Condolences

Teoh Beng Hock, pic above, political secretary to Selangor executive council member Ean Yong Hian Wah passed away in quite mysterious circumstances. As a mark of respect, I would like to extend to his family and loved ones my deepest condolences and I urge readers to do the same.

Out of respect for the deceased too, I would refrain from commenting on this issue for a while. Let his family do the needful.

The Job

People1: Look, I want to know why have you not acted on that ex MB and his bungalow?

MACC: Act what? What is there to act? He said he bought it for about 3 million and he has documents to prove he got a bank loan for it.

People1: And you believe him that it costs only about 3 million?

MACC: Yes, I saw the photos in Malaysia Today and the bungalow looks small, I think 3 million is expensive la.

People1: You looked at the photos? You didn't go there?

MACC: We went, I personally went there by helicopter and from 2 miles up, I could see it very small. There is no case la, someone is jealous of him.

People2: What about the PKFZ, it's very clear something is wrong.

MACC: Tell me what is wrong then?

People2: Well the cost of the land and the people involved in the dealings.

MACC: They have proper papers what. Everything was signed and they have lawyers. If someone got it cheap and sold it at a high price it means that that someone is a good businessman so why should we get involved? No, no way,, everything was done properly.

People3: What about those houses on slopes built without proper studies. Those slopes are simply too steep and the law prohibits them from building mansions in such terrains.

MACC: Nothing wrong there what. They have money they can build houses wherever they want.

People3: Even if they endanger the lives of people further down the slope?

MACC: Then don't build houses further down la, go higher la, what's so susah?

People3: Is it because they are influential people that you do not want to nap them?

MACC: Look, we are proffesionals, we don't care who you are, you do wrong we tangkap. We have nabbed, office boys, clerks, drivers and garderners. We don't care.

People3: Have you caught Directors, Senior Police people and Ministers?

MACC: They did not do wrong how to tangkap them? Be sensible la, eh, wait a minute, I have a phone call. Yes, speaking, ...... what! ....... who! ....... are you sure! ....... so that fellow told you! ...... where are you now? Okay, I'll meet you there in about 2 hour's time, I am busy right now.

People3: Are you leaving this meet the people session? You have not answered a single question we posed.

MACC: You all always complain about corruption involving big shots but without a shred of evidence, we can't act but I think you are going to be happy. We have just received a complaint which we think is backed by very strong evidence.

People1: It involved big-shots?

MACC: Yes, big-shots, a few of them. I think if we do our work well we'll be able to take them to court tomorrow and and get a conviction in about a week.

People2: Can we know who and what case?

MACC: Sure, some DAP YBs from your friendly Pakatan Rakyat government in Selangor and maybe at least 1 exco.

People3: Who is the complainant and what evidence have you got that makes you so sure that you could get a conviction?

MACC: Okay, I'll tell you but please don't let this out to the press yet. It seems that an MCA ketua cawangan overheard a conversation during a cross-line incident in his phone. One speaker said that, his mother in law's neighbour heard that her driver's son in law told someone that he dreamt that a bomoh told him that there is something fishy in Selangor. Ha, ha,  there you are.

People1: What? And you are going to act on that? Where is the evidence? It never identifies who, so how come you are sure it is DAP people and not BN people?

MACC: What evidence some more you want. I have been in this business for a long time la, so I know what is true and what are lies, so please excuse me, I have a job to do.

Beautifully reduced.

Alhamdulillah, it's official now, PAS has won Manek Urai by 65 votes, so am I upset? No, au contraire, just the perfect result I had hoped for.

Nope, I am not hiding my disappointment by trying to sound optimistic like what the BN would do soon by saying that it is a morale booster when actually they are cursing themselves and kicking each other silly because despite the millions they had spent, the use of government machinery and personnel and the open support of the SPR, they still could not stop PR's good form in by-elections.

Now why would I be happy with such a reduced majority? Well for one, it is a lesson to, not PAS, but, Hadi, Nasha, and PAS Youth. Never ever mention unity government again. The voters do not like it and they are not shy to show it.

The fact the PAS had won despite this Unity shit that is paraded, is due to the charisma of TGNA. He single handedly showed Hadi and Nasha that PAS voters do not like this idea they had concocted called Unity Government.


