Memory

Six months have passed,
the memory, however, still lingers
Leaving this heart with all the tingling sensation
that no one seems know how to cure

The night can be so long when there’s no light shining from the sky
yet, this heart finds it difficult to move on
Was it because a heavy downpour?
or, could it be your persistent numb that leaves me breathless with every recollection

When the sorrows of yesterday come crashing
and all the hopes will just remain as memories
A gentle shroud of painful memories that were left behind
like a pulsating of piercing sting

Though the life goes on,
and the memories will just remain as memories
But how long will the wait be
Or, will the heart stay forever,

Captivated by the memories…

Five Things I love about Malaysia

Just came back from KL few days ago. This time trip triggered so many memories back about Malaysia. Reminiscence of my past, I used to spend my weekend ‘lepak-ing‘ at KL when I was still studying at Melaka. In addition, my friends and I used to go for food hunting in KL. I remembered that the last time we went KL, it was really a fun journey though it was 2 years ago! We went to Pavillion to buy the famous Jco Donuts, then Midvalley to savor the ‘monstrous ultra-gigantic‘ Carls Jr burger, then after that we went to The Curve to enjoy the night scene there, and finally drove all the way to Genting, and slept in the car just because neither of us are willing to spend some extra bucks for a room (we are still bunch of students back then, haha :p) Frankly speaking, I always enjoy my time here with bunch of good friends together as if there’s no tomorrow. Maybe next time I will put up some photos about my last trip to KL.

To sum up, there are five things I love about Malaysia:

1. Malaysian’s Hospitality
Wherever I go in Malaysia and whenever I encounter the local, be it buying something or asking for direction, people always smile at me. It gives me a warm tender kind of feeling somehow. For one moment there, I felt that I was back at home. I gave you an example. When I was accompanying my sister shopping at Sunway Pyramid, KL, my sister saw one shoes which she was interested to buy. At the tag of the shoes was written RM59.30 but when my sister wanted to pay, the shop assistant told her that in the box, it was written RM62.30. Though it was only 3 ringgit difference and my sister did not mind at all, the shop assistant felt so guilty because of inconsistency. She offered her help to check with other stores at other branches. She began to call up other stores at other branches to re-confirm the price. Though some stores’ number were busy and the line could not get through, she did not give up. With a great perseverance, she tried to call other stores and this including called up the shop manager’s mobile and finally after 10 minutes of trying, she managed to find out that it was RM59.30 and thus she apologized for the mistake. At the end, we were very grateful and thankful of her because she went all the trouble to re-confirm the price even though the customer (my sister) did not mind about the price. This is what I call, being helpful and hospitable to customer

2. Value for Personal Relationship
Malaysians typically still value personal relationship. Especially when you are working or studying here, as long as you play your part and be supportive of other people, people will usually be supportive back of you. When I was going back to SG after my journey from KL, I encountered few typical Singaporeans who are complaining and scolding because the bus waited too long in the Malaysian Immigration Checkpoint. One grandma (about 60 years old) was talking to the uncle in front of her, “a ni ku ar! Foreigners a ni ban!” (In Hokkien, it literally means that it was so long of waiting! The foreigners are so slow!) When the foreigner (Indian) came into the bus ,the uncle scolded him directly, saying something in Hokkien which is about why you are so slow! The uncle was at first hesitant to give him a seat beside him. But later on the bus driver asked the Indian foreigner to sit beside him. At Malaysia, we never do that to people. When you don’t like someone, though you may grumble inside your heart, you will not go to the extent of confronting him / her directly. It is because we still value people (personal) relationship.

3. Food
Malaysia is a wide diverse rich multicultural country. You can find almost every kind of food here, from Malay, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Western, etc. And did I mention about 24 hour Mamak stall in almost every corner in Malaysia ? Feel not up for Mamak food? No worries… As you can still find those Hongkong food cafe at late night, or even 4 a.m. bahkut teh or 5 a.m. dimsum at KL and Melaka. If you are Muslim, you can also enjoy jikut teh (Chicken bahkut teh) in KL. So many choices, so little time to try all of them.

