Violin Class

I have always wanted to play the violin ever since i was acquainted with Vanessa Mae's' music back when i was in high school. But since i hate music when i was in primary school and basically had zero knowledge of music whatsoever, i didn't think seriously about learning music again. But a few years back i have been seriously thinking of learning the violin. Sounds crazy but i have owned a violin for almost 1 1/2 year now.
Yet, Only now I'm taking my interest seriously. I have been learning violin for the past month now. Even so, i still haven't learnt how to play a single note. Im still getting myself familiar with how to hold the bow, how to move the bow on the strings and stuff...but not the notes, well at least not yet. Well, i have learnt the violin quiet fast i must say, considerd how much i practice a week (only 2 hours per week max, which is like "not even showing any interest" kindda attitude..haha). But im now stuck at the part where i have to play 2 strings, one after another, but the strings are far apart...for example, the g-string, andthen the E-string...pretty tough and i still haven't got it....

but that's the least of my worries. Remember when we were small.....what was the number one reason why we, as children, hated music.....Most of us might answer..because the teacher was very "garang".....I mean how many of us got whacked by the music teacher when we were small
just for playing the wrong note? But what could i do. I hated music back then. But strangely, however hard i tried (or rather, didn't try), i didn't fail the exams even once...I guess the whacking did shove some musical notes into my head.

Unfortunately, my current violin teacher is showing symptoms of the primary school music teacher reincarnation :P Although i haven't been badly scolded yet, but i've seen her "potential" with other students, one of them is also an adult learner like me. So now i feel under pressure to get it right on the spot and deny her any room to explode..haha... a little comment here and there i can live with..but i don't want to be scold like a 7 year old kid. I hereby take up the challenge.... I guess she has been teaching too many children.....

Lets hope i don't break before i reach the other side..

Ciao!

google Maps

In my previous entry, i mentioned that in google maps, there is no map info of Malaysia. Well i checked yesterday and i discovered that they have launched the google map for Malaysia. Obviously someone in google had read my previous blog and came up with the map :P hahaha.

Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know, if u want to know lah...

Tchuss

THe Great Adventure back home : Episode 2 : Getting out of the Airport

I arrived at Heathrow airport at around 1030pm...with empty hands. What i mean by empty hands is without anything that can facilitate me to find a place to stay such as a map or guide. I basicaly had to find the infomation i want right there and then at Heathrow airport. (this is where the interesting part starts).

So there i was on unfamiliar territory, Heathrow airport, unsure where to go from there. But luckly i did my homework (i just didnt print it out). From the research i did beforehand i knew that i could get to central london via the Heathrow Connect train. I knew that The Malaysian Hall is located near one of the train stops, and also the cheap hostel i searched for in the internet, but the major problem was i didnt know exactly how to get there without a map. There were some maps at the airport but they were just tourist maps (which were useful throughout my travel in London) and didnt show the exact roads and trains or bus stations. The information counter was closed since it was way past office hours. Besides, i think my flight was the last flight into Heathrow. What was opened was only the cafe. "How do i go from here?" i asked myself.

(this part of the story is the most memorable part of the trip. Looking back, i cant stop smiling just thinking of it)

Well the major problem now was how to get information that can help me find the way to the Malaysian Hall. Thats the main objective for now. The internet was the answer. Walking towards the cafe, i came across a breakthrough. There were these coin operated internet kiosks in the airport waiting hall. These beautiful pieces of technology were my final hope for survival. But as they were operated by coin, and i didnt have any, i couldn't access them. I had to change my notes into coins. By the way, the internet costs 1 freaking pound for 10 minutes... 10 MINUTES!!! oh well, on the positive side, if u were given more time you will appreciate it less. Anyway, I went to the cafe to change my notes for some coins. I surely couldn't just change the note to coins, i had to buy something. thats when i realized the price for a bottle of 500ml coke was 1.50 pounds!! I mean, even in Germany its (just) 1.30-1.50euros (1 pound is 1.5 euros), so that was a really "(not)value for money", but since i really needed the coins i didn't complain.

So, with internet access, the first thing i did was to check my email an write down my friends address and phone number, which i also forgot to write down. As for finding the way to The Malaysian Hall.........maybe you guys can guess it...GOOGLE MAPS!!! I tell you google maps are a gift to the traveling world. Im not surprised if you can even find Osama Bin Laden with Google Maps. You can find your way anywhere as long as you are not traveling in Malaysia or any other unpopular third world country. I mean check it out for yourself, google maps does not have maps for Malaysia. Even Indonesia has its major highway mapped in Google Maps, but not Malaysia.

So i searched for The Malaysian Hall and took out a piece of paper and literally drew the map with a pen! It was a simple one and i took notice of all the landmarks and roads leading to it. Besides that i tried to get every possible information i can about traveling during that 10minutes of internet access and i was really proud to have utilized the 10 minutes to the max.

It was about 11pm when i finally got the information i wanted. By this time a curfew in The Malaysian Hall was in affect, so if i got there i couldn't get in anyway and i didnt want to be wondering alone in the middle of the night like a homeless guy. Knowing that, I decided to stay overnight at the airport.

Heathrow is a small airport as compared to KLIA. At night it is as quiet as a library, just the occasional chatter at the cafe counter. Although its quiet, it never cease to have "happenings". Im an observant person by nature. I like to sit quietly sit and watch my surroundings and watch peoples everyday activities (this part of my blog illustrates that). I was not alone at the waiting hall though. There were many travelers like me staying overnight at the airport. many trying to get sleep ahead of their journey the next day. Some would try to get some sleep on the uncomfortable seats at the waiting hall (which are made solely for sitting, not lying down) while others said "what the heck" and took out their sleeping bags and slept there as if it was a camping site. Soon the whole hall was full of people just sleeping there on the floor and now it started to look like a refugee camp. As for me, since im too shy to just sleep on the floor like everyone else and sleeping on the seats were like sleeping on a rocky mountian , i decided just to kill time by reading my book. This book was given to me by my trainee trainee from Netherlands back in Malaysia 2 years ago, but i only finished reading it at the airport that night. Finally!!!

Since i would be there at the airport for about 5-6 more hours, might as well take my sahur.... no time for luxuries so i just had an egg sandwich since that was the only thing im confident enough to eat. Two police officers complete with body walkie talkies, handguns and body armor stole my attention for a while, obviously they were looking for a suspicious character roaming around the airport. It seemed like the bloke they were looking for was in the crowd in the waiting hall. so they had a long chat with the guy before a struggle broke out and the police had to forcefully detain him. If u ask me it was unnecessary force since the guy wasn't that aggressive. The police had even dragged him on the floor before handcuffing him. Talk about police brutality. It cause quite a commotion but everybody was too sleepy to care.

