The re-opening of Taman Jurong Community Center

30th July was the official launch of the re-opening of the Taman Jurong Community Centre.

With the immense amount of people that turned up at the event, it was a blast and felt so festive too. The streets were closed and there were street performance, fairs, and concerts and other activities that went together simultaneously. It was truly a night to remember.

When we started walking there, there were a few kids who were trying out the rock climbing display

Some kids tried the abseiling display. love abseling!

This girl here is drawing a lion statue

These are the displays done by all the various schools from the Jurong area

A lot of people crowding around!

Lions balancing on the 2 meter high poles

Cooking yummy stuff!

Delicious Japanese pizza

Yummy corn

Thousands and thousands of people watching the concert.

Watching the artwork

Girls competing with the biggest balloons.

Slyvester Sim was there

Sheik Haikal was there too

And Taufik was there, the highlight of the show.

What a lovely night!

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Runway photoshoot lesson and dinner with my classmates

I took these picture during last Wednesday’s photo-shoot session :



Oi! I said pay attention! Don’t clown around Marina!

Isn’t Zila super adorable? Zila agreed to be my model for Wednesday and her pics turned out pretty good. She wasn’t used to modelling, but was very curious, Fais, my photography instructor needed to direct her how to pose, and how to walk and then, she was groomed! Zila the model!

However, Zila was extremely hyperactive, and was jumping everywhere, and made a lot of funny faces and that seemed to make Fais a little giddy. *chuckles* It was too funny seeing the professional photographer at work, with the overly bubbly Zila.

I learnt how to do runway photo-shoot for today where there will be a moving subject walking back and forth. It wasn’t as simple since scientifically, when there is a specific source of light and a moving object, the lighting will effect how illuminated a person looks

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Thus, I’d have to change my aperture and I had to change it doubly fast since the subject is walking and wont wait for me, not like studio photography.

That’s where I found out where my awesome Canon EOS 350D has a minor fault to it. I had to press a button as well as press the slider at the same time to change the aperture so that meant that I had to waste time, putting the camera down to fiddle with it. Unlike the Nikon model where you could just use the slider to change the aperture immediately. :

You should just change your camera, Fais teased me. Yeah sure, and I made a face just like Zila.

Anyway, if there are anyone still keen, there are still the last two spots open for a free photo-shoot. Email me, makawaru(nospam)@gmail.com

When : 3rd August 2005

Where : Radin Mas Community Center (Tiong Bahru Mrt Station)


The Design and Technical room

Interesting week at work lately, teachers has been asking me to take photographs of them, their lessons, the school. Looks like they are taking advantage of the fact that I have an awesome 350D .. *chuckles* I don’t mind taking the pictures, honest. I just feel that I’m more of the Audio/Video/ crew more than an IT support.

I learnt how to shoot a video this week! That was pretty cool. A teacher, asked me to shoot a video of her lesson so that she could review the way she taught to improve herself. It was a hassle trying to find the (one and only) video camera in the school, trying to find Hi-8 tapes in the school (they didn’t provide it!)and finding the battery charger (yikes!) since the battery was all drained.

I learnt how to transfer the video from the cam to the camera, and then convert the video to a vcd format. I’m so proud of myself 🙂 I think I’ll try to find my Adobe Premier book from which I tried to learn a few years back. I could do loads of fun things with video, I’m sure.

And just in time for the school video awards too. Awesome! I remember Saiful, my ex colleage talking to me about collaborating to make a school video since he specialised in music and I could do IT and was describing some of the scenes and shots. We’re not working together any more, but the dream is still alive, I could do something about that.

Singapore’s national day is coming up soon, beautiful lights are put out right outside the streets where I would usually walk home from my train ride.

Brandon, Sunny, Nasir and Steve – Did they all plan to wear black tonight?


V is for peace!

I just came back from supper at Newton Circus with Rosdee, Diane and Christine after our night-class. I wouldn’t normally eat there with the super expensive price tag, but it was not everyday that we had a chat together.

We had fried kangkong and satay to eat communally and we were enjoying our supper when all of a sudden, Christine asked me “So, when are you getting married Marina?” “You ARE serious with him aren’t you? Have you made plans?” I didn’t know how to answer her. Rosdee tried to come to my rescue by asking me the same question in a more polite way, and that was when Christine replied back “I’m a forward person, I don’t believe in hiding things and I care about people and just want to know about them better”

She must have seen my face cringing up at the question and then she replied “I respect your privacy though” and we quickly found another topic to talk about.

