I've finished almost all of my loose ends of my projects so these few days I've been concentrating on my presentation which is going to be next week Wednesday. I'm a worried about this presentation because it not going to be like in MMU where you'll be presenting to your friends; my lovely audience here would be senior mat-salleh engineers!
Talk about being pressured. Besides that, last week a guy from USM gave his presentation before leaving for Penang so me being a MMU student, I have to do better than him to show that we MMU-ians are better than those public university students! :P
I'm not really good at presenting so all your best wishes are very welcomed! :D
Wish me the best!
PS: Do you guys have end-of-internship-presentations for your company too?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
10 Things that I'm going to miss in Austin
1. Clothes Dryer
They are so convenient, just dumped your washed clothes inside and wait for about 40 minutes and you're done! Nicely dried and soft... No need to hang your clothes outside and wait a day... Truly a wonderful thing to have.
2. AC (Air conditioning unit)
I'm going to miss my house in Austin and especially the always-on-AC! You come back from a hot day and cool yourself in the constant-temperature house... No more waking up sweating in the middle of the night...
3. Microwave Oven
This is one super convenient home appliance that I am most probably going to get one when I go back to Malaysia. You can do so much with this; you can make lunch, snacks, heat up your leftover foods... You guys might have this already but I don't, at least not yet. =P
4. High-speed Internet
Seeing your download speeds up to 300 kBps is really cool and so is watching YouTube without any waiting time! Why can't TM be like this?
5. Walking along the small forest to work
Nothing beats having a refreshing and cooling walk along the small forest behind my house to my workplace. And when you come back from work during the summer, the forest just shades away the heat. Everytime I walk to work, I'll walk slowly just to enjoy the nice breeze along the way. I wish my walk from Cyberia to campus and back be this euphoric.
6. Special bike-only lane
This is not necessary but in tight narrow roads, you'll be glad if you have a special lane for your bike more so whenever a big truck is coming from behind you.
7. Friendly people
People in Austin are known for their friendliness and courtesy whereby they would say hi to you or smile (girls smile back when you smile at them =D). People at the counters would greet you when you come in and so on. Even the drivers are friendly to cyclist; they give way to us, not like in Malaysia.
8. Weather
Yea, it was hot during the summer but it's just like in Malaysia but it's not humid. You don't sweat like a leaking pipe when you walk under the sun; great for me since I can even sweat when I sit. Nowadays, the weather is getting colder which is something between Genting Highlands and KL; not too hot, not too cold.
9. Lovely parks
You probably don't know that Austin is voted 3rd best places in the US for triathlete to train in. Mostly it's due to the fact that there are so many parks around and they're very well kept. Hiking trails are aplenty and the many pedestrian walks everywhere! Did I mention about the Barton Springs Pool?
10. National Instruments
You probably wouldn't be surprise with this; this company is THE place to be working at! Great and friendly and helpful people, environment-conscious company, company that helps you success in your career by enabling you to take up courses in the company, excellent working facilities (breakroom with microwave ovens and fridge, water coolers at every floor, etc). I really love working here, enough said.
They are so convenient, just dumped your washed clothes inside and wait for about 40 minutes and you're done! Nicely dried and soft... No need to hang your clothes outside and wait a day... Truly a wonderful thing to have.
2. AC (Air conditioning unit)
I'm going to miss my house in Austin and especially the always-on-AC! You come back from a hot day and cool yourself in the constant-temperature house... No more waking up sweating in the middle of the night...
3. Microwave Oven
This is one super convenient home appliance that I am most probably going to get one when I go back to Malaysia. You can do so much with this; you can make lunch, snacks, heat up your leftover foods... You guys might have this already but I don't, at least not yet. =P
4. High-speed Internet
Seeing your download speeds up to 300 kBps is really cool and so is watching YouTube without any waiting time! Why can't TM be like this?
5. Walking along the small forest to work
Nothing beats having a refreshing and cooling walk along the small forest behind my house to my workplace. And when you come back from work during the summer, the forest just shades away the heat. Everytime I walk to work, I'll walk slowly just to enjoy the nice breeze along the way. I wish my walk from Cyberia to campus and back be this euphoric.
6. Special bike-only lane
This is not necessary but in tight narrow roads, you'll be glad if you have a special lane for your bike more so whenever a big truck is coming from behind you.
7. Friendly people
People in Austin are known for their friendliness and courtesy whereby they would say hi to you or smile (girls smile back when you smile at them =D). People at the counters would greet you when you come in and so on. Even the drivers are friendly to cyclist; they give way to us, not like in Malaysia.
8. Weather
Yea, it was hot during the summer but it's just like in Malaysia but it's not humid. You don't sweat like a leaking pipe when you walk under the sun; great for me since I can even sweat when I sit. Nowadays, the weather is getting colder which is something between Genting Highlands and KL; not too hot, not too cold.
