2 in 1: Happy 50th and New Piece by Ifo

That's for my country. Happy 50th Malaysia Day! Well, despite that I'm not entirely independent (part of me still colonized, frankly speaking), I'm really proud of being Malaysian. 

Growing up, I feel so proud living in Malaysia. "Malaysia Truly Asiaaaaa....." the radio played. Gorgeous views, beautiful people, SALE, harmonious land where its people of different races, cultures and religion live side by side with each other; the TV showed me. It made me realize how amazing Malaysia is. The text books said so too and well, I see that in school too where kids regardless of race or their skin color, played with each other.

And then I grew up. I saw many awful things. So many racism happening, so many conflicts with the politics, how the government brainwashed us to think that we're perfect, we are ONE, and so on. We have one of the worst human rights issue, we don't recognize refugees and treated them badly, MORE RACISM, we have 1st class infrastructure but 3rd class mentality..the list goes on. 

But don't let me kill whatever love or hope you have towards Malaysia just yet, because despite all these flaws that we face, no countries, even its people, are perfect. Malaysia is not that bad after all. We can praise other countries for their development and crazy technology and kick ass government service, but at the end of the day, home's where the heart is. You can't reject something that you're born into just because it's not 100% perfect. I hate Malaysians who go around talking about Malaysia and praising other countries. Seriously. If you're not happy with Malaysia, migrate, change your nationality, live there, rot there and die there, and then you realize how it's not all perfect there too. It's the whole "grass is greener on the other side" mentality. What you see's not always true.

I love Malaysia. It's not perfect, yes, I have to agree, but it's home and that's the only place where you're treated warmly and with open hands. If you're in other country, who knows what kind of treatment you'd get because well, you're not one of their own. Having said that, it doesn't mean that we can just shut up and go about life as if nothing is wrong with our home. There's a lot of wrongs here and we need to fix it. We must do something to change the future of our nation. So come on, lighten up! Live life to the fullest and stop being such a killjoy! 

And by the way, I'd like to share some pieces by our local talents with you, lovelies. My man, Ifo, has composed 2 new songs entitled Luka and Aramaiti. The songs were sang by our dear friend Rizal and the music's amazingly arranged by Icco, and the whole thing is immensely supported by The Baks. They totally made it! You'll love it, I promise. Enjoy the songs!

LUKA

[Verse 1]

Semalaman ku berfikirkan tentang kita berdua

Ku anggap kau dan aku selalu saling merindu

Purnama takkan berkekalan selamanya

Kita juga begitu

Ku ingin kau tahu

Kau cuba melupa, ku cuba fahami semuanya

Adakah kita kan bahagia seperti dulu?

Segala memori indah kita bersama

Semua menjadi palsu

Ku ingin kau tahu

[Chorus]

Oh

Ku terluka, ku terluka

Melihat kau disana bersama dia

Ku taruhkan, ku taruhkan

Segala harapan kita yang telah kau hapuskan

[Verse 2]  

Ku menangis seorangan, kau gembira bersamanya

Tidak terlintas walau sesaat kau ingatkan ku

Dipukul ombak pilu ku kenang senyummu

Tapi bukan untukku

Apakah kau tahu

[Chorus]  

Ohh 

Apa yang ku lakukan

hanya untukmu sayang

Inikah yang ku trima?

Kau pergi tanpa kata

 Mungkin ini suratan

Ku redha ketentuan

Ku hanya ingin kau tahu sayang

[Chorus]

Ooooooh (3X)

Kau hapuskan

  

ARAMAITI

[VERSE 1]

Ku bangun ku terima mesej

Dari mu kata kau minta putus

Ku terus mandi buat tak peduli

Padahal hati sunggulah sedih

Kawanku datang kerumahku

Singgah pinjam baju

Bilangnya padaku

[CHORUS]

Jangan kau resah

Semua pasti okay

Lupakan semua duka

Kita bersama bergembira, Aramaiti!

Mari kita merasa

Muda selamanya

Selamanya!

[Verse 2] 

Ku ke tempat kerja

Bos terus marah marah

Semua pun tak kena

aku pun boleh gila

Kawanku datang kepejabatku

Singgah hantar baju

bilangnya padaku

[CHORUS]

Sweet Evil in the Cup

From the alarm clock to a traffic jam on your way to work or you-know-where, there are many pretty morbid experiences in the morning. Embodying these morning moods, here's an idea for you to literally throw in some skulls into your morning coffee. Yep, you can make that coffee 100% sinister by adding these amazing skull and cross bones sugar cubes to your cup. These skulls are created by the brilliantly creative mind and fingers of designer Snow Violent.

