The Philosopher's Abode

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2010-03-30T22:24:00.000+08:00

If you’re from a higher education institution where PMS stands for Partner Medical School instead of pre-menstrual syndrome, MMS stands for Medical Museum Sessions instead of Multimedia Messaging Service, LT stands for Lecture Theater instead of Lieutenant and ME is the standard prefix for the ID number of the majority of the students, than I first of all have to congratulate you. You have finally uncovered my closet blog, which wasn’t that hard to uncover in the first place.

It also means that I really need to create a real closet blog, so I can do all my… ermmm….. closet blogging there.

Jokes aside, yes, I know. The blog has been collecting dust for a total of twelve months now. I needed some time to write, and of course, some fodder to write about. Of course, after an entire year of leave, some of my best work is finally ready, and I present to you my compilation of posts from over an entire year.

I have to admit, they are not in chronological order, so try not to scratch your head too hard if you don’t understand the logic behind my posts, or rather the logic behind the order of my posts. Also, if I don’t sound coherent, leave behind a comment.

I’ll try to get back to you sometime this year.

Here comes the longest series of posts…

Giving

2010-03-30T22:10:00.000+08:00

The season for giving has just finished. Or rather the commercial world wants you to think that. Christmas is, in one way, the season for giving, but that’s for another post. While most of us might only give presents to one another during Christmas (and obviously, during birthdays), whenever we have social interactions, we are giving, in one way or another.

We give our opinions to others, whether solicited or otherwise, when we interact socially. We give advice, views, directions, hints, encouragement, information and other assorted information when we interact.

However, when we interact, we interact not only through our words, but also through our actions. Body language, face gestures, hand movements and even eye movements also signal our pleasure or displeasure. But let’s not get too caught up with direct, verbal communication and its associated actions.

I’m talking about communication via actions. There is an old saying, going something like “actions speak louder than words”. Well, tell that to anyone who has to pass a message without saying a word.

When university students get together and are bored, i.e. when they are at a Christian Fellowship meeting, they come up with all sorts of games. One game in particular, which was apparently a hit during the CF camp last year, was one involving passing messages from one person to another without saying a single word.

Some of you have probably played it before. However, for those of you who are unenlightened, I’ll enlighten you now. The person at the head of a row is given a message which he or she is to pass down to the next person. The catch is he (or she) can’t use words.

The poor soul must act out the message for the next person to copy and pass on. While the message passing is taking place, everyone else who is not involved has to turn and look in the opposite direction.

At the end of the row, the person must guess the initial content of the message.

Needless to say, this is a lot harder than the traditional version of passing the message. While in the traditional version, all one has to do is listen and talk, in this version, one has to watch another act out the message, interpret it correctly, and act out the message to another.

Kind of a hard message to give another person, don’t you think so?

As if that isn’t hard enough, some people (Girls, actually. No, I’m not being sexist. I’m just saying that there’s no cross dressing) wear clothing which does not help them, particularly in this case. It is not that the clothing is indecent, it’s just that the clothing hinders their ability to perform maximally in this case.

I’ll highlight one example for explanation.

One fine day, the CF saw it fit to play this game, as a penalty for people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. After one round (and after everyone else having a good laugh at their attics), a call went out to the crowd to volunteer for the game.
As you might expect, yours truly did not volunteer for the game, for had no intention of being so publicly and voluntarily laughed at. The time will come (indeed, the time has already come), but as for that time, I had no intention of making a fool of myself.

So the group of volunteers assembled together. After the first person was given a message, it was passed on to the next person, and the one after that.

Then it hit a snag.

As she was wearing a skirt, it wasn’t exactly easy for her to mimic the actions of the two people in front of her in the line. So she performed a few extra actions to get the action right.

At which point the whole message was lost in translation, and everyone (including those who had already acted out, excluding those who had yet to act out), was laughing their heads off.

After the message was given to the last person, and a hint given to him (Movie), he proceeded to give a guess way off tangent. Then the initial act was shown, at which point the whole CF understood immediately what all the machine-like movement was all about.

Moral of the story: If you‘re a girl, never wear a skirt to CF. You might be asked to do certain things or give certain bits of information, and wearing a skirt is at the very least, a hindrance; at most, an epic disadvantage.

If you’re a guy, you better not wear a skirt if you plan to go to CF. Otherwise, the whole CF will start praying for you earnestly when you walk in.

Seriously though, the focus is not on what you wear to CF (though I am serious about the guy part). Just before the volunteers started their “tour of duty”, a number of senior changed their positions from the back of the room to the middle of the room.

As they went by, I could hear them say what they wanted to do, or rather, see.

“I don’t want to act. I only want to laugh.”

While it is natural that all of us want to have a good laugh at someone, this got me thinking. While all of us want a good laugh, what about the poor sods who have to go out and give us something to laugh at? They, too, need a good laugh.

Just as they give us a good laugh, we too need to return the favour, specifically, there are probably times when we should go out, volunteer for a stupid stunt and spread the laughter around.

Not everyone enjoys being comic relief for the whole group. Some people enjoy being the “life” of the party, and are just sporting that way. Others, don’t mind being laughed at, and just laugh along. Still other, however, might not mind being the target for long, but it doesn’t come naturally to them, and they need a good laugh from someone else

I think it is unfair that the same people do all the laughing, and that another group of people do all the laughing at. While it would reflect poorly on everyone if a schedule was drawn up for who to be laughed at and when, it should occur to everyone that there will come a time when one would need to go up and do something funny, for the needs of the many.

Besides, we’re all going to be laughed at in a more serious environment (the workplace) soon. If we’re going to learn to take it in stride, what better place than where we give others laughter freely?

After all, “actions speak louder than words”. And giving is always “better” than receiving. If we learn to take it in stride, what better place than where we give others laughter freely?

After all, “actions speak louder than words”. And giving is always “better” than receiving. If we learn to spread humour around, we might learn to receive it better too.

Blood Giving

2010-03-30T22:09:00.003+08:00

Every semester in the IMU, a blood donation is conducted. For those who are able, it is not at the optimum frequency; as blood can be donated once every three months, one would have to “source” for a blood donation drive to join in between donations at IMU.

That being said, most people would take up the option to donate blood if given a chance.

I know I would.

For the longest time, I had wanted to donate blood. However, we can’t give away pieces of our body until we are legally able to do so. As only majors can do so, different legislative jurisdictions have different regulations on the giving away of bits and pieces of your body.

In Malaysia, for example, one is only eligible to donate blood after the age of 17, not inclusive of 17 years of age. Other legislative jurisdictions have different age limits. Some limit it to those above 16, others to those who have been given permission by their legal guardians for those 16 years of age with various restrictions in different countries.

So when the blood donation campaign came to IMU, I wanted to donate my blood. Everyone around me was talking about donating blood, about how many times they’ve donated or about how this would be their first time donating. But I knew better.

The last I heard, most of my family can’t donate blood. I found that for the lamest of lame reasons (which I will not go into here), I couldn’t do so.

But just to be sure, I checked out the blood bank’s website for their guidelines. And to my utter “amazement”, the guidelines for our Malaysian blood bank were hard to find.

So I decided to go round to other blood banks and see what their regulations were like. After going through most of the developed world, I came to the conclusion that the only countries that would want my blood are countries I would not likely visit, or countries which had endemic problems, and similar concerns.

Then I decided to go back to the Malaysian blood bank website. If I’m going to make a case to not donate my blood, it better be solid. Otherwise, certain people (especially those who donate blood) will be breathing down my neck in an attempt to get me to donate my blood.

So I combed the website thoroughly this time round. And after a brief search, I found the guidelines for donating blood.

This time, however, I found exactly what I was (or was not) looking for.

Excellent. I am now legally obliged to not donate blood.

Which left me swearing up, down, left, right and centre.

Blood consists of a variety of substances. Apart from red and white blood cells, as well as platelets, blood also has plasma. In the plasma, there is water, nutrients, waste products and building blocks for the body. One of the major building blocks for the body is protein.

After the vCJD scare in the UK in the 1990s, there was a blanket ban on people who had lived in the UK from donating blood. However, a few years after the scares subsided, the bans were revoked, for most people who would have been affected would have already had developed the disease. Recently, however, a number of people who received blood transfusions from people who had vCJD developed the disease and subsequently died.

vCJD is caused by abnormally folded proteins in the brain. As there are proteins in the blood, it would not be impossible for these proteins in the brain to be transmitted from person to person via blood. While transmission is possible, penetration is not; not everyone who received a blood transfusion from someone who eventually developed vCJD eventually developed vCJD, but the risk is still there.

Nevertheless, to prevent the general public from being exposed to vCJD, most blood banks now bar people who might have the slightest inkling of developing vCJD from donating.

Including your truly.

To be sure, I took a look at the form which was distributed to potential blood donors before they donated blood, and right at the back, there was a declaration one had to make. Looks like they really are serious. While other countries are more interested in whether you are healthy or not, we are more serious about a degenerative brain disease.

That was the final nail in the coffin.

In any case, I can’t donate blood. I’m not too sure whether I can donate my organs, either. As there is no effective treatment for vCJD and no definitive test for vCJD, it would probably be this way for the rest of my lifespan.

Despite the many proclamations about blood donation, and about it being the gift of life, many still refuse to donate blood. Only one guy from the people I was oriented with donated blood; the rest were girls. Sure, some of the guys had airtight reasons for not doing so; three of us are legally obliged to not donate blood, while one had a basketball match the next day.

But there were still two more guys who could, and refused, for goodness knows what reason.

The complete irony is this. Of those who are able to donate blood, no one wishes to donate blood for lame reasons; fear being the primary one. I mean, “The girls are donating blood you chickens!!” (other words I would normally use are inappropriate to be displayed here). Do you think you’re the only one who is scared?! At least you have a choice about whether you want to donate your blood or not!?

The second half (which is even more ironical) is that of those who can’t donate blood, all would have been more than willing to part with half a litre of intravascular fluid. Nevertheless, they couldn’t.

With all that’s said and done, if you are eligible to donate blood, I would encourage you to donate blood. The blood bank is perpetually short of blood, and not everyone can donate (including yours truly).

If you can’t and you do, I would like to know how you pulled that off, though I would also like to know whether you put someone else at risk for doing something virtuous.

If you can and you do, keep it up! At least you’re doing something.

If you can’t and you won’t, then start hounding your friends who can. I don’t know any good methods, but I;m going to come up with some ideas over the holidyas.

If you can but you don’t… I’ll be after your blood.

*Laughs evilly*

Shoot

2010-03-30T22:09:00.001+08:00

Good shots are hard to come by.

It takes a lot to be a good sniper. To get a good shot, one needs to make sure that one takes a position where one’s target will be passing by, in such a position that one would be able to take a good shot off the person in question.

And then there’s the fact that one has to understand the limitations of one’s armory. One has to understand the tendencies of one’s equipment, and how to overcome setbacks in the environment by adjusting one’s equipment appropriately. Knowing one’s target is important, but knowing one’s self is even more important.

Especially when taking photos.

Yes, people, I’m talking about taking photos, candid ones to be precise, and I am not talking about those pesky people who shoot at you from some obscure corner of the map which you will never look at (in simple English, they are called snipers).

Photos are used to capture memories. Some of us can remember exactly every sensation going through our body when we recall a certain day, but for those of us who are not blessed with such great self awareness, photos help us recall days gone by.

As such, when one takes photos, one has to consider why one is taking those photos: is it to remind oneself of where one has been or what one was done?

If it is the former, posing is ok; you’re only reminding yourself you have been somewhere and done something before. If it is the latter, then I personally find candid photos more suitable.

Then again, one may ask, why candid photos? They are proof of us in awkward positions, which we have no desire of letting others know…

Well, that’s where I take a different stance. Anyone can take a photo which has been posed for. However, it is photos which have been taken while one is unprepared for, photos of one in more natural positions, achieved by either hiding the camera or by deceiving the target, which generate photos which have some value, other than the obvious.

Candid photos can capture a lot; the gravity of a situation, the surprised look one has on one’s face, the things one did (or does) in class (or at work), amongst other things. By nature, candid photos mean that the target does not know that he or she is not being shot at.

However, people sometimes react a bit foolishly in front of a camera. When they suddenly find themselves facing a camera, they take drastic measures to cover their face.

Often, this has hilarious results.

The problem is not putting people in this position. I have found many a classmate who was all too willing to put herself (generally) in a compromising position. The problem is remembering to push the shutter once I have the target between my sights.

During orientation, I was talking to one of my friends, who had already sat down. As I pretended to be unable to hear her, she bent over backwards and started talking to me. I then pulled out my camera to shoot her while she was doing this.

Almost reflexively, she pulled out her handphone pouch and covered her mouth, at the same time closing her eyes. I pushed the shutter halfway, let it autofocus, then thought about whether I should press the shutter or not. In the end, I didn’t depress the shutter completely.

I should have pressed the shutter completely that day.

Well, this whether is a candid photo or not, is not really up to me. In my opinion, it is. Some may say it is not; she reacted towards the presence of the camera. To me, it is; her reaction was natural, uncoordinated, but most important of all, spontaneous.

However, it is remembering, and differentiating those actions which can be troublesome. In the split second one has to shoot, one has to consider whether the shot taken is worth the memory on the card, as well as the drain it has on the battery.

When one wants to take candid photos exclusively, this becomes troublesome as one has to figure out whether their reaction to the camera is spontaneous or not. Planned reactions make the “candid” photo as good as a photo in which everyone poses. Spontaneous reactions make for very good, though intriguing candid photos.

Looking back, I keep thinking of what could be had I pulled the shutter that day. One more photo of her, in a position rarely thought of or seen…

Well, there is more to candid photos than awkward positions. While there might not be much worth in the boring look on someone’s face, sometimes, when one goes through one’s catch for the day, some photos can be pretty interesting, even shots of people doing the most mundane of mundane things.

Shooting candid photos is also an art. While most of my shots are just taken randomly, there are times when I actively look out an opportunity to take a good shot of someone doing something incriminating.

Such as sleeping in class.

These are about as candid as they get. They don’t know that a shot of them is being taken, and the position they choose is not voluntarily chosen. Sure, it might be comfortable, but the contorted look on one’s face as one sleeps can be so amusing when taken in the right light.

Looking back, there were so many instances where I feel like saying, “Shoot, I should have taken a shot of that.” But time, opportunity and shots go by, never again to come.

I guess I have to make do with what I already have.

Hiding In Plain Sight

2010-03-30T22:08:00.001+08:00

Of all the human senses we have, it is sight which we probably find the most useful. Sure, a sense of balance helps us keep our heads above our feet, a sense of taste helps us figure out what tastes good and what does not, a sense of smell helps our sense of taste along, a sense of touch helps us be in touch with our surroundings, and a sense of hearing allows us to enjoy music, apart from listening for anomalies.

However, seeing someone or something is one thing. Using one’s sensory input to come up with some output, usually carried out by our muscles, to solve a problem is a completely different thing altogether.

It is a completely amazing phenomenon. People in the top 1.55 percentiles of the country (among those who are eligible for entrance into public universities, that is) are unable to put two and two together, despite potential solutions to their problems staring them in the face, or rather, in this case, sitting with them at the same table. They see, but don’t look, or rather, don’t want to look. Or maybe it’s just they don’t see.

In the movie “The Sixth Sense”, the boy who is able to ghosts says that ghosts only see what they want to see. Maybe that is not only true of the ghosts in the movie, but also true of humanity in general. People only see what they want to see. They don’t look beneath, or look beyond the skin. Sometimes, it is absolutely exasperating; their potential solutions might be sitting right next to them, but they either refuse to see them, or they just refuse to acknowledge them as potential solutions.

Beggars can’t be choosers. As Spock of Star Trek has said more than once (in different universes, but that’s another story) “When everything else has been excluded, then whatever impossible, no matter how impossible, becomes possible”. When we run out of options, any option which we have should be exercised. This is what I call pulling out all the stops; we go all out to solve a particular problem. We consider any and all possibilities for the problem and also any and all solutions to the problem.

So I find it bizarre that there are still people who refuse to try every single solution when it comes to solving their problems, even when they are desperate. How hard is it to try every single solution? If you don’t succeed, you would have lost nothing; if you do succeed, you get to solve your problem.

No wonder our graduates aren’t the best in the world. Even at Pre-U level, their judgment, or rather problem solving skills leave much to be desired.

Malaysians are excellent complainers, but we never really take a look at ourselves in the mirror. We accuse each other of racism, yet do nothing to curb this problem among our families, or even ourselves. Racism is just one way of discriminating. No wonder as we get older, we get more and more judgmental; brought up in a society which lives together but yet is not united, we discriminate. So when we choose who to invite for social activities and who not to, we discriminate some more.

When we decide who to invite for a particular event, we sometimes have to choose who we want. Some events are meant to be attended by everyone in a particular social grouping; others are not. For the former, we invite indiscriminately, for the latter we choose who we want. Sometimes, it is perfectly understandable when we don’t get chosen for the other; lack of space, different social grouping considered, etc. However, when there is a lack of participants, and one is looking for people in the wider social group, one should consider everyone.

Not many people in Malaysia volunteer to do anything; answering questions, taking up positions, giving opinions. The list goes on, but the principle is the same – if you want someone to do something, or join you on an adventure, you have to invite them, or at the very least, give an open invitation. We don’t gatecrash, or volunteer our presence for anything at all. If we are not asked, we won’t move forward. Why? Due to the fact that we are trying to avoid a paiseh situation. More than that, most people who organize these gatherings only expect to see the people they invite present. Turning up uninvited is frowned upon, and no one likes to be in such a position.

Sometimes, our solutions play a game with us. They hide when we need them most. It’s the important document we have somehow misplaced, which we can’t see, but we know is somewhere in the vicinity. We need to get it fast, and we look again and again, but we still can’t find it.

When we are searching for it, we swear as heavily as possible, desperately finding it while the clock ticks away on us. It is so near, yet so far.

However, many a time our solutions are hiding in plain sight. It’s the method we don’t consider, but which we do know of that will solve our mathematical conundrum (normally this method is completing the square). It’s the place we forget to look, or take for granted is empty, where we will find our misplaced yet important documents.

They are right there, but we just don’t look at them, or consider the possibility they are there, even when all else is lost.

And when we find it, we take time to bask in our success of finding the item, and spend more time making sure the item won’t get lost again, even when we have a dozen other things to do, and regardless of how heavily we swore at our negligence or the item’s tendency to get lost.

But most importantly, it’s the people we forget to ask, yet who are sitting right next to us, eating at the same table with us, discussing where to go to university next, who will be the ones who we would able to drag to a social gathering.

Did I say “would”? Actually , it’s more like “could”, as most of the time, we are a tad too late by the time we realize it. People move on, finding groups who actually care about them, or who treat everyone equally (to a certain extant). People drift away. Relationships weaken, bonds weaken. Time and distance do what no problem can.

So the next time you have to consider another solution, look at the periphery. Expand your horizons. Look towards the sky, as who knows? Your solution could be found on another horizon.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking for solutions, things or people. Some are just waiting to be asked, or chosen.

So use your eyes. And your head. And don’t just see.

Analyze. Compute. Think.

Because,” They are right there, but we just don’t look at them, or consider the possibility they are there, even when all else is lost.”

Susah

2010-03-30T22:07:00.003+08:00

Would you volunteer information needlessly, even if your group can benefit from it?

Well, I had this question in my mind for a split second during my second day in the IMU, and during my first day of official orientation.

Every group needs a leader, and depending on who you talk to, there are either born leaders or everyone is a leader. But when a group of people, who share nothing in common except for the fact that they are thrown together into a group simply because they are doing the same course, who on earth is going to take the lead?

There are many reasons why potential, optimal or aspiring leaders don’t take the lead in these positions (I’m not saying I am any of the three). First is the fact that we don’t want to “reign supreme” over all our new found acquaintances, then of course there’s the fact that we want to know who has a preference for who, then there’ s the fact that we know that if we lead, and screw it up, we would get an earful from everyone who we are (and possibly, were) leading.

