Mars is in the Sky!

Wow! Did you see it? It was so bright! The biggest star in the sky! Wow! Oh, there was also another star near it which was also quite bright but wasn’t as bright as Mars! I missed the last time Mars was closest to Earth, but now they said that Mars is even closer to Earth than the last, means that this time the star is brighter than the last! Yay! They also said that the next time Mars will be this close is in another 270 years later!! So people, if you missed it, you’ve missed it! Well, it’s still not too late because tomorrow it’ll still be there but it’ll be smaller than today. It won’t just come and go in just a night rite? It’ll gradually come and go.

Well, unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to show you for those who missed it. Well, maybe you can go on the internet to NASA.com to check it out. I’m sure they have better footage of the phenomenon which is even clearer and better than what the naked eye can see. Anywayz, don’t miss it! You still can make it tomorrow night, just pray that the sky will be as clear as tonight. It’s a once in a lifetime thing so don’t miss it!

Are Internet Filters Efficient?

Well, first thing is that I think that internet filters are too efficient. Their role is to block out internet pornography, vulgar use of words and unhealthy websites that may pose a threat by collapsing our morality standards. Well, it’s good to filter off that stuff for the better of the next generation but however, internet filters have out done themselves. They are not only filtering out those unhealthy stuff but they are also filtering out those websites that pose no threat to the user at all!

Just think of Google.com and think of pornography? Do they match? Well, besides the use of searching for porn for some people, Google.com and pornography doesn’t match at all! Google.com is such an important search engine that without it, the World Wide Web would come to a stand still! Google.com is vital for us college students to complete our research assignments and to search for more information to extend our general knowledge about everything besides pornography. To block it out from access to all college students will be a disaster. Assignments will not be completed and the general population of the college will not be able to gain more knowledge involuntarily.

Another point, think Blogger.com and pornography? Do they match? Well, Blogger.com definitely has no connection whatsoever to pornography in the entire sanely civilized modern world of technology! No no no!!! This is definitely something wrong. Something fishy is going on here. It’s either the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Department of Taylor’s College has bias emotions towards bloggers or they are just plain dumb. We are refrained from accessing Blogger.com for the same reason as to access Google.com. What are they thinking?!

Well, I went to the ICT Department the other day and complained about this outrage and well, they did solve the Google.com problem but they still haven’t re-established our access to Blogger.com. Well, it’s obvious that they aren’t so keen to see college students blogging out their opinions on the web to let the whole world know what they are thinking.

Internet filters are just plain junk. They are there just to annoy college users like me to refrain me from using websites that can help me finish my assignments and expressing my opinions to a large audience. To the dust pots with your filters!

Even “Fresher” Air

Finally, clear crystal blue skies! Yay! No more choking haze from our ignorant neighbour, Indonesia. It really poured buckets yesterday. It rained like cats and dogs for like almost 2 hours. And the haze is gone! All gone! But until the fires in Indonesia is fully put out, the haze will continue to come over to pay us a visit. But thank goodness again, the winds has change their direction and now it’s blowing all the haze away! The Klang Valley is now free from smelly haze. No more State of Emergency. 3 yays for mother nature!!! Now I can continue walking to college, no more suffocating mornings where to even breath increases the chances of dying.

Anyways, now peace has descended upon Klang Valley and the people has been blessed with fresh air and running water! No more haze, no more suffocation, no more drought, no more water rationing, no more emergencies. It seems that Malaysia is truly a blessed country. We are in the middle of all disasters e.g. volcanoes, typhoons, earthquakes etc and we are safe from all of them. Well except the Dec 26 2004 tsunami that landed in Penang and Kedah. Well, that’s pretty minor. So yay again for mother nature! Peace out!

