26

The number 26 filled me with pride but at the same time fills me with caution. To put it in really street slang " You better get your shit together and think about whatcha wanna do my brother ".

So true.

To Allah S.W.T :

Thank You for letting me live another day. I know I don't deserve to be asking so much , since my prayers have not been consistent as hoped. Please protect me, my family, my sayang and my friends from harm and do bless them the way You have blessed me. Thanks for giving me what I have today. I will never forget You wherever I go. I hope things are so far-so good between us and long may it continue. I owe You big time!

To my Sayang:



Thank You. For everything. I love you and I am happy to have 'found' you :) . Like I said before, back then there was no colors, now there is thanks to you. Thank you.

To my Family:

Mom & Dad - You made me what I am today and I still carry traits from both of you. Though I really wish I inherit Mom's 'garang-ness' ; it'll greatly help me in my profession right now. I'm too patient like Dad. Thank you for the wish and the $$ hehe . I love you both.

Siblings - Bro, you owe me a present man. Sis, thank you for the book . I'm sure it'll help me soon enough ; "25 Principles of Success to get you from where you Are, to where you want to Be" . I think I pretty much got a rough idea, all will be revealed in time ;) . Thank you both of you.

Bro-In-Law - Thanks for the lovely dinner. Would love to have one of your watches someday hehe

The kids / my sidekicks - Thank you for giving me a smile everytime I come back from the stresses of work. The stories of your 'mis-adventures' at school does provide me with a great escape from $$ issues :) .

To My Friends:

To me, part of my life will not be complete without friends. We need friends. Thank you for the wishes. To remember my birthday is a gift in itself already. To those who wished me, you know who you ae.

My karaoke crew - Arman, Shai and Zharif ; That was some good shit guys. I don't believe we would ever sing certain songs that we picked and sing it to public man haha! What happens in the room 35 stays in room 35 hehe

2009 Here I Come !

I Wish

That all the other countries with military power such the Germans, Russia, China, North Korea etc.. would just hang out together one day and just say "To hell with the UN, its like almost nothing has been done to stop the atrocities in Gaza, fellas , how bout we just bloody go there and chase out these F%^&* Zionists !"

Israel is not so big. How can this small country rule America ? Shame on you Arab nations, don't let greed blind you from helping out a fellow Arab neighbor , aren't we all on the same boat?

The problem now is that nobody is standing up to fight against this Sinyu-Giant bully combination (taken from Doraemon characters). To those who feel that only Muslims are making such a big fuss about Gaza then think again. Go to YouTube and you will see even fellow Americans and Israelis are protesting this war. Maybe its hurts us Muslims more, but imagine this : Let's just take religion away from the picture. Imagine Malaysia for instance. One of our 'negeris' let's say Pahang, gets occupied by a military regime and starts chasing out the people there and suddenly announces it as a new country. Wouldn't you be angry ? On top of that, it has the backing of the biggest superpower in the world. How do you fight that? And this has been going on for ages. Women and children are mercilessly killed by the hour. But the Western media are only showing us our people throwing rocks at them , but didn't show our buildings being bombed, suppplies blocked, etc...

People, I know these are bad times economically. All you can think of is probably money. Money minded folks probably couldn't care less. But please stop and imagine if this is happening in Malaysia. Wouldn't you wish that people from other countries would hear your cries and sufferings?

All the killings to satisfy who?

Maybe in the international stage, peace is just a word. There is no such thing as peace. If every country wants peace, all this would never have happened.

Take a read here -> here . Then you will know what I mean.

P.M.S

Performance Management System - that's what it means. But it can also mean the PMS girls go through. I see a similar behavioral pattern between what my co-workers feel and what girls generally feel during PMS : Cranky.

In the place where I work, PMS sessions can either make you really happy or really unhappy. PMS sessions can make or break you. They can be your sole hope to get a good salary increment. During the PMS month (usually done in June and December) , you will notice that everyone gets a boost and their performance at work improve exponentially. To please 'the-powers-that-be' and also 'the-not-so-powerful-has-been' of course. And the result of it, well ... hehe ... let's just say, the word 'flabbergasted' is an understatement. Imagine a seasoned guy who's been there for ages gets a lower performance percentile compared to a fresh-faced graduate who just joined the department for about a year. I was advised not to disclose my percentile with the old and new . Reason? to avoid demoralization.

Well personally I feel that anyone would feel demoralized if the newbie that is under his tutelage suddenly gets a higher percentile than him/her. Come on, think about it, its like Mr.Miyagi losing to that wimpy karate kid in a death match man!

We are given forms to fill up and rate ourselves. And these self-ratings will be discussed in a board of superiors. Then they give out the final rating of their own. And when the session starts, this is when they try to convince you to accept the lower percentile that they have given you. Well its my 3rd year now with this whole thing. This year I don't really want to start a fight so I just accept it. Luckily for me there was an improvement in my percentile compared to last year. According to them, I was considered one of those who are in the 'top bracket' . Ok what.

My heart goes to those who didn't get the mark they deserve. Sometimes I don't know what exactly does the boss wants hehe.. You want someone who works more days til' it violates his labor law ? or do you prefer somebody who has the temperament to withstand emergency crisis and sound technical know-how?

