Land of The Dying Crows

A quiet, significant Celebration

2011-04-28T15:42:00.000+05:30

Hey guys and gals,

Below is an article which I wrote to be featured in www.klik4malaysia.com . Unfortunately the final product came out a little too late to be published there. Many thanks to Mr Philip and Mr Jaiarajoo for editing and giving inputs to my article. It has now found its way here :)

The Indian communitycelebrate Tamil “Puthandu” or New Year on April 14.

Every Hindu householdwould be cleaned thoroughly before the big day and on the morning of thePuthandu, families gather to pray to God first, either at home or at temples,before ushering in the New Year celebrations.

However, in Malaysia,as the Tamil Puthandu is not a gazetted holiday unlike Deepavali, which meantthat the Hindu observers had to observe customary prayers at home in themorning while only visiting temples in the evening.

It is believed that byputting our thoughts in prayers to God first thing on the morning of New Yearand making special offerings of milk, sweets and fruits, the household would beblessed for the coming year.

It is auspicious towear new clothes while many people believe that buying gold on the first day ofthe New Year signifies an accumulation of wealth and prosperity for thehousehold throughout the year.

Many Tamil businessmenstart operations of new businesses or make deals on this day tomark new beginnings. This is because it is believed that everyone’s almanacswill undergo major changes with every Tamil Puthandu.

The businessmen wouldnot want to waste a single moment of a coming auspicious year.

The celebration ofTamil Puthandu is not something new. Indians in India have been celebratingtheir new year either on April 14 or April 15 every year since 5,113 years ago.

This same date isobserved by many other states in India including people from Assam, Bengal,Punjab, Kerala, Orissa, Manipur as well as the country of Nepal.

The other states inIndia also celebrate their respective New Years within 1-2 days of the TamilPuthandu.

Astrologers consult the calendar todetermine auspicious days.

There are several festivals based on theTamil Hindu calendar that begins on the same date in April. Kaliyuga 5113,Vikrama and Shalivahana Saka eras are also used.

There are several references in early Tamilliterature to the April new year.

Tamil Months in Calendar 2011:- Margazhi –January, Thai – February, Masi – March, Panguni – April, Kara – May, Vaikasi –June, Ani – July, Adi – August, Avani – September, Puratasi – October, Aippasi– November, Karthikai – December.

Tamil New year is an important festival celebrated by Tamil Hindus.This festival is mainly observed in Tamil Nadu and all nations with huge TamilDiaspora populations, like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, UnitedKingdom and United States.

When Suntransits into zodiac Aries (Mesham), the Tamil New Year ‘Kara‘ commences. Thefestival is called as Tamil Puthandu or Varushapirapu. Tamil Calendar and Tamilastrology (Nirayana astrology) are considered as one of the most ancientastrology system.

The solarcalendar system follows a 60 year cycle and the years are named specifically(not numbers) as such ‘Kara’ is the 25th year while ‘Vikhruti’ was the 24^thyear.

One of the Hindusages, Thiruvalluvar in his famous proverbs of “Thirukkural” starts his first proverb with the translation:

As “A” is the beginning of the alphabets; GODAlmighty is the beginning of the World.

The year of “Kara” will definitely be different fromthe year of “Vikruthi”. In Malaysia,we have seen changes taking place in the political scene less than a few daysafter the Tamil Puthandu.

Within 6 years, in2017 the Tamil year, “Hevilambi”,will return, marking the end of a Tamil “century” because our independence(Malaya) was in 1957.

As such there is everypossibility to see or hope for significant changes to usher in the birth of a new‘century’ for Tamils.

My sincere TamilPuthandu prayer and hope is for the unity, cooperation and hard work from ourancestors, to ensure we enjoy freedom and harmony, will continue for‘centuries’ to come.

Hope you all had a good read. Thank you.

It has been a long time

2010-08-12T12:57:00.002+05:30

Hi guys and girls,

This seems to be the usual mode of my blog deliveries. They are pretty far apart. No matter how seriously I set it in my mind to sit down and at least write down my observations. I realise that I end up spending too many months before I actually get some other brainwave.

So, what have I been up to? This is surely a question that people might be asking. Am I married? This is what relatives are asking. Am I happy with my job? This is what my friends are asking. Am I happy? This is what I am asking myself. The answer is No, No and Hell NO!!!

Interesting point to note here is that, the best way to get someone to follow in your line of thought is to get them to say "yes" 3 times, and THEN ask them the question that you want them to say yes to. Works like a charm all the time. :)

So I realize that asking myself these questions is pretty straightforward leading me into a position where I am not interested to change. I am not even trying to get myself to say yes. After all, admitting there is a mistake or problem is the first step to solve it. This is a mistake that a lot of us do. Something triggers a change in our lives. We feel down and we neglect the other parts of our lives. We never take the initiative to look at the strengths in those parts of our lives to fix this one problem which came up.

It's called focusing on the problem instead of a solution. You just need to spend 25% of your time Identifying the problem and Defining the problem. Then you spend 50% of your time to come up with a list of solutions as long as your leg... ;). The last 25% of the time is spent evaluating all the alternatives and choosing the best solution from your list. Instead of 25% on the problem, people usually spend almost 90% of their time replaying the problem in their head over and over again. Only 10% of their time is spent looking for a solution and a lot of times realising that if they moved faster they could have mitigated the situation better. I was in that spiral as well.

Having said all that, I am proud of myself now. I have admitted the problem and started looking at alternatives. Before this, when I was in a downward spiral I'd want to forget the world by focusing on fictional books and games to keep me occupied. At one point I was focusing on the alternative of meditational and philosophical books to keep me occupied. Once I realised that listening to my Guru's speech and actually analysing that monthly is a much more spiritual experience, I basically stopped confusing myself with all the meditation theories out there.

My Guru says Love is the way. Love is the solution. I understood deeper that we have to start by loving ourselves. Once you love yourself, you will focus on your positive points. You won't be bothered by your negative points. You will work on those points. You will break them down and build yourself again. Now, that is what I am doing. Breaking down the negative emotions and assumptions that I have about myself. Rebuilding it with all the positive points that I have in myself. Then the love will naturally flow me to other people in my family and circle of friends.

The past is no longer going to keep me down. There was so much which I could not do when I was younger. I didn't have the internet. I have it now and I am maximising it with the time I have at my disposal. I am catching up with all the things which I said that I had missed out on, which would have made my life better. I am downloading NLP videos. I am downloading guitar lesson videos. I am learning about other languages. I know that I am going to be a better person regardless of my situation in life.

The NLP videos are particularly interesting as suggested by one of my superiors. I always wanted to join a course. I didn't have the money but now I do have the video courses to refer to. It's showing how to change the way we perceive the world and how to make changes to our behaviour which most people will take for granted as impossible. I am totally happy with the learning.

The 1st of July, 2009

2009-07-01T18:23:00.000+05:30

Hey there guys and girls,

I have to say that I am a little bit cranky with the stupid keyboard of my laptop. If this post suddenly stops illogically then it would surely be that the keyboard went bonkers again and I just clicked on submit, instead of attempting to recover the posting again.

The last time I spent 30 minutes trying to recover and retype the post. My thoughts will remain a mystery if it repeats...

Anyway, I have to say that I have been doing cheap publicity stunt for this blog the last few days. I have been telling people about it as well as broadcasting the link on Facebook, Yahoo, MSN and Google. Yup, I am on 4 networks if you don't count LinkedIn, haha. The funny part is that the main people that I connect with are on all the 4 networks. It's a huge overlap. Those that are added in but not really in contact, hmnnn I know I am trying my best to get cracking at the communication part. Still, it's a 2-way process and you can't get far if the other party has mastered the art of "excuse tai-chi" and is always deflecting your communiques. My personal guideline is to try twice then to scrap it, until that person decides to come back into my life.

Still, as we can see nothing good has come out of my publicity stunt. No one seems to be coming in, more so leaving comments. I wonder if there are people coming in but just that they're not commenting on my posts. Sigh, it IS bad feeling unappreciated and trying to wonder what people REALLY think about you. India thought me that it IS important to know what people are thinking about you because, there could always be a rat running around stinking up your reputation among people you know. So yeah, it is good to have a feeler out from time to time just to make sure you're not on the "Top 10 jerks list..."

Anyway, the Transformers 2 is a must watch. If you wanna watch it mindlessly then you would definitely enjoy it to the max. If you're a fan and you want some of the originality of the series to be here on the big screen, then you might be thrilled at some of the action sequences that satisfies our apetite for huge transforming robots. Ok, I'll stop here since mentioning more would make this a spoiler post. My blog isn't about that...

Other than that, I also realised that I have to really gear myself to move up in life. If not the corporate ladder then I'll go climb some mountain, LoL... Yeah, with that I will end this post that is not really too much about any topic. Adios people!~

The End of the World

2009-06-23T15:37:00.002+05:30

Hey there guys and gals,

I just finished watching the trailer to the movie "2012". It is going to be released in November this year. This is going to be a planet annihilation type of movie, which is no surprise, considering the producer of the movie also came out with Independence Day as well as The Day After Tomorrow. This is a dude who likes to make money, talking about the tragedy of millions of people losing their lives in the blink of an eye.

This makes me wonder. What is it that drives all men to believe that the world is going to blow up? It starts right from the beginning with that whole talk about someone coming and marking the end of the world. Of course by the time we realise the "HE" is here, in whatever cultural form that HE finally decides to reveal Himself in, it would be too late for us to atone for our sins. We would be doomed. We would be judged and basically all of us except those that happened to chose the correct religion, whatever that is, would be found wanting. It's a great "Wheel of Fortune" game that's going to be played at the end, according to religious views.

Thinking about this the scientific way, assuming that there is no religious day of Reckoning upon us, we have to realise that we've strayed on to the very path of planetary destruction by our damn selves; without the help of a "DEVIL" or any such manifestations of evil. Yup ladies and gentlemen, I believe there is a planetary level self-fulfilling prophecy that is unfolding.

I feel the greatest difference is now felt post World War 2, when U.S. dropped the 2 atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suddenly it is now possible to annihilate a huge population. All this while, you could make big bombs but nothing that could take out an entire city and render the surrounding area sterile for generations (not to mention the oddities and freak of natures that you create) with the nuclear dust fallout.

It was possible to render nations, even continents uninhabitable with the firepower that existed then. This is where the strange turn of events take place. Instead of decommissioning those lethal pieces of metals, the Americans made more. This was followed by the countries who now have nuclear capabilities as well. The British, the French, the Soviet, the Chinese etc. People usually mention, "boys with big toys are just compensating for a lack in size". Boy, those Generals must have been jealous of the Asians if they needed to compensate with nuclear devices.

Now the world can be annihilated many times over. At its height the US had 65, 000 warheads according to wikipedia and they still might have between 15,000 - 20,000 warheads, left in various stages of completion. The other members of the so-called "Nuclear Club" also have thousands of warheads each. Still, this is a military weapon and the diplomats would try their very best to reason and deal with any situations that arise before the boys start throwing their toys around the globe. So we have some people at least opposing this planetary destruction "efforts".

Somehow though, the human race seems unable to say "stop" when it senses dangers in other forms as well. Fossil fuel usage throughout the world. I agree that there are a LOT of people who are going to be inconvinienced if the oil and gas companies across the world suddenly go out of business. People unfortunately give more importance to that as compared to the consequences of global warming. This is what should be the current focus of scientists worldwide. Fossil fuel is destroying the planet, layer by layer. In raw, Oil spills cause environmental danage; in processed form, unrecyclable hydrocarbon products like plastics are produced daily and USED by housewives; in the form of by-products, greenhouse gases are being emitted everyday by every single oil combustion engine made by man.

We know that the greenhouse effect is making the planet and our co-inhabitants suffer. In fact fellow humans who are lesser educated than us too are not able to grasp the wierd swings in the monsoons and other weather patterns; the increased frequency of "el Nino" and "la Nina" effects etc. But we do not reward anyone who is willing to find an alternative way. We are not drumming into students in the classrooms that the planet NEEDS another way to survive. We are telling them that everything is going to be ok. It is not. Eventually someone's mistakes are going to cost lives of people around the globe, LONG after he/she is dead.

There is also the problem of dumping industrial waste into the planet's water flows. How long do you think the planet is going to be blue from space? There will come a time when the water is going to be brown throughout the oceans. A time when we need protective gear to save us from the outside moisture, which could be poisonous by trapping and reacting with complicated strains of airborne particles from industrial areas, not to mention rain. Could we imagine a world where we run to save our lives from a light April shower?

With all these in motion, we need to ask ourselves. What did the Mayans see that caused them to stop their Long Calender at the date: 21/12/2012 ? Did they see the tipping point that is caused by the barrage of wrong environmental management decisions, starting right from when the cavemen used artificial colours to paint in their cave walls? Could that be the point where so profound a change happens in the way the world has worked all these millenia, that we even stop using calenders as we knew them?

Why do we have to WAIT? Waiting in itself shows that we don't really understand the forces that are at work, causing us uncertainties in our decisions. Let's use our technology the best way possible. Let's come up with a recovery plan. Let's have the political will supporting us to NOT inconvinience our grandchildren. Let's deal with it here and now, not in 2012; or when the oceans have turned brown.

The ebb and flow of creativity

2009-06-17T17:34:00.002+05:30

Hi there guys and gals,

I have been thinking about this blogging thing for a bit. I am even now sitting and trying to wonder what do I want to type? I know that I had made a resolution to myself to blog consistently and a little more frequently than what I had been doing in the last few years.

Strangely, I only have the bug to write when I think of something. Something new. Or a new way of looking at something old. Yet after that, it just vanishes. The urge to write that is. It is like I want to show only the best of me to the world. There doesn't seem to be any leeway in the quality and standards that I set for myself.

I had thought that these limiting beliefs were taken away. I had thought that I am now able to do anything my heart desires without thinking too much about it. It is strange how the old habits seem to get reinforced whenever I am back home. The place is safe and so I grow complacent and allow all the old values creep in. Values that are useful I have no complaints, values without use however like this self-censoring is annoying.

I wish I would be able to just type anything and everything that comes to my mind. Other bloggers are doing this always, at least I think so. They also don't seem to run out of good ideas. It's almost as if by the continuity and practice, their writing upgrades to a level where all of their writing seems to be of a higher quality. This could only be my imagination after all since I haven't been religiously following any blogs other than the ones that belong to my friends.

Or maybe again it's my nature of being overly self-critical while not being critical enough of what people around me do. I saw this clearly when the pilot episode of the latest Knight Rider was released before the series started in proper. I had watched it about 4 times repeatedly feeling all hyped up about the coming series, not able to wait for the other episodes to be released. My cousin takes one look at it and bursts my bubble by mentioning how stiff the actors are; how wierd their scripts are, etc. Haha!~ It was all true. I just looked at the plus point of the show. KITT. I never even noticed anything else with a critical eye.

Well, time to get a bit more serious about the world around me. I realise the problems that are happening. I just have to be the guy who takes it further and criticises and confronts. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any resolution to some of the problems that are happening.

A letter to Dato AK Nathan

2009-05-04T17:07:00.001+05:30

Good day Dato AK Nathan,

My name is Mathanaseelan Thavasimuthu. I was one of the first few in the Q&A session. I asked your opinion about taking bank loans to expand businesses.

Your session was a definite eye opener. You covered a lot of fundamental values which we are very familiar with in our personal lives. Just that we never figured how, as a successful person, we would use each of those values to build ourselves continuously and drive ourselves to succeed. The crowd definitely felt your energy and passion during your delivery.

I just would like to give you a personal opinion of mine, regarding the influence of Tamil cinema on our Malaysian Indian community here. This you may find interesting or you might not agree with. I spent 1 year studying in Hyderabad (2007-2008) and then worked in New Delhi from (2008 - 2009). I just recently returned to Malaysia in April. This opinion is based on my observation of Media in India in the last 2 years.

I feel that Media in India is being controlled by their politicians to make their huge population "malleable". The life there is very different from Malaysia. Here we can still find empty roads. There every street would have people walking around in groups at all times of the day. It is just mind-boggling thinking how many people actually live there, let alone thinking about leading and governing them. So the way the movies are portrayed, those people in the streets are always waiting for someone "special"; a "hero"; to arrive, to save them and to give them ALL the answers. They do not do anything by themselves. It is the hero's job to face and to overcome everything. I was extremely surprised to see this message portrayed across India in movies of ALL languages. It's not only in Tamil.

The people in India are generally unable to access educational opportunities. They learn a lot of new things from what they see in movies. I mean cybercafes in Tamil Nadu became a hit after "Kadhalar Dhinam" movie. As such it is very, very advantageous for India politicians to portray the "common India man" as always being unable to accomplish anything in movies. Only a hero can. He has to have a "special birth", "a rich father", "super intelligence/strength" BEFORE he even thinks of fighting the established rule of the authorities. This way the politicians control the pace of the country development (at a snail pace) and the uneducated people in ALL states don't take any initiatives to improve their own lives.

I feel pretty sad thinking how that implicit message, meant to curb initiatives and self-improvement in India, has creeped into the Malaysian Indian community here through those movies and worse, the drama serials. It was pretty evident during the Q&A feedback yesterday. One guy asked you the silly question if you wore any "charms" to aid you in business (Do you have super powers?); another guy mentioned how you are like Sivaji in Boss (You are their hero, implying you have to CONTINUOUSLY help the whole Malaysian Indian community, while they continue their "tidak apa" attitude and walk out of seminars that can actually help them); the long-winded guy asked you about astrology and fate (Is a "special birth" the only way to be successful?).

While I liked your direct answers to them, I feel it is going to take a lot more because they continuously watch the repeats of those movies on Astro Vaanavil and that stupid message "You and your initiatives are helpless" is reinforced into their sub-conscious. All it takes to undo the Energy and Drive they got from your motivational speech is to watch a few tamil movies.

Realising this mentality of needing a "hero" and then systematically building ourselves to be the Hero we want to see, instead of waiting for someone else would automatically make more Malaysian Indians take responsibility and accountability for their own lives. I would like to know your thoughts on this.

Thank you again, Dato AK Nathan. I changed my perception of successful Malaysian Indians completely yesterday after listening to you. I deeply appreciate your effort for the presentations and your kindness to share your experiences.

-Mathanaseelan-

It has ended...

2009-04-11T09:33:00.006+05:30

Hey there guys and gals,

Yup, as the title states, something has ended. As I left ISB, I was recruited by a German company. They took me in to be a Project Consultant.

The way the whole experience has panned out has been nothing short of astounding. I got to be in Delhi and work for a year. I got to work at the HQ in Wiesbaden, Germany for 2 weeks.

I would have attended no less than 10 weddings in Delhi. All of them were ISB weddings, by the way. I realised the true worth of my ISB experience. If any of you reads this, please understand that Class of 2008 is my Indian family. As cheesy as this statement I make sounds, I love you all; like brothers, sisters and of course the ISB kids are like a whole bunch of nephews and nieces.

