I had been toying with the idea in my mind since last year, but it was not until March when certain circumstances changed that I made up my mind that I was going for a postgraduate degree in the UK.

It was a tough decision.

In fact, it was a several-hundred-thousand-ringgit investment decision. After all, I have, all my life, been advocating the notion that experience, not academics, determines the success of a person.

Besides money, this decision also involves taking more time out of my life and delay the start of my career. After spending 4 years in Engineering, I am already lagging behind graduates taking 3-year bachelor’s degree courses… and, as they say – getting there first is everything.

Finally and not least, Shuyi and I will literally be swapping locations (UK-Malaysia) by year end and that means that we will be having a long-distance relationship… again.

I’m not keen to disclose the exact reasons that made me decide on this because they can be slightly controversial. However, I have considered my options for over 6 months and I believe that my decision is informed and rational.

**********

Anyway, *kills the solemn mood* and so I started my insanely long and stressful period of applying to universities!

First, I immediately registered for an IELTS test. This was crucial because test slots in April to September are pretty full and you’ll usually have to book at least a month in advance. And while waiting for my test date to arrive, I started targeting universities.

I knew exactly what I wanted to study for masters. To complement the scientific nerdyness of engineering, I wanted to study something on the other side of the academic world – economics, accounting, management, finance etc.

I decided that if I was to go for a master’s degree, I would study something related to business, since that is what I ultimately want to do.

Now that I knew what course I wanted to do, the next step would be to choose the institution. There are several hundreds of universities in the UK, and I had little time to research them one-by-one!

… so the easy way out was to simply look at the rankings. Times Higher Education has one of the most respected university world rankings:

And by sorting the world ranking by region, in this case Europe, I extracted the list of European universities that made it into the Top-200 World Ranking (out of the approx. 4000 universities in Europe). And by picking the top universities from the UK only, I got myself a good list of prospective universities!

Fortunately, there were also two UK education fairs in KL last month, one organised by the British Council, and the other jointly by Imperial College, UCL, LSE and KCL, the four major constituent colleges of the University of London.

I went to both fairs and after bugging the representatives from most of the 15 universities, I learned all I needed to know about the universities and was finally confident to make my choice.

So according to the Times Higher Education list, the top UK universities are:

1) University of Cambridge

2) University of Oxford

3) Imperial College London

4) University College London

5) University of Edinburgh

6) University of Bristol

7) King’s College London

University of Sussex

9) University of York

10) Durham University

11) London School of Economics

12) University of Manchester

13) Royal Holloway, University of London

14) University of Southampton

15) University of St. Andrews

…

…

Oxford, Cambridge and York had closed their applications way before March (some application deadlines were last year!) so those were out. UCL, KCL and Sussex didn’t offer the course that I wanted; and LSE was simply too, friggin’, insanely expensive. So those were out too.

In the end I applied to the five universities highlighted in bold above, and I added in the popular University of Sheffield, University of Birmingham and University of Warwick. These three did not make it into the top-15, but they are well within the top-30.

So in the end, I applied to EIGHT universities! As my lecturer said, you only get one chance to apply so have some backups… you never know, right?

The application process was gruelling.

Not only were there an average of 10 pages of application forms PER university to fill in, there were also essay questions like ‘describe your long term goals in 350 words’ or ‘why do you think you are suitable for this course?’ etc. Which took me like days upon days to compose.

And I haven’t even started with the personal statement.

Writing personal statements is the most stressful task on earth. Not only will you wonder what in the world are you going to talk about, you will also be super paranoid about missing out points and important stuff AFTER you’ve finished it. So the reviewing of the statement actually took more time than writing it.

And finally comes the reference letters.

All universities require at least two reference letters each from an independent referee who has had significant contact with, and could provide an objective opinion about me. That’s the UK universities’ requirement.

Now MY OWN requirement is: at least two reference letters each from an independent referee who likes me… a lot.

I can’t have a reference letter that bad-mouths me, right? Haha but fortunately my Final Year Project supervisor, who was also my lecturer, and a Maths professor came to my rescue. Both referees satisfy the universities’ requirement, and both referees… well… had been in pretty good terms with me during my four years as an undergrad.

Hehe so… DONE! (To be fair, my conduct in uni was actually quite good kayz…) No cheating here.

So with all my documents ready (academic transcript, reference letters, personal statement, application form, certs and other supporting documents) I nervously submitted all the applications, and wished for the best!

**********

Looking back, the four weeks following my application submissions were absolutely nerve-wrecking. I can remember myself rushing home everyday just to check my email and kept refreshing my Yahoo inbox every few minutes when I’m in front of my computer. Imperial College also conducted an interview with me through video conference and I was absolutely blown away by the questions they asked. I remembered waking up everyday with butterflies in my stomach, telling myself “maybe today is the day I receive a response!”

A week later, University of Sheffield replied with an offer. I was thrilled! This was my first offer! I hung on to my seat and waited patiently… maybe there would be more coming!

In the second week, both University of Manchester and Royal Holloway, UoL replied with offers. Although both were not my top choices among the eight, now I’ve got two more alternatives!

In the third week, University of Birmingham and University of Bristol replied with offers! This was spectacular news and I was literally jumping with joy in my lab. University of Bristol has my favourite Master’s course so far. Not only is the university high up in terms of ranking, its programme structure is also very flexible and I love the subjects offered. Birmingham is not bad either, but I’d like to keep it as a backup.

In the fourth week, University of Edinburgh and University of Warwick replied with offers. I was astounded! Now I am beginning to get spoilt with choice! University of Warwick is the upcoming star in business studies and UK employers in particular seem to like Warwick graduates a lot! University of Edinburgh, on the other hand, has almost five centuries of outstanding reputation, is the oldest university among the eight, and is situated in a wonderful, historical city.

Most universities promise an offer/rejection within 4 weeks, and by the end of the fourth weeks, I received offers from seven out of the eight universities I applied to! Yay! (Technically, these were offers conditional upon my graduation with a certain CGPA and obtain a certain IELTS band score. But blah… who cares about that now?)  

On the fifth week, I received nothing.

On the sixth week, I checked my email one fine day and voila! I struck gold. My eighth and final university, Imperial College London sent me an offer! Imperial is like top ten in the world and top three in the UK (after Oxford and Cambridge) and I had never really expected them to accept me.

