I had to fill in a few forms today. The good thing was, while the forms came in a Microsoft Word format, I had Microsoft Office to open them up with. Unfortunately, when I opened up the forms, they looked very different from what they were supposed to look as the formatting was all out of place. The problem turned out to be because the font used was missing from my system.

First thing I did was to look around for the font. Turns out that the “Sabon” font is a proprietary font. I would need to pay about US$30 for the privilege of downloading the font. That was just plain crazy. So, I tried replacing the font with an equivalent Serif font but it still wouldn’t format correctly. I even tried shrinking the size so that the form wouldn’t spill over onto the next page but to no avail.

Finally, I had to download the PDF version of the forms, print them out, fill them up by hand, and scan the forms back into the computer before emailing them in. How silly is that? Unfortunately, they don’t have PDF form versions. Otherwise, I would have used that from the start.

What this episode taught me was that there were little ways in which Microsoft Office documents would bite us. Even on Windows, there would be formatting issues. This has always been the only warning that I gave my friends about OpenOffice – formatting issues. Turns out that the formatting issues were probably due to the use of proprietary fonts too.

People should just stick with open-source fonts. There are quite a number of them around and they look good! [like the one pictured]

Since this is an annual thing, I thought that I should just put a few words down to tell the kids who got rejected by JPA – Don’t Give Up!

Dear JPA Reject,

I shall use the words that I had once heard, from a good professor of mine: “Although you may feel dejected, do not feel depressed.” The reason is really simple. The JPA scholarship is not the be-all-end-all of your dreams. Your dreams are yours to keep. So, keep them alive!

I have been fortunate enough to get multiple education scholarship offers in my life and I had turned down a few of them. I have also made many friends who are both government scholars and non-government scholars alike. So, I would like to share some of these experiences.

First and foremost, the JPA scholarship scheme is just one of the many scholarships available, both local and overseas. You should realise that there are many scholarship awarding bodies in Malaysia. For those who will be facing their SPM examinations in the future, please remember to apply for multiple scholarships, if only to increase your chances of actually getting one.

You see, everyone has a different set of criteria. You may not agree with the JPA selection criteria and you may not fit in with it. However, there are also other scholarship bodies who do not agree with the JPA selection criteria and apply their own criteria in scholar selection. So, while you may not fit into the JPA mould, you may actually fit into some other mould.

There are also many overseas scholarship schemes available. In fact, many foreign universities are able to provide some sort of financial aid for their students. You should check to see if you qualify for these. There are also various international foundations and bodies who offer scholarships. This is particularly true if you are able to secure a place in a top university.

This brings me to my second point. This is not the end of the road. You can still try again at the post-STPM (and equivalent) level. There is nothing to stop you from continuing your education to a pre-university level and trying again. There are plenty of Malaysians who have done exactly that – do their pre-university education themselves and re-apply for scholarships again.

If you cannot afford to study your A-Levels/IB at a private institution, you can always do your STPM. You may not realise this but the STPM is actually a very well recognised pre-university level qualification. You will still be able to apply for various foreign universities with the STPM. Do not always believe what the private colleges tell you about the STPM.

However, some of you may be turned-off by the lengthy duration of the STPM exam. For this, I have only one advice – a single year is nothing, in the larger scheme of things. Think about this for a minute. What is a single year difference when compared with an entirely lifetime. In fact, it is a common practice to take a ‘gap-year’ to go explore various avenues in life. This can even help you figure out what it is that you actually want in life instead of blindly going with the flow.

This brings me to my next point. Not everyone is made out to be a doctor. In fact, you are probably not made out to be a doctor. The medicine path is a long and arduous one and if you are not made out to be a doctor, studying medicine is going to be hell. I have seen this happen to many friends. So, you should really ask yourself if you really love medicine or if you’re doing it just for the heck of it.

You can be a success, if you do something that you truly like – be it something as dull as accounting or something as exciting as engineering (alright, I’m biased!). But seriously, you need to think carefully of your career choice. It is something that you will be living with daily for the rest of your life. If you find that you hate medicine after so many years of study, you will lose more than just a couple of years.

And finally, do not let this little hurdle stop you from pursuing your dreams. There are many paths that can lead to your dream. Sometimes, it may actually be better to take the path less tread. So, do not think that your world has ended as a result of this rejection. Learn to handle rejection and to use it positively to improve yourself so that you will ultimately, still achieve your dreams.

