Saya Pelatih Melapor Diri Pada Tahun 2011

At times it pays to have a brother who's bengkeng. After he has so kindly (to me) and unkindly (to them) chided the PLKN officers who screwed up my 4-year deferment, the verdict is out.

It's now 2 years before I have to lug my then 22-year-old (and hopefully NOT pudgy) unfit self to bootcamp.

Why? Because Bank Negara has spoken, and thy files are marked and stamped. There is no escape. But wait there is; to defer until I'm old and thirty OR get married and have kids, whichever comes first (preferably the latter). Ok, just kidding. I'll do it, you bet I will.

Pant through an obstacle course like I did throughout my 5 years of boarding school, use "hardwater" and get pimples like I always had in camps, march under the scorching sun and grant myself a tan like the one I have lived with for so many years? For Yahoo! fun as such, who can complain? Wait, then there is the privilege of donning those blue heavy uniforms and running around in those UGG-ly boots? Ah, sheer pleasure.

Oh, so you noticed the sarcasm? No, no, really, learning how to handle a gun and actually do some community service may be the only two things I'll value from PLKN. With the first, I am armed with the security, confidence and physical knowledge that I can blow off the dick of the next dickhead who breaks my heart; and the second, for obvious reasons.

Sure, this is going to be legen-wait for it-dary! Wait, no, really, I'm dead serious about the gun, no the community service. Eh, no, the community service, yes, yes.

And no, I am not usually this gedik, if that's what you're wondering. I just hate this serving-PLKN-before-I-work business with a passion.

Jason Mr-AZ Should Teach Me Some A-Z

It's been 4 weeks that I'm left without prose, leaving this blog abandoned without a single decent topic to talk about. Or rather, I have been formulating entries in incomplete circles, for I come up with something to talk about and lose interest in the middle (to use someone's phrase, ha ha), all in my head.

But sometimes when you're left wordless, you tend to see things in a different light. You see that with or without words, we're doomed. Sometimes what is unsaid hurts more than what is uttered. A person who leaves you hanging gives you more shit than a person who fucks up your life with cruel words, am I not right?

Talentime, one of the many testimonies to Yasmin Ahmad's brilliance in film-making portrays the truth about the power of words, or rather the power without words. Mahesh, a lad who's speech and hearing impaired (and who, I must say, is extremely hot that he makes me salivate the whole 2 hours in front of the TGV screen) punches me with the staunch truth that sometimes we speak too much and fail to listen to what the universe has to tell us.

Alas, living in a world without words and speech can be devastatingly difficult. Emotions are wrongly read, especially with those who are EQ-ly unsound, and messages are lost, in the middle. Anyone who's ever been to a team-building seminar or whatever kind of workshop would know what I'm talking about if they've played "Chinese Whispers" or some game that requires non-verbal communication or blindfolds and all that jazz.

What would a sigh be if one is voiceless? There is no signal for "eh" or it's English counterpart "you know". Tell me what kind of gestures would substitute our playful "tsk tsk"s? Writing, you say? Of course, to write, solves one problem.

But then again, when both written and spoken words fail me, I do it with pictures. 4 weeks of joy, sadness, camaraderie, learning, love, growing, realizations and absence, all rolled into 5 collages. Maybe then you'll understand there is so much to talk about, but too little is the capacity in me to cough it all up. Pictures, pictures would keep you company for the time being.

p/s: Here's a thought--Instead of just exclaiming "Happy 52nd Merdeka" on Facebook and tweet about the stupidity of the newly-coined Salam 1 Malaysia, next time let's take a ride down Merdeka lane, trace some old national landmarks and teach your kids some stories they'd want to keep for their kids.

The Prophecy

Malays and Malaysians are fast exerting their presence on Facebook in the recent months, it seems. Empirical facts speak loud and clear--so loud, that one can't possibly be sane and miss the influx of merepek quizzes to this once exclusive social network. When you see "What kuih tradisional are you?", "Berapa jumlah hantaran yang perlu Si Polan beri kepada Joyah" and the classic "How Kelantanese are you?" flooding your newsfeed, you know we're spiraling downhill.

Western supremacist I am not--in fact I am quite the Malay advocate--but to disaknowledge that the more ludicrous quizzes are borne from mine own roots is to be ignorant. Hats off to us Malays because only we can come up with pandir applications as such.

Call me bitch/snob/snobitch, but I think Facebook lost its novelty the day it opened its virtual doors big and wide. Or rather the day the Asian (Malaysian?) world closed its doors to Friendster and shifted gears towards my esteemed Facebook. Of course it's not mine and mine own, but lend me your ears. Two years back--after receiving my university email address--I felt such a sense of accomplishment and was sent to a state of felicity upon finally acquiring myself a Facebook account. It was an unwritten rule once upon a time, that you only get on Facebook via a college network.

And that, my friends, was the very pulse that kept Facebook a non-nonsensical and non-crowded social platform. American employers found it a promising tool to check the credence and network of a candidate, and people actually only added friends they legitimately knew existed. I like to keep it that way still, for I realized my mistakes during the Friendster era, cum my formative teenage years.

Alas, the Malaysian diaspora goes far and wide, and the virtue of this leniency is the very fact that it brings me closer to buddies all over the globe. I cannot feign that I am not glad la familia are on board this nexus, or that I have met long-lost friends through Facebook, and I am not going to start now.

On the contrary, I am rather a hardcore Facebook advocate that my heart boils to see people denouncing the virtues of Facebook, because it certainly is an important fixture in my life. Facebook is the first thing I do upon waking up, and the last thing I do before I thread through dreams in the night, and I am not ashamed to say so. Okay, maybe a little.

So the issue at hand is this: my adulation for Facebook is marred by this quiz lunacy I see with the droves of people being sucked into the vortex that is Facebook. As of now, I have gone on a binge of restricting quiz feeds (do so by hovering your cursor over the quiz box, and hitting--with zeal, if I may add--"Hide quiz so and so") and see myself doing this for as long as the craze lives.

All the same, there is one more problem with addicts like me. There are some that just slips through the cracks and drugs me with curiosity. So, on some days I find myself facing prophecies as ridiculous as this:


Siapa dari Johor sila masuk line, sebab Facebook dah kasi greenlight. Haha.

New PM, Bring Us No PMS

On the other side of the world,  I am a passive Malaysian youngster who watches by the sidelines, stories--some that makes her tiny Malaysian ass flare with pride, but mostly crap that sends her cringing--of her nation. I blatantly proclaim I know peanuts to put my two cents worth on the circus of a political scene we have in that country, but I do see enough revolt in its people to know there is urgent need for a changed Malaysia.

Like other Malaysians watching Dato' Seri Mohd. Najib bin Abdul Razak being sworn in as the sixth PM, I can only pray he does us, the people, some good. The foreign media have been having a field time taking stabs at the laughable (and dire) administration of Malaysia; so please, let us have the last laugh. A PM for the new times hopefully means a new hope, a more just governance and happier rakyat. As you frame your 100 first days, I will be waiting, alongside 25 million others and the stage that is the world, watching. 

Panhandlers Over Love Handles

You stroll leisurely at a pasar malam, and you are greeted by the familiar sight of a makcik shaking a cup of coins, dressed in tatters. She appears to have amputated legs, or a deformity of some sort and perhaps carry a wailing baby. Oh no-s!

You try to avert your gaze and mutter to yourself "Kesiannya", but you worry about the unimaginably long queue for the famous popia basah you are coveting for. So you pick up your pace, look down, and presume that others would spare some change for that pitiful makcik, to assuage that guilty lump in your throat. But you forget that ever happened once you feed your voracious appetite and laugh the evening away.

