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Visit to i-City 2012

2012-01-27T23:52:00.000+08:00

i-City, Shah Alam is not a new tourist attraction in Klang Valley. Tens of thousands of people from everywhere - if not more - have probably visited the place. But not my mom...until yesterday...although i-City is only 9 minutes away by car from my house... She has been wanting to visit the place since forever but the plan is postponed over and over again. This Chinese New Year, she was determined to tick the place off her wishlist. She did and I was the one who brought her there. *proud*

This spectacular new LED giant ferris wheel of i-City is placed in such a way it looks like it welcomes me home as I drive along the Federal Highway. I love it!

I didn't think the ferris wheel would look nice from within the park but boy I was so wrong!

During my debut visit to i-City around this time last year, I said that the place is worth visiting once only because there was nothing to do there (evidence here). I pull back my words. During this one year period, i-City has further established itself as a tourist spot for people of all walks of life. Pretty recently, it added amusement rides to its LED city. I applaud i-City for that progress. It turned the place so lively and happening with families having a good night out together in the good mix of facilities and entertainment. Following are a few of the rides.

Shoutout: The capsule (? sounds cute to me!) swings! Therefore, be sure to distribute the weight evenly on both sides of the seats or your capsule would be one-sided... XD

My mom and I during out ride at the ferris wheel! Btw, the ride is RM10 per head.

ST joined us that night too right after his work/internship. Thus the formal attire...

This ride is so smart and cool! It rides through the Enchanted Forest and around it! =D

Though not as huge as the one in Genting Highlands, this contributed a lot of screams to the park as well.

We visited the place on a weekday of the week-long Chinese New Year break. We thought it would be a bad idea but it wasn't. In fact, it was probably the best idea. There were crowds but the park was still accessible. The new amusement rides added lots of laughter and screams of terror/enjoyment. There were a lot of walkabout vendors selling assorted cute LED accessories, like Minnie Mouse-style headband and wind whirl. Visitors were laid back and joyous during this festive season. And best of all, traffic and parking was a breeze!

See. Quite a lot of people but not overcrowded so it was good!

A lot of people say that RM10 for parking alone is way too expensive but my mom thinks otherwise. It is a tourist attraction - be thankful they don't charge entry per head! They maintain the place well with the fees that they collect! I have to agree with my mom.

I didn't take a lot of photos at i-City ~~because I suck at night photography~~ but if you want to check out the full album, go to my Facebook!

p/s I heard many good reviews about Laser Tag at i-City so I will definitely give it a try when I have the chance but what about Snow Walk? Anybody been there?

Year 4 Sem 1 Week 1

2012-01-16T01:47:00.000+08:00

It's time again for this blog series, isn't it? But before I go any further, note the title! YEAR 4! That's my final year! If I finish on time, that is. But looking at my progress now, it's pretty likely that I can complete college December this year! Now, let's take a look at my timetable (like usual) before I flashback to my first week of the semester.

Monday
12pm-3pm: Business Communication
3.30pm-6.30pm: Marketing Research
Tuesday
8.30am-11.30am: Global Marketing
3.30pm-6.30pm: Marketing Cases
Thursday
3.30pm-6.30pm: Critical Thinking

This first week of semester was an emotion roller coaster. On the night before I went back to college, I happily prepared my notebook and actually filled the first page with my biggest goal of the year: to graduate. But before I even stepped my foot in college, I received a text message from college saying that one of my subjects was cancelled for an unavoidable reason =.= Never mind. Thank goodness I still had subject to fill up the slot. But an even deeper plunge in emotion happened when I was told that there's a new regulation stating that students must complete the course by August to attend convocation ceremony in December the same year. Oh God! That means that I can't walk (as in attend convocation) this year! Emo...

However, I was actually keeping faith that there would be chances that I can still walk this year, upon sending in an appeal. After all, before the new regulation was announced, I would still have to appeal in order to see if I can put a full stop to college this year since graduation ceremony is conducted before I finish my course. Anyway, I found out later during the week that the new regulation is not final yet - management at Fayette campus and Malaysia campus have varying opinions on the matter. *Finger crossed they don't change the graduation requirements!*

Oh yeah. Another emotion roller coaster was definitely the release of Fall 2011 results! As updated in detail in my previous post; results were released unexpected, I got excellent results but later realized that there's mistake with my results. Read Ninth Semester Results if you haven't!

Other than all these, another matter that occupies my first week of semester was be Fayette House. Yes, that's the student body that I was the president of 2 years back. Nope, I am not back as an officer. But I am back as a member of the sub-committee, which the job scope has not been set yet. So far, I have already done more work than a handful of the real officers (within expectation, especially at the beginning of a new office term). I attended all meetings and contributed in all (I should limit myself before I start to live, eat and breathe Fayette House like before), I helped move the office (totally depressing and heartbreaking), and I prepared the first two publications of Fayette House (not complaining because I kind of like this kind of work).

Hmm. I haven't mention anything about my course this semester, have I? Basically, all these subjects are very important as before - if I fail any, I won't complete my course on time. Even more stressful (ironically), I will fall into Second Honor if I don't get A for any of these subjects. Then, they are assignment-laden, as expected for upper division papers. Lastly, the 3 marketing subjects are confusing! I have them back-to-back (kind of) with the same lecturer, almost the same classmates and similar syllabus, especially assignment-wise! Aiks. Assignment deadlines are almost exactly the same too =.=

But fret not! Week 1 seemed pretty alright! I shall keep the energy going till the end of the semester (or until Chinese New Year break at least) and we'll recharge again!

Ninth Semester Results

2012-01-11T19:53:00.000+08:00

The college loves to give surprises, don't they? On Monday, the admin said that results would be released either at the end of this week or at the beginning of next week. Then suddenly on Tuesday afternoon while I was chilling with friends after lunch, news spread that results would be released in a few hours' time.

The usual cycle of pre-result release syndromes started... I suddenly forgot what subjects I took last semester. The heartache and frustration of unexpectedly difficult final exam paper rewound. My upper body wanted to run away but my legs knew they had to stay still in queue. As the lecturer looked for my result slip, my mental state switched repeatedly and rapidly between hopeful and hopeless. And then the moment finally came...

My pupils dilated the moment I saw my results!!! O.O But before my heart even shrieked any scream of joy, something startled my mind. 1, 2, 3, 4. One, two, three, four. 一二三四. I couldn't blink my eyes as I looked through the list of subjects. Where's my Special Project?! I immediately looked up and asked the lecturer of that subject, who so happened was beside me reviewing my results with me.

Oh oh. He had no idea what happened. He remembered marking my photojournalism on Deepavali at Little India and leaked out that he gave me an A but neither of us knew why it was like that. It's scary of course. I don't want to go through the tedious and nerve-wrecking fieldwork anymore although it was really fun and memorable. For the least, another subject that my name went missing in the final list was recovered. It's funny how both 100% coursework subjects decided to cancel off my name =.=

Nevertheless, I am a happy girl! A very happy girl in fact because firstly, it has been 2 years since I got 4 flat! Secondly, having nothing besides A means I am still in the First Honor list (though I am at the bottom of the list). I have to admit that this straight A's is especially appreciated because it meant that my lecturer bought my conclusion for a project concept that I risked my entire groups' grade on; it meant that I somehow survived an exam that I still do not know what the correct answers were; it meant that I completed another milestone in my coursework overload; and it meant that my advertising ideologies were not baseless. Phew...

Pretty! Suddenly, I realize "Excellent" is more beautiful than "High Distinction" or "Distinction."

With this result released, I pulled up my CGPA again. From 3.68 to 3.71 - should be without taking account into the missed out result.

This new year has got me a little geeky, nerdy and freaky organized. I made a much personalized planner, kept an expense tracker, categorized my online feed, prepared a more organized college notebook, etc. and am planning to have a personal notebook also. No downside so far. In fact, it has just saved you from a short paragraph of whining.

I wanted to whine about how CGPA fell by almost 0.17 in one overlooked semester but took triple the time to go up by only one third the drop, until I saw the graph. Well, I did underperform more than I overachieved.

Fall/Winter Break 2011

2012-01-08T23:35:00.000+08:00

Can I say this is one of my Project Procrastination accomplished? ^^ This is a wall sticker that my aunt gave me years back.

It was Winter when I started my semester break but it was a break for my Fall semester. So Fall or Winter break?... Anyway, college is starting tomorrow!!! It didn't feel long since I started my holiday but it didn't feel short either. During the short/long 3-week break, these were what happened...

Went for karaoke with college friends for the first time, celebrated SY's birthday over bah kut teh breakfast, watched Mission Impossible with college friends, attended a lecturer's home farewell party and explored Pavilion and surrounding malls; all within four days - blogged in 9 Down, 3 More to Go.
Finished watching a Hong Kong TVB drama: Ghetto Justice; I am outdated like that =P
Cut my hair to the length of about three quarter year back because I might just go bald if I don't do something to my longest hair ever (i think).

See! Medium length again... By the way, this is my current Facebook profile photo that I changed in conjunction with the new year.

Met up with a long-time-no-see friend, ZW over lunch and had one-way intellectual conversation with him XP - mentioned in Christmas 2011.
Celebrated Christmas on the Eve with ST's family over turkey meal at Italianese and on Christmas Eve with high school friends over BBQ at JH's place - mentioned in Christmas 2011 also.
Shopped at and explored Sunway Giza, e-Curve, The Curve, Ikea and Ikano Power Center (IPC) - mentioned, again, in Christmas 2011.
Hunted for many Christmas decorations at various shopping malls - I don't have to tell where I updated on that, do I?
Went out for the first time with the Al and FY duo to Mid Valley Megamall for a satisfying lunch at Tony Roma's and an awesome movie: Sherlock Holmes =)
Received my oh-so-exciting EP of Jimmy Hung: Thousand Winds.
Had a memorable karaoke session with CX, CY and JN and later shopped at Sunway Pyramid.
Spent my last 4 hours of 2011 and first 2 hours 2012 with my fellow band friends over our favourite reminisces and gossips at Espress Cafe.

My last meal in 2011! You should see how messy it became after I touched it =1

Watched Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 with ST at MBO (his first time there).
Unexpected replaced mom for 3 days at "work" while she was admitted in the hospital for a checkup-turned-surgery admission.
Started watching another not-recent TVB drama: My Sister of Eternal Flower.
Joined ST and the family to Setia Alam pasar malam, successfully walked and ate one-way across the long night market and rushed the other way through because it started raining.
Had my Tweeter account functioning in full swing =)
Thoroughly spring cleaned 4 squared meter of my room in preparation for Chinese New Year XD
Experimented with my nail polishes to break away from being plain.
Had mom upgrade my driving license to have access to her car, with the condition: she has to be beside me while I use the car.
Produced my custom-made planner for 2012.
etc.

That's quite a long list. I shall stop and prepare myself for bed or I doubt I can wake up in time for college! Happy back to ~~school~~ college!

Jimmy Hung Thousand Winds EP

2011-12-29T17:49:00.001+08:00

The first EP of Jimmy Hung: Thousand Winds - released after great response as the ending song of 那年,雨不停國 Year of the Rain

I know it has been pretty long since the EP came out but I just purchased it from Smash and Grab Productions (SAG Prod) online last month! It was my first online purchase =) I raved about this song a couple of times on this blog already, especially when associated to 那年,雨不停國 Year of the Rain. So when I finally got it this afternoon, you can imagine how happy and excited I was!

My thin but precious package!

This is (technically however) not the EP that I ordered because the one I purchased got lost during delivery. After waiting patiently but with much anticipation for a month plus, I emailed the store to inquire about my order status. In their quick first response itself, the store apologized for the wait, deduced that the delivery probably got lost along the way and initiated to send me a new one the following day. I was pleasantly surprised by not just the positive feedback but the immediacy of the response as well. I was told the package would take 5 days to reach my place =)

Sent from through Republic of China Postage on December 20, 2011.

I told myself 5 days for a USD3 delivery from Taiwan through the national couriers would be a little too soon so I didn't keep the arrival date in mind. But guess who was taking note? SAG Prod! Smashstore (the online store of SAG Prod) sent me an email exactly 5 days after they shipped it out of their office! Talk about excellent customer service! They may have only done the most basic of customer service but this is a real-life evident of how little sweet gestures like this can turn a, by right, rage customer into an engaged customer - plus a lot of points earned in a customer's lifetime value too! I'm so proud of my all-time favourite idol (a.k.a. my celebrity crush), whose EP I bought and who owns this production company. And of course, good job by the staff who attended me =)

Smash and Grab Productions, yo!

When my grandmother came into my room saying there's a postman looking for someone she doesn't know, I knew it at once the package is here! I ran downstairs and with much anxiety checked the name on the parcel: Miss Kok Yen Tan. Oh yes!! =D Although it was 4 days late from expected delivery date, I didn't mind it at all. In fact, I wasn't even counting the days because to me, as long as it arrives, it'll be one the of the best "gifts" I received. Even better, when my grandmother listened to the song, her first response was, "Why does it sound like a song for the dead?" LOL! It is in fact a mourning song for the victims of a Taiwanese typhoon! Great job, Jimmy (who composed, written and sang the song)! My grandmother doesn't understand English but could tell right away!

I am a happy girl =) Best New Year gift ever!

The package came with a promotional leaflet of Jimmy's first movie, which I am still waiting to watch!

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T23:32:00.000+08:00

Christmas this year was adventurous, busy, exciting and fun as compared to the past Christmas that I had. This Christmas, I bugged ST to bring to hunt for Christmas decorations while exploring the many shopping malls that I have never visited. With that, this will be a photo-laden post. Also, in conjunction with Christmas, I had a turkey dinner with ST's family and a BBQ party with a group of high school friends. All these will be mentioned in this post, making this post much longer than usual. Bear with me!

View of the concourse area from the first floor of Pavilion. It's interesting how the cake was also serving as a stage for performances.

As much raved Pavilion is with its spectacular Christmas decoration each year (also read as a popular spot for dates), I have never been there neither for its decoration or to shop. The only two times I took a trip to Pavilion were both for a quick meal. Rather sad but true. Therefore, I was really happy when I finally got to explore the place this year with ST! Even better, there was an exhibition of United Buddy Bears outside the mall when we were there!

Mark this down. You'll see a similar decoration elsewhere, shortly in this post.

The extra large lollipops remind me of Candylicious at Singapore. Anyway, spot ST in this photo!

