Hey, I know this guy

 

Congrats, Joel

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Chan named 2009 Hurie Award recipient

Joel Chan, a psychology major from Penang, Malaysia, was named the recipient of the prestigious Hurie Award during the University of the Ozarks’ Student Awards Convocation, held on Tuesday, April 28, in Munger Chapel.

Each year the faculty members of Ozarks elect one student to receive the Hurie Award, given to the outstanding member of the senior class. This award is named for Dr. Wiley Lin Hurie, who served as president of this institution from 1923 to 1949. The Hurie Award is the highest honor an Ozarks student can receive. The faculty members choose a graduating senior who has been an exemplary scholar, a campus leader, and a person of outstanding character.

Chan has excelled both in and out of the classroom since arriving at Ozarks in 2005. He has made the honor roll each semester he has attended Ozarks, was selected to the Alpha Chi Honor Society, was named the Outstanding Student in Psychology, and was selected for Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges. Chan, who minored in music, was also active in the music department, participating with the University Ringers, the Ozarks Chorale and the Chamber Singers. He was involved in Alpha & Omega, the Baptist Campus Ministries and with Clarksville First Baptist Church, where he was part of the Worship Team and helped mentor high school students.

In addition, Chan worked as a supplemental instructor and tutor in the University’s Student Support Services all four of his years at Ozarks. During the summer of 2008 he was one of 12 students chosen nationwide to participate in The American Psychological Association’s Summer Science Fellowship in Washington D.C.

Chan, who is graduating with Summa Cum Laude honors on May 16, is the son of Isaac and Lydia Chan. He plans to enroll in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh in the fall and pursue a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology. His goal is to return to Malaysia to teach in higher education and “help build up the intellectual capital” of his home country.

 

Bird nest in my house

Some weeks ago, a bird built a nest on one of the plants in our garden – funny thing is, it wasn’t even a stable plant. 

Can you see the nest?

The bird took about 2 days to complete the nest

We watched the progress, then a few days later found an egg in the nest

We watched the egg and the birds (yup, mom and dad) watched us too

We all watched until the baby bird hatched out of the egg.

There’s a sad ending to this story. We noticed the nest was precariously tilted, the dad must have caused it when he flew to the nest to feed the baby chick. His weight would have tilted the nest.  We adjusted it back but later in the day, we saw that the nest was tilted again but this time the nest was empty  

The chick must have fallen out and …….. I have 3 dogs …. sigh….

Andy and his broken arm

Alas, our diving trip to Manado didn’t quite happen. Andy, our son had an accident playing captain ball.  He was the “catcher” for his team. To answer everybody’s question how it happened, he jumped to catch the ball but unfortunately, the chair he was standing on moved when he landed and his hand hit the chair.  The momentum of his landing broke the ulna and radius bones of his left arm. The poor fella was in a lot of pain – in fact, he told me that he felt like he was going to black out when we were walking to the car. We want to thank Joseph Lum for being so spontaneous at that time.  He ran up, supported Andy and announced that he was going with us to the hospital.  I only later found out that Joseph can’t stand the sight of dangling limbs, broken bones or blood!!

Andy, moments before the accident

Andy, after the operation which lasted for about 1.5 hours

We rushed him to the hospital and we want to thank God that the orthopedic surgeon on call happens to be one of the best.  We also thank God that Andy didn’t hurt himself anywhere else, that the surgeon arrived very fast, that there was an operating theatre available and that the operation went smoothly.  We want to thank all you folks who responded to our call for your prayers as Andy went through the operation. We also thank those who went to the hospital to be with us that night and the many who visited Andy the next day.  Lastly, we thank God that nobody else was injured.

 

Andy’s repaired arm being “hung” so that there wouldn’t be any danger of blood clots forming and swelling occuring

The youth took the trouble to find a card that resembled Andy, ….erm, his hand, that is…

 

Many church members also came to visit Andy after service on Sunday.  We were touched and humbled by the tremendous support and care shown by them.

 

The nurse came over on Sunday evening to remove the drainage tubes

The 2 drainage collection pots.  Andy said the blood looked like Ribena – I guess that means some of you are going to stop drinking Ribena? 

Jeff and Joan – See Jeff’s face? Clowning around as usual –  XD

This is what Andy’s bones looked like after the accident

And this is what it looks like now – He now has 2 rods and 12 screws in his left arm. The extra “parts” costs us RM1,338.60. The entire bill was a whopping RM13,021.25.  One amazing thing was that the surgeon only charged us surgical fees and did not charge for his professional charges, which most doctors charge.  That would be for the initial consult and the daily visits to Andy at the hospital after the surgery. To him, “thank you very much”.

