Happy Thanksgiving!

Last week, it was pretty smooth sailing, other than the midterm on Thursday, and also the GAME on Saturday. "The game was good, but OSU was better!" quoted from the Michigan Daily. In short, it was a great game, a close one, and we lost by a 3-point margin.

So, I still need to come up with a travelling plan for winter break. Damn, holiday should be fun. And I'm starting to worry about where I will be going for the break, and that's no fun.

So, today is Thanksgiving, so, thanks for everything.

Went to the brown jug yesterday night with my friends. Before that, I had dinner with Mel, Renjie, Keng Yang and Lili at B-dubs. All in all, a great night out.

Tonight? Will be going to my friends' church Thanksgiving dinner, then, prolly another bar night?

Amazing week...

alright, i'm gonna be very positive in this post, because it had bee an amazing week.

So, i left off on Friday on my last update, so let me start with last Friday on this one.
Last Friday was pretty amazing, went to the party at Mel's place, and met a bunch of my old hallmates, great to see them. It was a nice-size party, with enough people that I know so that it wasn't akward. I don't really go to party to meet new people, I go to party to catch up with people that I already knew, and have a good time with them. And I played a game of beer pong and won, which was great.

On Saturday, it was the last home game, where MICHIGAN WOLVERINES vs Ball State. It was supposed to be a blowout game, where Michigan should just cruised from the start til the end. But Michigan-who-like-to-make-things-interesting gave up a couple easy plays, and the scores were pretty much neck-to-neck, and heck, I was actually afraid, and embarrassed. But, a win is a win, and we won 34 - 26. Hopefully, this would remind them, that they couldn't take any team lightly.

After the game, I went back to my room, to get some studying done, and before long, headed out again, to West Quad for the DeepaRaya Celebration. (It was a week late, but that's the best time we can get a room and all). The food was great, spicy and all, and I like it. Again, seeing many malaysians which I don't really run into them much on campus. Snapped some pictures, and chatted awhile. And it was all good.
And did I mentioned a lot of gossiping... (look at Li Li...) this is not a candid shot, Li Li faked the 'granny 8' pose
The junior year bunch...

The committee members
So, it was a great night, with lots of laughters, and lots of wasted batteries + disk space for bad photos. :)

On Sunday, the spices from last night game me some sensation when I was 'dealing big-business'. Worked, studied for midterm, and then, caught family guy, and that's about it.

Monday, worked, a bit more studying, and that's about it.

Tuesday, midterm for my Risk Theory (Math 523) class. I did prepared for it much more than the previous one, because I screwed up my first midterm pretty badly, and hope to catch up with this. It went alright, not sure if the paper was easier, or I was better prepared for the exam, but heck care, it's over. At night, got back my Acconting exam, which was pretty good, and then skipped the 2nd part of the class, and went to Sadako.

Wednesday, worked, sent out gazillions of email to companies and all, and meeting for RAP, and learned about my yesterday's exam score. (36/40) which is pretty good, hopefully that the class wasn't doing amazingly well too. It's all about relative, it doesn't matter if you get a 99 or a 69, it's more important to be above the mean and median.. :) Oh yar, did some preparation for tmr's Life Contingencies I (Math 520) quiz too.

Thursday, the quiz was alright. Learned about the class' median score for the exam was 27, so, I did pretty well, and my average for the two midterms - aka my standing in the class now, should be a B+, need a little more push from my final exam to get to A. :) Still waiting for my IOE - Corporate Finance midterm 2 result. At night, went to SAM annual dinner, where a speaker gave a talked about pension plans, and why we should start saving now. NOW! The food was alright, below my expectations, but it was alright.

Friday, worked, and did nothing much. Didn't go out at night, but instead, worked on my 520 homework, and also some SAM stuffs. Watched some series(CSI, CSI:NY, Lost, Amazing Race, and Survivor) from last week.

Saturday, lunched at Sadako, and went to catch the play Julius Caesar by Royal Shakespeare Company here at the Power Center. The play was great, and even me (not really a Shakespeare's fan) like it. Michigan was playing Indiana today too. By the time we(Quang, Dane and I) got out from the play, it was 4.15pm, and I gave a call to Alex, and was told that we were up 14-0. AMAZING. Went to the Rock, and watched the entire match. And we were playing well! Final score, 34 - 3. So, it's THE GAME now.

Next Saturday, it will be the clash of two titans, MICHIGAN WOLVERINES vs OHIO STATE Buckeyes. Both teams, ranked 2nd and 1st respectively, with perfect season so far (11-0) respectively, will decide who's the country's no. 1, who will secure the top spot, and book a place at BCS National Championship on the Jan 8, 2007. And who will be win the Big Ten Conference title. With so much at stake, no wonder the media had started a countdown for the game 2 weeks ago. With so much at stake, no wonder a ticket for the game cost so much, with the cheapest at $250, the most expensive at $4500. Yes, forty-five hundred. Gosh, how I wish the game's here at Ann Arbor, and I can make a fortune.

There'll be crazy parties next week, pre-gaming for the huge game, get ready to see drunk people everywhere here at Ann Arbor, and also over there, at Ohio State campus, wherever that place is.

