Mini Farewell.

Such a shame that we'll be going our separate ways. One off to Canada by end of this year, another would be at Johor for 3 months, and well, yours truly would be at Down Under for 2 years plus. Great mini farewell for ourselves. Thank you Erica & Su Zanne.

How 2012 was for me, so far.

I just realized, for the year 2012 I haven't been blogging a lot lately. Maybe its because I spent almost half the year studying, and half the year working my ass off for money. And the rest is for me to spend time sleeping and outings with friends and families.

For the year 2012, I spent half the year facing the computer/Mac in an office, having Illustrator and Photoshop opened, and Gmail/Hotmail signed in to check my emails. I also spent so much on lunch time alone just to make sure I have a full stomach to go through the remaining hours, heck even until after midnight to finish work.

For the year 2012, I've traveled so much that I'm surprised my odometer for my car clocked almost 60,000 kilometers compared to 39,000 for the year 2011.

For the year 2012, I've smoked and drank so much, more than 2010 and 2011 combined. It totally changed my lifestyle and health wise, I'm really thankful to still have healthy lungs after the many Marlboros and shisha and beer session with friends.

For the year 2012, I didn't really talked about why, how and when did the whole breakup happened because its just between me and her, and I don't need to write a sorry ass statement to get anyone's sympathy. I much more rather to keep it to myself and not let everyone I know on Facebook to know what the fuck was going on, or maybe tell to someone that I really trust about it. Like someone that's in the same situation. Its just me.

I'll post more about 2012, friends to families to the special occasions that happened. It was a great year to go through.

Dreamz Bakery and Thirst 2012

 I know its been a long time since I last blogged. And one of the highlights for December was my first EDM event, Thirst 2012 by Heineken. 

Before heading to Sepang for the event, Siang Er told me about this bakery located right at Kota Damansara, around the Sunway Giza area called Dreamz Bakery. Read the tips left at FourSquare, and thought it'll be worth the try.

 I expected the interior of the bakery to look like a typical Fullhouse-like design, you know the bright pastel colored walls, with some drawings and stuff like that.

 Most of the tips recommended the cakes a must try, especially the lemon slice cake and the chocolate cake.

 The drinks was alright. Had this chocolate blended drink.

 I wouldn't recommend the main course food over at Dreamz Bakery, and there's limited choices to choose from, like 4 dishes only and the rest are just desserts and cakes.

Overall it was just alright. Best to use Waze on your smartphone and just search for Dreamz Bakery via FourSquare search option. Its hidden among the shop lots at Kota Damansara's Sunway Giza area.

 Anyway the event of the day was Thirst 2012. My first EDM event. Was really excited to see Above & Beyond and Avicii to be playing on stage. Missed out on Goldfish and Blink.

 I really don't know how to blog about an event like this. I mean, just expect lots of people to dance like they are in some sort of trance, secretly snorting a line and drinking at the same time. I was a lil bit shocked that its actually easy to sneak in with drugs to get high during the event. Oh, and I met this African who happened to know how to sing in Bahasa and also liked my shirt, and he wanted a picture with me.

 He seemed friendly though. LOL.

 It didn't take a long time until Avicii came right after Above & Beyond. Compared to other concerts of different genres when you have to wait for a long time for the performers to get on stage and perform, it took like 10 minutes for the next act to come on the DJ set, I think that's pretty fast for Malaysian standard. If you're in some other countries the performers would probably be booed for being late.

And Avicii was the shit, I found myself singing along to Silhouettes as loud as possible.

Thirst 2012 was just good, wasn't the best. Was worth the money though. Now to look forward to the next one, Swedish House Mafia :D 

Not All Smokes.

I be honest with you all, not all designers in Malaysia smokes. Not all. Here's my personal testimony as a graphic designer.

Before stepping into this field, I did my research before signing up for this. The long hours, the sleepless nights, your computer/Mac being your companion for most of the time. Low pay, working like a slave, kissing client's asses and being under-appreciated.

I know being a designer won't land me a fucking 5 figure salary even in 10 years time, and driving a fucking sport car but still working your ass off to pay off them bills, or even staying in a big ass house to return to after work.

Even my dad wanted me to be an accountant, he knows being a designer in Malaysia isn't gonna be as great as what countries can do. I actually didn't care, if you have passion for something, everything else that is against it is pretty much irrelevant.

2 years and still going, I've been through long nights, some till not sleeping for 2 days straight. Rage on why my computer takes too fucking long to render out visuals, or how confusing a client's brief is. Creative block is the worse, when you just felt like giving up.

I've read an article a few years ago, designers tend to face as much stress as doctors, pilots, soldiers and so on. But in a typical Malaysian mindset, designers are most likely to smoke for the rest of their lives after landing a job.

Caffeine addicted, desk all messed up with paperwork and sketches, ashtray full of cigarette butts, that's your typical workstation for an average designer, or that's what you think of la.

But the worst statement to generalize the designers community is to say

ALL ART AND DESIGN PEOPLE SMOKE.

I mean, who the fuck comes up with that sort of statement, I call it bullshit. Just utter bullshit. Saying 6 out of 10 friends you know of in the designing field that smokes doesn't mean 10 out of 10 smokes. I know designers who don't smoke, and refuses to smoke. And I salute the for their choices and their stand to living a healthier lifestyle than the smokers do. 

I am not ashamed to say that I do smoke, going into the final semester of my course I look to smoking as one of the few ways to release my kind of stress. I used to think that was an excuse when in secondary school, only until I've gone through and I realized, there is nothing wrong to release stress by smoking. That is if you had tried other ways, smoking would be your last resort. Right now, I don't heavily rely on them. Just a social smoker.

I've been on sleeping pills, pills from doctors for me to relax and even whenever I'm having a nervous breakdown. My personal opinion, its better to smoke than to depend on these drugs forever. You can control your daily intake of tobacco, that is if you really want to and have the strong determination to make a change for yourself.

Its 2012 already, generalizing by jobs and careers is just fucking pathetic. Not all policemen is corrupted, not all politicians is just talk cock, not all teachers are lazy, not all doctors are grumpy looking buggers. Same goes for designers, not all of us smoke.

Fuck whoever that made that statement.