Christmas decoration at Pavilion is more amazing partly because the mall is able to play around with the bigger space they have from the entrance leading to the concourse area.

Other than Pavilion, ST and I went walking blindly at the area outside Pavilion as well. We went to Sephora (loud yay!), Uniqlo, Fahrenheit 88, Lot 10 and Sungei Wang Plaza. These places were more for exploration than for Christmas decoration hunt although the one at Fahrenheit 88 was pretty nice~

The Christmas tree at the entrance of Fahrenheit 88.

Reindeer and Santa's sleigh, arranged in a manner comparable to the one in Pavilion.

Adorable rabbit at the concourse area =)

The decoration at Fahrenheit 88 was basically very "garden." It's nice!

Taking a ~~rest~~ photograph on the stage of Sungei Wang plaza =P

And that was the photographs of Christmas decorations taken during a day of exploration at Pavilion and its nearby malls on the weekend before Christmas. Yesterday, ST and I went for our second shopping malls explorations (our last one for now until I can think of other clusters of shopping malls that I have never visited). We left home with the mission to do my Chinese New Year shopping and explore Sunway Giza, e-Curve, The Curve, Ikea and Ikano Power Center!

We started off the day with dim sum breakfast at Eng Ann. The chee cheong fun special was good!

Fast forward to lunch, we stopped by at this crowded Little Penang Kafe.

The place smelled Penang food (read as assam laksa) and guess what he ordered after looking at the menu?

A bowl of cendol! LOL! He decided the place didn't have any non-heaty , non-oily and non-spicy food for the feeling-sick him.

Therefore, we headed to Subway (read as healthy sandwich!) after our cendol.

This is a pretty Christmas tree outside e-Curve.

ST refused to go into the picture to fill the emptiness because it was scorching hot! (Can't really tell from this photograph)

The castle-themed Christmas decoration at The Curve.

The entrance to the concourse area; view blocked by a dusty faux tree.

Stop noticing the striking yellow duck. This was at Ikano Power Center.

I thought the decoration was pretty refreshing because there was not a single twinkling lights in sight.

White Christmas seemed to be quite a popular theme among a lot of malls. Maybe they wanted to give us a taste of white Christmas in the no-snow Malaysia?

Other than explorations and hunt at shopping malls I have never visited, ST and I dropped by at two common malls as well - AEON Bukit Tinggi and Sunway Pyramid. These two were actually the first two malls that I visited. The former, being the first Christmas decoration that I saw this year, left a lasting impression because it was so pretty! I really liked how they transformed the concourse area to provide a functional space, yet Christmas-y!

Pretending-you-are-in-winter-suits photo, anybody?

My favourite element of the Christmas decoration at AEON Bukit Tinggi; how they played around with the pillars.

Just in case, anybody gets lost...

Penguins!! =D In conjunction with Happy Feet?

Another white Christmas theme.

ST waiting by the side as I wander around at Sunway Pyramid =)

The decoration at Sunway Pyramid was nice but it was a little cramped up =/ The decorations looked very busy when you stepped into the concourse area.

Next show: (none). Sad. Nice stage though!

A wishing well (and a random little girl)!

I don't understand how some places were heavily covered in "snow" while the rest were all green. Someone has been busy cleaning the snow away huh?

Yay! Got to sit in a sleigh!

Snowman... Now I noticed that there were a lot of Snowmen at the malls I visited!

I loved the logs at Sunway Pyramid =)

Besides all these, I checked out Empire Subang's decoration when I was there for Christmas Eve dinner with ST's family also. That night, we wanted to have dinner just the two of us but the family unexpected (at least to me) wanted to go hunt for a turkey meal so we decided to join them, since there's not too many special occasion ST can coincidentally be in Malaysia to celebrate with the family. We ended up at Italiannies for a very filling dinner.

We didn't know if we were allowed to go sit at the huge chair and decided not to take the risk. And hey! That's the first photo of me with my shorter hair on my blog!

The first of our 3-course meal: yummy pumpkin soup.

The main course... Super filling!

Mmmm~ I loved the dessert! But it would be too sweet if finished alone though!

Earlier on Christmas Eve, I had a very special meet-up with an old colleague from my temporary telemarketing job after SPM: ZW. It was just a simple lunch at Face to Face but this friend is one that I feel blessed to know. He's a year younger than me but his maturity and mentality is incredible. Compared to him, I am just a sluggish young adult busy wasting time everyday. It's amazing how my two-week colleague relationship grew and lasted better than many of my school friends that I equally don't keep in touch with offline =)

As for Christmas Day, ST and I didn't have any plan. I slept in as usual but at night, we joined JH and a group of high school friends for BBQ party at JH's place. It was fun meeting up with friends and laughing at each other's antics in a laid-back atmosphere.

Food!

Relaxing by the side and waiting to be served XP

Later, all had to contribute because food was taking a little long to cook.

Unexpected but pleasant call from Te at Russia!

Grilled marshmallow. Mmmm =)

CH, YT and JH before the former two left early to accompany JH's mom to doctor for burned hand while working on the barbecue pit for us =(

Trivia: we asked JH for some Christmas music, or for the least, any music and one of the first songs that came out was a Buddhist chant =_='"

Chinese New Year's less than a month away! It's time to start practicing a few games!

A group photo before we ended the get-together!

Group photo of just the girls~

Finally! That was it for Christmas this year! Told you it would be a long post! But if you want to find more photos from the BBQ party on Christmas Day, look it up on my Facebook under Christmas BBQ Party 2011! Now, let's anticipate for New Year!

9 Down, 3 More to Go

2011-12-19T23:48:00.000+08:00

10 days since my last update on this blog! Within the past 10 days, at least one big thing and many little things happened. And the big thing that I was referring to is the end of Fall semester! Woohoo! Fall 2012 was my 9th semester in American Degree Program and thus, this 3-week holiday is probably my final Fall break before graduation! With the closure of this semester, I am counting down to my final 3 semesters! =)

As expected at the beginning of the semester, it was an assignment-laden semester. Special Project was an interesting course that allowed (or forced) me to complete a photojournalism at Little India, Klang. Then Contemporary Topics in Marketing was also out-of-ordinary with its 100% assignment-based; the subject was actually effective in providing exposure to various marketing topics. Other subjects that I took were Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communication, Management Information Systems and Corporate Financial Management. The first mentioned was pretty cool; it gave a little taste of the tedious advertising industry while the latter two were annoying! They were both requirements for business core and were neither my interest nor expertise, thus the headache!

I imagined myself feeling overly relieved and excited to kickstart the holiday but that was before I sat for the exam for Corporate Financial Management. It was not a killer paper, but a ground shaker definitely; a friend, Bo, said that I looked more stressed after than before the paper. True!

But nevertheless, I still carried on with my holiday plan. It was pretty intensive but I loved it! From Thursday afternoon till Sunday night, I did the following:

Joined college friends (Sh, Bo, Vi and Sh's cousin: Ed) for 5-hour-long karaoke, where I was made to sing children songs.
Had breakfast with a group of high school friends (JH, SY, SS, Ap, CY and JH's two brothers: YK and YS) and celebrated SY's birthday.
Went for a quick shopping with ST at Sunway Pyramid to get essentials for his internship and graduation gift for his sister.
Watched Mission Impossible 3 with a big group of college friends (Ni, Vi, Bo, Ch, Yi, Ra, Ya, Je, Sh and JJ); I think it was my first time watching movie with that gang... =/
Attended a lecturer's farewell party at Bukit Jalil with the Communication Club gang (and Iv was nice enough to send me home past midnight; first college friend who came to my house? I think so.)
Accompanied home-alone ST and sang karaoke at his house =)
Went for a full-day exploration at Pavilion and Bukit Bintang area with ST. I was really excited to visit Sephora!

By the end of the 4-day fun, I was really exhausted. Today was the official first day of my holiday. It was not a productive day, as expected, but I accomplished some important tasks though! (So, maybe it was considered productive?)

Random photos taken throughout the 10 days of hiatus:

In the midst of revising for final exam, I begged ST to bring me out to AEON Bukit Tinggi for a quick break!

And during that quick steal, I filled my little sushi cravings!

I thought this strawberry looked funny with it's leaves all "styled" up.

I unintentionally took this photograph of beautiful Christmas decoration at Neway, Subang without permission. Oops. But they are pretty~

Group photo after breakfast, the Klang way~
[Photo credit to JH]

JH said I looked bad from my last-minute revision rush. Normal lah. Haha... I'm always last-minute. *peace*
[Photo credit to JH]

Noob ST got a straw too small for the drink so he had to popped another in afterwards.

My phone battery died on Friday noon so I exchanged phone with ST to survive my fun-packed Friday. The phone's pretty cool but I was a failure.

ST setting up the karaoke system for me~ =) I shall go play PlayStation there next time.

He was so happy when he spotted Boost at Pavilion. Apparently, he's a fan of the juice bar back in Australia.

Had lunch at Food Republic, a food court that we purposely visited at malls in Singapore when we were there. Those in Singapore had unique themes and the food were pretty nice.

Conveniently had dinner at Taiwan Recipe at Sungei Wang. The food there was not bad *thumbs up*

ST and I don't like mushrooms so he actually picked out all the mushrooms in there o.O

That's it for now! Till then!

Food: Eating Out

2011-12-09T20:46:00.001+08:00

Dinner for the night: murtabak from the pasar malam near my house. I like this pasar malam the most because I somehow find more nice food here.

This past week, I have been eating out more frequent than usual because ST is back and other people in the family seem to have more social, causing my mom to not prepare dinner. It's fun to eat out when ST is back because he will help me think what to eat or, for the least, he would be nice enough to drive me around to eat whatever that I request.

He used to love the 'loh mai kai' at a stall near my house but it's no longer operating so I recommended him to another one =) Yum yum~

I had craving for "tong yuan" the other day so he brought me to one the following day. It's huge!

I was sick from spring cleaning at Fayette House the other day so I had to drink bitter herbal tea =(

We went for supper one night and funnily, were both still hungry after finishing our orders so we shared another serving.

I think that's all we had during the one week he was in Malaysia; he's in Hong Kong now for holiday. We didn't have many chances to go for proper dates because I was busy with assignment dues, Fayette House and UIU delegates visit. In fact, I "ffk" our supposedly first date because I stayed back in college for a sudden spring cleaning at Fayette House - that's one big reason why I wouldn't/couldn't have joined Fayette House if he didn't fly to Australia. Anyway, that explained why we only had time to eat at late nights when he was around. Now that he's off to vacation, I'm feeling so bored! I need a life! I need hang out buddies (who are not away at campus or overseas), besides my boyfriend! Who wants to apply for this vacancy?

UIU Delegates Campus Visit 2011

2011-12-08T18:36:00.001+08:00

Since my first day in college, I was brainwashed to pour more love to my university in the United States that I have never been to instead of to the college that I attend every other day. Don't ask me why. But somehow, my love for Upper Iowa University grew as I learn more about it. I joined Fayette House and became more connected to it. I followed them on Facebook, Youtube and their blog (which I was contributing as a blogger before this), and found more reasons to love the not-for-profit university and its friendly, helpful and fun-loving people. With that, I always look forward to meeting the UIU delegates when they are down at campus every year. It's not that I have anything to do with or say to them but I just love to feel more connected with this alma mater of mine and to know that they want to keep in touch with the students more than a lot of students think.

Unexpectedly, I met them more often than I thought I would this year. I didn't think that after I stepped down as the president of Fayette House last year I would be called to represent the campus students again but somehow, my used-to-be-advisor knew my undying love for Fayette House would get me back to give the student union a helping hand. I first agreed to join the choir to lead the singing of Alma Mater (UIU's anthem) for the commencement ceremony. Then I was called to fill in as student for the delegates' a meet-and-greet session with campus students. And I also represented the campus to attend the first alumni reunion in Malaysia.

Group photo at the first alumni reunion of UIU-Malaysia at Prince Hotel on Dec 3, 2011.
[Photo credit to UIU Int' Alumni Network]

The alumni gathering was interesting, I would say. Interesting because it's a fresh idea not just for UIU-Malaysia but also for the tertiary education in Malaysia. Occasional reunion for primary school and high school, especially through groups like Old Boys Association, is common but reunion for tertiary education is pretty foreign to me - maybe because I am not eligible for any yet. But anyway, the reunion on Saturday was not anywhere close to the American homecoming but it was sweet enough. It'd be very nice if I would be able to meet up with old college friends when I join the alumni network next time. But before that, I will need to urge them to attend reunions in the future for me to meet them! Other than that, the reunion was interesting because I didn't know how to introduce myself; I was neither an alumnus nor a (current) Fayette House officer. Nevertheless, I had a great time, especially because I met JY, a college intake friend who transferred to KL campus after two semesters at Subang! He is still him, but a better, more confident and better-spoken him =) Great to unexpectedly meet him there!

Door gift from UIU at the reunion. I'll keep this till I am officially a UIU alumnus to use it!

Another pretty door gift at the reunion! This, I can use NOW =)

So on Sunday, I went to Prince Hotel for the singing of Alma Mater. It's my third year with the college/university and it's my third year singing at convocation ceremony too! I guess it was my last time singing since I want to be standing among the proud graduates of UIU in the commencement ceremony next year! Like the previous years, it was a different experience singing the anthem again. This year, instead of having just officers from the Subang campus, we were joined by two students from the Kota Damansara campus, who happened to be local recording artistes! It was scary when we received the news but when we started singing together, it was pretty fun and cool! Yet another great experience!

The "performance." (I may look like I was just smiling there but I was singing, okay!)
[Photo credit to Horng]

And lastly, I was called to college again on Tuesday evening (a day before my first final exam paper) for a short meet-and-greet session with the university delegates. We only had time for a short ice-breaker that I couldn't escape from being called up front to participate. I freaked out and I don't know why I did because I should have expected that. Hmph. But anyway, it was a fun time to get to know the delegates (especially the President of their Student Government Association), watch them eat durian, stink the college with durian and get to know more students from my own college.

p/s I'm pretty confused now. I agreed to join the new Fayette House board next year but as a member in the sub-committee only (which has never function before). However, my advisor is involving me in a lot of things related to Fayette House. He did not just trick me to spend another year heavily in Fayette House, did he?

