Homeworksss

The Americans celebrate their Thanksgiving Day yesterday. So the whole campus was unusually deserted. Now that the feasts were over, something knocks onto my head timely -- it's homeworks and term paper, which are going to due next week!

Honestly, since I came here I keep immersing myself in enormous amount of workload. Homeworks, quizzes, tests and readings have consumed most of my time here, reducing my already short leisure time. Awr...this is indeed a life of mindless routine! The coming weeks are even more insane to me, as my planner outlines brutally.

The only good news is....--Yeah! December is just around the corner! And the semester is going to end in less than 3 weeks time. And after that I could enjoy my winter vacation....to? New York? Chicago? But New York is the best! Arrrr....stop thinking about that. Focus on your study for now man!

And as for next semester, I think I have drafted a smart combination of subjects....=)

Oh...3.25 am already...gonna sleep now....zzz

Silly Mistakes

It is not unusual for anyone to make mistakes. Mistakes are even intended to improve ourselves. Making mistakes is part of learning process. People always think of this whenever they made mistakes.

But certain mistakes have far reaching implications. No doubt, we could still learn from these mistakes. But at the same time, these mistakes could make us regretful and frustrated, for once it happens there is no ways you could try to fix it. Even if you try, chances are that you will only make the situation worse. Those unforgivable mistakes will instead, keep occupying part of your memory, inflicting your emotion anytime, within your own dark emptiness.

Mistakes are just so unavoidable. No matter how sophisticated your mind is, you can never predict when is the next time mistakes will be your visitors. Some mistakes are minor, while others are disastrous. The best you can do is just to pray for making less mistakes in your life, especially those which have multiplying effects.

Life at the University of Michigan (Part 3)

It is almost a month since I came to the University of Michigan. You might wonder how I spent the first month of my university life here. Did I socialize a lot? Did I experience any culture shocks? Or did I meet scholars from all walks of life? No...no...no... I hardly find sufficient time for all these due to the intense workloads introduced by my courses. But this doesn't imply that I have no interest in socializing and mingling with people. And frankly speaking, the time factor is the culprit behind all these!

Life has been extremely hectic and exhausting here. Most of the time is either spent on homeworks or readings. Weekends are not my favorite time of the week anymore. Not to exaggerate, it takes a lot of effort just to grasp a breathe here. I really want to be extrovert by joining more clubs and participating in more events, but apparently it was only a vain attempt. There are more important things to be considered before making your mind to think about these activities. I start to wonder if there are any blunders in my time management.

Not only time constraint keeps haunting my life, financial crisis is another calamity to me. The figures in my bank account start to decrease uncontrollably. Seriously, I need to start saving money now and only spend it with the right way. It is inevitable that everything here is expensive, given that if you apply currency conversion. But that's not how the things work. And perhaps it's normal to spend huge sum of money in the first month. It does make sense.

Whatever and no matter how it is, just let bygones be bygones. Furthermore, perhaps all these experiences taught me some valuable lessons, which can propel me into the best actions. I must believe myself that I can figure things out and make ends meet one day. I must not hesitate to try!

p/s: I like the environment here very much. Kinda enjoy the conducive study atmosphere here. The people here are also not bad!

Life at the University of Michigan (Part 2)

So my classes have started on last Tuesday. As a kickoff to my first semester at the University of Michigan, I decided to study MATH 215 (Calculus 3), MATH 216 (Differential Equation), ASTRO 101 (Introductory Astronomy: The Solar System and the Search of Life beyond Earth), and ANTHRCUL 101 (Introduction to Anthropology-Cultural).

This course combination looked damn vigorous and intimidating huh? Yea...I'm taking a total of 16 credit hours for this semester due to my personal interests in these areas. And mind you, my life will become extremely hectic after this, particularly when approaching October and November! So I think I won't update my blog on a regular basis after this post...=(

Oh ya, I had just bought and order all my required textbooks and reading texts today! I went to Michigan Union's Students Book Exchange to get some cheaper used books. But unfortunately, I could only manage to grab three books there. Other required books were not sold there because they are in newer editions. And some other books were bought from seniors. But how about the remaining required books? No choice. It's time to visit Amazon for huge money splash. Haven't received the ordered books though. Conclusion: Everything in US is freaking expensive! I start to miss Malaysia...lol

Failing to meet my expetation, my calculator displayed the number 270 (after rounding off) after I counted in all the prices of the books, which means a great sum of close to RM 950! T__T. So it is of utmost importance to start saving as much money as I can for the rest of my semester here. How pathetic am I...haiz. But all these worth its values if I manage to get the As printed on my transcript this semester. I must always be fueled with substantial motivation to work harder and smarter to achieve this goal.

By the way, I like my textbooks! =P. So just want to offer a glance at my textbooks here. But first of all, let me introduce this thingy...

The Qwizdom for 35 USD! Used for ASTRO 101 class.

MATH 215 textbook

MATH 216 textbook

The solution manual

ASTRO 101 textbook (consisted of two books for two parts actually)

ANTHRCUL 101 textbook

Reading text 1 for anthropology

Reading text 2 for anthropology

Signing off now...adios! =)

Life at the University of Michigan (Part 1)

No matter how will the reality treat me, I need to start my new chapter of life in Ann Arbor in a positive manner. So I attended the mandatory international orientation starting on August 28 , 2009, which was on the next day after I arrived.

