1 Utama Outing

There was some Parent-Lecturer day in my college and all classes were unofficially canceled. Not that it mattered, except that we have to replace the classes missed at some point in the future. I guess happiness can indeed be borrowed from the future.

Anyway, my friends and I decided (kinda last minute I must say) to catch Transformers in 1 Utama. This time there were 5 of us, Benjamin, Clarence, Jeremy, Leon and I. The movie was neither the best nor worst movie that I've watched. No spoilers here though, so you can read on. I'll rate it somewhere between those two extremes. I'll rate it high for the special effects and realistic CGI (Computer Generated Images) but low for the rather simple storyline. I'm not one for a movie that portrays clear-cut black and white morality. The "good" guys fight for the sake of goodness, spouting out some shallow justification which just doesn't cut it. Same goes for the "bad" guys. Life ain't always that simple you know. The good guy isn't 100% good and vice versa for the bad guy. I'll discuss ethics here another day though.

After that, we went to eat lunch at TGIF. Decent food, and we got some free food at the end of it, but it will have to be redeemed sometime within the next couple of month. So that means yet another outing to get it guys. :)

Jeremy, Benjamin, Leon, Me and Clarence (L>R)

Mac n Cheese (Yummy!)

Chicken Parmesan (Not-so-great - Chicken was bland)

Chicken Parmesan Quesadillas (Quite tasty - except I don't like tomatoes)

Pale Dawn

So this is the pale dawn. A chilly gray morning, devoid of the characteristic colours that give life its flavour. No morning songs of the early bird, no striking blossoms, no fresh morning dew, no warmth from the sickly yellow sunbeams, no rejuvenated life that accompanies each sunrise. The air is frosty and heavy, it smothers and casts a heavy shadow of gloom on those who dare to step upon this path. It is no less of a tragedy each time one's life loses its taste and its pulse runs weak.

Tragic, isn't it? In truth, sunrise is not so dismal; but it is the eyes and ears of one which remain shut. Such is a person that he can go through life without sensing its wonders. Surely this has not been imposed on that individual against his own will. The truth could be not any further from that. Ultimately, it is the person who chooses to embrace such deafness and blindness by allowing himself to be choked by the world. We will all undergo the trials that is to come. Whether we sink and drown or soar over the storms is in our hands.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.

Psalm 42:5

Kem Bina Insan

I have just returned back from another camp that I am required to undergo as a prerequisite for my scholarship. It lasted from Friday evening 'til Sunday afternoon. The camp was carried out in Lakeview Training Center, Sungai Tinggi, Selangor. It was by no means strenuous like the last camp that I attended but it was worse in some ways. I won't carry out a long critical analysis of this camp, unlike the previous camp, as this camp lacked the passionate rhetoric of that camp. However, it would be unfair to compare both camps directly using the same yardstick as each camp was designed with different intentions and objectives. My best guess on the objectives of the first camp, BTN, were to ensure that we return back to Malaysia after completing our studies in Australia and New Zealand. I would say that the second camp was aimed at encouraging us to hold fast to our "Asian" values while living abroad. I have no problems with such goals, but I did have a problem of the mode of implementation, which I fully intend to explain here. :)

The camp involved several modules whereby we had to undergo over the course of the 3 days spent there. Personally I was quite apprehensive before the camp, and after going through it, I conclude that I was right to feel so. The methods used to inculcate moral values include manipulation of emotions and implanting bigoted social theories, but I will not touch on the latter in public domain (contact me for further details if you are curious).

Most of the activities we had to carry out were pretty mild, except for two which I found to be quite repulsive. The first, which actually consisted of two separate events, but I'll lump them as one since they run along the same theme. It was basically some emotionally-charged charade in which it saw a large portion of the camp participants breaking down and crying. Even some guys succumbed to the emotional lulling.

The events basically started with some Dharmic-type of meditation (which I refused to participate out of personal beliefs) which dragged on for along time followed by some emo-music(I think!) being played and the facilitators sputtering and sobbing asking us to bring images of our parents and all that they have done for us. Oh, how pathetic was the scene when many of the camp participants started crying themselves. Not that I have anything against appreciating parents, it is one of the most fundamental duty of a human being. But as I have mentioned before, I do not like to be dictated on how I should love anyone, be it my parents or my country. More so in this case, when all this outpouring of emotions is little more than an artificially induced scenario. Love is to be given freely, not demanded or forcefully elicited. Furthermore, I must state that I thought of the facilitators as shedding no more than crocodile tears and running a Grammy-award-deserving show. Come on, you can't be weeping sincerely at every camp that you are running, and hope to con the participants.

