About Love (part 2)

Love is bizarre because nowadays, the line between friendships and relationships are blurred. There's no longer a clear cut difference.

1. You can love each other, even tell each other how much you love each other, yet, you are still friends.

2. You can make future promise like I'll go after you after 5 years, yet, you are still friends.

3. You can have every ingredients every couple yearns for, yet, you are still friends.

4. You can talk to each other about everything, yet, you are still friends.

5. You can act like a sweet couple for a very long time and refuse to give up the acting, yet, you are still friends.

See the delicate or nearly non-existent difference between friends and lovers? If the time is not right- she might not be ready, she might just come out from a failed relationship, chances are, you two can never be together. If the time is right, but something unexpected happens and it disrupts the fine balance you two share, love is not going to happen. If everything is at the right place, you two could still walk on separate ways because

Fate is cruel and peculiar.

About Love (part 1)

People think I need Oxford by my side in order to explain the word 'love'. They are terribly wrong. I need a Papa Patho to aid me in understanding 'love'. Love is such an intoxicating word, almost pathological to me. I thread carefully, I muse deeply, yet, there's no escape from mistakes. We all make mistakes, what marks me as an outlier was I make more mistakes.

The pretty screwed-up ideas I obtained from my staggering string of failures.

1. Love is definitely selfish. Go ahead and put Mother Teresa or Gandhi on the debate table, love is still not selfless.

2. Love is hard. It's just a matter of time before you realize.

3. Love is pathological. You shed more tears when you are in a relationship than watching any lacrimal-stimulating and Kleenex-wasting soap operas.

4. Love has an expiry date. Either it's already expired or going to.

5. Love is not unconditional.

Is that how i see love now? Definitely not. I don't know what actually changes me. Life is as complicated as it sounds. Mahler is famous of his tragic and nihilistic music. At the same time, he produced equal number of music that glorifies eternal love. Contradicting it sounds, no one could actually dispute that life is stranger than fiction.

1. Love is still selfish. However, you don't have to love the whole world to qualify yourself as selfless right? Even by showering your love on people around you will be a gesture that's noble in nature.

2. Love is not hard. It's what you give that matters. Being loved, on the other hand, is tough.

3. Love can be benign. If you distill your experience, you'll find that those silly smile-into-a-mirror and blushing moments are actually predominant.

4. Love does have an expiry date. But is there a limit saying you can only have one love in your whole life?

5. Love can be unconditional. If not, why so many people are madly in love with people they don't even know? That impulsive compulsion, is an unconditional drive. Most of the time, they don't know what they want.

TM

For God's sake, just smack your horrendously presumptions-laden head. Of course, this post is not about Telekom Malaysia. As a responsible citizen of Glorious Country of Bolehland, we must always keep up with the recent developments in this country of Bolehwood. Our neighbours are already eyeing for our sacred legacy (some of them are not even Halal!!). They poise to steal our property, pilfer to the last bit of our blood and we will perish! So in order to curb this crisis, Tourism Ministry of Bolehland has devised an ingenious plan- JUST TRADEMARK IT!

But, it's uphill task. Firstly, we must identify the long-lost legacies. It's no easy job. However, it can be done in the future (Malaysian timing applies here). From the infamous FOOD WAR with our petty neighbour to other brawls, we shall triumph if we act first.

1. Cowhead *TM*

Respect other people's culture FTW

2. Racial Harmony *TM*

Love Thy Neighbour with bleeding love

3. Public Caning For Chicks *TM*

Don't drink and fast. Fast responsibly

4. Malaysia's Berlusconi or Spitzer *TM*

Shamefully Shameless *TM*

5. National Heroes *TM*

Steal Thy Neighbour's Thing Award

p.s: BAK KUT TEH is definitely ours, you know, apart from the haram pork.

Hostel

What is hostel? An additional 'S' in the word hotel definitely makes hell lots of difference. Some of them are simply unforgivably terrible, some of them manage to generate lots of fantasies and admiration. So far, I've been living in hostels for almost 4 years. All I can tell is, it's not as bad as some people think. However, it's definitely not a place you have jacuzzi, bars and lots of romance in spite of the close resemblance to its distant relative, hotel.

