It’s so hard.. scratch that, it’s bloody hot! February, last month, was supposed to be the hottest and driest month ever in years but I beg to differ. It is much hotter now in JB than it was a few weeks back. Ice Kacang, Cendol, Bubble Tea and Ice Cream sellers will be smiling right now as another heat beaten customer orders up those chilly drinks to quench the thirst.

I myself is equipped with a huge bottle of Ice Milk Tea on my left and Gendang Kasturi (kuih) on my left. I had planned earlier to bake Chocolate Cake with Ganache but after after the heat beating at my back, I’d rather make ice jelly fruit cocktail.

I’m not sure of the exact temperature outside but I’m very sure that my clothes which I hung out to dry was dried after 2 hours (clothes consist of 2pairs of jeans, comforter, bed linens etc). I could feel the scorching heat every time I stepped outside of my house. It’s much more cooler to stay in the house or air-con malls than be outside.

Oh yeah, went to Tesco Bukit Indah again today. Bought rice there, much cheaper from those in Hwa Thai and other places. The throng of people looked menacing but the que at the Tesco Hypermarket itself was very much controllable and I can happily say that it is a breezy affair.

The large space area is not wasted and it is filled up with various shops. There are Fabiano Ricco (they are everywhere these days), Amly, Watson, KFC and other shops which I can’t really remember since the crowd of shoppers jostled me at every moment.

I’m glad Tesco is finally in Bukit Indah as I am an avid fan of them. They have such a large variety of items and groceries at very much discounted price and I really love their Tesco Choice products. Those products are very good quality and is priced at relatively cheap price.

It is not easy to govern a country that has many forms of religions and races. The line between each threshold is very thin and I’m glad that Malaysia and Singapore has managed to instill inter-racial and inter-religion harmony in all of their citizens.

However there will be a small cluster of irritants that try to make a fun on these sensitive issues. Take a look at the bombed churches and Suraus in Malaysia and the irresponsible comments left by 3 Singaporeans on Facebook. They may think that what they did was right and in retaliation of the use of the word “Allah” and the kids have thought it was just a bogus joke to leave unfair comments on other races on Facebook.

What they didn’t know that it is these small things that may create the next Racial/ Religious Riot that haunted Singapore in 1964. The older generations had experienced it and the nightmares that haunted them was still as fresh as freshly baked bread. In fact the impact was so strong that it had managed to get into Singapore’s History books.

People these days have to realise that we are living in an inter-racial community whereby we have to respect and other races and their religions. Don’t say anything hurtful or do rash actions that may incite the anger of the other party. I’m a proud Muslim and I was so flabbergasted and disgusted at the actions that some irresponsible people have done at the Churches and Suraus in Malaysia.

I was extremely close to beating the ones responsible into a bloody pulp and then strangling some sense into them. How could they do something so irresponsible and crazy like that? Take a look at the 1964 racial riot, the cause of it is almost the same as what those morons did.

I’m sure all of us love our peace and serenity. I am also very sure that we do not want to live with fear and death surrounding our vicinity and seeing our loved ones die all for the sake of a racial riot.

Furthermore for those offenders who tries their hand in breaking the internal security, load the toughest punishment on them! They deserve it! For their one stupid mistake, everyone else safety is at stake. Lash them, jail them and then fine them to the maximum. That ought to teach those idiots a lesson and others to never meddle with the safety of the nation.

It’s a sad day as Johor loses one of the most important leading figure. His royal majesty, Sultan of Johor, Sultan Iskandar Ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail passes away last night at 7.15pm. He had died of an illness. His majesty was 77.

The citizens of Johor grieves with his passing. Public are allowed to pay their last respect to his late majesty at the Istana Besar from 9am to 10.30am. Public are advised to wear Songkok with with bands along with black Baju Kurung Telok Belanga for Muslim males. Non-Muslim males are advised to wear a black armband on their left arm and black tie.

Muslim females are to wear white headscarf along with black Baju Kurung while non-Muslim females must wear a black armband on their left arm.

All buildings must fly the state flag at half mast between 6am and 6pm for seven days from today while all mosques and suraus must organise tahlil prayers.

All entertainment and games for today are canceled.

My deepest condolences to the royal members of Johor.

