I Want To Cry

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

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.

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. I have a Maxis number and a newer Celcom number.
   
4. 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…
   
5. 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.
   
6. 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.
   
7. 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

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.

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....

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

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

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...

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?

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

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.

Yeah, I know it's kinda late.

But I don't care.

A New Semester's Rant

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

To Smithereens....

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.

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.