At least, I'm a bit satisfied this year compared to the last 2 years. I guess I was fairly judged this time. I hope those who were very negative and blunt on the appraisee during the session goes back and sleeps well. A word of advice: Sometimes you need to take a populist approach if you want to progress further on the corporate ladder. Make people like you man. You can't be too strict or too militia in your methods. Try and ask yourself who you are and why are you still where you are. Look around you. :) Peace my man hehe

Ah well, let's hope for a better year this year . Increment? what increment? that was a joke right ? hehe ..

Til all are one...

The Roots

You can fly as high as you want,
Be as great as you want,
Earn as much as you want,
Live as comfortable as you want,

But nothing beats the peace achieved on something so plain and so simple. The guiding light in my dark nights.. Amin.

Material Thangs

What defines happiness?



From what I'm seeing, its money. No questions asked. Money , money and more money. The experts say one of the most vital ways of increasing your wealth is to limit your spending and not to play 'keeping up with the jones' . In a nutshell , it means don't spend like you're Roman Abramovich if you don't have money / not enough money for it. Don't live a lifestyle that you find hard to cope or achieve. Don't live a lifestyle where everything is always not enough . Don't be governed by peer pressure. Just because your next door neighbor got a brand new ride , you need to have one too.

Simple things , gestures and notes just don't seem to be of much value nowadays. Hail all the rich guys during these times. I'm not happy that I'm not as rich but at the same time I'm also not happy that money determines my happiness. Confused ?

Imagine you have all the money in the world , you get to spend on anything you could ask for. Then what? Obviously in general you'll be happy , but are you really happy?

I'm happy if theres no war. No 'invisible line' that defines the rich and the poor. More room for love and care. More understanding and listening. No greed and selfishness. More love that is pure, so pure that it makes you inseparable and what's imperfect will look so perfect

Ahh such pacifist outlook on life has no place in the world I live in now. What can I do? Survive and adapt is the best option. Got to keep up with the demands of life. Perhaps in another life there could be a place for a pacifist like me :)

Insyaallah....

A little light of hope

'Idea Rawkstars in Progress'

Goodbye cruel world

Neh, I'm not committing suicide. On several crazy occasions , I do feel like getting a shotgun and blow my head up (only during the rarest most uncontrollable bouts of depression and anger). But fortunately, I'm a Muslim and killing yourself because you hate your life is a First Class ticket to hell baby. Don't even start about those Islamic suicide bombers, to me they're just mindless pawns to serve a very extreme Islamic doctrine.

That's the good thing about my religion, it has a simple message unlike what the world thinks about it : Be grounded. I saw this one Uztaz who was talking to a bunch of teenagers clad in heavy metal outfits, piercings in places I never imagined and speak with a heavy mat-salleh slang to it. It was on TV by the way. The cool thing about this Uztaz is that he was being very frank to these kids, he said " I know all of you might want to experiment things like drinking , piercings and partying and all , I understand that , all of you are young, but just remember the basic foundation of our religion and don't stray too far away, if you feel you are , just come back to the straight line once in a while. A simple prayer or alhamdullillah is a good thing to do. "

I was like, hey not bad, he's different, he's not too preachy of strict . Other Uztaz would just grab a cane and beat the hell out of these kids . He was simple. I guess simplicity is still the best policy.

Back to the thing I'd like to share. I hate to say it, I really do. But due to the demands of the world, I guess I have to chuck aside my dreams of becoming a copywriter. I wish I knew about this copy writing thing before I decided to pursue my IT Diploma and Degree last time. At least I would've had the joy of being a copywriter. I understand it's not a very glorious job like a Finance Manager or anything that has a lot of $$$ to it, but to those who are passionate about writing, its better than being stuck in a 9-5 cubicle with no room for creative exploration and just getting the fat paychecks with a dull face at the end of the month. You become a slave to your work and a slave to time. In my case, its a 7-7 shift with 70+ idiot boxes staring back at you. Its like babysitting man. One idiot box cries you have to attend to it. Even more worse right? hehe. Don't even think about promotions. You need to be a good method actor to win the hearts of the bosses and seniors.

Because I'm getting older now, turning 26 this month, I guess responsibilities have caught me. More responsibilities mean more $$$ needed to materialize goals and you cannot afford a change of careers and start from zero. I really want to try being a copywriter , I really do, but finances don't always allow me to fulfill that dream. I have a certain future that I'd like to be in, and I don't think I will have a good chance if I pursue this copywriter thing. I might lose other aspects of my life that I hold really close to my heart. It's a money business nowadays in life. No more love. No money no future.

I'm sad and at the same time holding on to this hope, that one day all my concerns will be addressed and I finally will be become a great copywriter someday , staying overseas and start a family with my sayang, with little mini-me running around in a junior Liverpool jersey kicking football in the yard of the house of my dreams.

Ooops, bubble pecah, I took your imagination somewhere huh? ..oh well, dare to dream ..


Happy New Year 2009 Everyone ! May all your dreams come true :)