Sodrohu Designs And Ruins Them

I Want To Cry

2009-09-27T03:23:00.002+08:00

I want to cry.

It's 3.24 in the morning, and I don't know what the hell am I doing now.

I don't know what the hell have I been doing all this time, and for what.

I don't know what the hell should I be doing in the future.

So many things wrong.

So many tasks unfinished.

So many promises unfulfilled.

So many bonds broken.

And all this

For what?

God help me through this crisis.

Tagged

2008-11-06T07:23:00.001+08:00

For a few lives now I've been pretty disconnected from the internet, at least through my own desktop. I didn't realize that this guy, Urutoraman Kuraudo, a.k.a. kingcloud7 (http://kingcloud7.wordpress.com/), has tagged me on his blog. Goes to show just how inattentive I've been to stuff that I used to pay attention to, eh?

Anyway, here's what the tags are:

Rules:

Link to your tagger and post these rules in your blog.
Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Right. Here goes nothing.

I weight 115 kilograms, therefore I am fat. By right, I am obese and overweight too, but I prefer the title 'fat'. Those who call me obese shall have the honour of being squashed by my girth unceremoniously.
I am down with sinusitis. Maybe not most of the time, but when I do, I'm really down. That's why I'm thinking of inventing a mini vacuum cleaner, used to suck snot directly out of my nose. Try not to imagine that.
I have a Maxis number and a newer Celcom number.
I used to love drawing. I still do now, but less frequently so, now that I'm busy and whatnot. Ahh, the good old days…
Whenever I got low marks for test results, I would go mout and look for other people's marks too, just to see who else got marks lower than or as low as mine. Then I feel less bad about myself. Though, one time, I turned out to have the lowest coursework mark for my class. I didn't commit suicide cuz I couldn't fit thru the window.
I am cheap. I ordered 1 glass of plain water and one glass of warm water because they're free, or at least the cheapest drink around. If you wanna treat me, be my guest.
I sleep whenever I fell sleepy.

Honestly, I dunno who to tag, since the only guy around that I feel like tagging is kingcloud7. I can't go tagging someone who tagged me in the first place duh. So, I'll tag this to anyone who has a blog who is reading this right now. Do keep it short; it'll save your time.

To Blog Or Not To BLog

2008-10-19T18:13:00.001+08:00

I've been doing this for so many times, I'm surprised that I'm still doing it, and not being sick of it, yet. This is turning into a routine I'm not very proud of, and yet, I still do it.

I'm talking about posting new entries in this blog just to keep it alive. New entries just to keep this thing running, just to keep this little extension of my own self in the Internet.

I can tell, and I bet most of you can tell too, that I did a lousy job of making this journal frequently updated. I guess it's just typical of me; this happened to other stuff that I want to do but until now are still unfinished or even not started yet.

I know myself, and I know myself well. I have a bad habit that up till today, I am still trying to get rid of: Laziness and procrastination. Yes, yes, you may think that this is no big deal, since other people (read: you included) also indulged themselves in this kind of habit. Even if I am guilty of procrastinating, I am not the only one. That, I do agree.

However, I do believe that my level of laziness goes a level or two deeper that the laziness level most people would rather associate themselves with.

It's not like I don't want to blog all the time. I do want to. Well, not all the time, but at least more frequently that the current frequency that I'm up to now. Except that, every time I feel like blogging, or hit on some ideas that would look good as an entry, for the most part, I won't post them immediately. I would dwell on it first, see if I can develop it further and expand it to cover more points, as well as to make it more relevant. Problem is, as I delay more and more of the publication of the entry that I want to post, then less urgent it feels for me to post the entry, and the more likely it will be that I won't post the entry at all, simply because I no longer feel like doing it!

Damn!

You know the drill. If you refrain from doing something long enough, in the end you won't do it at all.

I dunno. I'm out of Ideas now. I dunno how on earth am I going to improve myself over this debacle. I've been fighting against it for a very long time, and it doesn't look like I'm gonna win it any time soon. This extends beyond the need for me to blog more frequently; my life in the real world is also affected. I need help on this. Really need help on this.

Merdeka....for the 51st Time.

2008-08-31T14:53:00.002+08:00

Today is Sunday, 31st August 2008. For those who don't know, today Malaysia is celebrating its 51st annual commemoration of independence from the British Empire. By right, I sould be celebrating too, but I got Communication Systems test this Tuesday, then Analogue Electronics test on...I dunno, maybe Thursday or Friday, and then Control Systems test on Saturday, so..well, you know what's coming.

I don't have much to say about today's event. Actually, I do, but I just don't feel like it. As usual, there are parades and marches in Kl today, in front of the Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad, at the Merdeka Square. All that happened during the morining till the noon, I think, the same time I was busy reading online mangas. Hey, what do you expect? It's holiday anyway.

One thing I particularly don't like about 31st August every year(apart from the public holiday) is how the ruling coalition of the government(read: BN) would go all out and exploit the spirit of Merdeka. Some big shot politicians out there would harp about made possible by the Parti Perikatan, which is a coalition of UMNO, MCA and MIC (representing the three largest races in Malaysia- Malay, Chinese, Indian), and how the populace should be thankful of them even now, which has grown into Barisan Nasional, for making it happen. how the independence was onlyStories about Tunku Abdul Rahman are going to be brought up again, to to refresh everyone's memeory of how awesome he was, even if they never met him alive in the first place. So people out there even said that UMNO has been playing an integral part of this incident for the benefit of the majority Malays, even to the point of making it sound as if Malays wouldn't have existed in Malaysia now had it not been for UMNO's effort.

Don't get me wrong. I've learned history; I (in general) knew what was going on. The Perikatan did bring about changes that eventually led to our independence. UMNO did play an important part on the Malays' behalf. Tunku Abdul Rahman was indeed the father of independence. What got me a bone to pick with these crapshooters are that they, whether deliberately or unintentionally, forgot to mention the other half of the nation's freedom fighters who also fought for the independence of the nation from the colonial powers, albeit with differing ideals and principles.

I'm not talking about the communist Parti Komunis Malaya. I'm talking about Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM), Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (API) and Angkatan Wanita Sedar (AWAS), or rather, about its leaders - Ishak Haji Muhammad, Ahmad Boestamam, Shamsiah Fakeh and Dr Burhanuddin al-Helmy. These names might ring you a bell, or two. Yeah, from the history books, no less - how many times have any of us even heard of their names in mainstream print and on the idiot box?

For you information, PKMM was founded by Dr Burhanuddin Al-Helmy, API by Ahmad Boestamam, and AWAS by Shamsiah Fakeh. Couldn't recall much about Ishak haji Muhammad, but he was very active in the same political sphere, and contributed a lot to the Malay literature world. All three parties would later join together to for Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (PUTERA), which is basically the more radical opposite of UMNO, but with the same goal nonetheless - independence. PUTERA would later join with All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA) to form AMCJA - PUTERA, and submitted their own idea of the constitution for the nation - The People's Constitution - which, of course, were rejected.

Eventually, by 1948, these radical political parties, alongside PKM, were banned under Emergency laws. They got hunted down, and their leaders captured and imprisoned. All this time till the Independence, the leaders of Parti Perikatan worked closely with the British power, while their brothers of differing ideals were incarcerated in prisons, flee to other countries or even continued their fights as guerrillas in the jungles. Everybody knows what happened in the end - the Perikatan coalition, triumphed, Malaya got its independence, and Tunku Abdul Rahman became to the Malaysian populace what NEO is to the rest of the human survivors in the Matrix trilogy - the One.

Now, the reason that I'm spending a section of my life dedicating my blog to the other half of the Merdeka side-story is that I want other people to recognise their efforts as the other champions of Tanah Melayu's independence. Some of them were pioneers; Parti Islam Se-Tanah Melayu (PAS) was founded by Ahmad Fuad Hassan and Dr Burhanuddin Al-Helmy, and UMNO's first battlecry, 'Hidup Melayu', was later changed to 'Merdeka', which was originally used by PKMM. Apart from that, I'm sure there are lots more ideas that PKMM and its buddies cooked up but were later adopted by Perikatan instead, and credit were not given to its rightful owners.

