Thinking Aloud

Happy Merdeka day!

Hope today will be a day we all remember why we call ourselves Malaysians..

Haha, typing this out in the graduates student lounge.

I’m reminded that today’s Monday, and I have a long week ahead of me.

I’m pretty sure that most people will have heard of the infamous incident of a certain son-in-law being, unfortunately, extra candid concerning his sentiments towards the the Chinese community.

Mr. Khairy Jamalludin is either an idiot or being very malicious.  

It was reported that he said that UMNO must stay united (obviously referring to the current spat between his father-in-law and former PM, Tun Dr. Mahathir), otherwise the Chinese community would take advantage of the situations to make demands that would undermine the Malay community. He quoted two examples: one concerning the Siqiu incident and the more recent memorandum submitted by non-malay ministers to the PM.

I have several observations to make.

Firstly, the talk about racial unity and like is rather farce. It is often people like this, highly public figures making this sort of uncalled for statements that show to our children, that it is ok to cast a racial slur against one another. It is unfortunate that this happened in the public light, but much much more of this kind of slurring occurs on a day-to-day basis, in mamak shops and kopitiams. More is true, it happens in homes. This is racism: When a Chinese teaches his father that his children are victims in Malaysia because of bumiputra special rights, and conversely when a Malay father blames his economic state on the predetory Chinese.

Secondly, it is very sad, that Mr. KJ does not see the wrongness of his statement. To be fair, he is under a lot of stress. A slip of a toungue is not uncommon. There is a harsh streak of unfairness here. When the nine cabinet ministers presented their memorandum, a huge uproar was caused. They retracted the memo and life went on. Now retracting a memo is something akin to an apology: A racant of your original position.

Unfortunately here, I have yet to see him apologize. No, all he did was claim he was misunderstood. (So much in common with Noh Omar). And thats what he did, claim he was misunderstood and hide behind his Pemuda Chief. It seems to me that in M’sian society, we have seen this kind of things all to often. Verbal bullies, taunting us making all sort of uncalled for remarks and hurting our feelings finally getting away with it because it is short of libel and just saying, "Oh, I was misunderstood." We have become so dead to this. All we can do is simmer inside. There is no accountability now in the public sphere, people can say what they want and when things churn a little, just say, "I was misunderstood."

Concluding, as they say, friends protect friends. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. KJ has done nothing criminally wrong so to speak. But certainly he has hurt feelings, it seems to me that the consensus within the BN party is that the status quo must stay as it is. Never mind one or two idiots who make stupid statements, let’s just pretend it never happened. " Oh, what if the people don’t vote for us the next time." " No, lar…we always win wan, nevermind-lah."

What is BN? This is not the spirit of give and take. If people can say, UMNO is the backbone of BN, this is not the spirit of give and take, this is bulldozing. This is political blackmail.  This is a true example of one particular political party holding a country hostage just to stay in power. This is an example of freeloaders, lazy politicians who pillion ride on the hard work of their friends who are trying to make M’sia a better country.

Sick, that’s what this is, sick… 

I can say to myself, "I’ve stepped into the YST Conservatory of Music."

Attended one of their noontime recitals at the recital studio. It was actually quite well attended. Latecomers had to stand.

One thing I observed is that the music school might as well be renamed PRC School of Music. I mean there’s PRC students all over the place. Indeed, more than Singaporeans I think.

But what about the performance itself.

It was good that’s for sure. I was treated to a Mozart, some in-house composition and the Paganini. Boy, these people are skillful. The Mozart was light, warm and tastefully played. Then there was a flautist who performed a rather strange song, very atmospheric with an almost primal quality about it. But of course the encore of the performance was the Paganini. Dazzling.

The noontime recitals are a weekly affair, I think. Next weeks one will be at the concert hall, so that’s great. Will see what they’re gonna put up.  

I really pissed. Someone stole my slippers.

Sure it wasn’t some $15 Ripcurl sandals or something like that. It was just some cheap bathroom flip-flops that happened to have a very attractive color.

Liddat oso want to snatch a!

Wahlau man, beh tahan liao! There’s really no hope for the human race.  

Nicholas told me that I’m starting to look more like my thesis supervisor.

Just because I wore a shirt to school!!

What’s next, ppl will be plucking white hair out of my head. 

Back to school tomorrow.

The only difference is that I don’t get the luxury of waking up late and going back home when I feel like it. Not that’s there’s a card we need to punch in or something like that, but there are things to learn and stuff to do.

Heck, one of my lecturers has actually assigned homework liao.

Still, my stipend is conditional on my results. Slacking is definately no-no now. Getting bad grades is NOT an option anymore.  

But for the love of numbers…its well worth the hardwork and stress.  

Finally…let the picture speak a thousand words.

It may not be so clear, but the words read…Best Float Design 

Invited the old Cfers over to my place for dinner and fellowship. Let the pictures do the talking.

Faith, Lydia and Joshua digging in, apparently enjoying the food…

and faith scrunching up her face, thinking, "Is U-Liang trying to make me gain weight with this food?"

But the doctors disagree, all smiles…

And this is what I cooked up.

I’m stepping out of my comfort zone here.

I’m planning on taking Grad Analysis, Algebraic Topology and Logic.

Shoot me please, I need to wake up already.  

I want Jamie Oliver to be my father!

Wahlau, just looking at his cooking makes my mouth water.  

I am now officially a graduate student.

But I feel damn slack leh… 

Haha, will be posting some thing related to mathematics soon. For my indulgence of course…