Can you imagine looking down into your coffee and having the skull staring back at you? You watch as the bones float and bob in your cup slowly dissolving in the murky darkness of your cup. Now that's the way to start the day. Lol. But make sure your guests know your sense of humor before you sweeten their coffee with these. :p

HomeTuitionJob.com: Teach and Learn

According to my own experience, I know that students are different and perform differently at home and in schools; differ in behavior,  learning and grasping power. Some students are very brilliant and some others need extra attention and help to show their true performances. But relying on teachers at school alone to help improving scores especially on difficult subjects won't sometimes be enough. I had this kind of problem when I was in school. I can't either depend on my parents that always thought education is the key to successful life but didn't have enough time to teach me as they're both working. So they sent me to tuition and I took some subjects that I was weak in, and yes, it helped and I scored great in SPM.

Home tuition or in Bahasa, tuisyen has become necessary for all students; as brilliant student have to compete and keep the pace of getting good scores, while the weak ones have to struggle hard in getting good marks. It is helpful in imparting the knowledge and interest in students and they're able to get maximum benefits from this home tuition. It also will help them build confidence and hence speed up their learning process, which is important for students to discover the most effective way of learning so that they could excel in life. With home tuition, the parents can keep track of performance of their kids and get in touch with the tutors directly to see the progress.

HomeTuitionJob.com is a great website that matches tutors and students in a wide area of learning beyond academic subjects. With this website, parents or students could simply search tutors by gender, location or subjects. The tutors' details are mostly attached with photos, so parents and students would want to know more about the tutors before deciding to engage their tutoring services. This is one of the ideal ways for students to be excellent in both primary and secondary schools, especially for those who will be sitting for UPSR and SPM. This home tuition is not only trending in Malaysia, but it also has expanded to India and Singapore.

While providing benefits to parents and students, HomeTuitionJob.com is also a source of side incomes as it opens a job opportunity for everyone as tutors. I would love to take the chance too, but with my final year of degree and thesis going on, I don't think I could have a part time job yet. So, for anyone out there who wants to teach, help the younger ones, or anyone that wants to have experience in teaching, go sign up at HomeTuitionJob.com .

You can watch the video of introduction to HomeTuitionJob.com and you'll see how it can help you.

Learning is a lifelong process, education stops when you leave schools. Education is what other teach you, learning is what you teach yourself. 

When Hard Work is a Joy

Food Product Development (FPD) is one of the subjects that I take for this semester. As a part of assessments, we're divided into teams to establish companies and develop new innovative food products. My team, Yummy Kids World Sdn Bhd have developed soy pancakes, namely Yummy Tummy Pancake, and yes, we're targeting on children since we fell under category of food for 5 to 6 year-old kids. This is the reason I spent most times in labs and to be frank, it's the most challenging subject so far. All of us have worked so hard until the day of FPD Exhibition and Competition 2012, which was yesterday at our faculty (School of Food Science and Nutrition). 

The event was a collaboration between faculty and Adabi Consumer Industries Sdn Bhd. So the judges of competition consisted of our lecturers and Adabi team including the president of Adabi, Mr Abdul Hady. The products include soy pancakes (ours), instant cereal drink, sweet potato brown rice crackers (best booth), spinach biscuits, breakfast cereals, energy bars (2nd place), mix chicken cake (3rd place), chicken-filled croquette (best product - 1st place), ravioli with dhal paste, chicken balls, seaweed and hinava flavored pizza, and fish patties. I loved them all.

The judges went from booth to booth for product testing and judging, which was both nerve-wrecking and exciting. They gave us constructive feedback including comments and suggestions, and we're delighted when one of lecturers praised us saying "I've never tasted such a delicious pancake before. Your pancake is even better than the ones that are served in hotels. I love it and if I were you, I'll take the challenge to sell this product in future." Touché! ^^

Even though we only won the consolation prize, it's still a joyful day. Besides, we didn't expect to win at all because the bottom line is that we wanted to learn and have more experiences for future's sake. And yes, I've learned so many things and had fun in so many ways. I enjoyed working with my team and together we've made unforgettable memories. We've also had so much fun with other teams and been very supportive all this time. Congrats to my friends who won and I'm wishing the best for all of us in next chapters. 

our developed food products.

my team: Yummy Kids World Sdn Bhd

we made it!

they won The Best Booth.

me and Umi, my best friend and one of the team members that won The Best Product .

with my Chinese friends.

It's fun to be a food technologist. ^^

We Do What We Do

This is the best way to describe my field, because most people, even my family, thought it's all about cooking. We're not chefs, we're food technologists. 

Have a great time. I love you. ^^

P.S: Ramesh Kumar, whoever and wherever you are, the infographic is so cool, thank you for making it.