Meeting Michael Schumacher!

Life in United Kingdom and interning at Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Limited has been nothing but extraordinary. Every week surely has something to be worth remembered. A great example would be today, when PETRONAS Motorsport and Mercedes AMG PETRONAS arranged a surprise visit by Michael Schumacher just for 8 of us here! 

It all started when all our supervisors requested a meeting so that we would stay at our desks during the meeting. We all thought, well, at least for me and my colleague; it was just an ordinary meeting as we usually have it every week. The funny thing is, before Mike popped into our office, we have just talked about him and asked our supervisor whether we would have the chance to meet him someday. As the meeting went on, a PETRONAS officer came in greeted us and there he is. I was like, “OMG! It’s Michael Schumacher!” I was so speechless at the point as 7-time F1 world champion is just standing right in front of me.

Didn't really have the chance to take photo with him. This is the best shot that my colleague could take. Anyway, we might get to see him again soon during our company Christmas party!

He is so slim in person, about my size. Lol. He only stayed for a while there after interviewing us. Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed despite of the short meeting. Even in my own country I never met any famous sportsmen and yet, I have the chance to shake hands with one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.

Afterwards, we have a little recording to share our experience of our internship here for the past 2 months. Lol, you know, it is like the one you usually saw on TV when the celebrities were being interviewed. The PETRONAS officer told me that it will be released through ESPN Asia next year. Gosh, can’t wait to see it!

I have no regret! =)

Lady Gaga - Marry The Night (Official Video)

Frost

"No point in crying over yesterdays,

Because we are yet to see the best of days"

It's been a while I didn't stop by. Interning in MGP is just the same like working here in any way. Despite of the fact that my jobs here are projects-based as I don't have daily tasks, the naps routine that I usually have in campus is really killing me here as I will always get tired whenever I am home. Vendor machine is my best friend in MGP, to get my snickers bar and a cup of hot coffee to keep me alive. Cooking for dinner, online, watching series, playing games and sleeping; routines after back from work and it repeats for every weekdays. I was too demotivated to blog as these hours are the only time that I can have for myself, until today.

It is coming to the end of November before tuning into the last month of the year. I have to write something. Lol. As you can see from the photo above, frost starts to form. It was taken earlier today. It's just getting colder than before. The temperature barely makes it more than 10degrees. Autumn is ending soon and all of us here are wondering when it is going to snow. As much as we are excited like a group of "sakai" kids waiting for it, pray hard it won't jeopardies our end of year vacation. My colleagues say it is nice to have snow for a week but after that, everything will be just miserable since you hardly can travel. I'm yet to get my boots!

Anyway, since we are given two cars, we have been travelling around during the weekends. Weekends are the most awaited days in the week which keep us going during the weekdays! Has visited few cities around England. This country is big enough to explore and there is so much to offer! If you have checked out my album on Facebook, you will know where I have been to.

Week 1: London

Paying  20pounds for train to London, which includes the use of tubes (underground train) to travel around the city.

Eye of London 

Palace of Westminster and Clock Tower (Big Ben) 

Tower Bridge

Week 2: Oxford

I really love the architecture here! 

Radcliffe Camera 

 Christ Church College, one of the settings for Harry Potter film

Week 3: Alton Towers

One of the largest theme parks in UK!

Week 4: Northampton

These lights were up for Light Night, a marathon for charity 

Week 5: Stonehenge and Stowe Landscape Garden

Desktop wallpaper, eh? This shot was taken by me, though. Lol. Paid 7.50 pounds just to be this close to take the photo.

This garden located at Buckinghamshire.

Reflection

The building ahead happens to be a school. A school in a garden. 

Week 6: Nottingham and Bleinheim Palace 

There was a Malaysian Food Festival held at The University of Nottingham!

 The campus

 Had Sarawak Laksa! It didn't taste similar but it's good enough for me to consider I am here.

Exploring the city of Nottingham. The traffic here is really twisting!

The Ghost Walk - getting to know the paranormal stories of the town 

Robin Hood statue! 

Bleinheim Palace

Greatest Britain Palace 2011!

Week 7: Birmingham

German Christmas Market! An annual event in which we were lucky to have a glimpse of it. The crowd was overwhelming! Human congestion!

Birmingham is definitely a paradise for shopping enthusiast! 

******

While enjoying my every weekend adventure, I'm just so, so excited counting down for the upcoming re-release of my beloved movie which will be on the big screen in April next year! The best part is I am going to watch here (hopefully),  in the country where Titanic departed 100 years ago for its fatal maiden voyage.

Life is a never-ending adventure. Cherish my every second on this lovely country. I shall stop here. See you~

*I miss you. Do you miss me? :)

Who's Ross Brawn?

‎"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." - Robert Southey

It has been a month now I am on this foreign land. As much as I enjoy my stay here, to think that I am leaving so many persons behind me at this period, sometimes, at one particular instant, I just miss the beloved ones back in Malaysia.

Anyway, I guess it is about time to share a little bit about my work place. As I have mentioned previously or most of my friends know, I am interning at Mercedes GP. I only get to know that Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg are their drivers. Lol, I don't really catch up much with F1 anyway but since I am here, I have to know. Pretty shameful that I am not familiar with a famous figure named Ross Brawn and yet I usually see him passing by our office like any other ordinary human being. Hey, his office is just opposite of mine. He will be away if there is race during the weekend. To think that I never meet Tony Fernandes, a profound Malaysian businessman, the team principal of Team Lotus, at some points, I do feel a little overwhelmed. *wake myself up*

I am working under Reliability Engineering department. I would say it is mostly about quality control; to ensure the parts of racing cars are in good conditions and for this purpose, the parts need to pass through inspection before being used. I have been doing inspection on gears which is one of my routines every week. There are lots of steps but it is part of learning process. If the gears aren't in good conditions, if something happens to the car during the race, whoever is in-charge for inspection will be responsible, that includes me. Lol. Another routine will be laser etching. Parts of the cars should be labelled with part numbers so that we can trace where does the part originate. This is done by laser etching. We are taught to use the laser machine to perform this job. It is not comparable to the equipment that we have in our campus, our UG lab at least. We aren't supposed to take photos inside our work places, mostly. You know, this whole thing is a competition.

