A dream...not a dream.

It's just a thought. I'm not mental.

Ever think of experiencing great pain or great loss?

Someone dear to you left you. Or betray you. You go on each day not knowing the meaning and purpose of your life. Committing suicide never cross your mind because you don't want to end your life this way. You believe there is much more than that in your life. That's mental pain.

You had an accident. It was too sudden. You were driving 160km/h and something behind distract you. You turned back to see what happened and when you bring your focus to the front again, to the road, you just hit a lorry or a bus, hard. The next thing you know, you were in a hospital. Your whole body was injured badly. There was so much pain. It was unbearable. That's physical pain.

Then you wished all this pain was only a dream. You tried so hard to wake up from the dream. And from the movie Inception, you knew the way to wake up from a dream is to kill yourself in the dream. But there's no way you want to do that. Or maybe drop yourself from somewhere high. Not high enough to kill you but to only wake you up.

It's not possible because you are not dreaming. You are living in so much pain that you don't want to face it but to find an alternative to escape from it.

There's no escape in life. The solution is to recover from it. More pain will make the pain seems small. I'm not mental. It's just a thought.

Merry Christmas!

To stay or to leave.

Life consists of various stages and as you move on from stage to stage there will be someone you wanted to stay with or something that you wanted to bring along the journey.

Knowing when to let go is always the option but try to think 10 to 20 years later. Looking back, is the decision made years back affect you in any way? We all need to settle down at some point in our life. Do we regret making the decision back then. What would it be like if I were to stay? Would I be better off than what I am now or leaving was the right decision after all.

Meeting and separation is part of our life. This can mean separation due to death. But think of separation because you are moving to the next stage of your life. Like I said, we all need to settle down at some point in our life. The question is 'when'. Do we know 'when' when we know 'when'? Or we just slipped through the chance and wait for another one to pop out which might not happen. Or grab on to the chance that is in front of you and settle down at that point. What if there are 2 chances and you were to choose one? Make a decision and never look back. Typical answer.

My answer...make a decision you will never regret making and even if you regretted your decision it would be worthwhile. Same same.

Wake me up when September ends.

"It's the end of September and I still don't feel like waking up, literally.

I've done a lot this month. Or I should say I've gained a lot this month."

28th September 2009

This post was composed last year and it never got published. The title is a song from Green Day and my birthday coincidentally falls in this month. I don't mean I sleep the whole month and do nothing. It's a month I wanna do a lot of things that most of the time never gets done. But most of time, it never gets done anyway. Lolx.

So, please, God, if you do exist, wake me up when September ends. Because if I'm still sleeping after this September, I'd be sleeping until the end of the year. Then my life won't be good and life isn't that good already. It will change. Nothing is permanent but change.

This year, this time.

It's the time of the year again...my birthday!!! huhu
Nothing special, really.

Last year I gave myself a week off in an island where no communications from the outside world except that part of the island. This year, I'm going up a hill with a friend. I'm going to give myself something holy. I'm going to meditate. Sounds nice eh. For some they think I'm going through some crisis or too many karma. No crisis. No karma. I need to come back to myself and think clearly. Too much external input has done tremendous damage to my brain. Thus, no output. I need an output. 3 days ain't enough but that's all I have.

I need to heal myself. I'm healing myself.

In search for an answer.

There are a lot of questions unanswered. The harder we try to find out, the more likely it won't get answered. Take life as it comes and do the best we can until the answer surfaces. There's these saying that I don't like but holds a certain truth, 'ignorance is bliss' or 'what you don't know cannot hurt you'. But it keeps you wonder all the time. We stop wondering. We move forward. When you look back, it doesn't really matter anymore. You smiled at how foolish you were. If given a chance to go back, would you do it differently? I won't. It is because of the past that I am what I am now. We cannot deny the past. We learn from the past. The tears are not wasted. You dropped your tears knowing it'll be over soon. Hang on. Live on. There are better futures ahead.

Just woke up from an afternoon nap and I'm feeling groggy. I write whatever comes to my mind. My mind is not straight now. Haha.


Learn from the past. Live at the present. Have a better future.
Wake me up when September ends.

The Quarter-Life Crisis

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared.

You miss the comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with the same people on a constant basis. But then you realize that maybe they weren't so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of what is acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to get to know better. You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you are not a bad person.

One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.

You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for yourself and while wining the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Source: http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~shane/text/quarterlifecrisis.html

A football match.

