the stroke i've taken

Project 4 - Discus Fish Business

2008-08-24T14:41:00.003+08:00

Its been a week since i moved to Penang for work. The first week was probably a only week i could enjoy myself since its the typical 'orientation week' for new employee like me.

Anyway, i'm staying with my colleague from work. He and a couple of friends started to rear discus fishes as a hobby. Two years on, from only 40 fishes, they have over a thousand fishes now. They converted the garden area of their corner house into a mini discus breeding facility; housing 120 aquariums.

The discus are very well kept. Every evening, four of us will spend an hour to wash the aquariums, scrubbing the dirt, and change the water for fresh one. My friend said this was necessary as it would allow the discus to grow faster and stay healthier. Thus, improving the strain quality and overall well-being.

For two years, they have tested may methods of improving the quality of the strains, having discussions with other discus enthuasist, carefully selecting the discus for breeding, and also provide daily nurture. As things grew bigger, they started a company for exporting these unique and beautiful aqua-pets. Marvel Discus Co. will serve as the channel to market the discus. We (including me) started a blog at MarvelDiscus.blogspot.com so people can view the attractiveness of the wide array of discus we have. For any inquiries or purchase orders, kindly visit their website at www.MarvelDiscus.com

Stay tune for updates of this new 'joint-venture' of my friends and I. Well, at least i got something to do here at Penang other than work! Cheers.

Project MSEL - My Career

2008-08-18T20:13:00.004+08:00

Its been a long time for me wanting to say this ' I'm working' instead of 'Oh, i'm still studying' when my friends or relatives ask me what i do.

But, today the paradigm has shifted and here i come to the rat-race most people have to go thru. Well, my first job is at MS Elevator Sdn Bhd in Prai Industrial Area, Penang. Its been a good day at office, meeting back some familiar faces and new ones too. In fact, i'm staying at one of my colleague's house at Simpang Empat, roughly 20km from office. Nice place and peaceful community.

The sound of my designation as Mechanical Design Engineer seems kinda 'glamour' and 'solid' in regards with the manufacturing industry. The job scope revolves about preparing the Manufacturing Order List to drafting technical drawings to trouble-shooting project related issues. At the moment, things are pretty slow but i expect it to pick up after the first week.

Till then, stay tune to updates of my 2 years sting in Penang. Have already started to miss home back at kuala lumpur. Cheers...!!

Spirit of KL .. Spirit of Melaka .. Spirit of Penang ..

2008-08-01T14:37:00.000+08:00

Looking 3 years back, I participated in numerous competitions; mostly treasure hunt ala amazing race style. To the eager and die-hard fans of these races, perhaps i could share a few pointers on improving your chances of winning (recommended but not guaranteed!)

Lets start from the beggining. My passion for these races started when i participated in Spirit Of KL race organized by The Star and DiGi. There were 2 rounds. In the prelim, around 170 teams of four members had to run all around Berjaya Time Square while searching for clues and performing tasks at checkpoint before moving to the next.

Teams were given 2 hours to complete all the tasks located all 5 floors of the mall. Now if you think its easy, next time you visit there, first try to run one end to the other; and do that for say one hour! Then you'll know what we went thru. Having said so, running fast doesn't guarantee you victory but smart strategy will definately improve your chances.

My team (Dude Team) consist of Alex, Kun Siong, Wei Chyi and me. Let me share my first strategy - Use the mall's directory as you 'bible'. Haha, not many teams know this key strategy maybe they are over-confident or didn't bother. This piece of leaflet helped us so much that at one point durng the race, we just stood at one corner and solve the clues. Anyway, out of the 170 odd teams, we qualified to the final round with another 19 teams.

The finals was held the following week and it was totally exactly like amazing race. The First 5 teams to finish the race will proceed to the Grand Finals. Teams were flag off at 6.20am at Dataran Merdeka, KL. This time teams have to cover more ground like MORE ground! Probably half of KL area. Thankfully we get to use public transport to move about. Our first assignment was transporting bags of ice to 2 restaurants. Imagine the cold ice water dripping onto our back at 6.30am! Then, we moved on the next location.

We travelled all over kl covering from Balai Bomba at Jalan hang Tuah to Petaling Street, Central Market, Pudu Jail, Sungai Wang Mall, Lot 10, Maju Junction and Berjaya Time Square. At about 1.10pm, we reached the final checkpoint at The Star office near KL Sentral. As we ran towards the office, we were taken a back a bit because there were not many people there. Seems too quiet. Weird cause we thought we did everything in record time; thanks to Wei Chyi as he knew like all the alleys in KL.