So a more arbitrary method is chosen to choose leaders. Well, what better way to choose a leader than to choose someone who has already led. So my Chief OO (Chief Orientation Officer, basically, senior in charge of orientating my group) asked, ”Who was a prefect in high school?”

One of my Orientation Group (OG) members stood up and admitted he was indeed a prefect.

I couldn’t have asked for a better leader. Yes, on the first day he was a bit kayu; but then again, wouldn’t any of us be? Once everyone warms up to each other, gets to know everyone better and the like, leading becomes more natural, less authoritarian, more democratic. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to lead us through orientation.

To this day, he’s been the leader, boss in a way. As people and dynamics change, the balance of power may change; so far it has not. While he doesn’t essentially lead, he does coordinate the activities the rest of the group participates in.

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have lied during orientation (lying or not telling the whole story are two different things, but I’ll just call it what it is here) though I do have my reasons; the guy who eventually did become the leader was everyone one could ask for; charismatic, sporting, able to get along with the seniors, down to earth, not your bound by rules kind of guy. Then of course was the fact that I wasn’t a prefect while I was in high school; I was a prefect in secondary school, yes, but when I hit Form 6 I didn’t rejoin any Prefect Board. High school in the US usually refers to the period of time before you leave school, so…

So I stood aside, when it counted, and I doubt any better result could have come out by me not standing aside. At least standing aside in this situation was easy. It required completely no action on my part, and as I was under no obligation to do so, this is easy.

Learning to speak at the right time is also hard. If you’re reading this, you probably know me well enough to know that I don’t go around talking to every Tom, Dick and Harry without sufficient reason. Even then, frequent social interaction has turned me from an introvert to a forced extrovert, but when I find myself like a fish out of water, I revert to an introvert.

The only problem with talking when it doesn’t come naturally is that I talk too much, or that sometimes, I say the wrong things at the wrong time. I kinda shoot my mouth off too fast, too frequently.

Firstly there are times when I have to say something about someone and I find myself at a loss of words to say. Then, of course, as the situation dictates that I say something, I say whatever comes to mind.

And it usually is not the best thought out answer. Such is the joy of answering questions when one is under pressure during orientation.

Then of course, there are the times when I jump in when I shouldn’t be. Sometimes people ask for information regarding a situation; one which I am not in neither have I been through. However, I have been told what the situation was like by someone who was in the situation (for the purposes of this article, I’ll call him the content expert). So when one asks for information on the situation, I’ll naturally volunteer information, instead of letting the “content expert” give the information instead.

So, contrary to common belief, shutting up can be and is an essential ability. We not only need to learn when to talk, how to talk and what to say, but we also need to learn when to shut up. I guess it does not mean that we have to be talking all the time; we need to understand that there are certain situations when talking is unnecessary, and when keeping silent would enable someone to gain the appropriate amount of information from the correct source, and at the same time giving said source the appropriate amount of recognition.

Well, in these cases, shutting up and standing aside is an option we always retain the right to exercise. With practice, meaning more social interaction, we tend to get the times right; we tend to learn when to keep quiet and when to speak up.

So what is so hard, one may ask? Read on…

It is one thing to keep quiet and watch when we have the option to. When it is just a matter of ensuring that the right people get chosen to do the right thing, or that the right people get the right amount (as well as quality) of information from someone, yes, keeping quiet and watching is easy to do.

It is not so easy to do when one’s body is telling, urging, pestering one to do otherwise.

As humans, we have been given certain… urges… in lieu of words less pleasant to the human ears (or rather, to human eyes). At the age when humans in general are able to reproduce the best, they see things about people in the other gender. In this day and age, it is more than just body structure and smell. There is also personality, intelligence, values, and to some, spirituality.

Suffice to say, most (not all, unfortunately) men fall for women. Including yours truly.

So what do you do when you see everything you want to see in a member of the opposite sex (in this occasion, a girl, to avoid any possible confusion), who just so happens to be someone you know, who shares similar values, interests…

Absolutely nothing.

There are many reasons for me to not pursue a relationship. I could probably give a whole wall of text on how it won’t work out, from personalities, to distance, to faith, to overzealous seniors... The list could go on and on.

But telling myself it won’t work out is the easy part. Functioning as a normal student/just a friend to one who I definitely have feelings for is another story altogether.

It is hard to shut up when I see her every day. Sitting together in awkward silence is the worst thing one can do while in between lectures, especially with so many people around me. Not to say that talking is a necessity, but then it still beats just sitting and doing nothing.

So not small talking isn’t easy; it’s one thing to refuse to (or rather, in this case, to refrain from) small talk, maybe due to the lack of similarities; it’s completely different one to refuse to answer questions altogether. One might even say it is rude. Ignoring others when they are asking a question is hard enough already. Try ignoring one who you have feelings for, who you feel just as obliged to help as the every other person you see in lecture every day. No, it’s actually you feel more obligated than normal. But then again, that’s just my hormones speaking.

Of course, there is more than just lectures to an IMU medical students life. There’s MOFA, OLIS, MMS, PBL and PBL research for starters. Then, of course there is hanging out; from hanging out in the library to the cafeteria, to hanging out in the PBL rooms, to hanging out at the end of the day for dinner and stuff like that.

It goes without saying that should one go out, one is expected to talk. I stayed quiet once, not out of choice or because I was experimenting, but because I was feeling embarrassed (more on that some other time). So if one goes out with a group of friends, one is expected to talk. At least a bit.

That’s when I go out with my OG. I haven’t even started when I go for CF, or other activities.

I hope that I have established without reasonable doubt that shutting up is not easy, or, at this point, feasible. There is, of course, standing aside to consider. However, when one openly admits to not studying, not paying attention, not doing revision, not reading ahead and then sits with people who he or she does not wish to talk with, one is looking for trouble.

Wait. I got one part wrong. I don’t go looking for a chance to sit next to her. Normally she decides to sit next to me. Great…

Ok, she doesn’t always choose to sit next to me; sometimes, the inverse does happen. When I’m very late, and the area which I normally prefer (and somehow, coincidentally, she does) to sit at is taken up I have sat next to her (There was a space! What do you want me to do? Sit next to some random guy?) or I prefer to sit elsewhere. And then there was the time I chose to sit next to her for the second lecture…

But then again, it is a natural reaction for any of us. We sit next to people whom we know, and we feel comfortable with, taking into account other factors, such as position relative to the screen, and power sockets, and also, occasionally, proximity to the fire exits. It’s just that reason that makes it hard for me to stand aside completely; if you’re sitting in an area which the other person likes sitting as well, he or she is bound to sit next to you.

Of course, there is more than one way to stand aside. I could choose instead to refrain from joining activities she is involved in, but why on earth should I stand aside when we have a common interest, or a common calling? Well, there aren’t too many similarities at the moment, but with both of us (Only. From our OG, that is. Sigh….) going to CF, that makes standing aside virtually impossible. Not to mention the days when I go out to jog.

Sigh… if only if life were less complicated…

Well, I guess shutting up and/or standing aside will never be easy. That’s why:

Shut
Up and
Stand
Aside,
Han

I hope you can see my point now.

And even though I want to, I find it hard to do. Yeah, I’ve been told by some of my seniors, some other guy is after her (one of my OOs, unfortunately). I’m doing all I can to make sure he gets his best shot. The only thing I can’t do is kill off these feelings for her. Seriously, how does one expect a guy to kill off his feelings for a girl? It’s not like I wanted to fall for her, or was chasing her in the first place. It’s just some random thing…

Which is now so hard to kill off completely…

Not At Stake

2010-03-30T22:07:00.001+08:00

“Relax. Your salvation is not at stake.”

- Uncle Herbert, JS 2009.

If you know who I am talking about, then it is time you reflect about what God has said through him, and maybe also about what you have been doing with your life, money and time recently. If you don’t, then just read on. I’m just quoting from my mentor in JS ’09. I’ll show how this quote is relevant later.

In JS, we have got quizzes at the end of every week. Early on in JS, Uncle Herbert told me that the quizzes were just used as methods to see how much we’ve learnt, how the syllabus is working, and how effective the sessions were at teaching us what we are supposed to learn at JS. They were not a means by which any one of us would be more or less favoured, nor would getting less than half the marks in any one test mean that we would be asked to withdraw from JS. Basically, instead of using a feedback form, JS uses a “test”.

On another occasion, I was talking with my MYF VP (in English, that’s the vice president of my church’s youth fellowship). As he is also a Senior (secondary school level) Sunday School Teacher, I had a chat with him about the syllabus for Fifth and Forth Formers at Senior Sunday School.

As Methodists, we make sure that all members of the church (at their reception into membership, at least) know certain things, such as the attributes of God, the behavior expected of a church member, and the knowledge of Methodism. In the “open” classes, we are expected to read the text for us before going for the class, when we are supposed to ask questions so that we may clear up any doubts regarding our faith before we get baptized or reaffirm our vows.

In the Senior Sunday School classes, however, we aren’t expected to do all that. We are taught what we are supposed to know via a class, and then we have discussions to get our brains working. Thus, there is no way of actually knowing whether students of the Sunday School know what they are doing when they get confirmed or baptized. Apparently, one of the suggestions put forward was that students should get tested on their knowledge before they were allowed to gain membership.

But then again, what does a test test? Sure, it can be a means to differentiate those who know what Christianity and Methodism are all about and those who do not, but it cannot be used to find out whether the examinee has faith in God or not. Anyone can memorise a whole book or two without believing in the content matter, and people with genuine faith could be cut out from the church just because they can’t remember some lines. Is this a true reflection of what the church should be, when the Discipline clearly states that membership should be granted to all who love Jesus Christ, seek to repent their sins and save themselves from the wrath to come?

Needless to say, that idea didn’t go through either. Even if that idea did go through, I would tell anyone who failed the “test” that their salvation was not at stake; faith and head knowledge aren’t the same thing.

Well, it is one thing to say that if you fail a test you could end up in…. umm…. eternal punishment, for need of a better word. This brings me to the most recent incident where salvation has been tied to some activity or other.

Orientation in IMU is tiring. Well, not as tiring (or dirty) as it should be (har har har). But then again, that is for someone else to decide. As for me myself, it has been tiring. Dirty, definitely, but there’s been no mud, and apparently, there won’t be any. So much for bringing all my “clothes for destruction”… sigh…

Coming back to the point, orientation isn’t all fun (in a very perverted way, I have to point out) and games. There’s also a fair bit of presentations involved too. This year, we had it easy; one skit and one video. Well, as part of the video is a music video, and for some odd reason, my group decided to choose the Michael Jackson song “Thriller”, my group ended up practicing the dance moves for the video until our legs (as well as other assorted body parts) fell off, until one late Saturday evening. If you’re wondering, that includes yours truly, and if you’re still thinking, no, I’m not going to put a video of that up here. If it’s videos or it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen. Seriously.

Halfway through our practice, one of the girls had to leave for church. OK, church on Saturday is one thing; I can go on writing for half of the time period known as forever on why church should be on Sunday rather than Saturday, but that’s beside the point. Rather, it was what one of my batchmates told me after I looked at her inquiringly:

“But she hasn’t gone to church for a long time.”

The first thought that came to my mind was the same one I had been exposed to during JS. Specifically, my mentor’s words, which for easy reference are at the top of this post.

I wanted to say something, but how do you tell a non-Christian it is ok for a Christian (a devoted one, while we’re at that) to not go to church? I just smiled… and made a mental note to do the talking myself.

You see, a Christian’s life is not about how much one goes to church, how much one prays, how many camps one has gone to, how many times one has read the Bible, how many people one has led to God, how many people one leads in their walk with God or anything about that.

Yes, praying, mentoring, evangelizing, reading the Bible, going to church and camps are all good things. However, one fact remains: these things don’t get us to heaven. Only Jesus can, or rather, only Jesus did.

I’m not saying it is ok to skip church. I’m saying it is not about church, it’s about Him.

As it always has been.

Don't so emo can ah?

2010-03-30T22:06:00.001+08:00

metimes, I wish we were all Vulcans. No emotions to worry about, or rather, we learn to control our emotions totally, so that we don’t get so caught up in our emotions such that we end up in a mess. This would have been especially useful during the STPM period last year, for a variety of reasons. There’s of course, exam anxiety and stress…and then there’s some more.

However, as is my blog policy (har har har) I realize that this is a public place and as such, the other reasons for me wanting to be a Vulcan won’t be posted here in public. I have shared it with four people so far, though the number was supposed to be twenty seven, but due to cold feet, it’s only four. Like I said, it’s not for public display, and no matter how tempted I am to publish it, I won’t. That and the fact that I have been informed that people’s perception of me would be radically changed if they found out. Whether that’s for the better or the worse, it doesn’t really matter; it’s not coming out.

But I digress…

Emotions are our mind’s data panel, or dashboard if you will. It lets us know when something is right, or more importantly, wrong. But that is about all it can give us; extra information for us to make a decision. However, our emotions are sometimes gives us the wrong signals. This does not mean they are wrong, it simply means that the emotions we are feeling may not give us the right information to help us decide the right course of action.

Sure, our emotions can sometimes cause us to make bad decisions or cloud our judgment but that doesn’t mean we should ignore them altogether. Rage can cause us to indulge in destructive behavior, jealousy in ultrapossessive behavior and extreme euphoria can cause us to do stupid things. Emotions may cause us to let our guard down, lull us into a false sense of security, or give us the impulse to make decisions which we may regret later.

However, emotions let us know when something is wrong as well. We get suspicious around fishy characters, feel righteous anger when we see injustice and feel pity for people in need. When these emotions kick in, we use all the information we have on hand to make the correct decision to correct the imbalance in our emotions, with our emotions playing a role as well. On top of that, we do this to ease our conscience.

The trick here is not letting our decisions do the talking, but instead to let them in only so far as to guide our next move, and not more than that. Of course, talking about mastering emotions is one thing; actually doing it is another.

What makes it harder, for males at least, is that we grow older later, as well as the fact that we have higher hormonal secretions. As males enter puberty later, we mature later, both physically and mentally. While associated hormonal secretions are probably the same for males and females, males get theirs at the worst possible time.

Before the mind has fully matured, but while the body is maturing, in the presence of peers edging one on, it comes. Yes people, its testosterone, as well as epinephrine.

Of course, that’s when they are edging you on and you’re about to do something brave, stupid or foolish; or maybe a combination of all three.

When one is down, however, one finds one’s world crashing in on oneself. We feel that we have been betrayed, when others might only see it as a minor oversight. We feel that we deserve better, when others feel that we have been given too much. We feel that we have the right to claim something from them, while they feel that they owe us nothing.

And when we are down, we experience this emotion, which in Malaysia is simply called ‘emo”. I guess the full word would be emotional, but then again, I didn’t coin the term up.

A friend of mine is of the opinion that “emo is just an excuse for a guy to act as a girl”. Well, if girls can do what guys can, namely, be boss of an office, breadwinner for a family, or get ragged during orientation, than why can’t guys do what girls do? Okay, let’s not get all biological about this, but let’s face it; all people have emotions. It doesn’t matter whether we are male or female. We all have emotions. We all get emo. At least, sometimes we do.

So when all is said and done, we still need to master our emotions. Most of the time, we recite to ourselves one-liners and other assorted lines which we memorize so that when the situation arises, we are able to get ourselves under control. This works, most of the time.

However, when we are feeling emo, and we have no one to turn to, no one to talk to, and we have not been through this situation, or a similar one before, what do we do? We basically have one of two choices: we either lock ourselves in a room, shy away from human contact, look all tired and hide away.

Or we can push forward; realizing that shying and staying away does nothing for anyone, we try to get what others “owe” us, and we get what we need. Sure, this sounds mercenary, but did you search out friends to be all alone and by yourself? No, we connect, and when we feel something is wrong, we do something about it, instead of just hanging around waiting for the situation to change.

Sure, all of us, male and female, end up emo. The question is what do we do next?

Do we make a move?

Or do we remain emo?

The Hot Seat

2010-03-30T22:05:00.002+08:00

Ahh….

The joys of university life, of living in a place which you have to call your own (though it may not be paid by yourself) and of handling your own time yourself. You get to go to an institution of higher learning, enrich yourself with knowledge and experiences (extra-curricular activities and extra-institutional activities) and mature in all aspects thinkable; body, mind, soul, and for some of us, spirit.

Speaking of university life and extra-curricular activities, one extra-curricular activity which most university students go through is known as orientation. In some universities (like the one I’m coming/going to right now) it is not compulsory. But seriously, if you’re not going to have fun during orientation, when on earth are you going to?

Ok, ok, so before I go about extolling the virtues of attending orientation (for all it’s worth, it was fun, but it was also tiring, dirty and can also be quite frustrating) I’ll get back on topic.

During orientation, we (as in the whole intake of medical students) got split up into groups. While most of orientation was spent with the Orientation Group playing games, acting, practicing for the former and going to mamak, there were occasions when one of us would have to do something on our own. Normally games were played as a group, but some games only required one or two members.

One can’t imagine how hard it is to be in the hot seat until one finds oneself in such a position. A position where the fate of one‘s group rests in one’s hands, one’s other assorted appendages, or other organs of one’s body, or the ability to use the aforementioned properly.

More specifically, it is one thing to cheer other people on as they arm wrestle, eat, show off their bodies, thread needles and type SMSes.

It’s a completely different thing to find oneself in a similar position.

Case in point… well there was the indoor treasure hunt. For some reason of bizarre nature, the organizers decided that they would have a 4x8 chess game right at the end of the treasure hunt after the hunting was over. As the guy who tried out for the house chess team, I was pushed to the forefront and asked to coordinate the tactics and strategy for the chess game.

It should have been a piece of cake.

Except for the fact that I am very out of touch with chess tactics and that with regards to 4x8 chess, I was as good as any newbie.

Needless to say, I gave up a pawn at the start, for no positional or tactical advantage. Then there were numerous free pieces given away; knights and more pawns. After giving away practically half of my group’s pieces we were then told that there is a time limit and then after that, points would be calculated.

So they put me out of misery really quickly. Thank God for that. Otherwise, my group would have been routed on stage, for the whole batch to see.

In any case, my team’s loss was my blame entirely. I haven’t apologized to them for such a terrible display of chess, though frankly speaking, I might never get round to it; orientation is over and we aren’t playing any more games. But then again, we will still be sticking together for two and a half years; there is probably a lot of time to repair the damage done.

While the damage done was minor (just a couple of points), I can only imagine what my group was thinking after I gave such a pathetic display of chess. Sure, we were already screwed over by our inability to find our clues (there were allegations we were sabotaged, but that is besides the point) but to end up in last position when we had a chance to take one position higher… sigh…

And as the chief architect of the failure... it hurts even to think about it.

It makes one want to run up and down the tallest block in Vista (Which I did. Okay, so I didn’t run, but I went up by foot), to figure out what went wrong, to dissect the chess game in one’s head, to force oneself to never ever make such a stupid mistake again.

Such is the power of failing whilst in the hot seat.

Well, I thought that would have be the last occasion I messed them (actually, all of us) up. Needless to say, I was wrong.

On the very next day, we went for the outdoor treasure hunt. One of the stations involved, again, one member being singled out to do some not-so-menial task (mental arithmetic) and if he or she failed to do so in a timely manner, the rest of the group (the one in the hot seat excluded) would have to get a bath of lake water. As for how clean the water is… let’s just say that most fish won’t even be able to survive there.

After one of my group members tried the first three questions (he got one right), the group decided to switch him for me as he had more failures than passes. Well, that was half of the reason… the other half was that I was giving out the answers faster than he could.

So I got thrust into the hot seat, again.

And I didn’t fare much better than the other guy. I did manage to get the first question correct, really quickly, but after that I messed up the second one, and I had absolutely no idea on what to do for the third one. So one could say I performed at about the same efficiency as he did.

When we’re in the hot seat, we find ourselves under pressure. People are watching; people are looking. It doesn’t really matter whether they are our competitors or our teammates; if we are competing against them, we need to make sure we do well, if we want to win. On the other hand, if they are our teammates, we want to make sure that we do well, so that we don’t let them down.

