Lewat Jalan Ini Sudah Ke Hujungnya

Aku rasa blog Berita Untuk Kawan: Jalan Sepi ni sudah sampai masanya ditamatkan. Cukup-cukuplah hidup aku ni sepi, sama aje dengan nama blog aku ni. Sebenarnya nama blog ni diilhamkan daripada pengalaman aku belajar di Amerika dulu. Dan blog ini bukanlah blog pertama yang aku tulis (aku mula menulis blog ketika dalam tahun 2001). Dulu-dulu ramai batch aku dapat study di Mid West area, tapi aku tercongok sorang-sorang di Pennsylvania. Even kawan baik aku sendiri tak datang lawat aku kat Penn State sana. So aku rasa sunyi. Aku rasa sunyi pasal aku tak ada sapa-sapa nak share. Penghubung persahabatan dengan kawan-kawan di M'sia hanyalah melalui internet.

Kebetulan aku tengah obses dengan lagu M Nasir & Ebiet G Ade yang bertajuk, Berita Untuk Kawan. Senikatanya cukup halus untuk difahami maksud universal tentang hubungan manusia sesama kita dan bersama alam. Jadi lahirlah blog ni, untuk catatan buah fikiran tentang isu semasa, tentang kesunyian aku di Amerika dan juga untuk aku melawan politik establishment.

Senikata "Berita Untuk Kawan"
Perjalanan ini. Trasa sangat menyedihkan.
Sayang engkau tak duduk disampingku kawan.
Banyak cerita Yang mestinya kau saksikan. Di tanah kering bebatuan
Tubuhku terguncang. Dihempas batu jalanan.
Hati tergetar menatap kering rerumputan
Perjalanan ini pun, Seperti jadi saksi,
Gembala kecil menangis sedih ...
Kawan coba dengar apa jawabnya, Ketika dia ku tanya mengapa
Bapak ibunya telah lama mati, Ditelan bencana tanah ini
Sesampainya di laut, Ku kabarkan semuanya
Kepada karang kepada ombak, Kepada matahari
Tetapi semua diam, Tetapi semua bisu, Tinggal aku sendiri
Terpaku menatap langit
Barangkali di sana ada jawabnya,
Mengapa di tanahku terjadi bencana
Mungkin Tuhan mulai bosan, Melihat tingkah kita,
Yang selalu salah dan bangga dengan dosa-dosa
Atau alam mulai enggan, Bersahabat dengan kita
Coba kita bertanya pada Rumput yang bergoyang.

Itu untuk hampir 5 tahun yang dulu.

Sekali air bah, sekali pantai berubah. Keadaan berubah. Bukanlah maksudnya hidup aku ni sudah tidak sunyi. Masih lagi sunyi dalam hati, tapi senario berbeza. Maksud sunyi pun jauh lebih intim, bukan sekadar hanya teman-teman untuk bergelak ketawa, tapi lebih untuk berkongsi perjalanan hidup yang mudah-mudahan akan lebih panjang lagi.

Aku masih lagi menulis tapi bukan lagi untuk tatapan umum. Menulis itu satu terapi yang cukup nyaman dilakukan sendirian. Menulis juga ibarat satu eskapisme yang memberi kepuasan dan kelegaan pada jiwa yang selalu tercari-cari arah moralnya dan spiritualnya. Jadi aku akan masih lagi menulis. Cuma ruangnya dirahsiakan bagi menghidupkan kebebasan dalam diri untuk menulis isu-isu dengan lebih jelas, nyata dan tanpa berhati-hati.

Terima kasih kepada teman-teman yang mungkin setia melayani bebelan aku di ruang Berita Untuk Kawan ini. Segala komentar dan kutukan diterima dengan hati yang berbelah bahagi. Sekiranya masih ada manusia yang ingin setia pada nukilan aku, bolehlah email aku di mxm659 at gmail dot com untuk dapatkan address ruang terbaru.

Berita Untuk Kawan berhenti setakat ini. Penulis Jalan Sepi sudah tamat melewati jalan ini. Terima kasih semuanya.

Aku serius shit kena letak laaa posting ni. memang aku gelak sampai menangis-nangis mengenangkan kemangkukan orang yang tulis ni. Tapi memang entertaining habis, kalah Nabil Raja Lawak.

Sinatra_Z - Why I Support Learning Math and Science in English.

Recently there is a lot of support calling for the reversal of teaching math and science in English.
Much of these support comes of intellectual who has never studied any form of science or math in their respective college or University.

Take for example the recent PPSMI forum which was supposed to be attended by Anwar Ibrahim but was replaced by Syed Husin ALi.

