Friday, November 30, 2012

Ermmm... oh! Ermmm... oh! Ermmm... oh!! OK!

"Captain America : Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you? 

Tony Stark : Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." - The Avengers (2012)


Steve Rogers (Captain America) really should ask more, "take that off too, who are you?". The problem of being Stark is that, yes he is a genius and all, but if he wasn't a billionaire, if his father wasn't a billionaire, would he be more than just a genius? Heck, would he even be a genius??

To describe a man, it's easy to look into all the positive aspect that are obvious on the man and used it as the definition of him; Tony Stark, a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist and an Iron Man. But what about the other aspect? The negative one??

Would you rather loved someone because of his goodness or because of his weakness? Yes! I would rather choose the former too...

But what if, to know the true you, you have to combine both quality, and then ask the person closed to you, do you still matter to them? What if you know the darkest secret and the weakest point of my life, would you still look at me with the same eyes?

"I would never know, myself until I do this on my own,
I would never feel anything else, until my wound was heal,
I would never being, anything till I break away from me,
I will break away, I FIND MYSELF TODAY..."

-Somewhere I Belong, Linkin Park, 2002-

So, in order to find myself today, I will write (almost) entirely about me, just to conclude the bad things and the weakest point of me, also to highlight how that all the positive things about me maybe just a mere cover up or all the negative side of it. I don't know. You (readers) can be judge of it, if you like...

***

My full name is *talkIZcheap - has been censored, ha-HA!* It's mean the 'Honourable Praised' or 'Kehormatan yang Terpuji' in Malay. I was born on 25th July 1985, a second child of now, 8 siblings. I have an older brother. Funny things about me is that I never have a photograph of myself under the age of 3 years old, or maybe 4. There's one photo at my house that, according to the date of the photo taken, it should be me, but it was too wide angle that nobody can recognize the face. Not even my mother!

I had a rather normal upbringing of a middle class family, I guess. Since I've been living with one family only, I think it wasn't appropriate of me to make a comparison. But like any siblings, we have our siblings rivalry, it's normal I guess. But I hate my brother. He is a very definition of a little Hitler. A dictator himself, even at times, up until now! Everybody else in my siblings hate him, even though I can be annoying at times to my little sisters and brother, nobody really hates anyone else  coz we're seldom used a brute force upon everybody, unlike my eldest brother. Over time, he develop the sense of protector towards his brothers and sisters, but man, how I used to hate him when we were younger!

Well, actually, my brother and I was two hard head and we always at each other throat, a heat argument will start whenever both of us in the same room. My mom sure had an headache about it, maybe... From the football team we support to the every public issues highlighted in the news, we're always find something to argue about. That one thing of me, a very opinionated, but like once a friend of mine stated out, I usually have a very different view from any other person. I don't know either it's bad or not. 

But now, I've learn that being opinionated wasn't really, or at least, always a good thing. I've learn now to keep my opinion to myself, unless asked. Why? well, it's the reason of why this blog was created at the first place; opinion: it's only matter to the person who have it!

Well, where were we?

Ok, next, 

I start going to the kindergarten since I was 4 if I'm not mistaken. Actually, I've got two kindergarten for all my memory could possibly store of. One is an English oriented kindergarten where I went to with my cousins and my brother. Wait a minute, I've also went to another Malay oriented kindergarten, near the school my dad used to teach, but when was it? Damn! It's all got mixed up in my brain!

But really, nothing really good happen from kindergarten. When I enrolled to the primary school, some of the children talked about how they took exam at kindergarten and how did they scored. But I have no memory of sitting an exam during my kindergarten years. There were occasionally quiz about how to pronounce the English words at my first kindergarten, but I'm not that good in English, so, what did I do was to memorize what other student said before, and hope that I get the easiest of all the words... I get lucky often, then!