I’m thoroughly running out of ideas of what to blog these days. I’ve either been brought down to just nonsense prattling or mumbling incoherent thoughts. Let’s see what I’ve been doing these past few days…

Nothing much interesting. I didn’t manage to get any interesting pictures as I used to years back.  Eat, sleep, read, shake my bum-bum once in a while in a feeble attempt to slim down and teach my students.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve touched a textbook with the exception of Ayu’s. It is also a very long time since I’ve did any engineering maths and I had to crack my head on one of the questions imposed to me by one of my students. She was taking A maths.

Now that I’ve thought about it, Malaysia education and Singapore education has no difference. Even though many thought that Singapore education is much higher and better than Malaysia’s I beg to differ.

Singapore education system seems to cram every possible syllabus they could in a period of 10 years to prepare their students for the higher education. Whereas Malaysia education system takes it much slower and polishes those topics which they deem as needed the moment their students is brought into the working world.

There are also certain topics which the Malaysian education system has which Singapore doesn’t cover, most probably because Malaysia has more natural resources thus, teaching their students ways on how to survive in different types of industry that Malaysia has to offer.

However I have to agree that Singapore education system concentrates on more problem solving, brain storming questions and think out of the comfort zone questions. It is very useful as it makes the students think and scramble for all the possible answers instead of having their answers served on a silver platter.

I’ve seen the questions in the Malaysian education system and was quite surprised at how direct the questions were structured instead of the puzzle solving questions. When faced with puzzling questions by just rephrasing the questions, the students were not able to think of the answer even though it is the same question!

Thus, I’ve decided to integrate some of the education syllabus of Singapore for my teaching. It’s been three weeks since I’ve tried it and I’m beginning to see  some good results from my students.

It really looks as if bullying in school has gotten from bad to worse. I read the morning papers today and had to raise an eyebrow at the news of girls bullying others and spreading their acts in the Internet of their recorded act. Kids from Form 1 are practicing this act of picking on the weak usually a single number while the bully has a group of cronies to watch and even join in the fun. It used to be an act which boys would indulge in but unfortunately girls have found interest in it.

Unlike the boys, the motive of these girls who usually become a bully would always pick a fight with another girl mainly due to jealously, competition over a boy’s attention and perhaps just for fun to see others cower in fear at the sight of the bully.

Amateur girl bullies would usually just corner the poor victim in a secluded area, usually the girls toilet, and publicly humiliate the girl by or engage in girl fights which usually involves in hair pulling, slapping, kicking and beatings. I would never add punching in the activity since most girls can’t even clench their fists in the correct form of punching.

I just don’t understand why girls would want to bully other girls, aren’t they also from the same sex as them? Isn’t the act of picking a fight with others an unladylike act and against the very belief of their faith?

I was lucky to be in schools that never practice bullying even though there are a few handful of bad stock. Heck, I was brought up in a notorious neighbourhood school that even the police had a great knowledge of but I never once had to face a bully. Perhaps it had been the fact that all the students in the same same year as me were closely related to one another and we thought each other more as brothers and sisters instead of enemies.

Sure there were some green eyed monsters that momentarily spread rumours and stab our backs whenever we are unware but to openly engage in a fight? Neah.. that’s just not us. We prefer to have more friends and solving our differrences in  more peaceful way.

Unfortunately this isn’t the case of the bullies that are running rampant in the society right now. Perhaps schools should make more curricular activities that forces all the students to work together as a team once a week and split those students that usually stick together in classes and partner them up with other students. That is the only way I can think of that will force the students to get to know one another and lessen the number of bullies.

Alamak! Yes that is what I said when I watched the news yesterday and got the news that the Maths and Science subjects would be reverted back to it’s original language, Bahasa Melayu, on 2012. One moment the government was intent in getting every Malaysian students to take up and brush up on their English and the next moment, they changed their mind.

I was so happy when the government had announced that the language they would be using in Science and Maths is English. I told to my self that finally the Malaysians would not be left out in the changes of the world. But when I heard the bad news yesterday, ALAMAK!

Come on, English is now the universal language and everyone in the world uses them. In the working world, almost everything is in English. When a customer calls up for enquiry most of my customers converse in English. Don’t need to look that far. The scientific chemical names are in English and it would be extremely hard to understand anything should the Malaysian Science students try to implement their current Bahasa Melayu chemical terms into English.

