The liberals and rightists among you are going to have a field day with me for this one.

I don’t really care about the forty thousand or so yellow-clad marchers who were rallying for freer and fairer elections (even though I do, in a particular way). I’m not particularly bothered about the roadblocks set up last Saturday to deter anybody from entering the city, despite it forcing me to reschedule brunch with my mother. I don’t even care that members of the crowd were sprayed at with water and tear gas, because, firstly, I find it incredibly funny in a sick way, and secondly, such a response would’ve been quite expectant and pretty obvious.

What I am troubled by is the fact that there were children involved. And although I should be upset at the Civil Defense for taking action against them, I can understand how they were probably impartial towards choosing whom to dispense their form of crowd control over, especially when the aforementioned sea of people were irresistible targets. Although there was probably some terribly profound reason behind being adorned in yellow, a wave of human taxis is just asking to be fired upon. If only because it’s funny.

Anyway. The children. I’m more appalled at the thought of parents actually bringing their children to such an event, and even more so when they were more than aware of the warm welcome that they’d receive as a result. Using children as political fodder to gain sympathy doesn’t warm my heart; using them as shields is just as cowardly as the association that the colour yellow has with such an absolutely, incontestably desirable quality of being a coward in the first place.

It was undoubtedly a noble cause to be marching for, but with the context of the situation in mind, it’s difficult to see where the logic went. There’re a lot of better ways to dispense and disseminate the message to children about the contempt you hold for the inconsistencies and irregularities that take place during each election. Putting them on the front line and in harm’s way shows a gross form of misjudgment, and, of course, ignorance and negligence on the parts of the parents involved.

Being seen and being proud of it is one thing; leave the children at home. They’ll tune into things soon enough. There’s no rush.

Lest, you’d wish to endanger their lives. And make yourself fodder for the powers that be.

Like Whitney, I believe the children are our future. And stop that snickering. I know what you philistines are thinking.

Either way, I feel torn down between the liberals and the hardliners that we find. I wish that someone would draw a line and create a new pocket that we could sink into. In my own perfect would, I’d go for a more centralist approach and become a secular hardliner, or a hardlining secularist. The possibilities would be limitless.

As for the Majority and the Opposition? They’re all dirty. There’s no way that either side can take a moral highground without laying some claim to have gotten their hands dirty in the cookie jar. There’s no possible way. You’d get a cleaner slate by shaving a Wookie’s pubic hair, even though you know it’d be guaranteed to grow its fur back within two days.

Yet, be it in a matter of weeks, months or a year, I will be compelled to cast my ballot and make my vote count. But between voting for a sack of old, rotting potatoes which even the Irish didn’t want to save themselves from the Great Famine, and a sack of old, rotting potatoes that your mother just kindly defecated in, you can tell that we’re all rather stuck between a cock and a hard taste.

Let it be said: if I’m ever caught in the middle with my dick in my hand (as I will be), don’t say I never told you that I get even more fickle when the cookie jar’s in my face.

At the peak of my childhood, I used to build make-believe cities out of Lego, Matchbox cars and a random assortment of toys. My mother would chide me endlessly about the mess that I’d made in my bedroom, while my father chided her for chiding me endlessly and told her that I was only attempting to reach my potential.

At the fringe of my adolescence, I played a variety of video games on my trusty Super Nintendo. My mother would chide me endlessly about the amount of time that I’d spend playing, while my father would chide her for chiding me and told her that playing video games would greatly improve and enhance my hand/eye coordination.

At the cusp of post-adolescence, I was given the free reign to choose whatever course that I wanted to pursue at an undergraduate level. More than eight years later, I can almost taste the end of this particular mammoth odyssey. From scraping the barrel of academic scraps only over a year ago, to rebounding out of a sheer desperate need for some form of affirmation of a backbone, I’m quite glad to say that we’re almost done.

This cow is about to be put to pasture. However.

