UTP Wars: Returm of the Convofair Part 2 & 3

Oi, what’s this? I’m supposed to update this thing yesterday, but I didn’t. Well, I was intending to post about Convofair after coming back to my room last night, but the temptation of WarHammer 40000 was too much for me a Protoss to resist. By the time I was finished, it was way past my bedtime. I knew I’m not supposed to do this, not when you’re a RTS game junkie by nature, but I’ll figure out a way to get rid of this want-to-play-40K addiction later.

Anyway.

As of yesterday, Saturday, nothing much was going on. I went to the grounds sometime in the afternoon, passing the V1D parking area which had been converted into a go-cart circuit, and the V2A parking which was temporarily the circuit for mini-bikes. (Mini bikes? Schweet! Now if only I can ride and pull off a wheelie with it without toppling over….)At the grounds, things were pretty…um…what’s the best word here….um …’happening’. There were lots of people around, walking, buying, eating, drinking, selling,, breathing, and(in the case of me) taking pictures. There was one very noticeable difference regarding the grounds between this noon and last night; the field, albeit still a bit mushy at some parts, no longer resemble one of the saltwater swamps back in Tanjung Piai. People, and especially me, can finally go around without folding the end of their pants up high.

I went to lots of booths. I couldn’t really remember which one I actually, but the one I did was the Perak Police Contingent booth. See, they’ve got this cool looking police suit and a remote-controlled bomb disposal drone in front of the booth, so, me, being a natural sucker with anything related to robotics, no matter how distant they may be, was instantly attracted to them. However, that’s not the only interesting there. Like usual police booth, they’ve also got this collection of gruesome pictures of bodies of people involved in accidents. Motorists mowed down by lorries, mat rempits before and after head-on collisions with other vehicles on the road, various limbs and body parts strewn all over the road, bodies so burnt up it could’ve been easily mistaken for excess charcoal during EE Club BBQ night, totaled-up scooters and bikes….you name it, they may or may not got it. Personally, seeing these pics really scare the crap out of me. Yet, being the oddball that myself never did understand, much less Jared, I snapped them pics.

Then, after a brief respite-

*warps again to next day*

….which was actually today. On Sunday afternoon I went again to the grounds for some serious shopping spree. I came with RM100 and what other foreign currencies in my wallet, and came back to my room about RM85 poorer and a few shirts richer. I also bought half of a honey grilled chicken and a book titled Future FastForward: The Zionist Anglo-American Empire Meltdown. Should be fun, eh?

That, night, or rather, tonight was the last of the Convofair. I suppose, that since events like this often end with a bang, I decided once again to move my heavy butt and go to the dried-up bogs that were the V4 fields. This time, I went ton a final shopping frenzy by buying 12 bottles of various fruit drinks which costs me RM10. After watching the performance of traditional Malay dance and Indian music (Damn! I knew Sathiya was going to be involved somehow in Indian music but never thought the band’s gonna perform….Though you only handle them hand drums, you still rock!!!), the crowd was bracing for the highlight of the performance, that was the popular (with the general young public, not me) artist group, V.E. However, not being much of the typical teenager who screams, squirms and jumps up and down when his favourite band appears on stage, I decided to let this one slide and proceeded to return to by beloved –albeit untidy- safe haven that was my room.

The Convofair, on one hand, showed me how life at a university really looks like. All these festivities and events that everyone can join….On the other hand, RMs leaked out of my wallet like water bursting out of Belum dam. I think I spent close to RM200 just buying stuff during the Convofair. Mind you, most of the time, I was exercising tight control on monetary spending regarding all matters (the layman’s term would be stinginess), even to myself, so this sudden influx of ‘Buy! Spend! Indulge!’ feeling left me with something that I can’t really put into words. Less money? Definitely…..

However, the personal highlights of my Convofair was finding out that Shazana(read: Chana or Banana), the girl’s EE rep, entered the Automobile contest, where aspiring car junkies put the best in their personal rides and put them on display. In Chana’s case, it was a Jack-Skellington-themed ride. Only Proton and Perodua cars can participate, though, so no entries by Mercedes, Honda or Boeing. The other thing, was when I bought myself a special pepperoni pizza from Zan’s Pizza. I have this natural subconscious habit of swinging plastic bags, so I swung the poor pizza all the while walking around aimlessly. Finally, after settling in a food stall for dinner, I opened the pizza. What happened was that I opened the box upside down so the toppings end up at the bottom. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the toppings were completely removed from the bread and now stuck to the insides of the box! Damn! Aftter frantically scrapping the toppings off the box with a plastic spoon, I ended up with this…..well, it used to be my pizza anyway. Behold the Scrappizza.

