Andrian Tam

ESCAPE Room at e@Curve

2013-08-19T16:22:00.005+08:00

Before I begin, this is not the Ipoh post. If you wanna read about my road trip, do click here :)

So if you know me, I always love to go for laser tag. It's one of those in-mall entertainments which gets my adrenaline rushing and heart pumping. However one day I was walking with my friends after buying a movie at e@Curve and saw this place called Escape Room. It was intriguing but we didn't have the time to try it. So I went with another group of friends recently. Oh by the way, you need to book a room to ensure that you will get it. You also can walk in if there's no one using the room.

So basically, you will be locked in a room with more locks and clues and you have to find your way out within 45 minutes. Sounds easy, really. But the success rate is not high and 45 minutes isn't long either. So we paid RM28 per person as students and got locked in the Abandoned Factory. What I imagined was a big arena like the ones for laser tag but to explain the many rooms available to play which are like Pirate Ship, Slaughter House, The Mysterious Room, The Mummy, Prison Break and Pirate Ship, they're each literally an Escape Room. You will be in more or less 2 rooms. No running around, but solve the clues given in each room.

So I was in with another 4 friends and the first task was easy. When we got to the next, it was confusing. Having a vast amount of knowledge actually distracts you more as the tip of the year is to just play it simple and straightforward. For us, there were mathematical and chemistry stuff and we took each clue literally and wasted our time doing the non obvious, hence, we failed.

In the end, the guys in charge there told us how to solve it. Thank God, if not I wont be able to sleep for a night thinking what we have missed, and at that moment we all felt very dumb as the clues were actually, like I said, very straightforward.

It was a good experience, especially to those who like to play these games because its quite tricky and you can actually learn a lot from the way they arrange the clues and etc. If you love puzzles, you would love this. But for me personally, I'll still choose laser tag because of its price and not enough adrenaline rush. Would I come back again? Yes, to try out the other rooms. :)

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Bringing Friends around KL

2013-08-16T15:51:00.000+08:00

And again, I was on an unintentional hiatus status for my blog. Clearly I am inconsistent in blogging though ironically i love to tell my stories about the places i go, the food I eat or the crazy things that happen around me. But besides blogging, there is one medium that you can see my stories, which is my instagram. I find it too easy and and qucik to share whats going on using instagram. Why? Because it has a photo of what I see, a caption for a story and even a foursquare check-in so that you can know where am I. So do follow me on instagram, even if you dont know me and love to find out new places to eat or to just chill, at http://instagram.com/andriantam

But nevertheless, I am not just going to end my post like that. Throughout my silence in this paid domain blog, lots has happened and lots has been learnt. I got nothing much to talk about my uni, so im gonna tell you what I did during this summer break.

So it started off, in uni actually. We were in our lecture hall when we were also looking at cheap flights for my friends, from Sabah to KL. Their Malaysian Airlines flight for 2 ways was just only RM137. So they came for 11 days, wandering around the busy city life of KL, and we travelled up north to the serene beaches of Langkawi.

On the night of my dad's birthday, my dear angel with another friend arrived at KLIA. It was about half past 12 midnight when we drove off, and as I saw a heavy jam on the highway back, I decided to detour to Putrajaya. To be honest, Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur are the best places to see at night because of its lights, especially Putrajaya where it is not as busy as Kuala Lumpur and its federal buildings have their own unique design and architecture. Sadly by midnight, they start to off some of the lights to save electricity. So we hang out at the Putrajaya Bridge, a normal hangout place for most people there, to have some air and see the bridge change colour every moment.

The next morning, I got up earlier than the others to send my mom to our new home which was still under renovation that time. It was almost ready and we were about to move in within a weeks time so my mom had to stay there for a day to make sure everything is placed properly before the final touch up. Then I went to pick the others from home to have breakfast with Adrian in Glenmarie. We had a variety of chicken and pork rice which tasted great but it was kinda pricey too. I forgot how much we paid for everything but it was about RM15 per person after we split the share. You be the judge.

Soon, we were off to KL to check in our "executive suite". Duta Vista along Jalan Duta has been there for many years now. I have been celebrating my birthdays there since I was about 7 years old and until now, which I'll be 21 this December, still stands the good old hotel. It's quite run down but why I still go there is because of the space. A 2 floor suite with 2 bedrooms, 3 toilets, a kitchen, living room and dining room is a great place to hang out with a bunch of friends. The reason why we still have it is because my parents bought time sharing with that hotel or it's group of hotels, Tanco Resorts. Nevertheless, we had a great time there. (Yes they do have a penguin there, but during my 7th birthday, they actually had penguinS there)

After settling down, we headed to Bukit Bintang. If I were to bring people new to KL, it will always have to start with Bukit Bintang. Why? Its because you can cover at least 7 malls within the day there, and they're all within a walking distance! The journey always starts from Berjaya Times Square. From there you can walk to Low Yat, Sungei Wang, Lot 10 which has an awesome food court, Fahrenheit 88, Pavillion and finally, KLCC, the landmark of Kuala Lumpur. You can eat, shop and sight see all in one area.

The next day, we spent the whole day at Challenge Park, Putrajaya. It is my favorite spot for rock climbing. If you have a student card, entry fee per day is only RM3. Normal entry is just RM6. Rental of shoes and harness with the belay device are add ons, but if you go with experience climbers who can belay you, you dont need to rent the guy to belay you. By the way, belayers are those anchors who are on the ground holding your rope in case you fall while climbing. So yeah, we were encouraging our friends who were giving it a go for the first time. It was great and tiring at the same time, not to mention, we were making Xinh Guan's birthday card there while he was climbing! The best part was, he didnt realise it at all!

The idea was like this. We rock climb, go back to the hotel to shower and wait for everyone to go out for dinner. Manyi parked her car at my house in Subang, so I had an excuse to not be part of the group and handle the birthday surprise. Well because we were supposed to reach the hotel late, we even hanged around the Ramadan Bazaar in front of my house. Manyi, Hsiu Chin and Aivee went to buy the cake and pizza while me and Carmen went back to the hotel, empty handed. So if ever Xinh Guan was expecting a birthday surprise, there was none. Oh ya, Manyi, Hsiu and Aivee said that they would not be joining us for dinner. So technically everyone was back already. To make the wait even longer, me and Carmen took a shower.

Sooner or later, the 3 girls arrived at the hotel. I walked out and Xinh Guan still didnt realise or suspect anything, and we just barged in the front door singing Happy Birthday while the others were watching tv. It was a well planned surprise.

So it was Sunday and it was quite a letdown. We headed to my favorite pasta place in Kelana Jaya called, Secret of Louisiana. During lunch hour, like from 12pm to 3pm, they will serve pasta buffet. It's like you pay RM15 something or 18, its definitely lower than RM20, and you will get bottomless Ice Lemon Tea, Soup, Salad, Coffee or Tea and 1 scoop of ice cream in the end. The main course is a choice of 8 different types of pasta. Yes it's a buffet served by plate. After you finish one plate, only then they will serve the next. But the worse part was, they close on Sundays. I should have taken note, but oh well.

So we then went straight to IOI mall where we wanted to play laser tag as usual. We first had lunch in Esquire Kitchen.When we went to laser tag, they were closed for a private event! Oh the frustrations. We then decided to go to Sunway Pyramid's Laser Tag, which is technically more expensive than IOI mall. In Pyramid, 2 games costs about RM45. In IOI mall, unlimited games can be bought for about RM55. I guess you can see which is more worth. However, I like Pyramid's arena more. It's bigger and there are additional items to shoot such as a giant snake or some markers on the wall, but their gun is not that nice. IOI mall has a better gun in the sense that you can change modes and actually see your score on the gun itself. The verdict, i'll still go to IOI mall instead of Pyramid.

