Lost Thoughts

"It's been a long time since I took a breather..." I start in my head, and instantly feel a rush of thoughts that begged to be written down immediately. I click on the notepad icon on my taskbar... nothing happens. The CD I'm burning has been stuck at 77% forever, partially hanging the computer and forcing nothing to be done.

"It's been a long time since I took a breather..." I start again, repeating the phrase in my head so that I don't forget how to start my story. But this time it sounds no more meaningful. I feel my mind shift from a calm contentedness into an internal frown. I actually feel the frown, but I don't think it's visible on my face. An internal frown.

"It's been a long time since I took a breather..." My eagerness to write fades at an inverse exponential speed, so quickly like someone trying to catch the falling leaves of summer with his bare hands. It's no use. They're falling fast, on a one-way street to gravity, and it's no use. The ones already fallen are no use. The ones on their way are doomed. The ones still not fallen know their fate.

My enthusiasm fades as quickly as it comes. Always. This I know for a fact. Writers never hold on to a muse for too long. We are travellers in an ethereal world, jumping between states of transition without sitting down, but standing and looking around, then getting back on the train. Sometimes we write about it, sometimes we smile, and sometimes the train whisks us out of our minds.

And we follow. As I do now, after terminating that pesky, stupid burning process that will never succeed. Some things are never meant to.

As I try to regain my original thoughts I find, to no surprise, that I cannot. It's the way things are. It's just the way it is. Those thoughts have been lost.

But all in, it's been a long time since I took a breather.

Wrong Choice of Clothing

I just read Brenda Benedict's article Sambal on the Side (The Star) in which she quoted a German saying, "There is no bad weather. Just a wrong choice of clothing". This is a variation of for e.g. Jennifer Love Hewitt's song "Barenaked" in which she sings "Life's what you make it", and highlights the proactive ability of humans in being able to adapt to whatever situation life throws at you, including adapting the situation itself.

How many of us feel trapped by circumstances? We should never feel that way. Most of us have the ability to create those circumstances, but not many have the courage to embrace change, and some have wallowed too long in those circumstances that they have defined the comfort zone.

So the next time you find yourself in harsh weather, just change your clothes. Figuratively speaking (and not out in the weather, of course!).

Fear of Guns

After having the temperature scanner (for H1N1 fever screening) thrusted at the forehead daily, one would no longer have a fear of guns.

Out of Sight

Please listen to my latest baby, and leave a comment! :)



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A Compliment Gone Wrong

The day before yesterday, my company organized a Technical Symposium. Basically this was a platform for us engineers to present our findings and achievements to fellow colleagues and bring them to the attention of our top directors.

Now, there was one remarkable innovation by the Failure Analysis team, in which they improvised on a technique to remove silicon material from a surface.

Now, I'm always a person to give credit where credit is due. And I noticed the speakers were not bringing enough attention to this innovative technique. I decided I had to complement them in the form of a disguised question at the end of their speech.

I waited until they finished, then raised my hand.

"Thank you, (Name) and (Name). I would like to clarify something," and started my question:

"That ingenious idea you presented, is it unique to our company?"

I hoped that this question would prompt them to speak again on their brilliant idea, and bring the focus on this innovative technique. However, what happened next was out of my expectation!

As soon as I said the final word, both speakers bolted stiff into defensive mode and one of them started replying immediately.

One said: "Yes yes, we need it very much. This is because..." and launched once again into explaining how the clever method works, which was already clear to me! I was trying to praise you for that, for god's sake!

After her lengthy explanation, her colleague supported by saying, "Yes, we need it very much!"

I soon realized that they had misheard my question -- "Is it unique to our company?" -- as the (slang and grammatically-incorrect-but-a-popular-Malaysian-usage) mangled English form of "Is it you need to our company?"

I had to repeat my question, and the audience was squirming with awkwardness and forced chuckles.

The embarrassment was mutual. But all in, what a pity that my subtle attempt to praise those good engineers in front of our top directors backfired to such an extent.

Really, it could have been great. What a pity really.

Remembering... Yasmin Ahmad

I've always believed in the concept of destiny -- that two people are fated for each other who will meet and connect within their lifetime. That's why I connected deeply emotionally to the central theme of Yasmin Ahmad's film Sepet, which stresses on destiny. The guy, since laying eyes on the girl, felt a certain connection that convinced him that she was his "yin fen" -- meaning, his destiny.

... from a previous posting, "Of Destiny, and Fate".

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Why Can't I Be an Astronaut?

by Haji Juliahi Haji Suut as reproduced by Amde Sidik in Kadayan Journal (http://kadayanjournal.com/?p=1997)
Translated to English by CY the Gemini (http://karljam.blogspot.com)

Please refer to the translator's note at the end of the post.

I have a story to tell. Maybe I should write in the Proper Malay to allow our countrymen to preserve their dignity and ego. In the very least, they can be proud that our mother tongue has not lost out.

Last time when I was schooling at Tanjung Lobang College from Form 1 (in 1984) to Form 5, there were several discrepancies in the teaching-learning process. It was an alien atmosphere. I could remember the look of burden of my teachers' faces as they taught. Oftentimes they faltered for words, and struggled to find the next sentence. It was a pitiful state of affairs.

I can recall one Science teacher gasping for breath as he tried to deliver the lesson in his best Malay. We the students waited patiently until the sentence was complete, oftentimes interjecting wherever we could help. He was not the only teacher lost in a language transition. The same thing happened during Maths. In short we the students became the teachers.

