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Oh yeahhh

Ahhh, what is it about this place.  Is is the ambiance?  The people, the smell or prolly the character?  I was at home a few minutes ago, when suddenly I had the insatiable craving for my Ice Grande Caramel Machiatto from Starbucks.  With that I also suddenly had the uncanny urge to update my blog so  I grabbed my keys, my pack of puffs and headed of to Centrepoint Starbucks, where my usual hang out is.  I guess its being in the month of Ramadhan, the fasting month that prevents me from frequenting this place during the day which I normally do.  So now, I can only do this at night, after 'buka puasa'.  I was contemplating of having either Ice Blended Java Chip or my usual Ice Caramel Machiatto.  Guess the latter won.

Its been awhile since I updated my blog, was too busy with a lot of things.  I just came back from our yearly excursion to Thailand, the signature Satria GTi Getaway Experience It trip.  It was a success again, nevertheless and the participants, including myself had so much fun.  Stay tune for that too as I am in the midst of writing the travelog for that trip.

I must say that this month, is the heaviest month of expenditure for me.  I have spent close to what...RM3k on my car!?  Yup.  It started off early of the month...late last month infact when I went down to Singapore to get myself a pair of new antenna's for my mobile rig.  Yup, the one I had is already spoilt.  Guess all the knocking on the pipes and the ceiling of various basement carparks took its toll on it.  I decided to dash down to Singapore and get myself a couple of new antenna's, a quarter wave to travel daily with so that I won't have it catch any of the pipes and a full length dual band for convoy purposes.  Now lets start but how much I have spent.

Getting into Singapore was a suprise.  Not that I am somewhat a newbie to Singapore, but I have been driving down there almost every year, but this year was different.  You see, as I entered Singapore, my Autopass (which is something like a Touch n Go card) failed at the entrance at the immigration.  So when I had it checked, it seemed that I had a summon for going through the Restricted Zone without an ERP device while it was in operation in 1998!!!  WTF!!  6 years down the road and they want to penalise me for making an offence?  I asked them why all this while and they said "Oh, we have just updated the system".  Yeah RITE!.  Okay whats the damages like?  S$75.00.  Whoa..blow me down!  Thats like RM150.00.  Okay so if I need to get into Singapore, I need to settle that..ok..sure no prob.  Oh wait..suddenly they told me I have a parking summon, when I entered early last year.  Gulp..now thats another S$40.  Okay so thats S$115.00 all together.  Thats like RM300 already and I haven't even entered Singapore yet!!.  Right, pay up the fines and lets go on with it.  Got my antenna's for S$85 and S$80 respectively.  Original true blue Diamond Super Gainers.  Okay now that I got them, time to get out before I make any more offences OR spend more money in that expensive country.  I have already bought some S$10 worth of drinks and snacks at their SHELL station and not to mention another S$20.00 to update my Autopass card before I checked out of the country.  Whats the total like?  S$165.00 for antenna's, S$115 for my fines and about another S$30 for miscellenous stuff.  Okay thats like S$300.00 converted to RM is about RM700.00.  Oh yeah, thats excluding my hotel stay there.

The 3 Amigos - 2 Super Gainers and 1 NR770H

Having a jolly ride back, my 5th gear suddenly decided to unstick itself from its home.  Everytime I shifted into 5th gear, it would kick back to neutral as soon as I push the fun pedal.  "Oh-oh", I quipped.  Mo' money, mo' money as I knew that gearbox problems don't come cheap to repair.  I drove back to KL with 1 hand holding the gearstick to 5th, enduring all the vibrations that came with it (if there was a woman on top of it, I tell you, she'd be screaming in Latin).

Okay gearbox probs plus servicing my car for the trip costed : RM1.2k + 800 + 350 oh and not forgetting, I got myself a new toy for my car, the 911EP LS12 LED's for RM800.  So thats RM3.1k!!  Oh yeah plus the Singapore excursion, another RM 1k ++ so all in all thats like RM4k ++.  Well, good thing I didn't spend much going up for the Getaway as all that had been taken care of before BUT, as soon as I came back...my air cond stopped blowing cold air..and..and...the radiator fan stopped working!! GAH!!!  What more!??  Damn, I'm already broke for the month and more things happen to my car.  So off to the workshop again.  A little backtrack here.  While my car was in the workshop having its gears transplanted and such, I had a to drive my dad's nice old tank - Volvo 240GL.  Let me tell you something.  It roars like a hungry lion and it guzzles petrol like an Abrams M1-E1 tank.  I used that Volvo for 7 days, and it guzzles RM50 per day!  So there you go, another RM300 which I could usually fill up my car for 1 month if I drove the same route.

