the silver lining...

the longer i live, the more i believe in the idiom "every cloud has a silver lining". crap happens, yes, but i believe everything happens for a reason. and tho we may feel really bad at the time, there's always something good that comes out of it. even if we can't see it then, the good part will nearly always be revealed later on, if not sooner. so bad experiences are just a platform for the good ones to appear!

staying connected...

is it weird that i seem to find comfort in seeing my friends online in any of the chat application, even when i'm not actually chatting with them? for me, it's good to know that my friends are just a click away, and even when we're physically apart, i'll still feel their presence just by the "green light" next to their profile name... and i find solace in that.

now tell me, am i weird?

packing off for a new land...

it's funny how some people are so surprised when they hear that i'll be flying off to seek my fortunes in another country. i mean, hadn't mankind been doing that since the beginning of time? and yet there are still people who are so afraid (and some even opposed) to this idea...

if u're a malaysian reading this, chances are u're a descendant of an immigrant too! unless u're of the indigenous people lineage, that is... so our ancestors made the move a long time ago. they packed up their belongings, kissed their relatives goodbye and set off for the unknown in search of a better living.

and now, in this time and age, where a lot of things, people and places are not so "unknown" anymore, there are still many who view going to work/stay in another land as something utterly outrageous.

ah well...

read also:
1. leaving on a jet plane!

the long and short of it all...

ok, seeing that a lot of stuff are pretty much confirmed now, i feel i should put up a post about it all... coz everything is like linked to one another!

it all began when i applied for a position in the place where "now everyone can fly" (NECF for short). that was in mid may this year... but after the interview, they took so long to get back to me! at that time, i was looking for a new place to move to, so it was kinda frustrating. should i look for a place near to NECF? but i don't want to be staying at somewhere too ulu... so i need to be near enough to the new office, but still be around the proximity of kl for me to continue my gakkai activities in kl as well as in the orchestra. but what if i don't make it to NECF? i'd then have to continue to commute to the heart of kl daily, so that means i can't stay too far away from the city too! argh!!!

by mid june, i've yet to find my new place, coz there were some changes within NECF and i need to go thru another series of interviews... bla bla bla... i was in a bit of a panic by then, as housemate P and i were scheduled to move out by july! so to be safe, i decided to look for a place in the same area i was before, because it's sorta like in the middle of everywhere.

and so, i quickly found a place and was in the midst of packing up my stuff, arranging for movers, settling all the outstanding bills etc (not forgetting the trauma from all that's happened to chewie!) when i got a message from lynette. lynette was the girl whose position i took over in this current company, when she resigned to fly off to dubai. in the message, she informed me that she's flying off again, to beijing this time! so her position in dubai will be vacant very soon, and asked if i'd be interested.

of course i'm interested! but what about my new studio? i'd just only signed the 1 year lease! argh!!! but what the heck, i still sent in my resume, coz it has always been my dreams to experience living and working abroad. and so the wait began...

i still moved to my new place, as most of you know... and continued to wait, saving up all my carton boxes, only unpacking all the necessities with the rest of the not-so-important things still in their boxes, controlling myself (i did try!) in buying new furniture and stuff for my studio... but i didn't get any news from the land of the shimmering sands for the longest time. after a while, i thought, ah well, maybe i didn't make the cut and wasn't even shortlisted for the interview. so i resigned myself to be staying in kl... oh and i finally got an offer from NECF in beginning july, so i thought ok, maybe there's where i'm supposed to be. so after my 1 year lease is up, i can move closer to their office.

and i began to really settle down, unpacking the rest of my stuff, going shopping, putting up curtains, organizing and making my new studio a home. and THEN! nearing the end of july, lynette sent me another message! "hi, are u confirmed for NECF? another hotel in the chain in beijing is looking for a right fit. wld u like to try? u can send ur CV from the website." i was like, wth??!? every time i resign myself to be staying back in kl, something will crop up to tempt me! and i was really really tempted! so again, i sent in my resume and waited...

i gave myself, or rather beijing, 2 weeks to come back to me with any news. if not, i'd really REALLY settle down in kl. all this waiting is really very frustrating, as i was like hanging in the middle... it's so hard to plan anything! actually around that time, i've started scouting for a new place to buy, coz i reckoned all these renting and moving about is not a good solution and it's dem tiring! and i very nearly put down the deposit for a place that i liked... so i had to put the purchase on hold for 2 weeks, to see if i have any shot in beijing.

but when that 2 weeks is up without even a breath of a word from beijing, i sorta lost interest in that new place that i wanted to buy. hehehe... very fickle, right? and was just putting the whole idea of buying a new place on the shelf, until i can find a place that i really like.

by mid aug, i was set on starting a new career path with NECF. i thought surely dubai would have already found a replacement for lynette, as she has left for her new posting in beijing by then. so i happily went to get myself a queen size bed, coz i've been sleeping on a single size mattress on the floor all these while at my new place (previous apt came with beds, but not this new place).

and THEN! not one week after my brand new bed was delivered, i got the call from dubai for an interview! wth??!? must this happen every time??? just as i'm resigning myself to settle down in kl, something must come along to disrupt the balance! argh!!!

so anyway, i went thru 2 sessions of tele-interview in a span of 2 days... and then waited again. but this time i didn't have to wait for long, as i told them outright that i already got an offer from another company and am just trying to delay signing their offer letter, so i'd really appreciate it if they could get back to me as soon as possible! and so, in less than one week after my first tele-interview, i got the job! :)

so that's the story... *phew! i know i named this post "the long and short of it all", so please forgive me coz there's nothing short about this post at all! oh, and everyone can heave a sigh of relief when you next get on an NECF plane, as there won't be any chance of you hearing my voice over the PA system now! :P


read also:
1. leaving on a jet plane!
2. anything is possible... the sky's the limit!
3. moving again, but in career this time...

leaving on a jet plane!

i guess i should announce it here... since quite a few people know it already, and it's quite official by now. so here goes...

i'm leaving for dubai, or as i like to call it, the land of the shimmering sands! :)

it's quite official, coz i've already received the letter of appointment, signed it and sent it back to them. but i said "quite" because there are still other paper work and documentation to take care of, which if not done properly, may stop me from entering the country... so keeping fingers crossed that everything goes well!

so what will i be doing there? well, i'll be joining the dubai outfit of another hotel chain... a major move, i know! uprooting myself from kl, which i've spent the last 11 years of my life, and from m'sia! the sentimental me will surely miss everything here, esp since i won't be able to be back for cny next year... my first cny away from home and family! *sob*

as excited as i am with this current development, there's also the slight sense of panic within... all the things that need done before i take off! and all the uncertainty of packing off for a totally foreign country... but deep down inside, there's also this zen-like certainty that everything will turn out ok, that i'll be settling down and adapting to my new life just fine! wish me luck, people! :)

read also:
1. anything is possible... the sky's the limit!
2. moving again, but in career this time...

1st roll of film in lomo: failed!

so sad... of the 36 exposures from my first roll of film, i only managed to get 2 photos! the rest of the film turned out blank... not black, not blurred... just BLANK and TRANSPARENT! means they're not even exposed! haiz...

taken facing the bright morning sun...

i took 2 of the same shots, a habit with most digital cam users, i'm sure!

this first roll is from my uws cam, without any additional lenses. and these 2 pics were the only ones i took under bright sunlight. i remembered i took a few under fluorescent lighting, which i thought was bright enough... but apparently not! so lesson learnt from this is, uws can only be used in the outdoors under bright sunlight for the films to be exposed properly... hopefully the results from my tlr and my 2nd roll of film from my uws will be better!

read also:
1. 2nd toy: gakkenflex tlr
2. new toy!

bento #26: the one with the homemade sushi...

last sunday, i woke up craving for sushi... so i decided to cook some, since i still have 2 bags of sushi rice in my kitchen. so here's my sunday dinner (woke up too late to be cooking for lunch lar! :P)...

rice turned out a bit hard... *note to self: to put more water next time.

ta-da! sushi rice laced with some egg furikake and seaweed...

as the minimum quantity of rice my rice cooker can cook is 2 cups of rice, i decided to separate out half for my bento lunch the next day. i used some furikake again in the middle of these rolled up sushi... here, you can see very clearly that the rice is so dry that it's not sticky at all!