Although he was so kind, I had to blot out his face in this picture in case he gets into trouble if someone reports him for “advertising”.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PICTURES ARE GRAPHIC. FAINTHEARTED PEOPLE ARE ADVISED NOT TO SCROLL THE PAGE DOWN

Today was Andy’s follow up visit to the doctor to have his stitches cleaned. Well, the stitches are healing well but he will still need it wrapped up until May 5th when he visits the doc again.  The bones will take 3 months to heal completely.  Doc said “Don’t think of playing games for at least 3 months”. Driving is still out till the bandages are removed cos apparently the police will stop him for being a danger on the road due to his injuries.

He still has to elevate his hand for 13 hours per day. The bones have not healed yet, so blood flow is not efficient.  With his hand down, blood will rush to the fingers but not all the old blood may be able to go “back”. This can cause an infection.  Besides, no fresh blood means no recovery for the bones. 

Now Andy has 2 scars to remind him of the day he jumped to catch the ball

DAY 10 : Back to good ol Kay-EL with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ11

We are truly grateful and feel so blessed to have had such a wonderful holiday but home is still home and we were glad to be heading home and seeing our family again.

Coolanggata airport

One big guy leaves and another small fella is next.  We were the 3rd in line

Saw a couple of helicopters as well

I bought a Panasonic Lumix (Leica lens) DMC-TZ11 which has 28 mm wide angle and 10X optical zoom for AUD389 – and no regrets! Was just itching to use the aerial photo mode.  With the 10X optical and 15.9 digital zoom, I managed to get some pretty interesting shots. Best thing is that this baby is so compact, I can just put it into my handbag  

I know there are many other cameras that are better, but I think this is the first one that is 

# this size

# this price

# this much optical zoom and this much wide angle

tee hee

Gold coast from the sky

 

I missed one fantastic scene – we were looking at clouds only and I switched off my camera, out it away when suddenly a gap appeared in the centre of all those thick white clouds and beneath that, the Gold coast shoreline and the city – wham! I dug out my camera but by the time I had it ready to shoot, most of the clouds had moved off, leaving me with this sad replacement

We both put on a couple of kgs from our trip

I wanted soooooo much to see Ayers Rock again – from the sky, and I made careful plans, asked the steward to find out which side it would be seen from and was overjoyed to know it was my side, then made sure I didn’t fall asleep and STILL I missed it.

ATTENTION ALL PILOTS : You MUST announce that the plane is flying over something interesting when you do, I mean Ayers Rock is magnificent and the last time I didn’t missed it because the pilot took the trouble to announce it!

Well, this was the probably near Ayers Rock cos this is the desert and its somewhere near Central Australia

Don’t ask me about why there’s water in the desert, but I know its near it cos of the colour of the earth

Can some pilot tell me?

MALAYSIA  

WHY do we need so much development in Putrajaya? I mean there weren’t so many people fighting to stay there the last time I looked! Yet I saw massive development, massive land clearing and LOTS of siltation in the rivers. All the brown patches you see in these pictures are BARED EARTH

Sadness

That concludes my write up of the Gold Coast trip.  In 2 weeks time, I will be in Manado, Sulawesi and will blog about that.

 

DAY 9: BYRON BAY

This is one gorgeous place you must try to visit if you ever get down to Gold Coast.  One word of warning, put on some sun block and get a hat if its summer or beginning of autumn, end of spring. I’m guessing that it will be cold in winter cos there was a strong breeze blowing all the time.

We parked at the foot of the hill, but if there is no more space fro parking, there is parking up the hill too but there is a parking charge which they use to maintain the place.

At a certain point, you will be able to see the see on both sides of the cape

This place has been handed back to the Arakwal People to manage

What is Andrew and Allan looking for?

These dolphins – to the untrained eyes, the small specks of black far out in the sea look like groups of fish or even rocks.

We felt blessed to be able to see them that day – there must have been more than 100 of them, all feeding 

I was glad that I had just bought the Panasonic camera.  Was able to zoom up to 10X optical and a farther 15.9 digitally

Fantastic views

At certain look outs, you can see the coastal ranges

Allan thought that he should take the opportunity to get a tan – BIG MISTAKE – we didn’t have any sun block with us and he got a bit burned

We loved the different shades of blue and the sight of the waves crashing on the rocks below

There’s a folk tale tied to these 2 crops of rocks. Something about 2 lovers who became rocks

Paid AUD4.00 (RM10) for this double scoop baby – it was worth EVERY CENT

Our picnic lunch

DAY 8: GOLD COAST!!!, Magic Mountain, Anaconda, Springbrook

From Brisbane as our base, we finally moved to the Gold Coast for the last leg of our trip. This was to make it easy for us to go to the airport at Coolangatta where we were departing from, early in the morning.

