Studying in Bonn

Lessons have finally begun in earnest. The 6-month break has made me really eager to start learning again. So I've been super-efficient with any work I've been given:P I doubt this enthusiasm will last the whole semester but we'll see how it goes.

I've finally gotten my own room too and the view from my room is fantastic!



It's very near the Rhine river and very convenient as well. It's 5 minutes walk from a well-equipped gym and cafeteria. It's also 5 minutes away from the University of Bonn's Computer Science Dept. However, there's a flaw to this equation, I don have any lessons there:)) Instead, I need to take a bus and then interchange to a subway to get to the Bonn-Aachen International Centre for Information Technology or B-IT in short for my lessons. Oh, it just takes about 20-30 minutes to get there:)) No complains, Bonn is still fantastic!

Some photos on Bonn city:

Trento and Venice, Italy

Hahaha, I'm not quite done with my travel log yet. The weekend after Düsseldorf, I went to Italy for my scholarship/studies program's workshop. It was a great opportunity to finally meet all the EuMI scholars and get to know one another. We had quite a few fruitful discussions on improving the program as well. Left Bonn on Thursday evening after German language test and arrived in Trento at about 2am. As the hotel was on a hill, we took a taxi, not just any taxi but a Mercedes C-class (could have gotten a BMW 3-series but a fella cut our queue and so we had to wait for another one). The trip up the hill was quite a good lesson on uphill drive. Throughout the whole trip, the guy's revs never went below 2000 rpm. He never braked unless necessary and just relied on down-shifting to show the car down. Fantastic!

Anyway, the workshop lasted till Sunday. Some photos on Trento



Went to Venice after the event as well for a day and night trip with 2 EuMI friends (you'll see a lot of their photos in the slideshow) and another EuMI friend with his family (wife and cute baby:). The place is really beautiful. The first day was a bit cloudy and so the view wasnt so great but on the next day, Mama Mia! I now understand the magic of Venice and its attraction. Just walking around the island, taking photos was quite sufficient:)



Then, I found the Ferrari Store. Being one of the 8 Ferrari stores in the world (a few in Italy, 1 in Spain, 1 in Las Vegas and 1 in Shang Hai), I knew I had to get something there. Bought one of their colognes. Extremely pleased. They had a F2005 on display. Not allowed to take video but you can take photos. I tested that rule and found that they are quite strict in the implementation:P

Then I went on another mini spending spree. I bought a pair of Oakleys. My eyesight's quite bad lately and been wanting to get a pair of sunglasses. What better place to get then Venice, right? No, not really. Everything is super expensive here. But just thought after events of past few months, I needed to treat myself to a few things nice:) I hope people from EuMI dont read my blog:P

The only mistake we made during this entire trip was to fly Ryanair back to Germany. Partly our fault, we didn't do enough research on where we're landing in Germany. Ryanair says we're going to land at Düsseldorf airport when in fact, it's actually Düsseldorf (Weeze). Get the difference? I dont but the difference is that we landed in an airport which has very limited buses back to civilization. So although we reached Weeze at 11pm, there was only a bus at 12am and we finally got to Cologne train station at about 2am. And the next train back to Bonn is at 5am. The travel mishap bug has struck again!! I'm ready for it this time and didn't complain much. Just take it as it comes. Again, I met someone nice to chat with. This time, it's a Romanian journalist who works in Deutsche Welle. We just shared about our traveling experiences and she talked quite a lot on Romania and Transylvannia. Learnt a lot about Romania from this single conversation.

Traveling traveling traveling

It seems I've been hit by the travel bug since I've gotten back to Bonn:)) The plane back to Frankfurt 3 weeks ago was surprisingly smooth. But as usual, knowing my travel fate, there was bound for something to happen:) As it was Easter weekend, there were plenty of people traveling on the train. So the train from Frankfurt International Airport to Bonn broke down due to overload, just 1/2 hour before reaching Bonn:)) I'm not complaining, I'm beginning to find these travel incidents amusing. Lol. Did I say I was stuck in the train for 1 1/2 hours. Hahaha. But did get to chat with a German family (in English of course), who just came back from a skiing trip in Switzerland. Sounds like something I should try.

