Friday, August 31, 2007

Joining Technorati

I'm joining technorati and in the process of verifying this blog.

I'm given the link below as way of verification.

Technorati Profile

The destructive Virgo psychology

Yesterday I finally found out that I have a terrible Virgo trait that I must overcome in order to live in harmony with everything. The trait is well known for Virgo which is perfectionism. I realise that in order to work on something until it is finished, I need to have everything in good order along the way. If one tiny part of the processes does not go well, it will affect my concentration in achieving the goal and I might give up totally. With this known, I will not let this psychological trait hampered me in anyway in my quest to conquer the world. Bwahahaha... nah, I'm just joking.

38 Years of Mishandling

Here is the proof why we can say we have 38 years of mishandling and destruction of our economy:

We have more natural and human resource compare to a lot of countries but we're still lag behind them. One country that always come to our mind is Singapore. I'm sure we can do better than them.

Billions of ringgit wasted on Proton. Crappy quality and safety. 1 dollar Augusta sales. Undead models that still haunts us after more than 22 years - Proton Saga.

AP fiasco that seems to enrich certain minority.

Government building that keep on leaking due to government contract given to half past six contractor.

Johor-Singapore Scenic Bridge that never was but spent millions of ringgits nevertheless.

PKFZ RM4.6billion scandal that is asking for billion ringgit bail out.

Problematic civil services.

Reduced FDI.

Alleged corruption in police force, and other enforcement department such as JPJ.

Accident involving express bus due to lack of enforcement and half past six bus companies.

Flood problem in Kuala Lumpur that was never resolved eventhough SMART tunnel is built.

Disunity among races due to inequality and racist comment by politician that never being punished.

Low quality undergraduate due to low quality University. Low quality university due to low quality professor. Good quality academic staff are not promoted and we all know why.

Mat Rempit (illegal motorcyclist) being roped by Pemuda UMNO.

Continued race based politics.

Actually the list is countless. I just hope that our leaders will realise this and do something for the country instead of doing something for themselves.

Race? "Bangsa"?

Actually watching the Prime Minister on TV last night's speech give me a lot of thoughts. You see, his speech laced with statements totally out opposite of what BN has done to country. A few times he spoke of lifting up the race as summarize in this statement from Utusan Online:

"Sambil meminta rakyat menjaga perpaduan antara kaum, beliau menggesa seluruh usaha ditumpukan untuk menambah nilai diri, bangsa dan negara."
Translated:
While asking the citizen to unite, he asked the effort to be concentrated on increasing self, race and nation value.

I want to ask him, which race? It was best summarized by Jeff Ooi blog:

No bangsa
The national anthem reads like a poem:


Negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku,
Rakyat hidup, bersatu dan maju,
Rahmat bahagia, Tuhan kurniakan,
Raja kita, selamat bertakhta.
Rahmat bahagia, Tuhan kurniakan,
Raja kita, selamat bertakhta.

Azmi Sharom noticed the missing word. Bangsa.


And of course the unity thing. It was said that we should fight against people who want to destroy of nation's unity. But he forgot that the unity he talked about is destroyed by his subordinate by waving the Malay sword ("keris"). I wonder how we can fight that. Maybe he can teach us.

To have unity means to have equality and that's it. There's no other way around that.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

50 Years of Independence

Tommorrow will be Malaysia's 50th Independence anniversary. A lot of activities being organized in Kuala Lumpur, the Federal State Territory of Malaysia ranging from fireworks, laser shows, etc. It was reported that hotel rooms are packed to brim and thus signaling the success of Visit Malaysia Year 2007. Does half century of independsnce strike any chord on me specifically and on non-Bumi generally?

The answer will be a stern NO. We've been treated as second class citizen ever since the racial clash in 1969. (This second class thing is an overused statement by Chinese). Ever since then, New Economic Policy (NEP) is implemented by the then Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. It was meant to help the Malay to achieve the same or better economic status as the Chinese (to be exact, it is 30% of national equity). Until today, the Chinese is still perceived to be well off than the fellow brethen Malay eventhough there's a lot of poor Chinese struggling to make a living.

No doubt that new era for Malay has begun. More and more company created by Malay with the help of goverment and are very successful. Petronas which holds the country wealth are monopolize by Malay. For the past 38 years, NEP has created a lot of wealthy Malay. But it was reported that many of new rich people (Orang Kaya Baru) is from UMNO. Majority of countryside Malay still suffer from poor living. However, UMNO still get the support because NEP is like free handout. Who does not want a free stuff.

