Defining sadness

Being irreverent is what makes me feel like being myself, sometimes.

..but sometimes else, It makes me floundered.

... ... ... ...

A kite craves for freedom, but kite knows well enough that the boy holding the string is happily having him in the hand, and kite also knows, that it is the boy who flew him high.

Kite would be happier if he is detached from the string, but kite knows that the boy will certainly cry if he lost his kite. Kite will also feel sad for sure, if the boy cries.

Kite hence chooses to keep on flying high, dances in a way that people from the ground will see and believe that kite is flying great, flying gracefully. "Nothing to be worried about," people on the ground tell the boy, boy smiles, kite cries.

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?

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.

"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?

This is an endurance test -- I'm in.

This is not something special and new. Indeed, this is something really normal as I've practised it 4 years straight. In another word, when thing is as normal as daily teeth-brushing task, it shouldn't be mentioned in a blog like this.. but the question is, why am I starting to compose an entry about it?

1st of course 4 years back I din have a blog to talk about this normal 'abnormal' thing (?); 2nd, I've encountered too many 'why' asking about my choice and my decision and my determination and earnestness.. (yeah, I've been interviewed by a Wawa TV Station, Majalah Minda, Princess Channel and 'Jambu!' teen magazine.... and same 1st question from them: WHY?).. ..

Why? Why do I poso skali?

I oftenly smiled this question off when friends of mine seeing me fast seriously in muslim's Bulan Ramdhan. Yes I do have an untold reason, but I prefer to let it unexplained. On the other hand, I seriously wanted to capture Malaysian's mentality about a non-muslim joining a so called Islamic way of life. ..

My question is, why do most of the people tend to see things from religious and racial perspective, while lots of things in our life can be as simple as a personal choice due to some straightforward reasons regarding health, social and etc? .. orait I have to admit that there was a reason for me to start fasting in Ramadhan, but there are more reasons for me to keep this habit going on till this year, especially after realizing that self-discipline is a very valuable quality that I should brush-up on.

Doing push-up 150 times per day needs self-discipline, I'm cutting it down to 100 times every 3-4 days..; jogging weekly needs self-discipline, and so far, erm.., so good..; struggling in working environment needs self-discipline, struggling in this Master programme needs extreme level of self-discipline, ...

...achieving my dreams of owning Chevrolet OPTRA5 and Canon EOS DSLR, achieiving my family's hope on me, making my family proud of me, following all the words in Rudyard Kipling's poem "If", getting true success in life, getting dreams-come-true of traveling all around the world...

...all of these, bear the same drive for fasting throughout one whole month, need self-discipline.

So I think this is my answer to all the 'WHY's .. : WHY NOT?

Month of Ramadhan bears a lot of wonderful meanings. I am certainly not in the position to tell it, but personally I see one valuable meaning of Ramadhan: it is a month of endurance test, and I'm in.

"Go there, and make us proud.."

I was sipping mamee slrrp in my room while Taylor Hicks' DO I MAKE YOU PROUD started playing through my headphone.

"...I've never been the one to raise my hand, that was not me and now that's who I am..."

..all of a sudden, I felt like I was in the video clip of the song, describing the struggle of a young man, having mamee slrrp instead of a proper dinner, on his way pursuing his dream... (ahaks!)

..in fact, all of a sudden, I realized the change of time..

Which sparks in this universe triggered all the changes in my life and brought me here today? I always wonder.. but deep inside of me I always believe that someone out there (or up there) is monitoring me and doing all the arrangement to fit my future..

..who is that 'someone'? I think I know...

In spite of that, there are people I meet throughout my life till today, that I truely believe are part of the factors that molded me into the shape I am today. And sometimes I do relate all these people to the condition I face at one particular moment..

"... I guess I've learned, to question is to grow, that you still have faith, is all I need to know; I've learned to love, myself in spite of me, and I've learned to walk, the road that I believe..."

I still remember the words that my Big Boss Mr Effendy spoke to me right before I left my office and came here to pursue my further study. In fact till today, I dun really think that Mr Effendy agreed to let me go, but still, the words he gave was kinda injecting a warm feeling like a father's advice to his son:

"Go there, and make PRAM proud." PRAM, is my division in PETRONAS.

I knew I have another mission the moment I nodded earnestly.

... Coincidentally, there's a friend of mine who wrote the same thing to me on Yahoo Messenger when I first checked-in to the university of my Msc programme..

She said, "Study hard, make us proud.".. 'us', refers to my three wonderful friends whom I hung out with most of the time in KL.

... and there's a respectful old man who recently wrote this to me and really smeared a soft-touched feeling deep in my heart..

He wrote,"..if I could ever pick a son, one would be you.."... this old man, I call him Papa, is my coach.

... ... I know I simply have more reasons to keep faith in that 'someone' I mentioned before. As what I questioned before, "which sparks in the universe triggered all the changes in my life and brought me here today?", well maybe I can't give myself an answer, but I can stand without getting any answers for it. That 'someone' is the star in this universe that arranged all highs and lows in my life, as well as all the people I meet and I encounter with, for some particular unforseen reasons.

"...This is what we dream about, but the only question with me now, is do I make you proud? .."

The song "Do I Make You Proud" is not my favourite song, but it kinda express my concern to all the people I met, all the people I know, all the people that believe in me, and to that special 'someone' who will always answer my prayer when I look up..

Love is in the air....

If this entry is finaly aired, it will be my 1st blog entry to talk about love.. I know it's kinda weird, yes it's certainly the weirdest thing a pious rocker does on his blog, but.. let's admit this, it was the rain that got me into this mood of tenderness....

My big sister officially married to Dave yesterday; on the same day, my dearest brother Pesa officially had the 1st date with his girl; the day before it, KakLin and Zul received the most precious gift of love from God as Lin gave birth to a baby boy Ameerul Adly bin Zulhaimi; Yahya and Fiza is going to get engaged next week; plus the wonderful marriage of Penn and Tini last week and also today (..not to forget wedding of the year seeing Malaysian Diva Siti marrying Datuk K...) ...well, love is in the air...

.. I congrated my sister and Dave, I shared the excitement with Pesa, I can't wait to see and touch little Ameerul Adly, I said Alhamdulilah to Zul and Lin, I hope I can witness the engagement of Yahya and Fiza, I expressed my best blessing to Penn and Tini, and I witnessed the wedding of Siti and Datuk K through live broadcasting...

... hence I felt love, didn't I? ... ... did I?

Surprisingly I still miss the girl who shared the tenderness of raining days with me once upon a time.. I said 'surprisingly' cuz I know I am the most cold-hearted creature on this planet. She's my kind of rain, but I'm just too mucky to get her to rain on me..

..don't worry, I'll end here.