Baby Y's birth story

After a long while, I have some spare time to sit down and blog about my baby Y's birth story. Memory will gradually fade away, blogging is the best way to remember some of the details.

We chose to do prenatal check-up and delivery at Tropicana Medical Centre (now rebranded as Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara) simply because it is the nearest to where we live, haha. All check-ups and delivery done under Dr. Hoo Mei Lin and we were very happy with her. 

Up till around 30 weeks, baby Y seemed to be a small girl, and doctor estimated that her birth weight is going to be around 2.8kg and I was hoping for a natural birth. The baby dropped since 32 weeks, and everybody estimated she might be born a bit early. I was anxiously waiting for her arrival since 35 weeks mark, got hospital bag ready and was quite prepared for baby's arrival. Who knows the princess doesn't want to come out up until her due date. By that time, the baby already weights around 3.5kg++ and doctor gave us an option whether we want to induce the baby. My mom-in-law said I am likely to have a condition known as CPD (Cephalopelvic Disproportion), which in layman term is something like, pelvic bone being too small for baby's head to descend. So, we asked doctor whether she suspected CPD in me, and what is the failure rate of induction. Since doctor confirmed the failure rate of induction can be quite high, we agreed for a planned caesarean section at 41 weeks. 

The operation theatre charges are double on public holidays, so we chose one fine Wednesday for the delivery. The doctor helped us book the OT and anaesthetist, and issued us an admission letter. The operation time is 8:00am, so we were supposed to get admitted to hospital by 5am. I was too nervous the night before and couldn't sleep. Baby Y seemed to be too eager to come out, she kept hitting my pelvic bone with her head which made me feel very uncomfortable the whole night. I was still optimistic that she will be born naturally on that night haha.

The next day at 5am, we went to emergency department for hospital admission process. The hospital charged RM10k as deposit. I was much annoyed during admission when we were told that all the single rooms were occupied and we only had an option for either 4-bedded room or a suite room. We thought of booking rooms earlier, but the doctor told us that usually rooms are available and didn't really need pre-booking. (We found out only later that since the day before our c-section was a public holiday, many mothers choose to get induced on that particular day. Hence, almost all ward rooms were occupied.) We ended up taking the suite room which was RM600/night x 2.5 nights, this was one of the reason our bill went out of budget :(

Anyway, thanks to God, the whole operation process went very smooth. I always had an extreme phobia for needles and injection, the C-section being a major surgery was a nightmare for me. I had to keep telling myself to be brave for the sake of baby as this was the scariest thing I had ever faced in my life. The operation theatre was so cold, I couldn't find my husband anywhere until after the anaesthetist came and gave me a general anaesthesia. Nurses were helpful, they alleviated my fear and a big shout out to my anaesthetist Dr. Navin for cheering me up throughout the whole surgery. Fear aside, I felt quite secure to have Dr. Navin and Dr. Hoo performing the surgery.

The surgery started around 8:10am; under general anaesthesia, half of my body was already numb. They allowed my husband to come in just a short while before the baby was taken out, I am not sure why he couldn't be with me from the start, it would have been much easier to deal with my fear :'( I was too scared up to the point that I told myself, I am never going to deliver another baby again. However, the whole surgery was very fast, all my fears and worries vanished once I heard baby Y's first cry at 8:26am. The paediatrician informed me the baby is very healthy, but I only had a glance of her. Out they went, and disappeared again :D Later I was placed in a recovery room for about half an hour which was very cold and I felt so helpless. I couldn't wait to see my baby. During that time, the paediatrician was doing checkup for the baby, and husband was sent back to the room. Only around 10am, they send me back to my room.

On the first day, I could barely move. Not sure how long did it take until general anaesthesia wears off, but i was still under heavy pain killers. Later nurses brought baby to me and a lactation consultant came to help with breastfeeding. I wasn't well-equipped with breastfeeding knowledge and it was so stressful. With the C-section pain, it was very difficult to turn sideway to breastfeed her. We tried to feed her every 1-2 hours. Baby was good at latching but my supply didn't kick in yet so we had to struggle a lot. Eventually we were worn out and sign the consent form to allow nurses to feed formula milk on the first night. I felt quite guilty but it was the only way me and my husband could catch some rest, and baby won't be too tired crying for food.

