My opinions, thoughts and experiences

The end was in sight

2011-07-19T07:09:00.000+08:00

As I sat watching the epic final battle between Harry and Voldemort inside a cold, dark theater, a single thought kept repeating in my head.

Please don't disintegrate, Voldemort.

He disintegrated. Typical Hollywood bullpoop.

Prior to the movie's release, fans of the franchise were getting all teary-eyed and sentimental. They said that it was finally all over.

For me, it was all over in 2007 with the release of the final book. The movies mean nothing to me. I did watch all the movies of course. More in hope than expectation.

Like me, those who bothered to read all the books would say that the Harry Potter series was something unique. I was first introduced to the books by a cousin of mine, and read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when I was eleven. I loved it, as not only was Harry eleven years old throughout the book, but he had so many traits that were similar to mine. He was short for his age, bespectacled, knobbly-kneed and rather quite. Not to mention he had a tendency of looking at everything with awe and wonder.

In a sense, the books were a part of me growing up. I remember when the rest of the world began to get caught up with the series. There were those midnight releases, where thousands of fans queued up to get their hands on the latest book. Of course, I had to wait till the next morning to get my copy. But as soon as I did, I would read for hours on end, until an eyestrain-induced headache would force me to stop. I would take meticulous care in making sure that I read every detail and looked down at the "speed readers" who would read the book in one go just so that they could brag about it.

So as you may have guessed by now, I loved the books. But I never had the same affection for the movies. You can say that that's because I've always been a bit of a bookworm. Ever since I learned how to read, it remained my hobby.

Which reminds me of something a lecturer of mine told us recently.

"People get so caught up with all the technology that they've forgotten the importance of reading. No one bothers to read anything these days. It's all about skimming and scanning."

And I wholeheartedly agree with him. In an age where speed and efficiently counts for everything, we've been reduced to one-line-spouting machines. Where we once used to pour our emotions into handwritten letters, we now Tweet. We could easily look at the Harry Potter franchise for proof.

The books had everything. It portrayed the emotions of the characters in a most marvelous fashion and described the environment perfectly. In short, you really felt as though you were part of the world described in the books. They tested your imagination in ways you would never think were possible.

However, you don't need to use your imagination while watching the movies. Everything was provided on a silver platter. Or perhaps everything is the wrong word.

Harry Potter was portrayed as a Gary Stu. His best friend Ron merely came off as a less intelligent sidekick who occasionally spouted comic relief moments. Hermione's actress had the annoying knack of using her eyebrows to do all the acting. Many of the major characters were reduced to 30 second roles. There were uncountable out-of-character moments and major scenes in the books were omitted with the excuse that they would "make the movie too long", which fails explain why numerous scenes which were not in the books, and completely irrelevant to the movies plot made it. Basically, it was yell, crash, burn, lots of bright colours and special effects and- huh? The movie's over already?

For me, I'll always remember the literature. The movies, their actors, actresses, produces and directors can go stuff themselves, without sounding too rude.

The tourist abuse scandal and shoddy journalism

2010-10-30T21:16:00.000+08:00

As a Maldivian living abroad, I try to keep up with all the happenings back home as much as I can. It got a little boring after a few months since nothing has really changed. The political scene is still a giant comedy festival and the recently-concluded Dhivehi League was like watching paint dry. So monotonous. Well, I was expecting another slow news day when I saw it. The oh-so popular video that has been making headlines all over the world. As a result, we Maldivians are now stuck in a very uncompromising, extremely uncomfortable and a very unfamiliar position. We're like a deer caught in headlights.

It was bad enough that the idiots who caused all this trouble were Maldivian, born and bred in Maldives, you know, "Paradise on Earth", "The sunny side of life". I mean, people who live there aren't even supposed to have the capability of such heinous acts, aren't they?

What upset me most was the crappy and utterly BS journalism which followed. And for once, the journalists are not Maldivian. Pieces like this one, published by AFP news, and this one by a poor excuse of a journalist from The Guardian. Yay, let's not blame the foul-mouthed cretins! They were squeaky clean innocent!

If you bothered to follow the links, you may have able to decipher a disturbing pattern; the journalists have made it a meal of highlighting the fact that Maldives is an Islamic country. Eh? Just read some of the comments for the article from my second link. The general consensus is that "The Muslims are at it again!". Much emphasis is also made on the fact that the perpetrators called the Swiss tourists "infidels". Really now, any Maldivian who watched the video would tell you that that was probably the least offensive term used against the unsuspecting couple. The idiots spewed much worse, I assure you!

The worst thing about this fiasco is that, somehow, they've turned this into a religious thing. The perpetrators weren't religious, neither by their appearance nor language. Practicing Muslims would never use such foul language since we're prohibited from doing so, we aren't allowed to speak behind people's back either. They even mocked the Islamic religious rituals, for God's sake!

But of course, why let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh? It's so much easier to remain as bigots, reveling in the fact that we're threatened by global warming, calling us "Saudi on sea". Some of the comments on The Guardian's article are so laden with ignorance that I wonder how they manage to walk and breath at the same time. What a sad, pathetic bunch of losers. Here's a suggestion; stop talking about things you've no clue about. You sound ignorant enough already.

Ramadan Mubarak!

2010-08-18T07:51:00.001+08:00

Without getting to anything else, I would like to wish Ramadan Mubarak to all the Muslim visitors to my blog. Let's all learn from the Sahabah and make the best use of this month.

Since my last post, I've gone through a lot of changes. For one thing, I've left my country to pursue a degree and am now enrolled at a university. This also happens to be the first Ramadan that I'm going to be spending away from my family. So of course, it's a big challenge for me and I did find it a bit strange during the first couple of days (I really missed my Mom's cooking, for an instance) but as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. There's a strong, close-knit Muslim "community" where I live, and they've all been conducting themselves brilliantly so far in this blessed month. It's an amazing feeling when we line up for prayers; the congregation is as multinational as it gets, consisting of students from all over the world. People from Nigeria to Russia, Arabs, South, Central and East Asians all prostrating down to the same Lord.

It's not easy having to mix classes and assignments with the month, I'm going to admit that. I've had to shorten my sleeping hours during weekdays which left me running on empty last Friday (although I did manage to steal some of those hours during the weekend). But hey, sometimes you have to choose between what is right and what is easy! And I thank Allah for showing me the right path.

I've also found the change of scenery rather refreshing in a way. It's nice to be away from those Maldivians who treat the month like a giant food festival. Instead, I'm happy that none of my colleagues over here waste their time on the "Roadha kurukurun" nonsense. Shame on them, especially considering the fact that many of the earliest generations of Muslims actually prayed to Allah to allow them to experience Ramadan 6 months prior to the beginning of the month.

Anyway, I'm also painfully aware of the fact that my last post was 6 months ago. I will, insha Allah, try to upload new posts more frequently. I've honestly been buried up to my neck with over the past few months with assignments and also getting myself adjusted to a new environment.

Alright then, I've got to run to catch a bus. Stay tuned!

The other extremists

2009-12-25T19:51:00.001+08:00

It has been an eventful month mainly dominated by ultra-hardcore tree huggers on one side and skeptics on the other, who incidentally appear to be too stupid and arrogant to accept the crisis which has been constantly gripping the planet for a century. The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen was on every news channel, and as if that wasn't enough, numerous talk shows and documentaries were dedicated to the event. Countless street protests, cynical arguments, sugar coated comments by politicians and passionate debates later, the final outcome of the conference turned out to be rather bleak. No surprises there.

Here're some of the reactions from various leaders who attended the event.

"We've come a long way but we have much further to go." - Barack Obama
"We have made a start." - Gordon Brown
"The meeting has had a positive result, everyone should be happy." - Head of the Chinese delegation.

That's how politicians say "We've gone absolutely nowhere with this, what a bloody waste of time." Plus, I think we should all be worried when communist China uses the phrases "positive result" and "everyone should be happy" in the same sentence.

Anyway, our very own Anni had a lot of exposure during the whole event. I would like to think he managed to enlighten people about the plight of this country with his performance during the debate, and also the somewhat corny THREE-FIVE-ZERO speech. Some people appear to think we've elected a pot smoking hippie as our President.

But let’s leave that aside for now, shall we?

It was a little over a year ago when Danny Boy (let's see if this nickname sticks) began his helm as the President of this tiny Republic. We all had huge expectations, some downright unrealistic, but I don't think anyone will deny that he had a massive job on his hands. A debt-ridden economy that had been further crippled by corruption was just one of the things he had to take into consideration. Also, there was the tiny matter of a global recession. And he was not, in any shape or form, helped by a significant chunk of the population who had been brainwashed into believing that the sun shone out of Maumoon Abdul Qayyoom’s every orifice. No, I don't think even he expected things to be this hard. His fantasy of resolving this country’s problems within a month went down the drain. The whooping sound of yellow-clad street dorks were cut short. Voices of dissent took over. We Maldivians are so fickle.

Having said this, I think he has done a pretty decent job so far. He has managed to successfully initiate some very important projects that are bound to help the country prosper, like the transportation system, plans to develop metropolises in other atolls, cutting the cost of our overly large Civil Service to name just a few. Plus, he is also carrying out the unenviable task of undoing and editing all the mishaps of the previous government. The great thing about Danny Boy is that he's an extremely enthusiastic character. BUT that does not mean I’m going to take him as some sort of Messiah and nod along with everything he says. For an instance, I do not agree with some of his foreign policies. I don’t want us to become pals with Israel, whose hands are dripping with the blood of our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Before you begin to accuse me of anti-Semitism, which is utterly ludicrous, please consider these excellent articles:

Are 60 Years of Agony and 94 Years of Deception Not Enough?

Where is 'Preventing Radical Extremism' - in Al-Quds?

The stench of hypocrisy on Israel is simply too much for us. We also must not forget the Salha Mosque Massacre in 1948; the first Houla Massacre in 1949; the Qibya massacre in 1953; the second Houla Massacre in 1967; the Hanin Massacre in 1967; the Yareen Massacre in 1974; the Aitaroun Massacre in 1975; the Bint Jbeil Massacre in 1976; the Al-Ouzaii Massacre in 1978; the Rashaya Massacre in 1978; the Kawneen Massacre in 1978; the Adloun Massacre in 1978,; the Khiam Massacre in 1978; Al-Abbasiyeh Massacre in 1978; the Sabra and Shatila Massacres in 1982; the Sohmor Massacre in 1984; the Bier al-Abed Massacre in 1985; the Iqleem al-Toffah Massacre in 1985; the Aitaroun Massacre in 1989; the Al-Zahrani Massacre in 1994; the Mansouri Ambulance Massacre in 1996; the Nabatiyeh Massacre in 1996; the first Qana Massacre in 1996; the Jenin massacre in 2002, the second Qana massacre in 2006, and the Ghaza Massacre of 2009.

These are only the large scale murders; the atrocities committed by Zionist terrorist groups like Irgun, Lehi and Haganah while all the Western pro-Israeli forces sat around twiddling their thumbs must be taken into account. And we can write whole books about the Palestinian exodus, of the way they were forcibly ejected from their homes with no hope of returning. So yeah, let’s become pals with Israel! Or as Aisha Hussain points out, let’s get under the sheets with them for a one-night stand!

Oh, and I don’t know what’s the deal with making alcohol available in inhabited islands. How on earth is that going to help the Drug Problem? And finally, I am extremely dissatisfied by the way his government treated the post-secondary students. Those who got the best results in the A’ levels in my batch (which ended 18 months ago) are still awaiting good scholarships. Whenever we make some noise regarding this, Uz. Hassan Latheef would come out with a handful of scholarship offers from places like Bangladesh, China (and once, even the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus!), dump them under our noses then declare something along the lines of, “Are you happy now, little whelps?” Politely of course.

I think Danny Boy will be the first person to admit that he’s nowhere near perfect. After all, his Islamic knowledge is no better than that of the average 12-year old Maldivian. To his great credit, he acknowledged this during the start of his tenure, and decided to let the people who know their stuff to control the Islamic affairs of this country. I think he should consult these people more often, rather than wasting all his energy desperately vying for the position to be the darling of the Tories.

Anyway, the decision to bring Islamic issues under the control of the Ministry of Islamic affairs made certain people rather unhappy. You know the apostates, the contributors at Minivan News and the cronies who support everything they say. Together, all these Brown Sahibs will vilify the great religion of ours, mock our Prophet (s.a.w) and his companions and label anyone who defends our religion as a Wahhabi at every chance they get. (They also appear to think the rise of Salafi knowledge in this country is going to make us all run around the streets, waving knives and screaming, “Kill all Amreekans!” May Allah provide them the right knowledge) I sincerely hope Danny Boy’s ideas are not on the same wavelength as the Brown Sahibs. Because if they are, then sorry, I’m going to refrain from voting for him next time around.

Sometimes you’d wonder if there is any difference between the Brown Sahibs and the Islamophobic bigots we see elsewhere around the world. So quick were they to praise Danny Boy’s decisions to strengthen ties with Israel, to legalise the sale of intoxicants in inhabited islands. They freaked out at the news that Dr Bilal Phillips was going to visit our country, and constantly bemoan about the fact that more and more of our women are adopting the burqa. It’s funny how certain people become so bothered when women decide to cover up, as in accordance to how it is explicitly prescribed in our religion.

“Me, wear the burqa! Never! Do you really think I’m going to let the chance to show my stuff slip away like that? Maybe, just maybe, when I grow older and everything starts to get all saggy, then I might change my mind.” – What the anti-hijabi activists are really saying.

They want us to take heart from the so-called developed, forward-thinking nations who have made several attempts to ban the wearing of the hijab yet have no problem in allowing people to strip naked in public. This attitude is not new for Maldivians; I suppose some of our ancestor’s more eccentric genes must have sneaked through. Remember when the famous Islamic traveler, Ibn Batuta visited our country? He acted as a Qazi here for several months and was understandably dismayed to find that our women strutted around topless. His advice fell on deaf ears.

Brown Sahibs, especially the ones who consider themselves Muslims, dislike being reminded about their religion. Maybe it’s because of guilt or embarrassment. Whenever they hear a learned scholar preach, they’ll attempt to find faults to mock them. And if by chance they’re stuck in the same room with an Islamophobe and a learned, respected sheikh, you can be certain that they’ll always side with the Islamophobe. Whenever a bigot insults our religion, the Brown Sahib won’t defend it but will end up sheepishly siding with the nutter.

Anyway, I’ve managed to rant a lot but cut me some slack; I haven’t had time to write a reasonable post for a long time. The message I want to give to all the open-minded folks out there is to be careful of the enemy within. The Brown Sahibs are more dangerous to our society than those dodgy missionaries who’re constantly trying to infiltrate our ranks. We should all do our best to advice each other, to correct the faults of one another and to hold on firmly with our faith.

"By the 'Asr,
Indeed all of mankind is in a state of loss,
Except those who have eemaan,
Conduct righteous actions,
Call each other to the Truth,
And call each other to having patience."

- Surah Al-‘Asr

Also recommended: The Basis of Unity by Yasir Qadhi

Quiz: Are you Maumoon Abdul Qayyoom?

2009-10-31T19:20:00.003+08:00

1) It has been discovered that there are a group of religious transgressors reigning havoc in one of the islands. You:

A - Send a team of people to investigate the issue, and ask them to confront any troublemakers and take necessary action against them.

B - Invite the ringleaders of the group to have a face-to-face chat with you and inquire about their problems. Do everything to help them and turn them to the right path.

C - Attack! Send the MNDF blokes with their heavy batons to "speak" with these people. Also, make sure you round up anyone in Male' with long beards and black hijabis and remove those offensive items off them! Convince the public that these people are somehow, mysteriously, contracted to Mullah Umar and they want to shred you to pieces! Remind everyone that you acquired your infinite wisdom from al-Azhar and that you're also an expert in astronomy.

2) There have been nasty rumours of your son going wild over at the UK. Apparently he was involved in a drink driving accident.

A - Your son is innocent as a person possibly can be! You categorically deny the rumours and politely ask the public to find proof before spreading such gossip.

B - It is well known that your son has a tinge of wildness about him. Make your son explain himself to the public.

C - "How dare they tarnish my rep- I mean my son's reputation!" This can seriously hamper your chances of extending your Presidency to 35 years! Threaten to take legal action against anyone who spread such vile truths.

3) You've just ruled the country for 30 years, and got beaten in the latest elections. What do you plan on doing now?

A - Retire from politics altogether. After all, you've had a long career and now is probably the time to rest your remaining limbs.

B - You just cannot step away from politics altogether after all this time with all the experience you have. You plan to be an outside observer, and of course you can always offer a few tips of advice to your successor.

C - Make sure you harass, badger, hassle and heckle your successor to the best of your ability with the help of your minions. Remind them that you're infallible.

4) You've been asked to be present to face alleged corruption charges. What do you do?

A - You never did anything wrong, so you go there, prove it to them and leave them with egg on their faces!

B - You did a few things you regret during your long tenure as the President. Admit to your mistakes, because that's what the strongest amongst men do, aren't they?

C - Throw a tantrum about how the Riyaasee Commission does not have the right to "enter homes and arrest whomever they want", and of how you almost choked to death after falling victim to tear gas. Be careful not to mention anything about search warrants which enable the police to search homes.

5) Your successor's methods of enlightening the public about the plight of global warming and other environmental catastrophes appear to be much more successful than the ones you applied.

A - Bravo, good on him! Applaud his works and offer your support.

B - Ask your supporters to do everything possible to protect this country from possible environmental catastrophes.

C - Wait a minute! You are the Godfather of the Environment. You are the one who deserves all the medals! And what on earth is he doing underwater? Wasting time, damn it!

So there you go! If your answers are all C's, you got 5/5! Congratulations, Maumoon Abdul Qayyoom! Now I suggest you get away from our faces.

What really is freedom of speech?

2009-09-25T18:47:00.004+08:00

It's the right of every human being, I'm sure there aren't any disagreements there. It is the right of a person to stand up and speak against an iron-fisted ruler, to spread knowledge to the uneducated and to generally express your own opinion on various matters. But of course, there are always a few idiots who're going to abuse this right.

There's the saying "Freedom of speech does not mean you can yell "Fire!" in a crowded room." Although there are people who're always going to think the opposite. Just look at the recent uproar at UK when the fascist Dutch MP, Geert Wilders was barred from entering the country.

For those of you who don't know, Geert Wilders is a fascist, right-wing, anti-Islam politician (which basically means Idiot in a Nutshell), who spends all his energy, as with all attention-seeking, power hungry politicians, attempting to boost his popularity and get lots of votes. He was banned from entering the United Kingdom earlier this year and while this decision was supported by many, a few were left disgruntled and complaining about the lack of freedom of speech in Britain.

