The reward of patience and perseverance!

It's been a long time for me not to post anything here. I was busy the whole summer with my labworks and report (I slept at dawn for a few days at the last weeks). But then, good things happen to those who wait. And my reward (beside 12 hours hibernation after poster presentation of my summer research work) was...



Yep, I've got a lomo. Supersampler, to be exact.

But why do I suddenly have it? Am I going back to the stone age of taking photos with film (in this case is the 35mm one)?

One friend was giving away a few stuffs because he was going to moving to another country.. The supersampler is really old, he had this when he was still in school in Indonesia. He doesn't use it anymore now, so he decided to give it to this girl, a junior of his, who was quite into taking photos, for FREE =D It's a multi-lens camera, so the result may be really unpredictable because I haven't found any information on how it exactly works. I'll only see how they turn out to be after the 36th exposure and taking them to a developer, which may happen sometime between 3 to 6 months later (I won't take photos so often with it, only on special occasions or if I find nice objects) so we'll see =)

IMHO, even though digital photography is of course much less costly and easier (e.g. people can erase the bad shoots and enhance the acceptable shoots), film photography is irreplaceable with its certain effects (to be exact: its unknown, sometimes-unexpected turnout) and the mindset of to shoot correctly, every-shoot-counts feature. The latter is what I am trying to do with my digital camera as well: to take photos correctly everytime so all my shots are acceptable and free from significant enhancements afterwards.

I'm still on training to do film (35mm) photography, though, because the last time I took photos with PnS, 35mm film cameras was about 10 years ago before finally my family moved on to digital cameras because of the cost.. So I still need to re-train my hand and my head to prevent those shaky, blurry, useless images as well as to load/unload/rewind/advance films and shoot correctly, get a nice object with good exposures etc.

"Think before you speak, act, and shoot." - Me.

Anyway, these are the complete squad of this thing:


I have two films. Below is the one that the past owner gave me:


Expired film!
Yeah, welcome to the world of weird colors. Don't know what I'll get =D
The other one was a new film I bought recently due to some accident and youtube advices.. Good thing is that the advice was true and do-able, otherwise my S$5.50 would have been gone useless. I wanted to buy the provia film instead but the seller didn't have it.

Next target? SLR camera. I hope the ones at my home in Indo still work =) And maybe some darkroom skills, at least to see if the synthetic lab training (and soon-to-be-teaching) has any use for this.

Anyway, once I found out that the old supersampler could work and after reported it to the past owner, I called my dad, who is into photography as well (is interest inherited by genetics?). I told him that his little girl had just gotten herself a 35mm film camera.

His initial response? "HUH?" in a surprised, worried-about-the-cost way.

Doing an art thing, engineering style.

Sweets with toothpaste taste

My friend gave it to me. This is the package.


There are two openings, one is for sharing and the other one is not for sharing.

So, when I opened the one for sharing, a small opening was revealed:


And when I opened the one not for sharing (aka for myself)...


I don't really know what's the logic behind this arrangement, whether it is a wrong placement of label, or it is meant to avoid contamination of the content from a lot of hands by placing the large opening for share, or it is just being stingy. But yeah, pretty tricky isn't it?

iluma stall is surprisingly not crowded today. due to high temperature outside?

eat, koi, #sgelections study.
yeah.

A friend brought me the koi. Of course it's not free, but it was a very nice of him to offer me nice drinks when outside temperature is 36 degrees Celcius and inside temperature is more than 100 degrees (oh, I'm quite stable, aren't I? I haven't decomposed yet. LOL). Thank you, brother!


Anyway,
Have been playing with the program used when in a hurry or in a deep midst of laziness to give more effort in photoshop Photoscape lately *exams!*. The more I see the 'film effect' filter, the more I miss the time of film/analog photography. Yes, the current digital era makes photography cheaper and more accessible to everyone (my friends know that this contains a bit of cynical criticism) but well, some era never dies. Especially with certain special films and cameras you can buy or modify yourselves..

