my weekend

posting another entry here... last week was a total mess for me. apart from the no internet connection, (as i boastfully said  in my other daily blog 'just musing') i also failed miserably on many tasks. duh! but, the most awfull thing was me stupidly declared war with a very irritating fellow tutor (dei....). sun tzu will be very dissapointed in my war strategy!

last week, i survived the college's family day. being surrounded by many 'overconcern' wives... (heee... mangkali dorang takut sy mengurat hubby dorang) asking weather i have bf or not and when i will be married. wah! i felt the love! (i hope, this is sarcastic enough!). but, yeah, in reality and especially in Dusun's culture, a woman in never successful enough if she's single approaching the age of 30. i'd say, i don't give a cent thinking of that, but, that'd be a lie.. i do think about it. but, for whatever it worths, i wont rush to marriage just because of the pressure or the opinion pending it. most importantly, His plan for me... if i can serve Him better being single, so be it. 

and another disaster.. i lost my 100 ml brand new (only over a month) Giorgio Armani (Armani Code). well, yeah... this is a good reason for me to buy another bottle of parfume (i've been eyeing Burberry-Touch). but, i am way too broke at the moment for expensive indulgence. maybe i forgot the Code at Santubong Resort last weekend (family day)...so, today, i wear my old reliable Estee Lauder 'pleasures' (been wearing it for more than 4 years now). i switched to Gio, because pleasures seems not to adhere as good as before. hormonal changes, i guess.. sometimes, it is good to change for something new, but the old reliable trusted one will always be there to stay. 

over the weekend (saturday nite) i went for an engagement party in Kota Samarahan. a christian Bidayuh ceremony. what i love the most was the 'nasihat menasihat' part. ie: the future-parents in law for both sides gave advice/ wishes to their respective daughter/ son in law. it was for me so endearing  (eventhough, i have difficulty in understanding the language. esp Serian's Bidayuh. np, with the iban). i asked the nearest 'tayung' to translate it for me (after a while, a bunch of eldery ladies eagerly translated the whole speech to me). between their giggles and laughters and  diffused translation, i think i managed to captured the essence off their advises.

and on sunday afternoon, (after deciding no TV on weekends.. too much TV nowadays) i read (or rather re-read)  Jodi Picoult's "Perfect Match" ( i think, this is the least sentimental of her book.. the characters are not thoroughly evolved.. the ending abrupt and it doesnt make my mind works the way her other books did. and i have the sense she wrotes the book in haste..  ntah). a good read anyway.. then, i totured myself reading the latest issue of 'personal  money' (yeah.. i  subscribed to that mag). the feeling of "bodohness" being almost 28 with no significant saving/ asset for my name.  ahhhhh... i take comfort in Hiro Tan's (the man behind Rotiboy) saying "success is achieving what you want to achieve without compromising on your beliefs, principles and values".. so far, i've had what i trully wanted.. now... the one million.....

so, i think, despite all the miserable things happened last week, i did quite good (trying to cheer myself up...)

my Sabah

being quite a while not posting anything on this blog. and since, i cant sleep, though it's in a wee hour, alone at a hotel room in kota baharu, kelantan, maybe i'll drop a few lines.

being in Kelantan! i never imagine the place will be this sempoi..the people are so very friendly (though its a bit hard to understand their dialect) and the foods are so very cheap!. my first lesson here. #1: never trust what you saw on the national Tv news. level of accuracy = 30%. bandar Kota baharu is like any normal city.. and most of the city dwellers are chinese who speak fluent kelantan malay dialect!