One of the reasoning the government gave about the new change is that the ministry found a small percentage teachers fully using English to teach the two subjects. If it was me, I’d send the teachers, everyone of the Maths and Science teachers to rigorous re-training in English. They are supposed to be teachers, not students and if they can’t make an effort to use the correct form of English while teaching, than I say the teacher is not fit to teach.

Why in the first place didn’t the government send their teachers back for through re-training to brush up on their teaching etiquette and their command of English before they even implement the policy of changing the subjects into English language?

I myself have taken a look at the Form 1 English textbooks and I was shock at the simplicity and low level standard. The English textbooks are as good as my Primary 2 English textbooks!

What I think the government should do if they really are so inclined to help their students out in their plight to better master the English language is to revise and re-study their English standards for all levels every 5 years or so. Primary school English are suppose to teach basic English as in Grammar, Vocabulary, Sentence Structure etc.

Form 1 and above are to polish the language they had studied and their mastery of English, not stick to basic use of English. I was brought up in Singapore school and I say their English teachings in Secondary school was great. Although there wasn’t grammar solving problems wasn’t easy but they had used English in Secondary school as a mean to ready their students when they step out into the working world.

I shudder and pity the current students which are taking Science and Maths. Understanding the subjects in English and then reverting everything in BM is not an easy task for the kids. I myself have trouble understanding the Malay form for Maths and to think I scored an A2 for my Malay language in O’ Levels.

Even though the Malaysian government try to add more hours in the English curriculum, I think it will not help anything at all. Until the ministry send their English teachers, scratch that, ALL of their teachers for re-training (YEARLY) and revise their English Module system, I’d say the future for our students understanding and speaking in English is looking very bleak.

We always hear and read about commuters in KL complaining about the irresponsible taxi drivers who insist on not using the meter when charging passengers. We also read about how the authorities always take tough actions, measures and even impersonate as a passenger to catch these errant drivers.

But has anyone ever complained about outside of KL like Johor Bahru for example? I doubt so and if there are, it will be minimal since most of them are not bothered to make an effort to complain to the LPKP. I happen to be one of the disgruntled commuters who had to frown and throw a tantrum every time the taxi drivers never use the meter.

The only time I could ever remember using a taxi that used and charged according to the meter is once, the cost was RM$12.50 from City Square to Tmn Tan Sri Yaccob. Most of the times the drivers even though turned on their meter, they never charge according to the meter, instead they marked up the price by 40%.

When asked why they never bothered to use the meter accordingly, their reason is the same, “Tak cukup nak hidup la” or translated into “Not enough to live”.

HELLO!! We are workers too and worked doubly hard to pay our expenses. We don’t make our own currency and have our signatures on every Malaysian Ringgit Notes. It’s not fair at all why we the passengers have to work so hard to afford our monthly expenses when the cab drivers take the easy  way out and charge us double the amount.

It’s as good as taking a parang onto our neck and slaughter us. We are not rich la brother.. You and I are Malaysians, what happen to the one heart and one country? I guess it doesn’t applies to money.

LPKP and JPJ should monitor and do their weekly operations in JB also and not just at the capital. I am sure Johorians would be more than happy to point the places which harbors errant taxi drivers. Places like the taxi stand at Jln Wong Ah Fook, beside the City Square where the old wet market used to be is one of them.

The drivers pick and choose their passengers and some even charged exaggerate taxi fare the moment we told them our destinations. Just because that’s the place where most shoppers and Malaysian who worked in Singapore will head to when they wish to return home doesn’t mean they have the permission to cut our throats. ‘Tis no wonder commuters would rather ask their family members to pick them up or take the public bus.

LPKP and JPJ should also their rounds in malls. A few months back I was charged RM30 from my Tebrau City to City Square. Oh yes, I did fuss and about to scratch the driver’s eyes out but lucky for the driver my elder brother was with me and calmed me down. Hey the distance is almost the same as from City Square to my house.

Oh even Jusco Bukit Indah.. Before the mall was around, the charge from Tmn Tan Sri Yaccob to Bukit Indah Roundabout park was RM4 but the moment the mall opened, the price was hiked to RM10. Some even had the cheek to charge RM16 when it first opened, saying the traffic jam is part of the cause.

