Short, Shot, Shoot!

New words: Prestidigitation, Taproom, Cocksure, Quiff, Brigid, Servile, Rondo, Bollard, Parser, Doeskin, Aslope, Contumacious.

This week on A Stray World:

• Oily skins missed;
• Not the face! Not the Face!
• A. Asohan goes Stray
  

What's with the goo?
This week has been particularly hectic.
Oil hits $100.
Jon Stewart returns with A Daily Show.

And Malaysia, the second largest producer of palm oil world, ran out of palm oil.

Fascinating. Almost fictional in fact. It's like saying Thailand has ran out of prostitutes, or Kelantan without muftis, or George W. Bush without lies.

Without realising it, we citizens have failed to notice the convenient subsidies on cooking oil quietly nestled in place somewhere in the bowels of this immature democracy. Keen to keep prices low in our favourite char koay teow stalls, proprietors seemed to have caught on to the subsidies placed upon store bought cooking oil.

The larger barrel-like ones woefully forgotten.

Incredible as it seems, people refused to buy anything but cooking oil for the first two days of the apparent oil crisis. Like the geopolitical factions at play for its non-edible distant relative, storekeepers were accused of hoarding attacks were carried out by government officials, and general chaos from media coverage and frustrated oil-dependant citizens brought about a final agreement to raise production.

Alternative to oil-fried food - water.

People are addicted to oil.

Quite fascinating.

Bullet
Datuk S. Krishnasamy. One slug to the head. Close range.

Reading Gunslinger Girl has given me morbid insight into the mind of professional assassins.

The set-up was perfect. Here's my theory.

This mid-ranking member of the MIC was murdered in an MIC branch. Not on the road in some secluded junction. The building would be guarded, and with elections around the corner, very likely to be rather busy with human traffic.

Why take the risk? Why kill him in an elevator in a political building buzzing with pre-election activity?

This implies a political message.

A straight gunshot to the head implies rather obviously, an intent to eliminate, not intimidate the victim.

Since the MIC could easily replace one of their fallen with another mid-ranking representative, it could be postulated that this was a warning.

It would be naive to assume Datuk S Krishnasamy was completely innocent in the entire affair. He was embroiled in some business with some dangerous individuals.

People who aren't afraid of public execution as long as the message is delivered clearly, vividly.

The question now becomes, what is the message?

Stray Thoughts
One of the most senior members of The Star, A. Asohan, whose work I have acquainted myself with since his In Tech days has been awarded a column in the Sunday Star.

I have no hard feelings that he used the phrase above in bold as the name of his column. After all, Stray isn't a patented word.

However, it does make me wonder whether or not I should request a trademark for my blog's name when I move it away from Blogger.

Lovely.

New words: Headland, Ineluctable, Martinet, Bunco, Gumshoe, Kindling, Ingenue, Simper, Dint, Palaver.

Scandalous? Indeed.

But the study here isn't really about Chua Soi Lek, but the nation as a whole, and why it matters.

The people have Judged

Sex scandals are nothing new. If one were to look back further, a mistress was even considered a symbol of success.

The concubines of Chinese Emperors certainly weren't cheap.

And if our so-called Muslim leaders were to reflect on the Ottoman empire, I am sure they would find no solace in picking upon a man who kept a measly one.

Let's not kid ourselves here.

This is but a private matter gone public. To lose one of our better leaders in such fashion is simply wasteful.

Let's do a quick recap on other crimes that surely deserve or exceed the same measure of public disgust.

Wasteful Spending
Right, so what happened to all those government departments implicated in the Auditor General's sweep? A few low-level, mid-level executives questioned and sacked?

Imagine gallons and gallons of liquid gold spent on such essentials as:

• Screwdrivers,
• Digital cameras,
• Computers,
• Pencils, and my personal favourite
• Car jacks.

Illegal Logging
After the rape of Nanjing, our leaders probably decided to up the ante and stage:

The Rape of Lojing.

An entire mountain range was given the greatest haircut in Malaysia (Malaysian Book of Records) when a few state government officials decided to sell all the trees to loggers and plant, ostentatiously, ferns.

Yes. Those itsy-bitsy-teeny-greenish-weeds that kids (both human and animal) step-on on their way to the local municipal playground.

