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.