Snowboarding trip 2010

Today is Chinese New Year and Valentines day. Fortunately for a person who is away from home and single like me, this coincidence saved me from grieving in two days. Though I should wish those of you who are cherished, a happy CNY/Valentines or both of it!

While the productivity through the day is greatly reduced by the mood, weather and occasion, I rather spend it on reminiscing the wonderful times earlier this year. This year's winter was much colder, nevertheless we headed to the colder region of French alps for a frost blasting thrill.

Welcome to Villard de Lans!

We took a plane to Grenoble and rode a local hire van to our hostel, much better than the painful 20hours bus ride last year.

The alphines on the slope are all covered with snow after 2 days of heavy snowfall.

One of the path taken most. It is green, means easy. It is also our daily rendezvous.

This path is call Salamandre. A long flat green path, I hate it the most because its not a slope, and without gravity doing the job, I always end up walking the path.

This is a view from the chair lift.

And the chair lifts looks like this. Sitting on it is not a pleasure because without heat generated from body movement, you would feel how is it like to be exposed to wind as cold as -10C.

The most beautiful summit I found in this ski resort. I like the paths too, long blue(medium) trail, although in the end we always ended up in descending the black (very hard) trails.

 

 

Occasionally if we think snowboarding and skiing is not dangerous enough, we tried standing on an icy slippery see-saw.

The weather changed drastically in the week we were there. When we arrived, too little snow cause most of the paths to be closed. Followed by 2 days of extremely fine and sunny weather, 2 days of extremely cold and foggy weather, and 2 days of heavy snowfall.

A mini snowman or snowbaby....

We started off with moderate weather of snowboarding and skiing

Then there was a day we had a great lunch with a good weather on 2000m above sea level.

It seems so warm and cozy sitting on these benches sunbathing. Well actually part of your body not facing the sun is very cold.

The next day, it became foggy..

Worst, came heavy snowfall...

Fresh snow is so thick, you could bury a person with it.

Most of the time we got stuck in thick pile of snow.

And the cold is unbearable.

See the frost deposited on their hair. So "cool"!

When we were not snowboarding, we spend our time playing card games.

And we cooked our dinner most of the nights.

On the last day, smart as we thought we were, we forgot to bring our shoes to return the snow boots.

But plastic bags worked well on snow too!


As always, I believe that the French are better in appreciating food.

 Something quite relative to the fondue, where you melt the cheese and eat it with your meat platter.

The pie of the day. Seafood baked with potatoes and cheese, delicious.

Another pie, if I were to remember, its something called forest pie. Claimed to be very meaty instead of forestry. Reminder that forest is not a habitat only for vegetation, it is also a habitat for animals.

The table of our last dinner in France.

Dessert: Dame Blanche. Very creamy

A very special alcohol drink which contains mountain herbs.

On the mountain restaurant

French toast.

Apple pie.
The french do have a habit much like us(slacking). They spend a long time for lunch, chatting for the first hour before they start looking at the menu, and more talking after that.

Besides, we have a lot of different crepes, from savoury to sweet.

The popeye crepe.

and their alcohol is really strong!

Burning crepe.

Finally we bought those alcohols home. There were these bottle of sugar soaked in 80% alcohol concentration, a cube gives you instant warming sensation.

The riddle of the trip:

Go in hard hard,
Come out soft soft.
In out in out,
juice come out....

I know that a normal 'adult' mind of yours would thought of only one answer. But you should guess a type of food.

If you would have guess it is ice-cream, we share the same great mind. Apparently your answer is still wrong...

Oh, its time for real work!

Biomedical Engineering, Are you sure?

I was a little amused by the way I used to write back in my first few months of blogging. I didn't recall having such intriguing observations back then, when I had a Malaysian secondary school student mentality. I can't write in the those styles or reproduce those thoughts anymore. Writing is a way to present ourselves, and I've begun to realise its importance. A first class degree will only buy you a ticket to the arena, while the battle has just started. Victory shall not be the goal now, you should think of survival! Forgive me for my pessimism.