The second activity which drew the ire of me and most of my friends was a module called "Emergency Plane". It was about 11pm on Saturday night when the module was launched. We were thrown into a scenario whereby we had to plead with the plane's captains (who were just the facilitators) to allow us to board the place to Australia (which is my actual destination next year). Plead is such a mild word... beg is more like it. We had to literally get on our knees and beg them to "let us fly to Australia". I found this exercise so degrading, humiliating, cheapening, mortifying, shameful and embarrassing. The words of one of those present there, Erica, rang so true in my ears indeed. I can't recall her exact words, but it goes along this line, "My parents are paying taxes to fund this people to degrade me!". It's not empty whining, because it is true; this camp was funded by the taxes paid by Selangorians, which include my parents!

At first, the few of us "pakat" to stay put and not go an kneel before them, 'til time ran out. But the facilitator was "unable" to keep track of time, and kept extending the "boarding time" so we had no choice but to eventually go and beg as it was quickly approaching midnight. I was actually fully prepared to received any amount of blasting from the facilitators instead of kneeling and begging. At least I would have retained some dignity and pride to face others. But it was not so... No, don't downplay the issue and say its nothing. We Chinese do not simply kneel before anyone. It is a serious insult to our dignity and evokes images of a condemned prisoner pleading before an emperor for the lives of himself and his family. It is a slap in our faces to be forced to do so. If we must kneel without shame, it would be before dignitaries and divinity. Do those facilitators qualify as either one of them? I do not have to provide the answer to such a ludicrous question.

I did not grasp the purpose of the activity, other than to directly humiliate us. Perhaps they can justify it by giving some weak reasoning.

Here are some pictures of the camp. It does not evoke much sweet memories, but I'll put them up anyway. After all, bitterness complements sweetness.

Sungai Tinggi Dam

The Camp

The guys dorm

Double beds shared by 2 people each! I got a single bed fortunately

The canteen

My group doing a presentation on Abstinence :)

Some balloon bursting game

THE HUMILIATION

THE HUMILIATION (from another angle)

Eating with hands :S

The farewell

The bus ride home

My regular "meal group" :)

Voyages

Drifting from one signpost to another, each bearing a vague name of its own, marking the arrival at yet another station of life. What eases the passage from one station to another? The currency of maturity, as I have realised, is essential in lubricating the journey from one outpost to another. Nevertheless, some are naturally endowed in abundance, others must accrue it by undertaking painful journeys to distant places while many simply scrape through life dealing with what little life has afforded them with.

Maturity greases the wheels by which one travels through life. It gives the one who has more of it an edge in dealing with the unpredictability of life. In contrary to popular belief, I firmly believe that maturity is not automatically conferred with age. I believe that it is nurtured and learnt, very much like how a child acquires language. Furthermore, as every individual has his own learning curve, likewise different people mature at varying progression rates. Some must sojourn further and for a longer duration as compared to others. In this context, I am not referring to physical journeys like pilgrimages, but rather, the mental and emotional seas that one must sail through at different stages of life. It is not the ends by itself that matters, but rather it is the journey that bestows wisdom and experience. Despite it all, I stand here unable to judge if maturity is a final destination or a lifelong journey.

A New Chapter - Kolej Cemara

It is a new dawn... Somehow a new dawn always tastes sweeter, even more so after a night of bitterness. And at long last all the tears of sorrow spilled has been replaced with that of joy and hope. I registered at Kolej Cemara today, but I have decided not to move in today, rather I will do it tomorrow. Here are a few pictures of Kolej Cemara.

Kolej Cendana - An E-Scrapbook

I shall be starting life anew for my last semester in INTEC next week! I keep reminding myself, its just a few more months, bear with it. It is just a brief station of life, a small stepping stone in the lake of life. Life should take a turn for the better next year. :)

As for my accommodation, I am moving to Kolej Cemara next week. I have seen it with my own eyes, and to put it mildly, I've seen far better dwellings. Grr... to be booted out of my previous hostel, Kolej Cendana to make way for the incoming juniors is simply annoying after living there a full year. Well, I must admit that I was quite apprehensive about moving there initially. It is a tad bit isolated but at least security was not much of an issue, being located next to a police station. I certainly will not miss the mamak restaurant Dawood, the only decent restaurant in the vicinity. Ever since moving there, I feel sick of mamak fare. It is something I could do without nowadays. The haphazard (non-existent) parking system there was quite inconvenient at times. The need to keep our furry(?) legs out of sight when out of the rooms was pretty dumb too. Those admins must suffer from leg-hair envy. Heh...

Despite its shortcomings, Cendana will always have a place in my memories. It was a place where many a friendships were forged, and that will definitely outlast the relatively short stay in Cendana. I would suppose that it is appropriate for that to be the main avenue of forging friendships, seeing that much of my time in INTEC is spent attending classes. I'll miss those lepak sessions that lasted for hours and stretched through the nights. It was a place where I gained much experience on life and opened my mind to a different world. Prior to this, I had no friends from other parts of Malaysia, much less outside the Klang Valley. And for that, I believe that I leave Cendana for the better. For instance, I arrived at Cendana a banana (香蕉人-Haha!) , and leave it still as one, but a lesser one (半香蕉?) nevertheless. Thanks to my friends there who patiently taught me - Clarence, Vincent, Jin and the rest.