Without you guys I would not have been able to carry off this one year, and to those who supported me more than others, I thank you all for being there for me when I needed it the most. Vishal Dashora deserves a special mention here as he was not only my housemate but also the "cool joe" who helped me a LOT in understanding the complexities of Indian culture and how I can save myself from getting into hot soup. Or getting myself killed for that matter, LoL!~

The stint has come to an end; blame the economy, blame my personal circumstances, or blame the shareholders of my company; but however you look at it, to recover, it will take me awhile in Malaysia.

The best part about this is the mental state I am in right now. I've never believed in myself as much as I do now. In fact, I am not worried at all about going back to Malaysia. It's like I know I can almost definitely land any job I try for with my current resume. It's not just a fantasy; I've had a word with a good friend of mine and he might have some stuff lined up for me. Other than that, I am also looking at providing business consultancy services on a free lance basis. I have no complaints about the current economy nor do I have any bleak thoughts about my future.

I was telling a friend of mine recently in fact, going forward I am no longer worried about how people see me anymore. The feeling that, "I am inadequate", or,"I need to be better...", is all gone. I feel I am there, and anything and everything I do now will only result in success. In a way, India has shown me personally what are my limits and has also shown me where to head next.

So, goodbye India. I will definitely come back in future, once things are better on my end.

There is someone light-years ahead of that chimp...

2009-03-27T16:24:00.003+05:30

Hi there,
I recently had seen an article about how a chimp used planning skills to attack humans. I copy pasted that link, given here: (http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090310/tts-us-sweden-animals-research-zoology-972e412.html) on to my Google talk status message saying that the chimps are catching up with the BJP and Congress political parties in India. Of course a similar conclusion can be drawn towards Malaysian politics as well, with the recent spate of 'gutter politics' of spreading photos and other methods used to defame upcoming political leaders.

As usual, the way the Universe works, I was proven wrong by this article which came up on Yahoo! News some days back.

MP who submits himself for examination every year
Tue, Mar 24 09:14 AM
Chennai, March 24 (IANS) Ever heard of an Indian MP submitting an annual self-appraisal report to the people of his constituency?
Meet 59-year-old M. Ramadass of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a doctorate in economics and an economics professor-turned politician who is charting a new course in politics.
He is the only member in the outgoing Lok Sabha and perhaps the first Indian MP to submit to the people of Puducherry an annual report of his activities as their representative.
Asked if the concept was borrowed from his academic field, the first generation politician told IANS: 'I felt it is my duty to give an account of my activities to the people. I want to be accountable to my people.'
His annual reports contain the welfare schemes and various projects brought to Puducherry by him, debates in which he participated in the Lok Sabha, his attendance in parliament, the utilisation of the MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) and the protests and even social events in which he took part.
By his own admission, Ramadass, who hails from a fishermen community, has taken part in 151 parliament debates, raised 380 questions and has scored 94 percent attendance.
According to a study by PRS Legislative Research, an independent research initiative, nearly 60 MPs including former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and actor-politicians Dharmendra and Govinda did not ask a single question in the 14th Lok Sabha. Sixty-seven MPs asked 10 or fewer questions.
Admirers of Ramadass say he was instrumental in bringing to Puducherry the Rs.330 million Karaikal port project, improving rail connectivity, and expanding railway reservation counters at Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam.
'Our MP was instrumental in the conduct of local body elections in Puducherry after a four-decade gap. He was also instrumental in devolution of powers to the local bodies,' said one PMK worker.
Ramadass is also credited with elevating Puducherry's classification to that of New Delhi -- so that the house rent allowance (HRA) for government employees goes up.
As to the utilisation of funds under the MPLADS, against his entitlement of Rs.100 million (Rs.10 crore) for five years, Ramadass issued work orders for Rs.125 (Rs.12.5 crore). 'I have effectively used the unspent money of my predecessor. My focus is on improving the basic amenities for the people,' he said.
Way back in 1986 Ramadass was in the limelight for a brief period when he won the National Prize for the best suggestions on the making of the Indian budget.
It was PMK founder S. Ramadoss who convinced him to join politics.
'Our leader wanted educated people to enter politics. My wife was very apprehensive about my entering politics, from being the registrar of Pondicherry University. A lot of cajoling had to be done,' he recalled.
In 2004, Ramadass was elected to the Lok Sabha, securing 241,653 votes (49.95 percent), defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate who got 171,472 votes (35.65 percent).
Today his services are utilised by the PMK, which submits alternative budgets for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and also for preparing the party's election manifesto.
As an academician he has guided seven Ph.Ds, 40 M.Phils and 15 M.S. theses. He has also authored five books and has 45 research papers to his credit.
At a time when even small-level politicians speed around the cities in big fuel guzzling utility vehicles, Ramadass is satisfied with his old Tata Indica car.
He is confident of not only getting the party's nod to contest again from Puducherry but also of winning. His annual reports, he knows, have won the hearts of his voters.

This is of course something that is definitely needed in India, if the governance of such a huge economy is to be done properly. Yet, I feel that this is something which even Malaysian voters need to demand from their elected representatives as well. An annual report of the constituency, on what was the money flow in and what was the money flow out of the constituency. What were the unemployment levels? What is the development level?

What efforts did the local representattive take to bring in investments? to bring in investors? to bring in residents and increase Cukai Pintu revenues? There can be a more methodical and scientific approach to nominating and voting for correct representatives if a study about the constituency is done and shared among the people of the constituency, increasing their own understanding and pride of the local area.

We do want to serve the 'rakyat' right?

Prophetic? Just commmon sense...

2009-03-23T08:08:00.004+05:30

Hey there,

It is pretty interesting. After a long time, I posted in my blog. One, was about the way economy should behave. How an economy of advanced humans would look like? Followed by a rough, "imaginary" guideline to get there. Of the few options, I chose the android servant as the most appropriate morally.

Lo and behold, HRP-4C is now introduced to the world. She's a robot, given the face of an average Japanese woman. The body still looks robotic though. The best part, she is only 43kg. After the unveiling, the Japanese have mentioned that she would be walking the runways in an upcoming fashion show. I have to admit, that is an interesting publicity stunt. To showcase a female robot in an arena where "the best looking" female humans dominate.

Another point I made in that write-up was the way companies are behaving towards employees and just cutting them out. I mentioned that there should be not only a business ramp-up strategy, in times of distress there should be a phase-down strategy as well. One of which is of course to actually recommend their employees to job seek agencies / other employers.

Lo and behold, I just read in the news today how it has been happening in other parts of the world and now it is becoming a serious business opportunity in India as well. "Outplacement" is what they call it. Lucrative business actually. These outplacement specialists in India now charge INR 4 lakhs for Managerial level people; INR 2 lakhs for Executive and experienced people; and INR 1 lakh for junior placements, which is ok as that would be the typical 2-3 months salary of those employees given normal times. At the end of the day, everyone is happy, hopefully.

Anyway, this was just a blog post to wonder do I have prophetic capabilities? I mean one knows that doing meditation helps you see things clearer. Of course, then you superimpose it with current data to come up with intelligent future solutions. But to actually be able to make those conclusions, just before announcements about the same are being done. That's a an interesting thought. Coincidence.

Coincidence is a powerful word, mind you. It has happened often enough at critical junctures of my life, I started believing in the idea of Fate. A recent speech by my Guru highlighted the fact that there is no such thing as Fate, which is written by Someone up above as the way we would live and die. There are however environmental factors which do influence us. Our parents and friends. Our hobbies and the people we meet in that line of sports, activity.

National athletes, if you notice do not seem to be fazed by strong competition. Their highly competitive environment trains their mind, to be stronger than the average person. Children growing up in musical families, tend to take part in musical competitions and hone their musical talents even though they may be born math geniuses.

It is really difficult to be born in a family or surrounding which entrusts and encourages a certain set of values and feel that we don't fit. It really is hard to break the mold. I decided that I had to break the mold for my family. I went overseas to study, post high school. I still have to thank my dad for giving me that opportunity. I went and lived in Australia with a bunch of really successful people. That was what helped me think out of the box. Thinking "HOW?" I can break the mold.

Mr. John George, was a partner at a law firm in Darwin, Australia. Extremely knowledgable man and someone I didn't know how to speak up to. He was a lawyer and I having been brought up in an environment where I was expected to listen, did not utilise the chance I had, did not learn how to argue for my rights, did not learn from him all the stuff that I could have.

Dr. Masoud Mahmood, was an opthalmologist in Darwin, Australia. I only stayed with his family for 2 months but I realised how intellectual this man is. He listened to classical music which was my first introduction into that world. Dr. Masoud was also learning how to do Visual Basic 6 programming on his own. I had my first introduction to serious PC programming flipping through his book as well. Dr. Masoud also had stricter rules, but yeah it was fun being with them.

Last but not least was the stay with Oma. :) This deserves special mention. When I got there, I thought I had finally landed in a "normal" Aussie home. I stayed with Oma. Her daughter Connie and son-in-law James Koch lived like less than 10Km away. They had 3 beautiful children. Jameson Koch, Talia Rose Koch, Tamsin Louise Koch. So, yeah I was more like an Uncle to these kids. Lol!~ Oma was a retired nurse, while Connie was teaching at the community centre at that time. Under Connie's house they had a pool table. They also had a Japanese exchange student, Dais living with them. I've never had any pool game as satisfying as the last game I played with Dais, until I met Elly in MMU I guess. It was good ol' family love that I learnt from them. I learnt how they are much more open in showing it, in taking part in family functions, in joining activities that made the family get closer.

These are the things I learnt, by a simple change in environment for a year. I also went out on my own to do a few things. I wish I still had the contact of all those people who changed my life while I was there. 10 years have gone. Their influence still remains strong. I still see with different eyes. The extent of their influence was only felt by me when dealing with my cousin recently. 10 years I had, to influence him and to show him all the possibilities that I have seen. But, telling him and letting him experience it are polar opposites.

I made an extremely grave error in forgetting to tell my aunt to register him for an AFS Intercultural Exchange experience. It ends up even after repeatedly telling him a lot of things, he still looks at Malaysian solutions. He didn't take effort to search for the list of courses that are being offered in Aeronautical Engineering which is what he is interested in doing. That is a typical malay attitude, not taking effort, which even I had. Which, I still have. Yet, I know its effect on me and try my best to overcome it to be successful, knowledgable and loving like the people I mentioned.

Without the new blueprint of what is possible, there is no attempt to let go of what exists.

Life would be just following the few factors that dictated our lives since birth unless something really "shocks" us into taking our life into our own hands. Believing in coincidences and Fate until something tells us that life need not be so. For me it was a change in environment. I tried telling people about the change in environment that I experienced. To be able to appreciate what else can be done in life now, I realise that they needed the change in environment themselves.

I cannot afford to make anymore mistakes in my life. I have wasted time enough. It is time once again to take the effort needed to break myself from my own mental blocks and processes. Once again to take the effort to break the mold. Once again to live a life of dreams...

The Laws of Robot Manufacturing

2009-03-10T18:18:00.017+05:30

Hey guys,

The contents of this post were floating in my head as I got to the android part in my previous post. In fact one could say I wanted to badly write this down, which is why I could push myself to finish up the final part there. LoL!~

I've read Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series. It's one of the most phenomenal series I've ever read. People would remember his other work, which was cinematised as I,Robot (albeit not really following the book, mind you!).

Fun Fact: The Foundation series takes place, in the very far future (some 20,000 years roughly), within the same universe. If you liked I, Robot and continued the other books in the series to its end, you would have seen within:

The 3 Laws of Robotics

1) A Robot may not injure a Human being, or through inaction cause a human being to come to harm
2) A Robot must obey orders given to it by Human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
3) A Robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Eventually the plot introduces the Zeroth Law, but I digress. While writing the earlier piece, and thinking about a servant force of androids, I came to a main point saying, "the reliance on Androids must be phased down and eliminated as time goes on". This is to ensure we become a race more 'elf-like'. Instead of a race of 'dreamers', we'd be totally free from any form of Needs thus never experiencing deficiencies. 'Dreamers'; by forgetting the blood, sweat, and tear soaked histories of Humanity; would restart a feudal system within 10-15 generations.

To avoid all this when the time is right, self-transcended individuals, whether ready or not, should just switch off the androids. One problem remains. Self-Transcended individuals in search of a peak experience for themselves and humanity, might be driven to create the "perfect android"; mass producing it within the Enclaves, thus complicating the whole termination phase. This is the nature of humans, searching for perfection in everything we do. Nothing can be left at 95%. I foresee someone, somewhere continuing to improving the android servant force, making them better and eventually "perfect".

What if, the perfect (or near perfect) androids decide they do NOT want to lose accumulated data and stored analysis results? They do NOT want to stop further inflow of information? They do NOT want to be shutdown when the time comes? One of the essential parts, if I programmed a "perfect android", would be the circuits or programming that tell it to "exist", "continuously learn", and "apply learnt knowledge".

If even someone like ME would ensure my android is at least as capable as that, I am sure pure robotics manufacturers would have thought of better guidelines; to ensure androids survive better, react to environments quicker, and tolerate more abuse before succumbing to external forces. Hence the dilemma of being unable to shut them down, when the time comes, is higher.

These then are the guidelines that we need to follow to ensure that robotics manufacturing does not get out of hand:

1) A ROBOT must never be perfect: This is the cardinal rule. No robot must be made in a way that it is shielded from ALL types of energy. They have to be either non-heat resistant or non-electromagnetic resistant etc.

Rationale: We need a way to destroy their population. In fact, we need multiple ways the more sophisticated we make them.

2) A ROBOT must never be able to INDIVIDUALLY replicate itself: This is to avoid a potential population explosion: 1,2 4, 8, ... etc.

Rationale: This is to avoid rapid increase in material / energy demands and the resulting imbalances and risks of depleting resources.

3) A ROBOT should gradually change, with the environment: This is to increase the adaptability levels of the robots, as we know Earth is a continuously changing planet. It must happen regardless of the robots' ability to program or re-program themselves.

Rationale: Avoids me rewriting codes, or doing hardware reconstruction for a long time. :) *Jeevan would understand the pain of creating continuous updates for such a complex system.

4) A ROBOT must never have the thinking capability of humans: Yup, this is the easiest way to avoid an apocalyptic, robotic world from dominating our future. Simply said, nothing in their circuits must ever give them the ability to calculate past the limits that we have set them. The absence of sound recognition software may be overcome over time, if the necessary circuits are in place and the robots have enough storage space to analyse raw sound data and detect patterns, given their AI is sophisticated enough. Not having a storage space though, or having an AI without the ability to analyse stored audio data, would eliminate this problem totally.

Rationale: To keep robots from "evolving" beyond their duties. The thinking robot is a fascinating dream, but teaching other humans how to think is a better past time, I feel, as compared to programming robots.

5) ALL waste products of ROBOTs must be bio-degradable: This is a NOT side requirement, and it is very important to think about, since people might be inclined to have nuclear-powered robots, requiring expensive petroleum based lubrications etc. This would only make the existence of every robot a liability on the planet.

Rationale: This is the greatest constraint that all great scientists should have imposed on themselves. It would have led to the rise of another set of technologies and we wouldn't be faced with this hot soup, that we find ourselves uncomfortably in, called 'Global Warming'. In fact, every part of the ROBOT should be safely destructible.

6) A ROBOT must naturally come to destruction: No matter what; all robots must come to a natural destruction. It must be hard-wired into their system. 50 years? 100 years? I personally feel that a ROBOT lifetime HAS to be lesser than our lifetime. The lesser, the better.

Rationale: It helps keep the ROBOT population from getting out of hand, in case we humans become incapable of turning them off. No one robot would be able to take in the full the extent of information, that we are capable of taking in, to build experiences similar to ours.

Now, imagine GOD using those guidelines when Adam was on the drawing board...

Yeah, why haven't we been able to crack the genetic code as easily as we figured out the binary digit system? I mean it's that basic "1" and "0" which is going to be the building block of any robotic software. We can understand this concept easily and yes we are now imagining ways to create completely sophisticated robots that use binary codes. But we are incapable of thinking like God, to create another cell let alone another human. Wouldn't it be interesting if we were purposely "limited" in this way.

What if God was a Being that had the capability to easily understand and assimilate data in Quad-element systems easily? What if that meant the form of control over the building blocks is more complete, and in fact control of different mixes and compositions of metals and chemicals are mere child's play? Instead of having an iPhone, with a processor inside running in binary codes, made of a semiconductor metal; God could make a cell, with a nucleus inside running according to its DNA coding, made of many different types of chemicals and trace metals.

Irrespective of our ability to understand or program our DNA coding, it evolves. Every generation of human slowly adapts to the changing environment even though we are NOT completely shielded from all types of energies. One blast of radioactive energy; maybe from the Sun; would reintroduce all of us back to stupidity, an inability to properly reproduce, and finally a quick death due to DNA damage.

The DNA evolution takes place by fundamentally dividing the race into 2 genders to keep checks and balances. So it controls our population from exploding, as well as introducing variety into our genetics to adapt better, to the changing planetary environment. The raw material our bodies are made up of are also biodegradeable. The interesting part, for me, was realising it means we are broken down in our graves by microorganisms; destructive li'l dudes who are (Divinely?) designed for the job to return the raw material and energy from our bodies back into the planetary flows.

One thing that we can agree on is the fact that whatever we percieve is not the same as the way God would percieve it, even though we would like to believe it is. I am sure there are things that we train our mind to catch, at the limits of our perception, yet would be something totally normal for God to know. Past, present and future making one example; Time-flows. I believe everything is a snap-shot in God's memory. Even if it was not so, it would take almost no effort for God to access that information. But, we are limited from attaining this information. We feel it is almost impossible to even think about analysing this data of time which we feel in bits and pieces. The same goes for gravity and it's law of attraction. Effects are felt but it is something we cannot understand, percieve or fathom. Ok yeah, when the mass of the object is greater it exerts a stronger gravitational pull, but what within that whole mass causes it? Can gravitation be taken out of huge objects? Can objects be taken out of gravitational fields, like pulling a microchip off a circuit board?

Anyways, one thing is for sure. Death is imminent. Our DNA is coded to break down at a certain age and pass the torch on to the next generation of humans. Nobody knows why old age hits as we could have been designed to continuously grow. I think that was God's earlier experiment with the dinosaurs, gone wrong. Beings that just grew and fed on huge trees and ferns, and on each other. We still find fossils of huge underwater dinosaurs that could have crushed a minibus in the middle, just with their jaws. He then reset the system with a smaller, more complex creature. Mainframe to Desktop PC.

Woe to us when the PDAs are introduced...

There is a little bit of Economy in all of us (Final)

2009-03-02T16:25:00.013+05:30

...Continued from Part 3
Second: The Need for a Servant Force

Yup, that is the harsh reality of it. And I am not one to dice words when it comes to harsh realities. It is better to say it as it is and accept it. For only then, we would be able to solve exactly that problem.

The highly planned, non-money driven, sub-environments as I mentioned in the earlier part would still drain huge amount of resources from the planet. As long as the whole planet does not follow the Path, there would always be dependency on points outside the system and there would be inefficiences that cannot be dealt with, within the above mentioned Enclaves.

