Happy Ox Year!! Happy Chinese New Year!!

Gong Hei Fatt Choi (cantonese), Gong Xi Fa Chai (mandarin), the greetings you'll hear from everyone who celebrates CNY. Yes it's that time of the year, where chinese gather with their family members and celebrate a new year in the chinese calendar. I'm currently back in Johore, was at my grandma's place this morning. I went to the temple with my aunt and uncle too.

So here I am posting my wishes, here goes:

May the year of the Ox brings you good health, wealth, good luck, many new friends, happiness and a good day everyday!!


Time to sleep, long day tomorrow, going to go back my mum's hometown. Have fun!!

New Moon

After finishing the 1st book in 3 days, I carry on with the second book, "New Moon".When you finished the 1st book and you read that Bella and Edward are together, you'll be thinking what more can I get from the second book? They already have a happy ending, what else is waiting for them?

Well do continue if you want some spoilers. So from where we left off, it was prom, so the book started on a new school year, they don't exactly mention much on dates, so you'll have to estimate it. It's time to celebrate Bella's birthday although she wasn't keen on it. Something happened at her celebration and this is where the story took a big turn. Edward and family have left and disappeared, it cause Bella tons of devastation and 4 months passed.

Then a new friendship begins, Jacob Black and Bella Swan. From Book 1, we know that Jacob adores Bella, most guys do and get rejected by her. So Bella and Jake hang out and became good friends, but Jake wanted more than that, but Bella only loves Edward. So the climax, a vampire from book 1 came back to hunt Bella, that's when a pack of wolves showed up. I won't say who they are but you can have a good guess. Bella figured it out, and she hung out with them while getting protection from the wolves. Vampire vs wolves, it has always been like that.

So what had happened to the Cullens? Just as I was thinking that the story is coming to a bore just on Bella and Jacob, someone came to visit. It was Alice, I won't say why. Alice and Bella rushes somewhere after Alice having a vision and so it goes on. A lot of excitement there, new characters entering the story. The Volturi enters and we get to read a bit on them.

If I were to compare this book with the first, I prefer the first book. But the climax for second book is much more exciting and unexpected compared to the first. Introducing more characters to the story definitely gave it more hype. Other than that, more mysteries are revealed, relationship developed. Stephenie Meyer did a great job with the second book, the excitement I get from reading reminds me when I was reading Harry Potter, the same feeling, wanting to know more and more, keep on reading.

Twilight

When I first saw this book in the stores I was curious because it had an interesting cover, just a pair of hands holding an apple and also an intriguing title, Twilight. So I bought it, wrapped it up nicely and left it at my bookshelf. For months it sat there, probably 3-4 months, in the mean time I was reading "Heroes: Saving Charlie". When the movie was out, only did I realise it was made into a major motion picture, but I didn't get the chance to watch it, will wait for the DVD though. There fore I decided to pick up the book and read it before watching. I like to see how well the book was implemented in the movie. I was really disappointed at Harry Potter movies, there were many parts that are worth being shown but not found in there.

Stephenie Meyer did a good job describing the characters, therefore I have a good image of how they look like. I already know that this book is about a vampire love saga because of the summary. It's almost similar to the tv series Angel, vampire who is good and kills other demons and vampires. But of course our heroine is not like Buffy, she is just an ordinary girl who fell in love with a vampire. Vampires in this book is different, they are not the typical turn to dust under the sun vampires. Nor are they the type that is afraid of garlic and crosses.

You see they go to school, that how Bella met Edward. Not because he was looking for a prey and he fell in love with her. Nope, they are classmates in a biology class. Now Edward ignores her acts weird with her, that triggered her to find out what's wrong with him. The interesting parts thus begins with her curiosity. I would say that the book is partly predictable, as you can tell what's coming for the starting of the story and somewhat into the middle.

Well the climax is what's got me reading on and on, many of the mysteries and questions in your head are likely to be revealed. It's definitely unexpected and fresh, compared to other books from this genre (fantasy and love). It circles around family, friends and love. There isn't action such as fighting, because a typical fantasy book will have it. I put it in the fantasy side because it involves monsters that are not real. In the end, you'll figure how the title ties to the book.The good thing of this book is the writer builds the characters really well, a bit of mystery and some clues to get you guessing. I would definitely recommend this book for reading before watching the movie, because the movie might give a bad impression to discourage people to read.

Looking back and Looking Ahead

Well, it's been long since I've blogged. I wanted to at new year's eve or new year's day itself, but I got lazy :p. Anyway at the last day of 2008, I got to do a lot of thinking, looking back at all the 365 days not counting the eve. As I try to recall the memories, there were many that I've forgotten.

Things were tough before and during chinese new year, my grandfather was hospitalised and luckily got to go home to celebrate CNY but still he was having difficulties walking. My aunts from Paris and Belgium came back to visit my grandfather and we got to spend CNY in Malaysia for the first time after many years (probably I wasn't born yet). My dad's cousin brother from England also came back to celebrate, we got to play mahjong , it was quite fun but sadly my family didn't get to go back to Johore. I definitely missed spending CNY there.

After CNY is when I started my first full time job at Accenture Technology Solutions, my first project is in Shell Cyberjaya. It lasted till the end of the year. I had a lot of fun with my team members of the project. Performed in BUM, participated in DOTA competition, went cycling with the guys at BUM. The team also went to Malacca for two days. We ate and ate and ate so many food. I will put in some pictures from the trip. It was a lot of fun. I think we had 6-8 types of food eaten in one day.

I almost forgot my convocation was in august, it was okay but not worth the money paid for. I get to meet up my college mates that I haven't seen since a long time. Took a lot of pictures here and there but I don't it was with everyone though.

Well, now my project in Shell has ended and I'm back in KLCC office. Now it's just online trainings and reading on programming. I have to wait for myself to be scheduled into a new project. I hope the coming project will continue to make use for .NET cause I'm starting to like it a lot :P. 3 weeks more then it's chinese new year, time really flashes by. Hopefully this new year will bring new beginnings and better opportunities for me. I definitely don't have any resolutions because I'm afraid I might not succeed but I definitely have plans for this year and it all depends on timing.

Lastly, Happy New Year!! I hope to blog more, kinda lost the inspiration to but I will keep trying.