Alright, let's get this show on the road!

The dreaded first paper begins with Finance and Financial Management tomorrow and ends with Control Engineering in 3 weeks time.

Till then, this blog is probably going to go into a comatose state.

Be nice to each other while I'm gone, ok?

Living in Translation

Everyone, please thank Charmaine for having too much time on her hands and providing a full English transcript of the Petronas CNY ad I posted earlier.

See, unlike Xiaokai, I actually care about the rest of my non-Hokkien speaking, non-Malay reading audience. (and if you reply to this with lrn2read one more time, I'm taking off the link to your blog!)

Reasons to spank me... ("oh no, she didn't!")

1. For playing way too much Pac Man. Pac man is EVIIILLL!!! Once you go Pac, you never go back!
2. For trying to watch American Idol while simultaneously attempting MCQ questions
3. For rewarding my 20 minutes of studying with a 40 minute surf-the-net break
4. For trying to act 'clever' and taking on too many 'clever' modules (clever = can soooo die!!!) when I could have done easy (albeit useless) modules like HCI. Nine freaking killer papers when I could have been doing 7 or 8!!!!
5. For not listening to my mother - who warned me about number 4 at the beginning of the year
6. For babysitting my downloading files - however pointless it may seem. Why is there this impulse to watch the 'number of bytes received' increase??
7. For blogging... too much.

And now we return to our normal programme - cursing at adaptive filters! We have to study these things called Wiener filters. Really clever things, but what an unfortunate name!

sleep is overrated

sleep is overrated
studying is for nought
eye bags, long days
the price you pay
for knowledge so highly sought

yet no joy it brings
no use it yields
the glory fades too soon
no priceless things
no strawberry fields
no dancing on the moon




... another deep sigh, and Charlotte resumes where she left off - picking apart the Cramer Rao Lower Bound theorem.

Sidetracking

Remember the original fat guy singing Numa Numa?

Has it really taken this long for the Chinese to catch on?

cringe-worthy

I'm not very sure how nu ma nu ma iei (don't want, don't want, don't take me) got translated into bu pa bu pa (don't scared, don't scared) but its highly entertaining.

Miya-hee
Miya-hoo
Miya-ho
Miya-haha

Hair today, gone tomorrow

[Warning label: Bimbo post ahead. Not to be ingested before breakfast.]

Since my last haircut at The Lab in Desa Sri Hartamas some 8 months ago (yes, shock, shock, horror... it's been THAT long), I've had the nicest layers in like forever! And I swear my new hairdressing guru, Eric, at The Lab* has a hairy thumb (as opposed to a green thumb) because he worked magic on my incredibly hard to tame hair.

See, most hairdressers cheat - by trying to straighten my hair with a ceramic iron thus making me feel Zhang Ziyi - gorgeouslicious for a day. Just ONE day! My hair with a mind of its own never fails to kink back into it's messy waviness the next day.

But Eric managed to pass all knots and kinks and hairy challenges thrown at him, and emerged victorious. I measure how successful a haircut is by how many guys notice it and how many guys (and girls) make a pass at me (this does not include the guy cleaning tables at the Kopitiam, random Spanish workmen outside my flat and the occasional black/arab/migrant worker who cat call at any passing woman under the age of 25) and Eric's work of art sure turned on alot of charms.

And just yesterday, a fat oaf by the name of Paul (who, to be fair, was under the pressure of sitting for an exam where I was to be the exam piece) at the Vidal Sassoon School of Hairdressing undid all of Eric's good, hard work.

I went from this to this:














Btw, I'm not posing in the picture on the left. That was me trying to get a good idea of how messy my hair really is. If you zoom in you'll see the dark eyebags and frown lines from the past 3 weeks of exam-related stress - and yet everyone's been messaging me on msn to tell me how nice my pic is. Exams are great beauty boosters. And yes, I am pouting on the right. I pout a lot. Lionel's learnt to put on an 'ignore-her' mechanism when I do that. Or else he pinches my cheeks and pats me on the head.

Anyway... back to the point. I don't even LOOK like I've had a haircut. All I got were my nice soft layers hacked and butchered. You should see the back of my head. I think Lu said he could have cut my hair (for free!). I don't know how I never thought of asking for a mirror to see the back of my head at Vidal. You just want to get out of there as soon as possible, especially when a Shrek-sized Ah Beng (with a blond dyed job, nonetheless) is wielding a scissors at your hair.

I guess after camwhoring a bit, (just a bit), I've gotten slightly used to the idea of looking like my teenage sister. All you psychotic paedophiles who've been oogling at her Friendster photos (i.e. YOU, cl) get a life. Or get hurt. She's got a black belt in Taekwondo.

