Morning Train

Hi all, today I will be coming back to Banting by train to attend Hazmi's wedding at his house in Taman Sri Putra (dekat je dengan rumah aku tu). Before I leave, I just want to share with you my recent indulgence in jazz tunes. Here is my favourite song from Sitti Navarro. She is a Filipino singer that offers jazz and bossa nova tunes in her performance. Enjoy!

Sitti Navarro
I Didn't Know I Was Looking For Love

I was alone thinking I was just fine
I wasn’t looking for anyone to be mine
I thought love was just a fabrication
A train that wouldn’t stop at my station
Home, alone, that was my consignment
Solitary confinement
So when we met I was skirting around you
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you

I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you, honey
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you, baby
Didn’t know I was looking for love
Didn’t know I was looking for love

Cause there you stood and I would
Oh I wonder could I say how I felt
And not be misunderstood
A thousand stars came into my system
I never knew how much I had missed them
Slap on the map of my heart you landed
I was coy but you made me candid
And now the planets circle around you
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you

I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you, baby
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you, baby
Didn’t know I was looking for love
Didn’t know I was looking for love

So we built from here with love the foundation
In a world of tears, one consolation
Now you’re here, there’s a full brass band
Playing in me like a wonderland
And if you left I would be two-foot small
And every tear would be a waterfall
Soundless, boundless, I surround you
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you

I just didn’t know

I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you
I didn’t know I was looking for love (I just didn’t know)
Until I found you
I didn’t know I was looking for love (Oh, I just didn’t know)
Didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you, baby
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you, baby
Didn’t know I was looking for love
Didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you, baby

I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you
Didn’t know I was looking for love
Didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you
I didn’t know I was looking for love
Until I found you…

Bisul

Today I woke up with extremely cold feet despite the hot sunny day of Tronoh. Quickly I realized that I was going to get struck by fever. Strangely, there was no flu or runny nose that usually comes with the fever. I stayed in the room till the afternoon to wait for the weather to go shady and went to UTP clinic for medical consultation. Thanks to the 'friendly' Dr. Baron Von Varun-look-alike, the fever is caused by abscess at my right underarm. Lesson learnt here that we have to tell everything about what we feel to the doctor. Usually I just neglected the pain thinking it is usual for me to have sore muscle when I got fever. Now I know that an abscess can knock me down with fever. So he prescribed me with antibiotic and usual paracetamol 650g pills. I hope the abscess will heal with the antibiotic, or else I'll have to get incision at the abscess to remove the pus. Ouch!

Countdown

Flash Countdown

When I was in SDAR, the blackboard (later whiteboard in our new campus) is divided into two main parts. Occupying let say, 90% of the writing space is for writing lesson materials (eg. notes, diagrams, the usual stuff) and the remaining 10% and located on the right side of the board is for other information such as attendance (which is 100% for most of the day) and countdowns. There are certain types of countdowns appeared. When I was in Form 3, the countdown would be for days before PMR and when I was in Form 5 it was for SPM. But there's another countdown that is applicable to all students in the school, countdown before we leave for vacation at home. This is the moment all students were waiting for. Usually the countdown starts 2 weeks before the day we are allowed to go home and will be updated daily. On the D-day (vacation day), the countdown are updated hourly, and on the last hour (usually the last day of school will be on Friday, so we are allowed to go home after performing Friday prayer at school first) we even updated the countdown every 15 minutes! It just reflected how we were so excited about going home and enjoy some moment of lucidity at home. Free at last! And today, I just can't wait to be at home for mid-semester break! Forget FYP, forget the upcoming Electrical Machines II test and forget everything! This desert of Tronoh is killing me! Hehehehe~

p/s: This countdown is until Operational Management lecture end at 2.00 pm~

Lagak Si Helang

Sila anggap bendera ini telah diterbalikkan (kes takut kena ISA la nih~ :P)

Terbang Helang by Sharifah Aini

Di angkasa nan luas
Terbang sang helang bebas
Menebarkan sayapnya
Sungguh megah lagaknya
Helang mendabik dada
Membelahi angkasa
Dengan gaya perwira

Bila saja engkau menghampiri
Burung lain terbang lari
Kau merasakan dirimu gagah
Hak yang lain tak kau endah
Mengganas kau di angkasa
Dengan gaya perwira

Terbanglah engkau tinggi
Sampai ke mana lagi
Ingin engkau jelajahi
Sehingga kau terlupa
Yang tinggi jatuh jua
Bila tiba ketika
Kau ke tanah akhirnya

Usah kau lupa diri
Bahawa langit itu tinggi
Nanti lemas sendiri
Nanti lemas sendiri

Kasut

Peringatan: Mungkin mengandungi bahasa-bahasa kasar.

