What i wanted to be and what i will be

First of all, happy graduation to all recently graduated Swinburne friends!!This week was a very quick reunion of buddies and well hey, it will take a long time until all of us meet again.

At first, i thought it would be so emotional when we all meet...HAHA...but when we met, just like usual, we kept throwing pranks and playing around with each others, especially to Avery...we celebrated his belated birthday...errmmm....it wasn't really for him anyway..who cares about his birthday??XD...what we wanted was just to spray whipped cream and smack his face with icing...kinda revenge of his trespasses against us...

We had this dinner in Howdy Grill House tuesday nite...the pork ribs there are damned good!!For friends in Kuching who are interested to try, go to Brighton Square area and if u know the Kuching City Snooker or McGregor, the restaurant can be seen at the left hand side of their front door...so we smacked Avery with all the icing and cream...we sprayed to his ears man!!!LOL...dats to make him smelled like butter in his graduation day...hahah...then we chilled out for a while somewhere nearby...Tony and Rachel came to join us rite after they arrived in Kuching....after chilling out, he was like "Eh...anybody needs a ride??Really, need or not?" then we all was like...err..."It's ok, we've got our transports"...and who knows this Shell Metering Engineer got his new car Nissan Teana...bugger!!we should've made his car dirty!!LOL...

Then it was the graduation day...i arrived at BCCK around 7.30 despite being so sleepy and slightly dizzy...(see how early bird i was??)...i got the queue card for gowning around 10 mins after...i din wanna go in the gowning hall first since i wanted to get some pics with my long-prepared attire...so i waited for our gang ppl to arrive and they arrived at almost 9...haha...we were the last to actually got our regalia on...when it was about my turn...the gowning comitee ran out of stock for the hood!!GOSH!!!!!but luckily they brought in the new ones (were still wrapped in the packaging)...

then it was time to go in to the hall...geez...during the ceremony we were popping our scrolls...LOL...then after the ceremony we ran here and there for pictures...took dunno how many pics with how many different people...haha...just check our facebooks!!ah...it was very nice of mel and arvin to visit us and brought us chocolates!!thank u!!

then me,jason,avery,mel and arvin went for lunch at causeway bay..winnie and her gand were there too...haha...then we rushed back to uni to take pics in our beloved campus...jason suggested me to go to library and said "hey guys, still studying?"...but since i was so humble i din do it...HAHHA!!!after that we returned our regalia and collected our testamurs and result scripts...

so we were planning to go back home from uni...and...AND....ANDD!!!!!!!we met claire and she told us they forgot to put the Honours title in the testamurs!!!;(

wat to do???we nid to go back to uni the next day...actually we were happy becoz it meant avery nid to cancel his flight dat day...HAHAH...at nite tony and his family invited us for a dinner...yeah we talked crap again and tony's mom's fren made tony a graduation cake, it looked gud and was delicious!!

we went to have a breakfast early the next day in Tawankung noodle shop..just like old times....went there with the Shell boy's Teana....we then went to uni and settle our testamur stuffs and went to our used-to-be-second-home pneumatic lab to take some pics...prof.nazim went in there and chit chatted wif us as well...LOL...

and...dats it...we all graduated...yeah...wat a feeling...long-waited but passed just like dat...happy of course...miss the undergrad time so much...where there were sincere ppl around u and u cud be whoever u r...well everybody has his/her own path...and for me i chose to further my studies...

well funny how thing goes...i kept changing my mind of what i wanted to be since kid...

when i was in early primary school, i wanted to be a bank director coz i tot i wud be rich...
few years later, i wanted to be a mathematician and comic artist...
when i was in junior high school, i wanted to be a rockstar!!a graphic designer as well!!
when i was in senior high school, i wanted to be a physicist/mathematician/scientist...LOL!!!!!how crazy i was...well, of course i am not a very capable person, but anyways...i enjoy doing different stuffs...

then it came to my foundation (A-level) time, i was in Foundation of Engineering...despite i actually "dreamed" to take Applied Maths...cool isnt it?taking the same course as Charles Eppes??;)...at first i was confused of which course i wanted to take...from mechanical,civil,multimedia,software (i love programming since high school)...

well when i joined robocon in my second sem of foundation, my interests in robotics grew up...and well...my long-time hatred with electronics softened and yeah...i like it as i advanced thru my undergrad!!

i took robotics and mechatronics bcoz...well, a partial influence from my bro and becoz it seemed like it was the course that cud answer my interests in different areas...still..in year 1 and 2 i still dreamed to be a mathematician...but reaching year 3 til i graduated, i was involved in many many robotics and mechatronics related projects and i love it...

