The Silent Room

One thing I realised about 2011 is that I did not blog very much. In fact, that pretty much led me to having only a very vague account of what happened throughout the year. Normally, I’d write at least twice a month to talk about what’s been happening and stuff but that hasn’t been the case.

I remember being terribly busy about a great many things. My mind always occupied by something and I rarely have time to myself to sit down, ruminate and write a decent blog post. Anyway, the year is about to come to an end and I think I’ll just go over the months to review and reflect on stuff.

…shit, I can’t remember anything!

Y U NO REPLY?

Oh, yeah. I think the year started with the Comic Fiesta AGM. I remember asking to be excused from the committee this year concentrate on a separate project (similar in flavor), but they insisted that I stay so I took on a role that had a lot less commitment – handling stage performances.

I think from there I was working things out with some friends on trying to invite speakers for an ACG event. These seminars would be the core of the event, and everything els would be built around this core concept. I even went on the develop the identity and designs but after months and months of trying (I think between September 2010 all the way to April 2011), I didn’t get a single response from all the letters and emails I sent out. They didn’t even answer a single phone call.

Classes more, Classes still

While that’s been going on, I’ve been going up and down with my course. For the most part, it’s been good. For some other parts, not quite so. I’ve been having a fair bit of trouble dealing with group assignments, primarily because I’ve gotten a little too old. Everyone else in the class is still fresh, being 19-21 years old.

It’s a real eye-opener to be in a class where you know nobody, and not knowing anybody really affects your grades. Sometimes you end up working with random strangers, and sometimes they’re foreigners who can’t communicate very well in English, and the worst case of all, they’re either ignorant, lazy or simply refuse to use their brains.

Back on the social medium

Earlier this year I was squatting on @eminacyber’s twitter account, however, as more and more people begin to associate that brand with my name (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), I figured it’s time for me to move on. I remember mentioning to some friends that I’d only get a twitter account when I get a smartphone, but something happened that… required, me to get my own name on twitter.

That was when I decided to tweet my journey as I trudge on a backpacking adventure around Europe.

The journey of a lifetime

Long-time readers of this little blog would have known by now that I went on a backpacking trip around eastern Europe somewhere in May. It was a trip I went with my good old buddies of CBK house. I join them for a 23-day journey across seven countries, visiting at least 10 cities, on foot and lugging a large backpack.

Overall, I spent about RM8000, which includes flights, trains, buses, accomodations, food AND pocket money. It was definitely worth it. I’ve been blogging about it ever since I came back, but I haven’t finished it quite yet. Read up on those stories by following this link!

At every stop, I’d set up my trusty netbook and tweeted the day’s adventure. Since then, I’ve kept on tweeting and it’s proven to be a much better medium than Facebook. So, go ahead and follow me (or stalk me, my posts are public) via @tenoq!

The tying of many knots

On a completely different note, my sister has found the love of her life. A tall, muscular young man who works as a gym trainer and they recently got engaged. The wedding reception is scheduled for April, and I’ll be sure to send out cards. I haven’t really found the opportunity to spend time with the guy (apparently he’s my age) but we’re getting along quite well.

Needless to say, I’m very very happy for her. Can’t really say the same about my nieces, though. I sort of remember that they were a little upset that some guy came out of nowhere and robbed them of their beloved Mak Ngah. I wonder if I were to get attached, would they rage at my girl, too.

Several cousins of mine got married this year too. When your mother has 14 siblings, you’re going to get that question many times. What question, you ask? Oh, you know the one.

“So, when is YOUR turn?”

I just laugh in their face and walk away. Tak kuasa aku nak melayan.

Calm before the Storm

I think my work for CF2011 began somewhere in September. Since the program flow and stage is under my charge, it was natural for me to plan and start recruiting people for stage performances and prepare the time slots accordingly. I think in the past years, CF has had to search out for performers to fill up the stage hours, but this time around, I only had to open the registration for the public, and the problem pretty much took care of itself.

Turns out that CF has now become THE place to perform. Like, if you’ve performed at CF, you’re now a really big deal. Well, I can sort of understand why. I remember receiving about 30+ applications for stage performances, so much that I actually have to shortlist them.

Thankfully, those I shortlisted have committed and delivered on what I asked. Communication with them has been mostly via email and I consider myself very lucky to have these people be punctual and perform well on stage.

La Fiesta Épica

CF 2010 scored 11,000 visitors, up from 7000 the year before. Those who are in the ACG scene would remember the catastrophe that happened on day 1 of CF 2011. In case you missed out on the news, the story goes something like this:

Comic Fiesta 2011 was held at KL convention centre. Yes, the one next to Suria. We utilized two halls, one for the event itself, and another for ticketing. What happened was, as early as 8am on 17th December, thousands and thousands of people have queued up to purchase tickets. Thousands more kept pouring in. As the morning went on, the convention centre was so packed with people that the KLCC management panicked as called for a hall lockdown,

People were trapped in several areas. Trapped outside the hall, trapped in the ticketing hall, and trapped in the event hall. Most of them haven’t purchased tickets, and hundreds are trapped outside despite having purchased tickets. It didn’t help that there was going to be a special concert by Ceui and Shimokawa Mikuni that day.

At the stage, I was forced to call for a stage cooldown to give people an excuse to leave the event hall and allow more people to come in. That meant that I had to cancel one of the band performances, and apparently it was supposed to be their final performance before they disbanded.

At the end of Day 1, we huddled up and reorganized the crowd control method. It proved to be very effective, and the ticketing crew managed to sell out 8000+ tickets in under three hours. After that, the crowd went in and out rather swimmingly, even making the ticketing hall open for cosplaying. In the end, we clocked up a little over 15,000 tickets. If not for that fuck up, I think we could have easily hit 20,000. Oh well.

At least people had fun.

Curtains Down

After CF, everything (and I mean everything) really powers down as everyone settles in to recharge, reorganise and re-whatever. It seemed that whatever happened that weekend almost eclipsed everything else that happened all year long. I’m planning another road-trip with a bunch of friends next year, by the way. That should prove to be another adventure.

I’m pretty sure I’ve learnt lots and lots of awesome lessons this year alone. But I guess the one thing that defined 2011 for me has to be a terribly simple philosophy: Just keep going, and worry about crossing the bridge when we get there.

With that said, have yourselves a happy Christmas and a blessed new year!