Someone’s jobless

I let out a sigh of relief as I am blogging now. Today’s my last day of working. From tomorrow onwards, no more rushing back from college to work; no more late dinners; no more headaches.

Yeah, I am embracing this change in my life. Not a seismic change, some people may say. But hey, I am finally unemployed after one an a half year! This at least, in my standard, call for a champagne, wouldn’t you agree?

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate working. I am a self-confessed workaholic. But to finally get my well-deserved break to concentrate on my studies; and to finally be able to do the things I like is a welcoming relief. The past 10 months have been hectic for me, to say the least. To study and work part time is not an easy meat. Hence, I would really like to give my utmost salute to my college mates who are working full time; and that includes my lecturers and tutors.

Of course, it’s not at all a win-win situation for me if I’m not working. I will now have less $$$ to spend. No doubt, I will miss out on important working experiences. Hell yeah.

Well, for me? Work can wait. College life happens only once in a life-time.  

Drum Rolls

The Provisional Rotaract Club of Advance Tertiary College

I haven’t been blogging for more than a week, and there is no better way to restart than to do something different. Pictorial Blog. So, here it is people; the First General Meeting of the Provisional Rotaract Club of ATC and Official Signing Ceremony with the Rotary Club of Ampang

Our guests and Rotaracters.

The signing of documents with President Fiona from RC Ampang

Exchange of documents with President Fiona

Our Rotaracters with Rotarian Advisor, PP Donny and PP Henry Soh

Installed as the Provisional President

Our Treasurer, Jeka went home $$$$ richer on that day

Club Service Director, Jeff and VP Chris showing off their collar badges

Commencement of the First General Meeting; Secretary, Giri on my left

… and finally, WE ARE OFFICIAL!

as endorsed by President Fiona and Mr. Rueben, COO of ATC

Thank you to the Rotary Club of Ampang for accepting us to your family.

and…

a BIG THANK YOU to Rotaracters of ATC and my ever-excellent Board of Directors.

 

 

 

 

The Four-Way Test

Everyone seeks validation. Even I do.

I ponder upon this as I was speaking to a friend today about doing what’s right, and what’s fair. I realise that sometimes, when I make decisions, especially when it involves something personal, I tend to seek out for people to validate my actions and decisions.

It turns out, that the root of the problem lies in there; that I always tried to make everyone satisfied and happy and my believe, a wrongful believe was that if everyone’s satisfied, it will be a good decision. But it is just not possible. You can’t make everyone happy.

As I wonder what I should do, and what shall be the best solution to the problem that I have now, it occurs to me that the the guide to my solution has always been here beside me; the four way test:

1. Is it the truth?
2. Is it fair to all concerned?
3. Will it build goodwill and better friendship?
4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

This test was introduced by former Rotary International President, Herbet J. Taylor as a guide to ethical practice in all the things we said, think or do. In all our actions, we should ask ourselves the four questions above and if the answers are of the affirmitive, we shall go on with the solution. Of course, we may dispute, in a modern and materialistic world that we live in today, it would be impossible for us to strictly follow the test. But I believe that this is of your own will, as no external force can make you disapply the four way test, but yourself.

What comes first for us? Humanity or materialism? I admit it, I would sometimes be swayed to materialism. This, I would say is the result of lack of “spiritualism”. Of course, when I talk about spiritualism, I do not mean religion, as I believe even free-thinkers can be more humane than religious people in many instances. By spiritualism, I meant compassion, forgiveness, selflessness, tolerance and humility. It is what shape our humanity and I believe these four-way test can be the guide to our spiritualism. Without spiritualism, there would be no humanity, and without humanity, we are just some lost souls.

And I call for all of you to at least try this four way test at some point of your life. I happen to chance upon a blog about the four way test, and I would like to share it with all of you, my readers. It is something really inspirational. You may think of it as naive, but I think the blog can provides us with so much optimism that we all badly need. Have a peek at it! http://thefourwaytest.wordpress.com/

Get real…

Chiew Ee!

