Merci Jiqiong!

Thanks to Jiqiong who gave me a recipe (which I can't make 'cos I don't have the spices needed), I managed to make this dish. Basically, the recipe she gave me necessites cooking meat, carrots, etc with some spices, and then pouring it into the rice cooker to cook with the rice. So I simply cooked a dish, and poured it into the rice cooker. Looks a bit like claypot rice actually...

It's really nothing special, you just need to think of doing it!

(The red thing is capsicum, since it's easier to find here than red chillies)

Of a nice teacher :D

I was going to write this whole post in French, but since I can't remember the exact words anyway, I'll write it in English...

This time it's about my Electronics teacher. He's doing the tutorial for my class for the 2nd sem (during the 1st sem we had the teacher who does the lectures; frankly I like this teacher (the current one) a lot more! I understand much better when he explains stuff; my Electronics workload has gone down a LOT since he started doing our tutorials. (since I can understand in class, sometimes I don't even need to look at it at home!)

During this week's tutorial, we were looking at a complicated diagram of an electronical component, with loads of transistors and resistances, etc. It's the type of diagram we would be having during our final exam, so he said:

Quand on voit l'énoncé (ou le schéma, je sais plus) on a envie de partir en courant; et ça se trouve c'est la bonne solution.

a rough translation: When we see the test paper we feel like running away from it; and turns out it might have been the right thing to do!

Okay, he was joking, of course. ;)

Another thing that he said was during a lecture (he doesn't do Electronics lectures but he does some others). He uses PowerPoint presentations, and there are sometimes errors on them (often, actually! :P), so some people would point them out. So once, when he was talking about the upcoming test, he said something about adding points (I can't remember why) Then he added ('cos during that lecture there had been quite a number of errors pointed out on his powerpoint) "but for those who pointed out errors, I won't give them more points, I'll give them less, 'cos it annoys me (ça m'énerve)" hahaha :D

I certainly hope he'll be teaching us other subjects in the future!

Merci L. Petit!

Of rants

I just came across one of my old rants (about France Telecom) using the "feeling lucky?" link on the sidebar. And this time I laughed while reading it. Really, writing rants works wonders ;P (of course, it's also because the issue is solved that I can laugh about it)

Golden ingots

I'm so rajin nowadays... wrapping wantan is one thing, but frying them?! Don't ask, I'm not doing any big-scale production!

*rajin = hardworking

Kena tipu!

For our Electronics test, the teacher said it was an open-book test...then when he arrived today, he said we could only use our textbook, and nothing else! Most of us had already copied out all the useful formulas, and we couldn't use our notes. Of course, most of that was in the textbook, so we could look them up again, but it takes time! If I had known I'd have highlighted the formulas in the textbook instead of only copying them out... And then there were some useful stuff in our exercises as well...fortunately most of those are easily remembered.

Ceh...penipu besar!

*title means Tricked!*

Yummy...

And now, for a more interesting post (or more like pictures). I managed to make sweet and sour pork ribs! :D


Now to wait till the next time I find pork ribs :P

Crispy durian

I saw this in the Asian mini-market. I didn't buy it though, the box was so light it was like there was nothing inside. So I thought that even if there was durian inside, it would be super dry...and there wouldn't be much.


To the Lyonnais: let me know if you've tried it! :P

Another one...

The Feeling again!

Without you

Of a busy week

Last week was packed with activities; apart going to class I didn't have time to study at all, leaving me with a stack of work this weekend. But, surprisingly I managed to get through most of that stuff already, so now I shall write a bit before going back to continue preparing for my test next Wednesday. (it's an open-book test, yay!)

It was Asian week (semaine asiatique (SA)) in INSA. I helped with preparing the food, and a Malaysian stand for the Asian village on Thursday (I was only told the week before and I had to go and get all the other Malaysians to come and help...no easy feat, unfortunately :/ )

So, I shall write this diary style:

Monday:
I didn't have that many classes on Monday, only 10-12pm and 4-6pm. During lunch break, I helped with the food preparation. That night, there was a table-tennis competition (internal INSA competition, organised by the TTIC, the INSA table-tennis club) In fact there was the SA show that night as well, but since they told me they wouldn't need my help, I went off to play table-tennis. It was pretty good, there weren't that many people (quite a few of the "regulars" were involved in the SA show) but I played several matches where my opponent and I were quite evenly matched, so that was fun.

