SIghts of UNMC

Doctor Tom Cross, the Director of Studies for the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said "if you ever come across a clocktower building behind a lake, check and see if it's a campus of the University of Nottingham."


Yes, all campuses of the University of Nottingham, in the UK, China, or Malaysia, have their administrative buildings sit directly beside a lake, and also a clocktower which chimes at the strike every single hour.


Located in the middle of nowhere (AKA Semenyih town), a hundred-acre-wood was cleared away for the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC or UNiM). Before you think of Pooh, Piglet, and Eeyore, the wood was actually an oil palm estate.

No! This is not an oil palm.

The University of Nottingham in Malaysia opened its doors in the year 2000. In 2003, the university had less than a thousand students.

The bridge that links to the university. No! This is not the famous Nottingham lake.

But the school board of directors decided to take a risk by building a campus here in Malaysia.

The amphitheatre, in front of the administration building. Imagine a Malaysian girl performing in the middle of the hot sun. Only a true Westerner would do that.

In January 2004, the plot of land allocated for the Malaysia Campus was bare, empty, and dusty. But the campus started operating for the Autumn Semester in 2005.

That's barely 20 months. So much built within so little time.

Classic English telephone booth found here too.

Being the first and only UK university to set up a campus in the Malay Territory, I'm sure it is also the only to have an "Islamic Centre" too.

The Islamic Centre in UNMC.

The school toilets are so clean that it reminds people of the washrooms of hotels. For me, the lack of water on the floor and the smell of urine just disqualifies them to be called "toilets".

Can you believe that this is the men's room? Well you have to, because I didn't have the guts to enter the ladies'.

On-campus accommodation are also built. Three halls of residence are available, each named after the famous islands of Malaysia, Redang, Tioman, and Langkawi.

Tioman, Redang, and Langkawi Halls.

Upon seeing the real thing, however, I was reminded more of Prison Break rather than Baywatch.

Tell me this doesn't look like Fox River State Penitentiary!

Just a stone throw away from the halls (well, literally, depends on how far you can throw) lies the Sports Complex. It's a complicated (hence 'complex') structure which comprises of the swimming pool, two gymnasiums, several basketball courts (I could see at least 4 at one glance), two badminton courts, two squash courts, and two tennis courts.

Basketball courts. Full of energy!

Although UNMC only houses a total of 3300 students, the sport facilities are packed to the brim in the evenings.

A squash court. TARC had two of these too.

Looks like UNMC is not filled with nerds after all. I mean, TARC's KL campus has over 20 000 students, some 6 times the amount of student UNMC has, and yet I don't remember seeing 6 times the sport activity there.

Two indoor badminton courts, the only facility UNMC is losing to TARC.

In fact, the only facilities that are packed to their limits at TARC in the evenings are the swimming pool and the gym. In UNMC, it's rather different - the gym and the pool are rather empty. Maybe because students in UMNC are better at socialising and prefer team sports instead.

The canteen (or cafeteria) is the only thing I have against UNMC so far. Variety is limited, and prices isn't nearly as good as TARC's. In the latter, I could easily get a good meal at RM1.90 (mixed rice with three dishes, I can sense Singaporeans staring at the price with their mouths wide open). In UNMC, mixed rice with three dishes cost RM5, and I don't really fancy Indian mixed rice too.

The cafeteria. Big contrast to TARC's two big canteens.

This is a stark contrast with TARC's two canteens, a cafeteria, and a restaurant, plus two more canteens at hostel. Actually there is a restaurant at UNMC, but then I can't afford to spend RM10 for every meal.

The computer rooms are fantastic, though. Just last week they got rid of all their old computers (Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, Windows XP Pro, 17" LCD monitor) and got new ones. These new babes run on Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, with sparkling new 19" LCD monitors and controlled by the new, expensive and controversial Windows Vista Enterprise Edition.

And, best of all, the computer rooms are open 24 hours daily! Woo hoo!

UNMC has hundreds of computers several times more powerful than mine! The tech geeks of UNMC are pampered to death.

Walking around, I spotted this.

A raised platform, with ladder at its side.

I figured I would be able to get a better view of the clock tower up there. But then I wasn't sure if students are allowed up there.

The ladder.

I looked at the ladder. There was a lid, blocking it halfway, but it wasn't locked. I took a deep breath, and started to climb. While climbing, I quickly formulated several lame arguments in case I was caught. If somebody tells me off by saying that they fear I would fall, I would retaliate with "I'm a university student, I know how to climb a ladder!"

The view from up the platform.

I quickly snapped a few photos and climbed back down. Thank goodness I didn't have to argue.

Oh here comes the Nottingham lake.

Ah... studying by the lakeside under the shady tree, with ducks quacking away, enjoying various activities such as swimming in the pond, fishing, water-skiing, canoeing, diving, surfing...

OK, before I wander too far...


Aw. Fishing and swimming not allowed. I can surely swim at the swimming pool, but then where am I gonna fish? Nevermind, I can still do some canoeing I guess, although I think it better to be tried after I have my degree safely in hand.

I wasn't kidding about the ducks though.

Over the hills and far away...

There ARE ducks in the pond. This got V. M. Saw so excited - she "hearts" the adorable ducks.

There's also a bridge across the lake, leading straight to the admin office.

The bridge. Across troubled water.

Beside hanging out with friends, the lake is also a favourite spot for a jog. Aha! A jogging track, something TARC doesn't have. But then the tracks are occasionaly covered with bird droppings though. You can guess which sort of bird. Well, at least they don't fly.