Last convocation, my senior brought her (or her dad's?) SLR (don't confuse this with DSLR). I was like all "...." and thankfully I was allowed to use it when she asked me to help taking photos of her and her friends. Creepily happy! Especially because the last time I took photos with film camera was around 10 years ago. Not a long time ago I met a senior who was also bringing his film camera to school and said that he needed to finish his film soon. Nice!! Request sent to dad =p

Quoting this lady:

About once a year, I acquire a new camera. I’ve missed shooting with film. Although I do shoot film with my lomo cameras, it’s different. So, this is the solution I found, especially after marveling over the photos my friend took with her FM2. This new camera will be joining in the ranks of my G11, Panasonic LX3, Diana F+, Polaroid, and Holga. I may have a problem.

Just a thought. If you want to have a decent program for photo-editing, Photoscape is a freeware. It is quite handy, a lot of things can still be done (well, I haven't found the brush tools and all stuffs, but for enhancing photos this is nice-and-easy, you can still modify a lot and you can still use the curves..) and it'll give you nice results afterwards. If you consider yourself a pro so you "die-die" want to use Adobe Photoshop instead, just buy the original one, don't use the piracy version. I know it's expensive if you can't access the student version, but it's a good investment if you're really into it. Intellectual properties need appreciation, too ;) Just saying.

A slight sign of OCD?

In class. This module has no posted notes, so the students need to copy whatever written in class.

Coursemate: He talks very fast! Does he expect us to write and listen to what he's explaining at the same time?
Me: He expects us to be able to multitask and his accent is not good at all. I don't understand what he has been teaching this far.
Coursemate: Yes. He changes his paper very fast! What is he thinking...
Me: Agreed. And I don't like it when my notes are not neatly written.
Coursemate: Neither do I.

Then what am I doing now? Rewriting notes that were not neatly written.

A (late) commemoration of the end of teaching lab session in my undergrad life

A compiled lab manual, washed-with-soap googles, perfectly ironed lab coat,

and polished nails. Good bye DCM for a while!

And hello exams!

an old video.

NTU-ISCF camp is not complete without mass-singing and guitar in the bus. Well, a quite effective way to build and strengthen your fellowship. During our journey to the campsite, I decided to record them singing one song.. Here it is, who knows years later these people are famous with their own bands. Enjoy =)

Dinner today

taken by Panasonic Lumix DMC LX-5 at Botejyu, FEAST, Jurong Point.


My batch's excos were having dinner together today. Thanks all for coming, gathering and catch-upping in the midst of exam preparation and tiredness of internships =) And thanks for the treat, girl! Happy birthday~

Another thing to ponder

from @ijennaush on twitter

"There are a lot of things God has granted us in every moment of our lives. Do you want to realize them? If you have realized, then, do you want to share them?" - ci Mel (paraphrased)

Mosaic Music Festival '11

I went to this year's Mosaic specifically to see this guy performing. My friend is a huge fan of him and I kinda like his and his collaborators' music, plus this performance is FREE =D

And haibara wasn't herself if she does not bring her camera along, so, actually this post is meant to showcase my (always in mediocre level) photos. LOL. As usual, the complete set of the chosen photos are submitted to my tumblr log..










All photos were taken using haibara's Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

MARTABAK!!~

So, we had dinner at a food stall selling street foods from Jakarta before going to Mosaic. The owners are an Indonesian couple and the reviews in the internet have been good this far. IMO, this is the best Indo food stall in Singapore so far, from price, foods offered and taste. PLUS, this is definitely a good alternative to all ayam penyets that are really popular in Singapore, which IMHO, don't taste like in Indo at all. They are more Malay-like.. or.. (OK, the NTU students from Jakarta may hit me now, cos my friends from that specific town love eating there!) well, simply they don't satisfy a Chinese-Javanese-stayed-in-South-Jakarta like me (and how many people with that combination are there here in NTU??). So if you want to know how Indonesian foods taste like, the best way is to go directly to Indo and eat there. =)

The good thing is this stall sells MARTABAK. Oh God. Love it. They also put pangsit, both fried and soup-made, in their menu but I had never encountered this type of pangsit filling before until I ate there.. I don't know, it was just different. Anyway if you're not familiar with these foods, I can't give the English names, sorry, so you have to try them yourselves. The closest names in Singapore would be Indian murtabak pancake and dumpling but the Indonesian's are different and unique that I completely refuse to call them Indonesian murtabak and Indonesian dumpling.