Been to the English kindergarten has it's advantage in primary school, especially when English subject wasn't introduced until after the second semester. But like I stated above, I wasn't really good at English, it just I'm more familiar with the words and know how to used dictionary before any other kids. Oh, I also went to the same school with my brother and my cousin (who is at the same age with my bro, really a good friend, them both...). Having been able to understand the teacher words, it's quite easy to be popular in your classroom. Well, by being popular, I do mean popular when the exam is near, but it's all count...

Having know the alphabet before starting school, I, however, did not learn how to read until Standard One. But being on quite 'Kampung' school, it's easy to stand out than the rest. You can say I was an 'A' student all the way back then. In fact, there's only 6 of us who scored straight A's back then in UPSR, and I'm one of them. Something I'm ashamed of since my bro batch got like 12 persons who scored straight A's, and was like a school record back then!

I always think that I'm superior than my bro (sibling's rivalry) on education front. I also believe my batch is superior, at least my classmates were! The result quite disappointed us, mainly because there were so many straight A's candidate who fall short on one subject... Something that somehow miraculously happen again during my SPM (I'm one of them, this time!)

What can I say about my primary school?

Like I said, I was a straight A's student, really nerd kind of boy without glasses of course. Because of my so-called 'better English' than anyone else, I've been chosen to play part in an English Play for the school with some other mates. I only know one of them who is sitting next to me in my class. The rest were from the other classes. I don't even remember what the play was about, but I've got one line, which is, "He has a gun!" and has to act like as if someone was holding a shot-gun. Our character is wild animals in the jungle and if my memory didn't betray me, I've played a rabbit (as wild as it can be!!).

But that wasn't a good part of it. The good part is, or was, the narrator for the story is a very cute girl! Someone who honestly I know would never has a chance to meet, let alone know if it wasn't for the play. And, yes, this isn't even a half of the good part of the story yet! The best part of this whole experience was how she, on every time we met, either at the canteen or on the side-walk outside the classroom, she will point at me in a stunt of a man holding a gun and repeat my dialogue, "He has a gun" back to me! I think that was my first crush, or maybe my 5th crush considering all the crush I had during my kindergarten... Yes, I am that easy!

I never met her again after Standard One, I don't even get her name...

I love football! 

I love it since the first time I've kick a ball which was at 5 years old. Only my bro and  me (my little bro just came at that time, age 1), kicking the ball at the drive-way, using dad car as the goal post. Our cousin will join us occasionally. Since my parent working and only come back after 5 pm, and my bro and I went to the same kindergarten as my cuz, so after school end, we'll all go back to my cuz home. There, around 5 pm, while waiting for our parent to pick us up, we will play 3-men football on my cuz driveway. Sometimes his much smaller neighbor joined us. The rule is simple, whoever scored will have to be a goalkeeper. My cuz was the better goalkeeper than the rest of us, so whenever he scored, we know it will be hard to get even. Some boys kicking the ball around, happy time!

At my primary school, the passion wasn't over. When the World Cup 1994 was held at United States, I was in Standard 3. At that time, Kelantan football was at their top too, challenging for a place in Malaysian Cup semis but came short of Kedah team. During those period, my best mate and I decided to make a football team of our own. At that time, my class got about 40 pupils including girls. Boys were about half of it. So we had plenty 'ammunition' to play football. So, I've became a captain of one team and my friend another. We even make a captain armband from a piece of a paper and would wear it proudly during Physical Education (PJ) time (Captain Tsubasa/The Kickers is really popular at this time). It was fun, it was chaos! One field shared with all level of students, with all kind of sports. We don't care who field did we cross, as long as there's a ball, and there's a goal! Ah... happy time!

If my school held a football team trial during my time there, I for sure will go for it, but there never was one. My senior got to build a hockey team, and from what I've heard, they were quite awesome in Kota Bharu district. Somehow our batch didn't get a chance to play a team sport to represent the school... 