No one’s gonna save your @ss but yourself! 

Excuse me. I was just trying to justify myself for doing (or planning to do) something out of character, something contrary to my principles. But I can’t even convince myself that my actions are justified, what more others? I hate being an b!+ch, I tried not being one, but I felt that I am being pulled to the darker side more nowadays. Get a hold of yourself! I am being on the offensive and more confrontational (not that I’m not confrontational before) nowadays, I need to go back to basics.

Survival 101 – When not threatened, keep quiet

Survival 102 – When threatened, defend yourself

Survival 103 – If 102 does not work, attack

Gee. I think I have just bypassed 102 and went directly to 103. 

Sigh. If only things were much simpler. Where art thou, me light when I need-ed thou?

*Smack* Snap out of it!  I guess the cliche “desperate times call for desperate measures” rings true in desperate times like this. True to the nature of homo sapiens, we always strive to protect ourselves. It is the “survival of the fittest” according to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Outwit and outlast.

And I shall outwit and outlast! To hell with my so called principle (for this time only)

If Everyone Cared

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we’d see the day when nobody died

If Everyone Cared by Nickelback

+ve

There are so many problems revolving in my head that I can blog for hours about it. But, why should I? Well, I’m going to blog about the ten positive aspects of my life today.

1. I am healthy.

Having to live for 21 years with only two visits to hospital (the first when I was born, and second was a motorcycle accident at 17), I am truly blessed. I am healthy physically, mentally as well (as far as I am concerned ). I have no complaints about that.

2. I am wealthy

No, I am not talking about money. I realise that my past has made me wealthier in terms of experience and maturity compared to my peers. It is this wealth that is carriying me through my lives now.

3. My family is intact

I do not have what I would call a “fairy tale” family where everything’s perfect, but I am just glad I at least have a family.

4. I am doing what I love

Law. Something I am passionate about. A lot of my friends do not get their chances of study what they really want to study. Yeah, I have been slacking a little bit. I need to reflect on this and be thankful that I am able to do what I have always wanted to do.

5. I am single

Laugh as much as you can, but that is one positive aspects of my life now. No strings attached and oh so much of liberty. I am not ready, and heaven knows when I will be.

7. I have great friends

I have great friends! Enough said.

8. I am a Malaysian living in Malaysia

Yeah. We, Malaysian just don’t count our blessings enough. I am thankful that I don’t have to live in fear of getting bombed or shoot everyday. I get decent education and living here. Sure, this country has it flaws but we are all flawed, aren’t we? 

9. I have all the things I need in my “Nescessity List” with me

Food, air, water, shelter and people

10. I am still alive

I guess that’s the greatest thing isn’t it? I am still alive, and kicking, and blogging.

Trojan War

What irritates me more than a morning call? Nothing, or so I thought. I have just found one thing that irritates me more than that; my current nemesis, the bloody trojan worm that creates the RVHOST.exe in my Windows registry.

Screw the person who creates the worm.

My computer is now operating like it’s having a Parkinson disease or something like that. Slow and stuttering. I need help badly. Probably I should just call the computer doctor in my house, my second elder brother. But true to my curious nature, I decided to go on my own mission against the worm. A search of rvhost.exe on google returns a hit of 25,600 results.

But I should be thankful to google. There are hundreds proposed solutions shown to me. I only need to find one correct solution of that hundreds. Not that hard?

Or so I thought. Three days have passed since the worm infiltrated my computer. 3 – 0 the score to the worm. It’s a lost cause and I badly need help.

But stubborn me. I shall keep on trying until I succeed! Every defeat will be a learning curve for me. Excessively optimistic, I know. But hey, what is life without optimism?

Okay. I have to go back to the battlefield. Here WE GO!

Reading My Mind

If you would have just one super-power, what would it be?

I wish I had the power to read minds. I read actions, I sense things, I interprete reactions; a lot of times with success but sometimes with failure. Imagine how great it would be to be able to go into the minds of others. Knowing what others are planning, plotting and finding out what other’s greatest fantasies are. That would be my fantasy.

