New Year Resolutions

I didn't make many in the past, and I don't think I have ever kept one. And that isn't about to change. If I reviewed the year 2006, I think it would easily be the most significant year of my life thus far. And I'd also find that if there is one year that I need to make resolutions for, its 2007.

To be honest, I don't know what I want to change. New perspectives show themselves faster than I can digest them. Too often now, opposing sides present themselves as viable options. Sometimes its a case of what I want to do versus what I need to do to get what I want. Sometimes its a case of suppression of a perfectly natural instinct (in my perspective) to ensure things take a more natural course. And sometimes its swallowing my substantial pride to do something that I want. What do I want to do? Where do I want to stand?

I suppose I'll just have to deal with them as they come. One thing is for sure, I must rein in the past.

Happy New Year, people.

Bloody floods.

I have never actually experienced floods like this before. It could have been much worse, for for sheltered old me, this is the worst I have ever experienced.

Taken near Pokok Mangga. The fence encloses a restaurant. The entire compound was submerged.











This is the back of my house. TNB reserve land, actually. The papaya trees in the pictures are now half dead from suffocation. There were kids paddling about in an inflatable rubber boat the other day. I don't know whats wrong with them. Not only did the place look like a swamp, it smelt like a swamp. I suppose they don't get to use that boat of theirs very often.






And driving through the flood waters, I actually broke my front number plate. The right bracket gave way and I was driving with the plate half hanging down. Occasionally, it would scratch the road and make funny noises. I really thought that my engine had taken a drink and the sound was the groans of my dying engine until I saw a random stranger point at the front of my car as I drove past. I had to remove the number plate and drive without it for a while. Ended up being half an hour late for class.

Well, the worst is over (at least according to the met. services) but I type this looking out at a cloudy sky and predictions of thunderstorms heading my way. Some holiday season this is turning out to be.

Anyway, as out of place as this might seem, here is to a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Understanding...

If I had it my way, this post would be 'bitch, scream, kick, etc'. But I cannot have my way, so I'll take the next best thing.

For some reason, I find this almost unnatural need to want to understand certain things. In the past, when school was much easier, I always made sure I understood whatever it was that I was learning. In university, I cannot be bothered anymore, partly because there is no one to explain it to me, and I don't have to patience to research it on my own and partly because I have tried it before a few times with very discouraging results.

But there are things that can be explained. Things that I cannot understand but can be made to understand easily. But for some reason of another, the explanations are denied to me, either as an act of malice or of cowardice. Or it could be just plain old apathy, which to me is just as bad as malice, because the end result is pretty much the same.

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned in thinking that in civilized society, we have a right to answers. Maybe the desire to leave no room for doubt is just too Utopian and cannot be achieved for the simple reason that some people either refuse to face the facts or can't be bothered to figure out what the facts are. Its quite amazing that it is these same people who say that communication is all important. Maybe to them communication with certain parties is important, but the rest of the people can grapple in the dark all they want. It doesn't matter to them.

I'd like to think of this refusal to clarify as some form of difference or opinion. Just like how different people have different ideas on when flirting starts becoming sexual misconduct, I wish that this can be one of the issues that we can all agree to disagree on. But the idea of not actually offering and seeking closure is just something that I find much too alien to accept.

I would write on, but I think I've written too much already. Too much for my own good anyway.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I know. I am lame. It took me this long to watch the movie, but I finally did.

I was told that the movie was boring. Was it? No. I liked the movie. Quite a lot actually. For the most part, the movie was like a debate of the 'separation of church and state" issues. Prosecution was arguing based on medicine, the defendants on mysticism. In the movie, the demons are real, making the witch-doctor explanations valid. But it was a court of law, making a decision based on
hocus pocus quite of the question. In that respect, I have no doubts about where I stand. I cannot accept otherwordly explanations being allowed to stand in court. Hopefully I never see a day that a bomoh becomes an expert witness on the stand.

But there was another issue in the movie that I found interesting. I've thought about it a long time ago, but since the movie brought it up, I'll take a look at it.

Should a guilty man who had perfectly good intentions or an alternate explanation to his actions (which cannot be admitted in court) be held responsible for his crimes? The priest had only the best intentions. And his story is as believable as it is real. But none of the jury can write 'not guilty' without insulting the judiciary. A similar case can be found in John Grisham's 'A Time to Kill'. A man whose daughter was brutally raped, attacked the rapists (who were good for nothing scum of society) with a M-16 and killed them. Do we blame him? To let him go would mean being inconsistent, leaving room for future 'abuse' of the system, but many a jury would be tempted to let him get on with his life. Of course in those stories, humanity triumphs and both the convicted people get away.

Question is, can this be allowed to happen? If it happens enough times, we cannot expect people to take the law seriously anymore, now can we? People will start asking 'what justice?'

I still think that the law is the most convenient form of conflict resolution that we have, even if there might be little problems here and there. I don't find 'lawyers go to hell' jokes all that funny. I suppose its a case of 'it might not be perfect, but if we didn't have it, we're all screwed'

Cars.

I am male and I'm studying Mechanical engineering. I must like cars. Thats the general stereotype that goes round, I suppose. I can't say that its very far off the mark. A lot of my classmates do like cars. Not me though, at least not in the way that they do.

I like cars for what they can do, not for what they are. In other words, I'm a driver, not a petrol head. I love driving. Can't say that I'm particularly good at it, but I enjoy it all the same. Driving alone, when I'm in the car, just me, the road and the car has proven to be quite effective at taking the edge off for me. I can't explain it, but I feel at peace when I'm driving like that. There haven't been many times when I needed the roads to keep me sane, but when I did need it, it provided me with a sense of calm. Funny thing is, my love for driving is very strongly attached to my love for manual transmission. Admittedly, if I drove in KL all the time, auto transmission would save my life. But taking traffic jams out of the picture, I really do like having the clutch. It gives driving the feel that it should have.

I like to drive, but the workings of a car do not interest me all that much. I have a rough idea how internal combustion works, but all the stuff that have been developed in the last 10 years baffle me. Active differentials, Continuously Variable Transmission, i-DSI, i-CTDi, VVT-i, VVTL-i, VVTL, VTC, Neo VVL, CVT. I have no idea what any of them do. Neither do I care.

Having said that, I do still find cars exciting to a point. I still see cars as more than a tool to help us get around. I can see myself buying a car the drives properly in the future. (Some might argue that all cars drive properly. What I mean is cars that don't take forever to get to speed and don't feel like they're going to kill you when you corner faster than 40 km/h). Type-R Civics and Golf GTIs come to mind, but thats a fantasy for a later point in my life. I wouldn't mind a Ferrari, but thats getting ahead of myself.

If I do buy a Ferrari, I will drive it. Not store it in the garage to be taken out every so often so that your friends can see how well off you are. Half the ingenuity of the car lies in the fact that you can use it everyday just a easily as any other commercial car. Making a car go fast is one thing. Making it fast and comfortable is a whole different ball game altogether.

If I really went berserk one day, this is the car I'll end up with. In my books now, this is the ultimate escape from reality. If something pisses me off or gets me depressed, driving this is one of the few things in the world that can make things a little less painful. That is of course assuming I don't get killed driving it.

We are boring.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6201292.stm

When we do make the international news, its because of things like this. If its not snake kings dying, its journalists calling us stupid or columnists commenting on racist slurs in our country. A bit depressing, really. You'd think that I'd be used to it by now.