4. Languages
Though it’s practically rojak language, as long as you know a bit of English, Chinese, or Malay, you can travel anywhere in Malaysia. In addition, if you are here long enough, you will increase your local context vocabulary. You will know, for example some common phrases used by Malaysian Chinese like wat la u, aiya, kanasai, walau eh, jia lat, etc

5. Entertainment
You can find practically many forms of entertainment in Malaysia. If you’re bored at home, you can watch movie through pirated DVDs (oops… did I mention about piracy!?). Doesn’t feel like spending money? No worries, as you can always download it if you know how (again, in some countries this is banned!). Think of taking a stroll to mingle with the locals? At KL, you can go to Petaling Street, Chow Kit, Sungei Wang, etc. How about if I wanna window-shopping those expensive boutiques? Again at KL, Starhill Galery and Pavillion are the best. Or how about if I am up for some jives? Well… Be assured as the nightlife at KL is very happening, from the Zouk, Nightlife @ Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, etc.

Overall, I love Malaysia so much because it gives me a flexible enjoyable life that I always wanted. No more rigid bureaucracy to follow. Of course, bureaucracy is undeniably important as it enforces what people should / should not do. But if it is too rigid, you will feel as if you’re confined in a cage and there’s no more room for creativity to flourish. Life is only once, so think about it. Do what you enjoy the most while you can and be assured as when you die, you might die with no single regrets in your life

Cheers.

The Most Told Lie in the World

Don’t worry, I’m fine! I’m alright, really!!

Quote by: Grey Ang

Professional Seminar

Just came back from my professional seminar class that was conducted since this morning. What a tiring day indeed! As you could imagine, the class took away my entire Saturday, from 9 am to 5 pm and this time we had a moderation duty to serve others. Though it’s tiring and mind-challenging, I had an enjoyable and insightful time there. To my surprise, we emerged as the best team for our assignment that we did last month, beating the other 19 groups. The assignment is all about solving puzzles that are related to traveling salesman problem and some logical fallacy puzzle. In addition to finding a solution to these puzzles, we are required to write a short story on how we come to the answer. Well.. For our case, it is not about the solution to the puzzle that made us win the coveted award, but it is the story of how we solved the puzzle that did.

The story was written by my course mate, Eric Chin. He was a very friendly and outspoken guy from our team. In addition, he was a good writer and I like the way he created suspense in the story, for instance through the sentences like “We were in the grip of uncertainty” and “Hope was in the late night air”.

This was the story, written by him:

We met for the first time on 22 August 2009. The diversity in terms of nationalities and academic/professional backgrounds was immediately clear. The differences were also obvious in terms of different natures. Some were immediately friendly, some were obviously shy, some were bold and some appeared nonchalant.

There were two or three team members who seemed eager to start with discussion immediately but uncertainties arising from a first meeting of 12 strangers meant that we inevitably broke up with the vague resolution that we would think through the “puzzles”. We were in the grip of uncertainty.

The first attempt to focus on our task was made on 23 August 2009 at 11.59 a.m. A blog and an e-mail containing the same message on whether we wanted a discussion in a chat room were sent. In terms of timing, it was perfect. It avoided any sign of over eagerness that could have alienated any cynics of the PROFESSIONAL SEMINAR (e.g. if it was a 6 a.m. post). It also avoided displaying a could-not-care-less attitude that would not have reflected well on the team (e.g. if it was done on the 25th). In terms of reaching out, this first message subtly gave 3 options to interact – e-mail, blog or chat room. As it happened, everyone used e-mail as it was the one common means of communication that everyone was comfortable with. Thus our first joint decision was reached by consensus to use e-mail for discussion. By 7.14 p.m. on 23 August 2009, the first comprehensive attempt at Question 2 was circulated and serious thoughts on Question 1 arrived at 11.16 p.m. Hope was in the late night air.

Suggestions on algorithms to help with Question 2 followed with a mail at 11.56 p.m. and we slept over thoughts of Dijkstra algorithms. Early the next day, on 24 August 2009 at 7.41 a.m., the Dijkstra had already morphed to a “combinatorial problem” and there were whispered discussions on Java programs. The systems savvy folk were having a real go at Question 2 and the shortest path was clearly in their sights. On 26 August 2009 at 9.27 a.m. a final error was spotted and corrected and Question 2 was ready to go.

