Ladies and Gentlemen, look to the right-hand side

And you'll see a counter. You know, that box that shows how many people actually read the stuff i write about. Or they may not even read, they might just take a look and surf somewhere else for all i know. Anyway, the counter is the topic of today.

I got it from a website called Pyzam. In the early days when this blog was fresh and i was spirited enough to update almost everyday, the counter looked like a cool idea to insert in a blog. *Having imaginary conversations in my head* 

"Hey, u have a blog right?"

"Yeah, i do..4000 visitors already"

"Cool"

Hence the Pyzam counter was born.

Do applications have attitudes? This one does. Take this situation for instance. I open the blog after 2 months in operation. '50 views'. Not wanting to believe that, i clicked 'refresh', and suddenly it shows '360 views'. The next day its 333 views. Mathematicians call it a random walk, where there are seemingly random occurrences in a given period. And i thought only farts were random.

If i treat the counter to lunch, will it function properly?
  

Paradox of Endowments

I just read half of 'The Undercover Economist', and i suddenly have an economic view (for a limited time only) of what my holiday is like. I call it the

Paradox of Endowments : The more resources you're given, the more you tend to waste it.

Resource #1: Time
-At home, the rational me should've used the extra time to keep up with A2 work. Instead, i waste it on keeping up with addictive mangas. The Undercover Economist's explanation? 'When there's more time, there's a bigger incentive for the rational consumer to maximise utility, i.e doing things that brings the most joy in life, hence ignoring things that are seemingly more productive'. Conclusion: i hate homework....

Resource #2: high-speed broadband
-Refer to the explanation on resource #1

Priceless Year

General Statement: Happy Birthday Batch 10.5!

Specific Statement: Happy Birthday Batch 10.5 Bank Negara Scholars!

Time flies when you're having fun. What if you're having fun, occasional euphoria, sorrow, a little bit of annoyance and overwhelming bliss? How does time move then?

The exact answer is shrouded in mystery, but for me the past year has been swift. Feels like two days ago i got a call from bank negara saying i received a scholarship, and feels like only yesterday i entered kyuem, ready to greet the world with a smile =)

But in reality a year has passed, and we come to terms with the fact that we're a year older, and we now have juniors to organise a fantastic anniversary party..hahahaha..if everything had a price:

Food & Entertainment : RM 20


The Coke wasn't my idea

Ambience of an open-air candle-lit dinner : Probably somewhere in the region of 5 bucks

Candles arranged to form the numbers '10.5'..creative

Having supercool friends to make living in the middle of nowhere seem like the best experience ever: Priceless. =)))))) (the 'supercool friends' pictures are all in everybody else's camera)

Some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's your sponsor, your parents, your part-time salary, your occasional generous buddy..and Mastercard.

Happy Days

It's time for a little Q&A:

Q: Is it possible to create a winning nasyeed team in 3 days?

A: Yes, it is. =)

The awards ceremony yesterday saw a windfall for the house of Sapphire, as we took a juicy chunk of winnings in the Islamic Cultural & Arts Week.. during the Minggu Citra Budaya, we proclaimed ourselves the 'Most Cultural House'. 

Now? Some ideas pop into mind..'Most Islamic House'...'House With Most Faith'.. although both of them would be an extreme exaggeration. because surely winning competitions doesn't mean we're the most Islamic. So a safer option would be 'House that Won Most in ICAN', but that doesn't have a ring to it. One of us suggested another title, 'House of Heaven'.. err.. extremely hyperbole...

Now that the ICAN suspense is over, i was anxious about AS results, due at GMT 00:00 this morning.

I couldn't afford to miss Dr. Foord's class at GMT 00:15, so i asked my best friend, who happily had no classes, to check. 

And then the message came. I got a's for Maths and Econs! Yay. =D  And for some reason, this morning for the first time the sun beamed through the windows of the Dining Hall and shone on my face, like some special effects in a Japanese manga. I think it shone on my face, i couldn't be sure. 

The sun is shining today.. and i want to cherish every second.
  

How ironic?

Tension of opposites- Torn between two choices that are in two different directions.
Watching Juara Lagu yesterday night, i can't help but to notice a tension of opposites. 

1. In the beginning, everyone was asked to recite al-Fatihah for the Palestinians who were being oppressed by the Zionist regime. Sure, it's good to spare a thought and to grieve for our brothers and sisters there. But reciting al-Fatihah is not just humanitarian, its Islamic.

