Just Scared

Scary is your status,
You know your premier school,
The one that you're so proud about,
As though the name gives you an IQ boost,
But it only gives you an inflated ego,
The one that you can't forgo,
The alma mater that won’t even matter,
On the day, we will all gather,

So what with your religious school?
You act as though it gives you a pahala boost,
Like the concrete will be put on the mizan,
But it only gives you the disease of wahn,
Preaching people, but you’re even worse,
Finding status by quoting verse,

Scary is your money,
You love it,
Yes, you love it,
Oh I know you love it,
Stop bluffing you don’t love it,
You count your every cent,
You donate only when it makes sense,

But even scarier is the society,
The way they judge you,
The things they want from you,
The stuff of thought that you can’t control,
Leaving you in confusion and suspicion,
Desperate for some genuine sincerity,
Something you thought you will never see,
Definitely, maybe,

By now you should have realize it,
Scary is when you have it,
But scarier is when you have it
And you don’t want it.

The Deepest of Its Meaning

There was this architect who designed the most beautiful skyscraper, then he just left his design room with the drawings of the skyscraper without his initials lying on the desk. He locked the door and he didn't intend to ever return back to the firm. He thought, someday someone will discover his drawing and the skyscraper will inevitably be erected - just not as his work of art. True enough, actually he lived to see the day when the majestic building dominated the city's skyline. He looked at the building with unparalleled understanding that only he alone understood the deepest of its meaning. He smiled and felt happy that the structural majesty finally got the treatment that it deserved :)

There was this mathematician who propounded the most elegant solution for the world's most bewildering mathematical problem. Some people say he actually found the Theory of Everything alone and successfully established the once seemingly improbable marriage between quantum physics and relativistic physics. Then he just left his room with his solution untitled, unnamed, lying on the desk. He locked the door and he didn't intend to ever return back to the room. He thought, someday someone will discover his solution and the world will inevitably be able to solve the problem. True enough, actually he lived to see the day when mankind laid claim on the discovery of the Theory of Everything. On that day, he looked at the sky with unparalleled understanding that only he alone understood the deepest of its meaning. He dreaded that humankind will be extinct because of his work of genius, but he was hopeful that they will use it for unprecedented, beneficial purposes. Either way, he smiled and he was a happy man at that moment :)

There was this programmer who programmed the world's fastest operating system which uses almost no memory overhead at all. Then he just left his lab with the source code of the operating system in his unnamed computer. He locked the door and he didn't intend to ever return back to the lab. He thought, someday someone will discover his source code and the operating system will inevitably be launched. True enough, actually he lived to see the day when the operating system dominated the pc market and changed the whole corporate software world. He bought a copy of the operating system, installed it, and looked at the screen with unparalleled understanding that only he alone understood the deepest of its meaning. He smiled and felt happy that the world tasted this fine piece of program :)

P.S. Actually it's more like the sweetest sadness, but maybe some people truly learn how to trick themselves. Just smile :)

Religion is easy...

The Prophet s.a.w. said, "Religion is easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So you should not be extremists, but try to be near to perfection and receive good tidings that you will be rewarded; and gain strength by worshiping in the mornings, the nights."
(Sahih Bukhari, Vol 1, Book2, Number 38)

"Sekarang dah tak boleh nak melancong melancong, aku kuat islam sekarang"

"Susah la ayah saya sekarang kuat Islam, pening saya."

Lol... Whose sunnah is that sir?

Please, come on la...

Note1: Actually, this is a path, once you know it, you can never turn back. Why? Because it is so good. Period.
Note2: Salmon masak asam pedas tastes pretty awesome
Note3: Finally I understand convolution.

Just go run to your local bookstore and buy it. If your local bookstore doesn't have it, just go order it at amazon.com. If you think the shipping is so expensive, then make sure when you go to any other bookstore, go and search it first. Don't worry, I don't recommend crappy books.