They came back....

I came home today and saw this little book on the dining table. The title read 'Is there a creator?' My interest piqued instantly. The last time I saw something of that sort, Jehovah's witnesses had just visited my house. They had asked me if I believed in God. I told them I didn't know, which was a perfectly honest answer because I really didn't. That probably made their 'convert radar' blink really hard, but I didn't want to talk religion at that point in time. (I was standing on my porch sweeping the floor) So they gave me two booklets as food for thought and said they would be back. I never thought they would come back, but they did. Some people came by today and asked for a Mr. Siew. My mum told them that Mr. Siew is in Indonesia, which is true. How would my mum know that they were looking for me? They left this new booklet and left.

The last book was about maintaining a happy marriage. Yawn. Give that to me in about 15 years and I might actually read it. Read it now? Never mind. But this new book is interesting enough. I looked through it and didn't really like it. I have not written off creationism, but neither have I concluded that evolution is nonsense. To be honest, I do lean rather heavily towards evolution, but I am open to new ideas. I will not, however pick one side just because it can dig up lots of dirt about the theories that the other side has. Disproving a rival does not prove you right.

I have to admit, I am sorely tempted to start quoting from the booklet and giving my two cents about how some of the logic used is a little dodgy. But I won't. I will however look a little at my own views.

What exactly do I believe? I don't think I believe either side. I'm a fence sitter, waiting for one side to come up with enough evidence to pull me over. The question of where we come from is not quite important enough to me. One line in that book links quite strongly with my previous post about the point to life. It stated that if evolution was true, then there would be no meaning to life. I'd say that much is true. To evolution, we are a coincidence. Life just so happened to appear on our planet and life's only purpose would be the continuation of life. That is what I used the believe. I'm not too sure about that anymore.

As of now, I don't have the answers, so I won't form a belief. It sounds really cowardly, but in this case, I would rather be wishy washy. The last thing I want is to believe in something and then seek to prove it while categorically ignoring all evidence that points otherwise. Human beings have a tendency to do that. It is exactly that tendency that makes being a scientist so very difficult. If you start an experiment with certain results in mind, and look for those results, you are likely to find them. It doesn't prove a theory right, however. Bias is difficult to eliminate.
Thank God I'm not an evolutionary biologist.

Which is it?

The involuntary visits to the stone etchings,
The peals of laughter that echo the caves,
The wafting smells that emerge from hither.
The searing flame that burns inside.

The minutes and hours in contemplation,
The tortured writhing in the middle of the night,
The unlikely fantasies that play in dreams,
The time spent under a blanket, eyes closed but not asleep.

Where do they come from?
The source is unknown and can never be found,
Is it the idea or object that brings forth the trouble?
Is it the concept or prototype that needles the mind?

They say the trickling sand will work its wonders,
That the cycle of hands will mend it all,
But it hasn’t and for good reason,
The missing chapters leave the story untold.

An Eternal Question.

Why am I here? Funny question, really, one that I think about every now and then when I really need a distraction. Or when the need for it comes. My ready answer to this was generally quite pessimistic. There is no reason. I am here because my mum and dad decided that children might be a good idea. So here I am. I can't think of any other reason without delving into the realm of spirituality, which I will not do. This post would be completely pointless if I did that, since I'd have the answers already.

I suppose that question has a very close link to yet another question. What is my purpose in life? Is there a purpose to my life? At some point, I thought of myself as just another parasite on this planet, taking up resources and generally making a mess. But I came to realize that if I kept thinking that way, then I'd really see no point in having life on this planet to begin with. Because if I take the questioning further, I'd start asking if there was a point to life, and I think I'd reach the same conclusion. There is no point to life.

I started asking myself where I get these ideas from and I discovered one thing. There was only one parameter that I worked with in answering these questions. What is the impact that I (or any other variable) would have? Trying to find the point to my existence by seeking my significance to the world can only lead to one thing - The conclusion that in the end, there is no point to anything because you can keep zooming out further and further until the impact became so small, that its negligible. To my family, I am significant. To my friends, less so. To this country, even less. To the world, I might as well not exist. I can't begin to describe how insignificant I would be if you took it to the edge of the universe and looked at me from there. Our solar system is pointless in the eyes of the universe, if you use my analysis. (So is our galaxy for that matter.)

Which led me to wonder if my model is flawed. Or rather, is it something that I want to live by? I don't want the only reason for my continued survival on this world to be the fact that I am too scared to kill myself. With so many people out there with a zest for life, I'd be terribly narcissistic to write them all off as ignorant idiots who don't see the insignificance of their existence.

To change my opinion on something like that is not easy. Its like finding out that you have cancer and then trying to go back to a time when you didn't know. I don't have an alternative answer to that question, and until I do, this twisted view will persist. No one will ever be able to answer that for me. I suppose I'll just have to keep walking until I find that reason.

Nasty Politics.

Bladewing was always going on and on about racial politics. Justice was important to him, and so he saw it fit to scream and kick when he saw an imbalance. Admittedly, his view of the situation was decidedly narrow. He eventually decided that imbalances happen all over the world, and just ranting in frustration isn't going to significantly change anything. (Yes, I know it sounds defeatist, but I decided that there are more mature ways of dealing with his frustrations.)

This blog has been largely devoid of political content. I just didn't feel that it was worth it putting what I thought into this space. All the racist comments that get published in the local dailies were noted, quietly insulted and allowed to pass. Sometimes I talked about it over lunch, but thats as far as I went.

But now I actually find myself being threatened. Racist comments from the recent political gathering has been defended as harmless rethoric. I quote "Reaksi orang Melayu panas tapi terkawal. Panas tak terbakar, Marah tak berkelahi".

Oh really? So all that kissing of the keris and the expectation to use the curved dagger is all harmless pomp as well? Somehow I am skeptical. The party in mention has always been portraying itself as the champion of the moderate Malay. So far, it seems like all they want to do is to gut everyone else who question their "constitutionally enshrined special rights". I feel vulnerable and insecure. Can I be blamed for feeling that way?

When threatened, there are two things that people do. Fight or flight. As of now, the latter seems like the better idea. And its happening already. As this prime minister gives way, as he eventually will, the edoxus will accelerate, and the Malaysia as I love will cease to exist.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Time will tell, but to be honest, I think I'm going to get ready while I wait.

The obsession.

The ironies of life are really quite cruel,
They singe at the soul, and yet remain darkly humourous,
To observe the parallels running in two different lives,
To see and do nothing, for none can be done.

The obsessions run deep, that is plain to see,
Both appear to function, but the signs are everywhere,
A single minded bug that refuses to let go,
In speech, in writing, in choice in life, it manifests.

I knew of my parasite for it is hard to ignore,
But to see it there as well, it’s the funniest thing,
The upturned lip was the first reaction,
What it meant is still rather a mystery.

It could have been an appreciation for twisted divine humour,
Or it could have been hurt, hiding behind a silly façade,
It might have been sadism, for misery loves company,
Or maybe meek surrender to a hopeless cause.

Whatever it was, it needed release,
Hence this prose, this mangled piece of writing,
Hope burns eternal, but I wish it would snuff out,
For your sake and mine, the embers must die.

