Penang Trip @ USM tournament part 4

I have decided to add up another entry due to my ignorance of blogging the last few days. At the moment we are in the 2nd day of being in USM and the first day of competition. Poomsae is up right now.

Poomsae is a competition which comprise a team of 3 members who will perform the traditional pattern of Tae Kwon Do. It is a competition which will study the teamwork, the accuracy of execution, the creativity as well as on stage performance. Marks are allocated in accordance to the level of pattern otherwise known as Taegeuk performed as well as all the above criteria.

For USM 2008 Taekwondo Championship, more than 20 teams which is divided into male and female category take part in it. Every team perform for their own combination of move sets in executing Taegeuk. Each of them strive to be the champion of their category by adding in additional moves such as back flip, summersault etc.


In the meanwhile, Su Yin's parents arrived and we greeted them with the warmest welcome possible. Oops, i forgot to mention that Su Yin, our lightweight contender for Utar. She is a previous Sea Games contender in Thailand 2008. As the nature of this category, participants are lesser due to the competitive environment. Due to the lack of competitors in this category, Su Yin made it to the finals without any competition. With sheer determination and overpower against her opponent from UiTM Kedah, Su Yin took her opponent out with a margin of 6 points even though she was tempted to finish her out in the first bout. Hooray to Su Yin for plucking the first gold for Utar. However in my opinion, the lack of competition made the whole arena less enthusiast especially there are so many categories yet there are so little participants who have made it to that particular category. Even though international standards require them to follow the weight category in accordance, but lack of participants will made the entire game less entertaining and less competitive.

After Su Yin's heroism act, the day is coming to an end as the final bouts are performed in both arena. As the prize giving ceremony approaches, the organizers awarded all the participants with their respective medals as it is their efforts who have brought them what they deserve at the end of the day.

Dinner time approaches after prize giving ceremony, therefore we pack our stuff and headed back to our accommodation. After 1 night of staying, we have started to nickname our hotel room as our home. The feeling of going back home after 1 whole day of straining as well competing has gauge us in a situation of complete worn out. Dinner was treated at 747 restaurant beneath our home as Su Yin's dad has offered a treat for the entire team. We were delighted to his hospitality, however we couldn't accept his generous offer as we did not make any contribution worthwhile of being treated to such a feast. No matter how we insist of making the payment, our host was very persistent in hosting us and settle the bill. Poor Ah C for missing out on his hospitality, but he was rewarded to catch up with his elder sister who works in Penang. Guess there is pros and cons in every situation, haha...

After dinner, we decided to head on to Gurney Plaza to check out the environment and stuff there. To my surprise, the place was glamourous yet the lacking of human traffic made the entire place rather dull. It is the least expected as it is one of the renown area for Penang people to spend their time as well shopping. After touring Gurney, we were treated to the drive around Penang island by Lim, our staff in charge who followed this trip in assuring everything was put into pieces. We wander around with his knowledge of Penang roads, but we were unable to get anything in the process as most of the areas we pass by was flooded by food. Our stomach was much too full to cope with additional feasting. Therefore, we decide to gather our belongings and get back to our home.

This is the end of day 2 in Penang, we were much delighted to have wonderful hospitality from everybody we knew. Penang Trip @ USM tournament 5 will make is debut very soon. stay tune

Penang Trip @ USM tournament part 3

It has been so many days since my last entry, perhaps my laziness has caught up with me...

The day start off at 6 am where all my roommates get up and start cleaning for the first match of our team. We started off early with match number 3 for the day. Our representative from Setapak, See Heng Chun otherwise known as Ah C gear up for the event. After looking at the bout chart, we realize our first opponent was the strongest representative for that category from UiTM Perak. Ah C has long wanted to test his skills against this fellow opponent since their high school time. The UiTM guy is known as Meng Yen, a former sukma player for Perak.

Ah C proceed the match with careful move sets as he known his opponent strength well. During the match, Ah C tried his best to hit the guy's head, but the size of the vest was larger than Ah C size. I couldn't run away from this responsibility as it was me who was suppose to gather all the equipment before the tournament. I ran out of luck in getting the necessary vest for Ah C as I couldn't get a smaller vest for our team. However with the vest holding skill and his agility, Ah C opponent overrun him by a margin of 3 points overall by our overall calculation. Well, a loss is a loss. This is a tournament, there are bound to be winners as well as losers.

