USM ConvEx 2013

"Somebody comes and hits you with an ooh la la la la," Mad Sounds by Arctic Monkeys.

So this weekend I'll be at USM's (main campus) Convocation Expo. It's an annual thing. Always very lively and draws quite a crowd. If you're a Penangite and you've never made it to a USM Convocation Expo, you're missing out, like seriously. Here are the event's deets:

Thing: 48th USM Convocation Expo (ConvEx'13) / Ekspo Konvokesyen USM ke-48.
Dates: 18th - 22nd of September 2013.
Theme: Volunteerism as a Lifestyle / Kesukarelawanan Sebagai Gaya Hidup.

Here's the logo:

awww yeaaaaa

On the 22nd of September in particular, I'll be talking about some stuff. Here's a poster of that:

I know what you're thinking. "That picture again?? Doesn't he have any other selfies??"

Sorry, but that's the only semi-proper self portrait I have of myself. All the others are of me duckfacing. It's turned into a natural reflex now upon seeing any camera lens. Again, my apologies.

If you would like to listen to me talk about volunteerism and my involvement in it (which is, let's be honest, minimal) then head on over. If you'd like to buy me a drink afterwards, then you are most welcome. Be warned: I take plain water, mostly.

Man Purse

"I'm just a crosshair," Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Characters portrayed here tiada kaitan dengan yang hidup atau yang mati. Meows.

***

Lepak at Starbucks pada hari yang panas lagi haze. Heh, tak sangka aku dah boleh actually beli sesuatu sambil lepak sini. Siap ada smartphone lagi. Tapi aku bukan reti pakai sangat, benda baru sebulan beli. Plus, takdak siapa yang nak ajaq aku macam mana nak guna benda tu, except brader yang juai kat aku tu lah bagi tutorial sikit-sikit. Dia tu Melayu, tapi taktaw pasepa nak kena cakap accent Cina ngan aku. Nak kata aku muka Cina, dak pun. Siap muka ala hero Hindustan pun ada. Aku cakap pun bukan ada pelat Cina ka apa, cakap Penang camni ajalah. So, fon mahai-mahai simpan dalam beg LV Petaling Street ni ajalah. Kat Malaysia ni takleh nak tayang sangat, nanti ada mata yang berkenan satgi, buat naya aku ja. Beg ni pun aku dok tengok ramai dok pakai lani. Aku taktaw la sama ada orang pakai untuk fashion atau function. Nak kata fashion, huduh ja aku tengok. Function la kot. Ya la, masing-masing dah ada smartphone la, tablet la apa la, tak muat dah nak letak dalam poket semua benda tu. Aku pun pakai untuk function la jugak. Boleh letak benda lain sama selain gadget-gadget ni.

Hm, 4.15pm. Banyak lagi masa.

Kalau pikiaq balik, dulu mana ada aku nak boleh lepak-lepak tempat macam ni. Kalau lepak pun, tak beli apa-apa lah. Just lepak semata-mata, sampai ada waiter halau pasai tak beli apa-apa. Time jadi student dulu pun, mana ada duit nak beli air secawan nak dekat dua puluh ringgit ni. Duit pinjaman dapat berapa langsung. Tambah pula aku bukan jenis berniaga or anything. Aku takdak masa dan takdak kerajinan. Jadi aku dok lah lepak sorang-sorang mana-mana yang sesuai dengan keadaan diri aku yang macam dulu tu. Lani pun still lepak sorang-sorang gak. Cuma lani atas urusan kerja. Bukan macam dulu, lepak nak lari dari belajaq.

Buat masscomm kat universiti takbes mana pun. Ya la ada kawan sana sini, tapi tak pernah plak ada bespren ka apa. Jarang ada orang ajak lepak kat luaq. Kalau ada pun pasai nak pau rokok aku la kot. Girlfren pun pernah ada sorang ja dulu, tapi tak sampai dua minggu pun lepaih tu dapat taw kata dia dok keluaq ngan orang len sama. Pasaipa dia nak kapel ngan aku in the first place pun aku taktaw. Bila tanya dia, bukan dia nak habaq. Hadoih.

Aku buat masscomm bukan nak jadi artis. Ya la, ramai member sekelaih, bila tanya pasaipa amek masscomm, yang tu lah jawapan dia, walaupun depa tak guna wording yang tu sejibik, tapi it doesn’t take a genius to deduce that their ultimate goal is to be rich and famous. The rich part tu tak tentu lah, tapi femes tu sudah pasti depa nak. Depa ingatkot bila femes tu kekayaan mai sekali kot. Haih. 