So yesterday after coming back from Phuket last week, I sent my car to check on the radiator fan not working thingy.  I had budgeted another few hundred Ringgit as radiator fan motors don't come cheap.  I was told that the problem lies in the fuse and wiring.  Phew, what a relief coz I know that wiring matters are cheap.  Fuses and wires, how much can it be right?  Problem is, those peeps at Proton Edar don't know much about it and can't solve my problem so I had to drive the car out and send it to an auto accessories shop, you know, the ones that installs car radios, tinted films and alarms.  These people know best coz they are damn good electricians.  So, I sent it there this morning and by evening problem solved.  With a trickle of sweat down my forehead, I ask "So how much does it cost?" well it actually sounded more like this "Boss, brapa semua?", and he nonchalantly replied "RM15 saja" (RM15 only) and that was the cost of the fuse.  He took almost a whole day to trace which wire was touching the car's body which short circuited my radiator fan fuse, and he only charged my that much.  I can't help it but smile while giving him the money..

So now, since I'm happy that I got my car back (though I still need to solve the air cond problem WHICH I know is going to cost me about RM200) I decided to go out and enjoy.  Splurge a little bit of whatever money I have left in my wallet for my Ice Grande Caramel Machiatto and decide to kick back and relax because, pay day is just another day away *smiles*.

Hope you had a pleasant read and don't forget, travelog Phuket is coming up next so stay tuned.

Hey Mr Deejay

Ah, the nostalgic sense from the tunes of the 80's.  Some call it retro, some call it old school, I just call it a blast from the past.  Now songs of the 80's is making a comeback.  Light and Easy is playing it so as MixFM.  So nice were the songs from the 80's that some new bands or groups are re-recording them and not only that, Piccadily, the famous tea dance for teens back in the 80's is making a comeback.  I'm not suprised that someone will revive Phase2, Faces, Rennaisance nights again.

The tunes from the 80's.  I guess some of you may not know about it since it was way past your bedtime but some do really reminisce to those tunes.  I grew up in that era (yeah, someone didn't deny that I told her I'm old) and I would say, it was an era where music was just transitioning.  I still remember reading about Donna Summer back then who changed the landscape of Disco music, the start of Pop till New Jack Swing and after that I gave music a break.  Many changes since then but guess what, when you go to clubs, they still play 80's tunes on one of the nights.  Bar Savanh plays it on Friday nights and Zouk plays it on their Mumbo Jumbo nights.  So you see, 80's - 90's music is here to stay.  I was playing some of these tunes in the office the other day as my brother had burned me a CD of 80's songs.  I played it in my car first without checking it out on my Thinkpad and was amazed by the number of songs he put in there.  More than 5 hours worth of 80's MP3 songs burned at a min of 160 ~ 192 kilobit per second.  If he would have had it on 128 kilobits/s, I think he could have crammed more than 7 hours of song which means I can play 1 CD from here to Songkhla without repeating any songs!  So anyway, as I was playing the songs, I was telling Maine that some of the songs I have not heard since the heydays back then and I was wondering how my brother could have not only searched but found the songs to be downloaded and at a high kilobit rate.  Its either he got a copy of the album on CD or he somehow converted the old records that we had into digital format but he got it all down in that CD.

My brother taught me about music then, when I was younger. He is like the teacher in School Of Rock.  No kidding!  He taught me how to listen and differentiate a bass guitar, rhythm and lead guitar when I was 7 yrs old and showed me how to play the guitar when I was 10.  I remember at night, he used to quietly creep downstairs to the living area and listen to music on my dad's Sansui Hi Fi system with those large headphones.  He would stay awake till 1 - 2am listening to records.  I was engrossed into listening to the different albums and groups back then from late 70's till late 90's.  Disco was something my dad couldn't understand and and Rock was something he couldn't comprehend which was creeping its way into the music scene with groups such as Van Halen, Michael Shenker Group, Scorpions, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Cheap Trick slowly taking the scene from Donna Summer, Chic, Boney M, ABBA, Bee Gees and the like.  I listened to all these on Vinyl or records as it was more popularly known.  I still remember sifting through the records at Jaya Supermarket Horizon and Supreme music store (you PJ peeps should know), checking out the latest in the music industry.  There was also another popular place that I used to go when I was in school, a music store at Asia Jaya (now known as Armada Hotel) but can't remember the name of the music store.

Check out my collection of old skool records - Boney M's Night Flight to Venus, Saturday Night Fever OST, American Fever (can't even find that in CDNow or Amazon.com, City Boys (my brother's record btw) and one or two more I can't remember.  Also see the old school Sansui Hifi in the background which consist of the tape deck, amplifier and record player.

P/S: Anyone know where I can get the records transferred into CD format, let me know ok.

Why the 80's.  Whats so great about it?  I realised that in the early 80's, the music then was dominated by electronic synthesizers.  Almost every other song you hear, would be heavily based on keyboards and electronic drums.  This is apparent when you listen to Herbie Hancock - rock it, Electric Dreams - OST, Jan Hammer - Miami Vice Theme and Paul Hardcastle for 19 and the likes of that.  The sound of electronic keyboard is what made the 80's well...the 80's.  Apart from that the lyrics make a lot more sense than the songs nowdays except for Pet Shop Boys..heheh.  American TV programs started to infiltrate Malaysian viewers because TV3 had just started back in 1984 and a few years after that, we had viewings of Solid Gold and America's Top 40 hosted by non other than Casey Kassem with his end show tagline "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars".  Rap had started in the states in the early 80's and came to Malaysia some 1 - 2 years after that.  I remember the fashion back in the 80's when you go clubbing.  Carrot cut pants and flat top hair and Bros style.  I remember those pants.  Some were pleated so widely that you can stuff a cow in there but apart from the fashion the best was still the songs from that era.

If you are from that era, see how many of these songs do you know coz I do have them on the CD.

• Alan Parson's Project - Eye in the sky
• Alphaville - Big in Japan
• Asia - Heat of the moment
• Baltimora - Tarzan boy
• Band Aid - Do they know its Christmas (damn hard song to find.  Was done after Live Aid)
• Big Country - Big country
• Boston - Amanda
• Cheap Trick - Stop this game
• Cutting Crew - I just died in your arms tonight
• Depeche Mode - Just can't get enough
• Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) - I'm alive
• Gazebo - I like Chopin
• Genesis (Phil Colin's ex group) - Invisible touch
• Go West - King of wishful thinking
• Hall and Oates - Maneater
• Human League - I'm only human
• Johnny Hates Jazz - Shattered dreams
• Laura Branigan - Self control
• Level 42 - Something about you
• Michael Sembello - Maniac
• Mike & The Mechanics - All I need is a miracle (so do I okay)
• Mr Mister - Kyrie
• Nick Kershaw - The riddle
• Pat Banatar - Shadows of the night
• Rockwell - Somebody's watching me
• Sky - Toccata and Fugue
• Split Enz - Missing person (ultimate old song man...)
• Styx - Pieces of eight
• Tears for Fears - Shout
• Tiffany - I think we're alone now (my cuz met her and gave her roses when she came to KL)
• Ultravox - Dancing with tears in my eyes
• Yazoo - Please don't go
• Yes - Owner of a lonely heart

All these is excluding the popular dance tunes such as Black Machine - How Gee (but that is already in the 90's), SNAP - I got the power and others.  See how many you guys and girls can remember and if you can't let me know, I'll play the tune for ya.  Hope you had a pleasant read.

Memory Lane 2

Ever since my last posting regarding my speech when I was in standard one, many people commented to me that I looked cute, chubby and even 'bulat' or round when I was a kid.  To tell you the truth, I was never a huge baby nor I was born with a large frame or big appetite.  I was a normal scrawny kid that looked more like a wuss until I was 5 years old.

This happened way back in 1977, when we were still in Malacca.  My dad just got posted to Malacca as State Secretary (SS) after we came back from UK where he finished his Masters for 4 years.  The house we stayed in was this grand double story colonial bunglow.  It had like 5 rooms, 4 baths, a huge living and dining room.  At the back we had this open space and another 4 or 5 rooms meant for the maids.  At the back of the house compound was a closed garage for approximately 8 cars and we even had our own tennis court and badminton court.  There is even an external surau that is attached to the house!  The compound was so huge, the rambutan trees became part of our fence on one side of the compound.  When fruit season came, we had to call the JKR Melaka(Public Works Department of Malacca) workers to come and pick the fruits for themselves as we just can't bare picking it ourselves as there were just too many rambutan trees surrounding the compound.  There was also this huge Pokok Saga or Saga tree that bore green beans on its leaves.  When it ripens, the leaf will fall down and the beans turn glossy red in color.  Looks swell in a glass jar for decorations.

Anyway, one fine day in Malacca, I was 5 years old and playing at the back IN a standing carton box when suddenly i tipped over and fell backwards in the box.  I fell flat on my back and my head hit the cement floor.  Being 5 then, obviously I cried, but there wasn't much pain (was just being a cry baby).  After checking my head (thank God it didn't crack or anything) I thought I was okay.  A week later, I developed a very high fever.  My dad was away then in Sabah or Sarawak for some government business so my mum took me to a clinic in town since it was a normal fever.  The doctor checked and told my mum that my fever was very high and he needed to give me an injection to bring it down quickly.  Being scared of needles (both me and my mum..heheh) she opted to ask the doctor for something that I can take orally instead, and so the doctor did.  It could've been antibiotics that he prescribed me because after 30 mins of taking the medicine, half my face turned lobster red..!  My fever was even worse then and my mum panicked.  Quickly she took me back to the clinic and asked the doctor what he gave me and what was wrong with me.  The doctor took back the medicine and wrote a letter telling my mum to bring me and show the lettr to the hospital as my fever was increasing to dangerous levels.  I can't remember much then as I was in a daze.