The Pro-British Perikatan and the radical AMCJA-PUTERA were basically two polar opposites. Like magnets, which has a South Pole and the North Pole. The two magnetic poles attract metallic materials towards themselves in different directions, just like how both sides of Perikatan and PUTERA has differing ideals and principles to achieve their objectives. Like both magnetic poles too, which attracts the same metallic materials, so does the two political sides, whose ultimate aim is to free their beloved lands from bloodthirsty invaders. These guys exist together. These guys complement each other. These guys made each other. Both of them made what Malaysia is today.

I'm not gonna say much about whether people out there, the younger folks especially - my genenration especially - would actually care about this stuff. Of course, the same can be said about those tak sedar diri politicians out there as well (you know who you are). I, but a least want these people, and everyone else for the matter, to realise this; Perikatan only came this far to running the country simply because things went according to their way. Had it all been different back then, or something crazy happened back then, it could've been PKMM who's the leader in Barisan Nasional right now, not UMNO. Had Perikatan failed with their negotiations back then, it could've been AMCJA-PUTERA which is running the country right now.

So don't get cocky and said that only the BN who was responsible for wrestling the country's independence from British. Never demonise the other leftist Malay leaders as communists, separatists and traitors. They were fighting for the country as much as the rest of the people were, and paid a heavier price for that simply because they were not favoured.

That, and all being said, happy 51st Merdeka to all Malaysians!

Tarik tali....

2008-08-09T11:52:00.006+08:00

Last week, I joined in a tug-of-war competition. The competition was part of Outdoor Carnival 2008.

Initially, when Ikhwan (IkanGori) approached me with the idea of forming a team together from our own Jan 2006 batch, I was interested to join, with the condition that I won't be the anchor (the last guy at the end of the line). So he kinda agreed with me..

Ikhwan(yellow shirt), Enol (sitting) and Kopi signing out petitions for better WIFI connection.

During the competition day, it turned out that, instead of the anchor, I was going to be one of the anchors, the other one being Ikhwan himself. Fair enough. Seeing that I am pretty much categorised, tug-of-war-wise, as people who are good (read:overweight), I knew I was going to be one myself. And I kinda enjoyed it, since tug-of-war is one of the few sports I can participate without feeling too sorry for myself, apart from walking, jogging and running up stairs.

The team members making fun of Alip's unorthodoxly shiny noggin.

Anyhow, during the competition day, there were only four teams; Kelab Kembara UTP, OC committee, Prop 06, and the last, but probably the least, our aptly-named team Sayur.

Team Sayur: Not as sayur as you'd think.

The rules were easy to understand and easier to forget. Basically, in league-style competition, one team plays four matches. In each match, there are a maximum of three rounds. Win one rounds, get one pointWin two rounds in a row, the team wins the match. At the end of the competition, the team with the most points wins. Simple enough.

Our team, from left: Kamil, Pezal, Keme, GG, Bari' and Ikhwan. Pejan was out of the picture and I was taking this picture.

I couldn't remember which team was our first match against, but we won the match. The second match, I forgot too, but in the end we lost. After the second round, my body was starting to feel the pain.My back's on fire. My soles were burning. My arm muscles were so sore, I couldn't hold the drinks cup steadily. For the first time since god-knows-when, I was on the verge of collapsing.

Air kelapa (coconut juice). 70% of them are ice, tho.

After a few air kelapa drinks and a brief nap, our team was ready to make a comeback. However, there was a situation. The OC team were nowhere to be seen. Since they were the ones in charge of the carnival that day, they had to go and supervise things up. In short, they forfeited. To accomodate this, the rules were changed: instead of continuing the competition anymore, the organising committee decided to end the competition quickly. So, the team with the most points was named as the winner of the whole game, which went to the Kelab kembara team.

Pulling time: Not the best moment to get distracted.

Anyway, just for the sake of having some sort of semblance to a thoroughly-played competition, wour team were asked to go against the KK team. If we won, we're second place. If we lose, We're still second place. In the end, we lose. Not for the lack of fighting spirit, tho - we gave our best shot for our final match. Nevertheless, we're satisfied enough with whatever we've won (the prize for second place is RM50), so after a few more drinks and buying some donuts for Dunkin' Donuts, we went back to our rooms.

I was going to Photoshop this into making Ikhwan lokk like he's holding a fishing rod later...

A Hectic Semester Start

2008-07-21T16:59:00.005+08:00

It's almost 5 in the evening. It's the start of an another new semester, and things weren't looking too well from my side.

I registered for six subjects this semester; Professional Communication Skills (PCS), Control Systems, Communication Systems, Analogue Electronics II, Electromagnetic Theory (EMT) and Probability and Statistics (PNS). Now, there's some problem with me taking PCS. See, this morning, my friends and I went to the PCS class at 10. At that time, EMT Lecture 1 is also on, but we went to the Lecture 2 which is 11 to 1. However, at 12 till 1, EE students are supposed to have their PNS lecture. So, in short, at 12 to 1, our EMT lecture clashed with our PNS lecture.

When I told Dr. Naufal, the EMT lecturer, about the issue, he said,"It's not his problem." Which is true. The clash resulted from us having the PCS class at 10; if we're free at 10, we can have EMT from 10 till 12 instead, and not clash with PNS. Problem is, I don't want to delay PCS till another semester, or even after internship. Sure, I can, but by that time, the other subjects I'm supposed to take would be full with presentations and projects. I don't want to drop PCS now that I already registered for it, and have made my timetable especially with PCS in it.

Anyway, I've talked with our lecturer for PNS, Dr. Ratna. She said that such a problem occurs every new semester, and she promised us to see Dr. Naufal about the matter. Knowing Dr. Naufal, I know how hard it would be to try and talk him into changing the timetable, but I'll keep my hopes up anyway.

Anyway, I went to the ROBOCON early semester meeting last night, and after undergoing a serious change of organisational structure, I was made the new Director of Media and Publication. Congratulations to me.

Back In UTP With Enol and His New PC

2008-07-19T23:10:00.002+08:00

The title is pretty much self-explanatory.

I arrived around 5 in the evening. Took all of my stuff to my room, and bid goodbye to my family.

Gad's got his most wanted Macbook already. It's leaking so much pure ownage, it makes Enol's laptop look like one of Mydin's disposable RM5 calculator. Except that, Enol had also upgraded to an actual desktop PC, with widescreen monitor and Intel Core 2 Quad processor. SO brand new, the monitor's got no icon whatsover. Blank. Got it, Enol? Blank?

Anyway, I'm sitting in front of my computer here, just finished unpacking my stuff and putting everything where it should, or almost all of it - the rubber mat in the upper cabinet is missing - and faced with a frustating poblem.

My 120Gb external harddisk isn't working! Damn! Must've been during that time when it fell of the top of the CPU when I was packing! Well I didn't think much about it that since, well, I was busy packing, but...damn! All the Youtube robot videos I downloaded during the holidays and the movies and the rest of the pics, documents, mangas, animes, backup documents, Whose Line videos.....

Like I said, damn. I wish I could bring it to the shop from which I purchased it and ask to see if I can in any way repair it, or at least recover all the data inside. Course, chances are that it's naught, but well,I've got so many friggingly important stuff inside, that I just gotta try. Try, and believe in it.

And all this happened when I just bought a new 500Gb internal HD....!

20 years of existence...

2008-07-18T14:41:00.003+08:00

I'm 20 years old now.

Well, 20 years and one month old. My birthday's on June 16. In true Sodrohu fashion, I'll posting on this rather, rather late.