Untuk mendapat lebih kefahaman tentang post ini, sila rujuk di pautan ini.

Pelbagai perkara boleh dikaitkan dengan kasut sejak akhir-akhir ini. Ada yang dipenjara kerana membaling kasut ke arah seorang pemimpin negara yang melabelkan dirinya sebagai 'Polis Dunia', seorang pemimpin parti politik 'communal' (parti politik berasaskan kaum) ingin mengkalungkan selipar (juga termasuk dalam kategori kasut) ke leher seorang negarawan ulung dek kerana percanggahan idea politik; dan yang terbaru, seorang tukang kasut warganegara Malaysia telah dibelasah oleh sekumpulan pelajar ASING di salah sebuah universiti di Tronoh (masih ingat dengan ayat ini yang pernah dikeluarkan dalam satu laporan jenayah di akhbar yang sama beberapa ketika dahulu?). Kasut sekarang bukan sahaja digunakan sebagai alas kaki, malah pelbagai perkara boleh dikaitkan dengan kasut. Betapa berpengaruhnya kasut di zaman ini sehingga menjangkau bukan sahaja di peringkat nasional, malah ke peringkat antarabangsa.

Aku berasa maruah aku sebagai anak Malaysia diinjak-injak oleh SEGELINTIR pelajar asing yang menuntut ilmu di sini. Perbuatan mereka menyerang rakyat tempatan amat-amat tidak boleh diterima sama sekali seolah-olah merekalah yang paling berkuasa di tanah bertuah ini.

Lebih mengaibkan (aku harap perkara ini tidak betul), pentadbiran institusi pendidikan tinggi tersebut (yang sudah semestinya ditadbir oleh orang-orang tempatan) cuba menutup mulut rakyat tempatan yang membuat laporan tentang serangan tersebut untuk menjaga reputasi institusi pendidikan mereka. Bagi aku, jika hendak mencari PENGKHIANAT BANGSA, kita tidak perlu melihat jauh. Tidak perlu menjadi ejen rahsia untuk negara lain dan membocorkan rahsia kerajaan dan tidak perlu sembah derhaka kepada sultan, hanya lihat kepada mereka ini sudah cukup untuk menjadi seorang pengkhianat bangsa. Sanggup melihat bangsa sendiri tidak terbela atas nama 'maintaining healthy diplomatic relationship'.

Satu contoh lagi pengkhianat bangsa boleh dilihat pada anak bangsa yang diberi kuasa untuk menguatkuasakan undang-undang. Tetapi mereka hanya berani mengambil tindakan ke atas orang tempatan yang melakukan kesalahan, tetapi membutakan mata dan memekakkan telinga mereka jika warga asing melakukan kesalahan.

Bagi aku, memang selayaknya warga asing yang melakukan serangan itu diberkas polis. Belasah dulu cukup-cukup di balai polis (inilah masanya polis menggunakan kekerasan di jalan yang betul, bukan hanya berani membelasah pelajar-pelajar tempatan yang membuat demonstrasi secara aman walaupun aku tidak pernah bersetuju dan menyokong tindakan pelajar mennyertai demonstrasi politik, entah-entah mendaftar sebagai pengundi pun belum lagi dah pandai nak bercakap pasal politik). Selepas itu tarik balik visa pelajar dan hantar mereka pulang ke negara asal mereka. Mereka memang tidak layak duduk di sini jika tidak tahu menghormati budaya tempatan sedangkan pelajar kita di negara mereka sangat menghormati budaya mereka di sana.

Untuk pengkhianat-pengkhianat bangsa ini, aku harap mereka sedar. Mereka diberi kuasa untuk memastikan keharmonian semua orang tidak kira warga tempatan ataupun asing. Menjaga hubungan diplomatik yang baik bukan bermakna kita harus menerima setiap perlakuan baik buruk warga asing tersebut TETAPI mereka seharusnya mengajar warga asing ini tentang budaya masyarakat tempatan dan menghormatinya. Ajar mereka budaya kita, "di mana bumi dipijak, di situ langit dijunjung".

