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.

Graduation Ceremoney....

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

Then, after a brief respite-

*warps again to next day*

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

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

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

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

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

And with that, sir, salutations.

UTP Wars: Return of the Convofair: Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Someone sent me a message...

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

May Allah bless his departed soul. Innalillahiwainnailaihi roojiuun.


Gotta go have a bath now.

SLAS

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

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

Anyway.

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

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

The briefing room as I knew it.

The briefing as I drew it.

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

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

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


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

I'm looking cool.

*SLAS - Sudden Lazy-Ass Syndrome

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

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

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

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

But I disgress.

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

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

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

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

So then, salutations.

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

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

Well anyway.

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

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

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

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