nike+ fuelband

so just a couple of days ago, i met up with the NikeMY peeps just to catch up and get my remaining goodies from them. this new gadget i got is the best thing ever! it's called the nike+ fuelband.

why do i say it's awesome because, you don't really have to get into serious running/ or exercise mode initially. just charge the band, put it on and watch how your every move is recorded! and then from that, naturally you would want to do MORE and really get into exercising.

this fuelband lets you do any activities, from walking to lifting bags, to running, tennis, boxing, climbing the stairs, heck ANYTHING AT ALL! it records your calories, steps, fuel, and it also acts like a watch. in fact i turned my fuelband into my everyday accessory :)

you get to set an everyday goal. you will try to reach it and once you hit your goal, the excitement doesn't just stop there, you'd want to out-do yourself and set a higher goal! in a way it's like a personal cheerleader and motivator (in my opinion).

                                                                set up your device

                                                                 first time trying it out

                                              almost reaching my goal 2K not even half a day!

                           fuelly gives you a victory dance when you've reached your goal!

                                           day 2 of wearing the fuelband in just 1 1/2 hours

it looks awesome and cool right??? i really love this. slowly but surely when my knee is strong enough, i will increase my goal, work out harder and win trophies and see different dances from fuelly!

love, me.

post MRI...

so after doing the MRI, the results came back and it showed that i have a "partial patellar tendon tear". it means..my tendon just below the knee-cap has a partial tear. thank mickey its not a major thing. all i needed was a cast. but me being me..i avoided it because it was gonna restrict my movements (duh! thats why its supposed to be casted).

i ended up not using the cast, but i made sure i didn't put pressure on my right knee. the doctor said it's ok, i just need to continue with my physio and after about a month from i can slowly start with light jogging. as for my scars, it's ugly! but im putting mederma for now.

to be honest, i really cannot wait to start playing again!

love, me.

an alien invasion??

after the motorbike accident i had on Merdeka Eve, i went for an MRI. for the longest time i never knew what it meant, i didn't look it up coz i felt it wasn't necessary for me to know. hehehehe. of course that's not an excuse to not find out what it means. so now i know, MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

MRI was created by Dr. Raymond Damadian. he volunteered to be the test subject when nobody else wanted too. but it didn't really happen because it turned out Damadian was too big for the machine. in the end, a student voluntereed and on July 3 1977, MRI was first performed on a human being and it took almost 5 hours to produce an image.

MRI is done to diagnose brain tumors, torn ligaments, tendonitis, cancer, and strokes just to name a few. this is the best way to see the inside of someone without cutting them open! :D

before i went in i was asked questions like if i had metals in my body, if i had done a surgery and etc. i got a little bit confused when she asked about metals in my body..don't know why, maybe coz i always felt like a bionic woman with all my activities and sports...that i just dont know when to stop! (it's always important to have a balance in everything you do, i've learnt that). the procedure took about 45 minutes and that's only for my right knee! i wasn't allowed to move because just like a camera, when taken in low light and if you move, then the image will be blurred, and that means, it has to be taken again.

i was quite nervous when i was in the MRI machine. it was really noisy! it felt like an alien invasion. the sounds of the machine was kinda like a flying saucer in the movies where it just hovers above you and.... it also had like a machine gun noise! and the "bed" vibrated!

the funniest thing was after the nurse said i couldn't move, not even a twitch, she put on Savage Garden, The Wanted as the background music! now how was i suppose to keep still? i was so tempted to tap my feet! hahahaah

but jokes aside, this procedure made a hole in my pocket. RM952 was the amount i had to pay. the result will be out on Wednesday (29/09/2012) and let's hope my ligaments and tendons are fine. (fingers crossed)

luv, me.i 

I met our previous Prime Minister of Malaysia!

so i was asked to emcee the press conference for the Monsoon Cup rebranding. i was very nervous because Yang Amat Berbahagia Datuk Seri Utama Tun Haji Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi was our VVIP! Tan Sri Sabaruddin Chik was also there. well basically, people with power were there.

i haven't done formal emcee-ing in awhile. it was quite refreshing and emcee-ing is always good (formal, parties, annual dinners etc..). i love doing it. so if you know of anybody who's looking for an emcee, do drop me a line on my fb http://www.facebook.com/pages/Azura-Zainal/326545245562 (quick promo...hey dont judge me!)

