time management

Time is PRECIOUS

Time is GOLD

Time is MONEY

TIME. if only we had 25 hours in one day, but then i'm pretty sure it still wouldn't be enough. nothing is ever going to be enough if we don't start doing things right and accordingly. true?

i need to start focusing on time because i am currently at a time constrain. i have classes in the morning from monday till thursday. i have to assist lab on tuesdays. mondays and tuesdays i can't be using the petrology lab because the undergraduates are using it. to prepare my sample, i have to use this lab, hence i have wednesday onwards. evenings only since morning i'll be tied up with classes. 

sample preparation takes me a while, minus the injuries i'll be facing while preparing my copper samples (grinding, polishing). coating would take me 2 hours, preparation for the coating would take an hour, max. solder making would take me 1 hour max for preheating, weighing, mixing. another 3 hours for the melting, and a few hours for cooling.

this is only the preparation of my samples. after having done all of the above, comes the characterizing, analyzing and testing. i've booked a slot for SEM, which is in mid september, by which i hope that i've done all the above and partial part of the testing. i plan to finish everything in this first part by september. hopefully. i need to have a publication accepted by december. 

they don't give you money for nothing.

oh. on top of that, i have assignments and quizzes and tests and exams.

so so tiring. seriously. i've never felt so exhausted in my life. and this hectic schedule will go on till end of the year.

hopefully it all goes well for me. i am after all, wonderful at multitasking. *right*

xoxo

happy birthday to me :)

happy birthday to me! :)

(belated birthday actually since this is a delayed entry)

another year has gone by and i'm now at the raw adult age of 24. raw yes. still young and new to this whole new world. it is definitely something else when you reach a certain age. you think differently. your opinions vary from back when you were a child. your perspective changes. you have different motivations and aims. 

everything changes

changes aren't all that fun

most people my age, are either happy with their jobs, or excitedly getting engaged, or happily married, or in my case, stress-fully struggling with my research. 

when i say struggling, i really mean struggling.

we'll talk about that later ok?

anyways. my birthday was like any other day actually. nothing special. i did get tons of wishes on FB, which kinda surprised me, also touched me thinking that this many people actually cared to wish me well on my birthday. maybe because i only got a handful of wishes last year. but that didn't really matter cause i spent my birthday last year in sarawak :)

this year, my birthday falls on a monday. monday blues. yes. woke up wee early for my class, which ended up being canceled. since i couldn't use my lab, so i was walking around aimlessly. not really. i settled my chemicals, organized my things, stuff like that. so happens that it also fell on malam nisfu sya'ban :)

:)

and so i celebrated my birthday over dinner with my dearest friends :)

kak yana

kak nor

zati

diha

richard

my dearest room mate :)

awesome time. was laughing through out the whole night! ;) we enjoyed our delicious dinner at swensens, autocity. we literally exchanged dishes, so that everyone got a taste of everything. we had 6 different meals. deliciously yummy! for dessert, we had three different ice-cream selections, all of which were licked clean off their cups ;)

what better way to celebrate your 

memorable day other then with your family ;)

wish i was home though.

oh well. maybe next year ey?

so, what did i get this year? just a few. things that i've always wanted. 

thank you ;) 

i should start thinking bout next year's presents ey? hehehehe *chuckles*

xoxo

pay phones

Do you remember these things?

public phones

it has been a while since i saw a working pay phone, that doesn't have any missing pieces or any graffiti around it. a proper working pay phone. 

i remembered those days where these phones were essential, since mobile phones weren't that big of a deal. phone cards were collectable items! haha. i remembered using the pay phone at school, both primary and secondary, to call my mom to get her to pick me up. sometimes me and my mum would go out to the store and stop by the pay phones to call our relatives. we'd have to collect tons of coins before hand tho. i would be the one inserting the coins while my mum gossips away with her sisters *chuckles*

i know for a fact that some of my friends got their boyfriends through these pay phones. prank calls and stuff like that. 

but after awhile, people misuse these things. they vandalize, they don't appreciate these things anymore, since we're in the new era with greater technologies, pay phones are just a waste of space and material. but i'm guessing these things only happens in the town, where as in rural areas, pay phones are essential, right? 

where am i going with this?

no where actually. i found a non-working pay phone outside the library this afternoon. was surprised/excited to see one.

that is all.
ok bye!
xoxo

just my luck~

i just started with my lab yesterday. i started with the basic thing: grinding. i've got these copper plates which are 1cm x 5cm with the thickness of 1.5mm i think. imagine having to grind and polish those tiny little things.

i ended up with this on the first day :

can u see my nails? retarded looking nails setelah di-grind

and this on the second day :

they may not look as bad as i whine 

but believe me, they hurt like shit.

nicely done alin. i wonder what happens next on the third day.

we shall all sit back and watch.

