Here, Again

a touch from being together
a tear for being apart
although you're not by my side
you're always in my heart

missing you.

.MISSING YOU. by evol1314 on deviantART

And so we're coming to the end of yet another trip around the sun, the year 2006CE.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha, and Happy New Year 2007.

Conclusions

A student who failed my class last semester was in her final semester and applied for a resit. As a student, I knew nothing about resit exams except that graduating students can opt for a resit exam in lieu of repeating a subject for a whole semester. This particular student did okay in her coursework, but failed because she did very poorly in the final exam. I honestly thought that she would get a pass with the resit. However, it turns out that resit exams are evaluated on a pass or fail basis, based solely on the resit paper. Without her coursework, she fails the resit as well.

Tentang Bulan may well be my last movie for 2006. It is the first Malaysian (Malay) movie I that watch in years. Will the next take another decade?

The huge flood in Johor could be the worst in a century. People always like to have someone to blame, but how can you prepare for (supposedly) the worst flood in a century? Just remember New Orleans and Katrina in 2005. I bet Abuya had nothing to do with that one.

By the way, does Ashaari Muhammad has any relation with Shoko Asahara?

New Year's Day
by U2, from the album War (1983)

All is quiet on New Year's Day
A world in white gets underway
I want to be with you, be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
On New Year's Day

I... will be with you again
I... will be with you again

Under a blood-red sky
A crowd has gathered in black and white
Arms entwined, the chosen few
The newspaper says, says
Say it's true, it's true...
And we can break through
Though torn in two
We can be one

I... I will begin again
I... I will begin again

And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes
On New Year's Day.

Adam Clayton plays awesome bass!

Bono receives an honorary knighthood – is there a different, un-honorary or dis-honorary kind of knighthood? They say that since he’s Irish, he won’t be able to use the title “Sir”.

Yeah, whatever. Students call me “sir”.

Great Wonders

Alleged "Kilt shortage" among Scottish army units

There are no problems whatsoever with Army kilts in Scotland. We have plenty of kilts for ceremonial duties, and the Scottish battalions are happy with the situation. At the request of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the kilts are being trialled to ensure soldiers get the most comfortable material for a variety of weather, with the best clarity of colour and pattern. Nor is there any delay to the buying of kilts. As a Government department we must adhere to international procurement law, to ensure there is open and fair competition for all businesses that want to bid for the contract. This process does not happen overnight, and it is important that we get the right quality product at the right price.

UK Ministry of Defence; December 18, 2006

I suppose not many people read or care about defence-related news, except for Alpha, but the above press statement by the UK Ministry of Defence is really funny. It was released in response to press reports that a shortage of kilts was forcing five thousand troops of the Royal Regiment of Scotland to share one pleated skirt between fifteen men. There are two things here that we can learn: First, the British care about equipping their troops well, even ceremonial skirts. Secondly, the UK Ministry of Defence has a strong enough sense of maintaining a good public image to response to the news reports directly and quickly. In fact, I think that the UK Ministry of Defence maintains among the most people-friendly website compared to those of other countries.

* * * * *

I was waiting for the elevator at a local mall during the weekend to go four floors up when I was joined by three teenagers. For a building with only six levels, including a basement level, the elevators were painfully slow. One of the teens pressed the button to go down. We were at the ground floor and they had to take the elevator to go one floor down to the basement level! The elevator shafts are just next to a stairwell, and there are two escalators serving the floors.

An elevator opened, going down, and they went in. One of them even managed to get herself colliding with the door on the way in.

Then, a woman joined me. The same elevator returned, opened its doors, and we stepped in. I pressed for the fourth floor, and she pressed for the first floor.

I really had to laugh.

It reminded me about people who would rather drive around looking and waiting for an empty parking space, even parking illegally, so that they can walk no further than five meters from the car to the door, when there plenty of empty spaces elsewhere.

Then, when I got to the fourth floor parking area, I saw a man squeezing to park his car, yes, illegally, right in front of the elevator when there were thirty to forty empty spaces everywhere.

I couldn't make myself laugh at this one.

Read, Watch, and Learn

This new semester has got me busier than usual, so far. I’m teaching five classes this time around, one class beyond the standard workload of four classes per semester, because of a huge demand for one of the courses. They are paying me extra for that, of course, but it will definitely bite me later with the extra assignments, quizzes, and exam papers to mark. Seniors are already coming to see me about the practical training program in the coming April – June, apart from the occasional students looking for the student advisor’s signature to drop a course.

The funny thing is I actually feel good about the whole thing. I can imagine, though, that my idea of a busy day or a busy week is nothing compared to what my friends at BNM or the private sector have.

In the meantime, if any of you people even take notice of the far right column, I’ve just finished reading two consecutive military SF novels by Steven L Kent. The Clone Republic and Rogue Clone, both published in this very year, tell the story of Wayson Harris, a clone Marine. The story is set in the 26th century, when humanity has spread across the Milky Way, with no aliens, at the brink of a galactic civil war. I’m definitely looking forward for the follow-up, Clone Alliance.

Eragon, the movie, was a let down for me. Of course, I can’t help comparing it to The Lord of the Rings trilogy (again the movies, not the books). Perhaps they should have taken a cue from Peter Jackson and made the movie two and a half hours long as well. Even The Chronicles of Narnia was over two hours. Reading the book, the Angela that I imagined looks nothing like Joss Stone; and weren’t they supposed to meet in a city?

Nessie sounds like Rachel Weisz (20th Century Fox/Yahoo! Movies photo)

(By the way, when is Book 3 of the Inheritance trilogy coming out?)

Before that on Monday the 11th, Olan at first suggested that we watch Cicak-Man. But I was the one buying the tickets, and how I was glad that I bought tickets for The Host instead! That gekko-man thing can wait till it gets out on TV next Raya. That's if I even want to watch it then.

Bakar asked me today whether I've decided to make teaching my career. He came for the National Career Carnival. To be honest I've never thought about doing anything else since I joined the university. It's a great feeling to teach – my own small contribution to the world.

The Blind Leading The Blind

Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it.

Stephen Vizinczey (1933 - ), An Innocent Millionaire

A student dropped by my office earlier this week to ask about her course load. She is a new, direct-intake student with a pre-sessional status. New students joining the university are tested for Arabic and English placement tests. If they fail to meet certain standards, they are required to take remedial courses and classified as pre-sessional with limited course load. When I joined IIUM I had to take remedial courses in Arabic. This particular student is taking a class in English listening skills.

She came to see me because she was worried that she had not registered for enough courses. Other students, university officials and lecturers were giving her different answers, and she was confused. So, she finally came to see me, the stand-in student advisor. It turns out that she has registered for more courses than she needs to. Full-time students need to register for twelve to fifteen credit hours per semester. Pre-sessional students need only register for six credit hours. She already has eleven and a half.

She was smart to come to see me. Most students, especially those coming from the matriculation program, rely on their friends and seniors for information. Direct intake students do not have friends or seniors they know from matriculation to turn to. They usually arrive at the university only a few days before the beginning of the semester, sometimes even on the first day of the semester itself. The university does not have an arrangement in place to help them specifically, so they typically spend the first week, with class registration and adjustments, running around feeling lost and abandoned. Last week one of them actually got around to submitting a complaint over the system that “discriminates against direct intake students in favor of students from the matriculation program”.