I don't have the picture of the pangsit (we ordered the soup one and the contrast was not good because they were all white, including the bowl, so I discarded the photo right away..) but these are what we call martabak. The first image is buttery-sugar martabak and the second one is martabak filled with the combination of rice chocolate, cheese and peanut.





They also sell siomay. This is inherently one kind of dumpling too.. Siomay is fish-cakes (I hope this definition is correct) topped with peanut sauce (you can add lime water on it if you like) and usually served with cabbages, boiled eggs, beancurd cakes and this bittery veggie called "pare". Anyway, the peanut sauce and the fishcakes are the most important part of siomay; if one of them don't taste nice then the dish is a fail. Back to basics, people. LOL. So I tasted the peanut sauce, it tasted nice. I didn't taste the fishcakes since my friend said that the portion was quite small so I didn't have the heart to take some =D But my friend said that this tasted nice =)



Anyway this is not the correct way to eat martabak, actually =D But there were only 3 forks for 4 of us so the one who didn't get the fork used this Chinese way for eating instead. Haha.



Anywaaaay *promo* just in case you want to give it a try, I'll give you the details =P

Jtown Cafe
220 Orchard Road
#B1-04/05 Midpoint Orchard S238852 (nearest MRT station would be Somerset MRT cos Midpoint is just across 313 Somerset)

Facebook page
Review 1 | Review 2 | Review 3


All photos were taken using haibara's Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

A walk from Somerset to Esplanade

16 March 2011, ~6pm
By Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5














Make me melt, Haägen Dazs. Give me a coupon for daily free ice-cream for one month =P (same thing goes to you, Starbucks! lol)



The rest are in my tumblr blog.. So go there if you'd like =)

What's for dinner?

So this was what I had for dinner today.


The white balance was quite a fail. Had been working on it in photoshop but this was the best I could do. Sorry ='(

IKEA's ocean salad + KOI's black tea macchiato. The salad was considerably healthy (REALLY? with the mayonaisse and stuff? OK, I am comparing to foods sold in NTU canteens where most "more affordable" foods are fried and even their veggies are cooked with LOTS of oils! DUH). The tea macchiato is KOI's new variant, so I decided to give it a try because the nearest stall to my place is not really crowded. It was quite nice =) But on the darker side, these were quite expensive. But it was the price to pay for better food and more importantly, better health *back to the 2nd sentence above*. I am looking for personal earnings so I can have what I want (nway, I am not a shopaholic nor a hedonist, so please don't have bad opinions on me, haha) without feeling guilty for my parents' money.
Until then...

It's the day again!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone~

...and thankies gals for the chocs!

Dear God,

Thank You Lord, for providing us with overflowing water, for creating the chilly weather, for helping me reducing the air-con expenses, and for giving me some time to shut my brain up and take some rest.. Surely, You will help me to remember all these amino acids completely and pass tomorrow's quiz successfully, won't You? ;) My hands, feet and brain are freezing and I barely can think of anything. And I am sleepy.


I'm stucked in my room, feeling cold.. and getting devastated.

night sky

This evening's sky was awesome!

But, again, shame on my old compact digicam, the picture was not so good (noises, blurry image, etc etc). One of its weakness is on night shooting.

If the result were good I might had used this for my paper cover's suggestion. Too bad this just made me crave more for a semi-pro =( It is quite worthy though, my dad's super powerful compact is almost as expensive as that brand's semi-pro.. So why don't invest a biiiiiit more to get a much better one? *asking my dad*

I can hear my dad's reply --> "If I bought semi-pro then you would take it no matter what".

And uploading photos to blogger took forever.

Aniwai, enjoy the night! =D

Hazy, dreamy days.

During the past week, the sky has looked gloomy all day. No clouds are clearly seen, neither is sun ray. I have prepared to the cold weather and the induced sleepy ambience... But then, no downpours, even though the weather forecast has said so!