Started taking German lessons for two weeks after I got back. It was pretty intensive. 4.5 hours a day for 8 days, starting from Tuesday, 25/3 till Thursday 3/4. That's excluding exercises which I had to do after coming back from class. After 4-5 days, I was really overdosed with German words. Now I can speak a few smattering bits of German words. Limited to introducing myself, telling where I'm from and what's the time for now. I can count pretty well (expect nothing less from a Chinese:P)

I went to Düsseldorf on my first weekend. It's the state city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the state in which Bonn is in. It's a really modern and chic city. Loads of wealthy people with too much time. It seems they spent their weekends driving their supercars and luxury cars really loud around town. Check out the photos:



Spot the Audi R8? So cool! Saw 2 within 10 minutes. There's a tall phallic structure called the Rhine Tower next to the Rhine river. It offers a fantastic view of the city and its surrounding. Fantastic!

Finding the Light

Wow, it’s been a while since my last post, which I’ve just checked is on 22nd September 2007 and how blissful things seemed to be then. Well, there’s a reason why I’ve been neglecting this blog, not having the strength or courage to write anything. I guess, you could say that I’ve just gone through a life-transforming 6 months since 29th September 2007. Trust me, this is going to be a pretty long post☺

But before I jumped the gun, probably let me just take you through events that were happening to me prior to that fateful day. As most of you probably know, I’ve been praying for an opportunity to do my Masters in UK since I’ve graduated in 2002. Went through quite a lot of disappointments every year applying for scholarships and getting rejected. But, lo and behold, in 2006, I’ve finally managed get a fantastic scholarship called the Erasmus Mundus, under which I was supposed to study a course called the European Masters in Informatics. This is a two-year double-degree program whereby I would get a chance to study in Edinburgh, UK for the first year and in Bonn, Germany for the second year.

And what a year Edinburgh was for me. I had a great time being part of a vibrant Christian fellowship (PCCF), enjoying the opportunity to serve God amongst young and energetic people. I also enjoyed my studies tremendously once I got over the initial rustiness of going back to classes. I was able to even finish my masters thesis one year ahead of time. Best of all, I was blessed to finally meet someone special who shares a lot of common interests with me, a person I felt I could confide in. And so I left for Germany early September to settle down for another of studies, thinking nothing could ever go wrong for me, that I can just glide over any problems that ever come my way. How wrong I was!!

And now, comes the part where things started to slowly unravel before my eyes, and not in a very good way. I came back to Edinburgh from Germany on 29th September because classes were only going to start at the end of October. In the evening, PCCF was organizing a welcome event for freshers, which I participated last year and was so blessed by it. And so, at about 5pm, my now ex-girlfriend (think by now, you’re might guess what’s gonna happen) and I left her place and walked to the nearest bus stop to take a bus to the venue of the event. And as we saw a bus approaching, I vaguely remembered seeing a black and large vehicle (which I later remembered that it was a Lexus Harrier 4x4) coming towards the bus stop at quite a speed. Things happened so fast! The next thing I knew, I suddenly felt myself flying some distance away from the bus stop. My left eye was bleeding profusely, I couldn’t stand up and my whole world crumbled before my eyes, literally and figuratively! To cut a long story short, I was later sent to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (it’s quite amazing cause apparently a few minutes after the accident had happened, an ambulance from the Infirmary that was on its way to another hospital, passed by and stopped to help. The paramedics made sure we were ok and then called for another ambulance)

I had very light injuries relative to my ex-girlfriend and another victim. I had a fracture on my forehead, just above the left eye (which explained the bleeding and allayed my fears that my best eye was going blind), fracture on my right thumb and slight ligament and cartilage tear on my left knee.

I would like to say, that like a fairy-tale story, everything ended up well and we lived happily ever after but unfortunately, things were far from that. Due to a lot of factors and issues (which I’ve given up on deciphering), things did not work out well between me and her. It was initiated by her and I have to say, it broke my heart then. Within a short period of less than 3 months (it started in mid-August and was over by end of October), things went from heavenly to hellish. The pain that I felt then was much worse than the physical pain that I went through. And to make things even more dramatic, I had to moved in to her place after her mum went back, to take care of her cause she couldn’t walk properly (wont elaborate on her medical condition since it’s irrelevant to this story). The two months that I was staying with her, cooking for her and cleaning the house, was the one of the most difficult times I’ve ever experienced, emotionally. The fact that I’m trying to seek closure and forget the pain and hurt isn’t made easy by seeing her everyday, being reminded what a failure I’ve been. There were a lot of times when I really felt I wanted to run away from all these and just go back to Malaysia. I’ve finally was able to leave all this behind when I went back to Malaysia in February. Even after that, it took awhile to get over everything. We’ve stopped talking cause I felt that this was the best way to move forward. It wasn’t easy but it was the right thing to do.