That's the end of our first match. However, lacking of experience players to be fielded cause us to take part in fewer categories. Our motto to enter this tournament is to win as many medals as possible with the least amount of resources. Since this is the first entry for Tae Kwon Do team of Utar after such a long haul, we decided to play it low. Due to the limited participants, our next match for the day would be the final match for female lightweight category. It is scheduled to be bout no. 40. My estimation was the match would begin somewhere in between 3.30 to 4.30 pm. To justify my estimation, we left early, somewhere around 12.30 pm for lunch even though other teams was still competing in the arena.

We stop by a nearby local chinese restaurant named Bali-Bali to had our lunch. I was seriously considering McDs' since I haven't had it for quite some time. However with the team's democratic decision, all of us gotta stick with the local cuisine such as Char Koay Teow, Asam Laksa etc. To my delighted, I decided to have Char Koay Teow for lunch. I ordered not too spicy Char Koay Teow and the taste, was quite unforgettable since KL's Char Koay Teow is quite plain in term of taste and smell. However, given the price tag was Rm 2.50, the food was consider expensive since the serving was smaller as well as the additional topping was smaller as well. In KL, though the price tag is Rm 3.50 at least, we could easily get a larger prawns as well as bigger meal serving. Even though I am not an accounting student, but from a consumer point of view, Penang's food does not consider as cheap.

We were back in USM before 2 pm as we wanted to be fully prepared for Su Yin's match. The organizer start off with Poomsae in another arena after lunch hour. Poomsae is the ancient performance of pattern in the art of Tae Kwon Do. Do not expect Tae Kwon Do to be pure violence, everything related to Tae Kwon Do is about kicking and punching. Aside from being a self-defense technique, it is also used to perform the traditional art of Korean tradition. All the pattern is unify under 1 standard measurement as it represent the core of Tae Kwon Do.

That's all for the moment. My eyes is getting heavier by the minute. I believe the rest of the event highlights have to be continued on Penang Trip @ USM tournament part 4. So stay tuned...

Penang Trip @ USM tournament part 2

Gosh, I never thought Penang would ever possess such a challenge in terms of road recognizing. A quick slip in terms of road recognizing and I overshot to another junction heading towards Jelutong. I never expected by following the Ayer Hitam road sign would bring me to another area of Penang. Luckily I could recognize the poscode of our hotel. Spinning around Penang fearless finally earn me my return to our accommodation area. I was relief that I only needed half an hour even though I was lost somewhere nearby Jelutong.

Through the hospitality of our host USM Tae Kwon Do club, we were invited for a welcoming dinner. The dinner venue is known as Foyer Pharmacy. We were rather lost when we were heading towards our destination. According to the direction given, we headed into Pusat Penyelidikan Racun. Racun = Poison. Our first impression was we were definitely wrong in terms of taking the junction turning. "Why would the organizers want to treat us a meal of poison?" a statement that pop out in our mind at that moment. Popping a call to the PR in charge, Albee finally concluded that the location we were in indeed was the location of the welcoming dinner.

To tell the truth, we were kinda expecting Yao Chung, the PIC of USM open 2008 would provide a restaurant dinner. At least the venue we expect it to be air-conditioned. Perhaps it is our style in our campus to organize everything in an air-conditioned manner till lacking of air-conditioned seems to be not right. Anyway, I believe the organizer has strive to provide the best facilities available to see fit everybody welfare. The flow of the dinner program was quite smooth. Everything was done in accordance, as if it was well rehearse. Good job done, USM guys.

The speech, the recognition etc was done smoothly. Every prize giving ceremony was done in accordance. At the end of prize giving, buffet dinner was served. We eventually start off by getting the Bryani Rice or white rice follow by various meats served by our host. I enjoyed the rendang chicken the most out of all delicacies. During the dinner period, local club held a drum performance to entertain the guests. It is performed by the KungFu Club of USM. The drum performance was rather amusing, but it isn't the best that I have enjoyed before. The guy at the sideline seem to possess more spirit, power, skill than the center drummer. I guess the center drummer is the captain, but I believe the guy at the side should be the captain instead due to his performance(did I mentioned the rest of the drummers were girls?)

After that performance, a gal enter the center stage and pronounce herself and start off a string of singing performance. The first 2 songs was rather boring. Luckily her sound wasn't too bad, if not all of us might bored to death. Tae Kwon Do demonstration was upnext in the agenda of the night. It was cool as it shows the spirit of Tae Kwon Do in the most proper manner. After that, the girl resume her singing and lead the crowd into a rather high mood due to the crowd support provided by her fellow Uni mates. In my opinion, the drum performance was the best out of all. If the could switch it to the peak of the event(towards the end of the night) would gain a better overall effect. When everybody spirit is high in the beginning, I believe they expect something more exhilarating towards the entire performance. Towards the end of the night, we had a photo session involving everybody. That concludes the end of the first night in USM(infact we only spend 1 night in USM).