Perhaps if commuters teamed up and blogged about this Irresponsible Taxi Drivers, the media would sniff about this post and scorched the awareness cell in the LPKP and JPJ.

Yesterday was full of events. On Saturday I was asleep by 12.30am and was woke up at 6am even though I had wanted to sleep in since it is Sunday. Good thing I didn’t because mom suddenly popped up and dragged us out of the bed. We’re off to a road trip!

Oh yes… Mom was a happy bunny.

So by 8am everyone was prepared and ready to test the rickety Honda Civic Auto 81. No doubt the body needs a lot of patch job and needs to have a new weatherproofing installed, the engine was in tip top condition.

Anyway we travelled to Batu Pahat Gerisik Hot Spring. There were Singaporeans there! Wow… Anyway after some friendly chats and making new acquaitances with the locals and visitors there, I finally get my dip. Too bad for the rest of my family members, they didn’t remember to bring extra clothes so they had to remain on dry land while I get my soak.

It was heavenly on my aching back and my forever cold feet. The old car needs to get a new upholstery! The cushion forced me sit sideways and nearly twisted my spine. Grr… But at least it was able to send me to my hot spring. For that, you are forgiven my dear car… Hehehe..

I’m not sure if it was my poorly bad blood circulation of mine but after a long while of soaking and swimming around in the hot pool (yes, I was crzy enough to swim in a hot spring) I experienced a major blood rush to the point of dizzy and extreme breathing difficulty as if I’ve just done a few kilometers of running, when I step out of the hot spring. It took me a few long minutes to finally relax.

I’m not sure if I was the only rare case since everyone who dipped in didn’t look winded or cooked at all. Some elderly who went in earlier than me and came out after me didn’t even looked winded. What?! Oh well… I must be severly lacking in my physical training or medically wrong.

So anway we continued on our journey to Muar where my distant aunt stays. She has ducks now and I’m so excited about it! Hehehe.. I was happily collecting the eggs and then running off to their mini Cili Padi plantation. There were a total of 24 Cili Padi plants just at her backyard and all of them are healthy and bearing chilies! They were lots of other changes which I can’t keep track but too bad my favourite Ciku tree is no longer around.

Oh well..

I was too full with drinks to manage anything else into my stomach and passed out on dinner. I was dead tired when I finally reached home. But the fun didn’t stop there.

At 11pm when everyone was asleep, I heard a loud banging at the manufacturing department shutter. I had thought my cat was stuck at the gate again so I didn’t bother. (remember I do live in a factory for security sake) Then after a few minutes there was another loud banging and I heard loud shoutings.

Armed with a wooden stick and armored in just my bath robe (duh!) I went out into the manufacturing department to investigate. There was someone at the back of my factory and I climbed up to the back window to see who the burglar was. I was quite shock to find a black car and 2 police patrol men checking on it. I’m not afraid of the police but I was clueless about the strange car. I wasn’t even informed there was a car parked at the back of our factory. In fact no one in their right mind would ever want to park their cars where there is no light and a pathway for burglars. Furthermore, my place and my neighbouring factories has a history of being broken into.

Instead of opening the back shutter, I ran to alert my parents. When we checked again, the policemen were gone but the car was still there. So we rushed out of the factory in an attempt to meet the patrol guys to ask what’s the matter. Luckily a patrol car entered our street and we flagged it down. (like a taxi seh.. hehehe)

After asking the policemen for help in our matter, we were immediately advised to stay in our factory and not to open the roller shutter of our back exit until they had signalled a clear sign. While the men in blue drove off to check in our situation, my parents and I waited at the back of the factory.

After a few long minutes, the policemen knocked on our shutters and told us it was ok to open our back exit. True enough, there was a black modified proton wira at the back of our factory. The police checked on the car and found one 1.5m bamboo stick used for changkul handle, one baseball bat and other junks in the car.

The engine was still hot. While one of the officers checked with the HQ regarding the car, the other was professional in calming us down by cracking up jokes, making friendly chats while taking statements from us. Oh yeah, the car was suspected to be stolen. Oh dear.. Good thing we informed the police early. It would be a hassle explain to them later in the day when they find it by themselves.

