Graduation Research Presentation, Marking My Last Day As A Student

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen"

the opening line of my presentation

The print-outs of my slides for my presentation.

I took the idea from my senior, Randy, whom I saw it posted on his Facebook status on the same morning I was waiting for my turn to present my final year research project. Since this is probably gonna be my last ever presentation as a student in my life, I thought why not I try to be funny for one last time. My presentation script in Japanese was already prepared many days earlier, so I just had to add an extra line at the beginning of my presentation, in English.

That impromptu five-word line came as something unexpected to everyone in the hall, and the look of surprise on the Japanese professors and students was priceless haha!

Practising on my own for a few last rounds before the main thing.

 The script which will come to my rescue just in case I get stuck in the middle of the presentation.

This is probably a bit vain, but well, all preparation's ready for the presentation.

A couple of my lab mates, Nozue the rugby player and Sato, who were presenting with me as well.



A copy of my thesis. Anyone wanna order a copy? Hahaha!



The only page in my 50-page thesis which was written in English.



Drew this diagram with MS Word. Damn nice right? Haha, very perasan of me I know lol!



Rainbow colours for most of my graphs.

The title of my final year project was "Fabrication and Property Evaluation of SUS304 Addition on TiO2 Thermoelectric Material". I bet most people will not have a single clue what's it all about and I will not go into the details either. In simple words, thermoelectric materials show the thermoelectric effect in a strong and/or convenient form. The thermoelectric effect refers to phenomena by which either a temperature difference creates an electric potential and vice versa (source: Wikipedia). A common example will be refrigeration; when direct current runs through the heat pump, heat is moved from one side to the other, creating a temperature difference that can be used for either heating or cooling.

In my research, I added SUS304 (a type of stainless steel) powder, which has a low thermal conductivity to titanium oxide powder, fabricate it into a thermoelectric material and subsequently, evaluate its property. The whole process took me one whole year to complete and I am pretty much satisfied with the end-result.

After more than a week of practice, it was time to pour everything out during the eight-minute presentation.

Our group photo of all the final year undergraduate students from the Material Science laboratory, with our thesis.

During the question-and-answer session, a professor asked me something which I couldn't really understand. Another professor intervened and tried to translate for me. Say only translate, but in the end, it was still from Japanese to Japanese lol wtf! Anyway, it ended up quite okay-lar I think haha!

After the presentation ended, my Japanese lab mates came to me and told me that they were super surprised that I started my presentation in English, and they thought I was gonna do the whole thing in English lol! But it is probably a good thing, because doing so make the Japanese professors stop asking me questions in the end of the presentation hahaha!

Joined everyone for lunch after the presentation session had ended.

Kimchi fried rice, salad and a bowl of soup. The fried rice was really good!

In the evening, we joined the post-graduate seniors to have a futsal game at the futsal court near Hon-Chiba Station.

Despite a short period from not having played the game for a while already, managed to score one beautiful goal after a one-two with my senior.

This is Katsumata-kun, by far the ace in our laboratory.

As usual, there would be a dinner or more commonly called nomikai (飲み会) at night after a presentation day. However, what I love about our lab is that instead of going to restaurants for nomikai, we usually do it in the school, or more specifically, the professors' meeting room haha! besides, it is not cheap to have nomikai outside; it costs roughly about 3,000 yen (RM120) for one time.

And do you know what is the traditional food of our lab? It's yakisoba, or Japanese style fried noodles. Traditional food, because it has always been the same main menu at the nomikai, that we have ran out of ideas on how to cook it in any other new methods. We have tried various combinations and portions of the meat and vegetables added into the yakisoba that we probably can publish a recipe book already haha! Maybe it is time for me to teach them how to cook char koey teow next time; at least got some variations to the meals at the nomikai lol!

Three tables - one for the undergraduates, two for the post-graduates (Master Year 1 & Year 2).

Part of the undergraduates lab mates, before we started cooking. 

A typical way to start a nomikai - by kanpai or cheers.

Sliced meat, chicken nuggets and sausages.

Just when you thought we look like carnivorous, we eat vegetables too; in fact, a lot of them!

Masakan traditional makmal kami - yakisoba haha!

I like this photo a lot, becase everyone had a different expressions, while Nozoe (standing) just buat tak tau jer and continue scooping for food lol!

During a nomikai, it is common to have someone to pour the drinks for you. You usually don't do it yourself.

Professor Hirohashi, who was an ex-Chiba University student, now a retired professor who used to be in our lab.

Professor Hirohashi will never run out of stories to us, and although he is strict in the classrooms, everyone loves him a lot!

All returned to the lab after the dinner, while the seniors cleaned the cooking stuff also in the lab.

Since I was gonna move away from Chiba to Tokyo very soon, I returned to my lab a few days after the presentation day to sort out my samples and tidy up my working table. Experiments date was saved and submitted to my professor, and samples were labelled and kept in the vacuum container to be used as reference in future research.

It was a serene moment, on my last day at the lab.

Samples of chemical powders for the photocatalyst research (not mine), which looks very much like curry powder and rempah ratus haha!

Each sample was inserted into a plastic and labelled.

My table, back to how it used to be when I first went in almost a year ago.

The only difference is, an extra thesis stands among the stack of thesis on the table.