I tried to get some sleep but only got a few minuts of it. Hours passed and now the airport was reopened. it was about 5.00am or so and people were seen coming in to check in their baggage and stuff. The airport was alive!! But that means i also have to make my way to the Train station to get myself to London. It was about a KM away but maybe due to my lack of sleep, tiredness and not to mention heavy bags, it seemed like 10km. As i arrived at the station i bought myself a ticket and waited for the train.

Many things went through my mind while waiting for the train, will i be able to find The Malaysian Hall armed with a hand drawn map with can only pass as child's work? If i do find Malaysian Hall, with there be any vacant rooms? Well i cant afford to think negatively at this time can I? I must believe in my map and also hope for the best that there are available rooms in the Malaysian Hall......

To be continued.............

The Babi Panggang theory

Previously I posted a post regarding babi panggang and how it was popular in Belgium....well i made a mistake....it was not Belgium, it was The Netherlands...sorry for the misunderstandings.

I told this story to my brother and dad and quite surprisingly they were able to come up with a theory on how it came to be...

enter : The Babi Panggang Theory.

My dad's theory was during the fight for Indonesian independence from the dutch, there were the Nationalists that were fighting for independents and there were also Indonesian people that favor dutch rule.

the story is, when the Nationalist finally got there independence, these dutch loyalist were in a tight situation. If they stay in Indonesia they will face the wrath of the nationalists for "betraying" the country. So the somehow persuaded the dutch to bring them back to Holland. And so they did...

So through the years, the Indonesians integrated with the locals and their culture and cuisine has became popular around western Europe and Scandinavia. I think the Indonesians who came to Holland were Indonesian Chinese, thats why their food was mistaken as Chinese food. This eventually caused the Dutch who went to China searching for Babi Pangang to be puzzled not to find it anywhere in China. Its not that there were none, but its not called Babi Panggang in China.

Cheers

The Great Adventure back home : Prologue & Episode 1

I know that i should have wrote this entry almost 2 months ago, but due to some issues regarding re-integration and stuff, i didnt. It has been resolved though, but lets just leave that story for another day.

I left you guys with my entry about my trip to Luxembourg. Actually all was not going according to plan but thats history and time to move on...

fast forward a few weeks......

I discussed with my manager to leave the company and end the traineeship a week earlier so that i can go traveling. I have already planned a trip to the UK and have bloody sacrificed a lot to get the ticket there. I had also planned my trip in advance so that my travel plans are in conjunction with the Frankfurt Auto Show , one of the worlds biggest auto show.

Before i go further, its probobly best to inform you that the trip to London was the most successful, exciting and adventurous trip i have done in my whole life where everything went wrong in the beginning but i managed to pull it off. In fact, it was the best thing i have been able to pull of so far. Here's the story.

Well, the plan was to go to the Frankfurt Auto Show on Saturday, 22nd of September and later on the night of the same day fly to London on my Lufthansa flight. My brother has a friend working in London who agreed to accommodate me during my stay in London, so it seemed like a perfect plan. Mind you, I had booked my flight a month in advance in the German spirit of "planning in advance" and changing the flight time or date is as bad as buying a new ticket, but, oh well, i have planed the trip in advance, what could possibly go wrong? Beeeep...I was sooooo wrong!!!!

I think the biggest flaw in my plan was i planned according to the best case scenario. I booked a night flight to London since i didnt want to waste my precious daytime on a plane instead of traveling around. I also expected my brothers friend to be guiding me through London Heathrow (if not picking me up himself), but i soon found out that my expectations had betrayed me big time! About one week before going, my brothers friend emailed me saying that he will not be in town on the weekend that i was supposed to be going to London on...including Monday of the following week. Danggggg! that was a big blow to the head. And London is also not a cheap place to stay at. This new development meant that i had to find a place to stay for saturday night, Sunday night and monday night before my brothers friend will be back in London . And mind you this was the Ramadhan month (i was fasting).

However, he did give me the suggestion of booking a place at the Malaysian Hall in London which i did via its website (on which later i found out that the booking sytem was not functional). The Malaysian Hall houses the Malaysian High Commission and the Malaysian Student Department. It has room in which MALAYSIANs can stay for a relatively super cheap rate, with Malaysian STUDENTs given the priority when it comes to room booking. But, I soon came across a scary announcement which read "Tempahan bilik bagi bulan September dibekukan untuk memberi ruang kepada kemasukan pelajar baru", which basically means, there will be new Malaysian students coming to start their studies and meanwhile they will be staying in the Malaysian Hall, so nobody else can book the rooms. Yet i booked it online anyway, who knows i will get lucky. But rationally it wont be safe just to depend on luck so i dedicated the last few days to find the cheapest hostel in London apart from making my travel plans in London.

Well, not everything went bad. Something rather unexpected happened. A good thing. On the final day of my traineeship, i was told that i am given a special bonus of 1000euros. Surely that was a pleasant surprise. so on top of my normal salary, i will be getting 1000euros extra (but one third of it will be lost due to taxes)..Yahooo! this means gifts for ppl back home, which i didnt planned for in the beginning. But i wouldn't be too excited coz i still have debt to pay when i get back to Malaysia, but that is also another story for another day.

So, very soon the day for me to depart came. I had great parties and outings leading to that final day, so i was pretty sad to leave all the place. Mannheim is a very cool town, not to small, not too big, just nice and i had made good friends with the people there, including the Malaysian students there. I felt reluctant to go but everything good comes to an end i guess.

The final day was spend with packing up and cleaning my room (which i fail miserably). I was supposed to clean it the night before but was too busy partying.. :-P But that was not the only thing i didnt do. In the midst of a busy day cleaning my room before returning the keys to the house master, I forgot to do 1 important thing : I didnt print out the plans i had done so carefully, in which i only remembered before boarding the train to Frankfurt. This also means traveling with the absence of London maps and also means not knowing how on earth i should get to the Malaysian Hall. So much for planning in advance.

Well i didnt want that to ruin my mood for the Frankfurt auto show, which i enjoyed a lot. The thing about exhibitions in Germany, be it car exhibitions or even fashion exhibitions, the quality and quantity of the exhibition is always worth the money you have payed...unlike some countries in the world which offer peanuts for the price of Ferraro Roche. Im sure you know some examples.

The exhibition centre was GIGANTIC! As a comparison, imagine KLIA was the venue , and all the hangars were the individual exhibition halls. It was that big....only maybe all the halls were closer together. The theme for the exhibition was an eco-friendly one, where most of the cars on display had listed their carbon emissions per KM. Yest when it comes to sports cars, this aspect was almost forgotten..hehe

The event was so big, that some transformers decided to join in

One of the technologically advanced concept cars

The new Subaru Imprezza WRX - one of the most awaited cars of the year.

A good thing about The Frankfurt Auto Show was the minimum number of female models, as compared to , say, the KL Motor Show where there were more attractive girls as compared to attractive cars, which I find ridiculous. True men will come to motor shows to see the cars not the girls.

This picture shows exactly how big the event is. Mind you this is only Mercedes presentation hall and its only showing half of the hall. And look at how many people there are! You can easily loose sight of your children here if your not careful.

In short, the event was well worth the 15euros spent to enter. Although completely warn out after the event, i was happy to have conquered the whole venue even during the fasting month. hehehe.

OK....moving on....

Since i have finish touring the event a bit early i spent some time around Frankfurt to see the city and to kill time, since my flight was at 9.30pm. Sadly my camera battery had betrayed me a few hours ago at the end of the Auto Show, so i could not take pictures of the place. But its OK since i think Frankfurt is too urban to be interesting. Frankfurt is the Financial capital of Germany, so all you can see is skyscrapers, banks and financial institutions. There are not many skyscrapers anyway. But there is something ....... "interesting" about Frankfurt. Before i went to Germany i had some good advice from my uncle who is a chief flight steward in MAS. He said if you go to Frankfurt you dont have to worry about food since there are many muslim restaurants in the area of the city. In fact there is a whole street full of Muslim traders. Turkish, Arabic, Iranian and Bangladeshis etc. But what the "interesting" part was the location of the street in Frankfurt.

If you have read my blog a few months earlier, you probobly noticed the post about the amount of Erotic shops in Mannheim city centre, right? Well, now its a little bit more "interesting" in Frankfurt. Directly across the main road in front of the Frankfurt Main Train Station, there is a street. in that street there are full of these erotic shops...it even had a erotic cinema! Its like shopping to Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman , only most of the shops are erotic ones, if not restaurants...talk about a centralized red light district with direct access to public transport :p

What do the muslim traders have to do with this little red light story? Well, I knew there were mosques in the area near the train station, but i didn't know there was also a red light district there, so i stumbled across the red light district while finding the mosque. The street where all the muslim traders was exactly to the red light street! So once one has finished doing ones hanky panky business, one could always have the choice to repent ones sins. After all the mosque is just on the next street.

Anyways, i finally did eventually find the mosque. Quite disappointingly though, the people there were not as friendly as i expected...but I have no right to judge people i dont know...well i just wanted to pray, tahts all, so i didn't really mind.

After that i took the train to the Airport and checked in my baggage. but still i had to wait for a couple of hours for my flight and i didn't have much to do there. It was really a long time to be waiting......i spent my time thinking of what will i do if I could not get a room in The Malaysian Hall because in a couple of hours I will be on the flight to uncertainty..................

To be continued....

Luxembourg at a glance

I finally succeeded in combining my Luxembourg pictures into a panoramic photo, check it out :

Luxembourg old city (3 photos in 1). Click to enlarge

I don't remember the name of this building but it functions like an opera house
(2 Photos in 1) . Click to enlarge

The Babi Panggang story

Last week a friend of Liu Shu came to spend some time here after his traineeship ended in Belgium. He asked me, do i know what is Babi Panggang. I asked "why?". Well according to him Babi Panggang is a famous Chinese food in Belgium. Apparently some smarty pants Malaysia/Indonesian had came to Belgium and introduced Babi Panggang to the Belgian market under the category of Chinese food. Very entrepreneurial of him/her don't you think? But why use Bahasa Malaysia? Anyways, everybody in his LC was asking him about babi panggang and how to cook it and stuff since he was from China. But he hasn't got the slightest idea as to what Babi Panggang was. He added that the LC members told him that most of the Chinese restaurants were selling them and its very famous. Some Belgian people had even searched for the delicacy in restaurants in China, going form shop to shop but to no avail.

It was quite funny since the word "Babi Panggang" itself is not a Chinese word let alone a Chinese delicacy. Babi Panggang is Malay for barbecued pork , but since Malays don't eat pork its impossible that its a Malay cuisine. The only explanation i can give him is it is most probobly a straits Chinese cuisine. They are famous to giving Malay names to their cooking even though it involves pork. Well as they don't know who strait Chinese, i told the whole story of Zheng He and the time he brought Hang Li Po to the sultan and brought along the Chinese who then stayed in Melaka and married the local people and so the straits Chinese were born. Well, actually not quite sure of the facts thats why i told him it was a theory how the straits Chinese came to be. But its better than no explanation....hehe

So, do u think Babi Panggang is a Nyonya cuisine? How did the Straits Chinese come to be anyway?

Objectives achieved

It's been quite a while since I wrote something decent here. Well lately I have been a bit lazy to write for no apparent reason. Well, I'm writing now, so thats what matters.

I have always had things that i wanted to do in life but had not many chances. However in the past weeks i have managed to do a few things that I wanted to do for a long time and in this post i will simplify the 3 things i did in the past few weeks.

Weinstrasse

I had always wanted to do long distance cycling but haven't had a chance because the lack of participants and if there was a cycling "expedition" the timing was not align with my timetable. However , a couple weeks ago,I had the chance to do some cycling along the beautiful Weinstrasse (Wine Route) with a few of my friends. It was a special weekend where the whole 80km of the Weinstrasse was close to cars and other motorized vehicles, which was heaven for bikers. I totaly said yes right away when my friend told me about it. Here is how it went down :

Click on the map to enlarge

As an overview of our trip, here is a map of the Weinstrasse. From Mannheim we took a train to Neustadt (translated to Malay its Kota Bahru and im not kidding). The route going south is about 30-35km and the route north is about 45 km or so. Our trip was divided into 2 parts, 15-20km cycle south to Albersweiler after that, a short trip back to Neustadt for the 2nd part of the trip up north until Bad Durkheim which is about 30km away. Im not sure if u can see the map above, but its all i got.

So after traveling in a bicycle packed train, we finally arrived at Neustadt at around 10am

Alex, Darko and Evgeny were quite exited about the trip as illustrated by the video above. Alex is a member of AIESEC Mannheim and the only one among us to use inline skates instead of a bike. Drako is a trainee in Bonn which was the same place Bonnie Arthur De Souza did his traineeship. Im sure if you ask Bonnie about Drako, he will know him. By the way he is from Bulgaria. Evegeny, of course, is my fellow trainee in TIM consult and he is from Russia.

So after the international team was set, we started our journey down south....

Our journey starts

The sunny weather couldn't be any better!! It was excellent!!!!

Cyclist turned out in their thousands on the Weinstrasse where the whole family could get together for a cycling adventure and an enjoyable weekend. It was awesome.

Well, its hard to put the experience in words, so ill just let the pictures do the talking...

Grape fields like this was the scene throughout the whole trip along the Weinstrasse

and this...

and from time to time u will pas through wine producing towns like this and u can choose to stop to have a sip of their famous wine (of course I didn't drink)

I would love to show you more pictures but if i did, there will be more pictures than words.

