Crap

I know this is old, but the information minister's interview with al-jazeera reminded me of another interview, this time, by Miss Teen South Carolina 2007, Caitlin Upton

Enjoy!!



Bimbo all the way!!

Watch and Learn II

Again, we watch, we learn.



Even as a Kelantan born and speaking person, I can't make out the shouts and screams of the YB Dato' Nozula Mat Diah. Professional la skit kite ni... Aiyoo!!

p/s: Good for Datu' Ramzi for his part in stopping the fight. He's the only person in the video I recognize.

Apaaaakah? (dgn nada qayyum)

No offence, q. main2 je..

But seriously, somethings are really out of hand now.

I was shocked, like everybody else, when I checked my bank account last Monday and found out that our generous government gave us a hefty allowance of $1336.90. Wow!! What an increase!

But let's not get too carried away yet!

I later found out that our scholarship was upgraded to $835.oo from the original $660+. But here's the catch. From now on, (like mentioned previously) there would be no more 60/40 policy, i.e, we would be paying our housings ourselves! And according to the vanderbilt website, the estimated housing cost for a student is $3,728, which makes it approximately $900+ monthly. Thus, mathematically, our monthly scholar isn't even enough to pay for housing, let alone for food and everything! Adding spice to that, students with meal plan would have to pay $400+ for their food. Kalau boleh petik duit dari pokok, senanglaa.

So, hopefully, our kind, generous, and RATIONAL government would rethink the idea of demolishing the 60/40 policy. It'll benefit everyone!

Watch and Learn

I remember the TPM's wife, Rosmah saying something like don't believe the things that are in the internet. They are all false. But when I look at an actual video footage, if anything, it's trust worthy.



I don't know about you guys, but this is so ridiculous. I feel like biting the guys head off!

English Havoc for minister

OK, despite the chaos of 11/10, I am not here to condemn the Malaysian government, nor it's policies. I'm sure many have done that already, and plus, me condemning the government now is (for me) not a situation I dare put myself in.

My friend showed me this video on YouTube. It's an amateur TV recording of an interview between the Information Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Zainuddin Maidin and Al-Jazeera. Enjoy.




Whilst there may be tons of reasons why he's the Malaysian Information Minister, I'm sure his proficiency in English and temperament management skills aren't one of them. Which really contradicts to what major qualities I thought would make a good information minister. But ya, since he's the minister, and I'm just plain rakyat jelata, my conscience is probably wrong here.

But heck, anyways, for a guy interviewed by the international press all the time, his proficiency in English is a disaster. English is, by all means, the lingua franca. He's in desperate needs to master spoken English. My God! You can't tell who's worse, Sammy Vellu's Malay or Zainuddin's English (and for that matter, compare Siti's as well). And mind you, I'm not saying my English is any better than his, but then again, he is the Information Minister of Malaysia!

His inability to hold his temper is nothing to be a proud of, too! He boiled and exploded during the Al-Jazeera interview, which, most probably, led to his inability to talk fluently.

And him accusing other nations this and that really surprised me. How absurd! I really didn't see that coming. I wonder what Myanmar, Burma and Pakistan would think about those improper remarks.

That's probably about what I can come up with regarding with foulness. And may I remind the readers that my intentions are not to condemn the government nor it's policies. Not is it about politics. Case closed.

p/s: In case you can't make out the words the minister was uttering, as I'm sure many of us don't, click here. It's under About This Video section.

40,000 magic

40,000 voices of 40,000 minds from 40,000 people.

It's time to make these voices count. Let's make it happen. Malaysia Boleh!!

Announcement

OK, just in case, and I mean IN CASE you are interested in looking at some of the pictures I've taken, fill free to view my Flickr account. Click that link right there or go to the link provided under 'some nice places to visit'.

I'm just starting to get a hang of Flickr and there aren't many photos there yet. Do bear with me as I go on.

And again, please, only if you're interested!! Enjoy!

A little mischief that's JPA

So we were told in the newspapers that according to Bajet 2008 which was announced by our Prime Minister Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that we would receive an increase of up to 97% for our monthly allowance. The increase was said to be due last Sepetember.

So it's now November. Last September, when all was excited about the 'increase' we were hampered come the end of the month when we found out there was no increase on that month's scholarship. I was expecting that, so not much was felt.

Then came October. We were more excited this time. And the JPA students, were more then ever. They hoped to be getting around 2000 bucks (97% increase) . When I checked mine that morning, I got ~400, which meant, still no increase. Again, bummer.