Syed Husin Ali is a Professor of Anthropology and Sociology from University Malaya. What science or mathematics is there? In fact I had to look at the dictionary to understand the meaning of Anthropology.

The anthropologist Eric Wolf once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences."

Zaidel describes Anthropology as a major you take in Uni if you can't do Math well but want to seem smart by having fancy words on your degree.

And Anwar Ibrahim? Degree in Malay Studies, Oiyoooo the only Math they have in Malay Studies is to calculate the amount of credit you take per semester which isn't much of a problem for Anwar because during his Uni days he spent most of them shouting slogans on the street and getting angry for no apparent reason.

Why I say getting angry for no apparent reason? Because later he Joined UMNO!!

Back to thw reason why I support the damn thing.
I came from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and trust me when I say this that a few years back this was the most Bahasa Kebangsaan University than any other local universities combined. Let's just say the first 3 years of my Engineering days were filled with Bahasa Malaysia/Melayu jargons. Just to show you what I mean take a look at some of these examples..

Engineering Term
Capacitor - Pemuat
Resistor - Perintang
Impedance - Galangan
Current - Arus

Others include : Momen Lentur, Tegasan, Terikan, Pepejal, Dinamik Haba and etc...

I mean those Engineering Lecturer took the extra mile to translate every single damn thing into Malay and I greatly respect this. As oppose to my sociology lecturers who like to screw up the Malay Language by prostituting English words into BM.

Take for example this term "Dekadensi Moral" When I first saw that term I was thinking what the hell is dekadensi moral, a type of resistor or something? Turns out Dekadensi comes from the English word Decadence. Dekadensi Moral means Moral Decadence direct translation where as you can simply translate it into "Kemerosotan Akhlak/Moral" which is much more clear. But NOOOO he had to use dekadensi so that he would seem smart and people won't question his Associate Professorship. Then you would have other words like kompak, visi, misi, infotainment, naratif kecil, naratif besar and penkek.

At first the Lecturers (Engineering) seemed to get it all good, they managed to translate the English term to BM very well and with very clear meaning. Then Things started to change as the subject get's more complex and you get newer terms. Take for example this Subject..

"Motorolla 68000 Microprocessor"

Which translates to Mikro Pemproses Motorolla 68000"
Sounds fine....

But then as you go deeper into the subject you will find more interesting terms. For instance

Timer - The clock cycle chip you use to send timing signals to the processors. It acts like a stopwatch to the processor.

BM Translation - Pemasa. Which is fine.

Then we have things like this -
Bistable Multivibrator - Dwimantap Penggetar Pelbagai. Apo Kobondo tu Jang?

Then in microprocessor you have this term call "Interrupt" and like it's name it means to interrupt the normal cycle of the processor and tell it to focus to doing something else. Kinda like the phone rings when you are cooking, you stop cooking and answer the phone.

The Malay Jargon Interrupt would be Sampukan. Interrupt Pin - Pin Sampukan.

Sampukan? Sampuk ke? Sejak bila Mikropemproses ada pocong atau Jembalang dalam dia? Ini Electrical Engineering ka Bomoh Engineering?

Masked Interrupt - Sampukan Bertopeng.
Handshake Interrupt - Sampukan Jabat Tangan. Ko salam dengan dia lepas tu ko kena sampuk, kira dia ni macam santau laa.

Then you have this thing called "Latch" which is an output chip.
Latch in Malay is Selak.
Selak as in Selak pintu, Selak Pagar or Selak pintu Jamban.

Mula-mula baca dulu saya ingat Selak dalam erti kata Selak Kain.
Contoh - Angin bertiup kencang lalu baju kurung Fasha Sanda pun selak sikit lalu Zaidel pun telah menerima ganguan emosi akibat dari kejadian itu.

Naah see,
And it gets interesting when it comes to "Electrical Power" Subject. In there there is this chapter where they talk about CoEnergy in power transmission. Coenergy in malay is translated to Kotenaga.

Which is why when he gave the lecture my lecturer would loudly proclaim KOtenaga compare to the students who prefer to pronounce it as KOTEnaga.

3 phase Coenergy in power transmission would then become
KoteNaga 3 fasa dalam penghantaran kuasa. OIYOOOOOO, kalah Anakonda!

Just for fun here are some other Technical Jargons you can play with...

Transformer - Pengubah
Decoder - Penyahkod (Mak Nyah kot)
Multiplexer - Pemultiplex
Polarity - Kutub
Instruction Set - Set Suruhan
Components - Peranti (I bet you didn't know that)
Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) - Penghantar Penerima Pemasa Serentak Am

Now try translating this
Connect Your Joy Stick into the server Port, you should find little problem with the Joystick as the server has Plug and Play mode.

