Insomniac Caffeine Addict

Beautiful voices.

2011-12-12T07:40:00.006+08:00

Wow. Six months since my last post.

I thought I'd do something a little different here, since university and jobs and social things are getting quite droll now, and I really do want to not have to think of important things all the time. Instead, I'd like to pay tribute to some of the best vocalists I've heard, mostly inthe 21st century. Enjoy.

The vocalist here is Soundmouse, and I love this because of the way she harmonises - there are vocalists who are good at singing over a song, till the instrumentals disappear, but sometimes what you need is a more subtle approach.

Cee Lo Green has some considerable talents. Combined with Danger Mouse's composition, he rocks the microphone like a reborn Marvin Gaye.

Some of you might remember this song in the movie "V For Vendetta". Cat Power has that ageless voice that captures the imagination.

Skye Edwards, front vocalist for Morcheeba and labelled the 'voice of soul'.

Beth Gibbons, in a slow-burning song that builds into a sonic soundscape. Instrumentals from Rustin Man.

Florence Welch's voice needs no description. Bizarre, gothic lyrics somehow fit perfectly with her upbeat voice.

*Good music needs a good sundsystem to give it justice.

Flashback

2011-06-15T20:57:00.004+08:00

Three weeks ago, I took my resits for 4th year. The results would tell me whether I'd get to carry on the degree, or have to repeat a year, or God forbid, change my profession to "social commentator and general dogsbody" (last week, I got news that I'd passed, but six others didn't).

There's something terrible about having to resit an exam, especially one which you spent a year preparing for. The stakes are higher, the potential impact of your actions or inaction more clear. And there's the doubt as you measure yourself against yourself, and the jealousy as you measure yourself against others. And of course, the uncertainty, as you scramble to find out what went wrong, and what to do, all in a limited space of time.

Suddenly, I'd turned back into the little kid who was crying at not getting a math question right. My memory is fuzzy, but I remember sitting at a little blue plastic table that my parents had gotten just for me, and Dad was looking over my shoulder. I had learned about carrying units at school, and I'd been hammering at my workbook for a million years (time passes differently when you're a kid). I was on one of the last questions, the ones that would tell me If I'd gotten the idea of the lesson that day: 11+9=?

I thought to myself: "I know this, I can carry that number forward", and carried forward a little too much, and got 110 instead of 20.

Dad said, "not quite" (or something similar), quite calmly, and I stared at the question again.

When I saw what I'd done, tears started flowing down my cheeks. Dad must've thought he'd pushed me a little too hard, because he went quiet for a while.

But I wasn't crying because I'd been pushed too hard, and it wasn't anything that Dad had done: I was angry at me, because I KNEW the answer - I'd gotten the idea of units, I'd gotten the idea of carrying forward. And I KNEW I could add - but I'd overestimated myself, and didn't think of making that little check of where to put that carried unit. Dad wasn't pushing me too hard: I was the one who was pushing myself, and I wasn't happy because I'd failed to live up to my own expectations, because I assumed I was ok, rather than checking my working.

Fast forward to the present day: I'm not doing basic math anymore, in fact I'm very rarely doing math at all. This is a whole different game, a game played by grown-ups, where the rewards are getting your sick man to tomorrow, and failure is simply not an option: we don't make mistakes, because the consequences are visited on people who put their trust in us. In that sense, I guess I'm still that little kid I was: there's no such thing as getting 9 out of 10 in an exam: it's got to be perfect.

Of course that's not the reality: doctors make mistakes all the time, and med students even more so, but we don't aim for that. No doctor worth their salt will ever stop and say "that's good enough". Our all-or-nothing mentality is probably what really separates us from most other professions. It's what makes doctors workaholics and bad parents, alcoholics and smokers, nitpickers and critics of other peoples' work. It's what makes us more likely to keel over from heart attacks and jump off bridges.

And that's the way it's going to be, for a long time to come.

2011-06-02T04:00:00.002+08:00

It was over, the trepidation and the fear and hesitancy had all built up and been washed away by the exam - and now I walked across a field on the way home, away from the hospital and its examiners and simulated patients, away from the ECGs and plain film radiographs and blood test results that showed heart failure with Kerley B lines and primary hypothyroidism with macrocytic anaemia. I knew I was going back to Northampton tonight, to be ready to watch major thyroid cancer surgery and complete the tasks left in the workbook. But now, right here and now, with the sun in my face and the grass below my formal shoes, I was giddy as a child, I wanted to dance, I wanted to sing, I wanted to scream and shout for all the free time I had between now and when the bus came for me, to take me back to the world of operations and chemotherapy and ward rounds, of workbooks and signatures and reflective essays, of resits and exam results and degrees.

That evening in the field, I didn't do the things I wanted to. But I was glad, estatically and madly glad, which I hadn't been for a long, long time.

Random Discoveries

2010-12-31T08:57:00.003+08:00

I love the internet for its inherent power to access information, particularly new information that delights the senses and feeds the mind.

Number One: Poto and Cabengo

This really strange video is of Poto and Cabengo (Grace and Virginia Kennedy), a pair of twins who spoke their own unique language for the first 8 years of their lives. This is called idioglossia, and in this case is unique because of the duration which the children spoke it.

Number Two: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Marcus Aurelius was an ordinary bloke who ruled the Roman empire for 19 years, and was considered the last of the five "Good Emperors". He wrote down his thoughts, or Meditations, as they are now known, in his spare time, and though he never intended for anyone else to read them, his Meditations are considered one of the most important Stoic documents of all time. You can find copies strewn liberally across the internet, and I encourage you to look through them when you can - although it would be good to get one that has been translated into fairly modern English. Interestingly, there is a strong parallel between the tenets of Stoicism and those of Christianity.

Number Three: Mahalia Jackson

I stumbled on Mahalia via a friend who sent me a Duke Ellington song, and when I heard her voice my hairs stood on end. Nothing I write here will do justice to the sheer power of her voice, so I won't try. Instead, sit back, shut your eyes, and listen.

Number Four: Hardwired Happiness

Again, I'll let the main man do the talking. There's a massive truth in this that just isn't realised often enough, and whether you buy into it or not, take a while to reflect on how relevant your goals and ambitions are.

I hope that this New Year is an enlightening one.

Millenium I

2010-12-27T03:47:00.004+08:00

There's just something about really good books that makes you want to share them with everyone else - this is definitely one of the best I've read all year, and this year I read Joseph Conrad, Bram Stoker and WIlliam Golding. Dragon Tattoo was the one that I absolutely couldn't put down.

For those of you who don't know, Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (the first in the Millenium trilogy) begins with a semi-failed financial journalist being placed in an Agatha Christie-styled mystery. From the one-sentence summary, the book could devolve into just another factory-made novel, but doesn't because Larsson throws so many other things into the mix that we sometimes forget that the book is about a missing girl.

Making the main character (Mikael Blomvkist) a financial journalist was Larsson's first major deviation from the formula, and allows him to ground his character in a very different reality from that of the common thriller - we've heard enough about the detectives who always seem to have the same modus operandi, and we've become bored by the everymen who stumble on improbable government conspiracies in every other thriller.

Not every thriller has to be about an amnesiac assassin, and not everything is the fault of powerful people in American or Russian governments. Blomvkist, being the only main character in a thriller who has other things to worry about besides the main plot, doesn't even believe that there is a murder for a while. Instead, he desperately wants a crack at one of Sweden's stockbrokers, a wholly different beast, more elusive and much harder to kill. No matter what the reader thinks of the topic, we feel Larsson's clear disgust at an economy where bankers can lose millions to currency speculation and get away with it.

Henrik Vanger drags Blomvkist into the situation by hiring him to solve the decades-old mystery. Vanger is the former owner of the Vanger corporation, a company that actually produces goods rather than trading stocks. He is a man of industry, represents Sweden's declining manufacturing power, old but still wielding considerable financial and political clout. Through him, Larsson reminds us that there is a distinction between the share market and a true economy based on production.

But Blomvkist and Vanger both take a backseat to Lisbeth Salander, for whom the book is named. She dresses like a punk, acts like she is socially unaware and has no friends, but is capable of digging up the deepest, darkest secrets of anyone with a social security number. She is initially hired to do a background check on Blomvkist, and gets more involved in the mystery for her own reasons. Salander is an enigma, including, we suspect, to Larsson when he first began writing. We understand that something terrible has happened to her, but don't know exactly what (until the next book); we know that she operates on her own set of principles, but can't be sure what drives her to create them in the first place. And because she is such a unique person, we find ourselves waiting to see how she behaves, just so that we can divine more about her mind.

The book has so many extras that it almost defies the Law of Necessary Characters. Notables include Erika Berger, Blomvkist's lover and partner; Nils Bjurman, Salander's guardian; Harriet Vanger, the girl whos dissappearance still influences Henrik Vanger; her brother Martin who has grown to take over the Vanger corporation, and Dragan Armansky, Salander's boss. All of them add their own colour to the picture, and serve to make the book so much more than just another thriller.

Larsson writes so that the plot becomes a tool to allow for character development, which is so far another unique aspect of the book. Part of the way in, I found myself thinking more about why the characters behaved the way they did, than about how they solve the mystery. A clue comes in the book's original Swedish name - Män som hatar kvinnor. Its English translation is Men Who Hate Women.

Nov 4th - Dec 22nd

2010-12-23T04:29:00.005+08:00

In my earliest incarnation of this blog, I declared loudly that I wouldn't make it about what I did last Thursday, or who I had coffee with. This post is diary-esque, but I don't think of it as breaking the rules, but maybe bending them a little - after all, I've not truly blogged in a long time, and I want to put down some of my experiences in words before they slip out of memory. Maintaining policy, I've tried to make this more about the ideas that spawned from events, rather than the events themselves - and therefore have cut out a few events about which my ideas are still developing.

When I got back from Malaysia on the 9th, I went straight back to work - the Mental Health block was in full swing, and I buried myself in it as much as I could, to stay occupied. Come to think of it, I really did enjoy the block, even though it was rather bad timing, and involved a lot of travelling between three hospitals - the Leicester General, the Glenfield General and another one in (of all places!) Coalville.

Granddad died on Wednesday November 24th, 2010. He passed away without suffering, and left behind a wife, four children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. I don't think I will fully comprehend how much he did for the country, nor am I sure that I want to. All I know is that he was my granddad, and I will remember him as such.

I flew back for the funeral the next evening (Thursday), arriving in the wee hours of Saturday morning. It was my third flight in four weeks, and I felt it - but what I felt was nothing compared to what grandma and the rest of the family are feeling, and I shan't make a mountain out of it - I managed to make it back for the funeral, and for that I am grateful.

The funeral itself was an outpouring of grief, for us, and for people who'd never met him but were profoundly affected by his governance. But as ever, the politicians and reporters were there, hoping to prey on his reputation. I refuse to let their presence spoil the memory of that event - it was dignified, and it was cathartic. For us, and for the hundreds of people who gave up their time to say their prayers or help in some other way, it was to mourn his passing, and remember his life.

The silver lining was meeting up with family, especially those whom I hadn't met in years, or in some cases, whom I had never met before. But there was little time to get to know them. I spent less than 2 days on the ground before flying back to Leicester and jumping straight back into the block, which was now in full swing.

The weekend after the flight, I went to London for a WHO simulation, and argued my heart out with fellow 'delegates'. I learned a few things about Malaysia - we're apparently the world's 19th largest trading nation (or 21st, depending on the sources you use), and we have our own pharmaceutical industry - most of our companies produce generic drugs, but we do have a few patents, including a 3-in-1 antiretroviral that allows users to take a single pill a day, rather than having to remember them all. The WHO sim was true to life in that we didn't manage to pass any of the major resolutions about drug patents - at one point we were quite literally arguing over a comma, and I felt myself die just a little bit.

On the social side of the WHO sim, we saw the Ameteur Transplants, a comedy duo who were both practicing GPs. They were excellent in every way, although there are some sketches that I simply can't repeat. I met some new and old friends as well, whom I hope to meet again sometime in the future.

Back in Leicester, I was thrown immediately into two subsections of the block - learning disabilities, and elderly week. LD, as it's called, is a junction between neurology and psychiatry, because the brains of LD patients have experienced some kind of insult in birth or early childhood, and comprises a spectrum of disease ranging from Down's syndrome to Autism. The consultant I was attached to was appropriately trained in neurology and psychiatry. LD was incredibly interesting, and looks to be a challenging field - when patients don't communicate the same way that you do, it becomes a Sherlock Holmes-styled detective game to find out what's wrong.

Elderly week was...bad. I could tell the moment the smell of old people wafted towards me on the ward. My suspicions were confirmed by the fact there was a lump of poo and a pool of urine towards one corner of the corridor, and a voice in the distance saying "please God, I can't take it anymore," over and over again.

I met a few lovely ladies, along with the psychiatric baggage they brought with them. Susan (name changed) had frontal lobe dementia, which meant that her mood and personality had been forever altered because the part of her brain controlling it was degenerating. She spent her time shouting at everyone as loudly as she could. Janet, whom I later discovered was the source of both the body waste and the incessant talk of not taking anymore, had full-blown Alzheimer's. Annie, on the other hand, seemed completely sensible except that she insisted to be sent home, and would burst into tears every time I said I couldn't do that because I was a medical student. After about 30 minutes of trying to take a history from a lady who would only talk about going home or cry about the same, I took the opportunity to disappear while she was distracted.

Of course, the unspoken question in geriatrics is, what happens to you when you grow old -mentally, and physically? I suppose I'd have to get used to depending on people, but the idea that my mind is going to slowly decline into nothingness - that doesn't bear thinking about. I value my mind above so many other things: cogito ergo sum, what are we without our minds?

A final week in General Adult just confirmed how fascinating psychiatry is. Schizophrenia in particular is just...incredible, simply because of the things that people see and hear. One thing also quite interesting is the "delusional system", a system of false beliefs that people build for themselves based on something that they see or hear (whether it's a hallucination or a real perception). For example, someone may hallucinate of a little green man which then disappears, but then build a belief that the Martians are sending recon teams to scout the planet before they invade us en masse, and nobody can see them because they disappear when people do.

Depression on the other hand is a completely different kettle of fish. Being severely depressed is like having your deepest darkest fears come true, and then accepting them because you think you're worthless. And then there's depression with psychosis, when people hear voices telling them that they're worthless, and other nice things like they'd be better off dead, and that they aught to commit suicide. Nasty stuff.

The exam, for such an interesting topic, was actually kind of disappointing. There was no mention of eating disorder (up to 10% mortality rate), substance abuse (worth US$40 billion a year for the cartels in Mexico), and just a smidgeon of personality disorder (psychopathy, which is best described in Hannibal Lecter, wasn't covered at all!). We had a few videos and some questions about them - oddly enough, the sad person was depressed, the one who thought God had a personal message for him was schizophrenic (irony?), and the one who was worried in crowds had social anxiety disorder. In all fairness, psychiatry is a massive field, and a single exam probably wouldn't be enough to cover all of it. But at least try, dammit!

Following the short and fortunately sweet exam is the Christmas holiday, and for once it's an honest chance to take a quick breather, and reflect on what's happened in the past few weeks. It's also an opportunity to meet up with friends before the long march to IPE, which brings me to the present moment - sipping at leftover Bak Kut Teh from last night's dinner and listening to Max Richter. I'm going to keep myself busy this holiday, because I have so much to do, and for once I actually want to do it.

Ineffectual Gesture

2010-11-04T04:43:00.004+08:00

My granddad had a stroke last Tuesday and is now in a coma. He may never wake up.

The media descended on the ITU almost immediately, followed soon after by the politicians. I arrived, tired and disorientated, direct from England, only after the press had been picking at the news for days.

I know it's bad because almost the whole family has gathered, even the cousin I haven't seen in four years because he moved to America.

We visit twice a day, even after midnight. My aunt, the more spiritual among us, reads prayers in English and Tibetan. She brings monks to chant some more, at least every second day. I've given up trying to understand the spiritual world, but the Tibetan prayers somehow calm the nerves, taking the edge off.

The rest of us whisper into his ear and hold his hand, and on good days we get a few twitches in his fingers, one every few minutes, and we talk more about everything, anything, because we hope he can hear us, and because silence would be an admission of defeat.

On other days, when there's been no response, we sit and stare, trying to divine his fate from the lines running across the screen. So what if his blood pressure has gone up by 12/8? What difference is it that he has a ventricular ectopic after every 8 heartbeats instead of after 9? It's a pointless, futile endeavour - Mum and Dad know it, I know it, the cousins and aunts know it, the doctors know it - but we all do it anyway, because on bad days, the monitor and the chart are the only link we have to him.

Questions are asked - Should we resuscitate if he has a cardiac failure? How long do we want to wait for him to wake up? Four years of training seem useless as I try to help come up with answers.I explain how resuscitation can leave people with broken ribs and punctured lungs, and how it may be better to not resuscitate. As the words leave my mouth, I feel like I've betrayed him.

We visit again, arriving in ITU after midnight and staying for hours, watching the lines move slowly across the screen as the machine pumps air into and our of his lungs. It's an ineffectual gesture, accomplishing nothing. But it's all we can do to show we care, and by God or Buddha or the powers that be, we will do it for as long as we can.

Zen Stories

2010-08-10T12:26:00.003+08:00

I was sharing this story with a friend, and realised that it was good food for thought. It's only a story, and whether you agree with it is not important, but understanding it may bring you to understand other things.

In the hills of Nepal are set tiny villages, where the locals cling to life by farming, or more recently, by trading with tourists. In one of these villages there is a roadsidestall where tea is sold from a great boiling cauldron, at two different prices - 5 dollars, and 500 dollars. For both prices, the same tea is taken from the exact same cauldron, poured into the exact same cups, and served in exactly the same manner. Some travellers who buy the expensive tea say they have been cheated, others insist that it is the best cup of tea they've ever had in their lives.

There are those who look but do not see, but maybe the pilgrimmage to seek is the more important than the epiphany of discovery. Happy interpreting.

The SLEEP OUT (Part 3)

2010-08-03T07:18:00.004+08:00

Every once in a while, you meet someone who simply defies your understanding of human ability. Carl was one of these people - he had been standing non-stop in the cold for 8 hours, with just an extra T-shirt over the one he already had on.

As we tried to bury ourselves in our blankets, Carl looked like he was having the time of his life. He was humming tunefully to himself while strolling around, occasionally looking a student the same way a shepherd might look at his sheep. As the religious drunk continued rambling to the students, I decided to dust myself off, and have a chat with Carl, who turned out to be quiet, unassuming, and really nice. Maybe being homeless changes your attitudes to people.

Carl, as the story goes, was thrown out onto the streets after a disagreement with his wife. He was homeless for 4 days before being picked up by Action Homeless, who put him in sheltered accommodation, and then into semi-permanent housing, where he’d been for about three months. Carl is looking to be an electrician, and I want to think that he’s succeeded in that dream, even though I’ll probably never meet him again.

Around 2am, the night’s revellers began to show up, teetering down the road in ones and twos. Most passed us by curiously and in peace. Some time later, a trio of revellers sang loudly and asked their friends among us to join them, but we scared them away by asking them to donate. But then, another drunkard showed up, and recognising another sleep-outer as his cousin, began loudly abusing him for being on the street.

Within seconds, Carl was towering over the drunk. Without raising his voice, Carl asked very diplomatically whether there was a problem. Given that Carl is built like a tank, and that other members of our group were starting to surround him like zookepers controlling a dangerous animal, the drunkard’s answer was “no”, and he bade a hasty retreat around the corner.

Situation resolved, we got back into our sleeping bags. Carl resumed humming a happy song as if nothing happened. The night wore on, the trickle of drunkards thinned and finally stopped, and things got quiet again.

Around 3.30am – Even after the commotion, sleep remained elusive. A few of us stayed up chatting about Life, the Universe and Everything (the answer is confirmed to be forty-two), and a few others were forced to fulfil a few more basic bodily functions – we turned to the destroyer of arteries, the purveyor of obesity, the murderer of cows... we had no choice, we were defeated. Into the shiny plastic doors of McDonalds we marched.

On our way there, we noticed a sleep-outer in her blanket – she was shivering heavily, and wasn’t particularly responsive to us trying to wake her up. We convinced her to get out of her blanket and led her to the hellflames of McDonald’s to warm up, and fed her a pack of chips [Note: This is the only recorded case in this blog of McDonalds food ever being beneficial to your health, please see here for the McDonalds experiment that made me stop eating McDonalds food].

5am – officially one hour to go, but our job was effectively complete. The garish advertising lights and black of shadow began to fade away, giving way to faded colours of sleep-outers waking up. People were stirring in their blankets; conversations were mumbled. Some started to pack up. We three went one step ahead began planning our escape by taxi.

At 5.30, the heavens opened up. The sleep-outers packed frantically while our getaway car swung into view. It was curtains-down time as the taxi powers away, while we stared at the rapidly dissolving crowd of sleep-outers.

End.

The SLEEP OUT (Part 2)

2010-05-30T05:41:00.009+08:00

10pm in Leicester town square, and the sun had fully set. As temperatures fell and a chill wind picked up, most of us hunkered down in our sleeping bags and thought of getting some warm food in the McD's next door. Conversation began to wane, although a small group remained awake playing frisbee or catch rugby.

Midnight came, and it got even colder. We started to realise just how ineffective our gear was - the wind was going straight through my jeans, and my built-for-the-tropics sleeping bag wasn't really helping. Enter the Salvation Army, run by the nicest old couple you will ever meet. They started distributing blankets (oddly with Australian Airlines logos), then brought groups of us to their main building for some free food - tasty, tasty food. It reminded me of going for dinner at an uncle's place, and they made it really quite difficult for us to leave. My little eating group was an odd bunch - we had a Canadian version of Gok Wan, a girl who was organising for the event, and a postgrad who was technically a year below me. Interesting banter ensued as we munched down on restaurant-quality shepherd's pie.

It was 1am when our group headed back to the cardboard town. Things had become substantially better and our spirits were up when a drizzle began. We scurried for the cover of a nearby shop... and were told by the organisers that we weren't allowed to lean against the shop windows!

Now, this is apparently what happened - when HOMED contacted Leicester City Council about the event, the LCC designated an area in which we were allowed to sleep - and apparently, this area was literally, an open space with no shade, and no contact with any walls save for that of the Clock Tower - because somehow the tiny tower can magically shade a hundred people from the rain.

Fortunately, it wasn't heavy - and the waterproof gear that I'd brought with me finally proved its worth. We sat it out with a few umbrellas, and I snuggled under the now-warm sleeping bag to get a bit of sleep.

Roughly 1.30am - I woke up to the image of a weathered old man standing over us, saying something about God to one of the students - and since I'm not going into the God argument again, I decide to old my tongue. From what I overheard, he believed that by doing good things such as sleeping out for charity, we were carrying out God's work. I'll leave the reader to mull that one over.

After the God discussion, I spoke to him and it turned out that he was kicked out by family because of a drinking problem. Having nowhere to go and no money to pay fo shelter, he took to the streets clutching a 2-litre bottle of cheap beer, and that's how we found him.What strikes me is that he'd been given medical treatment (I think it was Naltrexone), ran out of it, and relapsed before he could get more - and when you're trying to rebuild your life, one bad day can sweep away everything you've accomplished. The fact that this man could buy 2 litres of alcohol with what money he had probably didn't help either.

At some point in the night (I can't tell exactly when), we were joined by two more homeless people who were looking for a place to sleep. All I know is that there were suddenly two homeless people with us when there weren't any before. They had apparently been looking for shelter and were turned away because everything was full, and therefore had wandered around till they found us. Ironic really that they were trying to find shelter, while we decided to leave ours for a night.