I know exactly how they feel, as I experienced the exact same thing when I first joined the university eight years ago. Obviously something has to be done about it. Eventually, however, these students will find their way to a student advisor. Here comes the irony: since ex-matriculation students have friends and seniors to refer to, they almost never see a student advisor. So later on in the program we tend to see them having all sorts of problems with their studies as a result of receiving the wrong advices and information from their fellow friends and seniors. The direct intake students, having received the correct information through consulting a student advisor, do not have the same problems.

I remember classmates coming from the matriculation program taking more language courses than they had too simply because the seniors told them so. Even after showing them the program curriculum structure, they chose to believe the equally clueless seniors instead!

The Fox Ate It

For a long time Opera was my favorite browser, until Firefox came along. The best thing about Firefox, apart from the tabbed browsing feature MS made such a deal when they released IE7, is the extensions. And two extensions I now almost cannot imagine having without are Adblock Plus (ABP) and NoScript. ABP blocks ads and banners, while NoScript blocks pesky JavaScripts and other executables. Both are highly customizable.

So now I don't have to wait for all the banners and scripts to load when I browse the Internet. Of course, some websites cannot work without the scripts, but now I can choose which scripts I want to allow to run. Cool, though it also means that I tend to miss most of the fancy functionalities people like to put on their blogs. But hey, the idea here is about control; seeing only what you want to see. I'd say that it's way better than TiVo, or that rip-off they're calling Astro MAX.

Totally unrelated song (lyrics) follows:

Free Bird
by Lynyrd Skynyrd, from the album Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd (1973)

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now
'Cause there's too many places I've gotta see
But if I stayed here with you, girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change
The Lord knows, I can't change

Bye, bye, baby it's been sweet love
Though this feeling I can't change
But please don't take it so badly
'Cause the Lord knows I'm to blame
But if I stayed here with you girl
Things just couldn't be the same
Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change
And this bird you cannot change
The Lord knows, I can't change
Lord help me, I can't change.

Hide and Seek

The first day of a semester is rarely a good day. In fact, the first week of any semester is typically described as a long, chaotic, exhausting, and trying week. Today is the first day of Semester 2 of the 2006/2007 session.

I arrived this morning to find that I have four overloaded classes. Registration beyond the upper maximum number of forty-five (the nominal maximum class size is forty) is supposed to require approval from the course instructor. I was definitely surprised, but decided not to spoil my day by getting annoyed. Then, I found out that I was made course coordinator for one of the courses, and had to prepare the course outline like, yesterday. To top them all, I went to my first class to find the lecture room occupied by another class.

But I was in a good mood today, and I didn’t want to spoil that good mood. So I got everything straightened up – found myself another lecture room a few doors down, completed and distributed the course outline, and go hide.

The first week of the semester is commonly known as the add-and-drop period, or officially the adjustment period. This is when students are given the opportunity to register and deregister courses, quite literally, as they wish. While most of the activities are concentrated around the many computer labs, serving as online registration centers, many students will also go around hunting for lecturers to sign manual registration forms. Manual registration is meant for students who are not able to register online on their own for various reasons like having failed the course previously or failing a prerequisite course and messing up their study plan by running out of courses they could take. Others, however, are just too lazy to wait for a free terminal at the labs.

My classes are full already, so, instead of having to endure the endless knocking on my door, I took refuge at the department office.

Still, I signed three forms today. One was a former student, who failed the last time and wanted to take another shot with me, while the other two waited outside my office till the end of the workday – got to give them credit for the effort.

Crop Circles

We now have a wireless network at home!

I had the silliest dream this morning – the Super Hornet was a car that looked a lot like a Mustang, and some Air Force guys took it for a spin and clocked just under 4 seconds going 0-100kph. “Not bad,” they said, and I was thinking what a stupid dream it was. Believe me, it’s no fun to be thinking that you’re having a stupid meaningless dream – while you're dreaming it – and couldn’t do a thing about it. What a waste of dream time!

Then my mother woke me up.

The 2005 Ford Mustang GT – 4th and Western by `dangeruss on deviantART

My brother had car trouble on his way to work, and was stranded at the Sungai Buloh overhead bridge. Since it was supposed to be some kind of an emergency, showering first was out of the question. I figured it shouldn’t take long, so I just put on yesterday’s clothes and drove to meet him.

The windshield was cracked to a billion pieces. He said that it just happened in a sudden while he was driving. One second everything was fine, and the next, “BOF!” the windshield sort of imploded. He didn’t think that it would be safe for him to drive all the way to a workshop, so we called up PLUS and had a chat for one whole hour until the service truck showed up. In the end, they weren’t very helpful at all – I suspect they just didn’t want to spoil their morning by actually doing some work – so we ended up driving to Kota Damansara ourselves to find a repair shop.

The Boeing Super Hornet – Landing in Motion by *Lesabre1974 on deviantART

And the damn truck drivers kept honking at us along the way even as we had our hazard lights on!

It was a busy repair shop and they said that the car will only be ready at 1 p.m. My brother asked if I could drive him to his office as he needed to drop some documents. He had already decided to take the day off. By the time we got to KL, all that sticky feeling all over from not having had a morning shower was already gone, thanks to full blast air conditioning. So when my brother got back down I asked him, “Where do we want to go next?”

We ended up going to Pertama to pick up my magazine, before going to KLCC to visit the ongoing PC Fair. That’s when my brother decided that he wanted to buy a wireless router and adapter card. I bought a LightScribe DVD writer and a flash drive myself.

Electrical Storm

Everybody knows that it is rainy(-er) season now in Malaysia with the northeast monsoon in full strength. Here in the Klang Valley it rains practically everyday in the late afternoon to evening. We had quite an electrical storm on Wednesday night that the circuit breaker tripped a few times, and I found out later that my PC network adapter connector was fried.

Mother asked if she/I should call Dell to send a technician to take a look at the computer. Father asked me a whole bunch of questions about the problem. He still thinks that he knows a lot about computers just because he had a course on computers twenty years ago – which also introduced me to the PC when he brought one home – and got an A. I tried to explain to him the best I could about what (I think) is the problem and what (I think) needs to be done to fix the PC, but it's just that – he knows cars, I know computers. I know nothing about cars. On another day, he would be the one all irritated because I didn't get a thing he was saying about the car.

LOL.

So my home PC has a new network card installed.

Totally unrelated, apart from the title, obviously, song follows:

Electrical Strom
by U2, from the album The Best of 1990-2000 (2002)

The sea it swells like a sore head
And the night it is aching
Two lovers lie with no sheets on their bed
And the day it is breaking

On rainy days we'd go swimming out
On rainy days swimming in the sound
On rainy days we'd go swimming out

You're in my mind all of the time
I know that's not enough
If the sky can crack there must be someway back
For love and only love

Electrical storm
Electrical storm
Baby don't cry

Car alarm won't let you back to sleep
You're kept awake dreaming someone else's dream
Coffee is cold but it'll get you through
Compromise that's nothing new to you

Let's see colours that have never been seen
Let's go to places no one else has been

It's hot as hell, honey, in this room
Sure hope the weather will break soon
The air is heavy, heavy as a truck
We need the rain to wash away our bad luck

How much of our mother/father is in us, I mean, beyond the fact that they each gave us half our genes?