That marks the end of another chapter in my life, and the start of a new one very soon.

January's Homecoming Trip

"Because you're a great source of pride to us. 

That's why we were so glad to see you come back, 

to welcome you back to your birthplace."

Lenny,

The Homecoming (1973)

Regular readers of my blog should have read about me making the trip back to Malaysia a couple of months ago, as both my parents were hospitalised due to some health complications. Mom is back kicking to her usual self, while Dad is still on the way to complete recovery. The trip was so short and hectic, that I spent most of my time in Taiping throughout the ten days.

However, just like any other bloggers, camera is a must-have item every time I leave the house; so here are some random photos taken during my time back home.

 

Does this scene look familiar to you? This is where lots of heart-warming stories about Malaysians were made on July 9, 2011.

 

Kitchen was out-of-order as mom was still in hospital. So, we were like nomads, either eating in grandma's or aunt's place, or outside.



Grandma's famous home-cooked Thai laksa. I very much prefer this over Penang's asam laksa.

The black soup above is bak tin soup (八珍汤 ), a dish originally a Foochow medical broth which has noe become a specialty in home-cooking ot restaurant. The dish's name varies according to different dialects; it's called bak cheng in Cantonese and bek ting in Foochow. The name literally means "eight treasures soup", normally cooked with duck which gives a good fragrant and strong taste. This is definitely a healthy soup which is commonly served with rice or mee sua.

It is called "eight treasures" because the soup is a combination of 4 herbs soup with another 4 different herbs soup, namely ginseng, ba shu, liquorice, poria, dangui, rehmannia, peony and chuansiong.

Look who's eating at the casual market below the old Larut Matang supermarket food court? Macam kenal-jer, kan?

The Prime Minister was in Taiping for a few hours on January 14, 2012, as part of his nationwide tour.

For over more than five decades since Independence, this is the first time a Prime Minister visited Taiping. Perak was among his early stops, as he tours each states in Malaysia to turun padang and meet the rakyats, while offering sweet goodies and promises. When you see this, you know that the election is just around the corner.

His tour kicked off with a morning exercise session (Senaman 1Malaysia) at the Esplanade in Taiping's Lake Garden, followed by a tour around the food court in town. He had breakfast with some of the local folks there, as the people of Taiping caught a first glimpse of the person they only usually see on the TV. He was supposed to visit the wet market after his breakfast; however due to some protest by several individuals, he immediately board his bus and head home; leaving his officers (read: policemen) doing the cleaning job (you know what I mean).

Personally, that action puts his leadership very much debatable, as a leader who chooses to escape from a problem instead of trying to solve it. How much ironic it is when we consider the purpose of the visit, which is to turun padang and listen to the problems faced by the people. Those individuals were merely staging a peace protest, without uttering any vulgar words or trying to be aggressive, which was light years in contrast to the one happened in Penang recently.

Sorry-lar Ah Jib Gor, you didn't help us, how can we help you-ler?

Grandma and Mom, with her singa hair style lol!

Okay-lar, I better put a proper photo of her; otherwise she is sure to ask me through Skype, "Boy-ah, why-lar the photo you put in your blog so ugly one-har?" hahaha!

With grandma, who was damn funny when I asked her to take a photo of me and Mom. Holding my digital camera, she held the camera close to her face, 
and tried to look through the tiny hole, like what you do when you use an old camera haha wtf!

We were on a short half-day trip to Penang, to apply for Japan visa for the two of them.

The visa application process took less than ten minutes and it was ready in three-working days.

It appears that the applicant doesn't necessary need to be present there, as anyone can bring the documents there, and once the visa is ready, anyone can take it from them. One thing about that guy who dealt with us, he was super lansi. Hidung damn tinggi, in fact, even taller than Mount Everest! He couldn't even speak politely to us, yet showing some smiles throughout the application process. What a shame for a person who works in a Japan General Consulate, but doesn't know how to behave like a Japanese *tsk tsk tsk*

I digress. As my aunt is working nearby, we asked her out to have lunch together before heading back to Taiping.

Lunch was at Passions of Kerala at New World Park in Swatow Lane.

Banana leave rice; simply irresistible! Food was good and the price is also reasonable.

Requested a random guy to take a photo for us, whom himself ended up in the photo as well haha wtf!

Posing around the New Year decorations at the food court.

Back to the hospital; here's my breakfast on one of the mornings - nasi lemak, ban chang kuih (peanuts pancake), and chai tao kuih (raddish cake).

Magnificent view from the sixth floor of Ward C.

My primary school (yellow building to the left of the field) is also visible, as it is just opposite of the hospital.

When it gets dark, you get this wonderful view.

A typical lunch served at the hospital for the patients. Dad usually prefer to eat either Mom's food or outside food; so I will be the one eating these food.
But guess what, that chicken kurma was super nice, I almost wanted to ask for second serving lol!

A sign at the ward which I find it kinda funny. "This is emergency!!!" hahaha!

Mom sending me off at the bus station as I head to KL to take my flight back to Tokyo.

Cinnamon bread and apple pie, bought from Penang, which Mom tapao-ed for me to eat in the bus.



Brought back a few boxes of Tambun biscuits.

Wanted to stay longer, but various commitments were waiting for me in Japan.

Nevertheless, I shall say hello to Malaysia again very very soon.