Aku buat masscomm pun pasai takdak opsyen lain dah. Tu ja tawaran UPU had aku dapat. Kalau bukan diploma masscomm, memang menganggur lah aku, and aku tak bersedia untuk kehidupan bekerja lagi time lepaih SPM dulu. Bukan macam aku ada tanggungjawab nak kena pikul ka apa, parents aku buat macam aku dah takdak ja, sejak sekolah lagi. Aku taw depa sibuk cari duit, tapi sampai abaikan anak depa sendiri, aku rasa tak patut ah. Jadi aku amek keputusan sambung belajaq supaya aku bleh keluaq rumah, dok hostel, amek PTPTN, setel hidup aku tiga tahun. Aku balik rumah pun bila ja? Bila cuti lama and depa tak bagi dok hostel. Time raya ngan cuti sem. Aku balik rumah pun bukan buat apa. Dok main DotA sorang2 dalam bilik. Bukan main online pun. Just main lawan ngan AI. Main ngan manusia lain menyusahkan ja. Dengan lag la dengan abbreviation yang aku tak paham la. Bek aku men sorang. Takdak sapa kacau, aku pun tak kacau orang. Senang hidup.

Lani dah habeh belajaq, aku tak sangka aku nak masuk bidang ni. Agak rare la kat Malaysia ni sebenaqnya. Ya lah, Malaysia ni bukannya Amereka ka apa ka, susah nak jumpak orang yang cari makan guna cara ni ja. Femes tu memang femes, duit pun dah ada dah lani, tapi orang tak kenailah aku ni sapadia. Tu bleh lepak Starbucks buat rilek ja. Syok. Duit pun masuk, reputasi pun ada, tapi masih lagi dapat kekalkan identiti diri di khalayak. It doesn’t get much better than this. Maybe lepaih ni aku boleh up-kan lagi harga servis aku kot. Ya la seribu ringgit per pax tu cukup makan dah bagi aku yang sederhana ni, tapi maybe lepaih ni aku mintak lebih, boleh la aku lepak Starbucks ni kerap-kerap sikit. Ayaq dia tadi tu pun sedap. Nama apa pun aku dah lupa dah. Ice-blended apa ntah?

Eh, dah habeh pun office hour. Time to get to work. Amek helmet full-face aku, naik LC135 kaler biru aku ni. Plate baru tukaq ja from last time, tapi paint job aku tak bothered nak tukaq. Common kot design template dia ni. Kalau aku pi boh custom paint job, tak ka lagi senang orang nak recognize? Agak pendek akai la orang had pi cat balik dia punya moto bila dalam bidang ni. Manusia ni stai tak pikiaq, tu yang payah tu.

Ha, tu dia BMW had aku dok cari. Macam biasa lah. Ikut sampai lebam. Tapi tak lebam pun selalunya. Jam kat KL ni sumpah dependable punya. Cuma tunggu dia ni masuk stesen minyak ja. Cepat la, dah merah dah tu meter. Rumah hang bukannya dekat. Ha, masuk pun. Aku agak bangga la ngan diri sendiri come up dengan idea untuk buang minyak dalam kereta dia masa dia still kat opis tu, memaksa dia untuk pi isi minyak as soon as possible. Mana aku dapat akai camni pun aku taktaw. Modai kena keluaq la sikit nak beli fuel cap tu, tapi berapa ringgit ja. Lagipun aku claim ja kat client aku. Small is the matter. Asalkan senang sikit kerja aku paihtu.

Ha, minyak dah isi, lani cuma tunggu lampu merah. Uish, lambat skit nak jumpak merah ni pun, aduhai. Ha, berhenti pun. Go time.

***

The motorcyclist tapped onto the window of the the blue BMW using a fuel cap and waved it to the driver. The driver was startled at first, being previously busy on his bluetooth-hooked phone discussing God knows what, then gave a puzzled look to the motorcyclist. Did I leave the fuel-cap behind? He nevertheless rolled down his window. Just as he was about to hold-out his hand to receive the fuel-cap, the motorcyclist put his hand into his faux LV man-purse, wrapped his fingers around the silenced hand-gun and pointed the bag in the driver’s direction. With a squeeze of the trigger and a bullet through the  bottom of his man-purse as well as the BMW driver’s forehead, he went ahead to the front of the traffic jam and waited five seconds for the traffic light to turn green before speeding off into the hazy street.

