sorry for the late notice but i just knew about it a few hours ago.

there will be a new year mass cum memorial mass for the tsunami disaster victims tonight at 10.00pm, organised by POHD. following are the details:

date: 31 dec. 2004 (friday)
time: 10.00pm
place: pusat keuskupan katolik (catholic diocesan centre)
290 macalister road, penang

the pusat is just a few blocks before island hospital and opposite YMCA (not directly though).

come, let’s all gather together in loving memory of those unfortunate victims who had perished, and also pray for those living victims who had their houses destroyed.

thanks to YW loke of beritamalaysia, who alerted me with the subject “wahhhhhh! famous lor!”, i found out that i was mentioned in the straits times interactive.

extract:
malaysian bloggers like lucia lai chronicled the penangites’ efforts to help
victims pick up the shattered pieces of their lives (jogalong.blogspot.com)

the full article can be found here, but you need to register to read (it’s free anyway). however, if you don’t feel like registering, you can always go to my mentaljog extrato read.

i am indeed very very surprised to find out that i was mentioned, even shocked. if jeff ooi was mentioned, i wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but me? unbelievable.

the peninsular catholic bishops’ conference had issued a directive that all churches in the country is to start collecting donations during mass (2nd collection) on 31 dec. friday, 1 jan. saturday and 2 jan. sunday.

so people (catholics), get ready your money when you go to church this weekend, ya?

when i go blog hopping, i notice some blogs with pretty good updates and links on tsunami, so will just give you some links here as i’m too lazy to blog on the tsunami now.

kstang’s blog ‘a pathetic attempt at blogging’ has several good pictures and links:
kstang

bobjot too has good done well with his blogs on the tsunami:
bobjot

and the two best ones got to be:
screenshots
brand new malaysian

a good link for videos:
cheese and crackers

and for pictures:
allen lim
forest ang
ipenang

i met E at the church at macalister road, then together we went to tejani clinic at tanjung bungah to meet the others. we found out that the house we were going to start doing our cleaning up was behind the lane somewhere near tejani clinic.

when we reached the first house (on the beach front) which we were going to help clean up, there were already about 10 people there, all from our catholic church.

i’m proud to say that there were 5 of us SSVP members helping, of which 3 were from my own conference. if notice have been given earlier, more SSVP members would have come.

regarding my post below, sorry there was a wrong information.

we were not there to help the families affected to evacuate but we were there to help them clear debris and clean up their houses. today i (with others) was there at 8.30am from 5.00pm (and only return home at 6.00pm) and helped out 3 houses. i will do a write up of my experiences with pictures later in the night. now am going to load and edit the pictures first.

do come back ok?

the penang office of human development (POHD), a church-based NGO is looking for volunteers to help evacute villages at tanjung tokong. this is because of the fear of a second wave hitting the shore.

the place to meet is at KLINIK TEJANI at tanjung tokong, which is next to the bank of commerce.
the time to meet is at 8.00am.

since it so happens i’m on leave tomorrow, i’ll be able to go and help out. all of you who are free, please do volunteer to help as we need many helpers. thanks.

according to jeff’s latest blog, a donation drive had started on account of the earthquake/tsunamis tragedy. the donations will be channeled to the red cross.

for our country, blogger mack, of brand new malaysian had initiated the donation drive. read relief fund for malaysian for further details. part 2 is here. good to note that mack had started the ball rolling by donating RM5000.00. good for you, mack! indeed, a penangtite standing up for penangtites.

btw, the donations will be channel to the red crescent society. give whatever is beyond your means, or just a little as a token will also do. it’s time to show our support!

the waves that swept into penang.
picture by paul harriman, taken from bbc news.

other pictures and many interesting articles can be found there too.

one interesting article found there (BBC) i would like to point out is a Q&A on tsuanami. when this tragedy occured, i had been asking myself how did the tsunami happened? why did a tsunami occurred after an earthquake ? i’m usually a curious person and do like to get technical…. er… i mean read technical. well, i got my answers there. but i want to read further, therefore, i decided to google for tsunami and found two interesting sites here and here. and do you know that the word ‘tsunami’ comes from japan (easy guess i suppose) which means ‘tsu’ for ‘port’ and ‘nami’ for ‘wave’ (not easy guess if you don’t understand japanese).

i normally don’t wake up so early on a sunday morning but this moring i woke up early as wanted to go to the 10.00am mass at the cathedral. well, about 9.00am i was busy powdering my face after washing my face, when i suddenly felt like the sink and mirror moving, and sense like the whole floor shaking a bit. for a moment i thought could it be my dizziness spell? (once in a long while i will have this dizziness spell where i see everything spinning around me). then i thought nothing about it. but 2 mins later, my mum emerged from the toilet and asked us whether did we felt the building shook, and i then realised it was not me. my sister though said she did not felt anything. my mum being on the ‘throne’ at that time felt it the most. she said she was shocked to realised the ‘throne’ shaking and saw some of the barang-barang kept inside the tolet cum bathroom moving as if going to fall. well, we thought to ourselves, this means there must be an earthquake in our neighbouring countries like indonesia. anyway i felt the tremors for only a few seconds.
(btw, we are staying at the last floor of our 5 storey flat)