Volunteering for a meaningful cause

I have been volunteering at a helpline for the past 3+ years, offering emotional support for people who feel depressed, lonely and suicidal.

I feel that it's a meaningful role where I get to give something back to society and make connections with people I would normally not be able to speak with, and to speak with them about things that would not be usually be discussed under other circumstances.

I often have to remember that these conversations are not about me and my focus should be on the caller. I suppose that over the past few years I have learnt to be a better listener and to commit my focus and attention during every minute of the call to the person I'm on the line with.

I'm hopeful that more volunteers will come on board and stay on to serve, as there is a lack of people manning the lines for this round-the-clock service.

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Sony Alpha Basic Photography Workshop

Learned quite a bit on photography at the recent Sony Alpha Basic Photography Workshop held on 12th September 2009 at The Grand Continental Hotel, Jalan Raja Laut. Traffic going into the city was pretty bad, with the Hari Raya holidays just next weekend, many were in town shopping and clogging up the roads. Our trainer, John Shum, talked about all sort of photography tips and tools. It was interesting to know more about how to use the Shutter speed, Aperture settings, Manual mode, ISO, flash, exposure and so on. The attendance was at about 35 and there were 2 young lady models also present for practice shooting. In addition, invited guest Ms. Denise Chan, who has been into photography for 2 years and shoots every weekend, shared her work with the participants. I guess this is one of the advantages of being a Sony Alpha dSLR user. There will be another workshop on using Flash planned for 18th October 2009. The next lens I might look to get is the recommended SAL75300 which retails at RM...

KLCC Morning Out With Buddy Mun

My friend Mun and I went out for a little walk at the KLCC Suria shopping complex and took a few pictures. He wanted to work on composition of pictures and I laughed a lot when he was lying on the floor of the concourse to shoot some photos. It's nice to have spent a little time just chilling with my friend. Most of the pictures I take these days are in Program mode with the ISO settings at what I think will give sufficient shutter speed. I'm still not much into editing or touching up on the images. Apart from cropping and exporting the images in smaller sizes, there doesn't seem to be much time. Briefly met a German lady from Berlin who was visiting the towers with her husband. Odd that he was walking way ahead not really waiting for her. Welcome to Malaysia! Mun took a nice picture of the Mont Blanc store emblem through the Suria KLCC logo on the glass of an upper floor. Good shot! Went back to KLCC for lunch this afternoon and found that Candy Land has already been taken...

Not A Botanist

I have a neighbour who loves gardening. She's got pots and pots of all sorts of plants and she spends time at least twice a day trimming, pruning, watering, fertilizing and caring for her plants in the early morning and evening. For me, I have a patch of grass with some leafy greens near a wall plus a tiny pot of mint plant that's neither growing or dying. It's odd that the grass is a bit spongy, but that seems to be the way it grows. After some time taking pictures in RAW, I think I'll switch to Fine and Small for now, unless it's a special occasion or shot. Even loading the RAW images are taking too long. So, it's iPhoto for now for easy viewing and management of images. It's been said (and I agree) that perhaps blogspot is not the best place to post your pictures as you can't really see close-up details unless you click on the images for the actual size. That's just one click too many.

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