Relieved at having experts deal with Question 2, others with different talents began focussing on Question 1. The general solution was easy enough to come to but the presentation was a challenge as team members had their individual styles of writing. The solution to Question 1 saw major re-modelling on 24 August 2009 at 12.49 p.m. and at 5.55 p.m. with smaller suggestions for change contributed along the way. Further substantial re-modelling through members’ suggestions took place 3 times on 26 August 2009 at 12.24 a.m., 7.17 a.m. and 8.20 a.m. While the re-modellings were substantial, it is worth noting that there was always a marriage of someone else’s older version with the new; showing a respect for different perspectives. In the end, the team was confident that it had distilled the essence of their thoughts on the matter. By noon on 26 August 2009, the solution to Question 1 was also ready to go.

Notwithstanding a great desire for Kit Kat, the team did not rush to send the solutions out but thought it appropriate to keep the solutions open for debate a little longer in case anyone wanted to further contribute. However, all being quiet, by 4.42 p.m., we were certain we had a consensus and the fruits of our tireless collaboration were submitted. We had learnt of our different strengths, we divided the task and it was done.

Of course for this, we only won a Kit Kat chocolate. Hahaha… however throughout this, I learnt a very important lesson that Teamwork plays a very essential role as one person could not be so well-versed in everything. There is clearly other person who is better than you at doing something else, such as writing or presentation skills. For instance, an IT savvy folks might not be so good in writing a report or networking with other people, as they often only deal with machines in their work. Obviously, a very outspoken guy might do very well in his presentation. However, the information presented might lack some degree of novelty if he only does it alone. It is only through the process called teamwork that you could actually blend all the different skills from different people to produce a quality output

Haircut

Had a haircut at Sri Nada @ Jurong Point this evening.

Thanks to Owen for recommending me the salon

Updates

It has been quite some time since I last updated my blog. Life has been getting busier recently, with the assignments and projects started to pile up. Fortunately, things are pretty much settled and life has never been this good

So, this semester I took 6 courses, which means almost everyday I have class, including Saturday T_T. Monday to Wednesday my class are at afternoon, Thursday and Friday my class are at evening, and Saturday is a whole day seminar (Thank god, it’s only once in a month! ). Some courses are quite straight forward and easy to learn, some are completely alien (ex: Human Computer Interface course which we have to learn about cognitive processing, human memory, and psychology!). However, the assignments are all tough and draining my sleep time. For all 6 courses, I have total of 13 assignments!, which require writing a term paper (literally means a research paper), developing an application, evaluating user interface, and so on. Overall, the assignments are crazy (for example I have one assignment to develop Twitter mobile application in 2 months!), the expectations are high, and you can’t beg for a mercy marks to be given :p.

Apart from my daily academic routines, I joined four clubs, of which only one club I turned out to be active, i.e. Toastmasters club. Nah, it’s not the kind of club that teaches you how to toast a bread. It is also not about a club that you get to ‘gan bei’ in every session. The club is originated from US and it generally teaches everyone about the art of public speaking, be it impromptu speeches or prepared speeches. It does not have any trainer. However, it is a learn by practice culture where every member is a mentor for others. We meet every two weeks and during the meeting, there will be prepared speech speakers and table topic (impromptu speech) speakers and every prepared speech speakers will be evaluated by other member. So far, I enjoyed my time here and made a couple of good friends. In fact, I just finished my first project of all ten public speaking projects. The first project, P1, is all about ice breaker, where you’ll be given 4 – 6 minutes to speak about yourself. I spoke about an aspect of my life, overcome a fear of failure, and well… Though it’s not perfect, I’m happy for what I have achieved so far.

So… That’s all for the time being. More updates will be coming soon. Stay tuned

Cheers.

Life Lessons

Reminiscent of what I’ve done these few days has taught me important lessons. I think God has taught me these lessons, so that I would become stronger and more matured person. When people often ask God to give them courage or patience, do you think that God will grant them courage and patience directly or rather a “chance” in a situation to become stronger and more patient person? These are the lessons I learned:

First, everything in this world start from a “change“, even the slightest. A change or transformation is often needed to push things forward or propel things further. However, it is funny to note that while everyone is hoping for a change, not everyone is ready to pay for the consequences of change. Things change, people also change. A friend today might not be a friend tomorrow. In the end, all that matters is how do we cherish every moments shared with our friends and the close ones.