Anyways now I am presented with a problem that I have never really anticipated – I have to make my choice among all the eight universities I applied to. A month ago, my original plan was to just take whichever university that accepts me… but now this is an entirely different dilemma.

I love all the universities very much (that’s why I applied to them) but I particularly favour Imperial College (obviously!), University of Bristol (for the reputation and course structure), University of Edinburgh (for the city and historical roots), and University of Warwick (for the fame of its business school).

I’ve decided I would give myself several weeks to seriously think about it, research, and make an informed decision. This is a multi-hundred-thousand ringgit investment and I want to make the best choice.

Meanwhile, I have to focus on getting an ‘A’ for my final year project, as well as prepare for my IELTS! Without these two I would fail my offer conditions and all the work would be for nothing!

Work work!

As I have stated earlier, I am now in the midst of doing my final year project, which is basically my undergraduate thesis, and have been camping in our lab for the past 14 weeks.

Naturally, given the comfortable environment of our lab, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in campus.

Speaking of my final year project, it came to me as a dismaying shock when I realized, after calculating my estimated CGPA, that I can achieve my goal of graduating with 3.50 ONLY IF I scored A’s in ALL FOUR SUBJECTS taken this semester, AND the 3-subject-equivalent Final Year Subject.

If you look at it carefully, that is almost an impossible task. Scoring A’s for final year subjects are never easy, but scoring an A for a final year project is almost unheard off. My FYP supervisor, for instance, has told me that he has never given a student an ‘A’ before.

So How???

Anyway, moving on to happier topics… Remember Prof. Riekert? He’s here to visit us again!

The kind professor from Stuttgart Media University has come to pay our faculty another annual visit (as part of his job as external examiner for our major), and wanted to meet up with us, the Cameron Highlands trip group, again!

We have some really ambitious plans to visit the professor some time in the future in Germany! Let’s see when this can become reality!

In the meantime, I am stuck with my final year project, which, although interesting, is also extremely stressful.

Just given my part 1 presentation a couple of weeks ago, hopefully my supervisor and moderator liked it! This presentation accounts for 20% of the entire project’s marks, and is CRITICAL that I get as high as possible if I am aiming for the impossible goal of getting an ‘A’.

**********

Ahaha, another piece of news… I am going to the UK for 2 weeks at the end of this month! Yay!

Updates after I come back.

(Note: For those who do not know what Toastmasters is, we are a worldwide network of public speaking clubs. We do not make toasts.)

At the beginning of the term, we saw three key areas of improvement and set out three specific goals to be achieved by the end of the 1-year term:

1)  The club has never achieved any awards beyond the Distinguished Club award which was achieved back in 2006. Our goal this year is to, for the first time, achieve the President’s Distinguished Club award – the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a club by Toastmasters International. This award recognizes educational and managerial standards achieved by the club.

2) Members are key to the club’s educational capacity and the membership was at unhealthy levels. Our goal is to triple the number of active and paying members in the club by the end of the year.

3) Members were losing enthusiasm from overly procedure-bound meetings and there was a lack of bonding among committees and ordinary members. Our goal is to achieve a sense of deep fellowship and bonding among members and promote livelier and more enjoyable meetings. 

So while the first two goals are quantitative and specific, the third goal is qualitative and subjective. But it doesn’t matter, this is what the new committee believe is necessary for the club.

Assessment:

1) The club has achieved 6 of the 9 goals necessary to achieve the President’s Distinguished Club award. That’s more than half way there!

2) Membership growth is 80% as of this month, which is still quite far from the targeted 200%.

3) I think the energy among members is much higher now. YAY! I love it that certain members like to joke around during meetings and that certainly improves participation from the other (more passive) members. Members also start to actively compete for speech slots, which is always a good sign! And…. It’s great that the regular post-meeting mamak supper culture that I tried to cultivate earlier this term is turning out fantastic! Members and committee members bonded well during these casual sessions.

In addition to that, we are having great collaborative meetings with Shell, Dell and DHL Toastmasters clubs, who are always helpful and supportive!

Six more months to go… And we’re there!

I’ve said before that I will not talk about anything technical, academic, or any stressful work in my personal blog, but I would like to show off my FYP lab!

Oh wait, first let me remark that most FYP students will be given some kind of lab to work in. And the lab assigned would be one that is linked to your project title. Being the Faculty of Engineering, naturally most students are assigned to humming, boring, technical labs crammed with wires and zombie machines like these:

*credit: all pics stolen from Faculty of Engineering website*

However, I am simply fortunate enough to have chosen a project that would spare me from all those alien-portal-producing labs. Instead, I am working on an image and video processing project that focuses on designing intelligent features to future smart homes.

Naturally, that would require that I be given at least a fake smart home to work in! Haha, introducing… the MMU Digital Home Lab!

Situated conveniently in one of the labs on the lower ground floor of the faculty, this reclusive paradise is unknown to most students! Sponsored by your timely bill payments to TM, Maxis, Astro, along with partners Intel, LG and government agency Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), this lab spoils us FYP students to the max!

Me and my friends Tee and Ariadne, being the only group of FYP students to occupy the lab most of the time – and even after university hours – this is becoming our favourite hideout for the rest of our final year!

With a nice kitchen with a working double-door fridge for us to store our drinks and snacks, and a comfy bedroom to sle-, err, conduct our research, there is absolutely no more reason for us to hang out or study in the library (like last time) anymore!

And did I mention? This lab has a dedicated, password-protected 20Mbps UniFi high speed broadband dedicated for the exclusive use of its occupants. The internet connection here is literally 20 times faster than my line at home! Ahhh..

Other temptations of this lab include a fully working Nintendo Wii, IPTV which comes with the UniFi, multiple LCD TVs, and a long, soft couch for us to indulge in… what else – our research discussions of course. =)

I wonder if our FYP supervisor would realize after this semester that an account was opened boldly with his name and has appeared on hi-scores in almost all of the Wii games? Hehe… 

Anyway, this is the SOHO area of the lab at which we (really) do most of our development:

Well with all the unnecessary luxuries of this lab (kitchen, bedroom and all…), I think what it really needs is a toilet!

Heading out of this haven into the student-filled faculty corridors just to use the public toilets is a nuisance. But I’m definitely not complaining! This is da-best-place-EVA to do an FYP in this campus!

*********

This morning (Nov 30) there was a symposium for digital home lifestyle in our university and our lab became the exhibition spot for a number of VIPs!

