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Let’s Go to the Zoo!

When you talk about the zoo back in KL, you think of the KFC ad where the children sing , “Let’s go to the zoo, there’s a lots of things to do” etc etc etc (circa late 80s?). Heh, it made the zoo sound like fun but sadly, there weren’t many animals to see and you could smell the animals from a mile away.

Went to the local zoo in Melbourne on Saturday. Heh, was all excited about the trip, not because I’ve never been there before (I went there 6 years ago), but because I could snap on my 28-200mm zoom lens on my D70 to go take pictures of animals. Heh, what I’d give to get one of the 80-200mm VR lenses (which incidentally, cost more than my D70 kit alone). It was a cloudy day, so light was always going to be inadequate. The plus side was that there would be no strong shadows lingering so I was happy to tweak up the ISO to get some good shots.

The zoo is like 10 min by car from the city area, so it’s quite accessible to most people. It’s quite an amazing zoo, with a wide variety of animals. There’s the usual Australian fauna, animals from Asia (tigers, leopards and all sorts of exotic cats) and Africa (lions, zebras, giraffes). There are also reptiles and an aviary where you get to see many colourful birds as well.

The zoo covers a rather large area and it would be a good idea to spend a day at least at the zoo. Bring along a picnic basket and you could have lunch on one of the lush, green lawns in the zoo. This is definitely a good place to have an outing, and also to bring along your camera and snap shots. So I spent about 2 1/2 hours at the zoo, and this was the first outing where I managed nearly 280 shots and took up most of my 1GB memory card. Digital is such a convenient format that you can just take pictures to your heart’s content (as long as you have the HD space to store it later). My only lament is that I take pictures for granted at times and don’t try to tweak the settings to get a very good shot. A lot of it is trial and error, but with animals, they shift positions very quickly and it’s best to just set a generic mode (Program mode for me) and take pics on the fly, only changing ISO depending on the lightness/darkness of the scene and the available light. Still don’t play very much with exposure settings and should take better note of shutter speed at high focal lengths.

Actually, it’s a wonder at times, that we can only see animals in captivity. While I don’t know how much the animals mind it, but humans wouldn’t be able to view them any other way. Zoo animals are semi tamed as in they only know the four walls that confine them and they understand that they are taken care by humans (or so I believe). We encroach on their territories so much, that in order to save them, we have to imprison them. Hmm, just wondering at times.

Will be posting zoo pictures over the next couple of days. Heh, it was a fun trip indeed.

Complacency

• Listening to: Yubiwa (Escaflowne Movie OST)

Just arrived home from dinner. Work was long and arduous today. Heh, not that I’m complaining, I’d rather being busy and get the day done and over with. Dinner was Sarawak laksa and it tastes quite ‘authentic’, so says my Sarawakian friends. Heh, another of my friends (who is also from Sarawak) says it’s not ‘authentic’ unless it’s made and eaten in Sarawak, especially beside a ‘longkang’ (sewage drains)! He was just kidding, besides, them ‘longkang’s have long been sealed up.

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Today is the first in many days I’ve had time to sit down and not do something with anyone else. Just a solo activity today. Not that I mind entertaining other people or maybe just making myself socially acceptable, I’m happy doing these things. Maybe I’m happy if I can make other people happier, so if it means being agreeable, I don’t mind it that much. Does it take away my own identity? I wonder at times, but don’t feel it as such. Maybe I am pressed for time with things, and maybe I want to be everything everyone wants me to be. Maybe I’m not too fussy about who I am as a representation of me or maybe I’m just happy being simple, flowing along with the wind.

Perhaps at times we are so comfortable with ourselves we get complacent. We hug ourselves and pat ourselves on the back that we can be contented with the things we have. Why do people aspire to be better? To what end? Why do we tell ourselves to appreciate the things we already have, so that we can cherish them and not regret losing these things later on? It’s a contradictive lifestyle and everyone has their own views. Maybe sometimes we are so caught up in being socially accepted that we lack the will to think differently. Then I digress, why do we try so hard to be so individualistic, that we feel we don’t belong into any part of society, that everyone is too shallow, that no one will understand.

About complacency, like I said that being so happy with our ownselves that sometimes we have too low an expectation of what we can achieve. I’ve heard the arguments of why do we need to try so hard just to get that little bit higher. Is it worth it? Maybe not to you, but it may be to some people. We only get one shot at life, and not putting other assumptions of an afterlife, we should appreciate the things we have and try harder to achieve what we seek. Maybe you want to be a high flying executive that makes the money roll. For this you relinquish the chance to have a family and maybe see your children grow up and prosper, that you may be proud of them. How does this matter to some people, and not others at all?

Sometimes, there are just too many points of view that you get stifled and do not reflect upon your own thoughts. A says you should be like this, B says you should be like that, C disagrees and comes up with something totally different. Maybe you feel that you’d be smothered in everyone’s thoughts, and not be able to voice your own concerns. So what should one do?

I guess, and I believe, that I should have my own opinion on everything. Respect other people’s ideas and give the freedom for others to express themselves. However, one should not mistake providing understanding as a gesture of accepting everything spoken and given. I have previously been branded as being smug and arrogant, I may sound very much as such. I do have my own thoughts and ideas and there was a time when I’d take both sides views. It gives you the added scope, but it does not help you make a decision. We should be affirmative of what we know and want and act upon it. I talk about being complacent, because people think that if it’s not asked or stated, that it is not expected from you. We should try harder and make the effort, even if it tires you out in doing so. Complacency, if you think about it, it’s not when you compare yourself with someone else. No one is better off from the other, and the grass is not greener on the other side. The welfare state gives too much that sometimes people take it for granted and it suddenly becomes a right of birth that we should rely on others to make us stand. Neither do I believe in survival of the fittest, where conditions are so harsh that only the strongest willed survive.

I take the stand on both sides, not because I’m undecisive of how things should be, but because I believe we should strike our own balance in thinking things through. You can never foresee every detail and crack waiting to break open. Know what you can, and try to know more. You can’t know everything, but at least if it relates to you, you can at least make the statement you tried the very best you could.

Believe in yourself and what you want to do. You do not compete with others, thinking that just because they are worse off than you that you can use that as a benchmark to feel adequate about yourself. If you truly want something, don’t be complacent and make things happen. My only ever benchmark was with myself, maybe thinking that I’d like to be as generous as him, as kind hearted as her, and all the things that make a person’s soul beautiful. Everyone makes mistakes, some of which should never be made, if only you weren’t blinded by your own smugness would you know of an impending failure.

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I am reminded that I too need to open my eyes, to slow down and to think, and be a little more considerate.

Assignment – I Despise You!

Rain drops have this strangely calming aura about them. As is the air, after the rain of course.

Heh, feeling agitated before, and a little anxious. Have never felt such antiness (if that is a word) towards an assignment before.

With work tomorrow, logic dictates I shouldn’t procrastinate any longer.

Logic is right.