Combined CF Meeting

It was a fantastic time of coming together during CF meeting. I was surprised but felt thankful and encouraged to see the amount of people that attended meeting today. The amazing thing is that according to Lynne, the publicity wasn't even put to full force and yet we have around 40 plus people attending.

I think the songs lined up for the meeting were really good. "Take It All" and "Salvation is Here" really makes me wanna jump up and shout out praises to Him even when I'm playing drums! :) Haha..I really wanna thank God for guiding me at Youtube to this very talented drummer, Cobus Potgeiter who did a cover of both of these songs that I was supposed to play during meeting. Btw, Joel is really superb electric guitarist. He's spontaneous and is a natural on the riffs. Lol..for both days of practice, he , Erwin and me always drifted off to a free jam session after our last song.

The INTI Subang CF people were supposed to join us for the meeting but they couldn't be there early since some of them had classes that end at 6pm and they can only leave around at that time. This delay was coupled with traffic jams and they could only arrive when Pastor Suresh was ending his sermon. In any case, it was great to see back familiar faces from there like Brian, Kylie, Jamie, Brandon, Swee Ling, Phillip, Cally and Julian. Kylie and Swee Ling as usual can't stop saying that I'm look like Chun Chung..lol. Anyways, we really appreciate them for taking the time to come to Nilai to join us even though they're feeling shagged and tired from the day.

Haha..after meeting, all of us went to Al-Salam for mamak session. The Subang people had a truck with them and the whole bunch of them were standing at the cargo storage as they went down. Erwin was the show-stopper when he sat at the aeroback extension of my car as it was going down. Passer-bys gawked at him wondering what he was doing there sitting behind. I'm pretty impressed that it's quite stable out there and the car could actually withstand the weight. At Al-Salam, we formed the longest chain of table of gathering ever seen so far. It did look like it was some banquet table..lol. We definitely had a good time of chatting and makan. It's unfortunate that we couldn't spend more time together with the Subang people..haha. But if we do have the opportunity and time, we'll organise a trip to pay them back a visit during their meeting. =p

An 'evil' surprise

I'm back at campus for the unglam reason of extra class on the next day. The few days down south was kinda productive eventhough I didn't complete everything that I had set out to do..haha. But one thing I did was to eat all the food that I had planned! Anyways, I managed to meet up with TG over the weekend and had a good drink with him while watching the Manchester derby at CHIJMES. It's super expensive there to have half a pint, but the atmosphere there was good.

Of course, the period down south is also the perfect time to get some superb Muse materials and concert videos from the super fast Internet. I managed to get some great quality stuff from the Muse forums. Hmmmm..another thing over there is that my 9382 number is finally decommissioned. That would end any remnants of permanent connection that I have over there at the southern island. It's the final severance.

Anyways, while I was busy over at the south, 300km away from campus, two cheeky chipmunks were getting occupied at work with their 'evil' plans on Saturday afternoon. The unfortunate victim of their mischief: an innocent-looking Penang car that was parked outside block H. Apparently, they can't resist temptation and they just had to do something to it with their itchy fingers. This Pinky and the Brain team even had all of its process recorded on video and took photographs, like it's some major undertaking of a glorious seventh wonder project. No wonder Kevin is pretty creeped out by just the mere appearance of both chipmunks together. Putting their names together will generate catastrophe and disaster..haha. The first broadcast of their scheme was shown on Monday when pictures of the "innocent one" and the "mastermind" is being circulated around at Facebook. Well, I thought at first that the "mastermind" wanted to post a photo montage of everyone with their nicknames. In any case, it kept everyone on suspense.

I sense something was a little wrong on Monday when Emily chatted with me online about my car and asked me whether it is safe to leave it at campus. I just shrug it off but she did sound a little suspicious there. I didn't really thought much about it. Somehow, I was being a lil 'prophetic' there when I told her that the only way it will get stolen is when Maddie gets her hands on it. It didn't get stolen but it was certainly tampered with by the two chipmunks. The Brain wanted to unveil it on Wednesday but since she got to know that I had to go back on that day, she pushed it earlier to Tuesday. So the videos and photos were finally up for broadcast for the grand revelation on Tuesday.

My first reaction was O_O and then it was followed by >_<" and then =)

Pinky Hamster "Lerdie"

Diabolical Brain "Maddie"

Who VANDALISED my car?! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It was really sweet of them to do it. Thanks girls, I appreciated it very very much :)

They went to the extent of waterproofing it with plastic sheets..lol. Looks like my car had just became an exhibit of love or strategic photographic venue in campus for at least 1 week xD

Ayyyyyy, I'll definitely miss these two naughty chipmunks when they fly off to the US next year.

The noisy neighbours

He's not wearing red anymore

The Manchester divide has never been so electrifying before. Manchester derbies were not considered to be life-threatening to United despite the long rivalry against their sky blue neigbours. Not this time though. The rejuvenation and cash flow brought about by the sheikhs had assembled a squad that proved to be (on paper at the very least) challenging United for the three points even at the heart of Old Trafford itself.

The very central focus of the rivalry this time involves a certain acidic Argentinian who is smack right at the pinnacle of the brawl. After Adebayor's celebration and stamping antiques, there are many who wondered if Tevez will succumb to similar emotional outburst considering that just a couple of months ago, he was wearing the red shirt. Carlitos is also definitely wrong if he thinks that his return to Old Trafford will be greeted happily by the United faithful. The response that he gets when he got out of the tunnel shows that his days as red favourite is gone. Man City itself is team Judas. We have Adebayor, Toure, Barry, Lescott, and Tevez. They were the fan's favourite in their previous teams and they could just simply turn their back on them with the green bill.

Rooney was quick to seize the initiative by bulldozing through City's defence and forcing the goal past Given. That was just within 2 minutes into the game and Tevez and his new friends already had their hands full. It didn't take them long to equalize because of the clumsiness and idiocy of Foster and Ferdinand. At the 16th minute or so, lazy Rio allowed the ball to drift it to Foster, thinking that his goalie will collect it. Instead of clearing the ball with one swipe, Foster was dallying by attempting to collect it with his hands. Tevez was just lurking behind waiting to pounce on Foster's slowness and when he sensed blood, he rushed to snatch the ball off Foster's control. Tevez grabbed the ball off Foster's butter fingers with his legs and Barry was there to slam the ball into an empty net. Pure stupidity. Foster already had one warning after 75 seconds on the Tevez charge. What were both Ferdinand and Foster were thinking? As usual, lazy Rio's mind is offline and off concentration at the worst possible moment. Both the teams left the first half with one goal a piece.

United started the second half strongly too with a quick goal of merely 2 minutes after it had started. Giggs waltzed through the defences before crossing it into the box for Fletcher to meet it with his head and Barry stood no chance against him with the jump. Sheer joy for the Scot as he celebrates it with the fans. United were taking the lead again but the celebration was shortlived. The United defence had apparently forgotten about the capabilities of Craig Bellamy during his Liverpudian days and did not take the appropriate steps to close him down. Bellamy burst forward from the left wing and smashed it diagonally beyond Foster's reach.

That was not the end of the story. Fletch the brave was at it yet again as he headed another one in to put United up at the lead for the 3rd time! It was hoped that United will retain the lead for good this time but another atrocious idiotic blunder from lazy Rio cost United as Bellamy went on to score City's 3rd time equalizing goal. Eccentric Rio tried to be clever as he chip the ball, but only for him to lose possession to City. All his teammates' efforts are down the drain and maybe he should not have turned up for work at all. It looked to be all over with both halves of Manchester sharing the spoils of the game. The initial extra time that was given was 4 minutes but apparently, the referee refused to blow the whistle and this stretched on to an extra 2 minutes or so to the 96th minute. At the last dying seconds or so, Owen pops out of nowhere and finishes off the winning goal to the ecstasy of the Old Trafford crowd. It's controversial but Owen doesn't care and so does Man Utd. Mark Hughes is fuming but credit to him for not over-reacting like Wenger. It's literally kill steal. This is up for debate whether it is proper for the extra minutes to be added and this look set to continue to divide Manchester. The actual goal time was around 95.22 and United fans would argue to justify the extra time in pointing that the celebrations coupled with the free kicks would allow at least 1.5 minutes more to be added. It also looks like the FA is doing any inquiries about the extended time although City is protesting. While everyone is busy commenting about the extra time, a bigger injustice was found at the Chelsea v Spurs match where Tottenham were denied a clear case of penalty.

