Bittersweet Symphony

Euro-gone

2011-09-19T13:53:00.001-07:00

The on going issue with the Euro and the way it has been set up from the start has been causing a huge concern to the global economy.

From a logical point of view, it is a fallacy that the European Union, when it was created was a union of the economic strengths of all the European nation. It is instead a mishmash of very different national policies in an attempt to bond the nations.

It is after all, almost impossible to mix the brashness of the Greeks with the systemic Germans which makes the difference between them grow internally until it has boiled over.

It is fundamentally more difficult to make decisions, however major or minor it is, due to the fact that there is so many different major banking authorities, up to 27 different languages and a meet up of all parties will require a huge congregation of officials (and interpreters) to decide on major decisions etc especially in a time of crisis now where the EU has to quickly work something out soon.

It is easy of course to look at the story now and derive that the Euro is not 100% sustainable, but looking at the story before the economic crisis, it is very hard to say so.

Hence we've been living in a world where it is easier to say what had happened looking on from hindsight, but there what we often fail to see, is to put ourselves in the line of history before the crisis, before anyone had predicted the crisis, where things were supposed to be rolling fine.

The key answer is of course to listen a little less in the prediction (often offered from the "experts") and try to secure ourselves in a way where we reduced our exposure in things that we do not fully understand.

The next question, however, would go through your mind next, what will come next in your life? How will the Euro muddle through next?

Till then, happy investing.

Khek - Monrovia, Liberia, 19/09/2011

Liberia

2011-09-15T14:04:00.001-07:00

Funny thing about Liberia was the fact that the country was named based on the fact that it was named after liberty.

The capital Monrovia was named after President Monroe in the US and they allowed all freed slaves who came back to Africa to settle in Liberia.

So, the freed slaves came back and enslaved the Africans who were living in Liberia.

Franchising of slavery? What irony.

Khek-Monrovia, Liberia,15/Sept/2011

Making writing happen

2011-07-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

The thing about this blog is, it's funny. When it's time to get things down here, it gets so hard to put and structure the thoughts, whilst when you're on the go, there's many things in the mind you wanna share here.

If only thoughts can automatically conjure words and automatically put them here, easily. Like some form of neuro-chip embedded in the bulbous brain which acts as some form IO interaction system with your integrated "Internet" account. That would be pretty awesome.

But we're having issues with trying to move a mouse to the "right" place on the screen using the brain in the first place, we're still pretty far behind. The question that begs then, how to combine a biological marvel with the best of our imagination, skills and technologies possible.

Another thing to think about, democracy isn't exactly the most perfect system in the world. It seems that decision making will be made by the elite class of citizens of a country and often in the pursuit of their well-being. Thus, the impression that the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.

However, that is not to say that democracy and with the power of capitalism has brought such problems to the world. In an ideal world, democracy with capitalism would be the most efficient and powerful vehicle to power humanity ahead. However, due to humans' weaknesses and politics, as well as greediness, this system then, isn't 100% fully perfect either.

It works only for the greatest minds in the world with the noblest of purpose, and sense of selflessness which precedes anything else, and the fact that democracy has survived for such a long time, is a reckoning good proof that, it is an ideal which is pretty darn close to perfection.

I however, as much I would like to make huge things change or happen, also enjoy myself to see myself in the position of what John Mayer would sing.. "waiting on the world to change"..

Cheerios for now.

Ciaos,
Khek - Brazzaville,24/07/2011

To spend or not to spend

2011-06-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

We're living in a very advanced world these days where global financial transactions takes place in a blink of an eye. Sure, it is fascinating, and for those who making a great deal of money in the financial world, good stuffs. However, it seems that the financial world seems to be more and more crowded by greedy or people. It feels like a bloody sleaze party for frat house.

The PIGS are quickly degenerating their debt to a point of no return, to full default based on how they will very unlikely be unable to repay their debt. And for every somebody who takes out a loan there will always be somebody who gives out a loan. The question for the ECB, would of course be, would you continue loaning money to your brother who's a drug addict and still hasn't clean up his act.

This is of course one of my more financially based rants, but the only unfortunate thing is that, the state of finance which the world (more specifically, Europe, and the U.S.) is in right now. Based on one of the latest reports released by the BIS and nicely summarised by Kash here, both Europe and U.S are so intertwined, and with the likelihood of Greece of Ireland to one day stick their middle finger and default on their loans, how can the bond holders or banks possibly survive the onslaught of the defaults?

When Europe's ECB crashes, and brings the U.S. down along with them, does that mean, financial apocalypse? What is financial apocalypse? Imagine a scenario, you're trying to get into the line which stretches miles into the streets, in an angry mob because the banks are now not able to repay all your deposits which you have made with the bank previously. All your hard work and savings now rendered nil.

Certainly puts a perspective to what money really is. Just a form of means of enabling. So, before all this shit happens, the question boils down to you, to spend, or not to spend, and how to?

Home

2011-05-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Unable to sleep, with my mind flying back to home, the thoughts of my beloved mom and dad, sticky in my head. Decided to post this as I'm feeling a little homesick. A dash of luscious laksa and some pungent nasi lemak might cure this melancholic feeling perhaps?

Oh how I miss home sweet home..

Meekly yours,
Khek - Joburg,12/05/2011

2010: In Review of my review

2011-01-20T01:16:00.000-08:00

2010 was a quick flash of a year. Everything happened quickly and in quite a blur! World economics wise, there's so many things which are going into a good gear these days, and 2010 is basically like a wipe out of a lot of the not so good stuffs in 2008.

Anyways, generally, I'm pretty happy with how life passed by in 2010. As always, life is short and if only we're living as if tomorrow's the last day of your's on Earth, we would be doing so much more radical stuffs.

Right now, looking for a property to invest in, but I'm not sure how. This delay in action during 2010 has cost me a huge increase of prices in properties here in Malaysia since last year. So, trying again to find a property to invest in, hopefully with some decent returns would be ideal!

Other than that, a quick glance over last year, and the places that I've been to and stuffs which was done..

Tetrapylon, Palmyra - Syria

Diving in Mediterranean Sea - Lebanon

Caught the Koreans in World Cup 2010 - South Africa

Wine tasting in Stellenbosch - South Africa

Whale and dolphin watching at Plettenberg Bay - South Africa

Iles de Los, Conakry - Guinea

Floated in the Dead Sea (drank some of it too!) - Jordan

Climbed up to the Monastery, Petra - Jordan

Snake handling in Cotonou - Benin

At the "Top of the World", Burj Khalifa, Dubai - UAE

Overall, it has been quite an adventure! There's nothing like 2010. Here's a head on towards 2011! I wish all the best to all of you!

Cheerios,
Khek - Home,20/01/2011

New resolutions

2011-01-14T10:12:00.001-08:00

Here are my new year resolutions, which I hope that whenever I get lost, I will somehow find my way back to the below:

1. Set up some form of asset/business which provides a cash flow of around RM2.5k per month.
2. Achieve my six-pack goal (Gonna make the six pack ultra visible)
3. Travel to Scotland (for my brother's graduation, and also to have a look around)
4. Learn how to ride a motorcycle and obtain a license for that.
5. Be the best man and make my brother's wedding a fantastic one.

And of course, my wishes for the world to be much better! Somehow, I feel that this year will get better, especially from now onwards. For those of you who may be reading, do drop your resolution which you may have made to yourself. I'm sure sharing it will make it that you're more committed to that goal, and a declaration of intent!

FYI, for those of you who wish to forge a new habit, there this website: http://habitforge.com/ which helps one to forge good habits. I've got 2 habits which I'd love to forge and am trying my best to get that done. More importantly, intention begets thoughts, thoughts begets action, action begets habit. Everything's pliable.

Just got my results for my blood test, cleared of most diseases which is good. Too high cholesterol, especially HDLs, as well as uric acid. The high uric acid could be due to genetics since my parents kept complaining about that as well. The high level of cholesterol however is not acceptable at all. Need to do something about it!

Till then, keep fighting for that six pack!
Khek - Home,15/01/2011

New Year 2011, Changes abound and aplenty...

2011-01-06T18:39:00.000-08:00

There you go, one year has passed with the spirit of the new year. It has been quite an incredible year last a year, and a quick review shows what a pretty marvelous year it has been for 2010. The family has grown a little tighter, and the passing of my paternal grandfather (bless his soul).

Speaking of death, changes will always be abound. The year was also my very first dealing with death with people close to me. People whom I actually know and have had a relationship, spoken with and it feels incredibly surreal to know that you will never be able to touch and talk the person who passed away.

What does life really holds? How much does your life really weigh? Are we pulling enough punches to make it all the more meaningful? Thus speaking of which, you can really make a difference even with the smallest stuffs you can do in your life, to either care for humankind, animals or the very place we live in, the Earth.

Which brings us to our next wonderful story which is a story of a very humble vegetable seller (yes, the ones in the market) who donated a huge part of her savings and kept working, pledging and committing to making a change in her society. There are so many people who making such changes and she is one of them. The best part it, she was recently awarded the Asian Person of the Year 2010 by Reader's Digest.

Reader Digest's Asian of the Year - The Generous Vegetable Seller Chen Shu-Chu

Below are from Reader's Digest:

A humble vegetable seller in Taiwan, Ms Chen Shu-chu, has won worldwide recognition for living a life devoid of luxuries so that others less fortunate than her can live a better life. In March this year, Forbes magazine named her one of 48 outstanding philanthropists from the Asia-Pacific region. A month later, Time magazine selected her as one of 2010’s top 100 influential and she emerged under the Heroes of Philanthropy category. And she has been selected as the winner of the Reader’s Digest’s Asian of the Year Award on November 25.

Reader’s Digest magazine commended Chen for her dedicated work over a lifetime to helping those less fortunate than herself.

“Chen’s work has been more remarkable because she doesn’t fundraise or seek donations, but rather she goes without, in order to save the proceeds of her meager earnings to donate to worthwhile causes,” according to the magazine.

When asked about being honored by Reader’s Digest, a humble Chen brushed off the news, saying “Whether or not I win an award is not important, I’m still going to continue doing what I do.”

In its December 2010 issue, Reader’s Digest Asia carries the story of this amazing lady in an article entitled ‘The Generous Vegetable Seller.’ This story is very inspiring and with Christmas round the corner, I hope the story will move people to do their part for the less fortunate of our society.

This blog post of mine will probably end up as my longest post so far. I hope you will really take the time to read the entire post. May you be inspired!

The Generous Vegetable Seller
by Esther Liang (published in the December 2010 issue of Reader’s Digest)

After the morning hustle and bustle, the atmosphere at Taitung county’s Central Market quietens as every stall shuts for the day and their owners return to the comfort of their homes. A lone lamp shines on a vegetable stall. With head bowed, Ms Chen Shu-chu silently sorts out the vegetable leaves as she waits for the occasional afternoon customer.

Decades of hard work have caused the fingers on her right hand to curl and joints to swell; her feet have deformed slightly.Ms Chen leads her life with a daily routine. Waking up at three in the morning, she makes her way to the vegetable wholesaler and sets up her stall, which she tends till seven or eight in the evening.

Being the first to arrive and last to leave, the other stall owners have fondly given her the title of “market manager”.

In the dark and damp market, Ms Chen, nearing her 60s, holds the stall her father left her dearly. Yuan-Jin Vegetables is her everything.

With her vegetables selling at “a bundle for NT$30, three bundles for NT$50″, she earns only marginal profits.

Yet, her frugality has allowed her to donate about NT$10 million (4321,550) towards various charitable causes, including helping schools, orphanages and poor children.

The selfless generosity of a woman with such humble income has placed her under the international spotlight.

In March, Forbes magazine named her one of 48 outstanding philanthropists from the Asia-Pacific region. A month later, Time magazine selected the year’s top 100 influential people and she emerged under the Heroes of Philanthropy category.

Fellow Taiwanese and Oscar- winning director Lee Ang wrote her entry personally. “Money is worthy only if given to those in need,” he quoted Ms Chen. He also wrote: “Amazing, but of all she has given away, her greatest gift is leading by example.”

KINDNESS BEGETS KINDNESS

Despite the honour of receiving the Time award in New York, gaining global recognition, and a personal meeting with President Ma Ying-jeou, all Ms Chen really cares about is her vegetable stall.

If not for President Ma and the Foreign Minister personally convincing her to go, she would not have agreed to visit New York, as she felt that “this is not a competition and I did not win anything”.

Amid the frenzy of applying for a passport and preparing for the visit, her main concern was that her regular customers would not get their vegetables.

President Ma visiting Chen Shu-Chu at her vegetable stall

Ms Chen has become a celebrity in Taitung county. The local authorities decorated her stall with congratulatory posters and banners hailing her as the Pride of Taitung and the Model of Philanthropy.

There are fans who turn up at the stall with a vegetable basket and a camera, hoping for a picture with Ms Chen.

Despite all the attention, she remains humble. “I have done nothing extraordinary and anyone who wants to can do it. There are many other charitable people; we just don’t know about them,” she said. Ms Chen, who is unmarried, added: “I do not place great importance on money. When I donate to help others, I feel at peace and happy, and I can sleep well at night.”