Masukkan Kayu Ria anda ke dalam lubang pelayan, anda sepatutnya tidak mempunyai banyak masaalah dalam memasukkan kayu ria anda kerana pelayan ini mempunyai fungsi masuk dan main.

Hambik kau!
Tu belum dia kena sampuk ke selak ke nak nak pulak ada kotenaga.

By the time I was in my 4th year,
Everything was taught in English.... SENANG!

My attempt to pitch for Pre Seed Fund from MDeC failed. Well, I wouldn't say it was failed completely. It's just that our idea wasn't conveyed convincingly to the evaluation committee. Although I clearly noticed that the team was clueless about what we were presenting to them, I think that's a good educational experience for me to notice on how I do my presentation. Some room for improvement.

One question though - how are we gonna realistically guess the number of subscriber given that the project isn't in placed yet? Something for the evaluation committee to think about. Hahahaha..

Anyway, my property agent in Kuala Pilah found 4 acres of land for me to use. Good enough la kan.So Young Agronomics place an order of 2,400 small banana trees. So, tentatively they are ready to be planted in middle of June. One thing that I was a bit pissed off was because the miscommunication which they had on me. Previously I ordered 3000 trees and promised to pay the downpayment when I secured the money for that, which was about 2 weeks ago. They promised to have the trees ready by end of May. Unfortunately, this gentleman didn't remember to include his boss's email address so that I could email the confirmation note. On my part, I thought the transaction was complete when I replied the email and agreed on the terms and conditions produced by them.

So now the trees will only be ready in mid June. I was like, "fuck it!".

Another bad news I got through my friend is that MARA has a long que for loan application. The que to get the loan could be as long as 1 year long. And I was like, "fuck it, again!". Agaknya aku kena apply Skim Pembiayaan Ekonomi Desa under KKLW laaa pulakkk untuk projek tembikai nih. Banyak betul halangannya nak berniaga.

My mom is finally at home after she was hospitalized for almost a month. That's a good news. The bad news is my mom isn't like my mom before she went to the hospital a month ago. She is bed ridden now and she has some challenges with her memory and her cognitive ability. Sometimes her personality changed. One issue which we need to resolve as family is to figure out how to take care of my mom when everyone is working.

Aku pikir untuk hire orang gaji untuk bantu mak aku kat rumah. At least maybe dua orang gaji. And how exactly to pay for these two maids? Well, I've got an idea. But that needs an attention from my dad and I am willing to fork out the money for this idea. I am sure, if this idea flies, it will generate income to cover for mummy's homecare nursing expenses.

Whatever it is, kita buat satu-satu lah. Make sure projek kebun pisang ni menjadi. Make sure projek IT training for OKU pun menjadi. And make sure kitorang leh dapat financing support from KKLW ni menjadi. Mudah-mudahan dapatlah kami jadi orang-orang yang senang dalam tempoh 5 tahun akan datang. Ameen.

p/s: Iqbal raised an interesting point of view about having a 'scandal' and having an 'awek'. I'll write about it later.

Pagi tadi aku gi visit Rumah Nur Salam di Lorong Haji Taib 3 atas jemputan kawan aku. Aku pun tak tahu apsal dia ajak aku gi ke sana pagi-pagi hari Ahad tapi aku layan ajer la member aku. So buat pertama kalinya aku jejakkan kaki aku ke rumah kebajikan ni yang selama ini aku banyak dengar ceritanya daripada newspaper.

Pengasas rumah kebajikan ini ialah bekas penagih dadah yang kembali ke pangkal jalan. Aku sangat tertarik dengan kerja-kerja yang dia lakukan. Kerja-kerja kebajikan sebegini telah dia mulakan sejak dari tahun 2003 lagi kalau tak silap aku lah. Ramai penagih dadah wanita, isteri-isteri penagih dadah, pekerja seks, pondan dan maknyah diterima dengan hati yang terbuka. Selagi mereka mahu mengubah nasib diri dan memperbetulkan kehidupan masing-masing, selagi itulah mereka di Rumah Nur Salam ini akan selamanya menerima orang-orang begini.

Kawan aku bawak kawan-kawan dia sekali termasuk ler aku. Aku dengan muka tak malunya selamba bertanya apa barang-barang yang diorang perlukan untuk rumah kebajikan ni. Dalam kepala otak aku, dah pikir dah beberapa tempat yang aku rasakan boleh bantu mereka di sini. Aku harap aku dapatlah membantu diorang ni setakat mana pengalaman dan pengetahuan yang aku ada sepanjang berkhidmat secara sukarela untuk OKU di KL ni.