***

Damn, aku dok pegang lagi fuel cap neh. Buat qeja tak ikut procedure plak aku. Tudiala, seronok sangat first time dapat headshot, sampai lupa abeh nak bagi hadiah. Oh well. Next time, maybe.

Fork Through Dog

"In the deepest ocean, the bottom of the sea," Weird Fishes by Radiohead.

So I got the Whitbread Award winning book "The Curious Incident Of The Dog At The Night Time" as a birthday present a few days ago. I already read it a few years ago, but then I noticed that the book got missing when I tried looking for it to have a reread, and I told this to a friend of mine nonchalantly, and whadayaknow, two months later the friend gives me a copy as a gift. I am very grateful.

Fun fact: I do not reread books. I'm lazy like that, I suppose. Plus, I have a lot of books remaining on my yet-to-read shelf, so it discourages me from reading stuff I've already read. Thus, know that since I wanted to reread this one, it is a very, very good read.

I got through the book in a little over 24 hours. Sure the book isn't very thick (221 pages), but again that is very rare for me. Even Catcher in The Rye took me 3 days to finish. So yeah, this book is a big deal. To me, at least. It made me laugh throughout, and cry towards the end. "Heartbreakingly endearing" was the phrase I used to describe it in GoodReads.

Now for the bit with spoilers. If you haven't read the book yet (and you want to before reading what I have to say about it), you should probably get back to this post after reading it. 

If you already have (or you don't want to), then let's go.

One of the most striking things about the book to me was the depiction of how a family copes with having a child with autism. The parents are obviously very stressed with what Christopher has and how he is. It finally ruins their marriage with the mother having an affair with their neighbour (who later on proved to be a douchebag. HAMEKAU!) and moving out of the house, leaving his father to take care of Christopher by himself. 

The parents' relationship with each other is very interesting (and, if I may add, depressing) to observe since it depicts how having a child with autism can make a marriage take a turn for the worst. But I don't think it was Haddon's (the author) intent to make this the case. What he might have wanted to show was what goes on in the mind of a boy with autism when his parents aren't able to manage themselves well enough to be stable emotionally for the sake of their child. They took out their anger on each other and did not communicate very well (every time they got within sight of each other, all they seemed to do was shout) and this led to their marriage falling apart. The main reason the mother gave for cheating on the father was that they stopped talking to each other, and this shows how immensely important open and honest communication is in making a relationship work, moreover when you have a child with autism to take care of. They failed to do so, leading to the deterioration of their relationship with each other, and, in effect, with Christopher too.

Having said that, it is evident that both the parents love Christopher very much. His father, I could say, loves him to pieces. A particularly gut-wrenching part of the story was when Christopher locked himself up in his room and his father knocks on his door and tries to talk to him to no avail, and he just sits in front of Christopher's door for a very long time. That was tragic. Try imagining yourself trying to talk to someone you love very much but they don't want to, and they run away from you. You would just feel helpless and hapless and all you can do is just sit there and cry and regret what you've done and wish you could turn back time to undo what you did. That brought me to tears, imagining myself in his position and being so powerless.

I've met a person with autism before. He was 13, almost Christopher's age. He wasn't as high-functioning as Christopher was, but I got the general idea of how having autism looked like. And I gained a picture of the screaming and the retaliations that entails being in contact with a person with autism. I don't know if I would be able to cope. But of course, I need to understand that no test given to me would be given if I wasn't strong enough to get through it. I need to remember to keep calm and communicate.

It's a very powerful book. If you want a better understanding of what goes on inside a person with autism's head, then this is the best example I can give you.

May peace be upon you.

Cheers!

Practically Teachers

"But it never seems to be there when you want it," Black Treacle by Arctic Monkeys.

So I'm undergoing my prac right now. Three weeks in and I would say that I'm adjusting well to the teaching life.

The class that I got is great. They are on-task most (if not all) of the time. Misbehaviour among the students is rare. And in this I am very fortunate to have received a very well-behaved classroom.

Hearing stories from friends who got other schools (especially all-boy-schools. Not to be sexist, but yeah) and the trials they have to go through every time they enter class can truly shake you.

An example would be the situation in one class where, whenever she turns her back on the class to write on the board, a fist fight would almost certainly break out. What would you do and how would you continue the lesson?

Friends have admitted to wanting to quit teaching altogether because of the challenges they go through when entering classes. But these friends, it's not that they feel like the students cannot be helped. Not at all. It's just that they feel that they aren't doing a good enough job to be seriously considered in the profession. One friend expressed that she feels bad for the students for getting her as their teacher, since she doesn't feel that she is what the students deserve. The students deserve better. The students deserve the best. And she didn't feel that she was anywhere near good enough.