Next I remembered was being stripped naked on the hospital bed with 3 fans blowing at me on high speed and ice packs were being stacked on top of my naked body.  I told my mum I was cold, infact I was shivering but she told me that I needed that coz my fever was 104 Farenheit which was extremely high and dangerous what more to a kid.  Intraveinous saline was poked through my arm and I kinda faded in and out and remembered talking to myself to keep from being bored silly(my mum thought I was losing it and hallucinating due to the high fever).  Next think I knew, my dad came to see me. He was wearing this short sleeved grey bush jacket (typical outift for government officers back then).  He flew to Malacca in an airforce Nuri helicopter from Kuala Lumpur.  Can't remember the details but he was holding this brown plastic toy helicopter which he bought for me.

My fever went down the next day, the IV came off my arm and I was discharged a few days later.  Now everything was fine and dandy, until one day, my mum started to notice some 'changes' in me about a month later.  My face was rounder but she thought because I was just a normal 'healthy' kid who eats too much ice cream and mops around the house all day (hey what was I supposed to do, I was 5 and in Malacca for crying out loud).  The thing that really took my mums notice was that my scrotum was enlarged...and I mean huge!  I guess for a boy of 5, I must've had ones as large as healthy adult caucasion male's but more stretched to its limits :)  I can't even walk right because of my enlarge you-know-what.  So off to the doctor in the hospital I went.  That was when I was diagnosed with "Nephrotic Syndrome".

"The nephrotic syndrome is not itself a disease. But it can be the first sign of a disease that damages the kidney's tiny blood-filtering units, called glomeruli, where urine is made.  The kidneys clean the blood by filtering out excess water and salt and waste products from food.  Healthy kidneys keep protein in the blood, which helps the blood to soak up water from the tissues, but kidneys with damaged filters may let protein leak into the urine.  As a result, not enough protein is left in the blood to soak up the water.  The water then moves from the blood into body tissues which causes swelling.  You may see the swelling around your child's eyes, belly and legs.  Your child may urinate less often than usual and may gain weight the excess water.

The doctor may take a blood sample to see how well the kidneys are removing wastes.  Healthy kidneys remove creatinine and urea nitrogen from the blood.  If the blood containts high levels of these waste products, some kidney damage may have been occurred.  Most children with nephrotic syndrome do not have permanent kidney damage - National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse"

There you go, basically my kidneys was letting out protein when it shouldn't, just like if it lets out sugar you are then.....diabetic.  Right!! Ten points for Red Team!!  So how do I know if I am letting out protein? Simple there is a little stick which you can buy from the pharmacy.  Its called Albustix's and a dip of that stick in urine with protein will change its color.  The darker the color means more protein is being let out by my kidneys which is not good.  So, I was being referred to Universiti Hospital in Kuala Lumpur to a paedetrics kidney specialist, Professor KL Lam.  Prof Lam was this tough, scrawny Chinese doctor with spectacles.  I always remember his corny jokes and his Seiko Diver's watch as he himself is an avid diver and loves to romp in the jungle when he has the free time.  So there I was, going up and down from Malacca to Kuala Lumpur almost every fortnight to have my medical checkup and take my medication which was going to be my staple diet for the next 12 years.  Back then in 1978, there was no highway from Malacca to Kuala Lumpur.  It was back roads all the way till Seremban.  The generic name of the medicine is "corticosteriods" the brand name is Prednisone.  It was this utterly bitter tasting little tiny blue pills (no, not to be mistaken with viagra okay...and along the course of my illness, there was one period that I had to swallow 22 of those pills when I had a bad relapse in Form 3).  This corticosteroids (yes they are steroids so I can't enter any Olympic games hehehe..), what it does is stops the movement of protein from the blood into the urine, but it does have side effects.  One is, like the picture in my previous posting. Yup, made me 'bulat' and some other side effects which I would tell you in person when I see you...and if you ask :P

So there you go, how I got to be 'bulat' like that.  Am I okay now?  Well, when I had the illness back then, I had to do a biopsy, where a small piece of tissue was taken out from my kidneys to be analysed.  I had what they call 'minimal change' which means it usually occurs in children and as they grow up, the illness will just go away.  So whether I am okay now depends on my age.  If I am still 15, nope I'm not okay but since I am already 34 *sigh...I'm old* then its already cured.  Infact I stopped taking the medication after 17 years of age.  I had changed to another specialist, a more renowned one throughout Asia Pacific, Professor Florance Wang.  The reason I had to change was because I grew out of kids age so an adult doctor had to look into me.

