what do i do with me now???

okay, i never thought that this day would come and here it is now staring at me in my face. what do i do with myself now???

a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and as much as i have been looking forward to this day, i cannot help but feel lost and alone. now, what the hell am i supposed to do with all my time??? yes, i'm one of those creatures who enjoy being occupied... i'm not used to this idleness... this is all very new and foreign to me.

where the hell did he get such an idea???

A matured foreign student of mine suggested that Malaysian women are not the sort that you'd want to get married to. When asked to elaborate, he said that Malaysian women "all have three husbands". He even went on to suggest that I could be sleeping with the owner of the school. How strange, I thought... what makes a person think such things??? Sigh... some people are not worth my time...

60 Earth Hour

March 28, 2009... we can do this...we MUST do this

let's do our bit to help mother nature. for one hour, make it about earth and not about you.

let's stand together as one and join the rest of the world. it would be nice to see the lights in KL turned off for an hour.

as we say in malaysia..."Off the light!!!"

a dragon to slay...

i have a dragon to slay... i've been working at if for years now... pray hard that i come out alive. do you have dragons of your own to slay???

a burger!!!

okay, i have a confession to make... i had a burger today!!! in my defense i have to say that it was more out of convenience rather than what i REALLY wanted to have. i'm happy to report though that i didn't find it satisfying :)

this is how unsafe our construction sites are...

i was just writing about the safety of our construction sites when a few days later, two construction workers were killed when the cable of a crane snapped. it took them almost an hour to gather the victims' bodies. isn't it high time that the authorities did something about the state of our construction sites???

risking lives

i'm sitting and watching the construction works that is going on the next lot of land. one cannot help but wonder about the safety measures that contractors observe (if there are any at all) here in malaysia. the men work on very high floors without wearing any safety harnesses --- one can very easily fall off the edge of the building especially when the walls are not up yet.

and then there is the issue of thunder and lightning and how these guys just carry on working even though one can hear the rumbling of thunder coming in their direction.

don't contractors value the lives of their workers??? isn't there a law to see to it that they do??? isn't it high time that we see to it that contractors not just make lots of bucks but also provide SAFE working environments for their workers??? isn't it high time that they value life???

a good rule of thumb

do not put anything in writing that you would not want to see on the headlines of the next day's newspapers.

in today's day and age where everybody who has access to the internet most probably has a blog, this is really a good rule of thumb... i think too many things have been said of others...what these people don't get is that this can be seen from another angle --- what does that say about you, the blogger, rather than them, whom you are writing about, the blogged???

think about how stupid you will feel when found out... uh huh... it WILL be found out... just a matter of time... Food for thought...

a poddle in shoes...

a poddle in shoes...i saw a poddle in shoes walking daintily besides its owner yesterday afternoon...WHY???

the reason why

i had a conversation with someone from the past recently. he said that he regretted what happened between us. never mind that all this talk was happening 6 YEARS after the fact!!! he said that he could have tried harder.

when asked how he could have tried harder, he said he could have slept more, spent less nights out late drinking, been more patient... is that it??? was what i was thinking. he was not about to treat me better...the guy just wanted more hours to sleep!!!

i guess there is no mystery why i moved on...

achievements

a few nites ago, i stayed up late. what was i doing, i hear you ask? well, believe it or not, i was up trying to teach myself some basic statistics. yup, am definitely kicking myself for not signing up for the paper when i should have but you know how it is, i avoided taking papers which i thought i was not going to ace in (the statistics module is not a compulsory paper for my studies) but as life should have it, i apparently REQUIRE it now. sigh... anyway, i managed to make sense of how the standard of deviation is calculated and better still, i finally made sense as to WHY i need to present the standard of deviation scores in my analysis.

here's some background history --- of all the papers that i have taken thus far, the research methodology paper made the least sense. i got almost nothing out of that class. if anything at all, i got even more muddled. there was a lot of talk in that class --- basically the instructor talked a lot about stuff that confused and confounded many of us (believe me when i tell you that i wasn't the only clueless one in the lecture hall!). she might as well have been talking german, if you know what i mean. anyway, there were a lot of concepts that went unexplained and everything seemed to be one big haze for me...until now...until i finally got around to doing some reading myself to make sense of my need for descriptive statistics. gee... i should have done this sooner!!!

anyway... the good news is that i'm not the gone case that i thought i was before i struggled with trying to make sense of descriptive statistics... i just needed to do a hell lot of reading!!! hey, who knows... i just might find that i like it....errr...maybe NOT!!! :)

