Shitty Timetable and Cafes

Having no other options, I have to kiss goodbye to my ever relaxing life....Seriously I am a lil dishearten by the time table this semester. Imagine that everyday you gotta leave ur warm and comfortable mattress early 7 in the cold morning and force that reluctant lids to open just a few cms...then barely grab a few bites of biscuits before going to class - late. (yea maybe I m not used to since last sem my class were all late...mostly 10am) But, there are little breaks in between my hectic, "lab-ful" classes before I could call it a day in 5pm. Problems often complement well with other problems. It had since become even troublesome and undesirable because the only available cafe is in Pocket D, far beyond reach from my academic block, and also far beyond my pathetic budget as a student. NO breads, NO biscuit nor simple economical take-away snacks is available, means you have no option but to queue up A DECADE to make an order. Would we have time for that? Even worse, the food prizes are getting more expensive, and still increasing!
Lets have a look at the very basic meals:

-1 toast bread
-1 scrammbled egg
-1 ramli chicken burger meat
TOTAL = RM4

-2 omelet eggs (rm0.64)
-2 small hotdog (rm0.60?)
-2 toasted normal white bread (rm0.30?)
TOTAL = RM5

-1 beef/chicken burger meat
-1 mixed vege (tesco beans n carrots n corn)
-rice
TOTAL = approx RM4.50


(PS: with those prices we could obtain a big chicken and a few vege and drinks in a normal cafe, and maybe 15 AA eggs!!!)


Other menu you don't even need to know since they are meant only for the rich international students and lecturers! RM10 fried chicken, rm12 beefs, rm30 burger? Locals (even with rm500/month scholarships) would find it financially burdened!For heaven's sake its our DAILY meals and in a long run, our wallet would bleed! How about those private students who need to pay RM138 per credit hours (excluding hostel and book expenses)? Perhaps they need to acquire the art of hibernation so that they no longer eating. Why would UTP make the Chancellor Complex such a "high-class" location? Yea, student may bring their own lunch box during academic period, but the issue is, we should be given other options instead of a single, "high class" cafe. Even with my own lunch box, gosh I would not wanna eat bread every single day! What else could I prepare other than bread? Pizza, Lamb-chops, Teppankaki, CharKuehTeow?

There is even a time where MINERAL WATER is NOT available in the cafe...therefore making the entire Chancellor Complex a mini-Sahara Dessert. I do bring my own water, but it would finished off by noon. Then I have to learn from a cactus to survive till 5pm. In fact I had to drink pipe waters sometimes. Maybe I should bring more water, 2 heavy bottles, or a big pail. Then I shall ask the camels how to carry them. Maybe UTP have to consider installing water dispensers. Having hundreds of lightings and running the IRC aircond 24-hours would be a pride, but what for having something which is nice to eat but not healthy? Nice to look but hard to use? How about the money and electricity which vanished into thin air? Students shall deserve better cafe and facilities because we paid for it (and our sponsors). Or maybe UTP really meant for those who are willing to pay.

"Badan Cergas, Hotak Cerdas"

Fantasie-Impromtu by Frederic Chopin

Music Sheet: Fantasie-Impromptu

Perhaps one of the most well known piece of Frederic Chopin is Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op 66. I first heard this music played by one of my friend, and later on reminded me of an old classical "Tom and Jerry" film which used the middle part of this piece as background music. I real like its ending part, where it ends slowly with the left had playing a few notes of the main melody. I tried to play this with my piano but its way beyond my standard. First challenge came when I realized it has a unique tempo of 8:6, where each bars, right hand plays 16 notes while left hand plays a 12 notes. This means when your right hand hits 4 notes, ur left hand hits 3 notes. In addition, I am real sux in side reading since I had never attended any piano lessons, luckily I found a useful video in Youtube to help me recognize a couple of numbers of notes. Anyhow I could manage to play a few part quite smoothly with the right tempo. Hopefully I would seek some guidance from my friends. They are some of the most talented musical people I would said.

Anyway, lets appreciate what these great composers in the medieval time had done for us.

Other pieces which I liked is:
-Etude Revolutionary
-Moonlight Sonata
-Original Flight of the Bumblebee
-Rachmaninoff Prelude
-Hungarian Rhapsody

This is the video which helped me a lot for being a bad side reader. In case you have no idea what the software is, I let you know, its called Synthesia, kinda O2Jam interface which reads and translate MIDI files into graphical visualization.

