My week as a shutterbug.

<---- This is probably my favourite picture ever taken. I love the emotion.

It's been a good couple of weeks at work. The training plan that I worked out with Elisa and Christopher saw me spending a week in the photo desk right after my stint at the editorial desk was over.

I had really been looking forward to this because the new camera had given me photography fever. In a big way. I've been so taken up with it that I spend hours online looking up Steve McCurry pictures (Thanks for pointing out to his website to me Kamsie!), and visit websites that give photography tips.

The craze has gotten so bad that I'm beginning to see the world in terms of pictures! I'd be minding my own business, walking down the street and then I'd see a person, a tree, an animal or even something like a doorway or a window and I'd get immediately excited about how it would look in a picture. Then I'd cuss myself out for not having my camera with me at the time.

<---- This father-son moment at the Central West End Art and Taste Fair brought back memories of my own childhood.

But anyway, back to work. The week spent in photo desk was fascinating, probably the most educational time I've had since coming to the Post-Dispatch.

I covered the Central West End Art and Taste Fair, the Missouri Botanical Gardens' 150th anniversary and adventurer Dan Cook's visit to St. Louis, among others.

<--- I experimented with being arty-farty. Not too bad, if I do say so myself. :)

Some of the pictures were used as slide shows online while others were published in the paper. The week culminated with me being sent for an assignment on my own (the previous ones had me shadowing Elie Gardner). I was assigned to do a portrait of a lady who collects and makes blankets for sick kids in hospitals. The assignment went well and the picture got published a week later.

All in all, I emerged from my week as a photographer with a greater understanding of the technical aspects of photography, such as how aperture, shutter speed, lighting, etc affect the quality of a picture. At the same time, I also managed to develop my 'eye' for a picture better, improving my composition and framing skills.

<---- What's Oscar de la Renta or Versace compared to the beautiful gowns mother nature dresses her children in?

To me, these skills are very important because I want to ultimately become a self-contained journalist who's output will include articles, pictures and multimedia and will need minimal, if any, editing before being ready for the paper or website.

With the added knowledge and increased confidence in my photography skills, I'm just that little bit closer to getting to where I want to be.

Once the photography week was finished, I went back to the newsdesk only to find that Iran was in the throes of its post-election unrest. Christopher suggested I do a story on local Iranians and how they felt about what was going on in their homeland.

Getting the story done was a little tricky, because I didn't have any connections here. I got one contact from fellow reporter Doug Moore, but the guy didn't want to be interviewed. I also tried going to a mosque to see if I could find anybody. The first time, nobody was there. The second time, the only one there was the imam, who said the last time he had been interviewed, the report got skewed, resulting in him losing his job and being interrogated by the CIA. Needless to say, he didn't want to talk.

So, I googled up Iranian restaurants in St. Louis and started from there. I spoke to the owner of the restaurant and once I had interviewed her, asked her for other contacts in the area. From then onwards, it got progressively easier.

Their stories were compelling and I think the editors agreed with me because they decided to out it on the front page. :) One of my stated goals in my fellowship application was that I wanted to get a front page story for the paper I would be working at. Looks like that goal has been achieved a little ahead of time.

And so, as July beckons, I'm working on what has become something of a pet project for me. As always, I'm a little paranoid about giving out details of a story before it's published. But let me say this - the angle is interesting and if the pieces fall into place, it'll be an interesting story and hopefully my second page one. :)

Missouri meets nasi lemak.

I'd promised Elisa and Elie nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis. No, wait. Let me correct that. I'd tantalised Elie and Elisa with descriptions and pictures of nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis.

Upon hindsight, it wasn't the smartest thing I've done. Setting the expectations so high was asking for trouble. The pressure that came with cooking the best possible nasi lemak (well, the best nasi lemak a bachelor living in a foreign country can cook anyway!!) had me in a dither for more than a week.

Even organising the dinner wasn't easy! Everybody's schedule seemed to clash and we couldn't seem to find a single night when everybody was free. Somehow, we finally decided on last night and the only casualty was Jeff, Elisa's husband. Those who could make it were Elie, Repps, his wife Stacey and Elisa. Also present was Derrick, the guy who was repairing my computer. But since he was allergic to shrimp and couldn't eat, let's not count him.

So, anyway, I got lucky on Monday, when I found pandan leaves, some decent looking coconut milk, lemongrass and even banana leafs (to line the plates with) for my Malaysian meal. It seemed that I had every single thing I needed to make the dinner a success and I decided on shrimp sambal.

