Let the chips fall where they may

Finally I'm done with all of my projects for this semester including Final Year Project presentation. I can now exhale in relief that everything is done, albeit not in a perfect way.

Today was our FYP presentation, and Alhamdulillah, it went well and smoothly. Our examiners were kind enough not to shoot us with difficult questions. I'm grateful to be under Dr. Naim's supervision for that he helped us a lot upon completion of our project. I'm thankful to have Ain as my partner as well. All in all, our aims were fully achieved. ;)

However, throughout this semester, there was a moment when I thought I couldn't handle everything that I blamed myself for not being able to be queen in my own agenda. But I keep telling myself that everyone has their own problems and of course, to compare my problem with other people's problems would be somewhat ridiculous. That's why when I felt like giving up, I keep reflecting upon my days and try to appreciate every single thing in my life. Never cease to appreciate every single thing around ourselves; be it living or non-living things. Sometimes even a small little thing could play an important role in our life.

What's left now is final examination coming in few days. I have yet to do my revision. I'll hit the books in a maximum speed.

Still, this is just a beginning.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."— Winston S. Churchill

"O God, there is nothing easy except that which You have made easy, and You make hardship easy if You will."

Got To Go

I love this song by NajwaMahiaddin. She's one of the rising local singers. The song keeps playing in my mind. BTW, that guy in the video is cute..!! Haha.

Feelings

pic credit: imgfave

Bucket List

I have a hectic schedule these days. Day and night I've been working on my assignments, projects and FYP. I'm not really good at handling stress so in times I feel like I'm just plain stressed out.

But I keep telling myself, this too shall pass. I do have a lot of things in my mind about what should I do next. Besides, my final exams are just around the corner and I have yet to do any revision. Sigh.

I thought to myself, I wanted to prepare for my exams earlier than before but it seems like it's not gonna happen.

Somehow along my hectic weeks, I'm thinking about my self-made theory. I have a theory that you can't tell people if you want something to happen very badly. It's like the more you tell people, the lesser chances of that something to occur. The same case with wanting something so badly, it's like once you tell someone about the thing that you want, you're gonna notice that thing that you want is no longer in your circle of getting it. Get it?

Hmm..well it's just my own theory but it's proven to be true for some cases.

Right now, I do have a few lists of things that I want to have and I hope it will happen to me. Usually when I want something so badly, I restrain myself from telling other people. But somehow lately, I kinda violate my own rule and began to tell people about what I've been wanting. And now, I personally think that those things that I want will never happen to me. And I think I'm not gonna get it anyway. I know this theory sucks but I can't help myself. I'm falling for my own theory. Haha.

I do know that if you want something badly enough, you have to make it work, make it happen and not just relying on some stupid theory. If you're determined to get some things, eventually it will be yours. Hopefully.

I do believe that sometimes one simple mistake can lead to irreparable damage. Oh I hope I'm able to avoid such thing.

P/s: Dear Lord, help me to strengthen my patience to withstand the hardship and grant me the will to continue being strong.

Anas reported that the Prophet, peace be upon him, used to supplicate, “O Allah, there is no ease except what You make easy, and you alone can turn a difficulty into ease.” (Ibn As-sinni)

"Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream."
— Laozi

Angles

Well I'm glad to say that I've listened to Angles, The Strokes' newest album.

I like Taken For A Fool, Games, Life Is Simple In The Moonlight, Call Me Back and let's just say all. Haha.

You can stream the new album online in full. Go here : TheStrokes

The album is set to released worldwide on 22nd March 2011.

And here's the link to album review by Rollingstone

Hard to Explain

"Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering"

~Lucas Scott, One Tree Hill

p/s: It's hard to explain. Some things are better left unspoken.

Natural disaster

Well my heart goes out to all the victims in Japan. They had a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Even though Japan is known to be well prepared for such disaster, still no amount of preparation can actually kill the inevitable damage and loss of life when it comes to such massive natural disaster.

It's true that we can only plan things but not everything we plan goes accordingly. We will never know what things await us in the future. Only God know.

I was shocked and scared when I watched the video of the tsunami.

Seriously what would you do if you were in their shoes? Things happened like a streak of lightning. It was unbelievably fast. Can you imagine 8.9 magnitude quake with 7 meters tsunami wave?

Pray for them and if you can help them in any way like donate some money or what, feel free to do so.

P/s: I feel like I'm playing around too much. :(

The Strokes Fever

Here's the video of The Strokes performed new single 'Life Is Simple In The Moonlight' on Saturday Night Live.

I can't wait for Angles... I fell in love once again. Grrr.. They're effing back babyyy...!!

'To forget the love we never felt...'

'Don't try to stop us'

*the video has been removed but I do have the video if anyone missed to see it.
You can also go to official The Strokes site to watch the video: TheStrokes


By the way, here's the lyrics. I've got it from Deirg . But there are things he couldn't hear as well. I tried to put an effort to figure what was Julian saying but still can't help it. Let's just wait for the whole lyrics to come out soon. ;)

Animals on TV singing about something that they once felt,
Theres no one I disapprove of more or root for more than myself,
I wanted to pretend that it was better, better, better on the phone,
I didn’t wanna tell you I was jealous, jealous, jealous and alone

So we talk about ourselves and how
To forget the love we never felt
All the old jokes that worked so well
(it’s sad but I have NO idea what he says here ha)

Don’t try to stop us, don’t try to stop us, don’t try to stop us,
Get out of the way!

Got to get to climb your tree in the light of the living ghost I see,
She sees her father in that old mans eyes while secretly he stares at her thighs,
And those on TV singing about something they felt had some point
I wanted to t-tell you it was better, better, better but what’s the point?