                                                           me at 2011 monsoon cup

if you want to see more pictures you can go to my fb fanpage. the link is on top. :)

luv, me.

MOTORBIKE = DANGER on Merdeka Eve

 I know for a fact that riding a motorbike is a dangerous thing. My late mother banned all of us from riding a motorbike because it's simple...its DANGEROUS! But we cannot deny the fact that it is faster for you to get to one place to another. It's also cheaper for people who cannot afford to buy a car. But the sad truth is, no matter how careful, focus and cautious you are on the road, i would say that almost 90% of accidents of motorbikes are caused by other people. (cars, lorry etc..)

I celebrated my Merdeka eve of 2012 in the Sungai Buloh Hospital. I got into an accident with another motorbike which wasn't even our fault. My friend and i were riding from my office and the accident happened in Jalan Duta headed towards Jalan Parlimen. I already saw 2 motorbikes in front of us who were riding side by side in the middle of a busy road, to make it worst, they were chit-chatting with one another! Obviously when you are talking to another motorbike while riding, you are not focused and most of the time, you are not balanced. So that's how this story ended.

We rode straight into the bike who suddenly went off balance and swerved to the right, into us! 4 of us did a superman, and slid to the side of the road.  After all that, my friend quickly stood up, looked for me (to make sure i wasn't on the road) and he said he was seeing double. Took my bag off the main road and he quickly checked on me. The other 2 people who were injured were helped by their 2 friends, and what pissed me off was, the 2 bikes just rode off without even talking to us. The least they could do was find out how we were?! They knew it was their fault that this accident happened. it was a case of Hit and Run!

Our friend Fadinha, quickly rushed over to pick us up and brought us to the clinic to get our wounds cleaned. after that my sister brought us to the hospital. My knee was totally messed up. Both Cris and I had to do an x-ray and result showed that my knee-cap aka patella had shifted upwards and physiotherapy is needed. My jeans was not torn but this was what underneath it...Sigh... here are some pictures of the accident. 

p/s: not for the faint-hearted..

 

                                                     my right knee taken from the top

                                                      my knee cannot be stitched up

                                                       there are 2 holes on my knee

                                                 the nurse at clinic cleaning my wound

                                                                       cris's knee

                                                                       cris's palm

                                                                        cris's elbow

Moral of the story is, never ever go on a motorbike! you can take every step of precautions but the chances of you getting into an accident is very high.

luv, me.

Our first singing gig

it has been in our plan to make something different this year (2012). my sister and i have had this plan of marketing me as a singing emcee, of course my nieces will be included simply because they have beautfiul voices.

believe or not, on the 7th of June, we did our debut performance at a very big event (as i would like to say it) because it's a charity event. its called the "Make A Wish Charity Golf Tournament", mostly attended and participated by expats. thanks to my bff Chelsia Ng we got to perform as a trio! actually, chelsia was suppose to perform that night but due to her tight shooting schedule, she had pass it on to me.

                                                                the wealthy guests

sound check was done early in the morning and everything was good. the night came, i rushed straight from the office to KLGCC, got changed there. tasha, thira and i were so excited and nervous at the same time because we're not just singing 1 song but 4 songs! we did perform once at the Berjaya Founders Day last year in berjaya times square, that was nerve-wrecking but that was only 1 song for me and 1 song for the girls.

anyway, the emcee announced our names to perform, and when we got out there, after introducing and bla bla bla, the song did not play!! yea, somtimes that happened but normally it'll only take about a few seconds for it to play again. but no! thank goodness for my experience of being an emcee (ehem ehem), i managed to stall the crowd and did whatever it took to save the embarrassement. but..guess what, we were told that the cd was stuck in the player and it wouldn't come out. so we had to leave the stage and the they had to continue with the next thing in line which was the awards ceremony.

i was ready not to perform because the technician was still trying to get the cd out of the player and in the end, he had to dismantle it. it took 15 minutes and in the end, we became the closing performance. phew!

talk about madness! already we were nervous...had to stand on stage for 5 minutes with nothing...got of stage and after 20 minutes, we got to perform.

