newsprint!

this band is amazing. 

they're a Kuala Lumpur based band. 

one of the few Malaysian bands i'm a fan of.

this song popped up on my playlist one day. i haven't been able to stop listening since. a close friend sent me one of their songs... and they sound so good it's not even funny.

their album (pictured) has been out since 2007. i've been meaning to buy it. back then i didn't have a credit card yet, so i couldn't get it. you can't get local band albums in record stores. in fact... there are no reputable local record stores left in my town. what the hell. they all closed down. goes to show how sad the music scene is here.

anyways i love the vocalists' voice. and the lyrics. i put a lot of emphasis on lyrics when i'm listening to a song. and it's not just this song either, their whole album is filled with great songs.

i wondered what happened to them after this was released. sigh. i hope they're still around. talented bands are squashed out before they even get the chance to do anything to make a name for themselves. it's sad really.

this was an enjoyable assignment.

the executive chef of the hotel was very friendly. joked around a lot with his staff.

they invited a chef from the state of Penang just for this promo.

took a lot of photos. oh, this hotel has one of the most well prepared press kits ever. they even included a CD of pictures of the hotel, all bundled up in this nice custom made folder. it looks expensive.

the chef demonstrated his skills a little bit. it was hilarious when they were all lining up for the photos. the exec chef heckled them a lot, and coordinated their poses.

happy with how the picture turned out. that's him right in the middle, with the words wrapped around his outline nicely. the editorial department did a really good job.

i think this was my 3rd coverage for this hotel. good food. ate a lot. i was rushing to my next assignment though, so i couldn't really stay and chat with the others. now that i think about it, food functions like this are great for socializing with the other reporters. 

clicking on the photo leads to the online version of the article.

ahh, finally an article on this particular hotels' food promo.

i met some rather well-known bloggers during this assignment. well-known in my town, i mean. 

well, just two of them. i knew one of them. friend of a friend. chatted with her a little bit. she was surprised that i was working for the paper now. i get that a lot.

i was curious. how did the hotel decide which bloggers to invite to their food promos? i mean, what sort of criteria and on what basis do they actually consider first before inviting a blogger to these things?

a question i posed to the PR executive.

apparently they are selected on how much traffic their blog generates, and through word of mouth. my town is pretty small after all. she also mentioned that, once, they invited a rather renowned blogger for one of their food tasting events. he never gave them the coverage they were hoping to get by inviting him. but i digress.

pretty much standard stuff. took photos, got the press release they issued, ate some food, talked a bit with other reporters... oh. one of the senior photographers talked a bit with me that day about camera stuff. i remember being confused by all the jargon but i think i'm getting used to it. an interesting conversation.

hopefully they managed to see this article. i don't want them to think i was just there for the food as well.

i wrote both of these articles.

they appeared on the same page. which is to be expected, since they're both about music.

my editor assigned me a couple of bands to interview for a music feature they were doing that week. he gave me the contacts of a couple of bands that performed at our paper's anniversary show that took place recently.

Polar was the second band i interviewed.

Polar is a really good local band in the town i'm from. almost everyone who's in the scene knows them and how great they sound. i've got a lot of respect for the vocalist. being a huge fan of music, and part of a band myself, i knew the questions i had to ask straight from the start.

we spoke casually, they answered most of my questions with a lot of enthusiasm. what sort of music they played, their influences, what they thought of the current scene, stuff like that.

i asked the vocalist: who is the main lyricist for the band and which came first,the musical melody, or the lyrics?

he told me he has pre-written lyrics all laid out, and chooses the melody from the songs they'd already composed that fits the mood and theme of his lyrics.

very interesting.

i honestly hope they can somehow make it big. they deserve to.

the second article is the opening of one of my towns most well known instrument dealers new storefront. it was a bit of a chore, i'd say. i wasn't assigned to it, i just chose to cover it myself. they declined to be photographed when i asked. maybe they were too busy or something, i don't know.

but the owner did ask one of his staff to send me photos of the store they had taken already. i didn't use them though. he sent them to me too late.

i asked a few quick questions, took photos of the performance and left.

one of their representatives did thank me for the coverage, and posted up the article on their facebook page. i guess they liked it?

would like to do more music related articles in the future. hopefully more chances will come along.