And that was when the topic was diverted to religion. How Rosdee’s eyes were all lighted up and he began his speech.

Bla Bla Bla bla

Uh huh? Yeah

Bla bla bla bla bla! Hoo hee hoo hah! Huargh hee hah!

Hmm … Oklah

Are you making fun of me, Marina?

Wouldn’t dream of it. Peace! *laughs*

They are nice people. Diane tells me about her dream to become a lawyer, Rosdee wants a better life and so does Christine. I hope we all do good next year for our A level examinations. God willing. 🙂

Oh my goodness. Less than one week to go. I’m so excited! And I’m not even prepared!

Get lost!

Spent a wonderfully relaxing day watching Lost.

After trying to download the entire series with Bittorent and Limewire without success, I had to practically pull Clement’s (the school technical assistant and my newly appointed best friend) arm and he gave he the entire series in 2 DVD’s! Sans the last two episodes since it didn’t fit in the DVD, and I downloaded those with no problem.

Super fantastic show. I enjoyed it immensely. It’s a show about a group of survivors who survived a plane crash on a strange and mysterious island. There were several flash backs of what their lives were before the crash and the discoveries of the island’s secrets. There were some creepy bits like the mysterious black mist that goes around.

Just what are those debris? Creepy

Almost as creepy as the scene with 3 men and a baby

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But every one knows that the little boy by the window, who is supposed to be the victim of a murder, is a hoax.

21st July is racial harmony day, in remembrance to the racial riots that happened in Singapore in 1964, when many people died from that most unfortunate incident.

Schools here would usually have an event for this day, some schools would put up a show or a festival. I saw that West Spring had a large joint festival together with 2 other schools. It sure looked like fun.

Racial harmony day sounds dandy, but in my personal opinion, it shouldnt just be a one day event where people would wear their traditional costumes. The main point that the different races be understanding and considerate to each other.

Not to say that there isn’t any cultural understanding here, the situation here has improved considerably since the times when Maria Hertogh who was taken away from her Malay Muslim adopted mother back home to the Netherlands.

Anyhow, my point is, Racial Harmony should be practised daily and not just be a carnival that everyone forgets the next day. Just like Valentines day which is a celebration of love, should be practised everyday instead of just once a day. The fact that people *need* a reason to celebrate their appreciation for their partner is a little farce to me. But thats my own opinion

(steps off her soap box)

Was a busy day for me, the entire day was done taking the picture of the teachers, the entire department. I got to borrow the tripod stand from the AVA room (I found it quite fun to use, a tad heavy but it was still pretty ok)

And then I suddenly find myself being the ‘official’ photographer for the school. Teachers would be asking me to take photographs of their activities like the science show, and the national day (I can’t make it for that one though) and the staff department photograph. I accepted them all gladly. Loved taking photographs. It’ll give me more practise with my awesome camera which I totally adore. I’d like to get new lens when I can get my hands on one. Maybe a tamron Af18-200mm.

I was just looking over at the different cd’s that I borrowed from the library. I borrowed this cd, ‘Learn Malay’ by eurotalk interactive with the intention of seeing if it would be good for Cart to use since I have no patience to teach him myself.

Unfortunately, the programme had a lot of glaring mistakes in them, and me, being a Malay found it much too disconcerting.

Bolehkah saya pakai telefon awak?

In Malay, pakai means wear (clothes) so the meaning of ‘May I wear your telephone’ was shocking. The correct sentence to use is:

Bolehkah saya guna telefon awak? Or Bolehkah saya mengguna telefon anda?

I swear, I’m not nitpicking. But I cannot recommend this cd-rom because of the errors which I believe would be minimized by having it tested and checked by a native speaker.

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Very stressful, you know.

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Ok fine. Bye.

2 more weeks to go 🙂

Pictures are fun

I was trying out some techniques from this instructional DVD.

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I borrowed ‘Photoshop for wedding photographers‘ at the library. It was kind of interesting the techniques that the author was telling. A tad bit on the corny side, the presentation, but generally overall, I liked it. A few ideas on what to do for some picture tips now.

