Myotonic “Fainting” Goats
October 6, 2009
Bismillah
Had a lecture on plasma membrane during Physiology today… The professor mentioned something about Myotonia Congenita as a result of imbalance in ion-channel activity…
Myotonia Congenita is a neuromuscular ion channelopathy… When the harmony of the ion channels are interrupted, it might cause delay in the relaxation of muscles, causing them to be rigid and stiff (myotonia) for a while… There are more to the condition but I should not talk further since my knowledge is still pretty much limited… x)
Just some clarification, myotonia (stiffness) is not the same as myotonia congenita, ok?
Suffering from myotonia congenita is not funny… But this is… For me, at least…
8th Day of Raya
September 29, 2009
Bismillah
I had my 7th raya on board of three different aeroplanes… It’s certainly not exciting, let alone enlightening… And I’m obviously not going to write about it… Unless if you still want to know, two policemen with submachine guns went into the chapel I was praying in, in Gatwick… I started and was about to lift my hands when one of the policemen said “Don’t worry, just continue”, or something like that (Since I’m not good in English English… Haha… In fact, I’m not good in any english… Except for Malaysian English)… Apparently they were looking for a guy… And Alhamdulillah I didn’t fit the description…
I arrived in Prague at 9 p.m. on the 27th… Alhamdulillah… I think two flights are enough for me… I had three and I was about to become insane when I checked in for the last one… Luckily I fell asleep during the whole journey… I just hope that I didn’t snored too loudly… x)
Apparently I’m still jet-lagged, judging by the time I started writing this post… I’m not going to moan about that… Everyone just kinda deal with it… Why shouldn’t I just deal with it too? And since it’s westward, adjusting should be easier… Look here for more : http://babyccinoblog.com/2008/07/14/kids-and-jet-lag/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_lag#Direction_of_travel
I wanted to write more, but suddenly I remembered that I’ve got something to do… So, ilalliqa’… And sorry if this post is meaningless, I was planning to start with all the meaningless things first before finishing this post with some better things… But now I really need to stop in the middle of the meaningless stuffs…
My 6 Days of Raya
September 26, 2009
Bismillah
Raya this year will undoubtedly be the most meaningful ever… I learned lots of things, which made me grateful and reminded me of my reasons for choosing this way… Not that I am regretting that choice, it’s just that I forgot about it…
What I’m going to write might make no sense to some of you… I regret it, if it comes to that, but I need to make this as personal as possible… Or, exclusive, if I may add… Hehe…
Raya 0
We departed from KL at 9a.m., only to arrive at Kuala Kangsar 6 hours later… It’s the traffic jam…
MCKK
Nothing much happened… Except for Gog and Magog and lessons on Zam Zam…
And I also learned one thing, that home is where the heart is… Like in this picture below… Hehe…
Raya 1
Went through the usual stuffs, the baju raya, the prayer, the visits and the eating…
“Duduk”
“Cameraman berjenama Armani Exchange”
Throughout the day I just sit in front of the TV and dozed off for a few hours… A pretty boring day…
At night, we went to Kuale, looking for Mamak stall or restaurant that might have a television… We found one, but there were too many people… There were no enough seats for us and those who had already finished with their food and drinks refused to go home… I don’t blame them, they were there for the same reason as mine…
At first, we just sit in the car and watch… Then we found out that the price for a better view are some amount of pride and comfort… And I don’t think that they are too high a price…
4-3 and I could say that I’m quite happy…
Money cannot buy happiness… x)
Raya 2
Today I was forced by emak to follow her… Honestly, I’m quite reluctant with the prospect but in the end I found that the whole experience was quite enjoyable… We visited some relatives in Bukit Chandan, Salak, Pulau Mentimun and Enggor… It was a very tiring day… So very tiring… For launch I ate Ikan Kaloi (I need to write it here since it’s my first time… x) )…
Kaloi
Later that day Tok and us went to Ipoh to eat Sate Endut… Unfortunately no sate stall was opened at all… From 8p.m. to about 9p.m., we toured around Ipoh looking for a place to eat… From Greentown to State Stadium, from Masjid Negeri to Taman Kanak-kanak… Finally GG drove us to Parkson and we all had Kenny Roger’s…
Tok bought something and after that we head straight home…
In my opinion, one shouldn’t compare oneself to the other… Circumstances are different… Starting points are different… Motives are different… The true opponent that one actually have to truly face is his/her self…
Raya 3
“Jangan tolak tolak”
Tonight we’ll have BBQ at mama’s (mama is my auntie… )… We departed from Karai to Meru at noon… On the way we stopped by in Kuale, to ‘beraya’ at Cikgu Din’s house, a distant grandfather of mine, according to Mak Andak…
“Rumah ni bukan rumah segan”
“Kuih telunjuk”
Biskut yang tu satu, yang tu pon nak satu…
Being a lazy person, honestly, I didn’t help much… Instead I watched Maut and one more movie which I can’t recall…
The types of people you hang out with define who you are and who you will be… And for that I’m very grateful… Grateful for them and grateful that I did not need to look too far…
Raya 4
Once again we went out visiting… Did you notice the pattern? On odd days we stayed home… And on even days we went out… So this time we visited Pah Enda, Pak Din and Ayah Ngah…
After all these we passed Tg. Rambutan and we decided to ’round2′ around the Hospital Bahagia…
Budak cina yang dibela oleh Mak Nyah (Not as in transgender or pondan… Haha…)…
When money is god, greed is king…
Raya 5
This got little significance… Since almost 1/6 of it consists of our journey back to KL… The journey took a little more than 4 hours, longer than usual, since we stopped at Rawang’s Ali Corner for lunch…
Raya 6
It’s Jumaat… My little sister and I went to Tasik Perdana for jogging… We played a couple rounds of badminton and run around the place… Got thirsty but the stalls are all closed…
Then emak fetched us and we had breakfast at RA Nasi Lemak in Kg. Baru, which may be one of the best Nasi Lemak ever (Except for the one I had in SAS)… Hehe…
Then, later in the afternoon we went to SOGO to buy something… Then we proceed to Jalan TAR to buy some books which I’ll write about later, iA…
Don’t judge a book by its cover… It looks calm and inviting, but towards Raya especially, what’s inside is a disaster… There were just too many people!
