ehon’s hodgepodge

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I am completely knackered after a big day on the beach at Byron Bay but thought its been forever since the last time I update my blog! Yes, I am still in Brisbane, and its been two weeks since I’m here.

My New Year’s Eve was a very different one this year. I was invited to two parties, but I just wasn’t in the mood for any party really. Plus, I was sick and still am, so I feel really lazy to socialise and its hard for me to talk with my nasal blocked sound. It sounds like I have a hollow in my skull.

Then at the last minute, Dan suggested going to SouthBank and just take pictures. That sounded like a cool idea and I totally didn’t regret it. I was tired and sick so I was a bit anti-social (Dan probably realised that) but it was such a nice experience documenting all the different ways people celebrate New Year’s Eve on the streets! We walked for about an hour to get back to Sarah’s place, but it didn’t feel like one hour at all. In fact, I could have gone on. Just the people you meet, things you see. It makes me appreciate the diversity and people even more, and it was such a good way to welcome the new year.

It’s been 6 months since I touched a DSLR so it was good to get back into practice although all my photos turned out crap except these two. I love the second pic the most I must say.

Some stuff for me to remember: low ISO, tripod and CHARGE BATTERY!

Head over here for more pictures. I especially love the couple over the fence near the river.

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I can safely say 2008 definitely had me taking leaps and jumps, achieving more things than I can imagine. From presenting at a plenary session at an international conference to the Merdeka Awards. It’s hard to imagine the boy who failed high school actually is achieving something!

I still hold on tight to the saying that success is not being good at what you do, but being significant and good in your passion.

January
- a very drunk New Year’s Eve
- met up with some bloggers I have never met before in Kuala Lumpur
- took a trip down to the mysterious town of Bau and did a video with Sam Poh and Ivan
- did a training about photojournalism and photo editing using photoshop

February
- finished my training and had a photoshoot with the entire crew
- made a crazy impromptu trip at 4.00am with some other crazy friends to take some photos of sunrise
- lots of meet ups and catch ups squeezed before I packed my bag and fly back to Aussie Land
- flew back to Adelaide and within 4 hours, found myself at the airport again to fly into Sydney
- attended the All Inspired Summit, meeting people like Cathy Freeman and Ben Darwin for the first time, and many CEOs and influential figures of major to small businesses across Australia

March
- accidentally deleted my blog but thanks to my webmaster Bryan who backed up most of my blog posts, most of them are saved except those happened in late Feb - early March
- don’t remember what happened in early March
- met up with uJun, another Adelaide blogger for the first time
- drove 5 hours to Mount Gambier and back on the same day

April
- went to Melbourne for 7 days for a holiday, first in a long long time
- met Wuching, Melbourne blogger, for the first time
- met Miss Australia 2003
- caught up with some Youth Ambassadors

May
- my second pubcrawl experience
- catch up with a few friends visiting from Sydney at different times

June
- Quiet month, exams period

July
- made a trip back to Malaysia
- did a portrait photography for Sandra
- made a very short trip to Kota Kinabalu (north Borneo) to island hop
- had heaps of fun back home

August
- attended the most birthday parties in one month
- was awarded the Australia-Malaysia Business Council Merdeka Award
- had a few press interviews
- conducted a research on young people’s take on mental health practice

September
- rushed through research report and presentation slides
- flew into Melbourne for a week
- presented at a plenary session at the 5th World Conference on the Promotion of Mental Health and the Prevention of Mental and Behavioural Disorders - my first taste of an international conference
- flew into Perth and had a good time
- took a 10 hours bus ride from Perth to Shark Bay (a world heritage site) and had the time of my life
- flew into Sydney from Perth
- celebrated my birthday in the Inspire’s office in Sydney

October
- organised a few mental health stalls
- attended a farewell party at the Governor’s place
- my third pubcrawl experience
- flew into Sydney for Reach Out’s Youth Ambassador’s Workshop

November
- the much dreaded final exams
- rushed through my assignments like an overworked ship
- finished uni!

December
- parents came a-visiting
- toured around Fleurieu Peninsula
- flew into Brisbane
- had a blast at Gold Coast
- met Dan for the first time

Hopefully 2009 will see me discovering more of my potentials or what I’m good at and turning them into something significant and seeing me achieving more!