Keep Hope Alive Carnival 2011

2011-11-27T23:00:00.000+08:00

I woke up at 4.30am on a Sunday morning (or should I say dawn?) to do volunteer work at a charity event today. The event, as heavily mentioned on my Facebook in the recent days, was a carnival to raise funds for National Kidney Foundation and over thirty more charitable homes in Klang. This event was actually part of a coursework for a big group of students taking Consumer Behavior course in ALC College and I joined the volunteer team upon invitation from one of the students, CX, who was my senior in high school.

At around 5.30am today, I gathered at the field of High School Klang, which I didn't know was actually the field right next to the school, in front of the cemetery. That early in the morning, there was seriously nothing much that we could do and because I was in charge of managing receipts of coupons at a food stall managed by a third party vendor, I lazed around for more than two hours and made friends with three adorably innocent sixteen-year-old girls from Kwang Hua Klang.

It was an easy day at the carnival, where I sold yoyo ice! It was pretty cool to scoop the ice cream off the chilly box and serve it to the customers. The only downside was most likely my incompetence; I was just plain clumsy and made some mess here and there the whole day. Oops. I also helped out at the sweet corn stall next to my stall and learned a skill of two from the aunty selling sweet corn. When I was not working, I was entertaining myself by watching how the crowd was embracing the theme of the day: keep hope alive. Hint: it was raining cats and dogs yesterday.

How else memorable can this event be? The field was extremely muddy and visitors were advised to wrap their feet with plastic bags and enter and own risk.

A local celebrity performing for the crowd (mostly under the canopy where I took this photo from). His live performance is as good as his recordings! He's Kah Jun 凌加峻!

They made it through this far with only bits of dirt. But right after this photo was taken, Am took the wrong step and had her slippers half buried in the mud. Oops!

The condition of the field was horrible but you still have to keep hope alive.

My new friend at her game booth! She was basically "playing" in mud the whole day...

Az showing off her hidden talent in blowing ping pong ball across the cups. For your information, she made it!

I was supposed to be in charge of the sweet corn but there was also a yoyo ice stall so my partner and I went separate ways. And we were extremely glad that our stalls were outside the muddy field.

Yoyo ice anyone? RM2 for two or three scoops, depending on the mood of the boss!

Is this a river? This was the place we washed our mud-laden legs, shoes, slippers, etc.

They had lucky draw only once throughout the day, at the end of the event. So by that time, only vendors, crew and organizers were left to bag all the lucrative prizes. Luck was not on my side today =(

All in all, the organizing team did a good job, especially in terms of preparation. They definitely deserve a big round of applause for such dedication and spirit in making the event happen. Although there were areas that they were lacking in, mainly on the execution side, these shortcomings were mostly out of their control so their achievement was still very remarkable. It was a nice experience joining the crew for the carnival.

On another note, I felt really privileged to meet Dato' Michael Tio from PKT at the event. I met him once for my assignment interview last semester and he appeared as a very commendable person then. Today, he proved to me again that he is one role model many people can look up to. He is one who puts passion into what he does and is very down-to-earth despite his status. When he saw the condition at the field, he immediately sponsored boots for purchase or rental, which in turn generated additional revenue for the cause =)

Eventful Sundays

2011-11-24T20:32:00.001+08:00

Oh nice~ Reached the end of another college week. The first half of this week was pretty intense. Most of the nights, I was rushing my group assignment for Management Information System - spent so much time revising, editing and compiling every group member's report and presentation slides, and making a slideshow video for the presentation yesterday! I was really glad that the class seemed to like the video since they laughed at it but I hope of course, that that would be translated into good grades! I put so much effort and time into this assignment because I know my group was lacking in terms of data. Plus, I just tend to always put in extra effort (read as gimmicks) for this lecturer's subjects...so, yeah.

Alright. Fine. Maybe the interview was just hilariously informal.

Since the beginning of the week, I wanted to update about an event that took place last Sunday, which was the Convocation and Award Ceremony for SEGi College Subang Jaya! It was not my convocation ceremony of course. I was there for Dean's List award for Spring 2011. To tell the truth, it was not the event at SEGi University College, Kota Damansara that made me excited; it was the fun companion that made me look back at the event with a smile =) Surprise, surprise! The no-sense-of-direction me was the organizer of a 9-person carpool trip! Hehe. Anyway, I seriously couldn't figure out why I was so tired after that ceremony because the most tiring thing I did was probably walk in heels. LOL. Photo time!

The stage at SEGi University College, Kota Damansara. ADP Dean's List was placed right behind the graduates.

Spot my name (though it's not in focus)!

Ra, Jo and I at our seats. The standby time was one hour! So it was great to sit beside people you know =)

Group photo for ADP Dean's List with our Dean (but photo fail because everyone was looking at different cameras).

The carpool gang (minus Ma), with Pe's failed jump shot at the back!

The carpool gang again (this time without Aa) with our certificates by the iconic pool.

Final candid photo of the carpool gang before the drizzle stopped our photo session!

Looking at the title, I am supposed to talk about more than one Sunday. So, here you go: The eventful Sundays are actually two Sundays back, last Sunday, this Sunday and next week Sunday. As updated in the last post, I had an interview at Rawang for the first Sunday. And as updated here, I had Award Ceremony for the recent Sunday. As for the coming Sunday, those who are active on Facebook may have caught the news that I am volunteering at a charity event this Sunday; I'm selling sweet corn (just the cashier though)! Lastly, for the fourth Sunday of this eventful Sunday series (LOL), I will be at my university's commencement ceremony to be part of the Alma Mater (my university song) "choir." I am not very free so I don't know why I booked my Sundays with events.

Come support me and help me with my sales quota! You can contribute by either buying the coupons or just donating any amount!

[Photo credit to Jojo Tan]

20111113 - Assignments & Interview @ Rawang

2011-11-13T23:33:00.001+08:00

Me! Taken at Old Town, Rawang this morning when I was there with friends for assignment.

I just looked through my planner and marked down all my assignment due dates up till final exam. 4 presentations to prepare for, 4 reports to write and compile (for 2 group assignments), 1 quiz to study for and 1 special project to complete; all these happening in 3 weeks. Thankfully, they are all pretty distributed through the weeks so I believe I can cope with all these. However, I will need to come out with a timetable that I would stick to in order to not have sleepless nights. That's challenging for an indiscipline student like me. Aiks.

Anyway, I am losing track of the day because I was in college six days in a row - Tuesday till Sunday! On Friday after my assignment meeting, I thought it was Thursday. Then yesterday after my Dean's List rehearsal, I thought it was Thursday. And today again, I thought it was Thursday after my assignment interview. Why Thursday? Because Thursday is supposed to be the last day of my week at college this semester but it was not this week; that's why the confusion.

Today was pretty interesting. Along with three of my coursemates, I travelled to Rawang to meet up with another coursemate's friends for an interview for our assignment. It was really sad that we had to meet up on a Sunday morning but we had no choice because we couldn't get a proper company visit and interview, thus had to do it on a personal account now; assignment dues in another week! It was a funny and fun experience though!

Test shot in the morning before our interviewees arrive.

Setting up camcoder for the interview at Old Town, Rawang.

Taking photographs while waiting for breakfast to arrive. It's easy to tell I love Old Town's cold chocolate!

Fast-forward almost two hours later, we ended the interview and the two kind interviewers went to work o.O Though they were not the best candidates for our assignment, at least they gave us directions to cover our asses now! Thank You!

Wee~ Camwhore in my car with driver and passengers of the day! It was a funny journey at Rawang when we didn't realize we were on the bridge we were looking for and later at the KTM station we were searching for. Thank goodness for my GPS!

[Photo credit to Melissa Ong!]

20111109 - PSA, Movie & Final Year

2011-11-09T23:20:00.000+08:00

Short updates today!

First: Officially handed in my public service announcement poster for my Advertising course after having it on display for a week in college. I had many insecurities about this assignment but I still insisted on continuing with this topic because I really loved the personified coffee cups. They are the outlets of my Halloween spirit and of course, a representation of another milestone to my very slowly-progressing photoshop skills. Also, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask people (in my case, students mostly) to rethink caffeine as a daily performance booster; caffeine is like a vampire when you become dependent on it. Don't fall victim to caffeine-dependence. You should enjoy caffeine when you want to, not have your energy level controlled by caffeine. I hope this is graded well!

I was trying to take a nap/break when this idea came about. I rose from bed and messaged ST, "I can't sleep! A lot of coffees talking in my head! I need to do my assignment now!" It was fun, though very stressful. Creativity indeed is an organized process. I altered this so many times.

Second: I finally watched a movie in the cinema today! I have been wanting to visit the cinema for some time already, especially since my stress attack quite a while back - I seriously have no clue why I am feeling so stressed up. I shouldn't. Hmm. But anyway, watched Tower Heist with WN today at MBO, Harbour Place! I like that place because it's considerably near and it's a great place for simple movie outings.

The last movie I watched was Smurf and it was with WN at MBO also =) She's my movie buddy when boyfriend dumps me for Australia but this pharmacist-to-be is so busy!

Me right before the cinema turned dark. Another super grainy photo but it's ok! I'm actually surprised my phone could capture image at such low light =)

Third: This should probably fall under tomorrow's update but I am going to include it anyway. I am going to register the subjects for my final year tomorrow! Wanted to submit the form yesterday but the administration people were busy dealing with the little flood caused by burst pipe at college. But I was glad that I didn't hand it in yesterday because I made changes today! I'm scared but excited to register for five subjects next semester. Oh god. I need to be a more disciplined student next year, considering the upcoming workload and how close I am to my graduation - fingers crossed, I want to graduate at the end of next year =)

Forth: I didn't realize it before this until WN mentioned, but I might appear in college six days in a row this week - from Tuesday till Sunday. For the record, I only have classes three days a week and this additional three days is for group assignments discussion and college event. Wished I stay nearby college.

那年,雨不停國 Year of the Rain

2011-11-07T22:39:00.000+08:00

I don't even remember how I discovered this 6-episode Taiwanese drama, but I somehow started watching it online October last year (mentioned on post entitled Saxophone & Year of the Rain) firstly, because the ending theme song is written and sung by my celebrity crush Jimmy Hung from Tension and secondly, because it's such a short series. I also found out in the first episode that the life of the main characters in the drama is woven around their love for saxophone. What I didn't know back then was how this drama came about; and that it's directed by the director of Autumn Concerto and produced by a 3-person producer team that included Jimmy.

So why the mention when I watched it more than a year ago right? The truth is, I started watching the drama October last year but only finished it just now. LOL! What's happened?!! Half way through the series last year, the online link that I was using broke and so I had to abandon the drama only to gather enough enthusiasm today to hunt for that drama again. (Credit to Brian Fong from Tension! It's his birthday today. That's where the motivation - and reminder - came from.) It's so much easier to have access to it online (in English) now than before...

But anyway, I am not a drama junkie. If not because of Jimmy, I wouldn't bother watching this drama since I've never come across any recommendation from anyone. I actually wonder if anybody has ever heard of this series. I've never seen it broadcast in Malaysia. Correct me if I am wrong. But anyway, I am here to recommend this drama.

The story is based on a catastrophic typhoon that hit Taiwan in 2009, flattening an entire village at the worst hit area and leaving many homeless and separated from families. It talks about the ordeal of the main character Jing Jing, a traumatized teenage girl who lost her father and grandmother in the disaster - about how she has to live her everyday in an environment that keeps reminding her of the hurricane and other challenges that come along with the tragedy. Family love, music as an outlet for the soul, innocent romance and peer support are some of the themes of this drama.

The series is short but excellent (nominated for Best Drama in Taiwan's Golden Bell Award). The story line is interesting and heart-whelming. The production is wonderful (nominated and won the Best Director award). The main actress who played Jing Jing is fresh yet talented (nominated for Best Actress award). The main actor is pretty cute. There's good music in the drama. And I am asking you to watch it so why not? Just be sure to check out the behind-the-scenes to learn better about the passionate team of people in the production and the inspiring stories from the survivors of the 2009 disaster. I know the disaster is not relevant to us, but it's good to be reminded of how fortunate we are from the stories of others.

Official website of 那年,雨不停國 Year of the Rain:

http://www.pts.org.tw/year_of_the_rain/

One of the online sources (available at the time of post):

http://tw.sugoitw.com/year-of-the-rain-episode-01/

A short trailer of the 那年,雨不停國 Year of the Rain:

p/s The drama moved me so much that I not only checked out the Chinese website of the drama, but had Google Translate read out loud the whole website sentence by sentence to understand the drama and its production in and out. Google translation is ridiculous so I copied and pasted sentence by sentence to make use of the "listen" button.

Wedding Dinner @ KL 2011

2011-10-30T23:02:00.000+08:00

At the beautiful corridor of Oriental Maju Palace Restaurant, KL.

I think I just drove my furthest yesterday! My mom had a wedding dinner to attend at KL and she asked me to accompany her. My cousin was supposed to come get us but plan changed and I told my mom I could solve her problem! And I did. Hehe. But it was funny how I was fearless when I drove to Jinjang, KL but kind of fearful driving back. Maybe because it was at night - and I know I don't have the best vision at night. Or maybe because I've never paid attention on the road every (rare) time we came back home from Jinjang. Whatever the reason was, I made it there without any wrong turns and made it back smoothly too! Woohoo! For the record, driving my mom is always the most stressful because she gets stressed up whenever I'm on the wheel - and I never like it.

Met my smart little niece again. I mentioned about my first meeting with her in Cousin San's Wedding 2011. This time, she's more clingy but less talkative though. Maybe she's just tired after her long journey from Sabak Bernam.

She helped to take a photo again this time and it's blur again! LOL. I think she just made me look tipsy when I was definitely NOT.

I don't know when will be the next time I meet my maternal family again. Probably the next wedding in the family... Hmm, so far nobody's in line though so let's just wait. Now, back to assignments! Ahhhh~

p/s The dishes at the wedding was a little out of convention. Not that it's not nice but it's just out of the norm in terms of preparation methods.

Deepavali @ Little India 2011

2011-10-27T02:05:00.000+08:00

Little India, Klang (or Jalan Tengku Kelana) has always been made synonymous with traffic jam, especially around Deepavali. With that, I have been told to stay out of the area during the Hindu festive season and through these years, it has never occurred to me that this tourist attraction may be worth a visit for its cultural value - even though it's only less than five minutes away from my house.

