The Last Free Week

Having been in Curtin Miri for the past 2 1/2 years... I just had my last free week ever in Uni life. Never will there ever be another free week for me again. (Unless I somehow get a job like... a school teacher??)

But even though I planned on actually enjoying my free week, things don't always go as planned. This free week turned into more like a stressful disaster of plans un-planning themselves and unplanned plans taking over.... like...

• some guy staying over and taking up half my bed, thus messing up my sleeping time;
• or 4 hour dinner sessions that consists of dinner topics that revolved somewhere in between 'SAW' and 'Hostel';
• or playing card games such as 'Bullshit' with people who don't even bullshit;
• Left 4 Dead and COD till 1am in the morning;
• Counter-Strike till 4am in the morning!
• spending 40 Brunei bucks on a day trip to Brunei;
• going downtown looking for something that I didn't manage to buy;
• and I just got a new game (the game isn't new) called 'BioShock', an award winning game in 2007, which scored no lower than 9.0 in ALL reviews;
• drawing anime characters from random animes;
• random photoshoots during what supposedly was my naptime;
• .... ....
• worrying about my assignments and final year project....
• yes, worrying, but not doing anything.... sigh...
• ... ...
• and so on and so forth...

But of all the stuff I did, there are 3 kinds of things, that when I do, I forget about everything else in the world, I leave all my worries behind, I stop worrying about time, food, work, everything else... and just put my all into what I'm doing in front of me. And doing those things, are the things I enjoyed doing most this free week.

Number 1, Games. I'd been playing games ever since I knew how to. And I never get bored of it. There's always new games anyway if I get bored of the old one. And right now, I'm playing this thing called "BioShock", I believe I mentioned it above... but still I'm gonna give it a quick run-through.

BioShock, released in 2007, leaped to the top of the list of First Person Shooter games in that year, I don't know where it holds out now, but I know its still bloody popular.

Anyway, the story is about a city built Underwater, called "Rapture". However, being submerged underwater, something went wrong, and soon, the whole city went to hell.

I haven't finished the game though.... in fact, I'm maybe just like... 5~10% into it... because it's a LONG game and it's toOoOo effin heart thumping to rush through it all at once.

The theme of the game is dark and gloomy, and every dark corner out there... you're gonna think something is watching you from there.

Then we have this Big Daddy and that cute Little Sister beside him, which he protects.

And in the game, you have skills like lighting people on fire, with the snap of your fingers! That's like Roy Mustang for you if you know him from FullMetal Alchemist.

Okay, enough for the game.

*********** 

My 2nd entertainment is, Photography.

When I pick up my camera and start shooting something with some inspiration. I forget about everything and just shoot.

Unfortunately though.... my photography isn't enough to help me survive.... so I can't just forget about everything else and go around taking photos.

*************

Lastly, my 3rd form of enjoyment and entertainment, isn't something I knew I could do until 4 months ago.


Drawing

Okay, I'm not that good at it, and I don't practice often. I only draw like.... 1 proper sketch a week or two... coz it takes time, and inspiration for something good to come up.

For now, I tend to draw mostly by reference of photos, pictures, or works of others, replicating it or modifying as I see possible by me =) Because I haven't had the ability to totally create something from nothing yet.

Like this piece:

Took me somewhere around 2 hours to finish... yea... I'm a bit slow at it, but never mind... I don't mind slow, I can enjoy the feeling of just being able to express myself through a pencil. And that's what I love most.

*************

However, free week is coming to an end, and I haven't started on anything solid yet. I have a massive Final Year Project which is sitting around and I'm assuming as if it's gonna build itself by itself when the time is right. I sure hope I am....

Till next time.

100

Wow. I can't believe this is actually my ONE HUNDREDTH post.

I started this blog almost 2 years ago when I was "trapped" in Miri with the intention that it might kill some time and it might be a good place to 'record' down any experiences. Turns out this blog proved pretty useful on the killing time part, since I can take more than an hour updating a single post if you guys knew... as for boredom... nah.... didn't help much there because I realised that when I'm bored... I don't blog either...

Anyway, it seems like a haven't updated in a while again. The last 2 weeks have been pretty..... both eventful AND uneventful... There are things I wanna write down in single separate posts... but just don't have the time and the right words for them; and then when things get uneventful, I happen to be sitting down at home, staring at Facebook or armorgames.com or even just my desktop screen because I'm SOOooooOO bored (okay, maybe I DO have time to update, but not the mood)

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Trying to come up with ideas.... ideas for what?

