24...eh 23 la...

Another year, and another birthday away from home.

Just before midnight, text came in and wished me a happy 24th birthday. I read it, and then locked the keypad on the phone. Only after 15 minutes, did I unlock the keypad and re read the text, and realised that 24 is wrong. I'm only 23. Haha.

"to the beat of tradition we danced, eyes meeting, arms swaying, cheeks blushing, feet uncoordinated"

It was yet another simple birthday, as always really throughout my life. Have I ever had a real birthday party? surely, but I can't remember my baby years ( I still believe one of them, brother sister or cousins dropped me on the head when I was a baby, but they deny it profusely). Its always dinner with the family, and drinks with the Kakibangkus.

"in the dark, sparks flew, oh how the sparks flew..."

This year, its sad and happy. Sad because no family and kakibangkus, but happy because brothers cooked and baked for me. Appreciate it guys.

"light? say it isn't so, waking up is not an option now"

Remember those videos last year? we're making fresh new ones this year. One is already on my youtube, silly test video, but fun nonetheless. Another 2 definitely coming, because its required for BERSATU, with potentially more video fun after that.

"what good is a name, if it's not for reference"

With exams getting closer, and one more assignment to hand in, its officially nearing the end of semester one. Like my age, time flies.

"teardrops of water triggered by time"

A month disconnected

Looking at the date stamp of my last post, it has been exactly a month since I updated. Why? The answer to that would be my laptop is not functional, and still not functional. I haven't been totally disconnected though, thanks to the Massey computer lab, and the 24 hour access card.

A lot happened in the last month, a bad luck month really for me and my flatmates. The car was acting up again, and took 2 weeks to get well again. Safwan's car blew up...well the engine did, which meant its not functional and meant there is one less car at the house. Iylia can't drive anymore, because he got pulled over by the police, and he's still presenting a Malaysian license, which goes invalid after a year. Well he can drive, but if he gets caught, he'd be imprisoned, and the car he drives would get impounded. Sam's power supply blew up, which was the most minor of all our bad luck. And of course my laptop is unusable, which i'm predicting to be the motherboard, and if it is the problem, I won't bother and continue being a bonafide student in the computer labs.

So enough of the tales of bad luck.

I cut up my first whole chicken this month. It's good cutting steaks into small pieces, but tearing up a whole chicken with a meat cleaver is wayy better. I have pictures of the event, but due to the laptop not functioning, I have limited access to the pictures, which are in Safwan's cam. I promise you the grit and determination of dismantling that piece of poultry was caught on camera.


BERSATU games down the block and around the corner. MUMSA has been appointed co-hosts, with Wellington Students Organisation, with the event being held in Wellington this June. The top committe of MUMSA will be involved with the actual games, so they have appointed a few select people including me, to handle the contingent in their place. The top committee say they're busy with BERSATU, but I think they're just dumping their load on to us "choice" slaves, haha.


There was a leadership meeting/seminar in conjunction with BERSATU games down in Wellington at the Malaysian Students Department. I was not even supposed to go but due to transport and Razif unable to get an extension, I replaced him, and along with Iylia, Sheng and Eugene drove down to Wellington for the ANZAC day weekend. Left Palmy early and reached Welly around 10 ish. It was quite empty, mostly because people were still in Church for ANZAC day appreciation.


We were all seperated accomodation wise, with the reason of mingling with other leaders of other contingents being thrown at us. I didn't mind that, pretty valid reason. I did mind however mind that MY accomodation looked like a whorehouse from the outside, and Iylia's looked like a modern motel, and even had Sky TV . Woo-saaah. I started to dread the trip, After settling in (if that was ever possible in that building), we were told to be at MSD, and so we were. It was my first time being at the MSD, and I was quite impressed. Went up to the dewan for a briefing with Aunty Rose, the student attache here in NZ. Aunty kept repeating "Expect the Unexpected" and after all was done, it was exactly that.


After the briefing, we played frisbee. Fun? not when you play it in the dark. Aunty said all events on the schedule must be performed, and because we were late with the previous item on the schedule, it was already dark by the time we were done. Everyone was still up for it, some groaning of course, but generally looked lively. It all went well and we actually caught the darn thing while in the dark, except for Iylia, who tried to catch a pass, and bumped into a team mate, and fell down spraining his ankle. What most of us were annoyed about at that point, was that aunty refused to call the driver to pick Iylia up and back to MSD. Instead, we as a group, took turns carrying him from the park we played, which was down a hill bout 10 minutes from MSD. It was good that we came together, but in a way dangerous, for Iylia, and for us as well. That invariably left him useless when it came to activities over the weekend as he was on crutches. Alas, all was justified by aunty at the end of the seminar. The night ended late, even more for me as I went for coffee after.


I didn't get much sleep in Wellington, because its damned noisy at night, and it was early starts each day. The second day was mainly for BERSATU, where the committee presented their presentation to the contingents. It got quite heated and it will be a different BERSATU next year if proposed changes are approved.

