Tuesday, July 21, 2009

1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now

As I sit in the office, I am pondering and thinking about what I have been through this morning.

I have recently graduated from a public university and currently working on my postdoc with a university in US. However, I am now back in Malaysia for my field work and my wife is still a PhD student with the same public university I had graduated from. However, lately, the authorities had cordoned off all parking bays in the campus and students are not allowed inside. We are all asked to park at the 'park and ride' and ride the bus.

However, as a graduate student, our work and research doesn't just confined to a specific lab. We worked with so many research labs and also places. We also don't work with just books but with equipment and kits which we have to carry around. Our time is flexible yet at a very fast pace. We can't afford to loose our time with the research materials we are carrying. Every minute that we are transporting our materials/ subjects will cause it to degrade.

As such, how do we parked our car outside the campus and take the bus into the campus and then, do our work. After that, take the bus again, to get to our car and drive it in to load all our research equipment into the car? How long will that take and how much time will it be wasted?

We went to complaint but the answer that has been given is this:

1) Staff also don't have enough parking - so, how do you solve this and that will the benefit both sides? Most of you clock in and then clock out without necessarily needed to go out.

2) Student parked at the lecturer parking lot. Our dean also don't have place to park - so, now you asked all student to park outside so that the dean have a place to park?

3) Talk to the dean - where the heck is the dean? will he meet us?

4) Thanks for your complaint -so what are you going to do with it?

So, whose performance are we trying to help to push?

When did the university try to help to give us better facilities to promote a better environment for us to work. At first, they took away our rest area/ sitting room. Now the car park. What next? The lab?

The student can't work if we are always embroiled with campus politics and also problems that caused us to work inefficiently!

Who is the people first? Where is the performance? It seems all this benefits the staff only!

Wake up!

P1 Wiggy Wimax

It has been three months since I was given the privileged of trying out the P1 Wimax Wiggy!

Then, the Wimax coverage has not reached this Satay town (Kajang). But since June, we have been in the coverage area and I am happy with my Wiggy thus far.

p1

Right now, P1 is having their promotion again for WIggy and it's going only for RM69 per month with up to 800kps of WIGGYLICIOUS fun!

So hurry up and sign up for wiggy now!

Previous related post:

P1-Wiggy

P1 Wimax Wiggy Sneak Preview

Sunday, July 19, 2009

My own search engine

I was just surfing online and I came across this search engine. I thought this is cool and I also create my own search engine. search engine

Now, graceupondoulos also has its own search engine. Try it here

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Am I overdoing it?

It never occur to me one day I will asked myself this question, am I overdoing it?

If you have been following my blog, you will realise by now that I love travelling and capturing every moments of it in pictures. However, lately, I have been travelling quite a lot. In fact, for the past 2 months, I have only stay at home for about a week.

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I have been to New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Hershey over in US for about 3 weeks. From there, I flew back and travelled to Kuching and Sibu for week before travelling back to hometown for about 4 days to visit my parent and grandparent. Then, I have about 5 days at home to do some work and catch up with some errand and church work. Then, I travelled to Beijing, China for about 8 days.

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However, I don't really enjoy the trip in Beijing as much as I would love too. When I am there, I longed to go back home. I have never had that feeling before that is so strong. Every time I longed to go back home is because I missed my wife too much to be away from her. But this time, she is with me in Beijing and I longed to go back home.

So, am I overdoing it?

But then again, this will not stop soon. It will continue till year end. I have 8 Orang Asli villages to visit in 2 months when I get back to Malaysia. Then, I am leaving for US again in October and to Dominica in November.

I guess this is working life!

On another note, I am not looking forward to the trip in October because that means I will be away from my wife for a long period. We have never been away from each for more than 3 weeks before and this time round will be for about 6 months!

I do hope I can stop the time! But then again, God always in control.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Forbidden City, China

If you want to have a taste and know how the emperors live, you should try to visit the Forbidden City. It was once forbidden for commoners to enter this  massive palace that when it was open to the public, it was know as Forbidden City. This place is so huge that it is not known as a palace, nor a complex or even a village or a town. But a CITY!

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Now this place is known as Palace Museum. So, you are not entering this place to look at exhibits but the building itself hold the stories unknown to many. This place is simply massive and amazing.

Who have this massive drain to separate their compound from the public?

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This is no drain...nor it is a stream. This is bigger than most rivers. And the Palace Museum has it surrounded at four corners!

And you don't just simply place any oil barrels as guard post but you built a massive command centre for it at four corners. IMG_7498

And at the main gate, let's built a fort! Not just any fort like Fort Cornwallis but a tall, huge fort! More like a castle cum fort!

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Well, this is just the outside. Imagine what you can expect from the inside. Imagine, what will the emperor do when he is bored? How will he built his garden? Well, you have a big cascading waterfall 3 to 4 stories high!

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Then, you built ponds and decorate it with stone sculpture...IMG_7903

nice, unique plants...

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and also put up a massive 9 dragons mural!

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Just to give you an idea how huge and massive this Palace Museum is, I spend the whole day in this place and only cover like 40% of the area. To walk from one end to another end without stopping takes me about 30 minutes. In this Palace Museum, they have more than 9000 rooms! Who have such a grand palace? I don't think Brunei's Sultan has such a big palace too.

Next time, when you are Beijing, do pay a visit to this place. It's open from 8.30am to 5pm and cost RMB60 for the entrance ticket. If you have your student card, bring along as the ticket only cost RMB20. Entrance to the Clock exhibits and Palace Collection is another RMB10 each!

Coming next Forbidden City II- The throne of the Emperor!