The gynae came to check on the next morning and asked me to try to walk around. She told me that if I can bare the pain on second day, I am good to go. The nurses helped me to walk down from the bed for the first time after 24 hours lying down. It was scarier than the surgery itself! 😭I couldn't remember much details except the fact that no words to describe how painful it was. So, for expecting moms who will be going through c-section, the most terrifying day is day 2! 😅

The struggle with breastfeeding continues on day 2 as well. I still couldn't figure out the best way to hold my baby, some nurses were helpful, some were not. The c-section pain become quite bearable on day 3, doctor allowed us to discharge and we went home around 5pm.

hospital food

I'm not a fussy eater, so the hospital food was basically fine with me. They serve 4 meals a day, you will get to choose from three different types of food.

This is the list of items that hospital suggested you to bring. Since C-section patients need to stay in hospital a bit longer, I suggest you to bring extra newborn diapers and baby wipes too.

The hospital scheduled baby's check-up with paediatrician at one week after and mother's check-up with gynae at two weeks post-delivery. Baby Y had jaundice, she got pricked at her feet for blood test for 2 times (each 1 week apart). Luckily she was a hungry baby who drinks and poo diligently, so her jaundice level went down fast. 

Baby Y is already four months now, we faced a lot of challenges as first-time parents. I shall elaborate more some time later. Parenthood is both fun and difficult at the same time, but our family become more complete with our new bundle of joy!

Taiwan First Impression

After a long absence from blogosphere, I am finally back!

It has been three months that I have moved to Taiwan, let me share some of my first impressions of this country. Moving to a new place is overwhelming, I am still going through my adjustment cycle. Being the first-timer in Taiwan, a lot of little things from daily life are interesting to me, though residents might find it mundane. 

Photo of Taipei 101 building taken from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall

The language barrier

I shouldn't really be calling it a barrier, I knew enough Chinese to survive. But switching the language abruptly still stressed me out somehow. The biggest challenge for me is browsing websites and reading emails in Chinese (Taiwan use traditional Chinese). I tend to find "English" option in the websites whenever possible, only later I realized that the English versions of any website has very limited and outdated information. No choice, I have to get used to looking at Chinese characters daily. It still freaks me out whenever people called me and talked super long sentences over the phone. I am still trying to adapt the language.

Public Transport

Taipei has a much better public transport system compare to Kuala Lumpur. The MRT is so convenient and buses are quite frequent. Google Maps is my true savior commuting around Taipei, just search for any place you want to go, locate the nearest bus stop and click on it for the bus stop's name; Google Maps will give you the bus numbers that service for that particular bus stop. The trick is to alternatively check for a bus stops a few blocks away too. Finding directions and bus routes has never been easier, you are good to roam around the city with google maps. All the MRT and buses got LED display with English names for the upcoming bus/MRT stop. Buses here move at a very fast speed, you better stay alert and be careful while waiting for the bus, boarding or alighting.

Some useful links:
- Taipei MRT Map
- 台灣公車通：Bus Schedule app for Android (in Chinese)
- 55688: Taxi-booking app for Android (in Chinese)

Money Exchange

Back in KL and Bangkok, we can find money changers at almost every major shopping malls. But in Taipei, if you want to exchange money, you are supposed to head to a bank. Many people suggested me to exchange at airport. I thought I would get a better rate in town (which was always the case in Malaysia!) However, some banks didn't allow you to exchange more than $3000, and some banks will charge you NT$300 processing fees despite having to fill in the source of the money and waiting at the usual long queue of the banks. 

Food

beef noodle from Chang family halal noodle shop

Taiwanese people eat less salt and sugar, which makes you feel less guilty about eating lots of desserts, haha. Fruits and vegetables are reasonably cheap thanks to Taiwan's agricultural developments, with the exception in Typhoon seasons.  Being someone who lives to eat, the saddest part of having to leave KL was the luxury of halal food which can be found everywhere :P . Fortunately, vegetarian restuarants and cafes start becoming popular in Taiwan due to religious and health purposes. I have compiled a list of halal and vegetarian restaurants in Taipei, will share in the next post.

