WC Lim

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall ends in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties - Francis Bacon

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Some unforgettable moments in KL February 28, 2009

Posted by wchih-lim in My Life as a TARCian.
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It’s been a very long time since I last wrote a blog. The reason is because I have gone to KL for my Advance Diploma and ACCA. Together with my friends, we rented a unit in a newly-completed condominium, Metroview, in Wangsa Maju. The problem of staying in a newly-completed condo was that, it took months for Streamyx to be up and ready. When Streamyx was finally available in my 2^nd Semester, I was too busy with my studies (assignments!). Anyway, now I am back in Penang, currently undergoing practical training in PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). I will be going back to KL in late May, for my final academic year.

Well, I lived in the 8^th floor of Metroview Block A. There was another unit in the 14^th floor, which I regard as my 2^nd home, since I always went up to be with my friends there.

Here are some of my unforgettable moments during my stay in KL:

Meetoto night

Meetoto is sort of like The Sims Online, where players have avatars of their own in a virtual world. To get experience and gold, players have to sing into the microphone for other online players to listen. If you are good, they may throw you some flowers and give you good ratings. But, if you perform poorly, they can hurl ‘virtual’ s*it at you.

In one fine night, this Meetoto thing suddenly caught my roommate, Kim Loon’s interest. So, he created an account, using his own name as nickname (=.=’’). Since he has created an account, all my housemates, including myself, use it to sing. At the meantime, we use his account bearing his own name to give bad comments and hurl droppings at other players.

In fact, at that time, a test was just a few days away, but it seems like all of us has gone crazy over this Meetoto thing. We sang until late into the night, and all of a sudden we heard somebody yelled at us for being noisy and order us to stop singing immediately.

Deloitte Tax Challenge Finals

The Finals was held over 2 days. In the 1^st day, all participants were required to attend a presentation skills workshop held at the Deloitte office in Damansara. My housemates, Gin Seng and Kim Loon followed me to Damansara, and then head off to watch movie at 1 Utama together with Eng Hwa who was at Damansara at that time.

In the 2^nd day, I went to the office again for competition, with my housemates, Zhao Qin, Kean Tat, Ming Khuen, Kim Loon and Gin Seng together with my 14^th floor buddies, Yong Sheng, Zi Wei and Eng Hwa. They skipped their classes to watch the competition as well as to lend a support for me. When all the participants were preparing for the presentation, they went to Damansara McDonalds to have their breakfast.

The competition ended in the afternoon. A dinner at Sunway hotel was held in the night after the competition to announce the result. Every participant were allowed 2 special guests to attend the dinner. I picked my 14^th floor mates, Eng Hwa and Yong Sheng, as both of them have helped me a lot during the course of the competition. Together with 2 of my lecturers, there were a total of 5 of us who attend the dinner.

Unexpectedly, I was announced the winner for the Individual category. Later, after the dinner, we were in for a pleasant surprise. When Yong Sheng, Eng Hwa and I got into my lecturer’s car to go back to Damansara, the radio was playing the song “We are the Champions”. After we dropped off at Damansara, Eng Hwa drove us back to Wangsa Maju.

We reached Metroview at about midnight, and we straight away headed to the 14^th floor. We celebrated until 2 something in the morning, and they took a lot of photos too. Luckily the next day my class started at 12pm.

RM6 Economy Rice

Towards the end of the 2^nd semester, my roommate, Kim Loon and I, were voluntarily tasked to buy dinner for the friends at 14^th floor. In one fine evening, we met Zi Wei on our way. Suddenly a mischievous thought comes to mind.

For Eng Hwa’s dinner, stingray meat, chicken drumstick, luncheon meat and some veggies were bought for him. When Yong Sheng first saw the price written on top of the foam box, he was shocked, but shock soon turned into laughter.

Eng Hwa was told that this was for his own good, as eating well is important to face the upcoming exam, to which he replied, “I asked you to buy me a car, and you bought me a Ferrari instead!”

Christmas Celebration at Genting

Before going to Genting, Yong Sheng and I went to KLCC to have dinner with our former M7 classmates. We were unable to stay long, as we were rushing to take the last bus to Genting at the Titiwangsa bus station.

We reached Genting at almost midnight. When we reached, everyone was there already. There was a large crowd outside Genting Hotel, in anticipation of fireworks when the clock turns 12, but disappointingly nothing happens.

After that, we made our way back to our room at First World Hotel, where we played cards briefly before embarking on an ‘adventure’ to the casino. We were busy trying to make ourselves looked like uncles and aunties, and we managed to slip in without much problem.

After walking around in the casino for some time, and had a few free drinks in between, finally I decided to place bets. Well, sadly it turns out that I was luckless in that day, as I didn’t even manage to win a single round of bet. I called it quits when I lost more than RM60.

The night before, through a draw lot, I was one of the 2 persons who got to have breakfast at First World Café. However, I had to forego it, as I needed to get some sleep after only returning to the hotel at 7am. Well, no breakfast and all losses then, haha.

