Be right back

The absence of any writing here is by no means a sign of a loss of interest; it is only due to the fact that between what I have to do and what I want to do, the former takes precedence. I will write here again soon...

"You do what you need to do, to do what you want to do"

The river goes to places of which its source will never dream of reaching.

The extent of our services or actions for other people may go further than the immediate results we are aware of.

We will keep learning

As a matter of honour, if you’re a member of a team, submit yourself to your authority as you would expect submission from your team under you

As a matter of honour, you don’t pull a punch on someone when he/she’s turned away, or conspire among other social circles

As a matter of honour, you speak straightforwardly and uncompromisingly, directly- one to one- and the buck stops there

As a matter of honour, you unflinchingly refuse to take sides within the same team, should it happen, for the maintained unity and well-being of the team

As a matter of honour, you don’t allow yourself to believe all that is said about another teammate, especially if it induces prejudice or disrespect for him/her

As a matter of honour, you show the same grace to your teammates as you would receive it from them for your own shortcomings

As a matter of honour, you don’t fight fire with fire, or unfairness with unfairness- because it is already enough that the mistake has been made

As a matter of honour, others' shortcomings must never be forum discussions or unnecessary e-mail threads, or coffee talk

And

As a matter of honour, if performing the above puts you in a less than desired position, you try to do them anyway- accepting the hard lessons.

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-To tickle your funny bones... :> One of my favourite YouTube videos

When You Ask Her About Monsters

Happy 20th

To Han Sheng who has been a dear buddy to me in all the years of our academic lives: SKDU (primary school), SMDU (secondary school), HELP (pre-uni), and presently, Monash University.

(...and unless the trend is proven otherwise, it looks like there will be more pictures like this taken of him, years from now.)

Flag bearers

Personal reflection (faith)

The war stories tell of soldiers who march out to face their enemies and perish by the blade of the sword or the shot of the gun. Some march out valiantly, some march out reluctantly- but the bullets don't favor anyone. At the battlefield, a prominent soldier carries in his arms the pride of the army, and the spirit behind their foolish march onward- the flag. He knows very well that everyone in the opposition will take their aim to bring him down, just as everyone behind him will take their aim to kill the other flag bearer. But he also knows of other foolish ones like him who wait to pick up the flag when that happens.

The flag bearers in the war know that they run into their deaths for representing their army and taunting their opponents, if only for a few moments. They don't whine when the bullet meets the flesh- they subscribed for it. They don't quit at the prospect of being shot. They share the same fate of their commander-in-chief, in victory or in suffering.

Likewise in the matter of faith, the flags we carry bring, and will bring

slander, false accusations/labeling, punishment for standing up to the right thing, betrayal, rejection, disrespect, mockery, deception, being used, abuse, assault, misrepresentation...

..but grace abounds for us to march on.

Just a quick follow-up to the post below particularly regarding the scholarship and education system in Malaysia. Some facts to consider (*taken from unicef, unescap) that prompted my questions:

• About half of the youth in Malaysia are not 'urban' youth.
  
• Only 29 % of the Malaysian youth between 15-23 have a tertiary education
  
• Only 34 Indian youth received the PSD overseas scholarships this year (NST 15th May)
• 25% of average Malaysian families survive on a household earning of less than RM 1000 a month (quoted in the Eighth Malaysian Plan)
  

I read with interest an interview with the Public Service director-general in the newspaper today, and think some steps taken should be rightfully applauded, like the steps taken to punish government-funded students who study overseas and refuse to return home to serve the country (a total waste of our tax-payers money):

"Before 2003, if you broke your bond, you or your guarantor had to pay. The amount was less than what was spent on you. But now, the penalty is the actual cost (of what was spent on the student). So, before this, if you were doing medicine, you had to pay RM160,000, which is less than a year’s scholarship. We spend RM1.2 million for each medical student. But over 90 per cent of our students come back. The ones who don’t come back are mostly medical students. If they don’t come back, we get their guarantors." - Tan Sri Ismail Adam

That being said, my opinion stems from the logic that monetary aid can benefit two groups of Malaysian youth:
1) The group that applies for a scholarship/loan and, if rejected, can still afford to pursue tertiary education
2) The group that applies for a scholarship/loan and, if rejected, cannot afford to pursue tertiary education

This was not covered in the interview, and my contention is that the criteria points-system of 70- academic excellence, 10- interview, 10- family economic background and 10- co-curricular activities, should be revised in favour of the lower-income earning groups. The second group should be given priority, and not just a mere 10 points bonus. Hey, some youth are already getting more pocket-money than 25% of all the families in the country (imagine 5 family members per family) every month.

