Among the Villagers

One of the 7 Pillar Activities I had to take in order to graduate is Baktisiswa. A foster program, sort of. When I heard about it, I was thinking, there goes my weekends...

Most Biomedical Electronic Engineering students are sent to Kampung Titi Tinggi Ulu, around a total of 90 people. Arrived at the mosque and waited for the prayers to be done, so we can be called upon to meet our foster parents.

A 3-day-2-night trip needed this much luggage... Just kidding xD

I was paired up with JianFeng as foster children to the Secretary of the village. We were suppose to stay with another Malay guy and Arabian guy, but they somehow went MIA, so lucky for us, its just us two people in a big house with our foster family :)Our room, pretty nice :) 10 times better than my hostel =.=

Catherine and SuezTing lived 2 houses away so its convenient for us to pay a visit. Then we decided to go for a stroll on a bicycle around the village.

Its been ages since I last rode a bicycle, and I think I lost the ability to stay balanced =.= not to mention my butt hurts like hell after a few rides...

Next up, each group had to draw a map and the organisation chart of the village. The map looked sort of like...

...this. We didn't have much time so we have to continue the next day. Its impossible to get it done in 2 hours...

Next morning, aerobic exercises. Not my cup of tea =.=

TzeYang lead the exercise midway, and made it... well... enjoyable but... SUPER embarrassing... I wouldn't be caught dead doing those -.- hence no pictures.

'Twas supposed to be Maid-Day for my group because when the leaders draw lots, we could the cleaning up duty =.= Luckily for me, KM decided to change things a little bit. He changed the program a little bit, making it a moon-gazing event at night, and preparations in the evening. Out goes my maid duty :) Thanks a TON haha.

And when night approaches...Time to see the moon :) Its the Moon Eclipse Day, which is a rare opportunity, but too bad those darn bloody clouds are blocking the view... Only got to see a bit of it, and the rest was viewed online...
Reena gave a lil' bit of knowledge about the solar system to the kids, and even offered some gifts if they answered her questions correctly.

Since the bloody clouds are disturbing, time to watch the moon online. Like-a-boss way.
Oh yeah, KM and his team made something pretty interesting.
Its called a Planisphere. Rotate the sphere according to your date and the date stated in the sphere to see what kinds of stars you could see in the sky, provided without clouds.

And now its time to do what I always do when there's an eclipse.
Egg-standing competition! Lost terribly =.= Only JianFeng managed to make it stand. Went back to our house around 12.

The next day all UniMAP students are asked to help out in the wedding ceremony. I was thinking, what can we do? I came late, and most of the jobs are booked by other people. What to do leh? In we go to the kitchen.
This is how they cook meat in mass. Like, seriously. This is the 1st time I've ever witnessed with my own eyes, the way they cook. They dig a keyhole like... hole and place the wok on the round shaped... hole... The firewood goes below and voila! You have a cooking pit.

We don't have enough firewood so, Handyman TzeYang to the rescue. He can cut wood. Really. He CAN. Then on to the cooking. I COOKED! Surprised? The beef curry two pics above, made by me, and my teammates :) We were given directions on what to put so no worries about the taste :) We don't have the experience in this kind of cooking, so sue me.

The bride and groom.

After that was over, its time to go home. We had out last goodbye with out foster parents, and took some pictures, served them some drinks, etc. etc. etc.My foster family had one of the cutest daughter I've ever seen. So hyper and outgoing (although camera-shy).They even gave me a present :)

Although I most probably wouldn't wanna do this program again, I kinda enjoyed my stay there. The people are surprisingly a LOT more friendly than they seem to be when I 1st saw them in the mosque.

This is a one-of-a-kind experience that I would treasure for a loooooong time. Its been a while since I ever did something so meaningful.

I'm pretty thankful for everything I have received from my foster family. Be it food, shelter, warmth and even the stories they share with me. May all of you be blessed for your kindness and spirits.




Signed off,
Kelvin.

Budding Engineers

Yu nid ze zkillz to be engineerz. Thus, ECT111, or Engineering skills class appears. This is one of the classes I like, mostly 'cause its all practical, and no theory work :).