Ghost Stories

The Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) – the military arm of the extra-terrestrial human government – only enlists recruits of the age of seventy-five. You signal your intent to join at sixty-five, and join at seventy-five. Once you join, they’ll give you a new, enhanced body with a biological age of twenty – which happens to be green – to serve a term of service of up to ten years fighting aliens.

If you sign up join the CDF at sixty-five, but die before joining the service, the CDF will still find use for you. They’ll use your DNA to create a super soldier in the Special Forces, also known to the rest of the CDF as the “Ghost Brigades”.

Jared Dirac is a Special Forces soldier. However, unlike other Special Forces soldiers, Dirac was created to host the soul, or consciousness, of a living person. He is the clone of Charles Boutin, a scientist who faked his own death and is planning for the destruction of humanity in the hands of three alien races

The Ghost Brigades revisits a common science fiction theme – the Frankenstein Syndrome – and the question of what makes us human. Regular CDF troops reconcile their enhanced green bodies with synthetic blood and computer-embedded brain with the fact that they have lived as real humans for seventy-five years. Special Forces troops, however, are created in labs with even more enhancements – including those of alien origin – and sent to combat in as little as two weeks after they are born. They still regard themselves as humans, or of humanity, even if others doubt it.

As we increasingly use technology to modify our own bodies, instead of just the environment and the tools we use, will there be a point beyond which we stop being humans?

The story of Jared Dirac is about choice, and of nature versus nurture. He was created to be Charles Boutin, but when he woke up crying like a newborn baby they regarded him a failed experiment and let him become Jared Dirac instead. However, as the consciousness and memories of Boutin slowly resurfaces, Dirac has to decide who he really is.

John Scalzi impresses me so far with Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades. Let's hope that there are more to come.

__________
QUICKIE: Don't you just love/hate abbreviations? In my book, SF stands for either science fiction or Special Forces, and oh, San Francisco. A quick search online also gives sacrifice fly (no idea what it is, but apparently from baseball), straight flush (poker), sinking fund (finance), and a whole lot more you can have a look yourself in Wikipedia.

Cosmic Smokescreen

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

My latest order from Amazon arrived today. The main item in this particular order is a hardcover edition of John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades, plus two other books – all military science fiction novels. It's terribly frustrating trying to find the latest science fiction (SF) books at the local bookstores – nobody reads them – so I have to resort to buying online. The Ghost Brigades is a follow-up to the 2005 Old Man's War, which was nominated for the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

As usual, I had the order delivered to the office, largely due to the high regard I place on the Pos Malaysia delivery service at home. Hopefully, I'd be able to start reading the books by the end of the week. As of now, I still have three piles of examination scripts to mark – a total of about 120 scripts. Just looking at them makes me sick; if only I could outsource the whole marking work to some company in Bengaluru.

I wonder if the students could understand what they wrote themselves. Half of the handwritten scripts are barely legible, while some thought that they can get away with not knowing what were actually being asked by dazzling me with whole pages of pure BS. I also found one student (so far) dedicating one whole page of the answer booklet composing a letter of apology for not being able to completely the answer the exam questions. Looking at the scripts, it is hard not to wonder what the students were doing the whole semester. Am I that bad?

Thankfully, there are always the few that tell you that it is all worth it.

__________
QUICKIE: The Hugo Award is given every year to the best science fiction and fantasy (SFF) works of the previous year by the World Science Fiction Society. The 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel went to Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Really cool book, I read it earlier this year in April.

Does Not Work On Foreigners

The most interesting thing I read in the newspapers today is about this Indonesian black magic practitioner by the name Ki Gendeng Pamungkas casting a hex on George W Bush.

Firstly, I strongly believe that no matter how one feel about someone else, casting a hex or a spell – if you believe in such things, anyway – is right. Even if they actually do work, it is like paying some thugs to hurt or kill your enemy, which is in the least cowardly.

In this region at least, most people believe in black magic and supernatural powers. Despite all the advances in medical science people, even highly educated professionals, still visit shamans, witch-doctors, spiritual healers etc for treatment. Others also go to these practitioners for help with their businesses, studies, love, and sometimes, to cast a hex on their enemies.

So, I have been wondering forever why anybody hasn’t cast a spell on not-so-popular figures like Bush.

Some say that such spells don’t work over long distances – something to do with the demons that actually do the dirty work not being able to cross bodies of water like oceans. Others say that possibly, these people are protected by some form of black magic themselves.

Then, this guy Pamungkas says that “Indonesian black magic does not work on foreigners”. Aha, so that’s why! So, he deploys a Haitian-style voodoo (which work on foreigners?) hex on Bush. I guess Haitian black magic is better than Indonesian black magic. And this Indonesian guy in Indonesia is using Haitian black magic against a US President. Welcome to the 21st century, ladies and gentlemen, when even black magic has gone global.

And no, I don’t spend much time thinking about all this stuff. Really.

All In

I hate all the previous James Bond movies for the over-the-top action and ludicrous gadgets. I like Casino Royale.

The plan was to watch Death Note but the show was full, or really, the seats that I want were already taken. Then I saw that Casino Royale was up. So, I guess Death Note will wait.

I think that Daniel Craig is excellent as 007. With the new, more contemporary, direction this latest installment is going, they really couldn't have stayed with Pierce Brosnan.

Farewell to Shah Alam

Yesterday was my brother's convocation at UiTM. Though the biggest university in the country, they have a really small hall, so parents and family members had to watch the ceremony remotely via live video feed. They split the ceremony into seven sessions – my brother's were the sixth – but we still had our asses numb just waiting for all the graduands to enter the hall.

I was quite surprised, though pleasantly surprised, to see that there was no valedictory speech at the end. The only speech was by the Pro-Chancellor. A valedictory speech is a speech [DUH!] , given supposedly by the most outstanding member of the graduating class, at the end of the convocation ceremony. The few valedictory speeches I heard so far were terribly boring and hardly inspiring.

My brother graduated with a degree in Property Management, but now works in Marketing.

Scream

The topic of the day around the house yesterday was a terrifying cry my mother, father, sister, and brother – though he thought he was dreaming – heard early that morning at around 4 a.m. My sister said that the sound – like a woman in pain – was so loud it could have come from just the other side of her bedroom wall. My mother, who was in the kitchen boiling water, said the sound was so scary it sent shivers down her spine, though it didn’t stop her from peering out the window. Me? I went to bed just before 4 a.m., and slept like a log.

Was it a ghost? That would be the more interesting hypothesis. My brother and I thought that it could have simply been some pranksters using the mosque’s PA system.

I hate horror movies (Dreamworks/Yahoo! Movies photo from the movie The Ring)

Drift

The Exam Part 12 by *deaddays on deviantART

The finals for the semester are now over.

Yesterday, a girl – not one of my students – raised her hand:

Sir, I forgot the formula for solving this question.
So?
Can you give it to me?

Students nowadays are something, aren't they? Another girl last week – this time one of mine – had a similar idea:

(Showing her answer script) Sir, is this what the question is asking?
Err... no.
What is it, then?
This is an exam. That's for you to answer.
Can I do this instead for the same number of marks?