Having been woken up by the religious alcoholic, I got up and spoke to Carl, the man I mentioned in Part 1. He had been standing guard over us since the night started at 6, and had literally not sat down or rested in any form for 8 hours...

To be continued.

The SLEEP OUT (Part 1)

2010-05-23T01:35:00.009+08:00

All right, the post you've been waiting for. On May 11th, a not-quite summer evening, I joined about eighty other students on the streets in Leicester for twelve hours, hosted and organised by student group HOMED.

The first question you would probably ask is "why?!" Three reasons I can think of: first of all, it was to raise money and awareness of the homeless. Secondly, I personally wanted to know how it felt to be on the streets. And thirdly...well, when would I ever get another chance to do something as brilliant, and as mad, as this?

No matter the reasons, that night was something more to me than an impulsive moment. I think I've reached a point where I no longer want to just accumulate knowlege - I want to use my time and abilities to do something useful.

In either case, everything kicked off at 5.30pm at the university, where we all gathered with sleeping bags and other kit. After some handing out of food items and mingling, we wandered off to the clock tower, which was conveniently stocked with cardboard sheets. There was a fair number of other people around, including some people from the Salvation Army and Action Homeless, the charity for which we were collecting the money. Also on site was a big man called Carl, who had been homeless and was at the time being housed by Action Homeless.

Let me tell you, if you're ever out on a cold street, cardboard is essential - not to keep you clean (let's admit it, you have bigger things to worry about when you're on a street), but to keep you warm - the concrete pavement is an excellent conductor and will happily absorb your precious body heat, even if you're wrapped up. Dry cardboard, no matter how grungy or thin, will insulate you from the pavement and allow your body heat to build up in that sleeping bag.

Within minutes, a brown field of overlapping cardboard sheets sprang out around the clock tower, and patches of friends had mushroomed up in their own little groups, chatting or playing cards. I planted myself among a few acquaintences and listened as the CEO of Action Homeless gave us some information on what exactly they did, and how the money we raised was going to be spent.

It turns out that the UK has quite a decent support system for the homeless. There are two groups of homeless in Leicester - the ones who want to be, and therefore reject help, and those who don't want to be, but don't have access to help. People from the latter group tend to be out on the streets for about a week before being picked up and provided accomodation in a hostel (A week is nothing really in the tropics, but over here a week in winter is quite literally deadly if you aren't properly clothed). As soon as is reasonable, they get moved out of the hostels into semi-permanet housing, which is provided by Action Homeless and paid for by the government. The challenge after that is to bring these people back to their normal lives - the two major barriers are the lack of available accomodation, and the people becoming habituated in their hostels. Of course, then the people need to deal with whatever reason they were homeless in the first place, mostly revolving around too much drink, too little work, and relationships that go sideways.

It was about 7pm, and still bright, when we'd finished discussing the ins and outs of everything. The mayor of Leicester appeared, fully kitted up with a man-in-black bodyguard, and stayed chatting with us for about an hour, even after the cameraman stopped taking pictures. I didn't speak to him, but he seemed like a nice guy. The best way for me to describe him was Michael Caine wearing a graduation robe and some serious neck bling.

We got quite a lot of attention from shoppers and other passers-by until it started getting dark around 9pm. As the crowd thinned out, tedium started to set in until a frisbee and rugby ball appeared, both of which would remain on scene for the better part of the night. Still, it made me wonder what exactly the homeless do for fun - and the answer is, not much. Alone on these streets, you rapidly become invisible.

All was well until the temperature started dropping...

To be continued.

Oscillation

2010-05-03T18:56:00.004+08:00

Recent discussions with a good friend have brought me back to a very old quote that I put up:

"A reasonable man adapts himself to his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw

The quote is self-explanatory - to adapt oneself is to lay down one's values, and therefore to keep doing things the same way. For someone to keep fighting for what they believe in, they must keep believing, especially when the environment doesn't let them believe. That's the point when inaction tips over into activity, and people start changing the environment to accomodate themselves.

Yet, constant activity isn't possible - it requires a very manic kind of person to struggle on against improbable odds, and the odds are indeed improbable. The very human desire for improvement is matched by an equally human desire to be content with these improvements. We balance on a see-saw of these two, and finally when one side of the board is grounded for too long, we tip it back up, until our side of the board starts coming back down again.

Now, everyone exists in this state. But some people will spend most of their time in the relaxed, happy side of the board. These are the ones who are the happiest, though certainly not the most productive. A few will be constantly pushing for more, tipping the see-saw towards change. They will never truly be happy with themselves, even though people will admire their sacrifice. And a very small, elite group will have got it just right, so that the see-saw is perfectly balanced between improvement and contentedness - don't we hate them for it.

I Want Change

2010-04-10T02:26:00.003+08:00

A long time ago, a little boy wrote in his blog about changing the world. He expected everyone to rally to his cause, and that everything would happen like the start-to-end linear plot to a World War Two movie, with obstacles swept aside like leaves in the wind.

I realise now that change doesn't happen that way. For the tiniest thing on Earth you want to change, you need to move mountains within yourself. When things are comfortable, you need something else to create change - some kind of stimulus, some build-up of pressure. You need to make yourself uncomfortable, to the point that you can't bear being in a situation which everyone else finds ideal. You need to stop being satisfied with yourself, and being happy with the way you live your life. You need to doubt. And that's something that not everyone is willing to do.

A lot has happened to me to make me take this first step. Please, help me take my second.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107755979261034#!/event.php?eid=107755979261034&ref=mf

Sketch Art

2010-02-12T21:31:00.007+08:00

Sketch art, as some of you may know, is a pretty big hobby of mine, and since a friend has asked me about techniques, I thought I'd share a few here. I'm not a great artist and don't pretend to be, so this advice is really just about the more straightforward concepts.

Right, so we start off with structuring - this is possibly the most important part of the sketch, since without an outline, your sketch won't look like whomever you're drawing. I'll post a focused set of drawings indicating structure in a while, but in the meantime, if you compare them side by side, my character's head is a little bit wider than the original's. This gives my sketch a broader face, which means that the features are spread wider apart (note the distance between the eye and nose). Poor placement has potential to completely mess up a picture, so be careful with where you place your features - the nose is particularly annoying because there's no good measure of where it is in relation with the rest of the face.

In this picture, the nose is the right length, but separated from the right eye by too far a distance, giving our Spartan queen a much broader face than she really has. Another good measure to place the nose is the distance between the eyes and between the eyebrows. The eyebrows maintain the right distance, but the eyes aren't the right distance apart. One way to make sure you have the right structuring is to draw just the outline of the picture, then compare it against the original until you get the exact proportions right.

Right, moving on to shading. Shading is what gives the picture depth, and without it your drawing won't stand out as being any good at all. I generally use two kinds of shading - hatching (using the tip of the pencil) and blending (using the flat end of the pencil, then rubbing it smooth with tissue paper or a finger). Other variants of shading are listed here, and I'm fairly certain that there are more out there.

Here, the majority of the shading is done by blending hatched lines, for example in the forehead. Combining these techniques gives the control of hatching and the convenience of blending, and to further darken the picture I simply added another layer of hatching over the first and blended them together, for example the neck. This allowed me to control the transition from light to dark, and just how bright or dark I wanted my picture to be.

An equally important concept in shading is that of negative space - space that is so light that you don't shade it, but instead the area around it. Note the hair and shoulder on the right side of the picture - instead of shading in the light parts of the hair, I shaded around it. The same applied for the bridge of the nose, the ball of the chin, the shoulder, and the edge of the face further away from the viewer. Filling those spaces in required that I left them alone.

Compare the Batmen. See how much difference a bit of shading makes? Note especially the shoulder and chest on the right. In the first drawing, it looks flat, with little to distinguish what's near from what's far. In the second, the pencil creates two layers - a darker part closer to the viewer, and a lighter part (negative space again) further away.

Shading adds the perception of light and shadow, for example the shadow of the second Batman's head on his chest creates the impression that the light is coming from behind.

Note the hatching above the eyebrows and above the cheeks in both pictures, used to make the face appear closer to the viewer. In the second picture, blending has been added to further distinguish the face from the rest of the head. The blending below the nose, mouth and chin add more layers of depth and shadow to create the illusion of distance, and negative space again applies for the back and sides of the head, the area above the lips, and the shoulder on the right side of the picture.

Development FTW?

2010-02-01T15:20:00.005+08:00

Readapting to being in your home country again on holiday is a slow, torturous process involving progress, setbacks, withdrawal symptoms and overcoming dependence. And that's just for my parents. As I leave behind the last of the drowsiness and realise it's 3 in the afternoon, I realise how much of a pain I've been to my family, who've rebuilt their schedule around NOT having to babysit me 24-7. Oh well, I'm only here for two more weeks.

Penang hasn't changed, despite the new politicians in charge, the church arsonry in KL, and the fact that I've been away from it all for so long. Part of me demands an explanation why the island hasn't fallen apart without my leadership, but the rest of me knows that I'm not actually Batman despite whatever childhood fantasies I may have had.

But despite the apparent similarities, Penang has changed for me - the good shops aren't where I remember anymore, I'm still not used to to now-massive (and soulless) Gurney Plaza, and they're renovating the shops at the bottom of the hill. In fact, they seem to be tearing down everything. Housing complexes are growing like mushrooms on the Batu Feringghi hills, as well as pretty much everywhere else in the state. Marinas stick into the sea like pseudopodia. Penang is multiplying, and sooner or later I swear the island is going to split in two to accomodate the population.

Which begs the question, when people talk about development, what do they really mean? For the businessmen development means new roads, new factories, new workplaces. But speak to the everymen and their answers differ. They want an end to the traffic jams, the dirty streets. The youth want more (but cheaper) nightlife and shopping complexes. In uni I learned that development wasn't just about building things - it was about providing opportunities to people. Things like having an art gallery for artists, or better schools for children. Penang, however, disagrees with me - everywhere I go, I realise just how lacking the island is in public, government-provided amenities.

In Leicester, there are two massive parks within 20 minutes walk of my house. Public toilets are fairly common. There's a museum in New Walk, a public footpath which has little gardens built into it. Even some of the shops (the co-operative) are publicly owned, and the hospital has a really decent cafeteria which gives you good value for money. If you're broke or intend not to splurge any money, you can spend your time in a field just enjoying nature or playing frisbee, or pop into the free museum to dabble in a bit of culture. There are so many free art galleries and museums in the London city centre that you can spend more than a week exploring them. Penang is rather different. Our public amenities seem to be places where builders haven't reached, like Penang Hill, or Keracut (although i'm sure they're trying). Even the public beaches seem are the ones which they can't build hotels around. How many public places are there in town? Along any one street, how many buildings can you casually walk into without intending to spend money? Government amenities simply don't seem to exist, or are aimed to serve certain groups in particular (such as businessmen) instead of the public.

I'm not aware of how we intend to address this, or even whether we intend to. But something feels wrong about where we're heading, and the least we could do is to stop calling it development.

Movie Review Time!

2010-01-20T23:15:00.003+08:00

Before I begin the actual post, I need you guys to be my witnesses for something. I hereby declare that “I shall not download any more films before I finish watching at least ¾ of the ones I’ve already downloaded”. However, I’ve decided to make some exceptions. Technically, I watched them already on the flight back home and am simply adding them onto my list of greats, so they don’t really count. I’ve omitted reviewing Surrogates and Transformers 2, simply because I don’t really think they’re worth discussing. Anyways, the first of these films is...

Moon

“…What?” you ask. You may or may not have heard of Moon, starring Sam Rockwell. It’s a quietly intelligent sci-fi, minimalist in design but punching far above its weight. The premise is simple: Sam Bell is the only man on the moon, overseeing the automated mining station that provides the world with clean energy. Home is 40 minutes away by videophone, thanks to old tech that isn’t going to be upgraded anytime soon, and Sam’s only company is GERTY (an AI with the disembodied voice of Kevin Spacey) and delayed video transmissions from Sam’s wife and his employers. At the end of his three-year contract, he’s just about ready to go home, when things take a turn for the bizarre.

Now lets’ stop and think about this. The film has so far intelligently stuck with exploring ideas that are so-often left out of sci-fi (or glanced over to add pseudo-emotion before tossing in more fight scenes), ideas like how isolation affects the mind, GERTY’s uncanny valley effect which affects us but which Sam has grown immune to, and what happens to people after three years in an automated space station.

At this point, the plot could go anywhere, from the usual sci-fi stuff like aliens and the man-versus-machine battle, to the save-the-world (space station?) disaster movie, or, Lord forbid, the Sunshine-esque horror hack-and-slash. We’ve seen promising films collapse at this plot point, but cleverly Moon avoids this by making Sam have an accident while driving out to fix a roving miner, and waking up back at base. But hang on, how did he get back in from outside the base? Why is he looking healthier than before even though he had a major accident? How come he doesn’t seem to remember anything? And is GERTY really the calm mechanical butler he appears to be, or is he (it?) up to something else?

To elaborate further would be to give away the plot, so I won’t do that. Instead I’ll tell you that Moon explores even more ideas, like what it means to be human, and how people change over time. GERTY’s true role is revealed, leaving the audience simultaneously relieved, disappointed, and curious. Whether or not you spot the plot twist (after all it’s been used before), Moon is so well-directed and well-acted that the twist becomes secondary to the ideas that it conveys to the audience. And that’s the hallmark of good sci-fi.

(500) Days of Summer

This is a surprisingly good film, despite it being a romantic comedy (At this point the more macho of my readers may call me gay, shoot me in the back several times over, and then dump my blog address in the recycling bin and my body into a ditch somewhere). But hear me out, because this one is different.

Right at the start of the film, you’re warned straight up that it doesn’t end with the guy getting the girl, which on its own would make the film stand out against all the other rom-coms. You’re then told what happens, but you’re never told why. In fact, you get the feeling that nobody really know why, another one-up against the Freudian cause-and-effect approach of other rom-coms. Zooey Deschanel’s leading lady Summer remains complex, mysterious, and inaccessible to the main man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the audience. Even as the relationship evolves and grows, Summer declares that she’s interested only in friendship; Tom, who’s a classical romantic, struggles against the contradicting signs she gives him.

The film flits back and forth from good times to bad, not in the slow unstoppable spiral of a crashing relationship, but in the manner of a man desperately trying to understand why everything fell to pieces, and getting no answers. Eventually, we watch as the main man stops asking why the jigsaw is incomplete, accepts it as it is, and moves on with his life. And we can relate to that.

News Recap

2010-01-20T00:28:00.007+08:00

Wow, it's been more than a month since I made my last post. Exams have left me thoroughly washed out, which I hope will disappate soon because I want to enjoy learning again, especially about non-medical stuff which i've neglected for a long while. So, in light of the pursuit of new knowledge, I thought it was time to look back at what managed to catch my eye over the past few months:

Bhopal, India, 1984: A chemical factory spewed tonnes of toxic gas into the air, killing thousands and exposing half a million to chronic diseases. A quarter of a century later, villagers say they still feel the effects. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8388355.stm

In 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez spilled its contents into the Alaskan ocean, wiping out thousands of miles of coastland. In recent news, oil has been detected just under the surface of these gravel beaches. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8465607.stm

These stories are reminders that the environment is more delicate than we think.

In other news, animals are smarter than we think, using tools (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8181233.stm), mind control (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383577.stm) and disinfectant (http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8152000/8152574.stm), and even being picky in their mates (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/sci_nat_enl_1248872466/html/1.stm), although some get a bit confused about the species barrier (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8281382.stm). Some mating battles are simply more titanic than others, as proven by the filming of these humpback whales (http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8318000/8318182.stm). And just because nature is cool, here are some pretty pictures: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/sci_nat_enl_1256135662/html/1.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8364761.stm

And we still keep learning from nature, in less desirable (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8237691.stm) and more desirable (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8286500.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/south_of_scotland/8279194.stm ) and some bizarre (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8302903.stm) ways.

To round it off, a few articles that which we so desire, choice:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8280564.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8395780.stm

I'll not say much this time, because if you follow up on all these articles it'll be enough to make your head spin. It's time for you guys to decide what to read, and what to believe.

Late Night Insomniac Rant

2009-12-05T09:28:00.004+08:00

First of all I think Hean really managed to express my thoughts of proper conduct here:

http://hean.whatthetoot.com/toot/a-liberal-decalogue-bertrand-russell

And secondly, a guide to expression, formation and discarding of opinions.

1. When expressing your opinion, do so in the most polite manner, rather than the most agressive one. Examples include:

"I believe the way to salvation is by believing in our Holy Lord the Flying Spaghetti Monster",

Instead of:

"If you've ever done something wrong (which you have!) then you're going to spend a really really long time being drowned alive in a scorpion-filled vat of rotting animals while having a painful discharge from an embarrasing orifice".

2. If your opinion cannot be disproven, it doesn't necessarily mean it's absoulte truth. Examples include:

"I believe that a benevolent green lobster floats magically and stealthily above the heads of every third person but that these lobsters cannot be detected using any form of technology."

3. Always respect the opinions of others and consider whether they may actually be correct. This may save a future potential Galileo a lot of grief.

4. If you really cannot change someone's mind about something, and suspect there are other things to do like save your neighbour's cat from being eaten alive by a very confused and possibly psycopathic child, then it would be wiser to walk away from a disagreement and do something useful.

5. Don't stop someone from doing anything unless it's something that they'll regret, or makes life difficult for other people who are just trying to make ends meet. If someone of sound mind really wants to walk into the back of their cupboard to see if Narnia exists, then really that is up to them.

Tide of Endless Information

2009-11-11T20:53:00.007+08:00

We seem to be approaching a critical point. Advances in printing technology, then digital storage, have left us with an almost endless ability to record, store, and view data. Prior to this, libraries had to decide which records to keep and which not to, because storing literally everything they came across was simply impossible. On the upside, the ability to store endless amounts of data mean that we can record practically everything with practically no effort, saving the world incredible amounts of work. The problem now is what exactly we do with that data.

In the past, walking into a good library almost guaranteed that you wouldn’t find a bad book. In the process of selecting, libraries had to discard what they felt wasn’t important or interesting, meaning that every book would interest at least one reader, no matter how obscure or specialist it was. The internet has no such qualms. In its power to store vast amounts of information, some problems emerge.

The first problem is the fact that as we store more of the useless, we have watered down the useful. Imagine a library dedicated to your favourite genre of books (let’s say sci-fi/fantasy). Now imagine that the library has every sci-fi/fantasy book ever written, and we begin to see the scale of the problem. At best, walking into a library like this would mean spending your time in the “most popular” section, with books that everyone likes. At worst, you will have to spend ages running between sections looking for the books that you like. But then, what if you’re looking for a good book to borrow? Whether you go at it in an orderly fashion, or pick and choose at random, you may have to read through a thousand books before you find a good one. When you have almost infinite data, even the best sorting system in the world can’t differentiate what is interesting from what isn’t, and you are left with a homogenous ghoulash from which to pick your meat.

Now, imagine what happens if you were a writer, with the daunting task of creating a book that will stand out among the others. You look into this library and see walls of books stretching into infinity, covering every kind of sci-fi/fantasy from every possible angle. Your fingers start to tremble, and as you stare into the abyss you find yourself asking two questions: “Will what I write ever be discovered? And worse, has someone already written what I wanted to?” These questions bring up the next two problems.

As the library grows ever larger, each book, no matter how good on its own, begins to lose its significance – even seminal works like Lord of the Rings fade into the darkness as readers wander confused between shelves. As you bring in more data, readers may spend their entire lives in the library without ever discovering the truly excellent books. And this is a depressing thought.

The next problem is how an author can leave their mark on a vast library like this. How do they know their fresh ideas haven’t already been explored by others, making the new work redundant? Will the new author’s works forever be compared against that of others? Imagine writing what you thought was a fresh new book and having reviewers calling it “a cross between Huxley’s Brave New World and Adams's Mostly Harmless”. Even though those may be two excellent books in the author’s mind, will he really be happy when he realises that his idea was covering old ground? Even more disturbing, does he have any new ground on which to work?

Referencing and quotation are some things I'm also guilty of. In that sense, I have undermined the originality of my own work by comparing it to something already established - If what I wrote was truly original, I'd never have to compare it with anything else, simply because I wouldn't be able to. Referring to past works is an easy way of establishing a landmark in the shifting desert that is our history, and a truly original writer should ideally start with a blank slate, with nothing to compare against so as not to be influenced - so perhaps our most creative works were when we first picked up a crayon as a child.

As a casual blogger, I feel a twinge of concern when I think a post isn’t fresh enough or won't be read by enough people, and I can only imagine how bad it is for someone who makes a living out of making things new and original. But some are compelled to write, simply because the path they take to compose means they can look deeper into themselves. If all else fails, Marcus Aurelius always has something practical to say:

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.

Perhaps the best way to approach writing then, is not to make sure what you write is unique, but to make sure it is beautiful. And perhaps that will save us from being overwhelmed by the oncoming tide of endless information.

Bumper crop of a fortnight

2009-11-10T10:45:00.004+08:00

...or a fortnight of bumper crops?

At long last, a proper blogpost befitting the Insomniac Caffeine Addict. Like they say, when it rains it pours, and this fortnight was a thunderstorm.

First there was a friend's 21st birthday party in Nottingham last week. Much drinking, surrealness and general fun ensued, as well as some rather strange (but in retrospect very funny) moments. As I intend to keep this post a thoughtful one, and drunken nights out usually don't go well with thoughfulness (even though I met a Wiccan who discussed religion with me and quoted Marcus Aurelius), I shall leave out the details of said night.

Secondly, much time was spent on some intense training for a dance battle that took place culminating this very evening. We spent two weeks making up a 5-minute routine, and despite the challenges we made it into the finals. One personal record for which I can be proud, but as is often the case, the journey to the dance floor was more important than the competition itself. (We didn't win by the way, but we were damned close.)

In training there is patience. We spent hours and hours perfecting a routine that we would only use for a single event and never again. We waited for late team members, we tolerated quirky characters and general human nature. We schedule rehearsal on late nights because one member can't turn up in the day. Many people demand hard work from others and even more from themselves, but there is a fine line between being demanding and impatient, a line which we can only truly define by walking it. Kudos to the team leader who managed to bring it all together, despite the issues that she and the group were facing.

This year, I was in a different team from before, and what a relief it was! Last year everyone in the team hated everyone else, and I as the only guy (and therefore insulated) had to constantly dodge the catfights. This time, it was an absolute pleasure choreographing with everyone. We had massive differences between our members, but we always ironed it out because we respected each other's opinions. Clichéd as it sounds, we actually managed to have fun, and in a sense that mattered more than winning.

We may not have won, but we didn't cheat either. The team who won had a professional dancer who choreographed their event and then danced with them, which was strictly not allowed, but they got in by a loophole. They were really, really good - and I will admit that. Still, the choice between getting what you want and giving up what you care about will always be a clear one for me - I'd rather get second place rather than win by cheating. I may not be sure that God exists, but as I shall point out now, not believing in God doesn't mean you can't believe in something.

Thirdly, it's my birthday! Woop woop! In reality I'm not celebrating it much, but I think a simple meal would suffice this time. What's it like being 21? Well, about the same as being 20. Your birthday marks a time period at which you measure change, but in reality change takes place over time and space. I may not be the person I was at 20, but you'd be hard pressed to pin down a day when you could say I no longer was "me". On that note, it's time to get back to work. All this dance practice has thrown me off doing lectures, and even though we do have a week off, other distractions will doubtlessly appear. After all, it's only Murphy's Law.

Social Experiment

2009-10-28T08:53:00.006+08:00

What would you do if you had a disagreement with someone, to the point that you aren't on speaking terms and there is no chance of reconciliation?

