2009 In Review

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Bye Bye 2009~

Hello 2010~!

Hey guys I wish you a Happy New Year!

So for this post I'm going to write what's my 2009 is all about, the fun, exciting and unforgettable events of the year!


Of course let's start by reviewing my resolution for last year and how many of those did I achieved:

1. Winning the MSSS championship for good. - Failed to win the tournament as I was placed 12th in the tournament.

2. Scoring A for Chinese subject. - The best score for the paper was 67%... So yeah, I didn't achieve this as well.

3. Buy a good acoustic guitar costing about 400-600. - Nope, didn't buy an acoustic guitar because my parents wouldn't let me LOL!

4. Compose a full song. - I've finished 3 songs, got around 3 more still in progress! That's one! :)

5. Buy a DSLR. - Wish abandoned haha. Really can't afford to spend my money on this luxury item.

6. Quit DotA and TW by July. - Did this by June. That's two! :)

7. Performing in school at least 3 times. - Did a whooping 6 times! Woohoo! And another 3 outside the school means I did 9 performances last year, cool that's more than my previous gigs added together! :D . That's three! :)

8. Take up Violin lessons. - Nope, decided that the next instrument I shall learn is Saxophone.

9. Shoot 70+ in a golf round. - I forgot how many rounds of 70+ I played this year, probably just 2 or 3. I do remember though that I achieved this target in February during the MSSDHL @ UNITEN where I shot 78

10. Being desperately in love with someone. - Nope, didn't happened, though there were some "turbulences".

Haha I only achieved 4 out of the 10!


Now to the interesting stuffs happened to me last year! Luckily I documented all the events with the Odyssey series posts. Let me have a summary of each and everyone of the events!


Odyssey 1
Talks about my day out with the other Uncle Ken's students @ UNITEN golf course. Have to jaga the kids. Fun day out! Then Wilson fetches me back to my dad's workshop and we turned the wrong road :D

Odyssey 2
Zhi Lin joins me for golf practice @ Kajang Hill GCC. Taught him how to swing and he managed 50 meters leh! HAHA! Then we went to Jusco to watch "Dragonball: Evolution" with Teh O, Jia Fey, Jacquelyn and Hong Young. Lousy movie waste my money LOL!

Odyssey 3
Went to Midvalley for Photography exhibition after school with Photography Club mates. Found out some interesting stuffs, like giant lenses etc... Not that helpful though. And bought a guitar pickup that doesn't work on nylon strings. Grr!

Odyssey 4
A half day trip to Kolej University Islam Selangor with 5D. Though I didn't want to go but I have to say the place was impressive. Did some photographing there. Classmates were piled up at the computer booth to play Counter-Strike HAHA! I spent most of my time watching the drama competition, where I met Minyi for the first time since she transfered to SMK BBSL. My congratulations to them for winning 2nd place in the competition, refer to here for their side of the story :)

Odyssey 5
Sports Day of SMJK Yu Hua, this time it's held in Bangi so no people wants to go :P . I was there with the photography team for photography duty. And the in the afternoon we had our first Prom Night meeting, where we decided to have it at Oriental Crystal.

Odyssey 6
A visit to UCSI with Zhi Lin, Jia Fuo and Zhong Xin. We went there to watch their contemporary band recital performance. Went there by bus and taxi, damn exciting you know :D. Learned a lot of stuffs from the performers, hmm...

Odyssey 7
Photography club's trip to Cameron! This is too long to summarize so I suggest you check out the link :D

Odyssey 8
My first time driving to school! Overall nothing much, and oh, the day before this was the Teacher's Day performance. :)

Odyssey 9
Drove to and from Cheras Perdana twice in a day! Officially became the Music Club driver haha! Anyway this was about our practice session for the short performance on AGM day. Also got my harmonica and a letter from AFS asking me to attend interview, which I didn't went.

Odyssey Special
A summary of my mid-term holiday. I went to leadership camp, Chinese Cultural Camp and also performed in the Harmonica Symphony Orchestra Concert!

Odyssey 10
AGM day of Music Club, finally retired and annouced the new committee. Also went for Chinese Orchestra Concert.

Odyssey 11
Highlands Harmonica Festival @ Cameron Highlands. I went up there with our school's Harmonica Club as a percusionist for their orchestra, screwed up quite a bit haha! Met a lot of peoples from UCSI majoring in music. Awesome trip! Although it's a bit expensive.

