Quick recap of the past few days again (or in this case, last Friday):

i) Went for raincloud_sama and enigmatic_wind's kind-of farewell dinner (the two of them are leaving for the UK soon) at Pasta Zanmai in Sunway Pyramid. The food was decent, but the service wasn't very good - we had to ask three times at least for my green tea and Denise got the wrong order once; they had to reconfirm the order several times, if I recall correctly. And that's not even taking into account the wait for the food to arrive. Admittedly, both yuncyn and I came late-ish and the restaurant was fairly crowded, but still. Not the best of impressions when it comes to service.


ii) sapphire_1010 AND I FINISHED 'CARTOON HEROES' (YES, ALL THE WAY TO THE END) ON DDR STANDARD MODE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER YEAAAAAAAAH. \(>A<)9

Hoping to reduplicate the feat someday before going for 'Captain Jack', yosh!


iii) Ended up buying a pair figurines from Vol. 2 of the Dynasty Warriors 6 Eiketsu Mini Figures because they're cute and I am weak that way. These figures go for RM25 each (ouch), but are pretty well made and cute to boot! Plus, it's Dynasty Warriors, end of story.

The figure is completely hidden in the box it comes in, so exactly which figurine you'll get is totally random and dependent on your own luck. Darnit. >:/

( So did I get lucky? )


Today:

Dropped by the 'One Kilometre World' exhibition by S. Amin Shahab in Pyramid with my family today. It was pretty interesting, the canvas - in a nutshell, it is a one-kilometer-long canvas with various landscapes and people shifting and melding with each other. The whole thing was done solely in pen (Artline, if I'm not mistaken), which made the details on it doubly impressive, IMHO.

( tl;dr? Long, detailed canvas is long and detailed - now with photos! )

There's also the '1,001 Faces of Malaysia' project happening right beside the exhibition, with S. Amin Shahab sketching 1,001 faces of shoppers and people who 'represent our country'. It's still ongoing and will continue until the 31st of August, so if you want your face to be one amongst the many others, I believe it's open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Sunway Pyramid.

( Oh, and before you go... )

Since I haven't updated in the past few days, here's a update-dump of a sorts!

( Slightly less painful than an annual report; let's start from Thursday. )

*dusts off hands* I think that about covers it for now. Really got to pick up my LJing habit properly again.

*blows off dust* Haven't been prodding around LJ for awhile now - sorry about that. The current Altador Cup over at Neopets has been kind of distracting me from pretty much everything else (Lost Desert will win the cup, darnit! (T^T)9 ), but at least I've been poking my friends list every few days or so?

Anyway! I figured it was high time I kickstarted my posting again. And what better way to do it than with a fire report?

( A fire? No wai! +2 )

Well, enough of my ranting, here are some park photos I took on the jog out:

( Why Taman Subang Ria doesn't deserved to be burnt down +4 )

Also, while I was uploading the park/fire shots, I thought I'd put up some pictures of Chiko as well. ♥

( C-C-Chiko! +2 )

Bigger, fluffier and as cute as ever. ♥ I contest that no one can resist that face. NO ONE.

Coming assignments and talk that the FYP supervisors will be assigned by next week makes me tired just listening about them. :/ And wow, did my blog-writing skill rust when I wasn't looking?

Quick, ninja-time( ! )

So much for logically deciding I shouldn't get them earlier; technically, I've just bought a whole set. *facepalms* I blame it on the vanilla scent that wafted past my nose when I checked to ensure the third cupcake gloss (for my cousin) was in good condition.


(Cupcake lip glosses from Bloop, left to right: melon, strawberry, vanilla)

And I found the other two much, much closer to home - in Sunway Pyramid to be exact! Even better, we (I dragged yuncyn out with me again ^^;) were allowed to pick and choose the ones we wanted, unlike the prepackaged ones in Midvalley. The way I figured it, they could be a present to myself for last semester's grades, but justified or not, they are really too cute to resist, darnit.

When I came home, my cousin had a surprise of her own for me - this cute doll-pendant necklace that, incidentally, she also got from Pyramid today:

Thanks so much, Pei Yi! (^3^) I'll be sure to keep (and wear) it safely.