Tuesday:
Tuesdays are always quite busy, since I have class from 8am to 6pm (8pm during the first semester) and I didn't have a lunch break, I had ping pong practice during lunch! This time I went to help with the food again at 6pm, and only went back to take a shower before going back to INSA to watch that night's show (it's the same show on Monday and Tuesday)

Wednesday:
Our Electronics teacher dropped a bombshell about our test being shifted to next week! (and that's the test I have to study for) The test was actually planned for the 7th May (the 2nd week after our April holidays) but a company will be coming to talk to us on that day, and they couldn't shift it later 'cos there were no more free periods. So they had to shift it earlier... -_- I didn't go to help with the food on that day, I had to prepare stuff for the Malaysian stand!

Thursday:
Thursday afternoons are free (no class), and that's when sports competitions are held...I had a table-tennis competition that afternoon, so I couldn't stay at the Malaysian stand all the time. I left class a little earlier to prepare the Malaysian stand (so that it would be ready at noon when everyone comes out from class). Then at 1pm I had to leave for my table-tennis competition. (it was about 30-45 minutes away by public transport, and we had to arrive before 2pm) We finished quite early (before 4pm) so I managed to get back to the Malaysian stand before 5pm, and stayed until "closing time" at 6pm.

About the competition: There weren't many unranked players, so they put all the unranked boys and girls together. And I came in 3rd! *happy* :D

For those who are interested in competitions: there were 8 of us, 4 guys and 4 girls. So they made 2 pools with 2 guys and 2 girls in each. In my pool I lost to the 2 guys, and I was pretty disappointed because I could have beat one of the guys (I had already played against him before, and beat him 2 out of 3 (or was it 4?) times) So I was 3rd in my pool. But after that, in the knockout table, I managed to beat the guy who came in 2nd in the other pool, so that put me in the top four. I lost for a second time against the 1st of my pool, and had to play against the 2nd of my pool again (the one I could have beaten) And this time I won, so I ended up finishing 3rd!
(I'm sure those guys I beat weren't very happy...)

This is what I won:
Something useless, but it's still something :P (the 1st and 2nd place (finalists) got t-shirts, and the semi-finalists got this)

(note: usually there are several unranked players who are really good, but that day they didn't come :P)

Friday:
I only had class from 8-10am (usually I have labwork in the afternoon, but we have a free session during the semester, and mine happened to be last Friday) So I went to help with a little cooking at noon. We had to finish up leftovers, and there happened to be only vegetables left, so we just tossed everything together ("invented" dishes) Later there was cleaning up to do, and that night I went to play in the badminton competition organised by the INSA badminton club. It was a doubles competition, and my partner and I lost all 4 matches in our pool, but it was generally okay, we didn't play too badly, just made more mistakes than we should have... Oh well, that's too bad, I guess :P

Saturday:
I went to help finish the cleaning up in the morning, (wonder why I'm so nice *scratches head*) and after that it was catching up with all the work I left aside during the week.

So all in all, it was a good week, albeit busy. :)

Now here are photos from the Asian village:

the village

our tent, shared with China (mainly calligraphy) and India
(our signboard fell off!)

zoom into our tent ;)

the sushi bar (it sells other food besides sushi as well)
See the guy on the right in the photo on the left? That's the new ASINSA director, he came with our 2nd year Physics teacher (the lady on his left), they were looking at the Malaysia map so I went to talk to them, but I didn't know who he was, so later I asked David and he told me.

sepak takraw (Vietnamese style)

and finally, DDR (though I still don't see why it's so Asian :P)

My racquet

This is funny, so I just wanted to write about it.

I had a table-tennis competition today (more about that later) and the person organising it asked me to show him my racquet. He said that the rubber was not good (which I knew already). So one the girls there (from INSA, whom I usually beat) said “so she has to be disqualified!” (jokingly, of course) But then he said “no, the racquet doesn’t break any rules (elle est réglementaire was what he said), it’s just that you can’t “hurt” the opponent (gêner l’adversaire) So I shot back at them “see? I can’t “hurt” you”, and she said “well, no, in that case, don’t change your racquet, you’re already “hurting” us enough as it is” LOL

(this conversation’s pretty hard to translate ‘cos in English we really wouldn’t say it the same way)

I wanted to write about the competition as well (it was great! And as it's the last competition of the year (till June), that's a good way to end it) and about the Asian week (mainly about the Malaysian stand we put up) but that'll have to wait...so stay tuned ;P