Saturday, September 27, 2008

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri Syawal 1429

Prep School 1990

MCKK Scholarship Workshop 2008


Time flies too quickly lately (and the hair thins even quicker). It feels as if yesterday that we conducted the annual workshop on scholarship for 0307, now it’s been a year.

Finding a date to lock is always a challenge – the amount of activities, seminars and others that the boys have to go through nowadays makes our life back then looked like a stroll in the park. We had to settle for 20 September 2008 despite my schedules which were quite packed that weekend – so it had to be a one day event (it always took 2 days in the previous years).

I personally have a soft spot with this batch – 0408 (tak de kena mengena dgn their physical appearance; in case Haji Botchap jumps on the opportunity to make a mess down here) because it is a batch that I have followed since they were in Form 1. I have known the debaters since they were in Form 1 and the hockey players were the first batch that we truly look after in full. They were many other boys that we come across at PPM etc.

Apart from the torture of having to speak and stand for close to 7 hours during Ramadhan (and with only 3 hours sleep before, leaving KL at 5 am), the rest went well. I had to cut short many modules and doing a workshop during Ramadhan for boys is always challenging (understandably they were tired) – but all in all whatever major messages that needed to be parted to them, all was covered.

Two previous Headboys (Rozairee Class of 06 and Aleng Class of 07) followed me (or more like forced to follow me) and they helped a lot. My concern was whether we have enough people to do this – with the right skill and knowledge – when I eventually call it a day. It does feel weird that each year you see a batch leaving koleq yet you are exactly at the same spot you were.

Like previous years, they were some boys who chose not to attend – small number but enough to irk some of us who put this together. I have done this year in and year out – it’s inevitable that some choose to “give up” even before the battle begins. We can never save everyone – the beauty of this life is that help, when extended to people who want to help themselves, will have the multiplier effect whose result is beyond our own imagination. Liberation only unlocks the freedom of mind and body only to those who want to be liberated, so we learnt in this life over and over again. So to whoever who one day might continue this – don’t despair; MCKK was never made great by the majority; it’s the minority who achieved greatness and brought greatness to MCKK.

My best wishes to Class of 0408 – another batch leaves the MCKK gates. May they do wonders and do justice to the five years they were there, just as the people before them had done.

Photos here.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Pesta Sahur Class of 94


Sebelum nasib aku menjadi sama seperti Pak Lah (iaitu menghadapi tekanan dari pelbagai pihak) sebab lambat menulis blog Pesta Sahur Class of 94, terpaksalah aku ponteng kerja nak update blog.

Things worth noting from last weekend's Pesta Sahur:

ATTENDANCE

  • Could have been better, I think it was around 25+ but did not confirm the final tally
  • Epit as the event organiser perlulah menerima hakikat bahawa as we get older, hanya orang2 yang tidak cintakan 10 Ramadhan terakhir yang hadir ke pesta-pesta lagha seperti ini
  • Attendance: Epit, Mpro, Chibiok, Badut & Red, Chamat, Fadhil, Kuchai, Shahid, Aiwa, Syam, Fido, Fendy, Azrin Madin, Ska, Kadak, Fadli, Syed Asrul, Radin, Fitt, Abon, Hairol, Idzam, Ein, Cop (sapa lagi aku tertinggal? Banyak yg balik awal without tunggu ambik gambo)


  • FOOD/VENUE

  • Actually it was better than PJ Hilton, but most of us were too full anyway (even Aiwa!) that for the amount of food we consumed, it was quite a steep price. Most of us only have one plate, so the bulk of what was paid went to the venue itself
  • It was very crowded (at least nampak sangatlah bukan kitorang je yang tak bangun malam nak beribadat, banyak lagi rakyat Malaysia macam ni) and very noisy (what with a Filipino band singing!) so we had to shout most of the time


  • SPECIAL APPEARANCE

  • The prize for the most priceless appearance definitely will have to go to Saudara Azrin Madin, a Sabahan whom we have not seen since 1994. He hasn't changed a bit - banyak lah yang ambik peluang nak ambik gambor takut2 lambat pulak jumpa (but then he's in Ara Damansara now anyway, tak payah nak trace ni)
  • En Kadaque mewakili geng JariMentega pun ada jugak hadir - tapi macam wakil rakyat ha ha. En Kadaque berjanji nak bagi signed poster Butterfinger (and album sekali kan?) as prizes for Mighty Ducks Cup in a month's time. Project Director (Mpro/Epit) - sila2 lah buat baik dgn En Kadaque selepas ini.
  • Fadli yang baru je landed from Melbourne (macam mana from Houston sesat kat Melbourne pun aku tak tahu) datang terus dengan ditemani Pak Tuan


