Adrenaline.

I’m quite happy with my results. Praise the Lord! So as Karen, who’d scored 7As and a donkey for Chinese. Really good for a wild child who doesn’t even know that Africa’s a continent. So it’s double celebrations again in the family. As for my class, DG081-1, Eddy has been so kind to us, giving all of us an A for drama. Awesome. Next year’s timetable states subjects like 2D animation, drawing for animation and cartoon character design. I’m trying to absorb every bit of how cool that sounds, neglecting all the others parts of how much I heard from the seniors complain. Sometimes it’s not about the complain or the opinion or the point of view, it’s more of whose the one who says it.

Anyways, adrenaline rushes through my body as I hear the college students buzzing with animated talks of comics, computer games, designs, illustrations etc. Students busy collecting their timetables and checking their results, most of us barely ready for the new semester. Barely ready, but excited. Of course! This is one of the most exciting lines to be in.

2008 was filled with so much excitement, top with a roller coaster ride, from enduring through daunting stressful days, to laughing the next day over stupid jokes, but crying the next over our hectic lifestyle which right now, don’t seem so bad after all. This year alone has made me open up my eyes to the world, as well as open up my mind in so many areas. I have never come to regret choosing this line,  but sometimes wishing that they could fuse illustration and animation together, so we could learn both. As well as pick up other softwares like 3D studio max and light wave 3D.

This year gave me a glimpse of what life is like. Putting core values and principles to the test as well as the Holy Spirit teaching me to see things beyond, how to love more unconditionally, how to not bombard people that drive me nuts, but understand their situation. I won’t say I was that obedient to God’s word. Because at times I just lose it, especially days when I had barely enough of sleep, or PMSing weeks. But still, it doesn’t give me a right to do so.

I just have to

I am so in love with my dog, that I just have to post this up to put a smile in my face every time i log in.

Below is the utmost randomness. It rang in my head the last time when I saw the front cover of Expose 4. The lady look so much like May-Ann, my awesome Language and coms 1 lecturer who is super cool to begin with. Notice the contours of the face, cheekbones, and nose is so alike? It’s like someone did a makeover on her. She is so gonna kill me if she sees this!

The last weeks

Results are coming out next Tuesday, so as our new timetables. There’s a whole bunch of things I have not done yet. Would you believe me if I said I have not even played any computer game during this whole holiday period? Only maybe a test drives of beginnings. Or that I have not even read a single comic book? There is something drastically wrong with me. There’s about a week left before the new semester and all I wanted to do is to do what I was supposed to be doing in the beginning – studying anatomies and colour. I think it’s gonna be an intensive 10 days trying to finish any incompletes ” should do’s” before getting back into the assignment lifestyle.

I finally got a new tablet! Consider me spoiled, because it’s an expensive one. An Intuos. Art student would roughly know how much that would cost. So yea, I am REALLY spoiled. I don’t denied it. Because I know many might not have opportunities to be spoilt like me.  Spoiled and blessed. I wanted a long lasting good tablet which would last me for years. It’s quite fun fiddling and playing with it, but your wrist gets tired after a while. My next investment would be a DSLR camera, which I would patiently save for it. I hope I would be able to get it because I’m so fed up of not getting the accuracy of the colour, mood and sharpness I want from a digital camera, even if the composition is good.  I could at least negotiate with my dad to get it before going to Angkor Wat for holiday next December (My first overseas trip, ever!). I’m also  really looking forward to photography classes, not sure when would that be.

Other than that, I had a really good Christmas and enjoyed the holidays immensely. I can’t say it’s a productive one, but it’s clearly an interesting and fun one.

Merry Christmas to You

I remembered waking up 6 o’clock sharp on the 26th of December, rushing down the stairs just to open gifts. I love the the whole feel and atmosphere of Christmas, breezing through shopping malls, enjoying the heavy deco and lightings everywhere, carols being sung on the radio, that soft but warm feeling in your heart while listening to bells jingle from a far, or staring blanking out of the window, hoping one day that Malaysia would eventually…snow.

How much I love the pleasant smell of turkeys and pies baked in the oven, or hoping I would get a whole new set of stationeries and some more soft toys to add on to my collection. But this is how you feel about Christmas, when you were a kid. To any kid, it was like magic before their eyes.

Now 18,  standing tall of who I am today, Christmas to me,  is celebrated with traditions like setting up Christmas trees, making fruitcakes and hanging up mistletoes. Many of these traditions are influenced by foreign pagan religious, which in many ways, have nothing much to do with the message or point of Christmas. Sleigh bells and reindeers are all mytical creatures taken from jolly St. Nicholas who decides to give presents to the poor children. Would we still continue to uphold this tradition? Even if we know part and partial of it is taken from here and there? It’s the same question as would you still continue to do yoga, whether or not it has influence of Hinduism in it? Would you still continue to do Tai Chi? Even though the Qi energy has a lot to do with Buddhism?

As salesman steals the opportunity to exploit the season,  getting people to buy gifts and to splur their money, or whether or not the question of Santa’s name being even more widely bombarded than Jesus Christ. Is Christmas still that relevant? Sharing and giving but leaving only a small place opened for the crucial important thing, the birth of Christ?

As I slum on the coach this morning, watching thousands of homeless New Yorkers on CNN, many whom had lost their job since the recession, eating breakfast at a large shelter, receiving a little gift when they left. Most of them whom are relentlessly finding any form of shelter that would give them enough heat to last through the night, sleeping on the streets as their last resort. I read about Missionaries from a Mississippi church coming into the halls of NY crowded with homeless people just to bring a few blankets and pillows to keep them warm. Or listening to my mom narrated how the old folks sang their hearts out when they when over to sing carols for them. Old folks whom their children, have decided to abandon them. Yes, Christmas is that relevant.