There’s still an innate need to be placed back on the farm. Read this in whatever metaphorical fashion you’d like (and trust me, it’ll be a hoot), but a part of me would much rather be milked than to be given a shred of freedom. Which speaks volumes about my character.

According to someone who knows me better than I know myself, I’m quite possibly a terribly risk-adverse person, despite strongly believing to be quite the opposite. And, in certain terms, I find myself forced in a position to agree with her; but only just.

It’s not fully confirmed yet because there’s still the question of the results having to be released, and my fingers are fully crossed that the outcome would be more than satisfactory…but I suppose that a burden has been lifted from my chubby Chinese fingers.

Only to be replaced by a whole new lifetime of burdens. Which are about to come crashing down on my oversized Chinese head.

An underachiever never has to fear failure.

Sometimes I wonder if incompetence runs through my blood. My ineptitude will be my biggest downfall; I attribute it to nerves. Or, to be precise, the lack of them.

It’s troubling when we see how motivated we are in the beginning, only to cut back on progress and then bring everything to a grinding halt once we’re either complacent or bored (or at most times, a mix of both).

Success spoils us. There’s a possibility that it softens us to an extent whereby we simply cannot face failure without being able to pick ourselves up again. Undoubtedly, a lot of work and effort would’ve been put into being successful, but there’s an incredibly short way to go between being the king of a mountain and being a king of a mountain of beans.

And let’s be honest; success can only be reached if we can overcome the perennial short attention span and obligatory threshold for punishment.

Things taste sweeter when they come easy, no?

Yes.

Sadly, I’ve been drifting further into the camp of believing that hard work and effort takes us places, while being inundated with invitations to direct marketing plans telling me otherwise. However, I can see that the latter would probably involve just as much initiative as the former…which I’m unable to provide. Or it could be a biting unwillingness.

I also don’t wish to impart any more pain upon my parents, because I’d like to have them go away in peace without me having to go to their graves (or in my Chinky case, their urns), wishing them to come back to life to spot me a dinner.

There is no subliminal message here; there’s no epiphany to speak of. There’s no new dawning realization of something that I didn’t already know. There’s no striking of Nirvana.

In a little under a week (depending on…you guessed it, the probability of success), I will possibly be struck free from the only bonds that I have ever been willing to become tied down to, towards a path of either corporate slavery, a lifelong commitment to the less-than-debonair civil service or simply biding my time on a beach, making money off selling bait and tackle.

And My Lord, despite how incredibly inviting, serene and surreal that last one sounded, I know that it won’t lead me anywhere. After all, I didn’t (over)spend six years on a business degree to help you fish.

Or did I?

I was never given a raw deal. But I’m about to give you one.

I’m scared of death.

Tears well up within me each time I think of the finality of it all. There’s no irony in that statement; I imagine what would happen after I let go of all that’s worth knowing and I feel agitated that I’ll never know that I’ll be dead…simply because I’d be beyond knowing.

I don’t really believe that death is a cold, yet welcoming embrace; I think death is a mechanically-perfect bitch that runs on precision and thrives on perfection. It’s inescapable. Unavoidable. Inevitable.

I also, naturally, hate death. How everything that we’ve worked so hard to accomplish would go to waste. And how death itself would be the main catalyst for rushing ourselves to accomplish such accomplishments. And how these accomplishments might not truly benefit us once we’ve reached a certain parallel dimension of sorts whereby such accomplishments wouldn’t accomplish much in our favour.

No, death is a pain. Death is a deadline that can never be pushed further. Death is absolute, and is resolute in its ability to be a total, whole, certain finish.

I think of the sadness of not being able to be myself once I fade away. I don’t know if there’s a lumbering abyss after the end of life, but the probability that everything just simply ends saddens me immensely. Some may say that death lightens up the burden that is life; I just see death as the biggest burden to carry.

I’m scared of that all there’ll be is an enveloping nothingness that I won’t even know of because I’d simply cease to exist.