She also feels for the poor, having experienced hardship in her younger days.

Born in 1950, Ms Chen lost her mother after completing her primary-school education. Her mother was admitted to hospital because of difficulties in labour and the family had to pay an insurance of NT$5,000 before medical attention could be granted.

Ms Chen saw her father asking their neighbours for money, but it was too late to save her mother. The eldest daughter in the family, Ms Chen had to grow up overnight. She gave up her studies and dedicated her life to helping at the vegetable stall.

When she was 18, her younger brother fell sick and the illness dragged on for over a year, gradually depleting the family’s savings.

Doctors suggested that the family send her brother to Taiwan National University Hospital, but they could not afford the fees.

Mr Huang Shun-zhong, a teacher at Ren-ai Primary School, started a donation drive. Unfortunately, her brother could not be saved.

After experiencing the kindness bestowed upon her family, Ms Chen made up her mind to help the poor once she was able.

When her father died 17 years ago, Ms Chen, a devoted Buddhist, generously donated NT$1 million to Fo Guang Shan Monastery.

In 2000, she donated NT$1 million to her alma mater, Ren-ai Primary School, to set up an Emergency Relief Fund to help poor children obtain financial help.

Thank you, Chen Shu-chu, for helping to show the way.

There is so much more to read in Reader's Digest on such an inspiring story on her life. Feel free to read up more on her by googling up on her.

Small steps can make pretty big changes in the end.

Till Then,
Khek - KL,07/01/2010

Waiting... for ups and downs..

2010-12-17T15:47:00.000-08:00

Just got out of Khartoum... barely, am now awaiting in Dubai for my next flight to Amman.

So, basically, this is my first trip flying Emirates with the latest upgraded Gold membership. Various pros and cons, one of the best was to just skip the lines and head for the business/gold membership lane. Thankfully..

This of course led to series of events. Firstly, found out that when I was trying to bypass the passport check, it seems that as a Malaysian in Sudan, I need to have registered myself with the Central Registration Office, which I seem to have totally forgotten about as I've been in Sudan twice before and clearly a big mistake on my part.

Was waiting in line for close to 1 hour (at a foreign currency exchange outlet) just to try to get my passport photocopied to get my passport registered. Bloody tense wait, and I can barely imagine the frustration if i were the guys in the line where I need to wait all the way and found out that there's no more foreign currency to be exchanged.. sighs.. what shame that the currency controls is really miserable..

Thankfully, after some quick discussion (and bribing... what choice have I got? I don't even speak their language..) I'm finally through the bloody passport checks. Thankfully I get to head into their executive lounge. Tasted the very cold and soggy fried-popiah like item available.. I guess, that's how you figure out that even in executive-class where you're paying through your bloody nose, it feels like you're being ripped off, but imagine if you don't, I guess it gets worse..

However, despite all the crappy-ness, happiness prevails, got upgraded to business class. First time in one, and truly enjoyed the elbow space, the reclining seats and of course all the very good available meal on-board. But the premium you have to pay to get to such level... I guess, that's life.

Anyways.. waiting... and waiting.... and trying to catch some nap for my Amman flight. Till then, am glad I booked a taxi with the hotel/hostel which I'll be staying so there will be someone to pick me up instead of having to figure out how to get back to the hotel. Have to pay a little more, but I guess that's that for that much more convenience...

Cheerios,
Khek - Dubai,18/12/2010

Sea of the Dead

2010-12-17T05:49:00.000-08:00

Am waiting for my luxurious taxi to head out to the airport. Am waiting a tad unpatiently for the ride from the Burj Al-Fateh hotel. Finished assignment, good work!

Now, onwards to my self reward for this trip! On towards Amman, Jordan.

Cheerios
Khek - Khartoum, Sudan, 2010/12/27

In loving memory

2010-12-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to my beloved grandfather, Tay Kim Seng. It will probably also be my first post to talk about somebody from my family.

He just has just passed away recently, and I hope he finally rests in peace. I'm sure that at least he has had a wonderful, long and fulfilling life. I hope that my life can be as beautiful as his was.

When the death of a closed one happens, in the face death, nothing else matters, and we should all try our best to fulfill our dreams and goals with no regrets. My grandpa has almost certainly typified somebody who is adamant with what he wants in life and worked hard for it.

I also hope my grandma will get the strength to live on with the support and love from all of us, the family and I'm sure that like grandpa, she will feel loved as always.

It is also a close reminder that, in the midst of trying to achieve monetary and materialistic success, we should also strive to keep the family bonds tight and as loving as possible. It is indeed possible to have both and all if you will it, as my grandfather has shown.

My grandpa at Choo Chin's wedding. Family are blood ties which cannot be washed away.

You will be truly missed and be kept in my memory.

RIP my dearest Ah Kong (Grandpa). (1924-2010)

Currency Wars

2010-11-16T01:44:00.000-08:00

It feels like the world is on a path to ruin. The current state of where the US tries to print money to solve it's problems, the burgeoning credit problem with the PIIGS of Europe and various issues clearly shows that perhaps not all is well even with the so called "developed" countries.

There is nothing in life which is constant but change. I believe we need to keep innovating and think big if we are to ensure that we stay intact.

The idea of a floating monetary system sounds great, but because of how the reality works, it doesn't work so well. The idea of a floating monetary system is to have every country have their own currency where possible, and each country have to improve and will regress on their capabilities based on their needs and their work.

This reminds me of a story of the grasshopper and the ants. The ants are a hardworking colony ever working to store up for a rainy day as well as ensure that they have more than enough, whilst the grasshopper just takes life one day at a time, enjoying all that it can.

So, someday, when the grasshopper encounters difficulty and hunger in his life and needs help from the ants, so he borrows from the ants promising to pay back with interest. The problem starts deepening as the grasshopper has bad habits ingrained and doesn't ever get back to repaying.

The ants happily lend more to the grasshopper as it appears that they will get more back in interest and they're assuming that the grasshopper will one day change its' ways and work hard enough to return food which it borrowed. However, as it becomes a furious cycle of borrow and consume, the ants will have to work harder to ensure that the grasshopper gets his share, or else he will die, and the food will never be returned.

It may be of course, a tad dramatic to point that the grasshopper will die, or in this case, the borrowing nation will go into a crazy mountainous debt that the country will face absolute failure. The question then becomes, when to stop lending? When will the flow of debt be reversed?

Which is why recently even Obama lashed out on surplus producing countries like Germany to increase domestic consumption so that the flow can be reversed. Is that really possible? I'm not sure myself, and I think we'll see how it all pans out over the passing of age.

Anyways, will be heading for my holidays soon (as in tomorrow). Can't wait to enjoy the splendid view of the beautiful Garden Route of South Africa. I've also just came back from Damascus, Syria. It was an absolutely beautiful place as I've remembered it.

Not to mention, the girls there are some of the most beautiful I've seen. Besides that, there are so many places of interests, good food, and best of all! It's pretty cheap. No wonder it has been the world's longest continuously inhabited city in the world.

Will leave you folks with a little pictures from the trip

Khan As'ad Pasha was built in 1752 under the patronage of governor As'ad Pasha al-Azm

The Ummayad Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus (Arabic: جامع بني أمية الكبير, transl. Ğām' Banī 'Umayyah al-Kabīr), located in the old city of Damascus, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. It is considered the fourth holiest place in Islam

Enjoying some tea in a proper Syrian restaurant. Pretty Syrians!

And of course, it's the time of the year again where Wikipedia is requesting your help to donate to ensure that Wiki still stays the same (of course, some of you may argue, if you're paying it's not FREE). None the less, I still remember my fascination with the encyclopedia known as "The World Book".

A lot of things were in the huge volume of encyclopedias back then, and it was a joy to read it, but it costs a lot and was huge and bulky. But now, it is an even more amazing fact to know that all of those huge encyclopedias are now available for free by a simple click from your PC or even better, from your smart phone!

I'm still young, but I can barely imagine the speed of progress that has been made by humankind, but this progress will be even further accelerated with the sharing of knowledge and understanding in the world by efforts like Wikipedia. Let's keep it free and keep sharing.

Have a great day from Joburg!
Khek - 16 Nov

Positivity

2010-11-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

Last night in Damascus, Syria.

Starting to think that, the more you want/don't want something, it will VERY like become true, probably something like whatever's preached in "The Secret" (which I haven't read, but heard some stuffs about). What do I mean?

Was hoping to view the city of Damascus from Mount Qashyoon, hopefully with somebody instead of making a personal trip. Turns out, on the very last few moments, a friend asked me for dinner and drinks, met with some wonderful people, some from the office and some family member and some other, and what a fascinating meeting and discussion.

Am loving Syria, and would love to come back, (if possible of course). The girls here in Syria very pretty and can't believe somebody I've met actually have pursued or have at least given their dreams a try to a certain extent.. somebody who wanted to become a news reader! (I might add quite a fancy and very interesting ambition!)

She took the effort work her way through as a journalist, then trying out at a radio station, as an announcer and then trying her best in an audition for a news reader/caster, and what a shame she failed to become one due to other reasons (as how life can turn out sometimes).

Talked instead about life and how she progressed on very admirably from that! From getting into a rut, reminding our very selves how easily it is in life to get stuck on something seeming comfortable which we tell ourselves that we can live with, and food ourselves, and then waking up and freeing oneself...

Then of course, the view on Mount Qashyoon with her and a good friend (who's sorta after her).. What a way to end the night in Syria I believe.

Either way, have to pack now to head back to SA. Cheerios and wish you (whoever you are) well!

Wake Up

2010-11-07T21:59:00.000-08:00

Saba'akhir,

Just woke up. Was reading some eye opening stuffs recently. My thoughts? I need to start producing more stuffs with my creative juice and achieve that in a small time period necessary.

Either way, am writing this from Syria for now. What a fantastic and beautiful place for a revival. Reading Tim Ferris's book "4 Hour Work Week" has so many brilliant ideas on how we can look at life more than just the dreary 9-5 job which we're very accustomed to.

In short changing the mindset to produce more with a lot less time is very much possible and very much logical. Either way, here's a little post from Syria for now.

Cheerios for now!
Khek - Syria, 08/11/2010

Oil

2010-05-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

It's a crying shame that I haven't updated for so long.

However, felt like posting something now and here goes.

I don't understand why petrol is cheap in Malaysia. I'm not speaking in terms of intending to make life more difficult for people in Malaysia hoping for an increase in oil price. Sure, a lot of people will be affected, but I'm sure the ones who don't need it are certainly the people who abuse it the most, especially people with 5-6 massive and expensive fuel guzzling cars!

What I mean is, by artificially suppressing the true value of oil in our country, we're setting ourselves to be cheap. Despite being a country blessed with oil, unfortunately, oil is a non-renewable resource, and sooner or later it's gonna end and oil should be represented for the price it should be.

Imagine a litre of oil can move your car for a distance of approximately 8-10 kilometres. Imagine trying to move your car or walk for that distance? Yet we pay more for a cup of coffee and grumble about oil prices.

What a shame we're not putting things in perspective in life sometimes.

Oil, the black gold.

Afterthoughts

2010-03-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

Quick tribute to year 2009...

Never knew how big a difference each year could bring and I guess you could say that it's refreshing to know that as much as how gloomy the economy could turn into, or how bad the news and tidings will be, or all the pains that you feel, it's good to keep up an optimistic hope, because things will eventually turn better.

So here goes, a quick check on the most interesting and exciting stuffs that has occured in the 2009, so far a pretty good year in my life, so far..

Phi Phi Islands - Phuket

V & A Waterfront - Cape Town, South Africa
Dakar Rally Area - Senegal

Meroe Pyramids - Sudan

Reed Dance Festival - Swaziland

Reed Dance Festival - Swaziland

2010 Soccer City Stadium - South Africa

Cheetah Viewing - Botswana

I guess, this coming year, will have to try hard to do better than the current year. Not gonna be easy. No body said it's easy either. All the best to you too!!

End of 2009 and the start of 2010

2010-01-07T01:31:00.000-08:00

Oh what a year 2009 have been, and here's a cheers to a hope that 2010 will be good as well.

I don't think that I intend to in any way summarize 2009 in this post. Right now, stuck waiting at Dubai's International Airport at Terminal 3 and getting a neck-ache using my PC.

What a great time to be alive and to see things moving past us by at light speed as always. We're at a brink of making important decisions in our lives (personal decisions and questions to be answered) as well as difficult questions for the sake of our humankind on earth (saving our earth from climate gloom and doom)

Somethings remain the same, whilst same will change. None the less, the ones that remain the same will change too someday, for the only that's constant is change. That's how we gotta beat ourselves out of the rut we're in and keep pushing ourselves to accept changes or get stuck in the rut for a long long time.

Anyways, here's my wind of change blowing, the gate to Khartoum has opened. Gotta get off to take on the next train.

Till the next time (.. this close to fulfilling my promise to at least blog once a month..)