Our every move is seen as what seems to be the whole world is watching us make every move, with every move possibly rewarding them with victory or costing them a victory.

When we have to do some high-stakes activity by ourselves, we need to calm down. Yes, the whole world is watching. Yes, if we mess up, we might take down our whole group with us. Yes, if we mess up, we might have just made someone’s day.

But we need to remember that if we do panic, we will mess up. And that can’t be good.

Communities

2010-03-30T22:05:00.001+08:00

Teenage years are one of the most interesting for a normal human being. We get more responsibilities, freedom and learn more things than before, yet not as much as we get when we get older. We don’t have to worry about what we are going to eat when we get home, but we can determine when we want to go home. We get to drive a car, yet don’t have to worry about its mortgage. We learn more than we would at any other time of our life.

All this learning is possible because of the creation of institutions called schools, colleges and universities. Okay, most of the fun is while we are in the first two institutions, not to mention the fact I haven’t started university yet, however, the responsibilities freedoms, etc. are pretty similar in all three.

One of the common features of all three institutions is that apart from making our brains expand due to overwork (or meltdown due to too much overwork) is that there are communities formed when we are there. That’s what makes it fun. While the buildings maybe decaying, the course tiring, the coursework tedious and the lecturers demanding, our classmates are what makes it fun. Yes, we do get a piece of paper after that, saying that we completed the course, however, completing it on our own is absolutely no fun.

And while we are on the topic of coursemates/classmates, they are the ones we hang out with when we want to go yum cha, or watch a movie, or when we want to have an outing to some unknown part of the country. When we want to do something crazy, they’ll be right there with us. They are always there, and will let you in on anything because they are your mates, right?

For most people, this is true. To varying extents, no doubt, but it is true.

Yours truly seems to have gotten the shorter end of the stick.

Ok, ok, so I get it – after school is done, doesn’t matter whether it’s six weeks long, or six years long, the interactions change from those of need to those of preference. In school, we ask people because we need something from them, but more than that, it’s also because we’re stuck in the same room more than six hours a day for a reasonably long period of time. So might as well make some chit chat while we’re at it.

When school’s out, well, we aren’t stuck in the same room for more than six hours a day and we can jolly well do whatever we want whenever we want, or rather, in this case, we can talk to whoever we want.

The organization which placed us together (or in some cases, dumped us together) in the first place is no longer in existence, so there is no longer any reason to keep the bonds which bind us for the sole reason we used to spend more so much time together, right?

I’m tempted to give in, but I won’t.

Why?

For the same reason why I don’t write everyone off when the organization has finished running its course.

I consider all my classmates equally. Ok, maybe some more equally than others, but with regards to who to stay in touch with and how much time to spend keeping in touch, I don’t discriminate. If I get a chance, I wouldn’t think twice. Given half a chance, I would find a way to expand the probability to a one.

So you can imagine I’m not impressed when I find out that I’m the last on the list to find out about anything going down.

In fact, to say I’m not impressed is an extremely diplomatic way of saying it. The correct words to describe my emotions, whenever I find out, are not currently available to me, as I have no intention of turning my blog into a profanity-heavy site.

So, what should I do? Should I continue hoping, waiting, looking forward to the day when my phone will finally ring or buzz, and I’ll find that someone is looking forward to meeting up with me?

I’m tired. No, seriously. I’m tired. It doesn’t matter whether I write this on multiple days at 4 in the morning, or whether I write this at one shot at some not so unearthly hour. I’m tired of waiting, of hoping, of expecting for a phone call or SMS, or even just a verbal invitation which never seems to come.

So, should I cut ties? Seems like an inviting prospect.

I expect a certain amount of communication in my relationships. Again, I don’t find it amusing when I find that I have to dig up every single bit from anyone I’m talking to. No one likes doing that. Well, I don’t, especially. It shows when you have to dig up every single bit of information. Normally when one does that, one is desperate. It also means that no one is sharing information with the person in question, which in turn means that he or she isn’t deemed important in the relationship.

Couple that with the expectation of the person in question, you get a problem. Well, one may say that isn’t a problem, as the relationship doesn’t exist in the first place. Only one person holds the other in such high regard, and the other doesn’t reciprocate, at least for the same reasons as the former.

So cutting ties does seem to be a viable option for me. I consider that the opposing party should have at least the decency to keep me in the know. If they can’t even be bothered to do so, I don’t know why I keep a relationship which has deteriorated so poorly in such high regard.

What does one do with the people marginalized by society, or rather, in this case, marginalized by the community? If you’re a Christian, and you terasa sampai buntut, I won’t start. You know where to look, and if you don’t you’d better be ready for a lecture in Bible Knowledge.

However, to humans in general, this is my question to you: What do you do with the outcasts, the poor, the downtrodden, the needy? Do you push them away, ignore them, keep them out of the loop?

You decide.

Pedestrians

2010-03-30T22:04:00.001+08:00

Every day, we wake up, get up, and after eating our breakfast and cleaning ourselves up, such that we are presentable to the rest of the human race, we go about our daily duties; whether as breadwinners, housemakers, students, or, as in my case, loafers. Nevertheless, we need to get to wherever we are doing our “jobs” by some means of transport or other. Sure, sometimes our job is as a vacationer or holidaymaker, but we still need to get to wherever we are going by transport.

Nowadays, there is a plethora of methods of transportation for going to wherever one is going. For long distances, there are aeroplanes. For heavy loads with reasonably long distances, there are ships, then there are trains, buses, cars, taxis, vans, and cars.

Not forgetting to mention that there is the oldest form of transport available to man. It’s used more often than we think, and it’s free, healthy, readily available regardless of time of day and is one of the more efficient forms available to man. Yes people, I’m talking about the Bas Sebelas or in less colloquial language, walking.

And as anyone who lives in an urban area would tell you, there are roads one has to cross, so we become pedestrians. The way drivers give way to pedestrians in any one territory is due to a combination of the laws there, the civic consciousness and as Americans would call it, car culture. One can probably tell which part of the world one is in just by seeing how people drive and walk.

In Singapore, pedestrians cross at the zebra crossings briskly. There are a reasonably high number wherever they are needed so that where there is a need for pedestrians to cross a road, they do not have to walk too far to get to a zebra crossing. More surprisingly is the way the drivers in Singapore behave when they approach a zebra crossing. They stop their cars and wait for you to cross, even if you are standing on the road shoulder on the other side of the road.

The first time that happened, I was caught off guard. So I walked as fast as I could across the road. Singapore has a reasonable public transport system, but they also have a lot of cars as well, so it surprised me that their drivers were willing to give way to pedestrians, considering their proximity to Malaysia.

In Hong Kong, pedestrians walk without even looking, especially if they are crossing at a traffic light or a pedestrian crossing. They might just give a casual glance at the road before crossing, and when it is indicated that the traffic is one way, they look in that direction only.

Traffic in Hong Kong is also very much geared to the pedestrian as well. Cars would stop for pedestrians, and when there are many, many pedestrians, the green light for cars is shortened by pedestrians crossing when they feel they’ve waited enough.

Road signage in Hong Kong is also pretty amusing for a Malaysian to look at. Remember all those words in paint which always seem to be disappearing? Well, in Hong Kong, the signage is painted so many times, the paint is at least half an inch thick. At junctions without pedestrian crossings, there are the words “LOOK LEFT” ( and the Chinese equivalent) painted in half-inch thick paint on one side of the road and the words “LOOK RIGHT” (and the Chinese equivalent) on the other side of the road.

While in Hong Kong, I would look at both sides of the road, even when there were lights. After one occasion in during which me and my dad crossed a one way street after looking at both sides of the road (not to mention we continued checking while crossing), I mentioned to my father, ”Only Malaysians would look both ways while crossing a one way road”. My dad’s reply? “I was about to say the same thing.”

Okay, I have come across many Malaysians who would tell me, “It’s okay to cross the road without looking, you have right of way!” My standard reply is that the only right one would be exercising would be the right to get knocked down by a car. Sure, pedestrians have right of way and all that, but in Malaysia, I won’t encourage anyone to behave that way. Maybe in Singapore, definitely in Hong Kong, but we have to practice defensive walking here.

So maybe one may ask why the different styles of traffic management despite the fact that we were all conquered by the same colonizer (the English)? Well, colonizers are one thing, people are another. Singaporeans have to follow every law to the letter (or the stroke, if I may) and they do so exceptionally; they give pedestrians right of way every time they have to. In general, they are also more civic conscious than most Malaysians, so they understand the need to follow the law and to ensure order.

In Hong Kong, few people can afford their own car, with high taxes on everything car related in Hong Kong. The territory can also ill afford traffic jams, with so little space and area to expand. As such, pedestrians make up most of their traffic, and car drivers understand this. As there are so many, they have to give way, even when they have right of way. Hong Kongers might not be the nicest people on earth, but when it comes to civic awareness, they still beat us Malaysians in many areas. We can start with right of way, but then there’s also the way they enter and leave trains, as well as a long list of other differences.

Malaysians… I have no idea why we just refuse to follow the rules. I guess people in general lack civic awareness. Unlike the two territories mentioned above, Malaysia has a substantial rural population, so when they come to the city, they bring along all their bad habits. Add to that the uncontrolled influx of foreign workers with walking habits worst than that of Malaysian drivers, we get a car culture where the car is king, and can jump pedestrian lights if there is no one crossing the road.

Would I want to walk my way in this environment? Well, sometimes I have no choice; public transport doesn’t always stop where we want it to stop. I just have to be extra vigilant when I cross the roads, as cars generally don’t stop, or even slow down, when they see a pedestrian, unless they’re going to hit you.

Walking in Singapore and Hong Kong is definitely a breeze compared to walking here. Everything from better infrastructure to better driver’s habits makes life easier, not to mention safer. Walking here is definitely a pain in the ass.

But it goes to show the kind of people there are in the territories. Singaporeans are law-abiding, goody goody (at least within Singapore), Hong Kongers, while not everyone’s favourite kind of person, are at the very least, civic minded. Malaysians…sigh…. In general, Malaysians are neither civic minded nor law abiding…

We could probably qualify for the Wild Wild West of driving if there ever was one. Would we win? With China trumping us in civiclessness, we might not, but we would definitely get an Honourable Mention.

Last Chance

2010-03-30T22:03:00.002+08:00

A lot of nice movies came out last year. Okay, so I can’t watch them all, even movies which I want to watch, either due to their killer trailers, or just great storylines, or just because they seem interesting. However, the main factor why I didn’t see many movies last year, especially in the second half of the year was because of STPM.

So I didn’t go for any movies for the second half of last year. Nothing new with that, I did the same when I was taking PMR and SPM.

But that doesn’t mean that I missed nothing. I wanted to see one movie in particular. Okay, some people say that it now has more in common with a Bollywood movie than it does with your average Hollywood movie, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t watch it. Considering that I barely watch movies, any movie does fine for me.

Okay, so maybe plotless ones with more in common with a headless chicken than a headless duck really get me turned off (not to mention sleepy), but I normally take anything that comes my way. I still do know how to enjoy the better things in life, but that doesn’t mean I’ll throw everything else away.

So when my sister bought High School Musical 3 about a week ago I watched it the first chance I got. I was busy trying to get my monitor and RAM to work with my old and slow (now no longer slow, but slightly older) desktop computer, so I didn’t catch the first screening in the afternoon. With my brother trying his best to take over the world and Smallville at half past ten, my earliest chance was at eleven thirty.

I’ll give this to the critics – The first song really does feel like a Bollywood one, with Gabriella suddenly shouting out of the middles of nowhere, but all the others are, in my humble opinion that is, not too out of place. However, it wasn’t the songs that stayed with me the most. It was the issues raised.

So, okay, with major exams coming soon, no parent in his or her right mind would allow their child to go to the cinemas to watch a movie. However, what really kept me from going was not so much the exams.

It was more about what the movie was about, and how much parallel I could draw between it and my life.

Excerpt from “Now or Never”

The way we play tonight
Is what we leave behind
It all comes down to right now it’s up to us
So what are we gonna be?
T-E-A-M TEAM!
We got to turn work it out
Turn it up
C’mon!

This is the last chance to get it back
This is the last chance to make it our night
And we got to show what we’re all about
Team! Work together.

This is the last chance to make our mark
History will know who we are
This is the last game so make it count
It’s now or never.

Okay, so STPM is not a team effort and it most certainly isn’t determined by 32 minutes of your life. It’s everyone for him or herself and it is spread out over a period of two weeks. However, as I said parallels…so…

In American basketball, teams which do well in the regular season proceed on to the playoffs, basically a series of knockout games. As in any sporting event, a team would be well known for what happens to them at the final hurdle. On the other hand, though STPM is not done in a night, nearly all of a candidates marks in the STPM examination is based on what happens in those two weeks of those examinations. So the first two lines draw direct parallels – what happens in regular season in HSM3 and in all the internal exams won’t be what we leave behind; it was our performance at the final hurdle.

Obviously, no one can study for you, so yeah, it was all up to me, and what I could manage then, or as it was known (more than seven months ago) as right now.

The chorus practically sang out what I felt during STPM. One might ask what I wanted to get back. Well, after faltering during the trials, I wanted to be top of the form. After coming out tops in the mid-year exam, I wanted to prove that I wasn’t just a flash in the pan.

But what really made me stand and listen to the song every time it was played last year was the part going “This is the last chance...” . To be honest, I didn’t figure out the rest of the lyrics until I watched it this year. However, it was truly my last chance. STPM would be the last exam I take in the school system. It would be the last major exam. It was the last chance I would get to shine in Seafield.

That’s just one of the songs, and one of the reasons why watching that movie last year was not such a good idea – at least for me.

Six months later, the results are out, and most of us have gone to the university, with the rest probably enrolling within two months time. Looks like history will remember me as part of the group that almost made it. The STPM 2008 batch will probably be remembered for three things. Firstly, for being a notoriously small batch. Secondly, for being the first batch to have everyone get a principle for at least one subject, and thirdly, for being the batch with the highest 3.92 scorer percentage, a whopping 6.33 percent.

It would probably be my contribution to the third part which I would be remembered most in history – at least, Seafield history.

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t do as well as I should have. When it comes to this, being distracted by thoughts about a girl during study week isn’t exactly helpful. Sigh. If only I paid more attention to studies than to dreams…

Language Barrier

2010-03-30T22:02:00.001+08:00

Debaters are valued for a multitude of reasons. Normally, only people who can think on their feet will become debaters, and they also must be fluent in the language of their choosing. Wittiness and a sense of humour are also valued attributes in debaters.

As a research team member on the USJ 12 debate team when I was in Form 4, I was once given this topic just to assess my ability as a debater: Language is a barrier to acquiring knowledge. Of course, my eyeballs dropped out as I had no idea on how to start or what it actually meant.

To me, language is necessary for acquiring any type of knowledge. Sure, basic skills such as carpentry, masonry and many household chores can be picked up without language, but language would facilitate the teaching and learning of these skills. On top of that, science, mathematics, social sciences and history all require language for the knowledge to be stored, and also to be taught.

Languages form a big part in our daily lives. We use it to exchange information, give opinions and also to give out orders. We might not enjoy languages, especially when our ability to use a language we don’t really enjoy using is examined, but we still need to use languages nonetheless.

Coming back to the original topic posed to me, I now see that there is more than one dimension to acquiring knowledge. If everyone on the planet used one language, then this would language would in no way be a problem to acquiring knowledge. However, there are probably thousands of languages in use now all over the world, some by a few dozen people, others by over a billion people. The problem is not acquiring knowledge from people who speak the same language as you do; it is in fact, acquiring knowledge from people who don’t speak your language.

When we translate, a lot of what we say is lost in translation. Sometimes, literal translations cause phrases to lose their original meaning, other times, translations which take into account what the speaker is saying cause some of the “oomph” of the original work to be lost. Even good translations lose their effect on people through different ways; different cultures consider different aspects of life differently, and even the order in which a list is made differs.

While translations don’t really wreck havoc in science and mathematics (the proof is generally all there, and by convention, language used must be to the point, concise and unambiguous), they can cause much trouble in social sciences, and absolutely wreck havoc in the fine arts, where the underlying meaning has normally much more weight than the words themselves.

Different languages may also form barriers when it comes to socializing, and acquiring information not directly necessary to one’s career, but necessary for one’s social life. The inability to understand your social contacts can prove pretty damaging when it comes to developing relations with them, especially when they start using what some would call advanced language.

However, two people don’t need to use two languages to cause misunderstanding. Sometimes, two people using the same language can have communication breakdowns. This is especially true with Chinese, with its many dialects. Mandarin (commonly called Chinese by Chinese-eds, so for the record, the dialect is Mandarin), Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew…the list goes on and on…

The bottom line is, while in writing they will be able to understand each other perfectly, when they speak, misunderstanding, and laughter ensues. Of course, there has been debate whether all the languages should be collectively called the Chinese language, with different dialects, or whether they should be called different languages altogether, due to the differences in pronunciation between the various dialects. The debate goes on.

But even in languages where there is much standardization, communication breakdowns can still occur. Take English, for example, where the spelling of nearly every word is the same (we have the Americans to thank for that) and the pronunciation is supposedly the same. On one occasion, I was told to go to the “hall on the third floor” of a building. Having been there before, I went three floors up as I knew that there was a hall there.

Little did I realize that I only had to go up two floors. They had actually meant the second floor above ground level, also known as the second floor, in British English, or the third floor, in American English. So much for using the same language to avoid confusion. This goes to show that even when using the same language, the usage of a same word in a given situation can convey a number of different meanings.

Another more common, though less thought of language barrier is that between generations. Words such as “lame” or “cool” enter differently in the dictionary of people of different generations. On the one hand, most youth would understand the meaning of those two words almost instantly, while most of their parents would only know “cool” as a degree of warmth, and “lame” as a disability affecting one’s ability to move, especially with one’s legs.

How do you explain to your parents what’s cool? Not what is cool and what isn’t, but what cool is. Would someone who did not grow up in an environment such as that understand it? I’m not saying that all parents are thick and do not want to understand their kids, it’s just that the differences of language used, or rather, the differences of usage in the language they use, can present problems unique to each batch of children.

Language will continue to be a barrier when we communicate. It is a human construct, and as such cannot possibly be perfect. We will continue to have communication breakdowns, regardless of whether the breakdown is in a casual, unimportant situation, or formal, important situation. What we can do, however, is to learn each other’s language and adapt accordingly; learn to listen how they would listen, and learn to speak how they would speak. It doesn’t matter whether the language is different, or the dialect is, or the usage of the language is; when the message doesn’t get across, there is almost always a language barrier.

PPSMI

2010-03-30T22:01:00.001+08:00

Kebelakangan ini, Kabinet Malaysia telah membuat keputusan untuk mengubah bahasa pengantaraan bagi subjek Sains dan Matematik daripada Bahasa Inggeris kepada Bahasa Malaysia. Keputusan ini merupakan suatu pusingan balik bagi sistem pengajaran Malaysia kerana setelah hanya enam tahun sejak PPSMI dilaksanakan, polisi ini telah ditarik balik.

Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris (PPSMI), atau dalam Bahasa Inggeris, “The Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English” (eTeMS), merupakan antara polisi-polisi terakhir yang diusulkan oleh bekas Perdana Menteri keempat kita, iaitu Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Tujuan kewujudan polisi ini, yang telah dimulakan pada tahun 2003, adalah untuk meningkatkan tahap penguasaan rakyat Malaysia dalam Bahasa Inggeris.

Selain itu, banyak buku serta sumber rujukan bagi kedua-dua mata pelajaran ini adalah dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Walaupun pada peringkat sekolah rendah and sekolah menengah buku dalam Bahasa Inggeris tidak perlu dirujuk untuk meluaskan ilmu pengetahuan mahupun penguasaan seseorang murid dalam sesuatu mata pelajaran, tetapi pada peringkat univeristi dan peringkat pra-universiti, buku-buku dalam Bahasa Inggeris perlu dirujuk untuk membolehkan seseorang murid menguasai sesuatu mata pelajaran.