#2: dare to be different. be proud of whoever you are. i think, in malaysia, Kelantanis and sabahan are two group of ppl who stubbornly hold fast to our own culture. the evidence? we never let go of our language lingo, no matter where we are. we also proudly mengaku sabahan (kalau pigi megintroduce diri dalam group besar.. we usually introduce ourselves as sabahan first, then come the race and so on.. ). but, in terms of political standing, i dont know, what we sabahan believe in....(its crystal clear here in kelantan..its about religion). it never failed to amaze me, the determination and willingness to be different to stand for something they truly believe in (even for one dead wrong!).

bah, like what YB Wilfred Bumburing said in the parliament.."we will always remember Datuk seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, as a Prime Minister who initiate the openess in our country. we should thank him for that". i think, and i hate to talk politic in my blog (arghhhh!!!!), but, i think, what our country need the most at the moment is more openess. be it about race, religion or other matter...(we, sabahan, should have no problem regarding this matter)... and certainlly not another big bluff like that opposition leader (the more he speaks, the less my respect for him) it's time to think with our head, not just heart...

we, sabahan, have the least reliable political leader. we dont have a clear shared political standing. we, sabahan were the original initiator of the 14 perkara khas untuk penubuhan Malaysia. but, now, we let go most of those 14 perkara... unlike Sarawak (who ikut2 jak kita punya idea, once upon a time). the sarawakian are more loyal to their 'ibu pertiwi'. (inda sanang ooo mau beli tanah di sarawak.. even rumah pun susah, if you are not local)... and they stilll hold onto the usage of 'passport' for those not local.... sabah?... apa mau cakap? (berapa basar tanah Anwar Ibrahim di Sabah?- just to give one obvious example..)... in the end...we, the local will be  a stranger in our own land.. KK, itself is more like a little Manila nowadays.

my beloved race "Dusun", being dubbed by St John (Low's friend touring the land of borneo, dulu2) as the most gentlest nomad of Borneo. we never fight back..org jipun datang, kita kasi makan, orang putih datang, kita ok saja... (thats why, mangkali, kita kurang rasa benci sama penjajah) we, idolized America. we love the British. in short....we dont have a firm standing over anything. i dont know what to expect or what to suggest...

mighty atom finale

the heart of Quantum Mechanics is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle which states that electron is a particle that can be described in terms of wave. (bah,... dia punya uncertainty adalah 1. kita boleh tau arah pergerakan elektron pada space  dan 2. kita boleh tau dimana elektron berada pada suatu masa. BUT kita tidak akan tau dua-dua perkara itu sekaligus) means, we can never predict where an electron will be at any given moment, we only can list the probablility of electron being there.

so, really... (kita punya image elektron berterbangan di sekeliling nukleus seperti planet2 mengelilingi matahari itu salah sama sekali) instead, try to imagine it like a cloud enveloping a nucleus and the cloud itself is just a statistical probability marking the usual place we found that certain electrons ( bah.. ni cloud pun ada tier.. the s, p, f, d orbital...) and most amazingly as Bohr explained it to us, electrons could jump from one orbit to another without travelling across any intervening space.

but... the most amazing of all this idea, arising from Pauli's Exlusion Principle (ni, kalau ko ada baca sy pny earlier entry "what can bond us?", nah... ko tau macamana bikin maradangnya itu cikgu yang x dapat kasi terang ni barang). i'll leave this out to you to figure (hahahhha! sound macam cikgu sy dulu pula kannn..). certain pairs of subatomic particles, even seperated by the most considerable distances, can instantly know what the other is doing ( u know the spin positif sama spin negatif kannn... kalau arah anak panah ke atas, the other elektron spin dia mesti pigi bawah). the spinning was immediate and at the same rate.

(macam yang kita tau..) nothing could outrace the speed of light and yet, by using the quantum mechanics theory, somehow, in the subatomic level, information, could.

so, here we are..suddenly because of that theory, we need two sets of laws to explain the behaviour of the universe. 

1. quantum theory for the world of the very small

2. relativity for the larger universe

to explain what kept atoms together, we need to know the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. the strong force binds the atom together and keep the protons tightly packed in that dense nucleus.. while the weaker force has to do with radioactive decaying. please note that, the weak nuclear force, despite its name is ten billion, billion times stronger than gravity. thus, aint atom mighty?

on 06 august 1945, the 'little boy' in Hiroshima and 09 the same month, 'fat boy' in Nagashaki, Japan, proved just how mighty the force in an atom could be. 

cukup sudah kah ni intro pasal atom sama ko??

i'll read some more on quantum mechanics... and if i can get anything out of those super craze equations, something that can make any sense to my senses.. i'll blog some more..that, if you're still interested.. (bah, take care!)