This Manchester derby game is truly one of those which can be declared as game of games. It has all the elements of football - fortune, unluckiness, brilliant finishing, idiots, disastrous defending, skills and controversies. Berbatov had plenty of chances but for some funny reason or so, he can't finish them off. Sluggish and hunchbacked, the Old Trafford crowd will slowly lose patience on him if this continues on. Giggs showed his evergreen self once again as he waltzes in and out of the City defence like he's 25. His crosses and set-pieces were perfectly executed with beautiful curls and he had a part to play in assisting 3 of the goals. That's real class, something that cannot be emulated. Fletcher was the unsung hero too in inflicting two goals against City. His hardoworking attitude and combative style ensures that United control the midfield well. Bellamy is probably high on the list of United's public enemy no.1 and the United fans will have no love for this former Liverpudian and City player. Interestingly, the Scot scored 2 for his Scottish boss while the Welsh scored two for his Welsh boss. Rio Ferdinand will have to ask himself whether he had too much bling bling the night before for his absent-mindedness. I think Foster will probably see his United career flushed down after this match. Everyone will remember Massimo Taibi. Nobody gets away with blunders like this unless you're Peter Schmeichel. Owen's winning goal at Old Trafford will be fondly remembered for years to come. This was exactly the super sub quality that many fans had waited for years.

Fergie would very much be delighted with this win. Perhaps it's time for the noisy neigbours to keep their mouth shut. =p

Food Wars

Last week, our very own Malaysian Tourism minister, Ng Yen Yen made a remark that it's time to stake a claim on a couple of food which should be labelled as belonging to Malaysia. She mentioned specifically laksa, bak kut teh, chilli crab, nasi lemak and hainanese chicken rice. Apparently, she's pointing fingers that some countries are "hijacking" the food as theirs and even without names being specified, I know where its pointed at. After the controversies that erupted over claims of batik and balinese dance, it does look a little like an effort to score some political brownie points to regain some lost image.

A check around the net and responses saw many, even Malaysians themselves, are slamming her for making such a claim. Part of the reason for this negative reaction is probably because she's a BN minister herself. If it's one of the PR people, perhaps the reaction would have been less. I wouldn't say her remarks are very wise, and the examples that she has given are really grey areas that can be disputed. Perhaps the way she has worded her ideas were very poorly done but I gotta agree with the essence that is being mooted. Perhaps many Malaysians are not aware of this, but the Singaporean marketing machine has been for many years promoting these foodstuffs, including laksa and bak kut teh as uniquely theirs to the foreigners. So, before everyone gets carried away with the bandwagon fallacy of ridiculing BN ministers (which many of us Malaysians love to), there's some speck of points that we should take note of.

To start it all off, the Singaporeans are not happy at all with Yen Yen's claim. I read the Singapore papers two days ago which pointed out that all those actually belonged to Singapore! That's even more ridiculous! Among the examples that Yen Yen has given, I would disagree the most with Chilli Crab because I think Chilli Crab is really Singaporean. I've never heard of a Malaysian Chilli Crab and I've never eaten Chilli Crab until I reached Singapore. Hainanese Chicken rice is the greatest gray area, so I wouldn't touch on that. I would say neither Singapore nor Malaysia owns that and it's a shared culture between both sides. Instead, we should say that Hainanese Chicken Rice is a Straits Chinese culture. Nasi Lemak is difficult case too because it's a common Malay dish that can be found at Indonesia.

For the case of laksa, I believe Malaysians can have a claim to that if it's Penang Assam or Lemak laksa. That is Malaysian stuff and it taste and looks different from their Katong laksa. The newspaper report pointed out that laksa was introduced by the Peranakans but the way they are writing it suggests that they are ignoring the fact that a sizeable bunch of these Peranakans can be found at Penang and Melaka too. Bak Kut Teh is more widespread in Malaysia as compared to Singapore. The Singaporean definition of Bak Kut Teh is a peppery version with garlic popping out of clear soup. It is nothing similar to the Klang Bak Kut Teh with its darker soup and herbal taste. If it's to be claimed that the Hokkiens created Bak Kut Teh, it cannot be said that they brought it to Singapore only because places like Penang and Klang are predominantly Hokkien too.