This year however, I was made to make a debut trip to Little India during the festive season, not just to experience and try to understand the Deepavali culture at Little India, but also to complete my photojournalism assignment. Honestly, I was very afraid to even think that it's possible to complete my mission, partly due to many negative insights I received from my fellow Indian friends, mostly on personal safety. But for the most part, I didn't have confidence because of my amateurish photography skill.

Read on to learn about my insights of Little India from the three visits on the three days leading up to Deepavali Eve. A write-up on my first visit two weekends before Deepavali, entitled Prime Minister's Visit to Little India 2011, can be found on this blog.

JH and I camwhoring while waiting for the PM to arrive on October 15, 2011.

Day 1 (October 23, 2011) - I found Little India full of festive spirit as everybody filled up the streets to prepare for the most celebrated Hindu festival in Malaysia. Little India during non-festive season is already jam packed with many Indian shops selling everything you need for Deepavali. Thus, when festive vendors came flocking in with stalls along the sidewalks, allies, both sides of the two-way street and up the road divider, the choices were bedazzling. It seemed to me that shopping at Little India was not just a Deepavali preparation, but rather part of the celebration. It was full of life, colours, culture and everything pretty.

The kids excitedly set off firecrackers for me to photograph! In the background, the road was free flowing towards the town but jammed up towards Little India.

Many people were startled by my presence at first but later welcomed me =)

These two kids were very happily playing until they saw me taking photo of them. Bi said they turned pale in a snap. LOL.

Bi enjoying a little shopping while pulling funny faces XP

We tried the masala milk a.k.a. the must-try drink at Little India. We heard it is super sweet but lucky for us, the sugar subsided at the bottom of the drink. It was not bad.

These two guys posed for a photo voluntarily. Bi said the guy on the right dropped his cigarette the instance he saw me taking photograph. LOL.

Day 2 (October 24, 2011) - After the welcoming visit on the first day, I was really excited to explore more on the second night. I was definitely more comfortable to approach people and start conversations with them as they also appeared friendlier towards me - a couple of them could recognize me from the night before! The crowd however, was not as big as the first night, probably because it was a rainy Monday night. Nevertheless, Little India lived up to the great impression it set on the first night.

Pe, who lived in India for 3 years, just knew what would go best with nasi briyani. When he requested for the above sour soup (I forgot the name), the waiter was surprised at the request because it was not in the option list. LOL.

Deepavali is the Festival of Lights but ironically, Little India was not decorated with lights at all. Instead, the street was decorated with balloons by Digi two days before (that later were all destroyed during the heavy rain on Deepavali Eve) =_='"

Pe was working hard to practice his photography skills and was hoping to get some shots for his photography assignment.

Gloomy clown anyone? Haha. I think he may be irritated by me because I kept pestering him with questions although he seemed reluctant to respond. His name is Bumba!

He was trying to capture a reflection on the mirror without being in the frame (trying to hide behind some wooden panel), thus the funny pose.

Day 3 (October 25, 2011) - It was a rainy night again. I reached Little India later than usual but it was only half the capacity of the nights before (judging from the number of parking lots available). I was disappointed and upset because I was told that night would be the peak - the most happening of all nights; vendors could operate until the wee hour of the morning from the continuous stream of visitors. Everyone hoped the rain would stop and the crowd would flood in.

And soon enough, wish was granted. Little India was insane crowded with people of all walks of life. The streets were not just congested with people, but motorists as well because the roads were not blocked unlike the days before. There was quite a commotion also when police officers came seizing firecrackers from vendors who have been doing business openly for the past days. Then when the clock struck midnight, major shops were competing with one another to set off fireworks and firecrackers at the middle of the busy street. It was very boisterous and eventful of course. But very dangerous at the same time. Two girls almost had their hair set on fire when one of the firecrackers reflected towards the crowd.

I have always wondered how the vendors were selling firecrackers so publicly although there were police patrolling pretty frequently. When I saw the crowd around the firecracker stall, instinct told me to step back for safety. The commotion ended with the crowd opening the police van and taking back the seized firecrackers by force, after putting the authority in a stall for a couple of minutes.

There was this row of 21 flower stalls at one end of Little India and the air there smelled chrysanthemum =)

Little India was this crowded with visitors at late night. It was no wonder that cars were stalled along the street. Wondered why the roads were not blocked, like the previous days. During countdown, the crowd more than doubled.

With that, my words to people who are interested to drop by at Little India around Deepavali: if you are not up for the crazy crowded Little India during the Deepavali Eve, or you are more interested to shop around and have an easy stroll, visit Little India early after sunset on a few days before the celebration.

Trivia: Little India welcomed me with smiley kids on the first night and bid we farewell on the last night with a run over (on the foot only) by a 4WD. LOL! It happened right before exiting Little India. Cars were stalled and the streets were congested. Just as I stepped my right foot forward to cross the crowded street, an unsuspecting car moved. I stopped in time but did not pull back my right foot so the front wheel rolled over the front half of my foot. This may sound comical but following was the string of things that ran through my mind during that incident:

Did the car just roll on my foot?
Will it roll over my other foot as well?
Oh wait. I think it just stopped right on my foot.
Should I pull back my leg? Or is it better (less damaging) to keep it still?
Let me see if my leg is still functioning. *wiggle toes*
Ooh~ The tyre's soft.
Whoa... I have a 4WD on my foot but it's not as painful as I thought it could be.

I heard somewhere that our mind thinks seven times faster than we speak so divide by seven the time it takes for you to complete the list above. That's probably the duration I was indulged in intrapersonal communication before KL, who was with me that night, realized what happened and asked the driver to move back. When I saw KL panicking, I was snapped out of my lines of thoughts and suddenly felt the weight increasing on my foot. I twitched a little bit out of pain, before signaling the driver to move back. At the same time, I realized passersby noticed too and were helping me to let the driver know what happened. But no worries, I escaped with only very tiny bruises and a little pain for a short moment. I could walk and drive immediately after getting the wheels off my foot. And I just can't stop smiling, giggling and laughing every time I think back of the incident. I'm quite a joker with myself huh?

Fayette House Reunion @ Levain 2011

2011-10-21T23:18:00.000+08:00

Assorted macaroons at Levain! Everyone loved coffee the most <3

I spent almost 365 days of my life last year surrounded by an awesome team of people to not just organize a handful of the biggest events in college, but bring a bucketful of other goodness to our coursemates. We came in with differences at the beginning of the year but made used of those uniqueness to bring synergy to the team. Through thick and thin, we survived and later came out of the whole journey a lot stronger, better and awesome-r. That's Fayette House 2010.

Seven out of eleven officers of Fayette House 2010!

It's almost eleven months after we went our separate ways. In the recent weeks, I have been dragging a random few of them into "we were busy with...at this time of the year last year" conversations. Thus, needless to say, the reunion at Levain this afternoon made the reminisces more satisfying and fulfilling, especially with the same old jokers, great food and incredible ambiance =)

Meet Jo, the macaroon lover who brought us to Levain!

Sh, the thick-faced dude that tried to court toll operators on the way to Levain =X

Ra, the co-mastermind of this awesome reunion!

Pe, the dude who is paying for out next reunion at Fukuya! XD

Ch, who is annoyed by jealous spammers on our macaroon photo on Facebook!

Yi who tied her hair up and we barely could recognize =P

Je, who tagged along! She's not part of Fayette House 2010 but she's our senior from the 2009 batch yo!

My sandwich! The chicken cutlets were nice~

Angry bird, anyone? Sh made this himself. It's actually two pieces of bread but he bit the pointed one half off and stuck it on the other one as nose. Not bad huh?

The super delicious tiramisu~!

I'm not a fan of spaghetti but I kind of like the spaghetti there!

This graduation season has made me think of my graduation so much that I thought this piece of chocolate looks like a graduation hat.

The birthday girl! We were supposed to have another two guy officers who have their birthdays on the same day but they couldn't make it. It's incredible how we had three officers born less than 24 hours apart.

Handmade macaroon handset accessories! JN made these for her college project so I thought they were perfect gifts so all the ladies got one!

The only two guys who were present went into bromance mode on their own since they had no gifts. LOL.

Levain is definitely a nice place to chill out with friends over drinks, meals or desserts. The environment is very cozy and the food is nice. The price is pretty reasonable as well for western food. Actually, I wondered if the food was really all so good today or the great company just made everything seemed so good. Haha. But anyway, for those who have never been there, go! You'll most likely like it.

The counter from the first floor.

The lovely bakery. It reminds me of the Korean drama I watched the other day: King of Baking, Kim Tak Goo.

The parking space may be limited but with RM2 jockey service, you can have a peace of mind while dining. *lookatthecarplates*

Signing off, the Boss. Or more accurately, the Ex-boss =)

Insomnia during Midterm Week

2011-10-20T18:29:00.000+08:00

Snacking at the middle of the night. See how working with 3M for a month made me more organized with my indexing.

It's midterm week this week so I'm off from classes for a week. But actually, I only have one midterm paper, that I sat for yesterday noon. Started from the weekend before midterm, I had trouble sleeping at night. I just couldn't go into deep sleep so woke up feeling like a zombie every time. I thought it was caused by stress from the midterm exam because I was having occasional stomach upsets, that I believed were caused by anxiety.

However, after the exam ended yesterday, I still couldn't sleep at night! I didn't allow myself to take any nap in the afternoon despite the lack of sleep from burning midnight oil the night before. I went to bed at 11.30pm but only managed to fall asleep at 2.30am. Is it because of stress for the many assignment dues in the coming two weeks? Or is it because of a call from friend at 12am and a string of SMS from another friend at 1am? LOL. At least it's good that it was a tight sleep last night.

Anyway, I just woke up from a tight, long nap and am typing this half drowsy but I just want to say, "Oops for the nap. I hope I can sleep tonight =P"

Prime Minister's Visit to Little India 2011

2011-10-15T23:52:00.000+08:00

I am writing on the Deepavali spirit at Little India for my Photojournalism project in college. Since I am so paranoid about having to take photographs at night in the super crowded and happening Little India, I decided to make a trip there today to survey the situation. After all, Little India is just 2 minutes drive from my house.

Not knowing that our Prime Minister, Dato' Sri Najib Razak was visiting Little India for Deepavali 1Malaysia celebration, I did not carry my camera with me. JH persuaded me to drive back home through the congested traffic (because roads were blocked to anticipate for the Prime Minister's arrival) to get the camera and I did. It was supposed to be a quick survey but we ended up spending 2 hours there.

We were waiting for about an hour after a brief tour around Little India so it was good that there were performances (or rehearsal) going on on the stage.

She was with me but not with me. She's one of those annoying people who live on the phone, or more specifically now, iPhone.

The crowd that was waiting for the superstar of the night to arrive.

We were waiting and waiting, and suddenly he came shaking hand with everyone. He chatted with us for a moment since we were the odd duo there, not knowing that he's the President of MIC until half an hour later maybe? Embarrassing.

Police were everywhere at Little India. Of course! They just had to walk over from the police station right next to Little India.

There were media coverage at the scene. JH and I were definitely very prominent in the crowd so JH kept feeling awkward whenever the cameras turned to her. It was easy for me as I just had to cover my face with my camera. Haha.

Rehearsal for "1Malaysia" shout out.

And this is for the oh-so-classic "Malaysia Boleh" shout out.

The crowd keeping close eyes as the Prime Minister makes his grand entrance.

Some peacock dancers that preceded the Prime Minister's parade in.

More performers escorting the Prime Minister.

It was definitely a havoc during the arrival. Even escort performers had to run away for the big entrance.

Finally! The boisterous entrance of the Prime Minister!

It was so crazy crowded with police officers and people from the media, I couldn't spot the Prime Minister at all!

A quick glimpse of the Prime Minister and his delegates before the crowd block my view again.

So much attention was placed on the arrival of the Prime Minister I wonder if anyone watched the performance on stage.

It was pretty amazing, you know. There were Malay, Indian and Punjabi performers but no Chinese; my first non-Chinese lion dance.

Look at the crowd!

1Malaysia song in Tamil. I understood nothing. Haha. Of course.

Multicultural performance!

I liked the peacock dancers the most so purposely waited for the performance to end before leaving.

Conclusion of my first visit to Little India? It was not as crowded as I thought it would be, maybe because roads into Little India were blocked today. And an aunty told JH that the crowd will build up towards Deepavali so let's anticipate for that. In my next visit, which will be my serious visit for assignment-purpose, I will definitely want to dress to sweat. Also, I hope they would amp up the light decorations at Little India next week! All the best to me as I definitely feel the pressure of nightlife photography after today's visit.

Brother's 17th Birthday Dinner 2011

2011-10-10T16:49:00.001+08:00

The birthday boy that turned 17 on Oct 8, 2011.

My brother turned seventeen two days back. I think it should be his most anticipated birthday these recent years because he's so eager to get his driving license! But anyway, the family went for a simple dinner together yesterday - as requested by the birthday boy himself, without shame. Like usual, it was my eldest sister's treat for the dinner while my second sister and I paid for the cake; it's always most disadvantageous to be the eldest =P

We went to Osaka Japanese Restaurant at Bandar Baru Klang. It seems that I'm the only person in the family that have never been there =/

My brother's set came first. Everyone was feasting his because everyone was so hungry but the other dishes took so long to arrive.

This orange came together with my brother's set. I wonder how it's supposed to be eaten. My brother just uncivilized-ly stuffed the whole thing into his mouth.

Sushi, sushi.

I'm bad with Japanese food. What's this called? Hand roll?

I don't know what this is. Fried prawn? But with what? No idea. Worst of all, the menu has all the dishes in their japanese names.

I shall leave this without meaningful caption again.

I like this. But I don't know the name.

For whatever reason, my brother loves this pose.

Fooling around.

Family portrait (with me covered in shadows of myself...LOL). It was so difficult to take this photograph because the waitress didn't know how to operate the camera. It took her at least 5 trials to finally snapped the first photograph.

Mummy and her precious son.

Cake my mom and sisters was making hu-ha about. Hm...

p/s 95% of the photos was not taken by me. My sisters complained that I was being such a sloth with the camera so they took over.

Photography at Orchid Park 2011

2011-10-06T23:54:00.000+08:00

My favourite shot from the trip to Orchid Park this time around!