mighty atom II

lets come back to the problem encountered by Rutherford:

1. flying electron should run out of energy very quickly and spiral to collapse into the nucleus

2. protons, being positively charge, cant be packed together without repeling/ blowing each other

Neils Bohr, a young associate of Rutherford provide the answer for problem #1. he explained how electrons could keep from falling by suggesting that they could occupy only certain defined orbitals and not anywhere else. this famous idea of "Quantum Leap", (ability untuk muncul pada satu space to another space without dilihat/dikesan pada space perantaraan) was of course utterly strange. in short, electrons appeared in certain orbits because they only existed in certain orbits. Bohr earned his Nobel Prize in 1922 for this idea.

for problem #2, Rutherford, proposed neutrons, a neutral subparticles that can offsets the positive charge of protons. he got the idea... but it took 11 intensive years of hard works by James Chadwick to find neutrons in 1932. for this long, tiring job, he got his Nobel prize in 1935.

(macam belajar sejarah pula kann.. heehehehhee.. they say, its a blessing that neutrons tidak kena jumpa sampai 1932. because during those time, gap antara WW I and WW II and masa urang berebut-rebut buat senjata perang paling canggih. had they knew about neutrons earlier, especially the Germans... life on earth would be really different). as we knew, neutrons being neutrally charge can be fired to  atom's nucleus to ignite the nuclear fission. and remember... remember... during those time, the powerfull and famous institutions of higher learning were all in Europe. ( bukan memang masih di sana kah??? kah! kah!!! so, i suppose to use a present tense there...)

bah.. back to atom. the strange behaviour of electron puzzled the academician. mostly because the electrons, sometimes behaved like a particles and sometimes like  a wave (bah, elektron kena regard sebagai partikel kerana it can be at one location pada orbital.. but, at the same time, it can be everywhere in the orbital, macam pattern gelombang.. pergerakan terlalu pantas... nah kau...). so, how can we explain the behaviour of electron?

nah.. sini keluar si Erwin Schrodinger... an Austrian Physicist who refined the idea of electron being a particle and wave in his "Wave Mechanics". at the same time, a German physicist, Werner Heisenberg produce a competing theory of "Matrix Mechanics" based on a  very complex maths calculations regarding electron's behaviour. the wikipedia url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_mechanics

and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_mechanics#The_Schr.C3.B6dinger_equation

(paning sy mabuk tengok all those equaations...)

adui... paning sy baca tu schrodinger vs heisenberg theory...they eventually come to a compromise in 1926, by developing a new discipline called "Quantum Mechanics"

in short, Schrodinger provides  a central of quantum mechanics ie: the description of how wavefunction of  a physical system changes in time. while Heisenberg provides the formula to define quantum mechanics. soooo... what is this quantum mechanics all about?

aku mau 100 plus... i need to go out for lunch.. if it possible i'll add some more this afternoon.. if not.. and if you're still interested to read on...bah bisuk lah baru ada ni.. malas mau membaca and menaip... (aku rasa termotivasi bah pula membaca, kalau ada urang mendingar niiii..) ahaks! so self-centered kannn.. yay!

mighty atom

i suppose to continue on that chemistry bonding... but since i got this rather urgent expalantion to http://vittyfung.blogspot.com/ regarding Schrodinger's theory. frankly, i'm not a big fan of those mumbo jumbo quantum mechanics theory thing but, vitty, i'll try to simplify the thing  and hopefully it'll help.. (i doubt it will) but, in the case you want to try, bahhh.. read on.

all things are made of atoms. the basic working arrangements of atoms is molecules. chemist tends to think in terms of moleculs and not elements (like a writer think of words and not letters). and elements itself are built by atoms which are very small, numerous and practically indestructible. John Dalton is the man responsible for introducing the Atomic theory.

but, since Dalton couldnt proved the existance of an atom.. his theory remained purely hypothetical. (nah... remember arrr.. itu buku si dalton tu kena published back in 1808). only in 1905, when Einstein gave the evidence of atom's existance in his paper about Brownian Motion (itu gerakan zarah Brown). (tapi, pada masa itu, c Einstein was so into Relativity Theory sehingga dia tidak memberi tumpuan yang banyak on strenghthening the Atomic Theory)

