Last Week

This is going to be my last week in Madrid. I had a low profile but enjoyable birthday in Madrid. Celebrated my bday with Taeko and later at night had drinks with my roomie Ryan.

It has been extremely crazy in Madrid with all the protest because of the elections. I guess I am just trying to absorb as much experience as possible. I have to say, Madrid is starting to get interesting only when I am about to leave. This is just so unfair. I am just glad that I am able to use my camera more often now since the sun is up, but it also made me realize that I should have bought those lenses and a new body before coming to Madrid. I am somehow limited by my camera.

Class of 2011 will be graduating in 5 days. Time flies. It was like only yesterday that I got to know some of you and before I know it, all of you are graduating.

Finals are round the corner for me. I really do hope I do well. Since, I am almost there, I will definitely give my best. It is definitely going to be a better sweet experience leaving Madrid. However, I will be back at Malaga in the mid of June where according to my host mom, the temperature will be around 40 degrees Celsius. Such a nice way to get that tan that I have always dreamed of.

It is also believed that today will be the end of the world. I do not know which religion or belief it is based on, but if that is true, I would be kind of bump because I would not be able to spend the last moments of my life with people that I care for. However, if this prediction is true and today is the end of the world, I just want all of you to know that I have truly enjoyed your company and I hope it is the same like wise.

I will see all of you soon..
With love from the Sexiest Person Alive,
Jordann Cheng

It is time to MOVE ON

Nothing is constant, nothing is permanent. Change is evitable and we just have to accept it and move on. These sorts of experiences are constantly appearing in my life. Since moving from the Malaysia to the US, I have lost contact with many of my friends. At first, we vow to keep in touch even though we are an ocean apart, but I have to admit it is hard to maintain a strong friendship no matter how close the both of us were before. One of the main reasons for the weakening of the friendship could be due to the different experiences that we go through in life and as these experiences varies so do our goals changes.

I remember when I was much younger; I aspire to be a professional tennis player because I spent about 4 hours a day 4 times a week playing tennis. During that time, I got pretty serious with tennis that I wanted to represent my state but in a turn of an event, I find myself sitting in front of a group of audiences playing the saxophone. With a couple of friends, we reminded one another the goal of being the saxophonists in Malaysia. We played 3 times a week averaging about 4 hours each time we met.


My tennis buddies: Nouras, Hasrin, Kabi (doubles partner), Wilkinson, Anand and Myself


However, as we grow older, I got accepter to a university 8 hours away from home, Kenny was studying Multimedia designing and Kwan Yee was just getting started as a sale rep with a pharmaceutical company. Even though all of us kept in contact and continue playing in the same band, this was the beginning where we would go our separate ways. I quit UMK after semester to apply to SUA because I realized that I could not just live my life aimless to the wimp and fancy of society. I realized that each one of us has a lifelong quest to fulfill. I cannot just live by each day knowing that I could have changed my situation.

This is how The saxophone section looks like when we were all still young. May be not all of us but most of us. *Haymin, hint hint*

(Right: Chee Hong, Kwan Yee, MeiHwa, Kenny, Me, HayMin,Wei Sung, Wai Lik, Sai heng, Lai Wah)

The crazy saxophonists. I doubt that this sort of opportunity would ever come again and I am glad I was part of this craziness.

(Right:Szi Suan, Me, Kenny and Kwan Yee)

When I left for the States, my environment changed for the better. I have this opportunity to chase the wilders dreams anybody could think of and the only person who could stop me was myself. When I went back for the summer, I felt alone and left out. I was not really close to anyone back in Malaysia nor did I belong to a really close knitted group of friends. While studying in the US, I was having the time of my life, travelling round the world, absorbing experiences where most people are only able to read in books or magazine, and these experiences have definitely changed my views on the meaning of living a fulfilling life.

Now, my friends from the class of 2011 will be graduating in less than 3 weeks. I am feeling kind of depress and sad. Do not get me wrong. I am happy for the class of 2011, but being your RA was such an amazing experience that I felt kind of a shame of myself for not wanting to be your class RA in the first place. The friends that I have made while getting to know each one of you slightly better really made me appreciate even more my education and stay at Soka. Your class has tried your very best to include me in every activity that you guys have organized. You are always so thoughtful. I am extremely disappointed knowing that I will not be able to attend your graduation or to celebrate the end to your wonderful experience at Soka but you can be sure of one thing, I will always treasure the friendship that we have.

