BEIJING

I have always been interested in arts. My mother is an art teacher and she used to work at Kraftangan and Guthrie, when she was in charged to design the school's desks (remember, the brown desk that we used to have back in primary school? Yup she designed it and the only prototype left is at my house). She was featured in Berita Harian (I believe) twice due to her batik designs on shoes when worked with Kraftangan. I am very proud of her.

My sister is currently studying architecture. She is more creative than me ever since she was a kid. I remembered when she was 2 or 3, she stayed up until 2am because she discovered the magic of a pair of scissors. Totally immersed in what the scissors can do, it was like she under a spell.

My brother has the artistic streaks in him too. He can draw better than kids older than him and the drawings were all done without anyone teaching him. I am excited to see more of his drawings in the future.

My father is secretly a good sketcher. One of the times when he decided to sketch something on the newspaper, I suddenly realised that, "Hey, dad can draw too". But it only happens once in a blue moon.

What a long retrospection!

Here are my latest sketches that I did yesterday. Your comments are highly appreciated. I also uploaded the photos of my sketches in FB. Critics/comments are welcomed:)

I thought about Harry Potter's owl and I drew this.

One of the picturesque sights you can see in Winter, snow covered bushes.

Merci!:)

SONGZA

Snowstorm in Canada today.

UofT St. George has the reputation of being a 'stubborn' school. Despite of heavy snowfall that forced schools and offices to be closed, UofT said no. As long as the students and staffs can walk in the snow, the school will stay open. 

Finally, the school will be closed at 3 today due to heavy snowfall that brings from 30-40cm of snow. Hurrahhhh! I don't have class today, but I'm still happy for my friends because going to class in this kinda weather is a battle. 

How do I enjoy the view from my window? 

Put on Oscar-winning songs playlist from Songza (an itunes app), do my assignment and sing as loud as my heart contents with an imaginary orchestra playing the musical arrangement in my head. Or you can also play 30's,40's or 50's songs and you will have the perfect mood to enjoy the winter.

ps: Songza is playing Dinah Shore, Baby It's Cold Outside. What are the odds?:)

BABY

My family means the world to me. They are my support system and my life will never be the same without any of them. As the eldest among 3, I can't help but to think that my characters development are mainly due to being the eldest. Though my mom always tell me that I'm the most 'manja', which is true (sometimes), I don't mind it. In fact, that is just a minor character. My most prominent character is that I'm very feisty. I used to be all sweet and soft spoken when I was a kid, probably till I was 7. But things changed when you get older. I'm still soft spoken to almost everyone because it is nice to be gentle and respectful to people, but not with my siblings. They drive me nut.

My baby brother was born 10 years after I was born. I thought that it would be just me and my sister for the rest of our life, but He clearly had a different plan. He will turn 13 this year, become a teenager and I don't want that to happen! I can still remember waiting for my mom in labour at the hospital with my sister. We were bored to death and a man who was waiting for his wife (in labour too) talked and joked with us. I guess he was nervous haha:D 


To me, my sister and brother is everything. Although they can be the most annoying person in the whole world (esp. my sister), but there's nothing I can do about it. Guess I'm stuck with them for the rest of my life, and I'm happy to get in stuck with them.

GREEN

More than half of my friends are doing medicine. 30% are doing engineering and the rest are doing other types of courses such as accountancy, pharmacy, poli sci and etc. Studying geology makes me out of the ordinary. Even till this day, I'm still happy that I rejected the offer to do medicine because the picture of me in a white coat and attending patients are something that I would not enjoy in the future. It's not that I can't pull it off, but I feel more satisfied doing something that doesn't have to do with talking and understanding people. I can only tolerate children (that include babies and toddlers). 

Ever since I was a kid, I always questioned myself about the existence of earth. How do rocks formed? Why do some places have volcanoes eg: Indonesia but Malaysia doesn't have one? How do you get gold? What kind of places you should head to if you want to look for petroleum? I never questioned about sickness or diseases; the topic doesn't intrigues me at all.

Perhaps, in future posts I should tell you what I do as a geology student. Not everyone can be a geologist, you need good eyes and understanding of many processes. You have to be physically and mentally tough, and eating out of canned foods when you are in the field feel like dining in a 5-stars restaurant. Earth is a subject that human still hasn't fully grasped; each day you'll learn a lot more and subjects in geology constantly change. In the early 1900's, scientists and geologists did not believe in plate tectonics. Nowadays, you can even predict the continents' locations in the next million years. 

I thank God that I'm not doing medicine. Thank You for helping me to choose my future. 

My happiest state of mind is when I'm in the field.

Green stick-notes on my mineral deposits notes. I enjoyed it very much.

LIGHT

Light, you need it to see.

Light, you need it to see AND guide you in darkness.

Light, you need it to see AND help you fight fear of darkness.

 

Light is unnecessary when I'm in bed. Nuff said, be grateful with the gifts from God; that includes light. Imagine, living in a cave and darkness is surrounding you. None of us will like it. 

Reflection from my lamp and Darcy being melancholic. As the clouds move, a ray of sunlight appears and warms the ground in this cold winter month.

HAT

' I would travel across the land'

'Searching far and wide'

-Pokemon theme song

The 2 lines from one of my favorite songs reflect my life as a future geologist. I love what I'm doing now, often expressed it in my previous posts. I just simply like the idea of waking up at 6am, driving for a few minutes or hours to destinations, arrive and look at the landscapes. When the prof/s post/s questions such as, "tell me what you see", "what do you think happened to the rocks?", "why did you say this is a metamorphic rock? give me the evidence" etc, I would cram my brain and try to remember all those hours spent in classes and labs looking at AFM diagram, identifying muscovite and phlogopite, and cursing my way through the semester while trying to keep my sanity. I also love having my lunch under the sun while admiring the thrust fold that overturned the underlying rocks. And now I know how mountains are made and what will happen to the Everest in million years from now.

The more you see, the less you know.

And it humbles me. We are so tiny like a speck of dust in the galaxy that we actually know almost nothing about the universe.

Again, it humbles me.

Chile, Feb 2011: My usual field trip gears - a hat, a hand lens, a rock hammer, a pair of hiking boots, a pair of shades, a bagpack (with water, snack bars, sunscreen, vaseline, write-in-the-rain notebook, camera), my dice-watch, sometimes a compass. Oh, a sweater/jacket, t-shirt and jeans/hiking pants.

SWEET

I'm not a big fan of sweet food or drinks. I don't hate them but I prefer not to have them. I love ice cream but, I always cringe when I have, let's say, vanilla, praline cake or other sweet flavours. They make my teeth hurt which implies that I have sensitive teeth and also make me dizzy. Whenever Ahnaf and I had coffee, he made me try his and I would just made the annoying face since he knew that I didn't like his coffee, it was always too sweet! But, that's just me. 

Wahida's cake that is still in our fridge. Too sweet. Finished my slice but  it was just SWEET!

Sweetness is a trait that I wish I have. Although my friends often call me sweet, probably because I'm always polite (I'm not boasting but that's the most common comment I get from my friends), I could use a drop or two of sweetness in life. Thankfully, life has been good for me and I don't wish to trade it with anything. But hey, you need some sugar in your diet thus, why not put some amount in your life as well?

:)