First Day

The first day was all about briefings in Racham Auditorium, from immigration issues briefing to health insurance briefing. It was inevitably boring. LOL. Not forget to mention, the presentation of the seniors about adjusting to the new environment was awesome! I kinda enjoyed it. But unfortunately it rained in the evening and we missed the campus tour. The rain also wetted all my important documents since I carried all of them in my bag! Damn suei it was...sigh. We managed to get our "Umich-omnipotent" M-cards on that day too. =). Oh ya...there are more than 500 incoming freshmen and tranfer students from more than 50 countries at Umich this year. It is a great diversity indeed.

Second Day and Third day

More briefings to be attended on the second day. But we were free after 11 am. Having not explored the campus, I decided to tour around the campus. This was the day when I took most of the photos too. The central campus was fantastic, fully equipped with all kinds of facilities, from bus services to libraries. And the scenery was captivating too. I'm really awestruck by the tolerance of the drivers here. They will always stop whenever there are pedestrians who wish to cross the road in front of them. This scenario is the one that I can't find in Malaysia.

On the third day, some of us, including me, took AEE (English Academic Evaluation) at the Chemistry as part of the orientation requirement. Then in the afternoon, we went to Blairwood Mall to shop for our daily essentials. By the way, I was delightful to see a Forever 21 shop there. =)

Forth Day and Fifth Day

The forth day is the day for backpacking and choosing courses. Each student were assigned individual appointments with their specific advisors. Well, I was still uncertain about which course to take on that day. On the next day, I went for my registration at the scheduled time to enroll the courses that I wish to take for my first semester. Trying to be careful since this is my first semester, I plan to take only 12 credit hours. So calculus 3, differential equation and anthropology make up my first timetable. After that, I went to Meijer to shop for my essentials alone. Meijer is known for cheap stuffs, at least among the Malaysians. It took more than 30 minutes to reach there. So it was quite adventurous though. Not forget to mention too, we have started to cook on the second day! And the self-cooked meals were not at all too bad!

Below are some posted photos taken in the campus. Have a glance at them and you will find how lively and adorable the campus is...=)

The living room of my apartment...some of my friends said that it looks like a hotel.

Racham Auditorium...what an artistic auditorium!

Michigan Union

The rotating cube?

Caught you, squirrel!

Angell Hall

The Law School Library

The Museum @ Umich

That's me!

The green campus area

One of the shops along the pavements

Wohoo! American restaurant!

Tenders with chips...quite salty though

The only assignment for me now is trying to adapt to the new enviroment well! Hope I can do it... More updates coming soon! :)

Pre-departure and Departure to US

The big day was there! I was informed by JPA to take my flight to US on August 26, 2009 at KLIA. Feeling anxious since this was the first time I traveled abroad, but excited because my dream finally came true. After the dreading packing was done, my family and I rushed to the KLIA on that red-letter day and we reached there at 5 pm.

I was a little blurred since this was the first time I traveled in plane too. But it was fortunate that I was eventually able to cope with it. Really grateful that Forever 21 and other friends of mine came to send me off. It was so touching. All the best to you all and hope we can meet somewhere in the future! =)

My first flight was scheduled at 2330, by Malaysian Airline to Incheon International Airport of Korea. The flight experience was by itself pleasant, but not until when you realize the existence of jetlag for long-period flight. I found that I couldn't sleep in the plane too.

Incheon International Airport

Then we took another flight to Chicago International Airport and it took more than 10 hours to reach there. You can imagine yourself being stucked in a confined machine for that many hours...==. Chicago was the place where we all suffered. LOL.

For unknown reasons, we were required to pass through a special custom check that took more than 3 hours. And as a result, some of us missed our flight to Detroit. Unfortunately, I was one of them. From that moment onwards, I started to hate United States for setting up so many obstacles prior to our entrances.

But that was the reality. No choice, you have to get through it. So Edward, my current roomie and I took the 5.25 pm flight using American Airline to Detroit. We thought things would start to turn better after we had suffered for long hours waiting. But it seemed that this was not the case for us. The flight was delayed to 6.30 pm due to unfavorable weather condition. And guess what, we have to pull out our patiences again as the plane only started its journey at 7 pm! American Airline sucks! Our patiences is not unlimited!

We were really tired by the time we reached Detroit Metropolitan Airport at 10 pm. After claiming our baggages, we went to find the airbus that was scheduled to go to Ann Arbor. And the local time was close to 11 pm when we reached our university. We were supposed to reach there at 7 pm. Since we hadn't taken our lunch and dinner, we were extremely hungry and exhausted too. Adding in the jetlag also, you can't tell how awful we felt at that very moment.

This experience was indeed a terrible one. And mind you, it added to my first impression about the United States where the custom is strict and the airlines inefficient. Overall, I should say that the flight was not at all pleasant. It was tiring and disappointed. =(

Happy Birthday to MV

Happy birthday, MV!

You are officially one year-old now!

MV is actually the abbreviation given to the title of this blog, My Voice... In the past year, the author had posted 67 posts, all of which related to his life and certain world issues. The layout of MV was also under constant transformations too.

This August is gonna to be special for both of this blog and its author, for an inevitable transition is underway soon! On this special day also, the author would like to express his gratitude to all My Voice followers for their sincere supports.

Do check out My Voice in the coming posts enthusiastically! More and more stories and experiences of the author will be shared here!

Once again, haPpy BirThday to My Voice!