3 in 1

One-Myself
Stranger,
How are you, stranger?
And what are you up to?
The world knows you no longer

Two-My roots
Teach me english, bleach me white
I'll still be Malay
It's hardly the best race there is
but for myself, no better one exists

Three-My way
Slowly,
I'd rather do it slowly
And save myself the regret
of not doing it properly

Inspired by the various events in my life. And out of fear that I'd one day no longer know myself.

the overdependency syndrome

This is from soccernet:

While United have wowed the Premiership and the Champions League with some
scintillating attacking football, Chelsea have kept pace with their rivals
thanks to a fighting spirit..

I find it ironic that a team with all the money to buy all the talents in the world -which they did, to some extent- is playing the 'grit and fighting spirit' card when they're supposed to produce the 'scintillating attacking football' displayed by a team that, at the start of the season lost their top scorer to Real Madrid and bought a defensive midfielder.

The Chelsea scenario, to me at least, is unique. They have all the money in the world, which is their strength. They have all the money in the world, which is their weakness. First and foremost, they won't, in the near future, have youth players, if ever. As Arsene Wenger once put it; "once you start buying (to complement), you'll always be pressured to buy.." With all their talk of youth policy, Chelsea have produced none. I find it ironic also that youths are not given the chance to play in a team that plays the way they play; systematically. I mean, if Arsenal can find a way to incorporate youths into their fluid football system, why can't Chelsea find a way to field youths to play in their boring one? Simple; the quality of the bench. In all of the Premiership, if not the world, Chelsea might have the strongest bench ever. Established stars with bloated egos and inflated wages. Fancy a try, o' seventeen year old? Dream on!

Secondly, no matter how much they hated Abramovich and loved (yuck!) Mourinho, they can never, ever sack the former. Why? Money. With their current wage structure and over-dependency towards big wage stars who have largely disappoint but occasionally score goals at the 92nd minute, losing Abramovich is a nightmare. Money, it seems, is power. And Abramovich is the only one capable of doing anything about it. It must be great to support a team that can sack anyone but the one person that everyone seemingly have no feelings whatsoever towards. It must be great to buy tickets and shirts of the team that is run almost entirely on the wants and desires of one man, which is not you. It must be great to have lots of money and no freedom. Fans of any other teams can say 'Sack the owner!' Fans of Chelsea can say 'Please stay ______ (insert anyone's name here, except the owner's)!' If they say anything at all (last time I checked they clapped and made lots of noises). It must be great.

Chelsea have found a 'cheat' button in the game. And now they can't get rid of it. They are not capable of getting rid of it.

And this is to Mourinho; attacking is putting together a string of passes with the intention of getting a goal. Merely putting a string of passes to pass time and only scoring one goal at the 92nd minute does not constitute attacking.

H two O

There is something very artificial and unappealing about systems.

The khutbah Jumaat today was about water. As much as I don't want to, I thought; 'hey, anywhere in this country today, the khatibs will be preaching on exactly the same thing I'm hearing here..' and hence, 'what's the point, then? Can't the khutbahs be made into an audio file or something? Then at least you can hear them at random -and not just the same thing everywhere- any Fridays..?' Don't get me wrong here; I'm not undermining the role of the khatibs here, nor am I -God forbid- playing down the importance of going for solat Jumaat; I am emphasizing the need for freedom, the need to be human for us humans. I mean, surely there are communities which would benefit more if the respective khatibs were to talk about something else other than water, right (no disrespect to the khutbah text writer or the subject itself)?

I felt that some khatibs might feel strongly about certain subjects and hence can deliver the khutbah about these subjects more passionately, hence making it more memorable and/or effective. Is that not the whole point of having solat Jumaats anyway? So that we can meet and remind each other and correct whatever wrongs? Why are we such suckers for this system of having a uniform khutbah? What's the point of emphasizing on mukims and such if we actually have the same things said everywhere? Different places have different problems and must be rectified via different approaches.