Hellton Hostel

I'm going to share some most fascinating, some people might consider morbid, stories. Some of them, i heard from friends, some of them, i experienced it myself. I shall leave any judgment to all my beloved readers. You all call the shot.

1. My previous college's (a place where some of the wickedly sick JPA scholars study) hostel is located almost 1 km away from the campus itself. It has the most stringent dress code rule you have ever seen in your whole life. Just imagine, if a guy wants to go out from the compound of the hostel, he needs to wear long pants in order not to raise some eyebrows and most importantly, to avoid unnecessary conflict with oversensitive security guards who just love giving out summons.

Dresscode for guys

2. Girls, on the other hand, are required not only to wear long pants, they are even forced to wear long pants in the compound of the hostel. Whenever they want to sneak out from the hostel, they must cover their arms with long sleeves.

Dresscode for girls

3. In short, most of us end up looking like bunch of gays and Eskimos. Official reason? Not to disgrace the university and to project professionalism- during routine mamak dinner or pasar malam grocery shopping.

4. There's one chinese guy from other programme who we call 'The Real Man'. He walks around in the room without his underpants and more interestingly, without any pants at the same time. Global warming really gets to him fast.

If he ever put on weight, ya, he might be 'THE REAL MAN'

5. Water coolers are constantly breeding grounds for fungi and unknown extraterrestrial organisms.

6. Some guys never wash their jeans for one whole year.

7. Just to show you another extreme personal hygiene case: One friend told me, her brother's friend washed his clothes for the first time. Due to grand sales in Carrefour, he decided to put too much detergent when he washed clothes. Ended up, when he went for sports, he sweated bubbles. Natural deodarant.

Detergent is cheap.

8. My friend tried to use his key to open my house door before. But he is not my housemate. I did the same thing before too before realizing i was on third floor instead of fourth.

I thought this was my place.

9. The guy who stayed right across my unit play dota with his laptop on one thigh, mouse on the other.

10. My friend's roommate has 320gb of porn in an external hard drive.

This is just a very minute part of my ridiculous hostel life. There're plenty more censored stuffs that i'm not allowed to post here. Do drop by and say hi to me sometimes. Maybe I'll share some mind-boggling stories with you. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Where Am I?

Everyone must be asking the same question I've been asking myself lately: where am I?

My new hiding spot

I can't defend my abscence from the blogosphere without using the B and the F word.

I was in the most FFFFantastically BBBBusy phase of my life. My slow descend into this vortex of self-destruction was all started when I decided to plunged myself into a deep pool of troubles. And the mother of all troubles: The M209 Orientation. To make things worse, I volunteered myself to be a chief SM (definitely is not what you think).

Not the SM you are thinking about

Chief SM stands for Station masters and as the head of all station masters, I had to recruit all of them to join the orientation and you know, play games *winks* with the juniors.

Recruitment was never easy. After the discouraging reception I got from the m109, I had to shift my attention to all the other batches. However, most of them were still enjoying their sabbatical somewhere else. I'm grateful that I've a wonderful partner who assisted me to negotiate with the wildest bunch of renegade station masters. In spite of all the difficulties, this experience proved priceless. At least i survived communication breakdown with multiple parties and myriad debacles that largely arose from my lack of experience.

As if orientation itself were not taxing enough, our first major of third sem coincided with first week of orientation. I had to jargle between carload of lecture notes and my obligations as a committee member. It was no stroll in the park. Exam itself was not a killer. When it's coupled with other things, it's like a coup de grace for everyone. Again, almost miraculously, I survived the first test relatively unscathed.

Now, orientation is well into its final event of the first week. Everything has been running on right track. I think everyone can finally stop asking where is sihan.

CVS Debacle

CVS weeks are a highly stressful period of time for me, not to mention burden of expectations, mountains of notes, clinical skill. To make things worse, I've recently discovered that I'm in an awkward position where I'm placed under unnecessary limelight.