Normally, as a tradition, my family and I would go out and have dinner at Geylang, near the Tebrau Straits in Johor Bahru. However, that day, I was in KL. Wanting to celebrate my birthday anyway, my mom, bro, sis and I went out to dinner at the Cheng Ho restaurant in Wangsa Maju. It was Monday night, and turned out on Mondays the restaurant is closed. Figures. Anyhow, we settled at another nearby restaurant and had dinner there instead.

Being 20, for me, is.......creepy. On one hand, I knew that I am getting older. On the other hand, I also knew that I'm getting nowhere near as mature as I wanted to be. Three years ago, I was rather childish. Now, I'm getting better, perhaps not childish, but otherwise still immature. Coupled with the fact that I'm supposed to graduate and start working in 3 years' time, it freaks me out even more.

Oh well, I guess time and experience will help. Godspeed.

Is this blog dead?

2008-07-18T11:01:00.002+08:00

Looks like it.

I haven't been updating this blog for an entire five months. That's a new record. Previously, it was two months. But truth be told, I don't want this blog to die, with this being my only personal blog. I have lots of stuff to write here, about the world, and everything else that interests me. I want to share with the world my view on the local and global issues in today's world. At least, that's the idea back then 2006 when I first started this blog. So then, what happened?

Turned out that maintaining a blog is a lot more demanding than I expected. Okay, so the prospect of logging on and typing some stuff on the computer for around half an hour every week or so isn't really that troublesome. Then again, I'm not the kind of guy that's good at doing stuff consistently, unless you count sleeping, eating, crapping and the like. Sometime after I started this blog, I just don't feel like updating no more. Not for the lack of things to post though; I had tons of them dwelling in my head. And that, unfortunately, is the only place they are going to dwell.

Call it laziness. Call it slacking off. Call it whatever you want to call it. This syndrome affects all of us, and it extends way beyond just blogging. It can happen to any of us, to anything that requires constant work done.

Well, not all of us. Other people can go on and on doing the same thing every week, either blogging or else, regardless of how tiring and inconvenient it is. Guess that's what they call passion. And I guess that's what I lacked.

Is this blog dead? No, but it's not too alive either. Guess I'll need to really start posting more frequently, and put some more passion into it.

Random stuff 1

2008-02-17T16:56:00.004+08:00

Just some random stuff I had in my computer...

Remember the movie The 300? I can't say much whether it's good or not, but somehow, it turned into a famous internet meme, especially the part of Leonidas's different faces and his much-parodied cry "This is Sparta!". Here are some of the stuff I had...

Suzumiya Haruhi would deeply appreciate this one eh.

2008-02-09T21:53:00.000+08:00

Yeah, I know it's kinda late.

But I don't care.

A New Semester's Rant

2008-01-22T14:38:00.000+08:00

It's 2.30 pm. Today is Tuesday, the second day of yet another new semester at UTP. I'm officially a 2nd year 1st semester Electrical and Electronic Engineering student now. Like every first week of new semesters, I'm busy attending new lectures, sorting out my personal timetable from the multitude of lectures, tutorials and labs from the master timetable, and again sorting it when I found out that several of them had actually been allocated to other time slots. I'm not complaining actually, or rather I couldn't, since this kind of stuff happens every time and happens to everyone, but at least I believe I can complain about one incident which just happened today.

It was during the first Signal and Systems lecture at 1 pm. The lecturer, Mr. Varun Jeoti, was there. As usual, he was explaining and showing to what the course is all about, what the reference books are, percentages of marks given to labs, tests and stuff...you know the drill.

So, at some point, he asked all of us, what does the term 'signals and systems' evoke in our thoughts. A moment or two passed. Then, trying to break the silence , I said 'wireless communications' and 'Bluetooh'. He acknowledged my answers and waited for answers from others. No takers. He repeated his question. Still no sale.

In the end, he kind of got displeased with us and told us how he lamented the students' lack of participation. He ventured about the concept of discipline and disciple, and how is a disciple different from a student(I didn't really recall this part, but I got the gist of it). He told us that there is more to learning than just reading stuff off the slide show, and stressed on the importance of participation.

This kind of situation pissed me off. I was really disappointed with my class. I mean-come on, that was just a simple question! A matter of opinion! Can't any one of them, apart from me, at least came up with an answer - and say it out aloud? The answer itself isn't of much importance here - answering it is. There is no criteria of right-wrong to what your answer should be - just your opinion on the matter. Just like the question 'what do you think of this shirt' or 'what kind of colour you like and why'. Don't you people think that it's rude to have lecturers ask you questions and not answer them? I'd say, if you people were to be in the same scenario as Mr Varun, you poeple would be angry too.

I suppose anyone of them could answer the question - it's just that they don't want to. I suppose they don't because either they weren't paying attention, too shy to say it aloud or afraid of coming up with a stupid answer. And, to a somewhat greater extent, I believe they are too shy to say it themselves.

Honestly.

What do you need to be shy of? What do you need to be afraid of? Why do you even have to be shy? The lecturer isn't going to eat you or kill you or rip your arms off the sockets if we answer either rightly or wrongly. He's not out to murder your whole family if you think your answer is a bit dumb. Come on. We've all been here for two years already. Have any one of you heard of students getting perforated with a shotgun because they erred when answering questions verbally in classes? No, right? Then, why is this fear, shyness?

Shy? F**k! Don't want to answer because you guys are too shy? Bullcrap! Why the hell must you people be shy at saying stuff out loud? Is answering a question of the kind we all have just been asked a heinous crime? Is it sinful? No, it isn't! Then, why won't you answer? Shyness
is a good thing to have. In Islam, shyness bordering on embarassment is one of the components necessary to avoid oneself or any serious acts of sin. However, there's a time and place for everything, and that includes shyness too. It's a drag when you don't want to do something as simple as answering a question posed by the lecturer in front of many people, and it's even more or a drag when you're training to be an engineer. A professional engineer.

Be more outspoken! Say it clearly, out, and aloud! Give others a piece of your mind! Don't be afraid to share your thoughts on stuff, and learn to share them! Those are the qualities that make for successful communications - and successful people too, come to think about it.

Well, I'm just hoping that this kind of stuff won't ever happen again. Cuz it shouldn't. The lecturers at UTP, like how Mr Varun himself said, have great expectations of their students every semester. If this is the kind of attitude that we're going to show to them, then we're not living up to their expectations.

EDIT: TO the rest of my course mates who are reading this now, I hope you guys can get my message from this particularly flamey post. Do forgive the harsh languange since I'm currently a bit emo.

Blanked Out

2008-01-15T23:05:00.000+08:00

It's been quite a while ever since I last posted.

But as of now, I've got nothing to say. Except that, obviously, I'm not dead.

Currently I'm back in UTP, in my friend's room which I illegally live in(he knows about this by the way) in Village 4. So yeah, this semester I'll be living in V4 as well, which makes for a nice change after three semesters living in crappy V1...

Well, I guess that's all for now.

Chow.

Study Week

2007-11-07T13:07:00.000+08:00

Currently, I'm in my study week period in UTP, which started on Monday.

So yeah, gotta study. I'm going to have 2 final exams every week for the next three weeks.

Digital Electronics, Health, Safety and Environment, Structured Programming, Vector Calculus, Microelectronic Devices and Circuits and Network Analysis.

Currently having a vendetta against Network Anal-lysis as I busted its derivative last semester, Circuit Theory.

HSE sounds like a real trouble for memorizing.

DGE demands knowledge on combinational and sequential gate logic design. Pretty tough.

SP.....
for(i=0; i<= 10, i++);
printf("I need more exercises on flowchart, pseudocode and writing the program itself\n"):
return 0;

Vector Calculus. A straightforward subject. I wish my total understanding on it is the same though.

MDC. The lecturer has leaked, for the most part, the topics that's going to come out in the exam. It should be easy, or at least straightforward. It better be.

Wish me luck, everyone.

Family Vacation on 31st August Public Holiday

2007-09-22T01:25:00.000+08:00

I just found out that I haven't posted anything in this blog regarding my country's celebration of 50 years' of independence....

