High-five!

I captured this picture which displays the lower part of Piala Hamdan Tahir in 2006 just after CAGERS ’06 won the trophy for the third consecutive year. I was a bit mad at that time, seeing that the organizer had not yet made an effort to put down our name as the winner in 2005 after a year has passed. Of course seeing our name etched on the trophy as 2004's winner already made me proud since I was also in that winning team. But 2005 is a different year altogether; it was my own year, and I was the captain of the team. The fact that it was my second personal trophy also made a different story, since there was obviously an extra bit of pride there.

So when I received the news that this year’s CAGERS had just won the fifth PHT on the trot a few hours ago, I just could not imagine to what level of satisfaction this latest win must have brought them into, and how proud they must be feeling. I must take this opportunity to congratulate each and every one of the players for another job well done. As always, the highest appreciation must go to Mr. Liew for his undying spirit to coach the team, and also to Abang Ise and Kak Ana, as well as the rest of the old boys. I still remember back when I was still part of the team circa 2003-2005, Mr. Liew had a very clear vision of winning the trophy each year for the next five years, and he convinced us all that such feat would not be impossible if we set our goal straight. Today he has proven this, and I have nothing but a deep respect towards this man. Let’s just hope that this will not end here, but at the moment let’s just celebrate this victory!

Friends

People say that if you can count the fingers on your hand and say that you have five true friends, you are a very lucky man. And if you can count enough good friends on two hands, then you are blessed.

Kolet, Kolek, Koleq

Just stumbled upon this picture a moment ago from a friend’s blog, I found it funny hence the decision to share it here. It is on the T-shirt for the Old Boys Weekend 2008, an annual homecoming event for the old boys of my alma mater that was held last month.

To anyone who first got the idea for the T-shirt design, I salute you. You certainly know how to exploit the current issue.

The Kite Runner

Have you seen a movie that touched you so deeply that you almost cried watching it, and you kept thinking and thinking about it few days after that? The Kite Runner did just that to me.

This a powerful story about two young boys in Afghanistan whose friendship spanned from the days before the war until the moment one of them died. This is an honest telling themed at the peculiar behaviour of young kids, how one’s act affects the course of his relationship with the other for their entire life. Soon as we ponder on the story, we will come to realize that the subject is all too familiar to everyone, not just kids. Above all, The Kite Runner explores the essence of sincerity, a quality that we rarely find today in human’s life. To the outside world, this tale also gives them a renewed picture of the Muslim world in particular Afghanistan amidst the roughness of war.

This movie started off with a scene from present time, beautifully intertwined with events of the past as remembered by the main character that would later change his future outcome. Amir and Hassan were good friends in the pre-war days of Afghanistan despite the difference in their socio-economic class, and looked set to remain so for the rest of their lives. Afghanistan in these days was wonderful, so calm, epitomized by the penchant of local kids for flying kites in the sky. Among those kids are Amir and Hassan. The former comes from a rich, well-known family and has everything a kid could ask for, while the latter is only a son of a servant and a Hazara, always dubbed as a second-class ethnic in Afghanistan. Hassan, however, always stood up for Amir in difficult times.

One fine day a plain act by Hassan suddenly threw him into trouble, and worse still Amir decided to betray his good friend during this crucial time. One quick look will lead us to suggest that such is only an act of an immature child, too young to learn the time they should stand up for dear friend. However as we analyze further, it will dawn on us that that is a natural act of mankind. We often try to avoid landing ourselves into a minor trouble, even if that means leaving the others close to fatal. This, for me is the most important issue brought up by The Kite Runner, far outweighing the value of friendship shown by Hassan.

Naturally, Amir’s betrayal act cracked the friendship of the two apart. Amir’s treatment towards Hassan turned harsh, while Hassan still remained his usual self; sincere, loyal and always tried to defend Ali despite the undeserved treatment. The invasion of foreign forces that follow soon totally separated the two, as Amir and his father chose to leave Afghanistan.

It was never told in the story whether Amir decided to forget about Hassan as time passed by. But personally, I strongly believe that he did not.

Much later Amir got a call asking him to go to Pakistan, and soon he learnt about the truth about Hassan. Amir discovered that he had a chance to be good again, but first he must return to the war-torn land of Afghanistan. I shall not disclose the plot further as I am sure those of you here who have not yet watched this movie want a sense of respect to not reveal the whole storyline.

As I already said, this is a powerful story of friendship on the land of Afghanistan. This is also a tale about standing up for people around you, and for what you think is right. Go watch it or read the original novel by Khaled Hosseini, I am sure you will not regret.

Something to Share

Just to quote a bit from The Google Story, a book that I am currently reading. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google were giving a talk to a group of Russian-born students at an Israeli school. Just like the school kids, Sergey fled Russia as a youth with his family to get away from anti-Semitism and discrimination. Because of this common experience, naturally Sergey related well with the school kids, and they in return look upon him as their hero. Here is an excerpt from his inspiring speech:

“You have several things here that I didn’t have when I was going through high school. The first one is the beautiful weather and the windows. My school in Maryland, which was built during the ‘70s energy crisis, has three-foot-thick walls and no windows. You are very fortunate to be in such a beautiful setting. The other thing we didn’t have back then was Internet access.”

Growing up I didn’t have the internet, or not in its current form, and the World Wide Web. Today, the world is very different, because each of you has the power to get information about any subject in the world. And that is very, very different from when I went to school.

You really have a lot of power that our generation did not. I think that will enable you to succeed earlier in life, and much more in life, than I did.

Finally, the most important thing I didn’t have growing up, which all of you do, is all your wonderful peers who are also very hardworking and inspiring. I shouldn’t say bad things about my peers. But my school was a little bit different. It was in the suburbs of Washington DC, and the academic standards and the children’s goal were different. You should really value what you have here with such an incredibly talented peer group. I am sure you are going to know many of your classmates for the rest of your life.”

I think all this goes back to the theme discussed earlier in Hadi's recent post, about seeing everything around us as special and learning to appreciate them more. We ought to be thankful for things we have, rather than complaining about what we do not have. Limitations should not be seen as an excuse to stop trying to reach a greater height.

Thanks Sergey for the wonderful speech. And thanks Hadi, hope you are doing fine.

Lakers Fans, We Welcome You

I was browsing through Los Angeles Lakers' homepage just now to check on their updates. For the record, they had actually just completed a first-round sweep of Denver Nuggets in the NBA Playoffs and are currently waiting for their next opponent who have yet to finish their match-ups. Anyway, what I found out from the homepage surprises me:

See the advert on the right hand side there? Actually the space there runs various adverts, not only the one that promotes Malaysia. So if you do visit the homepage, I cannot guarantee this same image will pop out. But there is another tiny object on the bottom right hand corner, which is not visible in this picture, which will actually direct you to enter a contest to win a free trip to Malaysia upon clicking.

Well, of course I am aware of this sort of campaign to promote Malaysia, but I really did not expect us to go this far. Man, they are Los Angeles Lakers, one of the biggest, most successful basketball club on the planet. The huge 'Visit Malaysia' billboard at Sydney International Airport already left a very big impression on me, albeit made me question at the same time if it really is worth it to have such a broad, expensive campaign. Having now become aware of this campaign involving the Lakers, naturally it made me wonder once again, how much money did we actually put in just to get our image seen by the world.