Second, when it comes to the personal problem, you might be a man in an island. People can perhaps lend you an ear or they become your cheerleader and support you from behind but they can’t help you. In the end, it’s only you who can make the decision to settle your problem. Moreover, some people might avoid you knowing that you have a problem. They try to change the topic, distract you for a moment, and most hurtful of all, act as though nothing has happened because after all, nothing happened to them. Most people will often get lonely and depressed at this stage, some might have suicidal thoughts, and etc. I learned that the rule of thumb is you can have as many friends as you wish but be prepared to be denied by them.

Third, friends come and go. Especially the close ones. Be ready to make new ones because your old ones may leave you any moment. And don’t feel lonely if they leave you, take it as their loss. You can’t stop them from running away, but you can make many more friends. Never stick to one person!

Fourth, believe in karma. Whatever things you do to other people now, you’ll get back what you did in the future. For instance, when I was younger and immature, I once deny a person. And now, I get back what I did last time.

I said these were the lessons as they are similar to lessons in school. They have a teacher, which is an experience, students who are me and you, and forever will remain as a lesson till you manage to apply them successfully in your life. Nevertheless, I’m still learning to be a wiser, more matured, and better person. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pass this storm. Wish me luck

What makes Malaysian are uniquely Malaysian?

Five years spent in Malaysia, I’ve been adamant to say that I pretty much know what defines truly Malaysian. After all, with the tagline from the tourism board of Malaysia, “Malaysia, truly Asia”, it makes us ponder whether is Malaysia truly Asia? From my observation; these are the unique things that I found out among ‘us’ (Note that by saying us, I do not intend to make a generalization here. When I say ‘us’, the things are commonly applied to a subset of Malaysian that are staying and revolving around my community).

1. Malaysian generally like sweet stuffs. Even when you order teh tarik kurang kurang kurang kurang manis, they will still put a lot of sugar into it. Logically saying, hospital and doctor should be able to reap significant profits operating in Malaysia

2. Mamak is a norm ingrained in every Malaysian. When you wanna hangout with your friends, you’ll go mamak. When you wanna watch football, you’ll go mamak. And when you feel bored and got nothing to do, you’ll also go mamak. No wonder, you can find mamak stalls in every corner in Malaysia.

3. Rojak language is the most commonly used language in Malaysia. The language works by adding every sentence with suffix ‘la’ or ‘ar’. For instance, a question: “Do you want something to drink?” will be usually replied with “No la“. Besides that, the aim of rojak language is to shorten the length of every sentence. For example, instead of saying, “Haven’t seen you for a long time. How have you been?” you’ll say “Long time no see! Ok o not?” or another sentence “Would you want to try some cakes?” is often said “Wan cake o not?”

4. In Indonesia, pedestrians always get a priority in the road. Car needs to be slowed down when there is a pedestrian crossing. However, the same thing does not apply in Melaka (one of the states in Malaysia). Whenever there is a pedestrian crossing, instead of slowing down, every car will race who can hit the pedestrian first. (literally saying!)

5. In terms of time, Malaysian time is infamous for its large elastic force. The force is very elastic as it can be stretched further from its equilibrium position. For example, when someone tells you “Please come at 8.00 pm”, he actually expects you to come at 8.30 pm. Depending on the situation, you can set the coefficients to half an hour or even one hour after the agreed time.

6. Malaysian are also fussy about parking fees. For them, a place that charges parking fees, even it is only 1 bucks, they will consider it as a daylight robbery.

And etcs… (Care to add some more?)

Apart from that, I personally think that Malaysia is a very rich-culture country. Every states in Malaysia are well known for its specialty, be it food or heritage places. For example, Melaka is renowned for its heritage, red houses, baba nyonya food, and chicken rice ball; Ipoh is famous for its chicken rice and bean sprout; Trengganu is famous for its beautiful beach and keropok lekor; Penang is reputable for its char koay teow, hokkien mee, and asam laksa; Muar is famous for its ikan bakar and otak otak and many more.

