...howwwzattt... for the evolution??

All went smooth sailing until I reached my SRP year (1987), you see the seniors (5th former) are one crazy and rowdy lots. During that particular year my batch had become what you may call "the punching bag", you might be ended up in the torture chamber without knowing what you're in for. Those guys would simply pick you randomly and summon you up to their dorm along with your unfortunate peers to what we called the event of "Royal Rumble" hence the wrestling show. We would be standing in the middle of the ring (dorm) and they would form a circle and make us to fight each other until the last man standing. Here the victor wouldn't get away in glory, instead you'll still have to face their wrath for beating your own friend. If there are 20 seniors in the dorm, you'll have to face a "starlight" from each and everyone of them. This happened all year long and not the only terrified experience we have to face, there're many kind of form of ragging and bullying that would certainly bruised you pysically and mentally. But we all understood the norm of that kind of things, someday during our senior years we will do the same things to the juniors. There's a kind of unwritten code, an omerta applied to each and everyone of us boarders at that time, every hardships we endured, for the pain we suffered, it will remained amongst us. No telling to the school authority, period.

So, what I'm trying to say here? Are our students now evolved from once a tough young men to sissies or the culture of ragging and bullying have become too extreme for them to handle? Or perhaps it's the system that made them behaving that way? Mind you, without character building our students wouldn't reach far globally...

p.s. This comment was made in regards with the recent news published in our newspaper.

...howwwzatt... for memories??

During my primary years, whenever I got a slapping from a teacher it's a no-no way of me for telling my late abah of the punishment since I'm fully aware for that I surely will receive a double slapping from him for he knew that I'm the one to blame, not the teachers.When I was in my secondary years in a boarding school. Me and a few of my brothers in arm were caught smoking by the warden. As a lesson for us, we were given 3 strokes each on our behind and still not satisfied with the punishment the warden decides to get us all wet by soaking us all for the night in the pool. Was it filthy? Of course it was and still is to this day. Imagine spending the whole night standing in the murky water with the bloodsucking leeches to keep us company. Did we learn our lesson? Frankly no and it never crossed our mind of becoming holy back than. But did we, did I respect the teachers? Yeahhh you can bet on that, never in my/our mind to disrespect the person that had taught us and the feeling remains till this day.

I remember during my school days at SERATAS Taiping when it comes to Saturday night, all the Putras and Putris would flock to the gymnasium to watch movie screening by the Kelab Wayang Gambar. Sometimes if weather permits they will screen in on the wall of the school block and everyone will sit down on the tarmac between the Dewan Besar and the school block to catch whatever movie for that certain night and of course as usual attendance is compulsory. Many would bring "products" such as kacang, biscuits and air minum just like in the movie theater. Some would even bring pillows and tikars so that they can lie down and even sleep during the screening. Sometimes during the screening a few of the boys (the seniors) would slowly crawled in the dark to be amongst the Putris just to hear their suprised scream finding that there're different species sitting beside them. As usual no harms were done except for some boos and cheers from both sides.

There is one place that is sacred to me during those days, that is the Dewan Makan. You see, during the starts of each first school term (form 4 and 5, my senior years of course) I would influenced the AJK Dewan Makan to arrange my batch seating so that we'll always be near the girls in the dining hall (AJK semua kawan kamceng maaa...). Not knowing to them, within the half and hour of dining I would cherished that moment by curi-curi pandang/jeling/intai­ my awek (everybody experienced their first love apa...) sebab come to the real world like most boys, being cool is such an important image to look after rather than being a Mat Bunga. Although our relationship is an open secret to most of the school population, tapi biasala gua nak jaga air muka depan member-member dan juniors kenala buat macam takdak apa-apa. Nanti depa kata, apala abang ni gaya macam rock tapi main awek pulak kahkahkah...

