MSLS 2008

Thanks to Afifah for enlightening me on this matter. Sadly though, it also turns out to be a cause of envy for me. Why do they have to do this at this time, when I am thousands of miles away? Also, why can't we students in Australia hold a summit of similar kind?

On another note, it is always refreshing to know that something like this is going on, amidst the talk about us teenagers being a ignorant, hopeless bunch. The list of speakers looks impressive; my personal favourite has to be Karim Raslan.

I urge my friends in Malaysia, do take part in this event if you have the chance to.

A Wise Old Owl

A wise old owl lived in an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke,
The less he spoke, the more he heard,
Why aren't we all like that old bird?

- John D. Rockefeller

Erin Gruwell & Freedom Writers

Remember back when we were in school, how we wished to get great, inspirational teachers? We prayed that they did not only put their focus on squeezing every bit of input from textbooks into our brains, but also made the efforts to set our scope beyond that? Well, no disrespect to teachers, but the truth is such measure is not commonly found in them. To say that they are at fault would not do them any justice; after all, their job is merely to educate students, and by that we mean merely helping them to get good grades, and eventually finish school.

Enter Erin Gruwell, giving a whole new definition to the teaching profession. She is the pioneer, the lady responsible for bringing Freedom Writers together, a group of students from a high school in Long Beach, California. Now, this was during the time when the school had just been racially integrated, so you can pretty much imagine the hostile environment faced by students and teachers. Having just graduated from college when she stepped into the school ground as a teacher, naturally things did not come easy for her at first. Somehow she managed to develop some unusual teaching methods, in the process got to understand her students of mixed races better and more importantly brought them close together to a point unimaginable in such a tense environment. Later, these students who earlier were not even sure if they could survive the next day grew up to become successful men and women, all thanks to Erin Gruwell. Every twist of events is well-laid in the movie by the title Freedom Writers itself, so if you are interested in the entire cause brought forward by this teacher perhaps you might want to head down to a nearby store and look for the DVD.

There have been many other Hollywood movies that had been produced that tried to depict this racial confrontation when it was in its height. Some, like Remember the Titans and Glory Road, brought forth sports as the common trait. While that might appear to some as cliché, I would consider that they were pretty successful in getting the message across and attracting positive response from the audience. A classroom situation depicted in Freedom Writers however is a pretty unusual theme, and for this reason I found the scenes represented in the film as refreshing.

The best part here is that the story does not just end with the movie. Freedom Writers themselves are for real, and this movie in fact is based on their true life accounts. Furthermore, there is even a foundation established by these Freedom Writers, presided by Erin Gruwell herself that aims at reforming the education by encouraging teaching methods that was first developed by her.

I am not exactly sure whether I am impressed solely by the movie, or by the whole cause brought by Erin Gruwell and her Freedom Writers. However, one thing that I am certain of is that I am grateful that the world has a teacher like Erin Gruwell.

Warisan

Anak kecil main api,
Terbakar hatinya yang sepi

When I was in lower forms in koleq, we used to sing this song every week. We would line up outside classrooms after night prep, and donning our Full Malay attire, we would fill the night air with echoes of the song with pride. That was one of my favourite parts of my life back then, perhaps the moment I felt most spirited. I would wait patiently every week for Friday night to come just to savour the chance to sing the song. I was not pretty sure if my feeling was shared by my other 100-odd brethrens, I guess I could not care less at the moment. However it is a pretty long song; I would say that probably half of us did not quite memorize the lyrics. The other half, despite showing such vigour when singing it, perhaps could not let the thought of heading to dining hall quickly off their mind, for the supper were to be served right after the night prep. We were naive, 13-year-old kids, who can blame us? It was still a beautiful moment nevertheless, one that is surely able to capture any heart that sees it.

We still sang that song when were in Form 3, albeit not as frequent as we did in the first two years we were in koleq. If my memory serves me right, the last time we sang it as one, united batch, was on the night before our first PMR papers. We even had candles and all while singing it, making the 10-minute scene all too dramatic.

I think it is fair to say that I cherish this song more than Motherrussia, our own traditional batch anthem. While Motherrussia has its own amazing story and is also capable of arousing our spirit at any time, to me having the chance to sing it, claiming ownership of the anthem is more like a pure coincidence, something like a gift. Warisan, on the other hand, is an embodiment of responsibility, one that you cannot escape from.

I guess things change as we grow up, our life focus shifts direction. Tales of broken promises, dreams not realized are quickly forgotten as we make our stride forward. If only we can sit back, and try to recall the moment we sang Warisan proudly when we were kids, each line, what it means to all of us, I guess already we are a better person than yesterday.

Kita sudah tiada masa,
Bangunlah dengan gagah perkasa

Motionless Water, Moving Water

A wonderful passage from The Road to Mecca;

Asad once asked an old Bedouin about why he moved from one place to another and not settle in one area, firm some land, and rest in peace. To this the Bedouin replied, “If water stands motionless in pools, it becomes stale, muddy and foul; only when it moves and flows does it remain clear...”

