Shut me up!

Next week will be the official academic week where school starting in full force rather than last week's mere tinge of the smell of stinky classes. Developmental Bio was fine, reminds me much of Genetics and it takes place in the same lecture hall as well, nothing too excited to shout out about. Physiology was disastrous, I personally not a big fan of attending classes in Budig Hall but this time it is really beyond absurd. I was surrounded by insensitive mushrooms who either talk, whisper, susurrate (f!), rustle and worst of all, 2 girls was seating in front of me with their laptop on facebook through out the whole lecture. For God's sake just drop the class already! Being in huge classes with 500 students is what KU's good at. If they could just downgrade to NCAA division III and cut off all the budget directed to athletic departments and then focus more on expanding academic facilities plus improving their student faculty ratio, I'm pretty sure the ranking will rocket. Biology department is so bad I guess the professors don't like to teach instead they see it as a burden that hindering whatever research they are working on. That's why we often have more than 2 lecturers for one subject switching in between mid semester in different areas of specialization. Wish they could have a unified system and more standardized classes. Oh well, just my 2 cents...I'm transferring out anyways.

My weekend was in a nutshell, bad like BAD. Something happened around the neighbourhood that triggered the police last night. Dear copper knocked my door at 3.30am in the middle of the night asking me series of questions which involved "do you know someone...", "have you seen someone...", I wasn't paying much attention to what he was asking because come on, do I have to repeat myself, it was 3.30 am. So yea, I'm glad they were happy with my answers. Hopefully it wasn't some serial murder on loose that so happened to be my neighbour. Or it could be that 2 guys who escaped from the Arizona prison and finally made their way to the heartland? Whatever it is...

The dear roommate o'mine just broke up with his girlfriend which I think is a good move for him in long run for he is now able to put his heart into studies finally. Fyi, he's a 3rd semester AEC student. Dude, move on already!

Lastly, I was quite amazed at how people getting overwhelmed at the issue of building an Islamic center near Ground Zero site. It is a super sensitive issue that even the great leader does not dare to take clear side. Well I don't see a problem of building a holy place where the liberty to practice religion is set forth by the founding fathers of this country (1st Amendment, was it?). Anyways, it's a battle against terrorists but not Muslims that Americans can't seem to understand. But I can see where it's coming from, if you built a mosque near the site it's indirectly having the terrorists to claim victory at this very ground where 3000 lives were lost and if you don't allow them to build a mosque, they will condemn the US as a narrow minded country where freedom to do whatever ensured by the constitution is plain bs. Oh so much dilemma...I feel sorry for the country and for all the western values as a result of overemphasizing on civil rights. It's astronomical or IMPOSSIBLE to please each and every individual. If freedom is already given to the people then it's sort of telling people that you can do whatever you want within the limit of law and mind your own business. That's really great, but the next thing you want is to be TOLERATE even if you don't like, it's other people's freedom to practice whatever they want.

Western values hmm...so much for civil rights still has much downfall. If I were the ruler, communitarian system or the Asian values is what I would really prefer to have. Gotta give more faith to the leaders we voted and not nit picking all the problems. Be tolerate and patient if plans don't work out at first....just WAIT!

K thanks.

Can Life Be Anymore Unfair?

So it's official. I just received a horrid news that my best friend is going through a serious sickness right now. Read: He is my BEST FRIEND. He knows me well more than many of my family members do. I don't know how my life would be if he had never ever walked into it. I'm beyond sad this time. I don't know what else I can do to make him and his family feel better. What else can I do being 3 continents away? I couldn't get in touch of him as of now. I guess it's hard for him to face the truth right now and he isn't a person who likes to talk about his possessions a lot, be them good or bad. My laughing buddy and no one else in the world knows my lame jokes but him. We have too many inside jokes. You won't know.

I'm scared. What would I do without a friend who's been the reason of 90% of my genuine laugh?

Prove it to me God, it's time to let your existence be known.

**********

I've just spoken to him and he's still the way he used to be, making fun of himself to make me laugh despite already being hospitalized. He was just trying to be strong...I knew it. What can I do? I have to be stronger than him. If I broke down into water mass just now I'm sure it wouldn't be helpful for us either one of us. In fact, his graduation ceremony is tomorrow and that's the moment he's been waiting for years but he now may not be able to attend at all.

Heaven is playing a big prank this time on the wrong person. WRONG PERSON!

Hopefully it's a prank and by the end of it I'll get a 'you just god punk'd' and then everything will be back to normal again.

I won't be complaining about those pains I suffer in my life anymore because nothing compares to what he's suffering now. Needles, chemotherapy, radiation and the combination of all. It's the acute type of the sickness that comes without a reason. Could be genetic disorders, exposure to radiation, toxins. Man, he doesn't even drink nor smoke but why? WHY HIM?