The opposite? Juara Lagu itself. Fans cheering and shouting, aurat open here and there, etc.. it's just plain inappropriate. After the 'spare-a-thought' moment it's back to cheering. They seem to be able to defy the laws of the universe and mix opposites together.  

2. In the opening of one of the songs, there was a backdrop of children in the Middle East, their suffering.. anyone seeing those children would melt, and those of us in the TV room probably thought 'this could turn out to be a decent song about humanity'. But on comes the dancers, women(with hair exposed) and men alike, and the singer in his richly exotic costume. 

As somebody who didn't live centuries ago and since i am not a scholar on Ancient Egypt, i can only give my unprofessional view. But it did look like something that came from the Pharaoh Era. Humanitarian crisis=pharaoh-like performance? Not.

I was not the only one. The others watching yesterday in the room were stunned by the above scenarios. Maybe the organisers felt no tension in mixing opposites, but we did. Curiouser and curiouser, the world is.    

No,You don't need reading glasses

2 weeks to go before the IELTS english test, and i encounter a major problem : my writing is painfully small,thus making it almost illegible.

When did I start facing reality? About the time my best friend read my essay and helpfully commented : "Your teacher's going to need a magnifying glass to read this..it's smaller than ever." *Gasp* It's that bad? I looked at it again. What other people write in 2 pages, i write in one.

My worst fears were confirmed the next day. My english teacher received the essay (sloppy work..the page was torn in one place) and said 'has anybody told you your writing is small?

"Yes, they have"

"It sometimes is difficult to read"

And that jeopardises my chances in the upcoming test..imagine an overworked examiner, pressured to finish marking all the papers, and suddenly this miniscule writing comes along..not a pleasant scene.

During physics, the same thing happened.

So i put some 'effort' in improving. Like writing 'I'll try bigger writing' over and over again. It's back to Handwriting 101.

5 Friends

5 like-minded individuals met up to complete a difficult task : creating a winning nasyeed team in just 3 days. The practise was held at P-31 for three consecutive nights, from 11pm onwards.

This is their story.

Tuesday,13th January 2009-5 people were brought together by destiny for the first time. They are:

Udin- Bass
Azizul- Bass(can do soprano)
Furqan-Vocals
Herman-Vocals and gimmick-ist(if there's such a word)
Ikmal-Vocals

3 vocalists in one group? that's nasyeed, Sapphire-style. ;)
Their Chosen Song was 'Pergi tak Kembali' (direct translation: Go not Return), a song about death that they thought fit the theme of 'fitrah', returning to what God made you as. The duration was supposed to be 10 minutes, yet they had only one song.

The song was only 4 minutes +.

Luckily, they had a simple solution: fill the performance with cool and polished 'gimmicks'.

Night after night they trained..and they even made a video clip on one session. (coming soon to a Youtube near you)

And finally, the day of truth came. 4 houses. 4 performances. 1 winner. Being the first to perform, the 5 young men braced themselves. Each of them was nervous. Some went to the toilet, some took deep breaths. The writer of this blog was shaking so badly he had to hide his hands.

After what seemed like forever on stage, they did it. They sang. They harmonised. They had fun. =)

5 like-minded individuals met up to complete a difficult task : creating a winning nasyeed team in just 3 days. Did they succeed? That story remains to be told.

Support Your Local Nasyeed Group

Tonight there is going to be a debut performance by Yours Truly, as part of the newly-formed nasyeed group from the House of Sapphire.

9 pm, great hall.

Sapphire's going 1st.

I hope i don't go all shaky.

Sapphireans, pray for us. =)

Manifesto

Why do people run for elections? After watching the student council manifesto process last night, i can give 3 reasons:
a. To provide for the greater good of society..well,that's what they all say anyway
b. To continue where others have failed (or nearly failed)
c. To give us bloggers something to rant about

This was my first impression of public reception:
So much for political awareness. (this camera..it makes everything look bleak)

But my initial impression was proven wrong..the seats were full soon afterwards.

The candidates had some interesting proposals, although their chosen portfolios seemed pretty much manifesto-less on the surface. (if i was running for secretary, the only thing i could think of is 'i promise to write excellent reports')

Secretary wannabees: One of them wanted to change the college song (i couldn't even remember the lyrics of current one) because it sounds primary school-ish and one of them community center for the all-important community service in DOE.

