how i spent the weekend
as i mentioned here that there were lots of events during the weekend and i was kind of torn on where to go. well, i went to all except one! the one i didn’t went to was the food and beverages exhibition.
ok 23 june, sat., yes i did went to the penang bloggers gathering but i left early since i had to attend the church’s seminar. anyway, i found out i did not know anyone there, except lilian of 5xmom, so no point hanging around. oh, there was kew there too, whom i had met before in the earlier bloggers gathering which i organised. there were about 100 people present (the ones who signed up, less might turned up), and all of them were youngsters – teenagers and in 20s, so i did kind of felt strange, so add to the no. 3 reason i left early.
oh yeah popular blogger kenny sia was there before i arrived, and he was friendly enough to wave to me when he saw me walking in (i had met him twice before). as it was reported in the star paper, all those youngsters seemed to flock around kenny to want to have a picture taken with him.
anyway if you want to read about the gathering, you can do so at cedric ang’s blog. cedric was one of the organiser. or you can read it from nuffnang’s boss, timothy tiah’s blog or criz lai, who was kind enough to drop in my blog yesterday. his blog post had interviews with kenny sia. blogwawasan had a list of those who turned up… well, a list of those who turned up and left their urls.
well i left the gathering at 2.30pm as i had to attend the church’s ‘parish human development committee’ er… we call it ‘formation’ but nobody except catholics (and not all catholics too!) will know what is a formation. basically in layman term we can refer to it as ‘seminar’ or ‘conference’ too.
it was held right in my office and there were only 12 of us present (suppose to be that way as it was for participants of 2 churches only). earlier part, we were introduced to the different ministries of ‘penang office for human development (POHD)’ and the latter part one of the POHD staff gave us some kind of pep talk. it was fun as the sessions was part activity based. one of the thing i distinctively remember the staff telling us was about committee members (and also friends) who are of different opinions. she stressed that we may all have different opinion on certain issues (or on someone) but we must respect each other.
this came in so timely because of something that just happened, thus i would like to stress again what she said something like "you may not like a particular person, while i may like that particular person, but that doesn’t mean you have to dislike me for liking that person!" or this is a good example… say i am very anti abortion. two weeks ago i get to know a new friend, and we had been buddy ever since. then suddenly yesterday i found out that she support abortion. i was shocked… but will i stop befriending her? just because she had a view contrary to me? of course not!
or another example… say you find a person to be nothing but a low-down rat, and yes i do find her/him to be a rat too but then i found there is something good in her/him, so i defended her/him just on that part, but you OTOH find nothing good in her/him at all… then voila! because of that you get angry at me, saying stuffs like why i defend her/him when she/he is a rat. getting angry is ok, i understand… but then getting angry AND suddenly breaking of our good relationship, that is surely over sensitive, over childish.
well, we were told NOT to let a difference of opinion to come between us members. others may have a totally different opinion from you, fine. allow her/him to speak up… don’t start a quarrel with her/him!
those were only part of the things i learned from the seminar. there were lots of useful tips to be shared but i won’t do that now as i need to go on to the next day event.
on 24 june, sun. – morning went to the ‘pesta rakyat merdeka‘ at dewan sri pinang. first thing was to drop in the POHD’s ‘migrant workers support centre‘ booth. here is a picture of their exhibit (the colourful one).
then i went in to listen to the forum. i missed the first speaker, dr cheah who spoke on early politics and local election. when i went in sdr ahmad chik was talking halfway about penang’s heritage. sdr abdul razak, from MTUC was an interesting and funny speaker.
after the forum, i walk round the exhibit stalls. 
then i stay on to watch an indonesian dance presented by the indonesians whom the migrants workers support centre are in touch with.
.
i had wanted to watch one of the movie but i linger outside, talking to some of the people at the stalls whom i know instead. then i listen to some of the NGO reps giving a short intro on their work and finally to some alternative songs sung by dr johan with guitar in hand, accompanied by a young man in trumpet. lovely music from the trumpet!
oh about the anti-isa signature campaign, with pictures of the banner – the banner was placed on the floor… the first part of course is showing the details, then followed (joined together) by a long, long, long roll – only parts were unroll for signature of course. as more signatures comes in, i guess the cloth banner will be unroll more. that time when i signed, there were not many signatures yet.
since my office has a VCD of some of the movies, i thought i don’t have to watch it there but can watch them in the comfort of my home, so i made my way home at about 3.00pm.
at home, at 7.30pm, was a belated ‘happy father’s celebration’ at the compound of our apartment, organised by our area’s (bayan baru) residential association. the event was graced by a few exco members like wong kam hong, MP for bayan baru, this one i forgot his name something mun hoe MP for pantai jerjak and 2 others, i forgot. there was a cooking demo, an aerobic dance and line dancing. we each got a coupon for 2 food – mee java and bihun goreng. nice food. there were 20 lucky draws but as expected, me no lucky one, i didn’t get any lucky draw prizes (neither did my mum and sis who were there with me).
oh i did took some photos but all of them turned out to be so blur! methink i shouldn’t have use the ‘night scene’ feature. the image turned out blur and some with streaks of lines. should have use the normal feature.
ok so that was my well-spent fullfilling weekend!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.