Malaysian Information, Communications and Cultural minister Dato’ Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim was scheduled to visit but due to emergency reasons had to be taken over by the deputy minister.

Err, I’m not a politician, but I don’t suppose it’s too hard to take over an absent minister’s place, right? Hehe I guess all Deputy minister Dato’ Joseph Salang had to do was deliver the minister’s opening speech from a well-script piece of paper…

But we all experienced the deputy minister’s friendliness and humour when he visited out lab, where our lecturers eagerly showed off their research projects!

Here’s my FYP supervisor Dr. Chang, who’s also the leader of the whole digital home lab project, briefing some new technology to the deputy minister, along with our university’s parent company TM’s Chairman of the Board of Directors YBhg. Datuk Dr. Halim Shafie, and MCMC chairman YBhg. Tan Sri Khalid Bin Ramli, who were also present.

*all pictures below are property of Bernama and KPKK. No copyright infringement intended.*

My ex- programming lecturer demonstrating the multi-touch tabletop home control system. This system apparently allows you to control all lights and electricals in the house and even play games on a touch-screen-like table, only that it doesn’t use a conventional touch screen and therefore costs only a fraction of what normal ones do… great for home implementation!

Dr. Kiyoshi Hamaguchi explaining the in-home healthcare monitoring system which monitors your blood pressure, ECG signals, heart rate etc. wirelessly while you’re at home and immediately alerts and streams your health data to a medical officer in case of an emergency.

And here’s me butting into the scene where Signal Processing lecturer Dr. Shima explains about her project, which classifies the human brain’s EEG electrical signals and aims to ultimately use it to control computers and smart homes.

It’s a very interesting project and I almost choose her research field as my FYP project title, but in the end I chose my current title as I felt it is more applicable to my future work.

Hehe standing beside the VIPs is a good choice because the band of reporters were always taking photos from opposite them. LOL. =)

…to study!

Well, considering London is more than 10,000 kilometres away from KL, this is a long, long distance relationship indeed.

Nobody likes a long distance relationship. In fact, according to some random internet statistics, 40% of all long distance relationship break up!

But on the bright side, she is only going there for her final year. Meaning it’s not like forever that we’re gonna be apart… And besides, it’s always better for any law student to study in the UK, right?

Here’s our final pic together at the airport before her departure:

Besides, this provides me with an excellent excuse to make a trip to the UK this semester break! Haha!

Time to save up money!!

**********

November marks the beginning of the second trimester of my final year in university.

This semester would be like just any other boring semester, except for the fact that I am taking SIX friggin’ subjects including one FYP – the most annoying Final Year Project that is worth 8 insane credit hours – alone accounting for almost three subjects’ worth of weight in your CGPA.

When I was a freshman in university, I thought that being a final year student would be unimaginably cool.

If you were a final year student, I thought, you would be king and lord of the campus. You would be revered by every junior and admired by every girl. And having studied all there is to study in your course, you would probably be so good in your stuff that you could just take your own sweet time and NOT have to study and catch up lessons all day and night. I imagined you would be so free that you could be extremely active in clubs and societies lording over the newbies and going out with friends every night!

Life, I assumed, would be so interesting in the final year!

Well now that I’ve become a final year student, I realized that instead of becoming a star, I’ve become a dinosaur. Although I am still president of a club, I realized that campus life just isn’t that interesting anymore. Friends have resigned from their exco positions in other clubs just to concentrate on the FYP and studies. Nobody goes for trips anymore, and in fact nobody has time to do anything anymore! A third of them are doing their internships this semester, a third of them are sucked into the FYP bog, and a third of them have already graduated (non-engineering friends).

And it sucked more when I found out a couple of years back, when I was extremely active in Tourism Club, that final year students aren’t exactly the cool and fun people as I had thought in my first year, but rather on the contrary consists of those that are not active, not spontaneous, and rather always nerdy looking people worrying over the next FYP presentation or submission schedule.

Now I think I can understand why. Time is such a scarcity in the final year and everything seems to boil down to the results that you get now. Although I’ve never thought of myself being a guy who works in an academic-results-oriented industry, for some very peculiar reason, results just seem to matter now. A lot.

God save me from becoming a geek!

Not only does it mark the start of my final year as an undergraduate, but it is also the beginning of my term as the leader of what I believe is the most beneficial club that I’ve attended during my four years in university.

Being elected as the president of the Multimedia University Toastmasters Club is an honour beyond any other appointment that I’ve received from the other clubs that I’ve held positions in.

I think this is because, well, I know this sounds prejudiced against the other clubs, hehe but… MMU TMC is not just any other university club.

It is a club that is formally chartered and overseen by an international chartering body.

It is a club that is protected, assisted and governed by governing bodies on area, division, district and international levels and thus forms a huge network of community and corporate clubs, all meeting each other regularly in district events and conventions.

It is a club that has the focused goal of promoting the unique and vital combination of public speaking and leadership skills through a professional and internationally recognized educational program.

Okay I know I sound almost religious about this Toastmasters thingy, but haha… That’s my job now, isn’t it?

Leading a student club that consistently faces problems like clashing timetables with exams/holidays, lack of funds, and ultra-high membership turnover is not at all easy, but I’ve always believed that there is something in the Toastmasters spirit that will take us through the year.

We have been through bad times, really bad times. But every time we’ve made it through the rain. And today, MMU Toastmasters is proud to be the youngest (literally) and one of the most vibrant clubs in the area!

This year, we have a vision to bring this club to much greater heights!

This year, we have set the previously impossible goal of achieving the highest honour that any chartered club may receive from Toastmasters International – the President’s Distinguished Club award!

The award may not be so difficult to achieve for larger, corporate clubs… but for us, it is an entirely different story. If we made it this year, it will be our very first award of any kind in the club’s entire history.

I’m confident that we can achieve this. But still… Wish us luck! =)

**********

After a long torturous wait and checking the online results page almost every single day while working in AMD…

.. finally, last semester’s results are out!

Yay! Not too bad! It seems that my grad CGPA is still going to be OK after all! Happy!

Since a healthy number of people use AMD microprocessors and/or ATI graphics cards, I think there is no need to introduce the company. Instead, let me introduce the workplace!

Apparently there is a policy of not allowing cameras in the office and production areas, so I think more than half of the photos in this post are illegal… but never mind… =D

We interns were assigned cubicles on the top floor while the engineers (our supervisors included) have their offices one floor beneath us!

