Oct 30, 2006

Those triumphs of youth.. .. departed?

Realizing you're getting old is NOT the same with realizing you're achieving adulthood by seeing some physical changes of puberty. The latter is some kind of witnessing -- u witnessed, but then u found it hard to handle..

.. but the former, is some kind of feeling, and perceiving. It's like when u wear ur favourite T-shirt and walk by a mirror in the middle of the street, u suddenly see urself wearing something really weird and not suitable -- maybe the shirt is too tight, maybe the colour is too bright -- and u finally realize what u're wearing WAS ur favourite T-shirt, but not anymore now, at this stAGE of life.

... this is exactly what I felt before meeting up 3 coolest freinds of mine in KL last weekend. ..and to cut the story short and to really deny (or further approve) all these aging myths, after the movie "The Departed", we entered this funfair in OneUtama.

Lucky enough, funfair is nothing like T-shirt -- we can "demote" our favourite T-shirt due to taste/age factor, but we're not going to do that to funfair. Funfaire is everybody's all-time favourite.

Hence the story goes.. we had fun -- I mean in term of 'recaping' or 'refreshing' childhood memories, yup we did good. Merry-go-round, Save-a-duck, darts game, Wheel Chair, ice-cream yada yada yada -- Yahya, Fiza and Sue, these three old men really enjoyed proving their aging process. Ahaks!

Well my point is, NONE of them even wanted to try the 360 degrees vertical spinning "Top-Gun" or the vigorous swaying "Challenger". So I did -- cuz I was the one who had hints and clues kept reminding me about the age throughout the day -- I needed to do something to persuade myself that those things lied.

Well I'm not going to share the longest 5 min in my life sitting in the capsule of "Top Gun". I cursed a lot while I was defying gravity and I was in up-side-down position when my capsule was at the point of twelve-o-clock. That was fun. I mean the duration was long enough for me to flash back all my life, and to feel the mechanism of my body on how it handle "nervous", "frightened", "regret", "excited", "adreline rush" and "to shiver or not to shiver"... ...

The bottom line is, I made it, and proved myself that I wasn't THAT old (u kidding me? I'm still on my way to give bungee jumping a try!!!). However, I chose to try wheel-chair next instead of "Challenger" (c'mon, soldier needs rest..).

The conclusion of the hang-outing:

1. when we enjoyed watching the ever dragging "The Departed", it showed we appreciate "deep" things and THAT IS MATURED;

2. change of taste towards wearing indicates WE HAVE BETTER FASHION SENSE;

3. our age tells us WE ARE YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG LADIES;

4. having fun in fun-fair simply proved WE ARE STILL KIDS..

..So? Pardon me, what did u say? OLD? Did I mention the 'O-L-D' word in my conclusion?

Oct 20, 2006

My kindegarten level of entomology notes

I'm having a weird feeling of nervous and worried..(again?) right now.. I know it's due to my wrong-timing of blogging -- I should be sitting in front of my study desk right now, lashing myself to keep on digging into my notes of 'formation evaluation' and 'seismic acquisition & data processing' yada yada yada...

2nd reason, is about this post. Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm about to compose something which is entirely out of my knowledge and understanding, but don't worry, I got a few terminologies to help me to get my stuff looks ..erm.. professional.

Here we go. My entomology notes on ecdysis/moulting of a grasshopper.

Well I consider myself as 'being quite lucky' cuz I managed to witness a grasshopper moulting. My little sister and I caught some grasshoppers last Monday for her cruel-inhumane-biological experiment and we found out one of them looked like being suffered from body-cramp and we thought this fella was dying.. but came to our very surprised this fella was actually doing his meditation to mourn the passing of 'old-him' while celebrating his own rebirth. I KNEW this when I started to see him shedding his outer skin, or to say it ENTOMOLOGICALLY, this fella was shedding its exoskeleton. ..yes, you pronounced it right: e-xo-skeleton... but I prefer to call it 'suit of Satria Baja Hitam'.. longer, but catchier.

Well I must consider myself as 'being quite lucky' when I thought that was the end of the 'peeling old skin wearing new skin' story but in fact I was wrong. Yes I managed to see the sequel of the story: adolescene. Our young fella was reaching his adulthood from a nymph. He finally gained his own wings and even started to show it off. Yeah maybe it was his way of stretching his new sized body but I still couldn't stand his arrogance. Know what, I believed I heard somebody was soaring "I believe I can fly~~" at the moment, which sounded so ironic for me cuz I knew the next day before he could really fly, he was going to be soaked into a smelly chemical liquid called yada yada yada... (sorry I almost failed my Chemistry in secondary school..).

OK I still believe I am 'being quite lucky' for the reason I won't have the chance to see his execution. ..and in fact I am LUCKY when talking about experiencng these hidden moments of our tiny friends of nature. I once witness a little fish called 'rainbow fish' gave birth to her 'rainbow babies' when I was in standard four; then I used to see dragonflies mating in the air, and also flies; then I saw grasshoppers 'ecdysising'; and the latest one was, I accidentally caught a pregnant grasshopper and she gave birth to her baby on the next day of her friend reaching adulthood.

Well maybe I'm going to witness how a spider teach his son to build a web.. huhuhu.. who knows? But before that, I hope all my good-luck will work during my becoming exams.. nah, don't show me the spider lectures on that day, save it.

Oct 12, 2006

"Bye-bye baby dun be long, I worry bout u while u're gone.."

1st of all, I need to thank y'all for giving me priceless moral supports towards my normal 'abnormal' decision during the month of Ramadhan. I am still so much hyped up by the comments left in my previous post. Thank you.

This morning after Sahur with Faizal and Harris in my room, I was annoyed by some kind of worries and made me did not really manage to catch a short nap before starting another day of 9-5 lecture.

One question: If there are 12 subjects to study, which one of educational systems you prefer?
A. 1 month 1 subject, or maybe 2, focus, thourough and intensive, then exam, finish the subject, then move on to next one; or
B. All 12 subjects going on simultaneously throughout one whole year, slowly and steadily, then end of the year you will be examined on all those subjects, then finish. ..;

Which one you prefer?

Type 'B' is certainly the typical Malaysian, or maybe Asian countries' educational system, which has been adapted for many many years, regardless of its efficiency, and in fact as we all are well aware, unflexible type 'B' is boooooring and it 'carelessly' produces boooooooring students and a booooooring society. Please be notes that I said 'carelessly', means there are some wise ones wisely escaped from the trend.

While type 'A', from what I heard, is what the western countries apply. Only few subjects to focus in a duration of study, students study intensively and thoroughly on the subjects, then finish the paper, put the text book aside, move on to the next subject.

...and type 'A', is what I'm doing now in this MSc. programme since the programme is entirely transfered from France.

As an education enthusiast who had been going through Type 'B' educational system of Malaysia for more than 20 years, what I encountered now is really something fresh and exciting yet worrying. Yes no doubt, Type 'A' is fresh, much much more insightful and focus. It puts the students on a track of 'think and learn and think', but will the knowledge perceived lasts long?

I really wish to find out the answer cuz so far, my coursemates and I are the very first batch for this MSc. programme, and I believe we are also among the first few batches of 'Used-To-TypeB' students who put ourselves to try the Type 'A' effectiveness.

However, my worry is still hanging. When you're gaining something real precious like knowledges and skills (which you're sure you perceived them by heart) and there's a possibility saying that you are going to lose it anyway in the future, will you not worry like me?