Death makes us feel small. No matter how far we’ve come, it’s always one step ahead.

The high cost of living.

Sometimes I feel that I can’t really give five minutes for myself.

It’s not that the constant hours spent on my Playstation education and my Internet commitments don’t count, but after taking a step out and looking in, it feels that I’m incredibly swamped with whatever it is that I want to be swamped with that I’ve indirectly neglected my own need for a peace of mind every now and then. It doesn’t help that the house is going to be reinstated as an old folk’s home as of today; I can safely say that I’ve treasured almost every moment spent here alone (except for that time when the house smelled like urine one morning after a poker session that involved cigarettes and air-conditioning).

At times I despise company; yet at other times, I crave it. It’s certainly selfish of me to assume that, at the proverbial snap of a finger, I could gather a group of people around myself to boost my self-esteem, and the sad part is, I can’t.

To an extent, I avoid the very people that I want to see.

If alone, I go into malls and supermarkets hoping that I don’t meet anybody I know, out of the sheer lumbering task of making small-talk and acting interested when all I really want to do is to sort out the groceries and pick up a game in the process.

The pang of distress that washes over me whenever I spot at someone I didn’t really want to see is an unfettering declaration of my need for avoidance. I’d much rather see somebody on my own terms and conditions, as opposed to bumping into them awkwardly, with the obligatory exchange of pleasantries*.

Mind you, this only happens if I’ve intended to go alone in the first place. If I were in a group of friends, I’d be more than receptive to seeing you and being extremely cordial.

If only for the post-encounter activity of badmouthing you behind your back afterwards.

I’m the worst friend you could ever have, my…friend.

*(On a separate note, upon encountering people, I hate having to politely ask them what they’re doing in that certain location because more times than not, it’s pretty fucking obvious; and you may end up looking dafter than usual.)

These last few weeks have been rather stale. I haven’t felt the twitch of inspiration to do anything remotely interesting with the old folks out of the house; it’s been more of a case of curling up in front of the TV and falling asleep, hoping that I wouldn’t wake up with a sore anus after being manhandled by five Indian burglars.

Alas, while I’m living out my paranoid delusions by locking up everything in the house, I’ve wallowed deeper and deeper into a pit of longing and despair, where even a smidgen of human contact would make me a happy camper for days on end.

It’s not easy, being a hermit. The only thing missing in my case is a beard and scraggy hair.

Apart from all the negligent aspects of my increasingly subdued life (methinks that it’s basically a transition to a full-on repeated quarter-life crisis), I’ve got around two weeks to prepare for what could hopefully be my last dance with academia ever.

Wish me luck, even though I haven’t really started doing anything about it. Forewarned is forearmed; I hope I do remember that.

Boy, 3, training to climb Mt Kinabalu next year

By R.S.N. MURALI

Raring to go: Mohd Noor and Sahrul Nizam giving the thumbs-up at their home in Kuala Terengganu yesterday.

KUALA TERENGANU: He’s only three years old but Sahrul Nizam Mat Noor has started training to climb Mount Kinabalu next year and celebrate his birthday on the summit.

If he makes it, he will become the youngest ever to have made it up the mountain.

Sahrul Nizam started training under his seasoned mountaineer father Mohd Noor Mat Amin from the second day of Hari Raya. He will set off with his father on June 8 to hike up the mountain and reach the peak on June 13, which is his birthday.

Mohd Noor said they have to start much earlier as his son would most likely develop muscle cramps and have to rest frequently due to his tender age.

“Nevertheless, Sahrul Nizam is coping with the gruelling training session that I am putting him on now,” said Mohd Noor who is in the Malaysia Book of Records for climbing solo to the peak of Mount Kinabalu 50 times.

“My son has always been curious about what it is like at the peak.

