15.03.08 was our very first gathering for MINDSBLOG. Our real idea was to have a small party celebrating the victory of Barisan Rakyat :P, but somehow the idea got evolved and turned out to be a gathering of admin, authors and readers of MINDSBLOG. That would explain the short notice. Nevertheless, I thank everyone who attended the event.

It was already 1.30pm when we started with our lunch. Most of us took chicken briyani rice, some took mixed rice but some just refused to give in to the temptation, and just stick with their drinks.

I seriously need to start blog hopping before being hit by gun shot :P. Will have to find a helmet before starting my journey to my blogmates's space.. hehehe.. Anyway, sorry guys.. I know it has been long time since I visited anyone. My schedule is packed. Nowadays it takes me two or three days to complete one single post in tulispeaks! Wish I could have a 'normal' life like others.

Complaints apart, I manage to sneak some time off to attend a Cultural Nite (MKSP) by my (ex) Hindu Society of Universiti Putra Malaysia on Saturday. Its an annual event I don't dare to miss. Sharing some pics from the event:

I will write more about it in MindsBlog later. Bookmark it okie? ;)


The next day, I traveled to a neighboring state to attend a wedding ceremony of a dear friend, Shashikala. I think the wedding was romantic and different. Had good time there.


Few more wedding photos have been uploaded HERE.


So far, Shopping Paradise is doing good and three designs were sold out! Whoa! Not bad huh? I still have 3 more necklace designs and will be adding more in the future. Check it out if you haven't done so :D


Now, its the time to check other blogs.. Here I come!

My sis turned 21 on Friday, 14th Dec and we threw a party for her & her friends the next day. The colour blue rulled the night, and thanks to everyone who turned up in the theme colour.

Now, about 15hours after the party ended, I am stil feeling tired. I think its better for the photos to speak on my behalf :P

You may find the rest of the birthday photos HERE.
Going back to nap..zzzzz...

The weekend was a busy one. Saturday was spent in this convention, while Sunday was spent loitering in a mall meeting fellow blogmates.

Speaking about the convention, I think it is one of the best event organized for Malaysian Indian youth in this year. It was well-organized despite the fact that this is a maiden convention of this sort. This post will be a small re-cap of National Indian Youth Convention (NIYC 2007), just to highlight it to those who have missed it. And no, this is not a paid posting.

It started a little late than what is scheduled - that was a minor setback though I must stress that it was all worth the wait. After opening speech by the President of TheMind (the organization which organized NIYC 2007), the convention was then officially launched by Prof Dr Bala Shanmugam.

One thing that pulled me to register for the event will be their list of amazing personalities. Some were unknown to me, but boast a credible CV! The keynote address for example, was given by Tan Sri Dato's Professor Emeritus Dr Gajaraj Dhanarajan, the VC of Wawasan Open University. This soft spoken speaker brought us back to world war era when he spoke about his history and right up to current technological advancement, where he emphasized us not to confine ourselves to the borders of Malaysia.

We had three more talks in line after that. The first talk was given by Major General (R) Dato' Pahlawan Dr Mohanadas Ramasamy, who spoke about challenges of succeeding in the government services. I don't think many of M'sian Indian youths are interested to even join the civil service, let alone to be successful in it. Good to see that there are some people from our community made it huge in the sector we all tend to avoid.



The next speaker was the highlight of the whole convention. Most of us waited since morning only to listen to his talk. Not to undermine the other speakers, but I must say this Datuk will outshine anyone excerpt may be Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan). He was none other than Datuk Vinod Sekhar, the second richest Indian in Malaysia. It was a fun-filled talk, and the fact that his business idea started with just USD50 amazed a lot of people. We had flood of questions from the floor for which he patiently answered. I couldn't agree more when he said this country a wonderful place and worth fighting for :)

The third talk was given again by Prof Bala Shanmugam. One thing that I like to listen will be successful personalities' life story, and Prof Bala is a master in it! Didn't know he is actually with Monash University, where I am working for a year now! That's a shame.. *sigh. He ended the talk with an interesting quote which I saw many of the participants taking down: "Aspire to Inspire before you Expire".



If there is something I was unhappy with the convention, that would be the forum. Not because it was not good, because I feel the forum panellists where not well-utilised. Probably the organizers were running out of time as it was already towards the end of the convention, but I feel the forum should have more substance in it as I know it is not easy to gather such a prominent panel. We had Prof Emeritus Dr Singaravelu (University Malaya), Assoc Prof Dr Sureswaran (Mlabs System), Datuk Suret Singh (Ministry of Transport) and Mr Uthaya Sankar (RTM) in the panel while Prof Dr Subramaniam (University Malaya) moderated the forum. May be if the forum was given a specific theme and all discussion pointed towards the theme/title, it would have been more effective.



Overall, despite the minor short coming, I would say the convention was a successful one. As I said before, it is one of the best event for the year and should be held annually. For the organizing committee, I would like to thank them and wish them all the best!

No I am not getting married. At least, that's not what I'm going to write here, and doesn't mean I will never write about it here :p.

I think its wedding season all over the world right now. Even Keshi has blogged about weddings.. and I think if I dwell more on wedding-relationship-marriage, it would be a copycat of her post! hehehehe..

I attended my friend's wedding dinner yesterday. So much for the chaos in the capital in the last few days, plan to attend her wedding was cancelled and I resorted to attend the wedding dinner instead. Such a pity, because I really wanted to attend the wedding not the dinner!!! I never liked wedding dinners, though many prefer to attend it instead of the real wedding ceremony itself. For one, I hate parading myself seeing people parading themselves over and over again. Plus, I think by attending the ceremony means much more for the couple, and the attendees as well. Witnessing a man and woman promising to be there for each other forever is more significant than just watching them savouring grilled chicken over the dinner! Anyway, in this case I didn't have much choice. I knew the bride & the groom from my university days (that's about 7 years!) and I got no excuse to skip the event.



