Its been too long

There was a man who had a life,

and then he found debate....

and now he barely has one.

Spend the last few days in Malacca, rockin' it at MDO :)

Just so this doesn't seem dead

Shalt be posting on a social theory regarding parents!

n00b Confessional

Been a while hasn’t it?

A trend I’ve noticed when it comes to my blog’s and I:

1. Posts are scarce and at best irregular
2. Most of them end up with “Been a while hasn’t it?”

Frankly, I do have stuff to write on, but for some odd reason that’s as far as it goes, it’d be like “Now this is something interesting to write about” and I draft whatever it is I want to say in my head, and halfway thru my train of thought, it’d be stored in a corner somewhere in that maniacal processing unit I have which is capable of remembering the oddest details and yet never seem to remember anything of great significance, I could tell you how much it the Galilean Proceedings cost the Catholic Church and yet couldn’t for the love of God remember your name.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been all the way down to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in Johore for Iskandar-Debating 2010 (The name still cracks me up) as and adjudicator, and last week was at the International Islamic University Malaysia in Gombak for the IIUM Debate Open.

Yes, it seems apparent that debate has finally taken over, and it may be postulated that my social life is about to go downhill. It may further be deduced that I shall at one point in life have nothing else other than a bunch of “intellectuals” who constantly argue seemingly as they have a stand on the issue -whereas in fact they’d just as well be arguing for the other side, and that their beliefs on the issues being debated is determined by the tabs - on issues as if it would actually make a difference. If you had such thoughts forming in your head, this would be our reply “Slippery slope argument, SHAME MR SPEAKER!” :p

That being said, here’s what I’ve picked through the two weeks I’ve spent being at debate tournaments,

A n00b’s commentary on debate:

The thing I learned as an adjudicator is the fact that there is no one way of debating, and that you have to adapt your debating style to suit your adjudicators, some would be swayed to give the win to debaters with awesome manner (such adjudicators are scarce) others weigh their decisions based on role fulfillment, others - the ones who you never look you in the face, and are constantly writing the stuff you say word by word - these ones are the matter-heavy adjudicators. A common misconception is that so long as you are not a spectacular debater, you shouldn’t even think of dabbling in adjudication, though it may be true up to a certain extent, the one thing one appreciates as an adjudicator is the importance of a good argument and almost always not to come up with borderline ridiculous arguments. I now vow to almost always try to make sense during debates

Lesson learned: Read your adjudicators and give them exactly what they want.

For IIUM Debate Open, being placed in team 4, the team which where not much thought was put into, was initially paired with MC Stiff, probably because we were sitting next to each other, and was then paired with Atiq. Feeling like some abandoned child whose parents didn’t put much thought into (dramatic much? :p) paired with Atiq’s constant pep-talks meant to put some fight into this old jaded soul - being a social retard meant a permanent inability to respond to such social stimuli - team actually broke and was served an ass whopping by 2 relatively experienced debaters :p in the quarters. Most important lesson learned was; keep it real, always substantiate your arguments with on-the ground illustrations, something people almost always overlook. Keep it cool, as scary as Hafiedz may be jumping up and down trying to POI in your seven minute speech, which seemed like ages, keep calm.

Lessons learned : Keep it real, stay calm and collected. Life ain’t as crappy as you think it is :p

I have also embraced “Obama” and shall have to live with it

People say that perfection is impossible, I say screw you just watch me try ;)

A lil leisure reading

There is little need for a believe in a Supernatural source of Evil; Men are capable of every form of wickedness

Joseph Conrad

It's Us and the Rest of The World

I remember back in the day, walking thru the halls of my Alma Matter, head high, proud, ready to take on the world, completely convinced that nothing is unattainable, that there ones abilities would stretch beyond the various limitations that other lesser beings imposed upon themselves. The few of us - conceited as some would claim - who believed that we are bound by no rules, that the gravity holding us down is a mere state of mind, one we could overcome and achieve what not many thought they could, we thought of ourselves as Gods walking the earth blessing these lesser souls and the earth we walk on with our ideas and ideals.

Humanity, unfortunately has never taken an form of change as a positive sign in which there is the alleged “change we can believe in.” Never once has a transition ever been made easy. Humanity has always never failed at uncovering the root cause of our inherent problems - take the energy crisis for example - but another thing we’re really good at is of our ability to shift the blame and divert attention away from the problem at hand - apparently the risk of accidents in nuclear power plants regardless of the advancements on cooling technology post-Chernobyl is still troubling your Senators - to which the problem remains unsolved.