With the class of 2011... SUA is definitely going to be different without you guys around.

My group of partying out going girlfriends.. Jolie, you organize the best parties!!!
(Clockwise: Jolie, Michelle, Katie, Nimsy, Yumi, Alex and Myself)

The night of winter formal. A few of us pregamed before attending the winter formal. In honor of the Senior class, I wore blue.
(Right: Katie, Riri, Jolie, Ellyssa, Julius and Me)

This group of friends is where I would usually share my problems with. Thank you for listening to me throughout the years. All of you have been such wonderful friends.
(Right: Anna, Jenny, Liz, ChoyShin, Chacha and Me)

As much as we would like things to remain the same, life is a constant flux. Each of us have a different path in life and as painful as it may seem, we might not cross path again but I find comfort in knowing that we at least did enjoyed each other’s company in the past. It is time to move on. Thank you for being a part of my life.

It is the time of the Month

ahhh.. it is time of the month again. I feel extremely moody and I just feel like sleeping it off. The worst part about it is that I have classes tomorrow and I have to see those rude and impolite Calamasus school kids. I am ready to leave Madrid and start my summer holidays ASAP. 4 months of Madrid is definitely enough. I am definitely feeling the effects of the law of diminishing returns. Even though I have adjusted pretty well to the culture and life styles in Madrid, but I realized that this is not the kind of life that I want. I feel extremely lousy and useless without a sense of purpose or direction when I am in Spain. It is nothing more than a 4 month holiday for me. I am done with the holiday. I am ready for some adventure, something interesting that life has to offer. I do not want to waste my time trying to learn Spanish with some idiots (I mean the Calamasus Kids) who are extremely arrogant and think they know it all. I am sick of the different sort of discrimination that I see. On many occasions, I was subjected to racist remarks and hateful stares. Do I need all this? To be really honest NO. I have a life of my own and these people have a life of their own. Dont judge me based on my appearance and just keep your comments to yourself. Being a developed nation, you put other developed nations to shame. Enough said, I am going to bed right now to sleep off this unpleasant feeling of racism that I have to endure when I am in Madrid.

It is mother's day and I miss my mommy.

First Official Film Photoshoot

My blog for my final assignment for my photography class is up. Finally. Just check it out at 1monthphotoshoot.blogspot.com

My thoughts on photography and life during that moment while working on this project is in the blog too. Hope you enjoy it.

A Shout Out!!!

I would like to apologize for not being able to post as much blog post as I wish I could due to internet and some technical problems. I must say that I am at least 11 post behind. I have written all of them, it is just that the photos are the cause of all the delay. I will work on that as soon as I finish publishing my final photo project on another blogpage. There is just a lot of work in uploading my final photo project but I will definitely post the address as soon as I get it done.

As a promise to the lady in red, I shall do a special shout out to the class of 2011. Congratulations on completing capstone. I know that it was really grueling for some of you, but you finally made it. Please enjoy your final days at SUA and I hope to see some of you pretty soon. New York here I come and Jolie, time to throw some amazing house parties at your place. *hint hint*

I was looking through the senior ball photos and really wished I was there to celebrate with each one of you. I miss you guys the class of 2011. I really feel like as though I am a part of your class. Those photos definitely made me sad at the same time happy. I am definitely going to cherish the moments that you have given me in SUA. Thank you and best of luck with your finals.

To my readers, I have 25 more days before the end of my semester but this blog will be updated till the end of august. I have tons of photos and stories to share. In fact, I plan to continue using this blog for post study abroad adventures where I would be visiting London, Malaga, Paris, and New York. I cant wait for the semester to end. :)

Famous People pt 2

The second famous person I met the following day is Bradley Cooper. He acted in the movie The Hangover, and played the character face man in the movie the A-Team. ISA was invited to join this program El hormiguero. It is a Spanish host interview famous singers and actors. Jackie Chan, Will Smith and Kylie Minogue were in previous episodes. Today they have invited Bradley Cooper as their guest for the talk show. We had to be in front of the station by 6.30pm. Around 6.45pm they lead us into this tunnel and we waited for another 10 minutes. I was exhausted from all the waiting and by the time they let us into the set I was drained out and just wanted to get done with the show and go back for dinner. We were not allowed to take photos and therefore, I do not have any photos of the event. We waited for another 15 minutes before Bradley came on to the show. While he was still in his dressing room, the camera crew were testing out their camera and giving the audience the chance to get use to being on tv. This is definitely not my first time on tv, so when one of the camera was recording me, I winked at the camera flirtatiously and blew kisses to the camera. Hahahaha… that made everybody in the audience laugh because they did not expect somebody to do such a thing on national telelvision.

