Upaya VS Kurang Upaya

My office has moved, from MIDF Building to Menara Yayasan Tun Razak.

I used to take the Putra LRT all the way to Ampang Park Station. After 5 minutes of walking I would be clocking in at office.

Now I take the bus from my area to KL Sentral. Then take the Monorel to Raja Chulan station or sometimes Bukit Bintang, then walk 15 to 25 minutes to my office. Honestly, I don’t mind the walking. Thanks to Walkman, the walk is made pleasurable with the entertainment MP3 provides. Some days I hum to the tune of Jamal Abdillah, sometimes Frank Sinatra. Dolly Parton gets to sing once in a while. Tum-di-dum-dum, I don’t mind the walking. At least, not yet. Wait till I turn as big as a whale, maybe I will start bitching about it. Right now, at sea-lion size, I am still ok.

The ride to work, however is the source of my pain now.

It is not Rapid KL busses and it is not the Monorel train either.

It is the people in it. Well okaylah, not all of them, some of them.

At 4-months, I am already showing. Nothing fits and so, even at such early stage of pregnancy, I am already wearing table cloth to work. I am like .. huge, okay? You cant look at me and not know that I am pregnant. Most people think I am at least 6 months pregnant. THAT big. However, despite all the obvious signs, even when I shove my belly underneath the noses of some people, I still get ignored and don’t get that seat.

The moment I walk in into the bus/monorel, the seated ones would feign sleep, or will suddenly produce bottles of minyak kapak or minyak german and start rubbing it down their necks like their very life depend on it. Some rude-hard-core ones would just stare at my tummy like it is most polite for them to sit there staring while letting me stand.

Okay lah, maybe I am not so kurang upaya as I’d like people to think me. But take this: one day, I had to stand for some long minutes before I finally get to sit. Then along came a mother carrying a little baby, and guess who gave up her seat for the mom-child? Me. Others just look away. The next day, the same thing happened; only it was a father with a child. This morning, standing in the bus quite a distance away from where I stood, was this blind lady, who was also so very old. Nobody gave a hoot.

Where are our manners? Lost in space?

Many times, especially on the days when my tummy feels painfully heavy, tight and uncomfortable (from overeating, hehehe), I look at the headachy/sleepy girls and pray that when it is their time to be pregnant, they’ll have varicose veins the size of coconut tree snaking around their legs. And to the macho-macho man, I wish on them that one day their pregnant wives will come home to them all cranky, tired and ever-ready to bite the husbands head off from having to stand in a crowded bus/monorel. Err... by the way, have i told you that i hail from Kota Tinggi? Where sumpahan can last as long as 7 generations?

So tak baik of me, I know. But I am cranky and tired and kurang upaya, remember?

Kera, Ular, Tikus, Anjing dan Dinosaur.

Di Korea. Batu ini dipanggil 'Peanut Dinosaur'. Mungkinkah namanya di salah-eja?

Kata 'host' kami, kalau pegang bahagian atas, nanti dapat anak lelaki. Pegang yang bawah, dapat anak perempuan. Saya tak pegang langsung.

Di Kluang, sehari sebelum Raya. Abang ipar beli juadah ini - nasi periuk kera- untuk berbuka. Ya, puan-puan, kalau periuk manusia dah hangus terbakar ke, kita boleh juga menggunakan periuk kera untuk tanak nasi.

Di kampung Yamtuan pada hari raya kedua.
Ular ni bersembunyi di celah-celah timbunan kayu api Omak. Ketika terusik, dia berbunyi macam anjing tersepit. Memang Yamtuan dengan iparnya mula-mula tu ingatkan ada anjing dalam longgok kayu api tu. Kalau ular boleh buat Yamtuan lompat jauh, anjing boleh buat dia lompat halangan sambil berlari. Di Kampung Talang, ular species ni dikenali sebagai Ular Tikus. Mungkin lepas ni ia akan dipanggil Ular Anjing.

Hang Ka Sawan?

