Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

As all Australians know, John Howard is about to introduce his new Workchoices laws, which will transform industrial relations (IR) here. A neoliberal’s wet dream, Workchoices will try to alter Australia’s IR laws to resemble the USA’s. His rationale is that this will make Australia more competitive in the future.

However, do I really want this law? After reading an article in the SMH (which I can’t find now, so this will just have to do for now), I have decided that I don’t. And it will be one of the reasons I would be voting for Labor in next year’s GE.

Under Howard’s new IR laws, penalty rates and recess periods for workers would be canceled. I find that ridiculous, especially the penalty rates. Penalty rates are the higher rates that workers are paid (usually 1.5 times to 2 times the normal rate) when they work outside of the regular 9-5pm weekdays (and Saturdays for retail workers like myself) shifts. Since I’m a casual worker, I usually get called to work on Thursday nights, Saturdays and Sundays, shifts that the permanent workers there don’t work. I am currently getting 1.5 times more pay per hour on Sundays. So if Workchoices comes into effect, that would kill off my extra pay. There’s a reason why penalty rates were introduced. No right minded worker would want to work on Sundays and public holidays if they will not be compensated higher. Furthermore, my measly 15 minutes break during my 5 hour shifts would also be canceled with Workchoices. How much more stingy can you get? So fuck Howard, he’s going down for this

Howard seems to be a big fan of the US industrial relations system, but I can’t see why. No doubt, the USA has the strongest economy in the world and is the wealthiest nation worldwide as well. However, it’s wealth isn’t equitably distributed throughout its society. It is definitely a much more pro-employers economic system. This has given rise to a new social class there: the working-poor class. A checkout chick, a plumber, a mechanic, etc in countries such as Australia, Continental Europe and in the Scandinavian countries with more social democratic economies are much more well-off compared to people in similar jobs in the USA and Asia, with the latter group’s neoliberal/neoclassical economic underpinnings. So clearly, there’s something not quite right in the US economic model there. What’s the point of being the richest country in the world when only the employers and business owners gets a slice of the prosperity?

And so with the competent Rudd at the helm, I am now definitely gonna vote for Labor next year in regards to the economic angle of things.

Ahh, it feels so gratifying to know that my vote here has the potential of changing a government now, unlike back in Malaysia

If I seem to ramble incoherently in these JJ1 entries of mine, forgive me I just can’t be stuffed to organised everything nicely into timelines and character expositions. Just. Too. Lazy…. La.

Neways, I remembered a few hilarious incidents in high school. It was during Form 4. There was this guy called LHL in my class. A klutz, but a sort of friend of mine anyways. He was really, and I mean REALLY into this girl called….. something Can’t remember anymore. Anyway, she was also a prefect, so I got to see what the big deal about her was. After checking her out, I admit that she was pretty cute, in a Jap anime kinda way. But I didn’t think LHL ever stood a realistic chance anyways. Nevertheless he didn’t let little things like that stand in his way! He started writing secret admirer letters to her. It was hilarious! He then read his masterpieces to us for our opinions Happily for him, he got back replies from her. However, the verdict wasn’t good. But it was nice of her to let him down relatively softly. I had her as one of those bitchy cheerleading types before. Good for her. I once got drawn into a bet with Johnny Lim as well in trying to get her number I honestly cannot remember whether I succeeded or not I remembered meeting and having small talk with her. But I probably didn’t get it Also can’t remember whether Johnny managed to get it or not too. Jeez, my memory’s shit.

Another incident was really straight out of a Hong Kong cops vs triads movie scene. I was patrolling (of all places) close to the toilets there, and my partner and me smelled cigarette smoke. Fcuk. So we had to investigate it. With a couple of sharp pens as our weapon, we cautiously entered the toilet. In there, there was 4 well known gangsters having a smoke. I was like, “You wanna shove those ciggies up your asses?” (As if! You think I’ve lost it?) More like “Dudes, can’t smoke here”.

And the ringleader courteously told me to have intercourse with my mother.

Which I politely declined. “No thank you. Why don’t you try that instead?” (Again, you didn’t seriously believe that, did you?)

