My Way: Frank Sinatra

The first quarter of 2004 was one of the hardest experience in my life ever. It was then that I cried and cried until I felt like collapsing. My knees were all wobbly and my body shook like it never had with too much sorrow and pain. It was when I had this major dispute with my old supervisor. I could say that I was in a real deepshit of my life so to speak. I am not one who easily breaks down and cry, but when it really hurt me inside, cut me deep inside my heart, i just could not get a grip of myself anymore but to just shed those tears almost endlessly. I even cried in the bus on my way home from my college. I cried while carrying out my experimental works. I was at one of my lowest points of my life. It was indeed a matter of life and death to me somehow. I cried over the phone with my mum, my lecturer colleagues in malaysia and most of all, I cried in front of my college mates. They were like my rock there. Without them, i felt like going insane honest to God. It was rather embarrassing but hey, it's either cry or die.

Then, that was also the time when i got hooked up with Frank Sinatra's song: My Way. Its lyrics and melody literally speaks to my soul and has touched my innermost feelings.


A videoclip showing Ol' blue eyes performing one of his signature songs, a truly evergreen song: My Way


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSlp6LgJ-u0



Alhamdulillah, with a lot of prayers from my family and friends, such overwhelming episode ended with a triumph and "monumental" relief. And a year ago, I attained my PhD.


Now, it is still one of my classic numbers. Last year, i found out that he also shares his likeness towards this particular song. Anita Sarawak loves it. Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad loves it. I reckon those who've had their shares of highs and lows in their lives would definitely resonate well with this song. And especially the way Frank Sinatra sang it that makes it rather soothing and captivating. A motivating song that alleviate fears and anxieties, which leads to the rising of one's own dignity, confidence, determination and self-esteem.

news round-up 1

It has been a while since I sent some newsbits on my blog.

It is just a way of sharing some of the news of the world which I found rather interesting, mind-stimulating, or simply something I read and found it interesting enough to be shared with others.

I should make a proper indexing to this subject title, so it will remain part of the active archive list of postings.

So here it goes:

- Islamic-finance grows in the USA (click source)

- Nobel peace prize winner 2006: Mr. Muhammad Yunus, an economy professor of Chittagong university turned Grameen Bank Founder became this year's Nobel Laureate for inventing microcredit schemes to help the poors in Bangladesh. More news at:

• An impetus to battle poverty: Reuters
• Bangladesh celebrates first Nobel Prize: AFP
• Nobel for anti-poverty pioneers: BBC-1
• World banker to the poorer: BBC-2
• Banker wins Nobel Peace Prize: Guardian
• Champion of the poor: The Times

- Another Nobel Prize winner, Orhan Parmuk from Turkey who was tried last year over charges of insulting turkish national identity (click source2)

- Headscarf is compulsory for non-muslim students at a new Islamic school in Leicester, UK (click source 3 , source4)

- To the moon and Beck: Surprise, surprise, but after a dismal performance having lost to Croatia 2-0 on a Euro2008 qualifying match, the resigned captain and ousted England player, David Beckham's service is once again in need. Not long ago, he was completely thrown out of Steve McLaren team (possible clash of opinions apart from Beck's sissy , overblown metrosexual image). Now, many English are inquiring for him to be recruited back to his old team, which is now captained by John Terry, a Chelsea club captain. Yet, some people did lick their own filthy spits so to speak, boohoo shame on them! But on second thought, english football fans can be a bunch of psycho lot. They worship those who scored the winning goal but if that footballer slacken a bit (or they say that chap has lost his marbles) or the whole team kept losing, they definitely will find something/someone to be blamed for. And man, they can be very harsh on putting down someone's spirit or shaming him in public. OK, it's not just the english football fans, it's whatever sport with huge-followers and from whichever countries around the world, like baseball and american football for the americans, football for italians, english, brazilian for eg, and so on. Further reading at:

• Fans want David Beckham back? how anal is that: The Sun
• Wenger desperate for Beck's touch (hmmmm....): Times Sport, Guardian football

Fart machine and air pollution.

A recent report in BBC has put a blame on cows for emitting hazardous amount of methane (CH4) gas to the atmosphere (click news source) from their nether region. It was found out that one cow produces approximately 400 litres of methane due to farting.

