KC's visit to USM

My SchoolLast Friday, KC visited my school. It was quite embarrassing because my office was in complete mess. hehehe..Actually, we've been busy with RU, research niche and also research proposal that due on Friday..He arrived 30 minutes earlier that's why I didn't have enough time to tidy up my office..full of files and papers everywhere...:-D

We had lunch together with my colleagues at Hotel Damai (the only hotel in this kampung). After that KC gave seminar. I brought him to visit our lab which is much better than UoA :-)
May be we could have collaboration in the future....

Here are several pictures..

How do I look in Baju kurung :-D

Here is the abstract of his talk.

Seminar on Progress in Polymer Electronics

Dr K.C. Aw

Mechanical Engineering Department

School of Engineering, University of Auckland,

New Zealand

Date: 30^th August 2007

Time: 2pm

Venue: Seminar room, SMMRE

Abstract:

Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on solution-processible polymeric materials have shown impressive improvements in their performance during recent years. These devices have been developed to realize low-cost, large-area electronic products. This review gives an overview of the research work performed at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland.

Several topics covering the development of OFET’s non-volatile memory incorporating ZnO, polyaniline(PANI) nanotubes field-effect transistor as gate controllable diodes and newly synthesized functionalized polythiophene as OFET deposited using electropolymerization technique will be discussed.

Some pics...

Here are several pictures around engineering campus. The first two was fishing competition in REDAC pond. I did not fish though :-) I was there just to represent academic staff to give moral support to my school's team..The weather was very hot...

From my left Aida (assistant registrar), Khairol (technical staff) and Iezan (office)

Engineering campus in 'Kampung'

My OBE class (120 students)-group exercise

Office siapa la yg bersepah ni?? :-D

My new toys....

Ahaks....here are pictures of my new toys....Most of my friends laugh when I told them I bought these :-D

Treadmill and exercyle. Those abs trimmer and gymball were from NZ

My toys in my bedroom

My justification, since the past 3 months I barely have enough exercise..First, of course my routine work in which I finished work after 6pm. It's too tiring to go for exercise after work. Second reason was uncomfortable gym in USM. Of course the gym was not well equip compared to UoA. Moreover, very few exercise gadgets there or in bad condition. They were not well maintained. Probably , it's not our lifestyle here...:-) In the first place, I still make time to go for a jog, play netball or squash. However, nowadays it's almost impossible to make time to do so...

A couple of weeks ago, me and my friend went for PC fair in PISA Penang. As expected, the traffic was a nightmare to go back. We decided to detour Queens Bay Mall. That's how I decided to invest in treadmill. At that time, they had promotion-buy treadmill get an exercycle and slimming belt for free. It was quite a good bargain although I actually paid extra to upgrade the exercycle. The one for free was not my taste and too far from gym specs..hehehehe...

Now, I have enough equipments in my bedroom, treadmill, exercycle, abstrimmer and gymball (which I bought in NZ)..Next on the list will be a set of dumbbell...hahahaha


To date, I can't be sure either I really make a good investment or not. Of course I don't have time to exercise everyday, but I still make efforts to exercise several times in the morning. My main point is I would rather spend my money for a good purpose rather than save the money for God knows why... For me, I prefer to have all those things even if I don't use it. If something goes wrong with me in the future I know it's not because I'm too stingy!

*Kuna said my treadmill looks like Ferrari car hahahaha

Pangkor Island

Here are several pictures in Pangkor Island in June 2007. I attended Outcome-Based Education (OBE) course which is a new requirement for all engineering course in Malaysia. The first audit or accreditation will be held in March 2008. Currently, most of us were busy preparing for the unnecessary documents hehehe..

About the course, we were taught by UTM lecturers how they conducted their class in UTM based on OBE. Surprisingly, most of their class is 100% course work with less than 40 students. I still wonder how on earth we can implement OBE in class of 100-700 students??? With limited spaces in Lecture theaters and lecture rooms, how are we going to do group discussion ?? Let upper management decide this :-)

Fellow SMMRE colleagues

Scenery at Teluk Dalam Resort

Diam tak diam..

At the airport with K/Afidah, Syahira, Sharon and Syaf

Classic pic with Sharon and Tun

Tengok mata diorang tu hahahaha...'Banjir' ke kak?

