I remembered some time last year when I asked a guy friend for some files on his laptop. As he was transferring the files, I accidentally saw a folder. It was filled with pornography. He was shy when the file was exposed and quickly closed the window. A sudden sense of awkwardness sipped within me. I could not look into his eyes. I felt disgusted and angry and since that very day, I felt dry whenever I encountered him, I never looked at him the same way again.
We used to get along pretty well. Though he was not the kind of friend I would seek for heart to heart talk, he was a good companion. Someone whose company I enjoyed when playing games and doing other chores. I found it hard to face him ever since I discovered that he kept those files in his computer. I felt disappointed, I felt insecure.
To be honest, I despise pornography and I have difficulty accepting people who indulge in it. It is not art, it is lust. I feel that people who indulge in pornography has no sense of respect towards the opposite gender. How can one say that that he loves his partner if he finds delight watching another woman naked? How can he say he love his mother, wife and daughter if he finds delight watching the erotic moves of another woman and fantasizes himself in the picture?
To me, a man who indulges in pornography is no different to a man who visits a prostitute. I may be an old school but to me, the body is sacred and is not meant to be exploited and I will never ever give myself to another who cannot respect and appreciate me. To me, one of the most devastating thing in a relationship is to have a partner that finds delight feasting on another person’s flesh, to have no sense of respect towards the sacredness of his own body and also mine. To me, it is equally similar to him having a relationship with another woman and that is something which would hurt me terribly.
Likewise, I would never do such a thing to the man whom I respect.
Why am I writing this? Of late, I discovered that that guy friend whom I mentioned earlier is not the only person whom I know who indulges in it. I am terribly sad and disappointed with my discovery and I ask myself why. Honestly, sometimes I just want to cry. Why pornography when there are so many more better things to enjoy in life? Why behave like an animal when we have brains to think? Are we so hopeless?

Generation Y

According to some studies,

The Silent Generation...
people born between 1925 and 1945.

The Baby Boomers...
people born between 1946 and 1964.

Generation X...
people born between 1965 and 1982.

Generation Y...
people born between 1983 and 1997.

Why do we call the last group of people Generation Y? I had no idea until I saw this caricaturist's explanation! A picture is worth a thousand words.
I recieved this in an email. I thought it was a good one. Not to offend anyone, just for laughs

Today......

I look forward to today because someone dear is going to be physically present. I may recieve thousand and one cards, smses and calls but nothing beats to having you yourself physically present in my life. I look forward to today and the rest of the week.

Brandy Revealed

Revealing

BRANDY

She has been with us for 3 weeks and she has:-

1. Torn my jeans
2. Bitten my dad playfully on both hands.
3. Dug up some of my plants.
4. Gracefully shared her biscuits with the crows.
5. Chewed anything that could fit into her mouth.
6. Fertilized the garden with her poo.
   
   

I think it's important to catch the news but sometimes I tend to get sick and tired of political news with the same issues unsolved and repeated over and over again in the headlines. I found the news last night devastating.

1. RPK was sent to Kamunting. It was not a surprising news for me as I had somehow anticipated it to happen. Not that I support the idea of him being detained but Kamunting is where ISA detainees are being sent. I thought of RPK's family, to have him separated from them. To have their father / husband who is not a criminal in jail. Sad.
2. After that was the news of a woman murdered by two men on the bike and also the news vendor who was shot dead while delivering the newspaper. Why? They don't deserve to die in such an unkind manner. What did they do to deserve this kind of death? And again, their families? I saw the look in the wife of the newspaper vendor and I felt so sorry for her. I know I am emotional but I could not help but to relate this guy with our newspaper vendor uncle Veloo. He too was robbed sometime last month while waiting for the newspapers to arrive. They punched him and beat him up. It was so painful that each time I asked him how was he, he would show me his broken teeth and say very painful lah girl.

When I first saw the movie 'Death Race' I thought it was sick and disgusting. Now, after listening to such terrible news, I think what happened in 'Death Race' might actually be real in the future.

If You ARe InTo

feminism, sexually liberated people, free spirits, bike lovers, movie junkies, art lovers, and everything else,

FNBKL

(Food Not Bombs KL)

They are a group of enthusiastic young people who come together every weekend to give free food to the street people. They collect the ingredients from various sources and gather at their house to prepare and cook the food before distributing it at Bukit Nanas every sunday. These young people come from all walks of life, different religious and cultural backgrounds.