The Olive Branch

The outposts are new, the timber freshly cut,
Supply wagons arrive still,
Weapons and food, nothing but,
Watchful eyes scan the horizon,
Patrols in armoured skirts walk the hills.

The visit to the Nile yielded nought,
Experated, he returned home,
A war he did not want,
But a war is here, whether he liked it or not.

He had no regrets, no desire to undo,
No change in action would change the reaction,
As much as he regrets being drawn into war,
His conscience is clear, from God he did not fear.

Though antagonized, he will stay his ground,
No javelins have been thrown, no sword yet swung,
And should by miracle, a chance should come,
The olive branch shall be offered, no questions asked.

Photo from a taxi.

I was horsing around with the camera in Jakarta when I took this picture of children begging on the streets. They hang around traffic lights and when it turns red, they go make their rounds. Its actually one of the few times I went around Indonesia in a sedan and not a giant 4X4 jeep, so the children can actually reach the window. Taken during the Hari Raya period too.

And I thought I would fail.

Seriously, I thought I was going to fail Mechanics of Materials. I could barely answer half the paper, and needed the ones I did answer to be free of silly mistakes to pass. That was according to my calculations. But being hopeless in Math as I am, I completely miscalculated. I passed. With a nice grade to boot.

To give you an idea on how convinced I was that I was going to fail, I only had to say this. I knew I had a trip to Indonesia coming up. Land of the Hocus Pocus. I actually considered going to a witchdoctor in Indonesia to make myself pass. Yes, secular old me wanted to use black magic to pass a test. I eventually came to my senses, but I really was scared. (I look back at that time now and I laugh) I was thinking of all the consequences already, having to repeat the subject in the 1st sem next year. 6 subjects in Delta first sem is just not a prospect I relished. Supplementary papers are pretty pointless in Mechanical Engineering subjects. They make sure no one passes. I wouldn't have passed it even if it was a fairly set supp paper anyway. I knew very little about Mechanics of Materials. (Through no fault of my own....... Okay, maybe I was at fault a little, but the lecturer is still bad.) At one point, I think I became resigned to a fate of suffering through a heavy workload next year. I told myself that it wouldn't be too bad.

To make matters worse, engineering results came out a day late. As if the suspense wasn't bad enough, we had people telling us they had their results only to be completely frustrated that we can't see ours.

Well, I passed and thats the important bit. I'm not going to describe my reaction after I got my results. Its quite embarassing really.

A silly little gripe.

I was glancing through the newspapers yesterday when I came across the report about some politician in Klang and how he is currently embroiled in contraversy. I can't remember his name and his exact designation off hand because political scandals tend to be a bit boring to me.

I kept flipping and somewhere in the 'NEWS' section of the paper was an article by this Feng Shui master who went to this fallen politician to give him some advice. This master is a regular columist in the Star and decided that the dude could use a little help. Funnily enough, the politician listened. And I thought Muslims did not believe in this kind of stuff.

Anyway, that isn't the main issue. What I found slightly disturbing is the fact that the Star printed it in the News section of the newspaper. While I'm not a particularly avid practicioner of Feng Shui, I do respect the right for people to believe in it. You can have your column and write all the books you want, I'm not going to say anything. But to put that article in a section that is meant for factual reports seems a little off to me. I see Feng Shui as a lifestyle. In this society, a little like religon. Some people believe it, some don't. I can't quite understand why the article has to be in the news section when he could have quite easily saved the story for his column.

I know its a stupid gripe. I guess I expected too much form the Star. I've been told that its tabloidish and that it isn't much of a newspaper. I guess they were right then. The Star is becoming a lifestyle magazine.

To Indonesia and back.

One week in Indonesia. Half in urban Jakarta, the other half in not so urban Samarinda. I could give you a blow by blow account of what happened, but I don't think I will. A week in Indonesia visiting my dad is by no measure a earth shattering event.

So here's the short version. Day one, shopping, sleep, shopping. Day two, pretty much the same. Repeat for day three. Day four, fly to Samarinda. Once there, drive around for a bit, visit dad's workplace, watch a bunch of movies.

Fly back to Malaysia. Yep, thats pretty much all there was to it. Not to say that it wasn't fun though.

Shangri La.

Like so many before me, I seek it,
To reverse what cannot go back,
To ask sand to defy gravity,
To flip the gears that tick and tock.

It is youthful exuberance they seek,
The supple limb, perfect sight,
The beauty that came and went,
The health that was taken for granted.

But one might ask why I should seek that,
I have reached my peak and I've never been stronger,
There is nothing to go back to,
Nothing to improve.

That which I seek is similar but not the same,
I know so little, yet I know so much,
I never took the journey, I merely arrived,
But what I need now is to take that ride.

So I seek the elixir for the lease of life,
To stop being 'wise' and to open my eyes.

State of Fear.

Good book. I'm naturally a Michael Crichton fan, and I'm probably biased. But, yes, it is a good book. Anyone who wants to read it needs only to ask.

Leave!

It was years ago when they first met,
He looked, and saw a mirror,
Though different in flesh and blood,
He saw himself in more ways than one.

The twisted smile, the unflinching gaze,
The stinging tongue ever ready,
No one was spared, not even the brother,
Both did not love, did not want to, did not need to.

As he delved, he grew closer,
He learned from this teacher, this one master,
Faith in the method was all that was asked,
In the glory that it would lead to, he would bask.

What dangers lay ahead, he couldn’t have known,
The differences between the two would soon be shown,
One had talent, the other didn’t,
One was real, the other wasn’t.

He shriveled in the light as dawn finally came,
The echoes of truth burned his soul,
The unwavering conviction quickly faltered,
Reality trumped faith as the barbed words withered.

The memories of the past now haunt his life,
The regret wakes him before the sun shines,
He pays now for what he did before,
The universe always settles the score.

So leave now and never come back,
He has no use for you anymore,
Time will cleanse, as it always does,
But the memory of what was will remain forever.

This blog is becoming redundant.

I haven't posted in quite some time. Because I didn't have anything to say. And I still don't really have anything to say really. I don't keep a blog to write about my days. I kept it to rant. But as Amran (quite brutally) pointed out, its becoming a bit too self reflective, to the point when it actually starts getting annoying.

So if I'm not going to whine about how much my life sucks or whine about how stupid some things in the world are, what good is this blog? Nothing really. It was created at a time when I still wanted a space to tell the world to eff off. I can't sat that I don't need to, but I don't want to do that anymore. Its a very expensive habit, that. There are things I wish I could say here. Things I wish I could tell someone, anyone, and not have them snort in disbelief (or yawn in complete boredom for that matter).

This blog has no more purpose. I don't think I will delete this blog though. Just doesn't feel like the right thing to do. I'm just not going to post that often.

My monologues.

The two voices in my head, arguing their heads off sound a bit like this.

Me : I'm feeling a bit depressed right now.

X : Well of course you are! Its exam week! You always become like this during exam week. Its allright. You have every right to be.

Y : Actually, you don't. There are standards to maintain, mate. And you need to make sure you maintain them.

X : Aww. C'mon man. He's having a bit of a rough patch now. Give the man a break.

Y : Rough patch or not, what needs to be done needs to be done. Priorities, my boy. Remember them.

X : What are these grades for anyway? They don't prove much now do they?