                                                                          the stage!

but with all that madness, we managed to blow them away! everybody was so impressed by us, and commented that they had never heard voices like ours and one man came up to us and said he wanted to manage us and make us famous all over the world! hahahaha my neices got excited of course, and of course they were the bigger stars!

hoping to have more gigs like this...and paying ones too! hehehe

                                                                    thira, azura, tasha

yes i can hear you asking "where's the video of the performance??"....well, we do have a recording of it BUT i cannot find the cables that's attached to the dv camera to the laptop...so i cant transfer the videos out! :( but once i figure out how to do it, i will put it up on my youtube page! its azurazainal1 okay!

you can also check it out at my fb page, azura zainal "). thanks!

love, me.

MMRC 2012

MMRC stands for Malaysia Match Racing Circuit 2012. i was asked to do 5 episodes of this program, as you may have already know, it is a sailing competition in Malaysia. the difference between "Match Racing" and "Fleet Racing", 'match racing' involves 2 yatchs racing like cat and mouse and are able to give penalties to the opponent where as 'fleet racing' is when you see a huge number of sail-boats racing in the open sea, just like on tv. seriously, i should already enroll myself to a sailing school after 3 years of emcee-ing the Monsoon Cup!

the reason mmrc was established is to give our local sailors a platform to compete and gain experience and eventually mould and be as good as the international sailors. previously, the only way our sailors were able to compete in the monsoon cup was through a wild card entry via Asian Match Racing Circuit.

in mmrc, the skipppers will compete in 3 circuits and collect points and the team with the most points will be competing in monsoon cup 2012 in Pulau Duyong Terengganu.

after years of discussion and meetings finally MYA (malaysian yacthing association) and T-Best Events came to a common platform and decided that mmrc is needed to push our sailors to be the best at their event.

so,where i come in is to give insights and report of the mmrc. the first location for the mmrc was in TLDM Teluk Muroh, Lumut, Perak (11-13 may). i had never driven to Lumut before so my sister and i decided to leave early on Saturday and take a nice drive there. i used to think going to Lumut was FAR! but its almost as far as Penang, but not really, maybe an hour less to get to Lumut.

anyway, got there and started with my shoot. it was really nice to see the skippers like Jeremy Khoo, Hazwan Hazim, Masyuri and their teams just to name a few. i got to know them from monsoon cup and they are all really nice bunch of people.

MMRC Skippers

there are 7 teams which 3 of them are from the Royal Malaysian Navy Match Racing Team. The other 4 are Koo Racing Team, Permai Hotel Match Racing, Setia West Marine and Ri-Yaz Heritage Sailing Team. 

the 1st circuit is done and Jeremy Koo came out on top and managed to collect 25 points. all the skippers have a history with one another and each one of them are vying for the title of mmrc champion thus compete in the world class sailing competition which is the monsoon cup. 

here are the list of skippers and their teams in the mmrc for you to look out for :-

1) Jeremy Koo - Koo Racing Team

2) Hazwan Hazim - Permai Hotel Match Racing

3) Nurul Ain - Ri-Yaz Heritage Sailing team

4) Masyuri - Royal Malaysian Navy Match Racing Team 1

5) Rizal Mahadi - Setia West Marine

6) Harisfabillah - Royal Malaysian Navy Match Racing Team 3

7) Nik Ashraf - Royal Malaysian Navy Match Racing Team 2

next stop, Pulau Indah, Selangor from the 29 June till 1st July. you know what, you are more than welcome to come and watch!! come by and maybe we could meet and who knows maybe this could interest you in the sailing world! :P

love, me.

