Hello old friend...

The last few months must be the second longest time that I skipped blogging since I started some years ago. That doesn't mean the View from Above has had no views what so ever since July, it's just that I felt it was better I kept my views to myself.

Now the year's coming to an end, 2008 started out rather bad and seems to be ending in a worse note - talking about globally and generally not specifically about me. The wars that was on earlier in the year are still on, some new conflicts have erupted since then; piracy is getting worse and making my job a little bit more complicated; the economy is going downhill; and worse of all to me there has been little to no changes to the politics in Malaysia.

Isn't it wierd how polarized the world has become of late? We're either for the government or against it, we're 100% muslim robots or we're kafir/munafik, we're malays or we're chinese or indians or whatever you have... Someone writes something remotely challenging and everyone gets off their rocker. Most times without even properly reading the said offending pages or investigating both sides of the story - case in point the RPK issue or take any racial or religious issue that emerged in the last 3 months in Malaysia.

I had at least 3-4 notes to say about all of that - fortunately for everyone I have been keeping my anarchist-anti establishment thoughts to myself, of course where's the fun in that? I'm getting just so detached recently with all the crap happening or not happening that I think I need a little emotional motivation to continue - otherwise I would stop caring. And caring means sharing... So here they are in point form and in summary, my anarchist take on things:

1. The Malaysian government should all resign - they have failed to keep up with the state of the world and seem to only have time for politics and not work. There's only 24 hours in a day, at the rate the news and gossips on politics are going on one wonders when the work actually gets done. Forget the corruption charges how about start with negligence and work from there...

2. The Malaysian opposition should get a first warning letter and some should already resign for cases of idiocy and just plain moronic behavior. Look DAP/PKR/PAS are not even on the same platform at the core of it, it will be a miracle if Anwar holds them together until the next election. While we're on that topic, Malaysia will never accept non-racial politics - at least not in my lifetime I think. Come on, do you really think all these lovey dovey Rakyat Malaysia gatherings are spelling the end of non racial politics? At grassroots levels Malays want to be Malays, Chinese want to be Chinese et cetera et cetera. There might be a few exceptions, but not many. We're temporarily united against a common foe, UMNO and the threat of corruption and economic decay. We're not ready for true unity, that takes a heck of a long time. It took America 232 years to elect their first minority president, and he's still only half african american. When we're ready to let go of some cultural identity - and I think one of the first are segregated schools for different races - then we're making progress. You can learn language from any school - just stop segregating the races!

3. Islam is beautiful religion, but please leave it off politics. As a religion we have all we need to lead our lives, as a society do you not realise that the abuse of religious beliefs to stay in power have led to the destruction of muslim societies everywhere? Religion is not democratic, no one can question the word of God or the words of his holymen so why do we need it in politics? The "afterlife" is not a good enough a motivation to run a proper country. Besides who are we kidding, it's always religion on top but really its all about money, politics, power and land. I'm not saying that we should all support secularism - no I think secularism is another form of religious discrimination. But whatever it is leave religion out of governance - it has place in our lives not in how the government is run.

4. It's about poverty idiots. Eradication of poverty shouldn't be a priority, it's a necessity. In this day and age I can't believe there are still people out there with no roof over their heads, no food and no access to clean water - no I'm not talking about other countries but my own. And yes it gets worse elsewhere. Incidents of violence, racism, crime and what have you are higher in areas of extreme poverty - the lack of means to even support oneself can lead to various acts of desperation and even turning to extremist groups for support and protection. What can we all do about it? And I believe governments should do more.

5. And it's about education. It's a given. I'm appalled at the state of education which in so far seems to just exist to educate enough - to fill the brain with data and then leave out the important clue as to what to do with them. That "we're not taught to think" is a common phrase I hear in Malaysia and Singapore. Worse yet I think Malaysia's investment so far in education has been just plain ridiculous. Teaching is no longer a favored job, schools exist so that parents can get their kids out of the way for part of the day and the focus is still too much on examinations and getting grades. Don't get me wrong I love exams, think they're swell. But why is it I remember more from my 2 years in the US school system (standards 4 and 5) than I did my entire high school? I know American history better than 70% of Americans (according to an online test) - and still recall pages of books and projects I did when I was 10. But I cannot remember anything significant from my highschool days. Ad-maths - NOPE, Chemistry - close, but I had to look 95% of stuff up again, English - NO WAY, - BM - EVEN WORSE, - History - Some vague references to Adat and the history of Melaka but that's about it and that was from Form 3. Heck most of what I remember and know now are results from self learning and reading. So... what the F? Does the system work? No I don't think so...

Anyway, enough ranting already.

Living with Sophie

She's such a big girl now, but having the girl around does slow down time a little and helps take my mind off work. She's recently been having some bad sleeping habits and waking up late nights thinking it was already morning.

Not sure how many times she woke up last night, but around 1-2am she thought it was morning and wanted to brush her teeth - I think we only got her to sleep after an hour. I got up around 6am today when Sophie did, she wanted to get up and crawl around - after showing her the sights outside the window we went back to her pallet and while I wanted to sleep again, she was intent on brushing her teeth.

So we did that and cleaned up, then went outside to her play area and started on her music books. I made her some bread and jam for breakfast and she ate while moving and playing around. Then later after her breakfast she found her shoes and wanted to put them on, she walked for a while before deciding it's faster to crawl (as it always happens) and started to get on the floor again.

Usually I get to sleep in and her mom will be doing all of this, but once in awhile it's daddy's turn. Anyway it's good to be able to play with her a little in the morning before the daily commute. After I got dressed, we had a group hug and she waved me off... typical morning...

Sophia's 1st Birthday

The baby at one year, time flies...

Sophia pictures...

Well that certainly was a long hiatus from the blogosphere. Thought I'd start the ball rolling with new Sophia pics. She's all big now and trying to walk...

These were taken some months back, so she's almost a year old now and can't fit into these clothes anymore. Since then I've been busy at work, went to Bali with the family and trying to come home early enough before the rascal goes to bed.

Four on a Train

Once upon a time...

Pak Lah, Najib, Shahrizat and Anwar were sitting in a KTM train heading up to Penang for campaigning. Near Ipoh, the train goes through a tunnel and it gets completely dark.
Suddenly there is a kissing sound and then a slap!

The train comes out of the tunnel. Shahrizat and Pak Lah are sitting there looking perplexed.
Najib is bent over holding his face, which is red from an apparent slap.

All of them remain diplomatic and nobody says anything.

Pak Lah is thinking: "These guys are all crazy after Shahrizat. Najib must have tried to kiss her in the tunnel. Very proper that she slapped him."

Shahrizat is thinking: "Najib must have moved to kiss me, but kissed Pak Lah instead and got slapped."

Najib is thinking: "Damn it, Pak Lah must have tried to kiss Shahrizat, she thought it was me and slapped me instead."

Anwar is thinking: "If this train goes through another tunnel, I could make another kissing sound and slap Najib again."

Eating

Sophie Pics

I've realised that I missed a couple of months in the video recording of Sophia. While going through the old tapes and editing them, seems we missed her during most of her 4th month as well as 6th months. When I continue next week she's already going to be 7 months old.

Time flies, she changes so much. Here's another one of my favourite pics... such a cutie, but notice the one big eye and one small eye...

Baby

Yes I do miss her a lot...

Happy New Year!

Both new years have passed already, and it's been awhile since we had an update. So here's a newer picture of the rascal, she's almost 7 months now. Rainbow Connection below is the song I sing to her to put her to sleep... mom has a more varied repertoire. I'm stuck with this and a handful of oldies.

She's just cute... loves her mattress sleeping area! And she's beginning to complain from the teething experience. The picture is a few weeks old though...