Methane, a greenhouse gas, also known as the primary component of natural gas source (read more at wikipedia) is one of the prime reasons for ozone layers depletion and global warming. Nevertheless, methane is also the prime source for the biomass renewable energy as one of the cheaper and renewable alternative to fossil fuel. Extensive research have also been carried out using methane potential in fuel cell applications as means to produce hydrogen through catalytic steam-methane reforming process. Compressed methane is also used as a clean fuel alternative in many vehicles nowadays and is known as NGV (natural gas vehicle).

Now, why must they blame cows for becoming one farting machine when we have never heard of a farmer who died because of that? It has to be as the result of some sort of a chemical fertilizers in the grass meadows where they let the poor cows chomping throughout the day among other things. Other possibilities could be through feeding the cows with beans and a lot of other grain/seed produce apart from letting them grazing leaves, which of course is their staple food.

Not only do the cows fart methane, they also burp methane. This actually affect the growth rate of a cow. BUT somehow, this seemed to be the worry of those farmers in the UK. What about other places around the world where they have huge cow farms like New Zealand, Switzerland and India?

Speaking of cow fart, i had a worse but funny incident with horses farting. That was like a year ago during my istanbul tour. I was with my turkish friend, fatma the day we went to an island nearby istanbul called Princes Island, or locally known as Buyuk Ada (translated as "big island"). No fuel-based vehicle is allowed there to retain and preserve its natural ecology. Therefore, only horse and donkey carts and carriages, as well as bicycles are the only means of wheel-vehicled transportations. That applies to tourists as well if they wish to tour around that island.

Fatma recommended that we should get on the horse carriage ride as it is a must there. So off we went to a vacant carriage at a special station meant for tourists. At first we both sat in the carriage while the driver sat alone manouvering two healthy horses named Phyllis for the mare and Morad for the male one. After a while, i got excited on the thought of doing a "cowgirl" stunt and asked if i could sit next to the driver while we were on the course. Without further ado, he stopped the carriage to let me climb onto the seat and off i went riding directly facing two horses' behinds.


Yeeee...haaawww...!!!!!!


It was all fun watching the beautiful sceneries on the ride until one of the horses started to break out one long, powerful wind followed by dumping some craps on a special crap sheet hanging underneath them. Unbelievable! How rude was that! Not long after that, the second horse did the same thing. Boy, i wish you could watch how they lift their long, bushy tails up and let out those awful gas. That time i began to imagine if those people in hollywood have had such experience like me while filming on a horse carriage...or even worse, Queen of England and the whole royal family lot during their royal excursion in the public and so on....

Nonetheless, i was just laughing all the way seeing how capable those horses, one by one emitting that pungent-smell fart, but nobody was harmed (as in fainted to say the least) during the journey. Not even the horse driver who has been doing this job for ages.

Ironically, farmers normally have longer life than those city-dwellers. And some people have the cheeks to blame those herbivorous animals (cows, horses, sheeps, etc) to be one of the causes of air pollution? In spite of that, some people still do research on this cow flatulence or belching effect to the environment. Go read it at:

• Facts on Fart
• Microbiology of belches and farts
• Cow farts
• Cow flatulence: just a load of hot air?

Belasungkawa

We Malaysian may have not yet fully recovered on the bereavement for dear Hani Mohsin Hanafi, actor and Roda Impian game show host, who passed away just over 2 months ago, and now, we had had to mourn for another dearly beloved singer-turned entertainment show host, Seha, yesterday (wednesday, 11/10/06). I was 9 years old when she and her duet partner, Shuib belted that evergreen song, Mulanya Di sini (lyrics below, source: Imnogman).

