The Heart of Borneo Project

© WWF-Canon / Martin HARVEY, © WWF / Sylvia Jane YORATH, © WWF-Canon / Alain COMPOST, © WWF-Canon / Gerald S. CUBITT, © WWF-Canon / Michel TERRETTAZ, © Menno Schilthuizen

To quote from WWF:

"There is only one place remaining in Southeast Asia where tropical rainforests can still be conserved on a very large scale – a place where endangered species such as orangutans, elephants and rhinos, and countless other undiscovered species continue to thrive.

WWF aims to assist Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia to conserve the Heart of Borneo – a total of 240,000 sq km (that’s 2 million hectares!) of equatorial rainforests – through a network of protected areas and sustainably-managed forest, and through international co-operation led by the Bornean governments and supported by a global effort."

Oh yea. Another awesome project.

And here's a tribute entry by Dr Bala from Planet of the Monyets to WWF Malaysia: Earth Hour - The Panda Rules

p/s: Irrelevant to the subject, I would like to express my gratitude to the World Federation of Scientists (WFS) and Dr Bala :)

Post-It Partay

Happy (belated) Birthday Chloeee!!!

~ check out her sash ~ and earrings ^_^

So this time we were back at The Loft (again) and instead of monkeys, we had Post-Its! Talk about being so non-typical :) Basically we wrote a bunch of 'love notes' for Chloe before she arrived, and yea, somewhere in the fray there were twenty one rules for her to find and (supposedly) follow.

what a creative bunch ;P

Since I truly believe my writing skills are deteriorating, I shall let the photos tell the story.

- it's been awhile -

Sidestepping a little, Rachel was ecstatic with her new U2 cd all the way from the UK.

I'll be heading out to the river some time next month for a whole week to do profiling. If things go my way, perhaps I might drop by in Danau Girang to pay these peeps a visit. Or at most, call them from the river and get them to wave at me from the pier :) well, hey, DiGi works in Kinabatangan.

A note from yours truly haha
And this was my souvenir from the party :)

xoxo

Earth Hour 2009

To start off, I don't really know how I truly feel about this event this year. In 2008, I was all for it and did try to organise an event in campus (which didn't work out 'cos some people just didn't understand). But this year, with it being such a hype, I kinda lost all the enthusiasm for it and even wondered whether it was such an effective thing after all. Or just another wave for the media to ride on.

Doubts aside, seeing as it was a Saturday night anyway, we headed to The Loft, which was the only place we knew that had an event. Turned out, almost the whole of Waterfront, KK (and several other places too) was participating. Basically we had dinner and drinks in the dark for an hour (well, with candlelight); free flow of Screwdriver oh yea.

It was quite warm though, as they switched off the aircon too but they gave out fans..and people were performing live, acoustic music.

KK skyline during the one Hour -- I was quite impressed.

The wonders of Night Mode capture:

lol didn't realise you guys were there too :)
And of course, we ran into some really gorgeous people nearby after the Hour was up :)cheers y'all! xoxo

Gaga Sharapova's Night

I know I'm a week late on this but (excuse coming up) I have been pretty harangued by goodness-knows-what datelines and stuff. In truth, I have no solid memory of what happens every week...basically I remember blurs.

Anyway, back to last Saturday when we celebrated the best-all-rounder-buddy's big day :)

Happy (belated) Birthday, Yu Li!!!

from all of us, including yours truly who took this pic :)

Sometimes I'm a bit put-off that there's no T.G.I.Friday's here in KK as I reckon it's a good place to celebrate (not my) birthdays. I remember vaguely that they'll make the birthday person stand on the table or something ;) And Yu Li's like the perfect candidate. However we headed over to Bed (which was rather a disappointment for me, I mean, come on, who plays 'jiwang' songs in a club on a Saturday night???) and they asked Yu Li to go up on stage (which she did) and downed a mug of beer (which she also did). AMAZING.

* * *

Technically I'm in my third month of research and am still stocking up on knowledge. It's definitely a challenge to take up delving into a new field which previously I've only had one major-three-credit-hour class worth of 'basics'. Should I add, two years ago?

