After 47 Days

Malaysian Underwater Divers in PD- pic by Nazir4321

47 days…47 long days that caused me to fall ill off and on…and I was craving to dive.

In the end, I managed to do a dive, albeit a short one, in Port Dickson, with 17 other hardcore divers. Viz was terrible, the sea was very rough, but that did not deter us from diving. Two days before the dive I was coming down with sore throat again, plus cold. I downed lots of Vitamin C, Cod Liver Oil, gargled Bactidol, took Clarinase, hoping that I’d be fit for the dive.

Well, I did the dive. Now I’m a happy man again…even with the fact that the doctor’s put me on antibiotics, cough mixture, and antihistamines again.

Back To School – Part 3

What a day it’s been. My son, Alim, who goes to the same school as Fazira, went missing after school. He finished half an hourbefore Fazira did and, probably felt sleepy, walked back to the lesser ventured part of school and slept there. It took us more than half an hour to locate him.

I now have to drive Iqa to and from school and that’s screwing up my daily schedules.

Gotta do something about it.

Cruel Animals

Staff Nurse Zariyanah Idris, her husband L/Kpl Azhar Hasnan and their other child at the mortuary - The Star

The Cute One yesterday mentioned to me that my recent postings have been filled with complaints and grouses. Haha! Maybe so. But here’s another one.

As I was about to leave for Rawang last night for a meeting, this item came out as the main news on TV3 News. A 9-month old toddler was smothered to death using a pillow by the babysitter’s husband for refusing to stop crying. That is sick, cruel…and yes, as much as I hate the death punishment, this guy should hang.

Imagine you sending your child to a babysitter, you trust your child’s safety and life in the hands of the babysitter…then a few hours later your child is diagnosed as either being maimed for life, or pronounced dead. If you don’t like your wife babysitting the children of others, tell her. If you cannot stand the racket made by the children, wait it out, then when the parents come to pick the children up, inform them that you’re no longer interested in looking after them. How would you feel if someone else kills our precious children?

This guy deserves to hang. No matter what personal problems he was having at that time, if any, that prompted him to act so, there is no excuse. What he should have done was to look for me to vent out his anger. I’ll be a good sparring partner. Just be prepared to be rushed to the Admissions & Emergencies Ward.

Hmm..maybe I should go diving again…there’ll be less complaints from me and from The Cute One to me.

Back To School – Part 2

It’s 7.40am and I am at my daughter Fazira’s new school, which happens to be her former school. She studied here 2003-2004, then went to her former school for two years (2005-2006). She had met some of her former classmates but she seemed a bit lost; it’s a bit like being in fast forward, suddenly your friends have all grown up too, doing their own things. Alim will be schooling here too, as soon as the wife can sort out some admission cock-ups she herself did by not consulting me beforehand. My two elder daughters, Hana and Iqa will attend the same school. Farhan will attend kindergarten near the house.

After this will be forking-out-money time. I’ll be a poorer man than I am now in about an hour’s time.

Back To School

Yeah...that time of the year

Not inclusive of school uniforms and stationeries, it will cost me RM2140 to send my four children to school, and one son to kindergarten. If they don’t study hard and don’t do well in their studies, I’ll bill them.

Xenophobia

…has nothing to do with the fear of xylophones. My parents are back from London after three weeks, and my father related how he, even though he holds a Diplomatic passport, still gets held for questioning before being allowed to enter the UK and the US. And this is one man whom Her Majesty Elizabeth Regina II personally invites to the trooping of the colours annually.

If you ask me, it has all to do with being xenophobic; and worse still, it is something that the British themselves did both at the turn of the last century, and the years that followed the end of the Second World War. Look at how screwed up the Indian sub-continent is now; the Middle East, to name a few. Pakistan and India stll bicker about who has control over Kashmir. The funny part was, Kashmir was majority Muslim and still is. yet, the local ruler of Kashmir in 1947 was a Hindu, he opted for Kashmir to join India for the partition of that sub-continent.

The British, too, was responsible for the outcome of the Middle East now. They financed the various tribal leaders of the region to undermine and usurp the authority of the Ottoman Caliphate. Having played a role in the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, they carved the Middle East into pieces and gave the tribal leaders power to rule. And to control the growing resentment against the Jews, they helped bring about the Wahhabi sect, which was supposed to introduce a more moderate version of Islam, doing away with the bidaah parts. Somehow, the Wahhabis brought about an ideology based on strict YES and NO. and of course, with it, came the doing of their American counterparts: Osama bin Laden, the culprit who is responsible for all the bad publicity the real Islam is getting. Yes, Wahhabi is a MI6’s baby.

Anyway, when I step foot for the second time in England back in 1983 (the first was 3 years earlier) to further my studies, I had to face xenophobic people. I’ll not use the term racist here: that I reserve for people like me who like to watch races, Formula One especially. I was the only non-white in a Grammar school for my A-levels. The only person, on the first day who would speak to me was my classmate, Jonathan Goosey, who is now a policeman in Southampton. So I figured I had to earn their respect. I started to flash 50-pound notes during lunchtime, just to show them that I had more money per week than their parents could bring back home in a week. I only received the attention of the girls. Even seniors. Then one day, it snowed heavily, and kids from the school next door (who were calling me names like Paki, Nigger etc from day one) threw rocks contained in snowballs at me. When one hit me on the forehead, I went for their gang-leader and whacked him for all I care. I did not even bother about the other seven who were pummeling and kicking me from behind. Once their leader was bloodied, they all left. From that day on, I was the leader of my own gang.