There were a lot of other unhappy incidents that happened as well within this short period of time. I was supposed to have an operation on my left knee (to remove bits of torn cartilage) at the end of October but due to many unforeseen circumstances, I could only do it in mid-January. So I had to actually go through the rehabilitation process twice for my knee. I was on crutches after being discharged in mid-October and could finally walk normally by December. The operation in January meant I had to go back to crutches, albeit this was just for 1-2 weeks. My KLM flight back to Malaysia had to be postponed for a day as well because on the first flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, one of the engines caught fire, an hour into the flight. So, we had to turn up to North Sea to dump some fuel so that we’ll be light enough to land and then flight back to Amsterdam. Thank God, the second flight the next day was okie☺

2 weeks before I was supposed to go back to Germany, I found out that my room in Germany was rented to another person without my knowledge by the Student Accomodation service in Bonn. My things were shifted to the basement, apparently. And this is despite me signing a 1-year contract with them that was supposed to end on 30th September 2008. They claimed that my lease ended on 31st January 2008 and they’ve tried contacting me to no avail. It’s partly my fault for not letting them know I was out of the country for 6 months but still, what’s the point of signing a 1-year contract!!

I hope you’re still reading this at this point cause I’m not writing this to vent my frustration or to seek sympathy. I’m happy to say, I’m pass all that! Amidst all the frustration and confusion, I was trying to determine the reason for what has happened in the past few months, i.e. looking for someone/something to blame. I’ve blamed myself for not doing enough, I’ve blamed the driver for knocking into me (by the way, it was a lady driver who wasn’t drunk. My only explanation was that she lost control of her vehicle after trying to overtake a bus and then suddenly seeing a car coming from the other side. That’s my hypothesis without being a sexist:P), I’ve blamed my ex-girlfriend for heaping more emotional pain onto me, I’ve blamed the devil and I’ve even blamed God. At the same time, I was also impatiently seeking to move on from these events and so, I’ve started to desperately plan what I should do after I finish my course, should I go to UK, or Australia or Canada or be a missionary in a poor country. The more I tried to pinpoint something to blame, the more I try to seek out a road that I do not need to take yet, the more confused and frustrated I became. I was always asking God, tell where I should go, what I should do, I need Your wisdom and strength, I want to make a difference in this world!

But you know what, ultimately, I finally found comfort in the simple truth about God. The truth is despite all that has happened, He loves me and will always do. And the God who created the universe, who created you and me, is still the same God. I don’t know how or why, all the baggage and burden that I’ve allowed myself to carry just disappeared. I stopped trying to pinpoint who is to blame and what a relief it's been. Regardless of what ultimately caused these things to happen, I still have so many things to be thankful.

And there are really so many things I should be thankful to God for. The topmost being having a family who has been there for me through thick and thin. If it has to take an accident and a breakup to make me realise it, then so be it. The way my parents, my sis and my aunts have shown genuine care, concern and love has really warmed up my heart!

It doesn’t matter where I go, what I do after I graduate, the God who provides the birds and the bees food and shelter day in day out, will do the same for me☺ why am I allowing my future to be restricted by how little I can see now! The world is so big and wide and wherever God places me, He will be with me too. It has taken me a while to get this and to finally find the courage to write abou what has happened to me recently. I didn’t want to write about this while still having bitterness and hurt inside me. And now, I can objectively say this, I am set free!

So what’s next after this? Well, I’m going back to Bonn on the 22nd March to continue two more semesters of studies. Ohya, remember the room problem I mentioned earlier. Well, guess what? I’ve solved it within a few hours of finding out yesterday. Somehow, God led me to talk to a fellow coursemate through GoogleTalk and I found out that he’s actually moving out of his room in mid-April back to Edinburgh. So, I can take over his room! And the best part was, this place will be nearer to my university and has better facilities too! Isn’t God great!

I simply have no idea what’s gonna happen in the future and there’s no guarantee something this dramatic might happen again (not that I’ll purposely go look for it:P) but what I do know is that the truth remains the same.

Let me end by sharing this story I read in a book called “A Man of God” by Jack Graham. Few years ago, a series of tornadoes struck Oklahoma city and the surrounding areas, destroying a lot of homes. In the city of Moore, A lot of people came out from their shattered houses, wandering about in the dark, looking for their families and friends. Rescue workers needed a base to setup their operation and so they got a few huge spotlights and shone them on the cross at the top of the steeple at the First Baptist Church of Moore. And then, they took megaphones and started shouting “Follow the light to the cross and you’ll find help there!” We can’t guarantee that we’ll lose our way sometimes and fall to darkness, but the light at the cross is ever there to guide us back to safety and help. We just need to fix our eyes on that light!