Now this is actually an interesting one because it opens up all sorts of possibilities. Obviously, if people aren't speaking to you it usually can't get much worse (NOTE: does not apply to people who have access to your property, your parents, your employers, or sensitive information about you), and so technically you could do quite a lot to them. If they retaliate, they break the cold war and the battle moves into Phase II, and if they don't, then you could push it even further. Also a plus is when you share a lot of friends with this person, so that you frequently appear at the same events.

Here are a few suggestions of what you could do to turn the tables a little bit:

When you are in the same room, look intently at their face as if you were trying to work out a very complex puzzle. When they notice you, look even more intently at them. Follow up by shouting "Eureka!" excitedly, then return to normal as if nothing had happened.

Smile widely at everyone in the room including your opponent. If they respond, immediately frown and look away.

When alone in a room with your opponent, sniff loudly as if a strange odour is present, and look around the room trying to identify it.

Accidentally step on their toe and don't apologise.

Look intently at whatever they may be reading.

When you bump into each other, suddenly become very quiet, as if you were caught talking about them.

Text them at 4am as if you were drunk-texting your best friend and accidentally sent it to them.

Arrange a surprise birthday party with all your mutual friends and make sure that everything is terrible (venue, music, drinks, food). Then get all your mutual friends to say that they enjoyed it very much and make sure your opponent knows you arranged it.

At the same party, stand just behind your opponent throughout the party and pull funny faces when someone takes a photo. Inappropriate noises are a plus.

On a social, buy everyone a round of drinks including your opponent. See if they accept the drink.

Spill said drink on your opponent, then carry on as if nothing happened.

Come in one day and speak to them happily as if nothing had happened. If they respond, say that you have temporary amnesia but that doctors expect you to recover your memory at any time.

Shout "ALL HAIL BEELZEBUB!" loudly everytime your opponent opens their mouth to say something.

When they finish a sentence, applaud loudly as if it were the most moving speech you heard. Follow up with an enthusiastic “you really fooled them this time Beelzebub!”.

Talk to your mutual friends about all the good times you once had with your now-opponent whilst completely ignoring them.

Approach your opponent menacingly while brandishing a sharp object. When you get too close for comfort, drop said object, look confused, and apologise profusely while explaining that you are on a new form of anti-schizophrenic medication and that you haven't gotten the dosage right.

Talk about TV shows or movies with characters who share your opponent's name. Bonus points if said character is a porn star.

Spam their account with random emails all starting with the words "YOUR MOMMA!".

Follow them around the room while blowing a trumpet and singing the national anthem of the former USSR.

Every time they stand up, do the MC Hammer dance, complete with lyrics and tune.

Loudly hum the Darth Vader theme each time they enter the room.

Each time they leave, hum the funereal dirge.

Get a pet and name it after your opponent, then show it off to all your mutual friends.

Custard pie them in the face.

On a more serious note, a friend of mine has recently been abandoned by her "friends" when she needed them most. This post is dedicated to those whom we would call weasels, if only the weasels didn't protest on the grounds that they didn't want to be associated with these people.

Just another random schpiel.

2009-09-29T06:19:00.008+08:00

Having had a spectacular fallout with God in March (seven months and this blasphemer is still breathing, how could it be?!) detailed in my post here , I've not noticed much difference, except for two quite linked things (or one thing that has led to another thing). First of all, I've again lost the naieve idealism that I used to have and was able to hold on to quite well. Yes, I always was a bitter, sarcastic nut who would sulk in the corners of parties but now I'm even more of one, and most people who know me realise that I vent my pessimism via sarcasm. But then again if you guys are still reading my blog, I'd guess you're the friends who've managed to put up with most of the shit I've thrown at you, and therefore enjoy me pouring buckets of slimy sarcastic comments onto you. Or not, but who cares? Like I actually need somebody to read this crap.

Going back to the main point, the second thing I've noticed is that I've lost a big source of hope that I used to be able to tap into. Having "God" or at least an idea of him (her?) around to comfort me was always a reassuring feeling that I could fall back on if I had a really bad day and simply didn't understand what was going on. Hoping that there was a cosmic wheel of justice and kindness works wonders for the soul, but then when the wheel keeps breaking down over and over again one begins to question whether it even existed in the first place.

I feel a lot more alone out there, and lonely. I've always loved being alone, but then being lonely isn't quite the same. I remember Grandpa telling me that you can be alone without being lonely, and now I know what he means. Being alone means that nobody else is around (which you may actually enjoy), but being lonely means that you want someone around, and very frequently someone specific, someone whom you can relate to and converse with and talk about random ideas that come to you late at night after that extra cup of tea that you shouldn't have taken. And obviously nobody would be around you all the time unless you were joined at the hip, and I'm far from finding anyone who remotely approaches that.

But yes, I am alone, alone and exposed. And lonely, especially after I stopped believing the voice in my head was God and started thinking that it was actually just me talking to myself. And then I stopped talking to myself because it felt slightly schizophrenic, and ever since then being alone has never really been the same. And I'm annoyed for it, hence the frantic typing that I'm doing today.

I'm beginning to wonder how atheists cope with all that pressure in their minds, with no fictional person to vent to. Should I go join an angry venting club where I can call anyone at anytime and just talk? That's silly. No, I'd rather go talk to the other consciousness in my head, even if it does seem weird that I'm talking to myself. But wasn't that what I was doing all along? Me writing all this crap here may never reach an audience, but now that I've committed it to html I somehow feel that my abstract idea has become solid and real. Some would call this prayer, but since when could people not just think to themselves quietly? That at least, nobody has a monopoly on.

Self-Preservation, a Misnomer

2009-09-21T08:52:00.006+08:00

Apologies for abandoning the blog for so long, there've been many things going on in the past 3 weeks and I feel like I've aged a year (in the bad way). Lets see, where should we start?

I'm a third year student now. Wow. And it feels like yesterday when I got here for the first time. Among the four of us in my immediate social group, I feel like I've changed the least even though people tell me I am very different from the way I used to be.

But yes, out of the four of us, I am the only one who made it through all the exams (so far), and that is scary. One of us failed first year (for a very good reason) and had to end up doing a gap year before coming back into first year now when I'm a third year. She's been busy working as a healthcare assistant for the past six months, and boy has that toughened her up. She among all of us was moved furthest away from her comfort zone and had to find ways to deal with it, or curl up and die. She chose the former and by my estimate is doing remarkably well.

The second of us failed second year, and has to repeat the year. All this happened while he was in a long-term relationship, and he seems to be coping well also. Next to me, he's probably changed the least, although his self-confidence has probably been severely dented.

Third among us is a friend who failed second year, but was not allowed back into the course and is now going to study physics. Besides having been severely shaken up, he has also got a long-term relationship to juggle with, although the latter seems to have matured him very much compared to before he got into it. I think he will be happier doing physics, but then again the spectre of "not being good enough for medicine" is something that I don't want to have hovering over me.

And then there's me. Yes, the usual suspect, who after all said and done, and despite all the rather traumatic events occuring around me, has been for the most part spared. Of course I have changed: I have an English accent, I'm exposed to so much more of the world, I know how to cook and I'm less judgemental than I used to be. But that's on the outside. Internally, in the core, I remain very much the same - slow to trust, very defensive of my friends, slightly perfectionist and not a little bit anal. But why? Why after all this have I effectively remained the person that I am now?

Firstly, I've never really been taken out of my comfort zone. Moving from a Malaysian school to an international one was more of a culture shock to me than going to England, and for that I am quite grateful. On the other hand, since coming here I've never been defeated and had to pick myself up again, and that troubles me because one day I know I will be knocked down, and I know I'll have to get back up, and I may not have help around. And knowing that I've had almost no experience of this is frightening, like waiting for some impending doom that you know you will eventually have to face, but yet cannot prepare yourself for.

Secondly, I have an extremely strong sense of self-preservation. Or more accurately, identity-preservation. The former implies physical survival, but the latter is what I'm dealing with here - keeping my identity, what is fundamentally me, the same has always been important to me. I'm flexible to a degree, and I will change my opinion when shown that my facts are wrong, but ultimately I reject the things that don't mesh with my understanding of right and wrong. The fact that people are being paid to make youtube videos of absolute rubbish really annoys me and will continue to annoy me, and if that changed, then I would no longer be me anymore. It feels good knowing that I've made a stand for something and against something else, but then obviously standing against something means that you will clash with it, and conflict can obviously damage you.

But the alternative to making a stand is so much worse. How could anyone be content to drift with the current, choosing to accept things because everyone else accepts them as well? Is there no morality to these people? No matter how many shades of gray there are where things are unclear, there will always be black and white examples of pure evil and true goodness, and to deny that is to say that you have no identity at all. How could anyone live like that? Are there people who live like that?

Although I suppose there are some people who can always run away from their misdeeds, there are yet more examples of people who run but fail. War veterans will spend their entire lives plagued by the things they have seen, people commit suicide years after having done terrible things to their fellow man. There is something in the human condition that tells us what is acceptable and what is not, and seems to be common to almost all of us.

The few who don't have this are poor souls indeed. These are the ones with a sense of self-preservation, a sense to stay alive no matter what the cost is to others around them. They will backstab their best friends if it helps them climb a ladder they want, or simply abandon them if they become inconvenient. They would commit genocide if it boosted their position. These people will never understand the meaning of true friendship, for self-interest is the only thing that motivates them. And these are the people whom I am truly disgusted by.

Bit of a pity these are the people who are deemed "successful" by our media then, isn't it?

Tripping

2009-08-24T16:02:00.007+08:00

Recently some of you may have noticed my music sense has gone all trippy. You could say that's either because of my recent self-exploratory mood, when I started wondering about the nature of who I am and what's going on in my head and the like, or you could say that it's the other way around, with the music causing the change in my mood. Anyway, this chicken-and-egg debate is yet to be resolved, and I'm not in the capacity to tackle it. So I won't.

But really, what exactly is Trip Hop? The name is a bit misleading, since Trip and Hip are very distantly related (if they met at a party they'd stay at opposite ends of the building, and one would probably leave early so as to avoid meeting the other). You could almost say the former evolved from the latter in a sort of angry father, estranged son kind of way. According to our good friend Wikipedia, Hip seems to have "spawned" Trip in the same way Genghis Khan produced the majority of his descendants - while rampaging across the length and breadth of the known world, the supreme (but not very clever) Hip Hop stopped at a small village, had its way with the local music scene, and went off again. The result was Trip Hop, and it has since been quietly generating waves while Hip Hop continued on blithely, unaware of what it had created. Trip will never be popular, but then it doesn't want to be.

In the same way Hip Hop artists block out the voices in their heads by shouting loudly until they go away, Trippers politely invite the same voices in, and have long intellectual discussions with them. The result is something like a house party with all the kids who are unpopular for different reasons (Acid Jazz, Dub, Jamaican, Psychedelic Rock and Downtempo), but where they are all slightly drunk and therefore trying to behave their best.

Although some drinks are smashed and a few voices are raised, the party gradually gets going. Conversations start reluctantly, sad stories emerge, confused thoughts are exposed, awkward jokes are made and laughed at and nerdiness abounds, but suddenly something beautiful appears, without anyone knowing what it is or even noticing it, drawing us, in yet staying just out of reach.

Whether by convergent evolution or grand design, Trip Hop encroaches into the realm of Classical music, almost as if the only difference between the house party full of unpopular kids and a gala buffet hosted by Bruce Wayne is the lack of pretentiousness and musical inbreeding among the Trippers. While the Classicalists stick to their pre-industrial age instruments (and to be fair to them, they do it very well), Trippers boldly go wherever they so choose, whether it be a well-trodden path (sampling others' music), outer space (electronica) or the untamed wilderness (sampling sounds from nature). The result is sometimes confusing, occasionally hit-and-miss, but every so often, just plain excellent.

Greatest Movie Quotes - Valerie's Speech, V For Vendetta

2009-08-18T00:58:00.002+08:00

This speaks for itself. Enjoy.

Reboot

2009-08-12T23:19:00.003+08:00

All right, I've sat on my arse long enough. Back to basics, back to what I want to do, and care to do, and know I have to do. As such, I'm revisiting a very old post, written years ago, when the stars seemed brighter and the sea louder, when everything had a beginning and an end, when I cared.

And here's to hoping that I won't stop caring again.

Have you ever had a feeling that you wantedto do something with your life, something big, something that would make adifference? What did you do to that feeling? Where did it go in the end, now asyou sit here reading these words? Did you ignore it? Did you smother it out,burying it in the depths of your brain where you knew you would never find itagain? Did you keep it a secret, planning to take it out later in life, only toforget as days went by that it ever existed? Did you nurture it, feeding it justenough hope for it to survive, only to find that it died on you one day? Did someone or something come away and destroy that feeling? Did it just go away after awhile?

Or is it just me, the one soul on this earth which can’t seem to enjoy himself and start living like everyone else, who has this feeling, this fire, in my soul, that tells me I have to be some use in this world? Is it just me who wants to grow it, to feed this fire and do something with it, before it, or I, die?

Where did your fire come from? What sudden inspiration drove this fire to spring up in your mind, to consume your thoughts and to drive you to shame? What moved you to want to do something else besides live this life that your parents, your ancestors, your past, your society had set up for you?

Is it me, only me, who sees an example of a person doing things that I want to do, yet don’t because I don’t have the guts to? Why am I driven by this person, to discontentedness at my own comforts, the gifts that circumstances have bestowed me? Why am I seeing an example in her, the person whom I love yet don’t have the heart or the courage to tell her? Why do I make it so important, such a stupid thing as an adolescent crush that I can’t blast out of my head with rock music and techno?

Why do I have a crush on her in the first place? She has the fire. It’s as simple, and as complex, as that. She has the fire to want to change the world. Mind you, she is just as confused as I am, but it’s there. I can see it, burning in her eyes. She wants to do something about the inadequacies in this world, not just enjoy the comforts that she was born into. I had that fire, a long time ago when I was young, a fire that I fed for years before complacency and the cold wind of society blew it out without my knowing,leaving me nothing, no flame that I could use to drive myself forward. For a while, I was an empty shell, wanting only to do whatever everyone else did and enjoy whatever everyone else enjoyed.

Fire spreads. Thank God…I mean it.

This girl, whatever I may think of her, whatever happens between me and her, whether I do or do not try to get her, has given me back that fire, and I respect her for it. Now it’s time for me to do something with it.

I’m writing this blog to remind myself of that fire, in case it gets put out again. I want to do something with my life, and I plan to do this: I want to get my feet wet and my hands dirty, with those people who suffer everyday to eke out a life where I would have given up. I want to help these people, whether it be in Sudan, or China, or Sabah, or down the street in the gutter just trying to stay alive. There is nothing better, nothing more rewarding, than to go to sleep at night knowing that I have made a difference to someone, anyone, who needed help. It would be a bit much to ask you to join me, but I’m extending this offer anyway.

So be my witness here when you read this blog. In July, when I’m done with my IB and have become bored of sitting on my rump all day playing games, I want to have gone. I want to have gone somewhere to make use of my life, so that if I die on the day I graduate from medical school, I can say that I have done something in my life that has made a difference to someone. If I fail to do that, then the fire in my heart has been put out again. Do me a favour and light it up.

And if you have that fire too, don’t keep it a secret. Don’t hide it in the attic hoping to bring it out later because by then, it would have been too late. The least you could do is spread it, as far and as wide as you can, to keep the fire burning.

Holiday Objectives

2009-07-23T18:20:00.003+08:00

Like any good, know-what-I-want-and-how-to-get-it ex-Chinese school student, I'd set a clear and attainable to-do-list over the holiday, and have been for the large part sticking to it excellently. My objective this summer (besides the mandatory dissertation) was to do absolutely nothing. I've been chided by Mum and Dad over this, and usually I don't have the patience to explain things when I'm being prodded, so let me clarify.

As I explained to my Dad, I'm coming to the realisation that my holidays (and free time in general) are going to grow shorter, and with them my opportunity to do little things like sleeping in late or staying up all night listening to music while browsing endless streams of wikipedia pages. I know that in my first ever blogpost (here), I denounced anyone who ever sat on their arse for not doing something to (cheesily) "save the world". I kind of still believe that, but then again this is me now, and I'm not as capable of the manic intensity which I summoned to write essays on till the sun rose, or jump into a fountain in the middle of Leicester at 4am (long story).

I've been worn down a lot, not so much by work, but by the realisation that the work will never ever end, and that the workload will only increase as time goes on. I've no option to stop either - it took me a whole lot of time and money to get into medicine, and once you've bought into this game you have to keep playing till you retire, die, or get cleaned out. Don't get me wrong, I love medicine and can't imagine myself doing much else - but then I'm starting to wonder - if all my time and effort will be given to saving your health, where does that leave the little things? When will I have the time to sit down and chew through a book because I like it, rather than peer at tiny letters in the index section to answer a question about Wegener's Granulomatosis or Angina Pectoris?

The answer, is that until I make consultant (which is a very very long time away, if I even get there), I have between now and graduation to enjoy every sliver of time I get - whether it's by blasting my brains out with computer games or enjoying a cup of tea and staring out of the window. And I intend to use that time fully, not to get sloshed (because that's temporary stress relief at best) but by truly relaxing, drawing pretty pictures of nothing while my brain wanders. I want the option of staying home and drawing a picture instead of getting sloshed at a party, because a party doesn't give you relaxation but excitement, and it's hard to summon the energy to be excited about everything all the time. I've touched on this in a previous post, but now I've finally put my finger on the missing part of the puzzle - relaxing.

So, the things I enjoy doing and intend to do more of over the next month:

Gaming
Dancing to a good beat
Banter with friends over Malaysian food and iced lime juice at 2am
Sketch art
MSN conversations
Wikipedia
Blogging and blogsurfing (yay!)
Swimming
Books! Lots and lots of books!
Music and reorganising my iTunes library (now that I have a good set of speakers, thanks Kav for opening up this new world to me)
Casual internet chess

I guess doing "nothing" actually is pretty time consuming!

Times They Are A-Changing

2009-07-21T11:54:00.005+08:00

I was looking for good pictures to draw, when something from the Watchmen opening montage niggled at the back of my mind. Now Watchmen is at best an incomplete work to me, what could have been a truly insightful film was (mostly) turned into a no-brainer. But despite the horrible sense of a lost opportunity, the opening scene had at least a glimmer of something bigger than an action movie:

(Music: Bob Dylan's Times they Are A-Changing. I encourage you to take some time to absorb the lyrics.)

The short scene of a girl placing a flower into a rifle barrel (3:50)was inspired by a real event, the Kent State Shootings. So this is the darker, uglier side of American history - not that you didn't know that there was one, but then again you probably didn't know just how dark it really was. Another famous picture, taken in the October 1967 peace march at the Pentagon:

Just goes to show how high the price of freedom is. Are we really ready to foot the bill?

The Tate Modern

2009-07-15T07:28:00.009+08:00

Now I know that I spent a week in London, and visited about 6 museums and art galleries during this time, but I'll not dwell on the general - otherwise it'd take me ages to write a review, and I still need to complete parts 3, 4 and 5 of Banksy vs Bristol Museum. Instead, i'll focus on the museum/gallery in London that left the most lasting impression - the Tate Modern, a gallery with a world famous collection of modern art. I have rather mixed feelings about all this, so I'd best explain.

Modern art is simply any form of art that doesn't use the same instruments or produce the same results as standard "old shool" art. On the upside, this encourages a fresh approach to standard portraiture and landscapes, which can be pretty monotonous. Unfortunately, this also means that it's extremely difficult to distinguish between exceptional, intelligent art and a doodle by a three-fingered chimpanzee on cocaine.

Sadly, the Tate Modern, like any other modern art gallery, didn't manage to make this distinction. Its collection ranged from the surreally beautiful, to plain rubbish, to the downright disturbing. One of the rooms was dedicated to a sadomasochistic artist who used blood as paint, and filmed his subjects "torturing" themselves. Needless to say, I left that room quite quickly. Others simply didn't register in my brain, I found myself staring at a series of red blotches and blue streaks on white, that after a few minutes began to give me a headache.

Now, some would suggest to me that the fact of the matter is that I'm thick, and the reason I don't understand the meaning of some art is that I don't know the cultural background from which the artist created their work. This is a sensible argument - formerly, I thought all modern art was rubbish, but as I grow more aware of the burdens of mankind (in other words, I'm getting OLD), modern art is starting to make more sense - and when it does, the experience is visceral - one example was a strange black sculpture of a figure, stretched upwards to become exceptionally thin, and flattened sideways so that from the front, its head looks like a tiny vertical line. Its looked like an Easter Island Moai, but thinner and more gaunt, with a expression of deep sadness despite (or because of?) its almost-flat face.

Up to now of course, my description makes no sense whatsoever, but then I read the label on the wall - the sculpture was made by a Holocaust Survivor. Suddenly, the full weight of the sculpture's history hit me like a brick in the face, and inside me I felt a knife twist in my guts.

So then, the argument that modern art can only be understood along with its cultural context is at least partially logical. But then again, that is no excuse for bad modern art - for just as there is bad standard art, there surely is bad modern art. It's the audience's job to distinguish between the two.

Tips then, for future purveyours of "modern art" - firstly, take your time to read up on the artist, and their background - not about the artpiece itself, but try to understand what shaped the artist's mind. Secondly, when you do finally go look at their work, take your time to examine it, especially if you've not done Step #1. Look at it from a distance, look at its details, consider it from different directions if it's a 3-D work. In fact, I prefer to do Step #2 before Step #1 so that I don't cloud my judgement, but then again that's just me. Thirdly, don't be afraid to call a goat a goat - if it doesn't make sense to you after about 5 minutes, and you've done your pre-reading and taken your time to examine it, then you have every right to declare it insignificant.

And a final message to those (un?)fortunate enough to go to a modern art gallery - don't be afraid to leave if your head hurts!

Internalisation

2009-07-13T23:14:00.004+08:00

There's something about looking out of the window of a train as the English countryside whizzes by. Paradoxically, I feel like I'm looking in at myself; and it is when I look at the noisy passengers that I am looking out at humanity, cooped into this tiny space despite the vastness of the outside world. Have we gotten it all wrong? Should we really be squeezing ourselves into the tiny space of a few cities when all the world is out there?

More than half of all humanity lives in cities, and according to estimations some 70% of us will live in urban areas in ten years. Granted, the growth of cities has been the cornerstone of civilisation, and cities provide us access to almost everything we can put a price tag on. But have we gone too far? Will an afternoon in a field, alone but for a book and one's thoughts one day become a commodity?

Or, more personally terrifying, am I alone, who thinks of taking a break from humanity and being on my own? Am I, in seeking solitude, ironically placing a barrier between myself and the rest of the world? In a sense, this blog is an attempt to record thoughts that are my own, yet at the same time maintaining contact with everyone else - another paradox.

I suppose, reconciling one with the other is the challenge we all need to face. On the one hand, I cannot imagine plunging myself into humanity, for the fear of never resurfacing; and on the other, it's hard being a hermit while doing a degree. Again, it is a matter of balance.

Isn't everything?

Banksy, Parts I and II

2009-06-22T07:49:00.010+08:00

After much exhaustion on which I shall elaborate later, we are proud to present: Banksy vs Bristol Museum! More pics to follow when I have a bit more sleep.

As this is a work in progress and I can't yet upload my own pictures (these ones were taken by Daniel and I shall not steal any more of his thunder), I shall describe in words what I cannot yet in pictures.

