My first National Disaster experience!

And insyallah, it'll be the last - Amin! Anyway, here are some photos taken by Aniki outside our house on the night of the "Great Flood". My god, we had mild floods before but never this bad, it looked like a river was passing through our house!

At our driveway - Dad's the guy with the red and white umbrella!
The water got halfway into our garage!

Our "simpang" (the following two photos) - The poor neighbours! :( We were lucky!
Dad raised our land by several feet before building the house.

Our "backyard" - you can see our neighbour's house.
If it wasn't for the wall, I think his house would have been badly flooded.

The staircase at the back of our house - the water level reached the third step!!!

So that's what happened Tuesday-Wednesday last week! The result: major power cuts (we had no power for 3 days!!!), no water supply (fortunately, this only occurred three times, and the third lasted half a day!), landslides, traffic problems (due to traffic lights being down, destroyed roads, flooding in our major road tunnel, etc.) and the worst thing, two people drowned! :( So what happened? Why weren't we prepared? I hope this incident brought awareness with regards to the major changes that need to be done to Brunei's infrastructure and whatnot! Swift action, if you please!

"Beginning is easy, continuing is hard."
dr.rin | artist.mangaka

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

A bit belated, but Happy Chinese New Year to all celebrating! May everyone have a prosperous year! XD

[Image courtesy of SilkySteps.]

"Beginning is easy, continuing is hard."
dr.rin | artist.mangaka

Weekly Goals: Week 05 [2009]

Ack! An extremely bleak start to the week, due to heavy rains, flash floods, etc. I'll post photos later! Btw, no electricity at home, so this week's goals are a bit late in being posted! :(

Fitness:

• Thursday: Gyming (FZ) [X]
  
• Saturday: Gyming (FZ) [X]
• Sunday: Gyming (FZ) or Badminton (MS) [X]

Miscellaneous:

• Social activities: lunch with Yusri (Wed); lunch with Fifah (Fri); dinner with June, Siti & Yusri (Fri); lunch/dinner with Nynna, Nurul & Pinah (Sun); Rizal's nikah ceremony (Sun)
  
• Domestic chores: organise room; pick up drycleaning; send clothes for drycleaning; tidy car [X]
  
• Bill payment: DST (Sat); Telbru & e-speed (Sat)
  
• Cinema: Inkheart (Mon); Underworld 3 (Sat) [X]
• Manga list: Love Attack (Vol. 1-3 & 5); Cross x Break (Vol. 1-2); Song of the Hanging Sky (Vol. 1-2)
  
• Anime list: TRC Tokyo Revelations (complete) [X]; Puppet Master Sakon (complete) [X]; Skip Beat (episode 16)
  

"Beginning is easy, continuing is hard."
dr.rin | artist.mangaka

Weekly Goals: Week 04 [2009]

Ack! An extremely bleak start to the week, due to heavy rains, flash floods, etc. I'll post photos later! Btw, no electricity at home, so this week's goals are a bit late in being posted! :(

Fitness:

• Saturday: Walking; Swimming
  
• Sunday: Walking
  

Miscellaneous:

• Social activities: lunch with Rozi (Mon); lunch with Rozi & Fel (Tues); Jus' b'day dinner (Wed)
• Domestic chores: organise room
• Travel: Singapore trip
  
• Shopping: books; manga; COPIC Ciao Markers 72-Set A [X]; COPIC paper [X]; work clothes; shoes; CK Contradiction perfume [X]; toiletries
  
• Anime list: TRC Tokyo Revelations (complete) [X]; Puppet Master Sakon (complete) [X]; Skip Beat (episode 15)
  

"Beginning is easy, continuing is hard."
dr.rin | artist.mangaka

Weekly Goals: Week 03 [2009]

What's with me at the mo? I'm tres procrastinating! :( Argh!

