Koleq's PMR Result

From the few sources I managed to consult so far, it was quite a disaster.

PMR result was announced today. I had not read the full result in newspapers or elsewhere but this is what had trickled through from Kuala:

- the result was a far cry from last year's or previous years' (apparently, according to my few sources), with only 69 people (a mere 58.9%) obtaining straight As. Although the full nation-wide ranking has not been announced, MCKK is bracing for the worst.

- fortunately, one student, one Ikhwan Zaki appeared to be one of the top 25 candidates in Malaysia. It remains to be seen how candidates from other schools fared, it would have been quite an embarassment if other premier schools have more than one candidate in the top 25 ranking. Otherwise, it would be quite a relief, selamat water face koleq...

- according to another source, koleq has always managed to produce more than 80 straight As every year. So 69 is a very worrying figure.

This remains a hear say until the final result is fully announced, although don't expect it to dominate the newspapers what with the country only beginning to see the real extent of the calamity of the tsunami wave.

We do not want to produce robots - although one non-MCKK guy and a much superior person by designation in my organisation once confided that he always believes (in his words) that "MRSM products can be the GMs and managers, but the CEO will always be the MCKK boys" - this kind of shock does not augur well, especially knowing the kind of study regime these kids go through nowadays.

One of the teachers SMSed me that something is definitely wrong and something needs to be done quickly - but are those with the amanah and responsibility to do something about it (and the power and means to do it too), are doing anything?

No use to point fingers, but an honest evaluation is needed - otherwise we should kiss the 100 Years Celebration goodbye and fashion the occasion as the first and last centenary celebration koleq ever had, for with the way koleq is going, maybe it is not worth to remember it at all fifty years down the line..

Takziah and Prayers for Tsunami Victims

“Death smiles upon us all, all we can do is to smile at it back”

(this must be from one of the movies, but I can’t remember which one. Must be Lord of the Rings... although it doesn’t sound like Gandalf at all...)

How true.

In less than an hour more than hundreds of thousands of people lost their loved ones all across the world, almost instantaneously. The death toll in Malaysia alone is increasing by the hour, with authorities expecting more bodies to be discovered while rescue mission continues unabated.

To these people and all those who share their grief, our takziah and prayers – sometimes I nearly broke down in tears at the image on TV3 of a father who was himself already dead mentally, utterly at a lost after all his children were swept away in the tsunami. Most of the time it is in this hour of great tragedy that we witness the greatness and kindness of men – greatest and kindness people are often born out of greatest tragedies.

To all the victims and their families – our prayers and al-Fatihah, may your soul find peace in God’s Heaven and may those you leave behind continue in peace in remembrance of you and Allah’s greatness.

Men spent zillions of dollars and countless hours developing the most lethal and destructive weapons and zillions of dollars more trying to protect themselves from the very destruction they crave – yet with a small movement of the plateau beneath our feet, which doesn’t take rocket science or quantum physics (this is a figure of speech, I do not appreciate someone coming back to me to explain the tsunami phenomenon using quantum physics) at all, God unleashed a tiny reminder to us human being of how great He is.

A silly idiot at my office (and an old one at that) made a stupid joke how it would be wonderful to be in Acheh now, since there would be thousands of young jandas desperate for comforting – laughingly talking about this as if it’s a joke on David Letterman Show (even Mr Letterman has better taste than that!). Unfortunately there are many geezers like that around us, who never pause to reflect what things around us mean, if not to us, to others.

Mpro did ask for permission and concurrence to use some of the money raised (and still left) from the last reunion to buy rice for the victims. Since he is already doing something about it, Mpro (the best Batch Treasurer that we never had ha ha, luckily he did become KPKM’s Treasurer and is still as honest as he was to the bone) might as well volunteer himself to collect any donation from batch members for the victims and do the buying of rice and clothes needed. So if anyone has some spare change, please contact Mpro and transfer the money to his account (this is not my scam to swindle people’s donation and share it with Mpro ha ha).

I rarely have any good things to say about some of our top politicians in the government, but the whole tragedy and Pak Lah’s conduct so far endear him to me a bit (as if it matters).

Our prayers are for the deceased and the families affected.

* ps – The quotation was from Gladiator, by Maximus. Ada ke Gandalf....

Azlan ****** bin Faidzal Haslah

Azlan ****** bin Faidzal Haslah, more photos here

Right after Radin's wedding, Allen and I finally came to the conclusion that both of us needed to visit Aini and Pejal and their new-born baby lest Pejal found out how much the batch really valued him. We were trying in vain to get more people to adjourn from Radin's wedding to Hospital Pantai (Bangsar) - but everyone gave the excuse that it was too far, they wouldn't have minded if Pejal and Aini were in SJMC (as if it was much difference between SJMC and Pantai Bangsar if you were in Kepong anyway).