But for non-Malay, it was largely felt as oppression. We don't feel it while we're young. If we're matured fast enough, we might realise that most of the teacher are Malays. But because at that time, we're still innocent, we never felt any oppression. If we're ignorant enough, we will only start to feel oppressed when it comes to selection of student to enter public university. Malay will get 1 year earlier in entering the university by studying in matriculation which is only for Malay. Next, the matriculation is structured to be easier to obtain good result. Chinese are forced to face STPM (government examination) which is harder to score good result. So the result comparison will be lopsided. Not satisfied with two handicaps, Malay are being given big chunk of quota to enter the University. Every year, we see plight of Chinese student unable to get their medicine course eventhough they scored full As in their public examination. All this led to brain drain because wealthy Chinese will send their bright kids to study in overseas.

When the Chinese start to work, they will start to realise more and more inequality eventhough they are born in the same country. For the Malay, they have extra priviledge such as discount for buying house, easier to get licence to open petrol station, taxi, AP, etc. All government contracts also being given to Malay. A lot of Malay companies are being bailed out during economic downturn.

While the Chinese don't mind and being tolerance to all these inequality in the name of wealth sharing, but what happened these past few years had fired up Chinese discontentment. It reached boiling point when Hishamudding who is the Education Minister brandished Malay sword and threaten to kill those oppose the NEP and the Malay Lordship. The powerful son-in-law of current Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi does not failed to stirred racial sentiment further by saying he willing to sell at loss his shares in ECM Libra to Malay than to sell it to Chinese (see below for full statement). A lot of racist statement flying here and there especially in Malay newspaper. And all this is to garner more Malay support.

Unfortunaly, while all this is force down our throat, the MCA/Gerakan that claim to champion our right just sit down and kept quiet. I've lost trust in them. Eventhough they might do a good job, they'll never get my vote. I've lost hope in our political system. Reading through Malaysiakini materials made my heart sank. 50 years of Independence is just not for me or the Chinese.....

*Khairy statement:
Claiming that he received no less than three offers to buy over his shares, one from a government-owned company, another from an international company while a Chinese businessman offered a very profitable sum, Khairy said:

“I rejected the first offer as people will claimed that it was a government bailout to rescue me while the subsequent offers will see the shares falling into the hands of outsiders and non-bumiputras.

“I will not let that happen and will rather suffer losses as long as the shares remain in the hands of our people.”

Friday, August 17, 2007

Parents are right!

Do you remember when your parent ask you not to read or watch TV too close? I recently found out that short sightedness is caused by children who really read/see at close distance. Then the children are growing, their eyeball is growing too. When you read too near, the focus fall behind retina. Somehow, eyeball try to grow longer to compensate that. By growing long, it will fall at the retina. This long eyeball is on of the reason you have short sightedness. Because when your eye ball is long, your focus will fall in front of retina and your lens cannot focus it back to retina because your eye balls is too long.

For old people is ok because old people does not grow anymore.

That's why, listen to your parents.

I just did LASEK operation!!!

I just did LASEK operation after delaying it for 2 weeks (the stupid OCBC credit card does not arrive on time!!!).

I did the surgery on 9th August 2007. Its Thursday. My lucky number is 4. And now I'm doing in on Thursday which is 4 in Chinese. Its very coincidence. I never thought of doing it on Thursday. But they told me that week Saturday is holiday. So operation which is all the time done on Friday have to move to Thursday. (Later they found at that its not really holiday and they have to work on Saturday. Talk about coincidence).

When I'm in the Optimax Laser Eye Surgery centre, I have slight scary feeling. Not a lot. Maybe I really want to do this so long that the scary feeling is not that much. Furthermore, bad things happened during healing and not during surgery.

I went in around 12.30pm which is earlier by 4 hours. I want them to check my eyes again and make sure I really have that short sightedness and astig. This is because, I go and check in other optimetrist and find out that my power is actually lower. But after checking, my power is what they have check previously. I guess I have to believe them.

I met with an Intel fellow there. He just did LASIK. He feel everything very bright. But no pain at all. I can feel he is suffering from brightness because eventhough he is wearing sunglass, he still use his hand to cover his eyes. I saw a room is empty. So I just tell him to get into that room and turn off all the lights. He should have gone home. But he need to wait until his friend finish work. After that, I didn't see him again.

When its my turn, I was ask to wear surgery clothing. I really have to strip until underwear and wear the greenish clothing with cap as well. I went out to check with them what to do after I wore those close. Damn those people never give me proper instruction. Then all the woman at the receptionist laugh at me saying I look funny in that suit &$)#&%@*(&(*...