Part I

It took me five hours to get to Bristol. Usually, it would only be about three, but for no clear reason, thetrainline.com decided that I would much like sitting around in Derby Train Station for an hour, and that Cheltenham Spa Train Station would also be a good place to leave me for about forty minutes. From my very brief stay in both these stations, I can only conclude that these towns are likely to be the most boring places in the world, and that they serve the pre-packaged sandwiches found throughout the UK that are somehow designed so that the "turkey breast and ham" sandwich tastes identical to "tomato and cheese", and not a very good tomato and cheese at that.

But no matter. Three trains, four stations and five hours after I leave from my comfortable abode in Leicester in pursuit of what I hope to be amazing art, I arrive in Bristol. It is 2.30pm. Daniel had gotten to Bristol an hour before me and has warned me that at the time, he had been in the queue for 20 minutes and still was not in.

By the time I reach the Bristol City Museum it is 3pm, and last entry into the museum is 4pm. There are at least 300 people in front of me waiting to see Banksy. The "museum staff", big muscular guys who look like they could pound you into a pulp if they so wished, look more like bouncers. They warn us at 3.15pm that it looks unlikely that many more of us are going to get in, but we in the queue hold on to the precious ground we had gained against the impregnable machine of museum policy. People continue to join the end of the queue, still hoping to get in. I was reminded quite surreally of queueing outside the club on a Friday night, only that it was daytime, there was no loud music, and the drunken students shouting obscenities were replaced by mostly middle-aged men and women, sipping coffee and having genteel conversation.

As you may have guessed, I did get in eventually after 45 more minutes. By the time I arrived at the museum steps, I felt like a king.

Part II

The main hall looked absolutely surreal. Masses of people shuffled about in orderly queues, staring at what appeared to be plain and simple vandalism. Right in the middle was an ice-cream truck with no wheels and smashed windows ("glass" fragments lay on the ground nearby). The body of the truck was covered with poor-quality street graffiti. A shopping cart lay destroyed nearby, and most surreally a full-sized SWAT officer was perched on a tiny carousel pony, riding up and down mechanically. A tag on its chest read "Metropolitan Peace". I left the queue to snap some pictures and realised that the smashed-up ice cream truck doubled as a reception.

Looking more closely, the traditional Greek and Roman statues had been remade into a parody of their modern counterparts.

Venus, Goddess of Beauty, is staring intently at the price tag of a pair of sunglasses in her hand despite already wearing another pair. A fashionable winter scarf is wrapped around her neck, while a revealing toga frames her plastercast assets. She cradles a bundle of shopping bags in her hand, the kind of oversized paper bag with fancy designs that is presented to you by branded companies as a "thank you" note for allowing them to rob you of your money, and their workers of their dignity.

Apollo is wrapping a cloth over his mouth to hide his face. A jacket lined with explosives is strapped to his chest.

Cupid, cigarette and beer can in hand, stands drunkenly over a small pile of junk food and energy drinks, clasping one high-heeled shoe in the other hand.

The Goddess of Victory, Nike, stands proudly with chest straight and wings unfurled, but a paint bucket has been placed rudely over her head. ugly pink splotches have dripped all the way from the bucket to the base of the statue. Further away, Buddha isn't spared either. He sits wisely as he always does, but his left hand is not raised up - instead it rests in a sling across his lap. His neck has been placed in a brace, and one eye appears to be swollen shut.

On the other side of the hall is a cast of a lion with a circus whip in its mouth. It stands fiercely over a hat and jacket that may have belonged to an animal trainer. His fate is hinted at by a small amount of blood-red paint on the lion's mouth and face.

Rejoining the queue, I walked down a corridoor into a side room, filled with Banksy's paintings.

To be continued in Part III.

Ode to the Past

2009-06-20T23:06:00.009+08:00

Wow, it's been a while since I last poked my nose into my own blog. The last two months have been hectic, both medically and otherwise. Lab work, exams, post-exam celebrations and a trip to London have taxed me physically and mentally, and underlying these events is a sense that I am missing out on something I know is terribly important, but can't quite put my finger on. But more on that later, for those whom I would trust - this blog has been a place for me to bare my soul, but not right now. Some issues have not yet completely played out, others I would rather discuss with good friends in the privacy of internet chat rather than allow the casual wanderer to see my deepest thoughts. Some of you may be disappointed by the shortness of this post, but then my feelings and thoughts cannot be easily expressed in words.

The blog looks like an old room which I left ages ago in good order, but reenter to discover a fine layer of dust on everything that once was familiar. My every move stirs up faint clouds that add nostalgia to summer sunbeams from the window. Old declarations, bitterly sworn with clenched fist and pounding heart at stormy skies, lie faded on the webpage, the beliefs underlying them built on sand long since disappeared beneath the waves. Some of my crafts remain solid, yet with rough edges that once went unnoticed, but now stick out like a sore thumb. I barely remember the events preserved by the photographs on my facebook wall.

I step forward to identify each memory: Socialism, once a cherished ideal, remains standing, but has been eaten through by my own doubts. Nationalism, the very first concept that was the founding crux of my first blog as well as this one, lies dead, smashed by my own hand when I saw the beast for what it was. Faith in a superior being, that pristine glass carving that I once tried panstakingly to protect, was finally shattered by a careless thought. I may perhaps one day glue the delicate pieces together, but not before I change again. Even my taste in music has been fundamentally altered - when once it was the Backstreet Boys and Linkin Park, Massive Attack and Rob Dougan now dominate.

Taking in the room in its entirety, I can't help but realise how different I have become over the last two years. But though I am different, something within remains the same. All of these creations, splintered or maintained, worn out or pristine, were mine. And they still are.

Light bulbs, bayonets and other such stuff (Watt!)

2009-04-12T06:03:00.016+08:00

I am now sitting in my living room in darkness, making a ridiculous number of typos as I can't see the keys on my laptop - I fumble especially with the apostrophe, so apologies if I type "it;s" instead of "it's". Three lights are on - in the kitchen, stairs, and my housemate's room, along with some very faint light from my laptop, and the television. I can also see an even more faint emergency light from my neighbour's kitchen. But the light in the living room, in which I am currently blogging, is not on, which is why all this mucking about is happening in the first place.

The reason the aforementioned light is not on is not because the light bulb had blown, but rather because I thought the light bulb had blown. No, this is a significantly longer and more complicated series of events than I would ever have thought could occur from a mistake about a light bulb, so please bear with me.

It is about 6pm (actually SEVEN, but my finger keeps hitting the 6 key instead so I have given up trying to tell you all that it was instead SEVEN. Anyway who cares, poetic license and all that, all you need to know is that it is getting too dark to read). As I am, incidentally, just about to pick up a book, I turn the light on, upon which I heard a small "pop", and the light stays quite certainly off. I think it must have blown (seriously, who would ever think a fuse would trip because a light was switched on?), and curse my luck as I can't be bothered to go all the way to the superstore that I had just returned from carrying 10kg of groceries. The next logical step is to find a replacement, so I go upstairs to my room where I keep the spare light bulbs (100 watt, which I knew the one in the living room was), and bring one down. Steadying myself on a rickety chair, I hope to God that I hadn't gained as much weight as I know I had, take out the blown light bulb, and put the replacement bulb in.

Unfortunately at this point I realise that the replacement doesn't actually fit the socket. The original one is one of those old, 100-watt, bayonet-capped lights which they really should have stopped producing when they figured out how to manufacture a 100-watt screw-capped light bulb. My replacement, unfortunately, is a 100-watt screw-capped light bulb. No matter. I descend with relief from the rickety wooden chair, put both bulbs on the table, and stomp upstairs to collect another replacement.

After some rummaging around in my plastic bag of extra light bulbs, I am forced to conclude that I do not have a bayonet-capped light after all, and that my 4 to 6 (SEVEN!) spare light bulbs are for all intents and purposes, useless. I have no choice but to go out and buy one. I put my coat on, walk out into the cold with the original bayonet-capped light bulb, and throw it into our bin. It makes a satisfying shattering noise, and I head to the local store where light bulbs are more expensive, but decidedly nearer, than at the superstore, which is at least 20 minutes away.

I spend the next 20 minutes wandering around the local shop trying to find a light bulb before realising that they don't sell them here.

With great consternation, I go to the next shop, and the next, until about half an hour from where I started off, I find a shop that sells 100-watt bayonet-capped light bulbs (I ask the shopkeeper if I could look at them to make sure), and buy three, just in case two of them don;t (apostrophy!) work. Happily, I head back knowing that I am sorted.

Unfortunately, this isn't to be. As I steady myself on the rickety chair for the second time today, I realise that I had bought a 100-watt, bayonet-capped lightbulb that in't the right size for the light. By this time, it is well and truly night. I extricate myself again from atop the rickety chair, and walk into my housemate's room to turn his light on. It doesn't respond either. At this I get very annoyed, because light bulbs, unlike workers, do not tend to strike; and now I am stranded in my house in general darkness.

I stomp off grumpily into the kitchen to make myself some tea, the same way the English do if they don't have a spare light bulb, or if their favourite TV show isn't on, or if Britain is once again invaded by the Nazis or anything else happens to which the English don't really know how to react. I turn the kitchen light on. It doen't turn on. It begins to dawn on me that the fuse must have been tripped. But then, the television is on! So is the laptop, which I had taken the battery out of because it doesn't work.

In great consternation, I make my way gingerly into my housemate's room, trying not to stumble on anything unfamiliar that I cannot see, to the fuse box. Using my phone, I find the fuse-box and four sub-fuses. One (downstairs front) has tripped, leaving me berefit of all downstairs lighting while simultaneously allowing Virgin TV to atack my senses with the worst advertisements known to man.

I fix the fuse and the lights go on - except of course, the light in the living room whose bulb I had thrown into the bin outside our house. I think about going to the shop again and asking the same shopkeeper for more light bulbs because I had bought the wrong size, even after checking that they were the right bulbs. The potential embarrasment is too great for me to bear. I decide to go to the superstore tomorrow, read in my bedroom for the time being, and forever avoid the electrical shop from which I had bought three useless light bulbs.

I hate tripped fuses.

Agnosticism Now

2009-03-20T06:17:00.008+08:00

Most of you will know by now, that I’ve left Christianity, quite suddenly to some. The truth is that the cause of my disagreement with God has been there for a long time now. Every time I hear the news that a confused teenager has gone out and shot twenty people, or that every thirty seconds a person is dying of Malaria, I see that reason, and I can’t ignore it – there is so much wrong with this world that either God doesn’t exist, or he doesn’t care.

Now some would like to tell me that by turning my back on God, I am abandoning all that I have ever stood for. This isn’t true. I believe in a world where people should be rewarded for their hard work, and compensated for their misfortunes. I believe that if we put in the effort, and if we are ethical, moral people, we are better people than those who would lie and steal to achieve their aims. I believe that each individual should want to serve society as a whole, but that society should never (and should never have to)tell people to help it in ways they are not willing to. In the end, I believe that one should be able to live, with the greater good of society in mind, and die, content that society in turn has returned what it has received from them. I believe that many religious people here share my view of an ideal world.

Coming back to the reason I have decided to leave the Church. I feel that we, as a people, have betrayed each other. I wonder at the purpose of the Bible, and whether people spend so much time reading it that they forget the reason it was written – I think God, if there is one, gave us the bible as a code of conduct – and that if we stuck to the guidelines that God had set down for us, we would:

find inner peace and be one with God, and
bring about a utopia for all, where the world is filled with joy and idealism, where peace reigns not only within the soul but everywhere – the land of milk and honey.

(NB: I assume this is true for the major religions besides Christianity.) The first object of the code, people excel at. We are so at peace with ourselves that we ignore the glaring sins we have committed, and either forget or ignore the second, greater objective. This is my first criticism of the vast majority of religious. (My second is that the religious are frequently too busy trying to convert others that they forget the two objectives that the Bible seems to be telling us.) If God exists, then I think he will forgive my frustration with him – he told us that if we conduct our lives well, we would be given utopia. But what he didn’t tell us is that we need to build it on our own. He expected us to work this fact out for ourselves.

This is the third possibility – that God, for whatever reason, has decided that we are to do the work he set for us, and that we have to earn our keep.

My current line is this: I am going to do as much as I can for the downtrodden of the world. God isn’t going to do it directly. Again, the three possibilities are that he doesn’t exist, can't be bothered, or he’s waiting around for me, and people like me, to do something about it.

If it’s the first then I suppose I would have lived up to the objectives I’ve set for myself – that I as one of the more fortunate people should give to society as much as I can give, willingly and with no regrets.

If he really does exist but cannot be bothered, then I suppose I would rather not believe in a God who could stop all this nonsense, yet chooses not to.

If it is the latter, I suppose God would meet me at the end of my life, and tell me how this was all part of his grand plan. And maybe then I would decide whether to believe in a God who would rather people save themselves, even though he himself can.

My path to agnosticism begins here, and I am turning my back on God for the time being, but not on what God says – that the world as it is needs fixing, and that we shouldn’t expect anyone else to do the fixing for us.

[EDIT: I am not turning my back on God, but on our religious teachings on God and the way God operates – things will become clearer to me later, and I would rather be active and practical than ponder over the same thoughts repeatedly. I believe I made that statement with a great deal of frustration, and therefore didn’t quite check what I wrote. Thank you, Mum, for pointing out my typo.]

Muse

2009-03-16T08:17:00.006+08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, if you do not like to ponder "Life, The Universe, and Everything!", then this post is not for you.

We know that molecules are governed by formulae. We have used these formulae to build up an understanding of the world on a larger scale – calculating how long a line is, designing a battery, analysing a cell in the human body, breeding the perfect racehorse etc. These formulae have not only allowed us to understand the world, but to rule it.

But once we get to humans, the rules break down – nobody can predict the actions of a single person; no matter how we they know about people they will always continue to surprise. Which is probably a good thing – if we knew how to predict people then life itself would lose all meaning. Would you really want to live if you knew that someone with a calculator knew (not commanded, knew) exactly what you would do?

What really scares me is this: once you zoom out to look at populations rather than individuals, a new set of formulae comes into play – they are different of course from those that govern molecules, but they are formulae nonetheless, and they are frightfully efficient. What would you do if I told you that advertising companies could tailor an advert to increase their sales by a very specific percentage range? Somehow, on a large scale we lose whatever freedom we have created out of exact rules. It is almost as if whatever we do as individuals seems to make no difference to the grand game that governs us as a species.

And that, my friends, is very frightening indeed, because if this is true, then whatever choices we make are not going to make a significant difference to the world. And knowing human nature, someone out there will try to find out this magical set of formulae, to influence entire populations for their own ends. I won't use the words "mind control" because they're too clichéd. This is more subtle, more insiduous. It directs populations, yet abandons the individual to make sense of a world where they seem to have so much choice, but whatever they choose makes no difference to the final outcome. I pray that this will never come true, yet somehow I feel that it already has. I leave you with a movie quote for you to mull over. It may be from an action movie, but it is a powerful one nonetheless.

The truth [is]...that you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

And you thought that The Matrix was just another action movie.

Why War still Exists in the 21st Century

2009-02-05T07:20:00.004+08:00

Excerpts from films, media, quotes and the like. Again I've not had the time to flesh out my train of thought, so the blanks are yours to fill in. However, I do hope that the journey you take will still be worth it.

Aeschylus
In war, truth is the first casualty.

Thomas Carlyle
War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other.

Jon Stewart
It seems shocking that a product of finite supply gets more expensive the more we use it.... Now the terror alert means higher oil prices, which oddly enough means higher profits for oil companies giving them more money to give to politicians whose policies may favor the oil companies such as raising the terror alert level.

Eleanor Roosevelt
“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.”

Banksy, street artist

(TV has made us into monsters)

Hotel Rwanda - Rwandan Genocide 1994
Paul Rusesabagina: I am glad that you have shot this footage and that the world will see it. It is the only way we have a chance that people might intervene.
Jack: Yeah and if no one intervenes, is it still a good thing to show?
Paul Rusesabagina: How can they not intervene when they witness such atrocities?
Jack: I think if people see this footage they'll say, "oh my God that's horrible," and then go on eating their dinners.

Helen Keller
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.

Robert Maynard Hutchins
"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."

1984 by George Orwell
The command of the old despotisms was Thou shalt not. The command of the totalitarians was Thou shalt. Our command is Thou art.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.

Victoria Safford
Once you have glimpsed the world as it might be, as it ought to be, as it's going to be (however that vision appears to you), it is impossible to live compliant and complacent anymore in the world as it is.

John Dos Passos
The cure for apathy is comprehension.

Unam Sanctam: Girl altar boys - oxymoronic or just plain moronic?

2009-01-19T06:06:00.000+08:00

http://chanseylim.blogspot.com/

An Evening in the Life of...

2009-01-12T08:01:00.006+08:00

The passing street lamps illuminated the path that bore him onwards. Laughing students fell away behind. The alcohol in his stomach swished around, not quite enough to block out the cold breeze.

After the warmth of a busy pub, the park was not inviting. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, wishing he had spent more time in the tropical sun when he could. Now the alcohol would have to do.

The wind began to pick up, and the shadows of swaying branches played around him. He continued along the path, not so much walking as being carried forward by an invisible force. He had long since passed the revellers. Far away the road was illuminated in a deep yellow, but around him the park was shrouded in blackness. Solitude was his.

A strange emotion, solitude. You tried as much as you could to busy yourself, to drink it away, to run from it; but when it finally catches up to you, you realise you’ve missed it, missed being away from the noise and the crowds, alone with your thoughts, and with the time to shape and temper them into tools for when you needed them.

The first of his thoughts was about turning back and joining the others in the pub, followed by a moment of pondering, and a silent ‘no’. He had done enough of that recently. It was time to do some work. His goals did not allow for the amount of socialising he had done in the past month. He had to resolve some of the internal turmoil that had been building up.

He was past the park now, out in the brick-and-mortar buildings and quiet streets of the student area. Now home was just past a gentle slope that seemed magnified by the cold and the wind into a torturous climb. A gust whipped at him, causing tears to form in his eyes.

Would anyone from home ever understand? Would they comprehend these strange things that happened in this strange land, or realise how everything here, so foreign, so alien, had changed him forever? Even as these thoughts flowed through his mind, a deeper, more terrifying question arose – where was home?

For all the while he was here, in England, he had thought that it was Malaysia, where he had been born, bred and raised. But when he returned, things were utterly different – everything and everyone in Malaysia was the same, but it was he that had changed – so much so that he felt like a tourist in his own country.

He had seen people who called themselves his own before, the ones who lived for so long in England that they could no longer return. They drank English tea, they spoke as if born in London, they went out drinking with English friends and took British wives – and yet they were not English. Unlike the other Europeans who could happily adapt themselves to this place, their old identities were permanently stamped on their foreheads; they could only try to make themselves more English than the English themselves. But of course it was all in vain - no matter what they did, one foot would always remain firmly on the soil of their home. He was becoming one of these people. And he was afraid.

But even greater was the fear that he would never pick his way out of the cultural maelstrom that swirled around him. Even though they were not English, the foreign immigrants had a label, an identity they could adhere to - he had no such thing. He had an overwhelming urge to distance himself from it all, to rise above the confusion and look down upon it like a map, choosing his road from a bird's eye view. But even as he tried to do just that, another question dragged him back in again: would he ever find someone with whom to share his thoughts?

When he met Anne, he thought he had answered that question. Now that things were the way they were, he felt the once-solid ground beneath him giving way. He was an increasingly desperate man seeking a place to leap to for safety, and not knowing where to go, he tried to delay the decision until the very last moment, hoping the smoke would clear before then.

He rounded the corner to his street, the promise of central heating quickening his pace. The accursed wind followed him as if unwilling to let him escape. Here the door was. He held up his keys to the door. Speed was essential. Within a second his hands began to shiver under the relentless assault of the wind. The damned English wind! He found the right key, opened the door after a brief struggle, and slammed it shut as fast as he could. The semi-familiar sight of the living room, half-filled with rubbish, greeted him. No one else was in. He looked about wearily at the empty paper bags, hastily scrawled notes and dirty plates, all thought forgotten save one: “Tired. Sleep now. The work can wait. You can sort your life out in the morning.”

He crawled into bed, defeated.

A Quote Worth Remembering

2008-11-23T08:07:00.007+08:00

I first came across this in Banksy's website (http://www.banksy.co.uk/) and thought it was brilliant, but it was a while before I realised its depth and relevance. I can't ask you to enjoy the quote, but certainly it should be remembered.

"I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and childen collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diptheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference. Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentary which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated. It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity."

Unspecified Author, Imperial War Museum

Anne Frank

2008-09-21T07:26:00.011+08:00

Whomever who hasn't been moved by this young girl after reading her diary is a hard person to reach indeed.

The story of Anne Frank is that of a young Jewish girl in WW2 Europe. To escape the Nazis, she and her family moved from Frankfurt to Holland, and then went into hiding in a small building where she lived with seven others for more than two years. At the age of fifteen, she was found by the Nazis, deported to a concentration camp, and died from typhus. Among the eight who were in hiding, only her father Otto Frank survived. Her diary, which she had kept since before she went into hiding, was later published by her father, and has been read by millions.

Reading the diary is remarkable for its record of Anne's growth as a person. Normally, people keep their thoughts to themselves, or share it with their most trusted friends. In Anne's case, she decided to commit her thoughts and feelings to paper, with no intention of showing the diary to anyone - and as a result, we do need to guess at what she says, nor imagine what she may have hidden from view - Anne pours out her heart and soul, and this makes the diary a work of honesty and pureness that far surpasses the profit-driven writing of many authors today.

Anne's self-honesty takes its toll on her, she never avoids thinking about something even though it may be painful. It is easy to dismiss an unpleasant idea - we've all faced times when, confronted by the truth, we simply say to ourselves "ah, forget it!", rather than admitting our mistakes. Sometimes, we do it to the extent that we believe our own lies. Anne at times appears to do this, but does in fact know what she has done, and does her best to correct it. We therefore do not only see a person who knows who she is, but also her transformation from an adolescent girl into a young woman - all the more tragic when we already know what happens at the end. Anne never grew to be the lady she was trying so hard to be.

Every other writer is aware of the invisible audience who reads their work, and therefore is careful to pick out a path which they want the reader to walk with them. The distinction between what a person thinks and what they want the audience to see is not a very important one if one records an event or a poem, but when the topic is about the self it is fundamentally different. What one sees in Anne is not the exterior, superficial personality that she puts on for others, but the deep, inner personality that she hides from everyone save her diary.

My friends know that my appetite has never wavered, even when I witnessed open-heart surgery and when I dissected a body. The one time I completely lost my appetite for food was after I visited the Anne Frank House, and saw where this young girl had lived, and where her fate was sealed when the SS came for her.

I don't think I can put into words the sadness I felt, but it was magnified by two things: the fact that six million other Jews were purged during the holocaust, and that people are still subject to the terrible persecution that was visited upon these people, along with seventy million others who died throughout the Second World War.

The world has received enough messages about the brutality of war. We pledge to each other, "the tragedy which befell Anne Frank must never be allowed to happen again." Why, then, are we still killing each other?

Love: Hope and Fear (part III)

2008-09-06T04:29:00.007+08:00

He almost jumped. This was the first piece of solid evidence she had given him. But why now? And why had she inexplicably ended up with Liam when he was away? More text appeared.

i don’t why,
but i thought you were going to tell me that night.

Pause.

so i got liam instead,
because i was afraid you’d ask me for an answer,
and i wasn’t ready to tell you yet.

Oh. His heart sank. Well, he knew the answer now.

oh…

He was about to say something, but forgot what it was. More text appeared.

you all right over there?