Ernest Rutherford came to Cambridge Univ in 1895, he's a genius physicist (he's bad at math though..). then he moved to McGill univ in Montreal where he conducted the experiment of firing alpha particles to a sheet of gold foil. (bah.. sepatutnya.. all the particles akan menembusi that thin sheet of  gold foil, but ada particles yang bounced back) why bounced?, it must hit something small but dense area. therefore, Rutherford concluded that, an atom is mostly an empty space with a dense nucleus at the centre. that presented another problem, by all the law of conventional physics, atom couldnt exist..(but, Rutherford did manage to conclude that an atom have  a dense nucleus)

(bah kenapa pula tidak boli exist?) 

Lets see atom the way we knew it now. 3 subparticles that built an atom: Proton (+ve) + neutron (neutral) = nucleus. and electron (-ve) moving around nucleus. the number of protons give an atom its identity(1 proton = hidrogen, 2=helium... and so on). the number of electrons give it personality (hidrogen with no electron = positively charge: Cation). (vitty, you have the image of an atom with electron orbiting the nucleus of proton and neutron? allalallalala... yang macam sistem solar tu bah..) if you believe that thing... delete that now! because electron move not in an orbit like the solar system... its more like in a blade of a moving fan (sentiasa ada di sekeliling nukleus. bah.. ni yang akan kasi bingung kita pasal kedudukan elektron nanti) therefore the s, p, d, f orbitals..

but before that, i go back to the problem Rutherford encountered after his finding. by the law of conventional electrodynamic, electrons that move around (flying) around nucleus couldnt stay that way for a long time. it will lose its energy and collapsed. and how protons, positively charge can pack together? (it suppose to repel each other kannn?). he cant explain it..

i'll continue tomorrow... mau balik sudah ni..(actually, i want to arrange the facts in a  more sensible manner, and sorry i didnt get to your schrodinger theory yet.. we will come to that tomorrow hopefully).. 

what can bond us?

i wonder if chemistry is really the thing for me.  currently i'm teaching chemistry for dip and cert student (Health inspector and public health assistant trainnee). frankly, i am not always into chemistry (i hate it when i was in my secondary school. SPM hangkang maut) and my matriculation days no better. (can you believe, when i asked my tutor back then, about the Prinsip Pengecualian Pauli - the electron position in an atom. he told me that if i cant get it in the class, i can try to sleep on my chem textbook).. ugh..ok, maybe what he meant was, for me to study harder (sampai tertidur on the book?). but, i was deeply offended during those trying time...

my degree course in the univ required me to take at least 3 chemistry papers. ( i took Environmental chem I and II, analysis chem and took extra soil chem). the last two were taken during my sophomore year. Env chem I and II were taught by a very eccentric man ( he refused to use powerpoint/ the whiteboard to teach). he used the old reliable chalk and the blackboard. i fall in love with chemistry from his classes. he managed to make chemistry approachable and fun. maybe, its true that chemistry is a bit hard to grasp at first, but like everything else, once you see the basic foundation, it'll get easier. (have to admit though, that i'm still having trouble with the calculation. i hate numbers!)

so? what is chemistry? in simple words, it is the the study of elements, their structure and composition and how they react with each other. (simple enough?)

i knew, this is a very boooooooooring entry for a blog. (maybe i'll continue the lecture sometime soon). nah... i'll start right away. all elements are not naturally stable (except for noble gases, ie: group 18) so, all elements tend to react with each other to form a more stable nature of elemental composition. basically, there are 3 kind of bonds to form substance (ionic, covalent and metal)..the degree of interaction (fast/slow and strong /weak) depends heavily on the degree of polarity. (polarity = ability to form charges). 

what's real interesting is the fact that, different charges actually love to be together. (imagine, two very different person get together?). one example, the table salt (NaCl) = sodium chloride. in its elemental form, sodium is a metal react aggresively with plain water, while chlorine is quite poisonous by its own. but, put them together and voila! we have a cooking companion, familiar to all of us. i wonder if the same rules apply to human interaction/ bonding (will that even viable?)

