Wedding Bliss

I had the pleasure of attending a wedding of a very good friend of mine today. He had the solemnization ceremony on Friday and the bride’s reception on Saturday. I only have the opportunity to attend today’s reception because I was at another wedding in Ipoh yesterday.

I think, the best thing about attending a wedding is when it is the wedding of your good friend. And I guess, I have never felt happier when I see the bride and groom at a wedding then I was today when I saw him and his wife for the first time at the reception.

To the bride and groom, may Allah bless your marriage with lots of love and joy. I am so happy for the two of you.

Welcome 2010

Goodbye 2009 and Hello 2010. This entry may be 5 days late but I’m going to post it anyway.

One year had passed, and what have I accomplished in 2009?

If someone were to ask me what 2009 is to me? I would say it is a career year. I know that I started working in 2008 but for six months between August 2008 and February 2009, I was actually under Management Trainee Programme at my company. Therefore, in true meaning of being employed, I started my career as an investment analyst in 2009. It actually feels nice when people ask you what do you do? And you are able to say, “I’m an investment analyst.”

In 2009, I had my first vacation using my own hard-earned money. In August, I went to Siem Reap, Cambodia for a 4-day-trip with my friends. It was actually nice to know that you pay for your holiday with your own money.

2009 ended with my 2-week vacation in Mumbai, India. I think the holiday in Mumbai is a perfect way to end 2009 as my Career Year. I had a great time there and seriously, after spending 14 days there, I have to say that I really appreciate that I am born a Malaysian. I also bought a nice gift for myself to mark the year 2009 and I hope and pray for a better year in 2010.

There are a lot more things that I wanted to achieve in 2009 but did not materialise. I pray that these things will become reality in 2010. If 2009 is a career year, 2010 will be more on my personal life. I pray to ALLAH for a better year in 2010 and may my hope and dreams become reality this year.

Arrogant Politician.

I am disgusted by the arrogance shown by the Prime Minister in his speech yesterday. He was commenting on the call for a particular minister to resign for underperforming his duties. While I am indifference as to the minister’s performance, I felt shocked that the Prime Minister’s remarks that his decisions cannot be questioned. He went on to say that as the Prime Minister, he knows what is best for the country and therefore no one can ever doubt his decisions. He also went as far as saying that as the Prime Minister, it is his to right to decide whatever he deems fit for the people.

Mainstream media describe the Prime Minister’s statement as charismatic. I describe it as downright arrogant.

In short, the Prime Minister is describing himself as a prophet, who is sent by God for the betterment of mankind – or in this case, the Malaysians. Therefore, people are supposed to just sit quietly and listen to whatever he is saying and obey his decree to the letter.

To give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, he might have meant something else, but the words that he had chosen pictured him just like what I had described earlier.

I hope he does realize that he is not elected as a Prime Minister by Malaysians. He was elected by a handful of warlords to lead a political party that happens to lead a coalition of parties. And none of that matters if he was not elected as a representative for his constituency.

And honestly, please stop thinking as if you know what’s best for the people because to tell you the truth, you don’t.

S****D Politicians.

When are they going to realize this? It does not matter who brought, stepped, and spat on the cow head. It does not matter if they are UMNO members. It does not matter if they are PKR members. It does not matter if they are PAS member. It does not matter if they are DAP, MCA, MIC members. What matters is, the media has their pictures and videos. What matters is, from those pictures and videos, we can charge them in court. What matters is that the court has to find them guilty and they have to be punished.

I personally do not give a damn from which party they came from. I especially do not give a damn if they are not even residences of Section 23. But I give a damn if they are not punished for their insensitive actions. So please stop all these drama on which party was behind the whole thing because that is not even the issue at hand.

Our politicians have this habit of deviating from the real issue at hand. That is one trademark – apart from corrupted – of our politicians that I despise so much.

Merdeka. Are We Really?

Happy Merdeka Day.

After 52 years of independence, we still have not moved from not respecting other races and religions. This year’s Merdeka Day was tarnished by an appalled act by some residences of a certain city in Malaysia. I can try to understand the frustration of the residences over the plan to build a Hindu Temple within the vicinity of their homes. But, does that justify their actions? I seriously do not think so, especially the Hindus are not the party to blame in this issue. The Hindus in the area has as much rights as their Muslim neighbours for a place of worship. That is one fact that no one could deny.

But, it is the authority that has the power to decide where and the places of worship can and cannot be built. Of course this is a delicate matter, but an intelligent authority would definitely be able to handle this matter swiftly without this turned into a racial issue. I honestly have no solution because I have no access to population data of the area. And I certainly cannot use the data provided by the media because the numbers are contradicting. Some media says that Hindus’ population is only less then 10%, some says it is more than a third. The truthfulness of the data can only be answered by the local authority. They should know it at the back of their head.

I’m not going to argue whether the temple should be built or not because that is not my job. But I do feel that the super-insensitive act by the residences few days ago is sickening. How could people who claimed to be well-educated do something like that?

I also feel disgusted by Pakatan Rakyat leaders’ statement that kept on blaming UMNO as the party behind the demonstration. Don’t they see what is happening? It does not matter who was behind it because that would not solve the problem. They failed to see that this issue has become quite deep and needs quick solution. Instead, they chose to blame other people. Granted, let us just say UMNO was indeed behind it. Does that solve the problem? No.

From the way I see it, the authority has two choices. Either go back to the grass root and explain why the construction of the temple was approved or they could halt the plan altogether. Both options have its own repercussion and as a government, it is impossible to keep everyone happy. But the most important thing is, go and resolve the issue and stop blaming other people. Regardless it was your fault or not, wouldn’t it be better if you actually became part of the solution?

In the mean time, whoever that was in the demonstration the other day, shame on you! There was nothing Islamic about what you did. Shame on you!