This is an endurance test -- I'm in.

This is not something special and new. Indeed, this is something really normal as I've practised it 4 years straight. In another word, when thing is as normal as daily teeth-brushing task, it shouldn't be mentioned in a blog like this.. but the question is, why am I starting to compose an entry about it?

1st of course 4 years back I din have a blog to talk about this normal 'abnormal' thing (?); 2nd, I've encountered too many 'why' asking about my choice and my decision and my determination and earnestness.. (yeah, I've been interviewed by a Wawa TV Station, Majalah Minda, Princess Channel and 'Jambu!' teen magazine.... and same 1st question from them: WHY?).. ..

Why? Why do I poso skali?

I oftenly smiled this question off when friends of mine seeing me fast seriously in muslim's Bulan Ramdhan. Yes I do have an untold reason, but I prefer to let it unexplained. On the other hand, I seriously wanted to capture Malaysian's mentality about a non-muslim joining a so called Islamic way of life. ..

My question is, why do most of the people tend to see things from religious and racial perspective, while lots of things in our life can be as simple as a personal choice due to some straightforward reasons regarding health, social and etc? .. orait I have to admit that there was a reason for me to start fasting in Ramadhan, but there are more reasons for me to keep this habit going on till this year, especially after realizing that self-discipline is a very valuable quality that I should brush-up on.

Doing push-up 150 times per day needs self-discipline, I'm cutting it down to 100 times every 3-4 days..; jogging weekly needs self-discipline, and so far, erm.., so good..; struggling in working environment needs self-discipline, struggling in this Master programme needs extreme level of self-discipline, ...

...achieving my dreams of owning Chevrolet OPTRA5 and Canon EOS DSLR, achieiving my family's hope on me, making my family proud of me, following all the words in Rudyard Kipling's poem "If", getting true success in life, getting dreams-come-true of traveling all around the world...

...all of these, bear the same drive for fasting throughout one whole month, need self-discipline.

So I think this is my answer to all the 'WHY's .. : WHY NOT?

Month of Ramadhan bears a lot of wonderful meanings. I am certainly not in the position to tell it, but personally I see one valuable meaning of Ramadhan: it is a month of endurance test, and I'm in.

"Go there, and make us proud.."

I was sipping mamee slrrp in my room while Taylor Hicks' DO I MAKE YOU PROUD started playing through my headphone.

"...I've never been the one to raise my hand, that was not me and now that's who I am..."

..all of a sudden, I felt like I was in the video clip of the song, describing the struggle of a young man, having mamee slrrp instead of a proper dinner, on his way pursuing his dream... (ahaks!)

..in fact, all of a sudden, I realized the change of time..

Which sparks in this universe triggered all the changes in my life and brought me here today? I always wonder.. but deep inside of me I always believe that someone out there (or up there) is monitoring me and doing all the arrangement to fit my future..

..who is that 'someone'? I think I know...

In spite of that, there are people I meet throughout my life till today, that I truely believe are part of the factors that molded me into the shape I am today. And sometimes I do relate all these people to the condition I face at one particular moment..

"... I guess I've learned, to question is to grow, that you still have faith, is all I need to know; I've learned to love, myself in spite of me, and I've learned to walk, the road that I believe..."

I still remember the words that my Big Boss Mr Effendy spoke to me right before I left my office and came here to pursue my further study. In fact till today, I dun really think that Mr Effendy agreed to let me go, but still, the words he gave was kinda injecting a warm feeling like a father's advice to his son:

"Go there, and make PRAM proud." PRAM, is my division in PETRONAS.

I knew I have another mission the moment I nodded earnestly.

... Coincidentally, there's a friend of mine who wrote the same thing to me on Yahoo Messenger when I first checked-in to the university of my Msc programme..

She said, "Study hard, make us proud.".. 'us', refers to my three wonderful friends whom I hung out with most of the time in KL.

... and there's a respectful old man who recently wrote this to me and really smeared a soft-touched feeling deep in my heart..

He wrote,"..if I could ever pick a son, one would be you.."... this old man, I call him Papa, is my coach.

... ... I know I simply have more reasons to keep faith in that 'someone' I mentioned before. As what I questioned before, "which sparks in the universe triggered all the changes in my life and brought me here today?", well maybe I can't give myself an answer, but I can stand without getting any answers for it. That 'someone' is the star in this universe that arranged all highs and lows in my life, as well as all the people I meet and I encounter with, for some particular unforseen reasons.

"...This is what we dream about, but the only question with me now, is do I make you proud? .."

The song "Do I Make You Proud" is not my favourite song, but it kinda express my concern to all the people I met, all the people I know, all the people that believe in me, and to that special 'someone' who will always answer my prayer when I look up..

Love is in the air....

If this entry is finaly aired, it will be my 1st blog entry to talk about love.. I know it's kinda weird, yes it's certainly the weirdest thing a pious rocker does on his blog, but.. let's admit this, it was the rain that got me into this mood of tenderness....

My big sister officially married to Dave yesterday; on the same day, my dearest brother Pesa officially had the 1st date with his girl; the day before it, KakLin and Zul received the most precious gift of love from God as Lin gave birth to a baby boy Ameerul Adly bin Zulhaimi; Yahya and Fiza is going to get engaged next week; plus the wonderful marriage of Penn and Tini last week and also today (..not to forget wedding of the year seeing Malaysian Diva Siti marrying Datuk K...) ...well, love is in the air...

.. I congrated my sister and Dave, I shared the excitement with Pesa, I can't wait to see and touch little Ameerul Adly, I said Alhamdulilah to Zul and Lin, I hope I can witness the engagement of Yahya and Fiza, I expressed my best blessing to Penn and Tini, and I witnessed the wedding of Siti and Datuk K through live broadcasting...

... hence I felt love, didn't I? ... ... did I?

Surprisingly I still miss the girl who shared the tenderness of raining days with me once upon a time.. I said 'surprisingly' cuz I know I am the most cold-hearted creature on this planet. She's my kind of rain, but I'm just too mucky to get her to rain on me..

..don't worry, I'll end here.

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?