still okay here. here it comes. the side parking. combined with my lack of skills and spatial judgement, my nervousness had me fail this part...everyone is allowed to accumulate 6 points (the more the worse) in this part, and i got 7. (hey, now that i don't want any extra points, i was given one!!!) hahaha....no one to blame though...my fault. very depressing indeed...(since each test costs 45 usd).

nevermind though. this saturday, i am going to retake the test, and hopefully i will pass it!! kengyang, gambate!!!!!

dinner prepared by hon boon...(tasty beef)

the fried rice i mentioned...

dinner again!!

dinner! (with roasted chicken from meijer's and rice noodles (cooked by renjie) - may 2)

First day cooking...

although dorm food was nowhere near tasty, i miss it so much now. without the 18 meal credits which ensures me a steady supply of nutritious food, now i have to constantly worry about what to eat next. yesterday afternoon, i grabbed some lousy chinese food (fried rice which tasted sweet) in the michigan union, and we had our dinner in northwood community centre. the food there was simply delectable!!! because it's a malaysian occasion (malaysian graduate dinner), we had nasi lemak, rendang, mi kari and some kuih muih. almost stuffed myself to death....hahaha.

and today, we have to cook ourselves....in the morning, we went down north campus to help out qunfeng to move his stuff...after that, we had our lunch in a mcd near the asia market, where we shopped there later for groceries. we bought cooking oil, rice, meat, eggs, etc...stuff which we will miraculously turn to edible food in the following days.

so, upon returning to our place, we rested for a while, then started to do the preparation for dinner. voon seng was there helping us out, and since it was the first dinner, we figured it's a good idea to invite more people. eric and qunfeng would be joining us too. after about 2 hours of work in the kitchen and with the guidance of some internet recipe, this is what we got...(refer to the photos attached)

it's tasty. im not kidding.(i believe you can feel it from just looking at the picture). i personally enjoyed it very much. and because the result was so incredibly good, we came up with a plan...we will share among the 5 people for the following dinner (means from today onwards, 5 ppl will be eating in our place). so dinner problem solved!

first dinner!!!

me cooking vege...