Kaki Tulis...Go to kakiseni.com

Are you a creative writer? You could write a play that can move a society? Or If you already have a play that runs for 10 minutes which explores and defines issues of Malaysia’s social, political, historical, spiritual and emotional complexity (as long as it is not to controversial…well you know Malaysia).

If you meet any of the criteria, then go to www.kakiseni.com and try your luck. The writer of the winning entry will receive RM10,000 in cash. Two runners-up will go home, or anywhere with RM5,000 each. Seven consolation prize winners will receive RM2,000 each.

Energy audit on buildings

According to Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, as far as energy-conserving efforts are concerned, Malaysia was at least 15 to 20 years backwards compared to countries like Japan.

The ministry has chosen seven high-energy consumption government buildings for the audit – the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry, Finance Ministry, Economic Planning Unit, Immigration Department, Hospital Selayang, University Malaya Medical Centre and KL Hospital.

The audit will be the stepping stone in making government building more energy efficient.

I wonder what will they do. Will they be an Energy Star Partner? Or launch something like ECO (Energy Conservation and Outreach) which is what I'm working on right now at U of M Utilities and Plant Engineering Energy Management .

Hopefully, it's not just audit that they are planning to do. After the audit, it would be nice if they do the necessary adjustments, to make the buildings more energy efficient. (not like "hangat-hangat tahi ayam" kinda project)

Washtenaw Dairy and such

First of all... I wasted my four years here looking for a place that sells donut. I am a huge fan of donut, basically, other people put bumper stickers saying " I break for whale" or "I break for Jake" (an Ann Arbor icon). But for me, if there were bumper sticker saying "I brake for donut", I would put it on my bumper, not that I have a car because I prefer taking the bus. I literally do that.

Washtenaw Dairy, a homegrown, 100% locally owned shop is famous for their dairy product. However, their donuts are just amazing. Usually, I prefer raised style donut, but only Washtenaw Dairy's cake style donut is acceptable for me. Not that it is acceptable, it is good!

Those fry-cake style donuts by the way are awesome. Very good and fresh, with supersweet topings. Sugar frosting, coconut sprinkles and thick maple and chocolate glaze are some of the variety they serve there.

This Ann Arbor family social spot, located on South Ashley and West Madison, is more popular for their ice cream. They serve array of classic and crazy flavors Stroh's Ice Cream. During warm evening, houses in surrounding neighborhood, empty toward twilight as the residents head, zombielike to the store.

Ann Arbor and Me

Although I miss Malaysia, Shah Alam, and Kuala Lumpur...I always feel like its hard for me to leave this place...All due to these amazing places and things in Ann Arbor

1. The big house and Saturday Afternoon Michigan Football
2. The easy laid back kinda feeling being here...
3. Downtown area and the cute shops
4. The Arb and the Huron River
5. Kerrytown and Farmer's Market.
6.Michigan Football (again)
7. Parks and Open Fields where you could play whatever you want.
8.Free bus to everywhere...
9. U of M is here

The list would go on and on but certainly, the reason I would miss Ann Arbor if I leave this town would be because of Ann Arbor itself. It has it's own characteristic, own style, own ways of doing things and uniqueness that you wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. Thus, if you were in Ann Arbor, enjoy it...

As for me, I will make use of every moment that I have to create 'moments' with this place...

This thing just struck me....

I'm sure everybody realized that when ever you meet someone new, you and the new person you just met will think about the similarities that both of you have. For example in college, if you met someone from other school, you will try and think about other person that you know who is also in that same school, so that maybe both of you are friends to the other person. Or even try to share about what both of you like to do, eat, go and so on.

It's amazing that living in this world, no matter how different each and every one of us, everybody will try and find some sort of similarity among ourself. Yet if you see things at a bigger perspective, people and countries are always fighting about the differences between them. For me, this is the reason all the crisis in this world exist. For example, in Darfur, the ruler who is Arab is trying to demolish the local african. What so sad about this crisis, both of them have a huge similarity. Both of them are Islam. This problem also exist in Iraq between Sunni and Shiah. How could someone kill their own brothers and sisters?

Also in the middle east, if the arab and the jewish could tolerate, and share what they have, like rather than one person owning all the sacred religious sites, all of them would be able to understand each other in a better way and later respect each other.

My dream is to see all Arab and Jewish, stumble to each other on a street and talk about having place that they can go together rather than fighting about who owns the place. Would this ever be happening during my lifetime?

I got lucky, again...

If you venture into my other blog, I've posted an entry, almost the same as this one.

Stucked at FXB(Aerospace Buidling). I had only 75 cents. The cheapest chocolate at the vending machine... 80 cents. I tried my luck,peeking underneath the machine. There you go, the magic nickle, waiting for me to pick her up.



Enjoying my Snickers while writing this entry....

Quote from yesterday..

A: I can't believe students are soo ignorant
B: I guess that's why they are still students
A: Good point...

Try this people...

Try and do something good to others. Anything... Like donating money to the needy, helping people by holding door for them. Or even the simplest thing, smile, as you make eye contact or interact will people. You will know how good it feels once you have done it. You will know that you have done something good, something right and something nice, it definitely will make your day.

And one more thing...get a pet. They will be your best friend ever...

Exam and Beauty Contest

World with exam sucks. My dream is to have a world where people don't judge how good you are based on grades. But I know that sounds too idealistic. And yes, until now, I still couldn't figure out any other way to determine how good someone is other than using grades.

The issue propelled me to another thing I want to talk about. This world is all about judging and being judged. In school, with your peer, at work. As Dwayne said in the movie Little Miss Sunshine:

" You know what? Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work... Fuck that. And fuck the Air Force Academy. If I want to fly, I'll find a way to fly. You do what you love, and fuck the rest."

Sorry for the f word. I always againts cursing, unless if it is meaningful and I am trully pissed.

Again, It is really hard to run from this fact. People do this with intent or without realizing that they are judging everything. And people will naturally try to impress one another. Why can't we just do what we want, as long as it is not bothering other people, and not being judged??? Oh well. Life is life.

My 4 years in Ann Arbor

I handed my senior Aero 405 lab project final report to my group mate. I signed on the cover letter of the report, stating that I was part of the project. That was the last thing that I did for me to get a degree.

I always thought that the last thing that I will do to earn my degree will be steping out of a lecture hall, having completed a 'killer exam' that would mess me up and probably worrying about having to retake the exam. But putting down my signature on top of a paper seems to be the completing factor for me for my four years of study here. I have arrived at a very important point in my life. Now, I have so many options to think about and for every option, I will have to think wisely...

And let’s look back at the all of my semester here at Michigan, the school where I used to hate and became the school which I wouldn't want to trade with any other school...

First Semester, Fall 2003.

That naive guy, stepping onto a really huge school, where everything looks new. Hoping to see snow in September but only sweats like a pig, until the winter arrived of course. I had a bicycle, a cheap one where I crashed it and threw it away since the cost to repair the bicycle was much more than the bicycle itself. I was so ambitious, I wanted to major in Mechanical and Aerospace, than realized, I’m not nerdy enough to pull it off. I studied a lot, but I only got an average GPA, then realized it’s not worth to just to study and miss out the world. Started working at CCRB. The easiest place to get a job and since I used to live at Oxford, it wasn’t that far.

To be continued

Testing. I'm in the process of moving from my other blog to this blog. Thus, I'm extracting all the noteworthy posts. Still fresh...