bitter it may be

but you should always tell the truth. and here's some tough love for equal-righteous Malaysians out there.

i really don't feel comfortable picking a fight with anyone. especially with strangers who feel the right to voice their opinions out loud. just because they've chosen to let people know, doesn't always mean they are right. or correct.

you talk about unity, about equal rights. i read somewhere that this woman says DrM and UMNO screwed up Tunku Abdul Rahman's concept of unity. well was it different? there was a time before DrM "rules the land", the concept of unity was different?

i don't wanna talk about that because i have no knowledge about it. as far as i'm concern, the concept of unity was more or less, the same. where did it go wrong?

i really, really don't wanna sound like a Malay supremacist (like a white supremacist? i've watched The Help starring the pretty Emma Stone) but if, IF, Malays don't fight for their own ketuanan Melayu in their own Tanah Melayu, who's gonna fight for them? i'm a Malay myself so i sound a little bit supremacist-like now don't i? so how about anyone crack open the book written by Dr. Ridhuan Tee Abdullah Nasib Melayu di Bumi Melayu and then you'll know better. (here's a link, go buy one http://mphonline.com/books/nsearchdetails.aspx?&pcode=9789676124210). as you may have already know, the writer of the book is a Chinese. so there really is no question of Malay-supremacy in his writings. except of course those vicious slanders people say about him - which are ridiculous because hey, he's a Chinese for God sake.

to those who are too lazy to go find the book or have decided in their heads that it's not worth their time, well i'll say it here then.

and now i'm talking directly to the Malays. no i'm not racist. i love my "Malaysian" friends (i can't use the term "races" like "friends from other races" because that woman that i talked about before, she demanded that we use the term "Malaysians" which is fine by me) and i am good friends with some of them. 

we Malays, WE, do not hold this country's ECONOMIC power. ponder on that for a while. 

so if we don't hold POLITICAL power, what do we have then?

(this is the 'tough love' part) we have to realize straight up that the Chinese are holding the economic power of this country. and we have to realize that with the economic power, they can bring the whole country down if they want to. just think of one day of Chinese New Year when all the business owned by the Chinese closed down. it's a ghost town from i where i came from. and i live in a town where the Malays are the majority of the population. that is saying something.

just...what is us without politics? i'm going to have to ask you to look at the Malays in Singapore. i don't know about you but i know Singapore was a setting for a lot of allahyarham Tan Sri P. Ramlee's movies. surely that means Singapore was majorly populated by Malays? so..umm... where are they now? never heard a Malay is the Prime Minister for Singapore. it's been three Chinese from the first prime minister and they are all from the same party. nobody gives a rat's ass.

it's simple logic. i don't even know a lot about what's going on in Singapore and i can make that connection.  

i want Malaysians to unite, i do. to become one. to have all Malaysians speak PERFECT Malay and no discrimination between the races. like how the Chinese in Indonesia doesn't call themselves "Chinese", they call themselves "Indonesians". or the Chinese in Thailand too. 

why haven't we been able to be totally, unequivocally united?  

let me ask (anyone who read this) something that has been bugging me for a few months already:

why do we still have vernacular school? i'm a future teacher so i know for a fact that vernacular schools still exist. sure the name is not "vernacular" anymore (like when we were under British's colonization), it's "Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan @ SJK". we are the ONLY COUNTRY in the WORLD which still has different school for different races. that's a bit racist don't you think? is it the government which is still very much discriminating the races by segregating the schools?

NO. or else we wouldn't have the word "kebangsaan" in every school's name. we would only have "sekolah rendah"s and "sekolah menengah"s (primary and secondary school, respectively).  

truth is, if we want to be united, we should start early. from the very start of life. you say we are not united as one? try and unite our schools first, then we can talk. 

p/s: i am not saying that the government is 100%, all-time correct on their track record. i mean come on, this year's independence day theme? it's a bad joke. among other things. 

what happened last thursday

okay so last thursday, i went to that big hall of ours because of the ERIP (ekspo reka cipta & inovasi?) and seminars for our semester 8-ers and me, as an avid photographer (and also, a KSM-sniper) went snapping pictures here and there at the event.

and then there was this Dr. Zailah (philosophy, not medical) giving a very interesting speech and from what i can gather from my friends, she was awesome. well it's not like i wasn't in the hall, i was at back of the hall so i couldn't hear very well. and also, i was talking to classmate/fellow sniper, adzim.

and boy did adzim clarified something to me!

there's this guy, that one of my girlfriends, hidayah, has had a crush on since forever. so i started taking his pictures covertly (using adzim as a decoy, haha!) and afterwards, sighing contentedly; "so...handsome.." (with droopy eyes and all). adzim was mimicking vomiting - as what normal guys should do (i only have my two brothers as a reference for what normal guys do =.=)

here comes the important part of the story:
and suddenly, adzim asked me.
"if he's handsome, then how about X?"
i was taken aback. i was like, no adzim. why would you ask such question?
(background info: i used to text X all the time, and then suddenly we stopped so i thought the rumours would just flew by)
then i said to adzim.
"what about him? he doesn't even like me." (okay, that escalated quickly. haha.)

adzim's face turned serious. like i was telling something wrong and he's about to correct me.

"hey. he admitted differently to me recently."

as usual, my reaction to these kind of statement was calling the bearer of the news a liar and proceed saying he's/she's lying for a few minutes. after adzim swore, (okay, i wrote he swore to God but that sounds wayy serious so i backspaced) i fell silent. adzim teased me for like 10 seconds and then he stopped.

on a totally different time and setting after that, adam asked me:

"if you know that someone is secretly admiring you, would you go for it?"

that was a very heavy question. truth is, i don't know. what should i go for adam? honestly, there has always been one guide from Ayah regarding such matters and i haven't been able to use it (i think i've wrote it in this blog somewhere).

Ayah told me:
"if there ever comes a time when a gentleman approaches you, tell him that you still have Ayah and Ma, alive and well. tell him, if he's really serious, then come see Ma and Ayah. you are still ours - me and your Ma. we are your guardians thus it is only appropriate if one wants the key to have you, one should come to us."
(okay obviously my Ayah doesn't speak english all that well. i paraphrased him. he told me this guide in our mother-tongue of course, silly you.)

so adam, that's the answer to your question. and the situation has never been "a gentleman approaches.." so, the guide has never been used. squeaky-clean, sparkling, new. not even out of the plastic-wrapper yet. i am still waiting for someone to make me get the guide out of the box.

my recent assignment

from  redribbonboutique.blogspot.com

to start off, let me just say that i am, for most of the time, doesn't do well as a leader. sad but true. but there have been a couple of times when people ask me to lead and when they do, i take my responsibility seriously. even if people don't think that i do (okay, not the same group of people who appointed me leader, obviously).

i'm rambling.

okay. so, over a month ago, the lecturer of one of my subject (let's call the subject Sounds & How to Make It) appointed me as one of the group leaders for his assignment. i was surprised - i was not the brightest in his class but he chose me anyway. i was fine with it but then comes the time to find my group members. i needed 3 people under me (because the lect said so) and so i was taking it slow.

but suddenly, no one is available anymore. even my closest friends (backstabbing people, they are. which is why they are my best friend ^_^) were already in other people's groups. so i was forced to find whoever's left and have them to become my group members. after much talk and discussions later, i had three people in my group. i like all three of them. yeay me!

so we went on doing the assignment. the process took over several months but i think we did great and we managed to submit it on time.

just one little thing i'd like to write here so that someday, if people do this to me again, i'd remember. and i'd hold myself taller and stronger.

let's call my group members A, B and C.

i asked A, "should we do just one reflection, or four reflections; one for each of us?"
A said, "let's have four. i'll ask B and C to write theirs down and attach it to your Facebook chat."
then i said okay.

then they attached it to me. later, i found out that our lect didn't want four, he just wanted one reflection. but since everybody's wrote down their, i decided to combine all four reflections into one.

i read B's reflection. it was fine. like mine and A's.
then i read C's reflection.
my heart stopped a bit. (a little pun here for you pun-lovers out there ^_^)
C said this, in the reflection;

"at the beginning, there was a bit of an unfairness of difficulty of work which threatened the very foundation of teamwork"
&
"i suggest a different CHAIRPERSON next time which can encourage teamwork"
(a bit broken but i think what C's trying to say is that i'm not a good enough leader, in a few ways)

i literally wrote the whole report (the assignment) with A. the report wasn't an easy one. i had to scour the internet like i haven't met the internet before. i had to read research after research, journal after journal, work into the wee hours of the night just because of the report. i came up with an invention based on the report (which A helped polished it up after that). i cannot stress it enough that the report literally AGED me a little bit (wow i use a lot of "literally" =.=). that's how tense the report is.

and C was saying that i'm not good enough?

i cried so hard after reading C's reflection that my head seemed to hurt. i have never received criticism that careless, that thoughtless before. what if i didn't read the reflection beforehand? what if i've send that? our lect will probably give me a lower mark based on that reflection.

A calmed me down and i told her my room-mate suggested we do a whole new reflection and A agreed. so we did (well, B did) a new reflection and everything stays between us. until now.

i guess the moral is, sometimes it doesn't matter how much work you do - people give you crap anyway. you know it, Allah knows it. that's all that matters.