Even my Economics teacher used to make fun of me, just because I did sound like I speak the Queen’s English. But when she asked me where did I learn English, I replied, “On the plane on my way here.” I loved going to the library because I could show them history books to show how civilised the people of the east were when the people of the British Isles were still running around in loinclothes hitting women over the head with clubs just to be able to get laid.

With the exception of Steve, who hails from the western part of England where they have a horse for a duchess, most mat sallehs are kampung folks, like those from Hulu Grik, or Jerangsang, Tanjung Besar etc. But when they come here, some stupid girls would worship them like their Viking Gods etc., and as if these people are from the master race. Let me tell you one thing. If I hadn’t taken my neighbours to Heathrow, the only planes they would have seen were the ones passing above them at 30,000 feet. I used to throw cookies on the kerb to watch the kids fight for them. Some would knock on my house door just to sample my mee goreng.

There are good people, there are bad people. hey exist in all communities and races. The good ones are those who understand or make an effort to understand other cultures. The bad ones go around subjugating others and act as if they are of the master race. You see this happening in Malaysia too.

So for all you girls who think that mat sallehs other than Steve (since Steve is more malay than most malays) are so great, go to FELDA Nitar or FELCRA Seberang Perak. If you see kampung folks, believe me, those people are at par with the mat sallehs here…save for Steve alone, that is.

Oh, who is Steve? He is a mosque committee member who speaks malay perfectly. Some Malaysians cannot even form a sentence in Bahasa Malaysia.

2006 Exit Stage Left, Enter 2007

Map of Nana, Khlongtoey

Several bombs went off in Krungthep tonight, injuring 24 and possibly killing 2 innocent people. Near my favourite place, too. Bad start for 2007.

Steve is in Hat Yai with his wife: what a thing to do. His favourite mamasan laughed her head off when Steve called her to tell her what he had done. I did too. I sent Steve a poem earlier yesterday:

So many pretty girls to find,
But Steve is in a bind,
He must be having the time of his life,
Spending time in the hotel room with his wife.

Me, I’m listening to the TV3 news with my son, Farhan. Just the two of us. This house, as usual, is just a hotel for the wife. Somehow she never feels that she belongs in this house.

What a start to 2007…sigh!

Oh, by the way, I finally had a good massage. My whole body system’s gone haywire for being too long on dry land.

Happy New Year and Happy Aidil Adha

This may be my last blog posting for 2006 as tomorrow is Aidil Adha for Muslims in Malaysia. The day after tomorrow we will be in the new year of 2007. Saddam Hussein won’t be celebrating either day.

I wrote some of the things I would like to achieve in 2006 and they are as follows:

For 2006:

1. I’m now doing my Divemaster training
2. Hope to at least become an Assistant Instructor before year end
3. Dive HMS Repulse
4. Conclude my land and timber sales deals (I hate finnicky buyers)

So where am I now?

1. I am now a Divemaster.
2. No, I haven’t begun to do my Assistant Instructor course as my priorities in diving have changed.
3. HMS Repulse is out of the question as the organisers cannot guarantee the safety of the LOB in Sri Lanka.
4. The buyers are still finnicky; I am now trying to conclude several land deals.

And what are the other things that have happened to me in 2006?

1. I completed my Decompression Procedures course.
2. I no longer work for Stale Tandoori Store.
3. I have moved back to my old (new) house.
4. I dived the Nichi Asu Maru and Gyoshin Maru wrecks.
5. Bought a Princeton Tec Shockwave LED dive light.
6. Made more friends (divers/non-divers).

What do I hope to achieve in 2007?

1. Get that LOB going.
2. Do my Instructor course and complete it, of course.
3. Do my KISS CCR course and buy one unit (manual).
4. Do my Extended Range course.
5. Do my Trimix course.
6. Do one more course that some friends and I plan to do.
7. Close the land by the beach deal (and several others in Kota Bharu, Langkawi and Bangkok).

So, if you look at the photo below, remember I asked how many of those in the photo would still be there at the Stale Tandoori Store? The answer is two.

Only two now fight for the title of Last Local Male Employee of Bizdev

I only wonder how much longer can the company sustain its operations, or how many more con-jobs can they do to get money to pay the employees.

Sadly Insane

Saddam Hussein

Hussein al-Tikriti, or Saddam Hussein, is no more. He was executed by hanging at 10.05am Malaysian time, thus bringing to an end the life of a brutal dictator.

Saddam rose to power through bloody manipulation of the Ba’ath Party, after purging the party of dissidents, including some of his own uncles.

He did many bad and brutal things, including the massacre of fellow Muslims – Kurds and Shiahs.

Personally, I believe Saddam Hussein deserved to die, but at the hands of fellow Iraqis. Whether or not the current Iraqi government can be seen as one that is independent of the US, remains to be seen. I am sure he government tries to portray itself as not stooping to the demands of the US, but the fact that it was set up after an illegal invasion by the US and its allies makes it as just another extension of the arms of the US.

Personally, I will also wager my money that the violence in Iraq will not stop. Not at all. The current sectarian violence has nothing to do with Saddam, not directly anyway. In a country were the Shiahs are the majority, and the fact that they were subjugated by the minority Sunnis for decades, will ensure that the violence will not stop until the country is either controlled by one group, or broken up into different little countries according to sects, and even then, cross-border incursions will not stop, as the oil-rich territories will then be in the control of both Kurds and Shiahs.

In a way, Iraq was better off under the brutal control of Saddam Hussein. His death is only the end of ONE Iraqi nightmare amongst thousands others. And the timing of his excution could not have been worse. Every Aidil ‘Adha Muslims in the region will remember it as the day Saddam sacrificed himself.