Archive for August, 2008

A very interesting grading system

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Just came back from a Cal vs Michigan State football (American) game. Really great experience. Cheered all the time. Partially lost my voice.
A look at my Physics 7A grading system:
20% 1st Midterm
20% 2nd Midterm
40% Final Exam
15% Homework
5% Laboratories, discussions, quizzes
Math 53:
20% Homework + Quizzes
20% 1st Midterm
20% 2nd Midterm
40% Final
EE20N (Electrical Engineering course):
10% Homework
10% Labs
10% Quizzes
20% [...]

I’m so glad to be at Cal

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

After having experienced a week or more in UC Berkeley, I feel that this is really one fantastic university. I am proud to be part of Cal.
The student life is really vibrant and really alive. There are so many things to do on campus that I sometimes feel really lost at what to do next. [...]

Too lazy to write now, but here’s some entertainment

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

I saw this on the last page of the Freshman edition of the student-published newspaper, The Daily Californian:

Haha, poor Stanford tree, terrified and bullied by the Cal bear. Run tree, run!
(Cal is short for Berkeley. It’s NOT Berk!)

Some random stuff

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Just blogging randomly. If you don’t get me, it’s ok.
There’s this thing on campus called the “Freshman 15,” which means that entering Freshman usually gain 15 pounds on average after their Freshman year due to the… food?
I need to pay a USD 500 deposit in order to get a phone line with AT&T. Well I [...]

Church in Berkeley and met great people

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Today was a great day. Went to the Gracepoint Fellowship Church and found a lot of very welcoming people there. The pastor asked the congregation who was there for the first time and I was like one of the 5 people who stood up (the majority of the freshmen would only arrive the following week) [...]

San Francisco

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Paid San Francisco a visit with my newly-made Malaysian friend, Alan (what would I do without a buddy!). It’s quite a pretty place. I’ll post only a few pictures here, but you’ll find the rest in my Facebook album (later).

The busier part of San Francisco. Pretty place :P I was awed.

San Francisco’s famous Cable Car.

A [...]

Flight and Day 1

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

Pretty tired now after the journey of 17 hours flight and 8 hours transit in Seoul on the way to San Francisco. Had a brief immersion in the Korean culture, though I never did go out of the Incheon International Airport. Watched 3 movies on the way to San Francisco from Seoul. :)
God prepared the [...]

A last post before flying off to Berkeley

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Yesterday I went to the JPA office in Putrajaya and met 4 other JPA Scholars who were going to the United States under the same inaugural JPA Ivy League and setara Scholarship Program. In total 6 Malaysians were offered this Scholarship to the US (UK another story), including the MIT girl who appeared in the [...]

Some academic related stuff…

Monday, August 11th, 2008

Not that I needed it anymore since the JPA offer, but just to let everyone know that I was not selected for the AMCHAM-MACEE Scholarship, which is only given to one Malaysian per year. So here goes the e-mail (edited due to its grammatical errors):
Dear Ern Sheong,
Thank you for applying to the AMCHAM-MACEE Scholarship. It [...]

My Mum

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

JPA is pretty slow in giving out the offer letter. I don’t think they realize that I will be leaving next Friday. But oh well, this is the Malaysian Government anyway. I left my handphone number twice and on both occasions there were promises of calling me back but of course, none did. Such is [...]