So…the only moral lesson for this episode is: Don’t swing pizzas around, especially when they’re really expensive.

And with that, sir, salutations.

UTP Wars: Return of the Convofair: Part 1

Mmmm….it’s been a long time since I last posted. Approximately two weeks, to be exact. It’s not that I don’t have any time to write. I did. Loads of them. It’s just that…..I didn’t. I’m not sure why. I just did. My mind was less stable than I previously thought.

Well, to not to keep my faithful readers(if any, and by that I mean anyone apart from myself) waiting anymore….

This weekend, UTP held its biggest annual event yet, the (insert appropriate number here)th UTP Convofair. It’s that time of the again where the university celebrates the graduation of final-year students. However, being a second semester foundation student, this mattered little to me, since I can’t get into the Chancellor Hall to actually watch the whole ceremony taking place. I don’t have the authority since I’m not one of the big shots, namely the lecturers and the VIP, though I’m physically a big shot. Well, you can’t care about stuff that you don’t care, right? So, today, knowing full well that it’s the real thing that makes Convofair worth it, I went to the shopping are on the V4 field instead….

The journey from my room to the field was uneventful, albeit tiring. However, tiring though it was, it was easy. So? Previously this afternoon, after the Friday prayers, it started raining heavily. So , when I arrived at the field, the full impact of Tronoh rain upon dry soil was made obvious to me. The field looked like those obstacle courses that soldiers used to run and crawl on during jungle training. Everyone was traversing around with the ends of their trousers folded high. Gave everyone a rifle to carry and it’ll look like a scene from Terminator. Luckily I was wearing my shoes, so my feet didn’t get too wet. But the shoes got dirty.

I walked around without a single point in my mind, except to look around and see if there’s anything good to buy. The first thing that I bought was an…Ice Johor. That’s strange. Being a native Johorean Protoss, I never knew that these stuff are from my home state. The guy selling the confetti told me that some kid started selling this some time ago in Johor, hence the name. Dunno whether it’s true or not, but I suppose it’s fair enough. I also bought a come of bananas from the same shop. Hey, don’t laugh. It’s not easy to get any decent fruit in here, so to me, any fruit is godsend.

Walked and walked I again, and met Winnie at her shop, whose shift actually the next day. I bought an Iranian Sandwich from the shop. I’ve been to Iran before, and honestly I’ve never encountered an Iranian sandwich there. I’ve eaten Iranian rice though, and it was tasty! Well anyway, the sandwich was good enough, though it’s a bit costly. Winnie and I talked for some time before we bade each other goodbye. I made my journey to Shop 38.

Nothing special about Shop 38, except that they sell popular anime products. Posters, figurines, accessories, shirts, models…you name it, they may or may not got it. I went there to get my previously preordered shirt. Since I ordered an XXXL I had to pay an extra RM3. I can wear XXL size, but If I do, I won’t look intimidating enough. Then, after buying a kacang kuda rebus, I decide to call it a day for today, and went back to my room.

Later I’ll update for tomorrow. As of now, salutations.

Someone sent me a message...

….as I woke up yesterday morning. Well, not really. Rather, the phone woke me up. I was going to wake up early so I can bersahur (I was fasting yesterday) anyway, so the fire drill sound didn’t really annoy the hell out of me. I groped in the dark, found the handphone(with both ease and difficulty; the phone was flashing but its brightness is too much for my eyes), and opened the message. It was from Nabilah Hisyam, one of my ex-schoolmates from SRI ABIM JB. The message was…

Guess I’ll make this as short as possible….

“Sir Mustafa died last night at 12 am. Do recite the Al-Fatihah for him. Tell other people who knew him at the Johor Matriculation Centre.”


……which is exactly the full contents of the message, but still…..

…..I didn’t wish for this, but I did know beforehand that Sir Mustafa has been warded in a hospital due to health problems, so the prospect of him dying is……. inevitable at least. Either way, as I sat on my bed that morning, reciting the verse Al-Fatihah for his soul, with half my brain still in an advanced state of ZZZZ, I recalled the days during my time at SRI JB…


Sir Mustafa came as a substitute teacher to compensate for the lack of English teachers at our school. He was a retiree, but he made a contract with the principal so he could be one of the teachers teaching Standard 6 students. Back then, having him in your class was something that could be considered as special. See, even though he’s just like your average English teacher (except that he’s a retiree), what he lacked in youth, me made up in seniority and lots of…expletives.

