choosing a digicam

although i am terribly busy, i still want to sneak into this blog a bit haha this blog has started to get covered with spider webs anyway.

so my husband and i are trying to look for a camera. we both have no camera at the moment, and are relying on the camera function on our samsung jet mobile (yes, coincidentally we both have the same mobile). so we are trying to figure out which camera to buy.

of course, looking at the popularity, dslr is the most tempting option. good quality pictures, slightly expensive, but affordable. but of course, with dslr, one needs to be knowledgeable to be able to use it properly. knowing me, i don't think i am up for that. every time i buy a new gadget, i never read the manual before using the gadget. i am more to try-and-error person. even with my old camera, sony t-10, i took 2-3 years to actually understand the functions and actually used them properly. so, i don't think dslr will do me any good.

so i am opt for a digicam with some good functions. yup, i am not a photography master, but i like to take good pictures, and i do use functions in a camera. i am not one of those people who use auto setting for everything. so, an affordable digicam with good functions.

i was looking at this harvey norman catalogue. they have discounts on cameras now. i was attracted to olympus sp600 ultra-zoom, just because it has wide-angle lens and 15x optical zoom. it's on sale for aud$268 now. fuji finepix xp10 is on sale for aus$237. but i don't think i will be using its waterproof function on a regular basis, so maybe olympus is better.

but then yesterday my husband was showing two more olympus or fujifilm model that really caught my attention. ah, i forgot the model now, but i'm pretty sure it's something like s2500..a compact camera with good functions 18x zoom, wide-angle lens, hd video recording..and all for under rm1000. wow.

but, all that said, my husband just texted me saying he found another model which looked good. a canon. aaa~ i don't know which one to choose anymore. i'll let my husband, a.k.a my technology master, to choose.

or, do you have a recommendation?

To all my friends

Dear friends,

Here, I want to congratulate all my friends who are

(1) done with their owh-so-time-consuming medical school and now are doctors,
(2) done with studies, whatever it is
(3) got new jobs
(4) got engaged
(5) got married
(6) pregnant
(7) got babies!

I am so happy with all of you, really, but there are just too many of you for me to congratulate everyone personally. I just want to say to all who are done with school, an end of something is just a new beginning of something else. May you get the dream job soon, may the success be with you, and may the skills that you have acquired will help elevating our country to a better level. And to my friends who are now doctors, may you guys be the greatest doctors ever and do good to the society. Everyone else wants to be you, really. To those who got new jobs, hey, good luck in building your career! and don't get too caught up with the stress, and don't ever lose your passion! To those who got engaged and married, congrats in entering the new phase of life, and remember, tolerance, love, and trust are the keys. And to those who are pregnant and just got babies, may you be good parents, and hopefully your babies will grow up healthy, smart, beautiful, be good sons and daughters to you, good muslim (to my muslim friends), good citizens to the country, and good person to the humanity.

And to everyone else who are still waiting for anything (bachelor, master, phd degrees; career; soulmate; babies), like me, let's do our best and never lose hope! Just believe God has something for us, and we just have to work and pray hard to find what that something is. Usaha! Usaha! Usaha! :)

And to those who just lose something or feel like a failure, remember, life goes on, and the end of something is just a new beginning. Life is a journey after all; sometimes you are up, and sometimes you are down. The process of going up again is really the thing that makes you grow. The hardship will only make us stronger and remember, don't ever lose hope! :)

And lastly, I want to wish everyone a Happy (belated, now, or advanced, whichever applicable) Birthday! I am never good at remembering and checking everyone's birthday, especially when there are hundreds of people on my friends list, but hey, I am not the only one, am I? hehe. O well, anyway, have a superb year ahead, and may all your wish come true! :)

Ok, I think that's all. Have a good day everyone :)

<3 Pushie

Obsession

Dark chocolate. Yummy yum.

