Blood Donating

"I was made of poison and blood," 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day.

Is fun!

Ignore the person in obviously made-up pain above.

Last week the nice people from the Penang Health Ministry (I think) came to suck the blood from all us teachers-to-be in IPG KPP. And the turn-out was more than expected.

I skipped class to do this (noble?) deed. Of course, losing my blood-donating virginity didn't come with my its fair share of complications.

So after I registered and checked my blood type (B-positive!) and checked my blood-haemoglobin levels (14.4?) and also my blood pressure (a healthy 120/80), I got my gear and waited in line.

With my spare time, I went around to my other friends' beds and recited Yaasin to them. They sure were freaked out.

Then it was my turn. My nurse told me to relax while she (expertly?) inserted the syringe into my arm.

I didn't pass out, ok?

Then, disturbers-of-peace came out of nowhere to give me much needed "encouragement" in the form of cam-whoring around me.

Other hand still ok to cam-whore.

Those nice people got my mind of the needle for a while (although it wasn't that painful, really). But then our lovely nurse trying to get my blood to come out. Asides being B-positive, it's also the shy type, my blood. (Unlike the owner of the blood.)

The nurse tried adjusting the needle several times to encourage blood flow, but my blood just wouldn't come out. (Too thick, the nurse said.) But then, the nurse also gave words of comfort to me, saying that this wasn't uncommon among blood-donating virgins like myself.

It took all of 15-minutes to extract a little over 100 grams of blood from me (the others bled out 450 g's in less than 5 minutes). Then my vein swelled up and the needle had to be extracted. And that was the end of that.

I felt a little bad that I wasn't able to donate the full 450 g's, but as the Malays say, nak wat camana kan? (what to do?)

I'm looking forward to donating again in the near future if the opportunity presents itself.

I would like to thank Kak Wani for snapping the pics of my virginity loss, and all the others that came and gave support to me. Thank you so much!

Cheers!

Drama Llama

"One fine day with a woof and a purr," Catdog Theme Song.

You know what? I was thinking of posting another "emo post" (if you will), but thought better of it. I can always store them deep inside the trenches of my thoughts and have another look at those thoughts with a fresh perspective after a while. So this will most likely be a nothing post.

But then I don't like writing about nothing. It just ain't the way I roll, yaknowhaddamsayin'?

So I will write about llamas.

Cute, innit?

Thanks to a certain Penguin, I have started liking llamas more than any healthy 19-year-old boy should. I wouldn't call it an obsession, coz let's face it, I'm too lazy to really pursue something for more than 5 minutes. I'm just really into them at the moment.

Passport photo.

So here are a few interesting fact about llamas that you might (or might not) like to know.

• llamas come from the camelid family (that's the same family as camels and alpacas).
• they are usually used as pack animals (meaning that it's used to help transport stuff for us humans. So they're helpful creatures).
• llamas are smart and easy to train. Just search llamas on Youtube and you'll see that these handsome creatures are more talented than you think.
• they're vegetarians, so don't be afraid that they might eat you in your sleep.
• they live to be about 20 years old, so if I were a llama, I'd be a very old one.
• llamas are social animals and prefer to live in a herd. They don't need to go to Queensbay Mall to socialize. A nice meadow would do just fine.
• a baby llama is called a "cria" (pronounced kree-ah).
• they spit, although when correctly reared, spitting at a human is a rare thing. They can spit as far as 10 feet, and usually spit in order to discipline lower-ranked llamas.

And here are a few more llama pictures!!

Check out the legs on that one~

Is there a barber in the house??


Lookin' gewd~


When you get tired of walking, you can always hitch-hike.

So that's all I have so far. I hope you guys have gained from knowing a bit more about llamas now than you did before. Who knows? It could just be your new favourite animal?

Cheers!

FREP is Over

"The first rule of leadership: It's always YOUR FAULT!" Hopper to Princess Atta in A Bug's Life.

Any of you remember that line spoken from the main antagonist in that highly successful Pixar story?

I watched it again not too long ago and found myself nodding to that statement. I agree, it IS always your fault when you're a leader. No matter how you try to rat yourself out of it, at the end of the day, if something fails, most (if not all) of the blame will be directed to the leader.

And, being my own worst critic, I blame myself for the failure of this project.

I failed to motivate. I failed to inspire. I failed to notice. I failed to work. I failed to lead.

I failed.

A big sorry from me to all the 21 people from TESOL 2 for making semester 3 & the beginning of semester 4 of your IPG life hell. Sorry for asking too much from you. Sorry for being too obnoxious to notice that I suck at leading. Sorry for not being more likeable in my work approach. Sorry for screwing you up and making you do things you don't want to.

Sorry.