Tesco was the destination we were heading to after dinner. We were wandering around for supplies for the following days. Bread, 100 plus etc was on the shopping list. These are the protein necessity required for our players. We also get our supply of water from there as well. By 11.30 pm, we were in our hotel preparing to rest for the night as we knew the following day would be a long one.

Please look forward to Penang Trip @ USM tournament part 2 within the next few days. As for now, I shall retire from my current work and take a short rest after a long day of conducting interview for our Orientation programme in Utar FAM, Bandar Sg Long campus.

Penang Trip @ USM tournament part 1

Last Friday morning, a day I really couldn't forget. I never expected I was able to wake up by 5 am especially I slept past 12 am midnight. Anyway, 4.53 am I woke up by my watch standard. Boy, I surprised myself because I jump up from my bed, instead of through my alarm clock. Preparation work was done throughly before I went to bed the previous night. By 6:00 am sharp, I left my house from Sg Long and pick up my teammates.

By actual standards, I ain't not supposed to reach Utar PJ campus by 7.30 am, however after some running around and picking up, I was there by then. That was when I realized another driver hasn't arrived, boy that cut my reliefs into half. Before 8:00 am, we left for Penang, heading to "Destination USM". After driving for not too long, we stop by Rawang for our breakfast as most of us came out empty stomach, lol...

Finishing breakfast we continue our journey. Being my first long period driving, I couldn't withstand the aftermath of eating. After less than an hour of driving from Rawang, I have to switch and allow another person to continue driving up Penang. After our short stop, I went into sleeping mode and my friend start catching up with the driving speed of 120 - 130 kph. Luckily Mr Lim doesn't drive too fast. After Ipoh (S) toll, I woke up and we switch again. This time, our stop was rather long. I sped at a speed of 140 - 160 kph, yet it took me longer than Calvin to catch up with Lim's. Sigh!!! However, I was relieved cause I wasn't being ask to stop. Imagine driving faster than most cars along the road yet I wasn't recorded in The Police Force eagle eyes...

Catching up with Lim around the area of Bukit Merah took me around 35 minutes. Not a record being graceful about since I sped at an average speed of 150 kph. Yet it took us less than an hour to reach the exit towards Georgetown, Penang Bridge. Exiting into Penang Bridge saw us take a long turning running towards the toll gate. It took us 45 minutes at least just to cross the toll gate and proceed on the bridge. Well, that was what we least expected since we were running on a tight time schedule. Given a KL boy planning his journey towards Penang, god knows the traffic running into the tiny island would cause us so much chaos.

We were very lucky we finally reach our destination on time, 2 pm sharp. It was Albee, from USM whom I contacted ever since the planning of this trip greeted us with her warm smile. Boy was I relief to seen such a warm welcoming after a tiring journey in the car. Driving 2 hours continuously was quite a harsh period especially I never drove that long before. Couple with a traffic jam before entering Penang Bridge was really devastating. Tell you all a secret, USM got many pretty girls as well, not to mention I haven't seen them all yet, haha(at least their Tae Kwon Do club have many).

Proceeding with player registration, we carry on with trial weight-in, official weight-in, paying registration fees etc. I was supposed to feel happy, but we were told by most of the official there that they doesn't really know the way very well to our accommodation. Gosh, I was feeling devastation in my heart as I hope to settle down my players as it was my responsibility to let them have a comfort zone after a long day. Nevertheless, they were more than willing to help out. They took out Penang map, cellphone and start off their effort of getting information on our accommodation. Luckily we have two Lim's on our team and they all join effort and read the road to YMCA hostel in no time.

After finish unloading our luggage, I quickly rush back to USM for team manager meeting. Even though I was late, but I was running lucky due to technical error as I was able to attend the full meeting. A small meeting on the remaining details and drawing on ballots determine the bout chart for the following days. 1 hours was enough to wrap all these stuff.


That's all for the moment. I am going to make dinner & eat it. Part 2 of Penang Trip @ USM tournament will be uploaded in a day of 2, after I am able to find more time type it out of my brain...