Our dinner was at Tony Roma's. Not much to say, just western food I guess. Sorry but I enjoy Chinese food alot more. Im a rice or noodle person. hee :)

We got up really early the next day, like about 6.30am because we had to catch a bus from my house to get to KL Sentral for a 10.05am train to Ipoh, which is also Xinh Guan's home town. I think that was the longest sentence that I ever written. Anyway, I'll tell you more about what happened in Ipoh in an new post. I guess it's too boring to read the whole 11 day trip in one blog post.

Take Care.

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On hiatus again?

2013-07-09T22:33:00.000+08:00

Hello world! well it seems this blog's owner has been on hiatus for a whole semester of his university. The 2nd semester was much heavier compared to the first semester because things get more serious as we get used to the environment there. Anyway before i continue blogging more, hopefully, this is a video I recently recorded of Beatnation's A-Team performing live at Subang Rally 2013, Infinite Love! Enjoy this one :)

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Creating a Budget Music Video

2013-02-19T23:16:00.004+08:00

download this track at https://www.facebook.com/dadeft/app_178091127385

Being all inspired to make videos with my new Canon EOS 60D has got me hyped up to make a video before my semester break ends. At times, I will day dream stories in my head about the videos I can produce. It’s easy to imagine stories, but it’s hard to write scripts and to record the video itself.

I won’t say that I have professional equipment but I know it’s sufficient. In this post, I’m just going to talk about how I made my MV just to share my thoughts and knowledge with you. My equipment line up was simple.

Canon EOS 60D
Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (kit lens)
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II (cheapest Canon lens in the market, but awesome)
Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 (discount on Amazon.com)
Zoom H1 (cheapest range but great quality by brand)
160 LED Video Light (cheap light)
A few tripods and gorillapods.

Zoom H1

Samsung Galaxy S2 Metronome Beats

I’ll be honest. This is actually more than enough to make a good video. I’ve seen people out there like Dreambitious, The Salad Show and other college film productions making great videos with just a dSLR and their kit lenses only. But if I have these lenses so, why not use them?

Before making the video, we needed the soundtrack to be the backbone of our video. Aaron a.k.a. A.RON wanted to do a cover by Teddy Geiger, For You I Will. Do note that this video was only made by me and Aaron. I went to Aaron’s house to do the audio recording. We set up the Zoom H1 onto a tripod at the corner of his room and padded its surroundings with pillows and blankets. This was done to prevent echoes from bouncing back on the walls. To prevent any other external sounds, we turned the fan off and also the air conditioner.

All of the sounds were recorded separately. For instance this acoustic cover involved 1 guitar and 1 vocal recorded separately. A pair of headphones was plugged into the Zoom H1 for monitoring purposes. In one ear, Aaron also plugged in another earphone as that was used as a metronome. The metronome was an Android App on my Samsung Galaxy S2 called Metronome Beats. It was used to make sure that his timing was accurate which makes editing and post processing easier.

The earphone was added under the headphone.

Basically, one instrument must be recorded on perfect timing before another instrument or vocals come in. If you record for a band, the drummer will do his recording first before the other instruments and the vocals will be last. In this case, we recorded Aaron playing the guitar first while guided by the metronome.

For the vocal recording, we used the recording of the guitar instead of the metronome in the earphones. The headphones as usual was for him to monitor himself during the recording. Both recordings were then combined and added with certain sound effects.

On another day after the song was ready, we started shooting our MV. We decided to go to Sunway Pyramid car park roof top to shoot. It was a cloudy day, but dramatic too. We had no script as we just wanted to shoot random scenes. I think this isn’t a good idea as it’s always better to have a script ready. Doing that will save a lot of time. Another tip for creating an MV is to always have a backbone track. A backbone track, in my terms, means to have a full video of that song taken in one take. It doesn’t matter if it’s a still or on a dolly, but just have one video rolling throughout the song. This is a backup plan during post production as sometimes when editing, you will find out that you don’t have enough scenes, you can just take any from the backbone scenes. Backbone scenes also can be used as main scenes, intro and outro too.

Above: Shooting a scene on the roof top

Below: I use Magic Lantern in my 60D

Do check online or magazines to learn good camera angles, rule of thirds or many other tips in filming. A normal advice is to always keep your camera as stable as possible, which I still need to work on a lot. It is advised to use lenses with Image Stabilizers as much as possible. Do take note that post processing is important in making an interesting video. My thought at first was to not apply colour correction at all to my video to keep it natural, but instead I decided to add leave colour and set a cool temperature to my video. It’s all up to you.

This was what I had in my mind while doing and learning from making an MV. I hardly read articles on videos and photography, which is a bad thing, as I prefer to try things on my own and learn from them. If you have any more tips or suggestions to improve my video, do comment below.

Thanks.

If you notice, there was a lot of jitters in my video during motion. This was a known irreversible error in the video editor. Fixing it will result in redoing the whole video again. This is one downside of this MV.

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Chasing the First Sun of 2013

2013-02-09T18:17:00.000+08:00

It has been so long since I blogged, and I truly believe that I have said this so many times. Perhaps I'm not committed to this blog, or I'm just not the writer type and love to just take photos instead. But to be honest, I love to share my stories to anyone. As I always believed, I live life by experience compared to books or by just sitting at home or being in a classroom. Of course all mentioned just now are as important as they exist, but not as effective as living a dream or breaking boundaries in your life. Nevertheless, I will keep trying to blog and submit articles to magazines, hoping that it brings good to myself and others, and improve in my own writing skills.

As every year goes by, a new year is always felt as an event where we change or plan to be better throughout that new year. People will list down their new year resolutions and plans to whatever they dream of. As for me, my goal is to keep up with my results, improve my literacy, social and be more fit and stronger. If you know me, I'm called a stick or Pai Kuat, which means pork ribs. There's nothing to worry if you call me that, I'm an open person and not offended easily.

Now back to my story. The celebration of the new year, 2013 just passed as if it wasn't a new year. It just felt like a new day as it is everyday. It could be because of 2 things. One is that my university semester ends at the end of January, and the continuity of classes and studies made it felt as if it was a routine. Before this, school holidays made Christmas and New Year bold, but looking forward to exams that are coming made it feel as if it was just another day. Another reason could be that I didn't sleep that whole night during the new year. Me and a few friends rented 2 cars and decided to chase the sun.

On the last night of 2012, we left our campus at about 7pm headed towards BDC in Kuching for BBQ Steamboat Buffet. The restaurant name was Swan Teem BBQ Steamboat. If you click the link, it will bring you directly to its Foursquare page for you to easily locate :) They have a wide variety of meat like pork and chicken, some are plain meat or you can also choose the marinated ones which taste better. They serve assorted fishballs or I would call them, flour products, because these kind of food are mostly made of flour. You can barbecue them or boil them in the steamboat. Their cooking pot is unique that the center is used for steamboat and its sides are the grill for the barbecue. Usually the soup is just water so if you plan to go there, do bring your own seasoning or if you will like it to do it our way, you can try this method.

Boil the broth with a piece of lamb in it. Add some pepper and break egg into the soup. It will taste delicious.

We were eating there till about 10pm when we decided to go to Boulevard for some fireworks. We lined up at Ding Tea for a good beverage. I had Hazelnut Milk Tea as I love hazelnut drinks. If you're interested in their menu, here's one from Google.