The Ultrabook #Intel Core i7

i got the new ultrabook with intel core i7 inside and man its awesome. i like the fact that its light so its easy for me to take it anywhere, it weighs less than 1.5kg! perfect whenever i go for my shoot especially when i go and do my travel/adventure show x-plorasi.

it turns on really quick, less than 20 secs (i actually counted hehehe) and whenever it goes to "sleep", you can wake it up in approximately 5 seconds! now that's important when you're in a rush to present/show something to people.

i also took it in the studio at RED fm. 1 thing i noticed about the ultrabook is that, the battery life is not long enough. if you were to use straight for 3 hours (without using the charger), you will be sure to have 4-5% of battery left BUT it's not the end of the world when that happens. i mean you have to remember that it is different from your "normal" laptop, i dont think its meant for you to work on it for long straight hours. i thinks its more for presentations and as a quick working tool that has a powerful engine to it.

look at it!! it's so sleek and sexy! heheheheh

just so you know,  im just a simple user who keeps photos and maybe do a bit of editing here and there and so i dont have any qualms with this ultrabook.  to me, it fits with what i do and also helps me create a faster presentation :P

love, me.

Oh how i miss school days

when my sister aka my manager told me that a student from assunta wanted to interview me for their school yearbook, i quickly said YES!

my interviewer was divania...a final year student at assunta pj. we agreed to meet at nando's tropicana city mall because it would be easier for me to go to work. it was on the 11th of April and it was an important day because a) Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah installation b) it was my sisters' birthday (syazana) c) it was a holiday! (but not for me)

we got there at about the same time so i ordered my food but i was disappointed divania didn't have lunch, she only had chips :( but it's ok. so she started asking me questions about school and man did it bring back memories..back in the day when i was in the cheer-leading team, i was the VP of rumah jingga and that was the year we were the grand champion of hari sukan! the times where i was the olahragawati for 2 consecutive years and many more!! gosh i just wanna go back and visit my school. i heard that sri aman will soon have a swimming pool! why couldn't we have that when i was in school?? i could've been a great swimmer! hahah

 the funny thing was, throughout the interview, divania thought i was an assuntarian when in fact i was a sri amanian! in history these 2 schools has always been and apparently still in a "silent competition". i guess some things just don't change hehehe.

i then found out that the assunta year book will be in a dvd instead! so awesome! can't wait to get a copy of my own. after the interview was done, i was given this recycled notebook made by them!! its too cute (i'm a sucker for packaging and i love stationary)

THANK YOU DIVANIA!!

luv,me.

I GOT DENGUE-FIED!

it all starts with this annoying tiny thing....

for those of you who don't know, dengue is not contagious. you only get Dengue transmitted by several species of mosquito within the genus Aedes, principally A. aegypti. The virus has four different types; infection with one type usually gives lifelong immunity to that type, but only short-term immunity to the others. Subsequent infection with a different type increases the risk of severe complications. As there is no vaccine, prevention is sought by reducing the habitat and the number of mosquitoes and limiting exposure to bites.


when you are bitten by an Aedes Mosquito you will not know until you do a blood test. the symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash that is similar to measles. In a small proportion of cases the disease develops into the life-threatening dengue hemorrhagic fever, resulting in bleeding, low levels of blood platelets and blood plasma leakage, or into dengue shock syndrome, where dangerously low blood pressure occurs.


so now you know about dengue, let me tell you my experience of dengue. 


you normally hear of other people or friend of a friend who gets dengue. but now....it started on the 4th of march when i went to do my hair at my usual place, THE MET. just the night before i was out till late for the redfm red beatz party...and i was fine. so i went for my hair appointment at 12pm and everything was good, i felt normal, just like any other day. i only started feeling weird when i did my last hair wash after the cut and colouring. i suddenly felt cold, i thought maybe it was from the cold water they had used on me. so i ignored it. then i began to feel a throbing headache which was really weird because i rarely get headaches. still that didn't get me thinking about anything but maybe i probably was gonna get sick, you know the kind that you get once every 2 years if not more.