I was in a football field, literally. Me being me was playing nice and as you know in a football field, playing nice would do you more harm than good. As I play along, I got pushed, kicked, cursed and the list goes on....The referee has been nice to me because I'm being nice of course. But the game didn't go as expected. Other players played harshly but it drew a lot of applause from the spectators. The spectators being the most important individuals in a football game influenced the referee on how the game should be played.

Me being nice is not welcome in a football game. The game should be played as how the spectators wanted it to be. So, I was given a yellow card to warn me on what it takes to keep the game going.

So, one yellow card for me. According to the rules, if anyone gets 2 yellow cards, you will be given a red card. Then you are eliminated from the game.

Ask me if I'm going to play the game nicely or play it as what the spectators wanted?
I guess the answer is clear.

Back to the city.

After stranded (yea I'm exaggerating) for one week in Chagar Hutang in Redang Island, I'm back to the city where you hear people talk.

There's no updates on the Convocation Commemorative. Sorry for the disappointment. Photos are gone for no reason. So no pictures of Sultan Kedah, Raja Perlis and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Below are some of the news on the event.

http://www.usm.my/my/berita-penuh.asp?id=7119&idform=7
http://www.usm.my/my/berita-penuh.asp?id=7138&idform=10

or you can log on to www.usm.my and search in the archives.

But...remember I said I'm going to show you the pride of USM?
Ta daa...

A picture paints a thousand words.

We beat 10 others higher learning institutions and bagged champion for Engineering Presentation and Highest Mileage for Automatic Transmission category. That's 3 months ago.

Sorry to keep you outdated.

A gift to myself.

I'm going to be away for one whole week. This is the first birthday present I had given myself.

It ain't a vacation but it's a voluntary work. We need to monitor every single movement of a soon-to-be extinct species. Guess what...it's a turtle.

Destination: Chagar Hutang, Pulau Redang.

While I'm there I'm going to rediscover myself. Something is definitely missing and I don't know what. If I have to travel from an island to another island to find out what it is, then I hope Pulau Redang is the place.

Special thanks to SEATRU and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, UMT.

p/s1: Updates on the USM Convocation Commemorative will be uploaded after Hari Raya Puasa.
p/s2: To all Muslims, Selamat Hari Raya Puasa.

USM Convocation Commemorative

Any big event in USM, Engineering Campus?
For those that don't even know that we existed, shame on you!
We are holding a big event on 9th September 2009.

jiu jiu jiu (Chinese)...kau kau kau (Hokkien)...dog dog dog (English)


We are prepared.

All the Vice Chancellors in Malaysia are coming.
The Sultan is coming. The Raja is coming.
I think the Prime Minister is coming also.

We even spend RM16k on this.



It looks like scrap metal or some overpriced item with redundant material?
It's worth every penny because it's going to hold what USM is proud of and School of Mechanical Engineering, USM's pride.
Wanna know more?

Stay tune...

52 and still growing...Merdeka!

It's this time of the year again where people gather and wait for the midnight to hail the special word.
Merdeka...

And it's this time of the year where people show how patriotic they really are.
Merdeka...Merdeka...

It doesn't matter how many times we say that special word. What really count is the meaning behind it.
Merdeka...Merdeka...Merdeka!!!

52 years and still growing...
Happy 52nd Birthday.

We support 1Malaysia.

No talking in seminar.

Seminar is a place where people presents their findings to the audience in which everyone is encouraged to participate. In Malaysia, majority of the audience refused to engage in this knowledge sharing seminar. Instead, we talk. We talk about anything from related topics to not related topics being presented, but most importantly we talk among the audience.

Last week, I was attending a seminar and it gets really bored. Me and my friends started to talk. In the beginning we were discussing the topics being presented. After a while our topics got carried away. Then after the presentation, an Iraqi told my Professor that he has 2 points to make. He said one related to the presenter and another related to the audience, which means us.

I don't know what he said about the presenter but I know what he said about us.

He claimed that if the audience did not pay attention to the seminar, the presenter will somehow got distracted.
True.

He also claimed that if the audience can't shut the mouth up, we might as well leave the room.
True.

Lesson learned.

Never ever talks in a seminar.

USM Closed Its Campus

*sniff* *sniff*

*sneeeeze*

28th July 2009

The news of undergraduate students being quarantined in Third Floor Block 1 Lembaran due to the suspected flu A(H1N1) has been spread among students. Later in the evening, a news broke out that the Campus Director has to close the campus. But, the news was not confirmed.

