my projects

Nope, I’m not gonna write about projects at work, or the ones at uni for that matter. It’s a little bit different. Since I have some spare time and I’ve also bought stuff but haven’t used them yet or rarely used them, I decided that I’m going to commit to certain projects in my life.

nope, not this type of project

What is a project? From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a project is a specific plan or design, similar to a scheme. And what is a scheme? It’s a plan of program of action. Both of them have plan in them. So what is a plan? It’s just a method for achieving an end, or a detailed program. Okay, I think I should stop giving endless meanings of words now.

Basically, by having a project or a few projects, I’ll keep myself occupied and not get bored. So, if I suddenly don’t know what to do, I can just continue with one of my projects. You can also think of it as a to-do list, but that’s a bit boring isn’t it? I’ll have this and that to do, then after doing them, I’ll just tick some boxes indicating that they’re done. However, for a project, I’ll ideally put more effort into doing something, no matter what it is.

Okay, enough gibberish. So my first project will be… wait for it… wait for it… playing the Prince of Persia. You may disagree with me and laugh this project off, or belittle my enthusiasm for these projects of mine. If so…

Pedulik hapa aku.

prince of persia, with its wonderful water-colour-ish animation

Anyway, one of the reasons I thought about this project thing is that I’ve actually bought the game in November or December last year but had only started really playing it a couple of weeks ago. That’s a long time isn’t it. I guess I was preoccupied with other stuff.

Also, it’s something that I enjoy doing, so I think it’s rather a cool project to commit myself to. And I do a little bit of research as well on how to get certain achievements in the game so that I’ll certainly maximise the time spent on playing the game. If you’re thinking ‘Ak ela, semangat gila mamat nih,’ then please refer to the quotation above the Prince of Persia picture.

Another project that I’m currently doing is to sort out the photos from my Easter roadtrip. I went to Bath, Bristol, Tintagel Castle, Lands End, Eden Project and Stonehenge with some friends a month ago and I still haven’t sorted out all the photos from other people’s cameras. We went to a lot of places so you can imagine how many photos there are, hence many unnecessary photos will have to be deleted.

us at tintagel castle, cornwall

Other projects in the backlog, in no particular order, are as follows:

1. Read The Kite Runner (which I bought last summer)
2. Read The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad (which was also bought last summer)
3. Play Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (which was bought last year)
4. Play Kungfu Panda (hmm.. I seem to have bought a lot of stuff last year)
5. Study some engineering stuff related to work
6. Study history (interesting ones of course)
7. Read and understand the tafsir
8. Watch every f1 race this season if possible
   
9. Cook stuff from the recipe books that I also bought last year
10. Go back home for Raya!
11. Go travelling somewhere
12. Movie or series marathon?
    
13. More exercises and workout maybe?
14. Learn a new skill and/or polish up existing ones
15. Volunteering

See, it’s not just fun and games. You need to develop your skills not only at work but also for yourself, your life. I won’t need to draw up Gantt charts for my projects or do proper and detailed planning, but I’ll have things to do that I hopefully will enjoy. Oh there’s a Batman: Arkham Asylum game coming out and I am so gonna play it, so that should be on my project list I guess. If you’re thinking ‘Geek gila mamat nih,’ again, please refer to the quotation somewhere in the middle of this post..!

peak district

It seems that this blog of mine has sort of become a games review blog. What can I say, I've a lot of free time to play them. Well, when I first started this blog, there were many entries about food, so maybe you could say that I used to like eating but now I like playing games. Hehe. So now I'm not going to write about any video games but I will mention some food. I'm writing about something that I haven't done much this year: traveling.

I'm currently staying at Ammir's apartment in London (thanks Ammir!). Ammir's not here. He's already back in Malaysia after a month traveling around South Africa, Australia and New Zealand with Faizal. Sometimes Pear, Colin and Alvin will stay here as well.

Pear's currently in Leicester and since I haven't been there before, I decided to go there last week for the weekend (that's the weekend before last weekend). It's a small town and the guys there were asking me why I went since there was nothing much to see or do there. But I don't mind, plus I've made some new friends who are either medic students or recently graduated doctors. Boleh la mintak tolong (for free) kalau sakit nanti.

Last weekend, I went there again because I was joining their roadtrip to Peak District. I arrived on Saturday and how lucky I was that they were having a BBQ that night. Delicious. Okay, that's the end of the food part.

wow, i can('t) see klcc from here

Now the traveling part. The next day, Pear, Fidod, Fathi, Fifi, Nazimah, Farah, Sara, Fiza and I went to the Peak District National Park in two cars; one for the guys and the other for the girls. The weather was nice and sunny when we arrived. Everyone were wearing clothes suitable for hiking except for me and Pear. We were wearing baju nak pegi town, but the hike was still enjoyable. The area we were hiking to was Stanage Edge. It's a long line of cliffs made of gritstone.

Once we got to higher ground, the scenery was beautiful. And lots and lots of photos were taken of course. We noticed that in spots where it's nice to take photos (with beautiful scenery plus cool rocks/cliff), there were lots of tahi kambing. Maybe it's their toilet? It must be nice for the sheep, enjoying the view while doing their business. Very strategic locations. Heh.

9 of us hiking and posing all day

We even had a small barbeque up in the hills and played Uno as well. It became hotter during the afternoon and I was slightly sunburned. Padan muka, sapa suruh belagak xnak pakai sunblock. Anyway, we had a nice walk at the hills and cliffs. I didn't feel tired during the hike, but once we were back in our cars and were heading back to Leicester, all the tiredness suddenly came to me. I couldn't keep my eyes open and went straight back to sleep. Kesian gila Fathi because all us other guys were sleeping while he drove the car. Ehe.

Thanks for the trip guys. I had fun. So what's next, the 'Great Backpacking Trip' eh Nazimah and Fiza?

sightseeing with adik2

Three weeks ago, I presented my final year project which meant that I had completed my degree (yeay!). A few days later, my two sisters and one of my brother came to London. Liyana had just finished her degree at Essex while Musfirah and Faqihuddin were on holiday from their studies at UiTM.

anti-clockwise from top left: piccadilly circus, strawberry picking at esher, clacton, funfair at colchester, university of essex

So the next whole week was spent sightseeing with my adik2. And we even got a new adik called Hyree who claims he's 17 years old, which made him elligible to become my youngest adik to be in the UK at that time.

We only went sightseeing in the UK (London, Colchester and Manchester). Places that we visited in London were the usual: London Eye, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Greenwich, etc. Oh and of course, shopping at Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus. We went fruit (and vegetable) picking at Esher as well.

anti-clockwise from top left: london eye, champions league and EPL trophies, old trafford, royal greenwich observatory, imperial college

Liyana brought Musfirah and Faqihuddin around Colchester for a couple of days. The four of us then went to Manchester to see Old Trafford and we took pictures with the two trophies. Yeay, we've held the Champions League and English Premier League trophies! While we were in Manchester, we visited our old flat and primary school in Salford. We were there for 3-4 years when we were kids and it was good to know that the teachers there still remember us.

The jalan2 with adik2 was fun. Dah lama tu x dapat nak kacau diorang. Hehe. And the other way round too of course. We had a great time. Thanks to those that went along with us for taking the photos. Pandai pose jugak my sisters and brother ni. Just like their Abang Long(?).