PS: Do not stop dreaming!

with metta,
Shawn Tan.
(Still trying to achieve my dreams!)

Since I was in Bandar Utama yesterday, I decided to pop by 1U just for the heck of it. Since it’s just days before Chinese New Year, the whole place was decorated for the festive season and I was even lucky enough to be there for the lion dance performance. This actually brought back some memories of my days with the CULDT. I could actually identify about half of the music.

Before that, when I first arrived, I bumped into someone whom I’ve not seen in 6 years or so. She’s two years my senior at university and we were friends and group mates at one time. It took me a few moments before realising whom it was. So, I then went up to her and called, “CC!”. Turns out that she’s actually working around the area and hangs out in 1U quite a bit. Even so, it’s still quite lucky for me to bump into her like that.

Then, I went off to watch the lion dance performance by our national lion dance champions. I ran back to my car (in the parking lot) to get my camera to take some photos. So, I was watching most of the performance through my camera lens. It was a rather dramatic performance. At one point, one of the poles that the lion was jumping on was felled by the act. As a result, the lion was trapped at the highest end of the poles and was ‘trembling’ there from fear. Then, after contemplating the wide chasm, the lion jumped and landed on the poles on the other side. That brought a rousing applause from the audience.

After the show, I went off to see another show – of Honda Citys! They had a number of the new Honda cars on display at their 1U roadshow. I got into one just to see how spacious the new model was – it was surprisingly very spacious. I sometimes wonder how these Honda engineers did it – built a car that looks so small from the outside but is so spacious inside. Honda cars have always been engineered well and it shows.

Randomness@1U. I think that I will probably hang out there a bit more in the near future.

I have just finished reading a good novel, Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson. This novel was a gift from a good friend of mine. I like the author and while there are those who have complained about the book, it was not such a torture for me to read because I took several months to finish it as I have been writing my thesis before.

The tome, is actually made up of three books. The first book centers on Daniel Waterhouse and his exploits as a young Natural Philosopher and friend to Isaac Newton. The second book consists of “Half-Cocked” Jack Shaftoe, his meeting with Eliza and their subsequent adventures together and apart. The 3rd book features Eliza and Daniel in the events leading up to the Glorious Revolution. Therefore, it was not until around page 800 that the story actually begins to build upon the characters thus established.

I really like Neal Stephenson (I have almost all his books in my collection) and his writing style. I do intend to purchase his latest book – Anathem, but that will have to wait until either I go back to the UK or when the Malaysian book stores decide to slash the price of the book from its present RM70+ for the paper back. I like him because he weaves a believable web of fiction around very true and actual persons and events. Also, he puts technical computer knowledge into very subtle uses that any non computer scientist can appreciate, while all mathematicians and computer scientist would absolutely love.

However, I have to confess that there are two other reasons why I liked this book. First, is the oft mentioned places at Cambridge – it conjures up very vivid imagery in my head from the fresh memories as the first book introduces a host of characters including Natural Philosophers and the beginnings of the Royal Society. Second, is the use of French that is garnished across the pages – it adds an extra flair to the book and is simple enough to understand as the second book was filled with courtly events, Versailles and the Sun King.

While reading this novel, it made me think of some of my mathmo friends at Cambridge. I think that they would be able to appreciate his writing, if they are the kind who actually like reading fiction.

Alright, a friend of mine got married yesterday and I got drafted in as one of the ‘guys’. Since I had a new car, I did not mind helping out. My car has already seen 2000km in just 30 days. Not too shabby eh? Anyway, my duty was to follow him down to the bride’s place to pick up the bride and her entourage.

I had to wake up at 4am in the morning to gather at his place with the rest of the guys who were going down. He lived near 1U and the journey there took a mere 20 minutes, instead of the usual hour. I arrived with plenty of time to spare. After a light breakfast and a quick briefing, everyone journeyed down the Sprint-NKVE-Elite-PLUS highway route together towards Melaka.

I cannot say too much about the journey down except to say that we stuck together as a convoy almost the entire way. For some reason, we ‘rushed’ down to Melaka and arrived with plenty of time to spare. On arrival at the bride’s place, we honked our horns and generally made a nuisance of ourselves at the early hours of the morning. Then, it was time for the fun and games.