You are seated in a subway train, armed with your Ipod on full blast, and perhaps also that paperback you've waited a semester to read. The skyline of whatever city you are approaching seems so welcoming, and you imagine the joy of window-shopping that never quite remains window-shopping.

Along comes a reeking middle-aged man clad in a winter coat of patches to your car, distinctly alerting your senses that you are facing a hobo at hand. He asks for a dollar, but you offer a meek smile and shake your head sadly. But you go back to your interesting novel and find no trouble getting yourself engrossed once again in the world of John and Jane or the likes.

My utmost irreverence goes to you if you go through life mastering the art of being nonchalant to people in need. I have had to turn down many beggars, but never once have I done it out of reflex. It is one thing to refuse beggars, but it is another to completely reserve no compassion for them. Of course, sincerity is a key issue, and "charity begins at home", but what is a few sen, a few cents, a ringgit, a dollar compared to the hundreds you can generously endow to multimillion-earning Ebay or Amazon?

The contra argument may be made that the cents we donate go to footing a junkie's drug bills or go to the pockets of creepy bustards of kidnappers, but there is all that we can pray they find the way to righteousness. Yes, I don't know if the woman I gave my quarters to actually has a baby who needs medication, or if the man I gave my USD2 really takes a bus to the shelter. But again, we do what we can.

It may be my pet peeve that I am quick to pity and completely ridiculous that I sometimes act in favor of the underdog just because I feel "kesian" for them. However, I am adamant that one person can help make another's day, even though one may not completely change another's fortune. I am one to go eat at an empty restaurant next to a bustling one, just because I pity them, despite the obvious signaling (to borrow an Economic term) that the busy restaurant probably serves better food. But again, I do what makes me feel better/happy.

We canvass too see change in the political ruckus of our country, we demand for rights from the constitution, we all aim for greatness in our lives. But these panhandlers plead for some change (pun intended) to access their rights to food, medicine, safety, the most basic needs I am pretty confident we have gotten since we demand for so much more. We get frustrated that political leaders heed not to our voices, how do you think people off the streets feel about us who heed not to their concerns?

Obama isn't the only one who wants change (namely the panhandlers) and he certainly isn't the only one who can create change (namely us), you know? In fact, the chap has so much reform to mobilize and expectations to live up to that it is more likely that we can start making change first. Yes you youths, put all angst about love handles (or lack of six-packs) behind you, it is panhandlers that should receive some attention.

No matter where we hail from, and where we are currently leading our lives, change comes from the little things we each do to and for the people around us. Maybe then changing a 329 847km² land wouldn't seem like such a distant idea.

Put The Hate Back On The Shelf

I am malay, a Malaysian and I have dark-brown hair and sawo matang skin.

I once spent many evenings playing shyly with Pearly, a Chinese friend who lives a few doors away from my grandmother's home.

I once shared a bubble bath with Nami, a Japanese-Indian friend.

I once shared my lunches with Shiori, a Japanese friend.

I once pretended that the playground at Fairfield was mine and all mine with Leanne, a Mat Salleh friend.

I once shared a laugh with Paul, when I got berated for going in the concrete wading pool with my diapers and him peeing on the floor. Paul is German.

I once learned how to cycle from my neighbor, Shazelyn, a Mamak (forgive the lack of a better term) friend.

I once shared a pillow and my dreams with Latha, an Indian friend.

I have been brought up in part by Bibik, my Indonesian second mother.

I was four, five, six, seven, twelve, sixteen.

Perhaps we should all rewind to that age when race, color, nationality, religion are meaningless; but friendships everything.

Perhaps we should all try to embrace diversity, respect differences and understand reality.

Perhaps we should forget about who triumphs and who founders, because in the end everybody loses.

Perhaps we should lift our veils and use EyeMo Moist for the eyes, and Clorox for the mouth while we're at it.

Perhaps we should bear in mind that we should identify with things, just because we are human.

Perhaps we should not stay in the shadows because we are not this color or that, this nationality or that, this religion or that.

