All Aboard!

Hello there! I'm jumpin' on the 'wagon and movin' outta here, check-check-check it out now, the funk soul brother:

ihavemovedmygreatbloghere.wordpress.com.

An Unexpected Update

Oops. I accidentally "updated" the blog because I edited some past entries. Very well then, I shall try not to disappoint all of you who've clicked here expecting an update.

David Cook won American Idol! YES!!!!! HAHAHAHA!! WEEE!! In an unrelated vein, I kinda have a dog now, her name is Woofy and she's a Labrador Retriever. No, I didn't name her. Yes, I still have my cats.

I'm still working. My car windshield wipers though, are not. They've stopped working because of unsatisfactory remuneration, a paltry half-yearly bonus, and a loss of interest in the job, among other causes. Or maybe because the wiper-link (that's what the mechanic called it) needs to be replaced. When it rains heavily I have to stop driving because I can't see out through the windscreen. I probably need to get this fixed soon.

That is all for now, folks! Thank you for reading, and have a nice day.

I thought this was something original I came up with, but a check with google suggests to me that it (the thought) probably lodged in my mind from reading it somewhere, and then recently manifested itself as an "original" thought. Ah.

Anyway,

We all begin to die the day that we are born.

Let me know in the comments section if you don't get it. Otherwise, happy new year!

teachers i had

I remember my English teacher Mr Ng in Primary Four. He was probably in his late thirties or early fourties. He was a good teacher, and I liked his lessons. I was good at what he thought, and I was probably a favourite student as well.

But he was the volatile sort, and one day I couldn't explain to him why I had not handed in my workbook and why I didn't know where it was. He probably thought I had not finished my homework and was lying. He punished me after I was repeatedly unable to find the workbook and offering the same excuse of "I don't know what happened to my book" every time.

I remember the punishment. He made me stick out my hand for caning. His eyes were a furnace of blazing anger as he drew the rotan back over his head and behind him. Then he brought that rotan down on my hand with all his might (at least that's how it looked like to me). First there was the intense cut of pain, and then the stinging - like there was no tomorrow. And then another cut, and more stinging.

I can't remember how many times he hit me. I cried because of the pain. I cried because of the injustice of it all. I had absolutely no idea what had happened to my workbook except that it had gone missing after I had handed it in for marking.

Later on, after a few more beatings, somebody found my workbook in the space between the cupboard and the wall - where it had fallen when the stack of to-be-marked workbooks were placed on top of the cupboard.


I remember Mr Sim in Primary Six. I was a school prefect then, and he was the discipline and prefect teacher, and my English teacher. He was quite young, early thirties, at most. And he was quite scary when he got mad, and he was a very strict fellow, so he got mad quite often. But he was the best. His lessons were filled with interesting facts and tales. And when he wasn't mad he was the friendliest teacher around. He was my favourite teacher.

Do you know what a scribble book is? In Bahasa Malaysia its called a 'buku conteng'. My scribble book was an exercise book I kept to scribble and doodle in. I had a scribble book all the way through primary school, and then secondary school, and then college...

One day during one of his lessons, I started drawing the Batmobile (you know, the car that Batman drives) in my scribble book. As I was nearing completion, Mr Sim caught me. I was seated in the front row of the class, so this was no big surprise.

As punishment, he told me to take my nearly completed drawing of the Batmobile around the classroom to show everybody. The drawing was actually complete - I was in the process of perfecting it by putting bullet holes and scorch marks on the car when he interrupted me.

Although I did receive positive feedback from my classmates for the Batmobile, I was pretty embarrassed, being a prefect and a supposed keeper and upholder of school discipline and all that. That was enough punishment for me, and by the time I had finished a round of the whole class, there were tears in my eyes and I was ready to sink into the floor and die.

Then Mr Sim told me to take my Batmobile and show it to the all the classes in Primary Six. I stared at him in disbelief.

"Take it and show it to everybody in the other classes," he repeated. I couldn't keep it together any longer, and the tears of outrage and embarrassment came down. And in that moment, I had no fear for him anymore. I tore the page out of the book and crumpled it and flung it into the dustbin and sat down in my place, angry tears still streaming down my face.

He started saying something to me but I ignored him so the next thing he did was ask my friend Faizal to fish the drawing out of the dustbin. Faizal went to the dustbin and picked up a piece of paper that wasn't my drawing and told Mr Sim, "Sudah koyak," (already torn). I don't think he's reading this, but thanks, Faizal.

Anyway, Mr Sim left it at that. I think he realised that I had had enough punishment. He gave me a warning about what he would do if he caught me again, and then continued with the lesson. Despite this story, he still is one my favourite teachers. I wonder where he's gone now. Perhaps I should go and look for him.