Meanwhile, I should use blogging for more practice.

It struck me again on the whole purpose of university education. Debates can go on, so I will not further elaborate. To be more specific, I would like to talk about why choosing a Biomedical Engineering degree is not a wise choice, for a typical cynical Asian mindset.

As most would say, we prioritize personal pride and money. We couldn't be blamed because the fact is, we were born in different conditions compared to the western. There is the lack of passion. I am not saying the passion to be rich or famous one day, its the passion to commit to what you believe in. At this point, you would correctly guessed that the Biomedical Engineering path requires a lot of passion!

The term biomedical engineering puzzled every single employer in the market. Engineering firms doubt that we learn maths or calculus, while bio-pharmaceutical companies question our biological knowledge. So, when they found out that we are not good at any specific field, we got kicked out from the job market. Same goes with graduate schools. Medicine faculty hesitated in allowing what they would thought of, denied undergraduates to re-enter medicine school; economist weren't convinced by the way we present our ideas. Hence, there were endless night of weeping over rejection emails which further demoralized and disapproved our believes in our competencies and abilities. Till now, the most valuable financial incentive you hope a degree will lead you to is in vain. You could even argue that investing 1 million ringgit in stock market brings you higher return and lower risk!

Consider a popular degree/career choice among us, medicine. It is so popular because many were convinced that it will lead to the two incentives I mentioned above, pride and money. Not to offend my fellow future doctor friends here, I fully agree to the fact that your career involves passion and sacrifice. However, we should look at the obvious. Your passion and commitment sacrifices fruit you with high pay, well acquaintance and respect. Who would appreciate the CT-scan or MRI if it is not the doctor who used them to treat your disease well? The public wouldn't recognise the researchers just as they wouldn't for the producers and directors behind the scene.

Revealing the truth, Biomedical Engineering degree is a research path. It takes more passion than greed and inspirations. It requires one to sacrifice, contributing silently to science. One could never see its reward or incentive. Perhaps one should follow the parent's advice: " Study medicine la!"

We weren't born in a developed country. Our basic income is inadequate to fully enjoy the luxury of technological advancements. We have lower living standards. Even a university education is considered being fortunate. We didn't come to contribute, we came for a trade.

There was this incident in my freshman year. Take note that I heard this conversation after one term of academic study. One day some medical students were revising for their mid-term test, one questioned: "What is a sternum?" ,  to my surprise none of them in the group knew. Pathetic is the fact that their government subsidised their tuition fees, cutting fees from £20 000 over to £3000. These students show no appreciation on their given advantage. A form 5, o-level student can simply give the answer: "That is a bone". What would be if thousands of rejected students back home had this chance?

I shall try my best to culture my passion. Life is unfair, accept the fact! For those of you who are still determined to be a bioengineer, you are warmly welcomed.

Modern tuition

A while ago, we sat down at the department's cafe whining about our pathetic life again. It always the topic, our hopeless career future. I mean, what for spending a million worth of money here studying and end up couldn't even get a decent job interview? Sighs...

So whether you believe in the high-tech toilet cleaning business or dreaming to become the next Warren Buffett, you've got to like this idea; Tuition teaching! We have to admit that in this academic results oriented Asia-Pacific region we came from, tuition is a big market. I am not going to discuss about my plans of starting a tuition enterprise here (or if I ever had any), but rather mesmerized by what my hk friends showed me that afternoon...

They said top-notch tuition teachers in Hong Kong can earn up to 10s of millions of hk dollars.

Then they showed me one of the top tuition sites in hong kong. Take a look at their teachers and the webpage below:

Wow... I thought they just got into a TVB website. I mean look at them, they are like tv stars! More shockingly, most of the classes are not conducted in real time.... you pay to go in a room to watch a recorded dvd!!

But the best part is, I like their teachers. The english tutor named Antonia below, she has got to be the prettiest teacher I can ever imagine, she totally a boy's fantasy! Well, too bad that you wouldn't really get to see her even if you attend her classes.. lol



Why don't we have that in Malaysia huh?