Geert Wilders, snorting ink

Allowing someone like Wilders to share his retarded views is like letting someone with no knowledge on physics to teach the quantum phenomena. He made a short film called Fitna, which was highly critical of Islam and was supposed to show everyone what bloodthirsty creatures we Muslims really are. I have to say that I found it to be something of an anticlimax; if I never knew who was behind its production, I would've thought it was a 12-year old. I'm not going to go into details, you can read an excellent response to the film here:

http://english.islamway.com/bindex.php?section=article&id=346

But anyway, after witnessing all the hysteria in Britain, people running around, flapping their arms in a demented manner, eyes rolling in their sockets, foam dripping out from their mouths and shrieking "Freedom of Speech, whatever happened to it?", I don't quite get the meaning of the term now. In my religion, we only do things which benefit people and stay well clear from things which induce harm. When we speak, we are told to speak only the truth. We are asked to spread knowledge so that the society can benefit from it. I just cannot see the point in letting a fascist bigot expressing his opinions. Opinions which are only meant to harm and isolate a group of people, to create instability and uncertainty throughout a country just so that his political party would get a few votes in his own country. That's how all racists and fascists obtain votes; by spooking you out with terrifying stories about The Others, or in today's world, Muslims. During the 1930's it was the Jews. Facists always attack you when you're most vulnerable, which only proves what cowards they really are. That's why the popularity of facist political parties have grown in Europe over the past year or so, which of course coincided with the global financial crisis. Apparently it's our fault that people are losing their jobs and are being forced to beg for a living.

I miss the days when common sense prevailed over everything else...

Greetings, an apology & and RMs

2009-08-27T19:05:00.007+08:00

Without further ado, I'd like to wish all my Muslim brothers and sisters a very happy and blessed Ramadan! Let's make the best use of our time while we still have it, and may Allah grant us the strength to do so.

I know how long it has been since my last post, and believe me, I'm not proud of it. If this blog were my wife, she would've filed for divorce and left me by now and I'd probably be trying to piece together my life again. Luckily though, this is just a blog and I can toy with it however way I wish. In my defence, I've been extremely busy, doing lots of traveling around the country and abroad. So I managed to interact with some very interesting characters which is good news since it has given me a lot to write on this blog. But let's leave it to another day and make an in-depth study on those quirky characters we see during the blessed month of Ramadan every year; the Ramadan Muslims.

I think it's safe to assume that the term probably started out as an inside joke within a circle of Islamic scholars. Here's my definition of the term:

Ramadan Muslim - A peculiar species of Muslim which comes out of its shell of excessive materialism during the first week of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Now, there are many ways in which you can identify RMs. The most widely used method is by observing the way people behave inside mosques. RMs just aren't used to spending time at the mosque. During the other months, while attending Friday prayers, they
1. turn up late so that they do not have to listen to the whole khutbah
2. sleep throughout the khutbah or
3. stay outside the mosque so that they cannot hear the khutbah. Or all three at once, if possible.

Of course, during the first Friday of Ramadan, RMs take special care to attend the prayers on time. They even try to stay awake through the whole sermon without thinking about food. They try. Of course, succeeding is a totally different issue.

RMs have their religious batteries charged to the brim during the first week, and this, unfortunately, lasts only 7 days. They'll attend prayers on time (some even manage to wake up for Fajr, to their enormous surprise), but their lack of mosque etiquette will be there for all to see.
It is evident from the Hadeeth of our beloved Prophet (s.a.w) that we should attempt to fill the rows while preparing for the prayers in an orderly manner. Fill the rows starting from the front, begin from the middle directly behind the Imaam and gradually fill the sides. This undoubtedly will make it easier for everyone. Unfortunately, RMs have other ideas, all of which center around, "I have to get outta here as soon as possible." They stay at the back rows, and believe me, there are a lot of RMs when you think about it! This usually gives rise to a horrendous bottleneck at the mosque entrance and several people will have to make do by praying outside amongst the slippers and shoes, some of which do not smell very nice.

Obviously, due to their apparent tight schedules, RMs don't bother performing the sunnah prayers. They leave as soon as the fard prayer ends, causing yet another bottleneck around the entrance. Personally I find it rather odd that they prefer getting jostled around in the middle of a crowd for ten minutes rather than taking that time to perform the sunnah prayers.

With Ramadan comes the Tharaaweeh prayers. Most RMs perform these prayers and are proud to do so. Until the end of the first week, that is. Afterward, they'll begin to skip this particular prayer by leaving after 'Isha, sheepish expressions plastered on their faces. The speed at which they leave the mosque is quite astonishing; they will shame any Olympic athletes who're lucky enough to witness it.

A Ramadan Muslim, leaving the mosque after 'Isha

After the first week, everything will go normal for RMs. They won't touch the Quran, set foot inside a mosque and will sleep till noon. An exception will be the eve of 27th, which for some reason they are convinced is THE night; Laylath-al-Qadr. I wonder who started this rumour, because it really isn't helping the RMs to carry out their religious duties properly.

And so the process repeats itself, once a week every year.

So, ask yourself this; are you a Ramadan Muslim? In any case, here are a few articles that I hope you will find to be useful.

http://www.khutbah.com/en/ramadan_hajj/warriors.php
http://www.khutbah.com/en/ramadan_hajj/sand.php
http://www.beautifulislam.com/fasting

Sex education in Maldives - it's a total failure!

2009-03-02T19:58:00.006+08:00

Yes, let's talk about sex! Me, being a tad melodramatic, will start by telling you all a little story.

The first time I was made to sit down and listen to The Talk was a few weeks after I began grade 6. I was eleven years old at the time. My classmates and I were taken to the school hall where our Assistant Principal was waiting for us, a book on her lap and her face bearing a very serious expression. We were immediately wondering what we had done to displease her.

So we tentatively seated facing her while she patiently waited till we settled down. Then she opened the book and held it up. We squinted to see what it was. It was an illustrated diagram of the male genitals. Several people sniggered, but the noise was instantly quailed when she glared at us.

"Do you know what this is?" She asked us. Of course we do, I thought. It's the male genitals. You can close the book now. She didn't, and continued with this rather unusual session.
"These are called the private parts. I'm going to tell you a few things you need to know about your private parts..." and she told us how important it was to not let our "private parts" be seen by anyone else, unless during unavoidable circumstances like sustaining an illness (I thought getting hit by the ball while out playing football and sustaining testicular torsion would have been a better example; the mind conjures horrible images sometimes).

But anyway, during the days that followed there were plenty of private part jokes floating around. Most of us didn't really take the session too seriously. We were made to sit through plenty of similar sessions and I noticed that the attitude of my classmates were pretty much the same.

This type of attitude is not limited to just immature adolescents. You make someone talk about sex on television and you'll hear people all over the country either freaking out or cracking dirty jokes. I suppose this is understandable to an extent, since quite a lot of negative Western aspects have seeped into our once disciplined culture. But if you take one brief look into our past, you'll discover that we have a rather cringeworthy history whenever sex is involved.

Remember the story of how we converted to Islam? About the Rannamaari? Weren't you surprised (and somewhat amused) to discover that the frightful monster that for some reason always feasted on young, virgin girls was merely the king carrying out his part time duty as a rapist? How about the way our earliest type of poetry, the Raivaru, lost its credibility when it was used as a tool to hurl out X-rated lyrics towards our pious women? Or how the discipline of our nation was on the verge of a serious meltdown when Mohamed Amin Didi came to power? Yes, homosexuality was common practice back then, bet your Dhivehi teacher never told you that, eh? Our first president managed to stamp it out of course, let's give credit to him for that. But what was his reward for all the positive changes he brought to this country? Getting beaten up, tortured and banished until he passed away. He forgave all Maldivian citizens except for the two blokes who injured his genitals. And recently we discovered this guy. One would fear that this is not an isolated case. Not only do we have such perverted sickos lumbering all over the country, but cases of premarital / extramarital sex and sexual assaults are on the rise. We've undone all the good work Amin Didi did for us.

Now, the solution. Predictably, I'm going to say it is our religion, Islam (I'll just ignore the groans coming from the Kemal Ataturk Brigade). In Islam, sex is not considered to be dirty or a source of shame. Rather, it is one of the natural inclinations given to us by Allah that need to be fulfilled every now and then, similar to the same sort of unavoidable desires such as eating, drinking, sleep etc. However, like everything else sexual desire can only be fulfilled by following a certain set of rules which can be clearly learnt from the Quran and our beloved Prophet's (peace be upon him) Hadith.

Don't get me wrong now, it's not that I'm against the awareness sessions being conducted in schools and youth centres. I just think the information are not being provided in the correct manner. Having attended plenty of such sessions, I can say that I've always felt there was an important element missing from them; the religious perspective. Brilliant though our psychologists and behavourial experts are, they simply don't have sufficient knowledge when it comes to religious matters. For an example, they can tell us about all the different types of contraceptive methods and when the session ends, some of us would be under the impression that as long as we use contraception, everything will be alright. For an instance, I was questioned in a survey conducted by WHO recently and the interviewer asked me all sorts of awkward questions (my cousin, who was with me at the time, was kicked out of the room to give me privacy). He began listing all sorts of contraceptive methods, most of which sounded rather repulsive, and he finally quzzed me about the diaphragm.
"Diaphragm?" I asked incredulously. "How on earth does that work?" I was thinking about the diaphragm pumps used in chemistry labs while transferring solutions into pipettes.
The interviewer did not appear to share my amusement.
"So which methods will you use?" He asked.
"Let's see, er...which methods..that's a tough one. I don't like many of the methods you've mentioned."
"Just name one or two then."
"I'll definitely not use a diaphragm."

These people never mention things like the importance of abstinence before marriage, the dangers of homosexuality and incest etc.

As a result today, we have an underground gay community and ignorant dunderheads who're always quick to say, "Oh, I don't have a problem with a person's sexuality." Oh yeah? Look what happened to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. And before you think of pelting me with hollow insults, take a look at the statistics provided by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency that is always on the frontline when it comes to infectious and dangerous diseases in the United States:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#exposure

Compare the number of cases of AIDS transferred by male-to-male sexual contact to that of high-risk (note the word high-risk) heterosexual contact. Interesting, isn't it? Of course, such statistics are rarely spoken aloud. It's called political correctness, see, which roughly means manipulating the truth in such a way that people are made to hear things the way they want to hear them.

It always amuses me how the many so-called developed countries of the world actually consider pornography and incest to be perfectly acceptable. Look at this:

"In Israel, incest between adults (of the age of 18 years and above) is not a crime"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_incest

Ha! Ridiculous! Not only are such atrocities legal in some countries, but pornography is a billion dollar industry, and cases of pornography-related sexual assaults are not rare. In fact, plenty of serial killers have admitted that the motivation of their crimes were as a result of watching violent pornography.

We all know that incest, pornography, sodomy and fornication are crimes in Islam. So how can we curb all the immorality that are rapidly spreading throughout our society? Well for one thing, we shouldn't just shun them into a dark corner and pretend they don't exist, which was a habit of a certain former President of ours. You might remember him; huge ego, has an irrational fear of fireworks...yes him. No, we should tackle the problems head-on using the powerful tool we call Islam.
Oh, and I've managed to find a couple of excellent articles:

Islamic perspective on homosexuality
Homosexuality in the light of Islam

Maldivians turning into Rednecks

2009-01-27T19:21:00.003+08:00

Don't we all feel annoyed by the stereotypes attached to us? Say you, the Maldivian, were in a foreign country, England for an example, and it's the middle of winter (a time of the year when people over there are unusually edgy). You walk into a small shop owned by a middle aged white man. He gives you one long, searching look of deepest loathing and utter,

"I don't bargain here."
"What? I had never thought of bargaining."
"Oh really? And am I supposed to believe that?"
"Well, I can't see any reason why you shouldn't."
"Oh I can tell you plenty of reasons. You see, don't think that, just because you worship three million false gods you can do whatever you like with us Englishmen."
"Ah! You think I'm from India then?"
"You ain't?"
"No, I'm from the Maldives."

As usual with most foreigners who discover that you're Maldivian, the shopkeeper will then undergo a drastic and frankly alarming change in his mood. He'll become so warm that you're sure the snow outside will melt at any moment.

"I am so sorry. You must be terrified! Please do forgive me, but those brown tossers are nothing but trouble, I'm sure you understand. But ah, Maldives! It's a beautiful country! You're so lucky to actually belong there!"
"Er...thank you?"
"Yes, yes, but anyway, what was it that you wanted to purchase? That watch? No, c'mere, I can show you even better ones. Here, a Rolex. No, no need to bother. I can make it cheap, you know. 20% discount, what do you say?"
"No sir, it's alright. I'm not really fussed...er I'll be happy with a cheap one. You know, I just need something to make myself keep track of the time."
"Oh, so modest. But tell me; how many times have you been hit on the head by a coconut?"
"A co- what? A coconut? Never."
"Never? But there probably ain't a scrap of land that ain't occupied by coconut trees!"
"Coconut palms, sir. But I assure you, I've never fallen victim to a coconut. And I've lived there most of my life."
"Ah yes. You must be one of the few lucky ones then, boy! I shudder to imagine the number of coconut-related injuries your people sustain every year."
"Well, to be honest such injuries are pretty rare."
"Rare! Hohoho! I don't know who you're kidding boy. Are you pulling my leg?"
"No, no, I'm being serious. Coconuts aren't nearly as dangerous as you appear to think!"
"Hahahaha! Oh, you've made my day, boy! You Maldivians have a good sense of humour too! I'll tell me wife of that. Incidentally, do you know anyone who could help me wife and I to go over there for cheap? It's our 25th anniversary this summer and what better way than to spend it in the tropical sun, eh boy?"

Yes, stereotypes and generalisation; two extremely annoying traits you're likely to encounter in foreign lands. Although some of them can be pretty amusing like the example mentioned above, others can be downright nasty. The nasty stuff can be attributed to racism or xenophobia. Or even fascism, but they all promote the same thing; hatred.

Which reminds me of Paulo Di Canio, the former Italian footballer who infamously made the Nazi salute after scoring a goal. When accused of being a racist, he replied, "I'm not a racist. I'm a fascist." What an idiot...

An even bigger douchebag than you previously thought

And it's a growing trend here in Maldives. Some of us appear to have the illusion that we Maldivians are superior in front of our fellow South Asians, and I'm sure that the rest of us are thoroughly mystified. If the historical facts we've come up with by collecting various evidence are accurate, then we're descendants of a mixture of tribes; Dravidians, Arabs, Black Africans and North Indian Aryans. But does any of this matter? Well, no, unless you're a completely ignorant fool.

And unfortunately, some of us appear to have happily embraced the Completely Ignorant Fool tag. I've seen plenty of blogs owned by Maldivians which shamelessly conjures articles week after week containing shocking derogatory language against "Bangalhis". Recently, several groups have popped up on Facebook calling for the expulsion of "Bangalhis" from Maldives, and their grotesque members have even uploaded photos of immigrant workers being subjected to all sorts of discriminatory acts, which the members of the groups appear to find amusing. Of course, if you confront any of these bigots then they'll always give you the same, Redneck answer:

"I don't like 'em immigrants. They come 'ere 'n steal our jobs."

Fine, then. Why don't you cycle to the garbage dump every evening with bulging bags of rubbish that makes you smell for weeks on end, or get involved in the construction of buildings from eight in the morning till sunset and risk getting baked in the sun, or perhaps maintain the sewers which, once again, will make you smell bad for weeks on end. What? No? It's not your job? Well then, what's with the double standards?

As we're all aware of, the racist attacks on foreigners, particularly Bangladeshi immigrant workers have been getting increasingly gruesome. I won't even bother to discuss them. And the abuse is not just limited to bodily harm, but you get the feeling that the verbal abuse is even worse.

What we Maldivians don't like to admit is the fact that we're getting increasingly unpopular amongst the South Asian countries. A friend of my mother's once told us how her family were residing in an area in Sri Lanka far away from where Maldivians usually stay.

"They call us drug dealers," she said. And you wonder why, looking at the way young Maldivians who go over there to "pursue their education" behave themselves.

All this hatred that has crept into our society wouldn't exist if people really acted like true believers. I recently read an interview of a man, who used to be a hardcore member of the KKK (that is a racist organization in the USA) who converted to Islam. In it, he said something that was really interesting:

"The other element [of my change] was [that] when you hate somebody so passionately and you just live and just consume the hatred everyday, it starts to deteriorate. It's like a cancer because it destroys your personality, it distorts your soul, and it destroys [those] close to you because it wears off on other people. I was inflicting more harm on myself than the people I hated. I was basically destroying my family and anyone else who had contact with me."

You can read the full interview here:
http://www.beautifulislam.com/converts/kkk_to_islam.htm

In a country where the majority of its citizens claim to followers of Islam, it is embarrassing to witness such acts of cowardice. If only these cowards bothered to learn more about the way of life, I'm absolutely certain that ones race will not even be considered an issue. That is because racism has no place in Islam.

Which brings us to some wise words said by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

A man once visited the Prophets mosque in Madina. There he saw a group of people sitting and discussing their faith together. Among them were Salman (who came from Persia), Suhayb who grew up in the Eastern Roman empire and was regarded as a Greek, and Bilal who was an African. The man then said:

"If the (Madinan) tribes of Aws and Khazraj support Muhammad, (it is understood because they are Arabs like him) they are his people. But what are these (foreign) people doing here?" (Implying an obvious dislike for foreigners) The Prophet became very angry when this was reported to him. He went to the mosque and summoned people to prayer. He then addressed them saying:

"O people, know that the Lord and Sustainer is One. Your ancestor is one; your faith is one. The Arabism of anyone of you is not (by virtue of the nobility of) your mother or father. It is no more than a tongue (language) The Prophet further said: Let people stop boasting about their ancestors. One is only a pious believer or a miserable sinner. All men are sons of Adam, and Adam came from dust." [(Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi)]

"Humanity is the family of Allah, the best human is one who is kind to His (Allahs) family. (Mishkat) Extending a helping hand to a foreigner is extending your hand to your own family member."

Books you wouldn't expect to read anytime soon

2009-01-21T18:07:00.004+08:00

I just finished reading Airman, yet another classic by Eoin Colfer, and I'm not being dramatic by saying that that was probably the best piece of fiction I've ever read. So understandably, I'm feeling somewhat book-ish. So without further ado:

How to Give Awe Inspiring Speeches in Public by Mohamed Nasheed "Anni"

Frugal Living by Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom

An In-Depth Look Into the Quantum Phenomena by Ali Seezan

A Man For All Islands: Umar Naseer, a biography by Royston Ellis

Your Guide To Beating Narcissism by Cristiano Ronaldo

Laugh Out Loud Jokes by Ayatollah Khomeini

How to Sustain An Active Lifestyle During Your Latter Years by Ariel Sharon

A Guide to English Vocabulary by George W Bush

Grab Votes; 101 Ways to Become Popular Amongst the Public by Ibrahim Ismail

Silence is Golden: The Virtues of Keeping Your Trap Shut by Mohamed Nasheed (former Information Minister)

The Many Different Contraceptive Methods by the Pope

Good Career Moves I've Made So Far and How You Can Learn From Them by Ali Ashfaq

An honorable mention:
This one is actually real believe it or not..