As I watch the film, the drapes appear
And the door was closed for 40 years
Oh, sweetheart what we don’t wanna hear
As we hide what’s really hereee…

(solo)

He is coming from a part of hell,
Where lightning (?) don’t go down well
He can tell that where oblivion is a diction and routine as well
Making fools out of the best of us, making robots of the rest of us
In our tale to tell in America today, there’s a crime just like going away so…

Don’t try to stop us, don’t try to stop us, don’t try to stop me,
Get out of the way!

P/s: Valensi looked hot and super cool..!! The guitar solo was awesome.

Weigh My Decision

Last night I had post MUROC party with those who are involved and it was so much fun that I miss them so much after the party ended. ;) We ate pizzas, played some games and I swear I laughed so hard last night that I think my heart would fall out of place if it's not inside my body. HAHA.

"Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect."

— Margaret Mitchell

But today I woke up to another mystery. Heh? It's not a mystery like in a movie but my own dilemma or my self-inflicted mystery.

Well I'm weighing my decision but I'm not sure which side should I weigh more..I'm contemplating. A small part of my heart says that I should render to the notion of accepting things like that but another big part of my heart says that I should not or I must not agree to that kind of notion. I wonder how would it be if I were to accept it?

I don't like having measuring risks but sometimes it's inevitable. I'm not sure what should I do. I keep reminding myself that not everything we plan goes accordingly to what we have had in our mind. How had I let myself get to this point, where I had to learn me..? hmm..

What if I say someone is being responsible in a wrong way? Other people spoke, and I tried to keep up with the translations. But somehow along the way, we seem to be lost in our own translations. It's like everyone spoke in their own language and other people trying to translate it but the meaning was not conveyed yet. No one is there yet. This is my metaphor again.

Mom said that I'm a grown up already and she said she knows I'm going to make the right decision. I hope I'm doing the right thing as of today. ;)

"...even the most independent people sometimes needed help. And if I'd learned nothing else from my life thus far, it was that you don't always end up where you think you're going."
— Margaret Peterson Haddix (Just Ella)

"Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.

No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control, and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded.

Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything.

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it - which of these two attitudes is the least destructive? "
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)

The Strokes - Under Cover Of Darkness

Here's the official video of Under Cover of Darkness by The Strokes.
OH MY GOD. Julian is effing hot and cute. I'm glad to watch The Strokes being all together again. ;)
This has made my day. =)

MUROC 2011

It's been 3 days since me and my friends got back from MUROC 2011 which took place at UNIMAP, Perlis. But the memories are still vivid. I really enjoyed having all of my team mates, college mates and even new friends there. Seriously the event was so fun even though we lost and by lost I mean we only managed to get 7th place out of 12 teams, I'm still glad I had the chance to participate in this event and be part of it.

I've been busy for the last few months preparing for our fire fighting robot but now I'm glad that it's all over and it ended in a happy way that me and my team mates got a lot of experiences, knowledge and the most precious thing is that we build stronger relationship among each others.

I'm lucky to have such an awesome team mates, Bro Mail a.k.a laoshi (my laoshi is my senior), and fellow friends who are always there by my side. We went through a lot of things, sharing almost every single thing; happiness, sadness etc. I'm thankful that even when I had my emotional breakdown moment, all of them were there to support me. Not to forget, an infinite thanks to laoshi. He's one of a kind and being kindhearted he is, he helped us a lot (like A LOT). He was there from the very beginning till the end and we learned a lot from him too. Xie xie laoshi!! In a nutshell, all of them are super duper AWESOME. (^_^)

For fire fighting robot, 1st place: UPM, 2nd: UITM S.A and 3rd and 4th place: UNIMAP. For our university, we tested our robot in our own field, the robot's movement was pretty okay but once we were in the real field, the problem occurred. We had few problems with our robot movement since the field we had in our lab was quite smooth as opposed to the real field in UNIMAP. Since we're using encoder to count the rotation, once the robot moves on the rough terrain, it kinda affect the robot's movement. You know once the robot got stuck, it still increment the count of rotation and it will then affect the distance measurement thus the robot will make a wrong turn. We had problems with our sensors as well since we only used two IR sensors (due to our budget limitation) compared to other institutions, most of them used at least 5-6 sensors.

Over all, even though we lost, I'm glad that I joined this competition since everyone is really friendly there and I noticed this event is a whole lot different from ROBOCON. It's somewhat interesting to look at other institutions' robots, like how they built their robot, what kind of sensors they used, what kind of IDE etc. We managed to exchange some ideas here and there.
I think if time permits, we're gonna join this competition once again next year. We'll see later since we're graduating soon. Haha.

Despite of everything I said about how happy I was, deep down inside I'm quite disappointed with myself. At first, I managed to balance everything; classes, quizzes, fyp, Mandarin class, fire fighting robot etc but towards the end, I've become heedless. I've thrown away my responsibilities as a student. I skipped classes and quiz in order to finish the robot. It's my fault and now I'm trying to catch up everything that I've missed for the last 2 weeks. Wish me luck. ;)

Once again, I'm writing to say that I'll keep these memories forever. We had so much fun together. Thanks for those involved, those who offered support and encouragement, and thanks for the amazing journey. Love you guys..!! =)

Here's our fire fighting robot:

We used Pinguino as our IDE.

Can you spot the cute sticker there?

Here's my chance to promote my laoshi's company: UMMATECH

Go and check their site.. You can buy range of stuffs needed for your projects and you can even ask them for project consultation.

Here are rope climbing robots from our university:





And the rest are robots from other universities; UPM, UITM, USM and many more.

P/s: All photos credit to my team mates, Najlaa, Ean, Ain and Kawthar.