My Blog

I walked along the beach, drinking in the beauty of the evening sunset. How could something so beautiful be so short in life, I couldn’t help but sighed.

I pressed my feet a little harder into the sand as I walked, trying to make impressions that I thought could last for the day. Halfway through, I looked over my shoulder only to discover that the prints were already gone — washed out by the gentle waves caring the shore.

Deeply, I inhaled the salty crisp air from the sea, hoping to recognize a scent from the past, a scent that I knew deep down was no longer around. Eyes closed, I tried to capture the scent again with my careless mind. Later, I realized that not only had I lost the scent, I had lost my senses as well in the process of finding.

Nothing could last forever.

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Movie Review

1. Perfume, the story of a murderer (3.5/5.0)

2. Hannibal Rising (3.0/5.0)

3. Ghost Rider (2.0/3.0)

4. Bridge to Terabithia (1.5/5.0)

5. TMNT (1.0/5.0)

You don’t have to be a doctor to save lives, if you know a very basic lifesaving technique – the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). For people who know CPR, they know that the rescue is even more meaningful if it involves saving the lives of their loved ones.

When you have an unconscious person lying beside you, don’t panic and just remember the simple ABCs — Airway, Breathing and Circulation!

Airway

1. Check the person’s airway by performing head-tilt-chin-lift, which is, put your palm on the person’s head and gently push down. Your other hand tilts his chin forward to open his airway.

Breathing

2. Check his breathing by looking at his breath motion, listen for breath sounds and feel for the person’s breath on your cheeks and ears. If no breathing, give him 2 rescue breathes, each lasts 1-2 seconds. (Note: No breathing = no pulse).

3. Check his pulse by placing two fingers on the side of his neck. (PS: for inexperienced individuals, the best way of doing it is first put the fingers on his Adam’s apple, then slide slightly to the right hand side where you would reach the spot where people normally feel the strongest pulse – i.e. at the carotid artery).

4. If there’s no pulse, begin chest compression immediately (See Circulation). If there’s pulse but no breathing, give him mouth-to-mouth (1 every 5 seconds) until rescue arrives.

Circulation

5. Knelt down beside him, place the heel of one hand over the center of the person’s chest, between the nipples (medically speaking is the 1/3 position of the sternum or breast- bone). Place your other hand on top of the first hand.

6. Using your upper body weight, give him 15 compressions (hard and fast), followed by 2 mouth-to-mouth. After the 4th cycle, check for his pulse.

7. If the person regains pulse and breathing, put him in the recovery position until help arrives. If not, repeat Step 6 until rescue arrives.

For children, the procedures are roughly the same (details see http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/first-aid-cpr/FA00061), except that the compression is done using one hand. For infant, use only 2 fingers.

Maybe you won’t be able to remember such details in an emergency or a panic situation. Here’s the summary for you.

1. Remember the ABCs.
2. No pulse, give 15/2 until pulse regained or rescue arrives.
3. Got pulse and no breathing, give mouth-to-mouth until breathing regained or rescue arrives.

Get started, it is as simple as ABCs.

When buying a car, there’s always an option whether you should include the anti-lock braking system (ABS) or not.

Before you get to deciding to have or not to have the ABS, it is first important for you to understand what an ABS is and what it actually does.

An anti-lock braking system prevents your vehicle wheels from locking while braking. You don’t want your wheels locked while braking because locked wheels they tend to skid and make your vehicle lose control. With ABS, you can hit the brake fully without the fear of skidding or loss of control during an emergency stop, especially on slippery roads.

An ABS works great on almost all road conditions, except for gravel and slippery surfaces like snow and ice. On these surfaces, an ABS tends to increase braking distances (disastrous!), while a locked wheel (without ABS) on the other hand is a life saver because it will dig in and stop your vehicle faster.

In a nutshell, an ABS is not a perfect gift to give on a snowy Christmas night. Otherwise, it is a good thing to have, if you have a couple of thousand extra dollars to spend.

PS: I’m broke and my car doesn’t come with an ABS.

Graduation is not complete without a graduation speech. So, I’m gonna dedicate a lovely speech to all my friends here, especially those from the engineering faculty. It is an inspiration from one of the movie scripts I love.

On our first day at UKM, a very wise Professor quoted Theodore von Karman, "Scientists study the world as it is, engineers study the world as it has never been." It was because of those words that I have come to find the passion to study and practice engineering in life. During the four years time in UKM it was with passion, a mind of great imagination and strong determination that we took our next steps into the world, remembering always the words from the very first day, as they reminded us of how important we are. In the future, you and I are going to be different persons being at different places solving different problems, but both applying the same thing we’ve learned from those bittersweet days we spent together under one roof. That thing, which makes all the differences, will also be the thing that is going to make us all proud.

Congratulations class of 2007 — we did it!