But, the omens didn't look good from the moment I woke up today. I went online early in the morning to read up on background for my assignment today. Then some stupid software update came from my Internet service provider and the bloody thing just lobotomised my entire operating system! Kaput! My whole computer died! Finito! Adios amigo!

I freaked out! My songs (there are 19,000 of them now!), my pictures (God knows how many thousand of them I have!), my videos, my documents, my files....I could see them all disappearing in a puff of smoke in the shape of the Internet explorer logo.

And that was just the beginning. It just went downhill from there. I got lost three or four times on the way to Ballwin (a nearby city) due to highway closures. I reached there only to find that the place I was aiming for was closed. Then I got lost three or four times on the way back. Embarassingly, I ended up in the same place I got lost on Monday when I was shopping for food. So much for the convenience of GPS...

There were other speed bumps during my day as well, and all these led my superstitious heart to believe the nasi lemak dinner was doomed.

In the beginning it seemed like everything was going to be alright. The nuts and anchovies turned out fine (but then again, if I can't even fry the bloody things right, I've got no business attempting nasi lemak!), the eggs were boiled perfectly and the cucumbers were just on the right side of crisp.

<--- (The rice looked absolutely fine BEFORE it was cooked!)

And then came the rice. I had bought the best possible quality of rice and the best possible coconut milk i good find. I estimated how many people would be there and decided that 4 cups of rice would be enough. Which meant 8 cups of milk. Only prob was, that would take everything right up to the brim of the rice cooker.

Against all the alarm bells jangling in my head, I put it to cook, the edges of the milk coming crazily close to overflowing from the cooker. I said a little prayer and left the rice to its own devices while turning and addressing the shrimp.

The shrimp sambal was a little tricky, coz the lime that i used as a tamarind substitute turned out to be too sour. But, nothing I couldn't balance out with a dash of sugar.

I hadn't even finished with the sambal when I heard the pop of the rice cooker button and knew my coconut rice had been shot to shit. One look confirmed it. Instead of a beatiful, moist and rich bed of pearly white grains, I saw glob of crummy-looking, 1/4 cooked crap which was basically inedible.

Btw, Derrick the computer guy was on hand to watch me freaking out.

So, a little McGyver action was called for. I chucked out half the rice (oh how it hurt me to waste the Thai jasmine rice like that!) and put the rest back on to boil and quickly decided that if it got screwed up again I'd just make normal rice.

Thank God, it was okay the second time around. I decided that if that wasn't enough for the gang, I'd just make another batch later.

The next problem was the flies and the smell. The shrimp paste (belacan) I used stank up not only the whole house, but also the whole corridor of the 5th floor and the whole elevator for good measure. The stench attracted a swarm of flies (the first flies I've seen in St. Louis!). Arrghhhh!

Stashing all the food where the smell wouldn't escape, I went on a merry run around the house trying to chase the flies out. Have you ever tried herding flies? Not the easiest exercise around, let me assure you. In fact, I would not be surprised at all to find that I have one hardy soul still clinging on to the edge of my couch or something.

Even more embarassing was that when I was going down to pick up Elisa later, I bumped into one of my neighbours who was bitching about the smell in the place. She said it smelled like "week-old Doritos" or something.

I nodded sympathetically and said, "Thank God my apartment is okay. All I get is the smell of the food I'm cooking." (!!)

Ultimately though, everything turned out fine. The guests at my fancy dinner party (did I mention that everybody had to bring their own chairs coz I didn't have enough?) enjoyed the food, even though Elisa was worried at first about the smell (her exact words were that "it smelled like feet.") In the end, she even packed some home for Jeff, who's a big fan of spicy food (and whose Mexican chilli, which I ate a few weeks ago, actually made me sweat!)

<--- (The final result sure looks good though!!)

And so, I now am looking forward to cooking more for my friends without so much fear of messing up or not doing justice to Malaysia's awesome cuisine.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da...life goes on....

The Beast that is Blogging

I've always viewed blogging with equal amounts of trepidation and contempt. Trepidation because it mainly seemed to be a hotbed of malice, spite, bitching and backbiting. Contempt because most of what passes as "news" on blogs is a combination of hearsay, rumours and fairytales.

Yet, it's undeniable that blogging has caught on and irreversibly changed the Internet and the newspaper industry. Publications that at one point turned their noses up at blogging are now desperately trying to get onto the bandwagon, while papers that embraced it are now looking for the next best thing. Most have realised that blogging, coupled with proper journalistic ethics and principles, can be a powerful tool in reaching out to your audience.

One of my main aims when I came to the Post-Dispatch was to explore blogging and online journalism. While it's embarrassing to admit that the New Straits Times is still in the stone age when it comes to our online presence, it does mean that there are a lot of innovations which other papers have successfully implemented which we can cherry-pick from.

And so, these last couple of weeks were notable for the fact that I was stationed at the editorial page desk and churning out at least one editorial blog a day.

The experience has been fun and illuminating, and has raised just as many questions as it has answered.

What have I learnt? Well, mainly, and most importantly perhaps, I've learned to develop a thicker skin. Almost every blog written by the editorial writers, including myself, has been subjected to a barrage of criticism and complaints. This is even in cases where the blog entry is one which is, say, about the necessity of having a helmet law, or the need for stricter control regarding texting in vehicles. What appears to be a matter of safety and common sense for the writer can be a totally different issue for some people and they will vehemently, passionately defend their rights not to wear helmets or to text while driving.

This raises a very interesting question. If much of the blogging receives such a negative response, does that mean the writer is out of touch with the common man? Has he become too highfalutin for his own good? Or does it mean that it's only the crazies and the ones who have something bad to say that respond? Do the ones who agree with the ideas just read the post, nod and move on? For my own sake, I hope it's the latter and not the former. To be out of touch with your audience is to hasten the demise of your career as a journalist, methinks.

However, the blogsphere is amazing because it gives you an interactivity that you've never had before with your audience. Done properly, it can engender great discourse with a great flow of ideas from all sides.

I've experimented with this notion, both in the tone and in the content of my blogs. Unlike the other editorial writers, I am not an expert on any of the subjects debated on in America. As such, the tone of my blogs is that of a person who is seeking answers and asking questions of the audience instead of telling them how a thing is or trying to "educate" them on a certain issue. I've noticed that people seem to respond well to this. Maybe they feel good that their opinions are being sought or that their ideas seem to count to the writer. I don't know. But it is something which I'll seek to delve into more fully when I get back to Malaysia.

Blogs are also useful when you want to gauge what people's sentiments are on a certain matter. For example, I've been curious about the ethical debate surrounding undercover reporting in the US ever since I came here. But, most of the opinions I got were from journalists and pseudo-intellectuals who were dissecting the issue and I wasn't sure how attuned they were to the sentiments of the reading public.

So, I just put the question to the readers and got some pretty candid and revealing answers - which were quite often, totally different from the views of the people who dreamed up this notion of ethics.

Blogging is also as much about new techniques in presentation as it is about new techniques of communication. With blogs, you can include pictures, sounds, links, animations, videos and all manner of multimedia. It's an amazing playground for a journalist as it enables him to exercise his creativity to the fullest. While I haven't had much time to explore a lot about this element of blogging, I have a rudimentary grasp of the basic ideas and fleshing out this skill is on my wish list of things to pick up before I go home.

Tempus Fugit.