Hm. Should've kept this post for Teacher's Day. You had any memorable teachers?

kinabalu project (ver 1.10)

prologue

on the day after christmas, kah hean, lydia, matthew, mei i and ai went to sabah to climb mount kinabalu.

day 1

we took off from kuala lumpur international airport in the morning and landed in kota kinabalu airport after two-plus hours of flying. it was a breezy day in kota kinabalu. we stayed in a place called "trekker's lodge", which had clean beds, nice toilets/bathrooms and was air-conditioned. it had a common lounge with an astro (satellite tv)-equipped telly (i think it was a 21 incher), a mini library and 2 computers with internet access (coin operated). all in all quite comfy and clean. and we had the whole floor to ourselves, meaning we didn't need to share the shared bathrooms.

it rained in the night. we decided it was suitable weather for bah kut teh, so we had that for dinner.

day 2

breakfast was bread, milo and banana, provided by the hostel. later, we found our way to the bus terminal. mei ai had woken up earlier that morning and recced the town (or something to that effect). make sure you get mei ai to go along on your next trip, very handy, haha! but when we got there, the bus we planned to take to the kinabalu national park was full, so we took a bus-van instead. it cost a few ringgit more per head, but it was faster that the bus.

a few hours later, we arrived at kinabalu park hq and checked in. kah hean ate an expensive plate of mixed rice at the cafe. the rest of us found out the price and decided to just watch kah hean eating instead. when he finished, the rest of us ate at a much cheaper restaurant we had spotted just outside the park entrance. kah hean ate another meal, to satisfy his indignation at being charged 18 ringgit for a plate of rice with some vegetables and chicken.

we then unknowingly walked the long way to the chalets we would be sleeping in. the chalets were called hill lodge(s). the girls took chalet number 5 and we took number 4. mei ai came over and declared our place much nicer than theirs. i went over to look - it was true, too bad for them, haha. we offered to trade but the girls were too gentlewomanly to take up our offer. or it might be that we didn't actually make any offer.

then it was naptime. mei ai and kah hean went off to the park headquarters to settle climb logistics. i got up and took a shower and then tried walking around outside, to test the cold. it was biting. i couldn't withstand it for long so i went in and napped some more.

in the evening, we had a pre-climb briefing in park headquarters, and then dinner at the restaurant outside the park gates. we bought supplies for the climb - batteries, food, gloves and ski masks. that night we repacked our bags for the trek/climb the next morning - stuff we wouldn't need for the climb we stuffed into what we named the 'common bag'. kah hean and i boiled eggs in the kettle for our lunch the next day.

day 3

we woke up early in the morning, around 7 or so (i think). we took the common bag and valuables bag to reception for safe-keeping and met up with our mountain guide. he was a smiley fellow named apson. a bus covered the 4 km between the park hq and timpohon gate (first trail checkpoint) for us. we got down at timpohon gate - the start of the summit trail - and bought ponchos, in case of rain. kah hean and lydia bought a walking stick each.

the first kilometre passed uneventfully. there are shelters every kilometre or so along the trail. at the second shelter (or maybe third), we stopped to rest. a few mountain squirrels approached in hope of getting some of our food. we didn't feed them, but they continued skittering around, probably thinking we were eventually going to feed them. one was particularly brave, getting nearer and nearer... when the dust settled i had a bleeding squirrel bite and scratches on my hand.

now let me tell the whole story. i did not, as lydia wan (2006) puts it, try to "tease this thing and offered his hand." matthew was trying to get a picture of it on his camera phone, and so i was testing how close i could get my fist (holding an imaginary camera phone) to the squirrel. after a few seconds of staring at my approaching fist the fellow probably decided to find out whether my fist was actually a big piece of food, and jumped on my hand and took a bite. i yelled. the fellow jumped off. the bite and scratches didn't hurt that much, although it was bleeding a bit. i washed it in tapped mountain water at the shelter. there were no other side effects, contrary to what lydia and the others claim.

we made it to laban rata resthouse, with lydia and kah hean struggling quite a bit towards the end. but we made it. we showered and relaxed for a while. lydia had a headache and wasn't feeling too good, so we had her go to bed. in a short while all of us were in bed too, knocked out by exhaustion. the room had a mini-infestation of small roaches, but we were too tired to really care.

when we woke up we found that lydia hadn't slept at all. and still feeling unwell. oh no. how was she going to summit at 2 the next morning?


haha, sorry amigos, this post is way overdue and i'll just post it up first and hope that somehow i'll be motivated to finish it properly
changelog:
1.0 uploaded half baked post
1.01 edited for clarity and grammar. made some layout changes.
1.10 edited out parts. added few details. added to day 3 events.
1.11 20080104 edited for style and language usage.