Pre-CNY 09

Back after my hiatus. Went for a field trip last weekend. Trying really hard to finish up my assignment...the lecturer just made it worse by extending the deadline. He really shouldn't have extended....just makes me procrastinate....haihs.....

CNY is just around the corner. Trying to plan out how to spend my one week's worth of CNY holidays to the max because after this holiday, it's work work work till the end of the semester in May without any break in between.

There's like a tonne of things to do after this one week break. I have labs to attend..which practically equates to staying out of the room from 8am-5pm. Tutorials to attend. Physics alone is taking up 6 hours a week! This semester is all about calculations for me. I NEED help. I hate calculations. Haihs. Trying my best to keep up with calculations...I practically everything that I learned back in high school. That is how much I hate calculations with all those ridiculous formulas.

Enough about boring stuff...Now for the highlight...A playback of my field trip

I went to Kota Belud. Go search up your old sejarah textbooks and you'll find that it is the place where orang Bajau live. Bajaus are the famous horsemen among the aborigines.

We stayed at a place called Kampung Tambutuoan...It's really in the outskirts of Kota Belud. It's so far fetched that you can't get any handphone signals there..unless u hold up your phone and try to locate some spot that have a bar of signal.

This the chalet that all 40 plus of us stayed at. The place is actually very clean and serene. I think the villagers built the chalet themselves...including the double deckers in the room.
This is my attire for 2 days in Kota Belud. Don't you think that I look like someone working in the market..Reminds me of Family Outing...
This pair of wellington boots costs me RM14. Protects me from the stones in the river bed.. There's nothing much to do there...actually there is nothing to do. Our mission there was just to take water samples, measure the river flow rate etc...I have a feeling that the lecturer is just trying to prepare us for the second fieldtrip where we would have to sleep in tents for 3 days..without any facilities/toilets. Every au natural...River for bathing...bushes for big and small businessesThis is the brigde that connects this village to its opposite bank. Not more than 10 person at a time to go across...The river is about 27m wide.

One thing to take note of thought...although they are so far out..all the houses have Astro. That's something that I find amazing in Sabah. All the outskirt places that I've been to, all the houses have Astro.

The people here love dogs, the entire village is filled with dogs but 90% of the dogs have skin diseases.

They still work with their hard labour. They also use this wooden cone-shaped basket to carry all their stuff...

The next day, we went to the city.We had a few hours to ourselves to wander around since we were way ahead in our schedule.So my friends and I, we went to the Tamu mingguan. This is called pencarak..not sure about the exact spelling but it sounded something like that. It's pan-cake like...deep-fried. The red one is brown sugar..green is pandan. RM2 can get you 9 pieces of this pencarak. It actually taste good...

After filling our stomachs, we went to Kampung Siasai
The craftmaker-a Bajau aborigine. Apparently the entire Kampung Siasai residents are Orang Bajau.The final product-Parang made by orang Bajau. From the sword to the wooden sleeve is handmade. We wanted to watch the horsemen show but we missed the time. They only perform once a day. On the way out, we were told by this guy and some others to stand at the side because they were trying to capture some wild cows. They are just equiped with some thin rattan sticks with a huge rope at the end. And they are all stick thin themselves. While walking out, we saw that they succesfully caught one young cow.

From the river, in the beginning of the trip, we ended up at the delta leading to the sea. The thing that I love about Sabah is that no matter which beach you go to, the water is crystal clear.


Took this just before it poured really heavily. Sabah's weather is gloomy nowadays, it's raining every evening. So it's actually cold here. Heard it's cold back in Penang too..maybe because of the winter winds from China. Bangkok is down to 4 degrees.

Now that it's the festive season, I miss home and family and friends. Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

New Year, New Semester

Today is the third day of my 2nd semester...and I already have 2 assignments on hand. One is due next week and the other due just right before chinese new year! WTH! I thought I could get a bit of rest in the first week due to all the errors in the registration system. Things don't always go the way you want it to be.

I have 2 field trips coming up. Next weekend is a 2 days 1 night trip to a village for an ecology project. Another trip, so some jungle for another project for 3 days 2 nights. BUSY BUSY BUSY. Each of this trips come with lab works and reports.

Plus this semester, we're starting with tutorial classes which means I'll be out of my room from 7am till god knows what time.

I'm back to the life of a hermit I guess. Wake up, attend class, go back, laundry, assignment, sleep and the cycle repeats.

I'll try to blog about how I spent the last few days of my holidays in Penang by being a tourist together with my relatives. It was a new experience for me altogether.