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?

A slow talk with my Bumblebee790

Dear Bumblebee790,

I hope you did not get any trauma from your first outing with me yesterday.

Well you can actually 'consult' two of your seniors, Nick'a Devil and Blu'Elf, on how I treated them right after they joined my life -- Nick was brought up to the ever terrifying Mt. Ophir a.k.a Gunung Ledang after his 1st assignment snapping an abandoned train station; while Blu'Elf got into an intensive training and he's now looked 10 years seasoned and worn-out more that he should be looked like in less than 1 month time. -- Exactly, what I'm trying to say here, and what your seniors would probably tell you is, DO NOT expect to enjoy any privileges or luxuries by thinking that you're expensive.

Being with me, you guys just have to be tough.

Anyway, your amazing performance yesterday really impressed me.

The start of the race was nothing. I mean any running shoe definitely could do better than you, but I totally understand that as you were not chosen for running purposes, or else I would have taken the one with cushion, not you.

I expect your highlights when I was in the forest, and you actually showed me what you got! Firm grip, sharp break, heel stop, toe hold -- you performed more perfect than I expected. Plus your incredible light-weight, I went up hill like a monkey, and run down hill like, erm, Bear Grylls.

However, you did not act as cool as you were in the jungle when we reached a water fall. To be frank, I was kinda shocked as I thought this would be another spot where you would impress me. But you didn't. In fact, I fell for the very first time after I started off the race. 'Fell' here means, both my legs was in the air and I fell on my right shoulder.

The three tiles (60m) waterfall was breathtaking -- both you and me agreed I guess. But to proceed with our race, we just needed to get up there and then get down back through a thick forest. I won't comment more on the downhill part -- I think you did perfectly in forest, but not on steeping on those big granite rocks of the waterfall. Yeah, I found that I just need to put some pressure on my steps to make sure I won't fall of slippery.

I started to have doubt on you when we're in canyon. You know what, the ENTIRE canyon trail was just a fun pool for a monkey like me to enjoy, but I did not, at least for the beginning part. I was so unsure about steeping on the slippery rocks after a few times of near-fall situation.

I thought my choice of to not have cushion between you and my foot palm would have given me a direct grip of my foot arch to the rocks, but I wasn't feeling it. I still prefer walking and jumping from one rock to another, barefooted, like I always did. But to think back about it, I believe it's wise to have you protecting my foot, and when I saw my teammate Zana and Big Brother Fariz suffered from their leg cramps due to tiredness when we were in the canyon, I realized that I might get even more tired if I did not trust you.

Yeah, you're right, I'll still fall from a slippery rock too even if I'm barefooted, after all. So I just shouldn't be blaming you. I think I was plain tired.

The 2nd time we abseiled down into a 3 meters deep pool where we had to swim through, I was thankful. You did not become a burden for me while swimming, I appreciate it.

Anyway, so what do you think of the abseiling? Did you notice that there was such a great view of Abang Fariz hanging in the air with the background of the vertical white pile of water rushing down? The pile of water was like pouring right from heaven, and the view, gosh, the surrounding turned mute when I saw it, no kidding! -- well I'm not exaggerating here, I might be harsh on using my stuff like Nick'a, Blu'Elf and you, but, follow me then you'll see the great sights that you'd never get from some other masters.

I needed to take you off when we came to inline skating part. I think you'd have already felt that the condition of my legs was not anymore good. My thighs and calves were in pain. You were kept in Fariz's big bag hence you did not see me fell off road, twice, after loosing control on my wheel.

..but I think you saw me being scolded by my two teammates, for being too pushy and inconsiderate, when we left our skate behind and moved forward to the starting point of bamboo rafting.

Yeah, you might have agreed with them, that I'm the kind of person that sometimes will loose my cool when come to stretching. I thank you so much for protecting my foot when I was pushing myself too hard, like I thank them very much for protecting me and our team when I was loosing my cool.

Then we came to the final part of the race: bamboo rafting. To be very frank I had some kind of bad feeling when the station master advised us to be careful and don't get hurt in this very last challenge. However, my excitement overwhelmed my caution. Like later on my exhaustion overwhelmed my excitement.

