Politik Dalam Mentulas

Brace yourself for this - I am not sure whether it's a sign of mid-life crisis and we are just too bored and too lazy to do anything more useful; or we have the penchant for turning anything serious to comical.

Mulanya begini:

Epit:


Tuan Prez, Kepala Budak & Fellow MI,

Adalah saya dengan ini memaklumkan saya dan Mpro akan menghadiri Majlis MCOBA Annual Dinner 2010 yang berlangsung di Istana Hotel pada 12 Disember 2010 akan datang. Kami telah mendapat dua tempat percuma, ditawarkan oleh seorang MCOB yang minta namanya dirahsiakan.

Semoga pemergian kami direstui!!!

Terima kasih.

(Nota: batch ni memang tersangat jarang pergi MCOBA Dinner ha2. Sapa-sapa yang pergi selalunya kena berhempas pulas justify yang dia tak mengkhianati semangat UniteFect!)

Chibiok:

semoga anda mendapat keberkatan dlm majlis tersebut

Ein:

adakah di s sponsor oleh XXX?

Epit:

Tidakkk!!!!!

Chibiok:

adakah budak2 batch XXX yg sponsor??

Epit:

apa ni Kepala Budak? tadi doakan keberkatan, sekarang dah question sapa sponsor. tak baik la cam ni.

(Epit dah panic. Saat ini jelas Epit cuba menyembunyikan sesuatu. The dagger is out ha ha)

Ezam:

Beliau cuma mewakili bapak2 budak yg lain bertanya. Tak salahkan?

Abu Usama:

Kepala budak tak mahu ada unsur2 rasuah, sbb tu dia tanya.

Epit:

Tapi bukan XXX atau sesiapa yang berkaitan dengan XXX.

Bukan sponsor yang jadi isu di sini. Aku hanya nak maklumkan kami akan meneyrtai program itu. Tak mahu nanti dikatakan beralih arah kepada YYYYY.

Rough:

errr kita kena tahu sponsor sapa.

sbb kalau yg sponsornya XYXY, maksudnya epit & mpro telah menjadi trojan horse dlm MI.

ini cobaan memecahkan MI.

Abu Usama:

Konek depa berdua perlu di kasi!

Epit:

saya akan dedahkan pada masa dan ketika yang sesuai.

Rough:

sah2 trojan horse.

lepas ni dia akan buat komen persoalkan ketokohan Pres kita. Lepas tu dia persoalkan nama Mentula sbg lucah.

ini perancangan besar YYYYY nk pecah belahkan kita.

epit kata nak dedahkan pada masa yg sesuai, sama mcm zaid kata nak resign tp effective di masa depan.

corak trojan horse.

kah3.

ckp je la epit.

Ezam:

Kenapa menghukum.

Ada bukti ke Gadap?

Mana? Mana? Haha

Rough:

bab2 pegang & tekan konek, gadap x perlukan bukti. ada peluang, tangkap & ramas je ha3

Mattop:

abis epit kena pressure...

Epit:

aku ada masalah la pulak ni.

dinner tu sabtu ni, aku kat Sg Petani. aisehhhh...tapi sponsor kata hari Ahad 12/12...

Kak Ramlah:

Hmm... Tetiba kan, Pit. :-D.

(Eyh, I pun boleh buat cameo jugak tau..... )

Rough:

ha3 ada kah ini cara epit utk menyelamatkan diri dr mendedahkn sapa taiko di blkg trojan horse?

epit decide mengundur diri sbb x berani, tp dari ckp tak pergi, dia kata dia confuse date. kah3.

Auzir:

adakah kau rasa epit akan keluar batch dan buat batch baru Raf?

Ada sambutan tak?

Chibix:

Epit tgh karangkan pengakuan bersumpah dan mencari rumah selamat di London. Berita terbaru diterima. Adakah ini benar epit?

Ein:

ahahaha... epit sudah tertekan!!!! ... err, gadap, cuba ramas telur dan konek anda sendiri. telur dan konek org lain jugak ko nak ramas. hahahah!