The hardest was 'Gegas', where I had to cut a piece of metal with a saw. I was difficult to cut a straight line down... And it took me 3 hours to just finish a small piece of metal... So no pictures. Marks come 1st before pictures.

I did Grinding about 2 weeks ago. It was a process to finish off the works of Milling and Lette. The metal will be polished till its almost similar to mirror texture.

Its pretty fun. Though it needs a LOT of patience to do all four sides of the metal. The maximum tolerance this machine can cut is only 0.02mm, and I had to cut a total of 1mm for each side. Good thing is, the result came out smoothly.

Next, wiring. Did this last week and this week. There are two types of wiring, the PVC wiring and Metal wiring. No, not metal/PVC wires, but pipes.
Thats PVC wiring. 1st things 1st, we had to cut the PVC into 10 and 20 inches, and bend the 20 inch pipe at 90 degrees at the midpoint. Whats left is basically screw everything onto the bay and insert wires into it. we had to make 2 way switches and a main switch for light bulbs. I had a technical error my 1st try, but it was fixed :)

Thats my partner for wiring project. Behind us is the metal wiring. Its much more fun because you get to play with more equipments, haha. Its basically the same as the PVC wiring, but the bending process requires the Bending Machine and we had to make loops at edges to lock things in with a thingamagic which its name I forget :P
Thats the end result of the project. It may not be perfect, but I'm happy it turned out well :). Everything works perfectly, and no short circuit happened.

Bay 7/8 members. We rocked the project!

Next I'll be doing OrCad. Have no idea how it is, but I'll just pray things will go smoothly. Man, I'm bored right now...

Signed off,

Kelvin.

Back to NON-Civilization...

Been living in Penang for 20 years now, got kinda used to the life as a city kid. Now that I've been kicked to Perlis, things have changed, LOTS!

I rarely took the bus in Penang, but over here, I take the bus everyday. Without the buses, you can't survive here. With the bus, it takes more than 30 minutes just to reach my class. Imagine walking there...

Now to my dorm.

That is my room. And yes, thats it. Well, not all of it. Theres 2 lockers on my right which I can't get to fit into the picture. Now thats all of it. Theres a common room, or like a living room outside where all the desks are located. Its shared with 7 people, including me.

Don't even get me started on the toilet. I would take a picture, but I'm afraid my camera will rot from the condition it is in. Also, spiders with REAAAALLLY long legs are found everywhere. My room, toilet, outside, you name it. I'd kill them, but they help me eat mosquitoes xD. Never had any mosquito problems so far. They stay still so I don't really care about them.

Thats my uni version of Each-A-Cup. Ice-blended Honey Peach with Pearls and Yogurt Jelly Balls. After all the disaster foods I've been having all this while in Perlis, this drink tasted like drops of heaven to me. REALLLY amazing.

Its 4 more years of this hellhole. I just pray that my hostel next year ain't gonna be as bad as this one. Please give me the strength to go through this....

Signed off,

Kelvin.

Biomedical Electronic Engineering

As of 4th September 2011, I'll be studying this course in UniMAP. Things had been going smoothly for about 1+1/2 months now, so, fingers crossed for everything else to run smoothly :)

Seniors have been REALLY nice here, especially those in my course. Extremely helpful. The chinese community in my course is very small, so they really take care of each other very well. Heck, I've even been assigned to a senior to be taken care of. Although I never really contacted her because its not that nice to disturb her especially she's a lot more busy than I am, haha.

Coursemates... Pretty good :) One thing surprised me is the communication here. Steping into UniMAP and knowing me, I was pretty sure I am gonna be secluded, creating my own island in my class. Well, thats not the case here.

One thing I gotta say though, I find it VERY HARD to survive here as a Chinese without basic Mandarin... Good thing I learned a thing or two back at home. Thanks Dad.

One thing I don't really like about my course is the location of my Engineering Center. Its located roughly 35~45 minutes of travel WITH bus from my hostel. What the heck? If I miss the bus, bye bye lessons. Seriously, what the hell are the admins thinking?

That pretty much concluded everything. I'm just glad I got the course I wanted. PRAYS it will bloom in M'sia once i graduate...

Signed off,
Kelvin.