Tiong Hua

I really believe IPGK Gaya is one of the most eventful and liveliest IPGs across the country. It seems like this place has at least one event every one or two months… heheheh~ Anyway, Chinese Language Society of IPGK Gaya did a cultural event known as Hari Kebudayaan Tiong Hua. There, they showcased the cultural facets of Chinese traditions and customs though food, calligraphy, festivities, and many more. You got to drink Chinese tea, ate moon cakes, answered questions/riddles and won beautifully crafted book markers, made your own calligraphy, and wrote some wishes and hung them on the lanterns… Well, it was for fun, isn’t it?

It is always fun to know other people’s ways of life don’t you think so?

 Calligraphy

 Dragon!

 Paper puppet show

 Food diorama

Lanterns to hang your wishes

 'cha' anyone?

 The moon cake making

The ingredients are listed here. Dare to make one? 

 Dragon boat

Pandan and red bean moon cake pieces

Malam Mesra Raya

The Residential Colleges of IPGK Gaya had organised an event, Malam Mesra Raya, last Saturday, and although I think the event could had been better, it was still okay and fun! Since this was Malam Mesra Raya, you could bet that food was there. Some said that the chicken rending was a bit hot and spicy. Well, sorry for that. I hope it was still nice for you to eat… hahaha~ I didn’t taste the food because I was too engrossed with taking the photos. Ngeheheheh. Still, I did taste the dodol that we made earlier, and it was just awesome! Not too sweet, and not too flour-y. Our hard work that day paid off! Apart from the tantalising food, there were also some exciting and splendid [and hot!] performances from each gate or level of each Residential Colleges.

Here’re some photos for you to see!

[Thanks SNY for letting me used your DSLR! Muahaha~]

 Medley of Pop Songs

He sang and he danced!

Hot Kollywood dance! Hot! Hahaha

Scarlet

The scarlet sky was fading. The sun began to hide itself behind the horizon. Sydney just walked and walked and walked until he reached a green rusty bench and sat himself upon the steel. He had enough. Another one of that mess, and he would move out from the house. Sydney had enough of all those bickering, statements of hatred, the accusations. He had so many chances of going out from that house, but one person kept him from doing just that: his sister. Sydney was not going to leave her behind.

He was just 16, but he went through a lot. He wanted a normal life, but normality was not destined for him. It was never part of his life, and it seemed that it would stay like that for eternity. Sydney’s eyes were emotionless, but his heart was mixed with too many of them. Why he was put in the middle of this hard life? He could not fathom it. Why he was chosen over millions of others in the world to deal with it? He would never know the answer.

The sun was half-hidden behind the horizon. A veil of dark sky appeared out of nowhere – a sign that told Sydney he must went home, a home he did not want to stay. He might have run away now, but he was obligated to get back. His sister had a special event on the night, and Sydney was her partner. At least, he would be happy with her tonight. With that thought in mind, the boy got up and dragged his still reluctant feet over the pavement. Sydney passed a number of blocks, and arrived at the doorstep of his apartment building: a shabby, dilapidated building, one that you could not imagine to be the dwelling of many souls, sorrow souls, with nothing to live for, and lived with everything that could kill them.

The stairs creaked as Sydney climbed them, one by one, with all the risks of breaking apart by every hard step. Finally, he faced the door of his ‘abode’, 153. The golden numbers were losing their yellow glimmers as the brown grimes took over. Sydney instantly touched the knob, but it was not locked. In fact, the door was not even shut properly. Queer, he thought. Sydney knew he had locked the door properly. Maybe her sister forgot to locked it

“Christine?” he shouted. As the door squeaked, Sydney slowly went inside the house. The house was void of other people, and there was no signs of any force entry or trespassing. Nothing was even stolen, but that would not matter anyway. The house did not have anything worthy to be stolen.

“Christine?” Sydney asked again, louder still. “Where are you?”

His feet brought him further, and he was now standing inches from Christine’s bedroom. Sydney tried to open it but it was locked, and he was on the verge of leaving it when he heard a soft, restrained voice inside the room. His inquisitive mind put him on alert, and he pushed the door with force. It did not budge. Again he did it, and another time. A couple of tries were needed for him to break it apart. There, he saw her, Christine.

Sydney had trouble coming towards her.

She was laid almost motionless, still like a mannequin, yet her eyes showed marks of life that was rapidly losing. Her beautifully patterned white dress had a tear, and a river of red was oozing out, forming a thick burgundy lake on the floor. No words came out from Sydney’s mouth as he crouched in front of her sister. He could not even touch her – seeing her, seeing Christine in that inhuman state was causing him paralysis. Just moments later, he managed to let out a single cry, “Christine?”

