The day i lost my 'soul'

Hey guys, sorry for my late posting. A lot has happened recently and I will be narrating to you one by one (if nothing big happens in the next few days) For starters, I've lost 2 of my close relatives within a month of each, both held their wake at the same place at different times. Sometimes, you do wonder whether you have reached a stage where life does not give you things as readily as it would, and has start taking things away from you. Then again, this topic deserves a whole post on its own so I'm not talking about it right now.

First of all, apologies to Steven Foo for the late posting of our outing at Bukit Gasing. For HELP University College students, the annual Bukit Gasing trekathon is perhaps the most important sports event of the year, where throngs of college brats charged through a wildlife reserve up a stream and over a hill like mad-bulls/intoxicated rhinoes to our founder's house, Datuk Dr. Paul Chan's own residence. Winners kinda have the priviledge to have the first helpings on the buffet, served ever readily within his house compound.

At around 8.30a.m., all of us (approximately 120 of us) gathered around the foot of Bukit Gasing, in front of a small trail perhaps the width of the distance of both of your finger tips when spread out to your left and right. Sorry for the lack of photos at this point because I didn't bring it along with my jog as

i) The shock of my jog will permanently damage my camera
ii)I couldn't risk falling into a ravine together with it.

At the shout of Cindy, the facilitator that never runs in her own event, the boys stampeded into the tiny clearing of the reserve, half-sprinting-half-rolling down a small slope, rammed across a bridge, and started an uphill hike of about 50 degree. The girls started 5 minutes after us.

The reserve has many trails and one would encounter numerous forks on the way to the summit. Therefore it was essential for us to stay ahead of the pack from the very start as it gives us the chance to pull ahead and thus the luxury of twisting and turning the arrows indicative of the proper race line and leave your competitors their very own trail of misery.

The most notable element in the race is the muddy-and-yucky trail and protruding root buttresses. The former kept you always in the danger of a slip and the latter make accidental trips very much possible. After the bridge and the uphill climb (a relentless progress of 2 minutes), you have to tread rather precariously along the edge of a ravine before progressing downhill with a gradient that borders near to a vertical. A wrong footing and you can rest assured that small plants and trees will break your fall (and your back along the way). Its some kinda scene from Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Predator" albeit minus big trees and bigger biceps.

The steep winding trail will then lead you to eventually to another up and downhill motion before reaching a stream from which you trudge against it until the very end. From there on, it is another insanely hike uphill before going down again. If by chance, that you still happen to be alive and cheerful, you can opt to continue the remaining of the race by scaling the steepest 200 meters of the trekathon. The other option is to stay put which branches into 2 ending:

i) wait until HELP comes around with a stretcher...and...
ii) more likely, HELP goes home leaving you to party with the wild boars and mosquitoes.

To put a long story short, I was quite glad that I did finish the 1.5km trail within 21 minutes and in an acute stage oxygen-depletion and delirium. For the most part of my final ascension to the top, it was pure will power as well as pure awkwardness that my sole just flew off my Raebok. Water was handed to us and Datin was there to greet us. though one of my friends whom i duped to join had a more of an unconventional entrance to the road marking the end of the race. He dished out expletives in front of Datin!

Datuk's house. Too big for my camera.

My friend swore loudly as he walked slowly downhill after the race, right past Datin to the right! The exit for the race was located on the left side of the umbrella. It was a small jungle trail.

The day I lost my sole

The second half of the race. Gorging as much as i could take

The flying Dutchman

My friend earned her reward from Datin

My Datuk's cool security guards. All they need are sunglasses.

After the race, we had our lunch and prize presentation ceremony. The boy's race was won by a Dutch and the surprise was my classmate won the 'girls' category!

But now, smart guys like you would have asked how come there are photos attached to this posting when I did not bring it along with me to the top of the hill?

Well, 2 of my friends decided to take the road less taken by signing up at the foot of the hill, climbed on board in their car, waited for Cindy's signal and drove all the way to the top via more proper roads, leaving me to eat dust.

My friend on the left told me he didn't fall into the stream. Another 'dry' friend of mine is holding the camera.

Penang trip 19/9 - 21/9

There has been a lot of things going on for me lately, predominantly I'll be undergoing one of the vital shifts in life; from being a student to a full time working adult. New challenges are coming by and frankly things rarely get any more exciting. There are things to be brought forward, things to put behind, some in need of a shift of a higher gear and some simply to be forgotten. Life never stands still and with so much to think about, I made a trip to Penang for a small break together with my friends.

It was a more or less an impromptu trip but to tell the truth...nobody cared to plan. (Hahahahaha! ) We took the midnight bus from Puduraya on Friday and reached Penang's Sungai Nibong in the wee-hours of the morning of Saturday.

This sign greeted me at 4.30 in the morning

There were just 3 of us, and since we lack plan, soon we found one of us in dire situation:


But after awhile, me managed to check into a hotel. All of us are dog tired. The 三贱客 are:

Kuan Yong. Don't know why he has a cheeky smile. Wonders what he was reading...hmm....

Fei Zhai. This picture needs no further elaboration.

And me!

We rented a car and found us going places.

Views from the rooftop of the hotel:

I particularly like this picture and the way different-coloured roofs interplayed among one another

Interestingly we found Penangites are a bunch of cheeky people too as evident from the pictures below...

My personal favourite

Don't tell my mom that I've been here...

We even went to the beach and let the sound of waves and the wind to sort our problems out...

Wonders what tomorrow will bring?

Outlook bleak, thanks to Lehman Brothers

Of course, not all are extroverts. Some like to hide behind the bushes...

...until we went back to the hotel...

A Penang trip is not complete without Hokkien fare and so 3 empty barrels rounded up practically everything at the expense of their wallets.