Now, for some less frivolous stuff. Noticed this on dustyhawk's LJ and hey, who am I not to forward a good cause:



The above DiGi campaign is aiming to raise RM150,000 in 30 days for various charities and we can help! That banner there will lead you to the charity I chose - MAKNA - but you can choose a different charity to support from the Save Now!' page. Just click on the charity you want to support from one of the three categories (nature, health, social), and DiGi will donate RM5 to that charity.

You don't have to be a DiGi user to participate in this campaign, so no 'but I'm a Celcom/Maxis/insert your mobile provider here' excuses, guys. I'm not sure if it's limited to Malaysians only but there's no harm in giving it a try. ;D You will have to verify your email after clicking since each individual/group is only allowed one vote, but it is a pretty sweet deal nonetheless.

So if you can spare some time and a click for one of those charities, please do! Those charities will really appreciate it and so will the people those charities help. :) Also, do spread the word - let's give DiGi a leg up in achieving that RM150,000!

Back from Kemaman, where we (yuncyn and I) bunked with a friend of ours, Sal, border-hopped between Pahang and Terengganu and enjoyed the heck out of two days. 8D Thanks for having us over, Sal - we had a awesomely awesome time! *hugs*

Anyway, long post is LONG and heavy picture post is HEAVY. Seriously, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

( So it all starts from the plane, y'see... )

All the other photos are over here. This post alone took me, what, an hour to compile?

All in all, it was an amazingly productive holiday (or just 'amazing' would probably do the trick) - thanks Sal for allowing us to bum out at your house! And tell your family that we're really, really grateful for them tolerating us dragging you out here and there. >DDD Only downside of the trip were the perverts who turned up at the Legend on the first day, but the way I figure it, it isn't all that surprising. And weighed against the experiences we had, it's really almost nothing but a niggle in a memorable trip.

So...Redang next time, yeah? (^o^)9

Am in Kemaman typing this:

JUST RODE AN ELEPHANT FOR THE FRIGGIN' WIN.

One mid-term (Language Learning Theories) down this week, one midterm (History of EL) next week. Joy, oh joy.

I've also been keeping myself fairly updated on the current Malaysian political issues, partly due to our Mass Media subject and...gah. Not going to say anything specific about it, but gah. GAH. That pretty much sums up my opinion on all of them, give or take a headache or two. =__=

In the funny corner, dmjewelle just linked me to the PURPLEST. PROSE. EVER. Trust me, when a woman is described akin to a rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, an Arthurian tale (with the dragons!), a barnyard AND various kinds of architecture at the same time, there's something seriously, seriously wrong.

And when that woman's physical description actually encompasses even more unbelievable fields (both literally and non literally) than the few I've just named above, you know you're in for, at the very least, a good laugh.

Sadly, his dialogue is not much better. Oy vey.

And this got published? Hey, maybe my secondary school essays stand a chance of being compiled into a book too then! Heck, they'd be less headache-inducing, that much's for sure.

(PS: While you're at it, do check out the fanart done of that remarkable woman. I'm currently downloading the dramatic reading because I don't have a cat for curiosity to kill.)

(PSS: Now, the art has reach whole new levels of awesome. Because nothing is more eloquent than the literal form. ;D)

(PSSS: Apparently, this book has actually even won an award!

REVIEW: Volume 1 of this series (BRONWYN: PALACES & PRISONS) won the 2001 Book of the Year Award - Foreword Magazine ForeWord Magazine - Silver Fiction Award: Science Fiction -- Award Note

.....WOOOOOOOW.)

Just got back from the overnight Cornerstone Baptist Church (CBC) Lock-In event; it was pretty fun - will probably go for the one at the end of the year too if I can. I just hope it doesn't clash with CF.

Next time though, I will bring a blanket and a pillow. *nods decisively* And by hook or by crook, I will figure out how to brown a sausage without turning at least one side into carbon.

Also, KJ's treasure-hung-clues hiding places are tough. >____> I spent goodness-knows-how-many minutes looking over the entire photocopier and STILL did not find the clue said to be there.

Going to go catch a few winks - Saturday was another whole day out, with uni, ECO tutoring and the Lock-In rolled into one - snowballing into an early next day meant an even higher sleep debt and believe me, I've accumulated quite a large one as it is.