We were chilling outside in the drizzle, waiting for the fireworks to go out. It was packed and you could see the fire department standing by in case anything went wrong. At the end of the countdown, we saw fireworks light up the sky. It's not as magnificent as those you see in USA, but this is all we have and as long as it makes the locals, or just anyone happy, its good enough. :) I myself was happy to spend time watching it with my loved one :) Happy New Year! :D

Moving on, we went to another mall called The Spring to catch a movie at MBO. We watched Les Miserables, a musical, which caught me by surprise. Though feeling tired late at night and the movie may be a bit slow, it was a great movie after all. It would be much better to see it live, but it had a great plot and the songs were sang very well.

At around 4am, we were at McDonalds, Kuching for breakfast. There and then, we decided to go to Bako, where the national park is located, to watch the sunrise. The journey was in pitch black. We were driving on trunk roads with no street lights and we were the only cars there. The most interesting part was that we didnt really know where to go. We were looking at Google Maps, trying to guess which way may lead to a beach by the South China Sea, facing East. We got stuck in a village, attempted to drive up a hill and sink into a mud road, which we didn't. We kept searching through the tarmac until we found a spot by the beach. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best we could find. I tagged that place on Foursquare and if you're lucky enough, you may catch the perfect sunrise here.

We were unlucky that day. The night before that was rainy so the day was filled with clouds. We did not see any orange sunrise but just a blue cloudy sky. It was quite upsetting, but on the bright side, we discovered a place we can go and see the sunrise next time. The place is filled with lots and lots of mosquitoes. You will be surprised yourself. It was a swarm of mosquitoes that you can see them hitting your car windscreen when the day got brighter. In the dark when we got down of our cars, we just kept getting bitten constantly. So a piece of advice, park your car nicely and do not get down of your car. :)

When the sky was bright enough, we headed back to the city for our second round of breakfast. I brought my group of friends to a good Wan Tan Mee shop suggested by my friend Calvyn and Hobbes, I mean Rachel, his girlfriend.. Haha. The place was called Master Bong Cafe. This was actually my second time here.. The noodles here have a very good texture, heard it was made out of duck egg and not chicken egg. Their pork is tasty and they have dumplings too, which are just ok. Their Chee Cheong Fun with prawns is good too. A highlight of Kuching if you're looking for food :)

At about 8am, we headed back to campus for a good shower and a long afternoon sleep :) 13 hours of driving did pay off :) Theres nothing wrong if you don't sleep a whole night, but spending it well with a bunch of good people. Don't just sit at home, go out and do something :)

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Borneo British Parliamentary Championship BBPC

2012-12-24T19:04:00.003+08:00

The Borneo British Parliamentary Championship (BBPC) was organised by the UNIMAS Debating Society which I was a part of. This was our first time hosting an international debate competition, and its turnout was quite good. Though many teams around the world registered and only some came to check in, I would say the event was still a success. Many teams backed out, for some reasons that we guessed, was because our championship was right after SDO, which was Singapore's Debate Open. Many teams do not go for championships one right after the other, unless they are really hard core debaters. However, it was great to see some teams and adjudicators turning up right after SDO, it shows how committed they are towards debating. Another reason why the turnout was small is because many people from other countries are not familiar with Kuching but Kuala Lumpur instead. It was perhaps the stereotypical idea that Kuching is a small town and not worth going. But to my surprised, the chief adj, Aji Abu from Singapore, fell in love with Kuching and wished he could stay longer by taking a week off from work. Too bad that it was too late for him to apply leave. Other adjudicators like Ajay Kumar from India stayed another day to visit Orang Utans and take a short sight see around Kuching.

Well here's my part of the story. I was in charge of transportation in the event. All I had to do was to make sure everyone gets to the competition safely. On Friday the 14th, me and a few others from UDS were waiting for Dinesh to get the cars and head off to the airport to pick up a team that was flying in at 3.40pm. I was shocked at 2pm when I received a phone call from Christ University, India saying that they have already arrived and are waiting at the airport. We quickly rushed to the airport in 2 cars as we only had Kancil's, which is a very small car.

One of the cars ran out of fuel right outside the petrol station

On that day itself, I drove for about 12hours with sufficient rest. I left the university at 2pm and arrived back at 2am. No, it wasn't labor abuse or anything close to it. I enjoyed it as I really love to drive. It felt so much better as the car was rented with UDS funds and its petrol was all covered by them too. The funny part was the car itself. It only had 4 gears! I was surprised. While driving it on the highway for the first time, I was shifting the gears from 3rd to 4th, 4th to *ehh*.. I thought the gear was jammed or something. I finally had a stop at a round about and when I looked at the gear label carefully, it really had only 4 gears! It was really shocking, but the more shocking part was that the car could actually go up to 110km/h on that 4 gears, well that was according to its speedometer. It could be inaccurate.

Kuching International Airport

12 hours of driving was fun. I met a lot of people from different countries, had a good 30 minute chat with them before dropping them off at the "hotel" which was Sarakraf Pavilion, a homestay bungalow.

The next morning, I headed to Faculty of Social Sciences where the competition was being held. Using the 2 kancil's, we transported about 10 tables and 60 chairs. We took a few rounds and each round, we could take 5 tables or 10 chairs. It sounds unbelievable to transport 10 chairs in a Kancil but a good thing about Perodua is that they design their rear seats to fold so that there will be more trunk space.

After that many rounds, I headed off to the airport to take away McDonalds for one of the adjudicators. She didn't have a proper meal on the day before and she's vegetarian so she wanted the McEgg and hash browns. It wasn't actually my job to do that but I just did it as a favor.

I didn't have much to do by 3pm so I decided to head back to my room, have a nap and get ready for a Christmas dinner that night. A blog post of that night will be updated soon.

Intense planning

On Sunday, I was on standby at the competition. Some teams and adjudicators had earlier flights, so I had to send them to the airport. Besides that, there was an unusual morning. The chief adjudicator stayed back at the hotel that morning because he wasn't feeling well. I was told to pick him and another luggage up from the hotel. As I was sending him to the university, I had a good chat with him. His name was Aji Abu and he is a test engineer at Aston Martin Singapore. I was like, wow! He has the privilege to drive those supercars and tune them. His job is to basically set the car to the Singapore road requirements, perhaps in terms of safety or environment protection, but its still a cool job.

Fang with Aji Abu

The final debate!

I was also able to catch the final debate, which was intense. The motion was that THBT suicide is a legitimate tool of protest against the state. Unimas had one team in the finals which was represented by Albert, UDS president and Dinesh. After all the arguments, their team came in 3rd.

Nasi Goreng Bryani Ayam Penyet

After the results were out, we had dinner at Station 12, which was a Malay restaurant by the street outside of the Pink Mosque. They had great food there. I had Nasi Goreng Bryani Ayam Penyet which was spicy, but delicious. I also tried the nasi goreng sotong penyet which was wonderful. Sotong is cuttlefish and it wasn't rubbery. The squid felt as if it could just melt in your mouth. The tom yam soup was also tasty, so im generalizing that restaurant as one of the best around Kuching.