La Même Histoire

Watched Invictus at IF and boy, do I love it! It came out in 2009 but I guess it wasn't a blockbuster in Malaysia back then because it is still a market where superhero action movies prevailed. On top of that, even if Invictus would've made its way to the big screen, I bet the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia would be happy enough to chop off 1/3 of the movie with lame reasons like "We found it insensitive for religious and moral reasons. Because of the many races in Malaysia, religion is a very sensitive issue...". Since when race = religion? Well maybe for Malays and Jews? Definitely not the rest. These bigots banned Muallaf such a wonderful local produced movie and had the cheeks to allow rubbish films like Cinta Kolesterol, Jangan Pandang Belakang etc. to go pass their most insensitive and buttoned down cutters. Obviously they want their peoples to be dumb and live in a bubble.

I saw many similarities from what happened in South Africa and Malaysia. Only that South Africans had the courage to abolish apartheid altogether but the natives back home are still struggling to keep their unquestionable near obsolete constitutional rights. We are probably one of the very few countries in the world who has affirmative action for the majority races and that sort of explains why me and my friends of same race are mostly scattered around SG/UK/AUS/US today. Nelson Mandela propagandized South Africa for South Africans. Leaders back home are torn up between One Malaysia concept where Malaysia for Malaysians but not only Malays, Chinese, Indians or other aborigines. Much are said but nothing practical has been done up to date actually. Everything is pretty much still race based namely political organizations and the education system. Occasionally we will be coined as immigrants and foreigners by some really intelligent leaders and told to go back to our respective "countries" even though most of us were born and raised here at this land we called home.

I blame the process of gaining independence from the British went by tad too smoothly. I don't like wars but supposedly, we should have had some tough time fighting for liberty, then only we would cherish more of what we're having today. Freedom is not free and equality is not special treatment. To have an equilibrium between freedom and equality is a long fight and possibly, myth.

Those being said, I still love my country. Hey, things are way cheaper back home, beautiful weather, friendliness, open-mindedness, food, islands, forests minus the government. Face it, even the customer services are way better back home at least they are there to HELP and if they don't help at least they don't create more problems for you to handle. I'm just getting very frustrated with ISU admission, CC@N, ECE, CIE and VM lately. They totally not fit to survive in a capitalist society. Especially VM with their virtual operator that brings you from one continent to another when you tell "it" to direct you to the live advisor. With the canned response given by live advisors/e-mail advisors, everything seems worse than before. I swear I nearly flushed my phone away and wish for the company to close down by tonight. Not that they solved any problems, argh!

This week is a downright angry week and I'm still having lots of unsettled documentations/lease/application stuffs on top of these additional unsolved troubles that make my life worse. In fact, I don't dare to envisage the next 4-5 months ahead and also I can't recall when was the last time I was NOT in trouble. Oh God, I miss home at times like this. Hopefully things will fall into places soon!

Here's a nostalgic video by S Club 7! The MV is a throwdown between the Brits and Americans. Kinda funny listening to those accents especially that dude who yelled "...raise that thang!". Classic!



Gotta admit that the 90's pop group are less processed and natural unlike some Disney's cheesy trio Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato which I've been dying to slap. Bloody kids who can't wait to grow up.

Deuce V!

Faith

I take back what I wrote in my previous entry. It seems that my past entries are way too interesting for me to handle (being sarcastic to self). Digging them out from the grave one by one is just not going to work. Not only that I fell asleep whilst reading my own uneventful writings but then I've also learned that laziness is the only constant in my life and it will not change no matter what. Great, just great!

In another 1 month time I will be here for exactly a year. Not picking up the local accent, not losing my native accent either, still using tons of lingos and British/Manglish terms. I felt disgusted and maximal goosebumped by my own attempt to mimic the local styles. It's better if one is totally unexposed to a language and start learning from the scratch at a place where it is native. Let's just say, Rome was not built in a day, so as the accent, we don't just change overnightly from something we had already accustomed for 20 years.

Alright, the core of today's entry is faith and religion. Truthfully speaking, I'm not a person with strong religion background. I can't even explain to you what religion is and I bet a lot of us can't either. But just assume that I'm worse than the rest and it's severe. I never was a devoted "Buddhist" although I claimed to be one and it's officially documented. I prayed only when I was in dire straits or if I was told/semi-forced to, let alone flipping through holy scriptures. Blind follower would be the best term to describe. So before I embarked on my wonderful journey to the land of plenty, I got a lot of do's and don't's lessons from the skeptics. Well, their worries being me soon to reside in the Bible Belt which is well known for its socially conservative environment. They made it sounded quite scary, for example, someone told me there will be missionaries whose duty is nothing but going door to door everyday to preach and evangelize everyone. If you don't join them, they will most probably single you out or discriminate upon you. That sure sounded horrible to someone who have never set afoot on this ground before. I must admit that I carried along my skepticism but it was never until months later that I realized not only I did not come across any fanged/baby eating missionary like they said in this lovely town but on the other way around, I met lots of nice people who are coincidentally, Christians. Without them, my transition into new life would've been disastrous and miserable. On top of that, most of the Christians I met here are less radical than those I met back home which are often dubious bigots. Don't even make me start ranting on this church that I went once back home where the priest had nothing good to say but bringing down other religions to show the importance of theirs. He must have been very insecure about his situation I guess. Filthy.