Perhaps then can we put the hate back on the shelf.

p/s: Slander and preposterous.  We really have cause for worry if the human race can stoop as low as this. Enough said. 

Ada Kelakarnya Di Sebalik Randomness

On top of the random changes I made (yes, I changed my sidebar titles again, as you can see), I was also playing around with the Blog Readability widget I randomly found on some random person's blog. Sorry, because I was randomly meandering through cyberspace, randomly hopping from one blog to another, I can't even cite which webpage I took it from. Sorry mister/miss random blogger, and thank you, you've made one random visitor's day!

Urm, all randomness aside now, I tried out the calculator and randomly copy-pasted different people's blogs. From my blogroll list, it seemed to give me very random results. Suffice to say that some of you won't be too pleased with the results I got, and I must say I disagreed with some of its calculations (ceh, semangat setiakawan ini boleh tahan). Jangan marah tau that I took the liberty of doing so, al-maklumlah I've got time and play on my hands now, peace ya'll *in ghetto style*=P But...when I plugged in Dr. M's, Anwar Ibrahim's and KJ's urls, I think the results would make many happy and in fact throw people into long fits of merry laughter like it did me.

Let pictures do the talking, shall we?

Case #1

Case #2

Lo and behold!

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Case #3

*Rolling on the floor laughing* My brother--who'd perpetually bitch about KJ and the tingkat empat boys at home--will find this most hilarious. To think that the poor fellow was educated at UWC Singapore, Oxford and then UCL, with an impressive concentration in PPE, mind you. Bazir duit mak bapak (or rakyat, in some sense since his dad was the Malaysian High Commissioner to the UK) kerana Dr. M and Anwar Ibrahim didn't travel far and wide to learn and nonetheless managed to produce a "genius-level" blog.

But then again, we're talking about a man who called himself monkey (in reference to his saying bloggers are monkeys). Hm, mungkin ada kebenaran di sebalik segala kerandoman blog widget ini. Whatever it is, if any of you people are insane and would like to meet this very the "hencem", bollywood hero-like mat cemerlang, you'd wanna know that he hangs out at Chef&Brew at Plaza Damansara. Euw. My brother now refuses to dine there because he saw the man sitting with a laptop, calmly sipping coffee while probably plotting his next strategy to loot the nation.

p/s: Click here if you randomly want to see if this works randomly or not.

Of the Obama-rama and Being in Chicago

I gotta say it. Heck, I'm proud that I'm living in Chicago in this unprecedented moment, when America elects its first African American President! And studying in the UofC, where Mr. President, Barrack Hussein Obama once taught constitutional law in the Law School? Or living in Hyde Park, and in fact just a few blocks away from Regents Park, where Obama resides? And the fact that I've been on the 21st floor of Regents Park when the Obama family is just 15 floors above? Tres cool, tres cool, indeed! It's times like this when the pain of being in "The (hell yeah) Windy City" (that makes your lips crack and leaves your freezing ears begging to be kept under the hood/scarf/ear muffs) is discounted. And what beats having your dorm as the one of the polling locations in Hyde Park?


I must confess I didn't follow the 2008 US Elections as closely I should have. But talk about lam-pi (stands for lambat pickup), I just ordered some Obama magnets because I know my mom would be euphoric if she got one of those. Hah, but my thoughts of outsmarting businesses by buying the election paraphernalia after the election did not work. I repeat, did not work. They got rid of the election momento-s and replaced them with "Obama: 44th American President"things instead. So I didn't get to buy election goodies for cheap, and in fact paid more as I had to fork out for shipping costs as well. Little girl thought she could outsmart those shark, sharp, profit-first businesses, who was she kidding?

I got side-tracked, never mind. But I meant to say, I was never disinterested. I took time to listen to the students at the Quads campaigning for Obama, handing out fliers, prepping volunteers for out-of-state campaigns, etc. I took time to google the names I saw being chalked on the pavements on campus-- Ron Paul, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden. And I saw, heard and learned aplenty. The night of the election, I joined the hundreds on campus in watching the big-ass screens they sat up on campus.