Will catch up with my F-list skimming in a few hours or so. In the meantime, I hope everyone's doing okay. *hugs*

Happy Hari Merdeka, Malaysia! I felt a bit gypped regarding the fireworks though; I spent 30 futile minutes waiting on the church rooftop and forsaking the BBQ pit hoping for a few dazzlers and all I got was some distant booming noises.

Still, there is always next year. ^^;

Just finished watching the Gold medal round for Men badminton singles and I rather feel like strangling the people in the stands. =___= Even though I'd totally do it myself if it were in Malaysia, orz.

Their cheering was so incredibly loud even on TV; I can't imagine how immensely overwhelming it must be over there, much less in Lee Chong Wei's ears. >D;;; TRAIN WITH EARPLUGS NEXT TIME?

To be fair, he's definitely been in better form, but I doubt anyone can blame him from getting shell-shocked from all the insane yelling. Plus, Lin Dan is actually pretty darn good (and that's putting it very lightly), even without the home-ground advantage.

But like yuncyn put it, it is still THE BEST MERDEKA PRESENT EVER, DARNIT. MALAYSIAN FLAG DURING THE OLYMPIC PRIZE GIVING CEREMONY SINCE.....SINCE I CAN'T REMEMBER. HAH, HAD TO DIG IT OUT FROM THE BOX, DINCHA, OFFICIALS???

*coughs*

And if anyone dares to bash his performance, why don't YOU go give it a go then?? Seriously, getting to where he went is amazing on its own, even without the gold medal match.

BE PROUD, CHONG WEI! BRING THAT MEDAL HOME WITH PRIDE! (T^T)9 YOU CAN GO WIPE THE COURT WITH LIN DAN NEXT TIME! *CHEERS*

LEE CHONG WEI ADVANCES TO THE FINALS IN BADMINTON MEN SINGLES IN OLYMPICS.

AND WE'RE STILL YELLING OUR LUNGS HOARSE OUT OVER HERE; NOT THAT ANYONE MINDS, SINCE THE NEIGHBOURS ARE PRETTY MUCH YELLING WITH US.

*FISTPUMPS IN TRIUMPH AND DANCES ALL AROUND THE REC ROOM*

LADLASKJDLASNDC,SMXZNCSDLKJFSDKFJDSFSDFSDFSDFFH

[/JOYOUS KEYSMASH]

IT'S ALL IN THE _SHIRT_, I TELL YOU. DEFINITELY THE SHIRT. >8DDDDDD

I'M TOTALLY WATCHING THE FINALS, ZOMG. NATIONAL SOLIDARITY FTW!!!!! \(T^T)9

GO FOR THE GOLD, CHONG WEI!!! JUST DON'T FORGET YOUR SHIRT AND YOU SHOULD BE FINE. >DDDDDDD

Expect incoherency - that's what you get from me late at night. >D

Just got back from Passion World Tour 2008, woooo! My throat is hoarse and my feet are kinda tired but wow. Just wow.

What can I say? I can't think of enough adjectives to sum it up, but here are the few I can think of at the moment: crazy-cool, amazing, God-driven, phenomenal. If I could attend it all over again, I would in a heartbeat, hands-down, no second questions.

The conference was at the Sunway Convention Center - we (KJ, Adam, Stella, Denise and I) got there relatively early, around 4-ish or so. Turned out to be a pretty smart move, considering the 4k-strong crowd that turned up (so many people!! O___O) We managed to secure seats four rows from the front, right side - with the exception of the large camera blocking off a part of the stage view, they were pretty darn good seats. Yay for assimilation? Inside joke.

Chris Tomlin was crazy-cool! Likewise with Charlie Hall (though I'm less familiar with his songs, admittedly). But really, Louie Giglio's message really took the cake - it was, for the lack of a better word, awesome. I can't summarize the full awesomeness of the whole thing, but one of the highlights is definitely how God reaches out to everyone who reaches out to him without any hesitation, even the 'screw-ups'. Oh and how we Christians are all 'fruitcakes' who go to conferences with people 'with no life'. >D

Man, I've never been prouder of being a fruitcake - I am, after all, a 'crazy person who has to act normal so that I can get along with others but am actually not normal because I'm crazy for God'. >D Woohoo! (Seriously, if I ever really do bump into Ashley in Heaven, I have to stop and thank her - her testimony is really beginning to shine all over the world. Our God is indeed mighty to save.)