It was a long, wonderful and tiring weekend. I went back to the university with good news that presentation was postponed to another day and I had no class in the morning on the next day. Great news and great sleep. :)

Take care :)

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Not Taking a Break this Semester Break

2012-10-30T16:00:00.000+08:00

I just entered my first semesters mid term break which will last for a week. For the past month, I was looking forward to this week because it will be a week where I can get good rest before I take on the rest of the semester again. However, my break is yes, a break from studies, but not for rest. The moment my break began, on the last day of class, on that night itself, me and my group of friends doing Cognitive Science rented 3 cars and headed up to Kuching. It was a trip of 15 people and it was amazing to see how close we were as friends, a really big group of friends. The initial plan of my friend was to go to The Hills for karaoke but it was too expensive. So instead, we went to walk around Kuching and took a boat across the Santubong river. That night was only just the beginning. The next day had much more adventure :)

I got up around 7.45 that morning. We were supposed to group up at Cempaka at 9am to get into our transport. It was delayed to about 10am but I didnt bother. As long as I got to my destination, Im happy. This trip was again organised by the same previous Chinese society in UNIMAS. They had about 7 cars to bring about 33 people around. First we headed to Jong Crocodile Farm. We arrived at 11am, which was just in time for the crocodiles feeding time. They have feeding shows at 11am and 3pm.

The workers will hang a piece of meat or fish onto a cable that is tied across the pond. The crocodiles in the pond will jump up, trying to grab their lunch. It was such a great sight to see the crocodiles jumping because you dont really get to see crocodiles everyday, but thank God for that.

We spent another hour at the crocodile farm walking around, looking at other animals and ate some snacks. I would like to rephrase 'we' to 'the both of us' :) I have a very special companion who shares the same interest with me and one of it is to travel. Shes really adventurous and really knows how to live life :) I thank God again for introducing her into my life :)

So anyway, we got back into the cars and headed to a town nearby for lunch. Lunch wasnt that great but at least it filled my stomach well, and they had good Chinese tea :) We headed to Ranchan Waterfall soon after. It was about an hour trip, cos we got lost a bit as the convoy got split up. Nevertheless, we arrived at our destination safely. Ranchan had a series of waterfalls and I suggested to go as high as possible because usually if youre at a lower part of the waterfall, you have no idea what shit happened from above :p

We trekked through the forest up the hill to find a higher waterfall. It was just me, Carmen and Jeff, I have no idea where the others went. Jeff also is another adventurous and enthusiastic person, but hes a guy :p Haha. So we reached the end of the trail, took off our shoes and went down into the cold water. We could go much higher following through the rocks but we did not want to leave our valuables far from us. As we were in the water, we sat in it and allowed the water to flow through us. The funniest part also was that the river had fishes. They were small fishes trying to eat our feet. It was like a fish therapy, and it was so ticklish. After awhile, we did get used to it. I have no idea what fish was that but i believed it was cleaning my feet :)

Panchor Hot Springs was our next destination. Getting there wasnt easy as the roads were still, undeveloped. The roads were narrow and it wasnt tarmac. There are still future plans in developing the road. The entrance fee into the hot springs is only RM3 and they have a cafe there. The place is well maintained and clean. It is a natural hot springs pond so the water may look dirty and muddy, but its natural, hot and filled with natural minerals. When i drenched my feet into the water, it was really hot. I had to keep putting my legs up many times, but after awhile, I got used to it and just enjoyed the hot water. Hot springs is good for the body because its said to help in circulating blood flow in the body. People with high blood pressure are not advised to enter the hot springs.

We then headed to Kuching for dinner in the Hong Kong Noodle House located in Chinatown. It was one of my most favorite restaurants because they served dried chili in oil, which was one of my favorite chili. I had pork ribs with champagne and wine sauce and Carmen had the same thing, without the champagne and wine sauce. Both kinda just tasted the same, but it tasted good too. We both also ordered sour soup which was a thick soup with tofu and chicken slices. It was a spicy soup but it taste great and was very filling. Our dinner came up to about less than RM10. Soon, we headed back to campus to end the day :)

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Peeling the Banana

2012-10-14T17:48:00.003+08:00

I’m quite, but not very, drained as I just got back from a hiking trip at Mount. Gading and hit the waves at Sematan Beach Resort. I am going to blog about the great trip but before this post, I was supposed to talk about the colourful Citrawarna event held last Wednesday in the university in occasion of its convocation. Wow that rhymes… Anyway, why dont I just combine the both of them into one post.

It was a contemplation between attending debate meeting or Citrawarna. Debate was important but Citrawarna is an event described so well that I did not want to miss it. It was also because of the dedication of my friends who were involved and the team by each college, which spent almost every night practicing their act. Citrawarna was also a onetime event to me so me and my friends didn’t want to miss it.

As usual, it started off with speeches and its official launching. There was an opening act and a mini parade by the alumni of UNIMAS before the competition. Soon after, the battle of colours began. It was mostly magnificent.

Each colleges had their own distinct themes, one was focused on the Indian culture as another was focused on the Mexican culture. My college performed a Rio theme and others had their own. I am usually not attracted to such traditional events but I am always attracted to the idea of synchronisation. It was a beautiful sight to see about 40 students from each college putting together a dance performance, boasting creativity and skills.In the end, my college, Bunga Raya, won the overall title for the competition. Im really proud of them and of course, to my friends Phoebe, Qiu Xi, Leo Lim and Joshua Jerome who were part of the performance.

Moving on to my exciting day trip, it was a satisfying trip. It all started off hilariously. The event was actually planned by some Chinese society in the university and my friend, Jeff, knowing the meaning of my name in Chinese, submitted my name in Chinese, which I did not understand. Yes, I don’t know my own name in Chinese and am a so called banana. Wo Shi Xiang Jiao Ren...

As we were about to leave, I was looking for my name in the namelist, which I of course did not understand. I looked for my phone number instead and signed. As we went on the bus, we had ice breaking and games in Chinese. I did not understand so it was funny actually. We had to introduce ourselves and when my turn came up, I said, “Dui bu qi, wo bu hui chiang hua yi.” That means, im sorry, I cannot speak Chinese. Sorry if I typed the Chinese words wrongly. Anyway, they told me to introduce myself in English, but I told them that I want to try it in Chinese. So then I said, “Wo de ming shi Andrian. Faculty shi FSKPM, program SK.” It means my name is Andrian, faculty is FSKPM and program is SK.

We also played a game in Chinese but I forgot how it went so I cannot describe it. The journey from our

university to Mount Gading took about 2 hours so for the rest of the journey, I was listening to the music in Carmen’s phone, as she was listening to mine. She’s a good singer and plays the guitar well.

As we reached the main entrance, we got off and quickly started snapping photos. I was busy trying to get internet connection to check into Foursquare. I use it only when I arrive at some grand place or a new place.

We soon began our hike, sweeping through lots of flora and fauna. It is said that the Raflessia, the largest flower in the world, blooms here. Throughout the journey, we did see one of it, but it was black in colour, not red. Perhaps it was dying because they have a very short lifespan, of about 5 days if im not mistaken. You will be very lucky if you are able to see a fully bloom Raflessia in red.

We hiked up for quite a while to reach waterfall No.3. I think it wasn’t a major waterfall as compared to Waterfall No.7 which is at a higher altitude and we were supposed to go there, but we did not have enough time. We were able to take lots of photos and play in the shallow water for a period of time. We soon headed back to the entrance to have our barbecue lunch.

Sematan Palm Beach Resort was our next destination. It took about half an hour to get there. When we arrived, we were so happy to see the beach, its fine soft sand and big waves from the South China Sea. We quickly put our things down and ran into the water. We played a lot, and really a lot, as if the wave was our enemy, we kept making human barricades to fight the waves. It was such a great time.