Furthermore, Malaysia is a widely diverse multiracial country. Indian, Chinese, and Malay have been inhabiting the country since a very long time ago, and yet they have still maintained peace and harmony over the land. My personal experience with racial issue in Malaysia has always been so far so good. During my foundation year of studies, I witnessed how racial integrity is harmoniously ingrained among the staffs and lecturers. This can be seen when Chinese and Malay lecturers are helping Indian lecturers to celebrate their deepavali. They help the Indians to decorate the hall with Deepavali ornaments, prepare the food, etc. Same things goes when Chinese are celebrating their Chinese New Year; Malay and Indian lecturers are unhesitatingly, hand in hand helping Chinese to prepare for the festivities.

As there is a sayings, “birds with same color flock together”, there are always some people who cannot tolerate other races. They like to make an association, like Chinese is often associated with Ah-Long, Malay is associated with lazy and ‘always make excuse’ people, and Indian is associated with labor worker. Nevertheless, I always respect the most people who are doing vice versa. I have some Malay friends who go to Chinese school to learn about Chinese cultures. Some of them even speak better Chinese than Chinese who cannot speak Chinese. I do not blame those Chinese if they do not know how to speak. However, when you do not take initiatives to learn or at least know about your own culture, it is such a disgrace to your own identity. After all, we do not want our next generation do not know how to use chopsticks, do you?

Last but not least, with so much uniqueness about Malaysia, are we still questioning the tagline “Malaysia, truly Asia”? I believe we shall not, as we, human are born imperfect and each one of us has a unique identity that truly makes what he is today

Going to Singapore

Just came back from a short trip to Singapore couple of days ago. The purpose of this trip was to look for accommodation for my future study at here. Not to mention, settle paperwork, meet landlords, view houses, etc. It was kinda tiring and rushing journey for me, as I went there at morning and got to come back at night.

So, “why Singapore?” few of my friends asked. Well, after all according to them, Singaporeans are infamous for their ‘kiasu‘ attitude, impatience, selfishness, always complaint, and the list goes on and on. Well… while I believe not all Singaporeans are like that, I witnessed few of inconsiderate people when I was in Singapore. When I was boarding an MRT train, I saw a young guy sitting at the reserved seat playing his PSP game and there was this old lady, barely able to walk, standing just right beside him. How insensitive and inconsiderate! Nevertheless, what most people often left out is the so called ‘Singaporean attitude’ itself, surprisingly, has propelled the country’s economy farther, generally because it make people always strive better and better. Having said that, there are of course some consequences that arise, i.e. stress of workload and a faster life pace. Do I enjoy living my life at faster pace? Furthermore, I know some Singaporeans that spend their weekend reading books at National Library. Will I be able to follow their lead?

Just few days ago, I had a conversation with Jyh Herng. He told me that I must be feeling excited as I’ll be leaving very soon. Do I feel so? To be honest, this time, I actually don’t feel the adrenaline rush of going. It was more to mix of feelings, to be precise. Maybe, I am already so content with my life here and shifting to a new lifestyle will require time to adapt and sacrifices.

More importantly, the friendships and bonds that have been formed all the while; from all the laughter spent mindlessly at late night Mamak, the usual GoGo Jetty gangs, to the time spent at gym with my gym-mate, will all of them remain as they are? Only time can probably answer that…

A Visit to Stock Broker Office

Last Tuesday, my dad brought me to his broker’s office. Apparently, the broker where my dad used to trade his stocks, is a person working in Trimegah Securities company.

From outside:

I’m quite surprised with the office, as it is quite small in size, has very few computers, yet they handle millions rupiah of transaction everyday.

Situation inside Trimegah Securities, everyone seems to be very anxious:

I found out that they were actually using a financial monitoring software from PT IQ Plus Prima. The software provides real time updates on the price and movement of stocks.

For traders / investors who would like to buy / sell, they can do so by filling in the necessary forms:

Overall, it was a worthwhile experience. It gave me a tremendous exposure over stock trading and analysis. For those who wanted to learn about stocks, I would suggest them to visit stock broker office. Believe me, you can learn a lot from what do you see over there.