Living thoughts... Simply Loud

island Return

2012-01-28T02:17:00.001+08:00

Its been a while, a few years as a matter of fact, since I last stepped foot on Penang island. While still very much recognisable, I did see a few things that have changed in that time. For one thing, its a lot cleaner than it was, plus more and more properties seem to be coming up, not to mention a few places with modern facelifts.

Coming back to Penang this year was kind of nostalgic for me, especially since I haven’t been there for Chinese New Year in a long time. For one reason or another, I was a lot more keen to be there than I was previously, hoping to see most of the places I did as when I was a little boy.

Whether it was Campbell Street, Penang Road, Transfer Road, Gurney or wherever, I was just happy to be there. Mind you, Penang’s not my hometown, but it contains more than a few memories from my childhood. Of course, the most iconic place for me would be where I’d stay almost every time I went to Penang.

You know you’re in a different ‘class’ of building when you see switches like the one above, or the vintage Telekom logo on an ‘old school’ telephone too:

Of course, anywhere you go, the place doesn’t matter a tenth as much as the people you meet in them. That’s where the closest people to my family come into the picture. The Chinese side of my family probably isn’t the closest but my parents are more than familiar with my grandaunt and granduncle who we’ve been close to for many many years.

It was really great to visit them in Penang, especially since the last time was for my great grandmother’s funeral, a sad occasion of course. To me, they’ve hardly aged beyond the time I knew them, which I suppose means they’re in pretty good health. It was nice to hear their voice, and fun to listen to some of their witty remarks, hahah.

Food of course, was another thing I was there for, but its a little different with it being Chinese New Year of course. The only ‘Chinese’ hawker place I got to eat at was at New Lane, but it was more than enough.

Char Kuay Teow

Hokkien Char

Fried platter

Roasted chicken wings

Of course, there was Penang road as well, obviously for the cendol, it just has to be one of the best desserts in the world.

Probably, one of the clearest memories I have of Penang as a child is walking down Campbell street during school holidays. I was always there to get a new schoolbag, only my mother knows why. It was nice to walk down there, even if 90% of the shops were closed for the new year, hahaha.

More than the before-school shopping though, Hameediyah is another fond memory. Of course, back then being a kid (or any human being), I got hungry and I remember going into Hameediyah for the murtabak, which unfortunately is less awesome than it was (since nowadays everybody’s cheating by loading more egg than meat), but they still have good curries.

Kambing Mysore, a must try!

That aside, while in Penang I finally went to a place I haven’t been since I was in primary school! Penang’s botanical gardens are probably one of the better parks in Malaysia that I’ve been to and you’ve got to love those sections where its cool even on a blazing hot afternoon, thanks to the streams and thick foliage.

I got around to Straits Quay as well, definitely one of Penang’s new uppity places. If you don’t think so, the presence of the new Penang Performing Arts Centre and the many yachts should convince you, that is if you haven’t already seen the upcoming (probably multi-million ringgit) condos.

It’s a lovely place, right on the coast, whoever lives there will have a really nice view, and you’ll get to be on the view if you’re sailing a yacht. Any plans to be on a Penang postcard, anyone?

A few days into my stay, I was already posting up a few photos of Penang foods online when I got an anonymous text asking me, “Dude, Buat apa kat penang?”

I totally forgot that Syah’s from Penang and Farhan had followed him up for the weekend, en route to Hanif’s wedding which I’d have to miss. I tried to set a time to meet the guys, but timing wasn’t great, which is really too bad because I haven’t seen them since I left UTP.

Still, I got to meet my British friend of a Hokkien origin, hahah. I got a pretty neat souvenir out of it and an overdue face-to-face meet. Someone’s cheeks are getting rounder these days (safe to say since she probably won’t read), hahahaha!

That pretty much was the end of my time in Penang, taking a flight back to KL later the next day. I’ve got to give a lot of credit to my grandaunt and granduncle for their awesome hospitality (as it has always been since I can remember) and good company. Thank you very much aunty Sally and uncle Ong. =)

lunar Beginning

2012-01-23T14:39:00.001+08:00

To everybody out there, happy Chinese New Year!

Have a great time with your families and some awesome food!

skippys Pizza

2012-01-06T14:44:00.002+08:00

Back in December I was in KL for a while and my mother told me about this place for ribs and pizza, which is none other than today’s entry title. A lot of the time, you might hear about a place for pizza or pork ribs, but not both at the same place. Skippys is one such place where you can get both I suppose.

Unlike most eateries of its sort, it isn’t somewhere upscale or a shop lot that attracts a lot of foot traffic on weekends. Its in Phileo Damansara 1, an office district where you’ll find Eastin Hotel and The Star newspaper headquarters very close by. If you’re not sure how to get there, you can refer to this map: http://bit.ly/wERPNz

Its not the biggest of restaurants you’ll go to. There are a lot of other restaurants similar to Skippys is that have a larger seating capacity but it does add to a more homely atmosphere. I remember counting the seats the other day, and it can probably accommodate no more than 40 people at most. One plus point about Skippy’s is it displays its menu with pricing outside, so you don’t have to stress over how much you think you’ll have to dish out for lunch over there.

Once you enter, you’ll understand what I mean by a homely atmosphere. Very minimalist decor and warm lights will make you feel you’re having your meal at six when it’s only one or three o’clock. The tables and chairs are very spacious so you won’t feel cramped up sitting side by side unlike some restaurants.

From the menu, its obvious Skippys thrives on its pizza offerings than anything else. It covers almost the entire page, so where’re the ribs? You’ll find the pork ribs and lasagna among others in the ‘side orders’ section. Funny how ribs fit into ‘side orders’, and french fries doesn’t make the cut, hahaha.

Anyway, the weekday lunch specials seem a pretty decent deal for the sort of eatery it is. I didn’t have it that day, but I’ll probably head down for it sometime. Having your more than average sort of meat with rice and a drink probably isn’t too bad for RM 15.

The reason I didn’t try the lunch special was because I was there for something even more special. Like I said in the beginning, a place for pizza and ribs, which is exactly what I ordered.

I have to admit being a little gluttonous hearing that Skippy's was a place for meat, so I obviously went for the Meat Lovers pizza. According to the menu’s description, its toppings are a glorious combination of pork bacon, pork ham, pork pepperoni, minced pork and barbeque sauce (someone please tell me the difference between ham and bacon)!

One of the other things to love about this pizza other than its generous toppings of all things piggy-like, was its crispy thin crust. I admit I am a rather big fan of thin-crust pizzas. Its suits this one anyway, you don’t need a thick crust when you’ve got a heavy topping. For all meats, a universal rule always applies, meaty and crispy go together like Brad and Angelina.

The ribs were next of course, and I was very curious how they’d be like. I’ve always had a liking for ribs, both in Western and Chinese styles, but I’ve been disappointed many a time, so I was hoping for a different experience this time around. It arrived in some sexy black sauce:

Apparently, these bad boys are dipped into 7 sauces. Which sauces they are, I have no idea, go ask the cook. Now, I have to be fair here. The ribs weren’t fantastic but still rather good. The sauce is a little thick and sweetish, but not too sweet. The ribs themselves have got enough meat and are rather long-ish.

I obviously had a very meaty affair at Skippys and it is a place I would love to visit again soon. You should definitely give it a try if you have the time. Even if you’re not the meat eater type, vegetarian pizzas are on the menu too. If you try the lunch set, let me know how it is. I’m curious to know if they’re as good as their a-la-carte offerings.

For menu prices, delivery services and more information, you can visit:
http://www.skippyspizza.com/

feeling Christmas

2011-12-28T01:05:00.001+08:00

Christmas is over and we’re all looking to usher in 2012. While people may be reflecting on the year as of late, I’ve been thinking a lot more about how Christmas has been this year.

With it being an end of year celebration, how good Christmas feels tends to be dependant on how good a year its been. On a global scale it wasn’t great with numerous natural disasters, economic political problems in Europe, and uprisings in the middle east, which are still on going as it is. There wasn’t much to be joyful about, that’s for sure.

Malaysia hasn’t been lost out on troubles of its own, and for me even as November came about (the time Christmas rings a bell), I was actually quite indifferent about the 25th. While I knew it was coming, I couldn’t help thinking it would be just another day, and the weeks before simply a typical year end consumer fest.

I had decided to spend Christmas with my family, so I took my leave and got them a couple of presents. While shopping for gifts, I noticed the malls were decorated Christmas-like as always but it didn’t feel much more than ordinary. Christmas decorations were less than previous years and some shops were dressed for the lunar new year instead.

All this indifference, the seemingly non-existence of a Christmas ‘spirit’ got to me, and I resigned to expecting a casual holiday that wouldn’t bring much meaning. As I’m a Christian, I know perfectly well that Christmas is hardly about presents, friends, or even family for that matter. Its about the birth of Jesus Christ, but that failed to sink in somehow.

Christmas day finally arrived, and there wasn’t any sudden magic that made it all better. I woke up no different from any other Sunday, and went to church that morning. As I sat down before the service began, listening to Michael Buble renditions of Christmas tunes playing over the speakers, I hoped something would happen in church that would give me back that reason for the season.

The worship band led the church in a number of Christmas themed songs before presenting a special item. It was an inaudible sketch with the band playing a song in the background, much like a music video. Contrary to popular assumption, it had nothing to do with the nativity scene, the birth of Jesus and all that.

Details be spared, it was mainly about a person growing up, being taught in His ways at the beginning but distracted and caught up in so many other things afterwards. Eventually trapped and entangled by the situations of her own life, she cries out to God for mercy and He rescues her, paying the ransom for her sins.

Then, Pastor Paul came on the stage to deliver his sermon. He spoke, with reference to a few things from the sketch. As human beings, we all seek acceptance and contentment in life, albeit in different forms. Romances carry the passion of the heart, money buys a convenient lifestyle, while alcohol and cigarettes give freedom from the worries of living. Eventually, problems come when you crave for more and it is not enough to satisfy the soul or to overcome a time of trouble. If anything, anyone with common sense would agree that over indulgence in any of these things would lead to more problems.

As the pastor said, “Money can buy a good bed, but it cannot buy a good night’s sleep. Money can buy a great meal, but it cannot buy a good appetite.”

He went on to preach, pointing out that how our needs are more of a spiritual than a physical nature. He began to share several testimonies of how God has been good and taken care of the needs of those who love Him. He closed his sermon by asking those who wanted to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour, who wanted to be free, who wanted to be healed to come towards the stage as a statement of faith, where people would come and pray for them.

Many people walked up to the front, many who probably had come to church for the first time or those who come only during Christmas time. I saw many people being prayed for at the front, and then Pastor Chew came on the stage to close the service, but before that, he shared something that happened while people were being prayed for.

He said, “You know, while I was down there, someone was telling me; you know pastor, I’ve been praying for my family for 10 years, and I’m so happy that all five of them are here in front with me today.”

Just then, everything clicked. That’s when I realised that Christmas isn’t merely a reminder of the birth of baby Jesus. Its actually a time to remember when real hope arrived for us on earth. It was because of this hope, that turned into blessing, then into a ransom for the sin of mankind that true freedom and peace is available to anyone if they just embrace it.

That’s what it’s really about, the freedom He’s given through His love for us. It’s no wonder when someone sees his or her family turn to Christ they become joyful. It’s because they’re finally free. I guess it’s not wrong to say Christmas is about presents, because it is about the best gift of all.

movie Tintin

2011-12-09T00:20:00.001+08:00

Its been a pretty long while since I’ve blogged, but I’m a little out of ideas about what to write lately. Then, I remembered my most anticipated movie of the year ever since I knew it was coming out. I just couldn’t help it when I heard both Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg were working together on what would be my favourite comic to film adaptation, Tintin!

While probably unfortunately irrelevant to most kids and teenagers today, Tintin comics were certainly among the fond memories of my childhood and it just so happens that I have the entire collection! A young British reporter with an appetite for adventure gave a lot of room for Herge to write so many different stories in so many different places, both fictional and real.

I’d watched a 2D Tintin animated film (that followed the comic art to the letter) many years before, but up until now no one really made a big film on a global scale. After more than an entire decade of reading the comics, it has finally arrived.

It felt great to know that the movie would be based on my two favourites of the comic series, ‘The Secret of the Unicorn’ and ‘Red Rackham’s Treasure’! I remember reading them over and over so I couldn’t wait to see it on the big screen.

The opening credits reminded me a lot of the way that the last two James Bond movies have been opening with, except there was a lot more context to it and plenty of references to many of the different comics in the series, hinting at future sequels, which Steven Spielberg confirms there are already plans for one.

Anyway, the opening scene was excellent! They really unravelled Tintin bit by bit, a real treat to fans who were anticipating his look and voice on the big screen, not to mention the ever iconic Snowy as well.

Graphics in this movie were fantastic, a combination of realistic detail, combined with some cartoon type art that would remind you that you were watching an 3D Tintin cartoon, not a live action film. That’s exactly the way I would’ve wanted it to be.

The characters felt just the same as they did in the comics, Tintin being a smart, young and brave reporter with a curious head and Captain Haddock, the drunkard, hahaha! The Thompson brothers are a lot chubbier than they were in the comics, but just as clueless.

There was plenty of action to go around, gunfire, car chases, swordfights and the like. Excitement wasn’t lacking. You could say it got a little overboard even, when Captain Haddock got hold of a bazooka, not something you’ll find in any of the comics.

Still, one of the things I felt about the movie was that it tried to do too much. There were so many scenes and so many different characters, that it was too difficult to showcase all of them within the given time frame. In a way, the vast number of scenes made the movie look as if it was all over the place. In the end, the movie suffered from the lack of time given for the main characters to really shine.

Nonetheless, I give it a three star rating for the debut of an adaptation of a classic comic. The nature of all the characters were well done and pay due respect to Tintin’s author. Its always great to see movies that stay true to their inspirations. A sequel to this first film would be well worth it. If Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg can avoid an overcomplicated storyboard on the next one, it’ll be well on its way to a five star rating.

Don’t you just love Snowy? Hope to see him again soon. =)

Photo Credits & Sources:
GeekTyrant

waterfront Labuan

2011-10-26T03:22:00.001+08:00

Not too long ago, thanks to my training, I had the fine privilege of getting a flight down to Labuan. Flights down to Labuan are pretty constant, thanks to its reputation as a ‘business’ island.

MAS gets its 737s to fly down there on a regular basis, several times a day I think, if I’m not mistaken. Seats are a little tight in there, but I guess that’s normal and maybe I feel that way because I haven’t been on an airplane for a long time now.

Anyhow, as Labuan’s a pretty small place, the island’s main hotels are very close to where the airport is. A casual drive, would take less than 10 minutes, five if you race there. My stay would be at Waterfront Labuan.

As you enter, you get a true feel of the place. Its generally rather quiet, not that much of the hustle and bustle you would expect of a top class hotel in the capital city, which I suppose would be a welcome change for business travellers. The lobby itself is pretty huge although I can’t say they’ve utilised the space well. In my five days there, I don’t think I’ve seen more than 5 people in the lobby at one time.

Waterfront Labuan Lobby & Reception

Since this is a blog, for the benefit of those reading, I’m going to make this entry in the form of a review. It’ll be split into four sections, (1) accommodation, (2) dining, (3) other facilities and (4) review conclusion. Each section will be evaluated according to three main criteria, facility, service and value.

1. Accommodation
This is the room I was booked into:

As you can probably see, its a rather decent place, and it really needs to be, seeing that you or your company will have to cough up more than RM 300 per night.

1A. Facility (3.5/5)

The beds are generally fine, and you can find an extra pillow in the closet if you need one, there’s only one though.

The coffee table is a generally weird addition to the room. Its because frankly, the coffee table’s a bit too short and hard to reach, pretty much defeating its purpose.

As with most hotels, as you walk in, the closet’s right there next to the mini-fridge and some tea/coffee making utility. Pleasantly, the closet has five built in hangars.

There’s a small safe within the closet for your use, although I’m not sure what you’re going to store in it, since even a football won’t fit in there. Some people might say it could be used to keep things like documents and passports safe, but people carry them around all the time. Nonetheless, its a facility provided free for guests use.

The mini bar on the other hand, is a tad bit larger than the safe. Its stocked with soft drinks and beer. There’s good space for guests to keep anything they need cold. It was more than enough to house the chocolates I bought from Labuan, so I think it’s not lacking in terms of space.

Now as far as entertainment is concerned, the room has one flat Sony Bravia television, which I thought was pretty good.

The channels the hotel subscribes to are as follows:

The television itself was just fine, but its reception for the few Astro channels the hotel subscribes to left a lot to be desired:

For the normal Malaysian that subscribes to Astro, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to see the above phenomenon in your home if it was raining. The thing is was that it was bright and sunny outside when I saw this screen.

Later on, images would come on and off the screen, and even when it did, the image wasn’t great either with slightly fuzzy lines across the screen.

In house communication is all though the room phone, which for some reason sometimes has some sort of static while you’re listening. Voices aren’t exactly crisp and at times you wonder if you’re listening to a phone conversation or radio communication from a war movie.

The hotel provides free Wi-Fi internet access for all rooms, which I believe is a change from previous policy because the in-room brochures indicate a charging fee for internet access. Its a welcome facility, however, the connection wasn’t great in my room, so I had choppy internet. The funny thing was that the the wireless router was right outside my room.

Luckily, I brought along my Celcom broadband USB dongle with me and it worked wonders. One thing good about staying within the Waterfront area is that reception for Celcom broadband is excellent. Actually, less than a few hundred metres away from the hotel is a huge billboard that says, ‘This is Celcom Territory’. It really is. Still, that’s a minus point for the Waterfront. How can third party facilities be better than in house?

Well, the bathroom tells a better story and its just as well since its way more important than if you have or don’t have internet access in your hotel room.

The shower’s decent, the water pressure isn’t very strong, but just nice. Getting hot water’s pretty instant, so another plus point there. However, when showering, I found that water can still leak out onto the bathroom floor if your shower head’s pointed anywhere near the point where the glass door meets the other glass pane. Its not the biggest concern, but some may care about it. The bathroom also has a bathtub, but I can’t say much about that since I didn’t use it.

Shower gel, shampoo, body lotion, body soap, cotton buds and shower cap are all provided.

Other amenities are also available, but at a cost:

1B. Service (3/5)
As with all hotels, guests have the option of putting up the door sign that will let the cleaners know if the room needs to be done up or left alone. If used or missing, the cleaners will replenish the toiletries mentioned earlier, laundry bags and also the mineral water bottles that are also free of charge for guests use. The cleaner I met was generally nice, so I’ll give Waterfront a plus point on that.

1C. Value (2.5/5)
Before I get into my valuation of the room as a whole, here’s how the management charges for it, I’m not sure if the rates are changed, but the in-room brochure shows:

Frankly, after reviewing some of the in-room facilities, I’m not sure even RM 300 would be a fair rate for a single room, let alone RM 390.

For that kind of rate, in-room facilities should be top notch, and the poor television reception and internet connectivity discredit the hotel. I guess it would also be interesting to mention that for rooms with a charge of RM 390 per night, I find it rather stingy of the hotel not to provide simple things like bedroom slippers without charge.

However, one thing the Waterfront Labuan has going for it is that the rooms are pretty big, which in the end has the bigger say on the going rate I suppose.

2. Dining
2A. Facility (3/5)

It’s a little chilly when you walk in, which made me regret walking in for breakfast in a jersey-type shirt the other day. The Spinnaker is also probably the first restaurant in a four star rated hotel I’ve seen that uses plastic place mats. It looks nice really, but when you feel it, you do wonder if the four star rating really is fair for the Waterfront.

Other than that though, I have no complaints about the place. Its well lit, furniture very decent and comfortable enough.

2B. Service (4/5)
The waiters are quite pleasant, and there’re none of those stereotypical waiter types that act all uppity and whatnot.

I ordered room service twice when I didn’t want to leave the room, and my food came within 30 minutes on both occasions.

2C. Value (2/5)
First thing’s first, breakfast is free all the time throughout your stay. However, I was on my own, I wouldn’t know how many coupons the hotel would allocate for families staying there.

As you’d probably guess, breakfast is served buffet style. The variety isn’t large, but it gets by. There’s a selection of Malaysian or continental foods for breakfast. There’re also fruits and plenty of tea and coffee.

I wouldn’t know about lunch, but I’ve had dinner over at the in-house restaurant named the Spinnaker. You can order a la carte, or pick a semi-buffet option (Mondays & Tuesdays), where you order one main course, but its free flowing as far as appetizers and dessert is concerned.

Lamb Chop

Chicken Supreme

One thing I have to say about the food, is that its mediocre at best. The food is edible, but frankly nothing I’ve tried has justified any of the high menu prices. While everyone accepts hotel food is expensive, mediocre meals at premium prices are not acceptable.

3. Other Facilities
3A. Facility
There’s a swimming pool and a small gym within the premises. The gym has some basic weight lifting equipment and one or two treadmills, but that’s about it. The swimming pool on the other hand is actually quite spacious, and there’re a couple of hoops so you can play water netball if you like.

Just opposite the reception in the lobby is the business centre, which is basically the hotel’s cyber cafe with printing facilities.

The facility has a total of four computer and one printer. The good news is that there are no fees for using the computers or its internet access, but there are charges for printing.

Their PCs boast some good basic productivity tools. The first would be OpenOffice.org 3.3, which is probably the best free alternative to Microsoft Office applications. They also have Adobe Reader X, media player classic and HD VDeck. HD VDeck is probably the most unique of the lot because the software allows you to record your voice. While I doubt anybody would record a statement at the facility, its a good option to have.

Finally, upon request, there are shuttles to transport guests to the airport from the hotel. No charge is levied for this service which is great. If guests call for a taxi, you’d expect RM 12.00 to be take from their pockets just like that.

4. Review Conclusion

4A. Facility (3/5)
The infrastructure is all there, but management and utilisation of facilities can be improved. Just about everything in the rooms are in
good shape, so there’s not much to complain about. Guests won’t get the feel of a pampered experience during their stay, but one of some good decent rest.

4B. Service (3/5)
The staff at reception are well informed and restaurant staff are courteous, which are big plus points.

4C. Value (2.5/5)
As highlighted before, there are several shortcomings with regards to in-room facilities, dining and so forth. High room rates need to be justified with exceptional service and facilities and the current situation does not give a strong argument for it.

Whatever it is, the Waterfront will always be a decent place to stay. One just has to realise that other than the bed and shower, not too much else should be expected of it.

the Timeline

2011-10-21T01:00:00.001+08:00

As time would have it, my birthday just passed recently and since it was kind of a landmark occasion for me, so I began to reminisce on my life story so far. Lately, I’ve written a few blog entries about how things have seemed so surreal to me, about how fast time has gone by and all that. It got me thinking, picturing it like a timeline you sometimes see in history books and all that.

Age 3-8
Looking back at where I was just ten years ago, I didn’t think I’d be blogging away in the comfort of a hotel room I’m staying on business. Back then I was just a kid in the small town of Miri, happy to be with my family in what is probably one of the nicer places to live in Malaysia. I was a happy kid then, and I have good memories of the childhood friends I had, even the older ones that I constantly annoyed. Its amazing to see how these older guys are all married now, with careers, living out their own lives.

Age 9-11
Of all places, I’d move on from Miri to be in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was a country virtually unknown to most Malaysians at the time. Malaysians probably only remembered it as a strange south east asian country that their national football team would encounter during the Tiger Cup (currrently known as the AFF Suzuki Cup). I’ll probably remember it most for the awesome friend spring rolls and the generally shorter people, although I think they’re getting taller now, hahah.

It would be there where I’d meet people from Europe, Australia and other parts of the world thanks to international school. I remember being good friends with Sebastien Ferriere, who I recently discovered is an Oxford graduate! I was really grateful for people like him and Alastair Duly (a very lively fellow) back then. They were amongst a number of people that made me feel at home in a largely western community, not to mention I had bully problems too. Also, thanks to Sebastien’s mother, I’d discover the wonders of quiche, which my mother makes wonderfully too now, hahahahah.

Age 12-18
Coming back to Malaysia was a burden for me, not that I had no love for my home nation; but having not spoken or written any Bahasa Malaysia for many years had its toll. The timing couldn’t have been more ‘perfect’, as I had returned just in time to sit for the all important UPSR examinations in less than a years time. It was genuinely a rough time for me and I really thank God for bringing me through in miraculous fashion. With all subjects, including math and science being in Bahasa Malaysia, one can only wonder how a non-speaker like me would not only be able to pass all subjects but obtain a 4 A’s and 1 B result!

Still, it would be a challenge in secondary school, because the command of Bahasa Malaysia required there would be at a whole new level that I wasn’t yet prepared for. Again, thankfully, God really provided all the right people around me that would eventually make me used to studying in Bahasa Malaysia. I just had the right connections to the right tuition teachers at the right time and three years down the line, I’d get through PMR pretty well too.

Of course, secondary school or high school isn’t really all about studies. We all know, that’s where we grow up a little more and things like friends and peer pressure get more real. I didn’t have a lot of friends then, and I cannot even name more than 5 people I’d call to hang out if I wanted to. I’ve probably mentioned the names Wei Yang and Alex before and I kind of stuck of them because they were real people, not the ones with high school popularity agendas.

