As of 2300 hours (or the 'eleventh' hour), 1st July, my new blog is now live! That's really a lot sooner than I thought, but the crucial pieces seem to be in place to make the place functional. Please drop in for a quick visit at http://owl-order.appspot.com/

LIVE!!!

With immediate effect, all developments on this very blog have now officially ceased (not that I've been developing this blog at all recently). I urge my visitors (if any, though I'm not hopeful) to switch their attentions to the new blog instead.

However, blogposts will be posted to both blogs for the time being, just in case.

Hope you like the new place!

Progress

I've been free for four whole weeks now. However, I haven't blogged as much as I did some time ago. Sorry about that.

Actually that statement wasn't exactly true. I have been blogging, just not this blog.

Yes! I have been working on my new blog. It's not exactly functional yet, but here's some sneak preview.

The new blog header.

I've spent days redesigning it. It required the use of several markup and programming languages.

How tweets show up in the new blog. This is not finalised (as is much of the rest of the website) and will probably change in the coming weeks.

I've also tested it on multiple browsers, namely Firefox 5, Google Chrome, Safari 5, Opera 11.50, Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9. And I can guarantee compatibility across all of them, with only minor features missing from the Microsoft browsers.

How Flickr photos show up in the new blog.

I didn't realise how draining all this work is until one day, when I shifted my laptop and out fell strands of my precious hair.

So stay tuned, because with any luck, you're in for a treat in a few weeks' time.

PS. These screenshots are taken off live webpages. In other words, parts of the blog are already accessible via the web. Link is provided er, somewhere in this blog. Happy digging.

Thank You for the Years

Five years of tertiery education. 12 semesters. More assignments, courseworks, presentations and exams than I want to remember.

All we've been through, we've been through together.

The ridiculous, no-you-can't-get-more-than-70% modules.

The karaoke sessions and the after exam parties.

Q and A sessions with insatiable lecturers.

The group study sessions which helped prepared us so much for the exams.

It's been a good few years. I sincerely thank everyone from the University, including my friends and lecturers, many of which I do not have photos of, for making these years unforgettable.

My FYP supervisor and a few of his FYP students.

June has been my favourite month of the year since a few years ago. It marks the end of the tedious exam weeks and the long academic years as well as the beginning of the awesome three-month summer break. There's also the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, usually at the end of May or beginning of June, when I get to eat Chinese dumplings. The very second day of the month also happens to be my birthday.

But nothing beats June 2011. All the best to your future.

Summer Project

I officially started on one of my two summer projects last Friday. I had those projects planned for months and was looking forward to the start of my summer break to get cracking.

Four days later, the project finally left its first trace of laymen-comprehensible interface at http://owl-order.appspot.com/. There's nothing much to see yet, but if you head over for just a second, you'll find an interface very similar to this very blog. That's because that website is intended as a complete rewrite of my blog.

So with a bit of luck, I'll get a new, feature-rich, next-gen blog to share with my pathetically few readers.

Happy Birthday To Me

OK. My birthday's coming in... 4 hours' time. Time to get the facts right.

In four hours, I get full rights as a Malaysian adult. I get to enter casinos. I can be declared bankrupt. I get to vote for the stupidest councilman ever and no one can say no about that. I can easily walk into a strip club worldwide, pay for a hooker in the dark streets of New York or even get myself starred in an adult film, and no one person on Earth has the legal rights to stop me.

The feeling of having raw power in your hands is awesome. Trust me.

I had wild dreams about this day. I'd rent a small, cosy apartment, hook it up with the best internet connection, procure a 42" LED television set in front of a smooth, glossy coffee table surrounded by couches with leather cushions. Hanging unobtrusively from the living room walls were surround speakers. Instead of connecting them to a DVD-player, I'd get them linked to a Blu-Ray- and internet-enabled computer for the best entertainment system ever. I could easily decorate the place with my best Chinese Calligraphy work, a couple in the living and another one in the bedroom.

Then I'd stare at my beautiful house for 200 minutes daily. My cool gadgets get their chance to collect dust for the rest of the day while I sleep, go for work or engage in (real-life) social activities.

But then again...

Finishing my studies also implies joblessness. Right now I'm still surviving on my parents' hard-earned cents and the amount I get could hardly pay for the electric bills, much less monthly rental and the cool gadgets I had in my mind.

