• To become a butterfly, one must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar

Tuesday, 18 December 2007

A single trip to TimeSquare.

Hi there? (Guess I'm lazy to speech a better greeting), as normal, crapping first.

I made an appointment with Damien and Jett Kyii last week. First, Leisure Mall was appointed to make me easier to reach there due to my experience-less in KL's road recognition - Conversely, it makes them both hardly to approach here. In order to evade any muttering, so I’m just okay~~ fine. We discuss another meeting spot and therefore, eminently consent TimeSquare will be the place. Geez. As mentioned, I’m lacks of experiences in KL road, considered just have a very eminent pure parallel versatility, BUT, indeed I been taught for being calm as even I’m walking, my parents told me not to scutter. "Don Rush, because you're already late". Despite of that added with the quite far distance to TimeSquare from Sg.Long, I had denied my Mom and Dad's suggestion veritable of taking LRT might better. By all mean, I visits google.com for more KL's satellite road map detailed information, and yes, I look at it beyond my expected night and finally, I thought I’ve understood. Haplessly, what ta in my mind are totally wrong, I visualize the map in my mind and eyes focused on the so called "internet map" as South as North and East as West, such a dummy.

Why? Why I was wrong?

Correct path by "my brother in law"
From Sg Long to Imbi Plaza
Jalan Loke Yew --> Ipoh Kuantan --> Jalan Yew --> *donow where --> Jalan Imbi --> TimeSquare
From Imbi Plaza to Sg Long
Jalan Imbi --> Jalan Hang Tuah --> Jalan Maharajalela --> Jalan Loke Yew --> Jalan Cheras --> Sg Long
What i did?
From Sg Long to Imbi Plaza
Jalan Loke Yew --> Ipoh Kuantan --> Jalan Yew --> Bulatan Kampung Pandan --> Jalan Tun Abdul Razak --> Jalan Selatan --> jalan Melati --> Jalan Khoo Teik Ee --> Jalan Imbi --> TimeSquare
From Imbi Plaza to Sg Long
Jalan Imbi --> Jalan Hang Tuah --> Jalan Maharajalela --> Jalan Loke Yew --> Jalan Chan Sow Lin(WTF??) --> Kuchai Lama --> The Mines --> Sg Besi --> Balakong Jusco --> Sg Long

ACTUALLY I'M DAMN CLEVER YOU KNOW? I MANAGE TO COME BACK BY MYSELF ALTHOUGH PASSED AWAY ALOT "STUPID DUMMY" ROAD.

At Times Square just now I bought a shirt for Sydney. Hehe^^

She says Hi~~


Monday, 17 December 2007

Family in the Pool^^ Duper Addicted with Cutest Sydney






Challenging our stamina..


















EHHH^^^^ apa itu so hitam one. LOL










What this picture all about?








RESCUE~~~~
RESCUE!!!!














Sydney Baby and His Dad.. XD


















Calling Me??
















Ohh!!! is you.~~















emmm.. chakk..^^

















Their Eyebrow

Saturday, 15 December 2007

Sydney's Happiest and Most Contentment Day

What was it? More likely is an inadvisable day for a 1 year 1/2 month baby girl, enjoying herself in a swimming pool. Children becoming smarter and smarter nowadays, more mature than they used to be. Sydney started her first step in swimming pool, with a hope becoming one of the national swimmer i guess. For her, it might implausible all regarding this large swimming pool was totally beyond her maturity in imagination of kid's world. Swaying and swaying, Sydney saw some "jie jie" and "go go" are swimming joyfully, and she just cant wait for it. Despite her mother's working and been mentioned "we" will take her daughter, Sydney down to the swimming pool, told us with a morbid intention interesting and worrying her daughter, "Okay, have fun". Don't worry. Your daughter's under my protection and i'll make sure everything are secured before and after.






HeHe, She's smiling adorably ^^












She's thinking "Is this my new bathing tab?"