Is it just me, or does everybody else get asked the same questions? We really can't blame them for trying, though. One might just get lucky.

I Kill Kittens

I killed many kittens

When was the last time you bought an original music CD? What if God does kill a kitten every time you download music; would you still do it? I think most people would still do. It's like that one story I remember from somewhere in which the character is granted one wish with the catch that some random person somewhere will die in exchange. Just the same, we consume and pollute with the knowledge that the future generations will pay.

The Open Door

I bought two CDs last week - The Open Door by Evanescence and Shine On by Jet. Both are sophomore efforts by the respective bands. I've already downloaded both albums, and decided that they are worth buying. Well, I made the decision just about as soon as I heard they were coming out, really.

Shine On

The recording industry hates it that people share music online, but the people who download and share are also the same people who buy most of the CDs. We download to sample the materials before buying the CDs if we decide them worth buying; though there are bands like Bon Jovi and U2, whose CDs I pre-order even before they are released.

I really shouldn't be buying any more CDs, as I don't have the time to actually listen to them.

So, how many kittens have you killed?

__________
PS: Love the T-shirt!

PPS: Both IE7 and Firefox 2 are out. I have downloaded and installed them both, and still find the same problem with IE. Firefox rules!

Raya III: Break the Bank

Raya is the time we bleed our bank accounts dry.

We needed to buy drinks for breaking fast while transiting at Narita, so I went to a money changer with $10 (US). Guess what, I needed to fill out a form!

There may be some currency control regulations behind it I am not aware of, but it is quite absurd to have to fill out a form to exchange $10. I gave the form and a $10 note to a middle-aged clerk, who processed the form in the same manner we typically see when paying utility bills, and passed the form over to a supervisor to stamp. Only then, the equivalent amount in Japanese Yen was dispensed by a machine. I couldn’t believe that all that was required just to exchange $10!

And this is in 2006.

The bureau de change was operated by a bank, so it gave me a poor impression of Japanese banks. Not that our Malaysian banks are much better, anyway, but at least I didn’t have to fill out a form to buy US dollars at the money changer at KLIA.

I have two bank accounts – one with Bank Islam, my primary bank account into which IIUM deposits my salary; and one with Maybank. While Maybank is the bigger bank, Bank Islam gives the better service. Bank Islam still issues me an account booklet, which I get updated from time to time as I happen to be at the branch office on campus; and I can always check my account transaction history online at the bank’s online banking website, BankIslam.biz. They also charge me only 50 sen for interbank transfers when I pay for my credit card. Maybank, on the other hand, does NOT issue an account booklet, does NOT issue bank statements NOR allow access for them on its website, and charges RM2 per interbank transfer. Aren’t bigger banks supposed to have lower costs from economies of scale?

Talk about corporate greed.

Selamat Hari Raya!

Raya II: Homecoming

Sadly I don’t have any Indian/Hindu friend to wish Happy Deepavali to, :(.

I just got back from a week-long (inclusive of travel time) trip to Boston yesterday. The whole week leading to the trip, everyone at the office was saying that I was going home – balik kampung. It goes with the spirit of the season, I guess. Nothing much has changed at Kampung Allston anyway. While Kam did tell me before that he has sawn off the legs of my old study desk to turn it into a coffee table, I never thought much of it until I saw it, MY DESK! Other than that, it was almost as if I never left. Well, it hasn’t even been a year anyway. But the Barnes & Noble store at Downtown Crossing has been closed, as does the AMC cinema at Fenway I used to go to (almost) every Friday; now taken over by Regal.

We came for a conference in Cambridge, at a venue at Harvard. Dr Shabri, on his first trip to the US, really took the opportunity to snap pictures. I didn’t take any even though I have my camera with me all the time. Somehow there is a feeling that there will be other such opportunities - that I’ll be back.

One thing for sure though, is that the United States still feels like the other side of the world to fly to. We changed planes three times at Changi, Narita, and San Francisco between KLIA and Logan one way. In total on this trip we flew on five different aircraft types – Boeings 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777. The Muslim menu on the flights, prepared in the Middle Eastern or South Asian taste, is exactly the same that we could barely touch it on the return journey.

How long will it take till we have either [1] cheap super or hyper-sonic air travel, [2] hibernation technology so that we can sleep all the way through long journeys, or [3] instantaneous teleportation à la Star Trek?

How about the space elevator? (Illustation by Pat Rowling)

Selamat Hari Raya everybody, everywhere, whether you will be spending it at your very own kampung or not.

Selamat Hari Raya

Ustaz Samsuri asked me where I’m celebrating Raya. He smiled when I told him that I’m a hometown kid, with nowhere else to go but the same place I go home to everyday; or was a smirk? So I didn’t really get the question, which was really a variation of the when-are-you-getting-married question. That was a sneaky one; I bet my relatives this Raya will be more blunt.

Somehow I’m not at all too excited about the coming Raya. In fact, I never find Raya exciting, even as a child. After a month of fasting, we will go around visiting one another and get fat(ter). Well, Malaysians take Ramadan as a month-long food fest anyway, so Raya is just the culmination of it, in a way. It is just sad that we need celebrations like Raya as an excuse to visit friends and relatives; the rest of the year we are too busy with work.

But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? I guess that is really the reason I hate Raya, for it reminds me that we need to find an excuse to take time off to see each other – Raya, weddings, funerals, etc. So within the space of a week or so we squeeze in all the celebrating and visiting that the whole Raya experience becomes exhausting that most of us would find ourselves relieved when it is over.

By the way, right after is exam week, which means marking a bunch of exam scripts afterwards. If students hate exams, lecturers hate exams even more.

Heroes: Cheerleader chick may be related to Wolverine (Dean Hendler/NBC Universal Photo)

Now that we are well into fall (not in Malaysia though, we have haze!), the best thing going on for me at the moment is the shows on television. On Mondays there are Prison Break (season 2), How I Met Your Mother (2), and Heroes (new). Then there are NCIS (4), Veronica Mars (3), and Eureka (new) on Tuesdays; Grey’s Anatomy (3) on Thursdays; and Ghost Whisperer (2), Close to Home (2), and Battlestar Galactica (3) on Fridays. Stargates SG-1 and Atlantis have just completed their first half of their twenty-episode tenth and third season runs respectively, to be continued in February.

Yes, I’m a geek, and I don’t have a life. And the above are not in Malaysian television (sucks!). Thank God for the Internet, and P2P.

17 Days

I have seventeen days left of my annual leave to last till the end of the year. It’s not like I have anywhere to go, really. There is no out-of-state hometown to return to, since we are all Selangor natives; no in-laws (yet) in the picture, and no exotic overseas vacation planned. Even the thirteen days off I took were spent mostly sleeping late and having long breakfasts with my parents.

My mother has been bugging me to buy a new baju melayu for the coming Raya, but I managed to convince her that my four-year-old baju melayu is still in excellent condition, and most importantly, fits. It was a mistake to joke earlier that after missing it twice when I was in Boston I am celebrating this year’s Raya like crazy in a full songket baju melayu. I like the idea of shopping and buying new clothes, up to the point of actually paying for them, LOL; and shopping during a festive season like now is just crazy, sale or no sale.

