while i am in melbourne...

yeap....while i am in melbourne studying my butt off, my brother back in m'sia is seriously improving his english, getting involved in the scriptwriting of Merchant of Venice, mum is doing dad's accounts and training up the new accountant and dad is wel...being dad...he runs around and still does 24/7...busy busy man, my dad...

feel so darn displaced man...it's like...*insert sound effect* cut off man!! geez...

my bro's essay is seriously good....n i shall post it here...

here goes...

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Just after my chemistry tuition on that fateful evening of 25th May 2006, I headed home, fantasizing about the meatball spaghetti that my mum was renowned for and that, I shall treat my taste buds to later. Fast foreword 15 minutes and I was with my parents at the dinner table enjoying our sumptuous meal. I was halfway through my second helping when disaster stuck. My father with that crisp haircut of his so meticulously reposed, blurted out solemnly “Son, we need to have a talk.”
I froze.
What else could I have done? Any son would fear that dreaded line. My mind, fuelled with utmost fear and powered by guilt, paced doubly hard, sourcing for the sole reason that could possibly trigger such a frightful sentence.
Did I play a little too loud on my guitar last night?
Can’t be. The neighbours are ancient from what I have gathered.
Maybe it was drinking milk straight out of the cotton?
Can’t be that either. I used a cup!
Did I wash the cup?
Gosh, the list just goes on and on…
The tension building at a blistering rate…
“Young man…” dad paused.
God, not the “young man” tone…
“The electrical tariff has gone up so save up on electricity!” my dad said in the sternest of voices.
Period.
Hmmm…that did not turn out to be that bad after all. I was expecting much worse than that honestly, you know, getting grounded, no allowance or even no TV but cut down on electricity? I could live with that! Dad continued with a long lecture about saving electricity. Suddenly, the broccoli on my plate did not seem that mundane after all. In between the “save”, “electricity” and “air-cons”, I managed to squeeze a few monosyllables, just to hide my indifference. Dad’s speech lasted around 3 helpings and 4 extra meatballs. Ending with a were-you-listening look on his face, I quickly cleaned up the table and escape to my room.
Going through the papers that night, I was taken aback at the commotion and fuss the tariff hike had induced. I wondered whether it was that snowball of the recent price rises, starting from the increase of Plus Express way toll fare to the changes of land assessment tax to the drastic raise for petrol and fuel prices and ultimately, this. The national inflation will worsen as a result. Mohd Ghazali Abu Bakar the vice president of Bumiputra Manufacturers & Services Industry Association of Malaysia (phew!), exclaimed that despite the willingness to adhere the government’s advice to absorb the cost and not burden the consumers, with the 12% hike to top of the increment of the prices for fuel, there will be at least 10% increase in prices. Another article, however, states very clearly that “Public Not Surprised by Tariffs Rate”. Malaysians said that they will embrace changes and simply find ways to cope with them. With the 12% hike, only 40% will feel the effects financially while the other 60%, mainly the lower income group will only face minor challenges. But seriously, the 60% of the lucky ones actually pay less than RM100 for their electrical bills a month!
However, you wonder, why am I repeating the news? I guess people often stare things right in their faces and yet, simply do not bother to just take a step back and analyse the bigger picture.
My dear readers, I am not writing this article to give you guys a lengthy briefing on how to save electricity. No, that’s your moral teacher’s job. I’m writing this to share my personal view on this matter to the whole school and probably shed some light on this particular issue. We are not just saving electricity, my friends. We are saving the world.
Malaysia, as everyone knows, depends strongly on fuels, coals and dams as the source for electricity. However, probably not the entire population of Seri Omega knows that a little more than 50% of our electrical energy source is a result of the burning of fossil fuels and that my readers, is a staggering fact. The excessive burning of fuels to generate electricity invites nothing but pollution to its uttermost degree e.g. the green house effect, haze and many others. The usage of coals for electricity is as bad as the fossil fuels, if not worse. In our country, renewable source for electricity has yet to be commercialized. Even so, dams like the Bakun Dam in Sarawak, has create so much uproar just to name a few. In that particular area, part of the forest reserve has been chopped down to the very last seedling, trees shredded unmercifully, animals drowned pitifully, locals forcefully station away from their homes and Mother Nature forever scarred. Just for a few megawatts more? So take a moment and think about this, for the 20, 30 years of your life, what have you done or rather what have you not done to prevent the unthinkable from becoming a reality.