There's one incident on ber"couple" (lelaki dengan pompuan la...) happened to 5 of my buddies, I don't know exactly how it goes but verbal accounts dari yang empunya diri tu, they were caught coupling by the Dicipline Master that means berdating dalam kelas kot?? They were brought to the Bilik Guru to face the music and unlucky for them that at that time it was waktu rehat. You can imagine that most of the teachers were there right? So, here goes the sedutan dialogue;

D. Master : Hahhhh... kamu... adakah kamu cintakan dia?

A. Salleh: Ya... saya cintakan dia (dengan begitu penuh yakin sekali)

D. Master: Haaa cikgu-cikgu dengar tak... depa ni cinta-mencintai hahahahaha....

Teachers Lounge: HAHAHAHAHAHA... (filled up with laughter)

Up til now whenever I met with A. Salleh, I would always asked him to ulang balik the dialogues word by word hahahaha... So, what about me? Do I have that similar kind of unfortunate incident happens to me? Glad you ask and it did happened but on a more greater scale and if you boys and girls be nice to this old boy, perhaps for the next entry I will reveal my infamous tale...

Remember days of skipping school
Racing cars and being cool
With a six pack and a radio
We didn't need no place to go...
(Bon Jovi: Never Say Goodbye)

...howwwzattt... for anger management??

In cricket, an appeal is the act of a player on the fielding team asking an umpire for a decision regarding whether a batsman is out or not. According to the Laws of Cricket, an umpire may not rule a batsman out unless the fielding side appeals. There have been occasions when a batsman has otherwise technically been out, but the fielding team neglected to appeal so the umpire did not declare them out. An appeal may be made at any point before the bowler starts his run-up for the next ball.According to the Laws of Cricket, an appeal is a verbal query, usually in the form of, "How's that?" to an umpire. Since the taking of a wicket is an important event in the game, members of the fielding team often shout this phrase with great enthusiasm, and it has transmuted into the slightly abbreviated form, "Howzat?" often with a greatly extended final syllable. However, recently in international cricket cricketers even actually dance on the field as part of their appeal, urging the umpire to raise his finger, signalling the batsman out. Some players have established their own trademark appeals as well. Occasionally, when a bowler gets a batsman out, he may do the batsman's trademark appeal as a form of celebration but moreover a slight intimidation.

Recently the company I work for has decided to exercise the ESOS which stands for Employee Share Option Scheme where in my section the task had fallen onto the Foreman. For an employee to eligible to get their ESOS, the management has decided to introduce another acronym which is PMS that stands for Perfomance Management System (as usual, they really good in generating this kind of new terms). So, every personnels in my section were summoned up one by one by the Foreman into his office to hear his explaination on their perfomances and that includes me. The highest point is 4 (excellent) whilst the lowest is 1 for poor. When it comes to my turn, there were about 10 columns and it was graded accordingly which the lowest I received was for "appearance" where the Foreman has decided to give one point something (I received 2.75 which stands in between good and very good). The funny thing was, being in my grade it is a requirement to wear uniform which were given by the company complete with the safety shoes and the epaullete whenever we come to work. I'm not sure whether the Foreman was in his right state of mind or not when evaluating my "apperance", it seems like he has totally forgotten that in any way, my "appearance" before him has been dictated by the same company he works for. Am I mad at his remarks? Hell yeahhhh...

So, why don't we all manage our anger and just "HOWWWZATTT..." out loud, it gives you a sense of therapeutic effect...

...howwwzattt...for my icon...

"The journey has been embedded for so long.
Deep full of mystery.
Take it while it's still alive..."
(Ramli Sarip)

Today's entry, I would like very much to pay my tribute to an icon, my icon Ramli Sarip. He is affectionately known as Papa Rock to most of us. His song has generate influence in most of us in his 40 years career span.

Ramli Bin Hj. Sarip was born on the 15 October 1952 in Singapore. He is now a legendary and popular singer also a producer in Malaysia.

He was first popular with his group called Sweet Charity in the late 70s. The band was formed in 1967. Sweet Charity was among the few bands that revolutionized the local rock scene. This Singapore based group continued to rock the nation with their brand of rock and roll music. They were once dubbed as the Deep Purple of Singapore. Sweet Charity released its self-title debut album in 1979. But it was not until a year later that they become a houshold name when their second album Sweet Charity-Pelarian released. Tracks from the album such as Kamelia, Musibah, Zakiah and Pelarian became instant hits and today, they've become Sweet Charity classics, so much so that fans has forgotten that some of the numbers were cover versions and that includes the most notable Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight entitle "DIA" from the album Penunggu.