I woke up early today to follow the photography class trip to Orchid Park, KL; I completed my photography course two years back with my little compact camera but just followed because I have been under-utilizing my DSLR since I bought it almost half a year ago. After all, I had great mentor and photography companions with me, so why not?! I put on my shorts and t-shirt, thinking it would be more comfortable... I was wrong, very wrong! Mosquitoes were feasting on me for the first half an hour my lecturer said, "Get out of here, girl! You're gonna get killed!" He even slapped me on my thigh to kill a huge mosquito that was enjoying my blood when I took the photo above. Ouch!

The mosquitoes did dampen my spirit but it didn't stop us! We spent almost two good hours at the park snapping photographs of flowers, leaves, drains, broken fences and funny friends; copying whatever shots that friends took; sweating; feeling exhausted from the heat; laughing at a friend that almost went into the wrong car right next to ours; etc. Although I didn't take a lot of photographs this time, the outing was still fun and good =)

I was attacked by endless streams of mosquitoes when I took this shot.

Two friends chased this moth away when I spotted it just so they could chase me away and wait for the moth to return, to have it for themselves. Boo!

I was so intrigued by the tentacle-looking leaf =)

I went around looking for leaves with holes and found this petai-looking leaves.

I found this half-gone leaf when I was rounding up my day. There were so many of these at that area but the itchy mosquito bites just made me impatient to explore more.

Lecturer asked him to go lower to the ground and he ended up in this octopus-looking position. Haha.

For the complete collection of the photographs taken during the short trip to Orchid Park, refer to my Facebook! Just a few more extras from what I have here though; took really few photographs this time.

Cousin San's Wedding 2011

2011-10-03T21:38:00.003+08:00

My cousin, the bride and her long-time lover. She's already 30 but I couldn't tell.

01.10.11; I don't know if it was an auspicious date in Lunar calendar, but very definitely, a lot of couples chose the date to tie the knot. When I was in Jinjang for my cousin's wedding, there were a few houses within the neighbourhood itself, that were having wedding banquets. On the road, I kept spotting wedding cars. The restaurant where my cousin's wedding was held, was hosting at least three wedding banquets. But the funniest would of course be the incident in the morning at the bride's house where we were waiting for the groom to arrive, when we mistaken another wedding car for my then cousin-in-law-to-be's; we panicked just to realized it was heading towards another house a street away. Epic.

My mom drinking from a bowl during the tea ceremony. The "mak andam" was so good everyone was talking about her and my mom even took her name card. Haha.

Anyway, it was a beautiful wedding but I am not going to speak much about it. I just want to say that it has been years since I last seen my cousins and I was definitely surprised to see the transformations over the years. Not that they have changed much physically, but they have cute new family members that I don't remember seeing before! One cousin's 3-year-old son looked exactly like the dad, my cousin. I told my mom that nephew was so adorable because it was like the mini version of the dad. Then another cousin's children were also very cute! I didn't take any photos of them though because they totally didn't know who I am and I am not a paparazzi =P But I do have two photos of two of my other nieces, whom I met for the first time too. They asked me to take photo of them. LOL.

She's one and a half years old and she adores pretty girls (big like me or small like her).

She's five-year-old and she's so smart and sociable! She approached me, made friends with me, and lead me around the whole night at the banquet! I'm excited to know what she'll grow up to be.

All in all, the trip to my cousin's wedding this time made me come back in awe. I didn't know I have such adorable nieces and nephews. And I didn't know kids today can be so smart! As compared to them, I was a very stupid kid. And it was a little funny seeing my cousins with their little families; they still looked so young to me but they already have mini versions of themselves. I think that's because I don't see them often and my memories of them are still stuck at four to five years ago =P That's how long I have not seen them.

I didn't bring my cameras so I don't have many photographs to share. I only took a few with my phone and that's why photos today are highly edited; my phone doesn't have the best camera you see. Hehe.

The 5-year-old niece volunteered to take this photo for me when I took out my phone in the washroom.

Sister's Graduation @ UTM, Johor 2011

2011-09-30T01:32:00.001+08:00

Early this week, my family and I (except my brother) travelled to Johor to attend my second sister's graduation ceremony at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). It was actually her second graduation with UTM; her first was when she completed her diploma in accountacy at UTM, KL. However, nobody accompanied her for the first one because it was a long journey (to convocation at UTM, Johor) and she felt that it was not necessary because it was a simple ceremony. But now that she was done with her degree in marketing, we made the trip far south.

We drove down to Johor on late Sunday morning and after a safe and sound (and long) trip, checked in at our hotel in Skudai, nearby the university. What a coincidence: my sisters booked Goodhope Hotel, the same chain as the one ST and I stayed in at Penang. Anyway, we only dropped by the hotel for a quick check-in and went straight out to a relative's house about an hour's drive from there to pick my grandmother (it could have taken so much shorter if not for traffic jam and my oh-so-"smart" GPS that brought us around a hill). We hanged out at the relative's house for a while and headed to AEON Tebrau City for a quick visit! The mall carried more major brands than the one in Bukit Tinggi and was quite huge (just not as spacious inside)!

Our day ended real early because we were tired to travel around. I, especially, was super exhausted from doing nothing much? Haha. I called it a day before 10pm - that's real early for my sleeping habit! And the next morning, I was the last to wake up... Haha. I just felt so lazy that morning and had to drag myself to get ready for the convocation - Monday blues perhaps.

It was a short drive to UTM and soon found ourselves rounding the university, looking for Pesta Konvo, where it was supposed to be happening. But, it was so far away from the convocation venue and it was depressingly empty; wondered if it was actually operational. Anyway, we got ourselves a satisfying bouquet of sunflowers and stuff bear before heading over to the convocation hall, to find tons of bouquets with great variations *sweat* Why did we trouble ourselves to locate that deserted "carnival"?

When my sister was done with her ceremony, it was the long awaited photo time - the main reason we were there! The area around the hall was really crowded with graduates and family and friends so after snapping our family photo, the rest found a shady spot to rest (or rather, wait) while I was ordered to tail my second sister to be her photographer. Tiring and sweaty! That's all I can say about that morning at the university!

With the bouquet we bought at the deserted "carnival"!

On the left: my favourite bouquet at the stalls at convocation venue! The bear's so cute =)

Some adorable fun choices of bouquet available at the stalls.

My eldest sister, KC, and a bunch of bouquets that she found interesting and liked.

My grandmother, waiting outside the convocation hall with the bouquet for my sister.

Family photo (without my lazy brother).

My sister's oversize graduation robe that was slipping down her shoulders =P

Posing with her First Class Honor medal.

Some jump shots with high school friends, LS and SH, who followed from Klang.

With her long awaited mortarboard! Her graduation for diploma didn't have mortarboard; that's why she found that ceremony insignificant and pursued degree for this square hat.

Good enough as a graduation portrait?

Her two big and heavy bouquets. One from high school friends and another from family.

Trivia: The two bouquets were bought independently but it was a coincidence that we both bought sunflowers and bear from the many more choices out there. Also, my eldest sister actually had her eyes on the same bouquet that the friends bought for my second sister when we surveyed the stalls. Meaning, my second sister could have ended up receiving two same bouquets if my family didn't buy ours at the carnival. That would be epic! On a side note, I called that big-bear bouquet "the censored one"! It's easy to figure why =P

My sister released me at half past noon when we were done with the photo moments. Leaving her behind, the family hopped into our car and left Johor. For that more than two hours we took to reach Malacca for late lunch at Nancy's Kitchen, I was snoozing off. And for another two hours we took to reach home after the delicious nyonya meal, I was also asleep. Haha. No wonder I couldn't sleep that night. LOL.

All in all, it was an exciting visit to the university for the significant ceremony of my second sister's because it made me think a lot about my graduation! I am aiming to graduate end of next year and that's just another year plus to go! I wish I can have my graduation photos at scenic outdoor of the university like my sister's but guess that's impossible unless I travel to my university in the US! And I want to receive an elegant bouquet as well, best if with Pete the Peacock stuff toy, my university mascot! LOL! I think I don't mind some peacock feathers too to embellish my bouquet! Hahaha. I am thinking too much - personalizing too much actually. But it'll be cool, real cool and special =) I don't think they have that personalized bouquet at UIU. At least I have never seen one.

20110924 - Beautymate & Haircut

2011-09-24T23:30:00.000+08:00

Blog has been quiet for two weeks because I have been enjoying some silence for two weeks. There were happenings that were worth mentioning but I chose to pass them, probably because I have been in and out of minor sickness for a while - cough, flu and sore throat.

So, just a short update for today: I went to AEON Bukit Tinggi to support a college friend, Ra, who was a finalist for Beautymate International Ambassador Search 2011 Final; followed my mom to an old neighbour's son's bachelor party; and met up with JH, Te and SY for some chatters before Te flies to Russia this coming Wednesday =)

With Ra and Le after Beautymate International Ambassador Search 2011.

Embedded below is a recording of my lovely and inspirational friend's captivating performance during the competition. She's an awesome singer! On top of that of course, she has been a friend that I feel blessed and honoured to have =)

And lastly, I rushed for a haircut today because it has been three months since I had my last one. And also because I am leaving to Johor tomorrow morning for my second sister's graduation at University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)! I will be back on Monday with photographs! I hope I am free to get them ready though because I have two upcoming quizzes to prepare for... Till then!

The latest me! Nothing fancy about the new hairstyle; just got a much needed trim =)

Mid-Autumn Festival 2011

2011-09-12T20:04:00.000+08:00

From left: SY, me, JH, MS, XY (MS's sister), CH and Te!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone! You know what, I actually lived my September thinking that the festival was yesterday on 9/11 and went around convincing my family and friends on that. LOL! I was only convinced it was not, two days back... =.="' And that was also the day I celebrated an advance Mid-Autumn Festival with high school friends at MS's house since she was flying (and now already flown) back to Japan yesterday!

MS, as the least "banana" of us all, taught us to drink tea with mooncake. Of course, she also prepared all the essentials of celebrating the significant festival! We had mooncakes, tea, candles, lanterns and friends; just short of a good weather to watch the moon! It was a windy (spells: cold) and rainy night so we could only laugh at our poor skills in playing lantern within the compound of her house, at the porch... That was a setback, but we still had a great time all the way till midnight!

We ate colourful jelly mooncake brought by CH =)

Here's our Chinese tea =)

And here's our mooncake by MS! She had some other snacks bought by her sister from China (?) that I just realized I don't have a photo of them.

Post-It for Mid-Autumn Festival? Haha...I smuggled those from work =P

That's MS on the phone with MY, who couldn't make it for the gathering.

Lighting up our lanterns!

Burning so, so, so many candles throughout the night!

That's MS sister's cute little rabbit lantern =)

Oh me and my red lantern! Wee~

Long-time-no-see Se, and CH and me in the background.

Yay candid photo time!

And that's our final toss for the night, wishing everyone a good year ahead =)

Thanks, MS for hosting us that night! It was a cool (pun intended) night hanging out! All the best in Japan and we shall meet again in 2 years' time! To all readers, hope you have a wonderful celebration tonight and hope that the weather is perfect for moon gazing! Haze, rain and cloud, go away!

Trip to Pedas Hot Spring 2011

2011-09-08T23:06:00.000+08:00

From left: SY, me, Te, JH and MS on our tube along the Lazy River of Pedas Hot Spring.

When MS was leaving for Japan to further her studies in March, we had a farewell trip to Malacca. Now that Te is leaving for Russia and MS is coincidentally back for semester break, we thought, "Hey! Let's go for another trip!" And this time, we had our eyes on Pedas Hot Spring; to be accurate, it was Wet World Resort Air Panas Pedas, Negeri Sembilan.

The entrance of the humble wet world.

We started the day with breakfast at KD, a mamak-style restaurant next to our high school that we were way too familiar with during our schooling days. From there, we hit the road around 10am and headed south to our much anticipated hot spring. Much to our surprise though, we were way ahead of schedule when we arrived at our destination. It was only 11.30am and we had 1.5 hour before opening hour. Oops. What to do then?

Posing with our steady driver, SY; and the trusty car that brought us around.

Thanks to the person who created GPS, we had a device that navigated us to a nearby ostrich farm in Seremban. When we arrived at our new destination though, we realized it was not just an ostrich farm. The farm was located within the vicinity of a government veterinary division or sort, so we had more than giant birds that were too heavy to fly. There were deer, monkeys, chickens, goats, flamingos, buffalos, etc.

A group photo (minus JH the photographer) at the veterinary division.

We had fun there. We snapped some photos. We frightened some monkeys. We chased some deer away. And an ostrich chased us away too. LOL. We were in our world of photography when an ostrich took a stroll around its territory and came right behind us before we noticed it. Thus, we freaked out and escaped in the most memorable way each of us can remember. That's a sneaky little ostrich!

These were the deer that we chased away! They were so close to the fence when we drove past but immediately gathered at the middle of the field (as if they were called for emergency meeting) the moment we stopped to watch =(

The photo before a photo that I wanted to snap...until the ostrich (can be spotted over Te's shoulder) came right next to the bars Te was leaning at, freaking all of us out.

The back view of that sneaky ostrich after our narrow escape.

After sweating so much under the sunny weather, we decided it was time to feel even hotter. We hopped back into the car and drove back to the hot spring! As expected, there was little crowd so there was zero queue, even in that mini wet world; there was only a spa pool (the hot spring), two slides, one lazy river, a playground pool, a shallow pool and a wave-less pool (it looked like wave pool in water parks, minus the waves). But with a great bunch of friends, you can only expect a fun-tastic day at the pools!

Our first stop: the spa pool drained with natural hot spring! JH screamed, "So hot!!~"

The icon of the wet world aiming its mouth at MS!!!

MS was so hungry she was not interested with anything other than the Twisties in her hand; our thoughtful organizer decided to scrap off lunch to have more play time.

Our mini hot spring wet world that contained our excitements. It seemed that the whole water park was filled with cooled spring water. Nice~

We were about to conquer the water park!

Standing under the "raining mushroom" just flashed back childhood memories at water parks.

MS and I were the transporters of bags with our fun tube.

Te and JH down the tube slide! Although it was much shorter than the ones in major water parks, I still found it exciting!

Wee~! Splash, water splash! MS and I couldn't get enough of the tube slide. MS went for 5 rounds and I went for 4!

This was the body slide next to the tube one and it was so slow SY could just sit at the end of it. LOL. And JH said she had to push herself through halfway. Haha.

More fun photos with friends in the pool.