While the whole lot of people is so engrossed, pondering why the government did this and that, don’t you think that they are obviously oblivious to the “bigger picture”?
Or is this so called “crisis” a blessing in disguise? A “wake up call” like Rio Ferdinand likes to say?
Let’s say we have a hypothetical family living in current Malaysia and going through the tariff crisis as well. Naturally, there’s a dad and a mum, but they are not home most of the time as they are obviously trying to work their arses off so cope with the tariff hike. Besides, there is a granddad as well, who can’t stop reminding everyone what he did that afternoon when Tun Abdul Rahman declared independence. There is also a typical grannie of yours who is not afraid to share her interest in knitting and happens to wear false teeth. In addition to that, the teenage son who is in fact a tech whiz but spoiled nonetheless. He has a sister too; a ninny girl who does not want to pick up her own laundry because she thinks that she might break her just manicured nails. Now, lets not forget the poor old maid. Your next door neighbour I say. As the plight of the tariff hike looms…
“Restricted time on my pc? Outrageous! How am I supposed to complete my project on animator render and ray-traced occlusion within 06 hours?” complains the boy.
“Off the air-con when I’m not in my bedroom? Uh, that’s like uh, like SO not cool. I will like, uh, sweat!” the girl whines.
“Oh for crying out loud, you guys are lucky! Oh why, I remembered the day when the Japanese came! That afternoon…”
“Not again.” The kids grumbled.
“That afternoon!” grandpa continues ignoring them altogether. “At round 3! There was no electricity! None! Yet, we were running. Trying to get away from those filthy japs…” his voice trailed away…
“Grannie? Can’t you persuade dad and mum to at least give extra time on the pc? I promise I won’t hack into any national security system again.”
“Yeah…and I promise I , uh, I would…uh, be a good girl!”
“Wiffe donff youth fake fup fitting?” grannie mumbled.
“Do you like, uh, speak English?” asked the girl sarcastically.
“Fittfing!” grannie said as she was holding up a ball of yarn as if it was something sacred.
“Knitting?” the son took a wild guess.
“Yerf! Yuerf! (Yes! Yes!)”
“Uh, that’s like, uh, SO not fashionable!”
“Positively affirmative.” Added the boy.
“But knitting was the sole quality in a demure girl that attracts every guys’ attention!” grandpa couldn’t help but join into the conversation.
“But isn’t that, like, before, like, Malaysia was even, like, named Malaysia!”
While they argue on, in a cosy little corner of the living room, a earshot away from the heated conversation, an Indonesian maid sat there, sighing in deep long miserable breaths. Save up electricity? No more washing machines and ironing, her employers reminded her again and again. “Boy, I should have stayed in my kampong, shouldn’t I?” she ponders as she reminisces about the time in hometown…
My dear readers, this situation might happen and probably will. Both parties must play there own role and work together. The elders they should stop turning time back when they were still teenagers and running through the paddy fields without a single worry at all. If you were to run through a paddy field nowadays, farmers would most likely be behind you chasing with a pitch fork. Times have change and they must learn to accept this undeniable fact. Prices do go up. It is not the matter of who is behind this preposterous and asinine predicament. It is down to whether the elderly are willing to accept these changes and only with that, only can they reach out to their younger counterparts and together, they can overcome this crisis.
Like a cup and a saucer, one without the other is incomplete.
The younger generation should also bear in mind that they too have a duty and responsibility to adhere to. Sacrifices is the word here. Kids, especially teenagers should put in some effort in making the world a better place. After all, it is in their hands sooner than they were expecting. Pardoning ominous mistakes by mankind and than blowing the whole world into oblivion are preposterous and the future generation ought to acknowledge this fact and simply grab it by its collar and deal with it. They are the future after all. Why not save the future by teaching the present with mistakes from the past?
So, once again, “public not surprised by the tariff hike”? Should they?*********************

entertaining huh???

m proud of him....