To all of you there, Happy New Year. Keep a smile on your face and I'm sure you will have a good year ahead.

Cheers!!

GPS

2009-11-01T12:46:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, in life, you'd wish that it's little more like a GPS. Just had some terrible mishaps recently with it and some good experience with them. Funny thing is this, you'd wish that you have a GPS for your life. Something which keeps putting you in the right way, tells you how far and approximates how soon you will get there.

Then, the biggest problem of course, comes with trying to find out where do you need to go, the destination. The place which says, this is it.

Thing is, I hope that, I've got that GPS of my life turned on. I hope God is gonna lead some how. I hope I can read the omens and signs which comes my way, and I learn to see them instead of letting them pass me by.

The closer one gets to realizing his destiny, the more that destiny becomes his true reason for being.

Cleaning up my act.

2009-08-26T02:14:00.000-07:00

Funny thing.

I need a change in life. I need to clean out my closets and make some space for new stuffs. Getting tired dragging the unnecessary stuffs.

Ho-kay. Time to push myself out of the comfort window!!

A Kick in the Arse

2009-07-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

See, I have so broken my resolution.

Anyway, I just kicked myself in the arse (don't ask me how, but I did it!) and I'm writing again. Writing can just get painfully difficult sometimes although I keep telling myself I've gotta write as much stuffs as I can.

So latest updates for the blog, I'm now in Swaziland (Umboso weSwatini) for work.
It's a very scenic and beautiful place. The Bushfire Festival will be coming up this weekend! Can't wait for it because Duncan will be coming up as well. Johnny Clegg will be performing in that event. Sounds familiar? Well, he's sung a lot of good songs with great meaning in 'em.

Loved my girl to bits, just had a cyber-dinner-date which was a tad disappointing though. Hopefully it'll get better on the next one!

Well, FYI, interesting fact of Swaziland, and I guess it makes for required work on the fight against AIDS would be, the fact that residents of Swaziland has the lowest documented life expectancy rate in the world at 31.88 years, which is less than half of the world's average of 69.4. Can you imagine that? To die at such a young age.

They're not even living a full life to retirement yet and yet all the Swazis I've met are truly joyous and happy people. It has been a pleasure to be working in this country and I guess a lot of work have to go into working towards making them live a longer life.

Imagine when I say death is a thing which happens almost every week and the obituaries are full almost everyday. They barely have grandmoms/dads who are alive, or are lucky having moms/dads which are still alive!

Speaking of deaths, it has been a sad, sad year with the passing of Michael Jackson and of course our own Malaysian story-telling legend, Yasmin Ahmad. Brings to context how much people really mean to us for all these times. More importantly, treasure the people who're still around you, your family, loved ones and friends of course.

I love you!! This goes out to all of you.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2009-05-19T16:03:00.001-07:00

Well, it has been 3 months in South Africa. How time flies. The need to serve and contribute is ever hungry in me. However, to round it all up, it has been a very exciting and interesting journey so far and not too much of regret.

The incredible stumbling blocks are close to impossible to scale. Your hands are trembling cold to the point where it's gone numb and you can't even feel it anymore. Your breathe is sapping each and every single bit of energy out of you. The journey looks endless, and you're thinking, if the way to reach to the top is this crazy, whaddya reckon about the journey down? Life sucks now. Serious sucks.

Still learning to live my life to the fullest. Now, it's going back home. Feeling tired after all the packing, but I feel the need to just state the fact that, there's always a rainbow, the light at the end of the tunnel, the top of the world, at the end of all the difficulties and horrid bleakness.

One step at time. One small step at a time.

Sell out

2009-05-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

Overheard in a very expensive, horribly taxed Malaysian car.

Rich man 1: I bet you RM1 million that company is losing money.

Rich man 2: RM1 million? That's not much. What can you buy with RM1 million these days?

Rich man 1: Remember how in those days, you could actually buy a house with RM1 million?

Rich man 2: And finance a hostile takeover of a family business

Rich man 1: You can't buy anything anymore with RM1million noawadays.

Rich man 2: Just Art, I supposed. Painting, music, literature, that kind of rubbish.

Rich man 1: But what for? You can't pet them or have sex with them.

Rich man 2: And they make you feel so sleepy.

Rich man 1: And if you die, when you die, everyone remembers the artist, never the patron.

Rich man 2: Hurm.. Tell me about it.

Rich man 1: Aiyah, it's a good thing lah, we're billionaires now.

Both rich man chuckles.

Give a good support to our very own Malaysian made movie which has yet again won various compliments and awards in other countries, but yet again can't quick make it in our own country. Looking forward to watching it, of all places, in Malaysia.

Latest updates: I should be heading back to home by end of this month of May! Woo Hoo. I love my family and everybody else! :)

Resolve

2009-04-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

I have a girlfriend, her name is Charlene. And I loved her very much so.

I'm far away from her now. 8543km far away from her. It makes me sad everytime I listen to her ask me to come back whenever I talk to her.

I've made a resolve in myself to help all the people around me as much as I can. Because I believe there is enough good in this world to sustain our living and keep it radiated all the way. I wish I could treat everybody as good as they should receive it, as best as I can.

One of the main reasons I've wanted to come here to the land of Africa, is to not just make a living and work, but rather, to build a rich life experience and enhance all that I have. For I have a blessed body, a blessed family, great friends, a good love and a wonderful life so far.

And I want to share and let others be able to experience it too. And I've been selfish for the past few months. I know it.

I have to live not only for myself, but for all the people that's around me. I want to contribute to the society and the land. I want to grow a forest on a desert, I want to reach out to the poor and console them with food, warmth and words. I want to enrich other people's life with all that is good and meaningful.

And the last time I talked to her, it reminded me how little precious time I have left to serve.

It'll have to start now.

Rantings

2009-04-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back in the room again. Been staying in hotels, moving here and there. Just came back from Swaziland in a not so desirable timing. I reckon it was beautiful place, although I didn't really get to experience the country as a whole.

Have you ever felt very frustrated when things that are supposed to work normally, don't work like normal. Simple things which you take for granted which works well day in and out until one day it just dies on you, and you're pretty damn screwed.

Well, I just hope things will recover by tomorrow. Must retry my bloody ATM card. 3 CARDS!! All doesn't work now after the last hope died, and I have no idea why. Just doesn't make any good sense. Really puts into proposition where you may have many, but if you haven't got it in your hands, you haven't got nothing.

Cheers.

Cradle of Humankind: Maropeng & Sterkfontein

2009-03-25T00:36:00.000-07:00

During one of the weekends, I've gone to see some bones. Boring stuffs I reckon. Anyways, It was a visit to look into where we all came from. Homo Sapiens. Makes you wonder what makes you, you!

So here we are, heading into the cavenous and Sterkfontein (Afrikaans for Strong Spring) caves. Welcome!!

Heading downwards into the deep dark blackness. The only lighting available once we were deep in there were the man-made quiet, bluntly lighted high powered lamps.

The temperature dipped as we went down as the deep is shielded from any sunlight and any form of harsh weather. Hence, the fact that the bones were found in good condition after the millions of years of preservation.

It is believed that the fossils found were due to the fall of the very first hominid's into these caves, as they were not accessible by them then. Due to the findings of such bones of distant relatives of our species, and after much digging and research was done, Sterkfontein Caves was declared a World Heritage Site to protect it from being mined of its' limestones and causing any further damage to any possible bones which can be found.

We have to climb through really deep cracks in the walls of the caves, slithering and winding around in cold and the almost lack of the sense of time for which we were thankful for our watches. Furthermore, there was pool deep in the heart of the cave where a diver died due to getting lost in the cave.

After the long walk, we finally got up and were glad to draw in fresh breath of air and the beautiful scenery of endless land where the horizons end as far as your eyes can see.

The 2 bones shown below are Taung child and Mrs Ples which are some of the most completed skulls of Australopithecus africanus species of early humankind/hominid where due to the construction of it's skull and other bones found.

The discoveries made were the proofs of the existence of hominids and pre-Homo Sapiens species. The evolvement of the species finally comes to us as the current dominant species of the Homo type. We are the surviving species left, and now, we become the true kings of Earth with our intellect and our skills.

Next, I moved on to Maropeng which is a Visitor Center of the Cradle of Humankind, which really consists of more than 3 dozen fossil bearing caves where the more popular ones include Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Wonder Cave and several others.

Being a visitor centre, it is generally a show of our origin and our pre-specieses who lived on earth, competed amongst themselves and perished with us, the Homo Sapiens being the winner of the evolutionary race.

There were various exhibits on display and one which was truly hilarious was this one with many, many clattering fake teeths which looks very amusing when you see them in real life!!

The thing is this, at the end of the day, we're all humans, of the same species. Being in fact, the best, smartest species currently on Earth, we have raped, plundered and blundered our way of life. We need to learn to love the people who lives besides us, our neighbours and everybody else and discard inequalities, racism, laziness, greed, stupidity, and all sorts of selfish desires in us.

We need to find ways to fight poverty & sustain the environment.

Over 800 million people know what it feels like to go to bed hungry. (You can afford a computer, and an internet connection, chances are you're going to bed happy and filled. Think about the food you can finish, waste and threw, and then think about the hungry)

"The greatest single challenge facing our globalized world is to combat and eradicate its disparities"

- Nelson Mandela - (Words from an embattled man, who had to fight for the inequality of his homeland in an apartheid striken land)

The amount of humans on earth which now stands at a staggering 6.6billion strong and still growing at an incredibly rapid rate. Imagine the stress we're putting on Mother Earth.

Let's not forget how we came from. They may have been our super great ancestors after all.

Let's strive to not cause the elimination of ourselves. We need to nip inequality, but we need to save the world for the future too.

Lions: the King of the Jungle

2009-03-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I had an adventure in Lion Park which is near Fourways. Picked up Lunga and with Sher as our driver, we went for an extraordinary trip in the Lion Park. This was all after the Maropeng tour and capped a very interesting day indeed.

Once we got there, there were several spotted foxes and striped hyenas greeting our very visit. The growl, the stench and the panting. Very real indeed.

We had a late hearty lunch and then a trip into the park. Zebras and springboks, checked.

Soon after, we were looking at the cheetahs and hyenas prowling up and down in front of its' fence. The cheetahs and hyenas were a sad sight as the fact that they were just strolling up and down the same path clearly indicates that the animal is bored, stressed out due to boredom and frustration. The animal keeps walking up and down, and it really does remind how sad these animals are, trapped in an enclosure of such.

Makes me feel like hacking those fence down and set them upon zebras!! Muahaha *evil laughter

Soon after, we were on our way into the lions den. The lions walked up to us tamely, and I must say, to be so near the animal, caressing it and touching it with our bare hands, was truly memorable!

Look at how close and how many lions there is!!! I'm not sure whether you should feel lucky or not to be working as a park keeper there. I mean, come on, it's as cool as hell keeping and taking care of lions, but the constant danger of this 200-250kg beast which is wholly made to be one of the best predators on earth, with all its brute muscle, sharp fangs and claws, standing just behind you ready to swipe you head off. That's like a death sentence. Crazy cool dudes.

This was however, the last pic I've taken, as soon after i mauled by a li.....

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Just kidding. We were in a car the whole time. Check out the website : http://www.lion-park.com/

This lion was trying to open the freaking door to get to the sweet meat inside!

This is the king of the jungle, meet Mr King!

The sad reality of enclosure. It is very saddening, as much as it had been exhilarating and enthralling to see them around us in the tour round the park.

Finally I had my first kiss ever in SA. No matter how tame it was, it was quite a sight and experience to have such a beautiful, tall and elegant animal come straight, face to face of yours and giving you a beautiful wet kiss. The giraffe's tongue is long, wet and coarse as it is used to eat leaves and pull branches.

According to Leon, I was lucky the giraffe didn't decide to wrap it's tongue around my neck and just give it slight tug and I'd be history and food for the lions.

I felt extremely lucky that we met the tame and friendly giraffe whilst on our way out of the park. It was truly memorable indeed! My giraffe kiss!! :)

Africa. Here I Come!!

2009-02-26T05:24:00.000-08:00

I'm in the land of awesome wildlife Africa currently. After a long flight from KLIA with a stopover in Singapore, I've made it to Johannesburg, South Africa safe and sound. It has been a roller coaster of excitingness, sadness, happiness, adventures, lonesome and just plain work so far.

On the day of departure, 22nd of Feb, I had to rush and do some last minute packing to ensure that everything gets brought there, and sad to say, as much as I've tried my best to NOT leave anything important behind, I still left one or two pretty important stuffs behind! DAMN. With lotsa help, I finally got my ass off to try and pack and squeeze about 20kg only worth of stuffs into my 30" baggage.

Come to think about it. That's my life and that's what I'm gonna bring around with me for the next whole year everyday. Says a lot about living off your suitcase. That's my life there, in a suitcase! Can't bring too much. Can't bring too little either.

Firstly, I would like to give thanks for all the wishes that all of the people have given to me, to my girl, friends and family. Without support and help from my good friend, Duncan, I wouldn't have been here as well. Thanks again to all of you who came to send me off at the airport. It was quite an emotional farewell indeed for me.