From the moment we met them (Pejal and Aini), we knew that they meant to name the baby after us. I was quite touched, but what do you expect knowing all along how much Aini and Pejal adored the two of us. We gave our blessing and although they were quite shy about the whole thing and wanted to keep it hush hush, they (especially Aini) couldn't hide her excitement when we told her we didn't mind the baby named Azlan ******.

After a while trying to get the baby to talk, we had to excuse ourselves when Aini wanted to do what mum does best - menyusukan anak! So in order to spare us recurring flashes of images late at night (the ones opposite of fantacies), we excused ourselves after that. The discussion was also getting a bit too graphical when we were talking about the baby's hair (the fact that it was quite thick considering he was only 2 days old), Aini said that the baby followed their gene (I didn't want to elaborate further here, but we took it that she was trying to share the population of their bodily hair with us).

On the way out, we met Kuchai, Tuti and the daughter. So there were other people who did think about Pejal apart from us.

We managed to get Pejal's hotel room at Shangrila Putrajaya for the night. Having driven all the way to Putrajaya, was not really in the mood to go back to KL for movie although we had bought the tickets.

The next day I met Ben, Pokyeh and Brawn (all from the Class of 90) and we had lunch at Wisma Central. All of us were in agreement that the level of respect accorded to older people (be it junior to senior, present boy to old boy, teenage to older people) has decreased tremendously compared to our time (a polite way of saying "budak makin kurang ajar sekarang"). There were a few instances that we all had encountered from our experience coaching koleq teams (Pokyeh was a Cager) that highlighted the general tendency of the younger generation to disregard adab when they conduct themselves among older people. But then every generation blames the one before and after...

* ps - I hope you did not buy the story about Pejal and Aini wanted to name the baby after us....

Radin's Wedding Etc.

The best persandingan photo that I managed to get that day (sigh!), more photos here

Was in KL last weekend to attend Radin's wedding - since a huge turn out was expected. Well quite a lot did turn up, but the most celebrated guests that day were two gentlemen from my own dorm - Mior and Champ - who (maybe to send clear messages to us single people of what it was like to be married men) put on batik shirt for the occasion. If you want to look for patriotic citizens, go no further - here you have two young gentlemen who took Kak Endon's cause to their hearts ha ha

The wedding was OK, although I had a feeling after a while other guests were a bit irritated with us shuttling from one table to another taking pictures and making a lot of noise. Budak koleq being budak koleq, sensitivity to other people's feeling is never high on agenda when they get together - a classic example was budak koleq crying their hearts out saying good-bye to batchmates and juniors at train station at the end of each year (KK folks must be one of the most patient people in this country to have been able to stand budak koleq's antics all this while).

Most people turned up with their family, so it was more like a family reunion. We were joined by two ladies (I wanted to say elderly nice ladies, but then that would be offensive to them if they ever read this ha ha) at our table, so Suri did not waste any time working up his chat up line with the elderly ladies. I was very glad that Suri's profession as a professional salesman came in handy since I was not really interested to be diplomatic and nice to people I don't know that day.

The joke of the day was on chicks (or the lack of it ha ha - it's not the normal chicks story, but can't disclose it here since it would not be nice). Mior was expecting me to come up with a "10-things-that-spoil-your-wedding", with "lack of chicks" coming top on the list.

Meeting Mior again was perhaps the most significant event of the wedding. I just found out at the wedding that he is leaving Malaysia for good to find greener pasture in Sydney, Australia. Mior and I were very close since we were Form 3 being in one dorm and all, but something happened in our final year that we parted different ways since then, never even saying proper good-byes to each other during our last days. I was hoping that we could catch up after all these years now that both of us are back in Malaysia, but life takes unexpected turns when you least expect it. Anyway Mior, we wish you all the luck and joy starting a new life in Sydney where you used to call home, and please pass your e-mail so that we know where to head to if we happened to be in Sydney (this is the actual reason for the nice words - guaranteed free accommodation when we are in Sydney ha ha)

Radin looked OK - Kichi' must have been so proud.

Addition to the Family

Just received the news that Aini (Pejal's wife and Ameba's colleague) had delivered a baby boy last night - presumably healthy. Whether or not this latest addition to Pejal's family is as vertically challenged as his father (and mother in fact) remains to be seen in future years.

So Pejal is not going to Radin's wedding, but since I will be in KL after all tomorrow for the wedding, I might just drop by to see Aini and Pejal and the boy (they might want to adopt me as the godfather - but combination of moi and Pejal, kalau budak tu masuk koleq, habis lah....)

Boleh tahan jugak si Pejal ni, already into his second offspring, considering he spent most of his adult life kat koleq with the F1s and F2s (to be precise, certain groups of F1s and F2s). I half expected nama Pejal appeared in *P offender list in the UK ha ha.....

Anyway Pejal, congratulations - may your son lagi jambu, tinggi dan bijak compared ngan kau (but as kind as you are ha ha - nanti merajuk pulak budak sorang ni..)