Waduh...

The destination is Uzair. The place, well, decide -- fast! Medan? Jakarta? Bandung? or Bali? Haziq!

(Currently failing to subscribe to Dira's 'pemakanan sihat' advice as I'm already scourging through the pasar malam leftovers)

My Work in 50+1

Est arrive!

This picture was taken nearly ten months ago during the eve of last year's Aidiladha. It appeared in the book 50+1 Malaysia thanks to quachee.

I'm so glad to be part of the work, which collects hundreds of very fine captures of Malaysia done by talented ordinary people who are equally fascinated of our country as much as I do. It's an amazing book, my kudos to quachee again for having the diligence to compile such work done just to share and promote Malaysia.

I 'accidentally' bought the book, having not knowing that a copy of the book has already arrived at my house. Thanks to my parents, who were keeping it away. Cheh.

50+1 Malaysia is now available at all major bookstores (as it was published in August). The Flickr set of the photo is here. This is quachee's blog, and this is his homepage.

PHOTO Selangor State Mosque, December 19 2007. No edits. Flickr.com/photos/syukrishairi for more photos.

Our Wheels Are Clamped

Pak guards turning wild.

Some time around this month we were fined by the pak guard because we were wearing slippers into the campus. This happened on a Sunday afternoon, and all four of us were inside my car, returning from doing a site report at our site. Yes, we wore slippers in a construction site and we weren't even scolded. We didn't even have our Green Card yet (anybody related to the building area should know what a Green Card is).

It was a Sunday afternoon. If it was a Monday, we wouldn't call it a scene.

As it was too silly we argued (heavily) about it with the pak guard(s). We're glad we did. The summon went on anyway, but at least we didn't accept it like some unresponsive yes-men. Come on lah wei! Pak guards has never been making such 'significant' presence in my life before. Because they shouldn't! Their powers are getting so overwhelming!

We're becoming non-residents next semester as,
i) Unit Kolej is now asking for pay-slips for college applications,
ii) They're taking away our privilege to drive cars into the campus, unless we're NRs.

As our mobility are limited within the campus anyway, I think we'd fare off better living outside. Even though -- reality check -- Seri Iskandar has nothing.

As they're retracting our vehicle privilege all five of the batch's cars are now officially refugees. Submission seems to be over, but sometimes we still need to go outside to buy supplies and at many times the pak guard are giving us really, really torturous headaches. I'm still at OK level because I still have the old sticker stamped on, but for others who don't have any old stickers their cars can't go out -- what more in. To flee, it's best to exit when it's raining -- though it won't work every time -- or whenever the traffic is heavy, usually during class hours.

I hate that place. If it's not for the people, the studies..., sigh.

Posting from Shah Alam, arrived earlier this evening to pick up some stuffs left at home and escaping the heat. Got to rush for BC this Sunday! PHOTO by zetty yada

Afterparty,

Thank you so much for coming!!!

Recaps

Stutter, stutter, stutter.

My open house will be held on Saturday. I'll be back tomorrow, as I've told my parents I will go back out of confirmation that everything will be done by tomorrow. Unfortunately there will be another re-submission, kononnya giving us the time to touch-up or redo, improve, develop, or anything that we want to do with our design (which was submitted and evaluated today, just now).

I'll take my time.

Anyway, whenever you're in despair, give your parents a call. It's a cool thing to do.

Posted at a CC. Like what the heck, eh? Celcom Broadband's giving me a hard time, really!

Celebrating Submissions

For us, there's no 'study' week.

Final submission has been moved to this Thursday. Tomorrow is Internal Review, maybe, and we might be having some little jamuan for ourselves as tomorrow is also will be the last Studio for the semester. Yesterday we had a plain OK time at the Dinner down at Teluk Batik. However I and the rest of the others are of course doomed because our submission is coinciding with many other submissions from other subjects, not to mention Structure and Construction Technology (and maybe History and Arabic) tests.

Internet connection has been bumpy, so there's no 'A Week in Seri Iskandar' post last week. Sorry for that.

I hope everything can be settled by Friday. CTU Finals on Monday!

Posted while waiting for Jawa to arrive to the studio with my Kinder Bueno. Anyway, have you ever wished that you could never know that particular somebody in the first place? I really do, now.