The White House
Not suggesting someone would go so far as to build a replica of the symbol of American democracy in Malaysia. Only going so far as to suggest flagrant flaunting of wealth and power.

So what happened to the politician who steamrollered his way to a new house and a satay restaurant sans official approval?

Apart from the now familiar official denial of any wrongdoing ("The architect did it!"), the man with a face thicker than the length of the Great Wall of China decided to invite a few dozen orphan to stay over at his new dig for one night.

Only thing he lost was his eatery, not is job.

Hmm...

Have Sex, Will Tell
This article is in no way meant to defend the good doctor from further jibes. What he did was wrong, if one subscribes to the Koran and Old Testament.

Secular-wise, he broke the unspoken laws of social propriety. Malaysian laws of social propriety.

But when left with two obvious choices, to keep quiet and his job, or to speak and get out, Dr Chua did the unthinkable.

He admitted his mistake, and left government.

That is a remarkable thing, considering Barisan Nasional could just as easily preserve his job by withholding comment anyway.

Alternative Future
Imagine this.

1. If Dr Chua kept his flap shut and asked press aides to deny everything,
2. and Badawi spoke of the lack of evidence,
3. and the press were directed to the greater issue of our floundering education system, flood mitigation tactics, the Royal Commission, and other more pressing issues,
4. Dr Chua Soi Lek would remain Health Minister.

Politics Screws the Bold
He had no charisma, but Dr Chua was a reassuring figure.

In a country that officially denies the existence of gays, lesbians, transvestites, transsexuals, bisexuals and any other word ending with -sexual, he pushed for the use of condoms; the distribution of condoms.

Whatever his fallacies, it would be prudent to note: Dr Chua's mistake did not cost the nation taxpayer money, or taxpayer time (though we all know that's not really high up on any agenda here).

I don't believe the same fingers now pointed at him can claim the same.

World Music Festival 2007

New Words: Mediumism, Aspidistra

A bit late, but this week on A Stray World, a very special weekend report.

Friday
I have never before had the opportunity to witness first-hand, world music. For years, I have had to be content with listening to remixed tribal music, African chants, and other healthy examples of culture rape on television. The most authentic world music Astro can manage are squeeze into Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel.

For example, Mongolian throat singers on Discovery Travel and Living,

But on Friday, I finally got my big break. The musicians were coming to Penang. From the fiddlers of Portland, Oregan, to the talking drums of Burkina Faso, they all came for one big all night party! To spread the music and show everyone that commercially manufactured factory idols are not the only dominant voice of sound today.

I was there by more or less 1800 hours, Quarry Gardens. It didn't take long to find the prime seats, a row of raised rubble held into a rectangular train by cement had an opening in the middle; right smack in between the two stages. As it was being held in an outdoor park, with all the inanities of Malaysian caprice, good seats were hard to come by; so it was rather surprising that no one else had filled those seats.

There were very few people around, which made me wonder whether reports of the four thousand sold tickets were merely rumours to generate hype for Visit Malaysia 2007. The sudden light drizzle drove those thoughts away, as umbrellas mushroomed from the fields.

There I stayed, watching time shoot past the scheduled opening act, which would not come until 1930 hours. One hour late.

I wouldn't patronise them by saying it was worth the wait and wetness. However, there was much one could find charming about Darsa, the East Malaysian aborigines with their unique dulcets, screams, and bird calls accompanied by traditional instruments that brought one closer to the forest and sea that they called home.

Then, before the appreciative applause died down, strange deep husky voices reverberated throughout the field. There they were, on Stage 2! The unexpected appearance of throat-singers from Tuva! The printing mistakes in the schedules were soon forgotten as the four throat-singers began their strange, alien song. Closing my eyes, I could see their voices were telling of the land of yellow grass plains, that would melt away into snow, white and warm. Then plunge into a ravine, walls of rushing water on both sides cascading into a wide river that began nowhere and ended nowhere.

I considered that my ticket price redeemed.

More goodies were to come, the energetic Solomon Island pan-pipers had arrived. They dance and played gigantic bamboo panpipes. With pulsating drums, spirited dancing, and enthusiastic singing, they started to snip loose the threads of inhibition holding the crowd from joining the festivities.