Fresh Air From Our Neighbour

Recently many Malaysians living in the West Coast area of Peninsula Malaysia has been greatly irritated by our neighbour country over the straits. Reported in the papers were 50 hot spots in Sumatra mainly in Riau. Thank goodness the peat fire in Cyberjaya has been successfully put out by our brave fire fighters from Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Bandar Tasik Selatan and Petaling Jaya. Now only the Indonesian side is full of hot spots. 50 hot spots! Imagine that. Even one hot spot in Cyberjaya is already more than enough of problems in the country. Imagine 50 of these Cyberjaya hot spots! Some off them are even bigger than the Cyberjaya fire.

Today, August 9th 2005, was a wonderful day to start off. In the morning with the morning dew cleaning up the haze blown here the day before from Sumatra. A slight breeze to blow away some dust in the area. When the clock hits 12pm, noon, in came the thick haze! White clouds of smoke floating around carrying the stinging stench of smoke. At first it wasn’t so bad because we were in an enclosed class, but soon after that, the stench slowly began to seep into the air-conditioning system and the whole class started to stink. It was suffocating! It “took our breaths away”. Our throats began to dry up, our laryx becoming stiff and rough. It was like second hell in class!

I can’t imagine if all of us people are exposed to this quality of air for long periods of time. This reminds me of the 1997 haze strike that plagued the whole country including the Borneo states. It was terrible, classes were cancelled in some places, physical exercise classes were cancelled for all schools, break time is shortened to make sure students return to class earlier. Everything came to a stand still during that period of crisis. This time, it seems that this time of crisis is repeating itself again. I also don’t understand some youngsters nowadays. I know they love to sit outside a mamak stall to have their teh tarik and kopi, but looking at the haze condition now in the country, they still want to sit in the open air to breath in the “fresh” air. Exposure to this quality of air can cause lung cancer and I’m so sure that almost 80% of them do not realize they are putting their lives in jeopardy just to sit outside the mamak stall and to be seen by all passer-bys. It seems that attention is more important than health for some groups of people.

Well, all we can do now is just to stay indoors and curse those Indonesian to death because they are burning more and more forest despite the haze condition they are causing in the South East Asian region. Curse those uncivilized Indonesians!

Unfairness of Our “Fair” Government

Today, one of my college lecturer has brought up an issue that I wanted to blog about but forgotten. So here I am now, blogging about it. From the title above, you might have a clue about what I am going to talk about but to those that never update themselves with the traditional newspaper reading sessions that is supposed to be routine for everyone, then you might be a little blur or even have no clue what I’m going to blog about.

So here it goes to those that update themselves routinely with the newspaper. I;m sure the Ayah Pin issue in the country has become the talk of many after the Approved Permit issue. This so called “cult” organization which is unrecognized by the government has definitely attracted much of our attention. It’s leader recognized by the make Ayah Pin has created a revolutionary idea of a new religious group, named Sky Kingdom, that has emphasis on religious integration of all religions. This religious group has held visits to Batu Caves during Thaipusam to climb the gruelsome 200 over step with thousands of Hindus. Visits to churches and temples were also made in previous years. This is definitely a very good thought of him to visit other places of worship. This definitely can create better racial integration between all races in the country.

However, the government sees this religious group as a cult and orders all activities to be put to a halt and the organization to be abolished. The Sky Kingdom has a sanctuary built in Kelantan. It consists of a large oversized teapot that “pours” water into another oversized vase. There are also other structures like the umbrella, well and many more that has its own significance. Unfortunately, the government has deployed demolition companies to demolish the site to ruins.

Okay… Here’s the issue. In a democratic country like Malaysia, we emphasize on human rights and freedom. One of our rights is the freedom to embrace any religion that a person desires and have faith in. So what is wrong for followers to follow Ayah Pin’s teachings of religious integration and a different way of worshiping Islam. Even we Christians have many branches that worships God in many different ways. We have the Catholics which is the main stream Christian, and then we have the Protestants that branches off into many smaller branches. There’s the Charismatic, Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, Orthodox and many more. So Ayah Pin’s Sky Kingdom is just another branch of Islamic teachings.

