The annual festival 'See And Why'

Students were sitting for their last paper, they did not chew their end of their pen, they fought with time, played with calculator, checked their answers again again and again, because nobody wanted to give up. 10 minutes past, talk to any of them, you can see him/her smiling throughout the conversation with a neon arrow pointing over their head *I'm exam-free finally! :D* They couldn't stop discussing how smart/careless each of them had gone through it, followed by "hey let's go somewhere..." then *zoooooom* (gone) Well to me, i like going back home, to pamper myself, to relax, to let my hair down, home is (always) my first destination.

Of course, cleaning my work table was my first thing to do that night. Sorted the books by subjects, unstick the memo, rearranged the files and stationeries, removed 2-3 lil pieces of faeces on my draft (thanks to uncle lizard), discarded 2 dead mosquitoes and 1 dead ant (never knew my table is a spot for insects to commit suicide, all died in peace). Yeah the desk with three drawers storage is now clean, tidied and organized :)

So (finally) yesterday, i've got time to really sit down and do my favorite calligraphy. Speaking of calligraphy, i must not miss this chance to thank my Writing Brush for keeping me company along this 18++ years. Everything's started when dad showed and demonstrated how to hold the brush and how to control the pressure to create thick to thin lines. Days of practicing the brushstrokes were like "papa this one nice anot?" (submitted for grading) He used to scan through, and disappoint me by pointing at only 1 word and also the flaws, followed by tons of comment and correction.

my writing brushes

(pasar malam brand brushes are good for painting) introducing here my life partner-paint brushes!

Yea there are many creative ways to arrange the verse so that it works with the overall composition. In short, calligraphy is all about creativeness, originality and fantasy =) When a person had mastered all the basic skill, the person is about to develop his own style. That's why i've been playing around with the fresh, new ways to arrange the verse along these growing years. Never forget to mention the person i greatly admire, the master of calligraphy- 王羲之 (an imperial officer in the Jin dynasty if i'm not mistaken). Well, doing calligraphy is like releasing the long-locked spirit of chinese characters, there's a lot more than you can see.

What's the best brand of writing brush? My personal experience tells 鸡狼毫 . Many beginners opt for cheap brushes/ pasar malam brand thinking they will buy better ones when their skill improves or just for the sake of saving money. Mind you, you can never do a perfect brushstroke by using the good-looking but low-grade brush, it will hinder your efforts and can even discourage you from continuing. For ink, of course it's awesome if you have an ink stick and ink stone- the older the stick gets, the quality of the ink that comes from them tends to be better. Nowadays somehow buying it in liquid form is great for its convenience. Hmm i bet you've seen the bottled ink with orange packaging before, that's the brand i used to stick to *wink* By the way take note and check the trade mark, buy genuine product with label '金' not '全' for better density, colour and quality. Traditionally fancy calligraphy kits........ owh that would be utterly a Yeahh! if i could own it someday. (In fact i'm still finding source of learning the other type of calligraphy script)

bear in mind the trade mark

regenerating self inner peace

Less than 4 hours from now i'll be leaving this city and heading for another KL (dad's hometown kuala lipis, pahang) There, you can really smell the peacefulness of rural living. Wake at the crack of dawn, you see mist not haze; listen to the conversation of surroundings, you hear bird sings not sound of car horns like crazy, walk out your doorstep, your skin catches fresh breeze not dusty wind; look up the night sky, behold the shining flakes not red or green light on the wingtips of aeroplane accompanying the dull and lonely dark atmosphere; lie and keep your eyes open at night, you enjoy the presence of fireflies not blues. These concludes the reason why i like this KL so dearly.

Plus, there's no need to worry about setting alarm because the people over there will do for you. When the sun rise on the other hand you're still curling up in your comfy bed, the loud booming and piercing firework noise *pi-pak!!! pi-pak!!!pak-palak!!! pak-pak-pi-pak!!* suddenly blast out without warning, shocks and wakes you up. It used to continue for some time and you need to cover your poor little eardrum from bursting.

* wahhh it really brings me heart attack for the next few seconds
*Heart beats so fast...... lupp-dup! lupp-dup! lupp-dup!......................................tittttttttttttttttttt (haha nola still lupp-dup!)

After fireworks, they play cny songs freaking loud and beats me why they have to be so loud like showing off their stereo system hahaha and for the rest of the morning you'll have cny songs dung dung chiang roiling through the village. They definitely bring up the atmosphere however :D I think you should have heard of one cny song which sings "....发了财呀 大家忙又忙 买了汽车又造洋房 家家都好风光....." frankly speaking i particularly like the phrase 买了汽车又造洋房 (Don't ask me why because i have zero idea why i like it so much. Hahaha! lol)

On the subject of cny advertisements, petronas is still tugging on heartstring, producing best ad among the rest, meaningful and touching. 08's ad i like it the most (it was a story about an orphan named tan thiam hock... so on) Felt like crying each time i watched it :( By the way i have some personal comment relating to this year's revive isotonic drink's cny ad. The guy speaks canto, talks like stoopid and i can't even listen to what he's actually saying, making the ad really s*cks, really, he deserves my slapping for the sake of lowering the quality of ad and degrading the company's reputation. (no offence revive, your quality of drinks is good) Well still, thanks to all the cny ad, they make festivals more delightful.

*Since DIGI coverage is adequate for major towns but poor for country side, friends might fail to look for me and i must have missed some of their cny greeting and left them message unreplied. So here, i'm wishing all friends of mine Happy Chinese New Year! Xin Nian Kuai Le! :D Ong mari! Ong mari mari! ONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!