After much playing, me and Carmen decided to get off shore to have a good cup of coffee at the café nearby. She’s also a coffee junkie like me. We had a great chat about our dreams and interest, including coffee and alcoholic drinks. It was good to have a great companion at a café drinking coffee beside the beach. It’s something that I haven’t done in a long long time.

We spent an adequate amount of time chatting and then we left to go for dinner at Bukit Mata Seafood. The food there was quite good. We had tofu, broccoli, mixed vegetables, butter prawns, chicken and seaweed soup. My friend Xinh Guan had 5 bowls of rice. He aint that big but he swallowed them all up.

It was a great day trip, which I was just informed 2 days ago. I am still hanging on to the words, do not regret what you did, but regret the things you never did. I still don’t know who came up with that quote, but Im still living it. Gonna keep travelling around whenever I can.

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Cognitive Science Orientation

2012-10-02T23:25:00.000+08:00

I'll be honest, I mean of course I have to be honest, because what I view shouldn't be manipulated just to be nice or whatever in that case. Just saying.

For the whole week before orientation, I dreaded it because we, cognitive science students, had a lot of assignments to do and I usually revise my studies every night. However, for the whole week, it was all about preparing for orientation or doing assignments. Every night was busy. 3 nights were used to plan my groups performance and 1 night which was excepted was used to attend debate weekly meetings which are usually on Wednesdays. The orientation was from Friday to Sunday and we were only able to fully practice on Thursday.

I'll be honest, I did skip a lecture because of my orientation preparation. As a group leader, I had to at least have a plan in mind, in terms for my group performance. I wasn't feeling that well too anyway. My group was given the task to do a dance performance about Puteri Santubong. It was a traditional song and it was too slow for me. Thank God for its hip hop version by M.I.X., we used their song to have a hip hop part that I thought may make our performance unique. The great challenge was to plan a choreograph for the dance. I have no dance experience besides 3 classes of hip hop at Urban Groove and taking videos of other dancers. On Thursday, I skipped one lecture, which I'm glad I did because I was able to plan a 40 second choreograph in 3 hours, had dinner then spent another 4 hours teaching my team mates the moves. Skipping that one lecture also gave me a breather and helped me get myself back together. The stress of time constraint with assignments and pre-orientation plans was very heavy.

I think I wasn't the only one who dreaded orientation. Many others also complained about it taking too much time or being a waste of time. There were also some who screwed up their presentation last Monday, mostly because of orientation. It was tiring for them and though u might say that a group who knows that they suppose to present on a specific date should be ready early, its about the timing that was very tiring. Even one of my lecturers complained that the orientation was too long and made the students tired. He was upset that he wasn't given the chance to voice out his opinion about the timing.

Anyway throughout the orientation, I kept asking myself, "what am I doing here?" I kept asking myself that because there are so much to do compared to the activities done there. The highlight of the event was to spend time with seniors to ask questions and get ourselves straight. They were focusing on us as a faculty being a family. I have nothing wrong with that but its more of the timing thats a problem. Second, its hard to get everyone to ask seniors questions at a specific time because questions usually arise when there are problems, which will come throughout our whole semester. We already have the mentor mentee and family system, it will be wise to ask for help only when a problem arises. At the orientation, I had nothing to ask and I just listened to what the seniors do in class.

Well for now I only can answer my question by saying that I attended the orientation just to dance. I never performed a dance before and our performance during orientation was a whole new experience for me. Furthermore, my group won 2nd place for the performance that night. Well at least I know that my efforts paid off, but it was also because of the dedication and the cooperation and ability of my team members which brought my group to such victory. My group won the overall prize for the orientation. Quite surprising, but I'm sure my group members deserved it.

So, I still think I went for orientation to dance, play with lanterns for the mooncake festival and enjoy the beach. But there always a story behind every action. The orientation did make an impact to me and the other students. The games and activities held has brought us closer than before. I did have my share of fun. Mr Hafiz speeches always made good sense and it was very rational. They always emphasize that we can never work on our own to gain success. We always need to depend on each other to reach our goals. Orientation has allowed me to know my friends better, make new friends and gain more experience for instance, the dance. Mainly, it also made me be able to take on the challenge of a university student, to be able to overcome any situation and still remain standing. More photos here.

All in all, orientation wasn't bad after all. :)

Oh and I would like to take this chance to wish my course mate, Elvis Yoon, a Happy Birthday :) We celebrated his birthday in one of our universities higher class cafes. We bought a brownie cake for him and we all had a great lunch together :)

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Laying Down the Bricks One by One

2012-09-19T23:38:00.001+08:00

Im back in my room after a session with the UNIMAS Debating Society and it was a great session. The seniors who were handling the club were cool people and gave a good introduction and perception about debating. How important is debating to me? Well they asked us to think about what do we expect from joining the club. I thought, it would be important for me to break boundaries, increase my confidence and knowledge. The product, we shall see after a year or two or maybe when i graduate.

After the introduction, we were given the chance to debate. I along with Adrian and Jai, the other public speaker who got 1st place, decided to take the seat of the opposition party. Topic; Superheroes Should Not Wear a Mask. Generally, we were suppose to oppose that topic and I think it went pretty well. I was the Opposition Whip and I think I did a pretty good job, along with the first and second speaker, Adrian and Jai respectively. The other members agreed that the opposition party should win so I guess its a really good start for some of us. I really hope to gain a lot by joining this society, to widen my network and knowledge and to work closely with the other intellectual members too :)

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Hotting Up :D

2012-09-18T21:36:00.001+08:00

This is going to be a very short post, perhaps for the sake of this picture. We have really marvelous cloud formations here, but were much closer to the equator so its scorching hot here. Just enjoy this photo and imagine its really really hot. :) oh all the pictures i have taken ever since I arrived in Kuching are taken by my Samsung Galaxy S2 :) great smartphone till today. I still prefer it over an S3 :) hope to be able to bring my dslr when i come back for my second semester.

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My Cubicle

2012-09-16T15:22:00.000+08:00

Ever since I bought my Maxis Broadband, which was actually just yesterday, its so easy for me to go online anywhere without depending on the university's wifi. It used to be a pain for me to access the internet because my university uses an online portal for our homework and lecture notes called morpheus, and my room can't get wifi. Every time I go to a wifi hotspot, there wont be any power plugs for my laptop. The university wifi is also shared by the many users at one hotspot and the many thousand users in the whole university. Internet loading is very slow and it sometimes doesn't even load. So the broadband solves my problem.

This is my room, or perhaps, my cubicle. Our quarters or dorms, which are called colleges, is like an apartment. When you enter, theres a living room and kitchen. There are 5 rooms when you walk down the hallway. 2 single rooms are usually for seniors, 2 double rooms and one triple room are usually for the juniors. So there are usually 9 people living in an apartment. The toilets are split. The shower is separated from the toilet bowl. I guess its a design to help students take turns using the bathroom more efficiently so that more students can use the bathroom at a time.

My room is an example of a double room, a room literally split into half. It has been 2 weeks and im comfortable here. I'm actually surprised that I adapted quickly to this foreign place. I am not feeling homesick yet, but maybe it will come soon because the first few weeks has been really busy.

I'm also getting used to the schedule here. My study schedule is balanced with sports and extra curricular programs in the college. My weekends are planned that Saturdays are study days and only Sunday is my rest day. Laundry is usually done during the weekends. I have joind my college debate team but I'm also aiming to join the university's debate team for more exposure. I really regret not joining the debate team in high school. I'm still trying to live up to a quote, do not regret the things you did, but regret the things you did not do. It kinda smacked into my face during form 6, and thats when I begun to change.

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Living the University Life

2012-09-13T10:38:00.002+08:00

A very good evening to all the students of BRC. Tonight I am going to talk to you about Life in University. It has only been 2 weeks since I first arrived here, and a few words came to my mind.

Look around you. Who here whom are important to you are missing?

Your parents.

Living in a university teaches us to be independent. I'm sure there are many of you who are like me, who always depend on my parents for the past 20 years to clean tho house, do our laundry, wash the toilets and prepare our food. But today, we have to do it on our own, independently.

We also learn to be courageous. This is not high school anymore, there is no more spoon feeding or notes given by our teacher. We must be initiative to find our homework, get our notes from an online portal and step up to ask our lecturers questions. Courageous not only in class, but also when you apply and do your cocurriculum. Like today, stepping up here to speak takes a lot of courage, and I would want to ask those who stepped up here, to give yourself a hand for being courageous and for some, to break your boundaries.

I would also like to share you another word. Discernment, which means eye opener to us. Coming to university is an eye opener to me. This is my second time coming to Kuching, but there is still so much that I am learning. It helps us to be matured too, by living on our own and dealing with our daily spenditure.

Well thats all I have for tonight, thank you..

That was, not 100% accurate, speech that I shared spontaneously last night during my colleges (dorm) speaking corner, an effort of the colleges academic secretariat, there will be a speaking corner every Tuesday night to give the college students an opportunity to voice out their opinions.

Like I said just now, it has just been about 2 weeks since I arrived here, and everyday is a new day. A week of orientation just ended and it was a bliss. Despite the long boring talks, there was also cultural night, cheers, performances and competitions like debate and public speaking. I signed up to participate in public speaking, with the intention to join the debate team at first, but the debate was in BM. Someone still encouraged me to do public speaking, something I have never done in my life. Technically it's because public speaking is a solo performance and debating requires a team and I am just not ready for it, but i still jumped into the hole, facing whatever that may appear.

Well I wasn't the only one who applied for public speaking. Another 7 students also signed up for it and to be fair, we had a preliminary competition in front of our college fellow to choose who shall represent our college, and I got chosen. What was my feeling that time? I was nervous, shocked, happy, glad, proud, scared and, you name it. It was such an amazing feeling, especially when your friends were looking at you, supporting you to bring it all the way.

It was a calm Thursday evening that I was not calm. I was in the colleges meeting room with my friends brainstorming ideas for the competition. The topic given was; Should prime time coverage be equal for men and women in sports? The first question that came to my mind was, isin't prime time coverage already equal for both genders, or is it even measured? The one thin i knew was that I can't assume anything and I should either agree or disagree to the title, and throw out my reasons. This is more or less on how my speech went;

A very good evening to the honorable judges, guests of honor, chairperson, time keeper and my fellow friends. Allow me to begin.

Dato Lee Chong Wei

Dato Nicole Ann David

What do these people have in common?

Of course, they are our nations number one sportsmen.

But, what are their differences?

Gender!

The topic given to me today is Should prime time coverage be equal for both men and women in sports? That means, should the publicity of both males and females be fair on the evening news.

I agree to this statement because I believe in gender equality. I always hold up to the thought that both men and women have their own capabilities to do their own things, their own forte. For example, women may be good in attracting business for their company and men on the other hand can be skillful in technical instruments. Both fields are important in the development of our society. Both men and women of today are independent of each other, the women of today do not need to depend on men for income. Women are capable of working on their own and are able to chase their dreams.

My next point is that media is a very strong and influential tool. There is no doubt that the CEO of the biggest companies watch the news everyday to stay updated to the news and economics. If they see what they like, they would want that person to wear their logo. For instance, Nike sponsored Manchester United because they saw the talent in that male football team. But what if female football teams also had equal publicity, say that Nike saw a female football player playing as well as Wayne Rooney, then there would be a female football star too. Media coverage also gives opportunity, in this case, to female football players to gain more sponsorship, spotlight and a chance to build their career.

My third point is that sportsmen and women are inspiring people, like again, Dato Lee Chong Wei has inspired the men of our country and same for Dato Nicole David, she inspired the local women too. I mean, no offence but who ever knew that Malaysia will ever be number one in a certain field? Its true that many of us had that negative perception in our mind, and these two athletes proved us wrong. A family can sit down and watch the evening news together and be inspired by these athletes. For example, during the last 2012 Olympics, taekwando was aired on television and that family who was watching the news will be moved to take up martial arts classes with the thought to protect themselves and their children.

To sum up my points, I would agree that prime time coverage should be equal for both men and women in sports because I support gender equality which brings more publicity and inspires both men and women, equally. Thank you.

This was more or less the speech I gave to about 4200 people in an auditorium. Not to mention, it was my first time public speaking. Such a thrilling experience. The speech above is not 100% accurate but again, more or less what I said and maybe has been improved to be posted here.

After my speech, the jury asked me a question. She asked; Why should large companies sponsor women football teams when they are not good at it?

I replied; Women football teams are also like male football teams, they train everyday. And like I said, the women football team does not get enough publicity, so thats why people like you and me, are not aware of the potential they have.

In the end, unbelievably I have won 2nd place.. I never expected to even be in the top 3 because I forgot my words and stuttered at some parts. The joy of winning did not just end with me winning 2nd place. My colleges debate team got third place and if I'm not mistaken, we also got 2nd place for the cultural dance competition. The overall winner of the orientation was determined by the position obtained in all the competitions. Though my college didn't win the cheer competition at all, but we still won the overall trophy! it was such a great feeling to know that my efforts has made a chain reaction which has brought my college to victory. Best feeling in my life :D

Me and my friends were then asked to speak during our speaking corner of our college which brought us to becoming the academy secretariat of my college, I think. theres still official notice of our participation.

anyway life here is great and classes have already started last Monday. Lecturers seem good but im still trying to adapt to the timing and lifestyle here. Hopefully it will stay this way, even when im planning to be much more active in university activities :)

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Starting to Feel Like Home

2012-08-31T23:39:00.001+08:00

Its day 2 for me and my friends in Kuching, and were getting comfortable here. Though theres not much entertainment here, were doing pretty well in adapting to the foreign city.

Today we got up to breakfast in the hotel, a simple breakfast with toast, cereals and some rice and noodles. We then walked around the city looking for a photo shop because Sam needed to print more passport size photos. At the same time, we looked at shops that sell lots of Sarawak products.

We ended up having lunch in Pizza Hut because the coffee shop which served Sarawak Laksa that was recommended by Foursquare users was closed, perhaps for the Independence Day celebration. It's very quiet here actually. We went shopping after and headed back to the apartment and watched Running Man, some Korean game show.

We still continued looking for Sarawak Laksa at another restaurant for dinner but it was also closed. So we went for barbecue steamboat. I can say that it was good, especially the marinated beef. Soup is not actually soup, its just hot water. So if you want good soup, bring your own seasoning.. :) Oh the name of the restaurant is D11 Steamboat :) its just RM18 for its buffet :)

Well thats how day 2 went, and were gonna head to the university tomorrow so wish us luck! :D

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Reborn!

2012-08-30T14:40:00.001+08:00

I couldnt think of any other title but metaphorically, it matches. I have been looking forward to going to university, feeling that its a fresh start to meet new people and improve my life, physically and mentally.

I was offered, accepted and enrolled in "The Malaysian Public Institute of Sarawak" or UNIMAS, which is supposed to mean Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. According to Foursquare, Im about 604 miles away from home. I guess its about time that I live an independent life.