Last kopek 'menjilat jari' fried chicken hahahaha

Abang Ghulam and K/Ton's house

Auntie Fatimah's house

BBQ at Auntie Priska's house

Diam tak diam, I came back more than 3 months already...so fast...Still feels like yesterday..hehehehe..still can feel the weather, the people there, although I never think of going there again hahahaha...I haven't downloaded pictures at Syahira's place though..To those involved in farewell gathering and last kopek party, again, thank you very much.



Today, I completed 3 months out of 7 years service in USM. hehehe...not bad though, I finished one class for 2007. From today onwards, I think I will have more time to concentrate on research, and of course do lots of marking...

Nasi Arab ala Kayron--97% FAT FREE :-)

Here are pictures of our cooking session at K/Ton's place...Biasala peram lama sikit :-D

Main product: Nasi Arab

Ayam

Acar

Ni history je skang ni...masak tu apa ye???....hahahaha..

Warga Dapur

Referring to my previous post on 11 April...

:-) I found k/Tun's recipe was just toooo hard for me (or any modern society??). Therefore, I hv successfully modified the recipe to suit my lifestyle..However, this recipe only for 4 persons (my size) or 2 men...:-))

Advantages of my modified recipe:

• 97% fat free :-)
  
• Cook in microwave or electric rice cooker- simple life
• 30 minutes preparation and cooking time
  

Ingredients:

1 cup Basmati rice
Half Bombay onions (cut into rings)
0.5 kg lean beef -preferably steak slice or 'batang pinang' (cut into bite size)
3 Tbs vegetable oil
1 Tbs lite butter
half cup lite evaporated milk
half carrots (grated coarsely)
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbs Raisins
Water (Ratio of water 1.5: 1 measurement of rice) **

Method:

1. Sauteé (tumis) until fragrant and crunchy (garing) with vegetable oil and butter. This should take around 5-10 minutes.
2. Add water and evaporated milk
3. Add lean beef pieces and grated carrots, then stir and put the lid on, lowering the heat and remembering to stir occasionally. This has to be done till the meat is cooked through (daging menjadi empuk).
4. Stir in the salt and sugar. Cover and let the mixture simmer.
5. Pour the mixture in rice cooker (microwave or electric)
6. Stir in the raisins.
7. Place the rice cooker in a microwave, and set at HIGH for 20 minutes. For electric rice cooker, just press the button and wait until cook hahaha
8. To obtain a good mixture, stir the mixture every 10 minutes. If lazy, stir the rice when its cooked.

How simple is my recipe...feel free to try...:-))

* evaporated milk and butter (make sure 'lite')- make the rice taste even better...

Farewell Part 2

With Novi, HJ, Diana, ans ShashiniWith HJ, Balan, Diana and Shashini

More pictures from old days....hehehe

My 'cozy' space

Me and Alec

With Steeve

Fellow officemates

Farewell gathering at Syahira's place

With Kim and Chuan- Just came back from Yum Char ;-D

With Linda-my Teddy bear :-)

Some pictures in Gold Coast

Killer lecturer..hehehe

This semester I have to teach the semicon fab subject which I never touch for the past 10 years (am I that old??) :-))...Student feedback after second week is the most interesting hehehe

-Of course not directly to my face. A friend of mine had discussion with a few final yr students about final year project. They asked permission fr their supervisor to leave early to attend a class or else the lecturer will close the door. Of course the supervisor asked who was the lecturer, and she did list down all the 'nightmare' lecturers e.g. Prof Z, Dr A, etc..hehehe...she was surprised when they mentioned my name hahaha-I wasn't surprised though!

In the beginning of the class I already told them what are my expectations. Why should I tolerate 10 minutes late when I can make 10 minutes early? Why can't I bombarded them with quizzes, exercises, assignments and group discussion when I know those were the right things to do to make them study ?..hehehe...If I have to award them even 5% marks, I'll make sure they deserve it. There's no such thing as 'FREE marks' in my class...hahahha...up to now, I have heaps of things to mark from my weekly quiz, group exercise and group project hahaha...Now, I guess most of them pay attention in class because the question may come out anytime. That's life....

My Romeo

Ahaks...my Romeo's air conditioned was sicked few days ago..After changed its condenser, it works well. I just realised, I forgot to change the gear oil which was overdue nearly 3000 km hehehe...really need to find time to do so..