Moving to the door of the office, only 3 official were there 'chilling'. We came in feeling a little sad (thought we weren't Top 5 teams) and clocked in. The Race Marshall then said,"Guys....You're the FIRST team to arrive..Congrats!". BOOM... that's when we went crazy, laughing and jumping as though we have won. The marshall than said they didn't expect us to be so fast because the latest time to check-in was at 4.00pm.

Then, we went back to Federal Hotel to prepare for our presentation. Yup, the top 5 teams have to give a 10 minute presentation on 'What makes KL Tick?". First place is RM 10000 while the other 4 will get goodies. After two hours we checked-in, the second the arrived. and the the rest. Now for my second strategy- plan early even before registering for the race! Why? Well, I purposely picked Wei Chyi as my team member simply because he knows KL inside out. My gamble paid off as we finished the race way ahead of time. So, you have to carefully pick your team mates who can contribute to improving the team's performance.

The final stage was the presentation. Helped by one of our team's researcher, Tack Wee; we gave our best on what makes KL tick. At the end, the judges deliberated and decided that another team - Team Labamba take home the Grand Price of RM10000. We could only be satisfied with Nokia mobilephone each and Digi goodies. Looking back, i discovered a very useful tip- It helps to have a female team member during presentation! haha

It was a great experience for me and that very race spurred my passion of competitions and races similar to this. Next time, i will post about my journey of the next two leagues at Melaka and Penang. Here is a write-up about my persistance these races. And, ending with a video clip of the race final stage.

Avril Lavigne Concert in Kuala Lumpur

2008-07-31T11:53:00.000+08:00

Yo.. check it out..check it out!

This coming August 29th, 2008; female rock star, Avril Lavigne will be performing at Stadium Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur as part of The Best Damn Tour-World Tour. With hits like Complicated, My Happy Ending, Losing Grip, Girlfriend and more; she is bound to 'knock-out' her fans in KL!

It will be her only concert in South-East Asia according the the organisers. This means that rock music fans better rush to get your ticket before it too late. Concert tickets can be purchased from galaxy.com.my or axcess.com.my.

The seating plan in the stadium is as shown below. So buy fast before you end up with Green Seats! Oh ya, Maxis/Hotlink customers can enjoy cheaper tickets at 5% discount from 3rd August 2008 onwards.

For more news about Avril's world tour and updates, check it out Avril Lavigne Official Website.

University of Malaya Convocation 2008

2008-07-24T20:33:00.001+08:00

Most people take 3 years but some up to 5 years. For me, it was in the middle - 4 solid long years before i obtain my first valuable piece of certificate (which i'll make money from it in the future!).

Come August 4th- 10th, 2008; University of Malaya(UM), Kuala Lumpur will be having their annual convocation ceremony for their graduates like me. To be specific, I'll be getting my Degree in Engineering (Manufacturing) on the evening of 08.08.08. That's right, on the day the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in China will be lauched! Now, that's a sweet coincidence.

Browsing thru the Games website made me reminisced of the days i played badminton, football and snooker during the 4 years. Wonder if i would made to the big stage given the right coaching and training. Perhaps if there is an Olympic Treasure Hunt category!

Enough of the Games, back to UM convo or feskum 2008. Details of the event are available at feskum08.blogspot.com and there will be lots of stalls and activities there. See ya there!

RM500/hour job

2008-07-10T22:09:00.000+08:00

This is actually a very very very tired but entertaining job to do. It was last Sunday (6th July 2008) at One Utama Shopping Mall where Tack Wee and I (Team 111) participated in a Amazing Race-like competition called The Ultimate Race. Our friend, Liat Kwang and his bro join as another team too.

To cut it short, we had to race against another 116 teams of two to perform all the tasks within the quickest time. And, up till now, i have not raced in such a long and physically challenging competition. We had to run up and down and to and fro the entire New Wing of 1U looking for clues and performing the tasks there. And then, getting the next clue and repeat this for 18 checkpoints.

To list a few task we had to perform are:
1. Counting the number of shops, kiosks and booths in the First Floor,
2. Rock climbing
3. Push ups (50x) and Sit-ups (50x)
4. Collect tags from 3 ATM
5. Counting the number of passenger and goods elevators in the Second floor,
6. Kick 3 balls in to a futsal goal

After 1 hour 48 minutes of running like headless chickens and with our 'so called vast experience of 1U', Tack Wee and I managed to finish 5th place. Good enough for consolation prize of RM1000 or rather RM500/hour pay rate. Darn those winners as the walked away with RM10,000 as first place!

Looking back, we were pretty proud to give the youngster a run of their money as we only just managed to register for this competition within the age limit of 24 years. Well, all in a day's work.