- Falling in Love -

Falling in Love is like... *splat*... "Shyt..." ... but before you know it, you've grown to like it.

These sort of ideas.... ^_^ ... photos for Valentine's Day.

It's just a thought that I'd try to kill some time by taking some photos for Valentine's day. Not that I'm gonna sell them or anything. I just thought it's a good idea to keep myself busy and come up with my own ideas for expressing Valentine's Day.

This picture is one to begin with. There'll be a couple more coming soon which... ... I've got the idea, but haven't photographed them yet.


Well, that's it for today. See ya soon.

Speak of Common Sense.

After nearly a month of sleeping at 3am, and waking up at 1pm. Today I had to wake up at 8:30 in the morning JUST for a dental appointment that's at 11.... Man... did I struggle hard to get up this morning. And then I drove.... and drove.... and looked for a parking... and looked for a parking.... and pop~ I was at the Luyang Clinic by 10:40. I handed in my appointment card, and then waited for my number to be called.

About 30 minutes passed. I was sitting down patiently and read the clinic's version of their "Ten Commandments" stuck on the wall..... 1. We will serve our patients with kind, grateful and good manners..... 2. We shall have your registration done within 15 30 minutes time..... ... ... ... ... ... etc etc... and then I came to one which stated "You shall be called for your treatment in no more than 30 60 minutes."... ... I guess all the strikeouts are because of them suddenly realising they worked too slow and needed more "budget" time-wise.

I sat, and sat... and sat... .... day dreaming my boredom away.... I was dreaming I had some super powers which was the ability to distort time... which made me seem to have god-like speed and always appeared to have time to do everything... I could dodge bullets by slowing down time whenever I wanted... ... or speed it up if I felt I had too much of it...

... ... not knowing how long I sat there... or was it I fast forwarded time with my ability?? *Ting....*cyborg woman's voice goes * .... 3.... 1..... 3..... 7.... bilik... 43*... About bloody time now isn't it? I looked at my watch. 12:36; I looked back up at the clinic's "Ten Commandments". "Screw it", I thought.

Well.... and what do you know?? I was in the treating room for like 5 minutes, and they're like "Okay, our next appointment should be.... .... about 6 months from now." ~!? Was that compensation for my lost time or what? Oh for God's sake, I waited one and a half hours just for 5 minutes of seeing some random doctor's eyes only??? Seriously, I didn't even see her face with her wearing her mask since I entered till I left.

No kidding. These people should really use some common sense in queuing people. I waited for nearly 2 hours, for a 5 minute session? Who's gonna gimme back my 2 hours? Besides, unless they count their numbers the opposite way, I reckon that 3143 comes AFTER 3137... whom I saw some other girl who waited much less than me walk into the very same room 43 after that number was called.

So much for being patient.... AND common sense. Some people just have too much of them.... or nearly none.


Anyway, that topic aside... here's a pic I took for today.

 Say "No" to Racism

Somehow, for some reason, I dug my chess set out of the pile of that's been sitting in a dusty room ever since I moved house a year ago. It seems we still haven't unpacked. Haha.... we prefer it that way I guess.

I wanted to have a bit more dramatic lighting to it, but I just didn't have any equipment here and had to use window light.... which was kinda soft for such a photo. Might try another when I'm back in Miri. At first, I thought there was something wrong about it. But then I realised that it looked kinda... racist =.= .... but I still liked the photo... so... ... Say "No" to Racism. ^^

A Bloody Mess

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at home trying out some new experiments. I didn't sleep well the night before. And I had to wake up early this morning for Chua's Brother's wedding ceremony. I was very tired, but was determined to finish the experiment quickly and then only catch a nap for the wedding dinner in a few hour's time.

As I was meddling with my apparatus... I was feeling kinda disappointed with the results of my experiment. "Ish... another failure...." I thought. But all by accident, my mind went blank for a few seconds because of exhaustion; my hand slipped. My mind exclaimed "Sh*t!" but I heard my mouth yell "F*ck!". All too soon, the damage was done. And on the floor.... ....

Laid a bloody mess.


I sat there stunned.... .... eyes fixed on what looked like a crime scene....

But my eyes sparkled at the thought.... that it seems the experiment was quite a success after all... ...

2 weeks into December

So... it's 7:30 in the morning... and why am I awake?? Because I got "put aeroplane" for my morning training for Mt. Kinabalu session. And I'm pissed!... ... Okay... maybe I'm not, thanks to years of training from my classmates where half of them are good "pilots". And I wouldn't wanna go back to sleep after trying so hard to wake up at 6:00 in the morning would I??

**put aeroplane, translated literally from 放飞机 in chinese, which in chinese... is used when someone decides to say "Hey! Sorry, I can't make it, you guys will have to do without me~ =)" sort of thing.


It's past week 2 for December.... and slowly, things are picking up it's pace.... And life have been starting to get 'meaningful' (whatever meaningful means to you, hehe).

They're 2 simple things that make life fun and meaningful for me.
One, Games... with friends of course.
Two, Friends... with food and drinks =)



So I've been trying out the new game Left 4 Dead 2 a couple of times with my friends~!! And find it just as good/bad... as its prequel.

Gameplay is overall the same if you've played Left 4 Dead.... What this part 2 gives you is a couple of fine new weapons and zombies ^^ Zombies look much cooler in part 2, with much more variety of clothing and funny faces, haha, yea... I like to pay attention to the funny detail. The Computer controlled zombies are much more cleverer this time too~~

So I wasn't planning to write a full review on it. You wanna know what this new game is like? Let's meet at Cyber X and we'll show you how it's like, haha.


On to the 2nd fun and meaningful things in life, I've been hanging out with friends lately... in the morning... for jogging, always followed up by a nice and filling yam cha somewhere nearby. I won't be posting photos of this yet, since I decided to upload them all up along AFTER I finished my Mt. Kinabalu trip.

Yesterday though, we had a casual outing and my first attempt at a photoshooting session T.T

To be honest, I learned it ain't easy having a shoot with people as subjects, haha. Especially the setting, make-up, poses, design and stuff. I'm more into... shooting natural stuff without having to set-up or pose or choose a spot especially for the photo. But anyway~~~ For my first photoshoot, I'm somewhat satisfied with the results ^^ although there's many places I realised I could've done better when post-producing the photos.

Lot's of OOF (Out of Focus) and undefined subjects... busy background and stuff. But hey.... it's okay I guess.... considering it's not even a year I've started photography yet, hehe. My camera isn't even a year old yet ^^

There weren't many pictures that managed to pass through my 'filtering process', but to view all the pics anyway... they're in my Facebook Album.




My favourite photo for the day:

Sorry Jo. I seriously like this one. Haha~

It's December~~!!

A year has once again passed, and December is back~! Ah... December December, the month to Remember. December always comes with memorable joys and all kinds of events going on all month. So is this year's. Seems to me that this December is gonna be a busy month (I hope ^^).



It's been 5 days into December, and so far... okay.... I haven't been doing much... yet. But there's plenty of plans up ahead, such as training my ass off.... for what? for conquering my hometown's 'peak', Mt. Kinabalu... getting wasted at parties (if there are any...) And of course looking forward to see what will come out of this year's New Year's Celebration!!


Well, as I said, I haven't really done anything so far for this month, but for starters.... I got myself a new Lens for my camera ^^ Namely the Nikkor AF-S 35mm F1.8 DX.

That's the sucker. Looks small? Think again. It cost me a whooping RM800!! But what can I say... I sure have an expensive hobby eh... it took me more than 6 months to save up the money for it. Sigh.

Anyway, in case you're wondering what's so goody about it. I'll give a short explanation. The F1.8 means it's capable of a larger maximum aperture (hole) size, compared to my previous kit lens. Meaning I'm gonna be able to shoot at faster shutter speeds, and also have a better "blur" effect. ... .... .... .... Okay =.= maybe I'm just talking to the wall. But anyway, just put it simply, I won't buy something that won't benefit me.

This is my actual lens. Taken using the new 35mm F1.8 Nikkor. Look any different? ~.~ okay... maybe it doesn't look so different here. (Well, but if you really wanna compare, compare the 'blur' of my laptop with in the 2 pics, notice that the first pic has more detail, 2nd pic is blurer). I guess you'll just have to wait and see the difference from my new photos from now on.


The Lens turned out to be pretty interesting so far. Fast and silent auto-focusing, nice 'bokeh', small and lightweight.... and I'm satisfied with all but ONE.

I just wish Nikon could've been a bit less 'cheap' and stuck to creating their products in Japan or countries that had better reputation in their manufacturing quality.... ~.~

Exams... are so close...

I really wonder how I studied for exams all my life. Throughout my life, I've sat through dozens and maybe hundreds of exams. Never once did I fail too badly, but never once do I know how I managed to scrub through it either.