What, you don't know?

Well, I dunno whether my blog here is cool enough that people from all over the world(read:those outside Malaysia) actually come and read my blog once in a while. Come to think about it, do they even know that I'm from Malaysia? Guess that reminds me that I still haven't properly introduced to the blogging community the who, what, where and when I ams yet. It's not like much of them will take notice anyway...

But back to business. Yeah,on 31st August 2007, Malaysia celebrated its 50 years of independence from the occupation of Britain...well, British people. Well, whatever. Every year, the date 31st August is welcomed by all Malaysians(since it's a public holiday, which means one day off your job) and is celebrated throughout the country(who doesn't want public holidays anyway?). There are parades held in the capital Kuala Lumpur, attended by the Prime Minister and his cronies, with colourful participation by the military and armed forces, students, supermarket mascots, and so, and so, and so....you know the drill...

However, since this year's significantly special, you could see that the same kind of stuff were happening again, except that this time it's bigger, brighter, flashier, longer, more colourful and whatever other superlative words that I was too lazy to type in. Parades are held in(if I'm not mistaken)all of the main cities in evey state, and many crazy stuff took off, like fireworks display competition in Penang, for instance. Hell, my uni (UTP) even tried to do its part my amassing a mountain of used diskettes and made a huge Malaysian flag out of it(it's not like the diskettes are useful for anything else anyway...).

But I don't want to talk about those things actually (The hell....I pretty much done talking about it already!).

During the Independence celebrations, my family and I went to Penang for a family holiday. It's been a real while since all of us got the chance to go on a family trip together, so I'm pretty much grateful that this year's public holiday came aroundback-to-back with the weekends, so all of us were free to go on a vacation. On 30th August, my family from KL went to fetch me at UTP before making it straight to Penang.

The first thing I noticed about Penang was how similar in development it is with Johor Bahru(my actual hometown), and how equally crowded it is. The trip through the Peneng Bridge alone took away about half an hour's worth of my life. Then, going around the main citywe made our way to the Penang Grand COntinental Hotel, where my dad has already booked two rooms for all of us. During that time, there wasn't much to look around in the city, except the iconic Komtar tower standing tall among the old shophouses and its inhabitants in the firework-coloured sky(wow....that's pretty artistic no?). So we made it to Grand Continental, get our bags to our rooms, bathed and prayed and then slept. End of Day One.

Day two.

A view of the city from my room window.

We all woke up late today(Not really...we all did woke up for Subuh prayers...but then we slept back). So around 10 am we went out of the hotel. Our first destination that day, was....Lorong Kulit.

It's my dad who's all hyped up to go there; my bro and sis and I didn't even know such a road esisted, but there you are. Lorong Kulit turned out to be nothing more than your average makeshift street market, selling stuff like pirated Pantene shampoos to handphone casings to drinks and shirts. There was really nothing special there, just your average market stuff. Either way, bought some drinks and after high boredom levels get the better of my dad(and much insistence from my mom and all of us), we went somewhere else.

Lorong Kulit.

After Lorong Kulit, we went to several various places, but didn't stick around long enough at any one place. We went to Bukit Bendera, but most of us were too lazy to go up till the top of the hill. We stopped somewhere to buy some ice creams, then went to Teluk Bahang. We stopped at some beach which name I couldn't remember much, and later went further inland, and came up with...

A dam! The Teluk Bahang dam!

Sure, it's just a dam, nothing much to give a dam about. Still, it was my first time(as far as I can remember anyway) that I actually come up close with a dam, so of course I was a bit more than just jakun naturally.

My dad drove up till the top, parked and took some family pics. My sis and bro and I went camwhoring ourselves, now that we've got our Nokia N76s.

My dad taking our group pic with the dam front at the background.

Me with the dam as the background.

Another view of the dam.

Man, the wind was so strong here, if I was ten times lighter than my current weight now, I could've flown away. It's like a scene outta Titanic, minus Jack, Rose, expendable extras, cheesy acting, stray icebergs and the Titanic itself.

After that, we stopped at yet another beach (or port, not so sure..) before driving back to the town. Dropped by at the Church Street Pier to throw small and large water(aka going to the toilet...hehehe) and later went to the supposedly famous Liner Clear 24 Hours Nasi Kandar joint to enjoy the delicacies it offered and perhaps get my cholestrol levels a bit higher or so....

The Church Street Pier front.

The Line Clear Nasi Kandar Restaurant

How the inside of the restaurant looks like.

Dunno who's this guy. Probably just a local celebrity around here...

Ginger tea aka teh halia.

I also checked around the shops for any latest Gempak or Starz mags, but didn't find any. THe newspapers, meanwhile, were full of stuff about the Independence celebrations - you can see it in the front page alone.

That night, we went out walking around the Penang town, basking in its nightlife. I tried to find some Starz or Gempak mags but to no avail. Anyhow, we had a late dinner(supper) before going back to the hotel.

The next day, we were to go back to KL and JB(in my case, Tronoh). The initial plan was to stick around for another 24 hours, but for reasons known but forgotten, it wasn't so. We spent the cruel morning going to the Komtar, only to find our efforts futile as the place wasn't open yet.

Undeterred, we went to the pier to go out of the island and back to the mainland the way we didn't when going in - by ferry.

Damn!(No, I wasn't talking about the Teluk Bahang one). This was the highlight of this family vacation! This wasn't my first ride on a ferry(with both vehicles and people onboard), since the first one I had was when I went tot Turkey. Then again, at that time, it was at night, I was sleepy and surrounded by folks whom I am too intimidated to ask where the restroom is. This time, it was a clear morning sky, so I can see stuff away as far as my horribly myopic eyes can permit.

The vehicles that were on board the ferry.

A look of the Penang Strait from the ferry.

Me, on the ferry.

Back on the mainland, my dad hooked up with one of his accomplices so the guy could lead us to our final eat-out for this vacation, the restaurant at some place(details forgotten already).

Basically the eatery served you local Penang delicacies along with its main attraction - grilled food. They got pretty much all of the usual stuff here - beef, mutton, squids, fish, children(no they're not on the menu, but they're all over the place).

We ordered drinks and pretty much a little bit of everything. When the food was put on the table, I knew that this would be the moment which I will both enjoy and regret. For one, I'm enjoying good food with my family, a precious experience. Then again, I'm supposed to watch what I'm eating due to high cholesterol levels - and the only thing on the table that I could consume without having health complications here was the drinking water.

Should I eat, or not?

I was in a huge dilemma. A very huge dilemma. Even after all the food was finished and during the trip back to UTP, I'm still in a huge dilemma. Then, back on UTP, I realised that I've already devoured like a third of everything on the table, so I bought several 3-in-1 instant oatmeal beverages to hopefully counter the effect.

So yeah, those pretty much summarises my less-than accurate post on my family vacation. Like all family trips, this one was not without its downs, and mine had a fair share of anger, pissed-offs and dissatisfactions. Then again, what's a family would be without its own ups and downs? No I'm not gonna complain (much) about it being a lousy trip; hell, I suppose it's good enough that we actually had a family vacation together, even if it's not a perfect...

Now I'm waiting for my dad for a family vacation overseas....

A moment in an after-Maghrib ceramah

2007-08-21T08:19:00.000+08:00

Been a long time since I last posted, but never mind. In case you didn't know, I'm already starting a new semester as a 1st-year 2nd semester EE undergraduate at UTP, which started around a month ago. I've been thinking of updating this blog for a long time, but somehow I didn't seem to get the feeling to do it.

In a period of one month, many things have happened. I had to drop Professional Communication Skills because the subject now are only taught to third-years going to internships. I accidentally let down some of my friends in an incident which I had now regretted fully. I screwed up my online subject registration process and had to go to the ACS to sort things out manually, which, by this time, has already been sorted out. I already had my first Digital Electronics test which I seriously hope that I will score on since the questions were pretty tough. Even today, I had my first Vector Calculus not-so surprise quiz, which I managed to virtually finish perfectly.

