Math prodigy now a hooker???

The first thing I saw when I opened the Star paper today shocked me... The Math prodigy, Sufiah Yusoof is now a hooker? A HOOKER??? How can a Maths genius go astray? How can this happen? Come on, you're a genius! A genius without brains? She won a place in Oxford when she was 13, and now found being a prostitute? IMPOSSIBLE!!! Yet it still happens.... What's happening to the world today???

I still can figure out why this could happen... Too much stress??? To much pressure??? Or too much homework and assignments???

赠别

多情却似总无情,
唯觉尊前笑不成.
蜡烛有心还惜别,
替人垂泪到天明.

I want to go to Japan when I'm 20!

I can't wait to come of age! Being a teenager sucks now, but later on, I think when I'm older, I'll regret I said this. Being a teenager isn't easy, emotional problems, pressure, homework, the list could go on... I thought teenage life is the best??? I suppose varsity life is much better? Life should be better then.

The phrase "coming of age" is used to describe the moment when a teenager becomes a adult. In Japan, a nation-wide celebration is held once a year in January to welcome youth into adulthood! Beat that! ONLY those who are 20 years old can attend!!! Who better can it get? Why doesn't Malaysia have this kind of celebration?

The "Coming of Age Day" or "Seijin no hi" is usually held on the second week of January. It is even a national holiday in Japan! As new adults, the youths are given the freedom to drink, smoke, the right to vote and can take legal action without seeking parent's permission. All 20 year old will get to celebrate their birthday together in civic centers and shrines in every town. It shall be the biggest birthday party ever!!! Imaging a huge gathering of 20 year olds!!! What fun it would be!!! How I wish there was such an occasion here in Malaysia.

When they celebrate this occasion, they also wear a special dress, called the "kimonos", worn only at ceremonial events. It is a traditional dress. Kimonos are expensive, even when it's rented. RENTED! It cost about $ 1000 to rent a kimono. Don't even dream about purchasing it. It costs from $ 4000 to $ 10000 to buy a kimono!!! $ 10000 for a dress??? A DRESS? CRAZY!

After the ceremony is over, they either go out for dinner with their friends or family or continue into the night at ceremonial halls and nightclubs.

Now, wouldn't it be fun if Malaysia had a Coming of Age Day for the 20 year olds???

My Environment, My Hope

Before man was created, God created a good environment. He created the trees, the different type of animals, the crystal clear water, the picturesque sight of the waterfalls and other wonderful creations. After man was created, he exploited, destroyed and polluted the environment the Creator created for the pleasures of man. Do you still see crystal clear water rivers everywhere? Most rivers in the world are murky, dirty and polluted. Forests are being exploited by man to get a profit out of it. Man do not care to replant the trees chopped, making the environment hotter, polluted and dirty. This had a bad side effects. This will affect the future generations. Can we ensure that, there will be a place to live if we continue to treat the environment like we do now? In my opinion, if trees are being chopped down at this rate, the environment will be unfit for the future generations to live in.

More species of animals are becoming extinct. Due to the lack of habitats or overpopulation in one small area, animals have no where to live. Our future generations will be not able to see animals alive, but only see it in pictures of books. Why are you treating our environment like this? Icebergs are melting as I write this. More and more carbon dioxide are accumulating up in the atmosphere. The air is getting hotter. The sea water level is increasing due to the melting of ice in the south and north poles. People, wake up! Our environment will be gone if we do not take actions immediately. Maybe one day, it will snow in Egypt, or Nigeria Falls will dry up. Maybe the next ice age will come soon. Do we want this kind of drastic changes to happen to our environment? If the environment is not in good shape, we will have no hope, unless we can live on another planet and start anew.

Life goes on...

3 months has passed,

25% percent of the year has passed,

before you know it,

it's already May.

I can't believe that,

one of I've finished Form 3.

When I was in Form 3,

I thought it was tough,

but actually, Form 4 is tougher.

My exams ended just before the March holidays.

I did rather badly this time,

distracted by other things,

Sports Day, merentas desa, school activities...