There, my 6 days of Raya… It’s not everything but I guess I should spare you guys from any further torments… x)
Before I end this post… To all my friends, who will or are going to go back to school, college, university or whatever… Let’s do it!!! We are young and we should be conquering the world (May be not literally… Hehe) !!!
Some hurtful comments are unintentional… So, forgive me…
Selamat Hari Raya
September 19, 2009
Bismillah
I don’t know why, I think that it’s still too early to wish anyone ‘Selamat Hari Raya’, considering that it’s still Ramadhan… Hehe… However, I guess this has to be done since I’m gonna be well away from the Internet starting tomorrow… Unless if I can find a way to connect to the internet using my mobile…
Tomorrow will insyaAllah be the last day of Ramadhan… For this year, I hope… Come to think of it… This year’s Ramadhan passes by so fast… I didn’t even realize that that ultimately means I have only about a week left in Malaysia… Not that I’m not looking forward for Czech and second year… It’s just that swiftness is… I don’t know how to put it… Too swift…
I wish Selamat Hari Raya to all my family, friends, teachers, neighbours and everyone… I humbly ask forgiveness for all my wrongdoings, regardless whether it’s done intentionally or not… Let’s all pray that His blessings are always with us and that this Ramadhan will not be the last…
Semoga aku sedar bahawa aku adalah hambaNya, bukanlah hamba Ramadhan
This Will Be Fine For Now
September 16, 2009
Bismillah
First let me tell you this… I really wished that I had something to write here… Just something so that at least you guys won’t be bored by the same post for a very long time… However, there’s really not much to be written or at least, beneficial enough to be written… Remember the four gates of speech? Hehe…
Today I’d write about three books that I’ve read… I want to record them here… And do some sort of review about two of them… Even when I know I’m not even qualified to do so… x)
These two books, are about two hundred pages each… Both showed incredibly well, despite such shortness, the human nature and how society can fail and bring out the worst of us all…
1. Animal Farm – George Orwell
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely… This book is the embodiment of that quote…
The first time I heard about this book is in Sociology class in KY… If I’m not mistaken, we’re studying about Marxism at that time, and I’d say, being a rebellious teenager (haha, laugh at it) at that time, I’m quite excited with it being some sort of counter culture… But that wouldn’t be enough to make me go to the PM’s office and shout, “Down down capitalism!”, like Mr Riches once suggested… However so, it’s enough to make me to want to try to understand objectively of this much demonized ideology… So this book is one of my efforts to learn about it…
You don’t need to understand about Marxism or Communism and their struggles to enjoy reading this book… The book is so simple and just in it’s presentation of what is a communist state and what kind of things are needed for its downfall… It can be a history lesson about the failure of the communist revolution or it can be a simple fable with great symbolic value… You won’t even notice its connection to history (even though each animal character has its own real historical human counterpart) if you are not really informed about Russian history… But that, for me, does not matter because as I’ve said before, it’s simple enough to convey its messages…
I remembered quite vividly how reading this book feels like… First, Orwell distanced me from the historical facts – using animals and how well the Animal Farm goes initially- and then brought me back with a bang of what actually happened – the failure of the revolution…
I would strongly suggest anyone to read this book… It’s too simple and the lessons in store are too valuable to be left unread…
2. Lords of the Flies – William Golding
Another allegorical novel, but with less satirical tone… It’s about some British boys getting themselves stranded on an island… At first, they succeeded on somehow creating a society of some sort… Civilized one, with everybody assigned to certain jobs like keeping the signal fire, hunting, making shelter and so on… However, as what this book is trying to say, beneath the veil of civilization, there lies tendencies to be savage… And this is portrayed throughout the book… It’s quite terrifying really, considering such thin line that separates civilization from chaos…
I don’t know really how to describe this book… There are a lot of things that is served by the author… Things like fear, how it is used to manipulate, how it brings hostility when one fear something because of ignorance… Things like good and evil exists… That people are simply good and some people are simply evil… x)
I can’t help but notice how Golding used Freud’s idea of human nature of id, ego and superego in portraying the characters… Jack, followed his instinct to survive and hunt for meat symbolizes the id… Ralph, however, who take the middle road by focusing on surviving and at the same time signalling for help symbolizes the ego, with the guide and idea from the super-ego, portrayed by piggy who is bright but physically weak… There are many other symbolisms but I’m not going to spoil the fun of those who is going to read it… To list a few, the conch, the glasses, the paratrooper, the signal fire, the pig head…
You can read about id, ego and super-ego in wikipedia… Hehe…
Finally, I will not say that it’s in my Top 3 but I’d still recommend this to anyone… Don’t watch the movie because it is just horrible… Plain disgrace to this book…
p/s : Oh, I finally finished reading the Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress… I know I told you guys that I wanted to read this since long ago since I first watched the movie, if you remember… Hehe… I got it -the book- last year, I believe, and only had the time to read it this year… What a story… What a misfortune (not the experience of reading the book, I meant the story line)…
Now I’m reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand… It’s over 1000 pages but so far it’s good… Go go capitalism!!! Haha… JK