And this, with me in the frame!

Oh that's me falling straight into the pool during my first attempt at the body slide =P

All in all, it was a great place to spend some time chilling with friends, especially on a queue-less weekday. The weather was actually pretty nice to hang out under the sun because after JH complained about the blazing sun, it rained for a good 10 minutes then the sky turned clear =)

As for the hot spring, our main attraction for this trip, it was pretty interesting. I didn't think 36-45 degree Celsius would be so hot it was painful when my skin came in touch with the water. It really took a lot of endurance and patience on my part to challenge myself to dip half of my body into the hot spring for even 10 minutes - including the time taken for gradual submergence. After that difficult 10 minutes, I felt giddy. I could feel my heart pounding fast and blood rushing to my head. My body felt relaxed but tired from the hot bath. I guess that's a normal after-effect right? We were feeling so weak we only wanted to hang out by the spa pool and filled our conversations with "I remember we used to..." =)

And that's us (minus myself) at the exit of the wet world!

With no doubt, our stomachs were hungry for good food after all those calorie-burning activities. We decided to head to Malacca for an awesome meal! We aimed for nyonya delicacies at first but it was not open at arrival so we went for satay celup and re-lived our memories of our visit there just a short six months back.

No photo of food because photographer was busy filling the stomach when food was in sight.

MS, who is going back to Japan this Sunday; and Te who is leaving in another two weeks, you know you will be missed. And you know we will always remember the epic ostrich that frightened us, the uncle who caught an eye on SY, the moment MS flipped SY over the tube into the water, and many more memories that a blog post alone cannot cover. If you ever forget any piece of the beautiful memories carved together, you know we are around to remind you. For the least, the photos and blog post can help with the memory retention =)

Oh I look so thin in this photo. Let's go for food marathon next before I turn into walking skeleton!

Another Day at Sunway Pyramid

2011-09-02T08:30:00.000+08:00

I always fancy Vincci accessories and here's a ladybug bangle watch that I got today!

As mentioned in my blog post yesterday, I was going to Sunway Pyramid for the sixth time in a month today. And I went. Together with JH, Te and MS, I roamed the mall for about five hours or so, looking for apparels for Te. Actually, only JH was helping Te with the shopping for Te's studies in Russia very soon; MS and I were more interested with feminine stuffs - sarcasm intended.

Basically, it was a pretty simple shopping trip. Te had a list of things to buy, JH was there to help, MS was there to join the crowd (and buy random stuffs herself) and I was there to mess around (sort of). Hee. It was a fruitful day for Te and it was fun for the rest of us. I definitely had fun teasing how JH was basically making a duplicate of herself (in terms of fashion) onto Te. So Russia, be ready to see a JH-lookalike. LOL. I'm mean and this meanness is specially for JH! *peace*

p/s I love my ladybug bangle watch but MS hates it because I was supposed to share the promotion deal (2 for RM50) with her on a matching sporty watch. Hehe.

20110901 - Drama, Slideshow & Movie

2011-09-01T23:33:00.002+08:00

It has been more than a week since I last posted a blog post; I only have been updating a little bit on my supposedly-daily update "一步一步 Every Step." And today actually, I do not have a particular topic that I would like to talk about - just want to ramble on what I am up to these days.

First of all, I completed a Korean drama series "King of Baking, Kim Tak Goo"! I have to say that this drama is very captivating. I first saw the second episode of it on 8TV and it immediately caught my interest. It is really incredible how the few seconds I glimpsed through managed to convince me to sit down and finish the episode and later crave for more. And the drama didn't just catch my attention - everyone in the family liked it very much too. It's a great feeling watching and finishing the drama!

King of Baking, Kim Tak Goo (re-titled as Bread, Love and Dreams)

Next, in the midst of my drama marathon, I was also helping my aunt with the editing of a wedding slideshow. For your information, that aunt of mine is a photographer. She specializes in kids portrait photography. However, because there's a wedding in the family and she was requested to do the pre-wedding photo shoot, I am helping her to produce the slideshow for wedding reception. It has been a little exploration making the simple slideshow. I wish to share but I don't think it's appropriate to have it online without the couple's or the photographers' permission. But let's just say that the slideshow provided me with a chance to learn the capabilities and limitations of what I have now.

On a random note, I watched "The Rise of the Planet of the Apes" earlier this week and I want to say that it's awesome! It's marvelous. It's amusing. It's magnificent. I didn't read any synopsis of the movie. Neither did I watch the full trailer of it. I only heard great comments about it and from the title of the movie, I figured it's probably about apes taking over the world. Spoiler coming: I was wrong. The cool part is that the suspense is kept all the way until the movie is almost ending. Even cooler, the main message of the movie is revealed and delivered in one phrase: Caesar is home. Thus, the coolest part would of course be this brilliant concept used to deliver an environmental message. It was awakening. It was just plain good.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Alright, with that, I end this post by saying that I will be going to Sunway Pyramid for at least the sixth time in a month tomorrow!!! It's crazy I know. It's not like Sunway Pyramid is next to my house. Till then!

Eighth Semester Results

2011-08-23T18:13:00.001+08:00

I found out on Thursday that results for Summer semester would be released on Friday. My heart pounded furiously for a moment but calmed down after figuring out that I would only be taking it on Tuesday since I wouldn't be in college. And even after delaying it for a couple of days, I was still dreading about it this morning; I was telling a friend, "I don't want to face the reality," and that I would collect it after class so that I wouldn't be affected by the results during lesson.

But anyway, I took it after class and it was really quick since there was zero queue. During the tens of seconds a lecturer took to look up for my result slip, my eyes and mind were wandering. I was expecting 2B's and 1A and was telling myself that that would be the worst result that I could accept; if the results turn out worse than that, my hope for college would just varnish right at that moment.

And after that painstaking tens of seconds, my eyes brightened when I saw my result slip in the hand of the lecturer. I saw 2A's and 1B. I didn't care which subject I got a miracle A for but I was super delighted. When I took the slip and checked that I got a miracle A for Human Resource Management, I was happy - happy that all the time and effort paying close attention in class paid off, although all the time I was thinking that I wouldn't get an A since the lecturer didn't even know my name.

Frankly speaking, the only reason I was filled with uncertainties and was lacking confidence during the whole semester last year was because I was told the two lecturers for Human Resource Management and Economics of International Business rarely or don't give A's. I know this may sound ridiculous to some, especially those in the public universities where quota system is applied, my Human Resource Management lecturer only gives A to either one student or no one at all. And the one student that he gives an A to has always been rather random and unexpected. It seems that he was very loose in giving A's some time back but recently, he has been stingy with A's. Does this have to do with him receiving a warning letter from the college for giving a student an A? Only he can answer.

As for my Economics of International Business, the lecturer told a friend of mine, "If I give A means there is no room for improvement," when the friend asked if he would ever give anyone an A. WHAT?! That's ridiculous! Then nobody will ever get an A, including himself if he were to grade himself because no one will reach a stage where there is no room for improvement!

Now the two paragraphs above explained why I was feeling hopeless and anxious the last semester. I am not saying that the lecturers were not qualified to teach or that they are not good but maybe a little inconsiderate - maybe the grading system is to be blamed at times. However, it has to be understood that although to some, grades are just alphabets on papers, to others, it may mean graduating with a huge debt on the shoulder or graduating debt-free. To me, if I am able to graduate in First Honor, I would be exempted from repaying my RM50k loan. But looks like I wouldn't have the privilege because I am already at the brink of falling into Second Honor. Now, I am just trying to keep myself optimistic about graduating in Second Honor at least and pray hard my appeal to be exempted would be approved!

Anyway, anyhow, I am thankful and glad that I mantained my CPGA of 3.68 with GPA 3.67. And hope and believe that this semester can and would be better as long as I give my best effort, time and concentration =)

p/s Heard from a friend that quite a few students got A for Human Resource Management. That's good =) Wondered if anything influenced the lecturer last semester, or maybe the previous semesters.

p/p/s Another shocking news to learn about! I shockingly found out that at least 3 students got an A for International Business! It's good for them of course but it's sad for me before one of my group members got it and the rest of us didn't... Anyway, was he hammered by the management or something??? It's really surprising; it's good though.

Year 3 Sem 3 Week 1

2011-08-19T18:58:00.002+08:00

Time flies! I'm already in my final semester of Year 3 now. For most degree students, Year 3 would be the final year but because I am taking American Degree Program that exempted me from any pre-university course, Year 3 is my Junior Year. This means that I am just another semester away from entering my Senior Year and hopefully, will graduate by the end of next year!

Like usual, I would write about my first week of every semester. However, this semester's first week was not complete because Wednesday was a state holiday and I had two classes on that day. Thus, I only attended two out of four classes that I had to attend. Actually, I registered for five subjects this semester but another subject, Special Project, does not have any class to attend; it's just a photojournalism project that I still have almost zero clue on. Anyway, following is my timetable!

Tuesday

9am-12pm: Contemporary Topics in Marketing

Wednesday

12pm-3pm: Management Information System (MIS)

3.30pm-6.30pm: Advertising & Integrated Marketing Communication (Advertising)

Thursday

3.30pm-6.30pm: Corporate Financial Management (CFM)

Before the semester started, I didn't give much thought about the workload of the semester because balancing workload through careful subject selection is no longer a luxury to me. For an eager-to-graduate student like me, I have to just do subjects that I must take to half-guarantee my graduation. LOL. It's a little complicated here in my course because flexible timetable was a privilege at the beginning of the course.

Anyway, after attending the two classes this week, I forecast that my semester will be full of assignments because exams seem to get minimal in the upper level papers; Contemporary Topics in Marketing is 100% assignment-based. Also, the course is getting more pressurizing because everything subject that I am taking now will affect my graduation CGPA; and this is important because it will determine if I graduate with a RM50k debt or debt-free.

On a final note, although I knew that my academic performance is very crucial now, I agreed to help out for the upcoming prom organized by Fayette House and a few other clubs in college. I agreed without even knowing what's coming but anyway, I guess that's what I call the obligation of an ex-president. Wish me luck!

p/s Results for the last semester is out today but since I do not have class until Tuesday, I am still clueless about my results!

Two Reunions In A Day

2011-08-17T23:59:00.003+08:00

Two events took place today. First of all, I met up with MS, who just flew back from Japan for semester break, today! Actually I didn't expect to see her today because I was notified of the meet-up at the eleventh hour. And even after the last minute notification by Te, I wasn't told that the purpose of the meet-up was for MS' return =)

I love the souvenir from Japan! Thanks MS!

It was nice to see her back again but I couldn't spend long with MS and the rest who turned up (Te, MY and Th) because of the next event I am going to talk about.

Crab for dinner at Kuala Selangor but I didn't eat it because it was spicy =(

My maternal uncle, who is living in Singapore, came to Klang with my aunt and cousin for visiting while holidaying with the cousin, who is back from Switzerland for semester break. They are only staying over for a night before proceeding to their next destination. Since it has been quite a while since the last maternal family reunion, we went to Kuala Selangor to for dinner double mini reunion.

Of brother and mom.

Of sisters.

Of the Leow siblings and family.

Lunch at T-Bowl Cafe 2011

2011-08-16T23:53:00.001+08:00

Me drinking milk tea a.k.a. the "urine" at T-Bowl, Sunway Pyramid, with three "shits" over my head.

Yesterday, WN, JN and I went for another shopping spree at Sunway Pyramid. WN and I were there about two weeks ago actually but WN wanted to get more stuffs and liked it there so JN and I were commissioned to accompany her; we bought more than her in the end... Girls...

Anyway, WN and I talked about going for lunch at T-Bowl in our next trip there so we went yesterday! It was a late lunch since we had a late breakfast but it was fun eating there, especially when you have a great company and a camera in hand!

I don't know what we were doing but I liked the sneakiness in this photo.

We were doing a odor test on the drink to check if it was safe. Kidding.

As said, with the camera in hand, we just loved to pull out some faces and make fun of the food.

We loved this desert! We figured it was blended chocolate ice cream and as disgusting as it may sound, this piece of "shit" was the best tasting among all the food we ordered.

WN didn't like pulling disgusted faces. She loved to be happy! And indeed she was the most receptive of the toilet concept restaurant among us three.

JN and I on our toilet bowls!

The one and only group photo taken outside the restaurant with the help of a staff.

All in all, it was a fun outing. All three of us did harvest some purchases that we really liked. But JN and I were restricted by budget though since we didn't plan to shop. We came with the mindset that we would accompany WN to splurge for her stuffs but looks like the outcome turned out different!

[Photo credit to WN]

A Well-Spent Summer Break 2011

2011-08-15T23:08:00.002+08:00

Today marks the end of my Summer semester break for this year. After my final exam at the end of July, I was on semester break for two weeks. And although I was supposed to be free to attend to my blog during the fortnight, I wasn't because my two-week holiday was pretty packed with all things pretty =)

During the last fourteen days or so, I...

went for my first DSLR photography trip to Fraser's Hill,
went for an awesome shopping spree with WN at Sunway Pyramid (updated here),
attended a college friend Fa's 21st birthday celebration,
completed an outdated but great Taiwanese drama Autumn's Concerto,
relived my love for Tension,
bought preloved clothes from WN at a huge bargain,
went for my second DSLR photograph trip a.k.a. food trip to Ipoh,
toured a college friend Ra around Klang,
celebrated another college friend Vi's 21st birthday celebration,
was offered a job within half an hour upon application (and attended a job training the following morning),
replaced a friend Ni to sell Blincon colour contact lenses (which I had almost no knowledge on but was glad that I did close a few sales),
sold Ribena at a pretty quiet Giant outlet at I-City Shah Alam, and
went for another shopping spree with WN and JN at Sunway Pyramid (again) (updated here).

Hm... Undoubtedly, it was a well-spent (both in terms of time and money) holiday! Now you know why I was missing in action on my blog. I really thought that I could use the now-gone holiday to catch up on my blog. Looks like I have to consider writing in reverse chronology about the good times I had during my semester break because I really want to have the beautiful memories penned down on my blog.

But for now, it's time to get back to reality and face college tomorrow!

A Day Shopping at Sunway Pyramid

2011-08-05T23:08:00.003+08:00

Yo! First post in August! I actually have another event that I could blog about, which was my photography trip to Fraser's Hill on Wednesday a.k.a. my first photography trip with my DSLR! But I am too afraid to let my amateur eyes touch the photographs so they are still abandoned in a folder.

