run, swim, work

It was a rainy start to the day. But one that reminded me to be grateful for my health, my waterproof backpack and the relatively short 6km to work. And grateful that we are in Kuching, because this would have been quite impossible in KL, for example. I stopped over at the Sarawak Club for a short swim and shower, it was 7:15 a.m. when I started to walk the rest of the way to Carpenter Street for my morning coffee.

The advantage of getting the daily exercise out of the way in the morning is that you can concentrate on the other things at hand, such as work. The thing I enjoy most about my work is the drawing. Drawing takes several forms in our line of work - this is a detailed section through a temporary show unit for a condominium development. It is essentially a large steel structure with one of the units dressed up and fitted out for sales and display. We introduced a skylight to bring natural lighting deep into the building, and made all the steel connections de-mountable, so that we can re-use the building's structure elsewhere after one year.

Nanshan wedding

Qilin and Michelle met at university, I met them in Kuching when they trained as interns together with Sheng, Sueann and Ka Yee. They were Sam's original 'cicaks', so when they moved to Chongqing to be in Qilin's hometown - we promised to attend their wedding.

One day, Michelle wrote to me asking if we were available on the 18.11.18 - inviting us to their garden wedding in Nanshan. 

Michele is a bubbly and warm young lady, and  we were not surprised that her family and her friends whom we met for the first are also a personable lot. Wendy, her younger sister was the Emcee and shown here bent over in laughter. Many of these young people have only just met, having traveled from Shenzhen (from Qilin's former office), from Malaysia (friends from kindy through university) and former colleagues from Chongqing.

Remembering hotel rooms

Reminder to self - sketch the hotel rooms that I like so that I can refer to them in the future. And to take care to record their dimensions (estimated) and imagine their section, and construction.

Sarawak Heritage Society

This is a photo from several years back, when the Urban Sketchers Kuching participated in one of the SHS's events. That's my sketch of the General Post Office in the background.

More recently  I was added to a chat group - a collection of members and non members (I'm on this group) to share ideas and information regarding Sarawak's heritage.

I began by asking a question - does SHS have a list of the gazetted buildings in Sarawak? These are buildings protected by law in Malaysia because of their historical value. It is as simple as it sounds. It seems that this social club is still in the process of obtaining this list from the Museum. My thinking is that unless there is a baseline to work from, how can an organisation of concerned (and learned in many instances) citizens hope to conserve our built heritage.? There isn't a 'brief' to start with, and worse still none to built on - to continue the list of buildings to be placed under protection.

In the midst of the conversation, I was reminded that they are a non partisan, non profit organisation of volunteers. I have heard this phrase used before, using to account for shortfalls in their performance. '.. we are only volunteers, how much can we do?'

A lot, you can do a lot if you heart is in the right place. And I feel that if you want to carry a banner for conserving local heritage, you'll need to do more than just host events to run shoulders under the fuse of promoting awareness 

I have been invited to join this society before, one of their members wasted RM50 to purchase an enrolment form on my behalf  which I never signed or submitted. Many of their events are informative, about Sarawak's heritage; music, stories, art, fabric, and others.

But it falls short if one considers the number of learned and powerful people amongst its members.

Paris 2013

Windows

Canal Saint Martin

Place de la Republique

Sean

Sean has been working in the office for more than a year since his graduation for Part 1. Many friends think that he should have ventured farther to broaden his experience and be away from Mom and Dad. While this might be true, I think Sean can make up his own mind and make his own time about what he wants to do with his life.
In the meantime, I am just glad that he has chosen to spend time in Kuching with us - he is not the chattiest company for breakfast but he is the most generous with his lunch money. He is not the fastest CAD operator in the office but he is thoughtful and helpful with his colleagues and clients. He is not the quickest to respond to a request, but my coffee will always arrive in front of me; made just right. He is a dreamer first and a doer next - his Part 2 architecture education is our gift for him to dream.

taking stock again

Time to make another list.

Yesterday morning, I went for a run after not running for 2 weeks. I pulled a calf muscle playing squash. During my break from running, I swam and went to the gym. I hobbled around not feeling sorry for myself, instead I saw this as a reason to make some changes in my life. Not big changes, more like little adjustments and reminders to diversify my day.

I have been running and going to work, sometimes I run to work. There are other things I want to do, but I think that I do not have the time. I want to sketch, swim, cook, make furniture, run, plant vegetables, run, read more, play squash, paint, play tennis, travel, and run.

I will use this blog to keep track of myself.

I started by making a frittata dinner for the Lims.