She's screaming loudly telling everyone "I LOVE THIS BATHING TAB"













She tired ady ^^






















Calming her down(1st picture) =.= She's screaming when i'm speeding toward the other side.(2nd picture)

Sydney's New Kawan^.^

Definitely with her respective "kao fu"

And now ZzZzzz



Friday, 14 December 2007

Some rather interesting posts of late, that I have read.

It seems that all is not what it is in Malaysia. Here are some posts that suggest why. I urge my friends and fellow Malaysian to adopt the initiative to find out what they can about their surroundings and their country. Let us not be in the dark, not during our normal daily routines, not just during the General Elections, and certainly not only when our country falls into crisis.

Here are some reading material you might find (ranging from) shocking, (to) helpful, (or maybe even) entertaining. Up to you lah.

Parliament : Retirement Age of EC Chairman extended by a year, by The Star

29 Nabbed at "Illegal" Gathering at Parliament, by The Star

Blackest Day for Parliament in 50 Years, by Lim Kit Siang

Black Sunday, by Lim Kit Siang

Who Invented Racial Harmony for Malaysia? by Patrick Teoh

Democracy in South East Asia, by Anwar Ibrahim

As for the Government's statements, you can pick them up conveniently from your local newspaper or news report. I shall not bias anyone's opinions - but to keep things fair, one has to see both sides of the coin, or even better, a coin's third side. I don't consider this a Malay, Chinese, Indian, or Lain-Lain issue. I think this is a Malaysian issue that we all have to tackle together lah, whatever race we come from. We have all reached the crossroads. However we act now will determine (I paraphrase Al Gore during his Nobel Prize accepting speech) what question our children will ask us. In his case on climate change, he said something along the lines of "What will our children ask us? Will they ask 'What were you thinking back then?', or will they ask 'How did you find the courage to stand up for the environment?' ". The exact words, of course, you have to refer to the CNN broadcast of it.

Sunday, 9 December 2007

Nice to meet Taiping Frenz -.- ?

It seems fun when my retarded cousin, put my picture in her friendster profile and introducing me to her friend. And, that's it, boost up my friend list from 465 - 471. Some of them just added me without a "hello", and just adding me, and i just simply, nicely accepted friend request. Well, i don't think i'll going to interested with such little girl. Their manner are quite bad i guess and i'm wondering what are they in the future? Gangster Girl? Bad Gambler? Boss in school? So far i just interested in one of them, quite nice, adorable. She called Jueann if not mistaken. At least, she was in a well manner apologized to me. Well, i'm nice guy, hehe, and accept the so called "sorry" because i always judging in perspective way. Acceptance is always a good starting. ^^

emm, Minus, you need to change. Your attitude is horrible. >.< i'm scared. Maybe you'll angry after read this but this indeed the real first impression you gave me. I hope you manage to proof me that i'm definitely the wrong one.

Friday, 7 December 2007

Pendidikan Moral, a solution for social ills?

As I would more or less do every morning, I flipped the pages of the newspaper past the many pictures of LIMA, to go to the letters section. There were some rather interesting letters today, one which had this idea that with the increasing amount of social ills present in society, that pendidikan moral, or moral education, should be taught to children of all ages. I believe that this view is flawed in the sense that it does not look at the big picture. It sounds more like a product of endless "conditioning", or how we are made to believe that it can actually work judging by the amount of marks we get by putting it as one of the solutions in our essays in school.

As a person who has personally gone through the topic of moral education, I strongly believe that not only it does not address the purpose that some well meaning rakyat, the Ministry of Education, and parents think, it backfires to an extent. People think that by repeatedly asking teenagers to read about moral values, that they would be instilled with them. But is this how people really are instilled with them? I find that idea nonsensical! Rote learning is one of the worst ways to learn something. In case you don't know what is rote, it is simply repeating one fact over and over again until it sinks in. Does repeating "I will be responsible for my actions" make the person more responsible? Actions speak louder than words my friend. If you believe the converse, then can become politician already lah.