Fitness:

• Tuesday: Yoga (VDA) [X]
  
• Thursday: Yoga (VDA) [X]
• Saturday: Gyming (FZ) [X]
• Sunday: Gyming (FZ) [X]

Miscellaneous:

• Art: finish fanarts for Apr 2008 [X], Aug 2008 [X] & Dec 2008 [X]; colour logo [X]
• Manga: scan oneshot page [X]; edit oneshot pages [X]
• Website: finish designing new website [X]; update ari-rin.com [X]; update deviantART site [X]; update Aesthetic Tribute subforum [X]
• Social activities: lunch with Irra, Krystle & Jess (Mon); dinner with family (Mon); dinner with June (Wed); lunch with Olivia (Fri); dinner with June (Fri); attend wedding (Sat); lunch with Pinah, Nurul, Nynna & Rizal (Sun)
• Domestic chores: organise room [X]; tidy car [X]; send clothes for drycleaning (Mon); pick up drycleaning (Sat)
• Transportation: send car for second servicing (Sat)
• Beauty spa: manicure & pedicure (Fri)
• Shopping: wireless bell
  
• Cinema: City of Ember (Sun)
  
• Anime list: TRC Tokyo Revelations (complete) [X]; Earl & Fairy (complete) [Verdict: 8.5/10]; Ceres - Celestial Legend (complete) [Verdict: 9/10]
  

"Beginning is easy, continuing is hard."
dr.rin | artist.mangaka

Weekly Goals: Week 02 [2009]

I can't believe this, I caught the flu last Tuesday and since then, I wasn't able to do very much! What a way to start the new year! :( Well, must try better this week!

Fitness:

• Thursday: Gyming (FZ) or Yoga (VDA) [X]
  
• Friday: Gyming (FZ) [X]
• Sunday: Gyming (FZ) [X]

Miscellaneous:

• Art: finish fanarts for Apr 2008 [X], Aug 2008 [X] & Dec 2008 [X]; colour logo [X]
• Manga: scan oneshot page [X]; edit oneshot pages [X]
• Website: finish designing new website [X]; update ari-rin.com [X]; update deviantART site [X]; update Aesthetic Tribute subforum [X]
• Social activities: lunch with Irra, Sab, Jess & Krystle (Mon); dinner with June (Thurs); dinner with Yus, Meela, June, Pinah & Nurul (Sat); sushi with Jus & Tinie (Sun)
• Domestic chores: organise room; tidy car (Sun) [X]; send clothes for drycleaning (Sat) [X]
• Beauty spa: haircut (Fri); massage (Sat)
  
• TV series: Heroes (episodes 9-12) [X]
• Anime list: TRC Tokyo Revelations (complete) [X]; Zombie Loan (complete); World Destruction (complete)
  

"Beginning is easy, continuing is hard."
dr.rin | artist.mangaka

Selamat Tahun Baru 2009!

Firstly, I'd like to wish everyone a very:

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

I didn't do much on New Year's Eve! Was meant to meet up with my cousin Yusri who just got back from Australia that very afternoon, but that was cancelled! Gomen ne, Yus-kun! :( Unfortunately, I came down with the flu, what a way to start the new year!

Anyway, a bit of reflection, 2008 was a pretty good year for me. I achieved quite a bit:

• I started a new job.
• I made new friends and got to know some of my relatives better.
• I started doing yoga (and can now do a headstand - not perfectly yet, though!).
• I managed to lose some weight (but need to lose more and get fit, hehe!).
• I started drawing more and established a manga-drawing circle with Pip & Fel.
• I finished my German language course.
• I started saving for the future.
• and so on...

As for last year's resolutions, I only achieved 60% of them, so I must thrive to achieve better in 2009. So without further ado, here are my resolutions for this new year:

1. Improve my skills in Business Finance.
   
2. Continue with my Japanese language lessons.
3. Improve my Malay, German and French language skills.
4. Achieve punctuality.
5. Draw at least one manga.
6. Lose weight and MAINTAIN the weight loss!

Hmmm, my 2009 resolutions aren't exactly major life-changing ones, but that's okay. I'm not putting any of those in the list, since they are ones I constantly try to achieve and improve on - they do not need a time limit, hehe.

Oh, yeah, I changed the look of my blog yet again - this time to mark the New Year! ;) I've never used a manga/anime image for my background before, so this is a nice change! I decided on the Ren-sama and Kyouko pairing for the first one! XD Can you tell that I love "Skip Beat!"? Haha! Anyway, hope everyone's enjoying the first day of the new year! Peace! ;)

"Beginning is easy, continuing is hard."
dr.rin | artist.mangaka