Instead,

Me: “Come outside with me please”
Ugly triad guy: “Fuck you”
Me: “You’re really not my type. Please come outside with me”
Them: Profanities. Middle fingers. Offerings of settling this with us “one by one” (???) I think they meant to say “one on one”, but were stymied by their fragile grasp of the English language

At this point, he and his four friends started ganging up on us. We were like, “Fuck shit, what to do now? Only 17, don’t wanna become paralysed just yet”

If I remembered correctly, I also kinda lost it at this point. I missed my lunch. Needed to pee. And just got rejected by this girl I really liked early in the day. I started yelling something to the effect of: “Motherfuckers, touch us and we will make sure you’ll get your asses kicked out of this school!”

It was a gamble, trying to out-threaten a gangster, but thankfully it worked at that moment. With the disgusting state of our toilets, I think getting our heads shoved into the toilet bowls would have resulted in us getting admitted to the hospital for severe ‘food poisoning’.

Anyway, been nice rumbling about my old school days. Until I remember other interesting moments there, I’ll sign off for now. Adious!

Part 1
Part 2

Ok dokies, to continue with my story

To pick up where I left off, I became a prefect back in Form 1.

I guess to be fair, that position did have its perks. I get to get out 10 mins earlier for recess. I get to confiscate stuff. But there are also the negatives which goes with it. For starters, I had to sacrifice my recesses everyday. While other students got to eat, tackle chicks, or just talk for the full 20 mins of their recess, I had to stand along some obscure restricted corridor and make sure people don’t make out there. Yeap, bad man.

In Form 2, I got promoted unexpectedly into Junior Head Prefect. Basically, my school had 2 sessions, mornings from 7.20 - 1.10 pm for the upper forms, and 1.10 - 7.00 pm for the lower forms, encompassing Forms 1 and 2. So being a Junior Head Prefect means that I was put in charge of the junior prefects. It was quite ridiculous, actually.

One of the good things I remembered about being that was that I got a cute assistant Head Prefect working with me, named LZH She seemed to be the target of affection of many guys from the upper forms, from the gossip that I heard. Alas, there wasn’t any chemistry between us. She wasn’t really my type either. However, we remained as friends though

Ahh, the crap that I had to do then. I actually had to organise ‘raids’ to confiscate contrabands from other students. I thank god everyday that I didn’t uncover any condoms or other stuff like that during my stint

I think now is a good time to introduce another good friend of mine. He’s TQJ, and what an odd fellow he was. The son of our super-strict Discipline Teacher, he eventually turned out to be a great friend of mine. He’s nice to a fault. There was once when he went out together for the first time (since his mum didn’t allow him to go to the movies until he was about 16), and we encountered this faker drug addict who was asking for money so that he could ‘take a bus home to see his sick brother’. I was like trying to avoid him, but that idiotic TQJ actually gave him more than what he was asking for! Just too naive, that TQJ

In Form 3, TKB came to my school. Smart dude, with the propensity to exchange Chinese proverbs with TQJ, SPY and LJB in their jibes. This dude followed me to SMK Permas Jaya to do our Form 6, before I came to Australia. Ahh, our desperation to avoid getting stuck doing our Sixth Form in that backwater school pushed us to resort to personally appealing with headmasters to get a transfer to either EC, SSI or SMK Dato Jaafar instead Alas, our attempts ended in failure, as those 3 schools were fully enrolled already. At that point, I was like thinking, fuck, stuck at another JJ1… Thank god it turned out to be not as bad as that after all in the end

Part 3
Part 1

I am a nomad. My whole family is nomadic, for that matter. In my life so far, I have moved to 3 different states and 4 different schools while in Malaysia.

By far the longest time I’ve spent in a school is the full 5 years of high school, pre-Form 6. It was at a school called Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Taman Johor Jaya (1), or JJ1 for short. It was situated in the southern state of Johor.

Basically, because I was initially from Sk Sri Tebrau (translation: name of the straits south of Johor), a primary school generally regarded as being the crib in which professionals in Johor Bahru (state capital) dump their offsprings in, I was widely expected to continue my high school education at English College (EC) along with my other Sri Tebrau classmates, a somewhat elitist and therefore snobbish school where well-off English-educated parents send their kids to, as preparation to send them to overseas unis in the UK, US or Australia.