No, not really. But he wasn’t going to spoil it for her either. She was happy; he’d sort himself out later. He tried to put a brave face on it.

yea, i'm ok
i'd feel better if i had a Porsche
but yea, otherwise i'm good

Shit, he thought. He had brushed her off. Shit! The screen didn’t change for a while, then showed that Anne was typing. Oh God, he thought.

you know, nathan,

More typing.

you like to face your problems alone,
and i respect you for it.

Pause.

but you don’t always have to be the outsider.
i want you to know you can talk to me about it.

Oh God, he thought again. He put his head in his hands and looked wearily at the screen. Anne continued typing.

you were the next person i wanted as a boyfriend.
ever since you helped me get away from those drunks,
i knew you’d take good care of me.
i really hope that helps, nathan.

Second best, he grimaced. Well, if second best is all you can be, it’s all you can be. He badly wanted to get away from her, but he couldn’t leave her hanging.

well

thanks
i guess

His gut twisted.

but that just kinda makes it worse, you know

i’m grateful and all

but well…

yeah.

oh, nathan,
i'm sorry i had to tell you like this…

Frustration. A brief flash of anger. How the hell else were you planning to tell me? No, wipe it away. Life is painful enough as it is. He tried to reassure.

it's ok
i know you’re trying to help

and i appreciate it

really

thank you for understanding.

there aren’t that many people who would take this the right way

heh
yeah i'm a freak like that

truth is it hurts

but blaming someone doesn’t make the pain go away

you just end up spreading more pain, you know?

that’s another reason i liked you so much

even though liam and i…
we have something that you and i
well, you and i just don’t have

Oh God. Sadness began welling up, the same horrible, wrenching feeling he felt the last time he spoke to her in the dining hall. Why is she doing this to me? He forced himself to look at the next line of text. Read it, dammit! She’s still your friend!

we’re still best friends,
i want you to know that

sometimes…

Pause. More fumbling text.

sometimes i feel you understand me better than him

Tears, he could feel tears rolling down his cheeks. Why did she choose him over me? He reached for the keyboard.

thanks

He didn’t want to think anymore. He just wanted to get out of there, away from Anne and the pain and confusion she had brought down on him, as fast and as far as his legs would take him. He typed in a frenzy.

listen
i gotta go

oh…

i want you to know i'm not mad at you, ok?
right now i just need to clear my head

ok…

i'll be all right in a bit.
i hope you guys are good
bye

Anne started typing, but he didn’t wait for her reply and shut the computer down. He went into his bedroom, locked the door, and wept.

Love: Hope and Fear (part II)

2008-09-04T03:50:00.013+08:00

Oh, a voice said in his brain, sounding almost relieved. Oh well. I guess that settles it then, she has a boyfriend. He stared dumbly at the screen. Problem solved, the voice continued on, you can’t have her, time to go play some videogames now. You’ve still not finished that one Fred lent you, and he wants it back by next week.

Despite the good advice, he continued to stare at the text. It stared rudely back at him, and then he realised that no matter how good he was at staring matches he would lose against a computer screen. He also realised that Anne was still waiting for him to reply to her text. Hurriedly, he typed:

congratulations
isn’t liam that guy you introduced me to at that really weird bar

Then, realising that might be taken as an insult (he was still deciding if he wanted it to be), he hurriedly added:

the 2nd year right?

More text appeared.

nathan, be nice
:P

She saw through his 'default' sarcasm. He breathed a sigh of relief as she continued typing.

yeah,
he took care of me that night i got drunk.
you remember
the week before Christmas at the union?

He remembered that night. Anne, Liam, himself and about three others had gone out, and she had gotten fantastically drunk. He wanted to bring her back to her room, but she uncharacteristically demanded that Liam do it instead, and that Nathan and the others should enjoy the rest of the night. Nathan helped her into Liam’s car with a look that said he would bash his head in if he did anything to her. She called up the next day to apologise, and told him that yes, Liam had cleaned her up and put her in bed without incident. She had also destroyed Liam’s table lamp in her drunken stupor, and Nathan found the image quite entertaining.

He racked his brain to remember more about Liam. Second year, same course as himself and Anne, which part of England did he come from? Didn’t matter really. He seemed all right, though Nathan had somehow disliked him the first time they met. That, he acknowledged, was jealousy. Later he did his best to treat Liam as one of the group.

He sighed. He trusted Anne’s judgement, though it left him confused at times like these. He typed:

yeah, only because you wouldn’t let me!
:(

sorrie, i was a bit drunk at the time

He laughed.

lol, that’s the understatement of the year
:P

oho,
you’ve been licked plenty more than i have

have not
we both know i'm crazier sober than when i'm drunk

besides, i wasn’t ready.

He tried for a moment to decipher the cryptic reply. What did she mean?

eh?
for what?

Her reply seemed to be taking a while, she was typing, then stopped for a moment before typing again. After some moments of this he realised that she was finding it difficult to put her thoughts into words. The text finally came through.

we had something, didn’t we…

To be continued.

Love: Hope and Fear (part I)

2008-08-30T00:40:00.013+08:00

He was at home on holiday with his family, and thousands of miles from Anne.

His mother was trying to convince him to watch a movie, one of those that were part romantic, part self-discovery, and improbable in the real world. Step Up, it was called.

He never liked that kind of movie. The plot was too predictable, the coincidences too unlikely, the romance too blatantly obvious. Obviously the girl had to be pretty and the man handsome, and obviously they would get together at the end of the movie, and everyone would live happily ever after. He much preferred books, which could convey a more subtle and varied range of emotions, and didn’t need to stick to tried-and-tested plot lines for the sake of profit.

Anne’s presence, or lack thereof, was making itself felt slowly but certainly. There had been something there. He had brushed it off, but the chance meeting with her at the dining hall and his realisation about Rachael was leading him on a dangerous path – his prior experiences with love taught him that it could hit him where it mattered. He was afraid.

He brushed the fear aside, tried to be logical about it, and failed miserably. Love wasn’t logical! He knew that by now. Every other emotion – joy, sadness, even fear and hate – they were logical, you could understand why you felt them, and you could try to control them. Love, on the other hand… That was something else. It gave you fear and hope at the same time, and the more you hoped the more you feared losing everything.

Ultimately, his logical mind boiled down the choices to two that every other star-crossed lover had to face. Tell her, and risk everything; or hide it, and gain nothing? He deliberated. On the TV screen, the two actors swayed and laughed; the image of perfection. He decided the movie was getting to him. He also decided that he would tell her.

He excused himself, saying that he had already watched the film before, and went to turn his computer on for another day of mind-numbing videogames. Before that, he signed into his instant messenger, hoping for some conversation.

Blue text appeared on his screen almost immediately.

nathannnnn….!!

It was Anne, Anne had pinged him.

how are you??

His heart leaped into his mouth. He had to calm down. This was too sudden! He wanted to tell her, but not now, not unprepared like this!

hey
i’m good thanks
how’s it going?

It bought him enough time to slow his heart rate to a manageable level.

For a while nothing happened, and he looked at the screen a little uncertainly. Then, waves of text appeared.

hey!!
it’s been great actually.
i got through the exams after all,
my family is taking me to France for the holiday,
and me and liam got together.

He hadn’t fully read her reply before he started to type his own, and it was only after he had finished congratulating her that he noticed the last line of text.

To be continued.

I Am...

2008-08-12T00:06:00.002+08:00

…A medical student with a bright future, and also a teenager with much angst and little direction.

…A person with a mission, yet weighed down by inertia.

…An artist, a social commentator, a philosopher, and a scientist, with no ideas or experiences of my own to draw, to comment about, to muse over, or to research.

…Yearning for change, but comfortable with the schedule I already have.

…Knowledgeable in many areas, but clumsy in my day-to-day life.

…A person who decries cheap labour and animal abuse, but buys from Tesco and eats at KFC.

…A rebel at heart, but in practicality I accept the way things are being run now.

…Angry about the wars and fighting in South Ossetia, the Sudan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but I play computer games depicting glorious wars all the time.

…A person with very strong ideas about love, yet I have no one whom I can love.

…A person who tells his younger cousins to be careful about alcohol, but I drink every Friday night in University.

…Chinese, and yet not Chinese.

…Malaysian, and yet not Malaysian.

…Not English, and yet I speak with an English accent.

…A big eater, but I think I’ll be able to avoid health complications in the future.

…A person with great ideas, who gets many of them from the bookshop in the next door mall.

Illusion Broken (part II)

2008-08-10T00:14:00.003+08:00

The realisation stunned him. For a while he really thought that he had been trying to achieve a tangible goal – and it turned out the Rachel whom he met was not the one he loved. Instead, he had created from her another girl, who never really existed in the first place.

Questions flooded in. What could have possibly led him to this? How – why – did he do it? It became clear on hindsight that the two were radically different. Why had he been deluding himself for all this time? He had to find out where it went wrong – and what to do now. Memories would have to be trawled through, and with them some painful reminders of his past mistakes.

He went to the kitchen and made himself a drink, then sat down and started thinking. But memory distorts with time, certain details are highlighted while the big picture blurs and fades, and the mind has ways of altering memory to suit its needs. Fragments of what he needed to know whispered by as he tried miserably to hold on to them. He shut his eyes in frustration, trying to concentrate.

The room was still. Occasionally, distant music could be heard from other student rooms, but otherwise it was quiet. The ice in his forgotten drink began to melt, and clouds drifted across the November sky.

Hours passed. The clouds were gone. It was noon, and the sun was shining. Still he sat as if comatose.

Outside, a bird sang.

He looked up with a new look on his face – a look of tranquillity, and some would say, relief. He had made up his mind – the imaginary Rachael would stay. He no longer loved her, nor did he cling on to the hope that he would once again meet and claim the other. He created her to be his conscience for three years, and she had done her duty faithfully. She would remain to counterbalance his darker side, a symbol and beacon for his crusade against his inner demons, but no longer would she hold sway in the matter of love. In that respect, he was now his own master.

He felt a sudden urge to be outdoors. Picking up his coat, he stepped out into the sunshine. The illusion was broken. He was free.

Illusion Broken (part I)

2008-07-28T23:34:00.014+08:00

He had once loved another.

He had not met Rachael for some time now, but retained an image of her in his mind, a symbol of his greatest hopes, and his deepest fears. She was beautiful, and in his once-naive mind her beauty was even greater. He saw her as an oasis of hope; compassionate and driven among the desert of dull, selfish, unmotivated souls around them. He had found, at last, one whom he had to respect – and was at the same time elated and terrified.

They spoke often, their intellect drawing each other together. But he knew, as a child knows since its birth how to draw breath, that he would not have her. Sarcasm was his armour to hide old wounds that had never fully healed, but it repelled her along with the others whom he feared opening up to, and they spoke less as time went by.

He knew he wasn’t good enough, but comforted himself in the thought that he would rather she reject him for not being good enough, than accept him out of pity. He wanted to earn her love – and so over the years he slowly exorcised his demons. He analyzed major decisions, judging them by what he felt she would do. He learned to take the barb of insult without flinching, to take defeat with grace rather than anger, to win battles within himself rather than with his fists, always hoping for one day when he would be worthy. When life became gruelling, she became his purpose, his raison d'existence.

He left for distant shores before that day came, clinging to the hope that he would see her again.

Meanwhile, his personal crusade continued. Within a year his demeanour had changed from angst-ridden to purposeful, from cynical to understanding. The old wounds that he once needed to hide had almost completely disappeared, and his cynicism resurfaced only rarely from the depths of his past. He had, in his attempts to remake himself, victoriously confronted each and every skeleton in his closet. But that did not change the fact that she was ‘the one who got away’, and those close to him thought that there was a hint of sadness in his voice when he spoke of her. He eventually shied away from relationships, not wanting to have to compare his current girlfriends with her, for the one in his mind's eye always won.

Life was good, confidence was returning to him, and it seemed the great battle was finally drawing to an end, when one day he tried to recall her face, and realised, with a start, that he could not....

To be continued.

A Gulf between Two

2008-07-02T10:03:00.007+08:00

He was sitting with his friend in a quiet corner of the dining hall. One of the staff entered, leading a small group of people. She was with them. He hadn’t expected that.

A deep sadness began to well up within him. She saw him, smiled and waved quickly, before going to the other end of the hall with the rest of the new staff. He waved back, mask on to hide his wound. Under his guise even his friend next to him could not see it. They continued their conversation as the well of sadness continued to rise. His mask slowly began to crack.

His friend noticed the change of mood and implored. He gave in, his emotions gradually seeping out.

“This isn’t right. She deserves more than this.” He said it quietly, almost to himself.

With a baleful eye he watched as she put on an apron handed out by the senior staff.

His friend did not know her well enough to have heard her story. He explained under gentle interrogation what the other needed to know. After some minutes he could see that he comprehended his plight.

Anne was remarkably intelligent even among the university students, a fact that both of them noticed when they each met her. While not physically stunning, she had an aura of quiet strength, built up gradually by years of enduring hardship. By a cruel twist of fate, she had failed her examinations when others less intelligent had passed, and thus had to remain in university while he returned home. With little money left in her account, she had decided to seek work, and now here she was, in the same hall he and other students had paid thousands to live in.

And there he was, powerless to help her despite the endless good fortune he reaped. He felt guilty. He played with his food and waited for a chance to speak with her.

Some minutes later, the senior staff member was called away – he had his chance. He walked over. For an instant, her smile reached across the chasm and gave him a jolt of warmth.

He greeted her, somewhat stiffly from behind the mask. She returned the greeting with warmth. Somehow he knew she sensed his discomfort.

“Hey, can you skive off a few minutes? I’m in the hall for another hour,” he said.

“I can’t I’m afraid, this is my first day at work so I can’t afford to slip up.”

“Okay, I’ll give you a ring later then. We might be able to meet in the next few days.”

"Will do.”

Their short conversation came to a halt as the staff member returned.

“Better leave you to it then,” he said as they exchanged smiles again. He moved off as the staff member began giving assignments to the new arrivals.

In his room, the terrible sadness descended upon him again. Though they might cross the mental gulf occasionally, and perhaps even bridge it for a time, it always threatened their tenuous connection.

Frustration at their circumstances took him, then anger. He quelled them both quickly – there was no use being angry – but the deep sense of loss continued. He wanted to reach out and hug her, to shelter her from the storm with his own body.

He looked out of his window at the sky and saw – as one instantly sees everything when lightning flashes across the night sky – that the battle was hers to fight, and that what she needed was a good friend, not a lover. The best thing he could do for her was to be that good friend.

He would lose a limb if it would have helped her, but what he needed to do was far more difficult. It would be one of the hardest decisions of his life, and he knew he would wonder about that choice in the future.

For her, and only her, he would do it anyway. He would stay on the other side of the gulf he placed between them. Such was his love.

A sane response to an insane world

2008-06-09T05:24:00.003+08:00

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7427372.stm

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet_in_Sarajevo

It’s been getting harder and harder for me to write about war. I remember the days as a kid when I’d write a thousand words on a war essay when three hundred was all I needed. Always I was the soldier of honour, ever obedient, saving innocents, defeating the enemy. I revelled in the hunt, the chaos of battle, the imaginary control and discipline I wielded when swinging a sword or pulling the trigger of a rifle.

Those days are over.

Now I struggle to form my thoughts into words. I am no longer the soldier, but the civilian. I rage impotent as everything I know is torn to pieces, I quail at the choice of running away into the unknown or watching my world being destroyed around me. I feel the loss of loved ones, neighbours, family, and with every death I feel like a part of me has died with them. I feel hatred boil up inside me, and even though I am a peace-loving person I wish for a weapon to take revenge on those who would take everything away from me.

It is not difficult for me to see why one would hate a foreign soldier, or turn to religious groups to find a purpose to continue living. The black and white of evil and good have turned into shades of gray, and colours of every kind only add to the confusion.

In Baghdad, a junior doctor is struggling to keep her life together. In Zimbabwe, politicians have turned on the people they are supposed to have served. In Sri Lanka, a family is packing their things to come to England for the foreseeable future. Despite our gains in Science and Technology, despite there being another winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the ever-growing economy, wars are still being raged, and people are still dying. How can we as human beings not cry out for an end to this terror?

Our ability to deny what we don’t want to see never ceases to amaze. We consciously block out everything that would slow us down. Anything incompatible with our worldview is discarded, whether it be politics, friends, or even family. That is likely the way some of us deal with a world that is slowly going mad. Denial offers peace of mind, no matter how bad the reality may be.

It is a luxury that we cannot afford.

Shutting out the rest of the world does not mean it doesn’t exist, or that the suffering people feel will grow less painful. Nor does it mean that the injustices we ignore will not stain our history. All that is required for Evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

My appeal to you, therefore, is simple - Please, no matter how painful the world becomes, no matter how much destruction is thrown at us, we must never lose our humanity. We must continue to feel love, pain, joy, and fear: for losing our emotions makes us nothing more than animals.

A sobering experience

2008-04-19T02:25:00.008+08:00

Get ready guys, this one's special.

I was on the KL - Dubai flight on my way to four days in Frankfurt (and later back to Leicester), and met a 27-year old doctor, travelling alone. She was from Iraq.

Over our trip I garnered that she works in a hospital with frequent military casualties and lives in central Baghdad, that people don't leave their homes after 4.00pm, and travelling alone is considered taboo, or just plain suicide.

She had come to Malaysia for ten days on holiday, and was amazed by the way Malaysians live. People going out at night was new to her. Imagine that - so many Malaysians are leaving the country for because we think of it as unstable. She, on the other hand, was amazed that Malaysians can even go out for a cup of coffee when we feel like it.

Despite having lived under Saddam and the American occupation for nearly all her life, she decided to travel here alone. Somehow, I know that in my position I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have the balls to travel across a battlefield.

Somehow over the course of the flight, she managed to affect me profoundly. This was a brave young soul, learning, loving and living despite the worst of it. The fact that she could keep her spirits up even when she was returning to that mess...well, that just stuns me. Would I be able to look at the people who invaded my country without hating them? She does. Would I be able to see past my cultural barriers into the hearts and minds of the soldiers, the militias, the gunmen? She did. She may live by the rules of her society, but her mind has left those constraints far behind.

Knowing a person who might be dead in the next few days has put my life into sharp focus. She has almost nothing, but she makes as much as she can out of it. I have practically everything - and I had better do something with that.

Trust

2008-03-25T06:41:00.004+08:00

This is another random musing that I’ve thought up round about 5 in the morning, and I decided that since I was having a very bad case of jet lag, I might as well get on my computer and write it down. I guess it’s really a justification of self brought on by some cultural questions I’ve had to answer, but then again, it’s something worth sharing and sounds mildly intellectual.

I’ve just been thinking of relationships. Touchy subject, especially given that I haven’t had anywhere near the ‘normal share’ compared to most English people, and probably even less than most Malaysians. But as far as I’m concerned it’s not the number of experiences you have, it’s how much you take out of each one that matters.

I was thinking of the process of the ‘ordinary relationship’. And I’ve realised that it’s fairly standard. In the words of Sir Ian Fleming, “sentiment, the touch of the hand, the kiss, the passionate kiss, the climax in bed, then more bed, then less bed, then the boredom, the tears and the final bitterness”. Granted, some cultures allow more or less bed, but men, as we all know, think with their balls so I’ll assume they take as much bed as they can get away with.

I’ve broken some hearts, and I’ve been burned in turn, just like most others. I don't hold any grudges, but I’m not happy with the process – I didn’t agree with the way it messed up a woman, not least because I felt a good amount of pain for her. In that way, I suppose I’m a gentleman, or perhaps my morals are ridiculously strong. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t want to do any more damage looking for the lady of my dreams who, as far as I know, may not even exist.

I guess that’s why I can be quite cynical when I meet a woman who appear to fit the criteria. I venture into unknown territory here – my personal view is that I’m afraid of hurting her as well as myself. Freud would say that it’s because of the relationship between my parents, which at times can be ‘stormy’ (hah, understatement there!). Well, whatever the reasons, I happily confess my sarcasm – I do it partly to confirm that she does not actually meet the criteria, and partly because I’m afraid that she may actually fulfil all the tests I’ve set for her. Sarcasm is a form of armour sometimes.

But, (again borrowing from Fleming), “like all harsh, cold men”, I am “easily tipped over into sentiment”, and with sentiment comes the danger of a relationship. I do my best to trim the branches before they can bloom into flowers, but I let the odd one grow at its own pace, and I’ve been rewarded once in a while with something more important than a relationship – trust. And I guess that’s something I value more than a quick romance.

To the few whom I have let flowers bloom for (I know one among you who knows I’m talking about her), thank you for your trust. I’ll do my best to keep it.

Socialism vs Stalinism: What happened in Russia

2008-03-12T07:05:00.006+08:00

My opening intro to a discussion by Socialist Students, University of Leicester (modified to improve flow and adding a backstory for those less familiar with Russian history).

We have to start off defining these rather weird terms. Socialism, technically, could include everything from 20th-century Russia and China to 21st-century Venezuela and Cuba. Stalinism, on the other hand, conjures up images of a mustachioed man ordering Soviet tanks into Europe. What were they really?

Socialism
For this discussion, I define socialism as a governance where the economy is planned by the state, and the state is controlled by elected representatives of the people, and where individuals would be allotted benefits such as housing, healthcare etc. The early leaders of the Russian Revolution argued that socialism would have to be an international movement to be successful, with different countries supporting each other with resources, labour, and if need be, soldiers. They also believed that a socialist uprising would begin in an advanced country, where workers were educated and had strong organisations and causes.

Stalinism
My definition of Stalinism will be chiseled out gradually so that you can see how it came about - Stalinism did not simply appear because Joseph Stalin took power, but evolved from the Russian government to meet the problems that Russia itself faced.

The Beginning
Russia as a socialist nation was formed in the middle of the First World War - disgruntled and disillusioned peasants, soldiers and workers rebelled against the Tsar, forming a Provisional Government with its smallest unit being the Soviet, a worker's committee. The provisional government was soon overthrown by the Bolsheviks, a group which continued the use of the Soviet as its most basic unit, implementing strict controls to prevent elected representatives from becoming too powerful. This worked well when the workers were active in their respective Soviets. In the meantime, this new form of government inspired similar revolutions in Germany and Finland, as was hoped by the early socialist leaders.

Ideally...
...an international Socialist Revolution would have meant that different socialist nations would be able to support each other with food, resources, arms, or skilled labour. Were the other revolutions successful, Russia, or any other socialist country, would have been much harder to dislodge from power. This partly came true when workers and soldiers rebelled in some invading countries, keeping these nations from sending out their full military strength for fear of more revolutions. However, this was not to last. The other revolutions across Europe were put down, and soon armies foreign and local were marching to claim chunks of Russia as their own - the Russian Civil War had begun.

The problems begin
But Russia's unexpected isolation from the rest of the world, and the invasion of more than twenty armies, left the socialist leaders in a difficult position. The country faced food shortages, a lack of troops, internal counter-revolutions and a backward economy incapable of rivalling the foreign powers it faced.

The weakening of the people
Vladimir Lenin, Russia's first leader, was forced to conscript workers into the army, leading many educated workers to their deaths and causing disillusionment among others. This made it easy for individuals to take control of individual Soviets, who then moved up the ranks gradually to gain more power. Lenin's move to consolidate his power by removing democratic controls and forming a secret police (the Cheka) that executed his political opponents made it easy for existing bureaucrats to maintain their power. Worse, the bureaucrats who had taken control of the Soviets then allied themselves with Stalin, at the time a political unknown.

The slippery slide to dictatorship
Lenin also had to act to ensure that his armies had enough food, and implemented an economic policy which rewarded landlords (Kulaks) for increasing food production. This simply gave the Kulaks more power over the masses, which further disillusioned the peasants and reduced their interest in the Soviets. When the Kulaks grew too powerful, Stalin tried to shift the economy to the industrial sector, which simply transferred power to the factory managers. The bureaucrats were now so powerful that they no longer needed to heed the demands of the people. They quickly began amassing resources and wealth for themselves.

