news writing training & personal stuff

read about the news writing training i attended last weekend in KL at my CJ.MY blog.

i went to KL by aeroline bus again and again stay at tune hotel. the aeroline bus from penang to KL has increased and is now RM60 but strange from KL to penang, it is still RM55. both buses i took did not have the personal entertainment! argh! why ah.

strange that the PG-KL bus which leaves at 8.30am gave us rice (nasi lemak or chicken rice), while the KL-PG bus which leaves at 10.30am gave us subway sandwhich. i would have thought it should be the other way round. 10.30am since it is later – we should be given rice as our brunch while 8.30am since early, we should be given sandwhich as breakfast.

i reached KL on friday, 13 aug. wah! this time i was smart. i managed to take the LRT/monorail to tune hotel instead of taking the cab. ahhh… but i realised the walking distance was quite far – tiring especially when in my luggage i have my laptop with me.

this is my third time staying in tune hotel. it’s a no frills hotel so cheap. the location is convenient too so i kind of like it.  there are people who had been talking that since tune hotel was build formerly where a hospital stands, the hotel is eerie and haunted. (patients staying and patients dying, see).  well i had slept there so many times and no ghost pay me company. what the heck! why afraid of ghost if you ain’t do anything bad or evil to anyone.

well i reached the hotel at 2.00pm and met sharon at 3.00pm and we went to mid valley for shopping. bought a sunglasses and a t-shirt. you can see the picture of the sunglasses here. salsa brand which was at RM98.90 but with 20% discount. sharon persuaded me to buy a brown coloured one instead of black.  later on i realised the sunglasses is a ‘polarised filter’ one (see picture here) . i wonder what that means so go googling and found that it means something like it can reflect the ray off some surface, say water, so it is good esp. for fisherman and drivers. but then i also suddenly read it says it is not recommended for bike drivers. huh? strange. car drivers ok but not bike drivers? and i only use the bike not the car! oh gee, does this means it is advisable for me not to use it while riding the bike?

actually i had intended to buy the sunglasses as i had lost my sunglasses. at first thought of buying a cheap one but some people advised me to go for the better ones as cheap ones might not be effective against shielding harmful UV lights. so i settled for this in between. surely i can’t possibly afford the branded ones like gucci, dior that costs about RM500!!

i bought the t-shirt is because as we chinese put it (translated literally) – ‘bad eye’.  i don’t intend to buy but what i see, i like, i buy! it was the ‘diesel’ brand and i think about RM50 after 20% discount. oh you can see picture of the t-shirt at my facebook album (scroll down).

we met up with another 2 friends, then later another friend joined us – and all 5 of us had dinner at spaghetti grill restaurant. food not very nice.  the next morning, again i try my hands on taking the LRT to malaysiakini office (instead of cab) and managed to get there safe and sound (unlike first time i try LRT by myself, instead of heading to PJ, i head to seremban! lol).

i had to attend mass on saturday evening and this time, because of lack of time, and not knowing exactly how to get there, i went to the st john’s cathedral by cab. hmm… the st john’s cathedral doesn’t look impressive to me anymore… and the mass service was not that good. i thought i heard so much praised of st john’s cathedral but i find it just like that.  again going back to the hotel, i call for a cab. both journey, fare was less than RM10.00.

sunday morning to go back to class, since i have to bring along my luggage, i went by cab. after class met sharon again and together with daevid and jenny we went to see the movie ‘salt’ starring angelina jolie. wow! interesting non stop action movie. angelina jolie was so cool. in the beginning she was seen with blond hair and she look awful. later on, she dyed her hair black and ahh… that’s more like the real angelina jolie.  i like angelina jolie as she is so beautiful (shapely too) and she fight so well and cool! (think lara croft).

3rd night (sunday)  i stayed at sharon’s house and left KL on monday morning.

the news training class was good and i enjoyed it, especially being among familiar faces, my own fellow citizen journalists from different states. if you read about it in my CJ.MY blog, you’ll notice, i had attended a more or less similiar one before. .. but no matter, still there were plenty of new things i learned (earlier was one day class, this was 2 days class).