24-04-2009

I spent the last couple of days in Bintan, Indonesia, a nearby island just a little bigger than Singapore. Bintan is known for its sweet beaches and resorts. I went there with three fellows following my second exam for the purpose of rest and relaxation. I got all that I wanted and at an affordable price. My sunscreen was confiscated so I may have gotten a sunburn for free as well.

We stayed at a small resort for a steep 7 USD a night. Most of the time it seemed like we were the only people there; since it was midweek the whole place seemed deserted. However there were plenty of incredibly hospitable employees who helped us with whatever and what-have-you. The weather was beautiful the entire time we were there, but it was even hotter than Singapore.

One of the two pools at the resort, the water was actually warmer than I would have liked:

We stayed in a more traditional hotel style room, rather than one of these sweet bungalows, not by my choice. The beach where we played volleyball and Frisbee:


This is the restaurant in which we had our dinner. As you can see, we were the only people there.
My last paper will be this upcoming Tuesday. I was disappointed to find that our grades probably won't be released until June, and even then only the final grade is given. I will never know how I did on my projects, labs, or final exams.

15-04-2009

I have now completed my first of three finals. Finals are spread out over the course of three and a half weeks, quite different than the one and a half weeks given at RPI. Students here tend to take a much larger course load so the extended period is desired to accommodate the plethora of exams. Students also spend much more time studying because the exam is worth such a large percentage of your final grade; the average final exam is worth seventy or eighty percent of your grade.

The exam itself is extremely intense. They fill entire halls with hundreds of equally spaced desks, all facing the same direction. They sent out final exam regulations requiring your electronic signature. Ten minutes prior to the start of the exam, an "invigilator" reads off actions that will result in expulsion, over the PA system. Calculators must be checked and all memory erased. The exam has a dress code. The whole thing was rather intimidating and there was a loud thunderstorm during my final which added to the ominous atmosphere. I believe I passed though which is what ultimately matters. I would have liked to take a picture of the regulation examination hall but would be scared of getting expelled for bringing a camera into the hall; it seemed like a high security military research facility.

Most manikins in South-east Asia do not have heads, but for the ones that do this is standard procedure:

I recently experienced a laptop tragedy. In an attempt to play a network game with an off-campus local, I installed a free network adapter from the Internet. It did not work and as a result of installing it my computer FLIPPED out and would not let me access the Internet. My mouse cursor was spazzing out and windows would not shutdown properly. A number of people spent hours trying to fix the problem and spending a couple hours at the campus tech desk did nothing for the problem. Normally I would take my laptop to the RPI help desk and let them work their magic but that resource is unavailable here. I eventually bypassed the issue by installing Linux; when I get back to RPI I can re-image. Linux is fun but it makes using some applications very difficult...


This tree has cool roots. There is a chap in the background named Graham; he attends college in Buffalo.

30-03-2009

Singapore is an island, but it is very close to the mainland of Asia, close enough that the difference is spanned by a bridge. The bridge is over untroubled waters and it is over said bridge that my companions and I traversed into Malaysia. We left NTU at 9 pm, and a took a bus across the border. At 12:30 we got on a bus headed towards the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur (KL).

A silly thing happened that I will describe. We got to the bus interchange in Johor Bahru at about 11:30 and bought four tickets to leave at 12:30. There were three of us but our friend Pavan was going to meet us there before we left. Pavan tends to be a little late so we didn't start to worry until about 12:20 when he still hadn't shown up. There are a dozen or so different bus companies from which one can choose, and we had no way of letting Pavan know which bus we had chosen. The bus was running a little late but at 12:40 we got on to be on our way. The bus started, and then stopped abruptly and the lights went on. Pavan got on the bus, asking us for money to pay his taxi driver. He had not known that we would be on the bus, and would have otherwise had no way to pay for the taxi. However we were on the bus and loaned him some money for the taxi and so we were on our way.

We arrived in KL at 4:30am. KL has two main attractions which a tourist is supposed to visit: the Patronus towers and the Batu caves. On Saturday we went to the Patronus towers. For a few years during the nineties they were the tallest in the world, and are still the tallest twin towers in the world. There is a skybridge (the tallest in the world) at the forty first floor which we waited two hours to see. It was WORTH IT because I SLEPT and THERE WAS A GOOD VIEW.


The steel monolith itself:

The second day we went to the Batu caves. The caves and the towers are very pleasant to visit and there is not much else to do in Kuala Lumpur so that is why we did these things. The caves were used as a foundation for a Hindu temple complex. There were many monkeys all over everywhere. Much more numerous than squirrels but less numerous than pigeons. The cave was fairly big and impressive. Here you see the stairs leading up to the cave temple:


Here you see a monkey giving me the stink-eye:


This essentially concluded our Malaysian excursion; we returned to Singapore Sunday night.