Feel free to add your suggestions. I'm looking forward to them.

The Gaza massacre

2009-01-01T16:56:00.008+08:00

The current killing spree conducted by Israel is the latest chapter of Zionist occupation that have been stained and soaked by the blood of Palestinians. Even though the government of Israel have used the excuse "We're attacking to defeat Hamas", no sane, unbiased person will be fooled into believing that. They're using this latest genocide as a tool to gain support from the grotesque Israeli public for the upcoming elections. In order to discuss this post, I'll try my best to give you all an in-depth look to the root of all the evil; Zionism.

First, let's look at a brief history of Palestine. It is a place where many of the Prophets were born or died, including Ibrahim, Lut, Dawud, Sulayman, Musa and `Isa (peace be upon them). Also, we musn't forget that Baitul-Maqdis was the site of Prophet Muhammad's (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) Isra' and Mi'raj.

Palestine was brought under Islamic rule during the time of Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him. The new laws were welcomed not only by Muslims, but by the Christians and Jews as well. Prior to Islamic rule, the Palestinians had been living under the tyrannical Byzantines. In fact, after witnessing the humbleness of Umar (r.a) and the Muslims, Sophronius, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem gave him the keys to the city. There was also another famous incident where Umar was invited to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and when prayer time arrived he was given permission to pray inside the church by the Patriarch of Alexandria, Eutychius. However, Umar declined the offer and prayed outside the church instead, citing that if he prayed inside the church, he feared that future generations of Muslims may take it as an excuse to forcefully convert the church to a mosque. In addition to this, Jews were able to live in Jerusalem and practice their religion freely for the first time since they were banished 500 years prior to that. According to Encyclopaedia Judaica, 70 Jewish families took up residence in the city.

- 1099 A.C. Palestine was invaded by the European Crusaders and subsequently occupied for nearly a century. During the occupation massacres and great injustices were committed against the Muslim, Jewish and native Christian residents of the area. The only law applied in the holy land blessed by Allah was the law of force and persecution.

- 1187 A.C. Palestine was liberated by the Muslims under the leadership of Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi (Saladin the Magnificent) who brought back Islamic law to the area.

- 1917 the British government issued the Balfour Declaration which declared Palestine to be a homeland for Jews. At the time Jews made up approximately 8% of the population of Palestine and owned approximately 2.5% of the land.

- 1918 the British and their Arab nationalist allies defeated the Ottomans. The British dismembered the Ottoman Empire and occupied Palestine. The British immediately began a campaign of immigrating European Jews to Palestine.

- 1948 the Jews claimed the establishment of a state for themselves over the land of Palestine and called it Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were forced out of Palestine under the military pressure of Jewish terrorist groups such as the Irgun, Levi, and Haganot which were financed and armed by the British army.

- 1967 Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria and occupied more land including, for the first time, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. Since that time Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa has been the target of several attempts by the Jews to destroy or burn it, including several attempts to bring about its collapse through underground excavations. The Jews know that Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa is symbolic of the Islamic nature of the land and want to remove any trace of Islamic civilization from Palestine.

When we look at all these facts, one thing becomes crystal clear; it is only Islamic rule that will bring peace and prosperity to a country. For Islamic rule to be implemented, two factors must be considered;

1. Muslims should make up the majority of the population. The Zionists have been attempting to make people believe that creating two states, i.e. Palestine and Israel alongside each other, will help the citizens of both states to prosper. This will not work, and in any case, their main objective is to drive out the Muslims from the area.
2. The heads of the Palestinian state should consist of Muslims with sufficient knowledge of their religion, and enough thaqwa to act upon what they've learnt. Appointing pro-democrats will only contribute, yet again, to the downfall of the nation.

It must also be noted that anti-Zionism have been mentioned in the same breath as Antisemitism by Western media sources, so much so that many appear to believe that the two ideologies are the same thing. For an example, there was a meeting held by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and several anti-Zionist Rabbis to conduct discussions about the evils of Zionism. CNN covered this rather extensively it must be said, with the headline "DENYING THE HOLOCAUST", with Bush and his cronies appearing randomly to criticize the meeting, calling it antisemitic. In fact, one of the invitees of the meeting clearly mentioned just as the meeting began that it had nothing to do with the Holocaust, they weren't discussing anything about it. The only time that they mentioned the Holocaust was when they agreed upon the fact that Zionists were using in as an excuse to drive Palestinians out of their homeland. This brings us to a few words uttered by the Finnish Foreign Minister Errki Tuomioja back during 2001:

"I am shocked that Israel's policy is to humiliate, to hurt, and to impoverish the Palestinians. What could be the result of this except eternal hatred? Israel's actions are especially difficult to accept because the Jews, more than anyone else should know how horrible it is for a whole nation to be persecuted. It is very troubling that the policies of the Israelis against the Palestinians are similar to those which victimized them in the 1930s."

Predictably, he was much criticized after this. In this age of globalization, we're not allowed to look deep into the heinous acts of crime committed by the so-called saviors of the human race, i.e. USA, UK, and the rest of the G8. I was watched coverage of the Gaza massacre on several Western news channels like the Australia Network, Fox News etc and was not surprised to see that their correspondents were strategically placed in Israel where the "Israelis were living in constant fear." I call it shambolic journalism.

* "The Torah] forbids us to strive for the reunion or possession of the land by any but spiritual means."
Rabbi S. R. Hirsch

* "Not via our desire did we leave the land of Israel, and not via our power will we come back to the land of Israel."
Rabbi S.D. Schneerson

* "[Zionists] want a state in order to make Jews into heretics."
Rabbi C. Soloveichik

* "The Zionists have attacked the center point of Judaism."
Rabbi V. Soloveichik

Zionists are aware that their ideology utterly is baseless. Recently I watched a video of an interview with Yusuf al-Khattab, a Jewish convert to Islam. He came in contact with an Arab Muslim and started to learn about some of the teachings of Islam. He mentioned that he often repeated the questions he asked the Arab guy in front of Zionist Rabbis (he was living in Israel at the time) just to see what kind of answers they gave him. On one such occasion, he asked the question, "Do you think it is better if we live under the Islamic Sharia, where women are dressed modestly and such, or if we continue to live like the way we're doing right now?"
The Rabbi looked around, raised a finger to his lips and said, "Shh!"
"It was then that I realized what garbage people they were," said Yusuf, "they don't even stand up to what they believe."

Illegal Jewish settlers attempt to burn down a house containing a family of 20 Palestinians, who've climbed the roof of the house while Jews try to egg them from above. One of the many incidents that received little to no coverage by Western media sources.

But, amongst all the confusion created by the tyrants, lone voices of truth are speaking out. As Martin Luther King said, "The tragedy is not the brutality of evil but the silence of good people." In this age of mass media, we should feel obliged to deliver the truth to many who've been kept in the dark for too long. Like this Jewish Rabbi:

I also find it very saddening to see that many people of my age pay little to no attention to this. Many of them say, "There's nothing we can do" and that is it. But there is a lot we can do! We can pray to Allah to ease the suffering of the Gazans, to give them strength during these perilous times, to keep their faith in Allah strong, and insha Allah the state of Palestine will be ours again!

Fight those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loves not the transgressors. [The Holy Quran, 2:190]

And fight them on until there is no more tumult and oppression, and there prevail Justice and Faith in Allah. [The Holy Quran, 2:193]

And Slacken not in Following up on the Enemy: If you are suffering hardships, they are suffering similar hardships: But you have hope from God while they have none. God is full of Knowledge and Wisdom. [The Holy Quran 4: 104]

5 weird leaders

2008-12-12T17:01:00.029+08:00

Hello there again. I know it's been a while since my last post, more than a month in fact! During that I'd been spending my time fruitfully; working, reading and learning. Whatever, I hope you enjoyed the holidays and are now totally burned out :P

Anyway, I decided to introduce something new to this blog. They're called top lists, and my future posts will, hopefully, be in this form occasionally. Today's topic is about five rather eccentric leaders that I know about. You probably want to ask, "Only five?" I know, modern day politicians are an unusual breed, but I've done my best here with my very limited knowledge on global politics. Plus if I were to write about all of them I'll probably be going on forever. Alright, without further ado, let me introduce you to

5) Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

A man much revered by many of the modern day Turks, going as far as calling him the 'Father of Turkey'. Secularists keep a poster of him above their beds so that they can kiss it before going to sleep every evening.

Secularists are often tight-lipped about his childhood, so that stage of his life is somewhat obscure. You'll be able to find a few interesting things here though. He was committed to "modernizing" Turkey ever since he went to power. Modernizing was, according to him, destroying anything and everything related to Islam. His weird ideologies included forcing civil servants to wear Panama Hats, discouraging and in the end, banning the wearing of Hijab by women (as a show of support, his wife threw off her headscarf to never wear it again, nutter), changing the Turkish alphabet from its Arabic script, which incidentally had been used for centuries, to a Latin version, closing down of Islamic courts and several Islamic teaching institutions to be replaced by schools promoting Darwinism and Marxism and abolishing the Caliphate. Oh, and he dominated the country with a single party rule, and if you trust the media sources of today, that is the clearest sign of an authoritarian leader.
Of course, any sane unbiased person would immediately label him as a dictator. But as things stand, however horrible you are, if your ideologies go against Islamic teachings then apparently you can NEVER be a dictator. This is evidenced by the way he's hero-worshiped by some of those brainwashed Turks and of course, the (even more brainwashed) secularists.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk choosing the party candidates for the MPs.

4) George Walker Bush
Yeah, he only made #4 on the list. I'm not going to bother typing a profile of him. His quotes just sum him up.
To set the tone a little, here's the first one:

"I hope you leave here and walk out and say, 'What did he say?"
- George W. Bush, Beaverton, Oregon, Aug. 13, 2004.
He must be pleased.

"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." —Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

"I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2003

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." -interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006

"I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport." —Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001

I cut the taxes on everybody. I didn't cut them. The Congress cut them. I asked them to cut them.
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004

"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." —discussing the Iraq war with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, as quoted by Robertson

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." -Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000

I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004

"We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." —Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002

"They misunderestimated me." -Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

The march to war hurt the economy. Laura reminded me a while ago that remember what was on the TV screens -- she calls me, 'George W.' -- 'George W.' I call her, 'First Lady.' No, anyway -- she said, we said, march to war on our TV screen.
- George W. Bush, Bay Shore, New York, Mar. 11, 2004

"Do you have blacks, too?" —to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001

"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it." -Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 2001

The best way to find these terrorists who hide in holes is to get people coming forth to describe the location of the hole, is to give clues and data.
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 15, 2003

"This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating." —as quoted by the New York Daily News, April 23, 2002

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories ... And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." -Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003

"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" -joking about his administration's failure to find WMDs in Iraq as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004

"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."
- George W. Bush, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003, proving that the USA is not a free country.

"It is white." —after being asked by a child in Britain what the White House was like, July 19, 2001

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on --shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again." -Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

She is a fabulous First Lady. I was a lucky man when she said, yes, I agree to marry you. I love her dearly, and I'm proud of the job she's doing on behalf of all Americans. Just like I love my brother.
- George W. Bush, Jacksonville, Florida, Sep. 9, 2003

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." —aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." -State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003, making a claim that administration officials knew at the time to be false

Our country puts $1 billion a year up to help feed the hungry. And we're by far the most generous nation in the world when it comes to that, and I'm proud to report that. This isn't a contest of who's the most generous. I'm just telling you as an aside. We're generous. We shouldn't be bragging about it. But we are. We're very generous.
- George W. Bush, bragging about not bragging, Washington, D.C., July 16, 2003

"But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." —summing up his first year in office, three months after the 9/11 attacks, Washington, D.C., Dec. 20, 2001

"You work three jobs? ... Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." -to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 29, 2003

I think war is a dangerous place.
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 7, 2003

Now, we talked to Joan Hanover. She and her husband, George, were visiting with us. They are near retirement - retiring - in the process of retiring, meaning they're very smart, active, capable people who are retirement age and are retiring.
- George W. Bush, Alexandria, Va., Feb. 12, 2003

It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.
- George W. Bush

I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating.
- George W. Bush

The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case.
- George W. Bush

I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today. You're doing a heck of a job. You cut your teeth here, right? That's where you started practicing? That's good. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me.
- George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., May 27, 2004

The Pope, made to sit through a Bush speech.

3) Kim Il-sung
Recently I visited the official website of DPR Korea to get a little bit of an idea of just how much this guy is revered over there. The forums were, unsurprisingly, severely moderated and censored. The moderators accepted only certain types of questions, you know, the ones that do not question the authority of their 'Great Leader' in any shape or form. In fact I highly doubt whether the questions were actually posed by visitors to that website.

Q: "I'm afraid this could be the silliest question ever in the KFA Forum, but I'm curious about it. I've recently read that NK people can't sit or folding newspapers due to the picture of Dear Leader appearing on the cover, if this is right, what do North Koreans do when they have read the newspapers? How do they get rid of them?"

A: "That is true. Many years ago, they found out that when people folded their Won bills in half to fit into wallets, the picture of Kim-Il Sung got folded. Out of respect, they moved the picture to the side so when the bill got folded, the picture remained undefaced. I'm not too sure about how newspaper is recycled."

Oh yes, he's quite literally worshiped over there, which is ironic since following a religion is forbidden in that communist country. North Koreans also believe that he's some sort of almighty God who created the world, and hence he has no beginning! The funny thing about this is that his birthday and day of death are considered national holidays. He has turned North Koreans into an insult to the human race.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

He made the country's army the central pillar of his regime where he exercised absolute power using demagogy as a tool. You'd think being a dictator was bad enough, but to actually make people treat him as though he was a demigod is just mind blowing. During his reign of power, everything was state owned. Say you were riding a (probably state owned) bicycle through the streets of Pyongyang when suddenly a tire bursts. In order to patch it up, you drag the state owned bicycle to a state owned garage, where a guy whose wages are payed by the government fixes the (state owned) bicycle using state owned tools. You then thank the Great Leader by bowing down in front of a picture of him, which isn't difficult since probably every single building in that country has at least one.

During his leadership, North Korea became completely isolated from the rest of the world thanks to his Juche (self-reliant) philosophy, bar a few limited contacts with China. However China too became increasingly distant and when the Soviet Union collapsed, the country was left all alone. Despite the awful economic situation and the horrendous living conditions of the Koreans all the while when this man was living a life of luxury, the Korean media continued to lionize him. He died after a sudden heart attack in 1994 and his funeral was attended by thousands who were seen weeping dramatically. The video can be seen here.
It was said that as he grew older, some sort of a growth developed on the back of his neck. To prevent this from being seen, North Korean photographers took photos of him from a certain angle, but this became rather difficult after a while when the growth became the size of a baseball!

Oh yeah, did I mention that he's also the country's Eternal President?

2) Kim Jong-il
A classic case of Like Father, Like son. He didn't become President of DPR Korea since his father is the "Eternal President", remember? Instead, he was appointed as the Chairman of the National Defense Commission, which, incidentally was announced as the highest post of the state. Since he's not the president he's not required to hold elections and to no one's surprise, hasn't done so.

Okay, I visited the official DPRK website again and found another interesting question posed by a visitor.

Q: "In America I can sit on Bush's picture and expel gas. Is the Dear Leader equal to Kings?"

A: "The Great Leader is indeed higher than Kings. While Kings are only concerned about the aristocratic circle, Kim Jong-Il is the father and nexus of the full society.
What makes him more great is that although having such power and trust from the people, never shows his opulence and is a very humble person in every aspect of his life."

His leadership is almost a carbon copy to that of his fathers'. He commands absolute obedience, and failure to do so is in his opinion, a sign of disloyalty. Those disloyal to him or his army (now the world's 5th largest) are sent to concentration camps where God knows what horrors lie in store for them. He's known as The Dear Leader, and his birthday is a national holiday.

In addition to his cruel leadership, he's also recognised as a playboy. His extravagant lifestyle, which includes filthy amounts of money spent on purchasing luxury cars, a wine cellar in one of his numerous homes and collecting movies. He's an avid film fan and reportedly owns over 20,000 video tapes, so it was only expected that he wanted to develop a North Korean film industry. His solution? Kidnapping a South Korean film director and his actress wife. Unique, to say the least. He's also a womanizer and had relationships with numerous women. I'm guessing the line, "My father is the Eternal President" turned out to be pretty useful. Like his father, he too has a fear of flying. During one of his trips to Russia via train, he reportedly had live lobsters airlifted to him everyday, which he ate using silver chopsticks. In his autobiography, he claims that he has a genius IQ and that he has written 6 operas and designed at least one structure. Most accuse him of insanity.

During the latter part of this year, there were rumours that he had suffered a stroke and possibly died. The North Korean government and media (almost the same thing really; the media is totally controlled by the government) kept mysteriously quite on this issue and were finally forced to admit that he had suffered a "minor" stroke. To prove that he's in top physical condition now, their Central News Agency published photos of him to the world, though the authenticity of these have been questioned by anyone with an above average IQ. There have been rumours that he suffered a second stroke last month. I think it will be more appropriate if he could just get out and show himself!

He's also 5'2" and wears 4 inch platform shoes to disguise his shortness. I should do that too!

1) Saparmurat Niyazov
I'm not sure if I could fit all his eccentricities into this post, but when 99.9% of a country's population vote in favour of the incumbent President to extend his presidiency, and when the parliament declares him President for Life, you'll probably be able smell trouble from the other end of the globe. That was exactly what happened at Turkmenistan, a country which gained independence after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Turkmenistan is not exactly the most well-known country. That is because like the two Korean leaders mentioned above, this man decided to isolate his country from the rest of the world and develop a personality cult. Although we may have to invent a new word as a substitute for 'personality cult'. That's because this guy was incredibly egocentric. And stupid.

He declared himself as Turkmenbashi, meaning "Father of all Turkmen". Amongst the bizarre things he's done, it includes banning beards, forcing his countrymen to have only one pet at the most so that "herds may be avoided", renaming the month April to "Gurbansoltan Eje" in honour of his dead mother, and renaming other months, years and days of the week after his family members and famous Turkmeni personalities. Oh and he renamed the year 2002 after himself, Turkmenbashi.

Teacher writes the date, 24th of Wednesday, Turkmenbashi

He also assigned the second Sunday of August as a national holiday, calling it Melon Day in honour of the melon. Why can't we have a Rihaakuru Day?
He squandered millions of dollars on building a zoo and a ski resort in the middle of the desert, too. Who cares if the civilians are starving, eh?