According to the 8th MP, only 9.8% of Malaysian families have a household income of more than RM 5000 (the top of the income class). Let's assume these people can afford to send their kids to universities.

If one makes a further assumption that in each family there is 1 youth, 90 out of 100 youth in Malaysia are born to families that earn less than RM5000 a month. The lower the income groups get, the more difficult it is to support youth planning to pursue their education. Why give so much money to the top of the income classes who can afford it, when the bottom can barely get by with daily necessities and deserve this more? Which is more pressing- award according to merit (easily attained by the rich who have resources available to them) or aid for the poorer groups? Giving more money to the rich who already have the resources to study and who don't really need it is another form of elitism, I'm afraid.



Just consider: Rm 1000 per month, shared between 5 family members who have to eat, pay for school/electricity/water/petrol/rent bills... and then compare it to your monthly spending as an 'urban' youth.

Do things make sense? This is the world we'll live in for the next 50 or so years. The world of 6.6 billion, out of which 1.1 billion live on less than US$ 1 a day.

No sense

The main challenge of the current generation here lies not in the poverty of the land, nor in the inadequate resources available to us to live comfortable lives. No, by the toil and economic struggles of the generations before us, this generation was born into a world of convenience, luxury and extravagance; and our challenge is of a different type. Set on the road to success, most of us traverse along the path of materialism and glory forgetting that we leave several precious things behind as well. And thus some things no longer make sense...

It doesn't make sense that some entertainment programs are structured in a way that puts an entity or person down in order to elevate another. Many of the salient themes on the television consist of those that condemn lousy cars, lousy food or lousy people, ignorant of the context in which they are found: lousy cars serve to provide cheap and affordable transportation for the middle-class citizens, lousy food is good enough to fill the stomachs of those who do not afford escargots and Wellington steaks, and lousy talent does not stop people from being happy singing or dancing. Yet, imperfection is capitalized upon, and our comedy is another's tragedy. It doesn't make sense that this happens in the same world whose inhabitants suffer and lose their lives to catastrophes and human injustice.

It doesn't make sense that in a nation that faces a brain-drain problem, generous scholarships are awarded to the already rich and privileged (whose wealth could purchase them the best schools, books and teachers) or to a select race or group- at the expense of the equally competent, only less privileged and their rights to education to fulfill a pathetic quota. The poor drop out of schools and dream a distant dream of a tertiary education while the rich are sent to expensive foreign universities by government funding , where they obtain their degrees and often times, eventually stay on and become even richer, not wanting to return and work for the nation; some even scoffing at the incompetence of their homeland and exalting the cultures they weren’t born to. And while this is not a generalization of all the 'rich', it doesn't make sense that a government that aims to get as many people educated as possible in order to increase human capital could fail in delivering subsidies and financial aid to the people who need them the most.

It doesn't make sense that 'cats prefer to bark'; and when Malaysians perceive anything non-Malaysian to be more superior. When the very dreams our parents instilled in us involve working hard, to study overseas, to stay there and have good lives- we are nothing short of Malaysians with an identity crisis. While they mean well, some forget that they cheat the country of its voices, by sending them away. It doesn't make sense that an average and fairly blessed country with problems not unlike other countries is perceived to be a place to escape from. When Englishmen could be so proud of their country, or Americans boast about their home, and when both countries are flawed in their own ways- what a sin it is to be discontented with a beautiful country like ours! There is a difference between realizing our country's lack and the need to improve, and pure discontentment and cynicism.

Oh, many things don't make sense today, but when people realize these disparities in logic, they must stand up in their own ways. Malaysian youth must be proud citizens, proud of who they were born to be, and proud of who they are. Those who stay back must realize their privilege to do so, while those who leave temporarily must be effective ambassadors of this land.

We must all have a passion for our land, our families, our loved ones and our roots - to help make sense, and most of all, we must love who God made us to be.