This is the most dangerous point of my argument, timeline-wise. The transition phase. The point where 5 billion humans across the planet ask "Why do I suffer now? Why do only 1.5 billion people reap the rewards of my hard labour?" The questions may be mitigated to a certain extent seeing only children experience the joys in the starting phase. But, there is a need to quickly ramp up the size of the enclaves and as more and more self-transcended individuals grow to adulthood within, the excluded parts of humanity as we know it might find themselves in a moral predicament for outside children.

They'd be left outside the rapidly growing utopian Enclaves. They might find themselves having to work to actually support the Enclaves by selling supplies. Yet to avoid the "old think" and current ways of flawed reasoning from entering the Enclaves there'd definitely be regulations and efforts to stop people from freely entering. Worse, there'd actually be a need to stop people entering and exploiting the Non-Monetary Economy within to sell outside for high profits. In fact, there could be popular support (even from within) for these types of acts in retaliation against the notion of people having to "suffer outside". Of course, continued abuse would just undermine the whole system from working as it should. Controlling humans and driving them away from crime is hard when there is much money involved. Especially when there is also mass support. The best way then is to free as many humans as possible from the external economic cycle, as fast possible to enter the Enclaves.

What if... someone else had to do all the work? What if...humanity could replace the need to work thus being able to enter the Enclaves as and when needed? This is where the need for a Servant Force comes in.

Option 1: Androids - Human like robots that make use of artificial intelligence to perform menial tasks. Very cool, surgical and aesthetically sharp solution. Not to mention that it's extremely hard and well there is the whole "maintaining the robot" issue.

Option 2: Humans - Yup, I mean actually asking other people to serve the Transcended individuals. Using cash as a reward (also known as a VERY BAD IDEA), or capitalising on the natural joys of working with self-transcended individuals. An ethical extension to this idea, can be the Guru-Disciple relationship. Disciples having proven themselves in taking care of the Enclaves eventually find themselves one day initiated by the transcended indviduals to start their own lives within. This also intriduces a chance to acclimatise individuals before they're completely immersed into a new Path for their lives.

Option 3: Clones - Genetically engineered sub-humans. Fierce ethical debate here and I for one do not believe this is viable at all. Self transcended individuals of the future would then be saddled with an additional strain on the System that doesn't exist now. Especially, if for some reason those clones ended up being able to reproduce. Remember, we're trying to solve problems here and not trying to "carry-them-forward". Only reason I have it here at all is because recent stem cell research breakthroughs might have made it easier to do this as opposed to creating Androids.

My personal favourite is Option 1 definitely. This is because there would be a force that would continue to be at the control of future Self-Transcended humans. The existence of such a force would also lead to quick satisfaction of deficiency needs in humans. They would be free to pursue higher goals while menial tasks are performed by androids.

Changes can then be made to reduce the dependency on substances and materials. For example without money and an oversupply of every type of essential items, a lot of legality can be thrown out of the window including reciepts. True paperless environments then can exist, saving trees. Sharing becomes natural and no sane person would have the urge to build a big house for just 3 people to live in. Everyone would be content as long as there exists a personal space for them and this would suddenly solve "housing space crunches". And yeah, 6.5 billion people would ALL have comfortable places to stay WITHOUT having to cut trees for years to come. Space efficiency can be acheieved and maybe hey, we might have the interest to do more gardening.

Not only that. Things would start to slow down and the drilling of oil and natural gases could also be controlled; to only be used in long-distance transportations. Alternative energy sources would be the name of the game for localised energy needs. Imagine how much more potential can the human mind have in creating and refining better energy technologies when it is craving for the "peak experience" of having contributed to the progress of Humanity, as opposed to mundane things like 'making more money' and 'becoming succesful' in relativity to others?

Here comes the real "radical" idea. We can also stop useless chemicals from entering our bodies like coffee and tea. (I'd say cigarettes too but hey, we need something to kill people off fast in the society of the future too, right?) So, why do you need coffee and tea anyways? To keep you awake? To give you a 'kick'? (You can do that by getting married and over-sleeping on a school day). You do understand the implications of what I am saying? Whole tea and coffee plantations can be returned to Mother Nature to be rainforests again. Yup, that's how we start reversing environmental pollution. Radical ain't it? A beautiful, green planet without tea & coffee.

When you think about this, you would realise how there is much more unneccesary strains on the System now. Why do we still need leather tanneries with improving fabric technologies? Why do we still need polythene plastics or even paper bags for that matter when you can make bags out of re-usable materials like 'rattan' (and they last longer too)? Detergents and cleaners too can be replaced with natural stuff when we stop feeling that chemical solutions are "better". That is easily done. No commercials to influence people to buy. Oh yeah, the gravestone of the printing and advertising industry is an ESSENTIAL foundation slab for the society of the future. Remember. No one needs convincing to part with their money then.

Back to Option 1. The guy who creates the Androids has to share my vision of Utopia (or have a grander plan himself). He shouldn't sell them to households or businesses or governments to make profits. He should use them to create the Enclaves straight off the bat! But, wouldn't this be a hard sell to his stakeholders? I say "No"

Businesses

1) Tax breaks for businesses that invest in Androids and Tax-holidays for businesses that invest up to 40% of their profits directly into Enclave construction efforts.

2) Exclusive citizenship in the Enclaves of the Future, for the CEOs. (CEO's having the money to satisfy Deficiencies Needs would be closer to operate in the Self-Actualiser state, easily reaching the Self-Transcendence state)

3) Activities within are not going to be generating, transfering or consuming money. Profits can still be made supplying to the Enclaves in their initial stages of internal inefficiencies.

Non-profit, Non-Governmental organisations

1) Among the first things these Enclaves would do is repatriate orphaned, homeless children from the streets. It needs people without ties, without 'excess baggages' totally dedicated to fulfilling the vision. The Enclaves must SERVE the society from Day 1.

2) All NGOs, NPOs have an agenda in the betterment of humanity anyways. The Enclaves as a focus of their efforts would definitely benefit them.

3) There are no Governments within the Enclaves. LoL... where else can they operate to their heart's content?

Governments

1) The Enclaves would be a symbol of the future. Any government that has the nerve to call itself "developed" should be interested in developing these symbols.

2) Politicians would definitely think about the flow of resources that would be coming in to support the construction of the Enclave and how they can take their 'piece of cake' from all the action. Yeah, let them feed while others are busy freeing themselves. The things you own, end up owning you - Tyler Durden. Fight Club.

3) The United Nations could finally come to good use, by becoming evangelists for the Enclaves, in getting fundings to flow to developing nations as well.

I personally prefer a new Planetary Organisation to be in charge of the Enclaves. Yeah I'd prefer the term "Planetary" as opposed to "Global". The latter is very much tied into the current global economy, that causes global financial meltdowns affecting citizens globally who are all on a one way street to a global catastrophe, the day global warming passes the climactic 'tipping point'. You get the point.

We don't live on a GLOBE do we? Nope. Not a simple sphere. Yeah, for the longest time we even thought it was flat. And NO, it does not suddenly become "flat" one day because Thomas Friedman woke up and realised that every individual now can contribute to the global economy, thus rendering the US economy irrelevant. Read his book (and throw it away) someday. But, at least it got him thinking about how the global economy needs to go green. At least someone is thinking along the correct action plans. Reasoning is flawed though.

It is now high-time we use the ACTUAL word. We live on a Planet. A Planet is an increasingly complex, wonderful system the smaller you become. Each and every "flow" has an origin and a destination on a globe. In a Planet though, everything eventually goes back to where it started. Every particle has a way of flowing back to its origin, even if it takes thousands of years for one revolution.

All Self-Transcended individuals would be able to see these Nature Flows and know exactly how to tap, harness and harmonise with them. These individuals would also operate under the full realisation every move has a butterfly effect which touches ALL particles within the Planetary system; thus taking decisions for the greater good everytime.

They may need a servant force to keep their efforts focused on the big picture first, but to avoid how some popular fiction portray humanity as becoming lazy (which I believe would pretty easily happen), there has to be one Final clause in the Vision of the Enclaves. The reliance on Androids MUST be phased down and eliminated as time goes on. Humans have to embrace their chance to equally contribute to Nature's Flows at all levels...

...Going back to Dawn of Man

Every human in a tribe having needs to be met to live; contributing to get what was needed.

Except now, at the Noon of Man.

Every human on the Planet got what each needs; triggering a process of contribution to Life, aided by thousands of years of scientific understanding and technological advancements.

Leading to a glorious Dusk...

There is a little bit of economy in all of us (Part 3)

2009-02-25T16:08:00.015+05:30

(Continued from Part 2)
...As beautiful as it may sound, we are unable to move towards this Utopian idea, even in small phases, at least until 2 things take place.

First: The Need for a Unifying Paradigm Shift
Yup. Frankly said, something else other than MONEY that has the power to glue humans together and trigger a movement to discard the idea of 'money' as obsolete. This in my mind would most definitely have NOTHING to do with race or religion. Their very nature being divisive between the "are" and "are nots". Except if you've read Dune. In Dune, whole new unified religions arise once humans become spacefarers and discovered other habitable planets. Facts and figures collected in space, forced discarding of earth-bound "divisive" truths and beliefs. Thus a new unifying "world religion" may be able to bring people across the globe together, but without strong focus, continued opposition from contemporary religions would dilute and maybe even reverse its unifying impact, breaking it apart from within.

Another way to approach this puzzle is to figure out what motivates people to change. Between extrinsic motivators, fear is stronger than greed. Someone may be inclined to perform better due to a threat as opposed to a cash reward. Yet, a unifying principle built on a "Focus of Fear" (Pestilence? Tyrant? Climate shock?) so universal that it affects everyone to forget their Focus of Greed (Money) is pretty questionable in these times. Also, if the focus of fear was created by Man, then others would only be driven to think how to solve/ destroy/ undo the fear, thus freeing themselves of the fear, instead of changing. Example: Doctors worldwide have been running around trying to kill the HIV virus for years, instead of spending that time and energy to educate and guide fellow humans to change/control their sexual behaviours which would have been a better solution in the long term.
Intrinsic motivators are then better able to pull everyone through change. This means giving either a sense of Duty or a sense of Joy internally that drives the individual to change. Intuitively, it is better to sell the idea of a new unifying pradigm shift to the young crowd with a "Focus on Joy" and the mature crowd appealing to their "Focus on Duty". I am not saying it doesn't work the other way round or it doesn't work in tandem. Just that this sequence would feel natural for both groups to adopt in changing and accepting the new unifying paradigm and eventually forgetting the importance of money.

What could be a successful unifying pradigm shift? For that I looked at Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Briefly it states there is a hierarchy of 5 needs for humans, where each of the first 4 Deficiency Needs leads to the next as they are satisfied; from the basic Physiological, to Security, to Belongingness and finally to Self-Esteem. As we can see, all these can be satisfied by the presence of money in our lives. With money we can eat, then have personal and financial security. This leads to having a lifestyle attracting friends, family, collegues and potential partners, who then make us feel good. These and our self positive feedbacks solve the deficiency needs in layers 3 & 4. Having satisfied all these the 5th layer is open where the Being Needs of Self-Actualisation lie. That comes from needing to be completely balanced, centred and knowing what we want to achieve and create as individuals, without it being an objective to satisfy any of the lower deficiency needs. Thus the importance of money for an individual diminishes.
There is a lesser famous but equally ground-breaking part of Maslov's work in 1969 where he mentions beyond the Self-Actualised layer; there exist "Self-Transcended" individuals. Maslow's landmark 1969 article, “Theory Z” (re-printed in Maslow's basic text on Transpersonal Psychology, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, NY: Viking, 1972) has one interesting comment to make about Self-Transcended individuals:-
["Transcenders are interested in a “cause beyond their own skin,” and are better able to “fuse work and play,” “they love their work,” and are more interested in “kinds of pay other than money pay”; “higher forms of pay and metapay steadily increase in importance.”]

I don't completely understand the definition of the words he uses, (having no access to his full text) but the first point to note is that Maslov mentions mystics/holy men are not the ONLY self-transcenders. There are other mature individuals who display these qualities as well. Secondly, he coins the term "peak experiences" and "plateau living" as elements that satisfy their Being Needs. It hints self-transcenders are driven by higher goals and operate in a serene and holistic mode. Lastly, he mentions how we need to study, understand and de-mystify them in order to strive and achieve what they have shown us as the currently observed pinnacle of humanity. The excerpt below underlines what is the first step to identify a unifying paradigm shift:-
[“Human history is a record of the ways in which human nature has been sold short. The highest possibilities of human nature have practically always been underrated. Even when 'good specimens,' the saints and sages and great leaders of history have been available for study, the temptation too often has been to consider them not human but supernaturally endowed…. If we want to know the possibilities for spiritual growth, value growth, or moral development in human beings, then I maintain that we can learn most by studying our most moral, ethical, or saintly people.” — Abe Maslow.]

I believe this is a logical argument hinting at a valid path for humanity to explore and to realise its own highest potential. The dire need to study the currently rare self-transcended individuals who are pioneering the next era of humanity, and to learn HOW they achieve their states of being/bliss, cannot be understated. It must be revealed that this is not a pseudo-religious experience but something that all humans are capable of achieving. Imagine a whole generation of young people focusing on the joy of exploring and embracing a lifestyle of higher morals not because it is preached by some religion. They do it after all their deficiency needs are already satisfied in highly planned, non-money driven, sub-environments where they are guided by the few existing self-transcended individuals along new paths of self-discovery. Having experienced the joys, later as adults they'd be able to focus on the duty to maintain, enhance and expand the same environment for youths worldwide to be guided in generations to come.
Each generation then is slowly removed from our way of life, ascending to a different level of understanding. Hopefully relooking at the impact of Humanity on Earth's systems. Finally devising ways of decreasing and even reversing the long term pollution we caused in the last few hundred thousand years, since we started standing upright. Harmonising ourselves with Nature; thus reversing the self-induced onslaught of Naraka on Earth and constructing the avenue leading to Svarga on Earth.

Second: The Need for a Servant Force
Continued in Part 4...

There is a little bit of Economy in all of us (Part 2)

2009-02-21T13:03:00.009+05:30

(Continued from Part 1)
...And thus started the Economic Cycles as we now know it.

The elements were there. Taxes, Money and its supply controlled by the government. Products and Services becoming more and more complex as individuals became more and more interested in showing off their wealth; Art, Servants, Architecture, Fashion, Land, Timepieces and a whole host of things unrelated to living life came into play. Wants became more important than Needs. At this point, Premium pricing was natural. After all, how can you price something which people didn't really need? And it was socially "ok" to still want it even with people demanding unreasonable prices. Using Debt you could acquire something that was beyond your normal means and pay for it later. Debt was no longer used to address basic needs. It was used to address wants and gambling on investments (wanting more money).

Greed grew. Greed flourished. Greed trapped humans into a cycle of wanting and guilty pay back. In some, greed drove them to search for more riches to be made theirs. The Spanish set sail exploring crying "for God, Glory and Gold!
GOD: I've purposely omitted this can of worms from this commentary. It would have come into play back when I said the first Services industries appeared. Shamans being able to 'understand' the mysteries of life and educate the olden Warriors.
GLORY: Humans would have heard about the heroes who were kings. Heroes who were brave in the early economic wars. Rich people who lived their life in luxuries. They would want that for themselves as well. Their name to be in history (and there were still many places to be explored in the world then anyway)
GOLD: Need I say more? Sigh...

They colonised lands. Taking local wealth back to their kingdoms in triumph, as what their patrons expected. They then sent labourers and convicts to the new world as pioneers to establish the rules and lifestyles from the conquering countries. As if that wasn't bad enough, a worse phenomenon was that expanding businesses in home countries sent products to the new lands to be sold. They didn't care about the need / want / relevance of the product they sent. What businesses knew is that there is a market and products must be mass produced and sold. Increasing production, and thus profits. Managers were encouraged; given huge bonuses. So, managers rinsed and repeated this ad nauseum. They had to. It was the only way Investors (ie: People who were earlier patrons with lots of money, who wanted more money, and would have fired any management who failed to deliver) could be appeased.
The process repeated until all markets got saturated. Nobody wanted to buy and everybody saved money instead. No amount of pestering convinced people to buy because they had whatever they needed & wanted. Yup, ladies and gentlemen!! Supply had FINALLY caught up with Demand and there was excess supply, with factories still mass producing. At that point, production lines came screeching to a halt. Warehouses were bursting at the seams. Consumers switched to cheaper alternatives. Marketing budgets swelled to hide poor forecasting calculations. Wages were cut, even though workers were being paid overtime just days earlier. Eventually many experienced loss of jobs. Leading to further decrease in consumer Expenditure, and a vicious cycle ensued where at the end, the economy contracted.

In finance terms, a particular country's economy is said to be in recession if contraction happens for 2 quarters consecutively. 6 months. In my definition, I think the recession starts the moment EVERYONE is making insane profits. This means consumers across the board are hoarding; which then leads to the fact that VERY SOON they are going to stop buying. This is where companies still make mistakes. While they have very aggresive ramp-up strategies; No one thinks about phase-down strategies. Everyone says the other guy is going to bite the dust and I am going to take his share so I have to STILL ramp-up in a slump time. Besides, that's the only way I can keep the profits from last quarter going strong. Greed.

But, a phase down across the board is what is needed at that point. A PRODUCTION phase down. A sales TARGET phase down. A marketing BUDGET phase down. A managerial KPI phase down. And yes as counter intuitive as it sounds, a WAGE phase down across the board. Think about it, how can a company go into survival mode in a slump time if the people want to be paid as they were being paid in the boom time? Can you imagine a ship crew experiencing storm in the middle of the sea eating their rations at the same rate? The other alternative is of course to lay-off workers. But, this is a very irresponsible way for businesses to deal with the crisis. "For a few to continue eating as much as they did before the storm, we'd like the others to walk the plank into the middle of stormy seas" ?
At the least, they should get to a port and drop the excess crew off. A responsible way of retrenching staff. Leave them in a safe place where it's more feasible to look for a job. This is where Government I feel can actually help by having a rotation of projects. When the economy is going into a slump, launching a flagship project where the Government hires workers to work on it would be a great boost. Money would go straight into the hands of needy citizens and there would be a demand for daily products that arise from their employed pockets. Companies can make it easier by actually helping their employees find jobs in batches, with the Govt.

Of course, those who feel they are not interested can always do their own thing. Sadly people would do their own thing because of the ultimate need of humans. To live and to be safe. To be cherished and remembered. To be ambitious and leave a mark. They would try their hand at entrepreneurship / freelancing to make lots of money. Again, this is a situation that can be avoided if people did not need to buy what they needed. The developed economies have got the right track in mind by having Social Security schemes. Citizens unable to work are paid Social Security money by the Governments. They just haven't went on to the next step. Instead of giving people money to lift their burden of buying, the people should in fact given those items they want to buy for FREE; thus releasing more and more people from the need and "trappings" of money. I am not talking about abolishing the concept of money. I am talking instead about humans having enough to live. Then, having money would purely be for pleasure and the pursuit of happyness (pun intended!). People would then look at money as the tool it really is. Economic cycles would not dictate our livelihoods.