9. Lovely parks
You probably don't know that Austin is voted 3rd best places in the US for triathlete to train in. Mostly it's due to the fact that there are so many parks around and they're very well kept. Hiking trails are aplenty and the many pedestrian walks everywhere! Did I mention about the Barton Springs Pool?
10. National Instruments
You probably wouldn't be surprise with this; this company is THE place to be working at! Great and friendly and helpful people, environment-conscious company, company that helps you success in your career by enabling you to take up courses in the company, excellent working facilities (breakroom with microwave ovens and fridge, water coolers at every floor, etc). I really love working here, enough said.
UPDATE: I shamefully forgot to mention that in our breakrooms, there's a coffee machine that you can brew your own coffee (coffee powder is provided FREE) and a variety of tea flavors (sachets) that you can take and make tea yourself! All this is provided FREE! =P By the way, I like the Green Tea flavor... :D
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Austin Triathlon
The place to take your bib number and goodie stuffs
My bib number. Nice isn't it?
This is how a triathlete would lays his/her equipments out before the race. Swimming would be the first followed by cycling then running so you'll see the cycling shoe already attached to the pedal so that you don't have to waste time wearing it; you can wear them while cycling! It sounds difficult but once you practiced it, it's effortless. Once you're done with biking then it's running. The shoe has a special strap which you can just slip it on without tying. Fast and easy.
The transition area: It's where you coming from swimming, take your bike and go then come back and run. Believe it or not, people take about 1-1.5 minutes each time to change from swim to bike then to run.
The starting point, swim: That's the lake I swam. I have to swim until the second buoy and turn around and swim back. Pretty far I tell you. Took me about 18 minutes.
The black line shows the swim route that we're supposed to go and the blue is the path that I swam. I started freestyle but I could'nt see where I was going and ended up right in the middle of the loop when I realized nobody was around me. Then I turn back into the course and changed to breaststroke all the way.Anyway, once I reached the end of the swim, I was a little exhausted but extremely relieved that I finally finished the most challenging course. Feeling a little disoriented I managed to run to my bike, swallowed a pack of PowerGel, slip my shoe in, wear my helmet and my glasses and off I go! From that on, cycling and running was easy in comparison.
For cycling, I have to ride for 27km so I maintained my speed at 30-33 km/h as much as possible. Sometimes I got ahead of myself especially when there's a lot of people cheering and went up to 40... Uphill was easy but I was cursing during downhill; I was passingby people while doing uphill but they pass me by when I was going downhill... Weird? I wasn't aerodynamic enough. They're all using road bikes whilst I'm using a mountain bike with road tires.
Goodies that I got: They gave us a nice polyester t-shirt (those quick dry types), a nice running cap (also quick dry), swim cap (to identify your age category and also to see you clearly in the water so they can rescue you if you're drowning), a timing chip and some energy bars and gels.
Timing chip: This is a device that a chip that helps time your race accurately. It works by RFID whereby you run pass a receiver (a matt) and it transmit a unique serial code to the computer. It's self-powered through the use of a magnetic induction method. The coil inside is powered when you pass through a magnetic field (the matt). More details here.
Since Khai Ling and Kelmynn likes to self pose with their new clothes so I'm doing it too =P. Here's my actual tri clothes complete with my bib number. That's the same clothes that I wore for all three events without changing to save time.
Race day: Moments before my event starts.
Since there's a lot of bikes and you might get disoriented after swimming so what triathletes do is they try to remember where they park their bike. Some attached a cute looking helium-filled balloon while some just remember the closest thing to their rack. I park my bike on the second how from the top so I can easily find it.
Body marking: The closest I get to body tattoos =P
Every triathlete has to have their body marked with their number on their legs and arms. Their age is also marked on the calves. This is where you can see which girl is younger or older than you easily. XD
The live band performances after the race
Lots of foods were ups for the taking. It's eat all you want breakfast of tortilla with chicken or beef, loads of fruits, loads of sodas and stuff. I only managed to wallop one huge banana, a chicken tortilla and a coke. Small stomach =P
The finishing line. The cameramen were at the back of the line and I was just too tired to pose. I hope I didn't look bad in it.
Tim and I after the race:
Tim, my manager is the one who supported me. He loan me one of his bike and helmet and taught me a little on swimming (he wasn't good at it, he said) so I want to give my upmost appeciation to him and also Laurel (his wife) for their great support. =D
Thanks to all my lovely friends for their support too! And to my dearest May for her never ending encouragement; without her I wouldn't be able to finish =).
For cycling, I have to ride for 27km so I maintained my speed at 30-33 km/h as much as possible. Sometimes I got ahead of myself especially when there's a lot of people cheering and went up to 40... Uphill was easy but I was cursing during downhill; I was passingby people while doing uphill but they pass me by when I was going downhill... Weird? I wasn't aerodynamic enough. They're all using road bikes whilst I'm using a mountain bike with road tires.
