Tuesday, May 28, 2013

My Three Weeks of Fun

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I
AM
BACK
PEOPLE

No, it doesn't read as 'I am back people', btw. Put a damn comma.

Andddddd I am back from the dead. After the epic aftermath of GE 13, followed by the super stress finals week, I am finally on my break. Though it was sad that I'll be leaving Taylor's ADP forever and ever (And the thank you post has gathered dust in my dashboard) So I'll take this opportunity to thank everyone who had made my time in Taylor's ADP fun and memorable. :)

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...
...

So, now what? With holidays lengthy and feels like it will never end. (I'm so going to regret this later), I was left with boredom. But see, this is not like all the holidays I had been through before. This holiday is...well different. This three-month holiday will be my last holiday before I finally spread my wings and carry my overweight body to the New World aka United States of America aka The Country That Is So Free That You Can Bang A Cow And It Is Legal. With that in mind, I swore to myself to utilize my time well. The conscientiousness me (Read: Railzan) kicked into action and put up a general to-do-list for the holidays

Nazran's To-Do-List before Flying to US
by Railzan and Kanzaki

1. Spend time with family and friends and friends of friends
2. Visit school often and help out
3. Enlighten thyself
4. Prepare all da documents
5. Meet some new people
6. Explore Malaysia
7. Create a League of Legends account
8. Find a girlfriend 

So, with that in mind, let's tackle the top of the list: Spending time with family and friends (And friends of friends) This takes the top of the list because I feel sad when I think of leaving behind such awesome family and friends behind to pursue my dreams. So I scroll through my friend's list and made plans with everyone and hopefully, I can cover them all.

Seriously, if you wanna lepak with me. Roger2 me fast. I really wanna spend time with you gaissss!

Ehem...
So three weeks has passed since I made that list. What is my progress?

I'm proud to say that I (think I) made quite a progress. 

First of all there's the SWAG E-Sports group consist of Axel, Hanis, Eli, Azwan. I feel kinda guilty for not spending time with the during college. (Sorry, I was busy...as always) All the DotA games that  rejected will came back haunting me if I don't start spending time with them now. So, I did. We played DotA until the wee hours of the morning and then go for a quick bite at Siti Zubaidah (GG waistline) Even today, we went out to Lowyat to buy....well, gaming stuffs. Just like true buddies, we exchange racial jokes without any shit taken. Now that my friends, are the true 1Malaysia. Get it right, PM

Then, there is the SSP concert aka Flourishes. Perfect time to go and spend time with band member. So, rang up my musical pal, Arief and my pet sis, Afiqah and invite them. (I did invite Mike, but he no reply) The concert was so-so and me and Afiqah had a long talk during the traffic jam. Arief has his stocks of 'hot stories' readied to be shared. What? It is a great past time :3

SSP WO

I don't always camwhore, but when I do, I look horrible 

After that, the weekend came and along with it is the SUPERAWESOMEOMGITISCOMINGTOSMSSFINALLYAFTER40YEARS HKSBP. For ye foreigners out there (Oi, school-ist) HKSBP stands for Hari Kecemerlangan SBP and it is an event where every, I repeat, EVERY single SBP in the face of Malaysia will gather in one place (or three in SMSS' case) to fight it out in debate and basketball along with a grandious award ceremony for the kiasu and fabulous. And yes, it was held in my own alma mater, Sekolah Menengah Sains Selangor. Curious with the preparations, I dropped by at school once and it was a sight to behold. Teachers and students rushing everywhere to prepare and organize. For the first time ever, I saw the whole school getting hyped up for a single event. (Well, there's rugby but whatever)

I went to see the debate twice with my First Subang neighbour, Imran. It is funny when he disguise himself under the pseudonym 'Ching Meng' and effectively fooling everyone that he is a Chinese from Damansara (He is a Malay from ASIS btw)

And there's the Majlis Anugerah Cemerlang where I also dropped by to see how things are...Okay, I lied, Mike dragged me to it to meet his girlfriend, Ain. And what do you know, the very moment I stepped into the teachers attacked me with a request

"Can we help us? We need a PA for the emcee"

And me, being a Yes man I accepted their request (I lied, I just want to menyibuk) Hence, I was given the task as Fedtri Yahya (sp?) PA for the day. For those of ya anti government people, Fedtri Yahya is a host in MHI TV3. So again, I was dragged into a SBP event. What is best course of action now?

INFILTRATE 
ENTERTAIN
ENJOY

And poof! I'm in my school's batik as a disguise

Behold of my lack of calcium
I did talk to some of the current SBP student under the pseudonym of Asran Maskor (lame). But I had fun. Oh, I hang out with my band juniors too. Great to finally able to talk to them

And on Sunday there's the concert with PJPO. For me, it was...well, more of a performance than a full concert because I only have one song. Oh, the hardships of a saxophonist in a philharmonic orchestra. But the good side is, I became closer to my orchestra mates.
I'm not fat! I look big because I'm taking up air into my belly, I swear!


