an eventful day

personal talk here! nothing so-po about it! (so-po = socio political)

tomorrow i will be away for a ‘biblical retreat’ for 3 days… but not as a participant. as organiser. wah! so much work to do last few weeks organising the retreat. 72 participants signed up. i had to see to their registration, accomodation, food and so on. luckily for the first day (morning only) i got help from my colleague (but different section) for the registration. if not, i don’t know how to cope with so many coming in for the registration!

argh! no blogging for 3 days then. however since i’m addicted to the net i guess just before going to bed  i will surf the net on my PDA via my handphone as modem. i know it will cost me a bomb but what to do…. addicted already!

ok in this post of mine, i was talking about having an eventful day. now i’m going to relate about it… hopefully briefly.

on that day, 24 aug, susan loone came to pick me at 4.30pm. then we headed to the mafrel operation centre. hang around there for quite some time. managed to meet a journalist from the nut graph. then susan said he had got in touch with a japan broadcasting company, nippon hoso kyokai (NHK) who wanted to do a feature on bloggers who blogs about permatang pauh by-election. well susan got bk ong and 2 other mafrel members who are all bloggers. so the 5 of us sit in a circle and talked about blogging and permatang pauh… while the camera was shooting away! ayoh! felt so uncomfortable lah with the camera in our faces while we talked. anyway, susan with her journalistic skill, lead us, with questions and comments… to make us talk! 🙂 hmm… i wonder where/when or can i get to see the video shot.

at 9.00pm there was a training session for new MAFREL members. about 40 turned up. while i sat and listened even though i’m not new and already knew what was being said, susan was busy blogging! (lucky susan!). at about 9.30pm we had to leave as susan had an appointment with some friends to meet at one of anwar’s ceramah.

susan was not sure of the place and she drove round and round so many times, so many places, asking so many people. the whole place was like a ‘pesta’ with so many banners and people walking about. at one placed, we saw haris ibrahim, zorro and RPK. we finally found the ceramah we intend to go to after asking a chinese aunty the direction. this was the last ceramah of the day.

when we reach there, there were already thousands of people. susan said we had to try to squeeze to the front, to look for her friends. when we reached the front near the speakers’ shed and wanted to go right in front, a man stop us but when susan said "we are bloggers", surprisingly the man let us through and asked us to take the place where the media were!  wah! proud lah!

we sat on the field and got a very good view since we were right in front.  i saw haris ibrahim standing at one corner. then suddenly i realise the NHK japan crew were there too, right beside me! they were filming the ceramah.  as i try to take notes of the ceramah with my PDA (no more using notebook, see), the NHK chief noticed me with my PDA and asked one of his staff, a malaysian girl, to ask me what was i doing! so i just said i was taking notes to go back and blog… then he instruct her to video tape me with her camera!!

just before the ceramah end, susan said the iman was going to give a press conference (PC) at some place, so she wanted to leave the field. well just as we were leaving half way, the ceramah (with anwar speaking) ended and oh boy, everybody were leaving too and it was so packed, difficult to walk out!

anyway we finally reached yayasan aman, where the PC was going to take place. again so many people were gathered outside the building. i followed after susan, who went inside saying "we are the media".  the people there didn’t even bother to see tags or identification! (susan was without any… and of course not me too since i’m definetely not from the media…. oh unless we mean blogging as media). susan knew so many people (all from media) there! she went to talk to them and i was left all alone. i knew nobody! but i can recognise the face of malaysiakini’s premesh. well while susan mingle around talking to all her journalist friends, i sat alone on the seat fidgeting with my PDA.

when the iman arrived for the PC, wow. all the photographers swarmed round him and flashes were seen clicking away. i also took this opportunity to go near and took some photos (wow! felt like a journalist!). this was my first time experiencing such a major PC! so many journalists and camera-men from all over. this was my first time seeing how journalist ask questions for their stories!

the yayasan aman seems to be a venue for PC (i think) because right next to the hall where the PC was going on, was a place reserved for all the media, with a long table of which there is a computer for each media! guess it is for them to use the computer to send their stories. there were labels on the wall to show which media takes which section e.g. ‘merdeka review’, ‘malaysiakini’, and so on…. and what do you know… the first section was label ‘sloone.wordpress.com’!!! whoaa! susan is that famous!! as a blogger too!!

it was indeed a nice experience following susan, a famous ex-journalist and now famous blogger around. she was a live-wire! she knew so many people! thanks susan for ferrying me to and fro the ceramah and for the PC experience (though i felt left out all alone). more blogging power to you!!

ok since this is a personal post, i will continue with some other personal talk. some ‘show off’ announcement. 😉

talking about being on japan tv earlier, remind me several months ago, i was behind the camera too when hindraff penang interviewed me about ISA! well… of course i was not the only one being interviewed. there were 4 others being interviewed. this was made possible through bk ong of penang watch. i wonder what happened to the video… did they ever screened it or was i edited out??

then somewhere in july, helen ang from malaysiakini approached me (i meant via email and sms) to ask me if i can write something for a book, his cousin, kee thuan chye was writing. kee thuan chye, many of you might know, is a well known writer, actor, playwright. think he was once an editor of some paper too. kee said he was commissioned by some publisher to write a book about the 8 march election and he needed views from different people. i wrote a piece (a little over 1000 words) about the biggie ceramah of DAP/PKR in han chiang school field. i heard he said the book will be out in august. hmm… august already going to end…. i must ask him is the book ready (published). i would want to buy it to see my own article in print! this will be my first time i have something written (albeit very short) in a book!