A Hike to Gunung Panti

I was introduced to Couchsurfing.org quite sometime back by one of my friends. It sounded interesting, but I was not too keen to try it out then. However, recently I have been really interested in going out and exploring the possibilities. I decided to join in a group of people to hike Gunung Panti mountain in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The hike was organised by Philip from couchsurfing. Philip is a Filipino and is a regular hiker and had hiked Gunung panti 8 times before. The group seemed large, with 25 people in it. I made a choice based on my gut instinct and joined them on the hike last Sunday.

At Woodlands MRT

I prepared myself for the hike, packed a sling bag with essential items from a list made by Philip. Everything was being communicated to everyone in the group through a Whatsapp group created out of convenience. The estimated expense was 30-40 MYR or Ringgits. As I was staying up for long hours for quite a few days, i was finding it difficult to sleep early so that I can get up at 5 AM on the day of hike and get ready. Eventually, I went to bed at 2 AM and the excitement did not let me sleep properly.

Things that I packed

Checklist for International Travel- Done by a group of NTU students, who wrote, re-wrote and finally have this up here!

    Its a highly comprehensive list of items that you would like to pack your bags with. Although many things are optional, you can be sure that at least you won't miss out on anything if you follow this.

Clothes

• Three to Five pairs of jeans/Cargoes/Capris/pants
• Five t-shirts
• Three formal shirts ( for guys).
• One or two formal skirts or pants ( for girls)
• Ten sets of inner wear
• Four sets of casual wear - for sports, night wear. Carry tracks, pyjamas etc. If you live on campus, you will practically live on these.
• Hand kerchiefs
• A light weight travel jacket (optional, need not be too thick nor heavy, it is not for cold climate)

Girls - Salwars are fine to wear to college. Kurtas, Jeans, Leggings are mostly preferred. It is really hot here, so carry cottons. A saree can be bought, if you have space. Nice to have. Purely optional.
Guys - Most of them lived on jeans, and t-shirts. Cargoes are great too. Formals only for interviews, in the end of course. If you plan to go to India in between - you can skip it.

Got Admit in NTU and 3 other Universities overseas :)

Hi friends,

   I am happy to let you all know that I have been granted admit at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore for a PhD in the School of Computer Engineering. NTU is ranked the 26th best University in the QS International University rankings 2011. I can not thank enough for the support provided by my parents and especially my mentor Asst. Prof. Rajesh Kannan who was instrumental in all my achievements.

     Earlier, I applied for 3 other Universities as well and with God's grace I got admits in all of them. I applied in University of Eindhoven, Netherlands, University of Cincinnati, USA and TUMunich, Germany.

    I chose NTU as it was the best option for me. NTU is the best among the 4. I have been offered full scholarship and a monthly stipend of S$ 2000. I was particularly not very interested in USA for various reasons though I was offered Graduate Research Scolarship at Cincinnati. The next best option was the University of Eindhoven that I obtained through a program called ERASMUS IDEAS which is sponsored by the European Union. Its a Masters program in Embedded Systems and offers complete tuition fee waiver and a one-time round trip traveling expense and a monthly stipend of 1000 euros.

   I have a lot of people to thank for whatever I have had in my life so far. Especially my parents and my mentor for the extreme belief in me and my abilities. Then my friends, the PICInc. who have stood by my through all the good and bad times. All my teachers whose dedication has provided the base for me to grow and be bold enough to dream. And finally God, for answering my prayers.