Eve of Thaipusam!

This morning I had to get up at 7! I had to meet up my friends at 8:30 since we were going to Batu Caves for the eve of Thaipusam. We're making a short clip about the rituals and stuff for our News Reporting class. We finally arrived at 10 AM after a long bus ride, and we still had to walk a long way to get to Batu Caves. The sun was freaking hot and I could feel my arm burning!
On the way there, under a bridge, some men were preparing theirselves for the ritual: cleaning, shaving and poking needles and stuff through their skins. I heard that they had to starve themselves and go under a trance so it won't hurt.

 

At the foot of the cave, it was really crowded and there were lots of guards too. One guy was rolling on the floor, under the blazing sun, wearing nothing but a piece of cloth on the lower body. My friend explained that it was like an act of doing something to gain something. It's kind of hard for me explain even though I understood when she told me. Hehe.



Then I saw the stair! It has 272 steps and I was like lucky we don't have to go up. But my friend said of course we have to go up. It wouldn't be complete we come here and not go up. I was like Nooo! I was really worried since I have fear of really high stairs. Not just height, but being out in the open on top of the stairs. I always imaging myself falling and breaking lots of bones, poking out of my skin.








I didn't stop on the way to take pictures or anything, I was just concentrating on the steps beneath my feet and holding tight my friend's arm. I don't think I would've made it to the top if she wasn't there. It was that bad.
Then in the cave, a men whose pins from his skins were being taken out came out of his trance or something. He was shouting and I heard blood came out of his mouth. Of course, I didn't go near to watch. It's not the faint hearted people like me.
I love the walls and cave ceilings. I edited the colors of those photos a bit since they were too bright.


  



The trip down was scarier since I could see how high I was. I made down with the help of my friend yet again :P

Here are some more photos I took along the way.


 
 
 
 

The art of getting by

 

Last night was a movie night with my sister. Though the movie "The Art of Getting By" was out like last year(?) I didn't get a chance to watch it yet till last night. Starring Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore. Michael Angarano was in it too.

Half of the time, I couldn't stand George (Freddie Highmore). He was like a dramatic emotional person, saying things like there's no point in doing homework and assignments when you're gonna die one day anyway. I can't stand people like that.

But I enjoyed the movie, hehe. It was quirky and funny. I loved the stuff Sally (Emma Roberts) in the movie. 

Oh yeah, I noticed that some of the body gestures by Dustin (Michael Angarano, Kristen's ex) are really similar to Kristen Stewart's. Like the way they shrug or move their mouth. I wonder who influenced who.

And I still remember Freddie as the kid from Spiderwick Chronicles so the kissing scene was awkward for me to watch, haha.

Egg of Li Chun

I saw on Facebook today that one of my Chinese friends posted a picture of an Egg standing. Well, balancing on a surface. First I thought it was a project for a subject, but then other people started posting pictures too and all of them are Chinese. Someone commented that eggs can only stand today since it's Li Chun. So I googled about it, and here's what I found.

 "The terms Li Chun egg balancing or egg of Li Chun refers to a Chinese folk belief that it is much easier to balance an egg on a smooth surface during Li Chun (the official first day of spring in the Chinese lunar calendar, which usually falls on February 4 or 5), than at any other time of the year."

But my boyfriend said you can balance the egg any day if you just tried enough. I wanted to try but we're out of eggs at home right now, so...another day.

Steve Reich Project

This week's assignment for Graphic Design is to create a poster for Steve Reich's concert. We were grouped into a group of 5 so we can do some research and share our info.  I  had no idea who the guy was when I first saw his name or what it is that he does. I've been putting off to do the research since Monday, but I finally decided to google about him and listen to his performances. I found out that he's a composer of minimal music and I have yet to find out what that means but I listened to 4 or 5 videos of him performing. Seriously, I know I don't get that kind of music but I felt like banging my head against the table. No offense to him but I just don't get his music.
So far I found one that I can listen "Tehilim."
Maybe, after a while, I'll learn to appreciate his music.

Vintage

I don't know when my obsession with vintage looking things started but I like everything that looks worn out and antique. And that led me to turning very new pictures that I took recently into vintage looking ones. These are some of the edited ones.

This one was taken in Sunway Lagoon.

A view of the sunset from our condo window.

My sister took this photo of me while we were on a trip.

A random shot at Port Dickson beach.

My hat & me! :D

Me, posing :P

The Arrival of an Orange Ball

Today, while i was gorging on fried gourd with myamar-made-delicious-spicy-sauce _although I wasn't hungry and the only reason I was eating them was because they were in front of me_ some house guests came. They were an old couple, really nice too, and tended to turn up unexpectedly. The man handed me a cardboard box and told me that last time, we were at their house, I was examining his exercise ball, sounds kind of wrong isn't it?, so he bought one for us. Really generous of them since they're not cheap!
The thing is we have one downstairs at the gym and I never used it because it looks slippery and I'm simply afraid to try it. Now that they have given us such a thoughtful gift as I'm trying to lose weight with exercises and stuff, I think it's time I finally tried the ball and do some exercises with it.
So that's the story of the exercise ball.

Here's a picture of the beautiful thing :P

Sluggish Reality

After days of having no classes and not having to get up early, I was feeling very sleepy and sluggish when I woke up at 7am on Monday morning. I had a group meeting to do our assignments at college but when I got there, the library was still closed. That's how early I was at college :P Everyone else looked pretty sleepy and then we started doing our assignments and stuff. The thing is my mind wasn't really working. Maybe it's brain...but i couldn't even think of a proper sentence to write. Somehow we finished up our work before lunchtime, surprisingly that is. Then I had a class in the afternoon, and I felt like I sat through the class mindlessly. Usually I'm not like that. Our lecturer let us go home after early which was fortunate. Today was no different, I still felt very heavy and sluggish after I came home from class at 4.
Too many holidays ruined me, I guess.