Secondary school became a real chore for me, and a very tough place to be, especially after those two moved out. I can safely say that the best year I had in secondary school was in form three. Honestly speaking, I wouldn’t mind blotting out form 4 and 5 from my memory if I could. I got distracted from my studies and it literally went down the drain. Khye Shin and I regrouped later on in form 5, but by then it was a little late for a dramatic comeback like the ones you see in football every now and then.

After SPM, I was glad to be out of school, simply because of the last two years that really did hurt. I rushed into college, probably one of the bad decisions I’ve made. I guess I was sucked into the whole excitement of college, I enrolled into the S.A.M programme in Taylors college, where I’d go through pretty much the same thing I did in upper secondary. That would be in addition to my new found addiction for pool, where I’d be almost every other day. Again, my studies suffered and quite frankly when I realised that, I was scared if I’d ever do well in studies to qualify for a decent job.

Age 18-22
Then, I got a pretty big break. After my SPM results came out, I did apply for the PETRONAS sponsorship or more accurately, the convertible loan (which converts into a scholarship only if PETRONAS hires you and you serve them double time you spent being sponsored by them). God really blessed me with the drafting for the interview, and that too was amazing in itself, which I’ll save for another time or you can just ask me about it if you see me.

I got accepted into UTP via the sponsorship, and that was my chance at a restart. I know there’s more than one person who’d credit my status as a Bumiputera and my father being a PETRONAS employee as my credentials for being accepted into the sponsorship rather than God’s blessing, but the simple matter of fact is I know that there other people, also with their fathers being PETRONAS employees, with better SPM results than mine that didn’t even get drafted for the interview. It assures me really, of how good God has been to me even if I don’t deserve half as much.

I have to say, my years in university were a real mix of things. That’s seriously the only way I feel I can accurately describe it. The good and the bad really levelled each other out in terms of time I spent with it. I remember being really angered and disappointed by people who I would’ve have been glad to be around within a short period of time (actually I feel angry just writing about it). I guess the good thing about it was I learned more about dealing with people and not to be naive, although through a very painful way. Sadly, its also dropped my belief in people, even those of the same faith as mine. There’s a lot to love and hate about the people I’ve met there, which I guess is part of the reason I am indifferent about missing out on graduation last weekend.

Yet, I do appreciate the fact that I’ve come out of UTP with more Malay friends, something I feel was sorely lacking before. I’ve got to say, getting to know Farhan and Chee Hong, not to mention Samphors was probably one of the highlights of my last few years there. There are other good people I’ve met along the way of course, but I’m not going to list them all down here. In all of this though, God’s really shown his favour in many things, whether it was studies, lecturers, peers, church and so forth.

Age 22-23
A little like my time after secondary school, although not as extreme, I was quite relieved to leave university, back to KL. However, it wouldn’t minus from the fact that it was also a tense time waiting to see if PETRONAS would want to take me in.

However, during that time, I began to settle back in church here, which was quite an uplifting experience in a sense. That was when I began to realise, I’d entered a whole different league. You know it when you start talking to people between three to eight years older than you.

After many months, it finally happened, I got an offer and Malacca has now become my new place of residence.

Now
A lot has happened since my childhood days in Miri, and obviously there’s plenty that I’ve left out in this ‘life summary’ of mine. In all of this, the good and the bad, I thank God for bringing me to where I am right now.

Although some bad experiences in the past few years have affected the way I am now, I believe I’ll get through them in due time. It’s all part of growing into the person you’re meant to be. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of uncertainty about the future thanks to geopolitics all over the world, but it also means that the future really is wide open.

While reading through some of the things I’ve written here, I do admit that there are several things I would love to change about my past. However, knowing where I am right now, I don’t think I’d get myself a time machine if I could.

I remember that every now and then if I do a little prayer in the morning, it usually starts off with, “Father God, thank you for another day that I can live in Your mercy and Your grace.”

I’m very grateful that after 23 years, I’m still alive and that I have a role to play in whatever God’s doing on earth and I’ll do my best to play my part, whatever it may be. Thank you God, for 23 years.

weekend Trio

2011-10-12T21:24:00.001+08:00

Its funny, I really didn’t know what I was going to do in KL on the weekend but I turned out to be a pretty good one. It started out pretty slow although I had my favourite fish and chips at Fish & Co. I have to say, I love fish fillet stuffed with cheese. Also, I did watch the newly released Three Musketeers, which wasn’t half bad.

Still, it’d be pretty wasted if I just hung out myself the entire weekend so I got a few guys to come out. It was nice to meet Jon for lunch on Saturday. Kudos to him for coming out although he was a little sick, you have to give props to good friends. What’s kind of cool is we’re both in the same line of work, we had plenty of work conversation to go around.

It’s a little funny because we didn’t really hang out much in the past, but I guess its kind of cool that way. I guess not knowing someone that well gives plenty of room for conversation. Two hours of talking work and life at the Otak-Otak Place wasn’t a bad way to go, which is quite a decent place to meet up with people by the way.

That was lunch, and dinner was with Felix. I haven’t been to the older part of PJ in an extremely long time, so it was a little nostalgic to pass by some of the places that I last went to as a high school kid. The place we went to was new to me however. The food we had was something I hadn’t had in a while, but it was pretty good.

Bak Kut Teh, one of my father’s favourites. I never really caught on to it when I was a kid, but nowadays I seem to have a better liking for it. That bowl of ‘porky’ goodness there’s RM 18.00, a good portion for two people. Its pretty reasonable if you ask me.

Felix’s working in music, a real niche in Malaysia if you ask me. I’m not sure if there’re even more than a hundred people around the country that teach kids Garage Band, haha! Like Jon, I haven’t met Felix in a while, so it was good seeing him again. One thing great about hanging with Felix, is that its always a very relaxed time of decent conversation, not to mention he can definitely find good places for food or dessert.

Lastly, someone I hadn’t talked to since I left Hearts, Wai Nyan. He’s probably among some of the few I’ve met who are pretty genuine about themselves from the moment they greet you for the first time. I don’t have that quality, but its great that he does. I got to meet some of the people from Hearts as well, familiar faces like Yvonne Yeo.

It was kind of interesting when we were talking and she mentioned that she missed having one of her friends around on Sundays that had also left Hearts a while back. In a way, that’s probably one of the reasons I came back this weekend. Honestly, there was no one at home, but I still went back anyway.

The truth is, I guess I haven’t adjusted to Malacca as much as I’d like, but I’ll say that it was great to meet a few friendly faces from the past.

passing Age

2011-10-02T22:46:00.001+08:00

I’ve done a little thinking lately and I think the way things have gone the past few months have been so surreal. To an extent, I just can’t believe how fast things have moved along lately. Memories of my time in university or even high school are still as fresh as the ones I have of entering the office every day for the past five months.

For one reason or another, I’ve just had this realisation that there really is no turning back at this point. When you’re still a student, even if you drop out or suffer a fatal illness, you know if you just get back to school, you’ll be able to continue life as you know it should be. Sometimes I feel the reason some students pursue postgraduate studies immediately after completing their degree is because they just don’t feel ready for that turning point just yet. Its as if they want to stay in that place where they know how things should happen.

It can be scary because, the working world is the arena of each person’s livelihood. Money is earned and lost, and the same happens to your self-worth at times. It doesn’t treat every person equally and stories of unfair circumstances tend to make people more and more pessimistic, which eventually affects the environment or the culture of the working world.

Nonetheless, I really thank God for what I have. I’m thankful that I’ve got a job, a place to stay, a car and my family. I won’t say I deserve all or any of those things, but I thank God regardless for his favour on me and my family. My life isn’t all perfect though, but there’s a lot to be thankful for.

Still, it doesn’t blot out the fact that there’s a lot of uncertainty about so many things that are ahead of me. Even though I have a job, changes that happen every so often make me question the future of my career and how it’ll affect my life in the medium to long term. In some ways, I don’t feel ready to be where I am right now, but I just do what I do, because I’m already there.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that playtime for me is over. The ‘go-to-school’ phase of my life has passed and I’m in the ‘real world’ phase now. I’d be lying if I said I never thought about if I can really make it in the real world. For what its worth, I’ve met so many people that are probably more intelligent than me, better than me, so it goes without saying that I may doubt myself sometimes.

I believe its natural to have a fear of the unknown future, where there’re so many possibilities and its all on you to make it happen. That’s when I remind myself not to worry and take life one day at a time. There’re many things beyond my control and that reminds me God is who I need to rely on. I’m trusting God with my future, and it comforts me to know that He’s got me in the palm of his hands. He has never failed me or my family and that gives me great confidence.

The reason I’m writing all this is to remind myself, despite whatever fears I may have, God knows, and He’s got my back all the time.

God, help me to keep the faith, and to never let go.

day Off

2011-09-17T15:38:00.001+08:00

Sometimes when you get a day off, you’re in between two choices. One would be to be minimalist about your day and just relax with a book or maybe a few movies. The other would be to get out of the house, go somewhere and do something.

More often than not, I’m more inclined towards the first choice. That way, I don’t overspend, overeat, or ‘over-anything’ really. There’s also the fact you wouldn’t have to travel, think about logistic things and all. I’m generally quite content spending the day on my laptop playing video games and watching great legacy sitcoms like Scrubs or Everybody Loves Raymond.

Yesterday was a little different though, Malaysia Day let me have Friday off and for some reason I was wondering how to go about it. There weren’t any movies showing that I wanted to watch so I thought I’d be staying in again. A few friends were going over to a friend’s house to chill out, but I was lazy myself although I had suggested it weeks earlier.

I got a message around lunchtime asking me if I was coming, and I guess I went out of courtesy since I hadn't really hung out with these people much. Spontaneously I also agreed to go watch a movie I had planned not to watch, probably because it’d be nice to go with a few people for a change.

I’d been to Joseph’s house before, but there were a lot more people this time. We’d all gathered because after the first time I visited Joseph, I kept pestering Daniel that we should crash his place sometime. Why? He has this:

I always heard about it, but never tried it. I had a similar gaming experience since I’d played on a Wii at someone’s house before but not using a controller is totally different. I kept touting it to the rest because playing on the Kinect is a whole lot of fun when you have at least four people together. As I’m typing this, I’m a little puzzled why I was lazy to go at first, considering how much fun it was going to be.

Like the Wii, the best fun you can have as a group on a motion sensor game has to be something to do with sports. That’s why we kicked off our Kinnect party at Josephs house with Kinnect Sports. It was really fun, you wouldn’t think it, but you can actually sweat playing on the Kinnect if you really get into it. I know I did.

Playing on the Kinnect Sports is exactly how it looks like in the picture, although there probably should be a Kinect camera on top of the television. Its fun to play the games, but the spectators get a lot of fun too, especially if when watching their friends who look totally ridiculous running on the spot to win a 100 meter sprint.

There were a lot of laughs obviously, and that’s kind of the way its supposed to be with console motion sensor type games. Oh, and by the way, Kinnect Sports gives you a totally legitimate and legal way to beat up a girl. It was absolutely lovely to hammer Rachel to a TKO on the boxing game. Guys should sweet talk their girlfriends to playing this game if they’re mad at them for some passive aggressive retaliation, hahahah.

I’ve got to say Kinnect Sports is unbelievably fun and there’s a new add on to it being released this October as well. I’d totally get one if I could, but I’d need a widescreen television too. Oh well, hopefully the extra cash will come someday.

I stuck around longer than the rest so I got to get my hands on the XBOX controller for a game that I’ve never played, but enjoyed watching every single cut scene on YouTube. The Metal Gear Solid (MGS) franchise has a great storyline and great cut scenes. I had a good few hours playing MGS4. That’s when I realised I have no idea how to play shooter games on consoles. I didn’t get far, but at least I got as far as the above cut scene.

After I finally did leave his house, Johnny English Reborn of all things was the final card for the day’s remaining entertainment. After watching the first Johnny English movie many years back, I wasn’t expecting nor was I hoping for much. Still, after the movie someone asked me, “So how did you find it?”

“Not bad really. It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.”

Rowan Atkinson did pull off some funny gags here and there, which gave the film most of its entertainment value. Its obvious whoever directed the film was trying to make Johnny’s character more serious and not as clumsy as Jacques Clouseau played by Steve Martin, yet able to deliver the funnies. Still, its a no brainer that the two most recent Pink Panther movies were a lot more entertaining.

Still, it was a good day nonetheless. And today’s been pretty decent too, which is why I’ve actually made time to blog. Hopefully I’ll have a good week ahead too.

Photo Credits & Sources:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/14/xbox_and_kinect/
http://www.hookedgamers.com/x360/kinect_sports/screenshots.html
http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_4:_Guns_of_the_Patriots
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/johnny_english_reborn/pictures/9/

down Up

2011-08-16T20:56:00.001+08:00

I didn’t get to watch the final of the All-England badminton finals, saving myself the heartbreak of watching my country’s hero go down to an exceptional opponent. I didn’t see the match, but just by looking at the score line, it was obvious that it had been a closely fought encounter.

The thing about closely fought encounters is that you don’t often regret the way you played or strategised because you accept that you were just outclassed by your opponent’s extra edge. On the other hand, there’s plenty to regret if you lose out by a large margin or surrender a huge advantage and end up on the losing side.

At badminton, last night, I probably experienced just that. The first game I played was up against a mixed pair and I was paired up with another guy around my age. On the other side of the net, the average age was probably double of mine. The matchup was begging for a one-sided victory from my end, no? Two young guys against a much elder mixed doubles pair doesn’t sound like a fair fight.

It started off well, as much as I expected. We were nine points up, when I crumbled. The veterans started to rack up the points and they hardly had to work for it. My mind became totally clueless as how to complement my partner’s positioning, my feet were stuck to the court and the shuttle was always going back straight to to our opponents. To top it off, I actually clattered into my partner at one point, reaching for the same shot.

The loss soon arrived and I couldn’t help but walk off the court in some disbelief at what happened. It was probably the worst game I’d played ever since I’d joined the group. It was even more disappointing knowing that I’d been slowly improving in the past few weeks. A thought immediately came to my mind, “I only missed one week, and suddenly I’m like this?”

I tried to shrug it off for the next game against another mixed pair, who were younger. I remembered winning against the guy from the opponent pair when I played him in a men’s doubles match. Badminton is something that I do for fun, but while I’m playing, I’ve got that competitive mentality. Anyway, that distant memory was enough to put me in some confidence before it began. All that went out the window when five points were lost right from the start.

This time, my net shots failed me miserably and probably my insistence to keep playing them got us trailing helplessly. I started thinking, “This is ridiculous,” When you’ve lost one game and are well on your way to losing another, its very possible to get frustrated and angry with yourself. When that happened, I started to make simple mistakes like keeping my racket down instead of up that made me miss a couple of shots. Again, poor positioning also got my partner and I flat footed, and I was guilty of simply watching the shuttle hit the floor numerous times.

I sat down on the bench, rather disgusted at my own game. I’d played with my partner before, so why was I so poor this time? Two excuses came to mind. I hadn’t played for a week, so I was probably out of touch and the other being that I was seriously hungry the whole time. I told myself though, I didn’t even give that a thought when I was up nine points in the first game.

The break in play gave me a chance to sit back, reflect on the first two games and watch the other two pairs in action at the same time. It’s quite amazing how a little time off can make a difference. When you’re taken away from the action, its so much easier to observe and learn without being caught up in the moment. Fifteen minutes, and I was better prepared for the next game.

With a lot less impatience, better positioning and movement got us going again. The first rematch was up against the younger mixed pair. It wasn’t by any means a magical turnaround, because there were still mistakes. Nonetheless, the performance was definitely better than the last game and it would be enough to win that rematch. Finally, my partner and I had good reason to be confident and win the next one. Another loss would’ve probably killed all hopes for me.

The last game was the same as the very first, with us youngsters against the veterans. The beginning was hardly fairy tale material, careless mistakes came again and a third loss was looming in the background. The difference this time was that my partner and I were a lot more determined after winning the previous game. In perfect contrast, the last game played out totally opposite of the first. This time, we trailed behind, then picked it up and kept the momentum right up to the winning point.

Honestly, it was a really sweet way to end the night, after a huge lot of frustration then. Reflecting afterwards, there were a number of life lessons I relearned from the whole thing:

1. When you’re losing, making excuses is easier than breathing.

2. Brooding on mistakes produces more mistakes, so just stop.

3. When losing in life, its good to step back for a while to reflect and re-evaluate yourself, staying away from the chaos before stepping back in, better prepared than before.

4. Confidence breeds confidence, not invulnerability. Confidence still needs ability and persistence to pull through.

5. Determination precedes victory.

mind Changing

2011-08-05T22:23:00.001+08:00

About a month back, I wrote an entry about the town hall address of the PETRONAS top man, Datuk Shamsul Abbas. He talked about the need for mind set change, stressing that it was something that really needs to happen.

When confronted to change the way you think, the first questions to ask are what kind of mind set changes exactly, and why the need for this change? What’s wrong with the way things are now? These are very fair questions, especially if you’re in a pretty cosy place. In Malaysia, I think that apart from political fiascos that also seem to have infected the globe lately, there’re a lot of people that are pretty comfortable with the way things are.

I’ve seen it through the attitudes of the people that I’ve met every now and then. Honestly, there’s nothing glaringly wrong with these people. If you were a tourist and met them on the street, you’d probably make them out to be friendly, helpful people. Yet, if you got to know them over time, you might wonder why some of them are lacking in progressive thinking and maybe some who are outright lazy, shallow in their evaluations even perhaps. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condemning anyone, but pointing out a real weakness we have sometimes as human beings.

To me,the mind set change usually has to do with being more progressive and less protective of our personal opinions, to be more receptive to the unfamiliar. The failure to do this happens when we’re right all the time and wrong only when someone points out our mistakes from a text book. We fail when we say the way we do everything is how everyone else should and doing anything different is a crime.

Where I was studying previously, religious tolerance was (and probably still is) an issue simply because certain people cannot accept others doing something differently, and go out of their way to impose themselves. What’s incredible is that they can even go on a witch hunt on people they feel should be a part of them even if its clear they have chosen something different. Even when they don’t, a spirit of condemnation clearly exists. Unfortunately one of the things Malaysians can be good at is silently hating somebody. Not much is said up front, but there’re plenty of stares, whispers and backbiting.

Its really sad when I see people like that, who are close minded, but in their own right could really be good people if they’d just lose the attitude. Its not really about religion though, cases of poor mentality in my country include the multitude of complainers that probably don’t lift much more than a finger to fix their own situations, always blaming circumstances. Accountability is missing, passing the buck and pointing fingers at things beyond their control.

Another situation, most relevant to people leaching on the success of others is being satisfied with the status quo. Subsidies and scholarships were always meant to help people, but the mind set of ‘I deserve it anyway’ make people take their blessings for granted. There’re sponsored students who complain when their pocket money isn’t banked in on time but hardly give thought to the fact their entire education fee is being taken care of. Its not uncommon to hear people of the older generation say there’re many people who want money fast but won’t work hard for it. There’re people that work at big companies but aren’t ‘inspired’ to work well because as long as they get their salary, its good enough for them.

I had the pleasure to meet with two friends recently, both of whom have studied overseas. One thing I’ve noticed about these two, is that they don’t strike you as the kind of people that you would need to change a whole lot about them to get them on their path to success. Simply put, they’re independent people, who aren’t lechers, who aren’t religiously or ethnically intolerant, responsible and open to what people have to say.

I am in no way suggesting that Malaysians who have studied overseas are automatically better than those who didn’t have the chance. What I am saying is, these two people learnt in an environment where they probably opened themselves up to a lot of new things, learning their world was a lot bigger than what they thought or knew it to be and it taught them to be different from several people I know. The biggest mind set problem I believe Malaysians and people the world over face is they only choose to think within the borders of their own little world.

Even with the internet that’s connected the world together, I think too many people still live in their own small world that they forget there’s a much larger one out there, with billions of people doing so many things in so many different ways and that’s reason enough to explore new things and change the way you think or do something if you find something better in the midst of exploring new things. It doesn’t mean I must compromise my moral stands to be open minded, but it does mean I shouldn’t be a judge and jury with extreme prejudice.

A changed mind set is always a more open one. Being able to look at a 360 degree angle is always better than a 10 degree one. You don’t have to take in the whole 360, but you’ve a lot more choice than just the ten.

footballing Lesson

2011-07-29T23:37:00.001+08:00

It really was a great show of support on Thursday night. The stadium was full with supporters and they weren’t there to see their favourite English football team, but to give their best support to local talent. Once again, sports has done for Malaysia what probably nothing else has in the past few years, unite an entire nation in supporting a single entity that bears the responsibility of representing the country.

It was a very high profile matchup for Malaysia since they were drawn up against rivals Singapore. For some reason, even with a two goal deficit and Singapore still with a chance to score away goals after the first game, the confidence Malaysians had in defeating Singapore during the second leg was simply immense.

To some extent, the magnanimous support may have been due to recent political issues dragging the nation in tiresome negativity, resulting in the need of something people could sincerely support as Malaysians without having to be involved in politics. The match, described as a ‘causeway derby’ by an AFC article was the perfect tonic.

Watching the second leg, even only on television was amazing for me to see yellow all around the stadium and horns going off everywhere. There were definitely a number of ‘heart in your mouth’ moments and that I think added to the tension and to the reason you’d want to support your country. I personally felt that Kunalan, Khairul Fahmi, Safee Sali and Amirulhadi played well, but eventually the match ended a draw. Unfortunately, results don’t come when not everyone is at the very top of their game.

Amirulhadi, Safee & Kunalan celebrate a goal during the AFF Suzuki Cup.

Looking back, I think the way the Malaysian team played their pre-qualifying matches (Pakistan, Chinese Taipei, Singapore) actually reflects where Malaysia is as a nation in some ways. Both the football team and the country as a whole are in a situation where much more is being expected, because there is no doubt over the potential to be a lot better than before. In the present, they can still achieve good results but moments of inconsistency and fickle mindedness lead to some shocking blunders that cause great disappointment.

There were several complains after the first leg against Singapore when Malaysia ended up trailing by a two goal deficit. There were calls for a line up change after just one game. However, as K Rajagopal put it, the team is being prepared to do well in the Asian Cup several years from now, not qualify for the World Cup today. He patiently stands by the team with confidence, keeping his faith in them as he strives continually to push them to another level, even if it won’t happen today.

I remember in 2006, Malaysians (including myself) were so disgusted with the national football team that we went so far as to support MyTeam, a bunch of locals assembled in just a couple of months, expecting them to whip the national representatives. K Rajagopal was also the coach of the national team then and he had probably more than half of the country rooting for the other team. He stuck to his job nonetheless and remains as resilient as he was five years ago in his work to produce a better national football team. I believe all of us now know that his hard efforts from years past are just beginning to bear its first fruits.

There’s a lot to learn from all this. Today, everybody seems to have earned their degrees in criticism. It is too easy to complain, regardless if the arguments are right or wrong. As it continues, personal discontent grows to the point that the mind believes everything is hopeless and that nothing can be good enough. Critics and complainers are always aplenty. Evidently, there’s no need for more and that’s why Malaysia needs people that talk less and do more. People have to learn to be patient with work, not to expect success instantly, but gradually.

Malaysia is hardly a perfect country. Admittedly, there’s a lot left to be desired, but its not a reason for people to say you can’t make it in Malaysia unless you’ve got special favour. The grousers only need to look as far as the coach of the national football team and the Air Asia CEO for examples of people who just did what they did without moaning everyday on their road to greater heights. If they can make it, why not you?

Photo Credits & Sources:
Harian Metro
Operbola
AFC

oslo Terror

2011-07-23T12:28:00.001+08:00

Without warning and without a clue, one of the lesser known nations in the international scene has become a severe victim of one of the most horrifying acts of terrorism. We all remember the Columbine High shootings as one of, if not the worst indiscriminate act of murder in an urban environment. Now, we have had two in one nation on the same day and initial reports indicate it may have been done by one man alone.

News reports say one bomb went off, while the police have intimated it could have been more and you wouldn’t count that out when you look at the devastation caused by a single, probably synchronised bomb explosion. In all honestly, although I’m not there personally, just the photos alone are really frightening. Norway is a peaceful country, and the people there probably don’t even know how to feel or think especially since something like this has never happened to them before.

The effects of the bomb at government offices.

This is just one part of the city centre that was rocked by the bomb explosion and quite frankly, if someone had told you the building had been hit by a missile, you’d probably have believed it. It’s so surreal and the whole thing looks as if it came out of a scene from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. With video games, it seems pretty cool to be surrounded by war torn buildings, but being there in real life, the reality would be totally mind numbing. The psychological impact would be so much more than the artificial thrills of a video game.

Not more than a few hours later, on an island where the some of the country’s youth were for a camp, a man turns up and starts shooting anybody and everybody he can. He didn’t turn up with the objective of getting a ransom or kidnapping a special person. Right now, nobody really knows why he did it. All we know is that this man took a ferry almost a mile away from the mainland to open fire on teenagers, where some were as young as thirteen.

