yes... finally! another update! haha...

well, as you all know by now that I was a receipient of the International Centre of Excellence for Education in Mathematics, and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute summer vacation scholarship. This was because I was nominated by my Uni as an outstanding 2nd year student! hahaha... it's usually for 3rd or 4th year students who intends to do Honours... For the sake of easy writing, I shall use their acronym, ICE-EM/AMSI. So yes, I was the only person in my uni who was nominated for this scholarship. It's a summer vacation scholarship. I basically have to do a research project for 5 weeks where they'll pay me $350 per week and the last 2 days, I'll go over to Sydney to do my oral presentation. FYI, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) also had their own set of students to whom they also offer this vacation scholarship, but theirs are a little different to mine.

My topic was Real Options Approach to Evaluating Capital Investment Decisions. If u're really interested, u can check out the link later when they've actually put up my report on the ICE-EM website which is currently still not available yet. Well, thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Malgorzata Korolkiewicz from UniSA, I completed my research successfully. Check out this site.

So what happened then? On Valentine's Day, it was the eve before I fly to Sydney... I was so excited... and also worried in case I left anything behind... haha... slept at 11pm that night and woke up at 4am next morning... can't even sleep... neway, the flight was at 6am... flew to Sydney, arrived at 8.25am... Had breakfast in the plane... So after arriving, the coach bus picked us up to send us to the hotel, Stamford Grand North Ryde. Traffic jam!! Like a typical msian traffic jam, just not as bad as KL lar... but traffic jam!! in Aus!! well, my first impression of Sydney was KL! from complicated roads, flyovers and highways to sky scapers! neway, arrived at North Ryde, again, had breakfast! then introduction session began... all the CSIRO staff members were promoting CSIRO... well, i must say, CSIRO seems a very good place to work in... after about 4 hours, lunch... buffet lunch... food was ma-ma-dei only... after lunch, my presentation is due! I was first on the list... which is good and bad lar... good in the sense, I'm the first to get rid of the pressure, bad is, well, I'm first in the list... if u know what i mean! haha...

well, after about another 4 person talk, then afternoon tea... I was bloated by then... neway, fyi, there are 4 rooms altogether, so there are 4 parallel sessions going on at the same time as there were 80 students altogether...

after afternoon tea, sessions continue... and two hours later, bout 6pm, it ended... we've got one hour to check in (so u can guess, we were carrying our baggages around the whole day!), bathe, and to walk to macquarie shopping centre for dinner... food were all provided btw... dinner at 7pm... it was a good thing i didn't took any afternoon tea, as i was still full when dinner came... haha... well, they even provided alcohol... but me guai chai lar... so din took any... hahaha...

dinner was ok... i can say nicest food amongst all the other meals... hehe... met a few new people in dinner... got some great advice from CSIRO staff members... I left dinner half an hour early... cos I promised to meet up with Ooi Jin... and it was geting kinda late... like 9pm or later d... so caught the public bus... without really knowing exactly where to stop... really brave man... come to think of it... haha... but yea, luckily Ooi Jin came on the same bus when it passed his suburb... we passed the Sydney Harbour bridge while on the way to city...

reach sydney... walked around this place called The Rocks, the first settlement in Sydney... then to the Opera House... walk around it... then went to Darling Harbour... quite a bit of a walk... but we managed... or I managed... haha... I was actually carrying my heavy laptop all around Sydney!!  can't leave it unattended in the hotel room mar... so went to Darling Harbour and had iced chocolate at Lindt's chocolate cafe!! yum! i reckon Lindor Lindt produces the best chocolate in the world!! it's from switzerland if i'm not mistaken... and the only 2 cafes in the world are at Sydney...

we finished jalan-ing sydney at about 11.45pm or so and went to Queen Victoria building to catch the last bus back to the hotel at 12.10am! haha... reached hotel about almost 1am... hehe... Ooi Jin got down earlier from the bus lar... cos his place nearer to the city mar...

reach hotel, sleep... woke up early next morning... 6am woke up d... got ready went for breakfast... buffet breakfast... after that check out hotel... those talks still going on... then got morning tea, talk, lunch, talk, and afternoon tea then conclusion of the whole event... gosh, if there's one thing really good about the organising, it's the food... they made sure we never go hungry! hahaha... but the thing is, we're getting too full! lolz... at 4pm, we left for airport... reach airport at 4.45pm... my flight oni departs at 8.45pm!! 4 hours to wait!!! check in and wait with other people from the same event... they also had to wait for so long... so we ended up playing cards in the airport whilst passing time... bought some Krispy Kreme doughnuts, recommended by Ooi Jin to be very nice... hmm... finally borded the plane for adelaide...

sad, i kinda start to like sydney more than adelaide d! hahahaha... while taking off, i saw the harbour bridge and the opra house soo clearly!! gosh, gonna miss that place... hopefully one day will go there again... maybe work there or sumthing lar... it's the best Aus substitute of KL... the good thing about travelling at night is, u can clearly see the outline of the metropolitan areas... like when i was about to touch down at adelaide, i could see the whole adelaide metropolitan area where the lights were so bright...  so i can guess which place is which...

arrived safely home... though it's exactly one week now, i'm still missing last week experience! haha... time always flies when u're having fun... before diverting to another topic, i would sincerely like to thank ICE-EM/AMSI and CSIRO for giving me this opportunity to undertake the vacation scholarship and to go to Sydney for the first time ever in my life... And also to University of South Australia for nominating me! Also to my supervisor Dr. Malgorzata Korolkiewicz and last but not least Ooi Jin for bringing me around Sydney... Thank you very much!!

ok... arrived home, then next day, clean house for Chinese New Year! Dear Xin came over to my place on CNY day and we had lunch... after that, she taught us how to play mahjong! haha... then at night i went to her place and had dinner with her frens! quite fun lar... sort of like the best new year day i've ever had for a loong loong loooooooooong time... thanks xin!

so yea... that's about it... sorry no pictures lar... haha... yes, i din bring my camera! ok i know! that was wasted... going to sydney without camera!! well, i did took a picture of the harbour bridge while the bus was going through it lar... but it's still in my handphone and i haven't transfer to computer... so later lar ya? if u want to see pics of the Big Day In in Sydney, I'll provide the link later lar k? but i dunno if u'll see much of me... hahaha...

oh and anyone interested in my topic of research, tag or comment or email me k?

that's all lar for my update... till next time...