Anyway, I proceed to sit in a secluded places where a woman come in and....wash my eye lids. She climb on the bench next to me and work on my eyes. Then she put my document underneath the door to the surgeon. At this time, I actually sit quite stiff. Not sure if I scared or what. But I really determined to get it done.

Finally, I was called into the room. The surgeon called Dr. Lee Seow Yeang keep on talking and comfort me. She really good at doing that. I was led to sit on a chair which is something like in dental. Then she ask me to look at green or red light. She said there's a small hole. What I did next is embarassing and dangerous. I lift up my finger and point to that laser. Next thing I heard is my hand touching the glass of the red/green LED. OMG!! I mean, if i break something, the surgery will gone awefully wrong. Everyone in the room is so shock. Then she said, ok, no finger print and luckily I didn't break her glass. She said its just lens protector. Now I'm scared whether it is really true. Did I just screw up my surgery? Oh man. But I just let the surgery start since i've been wanting to do this. I guess I have to truet her.

The surgery start with them putting alcohol in my right eye. After the alcohol soften the epithalium layer, they pull the epithalium layer with a cotton bud. I still does not feel anything since I've been given pain killer and general anaesthetic. Then the laser started to shoot into my eyes with "zap" "zap" "zap" sound. I can see faint grey things when the laser zapping my eyes. It smells too the burning of my cornea :P I feel the red light moving to left. (but this is denied by the surgeon saying that I was halucinating :(.... ). After zapping, they use cooling liquid to cleanse my eyes. I feel so good with the cleansing. The same thing was done to my left eyes. The surgery was quite short. Maybe 20 minutes or so. Too short that I actually enjoy the eurgery. Hehe...

The suffering is actually happened after the surgery :( :

Thursday
straight after surgery, i dun feel anything at all because of the painkiller they give. go home, close my eyes all the time even during eating. slept early that night.
i have to wear protective eye gear. the gear is really uncomfortable. its two piece clear plastic with breathing holes. i need to use plaster to stick my face.

Friday
the next morning, when wake up, my left eye feel a bit gritty. my right eye still no feeling. check vision at optimax. left eyes is 20/20. right eye is blur. i believe this actually means my right eyes, the epithalium layer is dying and causing blurness. But left eye epithalium is still alive.

Saturday
next next morning, i feel a bit gritty feeling again. not really that pain. check vision again. both eye also blur. but left eye still almost 20/20.

Sunday
I wake up with a shocker. the protective eye gear was not in place. I remember i take them off while in the middle of the night. Nice job. I quickly called up the 24 hour emergency number. They said if I don't feel pain and no redness, means I'm fine. I heave a sigh of relieve. Now, both eyes no more pain. (but both eye blur blur now)

Monday
I drive to optimax to take off my right contact lens. Both eyes feel good now. When she take out my right contact lens, I quickly feel some gritty feeling. I was told to buy RM22 eye gel and so i did. It still feels bad. I think there's some foreign object in my eyes. Night time, i feel a bit pain when close my right eyes. i'm very worried there's a foreign object that keep on scratching my new epithalium layer. :(

Tuesday
i wake up, open my right eye, and feel very pain. Then I try to put some gel the pain get lesser. I decided not close my eyes. i keep on reading newspaper, watch tv, watch cartoon and it feels good. Then at 4.30pm, I drove to Optimax take off my left contact lens. They check both eyes with some scanner. They said my right eyes looks ok. (i'm still wonder why is it pain). This time, I bring along artificial tears so that i can wash my eyes after they take out the contact lens. Yesterday, I didn't bring anything. After take out contact lens, i close my eyes and the feeling of pain is there. That's why today I bring artificial tears to wash my eyes. They actually explain that the pain feeling because of the roughness of epitalium layer that is healing.

Wednesday
I've decided to work today. Everything is blur. Even reading words on Dell LCD is blur. I need to get close to the LCD to read the words. I think its very bad for my eyes. I keep on resting in between works and try to look away. My right eye gritty feeling is pretty uncomfortable. I gave them a call. They said it might be oily and dry. So I just put more artificial tears. I also pull my eyelid so that if there's foreign object, it will flow away with the artificial tears. Actually it feels good after that. I conclude that my eyelid is the culprit. Maybe my eyelid dug into my eyes or something like that.

Thursday
Vision continue to improve. Haziness is still quite noticeable.

Friday (Today)
I actually feel great with my vision. My right eye grittiness is almost gone. I start to use Eye Drops instead of the artificial tears which has finished (the second box which I have to purchase at RM33).

Conclusion
well, there's no conclusion yet. I have yet got 20/20 eyesight. But start now, i have new found freedom. I don't need to wear glass to anywhere I go. :)