On Cycling

I am an ardent sports fan. Even though the only sport that I play is basketball, I enjoy watching almost every other sport, be it live in a stadium or on TV. I followed live football, hockey, and Olympics since I was a little kid, before I started to develop interest in tennis, rugby and Formula 1 during the later stage of my 20-year-old life. One of the reasons for this penchant is, well, like most other men, it just occurs to you naturally for no real reason. Another reason, perhaps more convincing is I see that sports is so closely linked to life, that every action you put on the floor in any sporting event is a perfect metaphor of how you lead your actual life. You also learn so much through sports; wins and losses, teamwork, discipline, hard work, etc.

Anyway, the real reason for this entry is that not so long ago another sport managed to catch my attention, one that I never thought I would be interested in; cycling. Okay, don’t give me that look. The thing is, I read Lance Armstrong autobiography, It’s Not About the Bike not so long ago, and it was through that book that my interest in cycling started to germinate. It was really a good book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. The story he has to tell not only resembles the life of him as a sportsman, but rather as a person as a whole, battling cancer that almost robbed his life. In any case, being a seven-time winner of Le Tour de France, the world’s largest cycle race, he could not avoid telling something about cycling could he? And you reader cannot avoid but to read it, and in my case, like it. You see, I used to have the same idea as most of you when the word cycling springs up to mind; boring when you take it from a spectator’s point of view, and arduous, tiring for the poor cyclists. You work so hard for four, five hours under hot, scorching sun in the case of road race but the result will only be decided by the few extra pushes you make in the final few metres before you cross the finish line. How often you see a winner edging his opponent in the second place only by a tyre’s length?

Nevertheless, people say you will not love something until you start to learn about it. Tak kenal maka tak cinta. Only after I gained some knowledge about cycling that I started to appreciate it, and soon learn like it. And yes, there are myriads of knowledge about this backbreaking sport that you simply cannot learn by being a mere observer, especially when you watch it on TV only for a couple of minutes and you start to grumble. For instance, the cyclists’ activities in the peloton (the large group of riders you often see in road race, believe me they do not just cycle), the role of each cyclist in a team (generally everyone needs to help the best cyclist in the team), the communications made between cyclists and team coordinators during a race, the different sort of strategies that you just cannot see with bare eyes and so on and so forth. For me the best part of cycling that I learnt is the hard work put in by each cyclist be it during the race itself or in preparing for it. Rain or shine, come whatever seasons, professional riders push their bikes and train first thing in the morning for every single day, whereby each training session lasts for hours. Suffice to say, this alone allows me to look at cycling from a whole new perspective, and propels me to have a little more respect for those riders.

Anyhow, all those knowledge that I gained was actually about to turn in vain, until here comes Le Tour de France. I knew that it was coming, but influenced by natural ignorance despite now having a deeper understanding of the sport I chose not to pay too much attention to it at first. It all changed two or three nights ago when I decided to switch on the TV, and there I was, sitting permanently for the next two-and-a-half hour, keeping my eye on every single action of the race until it finished. I have not quite stopped watching since then on, and I do not see myself doing it anytime before the tour is finished. As I have already mentioned, it is just so refreshing to look at this sport from a different angle, with an extra bit of knowledge, and again, you just cannot stop admiring the incredible efforts of each rider during the race. To add to the excitement of the race, the scenery at each different stage of the tour is just breathtaking. In fact I enjoy the scenery as much as the race. I would go as far as to say that France now sits on my list of countries that I wish to visit now that I begin to see it closely through cycling. Hopefully this will someday become a reality, and I would make sure that my visit will coincide with Le Tour de France so I would be able to see it live.

Merantau, Menulis Tentang Manusia

Maaf lama menyepi. Aku ke Canberra, kemudian Brisbane, merantau, melihat negeri orang. Termasuk kali ini, telah dua kali kedua-dua bandar tersebut menyambut jengahanku. Alhamdulillah, setakat ini kesemua bandar-bandar utama di sebelah timur benua ini telah berjaya kulawati.

Seronok merantau, melihat gelagat manusia. Namun begitu yang membuat aku sedikit terkilan ialah kegagalan untuk menjenguk beberapa tempat di tanah air sendiri. Kepulauan Borneo belum sekali melihat gelagatku, beberapa negeri di Semenanjung pun belum benar-benar aku terokai walaupun kaki pernah dijejakkan. Kebetulan aku baru habis membaca buku Ceritalah: Malaysia in Transition dan A Malaysian Journey, masing-masing karya hebat Karim Raslan dan Rehman Rashid. Persamaan kedua-dua buku terletak pada gaya penceritaan, di mana kedua-dua pengarang menulis berdasarkan rakaman pengalaman merantau di tanah air setelah banyak masa dihabiskan di perantauan. Pengamatan Karim Raslan dan Rehman Rashid kedua-duanya begitu mengagumkan, sambil gaya tulisan cukup membuatkan aku gentar.

Aku juga gemar merantau, dan aku simpan cita-cita untuk menulis tentang manusia di tempat-tempat berbeza yang aku lawati. Setakat ini peluang belum begitu terbuka, satu hari nanti mungkin? Oh, aku juga perlukan pitis.