But anyway, I reckon I'll be heading into field soon, so I expect (and hope) I'll be churning out more interesting entries when I'm out there. It should be pretty interesting living out in the wilderness for awhile. The kind of crazy stuff one has to do before one gets too old. I think it's good to experience that 'close-to-nature-mozzies-driving-me-crazy' while the buzz is there. Like maybe several years down the road, one gets jaded (or more jaded) by the comforts of life then you'll just turn down once-in-a-lifetime experiences like this.

when-not-in-field-work is quite dull

Closer to home, the 'office' has been undergoing 'renovations'. What sucked was that they were supposed to fix the internet line for that room so they yanked out all the wires...but have yet to get to rewiring. Which means we're pretty much 'disconnected' in there and have to bum over at the other room for the Internet. Apart from that, what's good is that during rainy evenings when we get too restless, we have the whole room to be stoopid :)

One more week to Earth Hour. And I got my goody-package!!! Thanks Christopher! You rock :)

x's and o's

what do I look like?

It's quite amusing (and also a bit insulting) at times when people have doubts about my race.

I highly believe that I look Chinese. And many people agree to that.

But occasionally, there are some people who are oh-so-weird. Firstly, they found it stupendously unbelievable that I am Chinese. Prior to that, they were asking another friend of mine about me in mandarin, assuming that I am not a Chinese therefore I couldn't understand what they were saying. It's always interesting to just sit there pretending that I have no idea what's going on while listening to them discussing about me in mandarin/hokkien/cantonese/etc.

And then when it gets rather too much, I'll drop the bomb by speaking up in the language/dialect they are using and say "I am Chinese. And I'm not even from East Malaysia."

I get priceless faces.

But today I got a very surprising reply. "Oh, we've seen you around but we didn't speak to you because we thought you are not Chinese."

W.T.H. Racist juniors... And the nerve of them still exclaiming to each other like it's some breaking news that "she's actually Chinese".

Go die. And I still believe I look like a chinese regardless of my tan.

EnvSc Family Day (aka "of violent juniors")

I have to say it, "tsk...kids these days..."

"First" Family Day for EnvSc. The parentheses as it's been an extremely long time since someone last organised this event. It would have been wayyyy better if it had a turnout from all the lecturers and not only the Head of Program (who was waiting for his boat to come to go fishing) and the Dean of Faculty (whom came to officiate the event and then left). But of course, since us grad students were invited we just turned up for a while to show our support.


Sunday morning on the beach would have been awesome if I could just wear my shorts. However out of respect, I put on jeans. Denims on a sandy beach is hell. And it was unbearably hot.



They had a sand-castle building competition, and seeing how fun it seemed to be, we joined in. Just for fun. But nooo...they had this crazy notion to allow uncivilized attacks on the masterpieces prior to judging. And all of the bone-headed juniors took to attacking our creation. (Please explain this inane behaviour on the basis that any reports passing through our hands will be deducted 20% in the near future).



I would have had a good time if they hadn't thrown water and sand on me.


Seriously, I don't associate myself with juniors much as I believe that they will only bug the hell out of my life when they need something. I also do not believe in spoon-feeding them with notes and stuff. I mean, I survived my undergrad years without any of that, so I'm pretty sure they can do the same. Thing is, I wouldn't mind helping and advising when they ask, and if they were polite to us.

Washing away our half-grinded sediment samples was like over the top and signing a suicide note. I am not vengeful but I know others who are.

Them brats are soooo dead.

x's and o's

Italian Friday

Alex "The Pervert" Ruben's birthday and, digressing a little, did you know that it is extremely EXTREMELY mind-busting to plan a celebration? Especially of where to eat.

So anyway, we had a craving for Italiano and it's been a while since any of us has been (or has ever been) to Little Italy.

I'd say the food is totally absolutely awesome. And again, the whole restaurant sang!!!

Just in case reading icing-writing is not one of your skills, it says "Pervert gettin' old!" Yea. We're soooo nice.

This week has been havoc and this month is driving me to the brink of bankruptcy :)

x's and o's