Y : Yes they do. My man here knows why he needs to work for them. He's known all his life. Its all he has done all his life. If he doesn't make it, the blame will fall squarely on him, and him alone. He can't deal with that.

X : Look here. If depression could be dealt with as easily as you think it can, then you're an idiot. The dude here is dealing with it as best he can. Its not like he's not studying at all.

Y : He isn't pushing hard enough! More needs to be done. He needs to suck it up and keep walking. He needs to move his sorry ass.

X : It happens every semester, and he's been fine all along.

Y : Well, in case you haven't noticed, this semester is a bit different.

X : He has everything under contol. No worries.

Y : Has he now? I don't think he does. I think he is compromising. He is aiming for less than he is capable of.

X : He isn't compromising. He is doing his best. You try walking in his shoes and then you'll know what its like.

Y : I am in his shoes. I'm in his head remember. I see what he sees. An all I see now is a slob who has an excuse to be lazy. And he's taking it.

X : Don't you dare say that. He's had this problem forever. None of this has anything to do with looking for an excuse of whatnot.

And the arguement continues.

The jack of all trades.

I'm not much of a jack of all trades, to be frank. To be a jack of all trades, one has to be reasonably good at everything. I cannot draw or sing to save my life (doesn't stop me from bursting into song when I'm alone in the car though) =P. Speaking of driving, I'm not much of a driver either. All the correct lines to take when turning don't really come naturally to me. I'm not cut out to be a Schumacher (although the dudes in school used to call me Siewmacher).

Problem is, I'm also a master of none. I don't really master what I'm given. Of course, one could argue the relativity of mastering something. I tend to look at the pinnacle of things to determine my level of mastery. If I'm not one of the best, then I haven't mastered it at all.

So, lets look at the things that I do. I study engineering. Have I mastered it? Hah! Hardly. And I don't think I ever will. I just don't have the single minded drive required to become a good engineering student who will graduate top of the class and move on to discover the next theorem in beam analysis. I always wish I was studying something else whenever I pick my notes up. But I know that if I were doing anything else, I'd be dying for some subjects from engineering. I look back at my biology textbooks now and wished I know more. Its the same for accounts (albeit to a lesser extent). The law facinates me, but I know that once I need to deal with the nitty gritty of law, I'd run back to my numbers.

I write too. But I'm not much of a writer. Not good enough to be published anyway. And looking at the comment count on my posts, I'd say that even when provided for free, nobody wants to read what I write. (hint hint) I don't normally have anything particularly interesting to say, and I know that people have better things to do than to read the ramblings of pupating mind.

I don't debate particularly well either. Probably becasue I don't take it as seriously as I should. So I can't really say now can I?

On another note, if there is one thing I'm trying to do now, its to not take things in absolute. It really doesn't matter if I am not the best at anything. I don't have to be. Purpose isn't defined by being at the top anymore.

Why I write.

I don't even know why I'm writing this in the first place.

Its been partially covered already in the old blog. That was a point when I wondered if writing was some form of narcissism on my part. Just becasue I can use big words and have good structure, I write, just to show the world the genius that I am. Or something along those lines. I'm not quite sure where that came from either. One of the sillier soul-searching endevours I've had, I suppose.

Now I ask again, who do I write? For some reason, writing is the first thing I think of when dealing with negative emotions. Anger, depression, sometimes sadness. They all give me this strange impulse to write. It doesn't do much in terms of dealing with the emotions. Most of the time, I'm left exactly where I was before.

It could be entirely possible that writing is just a way for me to organize my thoughts. A bit like the pensive pool that Dumbledore has, really. Too many things on my mind, so I write them down and try to sort them out. That could be true.

But then again, I sometimes find myself with nothing to write, but needing to write. Sounds a bit off, I know, but thats what I feel. I grasp for topics to write about, and end up posting some lame stuff on the blog or some little story that I will start but never really finish.

I remember this status message. "I write because I believe". I wish this were true for me. I probably used to do just that. I had a sense of righteous conviction in my writing, a sense of confidence that I was ultimately right. My writing was a challenge to prove me wrong. It had a sense of purpose.

I can't do that anymore. I realize that it makes this blog incredibly boring. That would make me boring. And yes, I know that this trend has been happening for some time now. Pensive, reflective writing just isn't very engaging now is it?

But I realize that I never did answer the question on why I write. I don't know. Maybe it needs no answer.

A little story.

Found this on the BBC. This kid is quite the businessman. Tricky little fellow. Given the right resources and opportunities, I'm pretty sure he'd make it. In business that is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/5378688.stm

The cycle of depression.

A bit of self analysis for this post.

I need to study. But I'm too depressed to study. But it is because I am not studying that I become depressed. See the quandrary here? I call it my very own cycle of depression.

Trying to get out of it takes a lot of effort. Picking up mathematics reminds me of the subtopics that I cannot understand, but must understand. Every other subject (execpt maybe moral) has the same problem.

I actually spent a fair amount of time trying to go back to sleep so that I can resume my dream after my nap. It wasn't even a particularly good dream. I can't really remember what it was about, but I distinctly remember something roasting over a fire. Nothing particularly inspiring, but I wanted to be there. I feel like running away from this that badly.

Exams really piss me off. At this moment I write this, I actually don't feel too adverse to picking up my notes. Better get to it while it lasts.

Letting nature run its course.

I never really believed in the concept of fate. If you want something to happen, you work towards it. Sometimes it turns out the way you want it to, sometimes it doesn't. I just find it a little hard to accept the fact that it is already pre-written somewhere how the rest of my, or someone else's life will turn out.

Which explains why I like to take the bull by its horns. Sure, if I leave the bull, there is always the possiblity that it will calm down all by itself. But if it doesn't? And if I didn't do anything about it? Wouldn't it be my fault that the fence got broken and the neighbour's vegetables got trampled? I'd have to bear full responsibility.

That is how life was. See problem, fix problem. A stitch in time saves nine, remember? Well, it really isn't that easy anymore. Subtlety is sometimes called for, and somehow, I think I have managed to subdue the impulse to jump in and do something. It isn't easy mind you, but somehow, it seems to me that some things just need to unwind by themselves. Moderation is required, naturally. I'm not about to completely let go and see what happens. If the bull strays too near the fence, then I might have to do something. But if it doesn't it might just make more sense for me and the bull to let nature run its course.

Relativity in writing.

Its the nature of my bloggin style to write whatever it is that is most relevent to me at this moment. Whatever thoughts are dominant tend to find their way here. But I can't write what I'm feel anymore. I had quite a day yesterday. Spent it almost entirely at home, but still was quite a day. Ah, the wonders of the internet.

What I am about to write is almost insignificant, but they remain my thoughts nonetheless. First, Liverpool have found their scoring boots again. That new Dutch dude is really starting to fit into the grand scheme of things. I am normally quite interested in the progression of the EPL, but somehow, this season feels like a drab one to me.

Golf. I normally avoid it like a plague, but its the Ryder cup! The best of Europe battle the best of the States. On paper, the States would whoop ass. But the Europeans have been consistently beating them for quite some time. And it looks like this time, its going to be the same. The only reason I follow this is because I like to see the underdog win. And world ranking wise, Europe is the underdog. I hardly know the players at all; all i do is look at the score. Europe leads by three. Brill.