The Universiti Hospital was my second home from 1978 ~ 1989.  I had so many relapses with some minor complications along those years.  I have seen trainee nurses become Matrons and student doctors become specialists.  I had learned more medical terms by the age of 9 to tell any doctor my condition in their own language.  My diet then was NO SALT & HIGH PROTEIN diet.  Since salt absorbs water in the bloodstream, and it was difficult for me to pass urine, so salt was a no-no. Bad news coz I couldn't have Pringles and KFC. Good news was that I had chicken for breakfastl, lunch and dinner to keep my protein level up (either baked or steamed), as well as soyabean drinks and beancurd tofu.  I had seen many people pass away on the bed next to mine,  especially children with relapse leukemia to eldery people due to various illness or complications through out my years staying in the hospital from the children's ward to being promoted to the adult's wing.  In a way, I had seen many illness related deaths and I thank God that I'm still okay, alive and living.

My worse relapse when I was in Form 3.  It was beginning of the school year when some kid accidently bumped into me and I feel backwards, the back of my head hitting the cement pavement..FLAT! I thought nothing of it but 3 days later, I had a bad relapse.  That relapse was so bad, that I gained about 20kg of water.  Thats right, just water.  Imagine drinking normally like you do today but passing urine just a teaspoon a day.  It was an agony. I was bloated beyond belief and was crippled to bed in the hospital for 3 months.  Weekly injections of concentrated albumin and a dose of diuretics made me lose 14kg of water within a period of 3 months.  I was so fat, my skin stretched so much and water was seeping through some pores of my skin on my arms, legs and stomach because it couldn't come out the normal way.  That is why I have stretch marks all over my body now due to that worse relapse episode.  I was out of school for 3/4 of the years.  I only attended the first 3 days of school and the last 1 month, and yet I scored full A's on my Sijil Rendah Pelajaran (SRP) with a whole lot of home and hospital private tuiton.

Now I am still maintaining my diet of high protein.  Onced in awhile I do detect some protein in my urine especially when I flush after peeing, there are some bubbles.  As long as I take regular intake of protein and drink enough water, I'm okay.  Until now, the doctors still can't pin point the cause of Nephrotic Syndrome among children.  My many years of research while being in the hospital, talking to patients with my similar illness, I found out all of them had very high fever when they were very young.  So to those of you parents with kids, take care of your children.  High fever can be the source for many illnesses.  Don't take chances when your child has high fever.  Cool your child down as much as possible and go to the hospital or specialist centre and don't let them go through what I had gone through.  It took away most of my childhood fun and also my childhood.  Though I was okay most of the time, I still can't play and participate in most of the sports events and activities due to my condition, and girls during high school? Well that was left only to be desired.  What about the doctor that prescribed me that medicine in Malacca you ask?  Well I don't know what happened to him.  I guess he closed shop after that,  knowing that my dad was the Secretary of State, he could've packed his bags and ran off somewhere.

Hope you had a pleasant read.

Darjah 1 Melur
Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan
Sri Petaling, Petaling Jaya
*spot me contest*

 

Memory Lane

"Selamat petang Yang Berhormat Datuk Mohamad Rahmat, Datuk-Datuk, Datin-Datin, cikgu-cikgu, tuan-tuan dan puan-puan sekelian.  Nama saya ialah Saiful Jazri dari kelas 1 Melur.......*blank*"  Thats it, when I stared at him my mind suddenly went blank.  All that I had rehearsed the night before in the dark because there was a power failure suddenly went missing.  How can this be??

The date was 24th March, 1979.  Location, the school hall of Sekolah Sri Petaling, Petaling Jaya.  It was my school's speech and prize giving day (hari ucapan dan penyampaian hadiah).  It was my first year in school and already 3 months into it, I had to give a speech...on stage...infront of the then Minister of Education, Datuk Mohamad Rahmat and some few hundred parents and teachers.

I was one of the selected standard 1 pupils to be chosen to give a speech during that day.  The preliminary round started 2 months before that.  I was asked to go to the teacher's room and say who I am and which class I was in.  Well..sorta about that.  Then I was told by my teacher that I was shortlisted from 11 pupils to only 4.  Later on, I learned that I  wasn't the chosen one to give the speech.  So how did I end up on stage in the end?