Well, there are, but they are not as significant as I think they will be.

And it is hot. As. Ever.
I need air-con. But the fee is rather expensive, and I still can withstand the temperature, so I still use my fan. It is still a little sweaty and I just need to wash my hair more often. Cheaper way, I guess.
Poorly, as soon as I switch off the air-con (no 24h air-con or I'll be flat broke), my room become hot again. Usually my room will be a bit cold for a while (I never open the window afterwards) but now... NO. It's just like the hottest season in Singapore that should happen between January-May, and it is just (or already) October!!
So maybe it's not hot. It's damp.

And one day we heard about the haze problem. That there were fire in Sumatra (Indonesia) land. That the fire came from farms. And the smoke escaped to the neighboring countries: Singapore, Malaysia...
And that was where the gloomy sky came from.

HAZE, again and again.

It is terrible. It prevents sunlight passing through, and the dust and smoke it bring are just bad for health.

According to the news, in the past 2-3 years there had been no haze around. Means that there were lesser number of farm burning at the neighbouring land.
Can you just stop those actions?? Yes maybe it's a super effective way to clean your (or anybody's) land from everything.. But can you please be considerate? The smoke can just escape everywhere and does not stay in your land forever. It will not affect you, maybe, but it does affect people around!

If you think you're happy because you've successfully sent it to Malaysia, which you think are annoying and terrible enough... Oh. You're much more annoying and terrible. Even much much more annoying than me Rachel Berry. You're not being considerate to the Indonesian students studying in Singapore or Malaysia, or think about those Indonesian maid or sailors working there. They are experiencing the problem as bad as the locals there and it is because of the same haze, same smoke, same dust, so don't be happy about it.

Please, no nationalism-issue or whatever here... It's just.... environmentally unfriendly. Period.




see the skies!

However...
2 days back, when I went out of my room, I saw rays of sunlight along the hallway.



It may sound exaggerating as Rachel Berry as I often be but yes, I'm happy! Means that the haze has not covered up the upper atmosphere as much as it had before!

And what ends this even happier, it is raining now! Hopefully it will help to clear up the haze.
During the past 45 minutes a few fierce thunders roared. Maybe the sky is angry because of haze, too! Well, I guess everyone, and even everything is unhappy about the haze. Who's happy, then, if your health is on risk and your life is miserable?

Aniwaaaaiiii, this is from one of my favorite local team, mr brown show =)

A morning dose of photographs (part 2)

Object: Chinese Heritage Centre (http://www.chineseheritagecentre.org/)
taken from: School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University
16 June 2010, ~10 am.
*sadly* *still* by phone camera.



*a closer look*

A morning dose of photographs (part 1)

Object: School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
16 June 2010, ~10 am
*sadly* by phone camera

A new, American-styled building. Nice object =)


Lobby


Garden


Looks like an American school backyard? This is how HSS' backyard looks like =) Pretty similar.


School building


HSS Library (which is located far, far away from the school).
Looks nice, isn't it? More like shopping mall/shops rather than library from outside. Taken on another day, at night.

Marina Bay Sands

Finally I've been there!

Thanks to my cousin who brought me there together with her bf, his brother and his friend!~

disclaimer: don't enlarge the pic, just see it as it is in the blog.. I used my phone's camera, best shown at small sizes.

From level 7




Toilet!




Around one of the elevator






A chop of level 7's carpet


Going out of the hotel, we found this direction ...


... and this wallpaper


Found it!!




A sneak from the casino ~^o^~


Yeah, yeah, I'm still young, have not passed the age limit
But I never say that I'm not mature enough ^^"


Outside view


This is the Helix! DNA-structure-modelled bridge!
My biochem is not good, so don't ask me to elaborate about the structure ^^"


A view of Fullerton from the Helix
makes me crave more and more to prosumer cam (cheaper and lighter than DSLR =P)


Enjoying the night =) (most of them are foreign tourists I think)

Anyway, I'm glad that this post is recovered! My computer was shut down twice (I think something was wrong with the electricity) and I thought I had not saved it.. But then it's here! Thanks God, inserting those pics were tedious =P