“I asked whether he wanted to celebrate his birthday at the top of the mountain and he nodded happily, so I am helping to make his wish come true,” he said after a dinner organised by Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh on Tuesday.

Teen girls molested my son, claims mum

By SIRA HABIBU

ALOR STAR: The mother of a six-year-old boy has lodged a police report claiming that her son was sexually abused by several teenage girls in a children’s home run by a state welfare department.

The boy was sent to the home in Kepala Batas two years ago under a court order and his mother, a 38-year-old divorcee, only takes him back during festive holidays.

His mother, a tamarind seller, said she found out about the sexual abuse and claims of orgies involving the teenagers and the children when she saw her son “acting funny” with his elder brother.

The boy claimed that the kakak-kakak jahat (bad sisters) beat up the children if they did not do their bidding and gave explicit details of what he and the others had to do, including being stripped naked.

He said one of the girls threw a piece of wood at him when he refused to engage in sexual acts, showing a smashed toe with the nail removed.

“Nak jadi polis. Bila besar, nak tangkap kakak-kakak jahat. (I want to be a policeman. When I grow up I want to arrest the bad girls),” he said when asked what his ambition was.

His mother, who lodged a report at the Kota Setar police station last Thursday, does not want to send him back to the home.

“There is too much bad influence there,” she said.

“How could the operators of the home allow this to happen? Why were they not taking care of the children?”

It is learnt that the case has been referred to the Kepala Batas district police headquarters.

A Penang Welfare Department official has directed staff at the home to investigate the allegations.

The official said the two girls named by the boy were no longer staying at the home.

One was transferred to another home in Arau, Perlis a month ago, while the other had run away.

He also said that the pre-schoolers were placed in a different building, together with babies.

“There is always an attendant taking care of them. Logically, there is no room for such orgies to occur as the older girls and the pre-schoolers are staying in different blocks.

“However, we will investigate the complaint,” he added.

You’d expect that an act of admitting a lack of an ability to maintain a stable relationship to be a cathartic experience, but sadly, it’s not. I’m quite convinced that it’d be a lot more fun for an animal rights activist to line up a baby monkey in a sniper scope and pull the trigger than it is to embark upon a journey of uncertainty and raw emotions without a predetermined, happy conclusion to feel secure with.

There isn’t any substitute for love; there’s not enough chocolate in the world to overcome the fleeting tingling sensation of sensuous enlightenment you get when you clutch someone’s grip into your own. Sadly, when things go asunder, there’s no real sedative for the niggling itches that you can’t scratch off and the doubts that you can’t shake.

Moments stretch into days that, in turn, stretch into years where you’re still wondering what went wrong.

No amount of labia licking or frenium fondling can divert your mind from the fact that once upon a time, physical stimulation came secondary to the genuine warm, fuzzy feeling that your receptors were tuned for.

Sadly, love is the blue chip that only goes southwards once you buy into it. It’s the worst investment that you can ever make. The only conclusion that anyone can see is its end, be it in a shallow pool full of nubile, topless girls, or at your spouse’s death bed at the very end.

There still isn’t a substitute for it. But on mornings like these, I wonder if it’s worth the trouble when an alternative form of gratification I can get stems from my left hand.

Love thyself. It’s a whole lot more convenient.

Whenever I feel terribly lonely, I tend to chat with the bots that I play with in Counter-Strike. I often wonder what would happen if I received a reply to my rants about how the usual lack of artificially imbued team spirit was pulling the team down.

It’d be very likely that I’d freak out, and wonder if the reply was a product of my own delusions brought upon by bouts of solitary living. I’d subsequently quit the program, only to be seduced to re-enter it. And the bots would slowly (but surely) convince me to embark of a quest of pure deviousness, which would end with my bloody, lifeless body squeezing two M40s after having been gunned down by the Singaporean Civil Defense after trying to claim Lum May Yee for Malaysia.

Not that she’s really worth the trouble. Though I wouldn’t mind.

2 months to go.