A BBC news article online says that the man was armed with a handgun, a shotgun and an automatic weapon of some sort. In addition to that, after the incident, police even found explosives on the island. Murder in itself is already inexcusable, but the fact this man went to such lengths to kill defenceless human beings, teenagers at that is pure terrorism. Despicable, absolutely despicable.

It hurts to read that this man really went after all these people on the island. The camp goers were really helpless in that situation. Where can you run to on an island? Even those who jumped off the island and tried to swim away to safety became the man’s targets. Bodies have been found on the shore, and if I’m not mistaken, on the water as well.

So far, its publically known that 87 people have died from this incident. Seven from the bomb blast and eighty from the shooting. We still don’t even know how many more people are being hospitalised or still missing in the aftermath of this shocking act of terror. If you think that 87 is a small number, as I’ve said before, the value of one life is priceless. No amount of money can buy you back one life. So now, if you really want to calculate, tell me what’s the answer to priceless multiplied by 87?

Norwegians will arrive at the question of what happens next, in the same way that the Japanese experienced not too long ago. The country is surely shaken and in fear because of such an unexpected and devastating event. Many will look to how this man will be punished and rightfully so. Still, my heart and mind goes more towards those who have been directly affected, through the lost of loved ones and those who fear for their lives, no longer feeling safe in their own country.

I believe that justice must be served and this man who murdered children will face the consequences of his actions. More than that however, I hope that those in Oslo and Norway as whole, will experience restoration emotionally and spiritually so that they can move on from this cowardly act to induce terror within their society. At the end of it, what happens to that terrorist hardly matters as much as the response of Norwegians to restore and preserve the well being and livelihood of their nation. God bless Norway.

Photo Credits & Sources:
RIA Novosti
CNN
BBC

info-social Security

2011-07-18T14:25:00.002+08:00

In the past years, most of the shocking international news headlines were usually along the lines of terrorism, economic downfalls and natural disasters. All of them are quite physical or at least visible in nature. The effects were easily seen, with people being displaced by war and tsunamis or the increasing number of poor people and riots in nations where the younger generation of adults are deprived of economic benefits.

In just the last month or so however, a less obvious, a less visible threat has been shown to the world, although not for the first time, but more than it has in recent years. Breaches of information security through the internet and communication networks have stolen the headlines. The first, was probably Anonymous, who did enough to get its name on international news, with its effects reaching as far as Malaysia. Hacking became a buzzword for a while and has found its cotinuity with News of the World convicted of hacking phones in the UK.

It reminds me of how fragile information security is on the internet. Most of us, including myself trust the security of information like our e-mails to the service providers, let it be Google, Microsoft or what have you. We trust our phone service providers that our conversations wouldn’t be hacked into occasionally by mischievous stalkers and the like. The thing is, how do we really know we're protected? Quite frankly, I think we all know the answer to that question, and that is, we don’t know. If the internet is so secure, how is it that hackers can gain access to corporate databases that are probably a lot more secure than the hard disks of our personal machines?

It is impossible to be fully protected on the internet. The saying, ‘if there’s a will, there’s a way,’ fully applies to obtaining information on the internet. If someone wants to hack you and they’re good enough, they can do it, no question. The end game then is how much damaging information can somebody find out about you on the internet?

Just this blog alone, which I open to anybody who wishes to read it, to some extent is a wealth of information for somebody who might want to make a dossier on me for whatever reason. Have you ever published content on blogs or social networking applications that may cause damage to your reputation or enable legal action against you? Its a good question to ask yourself.

A false sense of security arises when we feel there’re real ways to protect ourselves though security settings or options provided by the blogging, photo sharing or social networking platforms we use. To me at least, a simple fact remains, that is, once you’ve put something up on the internet, its there ‘permanently’. I’ll explain this.

Once we’ve uploaded a picture, a status update or blog entry on the web and we then delete it, who’s to say it hasn’t already been copied by the system you’re using or by somebody else? Those who have deleted social network accounts who then re-join at a later time would know their old contacts list is recommended to them straight away.

Some people restrict access of status updates on social networks, but forget that once a friend comments on that status, pretty much everyone else on that friend’s contact list can see that same update. Authors of private blogs claim self-only access, but if they wanted to document private information (which is already a questionable action to begin with), why would they even put it on the web in the first place?

Search engines like Google even allow access to certain deleted web pages through the use of cached pages. Even deleted images from web pages can still appear as a thumbnail through a search via Google Images, another form of cached information. People who have been affected by such things have never succeded in deleting every compromising video or photo of themselves on the web, because its impossible. It’d be as difficult as counting sand, a never ending process you wouldn’t have enough time for anyway.

Sometimes we get ‘lucky’ with deleting compromising information from our own blogs or social networks, just before anybody else sees or cares enough about it. However, some are not so fortunate. The threat of information security is not new to Malaysia, and recent hacks by the Anonymous movement into Malaysian websites aren't even good examples. Malaysians would know news from years past of women that have been blackmailed by ex-lovers due to sex videos that they had threatened to circulate on the internet. That’s something a lot more serious, and something very real.

At the end of it, you can only be compromised as much as you tell. There are some things that are meant to be shared, and some things that aren’t, especially on the internet. Wisdom is required, and that’s why the saying, ‘Be careful with what you say,’ really is timeless. We don’t have to be paranoid and close every internet social network account, but it helps not to be ignorant and to be careful with how we do use the internet. So to anyone who reads, just be careful out there, all right? =)

addressing Change

2011-07-02T22:15:00.002+08:00

Not too long ago, I watched a recorded video of Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas, PETRONAS president making his address at the annual town hall event, where he’d spoke in front of most if not all PETRONAS executives working in and around KLCC.

He started by saying that the results of a nationwide survey regarding change indicated that Malaysians need it to be repeated approximately 11 times before it gets accepted. Welcome to the national mentality of Malaysia. With ever changing global scenarios facing the oil & gas industry and all business at large, changes happen all the time and adjusting to isn’t something everybody does well all the time. With PETRONAS comprising mostly of Malaysians, it is an area of concern.

With the period of easy oil discoveries over, a lot more technologies and money is needed now to drill for oil. Its a big challenge for all oil majors, and these external pressures are forcing PETRONAS to be more efficient than it is right now.

Although many Malaysians won’t be aware, PETRONAS is truly at a crossroads of its history. It is now facing a time where transforming from good to great is not something desirable, but absolutely necessary if it is to remain relevant, especially with Malaysian resources not at its richest anymore. Just to explain, local oil production is indeed slowing down and while there are initiatives such as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), the very mention of those words tell you that future long term prospects isn’t too bright for Malaysia.

PETRONAS is being forced to be a lot fiercer in competing with companies like Shell, CNPC, ExxonMobil, Sinopec, Gazprom and the like. In recent times it has aggressively pursued assets overseas, winning bids for areas in Iraq and recently buying over a Canadian company for its interest in shale gas. Expanding globally is a big part of future plans, yet carefully selective, as it doesn’t have a bottomless pit of money it can throw at every opportunity. PETRONAS needs to grow outwards, but even making one mistake while doing so would be very painful.

That is why remaining at current standards is not enough. The president was quite firm in his address, saying that there are underachievers in the company that have been pulling down the performances of exceptional achievers and these people will be removed. No nonsense allowed.

Operational effectiveness is just one part of the picture though. Within the next ten years, approximately 50% of petro-technical professionals are due to exit the workforce. We all know that’s a lot of people, and the talent war will surely intensify beyond what we know it to be right now. The importance of attracting talent and retaining will definitely increase, and so making PETRONAS a place where the best want to work as one of the top priorities. That’s one of the reasons that PETRONAS upped entry level salaries for executives in recent years.

Many young people have entered PETRONAS in recent times and the president observed a phenomenon where older seniors are reluctant to guide these youth, fearing being replaced by them someday. He noted the need for a change of mentality to accept mentoring as a responsibility and duty to the company. He advised for the older people to avoid from being overbearing and to be more nurturing. All these statements just go to show that even now PETRONAS is going through a transition of passing bigger responsibilities to its younger employees.

Bringing it all back down to earth, just reading through what I’ve typed in this entry so far, I’m beginning to see that I’m really a part of all this. I only need to look as far as my own department to see that my manager and maybe even my senior manager will be due for retirement within the next ten to fifteen years.

It makes me wonder for a bit where and what I’ll be when that happens. What I know is that I want to be part of a successful change for Malaysia’s Fortune 500 representative. I’m inspired and part of it is due to a president whom you can see just through his speech that he’s a no nonsense kind of person and he really means serious business. Here’s to disproving the sceptics and gunning for the best.

group Badminton

2011-06-25T21:21:00.002+08:00

I got the chance to play badminton twice this week and it feels pretty good. It’s been many months since I’ve played regularly (and even longer before then), so it was nice to get out there and hit the shuttles.

Joseph introduced me to the first group I played with, at Centrepoint Badminton Centre downtown. There’re only six courts there, but as with any badminton group, they always book courts beforehand so playing space was never a problem. It was good playing with that group because I play at a level that’s probably slightly just below the others. In simple terms, I’m not too bad, haha!

I’ve been playing with this group for two weeks in a row now, and one of the guys has even given me some tips. I had no idea he’d be so observant, although it probably wouldn’t take much to see that I struggle like a bear to move on court. He asked me to watch footwork videos on YouTube and told me he’d even train me a little. I’m not sure why I’ve been given ‘special’ attention, but its good help nonetheless, so I’ll take it.

On Tuesday, I received an overdue call from Mr. David, whom I met about a month ago who said he’d call for badminton too. It didn’t take much for me to say yes then since I’m hardly occupied in the evening after work. I don’t have a wife and kids to come home to, hahaha.

This second group I joined for the first time this week’s pretty different from the first. Age-wise, most of them are probably older than my father! They’re all pretty decent players though and some are very committed. I know because something crazy happened that day. We’d barely begun when I played a simple net shot and my opponent who was too far out DIVED for it, slid across the floor, HIT THE UMPIRE CHAIR, which then slid across to the neighbouring court! He failed to receive the shuttle though. Needless to say, he was down for a bit, quite an introduction to the group, no?

I thank God that I’ve found these two groups, because it really works up an awesome sweat, a lot more than I would get jogging on the beach. Its a whole lot more fun too, and it all happened just when I was resigned to not being able to play sports regularly. I was talking to Mr. David, and he said that these days he lacks stamina and that others told him to play something else, but he loves badminton too much to give it up because of the good fun and sweat. Good fun, good people, there isn’t too much else to ask for.

reset Restart

2011-06-18T14:22:00.004+08:00

Throughout most of my life, I’ve never really put myself out to be a prominent person. I’m not the exciting, life-of-the-party sort of guy. An only child, I didn't have much reason to be noisy about annoying siblings and such. Being alone, you learn to appreciate silence, and tend to stay quiet and observe more instead of jumping into things, although I guess that also depends on the kind of person you are.

Even now, living in Malacca I’ve been taken on another journey to make something new out of my life; and being on my own is a default that’s a lot like a video game re-spawn. My friends list (the real one, not the social media contact list) was reset to zero when I first came to Malacca. I did have a contact from KL that would get me connected to a church, but that was it.

Living on my own, driving on my own, eating on my own, watching movies on my own, it sounds like one sad story full circle. That’s what you’d say I guess, and it’s true somewhat. There’s no question I could do with a little more company, but I haven’t found myself depressed about the lack of it. However, life is hardly about keeping to oneself and that's what forces you to discover new things, new people.

I didn't know what to expect when I first stepped into an office completely new to me, but thankfully people have been welcoming and helpful, which has helped me a lot. Still, sometimes the people you meet at work aren't always the same people you'll hang out with on a Friday night. I'm getting along fine with people at work, but it doesn't go beyond the workplace.

Going to a new church, I didn't know what to expect either. Just like a kid who moves to new school, I knew how the place would probably be like, but not the people. I hoped to meet good people that I would feel comfortable with, that would complement my personal values.

A timeless principle that applies to every person is that who you are will be determined by the people you choose to be with, no matter who you are. That's why for me, choosing friends is a big deal, or at least how close I choose to be with them. I don't decide who my friends are based on the criteria of nice-type Christian people. I've got friends of different races, belief systems and the like. I'm not socially prejudiced. That said, I don't hang with drug pushers for the sake of accepting diversity.

After some weeks I started to know some people from church a little better, and its been great that way. Having been in Malacca for less than three months, I'd say it's been a fine start. As I get to know people and as they get to know me, bit by bit I think that there's something good in store for me here. Do I know what it is? Only God knows at this point.

A lot of people from big cities that work in smaller places like Malacca tend to go back every weekend, because there's something good and familiar back home. Like I've told some new Malaccan friends that if I had worked in KL, everything would have been nicely laid out for me. I'd be able to be with my family, able to grow in a church that I love going to, where the entertainment scene is better and I'd even be better off financially. Who cares about rent and utility bills when you're living with your family?

Nonetheless, here I am, working at a place called Sungai Udang that I had no knowledge of in my twenty over years of living on earth. On Fridays, some people in the office ask me, "Going back to KL for the weekend?"

"No, I'll be here. In fact, I don't really plan to go back."

I'll go back once a while to visit my parents, its my duty as a son, but the reason doesn't extend beyond that.There's a simple reason why I've chosen to stay in Malacca although I've been more than teased with the delights of a bigger city, the biggest in the country in fact. Its simply because, I know I'm here for a reason (even if I don't know what it is yet), and I want to stick to finding out what it is without running back to familiarity every other week.

Life brought me here, so that's where I want to be. I want to take it as it is, without running, without hiding. Here's to a new journey of discovery, living life for what it's meant to be.

golden Sweet

2011-06-11T14:27:00.001+08:00

I’ve always wanted to blog about this place for the longest time, but it was in cold storage for quite a while since I was never quite satisfied with my photos. Now though, I think I have a few decent enough to show off a favourite eatery of mine, Golden Sweet Home Restaurant. It hosts numerous hawker stalls and is a popular destination for those staying within Bandar Manjalara and around Tesco Village Kepong.

Situated on a row of shop lots that also has several eating places including another coffee shop with its hawkers and a dim sum restaurant, it does fairly well. The photo above was taken on a weekend and you can be sure its packed that way every weekend and public holiday.

One thing about this hawker place is that it closes quite early, albeit at an undetermined time. What you can be sure of however is that there’ll be no stall for you to buy food from if you go there at two in the afternoon.

Occupying two corner lots, many of the tables and chairs are put in between them. To cool that area, there’re extendable canvas roofs and medium sized water spraying fans but if you sit too close to one of them, you’ll earn the right to a constant drizzle as you eat.

With stalls on both corner lots, there’s good variety for people to choose from. Chicken rice, various noodle dishes, fried rice, vegetarian and ‘nasi lemak’ even, every typical Chinese hawker food you can think of is probably there.

Something I should say that you’ll probably have figured out if you’ve been reading carefully is that Golden Sweet Home is more of a brunch place rather than just lunch or breakfast. The waffles are good, the fried rice is tasty; I have yet try anything I felt was bad.

Interestingly, the wonton noodles, although not the best you’ll get in Malaysia, the char siew that comes with it is really something. I did blog before about Sun Ming, the place for roast pork and char siew here, and the char siew served with wonton noodles certainly meets Sun Ming’s standard, even if the pieces are a little smaller. Its a rare case where you could say its char siew served with wonton noodles instead of the other way around.

I haven’t tried all of the food from all the stalls at Golden Sweet Home, but there’s something there that I bet every person that has been there has tried at least once. Its something that really is unique and that you don’t find in many hawker centres around Malaysia even I dare say.

Out of the many foods at Golden Sweet Home, this personal favourite of mine is what keeps me going back there as much as I can. Those aren’t fried wontons by the way. They’re fried meat dumplings also known as ‘pot stickers’. The right amount of crunch and crispy together with lovely minced meat on the inside make for a perfect breakfast or brunch-like meal and that’s available at Golden Sweet Home.

The pot stickers are good enough as they are on their own, and even better when you dip it in ginger laced vinegar sauce. As I said before, its really difficult to find a stall selling this at any hawker centre so it really is a big deal in itself.

That’s something I find quite special about Golden Sweet Home. There are other stalls of course, like the ones that sell noodle soup, chicken rice, nasi lemak, pastries too. Even if you don’t like what I like, I’m sure you’ll find something there for yourself, even if you’re vegetarian I might add. If you’re ever looking for a place for brunch, you might want to give Golden Sweet Home a run for the money.

three Four

2011-06-07T15:13:00.000+08:00

It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged about what I’ve learned from something that I’ve read. In fact, I’ve probably never done it before. I thought I should take some time to pen it down here.

Any friend of mine would probably know I’m a Christian and part of that involves reading the bible. Its a collection of real world history and many lessons God gave to people of the past. Even so, its lessons are timeless and its relevance is irrelevant to time, only to the attitude of the heart.

I read a couple of bible chapters a few days ago, Acts 3 and 4 in particular. It was about two of Jesus’s disciples, John and Peter at a time after Jesus had risen from the dead after his crucifiction and ascended to heaven. If you’re curious, you can read the two chapters here and here. They aren’t that long really, more like two short newspaper articles. Nonetheless, I've summarised it:
______________________________________________________________

The two men were walking on the street when they met a crippled beggar who had never been able to move his feet since birth. The beggar asked them for money but Peter didn't give him any. Instead, he told the beggar, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. I the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk"

Since the beggar was in some state of shock and disbelief, Peter helped the beggar up and as soon as he did, his feet and ankles strengthened immediately. The crippled beggar was crippled no more. He ran walked and jumped around, praising God as he went. The surrounding community was stunned, they couldn't believe this man walking and jumping all over the place was the same crippled beggar they knew from before.

The stunned crowd could only stare at Peter, probably assuming a superhuman had come in their midst. Peter explained to them this was nothing to be astonished by, because it happened not by Peter's own superpower, but by his simple faith in Jesus Christ. He began to share with the crowd, many of whom had supported the persecution of Jesus. Peter testified that Jesus was truly God, and that it was His power that had healed the beggar. He went on to tell them that repentance and to make a choice to believe in Jesus would bring a refreshing to their lives.

The local authority who had a disdain for Jesus and anyone who supported him arrested Peter and John. They stood firm nonetheless and God gave Peter the words to speak that would earn the respect of his accusers, even if they hated him. They would see that these two were special for they had been with Jesus. Knowing this and that the crowd was praising God for the healing and many of turned to Christ, the local authority could not punish them for fear of the people's reaction and let Peter and John go.

Still, before letting them go, they threatened Peter and John further, warning them not to speak using Jesus name again. The two went among their friends, shared their news and prayed to be strengthened in their faith and to be even bolder in speaking the name of Jesus.

______________________________________________________________

Peter and John were nobodies, yet were men of tremendous faith. You have to understand that both of them were poor men. Add that to being uneducated and you have the formula for social rejects. It’s pretty amazing what God can do with just a couple of outcasts.

Peter told the beggar he didn’t have money, but he would give what he could. It reminds me money is hardly the solution to every need. Sometimes its a little too easy to drop some cash in a donation box. There’s more to give than just money. The problems of people in crisis are not solvable by cash itself, but with the love and sincerity of people that make an effort to meet their needs. Even though Peter had no money, he made an effort to meet this beggar's real need who never even thought of asking him for help with his physical disadvantage.

When the beggar was healed, its interesting to note that the bible mentions the beggar praised God for it. You see, its so easy to forget God once everything’s okay. Its important to acknowledge and to thank Him who blesses us so much. It doesn’t make sense if you call God every time you’re in trouble but never when things are good. It's especially important to thank God when we've been saved from a trouble that's plagued us for a long time instead of complaining, asking why it took so long. The beggar couldn't walk since birth, but he never complained to God asking why the healing couldn't have been earlier.

When Peter and John were imprisoned, they stood strong in faith, stubborn and adamant that they would never be ashamed of the God they serve. Because of this faith, God gave Peter the words to speak that would earn the elder's respect. Peter didn't speak out of his own ego or intellect, but by God working through him. Having a strong rooted faith allows God to work through us and walk us through the storms of our lives. Problems always come but they give us a chance to exercise our faith and to strengthen it further.

Even upon release, John and Peter were threateened. They knew they would face more persecution in the future because of Jesus name. Still, they stuck to their guns, kept praying, kept believing, continuously persevering. That’s how faith needs to be, which isn’t hard when you know the awesome, powerful and loving God I believe in.

recent Viewings

2011-06-05T16:22:00.004+08:00

I’ll say the last month or so has seen some of the bigger movie names to come on screen. As I wrote in my last blog entry about movies in March, movie releases seem to get better as the months go by. The last two months or so has been good proof of that.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to watch a lot of these and I haven’t been disappointed (at least not too disappointed) by what I’ve seen so far.

The first one I watched was:

Thor is the first of several movies to be released this year from the Marvel universe. As DC has had its big success with the last few Batman movies, Marvel’s going on the offensive this year with Thor, X-Men: First Class as well as Captain America. I don’t think DC has seen that many live action movies released in a single year.

So, how was Thor? Well, pretty darn good. As with most of Marvel live action movies it was something worth watching. The only problem I had with it was that they turned Thor into a parallel universe alien rather than a mythical God. It took a little magic out of it, but that didn’t do much damage.

The good thing about the film is that it shows the struggle of two men in choosing to be a hero or a villain as the two are neither at the start. For most parts of the movie, Thor isn’t the perfect courteous superhero depicted in cartoons of the past; more of a naive egotistical boy in the process of growing up. On the other hand, there’s Loki, who’s no natural villain, but grows into one after being severely hurt by a truth hidden to him by Odin and impatient with Thor’s ego. Also, the conclusion of the movie is open ended, which leaves room for sequels, and perhaps ‘The Avengers’ too.

I watched Thor back in KL at Cathay Cinaplex, the Curve. When I got back to Malacca, I was pretty happy to see GSC had just opened at Jusco AEON Bandaraya Melaka, which is the closest mall to my place. Its made movie going a lot easier for me I must say.

In between its official opening on the 19th of May until now, I’ve watched three movies over there:

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was the first I watched at the new cinema. As with all newer GSC halls, the seats are as comfortable as you need them be with pretty decent legroom. However, I noted that the seats themselves are a little narrow, perhaps to save on space.

Back to the movie, there’s not very much to say about it because its only as decent as an average movie. You’d always hope for some comedy wit from Jack Sparrow and there is some, but not a lot (or at least not enough to move the movie from average to good). We all know if that’s lacking, Pirates of the Caribbean doesn’t have too much else to offer in terms of a story. Still, nobody has released any competitive alternatives to a pirate movie as yet.

One of the disappointments of the movie I felt was the movie makers didn’t do much with the Spanish characters, when they were probably the most intriguing of the lot. Of course, there are the mermaids however. Mermaid vampires are cool as a twist, but I didn’t think of it much more than a copy of a concept from Jennifer’s Body (a movie I’ve never watched and have no intention to).

Kung Fu Panda 2 on the other hand was a more entertaining watch. I’ve always been and always will be a fan of good animated movies. Animated series like Starship Troopers: The Roughneck Chronicles and movies like Toy Story and Final Fantasy have kept me entertained many a time.

While a lot of sequels to good movies in the past decade or so have either been average or poor, Jack Black and company have at least made it slightly more than average. The story takes Po the panda into a new adventure where he discovers more about his identity (we all know panda’s can’t be children of of geese right?).

While Kung Fu Panda 2 has a fairly straight storyline, viewers do get a good number of laughs and discover more about Po’s background. Interestingly, the movie uses 2D (reminded me of some Animatrix 2D stuff) animation as well, which is brilliant in a time where everybody is touting 3D, something I’ve written about here.

Ironically though, I watched the movie in 3D, the only reason being they weren’t selling non-3D tickets for the show. Oh by the way, its more worth it to watch this film in standard definition instead of 3D. The extra seven ringgit I paid to watch it in 3D wasn’t justified enough. One last thing, also with an open ended ending, there’s room for another sequel in the Kung Fu Panda series.

Last, but not least was X-Men: First Class. I watched it on debut day, 2nd June, which was just a few days ago. After watching the trailer featuring president John Fitzgerald Kennedy giving a public address, an affair with the Soviet Union was always going to be part of it. In that sense, the backdrop of the movie is based on reality so the movie puts fiction into non-fiction although hardly anything really emphasises that.

Since the movie has just released and many haven’t watched it yet, I won’t spoil it but rest assured, this is probably the best, if not one of the best movies of 2011 so far. Why is it so good? Well, that rests with the fact that this movie takes on individual personal conflict of all the major protagonists. Just how ‘Thor’ showed how Thor became a hero and Loki a villain, the same goes for Eric and Charles. It really is a discovery of Magneto and Professor X. Its always a mystery how the bad guy becomes a bad guy, and that's one of the attractions here.

However, more than just Eric and Charles, the movie give much focus to how being different can be such a curse. The movie presents a dilemma, whether those who are different should dismiss their abilities to fit in. Should they acknowledge their unique strengths and adapt them to society or do they make a stand to fight a world that feels threatened by what they don’t understand? That’s why it would be hard to pinpoint Eric (Magneto) as the ‘bad guy’ in this movie because the difference between the right and wrong choices for the mutants are hard to define.