* The Lab was reviewed by Kennysia. I would tag along and recommend it fervantly!

A rose by any other name...

You know those rather annoying forwarded emails you get which ask you to count the number of letters/vowels/animal sounds in your name and multiply it by 7, add 5 and then divide it by 172? In your head? You can even replace [name] with [date of birth] for a more varied approach or even [number of times a week you wear green]. And after such awful brain teasers, you are often required to match the result with a look-up table which tells you more about yourself and what fate has chosen for your future/partner/sex life all based on the above complex mathematical equations.

I never counted on fate knowing math before the evolution that was the internet.


Anyway, Michelle's blog had this little look-up table alphabet which apparently gives you the meaning of your name, which goes something like this:

A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
B : you are loved by alot of ppl
C : you're wild and crazy
D : You have trouble trusting people
E : You are always fun when it comes to meeting new people
F : People totally adore you
G : You are very friendly and undestanding
H : You have very good personality and looks
I : Love is something you deeply believe in
J : Everyone loves you
K : You like to try new things
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
M : You are beautiful, and sexy
N : Your sex is unforgetable
O : You love foreplay
P : You are very friendly and understanding
Q : You are a hypocrite
R : Someone loves you
S : People think you are so sexy
T : You are one of the best in bed
U : You are really a chilling material
V : You are not judgemental
W : You are very broad minded
X : You never let people tell you what to do
Y : you make every experience great
Z : You're Super cool

Apparently matching the letters in your name to the table provides a nice little portrait of a super-duper, ultra hot, oh so nice you!.

However, I couldn't help thinking, had my parents gotten my name wrong, I'd be this:

H : You have very good personality and looks
A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
R : Someone loves you
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
O : You love foreplay
T : You are one of the best in bed

Adding a C and an E just makes me wild and crazy and fun when meeting someone new... and still all of the above! Adding an extra T does not help at all...

And if they spelt it the way some people *cough*Malaysians*cough* think my name ought to be spelt:

S : People think you are so sexy
H : You have very good personality and looks
A : YOU'RE A HOTTIE
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
L : You always make other people smile when you smile
O : You love foreplay
T : You are one of the best in bed

... I'd be one HELL of an Onion!!

Had my parents consulted the Internet before I was born, I might have been named something else.

On hindsight, you'd have thought any sane parent wouldn't give their child a name which has a female prostitute embedded in it!

He is risen!!!

To all you good folks out there - Happy Easter!

Christ is risen and He lives forevermore. 3 nails + 1 cross = 4 given. Go eat some chocolate eggs and bunnies.

and by the way, Tao's version of Easter goes something like this:

"Eh, so Jesus died yesterday on Good Friday right? And tomorrow He'll wake up and come out of the cave? So... why Easter Eggs? And why a bunny?"

[Later Edit]
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Did you know
That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered
Will soon deliver you

Kamikaze ala Bunny!

If you ever wondered how bunnies commit suicide, then check out bunny suicides. If you've never wondered, welcome to Charlotte's chronically warped mind.

This is my favourite bunny suicide:

Vishnu Easter?

As I am trying to ignore the hunger pangs of a Good Friday abstinence (which I do not cope with very well and thus I reeeally hope I'll be forgiven for making a cup of Milo so I will be able to make it through the long reading of the Passion during mass with some level of clarity) I want to wish all my Tamil brudders, sisters, machas.. and yes, you Bhai.. a Happy Vishnu, Puthandu Vazthukal, and may Sugania's search for a worthy Brahmin husband (minimum height requirement 5 feet 9, must speak English, must love dogs, and must be able to withstand very insensitive and crude remarks from her over protective friends) bear fruit. Please refer to Sugania's blog for a study text of the Tamil, Bengali and Malayalee New Year.

Happy Easter to the rest! Don't you just love how our multi-racial festivities so nicely clash, and yet its still not made a public holiday? One of the best things about being in Malaysia (for me) is how you can sit in a friend's house, drinking Jack Daniels in front of a big picture of Ganesha and call Bhai a Bhai and then insult everyone in Chinese and Malay with so much laughter and friendship.

I <3 Yasmin Ahmad

I was surfing around for advertisements directed by Yasmin Ahmad, when I came across this year's Petronas ad for Chinese New Year. (psst... I'm really sorry if you don't understand Hokkien and well, for some of you the Malay subtitles won't be of any use either. I'll explain it another time.)

I really, really like this ad. It reminds me of a grandmother I never had. It also reminds me of a whole part of my own heritage I am missing out on. You see, the only Hokkien part of me is my surname and the only other attachment I have to the dialect is that I was brought up by a Hokkien nanny who taught me to speak Cantonese. And I don't even speak it well!

