howwwzattt... we're living in a crossfire...

Dear Diary,

I have never kept a diary or journals and the title was a lyric from Scorpions', a song called Crossfire.

There are so many things inside me that I want to tell, to deliver. Those things were cramped inside my brain, cramping against each other at the door but none succeeded. How I wish I am... If only I am...

At this hour no one still awakes, even those in the graveyard shift are fighting with the sleepiness that crept in them.

Looking outside my window to the wet and busy street of Yangon

For 3 years I was battling my sleeping disorder, until one day I could no longer stand the effect to myself and my work, I seek professional treatment. At first I was given a cocktail of Dormicum and another pill but after the third visit in a span of 6 months, the GP straight away refer me to a shrink. Well, I was surprised and have the thought of me going bonkers after all.

Well, it was not bad after all. I was diagnosed of having an active brain activities. Meaning, my brain is wide awake eventhough my body is tired. So, I was given a supply of 50mg Seroquel for 2 weeks and since then, I'm a regular face fortnightly at the shrink office.

That was a year ago, the last supply of Seroquel still in my toiletries bag but I have stopped myself from taking it for about 8 month but I still carry it wherever I go. Keep it in the hotel's safe when I'm working away from base just to keep me aware of my problem.

Tonight is another of those night that I can't sleep. It is sad isn't it, only sleep on every other day...

howwwzattt... the men who stare at goats...

This is the first time I post anything here using my Blackberry and no, the post has nothing to do with men or goats. It is just a catchy phrase to say the least. It was a movie starred by George Clooney and Kevin Spacey something about things in Iraq and they even had a publication entitled the same.

As of my last count, I have been out of the country on and off for 167 days since Mac this year. Singapore, Dubai, Istanbul, Yangon and back to Dubai.

My last trip to Dubai lasted for 3 weeks when Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim was still the MB of Selangor and upon my return YB Azmin Ali had taken the post. Same goes to the fossil fuel at the pump, a litre of Ron95 cost RM2.10 and upon my return it had added another RM0.20 to its price.

People were fuming I guess, at least I do. When world oil prices went down to its low but heyyy, we increased ours. What boggles me, yesterday, your beloved PM announced an increase of salary for the MPs and Senators. What??? No one against it even the opposition MPs seem to agreed with the pay hike. Hell, they don't even need to pay for the petrol, why should they bother. They have allowance for that which were taken from the government coffers which in turn were taken from my pocket and yours.

The thing that grouses many was, the justification for it is none. You take back the subsidies which in turn hike up the price but the alternatives given were so poor.

Public transportations are nightmares in Malaysia. Non-reliable, poor and even dangerous. The people have no choice but to use their own whereby in doing so, they need a reasonable price of fuel to fill up their tanks.

Now the Gomen going to dish out the BR1M to those with income RM3000 and below. Wowww, with that kind of salary, one is consider going down to the poverty bracket. What with the RM1200?

Last year with the RM600 BR1M, the jolly PM said we can survive for a year with it. So this time, we can survive more than 18 months with the RM1000. What a twisted mind that I have.

How lovely and nice of me kalau beranak-beranak dah kaya. Just pay yourself through just like what our happy PM did.

On one of my day off in Dubai

I was thinking of writing about something else, an idea of turning this blog into a photoblog or something about my travels to different part of the world, alih-alih melalut sampai ke sini. Hey, I'm not a rich man travelling everywhere around the world, I'm working but in my spare times I love to see the locals, the ordinary people of the world. I treat my career as a holiday. I won't argue, 5 star hotels with meals and laundry thrown in. As I would always said, as good as it gets.

howwwzattt...a long sabbatical leave???

Well, my last entry was in July 18 2012 and it will be just days to mark its anniversary I guess. With the 2 Minutes to Midnight by Maiden's glaring in the background, I'm writing...

But, what's the point of writing when you just don't know what to write about? It's a beginning... a healthy beginning...