The catchy fast paced music and driven performance soon had the crowd on their feet. And with a dozen half naked dudes on stage strutting their muscular legs and tone biceps, the more party-ready portions of the audience soon made their way up front to participate in some tribal dancing.

The momentum was however, cut short by the next performance, Malay Drums. While it was an admirable performance, with an impressive demonstration of circular breathing by the serunai maestro, it was a bit of a let-down, as the crowd was quite prepared to do some much needed square-dancing to forget the drizzle that was fast becoming a storm.

Americans to the rescue! Hailing from Portland, Oregan, (now on Stage 1)the Foghorn Stringband! A mixture of Midwest, Appalachian mountain music and Bluegrass, their quick fiddling, typical spirited playing soon got the party started. Shedding all inhibitions, everyone started dancing in the rain. Everyone but those who had good seats, like me.

It didn't matter that the Americans used up a lot more time than was necessary (at close to 40 minutes), the crowd were lapping up every moment, constantly asking for more. The repetitive tunes were little to no difference from one tune to the other was however, getting on my nerves.

With a final slash of the violin, we finally left America for Italy. They kept saying Palermo, so I will hazard the Tammorra Special were from that said province on Italy as well. They kick-started the event with two HUMUNGOUS tambourines; each almost as large as the Italians playing them. I have developed quite a liking for Italian music, so it wasn't with great effort that I found myself clapping to the music.

Meanwhile, the crowd of dance addicts had made their way to Stage 2.

Unexpectedly, one of the Italians came forward with a single tambourine – a normal sized one – and began playing a TAMBOURINE SOLO! The way his hands danced around the instrument elevated the folk music status of the membranous device to the epitome of musical godhood. He made the tambourine look, and sound, cool!

Too bad they had to cut short their performance. But it was getting rather late. I can only find fault with the organizers who had started the event one hour late. The logic was understandable. Malaysians, known for inveterate procrastination, would only arrive some hours later than what was decided.

True enough, Quarry gardens was soon choke full of bipeds, some time around 2100 hours.

That didn't matter anymore, the final denouement was at hand. From Burkina Faso – Farafina!

Two gigantic xylophones that weren't xylophones, talking drums, and an assortment of other exotic instruments began to cry their ecstatic beats with melodious violence. Two of the six members, a man who did most of the speaking and singing, and a woman, playing African instruments and dancing with the frenzy of a hurricane played to the crowd.

It was a mad rush to midnight, and whatever reservations I had about missing The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya were soon overpowered by a group of black girls screaming Africa behind me.

Soon, all too soon. It was over. The end of a great party, sans disco music.

The Science Fair

As I have promised, here is a personal account on the "Karnival Pendidikan Sains dan Teknologi", the Penang state level science fair.

My team participated in the Science / Mathematics category with our product: Guava derived anti-allergen.

And now, a day-by-day account of the 4-day event.

Day 1
So here I am, at my first science fair, as a participant.

Okay, it's a lie. If you read the Medicinal Plants Discovery Award (MPDA) entry, you can safely presume this to be my second science fair as a participant. The difference this time? There are more competitors from almost every renowned and wannabe-renown school in Penang.

Unlike the closed door MPDA competition, the JPN Science Fair was conducted in a large hall packed full of the participating schools, their products, and scientific stuff from Petroscience (ergo, brain teasers and other cool stuff. The most impressive being the gigantic gyroscope for a human victim).

Unlike the almost American Idol-like presentation for the MPDA, we were allowed to do our presentations in our native habitat, informally and in English. The judges would skulk from one stall to another, patiently hearing the participants out before skewing them with sharpened spears of interrogative questioning, aiming their violent weapons at the weakest link of the armour.

Thankfully, I thrive under pressure. Nothing gets my blood pumping, my heart racing, and my brain juices boiling, bubbling, and bursting like a group of adults with hard-hitting questions. Yes, all those episodes of House, Xplay, and Anthony Bourdain were finally paying off.

The day started off with us packing all our lab equipment into a school bus. There were only 10 of us and they booked a school bus. Not since the last few days before the SPM have I had so much leg-room to share with my fellow students.

