Putrajaya Photoshoot

A couple of weeks ago, Stan Chia, Charles Yang and Chun Howe suggested that we needed to go to Putrajaya for a photoshoot. We all had heard that how awesome Putrajaya was, wide roads, futuristic bridges, architecturally beautiful building with walking monkeys inside them. Alah, so nice place how can you not go?

Somehow, I fell asleep along the way and Stan was driving with Charles pointing out the way. When I woke up, we had arrived at Dataran Putra, one of the key landmarks/points in Putrajaya. There was the home of the iconic Putra Mosque (above), right next to the Putrajaya lake.

Reflections of the Putra Mosque, and you have to agree when they say that the golden hours for photography is dawn and dust. As light fell, the mosque started to light up, and honestly, it looked pretty good.

Stan setting up with kit at the Dataran Putra.

Charles setting up Stan's kit I think.... wait, why ah?

Perdana Putra, the Prime Minister's office with its iconic big green onion dome. And you would never have guessed that our Prime Ministers ain't exactly vegetarians. Can you imagine that one day, A&W would take over the building and start manufacturing our beloved onion rings inside?

Artistically Out-Of-Focus. Guess which building it is?

Any accidental exposure at the Seri Wawasan Bridge. I like the accidentally effect it had. The car's mata was like, on fire!

This time a proper shot of the Seri Wawasan Bridge.

From afar, the Palace of Justice, alongside the Seri Saujana Bridge!

A larger, closer shot of the Palace of Justice. If you actually go close enough, the interior architecture is just so intricate, you know? When like, the current human civillisation die out right, and another civillisation come, I bet they'll be in awe of this too, just like how we look at the Great Pyramids.

A shot from afar, the Seri Wawasan Bridge. Such a beauty, ain't it? :)

And all these without bringing my tripod and I had to pinjam from Stan from time to time. Imagine if I had my tripod fulltime? *lansi* Anyways, my package has just arrived in JB from the UK (yeppie!) and I will able to get my tripod soon! Yay!

Ok la, that's all for this photography post. I need to go back one day la!

*hugs my Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM in glee*

Woots. Found a way to get around the firewall in my company to access my blog.

Crap. 6.50pm on a Friday night and I'm blogging from office.

I think I just understood the meaning of the word 'deadline'...

... If you cross the line, you're dead.

And I'm going for udon noodles later on! Wheeepieee~

Higher Guidance has guided me to this...

ROAR~!

After such a long absence, I have finally managed to find the time and space to squeeze in one blog update. I must say that at times I have found it quite boring to update this sweet child of mine, as well as I have found it quite taxing on myself to find something interesting to update all the time. For one, I currently have no convenient way of uploading pictures to both this blog and my facebook account, leaving both currently covered in weed and wild grass. If my both accounts were a garden, my blog would be Endou Rompin and Taman Negara respectively.

Quite a lot of things have happened to date, one of which that I'm gradually getting used to working life. Of course from time to time, I have found it depressing and hard to cope with, but I constantly have to remind myself of the previous hardships and preparations I have done for this. To date, 2 of my colleagues have confirmed their resignation after a mere period of 1 month plus, and I do believe that this is probably for the best in their lives. People might label me as inflexible, but I feel that I might be able to hack a path thro' this wretched jungle of bureacracy and long working hours to achieve the aims that I have previously set out to do.

Another is that I have gotten my car! Yay, hooray to freedom *Presidential Salute* and hooray to freedom from the KTM *21 Gunshots* and also hooray to more work.

*takes one of the guns and shoots myself*

And if anyone was asking about any of my future plans, nope, no plans to get a girlfriend as yet. Now, turn your kaypoh eyes away and keep them focused on your work/exams. The more pressing concern for me now would be to get myself a proper residential place to stay in; the date that I'm moving out is getting closer and closer, and I have unfortunately been booked for more jobs on the weekend. Any help right now on this would really, really be appreciated!

And lastly, on a void of  topics to talk about right now, I'm guessing that with the new environment that I'm in now, many of my workmates would be stumbling onto this ancient blog space of mine. For the newcomers, Chun Howe / Chunhowe / Mr Chai says a huge big wobbly...

HI! 

PwC so far.

Everything's good, everything's great!

Met new, interesting people in the past couple of days that have radically changed my entired mindset. My focus is at quite a different level now and I hope this will not dwindle over the next couple of months.

The entire gang of new joiners are this bunch of diverse, crazy people who are really fun to hang out with and free-flowing. There are all kinds of people in the group, so it has really been an enlightening experience just to meet with so much people.

Honestly, I can really say that PwC staff are quite nice, and the colleagues and seniors who I have met and spoken to are really, really nice people who are so willing to help you out and explain everything to you as much as they can.

As such, I aspire to learn as much as I can, absorb everything like a bloody Whisper, and aim for the freaking peak of the world.

Sorry to the people who I have not contacted so far since my return. And also for not updating my blog as I have previously promised: 2 times a week at least. But 1. My internet at home sucks like crazy, and 2. By the time I reach home via the KTM, it's already 8-9pm, so I really have not much more energy to do anything else except to chill out and relax.

Anyway, anyone meeting up for this weekend let me know! We can go gather-gather yumcha-yumcha! :D

Yes We Can

Today was the first day of my PricewaterhouseCooper work experience. I did not really know what to expect from myself and PwC today.

So ganchiong that I almost woke up late on my first day.

But lucky I planned to wake up earlier today, so equal out la~

Anyway, I managed to arrive at work today ngam ngam on time. :D There was about 101 of us new trainees alongside various HR staff. Even the afamed Dato Johan (Chairman of PwC) came down for a session of corporate governance (what else could he talk about to us regarding? He's the darn Chairman of some corporate governance board in Malaysia).