extraordinary book

i was mildly surprised to find out this evening that a fellow blogger actually leave a message to me here for this ranting out blog! my passion, should be a blog closest to my heart. writing things that i felt for. not just a mere diary, or journal of things i did in my life. somehow, i found it comforting, knowing that a person (at least) read on and knew a friction of me. 

back to that book by a weird guy named Bill Bryson (one can always try to google him up and find his bibliography). this particular book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" is  a must for all science teachers. published back in 2003, i only have a hand on this book last month (august 2008), en route to Kuala Terengganu via KLIA (waited nearly 4 hours for connecting flight to KT). trying to kill time by browsing through books at the flying emporium (my fave bookshop at KLIA, because i got 10% off every purchase. limited books though), i found that book and nearly missed it because of its so uninspiring bookcover (and it's paperback!). what will i miss if i leave it!!

the title really justify the content. it is a book of short history of nearly everything..how to measure the earth, what on earth are we living in now, etc.. every pages makes me ooooo and aaaa of new profound understandings. scientific facts presented in laymen language that makes this book so readable and persuasive for me to appreciate the simple beauty of science.

may i suggest to read this book slowly and to ponder by the end of each chapter. easy and simple this book, yes. but, one need to chew on it scientific facts closely as not to lose the thread of facts..he wrotes the book in storytelling manner (not your usual science textbook). sometimes, adding humourous details of geniuses mentioned and many, many interesting facts never revealed by our science teacher (if your science teachers were anything like mine...)

i am a science teacher (i teach chemistry) for diploma and cert student (equivalent to A level chemistry). and i am always intrigue to improve the methods used to make the process of teaching and learning more fun and effective. from Bryson's book, i found out that: deeper understanding of your subject matter really matter in teaching. a teacher should know subject contents inside out. means, be an expert in your chosen field. i wonder if chemistry is really the thing for me....

2 lessons

the hardest thing to do was to admit that i cant afford to buy 'jajan' like all my friends did. therefore, i hide at the school library. reading what i can and swallowing my pride. its hard during those time, but it taught me at least two things.

first, nothing is free in this world. you have to work hard to earn it. and sure, the harder to get it, the better it taste. those early years experience mould me into a more focus oriented person.

second, my reading habit. i'm addicted to it. and i wonder if this second lesson would be beneficial to me, long term (ermmmm... this habit costs me around RM200 per month). aaaa... talking about books, i found this one real interesting book, written by a weird guy named Bill Bryson...

passiflora

cakap pasal passion. bah i kick off with a passion fruit story lah..(read on to know what's the connection with my passion)

when i was a child, (aged around 11) my parents planted a 2 ha passionfruit groove, and that's the second most rewarding, profitable part time job i ever had. (the first would be me being assistant to my gram-bless her soul, selling ginger and other farm produce at Tamu).

the passionfruits (markisa) was daily picked (usually done in the late afternoon 5-6pm). all of us, my elder bro Adam, my sis Linda and younger bros Atan and Amit, would lined up (the passionfruits were planted in a long lane supported by belian and lined with metal wire). i have a favourite lane! lane number 3! because it got purple passionfruit in it (the purple one have no difference with the ordinary yellow.. maybe the flesh of purple passionfruit are more orangeish, but it taste the same) so, we'd lined up with our sacks and handpicked the fruits.. then we collected it at our little sulap (hut). sorted, (buang tangkai) and put into sacks for the KPD (Koperasi Pembangunan Desa) people to collect.

collection was done every tuesdays and thursdays. and payment made every 1st week of the month. it's a happy day.. payday! (so i can buy a maggi mee and eat it raw! my mom cant complaint, because its MY money)

forgot to inform, my parents didnt provides daily allowance for school.. so, we have to earn it (ala... selling rambutan to my schoolmates, sell at Tamu) the hardest thing to do was....

SAMBUNG BISUK (GTG.. MY BOSS IS CALLING)