My Digital World

My busy life is still there. The days I get through is only study-related stuff. Last weekend I even don't have the chance to do other things than reading the books. The exam of the nuclear is coming closer and closer. I have a bad feeling for the exam. It is not because it is difficult, but it is because the time issue.

Anyway, this week, I have had a wonderful week. I capture all the nice things with my camera. Let me start with Thursday.

23-November-2006
This is my first outing with the members of the 18th floor. The members include the professors, Master of Science students and the assistants. We go out to play bowl at this outing. Before we go to bowl, the assistants prepare some typical Dutch food: "pannenkoeken". It is kind of 'roti' but it is not served with spicy stuff. In contrast, one should eat with many sweet stuff on it. E.g. putting some sugar on the pannenkoeken. I did some shoots when we have a dinner. Below you can see one of the pics:



After the dinner we go to Scheveningen to bowl. While we are in the tram, the half of the tram is occupied by us. It seems like that we are all tourists who are going to do some night-sightseeing in Scheveningen. I have also pics of the tram, below there you can see one of them:



Arriving at the sportcentre, we take our shoes off and go to play. Many of them have some bowl experience and I just play bowl for a few times only. But we all have enjoyed the night. Here I have two pics:




I really like the groupphoto.

24-November-2006
The most exciting day of the week is Friday!!! This day start with lessons at the nuclear institute which ends in the beginning of the afternoon. After the lesson I go to EWI to meet my friends who have their diploma distribution. They are Mark and Jin. All the pics can be found on my personal website.

This are my friends of the Electrical Engineering who I go along with the most.



From just a few friends, already two of them are leaving. Sooner or later, Shabir (the guy on the most right) is leaving too. Shabir is a very smart guy. He will receive his Master of Science soon too. He recieves patent for his work.

Well, let me tell more things of my friend Jin. She had had a tough life at the university. Before she attends at the university, she recieves a scholarship of the university. So extra pressure is on her. During the study, she was not doing well at some moments. She has a year backlog but she fought very and very hard to catch up again. Finally she succeeds. But the nightmare is not over yet since her thesis turns out that it is not the thing she likes to do. She did her thesis at Philips company in the research field and she tells me that her colleagues are not that friendly. There are a lot of egoism. Since she is a newbie there and since she has no experience she has to fight very very very hard. Since she has to fight so hard, she has no time to keep in touch with us. Fortunately she manages to do her job well. Here is a picture with her professor:



I have asked Jin whether she likes her current life. She says: "there is no choice....I want to make carreer. But to be quite honest, I don't like that."


Mark is a calm guy. It is rarely to see him stressing. He is a very nice guy. Mark and me exchange programmes, movies and other stuff. Last years, he also joins me and Shabir with playing badminton. At our Bachelor time, we have studied together too. And when we are Master, we usually playing Chinese poker (also known as big2) at the university. We have skipped lectures too. Here I have a picture of Mark and his associate professor:




That is the story of Mark and Jin. My two friends start their carreer soon.





The moment breaks in the evening when I was in Groningen for the reunion of my Primary School classmates. The reunion is organised by Mark. All the pics can be found on this part.

It has been more than 10 years ago that I meet my old classmates. Everyone seems to be different at one side, but at the other side, everyone remains their own. I don't know how to describe the moment when I see them. But the reunion is very nice!!! There is two things that are very typical: almost all of my classmates smoke cigarettes and everyone does drink alcohol except me.

At the Primary School, we have top 3 prettiest girls. At the reunion, the prettiest girl was not present. But the second one was present. Her name is Brenda. She wants to have a picture with me. So I setup my tripod and shoot:



Brenda's look is not changed after so many years. I think she is a pretty woman. But there is one thing that she doesn't have which cannot make her perfect: the charisma. Since that lacks, she is not the prettiest of our class, I think.

Well, I am very glad to be asked to be on the photo with such a pretty lady. It is not because I like to be on photo with pretty women. Hhhmm...I don't know how to say. But if I like to be on photo with the pretty ladies, then I would have many pics with the pretty ones.