That ends my movie blog entry for now, but there may be another one this month. Green Lantern from the DC Universe is about to make a live action film debut later this month and from the trailer, it looks pretty awesome.

Pictures: Google Images || LA Times || CStar Collections

priceless Redemption

2011-06-01T19:41:00.003+08:00

Being bored on a weeknight at home, I put my eyes to an old favourite of mine that I hadn’t watched for some time. I’ve got to say, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is probably the most heartfelt World War II film that I’ve seen.

An entire squad of American soldiers was sent into deep enemy territory just to save one solider who’d been given the privilege to return home, Private Ryan. They would fight through Nazi strongholds with unfavourable odds. The whole movie looks great on action with plenty of explosions and gunfire. However, you miss the point of the movie if that is the main thing you like about it.

If you process the plot as you watch the movie, you’ll find the squad’s mission totally illogical. Where’s the sense in risking the lives of eight men for one? The soldiers argued how ridiculous their mission was. They didn’t have a valuable military objective like assassinating a top military officer. They were putting their lives on the line for someone they didn’t even know. That person being a soldier and not a civilian makes it harder to reason out. After all, he’s a soldier. He’s supposed to fight too isn’t he?

The entire squad sent out to save Private Ryan loses their lives, except two. The mission was successful, Ryan survived, but at a high cost. If the value of one life is priceless, how much is that that multiplied by six? Just before he dies, the squad captain whispers into Ryan’s ears saying, “Ryan, earn this.”

Ryan in his old age visits the American Cemetery. He turns to the grave of the captain and says, “My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn't sure how I'd feel coming back here. Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I've earned what all of you have done for me. ”

He continues as his wife approaches him, asking her to tell him that he’s been a good man, to convince himself he earned his second chance at life and the movie ends there.

The movie doesn’t show what happened in between the time Ryan was saved and the time he went to visit the squad leader’s grave. What I am certain of is in between those two moments; Ryan would’ve carried an incredible burden. How many of us know what its like for someone to die for us? How hard would anyone have to work to repay such an enormous debt? No matter how hard we work, no matter how many good deeds we do, no matter how nice we are to people in society, we’ll never feel like we’ve deserved that second chance at life.

While that may be true, I know someone that didn’t ask others to pay the price for redemption. He did the same thing too. He died so that other people could live on. What’s more amazing is the fact that he didn’t do it because of orders. He did it because he wanted to.

The more insane, illogical yet beautiful truth is that he did it for every single person that deserved nothing more than to die, the killers, the terrorists, molesters, rapists and every single person I know a good soldier would never want to die for. He even died for those who hated him, that’s hard core. To top it all off, he did it for free, all costs waivered. That is what he has given the failures, the fools, people like me and that’s why I love Jesus.

Pictures:
http://www.sproe.com/
http://meghandmark.blogspot.com/

my Rights

2011-05-22T18:31:00.001+08:00

A few weeks ago, I went for a PETRONAS Induction Program for Executives (PIPE) course. Fourteen days of classroom activities plus a few outdoor ones made for a very decent paid holiday. There were those who probably grumbled beforehand about the insanity of going through a corporate 'brainwashing'. It wasn't really like that though. Those who complained initially ended up liking it anyway.

During one of the first few nights, one of the top guns within the company came to talk about his PETRONAS experience with us and what it would take for someone to achieve success at the top from starting at the bottom. Mr. Yazid Mansur, the Senior General Manager of PETRONAS Exploration is probably one of the most charismatic men I've met for his age, an Asian too nonetheless. Even if you don't feel in awe in the presence of someone big, its always pretty cool to meet someone who's at the top of one of the world's most profitable oil and gas corporations.

Its hard to believe that this person used to work for 11 years at the lowest executive level, yet he never left because he saw long term opportunities for himself. Talk about patience, some of us probably may not even stay in one job after two years (of course there are many valid reasons why people may need to leave their current jobs).It was clear from the way that he spoke that he was a man with purpose in his work.

He always wanted to work well, to find answers and solutions to whatever challenges. Being a people person also helped him a lot in his career, not just giving instructions as a boss, but able to listen and engage with whoever was around him, unconcerned by how much bigger or how much smaller they were than him.

Seeing that he was a learned and well traveled sort of person, I wanted to ask him a question about working in the company. Starting off as a young executive, there's not a whole lot that people tell you, especially if you don't ask. So, that's why I put up my hand and asked, "Sir, in your many years of experience, you've probably seen or met a lot of young executives. What are some of the things they are doing right, and what are some of the things they're doing wrong?"

As I was hoping for, he didn't give an answer that had to do with work techniques but worker attitude. That brings me to the title of this blog entry, individual rights. I was surprised when I first heard it, but it made sense within a split second, lack of humility certainly isn't lacking a world where people are competing for personal pride. There's no doubt that younger people who are still less mature than their older counterparts would be even more susceptible to the egotistical disease.

He started by saying, "You guys are too concerned about your rights...."
Always demanding, always protective of one's personal space can prevent a person from growing out of the stage they are in right now. A simple example of this could be somebody who always clocks in at eight and clocks out at five. While working from eight to five is natural, any hard worker who strives for the best knows that isn't always the case. However, this somebody when questioned, will always state that its his right to go back at five o'clock.

Even when encouraged to see the benefit of sacrifice, selfishness and an attitude of carelessness stand in the way of progress and build a bridge to an eventual career demise. Results are always different when a person decides to ride on the tide of a challenge as compared to constantly complaining about it.

Another point he brought up was about good people who seek to challenge the status quo of their individual careers to pursue something new, perhaps bigger, most certainly more difficult than their current position. He did attribute this to an element of trust between manager and subordinate. One of the reasons people can turn into high flyers is the experience their bosses can bring to them through mentoring and coaching.

That's why trusting your boss's intentions is important even if he gives you work that you feel shouldn't be yours, or is out of your scope of work, or even better, outside the scope of your individual KPI targets. In situations as those, its better to humble yourself and just do it rather than questioning your boss. Honestly speaking, if your boss gave a task to you, he trusts you to do it, so why not repay that trust? Its a great reminder to me, even as I've just restarted work for two days now.

malaccan Living

2011-04-25T20:47:00.001+08:00

As of today, I’ve been living in Malacca for about just over a week. I started work at PETRONAS Penapisan (Melaka) Sdn. Bhd. last week. With my office located in Sungai Udang, its nowhere near town but that’s been a blessing in disguise because traffic’s never been a problem on my way to work.

I’ve been quite blessed from a logistical point of view. Everywhere that I need to go isn’t further than a 20 minute drive, and that includes where I work, which one could say is out of bounds if Malacca were a golf course. On top of that, I’ve managed to rent a very decent place, a fully furnished two room apartment unit that’s not far from the seaside and has a swimming pool too.

Although its been less than a month, I guess I know Malacca as much as I need to know it for now. I’ve had my tour of Jonker Walk, both in the daytime and at night so that’s been checked off my to do list. To be honest, I do wonder sometimes what’s the special attraction about Jonker Street. I haven’t really been able to note a very special attraction, maybe other than the fact its a combination of a ‘pasar malam’ and colonial civilian architecture. Still, its a popular destination for locals, but there’s an issue with parking:

No matter how you look at it, I still say it’d be impossible to fit cars belonging to 1/30 of the Malaccan population there. I won’t even start about the traffic jams that mar the surrounding roads during weekends.

What’s interesting is that, Malacca draws quite a bit of similarity with Penang when it comes to ‘urban’ geography. It’s got its places which have been developed as much as local budgets can, then there are the places with small roads that host plenty of colonial style buildings, mostly shop lots.Then there’re the outskirts that may feel a little like Ipoh town, buzzing with local activity albeit with tiny roads.

Bukit Cina (or somewhere thereabouts)

Other than that, finding places to eat hasn’t been difficult. I hear people talking about great Malaccan food, but I have yet to taste something that’s uniquely better than things I can find in KL. Nonetheless, eating as an ordinary person, you’ll find food in Malacca more reasonably priced when eating at food courts and hawker stalls.

Dry Mee Sua

Prawn Chee Cheong Fan

Baked Fish

However, one thing I do notice about Malacca, is that there’re plenty of shops, particularly at Jonker Street that serve as bakeries making a variety biscuits and a lot of them pineapple jam tarts.

Pineapple Tarts

Over at Sungai Udang, my office is quite literally in a warehouse where plenty of spare parts and materials are stored. It doesn’t seem the most pleasant place to work in, but actually its quite decent, with one section walled off properly and fitted just as well as any ordinary office space. Thinking a little deeper, I guess the place suits my job that’s off an inventorial nature. If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m working under the supply chain management department.

One of the tiny challenges I have at the moment is internet access. I don’t have any broadband installed at my residence at the moment, so I’ve had to rely on a particular eatery nearby for free internet although I still pay for an ice-cream as a courtesy. Its just as well, since I also go there for some fried chicken:

Just about all my online activity for the past week has been made possible by KFC, except for today, where I’m at OldTown White Coffee. Incidentally, just 500 metres away from my apartment is something that’s insanely popular, a lot more than Colonel Sanders and co. Its even listed among on PAPAGO GPS points of interest,which is:

There isn’t much to tell about the drink other than what the signboard already says about it. The place is nothing more than a stall by the side of the road with a few tents and chairs set up around it. However, this is one of the few places where people just park their cars at the side of the road and get down just for this drink. Actually, the place is sometimes jammed just because of this stall. They open in the afternoon and its no surprise that with their popularity, they’re sold out by evening.

Some people may not be so fascinated by this admittedly not so creative but definitely innovative drink. However, it has a very fine drawing point, it only costs RM 2.00. All around Malaysia, you’ll be challenged very hard to find such a drink at such a price. Its surely in contention for Malaysia’s fair price award.

There are some things I’m not so used to in Malacca, practical things like parking:

Then there’s also the issue about where to park in certain places, because whoever planned out Malacca didn’t really take into account that a growing and more affluent population would surely take more cars onto its streets. Traffic there’s similar to Penang you could say.

Talking about driving in Malacca, it was such an inconvenience and quite a danger as well when my right signal light got busted in midweek. I had to be extra conscious about my driving, particularly turnings. Even so, I’d still get a few honks until I got it fixed on the weekend. After a lot of trouble trying to find the place, with the help of some technology and a very nice person over at Edaran NHL, I finally arrived at:

Out of the entire Malacca, this is the only place that’s got spare parts for my car. Even after calling certain people to check my car, I still got routed to Chevrolet’s only service centre around finally.

I had to wait a whole day for the light to be fixed. A spoiled component that had to be replaced and checking on the electrical wires cost me a good RM 105.00.

Oh, I didn’t mention the beach that’s near my place did I? As my apartment is by the sea, its only natural that its right by the beach (even if it is reclaimed land, and a lot of it too). I took a short walk there on Sunday evening, its not the prettiest or most exciting beach you’ll find, but not a bad place for a relaxed atmosphere.

I can’t write anymore, because frankly I’m rather tired and I have no idea how long it’ll take to upload this blog entry with all these pictures from a public wireless internet connection at an eatery. Well, maybe just one last paragraph.

Anyhow, I’m very thankful because God’s been really good to me. My laptop was acting up a few days ago but its fine now, which was really really important because I needed it for work. When my signal light spoiled, thankfully I didn’t get into any accidents of any sort and got everything resolved. I also thank God I’ve been able to find a good church with good people. I thank God that in my workplace, that I’ve found favour among those around me, that there’s no form of prejudice but a friendly atmosphere. God’s been really good, even living in the place I am is a real blessing. Thank you Jesus for being so caring and faithful, full of mercy and grace, loving me in spite of who I am.

pre Employment

2011-04-11T14:10:00.002+08:00

What can I say, I’ve been blessed with an opportunity to work for quite an established company and I’ve decided to go for it. A call came last Friday from the talent sourcing department to collect an offer letter at their head office. Actually, it wasn’t just a letter, it was a whole bunch of documents including the offer letter that I needed to fill and submit before a due date.

PETRONAS as with many other companies, require you to provide a whole lot of information before you join their organisation. There’re many things to do that fresh graduates may not be aware of. That’s why I wrote this blog entry, specifically to help PETRONAS sponsored students that have been offered a job by Malaysia’s national oil & gas corporation. Here’s my guide of what you need to do if you accept the offer from PETRONAS.

*GENERAL GUIDE TO PETRONAS PRE-EMPLOYMENT FOR FRESH GRADUATES
1. THE OFFER IS FINAL: For PETRONAS sponsored students, the offer letter entails the final job offer. Rejecting it is equivalent to a breach of contract. Talent sourcing serves the many operating units (OPU) on a first come, first serve basis. Whichever OPU chooses you first will serve the final offer, regardless if you had contact with another OPU first.

2. COLLECT: The offer letter is held by talent sourcing, you should know where to collect it from the phone call you received, probably at PETRONAS Twin Towers (PETT). At their office, ask for the person that called you and he/she will hand you an envelope that contains the offer letter along with many other forms you’ll need to fill up.

Among the contents of this thick envelope besides your offer letter is a check list of everything you need to complete and submit, so use it as a strict reference. The check list also contains a few documents you must submit other than the forms provided so go through it thoroughly.
3. ASK: The person in charge will explain what you need to do and how you should fill up the forms.

You can take your time seated at their general meeting area to go through the forms and ask questions to the person in charge. Do it while you’re still at the talent sourcing office, it would be annoying for them to receive calls every other day because you forgot to ask questions earlier. You will also meet him/her here when you return later on to submit the forms and have your fingerprints stamped on the KWSP application.

4. MEDICAL APPOINTMENT: After taking the offer letter home, the first thing you need to do is to make an appointment for your medical check up at Prince Court Medical Centre (PCMC), which is near KLCC. The talent sourcing department WILL NOT accept your forms until they receive the results of your medical check up, so that needs to be completed first. I will explain the medical check up and how to get to PCMC in a later section.

5. INFO ITEMS: Typically, you would have more than a day before the scheduled medical check up so fill in all the forms. A few items you will need information from are your passport, birth certificate and bank book (of the bank account you want your salary to go into).
6. EXTRA INFO: Related to item (5), you also need the address of the bank where you opened your account, which is typically not in your bank book, so find out. You also need to list down the addresses where you lived over the past 10 years, so if its more than one, make sure you know those as well. Make sure you have numerous passport photos, you’ll need them for various reasons.

7. PERSONAL DOCS: Additionally, you need to submit a number of certified true copy (CTC) documents along with all the forms. These include copies of your I.C, birth certificate, academic transcript, letter of completion of studies (high school & university). Refer to your check list for the full set of copied personal documents you need certified.

Photo stated copies of your personal documents can be certified or ‘disahkan benar’ at police stations or government schools.

8. DUTY STAMP: You have to visit your nearest Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri (LHDN) office to obtain a duty stamp for the document/form entitled ‘Perjanjian Perkhidmatan Kakitangan’.

Before taking a number and waiting for your turn (just like the post office), fill up the PDS 1 form. If you’re unsure how to fill out the PDS 1 form, ask the reception counter, they should be able to help you. It will be available at the forms shelves or you can print it out yourself from:

http://www.hasil.gov.my/pdf/pdfborang/PDS1_Pin2011.pdf

Once your turn at the counter, submit the PDS 1 form along with the ‘Perjanjian Perkhidmatan Kakitangan’ document and later you should have to pay a RM 10.00 fee at the cashier.

9. ATTEND MEDICAL: Once your medical check up date has been confirmed, make sure you fast starting 10.00 p.m. the night before your medical appointment. Remember to bring the medical form attached with your offer letter. You need to submit it to the medical staff. Fill it up before you go so that you won’t waste time.

Anyway, If you don’t know how to get to PCMC, click here for its location on Google Maps. The easiest way to get there is to go past the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre and drive all the way straight on Jalan Kia Peng until you see Prince Court on your right and turn in.

From the main entrance, just turn right and walk all the way straight through every door until you see this one, which you’ll need to enter:

If you’re really not sure how to get there, just ask the receptionist, but honestly its really easy, after going through the main entrance, turn right and walk all the way straight until you see the door above. Incidentally, you’ll pass by Coffee Bean on the way.

If you brought a bag with you, you can store it in one of these lockers at Occupational Health Services (OHS) and keep the key until you leave.

Tell the attending nurse that you’re there for a pre-employment medical check up. You’ll need to fill up two simple forms (exclusive of the one attached with your offer letter) and then you’ll go through a few checks:

1) Produce urine sample (you may not eat as long as this isn’t done)
2) Height & weight measurement
3) Eye test
4) Hearing test
5) Lung test
6) X-ray
7) Consultation (face-to-face with attending doctor)

The seven things you need to complete don’t take long individually but there’s a bit of waiting to do, so bringing something to read wouldn’t hurt, although there are reading materials available in the OHS waiting room.

Parking at PCMC is a bit expensive. I was there from around eight o’clock until about eleven thirty and I paid RM 8.00 at the auto pay station.

Prince Court Medical Centre Front Entrance

10. SUBMIT FORMS: After completing steps one through nine, talent sourcing should call you once the medical results clear you for duty (which they should have very quickly), or call them after a couple of days if they don’t. After confirming your positive medical results, you may submit your forms as soonest possible to the person you collected them from.

You’ll have to do one last thing in the presence of the talent sourcing staff, which is to stamp your thumbprints on a photo stated copy of your I.C (without CTC stamping) for KWSP registration. Again, take the opportunity to clarify whatever you don’t understand, especially the forms if you’ve left some spaces blank.

There, they may inform you if your posting has been delayed, hastened or on any other relevant matters. After that, you’ll be all set for your PIPE training programme (14 days) or to report for duty (whichever comes first) as per the dates specified in your offer letter.

*Please note this guide is most relevant to prospective employees residing within Kuala Lumpur. Those from other parts of Malaysia may go through a different procedure.

movie March

2011-03-30T12:28:00.001+08:00

Early 2011 hasn’t been great for new motion pictures, but March seems to have put an end to that period. Somehow, it always seems that movies released at the beginning of the year never match up to the ones that come out later on.

I’ve been a victim of a few bad early year flicks myself actually. Yogi Bear and ‘I Am Number Four’ included themselves into that category. The first was just too boring and predictable and made me very disappointed especially since I was a fan of the Yogi Bear cartoon series when I was a small kid.

Bad movies aside, its good to have watched a number of shows that I felt were well worth whatever I paid to watch them, probably more even. The first one that probably ended the rein of bad movies at the cinemas actually came in mid-February, Burlesque.

The first time I saw the trailer on television and heard the name Christina Aguilera, I knew that I’d be watching that movie. Set up in a style similar to dance movies like Step Up, the storyline sets itself with a young girl who’s got talent to perform but never had the chance to and finally decided to make it on her own.

Most of the movie takes place in the nightclub and this of course leads to more than one provocative scene. It’s far from a movie that leans towards ‘fan service’ though. As I watched it, i felt the musical performances were more powerful than they were sexy, although both elements are part of what is essentially a burlesque.

Christina Aguilera’s vocal performance and some pretty fine burlesque dance routines made the movie worth watching, even if there were a few unnecessary love lines (something many directors can’t seem to escape from). Unlike Dreamgirls, the film thrives more on the intensity of events and musical numbers than it does on emotion.

Rango is a departure from the classic kid animation such as Toy Story. That’s something you should expect nonetheless, when a person like Jonny Depp is involved. Its probably the first animated film I’ve seen using the wild west as its scenery. Most would think it to be too dry for a movie that’s supposed to attract children, but it does just fine.

Interestingly, there’s deep exploration of the characters personalities and backgrounds that give that lay a solid foundation for on going events throughout the movie. Thankfully, the good effort to create depth for this story hasn’t led to over sophistication that may have left kids wondering at times, like the movie ‘Up’. However, there is one scene that probably baffled everybody as to its relevance and meaning. You’ll need to watch to know what I’m talking about.

A good combination of comedy, conflict, tragedy and substance is rare in animated films. Toy Story and The Incredibles rank among the few I believe have got it right. I’ll dare myself to say that in this instance, Rango probably deserves a look in that category as well.

Big Momma was another one I went to see. As far as storylines go, it probably doesn’t have anything over any ‘average’ movie. In fact, its just lame at some points. The fact of the matter is, storylines have hardly been the Big Momma’s franchise selling point. However, there’s plenty to laugh about. Double teaming the fat old granny with a fat niece granted a few more angles to work with instead of only one fat suit for the funny moments. In any case, its good to finally see Martin Lawrence on the end of a comedy. It’s a good show for a good laugh, as has been with every Big Momma film.

This was probably the most anticipated movie for March. The trailer attracted many for its intense batle scenes and Steampunk influence that I personally have never seen on the big screen. Of course, that combined with a girl adds on to the plus points. All that’s only on the surface though, because the movie itself has more depth than the trailer suggests.

Off the bat, some people may dismiss this as another form of Charlie’s Angels, but its definitely better. The story has a dark feel to it, largely due to the fact that it begins with a murder. That one scene pretty much sets the tone for the movie. The action scenes are very firm and each one is unique as all of them contract different scenarios.

For me, the best action films usually find a good balance between action, reason and emotion. Sucker Punch doesn’t lack any of these features, ensuring that its worthwhile watching. Unlike straight story action films, Sucker Punch combines elements from Charlie’s Angels, The Matrix and maybe a video game called Wolfenstein.

World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles was the most recent movie I’d watched and it did surpass my expectations. While saving the world from aliens isn’t the most novel idea anymore, exploring realistic individual conflict that might arise in such a situation is one most don’t bother to do. District 9 is probably the only movie that did that.

What’s great about the show is that with its limited cast, a wide range of demographic variety was still achievable. Although the movie may focus on a particular squad, they’ve been able to divide it by age, race, experience and confidence levels. That’s important because it allowed the film to show how different individuals would react uniquely to the same mind numbing scenario of Transformer-like aliens blasting heavy rounds at your head.

Unlike Transformers, where no human civilians or soldiers die miraculously, there are definitely bodies to be seen in this film. As with District 9, World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles is pretty disciplined in its effort to make the film as realistic as possible with regards to an alien presence. Hence, fire fight scenes in this movie are on par with Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. Also, the addition of civilian characters provide a much welcomed perspective of how ordinary people deal with the shock and violence of an armed invasion. There’s not a doubt in my mind that this is a fine movie.

Having watched many movies in the past two months, I’ve come up with my own ranking for the ones I’d personally recommend:

1. World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles
2. Sucker Punch
3. Rango
4. Burlesque
5. Big Momma

On the other hand, here are a few I wouldn’t recommend anyone to watch:

- I Am Number Four
- Yogi Bear
- Mars Needs Moms

Looking at the ratio of good movies I’ve watched to bad ones, its 5:3. That needs to be improved. I’m hoping DC and Marvel inspired movies will correct the balance later this year.

pork Place

2011-03-29T13:09:00.001+08:00

It’s not often that people are willing to drive past a toll for lunch so when people actually do, you know that place has to be good. In my case, it has to be two, because I automatically have to pay a toll if I want to get anywhere unless I’m heading down the Kepong end. So imagine, people willing to pay at two tolls to reach one place just for lunch. What is this ‘special’ place that deserves such effort?

Firstly, as the entry title tells, this place is very well suited for pork lovers such as myself. Hence, vegetarians will have no love for it. However, meat buffs will surely want to give this place a try.

It’s none other than:

Being at one end of Kuala Lumpur, Restoran Sun Ming is near for some, yet very far for others. Taman Connaught, Cheras plays host to this Chinese ‘pork rice’ place, which some may say is one of a kind (location here: credit to food.malaysiamostwanted.com). This is the only place that I know serves chicken rice but isn’t famous for chicken at all. Pork is the star food here.

One thing you must know about Sun Ming, is that its right at the outer part of a neighbourhood, which means to say finding a parking spot will be rather difficult. Ordinarily, you would have to find a place to park further away from the shop lots and walk to the shop under the heat of the sun. Still, the walk under the hot sun will be well worth it.

There’s something you’ll need to consider when visiting Sun Ming as with any other chicken rice stall you may frequent. Do you want to sit and eat or take away?

Sit & Eat?

Take & Go?

The reason I’m bringing up this obvious circumstance is because it really matters if time is a concern for you. People who order take outs typically get their food faster than those who choose to sit at a table. Even if the takeout lines are long, I can guarantee they’re moving ones. Of course, how soon you can collect your takeout will depend on how far back the line you are and how large your order is.

Speaking of time, you may have to wait long for your food to arrive if you choose to sit and eat but came at the wrong time. As with many popular eateries, it pays to be early at this one. A good time to be there would be around 11.30 a.m. That’s right, before noon, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to miss out on breakfast the day you decide to visit the place. You’ll probably have to leave your home slightly after ten to reach there, depending on where you’re coming from.

I’ve been to Sun Ming numerous times and once I had to wait about 10-15 minutes just to get a table, and another 20 or so minutes before receiving my order, so that’s a lot of waiting. That time, I arrived there past one o’clock in the afternoon. Needless to say, I was frustrated then, so good timing is essential if you’d like a pleasant eating experience overall.

Roasted Pork

The great thing about the roasted pork or ‘siew yoke’ at Sun Ming is that its skin is totally crispy. The pieces aren’t sliced thinly so they’re cut into nicely sized chunks of meat that make for a very pleasant bite. Crispy, crunchy skin with some lovely tender and fatty meat is just that much more sinful than chocolate.