The third day was the best, and all the stress of no sleep and high levels of annoyance with aunty's mental tests were gone as we participated in an "Amazing Race" kind of activity called senses. Kudos to the organisers of that, coz it was really a great experience. It helped me bond with new comrades as we sang, laughed, guided and made fools of ourselves together as a team. My team would have won too, if I hadn't broken an egg. I would have never seen Wellington if not for that activity, and again that made the whole weekend worth it. That night, tired bodies sat down for a final talk with aunty, where she explained herself to us. She was testing us with , in her own words "putting you out of your comfort zone", which was spot on. She justified her actions, and I personally think its a loss to MSD in NZ if she was not there working with us students. She refused to take credit for the success of the weekend, but she got us there, and that deserves credit.

So that was my month disconnected. Sorry there are no thousand words worth of pictures.

somehow, somewhere...it all went wrong

When did it happen? when did it all turn sour for Arsenal and Arsenal fans? We were glowing at the prospect of winning 2 trophies a month ago. As of this morning the two became one, and highly likely to be zero.

Arsenal were clear leaders of the premiership a little over a month ago, and successive draws and a loss to Chelsea put us down to third. Where did Chelsea come from. It was dubbed a "two horse race" by the media. I guess we never learned from the story of the trojan horse. So when did the bad form start. From my own recollection, it started with the game Eduardo got his leg broken at the game at Birmingham City. A last minute goal from Birmingham (McFadden I think..) gave us our first of five successive draws. We were top, and the teams we drew, we should have won, and if we did, it kind of didn't matter if we had bad results with the top teams. Add to the fact the son of a gun Portuguese cow dung called Ronaldo is on fire this season. Comparisons to Henry when he was unstoppable in Arsenal's unbeaten season. Seriously though, even though he is an arrogant man, I still would prefer his French arrogance (because they are known for it) over C.Ronaldo's any day. Arsenal are now 6 points behind leaders Man U with five games to go, All good mathematically, but in the event god blesses us with amazing form for the last five games, it would probably favor Chelsea, as they are only three points behind the leaders.

Champions league. I honestly didn't even care if we won. I just wanted the premiership since it has been so long since we won it. Although it would have been sweet to win it once. That thought came to an end, when an undoubtedly great second leg at Anfield ended with a loss. Had one foot in the door when Adebayor equalised late in the second half, but then a minute later, we conceded a penalty, and Gerrard does not miss from the penalty spot. Another Liverpool - Chelsea semi on the card, and looking at things, a Barcelona-Manchester United for the other semi.

So when did it go wrong? Every true superstitious Arsenal fan would blame themselves. What did I do different? Did I forget to do that or this? For me, it started when I went back to Malaysia, and got worse when I get back to New Zealand? Maybe good luck disappears during traveling.....nonsense probably, maybe. In reality, loss of Eduardo didn;t really weaken our team, in my opinion anyway, because he was never a first eleven player, although, admittedly, he was coming to form at that period and unluckily broke his leg oh so devastatingly.

I am still heartbroken. Started off with low expectations, but made the fans believe it was a special season. I guess it doesn't work that way.

ps: another letting off steam post...ignore coz nothing interesting bout me in New Zealand except the fact I'm in New Zealand...

this is getting ridiculous

What is New Zealand known for? Its a tie between dairy products, rugby, the place they shot Lord Of The Rings, and undoubtedly sheep. Sheep outnumber humans here in New Zealand seven times which basically means there are seven times more sheep than there are humans. Thats a whole lotta sheep.

I was out with Rahmat to get some stuff for the car (which we didn't get because it was easter, and nothing was open), when Iylia texted me, the text read "we have a new pet". I replied asking what pet?, but he never answered. When we got back to our house, we found out what the pet was....


It was a sheep or a ram to be exact. I certainly did not expect this. I was seriously thinking we had a rat in the house, or a cat suddenly decided to call our flat its home, but a ram in our backyard? never. Sam actually discovered it and ran in to get Iylia, who went out and petted the ram, and when he tried to tie the leash (it had a leash, sort of, which led to us concluding that it was someones pet) to our clothes drying thing, the ram got mad and chased Iylia all over. Luckily, Adzhar happened to drop by, and took control of the situation and proceeded to tying the animal to the clothes drying thung....all of this happened before me and Rahmat came back, which was a shame, because Iylia getting chased by a Ram should be an amusing sight.

Iylia called animal control, and we just hung out there waiting for them to come. The ram was actually very friendly, but it did leave presents on our lawn, and a bit on the pathway leading to the clothes drying thing. While waiting for animal control to come, we did what anyone would do in this situation...took pictures and videos of it, as I don't think it would be happening again anytime soon. Check my youtube for the actually aimless video of the ram. Haha

After 20 minutes of wholesome sheep fun, someone came and asked "you guys didn't happen to see a sheep running around did you?" which would have been a really weird question on any other day, Turns out it was the neighbor across the street from our house who was the owner. Iylia immediately called off animal control and our excitement for the day was over. Only in New Zealand.

On another note....my cousin Kak Intan got married yesterday, without any complications and was told Fahmy lafaz skalik jer...bravo. I am really happy for her and her husband, but yet a bit sad because I couldn't be there with my family to celebrate the occasion. So to Nor Intan and Fahmy, Selamat Pengantin Baru, semoga ke anak cucu.