At times the situations were totally beyond salvation. For example:

“Segi tiga sudut menentang segi lurus darjah tak sama.”
(Literal translation: "The alternating angles of a right-angled triangle are not equal.")

“Bila inertia habis dalam angin jatuhkan jasad kepada bawah.”
(Literal translation: "As there is no inertia in air, a body would drop.")

“Graviti membawakan jatuh epal dari bumi.”
(Literal translation: "Gravity causes an apple to fall to the ground.")

Thus we students were dumbfounded.

My teachers' pronunciation, sentence structure and tone of speech in the Malay language left much to be wanted. As a result, the presentation of their lessons suffered.

It is not an overstatement to state that the students of Tanjung Lobang College of my time relied heavily on text books for knowledge, as opposed to class lessons. The language of instruction was a severe hindrance to transference of knowledge. A lecture of 40 minutes could only provide 10 minutes of equivalent knowledge.

We know that if the mold is faulty, the result is defective. However it is not fair to blame the teachers or students of Tanjung Lobang College (1984-1988). It was more likely that the recipes for the mold was insufficiently prepared in the first place.

Enough with Proper Malay; I shall continue this article in the popular Malay.

It must be noted that the Tanjong Lobang College of my time is not without stature. It was a boarding school consisted of high achievers from all over Sarawak. Around 50 students were selected to launch the elite program. I was among those young pioneers, those so-called "selected students". We were the bright students carrying the national hope to become future engineers, doctors, scientists, or even better, astronauts.

It must be stated also that the teachers entrusted onto these genius classes at that time were not selected on a whim. They were professional teachers with excellent teaching records, degrees from overseas universities and were qualified to teach until Form 6 if they wanted to. They were, themselves, genius teachers.

To make a long story short, we genius students didn't become much of geniuses. Of course, some became engineers and doctors after our schooling days. They were all not handsome. The handsome ones like yours truly only managed Grade 2 in SPM and until now I can't build my own rocket. Most of us became housewives and contractors. One or two became bank clerks and office boys.

So what went wrong with the geniuses of Class 1984? Why can't I be an astronaut?

If we were to say that the teachers were not good tutors, that would be unfair. If we were to say the students were too smart to be taught, that is even more ridiculous. So what went wrong?

Perhaps the most likely culprit was the language of instruction. When chemical reactions taught in the classroom were spelt differently from those found in the guide book and library references, it is normal to become a bit disoriented. And why not? To have to refer to bilingual dictionaries of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka was a waste of energy and time. And when you needed to do so on a repetitive basis, cross-referencing became a chore.

Before moving on to other national issues, I wish to convey my regards to all the genius teachers of Tanjung Lobang College, Mdm. Yeoh Bang Keng, Mary Chiam and May Ho Leng. You have all done your best, and we know that. Thank you very much. To Anuar, Shukri, Hasimah and the others; thank you so much as well. We have tried our best.

_______________________
Translator's note: I translated this article as I could relate with the author and also to increase its accessibility to readers less proficient in the Malay language. Any discrepancies in translation are my responsibility. As I completed translating, I found the original version of the article, which is considerably different and much longer, here (http://knightadventure.blogspot.com/2008/06/english-vs-melayu.html). As such, this translation is for the article as reproduced in Kadayan Journal.

Big Jokes Don't Fly

This post, its main objective is to keep this blog alive, since I haven't been blogging much since I discovered the joys of fayshbook. Fayshbook is much more interactive -- you can write a note and tag people, forcing them to read it (hahaha), and the shy ones with nothing to say can just indicate they 'like' your status or photo or music or note or whatever else you post there. Blogs are fast becoming tainted with political stuff. Stuff that make your blood boil with intense hate for our politicians and for people of our own kind, stuff that make you forget to be thankful for the little things that go well with our lives, despite the obvious weaknesses.

Everyone has problems, everyone has troubles. But the ones with the most problems and troubles look beyond them and smile. While we of many blessings, nitpick at the one or two loose threads on our fine shirts.

I still remember when blogging started as a trend in Malaysia, we were all maintaining our little private secret online diaries, just me myself I and whoever else cared to read -- words from our mind, we vent here when no one else listened. For paper is silent, paper is kind and paper is gentle. Paper does not talk back, paper does not interrupt you mid-sentence. And blog was the new kind of paper.

When I think back of my academic life, I have always wanted to prove a point or another, sometime or the other. For example, when I went into university, I wanted to prove it was all a big joke, this education system. This system that says you have to go through a processing factory for a few years, exit a somewhat repackaged, 'safe' product and then only you can start 'living'. And that was the mindset that I harboured throughout the first year of university. That this is all a joke. I felt like an arts student studying science, for my mind was free and unbounded by the limitation of words and man-made boundary, but I soon began to love what I gradually began to understand and find simple...

Then I soon encountered snobbish seniors and arrogant Dean Listers, and I vowed to achieve the Dean's List myself in order to prove it is nothing to be proud of. And soon enough, I achieved it. And then I graduated. The joke was complete. Then in the final year of study, my lecturer said it's hard to get accepted for oversea study. I vowed to prove him wrong on this point; I haven't succeeded.

But looking back now I wonder, I really wonder -- why has my life been about proving people wrong? And when has this what started as a big joke, now has become a love of my life, a long-term relationship?