Democracy has just been dealt a blow with the coup in Thailand, but the PM had it coming. Hopefully, the army will keep its promise and elect a new PM within 2 weeks. We already have a junta in South East Asia, and we're not proud of it. We don't need another.

PS3 prices being cut by 20 percent. Not really relevant to me since I'm not going to be buying it anyway. But the battle between Sony and Microsoft is always interesting. The X-box drew first blood. Lets see how Sony responds.

There is probably a lot going on in the world that I'm not keeping tabs on. Shame on me really, some debater I am.

The street.

I stand on the pavement,
Looking down the street,
Grey clouds hang overhead,
Stiff winds blow at my feet.

The list is in my hand,
I know what needs to be done,
But I just can't help standing there,
Watching people walk and run.

The people go past me,
Some are familiar, some are not,
Some smile, some give me a curt nod,
They say how do you do, but do it through thought.

The day is late, and I know I must start,
There is a task at hand that needs seeing through,
Though I try to keep troubles and tasks apart,
Their merger happens, whether I like it or not.

The poem pretty much sums up my day.

Memoir 44

Its not the first time I've played the boardgame, but today is the first time I actually got a kind of high from it. I mean what kind of guy who even has a passing interest in WW2 will not relish simulating Ohama Beach? Medal of Honour provided that before. Now I get to live the glory as general.

The map was quite accurate, really. The axis were all holed up in their bunkers on cliffs. The allies were on the beach, storming the front. I thought I as going to lose as the Allies and change the course of history. Heh. I didn't. Managed to overrun General Adrain in the middle of the field and just meet my win condition. I'm not going to get into the technicalities of the game right now, but I can say that its brilliant. Apart from the fact that tanks can't just roll over infantry that is.

If any of you out there want a game, come to the DICE meetings. Its fairly easy to learn, and once you get it set up, its a fairly fast paced game. Doesn't last too long (not like Risk). And its really tactical. A lot of combat math. But your fate is still in the hands of the dice. Heh.

Panic stations

Yep. Finals coming, and I have a shit load to cover. Last semester was the hardest I have ever worked in my life. This time, I might actually outdo myself again. (To be frank, there is a lot of room to work with. Even last semester, I slacked a bit).

I was staying out at that point in time. I spent nights in the library with my books, sometimes studying, sometimes staring out of the corner of my eye. (Some of you know what I'm talking about, the rest of you don't really matter that much =P). Anyway, while I cannot be sure that my stay outside had anything to do with my grades, I'm willing to bet that studying around campus during study week does change things. For one, I don't get much studying at home. With the bed and computer around, it really shouldn't be that surprising. Plus, at home, I don't have any peer pressure to study. Heh. Nothing gives me the mood to study like seeing a coursemate hitting the books. Call it kiasu or whatever you like, that just how I work.

So, I'm moving out for a week. I asked my mum and she said yes, surprisingly. So I'll most probably be over at Adrian's place for study week. Hopefully, the two of us can provide each other with a sense of urgency. I don't want a long string of 'B's!

Writing.

Writing has never quite meant as much to me as it does now. I have never actually found the need for expression. I wrote because I wanted to. Now I actually find that writing is almost a necessity.

For me now, writing isn't so much a form of release as it is a form of expression. I can't keep things inside. Its just not me. I need to let it out. Smashing things around me is an option. But I find writing a lot less destructive and easy on the physical self.

This blog is one way. I needed another. So I found another. Rummaging through my cupboard, I found this nice hard cover book. Completely empty. 120 pages of blank lines for me to fill.

And so I have a journal. Its not a diary. I don't just write anything in there. Its not a place for me to rant about how lame studying is.

And writing, as in literally writing, is something I haven't done in a while. Typing out your thoughts just doesn't seem to be able to put it down quite as well. I could quite easily have created a new private blog that no one knows about. But I decided that writing would be more fulfilling. And so far, I think I'm right. But thats just me, a traditionalist in that sense. I never did take to technology the way most of my generation has.

Sir Knight.

Plate mail is heavy and cubersome, that much Davion would admit. But he felt that it was worth it, not because it protected him, but because it made him look grand. He loved the way he looked in full armour. He particularly liked the way light glinted off his polished breastplate if he ever caught a ray of light on it. He felt indestructible in his armour.

Which is why he stood at the cave entrance, smiling at the prospect of taking on the inhabitant of the dark hole. He had heard stories about the dragon before. He heard that it was a fearsome creature that could spew great globs of acid. He heard that the beast was 10 houses high and had a wingspan of 5 wheat fields. But he wasn't afraid of the dragon. Oh, no. Davion had a secret weapon. He knew the dragon's weakness. It was dimwitted. Slow to react. Sluggish.

Davion knew that he was fast enough to take it on. He felt confident that with his prowess, he could walk in and out without so much as a scratch. He dreamt of the glory that would come with it. From now on, his name will be announced in the royal court with the title 'Dragonbane' and every squire would want to be in his service. Every fair maiden would swoon before him. Most of all, he would inherit the dragon hoard. Treasures worth a hundred kings' ransoms. Gold, gems, enchanted weapons, magic tomes, you name it. It would be all his.

His moment with destiny had arrived. He stepped into the cave, lighting his torch as he went. Strangely enough, the cave was a single passage leading further and further inwards. No network of tunnels as he was used to seeing. Soon enough, he reached the dragon's cavern. Vileix was sleeping, sitting upon his horde like a hen tending to her eggs. Davion grinned. Killing her now would be easy, but not so much fun. He wanted glory, to take it down in battle.

So he banged his sword against his shield, challenging the dragon to mortal combat. He made a fair amount of noise, but Vileix didn't respond. Davion hit harder, but still nothing. Eventually, getting annoyed at the dragon, Davion thrust his weapon into the dragon's foot.

Now, that got the dragon's attention. But she didn't wake. The toe that he poked twitched and slammed him right in the chest, sending him flying across the cavern. The last thing he could remember was the sound of his spine snapping as he hit the cave wall. The dragon never did wake up.

(Heh. Fantasy with a twist of cynicism.)

I'll be waiting

Its not easy to write something,
And not say what is meant to be said,
To have to cloak my meaning,
For fear of this and that,

But write I will for it releases me,
Self expression is my anesthetic,
And though it wears off, given time,
I can always take another shot.

For now, confusion still clouds me,
Explanations elude my grasp,
I am scared, I am insecure,
But most of all, I am pining.

There is so much I might impulsively do,
In this current state of mind,
Only to make things worse,
To push things a little too far.

I know not where the line is,
And so I dare not move,
The slightest twitch could trigger an avalanche,
Sealing me in an icy tomb.

So the only thing I can do is wait,
Its difficult, but its all that I got,
For I still cling onto the last vestige of hope,
That last slender glimmer of light.

I've been meaning to tell you this all this while,
Only to see chance after chance slip away,
So if you do read this,
Know that I'm here, and I'll be waiting.

Leave the rays alone!

People are killing stingrays to avenge Steve Irwin's death. At least thats what the authorities believe is happening. Yea, sure, you loved the guy. He was quite something, I have to admit. But for the love of God, don't go killing stingrays and chopping their tails off just because one of them killed Steve in self defense.

Its not their fault that Irwin's dead. Heck, even if you did find that one muderous ray, I couldn't blame it either. If you trailed it in court, I'm pretty sure it would walk away scot-free (largely because its fairly easy to prove that it was hard-wired to defend itself in the event of danger, but whatever, thats not the point). Accidents happen, sometimes there is nothing to blame. Don't take it out on the stingrays.

The test results..

Are a complete mystery. Yep, he told us some of us got zero. About 20 of us actually. Some got 100, no surprise there. And he wouldn't release the marks. He will not tell us how much we got. But he is giving us a second chance. We are supposed to answer 10 questions and submit them to him. Marks from that will replace out test marks, whichever is higher.

This is like the second time this semester that the mechanical engineering lecturers have had to give us some sort of make up test to keep that failure rates down. The first was for Mechanics of Materails. Then dynamics. If we fail, we fail together.

Which brings me to another point. My friend made an observation that us mechanical engineering students are a lot more united than our electronic friends. If one fellow in class has solved an assignment, pretty much everyone gets a copy. Apparently, in electronics, its every group to itself. We know each other a little better. Of course, there is a reason for that. Our batch is small, and we can all fit into one class. We have all our lectures together. It kinda makes sense that we know each other just a little bettter.

But I just think that we don't really know each other all that well. Granted, there are about 150 students in my class, but I figuired that I should be able to name most of them by now. But I can't. The little chinese cliques are completely alien to me. And they make up a pretty significant part of the class. Maybe it does have something to do with the size of the class, I don't know.

Its only recently that I began to realize that the mechanical engineers in my class are a pretty cool bunch of people. Yeah, we're all guys in the group, but it really isn't half bad. At least we don't have to wacth out mouths before we spew some vile joke that would be very inappropriate in the presence of a girl. I almost forgot how much fun guy talk is.

Nightmare of a test.

L!m is nuts. Seriously, he is. We got a paper he set today and it literally blew us away. 25 questions, 20 objective, 5 structured. 5 marks per correct objective questions, -2 per wrong objective question. Yes, it is possible to get a negative total. We have a choice, finishing all the objective questions will give us 100%. Or we can try the structured questions for 30 marks each. We can get a grand total of 250 marks out of 100, any extra over the 100 point goes to our bonus.

Sounds easy? My arse. That was one test where studying or not wouldn't have made any difference. He let us bring a cheat sheet (half an A4 with anything we want to write on it) in and proudly declared that it would be useless. He was right. Having the textbook beside us wouldn't have helped much either.

The questions were hard in a non-conventional sense. Its like the whole paper was set around the 'million and one things you didn't know about dynamics' theme. Its obvious that he ripped them off a book. And one of the questions actually had the cheek to to tell us that it was hard and that we might want to skip it.

Near the end of the class, he said "Don't copy your freinds la. They also all guessing." He knew that we wouldn't be able to do it. He just knew it.

I'm not sure if i want to laugh or cry at this moment. My friend got so pissed that he crumpled his cheat sheet and flung it at L!m. I almost could guess that L!m was going to do something like that, so I didn't really study that hard. Heh.

No direction, but no matter..

I have a number of things to express but most are not really post worthy. Normally at least, but today is a bit different.

A kind of calmness has finally come about. I've had better, but with reference to the last few days, I've finally come to a fairly uneventful phase. Release works. Thankfully, I've had the people around me to help me do that. You have my thanks. I'm not going to name any names here, but you know who you are. Some of you probably don't read this blog anyway, but who cares?

I had this status message that read "I'm like a pendulum". Not quite true, as someone pointed out. Pendulums are fairly predicatable, under normal operation at least. They oscillate in a fairly unspectacular manner. I am more like a gas molecule, under Brownian motion. One minute I'm flying in one direction, the next I'm going in an alltogether different one. I've solidified since then I suppose. I'm now vibrating on the spot (If you've had any experience with physical chemistry at all, you'd know what I mean). I've had people who had ample supply of liquid nitrogen to help with that. I've already mentioned that but I feel a bit of redundancy is called for tonight, I think.

A good number of people I know watch House M.D. , which is why I'm using the episodes for better imagery. One of his patients was a masochist who hired a dominatrix. At some point in the episode, the woman actually tried to explain to House why the patient did what he did. I'm paraphrasing, but what she said something along the lines of "When you can learn to trust someone completely, it changes you." If we can learn to put our fate in someone else's hands, our perspective changes. If my mum knew what I'm thinking right now, she will probably sit me down and give me a lecture about life. And she'd be right to do it. This goes against every rule I've set down. But its my life, and I'm entitled to do what I wish with it. I shall have faith. Should the faith be misplaced, then so be it. It is a risk I am willing to take.

Sure, if it blows up, then Brownian motion will become an atom being split in half by a neutron and I'll have a nuclear fallout to deal with. I know that. I just don't really care. I'll ask for the yellow suits when I need them.

Inifinite loop.

I'm not much of a programmer, but I do know what infinite loops are. And right about now, I am in one. Thinking about it will not bring me anywhere. But I cannot not do it. Its a kind of numbness that I simply cannot ignore.

Its really quite difficult to write this post it might make things worse. So I implore all of you, on my knees, to back off. I don't know what happened, and I have no idea how it happened. I'm sure there are lots of theories. Don't bother. Just back off. Seriously. I am in no position to give anything in return nor do I have any bargaining chip to speak off. Thats why I ask for mercy.

Right now I need to function. I could drown myself in a sea of work, doing endless tutorial questions. At least thats the plan. I need to distract myself. I need to stop thinking. Because thinking isn't fun. Its quite the opposite.

Merdeka spirit?

Every merdeka day, we hear lectures about national unity. Every single year we are told that it is important. One really funny thing that I noticed is that a lot of Malaysian political parties are formed to protect the rights of their own people. So if every politician spews racial propaganda for political leverage, how are we going to ever achieve unity?

It might seem like I have a problem with UMNO with the number of posts I have aimed squarely at them. Maybe I do. And this post is no different. When Mr. Khairy accused the non-bumis of taking advantage of the Malays when they are weak, he got a very strong response from MCA. Strangely enough, he also got a lot of support from within UMNO. A lot of people were telling him not to apologise. Being an ultra malay is fine. Uh... right.

Sure, you can say that the comment were for Malay ears only and not directed at the non-bumis, but really, I don't think such a thing has a place at all in anyone's political agenda. Its bad enough that we have the older generation instilling racial paranoia in the young by teaching and then reinforcing racial streotypes. Having the political leaders do the same is only going to make things worse.

The chinese can never do such a thing. Can you imagine a MCA leader accusing the Malays of being fatasses who leech off chinese wealth? It will be suicide. But thats besides the point. I can speak from a chinese perspective because I am chinese. I've heard chinese use terms like 'malai chu' or malay pig all the time. I've been called a pig by malays too. And infidel. That one is a favourite.

Name calling and accusation hurts. It causes resentment and builds upon the negative feelings that the stereotypes already cause. So I really can't help but to feel that all the talk about racial unity really is just talk. Nothing more. If they don't practice what they preach, they can't really expect anything to change now can they?

Pull tea column and why I love it.

I love sarcasm. That probably a major understatement on my part. Whatever. I do appeciate a certain level of intended condensention in a piece of writing. Which is why I love the teh tarik column that pops up once in a while in the Star. It highlights things that I missed when I skim through the papers everyday.

