The essence of being KaDus

Being a product of two different ethnics parents is probably one of the things that I'm proud of myself. It's widely perceived that Kadazan and Dusun ethnics in Sabah have no difference at all. In fact the name can only tell you which part of the land you're from. If you profess you're Kadazan, then you're most likely from the urban areas and most definitely won't hail from some villages in from some rather random jungles. It may be true to some people, but I beg to differ from this definition.

My mom's a DusunTatana while my pop's a Kadazan. I can relate their ethnicities from the geography alone, sure enough. Mom comes from a rather obscure village by a bush, and Dad was born and raised in a rather uptown village near the city that's once known as the Jesselton. And I'd like to stress out that they definitely speak entirely different set of languages, not just differences in dialects. They don't have a union in their vocabulary sets.

Now, I've not the knack for languages (no, not even English). I've always been on the average ranking when it comes to linguistics. I suppose when you've both mom and dad conversing in their own languages to each other, you'll just rather give up learning other new languages for fun. (I think if I try, I can probably explain myself better in numbers and algebras.) I can read and write comfortably with both DusunTatana and Kadazan, and understand perfectly well either language that ones use to speak to me. But there is one thing that I'm not so proud of when I say I'm a Kadazan Dusun girl: conversing these languages. Unlike other languages that I use at schools and later my student life, these languages fluency don't flow as smooth as waterfall through my mouth. Rather, I think it resembles more and more like mud flow, in that you've to provide enough force to jerk it out.

There are probably other things that I'm ashamed of (no, I don't associate myself with snoring with wild abandon, thank goodness!), but having to need sometime to construct sentences to carry on with the conversation in your head before spitting them out is definitely a sign of either rusting mother-tongues exercises or I'm simply no longer a KaDus girl!

I pray that, as long as I shall live, I will not ever become the latter.

Comments: In Mom's language, star is known as kudingking while Dad'll probably call the same thing romituon. (Didn't I warn you already it's not the dialects?)

Friends to die for!

Maybe one, if not two, people we met along the way destined to be the one that we would give our life for. I am sure wherever we maybe at this moment, however far apart, I'll occupy a part of her inner thoughts and I hers.

(Us, looking gorgeous in a high school farewell dinner, dated almost a decade ago)

There is such a thing called girlfriends. They're the ones who'd come to your rescue when 'that' time of the month button turned on accidentally. They're the ones that would certainly be there when you complain head-throbbing or even when your hearts shattered to million pieces. Yes, they'll put their hands around you, hug you close, shelter your face shameless tears destroying your mascara on your failed date. And they're there with kisses and joyful tears when you're at your best (yet).

(Sometimes, all it takes is several thousands miles to be grateful for the gift of best girlfriends)

I think, I believe, and I am sure of this one fact: Nothing I won'ttrade for a girlfriend, the best girlfriend. A husband may leave me for another woman/man, parents may disown me when they've given up hope on me, siblings may act like they don't know you once they got tired of you. But not a true, awesome girlfriend.

Why? It's mutual love I think. I love her because I can say out loud stuff to her that I cannot utter in the real world (like I've got a crush on my form teacher who's decades senior than me). I love her simply for being there--in trial and best moments. I am so blessed with many best girlfriends, who over the years, if not decades, despite being preoccupied with their own personal attendings to other stuff, will still call me in the middle of my nights to tell me they're elated or sometimes cry over the phone.

If you (man or woman) happened to find somebody that would lay their life down for you, I believe it's one of the best examples of God's miracles. Treasure them!

Comments: I read a quote about a mother relationship to her daughter somewhere before, but I think it's appropriate to dedicate this to my best girlfriends out there! "Walk not in front of me for I may not follow. Neither would you walk behind me for I may not lead. Walk by my side, and be my friend."

Classy Jazzy

Nothing very eventful to write about really, but only some perspective on music. I got hold of a very good Jazz album by Ahmad Jamal Trio, one of the people who revolutionize Jazz (instrumental), and I almost instantly fell in love with the crisp piano notes. Try 'The Awakening' by Ahmad Jamal Trio for a relaxing evening, with or without company.