As beautiful as it may sound, we are unable to move towards this Utopian idea, even in small phases, at least until 2 things take place...
(Continued in Part 3)

There is a little bit of Economy in all of us (Part 1)

2009-02-17T15:45:00.013+05:30

Hey Guys,

At the dawn of time, Everybody had needs to be met to live (Demands). Everybody could contribute to get what was needed (Supply).

In the olden times, there was this barbaric act of just abandoning or killing lame / disabled babies. That was a way of getting rid of unwanted strains on the System. There will not be a Demand which is more than the Supply that it can give. In fact, a lame baby would not have been able to defend itself and thus create the situation where others in the tribe were endangered, while trying to protect it as well.
Eventually, love and compassion stayed the hand of some and these lame children grew knowing full well that they were not able to hunt/gather/carry as much as the others. They had time to apply their brains, observe, analyse and come up with better ways of contributing. They would always have had strong opposition from the Warriors who were physically contributing to the tribe. But, eventually by becoming shamans and medicine men and toolmakers, these drain on resources were suddenly suppliers for a different set of needs. Previously unexplored, and non-essential to life sustainment (Wants). Thus, the Services industry was born.

This could have been the first instance of a serious physical Demand-Supply gap in the System. The gap would have existed earlier when not all people got the food they needed in the earlier System. That would have drove them to their first fight for food, water and land (hunting grounds); the first economic wars for limited resources. Once both sides realised that it was mutually harming chances of survival, either one would have given way or both would have decided for a mutual cease-fire. Either ways, the first barter Trade would have happened at this point with a little bit of early Diplomacy / Alliances thrown in.
This developing serious gap though could not be solved with just fighting and winning. It also required more than trade, especially in a large locality where they were in total power, with no others to grab from. This scenario along with developing methods of farming would have set off the first Agrarian economies. People realised that they could get more done if each other found his own type of specialty farming and then traded with others his excesses. internal trade flourished within communities. Of course, when you Specialise you get more of a better product and markets were there to facilitate trade.

The first Markets would have sprung very soon after the first barter trades happened. Trading posts which eventually became centres for their empires or smaller points in between empires that served as Consolidation Points of that particular area's specialty merchandise. This is where true Marketing would have started as pricing, positioning, product and with manual promotions.
To control everything, the inherent power structure from the tribal era would have evolved to support Monarchy systems. This system along with the people who support the monarchy would have formed the first Governments. An important part of Governments would have been the introduction of Taxes. People who lived in one area had to give something to the local monarch as a token. This also would have been a carry over from tribal days where the chief was given the "lion's share". A real example, Siam's (present day Thailand) holdings had to send them a "Bunga Mas" every year. Bunga = flower; Mas = gold. It literally was a symbolic little tree and flowers made of gold. Another meaning for Bunga = Interest (as in the interest paid on debt) presumably for living on the "borrowed land" of Siam.

This of course led to an interesting point in the development of economy as we know it. The discovery and manipulation of precious metals, Monarchies, inequalities inherent to barter trades, the need for tax collection in a form where lots of vegetables didn't go bad in the Royal coffers. All these would have led to the introduction of the Currency system. Money.
And so now we had Supply & Demand for Specialised Products & Services focused at the Markets. Exchanges were being done using Money and Monarchs were being paid Taxes by everyone in their domain. They needed someone to keep track of everything and Accountancy was born. The day that happened, every transaction done outside the "books" became the Black Market. Untaxable, untraceable yet physically money flowed from one to another for goods/services that never really "existed".

But, traders were more preoccupied with the money that was flowing in to their coffers. They could not run around and carrying all thier wealth in precious metal coins. They became the source of money that fed the black markets. Most of them found themselves in a pool of their own blood at the end of such transactions. Banks would have been formed at this point. Strongholds that kept everyone's valuables for a Fee. Eventually, seeing all those valuables in there just lying being unused would have led some clever banker to go on a "shopping spree"; Investments. Or it might have led him to think it would be ok to give money to someone who needs it and ask him to repay higher later (before the original owner came to reclaim it); Debt + Interest. The art of managing all this would have been Finance, as it is a different creature from only record keeping like accounting.

Now, there is a little philosophical bent to my story. I feel that as humans until that point in History we would have had our natural greed. Greed to survive. Greed to eat more. Greed to live in better conditions. Yet without focus, there was no strength in this human emotion to trap humans. Once Money was there. It was easy to see, to feel, to hear its 'jingle' during sleep. Anyone who had money had everything. Monarchs being the prime example and then the traders (proving the common man could have it too). The presence of a focus for greed amplified the emotion. Humans (who are great hunters!) became trapped in the hunt for money; only for money's sake. Children picked up the wrong message from their parents. Instead of hunting for enough food, enough land to live on and enough security; they were driven to hunt for money not really knowing the reason. Not really enjoying the fruits of the labour. For having money is pointless if you don't know what you want the money for, right?

And thus started the Economic Cycles as we now know it.
(Continued in Part 2)

The current economic situation

2009-02-17T13:55:00.005+05:30

Hey guys,

Yeah, it might be a little bit too cliche to talk about the economy when all blogs could be talking about the very same topic. In fact, I feel there could be a lot of financial experts, and others blogging about this with a vengeance... They could take the stance of:-

the Naive: It's not that bad...there's just a minor correction and things will pick up... wha..* ..!~ Another flying shoe and this one doesn't miss. People realising they get only two-shots to "shoe-boo" their favourite politicians accurately, have started practicing.

the Know-it-all: It's just as I've been telling all this while. Nobody listened to me yesterday when I started saying it. Nobody is listening to me today. The economy is so bad now that it can only get worse. It may get better on a short term (<-this sentence embedded, to be a loophole if situations suddenly pick-up). But, I still maintain.... bla bla bla...

the Politically Correct: It is a tough in these turbulent times for the employment-challenged. We see equity-challenged companies going belly-up(..oh? ..wha? ..sorry...) I meant, forced to take legal recourse to protect their debtors from the inability of the management to grasp reality.

the Management: Please understand that the multi-million dollar bonus I got is in no way related to the way the economy is behaving at the moment. That is for my past performance, ensuring the company behaved as it should. We would definitely have not taken the bonuses if we did not earn it (...using your blood, sweat and tears. Oh, and I am going to fire you now)

the Employee: ....

And yeah, the employee most probably got it right.

The Year is 2009...

2009-02-16T16:46:00.004+05:30

Hey guys,

How are you all there? Well, it has been a long time hasn't it? I realise that it has been actually a year this blog lay dormant.

So, to what do we owe my sudden interest and effort to blog. The Season's changed. Yay!~ Recently, I was sitting bored, when for the umpteenth time someone wanted to be "unsubscribed" from the ISB-PGP YahooGroup mailing list. Enough was enough. The people on this list are all GMAT 700+ scorers or at the least people aspiring to get into ISB. They should have got the hint (especially the guy who was kindly requesting for the 3rd time) that there are no active moderators or owners operating in that group anymore. It had evolved to have direction of its own. A purpose of its own, with people free to join and to leave by themselves anytime. No permissions needed.

I had this smug smile on my face while I excitedly jabbed away at the keyboard that evening. You see, it's pretty easy to get yourself unsubscribed. You have a link at the bottom of ALL the mails. Obviously, people nowadays don't seem to read the fine print anymore. Everybody wants in, but nobody finds out how to exit when they've had enough. It's the same everywhere. Casinos, relationships, crashing economies, the Mafia, ISB-PGP groups... everywhere. When they need to exit, they cry for help. They ask people they know, etc etc.

Anyways, I just typed my mind and I had more than a few comments lauding my post. In fact, they asked for (yep, you guessed it!) my Blog Address!! I have to say, I never thought that I would get rave reviews for giving people a piece of my mind. Lol!~

This then led me to promising my new fans a regular update and well, this time I intend to keep up and well, build my presence online. I might need to get the help of some bloggers for tips and comments as to how I can improve the blog overall. Please anybody with bright ideas, come into my mind and throw my switch on!~ =). (No, NOT that switch damn it!~ All you one-track minded bloggers). Topic/theme suggestions are welcome too.

Ciao for now!~
-Mathanaseelan-

Kashmir, India - Part 2

2007-12-15T01:25:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

I guess i left the cliffhanger 'hanging' for too long. Anyways, i did make it on time. To the WRONG terminal. I didn't know that unlike in other places where domestic is one side and international is another side, delhi airport's domestic itself terminal has 2 buildings. Different buildings for different carriers.

I kept saying domestic and at one point i think i much have mentioned another airline name. The auto driver dropped me at the wrong building. Thank god the buildings weren't too far apart. Went to the correct terminal. It took me about 20 mins walking to get to the terminal and then i had to walk around looking for the entrance.

Then i got to the correct terminal and i didn't really know what to do since i still had close to about 60-80 minutes. Bought some food. Got myself the local newspaper. Looked at the people rushing to catch their flights. All in all, just a jolly time. Of course, i did think at that point i wouldn't be bored out of my mind if only i had some dragged some friends along. But, well i also realised that i had some stuff to do in Kashmir and i wouldn't be able to justify that to a bunch of people rationally.

Was admiring Lord Nadaraja at the airport. After all, i was going to the foothills of the Himalayas which is His abode.

Flight time came. Got checked-in and ready to start my holiday in proper. :) I have to admit that i was very excited at this point. Adding to my excitment were the stewardesses of Kingfisher airlines. I realised that the women who were hired at Kingfisher Airlines to handle customers in-flight and as part of the ground crew were all beautiful. Surprising that no Women's Right activist took this up as an agenda to fight for gender equality

This is where things started getting bad. The captain made an announcement that the plane was headed to Kabul, Afghanistan. I honestly, didn't know how else to capture this moment. So I took the photo of the screen. Of course i had to wonder. Either the plane got hijacked, or i got on the wrong damn plane since the pilot seemed to be talking with a very calm voice.

As you can see, the plane is very close to Lahore by this point. Thank god, he didn't want to go to Lahore and drop me in the middle of a damn political crisis. At the very least i could have had some place willing to accept HSBC credit cards in Lahore, and bought tickets out. I couldn't see that happening in Kabul. Either way, I was headed towards a war zone. Kabul...Kabul...sigh...

Kashmir, India - Part 1

2007-10-17T14:23:00.001+05:30

Hey Guys & Gals,

In the usual tradition, the cab had arrived and i was still packing. Completely unsure of how the weather was going to be when i arrived up there, i took some t-shirts as well as long-sleeved sweaters, a jacket, 3-pairs of jeans (God. Please bless the man who invented the Jeans).

Got on the cab, and he dropped me off fairly early at the train station. I had decided early on, the LAST thing i ever wanted to do was to buy and eat something at an Indian Railway Station stall. I didn't want to fall sick even before my trip started. Checked out the First Class Compartments and i have to say that they're quite impressive! :). 4 people in a compartment and about 3 compartments in a coach. If you can't picture compartments in a train, picture Hogwarts Express.

Anyway, the guy opposite me was a Lt. Col. in the Indian Army. He was going to Jaipur. After awhile i striked up a conversation with this man and i realised that he was a treasure trove of information about the North-West. He had served at Kargill and had visited Srinagar and Pehalgam. So, that's about the point at which i really started gathering information about Srinagar and the current situation there. :) Yup, you're right. Otherwise, I would have went up into a former warzone completely oblivious. Ignorance is bliss i guess. Anyway, the more i heard about the place, the more i was interested to go there at that point.

The train ride itself was about 24 hours. At night, i couldn't resist the temptation when we stopped at a station. I joined the other 2 guys in the compartment and had a bread that was fried with egg all around it. Something like the "Roti John" that we get in pasar malam except that it was using a slice of bread instead of the long bread. Besides it was ONLY eggs, and none of the other condiments. Yummy stuff, and then i took some "puri" as well. Came back into the train to find more food. I had ordered for dinner and it arrvied only AFTER close to 1.5 hours. Oh what the hell, i had that vegetarian food as well.

Somewhere at this point, we found out that some Gujarat people living on the outskirts of Delhi were dismantling the railway tracks leading into Delhi in protest to an accident involving a Blueline (the state run bus company) bus and a bus-stop FULL of people (must have been predominantly Gujarati). One of the guys got this sms from a relative living in Delhi watching the news at that moment. I looked at him quizzically(?) He admitted he didn't know the connection between a bus accident and the Indian Railways either.

Anyway, we had been chit-chatting a lot at that point and were tired. I had a surprisingly deep sleep in a moving, clanking, whistling mechanical machine. Got to Delhi on time and realised the affected tracks were the ones western of Delhi coming from Bombay and not the southern tracks from Hyderabad. (Thank GOD for that, or my whole plan would have changed). The 2 guys were nice. They got me onto an auto and sent me to the airport at the best possible price. (This price bit i noticed on my trip back, as to how much the autos in Delhi cost especially if they know you're a foreigner)

Well, thus ends the rambling of the first 24 hours of my trip to Kashmir. We have just arrived at Delhi and i am speeding in a Auto to the airport where my flight leaves in about 2 hours!!

Will i make it? =O???

The Dragon has passed away...

2007-09-26T16:38:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Today got an offline message from Jeevan saying that, Robert Jordan has passed away. Of course, he knows I love Robert Jordan's books a lot and it has always been a long standing joke of his, that this day might come to pass. The passing of the author before the completion of the Epic...

Of course, I hate myself for wishing he passed away "at least" after he completed this book. Just check the Wikipedia entry under his name to see the 'projects' he intended to do after this mammoth task. Just the same, it's a great loss to the realm of fantasy adventure to see the passing of one almost as talented as JRR Tolkien himself.

I couldn't help it, I checked out the website where his blog is. Left a comment.

Comment No. 2175 at his cousin Wilson's post after he passed away.

To the family of Mr. Jim Rigney,

I came to know the Wheel of Time book only in 1998,

The first day I left my home country (Malaysia) and reached a new place (Australia), a new beginning in my life. I marked it with the purchase of a book; The Eye of the World. Since that day, I grew up alongside Rand, Perrin and Mat throughout my 18th year and onwards.

The words of Mr.Jim Rigney reached me and the advices and worldviews that he imparted, moulded me as much as my new environment did. Probably more, since I prefered to sit inside and read that series book by book. I eagerly awaited the next twist in the story, slowly escaping whenever things were hard here, and then came back refreshed. Such was the power in those books.

It was always a dream of mine to 'tip my hat' to the man who created this marvelous epic and thank him for the important role it played in my life when I grew up from being just a "farmboy" to a Man. And now I guess, it shall always stay a dream...

Thank you, Jim for everything. In your own words, "There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of time..." Farewell, Mr. Jim Rigney.

My deepest condolences to the Rigney family and everybody here that has felt that Mr. Jim Rigney was "family" too in their lives.

-Mathan-

I'm not burning any bridges

2007-09-06T01:30:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Heard this phrase recently. Got me thinking. How many bridges have we burned? How many beautiful relationships and friendships that we had in the past, that now has turned stale. We promise each other that we would keep in touch. Yet, it never happens.

More often than Absence makes the Heart grow Fonder, it becomes a case of Out of Sight Out of Mind! Sometimes when we really sit down and think about the past. Whole chunks of memories with certain people just disappear from the mind. Almost as if the person did not touch out lives. Yet, after a certain period of time we suddenly (luckily!) realise that there is something missing in the interpretation of our memories. Looking back at photos, the truth comes crashing down that "I had forgotten that person and the good times that we had!'

This of course happens to people like me who are very used to meeting lots of people, and making friends with a lot of people. Sometimes I have wondered if what i was doing was wrong in any way. But the truth is just that I cannot control, the need I have in making friends!! I cannot control the fact that I want to know as many people as possible!! And perhaps the worst of all is the fact that I want everybody to be happy!!

Then all of a sudden, things would have to end and then, people would move out of our lives. This cycle repeats so many times that eventually we would have to somehow remember everybody or forget some poor unfortunate soul. Sigh!! A bridge would have to be burned!!

Just some random thought in my mind. In fact there is something else that is plaguing my mind. I am writing this particular post to release the tension inside. Lol!~ Well until next time folks!! I am so proud that this post was fully written using QWERTY!!

Take care people!!

Confusion - Resolved

2007-08-30T16:33:00.000+05:30

Hi people,

The title says it all. Been here for 3 terms now. Confusion is setting in. I really don't know what i am.

Oh yeah, you read right. My thoughts have gone that deep. I have no longer any interests in trying to figure out what job I want to get into post-ISB.

See, To know what job i want to do in future needs a lot of thinking. I need to know my interests. I have to know my needs and wants clearly; extrapolated into the future with a little bit of Monte Calro Simulation to take into account the randomness of fate and luck.

I have to put together my core competencies that i have built in life, for the last 26 years. Now, at first glance it looks like i have been doing nothing, learning nothing. But that certainly is not RIGHT! I actually have done something extraordinary with my life. I have done many things that most people have not had the time or chance or money to do yet. I am proud of it, when i actually sit down and list down the number of things I have done.

What makes me unhappy is this problem with my memory. I forget things. I even forget things that I said I have learned and that I will make sure to remember, to never repeat my past mistakes. Problem is I forget and sooner than not I would be repeating the same mistakes. It happened again here at ISB. I just forgot who I am and why I came here during the last term. the way I approached the assignments and exams were pitiful. Nothing at all compared to the focus and composure I had during the first 2 terms. I just got carried away trying to deal with friendships, inter-study group relationships, inter-section relationships, etc.

I went back to Malaysia thankfully. Back there for a few days, seeing all my 'nakama' was a serious dose of reality. It reminded me of how much my family and friends love me. It reminded me that I am not alone. It reminded me that I did not have to worry about anything other than achieving something at ISB.

So, now i am back. Screwed one sem up a little bit. But, there are 5 more to go. I'll just have to find out what can be done in those. So, now back to the earlier point. My core competencies are what I need to learn about. The LDP sessions have been a great revealing experience. Now, I need to work on them. More importantly figure out what kind of job am I willing to FIGHT for!

Oh yeah, another few terms and the Placement season will come up. I know for sure, I want to be in an International placement. The resume building exercises are starting up. I need to know how to approach all these things to market myself as the best candidate for the position that they're offering even though my credentials aren't as flashy as the next guy.

But to fight for it at that level, I need to be clear of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats that I would be facing at each job. Could I handle them? Would I remain motivated and interested in the offers? Would they actually give me what I want in terms of salary and job scope?

There is also the current thoughts of moving into the media industry. I have been in one part of the logistics industry. Should I just stay in this industry or bring the knowledge to apply elsewhere? =)

Well, I know that I need to spend a little bit more time. But, in the meantime thank you guys!! All of you in Malaysia that helped me so much to become who I am today, where I am today!

Luv,
-Mathan-

A Flight to Adventure...

2007-04-01T08:19:00.000+05:30

21 and a half hours to go....

I'll be stepping on a flight. Connecting at Madras and ultimately arriving at Hyderabad. I gotta say. I have a lot of unfinished business here in Malaysia. Sigh. Too many people to meet. Too many words left unsaid.

