LewsTheri's

A treat for myself

Just yesterday, I bought myself two books. Well, the initial intention is to get Aya something since she's been so supportive of myself and my priorities. It dawned on me that perhaps I should get her something as a show of my appreciation and affection for her. So perhaps a book or two for her would be good, especially when she's bored in Sydney after studying and sleeping like a ^0^ heheh...
@~~

I'm gonna get a big whacking for this ..

So the first that I bought was Michael Moore's 'Dude, where's my country?'. Well, here's a free chapter. The second one is 'The curios incident of the dog in the night-time' by Mark Haddon. Here's another free chapter. Both have funny titles and should be quite interesting books.

I bought them at WHSmith in Civic, opposite the Canberra Centre. Apparently they are having sales there now and I bought a cool pop-up booklight with just 5 bucks since I bought over 30 bucks of books. It's so cool that I want to get another one or two. So I called them up to see if I can still purchase th booklight at the same price and they said, 'Yes!' Will be dropping by to grab them.

In the mean time, the Business Office of the research school has approved my conference/personal trip in November so I will be booking my flight pretty soon.

On a different note, ProjectYuka had been iced. This wasn't much too unexpected because we lack the time and actually the commitment to pursue this. So to cut our losses down, we decided that the best thing to do is to let keep this suspended for the time being while each of us go our separate ways. Maybe in 2/3 years time, we might have the financial support, technical know-how and the time to work on this. The market will probably change and we will adapt. This was just a good learning experience for me in terms of entrepreneurship, IP management and company start-up experiences.

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Chapter 227 of the Naruto manga series will not be released this week, according to a statement in last week Jump. The issue of Jump that featured Chapter 226 of Naruto was billed as a "double issue". So it is looking like we will have to wait until next week until we can continue on in the story, that is unless a miracle happens as it has in the past. Here's to a whole week of waiting!

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DARN!!

This happened in a little town in Newfoundland, and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it's absolutely true.

This guy was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a very dark night in the middle of a terrible rainstorm; and no cars were on the road. The storm was so strong the guy could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly, he saw a car come toward him and stop. The guy, without thinking about it, got in the car and closed the door and only then did he realize that there was nobody behind the wheel!

The car started to move very slowly. The guy looked at the road and saw a curve coming his way. Petrified, he started to pray, begging for his life. He had not come out of shock when, just before the car hit the curve, a hand suddenly appeared through the window and moved the steering wheel. The guy, now paralyzed in terror, watched how the hand appeared every time the car was approaching a curve Finally, although terrified, the guy managed to open the door and jump out of the spooky car. Without looking back, the guy ran through the storm all the way to the nearest town.

Soaking wet, exhausted and in a state of utter shock the pale,visibly shaken guy, walked into a nearby bar and asked for two shots of Whisky. Then, still trembling with fright, he started telling everybody in the bar about the horrible experience he just went through with the spooky car with no driver and the mysterious hand that kept appearing. Everyone in the bar listened in silence and became frightened, listening to this eerie story, hairs stood on end when they realized the guy was telling the truth because he was crying and he definitely was not drunk!

About half an hour later two guys walked into the same bar and one said to the other, "Look son, there's the asshole who got into the car while we were pushing it!"

Conference Paper Finished!

Yay!, It's finally finished. Everything's all set to be sent. Gonna do that probably tomorrow! Will be putting up it on my website or here's the link so that maybe someone interested will be able to look at it. It's basically stuff I've got in my honours thesis but some information are new and the details are quite concise.

I've already been accepted as one of the 40 presenters in this conference. SMART'04 is probably a small conference but it is also part of the bigger conference on material science and technology in general. So that achievement should be quite high considering this is my first year.

And if I'm lucky enough, our paper might be accepted in a prestigious journal. Getting accepted in a journal is usually more prominent than by a conference because journal articles are always peer-reviewed or checked by experts. This being said, it does not mean that a conference paper to be accepted in the conference proceeding isn't important, especially if it's an international conference.