Being insulated by the solid cement floor under our feet, and populated only by wild and energetic interns, the top floor usually transforms into a very… inconducive working environment near 5PM.  Ahem.

I mean, haha, after a whole day of intensive working you’d totally look forward to 5PM right? Cuz after work means going out!=D How to keep quiet and stay put?

Of course, during hours other than those near 5PM, we usually spend most of our time down in the production facility, where virtually everything engineering-ish is located at – analysis and engineering labs, R&D and production assembly lines… everything!

The very cool (at first, later became very annoying) thing about the production facility is that we had to wear like this before going in:

Being unfamiliar with semiconductor production facilities, wearing some tight top-to-toe attire and stepping into a self-locking ‘air shower’ compartment before gaining access into a huge, bright room with an infinite sea of hi-tech machines and fluorescent lights spanning densely across the floor and ceiling, coupled with the sight of masked people in white smocks walking around inspecting machines and operating mounted computers… *catches breathe* reminded me bluntly of the scene in the film Independence Day:

… where the president walked into the ultra-secret science facility in Area 51 and was shown the place where US government conducted experiments on alien spaceships and dead alien bodies.

LOL.

Anyways I must admit that the best thing about working in AMD is the people.

All of us were afraid when we entered AMD on the first day, apprehensive of how our new working environment would be like. But our supervisors were friendly and helpful, and we interns quickly became best pals among ourselves!

Before long we were going out for movies, karaoke, shopping, drinking and everything that can be done by a working guy in Penang! (Except going to Kek Lok Si)

We made a point to hang out after work and not just work, go home, eat, online, sleep, wake up, work, go home, eat, online, sleep…

The ‘no-life-ness’ of a career as an Engineer is a trap that I am super duper eager to avoid even after I graduate in the future.

I can hardly bear the thought that in reality most engineers do exactly that! I mean, with all due respect to our engineer supervisors, we found that they really go through that very same routine for years! =(

Noooo…!

Let’s hope I do not end up like the me in the picture above ten years from now. Hehe… But for now, I’ve got a great place to work! =D

-

P.S. Haha if you’re thinking why my industrial training consists of all play and no work, I’m afraid you’re wrong, sir, very wrong indeed. But since this is my personal blog and not my training logbook, I intend to keep it work and stress free. =)

Besides having had an extraordinary Chinese New Year, meeting many relatives, and receiving a huge fortune in Ang Paus, PLUS a wonderful make-up Valentine’s Day… I have another FOUR major accomplishments!

#1 – Winning a Toastmasters speech competition.

Having joined Toastmasters for quite some time, this is my very first time taking part in a speech competition!

The club level competition was held on the February 3rd, and by the end of it I was given the great honour to represent my university’s club in an area-level speech competition, which will be held on the 24th of March at the Toastmasters in SHELL IT International Sdn. Bhd., the IT arm of Shell in Malaysia.

The type of speech is called table-topics speech, which basically is an impromptu speech. You are given a topic on-the-spot while you are on the stage, and you start speaking right away.

Being a first-timer, I doubt I’d have any chance of winning in the area-level competition. With so many professionally-trained speakers coming from different Toastmasters clubs in the area, I guess I count myself lucky just to be able to attend and watch and learn!

**********

#2 – Receiving my very first Dean’s List Award!

Remember my very daring aim to get a four flat GPA in the last semester?

I managed to get it! Woohoo! 

Now OK, I know that there are countless four-flatters out there and this is SERIOUSLY not at all a big deal. And some super nerds/geeks – I mean hardworking good students – probably get it every semester!

So what? This is my first and I shall shamelessly blow the trumpets and sound the heralds! Hmph!

And due to the achievement, the Faculty has awarded me with…

-

*cue sound of horns and holy light shining from the heavens*

-

Behold! My very first own Dean’s List!

Kakaka… I’ve wanted one of those since my foundation/pre-U years!

**********

#3 – Being offered an industrial training position in AMD, Penang!

Finally, the labour of applying for internship is over! I received a call from AMD the week before Chinese New Year, went through a phone interview, and a week later was told that I have been accepted!

I was afraid that they would ask me to go to Penang for an interview but luckily they didn’t!

Well, Let’s see… I had my primary and secondary education in Ipoh, foundation studies in Malacca, undergrad studies in Selangor, and now industrial training in Penang! Yay! Where’s next? Sarawak?

Apart from the monthly allowance, AMD also gives us a ‘food allowance’ of RM2 per day, which sounds like nothing initially, but a friend of mine whose sister is working in AMD told me that the food in these giant companies are kinda heavily subsidized, so apparently you really could have a meal with just RM2-3.

Amazing huh?

**********

#4 – Getting a free HP Notebook!

… From the most unlikely giver – the Malaysian government!

Apparently this is a government initiated collaboration with TM to offer free HP notebooks to university students subscribing to a certain broadband plan. Freebies! Who’s gonna let it slip?

Received my notebook about a week ago, and it is great!

The specs of the notebook ain’t that great, as it is an HP mini. But who cares? It’s free!

My housemates Alvin and the rest are all applying for the plan. In due time, I think all of us will be having one! Thank you Najib!

Is this a good enough reason for us to vote for Barisan Nasional in the next election? Hmm…

That’s the business than my group of 15 friends and I are doing for the university subject ‘Cyberpreneurship’!

FYI, Cyberpreneurship is one of the most retarded subjects in the universe as it requires us to form groups of 15 ‘business partners’, think of a business, write up a business plan, do the business preparations, and finally run the business (with profit) … in six weeks!

That’s a running, profitable business in 42 days!

Donald Trump, Bill Gates, and a whole lot of entrepreneurs should totally kneel and learn from whoever succeeds in this quest!

AND THAT ‘WHOEVER’ IS – US!!

Yes! We planned and prepared everything and after just 3 days of running the business, we’ve managed to break-even, sold out all our stock, and even made a modest profit!

And not to mention we had a direct competitor (selling EXACTLY the same product) in front of us! Their stall was like… just THREE METERS in front of us!)

But somehow… There was always hoards of customers around our stall and the sales just kept going!

Maybe that’s because our competition had nothing more than an ordinary long table as their stall, or maybe it’s just because we have 11 *ahem* super leng luis sucking in customers from all directions.

Anyway, our three-day-business was filled with incredible experiences, such as two wire extensions bursting into grey smoke, a guy fainting in the room right behind our stall, and a badly-scalded hand (injured by hot water)!