Barbequed Pork

The barbequed pork or ‘char siew’ is also another must have over there. It’s totally drenched in sweet barbeque sauce that’s unique to char siew as you won’t find it in any European or American barbeque sauce bottle. The barbequed meat is also very tender, and a little more generous with the fat than the roasted pork. That combined with the sweet barbeque sauce make it a favourite. Personally, I actually prefer the barbequed pork than the roast pork at Sun Ming.

Chinese Pork Sausage

This special kind of sausage is also on the menu, and is probably one of the underrated offerings there. Its not the typical dried Chinese sausage that’s used in fried noodles and such. This sausage served in slices has a layer of skin that’s definitely thicker than your breakfast sausage and gives a nice bite. Beneath the skin, minced pork forms the rest of the sausage, which is nice and easy to chew. It’s also sweetish, but a lot less than the barbequed pork. This dish probably goes with rice the best out of the three. Actually, it’d probably make for a good snack as well, but I doubt anybody will go to Sun Ming for a ‘snack’. Some may compare this sausage for its similarities to ‘loh bak’.

Roasted Duck

Last but not least, roasted duck is another favourite at Sun Ming. The reason why I didn’t highlight this so much is because there are a lot of other duck rice places and Sun Ming is more of a pork place. Still, its more than half good, and its worth giving it a go if you want to avoid and all-pork platter at your table.

Sun Ming has a few side dishes that include, Yong Tou Foo, lettuce, bean sprouts, ginger duck and Asam vegetables.

Price Board (click to enlarge)

Conveniently, there’s a large board inside Sun Ming that shows how much it’ll cost customers for different kinds and sizes of servings. If you look through the price board, I believe you’ll find the prices reasonable for the quality of food served. The haven’t set prices at any premium like those you might see in posh Chinese restaurants although you may pay a few ringgit extra than you usually do for an average plate of chicken rice. In the price list, a single serving of rice and roasted pork/barbequed pork/sausage for one person sells at RM 5.00. That’s not unreasonable now is it?

Summarised, this is a really good place to eat pork but you need to be early if you want to eat in. Getting a takeout won’t be a problem if time isn’t on your side, you’ll just need to queue in line for a while. The food is good, it doesn’t disappoint and it’ll be worth the time and money spent on it. Good food and fair price always spell ‘must try’.

perception Failure

2011-03-18T10:55:00.011+08:00

The power went off, and everything went dark. It didn't help that sunlight doesn't make it through the windows here. Light wasn't really the problem though, being stuck with lifeless computers was the trouble. We'd been going through the entire day without a glitch but the power failure brought it to a halt.

Strangely, the power cut didn't affect everything in the building. Out of all the computers, one screen was still alight. A sole survivor if you will, but not nearly enough for the class to continue. Other rooms were lucky. Somehow all their computers were still working although their lights went out. They could still continue, but my group was stuck. What cursed luck.

On the outset, a few of us were happy to have a break. It'd been a long day. Constantly looking at a computer screen while listening to someone for the whole day can be quite tiring even if there are breaks in between. Listening to anyone talk non-stop for just 30 minutes strains my brain and I'll either get lost in my thoughts or feel the drag of time. Others were starting to wonder if this meant we could go back early. There was only an hour to go and blackouts last as long as they aren't fixed, who knew when the power would come back on?

One of the staff came in later to reaffirm the obvious, that there was a power failure and the electric company had been called to fix the problem. Now, a dilemma. Should we stay and wait for the power to be restored or call it a day? After short discussion, tired minds prevailed over patience and an early close to the days proceedings was the end result. Although it meant we'd go back early, it also meant we'd have to replace the lost hours later, on an extra day probably. Power cuts are especially annoying when they affect your schedules.

I walked across to the mall where I'd parked my car. It seems it wasn't just the training center that was caught by the power failure. The insides of a few shops were pitch black, no one could see through the entrances. Just like the center, not every lot was affected. Still, the emergency lights were on in many places throughout. It was a pretty big power cut, but it was strange. It was as if random things had been chosen to be affected by the incident.

I got into my car thinking at least I'd get to get home early and have a few extra hours rest than usual. Beating the 'going-home-from-work' traffic was also another incentive. That idea was lost when I saw a queue at the parking exit gate. Of all things, the power cut just had to affect the parking exit machines! My thought speech could only go, "Man..... really?"

It looked to be that everything that went wrong for everyone in the area that day owed a big thank you to the power failure. Its funny in life that it takes many people to affect something like changing a government, but just one thing like a natural disaster, can affect many people in a single stroke.

Anyway, I saw a lady get out from her car in front. Hers was closest to the exit gate. I suppose she went out to complain and get the power back on, at least for the exit gate. She was gone for a long while so I thought as long as the electric company didn't get things working again, I could be stuck here for a very long time. I thought of reversing out and trying another exit before I decided it'd probably be the same there.

After a while, the lady came back, rushed into the car and put her ticket into the machine. The gate lifted and we were all on our way. That's when I realised something. The power failure had nothing to do with the woman getting out of her car and rushing away. She'd ran out of her car because she forgot to pay for her parking ticket.

Its funny when you think about it, but that's not really the point. After I got home, I realised something about the whole thing that led me to write this entry. Sometimes, everything seems to go a certain way because of a single event. However, that doesn't mean everything is happening because of that one event.

For example, in Malaysia I sometimes feel there's a lot of hidden anger that people don't express verbally but are very willing to do so in cyberspace on blogs and other mediums. Much of this is attributed to politics and racism to an extent. Hence, I feel many Malaysians have begun to blame almost every single problem on politics and racism. I wonder if it has come to a stage where people are blinding themselves to the real root of certain issues. What if 'simpler' problems of greed and broken hearts are at the core of these unending struggles? Should we fight the politics of the land or politics of the heart?

I'm not saying racism and politics aren't influential issues, they're just as real as the power failure that affected many in MidValley the other day. Still, they're not the reason for every single problem in the country is it? Its good to be able to look beyond circumstances and identify things as they really are. Many times we make fools out of ourselves due to the chronic illness of perception failure that subscribes to stereotyping and prejudice. We need a cure. Perhaps having a mind that's less cynical and open to more possibilities than one would be a good start.

e Soo

2011-03-14T20:25:00.001+08:00

For me, thinking of a place to eat for dinner is pretty tough sometimes. When that happens, my brain always automatically works out two categorical options, hawker food or Chinese restaurant food (because my brain is wired to think of cheap and good simultaneously).

Hawker centres are places I frequent for lunch, which often means I’d rather have something different at night. Of course I could always have something different at the same place, ‘Char Kuay Teow’ for lunch and clay pot rice for dinner isn’t bad at all. Cheap and good, there wouldn’t be much to complain about choosing hawker food for a night meal.

However, there are times I feel like having something a little nicer but not to the extent of fine dining. That’s where Chinese restaurant food comes in. Some of these restaurants are tailored for the upper class whose prices and interior decoration rival European themed eateries around town, but then there are others that serve similar food at more affordable prices. Those are the places that I like to go to.

E Soo Yong Tou Foo is such a place that serves good Chinese restaurant food for a reasonable price. Located across Tesco Village Kepong in Bandar Manjalara, E Soo is a place for family and friends looking for a good Chinese meal without breaking the bank. It probably isn’t the ideal place to go if you’re eating alone because they don’t serve individual dishes like fried rice or single servings of noodles. They do offer however, meal dishes that are best shared by at least three people or more.

A full house.

From the first two photos, you’ll know this is a place that’s popular among local residents, especially during dinner time. As its situated at a corner lot, the restaurant is generally spacious where there’s at least 2 metres between each table so you won’t have to worry about your chair pushing into another from the table behind. Also, seating capacity is probably around 80 pax, less if its raining since they do have tables outside. With E Soo’s popularity and limited seating capacity, its always a good idea to arrive there at 6.00 p.m. or sometime after 8.00 p.m. to avoid competing with the masses for a table.

I admit that one of the reasons I like this place is because of its ‘non-Chinese’ friendly menu. Even if the words are not in English, you’ll probably get by just from pointing at the item you want. Something interesting about E Soo is that it doesn’t leverage solely on Yong Tou Foo for its menu but meal dishes that you’d find in other Chinese restaurants as well. Its not fusion by any means, but a good way to provide variety.

Fried pork.

Marmite Chicken

Pork Rib Curry

Yong Tou Foo

Fried Sui Kow

Stir-fried vegetables

Those are some of the dishes I’ve tried at E Soo and have come to like quite a bit. The fried pork in particular is a personal favourite of mine. The pork is nicely cut into strips, the tender meat with a balanced amount of fat to go with it makes it easy on my taste buds, hahah! Its not a very salty dish in truth, lightly salted so there’s no overkill there. However a downside to this is if you take other dishes with more flavour, its possible you won’t taste much of the fried pork after that.

The pork rib curry is another favourite of mine. I don’t eat it elsewhere often so when I tried this at E Soo, it topped my list of favourites at E Soo. Its has a unique taste as there’s a hint of lemongrass combined with what I’m guessing is a house recipe for their curry that makes it a little more sweetish and less salty. The curry goes very well with rice.

Fried sui kow is also on my list of ‘things to eat’ when it comes to E Soo. The fried dumpling that has a filling of fish paste together with some pork and condiments is the only thing I sincerely enjoy when eating Yong Tou Foo so it’s great that E Soo has that. Still, its expected because I haven’t seen one Yong Tou Foo places that doesn’t serve sui kow.

Now, the place seems to be open to reservations like other restaurants so you can always give them a call if you want to book a place for a big group of friends. Don’t expect them to speak in English though. Also, the place is open everyday at the times shown in the photo above. Its great to know this place opens during public holidays, because some Chinese eateries tend to close during such events even if they’re not celebrating the special occasion.

Well, whether its meat or seafood with rice or Yong Tou Foo, E Soo has choices for both. There aren’t many places I know like that and the good quality food combined with fair price should bring you back for more than a first meal. When I think of where to eat for dinner and I can’t decide quick enough, I always know that E Soo won’t disappoint. In terms of affordability, today my mother and I shared stir fried vegetables, pork rib curry, Yong Tou Foo, rice and drinks for a total of RM 30.00. That’s not too bad now is it?

the Doll

2011-03-12T21:17:00.001+08:00

“She’s such a doll!”

Ever heard that phrase before? Actually, its not just ‘she’, many times its ‘he’ too. Lots of people like the doll face kind of look. Who wouldn’t have a go at a girl with Barbie-like features? If Barbie were real, the queue outside her house would probably be longer than one for free ice-cream at Hagen Daz.

Not leaving the girls out, they aren’t short on their list of physical features they’d like their ideal guy to have either. Tall, strong, toned body and so on (tall, dark and handsome is something I’ve never heard a girl actually say). Girls of the past clamoured for Cruise and Clooney. Now, its different with vampires like Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner (its okay if you don’t know they’re Twilight actors, I forgive you).

Now with both sexes attracted to the other by natural magnetism, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a movie with some sort of love line between a hot couple would make a catalyst for higher ratings on a motion picture. You’ve got plenty of film genres that integrate the couple concept. Old western films, modern inspirational romance movies, television dramas, action movies, even horror films aren’t spared from this ratings riser.

When you look at the list of genres, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that a romantic couple could be involved in an action or a horror film. I mean, it makes sense right? You could probably imagine a couple escaping a haunted house or running away from some bad guys like in the Bourne Identity.

There is one thing that pushed my acceptance of ‘couples in films’ to the limit though. Vampires. Previously known to be blood sucking human eaters, they have apparently evolved into doll faced romantic pale white beings with abs that have got teenagers the entire globe suffocating. I have to say that Twilight is just gay, really gay, nothing more than that. Please, there are girls that agree with me on this all right?

Now, in the past there would’ve been quite a bit of debate on how gay Twilight is. I’d like to put this argument to bed with some physical evidence. How?

Well, actually, I was downtown in KLCC a few weeks ago and I met the actor for one of the characters, Jacob Black, whose real name is Taylor Lautner. I was pretty shocked to see him, who isn’t shocked to see a celebrity right (regardless if you like or hate them)?

He couldn’t really talk because he had a few other doll faced girls about, so I didn’t really want to interrupt. He was pretty boxed in, but even just looking at him confirmed how gay Twilight was. Among several clues was that he was topless, why walk around without a shirt? This is how he was as I met him:

I wanted to say “Hello,” but I couldn’t because like I said, he had some girls with him:
Doll faced, no?

By the way, this is how Jacob Black introduces himself:
Mamee Monster, anyone?

Barbie Collector: Pink Label

Now, can you still argue with me that Twilight isn’t gay?

P/S: This is the first Barbie figure I’ve seen topless. Hold on a second, why is a child’s toy topless? Hmmm…

passing Time

2011-03-07T21:04:00.001+08:00

I haven’t blogged much about what I’ve been doing lately and I guess now’s good a time as any. The first two months of the year have really zoomed by, not too much has changed though.

Being one of the many students from UTP under a PETRONAS sponsorship, I’ve been waiting and hoping to get a call from their human resources department for quite a while now. More than two months passed before I got a call from them. That was about three weeks ago.

They’d arranged for me to meet with a few managers from PETRONAS MITCO at their office in Twin Towers for a ‘chit-chat’ session as they put it. MITCO is one of many subsidiaries within PETRONAS, known as the trading arm for PETRONAS CHEMICALS that’s been made famous by the recent IPO. My ‘chat’ session with them was all right, they told me they’d let me know something between a week to a month. It’s been about three weeks now, so I’m a little doubtful about my chances but I’m still hoping for it. Whatever the outcome, I’m still confident God’s got the best in mind.

While waiting for the final outcome, I signed up for an MDEC sponsored training programme being run by Guidance View for Oracle 11g database administration running from 28th February until 23rd March. Actually, I was supposed to go for something similar last December for end user SAP skills but I skipped that.

When I first signed up for the Oracle 11g training, I was worried if I’d get accepted by MITCO halfway through the course. That would force me to pay a RM 3,000 fine. However, I think they would be considerate enough to defer my reporting duty to a later date. Asking for a deferment of less than eighteen days isn’t too much I think. What concerns me more is when I’d be able to take the two Oracle exams in that situation. If there aren’t dates available during weekends, then that’d make things a little difficult.

Also, I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading lately. I’ve been able to complete two HALO novels, which has left me wanting for more really. From a little research and bookstore wandering, I’ve found that it’d be pretty hard to get my hands on the whole series. They’re not cheap either, with retail prices of about RM 40 per paperback. Nonetheless, I’ve started on one of three hard cover novels I got from BookXcess a couple of weeks back. There’s plenty to read so I think I’m covered for the next few months, haha.

fake Dimensions

2011-03-02T00:08:00.001+08:00

Watching movies at the cinema is definitely in my top 10 list of enjoyable things for a weekend. Although its not a weekly ritual of mine, I always enjoy shifting into a comfortable seat with lots of leg space, staring at the big screen in a dark room where all my focus turns to a motion picture for at least an hour and a half.

I love going to the cinema but watching films with a lack of attention to content and more to special effects ruin my movie going appetite. Surely, one of the most annoying things about many movies right now is the current scheme to draw crowds to the screens called 3D. Yogi Bear was such a movie, with only 3D tickets available in Malaysian cinemas and it bore a storyline that did great service to make it a total flop. I’ve heard and seen the term 3D so often on cinema screens that I’m sure it has to be the most overrated and overused term of the movie industry.

How many times have you and I heard the phrase ‘in 3D’? Countless trailers have made it such a big deal and have taken a lot of effort to show moviegoers their film has employed a special technology that will blow your mind away. Movies employing this ‘new technology’ never fail to advertise the word 3D in extra large font at the end of their trailers.

I said that 3D is an overused movie industry term. That’s justified by what I just mentioned in the last paragraph. However, I didn’t do much to explain why I believe 3D is also overrated beyond its hype.

First, let’s understand what 3D is. In the context of current movies, 3D is all about an experience where you’ll feel that you’re inside the movie. Objects on the screen are supposed to appear as if they exist behind and around you, some will even seem as if they came from behind you. Its a viewing experience that’s enhanced by being able to see from multiple perspectives, hence the term.

That sounds good and all, but to me, it’s not as special as much as it is a cheap gimmick. If you watch a 3D film at the cinema without the ‘special glasses’, you’ll see the image in a fuzzy form. Its as if there’re many frames of the same image put on top of one another. Many ‘frames’ mean one thing to me, many layers.

I wasn’t far from the truth, researching from HowStuffWorks, the fact is two projectors are used to project two different polarised images on the screen. Translated into simple terms, movie projectors trick our eyes to believe certain objects on the screen are closer or further away than they really are.

The question is, is that what 3D really is? Is an image in 3D simply because certain objects look closer or further from our eyes than others? Isn’t 3D about the perspective of length, width and height, and not just length alone? The simplest way to explain this so called ‘3D effect’ is to illustrate with the following:

Take a look at Wonder Woman here. The fact her image pops up above the book’s page gives gives a visual appeal. However, you and I both know that Wonder Woman here is still just a flat 2D piece that’s been arranged to appear closer to our eyes than the page of the book. We’ve all seen pop-up books before right? Characters jump out of the pages to look alive but we still know they’re flat pieces of cardboard.

That’s exactly the same thing movie productions have done with their films and are touting it as revolutionary 3D technology. All they’ve done is to take 2D images from the screen and arrange them parallel at different lengths. This altered arrangement of flat images is what they are selling as three dimensional! I have observed this in EVERY so called 3D movie I’ve watched.

Honestly, this parallel image effect fits well on books, quite simply because book pages are meant to be flat, two dimensional. Therefore, having a pop-up every now and then does bring a little excitement because it adds a different dimension. However, using this very same concept with movies is hardly the same because motion pictures are meant to portray three dimensional images and have done so for some time now!

If you’ve watched a live action movie, then you’ll know each actor is a three dimensional being, not a flat pancake. This three dimensional view in live action films has been emphasised with slow motion scenes where cameras are able to film a 360 degree shot of a pose. If you’ve watched 3D animations such as Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Toy Story, note that they’re all modelled in three dimensions and aren’t flat anime drawings. Since all these things are already in three dimensional form, why are movie makers slapping a 2D effect on top of it? To me, its like adding a bad mod to a video game that’s already very good.

In my opinion, there’s no real sense of depth perception and absolutely no immersive experience with what's being sold as 3D right now. As I said before, its simply an application of a 2D concept. Now, I can’t think of a single reason as to why I should pay double the price of ordinary movie tickets just to watch a few layers of 2D images that hardly make the movie experience much more than ordinary. I’d rather spend more money filling up on an extra large Coke or an extra ticket for a date.

introducing BookXcess

2011-02-17T16:45:00.001+08:00

If you’re from around KL or PJ and if you like reading but you’ve never heard of BookXcess, you really need to check it out now. With a good load of free time lately, and a revived interest for reading as of late, I decided to check out a place I’d discovered some time back where I knew I could get more for less.

This place isn’t around the more upscale areas like Bangsar or any of the big established malls like Pavilion and Mid Valley. It is however, in a place where prices are generally easier on the wallet: Amcorp Mall.

Situated on the top floor, BookXcess is easily distinguishable from the other stores around with its bright signboard with the black and orange wordings. From the outside, you can tell the store’s pretty big and its size is comparable with any of the medium sized branches of popular book franchises around such as MPH, Borders and Popular.

BookXcess @ Level 3, Amcorp Mall

From its website in the ‘About Us’ section, you’ll find that BookXcess started up only just a few years ago, back in 2006. It didn’t have such a big store back then. It actually took a small corner lot that’s probably less than the size of an average Starbucks coffee house. It’s become very popular since then, and in 2007, they moved to a much bigger store as you can see in the photo above.

As I mentioned earlier, the reason I really like BookXcess is because you will always get books for a discounted price. They bring in new books in great condition with prices slashed to about half of ordinary retail prices you’ll find at other bookstore franchises. Sometimes, the cut is a lot more than 50% even. My guess is that whoever owns BookXcess has ties to suppliers that have excess (Xcess is part of the name after all) stocks of certain titles and is able to procure them at a very good rate.

BookXcess is very upfront about its competitive prices, and that’s been pushed even further with the ‘Bargain Sales’ corner they’ve set up right at the entrance to the store! You could look at it as a mini warehouse sale of a warehouse sale because books at that section are sold at a range of prices between RM 1.00 to RM 8.00 only, how about that for a bargain! Just to show you how good a deal it is, I got my first HALO paperback novel, The Cole Protocol from the bargain sales section for only RM 3.00 when its recommended retail price is about RM 35.90.

Bargain Sales section @ BookXcess

Everyone will probably wonder how they can sell books that cheap. Still, whichever way they are able to sell at discounted prices won’t really matter, as long as consumers like you and I can reap the benefit of buying books at a much more reasonable price. There are always concerns with places like these nonetheless, that there may be a lack of variety. Some may feel it could be like certain warehouse sales where you can’t really find anything that you really want, like when you’re at a fashion warehouse sale and you just can’t find that right fit.

Thankfully, that’s not the case with BookXcess. While they don’t have every single title you can find at Borders and MPH, this discount store doesn’t struggle to provide a vast variety of books of different genres. They have plenty of books ranging from fiction to non-fiction, sports to entertainment, and from self-help to business improvement titles. If you don’t believe me, you should try asking the 9,779 people that currently like them on Facebook.

Oh, by the way, this store doesn’t just sell paperback and hard cover books, there’s a whole section just for magazines too, and there are good offers for them too of course:

Their magazines in stock also come from a range of genres, women’s health, sports, business, politics, music, entertainment, photography and the like.

The only thing that is probably lacking at BookXcess in terms of variety are comics or graphic novels as some people put it. They do have some, but nothing from the publishers like Marvel, DC and Dark Horse. Personally, I think they can’t sell those because comics from those publishers do not depreciate in value over time, but appreciate rather, since they’re treated as collectibles by many. Its not a great loss by any means. After all, comics are for light reading, they won’t improve your general knowledge or grammar anytime soon.

Browsing through BookXcess is generally easy as all their shelves are labelled with the according genres and most of their books aren’t wrapped up so you can have a good browse through before deciding if you want to buy. In fact, the only items I remember wrapped in plastic were the magazines, and a couple of large sized hard cover books.

Two books I bought from BookXcess last week, the Bryson’s Dictionary is hard covered.

That’s not all, the store has a generally spacious layout in between shelves so don’t worry about blocking somebody’s way while you’re browsing through a book at an isle. Somehow, the atmosphere within the store is rather friendly, which is different from the quiet tension in Borders and MPH that make them seem like libraries or the busy feel of Popular that makes it more of a marketplace than a bookstore at times. Incidentally, Popular bookstore is also located in Amcorp Mall, but you’d know by now that more people are talking about BookXcess than Popular over there.

On top of a peaceful and friendly browsing experience, there’s also something new to experience each time you pay for a book over the counter. Every receipt you get comes printed with a short story written by someone who’s submitted a story to BookXcess through this website: www.receiptstories.my.

If you submit a story that the people from BookXcess fancy, it just may come out printed on people’s receipts, maybe yours even! It’ll also be viewable on the website.

There’s a limit of a 100 words for each story but no such restrictions for the number of entries you can submit. You just need to sign up at the website before putting up your short stories.

To round up, BookXcess is a must visit if you haven’t already, and if you have, I don’t think there’s a reason for you not to go back a second time right? It’s a favourite place of mine, one where I can spend plenty of time searching for a good read that’s guaranteed to come at a good price. The main course comes with an excellent side dish of a friendly shopping experience with a neat memento to take home each time you grab a book from the place. You can’t really ask for much more can you?

culture Incorporated

2011-02-03T20:55:00.001+08:00

The lunar new year has now come, and as it is with the start of every lunar new year; there’s always a celebration. Most, if not every person with some oriental connection will be celebrating the occasion. In Malaysia, its more popularly known as the Chinese New Year, with plenty of Chinese fleeing their working homes to spend time with their families at their hometowns. It happens without fail every year, a cultural phenomenon that has remained intact for a long time.

Talking about culture, its interesting what defines it. I think many people such as myself consider culture to be old school traditions that have formed the way in which societies behave. Others may think culture is simply something that makes a certain community unique from others. I suppose there’s truth in that statement too because most of the time, culture is most recognised through people’s physical appearance or food even, elements you can touch and have a prominent role in showing the uniqueness of a community.

In the modern age, there are groups of people who treat culture as a treasure of heritage. They make it out to be an important element of a lifestyle inherited from generations past that must be preserved and must never be forgotten. Government linked tourism ministries and agencies often have some role in this, because they need to ‘tout’ their nation’s cultural uniqueness to tourists planning their next destination. Protection of national heritage is a big deal these days it seems, with the world modernising around us without a second thought. The ‘green’ movement has affected it somewhat with modernisation beginning to accommodate environmental issues, but not so much cultural ones. After all, people in Malaysia are beginning to be more interested in the Toyota Prius (which I’ve seen a few on the road lately), not colonial looking houses.

