College Football- Road to Big Ten Championship

So basically American football is a new passion i ve possessed, one big reason is because Penn State has a great Football program and they have the best fans in college football. I ve learn to love this team and have started missing EPL games for these College Football games. Penn State is in the Big Ten conference where they play their college football games against other big ten teams. and they will rank us with all the other teams in other conferences. Right now with 3 games left, we are ranked 1st in Big Ten and 3rd in the country behind Alabama University and University of Texas Austin. We played our biggest game of the season last night against Ohio State where people said that if we beat Ohio state we will definitely be considered for the NCAA championship game to determine the best college football team in the nation. The game last night was a very defensive display with very little yards by both teams but a mistake by Pryor, the Quarterback of Ohio State when he lost the ball and gave us an interception where we scored a touchdown to win the game 13-6. We played at Ohio State and we have never won a game there since we entered the Big Ten conference back in 1993. The win last night was a memorable win with our biggest win of the season. Students here celebrated with a big time riot downtown State College. We have a creative and hardcore offensive line lead by Quarterback Dryll Clark and wide receivers like D Will and Norwood. Earlier in the Season we beat Michigan after loosing to them 9 times in a row. This I would say is our biggest chance to get into the NCAA championship and be the best College Football Team in the country.

Here is a link for those who wana know more about College Football and rankings.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/index

summer break - Malaysia

summer break Malaysia

- langkawi

- genting

- jamming

- performances

- gurudwara

- parties

- weddings

- shopping

- college ball

- prep for migration

Mid west games 2008

Mid West Games is this event where al malaysian students studying in the States come together representing their university in games. This year it was held in university of southern illinois which is about 14 hour drive from PEnn State. The penn State contigent took a bus there a day before the games. It was pretty much like the olympics with events like swimming, athelethics, soccer, bowling, congkak, volleyball, tennis, basketball, ping pong, and alot more..We had a big contigent so we took part in almost every event. I was the soccer captain and played volleyball for penn state. We manage to get a silver medal in mens soccer, bronze medal in volleyball and a whole lot of medals in other events. We manage to win the overall championship and it was all worth it.

Catching up

Well, its been a long time since i wrote on my own BLOG. I finally realise im not a Blogger..but what i can do is write maybe 2 sentences and throw in a bunch of pictures..hahaha. so since spring break, i have just been cathcin up on assignments and finals. Vasakhi, International Soccer Tournament(ISC), Maryland Field Trip with my Geoscience class, and Semi Formal were the few things I did while cathcing up on assignments. The Sikh student association booked a small hall and a family brought SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB JI. So all Sikhs around the area (students and families) got together and had a celebration with kirtan and langar. I represented the Malaysian team for the ISC soccer tournament and we lost our group stage last match against BRAZIL. so that wasnt too bad. The Maryland Geology Field Trip was a day trip. We hiked and walked by the great falls and explored facinating geological features. It rained badly and non of us were up for it. So the trip back (4 hours) was not at all comfortable (all soaked and wet).

Spring Break

With limited finances and the ever awaited midwest games during the summer, I had to spend spring break bumming around watching movies and playing soccer in the university itself. Went to pittsburgh (3hours away)for a day and loved it. Pittsburgh is an old but beautiful and amazing city filled with steel bridges and old structures. University of Pittsburgh (1787) is one of the oldest university in US. Their buildings and the interior looks alot like those buildings in 'Harry Potter'. The Steelers/Panthers stadium is another must see site in Pittsburgh. Got myself a drumstick from Hard Rock Cafe Pittsburgh. I drove back the whole way making it the first time driving long distance in the States. It wasnt as bad as I thought it would have been, but the fog troughout Altoona made it a lil harder. Besides travelling to Pittsburgh, we played alot of poker and I guess im an addict now. Some of my friends from University of Tulsa visited us here and those were the best 2 days of spring break.

THON 08

12500 children are diagnosed with cancer in the US every year
more children die each year of cancer than any other disease.
more than 1 in 4 children diagnosed with cancer will not survive.
treatments for many children with cancer last between 3 to 4 years and can cost up to $25000 month.
Doctors speculate that they will find cures within our lifetime only if the needed funding for pediatric cancer research can be secured.


In 1972, Charles Miller founded the Four Diamonds Fund after the motivation of his sons death. According to him, he had to take his son 5 hours north to Boston to get proper cheap treatment. when his son, Cris passed away, he decided to do something for the families here in Pennsylvania and not drive 450 miles up to Boston to get cancer treatment. He got a doctor from Boston and started the cancer treatment in a hospital in Hershey. So he decided to start a fund that will basically help families financially with the treatment. The four diamond fund is supported by THON where students of Penn State go out and get as much sponsors as they can for a weekend dance marathon. You might be wondering how much money would a weekend dance marathon able to make to support the kids. I myself dance trough the weekend wondering how much can we actually help. Besides having the kids dance with us, and over 10000 penn state students dance non stop for 48 hours, THON 08 made $6,615,318. 6 million dollars for the kids!!! unbelievable!! now THON and the four diamond fund supports up to 2000 families with full medical treatment.
Lets make cancer history.

On a Valentines Day

My insides all turn to ash, so slow,
And blew away as I collapse, so cold,
A black wind took them away, from sight,
And held the darkness over day, that night

And the clouds above move closer,
looking so dissatisfied,
but the heartless wind kept blowing, blowing

I used to be my own protection, but not now,
Cause my path has lost direction, somehow,
A black wind took you away, from sight,
And held the darkness over day, that night

So now you're gone,
And I was wrong,
I never knew what it was like,
To be alone... On a Valentines Day !

-Valentines Day, Linkin Park-

Valentines day just like every other celebration has its history behind it. It all started by a priest named Valentine who lived during the 3rd century Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single man made better soldiers than man with families, he outlawed his soldiers from falling in love and getting married. Valentine realising the injustice of the law, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Claudius discovered Valentines actions, he was ordered to be put to death. During his time in jail, all the young lovers that got married gave him roses and notes. He also fell in love with the jailers daughter during his time in the jail. Valentine was hung on the 14th of february after writing a note to the jailers daughter that ended with .. Sincerely, Your Valentine.

What are rocks?

Rocks are assemblence of one or more minerals. Therefore every Geologist must have learnt the compositions and identifications of minerals to be able to study rocks. The study of minerals is called mineralogy. There are approximately 4000 unique minerals(200 common minerals) that make up the 3 major kinds of rocks; sedimentary rocks, methamorphic rocks, and the igneous rocks.

Learning to identify minerals in class was a huge problem for me as I used to memorise the characteristics of certain minerals to identify them until i was thought to look at it in a broader manner, by categorizing those minerals into larger groups.

Minerals from Igneous Rocks make up almost 75% of the minerals in the Earth. There are only 7 groups of minerals under Igneous Rocks; Olivine, Quartz, Pyroxene, Plagioclase, Orthoclase, Biotite, and Amphibole. So if you pick up a rock and some one asks you to identify the minerals in it, most of the time if you guess one of these 7 groups of minerals, you will be right. So for all of you who read this, try memorising the names of these few minerals and you can then sound like a geologist.

The white mineral in the picture is known as Quartz which is mainly made up of only silicon and oxygen under certain amount of temperature and pressure. The green mineral in the picture is called Olivine (Fosterite in particular) which is made up of Magnesium, Silicon, and Oxygen.

Georgius Agricola (1580) is known as the 'Father of Mineralogy'. His books were used by many European mining companies to increase the efficiency of their outputs.