Anyone whom has watched any HongKong serial will know what these fun and games usually entail. However, the bridesmaids doing it were not particularly experienced. Therefore, I think that the groom was let off rather easy. The rest of us guys had to help out with things here and there too but he mainly did everything himself. In fact, the best man later showed me the stacks of red packets that he still had stashed in his various pockets as backup. Something for me to learn. Bravo!

After that, it was the traditional tea ceremony at the bride’s home followed quickly by our timely exit. At this point, three other young girls from the bride’s family hopped into my car and we ‘rushed’ back to KL for the groom’s side of the ceremony. I cannot say much about the journey back except that it involved a lot of creative overtaking. Again, as we arrived, we made a nuisance of ourselves by honking our horns. There was another Malay wedding along the next road and their guests seemed rather annoyed.

It was also at this point that I realised that there were lots of weddings happening this weekend. Many couples must be trying to tie the knot while there was still some bit of 2008 left. Along the highway, we encountered several other wedding convoys and there were tents set up in the housing areas as well, for different weddings. Anyway, at the groom’s place, they had to go through the tea ceremony followed by various photography sessions.

As for the dinner banquet, the place was filled with lots of VIPs and old people. However, seeing that everyone in Malaysia is linked by 2-degrees of separation, I actually bumped into a few people I know, and a few other people I am supposed to know, but cannot remember since it’s been ages since I’ve seen them. I was placed at the same table with the rest of the UK friends, including the MC and the best-man. So, at least it wasn’t too dull.

We actually prepared a special brew for the groom. We mixed some cili padi with a glass of wine. Then, when he came around, I pennied him in the good old Cambridge tradition and he had to down it. However, he could only drink a little before giving up. Then, the bride tried to help but couldn’t either. But since it was almost time to say goodbye, the happy couple had to dash to the door, which gave them the excuse for not finishing up the drink.

In the end, I think that the best thing about this whole day was that I had an opportunity to wear two new outfits – one of which was my purple suit with silver-purple silk shirt. Seriously, it isn’t as bad as it sounds and is actually quite good.

This was our last full day in ChiangMai and one that was not on the official tour. However, our guide was so nice and came to bring us around on his own anyway. We wanted to go to a local morning market to buy some Thai rice and other sundries such as dried longan. Since we did not have the tour company minivan, we went about on local transport (i.e. songthaew). It was during this ride that I noticed a PETRONAS petrol station in Thailand! I have always known that they had operations in Thailand but it was still a surprise to see a familiar petrol station there. So, I took a snap of the local pump prices. At the time of this photo, our pump prices for RON97 was RM1.90/L (about 18.64 baht/L). So, as you can see, we’re not paying less for petrol than our Thai neighbours and we are an oil & gas exporter! I would certainly like to hear our government explain this away, seeing that they loved comparing our pump prices with Thai pump prices during the oil inflation.

Anyway, I do not want to sully this entry with my political ramblings. Let’s talk about something related to local Thai politics instead. Another thing that our guide informed us was about dress. According to him, there were two political factions in Thailand, the ‘reds’ and ‘yellows’. Seeing that northern Thailand is a red base, he said that if you wore red, the local people will like you more. As a result, you can get a better price at the market. If you wore yellow, the local market people may not even want to sell you anything. Seeing that we were tourists, it probably wouldn’t affect us one way or the other. However, our tour guide was curiously dressed in a red shirt that morning, when he took us around to the local market. Well, there are a curious number of red dressed people in the random photo. So, maybe he was right!

Something else piqued my interest at the market – Thai motorcycle parks. You read that right – motorcycle parks. There were designated zones for motorcyclists to park their bikes and these zones were manned by a parking attendant or two. When a motorcycle pulls up, the motorcyclist would park his or her bike and then wait for the attendant to come along and give them a parking coupon, which was affixed to the brake handle of the bike. The cost of parking is 2 baht per entry and you could park for as long as you want. How terribly entrepreneurial! We need the same system in this country to prevent motorcyclists from just dumping their bikes randomly on the streets, constantly causing traffic problems for everyone else.

It also occurred to me that the Thai people were extremely honest folk. Well, according to our guide, Thai people are “always happy with big smile on face”. This can be visibly seen from the way that they behaved. When a Thai motorcyclist parks, he/she would actually wait for the parking attendant to issue a ticket while their Malaysian counterpart would probably take-off. Furthermore, they leave all kinds of things lying in the baskets of their motorcycles while our Malaysian cyclists cannot even leave their helmets behind without it being stolen. I guess it comes from the fact that the Thai people are not poor-poor and are not driven to desperation. We sorely need some sort of social welfare system to help the poor in this country.

