My best blessing to Penn & Tini...

Ok lah atah permntaan ramai...

After SJ&Mai, now it's Tini&Penn -- my 2nd time to be appointed, to be given trust to be their wedding photographer.. ..

This time I still did not find any confidence in myself.. but yes I did learn something from my 1st photoshooting experience in Penang and Baling (SJ& Mai's wedding..), and there are some other few factors that allowed me to refine my photography works for this 'Tini&Penn Wedding Project'..

1-- lesson learnt from 1st time experience;
2-- I now have my own machine..(laptop lah tu..) that allows me to concentrate on photo editing..
3-- some new photo editorial knowledge I explored recently..
4-- some supporting website like Tabblo..
5-- I met some shutterbug friends in UTP here like Idris, Rahmani, Poon & Ubik..
6-- tercabar and geram sbb takde SLR lagi..

Ok.. cut all the crap.. layaaan..

... See this large in spider's Tabblo;

A peace of mind.. in a non-peaceful struggle...

I unplugged my head from the great depth of drowning before I finaly sunk and drifted in the sea full of theories and concepts of strategic mangement ...

I needed to get some fresh air to stay alert, in order to not get emotionally conquered by misery of exam season. Hence I looked out of my window.

My eyeview suddenly switched from lines and paragraphs of words into a peaceful scene where bottom half of the scene is fullfilled with green grassy slope and the other half is painted with blue cloudless sky, decorated with trees and a streetlamp.., sometimes students walking, or riding into the pictures...

Hence I got a moment of peace of mind...

I always know that a borderless view like ocean, padi field and sky is where I can find calmness and really get my randomly-flying chaotic emotional particles settling down..; but, I've never knew that my craving of borderless and botherless state of mind is somehow reflected in most of my photography works...

I was looking back at the photograpraphs I took since I owned this Olympus Camedia C-760 back to year 2004. ...and I've never realized that there are actualy something in common in the pictures I took..

(well of course, yes, one of it is, all are taken by me..) ..

----- Blue sky.

...and to be more specific, those blue skies were only taken during my any trips that took me so far far away from the land that has been ruling me since young...

There were blue sky taken form Bali Island, from oil rig Naga-1, from Phuket Island, from Malacca, from Brunei and from Selangau (a remote area where my Ibanese family lives)... I was quite surprised by this 'Common-Blue-Sky' discovery... but I was rather sad when realizing the inclination that lies behind those pictures..

I am still stranded in where I was.... The blue blue sky is only somewhere that can indulge my whim...

Hence, I can still steal a slight moment of peace of mind by looking at broad wide field or borderless bluey or starry sky, or by looking at that little green grassy slope framed by the window of my room right now in UTP...

...when i just ignore and indulge, all my fantasies will bring me to the paeceful, free, calm, borderless and botherless world of mine...

(Hence, although I have a severe time-insufficiency problem to actually prepare for the final exam tomorrow, my still can see me indulging myself in my little mumbling blogging world...)

(Damn... I am so dead...)

11 chapters, 4 case studies, 3 presentations, 2 reports, 2 weeks, 1 final exam, 18 survivals... half dead..

My forehead is tightly locked as there's pressure squeezing my head..; Sunder and I cursed and swore a bunch of 'F*ck' and 'Sh*t' out of ..; Harris of next door is firing, counter-striking violently and crazily in his pc as if he is firing all the pressures with his AK47...; Faizal and PuOn asked me out for a stroll in sport complex as we all really need a break to get fresh oxygen for our head...;...

After it officially started its lecture..(..by Tun Mahathir, in a mean..), today is the 2nd day of my so called 'non-conventional' Petroleum Geoscience MSc. Programme.. and also in today, I heard about the word 'non-conventional' from our lecture in describing the format of our very first batch of Petroleum Geoscience Msc. Programme, and also within today, I realized how 'non-conventional' the course is...

Our first module is about Strategic Planning, nothing to do with petroleum geoscience, but the knowledge plays big role in oil & gas bussiness.. .. and as the choosen ones from PETRONAS to be the first batch students to learn this knowledge, we got to have big endurance to bear with its non-technical, full-of-managerial-crap, and senior-manager-level-toughness, to ensure we really 'deserve' to be the choosen benchmarker, instead of a-bench -of -sucker..

Well the figures have all say: 2 weeks of time for 1 module; 11 chapters to swallow; 4 case studies to complete; 3 presentations to prepare; 2 managerial reports to submit; 60% 'carrie'-marks (do care...) to bear; 1 final exam after 10 days from today; 18 survivals; half dead on the 2nd day..