When they shouted, I shouted. When they stood up and applauded for Obama, I gave him a standing ovation too. When they cried and hugged, I could understand why. The air was so charged with emotions of hope and of fear, of relief and happiness, of pride and thrill. Obama represented everything people thought was impossible, not to mention the best change the whole world really vouched for--becoming the first Black president, and marking the end of the darkest phase America has gone through.

The ambience the day after was inspiring! In the dining halls, I saw the happy grins and twinkle in the eyes of the cooks and helpers. I heard the excited chatter about Obama's historical win and the amazing night at Grant Park (which I *sobsob* missed). In the hallways, knowing smiles were passed, as if students were greeting each other with "Yes, we did!". Hang on, you may say, why am I so excited about a foreign country's president elect? Of course I must care! Whatever America, the powerhouse of the world, decides, the whole world is affected too! Here's to hoping that Obama would bring some good change to the world. He's undeniably got skyhigh expectations to live up to, especially with the American economy plummeting and its past foreign policies creating damage to say the least. Good luck, sir!

The political activism here is a stark contrast to that in Malaysia. Any person, young or old, in an educational institution or not, is given agency to voice out and be heard. Students are in fact, the main driving force in the Democratic campaign this elections. People in America wants out from Bush and his ilk policies, and they show it. They rally, they wear badges, they create catchy banners and wear sassy political tees. Even kids in preschool and elementary school are so involved! I tutor first graders (who are super cute and amazing, btw) at the St. Thomas the Apostle School and listen to them:

"My mommy says Obama will be the next president".
"Granma says Mr. Obama is going to be the best president ever!"

Gosh! When I was that age, I don't think I recall even knowing if the elections were on, though I do know Dr. Mahathir was the PM, and that he was/still is a leader extraordinaire!=) Anyhow, here's a picture of them making an oh-so-messy-but-it's-thought-that-counts banner for Obama. The banner reads "Thank you Mr. Obama for becoming our new president. We love you".


I just think that perhaps this is the reason why some young Malaysians don't break out from their cocoons (hell, I think a part of me is still, anyways) or open their eyes to important issues. We don't get the exposure. We're told to be quiet and be complacent. We're taught in school that we can't discuss openly about politics (though we still do). And it still bewilders me how fantastic the SPM and PMR results turn out to be anytime the country nears an election. Can't be a coincidence can it? I'm probably not the most qualified person to be talking about politics and all that jazz, and I certainly don't want to, but I do know that I think students, especially in universities should be given the chance to participate in such important movements like campaigning and canvassing for politicians. We're after all the generation who's going to live through the years and face the effects of the constitution and policies, so why must we be silenced?

But of course, the big part of this problem is on the part of the youngsters as well. You know, where person A gets too distracted, joins the rowdy gang, and goes marching up and down to uphold "Reformasi" at Jalan TAR, and completely leaves studies. Or young, person B who maliciously attacks (verbally, and even scarily, physically) people of different political stands. And uninformed student C who only comments and talks big at mamak Ali Maju or Syed Bistro but knows no shit. That's when the reading and being informed comes in--pick up newspapers (and don't believe everything it says, hehe), read blogs, master two sides of a coin before you open your mouth lah, then only you're not that mentah, "tin kosong" people will condemn. (That was a note to self as well).

Alas, there's no dispute there that getting to the stage of political awareness like in the USA requires moderation and respect for others, which in Malaysia we may lack of, seeing to how many university students who were violently involved in the last political turmoil back in 1998. It doesn't have to be through fights, or slander fits and fist-action. All you need is a rational argument and the gift-of-the-gab, so you can actually get people to listen to your two-cents worth on why you think YB A is hampeh or why YB B is the bomb. And all the government needs to do in its part is to is trust the rakyat. Amin.