Having said all that, my life will still go on as usual, with the usual faces still hating me and the usual faces still loving me (I hope). I don't mind. I've lived with it for a year and a half now, so you tend to get used to it. FREP wasn't the problem. I was, I now know.

I now hope that everyone can get along with everyone else. Now that FREP is out of the way, old roads and paths that have been closed because of FREP have been opened up again, so please, try them out. You might like treading old, familiar ground.

Cheers!

Ask Yourself

"Who you gonna call?" Ghostbusters

These few weeks (feels like several, but in reality, just one) have been tiring. They have been physically, mentally and emotionally draining towards yours truly over here.

I have to admit, there have been times when I felt like throwing it all away and (as the Malay saying goes) lepas tangan (let go of all my responsibilities) and leave everyone else hanging.

But then, that would just be wrong.

Life throws you a lot of things. But we have to remember, Allah controls our lives. And Allah would never throw us things we can't catch.

And when at times of dire despair, when all hope seems lost, when you think you've reached your limit and think that it's all too much, ask yourself, "Who knows you better? Yourself? Or the One that created you? The One that knows the past to your past, knows the future to your future and has been responsible for making your existence even possible?"

Know the answer to that, and you can still smile at the end of the day, 'coz you know that you're in good hands. The best hands. His hands.

Cheers!

Bus People

"I've been to the dentist's a thousand times, so I know the drill," Dental Care by Owl City.




I study in Penang, and before I had Adam to drive around, I regularly took the most popular mode of public transport in Penang, the bus, in order to go out to catch a movie, indulge in unnecessary spending or just breathe some Queensbay air (which isn't all that nice, mind you).

And after a whole semester of not riding the bus, unavoidable circumstances has made it so that I had to take the bus again, and this time, instead of just treating it like just another bus ride (as I always have), I decided to observe the types of people you might call your fellow passengers. And these are my findings (from that particular bus ride and also from memory).

1. Window gazers.
These people immediately look out the window the second their bottoms touch the seat and take in everything there is to look at, or whatever their attention span allows. They look at pretty girls, hot dudes, read signs, laugh at misspellings, observe mice in gutters, etc. They are so entranced by their observations that not even the loud voices (see no. 4) can distract them. When they finally reach their destination, they push the stop button, and exit the bus without a sound.

2. Sleepers.
These kind of people find it hard to keep their eyes open in the event of riding a bus. The soothing purr of the bus engine and the gentle massage that the bus provides in the form of friction between the tires and the tar ground seduces them into an immediate slumber. They sleep easily on the bus, but somehow, by some miracle, they manage to wake up two stops before their destination and are able to get off the bus with a satisfied yawn and stretch. However, there are always the unlucky few who oversleep and don't manage to wake up in time and are forced to go down at the bus terminal and get another bus (to continue their slumber).

3. Earphones.
These people wear their earphones from the moment they wait for the bus, and lower the volume/take off one earpiece (optional) when paying for the trip and continue stuffing their ears with their selection of music to drown out the cacophony that surrounds them, both emitted from the bus and the people (see no. 4). They couldn't care less what's going on in the outside world (besides where the bus is going) as their minds are too busy singing along to the tunes that have been plugged less than an inch to their eardrums. Sometimes these people sing-along out loud, but this is a rarity.

4. Loud talkers/disturbers.
When we ride a bus, there always seems to be a group of these people. They might come in the form of two Indonesian maids, loudly talking about their latest expeditions with their boyfriends for the whole world to hear, or they could even turn out to be a group of rowdy school boys disturbing a group of uninterested school girls. In whatever form they appear in, they never fail to disturb all the other people who just want to enjoy some peace and quiet on the bus. Sometimes the din that they make is loud enough to overcome the music coming out of earphones, causing no. 3s to turn up their volume to the max level. They break the concentration of no. 5s, causing the no. 5s to wish the group would jump off a cliff, or at least the moving bus right then and there. The amazing thing is, even if they get angry glares from their fellow passengers, they don't really care. They sort of enjoy disturbing the peace and getting attention, be it bad attention.

5. Readers (rare).
Yes, they are rare here in Penang, scratch that, in Malaysia. Malaysians just don't read for pleasure, even more so on a bus. But every now and then we can see one or two people holding up a newspaper trying hard to keep the paper from falling apart, or a person would be reading a paperback novel, totally engrossed in the world created by their imaginations. There is also another kind of reader. The one sitting beside/behind our original reader. This side-reader will read whatever our original reader is holding, since he/she has nothing better to do. He/she usually doesn't get to read the whole page before our original reader turns it. These side-readers really should think about bringing their own reading materials instead of breathing down other people's necks and putting-off the original reader's will to read.

If there are any other types that you might have noticed that have missed my eyes, please don't hesitate to leave it in the comment box.

p/s- This post was inspired by Sir Igniz's posts.

Cheers!

