When all hope was lost.

Here I am once again in Kampar, where I am to spend the next 14 weeks in the purest form of suffering known to humanity.

It’s a Monday today as I am typing this, but I have no idea when I will be able to publish this online as the new place I am staying at has no internet connectivity. Hell, I don’t even know the other tenants (if there are any at all) to discuss with them the solution to this problem. I realize I was in a rush when I got this place and didn’t think several things over before I decided that I wanted to spend one more semester here. Fortunately, Plan B is easily available. Of course, like all back up plans, it isn’t as ideal and there will be extra complications to deal with, but in this case I’m quite grateful that it isn’t totally unreasonable of a plan.

I still remember the Saturday that I arrived here. The moment I set foot on the familiar streets, I was immediately filled with this overwhelming surge of sadness and sorrow. I was instantly depressed and felt intense weight around my eyes. But, as always, letting those tears out is the hardest possible thing for me to do. It was so bad that I actually decided that for once I might actually benefit from spending the night with my parents at Grand Kampar Hotel.

Fortunately for me, Sunday was a much better day. The morning spent with mother and father was actually quite enjoyable. Again, never thought I’d say this, but that’s how it turned out to be. Ironically, I might actually have that bout of depression to thank for getting my father back to talking terms with myself, after almost half a year of deliberately not talking to him. Lunch with the family actually did not feel irritating, even with father’s usual blatant self-embarrassing. After they left for home, I killed the entire afternoon at the local cyber café, Fecca. Got a damn good friend (probably the best I have over here) to help me kill the evening. We went to the local McDonalds and talked about the good old times during our first year, how the second year became the point that tore everything apart, for both his course and mine, what were we planning to do after graduation and so on. Then just when we were about to leave, our Tae Kwon Do instructor showed up with his assistant, and we decided we should get some other fellow students to come over and talk crap until midnight.

So thank you Vingent for being a friend in need, a friend indeed.

I was about to talk about what happened during my semester break as well, which was actually spent very meaningfully, but I guess I’ll just leave that for another time. All in all, those 4 weeks were the time where I potentially fixed some broken bonds with my ‘19’ family, made a small number of friends halfway across the globe and otherwise having a jolly good time on PSN with said friends, as well as chilling with another brother of bonds.

And to close, to every one of my friends out there with a PSP, please pick up a not-too-old game called Phantasy Star Portable 2 and join us, The Grey Army, online.

With that, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: This is finally published on 17th

The end of immortality

Fading is my confidence,
Lost is my coherence,
Is this a sign of my mortality,
Or am I losing my sanity?

Will I share the fate of the lotus eater,
Or will my suffering be much greater?

Perhaps in the end it matters not,
For even losing battles must be fought,
Knowing I've strived for the best that could be,
Empowered the few who matter to me,
That, is my unofficial victory.

Take a bloody hint, you necrophilic cunt!!!

It is amazing sometimes. People who you barely know anymore speak to you once a year at most, not in person, just to say something trivial like ‘happy birthday’ which they are not even sincere about. Why do people even bother to commit such trivial hypocrisy when the disadvantages outnumber the benefits infinite to none?

To the bastards who have stopped committing this foolish deed i.e. terminated all forms of contact permanently, well, good for you. Though it took you bunch long enough to realize what you did was incorrigible and have finally moved on. To the arseholes who still continue to do this, wise up, fools. Then again, if that was possible, what happened wouldn’t have happened in the first bloody place. So no need to wise up (since you can’t, anyway), but get the message, then move on.

Some of you may say ‘don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions’. If you do, then you are an idiot, because, well just imagine what one was put through if one has to make such a decision, so that one doesn’t have to go through that again. Especially when those words come from the cause of all the agony. It’s like a thief telling the owner of the house he/she looted to ‘don’t permanently decide to lock the door at night just because you feel threatened the other night’. Bollocks. Complete bollocks.

Adieu to y’all. To the bastards and arseholes, permanently, I hope.

The obvious and the ironic.

Sometimes, it takes more than a smack to the face for some people to realize that they screwed up. Hell, you could smack a brick into some thick person's face and he won't be able to tell if it was a brick or a block of cheese.

In case you do not live in Malaysia and/or have no idea what’s dominating the local newspapers these few days (since last week if I recall correctly), it’s the fact that many people of my generation will be internationally illiterate. As in, they’ll only be able to speak the language that they proudly defend, but is hardly understood by anyone else not of this country.

What’s worse though is that the people, or rather, the person with bollocks for brains who ensured this disaster still had the balls to wonder publicly why is the standard of English among new generation Malaysians so impossibly low. No pun intended by the way.

Some say that the reintroduction of teaching maths and science in English was quite the fiasco. If you ask me, I’d say the re-reverting to teaching said subjects in Malay was a catastrophe, and that is still an understatement. It may as well spell Malaysia’s Armageddon. It’s not that they do not realize the importance of the international language at the time (or at least I hope so), but rather they wanted citizens to be proud of the national language. Another lesson for us that whenever pride is involved, things tend to go, at best, a little too far and at worst, way off target.