However, dad decided instead to pack me off to JJ1 after my UPSR (Year 6 exam). Not because I did crap in it, but to spare me from needing to sit beside sweaty passengers in a bus for 80 minutes everyday to and from EC. Instead, dad was able to dump me in JJ1 after only a 5 min drive from our home in Taman Molek (translation: ‘Cute’ Park??).

And thus began my 5 year odyssey of high school at JJ1. By the way, Johor Jaya means ‘Victorious Johor’. Yeah, corny I know, but then again, most names of places usually are Manly anyone???

I soon found out that JJ1 is a world of difference compared to EC. Almost its anti-thesis, you can even say. JJ1 is populated by street hawker’s kids. Chinese-educated kids (herein to be referred to as ‘Cina-ed’ students). These kids predominantly speak Mandarin, follow Taiwan and Hong Kong trends, and have bleached multicoloured hair, the most cringe-worthy being yellow.

But maybe I should digress a little first here for the benefit of my non-Malaysian/non-Johor readers. Basically in Johor, there are 2 kinds of Chinese. The majority of them there are cina-eds, with the minority being English-ed people. I happen to belong to the latter kind, courtesy of coming from a national primary school, instead of a Chinese primary school. Cina-eds like to refer to people like me as ‘banana people’ = ‘yellow on the outside, white on the inside’. We were seen by cina-eds as somewhat of an embarrassment, due to their belief that we’ve sold out our ‘Chinese-ness’. So anyway, different states in Malaysia have different compositions of these two groups. For example, you can find a lot of bananas in states with heavy British colonial influence in the past such as Penang and Selangor (courtesy of Kuala Lumpur). In Johor however, bananas there are almost like an endangered species. I would guess we constitute only about 10% of the Chinese there.

Anway, to get back to my story, it’s pretty obvious that I stuck out like a sore thumb in JJ1. The biggest impediment that I faced initially was one of language. My Mandarin basically sucked, so must of the time I just had to nod my head at certain intervals when my other cina-ed friends were speaking to me in Mandarin, hoping I didn’t just agree with the fact that his girlfriend was fat and ugly. The other problem was the culture there. I was not really that familiar with Asian pop culture then. F4? Thought that was a button on keyboards. Ayumi Hamasaki… a dish perhaps? S.H.E? As oppose to he? But I soon improved on both of these aspects. It’s amazing how one can adapt when the desperate need arises

The first few weeks were the time when alliances were required to be formed for my survival. My initial search for other bananas like me there resulted in locating only one other fruit of the same species, a guy called Dektos Loh Apart from his weird name, he was a pretty cool guy. A devout Christian, he soon evolved into some sort of ‘relationship councilor’ during our final year in JJ1.

But anyway, that was it for bananas though.

I quickly came to discover that JJ1 had a pretty interesting student population. It was there that I first encountered junior triads (Chinese organised crime syndicates) members, collecting ‘membership fees’. Apparently there are 2 main societies operating in my former school, which I vaguely remember to be the ‘Circle Gang’ and the ‘15 (?) Gang’. I got my education on the various different triads there from another of my good friend which I first meet on my school bus, Johnny Lim. He was this street-smart dude which also happens to be a devout Christian (what’s with me and Christians here? ) who lived close to my house. We soon became quite close pals in the years to come, when I used to cycle to his house everyday and gossip about the hot babes in our school…. or in his church.

Due to the incomprehensible wisdom of the Head Discipline Teacher in my school, I was soon recruited to be a prefect there. Great place to be one. If you want your head to be stuffed down toilet bowls, that is.

To signify that I was a big-man prefect now, I was forced to wear a peach-coloured long sleeved shirt, a brown tie, brown trousers, and a peach-coloured blazer, in a 30+ degrees Celsius country. Genius. All we male prefects there were or had to be pretty secure with our heterosexual-ness there too, I guess, thanks to our attire’s somewhat sexually-ambiguous shades.

Part 2
Part 3

In case you aren’t a regular reader of my blog, or that you’re just dumb, I am somewhat of a movie geek. Became one sometime when I was in Year 12 in 04.