It will be the first time I truly leave home and will be really far away in a truly foreign land for my first international work. Ek sal die beste propeer - I will try my best!! (in Afrikaans)

It has been an interesting journey to a strange land indeed. It took me a whole approximately 15 hours which was inclusive of the waiting period of the stopover in Changi, Singapore for the entire trip to Joburg.

I got a new laptop on the way courtesy to my spoilt laptop and quick action by my boss, and it was the new EliteBook which was distributed to the staffs in my old company. Nice one!

After touchdown, I had to lunge the 30" baggage and taken to Roodeport. It's jammed as hell in SA as i was caught in a morning office hour jam. Reminds me of KL!! Haha. Everybody drives here, as most people have moved from the city of Johannesburg (more popularly known in short as Joburg, click for a quick view of the map of the city) to the Roodeport which will be where I'm staying and working for the near future.

I'm currently staying in Town Lodge which is a stone's throw away from MTN SA and after taking the taxi a couple of time, I've started to walk to MTN instead. Easier, faster and a good chance for a fresh of breath air and exercise as well. Currently it's end of Feb and the autumn would be coming soon which means soon, the greeneries will turn to a lush orange and yellow colour paving way for the winter. My first 4 season!

Town Lodge is an excellent accomodation which was provided by my company. It has everything I need, water, a roof to shield the cold, a comfy bed and nice bath room as you can see from the pics I've uploaded here. It has been a comfortable abode for my stay here so far.

Food is good here. There's rice! So I can definitely survive. Needlesss to say, the main flavour here is Western food, but with lotsa food of love which was packed, I still very Malaysian indeed. Thanks Mom! :)

Work is totally new to me and I'm studying as hard as I can so that I can cope with whatever stuffs they're gonna throw in my face in the future. The one good thing has been the fact that the people have been very helpful providing me with a lot of materials as well as taking the time to explain everything to me. Very thankful for everything so far.

Generally, a great working atmosphere. There's a sense that you need to do as good as you can and the rest will fall in place. I'm looking forward to the weekend coming soon and will chill out and take the time to travel around as much as possible. Sun City and Joburg City, here I come. Hoping to catch the Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates!

The Kruger National Park is nearby and I'm hoping to learn enough of Zulu and Afrikaans language to make the trips an excellent one! Awesomeness here I come!!

I hope I will post up more pics soon of SA! Till then, Cheers Blicksen (lightning bolt)!!

Choices

2009-02-14T18:26:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been on a trip to buy something which you need lately? Perhaps you'd try to pop into a shopping mall to figure out what you'd like. For eg. what to get for your girlfriend/boyfriend for Valentine's day? You see, it's mind numbingly painful when there's so much choice in store!

You hate it when they don't have the price tag on each unit of whatever you're looking for showcased and you will have to ask the buffoon behind that table to bring out a unit and quote you an incredible price, where you'd put on a silly smirk of acknowledgement. But it's darn hard to do so with you knees clattering and shacking at the incredulity of the price.

Furthermore, your choice may be influenced by how good looking the sales person is, and often times its the one which is equipped with bosoms. I've personally never figured out why, since whether or not the sales girl is better looking or looks like an oaf, the pay is still the same, then with a given choice, choose the better looking one. The sales will go through the roof.

Perhaps it may be the extremely high tag price which comes along with the stuff you intend to buy. You get the idea that, "Yes, if I'm paying for such an exorbitantly punch-in-my-stomach price, this has to be best of best models there is!". Unfortunately, half of the time, you're dead wrong.

Take for example the Vertu Snap Dragon. This is a horrendous piece of gold candy bar phone with pretty minimal functionalities which looked like it came out from a time dimension defying dragon's arse. It's painful to look at it and exclusivity for someone to own a piece of ridiculous upper crust arrogance (stupidity!) would cost one up to a frigging $110,000.

That's painfully a choice in the wrong direction considering the fact there's so many better choices. Choices. Choices. Choices. The one thing which will ever keep you from being absolutely happy. The thought that after you've decided on this, you'd wonder, what if you took the other one. Would it have been a lot better, stylish, and lasted longer?

Which finally brings this to mind. Here's Blue Earth, a solar powered phone which looks good and from the latest feature spec'ed, would thrash the Vertu hand's down with it's ultra cool persona. It can recharge itself and thus, be used as a phone. Since solar power lasts forever, so this phone is practically for the long run! Brings a new meaning to having a handphone anywhere in the world!

Do the right thing guys! Buy something which makes sense. Save the world. That's a choice too, mind you.

Cheers!

Happy Chinese "Niu" Year 2009

2009-01-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

It's the year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac calendar, signifying a new Chinese new year, the biggest annual mass human movement in the world. It has been quite a year 2008 and 2009 promises to be a challenging one.

It's a wonder how fast time passes by, born in the 1980s, having full recollection and a time of my life in the 1990s, moving into adulthood in the 2000s, and now we'll be moving soon, headlong into 2010. So many years passed and tradition remains.

I have attended the same Chinese New Year celebrations year in and out, with my family growing ever and ever bigger. It is a very happy and tremendously fulfilling act to be able to meet all fellow family members yearly, to greet each other and find out what has been going on with each other lives. For all of you out there, "Kong Hei Fatt Choy", may you blessed with good health, prosperity and happiness.

For once, I truly understand the significance of the gathering, receiving and visiting distant, long and perhaps unheard of relatives. Family is your most precious thing which you have in hand. Never neglect them. Ever. They are the backbone of your life and represents where you came from and to a large extent, who you are.

My grandfathers' health has deteriorated for quite a bit and I wish they could stay around for as long as possible. And it begs the question, how long would be long enough? Considering the fact that we're all human, we know the end is nigh, but parting may be painful, I can only wish he finds peace in everything he's done in life, as I'm sure he will.

As for me, I have broken the news that I've recently taken on the work in Africa. It would be in a small company with the need to travel to other regions around Africa and other areas as well, if necessary.

As of now, I'm soaked in excitement, worry, sadness, hope and kinds of thoughts going through my mind, and I must admit, the one thing which would make me leave with a truly heavy heart would be my love for my girl. I will truly miss her and truly truly truly feel extremely sad, and broken hearted.

I dare not make promises for I do not have the absolute, ultimate confidence that we will be able to go through this unscathed. It may be painful and difficult and I guess I've made a mistake in not discussing through all matters before making such a big decision. I loved her lots and hope we will be able to get through this.

My current home may soon be an empty nest and I wish my parents would be able to live amiably and happily. I love my parents a lot. I love my sister, and I love my brother. From now onwards, I will love them more and show as much love as possible especially when time is short before I leave for Africa.

With all that I've said, I'd love to wish a very simple wish and a very simple hope. Just be happy. Happy Chinese New Year!

With lots of love,
Khek

What a year 2008, Hello 2009!

2008-12-31T19:10:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

What a year 2008 has been, started with quite a bang, and rolling down the hill now with the current economic recession issue. The only reason I'm writing here is due to a lovely friend who persuaded me to hell's end to push some crap here, which I take it with great honour and pride at times like this.

Well starting today, we'll have to write 2009 as the year for form entries etc etc. I used to remember getting the year wrong every time I had to fill in the work sheet's "Date:" entry during my primary school years.

Looking back 2008, it has been an incredible year throughout. It's the first year where I've truly started my work life in DiGi of all places (in case you don't know). Well, to start of with, I definitely didn't start it off with a bang, as I was tasked with taking care of the network on 2008 New Year's Eve night (as it is this year as well), probably reckon I missed the fireworks and all.

However, thank god the way i ushered in the new year wasn't the set tone of the entire year. The best things worth remembering were the incredible trips that I've been on to. I've never packed in so many places in a year before frankly speaking.

There were the exotic sandy white beaches, and clear blue seas of Pulau Perhentian, Pulau Pangkor and Bali. There was the incredible performances of World Music in Sarawak (during the Rainforest World Music Festival which delivers the best local sounds from around the world). The hectic hustle bustle of uber clean Singapore and to top it all off, a fulfillment of life dream to watch guitar rock gods of Metallica and Rage Against the Machines in Reading Rock Fest, UK.

How can I forgot all the lovely ladies that I've meet along the way this year! I had a warm and interesting dinner with the beautiful and funny Jojo Struys, had a good time in the cold weather of Reading with sexy and ludicrous Hannah Tan as well as met my lovely girl for good.

Work wise, things are gonna change for the better, (I can't quite say exactly how yet..)

I've got some resolutions for the new year of 2009. Next year, I wanna look like Daniel Craig's James Bond, love my family a lot more, read more books, drink good wine, and grow into a fine gentleman (that includes financial growth too).

Generally, I hope the world will get better soon. Stop the animosity and hatred between Palestinians and Israelites, Stop the oppresion by Mugabe, save the Earth (Go Green, cut less trees), stabilise the economy, go go Obama for USA, get sufficient support for people suffering from AIDS in Africa, and peace for all.

Let's just do good for the sake of being good, no need for religion, no need for law and political jurisdiction, no need for financial motives, no need for ulterior motives. Let's just do good.

P/S: Please do donate to Wikipedia. It's been there when you need it. Now it needs you.

Economic Recession

2008-11-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

Since the start of the economic recession, we've had so many news which are depressing, revolting and downright crushing. People are losing their jobs, wealth of millions become worthless, drop in the value of homes and the various other effects of the economy on every hardworking soul.

From what we're seeing, government seems to be the last resort when handling all matters of emergency demands, such as the need for the bailouts of large corporations which are failing. Currently automakers in the US are requesting for the help of the US Government to provide them with 25 billion US$ to weather the storm. So was the previous 700 billion US$ pumped earlier a couple of months ago to prop up the economy and save failing banks and financial groups. Various other governments around the world intervening their markets to help support and shield the gloom and doom of the current crash.

The trend that we're seeing of late is that the Giant companies cannot fail. All these companies which made hundreds of millions and billions in revenue during the good times seems impervious to failing. They have grown too big to fail, too massive, too expansive throughout their economy that they CANNOT fail, for if they fail, all the micro businesses which are attached to them will fail as well, and with it the economy and the rest of the structure.

Why are governments pouring money into these companies where in the first place the movement of money and pricing of stocks are supposed to be controlled and determined by the market? Why do governments have to pour more money into companies which have clearly been shunned by the market, de-capitalize it and now the government are paying hard earn citizen's taxes to prop them up? Is it not the job of the market to capitalize them in the first place?

In short, since the start of capitalism, the ideology was for the best product, best service and the best idea to be rewarded with bountiful wealth. The market forces determines who or which entity should receive the support of the market. Thus, everybody are motivated to improve every aspect of the product they're offering. The winners are the ones who innovate and change best.

Unfortunately, in the act of bailing out large corporations which are failing, governments have in short, like dictators, chosen the winners and losers for us all. Who's to say the small growing enterprising company by that street which have been affected by this economic recession should fail, and then billions are poured to save the large corporations.

If should the government help and bailout these companies, what are the guarantees that these companies shall return to favor to the government and it's people. To what length shall the amount of help be offered as there too is limits to a government's coffers and financial reserves to save these companies.

You see, there are so many problems which has brought to this scenario of the world that we're in today. An over-expansion of corporations without care for the limits of their credits, the weak structure of governing such credits and over-expansion and the problem of the emotional investors in the global stock market, over dependency on black gold, oil, problematic accounting problems and so many other factors involved.

There are no short cuts to the cure of this problem. Perhaps we will need the Great Depression to befall on us again (of course, i would wish for it to never happen in my lifetime) to teach us how to handle and grow our burgeoning economy, to feed our Earth's ever growing population.

Perhaps it is time for us to tighten our belts, strap on the suspenders, and strain our muscles to pound our way through these time of gloom.

Yes, we can

2008-11-10T00:27:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to USA president elect Barrack Obama. A truly inspirational victory and a vision even President Abraham Lincoln who fought for the blacks and equality to all beings of the United States of America would've been extremely proud to see the most powerful man being elected and being selected for his character and steed instead of the colour of his/her skin.

A chance to bring change to the world is now in his hands, and the eerie hair standing rousing cries of Americans, "Yes we can!!" for once actually makes you believe that change is truly possible.

You see, the one thing which is truly difficult to accept and swallow is the word "change" and the repercussions that comes with it. One has to be always kept on the toes, ready to accept the fact that change is necessary to ensure that we're always on the top.

Then, there goes 2 things which comes with changes. First thing about change, would have to be the creativity in change. The more creative we are in making our changes, the more satisfying and thoughtful change will be. Secondly, it'll have to be the act of change itself which is what is at stake. The planning, the execution and review of change has to be implemented with rigorousness and perseverance.

Change is uncomfortable. Why the sudden need to change? Because change is the one thing constant. Because time is passing by us and if we don't change. We get left behind. The change I am asking out of all of us, dear readers, is a change of our mentality and our hearts. I'm addressing this issue of change not for economic greed or betterment of our well being.

