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.