我败了

今天，我终于尝试到什么是败给自己。。。

我的执著，原来都是给自己的借口。。。

奋战，勇战，到头来是一场空。。。

我已经告诉努力未必有成果。。。

奈何我就是控制我自己。。。



可是我有一群好朋友，好兄弟。。。

他们告诉我别为一棵树放弃整个森林。。。

应该要为整个森林放弃一朵花，海里的鱼多的是。。。

今天不是你获得收成的时候，有耐心一点，总有出头日。。。



经过我深思熟虑，我觉得一切顺其自然，只要肯狠心放下来，生活自然会活得更好。更何况我有属于我自己的事业，而现在更是它的起步，我何必为了其他而置之不理，背叛了对我存有希望的伙伴们，背信弃义。古人曰经一事，长一智，重整旗鼓更是我目前应做的事故，努力奋斗，对我的伙伴们申出援手，把我们的努力，让世人明白我们不是在吹牛，让他们后悔对我的不理睬，证明给他们看我们是不是逊的。伙伴们，我们一起加油及努力，实现梦想，不要后悔我们的选择。。。

i think i wil write a diary today

the only class I attended today is my RD(retail & distribution) tutorial at 8 am. after that i kinda take off to finish off my assignment. Well off course i did went on and have a very light breakfast in the morning with some touhu & vegetables. Doesn't seem like my consumption amount, izit?

Oh, i got a sin to confess. After reaching home from my breakfast section, I have moulded myself onto the sofa & watched Troy, starring Brad Pitt etc. Oh gosh, it was really an epic itself with all the fights & stuff like that. But i learned something rather important from it as well. Hatred can really blur our eyes sometimes. For the sake of hate, people would rather kill or destroy others. Guess that's how they define the war era back then...

Today seem to be a day when David Khoo call me the most. Frankly speaking i was rather shock, yet i couldn't reject his call. We had lunch together along with Joseph & Boon Kiong, which was David's tutor as well. HAha, portfolio management, gd luck dude.

Lunch was unusually short as we have to rush back to our task on hand. Finishing my assignment at late evening after my lunch was quite a surprise. I thought 2 hours max was sufficient to settle that manner. Guess it proves me wrong about judging so rush. tv was up next on my following agenda. after cajoling with my housemates, they left me for dinner while i opt for my oatmeat dinner which i left out for quite a few days already.

finishing dinner saw the sky turn dark. it was after quite some time christine msn me bout her leg injury. given my trainee's leg was hurt, the coach(me) gotta inspect the injury. Sigh, another withdrawal of my participants for the USM challenge. Where would i find a replacement at this very last minute? sigh!!! Somehow David called another time & he manage to hold me back in sg long for tml nite's meeting. Another plan interupted, but i can't really mount on the dispute on this matter.

Playing Big 2 against my housemates allow me to learn something from them as well. It was a game handle with wisdom and patients. 1 wrong move will cost your winning hand. Learn how to interact while organizing things proven to be a useful lesson in life. perhaps some of you may think it's useless. nevertheless it doesn't seem useful at all. however all things come with a price. let it be, as long as u work hard 4 it, u have no regrets. sigh, on left 17 days till 31st March. i will surely be dead if i kenot achieve the goal i have set for myself. I just hope i would be killed instead of committing suicide...

the jouney continue

as from today onwards, My journey to blogging shall continue on here, blogspot. Thanks to friendster for providing me a space to cast my thinking, beliefs, ideas as well as enthusiasm on blog writing. For starters, i shall cast my upcoming doings up here right now.

To all Utarians, please come for the staff and student gathering held in South Lobby of FAM in Bandar Sg Long. It will be held on the 12th of March, 2008. Time is 2pm - 5pm. I promise this is a event for everybody as it has a platform for all the attendees to enjoy their afternoon in a relaxing mode. It promises joy and fun as well entertainment. So please drop by and enjoy the afternoon.

Finally, our semester is coming to an end really soon. Utarians are preparing for the final moments of assignments, presentations as well as mid-term. Taking all these glaring working away from us means setting us free into abyss(boy i sound so evil). However, after taking into the consideration of allowing us suffer from such terrible fate, they(the management) decided to let us go through the torture. I can't figure out why does they like to torture us so much. Haiz, old people are really old people. Maybe I will be like them... someday perhaps... Right now, I am ending my torture with an age old presentation. The subject that haunts me down with this presentation is IM, International Marketing. A tv commercial has to be done. Our writing report has to submit as well. Life's never easy eh, hehe...

By the way, next week is another anticipating moment for me as well. From friday onwards, I will not be around(Klang Valley)... haha