I Thought Being Nineteen Is Easier

....well, it obviously is not. It would be very stupid for me to think of that way anyway, if I did.

Thank you for those who remembered the day. The wishes were very thoughtful.

My days after being a year older were spent with much model-making and mixing myself up with piles of rubbish, and lamenting about staging a rebellion against the increasing power of the pak guards.

I nearly lost my laptop, anyway. As usual I brought everybody into the trouble of searching. Fortunately things turned up to be, well, not unfortunate.

Submission's on Thursday. Gotta run!

Updated from Jawa's laptop. Jawa is my favourite Javanese.

A Week In Seri Iskandar

Weekly picture series picked randomly from a week's life in Seri Iskandar, updated every Thursday. Starting today.

1. Rows of car lights as traffic jam occurs at the North-South Expressway (south-bound) last Sunday, as the festive revellers are heading back into KL on the last day of a week-long Raya leave.
2. Accumulating Facebook requests, a result of a lazy approver. Just now
3. Kuih keria sold at the campus own Uptown, priced at RM1 for four pieces. Tuesday
4. Attendance sheet as the semester is heading to its two last weeks of study period. Just now
5. Sarawak's kuih lapis, brought by Fiq from her hometown Kuching. Tuesday
6. Excessive numbers of motorcycles parked near Uptown, yesterday. The parking crisis inside the campus is getting worse as numbers of cars multiplied due to non-issuance of the university's car stickers since the beginning of the semester.

I hope the acceptance for my Design idea proposal will continue until the Review. I mean, you can't really assume things with our lecturers. You might find yourself eaten up by the situation if you find yourself flattered easily at an early stage.

Photos captured using K770i. All photos captured between October 5 and October 9, 2008.

It's an Emergency!

*Half* of the assignments done.

No, not a slight sigh of relief. And I'm wondering whether I'm able to finish up my final project before attending this event:

This event deserves compliments even before it's going to take place, because as far as I'm concerned, a historically-based event is such a rare case for us Malaysian youngsters. Well, obviously not anymore. With the rise of guys like Fahmi Reza, Amir Muhammad and the rest of the gang, the hidden side of Malaysian (rich) history, which has for long been biased and one-sided, is on the rise too.

And for you so-called budak indie who are planning to attend (read: ruin) the event just for the sake of being seen -- it's better for you to plan to appreciate the whole thing or you might as well make a move to anywhere else. Of course, for other budak indie who knows what indie actually stands for and aren't actually posers, well, what would the event mean without everybody sharing?

Anyways, good job. I'm 'Maybe Attending'.

Posted while eating Uptown's kuih keria and rushing to class.

The Massacre Has Begun

Because the word 'model' for us is just a big turn-off.

(Read while nodding academically).

I see. So that's why our lecturers are giving us more, more and more work. They must've thought they're making our works (and sufferings) lesser. Unfortunately, things in reality are quite the contrary. In terms of giving out assignments, our lecturers don't really believe in Le Corbusier [correction: it's Ludwig Mies van der Rohe].

(I'm desperately hoping they will in the near future)

We're having multiple submissions that are due two days from now. The post-Raya blues is off and the lecturers have run amok during our Design class this morning, desiring for our assigned tasks to be completed as soon as impossible. Yep, we're doomed.

That's why I have to sign off -- now!

Posted from Seri Iskandar with a growling stomach. p/s: our final project is about building a one man sanctuary. Any ideas out there?

I'm Afraid It's Spring Cleaning Time.

...though it's summer all year here. Heh!

(One day these people will get very organised and irritate us for good with their so-called anti-establishment -- that is, us, bloggers -- sentiments. Nothing significantly related to the content of this post, though.)

I was given a wake up call by Abu during our YM session just now, about how I'm not updating frequently (and how his friend here, among other bloggers too, updates regularly). At the same time I was also reminded about my intentions of getting a new domain for this blog. I've asked a few friends before, but as usual when I'm started to be preoccupied with something else that's more important, the plan will go down to a stall.

I'm afraid that promises to 'refurbish' this blog -- giving the whole thing a new look -- will end up being cakap-cakap kosong. However recently I did came to a realisation that my blog is, well, regressive. I'm still choosing the best options to make this blog more interactive and up to date! Any ideas, kids?

