Whale Watching

    In Malaysia, I would say it's almost impossible to see a living whale in front of you, swimming around, playing in a group. But, if you're lucky enough, you probably get the chance to see dying baby whale, which got lost from her mummy and is washed away to the shore. If I'm not mistaken, it happend before. Normally, in this kind of case, the baby whale will end up dead due to hydration. Poor thing!
  However, in Canada, to be more specific, Vancouver, it's totally different. Whale watching is one of the main attractions there especially during summer time. Honestly, after went for a trip, it's worth paying roughly around CAD$ 100 per person and furthermore, it's a guaranteed sighting trip. Means, if you are not able to see the whale, you can come again in the future for free. If you see the whale, it's done and deal. You definitely can come, but with another extra 100 bucks..c",)
  I went for the trip with my beloved gf. I booked the trip by calling the company, no deposit. We paid everything once we arrived at the jetty which located at Richmond. If you dont have your own transport, you can take shuttle to go to the jetty. That's what we did actually. The journey to the jetty took about half an hour and we did enjoy the ride cz the driver was very nice, talkative and funny. He talked a lot about the history of the town and I found pretty interesting.
  Upon arriving, we confirmed our booking and paid the fee trip. Then, we're given special yellow jacket for the trip. Once everybody's ready, we boarded the boat and the new experience begun. It was such a amazing trip for us. We enjoyed the trip so much. Although my camera's batteries ran out of power, I guess it was our lucky day since all the pictures and videos that we took using my cell phone were great quality and there were a lots of whale spotted during our trip.

Check the website of the company here:

Tips On Landing A Job

    After quitting my previous job and started working at KL, I actually have a lot of free time especially during the weekend. So, I decided myb I should find some good reading materials to read during my free time. I checked my luggage that I brought from Perak; actually I use my luggage as a place to keep my stuffs here since I dont have proper drawer, and I found Reader's Digest(RD) that I took from my sister. She used to subcribe the magazine while she was studying Seri Puteri School.
    I figured out it's not a bad idea to read the magazine. It's an educational magazine full wt great info and facts, not an entertainment mag full wt bullshits and gossips. I'm cool wt that, right on. At this moment, I almost finish reading my 2nd RD and I am thinking myb I should start subcribing the magazine. It's not that expensive and I guess it's worth spending every penny on it.
  One of the article that I found most interesting to read is about tips on landing a job. Since I used to be jobless for quiet long time after my graduation, I think I have the stand to comment about this. I know how hard it is to find a job nowadays and it'll be worst if your plan of action is wrong. You'll waste your time, money and energy without landing any job. The article is pretty short but the content is straight to the point and definitely useful. Below are some of the mentioned points:-

1. Get a temp job while doing your job hunting
     I think this is a good advice for a job seeker and I've done this before. It helps me a lot in my job hunting. It's true that you'll have less time focusing for your job hunting, but if you look at a broader horizon, it actually will balance back what you've lose in some sense either you realize it or not. For me, job hunting is not a thing that you need to do in most of your time. You can do it when you have your free time, but you have to manage your time wisely. You need to know how to divide your time for your temporary job, for your job hunting and for your rest. Plan your day carefully, decide what you wanna do in your everyday schedule. This consequently will help you to plan your day and appreciate the time that you have cz it is the cheapest gold you get everyday. Besides that, temp job also could help you create a network. I'll explain more on this later.

2. Specify your CV wt good chose of words
     This is so damn true. Create your resume carefully and smartly. Choose the words wisely and make sure it's attractive and catchy. Just remember, HR receive myb thousands applications everyday and they definitely know how to differentiate people just based on the resume. Take your time to write your resume and get some help from your friends. Ask them to do proof reading and also ask their opinion. Recently, I found out that one local university's career centre encourages their students to put some interesting pic in the resume such as field trip pic or FYP pic. I thought that's pretty genius, as we all know, a pic is worth a thousand words.

3. Practice interview
    Practice makes perfect, most people have heard this sentence. However, not all of us apply this in our daily life. Once you receive an interview invitation, make sure you have an interview rehearsal; doesn't matter if you do it by yourself or wt the help from your friend. Once you're familiar wt the general Q&A for the interview, you actually will build confidence in yourself to get through the interview successfully. Believe me, try this and I can guarantee you this will help you a lot.

4. Create a network
     Based on a stat that I read before, almost 60% people get their job wt help of networking. See how it works now in a bigger picture. You can have all the great skills and experience, but without networking, it's gonna be hard for you to land a job. For example, you're doing job hunting just by looking for a job opening in newspaper ad and career website. These openings usually will receive thousands applications and for the first stage, normally all the applications will be sorted by computer, electronically. This means that, computer will scan your resume based on certain chosen words. So, doesn't matter how awesome you're but if the words they're looking for are not in your resume, then it's the end for your application. Furthermore, keep in mind that, not all company will advertise their opening online or in a newspaper. That costs them a huge amount of money. So, usually for this kind of opening, people just spread the words, and if you hv good networking plus wt a little bit of luck, you'll be informed about the opening.
Be friendly and don't shy to social wt people around you. Tell them you're doing job hunting, create a network with them. You're not gonna lose anything, you even gain more.