Semester Break after 1^st Semester

I went back to Penang immediately after my exam ended, in order to prepare for my internship application, and I gone back to KL again after 2 days for the preliminaries of Deloitte Tax Challenge. When I went back to KL, all of my housemates were packing their things to go back hometown, bar 2 housemates who still have exams to sit for.

There was an assignment to be submitted during the sem break. Since I was in KL, I was tasked to put on the finishing touches and submit it, in addition to finish my part of the assignment. I would say, compared to other assignments, I was most relaxed in completing this assignment. Since it was a sem break and so I didn’t have to attend classes, I can sit in my room for the whole day to finish it slowly. Besides that, I went up to 14^th floor almost every night and play LAN games with my friends till 6 in the morning.

I did some travelling too. During that period, my parents came to KL to visit me, and together with them we went to Klang to visit my relatives. After that, from Klang, my parents went back to Penang while I went back to Wangsa Maju, and subsequently to Eng Hwa’s place in Damansara. The next day, we went to Universiti Malaya to participate in the 2^nd round of Deloitte Tax Challenge. We parted ways at UM after the 2^nd round ends, and I went back to Penang the next day.

After I returned to Penang, I had many outings with old friends and former classmates. What made this holiday different from other holidays was that, for most of the holidays, I usually laze around in the house or sit in front of the computer for the whole day.

Here are some of the pictures during my stay in KL:

A Remorseful Car Accident April 12, 2008

Posted by wchih-lim in Uncategorized.
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Sometimes the unexpected happened.
Recently, I have met with an car accident, which was due to my carelessness,
and mostly due to an invincible belief in my driving skill.

I have always liked to drive my car fast. During my car-driving lessons, when
the chance arises, I tended to drive at a speed reaching 70km/h, although I
have no prior experience in driving. The first few months after I started
driving to college every day, I have always timed how long it took for me to
reach college or home. Every day, I’ll try to beat the time I took in the
previous day. To improve my time, I started to take more risks on the road. At
first, I took about 45 minutes to reach home/college, later the time gradually
improved to about 30 minutes. I was too naive and I felt happy and proud of it.

There’s one particular road that I like very much. Located near Mt. Eskine, it
is a winding mountain road, called “chui tee lor” in Hokkien. Even
though it is winding, and I drive a Kancil which is less powerful compared to
other cars, it didn’t stop me from overtaking on that road. Once I overtook
twice in succession, much to my friends dismay. My friends joked that
double-lines were still not enough to stop me from overtaking, in order to stop
me, triple-lines are required.

The Happening of an Accident Waiting to Happen

One afternoon, I was driving back from college. There were 3 friends in my car.
As usual, I was driving fast along the winding road. My friends were joking
that I was chasing a car driven by a particular girl (perhaps they want
revenge, as few hours ago I was one of the culprit for taking photos of the
antics of 2 of my friends, a guy and a girl, in a car. Haha). Later joked
that it is better not to provoke me into doing something crazy and threatened
their safety. After exiting the winding road, I tried to jump the queue at a
junction (a bad habit of mine). At that time, I was confident and I took an
unnecessary risk. The junction was located at a downward slope. I failed to
brake in time and crash into the back of an old Saga. The left side of its
bumper was damaged, while the whole front right of my Kancil was damaged. In
comparison, the damage of my car was more serious. The whole piece of metal on
the front right was dragging along the road. My friends tucked in the piece of
metal into the bonnet.

The Saga driver was a middle age Chinese. Luckily he was a kind person, and ask
for RM100 as compensation. Well, the damage to my car was not serious, but it
is not minor either, and the repair costed RM550.

I am sorry to my friends who were in the car when the accident occurred.
Luckily nobody was injured. When not driving alone, it is better not to take
unnecessary risks. If my friends were injured at that time, I don’t know if I
am able to face to face with them in the future. Having said so, it is also
better not to drive too fast when driving alone, to avoid accident and the long
repairs that followed, and more importantly, for own safety.

Perhaps the accident was meant to be a lesson for me. Without a car to drive, I have to trouble my friends to take me to college everyday. I have learned a lesson in a hard way.

Exploring KL April 4, 2008

Posted by wchih-lim in Uncategorized.
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Time flies, my two-year course in TARC Penang is about to come to an end. As I’ll be continuing my study in TARC Main Campus, Setapak, it’s important to start looking for a room or a house in Kuala Lumpur early.

Before the end of the 5th Sem, there were telltale signs that my good buddies of Class M6 may not welcome me as their housemate when we pursue the Advance Diploma in KL. Furthermore, they have planned to look for houses in KL during their class trip (I’m not in the same class as them). As such, I started to do some researches on the locations and places where TARCians usually live, just in case I’m being left out.

However, during the Sem break, I was invited to join their class trip and their search for future accommodation. I was glad and I shared my findings with them.

