Bucket List

The oldest candidate seeking office in this election is a 89 year old grandma in Terengganu. I do not know what ticked her to run for office and what her manifesto is as an independent candidate. I am only reminded of the movie Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. It is about two patients diagnosed with cancer, prepared a list of things they wanted to do before leaving this world, and did them. That list includes skydiving and other things that fit people decades younger than either of them, but they wanted to do them anyway.
Kalimullah Hassan wrote about the same subject in a column in his New Sunday Times last weekend, 24 February.
I guess everyone has a bucket list. Even Mat Jenin in the Malay folklore of the same title has one, if his wish list or daydream can be considered so. The difference is that only a few put the efforts to overcome the odds of realizing the list. Mat Jenin was not one of the few.
How about you, Nakamora...

Flag Carnival

It is hard not to notice. It is even harder to ignore. Blue, green, not so blue flags and banners and buntings of other colors flood every major junctions. Make shift 'service centers' sprang up at major spots in residential and business areas. The 12th election is coming 8 March. A total of 222 parliamentary seats and a bit more than double of that state seats are at stake. Today is the nomination day. The parliament was dissolved ten days ago on 13 Feb.
But why would one want to ignore? Exercise the right. Vote, do not not vote.

Which Queue?

If you are to line-up at a fast food counter, which line would you prefer? The normal or natural choice is the shortest one. But that is not necessarily the fastest. It depends also on who is in front of you, and who is serving the counter.
If you have a group of teenagers in front, not too bad. They may have made up their minds based on previous orders, or based on the depth of the purse which depends on what part of the month it is. A family with several kids can take quite a while to constitute the order, or to get the approval of the sponsor. Pensioners? seldom that this breed of people seen lining up there. At the most they sit it out at a table somewhere while a proxy is in the queue.
Too bad if you have a family with several kids served by a trainee cashier. The delay will be multiplied, and your patience gets shorter. Supermarkets sometimes like to put trainee cashier at the express counter, thinking that it is easier than dealing with bulk buyers. But the very spirit of expediting the transaction more often than not are compromised. The advantage of the express counter, to the customer, is nullified or reduced, which can sometimes be frustrating as gap between expectation of speed and reality begins to develop in the mind of customers and widens as the moment ticks by.

Get Away, Get Real, Get Moving...

Life is not what it is if there was no trials and tribulations. We go though it simply by managing them. Some of us do well, others falter and succumbed to something worse than what they were. Digging deeper into the rut, as it were. Nakamora began his advice to his friend.
Everyone has faced at least a difficult situation. So am I, he continued. But I didn't let it eat myself away. To me there are three steps in handling situations like that. First, get away from the problem so that you can think afresh. Distance yourselves from it so that you can see things in better perspective, including your own fault. Get busy, revisit the hobby and do the things you longed to do but have not the time.
Second, get real. Accept the fact that everyone make mistakes, including yourselves. Accept the fact that things have happened. Everybody has problems, everyone has difficulties. What makes everyone different is how they handle and overcome the problems. You have the choice of brooding over it endlessly or move on.
That brings me to the third step, that is get moving. Make the best out of the situation. The best in the worst situation is better than the worst of a good situation. For in the latter you are moving backward instead of forward, regressing instead of progressing.
So, remember: get away, get real, get moving, Nakamora concluded.

What's In A Name?

Papan (planks), Dinding (wall) - and one thinks of a house.
Add Lumut (weeds) - and one thinks of old house by the river or stream.
Add Parit (drain, stream) - yes, it is old house covered by weed by the stream.
Add Titi Serong (inclined bridge) - aha.
The old house with weed is accessible by an inclined bridge across the stream. Or all those could have been objects in an oil painting.
But no. They are all names of places in a state called Perak (silver) in the northern half of peninsular Malaysia. Actually, the mineral should have been tin or timah instead of silver or perak, as the state was the tin mining hub, if we can use the fashionable word 'hub', during its golden era.
In Kedah, a northern state there are places called Langgar (knock) and Pokok Sena (a kind of tree). Imagine another place named Gajah Mati (dead elephant), and a story unfolds - Gajah Mati Langgar Pokok Sena. Elephant dead after hitting a Sena tree. That story was told by a friend of a friend.
Not many places now named in that manner. We are getting more modern and successful that new residential areas and settlements bear words such as:

• jaya (success) as in Subang Jaya, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya;
• perdana (prime) as in Perdana Putra;
• seri (radiant) as in Seri Kembangan;

or names such as Beverly this and that!
I guess the same trend is followed everywhere. Many years ago I traveled in New Mexico, USA and spotted the name of a town 'Truth or Consequence.' I wonder what was the story behind that name. I know what happened at Alamagordo. Its well-documented. But Truth or Consequence? I don't know.
Who then said what's in a name.

Global peace...

About a year ago it was proclaimed that the world was safer than it was before.. may be the same would be proclaimed this year too.. Is it true?
and, but peace for whom?
The question was posed this morning in a keynote speech by non-other than the former PM Tun Dr Mahathir at a seminar in Kuala Lumpur. Global peace should be truly global, should be for everyone.. but sadly, not everyone agrees with that..

Cable Dependency: The Burden of Modern Living

Nakamora carefully dialed the number to unlock his bag. He needed to re-open it. He blamed it all on his checklists, which he prepared. He was then blaming himself, but he hated to do so directly. The travel checklist was just not complete.
It should have listed all cables, not cluster everything under a single item 'cable' and expects him to reconstruct the list of all cables he has to bring along for that 10-day trip. Yes, that's modern life. Everything depends on cable to continue to be useful, all types of cable, visible or otherwise.
He got the bag opened and started checking. Cable for the laptop, yes he got it. Cable for the digital camera, he got that too. Cable for the hand phone, no problem, it's in. Yes, that was the one not yet in. Cable for his personal digital assistant, PDA. Cable transfer for the digital camera, yes that was in too. There is just one more cable, for his MP3. And, he almost forgot, another one for the card reader. He may want to transfer the photos from his camera to his laptop, if time permits, and if the camera memory is full, whichever comes first.
Except for the digital camera all the rest are some form of communication devices. With his laptop he can use the internet, e-mail, messenger, and even Skype phone. Definitely the hand phone can be used to communicate too, so as the PDA. There are function overlaps, and he wondered if he could just leave some home. That would relieve the burden of checking all the cables. But perhaps no. Yes, they all can be used as communication devices but the condition and mode of communication each of them operates are different. It's a complicated world, isn't it. One mode of communication is no longer adequate.