This week's agenda? A politician endorsing mat rempits and RM 48 million being spent on customs officer's uniforms. I had no idea such things had happened, really. So I went to the online archives and found the article on the rempits. Apparently, these biker dudes are misunderstood and are one of our country's biggest assets. They claim that their patriotism has been misrepresented. Well, let me clear things up a bit. There is a world of difference between crazy flag waving dudes on bikes and illegal street racers. If they want to wave the Malaysian flag around once a year in huge convoys then so be it. But what we cannot have are these illegal racers zooming about civilian cars in the middle of the night. Here's a description of what its like. You driving in your car and you are suddenly surrounded by a bunch of asmathic sounding bikes screaming for all their little engines are worth. They taunt you. They get a high from almost causing an accident. They scream "whoohooooo". I think you get the picture.

What kind of lunatic will hope that these people will one day lead out country? How compeletly misguided do you have to be to make such a statement? I know appealing to your voter base is important, but endorsing organized crime? Come on. You are the Putera UMNO chairman for the love of God. I'm supposed to be able to look at you and say that I respect you.

Oh, and then there is the issue of RM48 million for uniforms. 700 bucks for a baton? Why the hell do you need a bloody baton in the first place? And seriously, I would have thought that such a scandal once exposed would have created an uproar. Did we see one? Nope. Nada. Zilch. These people are going to get away with a little slap on the wrist. Or if there is going to be some real investigation, we will never know about the outcome. Because the government always has to be in control. Sigh.

If any of you are interested.

Mat Rempit our assets.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/8/31/nation/15296976&sec=nation

Teh Tarik column
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/9/2/lifefocus/15281785&sec=lifefocus

MMU and colouring contests.

I walked out of the lecture hall today and there it was. A bunch of little kids sprawled all over the floor of the CLC, colouring their Merdeka pictures on exercise mats. It was a depressing sight.

Are we so desperate to organize events in this university that we need to resort to organizing colouring contests for primary school kids? Its not the first time it has happened. Last year's convocation pulled the same stunt, the only difference being that the children didn't represent their schools then. I think you can still check the article in neXus.

The question that I really must ask is, why? We are a university, not a kindergarden. Sure, you could look at it as some way of giving back to society, but really, a colouring contest? An essay writing contest would make more sense. Heck, even getting them to outdo one another by reciting corny merdeka poems would have made more sense.

And they had to make the event visible. Which is why it was held in the middle of the bloody CLC. The floor of the CLC is rough, so its impossible to work on that surface. Their solution? Exercise mats. Padded pieces of plastic that cannot possibly support the pressure that a sharpened pencil would apply onto paper. I really pity the kids. Not only do they have to colour on the floor, sitting cross-legged, they also have to take care so as to not poke a hole in their masterpiece. And some were using crayons. Which requires even more applied pressure to work.

And the turnout was horrible. There were less than 10 kids. From maybe 6 or so different schools. Admittedly, its really hard to come up with activities for national day. I personally can't think of anything that I wouldn't immediately write off as corny. But however desperate I am to do something to show everyone how patriotic I am, I wouldn't resort to taking kids out of school and making them colour pictures of Malays, Chinese and Indians dancing happily under a rainbow.

The kids probably enjoyed getting out of school for those few hours, but I'm not sure how much of a consolation that is.

Dr. L!m... Respek wei...

And no, I didn't spell his name wrongly. Technically, its wrong (his real name is Lim.. duh) , but if he himself signs off that way in MMLS, then I don't suppose he would mind putting his name that way.

So, who is this Dr. Lim dude? He's my new dynamics lecturer. And he's brilliant. So far. The one hour class I had with him today was by far the most fun I've had in a lecture since I entered the faculty. He's about the most relaxed lecturer I've ever had, and he tells stories. Stories that actually relate to dynamics. Apparently, the British army got screwed at the Falkland islands because they got all their math wrong. In his words, they studied their projectile motion properly, but forgot all about some other force that causes all their bombs to miss. Its got something to do with being on different hemispheres, apparently. I'll have to go look it up.

Then he rubbised the urban legend that water spirials down in different directions on different hemispheres. The mass of the water involved just isn't large enough to be affected by the force, do it has more to do with sinkhole design than anything.

When he started teaching, he told us that he didn't believe in using powerpoint slides to teach beginners like us. I wanted to hug the man there and then. The other FET lecturers should learn a thing or two from him. Teaching math based subjects requires a form af dynamism that cannot be provided by using powerpoint. Concepts need to be related, and you can't do that on a computer. The whiteboard really is the best way to teach this kind of thing.

Another thing, he also has the instinct that tells him what exactly you do not understand. The lecture was concise and to the point. No dilly dallying about the same idea forever. But I suppose the thing that I liked most about his was the casualness that he conducted his lecture. It felt like he was a pal, some dude you can actually ask questions and not get a frown for doing that. He said shit in class, which was a first for any of my lectures.

Sure, he has his quirks, but I can live with them. Its not very often you meet a doctor of philosophy that can still relate to an undergraduate in laymans' terms.

A bit of a drought.

I don't mean in a literal sense, of course. Malacca has been soaked in the past few days. Relentless rain every night. I'm not complaining, really. Makes for brilliant sleeping weather.

Its just that I can't find anything that I really want to blog about. Not the war in Lebanon. Not the foiled terrorist attempts in the UK. Actually, I think its largely due to the fact that I really do want to blog about something, but I can't. Everything else pales in comparison, really, to the thing I do want to write about. Which begs the question, what could be more interesting than the next installment to WW3?

A lot actually. In the micorenvironment we live in, the middle east is just so insignificant. At least a lot less significant than the best place to get nasi lemak. We're insulated from the worst. All we get are pictures and clips of people suffering. Unless we actually feel what it is like to be a Lebanese reading Isreali warning phamplets telling you to get out of your house before it is blown up, we will never really know what it is like. Sure, we see outraged Muslims swearing to take revenge. But I really cannot relate to the sense of loss that drove the man to devote his life to the destruction of Israel.

We never appreiciate what we have until it is taken away from us. That line is so cliched, but really, I think thats what it takes to get people to lose their apathy. At least its true for me. I really can't show more than a passing interest to the conflict there or anywhere in the world for that matter. Largely because I've had a really good life so far. No violence, no real suffering, pretty much everything provided for. My responsibilities are minimal, and if i screw up, the only one who is really affected is me.

At this point, I almost wish I could feel it. Not just understand the sense of loss that comes from losing someone, but actually feel it. Then maybe when someone starts asking 'How many more body bags need come out of Beirut before we do something?' , I'd actually see genuine concern instead of an elaborate use of debating rethoric to win a round. Then maybe I'd be able to see just who really wants the conflict to end and who is just hitching a ride to political success. All I have now is a cynical perspective that anyone in this part of the world who gets riled up over the issue is only putting on a show. I know that there are people around who have known suffering enough to genuinely cry out for action. I just have trouble believing that I have found one when I see one.

The MMU Melaka IV.

Yep. Thats what I was doing over the weekend. Although most of you already know that. It was a tournament I was kind of forced to join, but in the spirit of me, decided that I cannot screw the org comm over by debating like a noob. So I did what I normally do. And it turned out perfectly. 9th place out of 40 teams. 19th best speaker out of 80. Speaker ranking doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that we placed 9th after 4 rounds. The best of the non-breaking teams. Prime position for a person like me. I don't think anyone had ever been happier at being so close to breaking, but not actually doing it. Everyone was bewildered at the fact that I was happy. Heh. When I told them that I placed 9th, they had this pained "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about that" expression on their face. I didn't bother correcting them.