  • DOOR GIFT

  • Door gift pada tahun ini adalah pau Yut Loy (ha ha) disponsor oleh Sdr Chibiok (dia ikhlas) and aku (aku tak ikhlas ha ha)
  • Kebetulan I was in KK on Saturday conducting this year's annual Scholarship Workshop for the Fifth Formers
  • I got a call from Chibiok with his usual keselambaan "eyyhh aku dah tempah pau kat Yut Loy for sahur, nanti kau pegi ambik"
  • The following SMS ensued:
  • "tp aku orang Islam, aku x makan pau Yut Loy"
  • "Chamat ckp kau boleh makan pau Yut Loy"
  • Maka berbekalkan fatwa dari Chamat, aku yang seumur hidup tak pernah makan pau Yut Loy (ye laaa kena lah jaga track record as bekas Presiden BRU) pun terpaksa berbuka dengan pau Yut Loy
  • Ha ha ha patut la orang beratur, the beef/chicken pau was really nice
  • Last2 malam tu semua tapau pau Yut Loy buat balik, malangnya aku dapat pau kaya yang agaklah kurang best


  • TRICK OF THE NIGHT

  • Badut bukak cerita sedih pasal team hockey koleq and suka-duka jadi Bapak Itik
  • Aku yang dok peghati punya lah nak gelak sbb nampak sangat dia nak meraih simpati (nasi tambah dia boleh tahan la)
  • Padahal ni dah dekat dengan zaman nak menagih duit - we need around RM5k each year around this time to last until February next year - so Badut buat buka kesian sebab lepas ni nak pergi mintak duit
  • Lepas ni banyak la yang dapat SMS mintak sumbangan ha ha ha


  • HIGHLIGHTS

  • Aiwa - the pictures are better than a thousand of my words to illustrate why apa2 function pun, Aiwa aka Wan Ismail Golok aka Sabri Yunus will be the highlight
  • Rancangan aku ngn Chamat nak print puzzle tu and distribute next reunion kat anak2 budak batch suruh diorang teka bontot sapa dalam gambar tu







  • Epit janji tahun depan kita tak kacau malam 10 terakhir Ramadhan ha ha. But it was good catching up, I personally was too tired to eat or to talk much, since I was awake for the last 24 hours by then and had to endure 9 hrs of standing and speaking in Hargreaves Hall masa bulan puasa, before driving back all the way to catch up with the sahur event.

    On a different note - Jita could not make it last minute because his wife delivered a baby boy that night :-)

    ps: Calon utama nak kena buang batch - Bobo @ E81. Aku call dia malam tu sbb dia janji nak dtng, dia tak angkat. Esok pagi dpt sms "alamak sorry tertido, aku baru bangun ngn wahida he he" pukul 11 pagi.

    More photos here

    Sunday, September 14, 2008

    Pesta Sahur 1429H/2008M

    1) Seperti biasa setiap tahun kami mengadakan Pesta Sahur [Nota 1]. Ia bukanlah sebab kami mengada-ngada nak berbeza dengan orang lain yang mengadakan jamuan berbuka, tetapi sebab lebih banyak masa untuk berborak. Selalunya dari pukul 12 tengahari hingga 6 pagi.

    2) Pesta Sahur ini telah melebihi 10 kali diadakan tiap-tiap tahun.

    3) Tahun ini Pesta Sahur akan diadakan di Hotel Concorde pada pagi 21 September (Ahad minggu depan). Silalah datang, kalau tak peluang nama anda akan masuk senarai yang no dobinya bakal dilelong menjadi semakin tinggi.

    4) Semalam ada prelude kepada Pesta Sahur, tetapi melibatkan Bapak2 (dan Mak) Itik. Yang empunya diri bersama-sama Teruna Tertua KNO bersantai bersama-sama En JoeHari-Mau (yang dah jadi jet setter pusing keliling dunia sejak bekerja dengan syarikat terbesar dunia) dan En Badut dan isterinya Puan Badut.

    5) Alasannya nak membincangkan mengenai Anak-anak Itik di Kuala, memandangkan Mighty Ducks Cup makin dekat. Kemudian ada pertandingan USM Open iaitu kejohanan hoki terbesar di Malaysia. Lagipun dah lama kami abaikan mereka, sebab nak berikan sedikit pengajaran selepas pelbagai krisis yang berlaku sebelum ini.

    6) Muqadimahnya mengambil masa 4 jam, hanya pada pukul 2 pagi perbincangan sebenar bermula. Nasib baik En dan Pn Badut tidak mempunyai anak-anak Badut di rumah.

    7) Rasanya begini jugalah jadinya dengan Pesta Sahur nanti – kalau pun ada sebarang perbincangan serius yang hendak dibuat, muqadimahnya akan mengambil masa yang panjang. Muqadimah ini selalunya berkisar kepada perkara kutuk mengutuk yang telah diulang berulang kali.