I still cant stop thinking about the people, family and friends, who came today to the airport, and those who wanted to, not forgetting those who called, texted and even facebooked me. Their wishes mean alot to me, especially those who took their time to write a meaningful note/letter.

It was an hour and 45 minute flight from KLIA to Kuching. It wasnt really such a pleasant flight because when we entered the plane, the air conditioning wasnt on, air steward forgotten my ice water request and we had a really rough landing, like BANG! Other than that, their nasi lemak was really good.. :) We took MAS there.

Now Im at Ariva Gateway, renting a 2 room apartment which is great, very fast wifi available, gym facilities, swimming pool and sauna are also available. Room condition is good and its really big so its awesome :)

Were like 3 days earlier than the check in date to university to get used to this place and to buy our necessities before going to uni. We had a 20kg limit for our luggage so we could not bring everything.

Well I know its been very long since I blogged but I hope to keep updating frequently about whats going on here because this site is like my, dear diary..

Images are by Andrew Chan :)
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SMK Seafield Carnival

2012-07-09T18:36:00.001+08:00

It was 11am and I just had no idea what to shoot there.. The people? The food? Carnival just seemed like something you see everyday.. food, performances, games, hot weather, crowds, shouting, water splashing, displays, sales, promotions and the usual. Therefore I didnt take much photos. My facebook album on that event only had like, 8 photos only.. Well anyway, here is one just to mark that event by me. :)

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My USA Trip?

2012-07-06T22:26:00.002+08:00

Hey its been awhile and yeah, I have not gotten the inspiration to write (type) for now. Well its kind of weird to not have inspiration even after I came back from an exciting trip in the USA. I should be all fired up about my trip, but perhaps I just got too tired.

So I am home now, practically have nothing to do but clear up the house and my room as my brother is moving back in after 4 years of studying abroad. He and I have tons of clothing and my parents had to buy him a new wardrobe. This current house is too small really, but I can adapt.

I was In the states for about 4 weeks and theres so much that happened. It will be impossible to write everything down here. A book would sound great but I have no writing skills. When I was in Popular Bookstore with Soo Yin yesterday, I saw a book about a woman who cycled around the whole Peninsular Malaysia and, she has a book about her journey. I asked myself, why cant i do the same about my trip? Quite pathetic to know that I cant ever write a blog post about what happened there. Well for starters, Ill just do some highlights. :)

1. Whale watching. On the first weekend there, my mom, bro and I went to venture and conquer the Pacific Ocean by going on a boat ride to see whales. It was suppose to be about a 3 hour boat ride to the Farallones Islands or the Gulf of the Farallones Sanctuary. Quite a fancy name eh, it's a protected island that you are not allowed to set foot on the land there. It is a sanctuary of lots of aquatic wildlife and birds and whales are suppose to be spotted there.

Sadly we didnt reach there. It was a policy that if 51% of the people on the boat get sick, they would have to turn the boat around. 2 elderly people really felt unwell and that caused the boat to turn back. We were about half an hour away from the island but, we got to understand for them.

It was a very bad experience on the boat. The waves were very choppy and the weather was very cold. With the waves splashing water and the cold breeze blowing, it was such a discomfort. I threw up also because of being sea sick. I told myself that I dont care going through this shit but I would want to reach the island. Sadly we had to turn around and I said that I do not want to go through all that again..

2. Sky Diving that did not happen also. It was the monday after the whale watching that I was suppose to go sky diving. My brother went there last time because it was cheap, about $100. On the morning before going there, my brother called to cancel the trip. He did some research and it seems that the company that runs it has been sued and has many fines. My brother had a bad feeling about it because regular sky diving trips are about $250. It has been commented that the company does not maintain their aircraft and etc. Oh well..

3. Brothers graduation. It was a really hot summer at Stanford Stadium where a large parade took part inconsistently. Why inconsistent is because there was no proper arrangement of students, which wasnt a bad thing at all. Each student seem to have the freedom to do whatever they want for their graduation parade. Students made cardboard sized student cards, the palm tree entrance of Stanford University, Magic School Bus, Crayola, guys in red underwears and just about anything. Though messy, it was great to see the different ideas people had in celebrating the day they get certification by the university. Such a celebration! Of course the Deans and Presidents and admins of Stanford had their march in after the parade.

The best part of the whole ceremony was the speech of Cory Booker, a Mayor that would run into a burning building to save a person. I have no idea how to summarise his speech, but it left a message in me, his life story about him, his family and how they got through the hard times of being african americans last time and how he dealt with crime in Newark, has moved me.

4. Universal Studios. Well theres a whole post about it here, http://www.andriantam.com/2012/07/universal-studios-hollywood.html

5. Jet Ski at Lake Tahoe. We stayed at Tahoe Summit Village, a great place if you want to live in a suite. I stayed in a 2 room suite that has a kitchen, living room, dining room and even a place with a washing machine and dryer. In the lobby, my brother found a brochure that states 30% off for jet ski rides on the lake. I quickly agreed. It was my first time. We left at about 8 in the morning because the promotion only works before 9am. It was a cold morning. The lake itself is on a mountain so its cold.

We signed some papers and we were up.. me and my brother shared one jet ski. It was a yamaha something and it could fit 3 people. My brother being experienced in using jet ski manned it first and i just held behind.. He did alot of twist and turns, went on full speed and tried some stuff while i just held on behind.. It was so cold. Me and my brother took turns so when I manned it, i went on full speed. I didnt really dare to do some extreme turns like my brother does, but when he did, i flung off the jet ski, got dragged on the water for about a meter and was floating in to ice cold lake, so cold that i couldnt feel it any colder as my body was getting numb. I had a hard time to swim and to get on the boat. It was either that the lake was too big that i felt i wasnt moving when i was swimming or i just couldnt feel anything.. haha.. I gave up after half an hour because my fingers were freezing.. I could not clench my fist and control the throttle properly.. Haha. my brother just went on till the fuel got empty.

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Universal Studios Hollywood

2012-07-03T16:22:00.000+08:00

hey guys.. :) i know i should be updating video logs about my trip but travelling on a tight schedule makes it hard to record videos and editing them.. especially when youre travelling with others, having tons of luggages and driving long roads for long hours..

it was a 6 hour journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles.. We took a slow drive along the coastal roads and had a very very dark trip ahead. we arrived at LA at about 3 in the morning..

Along the way, i took lots of pictures both with my camera and my new Galaxy S2.. it has an 8mp camera and i quickly instagram my photos with the help of my brothers wifi hotspot..

we got up the next morning and my brother surprised my dad by renting a Ford Mustang Convertible.. my das always have loved the old mustangs, my mom had one last time in the Philippines.. however, the new mustang was enough to make him happy..

with an open top, we drove to Universal Studios! I didnt bring my dslr there because, who in their right mind wants to bring a dslr to a theme park? imagine the hassle of carrying all the heavy equipment.. even at its simplest set up, its still bulky and you will suffer thinking on how you wanna take the rides.. so all i had was my S2 and my bros canon sx230hs, which was such an awesome compact camera, recommended by me by the way.. :)

when we went in, we firstly went to watch Water World.. they used the same story for many years and it hasnt bored anyone..

we then went to take the thrilling rides.. they had Transformers, The Mummy and Jurassic Park.. :) Transformers was an awesome motion 3D ride.. it was about the NEST HQ were attacked by decepticons and u have to flee on an autobot.. it was a thrilling ride and u need to try it out yourself! :)

The Jurassic Park ride was a a simple ride going along a river where you see dinosaurs.. coming to the end of the ride, theres a setting of escaped dinosaurs and it ends with a 30 feet drop into water..