Rather, the topic I am addressing today, would be, our Earth. It's time to change our way of thinking, the way we eat, the way we live, and the way we treat each other. We're feeling the heat of our climate change. The increase of perilous acts of nature, such as hurricanes, desertification, climate change and tsunamis are clear testaments of the effects of our actions on Mother Earth.

You see. You and I, we're just humans. We've only existed on this planet for the last 300,000 years, but, do bear in mind that the planet has existed for the past 4.6 billion years ago. If anything disastrous which is ever gonna happen to wipe out any single living thing on Earth actually happens, we're gonna be gone. Not the planet. Who're we kidding? Even cockroaches have a higher chance of surviving rather than us.

Take a look at the picture on the right. This is our resplendent Earth. This picture was a beautiful picture taken during the flight of Apollo 17 and you could clearly see the vast blue oceans and swirling white clouds. The African continent is also highly visible along with it's brown desert and white Antartic ice shelf. This picture is considered one of the most magnificient picture of Earth ever taken and has been used countless of times since to represent Earth as we talk about.

This is the planet we live in and it's a beautiful place. Some people call it heaven, some people call it hell. But heaven or hell, it's a place we live in. And this place doesn't belong to us only. As humble and benevolent as it has been an abode for our forefathers and ancestors, and down the generations, to us, it will also be there for our kids in the future. It will be there for their kids and their kids' kids. So we do not own the Earth, we're merely safeguarding it before we pass it on to our procreations.

Once upon a time, we launched a tiny probe known as Voyager 1 into space to travel further from Earth than any Man-made machines we've ever made. At approximately 4 billion miles away, the scientists who sent this probe to space decided to turn the probe around and snap a picture of our planet from afar. Just to see how does it look like from quite a distance. Thus, we get the photo on our left, which is Earth, a view as seen by Voyager 1 at a distance of 4 billion miles.

The astronomer and author Carl Sagan gave a talk that year where he said. “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam”.

This brings to focus, how delicate our existence is. Our "everyday life" is all summed up in this tiny fragile and precious little blue planet. You see, this pale blue dot? That's a miracle.

Just a simple thought for us all to ponder.

Can we save it? Yes, we can.

Dandelion

2008-11-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

It's a fine day today. A small tiny fledgling dandelion was stuck at the edge of an unbeknown box. Like a tiny dust, you wonder how did it get here and how it's fortunes have blown it to where it is. What next? Where to? Always worrying about the future endlessly and incessantly.

One thing's true however. Unlike the dandelion, we on the other hand, as humans, have the 2 choices. To choose our destiny or have our destiny chosen for us. The difference between both is simply the amount of effort to mold and sculpt our end. The funny thing is, in order to reach our end, we often forget to enjoy the journey itself.

I'm reviving the blog. I know what I want, and i hope the road towards it is a joie de vivre! Welcome to a beautiful life.

An Advice

2007-07-07T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt taken from one my heroes, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who not only single handedly made Apple from a simple garage based business into a multi-millionaire company with a base in the Silicon Valley, got fired, and came back with a vengeance. His visions are exemplary and of course, it resulted in various beautiful "man made machines" such as the easy and sleek iPod, the beautiful and powerful iMacs as well as the uber sexy iPhones.

I hope you read the next few lines with great intensity and keep them in your mind and never forget about it.

First excerpt:

"Sometimes life can hit you in the head with a brick, Don't lose faith

I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was I love what I did, you've gotta find what you love and that is true about for your work and as it is for your lovers

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied, is to do what you believe is great work and the only way to do great work is to love what you do, if you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle

as with all matters with the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship, it gets better and better, so keep looking and don't settle."

Second excerpt:

"No one wants to die, even people who wanna go to heaven dun wanna die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share.

No one has ever escaped it, and that is as it should be, because death is the very likely the very single very best invention of life, its life's change agent. It clears out the old and makes way for the new. Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old, and be cleared away.

Sorry to be so dramatic, but its quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it by living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is results of other people's thinking.

Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important,have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know, what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

and me myself? I'm still searching, and I hope you've found yours too, and if you haven't, i hope you'll find it someday. Good luck. :)

Dilemma

2007-07-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a year and a half plus. Now, I've graduated, this blog truly is a reminder of how quick time pass by us. I guess by now, most of my friends who used to read this blog must've forgotten about this cobweb ridden, dust riddled blog. Alas, what I must admit, the problem with blogs has always been having nothing to write when u happen to want to write it, unless of course, when you don't wanna write, you happen to be brimming with lots of issues to share.

Anyway, here comes the story of my life, cut to the chase, I'm currently faced with several paths to choose, as I begin my first steps into real adulthood with proper financial responsibilities etc, and I must say, it's a big daunting, to the point where i often feel myself reminiscing the times where I use to be a pimply "Semi Charmed Life" teenager.

My choices, should I choose to accept anyone of them, I've made my mind to adopt the "Accomplish, or do not begin" mantra and do my best in whatever endeavors I subject myself to.

Firstly, the most exciting and interesting choice is to further my previous Final Year Project (FYP) to commercialize it and bring it into reality. For those of you in the dark, my project is an Exercise Bike Game Machine which is basically a module which connects a custom exercise bike to a PC and lets the user play games, giving us the benefit of FUN and EXERCISE.

Recently, my project with the help of my mates won the Shell Innovation Award which of course meant that my project can be considered the best in the entire MMU, though, i must say, it was more because of a showy presentation and a simple idea to grasp for the judges, that they must've thought we did something really cool to deserve it.

Me and my former FYP supervisor, Simon, are currently pursuing a pre-seed funding program and also the project has been entered into the APICTA awards, and hopefully, it would garner the attention needed and get ourselves some businessmen to work and commercialize the project.

Secondly, I've the option to accept a sales engineering position which could of course be exciting working on various projects which involves sales and dealing with people, meaning, I can push my people skills and hopefully it would mean that I could learn something from sales, as I believe that sales is one of the best ways to enrich a person, whether financially or character wise.

Thirdly, I've also had the option to accept a Research Officer (RO) position with a lecturer in MMU to work on a "Smart Home" sort of project/title and also further my studies with a Master program for free. I must say, that this is an equally viable choice as it may allow me more time to pursue my first option.

Fourthly and lastly, I may also have the option to work on a more technical position of engineering thus allowing me to pursue a more professional engineering career, probably obtaining more knowledge of industrial relevance.

Which road to choose? Which path to trod? I've chosen to work on option 1, but preferably working on it at the same time with one of the other 3 options, but whether how would it turn out, I truly do not know. I have various fears in me, yet I know that I can't show it because I need to show my stronger side to make sure that people believe in me, and I truly wonder how would I make my decision.

sighs.

sighs.

sighs.

I would probably talk more regarding my choices, my progress and my resolution, hopefully, on my next post. This blog would be a small document of my life, my progress as a fledgling engineer and young man, hopefully progressing to a successful person surrounded with people who matters in life. Hopefully, it may serve as a compass, a pointing guide to myself and maybe some souls who may be reading this, to always look onto the things which matters in life, and work towards it with great vigor, determination and hope.

Currently listening to:

Tracy Chapman - Fast Car : Listen to the lyrics, funny how some people are willing to do crazy stuffs to do what they need to, and why is it we often delegate, procrastinate and hide ourselves in the safety of a net we create of ourselves? Maybe we need to suffer to truly prosper.

Word of the day:

acclimate \uh-KLY-mit; AK-luh-mayt\, transitive and intransitive verb:

To accustom or become accustomed to a new climate, environment, or situation.

Have you ever wondered?

2006-01-09T15:45:00.000-08:00

Relationships like marriage is so tough, that an incredible man like Nelson Mandela got a divorce. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in a South African prison, got beaten and tortured every day for 27 years and did it with no freaking problem. He had to do hard labour under hot South African heat for 27 years and did with no problem. He got out of jail after 27 years of torture, spent 6 month with his wife and said "I can't take this shit no more".

The Letter

2005-07-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

Dear girl,
............................................

I tried putting myself in your shoes, in your mind, to question all that I’ve done, was it right or wrong? Was it good or bad? The answer was to be, there were no rights or wrongs, nor good or bad, there’s no black and white answer, and everything lies in a shade of grey. You look for a Man and King of your heart, your home, and your love.

You looked for a Man who would take care of you, and love you forever, for as of now you are young and lovely, like the bud of a flowering rose, but the rose may fade, from your soft young cheeks, and you wonder if he will love you during the mid autumn’s falling leaves, as he did during the blossoming flowers of May.

You question the depth of his heart for you, is it deeper than the deepest ocean, taller than the tallest tree, when seas go rough and whether he’ll let his sail free and be there for you. You question the honesty and truthfulness in him, and as they say, a loving woman finds heaven or hell, on the day she’s made a bride.

These are a woman’s questions to the Man, who has to be true, each and every feeling, tinge of hair, and every part of him, of whom, you would stake your life to be all he’s demanded of you. These are your questions, your demands, your rights, for a Man to win a woman’s good, good heart, a woman’s life, and a woman’s love.

............................

The end

*This is a tribute to all woman in the world, the right to love the right person and be loved equally in return*

A Story

2005-06-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in the ancient times, God gave us all Men, 2 sacks. One sack was a sack which contained all of our faults, and the other is a sack which contained other people's faults.

Now, they're all given a stick to hang the 2 sacks at each end of the stick and carry it by their shoulders. All men, carried their sack with the one containing their faults at the back whilst the other one, they carried it in the front. Thus, at the end of the day, all men could only see all the other people's faults and the faults on other people's back! Thus, unknowingly, it has come to all men that, they often find faults in every other people but themselves.

To be a true man, is to be able to see past other people's faults, forgive them, and turn the sack around to see our own faults, realise the mistakes, and make amends. I hope that, when in times of hardship, or arguments, I can be able to see from a bigger picture, and not fault others for the failure, and displeasure of others, but dig deep down within me, to right whatever fault in me, conjure a little magic and miracle to shine and and make every thing right again.

One of the best ways to do so, is a big beautiful smile, which never fails to brighten another person's day, a dollop of sweet, kind, words, and a warm hug to make the anger/ bitterness /sadness/ frustration dissapear. For me, to make another someone happy, is to make just one someone happy, and you will be happy too.

Musical Baton Olympics

2005-06-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

Wonderful topic to touch on, but I'll just be skimming through the tip of the iceberg with a small post like this, thank Weyl for ur baton, haha.. malas to write stuffs, but I'm passionate about music man! It never fails to cheer me up when I'm down, intensify all experience in life, what's drama without that brooding, sinister song playing in the backgroud right? Now, if only I can have the right songs at the right moment in my life! :)

Total volume of music files on my computer: 5.5GB and increasing...Very sayang to delete 'em, and you could say, this is after finding and deleting those lousy songs already..

The last CD I bought: Josh Groban

Song playing right now: Michael Buble-Home

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

Comfortable - John Mayer (for those in and out of love, the words, so beautiful it takes your breathe away)
Lose Yourself - Eminem (capture the moments, squeeze them, hold them and don't let them go)
Master of Puppets - Metallica (when you're pissed off..)
Solitaire - Clay Aiken
Changes - Tupac (that's the way it is..)

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton:

Tiffy [i'll be surprised with her choice, summore got a guitarist bf..]
Patty
Gilly [...]
Gerald [if, you still update your bloggie.. ]
Weyl[can't think of anybody else, can loop it back ka?]

P/S: To my dearest friends i.e. the 5 people mentioned above; to "receive" the baton, copy and paste my post then replace the words in red with your own answer =) <==hah, din even change these words, see what i mean by lazy?

Infidelity

2005-05-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Recently, going through a patch in my life, has made me question a lot of things about life, reduced my incredible optimism and positive outlook towards life. Thinking, and thinking, and thinking, just to find out that thinking alone doesn’t get things done, because thinking is just like pouring water into a bucket. Once the bucket gets full, it will overflow and waste away. We need to get it the plants, water it, nourish it and let it grow.

The truth is, in every relationship (my theory) shouldn’t be based on just the feelings on love alone. It is a combination of so many things, like cooking, and to make a good food, we need the right mixture of ingredients, just the right amount of spice, and everything nice, all mixed in together or separately, at the right time and the end result would be tantalisingly wonderful. The problem is, most of us do not know the a, b and c’s in doing so, thus with all of us ending up in relationships which just decimates us, fails us, dissapoints us, and although we’d just carry on, wouldn’t we want to get it right the first time round?

The truth is, “veritas”, truth, is the most important thing in a relationship. Everything has to be built on truth, honesty, trust, and every other word which has the slightest synonymity with it. In cooking, truth would be the main course of the dinner, lust/love would be the starter, and happiness would be the desert. There wouldn’t be tv shows/series if every character in the show spoke the truth and only the truth. The newspaper pages would be filled with nothing if everybody in the world speaks the truth, if all the news articles which contains the slightest amount of untruth were to be removed. It’s a forbidden word. Truth.