i realize that the best thing is always trying to enjoy what we are doing and try the best out of the things/areas that one really really has the passion in...at first i tot i wud be doing robotics stuffs after i finished my undergrad studies...but who knows...my sincere love in maths led me to further my works in it...not much robotics...but my coming works will be mostly mathematical...yeah i am so grateful about that....

to love and to be expert in one area are totally different things...i love a lot of stuffs...i love doing different stuffs...and i am never an expert in any of these...but yeah...there are always things to learn...the point is to keep on believing, get a thing that i reli love to do and pursue it...haha...just now...just now...when i finished typing the previous sentence...i finally understood what Steve Jobs tried to tell us...one's heart somehow knows what one wants to be (or something like that)...yeah...enjoying itself does not mean it is without stress and without worry and without failures...i wudnt know will my life be a success or not...but anyways...hopefully i can always keep myself appreciating my life and others', then i wud consider it a life worth living...

i promise myself this wud be my last post of my undergrads stories!!hehe...sorry to show off but i am Riady Siswoyo Jo, B.Eng (Hons) now!!^^

September 2011

As mentioned in previous post...LOL...guess now ppl knew wat i meant by "leisure-time project"...

yees, it was the Freescale Cup 2011 Malaysia...an annual line-tracking robot competition held in various countries including Malaysia...Me, jason, meng and jeremy took part in this wif help of my bro....

the days before we went to competition were filled by continuous movie and chill-out outings...tony had to go to Miri to start working on the same day we went to KL for the competition....and he sent us to airport very early in the morning dat day...

err...we went there on Tuesday...it was around 10am when we reached the hotel...walked to KLCC from BB with all the robots and equipments...+_+"
had lunch straight away when we arrived...and finding the venue took us around 30 mins...fyuuhh...it wasn't clear where the venue was...but we made it on time...we quickly started preparing for the test run...(no photos included...check out our facebooks for pics)....

got back to BB for dinner and ah meng bought his new toy dat nite...hahah...went back to prepare for the next day and watch some american tv drama we put in laptop...

the next day was the day when competition actually started....we nid to pass the qualification stage in the morning and the first stage of the final in the afternoon...most of the teams made it through the qualification and hence to final...win ching came to be our only supporter since lunchtime...LOL....so kolien...we only had one supporter...the first stage of the final (the second will be on the next day) was quite a shock...but we made it through....

with the strong teams showing good jobs on the first stage, it was hard to judge who would win the final...only the final next day would answer it...well, we went for a movie dat nite...it was Contagion...a movie about global epidemic...quite a heavy movie...after hours of questions...the ending suggested that everything was a super super mere coincidence...o.O....we went back and prepared for the next day again....

next day!!gosh!!!the final...everybody was quite tense and wondering each others' strategies...the final was fast...i was quite nervous when it just started and much more relieved after the final finished...i was the one who operated the robot in Swinburne's 1st team and ah meng's from 2nd team was after me...the lunchtime was after the final and the results will be announced after that...

just before the announcement, the best i was expecting for us was one out of the top three and maybe one of best design or technical report awards...LOL...during the announcements of the best design and technical report awards, i was a bit down we didnt win...but when announced that our 1st team was the 3rd place winner...we were all super super happy....HAHAH....our 2nd team was the 2nd place winner...wew...of coz, anybody would want to be the 1st...but honestly at that point, 2nd and 3rd places for us were quite satisfactory....

took lotsa pics wif the robots, awards, trophies, mock checks (LOL...just rmb-ed cheque was the British spelling)...we quikly packed since we nid to catch a bus to Kedah as a transit point to Langkawi for holiday...aloha!!!the bus ride took the whole midnite til dawn...6 hours...:)...still shorter than the bus trip back to pontianak from kch...haha...took a ferry to Langkawi when we reached Kuala Kedah...

Langkawi was a nice place...not too big, not too small, traffic not too slow, not too fast, ngam ngam just nice like dat...went to one of the shopping malls (perhaps the only one?)...everything was so cheap man!!!!!!!!!!especially exported stuffs....Langkawi is a duty-free place...LOL...i got an original pair of Hush Puppies slippers for 80 bucks!!ate MarryBrown there...din rmb wat did i take but the wasabi fries was nice!!we went to underwater world...nice aquatic experience there!!!spent hours there...went to Jai Cafe for dinner...the black pepper beef...tsk tsk tsk...so rich in taste!!!after that....shopping time!!!!went to buy drinks and chocolates!!!:D...we chilled out in the apartment we stayed while watching spiderman 3 on TV!!so nostalgic...

we went to the beach the next day...played para-sailing (superb!!) and jet skiing!!swim swim a bit and it was sunset already...the sunset was beautiful!!went for dinner in a seafood restaurant...okok lah..not bad only...went for the last shopping and got back to apartment since we nid to be in the jetty very early in the morning...

got back to KL and finally in Kuching the next day...well arrived in kuching like around midnite...it was damn damn damn tiring...

not much updates in kch the next week except a dinner wif ah meng...LOL...ah meng went to SG last saturday for work...

came to think about it...everybody in our gang has walked their own path....hmm...our convo will be one of the soonest reunion!!!haha...again...cant wait for it!!but before that...work work work!!!