So, Nasha, shut the fuck up with this Unity Shit and go hang yourself at the nearest tauge plant. Hadi, remember, you position as the President of PAS does not guarantee subservience if your suggestion is chicken shit so shut the fuck up too.

Now let's talk a little about the by-election proper. I was thinking that they were going to have recounts till the next GE because to count about 12K votes took them so damn bloody long. I was reading a chat site and was tickled when reading how someone suggested that first they had a recount in English and then another recount in Bahasa. I guess it was the recount in Tamil that got the nod. I wonder if the recount in English entitled the staff an extra allowance?

So Khairy, where are you now? You were so cock sure that you were going to win. Of course you were sure of victory because you had plenty of time to plan on how to go about it. So who is eating humble pie now? I am sure the pie is not that tasty as you had initially thought. And that goes to you too Hadi and Nasha. Not so sweet a victory don't you think so, considering the reduced majority is attributed to you two idiots?

Ehem! Muhyidin, does this mean that the people of Manek Urai are no longer citizens of Malaysia and would not be eligible to receive federal aid in the form of a RM7 million bridge? What? Speak louder please. Oh, you do have goodies for them despite the lost? What? You are asking us to away the 'ta'. Hey wait a minute, you mean JAMBAN. So your JAMBATAN has now turned to JAMBAN?

Common sir, you can't be serious. I mean I am okay if you were to give them JAMBANs but at RM7 million? Wow, mighty expensive JAMBANs don't you think so sir?

I wonder who is kicking whose arse and who is blaming whom in the BN camp and who is counting all the dough that got hijacked and I also wonder when will the contractors of the instant mee projects be paid or will they ever be paid?

As for PAS, you don't have to look far to find who is to blame.

Why court disaster?

Okay, a short break from politics and on to my other passion, albeit a bigger one: FOOTBALL. Oh yes, football is my real passion besides passion itself, if you know what I mean.

It doesn't take a magician to know which football club I support unless of course if you were a numbskull who has a terrific eye for bargains like getting a 24 mil property for 3 mil. Oh shit! There I go again.

As much as I have very high regards for Sir Alex and his managerial exploits, I would say, he has gone a little too far this time. he has bitten more than he could chew, gone a mile too far than his jalopy could go and take on one straw too many on his back. All I want to say is that not all challenges are surmountable.

No, I am not talking about letting Ronaldo go. Yes, he is a damn bloody good player but he is only one player. If he was that good, than Perez wouldn't need Kaka, Benzema and Ribeiry. As much as I like him, I don't think, his going away, would hurt Man Utd too much except probably in the entertainment department. He is a classy act.

Letting Ronaldo go is not The Big Challenge, I am talking about. Not landing another Star Player is also not a big enough challenge as far as Man Utd and Sir Alex is concerned. Man Utd currently have the stars to weather the 2009/2010 storm.

The team that starts the next season must be mentally and physically ready for another crunching season. Everyone knows that but something that not many give too much thought about is the fact that the team must also be emotionally ready. The players should start with confidence.

It is this confidence department that I am very worried. What do I mean by confidence here? Simple, the players start the season believing that they could win the Premiership. How do you give them this confidence? Simple, give them the best pre-season preparation you could give, like beating Real Madrid in a warm up match, or trouncing a Brazilian Selection or make mince meat of your neighbours, City or beating barcelona with your youth team or putting beating the shit out of the scousers. That is the perfect emotional tonic..

This time he is doing it all wrong. He is taking his invincibilty a little too far. Yes, he has got Owen, Valencia and Oberton, and they are going to go on a tour in which they are going to whup the ass of many of the teams they are warming up with but, yes there is a but here. But, why Malaysia?

Like I have said earlier, the players need morale boosting performances and results in their warm up. They could easily get that in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia, these are minnows. Doesn't Sir Alex know that Malaysia is a different league altogether? Does, he truly think he could take on the mighty FAM and the Malaysian Selection?

Malaysia have already shown how cock sure they are by picking an under 23 squad to play the Devils and I predict the Malaysian boys are going to give the Devils a hiding they deserve for daring to take on the real big powers. This is not Real Madrid, or Milan or Barcelona we are talking about. We are talking about a collection of players from a SUPER LEAGUE not Premier league.