But as a conclusion, i can say the no 1 way to experience Germany is not by their beer or castles or parks....its cycling along the Weinstrasse!! it was surely a great experience!!

Go-Carting

The next thing i did was Go Carting! This was another thing i wanted to do for a long time. It was another dream come true. This time i went with my colleagues in TIM Consult. Altogether we had about 16 people and were divided into 8 teams each team with 2 drivers.

So, each driver will go through a test run, time trial and the race itself. The test run is done for 10 minutes to get the driver used to the track and the go cart. Talking about the go cart, its fast! With a top speed of 60km/h it doesn't seem fast, but with a track 3m wide and 360 degree turns plus sitting only a few cm from the ground, u will soon come to appreciate the speed. As I started the test run i was a bit shy on the gas pedal but before long i was doing drifts around the corners (however it doesn't make going around corners any faster). In the time trail i could just manage to do a best lap of 36 seconds, which put me on the last place of the starting grid (8th). It was quite ironic though, While we guys were struggling to even do a 33 second lap, there was this girl seamlessly doing 32 second laps which was untouchable territory for our guys.... But it turned out that she was a pro driver competing in races. She was just filling in the empty spaces of the girls that pulled out of the race. By the way, the picture on the left is me wearing the safety mask. it is worn before the helmet as safety, but i think its just to avoid our sweat from sticking to the inner sides of the helmet.
As for the race, it was in the format similar to Le Mans 24 hour race where in the middle there are 2 drivers for each car. The race is 1 hour long and the drivers can change how many times they like but as i found out, changing more than once is not a good strategy. Although i started at 8th, i managed to come up to 5th by the time i changed with my colleague. and my colleague managed to get 2nd place till the next change. But that change cost us 3 places and we were back in 5th and i didnt have enough time to chase the other drivers. Oh well, it was my first time racing anyways.
All in all it was really a great experience, racing with Michael Schumachers people. The go cart was also really awesome. I can understand why it is the first step to formula 1. I experienced all the experience that a F1 driver would feel but in a smaller and safer scale. it was awesome!

Trip to Luxembourg

For this trip i cant say much. all i can say is :
-we went there by car (Audi A4),
-did 180KM/h on the autobahn,
-got lost in Luxumbourg city centre due to bad signboards that happened to be in rojak language French+Deutsch
-Found out that Asian people speaking French sound rather cute
- the ending of the trip was tragic

Anyways, ill let the pictures speak for themselves:

There are reasons why i don't want to talk about Luxembourg and lets just leave it that way... till next time....ciao!

Happy Merdeka day

Wishing every Malaysian Happy Merdeka Day and long live The Agong!!

Busy Schedule next month

Next month will be the final month of my stay in Germany. It might sound strange, but I have yet to travel outside Germany. In fact I have yet to travel even outside the state of Baden-Württemberg (apart from Frankfurt). My travels so far are withing the State (since u can get a 24 hour day ticket to travel the whole state for a reasonable price). But next month I have a busy traveling schedule ahead (well not so busy, just busier than usual). It will start with a Go-Kart session at the go cart track nearby with my TIM Consult colleages on Merdeka day. I have alway wanted to race in a go-kart since i dont know when. Now i have the chance to follow the foot steps of Michael Schumacher.

The arrival of Evgeny (Trainee from Russia) opened more travel opportunities for traveling. due to the fact that he has an international driving license. This means we can share costs to rent a car and go traveling. By the way Evgeny is 21 years old and honestly he looks older than me!! no kidding! Anyways, Our plan for next month is to drive to Luxembourg and Brussels. On the left is a pic of the Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg. It's the residence of the Duke of Luxembourg. By the way, Luxembourg is a constitutional monarchy ruled by the Grand Duke and has the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in the world. Or in layman's term, Luxemberg is crawling with rich people. So i expect to see many people driving Ferrari's and Lambo's when i go there. We wont spend the night at Luxembourg since its a rich mans place, no place for a humble trainee like me, so we will drive directly to Brussels in Belgium, the only country in the world that has lamp post along all of its roads. But I will verify that when i go there.
Brussels is the capital of Belgium and the city where the European Parliament is located (pic on the right). Would love to see that. It's also said to be a beautiful city and I expect to see scenes like the picture on the left. We will stay for 1 night at Brussels and after traveling around the city we will drive back to Mannheim. Although i don't have an international driving license, I will be the emergency driver. In case Evgeny gets too tired to drive i will be his replacement and drive illegally. hehe...Kindda dangerous since i haven't been driving for 5 months and this time i will be driving on the wrong side of the road.

Next... On the 22nd of September I will be going to the Prestigious Frankfurt Auto Show. This is one of the biggest Automobile exhibition in the world where prototypes and new cars that have not gone on sale yet are displayed. I have been reading about this exhibition on the car magazines since i was in high school, i cant believe i will actually be going there. Henrik, our reception manager has been there last year and he said 1 day is not enough to finish the exhibition. its like, 9/10 halls of exhibits and you have to plan in advance where you want to go, which booth do u want to visit beforehand. That is always the case for German exhibitions and museums. It is always worth the money you pay. Unlike some museums in a certain country in Asean... Like when i wen to the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart not too long ago, the entrance was 8 euros, but the quantity of exhibits there was far more than you could imagine. I found myself in a hurry to finish studying the exhibits before the museum closed. It was truly a great experience.

And on the same day, at night, i will be flying to London. My brother has a friend there that is generous and let me stay at his place for a week. At that time will be the fasting month, so i can save a lot on food. After i came back from UK when i was 6 years old, i have always wanted to go back to my birthplace, Cardiff....lets hope that the travel expenses are not too expensive there. I still have to do a lot of planning in terms of budget and travel plans so that my stay will be meaningful to the last penny...After London, i will come back to frankfurt and the next day ill be flying back to Malaysia...For Raya!!!

Ill keep you guys updated...
Tchuss

From Hot Brazilian girl to Sweet Vietnamese twins

The summer holidays witnessed the mass exodus of the female hostel residents for their summer holidays. This includes the so called "Hot Brazilian girl" aka "Hot Ballet dancer". I'm not quite sure if they will be coming back or will there be new residence once the university term starts. But the absence of female residence is somewhat noticeable.

The starting date of the summer holidays and the starting of the new term of each University in Germany are not all the same. Some start as early as the beginning of September, some start in October. For some students, summer holidays provides the opportunity to work part time, in restaurants or factories depending on their skills and qualifications. For some students, it is compulsory to so their industrial training. Just like in Malaysia, the student will do about 3 months of industrial training and then write a thesis when they get back to University. This was the case for the Vietnamese twin sisters that just moved in a couple of weeks ago, the Nguyen sisters.

