Passing thoughts of the day...

To all of you who did well in their SPM and STPM, Congratulations!!

I just have a few questions though...with such a big number every year (% increases every year) of straight 'A' students...do we actually have an increase in the number of geniuses in Malaysia? I mean, you must be really brilliant to be able to score an 'A' for every subject that you sit for. So are we looking at a pool of incredible intelectual talent here...? With so many geniuses (7000 I think) I'm sure we don't have anything to worry about.

Anyway is there a difference between those who scored an 'A' for every subject 15 years ago with those who achieve the same result today? Or are they equally the same? Is the measuring instrument today measuring what it is suppose to measure, or is it just a legacy tool that is still being used to measure an obsolete generation? Can the measuring tool remain the same (and be relevant) when the subjects (the current generation) being measured has had a dramatic change over the last 15-20 years?

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Just heard a talk by a group of people from SBB mutual (look it up if you don't know what it is). Good talk. I was impressed. But I was not happy. But they did use the right ploy/tactic. That made me unhappy. Enticing/baiting students with the amount of wealth they have collected through their activity of promoting (selling, sales) their unit trust fund/mutual funds. All this talk about earning more than 3,000 a month, 5,000 even 100,000 a month. And the success stories (they called it testimony) of their members was told by showing pictures of them in front of their new mercedes or BMW's.

Sounds more like multi level marketing promotion to me. I want to dig in deeper. With all this amount of honey coating, could there not be any catch at all? If not, why don't we all just tell our students "kids, we're closing down the university. Let's all join CHARISMA Agency so that we can all be rich! Why bother being educated with things that do not make you rich? Let's all go there and after 5 months we can all go around in our Beamers and have lunch everyday at San Francisco Steak House!" And yeah...to hell with all this institutions of higher learning, let's join Charisma Agency, they are merging with CIMB and going to be the number one mutual funds company in our country!

H5N1 vs M4L45

H5N1 - Bird flu
Is an avian influenza virus subtype. The H5N1 flu is what is commonly meant when speaking of "bird flu" or "avian influenza". It is a viral disease that causes illness in many species including humans and is a pandemic threat. (wikipedia)

M4L45 - Laziness flu
Even more pervasive, develop early in life of humans. Infects also the animal kingdom. Causes mind/body to freeze and become numb. According to wikipedia, the lack of desire to act or work in general or to do an act or work that is expected of the person. What is considerered laziness varies depending on cultural/societal context and magnitude, but it is generally considered a negative quality.

Author's choice: Laziness can be considered an exaggeration of the natural instinct to do nothing that makes people get healthy rest.

More from wikipedia: The expression "intellectual laziness" is frequently used to describe a tendency not to ask questions, and not to scratch too much behind the apparent, applying a kind of mental routine (availability heuristic) or just following the crowd herding. (typically found in meetings and large organizations)

When a snapshot would suffice...

This post has long been delayed. I wanted to write about this since the day it happened, but due to other pressing matters, only today I felt it right to write about it. It's not much of a complaint or even a joke, but it happened and I just wished I had a phone equipped with a camera to show all of you what I am about to say.

It happened during rush hour, and I was stuck in traffic as usual in one of those roads leading to my work place. It happened right in front of the national car maker's assembly plant. I was late as usual and I was reading the news paper and listening to the same boring female DJ and her partner, and by the way, the female DJ always goes after her male listeners when it comes to any issues relating to her gender. Anyway, we (my fellow drivers) were all waiting for the MHiP to decide when it was time for our turn to move ahead and I was waiting right behind a white van. The usual tainted white colored van that is used to transport things and/or people from one point to another, with dusty windscreens which you could write "please wash me!" if you were parked next to it. So I continued reading the papers, at the same time always looking up every now and then. Wouldn't want those waiting at the back to honk at me (it has happened before) for not moving, even if it was merely an extra 1 feet.

So the turn for us to move came along finally. I counted 5, then 4, 3, 2 and now the van should move, he's got a clear road ahead, I shift into 1st, and what's this? The van stays in its position as if the tar underneath it melted and glued it to the road. Those at my rear are now blaring their honks, putting pressure on me. Hey! Its not my fault! I tried to identify what was the problem. Could I have been waiting behind a stalled van all this while and not notice? I checked to see if there was any tree branch (in Malaysia it means my vehicle is dead) stuck between its window sills or perhaps at its rear end. None. Perhaps there was a triangle placed on the road that I didn't notice earlier. No sign at all, like it was gonna happen. Checked its hazard light, sigh, wasn't blinking at all, anyway one of it was smashed. Its an accessory anyway. So what the hell was the problem?? Some drivers at the back managed to navigate into the next lane. I thought of doing it too, but the fact that I was too close to the rear of the van and an MPV stuck closely behind me made me ditch the idea. I have to wait until the MPV cuts into the next lane. So for the time being I tried still to understand what was going on. I looked through the van and saw that the driver was still in it.

So I kept on pressing my horn, hoping that maybe through this futile exercise, the van would be move just enough so that I can overtake it. Soon the MPV managed to overtake me, and I reversed my car a bit and then cut into the next lane. As I was slowly passing the mysterious van, I looked at the driver, wanting to vent my anger for ruining my day so early in the day. I wanted to show him a few sign languages that I managed to learn as a kid. I wanted to shout at him, press the horn harder so that he could feel the pain he had caused me and my fellow commuters.

Then I saw him. He had his arm resting on his window frame, supporting his head which was positioned directly towards me, and his mouth was a bit parted, just a little bit, and his eyes was shut...well shut...The Idiot was asleep!!!! The damn jerk was asleep!!! betul-betul tido mati!!! kurang ajar betul!!

I just wished I had a phone equipped with a camera to show all of you his picture...that way you wouldn't have had to read all of this...