29th July 2009

I had a sore throat. My housemate woke me up at 7am saying that our campus is closing. The source came from an undergraduate. I rushed to campus to take some of my belongings fearing that they would not allow any students to go in but I was forced to do medical checkup before leaving the campus. For a moment, I was thinking of how am I going to leave the campus without being noticed and I might be quarantined because I had a sore throat and it is one of the A(H1N1) symptoms. Then a friend of mine said that the officers were blocking people from leaving the campus unless we have a health certificate.Damn!

In the end, I have no choice but to go do the medical checkup. Hundreds of people packed the Lembaran Cafe. If there is one potential victim in the cafe and everyone is as good as gone.

And I still have the sore throat this morning. The only thing to monitor is the body temperature. It must be below 37 degree Celsius. If you are 38 or 39, you are quarantined.

The undergraduates got to go home for a week and the postgraduates and the staffs have to stay to continue their research and work. With the undergrads gone the flu is easily controlled because there are less people in the campus. I doubted that.

Life is short.

Just when I think it's time to celebrate something else happens.

Something bad.
Something sad.
Something unpredictable.

May her rest in peace.

The ocean.

I'm afraid of ocean. It's too big that I feel lost when I look at it. You see nothing or all the things you see are the same. Terrifying? Yes. Even with the presence of full moonlight, the darkness doesn't seem to fade.

Day and night do have a huge influence on the ocean. But that doesn't mean things that happen at night cannot happen during the day. Ocean is big and it's deep. You stand on nothing but the Archimedes' Principle. Despite the theory, people still get drown, don't they?

I used to like ocean. The night ocean terrifies me a lot.
Much much more than I can imagine.

Discreeeeet.

Forget the extra e's.

What does discreet mean?

Deep breath..

It means judicious in one's conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about something of a delicate nature; prudent; circumspect.

Phew...long definition.

What does it has to do with anything?

Life sometimes is about being discreet. We are surrounded by people from all walks of life. They have stories and background of their own. Not to mention the life experiences they have had to become what they are today. Even though we have people saying we are all the same, we are after all different. Human being have the nature of putting themselves above others to protect themselves from being harm. The more they know of you, they will look for a way to keep up with you. And that is where being discreet comes in. Sometimes keeping your mouth shut do more good than harm in the process. And talk what's right at the right time brings more harmony than chaos.

"Everyone wears some kind of mask, so you must look closely to find the truth that lies beneath."

"And then there are those who let their mask slip. If you look into their eyes you'll see who they really are and exactly what they are capable of."

Maybe I'm watching too much movies.

Nicol David - World No. 1

Let's watch video.
I uploaded this half a year ago, did this video 3 years ago.

And for what it's worth, our very own Datuk Nicol David said she liked it. Ha ha.
Say all you want about why she said that because it doesn't really matter.

All that matter is she's still the World No.1 in women's squash.

Multitasking.

I'm multitasking. Feeling dizzy the whole day.
Guys are not good at multitasking after all. I see girls doing their work and talk at the same time and they do perfectly fine. Not that I'm talking and working. I'm working and working. These few months I begin to realize that even though I appear to be studying I'm like my other friends as well, working like hell.

This multitasking is taking me nowhere. I need to stop.
Doing one thing at a time. One baby step at a time. Sucking milk from bottle before drinking from a cup.

If I can survive this month, I can try running.
If I can survive next month, I can try running faster.
If I can survive the next month, I'll sit down in a nice restaurant and reward myself.

I'm feeling sleepy. But something inside me tells me that I cannot sleep. Not now. Later.

Speaking of multitasking, I should get back to work.

Take Me To Your Heart.

There was a girl...there's always a girl.
This one is different.

I thought if I take my time and she takes her time then everything will fall into place. But no. It didn't. It fell all over the place. How I wished I had the courage to tell her...that...I...

it's too late...

I didn't see this coming.
If only I have another chance, I'd do it differently.
Nah...I'll spoil it anyway.
Maybe I don't deserve her.

It's better this way.
It's better this way...

Back for good.

I missed a lot of things, haven't I?
Looking back, it is just a part of my journey.

I smiled.
I fell. Real hard.
I cried.
I rose.
I laughed.

Despite the many bad things that happened, I appreciate all of it. Optimist is what I am. Even though sometimes being a pessimist means not having to take risks, I am willing to explore challenges ahead of me.

I'm learning from the past mistakes and moving on at the same time. The happy memories are kept close to keep me moving. When moving is too slow, I take a leap.

I have to admit that I do long for blogging. Blogging ain't my cup of tea. But I do like taking a few sips once in a while.

And since I'm back, I guess I'm back for good.