Joshua is sojauh

Before i continue with the 2nd part of "41 hours". Wanna write something about Formula SAE Team in UTP. It has been about 2 years since the establishment of Formula SAE in UTP. Nothing major has really been done and no race car built. For you people who dunno what the heck is Formula SAE. please visit www.sae.org for more info. A lot of promises but not delivered on time mainly because of our busy student life in UTP and i guess it’s just in our blood… we tend to work very well last minute.

So, the time is catching up. First mock up must be ready by convofair 2006 which going to be held on the 25th till 27th August(5 more days). Anyway, as i said that we are students who work very well last minute.. Just wanna show some of the picture of us working last minute.

Start from the first pic on the left. (these pics are taken at about 3am in the morning.) 21st August night.

1. Faiz and Tisha i think, working on the body of the car.

2. The big boss, Faizan welding some crap.

3. Yeo… trying to be funny holding a powerdrill in the air.

4. Obviously she’s neither working nor trying to be funny… dunno wat she trying to do. (Posing only!!!)

5. Sharifah working on the chassis of the car. (see… design until so complicated, how to finish on time?)

What I gain a lot actually from FSAE Team UTP is actually friendship and other skills. through Formula SAE, i get to know a lot of seniors and juniors. I get to lead some of the people. I get to go to the lab late at night and work using the very macho tools that normal students wont have the access to. I get to learn how to communicate with sponsors. In fact, i’ll be going to KL tomorrow to meet with executives from PETRONAS Motorsports to discuss on the issue of branding. How the colour scheme of a car affects the branding strategies of a team? and how to place the sponsors logo accordingly. You can never get this kind of knowledge anywhere in the world.

Yesterday after the lab session, we went to our favourite mamak store… Faruq and Sithik. They serve the best maggi goreng in Tronoh. And it is by far the best mamak food i’ve ever tasted.

After the mamak session, went back to the university. on the way back, we took some nice and special pics… dunno la.. i feel nice. you see nice or not la.   

Lying at the middle of the road.

UTP mosque… nice?

Anyway, really hope that we can get the car done by this friday for the exhibition.

41 hours… I have not lain on my bed for more than 41 hours. These 2 days have been so exciting and adventurous for me. First, start on Friday ya. Woke up at 7 am… obviously for a good student like me will go to class lo… at 8 am ma. So class finish at 9 am. and i rushed back to my room and headed to Ipoh for the earliest bus i can catch to KL. Din even has my bfast or brunch. Got the 10:30 bus ticket and luckily the bus started the journey on time. Before the journey, because afraid of boredom in the bus… I bought 2 sets of newspaper. Just in case I got nothing to do in the bus I can compare their news. hahaha… quite a stupid thing to do. But I guess the main thing that attracts me to buy NST is the headlines… survey about sexual ignorance on campus. Anyway, that’s not the main point. I reached KL at about 1 something. Alighted at Hang Tuah monorail station and headed straight on to Sungai Wang to meet with Josephine. At that time I didn’t even know that her name is Josephine. I only know her as JOE… from David.

Anyway, after that we rushed to OLE cafe which is somewhere near sungai wang and bb plaza there la. dunno wat was the street’s name. She got some shooting to do for the Miss Astro pageant. So… mai video shooting lo… I think not good to disclose too much. Later Astro sue me. hahaha… But the shooting took like 20 million years… And remember i didnt have anything b4 that. And finally… last one last one… wah .. wat a relieve.. but somebody curi makan the strawberry cheese cake there.

DINNER time, look appetizing? of course la.. Appetizer ma.

This is taken in a French restaurant at the same street as OLE cafe. Opposite HAVANA. Name… er… le Bouchour or something like that la. It’s very classy inside. I couldn’t understand why a person need 3 knife, 3 forks, and spoon just to have a meal lo.     

Anyway, it doesn;t matter la as long as it looks nice. Like wat we always say "Tak Tahu Tak apa, Gaya mesti ada". So we acted with full of style that day. Some one became very poetic in the restaurant.

What are they doing? euww….

Sim(left) and Josephine…

The best part of the night was… the beef… 

Beauty and the beef…

It was a very long dinner… took us about 2 hours to order, wait, eat, wait, eat…. so during the wait, we took some pics and talked a lot of crap. especially the POET… 

Some pics we took when we were waiting.

After the dinner, I took a lift in Josephine’s "sport" car to Pudu….

(to be continued)….

I came across this song by Eason Chan. It sounds like that in cantonese "chui kai shiun yaw" means the best bad friend. sounds kinda weird huh? doesn’t matter la.. you guys know wat it means right? I feel that this song is very true sometimes lo. This is my understanding about the song.

"Sometimes we treated a friend like a best friend forever but what we got in return is treated like juz any other friend like only for the moment. we were challenged by each other and we helped each other out. and now we couldn’t do that anymore. I’ve been thru happy moments with you chatting and drinking together. i ever wonder you feel the same. This experience only can we keep it forever and how can other people experience the same fun as we does. it is fated that we wont have this kind of experience anymore in the future. Aiya, to cut it short… means we have frens who we were very close with and we treated them very good one… but in the end, we are not that close anymore… and things don’t work like how they used to. So, the moral of the story is… treasure every moment you have with your best friends. Dont make it a regret in life."