Scrap systems. People should stop being plastic and start being human.

battle of the engine rooms

I always thought A.C Milan as the better team between the two quarterfinalists, although I was secretly hoping that we would meet Bayern in the semis so that Fergie can see first-hand how Hargreaves play (it's really because I thought Bayern was the weaker team -actually it's more like..umm..exploitable ..with relevance to our strength- and so it will present us with a better chance to progress to the final). And so the Red Devils will be facing Milan. It would be great to see the midfielders in action. The workrate of Gattuso against Fletcher, and the creativity and imagination of Seedorf and Kaka against Giggs and Ronaldo. And then of course there's Carrick against Pirlo. I always thought they'd be great playing alongside each other, but I don't think Milan wants to sell Pirlo, nor do I think we have the funds for him, if Milan decide to sell anyway, nor do I think Pirlo wants to jeopardize his chances to play for Italy by playing in the EPL. So I guess this is Carrick's last hurdle. Should he pass this one, and we win, I'd say Fergie have spent very, very wisely on him, no matter how absurd I first thought his price tag was at first. But for now I'd say he's already an established Devil.

On most parts of the field, quite frankly, I think Milan have more quality than we do. But this is the Red Devils we are talking about. Looking forward to 180 minutes of top notch football (not your games, Liverpool and Chelsea ;p)

lack of sleep and lots of satisfaction

I was thinking something like 'Roger Federer would've been proud'. Or something like that. Then Evra went on and scored another.

Oh well

HAHAHAHAHAHA

umm..Totti who?

let's do this together

To all PTPTN loanees not in the know, get to know now; the yuran proses is now a whopping *RM 77.00/mth, unless my friend who relayed this information to me made a mistake in interpreting his penyata. That said, let's make a simple calculation;

Assumed loan (this amount being, the amount loaned to the majority of people my age who studied in IPTAs) :- RM 28,000.00
interest (at 3% per year if I'm not mistaken. Or was it 4%? Anyone?) :- RM 840/yr (equivalent to RM 70.00/mth)

Get what I'm saying? RM 77.00 + RM 70.00 = RM 147.00 man!! That means if anyone with that amount (RM 28,000.00) loaned (myself included) do monthly repayments of, say, RM 150.00, s/he is actually paying up the loan at a rate of RM 3.00/mth. Hawt damn! Good luck paying up RM 28,000.00 then (again, myself included huhu -this is a real sad-sounding, crybaby-ish 'huhu').

OK, no matter how cliched this might sound; for the sake of the future generations;
1)Pay up, loanees.
2)Stop being such an asshole, PTPTN. For one, stop the interest calculator for people who're furthering their studies, and get a HQ with a less fancy address to minimize the yuran proses, dammit. And while at that, why don't you people start defining what yuran proses really is? I mean, why would processing the paying up of my loan incur a cost of up to RM 77.00? Can't a computer do the calculation or something?

*this is to be confirmed since I myself haven't seen the said penyata

red with passion

Just to illustrate how passionate people are about the club I support, I'll tell you the atmosphere at the venue where I watched the Champion's League this morning; I never knew A.S Roma had so many fans. To be honest, I've really taken the Manchester United fans' tagline to heart; Manchester United: loved by many, hated by the rest. When Manchester United play, people get passionate. And that might be an understatement. Even to fans of the team(s) which are not playing Manchester United at that particular moment.

Last night was when we played nervously. Van der Sar showed this with his spectacular reflexes (it is a scientific fact that you are more alert when you're nervous) and getting-nowhere-near-his-teammates clearances, even when not under pressure. And his lips were almost white. But maybe it was cold in Rome. Giggs had a quiet game. And so did Ronaldo and Rooney in the first half, relatively speaking.

But if anything, Roma played like men possessed. And they were organized, too, which made life difficult for the likes of Ronaldo and Giggs. If in the EPL Ronaldo can weave past defenders, then A.S Roma showed him not all defenders have two left legs (sorry, EPL defenders).

And then there was Scholes.

Oh dear oh dear of dear! Why you were looking so determined to get a booking is anyone's guess. Totti made a meal of Scholes' poor challenge the way he always did with anyone's I don't think, but still, why were you playing like that? I know Fergie wanted both his central midfielders to protect the everyone-but-Rio-are-not-regulars defenders, but I doubt he said "Kill! Kill!" ..or did he?

Anyway, this morning almost justified Fergie spending so much on Micheal Carrick. He did not give away posession once, and was composed throughout when in most of our games in the earlier part of the season I thought Fergie would be better off buying one of those freekick dummies (sorry, Alan Smith). Our man-of-the-match, no doubt. Especially since he had to operate alone for roughly sixty minutes. He knew he can't afford to give away posession, and he did just that. And then some. He's almost like Ronaldo sans the running; evading tackles and such, and producing those sublime passes.

Anyway, to be completely honest, I do not think that 2-1 is a bad result at all. I mean,we were playing with 10 men and only have one regular defender and still managed a precious away goal. So yeah, I'll look forward to Old Trafford.

...so tell me, why are you celebrating that Vucinic goal like crazy when you're wearing an Ajax shirt? And umm..while at that, do you know that's an Ajax shirt?

Passionate, we are.

a big fat push in the right direction

"Tak tido ke malam tadi? suraaam je? Ermmm..Boleh siap arini ke?"
"Tido dalam 2 jam a..umm..hantar before midnight kan? InsyaAllah la"
.....
"Nanti siapkan la lagi half tu. Saya baca yang ni dulu. Emailkan ke Dr **** sekali ya nanti?"
.....
"..sebenarnya deadline dia bagi sampai 5 h/b ni"
"Oh? OK. Hehe"

My supervisor have discovered one brilliant way of getting me to NOT struggle at the very last minute and hence to hand in whatever articles, papers, reports before deadline day:
lying to me about the deadline

HAHAHA

the best things in life are free

The very first day I was a UM student, I fell in love. I did not get to go to any particular residential colleges because I was a bit late to register, so I illegally stayed with my friends at the 5th residential college, where most of my friends were. My first night there; Rauhan, Arab and Apai got back from their minggu interaksi and sang certain parts of the college song. I knew immediately at that time that 'this is where I want to stay'. It was love at first..sound?

It was a relationship that brought many inconvenience for me, as it dragged me on and on, almost always insisting that I stayed in UM. It was fun, for the most part. I have no regrets. My schoolmates even sang 'hidup mati UM' during reunions and such, due to this association of mine (this is a song which lyrics were changed a bit. The song existed but with different lyrics than the one they sang).

But I guess everything must come to an end. It's getting boring and boring now, lack of enthusiasm the main culprit. On my behalf and most of today's undergrads. Last night I went to another of the many college dinners I've attended, and there's no more spark, nothing. It was..bland, no disrespect to the organizers or anyone in particular. I'm getting..older I guess.

Thankfully, THANKfully, there was the ManU-Rovers game going on last night. And what a game it was. Watching -and jumping up and down every once in a while- through metal grills, it was one of the happiest moments in my life. You see, there was this big screen inside a lounge (with doors in the form of metal grills), and despite one of the waiter staring out at people watching from outside the lounge (OK 'people' is a spin. For the most part it was Meme and I HAHA. Occasionally there were other people too, mostly non-MU supporters I presume), we did not budge (cewah! 'did not budge'! Macam gempak je HAHA).

We were the lucky ones, Meme and I. Because we started watching in the second half, at which time Manchester United have already managed to virtually camp outside the Rovers penalty area, managing roughly a quarter century of shots in all. It was actually pretty hard to muffle our screams because all the lads played so well! (we had to control ourselves since we were at a public area in a hotel with people -undergrad students- taking pictures everywhere and then there were people inside the lounge, too. And then there was the waiter, you see :p) And, well, we scored four, you see *belagak*. Since we had to remain..umm..civilized, at least one of us resorted to pinching. All in all, I got roughly a quarter century of pinches. Best gila beb! (am not referring to getting pinched)

So yeah, the best things in life are free :)