Rough:

aku rasa sah epit akan keluar batch. dia tngh call semua kawan2 baik dia untuk keluar batch, buat batch baru.

budak2 utagha, korang kena ingat epit telah abandon korang. so jgn cuba2 nak join batch baru epit.

yg kelakarnya, mpro yang sblum ni nak bersama2 epit, skrng dah diam. aku rasa dia akn pledge support kepada Mentula & Tuan Prez, maka keseorangan lah epit.

ha ha sapa sponsornya epit?

Auzir:

aku rasa epit patut meletak jawatan... ini untuk megelakkan batch kita dari perpecahan....

aku akan hanya taat setia kepada tuan prez saja..hehehe

Ezam:

Epit ajak NS chapter sekali.

Aku akan tg pandangan akar umbi.

Auzir:

kalau epit betul2 setia sama batch..aku cadangkan dia buat open table nasi arab kat jalan ampang..

ada beranik?

Hucs Je:

aku nak join batch epit...nanti bila aku masuk utk timbalan pres, tak menang, aku akan suggest epit tinggalkan batch baru dia , bagi org lain memimpin....contohnya aku..

mcm pernah ku dgr konsep kurang ajar begini

Hucs Je:

cakap pasal nasi arab, baru2 ni epit suruh aku belanja nasi arab sbb mintak no tepon DR Khairel Rafezi.....adakah ini style batch 94 (baru) ? komisen tak setimpal dgn effort?

yeah..mari pressure epit!

Chibix:

Itu adalah petanda2 awal pemerintahan batch baru. Komisen adalah budaya tolong-menolong.

Auzir:

pyan..aku tela mengisytiharkan sokongan pada tuan prez kiter...style ini sudah lama diguna pakai oleh ahli batch..epit antara orang yang selalu kena belanja...

tapi pepehal..kita masih belum dengar epit menidakkan berita2 hangat yang dikeluarkan kebelakangan ini..

Chibix:

Kita tunggu PC dari epit tak lama lagi. Tuan Prez juga menyepi. Kenapa? Adakah ini budaya politik baru MI.

Abu Usama:

Terkini: epit sedang buat PC di Restoren Perantau Putrajaya sekarang. Lihat gambar ni!

Mattop:

muka tengah pressure ke tu?...

Syed Khalid aka Tuan Prez:

Hubungan antara saya dengan Head Boy dan Timbalan Head Boy adalah baik dan mereka juga telah menyatakan sokongan sepenuhnya kepada saya.

Namun, faktor kepimpinan adalah hanya cara untuk merelaisasikan matlamat, bukannya objektif utama.

Tiada soal siapa yg pres, siapa yg timbalan head boy. Kita sepakat. Membawa berkat.

Chibiok:

Ni mcm pernah dgr je. Tup2 lepas tu tangkap pakai UTK dtg rumah. Then buat tuduhan. Hermmm. Jgn ada kes liwat sudahla.

apa kata tuan prez dgn situasi kini ... adakah ini disebabkan campurtangan oleh pihak pembangkang aka anasir luar, atau budak2 batch XXX..??? Saya disini dgn ikhlas menyatakan sokongan saya kepada pucuk
pimpinan tuan prez selagi tiada kemungkaran berlaku di atas kerelaan tuan prez

Auzir:

keadaan semakin meruncing nampaknya..adakah akan kedengaran suara2 yang menggesa batch kita dibubarkan? Adakah kita akan dipaksa join batch baru Epit atau batch XXX suatu hari nanti?

Pandangan tuan prez amatlah dihargai. Kami yang ikhlas hanya menurut perintah tuan prez.

Chibiok:

keadaan semakin meruncing diluar sana ... contoh terbaru Jita ... beliau terpaksa meninggalkan tanahair dan MI2 semua ... adakah ini berlaku kerana ada unsur2 ugutan atau paksaan ...??? dan desas-desus
terbaru ... Abu Usama akan bersekongkol dgn YB Epit ...

kita perlukan isu yg baru utk mengalihkan perhatian2 pihak luar dan media dlm hal ni ... mana gambar2 amoi2 simpanan tuan IR kita ..

Ein:

hmm.. epit takde hal. dia ada contact kat apco bole spin baekkkk punya. hahaha!

AKHIRNYA EPIT TAK TAHAN KENA PRESSURE DAN TUNDUK JUGA....