Some Popular Websites in Taiwan

• Job hunting - http://www.104.com.tw 
• Job hunting - http://www.1111.com.tw/
• Blogging - http://www.pixnet.net/
• Electronics Gadgets: http://www.pchome.com.tw/
• Cosmetics especially korean brands: https://www.s3.com.tw/
• Taiwanese ebay: http://ruten.com.tw/ (but required NRIC number to sign up)
• Forum (in English): http://www.forumosa.com/taiwan/

Instant Messaging
The Japanese/Korean-based IM app called LINE is widely popular here, you are expected to have a LINE account. Short Messaging culture seems almost extinct and when a Taiwanese say they sent a message to your number, it means they sent it through LINE app.

Importance of secondary ID
In Taiwan, when buying a prepaid sim card or opening a bank account, you will be asked for a secondary ID. It'll be useful to bring something like driving license/student card/NRIC/resident card,etc apart from passport when you visit taiwan.

Crowds and Queues everywhere

The crowd at XiMenDing shopping District entrance on a Friday night

Taipei is a considerably small city with around 2.5 million people, we have to get used to the crowds and queues wherever we go, especially on weekends. 

Recreation

The crowd at Taipei TianYuan Temple during Cherry Blossom season

The most popular recreational activity here in Taiwan is viewing seasonal flowers. There are different parks/temples/forest/mountain area to view different seasonal flowers. The local bus companies always arranges frequent special buses to the designated tourist spots for a short period of time. As usual, expect the crowds. 

Other notable little facts
- Taxis meter starts from NT$70
- A lot of cafes impose a rule of minimum spending(抵銷) which is normally NT$150 per person
- The metric weight unit they used here is catty (台斤) equals to 600g

- The voltage system here is 110v and most sockets are 2 pin flat

Overall, I am still exploring and enjoying here, will add in if i remember more things later..

Flashing FroydVillain ROM 1.7.0 on my HTC Hero

The news that HTC is not releasing an official Froyo update for Hero is very disappointing. Hero’s internal memory is only 256MB and not being able to install apps on the SD card is the biggest drawback. Android OS and HTC Sense UI itself have already consumed two thirds of its internal memory, and left the user very limited space to install other apps.

I’m not good at writing a tutorial, this is just to jot down the steps I’ve done to flash the FroydVillain ROM. Maybe it might someday be useful for a sad Hero user like me who’s desparate enough to flash a new ROM. Everybody device can face a different problem, so read together with:

• [Complete Guide]: How To Flash A Custom ROM To Your Android Phone With ROM Manager + Full Backup & Restore

• [Youtube] How to get Android 2.2 (Froyo) on HTC Hero

1. Root the device

Rooting has become a lot painless and easier with the emergence of “one-click root”. I used Unsiversal Androot, just one-click and it’s done.

2. Backups

Contacts: Sync Google contacts. Export Phone contacts to SD card.

SMS: downloaded and installed SMSBackup and Restoreapp from Market and exported to SD card

Calendar: Sync with Google

Apps: Sync with appBrain. Though this won’t sync back to your phone, it’s an easy to remember the apps that you used to install. Other people suggested to use apps like Titanium Backup to backup all the apps, I simply don’t think it’s necessary for me, since I don’t have much apps installed on my device anyway.

3. Search for a suitable ROM

I don’t have any confidence to flash a new ROM until I found the FroydVillain. A perfect Froyo ROM for HTC Hero. Downloaded it and saved it to the root folder of the SD card.

4. Flash Recovery Image (using ROM Manager)

This step becomes a lot handy with ROM Manager, download it from Market. “Backup Current ROM” first. Then “Flash ClockWorkMod Recovery”. After that, click “Reboot into Recovery”. (If this works, go to step 5.)

