Oh My English

 Born as kampong boy, it’s kind of weird and awkward to hustle just one day in the foreign language.  The whole my family speak the national Kedah language and we proud of it. Not like many migrate, who tend to speak standard bahasa, I proud to speak my northern dialect. 

My pilgrimage to KL urged me to explore lifestyle, career exposure and gaining knowledge. I see that the ability to speak English is added value and at that time believe we may looked “cool” by using that language. Proficiency in English is vital in today’s world and apparently it being use widely in corporate sector. To put myself at par with KL urbanites, I need to catch up very fast. Though my secondary school was an English medium, but the culture of English conversation usage was not mandatory to everyone.

Listening to music and subscribing Kerrang magazine with little help of my scholarship are two things help my English. I put the western music as a benchmark and therefore I spent a lot in rock n roll cassette at my secondary level. At one point, a misunderstanding happen when my father wanted to remove my faked Soundgarden tattoo as he think that was the real tattoo. Indeed there some songs I don’t understand at all but I keep effort to find it words by word through dictionary.

English nowadays is very important and arriving Heathrow without English may put you into hell. It will help at every corner of the world. According to  Stephen Doss the following are other data relating to the use of English in different situations:

·         380 million speak English as a second language;

·         one billion speak English as a foreign language;

·         There are an estimated 1.7 billion users of the language. English dominates the Internet, the print media, business, aviation, conferences, other international events, etc;

·         Approximately one billion are learning English worldwide;

·         Over the Internet, about 80 per cent of home pages and 60 per cent of e-mail are in English;

·         English is the medium of higher education in many countries, eg India, the Netherlands, Oman, South Africa, Sweden and Turkey;

·         85 per cent of the world’s knowledge is in English; and

·         98 per cent of scientific papers are written in English.

In his book The Future of English (2000), Graddol said: “Worldwide, there are 1,400 million people living in countries where English has official status. One out of five of the world’s population speaks English to some level of competence. English is the main language of books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international businesses and academic conferences, science, technology, diplomacy, sport, international competitions, pop music and advertising.

Whatever your options are, to develop ourselves lay our own hand and I had my own way. I was so choosy in selecting girlfriends last time. No matter how pretty the girl is, if they can’t speak English, definitely they will be kicked out.  I only went out with good English girl and today I marry with someone who is able to converse in English well and had our daughters followed us, we seek for time to prove it.

Last night I watch a new program on Astro called Oh My English. It’s about the notorious students who are well known for misbehaving and being the worst at their academic results, especially in English. By using unconventional methods of learning, Henry Middleton  aims to improve their English. The program is a noble idea (I guess it’s from Marina Mahathir, when I look the producer is Red Com) and I think it helps the English standard for toddler in relaxing mood. Though there are some errors on grammar but it more to educate the audience. Oh My English presents a 360 degree learning experience dedicated to help young teens to improve their conversational English in a fun way and I do encourage my two angles to watch that.

Though my English is not as good as KL yuppies but I tried to make grammatical errors a minimum level. Up to now I still feel, far behind from those urbanites who born naturally in English pool but being a rubber estate boy, it’s better late than never. My root doesn’t stop me to explore a language which totally out of my world. At least I don’t look as an alien in this country. On why many local universities student failed to speak English, it’s their choice to put what colour from their pallet .The perceptions on being liberalism by using foreign language on daily basis just kill them to explore the other side of the world. Apparently, for those who choose to alienate English it means they disown the vast of knowledge.  In this country English is not a foreign language.

Euro 2012

Would it be preposterous to say that EURO 2012 would be neglected by the football fans all over the world? It was certainly a most men sport since the Earth was created by The God , I believe , and the most wealthiest sport with billion of transactions. 

Really, the football has taken over the carrier premiership and it even being much hire  than any politician all over the world. The fact that Christiano Ronaldo's cash ability is equavalent to two times Obama's saving account.Not unless, I myself wanted to be part of the football local history but knowing talent and size is not granted by the God Almighty, watching football is just enough for a dwarf species fan like me. !

Euro 2012 and  what most irritating me is on why tulips was chosen as logo of  this men's sport? NVM, let it be puzzling me and many men out there.What about the Euro 2012 and favorite team of mine then? The last world cup had seen I was campaigning for Germany via my FB account and this time it remain the same. I never swindle to other team yet perhaps Germany I expected could be the champ of the Europe continent this time. Hard to say that other giant teams like Spain, France and Italy would be peanuts but the game  versus Holland last night could be a stepping stone to Germany for final. 

One thing for sure there is, no betting at the moment as I quite busy with Tmn Pasif.  

