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.