Either way, this will be the second written work, since I've started my PhD, with my name on it. The first one was actually written mostly by Roy but I helped out with the experiments and results. We're actually quite good in our supervisor-student relationship and sometimes we have lunches together and just talk about things other than the PhD.

Anyway, now that the paper's ready, it does not mean that I am going to be free as you probably have read in my previous entry. I've gotta do an assessed presentation for my 'Autonomous Mobile Robots' course next Wednesday on 'Shape Memory Alloys in Mobile Robotics' so that should keep me busy for a while.

Things I need to do:

• SMART'04 Paper which is due this Sunday, 15 Aug 04. I've basically finished writing up the paper. My supervisor had a look at it on Monday and made some comments and suggestions. Just need to update that and do a few touch-ups here and there. That would be the first conference paper that I plan and write but the second that contains my name as one of the authors.
• My main concern for the coming two weeks are the two courseworks which I am currently doing. The first is 'Linear Systems Theory' and the other ' Autonomous Mobile Robots' . The second wasn't too bad, but it is actually a speed course where we have a seminar/lecture two hourse everyday for two weeks. No assignments except for a 30-min presentation in a certain research area. The other coursework is more time consuming in terms of preparation and research. There's a two-hour tutorial/discussion every week for 5 weeks. We have to prepare one chapter and try to do some selected problems prior to the class. Sounds easy? Well, consider one chapter in a graduate textbook as one complete course to be given at the undergraduate level and also the short time frame for us to study, then you'll know how difficult it is to be in my shoes.
• Now that I've finally been granted my Australian permanent residency, I will be speaking with the Research Students and Scholarships Office of ANu in regards to my change of status and the consequences of this change. Hope to push for scholarship top-ups and other benefits and will have to see. Another thing I will discuss with them is my intention of suspending the PhD program and scholarship for 6 months early next year. It's more of a personal motivation because I think I need some time off after working so freaking hard for my studies and livelihood. Not that I will totally become a jobless and aimless person for the 6 months, but it would mean not having to submit for any PhD program deadlines. It would allow me to freely pursue my research, interest and business venture . Don't get me wrong, you'll still see me at RSISE or working on my SMA project but you probably won't see me working 9 to 5 in the office. That will be something to consider as there might be consequences to my suspension, most importantly how it would affect my scholarships.
• It's also time to plan for my trip to Singapore for the SMART'04 conference in November. Just been informed that my brother's wedding will be held on 2 December 04 instead of 31 Dec. So that means that I may probably just make one single, RSISE-sponsored trip backl to Singapore and Malaysia. I'll just need to purchase connecting flight tickets between Penang and Singapore. This would also mean that I may not be going back to Malaysia during Christmas this year. Instead, I might consider Chinese New Year in 2005.
• I think that I'm gonna be making myself and my family proud in the next few years. This is no boosting nor is it egoism. This is purely an expression of my determination and my feeling. I'm gonna be putting a lot of effort in making things work and it sure will be difficult. There's no easy way to a successful and fulfilling life. But first, my parents' advice, that health will be equally important. So good food and enough rest everyday... support and love from my loved ones... that should keep me on track.

The research school always advertises seminars or presentations of students, researcher or visiting academics on the mailing list. This was one of them :

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I'm turning Two Crazy Monster BirtdayParty Extravaganza
Alice May Fletcher
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Date: 7-August Saturday
Time: 11:00-1:00
Location: 6 Lomman Place, Kambah
ph 61613324Title: I'm turning Two.

Speaker: Alice Fletcher

Abstract:Alice is turning Two and is going to celebrate with a crazy monster birtday party extravaganza and you are invited!There will be an eclectic range of finger food as well as cake, balloons, wine and coffee.

Bio:Alice was born two years ago and has been growing ever since.Her research interests include inserting playdoh different places,seeing what surfaces crayon works on and animal impersonations.
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Robotics mailing list
Robotics@mail.rsise.anu.edu.auhttps://mailman.rsise.anu.edu.au/listinfo/robotics

New Photos Uploaded!

Hie guys! I've got photos of my conferring of degrees ceremony, trip to Kiama to see the blowhole as well as some photos of my birthday. Enjoy!