I am not who i was in 1999 when i left the country for the first time. I have grown since then. I have realised the sorrows around me and the hardships around me. Yet, I've also seen the love that surrounds my life protecting me, nurturing me; and i am excited to take this step in my life now.

I want that love to reach all others around me. I want to be able to GIVE. These were resolutions that I did not have the first time. The first time it was all for ME. =) I left a boy; and i returned a man.

This time it is for everybody that i partake in this Great Adventure. I leave a man, to return a LEADER.

The Divine Move in Mysterious Ways

2007-03-23T11:43:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Tuesday, April 26, 2005. Now if you guys look back in my posts, at that date there was a post called "The Divine Move in Mysterious Ways".

I ended that post with these 2 lines (Plus whether or not she realised it, she actually gave me an outline of what i should be doing in the next 2 years. Interestingly, this was my question during my prayers!!~ "What path should i choose now?").

Well, i totally forgot about that post until i was revisiting some of my earlier writings yesterday. The advice that i got from that lady, i had been following and my path was quite well-defined in Westports for the last 2 years.

And then suddenly, the whole ISB saga began. I mean i didn't think about it beforehand. But, now I realise exactly 2 years from that post I am entering the next phase in my life. I have about 2 years work experience, and now I am doing my Post-Graduate in Management. And I guess, this is where i will be getting guidance how to conduct my life professionally and socially in future. =)

The Divine move in Mysterious Ways indeed !~ (and it took me 2 years to realise this..)

Have a nice day guys!

Strange Palms....

2007-03-19T19:29:00.000+05:30

Hmnn... I wonder if anyone realises how I am feeling at the moment?

I guess I am feeling just like how another 400+ Great Individuals out there are feeling. Yet, I feel there is a spring to my step. A bounce when I crash on the bed....(err, bad example), a croak to my voice that comes from knowing that soon I am not gonna be in this country anymore.

I am gonna take a flight from Gate 13 and a half, and then have horseless carriages take me to Hog-....(err.. ISB?) where I would be spending the rest of my year cramming up on studies. There would be points when I am told how to cast magic effectively(marketing), how to keep track of what i cast(finances), how to make others cast spells for me(human resources), how to be a good spellcaster(ethics), how to cast faster and spend no energy to lift the damn sword out of the rock when Arthur isn't around.

I know currently I just feel tempted to use the One Ring. I know at many points in the coming year I would feel the temptation of using it. Knowing full well it is wrong to do so and that it would corrupt not only myself but also everyone around me into using their own One Rings. It lets us become invisible and draw away from the world around us. We say it is to gather our thoughts and keep our sanity, but who are we kidding? In loneliness shall madness creep ever faster to claim its prize; the mind.

If only I could find my Fellowship that supports and nurtures me and encourages me to cast away my One Ring. My mind shall be whole. It happened once when I was not looking during my undergraduate years. One blink and there was my Fellowship standing by me. =) No matter Muggles or Ents, everyone was in it to make the other shine his / her best!!~

Let it happen once again!~
-from the disjointed memoirs of Frodo Potter-

An Ancient Riddle...

2007-02-01T08:39:00.000+05:30

The lone wanderer creeped stealthily in the catacombs. Alert. He took great pains to step on cobblestones with the thickest layers of dust. Everything about this man was sharp edged from the broadsword on his back, to the look in his eyes that glowed blue. A look that betrayed an ancient intelligence, incongruent with his youthful form.

"This ancient labyrinth is empty. Nothing is alive here anymore. The SunMen wiped themselves out aeons ago...."

These were among the last thoughts of some of the still rotting corpses at his feet. He knew. Having been so close to Death himself numerous times, he could sense their last thoughts. The horrific realisation.

He made his way to the central chamber. By no means where he wanted to go. The Point of Origins. Yet, he needed to deal with this Threat first. The central chamber with its ambient lighting and tall, wide pillars all around could provide him with the cover he needed to fight IT. Reaching, he realised how big the Central Chamber actually was. You could have placed a small city in it. It could have hosted a large army. It still did. He was finally at the site of Arthur's Folly.

The entire human army was dead. Curiously, their heads were all stones. Some had been smashed as the bodies fell. In some, you could still see the petrified visage as the bones had turned to dust over the last 500 years.

The wanderer turned to glimpse slightly to his left. He half noticed a crowned stone. Turning back to the middle of the Central Chamber suddenly, IT was already in front of him. No warning. No movement. No magical residue. IT asked straight into his mind....

"How far has come thee, wanderer? Perhaps a certain treasure is what you need? Perhaps my friendship you have come to seek? Any is possible, for an Answer. An Answer that I seek. One that was asked of me and I did not answer wrongly. None of your forefathers could Answer me as you can see. I hope the Aeons have given your race the wisdom to Answer me..."

The wanderer couldn't think of an escape. He knew now there was only one way. Answering. Yet, something seemed strange with this whole situation. Something in the words uttered by the SunMen's Final Creation. Yet it had already started reciting the Riddle.

"Each of my sons have twice as many sisters as they have brothers. Yet, each of my daughters have as many brothers as they have sisters. Tell me now, o' wise wanderer. How many sons and daughters do I have?"

The wanderer's mind raced at the possibilities. The contempt in ITS tone was unmistakable. ITS glowing red eyes made him focus totally on the riddle at hand. He could not think of anything else outside the riddle. He looked for tricks. He looked for loops in the riddle. In the end, he realised. He just had to Answer it. With a smile, he realised there is only ONE right answer. Finally, he could breathe...

"You can ask me ONE question. After you have Answered me. "

Again, straight into his mind. The wanderer realised things are getting better after all. He could almost catch a sense gloating from IT, quickly hidden..

Step 3: The Interview

2007-01-29T11:11:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Well, the interview was short and sweet. This is what I would like to say. But, we know that is hardly the reality with Interviews especially when it concerns admissions to a particular gaining-in-popularity Post-Graduate Programme. =)

I go the e-mail asking me to make the call at so-and-so time. I did call right on the dot. Unfortunately, my dear house phone that has consistently served any type of calls suddenly decided to give trouble. I could not Intn'l Direct Dial out to India. Sigh.

So, I ended up calling in 10 minutes late. I apologised to Mr. Sanjay Singh and then continued on to the gruelling bits. In fact, I would say I did have a very easy session as compared to what the other guys have been writing up in the Yahoogroups. In fact, I was in such a daze after the interview that I really cannot remember the questions that were asked of me now.

Maybe it was tough, but I did not feel it due to my utter and complete confidence at my success level. I have been blessed by Dato' Seri Guruji. Nothing else would be able to withstand or negate the power of a SUN now can it? Blessed Souls are like that. Nothing negative would be able to withstand their intent.

Of course, I won't be able to forget the last question. "Why didn't you get your immediate superiors to write you a testimonial? They have the time and position to see your current leadership skills. Your previous professors aren't able to do that. Can you get us your superior's comments?" I stammered badly as I had not expected a question about my application. I apologised and I promised I'll get it to them the following Monday. The reply i got was, "Send it in and we will give our answer in 2 weeks."

Asked them back a few quesitons, emphasising on the scholarships...and after that hung up! =)

Step 3: completed....

Step 2: Submitting the Application

2007-01-22T20:16:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Now this was done last minute as the truest of Mathan's traditions. Honest to say, I really cannot remember what the Hell i was doing during August. But, I know I wasted my time a lot and took the whole application exercise lightly since the submission was by 3rd of October for the first round of Intakes.

September came and 2 weeks went by. It was about then I started everything. I realised at about that point that I had a LOT more to do than I realised. I was running around frantically. (My hair caught fire.Lol!~) There were 2 documents that I needed to get other people to write and submit. I chose Dr. Alan and Dr. Sagathevan to be my references. Took sometime for them to get the stuff written down and passed back. Had to get some copies and some documents verified.

Of course, the online site was a little difficult to navigate especially in trying to submit my educational background. I don't think ISB has had any students from Malaysia, therefore I could only submit best approximations to what I have scored. Sigh!~ I just prayed that my application would not be rejected due to the admissions team misunderstanding me based on the approximated results.

During this time, I would say Mr. Sanjay Singh of admissions was very, very supportive and cooperative. He took his time to explain in detail what I need and need not do through his emails. Honestly, his guidance helped a lot. Thank you very much, Mr. Sanjay Singh!

Submitted my applications online and couriered the hardcopies through DHL at end of September. Luckily, admissions team recieved my application package and updated the website promptly. Very happy at that time realising I've done the easy part and now the hard part was coming up. I was up to the challenge...Lol!~

I almost forgot the important part. I almost couldn't send the application on time due to being unable to find the bloody DHL office near my place. I found the area. It's just that the office was further in and I mistakenly thought, they being a prominent courier service would definitely set up their offices as close as possible to the main road. Oh BOY, was i WRONG!! It was so deep in I found it just as I was about to give up searching. Of course once I reached there, the guy there told me, they do document pick-ups at a little extra cost. Note to self: Definitely gonna use that service in future!! But, I did see a RPT Centre member working there. I was so happy to see her there. She briefly guided me on what I should do. Filled up the forms, put in the package for processing and left...

Step 2: completed...

Step 1: The GMAT

2007-01-13T01:46:00.001+05:30

Hey guys,

This is the where the interesting part starts. Henceforth, the blog will cater to the general knowledge of all that come in to this site. Be it my family that supported me throughout these years, my darling best buddies, my dear Westportians or my new ISB batchmates.

I will be posting regularly to update everybody about my progress in life. Let's start with the GMAT. Paying for my GMAT was my very first HSBC Visa transaction. Not even 5 minutes had passed when a representative from HSBC called me to make sure I'm still holding the Card in my hand. Yup, it costs a lot in MYR. Close to 1k.

Following this, I got my follow-up materials a few weeks down the line just before my exam appointment. I got to complete one mock test after installing a specialised software on the day before the test. At that point, I was beginning to get a little befuddled due to the total new approach this exam was using to hammer at my mind. I've never tried for any MBA courses before this. I don't have anybody in my family who tried out the GMAT to attempt a Masters overseas. Nope, No cousins, no uncles nor brilliant aunts who stepped away from the shores of Malaysia. The friends who attempted are all already years out of contact after they made it overseas. (Sorry William, I know you're an exception ;P ). Effectively, no guide. I tried the second mock-test in between waking up and going to the exam in the afternoon. I have to admit I didn't complete the second mock test.

Arrived at the exam venue at KL Sentral. Saw a cute chinese girl that was holding a book and I surmised she would be the candidate before me. Took a quick glance at the wierd text book she was cradling. "GMAT" . I maintained an air of calm confidence, yet inside I was feeling the edge of an icy cold knife twisting. "GOD DAMN IT!! This exam has a TEXT BOOK??? And it's THAT thick?? These were some of the milder questions with the louder incessant background hum of " I'm so dead....I'm so dead...MY RM900+"

Well, I took the 15 minute time in between her going in and my time to go in by praying. HARD! Cleared my mind. Prayed that I won't panic and I would be able to attempt all questions at full concentration. Went in and attempted the GMAT. Of course I was quite confident I would be able to score along the mid-regions of 700 until before I saw that text book the gal was holding. After that, I left it to God and Dato' Seri Guruji.

End score 620/800. Requirements at ISB is 600+ (Whew!) I did score 5.5/6.0 for the Written part. It must have helped. I cannot remember the topic now but I do remember it being something that I could analyse well and provide strong viewpoints. I was still disappointed with my scores since my dad told me to score 700+ for the GMAT. The only consolation for that was when Duke University sent me a prospectus encouraging me to apply to their course. Coincidentally, my dad had just read a weekend newspaper report on the top business schools worldwide. Duke University was rated No.4 there.

I was focused though. ISB was my only choice and I sat for my GMAT only because ISB required the scores for an admission. So, at the screen right after my GMAT was completed I entered only ISB as the direct recipient of my GMAT scores....

Step 1: completed...

The Shape of Things To Come

2006-12-04T09:21:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

And after another half-year, I finally re-appear on the blogging scene again. Now I am determined to continue blogging again. Well, anybody who read my blog entry last would realise that I was in a predicament. Little did I realise that I was to be embroiled in a worse predicament. But, this worse predicament comes with a Golden Path. A path to Meteoric RISE!!

Hence the question arises. Do i stay in my little predicament that is about to be solved? Or do I step into raging fires knowing that I not only have a path to follow but, a also a Divine Guide to ensure I stay on the Path? The answer is almost a no-brainer. Any sane risk-taker would say run through the fires, but only I know the extent my failure would burn others. A whole generation may suffer the psychological impacts of my failure. If I fail... =) <--I smile because it is IMPOSSIBLE that I fail. Not as long as my Divine Guide blesses me.

A Divine Guide that is the most Powerful Sitthar in the world. How else would I be able to trust my instincts and go against my parents when they heard of the cost? A Divine Guide that they also have faith in. A Divine Guide that actually has in His Full Divine Grace granted me the opportunity in which I would be able to serve Him, by spreading my knowledge and experiences after joining Rajayoga Power Transcendental Meditation Society of Malaysia to the graduates and intellectuals overseas.

Yes, I do admit that I have dropped a lot of hints and haven't really fleshed out any of the details yet. In fact, in the coming days and weeks I am going to slowly recollect the last few months and the process of how everything has come into place for me. Please bear with me...

Life and how it suffocates normal people.

2006-03-29T11:24:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Well, here i am posting up in my blog after a long time. I am not really sure what i want to write here anymore. Work is killing me in the sense of taking up my time and not really paying me sufficiently. Sigh. I have some ideas as to how i am going to overcome this. Of course, I am not really prepared and i think the best plans are those that twist and turn according to the times. =)

We do live in such times. Times that need constant change that allowes us to flourish. I know that i am capable enough to think it up. The changes that i need. But, can i live with it and can i follow through with the brilliant plans that i come up with? Well, I know that i need to save up some money at least to enable all these to happen. Unfortunately, i am now stuck in a deadlock where i seriously CANNOT save any money. If i have to wait ONE YEAR for a pay raise so that i can live a more comfortable life and start saving, I might just kill myself. Or would i?

Anyways, i have to survive it. I have to hope for the best in life. I already have a few blessings in my life that i have to be thankful for at the moment. I am sure with patience even the most hardest mountain would crumble. What's a year of revelling in the current blessings while waiting for the better stuff to happen in future right? ;)

I have a burning dream. I will live it. I will not die before it lives.....

-Mathan-

The beginning has ended...

2006-01-09T17:40:00.000+05:30

Hey guys and gals,

Well, let's see. I had a hell of a New Years!! The guys told me earlier that they wanted to go to Bangkok Jazz. So i had taken off on the 1st of January. It was a great party that we had. Renu and Jane came so it made the whole thing merrier. Others were ME, Adrian, Pei Tze, Ping, Risdan, Ben, and Ping's fren Yvonne.

We went to Goucho Grill beside Bangkok Jazz for our dinner and unfortunately even though the food is highly recommended by Pei Tze's colleague during normal days, their special New Year's Menu left a LOT to be desired. They hiked up the prices and gave sucky food. Thank god we could go all out on their salad bar and that's what we did.

After dinner Pei Tze, ME, Jane and Renuka opened a Jack Daniels to get inside Bangkok Jazz and the rest paid the cover charge. Other than that, i have to say the music was good! The atmosphere was good and we were dancing all out after the New Year Countdown!! One of the better New Years i've had.

Whille having dinner i had the chance to make a call and celebrate with someone 3 hours ahead of me, since her new year was happening at that point. Happiest call i had until i told her that i missed her on the phone. Then everybody was laughing at me here and when she said she missed me too, her frens were laughing at her there in Australia.

Well, the night ended in a little bit of a bad note though. Our dear Risdan got drunk and started going around hugging everybody. Later when he reached the car park, he vomited a second time and was dragged to Ben's car. Everybody was tired but due to the road blocks we took a long time to get back to Adrian's place... especially with Ben not really knowing which roads were blocked and he kept going in circles. Finally, when we got to PJ my car tyres went into a big hole and got punctured. I had to stop in an unknown car park near Adrian's place to change tyres. Thank you to Pei Tze for jacking the car up while in a beautiful dress. Renuka for holding the tools while half sleepy and Adrian for walking all the way to us and helping me with the whole tyre changing process.

Anyway made it home the next day, just in time to go to centre with family in my new car. It was nice celebrating New Year's with family too. =)

On a last note, i just found out the date that's going to change my life. 25th of January, 2006.. I am dying with anticipation. I pray everyone would be happy at the end of the days that is to follow. Please everyone pray for happiness in my life too la.. thank you!!

-Mathan-

Well the END is here...Happy new one guys n gals!!

2005-12-29T23:31:00.000+05:30

Yeap ladies and gentlemen,

It is the end of the year now. It has been about 4 months that i did not write anything in the blog. Sometimes i just had a bad day and i didn't want to write about it anymore. Sometimes, i really would have had a great day. It was so great that i did not want to share it with anyone actually. Sigh, strange how i at those times lost hope in the saying "Happiness shared is doubled ; Sorrow shared is divided" I just wanted to collect and keep what i had to myself, trying my best not to let it go even one bit.

Anyway, i have started to work in proper now. No more job skipping. No more training. Totally an employee of Klang Multi Terminals Sdn. Bhd which runs the best port in the country also known as WESTPORT...eheheh!! Working 3 shifts, i am attached to Group D and i am their Shift Operations Executive. This means during my shift i am totally in charge of whatever happens in the Container Yard. Most of the times i just have to make sure that the Yard is traffic jam free. Company is generous, bosses are understanding for the most part, career path is great with the upcoming expansions. All is left to be done is me learning my job and performing at it.

Next, i have to say my active life is sort off in the slow down phase. Need to change that and really try my best to find time to do sports. I am not going to blame busy working hours as a reason for not exercising and start to grow FAT like most people do. We HAVE a choice, and i choose to make myself MORE tired! Hahaha!!~

Hmmnn what else to talk about. Do i mention love? I guess i should. Since maybe one day i want to look back at these postings and remind myself of the changes that happened in my life. Hahaaahaah... These are the silly things that forgetful people do. Anyway to start off, the one lady that i was interested in the most for all this time finally jumped a cliff to her death. This is what happened in my heart la. She is alive but the one thing she could say to make me hate her, she said it. And thus my feelings that were growing strong for a year like a young tree in my heart just got dosed with Paraquat. Poisoned the whole system. And well, like any self-respecting male i tried to avoid her but she didn't let me. (Hahahaha...no surprise there seeing how silly she can be sometimes.)

Of course as i have seen happening in my life, every thing small or big that happens in my life happens for a reason. Seemingly, almost overnight another bright and beautiful young lady stepped in and we both happen to be crazy for each other right now. I have to say absolutely no traces of the earlier feeling is in my heart anymore. It just got wiped out and nothing triggers me to feel warm towards the earlier girl anymore. I tried my best to delve and make sure it is not some form of rebound that i am experiencing...

