Lesson-learnt guaranteed

Ok.. let's talk about lessons that we pick up from what we do in our life. Sometimes when we give up and give in, the lessons rewarded are always far better to be remembered.

Here's a list of what happened in last 2 weeks -- a fully packed 2-week of back-to-back activities that guaranteed some lessons-learnt.

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1. Hiking up Gunung Dato (15th June)

Briefly: I forgot to mention in my last post, that I was kinda cautious during the night sk8 in Putrajaya as I had another plan of mountaineering on the next day, I mean I needed to save my energy.

Give-in & give-up: A leisure and relaxing Sunday and good rest before my 1-week volley ball intensive training came the next day.

Result: I had great fun and great sweating climbing up the top of Gunung Dato.

Lesson-learnt: No matter how busy and how packed your schedule is, always look for time to go to nature, because you'd never know how much satisfaction nature would give you in return!

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2. Malacca half day trip (15th June)

Briefly: Right after the Gunung Dato we headed to Malacca, aiming for dinner served with grilled seafood like ikan bakar, but ended up we spent most of the time looking for the correct routes and taking pictures in Studthuys and China Town.

Give-in & give-up: We could have choosen to have a slow and leisure ride home right after 8 hours of hiking up and coming down from Gunung Dato and enjoyed the rest of our Sunday.... but we did not take that.

Result: I found my sense of photography came alive in Malacca. The feeling was simply so-right! Check out more pictures in my Flickr and Tabblo below.

See my Tabblo

Lesson-learnt: A revisit to a place doesn't mean to be boring! A wonderful place can wake up our long lost inner sense of wonderfulness, I just experienced it!

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3. PETRONAS Family Carnival Sport Game: Training & Matches & Carnival (16 - 28th June)

Briefly: It was the very first time I joined PETRONAS Family Carnival despite of years of working in the company, and I kinda glad to join in as a sport player of one of the contingent which allowed me to participate with greater spirit and enthusiasm.

Give-in & give-up: Did I give up anything for joining this? Let me think... hmm... oh yeah, away from my workss in office for almost 2 weeks time to play sport that I love -- that's a huge giving up and giving in! *smirk*. Plus, I got deep tan for training under the sun, twice, daily, although I kinda like my tanned look now.. *smirk & wink*.

Result: Well I got tanned; I got annoyed from calls and sms from office; I felt guilty, somehow, for ignoring the works; We lost MOST of our games and only managed to get the 6th place out of 8.. but I got to play, I got to learned the right skill to play volley ball, I got new friends, I got fun.

Lesson-learnt: Learning the right way to play volleyball, checked; learning the right attitude of sportsmanship, checked; learning what does 'a penny of effort gains a penny' really mean, checked; learning to become a better player next time, checked.

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4. Promotional photo-shooting session for PGCE2009 (29th June)

Briefly: This was the 2nd time of photo-shooting session for the same purposes (check 'Who has the Ultimate Superpower' for some hint about the 1st session), and like wise, our models were still kiddos, which meant both fun and painful elements came side by side. Nevertheless, Lina and I were more prepared this time. We had a stronger concept, less cliche, more interesting probes like snails and bubble blower etc.

Give-in & give-up: Due to the tight schedule, I had to skip a dinner with mum and my sisters at a night before; and I couldn't attend the Grand Finale Night of PETRONAS Family Carnival as I needed to look for snails in the evening; I had to give up a real rest after the tiring 2 weeks of huff and puff during Family Carnival, so that I could finalize the concept of the photographs we need.

Result: More interesting pictures and another fun outing having fun times with super duper cuties like bubbly Dennis, pretty pinky Shasha and owh-he-got-such-a-big-eye-but-bad-temper Adly.

Lesson-learnt: Never work last minute although sometime last-minute works spark surprises and more fun! Never under-estimate kiddos cuz' you'd never know how much surprises and talents they would show. And last but not least, NEVER UNDER-ESTIMATE snails, they might be slow but they are good at hide and seek -- and you need to spent some time to find them out!

End of list. Alas!

Sk8 'mobbing' at Putrajaya

Night Sk8 at Putrajaya on 14th June 2008 was the first time I took part in a huge event of Malaysian + Singaporean Sk8ers Community, and it was fun. In fact, I couldn't help but kept thinking about 'Flash mob' when we were flagged off.

Wikipedia defines 'Flash mob' as a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. But I think the definition bypasses the fun and cool part of flash mobbing.

Night Sk8 at Putrajaya was part of an international fund-raising event where every km we sk8 will help to raise some amount of money, and the good deeds were relayed around the world, within 24 hours.

Kinda meaningful, right?

I don't know how much money had my fellow sk8ers (Big brother Fariz, Amie, Zana, and Huda) and I raised, I only knew that the long distance sk8 with a big U-turn had kinda created some chaos in the magnificent Putrajaya -- and that's how the idea of 'flash mobbing' came to my head, it's kinda like the opening scene of Step Up 2 where the street dancers dance their heart out inside a train that shocked a lot of train passengers -- Chaos they made, out of fun.