Odyssey 12
Drove all the way to UM hospital to visit Hwa's sister who just went for operation. First time drove that far LOL! And got messed up by my GPS device. Moral of the day: Do not trust your GPS!

Odyssey 13
Peace Day outing with Minyi and her gang @ Sunway Pyramid. It was awesome fun! Went for ice-skating for the first time, fell down 5 times OMGWTFLOL! Met a lot of crazy friends there!

Odyssey 14
Went to Asian Electone Festival with Zhi Lin and John held at Istana Budaya. The place was fantastically beautiful, though a bit old already la. Went there by train, quite "Chi Gek" XD. The performance was brilliantly done, although I don't like some of them :/

Odyssey 15
Went to Midvalley with Zhi Lin for the short meeting for the Dance for the Planet Flash Mob. Met up with Minyi, Natasya, Jin Rui and William over there. Did some funny rehearsals :D. At last Minyi drove me home while it was raining heaviliy outside and she went the wrong way and in the end took more than an hour to reach my house XD

Odyssey 16
It's the day where we danced for the planet LOL! We did flash mob in KLCC park and Pavillion. Fun day overall!

Odyssey 17
Candlelight Vigil held by Green Drinks, Waterfall Survivors and MyCJN in Petaling Jaya. Went there by train with William. I even borrowed Samson's photography kit there to take photos LOL!

Odyssey 18
Prom Night! Self explanatory :D

Odyssey 19
Youth Empowerment Camp @ INTI-UC. Crazy camp LOL! Met TONS of new friends there, and some funny seniors too. Not to mention Natasya got full scholarship from INTI because of this camp! Made me realize that my life had just begun too!

That's all for the Odyssey Series.



Also, I have another series in this blog which I share some of my featured photos.

Lazy to write all out LOL but you can find every post of my Photography Session Series HERE!



2009 also marks the year I officially became a secular humanist and launched my secular crusade. I myself have written a few short articles about religion.

The Worst God Argument
Talks about how unsatisfied I was by my teacher's opinion about God, and how lame his arguments were.

International Day of Peace, His Story and Mine
Talks about my cause and how religion affects world peace.

Odd Isn't It?
Talks about the strange phenomenon of religious indoctrination of children

Adam, Eve, Noah
Talks about the relationship between The Bible and the Theory of Evolution.

And also this post which is not related to religion but our own History.
Debunking Hang Li Po
Investigates the fact behind the princess from China :)



I do have a load more events of the year that I would like to share, but time forbids haha.

Anyway, here are the ten words that sums up my 2009 - Green, Peace, Secularism, Music, String Theory, Richard Dawkins, SPM, Photography, Golf, Friends.



So, the new year came and I have new year resolutions of course!

1. Have a total of 15 songs composed by me.
2. Reconstruct my golf swing and prepare for competitive golf again.
3. Get involved in many environmental movements and community service.
4. Get elected as committee member any INTI-UC club, preferbly Music Club or Leo Club
5. Take Electric Guitar lessons.
6. Perform in at least 5 gigs.
7. Visit Clearwater Sanctuary!
8. Have road trips & photgraphy trips with friends.
9. Score high in my final exams.
10. Organize ANY event.

There you go...



So... That's all for this post. To end with I have to give thanks to all my friends who made my 2009 the MOST AWESOME YEAR YET!

First of all I have to thank the photography club members - Thomas, Samson, Chung Ka etc for my great increase in photography experiences. I'm sure we all enjoyed making fun of Thomas :D

Music club - Zhi Lin, John, Weng Yin, Zhong Xin for working their ass of to give us a place to learn, to jam and a platform to perform music. Special thanks to Song Guang for being the most insightful and best assistant I've ever worked with.

Harmonica club - Thanks for the brief but very succesful collaborations. Going to miss you funny guys a lot!

5D - Everyone in the class, for the best time I've ever had during my Form 5 and for playing Counter-Strike together during ICT classes XD

Juniors - Hwa, Lixuan, Ying, Jeshua, Xiet Yang, Benjamin, Zhu Yi, Yik Fei, Tian Hao, Tze Yang, Jia Fey, Horng Rui, for making my experince in SMJK Yu Hua much more richer! And of course my thanks for making me feel young again :P

KGA - Uncle Ken, for being the best and only coach I've ever had. Wilson Choo for being the best mentor I've ever had. The kids, for annoying me during golf outings haha.