The Cantonese immersion program has begun, with one episode of a Hong Kong series Lu probably downloaded by accident. I will have to submerge myself fully into it the moment exams end.

In other news, Virgin is having a superb sale and I now own 4 new DVDs. Brilliant timing. I got some soppy flicks which included Steel Magnolias and also The Choirboys. I've hidden them behind the stairs in an attempt to remove them from my line of sight.

MPH is also having a sale. I've put 4 books into my cart and thankfully they'll be delivered to my little house in PJ so I can't read them until I go home anyway.

I need to concentrate on my notes and stop singing to Starlight Express.

Why I don't seem to be studying

Three Days Ago
If you really want to impress a girl and you're feeling a bit generous, I'd thoroughly recommend you take her/drag her/carry her kicking and screaming into Maggiore's.

A few weeks ago, in a fit of desperation and an 'all is lost' moment, I cynically told Lionel that I'd take him out for an expensive meal if everything turned out alright in the end. And they did. So Lionel got a free lunch. And it was our anniversary anyway, but things like that don't really matter.

So we went into Maggiore's and had the best duck ever. I also had a rabbit's leg as a starter and tried not to think of poor legless rabbits watching their limbs being roasted and laid in balsamic vinegar, which was quite easy to forget once you dig into the sweet sweet meat! Rabbit tastes just like chicken. And how timely, seeing that bird flu just hit the UK.

The best part of the restaurant though has to be its awesomely romantic conservatory. I mean, check out the dining experience and click on view interior for a 360 degrees span. I'd go again, if I can earn enough money from tour guiding next year.



Two Days Ago

So, Hugo thought the best way to turn 23 (without resorting to drunken chaos) was to sit in a park surrounded by lots of food. Oh, and friends.

And there was ALOT of food, seriously!

Even my tiramisu cake made an appearance. With plenty of rum in it.

And here's proof that people actually like it. Even if it was made absent-mindedly while watching House and Grey's Anatomy. But I didn't mention that to most people.

The weather started out really nice, nice enough for cam-whoring.
That's Me, Vidu and Menaka.

And all sorts of fuzzy creatures started appearing, like this inquisitive squirrel and lovely yellow labrador that wanted pizza. I think even a maltese bounded by

One of Hugo's friends tried to catch the squirrel. Didn't work out, did it?

Then this tractor, that had been nonchalently trimming the grass around us
started circling us like a shark.

Anyway it was getting really chilly, so we packed up,
but not before Andy started a camera fight

And Vidu (the first Sri Lankan eskimo) nearly died of hypothermia

And with that, Hugo turned 23... and has an uncanny sense of knowing when a camera is pointed at him, at all times!!

Akan Datang...

Watch this space for:

1. Photos from Hugo's birthday picnic on a windy hillside, by a glassy lake, surrounded by hungry friendly canine and a tractor/grass cutter machine... in the middle of Hyde Park! (where do I upload the photos to anyway? Andy?)
2. My review on Maggiore's. Good for a meal if you've got the $$moolah$$.
3. Movies I'm only allowed to watch on condition that I finish studying some horrible communication systems
4. A rant on why I am clearly going to be an unhappy engineer and not some bare footed free spirit who can't afford to make rent.

Policing Malaysian Police

Following on from Wan Aimran's discussion on police force - paper faces on parade

(yes I know I really should be studying, but...)

"Judging from the vehement oppositions to the establishment of the Independent Police Misconduct and Complaint Commission (IPCMC) shown by both the members of the police force and several of the BN MPs, I think it is perfectly justified for us as Malaysians to be cynical towards the outlook of the country in the near future."

I think one could not ask for a clearer or bolder display of misguided superiority that the police force have towards an unyielding commitment to transparency, integrity and accountability - a notion which is quickly being reduced to nothing but a hollow catchphrase in the current Malaysian political landscape.

Cynical we can and have always been. However I really cannot entertain the soft approach we as Malaysians seem to take. Having been brought up according to the "spare the rod and spoil the child" rule of thumb, I believe wholly that when a child does something wrong you cannot have one parent scolding sampai meletup* and on the other hand have the other parent saying "Tak apalah**" and giving excuses that the child doesn't know any better and is really a good child most of the time... sometimes....

Here in Malaysia, we are always quick to defend. Much too quick. We have ministers and chief of police playing good parent against bad parent. After all aggressiveness isn't welcome in Malaysian politics (cut to all members of parliament trying to take Aunty Rafidah down) or Malaysian establishments. How then is a IPCMC ever going to work. We'll complain and they'll say, "but you never praise them for the good work they do, see like today got police sergeant honoured for bravery... so the situation is not so bad really..."