Lots of hotels, apartments, bungalows in Gold Coast for rent to tourists.

We stayed at Miami Beach, about 20 mins from Surfers Paradise

Couldn’t wait to get on to the beach

some of these pics are mixed up, some are taken the next morning after we arrived, and some are taken in the evening. Just couldn’t get tired of the beach – it looked different in the morning, during the afternoon, in the evening and at night…. AWESOME!

Jogging’s great on the beach – my superman getting some exercise done

Me? I was busy taking pictures

Like I said, “I was busy taking pictures”

 

The mist you see is actually sea spray

Miles and miles of gorgeous beach

Ah, I could sit here a whole day and not get bored!

Magic mountain, the place we stayed at

Main entrance

One of the 3 pools at this place

Entrance to our apartment

The living room

The kitchen

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Bathroom comes complete with washer and dryer

We went to this place (Rubber Jungle Wetsuits, 2548 Gold Coast Highway Mermaid Beach QLD 4218 - www.rubberjungle.com.au/) that makes wetsuits to fit, a good idea if you can’t find any your size.  Price is from AUD350.  I would have made one if I was sure I couldn’t find one off the rack AND if I was sure I will be diving regularly. By the way, a decent one in KL costs anything from RM500 and above, and even then, I couldn’t get one that fitted me well. 

Our second place and still couldn’t get one

BUT, the lady there told us about Anaconda

this place is a grown up man’s toy shop

I’m not kidding, you can find almost anything you need for the outdoors here

Met a very friendly couple at Anaconda

Hah! Finally found something that fits me well – and at AUD99!!!! Yippee!

Before we went to the Gold Coast, we had gone to this place called Mt Nebo and visited the National Park visitor’s office there – saw this snake skin

SPRINGBROOK

You’ll need a full day at Spring Brook. I highly recommend staying a night nearby, there’s a choice of motels, hotels and caravan parks

This picture below shows a waterfall which has a cave behind it.  You can take a 3 hour walk that leads to the cave and you’ll end up behind the waterfall. Cool

There are many look out points at Spring Brook, take your time to go to all of them if you want, BUT you absolutely MUST go for this one and go for it LAST!!! Its the best of all lookout and honestly, all others pale in comparison.  Its also VERY cold when you emerge from the “forest” onto the actual look out point – the wind is strong but you’ll stay cos the view is MAGNIFICENT!!!

Antartic Beech Tree

Trying not to look like we were freezing

Wish our cameras could do justice to the view

Eating out can be expensive, especially when the currency exchange rate is against you, but cooking is really cheap and good too!

Day 7: Church, Victoria Point, River view public cemetery, Good Taste Restaurant, Sumners Road

Sunday – The Lord’s Day – we visited a nearby Baptist church

 

One father brought his 2 children to church in this bicycle – so cute

After church, we rushed off to meet Grace’s bosses, Bruce and Liz.  We want to thank them for their hospitality and thoughtfulness.  They extended an invitation to us for a picnic on one of the islands just off Victoria Point, going on their speed boat. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with us. Bruce had taken Liz, his daughter and Liz’s nephew across first but were forced to return.  On the way, they got stuck on a sand bar (Bruce was not familiar with this area) but the sight of a shark gave them the adrenalin to push the boat.

The boat back on shore

There is a beautiful park here for picnics but the beach is not suitable for swimming – too rocky and muddy

Enjoying our picnic

Found out later why this place is called Redland Bay

My feet were coloured red even after washing the mud off!

On my first visit to Australia a few years back, I didn’t see a single kangaroo or koala and I wasn’t going to miss that again, so this time, we went to places looking for the kangaroos. Finally saw a whole lot of them in the River View suburbs.

It made my day – there were SO many of them. The cutest thing is that they just stared at us when we tried going near.

When I had my fill of staring at the roos, we went to a nearby public cemetery and saw another 3 kangaroos

This red gurl will be taller than me when she stands up fully on his hind legs. She is actually sitting down in this picture here. Notice the joey in her pouch?

The serenity and beauty of this public cemetery is really amazing

This picture below is at the children’s area

A newly dug grave – another little one returned to glory

 

This area below are for the adults

We saw kangaroos, birds and turkeys walking around the cemetery grounds

The skyline was beautiful

That night we bought dinner for Chris, Grace and Gabriel to thank them for their hospitality. 

This is a the place to have a good chinese dinner – the Good Taste Restaurant at Sumners Road, River View.  Another good place will be at Sunny Brook where there is a Malaysian and a Singaporean restaurant.

NEXT POST : GOLD COAST, MOUNT NEBO, SPRING BROOK