Stalin's rise to power
Then, Stalin launched his takeover. Using the secret police and the binding laws that Lenin had set up to maintain his own power, Stalin quickly removed and replaced the various members of the Central Committee with his own men, assassinating those who dared disobey him. The Stalinist nation of the USSR had emerged.

Stalinism as we know it
Under the planned economy, the USSR under Stalin grew in a few short decades from an agricultural backwater to in industrial powerhouse to rival that of the USA. For nearly fifty years the power balance between Russia and America swayed back and forth, with neither side able to topple the other. But the momentum of Lenin's and Stalin's reforms could not last forever. The rot caused by the disillusionment of the workers, combined with enormous corruption, finally brought the USSR to its knees, and ultimately, destroyed it.

Ultimately
Yes, the Americans won the cold war, but only because of the weaknesses inherent within a dictatorship. Yes, socialism in Russia was hijacked and turned into Stalinism, but it has since inspired many a revolution across the globe. Yes, Russia did not answer the questions of how the world should have been run, but it has offered us an insight into how powerful a planned economy could be. Let what happened in Russia be a lesson to you - for it was an event that shall reverberate in world history for generations to come.

What Happens Tomorrow?

2008-03-09T05:05:00.007+08:00

The Malaysian elections are over. As Malaysians settle down to sleep, 5 states now belong to the opposition parties, while the remaining 8 remain in the hands of the Barisan Nasional. The opposition has managed, perhaps by the skin of its teeth, to deny the gigantic BN machinery a 2/3 majority in parliament. Malaysians all over have decided that they have had enough with BN. They have taken the plunge into the unknown, and elected leaders who have, up to now, never held the reins.

The last time this happened was in 1969, nearly 40 years ago. And on the 13th of May that year, a majority Chinese opposition marched across the country in a victory rally.

But not was all as it seemed - for some in the current government were ready to launch their master operation to sieze power from the leaders of the party. Inciting the ethnic Malays into violence, they began a series of race riots that raged across the country, claiming more than a hundred souls, and plunging the country into fourty years of fear-based BN rule.

Fourty years on, I sit at my desk in England, wondering what I will see on the news when I wake up tomorrow. This could be the beginning of a new chapter in Malaysian history - with the promise of civil liberties, freedom of speech, and a proper stand against corruption. But I cannot but feel uneasy. The government has been unchallenged in parliament for some fourty years. What happens now that its once-tiny rivals have given it the hardest punch it has ever felt?

The last time the opposition parties did that, certain individuals led the country to the brink of civil war. Had one of the opposition parties not decided to join BN, I may not be sitting here right now. How will the government react this time? Will I wake up to news of raging street fights?

I can only pray, that fourty years down the road, we have learned our lesson - that Malaysians know the issue here is not of race, but of justice, and that we will not once again fall into another trap set for us by selfish men, men who would see people die in order to cling on to power for a few more days.

Malaysia has been teething from its colonial roots for 50 years. Can we finally claim to be the independent nation we should be?

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,
none but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'cause none of them can stop the time.

How long shall they kill our prophets
while we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it -
we've got to fulfil the book.

Bob Marley - Redemption Song

Elections - Malaysia

2008-03-08T01:54:00.004+08:00

This is a rushed post, and by the time you read this the elections will probably have started, or even ended.

I don't have much to say besides this: Most of you have heard of the problems Malaysia faces, even if you don't know the accurate statistics or even actual facts. I want you all to think of the issues here:

Our leaders say they want unity, then turn around and scream about the racial superiority.
They claim freedom of speech, but brutally crush rallies against their party.
They declare economic improvement and buy private jets using our money, but raise the price of oil.
They lead us on a verbal merry-go-round about whether we are actually an Islamic country or not.
They insist crime is minimal, but a person is blown up with C4 explosives by two government commandos.
They spend billions on economic projects that either get cancelled or forgotten about.
They declare development, but where is it? I don't see people on the street getting happier.
They say the opposition is evil, but they themselves are corrupt.
They say the media is fair, but they shut down newspapers who don't toe the line.
They claim the elections are fair, but insist that postal votes be kept to ensure government candidates keep their seats.

I've heard enough. I've made my mind up. Have you?

Some things I miss from high school

2008-02-11T03:22:00.001+08:00

The good old days when we would sit and talk about nonsense all day without being malicious to anyone.

The way we ribbed each other and never got offended.

Being able to sit down and discuss anything with total disregard to pecking order.

Pecking order? What's that?

Not caring whether we sounded nerdy or not.

Discussing world events as if we knew everything going on behind the scenes, even though we knew jack shit.

Going to classes because we wanted to see our friends, not because we cared about lessons.

Being able to daydream in class and still come up with the right answer.

Mom’s cooking – because that’s when we knew the day was over.

Sleeping in the bus rather than trying to remember the nerves in the brachial plexus.

Not caring about a test because it didn’t matter if we failed or passed.

Making up imaginary enemies – because we didn’t have any real ones.

Having time to write about things that mattered to us, rather than do endless library searches.

The way we all understood what one of us was talking about.

Not having to worry about sleeping late because we could always sleep in class.

Not having to worry about anything outside the classroom.

Being able to lean back in bed and read a book of our own choosing, not a textbook recommended by module leaders.

The way everything outside school and our houses never mattered.

Abortion

2008-02-04T04:58:00.001+08:00

That day after a very long Friday night at the club, I got into the safety bus with a bunch of other people I didn’t know. They were fairly drunk. One of them, a young lady with an American accent, made the statement “I support abortion because we don’t have enough resources to feed everyone and the world is overpopulated”. I held my tongue about how wrong that statement was. I might have argued the point, but I didn’t think that it would have gotten through given that she was already up there with the fairies, and spouting absolute nonsense. I don’t know whether she would have said the same thing if she were sober, but here I go anyway.

Let me make it clear from the start, I support abortion as well. That’s not the issue I’m angry about. I’m just not happy with the rest of her statement.

The main things I’m not happy about:

First, abortion is not about resources, it’s about choice.

Realistically, how much of the world’s resources would abortion save? How many people undergo abortions? Take fourteen million in 2006, as reported by the Johnston Archive. Let’s say that half of them are for medical reasons, in other words they would have been necessary for the safety of the mother, or they wouldn’t have survived to term anyway. That leaves seven million. How much of the world’s population is that? Just over 0.1% – a tiny figure among the 6 billion we already have. Sure, if every one of those 7 million lives to the age of 100, then that might have some impact. But what are the odds of that? Abortion doesn’t save nearly enough resources to make an impact on overpopulation. It does, however, give one the right to control their body.

Second, we produce enough grain to feed the world 1.5 times over – the fact is that we do have the resources.

Yes, the fact is that we can and do produce enough food for everyone on the planet, and then some. Our production capacity isn't nearly at its peak either, thanks to European grain subsidies that make it economically unfeasible to scale up grain production in Africa and other countries. The reason why people are dying of hunger in the streets is because of the imbalance of resources. Why, then, do we not feed these people? Why do we leave them to die on the streets while we let our crop surpluses rot? That is another story, best saved for another day – but the reasons boil down to greed, ignorance and self-interest.

Third, if we all consumed the same amount as the average American, we’d need four planet earths to feed our resource hunger.

I don’t know if the young lady was American, Canadian, or just got her accent by watching a lot of TV. And I’m not singling out America because she had an accent. The fact is, the average US citizen consumes far more than the average person. And using the same line of reasoning as hers, if you really want to save resources, then you shouldn’t just kill any baby, but instead take the effort to kill American babies – because killing one of them is saving the resources for four others. See how flawed the argument is? Who do you choose to go, the ones who are actually going to consume more, or the ones more easily fooled?

Fourth, the statement neglects the issue that poor people don’t even have access to basic medical care.

If her idea was that we would do the poor a favour by reducing their burdens towards their families, then she’s barking up the wrong tree. It might do an individual family more good, but only if the family has access to a hospital, and by extension, more basic resources like electricity, plumbing and roads. The vast majority of the world’s population doesn’t have that. Millions live on less than a US dollar a day. Do they really have access to proper medical care and hospitals, or are they more likely to simply dump the newborn baby in a trash can because they can’t pay for an abortion?

Fifth, abortion to save resources is akin to purging the world of ‘undesirables’.

Yes, quite so. “We have too many people now, and they’re consuming our resources. What do we do?” “I know! We’ll kill their babies!” The irony is that the people making these decisions are probably consuming the resources that would keep 50 others alive. Touting abortion as a way to reducing the burden on the planet simply makes it more socially acceptable, but the bottom line is that if ever abortion is used to limit human numbers, it is but one step away from culling animals in national parks. Given our grain surpluses, I doubt highly that we’ve reached that level of desparation.

Sixth, and probably most importantly, there is no ‘magic pill’ to cure overconsumption of our resources.

Even if killing poor people’s babies to control their numbers is morally acceptable – and it’s not – there would still be overconsumption. It exists because people are greedy and don’t know when to stop. Take the world as it is today, and imagine that you crossed out one in every ten people on the street – would we still have problems with overconsumption of the world’s resources? Yes. Every one of us consumes more than we need, then we blame our neighbours for the lack of resources and the pollution. This has to stop, and the first step towards that is acknowledging that probably every one reading this blog post is overconsuming. Equally disturbing, her comment raises the issue of what she has been taught by the media, her education and her parents. If I had to hazard a guess as to what background she came from, I'd safely say it wasn't from a lower middle class family. People in that position simply don't say things like that.

And, at the end of my rant:

People who believe abortion is going to do anything to control the world’s population are probably wrong, unless it is mandatory, like China's one child policy. And let’s be honest, most people wouldn't want to be told how many children they should have. At best, abortion would give a family control over the number of children they have, and the number of mouths they need to feed. But looking at the world on a macro scale, this dwindles into nothingness. The facts are that abortion has nearly nothing to do with controlling population sizes, and that overconsumption is not going to be cured by legalising abortions, but by making drastic changes in our lifestyles, our economies, and our very concepts of 'need' and 'want'.

I’m starting to see what makes me me now.

2008-01-20T04:40:00.002+08:00

Not that long ago I believed that people had the choice to be whatever they wanted to be. Though that is true to a point, I’m starting to believe that outside circumstances play a much bigger role than choice. I’m not saying there’s no such thing as free will, but merely that circumstance, destiny, or whatever you want to call it plays a much bigger role that I ever imagined.

I grew haughty, believing that people who made choices different from mine were not thinking through their decisions properly, and that my ideals were the only ones that people should be aiming towards.

Now, I see a long line of events, people, and places that have come together to make me, the me I am today. Everyone has one of these. Different events, different circumstances have shaped them into the persons that they are today, and how they will make their choices in the future. After all, how can someone who has never read the Mortorcycle Diaries or been to Bolivia see the exploitation of Latin America through Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara's eyes, or feel as Ishmael Beah did as his entire village was destroyed in the war-torn Sierra Leone, without having read his memoirs, or experienced it firsthand?

This seems rather obvious, but it finally explains what I was so frustrated about – that people wouldn’t see or do things the same way I did, that people wouldn’t stand for what I was convinced was the only choice to make. They are fundamentally different from me as I am from them, and to demand that they do the same things as I would be paramount to saying that they experienced everything that I did too.

Your path, your choices, your opinion of the way the world should be, are different from those of mine. I understand that now. Whose choices ultimately are the best, neither you, nor I, nor anyone else can decide – for we are limited by the experiences that have made us the people we are today.

But then, surely some choices are better than others, and not having experienced something makes a poor excuse for doing the wrong thing – try to justify killing someone in a road accident because you never experienced being drunk! Not being experienced will therefore not save anyone from having to make the tough calls in life. I thus choose to stand by the ideals that I hold dear, until someone or something comes along to prove me wrong. When the facts change, I will change my mind – but only then.

I can only conclude that God moulds you into what you are – to a point. What’s left is up to you. I hope that when the hard choice comes, you and I know the right decision to make. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to choose what you want to do with your life, and what you stand for and would be willing to die for – to go out there and seize every opportunity to learn, or to be caught without the experience to make that choice in the future.

The choice to learn, to grow, is yours, as is the direction you want to grow in. Remember something, though, about what you may consider not worth learning or knowing about: as Trotsky said, "You may not be interested in stategy, but strategy is interested in you".

Musings

2007-11-25T07:43:00.001+08:00

A series of random thoughts, in no particular order, that I may one day expand. Until then, have a think about them.

On integration and freedom to be different:
Do we separate different groups, then expect them to come together, or do we bring them together, then let them express their uniqueness in their own ways?

On social classes:
How can we tell a boy that because he was born to a poor man, he would not have access to tertiary education, medical treatment, healthy food, and a house?

On global warming:
How can we save the earth when we are told to buy as many things that our income allows?

On socialism:
How do you tell a manager he will get the same pay as his cleaner?

On non-conformism:
Everybody's doing it - so aren't they all conforming to being rebels?

On starvation:
There are more obese people than there are starving ones, and we produce enough grain to feed the world 1.5 times over. Why hasn't the problem been solved?

On politics:
Politicians are civil servants, and every civil servant's job is to serve the people. So why don't they?

On musicians:
They are just like us, but they got left behind on one genre while the rest of us moved on.

On genetic engineering:
When everyone is engineered to look like Christiano Ronaldo and Jessica Alba, who would we get to play movie characters?

On GDP:
If I paid a billion dollars for holes to be dug and filled up again, I would still be contributing to GDP, but would I be doing anything useful?

What I hope BERSIH has achieved

2007-11-25T05:19:00.001+08:00

On the eve of the BERSIH march, the government quakes in terror and the people chatter excitedly about a change in the wind. The march was far from ideal, but it greatly raised hopes at a time when morale is in short supply.

However, BERSIH’s demands (even if met) still do not address certain key issues that have been dogging Malaysian politics for a time, chiefly, the ability of the Alternative Front to effectively replace the existing coalition, and clean up its mess at the same time.

One glaring issue is that the opposition camp doesn’t provide a realistic alternative to BN in the long run. People are apprehensive of the fundamentally Islamic PAS, distrustful of the DAP with its leadership passed down from father to son, and confused about the intentions of PKR, itself led by a former UMNO strongman and would-be-Prime Minister. These allies of convenience, each with fundamentally different objectives and party demographics, will likely fall upon each other the moment BN is defeated – and since each party recruits from a particular race, they may just come to resemble UMNO and its sisters the MCA and MIC. We may change the leaders on top, but there is a risk that the existing racism and cronyism will continue to exist.

Of course, there is also the issue of how well the government manages the country, and whether these parties will be able to do so with so much endemic corruption is up to the reader to decide. One thing is for sure, this author does not trust any politician with their hand in the cookie jar to be completely honest. With an anticorruption agency, a police force and a judiciary that have sold themselves to the highest bidders, significant reforms will have to take place before these checks and balances can function effectively again.

There is also the possibility, however remote, that a party or individual from the alternative camp may defect to the BN camp, bringing vital parliamentary seats along with it – which is precisely what happened in 1969. For all its intentions at its formation, Parti Gerakan Rakyat was ultimately reduced by years of cronyism and corruption into becoming just another BN lapdog – a legacy hardly worthy of its good beginnings.

From behind both camps looms the invisible hand of Dr Mahathir – how deeply he is involved with this particular event, and what exactly his intentions are, can only be speculated. At the moment, his actions appear to be benefiting the people by exposing the corruption of the existing government – what he would do in the future is anybody’s guess.

One thing is certain – there must be some sort of check and balance to the politicians, a system which the people themselves can use when the interests of the government no longer mirror those of the people. The question then, is what kind of system needs to be formed, and how should it go about its activities?

Actually the system could be quite simple – a group that could organise people to hold demonstrations, marches or, simply, a general strike, would be enough to give pause to any government official. All that is really needed is a good grassroots movement, a number of people who are concerned enough to spend a day or two at a march. From this base would come others who disseminate information, who provide ideas and suggestions, who have transport, who know how to maintain order. And once the numbers build up to the thousands, people, not governments, will have control of their lives.

In Britain, this system appeared in the form of trade unions, which demanded for rises in living standards, minimum wages, etc. The legacy today is that when the government does something unpopular, the people have the power to hurt the government where it counts – in its pockets. When Margaret Thatcher introduced a poll tax, millions – literally millions – of people refused to pay – and this led to the tax being repealed. When Britain planned to invade Iraq, two million marched through London to protest. That is one out of every thirty British. Remarkable.

How soon will a movement like this form in Malaysia? Sadly, it appears that most Malaysians have not even contemplated the idea –the banning of trade unions, the University and University Colleges Act, the mainstream media and the education system have been carefully designed to discourage people from being active in politics, and even from learning about it – which has left the Malaysian grassroots charred and barren - until the BERSIH march.

I do not expect the current administration to conduct electoral reforms – judging from the responses by some of our leaders, it will not – nor do I expect Barisan Alternatif to make a flying leap into the Prime Minister’s office, nor even that the government will begin to make concessions to the people, or even that it will pretend to clean up its image. What I expect, and pray for, is that Malaysians of all skin colours will finally, finally shed their misgivings of race and apathy, and begin to get involved in the running of their own government. And maybe then, we shall finally see the birth of a truly democratic Malaysia.

BERSIH Demonstration Marred by Immature Government Response

2007-11-11T09:10:00.002+08:00

At 3pm on the 10th of November, thousands and thousands of people braved rain, riot police, tear gas, and chemical sprays in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to demonstrate for clean elections.

In an attempt to disrupt the demonstration, the government resorted to using underhanded tricks, up to and including:

Declaring the demonstration illegal and threatening to arrest those who would participate
Locking down KL city in an attempt to prevent demonstrators from gathering
Diverting buses and cars with demonstrators away from the city
Closing down monorail exits to prevent demonstrators from entering the city
Confiscating T-shirts and banners belonging to demonstrators
Bringing weapons to the scene (including sub-machine guns, police helicopters and gas grenade launchers) to intimidate the crowds
Video recording individual faces for later identification of demonstrators
Infiltrating crowds using plainclothes policemen in order to sew violence and dissent
Unprovoked use of tear gas grenades and high-powered chemical hoses
Beating and attacking journalists who were recording the scenes, including an international journalist

Despite these, and more, tactics used by our leaders and their cronies, an estimated 40,000 people joined the march. The memorandum was handed to the DYMM Agong, and the crowds then dispersed peacefully.

However, this was not the end of the line for the government and their lackeys, for the police then began indiscriminately attacking and arresting demonstrators who were dispersing. At least 28 protesters were arrested, most of whom were subsequently released.

The government continued to abuse their rights and responsibilities as elected leaders of the people by playing down the demonstration in the Malaysian media, and failing to report at all the cases of unprovoked police brutality.

News clips from Al-Jazeera showing the unnecessary heavy-handedness of the police response.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/11/10/malaysia_police_move_to_foil_opposition_rally/

http://www.mysinchew.com/node/2878

http://www.malaysia-today.net/nuc2006/news2007.php?itemid=210

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28625&l=f3ecc&id=617416275

http://englishsection.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=382&Itemid=1

Power to the People! Bangkitlah Bangsa Malaysia!

A Debate

2007-11-09T08:03:00.001+08:00

On RockyBru's blogsite, I challenged a certain anonymous commentator to a debate. If he/she decides to respond, please do so here. All others interested are invited to put forth their arguments, in a civil manner.

Read the details here:
http://rockybru.blogspot.com/2007/11/bloggers-for-peaceful-march.html

Anonymous posts will not be tolerated, at least give yourselves nicknames so that I can separate one anonymous from another. Name-calling, foul language and the like will either be severely criticised or deleted from this blog.

I await your response.

BERSIH March 10 November 2007 [Updated]

2007-11-08T01:27:00.001+08:00

UPDATED THURSDAY 8th NOVEMBER

Apologies for there nto being much content in the above post, I felt that the video speaks volumes about what we need to do.

But to highlight a point, it is the PEOPLE who need to take back the streets. Politicians, even the real ones, can only do so much. Even if all of the opposition showed up, they wouldn't be able to shake things up enough.

When 2,000 marched in Putrajaya, it shook the very foundations of the government.

I can also honestly tell you that when the British government tried to close down a public hospital, twenty thousand showed up to protest - more than the population of the town itself.

Now I want you to come to your own conclusions here: if twenty thousand can show up to protest a hospital being closed in a random town, how many do you think should turn up to demand change in Malaysia, where someone got blown up with C4, police shot two unarmed civilians, petroleum will run out in 10 years and the politicians threaten the deaths of their own citizens?

A New Stand [Updated]

2007-10-23T07:16:00.001+08:00

Ladies and gents, apologies for the nonexistent post which I promised you last weekend, I am working on it and will (very very likely) update this by Wednesday.

Being very quick:

On Tuesday, I joined a hundred-strong protest against a white-supremacist party meeting in Nottingham.

We shut down the meeting.

Updates soon.

UPDATED THURDSAY 25th OCTOBER:

Precursor:

I joined the Socialist Student's Society on week one of the course and thought nothing of it. I even missed the first meeting (not a very good start).

Then I got a text (we call them SMS) from one of the members - they were having a protest in Nottingham against a BNP meeting, and wanted me to come along.

When I came here, I had told myself that I wouldn't get involved in British politics, simply because I thought I had enough to deal with in Malaysia already. But I wanted also to learn about anything that could help Malaysia - and after the Burmese Monks' protest, as well as the Lawyers' March and the Batu Burok incident back home, I thought the biggest thing we needed was a damn good show of people power.

With that in mind, I packed up my stuff, and hopped on the bus to the Uni. Let me be honest: I did not know a thing about what was going on, except that there would be a protest in Nottingham, it was against the "British National Party" (I knew nothing about it) and that the bus leaves from the Students' Union at 5pm on Tuesday. I wondered if we would be back in time for a game of pool.

I plodded in the evening rain to the Union, where I met a few other like-minded students - Owain, a fellow 1st-year Medic; Andrew Zignani (Ziggy), a 2nd-year Historian; and Vicky, a 3rd-year English student and one of the brains behind the Socialist Students' Society. The man behind the entire thing was Steve, in his 40's.

We piled in the van and drove around for a bit to pick up some others - I was surprised that 8 others turned up, all in their 40s-50s. Due to bad traffic, we did not make it out of Leicester until around 6pm. We had some idle conversation, I learned that the BNP were basically an extreme right-wing party who wanted Indians, Muslims, Jews and non-whites in general kicked out of the country. They were meeting to plan their election move in Nottingham. Somehow in the middle of it, I managed to fall asleep. By the time we reached Nottingham it was 8pm, black as night, very cold, and rainy. There was some confusion as to where the meeting place was, and we drove aimlessly for a bit. I was wondering if this was such a good idea after all when we pulled into a car park.

Before stepping out, Steve told everyone to write down their names and telephone numbers - in case we were arrested. Then it hit me: this was serious.

We walked to the meeting place in the rain. I was already shivering because of the cold. I don't know what I was expecting as we walked into a little street. A gaggle of police were ready to greet us as we walked in. I nearly had a heart attack when one of them asked me to take off my hood.

The Protest:

The BNP meeting was being held in an otherwise unremarkable little building along a small street, but the first thing I saw as the dozen of us got closer was the crowd of protestors. They seemed to grow, so that when there were only around twenty from a distance, a hundred had materialised out of the night by the time we were face to face. Most of these weren't kids, they were in their 30s and 40s. Some were even balding.

We crossed the street to join the main group of protestors, right in front of the hall. A few BNP members skulked within, trying to stay hidden. The majority of them had not yet arrived for their meeting. The police were there too - four big fellows were standing in the garden, looking down at us. Another dozen or so moved along the street, checking for violence and trying to pinpoint potential troublemakers.