Owh, this is my biggest obsession.

and since he's my biggest obsession, I just have to put more pictures of him haha

tgk tu dah besar pon makan ice-cream macam budak2. sungguh comel. rase nak picit2. hahaha

Owh, last Sunday was his 25th birthday. So I went out to the mall and celebrate his birthday. Bought a piece of Black Forrest cake and a Macchiato. Next time, please remind me that Macchiato is not Caramel Macchiato without the caramel. Speaking of which, I still haven't found any cafe selling Caramel Macchiato. I mean, seriously, where the hell is Starbucks? Anyway..

HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY MY LOVING, ROMANTIC, COMOT, COMEL, HANDSOME, AND OWH-SO-ADORABLE MR.HUSBAND! :D

Hopefully we'll grow old happily together with dozens of children and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

I love you.

p/s: I went out to celebrate his birthday but I totally ignored mine. haha. O well, we practically have the same birthday anyway. The celebrations are always combined :)

p/p/s: chocolate picture googled. Mr.Husband's photos credited to Lun. I took the cake picture myself, of course.

Life

Do you know how smart our body is?

Do you know that each cell in our body is like a very complicated and complex factory, making sure everything goes alright?

And every time I learn about how this enzyme works, how this gene is regulated, how this enzyme communicates with another enzyme..it has never failed to make me think about how amazing the whole system is. And also how this whole thing totally proves the existence of God.

I mean, such a very complex and very smart system totally need an extremely smart creator as well. I mean, even if we ever do learn about everything in a cell, even if we ever isolate and gather everything together to make our own cell, we still cannot make it work like the real cell. Even a real cell can stop working once it's dead, although all the components are still there.

SubhanAllah.

Lawak semalam

Ketika waktu rehat semalam, aku menelefon En.Suami untuk bertanya khabar and mengubat bosan.

En.Suami: Sayang buat ape tu?
Aku: Owh, tgh rehat. Tengah tunggu gel beku..
En.Suami: Ooo..tadi buat ape?
Aku: Tadi dah isolate DNA (plasmid) dari E.coli. Pastu dah potong-potong DNA tu gune enzyme. So skrg ni tgh tunggu gel beku sbb nak separate DNA tu ikut saiz diye. Gel tu agar je..cam agar-agar masak tu haha
En.Suami: Hmm...
Aku: Baby tak paham ape2 pon yg I cakap kan? Banyak gile scientific jargons haha
En.Suami: Busuk~~
Aku: Hahahah (terus gelak)

Susah betul kan nak explain benda2 biotech dekat org pakar IT?

Hahahaha

High IQ?

I bet all of you have taken IQ test at least once. I still remember my first IQ test. It was the last 'exam paper' that we had to sit during UPSR. It was not that bad I think. Since we'd actually 'practiced' for it in class before. My teacher provided us with past exam papers and we did them and discussed the answers. I remember arguing with my teacher on one of the answers. I did not agree with the answer she provided, because I was sure I was right. She ended up saying that if I didn't want to listen to her, I might fail the exam. But o well, I still answered the answer that I thought was right during the real exam. Yup, I am that stubborn when I am sure I am right. It even showed when I was 12. Haha.

Anyway, the second formal IQ test that I took was when I was 18 or 19. The Malaysian MENSA club organized IQ test at the University I was at (INTEC, UiTM Shah Alam). I had to pay RM32 for it. I was reluctant to take it at first because I hadn't been doing any IQ test for a long time, and I was scared I might fail. But my curiosity forced me to take it anyway. So I paid the RM32 and took the exam. The questions did not have any number or alphabet at all. Everything was in the form of figures. One question on one page.I don't really remember how long the test took. What I remember is on average we only had less than one minute to answer one question. I didn't finish them all, of course. I am one of those people who spend a lot of time on one problem at a time. If I am not mistaken, I left more than 10 questions unanswered. Haha.

A few weeks later, I got a letter from Malaysian MENSA. It was my test result. I was scared to open the envelope but I opened it anyway, of course. There it was. My IQ test result was 156. The minimum score to join the club was 148, if I am not mistaken. So I joined it. I had to pay RM50 for a year of membership.