Motto hidup aku, hidup memberi lebih baik daripada hidup menerima. Harap-harapnya segala amal jariah aku ni dapat tebus aku di padang mahsyar nanti. Ameen.

p/s: aku suggest juga pada kawan-kawan yang berminat utk turun padang to make difference in these people's life to come forward and volunteer. Tak rugi hidup berkhidmat.

Siang tadi ada pitching session for Pre Seed Fund. Walaupun aku dah banyak buat presentation, tapi yang ni still aku terasa butterfly in my fat stomach. For me, it was a learning experience in taking questions from so called 'experts' in their respective areas. Some questions are really brilliant and put us in perspective and some questions are really plain dumb questions. So, that made them no less better than us anyway.

Anyway, mummy dah tunjuk progress sikit. Dia dah boleh buka mata and cam suara tapi masih tak dapat bersuara. Aku tak harap banyak pun untuk hypoxic patient sebab chances untuk mummy fully recover is very slim - almost to none actually. Aku datang bawa adik aku skali, Hamizah, melawat mak aku. Hamizah kata papa sweet sebab cara papa jaga mummy. Aku jadi tak terkata apa. Seperti biasa, aku datang and check apa-apa yang perlu dengan nurse di wad 6G tu.

Semalam satu family ada meeting dengan team medical from HUKM. The team consisted of medical doctors, neurologist, physiotherapist, pharmacist, dietitian, nutrionist, homecare nurses, private homecare provider and JKM. Did I miss anyone? I hope not. The team leader explained that my mom needs a 24 hr home care support from the family members. I agree given the condition experienced by my mom, I really don't think she can survive outside of the ward without such attention from us.

The doctor added that EEG result done onto mummy cannot be used exclusively to determine whether mummy can recover or not. I was glad to hear that because I seriously had a thought to punch at this nefrologist's face, who had the guts to say to me that she wants to stop dialysis treatment on my mother completely based on her EEG result. The reason is being she's unconscious (brain activity is not at par with normal and able person) and her hypoxic condition cannot guarantee her of her quality of life. Therefore, she deduced, the family should let my mom go in peace. I was literally holding my breath and trying to stay calm while I was discussing with her about my mom on Friday last week. I told them, for as long my mom is breathing by her own, we the family will do anything to support her lifespan.

Another issue was raised during the meeting was about her cost of feeding. The cost to support my mom is gonna be between RM 400 - RM 600 per month, only for her food. We are not too sure about her dialysis considering that she's not fully conscious. I start to wonder, which dialysis center is willing to accept her given her condition. Other than that, I think we are pretty much prepared to have her at home.

AgroTani dah kena tukar nama jadi Agronova pasal nama tu dah kena amik ngan orang lain. Esok akaun bank dah boleh buka di Agro Bank. Yahooo...first step. Young Agronomics, nama business aku sendiri, dah pun boleh diregisterkan di Agro Bank juga. Jadi projek pisang berangan 5 ekar aku akan bermula hujung bulan 5. Setakat ni, mengikut kata broker tanah aku di Kuala Pilah, aku mungkin dapat menyewa tanah seluas 12 ekar di sana. Jadi aku fikirkan, 5 ekar biarlah untuk YA and another 7 acres for Agronova for watermelon cultivation.

Ada satu Datuk suh aku menyewa kat salah satu office space yang dia ada di Bandar Tun Razak. Aku dah tengok office space. Ok ajer. Serba salah juga aku. Aku dah cakap terus terang, aku memang tak mampu untuk sewa lebih dari RM 850 sebulan. DIa nak offer kat aku dalam RM 1,500 but in deferred payment la if I get SMIDEC Start Up Grant. Hurmmm..aku ada seminggu untuk bagi jawapan kat dia. Fenin...fenin...

I had two meetings yesterday. Yes, two meetings on Sunday. One took place in Rebung Restaurant, owned by the very famous Chef Ismail and another one took place in Glenmarie. The first meeting was between me and two Borneo’s friends and the second one is between us and the manufacturer in Glenmarie.

I can see the direction of these meetings. I can see, somehow, in the next 6 or 12 months form now, something will materialize. The question is, whether I’m a part of it..or just spectator for this development.