This year saw a notable decline in terms of my numbers of posts. Yeah, duh. I even let the second anniversary of this blog slipped away just like that (OK, not important.. but still). I went through the archives and of course I bumped into certain stuffs that really make me sound silly, alongside with some posts which makes me impressed myself. Good job ey, dude?

Being in a post-Raya and pre-submission mood (which, in my opinion, sparks a spirit of renewal?) I'm giving the site a space for improvement. As nobody else wouldn't. Logical, really. Haih, what the hell am I trying to say? The site is undergoing serious refurbishments. And I'm giving a long timespan on this one, so don't expect the blog to go pink tomorrow.

No, that's not even a slightest hint on what's the blog's going to look like.

It must've been my rigidness that contributes to lesser postings this year. Rigid, because I would spend many hours on a single post, and if you're aware of things each of my recent posts can be quite lengthy. Something I prefer, sometimes. Give 'em long posts and leave the blog for two or three weeks before you post something new again. Which didn't work much for you guys, I guess. I discovered myself that I don't like to read a blog that, well, stalls in terms of updates.

I find photo-less posts to be breathless. So if I write a post without an appropriate photo to go along with it, I find the post to be quite lazy. Too much text, I thought. Then again, sometimes I find it OK (this would happen if I'm not semangat enough to upload pictures and all the mess, or I just don't have the time). Texts are fine enough. However if I don't find any of those mentioned satisfactory, well, make way for procrastination (best example: London trip, amongst many others).

A classic reason would be blaming the Internet lah. But it's true. The wi-fi connections back there is slow. The BlueCube has been much a problem for the past few weeks. And I don't have a BlackBerry (OK, so what's the connection here? Plenty.) Simply said I don't have the liberty to log on from everywhere. Most posts are from home, only some of them are posted elsewhere.

During my free time this cuti, instead of figuring out something for Design (in which I will think of it later, archiheads) I've spent a lot of time hopping around people's blogs. Which are, well, A LOT! My, lots of blogs have sprouted in this country since the last two years, man! I mean imagine clicking to this link that will lead you to another site that has another bunch of links you've never heard of. Do spend a little of your time and you'll find amazing stuffs people nowadays are posting to the net. Anyway, yeah, I'm quite easy to be impressed. But, the amount of blogs are huge!

You can't say it's because of the March 8 Elections, as much of these blogs are not really political. Some are still cute, typing with SMS languages posting all that diary-ish stuffs. Some are already matured even though they're only beginning. Many of them are of the local ones, some of them are from our students studying/working overseas. It's phenomenal. Can anyone go and conduct a survey and find out how many Malaysian blogs are there?

I don't know about you, but blogs actually have brought Malaysians to do something they consider really taboo before. Okay, learning about sex is one of them (but that would be credited to the Internet alone). But most importantly blogs make Malaysians read. From the worst politician's ravages to your ordinary neighbour's daily whinings, you're actually reading -- like it or not. Who says reading is all about reading books? Thanks to blogs, reading is being one of Malaysian's most favourite activity. Thanks to Tun Dr Mahathir's blog -- which reaches 6 million visitors in just five months -- even more Malaysians are starting to read, both in English and BM.

I'm not actually running away from the topic (..yes..trying hard here) but sometimes I feel like I want my blog to be contributive too. It tells stories... it has photos, yes. But at the same time I do want it to be part of the society.

I'll try to update regularly, amidst my upcoming franticness. Anyway, why didn't I go anonymous? Some asked. I blog with an open identity, even about the most sensitive issues, because we all are responsible of what we write, correct? So yeah. I write with responsibility. Freedom of speech is not all about saying what you think but to consider what others are thinking too. I'm not saying I'm all that, but I'm trying to hold on to the phrase.

Got to do the same thing for Flickr too (it's updated now!).

Stay tuned, readers. For this month, this blog is featuring my old friend, Azli, who is updating us from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia with his great reminders for us forgetfuls. Check out NutGraph, a relatively new site with a new breath of excellent updates of Malaysian politics and culture. Anticipate for Revolusi '48, a new documentary from Fahmi Reza -- director of the ground breaking 10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka -- which is to be screened at the Emergency Festival taking place from October 16 until 26 at the Annexe, CM.

Going to hit the roads again, tomorrow. I wonder if the OpsSikap is still on today.

Currently eating: those spicy McDonald's fries. And what's so in with Stephanie Meyer's novels, anyway?