Arrived in KL

Our bus arrived at Puduraya at about noon. After checking in a hotel near Bukit Bintang, we took a van to go to Setapak to start our search. First, we stopped at the Main Campus to get some information regarding accommodation. Then, from the findings, we decided to look for houses in 2 areas, namely Melati Utama and Wangsa Maju. We then walk to the nearby Taman Melati LRT station. I was excited, since this’ll be the first time that I got to try out the public transportation system in KL.

The Search for Houses

We took taxis to go to Melati Utama from the LRT station. The Platinum Victory (PV) condos in Melati Utama are impressive. The condos looked new, and they include swimming pool and gym. There were 9 persons altogether in our house-searching party, 6 guys and 3 girls, and we decided to stay together when studying in the Main Campus. Since each unit of the PV Condos has 4 bedrooms, there should not be any problem accommodating 9 persons. However, Chinese food was nowhere to be seen in Melati Utama, and there were not much shops (mostly restaurants) in that area. After looking around the condos, we took taxis back to the LRT station and from there, we headed to Wangsa Maju.

After we came off the LRT, suddenly we realised that our maps were lost. A friend of mine was using the maps’ folder to shield himself from the afternoon sun, and he has misplaced it. Anyway, we found that Wangsa Maju is a place where there’s a lot of eateries, and there are VCD shops, clinics, hair saloons, and even a gift shops (which could be useful in the future, I joked with my friends). There is one Jaya Jusco in Wangsa Maju Section 1, and there are banks inside it. Not long after that, we came across a familiar road. It is the road where a friend of mine (who was in the party) and I usually had dinner with the Penang Contingent during the TARC Inter-Campus Games. The road, Jalan 4A/27A, is full of Chinese, Malay and Mamak eateries. Finally, we saw one condo, the Alpha Angle. However, the guard only allow 2 of us to enter the condo. The 2 of them took photos of the condo, and we left Wangsa Maju after that. (Several weeks later, we decided to rent a unit in Wangsa Metroview Condo, which is cheaper than Alpha Angle, has just obtained its OC, and of course, cleaner. Haha)

The Start of an Eventful Journey to Klang

Before the trip, I have decided not to follow the rest of the M6 class trip anymore after finishing the house-searching. It was because, this was their one and only class trip, and I felt that it was not appropriate for me to tag along. Besides, my uncle, who was living in Klang asked me to take back a water filter for my aunt in Penang.

And so, I took the LRT to KL Sentral, while my friends left at the Pasar Seni station. It was already late evening by then. I went to the KTM Komuter ticketing counter. As there were people queuing at the counter, I decided to buy my ticket through the machine. I have exchanged a lot of coins with my friend beforehand, and I started to insert the coins into the machine. After inserting all the coins, it was still RM 1 short. So, I immediately inserted RM 1 into the machine, without reading the instructions that says only RM 2, RM 5, RM 10 are acceptable. The machine hanged. There was already a queue forming behind me, but the machine still won’t work. After few minutes, the machine dropped all my coins. As I do not know if the machine will return the change to me, I tried to exchange for some coins with the person behind me, but unfortunately that person did not have small change. I realised that there was no longer a queue behind me anymore. At that time, I decided to go to the counter and buy the ticket instead.

Inside the KTM Komuter

The train arrived after about 20 minutes. Maybe because I am too nice of a person, I let everyone to enter the train first. The carriage that I was about to get in was quickly filled to full, and I am the only one not able to get in. I quickly ran to another carriage, but the door was closing far quicker than me. Luckily the people inside the previous carriage opened the door for me. But the space left was so small that I was only able to stand inside the carriage with 1 foot. I have to be extremely careful so as not to be caught by the door each time it closes.

For the first few stations, there were not much people who left the train. And I still found myself standing with 1 foot. After that, when stopping at a station, while the door was fast closing, a woman  suddenly jumped into the carriage and I was being pushed inside. Luckily I was not squeezed inside the crowd for too long, as there were a lot of people leaving the train when arriving at one station (I have forgotten which station already).

After that, I found myself a seat. I didn’t realised that the PA system did not cover the place where I sit. At that time, I thought that the  PA system was malfunctioning. I saw that there were persons leaving the train at every stations. I thought perhaps the commuters were regular users of the train, and they have no problem identifying the station of their destination. I started to get anxious, as I do not know how the Klang train station looked like. So, I went to ask a person who was standing near the door the station that the train was about to stop next. Suddenly, I heard "Klang" was announced as the next station. Oh well, I was just an inexperience commuter.

Finally, I reached Klang. I stayed overnight at my uncle’s place, and I left for Penang the next morning. Since I am going to stay in KL for 2 years, the experience gained of using the public transportation system (and the KTM Komuter ticketing machine) should serve me well.

The Game of Business - part 2 November 11, 2007

Posted by wchih-lim in My Life as a TARCian.
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(continues from the Game of Business - part 1)

How would I feel if we were to be eliminated, after putting in so much time, money and effort? How would I feel if we were to end up being the only top-4 team who got the elimination? These are some of the questions that I keep asking myself in the course of the Semi-Finals of the TARC Youth Apprentice, also known as the Business Game. At the time of writing, the 2-day selling period of the Finals has just been concluded.