However after a couple of years, I started to not see the meaning of joining the club anyway. Usually the activities were going for some gathering, which involved alcohol. And I felt that I did not fit in a way (although I have never gone to any gathering, but I can tell through email and magazine) because most of them were working and successful and rich, unlike me who was (and still am) studying, and not yet successful and not rich. And I am not that social either. I stayed in the club just because I thought having the membership might help me in getting a job or getting into graduate school. So, after some thinking, I just stopped renewing my membership.

So anyway, does having a high IQ make me special? Nahh~ I don't think so. I still got C and nearly failed in my classes haha. But maybe it helps in understanding some things that require imagination (I remember teaching my friend chemistry in high school and I kept telling her to imagine the process in order to understand it better, and she didn't get me haha). But still, I am still an average student.

I strongly believe although having a high IQ may help in certain things in life, it still doesn't promise a successful life. Motivation and serious effort still are the most important thing to achieve success. One can have a high IQ and having no future, and one can have a lower IQ and being all successful.

But still, it does feel good knowing that I have a high IQ. It's like a confidence boost. A motivation. Whenever I feel like failing, I would tell myself "You have a high IQ, you can do this!" Haha. But of course the sweetest thing of all is when I know that my IQ is higher than the smart student who always makes me feel stupid. It's like indirectly telling, "You know, you're not all that." Hehehe >:)

Eh, agak kejam di situ.

Canberra, from my eyes

It's been 6 weeks since I arrived here. So far, everything went well. It's the mid semester break now. Two weeks of break. If I was an undergrad student, I might have been somewhere in Sydney or something. But o well, I have 6 days for lab practical during the holiday, so, no trip for me. Owh, I'll be going to Sydney on the 10th though. Will be staying at Sheila's place for a night, then come back here on the 11th because I have the lab practical on the 12th. Huhu. Hmm and tomorrow I'll be going around Canberra with Fazira and her friend. Since all three of us are new here, we'll be exploring the city quite aimlessly. Let's see what we'll find tomorrow. What an adventure.

Anyway, I went for groceries shopping today. I was really out of food. I was left with less than one cup of rice and a few chicken wings. And an onion. And that's basically it. So I went for quite a huge groceries shopping today. Ended up spending almost $70 for everything. Not including rice since I couldn't find the rice that I wanted. And also eggs, since they were out of eggs. It's unbelievable how Easter can do to the store's stocks. Anyway, it's expensive, isn't it? When I was in the States, I only spend about USD 80 at most for groceries per month. Here, one trip of groceries shopping can easily cost me AUD 50-70. And don't let me start talking about how much it costs for rent here..To think that USD and AUD have almost the same value... Isy, I want to go back to the States.

Anyway, let's talk about the classes. Hmm..classes here are okay. Much like Davis. Only I think the advisor is more caring about the students. For example, last Tuesday we were supposed to submit 3 assignments and sit for a quiz. Then our advisor gave us an extra day to submit one of the assignments because he said we had so many to do already. And some of us had another assignment to send on Monday, but we did not have to because they said we had too many workload. I was like, wow. I mean, when I was in Davis, they had never cared if we had 2 lab reports, one or two midterms and a paper to submit within the same week. And my labs are once in fortnight, so there are some weeks where I don't have to attend any lab at all. And so the report is also due every fortnight at most. So it's less stress here compared to when I was in Davis. I mean, I used to write 2 reports every week..a total of ~20 reports for the whole 10 weeks (that's for one class hoho). Here, ~10 reports for 16 weeks (that's for 2 classes hoho)? haha

So anyway, all in all, it's fine here. Although I can't deny I prefer Davis more. Smaller town, everything is accessible by bicycle, and I felt it's safer, since there were less crime and the cars were not that fast (unlike here..the cars are so fast like pelesit and they don't really care about pedestrians). But o well, life goes on. Take everything as it is. As long as I am satisfied with my study environment, I am happy enough.

I can't wait for my husband to come. I have been looking for a one bedroom apartment/flat/house to rent. Hopefully I will get an affordable, beautiful place soon.