Epit:

Tuan-tuan,

Sudah2 lah memberi tekanan kepada Tuan Prez untuk mendapatkan sepenuh penjelasan menegnai perkara ini.

Sejujurnya, yang menaja saya dan Mpro adalah Sdr Afza, bukan YYYYY, jauh sekali XXX!!!

Tapi keadaan terlalu menegang ketika ini. Mungkin saya perlukan Boboe untuk mengendurkan ketegangan.

Harap keadaan kembali pulih seperti biasa. Kesetiaan saya tetap kepada Tuan Prez dan kudrat saya tetap untuk kelangsungan Didee sbg Kepala Budak.

Sekian, terima kasih.

Ein:

epit terlalu tegang... boboe juga di carinya. adakah gadap tak layak utk mengendurkan ketegangan?...

Chibix:

terima kasih dgn penjelasan deputy kepala budak. tapi kenapa Afza pilih Nadzrie?????? sesungguhnya kita perlu mangambil iktibar dalam perkara2 begini ...

Abu Usama:

Aku sanggup jadi macam saifool! Liwatlah saya, nanti saya tak basuh xxxxx 2 hari dan dahi kasi lebam sikit supaya nampak lebai.

Chibix:

Afza, Nadzrie, Boboe dan Epit .... apakah ini?

Auzir:

Saya mewakili MIs yang confused, mengucapkan ribuan terima kasih kpd saudara epit kerana telah cuba memberikan penjelasan atas perkara yang serius ini.

Tetapi alangkah lebih baik kiranya penjelasan di buat secara sua muka. Saya cadangkan saudara epit buat open table nasi arab di jalan ampang untuk menyelesaikan masalah ini once and for all.

Boboe:

kalau epit boleh convincekan rozita che wan jadi ketua Wanita batch baru nie, dgn segera aku akan join.

(selepas itu, discussion menjadi terlalu explicit, private dan lucah untuk disiarkan di sini ha ha).

Makanya, lessons dalam politik berdasarkan gelagat Mentulas, dalam setiap kumpulan/parti itu mesti ada:

1) Yang tak berapa jujur dan ada sesuatu yang disembunyikan - Epit

2) Yang senyap2 akan lari when the goings get tough - Mpro

3) Kaki pukul dan kaki pressure - Chibix

4) Kaki pow cari peluang nak buat komisyen - Auzir

5) Supreme leader yang nampak cool tp belakang2 hantar kaki pukul - Syed Khalid

6) Kaki lucah yang boleh manufacture macam2 cerita lucah - Abu Usama

7) Pelakon lucah yang boleh menggadaikan apa2 asalkan harganya tepat - Bobo

8) Tukang sorak & tukang api - yang lain2 ha ha

Musim Betik

Morrison's Academy: after breakfast on Sunday, the Brits went to church and we continued playing cards

On the way to London from Scotland: one of the Easter breaks (looking at the weather ha2). Please don't mind Fadli, he had just discovered Churchill's V-sign

Favourite past time during breaks: congregating at Jita's place at Earl's Court and cook. Cook and eat and sleep (I think we were doing kuih ketayap this time, Chamat mengidam)

The disastrous picnic at Ulu Kenas a week before SPM. Disastrous because while other candidates in other schools were panicking for SPM, we went for a picnic oblivious of the gravity of it. Unsurprisingly, we crashed baik punya in SPM ha2!

This is a season for betik.

At any particular time of our life, there would have been some people whom we are very close to. In MCKK, you tend to be close to different people (or groups) as you grow up. For example, I was close to Radin when we were in Form 2 because we hardly missed going to town together. It took us more than a decade to be close again, though by any standard (current MCKK standard) I can declare Radin as my betik with head high (ha ha).

But there are also people who are a constant in our life. They were there from the very beginning and somehow our path keep crossing. As you are tested in life, they were there all the time, unwavering in support and sympathy. 

I am lucky because I picked up many of these people in my life since the first month I was in MCKK. There are those who had been close to me ever since that first few months and we had known each other so much that it only requires a flicker of glance to guess what annoys us; or what pleases us. These people know they are and I don't have claim them betiks too (ha2, that's blasphemous to the very concept of betik).