These sweet and petite girls are inseparable. They study the same course (economics) in the same University, in the same class and doing their industrial training in the same company (but different departments). Like every other friend in my floor, i met one of the sisters for the first time in the kitchen. Her name is Mee...something (i don't remember...paiseh). Previously i did notice them moving in but this was the 1st time we actually met. That was also when i knew she didn't know how to cook. Well, it was the same case with the other sister actually. So we talked and exchanged YM addresses. She had a problem with her internet untill now, but she gave my YM to her sister and later we had a short introduction.

It was not until last Saturday that we decided go out together with my fellow trainees, Liu Shu (PRC) and Evgeny (Russia). There was this free movie screening in an indoor swimming pool which they fixed a screen and a few rows of seats (not many, at least not enough for us). The movie was a musical from the 1940's about swimming girl, people playing music and cha-cha dancing. The movie was accompanied by a real life synchronized water dance. I guess thats why they screened it in the indoor swimming pool. It was an American movie but dubbed into German, which made in not understandable to us. About 10 minutes into the movie we decided not to waste time watching that movie and we went to drink and have a chit-chat.

Now, when we mention twins people will always think of Siamese twins. These sisters were not Siamese twins due to the fact that they were Vietnamese and they look similar, but not the same. Most obvious was the shape of their faces are different. Now, I didn't study biology when i was in high school but my mom is a biology teacher and I used to "ambil upah" typing my mothers schools biology exam papers (with answers). That's when i learned about the concept of twins and how they come to be. Seems like the Nguyen sisters came from 2 different eggs fertilized by 2 different sperms. Thats why there is a difference in how they look. In fact if you look carefully, if not for the same hair style and physical size, they look just like normal sisters rather than twin sisters. But i know which one looks cuter though...hehe

Before i go further, it is probobly a good thing to inform my readers and friends that both sisters have informed me earlier in our acquaintance that they already have boyfriends. This is typical for girls who want to define their boundaries to other men. Well i think its a good thing to do to avoid misunderstandings. However, they are very sweet and friendly. In fact Mee....something (i don't remember her name...paiseh) was the one that initiated the conversation when i first met here in the kitchen. Not that i didn't want to start the conversation, but she started it before i could say "you must be the new vietnamese girl, arent you". But since she still hasn't had her internet fixed, i have been chatting with her sister, Kim Hee for the past week. She's the cutest between them..hehe.

Well, i think this is as far as i can tell you guys about the Vietnamese twins. Besides i only have known them for over a week. But, i don't have a picture of them but , pretty soon i will. For now i just have the lousy picture taken at the movie screening with just Mee...something(i don't remember her name...paiseh) and us trainees in it.....

The Matrix : Revelations

Those who have watched the first movie in the Matrix Trilogy should remember the part where Neo is given the choice between the blue pill and the red pill. If he takes the blue pill, he will wake up at home living as normal, believing what he wants to believe. If he takes the red pill, he will be on a one way ticket journey to reality outside the Matrix. It's kindda like the situation I'm in now, well rather the situation that i WAS in.

The reason I came here to Germany on this internship was to discover the truth whether, given a better working/learning environment in software development, would I come to like the field better? Would the question "do i want to work in the field for the rest of my life?" be answered or not and what would be the answer? Yes or no? Basically coming here is analogical to taking the red pill.......and like the Matrix movie, there is no turning back.

Yes, how painful reality is especially when it doesn't go your way. To begin with, I didn't really have much experience in software development in real life let alone software development in a team. That was one thing i was curious about. I haven't done any software development in a team and i was pretty blank about it. How do we work in a team when it comes to software development. How is this guy supposed to know what the other guy is doing? Surely there will be a conflict of data structure, variable types, class names etc. The list of what could go wrong goes on and on. To make things worse my basics of programming, specifically object oriented programming was not strong and i have forgotten a lot of things. I remember in the lectures, i was wondering what is the relevance of learning all this theory stuff such as classes, functions, subroutines, friend, public, private, arrays etc. I wasn't a programming geek back in Uni, and it seems that the other trainees im working with were somewhat "geekier" than me. But the German team leader is a cool geek, i mean at first glimpse he doesn't look like a geek because he's quite stylish. But when i started working with him, the complexity of his knowledge was show through the way he talked. I couldn't even understand what he, and my colleagues were talking about. This was attributed to my week basics. And the lack of good English among our team members was not helping. So we had to change the communication language to Visual Basic and ASP.Net....pseudo code is also acceptable and understandable. Diagrams are highly recommended too.

But i kindda got away with it since i was quite a fast learner and the basics were not so hard to learn. Just act like u know everything and quietly n quickly learn from the internet. Learning from other peoples mistakes is also a good way to learn. Haha. But when i comes to a high level of programming, ill get pretty much blur. Thats when i start to think "what the heck have i got myself into this time?". This is when i really feel bad for getting into trouble in a field that i don't fancy much. Actually, i feel bad looking at my other team mates working with full interest because this is what they enjoy doing, and compared to them, i look really uninterested and starting to become a liability. The others are expecting me to have the same if not higher level of interest in the field because, why else would i go half way across the world for this traineeship? complaining about it wouldn't make anything better would it? Well, like it or not i have to go through it. If not for myself, for my fellow team mates. I don't want to let them down. I always like to get myself into trouble, but i always manage to get myself out of it...I just have to hang on for 1 more month. Hopefully all goes well...

However I don't regret taking the red pill. I think if i took the blue pill i would be forever in a condition of perpetual { if...elseif...} missing the {end if } statement. Or in layman terms i will always be wondering what if i took the red pill, would my life be better or worse? I also don't regret studying computer science and it think it will be extremely useful in what ever plans i will undertake in the future. But the fact remains once you know what you want and what you don't want, life wont be the same, trust me on this one.

My advice to those still studying especially in UTM, please, please equip yourself with extra skills other than what your studying. Degree ++ is a good way to get value added skills. For example, I took the "Environmental Journalism" Degree++ course that was conducted by Karam Singh Walia from TV3. Actually it was there and then I found out i had a big interest in Journalism. i am really glad that i joined that degree++ course. If i had known about the degree++ program earlier, i would take a lot more of their courses to equip myself with value added skills. Who ever came up with the Degree++ program is a genius! I'm sure it was an academician that came up with this idea because no Malaysian politician would come up with an idea this brilliant....and that guy really knows the value of "added value". It is important that one acquires these extra skills because its these skills that will give one more options on where one wants to work in the future. Some of my friends told me that after a few years in the IT field, they start to hate working in that field, but because it was their only skill, they had to do it whether they like it or not. I guess freedom of choice is not free. It costs knowledge and skills... also determination as a service charge.

So, there u have it. My Matrix story... Now, what is your Matrix story?

