A dinner, a boy and a grandma

While my siblings and my father were throwing a birthday bash for my beloved mother (Happy Birthday, Mak. Will always love you!), I treated myself with a nice dinner at the Thai Banana restaurant with my fellow mates of Ladybarn House. This Thai restaurant is just opposite the road and I was seat next to Bako, a lovely lady from Rwanda and a friendly boy (the son of Bashu, a PhD student from India). Opposite me were a couple from Taiwan.


Unfortunately, none of my flatmates joined the gathering this time. Ana was having dinner with her sister and the family of her sister's fiancee. While Christina was busy with her assignments, John, I guess had a prior arrangement with his Greek friends.

Thank you very much, Benji and her committee for organising this dinner and thank you very much for ensuring that halal food (for me and another two guys from UAE) and vegetarian food Bashu) were made available for us.

I was very surprised to find out that while Bashu is observing a vegetarian diet, her son was helping me to finish the chicken green Thai curry. I even shocked to find out that her husband, which came an hour later, consumed a dish of beef! He tried to convince me that duck meat is tastier than chicken and I should give it a try. I politely said to him that I'm currently comfortable with chicken and beef.

"You really don't know you are really missing!" he said.

Anyhow, their boy proved to be smart and articulate. He guessed my age correctly and engaged me with an interesting conversation through the dinner. And the topics that we discussed were surprisingly broad and diverse.

He asked me so many questions and some of them were very bold.

"Do you believe in God, because I don't!"
"How about global warming? Do you believe that?"
"Why there is racism in this world?"

I was so impressed with this 12 year old boy. While my conversation to Bako and the Taiwanese couple were limited to our studies and life in a foreign country, this boy was testing my analytical skill with those general knowledge questions. Bravo Bashu for raising an awesome boy!


Well, this world is never short of surprises.

Back home, I was amazed to read about the ethusiasm and dedication showed by a 89 year old grandmother, Puan Maimun Yusuf to run for Kuala Terengganu parliamentary seat in the General Election 2008. I'm sure most of us are confident that this grandma will never win the contest, but, using her own words, "to get my nomination through and printed on the voting paper is already a dream comes true. I would like to right the wrongs."

She, which is the oldest candidate ever contested in the history of Malaysian General Election, will go against Mohammad Sabu of PAS and Datuk Razali of BN.

Bravo, Puan Maimun. From the bottom of my heart, I salute you!



Note: Pictures of Puan Maimun Yusuf were taken from thestar online.

Hooray... Hooray!!

So many things I want to write but I don't know how and where to start. Since I have so many things to do today, I think I just write about two things today (and tomorrow is my mother's birthday!).

The One We Called Pilihanraya
First, the Election 2008. For the first time, I'm more eager with the US Election than the General Election back home. In fact, I even created a group on facebook which is called Asians for Obama. Well, what can I say is I'm not alone. As to date, the group has 28 members!



So, why I'm not that interested with local politics at this point of time? I'm sorry to say that I believe some of those who are running back home are a bunch of stupid and arrogant opportunists. They say one thing, but do another thing. Most of them are lacking of credible principles.



I tried to search for Barisan Nasional manifesto, but was to no avail. Nevertheless, I found the manifestos by PKR and PAS. I guess I better spend my time reading Obama's and Clinton's manifestos then.

My two cent to my family and friends who will be voting on 8 March 2008, use your vote wisely and don't take things for granted. Please vote out the racists, sexists and Islamophobics.

It's Oscar time
Enough about politics, it's now time for Oscar. After so much drama from the Writers' Strike, the Academy Award will be broadcasted live from LA tonight. Normally, I will try my best to join my housemate(s) to watch the live telecast on Monday morning. Which means, I have to take a half day leave, if not a full day leave.


But this time around, I will be watching it online in my cozy room in Manchester. I don't want to take the risk of watching it in the common room because the tv set there is very, very unreliable. The last time I checked, it only has BBC and some Middle Eastern channels. Not even the local, Mchannel.

Well, let get down to business - my prediction for this year's Academy Award winners. And the oscar goes to...

Best Film
will win: No Country For Old Men
should win: There Will Be Blood

Best Director
will win: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men
should win: Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Actor
will win: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood
should win: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood

Best Actress
will win: Julie Christie for Away from Her
should win: Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose

Best Supporting Actor
will win: Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men
should win: Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress
will win: Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There
should win: Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There

Best Original Screenplay
will win: Diablo Cody for Juno
should win: Diablo Cody for Juno

Best Adapted Screenplay
will win: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men
should win: Ronald Harwood for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Cinematography
will win: Robert Elswit for There Will Be Blood
should win: Robert Elswit for There Will Be Blood

How fast are you?

54 words

Speedtest

p/s: I first saw this on @voskenslaan blog. Thanks, mº¿ºsh!

Another Weekend in Cricklewood, London

I've safely returned to Manchester yesterday afternoon about at 2 pm. After a tiring but worthwhilely awesome weekend, I had another long day yesterday. Got class at 3 pm and group discussion at 6 pm. I returned to my room at about 8.45 pm. I was not in the mood to cook neither to eat dinner, so I just spent my night uploading some pictures that I took in London using my aging Sony Ericsson walkman, checking my emails, messages on my social networking sites and enjoying lidah buaya that my mother sent here through Wan.