Surprisingly, I was never close to Jita in my five years in MCKK. Yes, we were in the same class in our final year. Yes, we were in the same English set since we were in Form 2. But we were never close and the only part that distinctively stands out is his buying the whole 5 Sc 1 Big Mac meals closer to SPM (ha ha).

But we ended in the same school for A-Levels, in one of the remotest places in Scotland. There was no train or bus stations, only bus stops to take you to the nearest train/bus stations. It's the equivalent of Karai, a small clusters of housing for pensioners (and a boarding school in the middle of it ha ha).

Getting stuck there was an impetus to look for something else to occupy ourselves, otherwise we would be dead. Jita found it in a girl friend. I found it in writing, so we continued the publication of Mindweb, a bulletin for Malaysian pre-university students destined for UK universities. Mindweb was started by Azraai Bahari Nasruddin, Scholar of the Year 1992. It was a way for us to keep connected and we distributed the bulletin to Malaysian A-Level colleges as well.

I have the habit of saying yes first, then figuring out the how later. There was one great obstacle in managing a publication when you get stuck in a place like Crieff, because none of us has a PC/laptop or printer. The school facilities were outdated (this was before the internet/PC age). A cikai PC used to cost about GBP1,500 if I am not mistaken; that's about RM9,000 by conversion.

Luckily Jita came to the rescue because he just had a laptop, as a birthday gift from his dad. It was a very thick and heavy Olivetti laptop (ha ha who would have bought an Olivetti laptop nowadays), but it was a state-of-the-art those days. I was ever grateful that he allowed me to use his expensive laptop almost 24/7 to produce a bulletin which he initially didn't have any interest in (ye la, dia dok pakai laptop mahal main Sollitaire!). He was also kind enough to buy a printer, so that I could print ha ha (what's the point of finishing everything when you cannot print!). Many times he would help me dealt with the local photocopy shops to get things printed (that was among my first lessons in economics ha ha, using the service of a small business without an economies of scale was stupid, it was twice more expensive to produce Mindweb in a little Scottish town than what Azraai had done, closer to London).

That was the start of a very long and fruitful friendship, centred on trust and loyalty. He played along when I dragged him into UKEC, taking the most sensitive post of Finance (because he could always top up if anything happens, kah3). His family apartment in Earl's Court became our official bed and breakfast, there were times some of us would bunk there for weeks (Chamat that is, my stay was always shorter he he).

In my darkest hours in the UK, I would run to him for distraction. We do not like to speak too much of what was personal to us, being boys means you would just want the company (and the free bed and breakfast ha ha) and skirt the obvious issues altogether.

During our time in PETRONAS, somehow our paths kept crossing as I dragged him from his comfortable life in Kerteh to the corporate centre. As I left PETRONAS and had to clear all of my life savings to pay back, he came to the rescue while waiting for me to make a new financial arrangements.

It has come one full circle and we came to a junction when we have to pursue the next phase of our life. I chose the unpredictable, the road less traveled as it is a calling.

Jita is leaving for a posting in Australia today, he's bringing his whole young family with him. A PETRONAS posting is usually 3-4 years long, but I do not discount that hearts may change and new doors may open, so it remains to be seen whether he will in fact come back after his posting.

I had wanted to organise a farewell dinner for him but had been busy, in the end due to miscommunication only Mattop who turned up for the cancelled dinner (ha2 reputasi yukengkaungongme aku lives on! Raja kincing). Well, Jita will be back soon, so will organise a proper one.

Over the last 5 years, all of my closest friends from the original UK clique had left the country. Fadli is never back in the country, the closest is Singapore. Chamat has been stationed in Beijing for quite a while. Fazurin had left for US since 2006 and is based there ever since. Madad never came back and I doubt that he will, now in Geneva. 

And now Jita leaves the country too. 

It's a sign of change. My heart feels heavy and I don't look forward to it, but we all have to move on in different directions in life.

May the bond that had held us all these last 2 decades will be there, so that when we meet next (or when we are in need of that honest companionship), it is not difficult to re-ignite.

Bon voyage Jita and good luck. You will make a great father and husband.

PS:

I guess I would have missed his flight. He sent a short SMS last night telling me that he banked in his zakat for me to pay in Terengganu. Also a zakat portion to go to MCKK. Very kind indeed.

