School of Scaring

So, for the past 3 weeks I've been involved in volunteering events whereby I attended my very first wish arranged by Make-A-Wish Malaysia and followed by second and third! The first one was at Hilton, second was held in Kidzania and the third was a party organised by yours truly at Jungle Gym!

It really made my purpose in life clear; to help the less fortunate and give back to the society because I've always been lucky. I have everything I need and it's about time to help those in need when I'm able to. I've also helped out at MAWM office to input data into the database and make the office a better place. Something simple yet fulfilling. :) I can proudly say I've been productive during the hols when my degree starts in two months time.

The first wish was fun and something I've never done before; becoming a temporary clown to make kids happy. Haha! It was a rush wish so we did not manage to hire a clown to entertain them, therefore, we became clowns to keep the kids occupied and make the experience memorable. I hope it was a great one for them! Buffet was yummy too!

Ding and I as clowns! You'll only see this once right here. 

The variety of food at the buffet at Vasco's, Hilton KL. (Sorry for the bad quality because I was avoiding getting caught by the staff for taking photos outside / people who crowd to see a "clown" taking food lol) 

The second wish took place at Kidzania. Went around Kidzania from 4-9 p.m and I have to say, it's a paradise for kids! I would die to go there if it were built when I was younger! Here are some photos : 

The music parade we created for her as a surprise! The theater trainers at Kidzania together with the kids at the theater training performed around on the 1st floor and eventually everyone joined. :D 

Here comes the third wish!
Katrina's classes were cancelled due to haze and she came over to help out for the wish preparation and joined us. We decorated the party room in Jungle Gym and sneaked into the playroom later on. It was very fun considering we had never been to a playroom when we were young. Lol.

       Us in the playroom full of...balls. 

        A group photo with the wish child's family and sponsors from Rotary Club, Bangsar (because looking at the camera is too mainstream). 

Last but not least, on Saturday we were inviited to a movie screening by Student Engagement Centre (SEC) and it was Monsters University! Beyond awesome. It brings back childhood memories and thanks TalkFilm, SEC and TGV (along with other partners and staff behind this event) for making it happen! Great choice of movie and amazing hospitality. We were provided with a popcorn set (regular popcorn and large drink) on each seat itself in the theater, we didn't even have to redeem it ourselves! How convenient. (Okay, we were also encourage to take more free popcorn. LOL).

-Sorry la no photos for this one because it was dark and I was enjoyin' mai popcorn. 

ANDDDD I've got these from London. Love love love! 

Till I have something new to update, baaaiii!

HAPPY JULY.

Here's my face to (hopefully) brighten up your day? Haha. Oh, I hand-knitted the beanie myself. :) 

Movie review - Oblivion

So, Katrina won 2 complimentary GSC movie tickets where we could choose ANY movie we wanted to watch at the cinema. We chose Oblivion because of Tom Cruise and there wasn't any other movie which intrigued us, here goes!

WARNING : SPOILERS.
Hahaha.

Oblivion was mind-blowing really. According to IMDb it's the best Tom Cruise film since Mission Impossible 3 (2006) which earned $47millions; Oblivion took $71.9 million over its opening weekend.



I'll sum the whole movie up in a word : futuristic.

The movie takes place in 2077 and 60 years ago, which was 2017, human won the war with aliens (a.k.a scavs). Now, 60 years later, these scavs are planning for revenge, where Sally (Melissa Teo) communicates with the effective team, Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and Victoria/Vika (Andrea Riseborough) on a project to evacuate essential elements; especially water to Tet, where they claim to be a place to sustain human lives. They're in the final weeks and they can return to Titan (where the human beings live because the Earth and moon were destroyed during the war) afterwards.

Victoria.

However, little did Jack know that he is one of the clones made to carry out this project; there are 1000 of them because Jack Harper was the best pilot. The main clone in the movie is known as Tech-49.

Part of Jack's memories haunts him; there's constantly a beautiful girl in his mind. Soon he learns that she's Julia (Olga Kurylenko) as he goes to a wreckage to save survivals from a spaceship - Odyssey. She remains as the only survival as the others were killed by drones. Vika is upset seeing Julia again. Jack is captured by scavs, and the leader Malcolm (Morgan Freeman) requests Jack to reprogram a drone to deliver a nuclear bomb to destroy Tet.

The truth reveals when Jack and Julia went to the observation deck of the partially destroyed Empire State Building. Julia showed Jack the engagement ring he gave to her and they embrace. It infuriates Vika and she decides to report that Jack and her are no longer an effective team. Sally activates a drone to kill Vika and commands Jack and Julia to be an effective team since then and return to Tet, but they flee instead.


Julia and Jack


Pursued by the drones, they were forced to enter radiation zone where they eventually crashed. Jack Harper met Tech-52 and takes his spaceship to return to his "tower" which is completed with clone of Vika.



The Tower where they live in.

Jack reprograms a furious drone and on his way to Tet with Malcolm, not Julia. Unfortunately, the drone is destroyed in chaos; Malcolm and Jack decide to send the bomb to Tet themselves.

Obviously, they were destroyed along with Tet tower.

3 years later, Tech-52 goes back to where Julia stays, as he says "He is me, I am him". Julia and Jack have a child dated back in 2017 but the hibernation in pod inhibited pregnancy so she gave birth as she returned Earth.

It's long and complicated storyline but it was worth the while. Many people dislike it because they don't understand, can't blame them. I was blur at first but that was what kept me awake in the theater to keep watching it. :)


I'll rate this movie 7/10 because it's the first movie I had the urge to write a review on and the story kept me awake the whole time (Well, I feel sleepy watching most of the movies in the theater). Although the plot is twisted and hard to understand, but the details of those futuristic vehicles deserve appreciation. :)

Make-A-Wish experience

Since I'm awake at such ungodly hour and can't seem to fall back asleep, I shall update this semi-abandoned blog.

Sometime last year when Do-good volunteers website by The Star was launched, I used to search up what is there to help various non-profit organisations but it was more of a freelance thing. They recruit many volunteers and if you turn up on the event day, kudos to you; otherwise, well... Nothing really. There isn't much of appreciation. Over time, many other companies start to post on the website just because they know well enough that volunteers don't have to be paid. I began to Google other non-profit organisations and see if I could find any volunteering information on their website. Make-A-Wish was the first I found and I was interested to help out.

Background information : Make-A-Wish is a non-profit organisation which solely depends on the donations/fund given by the society. They've been trying to apply for tax exemption but got rejected by the government (you know what to do here) so there isn't a company that donates a steady amount every month or so. It's an organisation that grant wishes of any kid who had life-threatening disease, despite their race. In Make-A-Wish, no wish is impossible (unless it's to own firearms or license underage).

Last Saturday I was informed to attend a wish granting training which briefly taught us the phases in granting a wish, and today, I was able to help in the first step; interviewing a child.

It's a task that really needs you to think on your feet because many unforeseen circumstances might occur. Today, one out of three kids we were supposed to interview went back to her home at Kuala Selangor, which we are going to visit her on Wednesday.

We went to Mid Valley to pick up some gifts for them and then headed to Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

To be honest, times like this make me wonder if I really want to become a doctor. As you know, government hospitals aren't fantastic environment to work in. The atmosphere is as depressing as it can get.

Interviewing a child makes me realise how lucky I am; I have everything I need and most importantly, I am healthy. There was a kid whose biggest wish is to receive a tablet and another wishes to go Singapore. It was then I realised I easily got both.

I'm really looking forward to planning the wish! :)

Till then!

Updates

Sorry for the lack of updates because I haven't been too fanatic to take photos of my meals and the things I do, but I shall upload a few at the end of the post to sum up what the past two weeks have been.

Have you ever tried hard to figure out what you really want? I have. And I did not get any answers out of it. However, they usually hit you right in your face when you least expect it.

Now that it's clear; I want a future I've always pictured in my head and nothing less. A future that doesn't revolve around people who don't matter.

Maybe a gap year is doing me good.