Better Than Never, huh?

Once upon a Raya. Twice upon the dullness. Thrice..

WE, OF COURSE, DON'T HAVE Boxing Day for Hari Raya, unlike Christmas. Boxing Day is the day after Christmas where all shops sell their stuffs at a very low price in order to clear their stocks (but I don't think it's practiced here, or is it?). Simply, a day to where the sellers go lelong, and the shoppers go borong. I guess Boxing Day wouldn't work for Raya, for some obvious reasons you can think of. We, however, has practiced 'boxing night' quite successfully for a very long time.

Najmi wanted to do some very last-minute baju Melayu shopping, so after dropping by at my Wan's place at PJ (in which Haziq experienced his first takbir rumah ke rumah session of his life) and after an earlier last-minute shopping at OU (in which I nearly didn't get anything), we decidedly went to PKNS. Having low expectations in the first place as it was already late midnight, I was surprised that the place is still vibrant and full of people. Well, wow!

It's a good thing because I get the chance to feel the Raya atmosphere that was, well, lost! Najmi got himself a pair of baju Melayu at a very good price. I went on to buy a lemang, some serunding and some rendang for the next day.

I love this tradition of selling things late at night even on the eve of Raya. I don't know how much this Raya has contributed to the nation's economy, but this whole lelong thing -- or should we say Raya's own version of Boxing Day -- is totally worth it. One, it caters to last-minute shoppers, of course and two, it brings Raya to city-folks like me who have wondered where Raya has gone to this year.

Where is it anyway?

Yep, where. Not when. Okay, so before you preach about how fantabulous-licious your Raya is, I advice you to not even think about it. Unless if you're a schoolkid. Even schoolkids aren't given enough break for this Raya. I mean, you guys have PMR and SPM after this holidays, right? Meanwhile we obviously have exams coming up too. I even have friends already finding themselves back to their colleges, some still here are rushing up to their assignments. For many of those overseas, it's a beginning of a new semester thus it's quite vital for them not to go back. Even for our parents, many are in the middle of their work! Shah Alam is only empty for a few days. If you dismiss those who aren't balik kampung, that is.

Do a counter-check, and you'll find that most kampung gatherings are not complete.

"It's the worst Raya, man.." says Edzmir. We ended up at Burger King after a series of frustrating, failed beraya attempts made to some people's houses today. At the houses we did, the borak-borak lingers around the same exchange of thoughts about how this year's Raya is failing us.

"Dulu kita Raya kat sini jugak, tapi tak adalah boring macam ni?" An unanswerable question.

Yusra said it's too short a holiday. People are still spending Raya with their families at this time, she suggested. I do think it's true. Relatives' open houses are overlapping with those of friends', each other rushing towards this Monday's deadline where everybody's already returning to their studies and works. As for the peers, not so many are going to return home for the upcoming Syawal weekends until November's semester break, which makes things duller. For those having an extra week or two for the Raya break like Haziq, well, they'll end up with nothing else to do as nobody else is around (except for studying, that is).

Nonetheless we've had our Raya this year, and we all know how it went on. Thank God, we're done. At the same time, I'm waiting for Raya to move past the busier months. That'll be many years from now, but God-willing, I hope it'll worth the wait. Maybe at that time we'll find ourselves enjoying it again.

Or maybe we just need more Boxing Days.

PHOTO 1. A woman browsing through scarves sold at Kompleks PKNS, Shah Alam on the eve of Hari Raya, October 1. Muslim traders all over Malaysia selling Raya-related merchandises go low on their last day of sale, causing people still thronging to do last-minute shopping even though they're only hours away from the dawn of Raya. 2. A kakak waiting for her shop's customers. 3. Baju Melayu, prices cut-down, up for grabs! 4. My..my. All pictures captured Oct 1, 2008. No edits. More of them at Flickr!

Ah, What a Low-key Raya!

I promise I will refurbish and update my Flickr tonight because I know I will not have this much of free time later.

Tapi, I want to go lepak first. Is it okay with you?

[Correction; 12:11AM] Ergh. Maybe later than later.

p/s: Happy belated birthday to my little sister, Anis! (who was celebrating it on the first day of Raya), and to all my relatives and friends who are celebrating their birthday during this month of Syawal (..October). Cough, cough.