MI di CICM Responsibility Run 2010, Bukit Jalil

Kegilaan terbaru MI terhadap acara larian masih berterusan dan tidak menampakkan sebarang tanda-tanda menyurut. Berikut laporan Deputy Prez KPTC untuk satu acara larian hujung minggu lepas.

Salam.

Ni report larian CICM Responsibility Run Bukit Jalil 2010 10KM.

Kehadiran KPTC kurang memberangsangkan. Yang ada cuma aku, Syam 'd Ketakman, dan Kicap.

Larian bermula tepat pada jam 7:25 pagi.

Route agak menarik, lalu depan astro, dan sekeliling Stadium Bukit Jalil.

Actual Distance: 10.61 km (Mengikut Garmin GPS)

Masa:

Jures - 54:14 m (Position: 101 / ?)

Syam - 1h:25m (Personal Best - 15 minit kurang daripada Mizuno Wave Run)

Kicap - Injured plantar fasciitis (terpaksa jalan sepanjang 3km).

Overall good nice run. Amoi untuk didakwah pun agar kurang. Mungkin diaorang dapat mengesan ketidakhadiran Abu Usama dalam larian ini.

Sekian, dilaporkan.

Jures Yahya

Habislah korang semua. Syam dah fit balik. Orang pertama yang Syam kejar lepas ni mesti Badut sebab Badut confident boleh memang 100m lawan dengan Syam (masa Syam berisi itu hari  la!!!).

Selamat Hari Lahir Kepada Radin Mastopo

Hari ini hari lahir Radin Mazlan Radin Baharuddin.

Hari lahir Radin ni mesti akan diingati sampai bila-bila sebab masa 1994 dulu, Graduation Day jatuh pada hari lahir Radin (sehari lepas SPM habis rasanya). Jadi lepas satu batch dah dapat Sijil Pingat Emas (kah3) dan nyanyi lagu koleq buat kali terakhir, kami pun pergi ke kantin (yang masa tu masih lagi di bawah, bukan di atas macam sekarang).

Rasanya Radin & Ikram kongsi tarikh lahir yang dekat-dekat, jadi ada kek untuk hari lahir Radin & Ikram masa tu. Setiap tahun bila sampai hari lahir Radin, ingatlah hari terakhir sebagai budak koleq tahun 1994. Kami nangis sampai bengkok cobong hidung ha3.

Aku memang rapat jugak dengan Radin dari F1 lagi. Masa F1, Radin bedmate Joe, so duduk depan katil aku. Muka Radin innocent (tak de perkataan bahasa Melayu yang boleh describe innocent, takkan "tak bersalah" kot) giler masa F1 ha2, tak caya suruh dia scan gambar2 F1. Sama2 duduk kat Dorm E so selalu dimangsakan dengan prefect dorm yang tahap kegilaan dia dah.... (kena tanya Doc Moto, dia ada PhD dalam semua perkara bersabit ID ha2).

Banyak2 firedrill masa F1, ada satu firedrill yang mesti ingat - sebab malam tu, kesalahan kitorang adalah memain2kan nama Radin.

Yang bersalah - of course Wonggek la, mula2 dia dok bising "astaga wa gelebek nyeng was stepek wek" lepas tu aku rasa dia jugak yang awal2 pelopor Radin Ajinomoto, Radin &%^$$## dan macam2.

So malam tu prefects tanya Radin dia terasa ke tidak orang main2kan nama dia. Ha2 bila ingat2 balik, rasa innocent sangat Radin jawab dia terasa jugak sebab orang dok buat joke pasal nama dia.

Masa F2, Radin selalu keluar town ngan aku sebab kitorang je yang suka makan kat Rahmaniah, orang lain suka makan kat Saudiah. Kira selalu keluar town sekali masa F2 - kalau zaman sekarang, dah boleh claim betik dah ha2 sebab aku rasa antara yang aku paling rapat masa F2.

Then F3, aku rasa Radin kat NH kot jadi puppies he2, so mula renggang sikit sebab kitorang kat West Wing kena bergelut ha2.