Anyway, that just shows how much I like this book, now you don't have to do any of those ;) If I am to write a sentence that summarizes what this book is mainly about, it will be: An inspirational life story of a man who beats all the odds - big time. I know that's pretty cliched, and I'm not doing the book any justice here, but it doesn't matter whether I write 1001 eloquent words to describe it or not, because you would have already made up your mind by the end of the first paragraph :) (not to buy, I know)

I do follow the cycling world a bit, I don't really know why, I don't do bike racing, but I do watch the famous tours on tv if they are being broadcast. I just love to watch the peloton scrambling, gruelling mountain climbing stages, and the strategy to position oneself for the final sprint in a stage. Plus, one of my best friends from high school was a cycling freak - he is still one.

So I know who is Lance Armstrong beforehand and I know that he owns the legendary Le Tour de France. So when I bought this book I thought there must be something that can be learned from this guy - he is no ordinary person. Well, my Le Tour de France is my studies at the moment, I can learn something from him. Another thing that caught my eyes was "cancer survivor." Just don't mention chemo to me, anybody who braves himself/herself through it will instantly be a hero/heroine in my eyes. It's like the worst nightmare you can imagine, I've seen it with my own eyes. Simply put, a couple of the most beloved people to my mom had fought that thing...

Lance is actually very, very smart. He is one of those sportsmen who is very knowledgable about the science of his sport and tune everything to millimeter precision - his up-to-decimal callory precision diet, his optimum aerodynamics racing position, his bike setup, his sleeping pattern, well he is paranoid about everything... But his battle against cancer is what defines him: every tour that he wins is a triumph for cancer survivors. Of course he has a foundation for cancer. By the way, the thing that he day-dreamed about when he was about to win the most gruelling mountain climbing stage in Le Tour de France 1999 was a scene from Good Will Hunting: "How do you like them apples?" And Good Will Hunting is my all-time favorite! What I've learned the most from Lance is: If you face overwhemling odds, just brave them fearless and suffer... It's okay to just give up if you don't mind being a loser without even trying.

From now on it will be how I reflect/relate to the book. I have a flair for 'computer', I don't know, I'm just kind of natural with programming, debugging, digital logic, fixing issues, etc. But I realize that in the end math is the language of science. If you want to do anything interesting there must be math involved. Programming language is like a sprint stage, while math is the mountain climbing stage, and the latter is what makes or breaks for a tour. Well, if you want to be a sprint champion, there are races just for that - but those races are not revered like the tour. And I have made up my mind that I don't want to do just computer - meaning the chip industry.

Note: This paragraph is just random rambling, please skip it if randomness bothers you.

Well, who needs a faster PC nowadays other than those game junkies? Just like who needs a faster car when the environment is coughing blood? - but I have to admit that I have a weakness for those extra bhp in the engine ;) Well, probably in the future your iphone can do cheap video talk thanks to some fast mobility processor and advance video encoding algorithm that doesn't require you a 3G connection (I'm just making this up). But you know what, you can have your video call or whatever, but it doesn't make you love your family more just because you can see them from far across the continent - yeah, it's nice to have it. Anyway, the world works such that the cornerstone of processor speed is driven by the PC market - demand, profit, basic econ. Of course faster processors have lots of benefits in other more beneficial fields such as bio-instrumentation, energy regulation, etc. Ok, this is going too random...

Back on track, if I am going to do interesting things such as robotic, image processing, speech recognition, etc. I need math. Just like the once sprinter-specialist Lance Armstrong needs to learn how to climb the hill if he wants to win the tour. It's very simple... I've found the odds, now I just need to suffer. Plus, I've learned to believe off late, my control theory (robotic-related) subject was my second best last semester. Now I need to dabble in signal processing and electromagnetics to make things more interesting... Anything is possible, with His will. I used to not able to distinguish between 'p' and'q', 'a' and 'b', etc but now I'm the most ardent book lover. But mom brave against the odds for me during that time, I was just a kid who luckily had dedicated parents who knew I wasn't stupid.