Anyway, what a week! And where did it go to? How quickly time passes by and by a blink of an eye, the week is already over!

Suffered a heart palpitations at work when the portal was always creating problems for me. Where I work, the company encourages us to use the portal as much as possible. Thus, when one of the head of department wanted to use the portal for a survey for the secondary two’s, I thought that it would be a cinch since it was so easy to do.

When the day comes, students couldn’t log in because the portal was slow, and even when they managed to log in, they couldn’t submit the form! And there was even one class when the portal decided to do a maintenance right there and then!

Can you imagine how stressful it is when people arrows you when things went wrong? And the blame game begins. I really dislike that. Hope it all goes well come Monday.

Anyway, started on writing the newsletter for the school. It’s not completed, but looks good so far, I sorta like the look of the cork background that makes it look like a pin-up. I’m digging it. What do you think of it so far?

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It looks great Miss Marina!

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Oh yes, I second that!

So far, I’ve one response to the makeover for Wednesday, I think we’ll all have fun then! I wonder if Juli would bring her make-up box too? I’ll have to ask her about it, I’d like to take advantage of the lightings the instructor has provided. With Juli’s make-up savvy and my photography, we’ll do great. I just know it.

I’m completely addicted to Lost Bah! This is exactly why I don’t watch telley. I watch an episode, get hooked to it and now I cant stop downloading! Unfortunately, limewire is as slow as heck and it’s the same for bittorrent too. *pulls hair*

This is crazy.

I went through the same phase with Sex and the city. I’d leave the computer on overnight and watch the episodes once they are done and gleefully chuckle at others who weren’t fortunate enough to enjoy them.

I want my Lost episodes … Bwahh …*cries like a spoiled brat* Gimme gimme gimme! Waaahh!

Maybe I’ll go ask Clement, the technical assistant in school (and my newly appointed best friend at work aka BFAW) to burn the entire season for me. He’s got everything, including the Family Guy series that hasn’t even reached this shores yet.

It was raining when I went for a riding practise on Saturday. It was not easy to ride in the rain, I’ll have to say … everything was so slippery. Am not sure if it was the bike or the road but I skidded many times yesterday. That was quite dangerous! Imagine if it was on the main road. Not good.

Booked for a practise theory session on Wednesday before the actual Riding Theory Test on Thursday. Only then will I be able to take the actual Traffic Police Test to obtain the actual license if I pass.

This is taking too long. Not good.

Went to Sim Lim Square today to get my brother a new CPU. The specs of the new computer is way superior to my current compy.

*jealous*

It was nice anyway, having a day out with just the siblings only. Just a few pics.

Only 18 days more to go … It’ll be worth the wait 🙂

You’re wanted!

Who : Someone who is not camera shy and loves to express emotions.
When : 7.30pm, 20th and 27th July and 3rd August

Where : Radin Mas Community Center (Tiong Bahru Mrt Station)

I cant pay you with moolah, but you’ll have loads of fun and can add these pictures to your portfolio. Your pictures will be given to you via digital format. Email me, makawaru(nospambot)@gmail.com

Okay, time to pass out now. I’ll update more during the weekends 🙂 Goodnight!

My inadequacies

Mushroom and tomato cheesemelts, disgusting to look, but oh so yummy to eat.

I stumbled upon PniiWof’s blog and marvelled at the wonderful dishes that she could whip up with such ease. Lets just face it, I’m not a good cook. I’m the type of person who just literally throw things in the pot and hope for the best. Sometimes I feel embarrassed when I see Cartcart cooking so easily and when he asks me about Asian food and all I could do is to stumble … Cooking should be second nature to women right?

Oh well.

There are a few issues that Mum and I maturely discuss about.Mum thinks that being independent is a level of how well someone cooks and keep house. I kept thinking that how a person could live without the help others is independence. I believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with using pre-made bottled ingredients. Mum is vehemently against those. At the very least I know how to cook simple things. I can boil water with no problems… I can make Sweet and Sour fish, Chap Chye, Fish Curry, Stir Fried Veggies, Tom Yam Soup, Curry Puffs and I can bake cakes and biscuits *proud*

I’ve always wanted to invite close friends to a home-cooked lunch or dinner. Juli cooked a memorable dinner and Hema cooked wonderful lunch for us. I can’t even remember what I cooked for them. It would be nice to do ala-Jamie Oliver. Maybe I should just procrastinating and just do it. I’ve been complaining about this for ages.

