爱发呆的红骑士《一场游戏一场梦》

I don't know who is this singer. He seems aloof, withdrawn, but when he sings, he literally explodes his emotion. You can literally feel the emotion in every lyric he uttered.

Awesome. Can't wait to know who he is next week!

Massive Flood

Penang is known for its heritage and history, and these attract people because, well, they are an identity. But what people often overlook is that with heritages and histories that are left untouched, there comes an issue of maintenance and upgrades. Penang's limited space inhibits many developments. The buildings already line the roads, and hence the roads cannot be expanded, even though they were built to cater for traffic in the 1950s. And the same goes for the drainage system.

Most people do not know how drainages are designed, but as a civil engineering student, I do. Drainage aren't designed and built arbitrarily. Usually, we take the rainfall of a predetermined period (10, 20, 50, 100 years are norms) and design a drainage system that are meant to cater for it. Which means, drains aren't built to be fool-proof. They aren't built to be unassailable. If today's rain is the largest in decades, it is very likely the drain cannot cater that volume of water, and flash flood will occur.

To upgrade a drain that caters 20 years of water to 50 years of water requires a massive change in size of the drain. This will not be easy to be implemented in Penang due to its restrictive land size. Hence, other alternatives have to come in place, and these alternatives will not come cheap. Hence, the delay in Penang.

The rain on early Friday morning wreaked havoc in Penang. It was the worst flood I had seen since I was born. In Mainland Penang, where I lived, flood had not made its presence for a decade, and now it came back lurking on our roads. If Mainland Penang has flooded, then the rain must be massive, and it must have overwhelmed the drainage system. This is a natural disaster that can't be disputed. But at the same time, mitigation plans will not be carried out easily.

Penang should expect more floods. This has nothing to do with the incompetence of state government. This is a very challenging issue for the civil engineers because this is an uphill task. It costs a lot, and mitigation plans would usually cost something that stakeholders' will not surrender easily. Penang still has a long road to go in solving the water woes.

Avicii - The Days

After years since I first listened to this song, this song still rocks!

It's awesome, though so far the only Avicii song I truly like. But this song really rocks!.

FYRP

Well, time flies. And it certainly flies fast. Finishing SPM felt only like one year ago, and finishing STPM is still so fresh in my mind I can recall so many things to actually write a dedicated essay for it. I can also still feel the excitement when I first travelled alone to Kuching, only for fears to finally sink in and paralyse me to the point I almost wept myself to sleep on the first night in my hostel in Sarawak. Total foreign land. Total strange place. No relatives, no people I know. Absolutely no elements of familiarity. I was so scared, but luckily after years, I've established sort of a nest here, and Kuching has become a rather comforting place for me to call a second home.

Anyway, it's now my final year here, and of course, it means one thing: Final Year Research Project. Damn. Anyway, after years of studying civil engineering, the conclusion I can draw is that I absolutely love Structural and Geotechnical Engineering. At the same time I cannot even begin to say how much I despise Road Engineering and Hydrology. I hate them. I can do them, but I hate them. Torn between Structural and Geo, I opted for Geo, because I had my fair share of exposure to structural engineering during my internship.

My FYRP topic is basically the usage of Finite Element Modelling to design piles. Piles are a common structural element to support a structure, and though they are commonly designed and have performed their functions superbly, often they are created with unnecessary overdesign to compensate the inability to investigate the soil-structure interaction. Hence, my FYRP is to investigate the behaviour and interaction of the soil and pile. It's quite hard, actually, mainly because I am super weak in using any computer software. But, my topic is quite fun. And to say the truth: I love it. But like any other people, playing around what I should play around is fun. Doing the report is a different nightmare to tell.

Digi Sucks

My university hostel doesn't provide internet anymore as it has stopped accepting new students and there are only six students who are still living here. I have no choice but to continue by Digi Broadband that I subscribed last semester, and right now I wish to say Digi sucks to the core! The line is not stable, not working, and often just not functional. It is very difficult to use this kind of line to do my FYRP which I am doing this semester. I seriously want to switch to Maxis, but Maxis is just too damn expensive. I am not sure how Celcom would work but Celcom appears to be also very expensive. Digi is cheap, undeniable, but with cheap products come lousy quality. I won't recommend Digi to anyone. Ever.