I know I'm sort of complaining... .. and I shouldn't. I still believe this is the opportunity for me to buckle myself up will all kind of quality needed to strive in my career and my personal development; ..and the intention of writing an new entry like this is actualy to get me a space to upload some pictures of my coursemates during our last field trip..

.... and you know what, having them as my comrades is one of the reason I shouldn't complain about what I'm facing now..

ps... well, I know I know, I should have spent my time doing my assignments and reports or working on presentation slides instead of writing a blog entry.. .. Cau!

Back to those green green school days

Ok this is going to be short.. for a few reasons:

1. This post is a warming-up post for me to eventually, hopefully, pick-up the habit of blogging back again;

2. I'm really lacking of ideas to write a new post..This post is simply a promise granted to my two little new readers Farah and Dani as I've promised them to show some 'good' pictures during our recent geological field trip in East Malaysia.;

3. Student's life: study comes first---- yup LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I'm now officially a master student of Petroleum Geoscience of Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS.. Being one of the first batch students, the responsibility of benchmarking the standard is SO critical..(c'mon for God's sake, kill me please...)..so, in other words, less blogging and mumbling..;

4. 'Short' is a promise to myself for not to start mumbling with my mouthful of sentimental stuff... although I know the definition of 'short' is kinda uncertain so far..

5. My new laptop cannot enter the photobucket website.. and this is frustrating since all my blog's pictures are uploaded from photobucket.. no photobucket, I feel like loosing a tool; no tool, no fine work. ..;

...and the last reason, 6.. this post is going to be short cuz I only have SIX reasons to get excused.

I'll be back with more serious and not-so-playful post.


ps... the pictures loaded here were taken during we had our lunch break at Tanjung Layang-Layang, Labuan on the 4th day of our geological field trip. .. and they are not uploaded via PHOTOBUCKET (damn!).

pss.. to Farah and Dani, imagine what will this post turn into if I loaded all the outcrops and fossils and rocks into this post.. hehe, so better don't, right?

Jiwang philosophy

I deleted 'Welcome to CP13', a new blog's post that I recently composed in rememberance of my first eco-game marshaling job in Nomad Adventure's Eco-XCapade at Hulu Langat.

Why? cuz' suddenly I really agreed to what Eja told me.. my blog entries-- jiwang karat la~~

When I looked back what I've written in 'Welcome to CP13', I knew that was simply too-too, too much sentimental; likewise, I wasn't very proud of my previous post 'Let the colors tell the story..' when I realized that there was just overfilled with rust of jiwang..

..and I decided not to put any pictures in this blog just because of the same reason/same worry.. Pictures, for me, sometimes helplessly triggered the sense of being sentimental in me..

Hence this is my first time to delete a blog's post of mine; it's my first time to not have any pictures in my blog's entry..; and it's my first time to confront my severe jiwang karat syndrome.

...ah BTW, a footnote about jiwang philosophy before I end babbling:

Cambridge Dictionary defines sentimental as "...strongly influenced by emotional feelings, rather than careful thought and judgment based on facts.."

So....one question... have you ever seen man with testosterone getting so emotional-connected and really go out of norm and go crazy for something?

Think WORLD CUP FEVER.

That's a solid and undeniable proof, that shows man or mamat, going SO SO SO---SO sentimental about something that we are passionate about.

...and it's globally. :>

Let the colors tell the story...

Apparently, Malacca's historical value has blanketed its color.

Malacca is not famed with its color or colorfulness. .. erm, put this in another word, Malacca is not colorful enough, but, a trip to Malacca made me believed that, it IS a traveller's excitement that extracts colors of this historic city, outshines under the sunny and glorious sky.

Fiza took a piture of three of us posing in front of the red wall of Studthuys. Well, here's the issue: if she did not intentionally snap the picture in the way she just did, then trust me for God's sake, Fiza must be bearing a hidden gem-like artistic vision.

She captured the picture right straight, perpendicular to us and the wall. Meaning? The red color of Stadthuys' wall was purely absorbed, no toned-up nor toned-down due to different angles and and sun light.

I had no idea why I was so hyped-up by her work with just a simple click on the button (according to her..), but all my inspirations about the color of Malacca were just triggered after seeing the picture.

And you know what? Right this moment a name just crossed my mind: Vincent Van Gogh. I do not know much about this most controversial artist and his masterpieces, but I do know one true thing about him, that his works demonstrated his personality and his mentality.