A little behind-the-scenes:

Sam and Sina, our logistics department guys, cleaning our stall before the business:

Pushing it all the way to our business venue:

Some of us at our ingredients supplier’s shop:

Grace testing if our supplier’s products are up to standards:

Buying other ingredients in Carrefour:

Found the best one!

OMG just realized that Sam is showing his middle finger!  Bad Sam!

I wish we could have taken more photos but I guess everyone was just very busy with the business. It was really a great success and everyone was so cooperative!

And a huge thanks to our great Bubble Bobble customers too!

**********

Alright now give me my ‘A’ for this subject please!

In less than 48 hours, however, I will already be going back to class again!

What is this??

Semester (or what we call, ‘trimester’) breaks in Multimedia University are shorter than a certain erected organ of a guy who is suffering severe erectile dysfunction.

They are so short (they = our sem breaks) that we don’t even realize its existence!

After one hectic study week and two dizzying exam weeks that follow it, we laid down our lecture notes and text books, took a deep, relaxed sigh, had a few nights of much-needed, lengthy sleeps to cover the sleep debt accumulated over the past two weeks; went out for a few days of most-deserving after-exam celebrations, of course, everybody does that after they finished something big and stressful; went back to our hometowns for a few days to be with our family members who had missed us so much – just like what we do during some normal weekends…

… and then the day after tomorrow… we’re having class again!

So, semester break? Har? When? Where got?

Look, a ‘semester break’ of a pathetic length of fourteen days is not a semester break. It should be called an ‘exam papers marking period’.

I think the only reason we were having this ‘break’ of two weeks is because, of course, we cannot start our new semester without the results of our previous semester’s exams!

Come on, can’t ya’ll see it? If they could finish grading our exam papers in three days, then our ‘semester breaks’ would be three-days-long!

Why? Because we used to have 3-week semester breaks, but this semester, our dear University probably thought that we would rot and die in our homes waiting… longing… for the long, pointless 3-week holidays to pass, so they decided that they would do us a favor and shorten this semester break to two weeks!

Because three weeks is like – wow – soooooooo ‘long’, you know…

Whatever happened to the college life where students could go for full-time summer jobs, hitch-travelling around the country, take up seasonal singing, dancing or whatever competitions, or maybe just taking a month-long retreat to some relaxing beachside or countryside summerhouse?

No! We can’t do shit! We cannot even survive a part time job until the monthly salary is being issued!

Sigh… anyway, before the two weeks end, let’s try to recap what I did in the last two weeks of my exam papers marking period.

May 28 – May 30: Finished exams! Watched movies, had some fine dinners, spent time accompanying my dear. She was still having her LL.B. exams until June 2.

May 31 –June 1: Visited Sebastian, Jon and Heng who had just moved from SK to their ‘new’ house in PJ. The word ‘new’ tells you that the house is ‘new’ to them, but the house ITSELF – is by no means new.

Rented at RM1,000, although slightly more expensive than double-storeys in SK, this house is definitely a bargain, considering it being in PJ and within walking distance to the Kelana Jaya LRT station.

There were some really ‘classical’ things that we would never find in slightly newer houses, such as this really antique staircase light bulb socket:

… and this:

There was also an ‘extra’ bathroom on the first floor, in a small corner outside the kitchen and beside the backyard, that was so disgustingly dirty and smelly that they had decided to quarantine it for as long as they stay there!

They swore they would never open the door of the bathroom, use the two other bathrooms instead, and treat as if it had never existed.

They were very firm about that!

Also revisited Blitzone with Sebastian a couple of times to play DotA. It’s been so long, like more than two years, since I last set foot in that cyber cafe!

June 2 – June 5: Celebrated my dear’s and my ‘finish-exam’. Started the long works for the new James-Chow.com template scheduled to complete on June 21 – the day my domain turns three-year-old.

Also went to TM Tower for the first time to settle the billing dispute.

June 6 – June 8: Went back to Ipoh to visit my family.

For the first time I took the interstate KTM train service, which was fairly good, compared to the incredibly scary rides on KTM Komuter trains in KL which are infamous for their great reputation of ‘sardine-ing’ during rush hours – packing huge (and I mean MONSTROUSLY huge) numbers of people in a single train compartment, feet stepping on feet, body rubbing on body (yeah, it’s disgusting), and marinating them in an inescapable, juicy blend of sweat, body odour, bad breath, cheap imitation fragrance, armpit smell, and if you’re extremely unlucky, fart.

The interstate KTM service that I took, however, was better. At least there were seats and the number of passengers were limited to the number of seats.

Although there were a few people eating nasi lemak in the air-conditioned compartment when I first went in, making the trapped air stink heavily of rendang chicken, the train service was, however, generally good.

They even had people walking down the aisle with a trolley selling food and drinks every now and then, just like those flight attendants selling duty free items on international flights.

Only instead of wine and cigarettes, these trolleys were selling Jack n’ Jill potato chips, Milo, Nasi Lemak and other local foodstuffs.

It was also the very first time that I boarded a train from Ipoh!

It was the first time I used the train station in Ipoh, which was a really magnificent building that, unlike the ultra sophisticated and modern design of KL Sentral, had a really grand, ‘olden-days’ architecture, having built in the nineteen thirties by the British.

June 9 – June 13: Came back from Ipoh. Watched some movies and continued on the development of my new website design. Yesterday, I went to a FOREX Expo at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

Also spent the night playing Mahjong with Jon and the rest. The last time I played Mahjong was in Kukup where I played the whole night, without sleep, and only won one round – lost all the rest!

Luckily yesterday, with Jon’s girlfriend Agnes as my ‘advisor’ I managed to breakeven by the end of the game – no net gain or loss!

Two days ago, my results came out! I passed everything! YAY!

Two days later, however, my new trimester will start. Gotta go class again… SIGH…

They take every happy and colorful moment out of your life and replace it with stupid numbers and symbols…

… at least that’s what my exams do.

My final exams are coming – next week. And every single day is basically either:

- studying and trying not to fall asleep on the papers; or the more common alternative:

- not studying, keep enjoying the wonderful life that we are blessed to live in… but feeling dead guilty about it.

If my head exploded due to the pressure, do I get to claim life insurance? Or is there an exclusion clause in the insurance policy for this?