I am a firm believer in the traditional methodology of problem solving - first, we need to find out what the problem is before we can begin theorizing possible solutions to it. After all, if we don't know the problem in the first place, then how are we expected to deal with it in the best possible manner? It is the same as a doctor who doesn't know if the patient has cold or cancer. How to cure the fella? Identifying the real root of a problem is one of the most important part of problem solving, which is why there are even sectors of organizations dedicated to such a function. In fact, that is how the term troubleshooting came about. We really do need to know what is the problem before we can fix it. I dislike assuming things as they are, but as far as the letter went, I strongly believe that the person made too many assumptions, and most fatally put too much faith in a moral education subject that I would argue to be ineffective in it's best light.

If we truly believe that the problem lies elsewhere rather than just being laid on the "moral values" that our generation lacks, then many root causes appear. It could be uncontrolled birth rates in the past leading to a staggering unemployment statistic of today. It could be a lack of police involvement in certain matters where they are badly needed, leading to an upshot of crime. It could be the growing sentiments of racism and hate from one Malaysian towards his fellow Malaysian, that leads to unrest. Or it could be a "lack of moral values", leading to all of the above. Which do you think is more logical?

I understand that the basis of moral education is instill good values in the public, by teaching people the good values, examples where they are applicable, and so on. It is often cited as a "step up" to prevent another racial unrest from occurring, another May 13. But if this is an experiment to keep the peace between the races, should the Ministry of Education check on how it helps? Perhaps through surveys of some sort, or demographic studies. But I suppose it's too early for that kind of thing in Malaysia now. It is imperative that it solve it's big issues first before handling "smaller issues" like this, eh?

Another point on Moral which I highly disagree with is the fact that it counts as a "legal" A subject when scholarship applications are considered. This does not apply merely for Governmental scholarships, but also for private ones. I don't think forgoing knowledge of Physics, of Basic Economics, of Bahasa Melayu etc, would ever justify the burden that is Moral Education.

Do you learn Moral Education in where you study? What do you think of it? Does it really help with reducing the recurrence of social ills? I learn in my secondary school, SMK Methodist before, they called it "sivic" if not mistaken. kla, that's more than enough, bye bye

Brandon~~

Wednesday, 5 December 2007

Clarification all regarding my English Standard in my blog

That was so saddening and disappointing when i received a pissing off message today. It wrote "you copy an essay and paste into your blog ar?" Plagiarism??Again, darn irritating for receiving such harsh compliment(s) for me. OMigOSHH. Bear in mind i'm not a Chihuahuas begging for meal, I'm a pure learner also. That was internally bizarre, cuckoo, and climbing up directly to my bundle of nerves blatantly coarsen my patientness.

And this post is meant GLOBALLY and not for "a".

Particularly, I started foruming in an English Forum since Form 3, joined public debate forum since Form 4. 2 years writing short novel for school magazine. Score A1 in SPM English, scored A in college writing skill. Scored A in College resume writing. How could this blog not written by my own self? i'm nerveless in writing essay to evade any grammatical mistake and wrong usage of words and hell yeah, is impossible to write a good essay without a dictionary. I have a dictionary with me, helping me in essay and categorizing my mind. Well, this all about written, speaking is totally different. When you speak, you just focus them to understand perfectly and not confusing them with godlike English. Perhaps, this would answering the issue of differentiation between written and spoken.

