My Career In Pictures

Book Club

I am reading Edith Wharton’s The Reef . I then realised that there is not much time left to read. There are millions of books out there that I will never have read. Sigh. Attempted to start a book club. Failed. Alright, semi-failed: we started it but never finished. I have decided to read the classics. So far, I have read Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur and currently half-way through Cervantes’ Don Quixote. I tried to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Twice. Failed. And that is the translated version. I really should make a list of books to read for next year. It is just a few weeks away. I need to make a lot of lists. I like lists. Books to read. Presents to buy for Christmas. Languages to learn. Business plans to write. Stuff to do before I die. Acquire new skills. Change the freaking world. Lord! This sounds suspiciously like a new year’s resolution. Which reminds me of Angela Chase (played by the strangely depressed but still hot Claire Danes) from My So-Called Life who wrote in her diary: “This new year I shall resolve to be… (tapping a pencil on her mouth and continuing) … less introspective.” Maybe I should do that.

Wan Azhar's Day Off

Had a day off from work today. Forced by my employers but I was very willing participant. So, I managed to kill off one more credit card today. I even made a list. Woke up really early too: 6.00am. Rode my bike around the neighbourhood. Lifted some iron. Then I went to Citibank and cancelled my credit card. It was somewhat liberating.

The year is almost over and interestingly I am still alive though everyday I am slowly losing my mind. Oh there it is. After the bank thing I did something crazy: I went to Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. It was damn embarrassing to go there and not really knowing why I was there. Okay, I knew why I was there but it was kind of hard to articulate to Security what I wanted without sounding pretentious and stupid all at the same time.

Thank god I was in a good mood. Because trying to do the thing I wanted to do seemed to be hindered every step of the way. Or it could be perceived so to the untrained and demotivated. Which by the way I qualify almost every other day. Firstly, the road to KL is jammed. But we all knew that. Secondly, I was cutting it a bit close with the lunch hour. Any later and I could have missed my appointment with a very important but unknown entity at DBP. Thirdly, I could not get to the place because the roads were closed. I had to park all the way across the street near that spooky grave yard behind the ugliest building ever: Menara MAA. Next hurdle, I had to explain to the Security at Menara DBP, which by the way is even uglier and rather big, why I was there. As usual, they are not sure where I should go. So they sent me to the 13^th floor. In retrospect, it did sound ominous. No one was there. I wonder what is their business model. Then at last someone showed up who directed me to the 19^th floor. There again I was told to go to the 22^nd floor and eventually 11^th Floor.

By that time I had the hang of explaining what I wanted to do: Publish my novel. Sigh. See? It is so pretentious. They asked me a question: Is my novel complete? No. I want to know how do I get it published, sounding more stupid every minute. Plus I sound alien when I speak Malay. Sheesh. Finally, a lady came over to assist me.

Alright, here is what I must do: Finish my manuscript and submit to DBP. They will assess whether my work is publishable. If yes then they will help with editing. If not then they will return the manuscript to me. All this apparently takes up to a year. Sounds simple enough. She then gave me a pamphlet and contact details of an officer who organizes workshops for writers. I need help. In more ways than one. After that little adventure my walk back to the car seemed anticlimatic.

After, I tried to find a place to eat lunch which had wifi. Failed. So, I ended up at home and went to sleep. I feel like I wasted this whole day. Maybe I should continue writing that book…

Public Phones Vandalism

In 2002, the two then payphone operators in the country, Telekom Malaysia Berhad (“TM”) and Time Reach Sdn Bhd (“TR”), lost a total of RM48 million to fraud and vandalism. TR and TM operate 42,000 and 80,000 pay phones respectively. This means that for every phone they are making a loss of approximately RM393.

Personally, I think the shareholders of TM and TR should consider giving away handphone (which cost less than RM100 nowadays) to registered foreign workers and tourists. Make sure that everyone in this country owns a handphone. Then there would be no need to service these pay phones and mitigate vandalism and frauds. Instead, TM and TR should set up handphone recharging sites/booths at strategic locations. This will solve the problem of foreigners and tourists not having access to telephones in this country.

Secondly, TM and TR should set up kiosks at convenience stores such as 7-Elevens and petrol kiosks that allow free use of skype as an emergency tool. Without public pay phones, this will allow the other segment of the population to still communicate: those who forgot to bring their phones.

Third and finally, TM and TR should give away phones to lower income families. Using these phones, users will have to listen to a short advertisement before making their free call. This will cater to those who use pay phones because they cannot afford one.

In short, forget the stupid public pay phones, they are mostly eyesores and do not even work. So why bother? Even AT&T, the American telecommunications behemoth is getting out of this stupid business.

Teresa's Birthday

My camera died. So no more pictures. Organized a birthday party at Laundry again. Gosh! The music sucked this time around. Mainly because the DJ sucked. Sigh! Last year's was better. Happy birthday, Old Bitch! Still Sexy!