A bonus was that just this morning in church, KJ showed Louie's 'How Great is Our God' message - that totally blew me away and really hyped me up for the night conference. You can watch the first part of that HERE on Youtube; the rest of the links should be in the 'related videos' sidebar. Watch it; it is mind-blowing on a whole new level of mind-blowing.

The main star, of course, was God - he was definitely there tonight, amongst us. Gotta thank Passion for reminding me that our God is awesome times infinity and then some and that he is looking out for us 24/7. ♥ And thanks God, for bringing up this opportunity to attend this - it came at a pretty good time, considering my life has been hitting a few lows these past few weeks. I'm gonna pick my self-confidence off the floor, shake the dust off it and start trying to use it; if You say I'm a miracle, who am I to say I'm worthless?

Will be wearing my wristband until at least Tuesday - I may not be able to beat KJ's 'wear-it-till-it-drops-off-my-wrist' though. >D

I also need to get my hands on a Chris Tomlin album. Now. Or soonish anyway. (T^T)9

Super-succinct post, but I have to go do some research on Garrett's speech production model for Psycholing, acccck.

And so, Malaysian history has been made.

And we've just lived through it, even as it happened around us!

BN has been denied their two third (for the first time since they took over the government, if I'm not wrong?), several prolific ministers lost their state seats, and Selangor's under DAP now. It's not the only state under Opposition either; Kelantan, Kedah, Perak and Pulau Pinang have also been taken. (Then again, Kelantan's never been taken. But still.)

And some of the Opposition candidates won by some pretty big margins! I'll admit it came as a bit of a shock to me to find out Lee Hwa Beng lost; I vaguely heard my mother say that he won by a margin of 5000 votes yesterday - woke up this morning to find that the margin was correct, but the results were completely the opposite.

Likewise, I think I fell off my chair when MalaysiaKini posted an unofficial result stating Samy Vellu had lost. I mean, woaaaaaah - this is the man who said that this round would be the last time he was standing for candidacy - I doubt this was the bang he'd wanted to go out with. (Admittedly, I'm not all too disappointed though - he's been a tad too long in his seat IMHO.) Koh Tsu Koon's loss was also a surprise, even more than Sharizat's actually.

If anyone wants to see the detailed results, go over here. Alternatively, feel free to poke at this interactive map (nabbed from aiwritingfic's LJ).

Heck, have the MalaysiaKini website report as well! I stayed up until 1 a.m. yesterday avidly refreshing this page, moved on to the TV upstairs by 2 just waiting to see if they would announce the Subang Jaya results. No cigar though - I fell asleep at around 2.30 and heard from an uncle that it was only announced at what, 4?

So, we're under DAP rule now, Selangor people!

I'm seeing a number of posts on my F-list cautioning people to not go out/be careful for the next few days in case of riots; while I reckon Subang should be pretty safe, I'll just try to be a little more alert whenever I'm out. Especially during uni hours, since that is in PJ and I'm not quite sure how they feel about the results.

But....wow. *wander away to reread the newspaper reports*

My Internet lives! *POSES* Turns out I just can't attach/upload any kind of files or my laptop will hang; I don't know if this is permanent or not, but I'm hoping it's not...

And Chiko's back home! \(^o^)/ And 3x more frisky than everrrr~~♥ Our theory is that she was already sick when we took her back, which would explain why she wasn't eating on the first day itself and was less active.

She's starting to bite too and boy, does she have sharp teeth! We're trying to introduce a potty system for her, but it's going to take some time for it to stick...

She also robbed me of my sleep-in day - I was supposed to be able to snooze until at least 11 today, but had to roll out of bed by 8.45 to feed her since my mom wasn't in. I had half a mind to blame it on her -she just deprived me of the only late day in my schedule for the past 3 weeks!!!- ...until she wagged her tail.

Dammit, I have no willpower. ♥

Elections are starting today! I'm going to have to keep up to date with the news for the next few days or so; this round may have some surprises up its sleeves.

I probably need to clear off some of my workload today, but it feels so much like a laze-in day I can't bring myself to do much but laze around. XD;;; Maybe tonight?

Lit. assignment finally done and handed in, woohoo! Only a lot more to go now!