A New Chapter

OMG!!it's such a surprise that i don't feel sleepy at all at this kinda time...Reason was simple...I spent too much time sleeping in the morning and afternoon...

Well, Haven't blogged anything since I've got my last sem's results out...We've been working on some leisure-time project which might end in 1-2 weeks time...Pretty sure all of us start working after that (yeah!!)...hmm..now i finally understand the feeling of being jobless after studies finish...it's not cool at all...it was nice having a lil' break after final exams..but..honestly...i felt uncomfortable not getting something to start my future...hunted here and there...turned down...but Thank God, recently had an opportunity...

Then, i realized what a friend told me was right...everything is there for a reason..of course a person could not make everything suits his/her preference..but at the very least...one can still try to look for opportunities and do something...doing something we like or not does not matter with happiness much after all..happiness comes from the bottom of our hearts...by trying to understand and putting some joys in it, we might find the things we don't like could actually be interesting at some points...learning what we were not good in can be fun because there are more things to look for...more things we realized we are not good in...

I realized i've been a bit laid back during my holiday time...felt demotivated...so i guess everyone has to go through it, rite? well, some people that i know having their working lives did tell me about having enough holidays before going to work..and again...i keep on feeling i haven't got enough holidays but nobody has anyway...so why not try to do something?i somehow felt a bit enlightened right now and i hope i can be more determined to whatever i need to do and to be...

New chapter is coming and it's my duty to open my heart and arms...hope i will have the strength to go for it!!!oh yeah..me and buddies will have our convocation in end of october (gosh!!just can't wait to feel those regalia on me, man!!!!) no longer undergrads!!

Officially Ah B.Eng

eeeeeyyyyyy.....yesterday was the day our final sem's results came out!!!din reli wanna wake up dat morning til i received jason's n avery's msg saying it was out...and after seeing that then it was confirmed that i am now an official ah B.Eng...hahah...many movies came and coming out on this dunno-when-finish-holiday...those movies we watched during holiday were:

1.Pirates 4 -> not much suspense...gud story line and choice of actors and actresses tho
2.X-Men 1st class -> err...not bad...but still so so for me...
3.Super 8 -> if u treated it as kids' movie..this is a two-thumbs-up movie!!if u want to treat is as serious movie then...(aiyah the main characters all kids only lah k??)
4.Bliss -> failure...
5.Transformers 3 -> better than 2nd one...i think it was good...eventho rotten tomatoes rated it at 36%...cant blame tho...they've made the 3rd one very very nice and carefully...but almost all of the components are in the 2nd one...so no new stuffs...wew i like brit actress now...hahah...

hmm...there are stuffs to do this holiday anyway...LOL...but thr will always be some rooms for us to enjoy ourselves...

anyway...damn many many many things happened this sem...err...din exactly knew how to get all those fast pace happenings rite tho...maybe shouldn't even have tried to get myself in it...honestly this last semester drove us to final semester syndrome...checked out the Master of Universe's Advanced Learners' Dictionary and it translates as:

Final Semester Syndrome, noun (fahyn-l si-mes-ter sin-drohm)
The syndrome or situation whereby tertiary student undertaking his/her last semester studies is being lazy and procrastinating the academic works due to the sickness of the academic life and due to the insecurity about what happens during the last semester's final and what might happen just after the studies finish.

this one reli hit, especially me badly...LOL...i was reli reli demotivated to study during finals...yeah i did study but i spend most hours of the day playing around and facebooking...Thank God everything went well tho...^^

owh yeah...yesterday too!! we celebrated jason's bday!!! belated tho...by one day...and surprisingly there is another group of youngsters celebrating bday too...a girl's tho...so we teased jason n both of them had a brief introduction n get to know each other...HAHA....funny thing is we gave jason a red angry bird cake...and she got one from her frens too...O.o...

hmm...after graduation...we all have to walk on our own footsteps already...each of us getting our own job in various places...but i believe we should be on the path we chose...err...it wasn't reli the first time i felt this tho...i felt this when i left my school for foundation 5 yrs back...but came to think...it was sad but i din regret tho...just take it...coz nth's as bad as it feels...

life's is about transitions tho...moving from one phase to another is a thing, living its phases is another thing too...have been wondering lately...maybe shud introspect myself on it...wat have i done in my life so far? in other ppl's lives so far? what have other ppl's done to my life so far? not all gud but so far so gud anyway...no complain...haha...not gonna bring any gud if there is...thanks for all the gud stuffs and sorry for all the bads...

wah...i wrote so much leh!!planned to watch some old dvds but in the end stopped the movie n started blogging...hahah...have gud days everybody!!