First meal of the trip

Penang Char Kuey Teow. See the prawns? Its nearly half the plate!

My personal favourite. Frankly, half the oysters were gone before this picture was taken. And if you find the following photos to be unappetising and particularly small in servings, read this: THE CAMERA IS NO MATCH TO CHOPSTICKS! Many didn't even make it to the camera.

Reminds you of KFC advert where certain stuff are enlarged due to camera tricks, right? No. it was really THIS big!

Mee rebus

Yeah baby! I'll swim the English Channel for you any day!

So is the food good? Get the answer by looking at the expression of the guy on the left, below.


And like every proper trip that we've made (if any), there are always a note of seriousness to the things that we did...


Cheers everyone for making it home!

My internship stint 9/6/08 - 29/8/08

During the last semester break, I was fortunate enough to be accepted as an intern in an accounting firm in Malaysia. I was thrilled to be one of the selected few that was actually given the chance to learn from the very best, until I found out the selected few were 120++ people...@_@

I was accepted into one of the 4 audit departments and was assigned to audit seniors based on job allocations where I did my best to do no harm. For my friends who think audit is digging water wells in Timbuktu, I have to tell you that there are much more to it. Audit is a sort of process-checking exercise to assure that things are functioning the way it should be. Audit can be conducted on various aspects of processes but is predominantly linked to finances and well-being of limited liability companies as that is what matters most to many people, really.

After tonnes of horror stories of audit I heard of that lingered among other campus-lore, I made myself useful for the first week by staying out of people's way. As I get settled though, I realised audit's life is quite a "Merry-Go-Round". You get allocated to a job, you move in, do your stuff, pull out, get allocated to another job and then the cycle begins again.

I was lucky to be allocated to a few of these 'rounds' as I got the chance to work in local private companies and foreign subsidiaries before finally landing a big one where I got to vouch billion ringgit deals. I was pretty lucky that I worked with an extremely large team (about 15 auditors) and most, if not all of them placed their faith on me to pull rabbits out of my loyal, albeit run-down Acer laptop. If any of you are reading this, the truth is, without your trust and support, I wouldn't have done things that I did. Thank you so much for being so accommodating on my mistakes and believing so much in me.

A whole team at client's place. With 2 audit partners in the picture. They looked so youthful you'll take them as interns too. The guy wielding the plastic knife dangerously and sitting in the middle is Joseph. Extremely intelligent guy who taught me a lot and kinda pushed me a bit forward. Was celebrating his birthday. Photo courtesy of young grinning lady in black to the right. I wished I could tell the world how old she is but of course, that would have sealed my fate. And yes, that was our working table.

Another view of the table. Here, Adrian (standing) is making me an offer I find hard to refuse...btw, thanks for the Nando's

Audit isn't really as bad as some people describe though late hours and multiple datelines are part of the job, heck, any job if you are looking for experience and career opportunities. I find audit as fun and stimulating as you have to play 'cat and mouse' with clients sometimes and you are constantly learning new things, especially client's processes and systems.

I was also told that the timing of my internship wouldn't have been better as it coincides with a department trip where we headed to Rompin, subsidized.

the whole department getting all hyped-up to board the bus but managed to snap this before we left

Other interns from the department....boy, am I the ladies' man!!

We had loads of games by the beach...

Fishing for mahjongs....

Don't worry. Not me...(hahaha)

Played a ball-grabbing game called water polo but the guys seems to have their eyes on other type of balls....I'm the guy to the right...

...and we partied into the night!

OF course, I did some outdoor sketch when I was there. Woke up extra early for these:

Slightly detailed sketch of a group of palm with the photo directly below. Drew with ink before playing with the colours.

Watercolour was applied straight on but I was a bit impatient to wait for the first wash to dry

I kinda like this composition. I found them in the morning around 7. Both washed onto a concrete slab by the night tide. Holding onto each other awaiting for the breaking sun to end their misery.

I wondered why my teacher kinda like this but I think this is very much like a spilt-over bowl of porridge... His recommendation was to add a bit more details.

A more detailed study as I was able to find a comfortable seat. Also did this without any prior outline. Straight from the brush.

During my final days in the firm, my thoughtful intern comrades threw us a farewell dinner [special thanks to Farah (tall)]

From left (back), Nadia, Ying Hooi, Feriani, Hui Mei and Arina. Sitting in front with me is Zhi Wei, also a Help Uni College student. Not in the picture was Jas, Teepah, Elaine, Farid and Farah (not so tall). Unfortunately, Farah(tall) was unable to be with us on that day because of an emergency. (Yeah, there are two Farahs and did I missed out anyone?)

These people are obviously overworked...

On my last day, my colleagues bought us a cheese cake (incredulously delicious!) as a sent off!

At our desk...

The other interns in my team cutting the cake. From left Hui Mei, Zhi Wei, me and Ying Hooi

And at the end of day, I headed over to Modesto's to attend the department's promotion dinner where colleagues who got promoted threw a party as a celebration.

In the middle is an IT savvy girl who puts a guy to shame when it comes to computers. The lady in black to the right is the audit manager. Very easy going but made me sweat when she cornered me at the lift and asked me tough questions. The one in pink is afraid that computer viruses may spread to...er...non-computing mechanisms. The guy in blue is extremely brainy too and has the habit of providing clear information to colleagues. Always explain A-Z + 123 before letting you do something.

A close-up with my allocated senior. Ain't she pretty?

This sister of mine showed me something that I shouldn't have known and that caused me a lot of pain...(joking, thanks for teaching me the system!)

This is my taikor who took good care of me through out my 3 month stint.

If a picture says a thousand words, then this sums up my feelings of this internship. Love you guys always!