By F5, semua dah bawak diri masing-masing dengan segala masalah cinta masing (ehem2), so walaupun satu house (dia Dorm 19, atas dorm aku) tapi tak rapat sangat. By F5 pun, orang lagi habiskan masa dengan budak kelas.

Anyway Radin pi Australia, aku pi UK. So balik2 aku rasa pi wedding dia in 2003 - itu antara wedding terawal aku pi. Radin pakai baju hijau muda kot? Ha ha (kena cari album gambar ni).

Masa tu aku tersesat di meja satu kumpulan makcik-makcik yg stylo & sempat berborak/flirting lagi. Masa tu istilah cougar tak wujud lagi, kalau sekarang sah2 makcik2 tu dapat nickname Cougars.

Somehow Radin banyak tolong in everything yang aku buat these last few years, especially jadi resident designer untuk semua program and logo2 Mighty Ducks. Radin and wife pun tak pernah miss reunion.

So aku pikir2 balik, kira kalau kat koleq dulu ada ala2 betik, lama-lama mesti rapat balik gak kan? (Ini untuk membantu Epit justify semua benda2 berbaur kontroversi selama ini). Macam aku dengan Radin he2.

Last-last sekali, dah alang-alang buat cerita macam ni and kat koleq aku tak pernah declare apa2 (selain main declare, itu pun tak pernah lawan La'ba Raja Declare batch), aku dengan ini secara back-datednya ingin mendeclarekan bahawa Radin dulu betik aku kat koleq. Ha3.

Selamat Hari Lahir Radin, moga mas & keluarga sihat sejahtera dan diberkati Allah.

Ini gambar isteri Radin & anak dia :-)

ps: Tema betik kali ini sebab aku baru dapat tahu sorang budak koleq yang kitorang jaga all this while buat confession dia ada betik. Kah3. Aku tak tahu nak response, but I guess he needed to get it out his chest ha2.

Good Luck for SPM (and Life!)

I had planned to call Pojan and Shahir for quite a while, since by comparison they could have been the worst treated senior debaters in the last seven years. Things did not work too well with the establishment and more often than not, they stood their ground. In the process, many incidents that in my opinion were not fair happened and we were not there to back them up (or cheer them up, the way we used to). They cannot be blamed if they feel they were abandoned.

I made a decision at one point to risk severing the relationship that we had with the boys for the bigger picture. Along the way, many people paid the price and one of the groups most affected was these boys.

Usually before they go for their SPM, they would have received cards and postcards wishing them good luck. Their batch would have gone through a full weekend's worth of scholarship and career workshop - outlining the steps and possibilities they will encounter once they leave the school. In previous years, we even made occasional visits just to cheer the boys and distracted them from the pressure of SPM.

Pojan and Shahir did not get any of that, though they deserve every bit of it. Even the SMS became very occasional as we all move on in different directions.

Overwhelmed by a sense of guilt (and the need to retain some portion of the past as we move forward in life), I made a call to both of them last night (ha ha partly to entertain me in the massive balik kampung jam).

So much has changed. The school has changed. The few people who were instrumental in the collage of memories for the last 7 years would have moved on too.

Most importantly, Pojan and Shahir will move on too.

But there was an air of optimism about everything.

There were a few good news from MCKK. The boys seemed to be a lot more at ease with the new openness and hassle-free approach (and I hope the information and updates I receive have been accurate). The Form 3 batch managed to get a 3rd rank in the whole SBP based on their PMR-trial; so hopefully we'll hear some good news by the year end. The Form Five was ranked 12th (according to them) based on the SBP trial, also the best so far (the best result since 2004, if I can recall, was 2006's at 18th). I just hope they don't screw up the way we did when the trial results were very encouraging (somehow MCKK boys have the tendency).

The rest of the chats were about them (for once). Shahir wants to do economics and all geared for it. Pojan will be taking the accounting route and will end up in the UK (that's his plan). With both planning to be in the UK, the debaters family will have quite a gathering in 2-3 years down the line (note: their career decision has got nothing to do with me or others ha ha, though of late we only produced one engineer and two doctors, the rest are all economists, accountants or lawyers ha2).

Anyway I wish them (and Class of 2010) good luck.