Bradley finally came onto the set and the Spanish girls went while shouting “Guapo! Guapo! (Handsome! Handsome!)” hahaha they really gave me a whole new perspective of cat calling. I thought only guys do that, but I guess apparently the girls are even more aggressive than the guys. The funny thing about these talk shows is that while they were interviewing Bradley, the audiences were supposed to react to comments during the talk show. Most of the time is just clapping and cheering. I could sense that the crowd was excited but was exhausted and slightly lifeless. Everybody tried their best to have fun and cheered on. When the recording of the live talk show was over, the producers started playing music to capture some shots of the audience while having the DJ play some fun and catchy song. Nobody was really moving except me (the usual) and I know that I definitely stick out like a sore thumb because everybody was somewhat stiff except me who was moving my body and trying to enjoy music. The producer pointed at me and told me to stand up, waving his hands while calling me “Japones, Japones” I stood up and starting dancing as if I was in the club and I got everybody clap their hands and have fun together with me while dance to the music. By the end of the song, everybody was even more pumped up than when Bradley just walked in.

I am very sure that I made the entire recording much more interesting and fun. When I was done with the dancing, the producer thanked me over the microphone and asked everybody to give me a round of applause while still referring me as Japones. Hahahaha Leticia from ISA told him that I was not from Japan and that I was from Malaysia. It was extremely kind of him to apologize and asked the crowd once again to give me the Malaysian another round of applause. One of the people from the program stopped me and asked if whether do I know Spanish, I pointed to Leticia and said that she was my translator. Acting like a movie star… hahahaha She took Leticia’s number and said that if I am ever interested in attending some other program, they would be more than happy to give me an invitation. Wow.. that is definitely a compliment. A group of teenagers was so excited that they wanted to have a photo with me. I guess I am competing with the big dogs now like Bradley Cooper. Hahahahaha.. It was definitely a fun experience and it felt good to be in the center of attention once again on national television after a long break from Malaysian Idol.

http://play.cuatro.com/directo/portada/el-hormiguero/ver/bradley-cooper-visita-el-hormiguero

Famous People pt1

The President of Madrid city walking towards the crowd in Sol, Madrid.

Yesterday,

all my sorrows seem so far away,

and oh I believe in yesterday

An accordionist is playing the song that I just sang. This song brings back old memories of my brother, uncle and I when we would go for singing lessons together. While my uncle would try his very best to sing in tune, he would be so out of tune that my brother and I would giggle at the corner of the room. It must have been so embarrassing for him but he still brought us for singing lesson. I really miss my uncle. Over the years, we have grown apart. I guess it is because he has his own children now, and since we are all grown up I guess we have our own lives to lead. I do miss this uncle dearly. He has always been there for my mom and other aunts. Madrid does reignite the various fond memories as a child. I am not going to go on with my childhood story but I would to share with you the interesting people that I have met in Spain. The people that I have met are really famous.

On March 30, 2011, while walking to ISA office to collect the RAM for my laptop, I saw a huge crowd of people with a lot of policemen and the crowd was behind the blue police fence. As usual, hoping to capture some action, I joined the crowd and asked one of the man standing next to me what was going on. He spoke to me in Spanish but sadly, all I could understand was somebody name Carlos is going to visit Madrid. I further guessed a loud that it was King Juan Carlos, but the guy shook his head and sort of pointed to his ears and kept saying “muy feo, muy feo (very ugly, very ugly).” The lady in front of me turned back and told me Prince Charles from the UK will be arriving any minute now. What?!?! Did she said Prince Charles, Princess Diana’s ex-husband? This is going to be amazing but at the mean time I was contemplating whether should I run back to grab my DSLR or would my Panasonic point and shoot would be able to do the job. Alas, I made up my mind to stay in order not to miss Prince Charles because there could be a possibility that while I was back home to get my camera he could have arrived. I got a glimpse of the Prince and that was it. Nothing interesting but at least I could tell my kids that I have seen Prince Charles in person during my study abroad in Madrid.