That's the only prominent part of the trip so to spare you the burden of reading my descriptions of the hazy oceans, I will dive into the science fair itself.

There wasn't really much good I can say about our fellow competitors, then again, there is not much good I can say about our product either. But boiling used cooking oil until it becomes sap? (Are you serious?) Statistical data on the SPM results for Mathematics? (My brain just dissolved from incredulity)

There were a few exceptions. But the only one I can truly say was impressive enough to warrant an award was the team from Penang Free School that made paint (as in Nippon, ICI kind of paint) from milk.

Anyway, the judges swung by sometime close to 1200hrs and we proceeded to give a five minute dissertation on why we should win first prize. The judges then challenged our application with questions about the accuracy of our data, the active compounds within our product, and a dozen other questions which were as easily shot down as giant alien mosquitoes with machine guns.

After that ordeal, we did nothing more but await the thronging visitors who would occasionally chance upon our booth. Then, we took turns explaining how our product was created, its reason of existence, and why it will not attain enlightenment.

Just before leaving, some people holding a certain cultured-milk-drink laminated logo swung by our stall to hear us out, while placing the said laminated paper right smack in the middle of our stall. Blatant advertisement aside, I expect to see some form of royalty if they decide to use the picture for promotional purposes.

The final denouement. The chief judge came by our stall and asked us to give our product's presentation once more. Except, it had to be done by one person within three minutes, using a voice recorder. Whether or not it was within three minutes I will never know, but this anomaly in human behaviour means only one thing...

We may be competing for the top prize!

Day 2
The day began differently. Instead of heading to school, I travelled over to my teacher's apartment block. I met up with two of my juniors who were also participating in the science fair in the engineering category.

The teacher swung by in her multi-purpose-vehicle and off we went to Institut Latihan Perindustrian Kepala Batas.

Wait, have we forgotten something? Damn! My two lab partners!

No, we aren't that forgetful. They had to sit for a paid-for mathematics assessment test. So off I went alone across the haze strewn landscape, where the sky and the sea merged into a single amorphous cloud of indistinguishable white.

Fickleness in choosing our parking gave us a few laughs as we passed the scouts who were out under the cloudy sun directing traffic.

Stepping into the hall, I quickly went about the task of re-establishing our base. Construction of the filtration and distillation apparatus was completed in a heartbeat, and before I could even set my roots into a quiet spot to browse through the latest issue of Nipponia, two middle-aged ladies came by and made inquiries.

Not soon after I have attended to them, explaining the various processes and uses involved in our experiments, more people shuffled by to listen. Very soon, I found myself in an unrelenting marathon session of talks about antihistamine and steam distillation, guava and quercetin, and anything else that was relevant to the project.

It was hot, humid, and cramped. I was soon soaked all over until two Malay ladies who had come by to ask about our product flapped their booklets at me in a futile attempt to decrease my core body temperature. I was sweating so profusely, a primary school student said I was melting to a friend. Believe me, this could have been the funniest thing to happen all morning.

Somewhere in between, a Malay lady strode towards me and asked for my teacher and lab partners. While I would have sincerely wished to say my lab partners had lost their way and were now in Kuala Lumpur, I forgot the Malay words for some reason and therefore told the truth; they were going to be late but were on the way.

Anyway, the lady wanted me to pass on a message to my teacher advisor, which I did through my pet pigeon, Nokia 1100. She couldn't hear me over the loud noise blaring over the speakers, and strained her poor bleeding legs back to our stall. I passed the message and she asked whether the lady had talked to the other school teachers. I replied in the negative.

Conclusion 1: We were going to receive at least, a consolation prize.

Some time later, she came back, and broke the news. Against all the odds of racism and favouritism, we won... First Place. Well, first in our category anyway.

My initial response, continue my presentation to a bunch of primary school kids on our project. In fact, the steady amount of visitors to our stall prevented me from relaying the message of our victory to my partners who were rushing over from the island.

Not long after my partners turned up, the judges came by and gave us possibly the most beautifully ugly laminated pink paper with the number “1” printed in bold. This we proudly stuck onto the retort stand holding a filter funnel.