How can I concentrate?

With all the pressure?

Why is Malaysia's education system like this?

Wouldn't it better if we followed the US education system?

Wouldn't we have more time for hobbies?

Then just study and tuitions?

Must there be UPSR and PMR?

Wouldn't it be better if there is only SPM?

Wouldn't there be less stress? Less pressure?

With the subjects im taking,

I don't know how can I go on...

With my this time exam results,

I feel kinda disappointed.

I know I didn't pay my full attention to my studies,

and was distracted by something else.

I must now face the consequences.

SU Camp (Last Day)

SU Camp Last Day (13/03/08)

Time really flies. It's like a second has just passed and its the last day already. Why do good times fly and bad times crawl? 

Breakfast, we had sausages, scrambled eggs, and free flow of bread with either jam, peanut butter, butter or kaya. 

There was a camp closing session. It's like a overview of what they thought us to refresh our minds. We packed up and left for Alor Star. 

We stopped by where they sell Salted Chicken, for those who wanted to buy chicken for their families.

Reached Alor Star at 6. Tired out!

SU Camp (Third Day)

SU Camp 3rd Day (12/03/08)

Yawn! Woke a little later than the given time. I had little time to prepare before the exercise. Today the exercise would be indoors. What exercise can be indoors? A game? Well, truly enough, it was a game. About doing actions when the leader shouted the order. Like when the leader shouted "King", we had to bow down, if the leader shouted "Queen", we had to wave, etc. We were told to kneel in a circle, the knees must touch each other (own and other people's). The game was quite fun!

After the exercise, we headed to our own devotion groups. Quote"Your (God) made all the delicate, inner parts if my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous - and how well you know it." Psalms 139 :13 - 14 The Bible (New Living Translation). If I ask you, "Who made you?", what will be your response? Most people will say "our parents did", right? Then, if I ask you who made your parents, you might answer "our grandparents did!". It can go on and on until "Who made the first human being?", how would you answer this question? In my opinion, I believe that God is our Creator. He created us. Don't you think so?

Breakfast time! I was really straving at that time. We had the usual, white bread with peanut butter, kaya, butter or jam. We had to memory verse again before tucking in. I got called, again. Haiz... After breakfast, session time!

Session 4 started with as usual with stimulation games. Today's game would be individual and not group. We were given a winner certificate, and have to go around and find the stations to get their signature. Before getting their signature, we must do something they say, related.

There was the car station.

Had to list down 5 Proton cars. Easy.

Family station.

Had to ask someone for marriage. What the.

Moral station.

I can't remember what I was suppose to do in this station.

Health station.

Had to do 25 push-ups.

House station.

Draw a house with at least five things in it. (But before going to the house station, you must complete the money station.)

Education station.

Haiz... This was tough... What is 456789 times 456789? Answer 208656190521. I got it wrong. My answer was 208656270532. So, didn't get the signature.

Career station.

List 5 jobs.

Friends station.

Had to drink water. Must give a friend a cup of water to drink.

Money station.

Find five different coins. (50 cent, 20 cent, 10 cent, 5 sen, 1 cent.)

& Charity station.  

Didn't have enough time to go there. But it was giving coins to 3 people. 

It was fun! Extremely fun! I got 8 out of 10. In the middle of the game, there were Mindy and Jimmy trying to lure us into a trap, where you do not have to do anything and have all the signatures. Luckily I didn't fall for it.

After that we had a talk about, everybody is a winner. Yes, everyone in the world is  winner! No matter what race there are, or black or white, they are still winners!

Later we were going to Gua Tempurung. Looking forward to it. We headed there right after the talk. We had our lunch there. Gua Tempurung was  a let down though. We were not going the wet part. Haiz... From fun, exciting, interesting to only interesting and boring. Haiz... A big let down. 

We came out of the cave at about 3. We stopped by a super market to buy swimming attire for those who wanted to swim, since it was still early. We had plenty of time to spare when we were back at the campsite. So, we decided to go play basketball.