And just now, from after the Maghrib prayers till 10.00 pm, I attended a religious ceramah at the UTP mosque. It was (mostly) about Israk Mikraj, and the one giving the ceramah was none other than Dato' Harussani Zakaria, the venerable Mufti of Perak! Boy, am I excited! I'm not just so because a Musfti is actually coming to our university to give talks, but also because DHZ happens to be the most outspoken of his peers in other states. He had commented much abou the issues and maladies concerning Muslims in recent times, and his opinions had been heard by everyone. He was celebrated by many for his audacity, yet he was lambasted in certain quarters for his boldness.

Either way, personally I found him very likeable. He had this aura of friendliness surrounding him, y'know, the aura that all elderly respectable religious teachers always possess.....

The topic was on Israk Mikraj. I've heard stories of this celebrated event in Islamic history, of how Prophet Muhammad SAW travelled in in one night from Makkah to Madinah and up towards the heavens, many times before, but this time, hearing from DHZ, several things which previously I knew none of I know now. Like, I knew that the daily solah was conceived during the Israk Mikraj, but the concept of repentance before death was also done during that moment. Like the solah, the concept of repentance also went though several stages; initially, God said that Muslims who repented a year before their death would be forgiven; after much request from Prophet Muhammad SAW, the time was reduced to only before Death reaches their throats(or something like that - I'm not good with direct translations). Apart from that, DHZ also covered the topic on Adam's creation, Iblis' treachery and Adam and Hawa's descent to earth. I learned again about something which I once knew but forgot - the characteristics of Iblis:

When Iblis swore to God that he would be the mortal enemy of Adam's ancestors, he asked God who would guide humanity and what are the guides based on; God replied that the prophets would guide humanity and the guides would be based on the four Holy Books (Injil, Zabur, Taurat and Furqan). Iblis got confused and asked, what about his kind? Then God replied, for Iblis:

1. Kings would be the one to guide humanity.

2. Fortune tellers would be the base of the guides.

3. The mosque of the Iblis would be places where people congregate for immoral activities.

4. Iblis' call to prayer would be hard music.

5. Iblis' food would be those food which, when eaten, were not started with Basmallah.

6. Iblis' drink would be those which can cause drunkiness.

That's pretty much everything new that I've learnt back then during the ceramah. Even if I didn't learn anything, I still appreciate it. For so long, my soul has been devoid of any spiritual fill; I hadn't taken my required share of constant religious knowledge as of late. Back in the ceramah, listening to DHZ, I felt really alive. My spirit was back to what it used to be. At least for now anyway. And that sudden surge in spirit that prompted me to finally blog again this day.

Salam.

Nuri Crash Tragedy

2007-07-19T23:22:00.000+08:00

This happened on Friday, when I was back in JB helping out at my grandma's kenduri arwah.

The guy, Captain Nor Azlan Termuzi, was a distant relative of mine.

As of now, all the bodies had been airlifted and buried.

Allah bless their souls. Al-Fatihah.

Happy Mother's Day!

2007-05-14T16:46:00.000+08:00

Happy Mother's Day to everyone! Of course, it is a day late actually...

To Smithereens....

2007-05-11T16:22:00.000+08:00

I was reading the NST paper today. There wasn't much that caught my limited attention, except for the new arrival of Perodua Viva, a new, Kancil-style car which I seriously doubt I can fit into. Then I saw this.

Well, the link is up above.

Basically, the piece reported that during the Parlimentary debate between the government and opposition reps about the current fiasco regarding maintenance problems in public offices(leaks, falling ceilings, cracks, you know the drill...), Datuk Bung Moktar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan) and Datuk Mohd Said Yusuf (BN-Jasin) had both mentioned some stuff which had in effect said:

"Where is the leak, the member for Batu Gajah also leaks once a month."

This was actually in response to Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang(who raised the whole leaky-leaky issues first) but directed to Fong Poh Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah).

My thoughts on this:

1. WTF. WTF dude, WTF. What. The. F**k.

2. Right. Ignoring my less-than-intellligent initial thought above...

Seriously, what gives? That statement shouldn't have been said in the first place! First, it has nothing to do with whatever the other party is arguing about. What's a woman's natural menstrual cycle got to do with crappy leaking public buildings?

Second, it is downright insulting and discriminatory! What is this, sexism? The rep had made fun of what comes natural to all women, and in effect had insulted womankind. Doesn't he know that that was discriminatory? Doesn't he had any respect to women? Doesn't he know anything about being sensitive? Come now! His mother, sister and daughter are all women, no? So what with this sudden crap? Didn't he care about other women's feelings and rights, apart from those close to him(blood-related or not)?

3. This kind of statements made by our politicians show just how crap those holding the powers right now are. It's exactly these kind of stuff that made our Parliment more ridiculous than the average popup spam encountered on the Internet-

But wait, there's more! This particular statement was not written in the link, but in the paper version it was. Datuk Said Yusof(BN-Jasin) has said that:

" I said it in the hear of the debate. I don't see what they are fussing about. They also call us names. Like Kinabatangan (referring to Bung Moktar), they call him Kinabinatangan and 'orang liar'. We never kicked up a fuss then."

So what? Just because you didn't get all riled up because someone called you something less-than-polite doesn't mean that you can make rude statements to others and expects them not to get pissed off because you aren't. Remember, one man's mean is another man's(or, in this case, a woman's) poison. Maybe you're okay with people calling you a 'mangkuk', 'bengong', or even 'mereng', but if other people are given the same treatment, they may get get dissed off. Especially when the person in question is a woman who had her woman-ness(you'll ge tthe idea what it means...my vocabulary is not that good) made fun of. Picture this. If a random hip-hopper suddenly address an old lady as "yo, dog!" , and the old lady got realy upset, would it be logical if the hip-hopper claim innocence to his act cuz his friends did the same thing to him and vice versa?

Well, maybe he could do so, but in the end he'll end up being beaten by the mob around, so what the hell.

Just to conclude this, no wonder our country are going to the dogs. The select idiots holding political power had turned the Parliament from what should've been a platform for serious national discussion and improvement into something less tangible than crap. That's a job well screwed up. Just wait till the people outside Malaysia who don't have the word "WARGANEGARA" on their ICs know about this.

Back from Whatever.

2007-05-09T01:22:00.000+08:00

Right. It's been like two straight months since I last posted. No surprise there.

I've been busy doing stuff all thing time; assignments, tests, quizzes...and what other things the average overweight teenager would do.

Now, it's Tuesday, or to be more accurate, Wednesday morning. The next week, I'll be having my finals.

I'll come back with something else that's worth posting about.

Hopefully. Later.

Graduation Ceremoney....

2007-04-07T16:31:00.000+08:00

Last Wednesday, I attended my graduation ceremony in the UFO building aka Chancellor Hall.

Nah, I didn't graduate from UTP. Not yet anyway. But I did officially graduate from the Foundation programme to the Undergraduate programme. That's what the ceremony was all about-no, wait, there was also the Dean's list awards.

As you may have guessed, the DLA is given to those who supposedly performed well in their previous semester i.e got a GPA of 3.5 and above. Last semester, in Foundation 2nd, I attended my own DLA. This time, though, I'm only here for the graduation ceremony, so you can guess what happened to my last exams results.

It's not really that bad actually......Whatever! Let the ghosts of past disappointments rest in their graves, For here comes the Future that I will brave!

Well, I did dread this ceremony, or any events of formal nature, simply because it was - formal. See, I didn't have a formal in my wardrobe, and my last one I lost, so I had to go dress-hunting for a long-sleeved, collared shirt which I can fit into. Luckily, my mate Zul, who possess physical qualities and quantities similar to mine, had an extra black one to spare, so finally I was able to attend the ceremony without thoughts of wearing the wrong shirt nagging the back of my head.