Like wise, the simple straight forward picture demonstrated the way Fiza treats her simple life: SIMPLICITY. She did not think about the angles she did not think about the posing she did not think about the brightness, she just simply click the camera to shoot the picture; just like what she is, she doesn't think about... hmmm... too much.. (smile..),

she just loves.

Sue finally turned her 'not-so-on-for-vacation' mood into the vibes that made she swung happily and cheery when four of us arrived Malacca from Port Dickson. She was like a bird, a pink bird to be exact, dancing and singing and swinging freely and blissfully, in the middle of Malacca's reddish road.

OF COURSE she was in pink. Well, we should have a song for her that sounds 'Pinky Sue wears a pinky suit, dancing in the rain in her pinky boots...' ...yeah, at least something like that... but one thing for sure, this girl, she got flare.

She likes to pose she likes to be in photos she enjoys admiration she turns people's head while walking on the street..... normally, this KIND of girl is so much predictable for a guy, but what comes to my surprise is, Sue's not.

Sue works HELL hard as if she is so ugly and useless that only 'working-hard' is her only quality to get her survive; Sue laughed her modelling opportunity off and continued to get herself inspired by Donald Trump and Dan Brown instead of Amber Chia or Tyra Banks; Sue sometimes late just because of works or meetings, not putting on her make-up nor picking which shirt to wear; ...

Sue sang 'Happy Together' in such a not-so-happy tone that confused me to think of whether there is really a not-so-happy thing inside her or just simply a not-so-precise pitching stuck on her voice (smile..)...

.... but that's Sue, the pinky Sue. Not eye-piercing red not pale white but is a mixture of both exciting red and ingenuous white.

Do not expect any story of my first visit to Malacca (I know that sounds unbelievable, after 25 years staying in Malaysia..) in this entry... I'm not good in describing wonderfulness. Malacca is certainly a nice place to visit, and I prefer to let the brown walls of A'famosa tell you their story, let the red bricks of Stadthuys tell you their story, let the white statue of of St Paul tells you his story, let the clear blue sky of Malacca tells you their story...

ps... to Yahya my buddy, I'm NOT running out of idea to talk about you.. this lengthy story full of sentimental touch is dedicated to ladies only.. I can give put some testosterone into my next entry if you want, just to hope that it won't turn into the rugged and brutal look that you posed in most of our pictures in Malacca.

Saving Balinese Family

Wayan, Made, Komang and Ketut.. these names were so commonly heard right after the question "What is your name?" or "Siape name?" when we tried to make friends with the local in Bali. It was confusing at first cuz we, somehow, thought that, these names are the only options for Balinese to name their people.

In fact, similar to what we have in our Malay family, Wayan, Made, Komang and Ketut equal to our Along, Angah, Alang and Achik. And sometimes, Wayan is also called Gade; Komang is also called Nyoman; and Ketut, also has an alias.

Simple said: Wayan, Made, Komang and Ketut, these four names stand for one word in Bali:

FAMILY.

... and these four names were entirely applied to four Bali loafers that claimed themselves have 'adventurous' as their middle name.

Hence, these four names appeared most of the times in my every blog's entries when I talked about Bali life: the eldest Azwa the Wayan or Azwa Adventurous Wayan, Yahya the Made or Yahys Adventurous Made, Wongey the Komang or Aiman Adventurous Komang, and the youngest Fiza the Ketut or Fiza Adventurous Ketut.

I really do not know how to express my gratitude to these three comrades of mine. They made the journey of loafing in Bali so memorable and .. cool, hmmm..

Yahya the Made and I planned to go Thailand for our next trip. I kinda love this guy cuz strictly saying, he is the only one among my friends who really 'just go!' right after each traveling idea we made.

We both strongly agree, that too much planning and budgeting and hesitating, will only turn all dreams and ideas into rubbish.

"What would you do, if you just ignore all your fear?"

I somehow learnt to appreciate this quote when I realized that I've got too many dreams that eventualy turned into garbages.

Fiza and Azwa are kinda surprise for me. Fiza the Ketut always looks serene but you gotta believe what that there are similarities and differences between serene and clueless. She is humorous, mild-mannered but extreme reactor towards doggies.

Azwa the Wayan, relatively, is an aggresive young lady that actualy is the main drive to get lots of plans moving. Matured but playful, considerate but stubborn, wise but emotional -- Contradiction is Wayan's second name.

I wish to put more words on these three wonderful people, on this wonderful journey, and on this weird Balinese family. However, people will not have patience to read this entry if it is any longer. So allow me to save this post, save this memory, save this journey, save these friends, and save, this Balinese family.