Happy New Year

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To all my readers, here's a Happy New Year wish to you - I hope the new year brings success and happiness in your lives. I also hope you've achieved what you set out to do last year. As for me, I've not. Anyway, I've a few things I want to accomplish this year. Here are some of them:

• Be a better person to my family and loved ones as well as to my friends, colleagues (maybe not all of them as some are just right down nasty) and students.
• Arrange my finances.
• Exercise more. I'm not getting any younger and yes, my biological clock is ticking.
• Have more leisure time for my other interests like reading more books and improving my photography skills. Right now, all I would say is that firstly, I've too many unread books in my bookshelves and secondly, I've a camera which actually can do more than being an expensive point & shoot one.
• Blog more and maybe resuscitate my other blog once my photography skills improve.

At work, I do have a few things cut out for me to do this year and I'm sure that I'll work my ass off to get them done, somehow.

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New Year's Day Sunset

Photo was taken at Tanjung Aru Beach, Kota Kinabalu on Friday 1 January 2010 at 5.58 PM.

Father and Son Again

Photo was taken at Tanjung Aru Beach, Kota Kinabalu on Sunday 6 December 2009 at 5.52 PM.

Sunset or Gazebo

Photo was taken at Tanjung Aru Beach, Kota Kinabalu on Saturday 5 December 2009 at 5.50 PM.

Imperial or Metric?

I just started secondary school when the country began the switch from imperial measurements to metric ones. Yes, it was confusing though once you get it, I'd say metric is easier. Afterall, for example, there are 100 centimetres in a meter and 1,000 meters in a kilometre but 12 inches in a foot, and three feet in a yard. Which one is easier to remember? Metric ones, of course.

Anyhow, I left school and went to university in a country which still uses (even now) the imperial system. When I got back home, I got my first job and I remember one occasion when I got the two systems mixed up. On of my colleagues asked me how much I weight. I answered wrongly, saying “65 pounds”. Another colleague quipped, “That must be the weight of one of your legs.” Everyone laughed. After that, I never used pound or feet, any more.

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Arabic or Tamil?

Many years ago, I was travelling on a flight between West and East Malaysia. For this particular flight, I asked to be seated at the last row of the plane, which was a Boeing 737.

Anyway, sometime during the flight, one of the female flight attendants took a stack of newspapers from under the aisle seat and placed them on the seat.

Apparently someone must've asked for a newspaper as I saw her loooking through the stack. She must've noticed me for stopped in the middle of the stack, which happened to be on a newspaper in the Arabic script, probably the Utusan Melayu, the only paper printed in that script. Back to the flight attendant, when she stopped, she first looked at the paper and then at me, mouthing a question in Malay, asking me if I could read it. Caught off guard, I sheepishly answered that I could but a little slow.

The flight attendant continued looking through the stack of newspapers. I was still watching her and I supposed she noticed it as she stopped looking and looked at me again instead. This time, I had a question for her. I nonchalantly asked in Malay too, "Looking for the Tamil one, is it?"

I had the last laugh this time because she was probably too dumbstruck to answer. Instead, she just returned the whole stack to under the seat. From then on, I hardly notice her smiling when she passed by. Well, you started it.

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American or British?

A few years back, when I applied for a visa to a certain English speaking country, one of the requirements was an interview with the staff at the country's Embassy.

At the appointed time, I came but had to wait for a little bit for those applicants who came in before me to be interviewed first. There seemed to be a prepared set of questions asked by the Embassy’s staff.

I wasn't so concerned about getting the visa because the organization I worked for then had dealings with organizations in that country. What concerned me was what would be my answer for a particular question I overheard, which was, "Do you speak English?". I could've answer with a simple, "Yes" or with a triumphant and thumping "Yes indeed, I do". I even thought of answering it with a question, "American or British?" in my best accent of both, of course.

Anyway, when my turn came, the staff enquired about my English as expected. But he asked me, "How's your English" instead of the question I thought about. Unexpectedly and too bad, all I could muster for an answer was an uninspiring "Uhm, okay."

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