Let our voice be heard!

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to stand for the Student Voice and represent this class!


Firstly………

If you vote for me I will help you to achieve all your goals and we will do it in a fun and orderly way.


Secondly……

I will include all of you as a team and we will achieve our goals together!


Thirdly………

I will make the whole process a wonderful and enjoyable experience for all of us!


Fourthly………

I will do my best to make us study hard and have fun at the same time!


My Fifth reason is………

I will also include some sporting activities to keep us fit and healthy!


My Sixth reason is …

I will help you to become confident and creative in your work!


My Seventh reason is …

If you vote for me WE will make this class the best class in the whole school!!!!!


If I am elected…..

I will know you all better and become close to all of you !


I wish all the candidates…

All the BEST!!!!!!!!!!


I am very lucky…

To have such wonderful friends and an amazing teacher!


Yours Dearly.

*******

Campaign speech of an eight year old standing for a class election.

She has my vote :-)

And...

I want her to be my speech-writer!

Some mistakes are too much fun...

to only make once.


One evening, while waiting to get into an auditorium to watch a theatre performance with some friends, I got a call from a colleague who was to join us. I could barely hear her, as there was an alarm blaring at the background. She sounded that bit frantic.

You see, there is a car park behind our office building. While pretty safe in the day, it gets dark and creepy at night. As she was making her way across the car park to get to her car, she saw some men hanging around the area, so she hurried. In fiddling for her car keys, she accidently set the alarm off and inexplicably lost the remote. So there she was, getting late for the show, alone in a car that wouldn’t start with its alarms blaring, in a creepy car park with men hanging around nearby, wondering if I could help.

Together with another friend, I rushed to the scene in my car. It was easy to locate her car as the car park was almost empty. We went over and she emerged. She had found the remote and had shut off the alarm, but the car refused to start. I got the keys from her and tried to fiddle around, seeing if I could somehow get it to start, but it couldn’t work.

“We’ll sort this out later I guess. You can follow us; we can still be there before the show starts”.

“Err… there’s someone else coming,” she says.

I looked at her, puzzled. “What for? We’re here.”

“Well, I called him as well.”

“Ok, you can tell him not to come. We got to catch the show. Don’t want to miss the start!”

She makes a call, and then comes back to us.

“He was on the way to Malacca, but turned around when he found out I was stuck… so he’s going to come here anyway.”

Hmm… this sounded fishy. Probably a stalker I thought. I’ll handle him. So we waited.

Soon enough, another car comes into the car park, and a gentleman alights.

‘Looks decent’, I thought. But then again, so do all men. After some introductions, at which I did pretty well to keep my suspicions under wraps, the discussion was on what to do next.

He offered to drop her home. I was having none of it.

“She’s coming with us, we’ve got a show to catch. You can go back to Malacca. Nice meeting you.”

I had spoken and that was it.

As we reached the theatre, another friend who was waiting for us asked what happened.

“I’ll tell you later, but thank god we reached there when we did!”

*******

To find out three weeks later that those two just started going out was…

The good thing is they had a good laugh about it that night itself (and till today, still do). They even asked me to speak at their wedding.

What are the odds of something of a similar genre happening to me again?

Well, once every 7 years it seems!

A few months ago, another guy told me that he was going out with someone, and to find that those two just started going out was…

He told me yesterday that they are going to get engaged to be married.

I’m not at liberty to share the details of the story, but suffice to say, one sequel is more than enough for me!

One small step for a bachelor...

one giant leap for a married man.


One of the biggest adjustments I had to make in my life after taking my matrimonial vows was converting my bachelor's pad into a couple's room.

Let me put things in perspective...

*******

This happened a few years ago.

I had to renew my car's road tax. For this, you needed the car's registration card, which in Malaysia, is pink in colour.

I looked for it around my room, and couldn't find it. I looked for it around my office and couldn't find it.

A few days on, after many hours of searching, when I was already driving with an expired road tax, I still couldn't locate that pink card!!

One afternoon soon after, I told my mum I was going to the police station to make a police report.

"Why??"

"I lost my car registration card..."

"How did you lose it?"

"I don't know, I just can't find it in the room."

"Oh... trying checking under the bed."

Huh?

I ran up to my room, straddled the bed, heaved the planks off and I couldn't believe the sight that greeted my eyes...

More than half my stuff was under the bed! A short search later and I found that pink card.

I asked mum, "When did you move my stuff??"

"We cleaned your room about 3 months ago when you were away".

Owh.

And I had no idea...!

*******

Now that I've got a room-mate, everything is in place and of course so much neater - which means I've lost all bearings and can't find anything!

The day the earth trembled...