And to be honest, I sort of feel the same way too. The students in my class are good. They're great, even. They would go on to achieve great things in the future, I'm sure of it. But will I be a teacher who pushes them to their limits and help them achieve things they never thought they could? Or will I be just some other teacher who they'd forget the name of as soon as I/they leave the school? And if I look in the mirror and see the latter, then I may as well not be in this profession altogether. Let someone better suited to become the former lead the way.

But realistically, as our lecturers are quick to point out, it's still early days for us. Three weeks into the job is nowhere near a long-enough period to determine whether or not you'll be a good teacher in the future. They tell us to give it a few years. And as long as we pass this prac duration, we'll have a chance to prove ourselves to ourselves. That we'll be better teachers than we thought we would be, and still want to improve, for the sake of our students.

It is within my hopes that in a few years I will be able to be that teacher who inspires my students to greatness, to bring them to the thresholds of their own minds, to invite them to challenge their notions of what is right and wrong and develop their confidence to speak their minds, but not before honing those minds to understand that the world works in mysterious ways and that asking questions and looking for the answers is more important than the answers themselves.

I'm asking a lot of myself. Whether it's too much, we'll see.

May peace be upon you.

Cheers!

The Alchemist

"Hello mister, pleased to meet ya," Big Jet Plane by Angus & Julia Stone.

So I finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho the other day (yeah, I is slowpoke, I know). Basically what the author intended for the reader to get out of reading the story is that one must be bold enough to pursue their dreams and be confident that the universe will conspire to make your dream a reality, as long as you keep pursuing it. A very "The Secret" kind of concept, if you will.

I found it inspirational and it was a kick in the backside for the little-old-me who is too lazy to get off bed and do anything outside my comfort zone. The story is definitely capable of being life-changing, but I guess I'm too deeply set in my recliner that its effect on me wasn't to that extent.

As mentioned in the previous post, I'm on GoodReads, so I entered this book in my "read" shelf. I made my way to the "reviews" section of the book and I was surprised to find as many negative reviews as it did. This is one example:

"I'm not sure that I can capture my utter disdain for this book in words, but I'll give it a shot. I read this book about three years ago and just had to re-read it for book club. It was a steaming pile of crap then and, guess what? it's a steaming pile of crap now."

Then a thought struck my mind. Mr Coelho, he wrote a book about pursuing your dreams and he did exactly that: he wrote lots of books. And now look at him; an incredibly successful author whose books fly off shelves worldwide.

Now we take a look at these negative reviewers. They spit out bitterness and criticize the book for not being good enough for them, and where are they now? A commenter on GoodReads. I'm sure they are the envy of the world.

What I'm getting at is it doesn't matter whether or not Mr Coelho actually does produce steaming piles of crap in written form. What matters is that he was/is audacious enough to pursue his dream and persist with it to the end. He is now one of the most successful modern authors alive. 

Those reviewers, they read the book. Sure it's definitely within their rights to dislike the book. They can dislike any book if that makes them feel better about themselves. But the thing is, they didn't get what the book was trying to say. The book asked them to get off their perch and actually start doing something. Something that would occupy their time so much it would leave them no time to post negative comments on a book-sharing social media site. 

They didn't get that. And they put in the time, thought and energy to post something so resentful and bitter that only revealed more about themselves than the book they were reviewing. I feel sorry for them. They could be so much more if they took the effort to do something about it. But Paulo Coelho is still up there being a best-selling author, last time I checked; and any credible author out there right now certainly does not post such reviews on an app called GoodReads, so they can't be very successful authors who publish books any better than the book they bashed, could they?

I'm not saying that I am successful by any measure. If anything, I am still struggling to find my own personal legend. But I try not to be bitter about people who are successful. Even if I am, I certainly don't post it online, because that would only reveal how pathetic I really am. 

Even if you do feel pathetic, you don't need to reveal to the whole world that. It serves no purpose. None at all.

Main point, you can dislike any book/music/person/thing you want. But if that thing has something beneficial, take it. Use it to propel yourself to become better and hopefully more successful. Don't, at any cost, just sit there being bitter without doing anything about it. I'm telling this to myself more than anyone else, really.

May peace be upon you.

Cheers!

Read Good

"The secrets of the government are keeping you dumb," The End Has No End by The Strokes.