If you ask me what I really want to do in the future, I would say, if I'm given the opportunity I want to do something related to biomedic. I've mellowed down over the years, if you happen to read my random rambling above, I have little faith in technology-for-technology sake. Well, a best friend of mine who've walked with me through my 'indecision process', would now probably shout at me: "Why didn't you do biomed right from the start?!?!" (I hope you're not reading this, or just be quiet pretty please). The biomed thingy was heavy on chem and I'm allergic to that. I'm doing pure ECE but interested in the application of it in that field. There is a HUGE difference there. This is where, digital signal processing, control theory, electromagnetics, etc. get interesting. But in the end, nobody knows what the future hold, and in the end the economic situation, job availability, and other outside factors will play substantial roles in the final decision. - Allahu'alam. But that's the plan for now, Lance has help a lot, go for the mountain :)

By the way, I ran to and around Harbour Front today to fill my time waiting for maghrib, which was around 9 ish. Not quite many people were there (by summer standard), because this summer is peculiarly cold. But it was pretty good weather for running. The street magicians, juggler, performers weren't there yet, but I guess by July it will be lively.

Itik dekat Harbor Front. Dia kata, "Let the suffer-feast begin."

Mom told me that I have to work hard no matter what. So I worked hard today :) no more whining, no more crap talk, just get the job done. I can be pretty much a jerk if I don't feel like doing something, so no more of that. Mom is a perfectionist par excellence when it comes to work - in fact in whatever she does - I picture that if I work with her and I'm doing it only half-heartedly, she'll definitely be very irritated with me and I don't want to do that at all.

By the way, when I first got my job, I called home and told her about it. I was excited because I was sooo... relieved - I thought I wasn't going to get one (I had some issues with work permit and stuff, but that's another matter altogether). Mom was very calm on the line when she heard me broke the news, and she gave a response that I will probably remember forever: "Mama memang rasa abang akan dapat. Entah, Mama rasa tenang je, tak rasa risau apa-apa pasal abang." I didn't even told her how the interview went for that job or whatever beforehand. But that was mom for me, nobody has gut feelings like that - she just knows, the non-deductive way.

Having said that, she is actually the most organized, mathematical, and logical person I've ever known on this planet. It is very easy for me to exchange opinion and solve any issue or problem with her - the last thing we agreed upon was to buy a turbo version of a car, but I'm still not quite sure how rational that actually is (my father had to concede). *big grin* Note: Turbo is just marketing gimmick, it's not even turbo-charged, just high-pressure compressed air blown into the engine. Good thing she does math and not engineering, or not I'm pretty sure I'll get beat up by her if she's in my class - or my prof or teacher or whatever.

On tangent to that, just now Dr. Ali told me:
"I want to see you every saturday at my halaqah."
"InsyaAllah", I plan to anyway, I like Bulugh al-Maram.
"You're very analatycal and critical"
I smilled at him and said,
"Engineering..."

I am just observant I guess, and yes critical at times - so don't take offense. MasyaAllah, he is... an extremely nice person. I told people to be aware of timekeeping because he is just too polite to cut people off when they speak during his halaqah. It's frustrating at times. I looked at him, then I looked at the person talking, I could tell he is pressing for time, but the person kept on talking - not everyone realized it. It made me remember of the situation when the Prophet s.a.w. had to put up with some of the sahabah who kept on talking late into the night during his walimah, but he was just too polite to tell them to stop until the revelation came. Plus, the topic: Formation of madhab and ikhtilaf is my favorite as I had to do an essay on it last semester - it was my obsession for a while.

That's it for today.

P.S. I am on another wave of self-curfewing myself from fb,ym, bloghopping, etc. - for a month at least. Now don't laugh, I'm serious this time, I'm gonna do it with gritty determination, insyaAllah. You be the witness, I am determined to get it right this time around. But I will continue to write on this blog, I need it to keep myself sane.

Maybe you're perfect right now, maybe you don't want to ruin that. But I think that is super philosophy Will, that way you can go your entire life without knowing anybody. -Sean's advice to Will

Maybe... But...

P.S. Look, I want to be a dry cleaner. Or a floor sweeper.

Transient

Study...
So that you don't fail,
Oh no, study...
For a dream that people hail,
Well, choose...
For the ego or the divine will,

Life...
Sweet memories made in delirium,
You call life...
This sad new social decorum,
Crap talk about life...
The sacralization of hedonism,

So live, life, cool,
Cool only for the fools.

Note: This philosophical trance was written at 3.15 p.m., Monday, workplace.