Had dinner at B-dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings). Went to celebrasia for awhile at night, didn't really do much later on. Went back to my room at about 1am, and did my accounting homework(i'm so proud of myself... for pulling that out in the middle of the night)

Sunday. Worked. And will be having this resume workshop at night, then will be catching family guy, and then, what else?

Great week... Good stuff...

Another week, a quick one.

Week by week, they just fly by so quickly that I'm actually starting to kinda worry about how long more to go, to the end, the end of this semester, the end of my Junior year, the end of my undergraduate study. Really, still remember that I was still back in Malaysia for the summer holidays, and then, I came back for Junior year, that was already 2 and a half months ago. YUP. That's about 10 weeks ago. That's really quick. REALLY REALLY QUICK.

And yesterday night, I started looking at what classes I should take for the coming semester. Isn't that scary. Really, in no time, I'll be done with my 2nd round of midterms, and then, come finals, and then, winter break, and then, voila --> next semester. All in a quick ride, in a snap of a finger.

Last weekend, was Halloween weekend. So, parties and all on Friday and Saturday.

Didn't really do much on Friday night, other than watching SAW III. It was alright, slightly predictable. But, it's better than the SAW II. Did some leisure drinking, and went to this party, which was too crowded. It was an OK night.

On Saturday, Michigan WOLVERINES won their home game. The weather was bad, with swirling wind, and sudden rain, and it was cold. I am really proud to say that I stayed for the entire game, wet, and cold, and hungry. (It was 5 degree Celcius out, and with moderate wind.) Because many students left, (shame on you), I managed to walk to the 4th row, and had a close view of the game. But actually, I rather to be on the 20th-30th row, because the stadium is slightly more elevated, hence, a guy, 5-7ish like me can actually watch the game. After the game, I did some homework and studying while watching other games on TV. At night, went to Meijer to get a costume. I bought a demon-ghoullish costume, and bought a toy-knife. Which was pretty cool. The party was great. A huge one, with 10 kegs of beer. Met some ex-hallmates over there. It was great. But, gosh, it was cold. Winter is really here. It's real. Go out and lick the lamp post if you don't believe me. And then, tell me that it's not cold, if your tongue don't get stucked at the lamp post of course.

Sunday... just another Sunday, did some work, and did some studying.

Monday... more studying, as I will be having Accounting midterm the next day.

Tuesday... the accounting midterm was pretty tiring. Hopefully, I didn't screw this one up. I should be alright on this one.

Wednesday... studying for IOE 452 (Corporate Finance) midterm the next day. And quiz for the next day, and some homework for the next day.


Thursday... the quiz went well, the midterm went well, at least I think it went well.

So, it's Friday today, and cool... weekend's here. Party tonight, last home game of the season tomorrow, DeepaRaya celebration tomorrow night.

So, there's this 'allegation' about the previous NST editor plagiarizing Mitch Albom's work. You can find news about this easily on jeffooi's blog. Looking at the similarities of both works, it's clearly a no-brainer. OBVIOUSLY, in my personal opinion, that's plagiarizing. In case you don't know, people of NST, plagiarize means: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source.

You know what lame explanation NST managed to come up with: It just has the resemblance, the same style, but it is a totally different context.

If two articles were entirely the same, it won't be plagiarizing, it will be copying. Here's the 'resemblance' and you can judge for yourself:

Here's one
By Albom:
If Sept. 11 was the day we never saw
coming, Sept. 10 was the day we will
never see again.
And we miss it terribly.

By Pereira:
If June 7 is the day we never saw
coming, June 6 is the day we will not
see again for a while.
And how we miss it.

Here's another:

By Albom:
We miss when politicians didn’t make
you feel that you’re one of us or you’re
one of them.

By Pereira:
We miss those days when people
didn’t make you feel that you’re one of
us or you’re one of them.

There are 5 other similarities on the article. And, to not call this an act of plagiarism, I don't know what can you call. Well, probably the theory of 3000 monkeys typing on 3000 typewriters for 3000 years can be applied here.

Come to think about it, who should we blame. The education system, the lack of transparency in the print media, the lack of a strong print media which isn't control (directly or indirectly) by a political party. Imagine this, students are punished when they were found cheating(be in copying someone else's work, or cheating in an exam) in school, but, hey, guess what, one of the major newspaper's editor can cheat and get away with it. So, next time, prolly a student can get away by saying the exact same words, and he doesn't even need to quote it from NST, since it's a different context. All he/she has to do is memorize this words: It just has the resemblance, the same style, but it is a totally different context.

Sweet!!! How I wish I was taught that? Hell no!!! I'm no cheater. And I don't agree with the saying: If you are not cheating, you are not trying. Hell NO! I'm trying, and I'm trying harder by not cheating.


So, I remembered back in high school, there were times when we need to do projects for certain subjects. And guess what, I don't recall being taught to cite our sources. Maybe that's why? I'm not sure about the syllabus now, but, hopefully, they teach our students how to cite their sources, because that's the right thing to do.


So, that's my rant. Take care!!! :)