Anyway it was almost midnight when all the statements and investigations ended. The officers were very professional and friendly and they handled the case from there. They were totally different from what Metro and other people says about them. Thanks officers!

This is idiotic, really idiotic. For a powerful organisation, PFM (Pengeluar Filem Malaysia), they sure can come up with the stupidest idea available. They had voted the idea in lieau with the bad results in sale of movie tickets for local production. If the government were to ever take up that suggested idea, I’m sure the reports of movie goers will be dropped to a drastic result.

I was reading the morning news as usual in Metro paper and got immediately irritated by this news. You can read them here

From the usual Rm10 to RM20 just for a movie produce and directed in Hollywood. The local productions will still cost the same rate. Do you think that’s reasonable? I say NO!!

Look here PFM, I know that you want locals to support the local production but if the story line sucks with a major flaw in the plot which I usually experience, resulting in me sleeping away in the cinema and coming out of the theatre with a disgusted face. So what if you include high tech media included to produce the movie? If the storyline is MEREPEK and downright stupid, I am not going to even bother glancing at the advertisement.

There are reasons as to why people watch Hollywood movies. Most of them are good storyline, good acting, good CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) effects, good realistic makeup and props and etc.. As a consumer, we have every rights to choose what to choose even to our decision of movies. To play a lazy fool trick on us by forcing us to watch a badly produced movie is disgusting.

There are plenty of local production movies which are sadly lacking in all the above. For example the horror movies. It’s as if they have run out of ideas and love to imply the old folks tale that usually used to make kids sleep with nightmares. Come on, most of the movie goers are adults and we do not like watching our nightmares that we grew up and gradually learned its just plain stupid folklore to be made into a bad comical horror movie.

I’m not saying that all local production movies are bad. There are extremely good ones like Cicak Man and Jangan Pandang Belakang. They received a major sellout in their first premier and all because they have all the good qualities worth to watch and get excited about even though Jangan Pandang Belakang was worked on a tight budget. If local production can come out with good movies like them, surely they won’t have problems with tickets sale.

If they were to increase the price, I might as well get a pirated DVD costing Rm5 each or get a 4-in-1 DVD at RM10. Why in the world would I ever want to spend RM20 while I can watch the pirated version with the rest of my family and friends. I’ve never like supporting pirated DVDs and VCDs but if they were to imply the regulation, make sure they are able to reap what they sow. Don’t start blaming the authorities and the sindicates for their actions. We are consumers, we buy what we think is within our wallet budget.

Don’t take the easy way out and point fingers at others strength while trying to cover your major weakness. That’s being a typical irresponsible Malaysian. Work out on your weakeness and find another idea to deal with the bad sell out. Raising the price of tickets is out of the question.

The new CIQ building, Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex, started its operation yesterday morning at 12.01am. All the traffic and operations in the old Johor Imigration Causeway ceased 15mins to midnight to coincide with the new operation in Sultan Iskandar Building.

I am excited to use the new building and can’t wait to step into it because by then, I have managed to get my passport and can head back to Singapore to cause more mayhem. How I miss my homeland…

Anyway I was expecting things to go smoothly with the new building and system, I had waited eagerly for the morning paper to read the outcome of the first day. Unfortunately the first impression I got when I saw the picture on the papers made me shook my head.

What telah happen?!! Alamak.. Paiseh man.. Wo paiseh leh..

There was a huge congestion for the traffic heading to the building to go out of Malaysia. By the looks of it, the jam was caused by the two lanes that happens to be the only entrance to the building. Not to mention, that motorists were not properly and fully informed that they had to use the Touch n Go card as the means to pay the toll. Or the motorists are simply too busy and too ignorant not to read the news and totally missed out on the important information.

So listen up Malaysian and SIngaporeans. YOU NEED ‘TOUCH N GO’ CARD TO LEAVE AND ENTER MALAYSIA NEW CIQ BUILDING.

Please be considerate and cooperate with the rules and regulation. Don’t cause the massive jam due to your own ignorance and incompetence.

Right…

Now that is settled, I need to inform all of my other Singaporeans and Malaysians that loves to commute to and fro JB and Singapore.

All picture is taken from TheStar.com.my