Final e-wallpaper

this is my final e wallpaper product. the graduates represent the idea of graduating in MMU after achieving a degree and the computers represent the facilities that are available for use by the students in FOM. the other picture shows a lecturer helping some students and as you might have noticed, the students are from different races or cultures showing that MMU is an international university. the students in a library shows another important facility which is the library.

Step 3

for the MMU mascot, i used the same steps as the first step to get them to the background. after that i selected the admin layer and went to filter, then blur and i chose gaussian blur and selected the right amount that seemed suitable and applied on the admin building. and for the shining at the top corner of the admin building, i went to filter, under filter, render and then lens flare and chose the preferred lens.then, to make the mascot and all the other images blend in a bit,i each image's layer and added the mask layer and the chose the brush tool with a large size and then painted around the images with black. this made the images blend in with the background.
after that, my e wallpaper was done!

Step 2

after putting the images i wanted, it was now time for some text. i chose the text tool and selected the area i wanted to put my text. i also chose the font color and size, then i wrote the text and went to the "styles" window and chose the type of style i wanted to choose for my tex. after making sure that i have edited my text enough, i went under layers and right clicked the text layer. under layer options i chose "rasterize type" so that the text can now be treated as an image.

Final e-wallpaper

this is my final e wallpaper product. the graduates represent the idea of graduating in MMU after achieving a degree and the computers represent the facilities that are available for use by the students in FOM. the other picture shows a lecturer helping some students and as you might have noticed, the students are from different races or cultures showing that MMU is an international university. the students in a library shows another important facility which is the library.

Step 1

first of all, i had to look for suitable images, so i found one for FOM, computers, MMU students in a library and another picture of students graduating. using photoshop, i used the FOM building as the background, then opened the images i wanted to use pasted them into the background image.
to select the images i wanted from their backgrounds, i used the quick selection tool while holding down the "Shift" key so that i can be able to select the parts that i wanted. since the quick selection wasn't that accurate, i also used the quick mask mode to select the parts that were left out by the quick selection tool.

after selecting with both quick selection and the quick mask mode tools, i had to copy my selection to the FOM background using layer via copy and then using the move tool, i dragged my selection to the FOM background.

holidays back home....

they say there is no place like home, mmhhh.., that i agree, totally agree. i went back to my country for my 3 weeks vacationand believe me, i had a great time that side after being in Malaysia for about 2 years and a few months. it was time to go and experience the atmosphere that i had been experiencing for almost my whole life except 2 years ago when i came to Malaysia. the nice part about this timing was that i was going for the winter season, the best season for me. unlike Malaysia, Botswana has 4 seasons, summer, autumn, winter and spring.

summers normally occur around November - January, in which there is a lot of rain and its very hot again at the same time. it is then followed by autumn, the harvesting season in my country. due to rains expected around December, people plant crops for harvest from February to April. the cold season comes in May till July, where temperatures can fall as low as -5 degrees Celsius and sometimes even lower in some parts of the country and the remaining 3 months are for spring.

basically, i just wanted to feel winter for the first time in 2 years and as you can guess, i was very excited at the idea of winter and the idea of seeing my family and my fellow countrymen once again. its amazing what a couple of years can do to a place and its people. everyone was just different, the toddlers i left were now older kids, those who couldn't speak were now the talkative ones and everything was just different. i went to 3 different places, a city,a town and a village as a way of trying to re experience the atmosphere and of the 3 places, i preferred my home town, Maun, what a wonderful place! with the river flowing endlessly and separating the place into two unequal places, it was a wonderful sight.

the most exciting part was meeting my family, i mean, the feeling that overwhelmed me when i saw my two younger sisters and my younger brother after two years is hard to explain, in fact, it aint hard, i just don't know how to describe it. i realized that i really missed them, all of them including my parents and realized after a few days with them that, they are no longer those little girls and a boy i used to play around with, they are now older and mature. i spent a week with them, then i decided to go to a village, to my Grandma and extended family in a small village about 200km from Maun called Gweta.

well, honestly, the first thing i wanted to do was to sit around a fire at night, and i did. it was just magical, with the cold air around me, i just sat around the fire and didn't wanna budge for another 2 hours or so, "this is the moment i have been waiting for, for 2 years", i thought. the nice thing about village life is that, there is less noise, less traffic and even the technology itself is less. its like being in a totally different place without any noise or any other stuff that cities have. the week i spent there certainly flew by, i ddnt even do a lot of stuff i had in mind, but i guess, there is always another time.

for the last week, i went back to Maun, hung around with some friends for a while since we hadn't seen each other in a while, then it was time for me to go back to the city, with 4 days left for my flight back here. as u know, city life can spoil your holidays with the traffic and noise and so it did, for the first few hours though. its amazing how one can get used to the environment that quick. i spent the remaining days with my younger sister and her boyfriend and other family relatives. it was fun though, i was in a place where people spoke my mother language 24hrs a day, what more could i need? nothing.

the day to come back arrived, everybody was devastated by the idea of me leaving as i was by the idea of leaving them. i had a 10am flight from Gaborone to Johannesburg, South Africa where i had to wait for a flight that got delayed by 12hrs, but that's another story for another time. nevertheless, i had a great time and i really recommend that next time you get a vacation or holiday, go back to your family because there aint no place like home, trust me, i know.....