I do have friends that are like that. I wonder you guys have as well? I have frens that was so close with me and yet now we’re like stranger. We don;t even know what to talk when we meet. we were so close like brothers. Sharing all the experiences together.. hanging out late night together… have fun together.. we even do a lot of bad stuff together (not crime la) hahaha … and in the end.. i feel that this kind of friendship is best describe with the phrase "The Best BAD Friend". So guys, treasure your friends while you still have them… you dunno when is the next time you gonna meet each other and find out there’s nothing else to talk about. 

yo yo … chatter box is up in my blog… do leave your message and comments here as well… Can chat there also… hahaha!!

I know it’s a bit crowded at the sidebar. Will configure the layout again once i’m free to do so. tomorrow still got test ah.. wish me luck ya.

I guess you guys have never heard of Formula SAE right? Formula SAE is a student competition organised by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) every year all over the world. The main purpose is for student to design, conceive, and fabricate its own formula size single-seated race car. And at the end of the day, each car built will be shipped to the location of the competition and compete. The events include acceleration, endurance, skidpad, static test, noise test, and marketing presentation. Though it is a student project, its scale of project covers all aspect of motorsports. Students have to handle all aspect of the car including marketing, sponsorship, branding, technical, and others. Driving skills is one of the neccessary requirement for the competition. Therefore, UTP FSAE team selected a few of us to go through driver’s training by using go-cart first.

The first training session falls on last sunday at 4pm in manjung carting circuit. We left UTP at 3pm. travelled about an hour to the circuit. As a start, Ilyia, our trainer brief us on the track. He brought us for a walk on the track. told us about the best line of driving. when to brake, when to release the acceleration, and all the precautions we need to consider.

First rounds, we were asked to take a try on the track. 4 laps. we were told to take our time and test the brakes, feel the acceleration and everything. So, me, Yeo, and choon hoong started the testing. But the racing spirit is so strong in us. We were typically racing for the first round. At the end, we didn’t really manage to test out on the brakes and all that. But it was super fun.

Next was the time for individual drive to take the lap time. each of us have to drive 4 laps and 2 person take our lap time. it was very challenging doing the lap time alone. because there’s no competition, you probably wont know how fast you are going. you just have to press all the way. and while driving, we were being observed by ilyia and wan. 2 proffesional go-cart drivers. 37.90 seconds… was my best lap time. compared to the best lap time overall is safuan who did 36.95 sec. So at the end of the first individual run, we had some post mortem and were told about our mistakes and weaknesses during the 4 laps.

Then after that, we did another 4 laps for the time as well. After listening to wat the expert said and tried to follow wat he said, lap time was improved to 36.94 seconds. At first we planned to have 4 runs. but due to time limitation, we couldn’t make it. cos it was already 7pm when we finish the second run. So that was the training that we did on that day. and ya, we didnt use the go cart yet cos of our skills, instead we used a fun-cart which is 4 strokes.

After the training, me, yeo, and choon hoong went food hunting at setiawan. Wanted to go to kampung Koh for seafood at first, but at the end turn out eating bak kut teh there. We were so hungry and we couldn’t find the seafood restaurant. Reach UTP at about 10pm. Super tired… but indeed was a really fun day learning how to control a car that is out of control. muahaha… looking forward for the next training session.

What??? even a board has power? What do u think? isn’t that cool? yeah… i’m telling the truth man. a simple small stinky piece of whiteboard is so powderful. It can change your life if you use it wisely.

Why on earth i would talk about a board? recently, i bought a small whiteboard and glued it right in front of my room. Other than the fact that it is always being abused by my fellow housemates drawing craps and writing all the stupid stuffs, the board serves as a very good reminder. Everynight b4 sleeping, stand in front of the board, think what you wan to do the next day. prioritise them. Maybe write it in sequence, if not juz number them accordingly. State the time and location you are going to do certain tasks. for example, meeting at 5pm(cafe). Though sometimes you may not be able to accomplish all that tasks that are written on the board, i can assure you that it will make you wanna work on it. Don erase them until you are done with the job. By this way, it gives you motivation to work on it so that your board will not be so messy.

Writing down certain events in future also helps you to remember appointments that you’ve made long long time ago. for example, 31/8 1 year anniverssary with so and so. so when u’ve this written on the board, any other appointment on that day will be ignore and trust me u wont miss any appointment anymore.

Other than that, you can write down ur ideas on certain projects you are working on. stand in front of the board as long as you can and list down all the ideas that come across your mind. like u are planning to buy a birthday present to someone, list down all the things that you think the person will like. from there on, choose the best one.

Nevertheless, a board is still a board if it is not used wisely. Stand in front of the board more often and think… then write down everything. and live would be made more easier. yeah? i hope it works for u guys.