Saya dan kakak saya belajar di sekolah sama, SMK Seri Bentong. Tapi bahasa Arab dia dapat B sewaktu PMR. Saya pulak asyik gagal je.

Cikgu Bahasa Arab saya, Ustaz Aziz adalah cikgu paling garang di sekolah. Hari-hari kerja dia merotan budak. Datang lambat, rotan. Tak dapat jawab soalan, rotan. Tidur dalam kelas, rotan. Rotan dahlah besar penumbuk.

Jadi bila saya dapat enam peratus sahaja sewaktu tingkatan dua, keluarlah muka neraka Ustaz Aziz. Dan saya menangis. Saya menangis sebab saya dah terlalu jauh ketinggalan. Saya menangis sebab sangat susah saya nak kejar ke tahap budak-budak yang lain. Saya menangis sebab rotan Ustaz Aziz tu besar penumbuk.

Namun sejak hari itu, Ustaz Aziz tukar cara dia mengajar saya. Bila dia bagi kuiz, dia bagi soalan yang senang. Bila dia bagi contoh ayat, dia masukkan nama saya ke dalam ayat tersebut. Saya kembali mula mengulangkaji daripada topik-topik yang asas. Sedikit demi sedikit, saya makin minat belajar Arab. Minggu demi minggu, saya kira dah berapa lama saya tak kena rotan. Paling seronok sekali adalah saya dah tak rasa yang saya ni bodoh sangat.

Akhirnya, saya dapat A dalam PMR untuk Bahasa Arab.

Punyalah seronok saya balik rumah dan beritahu kakak saya. Dia jawab dengan selamba, “Oh, aku dulu pun belajar dengan Ustaz Aziz. Asyik kena marah sebab gagal. Sampai la satu hari tu, aku menangis.”

Oh Ustaz Aziz.

Almost every single time I took a freelance project, it ended up in a disaster. I procrastinated too much. Way too much.

I don’t think it has much to do about juggling time between a full-time job, because I’ve tried freelancing when I was jobless and it failed either how.

It almost felt like there was a rejection mechanism inside me that try to delay me from doing work, and it would try as hard as it could. The longer I procrastinated, the more anxious I became. I kept thinking about the work without actually doing it. Every night when I got home I would open up my laptop with the intention of working. Then I would take a shower, had dinner, rolled on the bed, and dozed off. Every single time. Days would turn weeks, then months.

The mental anguish is too much, it’s not worth it anymore.

So today, 9 May 2013, I declare that I won’t trust myself on accepting anymore non-office job that requires me to work for someone else’s goals. Not even writing jobs.

There.

I want to go back home without having to think about anything at all. I want to enjoy what is left of the day without guilt.

And… it’s already 9 pm now and I am still at the office. Got to go back. Got to stop by the mall and get a new pair of shoes for dancing. Ta!

There is a new personal rule in the workplace: never promise more than what they asked, even when you are certain you can deliver. Else you will burn yourself out.

Today, in between three meetings, fixing Internet connection, helping colleagues to print, and all the little distractions – I have only managed to tick off one task in the the To-Do list.

Le sigh.

Let us remind ourselves to the ever wise words of Hofstadter’s: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

I will remember this until the end of my days.

The election has ended, and people’s hearts are broken. Evidences of cheating were circulated in social media. Though PR has won a lot of seats (more importantly, the hot ones), the winning margin was so small when compared to the last election. This, despite the awareness being so spread out now, despite more people have registered to vote than ever before.

A few commentators have highlighted a very interesting and eye-opening point about why PR lost. It wasn’t about racial disparity (of course), but socioeconomic. Hence the whole gerrymandering thingamajig (I still have trouble pronouncing it).

People on the rural areas weren’t as informed as their urban counterparts. Even if they were, they needed the governmental support much more that we did. What choices did they have? Who are we to call out on them for receiving money when it was money that they needed to feed themselves?

It also highlighted how self-congratulatory we could be. We lived in this small circle of friends, with other like-minded individuals agreeing on each other’s opinions, chanting each other’s battle cry. Then we felt good about it. We felt like the job was done, we were confident that the battle could be won this time around.

Then, poof, GE 13 results came out, and we had this “Duuuude, there’s actually a lot of poor people in Malaysia hor~~” revelation.

But we did have a revelation nevertheless. Revelation is a good thing. It could change the way we do things, it could shift our paradigm, it could make us a better person.

So what could we do next? For a start, let’s stop being ignorant about what’s happening in our country. This is actually a stern reminder to myself, because I used to think that politics was not my thing. But heck, it’s everybody’s thing. No matter who you are and what you do, it’s everybody’s responsibilities to choose their leader.

So educate yourself, your friends, and your families. Go back to hometown once in a while and have conversation with your orang kampung.

Then what could we do, beyond talking and sharing Facebook post? Contribute something to the society. If we empathize the poor, do everything in our power to help them. Volunteer at Soup Kitchen, spend time in an orphanage, plant some trees. It’s a small gesture, but it’s the first step towards care. Only by caring that we can lessen the gap between the rich and poor, between the haves and have-nots.

(Shameless plug: I work in a non-profit organization called Teach For Malaysia, where we strive to help kids from lower income families to get an excellent education – www.teachformalaysia.org)

Do whatever it is that you do best. If you are good at writing, share your opinions. If you are good at coding, develop apps that make people’s lives easier. If you are good at planning, bring people together.

Another post on Facebook (this FB status sharing thing is really effective huh) mentioned that change starts with us as an individual. If we demand fairness and justice from the country, practice fairness and justice in our daily life. If we demand unity and harmony, start being nice to our colleagues and neighbors. If we demand smoother traffics and better roads, start using public transportation. Just kidding on the last part. Or am I.

I’m gonna end this post with two words that was shared by my colleague, Melissa: incremental change. Often times we desire a live-turning event so much that we overlook the smaller ones. But it is the smaller ones that last longer.

So never underestimate the power of small. Change doesn’t happen every 4/5 years, it happens every single day.

We have faith.

After all that has happened yesterday, I hope we still care. I hope our interest in the well-being of the nation is not as seasonal as the World Cup. It does not begin and end during the election.

Educate ourselves on what’s happening in the country, and educate our friends and families. Be an informed citizen. Regardless of what we do and where we are, each and everyone of us carries this responsibility.

Contribute to society in any way that we can. There is a lot of things that needs doing. Education, poverty, health, media, arts. Do whatever it is that we do best.

Our battle still has a long way to go. Our battle is worth fighting another 10, 20 years more. Have faith, Malaysians.