Then, on and on people talk about how they should import English teachers and revamp the education system to improve the level of English and all that. And they all keep missing the best method: play more video games.

Seriously. If anyone ever played any of the Final Fantasy games and actually paid attention to the story you can expect them to learn more than reading the entire Lord of the Rings series. And I can say for certain that I owe my competence of the language to the entire Metal Gear Solid storyline; from the Snake Eater/Subsistence prologue to the Guns of the Patriots finale, among other games I play.

That said, one needs to have the right attitude to gaming in order to reap such benefits. Most people I know skip the in-game cut-scenes and jump straight to the gameplay, then complain about the game being too complicated and quit calling it a stupid game, when it is the cut-scenes that tell the story, giving hints on how to play and what to do at any particular stage. These people are the idiots who feed the stereotype of the older generations that playing games make you dumb. The fact however, is this: when people play games, the dumb get dumber and the smart get smarter. Among my closest friends, most of them are gamers who have the correct attitude to gaming; treating it like a movie and actually appreciating the story the directors put behind the gameplay. They are also the ones that I can speak English to comfortably, and is, more often than not, our preferred method of communication.

Teachers all around the world should take this as a serious approach to teaching the language. Parents should also learn to dismiss the stereotypes and pick games with epic storylines (like any Final Fantasy and the whole Metal Gear Solid timeline) for their children to play, instead of letting them surf the net when all they want is to play some pointless Facebook game. In fact, letting them play merely the prologue of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker alone and they will learn more English and Cold War history than they would learn anything from every Facebook game combined, besides how to click real fast at certain parts of the screen and thrash your mouse real fast that is.

With that in mind, I am contemplating on whether or not to take bro Yat’s suggestion of teaching English. Hopefully I will be able to clear the name of games and introduce it as an effective method of teaching the language. Perhaps with this method, we may see the day where every major examination in the country has not just a 100% passing rate, but a 100% A rate for English.

With that, adieu to y’all. Sorry no bombshells today.

Ironic how vast the difference is

Last week, like every other week I spend the weekends over at a very good friend's place. On Saturday night, his brother and a few other people had to bring someone into the house due to said person experiencing some sort of complications. Not wanting to have anything to do with the whole situation or speak our minds aloud to further complicate matters, we went upstairs, away from all the commotion. The area, being predominantly a Malay 'kampung', had their share of such complications before, or so I believe.

Then my friend, Yat, said something epically priceless: "Is it just me, or it is only people who face such problems are those who believe?"

Let me explain.

The 'victim' as I shall refer to as the person facing said complications, was experiencing a period of intense fear/anxiety all of a sudden and, as I believe, for only a very short time. From what I heard, it began abruptly without warning.

Now, there are 2 ways of defining such an explanation. People from the fields of mental health, such as myself, and medical science, know that this is textbook panic attack, or hysteria depending on severity. People from the field of teaching speculation and denying facts, however, believe that this is a sign of a possession, either by malevolent spirits or by demons.

As I mentioned earlier, being a Malay 'kampung', any such occurrences are almost immediately identified as a possession. So, too, was how it was identified when the victim was brought in. Thus I understand how Yat felt when he said that only people who believe in possessions are the only ones who end up ever getting possessed.

This is a problem. When there is a proper medical explanation to such symptoms, there are people who do not seem to be able to have that cross their mind, but instead jump immediately to a pseudo-explanation. The root of it? Simple. Back in the day, when people did not have the means to satisfy their own infinite curiosity, they relied on pseudo-explanations to satisfy, almost to gratify, in fact, their own need to know; the greatest of which is the non-existent dictator called God. It is sad that now, when people are capable of finding true and proper explanations, people still rely on pseudo-explanations to questions in life.

On a side note, it has been a while since the last time anyone ever told me to go to hell. When I was a child, I used to fear the notion. Recently, however, some saint-wannabe prat just told a friend to go to hell because he used strong words in idle chit-chat. And his name was Gabriel. Probably the same kind of Gabriel as the one in Gundam Seed Destiny, that war-mongering prick, I thought. Not very pure yourself, if you condemn another, for whatever the reason. If I were there, I might just tell him how happy I would be to go to hell by being a bit obnoxious and reciting my own poem ‘My Immortal Stand’.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: Long hiatus, I know. But, could be longer.

Can't stress it enough

I realize, again, that I've been repeating myself over the same points over and over again. It’s probably a curse; being only able to spot weakness and not strength.

Well, here’s something fresh for a change.

Don’t know if he knew it when he first played it for the class, but the song 手紙 ～拝啓 十五の君へ～ by Angela Aki was initially a song for the 75th NHK National School Music Contest in 2008, Junior High School (12–15 years old) Division. It became such a hit that from that point on, many schools use it as their graduation song.

And it’s surprising in 2 ways, to me at least. First is that it’s not a hard song to play if it were in C major. Second is that because it is NOT in C major, it’s unexpectedly frustrating. So to anyone who wants to try it but has an incompetent ear like mine, it’s in A♭ major.