Anyway, here's a song for the weekend:

The Hardest Part
by Coldplay, from the album X&Y (2005)

And the hardest part
Was letting go, not taking part
Was the hardest part
And the strangest thing
Was waiting for that bell to ring
It was the strangest start

I could feel it go down
Bittersweet I could taste in my mouth
Silver line in the cloud
Oh and I
I wish that I could work it out

And the hardest part
Was letting go, not taking part
You really broke my heart
And I tried to sing
But I couldn't think of anything
That was the hardest part

I could feel it go down
You left the sweetest taste in my mouth
The silver line in the cloud
Oh and I
Oh and I
I wonder what it's all about
I wonder what it's all about

Everything I know is wrong
Everything I do, it just comes undone
And everything is torn apart
Oh and it's the hardest part
That's the hardest part
...

What do I do with the seventeen days?

Browser Blues

As seen on Internet Explorer 7 RC1

I noticed recently that the blog looks strange on IE - part of the header is eaten up by the Blogger NavBar. I went through the code and couldn't find any way to fix it; nothing that I can see, anyway, since I am no programmer. The blog looks fine on Firefox and Opera though, so I blame the problem squarely on MS. If anyone can help me with this, please do.

As seen on Firefox

The template may be due for a revision too, but I think I'll wait till the new Blogger comes out of beta.

Faces

Somebody called out my name as I was walking back to the office after Friday prayer. “I was your junior at KTJ” he said. I recognized the face. He now reads law at AIKOL.

I am so terrible at remembering names and faces. From time to time on campus I’ll come across someone with a familiar face, who will come up to me calling my name and striking conversation, and I will have absolutely no idea who they are. “You don’t remember me, do you?” asked one guy a few months ago. It was really embarrassing.

My mother says that people will think that I am arrogant, rude and selfish. I can say that I don’t care about what others think, and really be arrogant, rude and selfish. To a certain extent everyone is arrogant, rude and selfish anyway. But really, who remembers their juniors in high school? As a direct-intake student at IIUM I was out of synch with the rest of my class; if anyone can tell me which class I belong to in the first place. Students coming from the matriculation program, following the practice of their seniors, tend to take the university-required religious studies courses early on, and register for extra courses over the recommended workload so they can graduate early. I was in no hurry to graduate, taking only the minimum recommended load of five courses every semester, and treated the university required courses as fillers to complete my workload after having registered for my program courses. So, I often find myself in classes among students who are either more senior or more junior. I don’t think I should be expected to remember the people I only saw in class two times a week over fourteen weeks some years ago.

But they remember me, my name.

I suppose then there really is no excuse for me not to remember them in return, except the fact that I simply don’t. If that makes me arrogant and selfish, then be it. I'm just terrible at remembering names and faces.

Ramadan Karim - Happy fasting everybody!

My Frankentree

There is a curry-leaf (daun kari, Murraya koenigii) tree behind the house mother told me to cut down. At least it was a curry-leaf tree, but it doesn’t really look like a curry-leaf tree anymore; kind of like a Franken-tree or something. The trunk is thicker, and the leaves are different. It still gives out the familiar aroma of a curry-leaf tree, but plus a hint of kaffir lime (limau purut, Citrus hystrix) smell.

There was a kaffir lime tree a few metres away from the curry-leaf tree. My father had my brother chop it down quite some time ago. Could the two plants cross? “Bila pulak dia kahwin?” commented my mother. My sister was more concerned about what to call the tree, and what can we use it for. I just don’t want to get rid of the tree.

So typical of Malaysian bureaucrats – my mother was, after all, a headmistress – to want to chop down any tree they see. There is a huge conspiracy against trees. That's why nobody does anything about all those illegal logging activities reported in the news. My old primary school used to have plenty of shade from the many big old trees on the compound, including a huge casuarina tree (pokok rhu), but they’re all gone now. “What’s wrong with the tree?” I said, “it’s not in the way of anything”. “I just want it gone [AHA!]. I’ve been taking curry leaves from the smaller plants by the drain anyway” said mother. Still, the tree has done nothing wrong.

As a compromise, we settled with me just trimming the tree a bit. I like the lone Franken-curry-leaf-kaffir-lime tree, my Franken-curry-leaf-kaffir-lime tree.

It turns out that the curry-leaf and kaffir lime trees come from the same family Rutaceae. Now that’s something new I learn today.

* * * * *

Mention One Tree Hill today, and most people would think of that TV show I don't watch. But for me, it will always be a U2 song, named after a spot in Auckland, New Zealand.

One Tree Hill
by U2, from the album The Joshua Tree (1987)

We turn away to face the cold, enduring chill
As the day begs the night for mercy, love

A sun so bright it leaves no shadows
Only scars carved into stone on the face of earth

The moon is up and over One Tree Hill
We see the sun go down in your eyes

You run like a river on to the sea
You run like a river runs to the sea

And in the world, a heart of darkness, a fire-zone
Where poets speak their heart then bleed for it

Jara sang, his song a weapon in the hands of love
You know his blood still cries from the ground

It runs like a river runs to the sea
It runs like a river to the sea

I don't believe in painted roses or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful

I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill

We run like a river runs to the sea
We run like a river to the sea

And when it's rainin', rainin' hard
That's when the rain will break a heart

...

Tuesday Afternoon

It's Tuesday, and I am certifiably bored.

Ruby Tuesday
by The Rolling Stones, from the album Between the Buttons (1967)

She would never say where she came from
Yesterday don't matter if it's gone
While the sun is bright or in the darkest night
No one knows
She comes and goes

Goodbye Ruby Tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I'm gonna miss you

Don't question why she needs to be so free
She'll tell you it's the only way to be
She just can't be chained to a life where nothing's gained and nothing's lost
At such a cost

“There's no time to lose” I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind
Ain't life unkind?

Of course, I heard the song first by The Corrs.

Students have been dropping by the office all day to submit their assignments. One was due last Thursday, while another was supposed to be submitted yesterday, but being the nice and considerate lecturer that I am, I accepted them all. I haven’t looked at the papers, anyway.

Students’ assignments are a major source of heartache for the terrible English. I had a classmate from a French-speaking African country who spoke and wrote excellent English despite having learned the language only upon joining IIUM. The average Malaysian student has at least eleven years of English in school, but still cannot write complete, intelligible sentences; forget the grammar. Whose fault is it?

For the sake of my sanity, it’s a strong incentive not to give essay-type assignments.

Names and Numbers

Finally, I’ve finished marking the mid-semester tests. YAY! Small consolation though, as the notice is now out for submitting questions for the finals.

Dr Ruzita asked me to drive her Jazz to our two-day workshop at Awana Genting Highlands. It was my first time ever driving automatic and it didn’t help to have three ladies in the backseat criticizing.
The verdict: I’ll stick to manual transmission for now – shifting the gear up and down is half the fun in driving.

When Suapi asked me to come to Sogo last Sunday, karaoke was the last thing on my mind. Come on, Sogo, karaoke? I only figured it out when I stepped out of the elevator on the eighth floor. I should have seen it coming: Suapi = karaoke.
Lesson of the day: Again, I cannot sing.