I was watching telley with my brother today and was amazed to see that the Power Rangers were still around!

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I’m so amazed. This thing has been around for about 10 years now. Those things were the craze when I was still in secondary school. I swear, Power rangers everywhere. Water-bottles, pencil cases, bags … even the school collar pins we were supposed to wear were replaced with a pink / blue / green / yellow / red / black ranger collar pins. Such were our obsession with it.

I could still remember a little robot that went “ai-yai-yai-yai-yai” I wonder whatever happened to that annoying little thing.

I’m just as amazed because the Pokemon phenomenon,  I didn’t think it went beyond 10 years.

If I made a pokemon, I’d be something like this … heheheh

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I encountered the most interesting thing at work a few days back. And I just realised that Flash MX 2004 uses Actionscript 2.0 now. Normally, when I create buttons, I’d just use

on (release) {
nextScene();
}

Flash MX had an option for me to click and choose the scene that I wanted to go to. So it was pretty easy for me. That Friday I had to crack my head trying to figure out why that code didn’t work and all sorts of error messages appeared. I mean, it’s just a button, it should be easy to code right?

Wrong!

I stared and stared at the screen hoping for some divine inspiration to appear. Nothing. Worse part is, when a HOD was standing behind me all the time looking at what I did. Very stressful when I have to do something with someone looking at me all the time. I had to run away to the computer labs upstairs. Even then, experimenting with the codes didn’t worked.

Then I realised that the new Actionscript version uses a more object orienting programming and that I had to give a name to my button. So now, the code looks like this

buttonname.onRelease = function()
{
gotoandplay(“scene”,1);

Oh I think its time to study programming again … It looks like I just can’t run away from it … I might have faked it in my diploma course, but I cant fake it any more now no matter how much I think programming challenged I am, I still have to try…. Ai-yai-yai-yai-yai.

But work hasn’t been too bad for me, the staff are nice and the kids aren’t bad. I’m very surprised to see that the students are quite respectful of each other. I’m serious! I’ve never seen a culture where the students are actually responsive and actually talks normally to each other without screaming. And this coming from a neighbourhood school. Can you imagine that? They actually DO the tasks you ask them to. I couldn’t help but be in such wide eyed wonder.

Of course I was puzzled at why the students were allowed to bring hand-phones to school, even mp3 players. But they have *never* used them in class. *faints in amazement*

How? How? Wow! How? Woah … How???

Amazing, aye?

Spent the weekends just being lazy at home, watching VCD’s and lounging around at home. I watched the village (interesting!) Meet the fockers (boring) White Chicks (funny!) and Closer (thought provoking)

Closer almost came to be one of my favourite list of movie as it was hauntingly beautiful, with an interesting storyline, questioning about fidelities and the subject of true love. I laughed at some of the parts where the two main male characters indulged in seedy online chat. At the beautiful portrayal and the witty dialoge.

Anna: I don’t kiss Strange men.
Dan : Neither do I.

I don’t want trouble.
I won’t be any trouble.
You’re taken!
But you kissed me!
What are you? Twelve?

Why did you swear eternal love when all you wanted is excitement?
It bores you?
No, it disappoints me

At Anna’s Art Exhibition

Larry : What do you think?
Alice : It’s a lie. It’s a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully. And all the glittering assholes who appreciate art say it’s beautiful cause that’s what they want to see. But the people in the photos are sad and alone. But the pictures make them look beautiful, so the exhibition is reassuring, which is a lie. Which makes it all a big fat lie.
Larry : I’m the big fat lie’s boyfriend.

Hello Stranger

Coupled with the most excellent music from Damien Rice, The Blower’s Daughter. Wonderful, wonderful movie. I like it.

Before I end the blog for today, just a few “what the heck pictures”

Taken right outside my window the block opposite me… Nice underwear 😛

Just a typical scene in idyllic Italy

Ehi Bernado!
Si?
Il toro calcia l’uomo
Si. A volte il toro vince.
Non lo mangio.