Sigh… really miss the peaceful and relaxing Smokehouse that I happen to have visited last week on Cameron Highlands…

Huhu… I want to sit in the lush green garden, feel the gentle cool breeze and forget all about electronics and maths…

… and, I want to be faced with an abundance of lovely flowers and greens and not symbols and numbers…

… and while we’re here, I want to sit on this couch, sip some tea, take a nap, and throw those annoying past-year exam papers away…

… maybe into the back of the fireplace… good idea… *drools*

Bottom line… I don’t want to be here stuck in my room with exam stuff!

Then, people might say: “aiya, if you studied earlier then wouldn’t have to study so much now lor…”

… That is – without an effort for a better word – bullshit.

Now, don’t be too quick to judge me, please, hear me out:

Because studying is never enough. You won’t feel alright until you’ve studied through every single free time that you’ve had in the days leading up to your exams…

… and now I’m not grumbling about not having enough time to study but the process of saturated studying itself.

Now do you see why I declare having studied earlier wouldn’t have helped? It would help the results, sure, but not the pressure of pre-exam studying.

By the way, read carefully, please  – Even if you somehow managed to study ferociously hard in your ‘normal days’, the insane motivation that drove you through all the intense, ‘normal’ studying would definitely not leave you at rest on your ‘exam days’ as well.

Get it? That’s what I’m saying.

Come on, why is this news to you? You’ve never been a college/university student before? Or were you a hardcore oh-I-so-damn-lurve-studying… nerd? (Or maybe you were just exceptionally smart, I dunno )

“Nerd or Die”.. I think I’ve mentioned something like this before in one of my earlier entries… You either be a nerd, or you have to go through hell studying…

… or you can choose to Die – fail your exams!

**********

No offense people, please. I’m just trying to let of steam a bit… It’s been a really tough week…

So, unlike last time, I now choose to sleep like a pig…

… and still pass my exams!

Come on, folks, life is too beautiful to be ended with a bloody, gruesome brain explosion on top of your college text book.

There are other ways of doing good in exams than stressing through the final hours!

Like, erm… you know, studying earlier and not wait till the last minute!

-

-

-

err…

-

-

… Ok, ok, I know – such a meaningless blog entry…

Guess that’s also one of the negative side-effects of exams – can’t even blog properly…

Gotta go back to my books and notes!

Before anything, I WANT TO COMPLAIN AGAIN! First, it was the ‘i’ button; now, my whole laptop breaks down on the eve of Valentine’s day!

When I was planning to buy a laptop a few months ago, did my friends not totally warn me that the brand ‘A*er’ was unreliable? I think THEY DID!

ARGH!!

Now I have to go all the way to Low Yat to claim my warranty!

I’m writing this entry with my desktop, which I sort of ‘neglected’ since I bought my laptop…

**********

Multimedia University is the number 1 university in Malaysia?

Hmm, I don’t think even the President of MMU dares to make such a statement… At least not in public.

After all, making such a statement would make the person who said it seem arrogant, and even ignorant, since there are so many other respected universities such as UM, USM, UKM and many others whose names uniformly begin with ‘U’ and end with ‘M’ in our country that would appear as better candidates for position of ‘number 1′.

Furthermore, students from other universities would probably start flaming the guy who said it.

But, could there be any truth at all to the question I posed above?

Apparently, there is – to a small extent. Recently, a weblink that was forwarded to me caught my attention. It was a list of the ‘Top 200 universities and colleges worldwide‘, ranked by web popularity

It came as no surprise to find that MIT and Stanford University topped the list. Sometimes, I find it ironic that people always mention Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge as being the top universities in the world, and not even knowing what ‘MIT’ stands for!

You know what? Gordon Freeman, the guy that you play in the game Half-Life, is from MIT! (Don’t simply believe me, check Wikipedia!)

By the way, Harvard is in the 4th place, and Cambridge and Oxford goes way down to 24th and 25th.

Closer to us, Hong Kong University and NUS ranked 8th and 20th respectively. (Hey, it has been my long-time dream – but just a dream, I don’t expect it to ever happen – to study in HKU someday…)

I wondered if our great Universiti Malaya made it into the top 200 list, so I pressed ctrl+f and made a search for the word ‘Malaysia’, and the page went way down to 182nd. Curiously enough, I saw:

Not bad, isn’t it? The only university in Malaysia to make it to the list!

**********

Speaking of our university, our dear 11-years-in-office President Prof. Datuk Dr Ghauth Jasmon, made a sudden retirement last month! He is now being replaced by Prof. Dr Zaharin Yusoff.

Maybe I was not updated enough, but I really heard nothing about Prof. Jasmon planning to retire…

Most people that I know didn’t see it coming, many were shocked, some outraged. Moreover, apparently a number of professors, lecturers and staff were so upset with the management that they resigned and left the university.

This includes the great Prof. Dr Chuah Hein Teik, the very respected and cherished Dean of our Faculty of Engineering – gone.

My friend even told me that he heard some lecturers ‘indirectly’ expressing their dislike and frustration towards the current management in their lecture sessions!

However, there seems to be no official clarification as to what exactly happened that effected in the great change in management. There are many theories and suspicions arising among students, but as long as the university stays silent, we can never be sure.

Indeed, the university made mistakes before, could this change of management be another one?

Just a random photo of water unknowingly being wasted in MMU.

To add to the thought, I notice that it was mentioned in a farewell notice allegedly written by Prof. Jasmon: “...my term as President has been determined to end on 31st December 2007…” Notice the passive voice in present perfect tense – ‘has been determined‘…. Hmm…

A blogger posted a copy of the Prof. Jasmon notice in his blog.

Well, it could have meant nothing, maybe he meant ‘…has been determined (by himself)’… I wouldn’t know…

But anyway, we’re really gonna miss him. Although I’ve never seen him much, he was no doubt a great President; or else we, the university, wouldn’t be having the many achievements that we are so proud of.

**********

In other news…

Alvin, my housemate, STOLE MY HAIR COLOR, I mean, dyed the same color as mine!!!

OK, he didn’t really steal… His color is, in fact, slightly more ‘brownish‘ than mine. And actually, the color in the photo is slightly amplified using Photoshop… Because, remember? My uncooperative camera somehow doesn’t capture red-colored hair!

Ah, anyway. My hair is completely black now… Dunno whether I should try a new color anytime soon… Sigh, guys’ short hair really makes coloring an extremely short-term thing.

**********

Oh ya, before I end, Happy (early) Valentine’s day!