Elliott Smith - New Disaster

he is hands down my favorite singer in this particular genre of music.

his songs creep up ever so often on my playlist while i'm working. that haunting voice has a tinge of familiarity to it, reminiscent of something you're sure you've heard before. 

the lyrics are especially good. they have a certain air of honesty around them. this isn't some pretentious singer singing material you've heard over the radio over and over again. 

i should have bought his single compilation album when i was in australia. i regret it thoroughly now. he has a lot of great songs, all with great depth, and deep machinations that only he knew how to reveal in a song.

elliott smith died in 2003, from stab wounds. whether he was stabbed by another party, or the wounds were self-inflicted, is another story altogether. 

so KFC changed it's signature tagline. 

too bad. personally, i preferred the older one. 

this wasn't my first visit to the KFC/Pizza Hut franchise as part of work. as such, the regional manager and his assistant knew me quite well already. so that made work a little easier. and more pleasant.

press releases were handed out. big turn out amongst the reporters i remember. nearly all the newspapers showed up. it was during lunch time. i remember having to rush to my next big function directly after this, and write up the story while i was there. more on that next time.

anyways, as usual they had everything all nicely prepared. a projector and screen with speakers. showed us the new advertisements, new slogan, and the new meal.

chatted a bit with the assistant. she asked me about my camera, so i told her a little of what i knew. which is to say, not much.

ate the meal they gave us at the same table with the KFC staff members. funny feeling.

other reporters usually come in pairs or groups. i'm always alone though for my paper. so they tend to stick to themselves. it's hard to socialize sometimes.

sometimes, we stumble upon things that we really wish we hadn't.

i got this urge to go looking for a certain CD for a game that i knew i had, but didn't know where it was. the result of having enough free time and remembering how much fun that game was.

in the midst of looking for the aforementioned optical disc, i came upon an old photo album. 

just looking at it, i knew it was from that time.

it had somehow survived the great purge.

i told myself not to look at it. just move along, that disc has got to be around here somewhere...

and yet inexplicably, the next thing i knew, i had the album in my hands.

don't open it. what good would come of it? nothing. not a thing. 

i opened it. 

instantly, the floodgate of memories of times long since past opened up. well, not that long really. two years. but not quite enough to dull them. they were as vivid as though they had come to pass just yesterday. a week ago, at the most.

as i flipped through it, i looked upon that familiar countenance that i knew so well.

i remembered that smile. those eyes. that laugh. everything.

it's funny how we looked so happy in those photos. i remembered those times. i kinda wish i didn't now. it justs serves to remind me that they will always be what they are.

just distant memories in the past.

it couldn't be more different than the way things are now. 

closing the photo album and returning it to where it lay, the memories slowly fade away again, receding into my subconscious. closed up along with the album.

i am left with a bittersweet aftertaste. why do i even leave it around? so i can torment myself again in the future? maybe to keep it as a memento from the past? a keepsake? i can't even begin to answer those questions. all i can hope is that the junk that clutters my room hides it away from my sight.

... because andy dared me to.

and i saw that a few of my articles were online! this is a recent one.

wow. i honestly had no idea that they put them up online. i mean, i know that one from before made it up, but not a number of them! i am very out of touch.

but it was a really gratifying experience! seriously, i'm pretty happy that i can see my story on my papers' website, with my name in the byline.

finally feels that my work has a bit of weight to it, that maybe some people are reading it after all. ahhh. can sleep a little easier tonight.

shall work harder in the future so that more get posted up, not just in the physical papers. 

published May 2nd, 2011.

another short article.

hmm. this one got squashed down a lot, now that i look at it.

covering this story was an interesting experience. i had never visited a yoga center before, and i didn't even know there was such a well established one here in my town.

the officials were very polite and friendly. i talked with an indian lady who was one of the administrators there. very informative. 

also, quite a number of people turned up for the talk. families, older people mostly. i listened quite attentively actually, now that i think about it.

she made a lot of good points, about having faith in yourself and moving past traumatic events in your life. i guess yoga isn't just about all the funky body positions. it has a pretty deep spiritual and philosophical side as well.

here's a photo i submitted. the paper didn't use it though. i'm not sure if my editor didn't like it or simply didn't have enough space. i kinda like how it turned out though.

it was my first time doing coverage for a modelling event.

of course it wasn't really a super in depth coverage, just attended the showcase, took a few photos, met the organizers, asked a couple of questions.