Sports exco candidates: They had one thing in common: 'increase the number of games'. That, and the difficult promise of trying to maintain the bicycles (i once rode on a bicycle and the seat almost fell off EVERYTIME i braked).

Treasurer hopefuls: What can i say? Their job was just to look trustworthy enough to manage the tax payers' money. Although one of them (i can proudly admit she's my petsister) did come up with an interesting idea: to install an ATM in college.

After that i went back to continue watching Heroes.;)

We know how politicians are. If half their election promises are fulfilled, that would be excellent. So it's not really about how good your campaign is, its about how good you are. May the best person win. =)

The soon-to-be-former president, unaware that this picture is going right in my blog (its dark because of my camera):

Read This

www.palestinechronicle.com, for inside stories and facts surrounding Palestinians.

Total Oppression

*the following conversation maybe fiction or not, depending on your perspective

An Israeli Foreign Minister and a Defense Minister met up, and had a conversation over a cup of tea. Their conversation would probably look like this:

FM (Foreign Minister) : These Palestinians are bugging me. They're disrupting our creation of a peaceful Zion.

DM (Defense Minister) : Come on, let's bomb them.

FM : What?

DM : You heard what i said, bomb them. Military, civilians, it doesn't matter.

FM : But if we do that, the world will hate us. That could prove costly in our efforts to maintain the Jewish homeland.

DM : Hate. Condemnation. That's about all the world can do. *winks* Even America, with all its weapons and power, can't do anything to stop us. They're not going to do the same to us like they did to Iraq or Iran. We have our people everywhere, remember that.

FM : So you have a plan to paralyse Palestine? I mean, we've been doing that for the past 60+ years, but they keep coming.

DM : You know how Hamas has been throwing rockets at us? Yes, we have rocket warning systems and the casualties are small, but its enough of an excuse to launch an all-out attack on them. I'm thinking of attacking Gaza. We use Hamas as an excuse, saying we are trying to eliminate their fighters, who, for some reason, are hiding among civilians.

FM : Wait a minute, then you are saying..

DM : Yes, as i said we bomb indiscriminately. Bomb their buildings. With the economic sanctions they face, it would take a long time to rebuild their infrastructures. Attack their civilians. We could always say that this is an act of self-defense. I have a name for it already. 'Operation Cast Lead'.

FM : I see..this may be a credible idea. And if the world shows sympathy over the suffering and deaths, i'll just say this is part of the war on terrorism, and the ironic part is we're using terror ourselves *smirks*

DM : And with the borders sealed, into Israel and into Egypt, they won't have anywhere to run. The world will react sooner or later, but by then the damage will be done. *flashes an evil grin*

FM : Plan the attacks. I'll deal with the foreign work. See you later then. Shalom.

DM : Shalom.

May Allah save Palestine.

Back to the Jungle

The jungles of Lembah Beringin have a weird effect. After passing through what must be Malaysia's loneliest toll booth, you realise that all around you, darkness prevails. The darkness falls upon you like some heavy blanket, adding to the despair of the realisation that, finally, holiday's over. Welcome to the college in the middle of nowhere, KYUEM. ;)

I was surprised to see my room spick-and-span, a stark contrast to the dusty cave when i last left it. Even the toilet was clean, which will certainly make 'doing business' a lot more comfortable.

Besides the major construction work on the sports venues, nothing much has changed.

Gave a few souvenirs to friends. (sorry, the souvenirs are scarce, don't ask me if i have anymore)

Got a cool 10-months belated birthday present. =)

Murphy's Law

Have you heard of Murphy's Law? It conveniently states that 'anything that could go wrong, will go wrong'.

1st scenario : Practised driving last Friday. Drove on the road 3 times. And all 3 times, there were no errors. Was even complimented by my driving instructor.

But remember, everything that could go wrong will go wrong.

2nd scenario : The actual driving test this morning. On the same hill that made me fail the first time, the car slid backwards. 3 consecutive times.

Which led to

3rd scenario : Failing the JPJ test for the second time.

Another Year Comes

Im one day late, but its never too late to anything (even that homework you neglected over the past holiday..*sigh*).

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!!!

So far this year, I have :

-Procrastinated my homework
-Done nothing purposeful all day long

Seems like a good start for the new year..=S

Anyways

I laughed my head off watching this new show on 8TV, 'I Survived a Japanese Gameshow'. You know how crazy the Japanese can get. =))