The Neutrality Arch, atop the monument is a gold-plated statue of Niyazov which rotates 360 degrees every 24 hours so as to always face the sun. - Wikipedia

During his time, the economy of Turkmenistan crippled and plunged to a somewhat perilous state. But he didn't mind! There're portraits and gold plated statues of him all throughout the country staring down upon the hungry civilians. When he tinted his grey hair black, teams were rushed to retouch official portraits and statues accordingly. He also opened a Ministry of Fairness, whatever that meant.

Turkmenistan has the fifth-largest natural gas reserves, and as long as Niyazov continued to pump gas into Europe, he would've been seen as a jolly old bear with some hilarious eccentricities. And that was how things were, though there was a much darker side. There were no such things as press freedom, only 0.7% of the population used the internet since he'd ordered to shut down all internet cafe's. He ordered all doctors to take oath to him and dismissed 15,000 health workers, replacing them with military conscripts who'd been ordered to use his medical textbooks. He likes to think he's a good physician despite having no training and next to no knowledge on this subject.

His weirdness was confirmed (as though we don't need any more convincing) when he published a book, the Ruhnama. If you were to believe him, this is THE ultimate book. It contains absolutely everything, from spiritual and moral guidance, his autobiography (of course), and some history lessons with highly disputed facts. Not only was it made compulsory for every Turkmen to read and learn from it, but it was also integrated into the nation's education curriculum. You've to learn it in order to pass driving exams too! Niyazov also attempted to keep copies of it in the churches and mosques. Obviously the imams weren't too happy with keeping a book written by a senile dictator alongside the Qur'an and they let their feelings known. Turkmenbashi's solution was to bulldoze a few mosques.

This is a monument to the Ruhnama, probably the first ever monument of a book. It's situated in the capital Ashgabad, and at 8:00 pm every evening, it opens and plays recorded passages from the book accompanied by video. You're not allowed to critisize this in any shape or form if you don't want to be subjected to torture and imprisonment. Most importantly, according to Niyazov, reading this book thrice will guarantee you a ticket to heaven! Fantastic, eh?

Being titchy

2008-11-08T18:52:00.003+08:00

I've always been a few inches shorter than the average Maldivian height. Ask anyone who knows me to describe me and they'll always start with, "Well, he's short and...". This never bothered me nearly as much as it bothers my mom. It's understandable though, since all mothers like their sons to be big, broad-shouldered and to generally have an imposing physique. I don't have any of those characteristics, so I've been dragged into a few sticky situations, been the subject of several in-class jokes (which are mostly good-natured, by the way) and even got away with a few things that only short people could. See, it's not all bad! Oh, and the rumour is true. An elevator full of people does smell differently to a midget..

I've been small right from the start. Ever since my premature birth (I saw a photo of myself back then; I looked like Yoda from Star Wars, minus the long years of course), to being called "Kuda Imma" at preschool, and being forced to stand at the front of the class line almost every year during my primary school days. My physique started to show its advantages and drawbacks when I began grade 6.

During grade 6, the school management decided to select (or rather, force) students to join the school Cadet. Grade 6 was the most senior year back then, so naturally we were the ones who had to suffer through seemingly endless meetings where they tried to convince us that Cadet was actually very beneficial and joining it would clearly open the doors for a bright future for all of us. Few bought this. In fact, only around 40 students willingly joined. Imagine that! If Kalaafaanu School held a procession with only 40, we would've become a laughing stock. So naturally, the management decided to take the matter into their own hands. I remember one day after another such meeting, we were all made to stand in the school compound and they scrutinized us individually while carrying a list of all the names of the sixth graders. When they stopped by me, they took one look at me, shook their heads vigorously while looking almost disgusted and didn't even bother to check my name.
"You're so lucky!" My best friend hissed into my ear. Oh yes, I felt like the luckiest person on Earth.

My joy, however, was short-lived.

A few weeks later, my English teacher summoned me to his desk.
"You're supposed to come here at 3:45 in the afternoon", he said.
"A club meeting?" I asked excitedly. English club meetings were always entertaining. He neither confirmed nor denied it, but pretended to be busy rummaging through a file.
So I went at the required time and entered the school, only to find myself in the midst of 4th and 5th graders. Due to the lack of Cadets, the school management had made the 4th and 5th graders sit through the sort of meetings I had to suffer. It didn't take a lot of persuasion to convince them the whole "Cadet is beneficial to your future" thing. Still, I just couldn't believe it! I had been blackmailed!
The worst part of the whole experience was that I was made to march and yell those stupid, "Yes Sir!" and "Affirmative Sir!" stuff with a group of 4th graders, whom I'm pretty sure didn't even know the meaning of "affirmative". They were about the same height as me, and had attended many meetings prior to that afternoon, hence they were more experienced and unlike me, they actually knew how to follow the commands. Hence I couldn't keep in tune with the marching and disrupted the flow of the march and got heckled by them. Got heckled by a bunch of 4th graders! I had to use all my willpower in trying to keep my lips pursed to prevent myself from saying something scathing in return. At the end of the day, my back felt so rigid that I couldn't even bend it sufficiently to tie my shoelaces! This really wasn't what I had in mind when I went to school that day. That was the last time I went to a Cadet "meeting."

The next year, which was of course my last at Kalaafaanu, an inter-class football tournament was held. During one practice session, a 4th grade class approached us and requested a match. Apparently "playing with bigger people will make them better." So we agreed, and absolutely thrashed them, both scoreline and confidence-wise. Any chance of me feeling sympathetic towards them was cut short by the fact that I fell victim to their heckling again! I mean, you would expect 4th graders to be able to recognise their own classmates. They just assumed that I was one of them, and I took great pleasure in watching them get all riled up every time I stole the ball from one of their players or made a pass to one of my classmates, or generally whenever I did anything good for my team.
Perhaps the most bizarre incident took place the same year. It was during one school assembly when they were selecting the school Prefects. I was lucky enough to be selected and was walking along to stand in line to take my oath when I was interrogated by two teachers.
"Do you want any help in pinning it?" They asked, indicating the Prefect's badge in my hand. I was momentarily shocked. Here were two teachers who taught grades 3 and 4 respectively, asking me if I was capable of doing something that their students were more than capable of doing. What annoyed me most was the tone they used. You must've heard people using a peculiar tone while communicating with cute infants. That tone.
"No!" I replied, pinning the badge to my shirt. Not very Prefect-like, I know.

My physique, or rather the lack of it, rather worried my badminton coach. I was part of the Youth Development Program and was progressing nicely through the ranks until I went to grade 8. I started to struggle a bit, probably because I was going through a growth spurt (if you could call that a "growth" spurt) . My coach confided his feelings about my physique and told me that I was disadvantaged. He made me work through tough physical routines created by himself in order to make me look "more like a man." It worked for a while, until an unfortunate illness prevented me from engaging in any vigorous physical activities for two whole months. During that time, I was also settling to life at Dharumavantha School. As you can imagine, it was pretty tough for someone of my height. Heightism and gang culture has always been strife over there, and I was the epitome of a perfect bully magnet. I can imagine how I would've been in a bully's point of view. Short, frail and wearing glasses. Perfect.
During the first month, it was a common experience for me to get surrounded during the interval period by tall, gorilla-ish guys with ravenous appetites all demanding a piece of my hotdog. I was lucky enough to witness a friend of mine suffer through a similar experience during the first week. He yelled, "NUDHEYNAN!" and got punched on the face. Poor fellow. But this particular incident made me realize that in order to be a bully, you're required to have sub-human intelligence. I mean, these guys are like programmed robots; they understand only a few expressions and know when you're being hostile. So I used a very different tactic; I bore them out of their minds.
"You know what? I actually spent 2 Rufiyaa on this and want to enjoy this on my own. If I am to share this amongst all of you then all the money would be wasted. Plus, how am I supposed to share this little thing amongst all of you? I mean-"
"-yeah just eat the bloody thing!" Walks away.
They stopped begging for food after a couple of weeks.

After I was officially accepted into CHSE, we were made to attend several orientation programs. During one such session, some blokes from the Maldivian National Defense Force came to brainwash, oh sorry, enlighten us about the work they do over there. The guy who was speaking made it sound like heaven of course, but then he said something that really rattled some of us.
"Anyone can join. Boys need to be at least 5"5' in height and girls at least 5"3'."
I couldn't believe it! This was blatant heightism! But then I thought, why am I even listening?
Things got a little more entertaining during the Q&A session when a girl stood up to the MNDF officer. Only a few years ago this would've guaranteed her 6 months time in prison. She demanded to know why we had to be of a certain height to join this so-called elite job. My heroine!

The highs and a pesky low

2008-10-29T22:36:00.006+08:00

Today, people flocked over to the east end of Male' to witness the first ever sunrise at Aneh Dhivehiraajje. No, I'm not going to get all emotional and type something full of poetry "straight from the heart". That's mainly because I'm not a very poetic sort of person and my attempts to write poetry often include trying to find words that rhyme and ending up with something that doesn't make any sense. Like this verse of a poem I wrote when I was around nine:

Grandmother Willow,
She loves to hug the pillow,
and she looked down below

Enough blabbering. I didn't go to witness the sun rise because I've seen it a million times before and it always looked the same. Also, I had collapsed onto bed out of sheer exhaustion and, according to my friend who phoned me at that time, I spoke absolute nonsense and he came up with the conclusion that I wasn't in the right mental state to do anything due to severe sleep deprivation. Which is a shame as he's one of those who have their heads stuck up Maumoon's behind and was expecting a victory speech from me.

Anyway, I was walking along a very pro-Maumoon neighbourhood today and witnessed two people trying to vigorously remove posters of him from their walls. They caught me staring and gave me the 'what are you looking at?' look. I pretended to scratch the tip of my nose in an attempt to conceal a smirk and walked on, keeping my head bowed until I'd got myself out of that area. It was unusually quite during the late morning wasn't it? Probably because most people were in bed having stayed up all night, or that the whole thing hasn't quite sunk in yet.

The purpose of this post is not about basking in the glory of a sweet victory or gloating over it. In fact, it doesn't have any clear-cut purpose, so I would like to advise all of you, whether you voted for Maumoon or Anni or for the third candidate who never campaigned, i.e Mr Baathil Vote, to act like adults. People like me who voted for a change should stop rubbing it in the faces of the Maumoon supporters, whom by the way, should quit throwing tantrums. I mean, 30 years! For how long could you possibly stand him? Whoops, there I go again!

I hate Anni! I hate him! I don't wanna stay here anymore!!

See, this is the reason why you've to be at least 18 in order to be eligible for voting.

There's something else I'd like to mention; the darn mark. I predicted in my previous post that the new method wouldn't be one which we would enjoy and I turned out be be right, didn't I? Here, have a look:
My index finger looks dead! It reminds me of the irreversible injury Dumbledore sustained on his hand when he tried to put on a cursed ring. All thanks to our whiny journalists who're so incompetent that they couldn't come up with better topics than the issue of a mark. Yesterday my cousins were making a little too much noise, so I raised the finger to my lips to say, "Shh" and the smallest one freaked out. According to her, I shouldn't have voted in black. She thinks voting means applying colours on our fingers, bless her. In my defense, it turned black because of unavoidable contact with water and sunlight.
I've also heard of the incredible lengths people have gone to in order to remove this. Like using lemons, as cologne proved to be unhelpful this time round, or even strong hazardous solvents! My suggestion is concentrated sulphuric acid. It'll definitely remove the mark, although side effects include your skin melting to the bone and the acid entering your bloodstream causing damage to the optic nerves.

Election fun

2008-10-15T23:41:00.021+08:00

I received rather unusual text messages last Wednesday. They were all along the line, "How did the voting go?" Like me, most of my friends voted for the first time ever, so I suppose their somewhat irrational excitement is understandable.

I would describe the event as enlightening, but not enjoyable. It's hard to enjoy yourself when you've to stand in queue on a rainy day for over an hour amidst hordes of strangers. They were supposed to be people I was familiar with of course, but I managed to locate only 3 or 4 familiar faces.
Oh, and while I was walking home after submitting my vote, I saw a most peculiar site; a house was covered from top to bottom with posters of Maumoon, while the house next door had a similar look with the slight difference that they went for posters of Anni. I can imagine the neighbourhood arguments.

Anyway, I was amongst the many Maldivians who observed the post-election events with interest. Naturally, now that each one of the candidates have campaigned and tried their best to convince the population that they're the more suitable one amongst the two who made it to the next round to be president of this country, its blame game time! Most of the accusations they make about each other are supposedly valid, although sometimes they can go a little over the top and a teeny weeny bit paranoid. Best not talk about them. They make me wonder whether we're all actually part of a comedy sitcom. Come to think of it! The show will be probably called Maldives, and the studio audience: rest of the world. In fact, they'll be laughing now as Abdullah Kamaaludheen, who's portrayed as a Ninja (and incidentally has unusually bad physique for a Ninja), jumps over the wall fenced around his home and enters the ID card section in the middle of the night by breaking various powerful security features and locks. I'm guessing that the "powerful security features" was in the shape of an elderly security guard who may or may not have been awake while the crime was being committed.

Speaking of paranoia, I think mentioning the bunch who over-analyze everything is worthwhile. Those of you who claimed that the purple mark applied on your finger faded by rain, give me a break! I had a good laugh when a journalist complained about this during one press conference that was aired on TV. I abluted four times that day alone after submitting my vote, washed my hands with soap before and after meals and the thing was still intact when I went to bed that night! Because of these moaners new methods are being investigated and considered and whenever I wonder what the next one may be, I come up with disturbing scenarios. For an example, what if the elections commission decide to print a waterproof dot on our foreheads?

This may give rise to rather awkward situations:
Hindhu: Sees a Maldivian walking along the street. What's that on his forehead? Could that be..? Yes it is! I can't believe it! A Maldivian Hindhu!
(Runs over to the Maldivian guy and prostates at his feet). "Namasthey."
Maldivian guy: (Surprised) What are you doing? Wha-?(Points towards forehead) "Oh this? No, this isn't for religious purposes. And it's not made of cow dung, unlike yours. No, this is waterproof, and evidence that I voted during the second round of our presidential elections. This actually won't wear off until the next round of elections five years later! Remarkable eh?"

They may even come up with a more painful method. Ever heard of cows having their ears tagged at farms?

I voted. Have you?

I've also wondered where this 'Aneh Dhivehiraajje' is. I mean, I would like to know the location of our new country before I vote. I'd prefer somewhere warm and I'm sure most Maldivians would share this opinion. Imagine if we ended up in the Arctic Circle! Then voting for Anni would be utterly pointless.

"Welcome to Maldives."

Now that would really suck!

Edit: It has been confirmed that we'll have to stick our thumb in some sort of water-resistant ink. That'll make it look as though we're all suffering from a bad case of frostbite.
Oh, and apparently we don't have to move anywhere else to reach Aneh Dhivehiraajje. Best vote for a change then.

Lakum dheenukum waliya dheen

2008-09-25T03:14:00.007+08:00

First of all, I think I owe an apology for those who've been coming here for the past month only to go away disgruntled due to the lack of activity. I've honestly been really, really busy since I managed to land a job and what with Ramazan and the extra-hard effort we put into worshiping, I just haven't been able to squeeze in any quality blogging time of late. There's also the small matter of grabbing a few hours of sleep everyday. But worry not, because I'm back!

You might be wondering why I chose a rather unusual topic for this post. Those who followed my blog since the beginning of this year may remember me having an argument with a gay guy. He uttered this phrase and seemed to be under the impression that he'd destroyed any retorts I had in store. The truth was, however, that arguing with a faggot was never amongst the list of things I looked forward to and anyway, it wasn't like he was going to quit enjoying being attracted similar poles merely by an unknown blogger's advice.
Back to the point. This phrase is in the holy Quran as follows:

لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِ

"To you your religion and to me mine."

This is the last verse of Surah Al-Kaafiroon and is incidentally the only verse of the Quran that many non-Muslims know about. What's more, they've managed to blow the meaning of this verse out of context too! Some of them appear to think that it means, "Sod off, Muslim! This is none of your business."
I'll make the meaning of this verse and surah clear just in case there're people who aren't aware of it. This surah is a message for all Muslims to purify ourselves from shirk, particularly polytheism, so was mainly a message for the Meccan polytheists who lived during the time of the last Prophet.

But, as I told you before, some people have managed to misunderstand even this, one of the most simple verses. It doesn't take a fool to understand it, but then, if they aren't fools I shudder to think what they exactly are.
For an example, let's look at the gay guy:

Now that's just ridiculous. Does he really think that homosexuality is a religion? Or perhaps he is under the impression that it is a way of living that is accepted by the world's major religions i.e Islam, Christianity, Judaism. Well then, he's wrong isn't he? I know, I know, there're gay priests and bishops etc around today and I find that just hilarious. But even funnier was an article I read on Newsweek one day. It mentioned that gay Palestinians are taking refuge in Israel for to save their own lives. Well, I suppose we can expect Israel, the "home of Jews" to be ruled by sodomites soon...at least we can defeat them easily then, eh? :D

Then there're those binge drinking idiots. I spent almost 2 years at UK where binge drinking is common practice. In fact, the place we stayed at was on a street with an incredible four pubs! It's incredible because the street was rather small. So we got used to seeing people staggering about at around 6.00 pm, having squandered the money they managed to make during the day and yelling filth at the top of their voices. But try advising them and they'll go
Nothin' like a coupla beers eh, lad?

The next bunch who really drive me up the wall are drug addicts. They litter the streets all across Male', trudging along like vultures looking for a dead carcass. The only difference between them and vultures is that the latter have slightly higher IQ. Try telling them to quit using weed and they'll give a similar response.
Or maybe not...

The most random post in the world

2008-08-26T18:58:00.008+08:00

It's that month of the year again! Yes, Ramazan is here and I would like to wish you all Ramazan Mubarik before proceeding with anything else. Have a great month and be good now, all of you!
I thought I will just write whatever came to my mind while typing this post, so it's something like a compilation of my thoughts. Let's call it a Ramazan special!

First of all, why do barbers charge more for adults than children? I always get baffled whenever I go for a haircut and check the notice that displays the prices.

Adults: Rf. 20
Children: Rf. 15
Shaving: Rf. 10

From what I've observed, kids usually have more hair. Yet many adults sporting the Homer Simpson hairstyle are charged more! But I suppose it makes sense in a way as some men tend to get really sensitive about their hair when they reach their forties. I'm not sure if people are going to be too pleased if they're told,

"Since you don't have much hair, sir, you'll be charged a mere 2 Rufiyaa."

Oh and they still charge me as a kid! I don't really mind though, it saves me five Rufiyaa...