It seems that the boy who was supposed to give that speech, had fever or measels or something like that, and oh yeah...my teacher Puan Kamariah, informed me like 3 days before the speech day.  Right...let's see..which button says PANIC!  Luckily my parents helped me a lot.  I was required to give a short speech, telling everyone who I am, which class I was in and yeah...around that area. So okay cool I thought, easy peasy lemon squeezy.  So I wrote down what I wanted to say.  Nothing long, just some stuff about meself..and voila! Done!  So I memorized and rehearesed the next 2 days until the night before the speech day...power failure.  I remember rehearsing my speech with candle light that night.

Okay so the next day, all prepped up I was being staged behind the stage (no puns intended). Anxiously, I waited for my turn.  Sweat already beading up on my forehead.  I could feel my heart beating faster.  Imagine, being on stage, talking to so many people and I'm only 7 years old!  My dad said "If you get nervous, just imagine all those people naked".  Ok, that didn't help either as I peeked through the side door behind the stage and saw my teacher and oh..who's that..the VIP, Datuk Mohamad Rahmat.  Ok, be cool...and I paced back and forth and then...I heard my name being called for the speech.  There was a big clap from the parents and teachers.  I took a deep breath and confidently strutted out and up on stage.  There I was, standing infront of hundreds of people and the only ones I know are my parents (my dad was waving at the back frantically trying to catch my attention) and my teachers sitting down there.  I looked at my dad and started my speech confidently. "Selamat petang Yang Berhormat Datuk Mohamad Rahmat...." and I glanced thru the crowd as I gave my speech.  My eyes roamed around looking at all the smiling parents and teachers until my roaming suddenly came to an abrupt halt at the VIP's face, Datuk Mohamad Rahmat.  Then I went blank.  Totally blank!  Shit (okay I didn't use that term then..hey I was only 7 okay..so sue me!) I tried hard to remember but I just couldn't.  Suddenly I found myself sweating profusely, mouth agape.  I had no idea what the next line was.  I found myself looking away and up to the ceiling while scratching my head, trying to remember.  Scoffs and laughter started to resound from the crowd.  It was an agonizing 30 seconds of humiliation.

Suddenly it came back to me as quickly as I had forgotten it.  I continued my speech, never looking back down at the VIP.  I concentrated my view down the hall to my parents and I continued talking like the stage was on fire...and it came to the end and I stepped down.  Hurriedly I made my way backstage even when the crowd was still applauding, to where my teacher looked at me with her big smiling and hugged me.  She said, its okay, people make mistakes and let me tell you, that is one that I can do without.  While backstage I heard the VIP giving his speech, and he opened up by commenting about MY SPEECH and how I quickly recovered and wasn't embarrassed about it.  He was suprised by my bravery to come up on stage and give a speech at such a very young age.

I truly owe that experience to where I am now.  I now do product presentations to many levels of people, from a small group of higher management people to even hundreds on a stage.  It made me realise that stage fright is nothing at all.  Onced you're up there, facing a few or hundreds of people, doesn't really matter.  Getting butterflies in the stomach is common.  You can't get rid of that.  Even the most professional speakers and Toastmasters still have butterflies in their stomachs before they start their speeches. The only thing you can do is, make the butterflies fly in formation or aligned themselves.  Don't let if fly everywhere.  Infact, I was the emcee for my company's event for 5 straight years and even had comments from the deejays that I should do part time emceeing.  I guess that portion of my life though was embarrassing then, now some 27 years later, no body remembered, except for my parents and me.  I thank my parents for being there that day.  Without them, I'd prolly still be scratching my head.

Hope you had a pleasant read.

 

My Generation

Lately I have been in a nostalgic mood.  Thinking of the days of yore and the good 'ole days back when I was small.  What got me into this mood probably was due to reading Lat comic books again.  My 9 year old nephew is starting to get to know Lat.  To those who are not customed to who Lat is, he can be considered as our 'national' cartoonist.  Having a regular comic column in News Straits Times, he usually pokes at the daily concerns in life, politics and the public.  Any news material he reads, can be turned into a comical parody.

Reading back the Lat comic book collection made me reminisce of my younger days.  Now my memory serves me well after my family came back from UK in 1975.  Somehow, I guess my storage starts then, at the age of 4.  Can't remember much before hand, except there were lots of pigeons, being in a stroller most of the time and being bundled up in thick sweaters.  Guess that must've meant I was in a cold country hence my dad's finishing touches for his Masters.