They will be organizing a number of things this weekend, starting from friday evening actually. So get ready to crash and camp at rumah FNB!
So these are the things that they have planned.

Friday
Bicycle Workshop by Mario
They have a new friend, Mario who is in KL for short visit. he is from california and so happens that he has lots of experience in conducting community bicycle workshops. he really knows his stuff. so he will be sharing some of his experiences during this workshop and he will also be teaching and sharing some highly valuable bicycle knowledge with you. so bring along your bicycle(s) and tools.
the workshop starts at 6.30 pm.

Friday&Saturday
Feminist Movie Night
after the bicycle workshop, they will start with the movies. yay!
these are some of the movies/documentaries which will be screened on both friday and saturday evening.

a jihad for love (81 mins)
A documentary on gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims across the Muslim and Western worlds directed by Parvez Sharma.
trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78jUBRio3So

incredibly true adventure of two girls in love (94 mins)
An adventurous love story between two young women of different social and economic backgrounds who find themselves going through all the typical struggles of a new romance. the movie is written and directed by Maria Maggenti.

bandit queen (119 mins)film based upon the life of Phoolan Devi by Shekhar Kapur.

itty bitty titty committee (86 mins)

High School grad and all American gal, Anna finds her purpose and herself after she hooks up with the radical feminists in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

libertarias (125 mins)

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the nun Maria is forced to flee her convent. She takes refuge in a brothel, until it is liberated by a woman's anarchist group. Maria joins the group and eventually goes to the front. The women's group faces the problems of fighting not only the nationalists, but also factions on the left seeking to impose a more traditional military structure.

bread and roses (110 mins)

Two Latina sisters work as cleaners in a downtown office building, and fight for the right to unionize.

persepolis (96 mins)
Poignant coming-of-age story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution.

*the order will be decided on friday and saturday.

the only way to find out which movie/docu will go first is to come and watch it.

bring your movies or docus on feminism or sexuality, will show it if they look more interesting. movies will start at 8 on friday and 4 on saturday.

Friday&SaturdayMural painting/wall scribbling/art making/spray painting/conteng-conteng

if you can draw a line, then you are qualified for this. we have lots of plain bland cream walls, so wanna make it pretty and colourful and artsy. so bring your paints, spray cans or whatever to help "decorate". no exact time. whenever you feel it!

Sunday Tabling thats a new term for serving.

they will start cooking at around 2ish at the house. feel free to join us. help chop, cook, clean, and make noise. since we will be hanging around at the house watching movie and stuff, feel free to bring along food so that it can be shared with everyone. potluck.

so they hope to see you at the house this friday, saturday, and sunday. if you need more info, you can email FOOD NOT BOMBS KL" free_foods@yahoo.com

or call the house, 03 7955 094.

They hope to see you!please help to disseminate. thank you.

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find
an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'
'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.'
Puff! She's gone. 'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.' Puff! He's gone. 'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'

Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say.

Am I intimidating? There are a few ladies in college who just refuses to smile at me and I cannot understand why. I know I can’t expect everyone in college to be friendly towards me but I’m getting a little irritated with people who choose to be stingy with their smiles. Is it that difficult to smile stranger?
I hope things get better as these people make me feel like a fool each time my smile is not responded. Nevertheless, I’m grateful that only a minority of my college people are like that.

When I was a kid, we used to fight because of the TV program. My second sister preferred to watch English programmes while my third sister and I preferred Cantonese programmes. I loved to watch Lydia Shum on screen. She was a natural entertainer and humorous too. My love towards Cantonese movies dwindled through the years. Perhaps it was because of the deterioration in the movie quality. More and more senseless movies were shown instead.
Last night, Lydia Shum was on screen once again. It was really nice to watch her act. Mom enjoyed herself too as we watched the movie together. Honestly, I do miss those days when actors like Lydia Shum, Jacky Chan, Bill Tung, Summo Hung, Maggie Cheong, Eric Tsang, Chow Yuen Fatt (and also one bald actor named Roger I think) were popular in Hong Kong. The jokes were logical and humorous and would somehow provide its viewer with the feel good feeling after that.
These days, Cantonese movies do not provide that anymore, jokes are usually senseless and sometimes insulting. Sometimes, the contents do not even convey the right values to the viewers. Gosh, I do miss those days.

Last year, my phone turned ugly due to my constant carelessness. I often dropped my phone from tables, beds and chairs. Despite its scars, I still loved my phone as it had been serving me well and was easy to use. I did not have to be extra gentle and careful with it because it was already scarred. I was proud of the phone because it matched with my personality of being simple. It did not have a radio or camera. It's main functions were to make and receive calls plus sms. I never felt ashamed using that phone, in fact, I felt proud. Proud because I had yet to follow the crowd by owning a camera phone.

A few months ago, this good ol' phone started to show signs of aging, the 'on' button of the phone started to chip off. Last month, something else happened and I could not even make ordinary calls using the handset speaker, I had to use the loudspeaker instead. It was a sign that my phone was going to breakdown and I should be making preparations by hunting for another phone. And so, I went shopping for a phone. My original budget was RM 300 and below and I found two phones.

This model is the cheapest. It is below RM 200 it has all I need which is to make and receive phone calls plus sms BUT, the memory space is very limited, more limited than my old phone, in other words, I might have to even delete some numbers from my phone book.

Before I went to the phone shop, I actually had a mind to buy this model. It is the 2nd cheapest after the above model. Actually Leslie is currently using this model and I thought it looks pretty cool. It has additional functions like the camera, radio........ I nearly bought this phone when Oy Leng asked me if I was sure. I changed my mind because I was scared that I would regret it after that. The phone cost around RM 300 but again the memory space is limited. I might end up feeling frustrated over it because: 1. The phone has a camera but limited memory space. In other words, I will have to be always deleting things from the phone to make space and it can be very frustrating. 2. The camera is less than 1 mega pixel. The quality of the picture taken is not going to be good. Again, I might end up feeling frustrated. It's like having a gadget that is redundant.

I ended up buying this model 3100. It is slightly over my budget. I chose this model because it was the next cheapest model with enough memory in store. The camera is 1.3mega pixel, not great but still better than the other phones. The sales person has uploaded some songs for me but I only liked a handful of the 200 over songs that he uploaded. I will most likely delete most of it because I don't identify myself with those songs. I'm still new to this gadget and am learning to use it. I might actually download a bible into the phone. My program supervisor has one in her phone and it seems to be pretty much handy especially when we are travelling.

So much about being simple, I do not own a camera-less phone anymore. This is how one gets indulged into spending extra and doing away with the simplisity of life, getting the things that you do not need because it all comes in a package.Sigh......

Jenn played DARTS for the 1st time last night and she enjoys it!

Lesson 1:

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbour.
Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.' After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?' 'It was Bob the next door neighbour,' she replies. 'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time,
you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Everyone is telling me that I should watch ‘Money Still Not Enough’. because it reflects very much on reality. Many said they cried and was touched by the movie but I wondered what happens after that. Often, we cry when we watch movies that reflects upon our personal life. We feel good after that and say it is a very good movie, however, I wonder if that movie really leaves any impact because we still continue to stick to our old ways and habits……..
Today is a public holiday but I had moderation for my exam scripts at my colleague’s house. Before I went to her place, I decided to have my breakfast in Taman Lip Sin in a coffee shop located at the ground floor of some flats. As I was waiting for my prawn mee to come, I suddenly felt lonely. Everyone seemed to have companions to have their breakfast with. A young couple who shared the table with me discussed about what to buy from the market and cook for lunch. For a while, I wished that I had someone too to spend my holiday with.
The semester break is drawing near. My colleagues have all applied for their leaves. Everyone has a plan for the holidays except for me. I am tired of tasks and responsibilities, I just want to take a break to relax and do some things for myself but what can I do? I am partially frustrated and bitter that I have limited of control towards things due to circumstances.
I do not dislike Penang, I do not dislike my job but suddenly I wonder what happened to my dreams? I seemed to have lost the enthusiasm.

I have yet to fully read today's papers but I was a little shocked by the headlines. Why send those three people to ISA? The politics in the country is getting more and more fired up. I wonder if it's a good sign or not. Talk to people and you will hear different opinions. If you ask me, I'm not sure about the future of our country. It can go either way.

I also read that 'the Sun' was issued a warning letter. Is it that wrong to write about the truth? Such a shame. The truth ought to be revealed, why should citizens be protected from the ugly side of the country? One of the topics highlighted by fellow lecturers yesterday was the RM 160 K gift given to an MB by a private firm. If the newspaper had not published news of this sort, how would we Malaysians know about the realities?

Politics....haish.....

Few days ago, I wanted to cry because I did not know how to mark the exam papers. Everything was so complicated and students were overly creative that they came up with extremely unique answers.
Today I want to cry again because the due date for submission of marks is drawing near and I'm nowhere near to finish marking those exam scripts.......ahhhhhRRGGGHhhhhhh.......I want a good break after this. Please make me happy after the 19th!

To the person who wrote this email,

Does writing and sending messages of this sort makes you any better than Ismail Ahmad? Think about it. Some of us are so busy criticizing others that we start behaving like those whom we criticize. In one way, I solute Ismail Ahmad because he is not a hypocrite. He may not be an ideal Malaysian but at least, he does not pretend and put up a show to make people believe that he is in solidarity with fellow Malaysians when he is not.

I don't know specifically who the author of this email is but I thought some people might have received it as well. I received an sms yesterday asking me to boycott certain petrol stations too and today's paper states that those petrol stations are not owned by Ismail.....so who do we believe? I say trust no rumours unless you know it is true.

Just to let you all know that the Shell Petrol station next to McDonald belonged to a Chinese. The Pukimak ISMAIL AHMAD's one is in front of GEMBIRA Complex at Island Glades opposite side of Lam Wah Ee Hospital.

What Pak Lah should do when he meets with this Ahamd fellow at 12.45pm today.
I like this..
1. Ask him to sit outside and wait. 2. Give him a cup with no water since this is Puasa Month. Maybe some artificial kuih to go with it. Protocol and decorum mah for visitors…3. Let him wait until 6pm. 4. Get the police and arrest him straight away without any explanations. What explanations some more. His actions speak louder than explanations. 5. Charge him under ISA, Sedition Act, Public Nuisance, Disturbance of peace. Put Ahmad into the jail and extend his arrest every two months like the Hindraf fellows. 6. Release the Hindraf detainees since the NO. 1 real enemies of the nation is now Ahamad. 7. Get the Zainal guy who tore up the photo of former CM of Penang to apologize and get him to print 100,000 copies of new CM, Lim Guan Eng. 8. Sack Ahamad from UMNO and buang him to the islands of Galapagos. 9. All his immediate family members sent to China to stay with the Chinese and learn some community skills of living in a multiracial society. 10. While in jail, get Ahmad to learn Mandarin, Tamil and maybe some Telugu.

As I mark the exam paper.......

1. I feel like pulling my hair.
2. I am grateful that I am not marking my own students' papers or else I might experience heartaches.
3. I wonder if some of these students actually knew what they were writing.
4. I feel like crying reading such confusing sentences.
5. I am mentally exhausted......I need to munch on something!

Got to get back to work..............

Brandy in the house

I have adopted a puppy. An uncle found her abandoned at the market and took her home. He offered the pup to Simmi who eventually convinced me to keep her.

Kugan, Simmi's husband helped me to bring it to the vet and get some essential items for the pup and it costs me RM 200 ++ in total. It's pretty much a pinch but papa and Patsy seems very happy to have Brandy in the house. Patsy keeps on saying 'Haiyo, you are so cute!' and papa tries to pat her each time she lingers around his side.

Mum is not too happy to have Brandy in the house. She keeps on saying negative things like, so dirty, so expensive, her presence will attract all the male dogs, troublesome.....blah...blah...blah but honestly speaking, I sense that she enjoys having Brandy in the house too.

Brandy is a happy pup. I hope she remains happy as she grows. She was too active, I could not get a proper shot of her. All I can say is that 'She is very CUTE!' Why of all names Brandy? Well....we just could not think of a proper name for her when she came and she tried to lick the Brandy bottle. So Simmi suggested that we call her that.

Recently, I discovered that a friend converted to another faith. I was sad about it. I wondered why did he convert. As I sought affirmation from others, I learnt that not only did this friend convert but a few other friends had converted as well in different occasions. I am rather disturbed by my discovery. I felt a little hurt because we used to share our faith life with each other in the past.
I don’t know these people who converted very well but I regard them as my friends through my encounters with them. As students, we journeyed together to discover who God is. Learning about their conversion makes me wonder what went wrong along the way? Why did they not continue to feel God’s presence in the Church? Is it because of culture? Is it because of language? Why could they not find friendship at all within the Church? What is it that is so attractive about the other religion? These questions always linger in my head whenever I hear of someone converting to another faith.
I have friends of different faith and I respect them. In fact, I enjoy learning about different religious beliefs and cultures. I am often fascinated by the different religious practices and I often walk into temples and prayer ceremonies to observe and learn. However, I have difficulty accepting the actions of my Catholic friends who convert to another religion. I do not hate them. I just cannot understand why they swap Christ for another faith.
I know no one would really be able to answer all those questions asked. Perhaps, I might understand it some day. For now, I feel sad. The feeling is as though my own sister/ brother disowned my family and calls another man Papa instead of my father. The pain is even greater when the person, at one point, helped me to grow in my faith.

It's been a stressful day. I anticipated today to be busy but I was not prepared for such an unpleasant surprise by having someone hack my mailbox, sending such a convincing story to my friends, causing them to be worried about me.

I am touched by the concern shown towards my safety. I wonder who could have done such a cruel thing. How could somebody play such a dreadful trick on others. What happened has disrupted my day and work. My mind is not at peace, worrying about friends who might have believed in the email.

Here's a sample of the email sent:
Dear,
How are you doing today? I am sorry i didn't inform you about my traveling to Africa for a program called "Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education, the program is taking place in three major countries in Africa which is Ghana , South Africa and Nigeria . It as been a very sad and bad moment for me, the present condition that i found myself is very hard for me to explain.
I am really stranded in Nigeria because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because i have no money on me. I am now owning a hotel bill of $ 1000 and they wanted me to pay the bill soon else they will have to seize my bag and hand me over to the Hotel Management., I need this help from you urgently to help me back home, I need you to help me with the hotel bill and i will also need $1500 to feed and help myself back home so please can you help me with a sum of $2500 to sort out my problems here? I need this help so much and on time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here, I don't even have money to feed myself for a day which means i had been starving so please understand how urgent i needed your help.
I am sending you this e-mail from the city Library and I only have 30 min, I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now and I promise to pay back your money as soon as i return home so please let me know on time so that i can forward you the details you need to transfer the money through Money Gram or Western Union. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Best Regards
Jennifer Vaz

I've been hacked. This is a notice to notify all that I'm safe in Malaysia and somebody has hacked my email. Please ignore all the disturbing emails by me

Jenn

What do you do when your students remain blur even though you have repeated yourself over and over again?
I gave my pre-cert students briefing regarding their final exams two weeks ago and I made myself very clear so much so that some of them said :' teacher, you don't have to repeat, we know already.'

This morning, my colleague told me about the blunder these students made during yesterday's exam. I just felt like STRANGLING THEM! I wonder if they even understood the things I said in class. Sigh.....

On the other hand, I'm so grateful that my colleagues are such kind people. They are caring and are willing to teach. Sometimes, I just feel like giving them a nice HUG for being so caring. Monday is going to be D-Day for me as I will be marking exam scripts at that time. Pray that it's going to be smooth going for me.

There is a printing shop owner who is desperate for business. So in order to assure that the lecturers from our department uses his services, he will bring us out for a meal at a hotel every year. I was asked to go for the luncheon but I declined. My reason was simple. I did not know who he was and I never did use his services and I did not feel comfortable accepting his free meal. Besides, I see it as a bribe. I don't want to be obligated to use his services just because I accepted his treat.

I'm actually surprised that this guy is willing to go this far to just ensure that we use his services. I am happy with the freedom that I have to be able to choose whichever shop I want to go to.

It was an interesting Merdeka weekend. I know I sound greedy but I wish I had more time spent with him. It was a relaxing weekend, with no worries about work lingering in my head.

I am a little frustrated with the weather. It's not been that pleasant for outdoor activities. Gaining weight I am, thanks to all the nice food and weather that stops me from exercising. I am relaxed for a week as it is study week. Final exams begin on Friday and I might have to abandon my blog for a week or two as I will be busy marking papers. Looks like September is going to fly by me.