The shock was to the JPA students however when they found out not only did they not get the increase, they suffered a decrease! Instead of getting 1200, they only got 1000. Which meant they only get 300+ for every month. Later, I learned, according to a source (I think it was Doc V), that students under JPA did receive an increase actually, by 20% (or 25%). But then, the government changed the policy of paying our residential halls. They terminated the 60/40 policy, so now, they'll subtract the residential cost straight from our allowance, leaving the JPA students with that one thousand. huh.

So much for the increase. Such political.

Last week, I went to the annual Raya MSD open house at Washington DC and ya Allah, the food was tremendously good. The food was authentic Malay; some sort of nasi, ayam masak merah, rendang, sate, roti jala, gulai ayam, acar, and kuih raya. I think I'm missing a few. Basically, we all just hogged into the meal, and ate like I don't know what!

But I'm not here to talk about the food. Before the makan2, there were speeches from the Malaysian Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Rajmah Hussain, then there was one from the guess of honour, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, the TPM's wife. The latter speech is the one I want to talk about.

Yes, in her about an hour speech (maybe less), she did mention about hari raya, for a good 15 minutes or so. Then she mentioned about all her travels to Russia, Paris, and England during the pass week. She came to US because her daughter wanted her to come visit. Then came her long, lengthy political talk. First she mentioned about the government's generosity in increasing the monthly allowance, and then the achievements achieved during their 50 years of ruling. She also told us not to believe everything in the Internet as most of them are lies about the government, which according to her, is all good. Later in her speech, she said that if we were to change governments, our country would lose it's political stability and then be like those which are in war. duhh..

So, that's my political talk for the time being.

Owh, btw, I learned later that Dato' Dr. Anwar Ibrahim's two daughters, Hana, and her younger sister (I don't remember her name) were also present at the open house. I didn't get a chance to see them though. At first the host were rather hesitant in deciding whether or not to allow the girls to come, due to the fact that Rosmah was also present. However, they later allowed them to come with the idea that Rosmah wouldn't even recognize them in the 150+ crowd. Alhamdulillah, that happened to be the case and nothing out of the norm happened, and all were happy.

Crime Scene Investigation

Well, actually, just crime scene. On my part, there was no investigation.

I was going back from a trip to the groceries with some friends yesterday evening when at this traffic light, there were half a dozen flashing police cars parked beside the road, closing the right lane. Right away, we knew something was going on.

The traffic lights were 'generous' enough to turn red when we approached the scene, giving us a very good view of the situation. There were people crying hysterically all over the place, with police officers comforting them down. News crew were all over the place, not wanting to miss a single detail of the crime. And us? Well, we were a bit 'excited'.

Heres the video Q caught with his cellphone. Pardon the quality.



Q claimed he saw the beg mayat lying on the floor, but in the excitement, he tipped the handphone up, and thus, not catching it on camera.

The links to the news about the murder are here and here. Very, very shocking indeed.

This is the second high profile police relating event I've witnessed in my two and a half years here. The first one was during my freshman. About 20 police cars went chasing after a stolen green BMW in a cold snowy night. When the police deployed spikes strips, the bad guy was forced to turn his vehicle towards a near by building, then after being surrounded, decided to go off road. This gave the police an opportunity to ramp his car from behind. The grand finale was the part when the police, with guns drawn, pulled the guy out of the vehicle. What a night that was!

Terengganu, Kelantan and English

Ok, I admit, the two former nouns don't usually go well with the latter. All over Malaysia, it is a well known fact that people associate students in Terengganu and Kelantan with a deficiency in the English languauge, which I too agree.

But believe it or not, there a lot of words in the K and T vocabulary that were actually derived from English. To name a few, I've listed them below:

gohek - go ahead
gostang - go stern
kona - corner
demo - them all
shupoda - shoe powder

Surely there are a lot more words then the five I've listed above. I'll update them once I come across. Being in the US, with only ~10 T and K students, it's hard to practice the dialects here.

And ya, I remember this game I used to play where the players are devided into two groups and take turns to be the police and the thieves. The game name: 'Polis-san-ti', well that was what we used to call it (and ya, I know this game is also popular elsewhere). The actual words to it? Police and thieves.

Indirectly, the people of T and K use the English language in their everyday lives. Thus, they shouldn't be intimidated, ashamed, or shy to further use it. Come on people of T and K, lets explore English!

* T and K ~ Terengganu and Kelantan.