Christine could not talk nor could she move. She just watched him silently, and silently she left the world. Sydney sat still, without uttering anything, without leaving his gaze at her, without touching her. He just watched her, his beautiful dead doll.

Pedant

Pedant /ˈpɛdnt/ is a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning. You know the kind of person who can’t just shut his mouth from telling almost all general knowledge that he knows about the world?

I’m one of them! Hahaha! At least that’s what I think so. I read books, and then I spit the things I read out from my brain system. What sort of things you ask? Maybe stuff like this:

Atacama Desert is the driest desert on earth.

The earth will have 7 billion people by the end of this year.

An aeroplane needs four forces to enable them to fly.

Sometimes, when people made pronunciation/word mistakes, I would correct them:

It’s bushy, not brushy.

‘in-poot’, not ‘in-pyoot’.

I do sound like Hermione sometimes, don’t I? I even have the habit of correcting people when the situation is not that… err… suitable for any grammar/language correction. E.g.: heart-to-heart talk session. I don’t make a good listening partner. I never knew there is so much space inside that brain of mine. I think I need a Pensieve. Care to give one?

Anyhow, most people wouldn’t care about things like all these, right? Though I like to share those minutiae with guys and girls like my friends, I know they’ve been with me since the first day of me being here in IPG. If I do this with other persons, I would be considered pejorative and many knives would soon fly towards me. Besides, it’s not like I want to show how smart I am. It’s just… one kind of thing that I have. Hahaha! [Is it me, or am I being pedant to tell you this?]

A Dodol-licious Story

Dodol is one of the all-time favourite confectioneries of Malaysians. Like many other Malaysian sweetmeats, the process of cooking this sticky, brown stuff takes a long time. Earlier this day, I got the chance to create it with the help of my friends, seniors, juniors, and lecturers. The dodol was made for Malam Mesra Kolej Kediaman IPGK Gaya that was held this night, and the cooking time was about 5 hours. Wow~!

The process of sieving tepung pulut [glutinous rice mixture]

Tepung pulut [glutinous rice flour] mixture was mixed with santan [coconut milk]

 Sugar to give it a touch of sweetness

 Red sugar is always the main ingredient of a dodol. It gives the flavour, aroma, and the dodol's maroon colour

 The dodol had now almost reached its desired state of maturity/viscosity

A toffee-like confection, ready to be served!

Other dishes that we made included for the night included:

 Daging Masak Jawa/Javanese Beef thingymathing

 Kari Ikan/fish curry

Rendang ayam/chicken rending

In the end, the dodol we had made was a purely sweet victory! Hahaha~!

Scarecrow

Waiting, waiting, and waiting. Just like a scarecrow on the paddy field. It serves its only purpose, and then it rots. The irreversible death and no one cares about it.


We shall not wish to be like a scarecrow, but this is life. Sometimes, we just exist, and rot to death. Life passes by, and we are left to run after it, or maybe we are running for something that is really wanted in our lives. A dream, this hope or that wish will never come alive. Foolishness and all other hated emotions, mixed into a bowl, stirred about. A concoction of sorrow, of grief, of pathetic sadness that carves the heart from the inside and alters the mind is made. We may yearn to reach the top, but some mountains are not meant to be conquered. They can only be gazed from afar.


We unabashedly want them. Still, one may wonder – losing them might be the best thing after all.

Wiener Sängerknaben

Vienna Boys’ Choir or Wiener Sängerknaben is a boys’ choir from Vienna [that’s kind of obvious, doesn’t it?]. Who knows where Vienna is? In German, its name is Wien [Germans pronounce it as [vi:n]. Does that mean it’s in Germany? No. Actually, it’s in Austria [or Österreich in German]. Sorry for being extra informative.

Anyway, the blue sailor-suited VBC has about 100 choristers, divided into four groups: Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Bruckner. If you know Mozart, then you can deduce that they are the names of composers. VBC always performed songs from them. Still, it’s wrong to think that they are restricted to the classical ones only. Pop songs are also involved in their performance.

The choristers are not just from Austria, but from all over the world. They are well-known throughout the world as the best of its genre, performing in front of 500,000 audiences every year. What do you expect from a group of musicians that has been established since 1924? How about their school? The school’s name is Palais Augarten. Isn’t Palais French for Palace? Isn’t palace a cool place for a school?

Guess what? They’re coming to KK this October! Could you believe it? Could you? I am ecstatic… but… here’s the sad part… how will I go to Universiti Malaysia Sabah at night? I’ve no transport! [Besides, it feels like I'm the only one who has heard about them in IPG Gaya!]