In here, although most Christians that I know believe in the divinity of God and practice His way of living but in a rather rational manner. They know what's reality and to what extent should ones allow religion to penetrate into their lives without being overly superstitious. I'm amazed (not by the lady who picked me up from the airport on my first day and handed me 3 Holy Bibles immediately after that) at how things turned out to be what I totally didn't expect them to be. I'm sure there are still a lot of radical preachers out there from other denominations that I haven't encountered but for now, I'm happy to say that it's all good and being taken care of which leads to my worry of transferring to a state with the second highest LDS population in the country next year. I probably shouldn't be judging at this moment until I've personally crosspathed with these peoples. How bad can they be after all it's all about love and peace. Those are probably two of the things that I can make sense out of religions in common.

Right now it's too soon to say that I'm all comfortable about being in a whole new religion. I mean is it really that important for a person to declare his/her official religion? No one has ever asked me to show "proof of religion" when I went to churches and Buddhist temples. The proof is written in the way that how I lead my life and behave. At least, I'm seeking right now and not skeptical anymore. Mark Twain was probably right when he said "zeal and sincerity can carry a new religion further than any other missionary except fire and sword" albeit an atheist/skeptics he was. I've learned to love more things around me and became less angrier about society as a whole ever since I came to know the teachings of Christianity. Gone are the days when I would listen to Bullet for My Valentine, Coheed and Cambria, Avenged Sevenfold, My Chemical Romance, Linkin' Park (seriously what was I thinking) etc. Now I have the strong urge to tell these bands to shut their mouths instead of whining what they don't have why not just sit back and enjoy what has been given to them, simple. What can you get out of screaming those poor lungs out about inequalities, unfairness, discrimination and hatred in those lyrics? Bad situation is not going to change for better until you get down the field and make some real world actions (by this I don't mean crusade/jihad or terrorism, I expect sane people like you and me know how silly it is to distort the meaning of holy war). That's exactly how many teenagers nowadays are being intoxicated by these angry screamo songs and foster hatred towards their parents which slowly then, everything around them. In the end, they use their fists against everything.

Past and present

Hola amigos!

I'm currently working on this little project of mine whereby I will rake up some past events (albeit insignificant) that I have written down on cyberspace and then basically just make fun of how silly I was in those days, which of course you are dying to read. And again, in years to come, I will look back at this very post that I'm writing now and wondering what was I thinking then. I guess this is how people propel forward in life. Not to say I'm a philosophical person to begin with when I want to talk about life, yeah it's LIFE, Tristan wants to talk about L-I-F-E but there's always a part of me that is conserve and sentimental. The sad thing is I have never been serious about my life until recently. Back in my comfort zone, everything was easy, I didn't have much for me to really worry about except for studies and those damn letter grades. Parents are the compromising type, when I want whatever, I get whatever. Thus, lenient parents breed spoiled child. Well, not that I'm extremely spoiled when put alongside with people that I met at this point of my life but it is suffice to say that I'm spoiled or spoiled-like at the very least. Anyways, further explanation is futile. What I hope to achieve by looking back the life I led is to learn more about myself and what is more important in my life down the road.

07/08/2005

That was the day, although not exactly was, that changed my life in the academia. I quit after a semester in Biotechnology major and opted for Law. Apparently, my immaturity had got the better of me and there I was, squandered 2 years of my life. I must have been drugged when I was so convinced that Law was my forte. I did great in my A-Level Law nevertheless but I'm just not the type of person who loves reading a lot especially with all those precedents and past law suits. Face it, English Legal System is plain boring and revolves around the same old thing. I would give utmost credit to my poor brain for cramming that ridiculous amount of knowledge in 1.5 years and spilled all of them out at one go. The system was 100% exam-based for your information which was fun when I got to slack for 1.5 years without weighted courseworks whatsoever to get worried of but then you know your fate would rely entirely on one single exam. Once it's gone, it's gone. I wrote 6 essays in a grand total of 30 something pages out of 3 hours allotted through out the AS+A2 tests. Man those nutty Cambridge board committees. I hope they are happy now that they lost a potentially bright law student by scaring them away with these unintelligent entrance exam systems. Lol. Biology is 99887 times more interesting than Donoghue v. Stevenson.