There seems to be hoohaa around with the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India, then this toxic mud in Hungary, at the same time the macaque killing a newborn baby news back at home. But I'm feeling, at the moment, very isolated with almost all of these. I think the only thing that got me jumping out of bed every morning for the last 2 days is the Nobel Prize awards. I'm very pleased that the graphene founders got the award instead of some random and yet to be experimentally verified (e.g. Higgs whatnot) things/assumptions. I'm not being cynical, it's just that I felt science should be awarded based on how it'll or has influence far-reaching community, not based on someone's quest to find the 'truth' to satisfy his/her own piece of mind. Last year was the year of Fiber Optics, this year was the year of Solid State physics... I stumbled upon an article in Nature recently that one of the winners for Nobel Prize in Medicine some years back had to retract 2 of her papers because they couldn't reproduced the experiments outcomes at all despite the identical background.. And no, the retracted articles aren't related to the Prize that she won, so that's phew...

A week or so ago, I've read some statement coming off from PM at Brussels meetings--something about Talent Corp. The figure that is going to be paid by the taxpayers isn't out yet, but apparently its task is to bring the Malaysian brains back home and help the locals. Incentives are there, bla bla... which almost made my nose bled. When I look into my situation with the govt at the moment, it's exactly the opposite of what they preach. They say, bring the talents home, make them grow here, give them enough space to conjure the magic and whatnot. Me? They close the door home right under my nose and left me out there in the cold. Yeah, so much for injustice rantings that I've to burdened you reading this that I think I should knock off already.

Comment: Surely the Malaysia Ministry of Education is shooting itself in the foot, nah?

The bitter pill: Rejection

Dejected. Angry. Frustrated.

If you've been rejected before, then the above three items are the emotions that makes us feel, well, rejected. I'm feeling a bit down at the moment, or I should say for the last 2 days. I maybe or maybe not reveal what are the things that bothering me, but I can assure you these are the moments when I feel even more desperate for God to grant to me patience.

Well, to start with I'm not really a very patient person. I usually make decisions on impulse, or blink if that suits me better, sometime act recklessly with myself. In a sum, you'd call me quirky.

Two things that are important in our lives (well, I believed anyway); dream and money. Tonnes of these, the better off our lives are. One of my dreams has been squashed and I'm fully loaded with huge debt (yes, money debt!). And those two things are beyond my control.

What do I do in time like this? My heart is heavy that it almost felt like it doesn't want to beat anymore. My head is, well, unorganized. Cluttered with the what-ifs and it's now reaching the point where it's rational to start a morally wrong blame game. My body refused to take enough liquid and food to keep everyday thing going.

Where will this lead me?! :(. God, grace me with some strength in this trial time.

Deception (it's not a sequel of Inception)

I read the book that everybody perhaps has read (I know I am a little way to belated), the best-seller 'The Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell. It's an interesting book, intelligently argued while I don't agree to some of his points I seen as more market-driven. But my opinion aside, it's a well researched book. So today's entry will be about one point that Gladwell raise in his famous book that caught my brain wired a little longer.

Little things can start an epidemic. In his book, his clear example was fare-dodgers and grafitti vandals are the tipping point of crime rise unabated in NY 2 decades ago. Why such a small (if not petty) crime is responsible for the following and more serious criminal activities in NY remained hard to eradicate, you'll have to get your hands on this book.

Now back to the little things tipping the big turns to follow. I've always been a staunch supporter against corruption. It's not something that I can sit still after witnessing this heinous act. Corruption is equivalent to robbing others their opportunities and options. It's denying them truth.

From the looking glass, I've always believed that the most efficient way to end corruptions is by making things transparent. We hear about it everyday, especially so in Malaysia local newspapers (controlled by the ruling govt) at the national level. And all the talks about here and there... But really, will transparency tip the corruption balance downward when people in power hold dear to the 'tidak apa' attitude? After all, they're the guys who wield the most money, the most vocal voice, and some with hollow cranial cavities.

Comment: 'tsk tsk' and turned a blind eye.

In love with Linux!

Today has marked the 100 days I've survived without any Windows contacts! I'm one proud girl, yeah! I'm on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx--Linux for human beings!

Lemma 1: Linux for faster computational purposes.
I guess one big reason I've braved myself enough to switch to Linux was for the purpose of the simulations that are widely used by the scientific communities. My research requires a very demanding computational resource. Many if not all physicists around the globe share their research codes and most of them are designed to run in open source platforms. While, I've been a loyal wife to Windows all the way through my younger days in college, I'm finding it very inconvenient to dual boot the two OS when one is good enough (in fact better) to run things that I want. Undeniably, because of my incompetence in techie-stuff I've relied heavily on commercial solvers that have 'expiry date' on them. Once it's past the date, like bad bread, you just can't use them at all. So a safer route for continuing support will be switching to programs that available (and hopefully maintained) and easily coded.

Lemma 2: Linux for AWESOME GUIs.
It's mesmerizing to stare at your monitor, especially when viewing your simulated exciting optics theoretical behaviors (the things that I measured is not in the picture yet). Nuff said.

Lemma 3: The proud command-line user with Linux.
You think typing command on the black screen is cool? Imagine doing that in Linux? That's doubly cool! I'm in the process of abandoning my beloved mouse to do simple things like opening an Internet browser, playing my MP3s on a music player, even watching my movies on a video player. In Linux, all the effort goes as far as opening the terminal (command prompt for Windows users) with Ctrl+Alt+T then type the program that you want to open, like banshee.

Lemma 4: NO more death BLUE screen!
It's about time to forget about the blue screen that appears everytime you've touched something in Windows, and scrambling for installation CD afterwards.

All and all, my experience with Debian based Linux has been rewarding, and it helps me understanding the layers of the complex 'black-box' (where in Windows one would have to go to run, type e.g. regedit) on how a program should run. Well, maybe I should settle being a theoretician instead of an experimenter.

Comment: My history with free open softwares actually started years ago with RedHat and Fedora, but they never last more than 100 days and eventually my enthusiasm fade away because of the non-novice language that they speak. Debian based Linux (Debian, Ubuntu Xubuntu, Kubuntu etc) are good platforms for those who want to migrate from Windows. Plus, helps are abundant and most important of all, it's free!

Some like it hot!

On the account of this entry being posted on the 53rd anniversary of the Merdeka Day, Salam Merdeka, Malaysiaku!

In my humblest opinion, this year joyous celebration (albeit moderate one) is appropriate. It gives you a sense of pride without the excessive, over the top parade and all. I think I like it better this way, similar to my taste of my daily dosage of green tea drinks.

Now, the art of tea making is the seeping of the tea leaves. You just need the right amount of time dedicated for your brewed tea drinks. Of the most important ones is of course the quality of your tea leaves. Japanese green tea in particular can be very different in flavor despite the greenish colored tea. One of the highest quality (and highly valued) tea leaves is called Gyokuro. As I've just learnt, apparently the tea trees are put under the shade before harvesting. Such tender loving care gives the mild, yet bursting flavor of this tea making it quite distinct from the others.

Identically, similar analog can be drawn to what we as Malaysians celebrate today. That to be a highly valued nation, sought after and well respected, we must be shaded from 'privileged races beliefs', 'racial slurs' and 'religious bigots' amongst all other devastating ultimatums. Problems that facing us at our homeland today are borne out of our nation ignorance collectively. You can easily provide a statistical data on the country cleanliness by just sitting at the side of a busy road where humans can simply target spit where you sit. It's that disgusting, and if problem as small as this cannot be rectified immediately we can almost forget about the having our universities topping the TIMES chart.

And while we're at that, perhaps I should ask if our 'space tourist' experimental data obtained from the tax-payers funded flights (to and fro) to the outer space are available for citation by now. I've not come across them in Nature or Science yet, so if any of us have read it kindly direct me the link.

Comment: I'm cynical about what we've achieved actually. I'm acerbic. I like it hot. Oh! I forgot... Our 'astronaut' is so engrossed with his upcoming grand wedding!