2012 in review

Happy New Year 2013!!!

8 as is a good date as any to write my first post for 2013, but as usual before things can start, others must end…

Thus here are the milestones of my 2012 (both in the blogging world & off)…

At the beginning of 2012, I said I would live in the moment & trust God more and I think 2012 was just that:

I came to a more concrete realisation of my dreams of being a writer (quite unplanned)

By February, my blog was chosen as Blog of the Month and an article of mine appeared in a local (Sarawak) paper. And though not because of my writing (but it was print media so it denotes an honorable mention ) I also made an appearance in a Brunei local paper.

In April, I applied for a travel writing scholarship and though I did not get that, I did get 2 awesome opportunities (major highlights of my year!) – I had the opportunity to actually cover 2 big-scale events on a media pass!

See me in the press pit? STILL one of my fave photos of the year!

They were the Borneo Jazz Festival in Miri in May & the Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching in July - these 2 events encompassed all that I love: music, travel & writing. It was awesome!

Through a series of events, I also sat for a journalist exam with a local paper. If it is to be, I will be called for an interview next. Trust God.

Living in the moment meant I was up to whatever life presented…which led me to some very interesting things..

In April, I joined a Run & ran 5km – with less than 1 week of training at that! If future me had told me in January 2012 that I’d be running in 3 months I wouldn’t have believed myself.

On a whim (bought the tixs the night before I flew), I finally went to Kota Kinabalu (prior to this it had always been just passing through) in August & in September, for the first time, I stepped foot in Penang. While the former can be checked off as “done”, Penang requires another more proper visit. And since I’m on the subject of travelling, Labuan was “done” in April 2012 and Bintulu in February.

With those, I guess 2012 was a “Cuti-Cuti Malaysia” year for me…plus the multiple trips to Miri & at least 3 trips to Kuching.

Life & work caught up with me towards the end of the year (thus my blog was on halt from Sept-Dec) but if I could summarise those months into a blog title it would be: “3 Weddings & a Conference” – 1 of those weddings was that of a very dear friend of mine. :’) Congrats to all 3 couples!

And so ends my review of 2012 (in general).

It had been a great year filled with memories & experiences money can’t buy…no matter where I went or what I did, it was those who were with me (be it physically or in spirit) that made them special.

Thank you for journeying with me in 2012 & I look forward to more adventures together in 2013.

Leaving you now with a review of Perfect Imperfections for 2012 from the guys at WordPress.com:

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 11,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 18 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Borneo Jazz Festival 2012: Behind The Scenes

So you already know all that happened on the second (and final) night of the Borneo Jazz Festival 2012 right?

Wrong. That was just half the story!

Here’s the other half: all that happened everywhere apart from the main act on stage.

Earlier that evening, when I explored the Festival grounds, apart from the food, craft bazaar and Strongbow stalls, there was also this:

The official Sarawak Tourism Board Borneo Jazz Merchandise booth

This was where you could buy the official merchandises like the Program book, Tshirt and the performers’ albums – and get their signatures or take photos with them after their performances! Remember this bit.

And, there were also “activities” stalls where you could get your face painted or get an airbrush tattoo or even a henna tattoo!

And wasn’t I surprised to see who the henna tattoo artiste was?:

None other than an old friend of mine whom I had not seen for years…hello!

And then there was, of course, the media centre, that was privy only to the organizing committee, performers and media (including me hehe). Here was where we had all the official stuff like press conferences etc…

Published news about the Borneo Jazz Festival 2012 lined one part of the wall of the Media Centre

Posters like these lined up the others

…but apart from those, we even managed to have a mini #TwtUp after Tangora’s performance!

Meet @jazgra of  jazzyanen.com (Japan) and @adjayMAGIC “hard at work” ;p

@adjayMAGIC and @SarawakTravel

#TwtUp #BorneoJazz

Remember the bit above where I mentioned how you could get the performers’ signatures or take photos with them after their performances? Well, right after Schalk Joubert’s 3 Continent Sextet’s performance, along with every Pierre, Jean ou Jacques, we made a bee line to the Merchandise booth hoping to get a photo with them.

…but they were not there…

I walked away disappointed.

Especially considering I could have easily taken a photo with Schalk after the Press Conference earlier that day but Nnnnooooo…

Fortunately though, we caught them just as they were leaving from backstage!!!

Mar with Schalk Joubert’s 3 Continent Sextet (partial) – Melissa, Schalk, Rich & Shannon

Oh yeah! My evening was just beginning!

After that, we went to check out what the lights and sounds coming from the Pavillion were…

And guess who was the culprit?

Larger than life: DJ DoubleD of TraxxFM, mixing up some tunes for the crowd in between acts!

And if you’re a TraxxFM listener, you’ll know that if he’s here, these 2 would be pretty close by:

DJ YogeeTheLegend & DJ Roundhead – strangling someone much? :p

DJ Roundhead was actually at the Press Conference earlier that day and it was funny how we met too! – he stole a guy from me. I was having an interesting chat with Ian of allaboutjazz.com & he kindly interrupted us to interview him. True story. I wanted to take a photo with him then but he was busy so I never got my chance… -.- Next round on you yes, Roundhead?

