After Bersih

Today Malaysians are entering the second day of BERSIH 4 Rally. The whole day yesterday I scrolled through the newsfeed on every social network there is. I was busy doing revision with my kids since today they are sitting for their fourth progressive exams. I could only wait for updates from friends who have decided to be part of this huge, historic rally.

I was wondering throughout the day. Will there be another Bersih Rally next year? We have had four series by far.
I was wondering how Najib would react to this year's rally? Whether Rosmah could at least shut her eyes all night? The rest of the Razak clan?
I could not sleep last night as I was busy browsing through the pictures of the rally going-ons via Facebook and Instagram.
I must say, I was very impressed this time,
I read the comments posted by netizens, locals and foreigners alike.
Positive and negative feedbacks, some were even unsure of their own stances.

Yes, a bad leader should discontinue his/her reign. Every nation in this world deserves someone who is able to protect and provide for the people.

Nevertheless, I could not help myself asking these questions:

What's next after this rally? Will the people be able to topple the culprit from his throne in unison?
The future, will it be brighter? Or will it be bleaker?

Even after cleaning up the mess, will they be able to keep up with maintaining the spic and span state?

The world is watching.

At the crossroad...AGAIN!

It's been 3 years since I got home for good. Recalling the time I returned to Miri, I was pretty much a mess myself.
Yes, three years have passed. How time flies.
And so many things happened within that three years.
I must consider myself as a lucky person too, to be honest.

Nevertheless, I do feel that I am standing at that particular crossroad.
Like I used to many moons ago.
I have a permanent job and I get to do things I love most, sketching.
I am thankful many people have seen my works and glad most of them fancy them.

Again, I do feel I am standing at that crossroad.
Should I make another leap of faith?
Should I opt another roller-coaster ride?
Should I embark another adventure?

Frankly speaking, I m beginning to feel bored with the life I have now. And this is dangerous.
Very dangerous because it can hurt me and those around me.

I am unsure which path to take this time.
I am no longer young, well physically that is.
The child in me seems to be restless more than ever.
I fail to understand her ridiculous needs this time.
That child is becoming more of a rebel lately.
She keeps telling me to break the rocks ahead of us.
I am tired of telling that child to calm down.

I am standing at this crossroad now, figuring which path to choose this time. I envy those who keeps on moving to various phases  in life. Really, I am envious of such fortunate people. My lips are tightly sealed, hoping I won't simply shoot unnecessary verbal missiles. But I cannot stop my mind and heart from screaming vulgarities especially if my buttons are pushed.

This is pretty daunting and exhausting at the same time.

There are loads of people that I need to please. I am weary being the crowd/people pleaser, every single time. I guess that's why the inner child keeps knocking my head to open my eyes to all these.

Here I am...standing at the crossroad again.

Thy Mother is GREEN!

Mak kau hijau! Mak kau hijau! Mak kau hijau!

Here and there Malaysian netizens are having cursing calling respective mothers GREEN.

I did watch that one video that went viral overnight.

But I just can't seem to brain why did the little boy keep on taunting at his humongous bully "Mak kau hijau (your mother is green!)!

Was he trying to compare the bully's mother to the famous Marvel comic character Hulk?

Was he trying to say that the other boy's mummy was a salad aficionado?

Was he trying to say that the other boy's mother was born with green complexion?

Until now I fail to find the real answer to this viral catchphrase.

So only the mothers get to be green?

Fathers? 

Bapak kau merah jambu.

Nenek kau kuning.

Abang kau kelabu tahi itik.

Kakak kau takde warna langsung.

Whatever it is, it doesn't matter what colour you are. You just got to be confident.

(What in the world...?)

 

Sangkar

OK lamak udah sik nulis blog dalam bahasa ibunda tek nak. So kenak aku boleh engkah tajuk "sangkar" atas nun? Banyak benda dipikir ku dua tiga menjak tok. Tok ada sedikit lanjutan dari pos sebelum tok tek. Aku luah rasa maok kekal jadi nembiak. Bunyi kedak sik senonoh jak gaya tapi ada sebab kenak ku pikir gia.
Perhati dunia sekeliling kita kinek tok? Makin menjadi-jadi kan? Perang, bunuh, politik iboh cerita panjang, luka hati kerna GST tek belum juak keghin.
Sangkar, kadangkala kita rasa kita bebas. Tapi bila perhati menar-menar, kita bebas dalam sangkar ya jak. Bebas tapi sik bebas. Dikongkong tapi sik juak dikongkong.
Apa juak reti ku madah gia tek?
Entahlah. Tauk sik dunia tok Tuhan ciptakan simple jak sebenarnya. Aku pun rasa kedak ya juak dolok. Why complicate things?
Kadang-kadang segala komplikasi yang kita ada dalam otak dalam dirik kita bukan juak kerna sesetengah faktor. Kali juak sekda keja, nak dipolah juak keja. Kali juak sekda penyakit, polah sigek.