With the imba trumpeter, Nyzem

So nais. Full orchestra
Taylor's University Symphonic Orchestra

And finally, there is this busking thing I did for SPARTFEST. 30minutes of jamming songs like "When I Was Your Man" and "Careless Whisper" in a crowd that is....well, rich and loaded. Raised RM35 in 30 minutes. Woohoo~

Then Sherlyn gave me a 50% off Chatime as a reward. WORTH

Me and my middle split hair glory


Cash. So naiss

And that concludes my activity for three weeks! Well, not all of the activity I did, but whatever.

Oh, any ideas for what should I do next? I need ideas!

PS: To my loyal readers, you might ask 'Why the sudden change in writing style?". Blame Kanzaki for it. Seriously. Blame her -Nazran

Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Need For Conflict

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Hello Earthlings. Yeah, I know. It has been a while? Why? Because screw ADP Death Week (read: Shitload of assignments) and now, I'm in the middle of my very last Final in Taylor's ADP. Still haven't studied much and one more project to do. Haiz...

But on the side note, it is time for the GENERAL ELECTION~~~YIPPIE *shoots confetti*

Why am I so excited? Because -to quote an uncle in Facebook-,

"True, GE13 is the Mother Of All Elections, in the sense that for the first time in Malaysian history, a change of government is seen possible, if not probable. But at the end of the day, it should not simply boil down to a Battle Of The Ulamaks, Songkok Tinggi vs Kopiah Putih, Hudud vs Dangdut, Winnable vs Wannabe, Manifesto vs Akujanji, Haves vs Have-nots, Ini Kali Lah vs Lain Kali Lah or whatever. Nor should it have extremely racial or religious tones. Or gutter politics like peddling pornographic pictures and videos, whether genuine or edited."
-Zaim Al-Amin-


And just to make things clear, I'm a non-partisan in the battle of two factions. I love both of them and hate both of them equally. (See? It is great. Come to the non-partisan side!) But that doesn't matter I should be apathetic and not give a care/damn at all. I do care, mostly because politics is so closely related to economics and it is oddly interesting to see the interaction between the two. As I scroll through my Facebook and Twitter laden with various political posts such as-

"Ya Allah, Mereka ingin menguasai XXX. Hilanglah XXX daripada dunia ini. BANGKIT!"
"Mereka kejam and penipu. Ubah dan pangkah XXX"
"Negara ini akan menjadi XXX jika XXX menguasai!"
"Bangla masuk! Dafuq?"

And seriously, the quality of arguments presented by both parties are...well...BAD. The arguments reeked ignorance and sheer stupidity and 'macai-ness'. (Though I won't deny there is some golden argument presented in the internet as such the ever-famous Rafizi's open letter) And don't let me started on the photoshopped pictures -.-

But see, one thing I realized through the course of GE:13 is that the amount of patriotism towards one's country. I have this stereotype in my head saying, "Heh, Malaysians are a bunch of non-patriotic people". I WAS WRONG. And this election around, for the first time ever we get to see the Gen Y people finally being able to vote. This Gen Y people, hip and technologically connected became an important political tool in this election and in my opinion will turn around this coming election. With their fresh ideas, I believe the Gen Y people can make Malaysia into a better country.

HOWEVER

This is where the problem starts. Sure, Gen Y is being able to vote for the first time in history but that doesn't mean the older generation will be obsolete. Older generation aka the Baby Boomers and Gen X are...well, more conservative compared to the more liberal Gen Y. Some of them were born before Merdeka and a fair number of them still remembered the tragedy of 13th May 1969. Some of them still have racial sentiments and some of them still thinks Malaysia is as good as it is, compared to the yesteryears.

Because of that, it creates conflict between the 'new' and the 'old'. The new wanted change, to restructure Malaysia, to take apart, to clean the interior and build it back again. The old wanted to preserve stability, to oil up the parts and to put up a new coat of paint for Malaysia. Sure, there are some of the 'old' who thinks like a 'new' and vice versa but generally, this is where they belong at the spectrum of ideology.

So, is this bad?

Hardly, this is what we should be experiencing to achieve progress. You see, conflicting ideologies is not necessarily a bad thing. (It will if some A-hole decided to go violent) In a calm and intellectual debate, the two conflicting ideology can find a middle a ground and balance each other out. Sure, I don't want to live in a Malaysia that is super strict and conservative that I can't even 'melatah' (eg: Babs gila!) I need my dose of 'melatah'. And I don't want to live in a Malaysia where it is super liberal and free without any authority. Yeah, I'm over exaggerating here but you get my point.

So calm down people. Conflict is normal. Who knows, we can live in a better Malaysia after this?