I deceive people at times. I am unpredictable, hardly readable. Sometimes, people think that they know the real me; am I that genuine? No one in this world knows me, and I led people into deceiving me because I want them to. I am naive, or am I? I can be dumb, or am I really so? Am I deceiveing you by writing this blog? That will be for me to know, and for you to never find out.

The truth is, as you grow older and as you meet more people, you will realise that trust and integrity are two rare species in the world. You will despise yourself at times for playing the dirty political game; but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; and it is the attraction of power and popularity that brings the animal out of you. Your destiny lies between two extreme ends; success or failure. There is no in between for you, but what you did not realise is that at the end of the day, you will be the loser. You will lose your friends, trusted people, and most importantly, your soul. You will be surrounded by sychophants or those who are dumb enough to believe in your “divine powers”.

That is why I never liked to be entangled in these games. I have been through that. I have triumphed, but in the end, I feel empty inside. It’s not worth it, it’s not worth the risk. There is more to life than being superficially respected but not liked. If I have the chance of choosing between being Ah Ching the happy fish monger and Victoria the ruthless attorney, I would have to choose the former. Stupid. Naive. But that’s just me.

I do not like the glamourous life. I cannot say I am low profile because I may be the most outgoing person you would ever met. But I like everything to be simple. If I have to choose between black and white, it will be grey. Ordinary Jane I am, seldom will I hover to either the two extremes.

I will not change the way I am. If anyone here thinks that they’ve figured me out, you are wrong. No one, including my closest family and friends know what’s in this brain. There are brickwalls around me, and I built them myself. No one can penetrate them, and no one can look into what I’m thinking. I guess that’s the same for everyone else too.

So, there goes the idea of reading minds.

The Nescessity List

Finally, I got my internet connection back on. Apparently, my network card was loose; it took me an hour of probing to really find out what’s wrong (yeah, I’m not a computer geek); and I thought TMNet has disconnected my line. He he…

Excruciating. That was how I felt when I thought I may not be able to go online for the next few weeks. The last time my line was cut off by TMNet, it took them three weeks, twenty-one phone calls and one very angry customer to make them reconnect my line. Okay, it was my fault to start off with because I haven’t paid the bills for full three months (shame on me).

Relieved. That is how I feel now. Imagine how my next few weeks will be without internet conection. No e-mails, no MSN chatting; I won’t be able to download the latest episode of CSI Season 8 on Friday; I won’t be able to listen to the football commentry on www.manutd.com (my TV blew up… so, the net is the only place for me to get my weekly dosage of football); I won’t be able to do any research for my studies; and I may have to burn a hole in my pocket to go online in cyber cafe down the block. No, I’m not addicted to the Internet, it has just become a nescessity now to me; or has it? 

Has modern inventions like cell phone, computer, internet and vehicles become such a nescessity in our lives, that without them, it will be as if we have lost part of our limbs?  When was the last time that only food, air, water and shelter made up the numbers in our nescessity list?

The last time I struck cell phone, television, computer, mp3 player and….. civilisation out of my list was two years ago in Outward Bound Lumut. A full five days without any contact with the outside world; not even newspapers. Can you imagine how I felt? Pain. No. Liberating. Yes.

It was that five days that I’ve experienced a minute of the condition our ancestors have been living for eons ago. Minute, because I was in cargo pants, t-shirts and wind breaker, compared to dry leaves and “god knows what they wore back then.”

But it is moments like this that humans learn how to stick together. Without our technologies, we are all impaired. Everyone’s equal, and gone were the materialistic side of us. We worked together to save each other’s @ss. Winning was nothing; surviving was everything. In fact, surviving became winning. Eight hours in the middle of nowhere; and you will realise more than ever that no man is an island. Just when you thought you are some higher-being, able to live alone without help, your thought were crushed right to the smallest crumble. You need people, and people need you.

Guess I should add humans to my nescessity list…

Mental Note:

Nescessity: Food, water, air, shelter…. and homo sapiens sapiens…..