Well, not curse words as in those that were used by the MPs in our Parliament. Now and then, he would talk trash about our previous seniors(which includes both my bro and my sis), make politically rude remarks about my friends and I or say something like “…mengabihkan boreh mak bapak”, “pergi mampus” and anything else along that line. Of course, choice words like those aren’t really the type of cussing that is prominently featured in today’s communication between teenage delinquents or MPs of different political parties, but being the innocent, cute and chubby(in my case) kids that were yet to experience true trash talk and extreme swearing back then, we were nonetheless impressed(or is it intimidated? Whichever comes first) by his knowledge to rant without impunity.

Huh? What’s the point I was trying to make here? Oh, fine, so from the meager description of him that I wrote above, Sir Mustafa didn’t seem to be any more impressive than some expletive-laden, retired old timer. To tell the truth, the description above was meager since most of the details I forgot already. But I digress that his presence left a huge impression upon my early life, which I carried upon my current life(hence why I wrote in this blog). He left an unforgettable mark in the minds of his students(whether good or bad I can’t say), and as far as I am concerned, even though he’s not the best, he’s the most memorable English teacher that I ever had.

BTW, I myself never knew how he got the title “sir”. Maybe he got it when he taught students during his younger days, and the title suits him to this day.

May Allah bless his departed soul. Innalillahiwainnailaihi roojiuun.


Gotta go have a bath now.

SLAS

The last two days, I wasn't updating my blog because I was down with SLAS*. Actually, it's something that can struck even the most weathered blogger of us bloggers, but I didn't really anticipate that one coming, not when I'm just starting my own new blog.

Well, either way, I managed to shake it off now. And my little journal I shall update, before it strikes again.

Anyway.

The last two days, which were the weekends, I went for UTP fire training. No, it's not something that most people would volunteer to do, so naturally I was there because I was forced to. See, the RCSU staff for my village(not THAT village. In UTP the hostels are called villages) just randomly select 10 rooms from V1(where I'm currently staying), call the students and say, "This is your lucky day! You have been selected to join fire training..." or something like that. Initially I don't wan't to go, but considering that I don't really have any credible plan on what to do during the weekend anyway, and that this could be a new experience to me, I relented and presented my overweight body at the Emergency Control Centre in MPH in the 8.57 Saturday morning.....

About 20 students were involved in the fire training(my roommate didn't come cuz he's supposed to go to Ipoh and buy his laptop - which he still didn't buy though). After the usual introductory session and being grouped into five...... well, groups , we watched several slides about the history of Fire Service Act 1988, sciences of fire, fire safety, fire protection and building evacuation before tea break at 10.30. Then, another slide about Emergency Response Planzzzz, fire extinguisherzzzz and fireeezzz ....zzzzz....zzzzzzzz...zzzzz.....zzzzz urm...where was I? Well...anyway, lunch at noon.

The briefing room as I knew it.

The briefing as I drew it.

At 2.30(supposed to be 2.00, we all came early but the fire staff weren't there yet) we started on the interesting part; doing the practical hose drill. Beforehand we did some stretching exercise(I hate the part where we all lari setempat. My feet felt so painful). Then we got into our groups and had two group did the drill at the same time while the others wait. My position was no. 1, so I got to hold the nozzle and spray people! Unfortunately what was supposed to be fun turned out to be quite boring - the water pressure was low, so I had to be content with spraying the grass and encouraging weeds to grow instead of dousing other people with H2O. After that we did another drill(there are three different hose drills), though this one's only a dry run. At about 4.30 we stopped, have tea-tarik and karipap break before going back to our village.

The next day(Sunday) was a blast. Early morning, we had our briefing on the third hose drill, the one that we would be doing for real that evening. Then we did the practice drill just to prepare ourselves for the evening, came back inside for yet another slide session about the various fire-containing systems used in buildings and briefing on fire-fighting gears. After lunch, and after 2, the moment came. One by one, the groups did the third hose drill with real H2O. It was fun beyond words. I handled the nozzle, so I had the firsthand experience of controlling wickedly pressurized water blasting out of the nozzle while getting half your body - underwear and all - drenched. My boat-like shoes instantly pulled off a Titanic. After my group's turn, I went and took pics of other groups' drill. Then, four people from all of us was chosen to do the drill once again, this one to set the time record for V1 residents. Since I was the only person with a true digital camera around, I was excused from the dream team(though I won't mind joining) to be the cameraman instead. After setting a new time record(which wasn't actually record-breaking but otherwise not that bad) we had fun sloshing around the compound and wasting precious H2O. Then it was picture-taking time before we had our tea break and bid each other goodbye....

Pretty much everyone who went to the fire training is here.