Tunak tunak tun (with english subtitles)

Are you familiar with the hindi song "Tunak tunak tun"? Well i came across the video clip with "english subtitles". I recommend you guys watch it because its damn funny. I was ROTFL when I first watched this.

We have all been riped off

Not too long ago, the world was in a frenzy when the 7th Harry Potter book made it too the shelves of bookstores. Within days millions and millions of copies were sold to Harry Potter junkies all over the world.

However I recall in Malaysia there was a major issue of "inappropriate" pricing by some retailers that cause quite a stir among the fans of this four eyed young wizard all over the nation. If im not mistaken, the recommended retail price in Malaysia for the 7th book was around RM120 something. The issue was when some book stores sold the book for about RM60-RM70.

Well guess what? The true market price is the latter!!! Here in Germany the price of the book is about 15 euros which is around RM 70. So the retailers are recommended to rip off RM50 from these innocent Harry Potter loyal supporters. So much for "Recommended retail prices". Maybe there is an extra tax for "tahyul" (superstitious) books that want to be marketed in Malaysia? or are there cronies of high level government officials that are trying to take a larger bite from the consumers by means of recommending an unreasonable price to be endorsed by the government? I don't know. Harry Potter books are not a necessity item and i think its up to the retailers to set the price.

Its funny though, usually when an item is sold at a high price, it makes lots of noise, but on the other hand, this time when an item is sold below the recommended price, suddenly there's noise pollution instead of sounds of happy consumers. That a bit....strange.

Anyways, im not a Harry Potter fan so i couldn't care less about the pricing but I just wanted to inform others about this bizzare incident . If u are asking me to buy one for you here, forget it. Das buch ist auf Deutsch. So if you don't understand the previous sentence, chances are you wont understand the Harry Potter books bought here.

tchuss

(not so) Good news!!!?

I don't know how to describe my feelings now, im presented with a big choice in my life now. A choice that determines the course of my life and im really overwhelmed by the magnitude of the choices presented to me, though it might seem easy for some. Read on to know more..

I seldom see my CEO in the office as he is always away on client meetings and marketing trips. His name is Björn Klippel. He's a well spoken man, very friendly and always address us with "gentlemen" every time we meet. Well, i had a (not so) short chat with him last evening after working hours, and, boy was i glad that we had the conversation. I can say it was the most significant conversation of my trainee ship since i started 4 months ago. In our conversation, Mr Klippel shared with us his vision of the company and his strategy towards that goal. As a quick recap, our company, TIM Consult is a consulting company that specializes in logistics and transportation. We consult our customers in how their logistics should be managed and also about the transportation of products from factory to warehouse to regional distribution centres and so on and so fourth. Our company has a big customer base all over the world and lately they have been busy expanding their market in Asia especially in China. However, from the feedback from the customers in china, they think it would be better if they were to support them in a more long term period. This will eventually mean opening a regional office in China. But, being a very internationally experienced businessman, Mr. Klippel knows that without the support of a local person that knows the local market very well, its almost impossible to open a regional office in a country. Getting good workforce is very hard. Blindly hiring local people would not do much good either as they wouldn't know how things work in a German company, particularly TIM Consult. So the best strategy was to hire Trainees from other countries train them in Germany for a year or two on the working culture of the company and, with a senior consultant, migrate to the foreign country and try to setup a regional office that could benefit the customers as well as the company. From this situation we can see how much a (soon to be) multinational company knows the value of their employees.They know, its the employees that make their world go round. Unlike a 'certain' GLC in Malaysia I mentioned about in my blog some time ago, where they treat their operational staff as if they were 'kuli's.

Anyway, that is why my company has a close relationship with AIESEC, because AIESECs potential to offer international trainees from all over the world. Potential -> thats what a company need to be able to see in employees or to be employees before it can get anywhere. So regarding the topic of our conversation, Mr Klippel made a passive job offer to us trainees to fill the post of that "international" relations officer (if i may) cum trainee consult. What i mean by passive is, it was not a job straight forward job offer, but more to telling us that there is an opportunity that we can work out together, if we were interested. Mr Klippel wanted to give us an option at the same time giving us the opportunity to explore our potential.

But before anyone gets excited and start to speculate what my reaction is, i have tell you guys my part of the story first. So keep my story above in mind while i tell you my side of the story. To start off, i must rewind back to before my traineeship here. Why did i go for this traineeship? what was my goal and expectations settings? My goal and expectation settings were mostly influenced by the confusion of the last few years of my Uni life, which was partly caused by joining AIESEC itself. Don't get me wrong, this is a good type of confusion, the type that is life changing.

For those who don't know me, I studied Computer science when i was in UTM. It was a typical case of just taking whatever course i got from UPU application. It wasn't my first choice but i thought its better than nothing. The first few years were OK, i could handle most of the Computer science subjects due to my analytical mind. I didn't really think of what i really like so much, i thought studying is just something we all have to go through even though we don't like it. To make a long story short, the internationalism that i was exposed to in AIESEC presented me with many types of people, people that do what they do because of passion and sheer interest.Thats when i began to question myself and what i wanted to do in life. Life must be more than studying (the course that can make money), get a job, get married and live a kindda mundane life. Life should have a more meaningful meaning rather than just living for livings sake. You know what I mean? Even animals have purposes in life, cattle to provide food and milk for people, we get eggs and meat from chickens, and so on and so forth. What is my purpose in life. As i come from a quite religious family, there is a verse in the Quran that says God created man and jin so that they worship and perform "ibadah" to him. Here ibadah does not just mean praying only. For me the meaning of "Ibadah" is anything good that has a good result and done in a good way with good intentions. So having understood that, it was just a matter of what i can do to contribute to the advancement and welfare of the society. In which area do i want to contribute my efforts. To cut the story even shorter, i soon found out that my field of interest is Journalism. And the interest is very deep. Coming from a family of educators i like to share my thoughts experience with people so that they can learn from them and hopefully teach others too. I think starting my AIESEC XP at a time that the words "Agents of Change" and "Paying it Forward" were the theme of AIESEC (or at least @inUTM) really influenced my thinking and choices. I think Journalist are in a position to educate the masses about issues that affect them.

However, i didnt think i gave a fair judgment on my whole Scinece com education and experience. Most of my experience in the course was quite bad after taking a majoring that not many of my 1st year friends took. Mostly i was studying on my own initiative and during practical i was basically coming up with all the projects myself and implementing it by myself because i was the only one in that organization the was knowledgeable in programming. But no matter how bad those times were i am quite thankful now because i know why those things were happening to me. Those experiences really trained me to have an independent mind and view of things. also it trained me not to wait for help to come, but more to make the initiative to do things, qualities that are very useful in journalism. So everything DOES happen for a reason... Anyway, I have already set my expectations for this traineeship to practice IT in a better and conducive environment and come up with my final decision whether i want to continue with IT or move on to Journalism, or any other field for that matter. In a nutshell, the environment here is very good to learn and practice IT, but despite that i still don have interest to continue in this field. However im happy that i went through the whole experience and got to learn IT because im feeling that i will be very very useful in the future.