didn't involve any interviews with any of the models. not that i'm dissapointed.

but it was a learning experience, i mean usually these things don't have any press releases or pre-written descriptions. so you have to write from scratch.

oh, i also learned how competitive photography can be. there were only 3 persons from the media, but around 15 other photographers from who-knows-where, crowding the stage.

it can be pretty annoying sometimes but you have to put up with it i guess. not really professional to shove people out of the way just because you're media is it?

i left pretty early after i had gotten all the info i needed. the mall where they were having the event was pretty crowded. 

in my opinion, it's a pretty bad photograph. but it was the best i could do trying to wade through the sea of photographers and not get anyone else in my frame.

toe - everything means nothing, from their CUT DVD.

i've been watching this band's dvd a lot lately. 

especially when i'm feeling a bit of at a loss of what to do.

i love their songs, and the energy of their live performances. it's mesmerizing.

fast forward to something a bit more recent.

mother's day is coming up.

as a result, all the major hotel's in town are having these promotional buffet lunches, dinners, set menus, you name it. 

at this point in time, i hadn't been to this particular hotel yet. so i was happy i'd been given the chance to try out their latest food promo.

finding the place where they were having the press conference wasn't easy, as it was in a separate building, albeit attached to the hotel. i haven't been to this hotel at all, ever. 

the staff were really friendly, and they had the promo dishes all laid out nicely. a few reporters were late because they experienced the whole where-is-this-place thing i mentioned before. good food! very enjoyable.

it was my first of three assignments that day, and i had to rush back to finish the story before heading off to the next function. so i quickly asked whatever questions i had, ate the food, talked a bit with a reporter i had never met before and i was off.

the cake was particularly delicious.

so the Sugarbun at my local mall did a burger promotion. it was crazy cheap and coincided with the state election, so i think they were aiming for something clever by drawing up these huge promo posters designed to look like balloting tickets.

talked a little bit with a reporter from a different paper. the hot topic at the time was about the local election, and who was covering which town district. since i'm still as green as can be, i didn't cover any election stories. it was a really busy period for reporters though.

they gave us a fried chicken meal to try, but not the burgers. quite strange. anyway the paper didn't use the pictures i submitted. one of them was this one here, and another was with staff members holding the burgers.

food assignments are great, for obvious reasons. 

as you can see, this one is just a simple article about winners of a lucky draw competition held by a local home appliances store.

the store itself was pretty far away, and i wasn't sure i would be able to find it.

oh, we get addresses and stuff regarding our assignments by email, in case you were wondering. it was surprisingly easy to find; the store sign faced the main road.

a couple of reporters from the other papers were already there. one bad thing is i can't really understand mandarin. and when you're interacting with chinese folks in my town, you really can't afford to not understand. 

i was a bit blur at first as i asked the store rep what this whole thing was about. i remember him saying something about numbers. he was talking about the prize money the grand prize winners won. 

talked a bit with the winners, asked them how they found out about their winnings, how they felt, stuff like that.

a pretty normal assignment. it was over really fast too. took a photo of the winner and store rep, got handed a media goodie bag, and i was off.

i've been working for my newspaper for nearly 3 months now. i think i'm getting the hang of it. my writing isn't nearly as good as i'd like it to be, but i'm still trying my best to improve.

i'm going to start posting up pictures of my published articles, and maybe provide a little bit of context on what they're about and the experience of covering the story in question. 

i'm still really new in this line of work, and getting to meet other reporters/journalists/photographers from other newspapers has been a really interesting experience. not to mention interacting with the various PR officers along with those in charge of the media for all sorts of events and going-ons. 

i remember being excited about this article getting published.

i mean, usually we don't know how much space we're getting per article. so when i saw that it was a full page review i was really, really happy. something like "woah, my work got recognized". that kinda feeling. but i wonder if that was really true?anyways i did my best with this coverage. wrote it from scratch without a press kit or anything.

this was my first full page story.

carvery is an interesting story in itself. my family is kinda involved with the business. my dad, who had never seen any of my published articles ever asked me to do a story on carvery, which was moving from its previous location to somewhere in town.

i asked my editor if i could do a story about this restaurant that was relocating to this new hotel in town, and he was like yeah go ahead. so i did.

i got a text the morning from my dad saying that he liked the article and thanks for doing a good job on it. so yeah, this was my first real sense of achievement since i started working for the paper.