SMK BBSL gang - Minyi and Natasya for being one of the most influential persons in my life. Of course my thanks to Jin Rui, Sin Yin, William, Melvin, Chee Yern, Suze for being the funniest/lamest bunch during our outings and meetings. Also special thanks to Wah Lung for being absolutely the funniest and yet the coolest guy I've seen so far, my respect to you :)

Special thanks to Michio Kaku, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens for illuminating my path.



That's all for now. Really looking forward to my 2010, I'm sure it'll be VERY MUCH BETTER than my 2009. Fingers-crossed :)

Till next time, cheers~

Pepper Spray and Balls?

Whoops, been long since I've updated. Well there's nothing much lately, just some stuffs in my life that is not too boring but not worth to be mentioned here either, that's why the lack of posting here :)

Here's a bit of my status now-



Music: Been practicing, not too much though. Wanted to compose one or two songs but can't find the time and privacy to do so. Currently practicing for the prom night performance, and conducting practice sessions for Music Club Form 2 band. 

Study: Can't study lar... No time, no concentration, and tons of distractions. Gonna screw up my SPM. Subjects left to study - Biology, Chemistry, History, Komsas, Moral. Messed up my Biology exam, god knows how am I going to study Bio in Uni.

Sports: Stopped golfing for almost 2 months now. Really hope SPM passes soon so I can resume my training. Been having resistance training on my own though. Will get back into golf and badminton as soon as SPM ends. :)

Photography: Been planning to get one D-SLR, no money leh (I want 500D only also no money T_T). Planning to go for a photography trip with my IXUS 80 after SPM, don't know, maybe some island like Redang or something, or backpacking, that would be fun :D .

Money: Biggest concern, been low on money even though I've not spent much. Damn neh..! But I have to admit la, I bought myself quite a few books about Biochemistry lately, quite expensive :O

Health: Sucks, feels like a zombie now that I've not got enough sleep even during the holidays.

Love: Feels so numb right now, someone help me?

Recent Happenings: Hmm... Not much, been to a couple of prom night meetings, and found out one interesting thing, but I'll leave it for my next post :P. Anyways, it was quite smooth (the second one I mean). Heard Nat talking about almost being robbed, she was confronted by a robber in the parking lot at Sunway Pyramid. Then she took out pepper spray and shot the guy in the face before lifting her legs forcefully into his groin area (in other words, she kicked his balls), that robber was paralyzed instantly and was later caught, OUCH! :P    Anyways it was quite funny how she explained the situation at that time.

Recent Interests: Found myself playing chess again lately, the last time I played non-stop was 3 years ago, interest stuff :P ... Been listening to a band called Big If, it was all because of Ryan Keys, they haven't released their first album yet but their demo songs are awesome! And I'm back into writing stories again, so who have any good storyline ideas that you want to be penned down please ask me I can write the story for you LOL!

Future Plans: Not much plans right now. Working on a Music Camp for next year, and then maybe will try to get a part-time job at The Guitar Store (to learn music from pros at the same time). Applying for Inti Scholarship, but either way I'll still enroll myself there (or Taylors College) for A-Levels before going into Bioscience at Taylors. Hopefully I don't change my mind about what to study again :)



So, that's about all I have to say for now. My next post, which will probably be in tomorrow or the next day or the next next day, will be about leadership (or religion, depending on my mood).

Stay tuned and till next time, cheers~

Golfing with Alba; Photography Session 4: KGA Kids Golf Day

Venue: UNITEN Golf Course
Time & Date: 24th of August, 9:00 a.m.
Duration: 5 hours 
Camera: Canon IXUS 80
Other Props: Golf balls
What/Who I brought along: My Approach Wedge


So I helped my coach to bring the kids out to the golf course for today. Most of them are beginners and is going into the golf course for the first time.  And there were 15-16 of them if I'm not wrong.

And had to divide them into 4 flights leh, three which were led by my coach, Wilson and me and one flight will go on their own.

My flight's kids were Ker Jing(don't like to play golf one), Isabel(not bad for a 4/5 year old girl), Jared(talks too much), and Bryan(his father talks too much)... Overall you can imagine how chaotic the situation was. First of all they had never been into the golf course before, so I have to look out and show commands just to keep them from being hit by other balls. And then I have to explain the rules for hundreds of times before they understand (they're kids anyway). And then I have got parents who are following and giving me pressure as if I am not teaching them the proper way to play golf... Grrrr....! Going crazy la~

Anyways, after that I joined Wilson and Nick's family for some nonsense gollfing LOL! Hmmm... Can't really explain how nonsensical it was, they are just pure jokers la~

So...Here are the pictures from today. Hope you'll learn something about golf just by looking at it XD...


