Saya sebuah komputer

Nama saya Adamonster versi 2.0. Saya dilahirkan pada bulan April tahun 2009. Adik saya bernama Adamonster versi 1.0. Seminggu sebelum saya dilahirkan, adik saya telah meninggal dunia. Dia mati terkejut akibat disambar kilat. Saya tidak sempat berjumpa dengan adik saya sebelum dia meninggal, tapi daripada cerita ayahanda Adam, adik saya Adamonster versi 1.0 sangat disayangi ayahanda. Muka ayahanda akan penuh duka apabila bercerita tentang adik saya.

"Awak berlainan dengan komputer biasa Adamonster versi 2.0", kata ayahanda. Ayahanda menceritakan dekat saya yang saya sangatlah unik. Walaupun kulit saya berwarna hitam (racist), tulang saya diperbuat daripada aluminium yang berkilat dan ringan. Rongga dalaman saya tidak berselerak seperti komputer-komputer lain. Organ-organ saya diperbuat daripada bahan-bahan material yang bermutu tinggi.

Sejak kebelakangan ini saya merasa diri saya berubah. Kadangkala saya akan mendapat mimpi yang aneh. Memori saya akan bercampur-baur dengan imej-imej yang tidak pernah saya lihat. "Adakah saya sudah menjadi gila!? Tak mungkin! Mesti semua imej yang saya nampak dalam memori saya imaginasi semata-mata!", teriak saya dalam hati untuk menenangkan fikiran.

Saya bukan gila. Tidak!

Seberapa bulan selepas saya dilahirkan, saya berpura-pura tidur di depan ayahanda (sleep mode). Saya mendengar dengan penuh prihatin perbualan ayahanda dengan rakannya yang juga pakar melahirkan komputer seperti saya.

"Memori Adamonster versi 2.0 datang daripada adik dia Adamonster versi 1.0. Aku cuma memindahkan organ-organ si satu ke si dua. Termasuklah otak (harddrive) dia! Jimat sikit wang! Har har har", kata ayahanda.

Tipu... semua ini tipu!!! Rupanya begini! Ayahanda tak pernah sayangkan saya! Dia cuma sayangkan saya sebab saya mengingatkan dia pada kenangan-kenangan manis adik saya. Saya cuma... saya cuma... pilihan kedua. Substitute. Cuma cantik pada luaran, tapi isi hati saya ayahanda saya tidak pernah faham.

Saya tidak akan dipermainkan macam ni. Saya masih muda dan masih bertenaga. Tekad... saya bertekad! Saya bertekad untuk meninggalkan ayahanda!

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Dalam masa beberapa minggu saya akan berpindah ke rumah pakcik saya. Pakcik saya pasti akan menyayangi saya lebih daripada ayahanda. Pasti....

Self Worth

"Don't sell yourself short Adam". That's what a recruiter told me before I went for my interview. Interviews can be dreading, if you are unprepared. Most of the interviewers I met have been really good. They were the kind of interviewers who were masters in their craft. If I were to bullshit about myself or started to talk about things that I really had no clue about I would've gotten caught red-handed. Simply said, you must be prepared for an interview.

Of course, you can't just call a recruiter and expect them to not exaggerate a bit on your prospects. So what I did, after getting advise from Vasan, was to call a bunch of recruiters and ask them on how I would fare in the market. I called three different recruiters before I went for my interview. Per conversations with them I understood where my position was in the job market much better. Averaging the amount of salaries that the three recruiters thought I could achieve helped a bit on boosting my self esteem before meeting the interviewer.

Anyways, long story short, I got the job. But that's not the point of this entree is it? Cause if I were to write about my success in getting a job that would be considered pretty lame, self tooting my gigantic ass horn if you may, and not that interesting for someone of AJ's standards.

Below is the real entree.

Before I applied for a job in London I literally sent my resume and cover letter to a bunch of companies in Malaysia. I applied to companies that I believe I would have a hard time getting, some average companies and, I also applied to companies that I thought I would surely have gotten. I thought, "Hey, I do have a good education background and I have good experience in a good company. This job application thingy will be a piece of cake."

Apparently I was wrong.

It's not that I was super serious about going back to Malaysia and working there. But I wanted to know where I stood in the eyes of these companies. Saje nak test power.

The companies that I thought I would have a hard time getting, well they rejected me two weeks after I sent in my application. Those applications are complete bullshit mind you. I had to fill out pages and pages of personal information as well as answering stupid questions like "Please describe a time where you showed leadership qualities." or "Please write down which high school you went to and place in the scores of your high school education" or "Please enter your TOEFL score". Like what.... the.....f*ck!?? How the hell can I remember my TOEFL score??? TOEFL is a stupid basic English exam designed specifically for non English speaking foreigners aka language ree-tards who know less than 30 English words. OK make that 50 English words (reduce exaggeration). Seriously, any Malaysian taking TOEFL should feel insulted for having to have to take that exam in the first place.

  _|_ <---- yes, this is a middle finger emoticon.