Mulanya Di Sini

( P: )
Tibanya di sini
Bagai terulang lagi
Kisah yang indah
Di antara kita berdua

( L: )
Sehingga di sini
Tiada berpaling lagi
Kita berteman
Seiring jalan dan sehaluan

( L: & P: )
( korus )
Sama sama menjejak mimpi
Sama sama mencari dan menanti
Segalanya direstui cinta sejati
Sama sama gunung didaki
Sama sama turun ke lembah sepi
Suka duka bersama dirasai

( P: )
Mulanya di sini
Ku kenali dirimu
Sehingga kini
Sehingga ke akhir waktu

( L: )
Akhirnya di sini
Ku kenali hatimu
Sehingga kini
Kita akan terus berlalu

( L: & P: )
( korus )
Sama sama menjejak mimpi
Sama sama mencari dan menanti
Segalanya direstui cinta sejati
Sama sama gunung didaki
Sama sama turun ke lembah sepi
Suka duka bersama dirasai

( L: )
Di hadapan kita ada jalan
Menuju di kejauhan ada sinar menanti
Di penghujung perjalanan ini

( P: )
Oh... sambil bernyanyi
Mendendang senandung yang syahdu
Riangnya hati dan indah duniaku

( L: & P: )
( korus )
Sama sama menjejak mimpi
Sama sama mencari dan menanti
Segalanya direstui cinta sejati
Sama sama gunung didaki
Sama sama turun ke lembah sepi
Suka duka bersama dirasai

Seha's life has shortlived due to chronic lung cancer which was diagnosed a few months ago. She has two daughters from her first marriage and is survived by her second husband of three years marriage. I have always seen her rather bubbly and smily face on the telly. Somehow i wasn't aware of her divorce with her former husband as she seemed to shun her life away from the limelight. Or probably i missed reading it somewhere on the news. Semoga dicucuri rahmat ke atas roh al-marhumah seha dan almarhum hani mohsin.

human circle of life: from birth to death

Last night, i received a text message telling me that we have just lost one prominent faculty member, Prof. Madya Dr. Zainol Abidin Abdul Rashid. He died due to brain hemorrhage as a result of him slipping down from his own home water tank. He intended to do the DIY on the water tank himself but at the detriment of his own life. I was really, really saddened by the loss. Even though I have not known him for a long time, it was enough for us to share some good laughs together.

He was responsible for the creation of Muslims in Space, a tool to assist in determining the prayers time as well as the qiblah (kaabah orientation) while in outer space. Such was a brilliant discovery in time with the first malaysian space voyage program where Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was selected among thousands of malaysian applicants to join the russian astronaut team to be trained as the first malaysian astronaut.

Dr.Zainol has left such an important legacy which in turn would be an inspiration for muslims worldwide for further aerospace explorations without neglecting the islamic practice.

Below is his last email to all of us engineering faculty members:

TiungSAT-1 tidak berkubur, now is orbiting to death (possibly reentry and burst sometimes in the near future), battery has malfunction.

We have gain a lot of knowledge and experiences through TiungSAT-1.Not only the team has benefitted from the program, many universities and school has incorporated and activitely involved in space activities, the Malaysian public are now aware of the space program. The TiungSAT-1 programme has enable Malaysian to embark with confident into the challenging space technologies and business.

There are a lot of publications in local and international conferences and journals by Malaysian on the space technology.

Innosat is the programme that bridge the industry (ATSB) and universities into long-term programme for educating, training, critical mass development, and knowledge development in space programe.

***********************************************

About 30mins after that heartfelt text message, i received another one and this time bearing a good news from my friend, Azizah, who has just given birth to a healthy baby boy, weighing 3.0kg at Hospital Serdang. She was already at 5.0cm dilation when she got admitted to the hospital, a week earlier to her predicted due. The second baby delivery experience for her was much more easier than her first born.

***********************************************

One man gone, another man is born. Still, Dr.Zainol will be terribly missed. May he rest in peace with a lot of blessings during this holy month of Ramadhan.

This morning, we received another news that AlMarhum Dr.Zainol's head of department, Professor Azah has just lost her mother. Two losses in that Electrical, Electronic and System Engineering department in less than two days.

Additional info: For those in Malaysia who are available on the 27 Oct, 3 Nov and 24 Nov, you can watch a program entitled "Ilmuan Islam" on TV3 that will feature Dr.Zainol.

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Monday also the day we lost one of the brilliant british snooker players, Paul Hunter, who died of some sort of a rare stomach cancer called neuro endocrine. Known for his sleek and flamboyant appearance and sporting shoulder length blonde lock, the Yorkshire man (he was from Leeds) has left a hole in the professional snooker arena. He was given a year out to undergo the cancer treatment last July but unfortunately, he did not survive that long. Hunter leaves a wife and a daughter, who was born nearly 9 months after he was diagnosed with the disease in March 2005.

This is really devastating, especially as most of the snooker players are down right fuddy duddy fellas, with only few exceptions: the late Paul Hunter himself and Ronnie O'Sullivan. Not only that, both these two fellas are also very cheeky and creative on the snooker table with their spontaneous ability to perform some "daredevil stunts" with their cue sticks.

As shocking as it is, he will always be remembered as one of the great snooker legends for many more years to come.

World University Ranking 2006

It has been the talk of the academicians of higher institutions in Malaysia of how Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia has toppled Universiti Malaya to become the Malaysian premier university based on the report of the world university rankings by Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and QS Quacquarelli Symonds.

To me, it's also personal as my alma mater reached the 9th while the university i am attached with leaped from the 289th position to 185th. A remarkable achievement, i have to say. It is by far a great feelings for me to have the opportunity to be part of the best in malaysia and among the ten world best. Obviously such an achievement is the result of a mutual cooperation and commitment from all the staff both in the academic and non-academic lines.

Table below shows the result of the 2006 world university rankings:

2006 RANK	2005 RANK	NAME	COUNTRY
1	1	Harvard University	United States
2	3	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
3	4	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
4=	2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
4=	7	Yale University	United States
6	5	Stanford University	United States
7	8	California Institute of Technology	United States
8	6	University of California, Berkeley	United States
9	13	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
10	9	Princeton University	United States
11	17	University of Chicago	United States
12	20	Columbia University	United States
13	11	Duke University	United States
14	15	Beijing University	China
15	14	Cornell University	United States
16	23	Australian National University	Australia
17	11	London School of Economics and Political Science	United Kingdom
18	24	Ecole Normale Supérieure	France
19=	22	National University of Singapore	Singapore
19=	16	University of Tokyo	Japan
21	24	McGill University	Canada
22	19	University of Melbourne	Australia
23	27	Johns Hopkins University	United States
24	21	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich	Switzerland
25	28	University College London	United Kingdom
26	32	University of Pennsylvania	United States
27	29	University of Toronto	Canada
28	62	Tsing Hua University	China
29=	31	Kyoto University	Japan
29=	36	University of Michigan	United States
31	37	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
32	26	University of Texas at Austin	United States
33=	30	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
33=	41	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
35=	44	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
35=	38	University of Sydney	Australia
37	10	École Polytechnique	France
38	33	Monash University	Australia
39	88	University of Geneva	Switzerland
40	35	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
41	40	University of New South Wales	Australia
42	46	Northwestern University	United States
43	56	New York University	United States
44	42	University of California, San Diego	United States
45	47	University of Queensland	Australia
46=	52	University of Auckland	New Zealand
46=	73	King's College London	United Kingdom
48=	73	University of Rochester	United States
48=	58	Washington University in St. Louis	United States
50=	38	University of British Colombia	Canada
50=	51	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
52	69	Sciences Po Paris	France
53	114	Vanderbilt University	United States
54=	71	Brown University	United States
54=	66	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
56	141	Emory University	United States
57	50	Indian Institute of Technology	India
58=	45	Universität Heidelberg	Germany
58=	43	Hong Kong University of Science & Technology	Hong Kong
60	109	Case Western Reserve University	United States
61=	117	Dartmouth College	United States
61=	48	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
63	93	Seoul National University	South Korea
64=	49	Bristol University	United Kingdom
64=	34	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
66	54	Boston University	United States
67	70	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
68	84	Indian Institute of Management	India
69	58	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
70=	103	School of Oriental and African Studies	United Kingdom
70=	105	Osaka University	Japan
72	92	Ecole Normale Supérieure Lyon	France
73	77	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
74	95	Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México	Mexico
75	127	University of Basel	Switzerland
76	88	Catholic University of Louvain	Belgium
77	58	University of Illinois	United States
78	111	Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
79=	186	University of Otago	New Zealand
79=	73	University of Wisconsin	United States
81	101	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
82=	67	Macquarie University	Australia
82=	105	Technische Universität München	Germany
84	88	University of Washington	United States
85	97	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
86	53	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
87	65	University of Vienna	Austria
