The Offspring - Self Esteem

Another Viva, Another Successful Candidate!

One more Malaysian managed to get his Doctorate today from the Math Department of Lancaster University. He managed to pass his viva with minor correction and happily reported to his UPM employer the good news. So four successful viva this year already for the Malaysian students in Lancaster and I think there will be at least two more coming up this year. Hopefully they will also be as successful as their friends. And I hope the trend continues until 2009, the year I'm supposed to have my own viva.

I received an e-mail from my former Lancaster junior that he will be coming back here because his wife is pursuing a Master degree. And turned out that they will be staying next to my flat starting this September. They also have two young children. I'm sure my own children will be quite happy to have some friends to play with.

Dikir Audition - Part 2

Dikir Audition - Part 1

Lancaster University Malaysian Badminton Group

We've been playing badminton regularly amongst the Malaysian in Lancaster since last year and things have really been improved in term of, everything! (except of our skill I think, nahh just kidding). We have our own Yahoo Group, complete with its members details, pictures, database and so on. Our finance couldn't been much better, that some say sooner or later we will have more money than Lancaster University Malaysian Students' Society (which I doubt since we had to constantly renewing our supply of shuttlecocks). We have our own club t-shirt (see below) and we have had players joining us for a game from various nationalities, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Welsh, Sri Lankan, Arabs, and even women joined us from time to time. Hopefully in the near future we can have an invitation tournament with other Malaysians in various parts of the UK. At least while I'm still here!

Front of the shirt

Back of the shirt

Cup Stacking Record (didn't know this kind of sport ever exists!)

Cup Stacking Record (the fastest ever?)

Spices of Reading

I met my supervisor yesterday and had the usual discussion regarding my ongoing thesis. And then he mentioned about the philosophy of science and suggested that I should read books by Sir Karl Popper. Apparently he is the guy who offers a critical assessment on the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by offering his own theory of falsifiability. Hm.. interesting. My supervisor said that I should put more variety into my readings and not just concentrating on the subject matters, which is accounting. I told him I read some economics book (Freakonomics comes into mind) but stop short of telling him that I just bought two books on football from the car boot sale last weekend. One of the book is titled 'Football Fanatic'. And if I had to choose between reading a book on philosophy on science and a book about a guy who watch a match at all 92 Premier and Endsleigh League football grounds (plus Berwick Rangers) in less than a year, well....

Badak nyanyi lagu 'Anok Tupa'

Selamat Datang ke Kelantan

PhD

This year alone, 3 Malaysian students in the Lancaster University have successfully got their PhD degree. Two of them are from UPM and another one is from UKM. There is another one from UPM waiting for his viva sometime in July. So in short, good news all around!

Raihan - Ya Nabi Salamun Alaika

Raihan - Mari Bersolat

Books

I have just finished reading Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly. He is one of those authors who just love to tell a full action-packed story to the max and I have a full collection of his books. His books will always have a hero inside them and they will suffer various tribulations and setbacks but somehow managed to escape through some near impossible (well, impossible anyway in the real life) escapes. And this latest book by him managed to put an interesting story on the Capstone of the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

Now, I am starting on The Lost Army of Cambyses by Paul Sussman. This is his first novel from the two published so far, so I don't have any high expectation here. But that somehow reminds me of John Darnton with his brilliant Neanderthal novel.

Anyway, I've finished updating my books collection in my file. So far I have 148 books in my collection (most of them are in my father in law's house in Malaysia) and I haven't read 40 of them! Looks like I had to really catch up then.

Raihan - Tak Selamanya

Raihan - Al-Hijrah

Body Fat

I went to Boots today and whilst waiting for my wife to pay for all those multi-vitamins and other prescriptions, decided to throw away some coins into the weight machine. Well, this machine can do other things as well, such as calculating your B.M.I. (Body Mass Index) which you can easily calculate if you have a calculator or a handphone with you and Body Fat. And why do we need to know the exact composition of our body fat is beyond me but since I was bored and never knew my exact height before (I put 177cm for my height in my passport because double 7's look cool), then why not.

So here is the printing that came out from the machine:

Weight: 12st 11lb 81.4kg
Height: 5' 8.8" 1.75m

B.M.I. 26.6

Body Mass Index (B.M.I.) is calculated as Weight (kg) / Height (m)2

Less than 18.5: UNDERWEIGHT
From 18.5 upto 25: IDEAL WEIGHT
More than 25: OVERWEIGHT

Your ideal weight for a B.M.I. between 18.5 and 25.0 is:

8st 12lb to 12st 0lb
56.6kg to 76.5kg

Body Fat (%): 25.1%
Body Fat Mass: 20.4kg
Age: 31 years Male

Recommendations (%)
Male
Excellent: 14.5%
Good: 21.5%
Average: 24.5%
Poor: 31.2%

So I am overweight with an average to poor body fat. And I am actually 2cm shorter than what I thought. Considering that I'm playing 3 badminton sessions per week with each session lasting more than an hour, I know what I should focus on, that scrumptious four letter word starting with an 'F':


Food


From now on, cutting a little bit of everything. And I will go to Boots in one month time to see if there is any progress, or hope at all.

Oh, by the way, my wife B.M.I. is 21.6 (Ideal Weight) and her Body Fat is 26.3% (Good to Excellent). Lucky her.

Obat Diet

* a forwarded Indonesian joke from Bong, thanks!

Seorang wanita yang sangat gemuk pergi ke dokter.

Wanita: "Dok, obat apa yang harus saya minum agar bisa kurus?"

Dokter: "Oh, anda tidak perlu minum obat, cukup geleng-geleng kepala saja!"

Wanita: "Kapan saya harus geleng-geleng kepala dok? Pagi, siang, sore, atau malam?"

Dokter: "Cukup ketika ada orang yang menawari makan saja!"

Miscommunication

* Thanks to Bong for this!

Boston - More Than A Feeling