Neways, I absolutely love unique movies. Either in terms of the plot, multiple interpretations, or cinematography. So now here’s a short list of the movies that I like and ones that I intend to watch soon:

1. Donnie Darko - Great weird movie bout a weird boy and a 6-foot rabbit. You can interpret it in many ways. Great unique structure. My review of it here

2. The Virgin Suicides - Enthralling whimsical film about 5 seemingly perfect sisters committing suicides. Great dreamy cinematography. Mysterious and a bit scary in some bits as well. My review here

3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Great unique romance story. About a couple trying to erase their memories of each other due to their souring relationship

4. Memento - A mystery film about a guy who lost his ability to retain his short term memories. It’s told in reverse. Quite depressing though

5. The Prestige - A new good film about magicians and magical sleigh of hands. The whole film is also a magical trick. Review coming soon

Other Unique And Weird Movies, But Ones Which I’m Not Really A Fan Of:

6. Being John Malkovich - A truly bizarre film in which a couple of people finds an entrance into John Malkovich’s mind

7. Mulholland Drive - Drug-induced vision vs reality intertwined in this story about a Hollywood actress trying to make it big in Hollywood. Very weird, and depressing for me. I couldn’t understand it even after a second viewing. Didn’t like it at all. Typical David Lynch’s style of weirdness, of Twin Peaks fame, which I liked incidentally.

Haven’t Seen Yet, But Recommended By People As Being Good In The Same Vein:

8. Adaptation - Another film by Charlie Kaufman who brought us Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. About a writer with writer’s block writing about a writer with a writer’s block

9. Garden State - Have no idea what it’s about. From the sypnosis, it seems to be a romance film

10. Abre Los Ojos (the original film which spawned the US version of Vanilla Sky) - Me thinks this film is about a good-looking chap who’s face got damaged, which then confuses viewers about which of his visions are reality and which are his dreams?

So neways, that’s all the films of the same style that I can think of. Feel free to add others which you think I’ve missed out. Also feel free to correct me about the premises of those films which I haven’t seen yet. Just please don’t reveal any spoilers to me for them please!

Cheers then!

Last night, I was in a dilemma. Channel 7 was showing ‘Flashdance’, while SBS was showing ‘The Virgin Suicides’ at the same time. Thank omnipotent being that I finally bet on The Virgin Suicides, as if I didn’t, I would have missed out on a movie which I now place in my Top 10 list of films.

The Virgin Suicides (TVS) is Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut, and what a debut it turned out to be! Yeap, that Sofia Coppola is none other than the daughter of the legendary director Francis Ford Coppola of ‘The Godfather’ fame. Her father would be proud of her first attempt at his craft.

Starring the terrific Kirsten Dunst and a young Josh Hartnett, TVS is a story of the 5 beautiful Lisborn sisters belonging to two disturbingly dysfunctional parents. It starts when the youngest of the sisters, aged 13, tried committing suicide by slashing her wrists. She was saved from that attempt and hence we are introduced to all the sisters and their gawky admirers, 5 young boys. Eventually, as you’ll know from the title, the sisters all commited suicide, but that’s not really the main point of the movie.

It is actually very hard to discuss what the film is about, because it doesn’t really have a storyline. It is basically the boy’s recollections and musings of the girls, whom they think were just about the most heavenly creatures they had ever seen in their young lives. So basically, it’s like a ‘lost of innocence’ kinda film. Or it could also be a film which warns us of the situations which can drive youngsters to commit suicide these days. But then, all these descriptions of the film still doesn’t do it much justice. It’s much more than these things. I would suggest that you watch it yourself to understand what I mean.

This film has bucketloads of surreal atmosphere, something which I found truly enthralling. The closest film with a style that resembles this film would be Donnie Darko, minus the sci-fi and religious interpretations. TVS has a dreamlike quality about it, with imaginative scenes intersperse together with reality. It is also a very open-ended film, leaving viewers to came to their own conclusions on what happens in the film. I also found this film very mysterious, not knowing what to expect in each new scene. Which makes for an absolutely delicious viewing experience.