Mr. Big - What If

I accidentally found something in the internet while resting my mind off the study mood...and guess what...as I reviewed Mr.Big's reunion few blog posts ago, I'd never expected that they will actually REUNITE in the sense of bringing the band back into something new, new records, new songs, new energy but with the same old band that i know....and YES!!! Mr. Big has recorded a full-length studio album titled "What If..." and it will be released sometimes January next year.

As a teaser they released the official music video for the first single of the album, "Undertow"





what a nice music!!! well, since Mr.Big had given me much influence in life, i would like to discuss this album in my own personal opinion. The album name, "What If..." is very inspirational to me. It means trying something new, opening new doors, thinking of what will happen, how to do it, how to make it happen. "What If..." for me shows that they still have the energy, the ideas, the charisma to be one of the best rock bands in the world despite the fact that they are not young anymore.

The MV of the song "Undertow" I posted above is too damn good. One thing we can notice is that the recording definitely doesn't sound like a typical 80's-90's recording quality. It has the ambience of modern rock sound but it doesn't lack the distinct sound we expect from the old Mr.Big. Really love the pre-solo part where Billy and Paul played the licks together.

Their album cover

The album cover is cool anyway...got lot of plots and equations....haha....plus that PIGasus

Gotta finished my final exams, hopefully with results of flying colors then I will learn the song!

For more professional review plus short comments of all the band members, visit http://www.bravewords.com/news/150743

Prom Night 2010

Huff....it's really been a long time since i updated my blog (what a cliche)....

Well...since I wrote my last blog post about some maths stuff (pls if u don't like maths i recommend u not to read it), many things has happened to my days....

umm...basically we (me, my bro, meng hong, jeremy, jason, avery, steven, kk, shafiq) were DAMN busy wif robocon 2010...robocon is an annual asia-pacific robot contest for undergraduates....well with all the limitations and some guts..we took the initiative to participate in the national level...well since my bro is now a PhD student, he acted as our team manager and mentor...the rest of us were just learning and wanna know how far could we go....^^

For more than 15 weeks we tried so hard....slept in uni for few weeks....went to kenyalang at 4am for breakfast almost everyday after work...fyuhhh...but what to do? all other participants were also working their a**es off...we went to kl for competition (after taking 2 final papers on the same day)....lost one game to past champion MMU and won one game over UiTM...which made us not eligible to compete in the round of 16...we went back wif some disappointment and took two more final papers....exhausting rite??haha...

I was a bit worried about my result for that semester but wow...i still managed to get the scholarship...haha...

after having a nice holiday, we all started the first semester of our final year...yes we have to do a final year project (not going to talk bout it) and it will be due next year.....

PROM NIGHT??yes we loved to have one...it was our last....i went to 2006's and 2007's to perform....and i think after that i did perform in 2008 swin nite....and since then i was too busy handling tuition classes and studies++" so i didn't get any chance to go to 2008 and 2009 prom

but this year is our last...we had to go and make something special...so we decided to perform again...of coz wif different lineups....Jason on trumpet, Steven on keyboard, my bro Hudy on drums, Russell on bass, Anthony on vocal and me on guitar....We played Smooth from Santana and Butterfly from Jason Mraz....aiyoh...we did try our best but honestly speaking those two songs were quite hard to play...so at some points i screwed up a bit...haha...all other performers were also showed their best....The Elixirs (actually there is a guitar string brand called Elixir), The Little Big Band, Soul Dance, Farah, Meow, etc....

Well it was a great night...but the bad thing was that we had to queue up to take our meals (prom ok??prom...)...the rest was fine...owh..yeah...i bought a hat for myself so that I could look like Santana...just kidding...just kidding....i respect him but i did not want to be him...if anyone notice...actually the first 8 bars of the guitar solo that i played last night was my own lick...hehe....the last 8 was Santana's....

We had our evil plan to get Avery as the Prom King and Annie as the Prom Queen....but it failed...AAARGGGHHH.....too bad.....but looking at the conditions i think i have the potential to be the Prom King...ooppppzzzz....we took lotsa picture...those pics should be out on "The Social Network" soon...it was not disappointing at all to have a last prom like this (despite i prefer the live band to be on the middle stage)....

Done with all the prom mood....next week will be a killing week...there will be FYP1 report due....but we did write some stuffs....so hopefully we can get it done nicely by the submission date....^^