Archives for category: Malaysia

studywork.jpgIf you are a student studying overseas, there are many reasons why I always suggest to students like you to work while going through college or university.

  1. It supplements your pocket-money. If you are like many students today, you are learning to be independent. The best way for this is to get off your butt and do some work. The rewards are plenty, you get to meet new people and improve your social skills, learn to take real responsibilities and get paid while learning these new skills.
  2. It’s a scholarship. When you work, you get to learn so many things which builds your character and prepare you for the future. Think about it, you are paid to learn when you go to work.
  3. The real purpose of going to college or university is to prepare you for the real world. There are safely over 20,000 institutions of higher learning around the world producing graduates with either a degree or a diploma. These thousands of graduates are your competition and one of the best ways to compete is to get as much work experience as you can while you are still at school.
  4. It’s much easier to get a referral. Tagging on the previous point, when you start working earlier, it is easier for you to be noticed and be referred to your next job. LinkedIn published an interesting article on this.

There are many reasons you should get off your butt and grab life with your own hands and start taking control. The next question is how? How can an international student work in [insert your host country]. Well, here are a few quick pointers to help you.

If all the conditions only further confuse you as to the legality of working-while-studying, please contact your school or your education counsellors for further assistance.

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My eyes feel fatigued. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately  (hoping to learn more about current and future trends in technology) – like a bee hopping from one flower to another, never quite satisfied with the nectar of knowledge each flower seems to offer. Alas, this is my process; or at least that’s how I console myself about my ADHD.

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Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said an emergency Parliamentary sitting should be convened to amend various laws governing Internet and media usage such as the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.” – The Star Online 2nd, August 2015

The government hopes the fear of the law creates a cone of silence from the people, so they can bring the voice of the one louder. This takes away the democratic mirror the government badly needs to see how well they (the public servants) are serving the people. Growing the ever increasing “Spiral of Silence” and burning the bridges of democracy. They will write their own report cards, they will sing their own praises and isolating themselves and digging their own graves.

I find it eerily strange. Alien even. Why a conscious mind would let another control it. Tell it what to wear, what not to wear. Tell it what they can say and not say. Tell it what and when they can eat and not eat. Tell it what it can think and not think.

To me, there is nothing more beautiful in my consciousness than the ability to think freely. To be wrong, to discover, to learn, to try and understand for myself. To find beauty through my own eyes rather than through a set of polarised glasses prescribed to me by some abstract idea. I refuse to have my life and lifestyle enslaved and shackled by superstition and have people who manipulate me with it.

“Only the illiterate smoke. Because every box of cigarette and tobacco products have warning labels. Smokers must not know how to read.”, my mum once told me. Today, we get gory pictures of cigarette boxes. We still get smokers. So it’s not because some people refuse to read, it is because some people refuse to open their eyes.

C’est la vie. It is your life. I only take offence when I see people being oppressed and not realise it. I guess it would be the same feeling that one gets talking to a happy slave who loves to be a slave. You can keep telling them that slavery is wrong but they are happy in it and constantly invites you to join them.

More than half the people in Malaysia have already lost their human rights. The other half have theirs under threat. The struggle for secularism in government should not be taken lightly. Even if you are a Bishop, a high priest, an Imam, an agnostic or a hard-headed Atheist, no one can differentiate our tears. We need the freedom to be who we want to be, when we want to be. This goes beyond freedom of speech, it’s freedom to think.

#MH17 A string of unfortunate events coincide with the struggle to cut cost and save money. If the last mysterious tragedy raised serious doubts on the future of the company, this current event should easily seal her fate.

Beyond the company, we must not forget the increasing volatility of our planet. Peace appears to hang at a cliff edge. We no longer live in a simple polarity but a patch work of ideologies. We live in a world in conflict, we live in between war zones, we live in war zones. Think of those who were flying out or back from a summer holiday on that plane. Someone elses bullet landed on their lap. It was a suprise last minute addition to their travel itinerary. Senseless stupid ideologies. Politicians should be stopped from playing their games with human lives.

To the men holding the guns/missile launchers or bombs and say it is because of war. Say what you want, cry all you want, to everyone else you are just a terrorist.

