I Tell You What

In my previous post mentioned that I have to present in the CEED Semiar yesterday. Worth that I write something about it. Unfortunately I was the first speaker to break the ice on that day. The presentation went quite well I think except that I kinda lost of words sometimes during the talk. Stumble here and there a bit. I talked in frot of lecturers and industry people. I really do not feel like talking in front of year 11 students (like Laurence said). After the talk, the questiones raised by the people indicated that there are some of them who has deep knowledge in the area. Jorg Imberger was the first to ask me questions. He was the professor in Fluid Mechanics and Head of Department in CWR. He asked me 3 questions which I think that I answered reasonably well. It was just the way he asked the questions. He walked out of the room after the second speaker present. There were also several other questions and suggestions. It was all industrial related questions and none concern with academics. I can understand that and I learned a lot from that.



We had a real formal dinner at the newly-built Uni Club after the whole 12 presenters finished with their research talk. Uni Club is a grand place to have a function. I was quite fortunate to have the same table with Prof. Alan Robson the Vice Chancellor of UWA. Very friendly and approachable character. This is one thing that I like about western culture, there are less sense of formality. Alan was the number one person in charge of the whole university and he still got the same treatment as the others. Well I guess in Malaysia there will be people ushering him and the seat will be reserved for him. When Alan came all the seat were occupied and Laurence had to take extra seat for him and he was really cool about that. Kamy Cheng was in the same table with us. I really feel a pleasure to have him there what more after knowing him wonderful character. He promised to sort out John's problem regarding his storage in Shenton Park that needs $5000 and Kamy said that you can be sure about that. Malaysian culture is lavished with formalities. I do not know if it is good or not but generally speaking in prefer it here. They said the food there was marvellous but since I suffered from sore throat I did not eat much. The red wine was one of the finest ever made.



I guess that they are still a lot of things that I need to learn here. That makes me want to stay here longer. I also had a meeting with Aziz when I was in Sydney and he persisted me to return back. I have not decided yet.

**Making another presentation tomorrow. Tired.

Sydney 2005

I just touched down Perth at 10am just now from Sydney for MASCA Conference, took a quick nap and then rushed to uni for a CEED Seminar. It's 10.45 pm now and I just got back from the seminar. What a busy day.

I was in Melbourne last year for NCG as well and went again this year. Things are much better in terms of the organisation of the whole events. The AGM was as usual the platform for them to fight over things that they did not agree with. As the representative for WA delegates, I took a neutral stand for everything. There is really no point of agreeing or not agreeing when you know that that will not solve the matter. Moreover they fight over stupid trivial matter. But I'd say that in terms of the whole event, it was a success to be able to get together all the states from all over Australia. Do not talk about integration first, being able to get together is already a great achievement. I applaud them for that. For me personally the idea of going there is just to establish contacts for MASCA WA and build a strong interstates connection for WA. Well, at least that was what I hope. I will leave it to the next committee to extend my efforts and I think I have worked a lot to get MASCA WA to this stage. People might not see it but here in my page(where I have been most sincere with) I think I have done something for MASCA WA. It does not really matter if they do not recognise my effort. It was just a sincere help anyway. I do hope that whoever that will take over the club next year will make something different for it. I made some new friends there.



I did spent sometimes to unwind in Sydney. Another quick holiday there. Spent most of my time with Ian to bring him around Sydney as it was his first time. Opera House always appeals me no matter how many times I have visited it. It has been a common habit of mine lately to visit any Hard Rock Cafe when there is one and bought a t-shirt there.My new hobby! Ian is a nice guy and has the same thinking as mine I suppose. It is not that common that I found someone who shares the same opinion. People say that I am a little weirder than other people. Well I do mix around but I still hold my opinion on certain things without having them to tell me what to say. They kept pestering me to disagree with the motion brought up during the AGM but I still stood my ground. They thought that I was afraid of saying no.



The last day of the conference a few of us went for karaoke for 1.5 hours. The karaoke in Sydney is ridiculously cheap compared to here due to the competition there I suppose. It was a real fun that I did not have enough for the night. Want more of it. I will make sure that everytime I pay a visit to Sydney, karaoke is a must! Was also quite surprise to see the Malay guys in Sydney took a beer in the name to socialise. I kinda did not expect some of them to do that. May be not to trust anyone is a lesson that I can say I learned. I told MSD director about this and he was just smiling and told me he knows about this. Any action, sir?

** I saw the same guy when I was in Melbourne that I mention in my post in Sydney near paddy's this time. Still persisting on his mission.

You talk, I laugh

I was having my CEED presentation rehearsal yesterday for the CEED Seminar Dinner. As soon as I finished, those people gave a blurry faces to me. Someone said that she has no idea what I am talking about and someone else said that he was totally confused. Well, those are the non-technical non-engineering people from Biology and Archaeology school. Laurence came down from up the lecture theatre and told me to reduce the amount of technicalities in my presentation and focus on why does it matter to conduct such research. I did learn something yesterday on some skills to communicate with your audience. Know your audience and treat them as if they are year 11 students which I think is kinda make sense. The whole idea or presentation is to communicate and convey the message to the people who has a diferent background and making them understand your talk. My talk yesterday was so academic that it could go for an Offshore Technology Conference. Well, I learn on how to get across your technical ideas in a non-technical way but still manage to convey what you are trying to communicate.



I was watching Russel Peters lately and was laughing my heart out. He made a good stand up comedian. A real good one. One thing I like about stand up comedian is how they say it. The thing we say would not be as funny as when they say it. They have this great ability of communication. Sometiems it is just some simple stuff like,"Hey, whatever makes you happy man" which sounds mundane to me but how he put it into context and use the right intonation just making you laugh from ear to ear.



**Off for Sydney 2005 at 4.30pm today.

My random mind

Whenever something happen, sure is that God has his own plan. The irony is that we do not even bother to figure out why something take place. We take a pleasant thing as our very pleasure and a sombre moment as our plight. We do not fathom the meaning behind it. I remember this one post in friendster, 'The greatest pleasure is no pleasure when it is not the pleasure of paradise. The greatest pain is no pain unless it is the pain of the fire of hell'.



I have a weird, interesting and interestingly weird circle of friends around me. I am very selective I guess in mingling around with people that I am not familiar with. Friends to me are like feathers, they tickle you and sometimes they irrittate you. There are friends that you know that they will be with you no matter what the conditions you are in and there are friends who you know that after you are gone, they are gone as well with the wind. I do not know if I know my freinds good enough to know whether thwy will be there for me for sometimes. Time changes everything and in evitably you have to accept what has been destined upon you. Let there be hope still though.

My life now is just as usual although they are a lot of things that I need to settle. Thesis is due in about 5 weeks time and Krish has disappeared into the abyss. Lucky that Liang Cheng was there for me to give me great help. I am seriously thinking now to stay here but not sure if Mom agrees with that or not. Hopefully she is. After all it is my decision.

I find times and again that the things I wrote lately are of random thoughts. Just thoughts that just come across my mind and I feel like jotting it down somewhere.

**Presenting my thesis to Adam in 3 hours time and fyling off to Sydney this Saturday for MASCA Conference.