Well, I'll conclude this blog post with photos. After all, what is a scrapbook without photos?

Let the tour of Kolej Cendana begin...

Exterior view of Cendana

Welcome to Kolej Cendana...

This is the compound where the guys usually play futsal and basketball. Those colourful tents host the cafe and burger stall.


And that's a really cute kitty... Don't worry, you'll encounter more around here. The cats here breed like, erm... rabbits.

Ok la... that's all for Cendana. Tour ends here. Two blocks only ma.. What else is there to see?

What? You want to see inside my room? How can la...! Respect my privacy a bit.

*mutters grudgingly after some persuasion*

Ok, I'll let you in for awhile. Touch anything and you get your ass out of here!

I live on the 4th floor, so we have to walk up quite a bit...

And this is my room, 1406.


This is the main room, where all the study tables are


That's Clarence, my roommate, say hi!


And my bedroom, sorry for the mess.


That's me doing some math with Clarence


Wanna join in our game of Choh Dai Di?
Me(green), Benjamin(dark blue), Clarence(yellow), Brian(white)

Ok, now that we are really done with Cendana, how bout some teh tarik?

The end.

The Seven Seals Unleashed

404 Error : Mental Convolutions not found

If you have been here over the past few days and possess a keen eye, you would have noticed subtle shifts in this blog layout. A little modification here and there, nothing too drastic. You might find yourself puzzled to see it changing from visit to visit. Nevertheless, these were precursors of shifting tectonic plates within this blog. Designing and fiddling with HTML (Thanks a lot to Chee Meng for helping out with that!) were not easy tasks.

The hour has come to unveil the new form that Mental Convolutions has transmuted into; Behold The Seven Seals. Upon completing its transformation, the Seven Seals is driven with a new purpose, a new torchbearer and a new hope of things to come. The Seven Seals is also an attempt to improve content clarity and present a more "user-friendly" image for the average blog hopper out there. This upgrade is by no means unique, it has occurred before almost a full year ago when I toned down on grandiloquence (bombasticity) when I resuscitated Mental Convolutions by transferring it to its current location (as the previous account was no longer accessible). If you are curious as to what I am talking about, take a look here. If grandiloquence was the issue remedied in the previous upgrade, I pledge to reduce ambiguousity this round. Yes, I am pretty much aware that much of my posts in the past have been quite vague except to a selected few.

However, I will still retain most of the traits of its old self like my general philosophical musings, poetry and self-inflections. For starters, this is my inaugural poem for The Seven Seals. :)

Broken Seal
6th June 2007

Tears so frail plunge from hallowed sky,
bearing dark tidings of doom.
Opaque drops slam onto blackened earth.
It is an ominous orchestra of the shadows
accentuated with roars of wrath
resonating with a macabre applause;
and flares of fury
casting an occasional grim spotlight.
The tears of anguish have long gone unheeded.
The echoes of torment swept into the wastelands.
The hour is late, far too late for atonement;
it has been unleashed.


Mental Convolutions was. The Seven Seals is.

Welcome to The Seven Seals!

Metamorphosis

Transmutation, it is the key to survival in a rapidly changing environment. The winds of change are sweeping through, carrying away those who fail to adapt. Mental Convolutions has entered into a new phase of its existence, it shall fall dormant for now, but not for long... The death of one is life for many.

Port Dickson

More pics from Port Dickson, some are quite interesting. I actually did more than just pose by the beach there. :) It was a holiday, but not just a typical holiday as I found it quite meaningful. One thing that I've realized is that "they" can be very nice people. To extents that I've never seen or experienced before. So much so that it forced me to reevaluate and adjust my perception of them several notches up. Some will view it as traitorous but others will welcome it as maturity. Change is purely relative and is subject to personal interpretation though.

That's me, the third person from the front.

Anyway, here are pics of just some of the places I visited...

An Ostrich Farm in PD:

And also a Military Museum there, or rather Muzium Tentera Darat which I found quite fascinating. We were showed the weapons used throughout Malaysia's history, dating back from the period of the Malaccan Sultanate, through the Colonial periods by the Portuguese, Dutch and British Imperialists subsequently until the post-Independence era.

An anti-Tank mine

An anti-Tank mine

An anti-personnel mine

An anti-personnel mine

A modern rocket launcher

An armoured military vehicle...

And its interior

And the visit to the museum ended by a tour of the communist insurgency era. We were given a thorough lecture and I must say that the authorities did go far and wide to collect evidence and document the lifestyle of the communists then. You will see why I said that in a while. I was even brought into an underground bunker that is supposedly a replica of the real thing somewhere in Malaysia.

CPM = Communist Party of Malaya

Communist tunnels...

and Communist medication...

and Communist propaganda material...

and even Communist bras and (archaic) sanitary pads!

Whoever procured it for the museum must have had some unusual fetish. Weird huh? :D