Getting ready for the game.


Uncle Francis caddying his son Nick.


Bridgestone, the golf balls I usually play for normal game and tournaments, besides Titleist Pro.V1(this ball costs like RM20+ for one  :X ... I mean the Titleist )


The practice greens


Nick acting like pro.





Eh... Miss la~



Wilson tangan gatal.

My Approach Wedge

Hit so high.

Found some rubber seeds. Hmm... What to do to it?

You hit it of course! (It passed the water by the way)



After the game too free, so I took consecutive shots to capture the ball falling into the hole...

I liked this one, though the ball is not very clear.




And for this section I'm bringing you some moments I find interesting... Here it goes. (Note: not all the dialogues are real LOL!)






This is my coach Uncle Ken







See their reaction...






Then I did a few misc pictures lor...


Sky

Sky...Again. This picture does gives me the goosebumps, it kinda feels like it's what you see when you ascends to the Heavens after you died.

Got this taken from my house. When I look at these kind of pictures, sometimes I do wonder if there's a God, where is he hiding? Why is God hiding? 


And there ends this long post. I hope you liked it. 

So till next time, cheers~

Odyssey No.12 - Universiti Malaya Medical Centre

Went for Golf training for 3 hours only today, not many students were there since it's school holidays and the Puasa month just began yesterday.

So... Worked on a lot of things, especially in some key areas. So this holiday have to practice a lot to get it right lor.




This afternoon drove all the way to the middle of Kuala Lumpur, to Universiti Malaya Medical Center to give Hwa's sister Shu Min, who went through an operation, a visit.

Stopped by at Song Guang's church to pick him up before going around the town searching for a place to buy some gifts. Argh!!! Screw THAT mini market and Econsave lar, can't find what we want to buy, have to settle for other things instead... =_=

Anyways, the road wasn't as jammed as expected, luckily. And we reached the place at 4pm. But the place was...darn too complicated... Almost lost my way inside the place LOL!

So err... Well, Shu Min was fine, I guess... It was quite awkward being in the ward with her whole family :P

And then we left at 5pm, paid RM2 for the parking ticket. And then I realised --- THE EXIT WASN'T EVEN BLOCKED. Grr...! Anyways, the way back went smoothly, until my GPS unit screwed me up, it can't even locate my position, and I did a wrong turn at the highway :X Then have to waste like extra 20 minutes to get back home, not to mention what it did to my petrol money... Geram gila!

Overall, this was a crazy experience. Like what the harmonica guys always say, Dare Dare Die! I really no brainer for today la...

Haha... So that's all for today I guess. Tomorrow still have to bring kids masuk padang, should be chaotic as usual, expect some pictures :) Till next time, cheers~

Golfing with Alba: NO!!! Porridge!!! & EPL

Introducing "Golfing with Alba", an insight to what it's like to be the golfing me. Stay tuned :)

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Ah...Another typical Sunday. Well today I went for training as usual, after two weeks of break from golf due to me having to buy birthday present on the last Sunday :P

So I arrived at Sri Petaling Driving Range at 10a.m. in the morning, and saw something that's not right - MY COACH WAS NOT THERE!!!

Turns out he was sick, it was not H1N1 though :) . So Wilson as usual was there, teaching the kids (tough job). No one can check my swing, sakit kepala~

Then coach came, late, but he's okay. Then after whacking around 60-70 balls, we went for lunch, me, Wilson and Coach (I call him Uncle Ken btw).
Wilson driving lor.

WTF?! We went down to KL?

Just beside Times Square

Come so far just to eat porridge. NOO!!!!

Fascinating...  Porridge does not equate to Energy... =_=


Suan le ba... Then went to Uncle Ken's house to sit for a while. Saw "Final Score" on ESPN. 

Yea football is back again, though I was never a big fan of it. Still, this season's going to be interesting, we're seeing Man U without Ronaldo, Man City with an all-star team, etc... Anyways, my favourite team won their first match :)  ...  Arsenal 6-1 Everton... Woohoo~ This should shut those critics of Wenger's policy up :P

So at 2p.m. something we went back to the driving range, and I was working on this:Yea, I was told that my club always comes down first. Have to work on that more. And needs to do more pull up, my distance is going downhill...Grrrr...