Yundi Li playing Fantasie-Impromptu. Sit back relax and enjoy!

Same Fate... =.=

Me n my car share the same fate.

I got mild fever coz throat "pecah"....my car oso got "fever" coz radiator pipe pecah... =/
I wan go clinic but is Sunday so closed....my car wan go "clinic" oso but same thing...=/

me: HAIH~
my car: HAIH~~

My Beloved Mom: Pencil sketch...takes around 2 hours.

Yeah since I am sickish and I cant go anywhere I'd decided to do some "indoor" stuffs. But when I finished this portrait of my mom, I just realized that today is FATHER's DAY? Really ironic isn't? Maybe I shall give the drawing to my dad...as father's day present? haha...he would be contented maybe...=|

Anyway....Happy Father's Day!!!

CASFUMAL Food + Pulau Perhentain

The room I stayed in during CASFUMAL in Pan Pacific Hotel. Really a nice stay.

This holiday I really had a super fantastic vacation in Pulau Perhentian after my tedious but memorable event, CASFUMAL (Career Summit for Malaysian's Leaders) where in my life, I had lived in the very 1st 5-stars hotel and had enjoyed all the 5 star facilities albeit a whole day of tired workings. The event was held in KLIA PAN PACIFIC HOTEL. I really enjoy my stay in such a grand hotel. Its all FOC. However, what I wanna focus here is THE FOOD. It is literally a food heaven! I nearly went crazy as it was my 1st time to eat in a 5-stars banquet dinner buffet, with fresh oysters, smoked salmon, sashimi shushi, pasta, pizza, CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN with all sort of desserts, cheese cakes, even some very expensive fish liver pate similar to the infamous "foie gras", and etc. (Can't name finish). The chefs there is ever ready to grill anything you want: steaks, salmon, etc. The Breakfast is also excellent, with a "gallery" of breads, cheese, (i tasted the blue cheese, but yucks), smoked bacons, grilled hams, Japanese breakfast, cakes, scrabbled eggs, served with fresh milk, coffee, etc... Some day I think I would return to this "Heaven", but RM90, who can sponsor me again? xD

These are what I had for a single dinner...damn full after that but the I would not forget this meal.

Chocolate fountain where I coat some marshmellow and fruits.


Non-Asian Friendly: This is the yuckish blue cheese. Didn't finished it all cause it is so pungent, bitter and taste a lil spicy. It is terrible because eating it is an acquired taste. Its like eating Durians for SE-ians, and eating Nattou for Japanese and Korean.

I real like the gym there, clean, ventilated, complete and modern.
Had a few heartful workouts here.

This is my temporary "office" or workstation. 2 laptops with a printer, some blades and siccors. Dun really like the solitary of the work. :(

-the 2nd nite of CASFUMAL-

I left and check out my room at 4am, leaving Pan Pacific to LCCT...
where my true vaccation starts!

I woke Robert and Ah Kok up, passed them my car key and laptop, so they would help me to drive my car back to my home. I felt real exciting that time, coz would be boaring a plane soon to Kelantan for the much anticiapted Pulau Perhentian trip. 6am I reached LCCT for the very 1st time, very crowded. The air planes are really small.

Ready to take off!
Air Asia is indeed cheap, with all its economical set ups.
The journey only costs 40 minutes.

I would like to thank to my room mate and Yun Huan for the time and effort for touring us around in Kelantan and Terrenganu. While in HanShen's "Kampung", we kinda linger around, playing with cow, spiders, going to river, climbing up a short coconut tree to pick some coconut, chop it on spot and drink coconut juice.

Well, I am not gonna said much for the trip in Pulau Perhentian. Pictures tell a thousand words:

Group photo: In front of the Beach of Teluk Dalam.
From Upper Left: Henna, Yun Yuan, Pei Fen, Feng Jie, Branson, Andy, Micheal, DG,
From Lower Left: Han Shen, Tom, Denson, Me

Playing with the cigarette: being a "Pai Kia" seems cool. Will consider...xD

The top-rated "pai kia".

Look at Micheal's Hand. Something fishy...

Aviator shades is cool. Haha. People said I have a police face, esp with this shade. Haha.

Snorkling is a norm in Pulau Perhentian. The water is crystal clear, being famous for the beautiful coral reefs which are home to many fishes.