Honestly the experience was priceless. I though that I would be bored stiff throughout the training. Guess it's fun doing extra curricular activity after all. Guess being an antisocial alien is bad anyway. Yet, of all the things that happened that day, I couldn't get the pictures when we all get wet during the final drill because the damn camera's batteries managed to lose power that very moment.....guess I should really go for Sony ones....

I'm looking cool.

*SLAS - Sudden Lazy-Ass Syndrome

Arrr. It's a fine day isn't it? Now, after a full 24 hours of not-so deep thinking, I decided to forgo my "wait till this blog's weathered and seasoned for about a week before posting anything meaningful" stance and just get on with it. Well, basically I came across something-

*time-warps to the point where this post is supposed to rant about*

Today, I went to the Friday prayers as usual, except that today's is earlier because I'm too lazy to go late. Just so that the title of the khutbah(sermon) is...well, I can't remember if there was actually a title there(See, at the UTP mosque, they conduct the khutbah through the aid of slides, where they actually project Powerpoint slides of the English version of the khutbah at the white screen in front of everyone. Pretty nifty huh? Now repair my room's door.)

So yeah, short story short, I read the contents of the khutbah and I couldn't believe it. The slides show some pretty alarming statistics. For one, all 57 member of OIC only have like 500 universities combined together, while USA alone has like 5000! The OIC spend 0.2% of their total GDP for R & D, while other developed countries spend 5.0%. OIC country members has only a ratio of 250 scientists per every 100 thousand of the population, while in Japan the number goes as high as 8000 per 100 thousand of the population! Now, I forgot to put the disclaimer, but the accuracy of the statistics is subject to my poor short-term memory, so I am very sure that I messed up some figures in the previous statements which could be more or less that the real ones, but otherwise it's supposed to give the same impression anyway...

But I disgress.

OIC. Organisation of Islamic Countries. Malaysia happens to be its current chairman. Why do all this matter? Because....this explains why we've been lousy at the international level all the time!
We have never been serious in trying to improve our country, to take it to a higher level! All this time our country are abuzz with stuff like AF-can't remember what which number is it now, Mentor, WWW and other similar, equally distracting(if not useless...wait, it is) entertainment stuff and scandals regarding controversial, frickingly-costly megaprojects(including those that got the green light but somehow end up unfinished...what a waste!) and corruption and inefficiency among politicians and civil workers. Does all this actually reflect our true vision? Yeah, we do have our own Vision 2020, yet, from the looks of things now, it might as well be Vision Rm20.20. This simply cannot be. Our country are seriously lacking in fields of local-made technology and R&D, something that First World countries often possess.

We don't have many universities - oh, fine, so we actually have other IPTAs that aren't that bad either which can make up for the lack of Unis. However, the important thing here is not only quantity, but quality. You can have the most number of universities in South-East Asia, but unless they're going to turn up some pretty decent professionals that continuously do R&D and actually contribute to the technological prowess of the country, it's just not worth it. The lack of homegrown(read: local!) scientists accounts for this. My whole idea, to put it in lazyman's term, would be:

More quality unis = more quality professionals and scientists = more R&D = more local technological discoveries = more development of country towards Vision 2020 = improved export of goods and services = less reliance upon outside help = Respect!!!

Now, I know that the above equation makes me sound like some hardline communist. But all in all, everyone can agree that it's theoretically true at least. So if it's good, then why don't you take it? Yes, yes, not many people will be reading this anyway, but for those who did, don't you agree? C'mon, can't the government at least pay attention to the more important issues at hand and try to solve the problems that are all-too familiar in our country? Problems that hinder us from achieving our Vision 2020....Then again, things are very difficult to change, and for the most part, people like me can only hope and pray to God that it happens. After all, if it does, the the whole country will benefit from it. Then, not many people will laugh at OIC, calling it Old Incapable Countries
or something like that..we'll get the respect that we should get.

So then, salutations.

I don't get this. Why isn't my previous post have any title? How can I make that mistake? I didn't even notice it. I mean, I still remember typing the title for the introductory post yesterday, and yet it didn't turn up in the post.

Come to think about it, is that even a mistake? Maybe that's how the system works in blogger.com. Maybe I need to adjust some settings first. Maybe I overlooked something.

Well anyway.

With my blog here still ickle-ly fresh and pure, I've been wondering what to post here. Not that I don't have anything to talk(or rather, rant) about. I do have a gazilion stuff to put here, some of them already in my mind, some of them still pending appeal at the gates of Idealand. It's just that I feel that I should wait for another week or so before posting stuff that I really want to talk about. Y'know, make this blog a little older and weathered before actually posting anything here. Yeah, I know that sounded a bit ridiculous or whatever. But I'll see whether I'm going to treat this thing the way it should earlier than that.