"We're used to earthquakes, two, three times every year. But this time it was different. Usually the ground moves sideways, causing no damage, or minimal damage. This time the ground moved up and down. The houses were lifted and then simply crumbled to the ground. It was like as if someone pulled the carpet from below our feet..."

*******

We were on the 17th floor and we felt the building tremble. And this was in Kuala Lumpur.

Exactly a year ago today, the devastating earthquake struck Padang in West Sumatera, Indonesia.

Two weeks later, I found myself in Padang, on a relief mission.

I was there for nearly a week, doing what we were sent there to do.

I would send a report back to headquarters every night. This would be followed by my daily... err... musings. Which included these:

Day 1
- Teh telor* oh my goodness it's like milkshake. A night drink they say it is before laughing...
- Satay Padang is delicious! Altho they don't call it Satay Padang here... that would be weird.
- We sleep 16 men in one house. 5 are on their way back from Pekan Baru, and some sleep in the garden. So house is relatively quiet now.
- We all share 1 bathroom. For this reason and the point preceding, this place not suitable for my ladies.
- I'm still wide awake. Teh telor memang power.

*teh telor means egg tea :-)

Day 2
Without the benefit of teh telor...
- Our house has no fan.
- To those who wondered why my haircut was as important as getting my vaccinations: with two strokes of my 80 cents plastic hair brush, I'm ready to face the world.
- We had a meeting tonight to plot the distribution of aid tomorrow. They were doin mental calculations on total weight and total litres and total items... I kept very quiet.

Day 3
- I was awakened at 3am last night, by a cat at my feet. No privacy I tell you.
- And the resident cockerel woke me up at the crack of dawn. Nothing romantic at all about that.
- School is back in session. They hold classes in tents. It feels like a sauna tho. When I reached there, they were on a break. In the teachers room, where the wall had collapsed, the kids were playing with a mannequin. They wrapped it in a batik cloth, and then carried the mannequin while chanting religious chants, as if it were a dead body.
- We had lunch today at a restaurant that had major cracks on its walls, had its windows shattered and floors cracked as well.
- For the first time in ages, I eat for energy. I can feel each morsel of food burn during the day. And we reach meal times famished. And we whack the meal like there's no tomorrow.
- The names of the places here will give lawyers like some of us nightmares. One place is called 2 x 11 Enam Lingkung. You actually call it that!
- I nearly fainted today. At dinner. The cendol in a glass. It was so sweet I nearly belched it out.

Day 4
- The cat woke me up at 2.58am
- The most bizzare incident so far - the cook cooking his Indo-mee with ... coffee.

HAHAHA!

In his defence, it was dark.

HAHAHA!

Day 5
No musings on Day 5 as things got a little complicated. We were about half-an-hour from our base late that night, after a long day out, when we were stopped by police. We were told that a few hundred metres down the road, a landslide had occured a few minutes prior, burying some passing cars. We had to take a 4 hour detour.

A couple of weeks later, when everyone involved in the mission got together, one of my team members 'credited' me with saving all our lifes.

"Thank god he insisted on eating good Padang fish head curry that night. It took us a while to locate one that had fish head curry, but we finally did. The time it took us all to finish the meal probably delayed us long enough."

Hmmm...

******

I haven't been back to Padang since, but having seen the devastation caused by that one afternoon of terror, the people of Padang have a long way to go, years perhaps, before life returns to some semblence of normalcy.

One elderly gentleman I met there said that he welcomed all aid, but he knew that the aid would eventually stop and that he needed to start rebuilding his life with his own hands, brick by brick.

And he meant it literally.

God bless the people of Padang.

About Young, The Restless...

I've been with a particular four-letter acronymed NGO since its formation 10 years ago. I've been through a lot with it.

And I have garnered an incredible amount of lessons from it.

Today, as I was doing some work related to this NGO, I recalled some of those lessons... :-)

*******

The first one involves a close friend, someone who has been with me in the NGO from early on.

At a meeting, we disagreed on how to proceed with a project. The disagreement got quite uncomfortable. We exchanged views, each time with the tone raising a few decibles. The rest of the meeting was watching in stunned silence. One pleaded for us to stop arguing. The verbal sparring got ugly.

As we were getting nowhere, we decided to stop and simply disagreed.

After which we had coffee and cakes prepared by his wife.

It's not easy, these things, as professional discourse that gets nasty may be construed or unavoidably degenerate into a personal attack.

I've seen it numerous times: people saying 'don't take things personally' before going on a personal rampage; or after going on a personal rampage, they say 'don't take it personally'. You've got to be careful, as not all relationships can take it, what more if the personal and professional nature of the relationship is intertwined.