Alright, after this, no more compliment bout my language. My blog is for you to read, to understand, to learn more. Technically, if anyone of here thought my English not suppose to be like this, underestimating me and wishes to condemn me here, sorry, i don't accept confrontation. That's it and therefore.

damn, i'm having underestimation phobia

Brandon~

Monday, 3 December 2007

Time and its Many Roles

What is time? Can we assign a physical significance to it? See, the issue with time is that it has no physical interpretation, no real meaning, unless if we choose to define it. And we define it by using physical changes that occur around us. It has been done since the early times of man, when people started using sun dials - they were intelligent enough to realise that time could be calculated by knowing how the Sun shines on one spot as time goes by. In fact it would be a travesty if, even without clocks and measuring devices, that we did not know of time's existance, as cycles (i.e. Sun rising and setting, among other examples) imply that there exists such a concept. The issue was just about measuring it.

Perhaps it is this abstract quality about time that causes people to have varying opinions about it. Some take it very importantly in what they do, some assign emotional meaning to it, some are ignorant towards it, and so on. The former would probably encompass most of our jobs, and what we do for a living. Take the stock market for example - would old data be useful? People pay for the latest information (so the term "up to date" comes in). What about science experiments? Note what is more often than not one of the axes we draw on a graph. In other words, it is a very important quantity that defines things. In chemistry things are taken a step further, as you learn about entropy. But I'll leave that concept for those who want to read about it on Wikipedia; it definitely isn't for the faint hearted ;)

It also from time where we get a measuring stick to compare different things with. We get new terminology such as early, late, fast, slow, and so on. Notice that all the words mentioned before need something to be compared against to actually work. You could always say that a car is fast, but fast against what? No prizes for guessing whether this applies when you compare that very car to a supersonic jet! Yes, time gives us a measuring tool. From this we can assess different things, different phenomena, different tools, all using our grey matter - to ultimately come up with a decision (isn't this what most of us do as human beings?)

With time too, we get concepts like procrastination in the picture. To be totally honest with you all, I never really understood the concept of procrastination. First time I heard it was during a study skill talk back in Form 3. It was a very difficult concept to understand, though from what I understood it simply meant dilly-dallying. If that is the case, then I am afraid that most Malaysians, even overseas suffer from such a syndrome, because if we all look at gatherings that happen, how many actually start on time? In fact, it is customary (in most countries around the world this time, not only Malaysia) for VIPs to attend functions late (and then again, those functions don't start until the VIPs arrive).

To sidetrack a little, it gets particularly annoying when people come not only 5 minutes late (though there are those who, as stated before, put a lot of emotion into time - they will not tolerate people who come even a few seconds late!), but half an hour late? Yes! Before you go all ashen faced (or start snickering in guilt), it does get pretty annoying, especially if it becomes a culture. Think I'm joking? I spoke to all of my friends a while back, and they was telling me that "if A goes late, and B goes late, then I go late also lor!". This means that our appointment at 10 am are inevitably implied as 1030 am, and those who are silly enough to go early end up wasting time waiting for others, i'm meant to all Tanjong Malim friend. Same case happened today, badminton appointed at 10, i know they'll late, so i called Pinky: "reach liao inform me" instead of wasting time there. I used to be punctual all the time, but friends influence cant be take as a joke. It happens, you see. Yes, punctuality is held very high in regard by people, but apparently not enough in this case. >_> And before you go all berserk and all :P , yes I am guilty of procrastination as well. Just that I have put my foot down and decided to cut down on it to the best that I can. But I am digressing...

I believe that each of us, whatever our faith, belief, culture, age, or gender would surely more often than not be in agreement that we are curious about death. The thought surely passes through our mind as to what death really is, what happens when you experience it, when will we experience it and so on. It is the final question, of when, that elicit a lot of curiosity and subsequently research. Research is done to tell us how long we can last on a certain diet, how long before we become unattractive and require plastic surgery *cynical tone*, how long before we run the risk of cancer, etc. The fundamental principle is there, and that is time. Time too, plays an important role here.

I believe that there are more instances where it plays an important part in our lives, but I'll leave that for you to go back and think about :)

p/s damn, i studied too much in Psychology.

Brandon~

Sunday, 2 December 2007

The Concept of Caves (or why people think guys like to "merajuk")

Over the holidays I've been reading books, though the genre is non-specific, I've literally been reading all sorts of books - mostly because I want to acquire knowledge, plus it's fun to read about things you wouldn't usually read about during normal semester periods. One, that I happened to have picked up and read, details about relationships between men and women. And interestingly enough it gives very striking points about men, and their behavior that I wouldn't have noticed before. It is like how you are taught to observe certain things during certain situations, for example, a traffic light if you're driving, a tennis ball if you are playing, and so on. (After all, the human vision is positionally selective, it only focuses your attention on one spot, or corner.)

The point happens to the cave concept. And it is pretty interesting, and true - men do have this tendency to keep quiet and think about things when they are under stress, or have problems. I do go through this as well - I tend to be more quiet when focusing over problems - e.g. Thermodynamics, money, transport plans (lest I end up in a shopping complex without any transport out). The problem arises when women think that men are being ignorant and uncaring when they go into that silence, and that they would try to "bring them out of the cave" - which usually elicits an undesirable result. Tough huh? Guess you have to be it, to believe it! (Not very convincing, I know.)

Some people, who strangely don't experience this cave thing, or don't realise it's existence tend to label such behavior as merajuk. Now, this can't be further from the truth. From what I understand, merajuk means sulking, and in this case, though the expression could be directly interpretted as such, the meaning may not be that. And this is where the confusion starts. May be a good idea to pick up that book, does shed a lot of light on how relationships work. MSN me for the title :3

Brandon~

Saturday, 1 December 2007

Better to have your driver!!

It is expected that the price of petrol / gas / fuel (depending on where you come from) will continue to increase as we move through 2008. There are heaps of innovations, ideas, and plans to reduce fuel consumption (and thus save not only the money of the people, but also the Government) now going on. But it seems that many of us deride one of the most obvious ones before us. Yes, we all should get drivers.

The idea is that in a case whereby the only mode of transportation is a privately owned vehicle (i.e. car, van, pickup truck), a car-pooling system eliminates the total distance that a vehicle has to travel, unless in bizzare circumstances (say one person has to go from KL to Ipoh everyday while the other has to go to Melaka), but i'm from Sg.Long to Maluri, Cheras lol. Now if this is the case then wouldn't it save not only fuel, but also the need for extra cars in the family? This is what car-pooling is about, except that with a driver you retain a certain degree of control over how the system works.

Obviously one should consider factors that lend themselves into whether the system is a success or not - apart from the aforementioned issues of the length of the routes we have to take, another issue that may cause the system to be undesirable is time. Think about this - would it be faster if two cars went out independently to their destinations, or one car going to a destination, then going to another? Time is definitely something that is lost out here, however I would argue that as the issue I am planning to tackle is that of fuel conservation, this is something we have to sacrifice in the big picture.

The idea is not a totally foreign, brainstormed idea; rather it is something that is borne out of public transport. Everyday, people use public transport to get around (depending again, on where you are) - but did that occur to you that this concept is in play? You make a concession by accepting that the bus will go through the route stated, even if it is not a direct journey (which would minimize time and fuel theoratically - minimum distance). Going back to that analogy, does that mean that we should go for public transport more often?

I would answer yes, but then again it's a question of two factors going at each other - time and fuel conservation. On one hand you have the perfect time saving mechanism, a number of cars going out from a source to the destination, minimising time, but maximising fuel consumption. On the other hand you have public transport, which is very dependent on the route - it may not work for many - in this case you have a minimum fuel consumption (translated into those tickets you buy), and maximised time (since you have no degree of authority over where it goes). So in the middle as a compromise we have the drivers concept, which is what I'm getting at.

Would this be much cheaper than buying the new fuel efficient (aka hybrid) car you see in the showroom? Probably, though the situation obviously depends on, once again, a variety of factors.

So! Next time, appreciate your drivers :P They create positive externalities within the market, whether you like it or not. :)

Brandon~