The Mummy was just ok.. i went onto a roller coaster cart where there is a smooth journey looking at mummies and beetles and at one point, i could feel the beetles crawling across my feet.. when the evil villain appeared, he cited some curse and i will found myself falling into some twist and turns of a short roller coaster ride.. i then ended up at a dead end and the roller coaster will reverse for half the journey.. thats all..

i had lunch with my family followed up by going into the Haunted Mansion.. it was a dark walk through with a big hall in the middle which was Frankeinstein's chamber. I also got to take photos with Dracula and, I dont know who the other guy is.. :/

After that, we went to watch Special Effects where they show how they use their effects to make a movie.. They showed classic physical effects all the way to the latest digital effects.. They showed how chocolate syrup was used as fake blood and the usage of green screens, metal frame bodies for animations, cables to make people float and many more. It was one of my favorite.. :)

We decided to go for the tour that takes us around Universal Studios, the stages or warehouses where they create scenes for different movies.. Here, they filmed most of the movies on the big screen today and even TV series such as CSI.. The main attraction was King Kong 360 3D. We went into a warehouse where there were 2 huge circular screens around us. We were on a tram and it had effects where the tram shook left and right.. They also showed us the cars used in their films, such as the Back to the Future DeLorean and Fast and the Furious Integra and Supra.. They demonstrated the accuracy of their robotic arms used in video effects to make cars fly or flip..

They showed us a housing area built for filming like Desperate Housewives. They even showed the set for the film Grinch and Wild Wild West setups.. Right above is the set for War of the Wordls.. On the way back, I was able to catch a glimpse of the Skyline GT-R used in 2Fast 2Furious. It was parked at their car modification and maintenance warehouse. They didnt display it sadly so I couldnt catch a photograph.. :( You could actually see the car from Google Maps.. :/

We moved on by watching Terminator 2 in 3D and Shrek 3D, Ogre Vision.

The park was about to close and I bought myself a souvenir.. :)

I had a great but tiring day. We ended the day by going to Beverley Hills and a long way back to the hotel..

Go to Facebook, they say.. So I Did!

2012-06-12T23:43:00.001+08:00

I literally went to facebook headquarters in California.. :)

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Where have we gone to?

2012-06-12T13:45:00.002+08:00

Hey guys, i know i have been so excited to start making video logs. I have made 4 so far since i arrived in USA, but i havent uploaded any new ones yet since then. Well, this is because nothing much exciting has happened yet. Actually, things didnt really go well..

Last Saturday, I went to San Francisco to go for whale watching in the Pacific Ocean with my brother and mother but we didnt make it there.. it was such a let down.. Its generally a 6 hour boat ride to go and come back from a protected island which was full of aquatic wildlife and we were suppose to see whales there.. However, 2 elderly people didnt feel well because the sea was very choppy.. Its a normal thing for people to get sea sick there but the elderly, they were in much more harm, or discomfort.

Well I myself got sea sick.. I threw up but of course, off the boat.. the weather was so cold, sea waves were so choppy and we were getting splashed so the cold salty water made things worse. Not to mention, my stomach has not yet recovered from an uncomfortable condition. Going through all that, I wished that we reached our destination. Policy of the company, if we didnt make it, we can reschedule the trip.. No thank you.. I gone so far for nothing, and I do not want to go through that crap again..

In the end, we just went around the pier and San Francisco. I took a few shots of the Golden Gate Bridge and I went to Twin Peaks Summit where I had a good view of San Francisco.

Today, I was suppose to go sky diving. Stomach condition didnt get any better but i was so excited to jump off the plane. Right before heading to the shower after waking up in the morning, my brother called. He said that the company has a million dollar sue and fines because they do not maintain their aircraft or equipment. It was rather unsafe and my bro had a bad feeling about going there. Besides, it was too cheap to go for sky diving at $100. A typical skydiving journey will usually cost $250, so theres always a story behind the 'more than 50% discount'.

So here I am, just going around shopping and eating.. Well I got 4 new pairs of shoes and gonna get my Galaxy S2 from here so I guess thats the good part.. oh and check out my 4th video.. :)

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A Day in Minutes - Fun Kart

2012-06-08T06:28:00.001+08:00

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A Day in Minutes - A Wide Angle

2012-06-06T16:40:00.000+08:00

Hey guys, so ive been video logging more than blogging, so instead of typing, im gonna let myself do the talking.. so check it out.. :)

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A Day in Minutes - Getting to Rockstar Land

2012-06-05T08:50:00.004+08:00

Hey, I'm in USA now! I have been trying to be more confident these days, like instead of being behind the camera, i want to be in front of it. So I have started videologging on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/tamsupproductions

So this is my first video there.. Check it out! :D

Hope you like it and do subscribe for more videos.. :)

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David Choi Forever and Ever Tour Live in Malaysia!

2012-05-24T17:11:00.000+08:00

It was an awesome chance to get this opportunity to meet up and interview David Choi under The Star's BRATs. Honestly, I just got to be more familiar with David Choi and his music only a week before his concert. I have slow internet at home and I take every chance to watch Wong Fu videos whenever I go to Starbucks. I think David Choi made soundtracks for all of Wong Fu's videos. But what got me wanting to go to his concert is his talent in music. Every Wong Fu video feels good because of his music, and I wanted to feel it live.

So we got to Wisma Bentley at about 4pm where he walked into the Auditorium for a soundcheck. We were allowed to enter during his soundcheck to set up an interview. He was a pleasant guy and everything was cool for him. He just loved to mention roti kaya all the time. He was already here for a few days and Jin from Hitz.fm hosted him, brought him around KL for its great food.

Fans were already waiting since 4pm to buy tickets and get the chance to catch him walking into the auditorium, which they did. Their early wait paid well.

So, I'm Jenn opened up the stage by performing 3 songs. Jenn performed on stage with another 2 members, performed great harmonised music. The guitars were in harmony, the voices were in harmony too.. The guys could sing the high notes really well and it was blissful to the ears. Jenn is just a Malaysian youtuber, just like David Choi. Do check her out on the link above or at her facebook page. :)

David Choi came up stage with his band from Singapore. David usually makes his music by himself, and it would be impossible if he were to perform them live. His music was upbeat, especially with the kick of the drums, you would just feel like gettting on your feet and dancing along. Check out the videos I made below for a feel of his music live. :)

At the last quarter of his performance, he broke a string on his guitar! He didnt have a backup guitar so he borrowed one from a guitarist in So, I'm Jenn.

I also got a photo with David Choi! :) Thanks for the experience.. :) and here is the interview with David Choi by us on rageonlinetv;

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Home or DIY Studio Photoshoot

2012-05-24T15:18:00.000+08:00

Reuben was going to leave to Kampar to begin his first semester of university at UTAR, so he stayed over my place to just have some fun. He wanted to have a photo of himself in a white world, like how some Korean artist take their photos. It was part of a dare too.. haha..

Just by using a simple wall in the living hall upstairs, which is somewhat my office, we got the photos he wanted..

The setup was simple. We just used a white background and 2 flashes to balance the light on the left and right side.. The most important part is to not have shadows produced on the side of the subject/model. This will make post processing easier. Using photoshop, I erased the white background to a pure white background using paint and magic wand.. Sometimes, quick selection is better.

You can see that there is a light and fan switch behind and the floor is brown parquet. White paper is used so that editing would be easier. Of course my photos are not perfect because this is actually my first attempt to do such a photoshoot. Feel free to improvise from this and show me your product.. :)

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