Somewhere in between the excitement, I decided to pay an impromptu visit to Chung Ling High School Butterworth. They had fashioned a rubbish bin that used a light sensor to control a sliding lid. Sound familiar? Well, rubbish bins that automatically open their maws to swallow our gunk have been making their sinister appearance on silver screens worldwide since the advent of sci-fi films.

Not that I am demeaning them. The design was quite ingenious. The concept simple. Like an iPod Shuffle with only the “Play” button attached. And the circuitry combining a permanent magnet with a electromagnet to control the sliding lid was inspired. They thoroughly deserved their category's first place.

That is, if you actually took the time to look at what the other "engineers" came up with. A cylinder that digs holes? Haven't they been to a golf course, or at least watch one being built on tv?

Since the Butterworth boys gave us the tour of their project, it was only natural for us to invite them over to view our project. Just as I was getting into my stride explaining the uses of our product, our teacher advisor literally dragged me and another member of my team far, far away from our booth – leaving our team leader to continue the explanation.

She then proceeded to give me an LSD (Little Stupid Dream) induced berating about my apparent attempts to sabotage our chances of winning the overall prize. When I tried to explain the importance of treating your competitors as friends, she got into her 100-tonne truck of stubborn resolve and drowned me out by accusations of “not enjoying the pleasures of life” and threats upon my person if I somehow screw her chances of ever leading an overall champion winning team, by inviting our fellow finalists to view our product.

The rather painful tugging on my sleeves by the sudden vice-like grip of my teacher advisor only made the situation more hilarious than dangerous.

I admit, it would be nice to win. But seeing as I have lost countless times in countless competitions, I tend to treat victory exactly like defeat. With the lingering fact of legal racism practised in this country, I would rather eat my own vomit than thank the event organisers sincerely from the bottom of my heart for winning something.

So what does that leave me with? New friends and new lessons.

And although I was stuck in the same car, I got my chance to have a good laugh at my teacher advisor when she took a wrong turn on the highway home – heading to Kuala Lumpur instead of Penang.

Day 3
To school first. We have a presentation to perform.
Then, by car to the fair.
Haze, still there.
At the fair , we talked and talked,
Until my voice grated like chalk.
The end.

Day 4
Finally, it will be finished, over, and done with.

We arrived early for a change, and by bus too. It was the day one of us would receive a championship shield, and we wouldn't want to offend the organisers with our tardiness.

A few schools still sent teams to the fair, although most of the stalls were no longer manned, as it was the last day of the event. Even though we didn't need to, I gave talks on the scientific aspects of our product to students who swung by our stall.

They came all the way from somewhere far, far away. It would be a pity if they left with nothing.

About half-an-hour after we arrived at the hall, I was ushered away from our stall into the auditorium located a hundred metres away. There, we witnessed and experience first-hand the extreme efficiency of the event organisers in carrying out their duties.

We were first seated to the side. Then asked to vacate our seats. After we were placed at another row of seats to the middle-front, we were once more chased away by the man armed with poor-planning to another row somewhere to the side.

I would love to continue the story here, but we were asked once more to vacate our seats.

Then, once all the schools were gathered into the auditorium, we were given the honour of kick-starting the final round of presentations. Boy, it sure feels good to finally do a live presentation in English!

A round of applause later, and we were back in our seats, taking pot-shots at the other teams presenting their products. Among them, an apparent “Geneva competitor” with their innovative Nobel-prize winning product, the “Integrated Recycling Rubbish Bin”, which was nothing more than six multi-coloured hexagonal wooded bins nailed together.

Remember that article in The Star a few months ago that reported on the wasteful spending by certain universities? Those geniuses who send send their Nobel-prize hopefuls to scientific competitions in Geneva? Where the number of Malaysian participants make up the largest single group of entries from one nation?

Anyway, the apparent “innovators” came on stage to show us all pictures of them making the coffins... sorry, I mean Integrated Recycling Rubbish Bin, in the school workshop. The two boys, who barely exceeded the height of the chair they sat upon before being summoned on stage had participated in the fair by showing everyone the glorious letters of approval they had received from various Malaysian institutions of higher learning.

Let's see. If two boys small enough to play Hobbit #25 & Hobbit #26 can win approvals from their peers for creating a more inefficient waste collection system, and given first prize at some Malaysian inventions competition in Kuala Lumpur, I really don't want to know what their fellow competitors did to lose.