Yuppp, that was me at Sabiha Havalimani Gokcen Istanbul... and Yong Moh Kembara, baru nak masuk 2 tahun tak menulih...

howwwzattt... forgive us for we are the latchkey kids...

Latchkey kid: is a child who returns from school to an empty home because his or her parents are away at work, or a child who is often left at home with little or no parental supervision.

Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western post-World War II baby boom ended. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960s through the early 1980s, usually no later than 1981 or 1982. The term had also been used in different times and places for various subcultures or countercultures since 1950s.

That is me and most us with the age ranging from early 30s to the early 50s.

We are in a way kind of unique from the generation before us which is the Baby Boomers where it all started from the way of our upbringing which chain-reacted well into our adult lives.

Remember when we’re still kids, left alone to care for ourselves while our parents went to work when maids were the luxury of upper strata of the society? When both father and mother had to go out to earn the living because the cost of necessities beginning to ballooning though not as rapid as today?

We got back from school by ourselves and reheat whatever meals left for us and perhaps doing some chores in the house. In other words, we have the house keys hence the latchkey kids derived from. Without or little adult supervisions, we survived to become what we are now.

The upbringing affects us now. We will become irritated when our bosses hovering on our shoulders just to see what we are doing. To us (me), as long as the work achieved its goal, get lost. And most of our bosses are Baby Boomers, they never came out of their comfort box and yet they forced us to be just like them.

They have the luxury of being cared by their mothers at home because during their time, only the alpha males go to work. They will be under the supervision of their mothers and they got carried away with the systems they’re born into later in their careers. From my observation, not many Baby Boomers knew how to say no to their superiors. A yes man...

We, Gen X prefer flexibility as long as point A reaches point B we are cool aren’t we not?

Dang, I’m getting rusty with words...

Sometimes it baffles me on how major corporations employ consultants or sometimes they have their own trained trainers on this topic to preach on their workforce when in reality the top echelons won’t even come near in analyzing and what more in practicing it.

For me, I approached my work as a job not a career and certainly not a calling. Well to most of us I guess. Don’t just scoff me off just yet but put on your thinking cap instead and feel me...

Nel, I happened to see your link on fb... J

Note to self: I’m getting rusty with words...

howwwzattt... mister postman...

Not too long ago, I never dreamed of seeing a mode of long distance communication without wires or cables attached to the apparatus itself. Even landlines or house phones were treated as a luxury items to many except for businesses and the fortunate ones.

To most of us normal folks, it is always the normal mail and to receive a reply from one it may get days or even weeks should the recipient finally decides to reply. Mister Postmen were known by their first names back then and it was a normal thing to see people sitting in front of the house waiting for the red bicycle riding VIP to stop by or at least a glimpse of him (at least he is not on strike), well perhaps tomorrow he will stop. He must!!!

Today, they still doing the delivery but mainly confine only to utility bills and reminders from the banks and using a more advance mode of transportation than the bicycles.

Then came along the mobile phone technologies and it started with just voice calls till someone from the R&D department realized that short messaging system is an equally if not more profitable to the network providers. For the past 5 years, the technology evolves so rapidly that it only takes a week for a new model with enhancements on steroid to replace a previous one.

Nowadays, everyone is using a smartphone. IPhone and Blackberry are the most common apart from the HTC and Samsung. No longer using the phone for idiots which is the early version of Nokia hence the simplicity of using it with closed eyes.

In Jakarta, I saw a single individual using 3 Blackberry smartphones of the same model. What the…

I guess one is for Facebook, the other one is for BBM and the other one is for emails? What about phone calls and SMSes? I guess they share those functions too. With the Wi-Fi capability, one doesn’t need to subscribe to any network, just be inside the Wi-Fi perimeters and there you go. Web browsing, facebooking, emailing you name it. A wonder of a small thing could do to mankind.

When Alexander Graham Bell accidentally invented the device, little did he know the impact of his creation to the world.

My BBM hasn’t gives me any sign of incoming message for two days now. Just like the days of the glorious Mister Postman where everyone knows him by his first name, I shall wait… forever and always…