Tall (190cm), alleged high arch palate, long fingers, splitting heart sound.

MARFAN!

I try my very best oratory skill to debate with all the non-believers out there that I'm not a Marfan and nobody seems to be able to make a connection with their sanity. On the contrary, everyone just loves to continue the insanity streak initiated by god-knows who.

After getting more and more tired and frustrated trying in vain to defend myself, I gave up. Now, I can conclude:

1. People are jealous of my height.

2. People want to believe that high arch palate is sexy.

3. Long and slender fingers are adorable.

4. Splitting heart sound is melodious.

5. Prophesize me dying before 50 years old with either aortic dissection or aneurysm is indeed very fun thing to do.

5. Father of 170 and mother of 168, either one of them is marfan. Many people sadistically cling to belief of 170 and 168 are markers for marfan inheritance.

6. Better still, they might actually intend to challenge my father/mother's fidelity!

I love my friends so much!

Of Speed and Leadership

One friend of mine once commented on my walking speed, 'You walk quite slowly, for a person as tall as you.' With the height of 190, it's uncanny to even conceive that someone will actually say that. Even with half a leg, I would walk faster than most of the people around me. Yet, I did walk very slowly whenever I'm with friends or someone I'm close with.

The duck and ducklings that halted a tennis game during Wimbledon Open

Why? Because I slow down for them.

The reason is that simple. Let me tell you another real-life story. I'm in an active running club and I often go for mountain hiking and running tournaments with bunch of enthusiastic running comrades. We always carpool whenever we go anywhere. Normally, the club's president will lead the group. His car is right in front other cars. After some time, some people started saying, 'Why he drives so slow one?'

He waits for the others.

What I want to bring up here is not so much about glorification of being a gentleman. A gentleman will always wait. However, i wish to draw a line here between etiquette and leadership. Being a leader, you are expected to be leading the pack, to be in front, to make decision and to shoulder the risk. Besides, the burden of being a leader is invisible, a leader must make sure those who follow him actually do follow.

A leader will slow down, waiting for his/her followers to catch up. However, a GREAT leader will keep a distance with his followers. A great leader will ensure the followers won't lose sight of him/her and at the same time, not letting the followers to overtake.

It's a pivotal leadership quality that everyone seems to overlook. You walk by the side of the followers, people will assume that you are lacking of vision, unsure of the future and reluctant in making bold steps. Surrounding yourself with 'ordinary' people will ultimately be interpreted as mediocrity- hardly a remark a leader will crave for.

I will follow you

On the other hand, you can't just walk away from them. They don't see you, they start rebelling, they feel forsaken and lost. Your leadership will fall into disarray and worse still, before long, you will find yourself no longer regarded as a leader- the worst-case-scenario for a leadership.

Thus, keep a distance with whoever you lead is an answer. Don't let them second-guess your decision making and do mot sow doubts about your readiness to lead. Meanwhile, they can still see where you head to and they will feel safe and more ready to commit themselves.

Even before I start writing this article, I muse about my leadership quality. I'm not a mediocre leader, but, at certain points, I might appear to be indecisive and reluctant to make decision. Hence, I slow down, giving myself space to breath and excuses for others to regard me as a lousy leader. Much more effort is needed to reverse a tarnished image than to shape an impecabble reputation.

Linguistic Limbo

I'm so proud to be a Malaysian. I can moan in 3 languages and groan in different styles (wth!) . My point is unless you speak Greek or Russian in Malaysia, you can't screw with any Malaysian. Hence, it's not an understatement to say that being linguistic is one of the very few fortes of a Malaysian.

To further strengthen our point, our venerable government which always listens to number of votes and voices that are so tiny- to translate into more layman term, minority, again, vows to please those who are concerned. Bills have been passed, acts have been amended, Maths and Science are again taught in Malay.