As of right now I'm still sharing a house with my parents. Worse still, my bed is barely 3 metres away from theirs. That's kinda embarrassing for a 21-year-old man. I could hear the annoying guy from my class saying "Ha! You still sleep with your mama!"

Oh wait, I'm turning 22 tomorrow, not 21.

Darn.

Thank You Badminton Club

Some people know me as the photographer of the University of Nottingham (UNMC) Badminton Club. I've been known to shoot with my camera while others do the same with their racquets, most notably over the few prominent events organised by the club over the past weeks.

Those who know me as "badminton club's photographer" may be surprised to hear that I joined the badminton club because I love badminton. The truth is, few people on campus have ever seen me holding a racquet before, while they're so familiar with the Nikon strap over my shoulders.

But yeah, it's true. I joined badminton club because I enjoy badminton.

But approximately half a year ago, when I received an email from the club's secretary about several vacant positions in the committee, I knew the UNMC Badminton Club could bring a different kind of opportunity to me.

I looked at the vacant position labelled "photographer" and my mind started to wander.

I was really interested in that position. It would provide me with various opportunities to shoot and giving precious experience hard to come by. I'd been toying around with photography for the past two years. I'd learnt a lot, and looking back to my photos captured over my nine months in UK told me how much I'd improved.

However, there were various missing tiles in my portfolio. Most of my photos were mainly of landscapes and architecture (see here for proof). I had virtually zero experience in any fast-moving genres (which guarantee to provide skills for candid photography) save for some time chasing fat bees with my Coolpix, and worse still, I had virtually no human portraits that I'm happy of. The problem is, how do I know if I'm allowed to take pictures of the random people I meet on the street? Ask them? That's hardly candid. Take the risk anyway? Yeah, I've tried that and I vividly remember that lady shooing me away. How was I supposed to fill the shoes of the club's photographer when I lack important experience like those?

I hadn't seen any photos by previous photographers of the club, and I didn't know what they were expecting. I was also starting my final year in university and probably couldn't devote too much time to anything other than my Final Year Project. My photo-editing skills were limited, and made even more so by my refusal to install a pirated copy of Adobe Photoshop (thank you, GIMP). The real deal-breaker, however, was that I was still using my dad's then-6-year-old compact camera which struggled in indoor avenues, let alone in the sports arena.

For the next few days, the same question plagued my mind -- Do I nominate myself for the position?

The EGM (Emergency General Meeting) soon arrived, and they started to take nominations for the vacant positions. The photographer, being a relatively weak voice in the committee, was the last position to open for nominations.

I remember the scene extremely well, down to the cold seat I was sitting on, how I knew almost nobody in the lecture hall, the light-hearted nature of the meeting (obviously everybody else knew almost everybody else there), the (then-)president hosting the nominations, and the blank PowerPoint slide to put the names in. My heart was pounding furiously. Despite days of sleepless nights, I hadn't made up my mind yet. I had never volunteered myself for anything, unless you count answering questions in class or going for First-Aid duties as a St. John First Aider.

Someone else got nominated, and Ka Eng the president put his name on the PowerPoint slide. It's now or never.

I decided to let the public to decide for me.

I raised my hand and said, with much stuttering, "If it's OK, I'd like to nominate myself because I'm interested in this position."

There was a two-second pause, during which the light-heartedness of the meeting disappeared like a candle flame doused with ice cold water. Nobody said anything, and I could feel every single eye turning towards me in unison. I swallowed in nervousness.

Then, an applause broke out, echoing across the hall.

Not the sarcastic, sneering type of clapping you do when you find your best mate kissing a fat-assed girl. It's the type of applause you give someone when he managed to diffuse a bomb two seconds before it exploded.

"Your name?"

"Uh, Wenqi. W-E-N-Q-I." And I sank down on my seat, heart still thumping, blood pressure still through the roof. Now I only have to wait for them to vote for me, I thought. Oh wait, there's still the speech. Maybe I can show them my Flickr account...

But the nomination closed with two nominees. And since the other nominee was already a committee member, the photographer position defaulted to me.

I started panicking shortly after that. What if I made the wrong call? What the... I don't have the experience! I don't even have an SLR!