A few Sundays ago, I was browsing through a few titles over at Book Xcess in Amcorp Mall. I came across a book I’d seen every now and then, but never bothered to open for a look. The title? Starbucked.

One of the reasons I didn’t take a second look at this book before was because I already had a book about Starbucks, written by Joseph Michelli. Since I had time, I took up Taylor Clark’s book to give me a little insight as to what he thought about Starbucks.

His thoughts were certainly quite different from Michelli’s. While Joseph Michelli’s book was about what good people could learn from Starbucks corporate culture, Taylor Clark took a look at their overwhelming dominance, citing that two branches could be much less than a block away. The main point of the portion I read seemed to focus on how the rise of this coffee shop chain had eaten its way into American culture somewhat, and that its influence is quite scary and intimidating.

Starbucks wouldn’t be the only one though. McDonalds would probably be the big brother of Starbucks in terms of dominating presence. Not just in America, in Malaysia you’d know that in certain places, you would definitely be able to find a McDonalds outlet in the next district. To sum it up, the argument here is that corporate chains like those Starbucks and McDonalds are so commercial and so successful up to the point that they have affected local culture.

For this reason, the successful corporate chains such as McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and to a lesser extent OldTown White Coffee in Malaysia tend to be the target of consumers that throw accusations at them with reasons ranging from A to Z, blaming them for almost anything.

Quite frankly, you can’t blame McDonalds for serving cancer when eating a Ramly burger can’t be all that different, neither can you fault internet service providers for decreasing physical social interaction. Facebook isn’t to blame if you made an idiotic comment your manager saw and fired you for. It has never been and should never be the mandate of businesses to protect people that know how to protect themselves, unless you’re a private hospital. You’re responsible for your own life, not Facebook.

The point is, entities such as Facebook, McDonalds and Starbucks have never imposed themselves on anyone. The fact remains that people have flooded to them and made them successful and fuelled their growth. Inadvertently, the success of these entities will have its role in influencing current culture. Logging onto social networking websites and visiting stylish coffee houses are the in thing, becoming part of today’s modern lifestyle. Its an incorporated culture that’s here to stay and it isn’t leaving anytime soon.

Nonetheless, culture from the past isn’t lost if people don’t throw it away. Protection of heritage has nothing to do with condemning the influential corporate conglomerates of today but choosing the practice and promotion of culture. Complaining to a referee about a foul doesn’t win you a game, because getting your game on and scoring goals do.

Whether maintaining culture is a good thing or not is always dependent on what it is. Surely, a culture of cannibalism has no place in the modern world, or one that values human life very much. However, a culture of respect towards parents and elders would definitely be welcome as something that should be practiced for generations to come. As such, the practice of culture and its future remains at the hands of the people on the ground, not a CEO.

recent Reading

2011-01-31T01:05:00.001+08:00

A lot of free time on my hands lately has meant that I’ve needed to find ways to occupy it, other than being in front of my laptop screen all the time. I guess the boredom forced me into doing something that I hadn’t done in a while, read a book.

Now, obviously you know I don’t mean text books, I mean something like a novel. A long time ago, I blogged about starting on a second hand book I’d bought even longer ago here. It was strange, I did take the time to read, but for one reason or another, I put it down again until recently.

I started reading it again while pulling registration counter duty at church on Sunday. No, I wasn’t slacking off, I just went to church early before the counter opened. I didn’t finish it there, but I was a little reluctant to read at home. You see, during the day, the house is pretty much dead so I thought I’d try out something I hadn’t done before, although its probably very common.

I took a couple of books I got down to the Coffee Bean about five minutes drive from my place. As I mentioned earlier, I am quite free at the moment so I decided to spend my afternoon there. It’d be pretty ridiculous not to mention a little ineloquent though if I just marched into a cafe just to read a book. I got myself my favourite Pure Chocolate ice blended drink:

This without cream is like brownies without ice-cream, cream’s not entirely necessary but still a missed opportunity.

I got the largest size so I had to break the bank a little, but places like Coffee Bean and Starbucks don’t get visits from me often so it was alright. No harm treating yourself every now and then right?

I brought a few books along, just in case I’d finish the one I was currently reading over there. HALO: The Cole Protocol is something I picked up for a real bargain, which I’ll write more about in a later entry. The other white and brown book hidden by ‘Lessons of a Sunday Father’, a novel I was reading at the time is actually entitled ‘The Starbucks Experience’. I know, it’d be pretty funny to read that book inside Coffee Bean right? Actually, with a title like that, it’d still be funny if I saw someone reading that in Starbucks, after all, isn’t being in Starbucks a Starbucks experience?

Within an hour, I think I finished off ‘Lessons of a Sunday Father’, a little surprising. I had no idea I’d read that much before then. At least I came prepared, so I put that down and got straight into ‘The Cole Protocol’.

I bought that because I’m a HALO fan. I played the first game on PC but nothing else from the series since then. I guess that’s partially due to the fact I don’t own an XBOX but I’ve been awed by all the cut scenes of all the games that some people have generously uploaded on YouTube, not to mention a really good Animatrix styled series called Halo Legends. Of course, there’s also the hilarious parody series in Arby n’ the Chief on YouTube.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever read a science fiction novel, like ever. Friends know I’m a Star Wars fan, but I’ve never read a single Star Wars novel. If there’s any novel I’ve read about Star Wars, it’d probably be a graphic novel (a fancy term for comics which seems to be in fashion right now). There’s a first time for everything I guess.

The Starbucks Experience isn’t entirely new to me actually. I saw it in Borders at The Curve a few years back and used to go there all the time just to read that book but of course that didn’t work out for very long. Why didn’t I just buy it? Well, being the person that I am, I thought RM 100 was quite expensive for a relatively thin book and it was hard covered too. Until today, I haven’t seen a single copy in paperback, which I guess was part of the marketing strategy.

In fact I blogged about the book here and the author even commented on my post (he did a little highlighting on the fact I didn’t buy the book too)! However, the book reappeared on MPH shelves recently at a 30% discount. That, combined with my new found eagerness to read caused by recent boredom finally got me to get that book.

There're few more books waiting for me to open actually, but I’ll focus on the two for now. They’re two different books by nature, but both a good read no doubt. Actually I wonder if I’ll be diligent enough to spend good time reading those books, because I’ve been playing a lot of Star Wars: Republic Commando recently.

transit Life

2011-01-25T01:00:00.001+08:00

When a convicted man is released from prison, one would think that at the moment he leaves the fortified gates of the place he didn’t want to be that an overwhelming sense of happiness would come over him. Freedom after all, is quite a precious thing. Time and again, I’ve heard about my university being a ‘prison’ and in a few ways I don’t deny it. Even so, I don’t label it that way. However, it still is a relief to have finally ended my varsity days.

Whatever restrictions university life imposed on my fellow batch mates have been lifted and we’re free to do as we like. As I said, the moment we’re free, we’re all happy. That’s where movies usually end. It’s all over after a country finally achieves independence or a guilty man on death row has been ruled innocent in a dramatic turnaround. The question is, what happens after that?

A new lease on life is given, a restart if you like. Personally, my own restarts happened at any time I moved to another school or college. It was easy to restart then, because there was always something solid in front of me. Wherever I was, I knew I just needed to study. Being someone who’s completed university, that’s not an option in this case. What do I do now then?

Of course, getting employed is always the next logical step. Earning a living is crucial, much more so to those who may not have the support of a family behind them. However, there are still more important things to consider as well. There are questions you will definitely ask yourself. What do you want to do, where do you want go, who do you want to be? Summarised, what do you want to do with your life?

Its an important question. After all, who cares how much cash you have if your life is pure nothingness? If people are employed straight after finishing their studies, I don’t think they think about that question so much because their enthusiasm for the new job will overwhelm their brain although we all know it would catch up to them sooner or later. Where do you think the term mid-life crisis comes from?

Being unemployed and with a lot of time to myself, that question is something I’m posed with now. At the moment, my life isn’t that much different from what it would be like during a semester holiday but the problem is that I don’t have a university to go back to after that. My holiday needs to end soon and I need to face up to the reality of my new ‘restart’ that is no longer the same like what I had before.

In some ways, I’m already facing some challenges to this new season of my life that I need to confront. Even in church I’m still confused as to whether I should stay with my college group or move right into the young adult group I’ve visited. Where do I belong? Its all quite unclear to me at the moment. That’s just one matter, and there are others, but I haven’t given them much thought. A neutral reader might think I’m just being emotional and that I’m overthinking and worrying too much. That opinion could be right. I’m not sure myself. However, this is important to me because my identity is at stake here.

What I decide to do, what I decide to want, to pursue for this next part of my life is important. Sometimes, races are used to describe the journey of a person to achieve success. I’ve heard the one that goes, “Fight the good fight, run the good race.”

When you run, naturally the place you’ll go to is the direction you’re facing. That’s why its important to face the right way before you start anything. Here’s the thing, I don’t know which way I’m supposed to look.

stuffed Crab

2011-01-18T13:23:00.001+08:00

Sometime December last year, I followed my parents down on a trip to Terengganu. My father was there for a meeting, but my mother and I went down to enjoy the food down there and get away from the big city for a while.

My parents were a little familiar with the small town we went to, since they’d lived there before. That was before I was born even. I guess its rare for things to change in small places. They wanted to go to this small Chinese restaurant for dinner but when we arrived it was closed, so we went to another one nearby and the food wasn’t half bad really. Its nice to be able to eat good Chinese food at a price cheaper than most places you’d find around the Klang Valley.

We weren’t there for too long, we only spent a night there. No, I didn’t go to Terengganu for one night just to eat ‘cheaper’ Chinese food. We were staying nearby a golf resort so I went a couple of rounds at the driving range. Its fun to see your golf ball fly more than a hundred yards, but its getting a little boring for me nowadays. Perhaps its because I don’t actually go for lessons. I just know how to hit the ball. Even so, I’m not even sure if I’m doing it properly.

The bigger reason we all went down to Terengganu was for the famous stuffed crab. If you didn’t know that, well now you do. From the hotel, our destination was Chukai, a small township close to the eastern shore. There’s one small shop lot there that’s all the rage. Its packed on weekends, so it was just as well that we went there on a weekday. The place is none other than Tong Juan.

Walking in, I discovered something interesting. Right at the front was a Malay family getting into their stuffed crabs, so the place must be halal I suppose, or pork free in the very least.

I don’t know about Halal, but the menu was certainly pork free. The interesting thing is, the menu is all in English, which definitely suits people like me that can’t speak any of the Chinese dialects. Other than the stuffed crab Tong Juan is famous for, there are a variety of other dishes to try that include prawns and cuttlefish among others.

One thing that’s a little funny is that on the menu and on the wall, they showed this website url. Type it into your browser and press enter, you’ll find out it doesn’t exist. I guess its an old thing they didn’t maintain for long, so don’t get your hopes high on placing an order online. You’ll still have to go there yourself.

As I said, its a small shop lot, so there isn’t room for a hundred people at one go. From what I saw, it’d probably be a challenge to seat fifty people there. I won’t even go into the fact that you’d probably have to wait longer than what people term as ‘quite a while’ for your food.

What I’m saying is, if you plan to go there on a weekend, make sure you go in early. By the way, for those who don’t know, weekends in Terengganu are a little different from the rest of the nation. That’s because weekends start on Friday, and not Saturday over there. That means Sunday is a working day, so I don’t think it would be a bad idea if you plan to go there on a Sunday.

One of the dishes we ordered was the fried asparagus, which I personally enjoyed and that’s a rare coming from me, a person that gives a lot of bias to meat over green. Crunchy and savoury, there’s can’t be much to hate about it. It’d be the kind of food you wouldn’t mind having with your rice if you don’t want to contaminate your favoured dishes with it.

Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with prawns when it comes to seafood. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don’t. Only God knows why I suppose. I didn’t particularly enjoy this one, but it wasn’t bad. If you can’t see, the prawns are skewered right through and sprinkled with a little garlic.

This was of course, the most anticipated dish at our table. The top of the crab shell removed and replaced with a layer of fried egg covers a whole lot of awesome crab meat inside. The last time I had this was many years ago, so it was like tasting something new again and it was simply very good. I guess I was too focused on eating that I forgot to take a photo of the crab meat inside.

It takes a lot of hard work to make this. Just imagine the restaurant workers having to go through all the crabs to extract crab meat for the sake of this dish. If you eat crabs, you know it isn’t exactly easy, using all sorts of tools just to crack crab shells open to get just a little bit of flesh for yourself.

Not your average seafood dish or afternoon snack, this unique food comes at a bit of a premium price. It’s not cheap stuffed crab, and RM 8.00 is quite a considerable amount to let go for just one stuffed crab. It is worth the price nonetheless, because it is that good. Needless to say, we bought quite a lot to bring back home, for ourselves and friends as well. Maybe it’s time for a food trip up north.

random Items

2011-01-12T01:53:00.001+08:00

Sometimes, its nice to walk around a place and find something new and interesting. People are always looking forward to find out the latest gadgets or current fashion trends. Personally, I’m not such an active pursuer of either, I can’t say I keep up with either. I usually discover things by stumbling upon them, not so much hearing about it. It does happen occasionally when people tell me about a new band or a good eating place. Still, its just kind of cool when you discover something yourself.

Things that are noteworthy don’t always need to come from trendy concept stores like ROOM and the like. You can find these things in departmental stores at times, which is why I like to walk around in them occasionally.

DAISO is one such place I should frequent more often because as ordinary a five ringgit shop as it is, I sometimes see things that I probably wouldn’t have thought of myself. A simple example would be rubber holders matching the colour of your furniture that can be attached to chair legs so that they don’t scratch the floor if you drag them across instead of lifting them.

Although not so useful, something I hadn’t seen before in there did get me to take my camera out for a moment:

I know, it’s not exactly an original piece of art, but it got my attention because I couldn’t figure out what it was for! If you observe the photo carefully, there’re a number of back scratchers and back massage related items so you’d immediately assume that black bamboo stick would be one of those things. I don’t know, I took a look at it and I couldn’t figure out how it’s supposed to be a back aid. Then I looked at the label:

Bamboo slap?!? All right, so it is a massaging tool, although looking at it again I haven’t a clue how to use it. Even the French looking inscription seems to describe it as how I think it really is, a gift for uniformed security personnel from mother nature.

Another thing I did find kind of cool was when I was walking by a large hardware store and I saw:

What do you think this is? Again like before, from first glance I had no idea what that was or what it was supposed to do. When you step closer though and turn it on, you’d definitely go, “Ohhhh, so that’s what it is.”

Well, if you’ve had a guess, you should know its not some kind of giant bubble blower. Its actually a fan, bladeless at that. The first thing that came into my mind was, “This is so much easier to clean.”

I thought it was brilliant, although a little old for the times, now that we have air conditioning. To be fair though, not every household will always use air conditioning and table fans are not yet a thing of the past so this is a welcome household innovation.

It wasn’t the last thing I’d notice of that week, thanks to a trip down to Czip Lee at Bangsar. Its probably the largest stationery shop around. There’re tonnes of pens and pencils there of course, full range of papers, envelopes and the like. There’s also loads of notebooks of different proportions and even has some random things like unpainted party masks. Its the one place where if you need a specialised piece of stationery you don’t think your local bookstore has, Czip Lee’s bound to have it somehow. That’s the kind of place it is.

I didn’t see something awfully breath taking in there, but a small innovative product, which I personally found very useful. Well, you know how the brand Artline is famous for its whiteboard and permanent markers? Well, they made something that’s useful for people a little rough with wooden furniture in the house:

Some time back, I damaged my study table. The top of the study table is actually a laminated layer, not the same wood as the rest of the table. As the word laminate suggests, its quite thin and twice with my roller chair I knocked onto the table, chipping twice at the edge. The gaps looked bad and rather obvious because the inside had a much lighter wood colour. The furniture marker made quite a difference, and the good things is there are different wood colours. I got the oak coloured marker, but there are others, both light and dark ones.

Looking at everything I found, none of them came from a particularly fancy place or anything like that. I guess sometimes, cool stuff can come from pretty normal places.

funny Language

2010-12-20T23:45:00.002+08:00

Language can be such a funny thing, especially when people miscommunicate, intentionally or unintentionally. According to the Bible, the reason for the large amount of languages is due to men trying to build the Tower of Babel that would reach the ‘heavens’ would prove that nothing would be impossible for them. Simply put, the Tower of Babel was a monument of pride since they were united under the banner of a single language.

God decided that wasn’t such a good idea, confusing them by planting different languages into their heads causing them to be unable to continue working on the Tower of Babel. How many languages exist in the world today? There’s a lot more than I think I’d even bother to find out.

Coming to the current age, English is one of the most commonly spoken languages around the world, thanks to British trying to conquer economic trade back in the day. Still, I think the People’s Republic of China has quite a bit to say about upcoming influential languages of the modern age.

Interestingly, there’s never been one language that’s been able to accurately express everything we want to communicate. There have been times that some of my friends told me they couldn’t explain to me something they said in a Chinese dialect because English couldn’t accurately describe the meaning. More than spoken language, even programming language has its share of variety. Some computer programmers opt for certain languages over the other because certain programming languages translate into certain types of software applications better than others. Whether its human or programming language, both suffer from messages lost in translation at times.

Isn’t it funny when you directly translate certain Malay words into English? For example, nasi lemak, which one of you has ever explained to a foreigner they’re about to have ‘fat rice’? Kaki bangku, are you going to tell someone they’re a foot stool in English? Turning it the other way round, isn’t there such a different feeling or effect when saying ‘Perang Bintang’ instead of Star Wars? I’ve also talked with some of my friends several times before about anime sounding so ridiculous when dubbed in English, when Japanese sounds so much better and subtitles should be used instead.

Language can be funny too, not just when messages are lost in translation but when two people speaking the same language are on different wavelengths. Of all places to hear a lame English joke, I got this from an episode of Family Outing, a Korean variety show. Park Jin Young (JY for short) told how he responded to someone who was talking to him. This is how the two line conversation went:

“Are you okay?”

”No, I’m JY.”

Of course, sometimes poor command of a language can be funny too. I admit I did laugh at some friends before when I thought they said something in English incorrectly. It’s not that I was trying to be mean, but sometimes when you understand something well, its hard not to notice certain errors as something funny. That’s why there are websites that post a large variety of photos, depicting signboards with wrong grammar on them that translate into various humorous meanings. Most, if not all of them are taken in countries where English isn’t exactly the all important language.

Malaysia is no exception to all this either, which brings me to the last part of this entry. Now, I don’t think this is funny, but just confusing. Read the second last line shown in the photograph below. I took this just outside the counter lanes at Jusco’s branch at Mid Valley. What do you think it means?

recent Eatings

2010-12-13T03:02:00.001+08:00

Being done with my studies has meant that I’ve had a lot more time on my hands lately. Quite a fair bit of this time has been spent eating food, both in and out of the house. I’ve got to admit, I’m blessed to have parents that’ll take me along to have some nice meals with them in addition to the fact that my mother’s actually a pretty great cook!

My last blog entry had a lot to do with One Utama, as I revealed then, its my favourite mall, hence one the one I frequent the most. Other than fast food outlets, malls like One Utama tend to be littered with plenty of eateries that like to charge you a lot for very little. This is why I’m usually stumped when trying to figure out where to eat for lunch or dinner whilst trying to avoid picking out McDonald’s or KFC.

After a few times, I’ve decided in terms of value for money and perhaps taste as well, Fish & Co. is the place to go. Its one of the few places I know where I can spend under RM 20 and know I won’t feel hungry until the next meal. By the way, if you want to compare it to Manhattan Fish Market, I’ll tell you outright that Fish & Co. is still more value for money, one of the reasons being that its cheaper.

One of the servings I really like at Fish & Co. is the seafood platter for two. That, admittedly is pricey though. When I told my mother about it, she whipped this up a few days later:

This was pretty good, I really loved the squid rings, must’ve been my favourite out of the whole bunch. She got some chicken and fish bits in there too, along with some prawns as well. That reminds me, on the day I left UTP, my family and I went to Tanjung Tualang for the seafood, where we had some pretty nice prawns:

Fleshy catfish was also on our table that day, and it was really quite good. I enjoy steamed fish, and this was an exceptional dish. I can’t really imagine having steamed fish much better than that.

Oh, earlier I mentioned I like squid rings right? I loved the ones we had at Tanjung Tualang too, and it didn’t need any sauce or extra flavouring on top of what was served, it was a very enjoyable meal.

Oh, over there, we also had this pretty interesting drink. It doesn’t suit me much, but my parents like it. It isn’t actually sold in the restaurant itself, but at a stall outside (I think), but you can ask the restaurant waiters to help order it for you and you just need to pay when the drink’s delivered to you from the person outside.

The best way I can think of to describe this drink is a lime jelly iced drink that’s got sugar on the bottom, which is why the spoon’s there so you can even everything out. We’ve got Choung Ginn to thank for introducing us to all this.

Jelly on top, sugar and ice at the bottom.

Well, back to food in the Klang Valley, I also got to go to this place in Uptown Damansara:

Sukico Hainan Cafe.

If I’m not wrong, its on the same row as Public Bank. Anyway, its one joint that I’ll definitely return to every now and then. My mother and I heard about it so we wanted to give it a try, some of its offerings were enticing enough:

Pork galore!

It must be such a blessing that the store only just turned non-halal on my birthday this year, hahaha! One thing that looked pretty good but I didn’t try then was the Roti Babi, which is really authentically Hainanese, or so I’ve been told. I still had a pretty good meal though because I still ate something I thoroughly enjoyed:

Oink oink!

I had some grilled pork chop and the meat was really tender and juicy. It wasn’t particularly fat, but it was tender and not too soft.

It comes served with a sauce of your choosing, I went for garlic, not a bad choice too.

Even the iced lemon tea I had was just nice. Compared to others that I’ve had, let it be from a bottle, can or made in-house (all of which I like anyhow), this one was rather light, but still had all the flavours you’d want from iced lemon tea. The tea was light, but the balance was perfect, I really liked it.

A lot of people have heard the saying that chocolate is like heaven in your mouth. Personally, I disagree, because pork has just got to be number one! Still, I’ll agree it doesn’t always melt in your mouth, which is probably why people say ‘heaven in my mouth’. I’ll always remember the time a few years ago when Felix put the display message on his IM, “God’s best creation after man is pork” I don’t think I’ve ever resonated with Felix’s wavelength more, hahaha! I’ve got to tell you, that second best creation, my mother’s pretty good at making sure it stays at second place because she can make this:

Well, I have no idea what heaven tastes like because I’ve never been there, although I’m tempted to say this may give me a clue or two, haha! Pot roast, delicious.

Well, keeping away from ‘heaven’ for a bit, my parents and I did go for some halal food recently, Arabic food in particular. We went downtown to this place:

The surprising thing is, its not too difficult to find, because its right across a place you can probably find on any map of Kuala Lumpur:

The place itself is actually an open area, but just closed by those huge, tall tents. Its generally spacious, and could probably fit over a hundred people comfortably. Its not a bad place to go for lunch, which is just as well, because…

it will never be open for breakfast, supper’s an option though.

Enough space for everybody.

This is what we had:

Rice with lamb.

Rice with chicken.

Grilled platter.

I will tell you right now that the amount of rice that was served was ridiculously a lot! Thankfully, it was the kind of rice that was low carb, so it wasn’t as filling as what you probably eat at home, but still the portion would have been enough to make any ordinary eater more than full! One thing, this eatery or perhaps arabic food in general isn’t really into sauces (am I right/wrong?). The lamb I had was actually quite tender but it was lacking in taste a bit. You know how some people say certain things come short by two percent? That statement fit this situation. The same went for the grilled platter, but the chicken that my dad had was a little better. Still, that may just be about preference, the food is definitely more than palatable.

Oh, for drinks, we had something that was all the craze in UTP during the convocation fair that I didn’t try, Barbican.

Apple flavoured Barbican.

Apparently, due to the way its bottled and marketed (as in the way they advertise through the image of the bottle), it seems Barbican is supposed to be the halal alternative of certain alcoholic beverages just like the role of turkey bacon, something I blogged about here. I would like to say this about Barbican, as a drink on its own, it’s not bad. However, I don’t see how this remotely mimics any alcoholic beverage, let it be beer or wine. Just tonic water alone would be a better way to mimic alcoholic beverages as opposed to Barbican.

It’s a twist that’s way off.

I would rather mix orange juice with soda water plus some ice and that would probably be even better in my honest opinion. Cordial drinks, anyone? Anyhow, I saw Barbican bottles being sold in Tesco at RM 2.90 each. Random statement, I like the Barbican bottle design better than any beer bottle I’ve seen so far, so I took all three home, hahahaha.

That’s all I have to blog about my recent eating experiences. Actually, I’ve had a couple more I would like to put in here but I didn’t take photos so I’ll pass on that, maybe I’ll have some on that later in the week.

favourite Place

2010-12-11T20:15:00.001+08:00

Well well, Christmas will soon be here won’t it? If you don’t think so, shopping malls all over Malaysia would beg to differ. The school break is on and the hotspots like Mid Valley Megamall and One Utama shopping complex seem to have more people than you’d usually see throughout other parts of the year.