Well, after the 1st Round of elimination, there were only 10 teams left for the Semi-Finals. My team, O & O Enterprise, was 4th, with a mere 0.4 lead over the 5th place team.  Only 4 out of the remaining 10 teams will qualify to the Finals. The Semi-Finals was scheduled on the 1st week of Semester 5. As such, each team has the 2-week semester break to prepare themselves.

Preparation

And so, my CEO immediately called a meeting on the next day after our Sem 4 exams ended. Everybody was excited by the 4th placing, and the meeting was fruitful. However, some of the teammates will be away for 1 week, some even away for the whole 2 weeks of the semester break. As a result, most of the preparation work was left to be done by us remaining teammates.

Well, apart from the few days when I went to Genting with my classmates (glad that they invited me to go along), I hardly had any break during the sem break. For most of the days, I went out in the morning and only returned during dinner time. Sometimes I even have to go out at night after having dinner. All because of the preparation work. Not that I was the only one who had to went out in the morning and returned during night, the other teammates who were not away, were as busy as I was. Therefore, the whole of our sem break was as good as over. Anyway, we sold lok-lok as our main offering, chocolate steamboat, fruit tarts, soya bean jelly, lunch sets and stationery.

In fact, we were lucky, as a Datin promised to sponsor our t-shirts, as well as provide ice, bihun and disposable dishes for us free of charge. We were also managed to strike up a deal with a restaurant near the college to prepare set lunch for us at a discounted price. The restaurant is much frequented by students and lecturers alike. Besides, we managed to create 4 unique drinks, by mixing soft drinks such as Sprite and Vanilla Coke with Sunquick base and grass jelly. The drinks were named Black Beauty (grass jelly), Occidental Paradise (blackcurrant), Sparkling Refresh (lemon) and Tropical Breeze (orange) by us. All these gave us reasons to be optimistic going into the Semi-Finals.

Semi-Finals (4-day selling period) - Day 1

To be honest, we start off badly. In the 1st day, we were still setting up our stall when others have started their selling. When the CEO and I went to get orders from lecturers, we were told that they have ordered from other teams. At the stall, we were shorthanded. As such, we were not able to implement most of our marketing strategies. We planned to went to almost all lectures to promote our business in the 1st day, but at the end, we only managed to go to 2 lectures, and we have to scupper this approach. Our stall was located at the far end of the college foyer, a location which we believe is strategic. However, as things turned out, other teams were getting all the customers in the center of the foyer, and the team located opposite us were getting those customers entering the foyer from the side. We barely have any existence in the foyer. It was not surprising that sales of the day was poor.

Conflicts

In Day 1, there were accusation within the team that some teammates have got it all wrong in the pricing, and some teammates were fanning the fire by saying the team should be disbanded immediately and that they all would attend classes beginning the next day (We skipped all the classes to operate our business). Discontentment in the team has begun to surface. We have a clear-the-air meeting after Day 1 to calm things down. However, our team did not recover from that point on.

Rest of selling period (Day 2 to 4)

Sales in Day 2 was generally better than Day 1. We deployed sandwich man to walk around the foyer to grab attention and we took out our products outside our stall to sell. In Day 3 our sales plummeted again, and Day 4 was never better as we slashed prices of our products. In these few days, some of the teammates has become less committed, by chatting and indulging in the food sold by competitors for hours. Worse still, one of our sponsors pulled out in Day 3. Then, we only realised in Day 3 that customers would feel unconfortable standing in front of our stall to eat lok-lok. In other words, our stall orientation was wrong and unattractive (we placed lok-lok at the front of our stall, as lok-lok was our main offering). In spite of all the difficulties, there were praises for our services. After so many things happened, we were relieved at the end of the 4-day selling period. It was time to calculate our profit and prepare for the presentation.

Post-selling period

Not surprisingly, our net profit was the second lowest among all the 10 teams. I was told that the team with the least net profit, was beset by internal conflict that was worse than ours, and tears were dropped by some of their members. Anyway, for the presentation, we only finished the preparation work until the very last minute and we hardly had any rehearsal. There were technical glitches in our slide and the speakers forgot what they should said. The judges came out a comment for us: “You have done many things well and it was surprising that your net profit was so low”. It hurts. It is true that we came out with a marketing plan that was different from other teams, and we have prepared backup plans as well, but we were unable to fully implement our plans after the Day 1 preparation rush and conflict.

And so, the results showed that we were in 7th place, 7 points adrift of the last qualifying place, 4th. We were the only top-4 team in the 1st round, to drop out in the Semi-Finals.

Conclusion

For me, of course I am disappointed, and a bit embarrassed. Being 4th out of 29 teams and then 7th out of 10 teams may not be bad, but I regretted that we did not go further than we are supposed to. Our team had a creative person, an experience organiser, a person whose house has everything needed, a person who communicates well, a person who is good at computer design, and a person who is good in English, and yet with all the talents, we failed to qualify for the Finals.