But things worked out well over the next few months. Mum bought a Nikon D90 just days after the EGM, and I told her I may want to use it at "certain events in school". (She never found out about my being in the committee until few months later.) I went to the badminton court a day before my first duty to test out certain camera settings I need (mainly how high an ISO I needed and what sort of shutter speed to freeze the players and shuttlecocks) so I wasn't totally unprepared during my first day. I even got myself a cheap prime lens which is 3 stops faster than the kit lens.

Being the photographer wasn't too bad. All I had to do was to turn up during events and take some pictures. I wasn't really needed to make much preparations (except charging my camera battery), which is good because I needed all the time I could spare for my Final Year Project. My presence over meetings was even optional (though I attended every meeting I knew of).

I spent quite an amount of hours on duty, and I learnt a lot from them. Everything down to focusing, employing burst mode effectively, predicting good windows of opportunity in quick-action scenes, framing with a prime lens. I still have much to learn, but these experiences brought me closer to my goal. I easily averaged around 1000 clicks per night, which also showed me how power-efficient an SLR is -- the D90 easily lasted for 2000 shots before hitting 20% battery life. This large image count guaranteed at least dozens of satisfying photos per day.

And best of all, I made friends. The people never complained about having a huge lens barrel pointing their way. Most of them just ignored me. Some of them even posed for the camera. Wearing the label of the event photographer gave me power, the license to shoot, and I was more than happy to make full use of it. It takes time to hand-pick good photos out of the lot and edit them one by one, but once they're up on Facebook, the satisfaction I got from all the comments and likes was worth it. We joked and teased each other by posting even more comments on the photos, some of which were instantly made profile pictures.

I received over 500 emails from Facebook over a weekend, after uploading pictures of the UNMC Badminton Tournament.

The year is coming to an end, and I'll pass on my position as the club photographer as the 2011/2012 committee forms next week. Things have gone extremely well after I volunteered for Badminton Club, and I thank every member for all the laughter, experience and memories I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

I joined the Badminton Club because I love badminton. But combining it with something else I like made the experience unparallelled.

Grampa (1989 - )

In case you haven't noticed, the Big Red Seal has gone white.

The explanation is obvious.

I've had a rather dramatic couple of weeks. I'll leave the talking to the photos, and have a minute of silence.

The obituary.


Newspaper article expressing gratitude for the RM20,000 donation raised over the funeral.

Yeo Guan Seng 1932 - 2010, Grampa 1989 - .

Sights of Nottingham: My Home in UK

Note: High resolution images of some of the following photos are available. These photos are marked with [HiRes] tags in their captions. Click on the photos to view their higher resolution images.

As I've said in my previous blog post, I'm finally back home in Malaysia.

True, Klang is the only place I can truly call home. The hot, messy room with currently four computers (two desktops, two laptops, totalling nine processors, excluding mobiles) infested with countless mosquitoes, yeah that's where I'm supposed to sleep.

Raleigh Park, however, was the closest thing to home I had when I was in UK. A home away from home, if you like.

[HiRes] The view through my kitchen window.

It provided me with shelter from rain, snow, shine, hot and cold. I made most of my meals there. Cleared my bladder and rectum in the toilets. Got all comfy during the showers and shivered afterwards. Curled up in my bed, hiding under my duvet at the corner of my room. Most importantly, I get (mostly) awesome internet speeds there.

[HiRes] Raleigh Park, seen from Ilkeston Road. Notice the Bicycle sculpture right in front of the words "Raleigh Park". This place used to be the site of a bicycle manufacturing factory.

Opened in 2002, this place is relatively new compared to on campus accommodation.

[HiRes] Panorama of the view from my room.

I'm definitely going to miss this place. Packing up was so hard. There's just too much memories I know I'm never going to experience again, at least not anytime soon.

I'll show you what I mean. This is my living room slash kitchen slash dining room.

[HiRes] My kitchen/dining/living room.

Things to note:
1. Dining table, on which so many activities other than dining was accomplished. Like watching the others play games on PS2. Or Alex and Jamie slamming the table playing, um, Slam. Or me stuttering over the word game Articulate.
2. Stack of beer bottles, by my housemates Alex and Jamie.
3. Geoff's TV, FM radio, PS2.
4. Fridge and fridge magnets I got from the uni. Visitors and hosts alike had fun with the words.
5. My containers and wok (on top of the cupboard next to the fridges) which helped me prepared so many meals.
6. The stove, grill and oven. I had quite some "fun" cleaning the microwave oven last time. And there's Geoff's toaster.
7. Couches. On which so many visitors spent the nights.

And his is a picture of my room at the peak of its messiness, about 2 weeks after my final exam and few days before I started packing for home.

[HiRes] My messy room.

Things to note:
1. (Bottom left corner) Pringles Pyramid. The amount of Pringles I ate in 9 months is simply astounding. And I threw some away already.
2. (Middle left) My calendar. I filled it up with my expenses, that way I can track how much I spend each day in UK.
3. (Top left) Row of receipts from my first days in UK. I stopped collecting receipts -- the sheer amount is shocking. Superseded by the said calendar.
4. (Top left) Other things on the notice board: souvenirs for my sisters, Malaysia flag, a CD containing Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, UK parliamentary election polling card.
5. (Middle) My laptop right in front of my chair.
6. (Middle) Other things on the table: boxes of muesli (my favourite breakfast/snack), an 800g loaf of seeded bread from Hovis, a stack of DVDs, my phone, water bottles, pencil cases, stacks of paper, notes, coaster...
7. (Top right) My towel hanging on the window grill.
8. (Top) Lightbulb. I changed it from a lower power bulb to a higher power one. From 12W to 23W I think.
9. (Top left) Shelf. My razor, toothpaste, toothbrush, snacks, unopened cans of Pringles, scrap paper were all there.
10. (Top right) Cupboard. Filled not with clothes, but with empty muesli boxes. 24, to be exact.
11. (Bottom right) Bed.

Sigh.

What I've Been Eating in UK

One thing about spending so many months away from Malaysia is how much I miss Malaysian cuisine.

Oh Nasi Lemak, how I crave for thy fragrant rice covered with spicy curry...

[HiRes] Nasi Lemak, sold during an event organised by Nottingham Malaysian Society (NMS). Imagine buying Malaysian food in UK price.

One would say it's a good opportunity to start trying some foreign stuff instead. I would totally agree, if not for the ridiculous price of things here. I ended up preparing practically every meal at home after failing to secure a part time job.

I have a feeling this post will answer mum's question of "what has my son been eating for the past 9 months" and save a lot of pointless worrying.

One of the dishes I serve most frequently is the classic fried rice.

One of my earlier fried rice. Doesn't look too bad, especially when you consider the fact that I've never ever cooked rice before stepping foot in UK.

Notice how the fried rice is in a food container? Well it was obviously one of my lunch packs. To save a few pounds (the currency, not the weight unit), I would wake up before 7am to prepare lunch if my lunch break wasn't long enough for me to travel back to cook. I kept this up for a whole year, which kind of amazed even myself. Perhaps that's why they say money is a good motivator.

Anyway, you can throw anything into fried rice so there's little chance of getting too fed up (pun?) eating the same thing over and over again.

A more Malay style fried rice, with Ikan Bilis (dried fish) and chilli. That wasn't a bad dish, actually, but I hated spending half my afternoon peeling Ikan Bilis one by one.

Congee (or rice porridge) is the easiest thing to do.

One of my earlier servings of rice porridge.

I used to hate porridge, but I've been eating it a few times every week for the past few months. It's the best when I'm busy. Just throw everything in and wait for 15 minutes. I don't even have to worry about burning it if I dozed off for a few minutes. And with Marmite (FYI, Marmite is English), it isn't actually that bad.

Another variant of my earlier porridges. I always use Marmite these few months.

Soup noodles ain't too hard either, but I don't like the idea of consuming artificially seasoned food regularly, and I'm just too lousy to make good soup noodles without seasoning.

And I've also made sandwiches/burgers!

Nope, not this one. These are from BK's.


My sandwich. It doesn't look good, but I assure you, its taste is far better than its looks.

Then there's sweet and sour chicken. Yum!

Learning to cook is perhaps one of the most significant accomplishments since my arrival in UK. The good thing about cooking is I get to control food portions. When my tummy was rumbling I'd probably subconsciously pour more rice into my measuring container. I'm also more confident with my food's hygiene than those prepared by grumpy strangers stuck in oven hot kitchens for hours a day. On average, a cooked-at-home meal costs about £1 to £2, at least twice as cheap as eating out. And most importantly, it's way healthier.

But no, I won't be cooking this regularly in Malaysia. What, haven't you seen a hypocrite before?