Sticking to the subject of hair, let's talk about the position of hair in front of school Supervisors. They just hate hair. During my time at Dharumavantha, days when I didn't observe long-haired blokes and/or guys with "excessive" facial hair being forced to line up in front of the Supervisors room were rare. They even hired a barber during certain times of the year to force some of the unruly to cut their hair. I thought CHSE would be a little more relaxed in their approach; I couldn't have been more mistaken. The supervisors AND many teachers just loathed the sight of long hair and the stubble that is visible enough when some people go without shaving for a few days. "Go home, shave and come back!" was frequently heard throughout the school. Most people obeyed the "Go home" part with thinly disguised glee.

And now, we'll talk about today's most popular social networking website; Facebook! After careful research and evaluation, I managed to divide the users to the following categories:

- The Loner: Adds anyone in sight as a friend. This user has a point to prove: to declare that he/she is not one of those sad people who spend excessive amounts of time in front of their computers registering themselves at various social networking sites and obtaining E-mail addresses of people they've no clue about, which is basically the only way they make friends. Loners are rather easily distinguishable. Firstly, they aren't very well-known amongst people of their own age. Secondly, they have way too many people on their Friends list. And lastly, check their basic profile and see if they're looking for A Relationship and/or Dating. If you observe all these points then bingo! That's a Loner alright! Oh, and most stalkers are Loners.

- The Narcissist: A rather peculiar species, as they love to take photos of themselves. You can tell they're photos of themselves when you see part of their outstretched arm in the photo. They also have rather large profile picture albums full of, yup you guessed it, photos of themselves. The photos are usually edited so much that they look nothing like The Narcissists really do, but resembles themselves the way they like to think they look. This video might give you an idea. Some of them think they look so hideous that they put up pictures of famous good-looking people instead.

- The Rebel: You need to check the groups they have joined to identify these folks. You'll see groups such as "If the admins don't delete X Group immediately I'm quitting Facebook" or "Bring back X User's account!" in abundance. Rebels usually get along with each other very well so they're usually harmless.

- The Addict: Easily the most annoying type. It might take a few hours for the profile page of an Addict to load due to their tendency to add worthless applications. The worst thing about them is that they send requests to add these applications every single day. I always dread signing in and reading the "You have 268 invitations". And they're online all the time! Get out and see the real world for heavens sake!

- Mr/Ms Touchy-Feely: The kind of people who add applications such as Hugs, and also Pokes you often. I stay away from these sort of people in real life, as it would be rather awkward to have yourself poked and violated all the time.

- The Celebrity: I'm talking about the celebrities in real life. They love to live under the illusion that everyone loves them, but their friends lists may be proof that it's not an illusion at all! Wrong! They're just popular and users such as The Loners, Narcissists and Addicts love to associate themselves with the popular folk. In fact, some Celebrities may be classified as Narcissists due to their unhealthy interest in creating their own fan clubs and inviting others to join them. They're all crazy.

Most of us adjust our privacy settings so that only people who're added as our friends can view our profile pages, which is also the reason why I get baffled when some people accept friend requests from absolutely anyone. Rather defeats the purpose of those privacy settings, eh? Sometimes I'd receive messages from people I have no idea about begging me to add them.
"Hi how r u? i hope ur havin a great time.. hey can u be my friend plz? c ya.."
Of course, I can't respond without giving away my basic profile, so I do nothing. It's a shame, really as I occasionally like to exercise sarcasm on people.

Now for a completely different subject; funny doctors!
Yeah, doctors are an unusual breed. They are amongst the few people in this world who actually want people to get sick. How else are they going to make money?? Here're a few of their thoughts you'll be able to interpret by their actions next time you visit a doc:

As you enter the room, the doctor flashes you a kindly smile.
"This better be a good one. Something juicy, I hope, like an incurable illness. Incurable, hahahaha they all still fall for it..."

"I'm afraid you'll have to stay here overnight. The prognosis doesn't look good."
"At least I hope so. If you stay here longer, I get more money. Hopefully I'll be able to collect enough to go abroad and spend a well-earned holiday with my family."

"The tests came out negative for tuberculosis. We'll have to make you undergo a full-body scan I'm afraid. If you're willing to, of course."
"Please, please you have to accept this offer! I'm running out of excuses to keep you here any longer. A full-body scan will give me enough cash to chill out at a resort. Of course I hope that you're idiotic enough to not realise that you're only suffering from a common cold..."

"Great news! You're all cured and ready to go home!"
"Damn! I suppose the holiday's off then..."

Doctors get really cranky when they're made to work overtime. I fell victim to one such doctor earlier this year. Many of her patients took an awfully long time so that she had to remain at work an hour past her scheduled finishing time. I was the last patient.
So I entered her room and flashed her a smile. She did not return it. It was clear that she didn't want to remain there for even a second and she made everything really brief. She also spoke utter nonsense.
"What's wrong with your ear?"
"It keeps getting blocked every now and then. I had this problem a while back and had myself checked."
"When your ear gets blocked, do you have trouble hearing?"
Duh.

There were other similar experiences. Like this one, which happened three Ramazans ago. I caught a nasty "stomach bug" (I don't remember the real medical term) and had to visit this doctor who thought I didn't speak English. In reality, I was unable to comprehend anything she said due to her unusual accent.
"Are yu havin' badhi pens?"
"What?"
"Badhi pens? Yu hav' badhi pens?"
The lady sitting next to her had to translate this. She was talking about 'body pains'. How was I supposed to know?
She also advised me to take my pills after meals.
"Do not take your pills while fasting."
I'll not Duh her. Let's be fair, she wasn't a Muslim after all.

So there you go! If you liked this, I might consider posting a similar one, like an Eid special...
Anyway, enjoy the month and be careful of how much you eat! That way you won't gain weight during Ramazan. Yes some people actually complain about this. Gaining weight during the fasting month! Ridiculous!

Secularism shouldn't affect us!

2008-08-15T00:25:00.011+08:00

I received a fair amount of stick for my response to a post by Raniya last month. The post appealed for a very noble cause, and I sincerely wish her all the best for the work she's doing.

My comment stated that the majority of social issues our country is facing today are down to the weakening of our faith in Islam. Some people failed to comprehend, or rather, preferred to misunderstand this statement and asked me to "give religion a break because it is the cause of half the problems of the world." Some even went as far as to accuse me of turning a blind eye to all the problems and their victims. No, I never mentioned anything of that sort, and doing so will be an act of utter stupidity.

Anyway, this "fiasco" got me thinking. Why do some people think religion is the root of all the atrocities that are taking place, not just here in Maldives, but all around the world? So I thought hard and did some research. And what did I find out? Religion really is partly to blame, but not in the way many so-called liberals think. With the increase in secularist societies, new laws are being established with the aim of providing the population with as much independence as possible. Many of these laws, in layman's terms, usually comes back to bite the population on the backside. Why? Because they contradict religion, and therefore contradict the natural laws of the human race.

If you look around, you may notice that this is particularly noticeable in Islamic countries. After many countries with majority Muslim populations "abandoned" our religion, we started to go backwards. After Europe (the so-called Christian continent) abandoned Christianity, they flourished. My point here is that the belief that religion is a ridiculous figment of human imagination most probably sprouted from societies with majority Christian populations. It is, after all, a religion created by fabrication, and has been undergoing fabrication for more than 2000 years. The iron-fisted ruling by churches, their detachment from the world we know, their ridiculously easy ways of "erasing sins", their methods of spreading the religion and their denial of key scientific theories resulted in many getting disillusioned. People began to treat religion as an obstacle that prevented them from modernizing and living their lives fully. They started to believe that religion and the laws within their societies were separate things. Thus secularism was born.

Naturally, with the widespread of mass media, many Muslims fell head over heels in trying to implement such beliefs within their societies. Look at us Maldivians, for instance. For many of us, religion is merely praying, fasting, ablution etc. I find it highly amusing to see people suddenly switching to "Religious Mode" when they're about to pray. From what I've learned, Islam is a way of life. It is a religion which states that the purpose of your life is to worship God. Of course, people from Western backgrounds (i.e, where concentration of Muslims are low) usually misunderstand this statement. For them, total devotion means spending the whole day at church, praying on their knees with their heads bent. This is largely due to the fact that there actually are people who act this way. In Islam, total devotion to God means doing everything in life the way we were instructed to. A few simple everyday examples include avoiding haram foods, avoiding the usage of foul language while communicating, keeping yourself in good shape, spending quality time with your family and friends etc. Islam does not separate the worldly affairs and religion. It is a religion that covers everything that is connected to our lives, encourages free thought and promotes education and modernization as long as we hold on to the Islamic values. People usually don't realize that these laws Allah asked us to follow are really for our own good.

Guess who?

2008-07-27T17:25:00.002+08:00

Let's play a little game, shall we? Below is a list of characters, some fictional and some not, with names that aren't usually used to identify them. Some of them are their real names, while some are pseudonyms, as some people prefer not being called by their real names for whatever reasons. You've to guess the characters.

- Susan Astronominov

- Bernard Webb

- F. Roy Dean Schlippe

- Nelson Wilbury

- Luís Carlos Almeida da Cunha

- Duc Truong

- Adnan Oktar

- Tom Marvolo Riddle

- Emmesey Squire

- Severin Antonovich Kłosowski

- Dr. Dragan David Dabić

Smokers, are ye listening?

2008-07-17T00:40:00.003+08:00

We've all heard smokers and their lame excuses for continuing their bad habit. Among them include:

"I've been smoking since I was 15 but I have never been diagnosed with cancer.
"You're only a child, what do you know?"
"Everyone will eventually die, whether we smoke or not."
"There's no mention of smoking being forbidden in the Quran or by the Prophet."

It's universally accepted that smoking has many serious health hazards. I'm not going to bother listing them down, but in case you might want to have a look, they're right here.
Alright then, I'm going to concentrate on the last point. For those who're not aware of this, there's a concept called ijthihaad in Islam in which a group of well-respected, prominent Muslim scholars make an agreement over certain issues that weren't explicitly highlighted during the days of the Prophet. Among these issues is smoking. Based upon the following verses from the Quran, and the sayings of the Prophet (pbuh), the scholars have come to a conclusion.

"...make not your own hands contribute to your destruction..." (Surah al-Baqarah 2:195)
"Whomsoever drinks poison, thereby killing himself, will sip this poison forever and ever in the fire of Jahannum (Hell)." (Prophet Muhammad)

"Those who annoy believing men and women undeservedly bear on themselves a glaring sin" (Surat al-Ahzaab 33:58)
"there should be neither harming, nor reciprocating harm.” In another hadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Anyone who believes in Allah and the Last Day should not hurt his neighbor."

"...But spend not wastefully (your wealth) in the manner of a spendthrift. Verily spendthrifts are brothers of the devils...” {Surah al-Israa’ 17:26-27}
And in an authentic hadith the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that: "Allah hates for you three things: gossiping, begging, and wasting money."

(Taken from islam.about.com)

We know that tobacco, nicotine, carbon monoxide etc are harmful substances. Thus, smoking is a way of pumping poison into our bodies. It's basically slow suicide. Also, smoking makes passive smokers, i.e those around a smoking person, will feel the effects to some extent. Lastly, but not least, it wastes money. In the USA alone, it is estimated that a staggering 150 billion dollars are wasted on cigarettes, cigars etc.

I listened to a lecture by Abdul Raheem Green, and he said that pumping toxins into our bodies will mean that our prayers (i.e the 5 daily prayers) won't be accepted for 40 days, and that this applies to smoking as well. Scary, eh? Especially when we look at the alarming number of Maldivians who smoke daily.
So, adding this all up, most scholars have agreed upon the fact that smoking is haram (forbidden). There still are some ignorant people who hold on to the claim that it is merely makrooh (discouraged), but what do they know? So, my fellow Muslims, if you smoke, just quit! If you're non Muslim then I don't care, just stay away from us while you're smoking.
Here's a Q&A session with Dr Zakir Naik that you can watch. Smoking is mentioned in this.

Some memorable quotes

2008-07-02T22:23:00.010+08:00

I was cleaning my room recently, throwing away the stuff I won't be needing (the MonoBra was one of them) when I came across an empty perfume bottle. If you're wondering why I'd keep an empty perfume bottle, let's just say that organisation has never been my strongest point. Anyway, I sniffed it and there was a very faint smell, a smell that brought back a stampede of memories. It is a scientifically proven fact that smells trigger memories, and this particular perfume reminded me of my first semister at CHSE. So, for your reading pleasure, I decided to put together some unusual stuff people said over the couple of years I spent there. Anything said in Dhivehi has been translated (don't worry though, there isn't much).

The first one was during the orientation week, while Mr Inthiran, who was giving us a few titbits of what to expect during our Physics lessons. After a while, the students at the back row got a little restless and were mostly talking without listening. So he cocked his head slightly, peered at them and uttered: "I see the behind."

"You look so small in that uniform!" My dear cousin welcomes me to CHSE.

"Where is your father?" Mr Subramanium congratulates me on finding out my O' level result in Maths.

"See, dative covalent bonds are formed when there's a dative covalent bond in the structure!" Our Chemistry teacher during the first semister had a tendency to get overexcited at times.

"Sawaadh? That means black, but you're not black!" A classmate of mine finds out the meaning of his name from our Islam teacher.

"I didn't come to school yesterday because I wanted to rest." My then Maths teacher was a really cool guy. He rested every now and then, never got angry and looks, laughs and talks like Baloo, the bear in The Jungle Book. Sometimes I'd imagine him prancing around the class singing The Bear Necessities.

"Aaaaargh!" Me stepping on a rusty 5-inch nail. I've no idea what it was doing there, or how it somehow managed to rip through my shoe. Luckily, I was with three friends of mine. One of them helped me up, the other yanked the nail out and the third took a photo of my shoe. The FBI would've envied them had they seen it.

"What is your index number, boy?" My Physics teacher struggled and failed to remember my name during the first ever Parent-Teachers meeting. I pointed at my name on his registry and said it aloud. "Here, Sir. I'm [my name]." He glared at me for a second and proceeded.

"Why aren't you wearing socks, boy? Go home and wear socks!" My Physics teacher again. That was the last time the boy was seen at CHSE. He's currently studying at India.

"Why is it that some of you have your middle or surnames as your common names?" Our poor CPE teacher comes to terms with life in Maldives.

"Oh and I almost forgot to ask! Does it snow here in Maldives?" Our CPE teacher asked this to one of her other classes. The students were shocked of course. All they could muster was, "You really don't know, Miss?" To which she replied, "Yes, I never did!"
So then, they decided to be a little mischievous. "It usually snows at the end of November."
"Isn't it a little late for that now?" She said, indicating the scalding October sunshine.
"Yes it is, Miss. Must be global warming..."

"When you resheive your shertificatsh, you're shupposhed to shit in your sheatsh."

"A prefect is a prefect is a prefect." Inspirational words by the Supervisor in charge of prefects.

She has superpowers too. A classmate of mine had an interesting conversation with her:
"Miss, I had a free period and arm wrestled with someone else and my arm hurts!"
"I'll help you. I have healing powers."
He came back after a while and proudly declared,"I got a massage from Thilakaratne." What the hell??? We asked him not to spread that around for his own sake.

"A bead is anything that has a hole." Maths teachers were never great at English.

"This school has a huge mango tree. Rumor has it that it's male because no one can ever recall it bearing mangoes." Our Islam teacher sounded wistful.

"Who can tell me a use of chlorine?"
"Sterilizing water, Miss."
"Another use?"
(A pause as we all racked our brains.)
"It was also used in World War II-"
"Yes! To kill people!"

It's always interesting when you make comparisons between teachers who teach the same subject. I noticed a major difference in the attitudes of my Physics teachers during the 2nd semister, and of the last 2 semisters.
Here's how the 2nd sem teacher used to motivate us before exams:
"The exams will be easy. They are not difficult. You just study."
After the exams: "Why didn't you people do well? Exams were very easy."

Mr Laal, our Physics teacher during the 3rd and 4th semisters, used a very different strategy.
Before exams: "Exams are going to be very difficult. Don't think you can stay home and sleep and get full marks."
After: "Most of you got good marks this time. But don't think the papers are going to be easy next time. You will not get good marks by staying at home and sleeping."
I suppose the motivational methods change our attitudes sometimes.

Our Chemistry teacher had a lot of trouble pronouncing our names.
"Shine, get out of the class."
"He's Zain, sir."
"Yes, I said Shine."

"OK tha, Hamdha?" I don't recall anyone bothering to correct his name. We eventually got used to this.

"Is it clear? Did you understand? OK tha, Meefau?" This was intentional. He started teasing the guy after we discovered that he'd written mini's name on the plaster supporting his broken wrist. Nothing goes unseen during his classes.

He can also display his somewhat humongous ego at times. Here's one such conversation between him and I:
"Sir, Benita Miss told me that I won't get any marks by writing the answer you gave."
"Did she tell you why?"
"No."
Then off he went. He rambled on about many similar situations when other Chemistry teachers disagreed with his answers, but how his students managed to get better results during the A' levels and how successful the books he published were.
"They don't even know me at Sri Lanka, but my books are very popular. Some buggers even get rich selling them and buy cars."
And he rambled on and on (I have a tendency to drift off when people talk too much and stare at their mouths) but I was abruptly alerted by what he said next.
"What f****** Chemistry is that?"
I nodded vigorously to show my agreement. It wasn't everyday when we heard teachers swearing in class. To be fair to him, only five students were in attendance.
"Don't trust stupid women," he finished.
"I don't, sir."

"If you go to Egypt, they'll assume you're married." Our Islam teacher, indicating a ring on Thai's hand.

Mr Laal is a different class when it comes to saying unusual stuff. Here are some of his classics:
"Rohan, stop vibrating and do your work."

"Zain what're you doing? Bending ninety degrees!" He got caught using his phone, if you're wondering.

"Why are you rotating here and there?" When someone gets caught looking around.

"What's happening? I see a lot of simple harmonic motion today." Some of us were munching on some nuts when he came.

"Shamin, you have to come to school before everyone else. You ride a blue motorcycle. I know, because I saw."

"Come here and write. Because you're finding it difficult there, small fellow." Yes, he said that to me. It's hard being titchy sometimes.

He's also a great teacher. His reputation among students soared during the extra class sessions, so much so that the hall would be full during his classes. One day, we were all crammed inside the students room, which is a lot smaller than the hall. Thus it was hot, stuffy and noisy when he arrived. He then declared, "OK, stop talking please. It will get disturbed."
It took me a few seconds to realise that he said the word 'it'. What could It be, I wondered. It could be an extraterrestrial creature, or a big, hairy monster. After a few moments of pondering, the answer flashed in my head like a firecracker. Of course, the Principal's office was right next to the students room! I couldn't suppress the thought of Aamira curled up on her desk, and suddenly lifting her head, sniffing the air twice and then growling, showing yellow, pointed teeth. I am a little weird.