Well, somehow, this shot with our supervisor (middle) was taken. His name is David Probyn but we usually call him Dave. He is the head of my department.

Assigned with three projects to accomplish throughout my seven-month stay here, I don't really have other daily tasks to do. The fact that everyone seems to be always so busy with their work, especially my office which is the designer office, I can't really proceed much with my tasks without their help. I always see them glue their eyes on their desktop doing designing job using CATIA, the software that they used. Mine; other than Ms Words and Excel, Adobe Reader, what else can I do? I guess the coolest project that was given to me is to investigate the faulty seal of Nico's car which fails during Japanese GP. Perhaps it is no big deal for the company but this project gives me the exposure of using my chemical background to conduct the investigation. The only drawback is that I barely have the knowledge to use the equipment such as Scanning Electron Microscope, Differential Scanning Calorimeter.. bla bla. There is just so much to learn. Everything starts from zero! Most important thing is, here, you gotta take your own initiatives, you can't wait for others. If not, you will lose in the game. Working until 5.30pm or sometimes stay late, I am sort of worn out during the weekdays. When I reach home, I will really push the job away from my mind to have time for myself. Not to mention our every weekend getaway!

Talking about English people here, well, I am not sure if British did colonise us last time because the culture is really, really different from ours. Opening the door for others to go first, drivers letting the pedestrians to cross the road first, employees greeting you every morning although we are not of the same departments (or we never meet one another before), the consistent use of the word "please" etc. We just have so many to catch up here. Oh ya, the "eff" word is pretty common if you hear curses, once in a while. Haha.

It's getting colder as winter is approaching. Despite of the daylight saving time (DST), the sun sets at 4.30pm in this period. Meaning, it gets dark sooner than usual. They save the day time making the night time seems to be prolonged. Lol.

It's the month of November, remaining 2 months of year 2011. Hoping for special closure for this year. Looking forward for white christmas! :)

Have a lovely day!

Greeting from UK!

"Language is not the barrier of communication.
The accent is."

A dream that I never dare to dream before come true when I am least expecting it: the opportunity to intern at Mercedes GP PETRONAS Formula One Team which based in United Kingdom! First time stepping out of Malaysia, I gave my very first step to England.

The month of October marks the beginning of my 7-month adventure. The journey began when I took 10.05am flight to London on 1st October 2011. Even the 13-hour flight itself was a new experience. I am used to fly to and fro KL and Bintulu but this flight was a little different. I was wondering what could I do to kill the time, thinking that even a 2-hour flight could actually bore me to the max until I was informed that the plane is equipped with electronic gadgets enabling us to watch movies, listen to songs. I watched Rio and August Rush, which occupied 4.5 hours of the journey. Remaining time I was listening to songs, taking naps and enjoying the scenery out of my window. Get to have a glimpse of parts of the world that I never see before.

First time on a big plane. A little sakai.

This view amazed me. Somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Leaving the mainland...

... and reaching England!

Finally touched down at Heathrow International Airport after being on air for 13 hours!

I'M FINALLY IN UK!

Heading to a suburb named Banbury which is 1.5 hours away. Staying in Banbury House Hotel for few nights as our host company didn't manage to find a house for us yet. When we settled down, it was already night time. 1st October 2011 was stretched for extra 7 hours for me due to the time difference. Funny, jet lag didn't really affect much. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I am used to stay awake at night back in UTP. Never knew it could help me in this situation. Lol.

View from my room.

Hunger strikes and it is our mission to hunt for food in the foreign place. As expected, it was freezing cold outside. The temperature gets below 20 degree Celcius, colder than a typical air-conditioned room. Well-prepared with my sweater, we walked down the street of Banbury and eventually stopped by at Pizza Express, our very first meal and dinner in UK!

A dinner that cost me 6.30 pound.

A thing that we shouldn't do when we spend money here is to convert to MYR.

Next day:

Good morning, Banbury, UK.

Our hotel, Banbury House Hotel

Grilled Bacon for my very first breakfast.

Equipped ourselves with camera, it's time to do a little exploring around the town before heading to our work place on the next day. Let the photos do the talking. *lazy to type*

Street view along the road

Going down the street

Catholic Church

Banbury Landmark: Banbury Cross

The "Fine Lady"

Another church.
Saw this in the church's compound.

We are lucky to have a glimpse of the annual event of Banbury Canal Day which will be held on every first Sunday of October!

*ignore my hand*

Exhibitions, the crowd of people. It was really happening in this small town.

Saw these horses passed by on our way back to hotel.

Have to say, even this suburb has so much to offer. I am looking forward to explore the land of Big Ben for my 7-month stay here.

Familiarised ourselves with Banbury, it's about time for our main intention coming here: internship. Being chauffeured to our work place, all the way in Brackley, we get to see our host company for very first time.

Signage at the entrance

The main building. Reminds me of UTP, a little.

My desk

That's all for now. More stories in the next post. *Daily report is a nightmare. A requirement by SIIU.*

I start to love it here! I miss my friends back in Malaysia. Take care, everyone! =)