:)

p/s : at LEAST i'm making SOME improvements on my research work. pfft!

xoxo

INTRODUCTION TO MATERIALS LABORATORY

its been a very busy week for me. with classes and lab and more labs. so this week was my first week lab assisting.

INTRODUCTION TO MATERIALS LABORATORY

1. ATOMIC ARRANGEMENT IN SOLID
2. STRUCTURE AND MILLER LATTICE

do any of you remember these things?  vaguely. i remember playing around with polystyrene balls, visualizing the atomic structures. i remember having to remember all of the bravais thing. i do remember how to figure out the miller lattice tho. at least something right? ngehehe.

and so, lab is on every tuesday from 2pm till 6pm...... yes. 

4 FREAKING HOURS!! 

*headbang*

anyways. at the end of the lab, i was left alone with the groups (2 groups each lab session, with 2-3 students each group). the minute the instructor left, they started bombarding me with questions left and right. 'akak' ok? nasiblah akak ni cool dan telah study before hand. haha :P

overall experience, it was agak fun la, tapi torturing sebab 4 jam ok! pfft!

we'll see what happens next week pulak ok? ;)

xoxo

first day

today is officially the first day back in USM. 

new semester

new day

new classes

new outfits?  

(whoops! haha) 

anyways, to start the day, i woke up early in the morning with the mission to settle those unsettled things; daftar subject, daftar course, bla bla bla. 

i headed first to the pejabat pendaftar to settle my pendaftaran, manually. there i came across the EAC people. no wonder there were buses and official usm cars around the front. because of them, i couldn't register to get my new car sticker cause the guard in charge was on duty. pfft!

so next was to my faculty. the new students were crowding the counter in front of the office. i could barely squeeze in. they were all there to drop subjects. and so i got my borang and my jadual, and boy was i surprised. i had a 9am class today! i looked at my watch, darn it. its 10am already. hahaha. i was laughing to myself. very nice alin.

ok. im gonna blame others on this. i was told that classes begin NEXT week. so, pfft! :P

so this semester, my classes are as follows:

Monday 9-10 am (EBB 512 Phase Diagram & Phase Equilibria)

Tuesday 9-11 am (EBB 511 Materials Characterization Techniques)

Wednesday 9-10 am (EBB 512 Phase Diagram & Phase Equilibria)

Thursday 10-11 am (EBB 512 Phase Diagram & Phase Equilibria)

               12-1 pm (EBB 511 Materials Characterization Techniques)

nice kan? i suddenly feel like a final year student all over again. 

well i thank my lucky stars i don't have classes on friday evenings. 

hehehehehe. 

(jangan mara zati :P)

apart from that, i still have my tutoring and lab assisting to do, which i am yet to know when and what i am to do. they said to wait for the notice. hm.. i think the probability of me getting like a lot of tutoring n lab assisting would be low due to the amount of fellowship holders currently, with the addition of the latest one. so, yeah. i hope i won't be doing THAT much.

besides these, i still have to juggle with my research, which is the main point of me being here in the first place. now i know what it means and what it feels like being a research student, even though i have hardly begin with anything.

it is ALL up to you. 

*sigh*

pray hard i so superbly awesome this semester ok?

p/s: alamak. forgot to take pics la. busy memikirkan masalah lain. sorry! esok lah ok? :)

xoxo

updates!

oh my. its been awhile since i blogged. 2 months! yikes! lots to update ey? :) lemme list down all of the things that has happened while i was away.

1. joined the crash course back in perlis for 1 month (june).
2. mimiey's wedding.
3. went to padang besar.
4. visited langkawi.
5. abg alan's wedding.
6. exams!
7. faezah's wedding.
8. home sweet home.
9. back to USM for oath taking.
10. new semester begins! 

that would basically sum up everything. i'll share the details in separate entries ok?

bye! 

xoxo