Indeed, Ramli Sarip was the backbone of Sweet Charity. From 1989 onwards he went solo and to date has cut 8 solo albums with an average sale of 100,000 original copies per album. He also proved himself to be popular among fans ranging from youngster, teenagers, middle aged and the elderly. He renders heavy rock, soft music, traditional Malay songs and English numbers. He is always occupied with road show, dinner shows and charity shows. Ramli Sarip also manages to win the hearts of non-Malay fans through his performances in pubs and clubs.

ALBUM: 9 ALBUMS WITH SWEET CHARITY, 8 SOLO ALBUMS, 2 DUET ALBUM WITH KHATIJAH IBRAHIM AND DATO' S.M SALIM AND 4 CDs BOX SET ZIARAH SENI.


p.s: "DIA" is for you...

...howwwzattt...sub-continent rules pt. 2

India had won for the first time the ICC Word Twenty20 by beating their archrival Pakistan by 5 runs in a very tensed and majestic showdown. As usual whenever these 2 teams meet, there’ll surely be an outstanding and electrifying atmosphere surrounding the stadium by the players as well as the supporters for the both teams. India had proved that the Twenty20 not tailored only for big hitters and sloggers but if you do well in your bowling department and splendid catches by the fielders, it is a clear sign that the mounting pressure will falls on your opponent. That’s what they just did, taking early crucial wickets such as Kamran Akmal, Younus Khan and the slogger Shahid Afridi. It was also a great moment for India first time young captain, MS Dhoni for his “no fear cricket” attitude which later was adopted by his players and truly as it is will brings the new generation cricket to the world. Well what can I say, as a supporter for the Indian, I congratulate the team for their achievement and an outstanding performance…

Many of you might be wondering how on earth did I got involved in this form of boring sport? Well, it all started during my schooling days in one of the best school in Taiping that is SEMESTA or now known as SERATAS. I started to play hockey at first and even represent the school u-15 team a few times in a friendly matches along with R. Shankar our former national player who was my senior at that time. After sometimes, I left the team after realizing that I’m not good enough with the hockey stick to be in the regime. Another major reason for my departure was the coach, Abdul Rahim Udin aka ARU, he was a very good coach and a good player himself. But apart from that he was also the most feared teacher in the school, a very strict disciplinarian, someone that you should never cross path with. I’m sure many of the ex-students of the school especially the hockey players and those constantly bending the rules would have agreed with me. There were several occasions where the team had won; still the players would receive a slapping from him for not winning the game by a big margin right in front of the crowd moment after the game. During his tenure as the coach, the school team was known and feared by many as the team had the reputation like the Pakistan team during the 80’s.

Okay enough on that let me move on with my entry on how I got involved with cricket. Not long after I left hockey, there was recruitment for the cricket team by the seniors and with several of my batch mates join the training. After several months of training and learning the basic and techniques of the game, I’ve made it to the u-20 team as a super-sub or in the layman term as a reserve player. After a while I began to love the game and in the following year I was in the first eleven for the u-20 team and also held the captaincy for the u-15 team. It was and still is the only form of sport that I play up to this day and currently play socially for my company cricket club and also for the STAROBA Orange Cricket Club (unofficially holding the record for the only 100 percent Malay players/members in the country) as an affiliate member.

My tribute to those I’ve had played along with for the beloved school:

Coach : Cikgu Zahari Mohd Aliah
Batch 1986: Rahim, Badak, Azam, Man Koop, Pyan, Zahid
Batch 1987: Mizi, Tajol
Batch 1989: Myself, Yusham, Lan Penyu, Din Bajang, Naza Tuan Tulang, Lun Ayam
Shidi Linggam
Batch 1990: Ma’ad, Suhaimi Tanduk, Hamdan Scorer, Halim Aro

* Just to name a few.

Whenever there is a cricket match aired on TV, my wife and the children would make faces behind me for they know that they’ll never get hold of the remote for that day. Maybe I should buy another set for them, don’t you think so?


p.s. The blogger is an ardent Indian supporter and had predicted that India will win the
tournament.

p.s. Bad and his wife (from SOCC) are still in a great shock that Pakistan lost the
tournament.

p.s. Happy 25th year’s anniversary to my beloved SERATAS.