Bamboo rafting was my childhood, I would say. But not sailing on THIS TYPE river course -- OK, let's face it, you saw it too, it was not A RIVER or STREAM, it was a 3km rocky path with minor flood of water.

I almost forgot about you when three of us were stuck for the n-th time with our bamboo raft. If you could recall, I cursed the most in this part throughout the whole race. An undeniable fact is, you showed the most royal support under my foot regardless of how many time I pressed you on the river bed rocks when I pushed the stuck raft. As I said, you always got my foot protected, and gave my zero worry along the rafting course.

By the way, you were soaked in the water and I'm not sure whether you could feel my fright when Fariz's finger was cut open. I still remember my hand was shaking when his blood dyed my fingers red, and I saw guilt on my hand.

Bumblebee790,

Here you go, a master who's still an immature kiddo. Demanding, and yet needed to be reminded and protected. I think you'd have terribly hard time following me in the rest of my journey. Muahahahah!!!! (sounds scary? you bet!)

...and no, you're not the one who I wanted to kiss and hug when Wasabi Koma team finaly finished our race, with all tasks completed successfully. The ones I wanted to kiss and hug were my teammates -- Zana and my big brother, although they were as dirty and muddy as you were at the finishing line.

.... but you're already listed as my favorite gadget since then. I thank you.

Love,
Your master,
Spider(ai)man
19th March 2008

Ps.. read Fariz's and CK's story bout the same race..

3 books.

There are 3 books that I really wish to share with my friends. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Wolf Totem by Jiang-Rong, and A Thousand Splendid Suns by, again, Khaled Hosseini.

Hold on..

Disclaimer: If this post is finally published, that doesn't mean:

1. that THESE are the ONLY BOOKS that I've read so far;
2. that I'm going to open up a whole new genre of my blog content which will be introducing bookss.

OK now let's turn to 1st page 1st chapter...

1. How did/will I introduce these 3 books to my friends?

• The Kite Runner: The 1st and only book so far, that almost made me cry;
• Wolf Totem: The book that speaks out for me on how I see my backyard community. The book that explains why I'm called a maverick in my backyard. (Further reading: "Crowded, but silent..")
• A Thousand Splendid Suns: The book that further confirmed my respect to Khaled Hosseini, and further deepened my understanding to Afghanistan, and Taliban.

2. Using not more than 5 elements, introduce the story of the books, please.

• The Kite Runner: Racial discrimination. Friendship. Afghanistan. Islam.
• Wolf Totem: Gengkhis Khan vs Confucious. Wolf vs Lamb. Great Chinese vs Cowardly Chinese.
• A Thousand Splendid Suns: Afghan women. Afghan chauvinism. Despair. Hopes. Taliban.

3. How would I recommend you to read?

• The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns:

If you're an English reader, here you go. Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan, but he writes in English.
If you're a Chinese reader, go and get a translated version of the book. Translation from Taiwan is much better than of China Mainland in my opinion. The Chinese translator obviously showing her lack of thorough study in Islamic cultural when she translate 'fasting' as 'not eating non-vege'.
If you're a Malay reader, .. we just need to wait for our local translation industry to grow..

• Wolf Totem:

If you're a Chinese reader, then the original version of the book is there for you, you just have to be ready to be challenged, traditionally and self-value concern. Or else, just take it as a plain novel.
If you're an English reader, GOOD NEWS! An English version of the master-piece is (surprisingly) in the market. I found it in Times KLCC, on the 'Hot Of The Month' rack.
If you're a Malay reader, BAD NEWS.. I don't think the book is commercial enough to be translated unless it created controversy.
.......

3 books, 3 points. I think that's more than enough for me to do the publicity for the books, before I run out of point to shout.

No, I'm NOT going to say the slogan like "Jadikanlah amalan membaca budaya kita". No way. But there's a new catchy phrase which I think is cool enough to shout here:

"Lu pikiiiiiiiiiiir lah sendiri!"

Sekian terima kasih.