One thing people always compare among all the malls in KL are the Christmas decorations. Which has the best? This year, KLCC isn’t showing much with an average display of tall purple and white Christmas trees. Mid Valley’s donning large and oversized teddy bears at all of their court areas, kids are literally jumping onto them. One Utama’s got to be the classiest I think, with its Christmas village:

The extra floors aren’t just for show by the way, some of the shops owning the space actually have some things for you to see if you walk up the stairs of these small shop lots. I didn’t bother though, not like I had anything to buy there.

One Utama’s always been my favourite mall around KL, whether just to hang around or do some actual shopping for whatever I need. It’s a whole lot brighter than Mid Valley and a lot more spacious than the narrow walkways in Suria KLCC. Of course, there are retail stores there that I might actually buy something from, not a premium items place like Starhill, Pavillion and so forth.

Going around malls can be pretty boring after a while, particularly if you’re not buying anything or haven’t got the mood to sit yourself down for over an hour in front of a big cinema screen. That’s when a lot of people tend to say their favourite place in a mall is usually the bookstore, because that’s where they can kill some time without having to fork out extra money other than for their parking fees.

Its the same for me, MPH will usually be the anchor for me being able to stay in One Utama for longer than a few hours. Still, its not my favourite place to be over there. I’m the kind of person that’d rather be up doing something rather than read mostly, restless I suppose. That brings me to one of the main reasons why One Utama’s my favourite mall, because it has this:

If you don’t know, although I think most people in KL do, the roof of One Utama hosts two sporting venues, one is ‘Padang’, the futsal court as well as ‘It’s a Hit!’ batting cages, which is what I’m talking about. If you don’t know how to get there, you need to go to the furthest end of the new wing where Parkson’s located, and go to the corner where there’re a couple of lifts and go up to the ‘UR’ floor that stands for upper roof (I think).

Once you’re there, walk out through the glass door, turn left and walk straight. You know you’ve arrived at the right spot when you see this dangling above your head:

After passing through ‘bat jungle’, you’ll make a left turn and see this huge white circular tent. Go in there and buy some tokens to play a few rounds at the batting cages. I forgot the prices, but I think its about RM 5.00 for a token, which is good for 15 pitches thrown at you. I went at about 2 o’clock on a Friday, and there’s a special promotion going on whereby on Friday between 12 noon to 3.00 p.m., the price is RM 3.00 per token flat. There’s another special offer where you pay RM 30.00 and the throwing machine will launch at you a total of 150 pitches.

After getting the tokens that look a little like our old one Ringgit coins, you’re all set. Just one thing, make sure you have this while you’re swinging away:

Black helmets are typically larger, blue are helmets smaller.

Honestly, although the chances of getting hit on the head is a little thin, trust me, its still possible. If I remember correctly, there was one time when I edged a ball straight up that hit the net roof and landed back on my head, so I was fortunate to have a helmet on. I hope that’s enough reason for you to wear one.

It’s a Hit batting cages have two ends with four lanes each. One section is for baseball type pitches, and the other for softball type pitches. Informally, the difference between the two is this, one is for males aged above 12, the other for women and children, girls and the elderly. I think its needless to say which group should go for softball over baseball.

Four lanes per end, each with its dedicated pitching machine.

Get into your lane, and insert the token into this machine:

There’re a lot of buttons, but don’t worry, the instructions are sufficient to get you through. Sometimes the machine’s buttons may not work well, some of them are loose I think, in this lane particularly. If you’re having trouble, no need to fret, just call over one of the staff and they’ll help you out (which is what I did yesterday), or just change to another lane if nobody’s there.

Also, the token machine is where the bats are as well, so just pick whichever suits you best. The longer ones are, well…. longer and heavier too, but of course heavy always packs a punch. Still, if you want something lighter, just pick the shorter one.

Stand somewhere in one of the rectangle boxes next to the base according to whether you’re right-handed or left-handed.

Once you’re done selecting the pitch speed you want, just stand in place and wait for the pitches to fly at you! If you’re wondering how the speeds actually translate into real life feelings. Having a 40 mph pitch feels like someone giving a solid throw from about ten metres out that you’d probably be able to catch. 50 mph is of course a little faster than that, so of course more challenging. Hitting 60 and 70 mph pitches are hard though. I think I’ve yet to even get a piece of bat on a 70 mph pitch! Still I know its possible because I once saw this Caucasian kid probably less than 13 years old playing with that high speed. Crazy!

From the photo above, you’ll be able to tell the difference between baseballs and softballs at the batting cages. The softballs are a lot larger, so they’re easier to hit. This, combined with the fact they’re launched at a slower speed than the baseball lanes is why I say they’re more for girls than guys, unless the girl playing is very sporty. In fact, if you look carefully at the top right corner of that photo, that’s the legs of a girl playing at the softball lanes.

There’re some target rings above for you to aim your hits at. I’ve personally never got one in. Most people like myself care more about getting some bat on the ball as compared to actually scoring a hit that’d resemble a home run, hahah!

Anyway, once you’re done selecting the speed, just take your stance and wait for the yellow light to come on, which indicates you’re about to have a yellow ball flown your way. Actually, you’ll even be able to see the ball being loaded into the pitching machine on the conveyor line. Once the yellow light goes off and the red comes on, a ball is already coming your way. This continues right to the last pitch, where the red light will finally go off and there won’t be a yellow light anymore, which means your session is over.

That’s all there is to it really, and I’ll tell you, its quite addictive. Even if you miss all the pitches, there’s an urge to try it again and again! I really love it, but then again, its a little pricey, which is why I still visit MPH more often than It’s a Hit when I’m in One Utama, but this is a really good place to bring friends for some fun and something different to do rather than the usual walk around and watch a movie routine. Batter up!

last Days

2010-12-09T03:00:00.001+08:00

Good morning Kuala Lumpur! I’m still up after watching a movie and I’m not in the mood for sleep yet, so I thought I’d do a little blogging. Time’s passed both slowly and quickly since I came back somehow and today’s Thursday, exactly a week after I left UTP.

The weekend before that, Mei Fang and I got to have lunch with some of the guys from church. Like I said in an earlier post, leaving these guys wasn’t so emotional, but still, it was nice to have a short time to chill with them for a bit.

Mei Fang and I, both relieved of student duties.

It’s not like I had a farewell speech prepared anyhow. I had thought of writing some short messages on paper for these friends among others, but my laziness combined with the fact I was still having exams put that aside. Well, no need for emotions anyways, its not like anyone’s crying now that I’ve left or anything.

Even so, I guess I should take the time to mention names like Belden, Yik Chieng, David and Gilberth that I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to hang with them a bit more than I did before. They’re all very nice guys, and all of them have a good future in store I’m sure.

My last two exams were last Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Knowledge Management and Development was first on Tuesday. That wasn’t so bad, I could at least answer 90% of the exam paper, which was good enough for me. International Financial Management was trickier though, and I’m genuinely concerned about that paper, but I don’t feel anything much about it now that its all over. There’s nothing more I can do about it even if I want to.

Just before I sat for my last paper, the Main Hall @ UTP.

I thought it would’ve all been over after that, but there was still one last annoying thing left to do. Settling the UTP clearance forms was such a chore! I needed to go around nine different department all around campus to chase signatures. Even one of the student support staff said it a little annoyingly, “So you have to go for one whole tour around UTP to do it.”

The dreaded signature chasing chore.

Thankfully, I’d take one day to chase a few before the two papers I mentioned about, so it wasn’t as difficult to go around getting the remaining signatures on Thursday. Even so, it was easy only because my parents had come over so travelling to the security office from my hostel was a lot easier by car.

I know a lot of people would probably go through a lot of trouble to get into UTP, but I didn’t know we’d have to experience as much to get OUT of UTP, haha! Still, the feeling of satisfaction of dropping off the form at the Exam and Records Unit lets you know that you’ve finally finished all obligations as a university student. How about postgraduate studies? Aren’t you interested?

No, thank you. I’ve been telling many people, “I’ve had enough of reading the book, thank you very much.”

I don’t feel good about leaving the friends that I have in UTP, but then I’m looking forward to the next phase of my life and for me, that means an exit from the student phase.

Leaving my student ID at the security office.

“Well, that’s the end of the line for you then 9989. Your services here are no longer needed. You’ve been terminated.”

saying Goodbye

2010-11-27T00:41:00.001+08:00

I don’t plan to write a blog entry about the things and people I’m going to miss in UTP. However, what I am going to do, is to tell how it feels to wave at the people you appreciate for the last time that you probably won’t see for a long time to come. In some cases, maybe never, but online social networking makes long distance connectivity possible. Nonetheless, you and I know its just different afterwards.

Just a few days ago, Mizah invited me over to have lunch with Syadia and Farhan, a little get together before we’d go separate ways. Its a little funny because I don’t meet these people much, but I really like them a lot, haha! If Syah had been there, it’d have been pretty much complete, its a real pity I haven’t met him lately. He’s the guy that hooked me onto Family Outing and Korean pop music after all!

Over lunch, we talked about some of our course mates that we know are going to get married soon, when all four of us aren’t hooked up with anyone. It really does tell you that time has passed and some of us are even at the stage of life where marriage is a serious thought that comes around. We’re all stumped though, we all have absolutely no idea who Afifi is getting married to before the year even ends!

Syadia’s all smiles

Our future jobs was also something we went on about. We’re all excited. Mizah’s already planned what to treat herself with the funds from her first pay check. I haven’t even thought of my little ‘gift’ just yet. Still, we’re all rather nervous about what’s in store for us next year. While I guess all of us are hoping that PETRONAS will consider us, there’s never anything guaranteed. Its a wonder where all four of us will be just a few months from now. God willing, we’ll all have good jobs, good wages and a good job environment.

Plenty of laughs went about, and it was just nice. There wasn’t anything particularly fantastic about our conversation, perhaps other than my description to the two girls about Farhan’s ‘breasted’ mouse pad, which his rather conservative roommate said was ‘interesting’, hahahaha! The best thing about that time was just having us appreciating each others company, which was just enough. The personal touch with the people you really appreciate is always important.

Farhan

After lunch, Farhan and I waved goodbye to Mizah as we got out of her car. She left the next day. Syadia’s leaving next week so I’ll try to meet her before I leave. Just a few hours ago, I said goodbye to Farhan too when he came to return my Tintin comics. He’ll be leaving a day before I finish my exams. He’s got to be one of the most friendly, open minded and straightforward people I’ve met. He’s totally my kind of person. He’s the kind of person if you tell him to tell you if you’re bad at something, he’ll really tell you that you are bad. There’s no pretence with this guy.

The night before, I called Salwa out to chat, since she left the day I went for lunch with the other three. An old schoolmate, and definitely one character people can’t miss once they’ve met her. She’s probably the craziest person I know and she’s very upfront about her ‘aegyo’ (which is why I think I kind of avoided her a little in high school =b). She’s the only girl I know who is totally crazy about video games, she’s a huge console fan. She even won a ticket to a ‘Video Games Live’ event because she posted the most twitter entries on video game soundtracks!

Salwa and I at the farewell batch dinner

DC comic characters on the television screen is something she’s really into and we can talk about them for hours and hours and hours, which we actually did that night. Behind all that though, she’s a fine girl, crazy, but yet with a fair bit of substance, she’s not the type that’s full of hot air or anything.

You see, with people like that, its easy enough to bid farewell on the outside with a simple wave or saying goodbye but there’s still a bit of me inside that says “Please don’t go.” Regardless, I still move on because they’ve got their own paths to take and I have mine too even though its a truth that hurts somewhat. Saying goodbye to Farhan and Mizah wasn’t emotional or anything, but it does feel a bit of a pity to have to see them go.

Of course, these won’t be the only people I’ll be leaving once I make my way out of UTP next week. There are others too, I may or may not have my chance to say goodbye to all of them. I do hope I’ll be able to say goodbye properly to at least some of these people, because there are always a few good people that you love, because of who they are to you. That is why I’m glad I got to meet Salwa and Farhan especially. I’ve had to leave friends behind several times, when I moved to Ho Chi Minh, when I moved back to KL, when I moved to Tronoh. Then, I didn’t really think saying goodbye was important. I do now though, so I hope I’ll have the chance to do that.

thinkers Trap

2010-11-22T02:03:00.001+08:00

Growing up, growing older, the way I think about things have changed. I suppose most people including myself would credit that to a transition from naivety to realism thanks to the many unpredicted challenges or problems we’ve faced in our lives.

Maybe as people grow older and gain more experience in life, their capacity to look at things from multiple perspectives increases. It sets the stepping stone in which people use to open themselves to a variety of influences. Its that kind of platform that can divert teenagers from mainstream to indie music or change a copycat into an inventor or innovator. It can even serve to influence people to think that maybe their traditional heroes are the actual villains.

Pondering about all these things play a part in us finding ourselves. We start thinking more to try and grasp a better understanding of the overwhelming world that surrounds us. Our whole outlook on life is based on what we understand of whatever we’ve bothered to think about.

Plenty of times, what we know doesn’t seem to be enough. With a spiritual emptiness combined with a lack of answers, a need to think even more develops so we can be more assured of ourselves, about our knowledge too. I don’t believe I’d be wrong to say that people do feel better when they think they’ve become a little smarter. Who doesn’t smile when they’ve solved a difficult puzzle they hadn’t done before? Its a good feeling. Being smart is important to many, if not everybody.

In this ‘age’ of smart, everything is supposed to have an explanation, and to have detailed accurate ones too. There’re probably millions of academic research papers published all over the world today that are supposed to thoroughly explain a multitude of previously unexplored fields of knowledge. In the current age of ‘realism’ as well, thinking deeper almost always relates to something darker, where so much needs to have a depressive connotation.

Gaining knowledge is a fine thing, and I’ll say its always interesting to find out something new that you had no idea about. Sometimes, its as simple as a new song you’ve discovered over the radio or something as exciting as the discovery of a new technology. Having more knowledge is not only interesting, but it is important for society to move forwards.

What does bother me is that being smart and knowledgeable has become too important to many individuals that much pride forms within them because of it. I also believe the trend to be a deeper thinker has just led many people to simply be darker thinkers, where more negative than positive thoughts come out from their mouths whenever they talk about something, all in the sake of being ‘real’, apparently everything in life is unfair, depressing and corrupt. What’s more worrying is that these people think they know everything and always think they’re right when they speak. What’s worse is that people believe them, thanks to their charisma and zeal to say whatever’s in their brain.

Bringing all this back to myself as a person, I admit that I myself am a realist, I like to see things for what they are. I don’t dream as much as the creative types do, but at the same time I’ve refused to engage things with the intention to be a know-it-all and I have rejected the idea that to be ‘darker’ means to be more mature. If at all, people have downplayed and underestimated the power of ‘light’ compared to the ‘darkness’.

For me, the only thing that I really need to know is a simple truth, that my Creator loves me. As I know this, there’re plenty of things that I don’t need to question, plenty I need not debate about, or unanswered questions to fear. Why? Whatever it is that needs to be known, God knows it already. If you’re by his side, He’ll let you know what you need to know in perfect timing, so there is no reason to fear or to chase endlessly after answers you don’t know.

Choosing Jesus Christ helped me to understand something, that I don’t need to know everything, that I don’t need to constantly worry about my future, because He’s got my back. Whatever it is, He will provide. I don’t need darker thoughts to understand the way the world works and fight back at it, because the light that God shines is able to overcome the overwhelming, which is also why I don’t need to be a qualified theologian, the deepest thinker or the smartest man alive to live a fulfilled life. Honestly, you don’t have to think so much, let God do the thinking for you. After all, for what its worth, His brain’s probably a lot larger than yours.

finished Project

2010-11-13T01:31:00.001+08:00

TRONOH, PERAK: Christon Emang, project developer for the procurement document management application proposed in early 2010 has recently completed the project and delivered the final presentation to the panel of examiners selected by Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) on Thursday.

Prior to the beginning of the project, Christon was not even sure if he would have a project to develop. His idea of making a simple document management system for procurement departments did not catch on with the first lecturer he approached to be his supervisor.

Christon’s final presentation, the title did not catch on initially.

Initially turned down for an unoriginal idea, he shared his thoughts on what he felt at the time, “It was disappointing because we’d been told during our internship that we could always propose a project based on business needs that we noticed. However, it seemed that it wasn’t good enough and I was resigned to look at taking one of the proposed projects offered by the lecturers within the Computer & Information Sciences Department of UTP.”

Uninterested or unable to comprehend a majority of the project titles offered by the department of Computer & Information Sciences (CIS), Christon continued to enquire, eventually able to obtain the blessings of lecturer Emelia Akashah who agreed to be his supervisor.

Christon was pleased to partner with Ms. Akashah for the project, “I was pleased to know that Ms. Akashah was able to see the value of the project, that although small in nature, was important because it would be able to meet the business needs of SCM departments in any organisation.”

Partnering with C# programmer Desmond Diong as well, Christon embarked on the project. The software that has been put together is a .NET application integrated with a SQL Server database. The system allows for contract related documents to be stored in a single repository, classified according to their respective hierarchy, categories and project owners. Unique to the software is the way that it has been designed to ensure users follow a procedure that helps to ensure that documents are stored properly, preventing common human errors that occur in document management.

The system caters for contract documents specifically.

Having the system designed, tailored according to specific needs was vital in proving that the project was a viable solution, proof of concept of how simple minimalist systems can solve document management issues faced by any organisation, large or small.

“The difference between this and other document management solutions, is that this has been tailored specifically to the procurement department in question, implementing controls that guide users to filing contract documents properly. It meets a very specific, perhaps a niche target group,” Christon revealed during his presentation.

With the project finally complete and submitted for evaluation, Christon does have hopes to obtain a favourable result. Working on the project throughout the year had been challenging, with changes to the software even being made within an hour of the final presentation.

Ms. Akashah with an external examiner evaluating project presentations.

“It was very frustrating the night before the presentation because a component of the system was not working the way it should and I just could not find out what the problem was. I suppose it was the stress though, because the next day, just before the presentation, I was able to rectify the problem only within a matter of minutes,” Christon shared.

Christon was not the only UTP student to present his project, as many others under the CIS faculty were also evaluated for their projects. Friday marked a historic day for the CIS students as it was the last day of project presentations, signalling the completion of their final year projects. However, there are still documentation procedures to be completed.

“I’m not sure about the others, but as for myself, I’ve not been given permission to finalise my project report to be hardbound as Ms. Akashah requires that I make any necessary adjustments according to comments from the presentation examiners that have yet to be received. I’ve also been asked to submit all documentation and a copy of the system itself,” Christon explained.

Christon at the final presentation venue.

Nonetheless, Christon does feel liberated and expressed much relief at the completion of the project. “I’m really glad that the project has been completed, and of course I’m happy that the presentation went generally well, which I believe indicates that I may get a favourable result. Still, the most important thing is that its done, and I won’t have to keep worrying about it anymore. Thank God its over!”

Copyright © 2010 *Humz News Network

the Magic

2010-11-10T23:39:00.001+08:00

The grin on my face, I couldn’t hold it in, even though I tried. It wasn’t because of laughter. What was it then? It was something I haven’t felt in a while and as I think about it as I type this, it does feel a little nostalgic, it was a happy moment.

The last time I probably felt that way was when I witnessed Lucien Barbarin sing ‘Shake It and Break It’ with the whole of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band behind him. I have to say that night in the PETRONAS Philharmonic Hall was truly special. I haven’t seen anybody play music in front of me that made me feel the way I did then.

Lucien Barbarin, a really entertaining guy, can bring joy to a place.

A few good friends brought me over to a place that I hadn’t been to before. It was just as well since I never explored Ipoh a whole lot. There’s good reason for that, firstly I don’t possess a car, at least not on campus. Secondly, after being to a few shopping malls and several eating places in Ipoh, you can’t help but think there isn’t much else to see in Perak’s state capital.

I’d been told about it before and it seemed pretty interesting at least. I didn’t know what to expect really. Its not like I had low expectations or anything, but it wasn’t like I was expecting to see Sunrise Jazz festival musicians in front of me either. I wasn’t sure what kind of a jazz cafe Ipoh would be able to conjure up. In fact, I wasn’t sure what a jazz cafe would even be like since I’d never been to one before.

When we arrived, I was a little surprised to see it was a little shop lot in an area I was slightly familiar with. I think my expectations of the place was a little larger than it should’ve been. For some reason when my friends told me about it, I somehow pictured a wide open area with blue dim lights and a round semi-circle stage in front, a little like the stage of American Bandstand as depicted in the movie Dreamgirls albeit a little less grand. I think my brain was hoping a little too much as far as Ipoh was concerned.

I thought I might see something like this, minus the Dreamgirls.

When we walked in though, all that didn’t matter because once I stepped through the entrance, I could feel the wonderful atmosphere of the place. It was small no doubt, a little tiny cafe that I would’ve never thought to come to on my own. Yellow dimmed lights made for a cosy, lazy mood, not a bad place to relax. The performing area wasn’t large itself, it was probably smaller than the size of my hostel room. It could just fit in a four piece band. I could barely squeeze in to get to the drum set. Wait, get to the drum set? You’ll find out why later on.

Mostly dark but lit just nicely for you to see what’s going on.

We sat down and had some drinks to keep us company because we’d be there for the whole night. A few musicians were already playing, and I was intrigued by this instrument in the photo above that I’d seen Switchfoot using live during the bridge of the song ‘Always’. It had a guitar neck but it wasn’t a guitar and it was played with the neck flat down on a keyboard stand, played by sliding fingers down the frets and plucking the strings. Anyhow, something you should know is that all these guys were rather old. Most of them with the exception of one guy was probably over the age of 50 and they were good musicians too.

They played a lot of old songs, some of which I knew but had no idea what the titles were and several that I’d probably never listened to before throughout the span of my 22 year old life. They were playing without a drummer for the set and it was fine without one really. You don’t always need drums to have pleasant music, millions of song covers on YouTube should prove that to you.

For the next set, this young Indian lady, who probably isn’t anywhere close to 30 years of age was invited up as a guest singer. The kind of songs she was going to perform needed a drummer to be the backbone, but the resident drummer was busy cooking in the kitchen! Not a bad job to have wouldn’t it, cooking and playing music in the same place. The bassist kindly announced over the microphone, “Anyone here a drummer?”

The small drum kit, by the corner.

I didn’t need asking, the auto pilot in my brain quickly navigated to the two letter word, ‘no’. My friends didn’t hesitate to ask me to volunteer but I replied, “No, its different, they’re playing Jazz stuff, the feel is different. I don’t play Jazz.”

So I sat there, waiting for the cook to free himself from kitchen prison and get his behind seated back on the drum throne. It wasn’t happening anytime soon though. Just then, the elderly man playing bass looked me in the eye and kindly signalled for me to come over. The auto pilot quickly switched from ‘no’ to ‘guilt’. How could I say no to an old man? Now that I think about it, my friends or maybe ‘friend’ perhaps probably signalled over to the bassist to get me to go over. I should’ve sat in the back. Hmph.

Well, either way, I trudged over to the drum kit, nervous for a few reasons. One, I’m really telling the truth when I say I don’t play jazz. Two, I was certain I would not have any idea of whatever song they were going to play, which turned out to be true. Three, this was not going to be practice, but playing for real. Four, I didn’t want to smile.

You didn’t want to smile?

Well, yes, that’s true. To be honest, I was a little out of it that day. It wasn’t because of the company with me, but there were things on my mind that put ‘happy’ on the backburner and ‘depression’ on the front side. Sometimes, when I get into that, I don’t feel like getting out of it for whatever reason, as if staying in that mood makes me feel more mature or something. That’s a lie of course, but believable when you’re faced with it. It was one of those days. I’m sure you know that you always make your best enemy.

Anyway, seated, I awaited instructions from the bassist, who was going to be key to my performance. I think a lot of drummers that play in bands agree that bassists are important to them, just like how scouts rely on their scoutmasters for direction. He gave me the instructions, told me how to play, and I just went for it.

Starting cautiously, tapping the rims instead of hitting the snare.

It started easy enough, but I was being very conscious and careful with my playing. I didn’t want to appear like a hot shot kid that either brought the band down or tried to outshine everybody else. It got better though, and I began to feel a bit more comfortable and tried to vary a bit. I’m not sure what my friends thought of it, but I think I improved as time went on. They kept playing songs that I had no idea about, but I kept telling myself that as long as I kept time well, that’d be good enough. Apparently it was, and it lasted long enough until the chef drummer reappeared to reclaim his place.

When I sat back down, that’s when I felt it, after it was over, after I’d got back to my place at the table. Suddenly, it was as if I came to a realisation everything that happened in that place from the time we walked in until then had been just perfect. The magic was there, I couldn’t hold it any longer. I was spellbound, and my lips decided to put up an inversed frown.

One thing you might want to know, once you’ve come off from performing on a stage and you feel you didn’t do too badly, you’ll want to get at it again. I didn’t say anything though, at least not for a while. I brought myself to say, “I feel like…”

One of my friends just knew it, “Come on, say it…” I didn’t want to admit that I really wanted to play so I just said, “Maybe I’ll perform a little later.”