But above everything he said, nothing will beat his description of a ripple tank:
"You've seen a ripple tank when you did your O' levels? You know how it looks like, no? There will be a rod with two balls. A vibrator will also be there. And the balls vibrate and waves will be produ-" he stopped mid-explanation. He went on leave for a week and didn't continue where he left off.

Tying the knot...or everything else?

2008-06-24T22:24:00.004+08:00

"When I get married, I won't be bothering with any of this nonsense. You can all wear what you like, and I'll put a full Body-Bind Curse on Mum until it's all over" - Fred Weasley

Do wedding ceremonies these days make you go, "Oh, what the hell??!" If not then you'll probably not understand the rest of this post. So read at your own risk.

Personally, I love weddings. The food is usually great and....yeah that's it. I've been unable to find any other good reasons to attend them. I know that many are going to say, "But don't you even feel happy for the newly wed couple? Don't you share their happiness, you selfish brat?" Of course I do, but let's stick to the topic of wedding parties, shall we? Once I watched a report on BBC about the lavish wedding ceremonies held in India, and how many families go bankrupt over them. Even we're heading in that direction I suppose, especially these days when people are so obsessed with taking loans.

Let's start off with invitation cards. Basically, they let the invitees know about the date, time and venue of the ceremony. Simple right? Well, apparently not. The cards should be unique, that is to say, totally different from those made for other weddings. These invitations are usually made by an expert on designing stuff (who wouldn't care less if the whole ordeal is ridiculous or not: they make money by doing this, see). I think there's a high probability that invitation cards alone cost more than weddings used to 20 years back.

The couple are next. The bride will usually be caked under layers of makeup and sporting a cross between I'm so pretty! and I can't believe this is happening! looks. She will never laugh, but have a permanent-looking smile plastered to her face. If a situation where she just has to laugh arises, she'll just gasp extremely softly. Most people aren't able to hear this. The guy, well they say men are easier to read. He'll just have the simple When will this darn thing end so we can go and... look. The couple won't even realize you're right there in front of them, shaking their own hands until they run through the photos several days later.

What about the excessive unnecessary stuff? My best friend rang me up last year while he was at one such party and told me about a chocolate fountain. I thought he was talking about a new type of dessert, but it just happened to be that...a chocolate fountain. Not for edible purposes. A wedding I attended had fruits carved out in fancy ways as decoration. Fruits, for heavens sake! Totally fail-safe methods of throwing money out of the window!

Lastly, the giveaways. These are usually stuff that have no use whatsoever, and I just can't wrap my head around the idea! Sometimes this makes me wonder whether people are just looking for more ways to inspire from riches-to-rags stories. If I live long enough to get married and someone asks me for a giveaway, I'd probably say, "You've just stuffed yourself with food I gave away. What more do you want?" I've received all sorts of ridiculous stuff from weddings (or rather, had them stuffed in my hands) and they always go where they belong; into the dustbin.

People forget the real reason of celebrating weddings these days, don't they? The process where two people are tying the knot is paled into insignificance, but what comes after are deemed to be of utmost importance.

And two months later, the couple get divorced. The typical Maldivian wedding..

This is Ms Apple Slut. I received her as a giveaway at a recent wedding.

A new chapter

2008-06-20T16:51:00.003+08:00

Back during grade 5, we were given a book called "Reading Journey" where we had to read a hundred books over the course of the year. After every book, we had to fill a few things about it like the name of the author, number of pages and a few thoughts of ours. I remember writing about one such book, I've forgotten its name but this is what I wrote about its ending:

"I did not like the ending of this story because it was so sad."

In truth it wasn't supposed to be a sad ending. It was bittersweet, where some close family members of the protagonist died while trying to protect her. But that was the first time I ever experienced that feeling, and I told myself that I'd never let myself feel that again. I was only ten back then, and like most 10 year olds, I was under the impression that the world was split into black and white. You know, the good and bad. I grew up like many other kids watching cartoons and reading books which always seemed to end with the "And they lived happily ever after" theme. But as the years passed I opened my eyes to the wider world and realised that there are so many grey areas. Nothing is perfect and you're never completely happy; understandable since life is only a test.

Anyway, my A'levels finished yesterday and for the first time in my life, I was able to blow a huge sigh of relief. I've been going to school for as long as I remember, and three consecutive months of exams have taken its toll on all of us. After the exam, my friends and I stood outside Dharubaaruge trying to decide what to do to get over the exam fatigue (and keeping our eyes peeled in case any colour bomb came our way). I said goodbye to some of them, whom I won't be seeing for quite some time. I had walked halfway home when it hit me. I may never be able to meet some of them again! I won't have to trudge to school early in the morning every weekday. I won't be wearing the uniform again! I won't be able to spend time with my friends the same way I did at school. Darn bittersweetness! For the first time, I find myself in unchartered territories. School was all about shaping us for this. To teach us how to navigate our way to being successful and respected people within our society.

I know that more than eight hundred others feel the same way, even though we all claim to be having the time of our lives. We're going to miss the school life terribly, but only now does the real thing begin. Here we come!

I feel so red!

2008-06-16T01:17:00.003+08:00

What a magical night that was! The whole country was throbbing with emotion. I really thought I felt the ground rocking beneath my feet when the goal went it...aaah I'll never forget that.
The most impressive thing about it all , I'm sure you'll all agree, was the way the whole nation got together. There were plenty of people knew next to nothing about football, who used to think that its a game where you weren't supposed to touch the ball with the hands, cheer on until their voices turned hoarse.

There were plenty of positives to take from the whole tournament. The most important thing is, of course, our country FINALLY getting hold of a trophy in football. For a football mad nation such as ours, theres none more fitting reward. Next was our fans. We ALL got behind the team. For once we didn't care about all the problems that have been casting shadows over our global reputation. We were able to say "Screw you MDP, DRP and all those other political parties! Screw you gangsters, thieves & druggies! Screw you all!" The way our fans presented themselves to the audience abroad did no harm to our reputation at all, so congratulations to everyone!

I did get outside last night after the game as there was a lot happening. Unfortunately, amidst all the excitement I forgot to take a camera so I missed the chance to post a few photos here. The streets around my place were absolutely jam packed with traffic, but no one seemed to give a fiddler's fart about it. Instead, they were honking their horns in different tunes so that people screamed along with them. There were even two white guys prancing along like a bunch of idiots :D

This time it really is ours!

I'm back..for a while

2008-05-24T01:30:00.002+08:00

There's some sort of an event currently going on near my place and I can hear a truly horrible version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps being played as I'm writing this. It's proof that an awful singer can make great songs pure duds. It's one of my favourite songs...ah well.

Anyway, the exams are going really, really well. I'm extremely happy about how it's gone so far and am looking forward to a 9 day break. The only complaint is that the lighting at the hall I stayed at Dharubaaruge during the Dhivehi & Islam exams were horrible. It really played havoc with my eyes..

I'm a little tired at the moment so can't bring myself to write another long post. Hopefully someday else. Just wanted all of you to know that I'm alive and well, and I hope that you enjoyed the song!

Happy anniversary!

2008-05-01T14:55:00.002+08:00

I've just realized that I've been blogging for over a year now. So I decided to amaze you all with a few statistics, and also thank some of my best and favourite bloggers. This is starting to sound a bit like an award show, innit? Here it goes:

Total number of posts (not including this one): 34...some people post this amount in the space of a month!
Total number of comments (including mine): 131, with an average of just under 4 comments per post.
Most comments on a post: The last one with 17, closely followed by the Monobra post :D
First person to ever post a comment: ironbed, an Irish guy who, like me, loved the Irish novel Angela's Ashes.
The most number of comments was posted by: *drumroll* mini! With 21 comments to her name, she's one of my biggest "fans". You're not getting anything in return for this, by the way.. :P
Special mention to:
-Bulhaa, who has complemented on my posts more than once. And it doesn't hurt when she always ~~tries to use~~ uses perfect English while leaving comments.
-Maail: he only ever commented once, but it was a very meaningful one. I found another Maldivian Red through and through on the blogosphere! If you're reading this, I'm sharing your pain too over what happened last night :(
-Muawwaz: Yeah I know, you blew my cover to several people. You only made it to this list 'coz we were in the same class. :P
-Nass: Used to be the first person to always leave a comment on my posts. I wondered where you'd disappeared to, until I saw your comment on the last post.
And all those others who've commented and complemented on my posts. Don't make me apologize for not writing your names here, coz I really don't like editing stuff.

I began to blog with the hope of bragging about my favourite club and to post reviews of some books I've read. Unfortunately, I just didn't have the luxury of time to sit down and read all year long, so I decided to change the tactics. Hope you've enjoyed my posts so far, and stay tuned coz some absolute pulitzers (or at least I hope they're) are coming up!

Let's squash a few myths...

2008-04-24T17:43:00.002+08:00

Hello there again! I'm not quite back, but taking a well-deserved break after spending the morning at a hot & stuffy chemistry lab where the temperature was 33°C...so much for the "room temperature". The exams have been a lot of fun, by the way.
Anyway, I was inspired to write this after a comment I saw on a Youtube video. It was a video about racism in Europe, particularly in Italy & Spain. The comment, undoubtedly written by an ignorant thug is as follows;

I totally agree that we should stamp down hard on racism, but I don't agree that we should consider discriminations against Muslims, because Islam is evil to the core.

This annoyed and saddened me at the same time. Here was yet another non-muslim believing all the negative stereotypes created by Western politicians and news agencies. So I've decided to give you all the facts, something that people want to seem to avoid looking at.

-We don't like Jews
No, we respect them the same way respect anyone from any other religion. This myth stems from the fact that we Muslims are anti-zionists; we're against the existence of the state of Israel. If the majority of Israelis were catholics, then it would've been presumed that we don't like catholics. Let me tell you why we don't like Israel. It's because they've hijacked the land Palestinians have been living for over a thousand years and shunned them into refugee camps. Where's the justice in that? Where's the human rights there? It annoys the stuffing out of me when people like George W. Bush, that Islamophobic warmonger, talks about the existence of the "State of Palestine". Palestine has always existed, and the area will once again be ruled by Muslims one day. Of course, the more radical Jews had a habit of declaring anyone who cared to listen that they're The Chosen Ones, which was the main reason why they were cleared out from Europe. The European countries decided that the best place to keep them was right in the heart of Arabia...Yeah I see the logic in that *rolls eyes*

-Our law system, the Sharia, does not consider human rights
Nope. The so-called human rights campaigners have never really got this. One small example is the punishment we hand out (or should hand out, as we Maldivians have fallen into this trap of Human Rights) to drug dealers. The punishment; assasination. Note that the punishments for drug users is a lot more lenient than for dealers. Dealers disrupt the harmony of a society, endanger the lives of many and breaks countless families apart. What better way is there to stop them by ending their evil ways? No, the "human rights" campaigners think they should be thrown into 5 Star jails that provide them with free food, clothing etc and generally rights that they don't deserve in the first place. Listen all you softies; by assasinating a dealer you're ending the life of just one, which is better than the potential hundreds who could be affected just because of this one idiot.
Other heavily criticised punishments are the ones we hand out to those who commit adultery and thievery. Contrary to popular belief, we don't batter and bruise them and leave them in a bloody heap on the floor. No, it's about deflating the egos of these criminals. Have you ever noticed that children from Muslim countries generally know who their parents are, and also the fact that AIDS is not nearly as big a problem in these countries? Check this out for proof.

-We're a religion of war
Leave it to CNN to expand this issue. No, we're peaceful people, really. You're just looking at the al-Qaeda. A few years ago, before the days I stopped watching CNN, I watched Christiane Amanpour (spelling?) interviewing an Arab, who was babbling away in Arabic and Amanpour was just nodding away as though she understood every word. The last word of the sentence happened to be Jihadh, and this really perked her up. Her eyes bulged, and she yelped "Jeehad?" (she can't even say it properly). No doubt what was going through her mind. Jihadh means to strive, put on effort until you succeed. The most important type of Jihadh is, of course, defending your religion in the name of Allah. Again, contrary to popular belief, Jihadh does not mean setting off bombs in the middle of packed traffic during the rush hour. That's what those extremist thugs do, dishonouring our religion during the process. War is merely a symbol in Islam. Before every war, the Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) will deliver a lecture to all the fighters. Basically, the lectures always contain the same advice; to attack only those who carry and use weapons. We're not allowed to attack those who don't come out to fight, the elderly, women, children, places of worship, homes, workplaces, livestock etc. But what does the US do during their wars? Attack the main industrial places, killing thousands and bringing whole countries into disruption. I felt disgusted when Bush claimed during the Iraq invasion at 2003 that the loss of life was "minimal". Does he not understand the sorrow that'll be caused when even one life has been lost? Entire families were wiped out, for heavens sake! I can't understand why some people just don't take a minute to differentiate between Muslims and extremists. I can easily assume that all Christians are like the Ku Klux Klan, but I'd never do that.

-Women are not treated as equal
No, no, no! You're looking at the exremist side again. The Prophet (pbuh) once said,"The most blessed house is one where the women are treated with respect". We're not like the Taleban, who beat the stuffings out of their women for the smallest misdemeanor. Muslim men aren't allowed to harm their wives in any way or form. But what happens when a man kills his wife at the US? 25 years in prison? Pathetic..

-We don't tolerate homosexuals
Yes! You're right at last! Call us homophobic, because we don't care. Why do you think there's so much controversy at the US about the subject of allowing same-sex marriages? There can't be any smoke without fire can there?

I'll tell you a little story. There was a classmate of mine during my primary school days who was famous within our grade for being ran'du (that means he was a guy who acted like a girl). One day the class was divided into six groups and assigned to complete some sort of a project. We decided to meet up at his place and so we did. We went there and his mother let us in, where we could hear him singing a very high-pitched and un-masculine song in the shower. His mother didn't mind. He even spoke to his mother as though she were someone his own age and she responded in a similar way. So the two of them gossiped all afternoon like the way many teenage girls do. I really thought, when we started Dharumavantha School, that the atmosphere there would harden him and make him drop his girlish ways. I was wrong. He actually seemed to flirt with the boys, getting all thui and complaining all the time. I hardly ever spoke to him during those three years, resorting to just a nod and "Hello" if we crossed paths. I really didn't want to be tagged as being gay! So what I'm saying is that gays are fake. There's nothing scientifically proven that it's real, but somehow some people invent garbage and call it a "genetic condition". It's funny how people tend to believe in things that've never been (and never will be) proven. But then, what about the guy I just told you about? I blame his girlish ways on his mother. I believe that she has failed her responsibilities quite miserably. The last time I heard of him was last year, when my best friend pushed him onto the road. He apparently sat up and started ranting about, "Magumatheega ulhey meehunna thankolheh balaigen..." but my best friend just left him at it.
Also, after JK Rowling announced that Albus Dumbledore was gay, a classmate of mine, who is foreign and likes the Harry Potter series, asked me a question that has left me mystified. "How can someone so great be gay?" he asked. I wondered, and still have no answer. I suppose it's because Dumbledore is fictional, because how can someone who prefer to poke their stuff into the *back door* be so successful? Impossible. No wonder this country is, quite literally, going to the dogs.

The conclusion: I know that, however much evidence we provide them with, some of the more stubborn people will never accept the facts. They prefer not to understand them, because, at the back of their minds they know that we speak sense. These people are simply too obsessed with materialistic stuff and can't control their insane desires. I'd also advice all of you to be careful with people like Simon, who're woefully ignorant on religious issues yet speak so matter-of-factly about them, making him appear as more of an idiot than he already is.
Thanks for reading. I really needed to get that off my chest.

A collection

2008-04-12T01:49:00.003+08:00

I've decided to put together a set of memories for your reading pleasure (and also because I just couldn't make myself fall asleep tonight). The memories are those I'd never forget during the two years I spent at CHSE, of course assuming that I'd live the rest of my life without suffering any sort of serious brain damage. These are not the usual type of things, like getting good marks in an exam etc. Here it goes then:

- SUDDEN JUMP
Our Chemistry teacher during the first semister loved saying this. It was the way he said it that was most amusing, so much so that we made our unofficial class motto, though no one really knew what it meant.

- THE BOX
My classmates and I received the shock of our lives when we entered our classroom one day. There, lying on the teachers table, was a box. Not just any box, but a box of...condoms. Actually it was a box that should've contained condoms but was empty. A Bio class had been held in that classroom during the previous period, and me, like a lot of my classmates, had never studied Bio during our lives and wondered whether it was used as some sort of a, you know, demonstration. So we summoned a student from that class and showed her the box (we didn't touch it, of course; you never know where the user had poked his fingers in before using them). She was just as stymied as we were. Someone even called out to the Bio teacher, "Sir, you left your condoms!" but he didn't appear to hear. We later learnt that the culprit was actually one of our own classmates, who saw the box lying about on the road, and actually picked it up! Disgusting, I know, and we made our feelings clear.

- THE BOY WITH THE GIRLISH NAME
That's me alright! No, I don't have a girlish name but here's what happened. It was during the prefects oath taking ceremony, and somewhere along the line there was a mix-up in the certificates. I received a certificate of a girl, which happened to thoroughly confused the Chief Guest. Her reaction was just classic, and it took a lot my will power to keep myself from laughing out loud on the stage. She put on the plastic smile she put on for every student just before we shook hands, glanced down at the certificate, and didn't even bother to mask her utter bewilderment. Wide-eyed, she scanned me up and down, glanced back at the certificate again and finally gave it to me looking a little bit like this.

- EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES
How can I not mention the excuse letters teachers receive almost everyday! The letters are almost always the same:

Dear teacher,

My son/daughter [the name] was unable to attend your classes on the [date(s)] due to [some sort of a sickness; the most popular choices are headaches and high fevers].

Yours sincerely,
Parent

I often wondered whether teachers actually read this stuff, because if they do, they're surely bound to ask the absentees why they make miraculous recoveries so often, wouldn't they? There was one incident when a classmate of mine made me write his absent letter. He hadn't even been sick, and I happened to be busy at the time so naturally I felt extremely annoyed. So I decided to annoy him back. I wrote the letter, with the reason for his absence being due to "a sharp, almost unbearable pain in the left testicle". He never made me write his letters again. And even if you get late, teachers won't have with truthful excuses like "A tyre of my bicycle blew up and I had to walk halfway here" or "The police shut off the usual route I take and I had to ride by another route and got stuck in a traffic jam". No, it always has to be "I fell asleep and couldn't wake up on time". Teachers are funny, ain't they?