The path that we chose full with hurdles, get it through without giving up. 

    That's pretty much what I can ramble about based on my humble opinion and experience before I got the job that I'm doing right now. Just bear in mind, job hunting is not gonna be easy. Keep your spirit high and make sure you're always motivated to continue your job hunting no matter what happen until you get the job that you dream on. If you give up in the middle of the journey, you lose the game and you probably end up doing job that you're not interested to do at all; it sucks, for real.

The Thing That I Miss Back in Canada..♥

     It's winter time at Canada and I'm at Malaysia at this moment working. I wish I could be at Canada, either Vancouver or Edmonton, or anywhere wt bunches of great ski resort, riding my board, hitting the run and jump, doing some ollie and wheellie, practicing new tricks with my friends. I just heard that my buddies in Edmonton went to Marmot Basin and the condition over there was awesome. Perfect condition for snowboarding, with all the powdery and great snow fall for the past couple weeks, you couldn't ask for more.
   Arghhh, damn! I miss snowboarding so much. I need to save some money, buy a plane ticket to the nearest ski resort, I guess would be at Korea or China. Doesn't matter, nie dh sangap nie. As long as I can touch the board and snow, riding down the hill, I'll satisfy.haha. This is critical.c",)

1st ever public holiday..♥

   As far as I'm concerned, Malaysia has the most public holiday in this world.That's pretty interesting , isn't that right? That kind of shows that Malaysians have the most free time worldwide, doesn't mean that we're lazy.We're multi-racial country and each of us has our own celebrations. It's not fair to make it public holiday just for the majority, the minority also need to celebrate their festival, get together wt their family during the celebration.
   Here it comes again. It's a public holiday and guess what? It's my 1st ever public holiday since I started working at KL few weeks ago. I'm really excited since I got more free time to spend on. haha. A week before, I already planned what to do and hopefully I can materialize my plan. Here's pretty much what I've planned to do ;
       1. Go to bed late at night
       2. Wake up at the noon
       3. Watch couples movies I've downloaded
       4. Nap in the evening before asar
       5. Continue watching movies
   What a great plan! Come on, it's holiday. It's ok to be lazy ass once in a month. I worked so damn hard in the past few weeks and it's time for me to get some good rest.haha.      
  Today, January 19th, 2011 is Thaipusam day and that's why it's a public holiday.weee... Honestly, I'm not really sure what does Thaipusam really commemorate. I knew it's a special day for Indian or to be more specific, Tamil community. I don't wanna be ignorance. At least, make some effort to figure out what's it about. So, I took the easiest way, just google it.haha.. Here's what wiki says about Thaipusam:

     "Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (January/February). The word Thaipusam is derived from the month name Thai and Pusam, which refers to a star that is at its highest point during the festival. The festival commemorates the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a vel (spear) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman."

   Last word, to all my Indian friends, happy Thaipusam and have a great one. Enjoy the celebration and I'm gonna enjoy my holiday.♥

[Old Memory Line]

One of my buddy in Canada in front of Legislature Building, Edmonton protesting for the Palestine.

R2 was freaking tough, dude

"Students nowadays study simply just to pass the exams"

        Most people who involve in oil & gas industry must know Schlumberger or well-known as slb. Slb is the world's largest oilfield services company providing the most complete range of services from seismic survey to the well completion.  Me, as a petroleum engineering graduate, definitely would love to join and work for this great company. Thus, I applied online, created my own profile in the career website but after couples months, I didn't receive any response.
      Somewhere in mid Oct, if I was not mistaken, I went to a career fair and I dropped my resume at slb booth and guess what? I received a response from them. I was contacted by their employee to arrange an interview, but it was after two months. It's fine for me, at least I achieved an improvement in my job hunting. I guess it's normal for a huge company like slb, they definitely receive thousands of applications every months and it'll take months to sort all the applications out.
      The first interview, or known as R1 stage was pretty simple. They just wanted to know more about my background and they also asked me about my interest; where I wanna work? what kind of department you think you'll fit in?
     Fortunately, about a week later, I got an email mentioning that I passed the R1 stage and I need to be ready for the R2 stage interview which would b scheduled soon. On mid Jan, I received a call telling me that I need to attend the interview on Wednesday. Shoot! I'm working on that day dude. Do it on the weekend, can I?hehe. Serious, I told him so.
    "My manager is off on weekend. He actually chose that day for your interview,"He replied. Arghh, I had no choice. If I wanted to go, I need to take a half day off. Furthermore, slb office is just a walking distance from my office.
     As scheduled earlier, I went to the R2 interview with just small prep. I did study a lil bit, focusing more towards my strengths and weaknesses. I was told that for R2 stage, normally you'll be put in a group and then you'll b asked to build a paper bridge. Then, you also need to do a presentation about your strengths and weaknesses.
    However, it was totally different than what I had expected. No paper bridge and no question at all about strengths and weaknesses. None. Zero.Haha. I'm screwed. The interview took about 2.5 hours; the longest interview I ever attended.
    Most of the questions were technical questions. To be honest, I learned all those shit at university and I'm supposed to be able to answer all of them. But, after 6 months holidays, my brain is getting rusted. I can't recall all the theories that I was taught in class. The interviewer even asked me to use the white board and explained to him about few things. At the end, he showed me a software and he asked me to take a look at the data that he got. Then, he asked me to explain what I understood about the data. I did really bad at this, I blew my last chance to impress him. I'm totally screwed now.