Anyway, I went for a shopping outing with WN to Sunway Pyramid today! Our day didn't start that well when we took one and a half hour to reach Sunway Pyramid. We actually went to USJ 9, wanting to have lunch there but it was not our luck in getting any legal parking so we gave up and went to Sunway instead. However, the chicken rice that we wanted to eat was sold out when we arrived so we went to Sunway Pyramid...

After witnessing so many cars getting parking right in front of our eyes - yeah our luck was pretty bad today - we finally got into Sunway Pyramid slightly before 2pm. Before we could even recall what's there to eat in Sunway Pyramid, someone passed us a leaflet of value lunch promotion from Ninja Joe and off we went right into Ninja Joe for our first pork burger!

We ordered two sets of Big Boss Meal because from my understanding of Ninja Joes from friends, their burgers are pretty small.

That's WN and our two sets of value lunch!

And that's me! Wahaha! (I don't know what's the laugh for)

This is my burger. My comment: It's very filling! Maybe I should have just ordered the normal portion =( But anyway, good try!

After our much-delayed lunch, we began our shopping spree~ And wow...we were walking for hours without realizing the passing time. When we finally came to our senses that we were pretty broke and needed to take dinner - although I was still feeling filled from the oink oink lunch - we went to Ichiban Ramen for a light dinner and later Chatime for our final agenda of the fruitful and satisfying shopping trip =)

The almost finished pearl milk tea that I described as: has sweetness of milk, aroma of tea and very soft pearls.

p/s Photos were taken with my phone so please pardon me for the poor quality.

Outing with Dinosaur Family 2011

2011-07-30T21:16:00.004+08:00

From left: me, JN, WN and Te after lunch at Decanter, SS17.

Right after I finished my final examination for Summer 2011, I went out with Dinosaur Family (a group of friends from high school)! Among those present in order of seniority were JN The Ah Ma Dinosaur, ST The Papa Dinosaur, me The Mama Dinosaur, WN The Baby Dinosaur and Te The Family Cat. Actually we still have Ah Kong Dinosaur, Da Jie Dinosaur, Er Jie Dinosaur, Aunt Dinosaur and Dinosaur Nanny/Best Friend/Cat's Keeper. LOL... High school craziness. It's ridiculous, I know, but we were one happy extinct family!

With ST as our driver who started picking everyone up at 1pm, we headed to Encanter at SS17 for a really nice lunch, thanks to WN's recommendation. The place was cozy, the food was good and the price was reasonable too! We then headed to Sunway Pyramid for an awkwardly disgusting movie: Hangover 2, before we shopped for stuffs, including a hamster for JN! We randomly picked to have dinner at Yip's Kitchen and it was another recommendable place for good food!

ST The Papa Dinosaur and his Grilled Chicken =)

Mama Dinosaur and her Cheese Chicken Chop! Yummy~

JN The Ah Ma Dinosaur with her Cheese Chicken Chop also. ~~Copycat.~~

WN The Baby Dinosaur and her Fish & Chips. I like the sauce!

Te The Family Cat and her Hainanese Chicken Rice. Meow!!!!

Cute hamsters!!!

It was definitely a great time to hang out during this transition period before ST and JN go back to college - while I enjoy my two-week break! And to the other Dinosaurs who were not able to join us, we missed you!!!

[Photo credit to WN!]

Family Photoshoot 2011

2011-07-26T23:43:00.000+08:00

From left: eldest sister KC, second sister KW, mom, brother KA and me!

The last family photograph taken was for my eldest sister's graduation in 2008; my second sister is done with her studies in Johor; I bought a DSLR camera; ST is back from Australia for semester break. For the aforementioned reasons, my mom decided that we should have a casual outdoor family photoshoot. Thus on the previous Sunday, we went to Botanic Garden at Bukit Tinggi. Though it was a short photoshoot (because it rained!), we got some memorable shots.

Test shot with Mr. Cameraman!

Test shot with mom while waiting for my other siblings to arrive (we came in two cars).

Random seating on the beautiful bridge!

Scattered positions at the playground.

Couple photoshoot with ST!

For more photographs taken from the outing, visit my Facebook album: Family Photoshoot 2011!

There was a super playful stray dog following us throughout the photoshoot! It scared me because it was so active and aggressive!

US Independence Day Party 2011

2011-07-17T23:57:00.003+08:00

Me, Sh and Ra posing with my 'hacked' phone during US Independence Day Party.

For the forth consecutive year now, Fayette House celebrated US Independence Day with a BBQ night last Friday. Along with a bunch of ex-Fayette House officers and friends, we spent the night playing games and doing crazy stuffs with other attendees, mostly Freshmen of Summer 2011. A lot of people may question the significance and purpose of celebrating US Independence Day in Malaysia and I am here to say that we were not really celebrating the US holiday but the ADP culture on campus =)

Jelly-eating competition.

Charade.

Impromptu comedy duet by Sh the joker and Ra the singer.

Pepsi-cola?

BBQ!

YK, Je, Yi and Ra during the party!

Hot mama-lecturer Ms. Sh with her lovely daughter.

Cool program coordinator Sh and lecturer Ms. Um.

More friends: Ch, Je, YK, Jo, Vi, Ra, Sh and Ni.

Posing session: pose #10.

More posing session: nerds.

It was a fun, crazy and memorable night, filled with joy and laughter. It was great meeting up with friends, especially when everyone came with carefree aura, despite final examination coming in two week's time. Looking forward to more events from Fayette House (since I am no longer responsible to organize them)!

For more photos of the event, visit my Facebook album: US Independence Day Party 2011. Warning: half of the album is filled with photographs of posers in action =)

Birthday Gathering June 2011

2011-06-26T23:57:00.002+08:00

Group photo at Gardens, Sunway Pyramid!

Which is the case: more people are born in June or I happen to make friends with more June babies? Whichever the case is, it gave my bunch of high school friends and me an opportunity to renew our friendships over dinner at Gardens, Sunway Pyramid! There were nine of us in total and we celebrated two persons' belated birthdays after dinner at Cupcake Chic; Vh's and Te's. Even though the gathering only lasted for a few hours, it was fun-filled and memorable, especially when I was geared with my new DSLR that I finally got the chance to explore and play around with!

Attendees:

Ar, who was sweet enough to spend her tiring after-work hours with us =)

JH, who didn't want us to celebrate her birthday and chose to become the mastermind of the gathering instead.

Te, who broke the news about her furthering her studies in Russia in September this year =(

SD, who helped us decide on the lovely venue =)

JJ, who guided me with my DSLR! =D

SY, who was very quiet and shy, and needed two persons to persuade her to eat.

Vh, who just refused to have her candid moments taken during dinner.

And Bi, who thought I wouldn't take her photograph because she was sitting beside me!

So what did we do during dinner?

We chatted over dinner =)

I took photograph of almost anything within reach, including this cute little pot of (plastic) flowers.

Camwhore.

Have our photographs taken =)

Celebrated Te's and Vh's belated birthdays at Cupcake Chic.

Passed Bi her super-duper belated birthday present that was sitting in Ar's room for ages =P

That's all! Let's end this photo-filled post with another photo!

JH and I at the end of the night =)

Digital Scrapbook: Birthday of Twos

2011-06-18T23:54:00.004+08:00

A scrapbook for my 20th birthday celebrations.

I completed a scrapbook today! I was very surprised myself because it has been a while since I completed any scrapbook on events and happenings! I am also especially excited because friends loved it and I received an unexpected heartwarming welcome when I sneaked back into Digital Scrapbook Place (DSP)!

Want more scrapbooks? Take more photos with me or of me and keep me inspired!

Seventh Semester Results

2011-06-13T23:38:00.002+08:00

I was so happy after class today and was all excited to blog about my Spring 2011 results! I actually got the results last Tuesday but have not mentioned a thing about it till now because I prayed, hoped and believed that there was a mistake with my results. From my excitement, I guess it was pretty clear that the mistake was kind of, if not, corrected today!

I did not score straight A's this time - not that I have since my Freshman year. However, I am really glad and satisfied with my results because they were better than expected and I improved my grades! I expected 4 A's and 1 C (for Business Law II) but my law lecturer was generous enough to give me a B - so yay!

3 A's, 1 B and 1 C? NO! It's actually 4 A's and 1 B! Yippie!

The C that appeared, and still is, on my results slip was actually a management error. How could they make such mistake, right? I might just die of heart attack seeing a C when I expected an A, or I might just fall into depression and kill myself. But who cares now after finding out that I didn't get a C for Effective Listening. Anyhow, I am just plain grateful that my lecturer was kind enough to help me with this matter, instead of asking me to pay about RM150 to appeal for remark when I was not at fault at all.

So what's my academic standing now? On the uncorrected results slip, my GPA for the last semester was 3.40 and CGPA was 3.61. In my corrected results slip, which I hope to get in two weeks' time, my GPA should be 3.80 with CGPA at 3.71 =) I am happy for now. Of course I wish to further increase it but it seems that the two out of the three subjects that I am taking now have not seen anyone acing any A yet =/

My 20th Birthday Celebrations 2011

2011-06-08T23:56:00.003+08:00

8th June 2011; it's actually my sister's birthday today but I just came back from my belated birthday celebration with my college friends - it's ironic, I know. Anyway, a few of my college friends have been looking for opportunity to celebrate my birthday but due to certain circumstances, it has been cancelled or delayed. Today, though some cannot make it, we finally gathered for a simple but meaningful celebration dinner at Bar-BQ Plaza, Sunway Pyramid for Ma, whose birthday was on 22nd May, and me. Thank you Bo, Ni, Ra, Vi, JJ, Yi, Sh and Ma!

The birthday cake with 41 candles for Ma's 21st and my 20th birthday.

Ma and I cutting our belated birthday cake.

This was how we ate the cake: using chopsticks, just for fun.

Besides this celebration with college friends, there was actually another celebration with high school friends, which I haven't update on. And that celebration was partly scheduled, partly surprise. The scheduled part was dinner with JH. And the surprise part was everything else actually; dual celebration with MY and presence of a bunch of other high school buddies at TGI Friday, Subang Parade. Although MY and I have been in the same school for eleven years, we never celebrated our birthdays together so it was our first dual celebration! Thanks JH, Te, Vh, Bi and SY!

MY and I dedicating birthday song to each other.

MY and I on the bench with our chili sauces aka microphones after our special birthday "treat."

Us with our super filling cake!

The high school gang before departing =)

Photo credits to JJ and JH.

Year 3 Sem 2 Week 1

2011-06-02T23:59:00.004+08:00

It's an irony how I update my blog less frequent during the past holiday and breaking the hiatus with an update regarding my first week of the semester. It was not that nothing interesting a.k.a. worth blogging happened; me getting a new DSLR, me upgrading my probationary driving license to a competent one, and my birthday celebration, just to name a few potential posts. However, I didn't have any update probably because I was always exhausted by the weekend promoting jobs that I took up for the past consecutive five weekends; going to be six including this upcoming weekend.

Moving on to the topic of the day, I have officially completed the first week of my Year 3 Sem 2. So the update today will be on how I dread about being just another semester away from being labelled a Final Year student and how the upper division subjects are going to kill me before I even get close to graduating from the course. Kidding. This is just another routine update that I do every first week of my semester on my outlook of the semester and my timetable.

Let's take a look at my time-table. Find out when I am free and call me out to lepak! Not kidding. By the way, this is a short semester so there are two classes for each subject every week. I am taking only three subjects; not six.

Monday
12pm-3pm: Principles of Interviewing
4pm-7pm: Human Resource Management
Tuesday
8.45am-11.45am: Economics of International Business
4pm-7pm: Principles of Interviewing
Wednesday
4pm-7pm: Human Resource Management
Thursday
8.45am-11.45am: Economics of International Business

Time-table-wise, I am quite happy with it. Happy because I am glad that I still have enough subjects offered this semester that I can take and just quite happy because when I don't have class, most my friends have class and vice versa. Thus, I guess this semester will be a little dull, especially on Tuesday afternoon. I have to think how to kill my time during that 4-hour break without friends. Boo~

Anyway, academic-wise, I guess there's nothing much to talk about. I no longer have the freedom to choose and balance my academic burdens as I used to; I have to be grateful to even have enough subjects to maximize the quota of subjects permissible every semester. On a random note, I find my part-time lecturers rather comical! Haha. Hope that their sense of humour can help me get through the semester easier!

Me as a Freelance Promoter

2011-05-16T23:43:00.001+08:00

Yippie! Today was considered my first day of semester break because right after all the exhausting assignment dues and final exams, I was occupied with work and finally enjoyed a care-free day today! I slept till noon and just lazed on my bed the whole day. It felt so nice to finally rest my tired legs!

So, for those who haven't already know, I started working part time as freelance promoter. I wanted to start working right after ST departed to Australia, to kill my free time since I no longer have Fayette House to help me do the task. However, because I didn't have any experience, nobody accepted my application - I applied online. And my friends couldn't stop dampening my hope by saying that I would't be considered if I attached decent-looking photographs.

After all those disappointments and discouragements, I finally got an offer through a friend's recommendation! So on April's Fool Day, I began my expedition on the journey of a freelance promoter. The first experience was really tiring but it was a good one and so I was really glad and satisfied with it. I didn't accept any offer until mid-May and offers started to come in without me applying after that. Yay!

People probably wonder why freelance promoter out of so many part time job opportunities out there. Flexibility would probably comes first; I am free to accept weekend projects as I wish and a lot of these projects are short-term - 3-day, one weekend, etc. Moreover, the pay is considered rather high when calculated by hour; on average about RM10 per hour.

But the main reasons would be to have an insight of event management and marketing, besides harvesting work experiences and improving human skills. So far, I am pretty glad with what I learned. Just by working with three companies for four projects, I realized that it's really easy to differentiate between a good and a bad activation company. Also, how proper planning and execution of marketing and management plans can really ease sales. Considering the experiences I gained thus far, I think this is a suitable channel to pursuit the objectives I listed above! It's like an extension of my course in communication and marketing.

Project #2: C. Michael at Wellness AEON BT for 2 weekends.

Project #3: Rexona Men Adventure at Wellness AEON BT for 3 days (as replacement).

Project #4: CLEAR at Wellness AEON BT for a weekend (as replacement).