Photos on that day:

Their first meeting in front of the clock tower in the middle of Sol.

A quick chat with all his bodyguards watching.

A photo of a photo of the President of Madrid city.

The president of Madrid city awaits Prince Charles.

The media covering the event. It was definitely hot that day.

Look at the amount of people just trying to get a glimpse of Prince Charles.

HP Madrid really?

I did a self check and found that my ram is corrupted. It is a blessing in disguise. While I did not have my laptop for 2 days, I was able to half of my ben carson book. I just managed to do so much without the laptop. I guess this is a sign that I should cut back on my laptop and really start exploring Madrid. However, there are a lot of things that I need my laptop for, like buying air tickets and etc.

Feeling extremely excited I went to HP headquarters in Madrid in Las Rosas. Las Rosas is in the out skirt of Madrid, which means my metro pass is useless and I ended wasting 6 Euros to go to the HP Headquarters and not getting anything done because the receptionist told me that they do not have a technical service team. You gotta be kidding me. This is crazy. No technical team for such a huge corporation. I have been without a laptop for 3 days now and the receptionist is really testing my patience. Their service is worst than in the US. I cant believe it. I feel like strangling the receptionist at HP. She tells me that she understands english but after talking to her for 5 minutes, I realize that her english is on par with my Spanish. She told me that if I needed technical support, I either had to call or go to their website. How on earth am I able to access their website again when my laptop crashed? I had to use my friend´s laptop to look for their address and on their website they say that for technical support I can always go to their head office. Now the receptionist is telling me something different. At first she gave me a number for technical support, but I told her that mine is a business laptop not an end user one. I expect better service because I paid a premium for the service. She then reluctantly gave me another number for business companies. When I tried calling, it was in Spanish and I had to tell her politely that I do not understand Spanish, how on earth would I be able to communciate. Where is her brains? And she insist that she knows English. Yeah, right. May be HP Madrid should have an intensive course for customer service and how to speak and understand english. But more importantly, they have to fix that website. Do not mislead your customers. Especially customers with a very very short fuse due to the lousy durability of your products.

This is by far the worst ever. Why to go HP... I really hope lenovo or samsung wins the next SUA (Lap)top model.

Hillary Clinton in Class

Today in class, there were 5 new students from a university from Michigan. They seem nice, but definitely different from Californians because the guys from my Spanish classes are from SDSU which is about an hour away from my place. Anyways, in class today Paula was teaching us “caer”, me, te, le, nos, os, les +cae , caen, cayo, or cayaron + bien or mal. It is basically your impression about a person. As she was going through the photos, none my new friends knows whom the Premier of China or the former president of Palestine. However, when it came to Hillary Clinton, of course, they knew who she is but to my surprise, they could not say what her current position is with the Obama administration. She is the US Secretary of State.

What surprise me the most is that none of my 5 new friends like her. I was surprise and I asked for a reason but none of them said anything. However, I said “me cae bien Hillary Clinton. (I like Hillary Clinton)” I went on further by explaining that the reason why I like her is because she was one of the few together with Obama that came up with the US national health care plan. Out of the blues, this 19 year old kid pfft (An expression of dismissal of another's comment) at my comment. How disrespectful and rude. Anyways, I continued my argument stating that at least now, the US have a health care plan. When a country like the US can spend billions in warfare, and you compare the US health care plan to the EU countries or even to Malaysia, the US health care plan is a joke.

These people do not realize that they are in a disadvantage, pfft at my comments but not really knowing that the health care plan would help millions who are unable to pay for their medical bills, and you give these ignorant people the power to vote for their own government. No wonder it is so easy for cunning politicians to take advantage of ignorant people like this 19 year old.

I feel that sometimes, just because I am not a blonde-haired person or Caucasian, I am being discriminated with passive aggressiveness. If a Caucasian were to say the same thing, I am sure that 19 year old would think thrice to pfft that person’s statements. His behavior is absolutely absurd and rude. I do hope that they would deny him medical insurance when he needs it the most in order for him to realize how the health care plan would help millions of Americans who are unable to pay for their medical bills.