Again, hard to say. In fact, betting had never crossed paths until I met Nordin in this office and the money start counting on the table of World Cup 2006. Nordin and I too were on very cordial terms but after he’d been thrown away to be an  OSC officer, he then disappeared and I had lost contact with him.

But make no mistake. Nordin is a jovial person. Many gossips overthrowing him about his integrity perhaps I never bother about it.I actually enjoyed being close friends with him. For sure, Nordin was the best person to chat about football and I always would want to tap his brains about sports. He was not only a sports man, which was widely known champ at golf and psychologically good at badmouthing people. 


Now as time goes by, friends slowly disappeared and I had to enjoy Euro 2012 on my own. Hasrun, Munna and Yogesh would never good at football. If last time Usop would fetch me at 3.00 am in the morning, now I had to drive on my own to Riang- Riang make noise alone. For at least I realized, neither Euro nor World,the player has changed, the heroes has changed,the jersey has changed, friend's condition changed, the atmosphere has changed,everything changed suits to our age and like most architecture students said its "form follow function". 

Drowning Pool

Euro crisis effect the world financial system and it shows how money printed doesn’t work to solve the financial problem. It affects me. Finding another job is not the antidote to emptiness in the office. I tried many times to buck up but still it doesn’t work. That’s so puzzle.

Overhauling my routine including jeopardizing my career is not an option? Pursue studies but waiting offer letter from universities is killing me. I am in the state of doing nothing but waiting gold to be dug. My eight hours at the day time is still remains unproductive.

Apart from this, I had fight with Zareene for some stupid reasons and she refused to talk to me and that’s again made me mad. I was at fault. For couple of days Zareene and I are running eclipse day life.

Shahnaz and Yasmine are fighting for their own right which is meant their favorite channel, Disney Junior. For the next time again, I lost the battle and the TV belongs to them at 8.00 pm, the prime time. Last time I still remember, to watch news I had to  go mamak stall but this time my house is quite far distance to mamak and indeed I am lazy to switch on the car. Since that, Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today is becoming my official newscaster. So I walked up upstairs and heading to my net book.

At 9.15, suddenly these two kids came upstairs with little laugh. Getting mad with them, I asked them to dribble the ball at our garden yard. By the time they tired and fell asleep, and then the TV is mine.Both my kids were razor-wired with tiredness.


What a bad day, all channels presenting rubbish except Al Hijrah. A new knowledge about Irshad Manji on Isu Akidah and that most remembered me my last girlfriend who really practicing liberalism in her life.That's the whole family are unpracticed Muslim. Syukur, I married the right person. 10. 20pm and time to sleep and switched on hand phone and saw an sms from Liza. “Kita cuba sehabis baik, ya Din”. A sms that tried to persuade me not to cancel the purchase of her house.At this time I am zigzagging in between of to continue my housing loan or just withdraw it. Liza’s price is too high and the bank had advised me to ask the owner for a bit lower price and that’s my intention in the first place.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was wrong when I denied the job scope’s of valuer. Now I am in the drowning pool.

Bab I

What “do’s” and what” don’ts” when you traveling overseas. Eating at cordial restaurant may catch you into trouble as they may sell unslaughted meat.

When we reached Amsterdam, we quite lucky  that the Muslim’s shaorma restaurant just by the corner and it just walking distance to our cosmos lodging.  The owner did tell us that his restaurant offers  a halal meat but what makes me puzzled there were Smirnoff liquor on the rack. We are safe from anything banned by God.

London’s Primark is heaven to shoppers especially poor traveler like me. The only place we can shops in London is Primark and it offers many stuff at the very cheap price but be careful. The shoes are doubtful and after wearing my office's shoe for four months, I discover it was a pig skin lining. Straight away I told my father that his shoe also was the same condition with mine.  My last Chiang Mai trip also same thing happened. The shoes I purchased at Central also contain pig skin lining

Malaysian version is
Generation Slime, but still  
sounds "swine"  in the  album

I had enough for this thing and my two kids had two tanning after we found out that the shoes we purchased contained pig skin lining. This time even worst when my office shoes, my father’s and Shahnaz’s sandal are all have pig skin lining. Shoes shopping is so interesting especially for women but not when you're travelling. 

Lesson to all Muslim travelers, never buy any shoes outside.Spare some doubt before getting a risky close deal or if you are really unpracticed Muslim, what do you care about?  


Like most people said you are what you eat  and let me add one more which is you are what you wear. Since halal is very religious thing so be sensitive on it. Your sensitivity does count on your final judgment.