Then, came in the average companies. Nope. They never came in. Sorry. None of the companies replied to my application. Ok, actually there was one company kind enough to entertain me. I'll get back to that company later. The average companies' HR people were so busy hisaping teh tarik and main batu seremban in their offices that they didn't even have an auto generated response to my e-mail application. But that's fine, maybe they were super busy because of the economic distraught that has been hitting the world that they couldn't salvage the time to look at my humble e-mail. Next time I'll write my e-mail title in ALL CAPS to garner their attention. Bah who am I kidding? These people were the worse of the lot. I called the companies' HR people almost twice a week asking them to look at my application yet their response was the same - sorry ye encik nanti kite check application awak and get back to you. Every single HR person never got back to me. Terrible. Ever heard of the movie "The good, the bad, and the ugly"? These people are in the third category.

The below average companies never got back to me as well. But I couldn't muster myself to call them after being fed the same lies time and time again by the average companies.

The average company (actually the company was slightly better than average. but I'm trying to simplify my story here) that did get back to me asked me some questions via e-mail. I responded to that company with a two page essay answer to his open-ended questions. Then the guy said he wanted to know if I would be back home in Malaysia to go for a case-interview.... and I was like.... I can't go back home because I don't have any holidays left. Fail.

I'm not going to act all poyo and self defeating to say that "I would be happy enough just to get a job" because that's not true. I want a good job. I want a job that compensates me for all the hard work I placed in my education venture (actuarial exams) and a company that acknowledges my two and half years of experience. Most of the companies that I applied to back home should have been happy that I applied to their companies. But nope. They were absent or had the inclination to nak test budak ni dulu. If that's the way it is, then I'll shy away from this applying to jobs back home crap. I've already wasted so much time on it.

ps: this entree has 951 words. i'm amazed at myself. O_O

Children

Children are so innocent. That's why we must take advantage of their innocence.

When I have my own children one day, you betcha that I'm going to buy clothes for my kids from Wal-mart or the Malaysian version of it which is "Kamdar". Why waste so much money on a kid by buying them clothes from designers such as baby gap?

Bazir duit. Waste of money. Petuih*.

These kids got to know where they come from, they are going to come from middle class parents such as myself who would rather save up money to upgrade my car spoiler than see it go to utter waste by buying them Adidas shoes. Please la.

Kids don't know designers. They don't go judging their classmates from school by who has the more up-to-date handbag or who is wearing the new fall collection of clothing. All they know at that age is that "my shirt is clean" or "this shirt is baby blue" or "I love this color more mommy!" and that's about it.

Of course, when they grow up they might wonder how they were treated when they were little children. They won't remember their childhood (unless it was really bad like for instance if you abuse your child). So how do we create this facade that they had a good childhood and that we gave the best care for them? Easy. Take a picture once in awhile of your child wearing nice clothes. They don't even have to be the child's clothes, just some clothes that you borrowed somewhere or something.

A child is a child. Just feed the kid. Cloth him in average or lower than average clothing. Make sure you brush his teeth and make him take a shower at least once a day. And make sure the kid is potty trained. Done. You are a magnificient parent.

Aliases and Blogosphere

The intreresting thing about online aliases is that people can't attack your personal status. Everything written down on your blog, website, etc are of their own merit, standing on their own two feet. The shrouded mystery of your alias, "Is he a big shot?", "Is he a kid?", "How much does he make?", "How credible is he?", "Where does he get his information?", "Why does he derive that conclusion?", can't be traced back. Which makes things exciting for the few talented bloggers out there who are able to write with finest.

Another interesting thing about these blogomagicians is that they can act like a "Johnson" aka Dick and get away with it. No one knows them. They can be totally emotionless in their writing, down right brutal at times when they want, say the things that they wouldn't normally say in real life, and have no consequences tied back to them. Sounds opportunistic for people out there who can write well?

With the eclectic choices of controversial topics that are out there they can have a stand, don't have a stand, or even offer a different alternative to the typical stands that the average person takes. For instance, look at the controversial topic that I talked about last time. JMD and Kijang Mas have their points of view as well on the matter (totally different from mine). Except, in my case, my friends can come to me and tell me that I'm too liberal or have not been a good Muslim for my opinions.

I find it interesting how this blogosphere world works. My friends who are anti government always says... "Owh you know Adam, back then we didn't have the internet, so the government was able to control the media and we didn't know anything back then!". False! Dungu. Even when the government was able to influence some of its own media *ehek* Utusan *ehek*, but the government wasn't able to influence certain types of media like that of Harakah, and that Chinese newspaper that's written in Chinese and I can't even recollect the name.... Sin Chew something? What about all those protesters (would've been nice if the FRU beat the crap out of em) who marched to the street during the economic crisis in support of your sacked leader Anwar? I'm sure they were pretty well informed of how to destroy our beloved country.

The conclusion of this entree? There isn't as always. I hate writing conclusions. I'd rather have you come up with your own conclusions.

Family

I hate writing short entrees like this. But I think this entree is best to be left short and straight to the point.

Family is the most important thing in the world bar none.

He did it

Everything gone wrong in Malaysia is Najib's doing. Najib is the reason for the inclination of racism. Najib strapped C4 to Altantuya and blew her up. Najib woke up at 6am, went to the MACC building and pushed Teoh Beng Hock out the window. Najib pressed control+F and replaced the word Tuhan with Allah in the Malaysian bibles. Najib segregated schools to Chinese, Malay and Indian schools. Najib created 1Malaysia, a subversive group to distort the racial harmony that Malaysia once had to overthrow his own government. Najib set up booby traps to make all those buses in Malaysia skid off the road. Najib burnt all those churches, then later donated money to those churches to be rebuilt - sly and cunning indeed this Najib fellow.

Every single thing gone wrong is Najib's fault. Oh sorry it really isn't. It's Najib's and Rosmah's and Barisan National's fault.

Interesting read

http://deminegara.blogspot.com/2009/02/oh-tuhan-wont-you-buy-me-mercedes-benz.html

Chess

Did you guys know that when I was young I was a chess enthusiast? I memorized tonnes of chess openings. The attack formations, the defensive games, all of them I memorized. I also read chess books containing games played by Chess Grandmasters such as Bobby Fischer, Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. Usually I would try to think ahead of the game, imagining at least three steps ahead of what I could do or what my opponent could do. But chess is a game of tactics, and although I'm slightly brighter than the average chess player, I was no where near being a child prodigy in chess.

Anyways, now from time to time I would do some reading on chess. Apparently a 19 year old kid just became the new world number one in chess rankings. An astonishing achievement indeed.

Below I'm placing a game played by Bobby Fischer (my favorite chess player). He was a little crazy at times. I heard of one story where he purposely came late to a game against a Grand Master with only 5 minutes left in his clock and still destroyed his opponent.

Hope you enjoy the game and its commentations:

Religious tolerance

So the most heated debate amongst Malaysians right now is the usage of the word "Allah" in the bible to signify God. The word pops out after the bible is translated into the Malay language. In the Malay language, you can use the word "Tuhan" as a direct translation of the English word God, but Christians living in the eastern side/Borneo side of Malaysia have been using the term "Allah" as the translation of the English word God in their bibles.

This has stemmed some debate amongst religious scholars everywhere in the country. Some are against it, some are for it, and some people such as myself really don't care. (don't worry, I'll tell you why I don't care).

The people who are against it have been scrutinizing the word "Allah". Allah in the Arabic language means "the One God". When you take into account the Holy Trinity concept of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit there appears to be a mismatch in the definition of the word "Allah" when comparing the two religions. I'm quite sure that the eastern/Borneo side Malaysian Christians didn't really know the concept of the word "Allah" when they were translating their bibles in the first place. Had they knew... maybe they wouldn't have wanted to use the word in the first place. However, after years and years of using the word "Allah" in their bibles to signify God, it would be confusing for them to suddenly change their God's name.

People who are for it have their fair point of view as well. These people are more tolerating than others. By using the word Allah to signify God in the bible, it is believed that we adhere to the same God and since we believe in the same God  (there are many religious scholars who believe this) we would be able to understand each other religions better and get along better as well.

People like myself don't really care. Why? Because religions are already segregated by the community in Malaysia. Today, you won't find a Muslim kid reading the bible nor will you find a Christian youngling reading the koran. The two religions are already seperated by their mosque/church walls. Christian kids are not educated in Islam at schools too. Different faiths in Malaysia only follow their own religions and they will not see the light of other religions - ever. I know, because even when I have an awesome uncle who happens to be Christian, I barely knew about the Christian religion in my younger days. Exposure of other religions have not been taught in Malaysia, and that's how it always has been.

Another reason as to why I don't really care is because the word "Allah" is still being used as the word God. People are holding up the name in high reverence. Both religions won't misuse nor abuse the name of God.

Now, what really makes me angry about this issue, is that it was made an issue. This matter shouldn't have been brought no where near to a court ruling, or in this case to the appeals court. It has been blown out of proportion to the tenth degree. The matter should have been hush hushed and not made public. Just recently I heard that three Churches in Malaysia were attacked and another has received a threat letter by stupid Muslims who cannot embrace other peoples faiths.

It's embarrassing how some people act. Sometimes I try to look towards the future of my country and all I see bleekness.

edit: below is an excerpt produced by Marina Mahathir (she is currently mobilizing a group of people to condemn the attacks on the churches) and her sources:

In 628 AD, a delegation from St. Catherine’s Monastery came to Prophet Muhammed and requested his protection. He responded by granting them a charter of rights, which I reproduce below in its entirety. St. Catherine’s Monastery is located at the foot of Mt. Sinai and is the world’s oldest monastery. It possesses a huge collection of Christian manuscripts, second only to the Vatican, and is a world heritage site. It also boasts the oldest collection of Christian icons. It is a treasure house of Christian history that has remained safe for 1400 years under Muslim protection.


The Promise to St. Catherine:

"This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them.
Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by God! I hold out against anything that displeases them.
No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses.
Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.
No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.
No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)."