    8) Jadi sama-sama kita mengeratkan silaturrahim di Pesta Bersahur minggu depan, di sini disertakan gambar-gambar dari Pesta Bersahur tahun lepas. Gambar-gambar diambil dari Power Point presentation Fadli yang saiznya meletupkan Kotak Surat kami dan berlatar belakangkan warna biru senantiasa.

    9) Penulisan blog kali ini menggunapakai cara Che Det.




    NOTA 1

    Nama Pesta Sahur ini telah dibantah oleh bakal Ahli Parlimen bebas Bukit Bendera dari parti “Aku Hanya Seorang Pendatang” (nyanyikan ala-ala Franscesca Peter) iaitu Tn Syed Khalid – kerana Pesta itu seolah-olah menggambarkan perkara-perkara yang tidak membawa manfaat dan mengundang dosa.

    En Hafiznizam selaku penganjur cepat-cepat menafikan dia pernah berkata demikian. Mujur sekarang tidak lagi ada sesiapa yang dikenakan ISA kerana perkara ini.

    NOTA 2

    Laman web ini ditukar sedikit konfigurasinya sebagai menerima kritikan dari Sdr Awie Kartun Lidi yang tak sudah-sudah mengomel mengenai penatnya jari-jarinya terpaksa scroll dari kiri ke kanan.

    YM Raja Petra Kamaruddin


    So Pete got himself busted with ISA again – it’s de javu. The first time Pete went to ISA in 2001 (if I am not mistaken), I was in the thick of things. Now I just pray he will be fine, but he is a tough boy (sometimes too tough for his own good) so he will be fine this time too.

    I first met YM Raja Petra from afar in 1992, he was the emcee for the Old Boys Weekend Annual Concert in Hargreaves Hall that year. I remember him commented out loud that Nahar Hakimi (Class of 92) was quite a jambu when introducing the present boys’ band to the crowd.

    Our path crossed again because of what happened in 1998. It was a co-incidence really – I was in the UK and was already doing some groundwork contacting MPs etc. to highlight the issues in the UK and Europe, he needed help with Free Anwar Campaign. He needed a writer; someone to feed him news constantly and as he correctly expected – one day he would need a spare webmaster when he eventually is arrested under ISA.

    We never met until I came back in 2003, but we were constantly in touch. I called him, he SMS me and when the going got tough for his family here, Pete and Kak Marina decided to send their two sons to the UK to try to make a living. I helped place them with a keADILan supporter in Manchester, a very nice chap by the name of Abang Saufi who tried their level best to make life easy for the two boys, knowing the sacrifice that their parents were doing in Malaysia (and life was tough financially for Pete at the time).

    You see, we were the unwanted lot those days – nobody wanted to associate let alone help anyone with a keADILan tag on their forehead; so 2-3 of us had to look after each other.

    When he was taken in in 2001, we had agreed before hand that “the show must go on” (maybe in tribute to hockey team’s mantra “Rain or Shine” ha ha). For 52 days I was manning the Free Anwar Campaign website from London, the news kept on flowing despite Pete’s arrest. Until now I chuckled once in a while how it must have baffled them then that there was a back up and Pete’s arrest did not shutdown the website.

    Luckily Pete was released after 52 days – it was a great relief. First, because we were all concerned about his safety. Second, I began to fret if he were to be detained under the customary 2-year sentence in Kamunting and I would have to maintain the website for longer than necessary (those days you have to use Dreamweaver to come up with the html page and manually link and upload the files to the internet on a dial up connection!)

    But we can only plan and Allah’s disposal is the finality.

    Life goes on and I came back without any brouhaha and spent another one year being very close to Pete. Even from the time I was abroad, I had written for Suara Keadilan and Pete was the editor – so we continued writing until we parted ways in late 2003.

    There were a few times we went on demonstration together – and after one such demo against the war on Iraq in 2003, Pete and I went for a nasi ayam in Ampang. That was the last time we saw each other until another co-incidence brought our path briefly together again in 2007.

    In October 2007, arwah Ben insisted that I joined him for a meeting of concerned activists with YTM Tengku Tan Sri Razaleigh at his residence in Ampang, where I met Pete and Kak Marina again. It took him a while to recognise me since I put on a lot of weight (so he claimed!).

    I was supposed to have a berbuka puasa with YB Machang and a few others last Wednesday and Pete was actually there, but had to cancel last minute because things in office dragged on. If I had gone, I would have met him before he got arrested.

    After I withdrew from official partisan politics, I kept to myself and concentrated on my work and the boys in MCKK. In politics, rumours dominate the day – there was one time I think Pete must have thought that I sold out.

    Some of my batchmates, in the early days, asked me why I foolishly did what I did knowing the risk to myself and family. In public, you would passionately explain your ideals and how what you were doing were the most patriotic thing a citizen should have done.