My oh my, how time does fly. Caught between settling down in St. Louis and my orgasmic throes of self-pity at being given the chance to experience what most people can only fantasize about, I almost missed the fact that it's been close to 2 months since I came to the United States and a month since I landed in St. Louis.
A lot has happened since then, some good, some bad and some pretty ugly.
Most of what happened in the first two weeks of May have already been addressed in my entry of two weeks ago. Here's what's happened since then.
Most importantly, I got my first few stories and bylines out in the paper. The first was about the Annie Malone parade - the second largest African-American parade in the country. I covered the parade as well as some violent clashes which occurred shortly after it, and which seemed to be a yearly ritual, as one look at the paper's archives showed me. (And by violence, I mean the bust-a-cap-in-yo-ass kind of violence!)
The next day, I assisted reporter Doug Moore to find out why this parade is plague by this kind of unseemly behaviour. My task was to call the CEO of the Annie Malone Center and do a quick phone interview, which I did. The guy was quite defensive, despite me trying to point out to him that the intention of the story wasn't to put any blame on the foundation. But, he wasn't really keen on listening. The good thing though, was that the story generated a huge amount of buzz online! Talk about making a quick impact!
What really took my by surprise though, was that the next day the bugger actually held a press conference to denounce the paper and me specifically for being racist!! He said the only reason we covered the story was coz it was a black parade! Crazy! It amused me and pissed me off in equal measure. Amused me coz I think he thought I was a white boy (another reason to hate my name!!). Pissed me off coz I'm not racist! A line-up of my ex-girlfriends would resemble the bloody United Nations for crying out loud!
So, now I have one angry brother to join the legion of anti-Marc Indians from Malaysia. Great!
My story on an Indian temple project which never took off was also published, and it made the front page of the community section, I'm happy to say. :) That piece too generated quite a bit of buzz.
Unfortunately, things just kinda died off after that. I was asked to do a piece on Sri Lankans in the US after the fall of the Tamil Tigers, but i couldn't manage to find any Sri Lankans in St. Louis.
After that, I had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend in Atlanta with my uncle's family and felt even more depressed to come back to an office where everybody seemed to be working except me.
I began to get pretty depressed and agitated, not having anything to do. You know...idle minds being the devil's playground and all that jazz.
Happily, the week ended on a better note than it began. I had a meeting on Thursday with Elisa and my editor, Christopher Ave. There we thrashed out what my goals for the training would be. They included:
1) Improving my skills in writing columns and editorials
2) Working on investigative journalism
3) Working on photography and video skills
4) Improving my interviewing techniques

Ave and I both immediately got to work. I linked up with investigative reporter Joe Mahr, helping him out on the groundwork of a story he's doing. It gave me a chance to see how useful database management software can be for a data intensive story.
Ave hooked my up with Adam Jadhav, who'll train me on video later this week. He also set me up with the Editorial Desk, where I reported for work today. I'll be here on and off this week, and all of next week. And already I'm having fun. I did a piece today on abortion, which is sure to generate me oodles of hate mail. I doubt they can be any worse than what I received at the height of my infamy, but we'll see...
So, all in all, it's been a topsy-turvy two weeks. And something tells me the rollercoaster ride ain't over yet.

The Atlanta trip.

I went to Atlanta last weekend to visit my uncle. A friend from Malaysia was coincidentally also there to attend a biotech conference. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I brought them together. It was a great success as they hit it off immediately. We had a lovely time, visiting many places, eating some great home-cooked food, drinking some fine single-malt whiskey and staying up late at night every day to chit-chat. We visited Tallulah Gorge State Park, Lake Acworth, Coca-Cola Museum and Georgia Aquarium, among others. I stupidly forgot to charge my camera for the Coke and Aquarium trips, but here are some of the pictures from the lake and the park. Enjoy!

The photographer, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and eager to get on with the job.

One of the many stunning views of Tallulah Gorge State Park. 

The leaves on the forest floor make such a lovely pattern.

They were soon running for cover. It started raining cats, dogs and horses. 

Presenting Tallulah Gorge State Park..

And to think we Malaysians actually pay money for pine cones during Christmas. 

Wildflowers are planted all along the highway. Too bad I couldn't stop for a proper picture. :(

I just had to take a pic of this fence! Okay, I'll admit it. I had to take MANY pics of this fence!

Lake Acworth was stunning, to put it mildly. 

My new toy.

Well...I finally did it. I went out and blew a shitload of cash on something which I've always wanted for a long time. A really nice camera. To be more exact, a really nice Nikon D60, 10 megapixel machine, with two lenses - a 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm lens.
Elie, who took me to buy it and acted as my consultant, said that with this purchase, I will not need to buy another camera for years.
Funnily, actually just holding it in my hands gives me greater ideas about taking pictures, including composition, lighting and so many other things which I never even thought about with my old point and click Olympus.
I went on a walkabout at my neighbourhood yesterday and here are the results, along with the mighty machine that made it possible.

The table and bench look so dark and lonely compared to the greenery and brightness outside.

A fountain in front of a Jesuit Church. 
The flower though pale and colourless is nevertheless still beautiful.
I was told that this part of town is colourful, flamboyant and full of murals like this one because it's a gay district. If that's the case, I think we need more gay districts around!

I love how the bicycle melds into the scene so beautifully.

The Angel of Harmony sculpture at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. It's a beautiful piece, and the stuff that makes up its wings are actually chimes.

Another beautiful sculpture/fountain at the cathedral. Elie said the pic would have been better if there was somebody sitting on the bench on the right.