On a lesser idiotic note, I did take lots and lots of pictures during the whole ceremony with my trusty Sony Cybershot (albeit broken already). Something like this comes naturally for me; if there is any event that has students attending it on a massive scale, for sure I will bring my camera along, just so I can capture pics and later brag about it to other people.

Pretty much shows how many students turned up for the ceremony(all, minus those who were absent). The guys and girls to the lower right are from my course, Electrical n Electronic Engineering.

Dr. Zainal Abidin bin Haji Kassim, officially and currently UTP's acting Rector.

FINALLY! A close-pic of myself. No, in case you thought otherwise, I was not going insane there. Honest.

This is a calmer-looking me with the IRC (Information Resource Centre, a fancier name for the UTP Library) as the background.

This is Ivan. He seemed kinda pissed off at me taking his pic....well, never mind, it's done already.
My EE mates queueing up to sign their attendances.

I always believe that showing an open camera to anyone can instantly make them friendly to you. I only knew two of these girls(Alia and Rima, both also from SMTJB), yet all of them posed for my camera.

My credit ran out after the ceremony, so I need to use the public instead. Ah, no lah. But it's still a cooler pose than Ivan's.

Sodrohu-at-modelling@utp.com.whatever

2007-04-03T12:59:00.000+08:00

Zoodoo! It's been some time since I last posted, no? Well, I've been busy before this, doing assignments, projects and revising for tests and quizzes(and I'll be even busier after this, doing the same exact thing all over again), so I didn't get any quality time for blogging. Well, I did actually got some, but mostly I was busy doing something else instead.

But yah, whatever. Now, I just realised that, after nearly a year of inactive blogging, I still haven't posted anything worthy about my own self. Which, could be a bummer, since my own audiences(read:you!) didn't even know what I like, who my parents are, or whether I am really an exiled Protoss eternally stuck on Earth or just a bluff(This one is no brainer. Really.). Let's just say I don't really like talking about myself. Well, I actually do, but mostly I'm too lazy to do so. But, for starters, let me talk about my current interest first.

Now, you guys may not believe this, but I'm actually into modelling.

No, not that kind of modelling.

This kind of modelling.

For sure.

Yah, currently I'm into those Gundam modelling. I kinda always attracted to the whole business of putting up stuff together, even when I was young, as the whole idea fascinates me. I still remember, when I was a cute lil' kid, my dad brought back from overseas, a skeleton model of a certain sauropod(that's the term given to long-necked, long-tailed, huge herbivore dinasours. Y'know, like a Brachiosaurus...). I had the time of my life putting that thing together. From there, as I grew(mentally and physically obviously....well, mostly physically), I moved to aeroplanes, Tamiya car models(most notable collections include a bigfoot truck and a motorbike replica - all but now lost. Damn!), Legos, K'nex, Zoids(still got all but one of them) and now....Gundams.

Now, as you guys may have guessed, this kind of hobby is frickingly expensive. I'm just able to be into it cuz I got monetary backup(read: my dad's money and Petronas scholarship loan) for it. Of course, even so, I didn't just go model frenzy and buy every decent-looking model I saw on the shelf - I only buy them every now and then. Then again, I suppose, costly or cheap, it's still a good hobby - it's not like I'm killing anyone when buying models anyway.

Why am I into this? Well, I guess that putting up models gives me a sense of satisfaction. Just imagine the feeling you get when you have finally finished constructing something good-looking out of tens of little pieces of plastic - I mean, assuming that it does turn out right. I always feel kinda euphoric whenever I finished putting together a model - holding the model in my hands, comparing how big and detailed it is, and how the joints move and the colours shine, knwoing that this is for real, and not just some imagination. It's like getting high on a crack, except that this one doesn't screw up your brain.

As of now, at my room in UTP, I have three models. I have about a dozen more at my house in JB, but for now, here's my immediate ones:

A group pic of them - kinda blurry tho.

Asshimar, without its beam rifle and stand. Yeah, I know the name sounds....weird....but it is nice looking. At least, I find it so. Those orange coverings look cooler if they aren't orange, tho.

Blaze Zaku Phantom. This one I brought all the way from JB, though I bought it at Singapore. Nice design of shoulder shields and awesome looking. It belongs to the CE timeline of the Gundam series. Go Wikipedia for further details.

Kerberos BuCuE Hound. Has three heads, but only the front one works. Even that one falls off easily. Kinda unique design tho.

A pic of all the Boxes. You can see the code name for Asshimar there.

Rcon id teh best!

2007-03-19T21:08:00.000+08:00

Last week, or the week before, or the week before the week before that, the local entertainment industry was a bit shaken when a talk show about celebrities was taken off from a local TV station when one of the artists unwittingly made comments that were said to insult Sayyidina Khadijah, Prophet Muhammad’s first wife. The show went under heavy fire, particularly from Muslim groups who viewed the incident as blasphemous. I’m not sure whether the editor apologized or not, but the actress did, which may or may not cool the situation down.

Me? Well, basically I do felt incensed over the whole issue, since the actress herself was a Muslim, and should knew better than to release such remarks. But that is not exactly the issue I’m trying to bring up now.

Now, what really pissed me off was the TV programme itself. It’s another show about entertainment, damnit! Come now, do we seriously need another one of those? We’ve already have lots of equivalent shitty TV shows around, do we still have room for more? One only needs to look at the past local shows we’ve already got: entertainment programs (AF, AF2, AF3, AF4, and the new AF5, Malaysian Idol, Gang Starz, Who will Win), gossip shows and detestable local dramas with wrong messages (read: Dunia Baru!).

Come now. Hadn’t our society been spoon-fed with enough useless crap already? Hadn’t our society been preoccupied with enough entertainment already? Hadn’t the producers made enough money to last seven generations already? Isn’t it time to think about having more quality, education-centered TV shows already? It’s so sad that that producers nowadays are only concerned about making money, and not about the betterment of the attitude of their audiences.

Back when I was still a cute, happy, primary schooler, I used to watch National Geographic on TV3 at 9 pm every Wednesday. I so freakingly loved the programme, so much that at 9 every Wednesday, I would cease operating whatever I was doing at that time and go watch the show start, its trademark opening theme song blaring in my ears, and I would be glued in front of the CRT TV set for an entire hour, oblivious to anything happening in this world except obviously a blackout. Now, the show’s gone, and even though I can still access NG through Astro Satellite TV (who ironically also brought forward AF and what other crap I’d rather not put here), I do and still miss the TV3 one, with its Malay subtitles and all….

What I am talking about is that, why can’t we have more quality TV programmes? Last I checked, there are not many local documentaries that are shown in TV stations…well, popular ones, that is. TV1 and TV2, which are government-owned, have quite a number of local knowledge-based shows, but these often escaped most people’s notice(mine included) since most people only watch TV3 and NTV7, and perhaps TV8 and TV9 also. I’m not saying that the swasta TV stations don’t have any good shows (TV3 got Majalah 3 and MedikTV, and NTV7 got Edisi Siasat, to name a few….). It’s just that, since they know that many people tune in to their channels, the producers ought to put in some quality documentaries that teach the audiences about new stuff, be it local or foreign. I’d say that shows from NG (Built for the Kill, Wild Planet, other NG specials) or Discovery (Power Zone, the popular Mythbusters, Extreme Engineering, to name a few…) would be suitable for the task, or at least put in entertainment shows that are heavily themed on engineering which can garner interest among its audiences (Robot Wars, Monster Garage, Junkyard Wars). Sure, being an engineer wannabe, I tend to be biased towards shows with lots of engineering and technical themes, but I’d welcome any decent documentaries that can educate its viewers.

I seriously hope that things will change for the better. Since its creation, TV had shaped the mentality of many generations of people. It is the perfect tool for propaganda and brainwash; kids who grew up watching lots of television either end up as better humans of downright psychos, depending on what they watched. Knowing this, we must be the one in control of the TV, not the other way around. And I’d say, if you’re going to brainwash the masses, put in stuff that can at least make them think more and dawdle less.

