Graduation

I've graduated!


Okay, it was kind of a fake graduation...it was organised by MASAF, and we got a cert from JPA (a sijil penghargaan)

The ceremony was held on the 5th of June in Paris. They rented a boat that cruised along the Seine...

the boat

inside the boat (this photo was taken from the stage)

the guys from my batch (the girl is a year our senior)

the Pekom scholars from our batch (except the rightmost one, who's a year our junior)

Fzah at the non-grads' table...one senior and two juniors

my table

the cenderahati (souvenir) they prepared

table decoration

At the beginning, before going into the boat we had drinks and curry puffs on the...um, what do you call the top of the boat already?

with some of my batchmates (see the curry puff Mimi's holding? :P )

After that we went into the boat, found our tables (we got a card with our table number on it)...after some speeches we had our lunch. When we were done eating, we went outside again...by that time the boat was already moving along the river.

with Khairunisa (from Toulouse, who was at my table as well), ??, Anis (4 years my junior, who was in Angoulême as well), kak Seri (one year my senior, in La Rochelle before), ??, kak Asilda (3 years my senior), and ??
(please fill in the blanks for me if you can :s )

with Firdaus, kak Asilda...and I don't know who :s

with Fazli, Kenneth (also a Yeoh :P ) and Taufik

with (er...let's skip the first person) Yilie and Jun (who's graduating as well, but was in MFI instead of INTEC)

with Fzah, who's studying language (was, actually...she's really graduated, unlike me :P )

I was going to take a photo with Dinie, but then Fadhil and Taufiq wanted to be in the photo as well...

one left, but the other was still around

Same thing happened when I was taking a photo with Fifi...I think he was trying to push them away :P
(by the way, these four are from my batch but Telekom-sponsored)

Then they asked everyone to go back into the boat except for the grads. They asked us to stand at one end of the boat for photos...

the grads

...and then we lined up to go inside and get out cert. They only had about nine square caps, I think...so we passed them around :P

group photo after docking, just to let you see the number of people there (I think only one or two were missing, taking the photo)

They wanted to take photos of us throwing the graduation caps into the air, but with a limited number of caps, it wasn't exactly possible... Also, it was so hot that most of us preferred staying in the shade under the bridge :P

See the three cones high up at the back, with rolled up certs inside? That us :P (I was with Fazli and...I can't seem to remember who was the other person with us :/ )

Then we took photos in small groups...all over the place.

group photo for my JPA batch (I think the curtain background was for the boat's next customers, but everyone wanted to take photos with it lol)
Back row (the girls and one guy): Asmahanna, Iz'zati, Sia Ven, Mimi, me and Taufik
Front row: Firdaus, Fairuz, Fazli, Saipudin, Faeez, Hakim, Hafiezal and Akmal

So there you have it, the grad ceremony. After that some of us went to Starbucks, and I think someone took photos, but I can't remember who, and I haven't got the photos because I can't ask that person for it.

Sorry about the sudden flood of long posts...but hey, it's now or never! Still, there are more photos than words... :P

Thanks to Fiezal, Fifi and Yaacob Hasan (whom I don't know personally, but he seems to be the official MASAF photographer for the occasion) for most of the photos, and to Fzah for the photo of us together. As for anyone else who hasn't passed me their photos...just do it!!!

When two foodies collide...

Last week Jiamin and I made wantan and banana cake. (on two different days)

Everything was from scratch...we even minced the meat ourselves because we didn't have minced meat. (okay, maybe not the wantan skin, we bought that)

the wantan filling

wantan skin (made in France, ya know...don't play play! lol)

wantan ready to cook

the wantan dished up with chives sprinkled on top (chives = ciboulette actually...I didn't even know what chives were called before :P )

We wanted to have noodles to go with it...but in the end we found that we had so much wantan that it would be enough without noodles. :P

As for the banana cake, we made two...'cos I was going to a friend's place in Vichy that weekend (I will write about that) and I thought I could bring some for them (a group of us were going).

the batter...nice colour, eh? (that's Jiamin's hands)

the colour didn't look so nice after adding the mashed bananas :P

the first cake

The mixtures in those two photos were actually for the second cake...we didn't take any photos of the batter the first time round.

the two cakes, before and after baking

the second cake freshly baked...see what's left of the first? lol

Anyway, I am glad to say that everyone loved the cake. That was the third time I made it, and no one has ever not liked the cake :)

Ville de Troyes

Continuing on from the previous post about Troyes, here's the lake we went to after leaving Nigloland.