when i was done at the met, i went home as early as i could because that night i had a birthday dinner for my sister with the family. by the time i got home, my headache got worse and i started feeling cold and my body was burning up. i had a bit of time before i got ready for dinner so my lil sister zana gave me panadol actifast and i took a quick nap hoping that all will go away. well, it kinda did, but i felt really tired and my eyes were swollen. despite all that, we had a wonderful dinner and we even sang with the band at hyatt saujana!

                                                     happy birthday kak ina - 5th march


the next day i had a photoshoot with the met. but to my despair, my fever had gotten worst! i couldn't even drive! i decided to go to the clinic first to get myself checked and as soon as i walked into the doctor's room, she went "uh oh!". she did a the check up and she suspected it to be dengue but we can't be sure because we cant do a blood test. if we did it on that day itself it will appear as a "false positive". she gave me some meds and told me to go home straight and rest but of course i cant do that! i have to work and i had made commitments! so i went for the photoshoot instead feeling like poop!

                                         at the met photoshoot- me on the day i felt really ill!


i did my thing at the photoshoot and it lasted till about 3pm. thank goodness for the meds, i had the energy to work. the doctor gave me 2 days of medical leave and straight after i was done, i went to my sisters' house and stayed with her for 2 days. the fever i had lasted through out my medical leave and the doctor did say if i still felt the same or worse, i was to go and see her. so on the 3rd day i went to see the doctor and she quickly said "im writing a letter for you to do a blood test for dengue". 


oh my bejeebers! i never felt so sick in my life! i quickly went to kjmc to do as the doctor instructed and BOOM! within an hour i was told i was dengue positive and they nurses quickly admitted me and started me on the drip. i didnt get to pack anything for my stay at the hospital!

                                                                 poor me :( hehehe


the feeling was terrible! i was freezing my butt off in my room ( bed 328), i was banned from switching off the aircond because i needed to bring down my fever. the room was so cold that i couldn't get much sleep. everytime i switched the aircond off the nurses would turn it back on. sigh....


the doctor came every morning to check on me and blood was taken everday at 6am. day by day my platelet went down from 90 to 50 to the lowest was 30! the doctor made it sound like i was gonna die! he kept saying i needed to drink a lot of water. i mean i know that, but if my stomoch can't even take in food and water, what else can i do?! i was vomitting a lot, also because i cannot swallow pills! i have  phobia for pills if you didn't already know. at first the nurses and doctor didn't believe me when i said everytime i take pills i will vommit! until they witnessed the whole ordeal! hahahahahahhaha take that! in your face! so they gave me syrup meds instead, like the ones for kids. they also gave me apetton for my apetite. i pity the sister who brought me food eveyday, because i didn't touch any of them!


the nurses at the kjmc were very kind. they really took very good care of me. they even helped press my nose when i take my meds so that i don't taste it as much. i was on the drip for 5 days and there was one day they had to double up on the drip because my platlet was too low.


i was told that when you get dengue, in order to help bring up the platlet, drinking banana leave juice/pink guava juice/crab soup will help. and so i actually drank the banana leave juice and it tasted like ass! (and no i have never tasted ass thank you very much!). and then when i found out about pink guava juice, i took that instead which tasted way better. i guess it did help because after drinking 2 bottles of pink guava juice, the doctor took my blood sample and slowly my platelet went up!


of course i was very happy coz that would mean, I CAN GO HOME!! i was getting so bored being stuck in the hospital. its like being in a jail...but a nice one though hehehehe.


