Does blog hibernate?

Hibernate. Yea, I'm so sorry to say that my blog did that for quite some time. Lotsa things should be blogged. Nah, perhaps some selected things.

1. Courseworks

Two out of three subjects that I'm having this short semester required us to write our own research papers. I’m not gonna blog about my Finance coursework in order to avoid you from yawning another 3282218 times. For the Principles of Investment's coursework, we travelled around the city to get respondents for our survey on investment instruments. I prepared a 4-page questionnaire and photocopied 100 sets. 20 sets each team member. In order to make our report a little 'extraordinary', I decided to get some foreigners as our respondents. It wasn’t as easy as I’ve initially thought.

I spent one of my evenings in the city centre and only managed to get a handful of respondents. I attempted several tourists who were admiring the scenic KLCC Park. One of my targets, an Indian national, refused to respond to me. Then he said: ‘Sorry, I’m empty-handed. Perhaps you wanna ask from my daughter.’ I was like: Huh? Did I sound like a scammer? Sigh. Btw, I didn’t force him nor explain to him as he was quite unfriendly. That night, I only managed to get 4 respondents - 1 Dutch at KLCC Park, 1 Swedish at Bukit Bintang McDonald, 1 local Indian at monorail station, and 1 Malay barista at Coffee Bean. Yea, the forth respond costs an ice blended. =p

I found that many respondents were afraid of the word ‘investment’ printed on my questionnaire. They thought I was trying to cheat their money with some sorta doubtful investment instruments. So, what to do next? I realized that I have to target those frustrated people who stuck in the queue instead. Toll plaza perhaps?

Hm, I woke up in the next early morning and walked to the LRT station. Nah, I didn’t attempt those commuters who soon gonna be ‘sardinised’ in the crowded train. I headed to KLCC again. Like my previous visit, there were lotsa tourists queuing up for the Skybridge tickets. The queue looked like a long snake and it started some time ago. Apparently, the snake was sorta hungry, it swallowed me and I managed to travelled throughout its intestine, and came out (don’t ask me where) with 10 completed survey forms (2 British, 2 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Swedish, 1 Indian, 1 Venezuelan, 1 forgotten). Each of the questionnaires needs about 5 minutes to complete. The best part of the experience was I managed to chat with them. I respect them for their friendliness which was beyond my expectation. Many of them were retired engineers. There were also a doctor, banker, etc. Perhaps I was too naive to ask the Americans about their political affiliation- I’ve got 1 Republican and 1 political virgin with no affiliation. The samples were analysed and I was the one who wrote the chart-filled 1.2k words research paper, which scored us the highest in the whole course. :)
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waiting in the peak hour...

_ train approaching... (Oh, btw, my apartment is on the right, isn't that near?)

_ waiting for the train to reach the platform...
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and the door to open... and 'sardinisation'...

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My target queuing up for skybridge tickets.
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The Skybridge tickets allow them to stand here for ten minutes. Hm.
_Gosh, I posted the wrong picture. This is the correct one - The Skybridge. :)
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2. Taiping

I went back to Taiping recently and I managed to snap some nice pictures of my hometown. It's a peaceful town without a single skyscraper and the shops close either at 5pm or 9pm. It has the country’s oldest fire station, golf turf, lake garden, market, etc. It’s a town that looks virtually the same from the past, without any spectacular changes.

Taiping Clock Tower. Despite being a tower, it is still dwarfed by a nearby small building. It was the country's first fire station.

The local-version of 7-Eleven in my housing area. The owners of this shop are 'Ah Kau' and 'Ah Zu'. Hm, what a matching names. :)

My kindergarten. Durian and Honey Dew were the names of my kindergarten classes. I still remember they gave us doughnuts/biscuits, and milk during break time. I was wondering: why not durian and honey dew juice instead?

My kindergarten's playground. I used to hide inside that. Yea, that blue one, but I never asked my teachers what's its name. Any idea?

In-coming Tesco. Anticipating a more British-like hometown. :)