Ich möchte dorthin zu gehen!!!

Turning the Tide

It seems that I have not been learning properly these few weeks. I am too lax. Of course I attend all my classes, do my assignments plus other tasks [most of them… heheheh~], but something does feel quite… missing.

It is as if I am losing grip on my studies. The last thing that I want to do is to fail my final exam, and by failing I mean to have a GPA that is significantly lower than the one I got for my first semester.

Need to step up the game. Next year, I’ll be going to UiTM Shah Alam. I don’t want to lose the race. I don’t want to lose any awesome chances, whatever they may be [I wonder if there’s a trip to Japan for anyone who takes Japanese as the third language].

If anyone else can do it, then I can do it too.

Nemesis

She keeps her face

Behind the fading curtain

That barely covers

Her little abhorrent

Deceits

She pens words

And throws them hard

Like spears that

Come flying and

Bleed you

She waters the hearts

With loathsome

Fears and she

Brings about

Tears

She never let her

Guards down

But never has she known

Holes lie bare

On the walls

She is

Her own nemesis

She creates enemies

Out from the creatures

On her own head

The Trust

Learning is a responsibility. Everyone knows that right? We are always reminded that we are trusted to learn all the things we are supposed to in a good manner.

That basically means not to play truant, behave properly in the class, finish our work on time [I believed most of us finished our tasks on the eleventh hour… hahaha… but that’s still alright], pay attention in the lessons given, and most importantly:

Respect our educators [A.K.A. lecturers]

If you are not giving your utmost attention, how will you learn then? Even if the lectures are boring, or hard, or are being carried on for a long stretch of time, they are the things you live for now. Lecturers have given their hardest to teach us, yet we still play and play and play. Games, surfing the net, boyfriends/girlfriends and all can wait. What’s the purpose of acting ‘cool’ even though the lecturer had reproached you for doing something bad in the class? What kind of stupidity is that?

If you don’t respect your lecturers, you don’t respect the knowledge. Think about it.

Just think.

dootsrednusiM

Hi there!

Oh boy, it’s been a long while since the last time I posted here. There were… errr… some assignments internal issues that needed to be solved first, but anyway here I am again saying all nonsense things that I want to say.

But first… a lot of things you say or write will sometimes be misunderstood by other people. You mean well, or no harm, or peace… but one or more aspects make the things confusing to the others sometimes. That would happen if the way you said something it is not suitable with your intonation or if your choices of words are way off the context. How about the things you write? A lot of times, they’re just jokes, you know… for fun! Still, people will take offence with them or treat them seriously.

Anyway, what I want to say here is that if anything that I had said or wrote were offensive or ridiculous or whatever you think they were, please receive my humble apology, straight from the bottom of my heart [I don’t like that song though… hahaha].

The Kids are Alright

It had been like, what… seven years… since I last stepped my feet in any primary school. I guess between my time and the time now, many things have changed – from the attitudes and thinking of the new generation [you can talk with my niece if you want to, and she’s six years old], and of course, our national education system. We had KBSR/KBSM before, now we have Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah or KSSR – with the addition of thinking skill. KSSM will come soon, I think.

Well, at least I got a glimpse of how educators teach primary school pupils since my friend, Villy, and I got to go to SK Sri Gaya for The Principles and Practices of ELT’s observation. It was a coursework, really. Not forgetting, we met four trainees from IPG Kampus Kent, Tuaran there. They are still doing their SBE/PBS as of this date.

So, we spent two days there seeing and recording how a teacher teaches a primary school’s class. It was fun really, being in the classes with Mrs Soo Na Fung, watching her in action with all those Standard 1 and 4 pupils. They were an active, fun, loud-talking and playful lot, participating themselves in every activity, and were very motivated and eager to learn English. Not to mention, really, really good in the language too, and I’m not just saying about S4 only, I’m talking about S1 too. The writings of those 7-year-olds were much better than me when I [and I think I’m not far-fetched in saying the writings of all of us too, wouldn’t I?] was the same age. Guess KSSR really gives benefits to them. Lucky guys… I mean kids!

From what I’d experienced there, primary school pupils are actually fun too! [Well, not really sure if I could teach them though… hahaha]

Where the Waves Kiss the Shore

Random photos from Telaga Daing Beach – to be accurate, it is actually the beach behind my home. Went there with my nephews and nieces from KL and Alor Setar… well, you don’t have a beach in KL anyway [except Pantai Dalam and Pantai Baru, which are not even beaches], while Alor Setar is quite far from a beach, the only one I know being Kuala Kedah. Wait, is Pantai Merdeka in Kedah? Does it even exist? Heheheh~