Anyway, the second lady who asks me to be with her on the pic is Emy.



Emy is now a bit fatter. I know she was a good gymnast. At the first sight, it takes me some minutes to recognise her. Emy's first boyfriend was Mark. Mark is the guy who has organised the reunion. It was a great pity that our Primary School teachers "meneer Wilmer" and "juffrouw Geertje" are both passed by. Wilmer suffers many and many years from cancer. Geertje was passed by when she goes out with her family in the sailboat. Life is wo weak. No one knows what tomorrow will be.

The last girl who I like to mention is Els.



When she was a girl, she was very small and wear glasses. Now she is pretty tall and there is no girl-ish in her anymore. Els starts with running a restaurant in Wageningen. I really want to visit her as a surprise.

The evening ends with shooting a couple of groupphotos. One of the is shown below:

Now it is Sunday! Tomorrow I have to get up very early for a course that I like to be attend. That course is Analog Integrated Circuit Design. I finish that course in Singapore, but redo this course since I wonder how this course is given in Delft. The comparison is in one respect not fair: this course in Delft is a Master course which in Singapore it is a Bachelor. Above, this course remains its complicity to understand.

I am a bit tired of doing my homework of Nuclear Physics. There are lots of things I do wrong which I do not understand why. At some respects I really under estimate this course. The pressure of this course is also present since next month I have an exam. Also, next week I have my nuclear tests too which also means that I have to prepare.

Apart doing my homework, I have also searched for some old books of the Bachelor about building filter structure. My memory becomes worse and worse. It is worse after the operation. By the way, I need those books to see how such a filter structure is built of. Within a couple of minutes I manage to get what the basic idea is. The way how to design a filter is very important for mine pacemaker. Tomorrow I can start building this structure for the application of my pacemaker.

Yesterday, at the restaurant, there are Singapore clients who have their dinner. At first sight, they seem be very cruel. They don’t talk very much and they look ‘mad’. One typical thing of them is, is that I smell something I always smell when I am in Singapore in the car of the husband of Hui Yee. It seems that many Singapore people have this smell.

By the way, I want to write what I have done this week.
Monday 6 November 2006
This day, my second quarter starts. That also means that it is the period that I have to work extremely hard. I have 8 – 9 exams. Above, I have projects and 2 essays that I have to finish. The pressure is absolutely present. When I look in my agenda, they are so many studie-related things planned. My days are also filled with lectures. Now I temporarily do not have time to meet my friends outside of Delft and Rotterdam or Groningen.

This day, it is big day for a study mate of me. It is her presentation of her Master thesis. It has been a long time ago that I see her since she did her thesis in Philips that is located in Eindhoven. By the way, we (my other study mates and me) call her Jin. Jin’s presentation was very clear and I noticed that she has lots of experience at the field where she had worked so hard in Philips now. Her mark of her Master thesis is very good too: 8!!! She was very glad since she allows to do PhD in Delft too.

Here there two photos of her:

This is Jin!


A groupphoto

Tuesday 7 November 2006
This is the day that I have the least lectures. I have a gap between the lunch-break till 15:30h. I use this break for teaching Yan for her Dutch and it is also a day for working on my pacemaker project after the lectures, which is 17:30h. This week I didn’t work on the project since I have visitors from Amsterdam: On Yi and Airin!!! I am very happy that they visit me. I invite them to have a dinner in my room. I cooked the Singapore Chicken Rice for them. Before the dinner, I made some soups. They had cold since they had been outside whole day. A soup would warm them up first, then they could enjoy the dinner. After the dinner, they must get warm. So I bought ice-cream for them. When I was in the supermarket, I doubt which ice-cream I like to buy: Hagen-Dasz or Ben & Jerry. I finally chose the Ben and Jerry.
After the dinner we watched a movie. Time flied by when we have lots of joy. On Yi noticed that it was very late and they needed to rush to get the train.