1975, we were in Malacca.  The very famous port for any traders and trading ship back in the 1400's.  In 1975, it was well...kinda quiet.  I remember very well, that television only came in preset dials where you turn a huge knob to get a channel.  Well, the only channel we had was Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), the one and only tv station.  We only had 2 channels and both were in black and white.  The 'hit' radio station back then was FM Stereo Radio Malaysia at 95.3MHz.  FM Stereo was the only 'stereo' broadcasted radio channel and is only transmitted at specific hours.  I remember my dad coming home for lunch and he would lounge after his lunch and read newspapers while listening to his Sansui 3 piece hi-fi system.  I remembered turning the analog dial till the needle touched 95. something and the word 'Stereo' would light up in red.  The radio channel would only be transmitted from 10am - 3pm and 9pm - 12am daily.  At night, before the station starts playing at 9pm, they would come out with a radio test.  Most radios then had only 1 speaker so for those who have hi-fi sets and in car radio's would listen to the 9pm test, to make sure their 'stereo' sets were working well.  It would start by a lady saying that the guitar should be on the left speaker and the drums would be on the right speaker and then they would mix both together to get the stereo sound.  All these would take 5 minutes before the radio program starts.  FM Stereo then would play mostly Jazz and Classical music to appreciate the 'stereo' sound.

That radio channel was considered to be the 'elite' radio channel coz not to many people have stereo hi-fi sets at home.  My dad had the complete hi fi set with a 100W amplifier/tuner, a tape deck and a record player, all hooked up to this 2 big 3-way speaker.  It was a good set and it still is.  We enjoyed the simpler songs then.  I still remember Malay groups like Handy Black, Black Dog Bone with their songs 'Gadis Ayu' and 'Geram'.  Hail Amir, Uji Rashid, DJ Dave, Sharifah Aini, M Daud Kilau were some of the favourite singers then.  My sister was crazy over Shaun Cassidy and the Famous Five and Teen Beat magazine. I remembered my brother buying an electronic watch.  It was deemed to the revolutionary watch.  It was an LED watch.  Back then, watches with LED were the 'in' thing and it was the most modern thing ever.  You press a button to check the time and the red LED lights would light up.  Unfortunately, the batteries don't last long due to the nature of the construction of the watch.

When we moved to KL in 1979, disco was the hype.  Well it actually started a few years back and me and my brother started a small disco record collection.  Donna Summer is a must have and so is Saturday Night Fever.  Then came American Graffiti and Thank God Its Friday.  We stopped buying Malay records and our English records started to pile up.  City Boys, Blondie, Black Sabbath, Michael Shenker Group, Pink Floyd, Foreigner, The Cars, Thin Lizzy were part of our staple songs.  I grew up on these songs. 

Television started going color but we already had a color TV even when we were in Malacca.  My dad bought a National Panasonic Quintrix color television.  Now this had preset buttons instead of the dial on our black n white tv but still no remote control feature.  We watched Singapore tv channels back then with our 20 foot fishbone antenna pointing towards the south.  It was in color so when the late Tun Hussein Onn launched 'color' tv channels in Malaysia, we weren't really impressed.

We didn't have VCD or DVD's back in the early 80's and TV channels were only limited to RTM Channel 1 and 2 and with limited viewing times.  VCRs (Video Tape Recorders) were starting to flourish.  There were 2 types of VCR the 8mm and VHS.  Somehow the VHS took the consumer market by storm.  Each VHS blank tape of 120mins would cost around RM30.00.  Imagine back then, in the early 80's, thats a lot of moolah for a blank tape.  Video rental shops start mushrooming in every township, with a deposit of RM50, you get to bring home 3 movie tapes with the cost of RM3.00 each.  That was when I watched most of dad's favourite movies (coz I knew nothing of movies then) which consisted of mostly WWII and western flicks.  Due to lack of entertainment, the only other option is the cinema.

We didn't have cineplexes then.  We had real cinemas.  I mean, one whole building only showed 1 movie at a time and it was grand.  Everytime a new movie comes in, the queue for the tickets would be long and grand.  I miss the old fashion cinema's where there are 2 lines for tickets.  Those sitting downstairs are considered 2nd class and those sitting upstairs were considered 1st class.  Tickets were limited to 4 per customer and there is no such thing as calling or advanced booking.  You want to watch a movie?  Come earlier and buy the tickets.  The ticket counter person would tick the rows on a piece of paper with all the seating numbers.  If you wanted 4 tickets, he/she will cross out 4 seats with a black  or red crayon.  Hawkers would line up the street outside the cinema and sell kuaci, varieties of asam, drinks and hot dogs and burgers.  In the earlier days, you can buy your burger outside with an orange drink and bring it inside and watch the movie.  You can actually bring anything you want while watching the movie except for durians.  You get to hear the crack of the kuaci at every other seat, the smell of burgers loafting and the russle of plastic bags as people take out their snacks while watching the movie.  The majestic and grand cinema to go to would be Cathay and Imbi Cinema at Jalan Bukit Bintang and Rex at Petaling Street.  Those I frequent to when schooling was Paramount cinema in PJ, Ruby Cinema in Sea Park, Sentosa at section 17 and another one in Taman Tun Dr Ismail.  Sadly, these cinema's started dying when shopping malls introduced cineplexes in them.