This is where I got stuck for a few days, whenever I reboot into recovery, a red exclaimation mark inside a triangle appears and it just stucks there till I take out my battery and reboot. At last, I found out that some versions of ClockWorkMod Recovery has a lot of issues. So, I go back to ROM Manager, and choose “Flash Alternate Recovery”, and I choose to install "Amon-Ra Recovery Image".(don't worry, ROM manager will handle this for you.) [Refer screenshots here]

5. Wiping data

After the phone reboot, select Wipe. Then “wipe data/factory reset” and “wipe delvik cache”. Everybody warned that skipping this step can cause an endless loop with bootloader, so be careful. [Refer to this youtube video]

6. Flashing the ROM

After all those above steps, flashing a new ROM has never been so easy. Just go back to the menu, select “Flash zip from sd card”. [Refer to this youtube video] The phone will reboot. (I got stuck again at the VillainROM wallpaper for about 5 minutes. Make me too shocked, but luckily simply rebooting solves the problem) 

Ta da.. At last, I got Froyo on my device and frees up about 170MB of internal memory.

Well, that’s the end of my attempt, first thing I felt? I missed my HTC Sense :( , now I have to acknowledged how the SenseUI has been beautifully designed. Anyway, with FroydVillain, I have freed up lots of memory and can get all my favorite applications back, there is big room for customization and it become a lot faster.

CNY around KL

CNY @Pavillion. The photo borders are set by the camera's built in frame. But I feel the photo looks a little nicer (or worse?) :D Pavillion's theme for this year - Blossom in pink, prosper in red. It's so apt for this festive season.

@Pavillion too. Phew.. just noticed I forgot to set the date and the pixels. I just got back the camera from service center last wednesday which is after two months I sent it there because of some dead pixels. They set it at 1MegaPixel, damn...

Decoration @ Times Square is the best CNY decoration for this year. Photo gets quite shaky since I try to snap it while going down the escalator.

This is apparently not CNY decoration. ;-) But it just looks so nice for me. I doesn't have the chance to watch the dragon dance this year. Anyway, hope it's not too late to wish Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy NIU（牛） year!

That very day

Once-in-a-life-time event, most people term the convocation so. I do agree. We may pursue our studies and may be attending many other convocation ceremonies, but, the undergraduate chapter will always be the most joyful and memorable.

After a long awaiting, I can call myself a graduate now! Queuing outside before procession into the great hall, the sound of Malaysia’s national anthem ‘Negaraku’ followed by IIUM song “leading the way”, sitting among the class of 2008, waiting for my turn to receive the scroll, these are indeed great feelings of attending a convocation.

Excitement and nervousness were dominating my mind alternatively since morning. Can I make it? What if I can’t? As some of you might know, I’m no fan of public speaking. “You are too soft-spoken”, a usual comment I get from people around me. I’m not the best amongst all but trust was placed upon me to represent the class as a valedictorian. I knew i have to try my best to project myself well in front of my parents, fellow classmates, fellow graduates and special guests of the great event. Those were my anxieties on the morning of 24th Aug, 2008. Anyway, at last, the stage is not that frightening anymore.

I can not claim all the credits for the achievements. Four years in IIUM hasn’t been easy, and it would’ve been harder without the committed lecturers, friendly classmates, dearest friends and cheerful hostel-mates.

To all my dedicated lecturers from KICT, from Department of General Studies and KENMS, (not to left out the co-cu trainers and SPICE), thanks for nurturing us with not only knowledge and skills but also with life experiences.

To all my fellow graduates and classmates from KICT, it has been a great pleasure to get to know all of you and has the opportunity to study under one roof. I know I’m quite hard to deal with but my days at KICT have been enlightened with all your friendly faces. I value each moments with all of you.

To my ex-roommates, with you all around, I was always filled with home-like feeling in 4 years hostel-life. Still remember all unforgettable memories like you all trying so hard to teach me Bahasa Melayu, cooking together during holidays, watching Korean-dramas overnight, going for shopping till we dropped, etc etc.

To Myanmar students community (current & ex-), studying in a country without even a single relative around, you all have been my dearest relatives.

All in all, it’s blessings from the Almighty God and support from my dearest family. Still a lot more to say, will continue later when I get back in the mood. Now, just let me end with quoting the Bahasa Melayu part of the speech, (translated by my friend & ex-roommate)

Teristimewa buat para hadirin yang hadir pada hari ini, ibubapa, sanak saudara, serta sahabat handai yang tidak jemu memberi sokongan serta dorongan sepanjang kami berada di taman ilmu dan budi ini, Kehadiran kalian menjadi saksi kepada kejayaan kami. Kejayaan kami, sebernarnya kejayaan anda juga.

Akhir kata, sekalung taniah dan selamat maju jaya kepada semua graduan sesi 2008 (dua ribu lapan).

Photo credit: Bernama (but they reported as Thinzar dari Vietnam. Do I resemble Vietnamese so much or the two countries sounds so similar?)

around KL (2)

အခုတလော ရောက်ဖြစ်တဲ့ နေရာလေးတွေရယ် စားဖြစ်တဲ့ အစားအသောက်တွေရဲ့ ဓါတ်ပုံလေးတွေပါ။ (အရင်တလောက ပုံတွေလည်း ပါတယ်။)

KLIA's view from LCCT and the cloud (1:3 - do i follow photography rule of thumb? But I think it becomes 1:1:2 roof, building, cloud :D)

KLIA's Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) - Feels like I'm at Yangon Airport :-)

Eye on Malaysia in Tasik Titiwangsa (Tasik = Lake). Just knew that this was rented for Visit Malaysia 2007 from Germany or something, and has been extended till Aug 2008. With Istana Budaya (National Theatre of Malaysia and KL Tower at the back).

Whichever angle I took, I still couldn't be able capture a satisfiable photo of this thing, even though I tried so hard to walk one round of Tasik Titiwangsa.

Captured during having an evening snack. Noticed this when we tried to check if there were any birds since we were eating at an open field. Flag + Trees + building + cloud = drew my attention to capture the moment.

If you are in Kuala Lumpur and you are missing roasted duck from Yangon, try this Roasted Duck Rice at Pavilion's Food Republic. (Don't forget to get some donuts from J.Co too, really worth queuing for it!!).

Jalan jalan cari makan... :-D

Around KL (1)

Prime Minister's office, Putrajaya

@Pavilion, KL

i don't need to mention where is this, isn't it?

accidently notice this while walking around the park.

I have been interested in photography for a long time, but never had a chance to learn it properly. I was lazy to carry cameras around so photography start becoming my favorite past-time only after i get my N73. ;)

ဒီလိုပို့စ်မျိုးကို ဘလော့ဂ်ဂါတွေက ဆားချက်တယ်လို့ခေါ်တယ်။ တစ်ချိုကလည်း ရေထိုးတယ်လို့ခေါ်တယ်။ ဒီ gadget တစ်ခု ရပြီးကတည်းက ရောက်လေရာ အရပ်မှာ ဓါတ်ပုံရိုက်တဲ့ ဝါသနာကို ရပ်လို့ မရတော့ဘူး။ အရင်ကတည်းကတော့ ဝါသနာပါတယ်။ ကင်မရာကို နေရာတကာ မသယ်သွားချင်လို့သာ။ flickr မှာ သူများရိုက်ထားတဲ့ပုံတွေကို ကြည့်ပြီး အားကျနေတာ ကြာပြီ။ native forum မှာလည်း ဓါတ်ပုံပြိုင်ပွဲကို ဝင်ကြည့်ပြီး အားကျနေတာ။ အခုတော့ ပါတ်ဝန်းကျင်ကဟာတွေကိုဘဲ စမ်းရိုက်ကြည့်ဦးမယ်။

Defining PERFECTION for human

“No one is perfect” - I’m not so sure about the origin of this philosophy, but almost everyone has long been accepting it without any argument.

I too have no comment on it, till one day, I had the following conversion with one of my friend.