- SMASH!!
Ah, the sweet sound of expensive glassware being smashed by clumsy hands in the Chemistry lab. The first person in my class to make this sound smashed a burette, of all things. This opened the floodgates, and something was smashed every week. My clean record was stained near the end of grade 11 during a practical exam. I introduced what I shamefacedly claim is a new way of smashing stuff (I didn't mean to smash it, of course!). An on-the-spot breakage via the elbow. The beaker didn't move an inch, but it shattered to pieces right there on the spot, and made an almighty noise. There were several gasps, then the whole lab went silent. No one was talking, and every eye was scanning the floor for some sort of debris, then my "Oh shit!!" carried its way to the teachers ears.
The most fascinating thing about breaking something is that the lab assistants always brandish a battered, ancient-looking book. In it are the names of students throughout the years who broke expensive stuff at the lab, and also the stuff they smashed. My hands itched to throw back the pages and find out if there were any past students I knew, possibly even my father, who might have fallen to this trap. Maybe I should break something again to find out!

- STOMPING, MY FOOT!
Those who attended the Anniversary Day celebrations last year might remember the first activity; stomping. The participants, who were representing their respective houses, were supposed to tie a balloon to their ankles and try to pop the balloons of those of other houses. As soon as your balloon popped, you're out. There were supposed to be ten from each house, and mine was one short. I hadn't really wanted to attend this event, but was forced to due to unforseen circumstances, so I tried to hide in the shadows. Unsuccessfully, because a girl approached me and pointed out that my sandals were really good for stomping and that I should be getting on. I pointed out that we weren't allowed to wear sandals, and that my feet were extremely delicate and not exactly designed for stomping. She told me to just shut up and go out there. House pride was at stake, anyway, so i had no choice but to go. It was ridiculous enough having to walk with a balloon tied to your ankle, but wait for this. The referee blew the whistle to start the game. My balloon popped. I was out. No effort, nothing whatsoever.

- THE MISTIMED CHALLENGE
Horribly mistimed. It was like Martin Taylor's tackle on Eduardo, but at least we were unharmed. It was during the AS exams, when I mixed up the time and took my friends to Dharubaaruge and hour and a half early. As a result, we spent the time at the back of Dharubaaruge, looking out at the sea, laughing, pointing at the tsunami memorial and making jokes about it etc. We went to the exam feeling refreshed and in a good mood. I still think they should be thanking me for this!

I'll hopefully post a few more of these in the coming days. Starting to feel sleepy now..

TAP! TAP! TAP!

2008-03-27T23:47:00.010+08:00

The picture on the left shows the view from my bedroom only a year ago. I know, I know, I can see the sea and you're all extremely jealous now. Just swat those feelings aside, because the photo on the right shows the beautiful scenery I witness when I look out the window now. It's painful, you see, because I can't brag about it anymore. "I'm even able to see the sea from my bedroom" used to be a very useful line while trying to attract potential soulmates...what a shame.

But that is only the tip of the iceberg. All the noise generated from the effing construction work is almost unbearable at times. The metallic tap tap tap will usually be followed by wheeeeee from some sort of machinery and then Bangalhu tongues going, "OBALHABABALGALGAGIEIL" or whatever the hell they speak with that language. Sometimes they carry on late into the night and my room would be flooded by bright light and I would have to just bear with the circumstances till I miraculously fall asleep. I'm sure that it's not just me who's suffering in Male'. There's construction work going on everywhere, with tonnes of new brickloads being imported into this concrete jungle everyday. Imagine if Male' had legs how they would be now..

Anyway, next week's gonna be a very historic one in my life. It's the last of my schooling career, and although many at CHSE have been talking about how relieved we are, it's going to be extremely bittersweet. Us schoolers live a very sheltered life compared to those in various jobs. Sure, we may complain about exams and homework all the time, but it's a cozy little life we've been living. Plus, the exams are looming ahead and there's little else on our minds these days. I've been enjoying watching my friends suffer from their usual last minute revisions, as I started out a little early this time. Call me sadistic, but that's the way it is! And I'm also aware of the fact that this is only my second post in something like 2 months. I'm not proud of this, but please don't expect too many quality posts from me during the next two months, as I'm a little preoccupied.

Oh and if there's any 12th grader from CHSE reading this, be careful at school next Thursday. I mean it.

Some interesting conversations

2008-03-13T22:36:00.004+08:00

I saw the most bizzare dream when I fell asleep this afternoon. A friend of mine and I were about to board a plane when there were hysterical whispers of, "Two Muslims're gonna fly!" and all the passengers were checked by security guards. Unfortunately, I happen to have a physical weakness of being extremely ticklish in real life, and this dream took the same pattern. A guard poked my ribs and I started laughing madly & woke up laughing. One of my hands was stuck under my ribs awkwardly, thus explaining the source of the tickling. Now wasn't that wierd?

Anyway, I'm a little strange at times and that didn't have anything to do with the topic of this post. But I was lucky to be involved, or rather, I happened to be sitting in the middle of two female conversations while observing silently. By female converstions, I mean only females took part in them, discussing what I assume are purely female topics.

The first one was at school during an extra class. A group of girls, who were sitting beside me, were discussing the difficulties of attending tutions. Apparently they didn't have enough time, with the A'level exams looming ahead, to shower & dress up before attending every tuition. I was completely baffled. I mean, it's alright if you're attending a party. As a guy, my way has always been to run when only 5 minutes or so are remaining & burst in apologising for being late. I had to use all my inner resolve to keep myself from smirking as the girls discussed this subject the same way businessmen discuss about the falling Dollar rate.

The next conversation took place a hour or so after the previous one. I got home & was having dinner when my aunts started on another very feminine subject; clothes. I'd heard similar discussions by women previously, but it didn't make this any less amusing. This is how it went:

Aunt 1: I went to gym yesterday wearing an orange T-shirt, and guess what? (Someone's name) was also wearing orange!!!
Aunt 2: What?? I was planning to wear orange tomorrow!
Aunt 3 (I do have a lot of aunts): It's a good thing I don't wear orange! I don't want to be part of your orange group.

So I sat there, using my habit/talent to my advantage; being observant without being noticed. I went to bed feeling totally mystified. What do women think might happen if they wear the same coloured clothes as another person? There was another incident when I was watching a magazine show on ESPN one day when my mom pointed out that the men who were hosting it were wearing shirts of the same shade of blue. I merely shrugged. So what's the big deal? Can anyone bother explain this? Or is it too complicated for my male brain?

You may also have noticed that my blog has undergone a facelift, as per a suggestion by Meefau, and you know, it's important to keep my best customers happy. Hope you can all read this without blowing your eyes out!

Mr Most Narcissistic Muscleman

2008-02-21T19:27:00.003+08:00

One extremely weird week has just past us. A week where my class officially topped the Most Irregular Attendances During Chemistry Lessions league (our class teacher's now completely pissed off), ants attacked me during the middle of the night, and there was also the Barnsley Incident *coughs*..no one's allowed to mention that on my blog by the way, as I've been subjected to that particular taunt all week & if you have a heart, you'll understand that I've suffered enough.

If you're wondering, the topic of this post has nothing to do with me. No, I'm dedicating this post to all the participants of the Mr Maldives contest who spent excessive amounts of time in gyms all throughout Male' pumping iron for several months.

As I like to do so often, I'll tell you all a little story. This happened last December, which was of course during the holidays after the third semister. During one of those days, my mom suggested that I should sign up at Male' Fitness Club as she thought having a professional instructor beside me would do me good instead of me going off to jog on my own every morning (she probably thinks I run around like a headless chicken). So I agreed, I mean surely it wouldn't do me any harm, could it? So I signed up for a monthly membership and I was raring to go!

So at 7.00 in the morning I trudged to the gym and strode in as though I owned the place, you know, it was important to look confident. I entered and received the shock of my life. The place was stenched with the rather unpleasant smell of male sweat, something which I'd got used to during my 3 years spent at Dharumavantha School. The source of my shock were the men who were scattered around the room pumping iron. They all had the same expression on their faces, as though they were trying hard to get something out of their bottoms. The bared teeth, veins bulging up their necks, and biceps the size of large coconuts were a bit unnerving at first sight, and it is a look I hereby name The Bodybuilder's Pain in the Arse (BPA).

Anyway, I went their 4 times a week to get fit (obviously) and I couldn't help but observe the musclemen. I noticed that they applied the BPA even while lifting only 3kg. I was able to lift 3kg without even changing my complexion (I'm the sort of person who turns red very easily). What I noticed most about these big dudes was the way they spent disturbing amounts of time checking themselves out infront of the mirrors. They just looked so happy, flexing their muscles & smiling to themselves.

During my last weights session, yes I did weights too as according to my instructor, I was completely empty, I was asked to use 5kg on each hand. That was a total of 10kg, and I doubt I'd ever carried anything that heavy all my life. So i obeyed him & started three sets of 15 on my biceps (if you could call them biceps). On the 12th count of my third set, my arms refused to move. I pulled the weights harder, and they didn't budge even a centimetre. Thus, having run out of choices, I opted for the BPA; I bared my teeth, veins bulged out on my neck and my complexion turned beetroot. It didn't work. Luckily, my instructor turned around at that precise moment to speak to someone, and when he turned back, I gasped, "Fifteen!" and put the weights down. He was impressed.

I think I'll stick with my routine early morning jogs.

Schoolism in Maldives

2008-02-08T23:10:00.000+08:00

"Acheedi! Kalaafaanu School! Varah foohivey!"

Two girls from Ghiyaasuddin School walked past us, eyeing us as though we were dirt on their shoes. Back then, I considered that as the most offensive insult I'd ever been subjected to. I find it pretty funny now. One reason is that this comment was passed during a gathering of selected students from all the primary schools in Male' to prepare for an event that, somewhat ironically, depicted the unity between the schools. But what I'm about to share with you all is anything but funny. In fact, you're going to be shocked, and I hope I won't get into too much trouble for revealing the truth.

First of all, let me define schoolism. It is the belief that there are inherent differences between schools & that certain schools are to be considered more superior than others. I invented this word by the way. The comment above that was passed to me & my schoolmates can't really be considered schoolist, but more as "competition". I mean, we're all rather fond of the schools we studied at aren't we?

It becomes a problem when the very people who're supposed to be fostering the education system in this country adopts this discrimination. Three years ago, a relative of mine who works at the British Council was invited to a seminar where high ranking officials at the Ministry of Education and several principals & supervisors of various schools were also present. She spoke to a supervisor who was also a good friend of hers and who had switched jobs from Kalaafaanu to Iskandhar School, about her new job. This certain supervisor told her that she was enjoying life at Iskandhar a lot more as the parents of students from KS were "uneducated". This relative of mine was back then, a parent of a KS student, so naturally, she was deeply offended.

This wasn't the worst though. She then spoke to a high ranking Ministry official. She was asked why the Heads of Ahmediyya School, who had done so well in the O'levels in recent years, were not invited. This was the exact response from this lady;

"They are not important."

Now didn't that shock you? She even said this in plain English, which in my opinion, highlights her arrogance even more. Here's a hint; she used to be a principal of Ghiyaasuddin School. And it drives me mad that some of them at the Ministry are actually working to restrict educating students of certain schools. Who cares that they're a private school? Isn't it their job to ensure that every young Maldivian gets access to good education? An aunt of mine, who works at the ITE (that's a place where they train people to become teachers, for those who don't know) shares the Ministry's ideology. According to her, students of Ahmediyya are made to do lots of past paper questions during their preparation for the O'levels, and that they don't really have the "practical knowledge". I don't really understand this statement, as during the 3 years I spent at Dharumavantha, they made us do a lot of past papers too. Ask anyone who studied at Majeediyya or Ameeniya, & they'll give you the same response. Them at the Ministry, with their heads full of 'Beyfulhuness' just don't like Ahmediyya School because they train students who don't really have the same priviledged backgrounds as most of the students at government schools.

The former principal of Ahmediyya happens to be a good friend of my mother's. They spoke ocassionally, and he always told her of the difficulties faced by his students. Most of them are from islands where access to information & general knowlegde isn't as easy as in Male'. So the only way to train them is by making them focus solely on the syllabuses of the subjects that they study, and this method has recieved unjust criticism from many quarters. According to these critics, this method should be scrapped as it is not right for students to "learn everything without knowing anything". But it's the only way for students at public schools, where facilities are scarce compared to government schools, to achieve good results and pursue higher studies. So what do these critics mean? That such students should be left to rot & spend the rest of their lives trying to get half-decent jobs. I have a few friends who studied at Ahmediyya, & let me tell you that they're as good as anyone when it comes to using their brains.

During my pre-school days Ameer Ahmed School was deemed as crap. At Primary, Kalaafaanu was called crap. I suppose that it's a wonder I managed to get to Dharumavantha, one of the so-called "Great Three" schools of Maldives. Funny how poor oul' Ahmediyya manages to scrap together much better performances in the O'levels year in, year out. Darn I hate schoolism..

Left? Right?

2008-01-31T23:22:00.000+08:00

The above picture was taken by my good friend Appu while he was 'checking out' my phone...despite the fact that I've had it for nearly 3 years now.

But this has left me wondering; how does one know what their preferred hand is? Many say that the hand you write with is your stronger one, but I'll (hopefully rather controversially :P) disagree.

You see, I'm not sure whether I'm left or right-handed. I do write with my right, although in a rather unorthodox way. The way I grip my pen, the odd angle at which I position my wrist and the unusual way that I keep the book while I write has always been a source of annoyance to my teachers. During my little years at primary school, teachers would adjust my book or tell me to grip my pencil "properly". The Quran teacher at my grade 4 class actually yelled at me one day and roughly changed the position of my book. The Assistant Principle during my 6th year gave me a 2-minute lecture on how to write the "right way". On the first day during grade 8, I had the Maths teacher breathing down my neck & asking, "How you write, eh?" And it's not great having him breathing down your neck by the way. He was a great teacher, but his breath was simply awful.

Anyway, I use my left hand for a number of tasks, especially those that require twisting. But many household items like can openers always drive me nuts, as they're designed for right-handed usage. Even the burettes at the chemistry labs have taps on their right side..

I often hear people say that your hand preference is genetic. Years ago, during the days when I taught my little sister to write, I noticed that she used the pencil with her left hand if i gave it to her left, and so on with her right. She didn't appear to be bothered about this at all, but I trained her to use her right anyway.

But I saw the most curious thing recently during an extra class. There was a girl sitting next to me & she was using the very same writing techniques as I do! The way she gripped her pen and positioned her wrist & book were exactly the same way as mine, except with just one difference; she was using her left hand..now I'm all confused.

Oim Bakh!

2008-01-17T23:09:00.000+08:00

'Ellow there everyone! This is only my first post of 2008 as I've been extremely busy with exams... I doubt if ever a month passed since I joined CHSE when we've not done any exams. But anyway, a lot has happened during the past couple of weeks while I was cooped up in my room rubbing my nose raw against books, assignments, past papers etc. I've seen so much paper that I'm surprised I'm not suffering from 'Paper Blindness'...you know, like the snow blindness some mountaineers fall victim to.

I'm not going to rant on about the events that took place during my 'absence' as I'm sure you've heard enough about them, from our President being attacked to Bush travelling to the heart of Arabia to get their approval in bombing & destroying Iran...someone put something in his drink and just put an end to our misery...

But I'm going to tell you all a reason as to why I'm unique. As unique as a Maldivian can get, actually. You see, I'm going to tell you about a cousin of mine. Not quite a usual topic one might post on a blog, but you're going to get why I'm doing this.

Alright now here it goes.. This particular cousin of mine is 4 years old & weighs close to half a ton. No, she's not one of those spoilt supersized kids whose favourite pastime is feasting on fish & chips at McDonalds. She is, wait for it, an ELEPHANT!!! Yeah & her name is Lenana.

I can see in my minds' eye some of you rolling your eyes thinking that my mind is all messed up due to my recent adventures in the murky depths of hardcore studying. This ain't the case at all fellas! I'm telling the truth, which I admit, sounds as truthful as the excuse letters my classmates hand over to various teachers for getting absent. But here's the story; there's an aunt of mine who's an environmentalist. She went to Kenya (before all the violence erupted over there, of course) on something related to her work. Environmentalists, bless them, are trying to save the very planet we call our home, but they all have this nutty element in them. My aunt is no different, and when she somehow met this orphaned elephant, she adopted it! So that means she's Lenanas' mother, and that makes me a cousin of an african elephant! Wooo!!
I'll be damned if any of you have this kind of connection!

There you go! Big ain't she? Lenana, not my aunt..

Those pesky resolutions

2007-12-31T23:48:00.000+08:00

As the sun set for the last time in 2007, people everywhere squealed about the year not seeming like an year coz it went by so quickly. But when we think about the events that took place since January, we realize that this is not the case. It has been an extremely eventful year, certainly for me, and I have this nagging feeling that 2008 is going to be a lot more hectic. It might even be the most important year of my life, mainly due to the fact that the A'levels are coming up, and also because after the exams, a lot of my friends are going to part ways with me. There'll be some sort of an explosion where all my schoolmates & dearest friends will go off in different directions. Of course we'll do our best to keep in touch. But we've grown accustomed to meeting each other almost every single day, so it's going to be a little strange..

But what amuses me is the way many of us make those new year resolutions. Some of those are so absurd that they're laughable, though you should be careful not to act too amused; some people take these stuff darn very seriously. You make impossible resolutions that get forgotten before the end of January, and start all over again next December.

An aunt of mine is an instructor at a fitness club here in Male', & she confirmed this belief of mine. She told me how, during the first couple of weeks of the new year, throngs of people with their new year's resolutions flock to the gym with the intention of excersizing regularly. At the end of the month, she said, only the old faces will be the ones who usually remain.

I never made new years resolutions in my life, but just to test the waters a little, I've planned to join the game. Here's my resolution for the year 2008:

-I'll not stay up late on Thursday evenings-

You see, as enjoyable it is on Thursday evenings when everyone's taking a break from studying, staying up late really screws up my weekends. This in turn screws up the following Sundays and the rest of the week & I usually go to school like a....screwed up, hungover fella. I'm convinced that avoiding this bad habit will solve a lot of problems. Plus, I only have to do this once a week. Nothing laughable about that. It's reasonable enough.

So have a smashing 2008 everyone! Just follow those resolutions. Surely nothing can go wrong then, eh?

Three years on & some have forgotten

2007-12-26T19:46:00.000+08:00

The way we stuck together trying to help the needed after the tsunami disaster was probably the strongest example of togetherness I've seen in this country for a long time. People said the disaster turned our economy back 25 years. I think our sense of community was, too. These days neighbours are seen as 'those annoying mutts' by most of us. People living in islands are, unfortunately considered dumb by a few arrogant gits.

I remember the 26th of December 3 years ago and the weeks that followed it very well. How on earth can one forget an incident of such magnitude, I hear you say. It seems as though some of us already have. Our society is back to square one, with the ever-rising crime rates, political turmoil etc. The only reminder of the event is a truly atrocious structure erected on the south eastern corner of Male'. Big deal..

