Nov 8, 2007

...of being eventful and packed..

Literary, I called it "EVENTFUL".

But do note that the word 'EVENTFUL' here comes together with huff and puff and rush, plus a lot of fun and fun and fun.

.. and seriously, I can't do the thinking now, regarding how should I put the whole stuff into this post.. let's just.. hmm --

***************************************************************


This was the most recent one. It was the annual Hari Raya Celebration of our own department. OK I'll try to put this to be sounded as humble as possible: I know the seniors just love to have this event organized by us, the young ones -- for whatever reasons you could think of, but 'having MORE FUN' is definitely one of it.

I happened to be pulled into this fun pool of organizing the event without realizing exactly when and how.. (.. but I sort of knowing the reason, will explain later.. ) Regardless of all the huff and puff which happened along the process of putting-up the show, being able to meet a bunch of new cool friends is one of most precious thing I got out of the fun pool, and realizing that these new cool friends are actually living under the same roof in the company, it hypes me up and up again.

*********************************************************

This happened on last Sunday. I had a date with Mr Terry Fox, I mean, the late Mr Terry Fox. PETRONAS sponsors a team for the charity run. The run is to fund-raise for The Terry Fox Foundation. Click HERE if you want to know more about the foundation.

I was carrying my DSLR 'Nicka' while running -- I thought it wouldn't be a problem; I thought having a 14 hours of sleep (NOTE: 14 hours of sleep to compensate my last 34 hours of staying awake. Gonna explain later...) was more than enough for my to get freshly kick-started for the run; I thought I have had practiced enough for the run; I thought merely 6.5km was still within my endurance level --

-- but things turned into something else when I felt my DSLR was getting heavier and heavier; my breath just couldn't got synchronized with my pace as I was running in a forestry area which forced me to puff a lot; and another dramatic surprise was, I ran into extended route which, seriously I did not know how long had I ran until I saw the finishing line.

It was not an easy run for me to be very frank, as I couldn't concentrate enough on the run. But I did a lot of reflections during the run when I compared my tiny effort to of the Late Mr Terry Fox. There was a marshal whom I encountered in the middle of the route, showing a short-cut to some participants while saying out loud this:

"Nobody's judging you... but Terry Fox wouldn't take a short cut for sure..."

Well, whether or not you think that was sarcasms, for me, that was painful enough to hear especially when you're about to turn into the shortcut like I almost did.


**********************************************************

This was the reason why I stayed awake for 34 hours on last Friday to Saturday. And this was also the probably the main reason why I was in the fun pool of organizing committee of Hari Raya Celebration. ...and for those who wondered about my 'very weird' question posted on Yahoo Messenger few weeks ago regarding the acronym 'MSK', well this is all about it.

Yup, to you all, and especially to Claire, this is our project about -- A filming of an Aidilfitri short video, to be showed during our annual Hari Raya Celebration of our department. And yup, Claire, as you can see from the pictures, we proceeded with 'green screen' or 'Chroma Key' technique, because we needed to create a non-existed MAKTAB SUKAN KEDAH, which brings to the acronym: 'M-S-K' (Tada~~!!)

The shooting of the video started last week with a super duper tight shooting schedule. Well, to be frank this wasn't my FIRST experience of doing filming but this definitely was my VERY FIRST TIME holding a camera and yielded 'CAMERA ROLL!' or 'ACTION!' or 'CUT!' or whatever command I needed to give, in order to put the whole things jived as close as possible to what Azlan and I imagined during the script-writing and screen-playing phase.

This time round I did not have my old team of filming which I used to work with (Fariz, Azlan Ali and Azrul; read more here if you want), but I was so grateful to have Azlan a.k.a. King Kong to be my partner as I strongly believe that both of us have the same mechanism of generating ideas, and almost the same view on the imagination of the outcome.

Not to forget the whole team of committee who settle all the logistic issues almost at the snap of fingers. And the talented actor Nik and actress Pedot.

And to you Claire again, no I'm not going to show you the video here. Sorry for that, but I what I can tell here is, Alhamdullilah, we have not received any negative feedback regarding the video yet. I really hope everybody will love it.

************************************************************
.. yes I know, YES I KNOW ---- I'm STILL working on my MSc. thesis. I do not abandoned or gave it up *yet*, even though all the activities I have been participating in were much much much more interesting than the boring thesis.

..but.., c'mon. I'd rather die if you ask me to sit still in front of my desk and do nothing except my thesis. I was the bad and stupid student who skipped classes and went for mountain hiking and made myself darn tired, twice, remember?