7 days in the hospital and finally i was released. doctor gave 2 weeks worth of medical leave. he said after getting dengue, it takes a while for you to recover fully, mainly getting back your energy and feeling like your full self. lethargic is what you will feel. in fact i still feel it. im not allowed to exercise or do anything strenoues.....yet. BORING!


at the moment i still feel the after effect of dengue...sometime, after or even before work i'll get really tired. i can't wait till i can start doing sports and be myself again...

when i was in the hospital, i found out that 3 of my neighbours also was admitted for dengue!! everyone in my neighbourhood suspected it came from the construction thats happening in front of my house...

the neighbours i was talking about were the ones on the left and right of my house, and the other one was the road behind my house.  our area was fogged every 2 days in fact just last week they did it again. man what an experience..we are very careful now to always make sure there's no clogging in the drain and that the area is clean. i hope no one else in my area gets dengue.

check out my souvenir!!

oh and here's my cat, boots saying hi!

alright then, that's my story of being dengue-fied. i hope you take care and make sure to check your house and area that there's no aedes mosquitoes!

love, me.

Paaaarrtaaay!

i know my birthday was like a week ago but i feel like sharing with you about the surprise my sister and a friend did for me. after work, on my birthday, i was taken to TGIF in Sunway Pyramid. since it was my birthday i guess i was allowed to order anything. im a small eater, so that day i decided to order a steak! besides i haven't had them since forever, only because im too lazy to eat it...because i always get too tired to chew the meat! it's always a task for me to eat a piece of steak...sigh.

so did i finish the steak this time you might ask?? YES I DID!! well i kinda kept feeding my friend some of my steak. hehehe but i did finish it. my plate was clean! and oopps! i forgot to take a picture! and after the lovely meal, i was given a big bowl of ice cream from TGIF!

                                                                            yummeh...

before we left the restaurant, the staff at TGIF did their usual cheer and what surprised me was they knew my name! i didn't even tell them my name!!

 the girls were so sweet...but of course all of them were fan's of Disney Buzz!! duuuh?!

                                                  yes, that's me feeling very shy :P

the next day went by as normal. went to work at Redfm and after that, my sister took me out on a special dinner date. it was really nice. we went to Garibaldi restaurant in bangsar. it was an all girls dinner but unfortunately my younger sister couldn't join us because she had to work in KLIA. so it was just my sister, nadia and i at dinner.

when i got there, i had asked for reservations under my sisters' name but the waitress said "ah yes, for 10 people". i was like, wait a minute...10 people? i don't think so? i called my sister and asked, the restaurant was actually on the upper level. D'OH!

we all had different meals, i remembered having the cod fish and dang it was yummy. we had a good dinner and conversations.  the chef actually came out to give me a special treat and to wish me happy birthday..

it was really nice to just go out with only girls and not have guys around. while we were waiting for our bill to come, from out of nowhere, the boys came!!! they walked in with a birthday song and i got embarrassed! i was surprised no doubt, but shy because the place where we had dinner was very quite!

so it was all planned!! and remember the "table for 10" reservation?? yea, it was actually the correct reservation but only for the after dinner party!

we went down to the bar, and i was so touched when my family, including DJ Nadji at Gari Bar sang a birthday song and the cake on the table was home-made, baked by nadia... she made 3 strawberry cheese-cakes! i gave 1 to the waiters and waitresses at the bar.

and so the party began and what i love about the place that night, there was nobody there!! we hogged the dance floor and we managed to do our silly dance moves, music video moves and break-dance moves! couldn't take that many photos coz i was too busy having sooo much fun! hahaha, but here are some anyways..

                                                  crazy moves that only we can do :p

and i was so happy coz my baby brother joined in the fun. he has been so busy studying for his exams to be a pilot with MAS, so to see him there made me feel special :)

                                                                  my baby brother

                                                     the four siblings out of seven

here are the gifts i received from my family! :P

                                                                     from kak ina
                       

                                                                      from nadia

                                                                      from cris

I HAD A BLAST!!! A MEMORABLE CELEBRATION INDEED!!

luv, me.