A wedding

I can't get past the fact that I didn't blog about it, not because I'm that kinda blogger who won't let any good event slide by not publishing it on my blog, but it's simply because Ms Hema is too lovable and her wedding was special. It wasn't a white wedding which I've always dreamt of having, but a really, really traditional one. I shall steal all the photos from her Facebook ('cause I didn't want to bring my camera around Subang Parade later on) and you judge whether it fits my description ;)

All in all, I'm really happy for the couple and honoured to have the chance to attend this wedding.

Post-birthday celebration

You must be thinking why do I have so many birthday celebrations? Well, I'm loved. :D

This is so last Friday but I must blog 'bout it! Because I think it's the first outing where ALL of us made it since a very very long time.

We were at Mid Valley for dinner, I suggested Homemade Fish Head Noodles. Their signature dishes are pretty damn good, but Man Hou didn't like his asam chicken rice. :P

Alright, these are the photos. Enjoy!

Who is dominating the photos? :P 

The monkey I got from them as birthday present! :) 

and this is the cup I won from one of The Bee's surveys. Hookturn BYO coffee cup, which costs about RM68 here in Malaysia. Thanks to The Bee!

Sony Alpha Experience

Hi everyone! Sorry for neglecting the blog for a few days 'cause I've been busy with post-birthday celebration (which I will blog about soon!) and Sony Alpha Experience during the weekend. I shall blog about the latter event today.

I was invited by Glen to the event and thanks Sony for allowing their users to bring a person along with them to the event, I took up some essential skills here and there during the talks and truly grateful for the experience as this is the first time ever I've attended a photography workshop. FYI, this workshop would cost RM320 for non-Sony users.

It was held at Zebra Square. Don't fret, we didn't know such place existed too. Had a hard time getting there on the first day but the second day went smoother with all the lessons learnt from day 1.

Day 1

This workshop was really packed with exciting activities. Upon registration, we've got goodie bags which included a camera cloth in a really cute pouch with Sony Alpha camera printed on the front and a recycle bag, which looks like one of those tote bags as if you're carrying a camera. Glen and I really appreciate Sony's effort in these little details.

The most exciting part about the workshop would be its sponsors and key speakers!

The sponsors are :

GUESS

Wing Choon Martial Arts Association 

Maserati 

Add caption

Aprilia 

Vespa 

Harley Davidson 

and Ducati 

whereas the key speakers are : 

Michael Yamashita (USA) - National Geographic photographer for 30 years

 Gary L. Friedman ( USA ) - Highly acclaimed photography e-books author 

Melisa Teo ( Singapore ) - globetrotting photographer, Motoyuki Ohtake ( Japan ) - world patent champion optical designer & lens engineer, and a few other Malaysian photographers in different fields such as car commercial, wedding, architecture and photo editing. All of them are experienced and willing to share their stories with us regarding their photography journey. 

A few events that took place on the first days were: 

latin dance 

Guess 2013 spring collection 

this angel is my favourite model!

and ballet dance 

It was rather challenging to take this as I was sitting at the back. 

This may be the funniest part; Glen and I took the wrong bus and ended up at the isolated area of Ampang (where 3 suspicious Bangladesh guys came along), had to wait for another bus which goes to Bukit Bintang and it was a long looooooooooooong journey home.

Day 2

So...Glen called me at 7:50am to inform me he would be slightly late, which couldn't compare to me because I was still in my bed. Too damn tired okay, I don't usually oversleep. Rushed to Masjid Jamek station as usual.

Gary Friedman started off the workshop at 10am and followed by these :

contemporary dance

Guess 2013 summer collection, which I did not take a photo because...

belly dance and a few talks by renowned photographers.

Here are a few shots which I'm pretty proud of from the event! Enjoy.

Not to forget, we got 2 8GB memory cards for FREE! Sony is really generous in this event. Unfortunately, the event fell flat on its face during the prize giving ceremony, where we think the winners for automotive and people&emotion simply don't deserve the prizes. I'm pretty sure you'd think the same if you were to see their work! It made some of us feel dejected even!

Well, all in all, it was an awesome and memorable event. Thank you Sony!