   To be honest, before the interview, I expected I can do pretty well for the interview. However, after the interview, I don't think I'll be hired by slb. Keeping my finger cross, I did try my best and right now, just wait and see.

[Old Memmory]

In front of Faculty of Dentistry, UofA.

UPDATE

February 26, 2011

After more than a month waiting, finally I received an offer letter from Schlumberger (Malaysia) for position of production engineer. I have responded to the offer by accepting it. I was told to report duty on April 24, 2011. Still got about 2 months and a lot of things need to be done. Alhamdulillah, I am so happy and excited. I dont know how to describe this feeling. I dont think that there is any word ever created to describe what am i feeling at this moment. Thank you Allah for all the bless and mercy that You have showered me. Alhamdulillah.

     

No Phone Plz.c",)

    Guys, if u've been to a petrol/gas station, u definitely have seen above warning. Do you guys believe it? Like I said in previous post, I used to work at a petrol station for a couple months and I know how hot this issue there. On my first day working there, one of the main points were given to me was about cell phone usage while filling up the tank. I was told to kindly advise and ask the customers to stop using the phone if I see anyone break the warning.
     At the beginning, I just followed what I was told to do. I heard couple stories about explosions happened when customers just ignoring the warning from my co-workers. It definitely scares the hell out of me. However, after a while, I felt a bit curious about this and did some research about the issue. On the net, it's bit different, there is mix opinions. Some people say it's a hoax and some people beg to differ.
     At the end, honestly, I lean towards on supporting the warning. Part of me believe that explosion does can happen if we use cellphone while filling up the tank. How? Petroleum is a volatile fluid, it can easily vaporise to the air at the standard condition especially petrol with huge amount of mid range of alkanes group. If you regularly filling up your tank and stand pretty close to the pump, you should see some vapour/fumes coming out from the nozzle or tank. It's just a small amount but it's still a hydrocarbon, combustible material. Then, we all know that cell phone use electronic waves to transmit and receive data. These waves have some kind of frequency that can produce electronic statics and the statics can be the medium to ignite the hydrocarbon.
    Below are the step-by-step experiments that have been done by someone to check about the issue. I received the pics from my friends and I think it would be great if I can share these pics wt the public.
    The experiment is pretty simple and I guess most people can do it at home if you want to. Here are what you need to perform the experiment; manila card( hard paper), aluminium foil, petrol and a cell phone.
 

1. Cut the manila card into a small pieces and arrange them like what is shown above.

2. Crush the aluminium foil and put it at the top of the manila card.

3. Pour a small amount of petrol to the aluminium foil.

4. Finally, call someone. This might take a while but bear with it cz it's worth waiting.

5.Then, suddenly the aluminium foil and the manila card are burned.


    In my honest and humble opinion, the petrol station rep puts the sign for reasons, mainly for the public safety concerns. So, we got nothing to lose if we just follow it. If we really need to use phone, just walk a few metres away from the pump and do your business. Safety first bro.

An Update.c",)

   It's been a while since my last post in this blog.I wish I could update my blog regularly, but I was pretty busy in the last 2 months. What did I do? Pretty much normal stuff, job hunting but plus with a new thing, working as a cashier.

  I did plan to work temporarily if I couldn't find a job but just for a part time position. I applied to work at Petronas Parit Buntar but until now I haven't receive any call from them. Then, there was a day, if i'm not mistaken, October 25th, 2010, I was on my way to Nibong Tebal and I stopped at Petronas Simpang Lima to fill up the tank. I saw that they were hiring and I asked the pump attendant about it. He asked me to go inside and talk to the manager. So, I parked my moto and went to the office. I talked to the manager and he then interviewed me and to my surprise, I was offerred a job. He asked me, when I can start and I said the next day. I actually was pretty surprised with my answer. Maybe because I was so happy and excited getting a job. It's still a job, a halal source of income.

  I worked 6 days in a week, 8 hours a day but, usually I needed to do overtime since they didn't have sufficient numbers of employees. That's why I was pretty busy and didn't hv much time to write. Recently, I got a new job, the one that I'm looking for. I was thinking to write about the new job in the future post, so I'm not gonna talk about the new job in this post.

I got a chance to snap a brand new Proton Inspira at the petrol station.

I found this cat at the petrol station and my siblings and I decided to take her home.