I did get my chance eventually, although a lot later. Singing is a lot different from playing drums because you become the forefront of things. Like it or not, singers in bands are usually almost automatically placed in that position once they’re up on stage. I was wondering if I’d be accepted because most of the performances that night were rather exceptional and there was this one man dressed in dark blue and khaki shorts that I was worried about. He was rather vocal when he heard something he liked, I wondered if he’d be just as vocal if he heard something he didn’t like.

Slowly getting into it on the acoustic guitar.

Still, I went for it, starting off with ‘Daughters’ by John Mayer and my legs were shaking. I surprised myself, I’d never performed anywhere with that kind of nervousness. I got through that and did a couple more, and guess what, I did have fun, and that man I was talking about, he wasn’t so indifferent about my performance. Even though there were mistakes in my rendition of ‘Nothin on You’ by B.o.B and Bruno Mars, everything still felt good. My friends went up to sing ‘Country Road’ too and that was…. something I didn’t predict would happen, but I’m more than glad that it did.

I wouldn’t have been able to experience that wonderful night on my own. It was who I was with that made it possible. So to you, thank you very much. I had a fantastic time.

With love,
Christon

doing Right

2010-11-10T00:37:00.001+08:00

It isn’t always easy. That’s why varsities like mine have mandatory subjects such as moral studies and the like. In all that we’re doing and what we’re growing up to be, we get increasingly exposed to the way the world works. We don’t have to go far to see it sometimes, there will always be cases where students are faced with difficult scenarios that questions their ethics somewhat.

When we talk corruption, the conversations are usually very simplistic. We say that person took the money, got rich, ripped everyone else off and that meant the end of it. I think we in Malaysia are very used to this sort of talk, regardless if it is warranted or not. Its not wrong to speak that way, after all its only an expression of what we believe is happening when there isn’t much else that points otherwise, although I think people also need to know how to discern and be wise when they speak. There are still moments when silence is best.

Still, not every corrupt person becomes corrupt because they want to. I think the huge amount of stories or rumours about politicians and corporate figures or people that are well to do being being corrupt has led us to forget that. Its not always the powerful that are dealing with bribes, but those who are oppressed too.

Those in tight situations always make perfect bribe targets.

When we’re put to a corner, its unpredictable what we might do. Some may take the easiest way out because logically speaking, it is. Why do something harder? Others though, believe having it easy isn’t always the most important things and that integrity still counts for more than what other people may think.

One of those others is Zulqarnain Haider, a Pakistan national team cricket player. He’s 24 years old, just 2 years above my age, playing as wicketkeeper for his country. Mind you, cricket is a huge sport in Pakistan, just as football is to England, so for Zulqarnain Haider, representing his country in cricket is a big deal.

Zulqarnain Haider in between Wahab and Smith.

Just a few days ago, after his country had finished a game against South Africa, he mysteriously disappeared from Dubai and fled to England. Why? Only recently did he reveal without much detail that he had been approached by men that wanted him to participate in match fixing and that if he cooperated, he would make a lot of money but if not, much trouble would come to him. He implied that he couldn’t reveal all the threats that had been made for the sake of his family who still resides in Lahore. Thankfully, for the moment, his family is being protected by Pakistani authorities.

Although I’m not sure whether this man made the best decision, since there are debates about the way he went about it, I’m glad he made the effort to stand for what was right and resist the temptation of corruption. People may criticise him for making a rash decision in leaving to London, but his willingness to uphold what was right is something to be admired.

Extras:
You can read more about this news here and here.

best Lecturer

2010-11-07T14:01:00.001+08:00

The new lecturer came in, to replace the previous one for the rest of the semester as part of the plan. It seems to be recent habit for two lecturers to teach one subject in UTP lately. The first teaching for the first half of the semester and the latter for the latter part. It didn’t take more than two lectures for me to give my personal assessment of him, and it remains until now.

I remember a few months ago, I told my course mates in the same class as I was that because of this new lecturer, this was the first subject that I actually looked forward to attending in more than 2 years in UTP. The other lecturer from two years ago that I liked wasn’t because he was a great educator, but because he was always rather amusing, Mr. Azhan Hassan. Still, Mr. Azhan is fine as far as lecturers go.

The man I want to give credit to here is Mr. Lai Fong Woon:

Mr. Lai during my last class in UTP.

Actually, other than Mr. Azhan, I did like another lecturer later on quite a bit, a man by the name of Dr. Azrai Abdullah and he’s featured on one of my blog entries that you can see here. I had a very good conversation with him a while back. There were similarities between Mr. Lai and Dr. Azrai and I think that drew my attention to him a little bit, but of course, there are obvious differences and he has that little bit extra over Dr. Azrai as a teacher I’d say.

I think in UTP, or in many varsities for that matter, a lot of lecturers just don’t seem to get students. Sometimes we just say, “They just don’t get it. They don’t know how to teach.”

Most of the time, when we say that, we refer to lecturers that are primarily good at two things:

1. Reading lecture slides
2. Giving hard tests

There’s nothing particularly wrong with that actually as wrong as it seems when you first read it. Those are actually pre-requisites for anybody to be in authority over a classroom. The problem is, that you and I can do that too. Which university student can’t read and set questions?

However, there are other lecturers that have some other skills than the first two I mentioned:

1. Friendly/pleasant demeanour
2. Able to engage students, keeping their attention and interest
3. Commands the classroom without being a dictator
3. Actually understand what they’re teaching
4. Can answer questions without looking at a textbook/lecture slides
5. Understand students’ actual understanding/point of view
6. Can explain lecture content without looking at presentation slides
7. Don’t make decisions based on emotional moods
8. Being a real person.

Qualities like those is what sets lecturers like Mr. Lai apart from the rest. Being an educator is rather difficult because education is a people business. The products that schools and colleges sell is the success of their students.

Some lecturers or teachers may feel that being well versed in the subject matter of their teachings is enough so much so they think they can ‘wing it’ when they teach. That’s the biggest lie an educator can fall for. Its either they forgot or have no idea that being a person in the classroom is just as important as knowing what they teach. There are instances where the opposite happens though, where educators can be nice people, but still poor teachers. I admit, having that balance is difficult to achieve, but its not impossible and people like Mr. Lai have proven just that.

One of the things that caught my eye was that he was a very real person and had a good understanding of the situation that UTP students might be caught in. He knew without asking that some of us may not have known or forgotten certain basics when teaching a slightly more advanced topic, something many lecturers in UTP overlook because they expect students brains to be hard disks. On top of that, being a person with a pleasant personality certainly made learning more conducive in the classroom.

I have to say it was certainly a pleasure being under him, and it was just nice that my last ever lecture in UTP was in his class. Its certainly a nice way to end things. I don’t know if any UTP lecturer or staff reads my blog or stumbles across it every now and then, but if they do read this, I do hope they will look to people like Mr. Lai as an example. Quite frankly, he has set the mark for being an effective educator in UTP.

To Mr. Lai, thank you.

utp Freebie

2010-11-06T13:18:00.001+08:00

I came across something that I think I should share with all students that fall under the jurisdiction of the CIS department UTP. Apparently UTP has a membership of the Microsoft Developer Network (msdn) academic alliance. The benefit of this membership is that students of the university under the ICT and BIS programmes can download certain developer software for free. Check out the details in the picture below (click to enlarge):
This notice has been up since February 2010, and UTPs msdn membership has apparently been effective since the July 2009 semester.

Among the software they offer includes the Windows 7 Professional OS, the full Visual Studio 2008 (not the Express version), Microsoft Project 2007 and so forth. I’m not sure if they’ll offer the 2010 versions of Visual Studio but you can contact Dr. Schneider to find out more.

Either way, you’ll have to contact him via e-mail (dr_schneider@petronas.com.my) to get access to the download. You need to provide the following details:

First name
Family name
E-mail address
Student ID
Program (either ICT/BIS)

Also, you’ll need to send the email to him with the following subject title: [msdnaa_January2010]

Although the notice is addressed to BIS and ICT students, if you’re an engineering student and may need one of the development tools for programming of whatever sort, I think it wouldn’t hurt to send an email to Dr. Schneider if you have a good reason. However, I wouldn’t suggest you to if you only want the Windows 7 Professional OS, haha!

If you’re a BIS/ICT student reading this, I hope you can forward this entry to your juniors or whoever so that they know about it. UTP’s been pretty poor about disseminating this message I believe. You won’t see it on the e-learning portal.

weekend Dinners

2010-11-02T01:05:00.001+08:00

Going back for the weekend was rather nice I’ll say. I arrived on Thursday night and we went to a Chinese restaurant, the food was definitely different from what I’ve been accustomed to in UTP for the past couple of months. The tofu, steamed fish, I think I almost finished the whole plate of roasted chicken with crispy skin that was served with prawn crackers and salt. I really loved my dessert though, mango pudding. The Chinese restaurant at the Bukit Kiara club is rather decent, not to mention halal so not just Chinese can enjoy the food there.

A nice glass bowl of some lovely, chilled round mango pudding.

The next day I went over to Suria KLCC, rather early in the morning too so I got to have some nice kaya toast over at the top floor food court. I remember having it many times in the morning when I was undergoing my industrial training over in the PETRONAS Twin Towers.

I got my spending arm on over there, all on my collection of Star Wars action figures. In fact, I think I felt what it genuinely meant to experience shopping therapy! The feeling’s so good when you can get more stuff in your hands and you’re smiling as you head to the cashier’s counter because you know you’ve got what you really wanted, and not just one or two items, but a lot of them.

After CoUZ on Friday, I went for supper with some of the guys in Taman Tun. My plate of ‘indo mi double’ was pretty huge but tasteless for the most part and that with my iced tea cost me about six ringgit. Still, it was nice to see Andrew again, talked with Elisha a fair bit about acoustic guitars too.

My parents and I went for church on Saturday, and that gave me a chance to meet Chris and Sam Wee for a while, Andy as well. Apparently Andy, a huge Windows fan has been converted to the technology gospel of Mac thanks to Keynote in iWork. Anyway, I probably haven’t been in a solid conversation with these people for more than five minutes in a long time. I left church with my parents at about 8.00 p.m. not knowing where dinner would be. It wasn’t at home for sure because my mother hadn’t cooked.

Questions went around the car asking where we should go, I thought I’d be a little cheeky and try my luck. “Buffet?” The idea caught on thankfully, and I wanted a Western food buffet so we made our way to Crown Plaza. When we got there though, parking was full, so we went across to the UOA building instead for a Japanese buffet, at Saisaki to be precise.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been to Saisaki and I was happy to return. I went many rounds getting my hands on the prawn tempura, and those mini handmade beef patties with the gravy. Had a go at some of the sushi, raw salmon, dory tempura, scallops, even the lamb shank, which is something you don’t typically see at Japanese eateries.

As we paid for the meal, I noticed the business cards at the counter. Apparently, Saisaki belongs to the same family as Shogun, the two other Japanese buffet outlets that reside in Sunway Pyramid and One Utama shopping complexes.

The thing is though, my mother and I have been to Shogun at One Utama before and its not as good as Saisaki. Maybe there’s a reason why Saisaki still retains its name for the UOA building branch.

In case you’re interested in paying Saisaki a visit, you might want to take a look at their ongoing pricing offer. They’ve been having it for a while now, but there’s no telling when they will halt the promotion:

Just to let you know, Saisaki is located at the following address:

Unit No. 1-9, 1st Floor, Wisma UOA II,
No. 21, Jalan Pinang,
50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

They can also be reached at:
Tel: +603 2166 3728/4728
Fax: +603 2166 6728

Still, I miss home cooked food the most I suppose. That’s why it was very nice to see pork ribs at home during lunch on Saturday. The ribs and the sauce matched perfectly. Mum knows best I guess. =)

bayi Terabai

2010-10-26T23:18:00.001+08:00

I don’t think you will see many titles on my blog that begin in Bahasa Melayu (BM). In fact, this is probably the first. There’s a special reason for it though, it has to do with a few people that I talked to, which I had never met before and our little chat was in my national language. Honestly I surprised myself, because I don’t believe I’ve ever talked to someone in BM for more than five minutes for quite some time now. What was the special occasion?

I remember it was during on of the Convofair nights, I had just met up with Josmyth and Girberth and we were going one round around the grounds. As we were walking along, we saw a trio of people who seemed to be from a religious society (not the same one I mentioned in a recent blog entry) approaching random people for some reason. Of course, we didn’t know who they were, I thought they might have been direct sellers or product promoters initially so my brain was set on auto-mode to just walk past ignoring them.

It didn’t work the way my brain planned it though, I guess I looked a little too handsome (yeah right!) and I was personally approached by them. Here’s an excerpt of our conversation, as I can remember it. I can’t remember the exact words because I didn’t record it but here’s how it went roughly, and I’ve edited it quite a bit and added some points as well to drive home certain things:

“Hi, kami dari persatuan ‘nama panjang yang saya tidak ingat', dan kita sedang ambil pendapat orang di sini. Kalau anda ingat, sejak kebelakangan ini, surat khabar dan berita televisyen membuat liputan tentat kes membuang bayi di negara kita. Apakah pandangan saudara tentang kejadian ini?”

“Pendapat saya… bolehkah anda bertanya dengan lebih spesifik? Sebab, kalau hendak beri pandangan, topik in sangat luas, jadi….”

“Mungkin saudara boleh memberi pendapat anda tentang apakah yang telah menjadi punca kejadian ini. Mengapakah kegiatan membuang bayi ini sekarang menjadi lebih berleluasa?”

“Untuk, saya, saya rasa satu sebab ini berlaku kerana mungkin orang muda tidak faham apakah akibatnya kalau mereka terlibat dalam kegiatan seks, ataupun seks bebas. Kalau kita hendak tahu punca orang membuang bayi, kita perlu faham bahawa memang seks datang terlebih dahulu. Orang muda ini mungkin tidak begitu faham apakah akibatnya yang sebenar. Ini mungkin kerana mereka tidak diberi pendidikan seks oleh ibu bapa mereka. Mungkin ini kerana di negara kita, ibu bapa malu untuk berbincang tentang seks dengan anak mereka. Juga, sekolah di Malaysia tidak memberi pendidkan seks kepada pelajar. Kalau mereka berada dalam situasi yang sedemikian, di manakah mereka akan belajar tentang seks? Kalau tiada orang yang akan mengajar mereka tentang hal ini, mereka akan cuba untuk belajar dengan sendiri, sama ada dengan menonton filem lucah atau apa-apa yang mereka boleh memperolehi. Ini kerana mereka tidak diperkenalkan kepada sumber lain yang boleh mengajar mereka untuk memiliki kematangan yang diperlukan apabila dihadapi dengan isu seperti seks dan sebagainya. Untuk orang seperti saya, saya mempunyai kefahaman tentang seks yang secukupnya dari segi sosial kerana saya telah diajar oleh ibu bapa saya, dan juga oleh gereja. Dengan ajaran itu, saya tidak terlibat dalam kegiatan seks terbuka dan sebagainya. Ajaran itu telah mengajar saya bahwaw seks merupakan sesuatu yang indah yang dikongsi oleh suami isteri dan bukan pasangan yang berlum berkahwin. Itulah sebabnya, ibu bapa memainkan peranan yang penting dalam hal ini, kerana mereka perlu mengajar anak mereka supaya mereka akan memiliki kefahaman dan kematangan yang sepatutnya. Bukan ibu bapa sahaja, tetapi kita semua sebagai sebuah masyarakat perlu menjadi orang yang boleh mendidik orang muda tentang isu seperti seks.”

“Adakah saudara berpendapat bahawa gejala ini yang berlelusa sekarang sesuatu yang agak baru untuk negara kita ataupun tidak ?”

“Bagi saya, ini bukan sesuatu yang baru. Mungkin orang ramai fikir ini sesuat yang baru kerana berita tempatan hanya meningkatkan isu membuang bayi kebelakangan ini. Saya fikir, hal ini memang sudah wujud untuk masa yang lama, hanya orang ramai tidak sedar tentangnya.”

That’s about all I said to them, as that was all they asked. It was rather interesting to answer them, and I’m quite sure they were rather interested as they heard my answers. In fact, I felt it was fun. Fun, really? Well, that’s because I haven’t had such a ‘conversation’ for a while, and it was good to share about some of the things that I stand for, and how I view the way certain things are.

As for the last question, they asked if the throwing away baby incidents were something new, I don’t think they would’ve bothered to ask that question if they had just thought about the number of children’s homes that exist in Malaysia. Every time people think of a charity to do, the words children’s home or ‘rumah anak yatim’ somehow pop into our minds straight away. Honestly, that is a very sad fact. That shows without statistics that we’re rather aware that children’s homes are in ‘abundance’. Of course, not every child in a home is a result of being left by their parents intentionally, some may have lost their parents to accidents and other incidents, but personally I believe that isn’t the main cause of children being in homes.

Vern starts a game of captain ball with the children @ Praise Girls Home.

I hadn’t realised that initially, but it became so clear to me when that week itself on Friday, church friends and I incidentally, went to visit a children’s home. You can read about that here. You see, as I said to the people who interviewed me, those who involve themselves in free sex sometimes really don’t understand there are dire consequences to it. If you need some evidence, children’s homes that exist all over the globe would be a start.

Can you imagine, that these children, have been robbed of what they should have by right? Parents! Not only that, the people that robbed them of their parents are their parents themselves. It doesn’t get much worse than that honestly. You know, when my church friends and I were playing games with the children at the home, a couple of them were a little overzealous, and from a neutral perspective one would say over competitive and immature for his age. Generally, when people ask questions like, “Why is he like that?”, we often think the answer might be, “His parents didn’t bring him up right.” In this case, what parents?

Still, I believe not all hope is lost for these children that have been abandoned by their birth mothers and fathers. When we visited that home, there were smiles all around, and you certainly wouldn’t have sensed a hint of depression. Certainly, the joy of the Lord is their strength as it says in the bible as a part of Nehemiah 8:10. God has more than what it takes to turn the live of these kids around, a lot more than you and I might bother to know.

That is the reason why everybody needs to take up the role of being a responsible parent. You may ask, how can I be a parent if I’m not even married or don’t have a kid? Simple, just make sure you never get yourself into the position where you’ll have to ask yourself if you should keep the baby or not. That’s step one in being a parent, caring for a child who isn’t even born to you yet. Its a challenge, but definitely one worth taking.

rule Invasion

2010-10-21T18:35:00.001+08:00

I honestly thought that some people learned to be more considerate, to be more sensitive, to be a little more understanding of the fact that UTP by right, is a multicultural community. A lot of people, including myself, used to criticise them for the fact, they were exercising what they had no right to do.

They were the people that used to go around the campus telling couples minding their own business they should split up and not walk together. The same people also decided to give out flyers during a music event a couple of years on campus right outside the venue discouraging people from going. These people were trying to force people to obey their way of doing things.

That caused a lot of people to dislike them. It didn’t matter what background you were from, but if you were a person that valued having the freedom to choose, valued being given the benefit of the doubt and valued love over condemnation, you wouldn’t like those people too. Maybe that’s not true. Perhaps, we did like those people, they may have have been our friends, but their actions crossed a line they thought didn’t exist.

These people failed to recognise something, personal boundaries. Its as if they forgot that when you want to reach something as personal as somebody’s values, that person must allow you to reach it first. When you come in head on condemning people, you only portray yourself as being righteous, blameless without sin, but not one human is without sin. As you do that, you fail to love people, but succeed in inciting anger because you only consider yourself, your own values, and nothing of the others around you.

For a while, after much criticism from the community at large, it seemed like they finally got the message. Then, during the convocation carniaval, Convofair, I saw this huge banner and I wondered why did they put such a mood spoiling poster up on the tent. I didn’t have a close look at it, because you didn’t need to be close to know what it said, it was pretty large. Today, I finally found out who made these banners as I was walking to my lecture:

Not for the first time has this society of people openly criticised the existence of couples on campus, or perhaps everywhere around the world. Honestly, I don’t need to be angry because I don’t have a girlfriend so this doesn’t quite apply to me, although this poster seems to suggest I shouldn’t even walk or sit next to someone of the opposite gender.

It’s either these people didn’t get the message, or those who did already left and forgot to tell those they left behind. Really, the banner is such an eyesore. I’ll give an example of what it may be like for an ordinary working person, imagine you wake up early in the morning and every time you drive to work, you have to pass by a large billboard that says, “DON’T SIN, OR GO TO HELL”

How many of you would be so inspired by that billboard? More people than not would get angry, why? Partially its because we’re all sinners by nature and none of us like hell. Still, the main reason would be because somebody decided only to expect the worst out of us instead of hoping for the best. You’d find me thinking, “Who on earth decided that we’re all terrorists that we need that billboard up there?”

I’ll be honest in saying that when I first say that banner, the first thought in my mind was, “Wow, another step backwards.” Again, this group of people doesn’t seem to understand they live in a multicultural, not to mention a multinational community on campus. If everybody on campus really belonged to that society of people, I wouldn’t complain, but that’s not how it is. I honestly don’t know why the university management approved that banner (I’m assuming it is).

If anybody from that society reads this blog entry, I want to say to you honestly, with love and without hatred, be caring and be wise in the way you do things, because I’m sure you’d rather have people see you as inspirers and not the moral police.

being Alone

2010-10-17T01:12:00.001+08:00

I don’t know why, but somehow I feel this entry is long overdue and is probably a manifestation of pent up feelings and unexplored ones that I chose to ignore. Its not that I had not noticed it, but it somehow it got magnified last night in such a way that something just cracked and I had to let it out.

I was walking around the site for Convofair (UTPs convocation outdoor carnival), to get away from a group assignment that I had become a little sick of doing. I went on my own, which is something I normally do in UTP. Usually when I go about doing daily routines, I don’t require people to tag along. I do it alone, because things just get done faster. That’s why you won’t see me having lunch or dinner with anybody unless I’ve followed somebody out to eat or its a slightly special occasion.

As I was passing by one of the booths showcasing countries of the various people studying in UTP, someone who noticed me asked a question.

“You came alone?”

“Yeah,” and i walked on.

I cannot explain to you why that question suddenly felt so piercing to me at that time. If I’d been asked that question a couple of hours earlier, I probably wouldn’t have cared but this time it was different. I realised something. No, not something, it was a collection of things, memories that suddenly decided to reappear and make me come to a conclusion I didn’t want to know.

I realised that I’m not really close to anyone anymore. It sounds emotionally needy and cliché, but those are the only words I know that can describe what I feel right now as I type this out. If I were to summarise everything that suddenly came to my mind, it was that I’m not as familiar with the friends I have now compared to when I first entered university. Its as if, the longer I spent my time in UTP, the further I grew away from them.

One thing about me, is that ever since high school, I’ve never really had a group of friends that i ‘hang out’ with. I used to be close with Wei Yang and Alex back then but once they left, I never really got the hang of other cliques, or I didn’t fit in at all. This is why I hated my time in upper secondary. Even in the most recent meet I had with those two friends, I felt so distant. I know I’ve mentioned this before in another blog entry somewhere.

Since then, most of the friends I’ve come to know, I’ve known them as individuals, almost never as part of a group. I’ve really appreciated those friendships because it helped engaging them on a personal level a lot better. There was much less that was superficial, because there’s not a lot a person can fake when you’re one on one. One of the reasons people may like having a ‘best friend’ is because they’re typically more real as people and that goes for me too.

One problem I’ve consistently faced is that I’ve always had to leave them, or they’ve had to leave me. The thing is, they don’t leave for a short time, but a really really long one and I feel alone again, and I sometimes selfishly feel, “Why go through all the trouble to befriend someone, if they just leave anyway?”

I don’t know if you’ve personally felt that kind of hurt, but I really have. It sucks more than you would like to imagine. Maybe one of the reasons for that is that in the past few years, its been hard for me to relate to the people around me, and I’ve had to force myself to actually do so. That helped me grow on a personal level I suppose, but I still miss what I lost, everyone does.

Even here in UTP, people that I used to know well, I feel like the relationships with them now exist now only for functional reasons or are kept out of mutual respect. The warmth no longer exists. As for the ones I’ve just begun to build, I slap myself in the face for not starting sooner, as I will leave them soon in just a couple months time. You may say, come on, just use Facebook. Let me tell you something, I hate social media networks. Social media is NOT a relationship builder. If so, why do I have a Facebook account? Despite the fact I hate the idea, the concept and the application, it still stands as my last resort to connect with the people that I can no longer meet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming other people for the predicament I’m in. I don’t believe that my friends remained as my friends for a ‘functional’ purpose but it just feels that way. I’m not trying to say that people are now cold towards me, its just a lot of things really aren’t the way I wish they were. That’s when I thought it’d be nice if there were things I could change, so that certain things would go back to the way they were, when I was happier.

You know, as I was walking around Convofair, anyone who I greeted was with somebody. I’m not talking about couples, but just people. Everybody was at least with a friend, I didn’t notice another person who wasn’t around one. That’s when I felt just like one of those commercials where they show everybody rushing around all coloured in grey with just one person in the middle standing still, feeling lost and confused. That’s when I decided to go back to my room, I didn’t want to be in that crowd anymore.

Actually, I do wonder if this is one of the reasons I can’t wait to go back to KL, so that I can restart again. How meaningless.