A spreading dark blot

Not bad.

One entry per month for the past couple of months. Well, at least that's something rather than nothing at all. But, being silent and being hardly here wasn't the push that motivated me to finally write down something. It was something else totally, something more serious.

The hottest issue in Malaysia right now has got to be about the use of the word "Allah". I hadn't realise how hot this whole matter was until a friend told me about the first attacks on several churches in West Malaysia a few days back: a church literally got burned, and two others were also in for the same treatment except that thankfully, the Molotov cocktails that were used didn't quite set off as expected. But, such attacks are still continuing. To date, eight churches around the country have already been targets of vandalism or attempted arson.

It just goes to show how shallow the minds of some in this country are, and the depths they have sunk to to even allow themselves to carry out such cowardly and despicable acts. It seems to me that, rather than moving towards acceptance , some are hell-bent on edging towards anarchy and chaos. Their reasoning seems to be, "as long as I (we) think what I'm doing is right, who cares about the sensitivities of other people". How else do you explain the latest happenings and the cow-head incident not too long ago to name just two? And all this amidst the government's grand vision of making a One Malaysia.

Yet, even in such saddening times, there are still things to be thankful for:
+ that the government seems earnest in stopping and preventing further attacks
+ that no one has been hurt
+ that, while terrible acts have been committed, there is still forgiveness
+ that God is still in control of everything

Stay safe.

And the verdict is...

That Maths and Science will not be taught in English beginning 2012. This will be a huge sigh of relief for a number of people, while others will lament a lost opportunity. Well, it has been said often enough and I guess I'll be saying the same thing that's on a number of people's mind: be ready for changes whenever a new Education Minister takes office. It's been proven time and again.

I remember when Anwar Ibrahim used to be Education Minister since I was in seconday school then. He was the guy who introduced that silly idea of starting the schoool academic year in December. Then, it was reverted to its original start in January when the next minister came in. I don't remember what Najib did when he was Education Minister after that as I was already in college, so that doesn't count. When the non-politician Musa Mohamad took over, English for Maths and Science was introduced. When Hishamuddin came into office, it was the introduction of a compulsory but non-examination subject called Civics and Citizenship in 2005. And now we have Muhyiddin with the scrapping of the teaching of Maths and Science in English. Oh, and the talk is he plans to introduce subjects like grammar and composition and English literature as well. And that's in addition to the plan to increase the number of teaching hours, too!

While I'm not against change, but when that change is not calculated carefully and not planned with a long-term eye, it can only be described as haphazard and will ultimately be detrimental to the students and the teachers who have to face more headache and (in this case, potentially) more time doing even more paperwork.

It really makes me wonder where exactly it is the education of our young minds is heading...

Eventhough teachers may rant, complain, and whine all we want, but at the end of the day it just boils down to one thing:

"Saya yang menurut perintah."

Sigh.

The crunch

I have been wanting to post something but just couldn't bring myself to sit in front of the computer to do so...until now. Actually, I was compelled to do so.

I was reading the local newspaper just this evening, and what do I see on the front page? A picture of a throng of people with several smoke trails descending from the sky. Yup, it was another demonstration. And of all things, the reason for the demonstration was about the teaching of Mathematics and Science subjects in English?

Huh???

It's absolutely mind-boggling! A protest because English is used instead to teach these two subjects? If there were something that really would make us a laughing stock for the whole world (as some have pointed out about a certain gathering under some certain trees recently), I think that this would be the icing on the cake!

It seems to me that certain quarters of the Malaysian population really have a penchant for politicising issues. The usual scenario: a politician speaks his mind about something trivial and then other people start jumping on the bandwagon giving their sometimes uneducated opinions, and suddenly it becomes a national agenda! Incredible!

Forgive me for sounding so negative, but I cannot see the reason for such happenings. How is it that we call ourselves a developed nation, yet our thinking is still lagging so far behind. A few years back, I heard an absolute stranger commenting on our nation's apparent lack of forward thinking despite all our achievements: "first class facilities, third class mentality."

If anything needs to be politicised, why not politicise the extremely poor healthcare facilities that are available in some states in Malaysia especially Sabah? We don't even have a proper hospital anymore because the current one, the Queen Elizabeth hospital (supposedly the state's main hospital) has been found to be unsafe for operations. So, what happens? Sick patients have to sleep on the floor, doctors and nurses are unable to treat due to unavailable equipment. Who suffer? The people, especially those of us not fortunate enough to afford private healthcare.

What is being done? Discussions, discussions, and more discussions. No Action, Talk Only. I am told that we'd be lucky if Sabah gets a new one within 5 years. The more realistic projected time for the building of a new hospital would be between 10-15 years. What happens till then? People suffer.

It's a sad time.

The Loss

I've recently come across some terrible news - news so tragic it's bound to leave no eye dry.

What shall we do, what shall we do?

Let the whole world mourn for something utterly terrible has happened!

In case you don't know already, here's the devastating piece of news: White Rabbit Creamy Candy has been banned!

Whose eyes in Malaysia have not been given the honour of admiring the red, white and blue wrapping with that oh-so-recognisable white rabbit on it?

Whose fingers have not had the pleasure of feeling the smooth wrapping and so, proceeded to twist to open the delectable treasure inside?

Whose ears have not been delighted by the sound of the wrapper being opened with the sweet promise of sugary bliss?

Whose tongue has not had the satisfaction of rolling round the cream-coloured morsel, savouring the saccharine sweetness of it all?

We all have, and so it was with a heavy heart that I read that this legendary candy has been banned - again! Sniff!


...

Okay, that's enough melodrama for the day. But, I guess we all have eaten this candy sometime in our life. A close cousin of this white rabbit candy is the prawn candy. I remember being extremely fascinated by the paper-like translucent wrapping of the candy once the outer wrapper had been taken off. I always imagined that I was actually eating paper. But, somewhere along the line, I did find out that the inner wrapping is actually made from sticky rice. But, now, it seems that we won't be able to enjoy this particular candy anymore due to the ban. Well, at least for the moment.

And it's scary isn't it? Can you imagine eating plastic? That's what's supposedly inside the tainted candy (melamine) - along with all the horror stories we read and hear nowadays about poisonous infant formula and other dairy products coming out of China. How greedy can humans get? Extremely, apparently - to the point of sacrificing lives.

Now, if you read the last line of the short melodramatic episode above carefully, you'd probably have noticed that I used the word 'again'. Yes, this isn't the first time the venerable White Rabbit Candy has seen a bad patch. Apparently there was a scare last year of contamination as well, this time the news was that the candy was contaminated with formaldehyde (that's the substance you use to mummify dead bodies!), and the Philippine's food and drug administration called for a recall of the product in the local market. The recall took place.

China seems to be getting a lot of bad rep recently. There was the poisoned pet food scandal last year (the cause was determined to be melamine as well), the toxic colours used in children's toys, and tainted toothpaste just to name but a few. I've discovered a whole lot more bad news about Made-in-China things here.

It seems the insatiable search for wealth has made some of us into unscrupulous, selfish, murderous people. Will all turn that way?

The future doesn't seem very bright anymore.

Mid-week blues

It’s Wednesday and it’s the middle of the week. I usually look forward to Wednesdays because it means that there are only two more days before the end of the working week and it’s also the time I get a thorough soaking of sweat through a few games of badminton with some church friends. But, this week’s slightly different…in a bad way, and a good way. The bad: I have to go to work this Saturday! And it’s the first Saturday of the month! While other people will be enjoying their elongated sleep time, I’ll have to wake up at 5.30 in the morning for that one extra day to get ready for school. *sigh* I just hope the schooling hours are not like the usual weekdays…

But, there’s a bright side to this coming Saturday as well. In the evening, there’ll be a gathering of Sabah bloggers at a hotel, and I’m going for free! Yippee! I’m looking forward to this event. It’ll be the first such event for me. From what I read in the blog for the event, there’ll be lucky draws and the like. There’ll even be prizes for the first 100 bloggers who attend the function on time, just to discourage late-comers! I like the idea! How many times have you attended a function or wedding dinner, and you come on time but then you ended up having to wait for an hour or even more, as there were hardly any people around! This phenomenon is so widespread that we’ve even got a name for it: Malaysian Time. Such tardiness gets on my nerves sometimes, even more when my tummy starts grumble. So, I’m hoping that everyone will come on time, and that the whole event will be a smash.

On a different note, Adelle has not been very well lately. She developed a cough about a week or two back, but we thought nothing of it because the cough hardly surfaced during the day, and she looked her normal self. We didn’t give her any medication as well. But on Saturday last week, the runny nose came, and from then on she her cough worsened. It got really bad on early Monday morning. She was coughing non-stop and she was wheezing whenever she breathed. We suspected that it could be due to the phlegm in her chest so we tried to encourage her to vomit to clear but she didn’t want to. In the end, her cough gradually subsided and my wife and I decided that Adelle slept with us, with me to be more exact, so that we could monitor her.