And so this has been another day of golfing. Till next time, cheers~

Odyssey No.2 - Moving Sardin Cans, Cheesy Movies and Eco-friendly Boxes

This morning it RAINED! Aw suckish weather, wanted to go practice golf shortgame raining pula. 

Zhi Lin wanted to join me for a session of golf LOL! So at 8:40a.m. I went to his house to take him to Kajang Hill to hit some balls lor. When we reach there dad bought 200 balls for us, OMG, that was a little too many leh. We quickly rush to the driving range because it's raining. 

And so I taught Zhi Lin how to grip the club, and how to stand, and how to swing the club lo. This was him preparing to hit the ball, the clubs beneath is to teach him the alignments.

After hitting the ball. Fu-yoh~ Like pro  :P

Everytime when a people ask me if golf is easy and I said it's not, they say I'm lying lar and stuffs =_=. To clear up the sceptics, golf really is a difficult game to play. Ask Zhi Lin if you don't believe me =(This is my swing, I asked Zhi Lin to take the photo for me.  I have to check it regularly with photo or videos to perfect my swing since I can't have access to a large and tall mirror.  :)
So Zhi Lin took shower at my house before we headed to town. We met up with Hong Young to take the RapidKL bus to Jusco. Walau A....There's a lot of people, like squeeze sardin. Cant even turn myself without hitting the others. And so we went to Jusco in the moving sardin can. 

We joined 3 Form3 "Dong Gua"s at Jusco for lunch and a movie. We decided to go for "Race to Witch Mountain" at first but it's full, so they say want see "Dragon Ball: Evolution" wor...I was like OMG? 

The entire movie was er...Very cheesy(In other words it's a bit suckish)... 

I'll give it a 9/10 for special effects but 3/10 for storyline. Somehow the characters were not developed enough and there are some loopholes and goofs...Felt like something is missing though. See it for yourself if you want to know what I mean, but it's the best that you don't :D 

After the movies I saw that opposite the cinema was a K Box named "Green Box"...Hmm... 

Peoples are more concerned about the environment lately and this does not exclude K boxes LOL. 

"Welcome to the eco-friendly, earth-loving Green Box" 

So after that we 3 went back by bus again. Saw Goh Jau Ni the school Brass/Wind band pengerusi on the bus. This time the bus was worse than the previous, felt more like a tiny steamed room. Gosh... 

And so there goes my Wednesday for today. Another half to go before school starts again. Till then, enjoy your remaining holidays.

Odyssey in Kajang

Went to UNITEN in the morning to help Sifu and Wilson bring the kids to the golf course. All of them are going into a real golf course for the first time :D

Kinda exciting for them. Not for me LOL!

So we managed to play like 5 holes only because we have to stop at 11 a.m. . And to tell you honestly, even though I'm only helping out, I'm exhausted to max.   x_x Here are some picture for the day.



Prodigy in making...

Hugging Wilson's ass XD

Wilson offering some reminders

Your friendly neighbourhood Coach Wilson :D

This lass is kicking your butt big time~

Don't aim bunker leh T_T

Wilson's Sunblock lotion. This picture is like an advertisement for sunblock lotion LOL!



And so the morning ended. I asked Wilson to take me back, what to do, he knows how to drive while I don't. Went to the highway and I accidentally directed him to the wrong road XD
He damn dulan haha...But it's not really the wrong road, it's just the wrong exit on the highway, so need to take a big round instead of shortcut lor. This was Wilson swearing in the car after I told him to take the wrong road XD


So in the end we still reach my father's workshop, but only 20 minutes late.  :D ...Wilson wanted to have his car checked but the wait was too long, so he went back...


In the afternoon I have driving lessons. That uncle was half an hour late to my house...zzz...

So he drove to Bandar Teknologi for me to drive around there since there's almost no car in that place. Aiyoyo, treat me like newbie, though I never drove car before, I was experienced in driving golf buggies ma...

It was easy but the uncle kept turning the steering wheel for me LOL~ He was afraid but meh, I don't blame him.

After an hour of practicing I drove the car home with his guidance. Hmm, I noticed Malaysian drivers are (No offense but it's true) assholes. All of them follow me near behind, even though the lane beside is empty, they didn't want to overtake, but still bugging me from behind. Beh tahan...



So, that's my odyssey today in Kajang town. Quite a crazy + fun day.

Till my next post, happy holidays~