    But the truth is always simpler – it’s the friendship and MCKK. I never met Raja Petra in person but decided to help him nevertheless; because he was an MCKK brother in distress. He needed help and on top of that he was actually doing a pretty decent thing – trying to uphold the truth. If I, a fellow MCKK boy did not help him, then what chance would he have. All the years writing many articles and news for Suara Keadilan and Free Anwar Campaign was simply because the editor for both was Raja Petra Kamaruddin – a fellow MCKK in distress.

    And the truth is – it was the same motive that had driven me to my political activism circa 1998 – 2003 in the first place – Anwar Ibrahim was a fellow budak koleq, whom I thought had been victimised.

    That is how powerful the MCKK bond in my book – I am sure too if one day calamity befalls me, there are others who will put their neck the way many of us had put for other MCKK boys before.

    Pete reminds me of Peter Pan and Wendy. Pete never grows up, I always joke that he is trapped in his hippie youth – still thinking about a crusade against everything. It’s always about adventure and excitement to him I guess. If Pete was Peter Pan, many of us were Wendy. We aged faster than him and after a while craved less and less for adventure – so while Pete continued, we withdrew. But like Wendy, we never turned back on the past and never did once we sell out.

    I pray that he will be fine (but he’s a tough boy so he will be fine). I tell myself that I will make an effort to see him and buy him a drink and nasi ayam when he comes out eventually.

    We should all pray for him too regardless of what we think of his approach [Note 1].

    NOTE 1

    I think you either love Raja Petra or hate him. Some of the comments made at his portal were downright racist, insulting and inciting hatred. I agree that sometimes the comments crossed the line.

    But we have enough draconian laws to punish this kind of deeds – most probably under the Sedition Act. Go after the irresponsible people who continue to fan racial and religious hate and make an example of them.


    Wednesday, September 03, 2008

    Ucapan Raya Warta KPKM v2008


    Jawatan aku sebagai Chief Editor Warta KPKM (maka secara automatik bertanggungjawab mengelolakan ucapan raya dalam edisi khas Warta setiap tahun) telah dirampas secara tidak terhormat oleh En Khairul Nizam Omar (KNO).

    On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 10:29 AM, KNizam <knizam94@gmail.com> wrote:

    saya dengan ini mengucapkan selamat berpuasa kepada rakan2 di perantauan terutama kepada :

    belly di uk - kerja rajin2. jgn lupa tabung migduck. haha
    wawan di uk - study ke stado ?
    abon di uk - audit jangan tak audit. hahaj
    ures di finland - nokia latest edition sattuuu !
    fazurin di usa - bungkuskan mac air sebijik ya
    chamat di beijing - lousy t-shirt dua k
    mior di australia - takde voucher caltex kah ? haha
    ja di jepun - ko biler nak balik weeiiii
    joe di singkapoh - dah beli tiket balik raya ? hehe
    doc madad di uk - biler nak bukak klinik neh doc ?
    pica di dubai - eh ko ada kat dubai ke kat shah alam neh ? tipu kah ? haha

    sapa2 lagi di perantauan.... ?? sapperrrr ? hehe

    awie - katun lidi sattuuuu !

    On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 10:37 AM, mASruL nAziR <mmasrulmnj@gmail.com> wrote:

    bapak betik mesti bengkek dgn kau sebab lupakan Jija...top spammer forwarder pun kau boleh lupa...tak patut betul la....

    On Behalf Of KNizam Sent: Friday, 29 August 2008 10:39 AM

    ya ampun jija.....haha addendum
    fadli di singkapoh - carpool ngan joe kah balik raya ? haha

    M Nadzrie B Azhar to koleq9094 Aug 29 (6 days ago)

    Apasal lak abon kat UK…. Bukan ke dia dah balik Malaysia?.... Toje di rantau abang….

    .... dan selepas itu banyak la pulak addendum nya.

    Sebagai memenuhi amalan setiap tahun (padahal baru last year start kat blog ni), maka dengan ini dilancarkan Ucapan Raya Sepanjang Ramadhan (URSR - macam nama parti pulak) bagi tahun 2008. Saya mulakan dengan ucapan khas:

    Dari : Noni Kapet
    Kepada : Haji Bochap
    Ucapan : "sayangkan anak tangan-tangankan, sayangkan maid seterika-seterikakan"

    Sambung-sambunglah dedikasi raya di bawah - rekod tahun lepas 120. Tengok tahun ni boleh beat ke tak!

    POSTNOTE

    Gambo klasik kat atas tu gambo puppies2 batch di NH (i.e. F3 NH) tahun 1992, termasuklah Abang Kadaq kita dengan spek gelapnya. Ni kat Common Room kot - kenapa gambo ni jadi theme ucapan raya, aku pun tak tahu. Aku ciplak KNO punya.