my lunch bento of homemade sushi...

read also:

1. bento #18: the one with all the shapes

2nd toy: gakkenflex tlr

as mentioned in my previous post, i went to collect my gakkenflex tlr from kino after work that day. so excited...

and so the assembly process begins. 

these are the camera parts that came out from the box... a bit daunting, looking at all these...

even more daunting is, the instructions are in japanese!

but i found a trick to recognizing all the parts. firstly, don't take out all the parts from their compartments! when you need a part, match the japanese writing for that part to its picture on the front page (showing where everything is) and locate the compartment they're in. there are a few near-similar parts in there, so you have to make sure you're using the correct one. there are a few parts in small plastic bags, so after taking out one part, be sure to put the plastic bag with the other parts still in them back to their original compartment.

ta-da! took me over an hour to put it all together... i got stuck at one or two places, but i guess crocheting with japanese patterns helped me heaps in figuring how japanese instructions work! :)

with the viewfinder flap opened up...

they even provided 2 types of stickers for us to customize our tlr... i chose this brown one to give my tlr a more classic look, instead of the colour triangle ones, which is more retro. and then i found this cover template, where you can print just about any pattern onto them on a sticker paper, cut them out and stick them on to personalize your tlr!

i've tested it out a bit during the weekend and all i can say that it takes a bit of getting used to. first of all, like i mentioned before, we hold it at our waist, look down into the viewfinder and turn the lens to focus, instead of bringing the camera up to our face and sticking the viewfinder to our eyes.

secondly, the viewfinder will flip all the images! for example, if your books are on the right side of cabinet, you'll see it on the left side in the viewfinder... so it's really hard to get the right focus, especially if you're moving left and right to try to put the object in the centre of the frame.

also, it doesn't have a double exposure interlock, which means if you forgot to wind up the film after taking a shot and continue to take a second shot, you'll double expose your film. i think i did that a few times... we'll see what comes out when i get the film developed!

but other than that, it's really an awesome thing to play with! very fun to explore... and can't wait to see the results!

read also:
1. new toy!

wide angle/fisheye lens test-out...

yay! received my jelly lens set in the mail today! *happy*

i couldn't wait till i get home, so i decided to test out one of the lenses, the wide angle/fisheye lens with my phone's camera... and here's the result (pls excuse the mess at the back there!).

regular photo without the add-on lens...

with wide angle/fisheye lens. this lens has dual functions... it gives wide angle effects when taking landscape or scenery, and fisheye effect when taking objects close-up. pretty cool, eh? :)

oh, oh! and i just received an e-mail from kinokuniya that the magazine with the gakkenflex tlr is here! gonna go collect it later... so excited! :D

new toy!

it was quite a slow day in the office yesterday, so i was reading up on lomography online... and the more i read, the more obsess i got with it! i feel the lomo effects are really cool, and i just had to have it! and chatting to biow about it only made my obsession worse, coz she's also as crazy as i am over it. she kept asking me to buy it first, do a review about it and then she'll decide if she wanna get it herself... so good friend hor? :P

anyway, i know there are actually some photo software that allows us to apply lomo effects onto our photos, and some compact digital cams have the lomo functions build onto them, but i find the effects not there yet. not so "lomo", if you get what i mean! :D

ok, for those who don't know what lomography is, here're a few definitions:

lomography according to wikipedia

lo-fi (lo-fidelity) photography according to wikipedia

lomo according to the click shop

so anyway, i had my eye on this ultra wide & slim sakurasan (limited edition). so cute right??? but currently the online shop is out of stock, and it'll take them about 3 weeks to restock. but with my kind of obsession, you think i can wait for 3 freaking weeks??? so i went over to klcc after work yesterday, coz i heard kinokuniya carries some brands of lomo cameras. first, i went up to the arts section on the upper floor of kino. yeah, they had a whole display cabinet of lomo cams, but all are high-end models for more serious lomo users. i didn't really check the price there (shy lar, wanna ask the sales ppl to open up the cabinet when i've no intention to buy), but from my brief research in the internet, those models are in the price range of RM400-500 or more. i may be obsessed, but i sure ain't gonna spend that kinda money on this "toy"!

then i traipsed downstairs to the japanese section, coz another friend mentioned that sometimes there are some japanese magazines that have cheap lomo cams attached to them. and ta-da! see what i found!

ultra wide & slim (uws for short) clover san! i think this is the latest in the uws series (see the whole series here), coz even the online shop don't have it yet... so even tho' i'd love to have a pink toy cam (the sakurasan), clovers are also one of my fav plants. and i get to lay my hands on it like NOW! :D

it's sold as a magazine in the japanese section, coz basically, it IS a magazine, with a box attached to it at the back which contains a "free gift" (the toy lomo cam!)

a close-up of my clover san... and it's cheaper in kino too! in the website, they're selling for RM110 including free delivery by poslaju within malaysia. i bought this for RM118.30, but there's a discount sticker on it. meaning if we buy another item of any amount, we can get a 20% off this item... so i just grabbed a book from the "train the dragon" series (that i'm collecting anyway), and i just need to pay RM94.64 for the cam. erm, for the magazine, i mean! :P

it's a toy camera, really. very basic... don't even require batteries! just load in the film and snap. but no batteries mean no flash, so i guess no nighttime photography. but the cute thing is, after snapping one shot, u'll need to wind the film forward for your next shot... just like an antique cam! only thing is, i feel the strap should be of a cuter colour, instead of boring black, don'cha think?

the magazine that talks about lomography using this uws, but too bad it's all in japanese!

so far, i've only taken a few shots to test it out... but as it's using film, we can only tell the results after i've finished the 36 exposures and sent it to the shop to be developed. biow told me to get 24 or 12 exp film, so that they'll finish up faster and we can see the results earlier, but i forgot... hehe...

as for the feel of it... well, it's a toy. so it's very light, with a very plastic feel to it. that means we'll need to have extra steady hands when snapping... but then again, isn't blurry photos part of the effects of lomography? :D oh yeah, i've placed an order for additional lenses! these jelly lenses come in a set of 4, each giving different effect to the photos... looking forward to experimenting with them! ;)

anyway, there are actually digital lomo cams... but it doesn't allow users to preview their shots in the cam, because they don't have lcd screens on them. they only allow users to load their photos straight onto the pc, without the hassle of having to develop the films. but digital lomo cams are much more expensive, and i feel the effects are not as nice as film ones. so i guess there are pros and cons to the two, depending on individual's preferences.

i think a lot of serious photographers will scorn at lomography, coz maybe it's not even real photography? it's just pointing and snapping with a toy camera! but i love the effects... i find them ultra cool! and i feel even though these are toy cameras, to get all those effects require some sort of skills too.

and even though many people speculated that this is just a phase, which will die out eventually, i still found the effects very cool cool cool! i know, i've said that many times already, but it's still oh-so-cool! hehehe...

also, i discovered that there are hundreds of different kinds of lomo cams out there. a friend on fb told me that he has a friend who is totally into lomo photography, and she has about 6-8 different lomo cams! that is really a lomo addict! i guess it's a good thing that they're so cheap, so more people are able to explore this strand of photography... and i actually don't blame them for having so many lomo cams. cuteness factor aside (tho' it IS quite a major factor in our decision making - for me at least!), each camera has their own different features and functions. in fact, i myself am thinking of getting another one! hehehe...

photo copied from the *click* shop

this is the gakkenflex tlr (tlr = twin lens reflex), made of plastic (also considered a "toy") and it's totally different from our conventional camera. to snap a photo with this, we hold it at our waist and look down into the viewfinder, instead of bringing the camera up to our face and sticking the viewfinder to our eyes. i find this camera totally awesome! it's also a "free gift" that comes with a magazine, but this one requires us to assemble the camera ourselves... how awesome is that?! we'll be able to learn about the inner mechanics of a camera and how it works... however, tho' i pride myself in my diy skills, i'm just a tad worried that it's beyond me...

the parts will come in a box like this...

with instructions in japanese! *gulp*

but anyway, when i enquired about this in kino yesterday (to compare it with the clover san), the info counter people said it's sold out but if i want it, they can reorder for me. i think the price is around RM120. not very expensive also... hmm... should i? :P