Frankfurt International Motorshow 2007

Couldn't miss this bi-annual event especially with so many nice cars launched. It was at the Frankfurt Fair/Exhibition grounds. There were about 10 halls full of cars. Spent 7 hours there (11am to 6pm). Walked until cannot walk. Spent almost an hour on each of the main halls (BMW, Ford group, VW group, Italian group (with Hyundai inside for some reason), Merc as well).

Spot the BMW CS Concept, BMW X6 Concept, BMW M3, Aston Martin DBS, Audi R8, Audi S5, Ferrari F430 Scuderia and many many more:) Ran out of battery when I reached the last hall, which was incidentally the Mercedes hall. Don't really matter for me:P But one thing has to be mentioned. The Mercedes hall was pretty impressive in terms of style and hospitality. They served sparkling water and biscuits for free. Also gave hot towels for you to freshen up and a place for people to sit down and rest.

Still prefer the BMW one though, it's more of a car buff's place. Loads of BMW's to sit around and day-dream. Sat in all the different models, played with i-Drive, adjusting the seating position. Found out that for a 6-speed manual, the reverse gear is extreme right, next to first gear. Have to shove it hard-right and up to get into reverse. Preparing myself when I get one, I guess:)

C'etait un Rendezvous

C'etait un Rendezvous was a short-film made by a certain Claude Lelouch that achieved cult-status amongst car buffs. The nine-minute clip shows view from a car's bumper, hurtling through the streets of Paris at 5.30am accompanied by just the sound of the engine, tires, brakes and gear changes. Through the engine sound, many thought that the car used was a Ferrari 275. Later the director revealed that it was actually shot from his old Merc S class and laced with clever sound dubbing. Cool!

Interview with the Supercomputer

Europe's No 1 Supercomputer, Albert2 (build by BMW-Sauber F1 team), speaks to F1-live:P Very witty interview. Hahaha

Changes, changes, changes...

Massive change within these few weeks:
Edinburgh, UK to Bonn, Germany
Richmond Place to Posener Weg
University of Edinburgh to RWTH Aachen/University of Bonn/Bonn International Centre of Information Technology (complicated story)
Familiarity to adaptation
No blogging to blogging again (for obvious reasons:P)
Singlehood to ...

One thing stays the same though:) God's love and faithfulness!

Dedicated to a special someone...

忘了是怎么开始
或许就是对你
有一种感觉
忽然间发现自己
已深深爱上你
真的很简单
爱的地暗天黑都已无所谓
是是非非无法抉择
没有后悔
为爱日夜去跟随
那个疯狂的人是我
喔~
i love you
无法不爱你 baby
说你也爱我
i love you
永远不愿意 baby
失去你
不可能更快乐
只要能在一起
做什么都可以
虽然世界变个不停
用最真诚的心
让爱变得简单
爱的地暗天黑都已无所谓
是是非非无法抉择
没有后悔
为爱日夜去跟随
那个疯狂的人是我
喔~
i love you
我一直在这里 baby
一直在爱你
i love you yes i do
永远都不放弃
这爱你的权利
如果你还有一些困惑
oh no
请贴着我的心倾听
听我说着爱你baby
yes i do
i love you

i love you
我一直在这里 baby
一直在爱你
i love you yes i do
永远都不放弃 baby
这爱你的权利

Super Duper Funny Merc Ad

Gotta hand it to Mercedes, they've really done it this time! Need to be a formula 1 fan to understand this commercial:)

All my Videos on Youtube

New embedded player on youtube:)

Top Gear's back on July 25!!!!

Yes!!!!!! It's back!

Take That - I'd Wait For Life

Ohmigosh, this is such a hauntingly beautiful song!

Problem with Microsoft Office

Goodness gracious me! Was having problem with Microsoft Office for Mac suddenly few days ago. It baffled me for a long while. Cause things just stopped working after restarting my machine. At first I thought there was a problem with Microsoft's preference files. So I deleted all my Microsoft related preference stuff in ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft. Didnt work. Then I suddenly realised a lot of Rosetta-based apps (apps that are PPC-compiled) stopped working. So started looking on Google for Rosetta problems..... Finally!

Found the problem on MacFixIt:) Apparently updating to the latest Quicktime 7.2 with Java 1.6 installed beforehand creates a big problem as it breaks all Rosetta-apps. The fix is here:) Of course if u know a bit of sed will be useful cause it involves modifying all the ./ at the beginning of each line to / and changing all the " " (spaces) to "\ " in order to delete all the Java 1.6 files. I just used the replace function in vi to do it:)

Go Forth, Kimi and Start Painting all the Circuits Red!