On Monday *we* were supposed to go to Butterworth, but the trip was cancelled through a late night text message. Apparently nine equals zero and it was a no go. To be honest I was partly relieved, as waking up as early as 4 a.m. to make a 6 a.m. rendezvous at Stesen Sentral was not something I’m too excited about. But I already took the day off, so *we* met for lunch instead, and I came home with a free copy of the latest Perajurit.

Found out online the Crocodile Hunter is no more. RIP. I couldn't help to be skeptical at first, as there were rumors about his death before, but this time it was reported by all the major news agencies.

Thursday, it was sad to see Storm Large performing Wish You Were Here before leaving Rock Star: Supernova. It’s the only reality TV show I watch.

Friday, we had a farewell lunch party for Irwan, who is leaving for Ottawa on Tuesday. I played bidan terjun MC, again. We bid him good luck.

And today, I finished marking the last of the mid-semesters.

YAY!

New CD

The last time I bought an audio CD was in November 2005. It was Bryan Adam's Anthology, which came with a bonus DVD featuring a full-length concert in Lisbon. Frankly, the bonus DVD was the main reason I bought the CD. Bryan always sound better performing live than in studio recordings; unlike most of the other artists. I almost bought a few CDs after that, but didn't. Typically the stores I went to didn't have them, and I simply lost interest afterwards.

Then, last Thursday I bought Search's new Gothik Malam Edan. I love the band, love the album, but have absolutely no idea what the album title means. It comes with a bonus behind-the-scene VCD, though. Isn't it a great mystery that in 2006 publishers in this country still choose to produce VCDs, when even school children with a half-decent computer can create and burn their own DVDs?

Now and Forever

So this is the day, August 31, that we Malaysians feel and act patriotic - our National Day. This day in 1957 we, as in the citizens of the Federation of Malaya, officially gained our independence from British rule. On this day too, in 1963, the formation of Malaysia was supposed to be officially declared, but it was postponed by two weeks till September 16 following opposition from our friendly neighbors Indonesia and the Philippines.

So fly your Jalur Gemilang my fellow compatriots! Tell everyone that you are patriotic and merdeka, for a day, or a month. So un-merdeka of me, there is no flag flying on the top of my house, no counting down the clock to Merdeka Day, and I dedicate this orang putih rock classic to you.

Wish You Were Here
by Pink Floyd, from the album Wish You Were Here (1975)

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell
Blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here.

When It's Cool to Wear a Gown

We are now halfway through the semester; having just finished week seven. I gave my students their mid-semester tests during week, so there is a bunch of papers to be marked at the office.

We are also having our 22nd Convocation this weekend. I believe that commencement or graduation is a better and more accurate word to describe the degree conferment ceremony. Somebody may be able to dig up how we came to use the term convocation instead. The older public universities in the country may simply keep the term by tradition, but we were only established in 1983. Besides, instead of one huge convocation of graduands, staff, alumni etc we have the ceremony split into five sessions over three days.

Anyway, I’ve always thought that the convocation ceremony is more of a big deal to parents and family members than to the students themselves. As a student I hated the week-long Convocation Fiesta* – CONVEST – that turns the campus into a circus. Classes were disrupted, and they closed down the college canteen to force you to go eat at the CONVEST Expo where the food were just as terrible, but you pay twice the amount and had to walk 20 miles. I wasn’t all that excited during my graduation too. Big deal, you finish your degree and get to go on a stage to receive your diploma from some big shot. [1] You only pretend, because you actually collect your diploma unceremoniously from a university pencil-pusher the next day; and [2] that big shot, who may not be that big of a shot at all, doesn’t really know who you are and why he is congratulating you. My mom surely did enjoy the show, though, both times.

As a colleague commented, we would probably have appreciated it more if we had to work harder to graduate. By the same token it is no wonder that parents are so excited in seeing their children graduate, after spending all the emotional, financial, and psychological investments in raising their children and seeing them through school. I can imagine myself getting excited seeing my students graduate.

I attended the second session today as part of the academic staff procession. As we were queuing to enter the hall, I had this amazing idea of a criterion to add when deciding where I want to apply to do my PhD – which school has the best-looking robe?

__________
* The Malay word pesta obviously comes from the Spanish fiesta, which in turn comes from Latin fēstum for feast. Why can't they just use the more common English word festival or fest, which by the way comes from German but still originates from the same Latin word; instead of fiesta, which is more commonly used to describe religious holidays? ‘Convocation Fest’ saves you a syllable, and doesn't sound as cheap.

Sense of Security

DEFCON lock in action

Frankly, I hate the idea. We should be able to leave our stuff in our own offices and homes and not worry that someone would come in and steal it. Especially here on campus, tepi syurga, as my mother likes to say.

I didn't lock my locker half the time in high school and don't employ any additional security system on the car. We never lock the gate to our house, but we do lock the doors at night. We shouldn't have to.
__________
QUICKIE: DEFCON is [1] short for DEFense CONdition, a system of alert status levels of the US Armed Forces, ranging from maximum force readiness during an impending and ongoing attack by a foreign power at DEFCON 1 to peacetime DEFCON 5; [2] the world's largest hacker convention held annually at Las Vegas, NV; [3] a computer game developed by Introversion Software; and [4] a notebook computer cable lock system from Targus.

The Break-In

Somebody broke into my office on Saturday, and got away with the university computer and my old Sony radio clock.

Irwan called me late Saturday evening with the news. Somebody broke into his office too but didn’t take anything. Since (a) it was too late for me to drive all the way to Gombak and back, (b) I don’t keep any personal item worth stealing in the office, and (c) there is nothing that can be done then that can’t wait till tomorrow, I decided to, well, wait till tomorrow.

So I went to the office the next day to find the university desktop PC missing. They left the monitor, but took along the keyboard and mouse. My radio clock was missing too – definitely a target of opportunity.

I lodged a report with university security, and was told to make a police report as well. After filing my report at the Gombak Police Station, I was told to drive to the Gombak District Police Headquarters (IPD) to give my statement to the investigating officer.

That radio clock is mine! (Warner Bros./Yahoo! Movies photo from the movie Ocean's Twelve)

On Monday I notified the Kulliyyah of the theft, and before long everybody was relating me to the horror of losing the PC and all the data stored in it. Thankfully, I have been working with my personal notebook all along, so I am not that attached to the desktop. Doubtless it will take quite a while till I get a replacement. But the worst encounter in the whole episode was when I called the property office to get my door fixed.

Which Kulliyyah are you at?
Economics.
Department?
Economics.
[Giggle] Seriously, which department in Economics?
Seriously, Economics.
[Giggle] You are joking, right? Who is this, really?

I could have really cursed her to hell, but I was calling from the Department office. That ignorant fool thought I was pulling her leg, so I slammed down the phone. She called back immediately but luckily I got my boss, who just happened to be there to straighten it up.

The door was fixed before lunch.

Now, I really need to use that DEFCON lock I keep under the bed, and buy a really big padlock for the office.

My Day Off

I take the day off.

