March, 2008

Some of you may know that in his consitutency, Nik Nazmi established a free tuition center in the Desa Mentari area, run by volunteers since the beginning of the year. He is looking for more volunteers to spare 3 hours a weekend, so the project can be further developed.

Political affiliations aside, I see this as a good flagship for similar programs to be put forth in areas where kids in low-income families who cannot afford to pay for the extra tuition that their more affluent peers get will not be disadvantaged. If you can spare some time – for the greater good of the future of Malaysia, ahem – why not drop him a line?

The following is a copy of his entry on his blog:

The Desa Mentari Voluntary Tuition project that started this year continues to go on even after all the excitement of elections! In fact I managed to drop by immediately election day and I continue to drop by almost every week to check out how the kids are doing.

To that I have to thank the coordinator and volunteers who are doing an excellent job. Also my thanks to friends who donated to the project. Currently we have about 30 students from standards 4-6 with a special focus on English, Science and Mathematics.

But we need more volunteers to ensure that the project goes on, and with a long term plan of expanding the voluntary tuition project across Seri Setia for low-cost flats. All we need is for you to spend 3 hours over the weekend. That 3 hours make a lot of difference to these kids lives.

If you’re interested to join the project, please e-mail me at niknazmi@niknazmi.com

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On a slightly more political note, I have noticed, of late, that more and more people are jumping on the ‘Go-Pak-Lah’ bandwagon. Having spent my time abroad during all of his premiership, I will refrain to comment on his leadership, or as many of his detractors would say, the lack of. What I would like to venture is something a little more forward looking: if Pak Lah leaves, who then will fill the hot seat?

The way it works is that the President of UMNO is effectively the BN-leader, and it is he who becomes the Prime Minister. This means that only UMNO members get a (limited) say on who is to be our next PM. Who do you fancy? Najib? Ku Li? Hishamuddin? Is it a case of ABA – Anyone But Abdullah?

What if Malaysia went the American way: where candidates exclusively contest for the post of President, or in our case, Prime Minister? There will, of course, be issues of ketuanan Melayu and all that malarkey.. but worth musing about, I think. Thoughts?

Falling asleep after subuh prayers is a struggle albeit a necessity – daybreak is at around 5.30 lately and I can barely function let alone think with anything less than 7 hours worth of sleep underneath my orange belt. I know the adage is not to sleep post-Subuh, but I’ve tried a few times and it doesn’t bode well with my body clock. Still, what I find most interesting is the amount of ‘dreaming’ that occurs within the two odd-hours I get.

This morning the dream involved me losing my backpack, which, among other things held my thumbdrive that has all of my life’s work on it (no, there isn’t much work that I’ve done – it all fits onto a 64MB pendrive) and my mobile. In the dream I ran around all of Bangi – funnily enough, in most of my post-subuh dreams, I am in Bangi – looking for my backpack: with rumour having it that it was deposited at the lost and found of the two Jalan 3 schools as well as the Bangi Utama complex, which, by the way, looks like Midvalley (part of the Barisan Rakyat development plan?).

What upset me the most in the dream, though, was not the loss of my thumbdrive, but that of my phone. Why? Because without my phone, how else was I going to be informed of pending futsal games that night. Which meant, if I didn’t find the knapsack – and the phone – pronto, I was going to (shock! horror! gasp gasp gasp) miss my futsal game.

Yes, I know. I have my priorities all in the right places.

(But I did perform an extra data backup today. You never know.. )

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Thank you for those who suggested camera/laptop backpacks (mostly via my Facebook posting). For anyone else who is interested, the recommendations I have received are:

The Crumpler Sinking Barge (which I think is marketed as the Royal Court in the UK)
The Tamrac Aero80 / Adventure9
The Lowepro CompuDay / CompuRover

I will head into London over the weekend to check out each bag to see the pros and cons of each.

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And at the risk of being chased by mobs of Liverpool fans.. I may also make this purchase. Thank you Kuek for the heads up.

Two questions:

1) Photo-laptop backpacks

I am in the market for one of these. I am aware that Crumpler do quite a few – any recommendations RE: model / make / personal experience?

Also if you know of other brands that do backpacks in a similar vein. Preferably something I can order online and will ship to the UK (i.e. not your local Ali Store).

Criteria:
a) Must be backpack. Shoulders are too old to contend with excess weight.
b) Must have compartments for both SLR + at least 2 lens and a laptop (approx 13 inch screen size)

Web links appreciated.

2) Overnight stay in Londres

I have designs to stay at a hotel London King Cross on 21 April (most probably one of the Travelodges or a Premier Inn) as I have to catch a very early Eurostar train the next morning. Anyone fancy staying in a central London location for a day? Am offering to split hotel costs 50-50 (hotel room will be circa £60); will probably be spending 21 April traipsing around London doing (free) museums and the like.

Yes I am a cheapskate.

P/S: Goes without saying – girls only. Unless you are Brad Pitt, in which case boleh negotiate.