too much or too little ?

 I am almost sorry that I complaint about having to write 2000 words. Now I am trying to cram in all the things I want to say in that amount!

 Karma is such a bitch!

Since I completed the conference early yesterday, instead of going back to my office in Petaling Jaya and come down again to KL city for my class in the evening, I decided to just go straight to the teaching center and do my Business Economics assignment which is due in about 2 weeks time **dem pressure**

 Anyway, all was well and dandy. I managed to get my act together and started typing away. Therefore, managed to achieve quite a bit. Unfortunately, this dodo bird possibly left her thumbdrive in the university facilities. Sigh!!

Now am working to at least get an update from the university it’s there. Please pray for me!!!!

Update: the thumbdrive was stuck to the PC still! The staff there is keeping it for me. Still a dodo nonetheless!

For the past two days I have been attending the ICIAS 2007 at the KLCC Convention Centre. The ICIAS is a organized by the Universiti Teknologi Petronas and the IEEE, Malaysia Chapter together with Circuit and Systems chapter here in Malaysia. Tomorrow will the be last day of the conference.

To be honest, this is the first time that I am attending a conference that is of this nature. Although I have been in the field for so many years including the time of my undergraduate years, never once did I participate in these technical conferences. It really did open up my eyes to how the rest of the electronics engineering world is focusing on from the academia perspective. From the industry standpoint, things are now focusing on cost reductions in terms of manufacturing, implementation of smaller scale process technology and so forth. Academia, somehow operate on a different path. This is one of the area which I am struggling to understand. Perhaps I should be able to derive some idea after tomorrow’s closing.

Participation has been very good. Delegates are from Austria, Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Australia, Philippines, and of course the local delegates from various universities with at least one delegate from UniMas, Sarawak.

I truly look forward to the final day of the conference. Perhaps at that time, I will be able to share more of my experience!

Run for your lives!!! I sound like some occult leader, don’t I? 

Ok, jokes asides. Yesterday, I had a reality check when one of my coursemates told me that next week, is our last week of lectures. The following week will be a revision of all the lessons we have had!!!

I am not even used to new groove yet and now they are telling me that I need to start making my choices for the Semester Two. What modules would I like to take, which have exams, which doesn’t, what summer blocks will I be interested in, etc. 

My goodness. Somemore, I have an economic assignment to pass on 17th December. I am only on the first page doing the introductory paragraph! The assignment calls for 2000 words! So unfair isn’t it. Even more so after I found out that John Nash’s PhD dissertation is only 27 pages! What happened to the criterion of XX XXX words!! Hmmmph!

Anyway, let’s hope I pass all my modules. No need flying colours!!

This is how my afghan has been progressing. I started this about a month ago only. Used up to now about 8.5 balls of yarn. Each ball weighs about 50 gms but then the yardage is about 97 yards. So, it is very heavy but not long. Not a very wise choice on my side. Shouldn’t have use this worsted weight yarn (US term : Size 4). Should have used the sport weight yarn (US : Size 2). Lighter and much better yardage for the same weight.

Anyway, I hope to make this large enough at least for one person to use as a blanket or two people to snuggle up watching TV on the sofa!

Oh yes, I am talking about Bee Movie. When the trailer was up last year, it got me pretty excited. I thought we’ll be expecting another classic from Pixar. Another production to join the likes of The Incredibles and  Shrek. It turned out more like Robots instead.

Bee Movie is about one bee trying to break the mould. Instead of having just a single choice of career for the rest of his bee life, he wants to try something different. He wants to discover the world.

This production have quite an impressive cast.  Jerry Seinfeld as the leading bee. Renee Zellweger the human love interest of Mr. Barry B. Benson ( the bee). Chris Rock was in there as some blood sucking mosquito in search for moose blood! Oprah Winfrey had a small role as the judge. In my opinion, they did quite a good job in voicing the characters.

Animation wise, it was very pretty. Very much like Robots’ style. Very ‘clean’ look about it. But it also suffered like Robots, great case, good visuals yet it lacks the ‘oomph!’ I give it a very weak 5/10. Go watch it if you’re really free.

Sila is back to Malaysia and among the things she brought back was the yarn stash from Knit Picks for me!!

Let’s cut to the chase and see what we have in the bag, shall we?

First up is the alpaca/silk yarn. Alpaca yarn is relatively a new type of yarn for me. The name of the yarn, is also the name of the animal which the yarn is produced from. Compared to the normal wool from sheep, alpaca is softer and lighter and yet it provides better insulation. This yarn is very very lovely. I can’t stop myself from petting the yarn!

Next up is the cotton/linen blend. This yarn is strong and doesn’t stretch much making it an ideal yarn to make bags! I am planning to make a nice little tote with it . Let’s hope that happens!

The rest of the stash is primarily for my ‘Summer Bliss Afghan’ ( yeap, I just made up the name). Will show a picture of my work-in-progress soon!

What can I say? I am in YARN HEAVEN! Thanks so much Sila for bringing me the yarn! *muacks! *

Hmmm, what can I say?

As mentioned by Leslie, there was a huge gathering happening in Kuala Lumpur resulting in this big massive traffic congestion in all major roads in and out of the city center. And the musical is at KLCC! What tough luck.

As I was driving, (yeap it’s me, not Alex) we saw a message on the electronic ITIS board stating “TRAFIK SESAK DI LEBUHRAYA PERSEKETUAN” so, we decided to the NPE instead. The whole journey was fine until we hit the KL-Seremban highway. It was literally a parking lot there. There was one period, I think we didn’t move an inch for about 30 minutes.

Anyway, enough of the traffic talk, don’t want it to be the highlight of the post! Back to the musical.

I watched the movie of the same title on DVD before and had an idea what to expect. Alex on the other hand didn’t. So we have a person with a slightly biased view and one without. 

Since we’ve been to the Plenary Hall for Mysticall Steppes last year, we roughly know how’s the setup will be like. The only difference was Mystically Steppes was a dance not a musical, so the acoustics were not the main focus but it is now. This was the first musical that we attended there, naturally we will somehow compare this with Istana Budaya. For musicals, Istana Budaya is still the place to go. The props were very simple. Using only the bare necessities to create the show. A large picture frame tilted with some of it broken off to make way for the stairway with light bulbs underneath them, giving the very cabaret feel to the set. By the sides were the telephone booth cum prison cells.

The show started off really without much impact. Probably I was expecting more since I watched the movie. Alex too was a little disappointed with how the show started. Very mediocre. Despite ‘All That Jazz,’   this really didn’t spark anything!

I was awaiting the Razzle Dazzle number to come on after the intermission, that also failed to impress. Somehow, I felt that Richard Gere did a better job in this. More stylish definitely! There was also the ventriloquist part with Roxie being the doll, and Billy Flynn being the master, that was rather badly potrayed in my opinion!

The only part me and Alex enjoyed was the court proceedings. The ending was a weak as the starting. Not recommended!

getting fat when your brother gives you this!

Ain’t that bad?

Lucky for me, Mom also got one. So I don’t feel so alone in this! Kakaka !

Kekekke…not the one in America though. Going to watch this in KLCC Plenary Hall. The same place I watched the Mystical Steppes.  

Leslie will be going for the premiere night show, I will only go for the show this Saturday since Alex is out of town. Let’s hope it’s as enjoyable as the movie!