Interestingly enough, if not for our current journalism assignment (which was to write something based on the 2008 elections), I might not have gotten so into following the various speeches, development (and mud-slinging) of the various parties. *grimaces*

I'm one of those who tend to be 'on the fence' when it comes to elections; I still am, but where I was all 'ah, don't care lah', I'm more engrossed in it now. Our daily conversations begin with critically breaking down the acts (and weaknesses) of the BN and the opposition as reported in the paper. It's easy to be moved by the emotions of the speeches each party makes, but the whole picture has to be considered.

In the case of the opposition, a friend pointed out that while they're good at noticing and declaring the fallacies and failings (mostly in the racist sector) of our current gov., they haven't actually given and evidence of how they plan to bring around change and/or implement their ideas. Even with the counter that they can't go much into detail about it because i)people might be bored and thus it'll throw off their momentum, ii)they are unsure of how they might do it or iii) finances play a big part, it's still something to consider. We don't want to 'cut off our nose just to spite it' after all; unseating the gov. may be a triumph, but if the elected gov. are unable to carry out their grand plans, we'll be no better off than when we started, right?

Still, the BN quotes and actions that are being circulated currently is very...well, I doubt a lot of people are feeling all too pleased with them at the moment. I know I winced at the rape statement and 'Bocor' was a major discrimination issue. The deputy PM's statements (the ones everyone's flagging) are...well, really inappropriate, especially the more racist statements - you expect our economy to improve if you basically tell a good portion of Malaysians to 'leave if we don't like it'? This (from A Very Frightened Malaysian Abroad) sums up a good deal of the issues currently being brought up; alternatively, you can visit Nak Tak (which is disconcertingly dedicated to digging up the dirt on BN).

Just for the record, I'm still neutral - after all, I'm still ineligible to vote and I doubt I've completely seen both sides of the coin. Nevertheless, whatever the outcome, we're floating around in potentially dangerous times.

Long day today; I've been out for more than 12 hours, going from uni to Pyramid to cover the Cultural celebrations there. It was a productive day though, and enjoyable, so there's nothing to grumble about there!

Strangely enough though, all the events today (with the exception of our Grammar tutorial replacement) had something to do with Malaysia in some form. The first hit came in Journalism today; our teacher hinted she might give us a pop quiz on general knowledge and thus, we all started reading up on recent news in hopes she would ask us about it.

Then suddenly, she starts asking about the Minister of Information's name, The Minister of Higher Education, the Mayor of KL, what OPEC stood for...cue hysterical and nervous laughter as everyone scratched their heads and went 'buuuuh????'

*groans* I only got 3 out of 15 questions correct, and the highest scorer in our class only got 6. Thank goodness this wasn't a serious quiz (so it's not taken into account when calculating our coursework), but our lecturer warned us that is will be serious next time and to start paying attention to the newspapers.

...I should start making a list of all the election candidates' names now, right? T_____T


And now for the real reason of this post: For our Critical Thinking class, we were asked by Dr. C to watch this documentary by Fahmi Reza - Sepuluh Tahun Sebelum Merdeka (10 Years Before Independence), when Malaysia was still under British rule.

Well, we came, we watched, we were blown away by something we were completely ignorant about. And not in the sense of not knowing a certain Minister's name either, but where we didn't know such an event actually happened at all.

My brain is currently too mushy to go into details (I will when I write it up for refractology), but I strongly suggest you guys (especially the Malaysians) on my F-list click on that link - so strongly that I decided I wouldn't go to sleep until I LJed about this. Seriously. It's insightful, it's interesting and it covers something our History textbooks almost completely omits - the 'Hartal' of 1947. Additional information can be found at this Blogspot. Check it out, and spread the word. ;)


After all that, we trudged over to Pyramid where the Cultural CNY celebration was being held. We (yuncyn and I) thought we might be able to get a scoop regarding the election for our journalism assignment because it was sponsored by Barisan National and MCA, but alas, it had almost nothing to do with the election at all. T^T

Nevertheless, what we got may be enough to work as a back-up plan and it was worth the trip if only to see the super-awesomely-gorgeous fireworks; I can't remember how long they lasted, but heck if it wasn't longer than the ones on New Years! (I got a crick in my neck just craning my head up at the sky. >DDD) And they were absolutely stunning, whizzing and spiraling and sparkly. (^o^) We also got to see the 25-times-World-Champion lion dance team perform as well, woot!

Now, bedtime! *flops away*