Selain daripada keperluan pelajar pada peringkat pra-universiti dan universiti, pelajar pos-siswazah juga akan mendapati bahawa ia lebih senang untuk belajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Hal ini demikian kerana sebahagian besar daripada sumber bagi pembelajaran mereka adalah dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Walaupun buku-buku in boleh diterjemah ke dalam Bahasa Malaysia, namun demikian, masalah dalam proses penterjemahan akan merumitkan kejituan buku terjemahan yang dihasilkan. Selain itu, bilangan buku yang diterjemah tidak banyak, dan karya sains dan matematik dalam Bahasa Malaysia yang dihasilkan oleh pensyarah tempatan amat sedikit.

Pada pandangan saya, polisi PPSMI merupakan suatu langkah dalam arah yang betul bagi sistem pendidikan Malaysia. Namun begitu, polisi ini tidak sempurna, sama ada dalam tujuannya, cara pelaksanaannya mahupun tempoh masa yang dipilih untuk memeriksa keberkesanan polisi tersebut.

Walaupun pada tujuan asalnya PPSMI dilaksanakan merupakan suatu yang pasti akan membawa manfaat kepada rakyat Malaysia secara umumnya (iaitu untuk meningkatkan tahap penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris di kalangan rakyat Malaysia), tetapi pengajaran mata pelajaran yang amat penting untuk pembangunan Malaysia dalam bahasa yang, secara amnya, dianggap asing bagi masyarakat luar bandar mungkin telah menyebabkan masyarakat yang tidak memahami ataupun melihat kepentingan Bahasa Inggeris dalam hidup masyarakat kini membenci kesemua mata pelajaran yang terlibat; Matematik, Sains dan Bahasa Inggeris.

Polisi ini tidak diberikan masa untuk memastikan bahawa tenaga pengajar telah dilatih sepenuhnya sebelum polisi ini dilaksanakan. Para guru, yang telah biasa mengajar dalam Bahasa Malaysia, akan mengambil masa untuk menyesuaikan diri dalam suasana mengajar subjek Matamatik dan Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Bagi para guru yang telah menguasai Bahasa Inggeris, sama ada daripada pengalaman bekerja, hasil daripada belajar di luar negara, mahupun dari inisiatif sendiri, mereka mungkin tidak akan menghadapi apa-apa masalah dengan PPSMI. Hal ini juga benar bagi mereka yang diajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris apabila mereka sendiri belajar pada peringkat sekolah menegah dan sekolah rendah dulu.

Selain itu, polisi ini menghadapi tentangan yang hebat akibat daripada sebahagian guru yang enggan mengajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Hal ini mungkin atas dasar prinsip, ataupun berdasarkan pandangan seseorang guru bahawa Sains dan Matematik harus diajar dalam Bahasa Melayu, ataupun sebab yang lain.

Salah satu perkara yang juga dibuat pada masa yang kurang sesuai adalah masa yang dipilih untuk memeriksa keberkesanan polisi PPSMI. Adakah enam tahun merupakan tempoh masa yang cukup lama untuk meningkatkan tahap penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris di kalangan rakyat Malaysia? Polisi ini akan mengambil masa satu generasi atau lebih sebelum keberkesanannya dapat diukur dengan jitu. Paling kurangnya, kita patut menunggu untuk dua puluh tahun sebelum membuat keputusan untuk menyemak polisis PPSMI. Hal ini kerana setiap murid dalam system pendidikan Malaysia akan mengambil masa sebelas tahun untuk menyiapkan proses pembelajaran di sekolah rendah and menengah. Sembilan tahun patut diperuntukan lagi untuk memastikan bahawa data yang dikumpulkan merupakan data yang jitu dan unsur rawak dikurangkan.

Jikalau kita berasa bahwa polisi PPSMI merupakan polisi yang kurang sesuai untuk rakyat Malaysia dan kita tidak sanggup melabur dua puluh tahun untuk menguji keberkesannya, kita sepatutnya tidak mengambil langkah yang telah (dan masih sedang) memberikan impak kepada ramai murid dalam system persekolahan Malaysia. Walau bagaimanapun, nasi telah menjadi bubur.

Malahan, proses transisi yang akan diambil untuk menukarkan bahasa pengantaraan dari Bahasa Inggeris kepada Bahasa Malaysia juga kurang difikirkan oleh pihak atasan. Salah satu langkah yang akan diambil adalah menukar bahasa pengantaraan pada tahap pendidikan yang berbeza, iaitu, Tahun Satu, Tahun Empat, Tingkatan Satu serta Tingkatan Empat. Walaupun proses ini dihasilkan untuk meminimumkan impak kepada para murid and pengajar, tetapi, pada pandangan saya, proses ini tidak akan mengurangkan impak. Sebaliknya, ia akan mengganggu pengembangan murid dalam mata pelajaran Sains dan Matematik.

Bayangkan keadaan murid-murid dalam sistem persekolahan kita – setelah tiga, enam, atau sembilan tahun belajar Sains dan Matematik, mereka akan menukar bahasa pangantaraan bagi kedua-dua subjek tersebut kepada Bahasa Malaysia. Golongan yang akan menerima kesan terbesar merupakan golongan yang akan terpaksa menukar setelah belajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris selama sembilan tahun. Malahan, langkah ini merupakan langkah yang hanya setengah masak; Selepas belajar dalam Bahasa Malaysia selama dua tahun, murid-murid ini akan menukar bahasa pangantaraan mereka daripada Bahasa Malaysia kepada Bahasa Inggeris untuk pendidikan pra-univerisiti dan untuk pendidikan peringkat universiti.

Selepas membuat keputusan yang membolehkan pelejar-pelajar yang akan menduduki SPM pada tahun 2013 dan 2014 untuk memilih sama ada mereka mahu menjawab dalam Bahasa Inggeris atau Bahasa Malaysia, ramai murid telah dapat bernafas lega. Walau bagaimanapun, bahasa pengantaraan bagi kelas mereka mungkin akan dijadikan Bahasa Malaysia, disebabkan guru mereka lebih suka mengajar dalam bahasa tersebut. Guru-guru boleh berbuat demikian tanpa menghiraukan permintaan murid-murid mereka mahupun ibu bapa murid-murid tersebut. Hal ini memudaratkan bagi murid-murid mereka kerana mereka akan dipaksa belajar dalam bahasa yang mereka kurang senang menggunakan.

Salah satu hasil yang dinantikan yang tidak dapat dinafikan ialah keputusan murid-murid luar bandar dalam Sains dan Matematik akan bertambah baik kerana mereka akan dapat belajar kedua-dua mata pelajaran tersebut dalam bahasa ibunda mereka. Namun begitu, jikalau mereka tidak dapat menguasai Bahasa Inggeris, mereka akan mangalami kesusahan apabila belajar pada peringkat pra-universiti nanti; walaupun Kerajaan telah membuat keputusan untuk menukar bahasa pangantaraan bagi sekolah rendah dan sekolah menengah balik kepada Bahasa Malaysia, namun bahasa pengantaraan bagi kedua-dua subjek tersebut masih merupakan Bahasa Inggeris bagi program Tingkatan 6 dan Matrikulasi.

Adakah menukar dari satu bahasa kepada bahasa yang lain merupakan tindakan yang wajar diambil oleh kerajaan Malaysia? Pada pandangan saya, jawapannya tidak. Terdapat pelbagai penyelesaian untuk keadaan yang kita dalam ini. Dengan melihat negara lain yang berada dalam keadaan yang serupa dengan keadaan kita, kita mungkin akan dapat mengambil ilham daripada mereka.

Negara Hong Kong merupakan salah satu daripada dua wilayah autonomi dalam Negara Cina, dan akan dapat menentukan sistem pendidikan mereka sehingga tahun 2050. Setelah Hong Kong dikembalikan kepada Negara Cina, kerajaan Hong Kong dan Cina telah mengambil langkah untuk memupuk perpaduan antara penduduk Hong Kong dengan penduduk Negara Cina secara umumnya. Salah satu langkah yang diambil ialah menukar bahasa pangantaraan bagi mata pelajaran sains dan matematik di Hong Kong daripada Bahasa Inggeris kepada Bahasa Mandarin.

Namun begitu, akhir-akhir ini, kerajaan Hong Kong telah mengambil langkah untuk mengajar Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris, dan juga untuk menambah bilangan jam murid-murid diajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Alasannya? Ramai ibu bapa di Hong Kong berpendapat bahawa sekolah yang mengajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris merupakan sekolah yang lebih baik, dibandingkan dengan sekolah yang menggunakan Bahasa Cina sebagai bahasa pengantaraan mereka. Walau bagaimanapun, bagi peperiksaan-peperiksaan umum di Hong Kong, jawapan untuk mata pelajaran Sains dan Matematik boleh ditulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris atau Bahasa Cina.

Jika kita mengambil ilham daripada keadaan ini, kita mungkin akan dapat menyelesaikan masalah kita. Murid-murid yang belajar dalam sekolah harus diberi peluang untuk memilih bahasa yang mereka mahu diajar dalam, serta bahasa yang mereka akan gunakan untuk manjawab kertas ujian mereka.

Ada tak ibu bapa yang tidak mahukan anak-anak mereka berjaya dalam hidup? Semua ibu bapa pasti mahukan anak-anak mereka berjaya dalam hidup. Dalam era globilasi ini, penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris amat penting jika seseorang mahu berjaya dalam hidup. Kesimpulannya, kita perlu memastikan bahawa tahap penguasaan Bahasa Inggeris dalam kalangan penduduk Malaysia meningkat, tetapi pada masa yang sama, kita perlu memastikan bahawa semua orang diberi peluang untuk belajar Sains dan Matematik dalam bahasa pilihan mereka.

The Hot One

2010-03-30T22:00:00.001+08:00

Well, why the reason for all this secrecy? I’m going all out on some people in particular, some groups of people in general, and if you don’t have the patience to read through all my posts, or the endurance to look through, then you don’t deserve to be reading this.

Quite the contrary if you’re reading this.

Here goes.

This is a follow-up from “Community”. I’ve seen a lot of things in life, and some things I accept more readily than others. Facts of life like studying requires more than just reading at the last minute, or that I can’t sleep at 4 and expect to wake up at eight the next morning without falling asleep all the time the next day, or that I can’t always get the girls I like.

As I posted in “Community”, we are all part of some community or other, at every stage of our lives. When we move on, sometimes, the community moves on without us. It can be quite depressing at times.

I’ve been passed over too many times than I care to count. From Form 5 prefects reunions to Form 5 class reunions (or part thereof – if there have been any, I obviously haven’t been informed, despite the fact I have always stayed at the same place since I’ve finished Form 5 till now) to Form 6 class reunions, to JS reunions.

Do you how depressing it is to look at a blog and find out that the prefects who you once served along with didn’t have the courtesy to invite you to a reunion, despite the fact that you live so close to your former alma mater? In fact, I haven’t moved since I finished Form 5. It makes it all the more annoying. Why?

One fine day, I was looking at some blog posts made in Jian Wei’s blog. And I came across some photos of a reunion which I had not been privy to. I thought, maybe it was just the exco. Then I saw prefects who were not exco. I was left scratching my head.

I thought it was just me, until I went back to school. Johan then remarked to me that we weren’t invited. I agreed. That was when I first came up with the notion that college isn’t exactly the best place to go.

I can give a thousand other reasons, but the main one is that people who go to college think that there is no such a thing as Form 6. That’s ok, until they forget to remember us. Sure, I’m no proponent of Form 6 either (at least not in its current form), but college students seem to have forgotten everyone else in the world. You may consider me skeptical, cynical, sarcastic, and point to a hundred other examples where college students do not forget their Form 6 peer…

So why did the leader (and his gang of leaders) of the prefect board 2006 forget the 2 prefects who went to Form 6? Just the courtesy of inviting us would have been enough. Instead, we were passed over many, many times.

And it is not like we did not have each other’s contact details. All students in 5E had each other’s contact details, and the prefect board used to send the duty lists through the e-mail. So as to the reason why they never contacted us, it is truly beyond me.

How do they think they are going to maintain bonds forever, if they cannot even remember the people they served with? I think most of it is just bullcrap. If they really want to ensure we remain connected and united, they would tell everyone, or at least make an effort to do so.

As for 5E per se, I have had no contact with them as a class. Like I said earlier, if they have a reunion, I’ll probably find out on someone’s blog long after they have it. This does not make it any easier, I have to say, but it just goes to show how much my classmates value me.

The other annoying occasion was when JS had one of its reunions this year. Sarah (I think) and Victoria were talking about a reunion which happened earlier this year. I looked blankly at them and then Tim suggested that it might have been a girl’s outing. I accepted the fact; sometimes the girl’s want to go out alone.

Then Victoria recalled her experience of cramming into Mike’s Picanto. At this point, I wasn’t impressed. As you can probably tell, Mike is not a girl; he’s a guy. So why is it that Tim and I are left out in the dark? I have no idea. I shot Mike a glance when they mentioned the Picanto. He looked sheepishly at me, but it told me all I needed to know; he didn’t invite me, and he was feeling guilt for it.

Now as to why he didn’t, I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I don’t mix well with him. Maybe it’s because I gave some people the cold shoulder on Pangkor. But the point is still the same; if you don’t invite everyone to everything you do, do you expect everyone to feel a part of the community? Do you expect everyone to feel connected and bonded after you “forget”, intentionally or otherwise, to invite everyone?

I understand; sometimes, some just want to go out with their friends. However, when you see two or more circles going out, or one-third of your class going out, you start to wonder whether it is just friends, or whether it’s a selected class reunion.

But I have kept the best for last. I’m going weapons free here. You’ve been warned.

It is one thing to find out that you have been ignored when a group of your ex-classmates go out for a reunion, for any reason whatsoever;

Whether it is because you are not in an acceptable/popular place of pre-tertiary education (my supposed reason as to why Jian Wei and gang have not asked me back);

Or because it is because you don’t speak the same language as they do (my supposed reason as to why I haven’t heard a word from all those PBSM jokers);

Or because you blew your top with them once and are remembered as an impatient, arrogant, hot-tempered fool (my supposed reason as to why the my JS mates keep me at a distance)

However, it is a completely different thing to find yourself being treated as part of the furniture, while you are out with some “friends”, or should I say, imbeciles of such massive proportions, you’re surprised they can tell the difference between a house and a cockroach.

It was after Prize Giving day this year. As I have always been in Form 6, I’d talk to practically anyone on hand just to keep myself busy and company. So I stuck mostly to Jen Chong and Wai Chien for most of the day.

After prize giving, some of the recipients decided to go out for lunch together with Mr. Kang. At this juncture, Wai Chien decided to “send” me to Gia Yoke and Gia Ing’s car for reasons unknown. He did this by claiming that the twins were calling me.

I later learnt to my dismay that the twins had not called me, and that I was being “bullied” by Wai Chien (in the twins’ own words). I don’t mind that. No, the worst is yet to come.

So after eating, talking, listening and doing everything a bunch of former Sixth Formers do while at lunch, Jen Chong decided to respond to an SMS by Ying Wai, who was asking him to get some people for a game of basketball.

And I sat right next to him.

Now, what happens next amuses me so much, it isn’t funny. No, it isn’t even gross, it’s to orders of magnitude not found on this earth, disgusting. Maybe even treacherous, or even treasonous, but I won’t go there; he owes me no allegiance, and I’m glad he doesn’t;

He just kept looking around the table for someone, all the time ignoring me.

I decided enough was enough. When Shao Li and Joan discussed their plans to go out for an outing to Pangkor with few of my (our, depending on who you are) classmates, then proceeded to ask Grace what my (our, again depending on who you are) class was planning, Grace said nothing. I then said that if the class was even planning anything, I “would be the last person to know. If these people are planning anything, they won’t tell me. So please let me know if you people are planning anything.”

To which Shao Li and Joan laughed. I said it half jokingly, but I also said it in all seriousness; I had been left out in the dark far too many times than I can count, and I was pretty tired of it. But seriously, the comment was not aimed at her; the girls can do all their stuff without letting any guys know, and though I’d be missing, I would be wiser than to ask for getting in; it was aimed at Jen Chong.

I said it loudly enough that I was sure that Jen Chong was within earshot. Nevertheless, he kept searching the table for people to invite.

So ended the lunch, and I went back to the house, half amused, half fuming, but completely bemused; why is it that people who can get into the top 1.55 percent in the country can’t even recognize a potential invitee right next to them? Look, it’s not like they had no space for anyone else, they did, but Jen Chong still refused to invite me.

Ok, so one time was enough, but then again, this happened at Puan Moli’s house. Jen Chong was again asking for people to go to play basketball, and he was having a hard time getting Sonia to go along.

And I was standing there all the while, waiting for him to come to his senses.

However, this does not mean that the whole of my class is senseless or totally inapt at differentiating cockroaches from houses; Pek Yee suggested that Jen Chong invited me at one point. As I was standing behind Jen Chong and she had to point towards me, not to mention the fact that she was distracted not too long after and stopped perusing her suggestion, Jen Chong missed the suggestion.

So he ended up convincing half the class (figuratively speaking, of course) to go there and watch. What a successful attempt.

Look, I don’t want your pity or sympathy or your attention; it just hurts to find out you’re on the outside all the time. And as if to add insult to injury, it has to be done in my face.

All this while I’m here knowing that given half a chance, I’d say yes, rearrange my schedule to make sure I get maximum time with my “classmates” (I’ve already done this before, and I’d gladly do this again) or that if I plan something, I’d be sure to ask them, at the very least.

It is very stressful, painful and bewildering seeing every time I go to a reunion, I find out more than I want to know about what my classmates than I would have wanted to; where they’ve been, what they’ve done, who they’re with.

And every time I find myself asking, ”Why aren’t I there?”

Everyone gets varying degrees of freedom to determine their activities and to manage their time.
Some get the liberty to do so at a much younger age than others. Up to now, I have yet to get such liberty. As such please do not plan my activities for me. I already have enough people telling me what I can or cannot do, when I can or cannot do it, so if you’re planning something, let me know. Don’t hide behind the reason that “This is not his kind of thing, he won’t come”. I’m old enough to figure that out by myself.

Let me decide.

Give me the freedom to.

Speaking of time management and liberty, the time we gain such independence also influences what kind of friends we get, wand when we get them. So while I understand that you may say that, ”You’re perpetually not free!”, or “You’re haven’t spent enough time with me!”, spare a though for the guy on this end of the computer terminal.

He doesn’t get to choose what he wants to do with all his time.

Though if he could, he would have spent it with his “classmates”.

I’ve given some of my supposed reasons as to why “I’m never there”. My guess? They’re pretty accurate, either that, or they’re more sinister than I know. I don’t claim to know everything, and if I do so, I’d be lying. Big time.

So what should I do (or rather, what am I doing) with these “classmates” of mine? With respect to my Form 5 classmates, we have all been dispersed all over Malaysia (and the world, to varying extents). I haven’t kept in touch, so I guess it is my fault more than anyone else’s. However, if I find out that they’ve been having reunions… well, I seriously doubt so. The class is so diverse, so it would be hard to find one that crosses the many borders in class class and order. But in the unlikely case…

I’m not going to bother you, or bother with you anymore. Consider yourself warned.

As for the PBSM people (there’s no other word appropriate here), I’m cutting ties. I am a member of the Adult Division at Seafield, and while my membership will lapse due to inactivity, I don’t really mind: doctors don’t give first aid. If one can’t even try to keep the non-speaking Mandarin speaking parts of one’s community together, I see no need to do so myself.

As for the prefects, I’m also cutting ties. I’ve been here all this time, and I’ve always found out too late to do anything. Sure, I’ll always remember I was a prefect, but I’m no longer interested in any matters pertaining to it; we speak the same language, had a similar purpose; but still no need was made to maintain contact. I feel the same thing happened to my good friend when we left school, and I have no use for elitist folk.

As for JS, I’m giving us a chance; community is still new, and our paths may cross more than I’ll care to count in the future. Besides, I’m the “host” in the Klang Valley; so the onus is on me to bring all of us together.