Straub's is the place you'd run to if you're living in the West End and need to urgently buy something for the kitchen. Shop there often though, and you'll find a pretty sizable hole burnt in your pocket.

Purty, purty fountain.

This is the most happening part of the Central West End, where I live. It's the intersection of Euclid and Maryland and this is where all the bars, restaurants and cafes are. A really cool place. Elie and I went for an afternoon mojito at one of the bars here last Saturday! :)

And of course, the thing that's made it all possible...

Bedding in at St Louis.

Well, it's my second weekend in St Louis and I'm beginning to settle down quite well. The going was tough at first, what with having to deal not only with a new job in a new company but also a new town, a new country and new friends. But, as time has gone by, I've begun to get more comfortable in my surroundings. The turning point, I think, was a potluck party (pic below) we had in the office to welcome me to the Post-Dispatch (It also turned out to be a surprise birthday lunch!). The party let me sit down with some of the people I had been introduced to previously and have get to know them better.

The next day, I went to a barbecue at one of our photojournalist's homes. That too was a good icebreaker, especially with the younger batch of reporters whom I'm expecting to meet more on a social level than I will many of the older staff.

And of course, there was a lovely dinner at the home of my mentor, Elisa Crouch last night. I'm not sure what I enjoyed the most - the food (spicy Mexican chilli!), the beautiful home or the enjoyable company.

But, this blog isn't about my skills as a social butterfly. It has to, as Katie said, answer three questions. These are:

1) What I did during those two weeks.

2) What I learned—any difficulties or triumphs I had.

3) How what I did and learned relates to my training plan and goals for the fellowship (or how it taught me something not in my training plan.)

Well, I shall proceed to try to answer these questions now.

Well, the first week was extremely slow. Most of the time, what I did was go out for lunches with various different editors. Though it was interesting (and flattering!) to have such attention lavished on me, it didn't translate to me actually getting to do any work at all for the first few days. I was basically just loitering around in cyberspace, checking emails, chatting, and playing silly games on Facebook.

At one point, it seemed like I had finally found an opening. This was when one of the editors, Kurt Greenbaum, took me out to lunch. The discussion we had led to me writing a blog for the paper which was generally well-received. Doing the blog was also an educational experience as I could see what editing tools they used and how much more control it gave you over the blog than just a normal posting software like the one you'd find on blogspot.com.

So, I thought that things would start flooding in after that and I'd be able to start rolling.

They didn't.

This got me even more frustrated and by the end of the week, I had begun to start feeling useless and depressed. Part of me understood that the editors would naturally be a little wary of giving me stuff, considering how I'm a strange dude from a strange land. Yet, the other part felt like screaming that I was just as capable as any of the people on their payroll and I would prove it if they just gave me a chance!

I wasn't being a complete vegetable though. I had a working lunch with the investigative reporter here, Joe Mahr. I threw some ideas at him and he seemed to think some of them had merit. He also took me to the county courthouse at one point to show me how he digs up court records to help him with his stories. This, I would say, was the single most useful thing I've learned since coming to the Post-Dispatch. It's something that just isn't done in my country and I'd like to go back and find out if it can be used as a journalistic tool. It also dovetails with my hopes of learning more about investigative journalism here.

Yet, it didn't detract from the fact that I still wasn't doing what I'd come here to do - which is to write.

However, my mentor/guardian angel was working feverishly behind the scenes to try to get me something to do. She buzzed about and put the word out to her fellow reporters that I would be glad to do any stories which they wouldn't have time to follow up. This paid off as one of the Jefferson County based reporters, Christine Byers, then tipped me off to a controversy regarding a Hindu temple development in that area.

Glad to finally start doing something, I pounced on it. I worked on it for a couple of days and sent it off to the editor overseeing me, Christopher Ave. I was feeling quite a bit of trepidation at this point, wondering if he would find it acceptable or below-par. Thank God, he didn't. He told me that except for a few minor things, it was pretty okay. It comes out on Wednesday and I'm totally excited to see it in print.

I think he might have also been glad to see that I wasn't totally hopeless and designed to merely be a passenger in the newsroom for the next five months, because he immediately assigned me to cover a massive parade on Sunday. It's called the Annie Malone parade and it's the second largest African-American parade in the country. There're also scenes of violence and murder there every now and then and it looks like it's going to be anything but boring. I'm really looking forward to attending it tomorrow.