Reflections

attended the ‘right to information’ forum at the caring society complex, penang, yesterday. about 30 people were in attendance. it was organised by transparency international malaysia (TI) and centre for independent journalism. (CIJ)

usha from transparency international was at the registration desk. on registration, we were given some pamphlets and this cute badge, as seen in the picture here.

the moment i saw the badge with the words ‘journos’ on it, i think of my fellow citizen journalists (CJ) comrades. (a group of us who were trained by malaysiakini to be citizen/video journalists). some of them had already been ‘on the job’ going around as citizen journalists interviewing people and making videos. as i thought each of us only get one badge, i ask usha if the badges are on sale as i thought of getting some for the penang CJ. usha said not on sale but was kind enough to give me more of the badges. well i hope the CJ will like it.

the forum, or rather the ‘dialogue on citizen’s rights to access public information’ as stated on the banner, carried the theme ‘transparency of information for government with integrity’. i could not really understand the theme at first but after the dialogue, i was very clear of the theme and fully agree with it.

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damn! can’t seems to upload video in this blog. ok lah, so please go to my mental jog blog to see the video.

these videos are in reference to my earlier post on the hill-slopes development protest.

my reflection on blogging and the laws as based on the eLawyers conference held on saturday, please visit my mental jog blog.

UPDATED:  this post was picked up by malaysia today and posted at its website.

The second weekend of our Citizen Journalism workshop, had Anil Netto,  famous blogger and professional journalist, conducting it. As part of our assignment, all of us had to write an article on Penang. I choose to write on this topic, and here is the article, with some corrections done by Anil.

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I commute to work daily, sometimes in a car, sometimes on a bus. Many times, I get caught in a traffic jam during office rush hours. When it rains, the traffic situation gets worse. Such is Penang’s traffic system. Too many vehicles clog the road.

People who travel between the island and the mainland of Penang will either use the Penang Bridge or the ferry service. As the traffic flow increases, traffic congestion becomes a headache for motorists. The government has come up with a solution to this – a third link, i.e. the second Penang Bridge… but will this really be the solution? Do we really need the second Penang Bridge?

The 2nd Penang bridge will link Batu Maung on the island to Batu Kawan on the mainland. It will be 24 km in length (17 km over the sea). The cost of building the bridge, originally was at RM2.7 billion when it was first mooted in July 2007 but it sky-rocketed to RM4.3 billion in April 2008. now on April 2008 it is expected to cost RM4.3 billion.
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yes, now you see it…

This is one of the banners found in bukit gantang, perak.  nominations day haven’t even started and campaigning already started. Phew! What a hot battle the bukit gantang by-election is going to be. This picture was taken by one of our MAFREL member. Please go to the MAFREL website for more pictures.

ok this is a continuation of my ‘baby post’ actually. i have to add something after i learn of something – seems that this blog is not only for videos (and pictures) as i thought. i can also post articles… which means to say i will for sure post more articles than videos/photos. if i knew of this earlier, i wouldn’t have chosen the blog name ‘now u see it’. never mind, now that i had chosen it, just have to made do with it.

oh as you can see, i have change theme for this blog. you’ll see different random colours/designs in my theme each time you visit.

(i’ll come back to write something here again if i think of any ‘intro’ talk)

Hi there! Welcome to my Citizen Journalism Malaysia blog!

My name is Lucia Lai. More of me can be found under the page of  ‘I, me, myself’.

I already have a blog named ‘mental jog’, where I have been blogging for 5 years! It’s more of a socio-political blog but once in a while I also blog on personal matters.

Since I already have the blog ‘mental jog’, I will reserve this blog only for posting up photos and videos… not necessary my own… but of course after, being through the citizen journalism and video journalism workshop, it’s better for me to come out with my own.  Ok ok… in due time… AND in FREE time.

Well, since I want to put up only photos or videos, hence the name of the blog ‘now u see it’. I will still devote most of my time to my long-time present blog, ‘mental jog’.

I actually don’t have interest in video shooting. More so because I’m a shy person! I feel very awkward approaching people or holding my video camera in public (or even camera).  Also, my grey matter seems to shrivel up when trying to understand the technical details of video shooting/editing. LOL.  Anyway, since I have already gone through 4 weekends of video workshop, might as well put in practise the little that I have learned (but it had been a lot that had been taught – only because of my grey matter, I learned little).

(note: the heading of the post here ‘baby post’ means it is the very first post. no, no baby photo)