The ones who see beyond the limitations society has imposed over themselves has more or less suffered the insufferable wrath of society as they zealously impose their beliefs. The Galileo Proceedings have always been a personal favorite to illustrate how misguided humanity can be. The most expensive legal proceedings in Vatican history simply because the Vatican was unhappy with the fact that the Galilean Model of the Solar System in which he placed the sun to be the centre of our solar system didn’t go in line with the much preferred Copernican model in which God placed humans in the centre of His universe. The genius was placed under house arrest, and was never allowed to publish another paper. The irony of it all is the fact that he was right all along. Probably he probably did an “I told you so, dumbfucks” in his grave. Don’t even get me started on the “alleged” Great Castration 1857. Such zealots, and yet they have been allegedly pushing under the rug issues pertaining to their special “interest” to boys.

Fact therein remains that humanity has never been open to radical ideas in which would change how they view their much “celebrated” existence. In which individuals like us have never been generally accepted by society. They suffer our presence simply because they have yet to find a way to legally justify their way into taking us out of the picture in which they would if the could, I refuse to get started on the issue of Preventive Detention. To which they are honour bound to suppress our ideals and put up various claims which would inherently contradict our beliefs - Look at the global warming arguments - and preserve their beliefs which exist in within their own comfort zones. Yet we stand with our beliefs and continue to contradict the various norms society has set upon itself, and as you try to convert us and our beliefs, rest assured that we won’t go down without a fight

On a completely unrelated note, I find it amusing as to how I strongly feel against any form of Affirmative Action and yet my placement has been of great irony. To which I am of very much a walking example of inherent contradictions and oxymorons.

It is of no secret that I am Racist, in which I am eternally prejudiced against the Human Race and its ability to err.

This One Is For You

On education

For some odd reason, I find myself in an odd situation in which I apparently must write about.

The past two weeks have been anything short of educational for me, started off two weeks back in Universiti Putra Malaysia of which I had unknowingly volunteered myself for a public speaking competition to which I figured out how bad ONE wrong turn on the roads of KL can go and eventually lead you straight to KL Central in your pursuit of some McDonald’s fries, of which in the oddest of places do you actually find remarkably odd sources of inspiration (afflatus: new word picked up by Ain and I courtesy of MC Stiff), moving an hour down the time line, you are at no point in time to ever ask any of our pool of immigrant workforce - doing the menial jobs which we Malaysians are of the opinion that it is beneath us, and we move to complain on our unemployment rates - for directions, the individual may look Malay, Indian or Chinese, but the moment you realise that they are not, immediately walk the other way cause the moment you say “I think I’m lost how do I get to UPM?” all you’re gonna get is a blank face for five seconds or so, and he’d say “UPM??? Tada” and shake his head.

A few hours later, as I was presenting my second speech (and the last) I realised another aspect in my development as an orator, never try to be something you’re not, or in my case, don’t even try to be funny cause you’re only gonna come off lame, and the fact that i really need to slow things down, learned that the hard way, and yeah, the best kind of education is the one that gives you a slap in the face”

Moving on past that weekend, on Friday, I finally fulfilled my quota of which that every driver should get himself into at least one road accident, (in my terms traffic collision, owed to the fact that I do not believe in fate, coincidence or accidents) the one thing one learns is that one should always have a stash of money to pay for the damages incurred, keep a cool head when you’re lost, and that when shit hits the fan, you just have gotta be man enough to clean up the mess.

Further on was when dealing with the relatively underpaid University Security Officials (how I enjoy putting pretty labels on inherently insignificant titles). The fact remains that no form of generalisation would ever work for any part of society and that we’re all inherently unique and that there are the ones with insecurities and would do anything in their “power” to cause inconvenience on your side just to show that they are inherently superior, relatively speaking. When faced with these individuals, do as they’d have you do just to appease to their dire need for self augmenting, but if possible, do it in a way to get under their skin, I know I did :)

Odd thing happened, as i got on the U80 to find my way back to UiTM for a session with my academic advisor (sounds so much better in English relative to their title in Malay). It amused to to see how on the rapidKL busses (after getting on it for 5 mins) the bus barely moved and two scrawny looking men came on and went checking tickets. Need I highlight the fact that there was barely any need for tickets to be checked when you board the bus at the terminal station of which people generally can’t get away with not paying for their tickets, but the part that really amused me was the fact that on these scrawny men’s uniforms was the tag “enforcers”. Its amazing how one can be so insecure and how he littlest things make them feel better about themselves.

More fascinating is the fact as to how I wrote this post at Central Market and that how I’m now done with it and I’m already in Shah Alam. I shall now put on my game face and meet my Academic Advisor.

*In light of recent examination stress, the author has put forth the writing on The Wall*

What makes one do the thing he does?

I can't be the only exception...

If I turn out to be nice, it's YOUR fault

The IRONY of it all

Maybe there is hope for humanity yet