"Thank you very much to you all for coming to this gathering today. My name is Ansari Abdullah, and I am representing Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) in the coming by-election to be held next week.
I am sad to note that the BN Government had failed to deliver on their promises made to the people of Batu Sapi during the last general election. Hence, I stand before you here today to offer my services to you all; to bring developments into Batu Sapi, improve the economic situation for the local folks, more infrastructure, create job opportunities...
But above all of those, if I were voted into office, god dammit, the first thing on my agenda is to do my best to fight for allocations to refurbish all the jetties and wooden bridges in Batu Sapi..."
Some people are not born to park cars. They may have been driving for years, but they'll never learn how to park their cars properly like the rest of the world. Upon arriving at the car park, they will search for the emptiest area. They will try their best to avoid a single empty spot because of course it's just impossible for them to maneuver their cars into that space—not in their wildest dream! How they got their driving licences has always been a big mystery.
Either that or they are colour-blind—they're unable to see those yellow lines, at least 4 to 5 inches wide, which clearly indicate where the vehicle should be parked. It's fine with me if it's very easy to find parking spaces in the city. But it absolutely drives me up the wall when I'm having trouble looking for an empty spot, and then see one car occupying 2 parking lots.
But this morning, I arrived a little early. So I was able to secure a nice spot where I was able to park my vehicle inside the yellow box, like how it's supposed to be done. I bet those who arrived a little later, and had no more space to park their cars, would have been frustrated to see such a waste caused by the idiot.
For some years after the Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM), a long time ago, I was teaching maths and science in a private school. And apart from my day job, I also went from house to house in the evenings on my motorbike to give private tuition for the same subjects.
Those days, maths used to be a tough subject, and the majority of students had difficulties to conquer the subject. The lower levels of maths were still OK, but when it came to algebra and trigonometry, calculus etc, many students would be in trouble. So in a way, people like me used to be sought-after those good old days.
That was the situation over 20 years ago. I'm aware of the many changes in the Malaysian education system since my day in school—the subject had been taught in Malay, and then in English for some years, and then now coming back full circle to be taught in Malay again. But this should not be alarming; our politicians have it all covered.
In spite of those changes, one thing did not really change—some people are still awful in maths. And what's more, they are "high-ranking people" too! Check out the following video clip, which—just in case you're wondering—is not an extract of a comedy show. It is an actual, serious, event, mind you!
OK, now let's do a bit of elementary calculations (and try to refrain from reaching for that calculator).
Total number of voters = 49,750
Half of that amount = 24,875
Amount required to secure a simple majority in the election = 24,875 + 1 = 24,876
Number of Malay voters = 32,000
And 70% of that is (70/100) x 32,000 = 22,400
If 70% of the Malay voters vote for BN, and none of the Chinese and Indians vote for BN (since BN does not need the Chinese and Indian votes), BN would get 22,400 votes, assuming no spoilt votes. That is still 2,476 votes (24,876 - 22,400) short of a guaranteed majority.
It would be very interesting to know how would the speaker respond if the Chinese and Indians were to gang up against BN and field only one candidate to represent the Chinese and Indians. Perhaps then he would hope for 2,477 spoilt votes, and all of those are of the Chinese and Indian voters.
The moral of the story, folks, is that maths is important not only for the scientists and accountants. Even politicians also need to know at least a bit of high-school maths.
Since the announcement of the respective candidates who're vying for the Batu Sapi seat a few days ago, our local papers have been reporting on the progress of the by-election on a daily basis. Naturally, those reports were complemented with photographs. And of course the majority of those photographs were those of Datin Linda Tsen Thau Lin, the grieving widow of the late Datuk Edmund Chong, the candidate from the ruling Government.
The government is of course pledging to the Sandakan folks to deliver even better governance and bringing Sandakan to greater heights—even much higher than all those raised hands in the photos.
I'm thinking—when the whole thing is over, heavens forbid, the ruling government will recapture the Batu Sapi seat, and the poor widow can take a few days' leave to rest her sore arms.
