Monday, August 10, 2009

The Good Widow i fall in love with.....

Many of my friends know of my 'tree-hugger' status...but if you ask me whether i'm a beach person or a jungle person...i would certainly answer the second despite my new found hobby of scuba diving...

I would reserve beaches and the sea as holiday destinations and rather have the morning mist, chirpings of birds and crickets welcoming me every start of the day....

And when the picture of the multi-award winning Enderong house in an architectures book not too long ago caught my eye, i immediately decided to have Janda Baik or more specifically TanaRimba Janda Baik my dream home location..... well, a guy is allowed to dream at least rite??.....:)

While 'busy' preparing for my psychiatry end of 2-weeks intro MCQ exam, i suddenly remembered that not too long dream...and decided to surf the internet for it...i found the site of TanaRimba and many lots are yet to be sold...my guess is...millions of ringgits...there is also this rule that stated that once a piece of land is bought, a house must be built in three years time and that the land size of the house must not exceed one fifth of the land bought...to me that is just perfect...a way for the developer to maintain the jungle look...

Once i was done with my exam, my mom came to Kuantan to pick me and the teak furnitures i bought for the house... Told my mom of the place and persuaded her to go and explore it together...we reached TanaRimba quite late and the office had just closed but the guards seeing my enthusiatic face let us through and what i saw made me love the place even more...the fresh air..untouched nature...the lanscape...just sirene... there are many houses still in the process of construction..i might pay this place a visit again once i'm done with MBBS to keep the fire burning...

They also have this amazing 'logs-inspired' community hall next to a lake that i simply and instantly picture my wedding taking place... haha... again.. one can dream rite.... and when we left the place..it took us 20 minutes to reach KL!!! How awesome is that....Below are some of the pictures captured (taken with my iphone and its nearly 7 pm so the pics not that nice...sorry)....


the main road in TanaRimba...see that house among the trees...i want!!

Another house i envy

and another...this one has a wonderful garden that is not in the picture...i did take a pic but i don't think it did justice so i'm not posting it up

love the achitecture!

My ultimate...this resort concept...where rooms given individual blocks with open pathways connecting the spaces of the house is my type of house

My mom loves this one...not my cup of tea...the house next to this one looks exotic with most of its wooden wall filled with traditional carvings(pic not available as its hard to take the photo...harder to explain why its hard)
wedding reception area?? haha

My mom surveying my future wedding place...hehe

website: www.tanarimba.com.my

Monday, August 3, 2009

The Reading Culture

a scene in a malaysian komuter.....

Now compare with the one below taken during my visit to Perth, Australia a year ago.....
A scene you rarely see here in Malaysia....rarely is still in my opinion an overstatement

So, tell me...why then is malaysia still considered a third world country...we have basically the same infrastructure, the same tall buildings, in fact we have two of the world famous megastructures, the smart tunnel and the Petronas twin tower....its us peeps..its us...there are many that our community lacks but let me point out one of the many that will be mentioned later...we dont read enough!
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The truth is i was not much of a reader until form 3..yes, believe it or not... My dad is not much of a reader himself but he knows of its importance and have been spending thousands in encouraging us to do so by 'forcing' us into reading programmes and at home reading modules (Hook on Phonic and Learn to Read..just to name a few) but to no avail...sometimes he comes home screaming for we will never do it willingly...we were kids with mind full of the present and never of the future...
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i never really cared about my English, i was among the worst in my primary and was an average in my lower secondary thanks to my tuitions with Puan Christine...i know this post is not about english...just follow me... well, i think its during form 2 that Harry Potter's first movie came out... the book i heard was a hit but well...not being a reader i have no interest in picking up one..not until i watched the movie with my dad and sis and later stumbled upon discounted HP books at MPH... my dad bought all the 4 books(there were only 4 at that time) and i was so engrossed with the book that i finished all 4 in 2 weeks (to me that was an accomplishment)...
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Soon after that Lord of the Rings first movie came out and as always, a person who always fantasies of another magical world was charmed and i bought the complete set of the books plus The Hobbit...its a much harder read but enjoyable all the same... and something unexpected happened...

It was during a meeting with our English teacher on our PMR trial english paper...he opened the meeting with
'i was extremely shocked by the exam result, only one, unexpected student manage to reach 80'

Then he continued reading each essay's author and their marks with no specific order...

'Hielmi Syaiful-Nizam bin Shamsuddin...81!'

I was speechless...well...everyone was...i am the person who was in grade B english class from form 1 till 2 and was promoted to grade A in form 3 after my mom came to school demanding for it because i managed to get an A eventhough its a borderline during my form 2 final exam... to even get pass 70 is a dream for me for an english essay especially marked by En Zahir....

'so Hielmi, where was this writing skills all this while? what's changed? what did you do? ' after passing out all the other papers...

suddenly some of my classmates said together...

'Its the Lord of the Rings...' and one continued 'He's been reading it since it came out'

and En Zahir replied with a big grin... 'Then i guess you all should get one or borrow from him' and left the room...

It might just be a trial exam but that was when i begin to understand the reason for my dad's actions and why 'Iqra!' was chosen to be the first.....