The latest 'excuse', (brought to my attention by the ever vigilent Singaporean, Lionel), has the Malaysian police claiming that CSI is helping Malaysian criminals become smarter. This came just days after the Royal Malaysian Police Force was pretty much told to buck up and stop producing shoddy investigations. After all at least 10 murder cases remained unsolved, with a few among them being rather high profile cases. What I can't understand is how CSI hasn't motivated our own police to think one step ahead? Instead of wasting time looking for kopi money.

Right, this is just a very on-the-surface, superficial comment, but have you ever noticed that those special ops police who are waiting around the corner to catch minor traffic offenders never just need one or two men, but almost a whole police motorcade? I mean, 6 or 7 police officers to catch you making an illegal turning at a traffic light? That free, huh?

What was really interesting about the CSI comment thought was that after doing a search on Google, I managed to pull it out from Yahoo, CNN, Malaysiakini and finally Bernama. But I couldn't find it on any of our usual Malaysian dailies. Am I not looking hard enough? Tell me if you find it. Also, take a look at this article in The New York Post. Seems the CSI complaint is quite a common one, and it was only a matter of time before Musa quoted it himself.

Looking at this article however, you wonder if our judiciary system needs abit of shaking up as well:
Inquests not held despite being required.

I'm not complaining about my country. I'm encouraging it on to think with a first class mentality as underlined in the 9th Malaysia Plan. I haven't had the time to read it thoroughly, no thanks to ongoing exam revision. Exciting things always happen around the time of my exams. Like Anwar being arrested sometime before PMR. Damn it.

*until erupted/burst
** Never mind lah

Useless Fact #69

You know that Aero advert on tv with the two women speaking with their mouths full? It kinda inspired Lionel to try it. Except that all we had at home was Cadbury Bubbly.
So we each popped a piece into our mouths and waited. About 10 seconds later mine started to, well not POP as in the Aero advert, but fizz.


"Ohh, de bubbers!" I mouthed
"Where got!!! I don't feel any popping!"
"Thwy anoder piefs and pwess id agains de woof of your mouf"
"Nope, nothing"
I swallowed my piece and said "Maybe it's a genetic trait?"

We're just gonna have to get the real deal and try it again. If the bubbles don't pop loudly can we sue for false advertising?

I haven't really got anything interesting to say

That's normal for me, and even more so during exam study periods.

I called up Vidal Sassoon's Academy out of desperation this morning. My hair has outgrown its former straight sleek self and is now resembling a shaggy carpet with split ends. My days of not knowing where my hair brush is, are over.

A bored drawl picked up the phone and I said, "Is this where I book an appointment for a haircut?".
"April 18th", answered the drawl.
"Erm, are you saying April 18th is the earliest date you've got?" (I get a little thrown off when people don't answer my questions directly).
"Yes. 1pm... no, 3pm"
"Alright so I'll take April 18th at 3pm" (Although it's not like they were giving me several choices to begin with!)
"Okaay. We'll see you then." *click*

This had better be worth all my 5 pounds and tube fare.

With regards to studying, things are coming along just peachy. I have (hopefully) stopped making so many mathematical faux pas and can now move on to the advanced stuff like proper engineering concepts because I now know that:

1) The square of root(-1) is NOT 1.
My proof to Lionel (the biochemist) that :

root(a) x root(b) = root(ab)
and therefore root(-1) x root(-1) = root(1) = 1

only held water for about 5 minutes. Moments later Lionel walked back into the room and showed me how the square of root(-1) really and truly is -1. I think we ought to swap degrees.

and

2) Always simplify partial fractions
When dealing with partial fractions, it helps to remember how to use the cover up rule and not blindly sub in numbers. In addition it is always best to look at the numerator and think about simplifying it further before proceeding to over create variables without enough simultaneous equations to solve them all!!

Now on to digital FIR filters. I shall pretend they make me happy.

Trippies

I've been hard at work.


Planning a family holiday to Lourdes that is. Lourdes (the good Catholic's Mecca or Ganges) hosts the largest number of hotels outside of France, which is a pain to search through. So if anyone has any travel tips, please pass them this way. We're also planning to run through Florence and Rome and possibly wave at the leaning tower of Pisa along the way. Hotel recommendations et al are most welcome.

Charme and Sherene, if you both come to London lets runaway to Venice! Or Munich to kidnap Baa! Or Amsterdam for brownies!

Now back to annoying z-transforms... DSP makes me cry...

On hiatus

Am studying.

Really, I am.

Well at least a few hours a day.

Alright, less than 3.

Will be back once I get the hang of Ackermann's formula. Don't ask.

Peace out.

(Oh man, why did I say that? I never say that!)