Although, I am no Muslim, I have a view that Sky Kingdom is not a cult organization. A religious group only is considered cult when it teaches everything opposite of the original teachings of their Holy book. As to my knowledge, Sky Kingdom doesn’t teach it’s followers to kill people unlike the Al-Qaeda, it doesn’t teach it’s followers to go againts other Islamic groups. I do not see the Sky Kingdom as a threat to National Security.

Therefore, my conclusion is that the government is not being fair to its people. Actually, the government has never been fair to people that aren’t the same skin colour as them. Racial discrimination is a big problem although we do not see it so obviously. There are many unwritten rules that discriminate the non-bumiputras of the country. These rules are not listed down in the Constitution neither it is listed down in Law books, however, many bumiputras that has the power enforces those rules within their “territory”.

What is the government doing? Taking away our rights to freedom of embracing religion? Then how can we call our country a democratic country. This country is better off a totalitarian country. Even the ISA? What is that doing in a democratic country like ours? It should only exist in a dictatorship country which was former Iraq. ISA! Taking away our rights to defend ourselves from being accused guilty of a National Security crime. Even the “special rights of the Malays” is considered a so called “sensitive issue”. They know, they know that they can’t survive without those special rights given to them. We Chinese and Indians have been able to survive under those ridiculous special rights given to the Malays. We work hard and every Ringgit earned is a drop of sweat from hard labour and work.

They should know better that Malaysia wouldn’t be the Malaysia we see today if it weren’t for the existence of the Chinese and Indians and the occupation of the British. There would be no Petronas Twin Towers, there would be no Kuala Lumpur International Airport, there would be no Putrajaya if it wasn’t or the hard work and huge amounts of contributions made by the Chinese and Indians and past British rulers. Even now, whatever we (the Chinese and Indians) have done is not appreciated by them. They just sit there in their luxurious offices, resting their legs on the table while “money” from uncertain places keeps flowing into the pocket while we are outside in the hot sun working our souls out of ourselves.

Why? Why? Ask yourselves why. Our Prime Minister has always said that our government is transparent and clean. Well, it seems that he is kind of blind not to see what is “actually” happening in the country or he is just lying to us and the world to keep our country’s name clean.

Slang, Accent, Colloquialism

Today, I’ve just done my listening comprehension. It was horrible! Out of 12 questions I could only answer 3! OMG! This is horrible! Terrible! Vegetable! From the title above, I think all you readers know what I’m going to talk about next. Slang! Accent! Colloquialism!

The guy talking in the cassette was horrible. I think if I was his examiner for his oral test, I would give him a 2 out of 10 for is coherency and pronunciation. It was terrible. Not a single word was understandable! However, I am just a student and have no power to express my opinion on these little things that usually make us fail our papers.

Usually after or while listening to the comprehension, we have blanks to fill out on a piece of paper given to us. There is one obvious thing I noticed after many experiences with those annoying unclear cassettes. Everytime when the person reading out approaches a blank where we are supposed to listen attentively to fill up the blank, the person reading it will rush through the word so that we are not able to catch the word quick enough. Yesterday, in one practice, the was one word that the whole class couldn’t catch for the first time. After the second time listening to it, we still couldn’t catch what that dumb short tongue guy is talking or mumbling! He was like reading the script like a speeding train rushing across a wide flat field without any obstacles like full stops or commas.

I know, I know, English doesn’t originate from Malaysia but, in my opinion, I think that those people that gives their voice for recording for international students to sit a listening comprehension, at least talk properly. Talk clearly, talk coherently, talk fluently, and talk as if you are fluent in English if you aren’t. Pronounce properly. Yesterday, the word lyricism sounded like literalism. People like the Irish, Australians and Scots have terrible incomprehensible slang that is never understood by anyone outside their country. Even those people in Malaysia can speak better and clearer although we have broken English. At least we speak clearly so that everyone can hear and process what we’ve just said better.

Shame on you people! Can’t even speak proper English and call yourselves an English speaking country. I think that status of English speaking country should be removed and replaced by incomprehensible spoken English speaking country! At least the Americans have done something to make their English more “legible” in every way.