Well if you're not into any sort of sports UNMC offers, there's always an alternative. Just three minutes' walk away from the campus bridge...

Interested?

Checked In

I'm entering a new phase of my life.

Just two days ago I registered myself into the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus (UNMC or UNIM) located in Semenyih. I'm now officially a university student! Yay!

Prior to this I studied Mechatronics Engineering at Tunku Abdul Rahman College (TARC). With the diploma from TARC, I am able to secure a place into the second year of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (or triple-E) at UNMC.

I also checked into my room at Semenyih. It was located at some houses just few minutes' walk from the campus, collectively known as "Edusquare". The Edusquare is newly built, and I'm among the first batch of students to move in.

Where I am staying now. My room is the one with window, beside the outdoor unit of the air-conditioner. Hang on, that fits for every single room. OK fine, mine's the one at the corner, with a blue towel hanging behind the window.

It is so new that the toilets have more dust than water.

My toilet. I'm the first to pee here. Yay!

I opened my door and looked around. Wow, nice view. I got a room at the corner of the house. I can even see the guard house from my room.

My room. Notice the window - I got a corner unit.

The next thing I noticed is that even the mattress hadn't been unwrapped yet. I was surely glad to be the centre of attention of the opening ceremony, but boy, it was tiring (and dirtying) work.


Oh, the mattress even comes with a warranty card. "Full refund if you have trouble sleeping on this," it says. In your dreams.

After cleaning up the bed and fitting the mattress with the bed sheet, I finally made my bed!

My dreamland!

I was then feeling hot and sweaty. So I turned on the fan. It worked OK. Then I decided to try everything, just in case something isn't working. Lights - checked. Shower heater - checked. Locks - checked. Windows - checked.

Air-conditioner - hey, where's the remote?

And then I went to have a look around the house. It was surely a nice house! I mean, they even bothered to get a TV for each floor (they were double-storey terrace units), and ooh, those TVs are bigger than what I have at home! Er, home as in my parents' house.

The living room, just three metres away from my door. Looks even better than the one I get in Klang.

But I was happy a bit too soon. It seemed like the antennas were too small to pick up the signals. Quality's real lousy. Well, there isn't much to watch on national TV anyway.

And oh! They also put up some stuff for decoration purposes. I mean, who would bother to hang those dummies on the walls?

Flowers. Feel like putting a small table here and have a candle-lit dinner with er... OK I've gone too far.

After meeting a few people from Edusquare, they told me their houses do not have these ornaments. Apparently they only cared to put these things up because my house was used as a showhouse.

The dining room, with pictures on the wall. That brown, flat, glossy thing is a table, and that black sculture behind it isn't a piece of art, it's a chair.

All in all, it's a nice place. Let's take a look at where I stayed just weeks ago.

Voila! My ex-room in TARC.

Hmmm. Something's different between my two places.


Can't really tell, though.

Nonsensical Googling, Nonsense Googling

Well, the kiasu parents are right, you know. Watching too much TV can plant false impressions about stuff on us.

We have all watched the many James Bond and Matrix and Transformers and National Treasure and what not. And we've all seen the fancy screens whenever there's a computer at work.

There's a very cool looking bar, with the title "transferring data" on top, with all the binary numbers and beeps and nonsensical hexadecimal stuff flowing at the background. And then there's the silhouette of two Razr phones, one filled with high tech blue lines, the other empty. As you watch, an arrow appear, moving from the line-filled-Razr towards the empty one, with the label "cloning device". Then a popup appeared "Cloning complete", with a beep.

Even everyday actions have been exaggerated. Googling a simple keyword brings astounding effects. Firstly the screen refreshes itself immediately. There's also the animation, a wipe from the top to bottom. And of course there's the never to be missed audible beep that accompanies the click of the mouse.

And I haven't started on printing yet.

I don't know about you, but the last time I tried googling, the beep was missing. Well, maybe I had lousy speakers. But then the screen didn't refresh itself immediately. Um, we don't expect the best from Streamyx. So what about the eye-catching screen wipe? Is there something wrong with my browser?

Anyway, I was trying to google names. You know the way in movies, where every single piece of missing information can be found from the internet? For example, need to know who Bruce Edelson is, just google it. And you'll get your information.

With the fancy beep, wipe, and the instantaneous speed of course.

So I typed in my sister's name. Ping! Two results appeared. They didn't tell me a lot about her, but then there was her name in the list of the winners of some sort of competition, along with the names of some of her ex-classmates.

I typed in my dad's name. Ping! Two pages of results appeared. I've seen several shops with his name on their signboards, but the entire two pages were filled with results relevant to my dad. Well, why would someone write about some cobbler online anyway? I mean the shops with dad's name, not dad.

I typed in my friend's name. Ping! Pages of results popped right in front of my eyes. After skimming through the many links, most of them based in Singapore, I found several pages which are definitely about him. Having a common name really generates rubbish results with not many options of narrowing the search.

And so I proceeded to type my name in. Rubbing my fingers together (the pages don't load instantly as in the movies, as I said, so I had time to rub my hands), I waited.

Ping!

One page.

None of them related to me.

Hey wait, there's one. It belongs to the Facebook profile of my friend's.

Oh well. Happy googling. Remember to put your name in quotation marks while you search. Just remember not to spend the Mid Autumn Festival watching TV this time around.