Or maybe the normal routine of jogging around my area thrice a week. Observing the people of the morning, watching dozens of Bangladesh workers, mostly Muslims, doing their early prayers.  Later on they would buy about a ringgit fifty’s worth of nasi lemak, working to have just enough to eat. The rules from my parents about not talking to strangers has long been buried in my childhood days. I have every right to smile and say a simple “Good morning” to them, or to any neighbour, just like my dad always did. To smile at the security guards and maids, whom live a simple life of serving their masters with very little salary. How admirable these people are, whom are oblivious about how the tumbling economy might effect them sooner or later.

Christmas is always relevant whenever the world is in pain, or drastically unstable. Christ is always relevant to anyone who suffers.

” The Word was in the world, and through God made the world through him, yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him. Some however, did receive him; so he gave them the right to become God’s children. They did not become God’s children by natural means, that is, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was the father.

The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son.” John 1 :10-14.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Technique practice 1

Just practicing on strokes and technique from observing seniors work. Charles Heston recently passed away this April. This is most likely one of the very rare actors who posessed such chiseled features. You don’t see much of this kind of “look” these days. Very manly, macho, rugged. I got fed up of the shirt halfway that’s why it’s extra messy there. But what the heck, it’s just practice.

Darren, please give me an online critic session. Thanks.

Race of Endurance

Yesterday, I ran my only marathon this year. A 6k. Because lazy people like me just refused to run an exhausting 12k.

But I felt proud. Not because I did it. But rather I finished without stopping, finished strong, with a powerful sprint at the end, and I wasn’t exhausted. I wasn’t panting like I used to, my weak ankles didn’t hurt much, I was just thrillingly alive! But I felt more proud of first timers -obese, whom pushed so hard just to complete the race, which to them, was like a miracle. Just like my dad used to encouraged me, encouraged someone who wants to get a real life free from health problems.

If you want to win a race, run a 100m race. If you want an experience, run a marathon.

Black people are crazy. When my part of the marathon started at 7.15am, they had already run a whole 6k in 15 minutes. I run ten steps, they’re 200m away from me. Their legs are so strong, it’s equivalent to the legs of a horse. I was like, “wow”, just to watch them move, their muscle working hard, cycling through the whole crowd as though it was a race of speed.

I started running when I was 13. Hated it. But learn to appreciate it when I turned 17. Tall people always have this dilemma of being selected to run. Yea. I wasn’t meant to be on the track, for goodness sake! Because I was never competitive in the first place. So why dump me in the field? Oh I forgot, because there was no other substitute. But when I started enjoying it on my own, I learned that long distance is a matter of testing your endurance. The first km is always the toughest. So it’s unwise to allow yourself to sprint and puncture halfway. It’s something like a personal achievement. But to me it was a case of feeling alive, that I could breathe, I could move, I could live another day. And if you get bored of how long the distance is, you could just pray for someone during the process? Haha.

I’m still quite lousy at running. I think. Because I have problems waking up early to run. I’m lazy. A lot of times I think I don’t need to exercise. While my parents still beat me in every single run I had with them. (My parents are crazy!) Well, let them feel happy that at their age they could beat an 18 year old. For now. hehe.

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Adeline and I did some scaling work with our teeth today. Yup, squeaky clean teeth after getting rid of all the plague. The dentist said I have 2 wisdom tooth that needs to be removed before 25. So, should be next year. Why the heck do we get wisdom tooth anyway? It’s meant to help us chew but it causes more problems then help itself.

Reliving personal history

“Diaries are meant for intimate moments with yourself, where else blogs & journals are for moments of growth in every step of your life.”

I have been writing diaries since I was standard 6, and still keeping them. I only wrote when that particular day was extra important or there was something that I kept to myself personally. Today is the day I reread them again. It’s merely impossible to read all of it, after all the writings I’ve accumulated over the years. But reading back on the pages clearly reminds me of I am the last time and who I am now.

Yea, that bratty girl I used to be… I could tell who I was exactly last time because diaries are quite “truthful” in that sense you write what you personally, truthfully think and feel. Of course when you were young you would be as geh po to peak through your sister’s diary to see what goes on in her head. But as I grew, I learn to respect people’s privacy, never forced anyone to opened up unless they wanted to. I understand when people choose to be “reserved”, because I can be pretty “reserved” and “closed” on certain particular topics, not because I’m embarrassed about it, but just plainly, I chose to keep it to myself.

From the selfish thoughts that I wrote, as the years past, I’ve learned to become more selfless. Ambitious, maybe. But a little bit more caring, day by day.

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The last 2 days were pretty lazy. I kept on falling asleep on my bed reading. But I still wish my holidays would still drag as long as I want it to be. There’s a whole lot of stuff I have not done yet. My hair is now cropped 4 inches off. Finally! I wanted it cut off so badly! Bob is okay, I guess. I just don’t like it curling at the ends. I can’t even tie it up. It’s freaking short!

I forgotten how much people knew stuff bout me through what I write. Well, I have to remind you. Blogs only show a mere glimpse of who you are. No one really writes out their deepest secrets to let the whole world know, unless, done intentionally. It’s very shallow, to think that you know the person entirely just by reading what he/she writes.

SS19 BEC Carolling 2008