Saturday rendezvous

We did the craziest thing today.Nik and I were at Jalan TAR before shops were open.There were stuffs we wanted to buy for Z who's spending the weekend at INTAN on her competition project.We hope her team will win something.Mak pun kiasu! :)

While shopping for this and that, I stopped at this small watch shop.The owner was an old Chinese man who looked like he had a PhD in watch repairing.Yup, he had this Professor look on him especially when he put on his magnifier eye glass on him.As he was changing one of the two batteries of my watch and spray-pumping something off my watch, I watched keenly and asked what he was doing. He raised his voice and scowled, saya spray buang habuk pun awak mahu tanya..kalau saya tak buat, nanti habuk masuk apa mcm?

Whoa...he pressed my wrong button too so I gave him good..hello..saya tanya cos saya mahu tahu..you buat anti-rust kaa apa kaa..weiii..no need to be so grouchy so early in the morning...start your day positively..bla bla bla.I think he must have thought I work for kedai mamak sebelah tu sebab sapa je dtg shopping sebelum kedai buka? Haha.

And I told him I think Malaysians can no longer respond to curiosity or people being friendly with them (I was making or attempting a small talk).Told Nik..he came from repressed racism...so when he heard my good English lashing out at him, he mellowed down and tried to crack some jokes..too late, babey..too late.But I remained polite.And that ill mannered cranky old man asked me to come back again if I had probs with my watches.Malam la sikit.:)) But what would you expect, right? It is after all Jln TAR.

Then we rushed to Crystal Crowne to join my UoL alumni.The usual crowd but there were also new faces.Azhar's gal from Birm is in town.Cantik jelita and we were all trying to match make her with Delesh.Haha.Lawak gila usik Delesh.I told Dr. Aizi,his wife and Annie, if Delesh masuk Islam, senang kita nak berpersatuan and he would no longer have religious diet prob.And Raj is now Mohd Rafi cos' he was the one greeting everyone selamat hari raya at the entrance.Amin ketawa besar when I told him this.:))

Nice time just talking nonsense at the do. But it was nice time going through Liverpool history as a busy port, the dev of unis, the Malay community there, etc.Dr. Aizi was saying kapal Titanic tu dibuat di Liverpool and you could actually see the word Liverpool on the ship before it sank.

And we also spoke of students who went overseas on government scholarships who refused to return to serve the nation (one of our alums org kuat JPA) so now trick dia hantar students kat tempat2 yg memang upah 1 juta pun depa tak nak jadi PR or work there..places like Russia, Japan where food and communication is payah.Ahaks. It's not just about breaching your contract,right (paying back is not the same as actual service for the needy..lagipun amat ciput the payback..now gomen letak harga 1 juta for breaching your contract or if you don't pay your younger sibling will not be given any scholarship abroad till you pay back your loan) but we also spoke about how these kids do not take care of their aging parents and possibly adik beradik yg susah yg lain.

Anyway...

Another round of open house kejap lagi.Jgn mati kenyang O Malaysians!

Footnote on Z and team's win: for those on my fb list,this is a repeat story (of a proud Momma).

Traditionally, there would be only 4 teams in the Finals but the judges were so impressed with the performance for this year that they decided to extend it to 5 teams and the 5th team was Z and gang's yang belum masuk uni but kawan2 dia mmg pintar: Megat and Amir will be going to London Sch of Economics,Rachel will study Law at Cambridge and Z will be at XYZ uni.( winning team consisted of 3 students from Cambridge,1 from LSE).Z's team je yang ada the only Malays and the only Indian and although I'm usually not race-based in my judgment but it's telling, the intellectual gap of these races..nothing has changed that much since the 60s.But maybe not intellectual gap..it's the inability to communicate well: language, delivery,organisation of thoughts.This was the comment made by Z when I asked where the UIA students were.They were there but!

Anyway, Z and team got 4th place,bringing home RM1300.One of the judges was top lawyer Edmund Bon who said those in the finals focused on how and not why when dealing with public policies on Msian education. I wish I had time to watch and listen to these kids.Tapi kita pun sibuk with open houses and Z tak kasi kita pergi. No parent went.:(,