Di wajahmu ku lihat bulan
bersembunyi di sudut kerlingan
Sadarkah tuan kau ditatap insan
yang hauskan belaian

Di wajahmu ku lihat bulan
menerangi hati gelap rawan
Biarlah beta mencari naungan
di wajah damai rupawan

Serasa tiada jauh dan mudah dicapai tangan
Ingin hati menjangkau, kiranya tinggi di awan

Di wajahmu ku lihat bulan
yang mengintai di balik senyuman
Jangan biarkan ku tiada berkawan
Hamba selalu menantikan

Singer(s): S.Effendi then Hetty Koes Endang


Oody the Hangkasawan Negeri - floating in the gravity-less chamber.

I have written about my fascination with the moon some time back. Our ehem.. hero, Dr Sheikh didnt exactly go to the moon but he was near enough there (plus good looking enough) to make the whole country goes over the moon for him (a friend at the office even had a dream about her and Dr.S honeymooning on the moon.. oooooohhhhh, naughty naughty).

It is wonderful that we can put our flag beside the likes of Russia and USA. It is wonderful that we too, a puny-sized country like Malaysia can send a man to space and back again. It is especially wonderful that we can spin a gasing and play batu seremban, plus eat satay and briyani in space. What a feat!

My only leeetle complaint is this, we could have sent someone to space, as a tourist, for 20mill - only a fraction of the cost we spent on Dr.S. We could send 10 men/women to space with that money! (If we have room, maybe we can even send that friend of mine to space together with Dr.S. If anything, the Projek Angkasawan Negara taught us that, dreams CAN come true, kan?)

And the experiments? Protein crystallisation in gravity-less condition has been done since what... 1970s? With the money, we could have spent it building a gravity-less chamber/room/lab to carry many more important experiments. Many more spinning tops and batu seremban of whatever type of batu you can think of.

And that wonderful invention of space-food? Err... where exactly is the market? There are how many trips to space conducted in a year? And the space travellers are not all exactly malays, indians and arabs who might fancy briyanis and satays, yes?

Like i said earlier, i too had goosebumps watching the rocket took off. I too had my ego swelled up to have a fellow rakyat in space, but there are a lot more important researches that the country needs, i think. We dont quite have the resources to carry out R&Ds that dont help generate income. We cant afford to carry out R&D just for the sake of ego, or to satisfy an itch. We cant afford to reinvent the wheel just to show that we can too.

But then again, that's why i am where i am today. Not in the seat of decision makers, because i dont have big vision and foresight. Oh well..

Anyways, the Quranic point of view on space sciences can be watched on video here.

Things that are good-to-have but I wish you never have-to-use

Pepper sprays
I am on to my third pepper spray now. The first two had exceeded their expiry date, I never used any one of them. I carry my third pepper spray in my knapsack all the time, If ever the need to use it arises, I will have to tell the attacker to wait-a-sec-please while I rummage through my black-hole of a bag to retrieve the lethal weapon. In the meantime? He (assuming the baddies are always men) could just sit there finishing a cigarette. Once the spray is found – if it is possible at all – how to use it is another story altogether. Theoretically I know how but in practice I have never tried it. One thing for sure is he must bend a bit so the spray would be at the same level as his face. If he could squat for me, better, so I can spray into his eyes. The instruction label says I need to check for the direction of the wind too because we don’t want to spray at him only to have the wind redirect all the pepper energy back to me. Oh, that reminds me, I should perhaps tie a ribbon to the spray so when I hold it up, I can see where the wind is blowing. So if the ribbon moves to the right, wind is in THAT direction, so I should move the assailant to the… left, right? Aiyohh…. So susah this left-right business! I long for a just word where there is neither leftist nor rightist, where even left is right and right is right where it should be, on the left.
One kid I know (son of a colleague) used a pepper spray on his arm pit as deodorant. The effect? Persistent crying and the sudden inability to put the arms down. Smells god-awful too. The effect lasted for days! That boy, will never grow up to be a crook, that I am pretty sure of. He would never want to be at the receiving end of a pepper spray.
May you and me never need to use pepper sprays. Keep safe, ya?

Air bags
I have never and probably would never test drive a car. Many times though I have test-ride a car. (Yes, you out there, the one making faces. I still don’t have a driver’s license. I did say that I’ll get it this year and hey, it is only October. Patience, my friends, patience.) Anyways, every time I test ride friends’ new cars I would ask them to ‘let’s try your air bags’. They always said no. Chicken. My friends all come from the happy poultry farm, what can I say. Birds of the same feather are all chicken.
But unless intended, no, I wish you’ll never have to activate your air bags. Drive safely, ya?

