The Meanings of a Day...

The sun rises, the sun sets, and a day ends. The night is another chapter, supposed to be a time of rest, of recollection, of planning. To make ends meet some continue to work to and through the night.
Nakamora was out and about the other day when he noticed a man having lunch of only a plate of rice and gravy and a glass of plain water. There was no meat, no fish, no vegetable either. Could he be someone on the way to amass a lot money to become a rich man, even a millionaire, by being thrifty to a fault? or honestly he is minimizing his cost of living expenses to finance the needs of his family. The man looked like the latter to Nakamora, and he both pity and respect that man for his sense of sacrifice and responsibility.
A day means different things to different people. For Nakamora, that particular day was for walking around and get connected with life outside his study. To others it could have been a hectic day at the corporate boardroom, in the laboratory, or traveling on the road. To others, particularly some teens seen loitering around, it could just be another day; without meaning whatsoever. Being able to meet friends, be together and have fun is all what a day means. They do no have any ends to join.
Everybody else are going their own way. Making their own ends meet. Some are concerned not just to make the ends meet, but to overlap, many times over.
Some of that overlaps perhaps belong to that man having lunch with a plate of rice and gravy and a glass of plain water... or for setting the meaning of a day, and of life, to those loitering aimlessly...

Forget the Engine, Let's Ride a Bike...

It's already more than 60 years ago. It is something that we should forget, others are beginning to forget that too; or are they? It happened so far away, not here. Why should we bother having anything that day, like some sort of commemoration?
Nakamora is not alone in asking those questions. Many others wonder the same too, but he got it cleared after the event. He followed the whole program of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki commemoration day, or H&N08, as the organizer, the Malaysian Nuclear Society (MNS) dubbed it. It was on Wednesday, 6 August, at USIM campus, Bandar Baru Nilai.
He took note of the officiating speech of the university's vice chancellor on the importance of tempering knowledge with morality and having good moral values, of using using knowledge only for the good of mankind, and the environment. The program showed that there are many ways of using the technology to benefit mankind. Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened, but that should not be reasons to abandon the many other benefits of the technology.
That was the message he got, and he could not agree more. After all, he thought, the engine that powers his car uses the same principle as the one that moves tanks used in battlefields. To be consistent, we should hate the engine too; let's ride a bike. But of course, he rationalizes, human is not always rationale, is not always logical, is not always consistent...

Environmental Consciousness

Normally Nakamora prefers to listen to debates in his head while driving through traffic jam of Kuala Lumpur. Occasionally he tunes to the local radio stations. Today is one of that occasion and he keeps on changing stations hoping to catch Carole King, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, or even Bob Marley or Michael Buble singing. None of the station have any of them on at that time.
But wait, here is something that catches his attention. The melody is strange and yet familiar. He could not understand some of the words but can make them out with a little bit more efforts.
It was a Kelantanese song. It starts by introducing a hungry squirrel, its tail cutoff, looking for food by a rambutan tree. The song goes on saying that squirrel is a mammalian that can jump from tree branches to another with ease. But sometimes it falls due to impatience.
Villagers used to chase squirrel away from their fruit trees like rambutan and durian using catapults and by throwing stones, woods, or even a piece of tree branches. They run away, escape, and still stay alive.
With the advent of modern technology nowadays squirrels are shot at. Most of them are dead. They cannot escape. The song goes on regretting that killings. Its hard to see squirrel nowadays. We cannot make even one of them, no matter how high is our education.
Finally the song introduced a thin, tired looking baby squirrel. It is on the ground, instead of up at tree branches, trying to cross a small stream, but cannot make it. Some of its feathers are lost, perhaps it has just escaped from a farm nearby, looking for food. Perhaps its mother cannot make it and lost its live there. The singer was touched by that scenery and appealed for more compassion to animals. They are part of our environment.
Nakamora felt moved by it too. It was a good song; while entertaining, it has a strong message. He later learned that the singer is Halim Yazid. That reminded him of a similar song years ago about a turtle by Abu Bakar Ellah. Hmm... we are not poor of songs and singers with good renditions of the environment and the living things around us.
Motivated by the song, Nakamora searched around in the hope of taking a photo of a squirrel. He wanted to make a tribute by posting its photo here; but he needed more time to find one, squirrel is not easy to see anymore. Thus he put the photo of a tortoise just finishing its meal given by a forest ranger at Kubah National Park in Sarawak.
In between Bob Dylan and the rest, he now make a mental note of that local singers and keep on tuning if there would be more such songs in the local environment.