IRDA: “You know, we can define perfection for human beings.”
Me: “Hmm.. how? In this case, seems you are trying to go against what so called no one is perfect.”
IRDA: “Ok, let’s see. Being imperfect is one of the attributes of human beings… Do you agree?”
Me: “I do agree that. Then?”
IRDA: “The meaning of being perfect is fulfilling certain criteria or having some kind of attributes what something/ someone is expected to have, isn’t it?”
Me: “Okay, so?”
IRDA: “By being imperfect, we have fulfilled one of the criteria of being a human being. So, we can define perfection for human beings by having an attribute of being imperfect.”

This has left me with further thoughts, so, what do you think?????

8 random facts about myself

Saya detag oleh Hazrina to write about this topic. Also being tagged by Nurul about half a year ago. Feels like writing it only now.

1. I used to be the most talkative girl in class (till grade 7). I know some of my friends will doubt about this. =)

2. Saya tahu sikit Bahasa Melayu tapi tak pandai sangat la. Mula mula, saya takut orang kerna gelap bila saya cakap Bahasa Melayu, now some people even think I’m Malaysian. Credits go to my previous roommates who tried so hard to teach me.

3. At first, I’ve chosen to study IT just because of I was afraid to join Medic. The interest grew later. Now I’m lovin’it. (planning to had McDonalds for lunch. =D)

5. During undergraduate, I (usually with Nuha) loved to stay up to finish the whole Korean dramas almost every weekend. Don’t have any doubt for it! Can it be termed as a hobby?

6. During primary school, my handwriting was ranked as one of the worst in class. I have been scolded by almost every teacher for it (until grade 6). It’s not that I have a nice handwriting now, but compare to what is before, it brought surprises to my primary school teachers when they see my high school notes.

7. Just finished Bachelor of Computer Science few months ago.

8. Can I just write 7 facts? I don’t have a very good memory on remembering things. Owh, this is another fact, I have a problem in remembering people’s faces and names easily. It takes some time. (and I just remembered that I skipped #4)

New Year Mood

New Year	Calendar	Date in Georgian Calendar	Year in calendar
New Year	Georgian Calendar	1st Jan 2008	2008
Islamic New Year (Awal al-Muharram)	Hijri Calendar	9th Jan 2008 7pm	1429 H
Chinese New Year (新年, xing nian)	Agrarian Calendar (農曆)	7th Feb 2008	4706
Myanmar New Year	KawZar Calendar (ကောဇာ သက္ကရာဇ်)	17th April 2008	1370

Rapid KL 万岁!

Yesterday is not my day.. Got so upset with LRT train which took me about one hour and 45 minutes to arrived back at my home instead of the normal time - 35 minutes. It was raining cats and dogs in KL yesterday evening; hence I decided to set off from office a bit late. By the time I arrived at the station, I realized everyone might have had the same thought as me, seeing the long queue. All the train schedules had been delayed; the KLCC station got so congested with the crowd plus the train-delayed announcements.

After a long wait, I finally got in to the train, but the train remained still for 5 minutes. Normally, standing 15 minutes is not a big deal but a 5 minute-standing in a sardine-packed train was the worst feeling ever. The announcement which says “Due to technical difficulties, the train will go slower” made me wanted to cry out loud. The train behaved the same manner too in the preceeding stations – Ampang Park, Damai, Dato Keramat & Jelatek.

When it arrived at Setia Wangsa Station, one staff shouted “Semua Keluar!!!!!” (which means Everyone get out). With that frightening command, the train had been emptied within a minute, and it proceed its journey after leaving all of its passengers at Setia Wangsa Station. I just could’t think of the logic behind leaving all passengers just like that. Worries and frustrations appeared on everyone’s face. With great patience, all the people queued again and waited for other trains to come. Finally, I arrived home and cried out loud for a relief.

HANDPHONE GOT STOLEN

My hand phone got pick-pocketed yesterday on KTM train around 6:30 PM. With the great system of Holink, I could be able to recover my lost SIM card in less than half an hour (now I know the value of registering pre-paid card numbers). But all my contact list can’t be recovered. So, if I asked “may I know whom am I speaking to?” when you happen to call me, please don’t get me wrong. I really have lost all the contact list.