But when I was at the standard 6, I've got a chance to play for the chess team (I was among a good chess player too since standard 4, hehe, small school, wasn't it?). But, while the teacher take all of our name, we're never been send to play for the tournament. From what I've heard, the tournament was cancel, but later on, I heard a rumors saying that they never really intended to sent us anyways. My unofficial less-than-semi-pro football career came to the halt at Standard 6, because somehow the school think it was cool to stop all PJ class and substitutes it with math instead. I never thought that sport ever hinder my result in class, but then, at that time, there were still no research about how good sport is to the brain and intellectual development. At this time also I've stop playing football at my cuz house since he went to a boarding school (MRSM) when he enrolled to the Secondary School... 

The National football's scene also hit a major setback at the same years, with news about players who take bribery was all over the news. Somehow, around that period, I remembered that Kelantan's fan has been banned from attending matchday at the stadium because of a riot happen before that had caused the fence between fans row and the field collapsed. 

It took me about a year later to kick a ball again in my life (in a very unfashionable ways possible!)!

What else happen during my primary school years? I was never popular outside my own classroom, but a very one inside it! I was known as 'answers provider', wasn't something you should be proud of, but as a kid, you take it as it came. There was one time I missed school for the whole exam's week because of flu (my bro too), and as a result, my cumulative point for that month was '0'. To make matter worst, I can only regain my points after two month since the next month after the very exam that I've missed had no exam. I was, for the first time in my life, been put on the last row of the class. But my teacher class was really an understanding person. He gave me a spot IN FRONT OF the number 1 students in the class, thus make me a number '0' student in the class, as if I am better than my friend who got first, he he.... But for other periods, I have to go back to be the number 48, HA!

When I think about it back, it's actually wasn't that bad, being last... I've got to know the other side of my friends. You see, I befriended all of my classmates, maybe not so much with the girls, but being a front-row student, at times you don't know how the back-row student struggling with their education. Being on the same level as them make me able to help them with their homework and so on. Sometimes you just have to pity them. It's not like they're asking to be slower, and it's not like they didn't work hard to improved too... Maybe because they're just kids, and at that time, don't really get what's an environment as student life is all about... Not saying that I know at that time, but at least when you have a better educated family background, you were told when to do your homework and when to watch the TV. You also had less problem to go to school than those who maybe had to help their parent with business or taking care of their younger siblings...

During my primary school, I never hold any duty as an officer of the students (Prefect or any kind of it) except once during my standard 6, which was given due the realization that I never once hold ANY job. My cuz was the Headboy for my school and my bro was also a Prefect. I've only been appointed because apparently, I'm the only one student left that the teacher trusted and had yet no duty of such. But soon, I will forget about being one. The only momento I've own to proved I am the class leader is the neck-tie that was distributed to all class leaders. The neck-ties were actually the old prefect neck-tie, so we, the class leaders were rarely wear it except during the assembly and any other formal school occasion. Everybody was ashamed of wearing it, really, except for the juniors... 

The thing is, the class leaders jobs were, among other, is to make sure that every member of the class go and do their duty to keep an area, which was assigned to each and every class, clean before the first period bell's ring. Also to bring the attendance book for the teacher to mark it. Since I almost every day late to school when I'm in Standard 6, because my sister, who went to Girl School near the area that was always jammed, decided it best to sleep up until 7.20 am every morning than to prepare for school, I was almost never did all the jobs required (except went to the office to get a new box of chalk when it's running out). All the duties was done by my assistant. She's very good at it too!

During the last week of my primary school, I've skipped about two days of school for a reason I don't remember it anymore now, which by one of that day, had been held a photograph session for all the class leaders of the year. I was absent, and my assistant, as usual, duly took over my duty and get her picture photograph for annual Class Leaders photo.... 

Story of My Life! (Well, she deserved it...)

-to be continued-




T/t: TL? DR? IDC!!! (Too Long? Don't Read?? I Don't Care!!)

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Oh... Oh... November hampir habis!! Cepat post satu entri baru!!

"How Malaysian Football wrote it's own graffiti on it's gravestone just after it resurrected like Phoenix - Story of the irony of Malaysian Football"

Nantikan kemunculan entri ini dalam masa terdekat...

Ok, thanks, bye!