So coming back to the big story, having known that i don't want to be in the IT field, i was presented with a tough choice. On one hand, my CEO was offering an opportunity that has a big potential to manifest into a very stable career with a good pay and lotsa traveling, On the other hand is an "alternative" career that does not promise a good pay or even success, but its what i really want to do and im sure i can't live in peace without having a shot at it. Or to put it simple :

TIM Consult -> Stable, possibility of good income, get good experience, may get all the chicks, and i think its QUITE (but not so) interesting. but i have no passion for it.

Journalism -> The road least traveled, no promise of high income, Have a lot of passion for it, but If i am good at it, there are more possibilities to travel around and write articles or make documentaries etc. IF im become good enough. But most important get the fulfillment of doing what I always wanted.

Well, being a crazy person that i am, im more likely to choose Journalism. After all we should live our dreams rather than live dreaming, no?

But Im opened to suggestions and comments. What do you think? is it a wise choice or not? Please give some suggestions:-).....and please don't give politically correct comments,just speak your heart out:-) Your comments are appreciated to the highest level.....

Tchuss

P/S : i haven't told my story even to my parents...the must think im crazy and irrational...So i rather prove to them first...talk later...hehe :-)

31st July

31st of July is almost over here. In Malaysia its already over. A few weeks ago in my blog, I mentioned about a blog i came across where the writer wanted to kill herself on 31st July. Today was the day. There were no new postings for the past 3-4 days so I cant be sure of here status whether she is dead or alive.

Her last few postings did show some improvement in her behavior but she still wanted to kill herself. She thinks she will go to heaven after she kills herself and be in a better place. Well, if that were true, why not all the hungry and oppressed people in Africa, middle east and North Korea and all over the world just go kill themselves? At least they will be in a better place........

Sadly I don't believe so. I believe that take your own life is the biggest sin one could make. Live is a gift from God that nobody else in the world can give...not your mother, your doctor or not even Jesus himself. By killing yourself it is as if one is not greatful. Sure life can be hard and cruel to some people, but if you don't ask for help from God, how is He supposed to help?

But what can I do its all up to her now. At least the past few days she was happier than normal, so there is a slight chance that she has changed her mind. Hopefully she has. If she has killed herself, what can i say, she's a stupid girl. With all the support she has got, she still wants to kill herself. And i hope she is happy with her after life, however it turns out...

....sayonara...

Blogger - Dalam Bahasa Indonesia

I just noticed that blogger can be set to Bahasa Indonesia, so, being curious, i changed my blogger profile to be displayed in Bahasa Indonesia and i noticed 2 interesting things apart from the translation that is quite funny (if it was in Bahasa Malaysia, it would be funny too).

The first thing was in my profile, "gender" is translated "jenis kelamin". Well, i dont know about you, but i find it mildly, vulgarly funny. If translated back to English it would sound something like "type of genitals". Imagine somebody asking you "what type of genitals do u have".... :-P Well, Each language has a cultural component in it, so its quite inappropriate to directly translate it.

another thing is I found out from one of the title bars of blogger that "Gratis" (Bahasa indonesia) means "free of charge", which has the same meaning in German. In German, Gratis is always used in advertisements that means "free of charge". Because Dutch language is very similar to German, I assume the Indonesians got the word from the Dutch.

Its interesting to now how all the countries in the world are related to each other. Its really an eye opener :-)

Thats all for now...tchuss

Flight back to Malaysia

Lately i have been hearing about the declining quality of service of MAS on the e-newspapers. There are an average 30 flight delays in a day. It is said that the MAS employees are on a "strike" because of the management that does not appreciate the employees by not giving any benefit to them. Instead the people in higher positions that have only been employed for a mere 1 or 2 years have been given bonuses like theres no tomorrow instead of the employees that have been working of 15 to 20 years in MAS. I think thats really f*%ked up.

I guess that's the difference between an multinational company and a local company. Multinational companies realize that the main asset of the company is not billion dollars worth of machines, but its the employees. A company may have the best equipment in the world, but without good employees, they are worthless. Thats why multinational companies really take care of their employees. They know how to spot potential and wiling to pay more for better quality employees. I think in Malaysia there is this obsession of Management and sales people are "better" than technical employees thus they deserve better than their technical counterparts. Everybody wants to be in sales. But i think it is true in a way. No matter how smart you are, if u cant talk and sell your stuff, you'll be a "kuli" for the rest of your life.

I think the best would be a technical person that has a sense of entrepreneurship because he knows his stuff and he knows how to sell it, and because he knows his stuff, nobody can cheat him. Compared to pure sales people. They know how to sell, but when it comes to expanding their product potential, its a bit hard. Reminds me of a person i know. He is the TMNet regional manager in Johor. A UTM Graduate. He graduated in electrical engineering but now works for sales. because of his technical background, he really knows his stuff and what chance to take and the potential of each product. Form his appearance alone he sends out a signal that he is no ordinary man. Knowing him for half a year, i think he is one of the most resourceful and intelligent entrepreneur i have met so far (not that i have met many).

OK...I going so far out of topic...Actually what i wanted to say in this entry is I'm feeling a bit worried about my flight back to Malaysia. I'm worried if the flight is delayed too long, i might have a problem with a visa. My visa is valid till 30th September. Which happens to be the day of my flight. If i overstay in Germany, i might be in trouble...I hope nothing goes wrong...

tchuss

Arena of Pop

Yesterday (Saturday) there was a big concert cum party at the Schloss aka University. It was the biggest party ever that was held in Mannheim, as far as i have been here. They had closed 2 rather important main roads for the concert cum party. It was totally free and payed for by the state government. Well, i don't have the words to describe the concert cum party, so i just let the pictures and videos do the talking.

This is the view from "Parade Platz" where we can see the Schloss. Usually this place will be busy with trams at this time, but as it has been closed down by the police, it's pretty much every bodies street. Notice in the distance is the concert stage inside the University.



The music was quite loud, feels like the resonance could stop my heart from beating

The stage that can transform according to the band playing



This particular song was quite good despite of it being so loud and in German language.



There were also other stages around the area with different bands playing.

The whole street, which would be packed with cars, was full of food stalls and booths.

There was also futsal compatitions

Dining-in

I think i have take the DIY cooking the wrong way. I just realized dat its kindda silly to cook Asian when I'm not in an Asian country. It's rather expensive to be eating Asian food as its considered something exotic. I also think its a bit too kiasu to eat Malaysian food when there is a cheaper alternative. A visit to the Asian store drains my money like how American cars drain petrol. I said to myself "i have to find an alternative". The other day one of my floor mates baked some bread in the kitchen. The smell of the bread really got to my stomach. Its smelled so nice, even though it was only bread. So I thought i wanna give it a try.