Apa point aku tok?
Entahlah.

Aku kinek tok dalam "sangkar" jaga anak-anak exam.

Sangkar kebosanan.
Bah kelak beloya pasal sangkar gik.

Young Love

There's this one student in my class who has this weird rather peculiar habit of standing near  our door whenever she's done with works and all. Yes it's a 15-year-old girl.

She's been doing this since February this year. Later I found out from her that her boyfriend is in the next classroom. You see, our classroom's door is partially glass (on top). 

To be honest, I thought she was only joking. You know how kids love to throw pranks at us adults.

But this one, the whole class verified her confession. She has a boyfriend who is a year younger than her.

One more thing. Every week she'd ask me this question: 

"Teacher, do you think my Adam (not his real name) is handsome?" I just smiled at her first. Not knowing what to say. So I'd reply (again and again), "He's OK lah. Cute too."

And she seems not so happy with how I reply every now and then. So in the end, I'd give in and say "OK, he's handsome".

The rest of her friends told me that once a month Adam would bake cookies for her. He even walks with her after class to a fitness centre where her mom waits for her.

I did ask her "Does your mom know that you and Adam are dating?" She said YES.

Wow! Lucky girl, I said to myself.

When I had my first boyfriend 17 years ago, I had to date discreetly. My mother wouldn't allow me to have a boyfriend at such young age. But I did have one, met him at a church camp. I didn't do the first move, of course. We dated for 7 months until one day my mother discovered about us. So she gave me two choices; break up with him or she'd drag us both to the altar. The 15-year-old me freaked out and I broke up with him. Poor lad. My mother's the ultimate villain here, don't you think?

If you ask me, what happened to my first boyfriend later on? Now he is a happily married man with two young boys. Good for him.

Recently, the head teacher (sort of, since he does all the syllabus back at my workplace) came up with a topic on the negative sides of getting involved in puppy love relationship for the students to work on; they were assigned to write a report based on that topic. I found the points given on that sheet were a bit odd. Basically, the points seemed biased. When I handed out the sheets to my students, our Juliet (not her real name) kept quiet throughout the session. The moment I announced the topic to the class, it wiped the smile off her face. I felt guilty in a way. But I had to do my job. To compensate the negative feelings that surrounded us (I think some of the kids are in their respective puppy love thing too, judging by their reactions), I gave some good sides of being in love at young age. I told them one has to be smart balancing reality and the joy of being in love. Juliet beamed out of sudden when I did that.

Just wow...

Two years and still counting.

While most Malaysians have been busy crooning the litany of woes over the newly-implemented GST since Wednesday (of all the days, they chose 1st of April, cheesecake's sake!), I realize that I have been serving this learning centre for the past two years now. I began my job as an English language tutor here in Miri on April's Fool Day in 2013.

The biggest and the best joke to date, well sort of!

In just two years I have taught many young minds who were and are in dire need of help when it comes to mastering the global lingua franca.
To be honest, I am not a professionally trained tutor/educator. I did bachelor's degree in TESL halfway before I switched to performing arts and I graduated with Diploma in Theatre from UiTM. I spent almost 4 semesters for degree in theatre later on. Nevertheless, I had a harsh brush with one of the academicians in my campus and fell sick at the same time. That prompted my decision to return to my hometown on 15th December in 2012. Without the bachelor's degree, of course.

I recall how my parents, especially my mother, pressing me to find a job here. I was jobless for three months. One March evening a couple years ago, I went out with a former classmate. She told me that a tuition centre was searching for a part-time tutor. Since English language is my forte, she asked me to try my luck. Few days later I gained the courage to call up the centre, followed by an interview and VOILA! I got the job (I began as a part-timer) the very next month.

First few months I struggled as majority of the children speak only Mandarin. I was assigned to handle Transition levels and primary school levels as well. Nevertheless, I have never had problems in trying to adapt to languages.Since then, as I try to fix their English language skills, they generously try to teach me basic Mandarin. Oh dear! I should have tried harder at mastering Mandarin back in campus years ago.