Look at the statistics of people who divorced in the US of A, almost 50% of the adults were divorced at least once in their life. Watch the television shows on tv nowadays, it feels like divorce is a normal thing. Listen to stories of cheating husband and wives from your neighbours and relatives. Read the uncle and aunt agony collumn in your local newspaper, and be amused by the stories of infidelity which comes by. Why is that so? Because they were betrayed? Lied to? Played by? A relationship has to be built on trust, and the only way to keep it strong is to nurture it with truth, and with truth comes the rest of things in life, like love, and happiness. Why do we play ourselves into this game of relationship although we know that it would end in a split up? Bare all your thoughts, your feelings out to the one you care the most. Let them know everything, and in return, they’ll let you know everything. When everything is as clear as day, you can just sit down and enjoy the clear blue sky.

Although it seems that thought like these are really just utopian thoughts, things which could happen, theoretically, but not realistically, my only complain, is that nobody in the world is trying hard enough. Why get into a relationship when you’re not sure of the other person? Do so only if you have enough trust in you to believe the other person. Never let a single seed of jealousy, lie, and distrust be planted in it. It will grow, and grow, and you will never know 10-20 years down the line, whether you could ask “that” question, or if he/she would ever do the mistake again, and with so much of jealousy and distrust in you, you’d just try to bear with it, knowing that asking, by then would be too late, it would crumble the entire thing that you’ve built so far, the past 10-20 years that might have been all a lie. Think about the possibility that all the years that you’ve lived by had been a lie, a fake, just like when Truman wakes up to find what his life really is 30-40 years after he was born in the movie “The Truman Show”. A lie.

I beg and I plead today, to all and everyone of you who are in a relationship now, and those are going to be in one, to always take truth and honesty, and put yourself up to the highest challenge of all, to deal with it, so that we would all have a beautiful, straight, garbageless, unobstructed channel of conversation and communication with each other. When that happens, you would be able to truly take in every single word the other person said, as it is, so beautiful as ever.

As a note, recently, I’ve met someone who is really special in a sense, and if you’ve watched “Spanglish”, you’d perhaps understand what I’m about to put into words. In the movie “Spanglish”, the spanish lady’s english is hardly mediocre, only capable of the simplest vocabularies, and if you’ve actually put some thoughts into it, you’d find that when she argued, in the movie, like small kids of 3 or 4 years, who just got hold of the language, it is the most beautiful thing ever, the truth, the sincerity and the honesty in each and every word and sentence in all it’s glory. They used the simplest, words, and unlike mine which might have flair, it holds so much more beauty in it, because you know, it’s the truth.

Sometimes, I’m jealous at people for being able to do so. People like me tend to make statements, which sometimes, make the beautiful, ugly and the ugly, beautiful, and when I listen to simple words uttered by “these” people, they make so much of an impression, and feeling in me, that I’m so touched by the honesty and beauty in them. It makes me feel like a person who’s twisted and turn words to make things sound better than it really is, and that itself has made it the untruth.

I shall try, to uphold the truth, and I hope that everybody else does too, with me, being here, pouring everything out, at frustration of failed/failing relationships (not me), cheating, and lyings that’s happening all around me. This came from the depths of my heart, and it’s dying to be heard, and it’s for everybody out there who believes in the truth.

-In Vino Veritas (In wine, there is truth)-

What does I do during holidays?

2005-05-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

I is more than one week holidays. For celebrate, I posting here how spend holidays by me. The first thing I does is...

HOME
Every day, I wakes up and is crappy. It is 11am morning. Some people is jealous, I know..because I can wakes up what time I wants. For breakfast, i drinks a oranguiuse and milk and some biscuits. For lunch and dinner, bored people like me is eating rice and egg and chicken and vegetables. I waits for futball and kicks some arse. Me English is bad cause I is no practise long time. Pardon me.

What does I do during holidays? The answer is: I don't know

I will always remember..

2005-04-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

Malaysia is indeed beautiful. Just went to Sarawak for the holidays from the 18th of April till the 22nd, and it was splendid! But one word sums it all up, tiring. I was so dead tired and exhausted at the end of the trip, but it was a very beautiful one none the less. Especially considering the fact that I've got friends as beautiful as hansing and all the other wonderful people to go along as well. With such great company, you just can't ask for more, or can you?

Anyway, it was really packed with activities.The entire committee spent months and months to squeeze every single fun out of the hours we can have over there. Because of that, everything's such a rush and daze as well. I just didn't have the right amount of sleep and rest to really take in everything into my mind, and it's still processing right now in my head. I will always remember everything, us, committees put in for this wonderful trip

So, back to the trip. It wasn't really Sarawak, but more of Kuching, a city which is just as beautiful as the KL. Of course, one of the most exciting aspects of the trip was the fact that Ii'll be flying first time. Imagine having 12000 bhp of of power, 2 of them!! underneath the 2 wings of the plane to provide the thrust, the G forces pressing into your arse and the dizzyingly beautiful cotton white clouds you see when you get into the sky. It was a magnificient sight to behold and for a first time experience, like that, it was darn good, although the guy who sat beside me was complaining how sucky Air Asia was compared to the other airlines, he probably just didn't understand how is it like for the "first time feeling". I will always remember the first time I flied and soared in the air.

The first stop was a boring stop in First Silicon. Boring, boring, boring, nothing to say about it, then it was back to the hotel. One thing you realised when you go to Kuching would be the roundabouts, as a Canadian would probably call 'em "roondaboots". There's a lot of them. It just adds to the charm and warmth of the city,so unlike KL's flashing traffic lights. Then, after 7pm, there's practically nothing to do at all at night, besides eating. The street lamps which light the streets just gives it a mellowy calm effect, reflection of the large round moon on the river which captures the heart. I will always remember Kuching and it's loveliness.

Never the less, I took to my own venturing in the middle of the night, and stumbled upon some "ah kuas" (ah kuas are tranvestites of the uninformed), I'm sure they were who I think they were! Imagine walking along the street, and having them calling up to you, and they're wearing all sorts of body revealing, sexy dress. Scares the hell out of you. My hair at the back of my head were standing and I just took wrong turn, and had to pass them again. They whistled to me and started walking towards me. I just pretended I didn't look at them and walked as quickly as possible away from them, in hope that they don't rape me. I will always remember the dark beautiful secret of Kuching's heart.

Second day in the Bako National Park was fun as well, and it was very tiring. We just climbed and hiked the forest taking in the scenery, the chirping of the birds, and of course, the sound of the sea crashing into the shore. It felt like paradise when we finally reached our destination of hiking, as the sand was soft and white, there were branches of tree here and there, the lazy swaying of the palm trees in the breeze, it was picturesque perfect. I will always remember the smell, the sound, and the sight with unparallel beauty

Of course, the best part is yet to come. The final stop was at the Damai Lagoon hotel, and I'm already vomiting superlatives when I'm just 5 minutes into the place. The atmosphere envelopes you into this blanket of magic. Me and friends just enjoyed the seaside, the wind and wildlife caught in my hair when we took the sail boat, the beach footie, the crunching sea waves, collection of sea shells and hermit crabs. I will always remember, the poor hermit making the "tock tock" sound when I threw it into hansing's bathroom

I would like to thank hansing for her company of course, I've never spent so much time together and it felt nice, and it was perhaps a farewell to her as I probably wouldn't be able to see her for the next 7 months that often anymore. But then again, great distances can be bridged with small stones. I will feature the pictures from these wonderful place when I can get my hands on them. They're beautiful and I will do what it takes to share such a beauty with you all. I will always remember the great company we all had, and may we always be together.

Now, these days feel like such a bore, and dry compared to the 4 day trip. It felt like a trip to heaven for awhile and back. Everything's burnt into the back of my mind and it will be an experience, as timeless as love, and I end it all with "I will always remember.."

End of another year

2005-04-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

As of right now, I'm busy packing my things, putting them into boxes and so on to be brought back home. It's the end of another academic year. The end of my second year in university, the end of my gamma year. Time just wheezes past you just like that. We can only reminiscence the good times that have happened through the year.

As you go on, you ask yourself, how did you do this year? You need to realise that who you are today is what you did 5 years ago, and you need to bear in mind that what you're doing now will determine who you 5 years later, and, what might that be? Only you can decide.

I don't know why I'm writing in this way, but it's the sudden melancholic feeling which hits you whenever you finally take time off from whatever you do in life, like while you're working, cleaning, busying and so on and just pause for a thought. You think about everything, and all that you've done especially when it comes a time of certain importance of your life where you need a reviewing about how've you done in life.

And the worst of all, during these bouts of "heavy thinking", we tend to be depressed as we scan over avhievements and compared it with what we wanted to achieve. we would feel more miserable and useless, and some would just succumb to it.

In the end of the day, all we need, is a bottle of cold beer/beverages, a nice beautiful weather with wonderful scenery to walk in, and just stop the thinking. Just stop. Saviour the moment and take a deep breathe. No matter how bad things are gonna get, it won't get worse. The air of the fresh rain, warm smell of honeybees penetrates the sinuses, the cool air or warm breeze, let all of these wonders of nature tingle and mingle you senses, and make you feel alive again.

Then, in the thought process, refocus, refocus, reboot, reboot, and after all the thinking, just do it. Once you've made a proper and sane decision , everything would fall in place and the world start spinning again.

This post is just reminder to all of you out there, who thinks that as life gets so fast, so suffocating, so hard, so tough. Just stop a moment and remember this words, "This too, shall pass". Thank you for your time. They're all in your hands now.

Song of the moment: Hillsong - Still

Bread, essential food for life, DoTA, essential carnal mental pleasure

2005-03-02T07:45:00.000-08:00

I took up a great opportunity lately to join a trip with my French Club to learn how to make bread. As always, I woke up late again, just like the previous trip to Bukit Tinggi, luckily I didn't make them wait for half an hour last time. What happened to "being late is being fashionable?" Reached somewhere in PJ, and it's in this place called Malaysian Institute of Baking.

The place is nice and cool. They've got like so many 15" LCD screen monitors (for what??.. since when you bake cakes with computers?.. I ain't eating a virtual cake, let's make it for real baby!) in this computer room, and since they're so compact and not-eye-straining (Read: My CRT monitor is killing my eyes!!!) , I dreamt that I stuffed one in my pants and am using it now. The atmosphere is excellent for not just making cakes, but also eating cakes, I'm sure.

Anyway, it was an incredible trip worth spending my money and time on! We learned how to bake a brioche (some kinda bread), apple struddels as well as making fruit flan cakes. We had a wise tutor in a Mr Dong Yong (or something like that.. ) who taught us the magic in making the good bread/cakes. He makes things sound so simple and easy, and now i know why that donut my maid made tasted like a brick and looked more like a cellotape rather than a donut He shared interesting stories and experiences about his trip when he was in Paris. I liked the story about President butter..hehe..

Although we kinda skipped lunch, we weren't hungry as we kept munching on nuts and stuffs which was supposed to go into the cake.. It's a sad thing that there were only 3 guys in the entire troupe which consisted of about erm.. 20++ ppl? Celine was unlucky to get grouped with the guys, we would've smeared cake all over her face., if...if,.. *nasty thoughts censored* Oh and did you know that most top chefs in the world are men? What happened to women power??

We made deliciously rich apple struddels, with lotsa lotsa nuts, all sorts of nuts, almonds, and uh, i don't know what the rest of the nuts were called, but nuts they were. They say, you are what you eat, and if you eat nuts, you must be nuts. We piled on the apple slices like mountains and slather butter oh so richly on the skin and wrap 'em all up, and just stuffed it into the oven.

Fruit flan was phantastic, instead of the normal fruity flan, we decided to decorate it with (what else?!?!..) nuts as well, i just lurrrrve the nuts, they give you an absolute high. No wonder they're in chocolates as well, nasty little thaaaannggg... hi hi hiiiii...*whoops..

Regarding food and obsession of girls trying to keep fit, here's quote from me meself,

"aduhai...enjoy life..

please don't be idiotic, thin girls are as attractive as houseflies. I wanna fat babe, I want a gf I can share my super size meal with, I wanna girl I can enjoy a great dinner with and not order "just salad please.." I wanna girl I can spend time with, not her doing tae-bo or tae-chi

I want more of Catherine Zeta Jones (voluptuously sexy), NOT Sarah Michelle Gellar (praying mantis) I want more of Bridget Jones, not Elektra, they embody more of the real people, not fake, Holly-wised, thin, breast-enlarged girls..

thank you all for the natural girls god has given us, why change them ;) "

Aaaah..and finally DoTA (Defense of The Ancients), the hottest version of the Warcraft III: Frozen Throne game lately. Absolutely fantastic for multiplayers and for those who haven't played it, please don't. It's like weed, once you've started, you can't stop.

I have a liking for the Nerubian Assassin (a hero character out of dozens in the game..). Firstly, the name kicks ass, and secondly, it looks like a scarab, which kicks ass too. Now, with it's capability to go invisible and literally kick another hero's ass, without him knowing, and after knowing it, it's too late. Sure, it hurts, but it's too late.

My roommate's a pro in this game, plays like a zombie, wakes up, plays the game, from start of the afternoon till dawn comes, then sleeping again. Jealous of his incredible life? Try being me, sitting right beside him watching him play while having a sucky com where you can't play and assignments and work amounting. Oh, more on my roommie next time, nice fella i tell ya.

