relay for life, penang 2009!!!

okay, i bet a lot of you out there are wondering what relay for life is all about. it is actually a cancer awareness campaign to raise fees for poorer cancer patients and also to further the research on cancer. in fact, this was actually started by an american who went around the park asking for funds in a full 24-hour period in 1985. the thing that you can say about this guy is that 'wow, he is really super!' to be honest i can't stand walking non-stop for 10 hours without wanting to give up, let alone 24 hours. ah, life is so good that some people don't even have to walk for an hour per day. anyway, we only need to stay there for 16 hours and walk for a minimum of an hour.

the event actually took place in penang's one and only youth park in tanjong bungah. if you ever go to penang, go there, it's really fun, i personally think that it is even nicer than the new york parks that you watch in shows minus the bird feeding part, in which you have monkeys replacing them in penang. but if you get caught feeding them, you'll get a hefty sum of fines on your head.




me and yee hooi at one of the swings in youth park!!!

anyway after we set up our tents, we practically rush to the playgrounds like small kids. haha, to feel the wind blowing through my face again was great! i miss my swings, but definitely not my childhood.





another vain pose

ready, set, not yet go lar!

anyway, the whole event haven't started yet when we got there by 4.30pm. wanna see our tent?


our tent!

you know, i never thought that tents are so easy to set up. the tents are actually really really large sacks which have four small plastic (with holes) attached to each end of the square sack. there's actually a long slit x in the middle of the tent, so all you have to do is put the long rods that they have provided through the slits and the make sure that each ends of those rods are firmly stuck into each of the small plastic holes and voila, you have a tent. of course nobody wants their tents to topple over under strong winds, so using the hook-like nail, you nail the plastic end to the ground. my tent is not bad right? but of course, even dummies can set up this kind of tents.

before the start of the event, we saw people selling paper sacks in one of the stalls and i thought, why would people want to buy those ugly paper sacks (no offense of those who drew pics on those sacks! i didn't know at the time!) with really amateurish pictures (which really looked like it from afar!)! i thought maybe people were just gullible to this kind of things so i didn't think much about it until i saw them setting those paper sacks on the field in an oval manner. then they started to light up the candle which are put inside the sack. this is THE EFFECT!


the EFFECT!

it was raining at the time, i remember one or two of the sacks going aflame. one of the sacks kept burning very close to two people who appeared very heated in their conversation. the person i think was aware of the situation but just did nothing until a man stomp the flaming sack to cinders. but the whole scene was so beautiful that i actually felt tears lodged behind my throat. at the time, i thought the whole scene was very meaningful, because admidst all the rain and wind at that time, hundreds of lanterns just stood still and strong without burning up even though all the sacks were made from plain paper. it was as if god wanted to pass this message to us, to none believers, i think i can safely say that mother nature just wanted to convey the message that ' even though we look frail, we are actually much much stronger than we originally thought.

some of the sacks that was being set up in the field were actually good wishes or letters to their loved one who had cancer. one of the sacks that i read was actually for a mother who had died of cancer, it wrote 'you'll be always in our heart... within our soul...'. beautiful is the only word for the aching sense that i got when i read it. fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, childrens, friends... their letters and wishes were all there. but then the only thing that i regretted for the whole event was actually because my phone can't seem to show words that are present on the sacks. but then there are cute pictures too, i'll let the pics do the job of description...

dunno what flower this is but i think it's poppy.


when i saw this picture, the first reaction that i got was 'ahh, la bi xiao xing!!' (crayon shinchan)

simple as i love you

can't remember what's on the sack already but i think it is for a friend.

hope, love and lifei dunno why they put a coconut tree there, probably they want you to be asian's isaac newton and tell you to ''wake up!! BE VERY AWARE of CANCER!!'' but higher chances are you'll faint straight away and wake up stupider!okay this is like one-sixth of the number of people present in the area. so sorry, can't seem to get it to rotate!

the crying period

our bio A2 is currently covering on biodiversity. so in accordance to the chapter our bio teacher showed us a video that really had almost all the girls in our class cry. ok, so i named this the crying period. u'll understand why later. and if u r an animal lover or will cry at any cruelty or sad events, please skip the next paragraph.

actually when the video started, it actually showed a small raccoon-like animal struggling with all its 4legs while being hanged suspended from a man's hand. then the man actually swung this animal with full force and smashed it on the ground. this was already horrible, and you could actually hear the animal crying out, as if all the sound it made was unintentional and forced out of its lungs. then the cameras actually turned on to an Alsatian dog. like the small raccoon animal, it was also hanged suspended by its tail while struggling furiously to get out of their grasp. perhaps the most heart breaking thing at that time was hearing the dog howl in horror as the hunter wielded his knife and started to cut the fur coat of the dog from it penis. from there onwards, the man just tore the skin off the dog while men who were surrounding the scene were jesting on how amusing the event looked to them. when the tearing reached the head, they yanked the whole skin off forcefully and then threw the still breathing dog to a heap of carcasses beside the man. at the time, the dog was breathing in an agonizing manner, no tears, no sound, just the harsh breathing of a rough pink-fleshed animal with only hints of their former fur around the sockets of their eyes, lying there, almost too wiped out from a staggering amount of pain. there were like around thousands of captive animals there, some were hitting against the cage, trying to escape while the others just sat quietly, trembling, knowing anyway that they were going to die. can you imagine that those beautiful sleigh dogs that were shown as happy, playful, hardworking big alive bundles of white and grays in tv being submitted to such a life? and do you know why they kept those animals alive while butchering them? they kept them so because the fear they produce will induce hormones in their bodies to keep the fur soft. this is just so purely disgusting, yuck!

although i didn't cry throughout the whole video, i felt as if some parts of me had just died, just like that and i felt so numb in some sense that i couldn't feel anymore emotions surrounding me than only being aware that i dammed up something in myself. i could only hear what the teacher said throughout the lecture afterward but all of those words just had no meaning anymore.

i went into that phase a lot of times in my life, but when it became too much, i had a lot of trouble going back to normal again. although i understand what such things does to my life, it was not something that u get use to.

but i just want to say this, if u see someone selling furcoats on the streets (usually when u go to the north) or in any place else, DO NOT BUY!! really, you'll regret ur spur of the moment when you meet these animals, because they are truly beauties of nature and BEAUTIES STAY ALIVE WITH EVERYTHING ATTACHED TO THEM! anyway, fur coats are not suitable for humans, they make you look like big bird from sesame street. if they did, then we would have them sprouting throughout our bodies (which most people will shave off !!)

stressed out!

hey, everybody in their whole miserable life will hit this point at many parts of their lives!! i practically am pulling out my hair this time. retaking all of the subjects meant that i will sit for 12 damned papers, and i asked myself the whole time, why did i take science when i was young. oh yea, i remember my so-called expectation made me do it. but then i love nothing more than science, i should have known when to quit and when to start sometimes. nvm about my random babbling, nobody will understand me through this haze anyway...

okay, so i really want to strangle cambridge. at the first few months this semester, i thought that maybe cambridge will start their practical at the end of may and start all those written exams by the start of june. how was i to know that THEY actually set the date at the middle of may and end it by the start of june. I AM PRACTICALLY dead meat.... i must study real hard this time and there will be no more fooling around like last year!!! o damn, the finality of everthing is I MUST STUDY not only study but STUDY A DAMNED LOT!!!

o and everyone else take my advice, study hard too and all the best in your exams!

p/s: never mind me, i am freaking insane right now!