Exam for this semester is coming up once again. But this time.... I really really really really do NOT, feel like studying... why? I don't know.... I wonder how I studied for exam last semester, but I can't seem to recall how =.=

At the same time, our oh-so-kind lecturer decided to give us some ADVICE! I was overjoyed when I saw the link "must read ADVICE". So I quickly clicked it, and waited for my 'snailnet' to load the page..... ..... .... .... ... ... ... .. .. .. .. . . . . After an agonizing 3 MINUTES.

Doesn't "May you find the force WITHIN you" sound like some Yoda talk from Star Wars!??? Or is there some hidden meaning in the 'within' word since it was highlighted in RED?? Seriously ~.~... the advice couldn't be any worse...


So instead of studying... I eventually decided to take photos instead ^^ and try out my new 'semi-studio' setup for shooting small items (which.... hopefully... with some time and money... would expand into being able to shoot human subjects)

And... well, the results turned out pretty nice, hehe.

My ZIPPO Lighter

My poor battered up phone.
But to me it looks almost like new here, haha


And last, somehow, simple but my favourite so far.


A present from a friend of mine.
(Though I never use it....)

Any comments?? hehe


Shucks.... photoshooting instead of studying.... I'm really doomed.... maybe I should change my course after all, lol.

That's all for now. Gonna give studying a try.

Photography: DSLRs, a quick reflection, and a quick introduction

I first had interest in Photography since I was around 18. Before that, I didn't quite find it interesting, maybe I was young, maybe I was immature, but I had more interest in Video-graphy and films.

Even now, I still strongly wish I could dive into the Film & TV production line, yet, I'm still stuck where I am for the meantime.

Anyway, I had my first camera at the end of year 2008. Since then, my passion for photography has grown, deeper and stronger. And today, I find myself checking and learning about photo-related stuff at least once a day.


But that's not my topic for this post. In this post, I'm gonna nag about how photography became from a nearly insignificant or severely unappreciated skill, into something so cool today that you even see 13 year old Danny boy holding a DSLR walking the market.

DSLR's have became a 1 in a 500 sight, to 1 in 20. Meaning that for every 20 people, at least 1 person has a DSLR today. The reason for this?? I'll go straight to the point, DSLRs used to cost a FORTUNE to buy during our grandad's days, and they only came in film formats, would you buy a 10k black colored box, which you couldn't see the result of what you're shooting until it came out of the very dark-room and you said "Aiyak! I missed the head!".

The cheapest DSLRs today costs only around 2k to own. Ranging from the Nikon D60, Canon's Rebel Series, and all the way to the less known but 'satisfaction guaranteed' brands such as Olympus. A very good point and shoot (P&S) digicam would cost 1.5k, and a bombshell DSLR at 2k, but the quality?? **whistles** Not up to debate ^.^


However, this drop in pricing lead to a quite an overpopulation (if you ask me) in DSLRs for the typical consumers. It seems that nowadays, nearly every John Doe you meet has a DSLR at home which he/she would gladly showoff to everyone so that they think he/she's a professional photographer. And the problem, is... that they just don't bloody know how to actually USE a DSLR. 90% of them just spin the mode dial into Auto, and shoot away with full-auto!!

Just let me say.... that a DSLR wasn't built for such use. They are SPECIFIC. People (real Photographers) buy DSLRs for a purpose, and that is to have full control of the camera's functions. Photography is a constituent of many many elements put together to make that photo WORTH the price.

Technical stuff like Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO Sensitivity is one..... but then, there are Technique-cal stuff again, like angles, lighting, focal length...... not to mention the most important things about photography, which are NOT any of those just mentioned, but instead is 'the Right moment, and the Right time'. Only with all these put together, the product.... is an art, and it's called photography.


So for those of you who were planning on buying a DSLR just to go auto and let the camera do everything? I'd recommend you just get the 1.5k(or less) one which would do just exactly fine. Unless you're into Serious photography, getting a DSLR will be just for show...

I'm no pro in photography or something, but at least I'm trying, and am still learning. If you're interested and need any help, I'd gladly help too.

**Btw, to those interested in DSLRs, D = Digital, SLR = Single Lens Reflect, which actually got it's name from the use of a Single Lens body only each time we're shooting. The MAIN purpose of a DSLR, is for it's interchangable wide range of lenses. So IF you're planning on getting an SLR, and NOT planning on upgrading your Lenses..... you're basically buying a One Kilogram paperweight.



That's all.


~Sorry if the content seemed a bit offensive. I just thought I'd update my blog and I came up with this. Anyway, it might serve as a wake up call to any of you who's still shooting Auto with your SLR/DSLR. It's 3am btw, so pardon if it sounds a bit harsh.... I'm sleepy and my mood isn't so good ^^