Next on my wish list: change front shock absorber, find paint for touch up..My Romeo has pimples from sand truck...really annoying....

Ikan bilis vs Dewa

Well...characters in my office..First, let me introduce the character..

DEWA
- A group of 'untouchable' seniors aka old folks hehehe..
- Main interests:

1. how to stay on top without doing work
2. how to manipulate ikan bilis
3. How to make sure ikan bilis do everything
   
4. how to make sure ikan bilis do not act against their will

- Module: sort of provoke the ikan bilis to voice out their concern/ thoughts, and immediately slash them..Must look professional hahahaha
- Advantage: Well-known name

Ikan bilis
- Young generation (mostly less than 5 years service, can be up to 10 yrs service)
- Main Interest:

1. How to finish all works
2. How to involve in school, uni, community activities
3. How to obtain more research grants, publish more papers
4. How to do their work without interference from DEWA
   

- Module: keep quiet in the meeting and let the DEWAs think they are the best. Once of the limit, ikan bilis will start form a group and work together to ensure they are not bombarded by DEWA alone.
-Advantage: have connection with outsiders

If I write a plot of these two groups it will be exciting. Just don't understand why DEWA feels insecure with ikan bilis?

Academic life

Some people keep ask me:

* How's my academic life
* What I've been doing almost 3 months now
* Why I seem don't have much time to socialise
* Why I don't contact them and lots of why..why...and why...

First and foremost, I would like to apologise to those that I keep their emails for ages, never write an email, hardly reply their txt messages, hardly call, etc..etc...I'm just a human being and I still need time to adjust my life.

Since I came back, I've been busy mainly with my academic life. If you think academician life like 10-15 years back, you are completely wrong..:-D Nowadays, there are so many things that we need to do although I have to admit some of them are 'unnecessary' BUT I still have to do hahahaha...

Classes- Back to the topic, on paper I only teach 1 subject, but I have 2 labs for 1st yr and 3rd yr to take care of. Each lab is about 4 hours, which up to the lecturer to just brief the students and leave them alone, or stay with them and help them to understand what are they doing. I would say, it's very hard for them to relate the theory that they learn in class, with practical and real life...

Unnecessary subject- In the next couple of weeks, I'll have to do tutorial on "thinking technique". Don't ask me what's the subject about hahahha...I wonder if I use the right thinking technique throughout my life...well, heaps of reading to do...Last few weeks I was asked to attend Entrepreneurship Course. I still against the idea of teaching 1st students Entrepreneurship Course...I wonder what MOHE guys were thinking? Normally 1st year students need time to adjust their campus life. If we dumped the Entrepreneurship Course, how bad their academic result will be? If we look closely into the course outline, we can predict that their academic performance will slump...hahahaha...wait and see...2 unit course, but require so much time...what a moron...

OBE-Last 2 month I attended a course on Outcome-based Education (OBE)..The new requirement from Board of Engineer and Engineering Accreditation Committee to all engineering course. Technically, we have gone through OBE for ages without proper documentation. Now it's time to adapt OBE in our coursework-well planned and documented...

Research University- who says it is good to be a research university? In reality more work to do. The bad thing is it RU is not well-planned e.g. 50 million allocation is still in the newspaper and of course the way they are going to distribute the money is unclear. Everybody is trying to get a piece of cake, but who's going to cook the cake? And the war begin DEWA vs ANAK BILIS...hahaha...If anak bilis win, I guess anak bilis already become piranha hahahaha...will write about "untouchable DEWA" later...

Publications- another story....keep forcing...Before I came back, I vowed that I will hibernate the first 6 months..hahaha..that's what I'm trying to do...HOWEVER, seems like almost impossible to do so. To date, I manage to write a paper for bulletin (paksa-rela), send abstracts for conferences end of this year.

Research grant- hmm I managed to get the incentive grant already. To date, I'm still preparing for a short term grant.. Another story with DEWA...Sciencefund next on the list..hahaha...

Final year projects- I was given 5 students to supervise. As usual, I have to think about the projects...My Partial Head Damage (PhD) becomes more obvious hahahaha

Master student- I'll supervise a master student from Indonesia next semester under AUN-SEED net program. New challenge...

Short course- We are going to have nano short course next week. Hmmm spend lots of time to prepare...

will continue later...