The Quarter-Life Crisis

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared.

You miss the comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with the same people on a constant basis. But then you realize that maybe they weren't so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of what is acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to get to know better. You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you are not a bad person.

One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.

You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for yourself and while wining the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Source: http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~shane/text/quarterlifecrisis.html

A football match.

I was in a football field, literally. Me being me was playing nice and as you know in a football field, playing nice would do you more harm than good. As I play along, I got pushed, kicked, cursed and the list goes on....The referee has been nice to me because I'm being nice of course. But the game didn't go as expected. Other players played harshly but it drew a lot of applause from the spectators. The spectators being the most important individuals in a football game influenced the referee on how the game should be played.

Me being nice is not welcome in a football game. The game should be played as how the spectators wanted it to be. So, I was given a yellow card to warn me on what it takes to keep the game going.

So, one yellow card for me. According to the rules, if anyone gets 2 yellow cards, you will be given a red card. Then you are eliminated from the game.

Ask me if I'm going to play the game nicely or play it as what the spectators wanted?
I guess the answer is clear.

Back to the city.

After stranded (yea I'm exaggerating) for one week in Chagar Hutang in Redang Island, I'm back to the city where you hear people talk.

There's no updates on the Convocation Commemorative. Sorry for the disappointment. Photos are gone for no reason. So no pictures of Sultan Kedah, Raja Perlis and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Below are some of the news on the event.

http://www.usm.my/my/berita-penuh.asp?id=7119&idform=7
http://www.usm.my/my/berita-penuh.asp?id=7138&idform=10

or you can log on to www.usm.my and search in the archives.

But...remember I said I'm going to show you the pride of USM?
Ta daa...

A picture paints a thousand words.

We beat 10 others higher learning institutions and bagged champion for Engineering Presentation and Highest Mileage for Automatic Transmission category. That's 3 months ago.

Sorry to keep you outdated.

A gift to myself.

I'm going to be away for one whole week. This is the first birthday present I had given myself.

It ain't a vacation but it's a voluntary work. We need to monitor every single movement of a soon-to-be extinct species. Guess what...it's a turtle.

Destination: Chagar Hutang, Pulau Redang.

While I'm there I'm going to rediscover myself. Something is definitely missing and I don't know what. If I have to travel from an island to another island to find out what it is, then I hope Pulau Redang is the place.

Special thanks to SEATRU and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, UMT.

p/s1: Updates on the USM Convocation Commemorative will be uploaded after Hari Raya Puasa.
p/s2: To all Muslims, Selamat Hari Raya Puasa.

USM Convocation Commemorative

Any big event in USM, Engineering Campus?
For those that don't even know that we existed, shame on you!
We are holding a big event on 9th September 2009.

jiu jiu jiu (Chinese)...kau kau kau (Hokkien)...dog dog dog (English)


We are prepared.

All the Vice Chancellors in Malaysia are coming.
The Sultan is coming. The Raja is coming.
I think the Prime Minister is coming also.

We even spend RM16k on this.



It looks like scrap metal or some overpriced item with redundant material?
It's worth every penny because it's going to hold what USM is proud of and School of Mechanical Engineering, USM's pride.
Wanna know more?

Stay tune...

52 and still growing...Merdeka!

It's this time of the year again where people gather and wait for the midnight to hail the special word.
Merdeka...

And it's this time of the year where people show how patriotic they really are.
Merdeka...Merdeka...

It doesn't matter how many times we say that special word. What really count is the meaning behind it.
Merdeka...Merdeka...Merdeka!!!

52 years and still growing...
Happy 52nd Birthday.

We support 1Malaysia.

No talking in seminar.

Seminar is a place where people presents their findings to the audience in which everyone is encouraged to participate. In Malaysia, majority of the audience refused to engage in this knowledge sharing seminar. Instead, we talk. We talk about anything from related topics to not related topics being presented, but most importantly we talk among the audience.

Last week, I was attending a seminar and it gets really bored. Me and my friends started to talk. In the beginning we were discussing the topics being presented. After a while our topics got carried away. Then after the presentation, an Iraqi told my Professor that he has 2 points to make. He said one related to the presenter and another related to the audience, which means us.

I don't know what he said about the presenter but I know what he said about us.

He claimed that if the audience did not pay attention to the seminar, the presenter will somehow got distracted.
True.

He also claimed that if the audience can't shut the mouth up, we might as well leave the room.
True.

Lesson learned.

Never ever talks in a seminar.

USM Closed Its Campus

*sniff* *sniff*

*sneeeeze*

28th July 2009

The news of undergraduate students being quarantined in Third Floor Block 1 Lembaran due to the suspected flu A(H1N1) has been spread among students. Later in the evening, a news broke out that the Campus Director has to close the campus. But, the news was not confirmed.

29th July 2009

I had a sore throat. My housemate woke me up at 7am saying that our campus is closing. The source came from an undergraduate. I rushed to campus to take some of my belongings fearing that they would not allow any students to go in but I was forced to do medical checkup before leaving the campus. For a moment, I was thinking of how am I going to leave the campus without being noticed and I might be quarantined because I had a sore throat and it is one of the A(H1N1) symptoms. Then a friend of mine said that the officers were blocking people from leaving the campus unless we have a health certificate.Damn!

In the end, I have no choice but to go do the medical checkup. Hundreds of people packed the Lembaran Cafe. If there is one potential victim in the cafe and everyone is as good as gone.

And I still have the sore throat this morning. The only thing to monitor is the body temperature. It must be below 37 degree Celsius. If you are 38 or 39, you are quarantined.

The undergraduates got to go home for a week and the postgraduates and the staffs have to stay to continue their research and work. With the undergrads gone the flu is easily controlled because there are less people in the campus. I doubted that.