Work Therapy

"Wel I'm sure you could have made it that bit better o your own," The Only Ones Who Know by Arctic Monkeys.

And so, the new semester has come and I am now officially a TESL (TESOL now) undergraduate. And with this new title comes new major subjects. They are:

1. Linguistics

2. Philosophy (Education)

3. Human Development

And a minor subject. We have been given the choice of either Science or Children's Literature. I naturally selected Literature, be it children's, coz eet rulez!! *insert gang hand-sign here*

And this new semester has also brought about me being EXTREMELY busy for the first 3 days (feels like 5) since I'm the Cohort Leader now, I have had to rush here and there in order to book classes for our mass lectures and group the Cohort to brief them about this and that. Good thing we now have subject leaders to help out so that I don't lose even more weight (lecturers say that I have lost weight over the holidays. I'm surprised, since all I did was eat and sleep.)

Plus, with the IPGM's Battle of The Bands coming around, I'm sure it'll make my life here a living marathon, both mentally and physically.

But I don't mind.

To tell you the truth, I actually like it.

When I'm busy running around campus and attending meetings, I am distracted from my problems. For those busy moments, I think about getting this and that settled, seeing that lecturer, asking this person, getting that thing from that place, thinking how to solve a problem that arises.

And that's it. I think about solutions more than I think about problems. And to me, it has a therapeutic quality about it. It's a tiring therapy, but therapy nonetheless.

When my body and mind are idle, I can only seem to think about problems (an idle brain is the devil's workshop, or something like that ay?). And most of those problems are ones that I can't handle or solve. At least, not on my own. It's like the Rubik cube that I can't twist each side into the same colour. I dwell on the cube for hours and end up nowhere nearer to solving it then I was when I started, so I just give up. I know it's a pessimistic way of looking at the cube, but I don't leave the cube just like that. I just leave it until someone explains to me how they solve the friggin' cube (coz it's damn near impossible to me!)

Okay, I've started talking gibberish, so I better stop now before my nonsense gets too far.

So, what I'm trying to say, basically, is that I'm glad I'm back on campus. I hope this year will be better than the last. InsyaAllah.

Cheers!

2009 is Over (Thank You)

"Run straight for your dream," Dorks Never Say Die by Pee Wee Gaskins.

Goodbye 2009~

And so, 2009 is coming to a close. And this is the time most of us would sit back and reminisce about the year that has been. It's also the time of year that people would set their aims and goals for improving themselves in the year ahead. Being the "easily influenced" type, I don't want to miss out on the fun either, and this post will be an ode to 2009. A lame one, but an ode, nonetheless.

2009 was for me a good year (but then again, any year spent healthy would be a good year, no?)

It was the last year I have spent as a teen (unofficially) and my 2nd and 3rd semesters of my foundation course. I will be entering 2010 (Kedah Maju?) aged 20 (adult?) and in my degree years.

First and foremost, I would like to thank God, but then again, I thank Him every chance that I get. Alhamdulillah.

Next, I would like to thank my family for always being there for me, providing, caring, loving. This also includes cousins, uncles and aunts. It wouldn't be half, heck, even a quarter as good if even one of them weren't there. So thank you.

I would also like to thank my Cohort mates for helping me out in the turbulent 2nd semester. A special thanks would be given to the Cohort 2 guys (all 8 of 'em), all them TESL 2 kids (for making FREP what it is now) and generally to anyone else that helped a lot. I would like to drop a few names here, if you don't mind. Thank you to Hystrix (for being the best assistant and friend a guy could ask for), Azie (for being a tremendous help and for always keeping me grounded), Bagan (for being a great older brother), Aini Thoyba (you don't know how much your words mean to me), Nurul (for giving me something to smile about), Lan (for reminding me time and again that I'm not the perfect human being), and all the lecturers that have helped us tirelessly to get this far.

A special thanks to Miss Letch (my tutor and boss), Madam Rovena (for making ES my favourite subject), Miss Choong Ching Ching (for caring a lot), Madam Salmah (for making SS fun and being one of my favourite lecturers, even though you're no longer one), Madam Nurulnadia (for making me realize I was weak and want to improve) Miss Malar (even though you don't teach me, you taught me a lot), Madam Mariah (for inviting me to realize that I love acting, and for the books that you've lent), Mr Ganesan (for being a cool lecturer) and any other lecturer that might have slipped my mind. Thank you and thank you again for everything.

Next on the list are my Alor Star friends. All them boys from Delude, Akmal Chom (whom I got to see only once this year), Collegian friends, rugby friends and all. I hope not to lose touch with all'a'yall, and with the existence of a little thing called Facebook, it'll be hard to. Thanks fer ev'rythang y'all.

Wow, it turned out to be just a really big thank you list, huh? I wonder how my thank you list would look like if I won an Oscar (as if).

'Till next year,

Cheers!