PROJECT 3 - Six Sigma Workshop

2008-06-29T13:27:00.000+08:00

Recently, my friends and I had organized a Six Sigma Workshop in University of Malaya. It was held for two days (14 and 15th of June, 2008). It was fun and rushing as we (4 of us) had to plan, get approval and setting up the place in a span of two weeks; just after our final exams of our 4year course.

Anyway, there were 40 participants -mostly from Manufacturing Engineering, UM. The speaker(who was my ex-lecturer), Associate Prof. Dr. Nicolo Belavendram gave us a run through about what Six Sigma was all about, its introduction to quality management, tools and techniques for analyzing, implementation and control.

The main thing about Six Sigma is applying its well-structured system or in short- D.M.A.I.C. It stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Implement and Control. By following this methodology, it seems to result in substantial financial savings and quality improvement. No wonder, most of the BIG companies implement this system!

Much of the things taught was interesting and keep me thinking of how to utilize this system in oganizing projects in the future...hmmm... we'll see about it. Okay, enough said. Any of you reading this and is interested to know more about Six Sigma, Quality Management related tools or Industrial Engineering can visit my lecturer's website at www.ict-m.com.

Ahhh... finally its over.

2008-05-07T17:07:00.001+08:00

After two long months, i have finished two out of three main priorities of my final semester of my final year of my final stage of education level-university.

Firstly, it was finalizing my thesis on Development of A Wave Testing Tank For A Wave Converter Device. It was a near disaster as i almost missed the dateline of submitting my draft. Phew.. that is done.

As i write this post in the main library of UM, i finally can breathe a sigh of relief as i actually just completed my final exam paper of my university life. Total Quality Management- that's the paper. And i must say that this very particular subject would be used mostly in the working world of engineering and business. What an irony! For some valuable pointers of Deming's TQM, check it out from guy who likes saying "You're fired"!

OK.. the last thing to do at this moment is to prepare my thesis presentation which is on Monday 3.00pm. well, well.. this is my only chance to convince my supervisor and examiners of my research. I am not to confident in my work but as usual, its all down to the way we talk out of it. I mean...con la!

till then, signing off now. gotta get some good rest and savor the last few days of my study life. Cheers..

PROJECT 2 - Schlumberger Technology Day 2008

2008-03-26T11:07:00.000+08:00

yup.. this is my next project after the mega CP08 event last month. This time around, it would be a little different as i would be taking up a 'smaller' role as a Corporate Affairs Executive. ;p

I guess its best to write a little about this upcoming project.

It is a 2-day event where Schlumberger (renown international O&G company) would be organizing its maiden Technology Day in University of Malaya(UM), KL. There will be exhibition booths setup and a chance to enquire their field experts on the 'Schlumberger experience'.

Highlights waiting for you people are like:

career talks
on-campus interviews
quizzes, games and lucky draws
actual O&G equipments on display

Wowie, and the best...(drum rolling..), FREE BBQ on 8th April 2008, 6pm onwards! (isn't that a bargain). So, people all around, jot down the details below or its your lost!

SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY DAY 2008

date : 8th & 9th April 2008

time : 9am - 5pm

venue : Dewan Tunku Cansellor, University Malaya

Ahh.. enough said. Stay cool till then and see you chaps there!

PROJECT 1 - Career Path 2008

2008-03-21T12:32:00.001+08:00

It started when one fine day (around august 2007), my pal asked me whether i was interested to organize a career fair. Well, being adventurous and feeling free at that time, I made a few important calls after talking to him. And, before I knew it....I was already looking for my project directors. The rest was history.

Hmm, I will not yak about the 'boring' part of the whole project but here are the details just in case...

Career Path 2008 (CP08)

- a platform for university students to discover the various career opportunities offered by over 55 well-established companies.

- the 3 day fair was held at DTC, University of Malaya and was flooded with over 10,000 visitors.

- with 50 organizing committee members synergizing together under the flagship of Counseling & guidance Section and AIESEC UM, perhaps Career Path would be one of UM's annual mega-project!

- peep at our 'cun' website, http://careerpath2008.wsnw.net/. And there is a write-up about the event here.

well well, looking forward for our post-mortem (makan too) soon. This would be completion of PROJECT 1.. now, PROJECT 2 is on the way!

Setting things straight

2008-03-15T00:23:00.000+08:00

at the time of writing this post, my mind is filled with >#$^&%@... thesis..post-mortem..studies, assignments, up-coming events, projects, researching job, competition, future working path, blah..blah..blah

it seems that i am fully booked till June 2008. Dont seem to have time for anything else but each time something pops up like another project or competition, i will always take it up! Man... aren't i supposed to be a full-time undergraduate - dedicating my time to achieve the illusive 4.0 pointer.

(confuse..confuse..) i really gotta sit down, sort out and set my priorities right! perhaps, there is still a glimpse of hope to savour the last few months of my never-ending-education-life.