My Sungai Lui

I was listening to the radio and Aizat was on an interview. One of the question was about his song, 'Sungai Lui'. He explained that the song is about a man who is successful but still comes back to his hometown, knowing where his root is.

There are many news highlighting about Malaysians migrating for the greener pastures, some of them due to better job offers, not satisfied with the treatment that they received in Malaysia plus many other setbacks that prompted them to choose leaving rather than staying.

Of course, I would be lying if I say that I'm satisfied with the happenings in Malaysia. It is harder nowadays, especially for young people like me who are burdened with loans and other difficulties, to get a good life. There are people who suggested that I should be leaving to other countries where life is better there. But for me, I can't correct the things I want to if I leave this country. I love this country and I will fight for it by staying here.

Reliability of Emails

While I don't want to comment about the 1Malaysia email as there have been alot of comments from other people, I just hope that apart from having emails for ordinary Malaysians, they better have a system where the government agencies actually reply the emails that are given to them. Waiting for an email reply since November last year is not a good thing.



At least an MP actually replied my email promptly.

How To Know Whether You Are Ready for Postgraduate Studies

I was at the Post Graduate Education Fair last week. Sensing that it is time for me to pursue my studies, I went there with a hope that I would learn few things before I enroll myself into the painstaking world of postgraduate studies. I really did learn alot of things when I talked to the university representatives at the fair there. What I want to highlight here is the experience that I had before going there.

Some people, after they are done with their bachelor degrees, would want to pursue their masters degrees naturally, which is fine with me. Learning is a never ending process. The problem is when they have problems in determining or not knowing how to choose appropriate course to pursue their postgraduate studies.

1. Time
There are people who can't really wait to do their postgraduate studies after they have graduated. While this is not an act of fault, there are some who simply rush into things. Doing a postgraduate study would require you to actually know what you are doing. Taking the time to work after degree, having work experience would really help. For example, in TESL, as this is my area, how would you know whether you are interested in linguistics, literature, TESL, ESL, Educational Psychology or even ESP when you are not actually practising them? By working and practising them, you would know whether this is something that you are really interested in or something that is viable to study and do a research on. Unless, you want to do a master degree just for the sake of having a master degree. This is the reason that I would advise people to take their time in getting to know themselves and what they really want to do in life. Once you know that, by all means, please go ahead.

2. Maturity
Usually, postgraduate studies would require you to make some researches. This in turn requires you to have a critical mind. I have seen some PhD students, not all, just some, who can't even identify their mistake in a sentence. Doing a postgraduate study would need you to be analytical, being able to see what is wrong and what is right. This is where maturity comes into place, where the ability to make deductive reasoning is fundamental. Of course, there will be a supervisor who will check your work but you can't expect him to correct your every other sentence. In short, make sure that you are able to judge your work so that it won't be called an utter rubbish.

3. Reason
Last but obviously not the least. This is one of the most important reasons. Why would you want to pursue your postgraduate study? Can it help you to get a better pay? Or because you want to make researches? Or simply because other people are doing it, so you are just following the crowd? You need to ask yourself, why would you want to do a postgraduate study. Make sure that it is a valid reason. I have a friend who continued his study after he had finished his TESL degree. I asked him, why now? Why right after finishing a bachelor degree? I would always remember his answer, even until now,

"I don't want to teach at schools. I want to teach at colleges"

which offends me much. Being trained to teach at schools, a masters degree means nothing compared to the wealth of experience that some of the teachers have. Obviously, he assumes that teaching at schools is degrading for him. I used to teach at a school for a while and I must say school teachers have one of the toughest job around. So if you want to get a masters degree because you do not want to teach at schools, that is a totally skewed reason. In short, have a valid reason before pursuing your postgraduate studies.





I hope this would help especially for someone like me who used to be unsure on what to do about my postgraduate study.

Two Days of Enjoyment.

Being someone who lives in Seremban, I am already tired of going to Port Dickson as I am used to it. But when Groupsmore had an offer for a buggy ride at PD Buggy Trek I quickly snapped it up and asked my friends to join me. We had alot of fun but it was not raining that day so there was no mud, just dust and dirt. It would surely be more fun being drenched in mud once in a while.LOL.













Then we went to the beach, had some food while watching the sunset.The serenity of it.Ahhh...



On the next day, I used a voucher that I bought from ilovediscounts for a meal at Pie in The Sky at Plaza Damas, Hartamas. No, that is not cheapo, that is smart buying. Haha.

We were given two cold drinks and I chose Ice Lemon Tea.



Two chicken chops.



One moist chocolate cake.



And one apple pie.


Going to a pie restaurant would be incomplete without a pie, right?



The food was very good. I enjoyed the chicken chop, it was tender and crispy. Even the salad was good and I am not someone who enjoys my veggies. The cake was soft and moist which I prefer than the apple pie. It is not that the apple pie was not good, it just I like something sweet better. To top it all, I went with someone special. That made it even better. :)

Picturesque Putrajaya

Yesterday I went to Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. The place was at Monumen Alaf Baru, Putrajaya. The last time I went there was back in 2009 so when I reached there, it was certainly different from the last that I remember. Now it has more food stalls and activities lined up for the visitors. The only gripe that I had was the spot where they have the food stalls were all muddy when it rained. They could have made the venue much better for next time. Here are some of the pictures that I took at the event.











We were also entertained by the smoky firework during the night.



I managed to take a picture of the 'Supermoon Phenomenon'. Luckily I didn't turn into a werewolf or I would have to rip my tshirt apart and look good without it.

Or did I?Haha.



Putrajaya has some scenic views and now I can't wait for this year International Fireworks Competition at Putrajaya which will be held around July or August 2011.

For the love of movies.

I have not been writing a lot these days. One of them is due to work commitment that requires me to be doing something else in front of the computer except blogging. As if I dont have enough work to occupy my time, now I have another blog in place. I will be writing on that blog with my friend Ijan which will discuss about movie reviews, news and once in a while some feature articles that will be written by us.

I love going to the cinemas and Ijan does too, I think. So we figured that maybe we should write about something that we have been discussing all this while. We are by no means experts in this field but we figured that there are not many blogs that talk about movie in English. We will be discussing about international and, not forgetting, the local movies. While my blog here mainly talks about serious things, this movie blog will talk about about something light that we all love. I guess.

Have a look at www.dramaticdurian.com Hope you enjoy it.

Why Malaysia is better.

As the time of writing, many pro-democracy protesters are on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, demanding that Hosni Mubarak steps down. You do not have to take a flight to Egypt to actually see the effect of the protests. While they have many reasons for protesting, it is undeniable that there are some side effects such as unruly atmosphere that forces many foreigners to flee the country, including Malaysians. So what should have Mubarak done?

From my point of view, there are two. First, leave the country like what Tunisian ex-President Ben Ali did. Once he stepped down and left the country, the political unrest stopped and they are now looking forward to a new government.

Or, if he does not want to step down, make sure that the protest does not happen from the start. While the top military chief already declared that they "will not use force against protesters calling for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak ahead of a 'million people' march", but I guess it is already too late now. They should have used force from the start, preventing the protest from even happening. Like what Malaysian police usually do, even to a candlelight vigil protest. No protest, no problem.

I love Malaysia.