88	193	University of Pittsburgh	United States
89	133	University of Lausanne	Switzerland
90=	143	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
90=	138	Leiden University	Netherlands
92	57	Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands
93=	79	Moscow State University	Russia
93=	88	Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie	France
95	120	Utrecht University	Netherlands
96	95	Catholic University of Leuven	Belgium
97	108	Wageningen University	Netherlands
98	55	Universität München	Germany
99=	112	Queen Mary and Westfield College	United Kingdom
99=	64	Pennsylvania State University	United States
101	124	University of Southern California	United States
102=	159	Georgetown University	United States
102=	150	Rice University	United States
102=	143	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
105=	80	University of Adelaide	Australia
105=	112	Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin	Germany
105=	100	University of Sussex	United Kingdom
108	114	National Taiwan University	Taiwan
109=	136	University of St Andrews	United Kingdom
109=	85	University of Zurich	Switzerland
111=	133	University of Maryland	United States
111=	180	Uppsala University	Sweden
111=	199	Wake Forest University	United States
111=	80	University of Western Australia	Australia
115	217	University of Twente	Netherlands
116=	72	Fudan University	China
116=	62	University of Helsinki	Finland
118	99	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
119	77	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
120	215	Keio University	Japan
121	103	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
122	180	Lund University	Sweden
123	143	University of North Carolina	United States
124=	68	University of Massachusetts, Amherst	United States
124=	109	University of York	United Kingdom
126	138	University of Aarhus	Denmark
127	61	Purdue University	United States
128=	222	Kyushu University	Japan
128=	129	Nagoya University	Japan
130=	164	Tufts University	United States
130=	105	University of Virginia	United States
132	83	University of Durham	United Kingdom
133=	149	University of Alberta	Canada
133=	259	Vrije University Brussels	Belgium
133=	157	Hokkaido University	Japan
133=	168	University of Newcastle upon Tyne	United Kingdom
137	177	Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen	Netherlands
138	86	Vienna University of Technology	Austria
139	119	University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
140	234	Cranfield University	United Kingdom
141=	159	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
141=	228	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
141=	219	University of Ghent	Belgium
141=	206	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
145	147	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
146	82	RMIT University	Australia
147=	166	Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
147=	188	Tel Aviv University	Israel
149	172	Freie Universität Berlin	Germany
150=	184	Korea University	South Korea
150=	125	Texas A&M University	United States
152	179	University of Notre Dame	United States
153	130	University of Bath	United Kingdom
154	178	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
155	184	McMaster University	Canada
156=	101	Curtin University of Technology	Australia
156=	114	Universität Göttingen	Germany
158=	194	Technion - Israel Institute of Technology	Israel
158=	240	Universität Ulm	Germany
158=	202	Waseda University	Japan
161=	121	Chulalongkorn University	Thailand
161=	131	Université Louis Pasteur - Strasbourg I	France
163	121	Michigan State University	United States
164	219	Saint-Petersburg State University	Russia
165=	76	Université libre de Bruxelles	Belgium
165=	93	University of Science and Technology of China	China
165=	175	State University of New York at Stony Brook	United States
168=	199	George Washington University	United States
168=	136	Tohoku University	Japan
170=	206	University of California, Davis	United States
170=	260	Universität Tübingen	Germany
172=	172	Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen	Germany
172=	157	University of Maastricht	Netherlands
172=	196	Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
172=	254	Yeshiva University	United States
176	261	Queen's University	Canada
177	138	University of Oslo	Norway
178	228	University of Bern	Switzerland
179	169	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
180	150	nanjing University	China
181=	172	Kobe University	Japan
181=	132	University of Montreal	Canada
183=	192	Jawaharlal Nehru University	India
183=	186	Free University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
185	289	Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia	Malaysia
186	165	University of Innsbruck	Austria
187=	213	Brandeis University	United States
187=	142	Universität Frankfurt am Main	Germany
187=	150	University of Minnesota	United States
190=	240	University of Barcelona	Spain
190=	248	University of Reading	United Kingdom
192=	169	University of Malaya	Malaysia
192=	118	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
194	154	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
195	267	University of Aberdeen	United Kingdom
196	308	University of Wollongong	Australia
197	125	Università degli Studi di Roma - La Sapienza	Italy
198=	254	University of California, Irvine	United States
198=	143	Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology	South Korea
200	305	Universite Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)	France

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