Day +1384 : Electronics and I (3)

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

I was exposed to computer during my university life and I shifted my focus to computer, doing data communication and programming until now.

However, I still like electronics very much. Unlike in the kampong, the electronics components are so readily available here. We have two electronics shops in Puchong alone, and the electronics street of Malaysia, Jalan Pasar, is also not too far away from Puchong.

After almost 20 years didn’t play with electronics components, I forgot almost everything. I was able to remember the entire colour coding that represents the value of resister even before I started my university learning but I have forgotten all of them now.

However, with the vast amount of information online, refreshing my memory on the subject should not be a problem :-)

I will share with you if I manage to build something interesting and if you would like to join me in this hobby, please let me know :-)

The LEDs that I purchased when I was studying electronics course
Electronic "Head" and "Tail" game. Selling at half price only - RM5 :-)
A flip-flop project
The flip-flop in action

See you next post :-)

Day +1383 : Electronics and I (2)

I am fine. Continue from yesterday…

The projects required some kind of soldering which needs a 240V AC power supply but there was no electricity supply in the kampong. The solution was to use a 12V battery with a DC-AC transformer. The transformer would be able to transform the 12V DC to 240V AC supply that we could use for soldering and also watching television :-) We sent the battery to somewhere else to charge with a fee.

We purchased a generator not long after and with that, we would be able to charge the battery during the few hours at night when we turned on the generator. We were still using the transformer with the 12V DC battery during day time.

Projects that I built with Richard includes FM transmitter, sound activated switch, light sensitive switch and running lights.

Richard was even more adventurous, he wired up the switch to the light and commanded the light to turn on and off with a shout or a clap. He also made use of the light sensitive switch for a science project competition in the school and won the first price :-)

I like electronics very much but I never thought of studying electronics in the university as I didn’t have confident to gain a place in the local university to do this course. But my STPM (Malaysia Higher School Certificate) exam result turned out to be something beyond my expectation that I applied successfully to do electronics in UPM (University Pertanian Malaysia or Agricultural University of Malaysia) :-)

UPM was an agricultural based university in the beginning and it was certainly not a prestigious university for engineering course at that time. However, I don't really mind. In fact, I am very thankful to God to be able to study electronics :-) The university was renamed to Universiti Putra Malaysia later.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +1382 : Electronics and I (1)

I am fine today.

When I was studying form 4, I stumbled across some electronics magazines in a bookshop in the small town of Bintangor. I was fascinated by those electronics projects that were described in the magazine. I intended to build some of the projects but there was no way for me to get the necessary components in the small town.

The magazine was published in Hong Kong. I wrote to the supplier and eventually ordered many electronic project kits from Hong Kong. I already forgot how I actually paid them but one thing I remembered very clearly was that, when I was collecting the parcels from the post office, the custom officer asked me what stuffs were in the parcel.

“Are they camera parts?” they asked.

“No. They are electronics parts,” I told them.

I was asked to pay import tax after that. The custom officer told me that camera parts were exempted from tax. If I told them they were camera parts, I would not be asked to pay tax.

There was no computer, no internet, no electric supply and no telephone in the kampong. I had to correspond with the Hong Kong supplier through snail mail; asking about the ordering process and payment options, and then placde an order. So an order normally took weeks to arrive.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +122

I am fine today. Let me continue the story about story books.

When I was studying in primary five, someone lent me three of the Four Great Classical Novels (四大名著): Water Margin (水浒传), Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义) and Journey to the West(西游记). Another one called Dream of the Red Chamber(红楼梦) was too difficult for me to understand, so I did not read it. I was addicted in reading these novels. I remembered I always started reading the novel inside my house until it was too dark for me to see the words in the evening. Then I moved out from the house and continued reading it at the staircase outside because it was brighter there. After I could not see the words outside the house, I turned back to light up the kerosene lamp and continue reading. These books kept me busy for quite some time, so that I did not have to beg my cousin for story books.

At that time, I did not know how to use a Chinese dictionary to check the pronunciation of words. We were using Traditional Chinese ZhuYin(Bopomofo) phonetic system instead of HanYu PinYin as we use today. Unfortunately, the teacher did not teach the ZhuYin in school, so even though I managed to find the word in the dictionary, I would not know how to pronounce it. In the end, I just guess the pronunciation (有边读边，没边读中间). This is why my Chinese pronunciation is still so lousy today (一塌糊涂) :-(

Anyway, it is not fair to compare my situation with what my children have today. And there is no point for me to explain to them the difficulty that I experienced in getting story books to read and how much interest I had in reading when I was young. Nowadays, they enjoyed all sort of entertainments such as television and computer games, which are definitely more interesting than reading. Who knows if I was also given these attractive entertainments, I was still interested in reading?

See you next post :-)

Day +121

I am fine today. I have recovered from coughing and running nose.

Last week, I purchased 40 Chinese story books from Popular Bookshop. These books are from China. They are very cheap especially after forty to fifty percent discount.

When I brought these books home happily to show to my eldest son Daniel, he looked unhappy. “Why you buy so many?” he questioned. I said the books are for him to read. “I don’t like to read these books!” he answered. In the end, it looks like these story books bring extra burden to him :-(

Many children today fail to appreciate how fortunate they are (身在福中不知福). When I was at his age, I experienced great difficulty to find story books to read. My family could not afford to buy books. Furthermore, the primary school that I studied did not want to operate a library, even though the government supplied many story books to it. They just left piles of story books in a room to gather dust. I always drooled with envy (垂涎三尺) when I saw the books.

In the village, I had a cousin who purchased many story books. He locked all the books in a cupboard with glass doors. Unfortunately, he was quite selfish and did not like to share the books with me. Again, I always drooled with envy when I saw those nicely arranged story books in the cupboard. If his mood was good and I was fortunate, he might let me read one book after continuous begging.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +43

My Blood Count Today:
Red Blood Count (RBC) = 105(Normal 130-180)
Platelet = 146(Normal 150-150)
White Blood Count (WBC) = 8.6(Normal 4 - 11)
Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC) = 7.052 (Normal 1.5 - 8.0)
Potassium = 3.9(Normal 3.5 - 5.2)
Magnesium = 0.53(Normal 0.65 - 1.05)

I am fine today. The white blood count and ANC is high due to growth factor injection on Monday. It will be interesting to know how much these values will drop on the next followup. The magnesium level is better than last followup which is only 0.47, so another magnesium infusion was given.

You might be wondering why I am so "贪吃"(gluttonous), never stop talking about food. Indeed I am the most gluttonous member in my family when I was small. We were so poor that we just could not afford to buy even sweets, not to say other more delicious food like biscuit or chocolate. I read something about chocolate in the story book while I was studying in primary school but just could not imagine how it looks like or tastes like. The only way I could get a chance to eat some delicious food was to visit other families in the "kampung"(village) frequently, hopefully they would share with me something nice to eat. At the end, I became the most gluttonous boy, not only in my family, but also in the "kampung".

But I think you are also gluttonous because you, like me, also never stop eating everyday. You work five days a week, but eat seven days a week. You tend to forget many thing but never forget eating. You may not be so punctual in many thing but always punctual in eating. When you want to have some reunion gathering with your friends, you always end up eating in restaurant.

Full moon, eat.
Birthday, eat.
Wedding, eat.
Aniversary, eat.
Valentine day, eat.
Gathering, eat.
Celebrations, eat.
Funeral, eat.
Eat, eat, eat..., from birth until the very last day in this world.
"民以食为天也！" (Eating is heaven)

Are you convinced now you are also gluttonous?

But Bible says, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Matthew 4:4

See you next post:-)