The next day on Tuesday, my wife brought her to the clinic to have a check, and the doctor said her condition was actually quite serious. There was a possibility that her condition could progress to asthma. Adelle was actually given Combivent, an inhalant administered through a mask, to provide some measure of relief. The whole thing took 5 minutes. The doctor was actually surprised that Adelle sat still throughout. She said that usually children would become restless and retaliate. My wife (I wasn’t at the clinic) was surprised, too!

The doctor then prescribed two kinds medication called, Singulair and Terbutaline. We checked it up on the Net and it said that both are used to treat and prevent asthma. Singulair is given once a day, but Terbutaline has to be given every 6 hours for the first 3 days. So, I’ve been given the duty to give Adelle the medicine at 1 am later. I find it easier to stay up than having to wake up again to give her the medicine, hence this extra long entry today.

Anyway, Adelle seems to be recovering well. The medication seems to be doing its work and my wife and I are thankful. Just hoping and praying that Adelle’s condition won’t turn into asthma.

On not blogging...

Three days of not blogging. That’s not a good sign for this blog. Mustn’t get into the habit of leaving the blog for too long or else this place will die an untimely, neglected death. But, I was going to write something last night when the power supply decided to fail. Anyway, the short time that I was able to surf the net was pointless. The connection was so slow! I was looking at the icons of the two tiny computers and I decided to see how much data was being transferred. And guess what, it was slower than the dial-up connection I had previously! This is ridiculous! I know I’ve already talked about this before in another post, but having speeds that can rival dial-up?

And since I’m on the subject of grievances, if I remember correctly, there has been at least two cases of power failures this week alone. Did you know that there’s a standing joke about Sabah's electricity supplier? Before it was privatised, the power company was known (in English) as SEB, or Sabah Electricity Board. The joke was it should actually be, Sabah Everywhere Blackout. After privatisation, it is now known as SESB, the final SB meaning Sendirian Berhad. But, some creative fella coined it, Sabah Everywhere Still Blackout! Although less frequent now (at least in the town area, but I still hear of irregular power supply out in the kampungs), there’s always the niggling feeling that whenever a blackout happens, it going to be for hours. In West Malaysia, there would have been a public outcry. But here, we hardly hear a whimper.

What else can I say? We Sabahans are a tolerant bunch.

p.s. I know I’ve been tagged by Charlene and Chegu Carol about my 10 most favourite photos, but I’m still scouring the recesses of my hard-drive to find those pics. I’ll post them up once I’m done. Bear with me, kay?

Riddle me this

What goes up but never comes down? The usual answer to that riddle is age. But, nowadays, we can add more than a few answers to that question. Petrol prices for one. Food prices is another. This is probably old news by now, but have you noticed how the prices of food have gone by so much but the portion either remains the same or has even become smaller? A plate of my favourite watan ho now costs RM5 (up from RM4.00); a mug of teh tarik from my favourite local coffee shop now costs RM1.50 (previously RM1); even the so-called 'economy rice' isn't very economical anymore, what with prices now hovering at RM4.50 for white rice with two vegetable dishes and one meat dish (previously RM3.50). And these are prices of food at local coffee shops! Such prices were unheard of just 2 years ago! You'd think you'd be dining at some upmarket restaurant or something for that kind of money.

But, such is the situation now and apart from eating in more often to avoid spending the money, there's nothing much we can do about it. There's supposed to be an interesting debate going on tonight between Anwar Ibrahim and Information Minister, Ahmad Shabery concerning the fuel price hike, but without access to terrestrial tv broadcast (is there such a thing as extra-terrestrial broadcasts I wonder?), someone will have to tell me what it was all about. Either that or I just wait for tomorrow's papers. But, come to think of it, what's the use of the debate anyway? The reality is the current fuel prices won't drop, so it's all just a purely academic but totally fruitless exercise.

I prefer a reasonably-priced plate of watan ho over brain-busting, verbal gymnastics anytime.

Please?

Narrow band

At this very moment, Streamyx seems to be up to speed. I've been experiencing some very slow load times since last week, especially when it comes to blogger. It's actually been very sporadic - sometimes the connection's fine, other times it feels as if I were on dial-up. When it's slow, it's really s-l-o-w. I actually wonder sometimes whether dial-up can be faster!

Which is kinda sad, really. I was just browsing the broadband connections offered in Singapore here and it seems that they already have100 Mbps for private residences! And we're still stuck with the constant promotion of 1 Mbps. Heck, there's even a low of 384 kbps! Well, maybe I shouldn't complain. Having some really "malformed" kind of broadband is better than none at all, I suppose. But, it's hard to be happy when all they promise is that what you're getting is on a 'best-effort' basis.

I seem to remember a minister saying something how this 'best-effort basis' thingy should be improved upon, but my speed lately tells me otherwise. *sigh*