The Thrill of It All...

What is it that make a person travel a distance from home to the office early in the morning, and back late in the afternoon, driving on the same road, going to the same office, daily for weeks, months, years, and tens of years? Are they not bored? or is it not boring?
Nakamora used to ask that questions to himself, only to be asked the same much later in life by another - but by that time he already has the answer.
It may be the same road, same place, same job but they are different if we care to look at the differences. At macro level they are the same, but at other levels they change everyday. It is that changes that we have to look at and keep in mind. They get accumulated and become what we call 'experience.' Interest and personal motive or goal could also be the driver for the incessant drive.
Look at teachers, lecturers, professors - or the teaching profession in general. Are they not bored telling the same 'story' semester after semester, even though to different set of students? It is linear algebra again, nuclear physics, or digital systems, control systems, etc. The same topic, different audience.
Imagine we have a good story. We like that story. We definitely would like to tell about it to as many people as we can,to everyone who care to listen, to everyone who has to listen. We never feel bored to repeat the same story. It must be the thrill of letting everyone knows... or letting everyone knows that we know.
Nakamora thought that could have been the reason that teachers can say the same thing, can repeat themselves, as long as to different sets of people. It would not be fun to tell the same story to the same people, isn't it?
Just wonder what is the motivation for that cable repairman to do the thing that he does. He was spotted at a road junction somewhere in Hanoi, Vietnam.

If You Have to Know the Distance, Then...

Traveling in some parts, or most parts of Sarawak in a compact car can be like having a boat ride during mildly rough sea. The continuous wobbles up, down, and sideways can over-exercise the joints. But then that was part of the experience. The drivers too are a patient lot. They can trail a lorry for miles or kilometers without any attempt to overtake. Nakamora envy such patients because he lost most of it along many roads in Kuala Lumpur and the highways. But then again, the idea is to enjoy the beauty of the countryside. In Kl there is no country side. Along the highways the view is monotonous - palm oil plantation most of the way.
Nakamora got to Santubong only to find that there was not a park by the foot of the mountain. Anyway, he was able to admire the beauty of the 'princess' from afar.
He would have thought that Tebedu, the border town towards Pontianak, would have duty free shops like our border town with Thailand. It has only immigration and custom checkpoint. But the view there is magnificent. Sirikin, on the other hand is a different story. That border town has something to offer to shoppers. In fact most of the thing one see at the Satok market in Kuching are sold there, and the choice are plenty more.

Out in the Open...

Living in a confined space once in a while can be an interesting experience, as long as the view is not confined. The 10m x 50m 'training' vessel is big enough to weather rough sea but small enough to induce sea-sickness in such weather condition in some of the expedition team members. During that 4D3N that he was with them, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on what argument is used, he was spared that experience. The sea was as calm and flat as football field.
Away from the Internet and unreachable by hand phone he has all the view to see - wide expanse of blue sea, as far as the eye can see. Watching the sun rise and set is some of the events to look forward to everyday. Another is reaching the next sampling station, anchoring, and performing the sampling itself. While the vessel sails from a station to another most of the samples collected have been treated or pre-processed before analysis at land-based laboratory. All the while, the steady roar of the engine as the vessel sails the sea provides assurance that all is well and on the move.
The vessel made a call at the newest segment of Kuantan port Saturday 21 June. He disembarked there after joining them using a boat from a public jetty at Redang 4 days ago. He noted that the port is about 10-12 m deep. At the outside of the port the depth is about 20 m, compared to 5-60 m or more that they have sailed the previous days. The vessel anchored just outside the port by the night before making the call in the morning.
The success of any endeavor depends on good teamwork, respect of the role of individual team members, and realize that everyone has to contribute to ensure successful completion of the endeavor. He noted those spirit thrived in the expedition.