Fire extinguishers
Remove pin, direct at base of fire and press nozzle or something like that. The instruction sounds wonderfully simple. I have tried the powder type during one fire drill. It wasn’t as wonderfully simple as the instruction. I have sat through many fire drill exercises; saw many friends and foe alike tried their hands on the fire extinguishers. Some could never make it work. Some could manage to spray but the fire didn’t get put out. Success rate I estimate to be maybe 50% only. How leh, Mr Fireman Sam?
May non-fireman like you and me never have to use the fire extinguisher, ever.
Jangan main api dan jangan main mercun tanpa pengawasan orang dewasa yang boleh diharap. 15 tahun belum dikira dewasa ya. Adakala, 40 tahun pun belum dewasa. Atau tak boleh diharap. Terutama, hal bermain dengan bahan letupan ni. Kemain suka dia!

50% discount voucher for sex change surgery
Hehehe.. Must you? I hope never. 50% discount does sound like a good deal but, you were made the way you were for a season. Oops, for a reason..
I had a chat with this one guy once. He is a big man, towering over me like KLCC over Maxis Tower. Huge. And he was lamenting how girls always get it easier than guys. Show a bit of skin, wear an extra inch of make-up, lace the smile with extra sugar and honey-butter each words uttered, you might just get that job. But he said, if he were to come home one day in a sari, the wife would probably smother him dead with a chapatti. I thought he was funny. I told him point-blank that I really truly don’t think he would look nice in saris. In fact I think it would be horrifying. He had to agree.

Talak
You know the compulsory kursus kahwin we were all made to attend? Two lonnng days, on a weekend too, aiyoyoh…. Anyways, an ustaz told us in one of the sessions that, honeymoon IS a necessity.
He said, a few years down the road when the going starts getting tougher and tougher and you somehow have stopped communicating with your spouse (for whatever reason), go open up your honeymoon album and look back at that smiling couple. You were in love with him/her once, weren’t you? You were crazy for him/her! Everything about him/her was once adorable if not super. What happened? That fire couldn’t just simply sizzle out, could it? For those happy moments frozen in Timex, captured by Konica, printed on Kodak, wouldn’t you want to put in more effort? By listening, empathising, trying to understand and finally agree on a ‘pelan damai’ with a set goal in mind? Small achievable and measurable milestones, and the commitment to see the plan through. Don’t try to save the marriage for the kids, do it for you. It is not fair to put the burden of your marriage on them kids. You don’t want to one day turn to them and say, ‘I suffered many years of your father just for you and this is what I get?’ when the kid comes home with all Ds for her PMR. Not fair, kan? Try. Even Berlin wall came down!
Unless you have really tried and all you could see was mountain-high walls worse than China wall and Berlin wall and more formidable than Pudujel wall put together, so impossible to scale, break or go around, I hope you will never have to use the talak on your spouse.

Amin.

Pengakuan Saya

I hereby testify that Sony Ericsson phone Model cikai W700i is sturdy and rugged.

I have subjected the poor phone to freezing environment (in the fridge) for more than 6 hours and throughout the torture, it vibrated and rang and received sms-es just fine. After it was rescued, it perspired a bit, turned cold on me but functioned better than dysfunctional me.

I strongly recommend the phone to the old and forgetful or anyone with small kids.

Aku dan Kenangan

Sunyi dan sepi,
Tiada bintang yang berkelipan dilangit yang biru
Tiada kawan untuk ku berkata-kata dan bersenda
Ku nanti dikau,
Dengan harapan yang penuh kasih tak ternilai rasa
Akhirnya yang aku nantikan tak kunjung tiba

Tiada kata tiada pesan untukku yang engkau tinggalkan, sayang
Menghilangkan diri tanpa pesan ku ditinggal
Pada siapa harus ku bertanya pada bulan atau angin lalu
Dimanakah kini kau berada, kasih

Tersenyum aku sambil menitiskan air mata mengenangkan dikau
Yang tinggal hanya gambar jua tandamata dan kenangan
Tiada terduga yang ini harus akan terjadi dimalam begini
Mungkinkah kita kan bersua lagi





Hari Raya 2006