Éclectique

So... Blogger has changed their layout for their dashboard. The blogs themselves look pretty intact so those of you who just read blogs won't notice.  I feel so... sterilized.  Really.  It looks like some kind of sterilized menu.  Barely any color -- though I do like the orange accents.  But, it is neater.  So that's a plus.  Here's a picture attached. So... It has been literally months since I last updated.  Good lord.  Anyway, in brief I climbed up Kinabalu in the middle of my semester, failed Mechanics & Heat -- climbing Kinabalu had nothing to do with it, honest --, finished my semester break & started my 4th semester.  Oh, & I'm going to be doing a triathlon in July. Mount Kinabalu was an amazing adventure.  Outdoorsman/woman or not, you MUST try it.  The second morning as you make the ascent to the summit at 0200 hours is one of the most magical parts.  It's so punishing because you're exhausted bu...

Went out w/ my dad to go to the MCOBA (Malay College Old Boys' Association) building but we got lost & traffic was hell so we turned back. I took this picture from Federal Highway approaching Lingkaran Syed Putra (Mid Valley area). Just felt like sharing... :) Plus, it's my first post from my phone. 8D Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Over the months and years, I have made lists and lists of all kind of things. I like to do lists, for some reason. Places to visit, things to do, things I want, etc. Well, 3 things I can cross of the list of "Things I Want" is a road bike, a DSLR and a pair of Converse/Puma/whateverelselookslikethat. Last year, I got a road bike Well, 2 actually -- each at half price. So for the price of one full bike, I got 2. A miracle, really that one. Finding even one road bike with 50% discount is a rarity. Let alone, 2. In the same store. If that fact alone wasn't enough, let's go over some details, shall we? They were technically still the latest -- the 2011 versions were just about to roll out and they were 2010 models. They were brand new -- as in not second hand. And the cherry on the icing -- or rather, the final nail in the coffin -- is that they were both top end models. Even as we were making the payment, people were still ogling it. Hehe. I got them duri...

Lue has left back for Canada. :( This past Saturday, we went to watch Gulliver's Travels. It was a fun movie. Jack Black really likes his rock and roll. Hehehe! Of course, I'm not complaining, the guy can actually sing. Before the movie, Akid was kind of hunting around for a camera. We had bought a Sony Cybershot TX-9 sometime back but about two weeks ago, it got stolen. :(. I won't delve into the details. Quite disheartened by that incident. So he was seriously considering a DSLR which is kind of unfair because I've always wanted one but I never pushed for it because it cost so much. I guess I can be a bit more careful with money than my little brother. We woke up early the next day because we needed to send Lue to the airport. :(. It was fun having her around. Everyone was sad at the airport. Heh. We had so much fun and 3 weeks went by so quickly. Huhu. After she left, we had breakfast at McDonald's then we went hunting for cameras around KLIA bec...

Tomorrow I'm going to Putrajaya Challenge Park!!! Woohoo!! It's been like 3 or months or so since I went there. There's a number of things I want to achieve/do there. But before day, an account of today's events. If you don't want to read through that, my fellow readers, scroll down until you start to see numberings. That should be the list of things I want to do at the Putrajaya Challenge Park. Everyone woke up earlier than usual -- considering that it IS a Saturday -- and got ready to go to Mid Valley. After a quick breakfast of cereals and bananas. Yummy. Hehe! Anyway, we left the house around 9:45 and arrived at the Gardens at around 10. We made a beeline to the dentist for our regular check up and scaling. We had to take turns since we were all assigned to the same dentist. After I had finished -- I was the first in -- I brought my VAIO to the Sony Store because I was having trouble uninstalling the trial version of Microsoft Office. Unfortunately, ...

It's been a while since I blogged. Quite a while, I know. I've just been so caught up with school, studying, recovering, etc. Yes, recovering. I know most of you already know what I mean by recovering but for those who don't know, it's because I crashed while mountain biking at Putrajaya Challenge Park. I crashed about a week back on Saturday. Looked quite bad. But it wasn't as bad as it looked. Some of you may have noticed my walking around school with a mask the past week. It wasn't because I wasn't feeling well, it was because I was hiding my injuries. Didn't want to attract too much attention. Though the slash-like bruise on my forehead and love bite-like bruises on my neck -- that's what many people said -- attracted quite a bit of attention. Those were harder to cover up. This was me just over a week ago. Now, my bruises are all gone and my lips & chin are completely healed, if not a bit pink because the scabs just fell off. OK, maybe ...

