Work starts, I'm moving out..

Tomorrow, June 1st 2009, marks the 1st day of my career after graduation. Though this job position only secures me until the end of this year, I'm pretty sure it won't stop there. 

Very excited. Have been looking forward to it since I got the offer. Later today I'll be moving to Cedar Rapids, an industrial city exactly 100 miles east of Ames. Working life over there should be dull. I'll see what I can potentially do with the city's current capability. The best city in the States remains to be Ames, where all my friends are for the moment.

Life have been busy since I got back from Vegas. Spent a week helping Rachel settle down in Sioux City and her driving ability, which was very worth it. ANother week was spent in Ames. Most of the time were spent packing my room for moving out, getting rid of stuff, poker, chillaxing, and used car hunting. Too much poker makes me sick, I don't understand how my friends can play it so much more often than me.

While sorting out in my room I found a lot of interesting documents and stuff that reminsced a lot of memories in ISU. Those were priceless, buuuuuuuuuuut I decided to throw some of them away, after I took some pictures of them. Here are some of them~

Welcome to ISU! Please choose to pay by check, cash, or checking account.

Reached the States on the 11th of August 2006. That's almost 3 years ago. So many things have changed in me and the people around me. So much dramas, achievements, experiences, late night nonsense, snow, laughter, etc etc etc..

My temporary 9 digit University ID number.

1st seminar attended in ISU, the 4.0 guranteed seminar. Er..

The freddy court!

They took my wallet and put those inside. 

This is my favorite! Our 1st official meeting minutes of the committee. Ahh those were really dam good times. 

The MCN '08 lion dance performers'n list.

My last appearance in DubH ISU Hip Hop club. Those were good times too~

My 1st dance performance of DubH held in Fisher Theater! I still remember I danced to Justin Timberlake's Summer love and Beyonce's freakum dress~

A souvenir.

Don't know what happened to the top part of the paper.. kena syrup bandung maybe.

It's the dikir barat choreograph paper! I used to write or draw the steps out on papers just to make sure the sequence and beats were ok. Swim fly, fly swim~

More dikir barat..

The list of performers for dikir barat.

Good times desu ne. Honto ni. Back to pack pack.. 

The receptions

A quick post here!

I have graduated. Commencement took place yesterday afternoon. I am really very happy!

I attended all 3 graduation reception (International students, Industrial Engineering dept, and the general commencement). It'll be a mistake if I've missed either 1 of them.

Rachel hosted the international students graduation reception! Although I'm the only Malaysian to attend the event, I'm glad I did. I had to chance to speak on the podium, telling everyone how thankful I am for my loved ones. Glad to meet some of my international friends too!! Sad thing is, we had to say good bye..

For the Industrial Engineering dept reception, I gotta say it was very very professional and well organized. Again, I had the chance to speak on the podium, thanked the people I wanted to thank all the time, shared my future plans and some of my most memorable IE moments. Had a great time talking to my professors! Very nice gifts tooo.. All in all,  it's a very warm feeling hanging out with the IEs for the last time.

Spring 09 commencement: Awesome.

(I slept thru some of the speeches.. but.. still good!)

Parents are good over here. Still sleeps a lot.

I'm off to Vegas in a few hours!

Happy mothers day! And congratulation to all graduates!

More posts on graduation when I'm back!

"I'm so excited..", Bee.

YOU GOTS CLICK PLAY, HD,  THEN FULLSCREEN NOW!

Colorful feelings..

Optimistic for the critical exam on Monday.

Confident that Pinky can proceed to malaysian dreamgirl2's top 3 smoothly.

Satisfied after a meal of Bruegger's asiago parmesan bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese.

Guilty for sleeping too much today.

Very happy because my parents will be reaching Ames in less than 5 days!

Excited to attend the graduation ceremony. 

Excited for the Vegas trip with my parents. 

Excited for parts of the Vegas trip without my parents.

Sad because there's no more spring break for me.

Relieved because quizzes, assignments, group project, absent, and labs are history.

All in all, 

it's a colorful season. 

It's Spring. =)

Reli!?

Hyvee bread smells bad. Today is Earth day, so when is Sunday? Today is Rena's birthday too. Kudut is made out of coke and cheeseburgers. Treant hates asian chicks. Oil price is dropping! Finance crisis gg'ed Freddie Mac. I'm still a noob in brushing my teeth.
And oh! Zi Ting now has a blog: it's a mistake dot com. =P

Lessons Learned

Few days ago, my senior design team conducted a presentation at Rockwell Collins. It was a "report out" presentation, sort of a formal type, where we presented our results on the ideas we proposed few months ago.

Though we were prepared, but based on our performance, I think there's a lot to learn from. For exp don't let Ted drive. etc.

Later that day, I had the privileage to attend a  professional development workshop organized by the IEs, the focus was speech design and delivery! Had a great time with the inspiring speaker who taught us a lot. 

So here are a few lessones I learned that might be benefitial:

1. You gotta give a good Impression on your 1st minute of the presentation. A very very good 1st minute impression will make the audience excited about you talking. A bad 1st minute impression has put an engineer into sleep that day.

2. Begin a presentation with an agenda is unavoidable, really. However, if an agenda was created for the sake of doing it, it creates no value. A good agenda shuold have a good flow, good sequence, appropriate amount of topics, and clearly numbered.