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Dan invited a few of us on an ID Challenge. ID is basically a photograph of yourself, normally portrait and usually with your camera in the shot as well. It’s like a “cam-whore-ing” yourself in front of a mirror.

I am way over the deadline but that’s because I’ve been travelling and planning my parents’ trip that I didn’t really have the time to make one! I did one a couple of days ago, but didn’t have much time to edit it (and it wasn’t great), so I got one when I was down at the Gold Coast yesterday morning because I wanted something to do with the beach!

I’m a scientist so I am not the most creative person, and I know its not anywhere as creative as Dan’s but!

I am mighty impressed by his ID and just the amount of detail in his picture, and the meaning behind it!

Just to illustrate how I made my ID, I basically combined these two pictures together because I loved the smile in the first picture, but the reflection in the second picture, so I cut the reflection off the second picture and pasted it into the first picture. Both these pictures are straight out of the camera - I used low aperture and get the desired overexposure.

After that, I basically made two copies, one a lot warmer using photo filter and reduced saturation and sharper, and used eraser to erase parts I didn’t like warm and sharp at about 26% opacity and really low Brush Hardness.

And once I’ve got the result I want, I thought I’d like my picture to be a lot more crazier, so I used Overlay. So, that’s how I got picture one!

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Not knowing where else to go, we drove down to Goolwa, went into Woolies, bought lots of drinks, food, snacks and packed them into a cooler bag and headed to Goolwa Beach.

Had an awesome day on the beach! The beach is famous for the cockles, but not sure why there wasn’t much cockles that day. So, no cockles, but fun we had.

The next day was graduation! It’s probably one of the most boring events I have ever attended! Most of my friends are local students so they graduate in April, which means, I didn’t have many friends there with me that day! But some friends did come to the ceremony, which made up for it!

The few hours before the ceremony, wearing the weird gown and hat and moments before going on the stage was exciting, but after that, it just got really really really boring! I was tired, sleepy and bored! So glad it was all over in 1.5 hours!

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The family arrived on a windy Sunday morning, and having freezed their arse off the night before at Melbourne airport, they spent an afternoon in bed! And then evening was spent grocery shopping, a walk on the beach and a Mexican dinner.

I brought the family down to Victor Harbour (about an hour and a half drive from Adelaide) on Monday, since there’s McLaren Vale, the beaches and various random stuff to do on the way down. But dad came down with an infection so he was puking and not feeling too well the whole day, so we didn’t do McLaren Vale.

Jean’s mum was nice enough to invite us over to her house, which was on the way to Victor Harbour, so we dropped by their beautiful place for some really beautiful home-made scones, with home-made jams and cream! It was so orgasmicly good.

Afterthat we had a bit of a tour around their almond farm.

Did you know that almonds are planted in rows, and each row of different species? When they flower, bees are rented, and brought in to cross-pollinate! Interesting fact for you.

There are various fruit trees around the farm as well - oranges, apples, nectarines and I-cant-remember-what-else. Mum is a big fan of fruits so she was a very happy bird around the farm that day!

Big thanks to Andrew, Jean and Jude (Jean’s mum) for the incredible scones and for having us!

We then headed to the Chocolate Shop in McLaren Vale town, but didn’t stay for long because dad was feeling worse. So we headed straight to Victor Harbour but we did stop by Agon Strawberry Farm to pick some strawberries. You can choose to buy the strawberries they’ve picked, which are mostly big and sweet for AUD8, or you can pay AUD1 per person and go in there to pick your own, also at the same price AUD8 per box.

We chose the latter. You’re also allowed to eat the strawberries on spot, and something everyone should know, strawberries do make you full! I was stuffed! From strawberries, how odd, but true!

We stayed at Comfort Inn Victor Harbour for AUD135 a night, for a four bedroom unit, which wasn’t bad! It was clean, near the beach and jetty, and the person at the frontdesk was friendly as well. I am sure you can get a cheaper deal (I think it was AUD115) at Anchorage Hotel.

After checking in, we left the old man to sleep in peace and went to KFC to have some wicked wings, probably one of the best thing at KFC! Mum liked it so much she’s happy to only have Wicked Wings for all meals!

Then we had a stroll along the beach, went back to the hotel to check on dad, and brough out jacket with us and went for dinner. We walked across the jetty to Granite Island for the Penguin Tour. There wasn’t many penguins that night, but we did see a baby seal, and the beautiful sunset so that was bonus!

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