Having lived at both sides for a considerable amount of time, I can list down all the other possible food disputes where although they share the same name, the resultant recipes turn out to be very different indeed. Take for example Char Kway Teow and Char Kway Kak (Fried Carrot Cake). I got a surprise when I ate the Char Kway Teow at Singapore because all of them were fried with sweet black sauce! This is also the same as char kway kak where there's no salty variant of the black char kway kwak at Singapore. In fact, they have a white version with eggs covering over it. The Wantan mee at Singapore is a lil strange with chilli or tomato ketchup being added inside instead of the usual plain black sauce. It is called roti canai in Malaysia while roti prata is the name that Singaporeans understand.

Some do note that Yen Yen had claimed it too late because over the past 20 years or so, the Singapore marketing machinery has already gone around the world to market those food as their own. The Malaysian government on the other hand were kinda reluctant in promoting these food stuff especially when it gotta do with the minorities and non-Malay food. The result is that the Singaporeans cashed in on some unclaimed food and make it theirs. The Singapore broadcasting stations have zealously promote these hawker food and proudly proclaimed those as Singaporean food. So, why didn't anyone make any noise about that?

Yen yen would have walked off with less controversies if she had quoted some examples which we can safely say, without much dispute that it's truly Malaysian. You can find it no where done best except in Malaysia. Instead of pointing out by country, we could slap on a region tag instead. These are the bunch of food which I think both sides can safely claim:

Malaysia: Penang Assam Laksa, Penang Lemak Laksa, Ampang Yong Tau Foo, Kajang Satay, Nasi Kandar (Hahaha..this is definitely unclaimable by the Singaporeans), Ipoh Hor Fun, Klang Bak Kut Teh, Penang Hokkien Mee, Seremban Siew Pau, Mee Goreng Mamak, Dai Lok Mee, Kuching Kolo Mee

Singapore: Mee Pok/Bak Chor Mee, Mee Siam, Chilli Crab, Katong Laksa, Singapore Fried Hokkien Mee (White version with beehoon and yellow mee), Tau Suan

As you can see, if Yen Yen had used Assam Laksa and Nasi Kandar as examples, she would not be in such a big trouble. For anyone that said that Singapore is a food hub with all those hawker food, they clearly have not travelled to Penang to taste the food there. Any Singaporean who travelled to Penang to makan will be slurping away and craving for more. After staying at both sides, I gotta say that hawker food in Malaysia still taste way better than Singapore. For me personally, there are way better versions of char kway teow, char kway kwak and wantan mee in Malaysia. Malaysia has a huge potential to market these food to tourist but alas, the government does a poor job in promoting them. Instead of just harping plain words and do nonsensical stuff like patenting food, the Malaysian government should spend the money to help Malaysian kitchens to spread some truly Malaysian dishes abroad. Help famous hawkers in Malaysia to spread the word around and promote them in the Internet for tourist to check out. Prove to the neighbours that the Malaysian variant taste better. That'll be a better solid foundation to promote Malaysian culture.

To sum it all up, we shouldn't throw the barrages of fury onto Yen Yen because she was not the first one to attempt to claim the ownership of these food items. Instead direct it to our kiasu Singaporean neighbours who have been insidiously, quietly and unshameful too in claiming these food items as purely "made in Singapore" while disregarding the fact that Malaysians do serve laksa, chicken rice, roti canai, nasi lemak and char kway teow. They are reaping profits at countries abroad and misrepresented its origins to the ang mohs and foreigners at the same time. They are getting away with it by propagating that chicken rice is Singaporean in the media locally and abroad and nobody said a thing about that. The Singapore Tourism Board website happily lists down chicken rice, laksa(without differentiating the types) and char kway teow as Singaporean dishes. While the Singaporeans are mocking Malaysian ministers for making a fool of themselves in the international political arena (which is true..haha), they should also check themselves before calling the kettle black.