My father asked why I take the day off, and I told him that I just feel like it. We don’t have class on Fridays and there is no meeting scheduled for today. My mother said that I should have taken the day off next Friday, so I can pick her up at the airport from her trip to Vietnam beginning Monday. Well, I can just take another day off next week. I have thirty days of annual leave; it’s already August, and I have only taken a few days (can’t remember exactly how many) off this year.

And what a beautiful morning it was! Of course, my idea of a beautiful morning is when it rains, so the air smells great. The rain stopped, but the clouds stay for a cool temperature all day.

What a great day to not go to work!

Of course, my mother is not happy that the clothes don’t dry properly.

Invalid Assumptions

“Why is it called downward sloping?”

The typical joke about economists is that we make assumptions.

One of the classes I teach this semester is Introduction to Economics. The course is offered as an elective to students from the Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences.

When first given the assignment, I thought that it would be fun to teach and interact with non-KENMS* students for a change. They would have a different way of thinking, different ideas, a different perspective of the world compared to our own students. However, their different background also means that they lack some of the skills economic students, even first-year students, typically have that we take for granted, like basic mathematics. So, when I first drew the downward-sloping demand curve on the board, a student raised her hand and asked “sir, why is it called downward sloping?” I froze for a moment. Although I am well aware that most of these students would have not done any mathematics since leaving high school, I never thought that I would have to explain why a downward sloping curve is called a downward sloping curve.

So I have to constantly remind myself that these of students are not our typical students and require special attention, while at the same time hoping not to be seen as condescending. It is quite a challenge, but I still enjoy teaching them.

EUREKA!

At home after work, I have found a new television show to look forward to. SciFi is showing a new series called Eureka, about a top-secret town of the same name where the US government keeps its most brilliant scientists. It’s not hardcore science fiction, but the part about a secret town full of geniuses simply provides a free license for out-of-this-world gadgets and weird stories.

The show is definitely fun. It airs on Tuesdays on SciFi, just perfect while waiting for Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis on Friday.

SIGH! Why can’t Astro have SciFi?

__________
*KENMS – The Kulliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences was the first Kulliyyah, or faculty, to be established at the IIUM, along with the Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws (AIKOL), in 1983. We offer three undergraduate programs in Accounting, Business Administration, and of course, Economics.

I Dreamed Sunday

Strange, that an entire dream last night revolved around one song.

Sunday Bloody Sunday
written and performed by U2

I can't believe the news today
I can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long?
'Cos tonight
We can be as one, tonight

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead-end street
But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday
Oh, let's go

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart

Sunday, bloody Sunday
Sunday, bloody Sunday

...

It fits the current state of the world, I suppose. Last Friday we recited qunut nazilah during the congregation. What else can we do but pray?

The Beloved Rambutan

The hairy fruit (photo from www.rambutan.com)

There is a rambutan tree (Nephelium lappaceum) in front of our house. Mak Ngah gave us the sapling years ago when she was working with the Ministry of Agriculture. It bears fruit all year long, so we don't give much attention to it. We never mind that on Fridays people often just pluck the rambutans off the tree on their way home after the prayer, but sometimes my parents still like to yell at the school children; LOL.

Driving home from a cousin's wedding at Tanjung Karang on Saturday, I was so pissed at the people in a car in front of us. They were eating rambutan, and were throwing the skins and seeds out of their vehicle onto the road along the way. I’m pretty sure that littering counts as antisocial behavior; why can’t these people keep the rubbish in a bag and throw it away properly later? It reminds me of a reader-submitted cartoon in a newspaper recently about a father teaching his son “not to litter… near the house” as he dumped a bag of trash onto the roadside from a moving car. Talk about having a third world mentality, the lack of appreciation towards the environment is one thing, selfishness and lack of respect for others is another.

It just follows that I really hate smokers. They care little that the rest of us non-smokers suffocate in the vile smoke, and treat the world like one giant ashtray. An ustaz at the department, now a fellow colleague, never tires to tell us that smoking is as haram as liquor. We had an interesting discussion on the subject in Fiqh class. Smokers have no respect for others, thus deserve no respect in return.

Back to the hairy fruit, it’s not fun at all to be swarmed and bitten by the kerengga or weaver ants (Ocoephylla smaragdina) that ‘guard’ the tree every time my parents ask me to fetch them the rambutan.

Merry-Go-Round

A surprise find in our letterboxes today at work: the salary slip. It was a surprise because the salary slip arrived today on the 24th, one day before pay day, which is tomorrow, the 25th. It’s unprecedented, as far as I know; the salary slip always arrives on or after pay day, sometimes even a week after.

So everywhere I saw staff members today walking with the salary slip in hand, or sitting at the lounge area looking at the figures; some with clear beaming satisfaction while others, including me, in puzzled exasperation. WHAT? WHY?

It has been six months since I got my MA. First, they told me that I had to formally apply for promotion and wait to be called for an interview; everything like applying for the job for the first time. Then, suddenly I found out, one afternoon, that the said the interview session was held in the morning, and I wasn’t informed about it! I ran to my boss (the department head, not the dean) to find her equally in the dark, and surprised, that she picked up the phone immediately to enquire on my behalf. It turned out that I never needed to attend the interview. I received the offer letter some weeks later, put my signature on some sheets of paper, forwarded them to the dean’s office, and sit happily in my office waiting for my pay rise.

Then came the pay slip.

Where is my money? I was put in touch with an officer in Finance, who directed me to an officer in Management Services, who passed me to another officer in Management Services, whose phone was engaged. I called again later once, twice, third time lucky, only to be told to speak to another officer in Management Services, who was in a meeting. SIGH. Luckily, instead of telling me to call later, as usually bureaucrats seem to enjoy doing, the person on the phone offered to take my message.

I got a call later, from the actual person in charge, who told me that they didn’t issue the necessary instructions to Finance because there was something missing in the package I sent to the dean’s office.

Why, oh why, didn’t anybody say anything?

“Don’t worry, they’ll reimburse you the full backdated amount later”, consoled the Senior Accounting Assistant at the General Office. She patiently helped me make sense of the salary slip earlier, and got me in touch with that first office in Finance.

“Kayalah engkau lepas ni”, said my mom. I wish.

Welcome to the Wild

Sungai Lembing

Pigs, or rather wild boar, droppings, got my colleagues all freaked out. LOL. We were volunteered (kena jual, as I put it) to spend a night at Kuala Tahan last weekend to survey potential venues for an annual staff program. The boss wanted to have it at Taman Negara. Everybody hated the idea - Taman Negara isn’t exactly a place for everybody - but wouldn’t dare to speak up against the boss, so the five of us were sent to check the place out. “What an expensive way to prove a point!” commented a fellow volunteered colleague. She hated the thought of going through all the trouble for nothing. I had never been anywhere near Taman Negara before, but it turned out just about what I imagined. It’s animal kingdom, so you should expect to find artefacts to that effect.

The all-expense-paid getaway to the edge of civilization was fun (the mobile phone signal was excellent, though), but it did cost me my weekend. I was really looking forward for a quiet weekend after that chaotic first week of classes. This is my first semester with a full twelve-hour workload, which so far has been unexpectedly exhausting that I find myself completely knocked out by 10pm every night, if not right after dinner. Hopefully, it’s just my body adjusting; or perhaps it’s just because I have sleep in mind coming home from work everyday. Whatever.