Sir Alex, please, put your ego aside and give some excuses and get out of this impending disaster. You are leading your players to the slaughter house and this would kill them, emotionally. It doesn't matter if, by default, you would have to pay FAM 100 million pounds, just get out of this suicide mission and never ever come back this way again.

Doesn't he know that Malaysia is representing Mother Earth for the Inter Galactic Universe Cup?

Report card.

Father: Son, I went to your school this afternoon and met your teacher. He showed me your report card.

Son: What! How did you know that today is Hari Waris?

Father: That's what I want to talk to you about. How come, you did not give me the letter from your school?

Son: Er, er, I forgot la dad, anyway who told you about today.

Father: Majid's father, but that is not important, how come you failed your science subjects. I asked you to take  science subjects because I have high hopes that you would do well but you flopped all the science subjects and your maths and also add maths. Why?

Son: Alamak dad, the subjects susah la. I cannot understand la. Anyway I don't want to take science, you forced me.

Father: I did it for your future.

Son: But I don't like science, I like Sastera.

Father: Sastera? What can Sastera do for you? Why, do you want to grow up and be a writer? You want to be a nuisance like all those bloggers? You want to be like that katataknak felow who don't have a single nice word to say about the government? No, I won't allow it. From next week, you go for tuition classes.

Son: But dad, I don't like science. I want to change to Sastera la. Please la dad. Anyway, if I did well in science what can I be? I don't like engineering, I don't want to be a doctor, I don't want to be a scientist.

Father: Son, I don't want you to be an engineer or a medical doctor or a scientist, I want you be a dentist and buy me a 24 million ringgit house for 3.5 million ringgit only. Dentist are clever people, they can make expensive things cheap. They also know how to make their skin tight and fair with natural resources and they know how to shred documents, and travel first class using other people's money. Please la son I also want to have an all expenses paid, first class, trip to Disneyland.

Shooting without focussing.

Here we go again, they are doing it again. What? They are making statements from their arse without thinking of the implications.

I wonder if those people really know about our present school system. The Minister of Education has made an announcement about the discontinuation of PPSMI. Good. He then went on to say about how they are going to give more attention to English. Good. He then continued by saying that more hours would be allotted to the teaching of English in schools. Disaster.

Look, I am not against giving English an additional 80 minutes at the secondary school level. Heck, I am not even against the introduction of a new subject called English Literature, if they choose to do so. Okay, I have talked about the importance of having trained teachers so I won't dwell on the matter so much.

What I am going to talk about is one of logistics. We have many schools with 2 sessions and just so much daylight to accommodate these 2 sessions. Many years ago, the ministry made a shit boast that by 2007 all schools would be single session schools. Frankly, I was very apprehensive and I am damn bloody right. Not even a single double session school that I know off have new school blocks to increase the number of classrooms to be able to operate on a single session.

Then there is that directive that schools teach ICT two periods a week. This added to the already crowded timetable of the afternoon session because only form 1 and form 2 classes would study ICT and we all know that in double session schools, both forms 1 and 2 are in the afternoon session.

In my school, we have to squeeze every available room we have to accommodate these additional two periods a week. Our students have to come early , 12 noon, 3 days in a week. Every Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, about 7 classes have to start early. On Mondays, all Muslim students must come early for Agama classes. On Friday, we can't do anything because of the short time we have.

To top this, the introduction of Siviks for the form three students means that the form three classes have an additional 2 periods a week meaning they will use their classrooms way into the afternoon slot. Forms four and five classes too have way too many subjects meaning they too, on certain days, eat up into the time alloted to the afternoon session.

We are bursting at the seams as it is right now. Now they want to add another 2 periods a week per class. Being the teacher in charge of getting the timetable ready I have already calculated that on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, an extra 5 classes would have to come early. If we could find the classrooms to accommodate these extra 5 classes then we do not have to have an afternoon session. It's because of classroom constraints that we have double sessions.

When the people up there make statements, have they given any thought to this very pressing problem that we have? Yes, I have the solution but they are not going to be too happy about it.

Please bear in mind that so far I have been talking about the problems posed when they add 2 additional periods for English. We still do not know what they mean when they say they want to add English Literature. Are the two extra periods meant for English Literature or Is English Literature going to be a new subject by itself?