Why not? Because I had a really long discussion about it earlier on with some cyber dudette. I ended up being called weird, a coward, and a myriad of other unpleasant but politically correct stuff. Whatever.

The motions were weird to say the least. (For the unaquainted, THW stands for this house would) Started off fairly tame with "THW ban internet gambling". Then Kevin Massie started messing around with it, and we got "THW place NATO troops in southern Lebanon" followed by "THW make financial aid conditional on democratization". Right. Then I was told that the last topic would blow us away. Heh. Turned out to be a debate about supporting the teaching of gay friendly literiture in schools.

But nothing compared to the semis and finals motions.

THW assasinate abortion clinic doctors.

THW blow up the Temple Mount.

And I thought McCarthyism was bad. All in all, great tournament. Made me do a fair bit of thinking. Mostly on a personal level. Asking myself the hard questions. What questions? Never mind.

Australs - The debating venues.

I suppose that is a good a place to start as any.

There were 3 debating venues in all, but we only got to see two. Small matter though. Our briefings were done in building number 3, so we got to see quite a lot of it anyway. I think the main building housed the top debates, and we weren't quite good enough to be there.

So, where did we debate? In the old government building and the railway station. Both very quirky places, really. The old government building used to house New Zealand's administration, and is the biggest wooden building in the southern hemisphere. (A fact that the Victorians were mighty proud of). Now its the law school. And also a tourist centre. As debaters, we got access to places that were normally off limits to non-students of Victoria University. We debated in their tutorial rooms and their lecture halls, and after that, we got to walk around and see the place. There were photos all over the place, but the one I remember best was one of the Nazi visit to New Zealand. It showed a facist parade in the streets of Wellington. I had never thought of New Zealand as having any facist links.

The building also had pretty cool lifts. One of those old close your own door kind of lifts. The three of use took it for a ride like the jakuns we were. The stairs were engeneering marvels in their own right. They were like suspension bridges built out of wood. With no supports. There was plenty of empty space under the stairs because of the absence of support beams. The architect who did that was mighty proud of it, and rightfully so. I'm more impressed with the engineer who ended up building it.

Then there is the railway station. Debating there is weird because to get there, we have to go thru a subway of sorts, and we will end up in a railway station. Literally. With commuters buying tickets and people waiting for their ride. Enter one door, and you are in Victoria University. I have never seen anything like it. Half a building for education, and the other half for public transport. Talk about being resourceful.

The main building (which we didn't debate in) was new and completely stand alone and not queer in any way. But it was still pretty cool. We had breifings and lunch there and it felt totally new. (Probably because it is. Heh.) Cool, but just like every other uni building. Nothing to shout about.

The venues were heated, thank god. I cannot imagine debating in temperatures below 10 celcius.

UMNO Youth do not represent me.

Brilliant.. A bunch of youth from the youth division of the biggest political party in the country just camped ouside the ASEAN conference and waited in the rain to give a memorandum protesting the American support of Israel. Hell, I was pissed.

Not because of the fact that they did it. I have a problem with the Isreali response to the militant attacks. I think that the scale of the counter attack is completely uncalled for. But to barge across a security barrier to personally hand a whiney letter to the US secretary of state is not something I would have done.

Here is how I see it. Problem 1. Malaysia is a small developing country in South East Asia. America is the only superpower in the world. What kind of impact does the party intend to make by giving Rice that letter? The US does not need to listen to Malaysia, and it probably won't. Malaysia is a gnat. In the realm of international politics, Japan, India, China, the EU hold sway. We just don't. Us making a lot of noise is just going to make us look like a petulant child.

Problem 2. They do not represent Malaysians, but they say that they do. They are the youth wing of the United Malay National Organisation. Just because they think that the US is evil because it refuses to do anything about Israel, it doesn't mean that a majority of Malaysians do. In fact, a majority of Malaysians wouldn't know that Israel is at war with Lebanon. And the fact that they are from a Malay organisation makes it worse. Last I remember, this was a multi-racial country. Don't bring the other races into your vendetta against Israel.

Problem 3. It really is about Islam vs the West. They claim it isn't, but it is. Its so paifully obvious that I'm surprised they even tried that lie. Has our country spoken out so forcefully against anything else in the past? North Korea perhaps? Nope. Never. Even its reaction to Myanmar is milder than this. Suddenly, when the Muslims and the holy land are involved, they get all pissy. Like anyone is going to believe that they are protesting because of the suffering and the injustice. Gimme a break.

The chinese and their apples..

A more accurate title would be 'the orientals and everything cutesy', but since this particular post came from a certain singer who calls herself apple, I suppose that would do just fine.

I'll probably draw the same old flak for saying this, because I am mentioning it and that automatically becomes an all out arieal offensive on a particular culture and way of life. It isn't. Its an observation.

My question is, why are the orientals so obsessed with all things cutesy? I'm not talking about fawning over babies or little puppies. That happens across cultures. But the orientals take it to adults too. 'Cute' adults (in a very literal sense) are considered attractive. The Japanese are probably the best examples of this, with restaurants having their waitressess dress up as schoolgirls and pretend to be innocent little kids who do not know the facts of life. Its apparent in their cartoons as well. The eyes are always dispropotionately big, just like in babies, and little children.

That is the Japanese approach to the whole thing. The chinese and Hongkees on the other hand do something different. They try cutesy names. I can't really remember many off hand, but they call themselves things like Dodo and Apple. Why? My mum has a colleague who sometimes introduces himself as apple. The dude is male. I know unisex names exist out there, but Apple just isn't one of them.

Why Apple? Because if you say it in a Chinese accent and in a cutesy wootsy kind of voice, you could actually make it sound cute. Unlike mango or kiwi. That cannot be cutesyfied. But Apple can. Problem now is, you are basing the name on phonetics. Its your name because it sounds nice. To the hell with what it means or the connotations that come with it. Right. I suppose people can do whatever they want. They aren't hurting me by doing what they do. Except maybe the sharp pang of pain I feel for humanity whenever I see something like this happen. (I know I promised I won't attack... just this once).

This is one of those quirks that people have that make life interesting. Those same people probably pity me for being so unimaginative that I have decided to stick to the name that my parents gave to me. People have their views. Whatever.

Rebirth.

Most of the people who end up reading this will probably have a pretty good idea of what my blogging history is. They would know why I got rid of my old one.

Question is, why this new one? A number of reasons..... Shutting up is not something I do very well. A blog is a comfort. At times, I fell like I really need to say something. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But always knowing that you have the avenue to say something is always a comfort. Thus the return to an online space.

I'm not sure how well I'll do what I set out to do with the recreation of a blog, but its something that I need to do. Self expression comes as naturally to me as relativity comes to Einstien.

The posts on this blog may sometimes turn out to be cryptic. It has to be. Human sensetivities are at stake. Something that bladewing wasn't really bothered about. But bladewing is a fading force. If I had the will to do it, I'll make sure that he dies forever. I set out with a purpose, and so far, it has been going fairly well. I pray that it will last.

Mystical self evaluation aside, this blog will be and occasional place for me to put down my "New Zealand experience". The Australs was great. The memories will last a while.