(rough translation)

Hey Bernardo!
Yes?
The bull’s kicking the man
Yes. Sometimes the bull wins
I’m not eating it.


Alicia Milano as a man! *peers*

I love Secondlife, a beautiful world to be in

Isn’t this adorable?

Looks like Secondlife has been hit by the tiny critter rage! That’s me on the left and my little squirrel friend on the right there is Mickey. Later on, I asked Cartcart to accompany me in getting tiny avatars. And we dressed ourselves up as bunnies. Aren’t we cute?

I’ve always liked 3D worlds. Ever since I’ve explored my first 3D world, I have been active since. I’ve been a penguin in Worlds, being very impressed by a Greek state in Activeworlds, loving the community in Cybertown and being enthralled by There. It’s wonderful to be able to craft whatever that you wanted.

So naturally, I gave Secondlife a try after being in Cybertown for about two years. At first log in, I was overwhelmed by its superb graphics. I could control a beautifully crafted avatar which I could customise. The avatars there were unique as it could move around, and shifts about and fidgets when left standing too long. It even breathes!

Not forgetting the environment that can be explored. Breathtaking. The sunrise, sunsets and starry nights are as lovely as the real thing.

I started out looking like this the first few days in Secondlife. I tried to make her look similar to me. Her hair, her facial features, her skin. She looks prettier than me I think 😛

You could even customise the clothes here, which is fantastic. I made the bear tee shirt myself just a few days after I joined.

Secondlife is beautiful …



There are always many interesting people to meet and talk to. I’d almost always meet nice people on my travels.



That’s Krysss on our deck

That’s Duo in the living room

Genevieve, Princessia, me and Cartcart

Lyle and me at a coffee house

Cartcart and me – Partners in crime

Cart acquired a beautiful plot of land facing the sea. I really love it there, as it was so peaceful and beautiful – a perfect place to live at. I found myself wishing that we were staying there together in real life. We spend some weeks building our house and was very proud of it when it was nearly complete.

There’s always things that could be done in Secondlife and that’s exciting to me. There’s always much adventures and hopefully, more to come up 🙂

Secondlife is celebrating its 2nd anniversary and is giving out FREE accounts. Sign up! Don’t even think twice about it! Sign up! You’ll love it there. And you could refer me, rinaz bijoux if you like. Hope to see you there 🙂

You can sign up here. Website is 18 and above only.

Kabish kabish Kabish!

There are days when I want to do this.

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Picture courtesy of Rudy from photography class

I had someone comment to me, saying that women are so emotional. That they have misplaced loyalty. Thats why they are always taken for granted.

Woah. I saw red to that. I dont have the statistics to back it up but I just thought that it was an unjustified statement. How true is that? I’m sure we all dont go around acting all crazy, and hyper and spout out emotional outbursts. Oh wait a minute. Maybe we do. Once a month. But that doesnt count.

Mr Chako, our GP teacher quipped in class on day about how three category of people get better pay at work, namely the more attractive people, the males and the taller people.

Being of a non supermodel proportions, a non male and non tall, that statement made me a little apprehensive. What about the common people? Grrr!

*karate chops*

Anyway, take a look at my new desk 🙂

Pretty barren at the moment, I could put the two bears that I usually bring to work. Or some posters or something. Maybe not so soon. Been much too busy with work to concentrate on the appearance of the table.

There’s so much to do! Installation of CD’s in the computer lab, updating the barcoding inventory, creating of newsletters, helping of teachers, doing programming (something I’m not that fluent) helping out in the cca’s and more more stuff and on top of that conduct multimedia lessons…

*faints*

The strange part is, that now that I’ve already had a job, I still receive emails offering me of a job. Funny how when in June when I was bumming around, looking for a job, nothing arrived for about 3 weeks and on the other hand now the reverse.

Oh well.

I still am missing my west spring kids and my colleagues. One of my students called me up and demanded to know why I wasnt in West Spring anymore. How can one not feel a tinge of emotion?

“Cherrr .. Why arent you our IT teacher anymore???”
I could only go … “WAAAAH!!!”

I dropped by school for a while today just to say hello for a bit and had lunch at Sheng Siong with Peter, Jane and Poniah. I miss that camaraderie. 🙂

It was sweet, just hanging out with old friends. I love it.