The other days were nothing special. I bought a new cable for watching TV since the old cable is very bad which there is significant noise on the screen. I did watching movie this week while I have never done that before. There is tennis at TV. My woman tennisplayer favourite was playing! She is Martina Hingis. I like her very much because she always smiles no matter if she is losing or winning the game. And I like the way how she plays: very sporting. So far I saw her plays two games. She lost one and win one.

The last thing is about the party that Eileen holds. Last Friday she gave her graduation party to her friends. I was not attended at her party since it will be very late when I go to Groningen. But I helped her with preparing the food for her friends. Her boyfriend was also present. He was sleeping on her bed because he was too tired to make a move. Well, the foods that Eileen has prepared are all Singapore: Ota, Nasi Ruma and curry. Well, I might write all these names wrong. But I know what they are. Hehehe.

There are more things of this week I like to write them down, but let me write something about today first before I continue with the things that I go through this week.

I wake up very late today!!! When I look at my mobile phone, it is 11:30AM!!! I must be very tired after rushing all the time.

In the morning I talked to some friends from Singapore on msn. Ark sends me an url of some weddingshoots of Panda. Those pics are very nice! It is a great pity that they are just few of them. But Panda says that he will send me an url with his pics. I am looking forward to it. The site that Arks sends to me is:
Panda's Wedding shoots

I like the little girl in sepia color. It is not because I like little kids in general. But it is because the photo is very nice taken. The little girl is also very cute, though :P.

Yan tells me that today it is 光棍节. I only know the first character. But I can guess what she means. On the msn, she says that today, it is my festival. I ask her why and she says that today, it is a day for single. I only know that there is Valentine. I never know that the singles also have a day to celebrate. hehehe...:P Well, what should I suppose to do today?

As usual on Saturday evening, I work on the restaurant. Today, I was too early there because I was dreaming. I was one hour too early. My boss said that it was fine since at that moment, it was very busy at the restaurant and she needed my help. After the work my boss asks me again when I will get a girlfriend. I am happy that she is not my mom. Else she will push me to get a girl :P hehehe...

Today, it is my first weekend that I open my books to do some homework. So far, I do nothing at the weekend. But this weekend, and I thought in the coming weekends, I will be very busy with my study. But I don't understand why people think that I spend so much time on my study although that is absolutely wrong.

Finally the party that I have planned, very long time ago, was on the last Saturday. The preparation was ‘horrible’. I had to organize lots of things with the help of my friends. We talked about the issues of how many things and where we had to buy. Above we also had to think how we transport so many things back to my room. Fortunately, some of my friends had a car and they helped me a lot.

So before the party started, my neighbor, Bou and me did shopping in the whole morning till afternoon. I rarely give a party since I don’t like it very much. At many parties, people have one goal: drink till you throw up. They barely know how their parents’ names are. And that is why I seldom go to parties.

By the way, the party that I organised, was not a ‘common’ party. Maybe some of the students may be disappointed of the fact that it was not the party what they expected. At least, I did not see any disappointing faces and at least I received nice handshaking of some students (after the party) for thanking me to organize such a party which gave me a very satisfied feeling.

Here I have some nice shots of the party of last Saturday.






















As you can see, at the party I have games to play: dices and big2 (or Chinese poker). And for the people who likes to be the next generation Holland Idol I have karaoke where they can paralyze all the people in my room with their songs. Although that some of them are shy to show their talent, there are also people who like to show their voice. I am glad to see that everyone was enjoying them self at my party. There were also foods provided for those who is tired and want to fill their stomach.

After the party, I bring some students to do some little ‘night’ sightseeing. We across the Erasmusbrug to take some pics. And I show them the boat (Spido) that brings the tourists around Rotterdam’s port. Some pics are shown here.








That is my 1st week in Rotterdam. Again, I have no time for myself calm down. I have to organize lot of things for the party at the whole week. Only Sunday is the day where I can think of my next plan of the second quarter. This week, new lessons start. From that moment on, I have nothing else than studying.