It's hard to describe, but when you realise that these people had family, had to go to work tomorrow, had to go home to cook dinner, had to take care of not catching cold, you feel strangely reassured, despite the rain and wind, the cold, the chanting, the frowns of BNP members, the police with their truncheons... These people all could have been doing other things - sipping a cup of tea, watching the latest football rerun, doing their ironing, filling out their mortgage forms... - but they were here instead.

I felt as if I was standing among giants.

Besides us and the police, the hooligans were out too, looking for a fight. They weren’t BNP, or protestors – they were locals with nothing to do, and nothing to stand for. They were content to shout obscenities at us from a distance, but to their credit the police cleared them away. I felt remarkably safe, considering that I was in the middle of a protest with police around me.

An elderly couple appeared down the street, and everything changed. The protestors started to jeer. Cries of “Nazi scum!” and “Racists!” filled the night. Some protestors tried forcibly to block the entrance, while the police formed a column and allowed the couple into the hall. A violent scuffle ensued. Threats were made and returned. As the couple disappeared into the building, one particularly violent protestor was hit in the head with a truncheon and arrested.

After calm was restored, we stood around in the rain again, feeling rather stupid, and made some attempts at conversation as we shivered underneath our rain jackets. I take my hat off to Vicky – she is a capable leader and is willing to stand for what she believes is right. I must say I am impressed by her commitment, and that of Owain, Ziggy, Steve, and the rest of the protestors who were with me that night. By then, it was 9pm. We were getting very cold, and hungry as well.

A few other BNP members showed up, trying to get into the hall, and we gave them the same treatment as we did the first few. The police finally decided not to force their way in, for the safety of both parties. A few suits tried to show up as well – and they weren’t too pleased that we were blocking their way. But they had no choice save to stay on their side of the street.

We had to stay put to make sure the meeting wasn’t going to work – and so we did. By the time we left it was 11pm. My bed appeared before me at midnight, and I collapsed after a long day.

That night, I won a personal victory for myself. But that’s not the end of it. The BNP are just a small right-wing party among a whole lot of larger right-wing parties out there, sowing hatred and dividing countries against each other. I may have played my part in evicting the BNP from Nottingham, but there are larger fish to fry as well.

But one thing I did learn is that the downfall of these parties lies not in the hands of the politicians, but in the hands of the men and women on the street, the ones who came out in force that night. To be completely honest, none of them would be out that night if someone else would do it for them. One of them told me “nobody else is doing it, that’s why I’m here.”

And that’s the other thing I learned: being concerned doesn’t mean you protest when everyone else protests, or speak about Earth’s problems but do nothing about them. It means you’re out there when you’re most needed, even if you don’t want to be. Which fool would want to stand in the rain for three hours if they had a choice? The answer: not a fool, but a hero would.

Not So Review

2007-10-10T06:17:00.001+08:00

Blood Diamond by Edward Zwick (Movie)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah (Book)

Again a very late one on my part, but one that I was compelled to write. To those who have neither watched the movie (probably impossible) nor read the book (likely all of you), please get them both, right now. Come back to me after you’ve thoroughly digested them.

There are a million different topics I could raise from both of these at the same time, but I think I’ll settle for the ‘big picture’ and leave aside the details for a bit.

The movie will have hammered home the fact that wars are being fought over diamonds, as well as ivory, gold, oil and the rest of the big ones, and that millions take part in the war without ever seeing the big picture. What the movie didn’t really explain in detail was what that big picture actually is.

Bluntly put, the big picture is that some people are greedy bastards. They will do anything and everything to earn your admiration, trust and respect, or more likely, your money. And they aren’t too bothered if what they do kills someone, or more than one someone.

Take all the smart badass characters from the movie and you’ll see that they generally know what’s going on – and they don’t give a damn what happens to anyone else in the way. They will throw people in the line of fire to get that piece of your money. They will champion causes that they themselves don't believe. They will start wars. They will turn son against father, tribe against tribe, nation against nation. They will use children, drug them with cocaine and marijuana, arm them to the teeth, and send them to die, simply to make sure they have an uninterrupted supply of goods.

Now once these people have gotten their diamonds/petrol/ivory or whatever, they will find a way for you to buy them. And given that they are willing to have entire countries destroyed for their trade, do you think they’d be too bothered about lying to you to make you buy them? Doubt it, mate. Blood diamonds, clean diamonds – they’re all diamonds, they all can be sold.

If I told you that behaviour control is so ingrained in humans as to be taken for granted, you may laugh. But think again, Newsweek ran a report (from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427857/site/newsweek/) stating that big companies put lots of money into behaviour control marketing schemes – read the article and decide for yourself if you’re being manipulated. My point is, that if a cereal company, trading a completely clean item, is using behaviour control strategies to increase sales, what do you think diamond companies that traffic in blood diamonds are willing to do to make profits increase?

That, ladies and gentleman, is the big picture – people at all ends of the spectrum are being fooled into perpetuating a vicious cycle which benefits the ruthless and deprives the poor. If you bought a diamond – ask yourself whether someone could have been killed for it. Ask if an entire village was wiped out so that diamonds just like the one you want to buy could be sent off to be processed and labelled and you’ll see it doesn’t matter if that diamond specifically was a blood diamond. The entire trade has been corrupted by people who are willing to exploit, steal, kill.

The bigger picture? It’s not just diamonds that have spilt blood...Almost every trade in the world has backstabbing, murder and deciet written into it. All I'm asking you is to question your belief in society and its workings. It's up to you what you want to do with that knowledge.

Uni updates in detail.

2007-10-09T04:42:00.000+08:00

Spent first 4 days getting used to the weather with my parents, then went to the Medics Freshers' Week - something Edmond will enjoy. If you want to know the details, I got in Sunday, went to a pub/club that evening, went to lectures in the day, slept Monday night, visited 10 pubs and a club on Tuesday, went for a Comedy Night (think the Brit version of Jay Leno) Wednesday, bowling Thursday, Formal Dinner, drinking games and finally clubbed to exhaustion on Friday. Stayed in recovering after developing a nasty sore throat Saturday and Sunday, lectures started Monday-Friday, and since then I've decided to stay in until my throat clears up. I've been watching TV reruns and visiting town over my spare time. The only time I got tipsy (that's before you get drunk) was on Tuesday for the bar crawl, and I have to say it wasn't too bad (danced the alcohol away before I slept).

I am absolutely not used to the weather here, it's great to be able to go out at noon without melting, but it sucks when the tiolet seat freezes my arse off at midnight. Food is okay but I'm already starting to miss our own char koay teow and if anyone can get durians through customs please send some for me.

People are great here, the medics are very smart and very driven, and they party as hard as they can. All of the fresher's week was spent on drink, dance and the rest, and after a few drinks everybody becomes your friend/techno dance partner for the night.

There is only one thing cheaper in the UK than it is in Malaysia, and that's tequila, vodka and bacardi. Sandwiches cost 2 ponds, shots cost 1.50. Drinking is normal, people drink more days than they don't, and the drinking boat was just insane. The committee (in charge of fresher's week) challenged the freshers (that's me) to drink faster than they could, each team lines up in a line and drinks down the line, whichever line finishes first wins. Whomever loses strips naked and runs around the field.

Guess what? We won. The committee takes off their clothes, the freshers take out their cameras. Heh heh heh.

Getting tipsy is not getting drunk (but a good sign that you will soon), it's when gravity starts to disagree with you. You lean to the left, and gravity makes you go waaaay to the left. That's when you stop drinking and start dancing.

Work-wise, they are starting to turn up the heat already, one poor girl collapsed in the dissecting room before they brought the body out, it was fine generally except when they lifted the chest out and bits fell out of it... I'll have to get used to that soon...

Am currently being treated for tonsilitis (sore throat) and am having a blood test for glandular fever (don't ask me, I'm not a doctor yet), so I'm laying off the parties for a bit. Socialism works very well here, As a student under 19 I get free medical treatment here. Wonder what it's like under the surface though.

Saw some pretty interesting moves from my breakdancing and streetdancing classes, but now I have a bad back after trying to repeat them. Will liekly get better after next week.

Anyways here are the links to our farewell party and my Leicester misadventures.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23421&l=e2ffc&id=617416275
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23417&l=4de05&id=617416275

Uni so far...

2007-09-27T06:50:00.000+08:00

...has not started. I've been in Uni accomodation for a week, meeting my future doc mates, and attending lectures and groupwork sessions, but the course only starts next Monday.

So what ELSE have I been doing so far?

1. Learning English English, along with its brothers Cornish English, Scottish English, Indian English and Immigrant English
2. Trying to remember how to socialise with people.
3. Acquainting myself with the local superstore ASDA
4. Apparently, I dance well. (WTF? I've like danced 5 times in my life...)
5. Getting as near drunk as I dare in pyjamas (NO I'M NOT JOKING).
6. NOT updating my blog/friendster/facebook profiles.

Will keep you guys posted, but I'm damn exhausted right now and classes haven't even started proper.

Review – Minutes to Midnight, Linkin Park

2007-09-06T14:22:00.002+08:00

This is somewhat late considering Minutes to Midnight was released some months back, but it took some time listening to the album before I could tear myself away from seeing it in the same light as the other albums (So those of you who still view it from that angle, please rethink your angle, not what you see). Since I can’t review the album until I analyse each song, I’ll leave the album summary to the end.

Wake
A short guitar and drums skit that which sums up the album quite thoroughly and gives the listener a taste of what to expect. In terms of content, this one opens the album on a grand note.

Given Up
Quite a shocker, considering Wake’s grand tone and the subtle Leave Out all the Rest. This is LP’s foray into Industrial, and though it has very nice guitars it doesn’t quite live up to the intensity of a Nine Inch Nails tune, which the song will inevitably be compared against. Compared to the previous LP “angry” tunes it’s nothing too new, though it will please fans of the “harder” rock genres.

Leave Out all the Rest
This song has an excellent opening with near-perfect layering effects, but the chorus seems just a tad lacking in terms of vocals, which are very good throughout the rest of the song. I’d have happily labelled this the best song on the album if the chorus had just a bit more vocal oomph. The song is roughly on par with Numb, though Mike Shinoda’s additional vocals would be welcome to give it more flavour.

Bleed It Out
LP has definitely gotten it right in this song, at least in terms of the infectious energy. This song, with its catchy tune and lyrics to boot, makes the previous LP hit Faint seem amateurish. It stands out as one of the best songs on the album, with a very nice use of the hoedown beat/clap to make things even more energetic. It has been suggested that Shinoda has very subtly hidden a message in the lyrics – but even if you don’t agree, this is still an excellent song.

Shadow of the Day
A nice keyboard loop, though I think the beat could be improved. The song shows its true colours when the vocals start, and here the band’s development becomes clear – they’ve definitely grown up. It would be unthinkable for a song like this to show up on any of their previous albums, but I much welcome this refreshing change. LP has taken a page from U2’s book, and they’ve come out the better for it.

What I’ve Done
With a good guitar opening, the song can only get better when the vocals begin – Bennington does not let his fans down. The well-chosen lyrics are just another sign that LP is developing as a band, though many an old fan will lament Mike Sinoda and Joe Hahn being very muted in this particular song.

Hands Held High
If you could only listen to one song on the album, let it be this one! LP uses organ and drum effects as well as the choir bridge and ending to highlight the lyrics – which are amazingly poignant. Though Shinoda remains in the background throughout most of the album, he deservingly becomes the highlight of the band when he steps to the fore. This is an excellent song, and to date LP’s most important, even more so than the very poignant FRGT/10.

No More Sorrow
This is the hardest song on the album, and Metal fans will appreciate it. A very impressive guitar throughout, with decent drums – but the angst-laden and unsubtle lyrics pale in comparison set against the poignant and powerful Hands Held High, and as a result what political thunder it has simply gets stolen by Hands Held High.

Valentine’s Day
This seems to be a throwback to My December, with some tweaks and refinements – certainly the lyrics and instruments are better thought-out and well-implemented, and the later twist keeps it unique from being lumped with other clichéd songs of the same style. Sandwiched between the extremely hard No More Sorrow and the rather meek In Between, it's easy to overlook.

In Between
This one starts off very promisingly, with good harmonies (though the vocals could be improved significantly) but peters out towards the second half of the song – simply put, there was just not enough content to keep it going, and a very awkward twist in the chorus to beef the song length up does it no justice either. Though I can empathise with the content, I cannot agree with an extra limb grafted onto the song to make it look whole.

In Pieces
This one turned out to be a surprisingly good song, considering the somewhat awkward beginning and rather hard-to-accept combination of instruments and vocals (I suspect they did this on purpose). Its guitar effects do it justice though. Though it will not be one of my favourites, it is definitely respectable in its own right.

The Little Things Give You Away
Deep, poignant and meaningful, especially with the great guitar solo by Phoenix and following voice effects – here, the song shines through as being a cut above the rest. They prove that a subtle and mature song is simply better than one where the artists descend into uncontrolled chaos.

Minutes to Midnight
Initially, the overall sound of the album was very hard to accept – especially for a diehard like me, after all who cannot resist comparing its songs to old greats like Somewhere I Belong, Crawling, and In the End? I was sceptical, especially after watching What I’ve Done on MTV – and prepared for the worst.

With a significantly muted rap and near-absent DJ effects, the album shocked me at first (my brain kept screaming “U2!”, “Evanescence!”, “Nine Inch Nails!”, “Nickelback!” throughout the first few songs and I wondered if the band was going through some sort of musical midlife crisis) – then Hands Held High turned up, I took a step back to rethink my original judgement, and everything was alright again.

Despite some awkward pace changes and the rather unfortunate In Between, LP continues to deliver. The change from teenage anger/confusion to political and social awareness is definitely a step in the right direction (and was hinted at somewhat in Reanimation’s FRGT/10 and Meteora’s Breaking the Habit), though it will leave some fans nostalgic for the nu-metal sound that LP pioneered. My chief gripe about the album is that Joe Hahn (a very important asset to the band) has not been given much precedence. Otherwise, it doesn’t get much better than this, with the band’s varied showing across the genre spectrum managing to stay “Linkin Park” while not becoming stale from repetition. This is not an album to miss.

A middle class with a lower-class mindset

2007-09-03T01:23:00.002+08:00

In Ghostline's post M for Merdeka; V for Vendetta, I discussed a point which I found particularly disturbing: our education system. Reproduced below is part of my comment (with added color and bold font for emphasis):

"...Our government school systems have very successfully turned most of us into unquestioning workers. This bunch can be placated with shopping malls, government-controlled media and the threat of the I.S.A. The more intelligent ones are so bored by textbook history that they don’t ever want to read about politics again, or they just decide to emigrate.

And that’s just the way the government wants it - a middle class with a lower-class mindset. Easy to placate, easy to bully, easy to trick, easy to govern..."

Part of Ghostline's reply (also with added color and bold fonts):

"... at the Bangsa Malaysia gathering... Malik Imtiaz used a very good term, “de-education” to describe the way that the failed education system has robbed the people of the ability to think for themselves, which is partly why they blindly accept what the government tells them is good and true.

We are the stubborn few who refuse to submit to totalitarianism, but we need to reach out to the people if we want to achieve anything meaningful.

Apathy-ignorance is indeed our greatest enemy: I have great difficulty convincing even my close friends to do something..."

Taking this one step further, I want to highlight as a student the (likely deliberate) flaws in our present education system:

First, we put too little emphasis on critical thinking. Students are plied with near-endless quantities of homework that emphasise rote memorization and straightforward technique over conscious thought. Few students are able to question why something should happen, rather than what, how, where and when it happens.

Second, we are desensitized from current history by our history textbooks, which numb our senses with irrelevant and trivial details. How much significance does the coinage of Malacca bear to current geopolitical history? Students end up treating history more as a chore than an interest – and who can blame them? Combine that with our exam papers that simply ask us for facts and not reasons behind them, and it is no wonder that students do not care about history, much less attempt to question it.

Third, while history textbooks ply students with irrelevant details, they attempt to sidestep modern geopolitical history altogether. Practically every important event outside Malaysia in the past century is squeezed into a single chapter, almost as an afterthought. Students are left with little understanding of the relevant issues behind today’s global turmoil, and more often than not end up with a skewed understanding of history.

Fourth, the textbooks tell a one-sided tale of things, in terms of race. “Malay” history takes precedence, while the “Chinese” are at every attempt portrayed as money-faced tin miners, or even worse, gangsters. “Indians” are barely mentioned in the textbooks, and are portrayed along with the “Chinese” as immigrants and foreign labourers. How much does that do to endear the “Chinese” and “Indians” to the “bumiputeras”? How much does it encourage the “immigrants” to fight and die for their country?

Fifth, our textbooks conspicuously avoid explaining the words May 13, save to paint it as a nebulous “dark day in history”, the day when racial balance was upset. Throughout the textbook May 13^th is used as a terrifying ‘bogeyman’ to scare off any notion of questioning the status quo, racial harmony or government action.

With an education policy like this, it is no wonder that our kids want to buy the first airplane ticket they can afford to Australia and New Zealand. Those who remain end up as desensitized worker-drones, unable to rid themselves from their chauvinistic cultural past, and uninterested in questioning or opposing government policy. The education system has done all too well in preventing free thought and preserving an otherwise transitory government system, but fails miserably in creating a flexible, useful future generation who might have otherwise made good and intelligent leaders for their country. Instead, we will see a growing class of people who are financially “middle class”, but mentally and politically unintelligent and immature.

All this after our current PM declared that education is the most important ministry in Malaysia. Yes, it is important – to keep us, the rakyat, cowed and under control. Now that I've said my piece, are you still willing to be kept under the yoke? Do you want to be subverted and used, never realising your full potential? Do you want to grow up just the way your government wants you to grow up - uninterested, uncaring, unintelligent?

I don't.

Raja Nazrin's Speech to All Malaysians - Regardless of Colour.

2007-08-30T01:13:00.003+08:00

It is my pleasure to be here to deliver the keynote address at this Roundtable Discussion on National Unity and Development in Malaysia: Challenges and Prospects for Nation Building. I am always happy to take part in an event where there are many young informed Malaysians. I find that this is time well spent. Not only does it give me a chance to share my thoughts, but it also lets me do a bit of opinion research among the younger generation.

We like to say that our youth are the future of this country, but then we proceed to ignore or marginalise them. We want our future generations to be able to think and act wisely, but then we do not give them sufficient opportunities to do so.

In my view, this is not a good way to prepare those who will take our place. If the young are to be good leaders and citizens, they must be exposed to more than just abstract concepts. Even those nation states which have failed miserably have had great political ideals.

I believe that good and upright leadership must be demonstrated. It has to be both taught and observed at work. Then, those who are found to be able, must be mentored by those who are capable. In this way, success can be learned and replicated.

Finally, the young must be given responsibilities they can handle. They should be allowed to make mistakes along the way as part of their overall learning process. If we do these things, our actions will echo loudly into the future.

My address this morning is on the challenges and prospects of nation-building, a topic that is of the greatest and gravest importance. Nation-building is essential to national unity which lies at the heart of what this country was, is and will be.

With the passage of time, it seems that we are starting to forget this and it is imperative that we do not. In the time available, I hope to say enough to provide some fuel for the discussions to follow. It is my earnest wish that you will gain some further perspectives on the nature of nation- building and that you will also deliberate on specific actionable ways to further it in this country.

Confucius insisted that language must be properly used if things are to get done, if justice is not to go astray, and if people are not to “stand about in helpless confusion”. He disapproved of those who misused words to hide their true intentions and actions.

So what exactly is nation-building? Not surprisingly, there are many definitions, some which differ by a little and others by quite a lot. In his book, The Making of a Nation, for example, Prof Cheah Boon Kheng defined it as “both economic progress and socio-political integration of a nation, that is prosperity and national unity”.

This captures what are hopefully the two end-results of nation building, but it makes no mention of its nature and process. I prefer the more common understanding, which is that it is the use of state power across different dimensions to ensure that a country is politically stable and viable in the long term. These dimensions include ethnicity and religion.

As a brief footnote, it should be noted that nation-building is a heated and even hated notion in some parts of the world. The main reasons for this are, first, that it is taking place in the midst of great domestic turmoil and, second, that it is primarily initiated and managed by foreign powers.

Trying to cobble a functioning state by papering over deep social and political rifts is, of course, easier said than done. History has shown us, time and again, that it is much easier to break down, rather than build up, nations.

In the case of Malaysia, nation- building has occurred in generally peaceful circumstances. It was not imposed by another country. And it is undertaken mainly by collective choice rather than compulsion.

The fact that we have been able to forge a nation without resorting to the rule of the gun has made us something of a rarity and a case to be studied, if not emulated. It has allowed a relatively effective system of governance to develop. Our track record in development and resolving problems such as illiteracy, poverty and poor health has been good.

There is, of course, much more that can be done. Our institutions of governance are far from perfect and quality improvements will probably occupy us for at least the next 50 years, if not longer. Nevertheless, for all the criticisms that have been made, it is only common sense that we could not have survived, let alone prosper, these last 50 years if government institutions had not been responsive or effective.

So, what are the central challenges to nation-building going forward? Let me speak first more generally about the world, and then move specifically to Malaysia.

To my mind, there are many challenges, but one that stands out most is that of having to balance the need for change with that of continuity.

Globalisation, in particular, has unleashed sweeping economic, political, social and cultural transformations that have weakened national institutions, values and norms. It is as if all the boats on the ocean had suddenly lost their anchors, rudders and compasses overnight.

Naturally, this has produced a strong reaction in the form of a desire to preserve identity, character and tradition. These are among the strongest motivations known to mankind and have been at the foreground or background of practically every conflict that has ever been waged. Add to this, a deep sense of deprivation, powerlessness and injustice, both real and imagined, and the tension between change and continuity mounts greatly.

Managing change on a national level is never easy, and certainly not on the scale and speed that we are witnessing. Multi-ethnic countries have to be especially watchful, and particularly if they have a weak sense of national collective identity.

In the absence of a strong binding nationalism, they are prone to polarisation and competition along ethno-religious lines. The state, which may well start out by being a relatively honest broker, can become increasingly pressured to act in ways that favour the interests of one group over another.

If the pendulum swings too far in one direction, dissatisfaction and frustrations will inevitably result. These can be expressed in ways that range from passive non-cooperation to active opposition and even violent conflict. To a large extent, this has led to the fragmentation of states.

Countries need to recognise the larger macro forces at work and understand their implications. They have to engage creatively to ensure that there are sufficient investments in social capital and cohesion. They must create and capitalise on cooperative systems within societies.

In recent times, it has become usual to try and place the blame for the disintegrating state of world affairs on the doorstep of religion. This is a misunderstanding of the first order. Religion is not the cause of societal dystrophy; it is the antidote. It is a social stabiliser that allows believers to reconnect to values that are fast being lost in today’s ever more materialistic and self-centred world.

What does Malaysia have to do to ensure that it continues to be successful at nation-building? Psychologists say that our short-term memory can only hold seven items. Let me outline seven guidelines that I think will have to be borne in mind in future nation-building efforts.

First, Malaysians of all races, religions, and geographic locations need to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have a place under the Malaysian sun. Only when each citizen believes that he or she has a common home and is working towards a common destiny, will he or she make the sacrifices needed for the long haul.

In Malaysia, the Federal Constitution, the Rukun Negara and Vision 2020 encapsulate the rights, hopes and aspirations of the population in a way that no other documents do. The integrity of these documents must be defended and promoted, especially the first.