So I was thinking about writing a story tonight, but since it's going to be a longer than usual one and my eyelids are giving up on me, I'll write about reading. Yes, you are about to read about reading. Compelling stuff, I know.

So I have been trying to read consistently throughout the year and I am proud to say that I have read quite extensively, given my lack of reading in the past years. The latest book that I've read is Tuhan, Aku Kembali by Sham Kamikaze and Ainuddin Kamaruddin. It was given to me as a gift, and I finished it in a day. It was a very readable book, not very thick, contains the life story of Mr Sham Kamikaze thus far and how he ditched his earrings for a spot in the da'wah scene.

Right before reading that one, I read the novel Paper Towns by John Green. I won't spoil too much of the story for you, but I will tell you that the hero of the story, Q really gets absorbed into reading a long poem by a poet named Whitman. His understanding of the poem is key in developing his character and the way I see it, shows us how literature, when read carefully and thoughtfully, can not only help us in appreciating the piece of work, but also everything around us. 

When we really think about what a piece of writing means, it can have a profound effect on us, and I believe that these effects are what one looks for in any piece of literature. A piece of writing can only be appreciated when we have a connection with its message or its beauty or its essence. And that piece of literature may live on inside the reader, breathing it life even after its demise from the bookshelves, because those effects in the heart of man will affect the way a person views the the things around him or her and alter, however significantly, their decisions in the future, having a real effect on the world.

And that, to me, is the power of literature. It doesn't have to be brilliant and written with bombastic words and too intricate wordplay. It just has to have that necessary message that it wants to carry and convey it effectively to have an effect in the real world. 

I am who I am today mostly because of what I have read, either from books, subtitles, song lyrics, articles on the internet, tweets, etc. Imam Hassan al-Banna was quoted for saying something along the lines of "To know a person, look at what he reads". I have definitely misquoted him, but you get the idea, right?

What you read defines you. But what happens when you don't read? Well that's a discussion I'll have to pick up some other time (if ever). Until then,

May peace be upon you.

Cheers!

p/s - I'm on a mobile app called GoodReads. If you have a tablet or a smartphone, try installing it. It's like a Facebook for book-readers where you update what you're reading at the moment, what you have already read and what you intend to read in the future. You can check out your friends' updates and get ideas on what to read next. You can rate and review books too. Super fun stuff. Em, I should probably clarify that this is not a paid post. None of my posts are, for that matter. So yeah.

Fictional Character 1.2

"Lelaki, tak guuuuuuuna," Lelaki by Yuna.

He had a love interest. He knew that it was love, not just another crush. He's had hundreds of crushes. Crushes come and go. They're a fantasy, he says. An impossibly perfect version of what the person in question might be, without one ever getting to know the person. And by the simple logic of "if it's not this, then it must be that other thing," he has deduced it to be true, bona fide, pure love. 

She wasn't supermodel material, he knew that, but she was still the most beautiful person he has ever set eyes on. Many of his friends and even his family disagree, but he's pretty adamant on this. Ever since she came into his life, it's like girls the world over conspired against him to turn themselves ten times less attractive. But it's not just that she was beautiful to his eyes. She was one of the people whom he felt most in-sync with. She would complete his sentences and he hers, and he would think about a question and she would answer him without him ever asking out loud. They had similar (enough) interests. If they weren't already interested in the same thing, it would take very little effort for him to like what she liked and vice versa. They completed each other. He  hated waking up early, she loves it. She needs to get to bed early, he does whatever he can to avoid early bedtimes. Their existence in each others' lives helps them lead healthy lives. He had a feeling that they were made for each other. No other person could make him feel as miserable or as happy as her. She was the highlight of his day. Highlight of his life. It had to be love.

But (there's always a but, isn't there?) he couldn't help but feel that she's too good for him. There he was, as average and plain as a human being can be, with no particular talents, of average attractiveness, introverted and passive. And there she was, the most talented person he had ever met, beautiful, like, crazy beautiful, outspoken, intelligent, kind-hearted, lovable, all that good stuff. How could he ever hope to keep her to himself? How could someone ten times more attractive, smart, funny and talented not be able to spot a gem that was her and take her away from him? He knew that he was no contest to any actually worthy guys out there. He was a loser. Nothing. She was destined for greatness. Not nothing.

And so everyday he lives his life being miserably happy. Happy that he has the treasure that is her. Miserable that he knows, KNOWS that he won't be able to keep her. Not when there's a Joseph Gordon-Levitt or a Redza Minhat out there to pry her away from him with ease.  He's just too pathetic to compete. He is unworthy.