2009

yup, another year has come and gone and we are now blessed with yet another year. strangely enough, i haven't got any new year's resolutions... not that i've ever been big about them. still, here we are... and for this year, i REALLY REALLY REALLY hope to complete my thesis... InsyaAllah. other than that, i guess, i wish for the same things that others around the planet wish for --- peace on the planet, a safer place, a reduction in global warming, respect for nature and the planet... love in all forms possible.

was driving home from KLCC today when there seemed to be a traffic jam at the bangsar turn. i thought to myself... funny that there should be a traffic jam here on a public holiday... then i realized that the traffic jam was because of an accident that had taken place on the other side of the road. there was a woman underneath a car... she was conscious and in great pain. i can only assume that the car had clipped her motobike... dear Allah, please save her... please let them be able to fix her...

i wish for safer malaysian drivers... is that too much to ask for???

round and round we go...

Did I mention before that I work in a circus??? Once again, we have been asked to apply for our teaching permits. I have been filling out teaching permit application forms every year, making copies of all of my relevant documents, going to the doctor for medical check-ups, turning in my mug shots, basically doing the whole works and to date, NO teaching permit in sight (not even its shadow!!!).

So...I decided that enough is enough and to the hell with the company and I'll just go ahead and make my teaching permit application as an individual. Made a few phone calls and finally was put in touch with the officer in charge (who, by the way, was super nice) of approving teaching permits.

This is what I learned --- only ONE application form is needed (my office asked me to fill out TWO application forms), only TWO mug shot pics are required (my officed asked for SIX --- God know whatever for...perhaps they are planning of putting up our mug shots on the bathroom wall???), only ONE copy of certified relevant higher learning certificates are required (my office insisted on TWO copies of everything), on top of it, only certificates of Bachelors degrees and above are required (my officed insisted on EVERY cert since the day you stepped in school --- again, who are these clowns???) and a doctor's letter to declare that we are fit for work (don't know if my office got that right since I don't get to see the letter --- it goes straight to the HR dept from the doctor's). Sadly, this teaching permit thingy cannot be applied individually, only the institution can make the application :( ... I can see many more years of making applications for what seems like the elusive teaching permit if I stick around longer.

Interestingly, I was informed by the officer that she had returned a pile of over a hundred teaching permit application forms to the company somewhere in April this year. She asked me where I was attached to, and when i told her, she was not surprised. It seems that our HR dept rang her up to ask for a copy for the approved teaching permit applications (apparently, they didn't have their own copy in the office --- why am I not surprised). She also knew what the mad rush for the application for teaching permits is about --- she told me about the upcoming MOHE audit that was about to happen in a few days' time. To top it all off, she suggested that I leave the company --- need I to say more about how MOHE perceive my employers???

doc martin

Martin Clunes as Doc Martin Ellingham

the sleepy unhappening village of Portwenn

who would think that i would actually enjoy british humour. martin ellingham is a grumpy london surgeon who relocated to this small unhappening fishing village, Portwenn, in the country to become the village's GP. this is one doctor who although is really good at what he does, is also seriously lacking people skills and quite often offends the people in the village.

Raya

this is something i remember...putting up the kerosene lamps on the fence around our home a week or so before raya with my father when i was a child. the compound of our home would look so pretty lighted up with those lamps at night...sigh...i miss those days...

takbir raya berkumandang

takbir raya berkumandang... yes, it is the eve of raya once again. my mother once said that the takbir raya makes her sad, i now understand what i didn't understand then.

this is the second raya without ayah...it is a void that can never be filled...

at a time when there should be so much joy, i am feeling sad...raya will never be the same again :(

blue splendour

1. Penang State Museum • 2. Cathedral of the Assumption •

3. Hainanese Mariners' Lodge (Penang Heritage Trust)4. Carpenters' Guild •

5. Hainan Temple • 6. Benggali Mosque • 7. Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

8. Residance of Ku Din Ku Meh • 9. Christian Cemetry •

10. Saint Francis Xavier Church

I don't know what's taking me so long to do this --- I have yet to see the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Penang for myself. I've put it on my Must See list. It was built in the 19th century and won UNESCO's 'Most Excellent' Heritage Conservation Award in 2000.

I even found a map online showing the location of this mansion for my next visit to Penang. Must see, must see, must see...

... and the reading continues...

been reading and reading and reading... i'm getting there!!! yup, i'm wearing my positive hat today :)

my test video link

And here's to testing the video link --- wish me luck!!!

The Background Research

The new semester has begun (it started 3 weeks ago to be exact) and I am now working on my project proposal. There are so many articles to read... I'm still trying to get ideas on how best to scope down on my area of research. Let's hope I don't sit on this too long.