Oh, and don’t think YogeeTheLegend was harmless either:

No animals were harmed in this photo

But yeah, as expected, the 3 guys from Traffic really brought the house down!

Pretty soon, it was back to the Press Pit… :-

Hands down the BEST seat in the house!

…for Koh Mr Saxman!

Noticed how I had some really great shots in my previous post, like this:

FYI, this was for MY lenses only: Koh Mr Saxman bent forward (with me just below him at the edge of the stage) for this shot!

And that was only made possible (after Tangora onwards cos I didn’t have one before that) by this:

Thanks @reyanna13 for letting me use yours! <3

Now, imagine the access THIS guy had:

Meet The Borneo Jazz 2012 Official Photographer, Pein Lee – he can even go ON stage! Whoo~

Credits to Sarawak Tourism Board for this photo:

The @SWKBLOGS Media Team in action in the Press Pit for the finale!

Alas, Borneo Jazz Festival 2012 came to a close, but it was a birthday I will never forget ‘cos for once, something was so awesome I forgot for a second it was my birthday!

My legal-aged bros enjoyed themselves – especially with me giving them allowance, literally, for a drink each. (They told me much later they almost got tattoes! My mom would never let them go out with me anymore had they did! -.-”)

Met up with old friends & made new ones – special shoutout to Yasmin of toonaripost.com, the first other media person I met that day and the first who wished me Happy Birthday!

The @SWKBLOGS Media Team: @adjayMAGIC @orend3vil89 @LadyBirdMollyz @reyanna13 & @mcdrewnis (me)

It was a pleasure to meet & tweet with you guys!  

…eventhough 2 of you photo-bombed this photo -.-”  :-

Mar & Ben

And right at the very end of the night, before leaving, we managed to get autographs from and take a photo with:

Koh Mr Saxman!

Tangora!

Finally, to end my series of posts on Borneo Jazz Festival 2012, credits to:

The wristband that opened the Festival experience to us!

The Media Pass with all it’s responsibilities & perks!

Not to mention, awesome goodies like the Tshirt!

And of course, Sarawak Tourism Board and Sarawak Bloggers for the experience that came with it! #RWMF? Hehehe…

Last and definitely not the least: ALL photos in this particular post (unless watermarked or otherwise mentioned) is credited to a dear friend Ben and the @SWKBLOGS Media Team.

Updated: Credits to MrFabianLim of Tropic Green for the video in my previous post!

~~~

To read all the Borneo Jazz Festival 2012 posts from the @SWKBLOGS Media Team, click here.

To read all the published news by local and international media, click the “Media Centre” tab on the official Borneo Jazz Festival 2012 wesbite here. 

The Madness that is March

We’re near the very end of March and boy has it been one mad (read: so-busy-it’s-just-crazy) month!

For 3 main reasons:

1) I started another blog

No, I am not closing down this blog, if that’s what you’re wondering. Perfect IMPerfections is my default blog and will stay on for a foreseeable number of years into the future. That said however, I felt it time to start another blog to specifically address a major interest of mine, ie. Travelling.

At the moment, I am slowly recalling back my travels for the past couple of years but I will get to writing my newer travel tales as soon as I can cough up some time on my hands. In the meantime, please feel free to browse: A Road Once Taken. (You can also find the link on the sidebar on your left.)

2) I was playing Hostess

My bro and his family were in town a couple of weeks ago and it being their first time in Brunei in a long time (and a first for my niece), I was on hostess cum tourguide mode. They were here for the 1 week school holidays and I must say, within that 1 week, we covered quite a lot of ground! I’ll do a mini travel guide on Brunei on A Road Once Taken later.

More importantly though was the fact that the family was able to get together and having my niece over was just super nice!

I absolutely love her! Almost 4-yrs old, she’s simply adorable!

But firstly though, I had to earn her friendship…

You see, she’s the type that takes a while to warm up to people (including those she knows but seldom sees, like me) – in fact, I was in Kuching for a week last month and she didn’t even give me the time of day! (But that may also be due to the fact I was mostly out meeting up with old friends and she went to the nursery.) So I was more than thrilled to have her on my turf this time, secretly hoping she’d be not so tough a cookie to crack.

And I was right! Also, UNO was a great icebreaker, that much I can say.

3) Famine

Apart from the 40acts challenge which I am doing throughout Lent, the 30-Hour Famine was a major event during this season of fasting, prayer and almsgiving.

Last week, we had 200+ youths in our Vicariate (and about 50 of us who made up the committee/service team & helpers) who fasted for, as the name suggests, 30 hours, eating nothing at all and only drinking water. There were, of course, more to the event than this, but basically, as part of the committee/service team, this 3D2N “camp” really had me tied down. (If you’re interested to know more, please note I will blog about it on this other blog of mine.)

So yeah, now with 3 active blogs to keep updated, my career, family, social, spiritual & personal life to juggle and not to mention travels in May & July (and maybe April & August too?), looks like I got a lot to look forward to for the rest of the year!

In the meantime, I have got to squeeze in at least one proper training for the Run happening next weekend. Ai yai yai…