3. Ted can't drive! It was the part where there's an optimus prime looking truck raced side to side to a compact car, while Vin Diesel (Ted) driving his compact car tries to do a front flip! or maybe 360 I really don't know! But failed. obviously. So for that 2 hours drive back to Ames I was so awake.

4. Focus on what audience needs to see, not what you want to show. So hide those 5 pages time studies data, 8 pages systemic layout planning, details, and explanations. 

5. After N months of hard work, what's the impact?

6. During questions and answers section, it's OK to say "I don't know, let me get back to you later".

(From the workshop)

7. Have a plan B if things don't go as you expected.

8. Talk to the audience, not your notes.

9. Have a good rate of activity: Slow down you gestures. Breath, speak, pause. Breath, speak, pause. Hold longer eye contact with each audience member (your rate of speech will slow down).

10. When answering a question, rather than beginning your answer with "er" or "uhm", use the person's name, then respond. 

Hope it's helpful!

Counting down the days..

1 day - Exam: Thermodynamics

2 days - Exam: Operations Supply Chain Management

2 days - Due: pattern allowance lab report

3 days - Due: CNC G code assignment

4 days - Perform @ VEISHEA parade

9 days - Due: senior design final report

9 days - Due: injection molding lab report

11 days - Event: Malaysian Graduation Night

14 days - Presentation: senior design final presentation

17 days - Due: Manufacturing fee/Collecting Incentive project

18 days - Due: Thermo power plant project

18 days - NO MORE CLASSES!

21 days - Finals week still got 4 exams

23 days - Parents arrive Iowa

24 days - International graduation reception

26 days - Graduation Commencement

Kai wan siao. It's not easy to graduate lor. I think this will be my busiest month of my college days (in terms of academic). I'll post more pics if time allow me to do so.

Why la do me like this.

ISU Blood Drive

Yes.

For the first time, I decided to donate blood. 

I'm still unsure of the reason I went for it. But I know I debated for half a day, and I skipped my duper boring thermo class and spent more than an hour registering and queueing up for it.

My badge lor.

Sadly to say, I weren't approved to do so. They told me that my home country that I visited few months ago has risk of exposure to malaria. 

DANG.

My last Spring Break

Was very fun.

Spent most of my time @ Hyland and ISU campus, the 2 places I'm gonna miss a lot after I graduate. That's my initial plan though, but I ended up travelling to more more places. I went Iowa City to shop, Independence Iowa for a plant visit, Sioux City Nebraska for Rachel's interview. The best part of all my travelling is the last part when I know I reached Ames. 2 reasons. The destinations were very sien, and Ames is just way too fun. Some pictures!

Started off with a pot luck on the first day of the break. 

Then all of us headed to Frederiksen Court to see what Keng Gee was up to. It was his birthday. We found his apartrment, rushed into his room! We spotted ZT spreading some love on his face!

Nah, he wished. It was some left over cheese cakes that we used to pawn him. That's all of us.

Partay after that! Look at ZT's dulan face pointing at the Mongolian lady with red hair band who puked on his bed haahha.

The next day, bbq @ brookside park. 

We had a visitor from Iowa City.

And another from the tree. 

It was Heng Li!

Learned slack lining. The new sport up in here.

Camwhoring on a slack line!

Haaa.. campus grass.

Rachel made 面粉糕!

Sioux City has a Floyd monumen that looks like a pencil.

Rachel poser.

Me!

Spring break has ended. Classes resumes. 9am class tomorrow. I shall enjoy classes. 6 more weeks only. 

=)

Quote of the day that made Siti a happy man:

"Ok la you are very handsome!" Jennifer Tan, one my my IE partner.

Hahaha she's right btw. =)

Mm.. Well, although I think she's right, but I doubt that she thinks so.. We were walking back home from class today, she was saying about how my brother and I look so alike, and I told her to be honest to say how handsome my brother and I are.. And so she did!

"Well it's a sad day, and I'm gonna make you happy ya." Jen Tan

It actually did.

Isn't it magnanimous. Thanks Jen~!

Ever since I reached Ames 3 years ago, I always felt fortunate to have a bunch of friends to hang out with and my sister taking care of me . I always felt warm. I have a bunch of great-hearted friends, we take care of each other, throw snow, throw strawberry juice, "consume", travel, celebrate festivals, supper, breakfast, and a lot more together. How to get homesick like this.

Some of us even take things and get things done to another level. We volunteer to spread our love and passionate of consideration to more Malaysians here. We organize trips, host events, raise funds, gain reputation, and a lot more.

We do this in order to achieve a common goal. I always emphasize on this ultimate goal, which is to have fun and be happy. At first I learn how to have fun. Then I often show others how to have fun. My alien-smart TA once said,"the only way to succeed in your academic is to find a way to have fun out of it." I think it's true.

This is what we practice since my first semester here. I can see that many many of my friends here are like this too. Jen is definitely one of them. We spread cheesecake on each other's face. We vacumn each other's balls. We comment on each other's stupidness.

We put a smile on each other's face.

We put money into each other's pocket.

This is what we do. You thought me that.

"Do you know what is friendship?"

You know. I know. HE knows.

Wtf were those posts for man?