Oh I give up, let me go off on a short socio-economic rant. The main difference in our social-economic situation is probably due to income disparity. The GINI index for Thailand is about half of ours. You can see this clearly in the kinds of entreprises that I have quoted in the last few blog entries. While the average Thai may be poorer than the average Malaysian, there is a better spread of wealth so people do not become desperate. You can see all sorts of little entrepreneurial things in Thailand that wouldn’t work in Malaysia. Although these people may not earn very much, they will at least make enough to feed themselves. At the very least, they have the monasteries and missionaries to help them. Our NEP needs to go back to its original roots and fix itself to make this work!

Anyway, this was effectively the end of the trip for me as I fell ill later that day. I vomited quite a bit and spent most of the day lying in bed. It was probably something I ate. The next day, we caught our flight back to KL and had to go through the whole debacle of poor LCCT service again. It was chaos in there!

Oh, there was one other curious thing though. My family randomly met another family that we had known donkey years ago. They were holidaying in ChiangMai and took the standard package tour. So, we spent a while catching up with each other. We were checked into the same hotel and met each other during meal hours. Their eldest child studied mathematics and is now working in Bank Negara. This surprised me as most of my other Bank Negara friends seemed to be terribly busy (you know who you are!) and would probably have a tough time trying to take a 1 week leave to go holidaying in ChiangMai! However, it was nice to catch up with some old acquaintances you’ve not met in ages. I seemed to be doing a lot of this lately!

A rather odd thing happened to me recently. One day, while checking my email, I came across an email from an old friend – someone whom I’ve not seen or heard from in more than 16 years. It was a rather strange sensation, being contacted by someone from my distant past. However, it was also a very curious and interesting experience too!

Anyway, my friend, Angeline had recently dusted off an old photo album while cleaning out her cupboard. So, on a whim, she decided to try to contact some of her old friends. She tried looking some of us up on Facebook but she couldn’t find me. As you all know, I don’t have a Facebook account for numerous reasons. However, as I have a heavy online presence, she found me through Google instead.

After catching up with her, I decided to help out in the hunt for old friends simply because I think it is terribly exciting to do so. I’ve managed to contact another old friend, Umi, who is finishing her PhD at Oxford (they call it a DPhil over there for some reason). She’s now married with child. How terribly fun! If I had known that she was over there, I’d have dropped by for a visit at some point.

She in turn, told me that there’s another friend at Oxford as well! So, we’re trying to get hold of her as well. I managed to recall the last name of another friend and found her on LinkedIn and tried to contact her through that method. I’ve also asked my sister to help me track down another friend who is also a doctor.

I think that Angeline is probably going to try to gather as many people up as possible for a Christmas dinner or something. Well, I never say no to makan especially when it is home cooked food. This is just some totally random luck that happened in my life. I think that it will be good to catch up with the last 16 years of all our lives.

Man, I should also try to hunt down my secondary school pals. I’ve already managed to contact one through LinkedIn. I think that I should try to organise some sort of get together for everyone too. It will also be fun to hear what everyone has been doing this last 10 years or so. However, I’ll only do this after I settle my own stuff first.

A couple of friends of mine from China decided to drop by to visit recently. One of them was attending a conference in Singapore and decided to spend a week in Malaysia as the air ticket only cost an additional £30. So, I played host for a few days and brought them around to a few places. I can only say that it has been an interesting experience for me as well.

On the very first day that I was supposed to meet them, we arranged to meet at KLCC. However, at the last minute, they went over to Bukit Bintang for some shopping. So, I drove from Jalan Ampang over to Pavilion and I learned an awful truth about my car. It does makan minyak (eat oil) as others have so rightfully mention.

Although the journey typically only takes about 5 minutes, I was stuck in a traffic jam for an hour, just trying to get there and another 2 hours, while trying to get out. It was during this time that I saw my fuel gauge drop from about 85% to about 65% full. Man, it really guzzles the petrol when the car isn’t moving. My friends commented that they hate the traffic and they hate spending their vacation in a jam. Well, I can certainly understand that.