I, here, urge everyone not to blame our government and Dr. Wee because they do it for our benefits. FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

1. You will be bilingual in Maths and Science which will give you edge in competition- Competition among the biggest muslim nation and the alledgely champion of moderate muslim country, Malaysia. Please don' laugh! Indonesia has such a huge population. Just imagine our scientists who speak quintessential Malay create a Malay-speaking doll. It'll be an instant hit!

2. Students are more well-trained in drastically-changed environment. Sudden english, sudden Malay- no problem for Malaysian students. Since they are so prepared to face the change, they will definitely the new leading forces of this country!

3. If Maths and Science don't improve our english proficiency, changing back to Malay will somehow propelled our 1119 from F to A.

4. Experiment is always good. Experiment brings innovation. Making our students guinea pigs is the best way to produce our first Nobel laureate.

5. Status Bahasa Melayu will never be threatened by Moby-Dick-like invisible enigma.

6. More money can be channeled to fund Khir Toyo because 3.6M is a huge sum for an honest politician.

7. Malaysian students can show off to the world terms like Natrium Karbonat dan Karbon Dioksida! So cool, sounds like German.

How thoughtful our government is! Again, it's for our own good. Love our government XOXO

Learn About Nothingness

I just attended a rhetorical dialogue session with our ex-prime minister. The talk was mostly a waste of time and the emcee still could call it 'pearl of wisdom'. I seriously didn't see any 'pearl' whatsoever. However, our Tun did mention something that caught my attention. While he was talking about how specialization works nowadays, he remarked that 'we are learning more about smaller things, one day to come, we will learn too much about nothing.'

This actually brought out a very intriguing issue. Scientists and researchers from every field do study about 'nothingness'. Great deal of time and resources have been pooled in just to study what nothingness can affect our whole life and the world.

Take global warming as an example, global warming has caused plethora of problems ranging from rising sea level to more frequent draughts that plague Africans for centuries. The mass immigration from those heavily affected areas is not yet a severe issue but arguably, the researchers point out that it will soon become a problem. While more no-man lands are created, neighbouring cities will be soon flooded with 'eco-refugees' that will ultimately create problems any migration can cause. Now, the researchers are rushing against time to reverse the problems in the 'nothingness' in those soon-to-be abandoned lands. What are the repercussions this massive exodus will cause? Nobody will know, but one thing for sure, we are definitely going to learn more about 'nothingness'.

From global warming to the relatively microscopic scale, we all agree with the notion that absolute vacumm cannot be achieved due to the Theory of Uncertainties. But why scientists have been cracking their head for decades just to study for the nothingness in the vacumm? Even billions of dollars have been invested in creating humongous gadgets like Large Hadron Collider just to create a microscopic black hole that lasts for no more than miliseconds before it dissolves into total nothingness. Why do we do that? That's what we call the curiosity. We venture into the space which is largely unknown to us. For what? The curiosity, if not the greatest quality, will be the cornerstone of the development of a civilization. No direct ripple of effects will be experienced if we stop colliding photons, but our development will be halted.

How about ice drilling in Antartic? Undeniably, some of them are incentive-driven by oil. However, most of the time, researchers just brave the weather just to know more about total nothingness there.

Thus, study about nothingness is not totally useless. It might yield something unexpected and it might even benefit us who are living nowhere near to those god-forsaken places. Do explore the unexplored, i believe that's the motto all researchers will embrace wholeheartedly.

Brief Recap

Life has been running on its neck-breakingly insane speed. Just one week back from the holiday, I'm no longer innocent to the ECG graph which now makes so much sense instead of some really intersecting lines. New jobs, new commitments, new girl (just kidding haha), new run, new routine, I've to adjust myself.

Not to mention my new apartment which is immaculate(not for long) and my new housemate (whose girlfriend happens to be my junior in college), these are all new stuffs in my life, let alone the crazy P1 WiMax internet which is acting like someone who just got back from the cuckoo's nest.

With the new sem rolling on, I might not be able to invest more time on this blog but this will be my promise, I will keep this blog alive as long as I can. The quality of the writing, i'll try not to compromise it in exchange of my hectic lifestyle.

Hopefully everything will run on its course, as it should be.