It's been sort of a while since I blogged. I have a lot I want to write but I on Thursday I forgot and on Friday, Saturday & Sunday, I didn't have a secure internet connection. Why? Because I went back to Taiping. On Thursday, I forgot because I was exhausted. Hehe. That morning, my family and one of my cousins -- he slept over -- went to swimming in Putrajaya. No, not in the lake, but in a/the public swimming pool. I'm not sure how many there are. It was really empty so my family managed to do our laps in peace without people 'berendam' there. I mean, come on, it's a lap pool, not a jacuzzi. You're supposed to SWIM, not soak. Especially to those who REALLY need to lose those pounds. There I go, straying off again. So, back to the story, the pool being empty was a really great thing. But the best part was that it was Olympic sized! Woohoo! I know, there are probbably a lot of Olympic sized pools around but I hardly go to any of them and they...

Just thought I'd publish a post on sounds that I like. These sounds may or may not necessarily be relaxing. These are just sounds that I like. Waves breaking and crashing against the beach. Cliche, I know. But its so rhythmic and relaxing. Running water. No, not tap water. As in a stream or river. This one is not so rhythmic but still relaxing. Car's engine revving. Haha. Yes, I'm somewhat of a diesel-head. But I'm not into the shrill cry of F1 engines. Something deep. Muscle car sort of deep. Almost roaring if you rev it. That sounds like power to me. Keyboard being typed on. I know this sounds strange but I like it. To me, it sounds like inspiration being transferred and molded into a story. Camera shutters. The 'click' that goes off when you snap a picture. I like that. Especially when you've managed to get a really good angle and create a very interesting snapshot. Golf ball. When you take a nice, relaxed stance, swing that 7-iron and...

I'm officially 16! Woohoo! Hehehe. I know I should've posted this earlier but I didn't have the chance. Sorrysorrysorrysorry! Anyway, it feels so good to finally be 16. Don't know why. Guess its just one of those milestone birthdays you can't help celebrating and enjoy. My parents got my birthday present yesterday but they had been planning it for a while now. They contemplated between a new bicycle, a DSLR camera and a Hifi system. They decided to give me a new bike. I was so thrilled! I've been using my old bike since I was in standard 4. Its been 6 years. Hehehe. Yesterday after school, my mom picked me up from school. My dad was already at home with Akid. We went to Pantai Hospital because Akid has his checkup appointment. While in the waiting lounge, Mama said she wanted to go to the Pasar Ramadan in Bangsar. While on the way, I dozed off in the car -- as always during bad traffic. I felt the car slow to a stop and Akid saying "Aqil's asleep" ...

Today, we went to celebrate my dad's birthday. When I woke up, both my parents were downstairs so I sneaked down and wished my dad a happy birthday. Then I went back up decided what to wear. Somehow most of the clothes that we wore needed to be ironed so my mom ironed her clothes, my brother's and mine while my dad ironed his. He insisted. All of us dressed casual-smart. We hit the road about 11:30 or so. On the way it was a nice drive. Light-hearted with laughter and chatter. We entered Putrajaya and after a slight detour -- due to a wrong turn -- we passed by the Putrajaya International Convention Center (PICC) and it is an impressive building. Abah says it is like a hotel on the inside. There were so many flags outside. All the states' flags along with dozens and dozens of Malaysia's flag; the Jalur Gemilang. When we saw Pullman Hotel from the distance as we approached, we could see the architecture was marvelous. When we pulled into the parking lot and s...

I'm back from Weii Syuen's get-together. Firstly, thanks a lot Weii Syuen, I had a lot of fun! I'm pretty sure we all did. I took a lot of candid pictures. Muahaha! And some wacky ones too, of course. Anyway, before I went to SF Pizza, Michael ran into me in front of my tuition center. I was chatting a bit with Liyana and whether she should go to the gathering. I told her to make her own choice based on her own judgement. She cycled home to discuss with her mom so Michael & I headed to SF Pizza first. We didn't see anyone we know so we swung by into a gift shop that apparently opened up quite recently.` While we were about to leave, Tze Yie stepped in because she saw us. Haha. So the three of us headed to San Francisco and apparently, Sher Lin was already there so we greeted her. After a brief discussion over whether to sit inside or outside, we opted to sit outside where we could put more tables together in case we needed to. We were enjoying ourselves, ...