YC's Birthday Celebration 2011

2011-05-05T13:56:00.005+08:00

YC and me during National Day celebration in school, after band performance in 2008.

It's YC's, my high school band friend's, birthday today. Together with a few other friends, we celebrated her birthday at Green Box yesterday from 6pm onwards. Three out of the eight of us were in the midst of final examination but most of us stayed till 1am for the birthday girl! It was a very pleasant gathering and all of us had fun either singing, taking pictures or playing the guitar. I said either because that was really the case. AL and I were releasing our exam stress with some lovesick songs, and YC and YS occasionally had some shouting and screaming songs with YS rapping for almost all raps, while the rest alternated between all activities.

The karaoke session yesterday was considered my first official karaoke beyond home-based karaoke because I never participated in the singing during all my past visits to the karaoke. And I am glad to say that it was fun! Actually I think celebrating birthday with friends, like this, is more enjoyable than receiving presents. The value of presents really doesn't matter; you can buy the most expensive thing in the world but if I don't enjoy or appreciate it, it's not meaningful. On the other hand, time spent together celebrating friendship is very much more satisfying. But of course, time is a commodity that is not always available especially when it has to be adjusted to fit everyone's schedule so blessings and thoughtfulness are equivalent considerations. *hint hint*

The then-graduating band friends (from left): AL, YC, SM, YS, BT and me. SM and BT, we missed you two yesterday!!!

p/s I don't have any photos of yesterday's event but you can anticipate a few on Facebook in near future. All photos are with YS. Hunt for her!

pp/s Hint time! For those racking their heads for my birthday presents, here are my top favorites presents received in no particular order: blessings i.e. handmade/handwritten cards from JH, Bi, MS, etc.; time i.e. surprise birthday celebration in 2009 (Btw, it doesn't need to be a surprise. Anticipation for an informed celebration is as good as a surprised one, minus the major anxieties); thoughtfulness i.e. birthday song recital from ST and merchandises of things I adore (For the record, I am picky with replicas of my favorite things); and practicality i.e. bracelets, clothes, etc. from everywhere.

Easter 2011

2011-04-23T23:53:00.004+08:00

My four Easter eggs for 2011!

ST's uncle is leaving for Abu Dhabi for job posting soon so there was a farewell gathering among the paternal family members. Although ST was not in Malaysia, I still joined the gathering with the rest of his family members. Since it's Easter tomorrow, the uncle bought some Cadbury Easter eggs and distributed them to the kids. As a grown-up kid, I grabbed only one... However, ST's mom gave me another so that I could "share" them with ST over the webcam and ST's uncle later gave me another two, just to clear his basket. With that, I ended up with four Easter eggs!

p/s I kind of cracked my first egg while I was "juggling" it with another egg. Then I realized the heat from my hand was melting the chocolate eggs so for the two eggs that I received towards the end of the gathering, I made sure I kept them safe on the table, away from my heaty - and itchy - hands.

From front: red, yellow, green and another red!

Back to the 80s

2011-04-17T23:38:00.001+08:00

Out of nowhere, my mom took out two old belongings of my dad. They were never mentioned, never known to exist until today when I saw it on the table. I didn't know what triggered my mom to bring them out suddenly but - hey! - I learned new stuffs about my dad today! And they brought back fond memories to my mom =)

Certificate of appreciation for participation in the 27th National Day Parade in 1984.

For all my life, I knew both my eldest sisters took part in the National Day parade before but never knew that my dad was once involved in one too! Because there's live coverage on the TV for national level parade, I remember waking up early and staying in front of the TV on National Day to catch a glimpse of my sisters on the TV. It was just so fun and thrilling! So when I saw the certificate above, I just thought that it's so interesting to know that my dad also appeared on the TV before for the same reason.

My dad's old handphone that cost more than RM4000 during his time.

My mom mentioned about this phone before in the past but never said that the phone still exists. I mean she didn't tell that she still keeps the phone till today! When she took it out just now, I was definitely surprised. My brother looked at it and wondered why this piece of heavy plastic actually cost RM4000 last time. Minus the bulkiness and the weight, I thought it looked like a remote control in the picture above.

Go M.A.D. With Kids 2011

2011-04-16T23:27:00.001+08:00

Is this the first college event that I attended this year? Oh gosh... I think it is. And that just proved how much difference Fayette House is capable of bringing to my college life. Last year by this time of the year, I would have easily organized - and attended - a handful of college events but looks like things have changed this year.

The organizing committee from The Communication Club.

The Communication Club of SEGi College Subang Jaya has once again collaborated with the Intercultural Communication class of American Degree Program of the same college to organize a cultural event. This time, however, it was not just another cultural event; it was a cultural charity event. Held at the concourse area of Summit USJ, the event was a tool to raise fund for three kids with special needs who are struggling to keep up with life.

Although I am no longer a part of any clubs or societies in college, I still made it a point to support this event organized by a club my past student body have network with. Moreover, the event was organized by a team of people I know. So although it was a cozy rainy Saturday morning, I forced myself to wake up and drive myself to Subang. Boo!

Where there is balloon, there is kid. This little boy was so cute! He was running around on stage with his upside-down sunglasses and backpack, chasing balloons!

The event was fine. Since it was held at a shopping mall, getting crowd was not an issue - unlike when it is done in college. It was actually a cultural event cum charity concert so there were a lot of performances on stage and they were good! I guess the only reason I feel a little disheartened about the event is the fact that the students didn't need to perform on stage! When I took it over a year back, I had to wear grass skirt and shake my hips on the stage, besides managing an informative and interactive booth from early morning till late evening! I'm jealous.

Anyway, when I was at the event, one of my friends suggested that I should find friends because I seemed so lonely at the event. I was actually since I came alone and people that I know who were at the event were all busy with their own businesses; but I wouldn't have actually realized the loneliness if that friend didn't mention. Nevertheless, the friend's remark rang a bell: I have this habit of going solo in everything that I do because I was so used to running "errands" in high school alone - I was so crazy with extracurricular activities and didn't expect anybody to share the same craziness so I always went solo. Very definitely, this preference has turned into a habit and a level of moderation needs to be achieved. Now that's one top priority habit to kill.

Towards the end of the event, finally there were a few unoccupied friends and Vi was one of them.

[Photo credit to IK]

MS' Departure to Japan 2011

2011-04-08T23:59:00.006+08:00

From left: me. MS, MY, CH, JH and Te at KLIA.

It was slightly past 6 in the evening when I was at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) with JH, Te, CH and MY. An area near a few check-in counters was especially crowded. Here and there, we could see hopeful and excited-looking youngsters in identical formal attires. And among these youngsters was our high school friend, MS, who was about to fly to Japan to pursue her degree under the sponsorship of the Public Service Department (JPA).

She was supposed to depart for Japan at the end of March until the devastating tsunami postponed her flight to an unannounced date. As she was, according to her, "rotting at home," people from the government called her two days back to inform her about the flight today! We immediately organized a farewell gathering last night and today, a few of us went to KLIA to send her off. It was a little rushing and surprising but we were all glad that we made it.

Yesterday's farewell gathering with more high school friends at McDonald's.

At the airport just now, we were fooling around among ourselves and taking photos for memories. Other than feeling a little less-intelligent and unfortunate looking at 130 smartly dressed Japanese-speaking scholars, emotions were rather stable...until JH made MS cry! Then one by one, we turned teary =( But everything was fine. We were still composed and we returned home, with an urge to shine like these scholars, or to just fly somewhere - just to have some adrenaline rush.

All the best, MS! Take care of yourself and make sure you don't miss home too much! When you return, we'll make sure we have another short trip to somewhere, anywhere kay! Make us proud in Japan!

Group hug with MS's little sister minutes before departure.

p/s Everywhere we went, there were many scholars conversing in Japanese with their much appreciated Japanese lecturers. JH felt that we didn't look dumb enough for not understanding almost anything they were saying so she suggested us to just reply "sushi, sushi" if anyone were to speak to us in Japanese. It's pretty obvious she's the "smartest" among us all =P

[Photo credit to MS]

20110327 - Cheng Beng, Photos and Music Video

2011-03-27T23:21:00.000+08:00

Today was more eventful than usual but not eventful enough to be labelled as such. But I am still blogging about the day because there were things that occurred, which I would like to randomly share for this final post of the month.

It's the time of the year to visit the graves of my grandpa and dad again. This year, my second sister came back from Johor for the weekend just to join the visit; she said it has been some time since she came along for Cheng Beng/Qing Ming because she was busy with studies in KL or Johor in the recent years. There was nothing too special about the visit this year; just that preparation for my grandpa was disorganized (everyone brought so many things individually, causing us to have so many things for prayers this year). And it's just a relief to only experience a minor jam in the morning because the crowd was quite big today.

Photos of my mom's muffin-lookalike steamed cake for prayers, taken and edited with my new phone!

When I returned home, I collapsed on the sofa at the living room itself because I couldn't sleep the night before; mosquitoes were feasting on me. Then after a satisfying sleep and meal, I started working on my favourite favor: passport photo editing for my ex-high school teacher! I loved helping him with this because I get easy commission! I get to do some simple editing at the comfort of my room with no tight deadline pressure. Too bad he only needs me once a year.

Lastly, I am just re-sharing something I posted on Facebook: My Chinese has never been good although it's my mother tongue. So when I started listening to music in Chinese, I couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the lyrics, especially when Tension (my first exposure to Chinese music) didn't even know Chinese when they started releasing albums in Chinese (yeah...). So it has become a habit of mine to ignore lyrics in songs. But today, when I was editing photos, Too Close by Blue rolled on my music player and I somehow realized something is "wrong" with the lyrics when I listened to it half attentively. I checked out the lyrics and found out it was not really suitable for their teen die-hard fans.

p/s I finally surrendered to the new Blogger editor. Any noticeable changes?

Trip to Malacca 2011

2011-03-20T23:57:00.012+08:00

Sometimes things like this just happen right: you don't go to a place for many years and out of a sudden you visit that place two times in less than two months? I'm not sure if there'll be a third one coming soon but the second trip to Malacca this year was definitely a good one. Although not much time has lapsed since my last visit, this trip was almost completely exclusive from the first.

I think the idea of going for this trip was brought up when we reunited at my house for Chinese New Year this year. Since one of our friends, MS, is leaving the country to study in Japan soon, we quickly executed this farewell trip. We left Klang on a sunny Saturday noon after taking our supposed-to-be-breakfast brunch with five high school buddies and a buddy's sister in the car: CH, JH, Te, MS, MS's sister MC and me.

The journey to Malacca was longer than expected because, first, we were not familiar with the road; second, the traffic was slow leading towards Malacca town; and third, there was a paranoid speed trap a.k.a. the driving instructor a.k.a. yours truly. Believe me, JH was close to putting me to sleep with drugs because of the last reason. But nonetheless, they probably felt blissed that I was concerned with our safety right? Hehe.

So the first day of our trip was pretty simple. It can be summarized in these words: food, more food and a lot of food.

When we finally got ourselves out of the car at late noon, we filled our stomachs with super delicious nyonya delicacies at Nancy's Kitchen; it was my first trial at nyonya food and other than some hot spices they used, I loved the food there! We actually returned the following day to buy some 肉粽 (bah-chang in Hokkien) back Klang and they too were delicious. Thumbs up to the power of infinity to our first meal.

A hard-crust popiah that burned my taste buds because of its ginger!

Then after walking a couple hundreds of steps, we treated ourselves to ice kacang at Jonker 88. Since we were still stuffed from the last meal, we ordered just three bowls of the Malaccan desserts while we chilled around a really small table for six pax. We couldn't be bothered with the little space we had because slurping on the shaved ice was a quick ecstatic escape from the scorching sun on the street of Malacca.

The yummy durian ice kacang.

We continued to explore Jonker Street bits by bits until we arrived at the city center: Bandar Hilir. There, JH said she wants to bring us to a nice satay celup dinner. She said the restaurant is nearby Dataran Pahlawan and so I told her that Dataran Pahlawan is just walking distance away. And when we arrived at Dataran Pahlawan, she couldn't locate the restaurant. We checked with the GPS and the device said the place is 20 minutes away by foot!!! We took the car instead and arrived at the packed restaurant for our anticipated dinner. Most of us have not eaten satay celup before. And I never understood how satay celup worked until I saw it myself. Now I can tell that it's lok lok with satay sauce.

It was about 8pm when we finished our dinner and since it was raining, we cancelled our plan to the night market at Jonker Street. I was very depressed because I was really looking forward to buy some souvenirs home from there.

From the satay celup restaurant, we switched on the GPS to direct us to MS' grandmother's house in Muar to call it a night. You didn't read it wrongly and I didn't do any typo error too; we drove to Muar, Johor to overnight. Haha. We preferred to stay at Malacca actually but we were too noob to do reservation online for a crowded weekend and MS wanted to visit the grandmother since she's leaving to Japan soon. So there we were at Muar for a very pleasant experience, actually. It was a spacious house with little orchards on the wide land in a quiet little town. The family treated us very well and we left the following morning feeling like we went for a homestay trip =)

Group photo with the ladies of the family before leaving in the morning.

Do you want me to summarize the second day we spent at Malacca in three words? Here you go: hot, hot and hot. The sun was merciless! Our plan was to return to Malacca town to buy some local delicacies back as souvenirs besides taking pictures around the historical city. We accomplished our missions but was more like melting ourselves in the city than freezing memories on cameras. It's okay. It's Malaysia.

I know you don't see the sun in this photo but there's reason we needed three umbrellas.

Heavy-heartedly, the six of us left Malacca with lots of good memories to reminisce when we look back at the photographs taken: the joker Te who kept freaking out at any hint of police, the self-acclaimed socialite who stopped a Jaguar car for photography, the two twenty-year-old-but-still-kids-at-heart who fought for pencils in a souvenir shop, and the sisters who launched World War 3 on the bed in the dark.

ps Realized JH is not mentioned in the list of good memories? Haha. Kidding. She's the one who made these good memories happen alright?

Enjoying the luxurious seat of the Jaguar car.

Group photo with the Jaguar!

We barged into Jonker Boutique Hotel just to take a lot around the place.

Lots of satay celup for feasting.

Getting a taste of the little orchard life at MS' grandmother's place.

Spot us above the stalls!

Us somewhere in the middle of the scenic Malacca Town.

Our bed scenes! =P

[Photo credit to MS]