Dinner supposely to start at 7.30pm & yours truly reached the venue at 8pm.. but the function has not started yet! Hmm.. okie may be they are waiting for more people, my stomach started to make funny noises, boredom started to set in but lucky for me, sister was there entertaining talking to me. Pheww!!



A friend came in few minutes later and guess what happens when two old friends meets?? We were chit-chatting and posing for the photos till the event start.

Then its the usual stuff - cake cutting, photos, dinner, more photos, identifying other uni mates and more photos. By the time when I came back home, I was dead tired - tired of talking & eating!



So, how was your Sunday?

Read my previous September 1st posts:

2006

2005

An independence day post in Malaysian Language. Pardon me for the unavailability of an English version. Presenting a wallpaper in conjunction with the event.

Happy 50th Independence Day, Malaysia!



Also read my previous posts on Malaysia & Merdeka:

Aku, si Jalur Gemilang
Countdown to Merdeka: The Country
Countdown to Merdeka: The People
Countdown to Merdeka: The Capital
Countdown to Merdeka: The Landmarks

Visit my FLICKR for the rest of convocation photos!

On 14th February 2003 (yes, on a Valentine's Day), I sent off my application form to do a master degree in Universiti Putra Malaysia. I was still a final year student completing my BSc back then. On 9th June 2003, I commenced my studies majoring in Clinical Nutrition in the Faculty of Medicine. I successfully defended my thesis after a gruelling 3 hours of viva voce on 21st December 2006. And now, after (slightly more than) 4 years, I will be graduating with a MSc tagging behind my name.

Cool eh? Well, the path was not that cool or simple. While some lucky ones get to go through their graduate studies within 2 years, I took double the number of semesters. The 4 years I would say, the most difficult period in my life so far. My first degree was a breeze, but my graduate studies was the greatest challenge I have experienced so far. Not because its another level of study, I had difficulties in the research and in my personal life as well. I almost quit my studies half-way, but somehow managed to stay afloat. A simple thank you to those who held me when I felt down will never going to be enough.

Graduation is one of the last thing in my mind when I was struggling to complete my daily tasks. I still can't believe I am holding the invitation letter from my university. It seems like I send off the application forms just yesterday :) This is a moment of glory which has a lot of significance for me, and I would like to share this moment of everyone here. Yes, I am inviting all the visitors of tulipspeaks to my convocation on 26th August 2007. Please e-mail me before 21st August for more details eg. the map, timing.

I'm announcing this way earlier so everyone can make it. Hope to see you guys there!!!

as I said earlier.. it was fun! Puvanan was telling us.. "hey, this is not a workshop, its a picnic!" I can't agree more. so what we did that day? let me narrate the story through photos! (thanks to Guru, one of the crew member & also Puvanan for taking some of the photos).

Bloggers Buff 2007!! Yippeee!!!! We had a blast and I really pity those who signed up but didn't turn up yesterday. Guys.. you all missed an eventful Sunday! I'm still editing the photos, so just one pic for today & the rest together with the details of BB 2007 in couple of days time!

Hey guys.. Rames did us a favour by creating a poster for Bloggers Buff 2007. Check it out! Cool stuff!
And don't forget to register by this Thursday!

I have read soooooooooooo many reviews about Sivaji - The Boss that I have decided NOT to write a review on it. Ah.. that doesn't mean it was not a cool movie. A pure entertainer! Director Shanker being "Director Shanker" never failed to highlight the use of technology in his movies. In this particular song, Rajini was basically transformed into 'someone' else :p How was it done? Watch the making of oru kuudai sunlight here:

Ah..feel so good to be back in my office (and blogging!). I came back from my trip yesterday and it was quite refreshing. Have not edited the photos yet and probably I can get it up by Friday. So for today, let me introduce a bloggers event we are conducting right here in Kuala Lumpur!

What: Bloggers Buff 2007 is a workshop cum forum organized to gather Malaysian bloggers from different genres together to network and explore various issues and aspects of blogging. When : Sunday, 8th July 2007( 8.30am – 5.30pm) Where :Dewan Dato’ Haji Sidek, Jalan Kg Attap, K.Lumpur

Thats right! We are conducting a blogger workshop!!! Oh no! We are not going to 'teach' you how to blog.. I know you guys are pro at it ;). So what do we intend to do?

# To create a good network of Malaysian bloggers of different genres.
# To alienate fears and negative perception of blogs in mainstream print media.
# To promote blogging as a hobby and as a potential income generator.
# To promote blogging as a medium to exchange information.

Now.. its all about networking and promoting blog as vital and most happening medium of communication for today's world!

I just can't remember when we came up with this idea to conduct such ambitious project.. but the credits goes to the whole team - Mahendran, the gentleman who is chairing the commitee & commitee members; P Kamalanathan, Praveen, Puvanan and yours truly.

This is a blogging event organized by bloggers for bloggers regardless genre, gender or race, and I am counting on you guys to make it a hit!

Okie now..I know you are all geared up and wants to know more about this event. All you have to do is to visit Bloggers Buff 2007, read through our welcome post and tentative event schedule. IF you think this is for you, get yourself registered by completing the registration form. Let me emphasis here - all participants need to pre-register themselves and NO walk-in blogger will be entertained that day. Don't tell me I didn't warn you! ;)

Last but not the least, please kindly spread the word around by putting up the promo badge which was done by one of our bloggers, Saravanan in support of this event & linking it back to Bloggers Buff 2007.