How would we contact our parents then when we were out?  Public phone is the answer or ask your friends' parents to call your parents when you are at your friends houses.  Mobile phone?  What's that?  Oh, in the 80's mobile phones came with their own battery packs as big as  handbag and you need to lug it around.  Those of you young ones won't know how and appreciate how the handphone came about.  It was this briefcase like devices with the receiver attached to it and an nifty little antenna.  These were 'mobile' phones and those in the car had 'car phones' which is stuck to be used inside the car.  The 1st mobile phone I tried was my dad's Nokia 101 and it was one of the best phones then.  Well mobile phones did just that, make and receive calls with limited phonebook.  There were no color screens, there was no camera, no musical ringing tones.  Thats a mobile phone.

I have seen both worlds, the times when we almost had nothing to a lot of things such as the internet and technology.  Have you ever wondered why is it that with all these technology which is supposed to speed things up and give us more time, is infact, leaving us with less time?  My dad then could go home and have lunch and go back to work without much problems.  He had no computers, no handphones no pagers and he had a lot of time.  We have computers, the internet, fax and so many other technological things to help us with our work so that we don't have to spend much time.  How come I don't seem to have much left, except for writing useless stuff like these?  Guess I better stop in time before I hyperspace to oblivion.  I miss the good ole days...sigh.

Reality Bliss

Last night, I attended my company's annual dinner.  Been attending to such functions for 8 years in a row and everytime it was almost the same doldrum thing.  The usual boring round tables and bland mobile deejay music with the usual question & answers or table draws.  This year it was different.

Much to my suprise, a 3 piece band consisting of a pianist, a double bassist and a drummer was brought on stage with a lady singer.  I thought it was going to be one of those normal live band that puts out the latest pop/rock songs.  Instead they were belting out Jazz tunes!  Songs from old blue eyes, Dean Martin, Laura Fygi were sung by the lovely lady in a white dress.  It truly complimented the dinner which I found was not your usual 7 course chinese food.  This time the dinner was truly different as it was more of a chinese fusion approach starting with the 4 season starters which had baked stuffed crab, savoury octupus and other stuff.  Next came the spinach stuffed ravioli in thick soup and the chicken...my oh my...the chicken, was to die for.  It was rolled up and baked and cut into slices.  It was almost perfect when I took a bite out of the chicken listening to 'Sway' live on stage.

It was always my dream to start a fancy Jazz restaurant.  Imagine this scenario.  You walk into this softly lit restaurant.  To enter, for men, you need at least a jacket and tie and for ladies a dress is a must.  You listen to live Jazz songs being played as you are having your dinner.  Songs like Sway, Quesas quesas quesas, Summertime, Come fly with me, Misty and other tunes from Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble, Dean Martin, Neil Sedaka, Pat Boone and the likes and the soft click clacking of utensils amidsts soft murmurs of the patrons' conversations.  This restaurant would be famous to those who would want to propose for marriage, business deals or to just plain celebrate an occasion.  For the single ladies, if your boyfriend brings you to this restaurant, it is a sure way of knowing that he would be proposing for marriage or for business people having dinner there would usually mean getting a contract or a big business deal.  It is the restaurant for celebrations and will leave them with happy memories that last a lifetime.

So, there I was, brought back down to reality.  It wasn't a fancy restaurant serving great fusion and mediteranean food.  There were no fancy decorations or half circle red cushioned sofas that seats for 6.  There weren't any happy couples holding hands over the candle lit table with Dom Perignon.  There wasn't any pheasant under glass or broiled lobster.  Instead we had 7 course chinese fusion food, 640 collegues wearing compulsory denim look alike shirt and the traditional 'Yam Seng' reverberating from each corner of the ballroom, but the Jazz music played on...and people appreciated it and clapped after each song.  It truly was my night.  As I took small bites of the oven baked chicken, inhaling the smell while chewing on the food and swayed to the music of Jazz, throughout the dinner, I closed my eyes, imagining my own Jazz restaurant that I would own and run...one day.

My Bliss #2

A 3 inch thick Kobe beef steak, medium rare with a touch of mustard on the side and a bottle of Chablis.  Mmmm.....

My Bliss #1

Is to drive around at night, after a heavy rain while listening to Norah Jones, Michael Buble or Renee Oldstead on a good set of In Car Entertainment with someone on the side, just after a romantic candle light dinner. Bliss....