Zalutations!

Robocon R' Sodrohu

2007-02-24T12:11:00.001+08:00

I got two good news to share with the world today.

My mom has finally recovered from her illness. Whether it was really dengue or not, I will never knew, since she was down with symptoms that hinted dengue but the doctors never really determined whether it was really dengue or not. Either way, I'm thankful that she's now healthy....well, not exactly, but otherwise much better than previous.

I has finally joined the Robocon marketing team.

*waits for any signs of amazement, surprise or whatever...*

Right. It's not like I was expecting any anyway. Anyway, for those who don't know, Robocon is one of the biggest engineering events in UTP, aside from FSAE and EDX. You can easily guess what it's all about; building robots and later putting them into competitions. Of course, all the competitions currently involve stuff like stacking donut-shaped styrofoams in pillars, line tracking and the like, so it's definitely not like Robot Wars or BattleBots. A pity, but hey, this is as close as you get to the real thing, so I might as well not complain!

I've been drooling to get into the damn team even before entering UTP! Naturally during my first Foundation sem I tried for the interview but failed to secure a seat. Now I've made a comeback and this time I succeeded!

Well, initially I was vying for the technical team instead. However, I realised that being in the marketing team gives me the equal exposure to robotics, robots and the makings of one as me in the technical team. Besides, I heard the technical people are pressured to finish their projects fast and on time, so I guess I can relax a bit if I joined the marketing team.

Just last night we had our first meeting, and get introduced to our boss (president), old timers (seniors) and department heads (dept heads). What I didn't really like is that I am relegated to the Decorations dept - initially a serious blow to my image. I was hoping that I would get Logistics instead! However, as fate would have it, the Deco dept and the Logs dept was combined since there are only two new people in the Logs dept - and the seniors are often absent. So even if I am not in Logs, I can still have a shot at it, have a go at it - not a bad turnout indeed.

Why am I so excited anyway? Guess I am really obsessed with robotics - real or otherwise. I collect mecha models at home and I intended to put some in my room too, just for the sake of showing off. And once I'm in Robocon, I'm going to try and build my own robot - a wheeled one, then maybe a hexapod of a quadrapod.

Okies then, chiaou!

My thigh muscles are sore from jogging.

2007-02-10T21:35:00.000+08:00

Everyone, listen up.

Sodrohu Kaiser would like to announce to the Earth-world that yours truly has moved to a new room.

.......

...right, enough formalities already.

What's this? Switching to a new room, all of a sudden! Why? Don't you have anything better to do?

Well, to answer my own questions, I say that I had my own reasons to switch rooms, and that my ex-roomate Zul, and the previous occupant of my new room, Izhar, and I had a mutual agreement together and decided to go with my transfer. Now I'm living in Izhar's room, and Izhar in my old room with Zul. Yes, I do have better stuff to do, but let me finish this post first.

Coming back from self Q&A session...

Oh, I'd say! This is the first night I am going to spend in my new room! For those who want to know but otherwise too lazy to ask, my new room is a single room type, meaning that I, apart from a few million bedbugs and what other microscopic organism, am the sole inhabitant of this particular confined space! What's so exciting about that? Owning a room all to yourself opens up a whole world of new things that you previously could only dream of:

1. Pull out an all-nighter without any regard for sleeping roommates.

2. Listen to whatever audio crap you want, minus your mate's complaints.

3. Let your room become a mini version of the Pengkalan Nangka Landfill without the additional noise pollution from ultra-mates.

4. Do stuff in your room naked.

5. Have ultra-cool models furnishing your cabinet.

.........and what other reasons my brain cannot recall right now.

But yeah, like changes do, there're always some sort of remorse and regret plagueing the back of my brain when I finally switched to my new room, whispering stuff like "the old room is so much better what" and stuff. And I had to admit, certain features that my old room has do make me sometimes feel like regretting my decision. For one, uh....how should I say this.......well, I've been living around a bunch of noisy- I mean, outspoken group of people, and even though I prefer a quiet environment, I must say that I had actually come to miss the perpetual din and random screams, laughs and badly-sung songs. Besides, they're quite a cheerful bunch, who never mind helping out at troubles and know each other well. They might not be the best study mates, but they make excellent buddies. And I know I'll miss them people like Apan, who occasionally raided our room and steal Zul's pillow, and Minod, who often came to our room, had some chat and maybe smoked(when I'm not around).

Ah, those were the good days.

Still, trying not to sound too pessimistic, I really hope that this sudden transfer will fulfil its goals. What goals? Well I'm not going to say what they actually are, but maybe later I'll disclose it to the public.

Assalamualaikum!

I'm down with sinusitis.

2007-02-08T09:36:00.000+08:00

I am freaked out.

Last week, my mom was admitted into the Ampang Putri Specialist Hospital because she had been suspected of being down with dengue.

I am still freaked out.

I mean, I thought she was only having a common fever when my dad called, telling me that she was sick. Then, when I called her, I knew something out of the ordinary must’ve been up when she mentioned that she ‘s having recurring fevers. No amount of courage is still enough to prepare me for knowing what her sickness is.

After the Friday prayers I went to Medan Gopeng to secure an immediate ticket to Kuala Lumpur and arrived there around 9 at night. By that time my mom, sis and Mak Som were on their way to APSH to secure a ward. I didn’t feel like visiting her immediately since I’m tired from the journey, and my body gave off quite an interesting smell anyway. So I had dinner and went back to our apartment.

The following day (Saturday), my brother (who also secured an immediate ticket to KL and arrived at noon) and I went to visit my mom in the ward. My sis didn’t go with us as she’s gotten exams that day. She seemed to be fine, though a bit pale, but still her usual self nonetheless. I was relieved to see that she was okay; not that I’ve been expecting anything worse, but yeah.

Despite this, I am still worried. Dengue is an insect-borne illness that has killed thousands, perhaps millions, in the past, and still continued to plague our society today. It’s bad enough that my mom isn’t completely healthy in the first place; now she’s down with even another deadlier disease.

Then again, it’s not like I can blame anyone. More than anything, I should take this as a test from God to me, to test my somewhat patched-up faith. Lately I had not been a faithful Muslim as I had used to be, and I knew that sooner or later something like this will crop up. Well, here it is; it him me, and hit me hard. But yeah, hopefully I will overcome this, and that nothing worse will happen to me or anyone else for the matter.

As of now, my mom is now back in our home in JB. She’s been given a week-long leave to give her some rest. Guess the current educational system isn’t that cruel actually anyway.

I'm still down with gout.

2007-01-06T15:53:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year to everyone who's reading this right now! Well, not that I'm expecting many, since I'm as much as active posting here as a sloth would go and clean itself of algae every month, and it's been 2007 for nearly a week already, so I'm damn late now, but still, don't let the depressions of the real life get to you and be happy!

Now, it's been a long time since my last post, which was primarily about my vacation to Jakarta that didn't feel like one. Turned out it was never going to be a vacation at all - I didn't goto Jakarta that is.

What happened was that, when I made it all the way to KLIA with my mom, Mak Som(she's the woman whose family relation to me I didn't feel like explaining since I'm too lazy - for limited reference see previous post)and her son and daughter, we waited for some time till almost one pm. I even had time to perform the Zuhur prayer - or was it jama' Zuhur-Asar prayer? Anyway after we all finished with our prayers, the travel agent was already there to gather in all the group members and take our passports.

Turned out that my passport cannot be used since it only had five months before its expiry date, which was in May. See, for international travel, your passport must have a period of at least six months before it can be used. Now who the hell came up with that arcane rule? One of the officers there explained that if I still want to go, I can renew my passport at Sepang and join the travel group later, since my ticket seat is still valid for another month, but as I didn't really want to go in the first place, and insistence on going would only cause me more hassle and money.....