What i do know is the present is what counts. No matter what i have said or done. The NOW is what matters and now i think i am falling hopelessly in love with the lady that stepped into my life. She might think of herself as attractive and that she chose me among the bunch of guys that hit on her and try to get her attention (seriously it happens. I am not exaggerating here). But, i know how particular i am about my own choices too, and she fits into my life perfectly. Everything new that i learn about her just makes me realise how much more right she is for me...how freaky is that? =P.. well, anyway i know i am going to try my best! Since everything has been going right for me, in this matter i will fight for it.

Ok.. work, sport and love has been covered. Next up is about my family and meditation. Family wise there have been some strains between members. We all love each other and we all do not want to let go of each other or give up on each other. Just that increasingly there are more individual opinions and well, as is the case arguments are bound to happen. (Heaven knows what's gonna happen when i finally tell them about my relationship issue...=P) And every argument sort of stands in the way until it is resolved. I am trying my best to stay out of them so that i can help to resolve them. Hahahaha....Of course sometimes i am caught up in them too. Normal stuff between families la, just that its happening more frequently than i am used to.

Thanks to the fact that the whole family is in meditation i think we have this one common ground where we let go all personal issues and deal with it professionally and peacefully. It keeps the communications open and quite a lot of the times those of us with arguments would find the answer in our meditations as to what we are willing to let go and compromise.

Yes, this is the part i keep trying to tell my friends but they have NEVER listened to me. The meditation that i do whole-heartedly. The centre that i go to voluntarily. The power given to us there is REAL!! The power that our Guruji has is REAL and it is Divine in nature. (no magic involved and in fact no one with ANY magic will be able to penetrate the protection we gain) The true essence of a Divine Guru is in enabling His disciple to be able to achieve all the levels that the Guruji himself has reached. I have felt it since the day i took the course and i am still feeling it in the 3 years that i have been in the centre. There is a power within me that grows and helps me the more i do the meditation that i have learnt in the centre. The power even enhances my prayers making them come true most of the time. It is NOT in my mind...it is NOT just my belief...It definitely is NOT only for me or my family. About 100,000 people have taken the course in Malaysia and the centre grows rapidly. Yet i have one regret. Not even ONE of my friends listened to me and took the course to benefit from it themselves. They say money is a factor, yet they go shopping. They say time is a factor, yet they go to cinemas to watch movies. They say about not being interested and that it is too early... bla bla bla, yet the course is all about personal gain and advancement all the way. Why do you want to WAIT for that when you see that I am benefiting now?

Lastly, we come to the latest benefit that i have gained from doing my meditations. I prayed and got myself a car. Brand new. In my prayer i envisioned the number plate to be BHX 96. The number just lari a little bit. I got BHX 960 since the tendering for the BHX 2 digit numbers were closed before i got the registration card. Everything else about the car is as i imagined it to be. Even the repayment is lesser than RM 500, which is one of the things i wanted. If you buy the same car now, the repayment would be more slightly as there is no more purchase discount. The tuesday before i got my new car, in fact i got into an accident driving in the Kancil at my workplace (the Container Yard isn't a small place so i need it). Never knew what happened but at the end of it, instead of crashing at the back of a trailer and causing a funeral(mine), i just hit the tyres and bounced back. I know the protection i have took care of everything when i lost concentration at the wheel and looked off to the equipment on the right behind my shoulders. Foolish? yeah....but i'm still alive ain't I? :) Convinced yet? :D

Signing off for year 2005!! May we have a great and ACCIDENTLESS year 2006....=P

-Mathanaseelan-

Disastrousness at its best!!~Part 2

2005-07-26T10:15:00.000+05:30

Hmmnn...Guys n Gals!~

The process has begun. I am trying to question as deeply as i can. I am trying to see what is fundamentally ME! ; and what is just a layer on me. So far, i have felt a difference in the air around me. (Hmmnn....or did i not take a shower this morning?Sometimes deep questions like these are asked)

Of course, the next question which is a continuation from the last part is, "What do I want?" This question is currently put on hold. Ahahahahah!!~ Well i need to define myself first. Then realise why i am interested in the stuff that I am interested in. It can't be for the sake of interest alone. There has to be something more to motivate me to actually start them and then to pursue them. I feel there should be a goal for why I want to succeed in that particular field. I mean people do it instinctively and i maybe did it instinctively for the WRONG reasons. Or you DON'T need a goal to learn something like the guitar?

Of course in the last post i did 'exhale' some of the stuff i have defined as "stuff that Mathan hates". Those that read, please pay ATTENTION to it. Simple and extremely accurate information coming straight from the source. Next, we shall expand to things that i LIKE. :D Yay!~ I love reading. I read for escapism. I read to see, can i learn something new that everybody else reading the same text overlooked. Like my question to Elly that day.

"If Adam and Eve were the first Humans to be created and before them there was only God, the Garden of Eden and the Angels. The moment Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (hope i got it right) Eve immediately realised her nakedness and covered herself. She then gave the fruit to her husband Adam who at once realised his own nakedness and covered himself too. So, from being totally impartial and naive beings they 'knew' things courtesy of the fruit. This knowledge was supposed to be reserved only for God. At this point, God banished them from the Garden of Eden before they 'makan' the fruit of the Tree of Life. It was a stroke of brilliance for not trusting them anymore and sending them away, especially with the damn serpent running (slithering?) around loose. But why is it WRONG? Why is it WRONG in the eyes of GOD that something HE created (a human) is naked? What did GOD have in reference in his infinite wisdom to compare this idea with? I mean the idea of Good and Evil. Simply said i am looking at it in a one track mind while God would have looked at the problem in a Omniscient view. The question would be,"Why after putting all the pieces of the jigsaw in the same place, God would be represented as having walked away? ...and the BEST question would be why did he not send any of his servants to stop the event from ever taking place as God would have known full well this is a possibility to happen. Why come back after the event and ask Adam what is he hiding? Meaning the guy didn't even have enough time to throw away the 'evidence' before God was present again.
Actually, even though i am mentioning God a lot and questioning a lot in the same sentences i do not mean any disrespect. I just want to point something that i feel, as a human touch to the telling of the way it happened. Something that i feel has the limitations of human thought imposed to make the story... well, not so Universal anymore but from the point of view of that person. Anyway, feel free to flame me anytime. I know my questions have large loopholes in them as well. Ehehehe.!!~ So, help me find them to make my argument stronger and more penetrating and accurate rather than just shooting blindly.

Ok see, this is why my frens ask me to keep my explanations short.

Anyway, other than reading and asking absurd questions that annoy others but interests me. I also love to play sports in a general note. Nothing specific and not focusing to win. But, i want to be able to learn the many sports available in the world and be somewhat good at them. Sigh, i regret never starting out on the Extreme sports path while i was younger. At least skateboarding or roller-blading would have been wicked.

Next, i really cannot think of anything other than trying to play up tunes on my guitar. It is fun but it can get frustrating. So i had a few goals to keep me going. Sadly once i lost my old guitar and my folder which had some original stuff that i liked in it, I really cannot recapture the original momentum i used to have. Heck i don't even know how to play the tunes i used to play effortlessly then. Trying to build myself around the blockade and focus on other songs though. Heheeh...it's working somewhat. Any other approach i could try ladies and gentlemen? Just shoot man!~ I'll see if it helps.

Lastly i used to have a passion for TV, but it has really waned in the recent years after my SPM. I now stick to Animes and other TV series that i can d/l from the NET, like Smallville which is my absolute Favourite!!~ Daisuki desu!!!~ I mean i started watching the show with skepticism but with good reviews from Jeevan. But, it just caught on to me. I am gonna be so lost after season 7....which is reputed to be the final season. Sigh!~ And 5 is already coming up...=(. Yup, that's how crazy i am about that show.

Lately i've been paying more attention to ways of taking care of myself la. So, that i dun just drop dead when my parents are not around. Ahaha...So this is a growing interest of mine. To learn to survive in the normal world doing normal chores and cooking and eating normal food rather than wishing i was in the forest going ape and looking for bananas. (No!~ it hasn't happened before. Just a JOKE~Sheesh!!~)

I guess these are the most major of stuff that i LIKE in my life. Anyway i have been typing non-stop for so long now. I am totally blur. Feel so tired. Gotta..go...res-

-Mathan-

Disastrousness at its best!!~Part 1

2005-07-18T03:10:00.000+05:30

Hi guys,

Well, i mean i don't think anybody reads this blog anymore since there has been inactivity for so long dy. So, hi Cyberspace. Hmmnn...things were moving in good ways but then i have been wasting my time waiting for the new job in Westport. Horribly long time i have wasted. In fact i resigned my job in Teletech to wait for this job and i am no longer sure if it was the right decision. But, i have to say that my friends have been quite supportive and i am really glad for your kind encouragements and motivations. THANKS!!~

Anyway, i have a lot of questions in my head now. What exactly DO i want to do with my life? I know deep in my heart that i am hell capable of more than waiting for a fucking job in Westport. Then what is holding me back? Why am i not saying "well, fuck that!", and going on with my life? What the bloody hell am i waiting for? To work THEN find out what i like to do or not? Isn't that stupid? It's ME!!~ I should be able to figure it out myself.

Got to thank Joe for that chat we had last week. I mean it really opened my eyes to the stuff that i have been totally keeping in the middle of a fortress in my heart. Starting with things that i HATE. Yeah, have to be a bit more open about it. Keeping it inside is not going to make any differences is there? I become a nice, funny guy but people walk over me. They think making fun of my opinions, feelings, ideas and ME in general is funny. Well, it's NOT!~ I hate it. PLease make more intelligent jokes like we used to when we were all younger. Let's make creative jokes about the world around us and laugh rather than target ourselves. Of course, i know 'shooting' me for a mistake i made is totally acceptable and i am not so moronic as to say u cannot blame me....PLEASE do refrain from repeating it too many times though. I don't repeat your mistakes like a parakeet do i? I accept you rite? So , just bloody accept ME k?

Oh my darling, Lady Life!!~

2005-05-25T09:00:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Well, life is a beautiful and mysterious entity. Just like the women that i have met in my life. Of course when i say "the women in my life", i mean those that i fell deeply in love with. When i went seeking for their heart and their commitment to me, all i got was nothing. Yet, the moment i left them alone they willingly came closer than they had ever been, bared to me a part of their memories, thoughts and trusts. They proved me wrong everytime i thought "she hates me". They did have love, but in a different way from what i felt.

To you who knew how i felt, thanks for your support and continued love to me. I will cherish it no matter where i am, when i am, what i am. To you who didn't know i loved you, i wish i would get ONE chance to mention it to you some time before the end of our lives. Hey you're special! =P You deserve to know that. This is the simple logic.

As to the connection with Life. When i pursued the best of 'her' and i wanted it all from 'her'. She turned a deaf ear to me and showered her love elsewhere(or so i thought). Yet, the moment i told my self that "she doesn't love me" she is proving me wrong and turning around and "showering" me with oppurtunities that i cannot afford to miss. She is giving me her love and trust in a different way than i expected. I cannot believe my eyes, yet i am being blessed at every turn in the recent chapters of my life.

Thus, i would like to thank all the women in my life. You darlings taught me the lesson (through the last 24 years of my life) of doing the best with what i get to work with in my hands and not with what my ego expected. So, yeah i am doing the best with what i have. Things seem to be looking up in the coming months for starters.

I love my life; I hope she loves me back too~~!!
-Mathan-

Been some time

2005-05-15T09:30:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

It's been some time since i last posted here. Things are starting to look upbeat again. I have a job now. Looks like my name is going to be attached to Teletech Sdn. Bhd. or the time being. I am undergoing training to be a Customer Service Representative for SIA.

Training has been interesting and the people there are very interesting as well. =). Singaporeans, ex-call center employees for Maxis and Amex and Astro, a married lady, a totally cute and innocent young girl, SIM, a stewardess that dropped out from training a few days back....things have been definitely interesting.

Training itself was a bit tedious in the beginning when they were trying thier best to download all the knowledge into our heads. But then now they are more concerned about us trying to bring it all back out to solve problems, in the MOST professional way. Hahahaa...So things are exciting.

Hopefully, i can really clique with the seniors once i am out on the floor answering calls because we would be asigned to different workstations and workgroups. If only the pay was a few hundred more than it currently is, I am sure that i would feel a lot happier working there. As it is there are a lot of rules and regulations about how our salary is paid out to us. Ahhh whatever, i will take this as a blessing and learn as much as i can answering calls and helping people before i take the next step in my career.

Well that's all for the moment. Nothing much else seems to be happening at the moment.

Peace out you guys!~
-Mathan-

The Divine Move in Mysterious Ways

2005-04-27T03:25:00.000+05:30

Hey guys.

I am not sure of my current topic at the moment. I just sat in front of the pc and i am sort of staring blankly and wondering what am i supposed to write. Maybe i will just mention this little trip i had to Singapore Airlines KL office yesterday. I guess it was an experience of seeing "Divine movement in mysterious ways".

Last week, my mother had this little intuition burst to ask me to go to work in Singapore. At the same time, i recieved news of job offers in the Singapore Airlines office in KL from not one but 2 totally different people. Both of them mentioned the same job which is the Customer Service Agent paying about RM1600.

It seems a bit far-fetched i know. Yet, these are the little 'clues' that i am USED to getting in the last 3 years since i joined my Meditation Centre. If I honestly am seeking for an answer and i really want to get it, somehow from somewhere a person would mention a little morsel of information in passing that i would be able to use to solve my problems. (So yeah, this is one of the reasons why i always ask you guys to come have a look at my Centre, for free la. The joining part where you pay RM730, you guys can think about it later. Come to find out formally the FULL BENEFITS you can gain because i am not supposed to divulge too much info outside the Centre also =p!~)

Anyway, back to what happened. The clues led me finally to the SIA office yesterday. I didn't go last week itself as soon as i got the clues because i had to go to Serdang and make that whole ZOO trip with the guys to celebrate Jane Chuah's birthday. This made my parents a bit angry and on one of the nights, in the middle of lecturing to me about procrastination, they actually told me things that i never guessed was a part of my extended family's history. So, for this once procrastination worked out well(Haha!!~).

In the end, i reached the office to actually NOT get the job. Yeah, you heard rite! NOT to get the job. The receptionist told me that the opening was taken up last week itself. She also told me that looking at me I wouldn't last in that job at all. It is a position for SPM leavers and more suitable for girls. The job also doesn't have much upward mobility, i.e:- not much in the way of promotions.

She then proceeded to LECTURE me. Halfway through i realised that i was led to that place, with all the 'clues' NOT to actually get a job but in a way I was set to be there to listen to her instruct me. A lot of the things she said rang in the same tone of my parents' advices to me. Seriously though, coming from a total stranger it had a totally different feeling to it. It actually made me look at the points carefully and superimpose it with what my parents had already said because she was talking from a different level, a different angle and a different perspective. So yeah, i actually thought deeper about all those things that my parents had already said.

Next she went on to tell me about corporate life. [Stuff that you won't learn even in Harvard Business School, right Zack ;)?] Honestly though, it did feel that way. Here was someone that is experienced working for firms and she is willing to give me advise for FREE. Which idiot would not listen? I just soaked it all up as much as i can. The one hour plus i spent listening to that lady, i think i learnt enough of pure knowledge that can be gained in one semester in MMU. Plus whether or not she realised it, she actually gave me an outline of what i should be doing in the next 2 years. Interestingly, this was my question during my prayers!!~ "What path should i choose now?".

The Divine move in mysterious ways to answer our prayers.

-Mathan-

Physics is a mind-twister

2005-04-16T15:40:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

It started out just another day. I was up and chatting, eating and doing little chores. About 9pm Zack asked me to go to the nearby mamak. It was set at 10pm and that's where i ended up until about 12:45am having my dinner/supper.

Well, it was one of the times when Zack and I were both on fire in the mental juices department. Something was cooking and after simmering in our minds, the ideas just started overflowing. I mean we were talking about stuff on TV and Zack was updating us about the greatest battleship ever built; the Japanese-made "YAMATO" based on the documentary he watched in ASTRO.

At one point, we were talking about aeroplanes and we all agreed that the SR-71 BlackBird is the most interesting piece of machinery ever built. Flying at about 85,000 feet (16 miles from the ground), the BlackBird can achieve speeds of about 3.2+Mach. Following planes, we were talking about the declining Dollar value, and some other stuff.

The most interesting part came after that when we were talking about planes and the guys were letting me know that AirForce One.....is actually capable of sustaining a space travel trip if the pilot really got them out of the atmosphere. This let us into thinking about the radiation levels humans have to endure in space due to the lack of an ozone layer.

I was explaining to them about the whole thing that is to do with gamma rays which are actually
very potent and they need a lot of shielding to be protected. Somehow the conversation got extrapolated and were actually trying to think as to why light behaves as a wave, yet it can be propogated through a medium-less vacuum. Zack mentioned, "What if the vacuum is vacuum but not completely devoid of matter. There is actually something there in vacuum that us as normal humans cannot percieve. Kudos to Zack....for this interesting thought; that caused me to continue by thinking of the gravitational fields and how it can be fitted inside.

Honestly, i would love nothing more than to mention further in detail how we came by our theory, but i am dead tired and i feel like i could doze off anytime. So, guess things have to wait a bit for the moment. Happy Graduation for the rest of u ..take care, guys!!~

Escaping the authorities...

2005-04-09T13:26:00.000+05:30

Morning 9.00am - 10.00am
Heart is pumping fast. There is a need to be there. I need to be there fast, and time is running out. I step on the accelerator. Every moment is a calculated risk that i am willing to take. Stepping on the accelerator is an absolute risk in my case as i have seen currently my luck, travelling on the Malaysian highway system, is not so good. Things happen to me, terrible things that never happened to me before. Sometimes, i feel that all the would-be accidents and near misses that i had experienced in the last 7 years went through some sort of 'credit accumulation'. And now, it's time to PAY in FULL. But, this is not the point of my post...

I took the calculated risk. I accelerated as the need of it pressed urgently. Then,.... i saw him, and my world came crashing down. White uniform shirt, black pants and boots, holding a laser speed gun at the divider, pointing at ME... *BaNg*..i died in my heart. "NO-oooooo, why of all days today?" was the thought running across my mind. A quick check told me i was doing 110Km/h, and i have to hope that is the speed limit in the area and not 90km/h hopefully. So much for taking calculated risks, i thought.

Anyway, i was praying hard and looking out for the road block that siphons out criminals from goodly citizens on the road. Yet, i did not see any. I realised belatedly after 10minutes that i had ESCAPED!~ I went on to the destination and reached on time. (Not that it was worth it due to the management incompetence on the other side. Yet, to offset that dissatisfactory event i met someone that could potentially be a great ally in my future and a guy that was a blast from the past;Mr. Gopinath Naidu. May it happen that we cross paths again and we have more time to discuss news, bro!)