But if your intentions are right, and you are fighting for what you truly believe in, and you have others who fight for things with a similar conviction, than those could survive such violent clashes.

Yep, and you can help plaster each other's verbal wounds over a hot drink, glad that the relationship is still solid despite.

**********************

It was at our annual meeting, seven years into our formation. We're a small NGO, still slowly finding our way, doing little things, and sometimes we get delirously happy with the little successes that come our way.

At the meeting, a member gets up and demands change in the leadership. Demands that the younger members be given the opportunity to lead. Feels that it is time for fresh ideas to be injected into the society. That the leadership has been at the helm for too long.

Up to that point, I've only read about these moments in the papers, or hear them over the news. Here, it was happening real time!

He had a point. Leaders must not overstay their welcome. And yes, fresh ideas are needed, as someone who's been running the show for too long may hold the organisation back from progressing.

Change is good, sometimes change is needed, but change for the sake of change because it feels like it's time for change - may not always work!

**********

This one is a little convoluted, but is one of my favourite lessons, which I have shared at numerous occasions with different people.

A small debt was incurred by one of two new members in one of our programmes.

The first one denied it, saying it was probably the second one. The second one also denied it, and was in tears as the other had said it could be her.

Some investigate work later... and we found out that it was the first one.

My big boss, a retired police officer, was furious. He called the first one, and over her continued denials (possibly she was too embarrassed to retract her denial), ripped into her.

He then turned to me and said that she must be expelled from our NGO and never be allowed to return. I was taken aback, as the amount of money in question was not that much at all (not enough to even buy a small meal at your favourite fast food joint).

He says when someone lies, they will be a liar for life. Because to cover your lies, you must continue lying. So the mind is tuned to lying over and over again. And it becomes a habit. She may only be 17, and it may only have been a small amount, but because of what she chose to do, she will forever have to propagate this lie with us. Being expelled from the NGO after having been welcomed into it just a few hours before is a harsh, harsh lesson. If she stops her lying habit, then it would have been worth the harsh action. It she doesn't, then it would have been good riddance.

Some may disagree, but the principle here I still adhere to.

*******

At the end of the day, it's the people that matter.

Over the oceans...

The past couple of days had been quite hectic, and stand out for my deprivation of sleep.

So getting onto the flight this morning was something I was looking forward to, as it meant I could get a few hours of very welcome sleep.

As I was settling in my seat, someone says. “Hey bro, how’re you doing?”

I look up and it’s the elder brother of a friend of mine (yep, the same guy who emceed that friend’s wedding that I wrote about in my previous posting).

“I’m ok! Where’re you heading to?”

“Err… to the same place you’re heading to … I guess…”

Well of course, we’re in a plane.

“I’ll catch you later yea…” he says as he moves down the aisle.

I must get out more often.

*******

This reminded me of something I said a few years ago.

Guest: Hi, I don't think we've met.

Me: I don't think I've met you before either...

Beautiful warnings...

It's been a cacophony of weddings this past month!

The first two of three were interracial.

The second one was of a friend I've known since I was five (who also happens to be one of three friends I've known longest in my life). The trouble with having your elder brother emcee your wedding is having things like this said about you:

"My brother was not a particularly ugly baby, but my mum started having morning sickness after he was born."

;-)

A couple of Sunday's ago, I attended a third, very purple, wedding.

I was seated beside an elderly lady, whom I discovered was related to the groom.

From her eyes, I could sense she was one steely lady. Across the night she shared some lovely stories. How she had not even seen a picture of her husband, what more met him, before the day of their marriage. In fact, she had asked the equivalent of her bridesmaid to describe her husband to her on the day of the wedding itself, but when her mum found out, she was scolded.

"Why? You have someone else to compare him to, is it??"

She told me that the first words her husband uttered to her when he first saw her after the solemnisation of the marriage were words to the following effect:

"Please accept me as your husband. I want to live my whole life with you and die in your arms."

My goodness. What words.

God is great, and his words did come true, as he died in her arms when he suddenly passed away at their new home, two weeks after retiring and having just moved to KL from Penang.

The lady continued her stories and one thing struck me hard. She said she missed the old days when we were all much closer.

"Nowadays, we're so busy with everything; we've got no time for family."

"Whenever I see the younger ones, they always say 'How're you' and that's about it. Well, I say to hell with your 'how are yous'!

"If that's all you're going to say to me, better not say anything!"

I nodded in agreement with what she said. The younger generation is becoming like that.

Aunty, I don't know your name, but the next time I meet you, you are definitely getting more than a 'how are you' from me.

Ramadhan Mubarak. When Eid comes around and you meet your aunties and uncles, remember, something more than a 'how are you?' this year ok...