I guess I have learned some lessons from this experience. None of the lessons that I learned are more important than the lesson that in such competition teammates and teamwork are extremely important. No matter how good the teammates are, if they can’t be fully committed and put aside self-interest it will be useless. As the saying goes, “a chain is only as strong as its weakest point”. Anyway, all the teammates still remain as friends despite of the conflict. To sum up, I think the Business Game is a long, tiring but enjoyable journey.

Looking back at the 4th Semester September 25, 2007

Posted by wchih-lim in My Life as a TARCian.
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Finally, at the start of the 4th Semester, I have made up my mind to switch to M6, the class which I have longed to join. The reasons were the ever-growing feeling of isolation in my class, M7 and that I have close friends in M6. However, I had an eleventh-hour change of mind and decided to stay in my own class. I decided that, after all, it may be better for me to stay and that I may have already missed the deadline to switch classes. Anyway, the 4th Sem was really hectic for me. Until the moment I wrote this blog, which was 5 days after the 4th Sem exam ended, and I haven’t started my reading of a book which my classmate lent to me months ago.

Chess Activities

The start of the 4th Sem coincided with the
beginning of the new academic year. At the end of the 3rd Sem, I was appointed
as Chess Representative in Sports and Recreational Society (SARS). All games
reps are supposed to head a sub-committee for a particular sports, such as
football, basketball, chess etc. However, none of us really have any committee
members to assist us and so we are the lowest ranked officers in SARS. Well, I
am not bothered by ranks, and what bothered me is that my first task was to
organise a Chinese chess competition and an International chess competition
concurrently during orientation. I remember last year there were 240
participants in both competitions during orientation. A daunting job really,
especially I have no sub-committee members to help me out. Luckily I
managed to enlist the help from several of my friends and the number of
participants turned out to be less than 50. Well, being in this position was
not all smooth sailing. As there were no competition to prepare for in the 4th
Sem, the attendance of chess training sessions were generally poor, and
training was stopped after a month.

Business Forum

I guess the calling off of the chess training sessions may be a blessing in
disguise, as I can shift my attention to other activities I involved in. My
presentation team were chosen by the English teacher to participate in the
college Business Forum competition. The reason why my team was chosen was unknown
to us, and we were being asked to do our presentation on Free Trade Agreement
(FTA) in the Business Forum. However, a week before the Forum, 2 of my
teammates pulled out. Fortunately, 2 of my classmates, a guy and a girl,
stepped into the breach. They put in effort to learn about this topic and to attend rehearsal sessions
ordered by the teacher. However, after all the effort we did not managed to get
the top 3 places although there were only 7 or 8 teams participating. I was not
sure if it was my fault, since I didn’t do as well as during rehearsals. My
teammates gave their best, especially the girl, who talk in a confident, fluent
manner and didn’t display any noticeable signs of nervousness to the audience,
while the guy tried to present his points in a humourous way. I am sorry to
them. I don’t know if I’m the culprit of their efforts being washed down the
drain.

Youth Apprentice (Business Game)

Meanwhile, I was invited by my friend to join a competition called the Youth
Apprentice, also known as the Business Game. In the Biz Game, teams
compete against each other to establish and operate a business. I did not expect there are so much work to be done, such as meetings, attending seminars, conducting surveys and preparing a proposal. But it was a good learning process really. (The Game of Business - part 1)

Time-wasting Group Assignments

After I have decided to stay in my own class, the thing that still irked me most is that I have to finish almost every group assignments. Group assignments are supposedly done in a group, with each members contributing to the completion of the work. But this wasn’t the case for me since the 1st Semester. As a result, much of my time was wasted on doing assignment works that should have been done by other group members. This is also 1 of the reasons why I wish to switch to M6 at first. Since I have stayed in my own class, I guess I have no choice but to quit my current assignment group and hopefully I will be accepted by other groups.

***

In the 4th Sem, I have to stay back at college after class to do all those activities for most of the days. I do not have enough sleep at night as well. In the middle of the semester, my hectic schedule was starting to take its toll on me. I fell sick thrice in six weeks. I have never been falling sick for 3 times in such a short span of time before. Luckily, each time it was just minor fever and I recovered after popping in a few Panadols and drinking a few cups of herbal tea. Some of my friends criticised me that I ask for it by joining various activities.

Well, I think this is what college life (or university life) is all about. We only get to join all these activities during our secondary education and especially tertiary education. Besides, I was hoping to improve my communication skills. I think communication is one of my weakness. For example, after more than a year, I still do not quite know most of my classmates. I tended to give them an impression of someone who doesn’t have a life beside studying for the whole day. In fact, I am more of the opposite. I never do revisions until the very last minute before exam and I prefer to join co-curricular activities and sport games. I guess I have find ways to shed this stereotypical image of a bookworm.