You will have an opportunity to finally fly away and choose the path of your life, as you like it. Choose carefully and responsibly as there are cause and effects for everything we do in life. Make us proud and come back as responsible citizens who know where our place in the society is.

Our time is up and by now we can only watch from afar.

But there's a thing called telephone :-), so always pick it up when you need to revisit the past.

Leftovers of Mighty Ducks: Deepavali With Coach

Mighty Ducks feel a memory of the distant past, though the last Mighty Ducks' game that we cheered for was only in July.

But the last few weeks had been able to rekindle whatever we left behind with Mighty Ducks. Last weekend, some Bapak Itiks decided to go for seafood dinner in Umbai, Melaka. I happened to be travelling from the south so managed to drop by to join the crowd. I know that the real intention was to escape the wives (ha ha) since none of them came with the wife, but it was a good time spent catching up after the patchy few months of Mighty Ducks.

The boys seem to be doing quite well too. The school, under the new HM gives a lot more attention and unlike the last few years, the boys had managed to enroll into a few tournaments themselves. They lost a penalty flick (again) to SERATAS at UPSI Open a few weeks back at quarter final and they'll be joining the USM International Open in December. This is the first time they rejoin the tournament since we first brought them in 2007.

I stumbled a collection of photos of the boys visiting Mr Pala for Deepavali. I had always dreamed of the time when openness will be part of MCKK culture again - I guess it's slowly becoming a reality.

It's about time to find time to pay a visit to Mr Pala, he's the only one left from the Mighty Ducks crowd!

More photo's from Syahmi's Facebook here.

KPI Blog Dll

1) Sebenornya, akses ke blog ni telah diberikan kepada 2-3 orang yang lain.

2) Tapi hampeh, KPI tak naik jugak.

3) Aku akan bertanding untuk gulingkan Presiden Batch Tuan Syed Khalid AlJuned atas kegagalan dia memenuhi KPI blog batch.

4) Tak ingens lah mentula kita macam ni.

It Comes One Full Circle

The United Kingdom Executive Council for Malaysian Students (UKEC) was a union of Malaysian students societies in universities throughout the UK. I can't remember the current number of memberships, but at its height it counted 44 societies from 44 universities in the UK as members, roughly representing 10,000 students. 

UKEC is sentimental to me personally because it was the work (and brain child) of (among others) the late Adlan Benan Omar (Class of 90). Together with other pioneers (including Harmiadi Don Rahim, also Class of 90), UKEC was formed in its nascent form in 1993.

I remember the summer of 1994 when Ben was back in Malaysia and we had a long chat about my plan after school. By that time, I already secured an Esso scholarship to US to become a geologist (ha ha nasib baik!) and my mind was already tuned towards that. A weekend with Ben, somehow we made a promise to each other that I would end up in the UK somehow and UKEC played a central role in it - because the plan was to bring me directly into UKEC.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The first 7 chairmen of UKEC were all budak koleq, so much so that at one point it was used against UKEC (some quarters alleged it as an MCKK old boy network ha ha):

1st: Adlan Benan Omar (Class of 90)

2nd: Eqhwan Mokhzanee Mohamad (Class of 92)

3rd: Harmiadi Don Rahim (Class of 90)

4th: Hilmi Yusof (Class of 92)

5th: Rafizi Ramli - 2 terms (Class of 94)

6th: Azri Nache - 2 terms (Class of 95)

The chain was broken in 2001, when the chairmanship was finally passed to a non-MCKK. It went through its low moments (as any organisation should be) before picking up again to reach its height from the mid 2005 onwards.

I had asked a few people from Class of 2005 to consider running for UKEC as they settled down in the UK, but I suppose life took a different turn for most of them.

In the end, perhaps realising that it would have meant a lot to the late Adlan Benan that finally another MCKK  old boy takes the helm of UKEC - Sdr Farquar Haqqani (Class of 2006) had been working his way up the UKEC ladder for the last 2 years.

Alhamdulillah, last weekend he defeated 2 other candidates to be elected as the next UKEC chairman - a small matter to most but most sentimental to some of us.

Hopefully it's a sign of many things to come, from the Classes of 2007 onwards who will be in the UK :-)

Good luck Haqqa, this is a way of saying congratulations for all the trials and tribulations thus far.