You can by unbaked bread at the supermarket for around 3 cents for 6 pieces. each piece is about the size of your fist, so about 3 is enough to get you full. So i tried it for breakfast where i cooked some scrambled eggs and cut up some tomatoes and pepper aka paprika to be eaten with the bread and its really not bad at all!! it was great actually plus it was relatively cheaper and healthier than a typical Malaysian dish that i cook, with the limited ingredients. I think it makes practical sense to adapt to the local food.

So,I got a bit more adventurous and decided to make some pasta with spaghetti sauce. A packet of the cheapest pasta is 29cents for 500 grams compared to rice which is 1euro per kilo of non-lousy rice. and 500 grams of pasta can last for 3 meals, which was great! So i got 2 packets of pasta, some tomatos, paprika, a pack of tomato puree, a pack of halal sausages, garlic and some oregano, all costing around 6 euros. I looked up the simplest spaghetti sauce on the Internet and started cooking. The pasta was not a problem to cook, in fact if you don't know how to cook the pasta, you shouldn't have been cooking in the first place. Its just a matter of boiling some water with raw pasta in it for 12 minutes. The recipe that i got from the internet was quite simple. Simpler than i expected once you have all the ingredients with you. At first I was just blindly following the recipe but as soon as i put in the tomato puree and left it to boil for a few minutes, that familiar smell you get from a italian restaurant quickly reassured me that i was in the right track. It took about 20-30 minutes for the sauce to be ready but it was worth the wait as it turned out really well. Surprisingly well. It tasted like what u would taste in the Italian restaurant. All thanks to the simple recipe that i downloaded from the internet.

So from now on i'll be searching for regional recipes that i can try cooking to save more and more $$$. I think the question of getting used to it does not really matter since this is not the first time i lived abroad. So, bread and pasta is acceptable to me as much as rice and curry puffs are.
So see how it goes...

Tchuss

Looks like no coup afterall

Just when i thought Malaysian politics were entertaining, it just got even more exciting. Seems like there wont be a coup in Malaysia anyway. It was said that Pak lah went to Australia because the CIA people wanted to ask him about the involvement of a company that was allegedly owned by one of his family members in the transportation of sensitive American military technology to potentially rouge states. This is even worse than a coup...these guys are risking the national security to make a quick buck...i don't know what is the future of Malaysia...

But Its just a rumor...so it's not necessarily true...but we will see...

Coup in Malaysia?

I can't deny that im a quite loyal reader of Malaysia Today (the site owned by Raja Petra Kamaruddin). I read his recent posts and it seems like he is trying to imply that there is a possiblity that The Agong will sack PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi because of his incompetence in governing the country. Pak Lah quietly sneeked out of the country a week ago, if im not mistaken, and its not sure when he will be back, but it is said that he knows that the Agong want to sack him so he fled the country. Wow, hows that for thrilling politics? Sounds like a scene from a movie.

however these are all roumors. But it would be interesting if what is said is true and i will be looking forward to a new government when i get back to Malaysia. Interesting. Besides the current goverments sucks big time anyway...

Tchuss

Recent updates

"Semak". Thats how I can describe my mind now. Feels like my mind has been congested by all this programming work....some that i can't find solutions to. Plus the kick-ass coffee machine is not helping. I just noticed that i have become a caffeine addict. The other day i didn't have coffee for one day it was like crazy. My mind cant focus and i feel very sleepy. I better switch to tea pretty soon or else i'll permanently be dependent on coffee.

A few weeks ago my friend told me something very funny i can't help laughing. My friend has a friend that had his driving license revoked because he was caught drunk riding on a bicycle!! Like what the..... ??? Getting his driving license revoked because of drunk cycling is not something u see everyday. What will happen next? You will get your walking license revoked and you would have to use a wheelchair?

Because all the TV channels here are in German...or French, Youtube has been a main source of understandable shows. Recently i came across some very interesting video clips :

The vice pyramid

Let's face it, nobody in this world is perfect. Nobody has lived his life without making a mistake once in a while and fallen pray to his own lust. Its just part of being a human to make mistakes.

Throughout my stays in a few foreign countries, I have always been faced with challenges related to things that are considered a norm to locals but its a vice to me. These vices, if i may, vary from one culture to another. Of course there are many vices one could choose from but i rather focus on a few common ones, Vices that don't require one to be a mafia member to commit, namely Alcohol, Seduction (polite word for premarital sex) and Smoking. Each group of culture view these vices in different ways, thus impacting the numbers of people committing these vices within that particular culture. Towards that i have come up with "The Vice Pyramid" that I use to roughly define the perception of a certain culture or group of people towards these 3 vices.

The Vice Pyramid : every culture has a different vice heirerki

The vice pyramid has 3 layers. Layer 1 represents the vice least or least likely to be committed by the members of that culture and 3 represents the vice most likely to be committed by the members of a culture . As an example , according my personal perception , for Malays, alcohol will be at the top of the pyramid, the second would be seduction and the lower part would be smoking, since its quite likely for a Malay to be smoking. Although smoking is somewhat accepted by the people, but alcohol and seduction remain a serious offense and frowned upon by the Malays.

The first foreign country i have stayed was Turkey. This was the first taste of an open minded culture that considered all 3 vices as an everyday thing. Despite that I would say the vice pyramid for Turkey(western turkey) would be 1. seduction 2. smoking 3. alcohol ... This was not good for a person that do not practice either one of those vices. I was always the odd one out among the people my age. Seduction wasn't a big issue but usually, they will be a bit surprised that i don't smoke, since almost everybody there smokes. Its hard to find someone who doesn't smoke. Although a bit surprised, they could accept the fact that i don't smoke, its acceptable not to smoke. But their biggest surprise was when i said i didn't drink any alcohol. For them it was the shock of the century!! they totally freaked out. Alcohol has become one of the traditions of Turkey and a symbol of its' secularism. In fact, they even have their own traditional liquor "Raki". It even came to the point that i was considered "less manly" because of not doing any of the vices. Since it was my first time in that situation, i was quite depressed but they say, "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger". It was a real test of my principals and I'm quite glad that i managed to pull through. Since then it hasn't been too hard for me to decline an offer to drink alcohol. Guess it did make me stronger.

Sometimes it may seem like you are "less manly" by not doing those vices, but if you show your confidence and belief in what you are doing, you will be respected. You'll not just be more manly but also a gentleman. the most important thing is to know the reason why you don't do this and that. After all, knowledge is power.

So, I end this article with a saying : "Your principals are just mere words unless put to the test" - Muhaimin

Tchuss