Cool huh? Tell you the scene in Putrajaya was oh-so-yeah spectacular with a bunch of Sk8rs roller-blading on the street. I hate when I couldn't dance on my blade like the rest of the sk8ers of the event -- in fact, I think 5 of us were the only 5 Sk8rs who rolled our blade in a way that openly tells the truth of 'yeah you're right, beginners we are'. But, whatever it was, it has been a eye-opening event for 5 of us to know more about sk8ing and sk8ers community.

To CK, if you're reading this, I hate showing off but you know what? I just think that you missed BIG TIME for not joining!!! :>

Who has the Ultimate Superpower?

Let's put it in this way: Everybody has superpower(s).

But as this is a world that says 'yes' to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, our powers are measured in relative terms. And the superpower that stands out relatively, are called The Ultimate Superpower.

Well, for example, this is Ai-man. Ai-man has the power of defying gravity. He obtained the power when he practiced Yoga from his guru in India. He can float in the air like this:

Definitely, Ai-man can fly. In fact, if you knw Super-man the Man of Steel, he picked up this trick from Ai-man when they met in India 20 years ago.

Whatever.

When Ai-man thought that he owns the Ultimate Superpower at least among the people from his community for being able to fly, he met Reza-man, The Man of Right Eye.

Reza-man is cool and quiet. His superpower is his powerful fist, besides freezing any movements using his weapons. The day when Ai-man and Reza-man came head-to-head, Ai-man was terribly defeated, and all his shameful moments were captured by Reza-man's weapon. The records were kept in order to humiliate Ai-man, like this:

.. and not to forget Lina-Lithium, Reza-man's beautiful assistant, who masters all the Chinese Kung-Fu and as her name indicates, Lina-Lithium is soft but yet strong as metal. Ms Chun-Li from Street Fighter was actually her protege, FYI.

The point here is, again, Ai-man's superpower failed to stand out relatively. And as usual, the shameful moments of Ai-man being beaten up by a small lady were captured by Reza-man's weapon, and for plain humiliation purposes, some of the frozen moments are shown here (please imagine yourself the sound effect of Ai-man being beaten up):

It seemed like the combination of Reza-man and Lina-Lithium will be given the title of The Ultimate Superheroes as they proved that their Superpowers are relatively stronger than Ai-man.

However, they forgot the new generation of Superheroes are making their way into the race. There came a new challenger that eventually made everyone -- Ai-man, Reza-man, and Lina-Lithium surrendered. Even the Great Az-Man(af) who came for rescue was also beaten terribly by this new challenger.

Everybody just got no idea on how to handle this new comer. 4 Superheroes eventually had to went down on bended knee to ask for mercy. Of course, no records at all showing how terrible and humiliated the 4 heroes were when they were defeated by this new Superhero. It was just too painful too recall.

So she declared to own The Ultimate Superpower, and nobody there dared to object, as the Superpower she owns is just too powerful --

C-R-Y.

Here is she, Camelia, The Ultimate Superpower bearer, who just got all heroes in the world pack their own stuff and go home....

"Grrrr.. I am The Ultimate Superhero!! Takut tak?"

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After post note:
Yup, another 'just-for-fun' post, hope this can make up your day (smile~~). And the pictures you saw in this post were taken during the photo-outing with kiddos last weekend in Lake Garden. Thanks SJ and Mai for bringing Camelia, and Thanks En Azani (Az-Man ler~~) for bringing his two princes: Saif, Zein and his bubbly princess, Nur to become our models. Thanks to Reza (Reza-man he is) the Photography Guru who shared a lot of photography technique knowledge of with lighting and Lina (-Lithium) the photographer cum nanny cum model cum assistant.

And EXACTLY, those fantastic pictures showing me hanging in the air were shot by Reza using his Canon D1 with the aid of the 'umbrella' and speed lights. Lots of technical know-how behind those pics in order to make the flying shot flawless.

Here's a 'behind-the-scene' picture snapped by Reza while I was shooting Camelia's portrait as shown below. Cheeeeese!

Ps..No, Camelia is not as garang as I might have unintentionally described. She is an angel I would say. Don't you agree?

In revival of self confidence

Let's say this is a program for me myself as well.

When Kamaruz and I met face to face for the very first time after n-th time of Jakarta-Malaysia long distance phone conversations, what he gave me was a feeling of thrilled. And right away, I forgot all my hesitation and I was already in the program.

'The program' was way much more meaningful than I could expect. It was, for the very first time, a program to call upon the youth of Malaysian Indian-Muslim to come under one roof, come as one family.

It was a program to revive the self-confidence of this minor community, and it was also an opportunity for me, to revive my self-confidence towards photography.

Thanks Kamaruz and Sherry for accepting the whole experimental idea of 'Apple shot', and thanks to the lovely participants. I felt sorry, somehow, when they had to interact with GREEN APPLES while not knowing WHAT'S ABOUT THE GREEN APPLES..

So what's about the green apples? Let me reveal one confession here: those "It's Fresh, It's Young, It's Natural, It's Cool" stuff -- yeah I made it up. The truth is, I STILL DON'T KNOW.

..but why do we need reasons for something worth for fun and simply .. erm.. simple?