 

Much later, we headed back to the room to bathe and get ready for dinner. Tonight was the last dinner we would be having here, at Harvest Haven. (Sad)

The last session started after dinner. We played "Who will survive?", something like the show "Lost". We were divided into groups. I was the hunter of my group. We were to go to 4 stations first. If we failed a station, we must sacrifice someone. Our group lost, because we sacrificed the engineer and priest too early. They were needed in the last part of the game. To repair the plane and fly the plane. Haiz... We had a talk right after the game. 

Alan Seow also let us watch a video about the crucification of Jesus. Who on Earth would do that for me and you? Only Jesus would.

After supper, we stayed up late till about 2 as it was the last night here at Harvest Haven... 

Lights out!

SU Camp (Second Day)

Second Day (11/03/08, Tuesday)

Brr.... I woke up at 4, because it was extremely cold, freezing! I need heat! The air conditioner was at 19 degrees. So, since I could no longer sleep there, I went to the library and slept. There was a nice and comfortable sofa there. So warm!!! I woke up later at 7. After doing the normal morning routine (brushing teeth etc...), I went down to play a little ping-pong before heading to the basketball court for the morning exercise. We had the normal stretching exercise. After exercising, I went for the morning devotion in my group. We were given a book each, "Quest for Truth" by Scripture Union.

I learnt quite a bit from the morning devotion. Quote "Only fools say in their hearts "There is no God". They are corrupt, and their actions are evil, no one does good!" from Psalms 53:1 (The New Living Translation Bible). I've learnt that the one who says that he believes in God is not the fool, but the fool is the who says there isn't. I support this because, I believe that the man who says he doesn't believe in God is trying to be better than our Creator.

After morning devotion, I had breakfast at the dining hall with my friends. But before we could eat our breakfast, we had to recite the daily memory verse. If you are called and you fail to recite it, you will have no breakfast. I kena"ed" that day. I had to recite it many times that day to Uncle Ti Peng because each time I recited it, I seemed to forget a few words, either I jumble out the words, or I leave out a few words. Haiz... See the food already so hungry, can't concentrate. Hehe... We had french toast with either jam, peanut butter or kaya. Each of us would get two slices each, if you are still hungry, we could get a free flow of white bread. I put everything on my french toast, kaya, jam and peanut butter (so each side had a different taste, yummy! Sam said I would get a stomach-ache, but I didn't :) ).

After breakfast, we headed for the meeting room for SESSION 2! We had stimulation games as usual. This time, we played word hunt. Each group had to guess the word given to the camp officer. There were also forbidden words. We ask the questions with the forbidden word in it. And the camp officer can only answer, yes, no, or forbidden. Tough eh? There were 6 stations. Some stations were easy, some were tough. Jian's station was the hardest. He kept making up his own forbidden words, making us clueless... I can't remember all the words at the stations though, but I think they are: "a parrot that talks"; "tree"; "barbie doll"; "fish"; "car"; and "human being". Our group narrowed the possibilities by asking "Can it respire?" "Can it photosynthesize?" etc... After the stimulation games, we had a talk by Jimmy Wang. By then, I was tired out. I can vaguely remember what he talked about.

We were told immediately to prepare ourselves for the outing after the talk. We were given 15 minutes to prepare. There wasn't much to prepare anyway, just take a few stuff and off we go. We were suppose to have lunch at Daybreak, the place we were visiting. I slept the journey yo Daybreak, i was tired out! The journey from the campsite to Daybreak took about 30 minutes.

Let me tell you a little about Daybreak. Daybreak stands for
Disabled
Adults &
Youths
Being
Rewarded,
Encouraged &
Accepted in
Kinta
Daybreak was formed in 1992, the year of my birth. It started as a dream, a dream to help the people with disabilities. It started with the church members of Canning Garden Methodist Church, Ipoh. They organized a walkathon that raised RM 52,000 to help establish the first main centre in Jalan Bandar Timah, Old Town, Ipoh. It was a shop lot. The Canadian High Commission saw the need for a bigger space with the growing number of trainees, made it possible to move to Gopeng through the Canada Fund Local Initiatives on March 18, 1995. Pusat Daybreak became an association on November 4th, 1996 and was officially renamed Persatuan Daybreak. Since the establishment of Daybreak started in 1992, a total of 500 people with disabilities have been registered with the association. Persatuan Daybreak's new premises in Pengkalan Pegoh, Lahat was officially opened on 24th April, 2003 by His Royal Highness Sultan Azlan Shah.