Today my family and I went to Aquaria. We had a great time snapping photos and looking at the aquatic life. It was a lot of fun. I touched a sand shark! A full grown sand shark! Woohoo. Hehe. Rough skin. While my mom and bro were waiting in line to buy tickets, my dad, Opah, Tukwan and I sat in Starbucks. I decided to check if I could surf the web. And that Starbucks did have free WiFi. Woohoo! Hehe. I managed to chat with Liyana for a bit. Hehe. Before that, we had lunch at Simply Spice -- a quaint little cafe tucked away in a private corner beside the LRT station. Great food, great environment. If anyone happens to swing by, you should definitely try it. Its one of the shophouses across the street from the show house behind Menara Maybank which is in turn, beside the LRT station. After finishing my meal, I decided to check whether they had WiFi for the heck of it. Sure enough, WirelessKL was free and open. I registered and voila, I'm online. It was fun. After A...

I FINALLY managed to upload some -- fine, quite a lot -- of media to the PS3! Woohoo! At long last! Victory! If I was in ancient Greece, I'd run to Goddess Nike's temple. Haha. But I'm not. And I don't want to be. I'm perfectly happy as a Muslim in the 21st century. Alhamdulillah I managed to upload the pictures and music.

I've managed to upload most of the pictures to my MySpace. I'm afraid I can't upload them to Facebook. Sorry everyone

Hi everyone. Here are 5 pictures from my trip to Fraser's. The other 253 are on my MySpace and Facebook. Well, I hope they are. Let's just say uploading 258 pictures isn't the easiest thing to do. T-T. Anyway, hope you enjoy them!

Woke up late today -- at 10. After a breakfast of cold scrambled eggs -- hehe -- we got ready and went hiking. I wore my Mooks jacket. Muahaha! We’ve trekked through -- in order of trekked first -- Bishop‘s, Kindersley‘s, Abu Suradi‘s, Mager‘s, Hemmant‘s, and Maxwell‘s. I n total, we trekked through 6.55 km. And that’s only the trails alone. Not yet counting the journey back from the trail ends to our CRV. Wooh! It was a lot of fun. Some of the trails merged into one another. Others were close enough for us to go trail hopping. Kindersley’s was a very lively trail. A lot of birds. It was an extremely short trail but we took quite a while because there were so many birds. It was so fun watching them. The Abu Suradi-Mager trail was also cool. There was a lot of birds and a lot of interesting foliage. Where Abu Suradi’s and Mager’s trails met, there was an old house which is said to be Abu Suradi’s old house. He was the only Malay tin-ore miner in Fraser’s during the 1800s w...

Woke up early that morning. Helped Mama get make the final preparations like packing the food and getting the golf bags ready. We were getting ready to head out for Fraser’s Hill. Myrra's grandfather jokingly called it ‘Freezer’s Hill’. Haha. After breakfast, I carried Peach in and to everyone’s horror, his freshly healed stitches had reopened and was bleeding. Peach being extremely dominant, got into another scuffle with a seasoned stray. The stray is quite formidable himself. So while my parents and Akid rushed him to Lynn’s Vet, I packed the final items and awaited their return. When they got back -- minus the cat -- we hit the road. The journey took 3 hours. Part of it was because we took a gross wrong turn after exiting the Highway. Hehe. We were soon back on track and progressed up the winding path. I was doing good for most of the trip but got a little nauseous and dizzy as we approached the Gap -- a notoriously winding, single-lane stretch of road. The directi...

Today was rather eventful. It was also quite tiring. I felt as though I shouldn't be blogging but I just have to. Blogger to the core, eh? Anyway, one of my cousins on my dad's side got hitched today. It was a very emotional event to my surprise. Before hitting the road, we stopped by and had some snack at McD Banting. Nice facade but a little iffy about hygiene. While queueing up, there were two other customers in front; a family and a couple. When it was the family's turn to order, then only they wanted to decide what to buy. A royal pain in the ass, I'm telling you. After we ate, all of us had to use the toilet so I went in before my brother. When I wanted to step out, some kiasu Chinese (no offence to my Chinese friends) tried to push his way past my bro. Nearly slaughtered the little bugger. Then we hit the road heading back towards Shah Alam. By this time it was already around 7:15+ so my dad proposed we stop by Putrajaya to pray Maghrib. We just made it on time. ...