Night 9.00pm
Fast forward to the night-life. Went clubbing and well, AGAIN there was a dissappointment as i belatedly realised that i was a part of a birthday party where i didn't know ANYBODY among the celebtrating. I hate it, i Hate it, I HATE IT!!!!!~ when people don't open their bloody mouths and inform me, as to what am i to EXPECT especially after i have ASKED them. I HATE IT, when i ask "Who else is going to be there?" and the response i get is "my fren". Yes, i realise i do not know you're friends but, telling me the name won't kill your friend, RIGHT? I do NOT ask personal questions, i just want to have a rough picture of what to expect and how to behave when i get there and to me, YES!! knowing their name beforehand helps. I cannot deal with surprises when they make me feel stupid and out of place, and that's exactly what happened, by not knowing what the whole outing was about. I just blindly went there to dance with a few friends and realised there is only so much dancing u can do if everybody is hanging out with their OWN friends and celebrating their own BIRTHDAY party.

Was totally feeling pissed off with myself for being so stupid. They all wanted to meet up at a mamak in Subang. 2 cars left KL; 1 car with 6 people crammed and another with me driving alone. So, NOW do u realise how out of place i was feeling? This 6 people included the people that invited me for the outing in the first place. The rest of the birthday celebraters i won't include in this calculation as i totally wasn't intro-ed to them also. Still don't understand why i wanted to continue on to a mamak session with them...but that is not the point....

IT HAPPENED AGAIN. I just drove past the Pudu Jail traffic lights when there was a police blockade. I was aghast. The escape in the morning was playing back in my mind and i was thinking, how COME? Is it Fated that i HAVE to be caught!~? Again, i started praying hard. I mean i just had one beer for the whole night, that i barely need to be questioned. The car approached the blockade. This time the policemen were serious, they really checked each car with torchlights. I busily thought how am i going to make it look like i am just a normal guy driving by and not back from clubbing. Threw away my neck-beads, wore my specs and did a little arrangement thingy of the stuff on the passenger seat and then approached the police. It had to be luck, i ESCAPED yet again!!~ They just took one disinterested look at my car and waved me off.

So, went to the mamak. Ate and returned home. Driving using a license that already expired end of last month.....;P

-Mathan-

The 1st Chakra in our body system

2005-04-05T18:50:00.000+05:30

Hey to everybody out there,

This is the first time after a long time that i am remembering that i had promised to actually include notes about the rest of the Chakras. To newbies that didn't see my archives, the name of my website is not unique. It is the well-known name of the 5th of 7 major chakras in all our bodies. Vishuddha represents listening to our inner voice and creativity as well as the connection with others through speaking and listening.

Now, i shall brief you all about the First Chakra; Muladhara.

The first chakra, located at the base of the spine, represents our foundation. It is related to our tangible, life-affirming down to earth experiences, our tribal energy.It resonates to the color red and the element earth.A well balanced first chakra results in a feeling of calm and an aura of quiet strength and confidence.
It is also here at the Muladhara Chakra where the Kundalini Force of every individual lies dormant. It is pictured as a serpent coiled into 3 and a half circles; with its mouth closing the Sushumna Nadi (the highway that links the 7 chakras in a straight line). The Kundalini Force in all of us can be awakened gradually through dedicated, uninterrupted serious personal meditation techniques. The standard time limit can be something around 12 years before we start seeing real results (ie:- just the awakening of the Force).
With the Will and Word of a true Divine Guruji guiding us however, this long process can be reduced to a simple undertaking of months, weeks, days (even hours?? ;D ). Following this, we can just apply the techniques taught by our Guruji and encourage the travel of our Kundalini Force from Muladhara, right up to the 7th Chakra. Why do we WANT this to happen? The arrival of the Kundalini Force at the last Chakra is what causes us to reach Enlightenment/ Moksha/ Nirvana and break free from the cycle of rebirth and marks us as fit to attain God.

-Mathan-

The terrors of the world

2005-04-02T17:20:00.000+05:30

Yeaps ladies and gentlemen.

The terrors of the known universe is coming crashing down on me at the moment. I cannot say anything la. The only realm i seem to be scoring high points in is socialising. I hope that i will be able to go to Cafe7 later saturday evening. But, i am not sure if anything is going to be possible when it comes across my laziness.

I really want to work. Somehow there is this strange vibe inside me that is saying i will work only for what i believe in. For Heaven's Sake!~ This is my life here. Not the beginning of some tragic anime tale. I want to be able to perform anywhere. I want to be able to show everybody that i CAN MAKE it happen!~ Yet, i feel hesitant to sieze the moment.

This whole "i am going to die soon" thing is totally ticking me off. I do NOT want to live my life being paranoid. I want to be able to have fun and survive and thrive. I seriously think that i am spending way TOO MUCH time doing nothing. I need to be out there making my dreams come true.

I need myself to be strong enough to kick me, hopefully in the right direction. This is what i want to pray for since i have no ideas in the head as to which direction is the right one for me.

-Mathan-

The EARTHQUAKE has happened

2005-03-30T05:20:00.000+05:30

Well ,

To the mulitudes of people affected by the recent earthquakes i am terribly sorry guys. My deepest condolences to those people that were caught in the middle of it all.

To the rest of the Malaysians who might be reading this. I would like to point out one thing. Being alarmed during tremors such as these recent ones is totally acceptable. We HAVE to go into panic mode everytime we feel something. We HAVE to evacuate and run every single time. Please do not be lazy or macho and stay inside thinking that it will pass. Some people reading my blog might feel that i am being paranoid. Some might be thinking in your heart as to why PANIC? We need to calmly get out in an orderly manner to avoid casualties.

The problem lies in the fact that we as a COUNTRY have never been exposed to Earthquakes. We have seen movies yet it has never occured in Malaysia and by default we are thinking it will NOT hit us. Yet the multitudes of people felt the buildings shake at the highest floors in an area covering Penang, Langkawi, Kedah all the way down to Klang and i guess further south but i haven't heard anyone from there making any claims personally. In Klang, My dad said he was lying down on the sofa watching TV in the ground floor of our double storey house and he felt the tremors. Same goes to my best fren who lives a few hundred metres away from my house. I heard it from Hock that his fren felt in some apartments up in Penang.

Now to the important part. Malaysian buildings were not built to withstand quakes like buildings in Japan and other countries that thrive along the Pacific Rim of Fire. Even if there was a standard practice to adhere to so that minor tremors will not affect the buildings, we HAVE to ask ourselves about the integrity of our contractors and developers. Simple things like 'piling' works from a nearby new project has been known to crack house walls and floor tiles, NOT from old houses but, of houses that were JUST completed in an earlier phase. Meaning the soil that houses are built on are not exactly compacted to a level it won't break apart during kinetic energy transfers.

So, how are they supposed to withstand Earthquake-waves travelling underneath the ground??? Simple fact of life is, waves travel better in more compact mediums. Sound waves for example travel faster in liquid as compared to gas and even faster in solid stuffs. They are called sound waves cause they carry sound energy. Earthquake-waves are a primary source of kinetic energy transfer (energy of MOVEMENT in any direction). These waves that travel in the ground can actually transfer this kinetic energy across the building foundations easily and cause the same energy to be transferred upwards along the very beams that support the buildings, causing the beams to vibrate and tremble in any direction.

Number one, i don't think OUR developers would have used any special materials or techniques in the construction phase to make our buildings Quake-proof. Next, judging by the low threshold of endurance the new houses are displaying i feel very inclined to question, "HOW MANY TREMORS CAN MALAYSIAN BUILDINGS TAKE BEFORE THEY START CRACKING DOWN THE MIDDLE? HOW MANY KITCHEN WALLS ARE GOING TO BREAK AND PART FROM THE MAIN HOUSE WALLS? HOW MANY SINKHOLES? HOW MANY CRACKS IN BUILDINGS THAT USE DIRECT GAS LINES?

I know that we will never be hit by any earthquake since the nearest fault line can only cause tremors on our shores when it's groaning with a magnitude of 8.2 . But every wave of kinetic energy that is cruising past across malaysia is causing problems underground at a level that we cannot imagine. Saying "Nolah, nothing like that could happen", is what the MALAYsian government will do because they do NOT want to get off their bloody butts and do something to PREvENT things for once. They will just sit there until some real high profile people in a high and mighty condominium all DIE!!~... because the authorities never checked how everything was changing under their butts. After that point the parliment will be trying to discuss who is to blame and which developer is supposed to take the fall when in actual fact it is their own STAFF to be blamed. They were the ones who were everyday praying and going back home at 4pm instead of taking the initiative to find out what we DON'T know about the world underneath us .

Please GOD, a simple physics student like me can realise the magnitude of what can happen after a bunch of cumulative tremors start cracking up building foundations slowly over the course of let's say .....abt 15 years? Gas pipes leaking becoming fire hazards, cracked water pipes causing erosion underneath buildings. We HAVE to take into account the fact that there are many more kinetic waves that are travelling underneath us unnotticed because they are deeper, weaker and our legs aren't really seismic detectors. Those unnoticed tremors nevertheless are also still transferring kinetic energy in all directions causing changes underneath us, SLOWLY but SURELY. PLease GOD, LET some GEOLOGIST expert in Malaysia be aware of these facts and take action please!!~ At least to let us know which areas could be affected the most by these recent geological activities. Who cares about the public panic or foreign investors' alarm? ...if at the end of the day, people are ready to act the day something bad happens because the Fire Department, RELA and everybody is aware of the high risk areas to lend immediate support.

Prevention is better than CURE. And YES, now Malaysians need to be thought how to deal with an incident where buildings could collapse on them (or under them to be politically correct). How to minimise damage to themselves and their loved ones, especially children. Just a general topic on this and letting everybody know is not going to be a problem right? PLEASE take action!~ If u need help then i guess i am ever willing to help, if it is going to save lives in future!!~

Current Updates!

Quake kills at least 300 on Indonesian island
Vice president says up to 2,000 could be dead
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 Posted: 2:40 AM EST (0740 GMT)

(CNN) -- A major earthquake struck off the west coast of Indonesia late Monday, killing hundreds, but fears of another tsunami like those that devastated the region in late December have faded.
On Indonesia's Nias Island at least 300 people died and hundreds more were reported injured or trapped, said government spokesman Agus Mendrova.
But international news agencies are reporting that between 1,000 and 2,000 people may have been killed on Nias Island.
"It is predicted -- and it's still a rough estimate -- that the number of the victims of dead may be between 1,000 and 2,000," Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the el-Shinta radio station, according to The Associated Press.
Between 500 and 1,000 homes were destroyed, and the island's public market was ablaze, Mendrova said.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 people ran to hilltops for safety in case of a tsunami, Mendrova said. Many of the doctors and nurses who normally would staff the hospital fled to higher ground.

Too many things have happened

2005-03-20T09:53:00.000+05:30

Well , hi people.

I am a bit blur at the moment. I feel like there is a lot of things to say here since a lot of things have happened. But i just do not know where to start.

It really has been a long time these last few weeks. i got into 3 problems involving the car. Yes we shall talk about this man.

The first one you can refer to my post "The longest day of my life". The second one involving the water pump u guys have to just read the "Working Guy!~~" to roughly know what had happened. The latest one was even worse. I was going to PJ Civic Centre to pass my sister something and get something back from her. I was at the last turn into PJ Civic Centre, I turned left to go in and a motorcycle crashed into my left passenger side and the 2 Malay guys went flying. The rider gut lotsa cuts on his hand. I sent him to the clinic cause it was more to my fault for not signalling earlier before turning in. Sigh. RM50 to patch the guy up. RM120 for the motorcycle.

I really hope everything passes with these 3 accidents. No more man. All 3 times the cost was on the old Ford which belongs to my dad. I really do not want him to think i am out to destroy his car. A few days back actually the first incident almost happened again. I was back on the KLIA highway and damn hell that highway can really make me sleepy. Luckily, i wasn't so tired to start off with.

Hmmnn....i was going to continue on with my post, but my mum called and i need to be ready in 20 minutes to go to do something. So well, i shall continue in a future post.

-Mathan-

That came from somewhere far, far away..

2005-03-07T01:31:00.000+05:30

Hi there people,

Good morning. Well , i am amazed. I am totally AMAZED and quite INTRIGUED by what i wrote in the earlier post. You guys have to realise. I was typing it in a half daze sleep. I could actually put that much thought into my posts even while i am semi-sleeping.

That's the AMAZED part about it. I could still make clear sentences. I could still make comparisons and actually go into a pissed off mode.

The INTRIGUING part is what i actually wrote about. I guess it is seriously stuff that has been around in my heart but still i never really acknowledged it. It was stuff that i thought i had resolved and come to terms with. But suddenly looking at it now, i realise the truth. I am still disturbed by those issues.

Sometimes i begin to wonder how true is it about the separation of mind and heart in a person. I mean i thought it was just said to make it easier for people to understand that heart deals with feelings and mind deals with logical thinking. "But, why is it that when i see her there is a warm feeling in my heart?" this question arises.

I guess the heart was made by God to be one of the senses as well. We just haven't realised it yet. Some sort of organ to feel Love, or Affection, or even Hate. Just like the tongue has the sense of tasting sweets, sours, saltyness and spicyness. So, an organ can sense more than one stimuli. And that organ reacts to the stimuli and let's the individual know that particular stimuli exists in the external environment. This then leads the individual to react and accomodate that stimuli and use it, or reject it in a negative stimuli case.

This instant liking feeling towards someone or dislike usually just gives birth in our thoughts without any logical explanation. It is only AFTER the feeling is there, we justify it by saying "she's cute" or "he's smart". Very much like feeling nauseous after Seeing something spin. The feeling happens first, and only then we justify "It's got to do with the rotation rate. It's too fast".

I can actually expand this theory further. Organs are meant for us to 'detect' stimuli and by picking up on that we analyse and react, right?. What if the heart was actually meant to be an organ for us to detect the feelings of others? Analysing the feelings we picked up and reacting to that would have made us better people as we would always be able to say the right things and avoid conflict at the wrong times. Since we're already clued in to the state of the other person's feelings. Noble idea is it not? A lot of problems could have been solved before they even started right?

Unfortunately for one little fact. The bakground noise of our own feelings. We see ourselves first, we hear our heartbeats first, we touch our own skin first, we taste our own saliva, we smell our bodies first, AND if you want to talk about the 6th sense of thought in humans, still we think of ourselves first. So why wouldn't we detect our own feelings with our heart first? By establishing this and understanding the limits of our own feelings, we might be able to start realising the other feelings that out heart is picking up on.

This is what the real 'caring' people do i guess. Like mothers. They just totally understand their own feelings and leave it aside and clear their hearts to recieve and react to feelings of their children. This happens instinctively. Maybe we can train ourselves to actually do it at a whim. Rather than feeling angry, picking up on it with our own heart and continuing the echo of that feeling until it explodes and causes us to react in violent ways. We might be able to feel angry and actually shut it out of our heart to let it sizzle away.

Food for thought , ya!!~~ ;)

-Mathan-

Working guY!!~

2005-03-03T20:33:00.000+05:30

Hey everybody.

Well i tried writing a lot of things that i finally got a bit pissed off. Cause i tried to stuff in things that were happening in the last week in one entry. Things were not really making sense. I just got tired of the whole thing and thought of writing back everything again.

Well, first of all. i was pissed off thinking of some shallow guys that still exist in MMU today that go around pushing gals to do things as HE wants it. No compromise to the gal and what she thinks and how she wants to live her life. If you feel like doing this go to some school dropout gal and impose on her about all the things she DOESN'T know la. Of course even then, i feel that gal would know how to DRESS HERSELF better than u can ever tell her how to.

That being said, i was very busy running around with work stuff. I love my job currently which is to MAKE it all HAPPEN....ehehehe....;). I really feel thankful for waiting so long and getting this job in the end. Low pay yeah. BUt hey, they guys i work for are not bad. They're quite funny.

Last thought of the post. Is to the screwed up thing that happened to me last night. Car fell into repair since i had been running around a LOT. The water pump failed and now some stuff are burnt and I can only collect the car tomorrow. -Sigh- And i am sure it is going to cost a bomb. And waste all the money that my mum has. It's just PISSING ME OFF!!~~ One more day and my dad would have checked it out himself and noticed the signs that it needs to be fixed, before further damage happened. But NO......it had to be like this. With all the money WASTED on a problem that could have been avoided.

Nevermind, life is just peachy for me at times and then, next i am thrown into a lot of problems. So yeah i am paying now for the fun i had eating lok-lok and playing pool in klang last weekend. I hope the fun i had watching the All-Stars game in Taipan last tuesday and watching "Sex is Zero" with Zack has been offset with this disaster as well as i cannot really think of going through another problem so fast la. Ahahaha....well, now that i looked at the ONE problem that happened as opposed to the 3 good things that happened while the car was still working great....my mood is a lot better. Well, it's just going to be money that is wasted rite? Not anythign else?

Anyway, i guess i better post this now and wait for comments since i haven't done so in a long time.

The Longest day of my Life - Part 2

2005-02-25T19:05:00.000+05:30

In the last episode we stopped when Mathan was saying :-

Anyway after it ended i followed my parents home and then........................................

......I and my sister packed up and we went to Cyberjaya. Left at 12:30 am. I reached MMU about 1:35am like this after a slow drive while chatting with my sister. Luckily we were still in a chatty mood and i didn't feel so tired. Finally reached cyber and dropped my sister. Like i said in the earlier post i had almost cancelled my plan to meet the guys. But when i called them at 12:30 they were still active so i decided to go spend a few hours there. Called up pei tze and she agreed to go too. So, after picking her up we both went to Serdang where all hell broke loose. Everything was going fine and the usual jokes happening and people being surprised to see Pei Tze cause they thought only i was going.

And then Boon Hong, squirted his printer ink all over his area. This area was including his specs, nearby folded table, monitor and things were really funny. We were not yet done laughing and Ping was taking a footage of what happened when Adrian dropped a mug in the kitchen and chipped it. Jane was the first to go to analyse what had happened to it and stuff. We have a footage of that as well. Sigh!~ And then i was just listening to music and stuff for awhile. I went to talk to Adrian about my job and he was interested in what i was saying. Suddenly Pei Tze came in and said something like "us girls are gonna get drunk!" Ahahaa...funny part was we couldn't find the corkscrew. Jane had to ask Elly about it, and no need to say, what he heard she wanted was something totally different. Elly oh ellY!~

Finally we got it open and had a taste. Too dry...=p. I saw it's effects on Pei Tze clearly though. Especially when we were playing prince of persia. Ahahah.....better not describe it la. One thing for sure. She had loads of fun playing. Later she was studying and me was watching football with the guys. Jane and Ping were trying to sleep, in the hall where the TV is. I really did not understand the logic behind that. Anyway i shared some beer with Elly during the match. So yeah, i was feeling nice and warm myself. At soccer halftime, i wanted to go online in the room. At that point, Pei Tze went camera-crazy. I joined her. It was total digital clicking mayhem. We really went crazy. Loads of fun.

Finally decided to leave at 6am as i needed to get back b4 my dad went to work. Even then i had to cause a little scene by leaving the house without taking the car keys. =P...Sent Pei Tze back and then i was driving home to Klang la. This is when my day took a nosedive so to speak. Got into a little accident and my car's driver door got dented and unable to open fully. Yeah, i scrapped the metal divider on the 3rd lane. (Still i dunno how i got there) Well, anyway the accident totally woke me up cause i hit my head on the seat belt thing that is attached beside the door and triangular in shape. I am writing now and i can still feel it. The Pain!~ =(..One lucky thing about the accident was the fact that nothing else was near me when i lost control.