My schedule is very shocking. I mean, there is no one day that I am quite early. I filled with classes every day from 08:30h – 17:30h. Except at Tuesday, where I have some gaps. That gap is reserved for tuition and working on my pace-project. I still give Dutch tuition to Yan. One of my students is interested in Dutch lesson as well. I also like to teach him and I will do that at the same day and time when I teach Yan.

Last weekend I was not in Groningen, because I have organised a party for the international students in my room and the room of my neighbour. Before I continue with writing the party, I highlight what I have done before.

Last week, I have had appointments with my two friends and my teacher Dr. Ir. Serdijn. Dr stands for PhD and Ir stands for Master of Science in Engineering. It had been years ago that I have seen these two friends. We are not close friends but we grab a drink when we have time. I go to Amsterdam to meet them. I am glad to see them back after such a long time. We are all still students though. We talk and laugh a lot.
At the same day, before the meeting with my friends, I have an appointment with Serdijn. Nowadays I usually call him by his name: Wouter. That seems very unusual for the way how I approach my teacher, but in his mail he uses his name a lot. Anyway, the meeting is with no doubt about my pacemaker project. That project lasts me for a very long time, which takes me lots of time. I don’t have the feeling that I do that very well, since I pay too less attention on it and I have spent too much time on it which isn’t allowed actually. I think my mark for this project will be very unsatisfied.

Last Friday, my friend Eileen had her graduation presentation. That week, I went to her room to give my comments of the way how she prepared her presentation. And at Friday, the big day started. Her presentation was easy to understand. But there were some aspects that she had to adjust. For instance, the time-division for the subjects. Some subjects were too short discussed compare to others which there were some uncompleted discussions that are important to get a higher mark.
We were all allowed to be present at her defence of her thesis-presentation. She was at that moment very curious. I noticed that by she is uncertain of her statement. But she could stay pretty calm which most of people couldn’t do that once they get nervous.
Finally her teachers left and did discussion of the mark that they liked to give. When they came back, they say that Eileen had passed for her Master thesis with a 6,5. That mark is not what she likes to have and a very disappointment face was drawn on her face. I can understand that very well since all the energy and time you spend on it, seem not be well paid back. A 6,5 on the scale of 1 to10 for the thesis is not a good mark for a thesis. But she has to live with it since that is already a fact. Now Eileen is a Master of Science in Architecture. Below there are some pics I select at her presentation:


This is Eileen! She is testing her slides.


This is the thing she has to do for her Master thesis.


A family photo! (Without her boyfriend though.


The groupphoto of the people who was invited to be presented at her graduation.

After the Eileen’s presentation, all her friends and her family are invited to have a dinner in Rotterdam. I was also present at the dinner. These are the pics I took at the dinner.


This is the table where Eileen sits. The guy with a cyan shirt on the left corner is her boyfriend.


This is the table where I sit.

After the dinner, Eileen's parents had to leave. Only some of the friends left who went to grab a drink. There was nobody at the cafe where we finally had a drink. The first cafe where we went, was too crowd. Here are some pics:





I continue later with writing....

Currently I am at the university updating my blog. Yesterday I saw a rainbow from the window. Today I also see the rainbow again. But I don't see 1 rainbow but 2! I have seen three rainbow before, but not at my university or from the 18th floor where I work on my pacemaker project. I suppose to study for the oral that I like to do tomorrow. But since my pacemaker project encouters some problems, I have spent too much time on it to find the problems.

Now I am tired to keep my nose close my book and do a scan with my little eyes on the text. Although I a m tired, I understand things what I am reading, which is a kind of miracle. It is something strange with me since it seems that I can only pass my exams quite easy without paying too much attention on studying. For instance this summer when I have re-exams. While I am at my uncle's house for 'house-sitting' and while I was watching movies and soaps, I have my books open on the table. I watch the movies while my mind is thinking of what the book wants to say. Somehow, I still don't get how, I pass for my re-exams.

Well, after this week, I will be punished with lectures, experiments and tests that all come together in the next quarter. Hopefully I still can breath...