As for my Sixth Form batch, and other associated classes, I’ve given up. I’m sick of being sidelined, sick of having decisions made for me by people who don’t even have the decency of asking, sick of being kept out of the loop, sick of being the last to find out all the time, every time.

Besides, we’ve run out of time. Most of you would have started uni already, and so, there’s no chance of meeting up.

Say whatever you want, I’m suffering from delusions of grandeur, delusions of persecution. Whatever. I’m not. I’m just tired of hoping for people who I consider friends to consider me in the same light, and to ask me out when I needed it most.

To all the students of Form 6/2008, SMK Seafiled, with special emphasis on 6A, I’m cutting ties. I’ll maintain relationships with you on a personal basis, based on a case to case basis. I want to have nothing to do with people who I keep hoping on but never deliver, people who I wait on but never seem to arrive, people who I helped out, who I laughed with, who I talked with;

But never seemed to have the decency to consider me a person worthy of a friendship.

You may say I’m demanding too much of such a low level relationship. Excuse me, is any relationship after one and a half years low level? Even if it is, I feel that the very least you could have done was let me know.

But then you might say, I don’t feel I owe you that much. Than let me ask you another question: If that is so, why do I feel you owe me so much? And if my feelings are out of place, is it your expectations that need fixing, or is it mine that need fixing? And if it is mine that need fixing, what is the best way to fix it?

I think you’re smart enough to figure that one out by yourself.

I’ll be frank; I feel I’ve been used. Squeezed out for information, then left out to dry. Sure, we all get whatever we can from our classmates, and some of us do whatever we can form our classmates, normally without any want for repayment.

But just for old time’s sake, do you think it is worth just remembering me when you plan something? I do; you obviously don’t. Just as I do, I’ll put any links to any blogs I find on my blog. Why? For old times sake.

Consider yourself served.

I pray

2009-10-31T03:21:00.001+08:00

Right about now, an abnormally high number of the occupants of Vista Komanwel will be waking up to the sound of alarms, regardless of whether they are clock alarms, watch alarms or everyone’s personal favourite, mobile phone alarms. Most of those who wake up will then make their way to the toilet (hopefully) and proceed to take care of their hygiene. After that, they’ll be in the kitchen eating breakfast.

In ten minute’s time, they would have gathered at the Atrium of the IMU, with their bags packed, their legs ready and their sympathetic system racing (sorry, couldn’t resist) as they prepare to find out what lies ahead in the day ahead.

They’ll then board a bus, and make their way to Taman Melawati, Ampang, for Bukit Tabor (I think). Once there, they’ll begin a hike up to the summit before sunrise, that they may catch the sunrise, and then they’ll make their way back down.

At the other extreme of the spectrum, I’ll be getting some much needed rest when they get onto the bus. I’ll probably be back from comaland when they finish the run back down from the peak, and I’ll be lazing around while they struggle to cram in some study into what is left of their weekend.

So why the late night post, about a topic which I generally try not to touch on? Well, for one thing, there’s the fact that Bukit Tabor is not the safest of all hiking spots. Yes, it is very popular, it gets very heavy traffic on the weekends, and it is not that tall. However, it has pretty unforgiving terrain, so one misstep is all one needs for something bad to happen. Add to that the fact that Bukit Tabor is now notorious for accidents and injuries. A long while ago, two doctors, both experienced hikers, fell 200 metres to their deaths while hiking there. Another hiker fell 100 metres, but trees stopped her fall. Another hiker fell a reasonable distance as well, but survived due to the fall being broken.

Then there’s the fact that it is the rainy season. When it rains, people get messed up. For starters, people pull out their umbrellas and their raincoats or ponchos, all of which hinder movement. Wet weather also means high humidity, which also means more sweat, which drives most people crazy. Crazy people are the kind of people you don’t need when you are looking down a ravine 200 metres in depth. On top of that, a wet environment means damp soil and wet rock surfaces, which are not the kind of surfaces one would want when going on a hike – unless you want to take a roll down.

So if a group of (not-so-sane) batchmates of mine, along with a few of our seniors decide to go out for a hike, why should I worry? Why should I pray? Well, apart from the notorious features of Bukit Tabor and the rainy season, I know these people. My orientation group had about 12 active people, and to the best of my knowledge, 4 of us are going. That’s a full third. I want to see them back in one piece, even though they have chosen, for some absurd reason or other, to go and risk life and limb to go and climb Bukit Tabor during the rainy season.

Need another reason? Well, if you have survived thus far, I guess you deserve to know. She’s going. I’m not surprised. She can run, she is more fit than I am, and she is the type who would go for these kind of things. I prefer to swim in the water. Yeah, sure, I know there a lot of logs out there which move a lot faster than I do, but that’s besides the point; hiking isn’t really my thing, and I’m sure not going to do it at half past four in the morning for a girl (Not unless there are extenuating circumstances… I’ll come up with another excuse some other time)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have got some important business to do…

Perceived audience

2009-04-15T00:21:00.000+08:00

It has been two and a half months since I have written a post for this blog. Call it whatever you want, but I’ll just put it down to bad interruption management. After February, I have had plenty of time to start writing again, but I obviously haven’t - basically it’s because I have been putting my life on hold for one event after another. But that’s another story…

I have for a long time wanted to write, long before I started this blog. One of the main contributors to this desire in me were the opinion columns in ‘The Star’. There, people wrote their views, and I enjoyed reading them. It gave me a different perspective of life, and often, I had views, perspectives and opinions which I wanted the world - or at least the world around me - to hear.

So I started this blog. One thing, however, was that when I started it I realized it would be on the World Wide Web, and be in what some people call public domain. So I decided to post only politically correct stuff, and write my posts such that it is applicable to everyone who reads it, and not just to a certain audience.

However, as time goes by, the number of my friends and other acquaintances grew. And not only that, as one of the major ways of staying connected is through blogs, I realized that I had to cater to the needs of others, rather than just that of my secondary school classmates and friends. So when I write, I have to keep three groups of people on mind; the general average reader, who might somehow stumble upon my blog, my ex-schoolmates and classmates, who have a lsightly higher chance of stumbling upon this, and friends and acquaintances I have from church, especially Jeremiah Schoolers.

However, when most people write online, we do it in a no holds barred manner. We think that the nature of the Internet, that we don’t have to face audience, allows us to get away with criticizing and insulting others behind the cover of anonymity. Or at least, we can say it was done through a screen, that it is less harmful, that we were just venting, fuming, yadayadayada…

The fact is that, sometimes, we get our perceived audience wrong.

When we link up our blog to someone else’s, chances are they’ll return the favour. One of the benefits of the World Wide Web is that if you know where to go to find the correct connections, you’ll be able to find all you need to know about everyone you want to know from the safety and security of your own home. No need to watch them, scout them, tail them.

Half the time they post all their doings and whereabouts, along with photos on their blogs. And if you’re lucky, they’ll post a video or two.

However, coming back to my point: when blogs are linked, it allows a third party, which has an interest in the two parties with linked blogs to go and see what they both are up to. This often upsets the whole “chemical equation” for the perceived audience.

In my opinion, writing a blog should be done in either one of three ways: Either we write as though we have no tomorrow on our feelings, doings and eatings (as some people undoubtedly do), maintain a blog as one’s personal opinion piece or we do it in an abstract way, where we use events, thoughts, observations or logic to put forward an argument.

The reason for this is simple: If we decide to use it as a venting pot, fuming post or shouting wall, there is a slight possibility that the person we are venting, fuming or shouting at might pick up the post through a friend’s of a friend’s of a friend’s blog, and then, well…you get the picture.

As my blog is still rather young and I try not to make it a habit to vent at people here, I think (correct me if I’m wrong) I have yet to touch a nerve. Ok, maybe not in this particular one, and maybe not intentionally, but I try to make my posts as neutral as possible. However, I have come across blogs where the authors neglected the possibility of me ending up there. One of them was the other main contributor for me to start blogging, the other, well, like I said, sometimes, going blog hoping is not good for your health.

Of course, we don’t only have to watch over our shoulders when we blog. We have to do the same thing for our Friendster profiles, Myspace profiles and any other website where we put our face and information online. Nowadays, potential employers look at their potential employee’s profiles to see whether they are all they claim to be. University lecturers check potential student’s profiles to make sure they aren’t doing anything stupid.

Some argue that this is an invasion of privacy. I have to, very vehemently, disagree. When one makes a profile and puts it on the World Wide Web, it’s in the public domain, especially when the website one chooses to use gives one the option to not make it public. This means that anyone who has the correct access (determined by the website provider) will be able to see the said person’s profile/blog. And when I say whoever, it really means whoever.

So when we choose the content for our blogs, profiles, photo albums or anything else available online, we have to really consider whether we want just about anyone to be able to see it. Sure, there are stupider things out there than to put pictures of ourselves in compromising positions (like giving away passwords, PINs and secret question answers) but do you really want to explain to your potential boss the picture of you doing something stupid? I don’t think so…

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers

2009-01-29T02:04:00.001+08:00

This post is obviously not part of this block but I have to write it as I owe a friend of mine an explanation. Actually, I sort of owe everyone (or anyone, rather) who reads this blog an explanation for my break in following my preset theme, so here it is.

One fine day, while I was hanging out with some friends, they cracked a joke which I believed was in Japanese. When I asked for an explanation, I was told “You wouldn’t understand”. I took great offense at that.

I have the reputation of being the top student in my class, and arguably, the whole of Upper Six from the school I was in. So I get a lot of requests to help other people academically. I normally don’t turn people down, unless I have an urgent and important piece of work that needs doing and I don’t have a minute to spare. When I did have time to spare, I would help to the utmost limits of my capability. I would only tell a person “You wouldn’t understand,” if I personally did not understand a fact myself. This would normally be limited to only physics questions, as I did not take physics at STPM level.

I felt that the person I asked, a male ex-classmate of mine, owed me an explanation. If I understood something, I would explain it to him to the best of my ability, and here he is saying, I wouldn’t understand, when he understood it perfectly well. Just made my blood boil.

Well, you can’t have everything in life, so I will just take whatever comes my way. But I digress…

I was having a conversation over the phone with another ex-classmate of mine recently. To cut a long story short, she said that it was okay for non-Christians and Christians to be involved in a relationship. Her argument was that Jesus loved everyone.

I decided not to use full blown apologetics against her. Firstly, as we had been friends for quite some time, it would have been an excellent way of chasing her away from me. Most people I know get turned off when the conversation switches to religion, and I was afraid that if I switched to full blown apologetics, it would be a stumbling block in our relationship as friends. I wouldn’t mind using full blown apologetics against a family member, especially one who is the same generation as me, or against a complete stranger, as in the former, the relationship is fixed, while in the latter, there is no relationship to be wrecked. The bottomline? I didn’t want to mess up a friendship.

Secondly, was the fact that in a small part of my head, a voice was saying that, ”She won’t understand.”

If I am to live life as a person of principles, I must do what I feel is right, even when others don’t. It would thus be hypocrisy if I didn’t explain something I understood well when I expect others to do so.

So here goes.

There are two main reasons as to why Christians should not get into relationships with non-Christians. Before December last year, I had, very frankly, no qualms about getting into a relationship with a non-Christian girl, but after YLDP and the first three weeks of Jeremiah School, I now have serious reservations.

The first one is pretty clear: 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. Basically, do not be yoked together with unbelievers. This passage of Scripture is pretty clear about it. Sure, it may only mean marriage, but when BGRs are concerned, where is the end point, hopefully? Even if one says, “It’s okay, as long as you don’t go all the way”, how does one stop a relationship when all seems to be going right, except for the fact that they are religiously ‘incompatible’?

The second reason has its roots in this passage of Scripture: Matthew 19:4-6. Marriage is supposed to bring two people and make them one. This is so that the image of Triune God can be shown on Earth; two different people working as one, mirroring the image of the God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit working as one. If a Christian and a non-Christian are married together, how will they be able to show the communion and the unity that God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit share, especially when it comes to religion?

I know that most of these arguments are post-nuptial, rather than pre-nuptial, and as such, one might argue that these arguments should not hold for BGRs. However, as I said earlier, what is the ultimate endpoint of such a relationship?

However, the Bible is also very clear about those who are already involved in such a relationship. The only trouble is, what does one do when one has one foot into starting a relationship (note that the relationship hasn’t started yet) when one gets such information? To pull out, as one should, or to commit, when all it could cause is more pain, short or long term…talk about feelings…sigh…

“Be extraordinary”

2009-01-29T00:32:00.003+08:00

I watch Grey’s Anatomy. Well, at least the show. I can’t watch a book, obviously. The phrase ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is taken from a book written by one Doctor Gray, who described, in greater detail than those before him, the human body. So Gray’s Anatomy was a surgical textbook for many years (I am talking about the book, if you haven’t realized already).

Going back to what I watch, I have followed the show since the middle of season two. I would have followed it from the start of season two, except for the fact that it had a time slot which so happened to coincide with my dinner after I returned home from my grandma’s place every week, so I missed the first half of season two. But I have watched most of the episodes since then.

If you watch Grey’s Anatomy because of the guy’s or the girl’s physique, well, that’s your way of looking at the show. I personally enjoy the way the show uses the events in the days of the characters, and uses them to put forward a theme. Of course, I stay for the conflicts and the relationships which develop between the characters, but that’s mostly secondary.

Now time to get down to business.

The title character, Meredith Grey, is the daughter of a well-known surgeon, Dr. Ellis Grey, who was more devoted to her work than her family. She started cheating on her husband with another married doctor while she was at work, but the other doctor, eventually, told her that he had to go back to his wife.

Depressed, Ellis Grey attempted suicide. After she had slit her wrists, she told her daughter, Meredith Grey, to “Be extraordinary”. Meredith waited until her mother had passed out before she called the emergency services. To cut a long story short, her mother survived the ordeal, and died much later on in life, but ever since then, Meredith had always tried to live up to her mother’s request.

So Meredith became extraordinary in the only way she knew how; after living with a workaholic mother who was a surgeon for many years, she too became a surgeon, and did her best to be the best.

However, she always flirted with danger. While most people would run away from a person with a bomb, she went towards him/her. I don’t know what exactly transpired, as that was at the beginning of season 2…sigh….

Then, when she was pushed into the cold, frigid waters of a river in winter, instead of getting herself out when she surfaced, she allowed herself to sink back into the water.

So she ended up going for counseling towards the end of season 4, partly because of her suicidal behavior, partly because of her mother’s death. Through a long, dramatic, theatrical process (which makes for better drama than for reality), she had to finally come to terms with what happened when her mother attempted suicide and the effects it had on her.

The person counseling her was, of course, a psychiatrist. So she pointed out that Meredith had all the tools she needed to figure out her mother’s state of mind when her mother attempted to commit suicide. Both were surgeons, who were extremely devoted to their work, and had problems with holding a relationship.

So after some soul searching, she finally discovered a few facts; if her mother had wanted to die, she would have slashed the carotid artery rather than her wrists. So her mother didn’t really want to die; she only wanted to get her lover’s attention by attempting suicide. The psychiatrist then told her that she could learn from her mother’s mistakes.

Meredith then realized then when her mother told her to be ‘extraordinary’, it was not with respect to work, but rather, with respect to relationships. Her mother had failed in every way possible; she had a husband who left her and a lover who wanted to go back to his own wife. She wanted Meredith to be extraordinary with people and family, not just work.

When we hear something from people, we put it into context. This normally allows us to bring out the complete, whole and true meaning of what a person is saying. However, when the context we choose to put a person’s words in is wrong, we lose the meaning altogether.

Children look up to their parents for direction, wisdom and security. Thus, it is only natural for us to do what our parents do, or to see the wisdom of this world from our parents view. However, as we grow up, we see more of the world than we originally saw, and we might neglect to see the wisdom of this world in the light of the new perspective we obtain.

Meredith Grey put her mother’s words in the only context she knew: as a surgeon. Then, following in her mother’s footsteps, she became a surgeon and tried to be extraordinary, although she was missing out the entire point of her mother’s words.

When she finally realized what the words meant, she found the freedom to be free from her bad memories.

I believe it is the same for us too. When we are told something, wrap our minds around it, then go about life stumbling around because we have a mental block as to what it could mean, we find that something is missing. But when we find out what it actually means, then we find more meaning to it, and life in general, and liberated from what used to be a stumbling block for us to grow further.

Kevin and Anton

2009-01-27T02:10:00.000+08:00

Kevin Phang Khein Khei is a friend of mine from SMK USJ 12. I believed, when I left school, that he would be the future Head Prefect. However, after I left, the USJ 12 Prefect Board has changed dramatically. I haven’t met any of the teachers who were responsible for the change since then. Okay, I‘m exaggerating, I probably did meet them when I collected my prize for my SPM performance, but I haven’t spoken to them since I was in Form 5.

The closest I got to speaking to one of them would be Puan Teng, who was invigilating the SPM examination at Seafield. I saw her on the day when I had Bio 2, but I chose not to talk to her as I needed to revise…sigh, why must, of all the ecology topics, it must be the ones I didn’t read which came out?

But I digress. Point is, I don’t know how much the Prefect Board has changed since then.

Wait a second…Let me hold that thought. I did speak to not one, but two of them in Lower Six…Puan Cheah and Puan Ong, but then again, the topic was not about the Prefect Board, it was about me doing Form 6. Nevertheless, I still don’t know what has become of the Board since I left.

I bumped into Kevin recently. If I’m not mistaken, it was New Year’s Eve. He himself has stopped caring about the Board, but then again, I guess if I had been passed over, pushed around and struck down, I would too.

To me, back then at least, Kevin would always be a schoolboy, still in SMK USJ 12, not yet having finished his PMR examination. And I would treat him as such. Just a kid, I would think.

Anton was the Head Prefect (Boys) for SMK Seafield for the 2007/2008 session. Whenever I interacted with him, I always treated him as an equal rather than as a person younger than me, even though I am a full year older than him and two years his senior. Somehow, as he would always be more Seafieldian than me, I always believed that he deserved to be treated a bit more maturely.

The catch is this. Both of them finished their SPM last year, and are the same age. However, I would have been inclined to treat them differently before December last year.

Part of the reason for this has to do with who I perceived they are. When I left USJ 12, Kevin was still in USJ 12, just past PMR. I guess a part of me still felt that he was still there and hadn’t progresses since then. Besides, as I haven’t had much contact with him since then, I haven’t been able to change my perception of him.

When I first met Anton, however, he was a Forth Former running for Head Prefect. So I always felt that he deserved to be treated in a more matured manner than Kevin, even though they were of equivalent age and seniority. You may say that I had a mental block with regards to Kevin’s development; I couldn’t get myself to believe that he could grow up.

Most of this mentality changed when I went for YLDP : 18-UP last year. I was interacting with people 18 and above, and most of them were college students. College students are, in general, more independent than their Form 6 counterparts. So I received a sort of mini culture shock that time. I had to change the way I interacted with people as these were adults, and the kind of topics they would choose were different compared to those a Fifth Former would choose.

Sixth Formers, on the other hand, who spent more time in school rather than in college, tend to choose topics more towards those a Fifth Former would choose. We maintain a certain kidlike mentality. Part of this is due to the fact that in Form 6, we are, to a certain extent, still treated like kids. So we don’t become like an adult as fast.

At 18-UP, I had to constantly remind myself that these weren’t kids I was dealing with; these were adults. So after finally adjusting my thought processes, I am finally able to overcome my mental block with Kevin. When I did speak with him on New Year’s Eve, I tried to keep it as adult as possible.

Now, however, I am feeling the need to do the complete opposite. Most of the people I will interact with over the next month and during the past month are SPM leavers, and as such, they still behave like small kids. I now have problems going back to a level where I may interact with small kids, and I constantly amuse myself over their worries: SPM, college, etc…mainly because I have been through the fire and I’m fine.