Subsequent to the recent death of an MP from the ruling Government, Datuk Edmund Chong, the scene is now set for a by-election in Batu Sapi. All those who're vying for the seat, especially the respective supporters in Sandakan must be on their toes right now. And they will all be working very hard for the next 10 days or so.
In the mean time, in the front page of the The Borneo Post today, is the announcement of a whopping RM4.41 mln allocation meant for non-Muslim religious bodies and Chinese schools in Sandakan. I can just imagine that the Sandakan folks are eagerly waiting for whatever other similar announcements by the Government over the next few days. That is after all quite a normal trend whenever there is a looming election in Malaysia.
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to spend some days on a fishing trawler, and I pride myself with the experience of living—at least for those few days—like a fisherman.
Come to think of it, politicians and fishermen are not very different from one another. The fishermen on the fishing trawler had this huge net which they trawl for hours at a time. And each time the net's raised, the catch could come up to tons.
I was intrigued watching the fishermen weaving gigantic nets from tiny shreds of fibres and strings. And after a few weeks all those strings and fibres almost magically transformed into huge nets weighing perhaps several tons each!
The politicians also weave nets. But they don't really use strings and fibres as their raw materials. No—they use other materials which are sweeter and much stronger motivations to lure their catch. And of course the party with more resources will have better chances to weave bigger and stronger nets. So he weaves a bit of this and that into a huge net, and hopes that the net is strong enough to hold the entire catch.
However, sometimes the fishing net might tear in spite of its strength, and some of the fishes might escape. Thankfully, that doesn't happen very frequently, especially if the net maker is an extremely good one. Besides, as strange as it may seem, the fish will never learn—they keep going into the net, generation after generation. History has a strange tendency of repeating itself. And the fishermen shall continue to earn their living.
I was going around to take some pictures of signboards meant for the treasure hunt next Friday, when I saw this interesting sign. It made me laugh in my car. If anyone had seen me then, maybe they'd think that there was laughing gas in the car.
Not exactly in perfect English—perhaps there's still room to improve, grammatically—but I suppose we can more or less get the idea of the warning. A good example of the "Communicative English", i.e. if you can understand it, then the sign has served its purpose.
If you think I sound like I would rather home-school JJ if I had a choice, that's because I would really do that if I had a choice. But unfortunately, both Mia and I are working full time. However, whenever it is exams time for JJ, Mia would actually take a few days off from work to supervise JJ's revisions. I don't think that's entirely necessary, but Mia would panic if JJ gets a red mark on her report card.
Tomorrow will be the Bahasa Malaysia (BM) papers, and so mom and JJ were doing final revisions. I would usually refrain from butting in; merely observe from a distance, and pretend to have no interest whatsoever in what's going on. But sometimes I just can't control myself—I swear to God I try my best, but I'm not successful all the time!
The BM questions these days are more "modern". They are not really about the language; not even about grammar (nahu). No—at times they're about some conceited people trying to force the kids to know about motor vehicles. Bear in mind that we're dealing with 8-year-olds here. And of course we're not talking about just any vehicles—it has to be our beloved Proton cars which are, when looking at the big picture, not really something we can be proud of. Even an MP from the government is not very impressed with the Proton cars [The Star].
Here's a sample question from JJ's book which caught my attention this evening. If you are viewing this in an average-size monitor, then that's about the right size of how it appears in the book. And yes, it is in black and white too. As you can see from the available choices, A to D, Mitsubishi Lancer is most certainly not the answer. I will leave it to you to pick the correct one. Good luck.
As for JJ, she has gone to bed. She's been revising the whole afternoon and this evening, with a one-hour break for her compulsory afternoon nap. I hope she has done enough for tomorrow. Perhaps the examiners will save the questions about, say, Malaysian Airlines System (MAS) and the likes for next time. Keeping my fingers crossed...
Organized a treasure hunt, the KK Challenge 15 on 23 July 2023. It attracted 27 teams, but eventually 1 team had to withdraw at the last minute.
A master hunter team from KL joined the hunt under the team name "Methanol", and eventually emerged champion, beating the strongest local team, "Main Tembak" by just a few points.
Most of the regular hunting teams were also hunting, but the excitement was that many newbies teams came onboard to support the event.
Feeling happy and thankful for the support!