Actually, not really now, I thought and wrote this stuff up during my previous final exam period. Although that has quite long passed, but I think I should publish some of my thoughts in my blog, so…

Anyway, if you happen to be reading this, you might find this post somewhat pointless, I’m sorry but please bear with me!

**********

Why is everybody so worked up about the final exams?

To get good results? To secure a good job in the future?

This (for now – last) trimester, I boldly withdrew three out of the four core subjects that I am taking, resulting in only one single subject left to be studied for the finals.

Hey, none of them were barred, none of them cancelled. I just wanted to withdraw, so I did!

LOL! Alright, I withdrew the subjects because I’m changing my major next trimester, and the subjects that I dropped are those that are not in the syllabus of the new major.

Just to clarify, I’m NOT changing my course! I’m still doing a Bachelor of Engineering, but merely taking up a different major.

Of course, there are still two other art subjects – Law and Moral – but both of which are absolutely not worrying. In fact, I have a very good record in scoring arts subjects.

My liberty from much studying during this final exam period gave me the opportunity to take a good look at the people around me, the people who study hard everyday in the library, the people who complain and moan in anguish when they find that they’ve made mistakes in their papers…

I’ve experienced this before, the tension of a tremendously difficult paper coming up in seven days, and as it comes closer, you find that you’re less ready, and in panic you come to the realization that more subjects are coming up after this week’s paper, and you just can’t be less prepared for them.

Don’t tell me that it is my problem that I didn’t prepare earlier, or I could’ve concentrated more in lectures and consulted tutors about my problems during tutorials… I know I didn’t, but how would I’ve done?

I mean, if I’m simply not interested in what I’m studying, will that alone effectively doom me from getting the certificate?

Is it so straightforward that anyone must be genuinely interested in his subject to stand a chance in graduating? And the alternative to which is daily forced-studying, swallowing things that are so utterly bitter to his academic taste buds?

And because of the extra effort in studying needed to compensate for his lack of interest in the subject, a person would have to sacrifice a significant portion, if not all, of his private and social life to study things that he knows would be of minute use in his future. In short, it’s either Genuine Interest or A Nerdy Life.

Why, I cannot see any balance, any centre point, between the two. I don’t think there’s anything such as living a life of having both hard studying and remarkable sociability.

The determination to do well in one’s studies inevitably removes most motivations to improve sociability

And the converse is also true – If you strive to improve your social life, you’ll put in effort to improve the enjoyability of your life; And I tell you what:

- preparing for final examinations long before they come,

- putting in every ounce of concentration during lectures teaching about formulas for magnetic flux densities and multiple integrations,

- and pestering tutors about the same boring stuff

… are NOT AT ALL considered ‘enjoyable’ to my mind. >.<

So we extend the theory – If you don’t like the subject that you’re studying, you’ll either be a nerd, or you’ll do terribly in it.

Is it really necessary? Is it really worth it? I mean, is the certificate really worth that much? Is it important enough to justify the untold amounts of stress on the body?

Do employers nowadays really consider your academic transcript to be the most important thing of all? Or is there other things that matter just as much? Such as experience, accountability and perhaps, language proficiency?

What about your working attitude – how sincere are you to your duties, and how important are they to you in return? Are you willing to learn?

Perhaps your interpersonal skills - how much of a team player are you, are you capable of motivating and infecting your co-workers with enthusiasm?

Or maybe your management skills - how do you manage time, perhaps lead a team of people in completing a project?

Oh I dunno, if these skills are equally sought after by employers, then ‘nerds’ and students who are fervently studying every single minute, who simply have no time for soft skills, socialising, or any knowledge beyond their major, are, perhaps, in quite a disadvantage here…

Sigh… Let’s just hope that whatever I choose to do now is not dooming mine, or someone else’s future. I’ll think about that later.

After swallowing 7 sleeping pills of different types over 5 consecutive days, it’s over! And I’m still alive! The final exams are over!

First of all, I must say, they sucked, totally! Not something from your average exam! Although I didn’t study all there is to study, but I did study quite a lot of them – yes, through last-minute studies you know!

But it was as if the lecturer who created the exam questions was saying:

“Ahhhh, I (somehow) know that this James Chow guy has studied these chapters and these parts, so let the final exam questions be anything other than those from these chapters and these parts, so that he dies! Muahahahaha!”

=(=(=(

I’m not entirely sure that I’m not going to miserably fail any of my subjects, but in any case, there’s still the supplementary exams, you know, just in case… =)

Now that the exams are over, I will need to replenish my power, just like in the computer games… I need to eat like a dinosaur and sleep like a pig, then go out and have a life! All these I have been greatly deprived of for the past 3 weeks…

Tonnes of exciting things are going to happen during the holidays! I’m going to move to my new house, my new business is all set to go, I’m going to Redang Island, I’m also going back to Ipoh, and… James-Chow.com is going to get a new domain name!

I am still applying for, but haven’t succeeded yet, for the domain name of www.james.com.my! Sounds great eh? If the application is successful, then I won’t have to worry about my ‘JamesDashChow.com’ problem anymore!

But then the procedures for registering a .com.my domain is far more complicated, and expensive, than registering a .com domain, so we’ll still have to see if it goes well or not… Anyway, I’m quite confident that I’m gonna get it!

I’m currently busying myself with something rather special, hehe… Something that I thought was lost until I found it during my final exams period… Will probably write about it in my next entry!

Not gonna write too much in this entry, holidays have started for me, people! See ya!

*Oh my, I sound like a nerd!*

In addition to my usual subjects, I’m taking Public Speaking as an extra subject for this trimester. This trimester has been a roller coaster ride of pure anxiety! Days leading up to the presentation days are days that you hope you could simply grab your stomach out from your throat and put in somewhere else until after the presentation day!

With my existing sleeping problems, topped with the anxiety of having a speech presentation the next day, I had to get sleeping pills from the doctor or else I would be awake all night!

Don’t tell me you’re not afraid of public speaking, everyone is! Or at least, was! I don’t think anyone could deliver a speech on the stage for the first time without having his shit scared out. No no no.

I still remember how it felt during the first, formal, individual speech in my Public Speaking class this trimester. It was supposed to be an informative speech.

I was the 10th person to give a speech, and I had to wait in total agony while the first 9 people gave their speeches. It was tormenting to sit there and see people who are older than you, and speak better than you, performing while you wait for your turn to, possibly ridicule yourself, in front of them and the lecturer, whose strict teaching style could only worsen your anxiety.