Long story short, I managed to go back home alone, from KLIA to Setiawangsa, luggages and all.

Well, sure it sucks and you fell terrible, after all those pointless persuasions by my mom and packings, but at least I did learn something.

....

...what?

You people knew what I was going to say anyway, so what's the point?

Anyway, chow.

I'm down with gout.

2006-12-14T00:57:00.000+08:00

It's been quite some time ever since I posted here. Currently I'm having my semester break, and this is the second week. To tell you the truth, the holiday mood really got into my head so much, I hadn't been doing anything worthy of retelling here ever since I went back to JB last week.

On second thought....well, never mind. Wait, actually, for this break, I'm going to go for a vacation in Jakarta. Okay, it's not like Jakarta is bad or whatever, but I just didn't feel like going actually.

So how the hell did I end up going anyway? Well, initially, there were only my grandma's younger sister along with her daughter and son who were going, but she asked my mom if she wanted to tag along, and my mom agreed. Apparently, even though they were travelling in a group by a travel agent(POTO Travel and Tours), the four of them which consists of two middle-aged women, a teenage girl and a kindergarten-level kid were not a complete set, so in the end my mom called me to see if I'm interested.

(this conversation occured sometime during the study week, or the week before that...whatever. Not translated to preserve originality and partly due to laziness)

Mom: Hello, Afnan. Ni nak ikut mak gi Jakarta tak ngan Mak Som?

Sodrohu: Hah?

Mom: (Talks more about the details of the vacation...) Abis nanti nak ikut tak?

Sodrohu: mmmm...Nanti la mak call balik esok. Nak pikir dulu la.

In the end, I never gave a single thought about the vacation since after that I went to Kabir's room to play Battlefield 2 and Warhammer40000: Dark Crusade. So, later, when my mom called back, I unwittingly agree to go to Jakarta, just for the sake of not disappointing her.

So here I am, going to a place even when I don't feel like going anywhere, and later going to be the one who ends up carrying all the heavy luggage for everyone.

Well, it's not like it's a bad thing, really. At least, I got to go somewhere, instead of getting stuck at home, getting my feet to hit my dad's furniture all the time....

Well, here's a list of what I've done these past two weeks.

1. Downloading stuff, mainly anime and books. Code Geass, Hellsing OVAs, How to Build Your Own Remote-Controlled Robot...

2. Modifying my Forbidden model. I'll post some pics later.

3. Buying a 40GB external HDD, two 1GB RAMs, a new power source, a 2GB thumbdrive(for my sis) and lots of DVD casings at the recent PC Fair.

4. Going to my dad's finished project, the brand-new-but-already-got-lots-of-scratches-and-nicks-here-and-there Johor Convention Centre. There's a KFC outlet there!

5. Cleaning my front and back yards.

6. Scratching my entire body cuz there were so many damn mosquitoes around.

END!

The post-holiday Post

2006-10-01T10:34:00.001+08:00

Today is Sunday, and yesterday was Saturday. So what? Nothing really, I don't really know what to put to start this long-overdue post. Today had been a very hectic day to me. See, this morning, I had my Introduction to Computers and Information Systems test in the Main Hall, and immediately after the test I had to perform my English drama persentation. As far as I am concerned, both of them went on without much hindrance; apart for a few questions, the ICIS test was okay, and though not everything went according to plan, the drama was successful either.I had been preparing for both of them ever for over a week, so you can imagine how relieved I am right now to be able to post here and relax for a bit. ONLY A BIT. Why? Because for next week, I'll have to finish the English assignment and study for Enginering Maths 2 test on Wednesday, study for my Physics 2 quiz on Friday and submit the ICIS assignment on Friday. Sounds like much? I bet it is, but hey, later during my undergraduate years the mountains of assignments and tests are going to make my Foundation year look like nothing, so i might not as well complain.

Just a quick comment on recent issues for now.

Recently the government proposed to sponsor volunteering Malaysians training under the Russian Space Bigshots(real name not sure, duh) so we can finally achieve that not-really-everyone's-dream of putting a Malaysian into the orbit. This was proposed as a way of producing 'towering' Malaysians and to top up Malaysia's name in the international level.

I think all that are crap.

Picture this. just recently also some Iranian US woman also went to orbit, just for the heck of it, and managed to return safely. The not-so official total cost is RM 70 million. 70 million! Can you actually believe this? RM70 million spent just to experience the trill of zero gravity and G-force and see how curvey and blue the Earth really is? Well, it's practically once in a lifetime opportunity, and it's not like the average Protoss like me can get that any time soon, so I suppose it's worth it. But the point is, if the government does that too, would it be worth it?

RM70 million. More or less. I really think that that amount of money are better off spent on developing backwater areas and improving less-than-moden villages and the livelihood of the villagers there instead of trying to put some Johorean in the orbit. RM70 million is such a huge amount of money; not being able to fully use and benefit from it would be ridivulous and disastrous. I don't really care about the Iranian woman since she was probably sponsored, but this is government money we're talking of! Why is the government spening on this when there are still undeveloped villages around with no proper access to water and electricity? Why are they continuing this when there are still illiterate children around who cannot afford to go to school due to extreme poverty? Why are they supposting this when there are still stories of old folks died after falling into rivers cuz the bridge's too old and rusty? Don't they think that this is yet another big waste of money?

Sure, some people can say that we can harbour cooperation between our companies and those Russian bigshots. But tell me, how much are we going to benefit from them? Even if we do, how much are those money, technology and whatever zoodoos our side are going to get can be benefited by poor folks around the country? I don't think much, since any $$$ gained will be shared among big corporations and select individuals with high ranks and big influences, while the poor stays sick. And the poor will have to wait a millenium or so before any technology gaind from such joint venture and actually benefit them, since they never had any access to that. That is for sure.

It's bad enough that we've to scrap up the Gerbang Perdana project, and now we have to face yet another......crap, I'm outta ideas already. Writer's block, I suppose. Well, I suppose I'll stop here. I don't want to go on any longer since this post is supposed to be a short one anyway.

Assalamualaikum and salutations.

The Week Before The Break

2006-09-13T12:39:00.000+08:00

It's been some time ever since I posted here in my blog. Well, I've been busy lately, doing lots of assignments, mainly English ones. This week is the last week before my mid-semester break, and arguably the most hellish week I've experienced in UTP yet. I still have lots of assignments to do; the English drama(which is scheduled to be done after the sem break, and my teammates and I still haven't done any practices!), the ICIS assignment, plus the Chemistry lab report. Hell, we even had a Physics test today, at night! Damn! I was wondering if I can keep up with all these tasks and finish them perfectly and on time. I'm just in Foundation and yet I'm already putting up with these huge amount of work!

Then again, it's university life I'm having right now. One can say that it's the phase where one would really experience how reality really is. It's supposed to provide students with the kind of scenario that would be the norm of the professional world, so later when they graduated they didn't get anything like a culture shock. I suppose, I'm busy here, but at least I enjoy it. Okay, maybe I don't enjoy it, but that's a lot better than sitting around doing nothing.

Besides, it's not like whatever things that I do now will not benefit me later; for instance, I can experience how leading a busy and responsible life would be, and how difficult life is later when you're on your own and working. No, my mainstay profession now is still 'student', and I'm living here using the scholarship money from Petronas, so currently I'm not working. But I feel that it's good to appreciate my life right now, since later my whole life will rest on my ability to be calm under pressure and do thing sthat Im supposed to do.

Well, I need to revise for Physics now. Later.

UTP Wars: Returm of the Convofair Part 2 & 3

2006-08-28T17:56:00.000+08:00

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

2006-08-25T22:56:00.000+08:00

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...

2006-08-15T19:49:00.000+08:00

….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

2006-08-10T16:19:00.000+08:00

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

2006-08-04T20:45:00.000+08:00

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.

2006-08-03T22:10:00.000+08:00

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!

2006-08-02T20:33:00.001+08:00

....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.