ESQ and FYP

FYP is the abbreviation for Final Year Project, a requirement well known to all degree students I guess. Towards the deadline, it is known that one could easily break down under intense emotional stress.

What is the big deal with this thing? It is just a project. After all, my resume should be prepared by now, and the outcome of this semester is definitely not in my current resume.

And moreover, I am a type of person who don't have anything to be stressed about. My life is perfect and wonderful. Perhaps a bit too wonderful. Why would such worldly thing bother me?

But a great contradiction of myself, I am actually under pressure of completing my project. Wow. I could never believe myself. I've heard people being under pressure towards the FYP deadline, but I would never imagine it would happen to me.

Maybe some motivational sessions could be beneficial? ESQ maybe. What is ESQ by the way? Anyone heard of IQ? Of course you have. IQ is intellectual quotient, some sort of a measuring stick to measure how brilliant you are. Not so long after that, people coined a new term called EQ which is emotional quotient, also functioning as a measuring stick but for one's ability to control emotions. Success seems to depend more on EQ than IQ, so they say. Now there is a new one, ESQ, which is EQ plus a new term which is spiritual.

So how good is this programme? I don't know. But it seems the fee is very high. Up to thousands. First, it makes you wonder, how good can a program be that it costs thousands? Second, it makes you wonder, why on Earth would people pay such money for such course?

I have a friend who is now a member of the exclusive ESQ alumni. This friend of mine make tens of thousands by himself. With all due respect, that is an incredible feat. I don't know if I will ever make that much money by working, and he already made that much while studying. Of course, he is very business-minded, hence the money. Business-minded people knows how to make money while not affecting personal relationships (not like multi-level marketing which 'generates money' at the expense of friendship and family) but they talk very sweet. From what I heard, he once lost tens of thousands on international market trading or something like that, and his ESQ programme greatly assisted him in rejuvenating his morale. But I can't really be bought into joining this ESQ just because of what he said. After all, he is a businessman. When a businessman promotes something to you, even if it is damn good, you can't help thinking he is trying to sell something you do not need. Even when he is - in fact - not selling.

And also, I wonder, if it is damn good, why not just tell us what the ESQ programme really is? What are the activities? No, they won't tell you that. They will only tell you things like, "ESQ is really good, it helps me balance between work and life, life and afterlife," "it helps me discover my full potential," "it boosted my morale when I was so depressed," and so on. I'm still asking out of curiosity and all they'll tell is that. I want to know what are the activities that could make you so different in just a few days. I guess there is some sort of a secret oath of all ESQ members not to tell people of how to reconduct an ESQ to other people. After all, this is a money-making thing. Big time. If everyone can conduct their own version of ESQ then why would you pay such good money for the short programme?

So I'm skeptical about this ESQ thing to be honest. But I'm damn curious as well. So I decided that I would join this ESQ programme they are conducting at UTP. It is offered at cut-throat discount of almost 70%, so why not? My idea of ESQ is probably something like my own self-motivation I give to myself all the time, that there are no big problems in this world because we are all mortal. We can lose everything, money, property, even family and friends, but we cannot lose Him, our Creator. And that nothing in this world is a bigger problem than missing your daily solah.

But is that ESQ? I'm sure it should be more than that. That was my own self-motivation, not ESQ. It helps me in feeling good, in feeling that I live in an unfair world where God always gives me more than what I deserve. But that never helped me in making myself more rajin. I've been to several motivational programmes, and my prime hope has always been: I want to be rajin. But the spirit only last a few days before it fades off and I'm back to my lazy self.

Speaking of lazy, I'm being lazy right now. Let's talk about FYP. My final report is due this Tuesday, 28 October 2008. That is the final report, meaning, there are no work after that. That's that. I just need to present what I have done after submitting the report, and then I need to bind it for archiving purposes.

What is my FYP? I have discussed it some time ago here. It is very exciting, at least to me. I think I have a great project. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy. My project requires consistent work at the lab and follow ups (characterization and ultimately the reaction) but I enjoyed my holiday at UTP. Only towards the final few weeks I started realizing how late I am and how empty my report would be. In the end I made four samples of catalyst but I never tested them, so I don't know how good my catalysts are.

So my supervisor adviced me to derive some mathematical equation to back up my report. Simple enough it seems. Catalysts are porous particles, and metals (the real catalyst) need to be deposited onto these porous media (called support). The deposition process is called diffusion, a term well-known to us. When someone farts in a room, after a few seconds, everyone in the room knows somebody had just farted. That is diffusion. In my case, it is something like putting a sponge into a coloured solution and waiting for the dye to diffuse to the pores of the sponge, where the dye represents the metal (in the form of solution).

I had to search for some books to start the equation on diffusivity. Assuming my porous particles are spherical, the equation is
You see that ∂ symbol? That is called partial differentiation. It sucks.

Back in school when my friends are scoring one-digits for their Additional Maths, I was going for 100 all the time (although most of the time I would miss it by a few percent). I thought I was a genius. In university, I still enjoy calculus very much and highly impressed at how mathematicians would find very creative ways in solving certain problems. Differential Equations or DE became my favourite course that I ever enrolled here in UTP. Even though I'm not a mathematician and I did not derive all those equations, the very least I could do is at least understand what they were doing and being able to apply their methods.

But sooner I was brought closer to reality, that, "you sir, are not a genius".

Back to the equation, I have to express Ci in terms of r and t. There are three variables. All the time, I've been working with y = some function of x and never really more than two variables. Now I have three and I'm stuck for one week.

I can't really describe how I felt at that time. How stupider could I be? That was what I was thinking all the time. (Not to mention of my Plant Design Project which requires me to design a heteroazeotrope distillation column which makes me feel even stupider.) I scoured for some books that might possibly work specifically on my case (because I can't derive it based on other related cases) and astonishingly I found one, an (almost) exact case with mine, thank God.

The solution turns out to be
a summation.

It is very nice that I got the solution (I managed to prove that the solution is correct, although that was very easy, it was no major accomplishment) but I never understood how it got there. My solution is based on numerous assumptions and since I never know how to solve it myself, I never know how to generalize my results if certain assumptions are not met. (Man, I hope you guys understand what I'm saying - I'm writing with the most lay-man terms I can.)

I need to know when is the time when the diffusion 'stops' (concentration all over the particle is equal). Now all I have to do I rearrange the equation so that t is at the left-hand side and everything else is on the right-hand side. Simple enough it seems. Then only I realized it is not easy to solve a summation.

Probably one of the rarest moments in my life when I felt dejected, but can ESQ help me with this? Can ESQ solve my equation? I'm not losing money because of some unfortunate circumstances. I'm simply not good enough to solve the equation because I'm too lazy. I'm trying to make myself a better Muslim who could probably make a significant contribution to the world (by probably deriving an important equation or something) but with my workrate I will never achieve anything in my life.

Speaking of achievements, my catalysts remained untested. My supervisor will probably still pass me despite of my crappy project and I'm happy enough for that. I just want to graduate so that I can work and get money. But at the same time, it is very disappointing that my work has gone up in thin air with no real results and no input to the world's knowledge bank. I wish I could publish a journal or something that somebody else could make benefit from it, but that is certainly an impossibility with my laziness. The feeling of 'unaccomplishment'. It sucks.

My morale right now is very low, and that is very rare of me. FYP made me realize how 'unbright' I am and how lazy I am. That my project will be stored with all other insignificant projects that students have done simply to graduate and nothing more. And will ESQ help? Let's see. My ESQ will be throughout this weekend and my final report is due the following Tuesday. Will spending my time on ESQ help me in completing my report? I don't know. Let's hope it will.