Lac d'Orient (click to see larger version)

I don't have that many good photos of the lake...most are about the same. Most of the others played ball in the water...they are in the panoramic view if you can find them :P

That night we stayed up quite late playing a game where each person was supposed to count up (the first person says "one", the second says "two", ...), and the one who reaches twenty-one has to drink. Seems quite straightforward...except that if you saw two numbers in a row (instead of only one), that reverses the direction of play, and if you say three numbers, it skips the next person's turn. And if you say something wrong, you drink and the round starts again.

And...to make it even more interesting, the person who reaches twenty-one replaces a number of his choice by another word and/or gesture, and the future rounds take this into account. Which means that in the end, there were hardly any numbers left...

I had played about the same kind of game when we did that gathering in Rouen, but I think there were only three numbers which we repeated over and over (one, two, three, one, two, three...) and I don't think there was any drinking. Though I can't remember whether there was any "punishment" for getting the number wrong. I remember that we replaced the numbers by names...I remember especially that Adrian chose Alvin's name :P

We didn't all play in Troyes...some people joined in the middle, and some, like me, just watched and exploded in laughter at how they mixed up the words :P

And after playing, we went out to walk around a bit in town...so as to make noise in the streets instead of making noise in Julien's place and disturb his neighbours :P

the bridge above the train tracks (the train station is on the right)
We have to cross this bridge to get from Julien's place to the town centre.

a small square (I'm not sure whether it's actually considered a square)
I took a photo just because there were coloured lights.

slanted buildings...I didn't notice it then, but later on Julien pointed out several other slanted buildings to us...it seems to be a speciality of Troyes

a don't-know-what tower

in front of that tower

Camille taking over as photographer
I like this photo...the heads make a nice "curve"! Haha...

the town hall

opposite the town hall

After that we went back...it was about 4am, I think. The next day we woke up around 11am or noon and went out after lunch to visit the rest of the town (what we could before leaving).

I like this view ^_^

zoom on the fountain

We saw Popeye's driving school. Hey...I didn't know Popeye could drive :P

something in town...

just a street

See how the buildings slant?

a church

the church's name :P

Group photo!
Sitting, from left: Alex, Sabrina, Marion, Antoine, yours truly, Wenxiang, Yi, Camille
The two Egyptians (or Egyptian-wannabes :P ), from left: Damien and Julien
Photographer: Julie

a nice house with flowers

another one...it's summer, after all

the cathedral (under construction, as usual...)

another street

some building

After walking around town, we went to the train station to see off Antoine and Wenxiang...and then Camille and those of us who came from Lyon left by car. Damien and Julie stayed on a bit...but as for what they did I can no longer say because I wasn't there :P

All in all, a nice but tiring weekend..the heat didn't help! But it didn't rain, which was lucky for us, otherwise we would have had to find other plans...

Of regaining functionality

I am typing with my middle finger again. :)

(For more info, check out the finger story)

I had gotten used to not using my left middle finger while typing...at first I had to just use my index finger so that I wouldn't risk hitting my middle finger. But later I learned to use my ring finger in place of my middle finger...and in the end I was using almost all my fingers to type, except my middle finger.

But the thing is, even when I could use my finger again, it didn't come easily. For several weeks I was still typing without my middle finger, because I had gotten so used to doing that. Then there were some times when I would hit a key by mistake with my middle finger (not meaning to, you see...that also happened sometimes when I still had the bandage on), it gave me a kind of shock each time, it was so weird feeling pressure on the finger.

Anyway, about a week ago I started forcing myself to type with that finger sometimes...actually consciously using that finger, I mean, because otherwise my ring finger would come over automatically to take its place (how kind of it to help its neighbour :P ) And now I'm back to typing with it...typing "normally", I guess that means. Like before it all happened :)

So some people asked how my finger is now. It is already 100% functional. There is nothing I have to keep it from doing. It just lacks a little flexibility. Let me show you...


This is as far as the finger can fold itself. Usually you can fold it till there is no space in the fold of the finger, right? Well, not this one...yet.


With a little help, it can fold a little more. But still not perfectly.

But I'm not losing hope. It's already better than two weeks earlier...when with "help" it could only get to the first photo. And the doctor did say that it would get back to normal.

And folding the other way...there is no other way than to compare both hands.


On the right is how it's supposed to be. But for this one, somehow I think the left has already reached its limit... (and some people can't even fold it that much "normally", can they? :P )

But like I said, it doesn't stop me from doing anything. 100% functional.