The Game of Business - part 1 September 25, 2007

Posted by wchih-lim in My Life as a TARCian.
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It has been months since I last updated my
blog. Well, I haven’t really got time to blog as my schedule was kind of hectic
in the recently concluded 4th semester. Furthermore, my dial-up connection has
been really bad for the past months. Anyway, poor Internet connection hopefully
will be a thing of the past as I will be installing Streamyx soon.

In the last semester, a business
competition, called the Youth Apprentice, or more widely known as the Business
Game, was organised by my college. The Biz Game is where teams competing
against each other in starting and operating a business. A day before the
submission deadline, I was asked by a friend to fill his team’s vacancy, and I
gladly agreed.

Upon my joining of the team, our business
was already given a name, called O & O Enterprise. If I am not mistaken,
the name was taken from a TV drama series and in my opinion, such name doesn’t
really help in future marketing. Well, our team comprises of 10 members: 7 guys
and 3 girls; 5 Accounting students and 5 Business Admin students. After the
formation of our team, the next thing to do was to prepare a business proposal.
Since the limited spaces of college foyer can only accommodate 10 stalls, only
10 teams, with the best proposals will be given a chance to operate their
business. As things turned out, there were 29 teams which submit their
participation! It really seems daunting, with only 10 teams out of 29 will make
the cut.

Well, I was quietly confident of our chances, as we have Accounting and
Business students in the team, who will provide different expertises. Then,
most of us are from different classes with different timetables, so in case we
were one of the chosen 10 teams, our stall will not be left unattended when
some of us are attending classes. Those who do not have class can stay at the
stall. Furthermore, some of my teammates are my friends from class M6, whom I
know their capabilities well.

However, problems started to emerge. We held a
meeting once every week, but the speed of our decision-making was awfully slow.
There were not many conclusions made even after meeting for hours. Besides, most
of us have other commitments, and cannot fully concentrated on the Biz Game.
There were signs that maybe some were losing their interest already. Suddenly,
we realised that the deadline of submission of proposal was to arrive in less
than two weeks time.

We managed to finish and hand in our proposal in time. Frankly, it was the
result of a rush work. We stayed up late for a couple of nights just to
complete the proposal. I think my total sleep hours for the 2 days before the
deadline was equivalent to a night’s sleep. In fact, 1 hour before the
deadline, we were still in the process of completing the proposal. After the
handing in of our proposal, some of us feel that the only chance was to scrap
through to the next round in the last few places of 9th or 10th, and we do not
know how the other 28 teams’ proposals were as well.

The result was announced
in the second last day of the semester, just before our exam started. We were
surprised, when the result showed we were in the 4th place! I was fast asleep
when my friend text me about the result. I straight away jumped out of my bed
after seeing the result. I guess my teammates were as happy and surprised as I
was. More importantly, we were one of the 10 chosen teams and we get to operate
our business.

And so, we qualified to the so-called Semi-Finals in 4th place, along with the
other 9 teams. Only 4 teams which will qualify to the Final. As we are in the
4th place, we have an added pressure to try and maintain in the top 4 positions
and avoid being overtaken by teams below us. Currently, we have a slim lead in
the points over the 5th place team, but, as in football quotes, "the fate
is still in our hands". The teams below us will have to depend on us and
the top 3 teams to slip up in order to qualify. However, all the teams should
not be taken lightly by us either, since we appeared to be lucky to get 4th
placing.

The Semi-Finals will be on 8 Oct until 12 Oct, which coincide with the
beginning of the new semester, where all 10 teams will be operating their
businesses at the college. Then, each team will have to do a presentation on
their businesses. Meanwhile, with less than 2 weeks to go before the start of
the Semi-Finals, it seems that most of the teams are keeping their cards close
to their chests, without revealing much of their business. Currently, only 3
teams have started to do promotions.

Well, I guess most of my 2-week semester
will be spend on preparation works. In the meantime, I will be keeping my fingers
crossed that we will be among the 4 teams in the Finals.

(to be continued after the Semi-Finals)

At Sixes and Sevens May 20, 2007

Posted by wchih-lim in My Life as a TARCian.
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One week to go before college reopens and I am still undecided whether to stay at my own class, M7 or switch to another class, M6 (hence, the title of this post). Time flies, it is orientation week again, and I realised that I have been at TARC for a year already.

Thinking back, at this time last year, I was a freshie, trying to get a grip on college life. The college bureaucracy, the way classes are conducted, are totally different from a secondary school. My cousin was said to be suffered from ‘cultural shock’ when he first started university life. I didn’t suffer any ‘cultural shock’, but there were certain things that are needed to get used to them. First of all, nobody called me that reptile nickname which has been associated to me since Form 3. It makes me felt a bit odd though. Secondly, my 5 years at CLHS never had any female classmates and now, I am studying in an environment where girls are a majority. I admit that I tend to feel shy (even after 1 year). Those guys from Engineering keep moaning that we guys in Accounting are the luckiest lot: fewer subjects, less assignments, more relaxing, and more girls.