I decided to take them away from KL as there were other things to see and eat outside. Since they’re from Guangzhou, they can always go to Hong Kong to do their shopping anyway. So, I brought them out to Kajang for some satay. I introduced them to the differences between nasi himpit and ketupat. I also happened to mention that the town of Kajang is famous for two things: the satay and me! :p

I also brought them to Putrajaya at night, which was a nice experience for me too. They managed to see the layout of our new administrative capitol and I realised that I can still remember the roads in the area, from when I was working there almost 8 years ago. I have never been there at night though, and the area does look a lot different at night. We were even lucky enough to encounter a pasar malam night market and I introduced them to our version of it.

I also brought them to Melaka for a day trip, which was also another interesting experience for me. The last time that I had been there was when I was still a kid. So, I have absolutely no memory of the place, much less the roads. However, I decided that it was an extremely small place and we could just randomly walk about. I brought them to the Jonker Walk area and also the A Famosa area. We had chicken rice balls for lunch and then came back.

In the process of spending a couple of days with them, I explained to them about our unique history, politics and geography that made us what we are today. We also took turns at bashing, Singapore. Seems like my friends didn’t like their time there. Their complaints were: bad food, fugly girls and downright boring place. They commented that Malaysia was much better in all ways. To me, this meant that my tour-guide work was successful.

Anyway, this was a chance to test my car on the highway, driving at speeds of around 100kmh for a long distance. All I can say is that I have been quite happy with the handling of the car so far. However, I have this bad habit of always forgetting to lock my car doors. This is a habit that needs changing – pronto!

** Photo courtesy of Feng’s camera and my tripod!!

My question was simple enough and I was perfectly prepared for a no or a yes but what I got instead was an ambiguous answer that leaves more questions than it answers. I had sent my question and her reply to 3 different people who came back with 4 different interpretations. Plus mine, that gives at least 5 possible interpretations. That’s just how ambiguous the answer is that I have no idea what to do next.

She is a close friend and wishes to continue to be one. However, I don’t understand how she could give me such an answer knowing full well all the previous experiences that I have had. Getting an ambiguous answer like the one she gave me just hurts the hell out of me. Coming from someone who knows better than to do that just pains me even more.

While I would like to continue to be close friends, how does one continue to be close friends with someone who has knowingly inflicted so much hurt and pain?

Yesterday was a very bad day for me, having lost my entire Tier 1 support network in a day. This is not a good time to lose my support network but I guess that it is the price that I pay for being the foolish idiot that I am.

Anyway, I mentioned at the beginning that I will not turn this blog into the emotional basket case that the previous one was and I intend to keep it that way. This one is going to be kept clean. Your regular programming will return very soon.

A friend once told me that I am a diva, in the sense that the way I do things is often very dramatic. Well, my life has always been a very dramatic one, regardless of what it is that I do or not do. So it was, with recent events. I needed to ask this person how she felt about me, about how ngam key she felt we were.

First, I wanted to ask her the question face-to-face so I was hoping to meet up with her on a certain weekend. However, she fell sick and so we were unable to meet up and I was unable to ask her the question face-to-face.

Next, I decided to send her a box of tasty hand made Belgian chocolates and ask the question in the gift message. The delivery tracking code says that the chocolates were delivered but for some reason, the chocolates decided to take a walk as she did not receive them even after a week.

So, I decided to just ask her directly the next time I saw her online. Then, the very next day, I got an email from her saying that her computer had crashed and she cannot get online. I knew then that the gods must be playing games with me. Once is chance, twice is coincidence and thrice is a conspiracy.

Then, I decided to send her another gift with the same message, this time a rose in a vase hugged by a bear. This was going to be last attempt and if this gift went missing again, I would have to revert to some other more subversive means of getting the message across.

However, she actually ended up receiving both the gifts in the end. For some reason, the chocolates had decided to make their way to her after all, just a day before the other one was delivered. I certainly hope that the chocolates had not gone bad after wandering around town for more than a week.

Anyway, some of you must be wondering why I just didn’t pick up the phone and ask her directly on the phone.

I am terrible on the phone as I rarely ever use it for communication (my friends will know this). My primary means of communication is face-to-face and online. I can neither convey nor pick up on emotions through the phone. It is always my last choice of communication for these kinds of things.

For some reason, things like this always happen to me and a day hardly ever goes by without something interesting happening in my life. Not quite sure yet if this is a good or bad thing.