Lunch was fine. Sessions were fine (diplomacy exercised). Teabreak was okay-okay la. Just that the poor Muslims cannot eat, a bit poor thing lo.

And we learned about confidentiality today. Never talk about business sensitive stuff in public places, okay?

The main rant I wanted to blast about today (after an absence of like what, 1 month ah?) was the BLOODY Keretapi Tanah Melayu a.k.a. KTM!

OMG LEH! I got off at KL Sentral at around 615 lah. Waited for KTM to go back home, which was approximately 7-10 minutes away by train. When I went down, I had just missed the previous one, which was okay la, by the sense that shit happens sometimes. So okay la, nevermind, wait only la.

Wait wait wait.... wait for 40 minutes only did the bloody KTM come, skipping one train in the process (trains are scheduled to come every 20 minutes). I got on, squeezed on, packed on by the pushing crowd like there was a bomb alert in KL Sentral la! But again, if the next train that came was 40 minutes away, I think anyone would die-die-pun-nak-squeeze-on la!

Then hor, yours faithfully realised that he boarded the wrong train (in Subang Jaya's direction. Habit la. *facepalm*). So he had to get down the train, cross the other side, and wait for a train in the opposite direction.

FOR 40 MINUTES!

K.N.N.!

THEN ANOTHER 40 MINUTES FOR THE RIGHT WAY BACK HOME.

K.N.N.!!!

So I took 3 hours to reach home. On my very first day of work.

But guess what was that really made today so memorable?

You know you've had a bloody good day, when on the train stop before your eventual one, a super cute girl gets constantly squeezed onto you in the bloody packed and crowd-pushing train.

Loveydovey-sigh. *nosebleeds*

4

It is weird how I have been so busy over the past weeks, tired from travelling and from work. My job used to bring me all the way from morning waking up at 6am to arriving at home at 7pm, that often when I came back with a couple of hours free, it would all end up so quickly finished. Even the weekends, I would be so occupied that I wouldn't be able to find any time during the weekends for myself.

But last friday was the last day of work. Came the weekends, and I realise that I had nothing to look forward to all of a sudden.

No more work concerns, no more "I have to sleep early tonight or else I will screw myself up tomorrow at work" etc.

All of a sudden, as was the whole of today, I felt like an empty shell, devoid of life and existance.

Trying to fill up that void made me very frustrated today. I didn't feel like going out, nor did I feel like doing anything else but to stay at home. I felt very withdrawn.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt vulnerable, inconfident, and afraid of interacting with other people around me.

4 days left. 

5

I am still here.

But I just don;t feel like talking much these days.

Tsk.

15 / 6 Life Lessons I Have Learnt This Week.

At part of my first couple of steps into the working world, I must say that the lesson that I have learnt today would be one of my most, most important ones in this glorious life of mine.

Albeit at an expensive price... And before you scream or shout at me "WHAT DID YOU PAY FOR IT!?", let me narrate the story at my leisure, lelax'd pace.

Just recently, I went for a trip overseas, in which I was not that well prepared in terms of cash. I had not exchanged any euros in anticipation of this trip, nor did I had checked my bank account balance before I left. I had a vague idea that I was rich (lol), so I happily used my debit card to withdraw a couple of euros.

And with that "couple" of withdrawal, I got a kinda overdrawn by a "couple" of pounds.

In which the bank issued me a charge for an "informal overdraft arrangement fee" for 50 pounds.

50 KNN-ing POUNDS!!! 

*stares ahead blankly*

That's like the equivalent of a pair of very nice LEVIS jeans, or a really nice meal at Angus Steakhouse, or the equivalent of a new camera bag which I have been aiming for sometime of which if you like, you may buy it for me here. If you like, that's the same as RM250-300. Just imagine how many times you could have eaten KFC?

I went to the bank today for other issues today, but I also tried to see if I could negotiate/persuade/charm any possible souls I could get my hands on into sympathising with my predicament and probably waiving it.

So after queueing for 20 minutes, this gentlemen called Daniel came to me. He was just a "Customer Service Rep" (read: unimportant, powerless and generally there to get rid of unimportant customers). So I explained my whole story: Oh, didn't realise overdraft, apologetic, I'm a student, no money, leaving the country soon, looking to close account soon etc etc. I played one of my card, saying:

"Daniel, you see, if I pay this 50 pounds, I will have problems paying for the next week's living expenses..."

"Oh that's no problem, you can arrange for a formal overdraft with our lending department. They'll be able to help you."

"But I'm leaving the country next week?"

"Oh it's okay, you can close the account even from overseas. They will be able to arrange for you to transfer or pay by installments from abroad."

"And how much do you charge for a account payment from overseas?"

"20 pounds."

"Err, wait... I have an overdraft of 50 pounds, and you want me to spend 20 pounds to pay off the 50 pounds?"

Looking at me smuggly, "Yes sir".

In which I must come to the 6 lessons I have learnt today... 

1. Banks are bloodsuckers.

2. Banks will not give up on monies that are already in their pockets.

3. Banks will not care about unimportant little people who only have an account worth a hundred pounds. Like you and me.

4. If you look too kind, or too like Buddha himself, thou shalt not even get pass the Bank's receptionist. 

4. Hell yea, even if Jesus came down to settle his overdraft, the Banks will shout "EHHH KAWAN~", show him to a private room, and inside it, gladly stone him on a cross again and ship him off Fedex to Africa. 

5. If you plan to open a bank account in the future, and plan to use it as your main active account, you bloody well read all the fine print with a microscope and explore secondary details you might need, like credit card terms, loans and even overdrafts. Reminder to set up any overdraft facilities, as one, the Banks will gladly let you go overdraft, and two, trust me, it is so bloody easy to be in red.

6. Marry a banker.

I am poor.