Errm.. please listen to Song of the Year, :Daughters" by John Mayer. He absolutely rocks. I might have to turn into a gay/transvestite to worship him, just kidding.

Hopefully more to come, poor bloggie, so much to say, and after all that's been said and done, more is being said than done..

A Breath of Air

2005-02-28T16:00:00.000-08:00

Aaah... Finally, back to blogging, Wey Ling inspires me to write a new post. The previous post is such a cheating one (just to post..). I've got an exam later, and of all time, now?...Lack of discipline, but I'll make it a short, sweet one.

What' been up everyone? My new year, is GREAaaatt. I love this year, and it's exciting and enjoying and I keep seeing brighter things coming up, (as well as the gloom and doom). Chinese New Year was great as well, and for once, boy, am I actually proud of my chinese heritage and my family. Will blog more on this later...

It's like an entirely new outlook of life. I've met lotsa new people and none can still beat the feeling of meeting a special someone.

Finally of course, I woke early this morning to find myself among the most voted E-King for the upcoming prom nite, and I'm having butteflies in my stomach now, there's this part of me which wants to become E-King and there's this other part which will plain embarass me and I so so wanna run from this all. Argggh.. worry about that later, Maths IV now, more updates soon, I hope.... till then, I'll continue with my Empire of Dirt (more on that next time too..)

Song of the moment: John Mayer -Daughters (Fathers be good to your daughters, Daughter will love like you do, Girls become lovers who turn into mothers, So mother love your daughters, too)

blink

2005-01-12T11:03:00.000-08:00

*wink*

Of phlegm and running nose..

2004-12-20T05:15:00.000-08:00

Aaaargghh.. I hate it when I fall sick. Especially during holidays. I was made to feel like a slug, just bumming around sitting cause I'm just so drained out of energy and life in me. I definitely have my sis to thank for passing her diarrhea and fever to me. I hate being kind, see what happens, you get stabbed in the back ( not that she wanted it though)

During the entire course of diarrhea, as a matter of fact, I found it quite, errm..the right word, would be detoxifying, just like those where u go for detox camp and they feed you with "clean food" so that your body could detoxify. My advice, just get some diarrhea, you'll purge all the shit out of the system, you lose the appetite to eat, not to mention, you get a good reason to just hang out and bum around in the house without having your mom kicking your arse all the time asking you to be useful, since you're just so pitiful, and it's free.

The difference between having diarrhea and when you're not includes, peeing from your arseh*le instead of your front. When you're having diarrhea, you finally drink the recommended 8 glasses of water, when you're not, you drink 8 glasses of hard liquor.

Thus, due to such unforeseen circumstances, I wasn't able to keep to my promise of keeping up to shape as well as learning cooking during the holidays. This holiday sucks. Okies, enough of complaining and ranting, back to work. x-(

More meaningful blog next time. Merry Christmas to all of you out there, and of course, a Happy New Year as well.

Post-Mortar

2004-11-28T09:39:00.000-08:00

The dust has finally settled, the mortars and shells has finally stopped pounding and it's de-stressing period with the holidays. I'd love to say that I started my holidays with a bright note, gone to catch lotsa new movies, caught up with friends and just plain hanging around.

I find holidays quite boring at times, having to plan how to fill it up, and sometimes it gets even more stressful than a normal day of class. You need to take into account your financial condition, and timing and so on. So, unless you've planned your holidays early, then you're probably not gonna enjoy ur tiringly boring holidays too much

Hmm, so here goes my plans for my holidays,
1. Learn cooking, girls love guys who can cook, and I think I'm gonna win their heart through their stomaches ;)

2. Get back in shape, and grow those abs like in the commercials.(I"m a whopping overweight pig now)

and of course, just live life to the fullest I can. Can't wait for the Ozzies to be back!

If you're reading this...

2004-11-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

1) ...and you're a MMU student, shuuu..shuu..go study.

2)...and you're NOT a MMU student, there ain't nothing to blog about either, life got quite interesting lately, but then again...

"EGG SHAMS" always puts a mood dampener in all of us, I wanna get through this exam better than the others, but it always ended up with me having no mood, like a runner who've expended all his energy early in the race, and when it comes to the most important part, nearing the finishing line, he's all worn out, tired and burnt out. Absolutely shucks...

It's just like going through the motions, exams in MMU comes so frequently they lack the ability to inspire the sense of urgency anymore, unlike when we were in secondary school where we had tremendous pressure over the SPM and PMR and the shittiest thing is that, after the finals, you'll really regret cause you knew that you could've done better for your preparation like, not updating this blog in the first place?!?! Later on, you'll find that your mediocrity in the exams will pile up and cause a very bad looking CGPA number.

All in all, wish me luck, exams suck...

Good luck to all of you out there, and have a great time studying, yeah right...

song of the moment: Ray Charles with Norah Jones- Here We Go Again (inspired by the movie Ray, i'm sure it's a lovely movie, blacks, jazz and sex, what more do u want? ;) )

Lost in space

2004-11-11T01:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I get tired, of this me-first attitude. You are the one thing that keeps me smiling and that's why I' all the way wishing hard for you cause, sometimes, when your light shines, it shines so bright, I don't feel no solitude. You're my first star at night and I'd be lost in space without you and i can't wait till we touch the skies of heaven, just me and you.

La Club Français

2004-10-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

As of right now, I'm blogging in an empty air conditioned lecture room. It's a great escape from the hot and humid weather (my room feels like a microwave oven) these days. Thus, it has been a few days since the rabbit incident. My blog on the rabbit, I sent it to my Engineering Society's (EngSoc) newsletter editor and surprisingly, it got published. I preferred to remain anonymous because i fear that the owner of the rabbit will find out what i did to the rabbit.

Anyway, my midterms are just over. It was the toughest mid term I've ever been to. It was ridiculously tough and difficult that I'm laughing at myself and feeling all sorry for myself. Ironically, for once in my lifetime, I actually prepared so hard for a midterm paper (Physical Electronics, more like Physical Exhaustion) , at least 3-4 days of total concentration studying for it and I'm sure I would've done the same had i not studied for the past 3-4 days as well.

Last weekend, I went on a trip organized by the Club de Francais of my campus to mini-France of Malaysia, which really is Bukit Tinggi, and it's called Tropicale del Colmar which is really a copy of the one in Alsace, France. It was an absolutely great experience hanging out with friends. Visited the Japanese tea house and botanical gardens which was really breathtaking. My friend gave a very detailed explanation of as much flowers as he could. The greeneries and the flora and fauna is a real soothing change and relief from the brick city which we're living it. I was just soaking into the atmosphere and calmness of the forest.

Later on, it was lunch with the rest of the gang. Me, noisy William, eccentric Calvin and gorgeous Celine had an incredible lunch and an incredible discussion. The food is erm....very Malaysian, I had expected a much more French-ised food (if there's such a word) to savour and fill my hungy grumbling stomach. The food, aaaah...we just tucked into everything we could take it in, from the sauce dripping Lamb chops to the steamy exotically soury spaghetti (though ain't as god as original Italian one's with delicious meatballs). The pastries and delicacies were a real icing to the cake and after such an incredible fest of glutton, i relish a trip back to Saisake!!!

After that, just hung around.. watching a magic show and of course! Swans!! I bet they're the most beautiful creatur on earth. Later on, snap snap snap, pics pics and more pics, and I'm sorry I have none to show them to you hear, cause I can't bother to take the trouble to upload them here.

After that, we went to the rabbit park, which of course.. *ahem refering to my previous blog, just confirms my status with rabbits when I took a particular white albino rabbit, for a couple of swings, and it lied dead just like that, scaring the bejesus out of me. It's not that I hate them, but it seems that misfortune often befalls on me (or rather, them..) when i came in contact with one of these creatures. Asses and deers were the other entertainment animals of our sadistic nature in that rabbit farm.

Finally, I had an awful ride back to campus when I had to hold onto my searingly painful bladder throughout the entire journey when everybody else in the bus is sleeping soundly and happily. Self relieve was one of the best feelings ever after such a horrible ride.

Finally of course, I'm here updating my blog, after going through 2 days with just about 2 hours of sleep and I've gotta complete my assignments now, thus off I shall go to the library soon. I have priviledge to represent my university again in the GACC (Grand Asian Chess Challenge) which will just sap all the energy out of me. Till then, i shall bid all of you a good day, A bientot !! :)

song of the moment is of course: Nocturne in E Minor.

A furry experience

2004-10-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Lately, I had the chance to experience living with a rabbit. A friend of mine decided to leave her rabbit in my possession while she leaves for her home sweet hometown. Thus on that fateful day, after I received the rabbit, the (mis)adventures began.

A rabbit is probably one of the cutest animals around on earth. It makes no irritating noise; it has no sharp carnivorous teeth, nor any ugly defects. It is simply cute. Boys and girls love them. You could just watch and see who's that mischiveous 2 long eared thingy moving behind that screen, to find later a pair of large lovely eyes peering back at you with innocence. But do not be fooled!! For its entirely pious demeanour, it's just a scheming devil beneath that ridiculous warm and lovely fur.

The first thing i noticed was the amount of poo and pee that comes with this thing. It runs everyday, and the best thing is, it poos and pees at the same time. Now can somebody say mobile public toilet?

The worst thing was of course, in the midst of me showing my love to this furry on my bed, which was the exact time it chose to pee. I was absolutely flabbergasted and cried as I realised that I'll have to sleep in rabbit's pee, which of course, come to think about it, smells just like soy bean, hmm, might taste like them too.

When you have a rabbit in your possession, and you decide to let it out, (out of sympathy) you are, in return of it's gratitude, peed and pooed wherever it likes, and thus, have to help it clean up after that, treating the rabbit way better than you'll ever treat anyone else on this earth the same.

The rabbit has an absolutely nasty behaviour of chewing and biting and scratching any miscellanous item it can get its teeth and sharp claws on. Its destructive behaviour and the sharp menacing teeth under its fat flabby cheek is of course, what makes it look just like the devil, if, you could just see right that cute facade.

In my plan to get even to that cruel cruel rabbit, I decided to give the rabbit a rollercoaster ride. Now, this is easily performed. With the rabbit safely tucked in my hands, I just moved the rabbit really fast, just like how a rollercoaster would. 360 degrees turn, corkscrew, you name it, the rabbit had it. In hope that the rabbit would puke after a nasty ride (*evil laughter), but, alas, the rabbit must've just hopped away in joy.

Thus, in plan B, i decided to dip its food in fatty oil, in hope that it'll grow real fat, and maybe get arteriosclerosis. Plan B was working real slow, and I was kinda sick and tired waiting for it to die such a rich, fatty, and oily death, and sick of donating all the oil from that curry in the dish that was meant for me, I stopped plan B and ate the curry dish myself instead.

With all the foiled plans, finally, I got back on the rabbit, rather unintentionally, cause, as I totally hated the sharp nails of the rabbit, so I decided to cut its nails, which ended abruptly when i cut too deep into its nails and caused bleeding. It couldn't walk properly now, and looked such a pity (see what i mean, this "cute" facade is such a cheat)

Finally, I decided to work with the rabbit instead of working against the rabbit. I decided to bring the rabbit out and hang out with a couple of my girl friends. They were absolutely in love with it. This gave me an idea. Fantastic! The rest, as you may say, is history.

p/s:- It ain't a happy ending,.....yet.....

The One Where I thought....

2004-10-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back posting. After reading Tiff's latest post and her next latest, I feel just as sucky. Nopes, I didn't win any election, which, with great power, comes great responsibility, but somehow, i got so bogged down with work, duty, responsibility, and my insistence that I must still make some personal time, caused me late nights, and lack of sleep, and just feeling plain tired everyday.

There's so many things coming up, and I've been tring to divide my time here and there for everything that I'm involved in. There's so many things I wanna do, and it feels like time is never enough. I just really want to make a mark in as many people as possible in my life.

I've often ponder, and I saw this lines which set me thinking. They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death, every one, 21 grams. The weight of a stack, the weight of 5 nickels, the weight of a chocolate bar, the weight of a humming bird. How much does love weight? How much does guilt weight? How much does our life weight?

Joys of Holidays

2004-09-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

Pheeeww... what a fantastic holiday I had. 3 wonderful weeks is the way i put it.

Anyway, lemme take you ride through "my fantastic holidays", although most you would rather hear of my sex life and so on, but hear ye, hear ye!

Holidays started off with bang, (erm..depends on how you see it as.. ) I was to join and represent my university for the Merdeka tournament, it's basically the biggest annual chess tournament in Malaysia. It was a joy just playing chess and let your mind float away in the midst of concentrating on a game of good chess.