Then the Minister also said that BM is also to be upgraded. Good. The question is, will there be additional periods for BM from the present 6 periods a week? If English Lit is a new subject and more periods per week alloted to BM where are we going to find the time to fit all these in? Don't tell me that you will build more classrooms because you have said it already and nothing came out of it. They are so bloody good at making empty promises that I suggest they teach that as a paper at university level. I can assure you we have plenty of over qualified lecturers at Putrajaya.

You can only do this if all schools are single session schools but I don't see that happening in the near future. Then the other alternative is to reduce subjects. Make History and Geography into 1 subject of 3 periods and you save 3 periods. Take off Sivik because the syllabus is a joke. Take off ICT because the skills taught can be taught during the teaching of other subjects. This is an additional 4 periods save and add that to the 3 already saved, it would enable them to add 2 periods for English, 2 for English Lit and 1 for Bahasa.

With this there will be 42 periods a week plus assembly. If we were to have 8 periods per day from Monday to Thursday and 7 periods on Friday it makes 39. With 3 periods of Agama being taught outside the normal school hours as had always been the case in double session schools, the will be no scramble for classrooms but mind you, there is a catch. With the 8 and 7 allocation the afternoon still can't teach full 40 minutes per period. We will have to do what we have been doing all along that is 35 minute periods.

To tackle everything, build more classrooms and make sure that double session school is history then we have just managed to tackle a very small logistic problem. There is a bigger problem buried. Where do we find English teachers good enough to teach English the way it should be taught? Do we have enough English teachers good enough to teach English Literature and are we going to change the useless syllabus that we have now?

PPSMI and English

Officer: Pengetua, are all the Maths and Science teachers present?

Pengetua: All present except 2. Both of them are having tuition classes.

Officer: What? You condone this? Don't you know that teachers must get approvals to give tuition? Do they have approvals from the ministry? Even if they do, why during school hours?

Pengetua: Wait, wait let me explain, those 2 teachers are from the afternoon session and they can't get out of their tuition classes so I gave them permission not to attend this meeting. Anyway, they will be in school before the afternoon session starts. Anyway .....

Officer: Did they get permission to give tuition?

Pengetua: No.

Officer: Why not? You are in big trouble for this.

Pengetua: Because they are not giving tuition, they are taking tuition and there's no regulation compelling them to get written approval to take tuition.

Officer: What? Err, err, taking tuition? What subject?

Pengetua: English. Their English sucks so I forced them to take tuition in English if they were to teach my students the subjects in English.

Officer: Oh, I see, then its a different matter. So please may I address the teachers?

Pengetua: Please do, before that let me introduce you to them. Ehem! Dear teachers, today we have an officer from the Maths and Science department of the Ministry of Education, En. Arshed, who wants to address all of you.

Officer: Good morning teachers. This won't take long. The ministry has decided to do away with PPSMI. The minister would make an announcement soon so I am here to order all of you to return all notebook computers, LCD projectors and schools must also return all screens and empty their computer labs. The labs would be torn down because they don't serve any purpose anymore. They were built with Science and Maths money so no other subjects could use them. Ah, you have until the end of the month to return the equipments failing which you would be fined. Thank you. Pengetua, you may dismiss the teachers.

Pengetua: Thank you Mr. Arshad and all teachers I hope to start receiving the equipments from next Monday. You may leave but please call the English teachers to come in immediately.

After 10 minutes.

Pengetua: I would like to thank the afternoon teachers for coming for this meeting despite the short notice. We have an officer from the English Language Department from the Ministry who has something important to say to you. Teachers I present to you Mr. Shamsuddin.

Officer: Thank you. This will be a short session. The minister will soon announce that PPSMI would be thrown into the dustbin. He would also announce that we will adding an additonal 2 periods per week for English. English has been up-graded. All of you would be issued with brand new notebook computers and LCD projectors. We will supply all schools with state of the art screens. No, we would not used the equipments used by PPSMI, ours would be brand new ones. The contractors to supply these equipments have been appointed by UMNO. As soon as the computer labs for PPSMI are demolished, on the same grounds, we would build new computer labs and furnish them with new state of the art desktop computers. We would also be sending all of you for courses. Thank you. You can go back to your classes.