I think we do need to be proud of our heritage and history and though the histories of both countries intertwined, it's vital to know that there are some differences too between Malaysian food and Singapore food. There is no need to stamp copyrights or royalties but a mere simple act of acknowledgment and educating the people around regarding our heritage makes a difference. Otherwise, in 10 years to come by, somebody from the West may come babbling that nasi kandar originated from Serangoon or Geylang. It's important to create awareness among Malaysians instead of all these focus on maths, science and money-making education. The problem with this hu-hah is because of the lack of awareness, many of our younger generation who don't even know where their food comes from. I would definitely love to consult Professor Khoo on the historical aspect of this.

Amidst of all the blog posts, I think this one comes up as one of the more sensible ones. Do check out this post too:

Why is everyone laughing at Yen Yen?
http://uppercaise.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/why-is-everyone-laughing-at-yen-yen/

Of course, Sarah Lian is certainly bold in exclaiming this, which I cheekily agree with :

They stole our food…and they do a bad job of stealing it cuz it aint’ that good.

Raya break

The long awaited 1 week break is here! Some may grumble on the existence of a holiday period when the semester had just started but for me it's an excellent time to regroup all my scattered tasks. Exhibition week and fellowship lunch were over and both events were taxing physically in terms of coordinating everyone and making sure everything runs smoothly. There wasn't much time to linger around after fellowship lunch since I'm hitching onto Reubs' ride back to Johor. With some double quick hands, I dumped everything into my back and hop onto the vehicle. The whole ride was pretty smooth coz I fell asleep for the whole journey after feeling rather fatigue from the day's events. On the invitation of Reubs and his father's friend, I stayed around Johor for a little while longer go attend his church's function. There was a choir coming over from Singapore to perform at his church.

Before going for the event, Reuben stopped at his house to meet up with his dad first and put his things. We rest up and then his dad fetch him, his bro and me to makan before getting his mother and sis to come along after that. The choir concert was interesting because they had a combination of nationals from different countries. It does remind me of the old days when they use to sing with just their voices. I find that kinda enlightening and refreshing. After the concert, there was makan time and someone in the church sponsored a couple kgs of Tiger Prawns. They are being drowned and boiled in delicious white wine herbal soup. I bet it's more than 20 kg because even with a crowd of 100 plus people, there was still plenty to go around. I would have stayed to finish all of that up but I needed to leave early before 11.30pm so as to ensure that I don't get to stuck at the checkpoint with no bus going across the causeway.

I was prepared to take a taxi already once I reached the checkpoint at the island because it was close to 12am and I knew that the last train usually operate at around 11.30pm. But I gave it a shot nevertheless to take a bus to the MRT to see if there are still any more trains and yup, I was fortunate to have at least two more left with their last stop at AMK. Mhmm..this few days of hols will have to be filled up with productive activities of secretary work and another round of magazine editing.

Last-minute escape

Uhhh..it's being quite some time since I managed to find some free period to blog. The first few weeks into Semester 5 was not relaxing at all. To sum it all up, I was under siege from under three fronts. The first was the never-ending editing work of the magazine. Everybody's finding my head for the date of publishing but I've already completed all of its content. Just that it got stuck at the editing table since I need to get the clearance from my higher bosses before I can get it printed. So, there was nothing much I could do about the magazine until my higher bosses finish checking it. But still, I need to do lots of stuff to pacify disgruntled customers that are gonna fly to UK without getting their goods. Looks like they are gonna get it through mail instead then.

Next up, it's the increasing pile of work from the secretary's table. Minutes, proposals, exhibition week preparation and memoradums keeps going on and on and on. It's the new semester and with a new student 'government' in place, lots of protocols need to be settled. Although it's a short semester, it feels as if there's lots to do. I was pretty annoyed last week because the amount of red tape generated by the new student 'government' can even put the Singaporeans to shame. As Reubs put in plainly and accurately in lyrics ,"Endless red tape to keep the truth confined". I would definitely love to play with that "rejected" stamp in the future..lol. Anyways, after thinking it over, I took it in my stride because I think it may be God's way to prepare me for the future since my future work may involve even more unreasonable sequences. The key is to learn to deal with it well and professionally. This front will keep pressing on because things need to get updated in CF every single time and I don't forsee it ending it anytime soon. I do feel the weight of the shoulders on me.