The first few weeks of my college life was a bit lonely as I did not have many friends who came to this college. I ate my lunch alone, I went to the library alone, and nobody sat beside me during lectures. Then I get to know a few people from M6 who happens to be former students of CLHS. Later they become my partners in study and also in sports games. As I get to know more of my M7 classmates, life gets merrier. After 1 year, many of my M7 classmates are still quite new to me though. I guess I am not a good communicator then.

Here, exams have become all important for me due to the fact that the continuity of my full scholarship hinges on my results. I have to get a CGPA of 3.65 to continue studying with full scholarship. In order to get full scholarship when I pursue the Advance Diploma, the criteria are CGPA of 3.85. There’s only little room for slip-ups. In football terms, every exam is like a ‘final’.

Looking back, throughout the year, as I was one of the top students in M7, often I have to do almost every bit of the group assignments. And this is what irked me.  Well, as I started to actively participate in co-curricular activities, I was not happy that my time was wasted on things that were supposed to be done in a group. There are certain people in my class, whom I felt, were just making use of me as there was a feeling of isolation in me, even in a football game, and that feeling of isolation grew towards the end of the recently concluded academic year. I still get along well with my classmates because I never made my unhappiness known.

I have only 1 regret, that is not switching to M6 at the beginning of the academic year. Now that the ‘transfer window’ has reopened, whether I decided stay or not, hopefully my decision is a correct one.

An Update on Me May 7, 2007

Posted by wchih-lim in My Life as a TARCian.
2 comments

The 3rd semester has just ended, spanning a mere 7 weeks. It was supposed to be an easy and relaxing semester. 2 subjects, but I only have to sit for 1 subject in the exam, the reason being the other subject was 100% assessed on coursework. Sounds easy? Well, it was not much of the fun when the only subject that I have to sit for is Basic Taxation. Mind you, studying Malaysian law of taxation is really taxing. Acts, provisions, exemptions…they dwarfs the Malacca Sultanate tax laws that we studied in Form 1. Never once did my friends and I get the same answers for the questions in the test and exam. It worries me a bit, when I have got friends who works in an accounting firm; who understands so well that a quick revision on the morning of the exam day will do; who can stay up to study until the wee hours in the morning but never late to go to classes or football games; who is good in maths and does all homeworks; and lastly a friend who sleeps during lectures every now and then ;-). Anyway, Basic Taxation is a thing of the past now and will be put to bed.

It has been a month since I last signed in to my MSN Messenger. My dial-up connection has been sluggish at best, and will disconnect after about 10 minutes.  Even several attempts have to be made before it connects to the internet. Perhaps this is a conspiracy by the TMNet to force every dial-up user to upgrade to Streamyx. Who knows?

I have just passed my 19th birthday. I am happy to be 19 now, but at the same time feeling bit of regret. The 2 chess tournament that I participated right before my birthday were the last time I was able to compete as an under-18 player. As an U-18 player, besides the main prizes, I was eligible for U-18 category prizes as well. However, I narrowly missed out on the prizes in both CLHS Open and PCGHS Open. Perhaps it is just luck, or perhaps I am simply not good enough. I guess after this I will be going into ’semi-retirement’. I will focus more on college competitions, and  will skip open tournaments in Penang I think.

One thing that has been bugging me for a few weeks is that whether I should switch class. The 2nd academic year will start in a months time and it is quite common here for a student to switch to another class. I am tempted to join one of the best group in Accounting, among other reasons. But at the meantime, I must not offend the friends whom I mentioned above by forcing myself into their class. And so, 4 weeks of semester break for me to decide on this matter, and for me to relax and enjoy too!

Oh well, it really is time to enjoy too. Manchester United won the league after 4 years, the Premier League cleared Man United from any possible points deductions, and whats more, Chelsea fail to equal Man United record of 3 successive league titles!

The Nearly Guy March 31, 2007

Posted by wchih-lim in Uncategorized.
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From tortoise to Agumon, professor to Inzaghi, I think I have just given myself a new nickname. That’s it, the nearly guy. Well, the reason is I managed to "snatch defeat in the jaw of victory" twice in a week.

Firstly, 25th of March, the Chung Ling International Chess Open Tournament. It was the 8th last round of the tournament. I got 4.5 pts from the first seven rounds (win = 1 pt, draw = 0.5 pt, lose = 0 pt). Another win will almost, if not certainly, guaranteed me a prize in the U-18 Boys category. For the 8th round, I was paired with a U-18 Boys opponent (who also got 4.5 pts). We knew that a victory by any one of us will result in the winner getting a prize. In other words, if he defeats me, he gets the prize, but if I beat him, I get the prize. However, draw is not an option as it may put both of us out of the prizes. Needless to say, I was both excited and nervous, since if I win, it’ll only be the 2nd time that I won a prize in a open chess tournament (sigh).