I did, however, manage to go and watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on Thursday last week. Harta Lelaki Mati, as per the subtitle, was fun. I should have known, in a movie created to promote a theme park attraction, nobody dies; nobody with a named character that is. Is Jack dead? Johnny Depp was brilliant as always. I love sail ships, even merepek ones like the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman in a merepek movie like Dead Man’s Chest.

(Interesting webpage on what kind of ship the Black Pearl is, here.)

Great news too with the coming of July is the start of new tenth season of Stargate SG-1 and third season of Stargate Atlantis. The first episodes premiered last Friday on SciFi in the United States. Finally, something to look forward to during the weekends.

Bag of Chips

Life is like a bag of chips – full of air and all mashed-up.

Hot sunny afternoon and terrible traffic - a fact of life for anyone commuting between Gombak and Sungai Buloh everyday - had me thinking about... ice-cream. So I stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way home and get me one, plus a bag of spring onion and garlic flavored potato chips. The ice-cream was gone in about 30 seconds, but I didn't start on the chips until I got home, work clothes off, on my bed.

Ever noticed that the chips sold here are labeled “For Sale In Malaysia Only”? I wonder why that is; maybe the government subsidizes junk food too like they subsidize everything else from sugar to rice to petrol. It wouldn’t a surprise, really. Those big-shot junk-food manufacturers could very well be extremely well connected. Or, perhaps the chips sold in this country have some special ingredient we don’t want foreigners to have a taste at. Why else, then, that they only put “permissible flavorings” and permissible colorings” as the ingredients? We Malaysians only have to trust the Man that whatever permissible chemicals they put in there are actually edible and don’t give you cancer. Mind-control drug? Funny too, that the packaging also has labeling in French, for something meant to be sold only in Malaysia; perhaps for the benefit of our Vietnamese guest workers. The Indonesians can read Malay, while the Bangladeshis and Myanmarese can read English. We Malaysians love our guest workers.

The first week of every semester is time for us lecturers to play hide and seek – hiding from students appealing to join your class. It is “add and drop” period, when students can add and/or drop classes. Much of it is done electronically, but students would always want to join the classes that are already full to the brim, which are blocked by the system. Why? They’ll give you a million and one excuses why they absolutely need to register for a particular class; some are valid, most are just loads of BS. In my personal opinion the system is simply being abused, and most of these students never bothered to plan their studies.

Sigh… reminiscing the days when lunch was a tub of Ben & Jerry’s.

Bedtime Stories

Today I went to a GW meet; the first since I got back, my only second time ever. It is quite strange, though not in any negative way, to see a bunch of people you know only by their online nicknames. Even face-to-face, we call each other by nicknames. It’s just convenient, I suppose, than to try to remember the names of people you only meet a few times a year. I am terrible with names, anyway. The pseudo-secret venue, communicated directly to those who were coming via text message/SMS, was one of the newer but more peaceful shopping malls in KL, thankfully. I would have hated it if the meeting was set up at Suria KLCC, like that one time I went before.

As can be expected, some took the opportunity of the meet to seek confirmation for stories, rumors, urban-legends, if you like; that they have heard before: do we have this or that and how many, did this or that actually happened and how etc. I just sit there and listen.

The worst thing anyone can do with a rumor is to tell it to someone else. It doesn’t really matter whether there is a grain of truth in it, or totally outlandish; the damage is in the spread. Rumors are by definition unsubstantiated and incomplete. We like to think that there must be at least some truth in it, like how a legend is based on an historical event, and fill the gaps in the account with our own imagination.

Like a terrible secret, a rumor is hard to keep, so we spread them around. Sometimes it is out of concern – “just in case it is true” – and sometimes it is just for fun – “what harm will it do?” More harm than good, really. Some rumors create panic, like bomb scares, but generally rumors are like waves on a beach. Slowly but surely the erosion changes the shoreline. Just as we cannot take back our words, one cannot un-hear a rumor. Some rumors are in fact slanders; worse than adultery, according to the Prophet.

Many people argue that they don’t mean to spread rumors and slander, but just telling the [real] story; same difference. Some rumors are started off by certain parties for their own not-so-innocent motives, so by spreading them around we are only turning ourselves into willing tools for someone else's sinister machination.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933 - 1945

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PS: I don’t care for Akademi Fantasia (AF). But doesn’t anybody else think that the daily Diari AF is turning people into voyeurs? I’m pissed that my mum is so caught up in it.

Two Days

The tango, the candy

YESTERDAY: Watched Take the Lead with my sister; can’t really help it, I’ve always had a soft spot for dance movies. If only I could ballroom dance. The closest I ever got to dancing was in primary school, when I signed up for a dance performance for Speech Day. Tarian endang wasn’t much of a dance, though, but it was the only thing there was. The teacher didn’t believe me at first (why, I already did plays and choirs and instruments before?), and some of the other kids made fun of me, but we did okay after weeks of daily practice.

When we got home I cancelled my alarm clock setting for the 3am France-Italy semi-final match. Sleep. I like them, but not enough to lose sleep over.
TODAY: Woke up and looked up the Internet to see France won. YAY! Yes, I left the PC on, connected, all night. TM/Streamyx is not getting my RM66 easy.

We had a pot-luck party at the department today during lunch time. I was volunteered MC. We celebrated former office bearers Prof Mansor, Dr Rokiah and Dr Latifah; and bid farewell to Dr Hafsah. I ate too much, and got one terrible headache.

Park, Here?

The new parking sticker design – the gold university logo on a pink octagon – is downright ugly! See bottom picture. Why can’t they just use the old design? The previous 2004-2006 sticker, in the middle, was a simple and discreet silver rectangle. Even the yellow square 2002-2004 sticker on top looks nice. This new one simply looks cheap and loud.

While we’re at it, let me rant a bit about the parking situation on campus.

The main campus ground was designed as a walking campus: the Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah mosque in the middle is surrounded by administrative and academic buildings, encircled by a two-lane street. Residential colleges and sports facilities make up the outer layer. Since full-time students are guaranteed housing, parking space is limited, but enough to cater for commuting staff, non-resident part-time students and visitors. The campus is served by RapidKL and Putra LRT feeder buses, so resident students really have no need for private transport.

Still, many students keep a motorcycle or a car on campus. I had no problem walking around campus on foot and taking the bus to KL as a student, but these people need to take the car just to get their asses from the hostel to class. So, we have a shortage of parking spaces. In response to this, as well as increasing number of traffic accidents, the university authorities turned the road that circles the campus into a one-way street, and introduced road-side parking along certain stretches.

Both are hardly solutions to the original problem - congestion. Resident students should not have any need for a car or motorcycle in the first place, and if left unchecked the number of cars and motorcyles are only going to increase. Even now, students are beginning to encroach into staff parking areas.

The limited parking spaces need to be rationed out. We begin by registering all the parking spaces in the university. Staff members would then be assigned their own parking spaces. Saving a few spaces for visitors and non-resident part-time students, the rest of the parking spaces would then be auctioned off. We may even allow a secondary market for parking permits, which would make an interesting study in itself. This would go a long way to solving the congestion problem efficiently though a market mechanism. On top of it, the university would also make some extra cash!