Interactions with people is a complex business. When we get too old for them, we sound like dinosaurs, or just laugh at their seemingly “petty” worries. When we find that we are behaving too childishly for our audience, we are normally able to grow up, at an astonishing rate, as we catch up on what we have missed out while we were away, or doing Form 6. However, it’s going back down a level, which is harder to do.

Sometimes, as elders, we often forget that we were young once, and, as such, have lost touch with the more youthful side of ourselves. Young people cannot be guilty of not knowing how it feels to be older, but elders are guilty, to a certain extent, if they forget what it feels like to be young. I guess it’s easy to write about, but it’s harder to do. As the age gap between me and the people I will have to interact with is, thankfully, small, so too will the generational gap. It just feels a bit weird, after having to adapt to a more adult-like situation at a youth camp, to throw all that away for a more youth-like situation at a school…but then again, I chose to go post-STPM, so I guess I have no one else to blame.

At least now I will learn to be more flexible when I talk to people not my age group...

The Other End of the Galaxy

2008-12-28T02:30:00.003+08:00

One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century was Isaac Asimov. He was a scientist turned science fiction writer. Asimov came up with the three Laws of Robotics, which are heavily featured in the movie I, Robot, and all his other works involving robots. Asimov also wrote the Foundation Trilogy. He wrote three more books regarding this universe, but the original three are the most intriguing.

However, I only want to write in detail regarding the ending of the third book of the first trilogy here. Before I start, some background information: The trilogy starts with the Galactic Empire slowly crumbling under its own weight. So, a guy named Hari Seldon, a mathematician with the ability to calculate and predict possible futures, sets up two entities; one called Foundation, on a desolate planet called Terminus at the periphery of the galaxy, and another, called the Second Foundation, at another location which I will reveal later.

Although the Foundation was formed to restore civilisation, the Second Foundation was formed to ensure that the goal of the Foundation was achieved, in case something went wrong somewhere along the way. The Foundation was following a Plan written by Hari Seldon. Hari Seldon predicted the events which would occur in the millennium in which the Foundation would have to slowly restore civilisation to the galaxy. However, he couldn’t predict everything, lest the creation of a mutant. So the Second Foundation had to step in, to restore the course of the Foundation to the original Plan, by eliminating the mutant and by doing some interfearance of their own.

However, in exposing themselves, the Second Foundation had turned themselves into targets for extermination for the Foundation. To perpetuate their own survival and that of the Plan, they had to fool the Foundation into thinking that they had indeed been destroyed by the Foundation. This they succeeded in doing, for the Foundation did not know where the true location of the Second Foundation was. The Foundation, and any reader of the book, is only told by Hari Seldon himself that the location of the “other” Foundation is at the “other end of the galaxy”.

As the Foundation was based on a peripheral planet at the edge of the galaxy, many assumed that the planet at the “other end of the galaxy” would be at the periphery, just on the opposite side of the circle. When those planets were checked out, it was found that the Second Foundation was not found there.

After using this ruse, the Second Foundationers managed to fool the Foundationers by using another physical, geometrical truth against them. A circle has no end. So the Foundationers were fooled into thinking that the Second Foundationers’ home planet was the same as their own one for all this time. However, their home planet was at the “other end of the galaxy”.

The reason the Foundationers never found out where the location of the home planet of the Second Foundationers was simple; the galaxy is not flat. It is three-dimensional. In fact, it is in the shape of a double helix, and as a double helix has no end on either side, the “other end” would be its centre. But the major reason why the Foundationers could not figure out the location was much simpler. The Foundationers were physical scientists, experts in biology, chemistry and physics. To them, the “other end” of anything must have a geometrical connotation to it.

However, the person who gave them the hint, Hari Seldon, and established the Second Foundation, was not a physical scientist. He was a social scientist, and while his knowledge of geometry was probably undisputed (he used mathematics to calculate the possible futures), the only “other end” he cared about would be from a social view. As the home planet of the Foundationers was poor in resources, the other end socially would have been the capital of the Galactic Republic, which before the fall of civilisation, was the capital of the galaxy, and thus had a lot of trade flowing throguh it. It also just so happened to be in the centre of the galaxy.

To the Foundationers, they had a sort of mental block; they could not get past the physical side of things and they also failed to understand Hari Seldon, so they failed to find the correct location of the home planet of the Second Foundation.

When we hear someone saying something sometimes, we forget from what point of view he or she is saying it from. We think he or she is saying it from a physical point of view, but we might be mistaken, as it might be from a social point of view. We take people so literally that we forget to read between the lines, or rather, read the response from the perspective of the person saying it.

It’s a mental block for us. We only see things from one perspective, but not another. To different people, different words convey different messages. Some words are used as a way of identifying oneself from others, others to exclude other people from a conversation, by purposely withholding information from them. Not everyone has heard of every word, and certainly not every connotation of the word.

But sometimes it is the context we lose track of. Words, phrases, clauses and comments taken out of context, whether situations, conversation, or, as in this case, the people who said it, can cause the meaning of the phrase to be lost. While it may be a bit too hard for us to read between the lines whenever someone speaks, it would be prudent to bear in mind the original speaker of a quote so that the quote may be put in the correct context.

In this day and age, where science and technology, especially physical sciences and technologies take capture the minds of most of us, it is prudent to still consider that maybe it is not the only frontier worth taking on, or more than that, that the physical realm is not the only way a person may look at things.

Glass Ceiling

2008-12-24T01:38:00.001+08:00

When we do something in life, we normally have a certain expectation of it. When it exceeds our expectations, we are often surprised at the results. When it is below our expectations, however, we normally get angry. This holds true for our academic test results as well. As we do a test, we are aware of how well or poorly we did it. When the results come out, we have a certain expectation of them, whether we expect to have done well, or whether we expect to have fared poorly.

Even for the best of us, this hold true. Sometimes, we screw up during a paper, and we expect to fare poorly for it. Other times, we feel that we have answered all the questions well and truly, and are not surprised when we do well for it. When reality meets up to our expectations, we get less emotional about it; even people who normally do well, when they feel that they won’t in a particular test, and when the results come out, they find that they did as poorly as they felt they did, don’t get too depressed. This is because they knew what was coming their way. The same goes for when they expect to do well and actually do so.

However, what really gets people emotionally unstable is when they find that reality and their expectations aren’t aligned in the same direction. This happens when they expect to do well, but instead do badly, or expect to do badly, but instead do well.
I have been in both situations before, but only once have I been in a situation where I expected to fare well but instead ended up faring badly, and twice when I expected to fare badly, but ended up faring well. Nevertheless, these things do happen and I’ll describe one incident in detail here.

The Australian Mathematics Competition is, in my humble opinion, one of the better mathematics competitions on the planet. It gives everyone due credit, and lets us know how well we fared. As not only the top 3 people in the year and region get recognition, the quiz gives everyone an idea of where they stand in their year and region, at least with regards to their mathematical capability.

While the top 0.5% do get prizes (the percentile varies according to year and region), the next 4.5% get high distinction certificates, while the next 25% get distinction certificates, with the next 30% getting credit certificates. Participants who achieve a certain amount of marks are awarded a proficiency certificate.

When the results came out, I was hoping to get a distinction. The last time I participated, I just scrapped in on a credit, while one of my classmates managed to outdo me and get a distinction himself. Hoping not to be outdone this time, I wanted a distinction.

So when I approached the notice board with all the results pasted up on it, I looked for all the results with “D”s at the end, marking those with distinctions. After figuring out where the Sixth Formers were on the list (we were right at the bottom of every category) I found, to my dismay, that my name was not there. To make matters worse, there were four other from the class next door who had made the grade.

So I looked further down the list to where the “C”s were. And I found many people with credits. To my utter horror, my name was not on the list again.

Ouch.

So I rechecked the list of people who had distinctions, then proceeded to check the list of people who had credits, then finally, to those who had proficiency certificates. Needless to say, my name was not on either three of the lists.

I was left wondering how on earth I was going to face my classmates without even a proficiency certificate to show for a competition which I had so badly wanted to join. Then, just out of curiosity, I looked further up the list to find out who had had prizes and high distinctions this year. Just one person managed to get a prize this year, while three had high distinctions.

It was up there that I found my name. I had pulled off what I had thought I would not be able to do. I had gotten myself a high distinction.

My mental block was that I thought I could not get a high distinction in my life, at least not in the AMC. I was hoping pretty badly for a distinction, but while I had dreamed that I would get a high distinction, reality kept telling me that the most I would get would be a distinction. So I had the equivalent of a glass ceiling, except that this glass ceiling was internal, made up inside my head. One can dream as much as one wants to, but when reality sets in and we realise that we are not capable of doing something, we lower our expectations and set our sights lower.

So low did I set my sights that when it came to looking at my results, I spent more time finding my name than the average person would. This is both literally and figuratively speaking. I didn’t bother looking at the “HD” results first, as I felt that I had had no chance at getting them, while I averted my eyes from them from the moment I saw the results on the notice board. To me, high distinctions were only for those who were very lucky, very good or for the very young. And I was neither three.

At least my judgement said so back then.

We always have an expectation of how well we will perform in any task. For me, this time round, I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t expect to do this well, but I was happy I did. I practically had a spring in my step as I walked back home. Now, then came how to fool the class into thinking I didn’t do that well. But that’s another story....

Third block

2008-12-24T00:04:00.001+08:00

Second block's over.

Third block: Mental blocks

In God's eyes

2008-12-23T01:28:00.003+08:00

When I first thought about this topic, it was more out of following the theme than as a real post. That was about two months ago.

Now, however, I really want to write about this topic; I am not doing this out of duty, as I originally would have, but out of a sense of sharing, for I realised something I was not originally aware until only recently. This is not to say that I had no knowledge of it at all, but what goes on in the mind and what goes on in the heart are two completely different things.

Here goes.

===============================================

People say that first impressions are always the biggest. So when we go for interviews, we dress up to look our best. We make sure that we don’t have a body odour, and that if we do, we “take care” of it. Even when we go out with a group of friends, we dress up, wanting to look our best. The reason for all of this is because we want to make sure we make the right impressions, and give out the correct messages when we go out.

Part of our survival as a species is being able to tell that which is safe from that which is not. Our instincts have not only expanded to our food and where we set foot, but to other people as well. We judge people as they come our way. As we aren’t in mortal danger from being butchered by someone all the time, it is less our physical health we are concerned about, but more our social health.

The first thing we do when we see a person is judge him or her. Sometimes, when we hear that he or she does something less “desirable” or doesn’t do something “desirable”, we stereotype the said person. He or she is either not “cool” enough or too “dangerous”. We keep our distance from them and we see them as inferior to us. Being with them, or even just being associated with them, is thought of as detrimental to our social standing; being associated with someone not “cool” enough makes us look bad among friends, while being associated with someone too “dangerous” often gets us in trouble with our elders and our family.

We try to tell those who are “safe” from those who are “unsafe”, but without talking to them first, we are only able to judge people by the way they look. So comes what is known as prejudice, which is taken from “pre-judge”. We develop prejudices towards other people as we grow up, a result of our experiences and what we have been taught by our elders. We judge people by the colour of their skin, the clothes that they wear, the accessories they have, the people they hang out with and the things they do. Sometimes, we judge correctly; certain people do or wear certain things to make a statement. They want to be heard or seen doing it. Other times, things are not so simple. Nevertheless, we choose to look only on the surface before passing judgement.

However, when Christ came down to earth, he did not choose who He interacted with or who He loved based on their physical appearance or association. He talked to “sinners”, those who did not follow the Jewish law, and he talked to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the teachers of the Torah, well versed in it. He interacted with those considered too bad to be considered to be on par with everyone else, but He also interacted with those who considered themselves above everyone else. He did not choose to stay away from people because they were not good company, or did not support his cause; instead, He reached out to them.

Christ interacted with both Jews and Gentiles. It was not possible back then for a Jew to marry a Gentile under certain situations, but the greatest difference was that the Jews were God’s people, set aside by God, while the Gentiles weren’t. As Christ came down to die for all people, He did not differentiate Jew from Gentile. He even drank from the utensils of a Gentile woman once.

Christ, too, told us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, and said that this even extended to our enemies. Indeed, everyone who is loved would reciprocate, but the ability to love someone without any response is what really brings the best out of everyone concerned. The person who has to initiate contact has to find the strength to do so, while in the end, the person who receives it is able to grow, as he or she knows that he or she is not alone in this world.

When we see a person for the first time, what do we see most about him or her? And what do we do about our “knowledge”? Do we pass judgement on a person immediately? Do we look at a person’s piercings and get turned off immediately? Do we look at how a person dresses and bring out the fashion police inside of us? Do we watch a person’s actions, and from there, decide whether he or she is worth interacting with or whether he or she is not worth our time?

We normally do.

But not everyone does what they do out of choice. There is always a choice, but sometimes, this is the lesser of the two evils. The other alternative might be much less desirable for everyone involved. So people get involved with things which we cringe our noses at and speak in ways which even the least conservative of us would disapprove. But without getting to know them, we have no idea as to why they are in such a situation.

When we stretch out our hand to them, and show that we care, regardless of whether they are the downtrodden, or the oppressed, or the poor, regardless of whether they are poor materialistically, in the spirit or in other ways, we show that we care, and we give them a chance to change. By not stretching our hand out to them, we drive into them the desire to not to change. Sometimes people will just stay the way they are to spite us, and force us to accept them.

Sometimes we do the same.

But in spite of all this, everyone is good on the inside. In spite of what we wear, say, do or who we choose to interact with, people are good on the inside. When we allow our prejudices towards people to get in our way of truly knowing them, we deny ourselves a chance to get to know them better, and a chance for them to change. We deny ourselves a chance to change someone for the better.

When people sleep, everyone looks the same. Even the biggest gangster on the block looks like an innocent kid all over again. People have different styles and positions while sleeping, but that doesn’t mean that we are all that different – we are all very much the same, as when we sleep, we dream, and we become the small kid we once were.

In God’s eyes, everyone was and is equal. No one is more deserving than the rest, and no one is less deserving than the rest. Sure, even Christ left when things got too hot for Him (except at the garden of Gethsemane, but that’s another story) , only an insane person would hang around when there are people threatening one’s life, but He did what He did, without prejudice towards other people.

Closing Two Eyes

2008-12-12T20:58:00.002+08:00

Rules are made to be broken. Well, records are, especially those set by athletes, but as for rules, I'm not too sure. Being in the discipline business for too long has certainly rubbed off on me: I'm probably more legalistic than most, with little sense of practicality. And then there's the factor known as my upbringing - I grew (and still grow) in an environment where discipline is highly emphasized. Therefore, closing two eyes when it comes to any rule breaking business is foreign to me.

My penchant for rules is so well known, that when I have to break them, even my classmates can't believe their ears. I have this very anti-liquid paper stance in school - no liquid paper in school, no matter what the reason. So when one day I had to borrow liquid paper to "liquid out" a portion of my bio report, on my teacher's orders, my neighbour was so shocked, instead of empathizing with me and quietly lending her liquid paper to me, she said, "What? Can you say that again?"

It's hard enough doing something completely unnatural, or maybe even counter-intuitive, which breaks my own moral fibre. The determination I needed to ask once was already ripping my conscience apart. To ask another time, however, was a bit too much for me. Besides, her apparent refusal to lend it to me sort of reminded me of my stance on liquid paper in schools. So instead of repeating myself, I just mumbled,"I'd rather die than ask for it again." As for as I could tell, she didn't hear the last comment, but I also knew that I wasn't going to be asking her for liquid paper again, at least in school.

So I have closed two eyes when it comes to certain occasions, and gotten myself into trouble. But we often find it easier when we justify it, or when we say that after ignoring the rules,"I feel better", or when we aren't the ones who are enforcing the rules. Rule breaking is often easy, especially when we don't understand the reason why rules are there in the first place. Rule enforcing, however, seems like a perpetual uphill task for the enforcers.

But seriously, if I were to close two eyes, and look the other way, there are serious implications for everyone involved. I'd get the berating of my life from the teachers, lose trust here and there, my classmates who choose to break the rules would get punished, etc.

Closing two eyes, while easy to do, isn't easy on the conscience. When we are entrusted to do something, we know we have to do it to the best of our ability, just as we would expect of someone who we entrusted to do something. Just as we would be furious at someone who betrayed our trust, we too, can expect a good toasting if we betray someone else's.

Not everyone is entrusted to carry out a task by a person. Representatives, regardless of status, are entrusted by the majority of an institution to represent them. The police is entrusted by the people to maintain law and order. The government is entrusted by the people to ensure national, personal and financial security, among other things. When we close two eyes and look the other way, forgetting our duties to those we are responsible to, we will find it exponentially harder to gain back their trust, for people find it easier to remember us by what they find amusing. Unusual. Bizarre. Then, when we require their help, we will find that it would be extremely hard to come by.

Not everyone is in the discipline business, but everyone's life is influenced by rules and discipline. Everyone has their own set of rules, regardless of what they do, who they work for or what they believe in. When we close two eyes and look the other way, we disrupt this fabric known as the peace of mind of other people. First it starts out small, then as it goes on, people get more and more daring. It might only be peace of mind initially, but it might grow to property damage, and might get even worse after that. Nip it in the bud, as some people would say. Once cut out early, the desire to go forth and do even more devious deeds normally goes away. Normally.

Sometimes, disciplining backfires. Instead of discouraging the culprit and others from doing the bad deed in question, it might only strengthen the resolve of the person in question and encourage interest in other people. So while we can't close two eyes and look the other way, we need to also ensure that our methods of disciplining don't backfire. Fighting fire with fire might not be the best idea in this case. A fine balance needs to be struck between retribution and rehabilitation.

Pulling wool over people's eyes

2008-12-11T00:17:00.001+08:00

Every so often, we find ourselves having to lie to pull ourselves out of a potentially sticky situation. However, there are times when we find ourselves at the other end of the lie; we find that we have been lied to. Sometimes, it is just a white lie, lies which are used to avoid embarrassing the person lied to. Then of course there are times where the lies are designed to cover up our, or their, devious deeds. Then of course, there are the lies which are just told for the entertainment of those who know the truth. These lies, which border on practical jokes, while rare, have been seen in action twice during my brief tenure in Form 6. There have probably been more occasions, but I will only delve into two here.

First up was the big, long one. Two of my classmates, Chun Hwa and Shiau Sing, who share the same surnames, said they were cousins. I was sceptical, but as it seemed genuine, I just played along. I got really sceptical when one of their grandparents passed away this year, and only one of my two classmates disappeared, while the other one just kept coming to school. I swear I could smell something fishy was in the air, but like I said, as it seemed genuine, I did nothing to allay my doubts.

Unlike me, however, some of my classmates were utterly convinced that it was the truth. It probably had something to do with the fact that they had the same surname, for starters. Then, of course was the fact that Chun Hwa looked like the responsible type who seemed like he could never tell a lie (I nearly died typing this). I mean, would you consider a person who is the chairman of one of the more active associations in school untrustworthy? Considering his co-curricular activities and ability to persuade teachers, I thought he might be more trustworthy than he has shown himself to be.

On this particular situation, however, it took two to tango. Shiau Sing and Chun Hwa, both of them being jump students (read: skipped one year of primary education), looked (and still look) rather innocent (I almost died typing this as well) so it looked like they wouldn't lie about the truth. Of course, this was before I saw Chun Hwa in a different light. I can't talk about the details, as it "never happened", but ever since then, I knew that Chun Hwa was not as innocent as he was originally cut out to be. As for Shiau Sing, well, after sitting beside her for an entire year, I have found out that she is not as innocent as her face looks. As the saying goes, one should not judge a book by its cover.

Nevertheless, one fine day, when the two of them had had enough fun fooling around with the heads of 6A, they decided to let the cat out of the bag. So when the class finally reassembled, cries of Sonia going, "Chun Hwa, how could you?" were rampant. When I asked Chun Hwa himself as to the reason for the commotion, for I had not found out yet, he told me that he and Shiau Sing were not cousins. I smiled very broadly. I had been fooled to a certain extant, but I wasn't surprised at this outcome. Best to say that we should question everything we hear.