It is raining again in Madrid

It is raining again in Madrid. This weather is driving me nuts. One week the weather is warm and cheerful. Always welcoming me with beautiful sunrays and warm feeling that makes the centre of Madrid so much friendlier. The next thing I know, it is showering me with cold rain, covering the warmth of my sunshine with dark moody clouds. What is going Madrid? The weather is extremely temperamental and it kills the fun of trying to figure you out. That makes my mood temperamental too.The weather in Madrid right is similar love. Sometimes it is warm and nice, and while you are enjoying the warmth of love, it turns cold.

On the bright side of this cold and wet evening, I am done with my terms. Cant wait to put on my wet raining partying boots to party with Eddie who is planning a trip to Madrid. It has been about 10 days since visiting Granada and I definitely miss the energy in Granada. It is very different from the vibe that I get from madrilènes.

For photo geeks like myself:

I will definitely be working on some photos tonight from my trip Granada trip. After taking a couple thousand of photos, I realized that my lens needs an upgrade. No, not my fifty nifty. I am talking about my 18-200mm. I find that the autofocus is rather slow. I am not saying that I cant get those shots that I want, but sometimes the IQ of the lens is slightly bad that causes it to back focus. I read reviews that the 70-200mm focus is way faster compared to the 18-200mm, better contrast, and best of all, it is a much brighter lens. Time to save again for either a new lens or a new alto. Choices are made when money is an issue. Hahahaha.

I will definitely try my best to get the Granada photos up and may be some updates about other places that I have visited but I was not able to write.

Hypocrites

Some people are just hypocrites and I am just getting really sick and irritated with having to deal with these people around. Why can you just leave me alone? You have your hobbies and I have mine. Currently, the only thing that I can do in Spain is to take photos of people and their emotions. I like taking photos of people as it gives a sense of hope that there are normal people out there that are happy and really appreciate being alive.

When I was in Granada, some of the students in the ISA program were extremely rude to me. They are just so childish and sometimes I wonder should I just tell them to back off or should I roll round and laugh on my belly like a puppy because of their childishness. I have been extremely patient with all these names calling like for example like stalker, creeper and so on and so forth. Just because you have limited knowledge about photography does not give you the right to mock or harass somebody in that manner.

In fact, the funny thing is that while taking some photos of the cherry blossoms in Granada, one of the ISA students came up to me and asked to see my photos. After showing that person the photos that I have taken, the student told me this. “I hate you Jordann for having such a nice camera”. Well, I worked for my camera equipments. I worked long and hard hours in various jobs in order to purchase these equipments. While many of my peers are having a great time, I work. What is there to hate me? If you want a camera like mine, work hard and save hard. It is that simple.

In another incident, this person really got on my nerves and I strongly feel that this person should be a shame of himself or herself. I am not going to name names here but somebody had the cheek and wanted to view my photos on my laptop. After viewing 6 of my photos, the person just walked away and said that it was too much of creeper photos. What bad attitude and it was definitely an insult to me since that person was the one who wanted to view my photos and I was showing off or forcing that person to view my photos. However, I was surprise to see on the person’s facebook “creeper photos” according to that person. Why is this person so rude to me about what I do when he or she is doing the same thing? Why is this person being such a hypocrite? Is it because I have tons of lenses and camera equipments where it is totally out of your budget and you could only afford your point and shoot, therefore that gives you the right to call me names? Grow up and I do not appreciate your lack of personality even though you try to mask it as a joke. I know what a good joke or bad joke is, but your “joke” is just a rude comment.

People have always asked me what I do with my photos. I would usually tell them that I just capture the moments because I like photography trying very hard to keep photography as personal as possible. I do not like blowing my own horn. Wait let me rephrase that sentence. I love blowing my own horn, which is a Selmer Serie III tenor saxophone but seriously, the photos that I have taken is private property. These photos are not posted on facebook to tell everybody where I have visited or what a good time I have to make my friends jealous or envy how fortunate I am to be studying abroad. My photos have been published in a magazine in Malaysia. I am no wanna be photographer. I am an actual photographer where my works have been published. For the people from my ISA program who thinks that it is a joke to call me names just because I take photographs of strangers, think again before you try to come up with a rude comment.

I do apologize for the sudden burst of emotions that disrupts the flow of this blog. On the bright side, I took a ton of photos of beautiful people in Granada. I cannot wait to share them with you soon and I would definitely blog about my thoughts while I am in Granada.