I’ve wrote before how some films, such as Donnie Darko, has the ability to make me feel melancholic, and I found that TVS also has this effect on me. It is one of those few movies which continues to linger in your mind long after it has ended. To say that this was a sad movie is not accurate, as it wasn’t really that sad. Instead, it evokes a kind of nostalgia. Again, watch it yourself to understand what I’m blabbering about

This is also a film which the actors take a back seat and the director the front. Kirsten Dunst was great as the ‘most perfect’ of the Lisbon sisters, and Hartnett played the part of the school ‘dream guy’ to a tee, but one can only fairly attribute the film’s hypnotic style to Sofia Coppola.

I bow to her after watching this film.

Watch it.

Surreal movie experience.

Verdict: 1/2

Just a short entry to say that Anwar has a blog here. Check it out to make up your own mind about him, or to find out his position on various issues.

Cheers.

It’s good to see that DAP, and to a lesser extent, PKR, are heeding the suggestions of its supporters for them to team up in the next GE. I have always also been one who believes that this is a terrific combo to try and break BN’s dominance in Malaysian politics. A PAS-PKR alliance is a proven to be a dud, with that alliance performing terribly in the 2004 GE.

I will reiterate my opinion that PAS should just be left to contest in the elections on its own. It has proven to be only a minor player in national level politics, and will hamper more than help a PKR-DAP alliance to win over the moderate UMNO, MCA and Gerakan voters.

I was also pleased to read that DAP will target winning my home state of Penang in the next state elections. DAP really deserves to rule at least one state, as a reward for their unwavering struggle in uncovering abuses of power and checking the power of the government, and the beautiful Penang is a great one to start with. Since gerrymandering there has resulted in increased seat allocations in Seberang Prai, I hope PKR will assist DAP in this quest and take on Seberang Prai on behalf of the Opposition. It would be so cool to have a brand new PKR-DAP alliance government for Penang instead of the same old tired and incompetent BN government

You guys are on the right track, DAP and PKR! Keep up the good work!

Kevin Rudd won the Labor leadership ballot 2 days ago, replacing Kim Beazley in the job. The leadership position in Labor is voted upon by an 88 member caucus in the party. Rudd won that ballot by 49 votes to Beazley’s 39 votes, with a candidate needing 45 votes to win it. The quirky thing is about the ballot is that if both candidates got 44 votes, then the winner will be determined by who’s name is picked out from a hat. Lol!

Julia Gillard was also elected as Deputy Opposition Leader unopposed, after Jenny Macklin declined to run when it was revealed that Beazley has lost.

As a Labor supporter, I am very pleased with the result. Both Rudd and Gillard are dynamic and new leaders, and hopefully they will be able to make Labor more competitive against the ‘Man of Steel’, Mr Johnny Howard and his conservative zealots in the Liberal Party.

A friend told me that he disliked Rudd because he betrayed Beazley. I find that amusing, since I’ve always thought that betrayals are part and parcel of politics. How else are good young leaders supposed to rise in the ranks if an ineffective but stubborn leader won’t make way? I hope the so called ‘Asian values’ doesn’t take root in Australia like how it has taken root in Malaysia, Singapore and China, because it’s complete bunkus designed to discourage dissenting views and opinions.

At least Rudd has the balls to take on his leader for the top job, ala Keating vs Hawke, which is less than what I can say for the timid Costello in his attempts to take over from Howard.

Neways, I am confident that Labor will be a competitive participant in the next federal elections next year, and with Rudd at the helm, I will now definitely have no reservations voting for it.

Long live Labor!

I must admit, I’ve never been a fan of Bond movies. Too much of an oldie franchise for me. I am more of a Mission: Impossible kind of person when it comes to spy movies. Bond movies are way to unbelievable and cheesy for my taste. Ditto with the Bond girls in them. Too bimbo-ish looking for me

But man oh man, I am really excited about the new Bond movie, Casino Royale. For starters, its much more realistic, without corny villians and such. And it has an interesting premise, it actually being a prequel to all the Bond movies. And what a Bond girl! I am totally in love with Eva Green now. She’s sooo sultrily hot!

*Snaps out of it*

Who cares about Daniel Craig? As long as he’s decent. I’m gonna watch Casino Royale for its premise and Eva Green! Feast your eyes on her beauty: