I've converted... to Sony Walkman....

Ipod can kiss my brown ass bye bye. I've always thought Ipod was clearly overrated but i bought it anyway because it was the only available mp3 player in RPI at that point of time.

Roughly 3 weeks ago, my ipod Shuffle's system crashed. Hence... I had a taste of life without music for the whole time. Going to work, riding on the train, doing work, things felt really quiet and i was bored, unable to concentrate most of the time.

Was about to repair my shuffle... but then i thought repairing an 3 years ago tech geek equipment would deem pointless, plus, the ipod pestilence has creeped into everyone on its simplicity, and most people forgot who was actually sitting on the pedestal of portable music players. I was torn between Sony workout, or Sony noice cancelling. Sony noise cancelling was AWESOME!! the sound and clarity for real... cancelled the noise even at low volume and the clarity of the songs.. dear god... clarity... would make you sit speechless, and be like the dude in the Sony advertisement who has a problem... he needs music. yeapss.. awesome. But i bought the Sony workout... come oooon... an mp3 player that would be able to count my pace, my calories i lost, and change music based on my speed, undeniably awesome. can ipod do that?

(ipod lovers would probably be hunting me down after this)

I just got back from labuan, sadly, didnt take any cool pictures of the city, but hopefully, next time i'll be able to go again. It is THE cleanest place i've seen in Malaysia. Period. so clean, soooo appropriate and so comfortable. I think its not as fun as langkawi... i think laaa... since its an industrial place, but it is very nice anyway. and since the place is totally duty free... the national car in Labuan is NOT proton. its Toyota Vios. Only losers would be seen driving a malaysian made car. weirdly cool huh?

My realization....

So last two weekends i went to kuching for some team building thingy. Despite being so sick down with flu most of the time, i managed to endure all the obstacles at the outdoor... since i truly live for the outdoor. i think a part of me is made for that, i love it so much. put me to camp out in the middle of the jungle for two nights with sufficient food supply and a tent, give me RM10, id do it. heck, i'd do it for free if i wasn't working.

but anyway, this one activity, called trust fall... where a person has to free fall to the ground for a 6 feet platform, and everyone at the bottom will catch them with their arms readily out. I did mine, was fun, was a rush, until this one point, where the group was about to catch this one guy, and i was in the catching group, so as we caught him, obviously we bended our knee to lessen the momentum. but at the same time, causing us to get closer to each other, hence, i bumped my head to another guy. next thing i know, i had a gash with gushing blood on my forehead. it was... awesome. yes.. im a sadist... the first question i asked was... would i need stitches? because i soooo wanted it. and yes... i got it. sadly only two. but at least i had stitches on my forehead. now i have a nice healing scar just above my eyebrow. too bad it didnt cut between the eyebrow... otherwise.. it'd be undeniably awesome.

but anyway, after everything was okay, later that nite, we had this Operasi Burung Hantu, and for those who dont know, what they do is they put you in the middle of the jungle, and leave you there for a while. I went through this once when i was in high school. seriously, it scared me shitless. i was scared. i was thinking about my spirits my suddenly grab me from behind, what lady would be standing and blaaaaas. I was kinda expecting that this time hence i just calmed myself down, uttered some prayers before the walk started and made some jokes and tried to ignore everything.

well... what i wanted to expect was something totally different. All i know, i was sitting down in the dark, looking at glow in the dark leaves, uttered some prayers, and most of the time i was thinking why am i here as a person, and how far i've come since i was in high school. i wasnt scared at all. the only time i was scared was hearing to the sound of a wild boar that completely froze me and i tried not to breathe, and look for which tree to climb if that thing starts chasing me. other than that, all i thought was how i've grown. i wasnt scared, i think more rationally when i was in high school, in terms of women/relationships... fuck it... i dont need it now. when it comes, it'll come. and i dont wanna waste my time with women who cant appreciate me. and it wasnt on the top of my list to think about.

it was weird. there were no spirits, i wasnt freaked out, and i just laid back, looked at the wild, the trees, listening to the still of the nite, sometimes humming to Patsy Cline's 'you belong to me'. i never thought that i'd be in that position... and it was a really big self realization... and honestly, im more into improvng my career to shape me into a better person.

so basically, i think... if you sit down, pace yourself, and empty yourself... then you look back, and compare yourself as an individual from where you were, and where you are now... you'd see something different. there has to be something good, something to boost yourself as an individual, that you have done, and become a better person. yeapss....

well after the program i actually did two more jungle trekking in other jungles and the pics i got was frankly one of the coolest pics i've ever snapped. there this was one time, last saturday, i had to push one of my expeditioners on a boat since he couldnt hve the energy to track through the jungle anymore and make his way back. So it was the ranger, my colleague, and i, were pushing him on a boat, by the ocean, passing by muara sungai that's croc infested. yeapsss... i did. the funniest thing was, i had a talk with the ranger before the boat thing, and he told me that the river was really croc infested, plus i see the warning signs are up everywhere. and he told me that usually people who die eaten by crocs has a history of eating crocs, like the ibanese who were man-eaten by the crocs. i didnt believe it, but i was a bit freaked out... mainly because i ate croc meat before. before you say anything, its for medical purposes, not pleasure. the toughest thing ive ever eaten. it was like chewing on a tyre. so as i pushed the boat by the ocean and before passing the muara sungai (cant remember in english, its where the river goes into the ocean), i was sooo looking around and hoping im not stepping on a crocs head in the murky waters. hahahaha. before we entered the muara sungai, we all jumped in and let it flow to the other side. it was a great experience. would looooove to be the next Jeff Corwin.



High Rope... awesome



had this scar in a bar fight. it was a tough one... but the guy was not standing up. hueyaaaah....






















Simalajau Jungle Trekking












Uncle Sasher's Wedding....




apartment sessions








Raju's