Okay guys, I'm not the mood for writing (due to several personal and academic reasons), so allow me to share with you some of the pictures I took last weekend. Will try to jot down description on some of these pictures to facilitate your viewing pleasure. Enjoy...

Two pictures taken from Tesco in Brent Cross: the first one is the Kosher food section and the second one is the self-service counter (I hope Tesco will introduce this in Malaysia soon). Give the customers the option to skip those stone-faced cashiers.

Next are pictures at the rewang session, attended by close friends to help out with the necessary preparations.

Uncle Azmi flew all the way from Kuala Lumpur

The bride, Nurul was showing off her skill, meracik pandan leaves

The bride's cousin was peeling the gingers' skin off

The bride's brother, Fauzi with Rashidah (just embraced Islam that Saturday afternoon and the groom, Wan

Two cute kids, one is Aunty Ani's daughter, and unfortunately I didn't who the boy is

It was a triple joys - a wedding and two birthdays:

The Bobrokness of British Media & Two Gay News

So many things happened for the past one week or two.

Here, one of the burning issues is the recent lecture by the Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury who called for adoption of some elements of Sharia law relating to family and commerce matters into the British law. As expected, his call was immediately shot down and hugely criticised by majority of British newspapers the following day, with an exception of The Guardian. While each newspaper was trying to outdo each other by publishing ambigious articles on the variety implementation of Sharia law around the world and stories of two or three women who they claimed were given unfair trial and treatment under the Sharia law, The Guardian was more objective and transparent by presenting the whole picture of Sharia law, which is far beyond the stoning of adultery and amputation. In fact, the paper reminded the people that the Archbishop of Canterbury has clearly indicated that the adoption of Sharia law is to be limited to family, inheritance and commerce matters, and not the hudud or corporal punishment.

All this while, I thought only the media in the Third World countries who were irrational and quick to jump to conclusion, but this incident clearly an eye-opener for me on the low professionalism of the majority of British media. Plus, many journalists here, besides syok sendiri, they love to make generalisation based on weak observation.

For example, in an one-sided article by Johann Hari (Rowan Williams has shown us one thing - why multiculturalism must be abandoned, The Independent), how conveniently the author concluded that Sharia law is unjust based on two sad divorce stories ruled by "the voluntary enterprises performing British Sharia courts at some mosques" in Britain.

Thank to Allah, because of this row, I've learned about Beth Din, the Jewish "courts" in Britain. If they are genuinely concerned about multiculturalism (which I think, nonsense!), what's their take on Beth Din? Get rid of it too? I really doubt it.

On happy notes, I received two you-make-my-day messages. One from my cousin in London and another one from my lecture. Can you guess, which one is which one?

You are cordially invited to attend the wedding reception of SNU & SAR. This is to be held on Sunday, 17th February at our residence from 1 pm to 6 pm. RSVP.

Clear background, aims and structure. A good number of key ICT Policy-related sources/articles. You have also drawn upon a good range of authoritative resources concerning your country case study. The Framework could have been explained in slightly more detail with a diagram. The Framework has been applied clearly - highlighting levels of development in each dimension of the Model. It would be good to make use of a table to make this even clearer. Good targeted use of data to support analysis. Analysis is critical and well-balanced with good links to development goals. Greater referencing required in latter half of essay.

Oxford Trip 2008

I participated in another trip organised by the International Society and this time we went to the infamous city of Oxford, the birth place of the infamous University of Oxford, which according to my tour guide, top 5 universities in the world.

We departed from the University around 8.30am and arrived safely in Oxford around 12.00pm. Yeah, what a journey! I was seated next to a super quiet guy from Italy and in front me was a fellow Malaysian, Joyce. She greeted me upon seeing my reading GuiT (Growing Up In Trengganu) by Awang Groneng or Uncle Wan Hulaimi.

"Rindu ke? Are you from Trengganu? Is it any good?"
"Would love to say that but I'm from Melaka. I'm still at page 45, so can't give you accurate review, but I was told that the book was No.1 for several weeks at MPH."

Well, we didn't talk so much after that, because (1) we were seating on different seats; and (2) I was kind of sleepy, so I spent most of my journey time in sleep. When I was awake, I helped myself listening to sayup-sayup music from "neighbour". He has a tasteful song selection - I Will Always Love You, I Will Survive, Raining Men, Black or White, among others. I don't know, may be he put the volume at 9 or 10, because I can listen the music too!

My first destination upon arriving in Oxford was the Ashmolean Museum, a museum which focusing on art and archaeology. After I got tired with the usual stuff from the Roman and Egyptian worlds, I checked out its sourvenier shop and performed my routine purchase - fridge magnet!

Since I've ample time for the scheduled guided tour, I entered Sainsbury's Local for a couple of Danish to supplement my lunch that I brought from home. This is because I thought lunch will be expensive in Oxford, but it turned out that goods and services in the city was reasonably priced.

During the guided tour, I had the experienced to visit three colleges, namely Christ Church, Melton College and the New College. Based on my brief observation, the buildings here are largely influenced by Gothic style. Man... Oxford people must be greatly in love with Gothic!
According to my guide, similar to University of Cambridge, this university has a long history of unfavourable treatment towards female students too. If you guys are interested to find out more, please send me an email, okay...

And I make new friends - Aylin from Turkey, Arslan from Iran and Aziz from Tajikistan.

Now, let me share with you some pictures taken during my trip to Oxford: