Culturally Preconditioned

Dear Journal

The anticipation is killing me. I just know that I’m gonna crap in my pants any time now. Survivor : Marquesas will be on again TOMORROW!!!! Okay, my Final Four pre-show bets are Sarah, Rob, John and Zoe (Zoe will be the ultimate Survivor).

There has been no replies from SurvivorNews.Net. Dammit! I have to get used to these rejections.. but i didn’t even get a rejection letter, so I guess there is still hope. There has been an update on SurvivorNews.Net :

” Write for Us

If you have a background in writing and can show some prior examples of your work, feel free to drop me a line. Note that I’ve already received over 50 responses, some of them from extremely qualified candidates (a few examples: Kelly Goldsmith and Brandon Quinton from Survivor: Africa, a Comedy Writer from Disney, a University Professor of English, a newspaper reporter), and I’m spending my time just sorting through it all. Please be patient for a response, but if you think I’m too slow and may have lost track of your email, feel free to come back and hit me over the head.”

So I’m one of the “over 50 responses” then. And I am in the likes of Kelly and Brandon??? How cool is that? I have no high hopes that they’ll publish my writings. But the article they published from the Disney writer ” Confessions of a Gay Survivor Addict ” ? My god, his writing is so cliched.. and what’s with all his bitching over the contestants? I mean, we’ve never actually seen them on TV yet. Whatever, man..

Dear Journal

It was Eid last Saturday. Nothing special happened. My sister went back to Temerloh. My sis in law invited to come over to her Mum’s place for lunch, but unfortunately I had stomach cramps. Must have been the steamed fish I had the day before. Anyway, I ended up staying at home most of the day.

Gone invited me to come over for dinner. I think he’s a bit sorry for me that I had to spend Eid on my own. I couldn’t care less, really, but I went anyway. His wife cooked some spaghetti and also some Eid dishes (Chicken Rendang, Sambal, Lodeh and Nasi Himpit). Where does she find time to cook all those stuff? I am utterly amazed. It was also the first time I saw their daughter. She’s already 2 months old and I still owe the baby a “welcome to the world” present.

Megat was in town for the weekend, so we had a few rounds of snooker. It has certainly been a while since I last shoot some balls (pun intended). He’s getting married by the end of May. And he wants ME to become his best man. How is that ever gonna happen? I’m partly honoured that he asked me, but still! How am I going to say “No?”.. actually I already did, but I advised him to get one of his relatives to be the best man. However, if and only IF, he doesn’t find someone else to do the job, then I will reconsider. Wow.. it sounds as though I was the one getting married. Why am I freaking out?

Well not much else. Here at the office, we have unofficially kick start the Oracle Portal project. Just received good news that our salary is banked in today. Hooray!!

p.s. Still no news from SurvivorNews.Net. Oh well. Only 3 more days to Survivor:Marquesas

Dear Journal,

It’s Eid tomorrow. I don’t know where I’m going to be tomorrow. I really should be going home to JB. It’s been a few months since I last went back home. But what’s the point? Mum just came up to KL a few days back. Plus if I were to go back, it’ll at least cost me almost a hundred bucks on petrol and toll alone.

My housemate have gone back home. I hope the other wretched one is gone for the weekend too. I might make some dinner tonight (I’ve skipped breakfast and dinner for the past 3 days). Steamed fish maybe.

I have some other things to say, but I gotta get a move on soon. It’s pouring outside. Plus Charmed, Time Of Your Life and Eco-Challenge is on tonight.

p.s. Seven more days till Survivor : Marquesas !

I read an interesting article written by MBakri Musa this morning. I really laud that guy for having the courage to write (and publish!) that article. Had a discussion on the article with my colleagues. Talked a lot about the political situation in the country and we ended up talking about the education system in the country. It sucks!!! Their message to the general public is :

1. If you’re smart : get into the Science stream. If you couldn’t careless : get into the Arts stream.
2. To become a successful professional, one must get into one of the following areas : Medicine, Engineering, Computing, Law or Accounting
3. If you want to do anything else : Good luck
4. Even if you get a degree in, say Interior Designing or Astronomy : Good luck finding a job here
5. Still have an ambition of doing what you really want (other than the 5 above mentioned areas) ? : Get real

It’s wrong. When people say after high school you still don’t know what you want to do in life, that is just a LIE. I can’t speak for other people but to me, that saying is just a piece of crud. I still remember in Primary One, our teacher had asked us what do we want to be when we grow up. We were given 3 options. My options were : 1. writer 2. engineer (even then i was heavily influenced by ‘them’) 3. teacher (as my parents were).

Now, here I am, 19 years later, working with computers. Something that I’m ‘good’ at. It’s just something that I don’t want to do. Even at the age of 7, I knew my passion lies in writing. After high school, I was seriously contemplating between taking up journalism, becoming a chef or going with the 5 ‘heavily-advertised’ area. Being the dimwit that I am, I chose computing knowing that the job prospect will be good and I was slightly interested in this area. I still am.

God knows how often I wished I had taken that odd path down the road after high school. Who knows what I might be doing right now. Currently I’m in a job that I don’t enjoy (although it pays well). Am I still going to do this for the next 20 years? That thought really scares me, but a part of my dimwitted brain says that I shouldn’t quit my day job just yet. Sadly, I am inclined to agree.

p.s. they’ve updated SurvivorNews.Net. Might get an email from the editor soon.

Dear Journal,

I read about “bloggers” in the Star newspaper today. I’ve heard about bloggers before and thought I’d see what all the fuss is about. Anyway, here I am.. “Culturally Preconditioned”.. well if you must know, it’s a quote from a movie I saw yesterday. I’m not going to get into that just yet.

Nothing much to do. Still studying for my 3rd paper for the OCP exams. Despite my confidence, I managed to flunk the last one. Dumb ass.. I bet no one’s ever taken this long to achieve an OCP. What the heck.

I’m still waiting for a reply from the SurvivorNews.Net webmaster/editor. I’ve submitted a sample of my work to them yesterday. I hope they will accept my idea. It would certainly be a blast if I could become a regular contributor to the site, even if it doesn’t pay a single cent (unlike Themestream last year).

I’m gonna stop now and see how my first blog entry is gonna look like.