So, after the two boys finished their unnecessarily long presentation, they began showing us the glorious pieces of paper awarded to them for their “innovation”.

Funnily enough, it didn't end right there. The chief judge of the science fair, Dr Fong came onto stage after them to heap what seemed like high praise on the two Geneva bound boys. However, if one read between the odd pauses between the praises, one could almost hear the poisonous sarcasm leaking from the fine suit of professionalism that held Dr Fong back. He went on to ask all participants to emulate the two boys in commercialising their product, and then went on and on about how godlike the two were.

More speeches and a toilet run later, the painful “cenderahati istimewa” process began. Try as I may, I can't imagine M.I.T. giving prises to competition organisers, judges, and sponsors for doing their job.

After what seemed like an eternity of self praise, the actual prize giving ceremony was carried out in due fashion. But alas! Another flaw.

I am all for encouraging our children to go forth and (add suitable action here). However, to award prizes for coming in at 7^th place?

This was after all, a multi-category science fair, and it was the last day. One would expect the prize giving ceremony to be a quick, dignified affair. Not an example of the Malaysian mentality – the tendency to award mediocrity.

Long story short, we lost the overall prize shoot-out. Chung Ling Butterworth trumped us with a dustbin that has the magical ability to open its lid automatically when it senses changes in light intensity.

Meaning?

A product which applies the basic principles of an airport glass door defeated an alternative source of anti-allergen.

What can I say?

On CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Gil Grissom once said to a bemused Catherine Willows: “Bugs always win.” In science fairs, Grissom would be the bespectacled kid among ant farms; while Willows would be the kid with the volcano.

Oh well... Here in Malaysia, “Stuff that makes us lazier win.”

Of Herbs Squenched

This week, a special report on the Medicinal Plant Discovery Award competition.

Your humble servant, this faceless writer of numerous English articles has performed what could easily be described as the unthinkable. Like an American doughnut seller frying char koay teow. Not since the Chinese story telling competition in Primary 3 have I willingly participated in a project that required me to speak perfect, lucid, fluent, perfect, grammatical-error-free, Chinese.

Throughout most of this year, I have been spending a significant amount of my time preparing reports for the said competition. The objective: to build a health product or medicine from any local plant. The limitations placed upon us were that it be an original product, and its mode of application, external.

You may imagine that would be a humongous undertaking. To do what the gigantic pharmaceutical industry does every day every day with the nonchalance of a hungry lumberjack in the forest. We, with an exhaustive supply of research papers, decided to use the guava by sifting through dozens of wide-ranging reports before a cursory description of paste made from the said fruit caught our eye.

Before anyone accuses us of plagiarism, allow me to point out the original report amounted to nothing more than the boiling of fruit juice with the cellulose remnants of the fruit until it attained a gel-like consistency. We took our cue from the slightly exaggerated description of the guava's medicinal properties.

As with any organic substance, heat easily denatures the biological substances within the guava. That was one among many flaws we pointed out in the report which incidentally, didn't provide any empirical data on the effectiveness of the guava derived product as a medical cream.

Countless hours were spent perfecting the processes involved. It began with an ambitious bid to imitate the cream-like substance from the report which inspired us. Unfortunately, we had no expert help in the matter so we pretty much threw various (expensive) substances together with the haphazardness of rats among a hundred different French cheeses. The Internet, gave various details on the steps we needed to take to create a guava cream; and as detailed as the instructions were, we failed to create the light, creamy lotion we hoped to obtain.

This was where Occam's Razor came into play. Instead of creating a terrific product from complex instruction and expensive chemicals in a high school lab with equipment older than the family car; we simplified our steps and curtailed our ambitious pursuits to focus on creating a respectably effective product from high school lab equipment older than the Pentium Celeron.

The product was quickly derived and the report sent between nerve-wrecking exams, concerned parents, worried teachers, and relatively horrible exam results on my part. Not long after the entire melodrama of the first season, the networks renewed our series and we found ourselves in Kuala Lumpur for the finals.