Now for the second round of wool pulling. The main characters this time round are Sonia and Wai Ling. But first, for some background information. Wai Ling, who is more diligent than most (myself included) was going for MPT 5&6 (read: prom night), a surprising decision for me, but then again, I am no great judge of people. Then there was talk as to who should be her escort, how she would look that night and the kind of things which girls talk about when they get together. In a Form 6 Bio class, where the boy-girl disparity is 1:3.5, hearing these kinds of things, even for guys, are normal.

So when talk of Wai Ling's escort started, Sonia decided to mess up the heads of everyone in 6A. She spun a tale that Wai Ling was going out with someone from next the door, the Physics class. The best part: Wai Ling played along. So she went and "tarik harga", saying she would refuse to tell us, and at the same time, Sonia would say that she did have a date. To make it look real, Sonia finally said that Wai Ling was going to go out with Yee Seng.

And, of course, Wai Ling played along. Rather than flatly denying it, as some people would, she just very gently pushed it aside. Then Jamie, who thought that Sonia was telling the truth all along, said that if Wai Ling wanted to keep it quiet, then Sonia shouldn't have blabed on her. I was surprised to say the least, and on this occasion, I left my guard down, assuming I had heard the truth. However, when one of my classmates went over to the Physics class to congratulate Yee Seng on his "catch", he just looked completely blurr. That was when it the truth started to come out, and when those who believed that Wai Ling was indeed going out with Yee Seng ended up in awkward positions.

Wai Ling did have an escort that night, or rather she escorted someone onto the stage that night; someone lucky from the Physics class, who ended up with two girls despite being in a predominantly male class (She and one of my other classmates did so, the other with someone from the History class. But that's another story). But the reason why Wai Ling's story seemed so credible was something similar to the first situation : Wai Ling's a jump student, and Sonia was Secretary to the Exco of the Prefect Board. Again we see a similar pattern: one "innocent", and one "trustworthy".

Sometimes, we tell lies because it is in our culture to do so: offending the host of any event is not the best thing to do on any occasion, and is generally frowned upon. However, trust and faith, gained through time, should not be misused to lie: practical jokes, no matter how funny they may seem then, often have very long and far reaching consequences. In the end, the boy who cried wolf ended up losing all his sheep.

But then again, some people have very good poker faces. Just goes to show one should question everything, and not judge a book by its cover.

Wandering eyes

2008-12-10T23:35:00.000+08:00

The Internet is a big place. Every computer linked to the Internet has an IP, but what we see most of the time on our computers are not IPs, but are websites. Some websites are easier to design than others, especially, if there is already a generic template for them. This is especially true for forums and blogs. However, most of the information on the Internet is rubbish, and it takes a while for us to sift through the rubbish and find the real gems. Not if you do know where they are...

The Prefect Board of USJ 12 for the term 2005/2006 was well known for one thing - digitilisation. So much so that most of the Cabinet members (now called exco) had started their own blogs after they left school. They had their own blogs until recently, when they combined all their blogs and contacts, forming one big blog with many contributors entitled "Ourcoffeestops". (URL: http://ourcoffeestops.com/)

You may go there yourself, but it used to be (and still is) one of my more informative stops when I surf the Net. It helped me keep abreast with what I was missing out by doing Form 6, as well as figure out what the more prominent members of my Form 5 batch are doing. Reading posts is one thing, but until recently, I had yet to read the writers' profiles. I have to say, some of the information I read was totally unexpected.

For starters, there was Ying Wei and Chirstopher's comment on his comment. For the record, they are "Despite his good photography skills, nice voice, handsome countenance (I nearly died typing this), he’s still wondering why life has been so unfair to him: He’s still single.". Well, not to say that Mr. Siah is not handsome (I don't know, I normally don't look at guys and judge whether they are handsome or not), but I would think it prudent to let the ladies decide for a change. I know, Chris had a lot of fans in school, and as such he could be in a good position to determine whether a guy is good looking or not, but I really feel that they should have let the ladies decide, or let one of the female contributers of Ourcoffeestops write that comment instead.

Then of course, is Chris' comment on his comment. that "I nearly died typing this". As if I did not spray enough spit on the screen when I read Chris' comment on Ying Wei, I sprayed even more spit when I read that. Not that I wouldn't nearly die doing the same thing, I just think I would die writing that any other guy is handsome. I am heterosexual, thank you very much, and very conservative while we are at it, so for me to say that another guy is handsome just feels completely alien to me.

Speaking of female contributors to Ourcoffeestops, it was not so much one of them who caught my eye, but more of where she studied. Irna is, if I am not mistaken, ethnically Malay, so when I read that she was studying at Methodist College Kuala Lumpur (MCKL)...let's just say that my eyeballs nearly rolled onto the floor. I myself am a Methodist, and I don't go to MCKL. One of the other contributors of Ourcoffeestops is a Methodist as well, and he doesn't go to MCKL either. And we both would have gotten discounts if we had decided to enroll there.

What really had me surprised was the fact that MCKL is run by the Methodist Church, a Christian denomination, and there, a Muslim was studying, while a great number of Methodists, who enjoy discounts if they decide to enroll there, decide instead to got to private colleges, or in my case, Form 6. As we all know, evangelising to Muslims in Malaysia is banned, so when you see a Muslim in a Christian college, it really gets one thinking. Maybe we aren't that backward after all. Maybe there is still hope for everyone to get a good education regardless of who is teaching.

But then again, there are a few factors which may allow Irna to pursue her education there without JAWI coming down on her. Firstly, she is a Singaporean, so I guess she is not as racially polarised as Malaysians are. Then, maybe because she is Singaporean, JAWI may not have any say over her education, so maybe she could get away with it. And then she is probably more religiously tolerant the most Malaysians...so much for us Malaysians being the most racially or/and religiously harmonious people on Earth.

Unlike Malaysians, Singaporeans are Singaporeans first, then Chinese/Malay/Indian second. Although there are many things we can learn from Singapore in terms of racial integration, there are certain aspects of Singaporean life we can do without, such as labeling of people, from "super-spreaders", used during the SARS outbreak, to "normal stream students", referring to students who do their secondary education in five years instead of four.

The Internet is wide, with a vast amount of information. Sometimes our wandering eyes find something we laugh at, other times, we find something we didn't already know, or something which really catches us off guard. It is up to us to find the gems, and savor the sight while we are there, before going back to the daily grind of life.

In his eyes'

2008-12-10T23:31:00.002+08:00

Homosexuality is now becoming more and more rampant these days. On top of that, it is also becoming more accepted as well. This is not helped by laws allowing same sex marriage or religious leaders who are homosexuals. Celebrities who lend a hand or their name to these causes are also not doing common sense any good either.

One fine day, I had a conversation with one of my classmates. He said that we should accept homosexuals for who they are. I flatly objected to this. He then went on to say that this was the way they were born, that they could be that way because of their genetic disposition and that different people have different dispositions. I then went on to say that God created man and wife, Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. I then appealed to him through science - if everyone was a homosexual, there would be no more humans left on the planet. To this, his only defence was , "No-lah, you can't say that," on top of asking me to open my mind.

For some purpose or other, there are male and female people on this planet. Any biologist would tell you that while sexual reproduction is less productive than asexual reproduction, sexual production generates new genetic recombinations, allowing a species to survive in adverse conditions. So instead of people just splitting into two when we need offspring, our Creator decided instead that two people were needed for any progeny to be formed.

But there's a catch - the two adult individuals have to be of different sex. So from a biologist's point of view, homosexual behaviour is non-beneficial because it inhibits variation, preventing the creation of new traits which may be transferred to the next generation.

Like I mentioned earlier, if everyone was a homosexual, there would be no more people left on Earth. This is due to the fact that we need people of different sex for procreation. Even homosexuals themselves are from parents of differing sexes. Then, where would this leave the human population? If we just fulfill our own personal desires for lust (of people of the same sex) then what about the more important aspect of the survival of our species, Homo sapiens? No male can have children with another male, and the same too applies for females, naturally born males and females, that is.

And what about when we see our Creator, what will He say? After creating male and female people in this world, and showing to us, through the animals and plants that males are supposed to mate with females, not males with males or females with females, we blatantly object to His Will and do whatever we like? Shouldn't we be thankful that we are alive today, that we are of one sex or another, and that all our sexual organs are functioning properly and that we know which sex we belong to? Why then should we go against His Will, and do something blasphemous, unnatural and impure?

And then there is this statement which needs countering : Everything in life is right, its just a matter of perspective that makes it right or wrong. We need to listen and accept other people's perspective, even if we think they are in the wrong. Well, for starters, if everything was matter of perspective, then it would be alright to do anything we wished, even stealing or bribing? Or having as many wifes as we want? Sure, when it comes to certain things in life, such as culture, we learn to listen to and accept other people's culture, but that does not mean that we must do so in everything we do.

Contrary to common belief, there is right and wrong. And homosexuality is wrong. If we were to just write it off as a matter of differences in opinion, then this sort of argument would expand beyond homosexuality. In fact, it has already done so : in Los Angeles, if I am not mistaken, there is now a petition to make prostitution legal. What's next? Legalised drug abuse? People who are allowed to fulfill whatever whims and fancies they have, even though they may be unthinkable now? All because, we have differences in opinion?

Laws are set for people to have certain things in life, certain things which money cannot buy : peace of mind, security and fairness. Take the numerous reasons why prostitution is illegal, for example : who's going to take care of all the babies who are born? Is the state going to pay for all of them? What about the families which are broken up by men or women with wandering eyes? Thus, we have laws prohibiting prostitution, to avert all of these problems.

In my classmates eyes', homosexuality is okay, as the individual might be made that way. However, when we consider the consequences of making homosexuality legal, maybe it is not such a bright idea after all - it could be the start of a new form of moral decay : Legalised Moral Decay.

(Writer's note : It has come to my attention that it is possible for homosexuals to reproduce, albeit only lesbians. The technology exists to fuse two ovums together. However, that would mean no more men, and this is still unnatural.)

In My Cousins' Eyes

2008-11-06T01:32:00.000+08:00

"Only stupid people do medicine," I said.

Ok, before, you spay spit all over your computer screen, let me clear a few things up. First, I actually, said that. Secondly, no, I have not lost my marbles, and thirdly, I've got to put that statement into context.

As I said earlier, I did actually say those words. It was during a family dinner. But, like I said, those words were taken out of context. Now let me put the words back into context.

N.B. : The names of the people below are from my perspective.

Cousin 1 : You stay in an apartment?
Brother : Yes.
Cousin 2 : Who else stays with you?
Brother : Three other girls.
Aunt : What are they doing?
Brother : Medicine
Cousin 1 : Are they smart?
Me : No, only stupid people do medicine

Now you get the whole picture. Of course, it is at this point where things really get amusing, and where I get a chance to display my cousins stupidity.

Before, I do so, however, let me relate to you what subsequently happened. Firstly, my cousins "wisely" misconstrued it as me saying that people who take up medicine as a profession are stupid. They then attempted to share their "wisdom" with their father, who was seated at another table, along with all the other adults. Unable to get their father's attention, they just proceeded to make noise about it round the table we were on. The commotion they caused gained my mother's attention.

So my mother, requesting an explanation for all the commotion, asked me. And I repeated the phrase,"Only stupid people do medicine", but along with the question preceding it. Then, my cousins said, "He said it again!" gleefully, in an attempt to gain attention. They also tried to say that I was implying that my father was stupid as my father is a doctor. Finally, all the commotion ended with my uncle, my cousins' father, saying that it was all a bunch of "kid talk".
Here's where my fun begins.

Sarcasm sort of runs in the family. Except during certain situations where a hard and fast answer is required, a normally sarcastic response would do the trick better. More caustic responses are also generally the norm when the family is just chit chatting. When the chit chat turns to nonsense, the sarcasm level fly through the roof, and the whole family gets really creative. Sure, there are some people who are non-adherents to this sort of this discussion (my brother, for instance) but the ability to be sarcastic is generally thought to be the norm in my family. As such, the ability to interpret sarcasm is also thought to be the norm.

At least it used to be. After that day, I don't know whether they were unable to interpret sarcasm, which makes them idiots, or were just too thick to notice that it was sarcasm, which makes them plain stupid. However, further interactions with them have shown me that they do understand sarcasm, so their behaviour in that situation, to ignore the sarcasm, was plain stupidity. I'll explain why.

Firstly, most normal people would be able to notice the sarcasm. I myself want to be a doctor, and it is common knowledge that top grades are needed for one to enter any medical program. Failure to do so would mean that either one was naive, or that one just refused to interpret the statement in the situation, which as I said earlier, makes the person stupid.

Secondly, even if I did not mean any sarcasm, only a more foolish person than me would listen to what I said and take my statement as the truth, or as a reflection of my opinion. As some people would say, "Who is stupider; the fool who says something foolish or the fool who follows him?" Of course my cousins would say that the fool is more foolish, but for a person to get fooled by a fool, means that the person in question is more gullible, or more foolish, than the fool.

Finally, they tried to turn the joke on me. Sarcasm often makes people who appreciate it laugh, but some people would attempt to turn the joke on the person who cracked it in the first place. It is one thing to not notice sarcasm; another to attempt to use it in a counterattack. In this case, it backfired. Sure, my cousins had a good time laughing, and I had a horrid time thinking about what my father would say (in the end, he said nothing of it), but one wonders whether they knew the joke was on their inability to not notice sarcasm, or just their plain stupidity.

In my cousins' eyes, my statement was something of a warcry : a chance to defame me, there and then and possibly, in the future, especially if I eventually take up medicine. However, their attempt backfired, and I am sure that I will use their next attempt to do me in to do them in instead.

In My Sister's Eyes.

2008-11-06T01:25:00.000+08:00

"So lucky you," my sister said when she found out I had three days off for Deepavali. This was not the first time I had heard the phrase, as she had said those same words when she found out that I was off for PMR week. On this side, however, I was thinking exactly the opposite thing, as I wanted to go back to school.

For my sister, holidays meant no school. One could get up whenever one liked, do work whenever one liked, and sleep whenever one liked. There would be no homework to do from school, no rush to make sure that one is on time for school and there would be access to the television, ASTRO and potentially the computer.

For her, there was nothing more fun than no school. It meant freedom from the system, to do anything one wanted. Sure, it meant no seeing friends and the like, but what can be more fun than just relaxing the whole day for an eight year old?

On top of all this, she hadn't had the entire UPSR week off, unlike me, who had the entire PMR week, plus an extra day. Chinese medium school typically take the ninth day of Chinese New Year or the fifteenth day of Chinese New Year and the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month off (Ninth day of Chinese New Year : Bai Tien Gong, or Birthday of the Jade Emperor. Fifteenth day of Chinese New Year : Chap Goh Mei. Fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month : Mooncake Festival). Thus, she had already had had her days off, but three days at once is nothing like three days by themselves. A stretch meant that the argument for more privileges is stronger, as one may say that the day when one has to return to school is much later, and thus, the number of days one may get distracted may be increased.

For me, however, I just wanted to go back to school. Form 6, as it already is, is hard enough. I can study at home, but in school, there are teachers who can (and normally do) teach something new. Then, there are my classmates, who remind me of the need to study. Going to school meant that I would gain knowledge about something I didn't already have knowledge about, improve my technique when it comes to answering questions and also allow me to practise what I already knew. Unlike what I should be doing, I don't practise much at home, so when there are "small tests" at school, STPM conditions are stimulated : the type of questions, the environment, the time pressure. Everything. Well, almost everything.

Then, of course, is the fact that I had already taken too many days off. There was the PMR week (as I mentioned earlier) and a week before that, there was the mid-term break. Then there was my Deepavali holiday. If you ask me, there were just too many holidays, too close to the exam. I wanted to go back to school to practise, to learn, maybe pick up some tips along the way. Unlike most people, I don't go for tuition at all. As such, the school is the only place I get my formal education, and my only source of STPM compliant questions.

Even amongst my friends who do go for tuition, the common consensus was that they wanted to go back to school instead of just studying at home. We could practice doing biology questions in school, discuss past year chemistry papers in school and practice doing maths in school. My batch is on the small side, so the dynamics might be different, but so far, the attendance has been good, due partly to the fact that something is done in school and that there is a computer in the class which is more often than not, misused.

Now, however, attendance is no longer taken (we are considered on study leave), so I expect that the number of Upper Sixers going to school will drop accordingly. I still hope that some people turn up, but from my experience of group study, more often that not, the studying will be everything but that in the STPM syllabus. Probably with fewer people, I will finally find the nerve to ask my teachers some questions and get some answers , without having to fight with my classmates for time.

But I digress. Going back to the original topic, I think it is really up to one's view when one thinks about holidays. In my sister's eyes, it is a chance to rest and relax, with academic pursuits put away temporarily. In most of the average student's eyes, it is a chance to study, unhindered by the wants of their teachers. In my eyes and those of a select few, however, holidays are a hindrance for further learning.

Second block

2008-11-06T01:17:00.000+08:00

First block, done (finally)

Now is to make time to do half a dozen...

By the way the second block is : Eyes

Enjoy

Part of Their World

2008-11-06T01:02:00.000+08:00

All my life, I have been attempting to break into cliques. Maybe not so much in primary school, where I had a regular group of friends. But once I stepped into secondary school, I found myself breaking into one clique, and then another. Eventually, I found my own clique, but as it was not in all the activities I was involved in, I still had to break into cliques. That was for starters, for cliques are everywhere, even in church.

For once, my church decided to have its end of year camp concurrent with the YLDP, a camp held at the national level (not including East Malaysia). This resulted in me being the only person who went to YLDP from my church, so I found myself breaking into cliques. Eventually I found one, but I have to say, everyone sticks with their own cliques at the start of camp and dissociates to their own cliques at the end of camp. So I resorted to doing a Hari Seldon : watch people, observe group dynamics and figure out how to derive an equation from there. I have been doing that every time I find myself with nothing to do nowadays.

Going back to school, my own clique was broken up after SPM. One went to Matrikulasi, one to A-levels, one to UTAR and of course one to Form 6. Speaking of Form 6, I find myself having to break into cliques, again. Only this time, I failed to do so early enough, or rather mixed with the group which left. Thus, I went back to my old practice of observing people. However, when you are a Sixth Former who volunteers to be on the Editorial Board, you don't have much time. Needless to say, I don't miss having clique.

Except when it comes to class discussions.

Finding myself on the outside again is disheartening, to say the least. It gets even more annoying when people say you are eavesdropping conversations conducted in "plain sight". If one converses about something potentially sensitive in an open space with people who have clearance to be there, they have the privilege of hearing everything said, whether one consents to it or not. Only conversations held behind closed doors are private, and anyone who eavesdrops is violating your privacy. To have people say "Nothing!" or "Ta tou ting" (he's eavesdropping) makes me cringe. Worse than that, to find people changing their dialect of choice to ensure I don't find out what they are saying makes my blood boil. What bothers me is not how much I don't know, its when I find out.

To find you are right at the end of the grapevine since you don't associate with the right people at the right time or because you are not "cool" enough might not be a familiar concept to many people. I mean, how many ends of a grapevine can there be? Being kept out of conversations intentionally, finding out when the entire class already knows and finding one's head trodden over is not something one expects to getting used to. I have found it annoying, to say the least. One might suggest breaking into the cliques, again, but with Form 6 ending it really does not matter that much. Besides, these are cliques we are talking about, and the one common denominator of cliques is that they don't let anyone in, no matter how hard he or he tries.

I only ever wanted to be in the know, or maybe form part of their world. School isn't only about academic excellence and co-curricular activities - its where we network, learn about people and learn social skills. One might say STPM is "Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia" not "Sijil Tinggi Persembangan Malaysia", but the fact is, all humans, regardless of academic capability, need some form of social life.