Goodies that I got: They gave us a nice polyester t-shirt (those quick dry types), a nice running cap (also quick dry), swim cap (to identify your age category and also to see you clearly in the water so they can rescue you if you're drowning), a timing chip and some energy bars and gels.
Timing chip: This is a device that a chip that helps time your race accurately. It works by RFID whereby you run pass a receiver (a matt) and it transmit a unique serial code to the computer. It's self-powered through the use of a magnetic induction method. The coil inside is powered when you pass through a magnetic field (the matt). More details here.
Since Khai Ling and Kelmynn likes to self pose with their new clothes so I'm doing it too =P. Here's my actual tri clothes complete with my bib number. That's the same clothes that I wore for all three events without changing to save time.
Race day: Moments before my event starts.Since there's a lot of bikes and you might get disoriented after swimming so what triathletes do is they try to remember where they park their bike. Some attached a cute looking helium-filled balloon while some just remember the closest thing to their rack. I park my bike on the second how from the top so I can easily find it.
Body marking: The closest I get to body tattoos =PEvery triathlete has to have their body marked with their number on their legs and arms. Their age is also marked on the calves. This is where you can see which girl is younger or older than you easily. XD
The live band performances after the race
Lots of foods were ups for the taking. It's eat all you want breakfast of tortilla with chicken or beef, loads of fruits, loads of sodas and stuff. I only managed to wallop one huge banana, a chicken tortilla and a coke. Small stomach =PThe 5km run was challenging too. I thought it was going to be easy but the weather wasn't forgiving that day. It was hot! I aimed for 4.30 min/km pace and managed to finish in 23 minutes. At the end of the finishing line, I was totally exhausted with sweats all over. One of my few motivation to push myself to run hard was to pick on someone infront of you and try to overtake him. Once you overtake him, you pick another runner. Great for kiasu people like me.XD
The finishing line. The cameramen were at the back of the line and I was just too tired to pose. I hope I didn't look bad in it.
Tim and I after the race:Tim, my manager is the one who supported me. He loan me one of his bike and helmet and taught me a little on swimming (he wasn't good at it, he said) so I want to give my upmost appeciation to him and also Laurel (his wife) for their great support. =D
Thanks to all my lovely friends for their support too! And to my dearest May for her never ending encouragement; without her I wouldn't be able to finish =).
Tim went for the full distance Olympic category and finished in 2 hours and 28 minutes while I in the Sprint half distance finished in 1 hour and 40 minutes earning myself a 155th overall placing out of 731 (both gender) and a 12th place for my age category. Quite all right a timing for a first timer, I guess.
It was a really exhilarating and fun experience of joining my first tri race and I think I got addicted to it. All the hardwork of training for it; weeks of swimming, running and cycling and finally actually racing for it and giving it your bestest is feeling that is hard to describe. You've got to try it yourself to know. Will I join again? Of course! XD
The results for Sprint distance
It was a really exhilarating and fun experience of joining my first tri race and I think I got addicted to it. All the hardwork of training for it; weeks of swimming, running and cycling and finally actually racing for it and giving it your bestest is feeling that is hard to describe. You've got to try it yourself to know. Will I join again? Of course! XD
The results for Sprint distance
Thursday, September 3, 2009
D-Day: 4 days left
I really can't believe that the D-Day has almost arrived! 4 more days left before the big day. I wasn't this excited until I watched a few YouTube about some triathlon races; now I'm super excited! :D
It's going to be my first triathlon race so I'm not going to push myself too hard first. I want to get the feel of it so that's why I took the shorter Sprint distance; the next triathlon race would definitely be a full Olympic distance! Of course, being a competitive in nature, I might just go all out and go crazy! Wish me all the best! =D
Here's one of my favourite Youtube video that I often watch whenever I lose my motivation or just want to hype myself up for anything... Enjoy!
It's going to be my first triathlon race so I'm not going to push myself too hard first. I want to get the feel of it so that's why I took the shorter Sprint distance; the next triathlon race would definitely be a full Olympic distance! Of course, being a competitive in nature, I might just go all out and go crazy! Wish me all the best! =D
Here's one of my favourite Youtube video that I often watch whenever I lose my motivation or just want to hype myself up for anything... Enjoy!
Malaysia, negaraku!
Winston and Hon Mun with our Flag of Glory (Jalur Gemilang).
Something to show my patriotism at National Instruments, Austin, US. Apparently, putting up flags of your country or university (mostly) is a common thing here. Since I couldn't find any Malaysian flag at NI, I decided to ask my sister to send me the flag. :D
Did you guys hang any flag at your company?
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