The reason I say the other students are older than me is that this subject is supposed to be taken in our final year, and I’m only in my first year. And most of them are already speaking very well before they attended the course! =(

Let me try to be as graphic as possible. The feeling that I had at then was like I swallowed a snake and it was wiggling wildly in my stomach trying to get out from my butt but couldn’t find the way. My toes had a mind of their own and were moving by themselves, and it felt like my hands could instantly freeze anything that I touched, just like the cartoon superhero characters.

When my turn finally came, I wobbled out to the stage and started speaking. At that time, my chilling powers left me and I started to feel hot! (The hall was air-conditioned and was actually freakin’ cold) I was sweating in my coat! I knew that my feet and hands were shaking slightly, even my voice was! I knew they were!

But when I finished the speech, my friends told me that no one noticed that my hands, or voice was shaking. In fact, the lecturer said it was pretty good! Apparently I am an excellent actor!

Instantly after the speech, the rat in my stomach was gone, I resumed command of my toes, and my hands were no longer freezing. The relieve was so dramatic that you thought all the anxiety just came out of you in a looooonngg fart… Ahhhhhhh… =)

That was, my first formal speech in public.

I think I improved a lot, the final speech experience that I had this morning, was 90% less scary. And it’s over, no more speeches for this subject, I’ve improved myself. Yay!

According to the system, any student who attended less than 75% of the lecture/tutorial sessions for any single subject, will be barred from taking the final exam paper for that particular subject!

Ask any MMU student, and he/she’ll probably tell you that the word ‘BAR’ is one of the scariest words to be uttered in campus.

Sounds scary? Ain’t it?

I did not think it was scary at all when I first came to this campus. I thought that this system is totally out of my concern because I wouldn’t be skipping classes without reasons anyway. So I happily ignored any warnings or advices by our seniors on what trouble I’d be in if I was barred.

But it turned out, I WAS DAMN WRONG!!!

I realized that, while getting 75% of university attendance was quite easy, getting 75% attendance for each single subject is not a small deal!

On the internet, we can monitor our attendances so far. Here’s a cropped-out image of my attendance as of today: (The upper table for lecture sessions, and the lower for tutorial sessions.)

• Don’t bother the second last one. There’s a mistake in the record because I attended another tutorial group… I’ll have it rectified soon. Hehe…

As you can see, I have a couple of subjects that are in serious danger of being barred (75% and 77.78%), while the rest are relatively safe. There are certain factors that cause those subject to be more oftenly skipped compared to the others, primarily the time, subject content, and lecturer factor. I’ll elaborate later.

And then there’s the ‘lecture/tutorial counted seperately’ policy, which means that even if I had a full attendance for a particular subject’s lectures, but less than 75% for its tutorials, the whole subject is doomed, as in my case of Engineering Mathematics II is close to be!

Due to this, some students are more concerned in scoring attendances in classes rather than learning! Which later leads to common practices like asking friends to sign for their attendance; and leaving the lecture hall (from the backdoor, pretending to go to the toilet), once the attendance sheet has passed them.

But before you start thinking bad about those students, let me do them justice by pointing out the possible factors of causing an absence.

There are 3 types of factors:

The acceptable type (the boring ones)

1. You got ill.
2. It’s raining too heavily.
3. It’s a Friday and you had to catch a bus back to your hometown.
4. You had a club/society activity and you were needed to be there.
5. The class clashed with an extra/replacement class.

The unacceptable type (the typical ones)

1. The lecturer sucks.
2. You woke up late that morning.
3. Day for presentation that you didn’t prepare.
4. Need to study for an exam which is on that day.
5. Too stressed out/tired that day.

The annoying type (but always happens!) =(

1. That particular class was at freakin’ 8 o’ clock in the morning!
2. You asked someone to sign for your attendance but he/she forgot.
3. The lecturer forgot to bring the attendance sheet, asked you to sign in the next class, which you then missed!
4. The lecturer never updates the attendance report on the internet, you thought your attendance was fine, and you skipped class.
5. Your friend signed for you but the lecturer was too clever and noticed.

So I think you now understand how difficult it is to have a full attendance, don’t you? =)

You might ask, why does the university care about your attendance in lectures if you could pass your exams anyway?

The answer is simple: If you were barred from taking the final exam for a subject, you’d certainly fail the subject, which would cause you to retake the subject in the future, and pay for that same subject 2 times to the university! =(

• Longest Kebab in the World
• Most Number of Rice Arts
• Playing Congkak 30-hours non-stop
• Longest Non-Stop Martial Arts Punching Relay

While some students think it’s a ‘university pride’, ‘healthy normal activity’, or simply none of their business,

a group of students are openly criticising and strongly protesting against, what they call: “the breaking meaningless records frenzy”. Click here for their website.

(Added on April 19th: Click here for an article about them on the Chinese Newspaper Sin Chew Daily.)

Since the formation of the group, numerous posters, flyers, and even banners were pasted and hung all over the campus, including toilets, public tables and tutorial room whiteboards!

Banners are even found in places far from campus!

• hand-drawn banner beside the road.

According to the group, the huge amount of money spent on ‘breaking records’ is nothing but cash shoved down the rubbish bin; and the records broken are merely, quote: “records that can be easily achieved by just throwing in money”.

The website also said that the RM24,000 used to break the world’s longest kebab record could have used to aid people in under-developed countries, followed by showing pitiful videos and images of starving children in Africa.

The group’s actions has no doubt created fierce controversy on whether or not the records created by our university is justified. Students are beginning to think and debate whether records with the tens-of-thousands of Ringgits per unit price tag is really necessary.

• The logo of the group. Taken from records-frenzy.blogspot.com

Well, in my humble opinion, achieving records is a good means of promoting university publicity, improving students’ understanding and experience towards the subject of the record being made, as well as inducing a sense of love and pride in students toward our university.

However, care has to be taken by the organizer to prevent ‘a bad investment’ – more money/effort spent than equivalent reputation/experience etc. gained!

Records are very meaningful when they prove how strong we are in terms of effort, determination, and speciality; not in terms of finances. I hope and am quite sure MMU will have more records that display the former coming up in the future =)

I’m not sure if any of our existing MMU records are ‘bad investments’, for all I know the records might have heavily benefitted us in ways that were not significantly displayed to our eyes. Well, who knows?

Why not try something like having the ‘largest campus in Malaysia’ or ’smartest student on Earth’ record, or something like that? =)