As my friend had mentioned to me, we can do this in two ways. One is to go platform by platform. That will only give small money. Small change, he says. But if we are interested to create big values here, we might as well go through a few months of hardship and apply for VDP status – that would create big bucks. With VDP, we can go to Terengganu, Kuantan, Sabah and Sarawak.

The only concern right now is how to go through the stringent procedure with PETRONAS?

They have good product and we have good marketing and connections to tap into the market in Sabah and Sarawak. Furthermore, Sabah operation is expanding. Thus it is something that I need to consider as well.

By the way, watch this!

Hari ni masuk hari ke 8 mak aku ada dalam wad ICU. Yes, 8 hari dalam ICU dan 2 minggu dalam HUKM. Satu tempoh yang lama aku tak nampak mak aku berada kat rumah sendiri. Even doctors now are clueless on what caused my mom to stay in sedative condition now. The result from lumbar puncture is negative for meningitis. I was told that there will be EEG and CT scan on my mom's head but so far, nothing materialize.

Semuanya bermula dengan satu insiden. Mak aku jatuh dari tangga kat rumah on Saturday last two weeks ago. She only went to the hospital on Monday, only after she was threatened by her doctor at dialysis center. Mak aku memang takut masuk hospital pasal dia takut kena tahan kat wad. And yeah, dia terus kena tahan the moment dia masuk HUKM untuk check up for her benjol kat dahi tu.

Mak aku punya kesihatan deteriorated ever since that day. Hari Rabu after they did a CT scan on her head, mak aku tak boleh bercakap. Aku nampak mak aku macam cuba bercakap tapi tak boleh buka mulut dia. Masa tu hati aku dah terdetik dah. Mata aku dah berkaca-kaca kejap. Aku memang cukup sensitif kalau hal-hal yang melibatkan mak aku. Terus aku panggil doktor yang ada kat wad Neurosurgeri tu. Aku question whatever yang diorang buat, aku nak tau every detail about whatever they've been doing to my mom. Aku mintak doctors tu explain about the result of CT scan. They said the result is ok. Mak aku takde suffer any fraction or anything yang serious about her head except ada cracked kat atas kening dia. Tu pun will heal along the time lah. Then why my mom couldn't speak or at least to open up her mouth?

Aku risau kalau mak aku kena stroke. At that point I was maintaining my composure. Aku stayed kat situ and kept asking the doctors, please find the reason why my mom tak dapat buka mulut untuk bercakap. Masa tu mak aku still sedar. Still conscious. Akhirnya doktor dapat pinpoint kenapa mak aku takleh bukak mulut. Pasal darah mak aku pekat after the CT scan process. It's a temporary effect. So they handled what they need to handle about my mom.

The next day aku datang lagi. Masa tu aku tengok mak aku macam weng-weng sket. Aku layan sembang dengan mak aku macam biasa. Tengok-tengokkan dia. Cuma aku pelik bila mak aku bercakap, dia akan ulang dua kali. And bila aku datang dekat pada dia..bercakap dengan dia..dia ingat aku ni ayah aku. Aku seriously bertakung air mata masa tu. Dalam hati aku, ya allah, biarlah mak aku ingat sapa aku ni.

Tapi yang paling aku ingat bila aku datang hari Jumaat tengahari tu. Aku duduk sembang dengan mak aku. Mak aku macam ngantuk-ngantuk gitu. Nurse tengah serve lunch pada mak aku. Aku tengok mak aku makan sambil aku baca suratkhabar sebelah dia. Aku tanya mak aku, dia nak makan buah apa. Aku boleh tolong belikan. AKu turun pergi belikan buah honeydew dengan betik. Aku suapkan honeydew pada mulut dia. Mak aku nampak cam lalok-lalok gitu. Aku perasan jugak yang mak aku ni macam cam tak cam orang.

Kemudian Kak Liza datang dengan husband dia. Kak liza ni jiran aku and dia memang kerja nurse di Pantai Hospital. Mak aku masa tu dah pejam mata dah..tidur kot. Bila Kak Liza tegur mak aku...mak aku macam tak berapa cam dia. Tahap kesedaran mak aku pun dah macam menurun. Kak Liza goncang-goncang badan mak aku untuk dapatkan respond..macam tak ada pulak. Aku masa tu ingat, mak aku sure mengantuk nak tidor kot. Yang aku tahu, mak aku akan complaint sakit kalau tangan kiri dia digerakkan.

Aku stay dengan mak aku sampai jam 2.30 petang. Itulah yang last sekali aku nampak mak aku dalam keadaan sedar.

Sampai waktu malamnya, hari Sabtu jam 1.30 pagi..mak aku dimasukkan ke wad ICU dalam keadaan kritikal.