Second, when we seek solutions to problems in nation-building, we must be careful not to assume away problems. Nation- building is required precisely because there are stark differences within society. If we all walked, talked and thought the same, it would probably not be needed.

There will therefore be chauvinistic groups in this country, just as there are in others. They will fight the idea of national unity, block social change and try to be politically dominant. The existence of these groups, however, does not mean that nation-building is a futile exercise.

It does mean that we must be prepared to negotiate our way through and around these differences. We can, for example, create social movements that aim to enlighten and dissuade popular support being given to them.

Third, nation-building requires accommodation and compromise. In our haste to be prescriptive, we should not be so idealistic that we are incapable of also being practical. We should not allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. Yes, we should seek the best solutions and expect the highest standards of performance.

But we should also be prepared to sacrifice some part of our positions for the good of the whole. The virtues of pure self-interest are largely a myth. What seems to be a reality is that individuals end up worse off when they act out of self-interest, as opposed to acting in their collective group interests.

Fourth, if nation-building is to be successful, enforced solutions must be avoided. Nation-building is effectively rendered null and void by coercion or the threat of violence. Might cannot, and must not, be shown to be right. If solutions cannot be found within the political and social structures, there will be a strong temptation to resort to illegitimate ways and means.

Fifth, nation-building occurs when society is open, tolerant and forward-looking. So important are these values that they are embedded in Vision 2020’s nine strategic challenges, as are those of mature democracy, caring society and innovation. Only by being inclusive and participative can the various sectors of our society be productively engaged. It follows that all forms of extremism, chauvinism, racism and isolationism must be guarded against. They must be soundly sanctioned socially, politically and, if necessary, also legally.

Sixth, nation-building is a process rather than an outcome. When Malaysia started off 50 years ago, there were no examples to study. There were no manuals to follow. Mistakes were made and, to a greater or lesser extent, lessons have been learned.

While a sense of impatience is perhaps fully understandable, nation-building takes place over a period of time and only with persistence. Where there is no trust, trust has to be built. Where there is no cooperative network, one has to be established. Building on layers of foundation is the only way to ensure that the process is solid and sustainable.

Seventh, the political, social and economic incentives must reward good behaviour and penalise bad. I know that this statement is virtually self-evident, but it is a fact that many countries are as likely to punish good behaviour as to reward it. After all, if there are benefits for corruption, then there is a real cost to being honest. The incentives for building up a nation must be greater and more compelling than breaking it down. The price of racial and cultural intolerance must be made prohibitively high.

I believe fostering national unity is the responsibility of every Malaysian. However, schools, institutions of higher learning and sports centres have a very special role to play. This is because the sense of national unity is best inculcated in the young.

Through textbooks, sports and interaction, educators should eliminate ethnic stereotypes. Through the imaginative teaching of the history of Islamic, Chinese and Indian civilisation, educators could foster greater understanding among different ethnic groups.

It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. I believe this is true. To me, the village comprises three main institutions - family, school and community.

From birth, we should be taught to respect and honour each other’s culture and heritage. Learning to interact with others is part of this process. Playing with children of other races on the playground and in friends’ homes, we learn to go beyond the colour lines early in life. In school we should be taught about other cultures and beliefs under the same roof as others of different ethnic groups - once again cutting through the colour lines.

I am aware that there are many Malaysians who are deeply troubled at the state of national unity in this country. What I have tried to do today is disabuse you of the notion that there are any “quick fix” solutions in nation-building.

If you look closely enough at any country, even those that are regarded today as highly successful, such as Japan, you will find there have been episodes in their past where events were very tenuous.

I hope we will do our best to guard against cynicism and hopelessness. And I hope we will all stay the course. Failure, may I remind you all, is a costly option.

Raja Nazrin Shah

Crown Prince of Perak

Unsung Heroine, First Class

2007-08-30T00:52:00.000+08:00

I’ve been taking my time over this particular post, simply because I find it particularly hard to write. Then again I believe this is a tale worth telling, so here I go anyway. Just after we finished the Maliau Basin Trip in Sabah, dad and I were in Tawau licking our wounds. As recommended by our fellow trekker Mr Chung we went to a massage parlour near the hotel.

Let’s set the scene: Standard Chinese massage parlour, with dad and me occupying the same cubicle, separated by a curtain. Dad got a pretty young Chinese lady from China, while my masseur was a young Indonesian girl, the kind of girl who would be a maid back in West Malaysia. If you’ve been to one, you’ll know that it’s nothing seedy. If you haven’t, let me repeat: it’s nothing seedy.

The session begins, and the Chinese lady starts by asking whether dad wants any special lotion, and describes its extremely useful qualities to the extent that a professional advertiser would seethe with envy. When dad says no, she then asks whether he wants a traditional Chinese foot massage, then a traditional back rub, and so on and so forth, all for an extra premium of course. When most of these attempts fail, she claims the time she needs to do the complete massage was longer than expected, and proceeds to charge him double. Meantime, my masseur simply begins a standard massage, without attempting to sell any of the extra massage products that the Chinese lady was so vigorously promoting.

With half a brain acting as translator between dad and the Chinese lady, I used my other half to talk to the Indon girl. She hails from a tiny village in Kalimantan, and crosses the border to find a decent job. Initially she works at a restaurant, but then realizes that she doesn’t earn enough to support her family. Soon enough, she enters the massage trade, without the knowledge of her family members – they think it’s unclean and dishonourable.

I asked for her view on the whole “massage parlours are unclean” business. She put it simply: if the masseur doesn’t do anything funny, then why should it be considered unclean? After all, she isn’t prostituting herself. Far from it, she makes wannabe hikers like us feel at least a little better after we go on near-suicide runs into jungles.

This struck me, because I realized that the unassuming young girl who was causing me a good amount of pain was actually a noble and capable lady, and a far better person than the one massaging my dad, who left a bad taste in my mouth as she spewed out endless advertisements.This Indon lady, on the other hand, decided to risk the wrath of her family to improve their lives, even though she knew they would at best frown upon her job, or more likely, disown her.

The lady had also seen beyond the veil that her own society placed on her – that the massage trade is unclean – and realizes that though not glamorous, it is noble. In fact, I’d say it’s even nobler than being a doctor or nurse, because there is no reward. A doctor will be rewarded with respect, admiration and decent salary. This girl will get none of that.

Lady, I know you’re not reading this because you don’t have computer access and probably can’t read English. But I take my hat off to you. I really do. And if it means anything to you, I think you're a stronger person than I'll ever be.

Sell me your soul...

2007-08-30T00:49:00.002+08:00

Get up out of bed today,

In my head since yesterday -

Voices call to me:

Do something for humanity.

Shake them, violently

If need be, out of the fantasy

That we call reality,

That so few recognize to be

The beginning of the end

Of the final descent

Into a human wasteland –

Money becomes command.

The strong get to say to

The weak: “Hey you,

Buy my product!

It’ll bring you luck;

It’ll make you belong,

Else you won’t last long.

Out there in the cold,

You’ll die before you’re old.

No money, no problem.

That ain’t the end -

Just lend me your soul –

I’ll keep it for you...”

Non-communal parties and the key problems they face.

2007-08-30T00:38:00.000+08:00

I often wonder why Gerakan decided to join Barisan National (BN) after it had done so well in the 1969 elections. Then again I suspect if it hadn't, the May 13 riots would probably have been far, far worse.

However, now that Gerakan HAS joined BN, I don't seem to hear any news of it in the papers or on TV. Even when MCA made a cursory move to defend Namewee, Gerakan remained deafeningly silent. In fact, the rest of BN besides the MCA seem to be completely cowed by UMNO (and MCA is not that much better). Meantime, Gerakan's composition now is largely Chinese, to the point that sometimes it seems to be a very slightly more secular version of MCA.

As far as I can see, once a party joins BN it becomes not much more than an UMNO-entity, though why or how on earth that happens I cannot myself tell. Basically, this means that if a party intends to maintain its own ideology, it must remain outside of BN, period.

Some person expressed the view that a completely secular (e.g. non-communal, non-race orientated) party should be formed, my guess is that it would have to face a lot of pressure to obtain the number of voters it needs in any election - on the one hand, there are the Malays, who want their rights protected. On the other, there are the Chinese who feel that Malay rights are depriving them of opportunities they deserve. A hundred different groups - the educated, the farmers, the different races, the businessmen, and others - lie scattered in between. Finding a policy that can woo voters of all walks of life is at best difficult, and at worst Mission: Impossible.

The Labour Party, Gerakan, IMP and others all started as secular parties, but were drawn into communal politics to obtain votes. To counter this any new party would need to have a completely secular leadership, and a fairly balanced ratio of members - otherwise it would be forced into communalism. In the meantime, safeguards must be in place to ensure members aren't infiltrated by racists (read inciters and those who would benefit from the party being forced into communalism). How the party achieves that remains to be seen.

Personally, I believe that education is part of the solution, with the current national schools being the template. To improve racial relations, students would be grouped into classes with roughly balanced ratios of race. To appease non-Malays, additional language classes in these subjects could be taught in after-school sessions for those interested.

The problem is that the Chinese and Indians are stubbornly refusing to leave their old educational centres in favour of a more united system, and the Malays are none too keen to encourage the Chinese to do so. This leaves nationally-educated Chinese and Indians volatile and more easily incited into responding to racist comments, which plays into the hands of BN. BN can then use the race card to divide voters into "Malay" and "Chinese", and naturally the rural "Malays" who have little access to non-government controlled news end up voting for BN, its 'saviour'.

Silence

2007-08-26T05:32:00.001+08:00

For those of you so unfortunate as to be involved in family arguments, you probably know how it goes. First there’s the thing that triggers off the argument itself, then possibly an attempt to solve the problem in a non-destructive way. Then comes the extreme noise when those involved try to impose their own will on the other, followed by possibly violent plate-and-knife-throwing episodes.

Then comes silence.

I’ve been through all of it, too many times to count. I’m glad to say that I manage to end most arguments in the non-destructive way. But of course, I do not have a spotless track record. And I know firsthand how much pain a drawn-out argument can last.

I know how silence can be a period of rest for both parties to reconsider what they’re doing and make a diplomatic attempt at the problem. People think more clearly when it’s quiet and they don’t have to dodge plates.

But I also know that silence can be deafening. I’ve seen silence being used as a weapon to break peoples’ wills. I’ve seen it signal a total and complete end to hope and reconciliation. I’ve seen the way silence and guilt can be used to destroy people from the inside.

In silence, there is hope. There is a chance to think and reconsider. There is reconciliation. But there is also fear. There is loneliness, deep and terrible. There is guilt. And there is also a sign that the point of no return was crossed a very, very long time ago.

In light of the coming Merdeka celebrations, a few questions to ask yourself

2007-08-16T18:02:00.000+08:00

How many good friends of other races do you have?

When was the last time you talked to them?

Is it easy for you to talk to someone you don't know who is of a different race?

When did you last catch yourself swearing "stupid Indian/Malay/Chinese!!!#"?

Do you plan to become a citizen of a different country the moment you can?

Do you plan to bring your mother/father/siblings/extended family/dog with you?

If 'YES' to the above, how do you feel about the people who may never get the chance to leave this country for a more 'equal' one?

Would you die for your country?

If 'NO', how much much would you be wiling to sacrifice for your country?

Do you favor unity, or would you rather keep your children separated from children of other races by placing them in non-national schools?

And FINALLY...

Are you Chinese, Dayak, Indian, Serani, Bugis, Kadazan, Iban, Malay?

...Or are you MALAYSIAN?

Before we point fingers at everyone else, let's have a good look at ourselves first.

Happy Merdeka, Malaysia.

Advertising (Continued from The Corporate Mechanism)

2007-07-19T09:38:00.000+08:00

Now, continuing on from my last post aboutthe Corporate Mechanism (which you must read to understand this), market dominance and controlling consumer tastes, let’s go back to Ah Keat’s set of advertisements.

You will remember that Ah Keat, after attempting to increase the productivity of his company (Fashion Belts Inc.) by forcing his employees to work harder and longer for less pay, has found an edge over Colin’s company (Fancy Belts Pvt. Ltd.) in advertising his products. In the process, he has to increase the price of his goods (Fashion Belt) to pay for the extra cost of his advertising campaign.

Initially, Ah Keat advertised Fashion Belts as a luxury item for parties. He attracts only partygoers to buy his belts, but other consumers are not interested – his initial aim is to wrest control of the existing fashion market from Colin. But Ah Keat cannot afford to advertise to only a small group of people, because advertisements cost money, and the market simply isn’t big enough for him to earn back that amount. Ah Keat’s first round of advertisements does not work quite as well as he would like, so he tries something else, and starts to bring in movie stars and singers to say how cool these belts are.

Ah Keat soon realizes that after this new set of advertisements, the total sales of his and Colin’s companies has increased –Ah Kiet’s piece of the pie is smaller than before Colin came along, but the market as a whole has expanded.

How on earth did Ah Keat’s advertisements increase the market? He hires a consultant to figure out why. The consultant, after some research, tells Ah Keat that people actually want to feel like the people in the advertisements – that is, they believe wearing these belts makes them feel like movie stars, singers and the lot, so they buy them to feel cool, and as a result the market gets bigger. Ah Keat is rubbing his hands in delight – he can make the market grow by advertising, and a larger market means more earnings. He realizes also that whoever controls the market has more to earn than ever before.

It comes to a point where virtually everyone in the city has a Fashion Belt, and there is nobody else to sell to. Will Ah Keat be a victim of his own success? But Ah Keat is a sly one. He comes up with a new belt called Fashion Belt X, and sells it as the hipper, trendier and better version of Fashion Belt. But before releasing the product to the city, h unleashes another wave of advertisements to announce its arrival – and people go crazy in anticipation. Now they are being told that a Fashion Belt is not enough to feel cool at a party – the Fashion Belt X is even better! As the product hits the market, people flock to Ah Keat’s stores to buy up even more of the product, which turns out to be a cooler, better-designed version of Fashion Belt (exactly as had been promised) – and they lap it all up. Even the people who already have the old generation of Fashion Belt are compelled to buy ‘the X’ as it is soon labelled, because it’s simply too cool to ignore!

After the initial craze, as people are beginning to get comfortable in their new belts and have just locked up, thrown out or given away the old ones, Ah Keat floods the market with his next big hit – Fashion Belt Summer Season, and the hype begins all over again. Of course, Ah Keat makes big bucks while his workers struggle to pay their electricity bill, and his buyers are forced to pay extravagant prices for goods that are actually cheap to make.

Impossible, you say? Well, look around you. Have you ever been excited about the next new item of clothing or piece of technology to hit the market? Have you gone out of your way to buy these products, thinking that it would make you feel better? Has it really made you feel better? Or has it deprived you of hard-earned money, money that you could have used for something else, like paying for your college education, or having extra tuition classes, or even giving a few dollars to the beggar down the street?

I’m not telling you not to buy the next new product on the market. By all means, buy it – if you believe it is genuinely useful to you. Otherwise, why are you wasting money on something that looks slightly different from another, and has the same function as a cheaper good?

Don’t be a fool for these things. Don’t let yourself be manipulated by businesspeople like Ah Keat, who care only about money. Spend your money wisely, in a way that makes it worth the sweat shed to earn it.

The Corporate Mechanism

2007-07-19T09:36:00.000+08:00

Let’s go back to basics for awhile. Imagine a small village where people make goods to cater to the village’s needs. For example, the people decide they need belts for work, so Ah Seng the local leather tanner (beltmaker) sells belts for a living to those who need them. Everything works fine, and everyone is happy.

The village grows into a town, and more people mean more goods are consumed and produced. Ah Beng also decides to start selling belts for a living. To outcompete Ah Beng, Ah Seng must come up with a way of making people buy his belts. So he works extra time to produce more, to out-sell Ah Beng. More of a good (e.g. belts) means producers have more goods to sell and thus more profit to earn. Sadly, this plan backfires – Ah Beng does the same thing, and now both have too many belts which they can’t sell. Now both Beng and Seng are in trouble – all their hard work has gone to waste. To clear their stocks, they have to sell off their belts – and thus they lower their prices. The townspeople, who only need one belt each, now have the option of buying an extra belt as a spare – or they can buy just one belt for a lower price – and so buyers benefit from this extra produce.

Ah Beng and Ah Seng, on the other hand, have to become better at producing belts, or they will lose money, time and energy. Ah Seng comes up with cheaper ways of making belts (e.g. by mass producing them), and he specialises – it becomes cheaper for Ah Seng to make belts, so he can afford to produce more belts to sell. Ah Seng Belt Maker grows into a company, with workers, managers and supervisors – people who need to be paid. Townspeople now benefit from the beltmakers by being able to buy more and cheaper belts, and they now have places to work.

But what happens to Ah Beng Belt Co.??

Aha, good question. By now, the town has grown into a small city, with people doing different jobs. Ah Beng decide to exploit this by making special belts which Ah Seng does not make – light ones for mountain-climbing, long ones for fatter people, or super-durable ones for soldiers. Ah Beng Belt Co. becomes Mountain Belt Makers Sdn. Bhd., and Ah Keat moves in to set up Fashion Belt Inc. People can now buy special belts for climbing mountains, fashionable belts for parties or plain belts for everyday life.

Okay. Good so far. The city has jobs and belts, and belt makers are all happy in their own areas. Everything is fine until one day, Colin sets up Fancy Belts Pvt. Ltd. in the region. Now Ah Keat is facing the heat – his business is coming under direct threat from this new company, and sales are falling. Both products are about the same quality and price, the only difference is in style. He has to find a new way of getting profit, and fast.

Sadly, Ah Keat is not the honest businessman that Ah Seng and Ah Beng are. He is concerned with profit, and since there are no more straight ways to increase profit, he has to play dirty. Of course, he is also cunning enough not to do anything illegal – he does not want to be thrown into jail.

His first course of action is to encourage his employees to work harder with job incentives, promotions and pay rises for the good workers– but when that fails, with threats, and decreased pay for the less efficient workers. Workers are forced to work harder than before, and are given less pay and job security. Here though, Colin is equally ruthless – he does the same thing, and now both companies are back on level ground.

Since nobody in the city needs two fashionable belts, Fashion Belt Inc. and Fancy Belts Pvt. Ltd. both face heavy losses. Ah Keat, now desperate to turn some profit, thinks of a brilliant idea – if buyers don’t want to buy his belts, why not persuade them to do so? He invests his remaining dollars in a massive ad campaign across television, newspapers and billboards – and people buy it. For a moment, a Fashion Belt becomes the compulsory item to wear to parties, and thousands flock to Ah Keat to buy them. Ah Keat starts to gain enough to set back the cost of his advertising campaign, and would be able to turn a handsome profit, if Colin had not launched an advertising ploy of his own. Again, the market swings between Colin and Ah Keat, with costs mounting for both players. The public, dazed and confused, spends extra money on both belt lines, convinced that both are necessary for their happiness.

Now, Ah Keat is at a loss – he has used every trick in the book, and Colin still shadows his every move. Finally, he resorts to increasing the price of his belts to make some money. Still misled by the advertising campaign, the public continues buying – and buying. Ah Keat begins to realise that his advertising campaign works so effectively that people will buy his goods, whatever the price – he realizes that he can afford to raise the price further and will raise even more profit, and soon does so. It doesn’t really matter that some cannot afford to buy his belts anymore, because the added profit he generates from other buyers is more than enough to cover the loss of some market share.

Though Colin soon begins to catch up, Ah Keat has taken the lead – he uses his extra profit to come up with more Fashion Belt lines, and advertises extravagantly, hiring movie stars, singers and sportsmen wearing his belts to woo the crowd. Dictating market tastes like this, Ah Keat’s edge over Colin grows. In the meantime, the public buys Ah Keat’s belts like fools, and he pulls in money in the millions. Ah Keat’s advertising campaign is so effective, it even draws Ah Seng and Ah Beng’s trusted customers to him. Their revenues, in turn, begin to drop.

Now Ah Seng and Ah Beng are forced to make a decision. Should they continue the way they did and be forced to close down, or play dirty like Ah Keat? The answer is before them. Soon, the entire city is being bombarded by advertisements from the beltmaking industry, and the public eats it up and continues buying. Of course, advertising costs money, and where better to get money than from unassuming customers, who just don’t know when to stop buying?

Here we are at a turning point.

Compare the old scenario – where beltmakers produce enough belts for to those who need them at a low cost, of different variety, with the new situation – where they produce belts at a low cost, sell them at an inflated price, and work their labourers for longer, while giving them less pay. How has society turned itself upside down, with the public serving the producers’ interests instead of the producers providing for the public’s needs?

Now, as it stands, safeguards have been put into place by the government to ensure this does not happen. Laws have been passed limiting advertising, exploitation of workers and other underhanded tactics. But it is ultimately we, the people, who must take charge of our own destinies. Advertising is all around us, and it will never go away. We must be able to judge for ourselves what we really want to do with the money we sweat, bleed, and sacrifice to earn. Buying an item of clothing for two hundred dollars when it costs only twenty to produce is not a good example of being able to judge. We must not be beguiled by the profiteers, who only seek to fill their coffers with our hard-earned money. And we must never let what we really need be buried by the avalanche of what people want us to think we need. There is no substitute for a loving family, good morals, trusted friends and a noble purpose in life. These above all things we need to hold above the adverts, the ‘lifestyle changes’ that people want us to make, and the ability of producers to sway our thoughts and minds.

I hope you grasp the significance of what I am telling you, and make the right decision on whether to follow it. I would be even happier if you told me you had already realized this, and have been doing what you see fit about it. Otherwise, you will never rise above being a zombie, manipulated by people whose agendas are a far cry from giving you true happiness.

I am a Jackass Who’s Never Happy with the World

2007-07-11T20:36:00.000+08:00

There, I’ve said it. No matter how blue the sky is or how warm the sun is, it just isn’t enough for me. When things seem just right, I have to come around and find another skeleton in the closet, and screw up everything in the process. If it isn’t politics, it’s finding flaws in my friends, or questioning my purpose in life, or disagreeing with my superiors. Many say my life’s screwed up, and I readily admit it. I’ll never have as many friends, or be as content, or have as good a blood pressure, as the next person who is content with the world. Instead, I’m the worrier, the stickler who lurks on the edge of society and comes in to dig up a few skeletons once in a while.

Some tell me to change, for fear of losing everything I have and gaining nothing back. Some tell me to bury thee thoughts because the world I live in will never accommodate a person like me. Others tell me to run, away from this messed up country, to a place where my thoughts are valued and shared.

I see plenty of reason in all three.

But then again I’m stubborn. Unfortunately, I don’t give up my convictions that easily. When I feel I have to say something, I’ll say it – often to my closest friends, no matter how insulted they may feel. I’ve lost some friends that way. By now, I can count the few I really trust with my fingers. Then again, I’ve made a few friends too, people like me who can never accept the world as it is.

“Why?” you ask. “Why go through all this trouble, hurting yourself and the others around you?”

The way I see it, it’s this: There are two kinds of person – the one who is content with the world, and the one who isn’t. Which of these two is needed if the world is to become better?

The person who is content with the world will never try to change it, but rather would change himself to suit the world. He does everything everyone else does, school, university, work, family. One day, he dies, but the world still spins the same way it started. This person leaves no trace of himself, never stands out from the 6 billion others of his species, and has not scarred the world or made it worse in any way.

That’s great; if the world is ideal I think we should keep it that way. But it isn’t. The world as we know it today is a world which I would not want to be born into. This world is filled with war, diminishing resources, corruption, racism, global warming, famine, inequality, oppression and thousands of other problems. We know nothing better – the world has never been at peace for long. But should we leave it as it is, or do something about it? My decision is clear: I will do something about the injustice plaguing this world, and I will not tolerate people who tell me otherwise.