I cursed my bad luck when the call came in telling us we needed to do the entire presentation of our project in Chinese, if we wanted to win. After risking my life by staying up till the wee hours of the morning to get myself stung by Aedes mosquitoes, testing the products on the bumps produced, compiling the English report, and designing the English presentation (which had to be presented using PowerPoint), I didn't find the Chinese language request foisted upon us with the brazen rudeness of Simon Cowell in a gay and lesbian convention singing “You Will Never Walk Alone” as their drunk induced theme very pleasing at all.

After all the public railings (by public, I meant me) against the organizers, the entire presentation was translated and given a face-lift while I attempted to give a credible delivery in a language I have good reason to avoid like a prostitute dressed as a drunken clown.

My team was awfully patient with me. Embarrassment. Supreme, unsurpassed embarrassment is the perfect phrase describing my initial attempts. Finally, on the day we should all be departing for Kuala Lumpur, the teacher and my partners finally teamed up to give me three-to-one voice coaching lessons. The entire morning was not wasted as I finally hit my stride.

I took on the lecturing parlance of a China Central Television (CCTV) and Phoenix TV talk show host. Trust me, it's less embarrassing to to talk like a pretentious, loud oaf than stutter around my materials enough to get me nominated for the Chinese version of Forest Gump.

Friday was a blur of motion, sights, sounds, touch and smell as we rumbled towards KL on one of many commercial buses plying the North-South expressway. Evening traffic jams, taxis and LRTs phased in and out of existence until the final foot powered travel to the First Business Inn. This block of glass and stone, as with many other hotels with ostentatious names, failed to reflect the “First” title bestowed upon it.

It was a two-a-room arrangement in a three by three by three box with lighting that would be as illuminating as Edison's first light bulb. The showers were confusing in their lack of instructions which resulted in two consecutive cold showers at dusk and dawn. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner though not gastronomical art by any lengths of imagination, were delicious and generously served. Considering the entire affair was fully paid for by the event organizers, is was absolutely perfect.

The luck of the draw placed both teams from my school in consecutive order, right before morning tea. Needless to say, we spent all of Friday night and Saturday morning rehearsing our presentation. Nervous wreck wouldn't be the words to describe my state of mind. Silent resignation would be more apt. As with all pessimists, I became more fluent in my part of the presentation the less I thought of my chances of winning.

And by the damnation of fate, somehow I managed to pull it off.

Saturday morning was thereafter irrelevant, and the evening was spent roaming Times Square with my project members. One of whom unexpectedly, turned out to be an avid collector of soft drink bottles and cans. Yes, such a hobby does exist. And according to the animated proprietor of the speciality Coca-Cola store, there are only two such stores in all of Malaysia. And he was the proud owner of both.

Rain poured with the exact intensity of the storms back home in Penang. But somehow, they seem louder in KL. Scientifically speaking, it's probably because of the abundance of concrete, zinc, and aluminium taking the blunt of the raindrops. I prefer to think of it as karma-inspired drumming by the forces of nature.

The evening faded with the heavy rain, and dusk led to the hall of some primary school large enough to fit a aboriginal settlement. There, we feasted among thousands of others upon generous portions of food, water, tea, herbal drinks, herbal vodka, herbal biscuits and herbal sweets. The fact it was organised by the same people behind the Medicinal Plant Discovery Award competition meant the event was peppered with various vendors endorsing diverse products seemingly built out of bizarre uncommon fruit and plant parts. But who would complain when highly competitive vendors despatch overly-friendly ladies in shorts tiny enough to double as underwear.

The results came in. And we, incredulously, won third place. Our juniors won second. Of course, I was probably the only one who felt the essential feelings of disbelief that lend me my personality. I felt our product wasn't really that good. However, the others could not be any happier, which makes me happy for them.

Saturday was driven out of the drains with the pressure of the nights cold to hot shower. Then, a night of celebration by staying up all night with the juniors who had invited some female company. Needless to say, I stayed out of their conversation to concentrated on the go puzzles I have yet to finish even after one year.

The company turned in sometime after 3.00 a.m. Breakfasted at 8, then launched ourselves to Penang. A four hour journey home that was eventful by the artfully carved mountains we passed as we headed North on the expressway. The journey has ended, and we have won something. I suppose I should be satisfied.