That’s probably one of the many weaknesses of being musically trained with the harmonica: too focused on C, that every other scale you hear it as a C and only realize it is not when you actually try it out.

An equally good graduating song would be Nickelback’s Photograph. A little old and inappropriate at some parts, but nothing says ‘missing the memories’ like it.

This is actually a bad thing. If I keep this up, I’ll be just like people of the past generation who listen to old tracks and think new ones like the totally terrible ****** ****** or **** **** etc. are the killers of music.

But whatever. That isn’t quite the main issue. What is is that I’ve always wanted to die before I get old, but based on how things are going, I already am.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Nothing is right. Meaning everything is wrong

This is usually not the kind of time anyone would want to spend on blogging, since the exams are on and all. Which is precisely why I do it. Because this, being Malaysia, is the kind of time where everyone is too busy committing things they know to memory to have any time for learning anything new. I doubt anyone reads the newspaper for these few days when they’re too busy reading their textbooks and notes. And what I have to say is precisely NOT meant for them, more because they can’t be bothered than because they don’t deserve it; in fact it would do them a world of difference if they saw this. It’s for people who are concerned not about their future money or income or anything of the like, but rather their future.

And I shall begin by referencing a post from ‘The Carapace’ and a news article quoted there. I will not bother repeating whatever that is there here, but I will point out some of the finer details that people either don’t know about, ignore, deny or acknowledge but decided nothing can be done. Sure, their setting is in Australia but I think people are intelligent enough to localize. Unless of course you’re too fixated in obeying a nonexistent dictator.

First point being that, and I quote, “Every election people find themselves asking politicians what they will give them in return for their vote. They forget that we employ our politicians to do a job. We should approach the process of electing them as we would if we were hiring an employee. Can you imagine going into a job interview and having your potential future employer ask you what you are willing to give them in exchange for the job? Shouldn't you be hired on the basis of merit rather than bribery? Of course you should.”

I guess it goes without saying that only people who deserve the votes will get them, not people who promise to be deserving of it. There’s no way of telling if one is being true to their word – like a decent human being – or being a typical politician – lying their way into and then abusing the newfound power and privilege – at all. I wanted to use bona fide but as you can see from the context, it is clearly inappropriate.

I’m not saying all politicians are liars. No doubt there are some out there with clearly good intentions, but unfortunately for these endangered number of people, that’s just the stereotype. And as I have said before, people who stereotype are unfortunate people who have seen more of what they shouldn’t have than what they should have.

The solution? There isn’t one. Because the only thing close to being perfectly fair is communism. But the problem is that it’s way too fair that people lose whatever bragging rights they may have, and that’s the problem with people. Even if we left shame out of the equation, we all still prefer to die proud than live as equals.

Or maybe there is. For one thing, voting shouldn’t be an obligation; it should be a privilege. Every time the elections draw near you hear “exercise your rights” with an almost ‘or else’ tone. Why bother? You’re just pushing people who know nothing or those who can’t be bothered to risk making the wrong choice. At least make sure the people who vote are interested and educated so that at least they know for themselves they are making the right decision.

Speaking of education, the current system’s got to change as well. Currently, and apparently it’s not exclusive to Malaysia, children face their parents’ personal firing squad whenever they come back with a report card that has anything which is not an ‘A’. I’m not alone when I say that school, the way it is now, is almost completely useless. It’s so bad that ‘the dim kids work and work and work until their little hormones are fried and then emerge after five years, suicidal, mad and with an A-level in media studies. The bright kids, meanwhile, lounge all day knowing that a CV will never be checked so, when asked how many A-levels they have, they can lie and say 264’ (Jeremy Clarkson, 27 January 2008). And I totally agree with him when he said ‘all school does is put you off things that might, later in life, be interesting’.

I knew a person from my school who was at the top of the grade without fail every year, but freaks out every time she attempts to cook an egg for herself. Seriously, children in school should be taught to survive as an adult, not be a quantum physicist who cleans public toilets.

Then there’s the segregation. They force science students to be Isaac Newton, Ivan Pavlov and Dmitri Mendeleev all at the same time within two years, when they might, like me, end up with social sciences. Like psychology, for instance. Sure they prepare you for what you might be going into, assuming that there’s nowhere else you can go. It’s like bringing a nuclear warhead into a parliamentary debate: infinitely excessive.

Then there’s history. Instead of all the meaningless dates to memorise about who died when and what year did he take the whole world down with him, why not discuss the impact of whatever his actions may be?

Better yet, why not scrap the whole subject and use newspapers instead? Instead of learning about the past that we cannot do anything about, why not learn about the present and at least know which idiotic politician is taking bribes today so that when you’re of age you know not to vote for him or her instead of learning about how dead some fool was a thousand years ago, and the only benefit that will be today is knowing how much deader he is now compared to then?

But I guess that’s not possible either because what was once known as current affairs is now known as politics and students are not allowed to take part in it. The only thing students are allowed to take part in is mass suicide in the slowest form possible: losing sanity by replacing it with irrelevant knowledge.

Well, nothing is perfect. Perhaps in the same way that perfect is nothing.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.