Coolest pair of room mates? Hehe...

Another group pic with the cool boatman, standing in the middle.

In front of Han Shen's House. The elderly man in the middle is his dad. A very nice and generous person.
Thank to the stay!

End of my First Year Degree!!!!

This is the table I always use in common room. This photo was taken when I found most of the stuffs are there. When bored, I played the violin, or do some gym with Andy and Branson. I also love to draw stuffs while studying vector calculus...

My personal collection of rocks, I could remember each individual rocks where they came from. Of course, I knew all thier names as well.

From top left: a grey slate, propyritic gabbro, yellow slate, an arkose hornfles, banded marble, granite with inclusions, black quartizite, a schist, limestone with calcite veins, another feldspartic slate, a gabbro with quartz intrusion and a white quartzite.

Just a matter of seconds, I had already officially graduated from my 1st year degree in Petroleum Geoscience in UTP. In conclusion, my 1st year was quite fun albeit being busy, and had been learning a lot, especially in familiarizing myself with the earth sciences such as mineralogy, petrology, geomorphology and mapping technique. I would said that I had made myself fall in love prerry much with geology. I had attended few geological field trips as well, and I would say, it was a blast! By now, we are ready for more future challenge as a petroleum geologist, and we really are! I really love my course, all the subject which I had learnt and my course mates despite of races. Of course not forgetting my beloved lectures, especially AP Askury, Mr Jasmi, Dr Chow and Dr Zuhar. They are a bunch of talented and well dedicated professionals who lead us through harsh time. Real thankful.

My first year life doesn't mean academics on its own. It is also consist of V2A. Well, what is V2A? its the block which I lived in. What's so interesting about it until it had become part of my life? This is because I had spent most of my time there after classes. Nah...many of you out there who had not been staying in a dorm in a university might be interested to know more. How can we survived in such a seemingly inhabitable environment (with nasty toilets, stuck sinks and stuffed toilet bowls with plenty of unsinkings, rubbish-scattered floor, cat-infested corridor, heat-intense furnaced, a small room just enough for you to sleep, etc) Does it scared you off? Well, the answer is "bo bian lo...have to get used to it lor...xi guan jiu hao" Haha...However the good side of it is the bunch of funny people who eventually turn out to be my good friends, albeit all being labelled "lasap" or "lapsap", literally mean garbage in Cantonese, but is used to describe some funny behavior. Most of them are my EE (electrical and electronic engineering) friends. We hang out everyday in the common room, doing homeworks together, but also chit-chatting, playing at the same time. V2A was really a great place than holds lots of my memory there, and not forgetting the adorable and obident cat and her kitten, known as Jack and Branson:

The cat at the middle is Jack, Branson's mom. They are very naughty...now I kinda miss them. We always played with them, doing some mischievious stuffs with them. Hehe..

First Geology Field Trip - It was a Blast!!!!

Its me in the 2nd day of the trip in the Renyuk Waterfall, Jeli, Kelantan.

It had been a week since my return from my 4 days 3 night geology field trip all the way from Perak, Kelantan to Cameron Highland with A.P Askury and Dr Zuhar, along with several assistance which is very obliging. Basically it was a normal geology field trip that all the geoscientist out there had to go. Studying geological features and rocks through outcrops along the high way.

It Ain't Easy, being a Geologist in Field.
It is not kinda leisure trip which everyone is expecting. The weather is killing me; we spend hours spending under the blazing hot sun which nearly tear my skin apart. Despite that everyone was listening to our professor explaining about geological facts, swiftly taken down all the essence in a handbook. We have some compass and hammers in hand, just like other geologist to aid us in exploring. We also climb over the terrains to collect data (strike and dip of beddings and directions) and some rock samples. And definately photograph, though we are required to sketch each outcrop.

We had gone through cliffs side in highways to study sedimentary rock and igneous rocks, rivers to observe some drainage systems, caves to study limestones and Karstic structure, hot spring, and finally to Cameron highland's famous tea farm to study a few metamorphic rocks. The tea farm site is among the most enjoyable, with breathtaking environment and cool air.

Shitty Experience

What happen if you couldn't find a toilet while your bowel pressure is building up tremendously? You do not even have tissue papers for later cleaning task. So the answer is leaf. Luckily I found a small stream so I had forgotten about leaf. That is not uncommon or taboo while you are off into remote area. Its quite common. 101 survival skills.