Khusus untuk warga negara asing yang satu ini, lagak mereka tidaklah aku pelik sangat. Benar, negara mereka mempunyai sebuah institusi pengajian Islam yang tertua dan terulung di dunia serta banyak mengeluarkan fatwa berkaitan agama Islam, namun itu hanya untuk sarjana-sarjana agama mereka yang tidak terkesan oleh dasar politik negara itu sendiri. Tapi, melihat kepada dasar mereka di peringkat antarabangsa, negara ini memang terkenal dengan dasar yang menyembelih rakan seagama mereka sendiri. Negara mana yang sanggup menutup pintu sempadan mereka kepada konvoi-konvoi bantuan kemanusiaan ke wilayah bergolak Palestin jika bukan negara ini? Harus diingat bahawa rakyat negara ini beragama Islam dan Kristian dan rakyat Palestin yang ditindas Yahudi Israel juga beragama Islam dan Kristian. Sebab itulah aku mengatakan negara ini sanggup menyembelih rakan seagama mereka sendiri. Jadi, perlakuan biadap pelajar mereka disini tidaklah menghairankan sangat jika kita kaji dasar politik antarabangsa mereka sendiri.


p/s: Aku sangat berharap pendirian yang tegas serta tidak tunduk kepada tekanan asing canselor institusi pendidikan ini semasa mentadbir negara dahulu dapat diaplikasikan di institusi ini.

Mind your language

I am writing this in response to a note posted by one of my friend on Facebook. I gave a second thought before commenting directly to his note, this long post should be shared with everyone who want to improve their language.

Good grammar is very important to give good first impression to the reader. Proper use of language will also improve the presentation of the paper. No matter how good the work is, but it will become useless if the researcher fails to present his/her work to the target audiences due to improper use of language and grammatical error. It will make the report looks not professional to the reader and it will be a laughing stock to the informed reader if this problem is not taken seriously. The lecturer must have expected your friend to have language proficiency that is on par with the status as a university student. Harsh comment from lecturer is expected but the comment is totally impersonal in nature, they just want their student to improve. That's all. Looking at the current scenario in any publications by UTP students, the level of English is very poor. Take MPPUTP as example, frankly I look down on them due to spelling errors, silly grammar and word usage mistakes in their publication. Poor language=poor in professionalism. Remember, the first impression matters. If the language is hard to understand, how the readers can understand what are being fed by the writer in his/her writings? In my situation as an engineering student, the language is very important (although I am not studying linguistic or any courses that are language-intensive) as the reports are very technical in nature. A very critical language check is important to make sure the reader would not misunderstand our points. There are numerous ways of improving our language proficiency.

1. First, we can do a lot of reading that are RELEVANT to our field. It is pointless to read a Tom Clancy's novels if your main business is to publish technical papers on Electrical Engineering. Take note on how the points are presented, how the sentences are constructed and the jargon used.
2. Secondly, improve our word power. One interesting way is by watching movies of that language with assistance of subtitles in THAT language. For example, if you watch an English movie, make sure that the subtitles are in English too. Sometime, spoken words in the dialogs are hard to be recognized, with the assistance of subtitles, we can easily find the meaning in dictionaries (my favorite and fast dictionary is Google with search string: define:"your words").
3. When writing your report, please make sure all the grammatical and spelling errors are checked before printing. Make full use of your word editor software's grammar and spell checks features like those found in Microsoft Word (just press F7 and make the necessary corrections, there are reasons why red and green jagged underline below your words).
4. Prior submitting your writing to the intended reader, please have someone who are known to have good command of language to proof-read your writing first. We cannot rely on the spell/grammar checks feature found in the word editor only.
5. These are some guides to improve our language that I practice myself. I am not that good in language but I am always trying to improve my proficiency in language especially in English and Bahasa Melayu. I believe that no matter how good we are in our work, if we fails to translate it into words (verbally or written), then it will be no use to others.

p/s: Struggling with my FYP II progress report I. "Your report are not up to my expectations" - Z, my SV. Just tough it up and accept with open mind. :)