The third front was in danger of collapsing into a catostrophic disaster since the troops were occupied at the other two fronts. I knew I should have gotten started at this third front but the delegating resources to this front would meant the collapse of the other two. I've managed to squeeze some reinforcements into the third front at the very least, 3 days before dateline. 3000 words thesis within this period is insanely tight, not to mention bibliographies and format arrangement. It was a torrential rush of words and every second that ticked by was not to be wasted. Up till the last minute, I still had to tidy up format mistakes, label pages and footnotes. I managed to complete all with a sweep on time and I certainly do hope that I didn't miss out anything from that quick sweep. Whew! This is probably one of the narrowest escape I had in saving any collapsing fronts.

Oh well, with the third front being closed up, I hope I can concentrate better in finishing up the other two. It was very exhausting bunch of opening week and I really look forward to the upcoming 1 week raya break.

Our little Merdeka madness

The Merdeka weekend before semester starts is particularly memorable. On the 30th, the whole of GFS went to Sungkai for the special water baptism outing. Since the Inti GFS folks are already there in campus, I drove down there with Maddie, Lerdie, Sophia and Alvin. We set off at 6.45am in fear of losing our way there and being late for the service. In the end, we were the earliest to arrive there as compared to the rest, and the bus came way too late an hour later. There were lots of people at the hot spring by the time we entered since it's a long holiday over the weekends. Busloads of tourists to be precise and a majority of them the elderly or children. There were quite a number of families too. It seems that we were also unfortunate on that day because the cool pools were not working and only the hot spring waters are functional.

Three people that I know in church are being baptised and they are Li Lian, Tze and Daniel. Congrats in passing through this rite of passage! I'm sure it will be one of the significant days that they'll remember in their lives. After the baptism service, we were free to go around to have fun in the water. The five of us went to soak our legs at the hot springs, pose around with the camera and then makan ice-cream. 2 scoops for RM2 is not too bad..haha. Afterthat we had lunch and then we headed back on our car ride. The initial plan was to get back to campus but we felt that it was a little wasted to return like that. So, we planned to make a detour to Mid-Valley for a little shopping trip since Sophia needed to get something there too. I had a look around and I was most interested to get some sushi to eat. I managed to get PC Gaming magazine too since the cover story is on The Old Republic. Lovely stuff they have in there..haha. After walking around till about 7, we needed to depart from there since Alvin needed to attend an important function at his church. So, we fetched him to PJ first before making our way down to Subang to see if there is anything nice to eat.

I was in the mood for some old nostalgia so I decided to stop at Subang Parade to have a look around and see how much it has changed for the past 9 years or so. It was truly a walk down memory lane for me over there. McDonalds and Kenny Rogers were still at the same place and so is Yamaha. The bridge-linking walkways was still there, only that instead of rough tiles, they are now white marbles. The foodcourt is gone though, to my dismay since they used to sell one of the best claypot chicken rice there. So we settled down to eat at one of those artificial old town cafes where lemak laksa set comes at RM11..lol. After we're done, we went back to campus to prepare for one of most craziest activities that we would ever do under the banner of ICF..haha.

At around 11.30pm, we gathered at the dining hall. Lol..Kylie and Lionel from Inti Subang came to join us since they were hanging out around Nilai and PD earlier. Lerdie planned to do a small "marchpast" around campus and since I have a collection of lagu patriotik/propaganda, I brought my Ipod down so that I can blast those songs with Maddie's Ipod speakers. In addition to that, we also have the little flags from the Mid-Valley As we "marched down", we played stuffs like Tanggal 31, Wawasan 2020 and Berjaya. We had a countdown at 12am and afterthat, we just pop up to people that we pass by and gave them sweets. As most Malaysians were not back yet then, most international students there were puzzled and we had to explain that it's independence day. We also went to the security guards and gave them the sweets. One of them even had her birthday on 31st itself and she said this is the first time she ever saw students celebrating Merdeka at campus. Lol..going around like this may be one of the most psycho thing to do but it's pretty heartening to see somebody smiling and get cheered up because of our silliness :)

After an hour or so going around, we went back after that. Well, this is probably the first and last time that we'll get to do this since more than half of us in the group won't be around campus in the next Merdeka celebration..haha. It was fun while it lasted :)