My parents were too tired and they both didn't go to work when i reached home. This was the best news la. Of all things i should have just stayed in Serdang longer and get some sleep. At least i could have avoided the accident. But, anyway everything happens for a reason. And i went to sleep with the headache at about 7:30. About 26 hours after i woke up the earlier morning of the Longest Day.............ehehehe...now who wouldn't like to be in MY shoes =)

Whoever reads this blog, bewarned! I think i will be visiting Serdang one more time on Saturday. Let's go Crash their PLACE together!!!~~

-Mathan-

The Longest day of my Life

2005-02-24T17:01:00.000+05:30

Well i am now going to write about the 22nd of February, 2005.

It is my Guruji's birthday. As such, there were 2 special prayers planned. One in Batu Caves, done by some of the main volunteers and a lot of people were invited. Next, was in Batang Berjuntai and this was a special prayer undertook by our group only.

Well, I woke up at 5+ in the morning, did the meditation and then we were on our way to Batu Caves. Reached there just in time as the prayers started. They were quite elaborate prayers, starting at the little temple at the bottom of the stairs and then we walked up the 272 steps to pray at the main temple inside the caves. Of course it was worth it, because we got to witness something that can only be witnessed usually during Thaipusam. We then got back home and rested. About 3 plus, after my aunt arrived all of us took the 2 cars and drove to Batang Berjuntai. It was a very VERY long drive to get there and i was driving my aunt's car behind my dad. My sister and cousin were in the car and we were having a lively chat.

The interesting part happens once we got to the temple. We were told a few things. One was the history of the temple itself. It seems many years ago a yogi was meditating in the spot where the temple is now built. Then it was just a forest of oil palms. Hanuman appeared to him in his meditation. Hanuman told the yogi that he wanted a place to rest in his travels in that part of the jungle. As such a Hanuman temple was built in the area. For those chinese people, Hanuman is the name of the indian Monkey God. He is famous as a follower and disciple of Rama in the epic Ramayana.

Next thing we were told was the fact that whenever anyone starts doing something for his Guru. The more important and complicated the task is, the MORE there is bound to be problems and obstacles to test the faith of the disciples. This is a known fact. What we need to do is totally focus on what needs to be completed and stick to it. Why? the results would be rewarding to us many fold. In this case, the first priest that was supposed to conduct the prayers suddenly quit. Our leader didn't lose heart. He just went on and found another priest at the 11th hour. Interesting part was THIS last minute priest knew exactly how to conduct prayers for a Guru and specifically told us what needed to be prepared. A blessing in disguise?

Next, the prayers were supposed to be from 4-8 pm. It started at 7:40 pm and went right up till 11.30pm when we finally left the temple. The priest was delayed by terrible traffic jams in KL side. It was a real test of faith as the delay was a huge one and the temple was in the middle of the jungle. No fringe entertainments. I stepped up to help when i saw another young guy walking around preparing everything. It was really fun so to speak as i knew a lot of the people that were there. But still, it was very tiring.

In the meantime however, my frens were having dinner back here in serdang and i had to cancel my intentions of going back to meet those guys even though i promised. But, who knows what other more important matters were other members missing while being stuck there like me. Yeah....before i forget. 2 more miracles that happened in the temple. One, the monkeys that inhabit the place. According to the person in charge the monkeys will always be inside the compounds of the temple. Two, as it was a jungle there was supposed to be lots of mosquitoes. None of these 2 bothered us at all.
Conclusion, i don't think i have been to any prayers that is stronger than this particular prayer. I absolutely cherished being given the chance to take part as a volunteer. Anyway after it ended i followed my parents home and then........................................(to be continued)

-Mathan-

I born, i study, i WORK =D!!~~

2005-02-24T10:45:00.000+05:30

Full credits for this post goes to PeiTze. Thank you Pei Tze and a happy Chap Goh Mei to everyone out there. This is what she had to say: -

Yay!! I'm so happy for my friend, Mathan, cos he finally got a job! Congrat's yo! An I suppose Ben is thrilled to know that you've finally got a job! hehe... anyway, hope all is well with your 1st job! Ok... and it's now time for me to get another cup of coffee...

Issshhhh!!....after wishing me also she still needs coffee. Pei Tze ni ....cannot cure dy!!~ =)
Well, I'm working for Autochild and i will be with them full swing from next monday onwards. Currently, just working from home.

Mathan Gets a Job!~

2005-02-21T18:50:00.000+05:30

Well,

Guess what, i think i have a job now. Just need to make sure about some transportation hiccups. But after that i should be ok la. The directors of this new startup company actually met me in person and we worked something out already. The idea is new and its bright. So, i am gonna vote myself in until they vote me out.

I have to say thanks to my mother who actually helped me to find this job. But, the point is she reacted a bit wierdly. Malas la. This is why i wanted to apply and do it on my own. Now that she is involved and her fren is involved in helping me, things are more complicated. I have to say for my part though that the guy really is showing me a good deal. All i have to do is first, show him i am an incredible sales and marketing addition to the company. Next, i will have to follow it up by showing him i am an incredible human resource guy and trainer. Sounds like a challenge ya!?~ Ehehehe....i love challenges. This is what i am made for... Talking about mum though, she is talking like i should think about skipping jobs when something better comes along. The point is i have waited for like what? 3 months and an offer like i am getting now is not even really for someone at my level. This is a GREAT offer. I have to wonder what else would possibly be able to TOP this offer.
I have to thank a friend that asked me to Pray and also called to Wish me Luck just before the interview. I'll tell you again, it means a lot to me. Thanks ya!!~~

Well, what else to say. I cannot think of anything more important than the fact i got a job.

-Mathan-

I am in Cyberjaya - Part 2

2005-02-16T23:40:00.000+05:30

Good morning world!!~
Ok, i am finally up and running again. Last night was such a happy outing to remember. Me, Ben and Pei Tze went to Sunway Pyramid. They bought some stuff for themselves. Next i have to say that i am a bit unsatisfied when i realise the main reason for us to go out was to get Thai food. But, we didn't end up 'crying' over spicy tomyam. Since we were inPyramid, we went to eat at Stonegrill. Interesting outlet. Something is just not so catchy about the shop's deco as compared to the other places nearby it. But i have to agreee that the concept is novel.
We get to cook our own food and eat it when we feel it's ready. How we cook it? There is a rock with temperature of about 400 degrees celcius in the middle of the plate. Cut up the meat, throw it on the plate and let the magic unfold.
After pyramid we went to play pool at Cafe 7. Started off with foozball when we had to wait for a table. Damn fun versus , pei tze. I lost...and i didn't mind since it's not a game that i practice playing. But, it was a bit of a overkill when Ben and pei tze both teamed up against me la. Finally pool time came. I have to say that for some strange reason, maybe the way the stars are aligned, or maybe the some feng shui was good about the place, or maybe me and ben had angered the pool gods, ended up pei tze.....:-s...kept winning...She actually trashed us (me n ben). It was a dark day in the history of pool. Because she did it all after saying she was 'rusty' summore. Anyway, at least she had great fun and had a cheery look while me and ben were walking around with a long face. There was BALANCE achieved.
To soften the blow of dying in pool. We went to the mamak to makan and minum. Had satay which was ok , unfortunately the sauce not so nice...=(...watched the second half of DieHard2 movie which was playing on Star Movies. And got back to MMU....
Now i am going on my next round of meet the frens session. Hahahaha....!!~~So, i shall post up more stuff later.

-Mathan-

I am in Cyberjaya - Part 1

2005-02-16T07:30:00.000+05:30

Well, i am not going to go into details of who i met where when on campus. But, i have to say that being back on campus is like nothing ever passed in the last few months. I can ease myself back in so naturally. Of course people that are seeing me walking campus grounds doesn't seem to feel the same way. They all are asking about me and my job (non-existant as my fan club thats reading this blog faithfully knows) I am just a lost soul back to meet the rest of the lost souls.
Why can't they accept the visit in good faith and leave the failures i am experiencing in the outside world out of the topic of conversation.
Anyway, i cannot say anything also since it IS my fault for not getting a job. Well, therefore i have to undergo all the scrutiny. Ehehehe....anyway for the moment i have to log off soon i guess since the next plan of the night is going to makan, shopping and pool. Who else if not with the gang.....eheeh. Cya guys later...

Constantine

2005-02-15T06:40:00.001+05:30

I have to admit that i see a lot of my fellow bloggers using a lot of colours to spice up their sites. Therefore, i am using the assummed colour of HELL for this post. Assumed because i have not seen it for myself yet. If i did see HELL with my own eyes then i would be able to make a post in a more accurate colour. Provided i actually came BACK after seeing la.
Anyway, why all this talk about HELL? Simple. Look at the title guys. I love the movie and i feel the simple attraction of the movie is NOTHING seems to be exaggerated. I watched it twice and i enjoyed and laughed at all the jokes. Both times. Simple dry humour. It doesn't make u think too much, unless u have been contemplating to commit suicide. At that note, u might have a change of heart. If u have been smoking a lot, also u might have a change of heart. Yeap, this movie is a number one anti-smoking campaign battleship.
I guess i will stop the spoilers at this point. It's a great movie to watch when u go in without any expectations. So, i will not give any more expectations through my posting. So, back to Earth....
Hehehehe, i watched the movie twice in the last 3 days. Once with my sister. Again with a couple of friends of mine. Sometimes, i have to say that what we plan never happens. Or what we're looking forward to actually ends up being completely different.
I am talking about the last 2 days. In fact, I was supposed to go to a frens house in PJ on saturday. and then another house in Melaka on sunday. Both plans tak jadi at the last minute. Saturday cause fren's family busy so i couldn't go over. Sunday plan was cancelled cause another fren crashed his car. He wrote in his SMS "my car slide through a divider" I still have no idea how the hell can that happen but, forgive a guy experiencing accident trauma la. A Crash might just be a 'slide through' from his point of view.
When he bailed out there were only 4 of us left to go to melaka. One of the four got drunk the night before so there was only 3 of us left. In the end, Don and I went to Ben's place. And i have to admit, Ben's grandma cooking is simply out of this world. Super nice.....(drooolzzzz~~~!!) After that, i convinced them to go watch Constantine.
Anyway, guess what is the latest update. Mathan is going to Cyberjaya again tonight. While writing this post i was chatting with a fren and one thing led to another and i guess tonight i would be meeting a lot of people eheheehe.....or mostly tomorrow la. MUahahahaah!!~~
Sure got lots of interesting stuff to be added in the next 2 nights.

-Mathan-

To explain the Fellowship a bit

2005-02-13T06:40:00.000+05:30

Well, i started this whole post as a comment to Don's posting. After that i liked it and i had less time to think of something new for the post i had to make in my own blog. So, i just copied it and pasted it here....and made some alterations.

Oh yes there is a Fellowship on Malay-Earth, Fate hath bound us together in the blasted lands of Shyber-Jeya. A beacon of techno-worldly sciences, in our quest for wisdom we sought it for various personal reasons.
Ultimately we found one another and the Fellowship was formed and forged. Our ranks increased in strength and wisdom and we did suffer loss (~~Peace be unto your soul, Mak Tai Kuen! There never was a dull moment when u were around~~)
And as every meeting ultimately has a parting, we are now at that point. Yet, we know the partition in space would not hamper nor decay the works of the forging fires of friendship in the ivory towers.
Fare well in all your endeavours my dear friends. Especially, those of you that come into these blogging circles and read my stuff....;) Take care u all. Bye bye!~

-Mathan-

Mathan is gonna cook - Aftermath

2005-02-02T04:20:00.000+05:30

OK last night i was just too busy after cooking to blog it in....

Let me see. What happened at the first? i went to the local store to get some stuff. Got japanese tauhu, mix vege, cauliflower, 2 eggs, cream of mushroom soup instant pack and a loaf of bread for today's breakfast. Altogether i spent about RM8 only.

Came back took shower and did my Meditation. The timing to wait before eating would be perfect because I could estimate about one hour in the kitchen.

I started by heating up the oil.....and then left it to heat for too long cause i was a bit lost as to which dish to start cooking first. Decided to steal my mum's already seasoned fish from the fridge and just fry it. I knew to be careful with hot oil and all that. What could i do if the fish decided to dive in rite? Now i have a 5 centimetre black mark above my right ankle where the oil splashed. Lesson learnt: DO NOT STEAL FROM YOUR OWN MUM....

Fish fried quickly. Next, i cut the tauhu and the cauliflower and then suddenly felt lost about where to actually add the cauliflower. Decided to finish up the tauhu first. Threw one into the oil to see what happens. Seriously i have never seen anyone do it before and i was totally clueless as to how fast it gets cooked. Saw to my relief that on a slow fire it does take some time. And then i dropped the whole lot in .....belatedly realising that there was NOT enough oil for them all. DAMN!~~ OK, simple thing ....just add more oil la. In a while they started frying. I prepared the egg in the meanwhile and i added soy sauce and salt to it. I made a mistake here. I think i should have dashed the soy sauce later and just added the salt at this point. Cause in the end only the egg tasted salty. The taste didn't spread fully to the tauhu and the mix vege. Oh and the whole mix was a bit too oily for my own liking. Next time, need to estimate the oil correctly.

Anyway, the cream of mushroom soup was darn simple as i had the instant pack. I just had to Boil it all in. However, i added some mix vege to it and finally threw the cauliflowers in there to make my very own cream of cauliflower soup. Jeng~~Jeng jeng!!~ ...this was a great dish. I loved every bit of it and think i was right in adding the extra ingredients as they gave variety to the dish.

Oh i forgot the rice. Here i was thinking the rice would come out a masterpiece as it is really damn simple to cook. Unfortunately, i put in a little too much water....>_<''...so, my rice turned out a prototype between normal rice and porridge. Looked like rice, but stuck to the spoon like glue when i scooped it to the plate.

Anyway like Pei Tze joked, now i have increased my cooking skill points. Ehehe...i think i might just do it a few more times as the Sizzing Tauhu almost turned out rite also. OK people and of course the best part of all, i am still here sitting and typing to u all without any problems so my cooking is edible and u can SUrvivE aahahaah....try it one day ya..;)....alrite, signing off for now until something interesting happens in my life.

P.S: Anybody want to watch a creepy anime? Try "St. Luminious Mission High School" The way they keep u questioning WHY!?!!?!? and not be able to figure out the puzzle is uncanny.

-MAthAN-

Mathan is gonna cook

2005-02-01T08:15:00.000+05:30

Yes Ladies and Gentleman.

Step right up. Parents are in Cameron Highlands. Sister is in Cyber. So what does mathan do. MUahahaahah......He decides to learn a new skill and cook. Hear ye hear ye.....he is gonna cook. Let's all step back and see the magic take place. <"hopefully nothing explosive", theEvil snickers>...

Be warned everyone. This might be the last u see Mathan, he may never be the same again after whatever that takes place in Klang< SELANGOR tonight. Say your good byes!!~~

I will try my best to update you all once i am done cooking later. ;).......

-Mathan-

I think people take drugs when feeling like how i feel now

2005-01-31T03:35:00.000+05:30

Hey there peeps,

Well, i am home alone at the moment. Parents are out and sis is studying. Sigh, back to writing again to let out the feeling of emptiness inside of me.

I seriously do not know what is up with me. Sometimes i just suddenly go into one of these modes. No appetite, no energy to go out and finish chores, no enthusiasm to go have fun. I even missed out on a long time reunion last night where i was supposed to meet up with friends from secondary that i have not seen for about 3-4 years. Maybe things would have been cooler if i had just forced myself to go and meet them up and have some fun.

Every path has its consequence and i have chosen this path of "not going to the reunion" and here i am telling you sad tales instead of how great the reunion was. Hahahaha......

Well for those people that are randomly inside my blog spot at the moment this is how i look like. ..........uh oh....the upload a photo link is not working.......damn it guess you guys will never know. MUahahahahhah......i shall remain a terror that flaps in the night .

Ok shall come back to utter more unutterables when i am bored of playing my guitar. Ciao !!~

-Mathan-

The 5th Chakra in our body system

2005-01-30T12:40:00.000+05:30

Ahaha...i forgot the important part about my website. "Why is it named so?" Some of you might ask.

The following is something that i believe in even though a lot of people might not. I believe in the existence of Chakras.
Our body contains 7 chakras or psychic energy centres. VISHUDDHA, also known as the throat chakra, the fifth energy center is located at the base of the neck, it includes the entire jaw.
It is the center of our personal expression and the messenger of the spirit. It resonates to the color blue and the element of sound.
A well balanced fifth chakra activates our speaking and listening abilities, awakening our ability to connect and communicate with others. It tunes in to our own inner voice.

Hopefully , i can truthfully listen to my inner opinions and tell u guys without too much censorship ahahahah.!!~~.~~!!

-Mathan-
P.S: just message me, if u guys wanna know about the other 6...;)
p.p.s: i just realise have to set the date....damn it the earlier post was written oni about 30 minutes ago.....not 6 am....bodohnyerrr aku tak nampak.

To everyone out there....hola!!~

2005-01-29T19:57:00.000+05:30

Alrite people. ...

Mathan is in the blog scene as well. I know veterans like Mhyshael would all laugh at my pathetic attempts to be a writer. But, there was a time i envisioned myself writing stuff. Since i am sitting around at home doing nothing at the moment, i guess i shall try to do some interesting writing and give myself a chance.

It would at least alleviate the pressure i am recieving in the need to look for a job. Besides there are so many things that i think about that it is not funny. Stuff that is totally not relevant to me, stuff that are the greatest mysteries in the world, stuff that are perfectly understood by everyone except me, stuff that i think i understand better than others....etc.

A word of warning to the visitors of my site. I am a Hindu and i am of indian descent. As such i have been searching for the roots of my culture and its literature and the magnificence once enjoyed by Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro (ding!! yeap u saw that in the history books in Form5 SPM). It's sort of a pet project of mine as i realised at one point (Beta MMU), i knew more about stuff talked about in the Christian bible as compared to Hinduism and its many Vedas (the Rig Veda being reputedly the oldest written document surviving on the face of the planet). Hence the embarassment at my own ineptness and the following search that ultimately is opening to my mind even now the truths contained in my religion socially, culturally and spiritually...oh also technologically...

Of course that doesn't stop me from reading about all other religions as i come across their literature. Alright, so please bear with stuff i write here based on my own readings and post my own opinions. Take it as somethign interesting that deems discussing and feel free to post your comments. The first step to understanding is of course questioning, so maybe i might write out questions from time to time. Hopefully i do get some constructive feedback from you guys (Meaning ANSWERS to the questions) and not flame mail asking me to shut up. Trust me it was those questions, which the girl asked me in Beta that made me realise how UN-knowledgable i am and set me off in my project.

First question of the day then: " Have you guys heard of any old documents? and how old is the oldest document u have heard of? " --just wanna see if what the website told me about the Rig Veda is true or not--

-Mathan-

Come back to Visit soon yah!!~~