When we arrived, we immediately had our packed lunch. Lunch was fried rice, veggie and 2 fried tofu. It lunch was okay. Then, we went into the meeting room of Daybreak. There, the caretaker told us all about Daybreak's history and programmes they have been running. The caretaker also showed us a video about Daybreak's history. Daybreak has been running many programmes since they started. In 2001, they expanded of training programmes, because of the availability of space. They were able to have a sheltered workshop, an open market employment program and a home-based employment program. In 2002, Daybreak carried out another program, the Plant Nursery Project. They started it with a grant from the Finland Embassy. The following year, Daybreak started manufacturing socks! After the talk by the caretaker. We were shown around the center. We spitted into 2 groups. We were brought around to see the sheltered workshop, the nursery etc... Later when we were done being brought around, we were asked to help in cleaning with the people with disabilities. After that, we were taken to a store that sold things made from Daybreak in the center. I bought a ladybird soft toy for my sister.

We headed back to the campsite after doing all the shopping. I played a little ping-pong with my pals and then took a bath and prepared the table. It was our groups duty that night to prepare the table, cutlery etc... Dinner was as usual great!

The third session soon started not long after dinner. We had stimulation games as usual. That night, we played treasure hunt. We had to find clues located at various places at the campsite. SWORD was No.4. We had to find envelopes with No.4.

First, we were given the following clues:

Instructions:

1. The group cannot talk throughout the whole Treasure Hunt except for one appointed member. Choose the appointed member now.
2. Look for next envelop based on the clues given below when the whistle is blown. The clues lead you where to look for it.
3. The whole group must be together throughout the Treasure Hunt.
4. Your next envelop will have the Number 4 written in blue. Take your own envelop only.
5. If any of the above instructions or rules are not done or broken, please see the Camp Director before you continue with the Treasure Hunt.

Clues:

1. John 10 v9

Did you know where was the clue was? On the wall at the front gate of the campsite.

The next clue was hilarious.

Instructions:

1. Choose 2 members of the group to be blindfolded before proceeding to find the next envelop. Get the blindfolds, blind-fold the chosen members and get on with the Treasure Hunt.
2. All the members of the group is to do 10 push-ups before continuing the game.
3. The whole group must be together throughout the Treasure Hunt.
4. Your next envelop will have the number 4 written in red. Take your envelop only.
5. If any of the above instructions or rules are not done or broken, please see the Camp Director before you continue with the Treasure Hunt.

Clues:

1. Isaiah 44 v3

We had Jonathan running up and down to get the blind-folds. We broke the rule, instruction number 3. Jui Shan and Yi Hong was blind-folded. The next clue was located near the swimming pool. I lost the paper of the next clue. But the last clue was to get back the meeting room and solve a riddle. "This game was fun! Everybody cheated but not us!" Then we had a talk. A talk about cheating. People cheat to win, or sometimes they are just "kia su". Some cheat to jaga their reputation, some are too egoistic. Some are too proud and some cheat because they are plain lazy. How do people cheat? They cheat in various ways. Don't follow instructions, copying, lying to win, deceiving are examples of methods of cheating. Cheating is sin, you know. The consequences of cheating is not good at all. Your "akhlak akan runtuh", people do not believe in you, you might be even be cut off of God's grace, or the other person's you blamed will have his reputation to be bad. So, we, must say NO to cheating. Expose those who cheat! In the mean time, pray for them too.

After the talk, we had supper. I bought mee in the cup for RM 1.50 from the campsite. After that lights out.

Coming up 3rd day of camp!