It was a program that I didn’t expect to join

One day, I will write what is needed to be write.

But, right now, with my tried eyes and sweaty body, I will write what had transpired today.

I was, I have no idea, having some kind of agrument or I don’t know, but I think it was more of a misunderstanding occuring at both sides with a friend of mine. I am glad we were not in the same university and we had that ‘conversation’ on our phones or it would have gone worse.

As much, her downer mood was affecting mine. I was practically sad and down the whole day and I worried of how much had I hurt her, did I do something wrong, or what not. I was worried about her. She hadn’t replied to my text up until now.

I care too much to the people that I love but there will be a point that I wonder if it matter at all.

So, my class ended near to 6pm, and another friend of mine, the one I acquired here in this wonderful university, texted me to come to the masjid. It was one of the Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam (PMI) programs that I had asked her to join in the search of MyCSD (This is also a topic I will talk later). I thought I wouldn’t get to join the program because my class finished at six, but she said to just come and it hadn’t end yet.

It was a riadah program, where the boys or the Muslimin, played futsal while the girls, Muslimat, played traditional games. The Muslimat played at what it is called Anjung Masjid, an open aired tiled-floor space where sometimes students come to rest or study.

As I came closer to the group of girls, huddling together in a few circles, I saw a familiar face. A senior of mine, a year older than me, and the second-in-command of my Lajnah in PMIUSM. And yes, when she saw me, her face brightened up and she called me over.

I put my backpack and my newly-bought heavy Chemistry book down near one of the pillars and joined her with two more other girls.

We were playing batu seremban if you were wondering. The girls were in a group of three to four, huddling in a loosely-made circle. They were soft laughters and chatters. They were deftly throwing and catching rocks at one hand but if one stone fall, they passed the seven rocks to other players.

Honestly said, I was not one of the professional players in town. I didn’t get a complete row throughout the whole procession. But, what I did get was a realization so big and true inside my heart.

As much as we all hate going back to a new semester, as much as we all don’t want to face our housemates, classmates, roommates, lecturers, as much as we all anxious, stress, worrisome about it, we will never want to miss what life gives us at a young age.

I get it. I know how it feels to be anxious. And yeah, maybe, I didn’t understand fully to feel the fear of not just the unknown, but to feel fear of what we see everyday. But, I don’t want to miss this. I certainly don’t want to miss of being happy within a group of friends, seniors even. I don’t want to miss these pockets of time, where I found little sunshine of happiness. I don’t want to live in a world where I am an epitome of negativity.

I came there, to the masjid, in such tired and exhausted state, physically and mentally. But, I left there in the sense of fullfillness. I was happy that I did get a chance to play even for a couple of minutes. It wasn’t just the act of playing batu seremban that was the happiness, but it was the act of being a part of a community, being a part with people that I don’t even know.

I wanted to always be positive of what I have. And yes, oh god, yes, there will always be problems, challenges, tears to be shed. And I will be melodramatic as ever. But, I don’t want the highlight of my life to be just that. I want the highlight of my life to be that little pockets of happiness that I have. Not to show off, but to say that my life is beautiful and myriad of mosaic all at once.

 

 

 

Free Photoshop classes are what making this life bearable

Oh well, I still haven’t had the chance to post about my university and yet, I am going to write about a post on one of the university’s program that I had went.

Which will be hard to explain because then I have to write about the club that the program was under in a different post.

Oh well.

I was planning to write about the programs that I had joined and share what I had learned. So, this is my first attempt XD.

A few days before, I have decided to join a free Photoshop class managed by Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam USM (PMIUSM) or, as Google translated it, Islamic Student Association  (Seriously, I will write, Insya Allah, about this club later).

On the time that I started writing this post, which was during the beginning of the class by the way, I was literally sweating and breathless after the 300 meters run that I had from trying to catch the bus at the next bus stop.

I don’t remember what number of the tip was it, so just pretend this is the first one you have ever seen

Tip #1: (For Restu Saujana Tekun students) If you have a night program, you better get on the bus early because the bus won’t move 1. Until it’s full which was impossible, 2. Until the designated time that is needed to move. So, let’s say your program started at 8.30pm, you better get on the bus before 8.15pm because the next bus will certainly make you 30 minutes late.

Just so you know, it was 9.15pm when I was walking down the stairs of the walkway that connect my desa to the rest of the campus and the bus started moving. I was shock and I panicked and I started running down the rest of the stairs, across the tarmac field and to the next bus stop.

When the bus turned a corner, I picked up speed and started waving madly. And thankfully, Alhamdulillah, in the semi-darkness of this hot night, the bus driver saw me and stopped. I was ready to faint there and then. I just collapsed in the front seat and try my best to control my breathing.

Thank god for buses that stopped for people like me.

Okay, you probably want to read about what I had learned in my class and not about the sad life that I lived in.

So, the class was in one of the tutorial rooms at DK STUVW, which is a building just full of lecture halls and small tutorial classrooms. It was a bit dark and foreboding. Maybe because the milling students are not here during 9.30 pm.

The class, as I expected much, was a roomful of girls and a handful of boys. It is a known fact these days in Malaysia. Women more than men.

What we had learned during that class were to make a creative font and how to use a clipping mask. The featured image was my attempt at being a professional Photoshoper.

Okay, anything down here gets a bit term-like. There’s so many Photoshop terms that I used here and I think you need to at least know the layout of Photoshop before you can understand what I’m talking XD. If you are not, oh well, interested, you can comment down below how you don’t understand a word that I say.

The image was 1280 pixels wide, 720 pixels high with a resolution of 72. The initial background was transparent and its color mode was RGB color. The text on the image was Arial Black with the size of 166pt.

Okay, I had attended one of these classes before and from there, I learned how to make a poster. On this class, I learned far more tools provided in Photoshop than it was last time. I had used a number of them including the Horizontal Type Tool (Of course, how come the text is there in the first place?), Polygonal Lasso Tool, Quick Selection Tool and others. I learned about layers and how to put the layers inside a folder (Layers are pretty basic in Photoshop; the first concept you must understand).

It was interesting that each letter in the text was actually cut into different layers to easily edit on them. We used the Quick Selection Tool to select the letter of the text and when you right-clicked the mouse, you pressed ‘Layer via Cut’ option.

So, the ‘E’ and the ‘X’ and the ‘A’ are slanted in a way. We did that by making thin, diagonal and yellow rectangular shape as a new layer and as a guide. We used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select below or upper, depends on where you want to cut, the line and delete. The letters will lose half of itself in a slanted way XD.

There’s another cool trick that I had learned. I learned how to align text in the middle of the canvas, without using the Move Tool to move it around. At the top bar when your Move Tool is selected, there was this row of weird small boxes with lines cutting across them. Well, press the second and the fifth ones. They both meant ‘Align vertical centers’ and ‘Align Horizontal Centers’.

To create the clipping mask, just right-click on the layer and fine the option ‘Create Clipping Mask.’ That was how the image inside the text is inside the text. The image has to cover the text and has to be on top of the text layer.

If you want to learn more, you can search ‘Creative Text Photoshop’ in YouTube. The sister that taught this class told us.

I actually hope that I explained it well. My eyes are betraying me and I have a lot more other work to be done.

Other than the cruel fact about the bus and my attempt to teach you Photoshop, I learned to be grateful for what I have. Yeah, I ran and all, but at least, I got the bus. Yeah, the class finished well into the midnight, at least there’s some seniors willing to give me a ride home.

Which I declined anyway. I grabbed an Uber with some other seniors. I am not going to ride my first motorcycle without a helmet!

Swiftly Estel-ing through the night!