For starters, I'd like to talk about this particular guy I would not-so appropriately call GZ in my blog. See, he's one of the CV Foundation guys in UTP (my current place of education and higher learning. For extremely limited info, refer to previous blog post). Just so happened that when trying to register for internet connection for his room at the ITMS, he found out that the LAN port in his room are busted. It seems like the server connection to his room was severed. Either way, he's gotten the ITMS staff to check it out, and they reckon they're going to replace the server so as to solve the problem. Turned out there's yet another problem; how long will it take to replace the server. Current estimation puts the value as either a week, a month or the whole semester. That's fricking Ludacris! I mean, ludicrous.

Well, I'd be flipping in my socks too if I am to undergo the whole semester devoid of any interaction with the cyber world. Yeah, so you can access the internet through CALL lab, IRC or your mates' computers, but that is just ....well, SUXORZ. Having a comp without an Internet connection is as contradictory as eating a banana without having to peel it first. Wait, that comparison doesn't make sense. Ah heck. Anyway, GZ's trying to connect to Internet through WAN from his friend's laptop, whom I will refer to in this blog as AbangCan. Well, good luck to him. I'll be waiting to see his updated blog.

Hooo....ya. Got to go now. Nothing particularly urgent to finish actually(except praying and slacking off). But for now, salutations!

....and a happy day to all of you who's reading this minute-old blog, whether by chance or not.

*waits for some sort of recognition*

*waits a bit longer*

*gets bored*

Okay. Okay. I knew that was a lame introduction. It's a bit outdated, really. No, no, please don't give me that look. No, really, I mean it. Oh, come on, cut me some slack will you? I'm new here. To blogging that is.

Well...I'm new here, so....er, what should I talk about? Oh ya....I'm....I'm...Sodrohu. Full name Kaiser Sodrohu, but you can call me Sodrohu. Who am I? Er....how should I say this...well, I'm new here, that's for sure..and..um..I don't think that I'm going to reveal my identity, not now anyway, since I've got some issues with the authorities-wait, did I say that? No, I didn't. You all hear nothing. Peroid. I mean, period. Anyway, I'm...uh, how should I say this? I'm not really used to this kind of thing...I mean, blogging. I'm been pretty much actively foruming ever since late 2004, so I knew a few stuff about Internet jargon like lol, pwnage, stfu and .....what the heck am I talking bout? Oh, that one...well, like I told you earlier, I'm not used to thing kind of stuff, not yet anyway.. I'm just starting out now, so I hope I'll be able to learn about serious blogging, the dos and do nots, guidelines, restrictions, taboo, refreshments, and what other things.

Yeah, I knew that whatever hell that I've typed just now(and what you've unwittingly read) didn't make much sense, let alone logic as humanity knows it. I'm just...well, nervous, and honestly, I don't know what topic should I really talk about. Well, not really, but since this is just an introduction of my newly made blog to all of you(the ones who's reading this right now, if there's any), I don't suppose I should talk about stuff that concerns me most. At least, that's what I think. Introductory is supposed to be introductory and nothing else. Yet I dunno what to talk about.

Ohh crap. Well I guess I'll talk about myself. No, not my particulars. My name should be enough...for the time being anyway. I'll talk about my personality. Umm... I'm not much of a self analyser(does that term even exist?), but I knew myself long enough that I'm very good at paying really poor attention to stuff, especially stuff that requires intense prolonged concentration. Like driving, for instance. Or piloting a space fighter bomber. I'm also quite self-centered. Most of the time, I think about myself more than other people. Pretty much I prioritise myself over other people. Most of the time anyway. You humans may notice these two insufferable qualities I possess throughout my blog here, though it's not much for the time being. And...should I say more? Maybe I'll post some more information regarding myself, but for now, those two should have been enough.

Well I guess, I'll stop my rantings here for no-huh? What's that? Haah. Yes, yes, I knew this is wayy too short, and lame. After all, it's just an introduction. I know I should've been talking more about myself, this blog, its porpose and what other topics. Oh, come on, I'm new. Of course I don't know what to expect. You seasoned blogger guys could at least contact me, and share with me your collection of pointers, tips and stuff. No number? my cellphone is 012-78-oops! Cannot la...that one's private and confidential. Common sense not to give out your phone number on the Internet. Okay. Whatever.

Yeah, I knew this intro sucks, but whatever. Goodbye, and salutations.

BTW, I'm from UTP.