But the journey wasn't all rainbows and unicorns. I did have one big kid (a bully) in my Transition class. A real pain in the arse, I must say. Weeks by weeks, I attempted to stay calm while having to be bothered by his nerve-wrecking antics during class. Until one day, he really pushed my limit button and I broke my "cool teacher" record. I screamed at him. The result? He refused to join the class and the mother even told my boss that her son wouldn't return if I am still teaching that class. Yes, I know, classic case of TEXTBOOK sample of SPOILT BRAT. But that didn't halt me from getting a cool offer to be a permanent/full-time staff at the centre months after the incident.

2014 was quite a year for me. I got the shock of my life when one of my students fell into epileptic seizure one afternoon. I went blank when the boy collapsed and there's so much blood and saliva on the floor. How can I ever forget that incident? My student had a close brush with Death and I was so helpless.

My 31st birthday was another unforgettable experience too. One of the classes that I taught last year found out about my birth date and they set me up. Cool birthday prank, to be honest.

Now that I have entered the second year of my service as a tutor here, I am looking forward to several more years of teaching experience. And oh! I almost forgot this. I began to teach arts since last August and this year I have gained 4 students. I take it as a blessing in disguise as gazillions years ago, I did think my artistic talent was sort of a hand-down jinx. But hey! The old rules DO NOT APPLY anymore. New games of survival are flowing in. I hope to utilize my skills and knowledge as long as I live.

The year of the Ram enters!

Hello everyone!
Guess it's not too late for me to wish everyone A BLESSED NEW YEAR.

I purposely did not say HAPPY because once again we were shocked with the Airasia aircraft mishap that claimed about 162 lives on board.

What a tragedy to end the year 2014. Plus, we're still saddened by the missing MH370 MAS plane and the doomed MH17 MAS aircraft bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam.

2014 was a year of tragedy, I must say. The people of South Korea were hit by the sunken Sewol ferry that got over 300 people perished in it. The Arab world was  stricken by the mad so-called terrorists ISIS or ISIL that targeted the Arab Christians.

I don't want to sound like I am a street preacher blabbing about doomsday and all but we are on the verge of the end of the world.

I may be sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned room, be it at home or at workplace. Looking at things via the mass media, I feel nothing but heartache and anger.

Politicians have become circus entertainers. Now this is not quite a new scene. It's just that the plots are getting more and more interesting....and ridiculous as well.

Where do people like us, civilians, stand now?

By the way, I do hope the ram brings in comfort to compensate what the mighty horse had done in the past year.

Hope is all I have although things may turn out vague.

Recapping Two Zero Fourteen.

The world witnessed three planes from Malaysia made major headlines.

First, the still-missing Malaysia Airlines' MH370.

Followed by the ill-fated MH17.

Just more than a couple days after Christmas, Malaysians once again were shocked by the missing Airasia aircraft QZ8501 bound from Surabaya to Singapore.

South Korea earlier this year was stricken by the sunken Sewol ferry. And today a Greek vessel mishap on Italian waters.

Are we on the verge of doomsday?

Have we done too much enough to provoke God's wrath?

Political turmoils seem to emerge everywhere.

What a year we had. What a year indeed.

Rock and Roll Leader : Jokowi to Lead Indonesia!

Dad's been bragging about Jokowi, Indonesia's President-Elect for weeks now.

And tomorrow, 20th October, Indonesia will be witnessing Joko Widodo, 53 years old, swearing in as the republic's 7th President.

I won't be writing so much on him since you guys can check him out yourselves via Wikipedia. So I'll just upload photos of the man who received the baton from Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono.

The future of Indonesia lies in your hands now Pak Jokowi!

Rock on!!

Bila Si Kenit diberi HANDPHONE!!

Semalam kecoh kat Facebook, orang dok mengata-ngata tentang tindakan Kementerian Pendidikan membenarkan kanak-kanak sekolah membawa telefon bimbit ke sekolah. OK, bagi saya lah kan, saya takda masalah kalau KPM meletakkan syarat PELAJAR-PELAJAR SEKOLAH HANYA DIBENARKAN MEMBAWA TELEFON BIMBIT BIASA YANG MURAH, BUKAN SMARTPHONE. OK, itu sudah dinyatakan semalam dalam siaran berita tempatan semalam.
But, allowing kids to bring iPads or Tabs to school? Hmmm...what say you?