May and June has been a tough time for Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen fans. The sight of seeing Mclaren achieving 1-2 finishes in Monaco and then in a traditionally Ferrari-dominant circuit, Indianapolis, has been quite demoralising. Then came Magny-Cours, France and then Silverstone, UK. Yes! The Iceman is back in business. The last race at Silverstone has been mesmerizing to say the least. Everytime they show the on-board camera on Kimi's car, wow, it's so amazing to see how much he's pushing every single lap. Though there wasnt any on-track overtaking, but the fact that each milisecond counted in each lap just puts so much excitement into the race!

It's on to Nurburgring on 22nd July. Fingers' crossed, the winning streak will continue! But whatever it is, the excitement is back for me and every race, every lap, every point is gonna be thrilling to the end of the season in October!

Senyuman Mu

This is the one and only Malay song that I wrote back in 1997. It's called Senyuman Mu (Your Smile). Just put in the translation. It's literal translation, so not very poetry-like:)

A
Suaramu
(Your voice)
C#m
Ku rindu selalu
(I've always missed)
Bm E
Hatiku merindu wajahmu
(My heart misses your face)
F#m C#m
Selepas berkenalan hari itu
(After knowing you that day)
Bm E
Ku tidak dapat lupaimu
(I just cannot forget you)

A
Oh Sayang
(Oh my love)
C#m
Bila boleh temu
(When can we meet again)
Bm E
Hatiku mengenang wajahmu
(My heart remembers your face)
F#m C#m
Ku tidak dapat tidur keranamu
(I cant sleep because of you)
Bm E
Oh kamu! Oh senyuman mu
(Oh you! Oh your smile)

A
Senyuman Mu
(Your smile)
D
Menarik hatiku
(Attracts my heart)
Bm
Kita berdua selamanya
(The both of us forever)
E
Bina hidup mulia
(Build a perfect life)

A
Senyuman mu
(Your smile)
D
Memikat jiwaku
(Captures my soul)
Bm
Sepanjang masa
(All the time)
E
Aku fikirkan
(I'm thinking of)
A
Senyuman mu ooohh
(Your smile)

Till I See You

A B C#m
The greatest love that anyone could ever know
A B C#m
it overcame the cross and grave to find my soul
A B C#m
and till i see you face to face and grace amazing takes me home
A
i'll trust in you

A B C#m
With all I am I'll live to see Your kingdom come
A B C#m
And in my heart I pray You'd let Your will be done
A B C#m
And till I see You face to face and grace amazing takes me home
A
I'll trust in You

E B
I will live to love You
C#m G#m
I will live to bring You praise

A/A2 B C#m
I will live a child in awe of You

A B C#m
You are a voice that called the universe to be
A B C#m
You are the whisper in my heart that speaks to me
A B C#m
And till I see You face to face and grace amazing takes me home
A2
I'll trust in you

E B
I will live to love You
C#m G#m
I will live to bring You praise
A/A2 B C#m
I will live a child in awe of You (repeat)

A E B C#m
You alone are God of all
A E B C#m
You alone are worthy Lord
A E B C#m A
And with all I am my soul will bless Your name (repeat)

I Will Run To You

C D G
Your eye is on the sparrow and
C D Em
Your hand it comforts me
F C
From the ends of the earth
D G
to the depth of my heart
C Am D
Let your mercy and strength be seen

C D G
You call me to Your purpose
C D Em
as angels understand
F C D G
For Your glory may You draw all men
C D G
As Your love and grace demand

C D G D Bm Em
And I will run to You, to Your words of truth
Am G C Am D
Not by might not by power, but by the spirit of God


C D G D Bm Em
Yes I will run the race till I see your face
C Am D G
Oh let me live in the glory, of Your grace

Made Me Glad

VERSE 1]
D A
I will bless the Lord forever
D A
I will trust in Him at all times
D A
He has delivered me from all fear
D A
He has set my feet upon a Rock

D
I will not be moved Bm Esus4
And I'll say of the Lord

[CHORUS] A Bm
You are my shield, my strength
D Esus4
My portion, deliverer
A A/C#
My shelter, strong tower
D Esus4
My very present help A
In time of need

[VERSE 2]
D A
Whom have I in heaven but You?
D A
There's none I desire besides You

D
You have made me glad
Bm Esus4
And I'll say of the Lord

Hebe from SHE singing Qi Qin's Song