Well, not too bad, at least, finally.

It was kinda satisfactory though, after a day of tired expedition with all the precious data and beautiful rock samples from many sites collected as my personal collection. I have produce some artistic sketches of geological outcrops, where I really like it. We had stayed over in some quite nice hotel (except the 1st one in Jeli, Kelantan). The stay is indeed very happening, with good foods and good room. The stay is very different with all my fellow GeoScience course mates. We do have some presentations and discussions with fellow lecturers about the trip of the day during the night. Really learnt a lot.

Beware of your Belonging

My friend nearly lost his precious 4 months old laptop, a 1 day old NEW camera, and an external hard drive: all due to a second of carelessness. He is sitting next to me in the bus while he realised this. He first inform me about this shocking news. This scene still playing vividly in my mind and I feel the anxiety in him as I had observed how his face changes - very dramatical and he nearly cried. Immediately we rushed down to stop the bus and get to ride in Dr Zuhar's car. The driver make a U-turn and after nearly a half an hour road taken through the town, we finally reach back the RnR in the highway, where he left his laptop, camera and hard disk. We ran there and, THANK GOD it is still there after nearly an hour!!! no body takes it. My friend was overjoyed as tears filled his eye. That day we had really learnt a very valuable lessons.

One of my sketches on limestone outcrop, crisscrossed with calcite veins. A rock sample is sketch below with a white vein of calcite.

In front of Gua Ikan, Kelantan

In front of Gua Ikan. From left: Robert, Ayu, Ruth, Aina, me, Kevin, Ee Juan, Ah Kok, Zaid, Mark and Amrith.

Listening to Dr Zuhar's explanation. This is in the 1st day.

My 1st Mouse Driven Digital Painting!!!

To date, this is my most superb artwork ever, which is also quite unexpected .

Everything here was hand-drawn, and digitally painted, including the background, without any references. The concept art of Mutalisk are of my very own idea.

All works are done solely by mouse.

I had never realized that Photoshop could be complemented with my drawing and painting skills so well that, it pushes me way beyond my normal limit! I had discovered myself many methods of painting in Photoshop, which is quite easy, effective and versatile. Though in the industry Corel paint is more well-known, as a freelancer Photoshop could be simply more than sufficient and user-friendly. You can still do well even without a drawing tablet.




Well, back to my paintings of Mutalisk, I would show you guys step by step how it was done. =)


I have drawn a Starcraft Mutalisk in a piece of paper (long time ago During a boring talk session in PLKN), and decided to colour it using Photoshop recently when I found that 2 years-old drawing. Therefore I have capture it with my K770i SE camera with low resolution, and that brings the drawing to stage 1 as follows:




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STAGE 1 - Sketch

This is the enhanced version of the camera image. I use Photoshop to contrast the background and the lines of drawing, and make it clean. It looks almost original.


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STAGE 2 - Colour



As you can see basic colour is being filled into the a white "background layer". I have the original layer topped to the highest layer as "cover layer", with layer blending mode "multiply"


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STAGE 3 - Toning

Once the base colour is being filled, more or less like the traditional painting, we begin to detail out the toning of the colour, with an imaginary light source. In Photoshop, the tools involved are "Burn" and "Dodge" tool. I start to tone the muscles and carapace to make them more defined.

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STAGE 4 - Texturing

To make this Mutalisk look lively, I start to work on its texture, such as the muscle fibers, grunges and scratches in the carapace, blood vessels in its wings, etc. The textures are very fine and some are only visible when you zoom in. (click on the image to enlarge) The technique invole is also normal painting and toning to create the textures.

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STAGE 5 - Reflections

Minor reflections is added to give the carapace and muscle look even realistic. Notice that the dark are also having thin white reflections as lining.

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STAGE 6 - Finalizing and Cleaning Ups

At this stage it is sufficiently considered as completed. Change a little bit of the hue and saturations of the colour and sharpening all the edges which are initially blurry with pencils grunges.

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STAGE 7 - Backgrounding

Finally I have decided to add a suitable background to this Starcraft creature. The backdrop which I had painted features the 2 moons of Mar Sara (a fictional planet in the Starcraft Universe.), as the Mutalisk roamed veraciously in across its atmosphere in high altitude, which subject the the Confederate's aircrafts in constant fear.