Chess is like drugs, weed, u name any pleasure inducing, slip away to lala-land chemistry-laden drug, you've got it. It can get you addicted when u spend hours everyday just *playing chess (replace it with smoking weed) cause when you're embroiled in a game of chess, there's so many factors which comes into mind, positioning, strategy planning, super combo moves, and the best thing of all, the opportunity to let your mind slip into a trance like condition where you only have your mind on the board, nothing else in the world can bother you, just you, and the chess boards and pieces, no stress, no gf's or bf's worries, no worldly worries, it feels like death and eternal life coming together.. aaaaah.... plain bliss....

Alright back to the point, met lotsa Grand Masters, and they were from China, India, Australia, Philipines, and some other countries with about RM10,000 prizes up for grabs. Their skills were amazing, and you should see this International Master who was just a small kid, about 10 years old or something.

My performance during the tournament sucked, after all, I did not have any time to prepare at all. My exams were just done on Saturday and the tourney started on Sunday, but to recap some interesting and memorable games, there was this whole family,all wearing the same clothes, like this is some kinda family day outing, which we had to play against (it's a team event, 4 vs 4) and i really pitied the kids.

The kids looked all glum and sad, and their parents kept scolding them to concentrate on the their game and so on, very pity-laaah... it's like forcing your kid to play golf and practise nonstop in hope that your child becomes the next Tiger Woods or something... and they were like 7-8 years old?

They were moving the pieces here and there,haha.. really cute i tell ya, but whoops, i thrashed her up properly, sorry, no mercy,.. but that was as low as we can go..

The next team, was equally cute, when I first saw this really fat and damn cute (mischevious looking) kid saying, "yeay, we're gonna meet MMU", i sniggered and laughed, hehe, should be easy meat,.. there they were, the oldest kid on the board was probably just 8 years old, they looked so damn young, just got out of their pampers wearing age, and they thrashed us up properly. I mean, come on, imagine looking at a board of chess players where the small kids were grinning, laughing and looking damn cute as hell, doing the swoosh swoosh thingy with the dead pieces, never thought that they were better than us, hell no way!!!

Now that's a good lesson for laughing at small kids. Later on, i found out that they were actually personally trained by some International Master and so on... bloody hell, damn memalukan la, and I still can't forget that unmistakable smirk on that fat kid's face. Hope to see him one day and squeeze the life out of his fat tits..

I now have a personal vendetta against small kids like that who are actually geniuses behind that small cute framed faces, bloody devils in disguises, i'll blog about them some other day so as not to spoil my nice holiday story...

Well other than that, holiday was really fun, can't really remember everything, but I just did things which any other person do to have fun, I hung out with my friends a lot and of course with my beloved family too!!. We played football and futsal!!! *triple asterisks means we played damn well, and I must've been so good on the pitch, people likened me to Maradona..

We drank and chatted, as in yum cha as well as some booze.. but i'm not the booze person, cause any kinds of booze, be it beer/wine/vodka/whatever tastes like shit, even a cup of teh-o-ais is way better than that,

Oh yeah, of course, there's this Korean movie, called "The Ghost" which me, EuGin and WenBin just watched. It's scary,....creepy.... but damn funny, as in, thanks to such partipating movie-goers like me and gang. Oh yeah, firstly, while planning on watching the movie, we had the invident where WenBin scolded "F^ck you" to EuGin's mom, and even called her a "b*tch and c*bai", which EuGin's mom replied the same thing back to WenBin. One word, EuGin, your mom's real cool, hahahaha.. but it was all in good jest none the less..

We had a good laugh over the incident when EuGin's mom had to fetch us to Sunway Pyramid to watch the movie. Later on, I still have no idea why WenBin was trying to hit on the cashier over the cinema's counter, but we got a discount, so we didn't complained. Went in early and met some gorgeous chicks sitting nearby, but instead of talking to some "gorgeous chicks" WenBin suggested that we go to other rooms to watch some other movie first since we're in early,

hmm... now Kate Hudson looks really good in Raising Helen, hey, take my word from someone who just watched about 10 minutes of the show..

and of course, the ghost in "The Ghost" was eerie, and there's this scene, where it gets damn scary, i put both of my hands on Wen Bin in a sudden movement, man, you sould see how high he jumped from his seat!!!, Not to mention, the laughing crowd in the cinema, since they saw him scared out of his wits (peeing in his pants too..), hahahah, damn freaking funny.I mean, it's like anti-climmatic to a supposedly damn scary scene...

haha.. Oh yeah, WenBin got freaked out when he was in toilet, cause EuGin did that ghostlike water-vomitting scene. I still don't get the show, cause I don't understand what they were saying. Worst of all, I can't keep up with the subtitles, it was so damn fast, and I swear my BM isn't that bad!!!

erm..had to send off Gill as well to UK, and I'm damn jealous that her sister, Gailene is going off to France studying engineering, damn, that's like the best place on earth! Anyway, I wish both of them luck, and will sorely miss you.

As the fair sun will arise tomorrow,

to kill the envious moon,

which is already sick and weary.

What a blessed, blessed night this night shall be.

A thousand good nights and a thousand goodbyes I bid to you,

with a glad yet sorrow heart, oh,

I shall miss your smile and your companion,

Adieu, adieu, I bid to you

This verse of words are a gift to anybody on the night before parting for a better place and a better future

I've read two books by Dan Brown, "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Devils", loved the way he makes up extremely exciting chase for clues a la treasure hunt, and of course his boldness of writing and plotting an exciting idea which has a lot of anti-Christian elements in them. I've also read a book called "Being Alexander", a very interesting premise, which only serves to strengthen the sado-maso in guys every now and then, and believe it or not, it's written by a female..

Oh well, I'll try my best to kick the shit out of Ananth in International Superstar Soccer/ Winning Eleven next time, we even sneaked into EuGin's house 12am at night for our quick fix of Winning Eleven.

Basically, I may not have visitted an exotic and interesting place like Bali, Egypt, and so on, but it was a real fine holiday. It was a wonderful 3 week body-mind cleansing (am on my way to regaining my 6 pecs) and of course the memorable stupid things you do with friends.

Can't wait for my next holidays, and it's the start of the semester, and it's kinda boring, ( I mean I'm not moaning and complaning, worse things like assignments and hws and exams can happen..) so just bumming, and like authors of some best-selling books, I'd like to thank my Mom and Dad, and yadaa.yadaa..yadaa...thanks to Tiff and Pat too for checking out this miserable blog and kicking my arse to write new entries..ta daa..here it is..

hope you guys are in pink of health, and keep smoking weed and downing booze!

(P/S:- a short note to Tiff and any other fellas for this matter, leave the smoking weed or any other airy hazardous material crap part out, stay the same and feel great always! An advice by the General Surgeon, Smoking Kills)

song of the moment ( me and the gang of SS17) : The Vervepipe - Freshmen

Someday, One day...

2004-08-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

I think,

one day..

if I got lucky and meet up with Liz Hurley, orUma Thurman, or Xia Xue, somebody special...(long list... )

I'd bring a large set of stereo,

lug it all the way to the her house.... ...

bring a microphone. .

plug it in somewhere, some how,..

maybe i just need to connect those powerful amps to the car battery ..

and ask her to be mine and sing the Unchained Melody way better than Clay Aiken does,

but if i suck on the microphone....i'll probably lip synch...

it's all because if i really do fall in love with a girl,..

i'm gonna be so happy and proud, i'll let the whole world know that i've finally found someone...

OOooooooOOOOooooh...MY Looooveee.....

The Notebook

2004-08-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

I haven't watched it yet, but I truly recommend everyone to watch it. The Notebook, staring Ryan Gosling, and Rachel Adams, and more importantly, another wonderful story by Nicholas Sparks! I'm almost certain that it's a better movie than Nicholas Spark's, "A Walk to Remember" with Mandy Moore in it, just based on the rantings, reviews and comments, and of course, also on the trailer which is plain breathtaking!

The trailer had Ryan Gosling's character, Noah, meeting Allie(Rachel Adams) in a wonderful scene, in a carnival, and they way Noah asked Allie out was absolutely funny, awesome and touching. The scenery in the entire movie is marvelous and beautiful.

There were hundreds graceful swans floating with the boat they were riding, flowers in full bloom and the lush orange and red of the fallen leaves in summer, amazing sceneries of America. As romance blossoms, trouble arises and the young couple would be found out by her parents.

As the parents do not see a future with Noah for Allie, they would then separate them apart. What happens afterwards will truly test their love for each other, or will they even remain loyal till the end of the story? I really wanna catch this movie sometime after my exams. I"m sure it'll be great.

Lovely movie, I bet you! :D

XM : XXX MaX

2004-08-18T04:27:00.000-07:00

I'm sure the title must've gotten you guys or girls all horny hoping that I've got porn in store for you kiddies.. hihihihi . *serious face* Sorry, you're not getting it coz you guys have been thinking about the wrong thing anyway, xm stands for exam and hey, my blog feels so good it's like porn! ;)

Holy crap man, had a bad test earlier.... it's for my 8051 microcontroller,

I think it should have been pretty easy except for the fact that

1. I screwed up simple questions
2. I thought I knew everything coz I was too damn good, too bad, this subject is proving me wrong every minute..

Anyway... I just felt like verything was in my finger tips, it was just so plain frustrating, but hey..What's the point in crying over spilt milk right? :( *sighs..

T-15 minutes before xm, a buddy of mine called up saying that he needed to print his exam slip, and I was like what the hell??!?!..It's almost time and you haven't even got your exam slip print..he was panting like dog when he ran all the way up to my room,.. and I'm gonna be late for exam man..for the second time,...SHITE.... I really felt like blowing my top..X-( arrrrgh..*pissed.

..and the worst thing was my concentration during the exam itself.. I was so pissed at things..Suddenly, the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" came into my mind.I'm absolutely devastated not being able to concentrate and i'm angry with myself,..the world and oh yes "Asshole" Bush, what's the matter maaaan?!?!?!..

Why can't I take the exam in peace? I used to think that I wanted to become someone important in this world,.. turns out to me that, I don't wan to do that after all, I mean, what's the point, politics are so screwed up, it's dishonorable, and by then, I was so raged that I tore my exam paper,...

The kid who sat beside me, gave me an eye, I kicked the shit out of him, whilst the invigilator, who incidently had that Bush look, was utterly mortified and just begged for his mercy as I squashed his pitiful head and popped the juicy eye balls. and slurped down his delicious bloody brain...slurpsss..slurrsrrrpspspss... slrrspsp.. *just playing*oukast* haha..

Exams sucks... I'd kill to be free of them (one day, you'll find urself thinking back..o gosh.. I wish I had a life of "now"(as in now not when you're in the future's punya now...) and oh heck.I don't mind the exam...

*post edited by author due to certain reasons*.

Olympics are here, and haven't watched any sports at all, which *gasp* just reminded me that I haven't played football for more than a week. I feel like a fat blob like cartman, nobody lurves me..huhuhuh dT_Tb, no wonder I'm feeling like a boiling cooked up pot.. I just need to whack some balls and curl them and smack them right into the back of a net just like Zidane does. It just gives me the kick!

Anyway, loved the opening scenes of olympic though, In fact, there was this scene where I think it was Persephone and Eros, who were, uh.. I dunno what the heck were they doing actually, were they doing a ballet, dance or porn? It really looks like porn to me. The statue-like performance was absolutely fascinating!!

Oh yeah, did you know that we, as Malaysians, live a in multiracial country, why issit then, that, all of us Malaysian were wearing songkok and sarongs as our uniform when we were walking around the track of during the opening of olympics? Why didn't we have Chinese, Indian, Ibans and Sikhs and so on as well?

I had a chat with this French-Italian-M'sian, lady, and she promised me that she'll scream, howl and yell like a mad lady if the camera ever focused on her..

-_-"

Other than that, I have got the Merdeka Chess tournament to look forward to. I'm joining the Rapid Chess tourney which is absolutely my type, heard that Zi Ying or something like that is in the first team, and he's the bro of Zi Jing, national player, and there's a few beta students who are probably better than me, so I'm still in 2nd team..

Hope you guys had a great orgasm, and have a great day, I'm off for dinner,

..and oh yeah..if you still can't achieve IT, i'm sorry, well, you must've been a real weird person huh?

The Beginning

2004-08-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

*opens eyes..

A new beginning, the alpha post, the first..

Absolutely loved reading blogs of others and being a lazy ass as I am, I've never really cared to start a blog on my own till now. Just felt that it's such a great idea, a place to pour out your feelings, or just bull crap and waste your time and i'm just sooooo... inspired by writers like the celebrity pirate badass, maddox and sexy biatch, xiaxue. LOved them to bits, and don't think I can emulate them anyhow, cause I just don't give a friggin' damn..

I've got exams coming up and I' just plain felt that I need to do something stupid and just hang out on my com not wanting to look at or read those horribly incorrigible complicated maths I'm supposed to be studying...OMFG, What the heck am I doing??!?!?!??!?!

OH I'M SO SCREWED...

..but heck I'm not gonna get myself screwed, I'm gonna watch this bishounen series which will get my adrenaline all pumped to prepare myself and meet the on rushing mindless pillaging of this evil evil thing called "fucked-up exams"...oh i'm so pissed... good bye world.... and oh have a nice day. ;)