Obviously, people keep knowledge to themselves - and their friends - and for good reason too. Some things are just too sensitive out in the open, and one wants to have a hand in when letting people in on these things. Besides, knowledge is power. But it hurts when the people you treat as friends, don't return the favour. I found out the hard way about friends and acquaintances. Don't ask how, the other party was thoughtful enough to keep it discreet, but from that day on, I kept a running list of friends, acquaintances and those who I think consider friends but who I hope consider me a friend. I have to say it is more wishful thinking than anything else. Friendship is a two way thing. Maybe I should rephrase that : Relationships are two way things. As such, I have a small group of friends, as few reciprocate, but many, many acquaintances. Trouble is figuring out who considers me their friend, and who their acquaintance.

I always considered my classmates my friends. This was even when my class was big, 40-odd. Even when I join any institution which is starting up, with no previous associations, I still do so. Call it an old habit. Now imagine that after bonding for a year, considering them friends not because you are in the same class, but because you have gotten to know these people and then, find yourself being shut out from a conversation.

Again and again.

And when you do try to listen in, they point fingers and yell "Eavesdropper!".

Or change the topic.

Or use a different dialect.

All on purpose, obviously.

To keep you out of the know.

Because you aren't part of their clique.

Even though you consider them friends.

I get this feeling I'm betrayed every time this happens. When the people you trust to entrust you with information refuse to do so, and instead entrust others with the information you seek it, it hurts. As trust is reciprocal, how then do I know who to trust my secrets with? I know no one who will keep their mouths shut, but I know many who will blab whatever secrets I tell them the second they find out.

Well, I guess "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need."

What I need, I already have. As to what my traitorous, trust-destroying, cliquish, ungrateful "friends" need....well let's just say that they should have seen it coming.

*The writer would like to inform that this applies to all people who either intentionally or unintentionally keep him out of the know. Rest be assured, when your time comes to get...err..cooked, you will be as I like my steak - well done.

Out of This World.

2008-11-06T00:54:00.000+08:00

There is a fictional series based on the book of Revelations in the Bible. The series is called Left Behind. Apparently there are seven books, and there have been three movies. The writer of the series is currently having a dispute with the producers of the movies, so the forth one has not come out yet, but that's not the purpose of this post.

As I said before, the movies are based on the book of Revelations, which chronicles the Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. Here's the best part : The third movie, Left Behind : World At War was shown on AXN. Uncensored. I'm serious.

When I first saw the advertisements for the movie on AXN, I thought it would be an action packed show, with lots of action. When I finally got around to seeing it, I wasn't disappointed, until I got to the point where a number of protagonists were having a Christian marriage in a run-down church, reciting verses from the Bible more times than I have seen on national television in my entire life.

I thought they were using it just as a front, or as a storytelling tool, but as every time religion is used as a storytelling tool, the results are not pretty, I begun to be unimpressed. I just kept watching to find out what the movie producers' intentions were, but then it turned out they were trying to evangelise after all. Who uses verses of the Bible so generously and tries to convert the President of the United Sates if the use of religion is only as a storytelling tool?

But the most impressive part was that the Censorship Board missed the whole load of it. Why? This movie was designed to evangelise, and evangelising to Muslims in the country is banned. Needless to say, everyone with ASTRO has AXN and at least half those people are Muslims. Looks like the once mighty Censorship Board is either getting sloppy or the message was just so out of this world they could not get a hold of it.

Going back to the movie, (Warning : Spoilers ahead) it chronicles the arrival of the antichrist, who tried ( with respect to the movie) to overtake the world. The US president, UK Prime Minister and Egypt President, realising what he was up to, decided to overthrow him. However, their plan failed as the antichrist managed to get hold of their plans and attack them first. Thus, chaos erupts and World War 3 starts.

At the same time it also chronicles the lives of two newly wed couples, one elderly and one not so elderly, the groom of the elderly one being the father of the bride of the younger one. Then, the members of the underground churches start falling ill. The bride of the younger couple goes to help the sick, but ends up ill as well. The preacher who wedded them is ill as well.

Meanwhile, the President of the US manages to track down the groom of the younger couple, and starts to confer with him. The President then finds out that the people are getting sick due to Bibles poisoned with a toxin before being shipped out. The groom has a hard time deciding whether to stay or help his wife, and decides to pray to figure out which decision to make. He then decides to stay. The older couple then go to see their dying daughter.

The groom of the younger bride then goes to see the President, evangelise to him, and convert him. The President then decides to blow apart the antichrist's base of operations, and at the same time, the rest of the family find out that red wine was the cure to the toxin in the Bibles, but not before the preacher succumbed to the disease.

Obviously, certain events and characters were not included in this synopsis of the movie, but you get the general picture. Few movies show the evangelising of people, or of praying in groups or of the usage of Holy Communion more vividly, or more accurately than this movie.

Speaking of Holy Communion, on the surface, in the movie it is used to heal people who are infected with the toxin. In real life, it represents the blood of Chirist, which washes away all the sins of the world. So there is probably more to this movie than just what's on the surface.

Watching the movie was an out of this world experience. Why? How many movies do you see that portray Christianity in a good light? Or which take excerpts form the Bible and use them accurately? Or slip under the Censorship Board's noses when it clearly breaks all the rules they have set? Few, but I know that if I am requested to suggest a movie for evangelistic purposes, I know one which will go down well with the audience.

Things of This World

2008-11-06T00:50:00.000+08:00

Everyday, we work. It does not make any difference whether we are studying or are working for a boss, we are working towards a goal. And our goal is : to make money. Of course, we need money - that cannot be denied. Money is a medium of exchange to every person : even though it is only just a piece of paper, made such that it is hard to duplicate. However, sometimes, even the best of us get our priorities wrong. We store up on things of this world, as if there is no tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong. There is a need to make sure we have enough food, water, clothes and other creature comforts, but more than that, we should not only focus on things of this world. Let me give you three reasons.

Firstly, we can take nothing out of this world. As we came into this world, so, too, shall we leave it : taking nothing with us. No matter what we do, everything of this world will stay here. People have tried to take things out of this world when they die. However, no one has succeeded so far. The artifacts in tombs of ancient civilisations is a testament to this.

Secondly, things of this world are temporary. Metals oxidise and lose their glitter. Diamonds, the metastable (unstable) form of carbon, slowly change to graphite over millions of years. Cloths and other good looking organic based materials do not last forever, as they can be damaged by the weather, pests and other insidious agents. Thieves may come in the night and steal our belongings.

Another reason why we should not worry too much about the things of this world is that we won't be judged by our wealth, but by our riches in heaven. No amount of wealth is going to buy us a place in heaven, especially if we have not been faithful to God in life. Wealth is a legal human desire, but it should not be a goal. We need to look beyond this life for a goal. If our goal were to make as much money as we could, we would never be happy as we would be forever poorer than someone else.

Instead, we should focus on the things of the next world, and store up our treasures in heaven. There, moths, rust and other free radical reactions do not destroy and the thief cannot steal. Our treasure there is always there, and is one of the things which we may take with us out of this world.

In our rat race, whatever and wherever we may be, we should not forget to keep our eyes on the bigger picture : God.

A World of Our Own

2008-11-06T00:28:00.000+08:00

The USJ area has a number of secondary schools. The schools are, in no particular order, Seafield, USJ 4, 8, 12, 13 and 22. Assuming there are 200 students in every graduating class of Form 5, that would be 1200 students. Of course, there are a lot more than that, but then again, I don't have the student breakdown of all the schools. Nevertheless, out of this 1200 odd-students only 79 are currently finishing their Form 6. Assuming half of the people have about as much chance as getting into Matrikulasi as they do of striking Berjaya Toto's 4D first prize once in their lifetime (I know I am making a lot of assumptions, but please bear with me), that would mean that 2 out of 15 people went to Form 6. Needless to say, we are an extremely small proportion of the number of students who did SPM in our year.

While most of our peers are busy wondering what to wear each day, we have no choice : uniforms, just that we get to pull off our old tricks, again. But being in Form 6 does not only mean that your wardrobe is not shown to your fellow classmates daily, it also means that we miss out on a lot of other things which people who go to college pick up. For starters, cocurricular activities. In Form 6, just like in school, even if we hold positions, we have a teacher or two watching our backs all the time to ensure we don't mess up, or that if we do, we don't mess up too badly. In college, however, as I understand it, we are on our own whenever we plan or execute any activity.

Another thing we miss out on : the freedom to go wherever we like and to leave whenever we want to. Sixth Formers might be above the age of 17, but that does not mean that we are not bound by certain school rules, such as the restriction against handphones (depending on which school you get sent to) and the freedom to leave and arrive whenever we like (especially when we know the teacher is not around).

Just as we miss out on independence, we also miss out on a lot of responsibility. As I mentioned earlier, our cocurricular activities are still overseen by teachers, and rather stringently, while I am at it. Other things such as the responsibility to use facilities such as the Internet provided by a college responsibly or to make sure we pay our rent on time are also taken out from our hands, mainly because most people who do Form 6 are either in normal schools, or are boarders, while there is no Internet in school.

But the one thing we miss out most on is social interaction with our peers who go to college. Most of the "happening" and/or "cool" people go to college. Conversely, the opposite is also true : Most "happening" and/or "cool" people do not go to Form 6. To ensure I do not infuriate anyone more than I already have, I shall just say that these people are highly connected socially. As I mentioned earlier, only a small minority of the people who do SPM do do Form 6. As such, it is hard to keep track of your contacts, especially if you don't have any reason to interact with them on a regular basis. You might even say that we live in a world of our own.

As the number of people who go into college is more than those who go into Form 6, the probability a college student ends up in the proximity of someone who is highly connected socially and who considers the person in question worthy of receiving information is relatively high compared to a Sixth Former. This probability is also directly proportional to the size of your last major clique in Form 5 - the larger your clique, the higher the probability of you ending up in the know. So if you have a small clique, are not close to the people who are in the know and end up in Form 6, with none of your clique members with you (like yours truly) you truly end up living in a world of your own. Contrast this to if you were in college : if there was a reunion, and someone in the college found out, there is a higher probability you would find out too as there are more people in college and the probability that someone finds out and considers you worthy of receiving such information would also be higher.

This is not to say that Sixth Formers do not interact with our contemporaries who are not doing Form 6 at all. In fact, some people do Form 6 and are still able to end up in the know. However, like I said earlier, this all depends on the size of your last clique.

Form 6 is like living in a small world of your own - most of your contemporaries won't go there, you won't be exposed to the big, wide world and are still protected by your teachers. However, this does not mean one will lose touch with one's peers if one does Form 6 - with the advancement of modern technologies, your friend is just a click/call/SMS/MMS away.

Now if someone would keep me in the know....

Our World

2008-10-17T14:40:00.000+08:00

We live on an planet which we cannot leave. Sure, astronauts have left the gravitational pull of the plant Earth, but for the general public, we will never get to leave this planet. Even if we could, we would be unable to go to another planet which would be able to sustain life - at least not in this lifetime. Interstellar travel is a very slow business and would take hundreds of years before we reach the next star, and maybe even longer before we reach the next habitable planet. Therefore we should take care of this Earth which we already have.

We can start by reducing our consumption of unnecessary items. This not only means that we buy less, but it also means that we should also prevent wastage. For example, food taken at a buffet should not be thrown away, unless of course, it is unedible. On top of that, simple things such as turning off electrical appliances when not in use, instead of leaving them on standby should also be practised. Contrary to common belief, an electrical appliance still uses energy even when it is not turned on. Another way to reduce our consumption of electricity would thus be to unplug items which are not in use.

Another way to reduce consumption would be to repair old items. Rather than junking them as soon as they wear out, when replacing certain pats of these items would enable the item in question to function well again, we should instead endeavor to repair these items. These items can be anything from shoes, bags, vehicles, and you guessed it, electrical appliances. Reducing consumption can also be done by not buying new items when the current ones still work fine, and by buying more energy efficient items.

Reusing is another way we can cut down on the amount of waste we produce. An industry's output is dependent on consumer demand. The more we buy, the more they make. This causes consumption of energy. Thus, by reusing, we will cut down our demand, and they in turn will reduce their output, reducing the consumption of resources and energy. Plastic bags can be used to pack rubbish, water bottles, refilled and reused, and clothes which have seen better days can be used as rags. On top of all this, the usage of reusable products such as tiffin carriers, tupperware, thermos flasks and melamine boxes (yes, melamine. It doesn't leach into food or drink) should be increased.

Last but not least, is recycling. It used to be my favourite, but recycling is less energy saving than the others. It reduces the amount of energy used to make new items, but if there is no need to get any new items, than there would be a greater reduction in consumption of energy. Either way, recycling is better than just throwing our rubbish into the landfill. While sending our recyclables to a centre might be troublesome to most of us, most of our sanitary engineers (read : pengutip sampah) are more than willing to go through our rubbish to get some extra income. Separating our rubbish will enable them to get all the recycleables possible, and reduce the amount of rubbish we send to the landfills.

We need to rethink the way we do things in life. Practising sustainable development and keeping our carbon footprint small needs to take priority in our lives. Otherwise, living in a landfilll may be the next big thing in housing development in the future.

Worlds Apart

2008-10-13T01:48:00.000+08:00

The STPM trial results are out. Well, at least for SMK Seafield. Do you hear the moaning and sighing? You probably can't but to give you an idea of how bad we fared this time round, only one "A" was awarded between the subjects Mathemathics T, chemistry, biology and, as far as my sources can tell, physics.

One "A" for four subjects. Not one "A" per subject, one "A" for four. And, no, yours truly is not the lucky person with that "A". I am on course for 4 "A-". Now how sad is that? (Editor's note : At the time of writing, my complete results were not known. However, at the time of posting, my results were out, and I did get 4"A-". Hooray?)

The results are making every Upper Sixer worth his or her salt to sweat, panic and really start studying. Needless to say, the results we will get for STPM or even for pra-STPM will be better than this. The only thing I found amusing about this entire affair were not the results I was getting, but the way these results were obtained. Confused? Let me paint you a picture.

A person's results in an exam are almost always proportional to the amount of revising, practising and study one does before an exam. As I failed to do a lot of all three, my results were, to me at least, depressing but not surprising. However, the manner in which I found out the results of the other Upper Sixers was, as I said earlier, pretty amusing.

After receiving my bio results on Friday, I proceeded to dig up what the class knew about the general results of the Upper Sixers. The following conversation ensued.

Me : How many people got "A" for Maths?

Jamie : Three people, I thought. You, Ya-Pei, Rong Gen.

Me : No, I thought Miss Goh said that no one got an "A"?

Jamie : But you three still got "A-".

Me : I mean an "A", not an "A-".

We repeated the same process for biology, chemistry and physics. Every time I asked, I was talking about "A"s, while Jamie was talking about "A"s and "A-"s. Jen Chong, who was also listening in, also understood my "A"s as, well, "A"s. Towards the end, he gave a suggestion to end the ambiguity : 4.00. Nevertheless, the confusion between whether "A"s mean "A"s only or "A"s and "A-"s continued. This is not the first time. And all things considered, this will not be the last.

When I did my SPM, I would debate with my parents for hours on whether a "2A" was considered an "A" or not. From that experience, I always considered "A"s to be the plain vanilla "A" - no minus, whether single, double or triple. As for "A+", that's another story. However, when we consider "A"s as "A-"s and "A"s differs with the situation we are in. In my case in Form 5, others were getting "1A"s while I was only getting "2A"s. So to console myself and my parents over my failure to match others in their number of 1As, and in an effort to salvage my pride, I would say that a "2A" is an "A" nonetheless. In my current situation now, barely anyone has an "A", while I have a lot of "A-"s, so an "A" to me is the plain vanilla one, as I feel no shame in admitting so. As for Jamie's case, she is within striking distance of an "A", so to her, any "A" would do, regardless of the mathematical sign behind it.

The fact is an "A" is a plain vanilla "A". When people talk about "A"s, they want top grades, not some half-decent , semi-proficient grade. We change the goalposts when it comes to what is considered an "A" because of our pride. We don't want to be seen as inferior, or as unable to be able to score an "A", or as a waste of our teachers' time. We want to salvage our pride, show that we have done something, even if it is not the result we want, at least we are within striking distance.

But the fact remains that "A"s and "A-"s are worlds apart. An "A", as anyone who is familiar with the GPA system would tell you, would say it is worth 4.00, while an "A-" is only worth 3.66. In the quest for a place in the public universities of Malaysia, not only do Sixth Formers have to contend with the most idiotic placement system in the world, we also have to face competition from Matrikulasi students and other Sixth Formers. 4"A"s are worth 4.00. 3"A"s and an "A-" are worth 3.92. In the competition for places in public universities, that is a gap few can afford, especially if one is going for "critical programs".

The goalposts for what is considered an "A" and what is not will continue to change. Different people will continue to have different ideas on what "A"s are and how important they are. The quest for "A"s, in all their forms, will continue. However, one thing will remain the same. "A"s are worlds apart from "A-"s. One is a sign of excellence. The other is only a cheap imitation.

Worlds Collide

2008-10-13T01:47:00.001+08:00

Most people in the Subang Jaya area pursue tertiary education after finishing Form Five. The main question, however, is where we go. Most people go to private colleges for their pre-U education, but some, like yours truly, went (and at the time of writing, still go to) to Form 6.

My batch is a relatively small batch. The competition between the biology class (6A) and the physics class (6B) for top marks is fierce, but I can't say the same for the social science classes, for we do not share the same subjects. Ok, maybe it is just two people (you know who we are) but both classes are always curious as to how well the other class fared. Nevertheless, as there are only 39 people in both classes put together, news spreads fast, and even social misfits like yours truly are able to get hold of the news. Maybe not everything circulating around, but that's another story.

So was the case when Ya-Pei's father passed away. I believe the information I received was third or fourth hand, but it does come around. So, as always, the two classes bonded together as they normally do when something like this happens. Plans are drafted up, collections are carried out (with a tin labelled "Derma untuk Kematian Pelajar 6B. If the situation was not so serious, everyone would have been laughing) and those on either side who needed comfort found it from one another. Like any decent person, I turned up at Ya-Pei's house. Not that I knew the father but my main purpose being there was to comfort the living.

Of course, I was not the only person with the same idea. So I found out when a classmate of mine was turning up (who wants to gatecrash alone?) and showed up at the same time. After the wake and subsequently after paying my respects, I proceeded to chit chat with a couple of my old schoolmates, after they were updated by Ya-Pei herself. I hung behind to watch and bid my time.

When Ya-Pei was done, she called my current schoolmates over. To me the group looked completely recognisable, minus one who I had not seen before. However, to my current and past schoolmates, this was the first time they were seeing each other as they were complete strangers.

For me, personally, it was as though my worlds had collided. One being the world I had come to know of as USJ 12, where I spent 5 years and made quite a number of friendships there. The other was of course, Seafield, where I am due to spend two plus more months there before leaving secondary school for good. I had always wondered how my two worlds would collide, but I had never considered it would have been during a funeral.

As in all planetary collisions, sparks fly. New planetary fragments form, asteroids leave and there is a big release of energy. For those of us who were meeting the first time, we formed new connections, found common ground and talked. For those of us who were old friends, we caught up on what we had lost out while "in the wilderness", found out how green the grass is on the other side, and reconnected. However, like all planetary collisions, it was brief. Nevertheless, I wonder what would happen the next time two of my worlds collide - it might not be USJ 12 and Seafield.

First Block

2008-10-13T01:42:00.000+08:00

Posts here are by the week (hopefully) and are themed.

First Block : Worlds

Enjoy

First Up

2008-10-13T01:34:00.000+08:00

To whoever it may concern :

By some accident or other, you have stumbled upon this blog. Maybe you don't know how you got here, or what you are doing here, but if you want to come here, then I guess you are in the right place.

If you intend to keep reading, regardless of whether this is the place you were looking for or not, there are a few things you should know:

1. This blog will get updated once a week at most. Well, at least until further notice. I might have to disappear for certain periods of time, but you will know when.

2. The entries are long, so take them one a day. Here, tl;dr stands for "Too long?;Do read".

3. Most of the posts here will be my thoughts, so I will not be chronicling my entire life here. Sorry, but there won't be many photos either. However, depending on what happens in life, I may use real life events as illustrations.

4. Hopefully I won't thread on any toes. If I do, let me know.

Here's to a long and prosperous blog.