This is my first time ever in life that my thing got stolen by a pickpocket. I should just blame myself for being too careless. Yesterday, I went to midValley for movie - National Treasure II. After departing with my friend who has to go back to Cheras, I took KTM alone to come back. When the train arrived at the KL Central Station, I could feel something just leave my bag. I saw all three zips (of three compartments of bag) were opened when I checked it, the hand phone was gone but my wallet was still there. I think the train probably stopped before the pickpocket could reach my wallet which was in the other compartment of my bag. I would say it’s a lucky thing out of an unlucky event. It’s easier to get a hand phone back compare to calling the bank to block the ATM card, re-applying the immigration card, etc etc. (Actually there’s only RM 12 left in my wallet.) The blame should be on my habit of wearing the bag at the back which makes it so easy any picket pocket to get an eye on it.

I felt like I saw that pick-pocket, but since all people were rushing out of the train, he easily got lost from my sight in that big crowd. If I were with a friend, at least I could be able to call my number immadiately, maybe I could recognize my ringtone. So, if you were me, what would you have done? Calling out for help? Shouting at that place? Crying around? I know no one would care. Sigh..
Goodbye SE K608i...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? (from a forwarded email)

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 #

A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

Proud for KICT

Just now, I happened by to browse through KICT’s APC-ACM-ICPC Programming Contest photo gallery, an event took place on 4th-5th December, 2007.


… I feel proud and delighted to see the event hosted by KICT.
… Makes me kinda miss my student life.
… Remind me of the good old days in programming contests.
… The participants’ joy, anxiety, nervousness, satisfaction, frustration, unity, impatience, concentrations and such such feelings that they might have had encountered during the 5 hours were seemed transferred towards me, as browsing through the gallery.

Congratulations to the winners! And of course, even if you are not the winner, I congratulate you for having enough self-confidence to join the competition.

Let me end this with a few quotes regarding competitions:

• * Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition - in having put forth the best within you. (Henry J. Kaiser)
  

• * Besides winning, the most fun thing is getting out there and mixing it up with friends; it's the competition. (Al Unser, Jr.)
  

• * Competition is the whetstone of talent. (Traditional Proverb)

• * Enjoy the successes that you have, and don't be too hard on yourself when you don't do well. (Patty Sheehan )
  

~ Happy Programming ~

Last Saturday

I attended a friend’s wedding at Shah Alam last Saturday. Since I knew both the bride and the groom, I decided to go though I never know how to go to Shah Alam. This cute little bride has written a ‘how to’ for getting there when she gave me the invitation card. The reception was from 12:00 - 4:00pm. I budgeted that I would arrive there around 1:30PM. Requested a friend to accompany me, we set out for LRT around 12:00 noon.

Unexpectedly, the train halted suddenly somewhere near nowhere of Wangsa Maju station. After about half an hour, it started moving at a speed of a tortoise with sudden breaks whenever it wanted and taking rest about 5 minutes at each station. I was just worried that the food is going to finish. (not kidding  ) Luckily, we arrived at the reception around 3:00PM, greeted the bride and the groom then rushed for food.

Heartiest congratulations to Naufal and Hasnah!! Tahniah kepada Naufal dan Hasnah, semoga berkekalan hingga ke akhir hayat.

This is my first time ever attending a (pure) Malaysian wedding. But couldn't able to get a full picture of Malay customs since i get there quite late. Met a few friends, chit chatted, observed the people around, time came to go back. We took a cab to the Shah Alam KTM station. Then, another problem started here. After the driver drove for a few minutes, he started saying that he didn’t know the way since he drove a passenger from KL to Shah Alam. The driver was hoping that I would tell him how to go. How am I supposed to know? Just imagine how I get back to KL with my poor Bahasa Melayu with his hard to understand BM.

Do{
Drive();
Stop();
askDirectionFromPeopleAtBusStop();
found = foundTheWay();
}while(found != ‘y’);

After going through that loop for about 5 times, he got exhausted. Then he started asking people the way to KL Central. The driver offered to send us to KL Central Station by RM20. We agreed for RM 17 after bargaining. With worries on all the way back, we get back to KL finally. Huhuuuuuuuuuuuuu…… What an exciting day!

credits: photo from Humaimee

Gmail's group chat and smileys

I just noticed gmail's new features: group chat and smileys. (smileys doesn't come out this nice on IE, the screenshot beside is on Firefox.) Nice, huh.. there are tons of nicer smileys in YM.. but whatever, i prefer gtalk to any other IM services.








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Final Exam Result

My final year final semester's final exam result is out today.. But sadly, when i try to check, the following page appears! sob.. sob..


First time and last time i ever got a compound throughout this four years. Just wanna save the screenshot of this page. as a remembrance..

It makes me looks like a bad student, huh??

Follow up: With the great advice from a friend, i'm able to check the results from Graduation Audit. Then the CGPA, just calculated myself. Just knew that many students were surviving this way without settling compound

Exams.. exams

Already get done with all the exams today. (As i used to say, last paper of my student's life though a lot of people argued on this fact. :) )

I could answer today's paper quite well (except i forgot to bring ruler and hence my student card was used to draw lines, lol, a multipurpose card, indeed!!), not like the first paper when i woke up 15 minutes before 9:00 and arriveed to exam hall 15 minutes late. My gosh!!! that's the first time and last time happened in my whole student's life. I couldn't think of "what if".

Still can't get back to blogging yet. A long to-do-list is queueing on my notice board. I used to wait and enjoy the last day of exam every semester, but this time, it havn't become a being awaited day..

Life still goes on...

FYP CS showcase

Final Year Project showcase မနေ့ကဘဲ ပြီးသွားပါတယ်။ review ကို စာမေးပွဲ ပြီးတော့ အားမှဘဲ ရေးတော့မယ်။ လာရောက် အားပေးသွားတဲ့ သူငယ်ချင်းတွေကော၊ YM, gtalk, blog ကနေ အားပေးတဲ့ သူတွေကိုကော အထူးဘဲ ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်။ (သဉ္ဖာ့ project က အောက်ဆုံးတစ်ခု.. ပိုစတာ လှတယ်မလား။ သဉ္ဖာလုပ်ထားတာတော့ မဟုတ်ဘူး။ ဟီး...) Wednesday က တစ်ညလုံး ပြင်ဆင်နေလို့ အိပ်တောင် မအိပ်လိုက်ရဘူး။ မနေ့ကလည်း တစ်နေကုန် (10:00AM - 5:00PM) ရပ်ပြီး စကားတွေဘဲ ပြောနေရတော့ တော်တော် ပါးစပ်ညောင်းသွားတယ်။ နေ့လည်စာတောင် မစားလိုက်ရဘူး။ တစ်နေကုန်လုံး စမူဆာ သုံးခုနဲ့ ပြီးသွားတယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့် နောက်ဆုံးတော့လည်း ပြီးသွားတာဘဲ..

Overall, I'm satisfied with it!!! Thanks to everyone .. FYP supervisor, coordinator, my group mate, all my other FYP mates and everyone who has directly and indirectly helped us..

A busy day

Guess how busy am i.. time is running out... only 17 days to go!!!
During the final week of semester as usual, i have become a multi-tasking lady.
Why not give a guess what things i'm up to??? =)

My last 20 days of being a student

Some of you might get little surprised if i say i went to school at the age of two and a half (of course it's a pre-school anyway)?? It's quite common in my country. Thinking back, from that age till now, about 20 years, I spent my life more at school rather than at home.

My student life approaches to an end (maybe for a few years or forever). When i noticed there is only 20 days left for me being a student, it makes me think about my life "Thinzar - a student". :)

Hardly could i remember in my life so far that i have a long vacation. During my primary & high-school life, i was at BEHS from June to February and went to chinese school during whole summer vacation. After high school board exam, i was back at Chinese school again till i started my college. A month after I finished my second year in Myanmar, i continued my days as university student here in IIUM. Never did i had vacation more than a month.

After 20 days, Thinzar is no more a student. Am i happy or sad???? I also have no answer.

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BEHS - Basic Education High School