The world is a small small place. We live in a small blue planet, suspended in space. Given enough distance, this planet is but a faint dot in a dark sky filled with billions of brighter stars. It’s a small world. This makes every bullet, every bomb and every other weapon ever fired much bigger than it actually is. It kills who it hits, mortally maims their surviving families, crushes their friends, knocks the future of children off their tracks and scars humanity with digital shrapnel. It’s a small world, every bullet fired will affect you in one way or another. There is much hate in the world so the solution to this must be to add more love and understanding. Adding more hate and violence to the equation of solving “hate and violence” is obviously not the answer.

Context: Uproar by some Malaysian Muslims on a discovery of trace elements of swine DNA in certain chocolate product.

I find it the reaction by these certain quarters quite comical. With threats of lawsuits and jihad against the company. I find it comical because all of them probably carry quite a bit more of “pig DNA” in their pockets and wallets already. I think it’s quite well documented how dirty physical money is.

Money, paper money. It is widely circulated and touched and handled by all members of society.

From criminals to religious scholars.
From butchers to bankers.
From prostitutes to librarians.
From drug addicts to doctors.
From church to mosques.

Humans, we love the smell of money. We keep them close to us, our prized profession, our Mount Everest. All these hands contribute to trace elements on money. Faeces, bodily fluids, food, oil etc. You handle it with your hands, you eat with your hands. Yet this elephant in your pocket never seem to cause you any discomfort as something smaller than a microscopic trace in an industrial scale. Humans, sometimes it’s surprising that we call ourselves intelligent.

 

What is democracy when the choices provided to you are, a rock and, a hard place.

Related: CNN

Some may say this is akin to running away from responsibility or hiding from shame. Is this a good thing? Leaders accepting blame and stepping down so a better person takes over? The Prime Minister may not be the person directly to blame but it is a position of highest authority and this tragedy happened during his watch. Stepping down sends a clear message; change must happen.

South Korea’s Sixth Republic era have probably seen more than 20 changes of leadership since it started in 1987. That is dramatic.

What happened to South Korea’s economy since 1987? Monumental and rapid growth. Not only in the financial sector but in science, technology and the arts. This is something we need to look at.

We have been conditioned to think change in leadership causes chaos and instability but in South Korea and Japan, we can observe that with the right social infrastructure, it is a very effective method of improving it’s society.

Thinking ahead, the new Prime Minister who will take over Chung Hong-won will have his or her hands full ensuring that safety of ferries is the government’s top priority. This means strict regulation and full-non-apologetic enforcement of the industry. This directly enhances the safety standards with very little delay compared to if the present leadership were to attempt this with the weight of an existing agenda.

This form of accountable democracy is refreshing.

Original story: Woman gets bitten in movie theatre, toe bloodied, The Star

Feedback from the public seem to point directly at GSC with patrons being shocked that rats have no place in modern and nice looking cinemas.

Unfortunately, most of the money spent on the upkeep (if there is effort to) is spent mainly on the fascia. This is very typical. People tend to judge the premise by how nice it looks on the outside (as well as how comfortable it makes them feel) and the management understands this to a T and uses these boundaries to save money on maintenance. If the air-condition works and there is no foul smell, this must be a clean place. Never judge a book by it’s cover. What you are probably experiencing is probably good air conditioning with good ventilation and filters.

Someone has to pay – this will push the accountability back to the authorities. Getting bitten by a rat is a small incident. Just wait till we start getting large cases of LEPTOSPIROSIS!!!

In this particular case, I wouldn’t even blame it completely on GSC – I think the hosting mall should be looked to for answers as well. Sanitation is managed at the mall level and also relates to the municipality. We’ve known about bad rat infestation in our drains for years and the root cause of the issue was never really addressed. It’s symptomatic and relates to bad enforcement. Sanitation is bad; we have organic and inorganic garbage thrown directly into the drains and this ends up with a source of nutrition for all things creepy and crawly that roams underneath our feet. The only way around this is to have un-corrupt-able enforcement.

We must see the world through the eyes of the blind. We will then realise that our bias has no basis. Skin colour, how we look, what we wear are all insignificant stereotypes. They judge only by what we do and how we do it. Only then do we truly know who stands before us. Close your eyes and open your heart.