And so the stage was set. Our game will be played on Table 21, with me playing the white pieces and he played with the black pieces. I started with my customary Queen’s Pawn Opening, he replied with a Queen’s Gambit Declined. I managed to found weaknesses in his position when he tried to push many pawns up the board. By exploiting the weaknesses, I was up a rook and 2 pawns! Already a winning advantage! Furthermore, he has less than 10 minutes in his clock. The U-18 prize was almost in my grasp now. Then he launched his 1st attack on me. To my horror, I make a stupid blunder resulting a checkmate on me the next move. I was stunned and he was all smiles.

Now, while I am writing this blog, I have just realized that I have f**k up my huge 200 pts lead in CLHS Fantasy Football League. The reason is that I only pick 10 players instead of 11 in my team. According to the rules, not picking 11 players will resulted in straight away getting 0 pt. Since this is a double-game week, it should be easy for other member in that league to get 200 pts, while I have to sit out and get a 0 marks (sob!). Well, I cannot blame anyone other than myself, for taking things for granted. So this is the consequences when the game deadline was set on 7pm while I was still assuming the deadline is at the usual 8pm. In fact, I shouldn’t made the mistake of leaving my lineup short of 1 player when I go offline the night before. I have squandered everything that I have built over the course of the 9-month season. Well, anyway it is just a game right?

Maybe it is pure misfortune. maybe I shouldn’t let off the guard to easily. Now, I truly understand how Bayern Munich felt after Man United scored 2 goals in stoppage time to win the Champions League in 1999.cc

Penang Bus System - is it Really that Poor? February 28, 2007

Posted by wchih-lim in Uncategorized.
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So the people of RapidKL will form
RapidPenang, not to takeover but to ‘integrate’ and ‘complement’ the existing
bus system, as they would like to call it. Since the courses I took started
last May, I have became a frequent Milan bus user. To many, the existing bus
system which was implemented on last year April Fool’s Day really is a joke, as
the many complains in the newspapers suggest. Since the implementation, 2
mini-bus companies have ceased operation and the bus terminal at Tg. Bungah has
became a white elephant.

Once, while I was waiting for my bus at Prangin Mall,
I was approached by 2 foreigners who asked me about taxi fares going to the
airport. At that time the new taxi metering system has just been implemented
and many taxi drivers was still contesting it. So I just replied that I’m not
quite sure as some of the taxi drivers don’t want to use the meter.
Then I was asked again, how to go to the airport by bus. However, there are no
bus which directly go to the airport. To go to the airport, you have to board a
Milan go to Bkt. Jambul and then take a mini-bus. I don’t know  the
no. of the mini-bus which ply the routes to the airport so I ask them to seek
help with a Milan bus operator. Suprisingly, the bus operator didn’t know how
to go to the airport either! What a shame really, with a bus system that do not
have direct routes to an international airport! (Although buses no. 3-4 Balik
Pulau has since started plying direct routes to the airport if I’m not mistaken.)

I think most complains about the bus system is about punctuality and
overcrowding. I heard a 3-5 bus driver frankly admitting that everyday there
will be a bus arriving at Bkt. Gedung at 6.15am, 6.30am, 6.45am and 7.15am,
after that they are unable to follow the schedule anymore. Especially when after
lunch time, around 2pm, suddenly Milan buses reaching
Prangin Mall turns rare. Once I waited for an hour for a bus and when I reached Prangin Mall,
already there were some foreigners waiting for bus. As my bus came not long after their bus arrived, this means that they have waited longer than me. This is the way to
promote tourism, huh? Besides, in early morning and after 4.30pm, the buses are
so packed that 2 passengers have to stand alongside each other on almost every bus.
Strangely, at other times of the day, they struggled to fill even half of their buses.
Another problem is the reliability of the buses as there were a couple of times
the bus I took broke down halfway of the journey and once I get held up behind
by a bus which suddenly broke down at a junction while I was driving. Each
time, the cause given by the driver seems to be locked brakes, though I doubt
any of the commuters understand what is it really, including myself.

The most astonishing thing that I ever saw is when 2 Milan bus driver came to blows after a heated argument at Prangin Mall. I was standing quite near to the front on the bus at that time and what I heard from my bus driver (who was involved in the fight) was that the driver of the bus in front kept blocking his way. As it is being reported that all bus drivers earn a fixed income, it makes people wonder whether the ‘leash back’ system still exists after all (where a bus company rent their buses to the drivers and the drivers from the same company competing against each other. This was said to be one of the problems that the introduction of the current zonal bus will tackle).

So, is the existing system as poor as it is being reported in the newspapers? Very likely. However, the existing system actually benefits me in a way. The introduction of a new route - Jelutong Expressway - plied by bus no. 3-5, managed to cut short my journey time by 30 minutes. Besides, I can take every Milan bus, from 3-1 to 3-5, to reach home. All in all, the current system does not bring the desired results since its implementation. Now it is up to the RapidPenang to ‘integrate’ and ‘complement’ the current system. Hopefully, they are not merely adding the number of buses on the roads.

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