I remember my aunt, who had gone to a nearby shop running home screaming about something coming at us. I can almost smell the salty water now as I cast my mind back to the day; it gushed in through a little space under the main door of where I live and flooded the corridor. I remember my mom and I trying frantically to remove the tv & computer cables and taking other important stuff to a safe height. The water kept rising, grey murky water that looked rightly foreboding. I wondered whether it would ever stop, and after a while it did. My mom called my father, who told his office mates about the incident. They thought he was joking..

What touched me the most was the community spirit that followed. The way everyone, even the notoriously selfish ones lent their stuff for others to gain. My whole neighbourhood was packed with lorries stacked with clothes, toys & even food.

It's a shame we don't see such spirit everyday..

The Double-Whammy

2007-12-18T22:36:00.000+08:00

First of all, Eid Mubarik to everyone who're kind enough to take their own time to view my blog. I know, technically tomorrow's our festive holiday, but like I said, its a festive holiday & most people are gonna be upto other stuff rather than sitting infront of their computers all day.
I've always loved Eid. I enjoy everything about those 2 days from the food to everyone being in the mood to joke, and most importantly of all, getting the family together & generally having a great time. But I thought of something very interesting today. You hear the way non-muslims, or being more specific, Christians rave on about their own festive holiday; the Christmas. They seem to believe that there's no day in the calendar year that's better than the 25th of December. We muslims can rave on about having 2 such days to celebrate! Hah!
Now about the title of this post..it's not about the 2 Eids. You see, in addition to tomorrow being a day to celebrate, in a little over 4 hours time, I'll be legally eligible to being thrown in jail if I commit a serious crime. Wooo!
I'm eagerly anticipating my friends to get themselves confused on what they ought to be wishing me tomorrow.
Have a great day then!

The difference a letter makes

2007-12-11T16:50:00.000+08:00

Now, before I start, let me tell you that the Croatian language is notoriously difficult & if by any unlikely chance that any one of you are planning to learn it, my advice is to forget about it. It is, unsurprisingly, not spoken by many outside Croatia, and thank God about that. You must all be scratching your heads now, wondering why the hell I'm telling you all this, so let me justify my reason in doing so.

Right, this incident took place only last month. You know the way when two nations play a football match, they always sing their respective national anthems before the match kicks off? (Bear with me all you non-football fans). This was right before the England vs Croatia game started. There was a famous English singer, Tony Henry, who was assigned to the unenviable job of singing the Croatian national anthem. Naturally, he didn't understand a word in Croat, and had learnt the anthem by heart. It all went smoothly until the last verse. He was supposed to sing 'Mila kuda si planina', which means 'You know my dear how we love your mountains'. Instead, he sang 'Mila kura si planina', with the only difference being the 'd' in 'kuda' was replaced by an 'r'. When translated, it meant 'My dear, my penis is a mountain'. Amazing ain't it?
So, you're probably wondering whether the Croatians are now calling for his head. Actually it's far from it. They think the blunder helped to relax their players, who were seen chuckling while singing their national anthem, and also believe that Mr Henry actually played a key role in defeating England on that fateful night. They've actually invited him to sing their national anthem during the upcoming Euro 2008 finals, saying he's a lucky omen!

Heck, we may actually see an Englishman during the tournament!

The Maldivian way of clutching at straws

2007-12-06T00:52:00.000+08:00

I'll begin this post with a little incident that took place at Majeedhee Magu one night, coz none of you may bother reading this post if I get straight to the point. Right, so there I was in the middle of heavy traffic at around 8.30pm when there was a sudden downpour. Everyone ran off in random directions to take refuge against the elements, and a few seconds later I found myself jam-packed in a shop. And by jam-packed, I really mean it. There wasn't room to swing a cat, and everyone inside that place were doing their best to avoid looking at each other. Standing next to me was a big, burley man who was feeling extremely grumpy as evidenced by the comment he made;

"Sarukaaru vejje ennu maguthah hiyaakuran!"

If it wasn't for his size, I would have probably laughed myself silly. I mean, just think about it. If his wish were to come true, we will be living in something like an artificial cave someday. This sort of attitude is, I'm afraid, very common amongst many of my fellow Maldivians today.
The thing is, many of us depend on the blasted government to ensure that we don't commit any sort of crime, that we abide our religion etc. It comes as no surprise that those certain "some people" fail to control their insane desires with alarming frequency, and of course, every time this happens, they take the easiest course of action; blaming the police force or the government or something which is even easier..just putting it all down to the president. How many times have you heard someone yelling "Maumoon ge kanthakey!" I'm not defending the government in any way, though they have done us a few favours like opting to pay for our exam fees (there is talk that this is merely part of our president's campaigning program for the next election, but this is not the place to discuss conspiracy theories about political stuff). But if we continue going at this rate, someday we'll be expecting those little men in suits to spoonfeed us & to change our kids' diapers...
My advice to all those moaners is to grow up & take some responsibility.
So what do you think?

A certain reconciled memory

2007-11-24T17:14:00.000+08:00

Ever noticed the way certain things you see or smell or even hear trigger memories? In fact, scientists have proven that smell is the most powerful source of reclaiming memories that you thought you had lost forever (or maybe you wouldn't coz you won't remember them anyway).
This sort of thing happened during my speaking exam today. The interlocuter (that is the person who asks all the questions. The guy who sat there staring at us like some class of a beast was the assessor) introduced herself by telling us her name. I didn't notice anything then, though I felt my subconcious part of the brain yell out "YOU!!! MY INTERLOCUTER???".
Anyway, I'm glad that I didn't remember her. You see, when I was about 2, she came to my place with my aunt and sang me a song (which she's pretty good at as she used to be a singer), and afterwards shook my hand & left. I was so touched that I refused to wash my hands later that day despite my mom's best efforts, which happened to be something I got teased about for some time. Imagine how embarrassing it would've been if i had remembered that during the exam... Anyway, she must have figured out who I am judging by the way she kept smiling while asking the most innocious questions. "Do you agree with the saying that loyalty is old-fashioned?" She asked me, beaming. No ma'am, and I don't know why you find that question so amusing..

Back with something interesting

2007-11-11T19:18:00.000+08:00

Sorry it has taken me almost a week after the exams ended to publish my first post in a loooong time. My post-exam fatigue lasted a lot longer than I expected, see, and I spent the past six days trying to reclaim all the sleep & energy I lost.

Now, among the many things that fascinate me, accents are high up on the list. In this increasingly multicultural world, we hear people speaking in all sorts of tunes & slangs. I was told recently by my CPE teacher that we are required to speak in an accent that is "close to the native British accent" during the speaking exam. I sat there wondering if there is such a thing as a British accent. You see, there're a LOT of accents in Britian alone. There's the London accent, Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Scottish, Cardiff, Nothern Irish, Midlands etc. and they all sound very distinct. I think its safe to assume that we all have been exposed to various funny accents, you know, like Indians & Sri Lankans speaking in English (though when they speak it tends to sound like they're speaking in their own tongues all over again).

When I was 8 years old, I travelled to UK and stayed there for almost an year. My family & I lived at a city called Coventry, located at the heart of the country. I was constantly spoken to by the Midlands accent at school, and believe me, the first few weeks were a nightmare! I knew how to speak English as well as any foreign 8 year old (not trying to be modest in any way mind!), but the language wasn't the problem. In fact, on the first day of school, my classmates and I were set upon the task of writing a short story, something that I loved to do. I happened to impress the teacher so much that she sent me over to the Headmistress, who drew my plaudits as well. Still, I was having trouble communicating with my classmates, who would all babble away in the Midlands accent, which often would result in me staring at them blankly. Then they would go, "You don't understand much of our laaaynguage do ya?" Eventually I managed to convince them that I did speak English reasonably well, and over the weeks I made a lot of good friends. This didn't prevent some Indian lady to come to my class every once a week to give me language lessons privately though. I think the authorities were still skeptical about me...

So, almost a year later, I arrived here back in Male' to find out that we Maldivians spoke English in a funny accent too (though this is something many Maldivians deny). I had a tinge of the Midlands accent in me, and I remember during one Parents-Teachers meeting back in grade 4 when my teacher commented on it; "Varah loabi koh English in vaahaka dhakkaane."

One little example of the difference in accents is the way people say the word "Pod". Americans call it "Pard". Most Britons call it "Po'". Maldivians call it "Pod" with the 'd' pronounced very clearly. Has anyone heard Africans saying bank? It's like "BANG!!" When the Chinese speak English its like listening to the sound of someone chopping vegetables (Not my words, but Russel Peters'). But anyway, the point is that accents are a way of distinguishing your identity. Be proud of it.

Greetings....again

2007-10-12T23:26:00.000+08:00

Eid Mubarik to anyone who might bother reading this. This is my first post in over a month...disgraceful, I know.. Unfortunately, you'll probably not see much improvement during the next 3 weeks or so, coz the semister exams will rear their ugly heads very soon. And of course, the Fookolhuga Roavun Syndrome is rampaging through CHSE again. Three cheers for the exams!! (I'm just tryin to adopt positive thinking in the hope that I'll be able to do the exams better this time around. Who knows, I might actually spend more time concentrating on actually writing the tests instead of checking my watch every 5 mins wondering when the darn thing will end). So wish me luck, & good luck to anyone from CHSE who may be reading this.

Greetings...and more

2007-09-13T05:14:00.000+08:00

So much has happened the past year, and now Ramazan is upon us. So Ramazan Mubarik to all the readers of my blog!
It also feels great sitting infront of the computer again after a torrid couple of weeks. I got struck down by lolu roagaa & was prohibited from using my comp, watching tv, reading & mixing with people. This week was all about catching up with my schoolwork..so i suppose a little bit of humor will do us all good.

Right, its always funny when someone says something dirty without meaning to ain't it? My physics teacher has a nack of doing this unusually frequently. Like when he explained how a ripple tank looks like;
"You have seen the ripple tank during your o'levels havent you? There will be a rod, on which there are two balls and also a vibrator attached to it-" he suddenly stopped, looked around at the sniggering students & changed the subject.
Also when a classmate of mine got his circuit connections horribly wrong during a practical exam, he yelled "You're not coming to class & just poking every hole you see!"

Then there's also the Barney song:
"Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination
And when he's tall
he's what we call a dinosaur sensation"

there's more

"Barneys shows us lots of things
Like how to play pretend"

"Barney comes to play with us
Whenever we may need him"

so this is the stuff they teach kids...

Just for your enjoyment, here're a few such bloopers by sports commentators

"He [Diawarea] brings out an extra six to twelve inches and it's a fantastic tackle." (Scott Minto, BBC)
"If he opens his legs, he'll be hard to handle." (Graham Taylor)
"Ardiles strokes the ball like it was a part of his anatomy." (Jimmy Magee, RTÉ)
"Neil Harvey, standing at leg slip with his legs wide apart, waiting for a tickle." (Brian Johnston, BBC)
"Botham struggled to get his leg over there." (Jonathan Agnew, BBC)
"Rutherford's asking the umpire how many balls he's got left... he's got two." (Bryan Waddle, Radio New Zealand)
"This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing." (Pat Glenn, Weightlifting Commentator)
"I was saying the other day, how often the most vulnerable area for goalies is between their legs..." (Andy Gray, Sky Sports)
"The Czech Republic are coming from behind in more than one way now." (John Motson, BBC in 27th minute of World Cup 2006 game against Italy.)
"And Michael Schumacher just stood on his seat and pulled out something special." (Martin Brundle, ITV)
"Gary Neville says that Porto are a bunch of girls who go down too easily." (Peter Schmeichel)
"This is really a lovely horse, I once rode her mother." (Ted Walsh)
"The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willey." (Brian Johnston, BBC Radio 4, Test Match Special)
"Arsene Wenger's lips are firmly sealed on Sir Alex Ferguson" Sky News
"He's not the sharpest sandwich in the picnic" Tony Cascarino, Talksport Radio (????)

though not a sports commentary, this deserves a mention;
"If blood is thicker than water, it must also be thicker than a calendar or a small clock." Esther Rantzen, English journalist
What the hell does this mean??

Dhivehi terms used for foreigners

2007-08-29T02:34:00.000+08:00

Here in Maldives, where the population is 300,000+, a staggering 50,000+ foreigners are employed for various professions. So it ain't surprising that we've come up with a few terms such as

Bangaalhu Meehun: used to refer Bangladeshi ppl, who are perhaps the most common of all foreign empoyees here.

Loakuda Meehun: "Loa" means eye, "kuda" means little. Thus this is used in reference to East Asians from Japan, China, Thailand etc, who are easily distinguishable because of their eyes.

Guestun: Probably the most illogical of all the terms. This word was originally formed from the English word "Guest", & was first used in reference to European tourists during the days this country established the tourism industry. "Guestun" is commonly used to refer to whites by the elderly population.

Baburun: An old word, used to refer Black Africans. I don't really know why we decided to call them that. Can anyone help me?

Bangaalheen: Not to be confused with "Bangaalhu Meehun". This is a term that is unique; it refers to Indians, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis & more recently, even Nepalis. This word is, unfortunately used rather negatively, mainly from people who get disgruntled at the sight of Bangaalheen at the turn of every road & street in Male'. (come on admit it! dont u feel the same way??)

Ladies & gentlemen, I present you the MonoBra

2007-08-20T02:20:00.001+08:00

There you go. A nice, tasty image of the MonoBra, also known as the Half-Bra or as called by the Chemistry teachers of CHSE, the Mask. Poor, helpless students like me are supposed to wear it throughout our practical sessions. I know that it prevents us from inhaling toxic fumes, but its darn uncomfortable wearing it...We wear it on our faces by the way, regardless of what its called.
Anyway, apart from having the power to suffocate us to death, merely holding this can be extremely humiliating, as some of us I'm sure, know all too well about. Try holding this while on your way to school, & expect to recieve curious looks from other pedestrians. There's a general rule in my class, which go with the lines, "Either keep It in your pocket, or don't come", after we discovered its degrading effects...

Can anyone kindly tell me what size this is?

An insight into Maldivian politics - there ain't much really

2007-08-18T17:26:00.000+08:00

Here it goes...
There're 3 main parties here. They're

1. Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP)
Run by the oldies, most of whom have been with our President for years. Their ideas & plans are usually a wierd combination of their ancient views, mixed (often unsuccessfully) with modernized methods. Try imagine these oldies wearing baby suits & holding candy bars. That'll give you a good idea of their 'plans'.

2. Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)
Run by those who had gotten into trouble for various misdeeds in the past, or generally speaking, those with rather dodgy histories. These buggers target the dumber proportion of the Maldivian population for support. Say, that if they accuse our President of literally laying golden eggs & depriving Maldivians from the profit he makes with them, their followers will conduct their favourite past time; staging protests.

3. Islamic Democratic Party (IDP)
Run by a quiet bunch. People often tend to forget that they actually exist...Needless to say, most of their 'plans' usually end up as thin air.

So today is the day. The day when Maldivians finally decide whether they want a Presidential or Parliamentary System. What do I think of this? I say we sod them both & revert back to the style our Islamic traditions & values taught us. Just look at the 2 short years Umar ibn Abdulazeez (great-grandchild of Umar bin Al-Khattab for those who don't know) spent as Khalifah. His refusal to favour his favourites led to a peaceful ruling, & there wasn't a single person who was deprived in any way! Admittedly though, we won't find anyone like that these days...

Also, this MDP git came to my place yesterday with a letter that had my name on its front. He said (rather loudly, so that anyone who was nearby could have heard it) that I am between 18 & 21 years old, and thus eligible to vote. So why don't I just accept the letter, and come with him at the assigned time to 'have a good time, like hanging around with ppl my age etc'. Good time? Gah! This toadstool was actually trying to tempt me!! I told him that I won't turn 18 till the end of this year. Gobsmacked, he said something about a 'System Error' & left.

Its another dark chapter in Maldivian history. I watch these brainwashed idiots breaking their heads, tryin to decide which system they prefer. I wonder what remains of this country...

Oh yeah & politics in Latin;
Poly = Many
Ticks = Bloodsucking creatures
Therefore Polyticks = (?)

A review of Deathly Hallows

2007-08-10T23:12:00.000+08:00

First of all, apologies to everyone who were expecting this post about 24 hours after the book was released. I managed to lay my eager hands on it a little later than I'd initially thought, & I took my time reading it. True, I still could've posted this last month, but a mixture of tight schedules & extreme laziness prevented me from doing so. Alright now enough ranting. Now for the review...

As expected, this book was packed with more action than the previous six. We were introduced to Harry as follows;

"Harry was bleeding."

And what a way too! It really summed up the whole book, heartstopping moments galore!

And the deaths!! JK wasn't joking when she asked us to be braced for all the deaths. The passing away of Fred hit me hardest, maybe because it happened so suddenly. But then, a Weasley had to die, otherwise the story might have looked a bit fairytale-ish don't you think? Snape's death was pretty sad too, but at least he died, according to JK, as "a flawed hero". I suspected him of being a good guy when Dumbledore "pleaded" to him in Half-Blood Prince. After all, Dumbledore ain't afraid of death...

Poor old Teddy Lupin...I had this hunch that JK would finish off all the Marauders, but Nymphadora Tonks too! So sad, its like Harry Potter all over again, eh? I also had this nasty feeling that either Ron or Hermione would die, but thank goodness!

Finally, the Deathly Hallows!! My sympathies go with all of you who spent precious hours speculating what it might mean. After all, who would've thought of that a cloak, ring & stone would be involved? This is the reason I don't like predicting stuff. As the saying goes, "Expect the unexpected".

The only disappointing part of this book was perhaps the epilogue. Instead of showing us our favourite characters as middle-aged parents, JK could have shown us a few after the final battle, possibly Fred's funeral, what happened to Hogwarts, the Ministry etc. But then, this didn't dampen the "WOW WHAT A RIDE!!!" effect after reading the whole book. Not for me, at least.

So our journey with The Boy Who Lived ends here, though I'll bet its effects will remain for generations to come, if not forever. Hope you, like me, enjoyed the book!

IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!!

2007-07-21T00:57:00.000+08:00

After so many months of anticipation, we're only a few hours away from getting to lay our hands on what will surely be one of the greatest masterpieces of the 21st century; Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows. Like me, HP maniacs all over the world are counting down the hours, which seem to be dragging on for months.

I actually suffered a scare about a week ago when I realised that I didn't have enough money to buy the book, and had actually resorted to buying it next month! (oh, the horror!!). But thanks to my dear cousin, who has been borrowing my HP books for the past few years, decided to do me a favour by buying the book herself. God bless her.

Now, all you fans must be aware of the reported leaks about the story. There was the friggin New York Times for one, who decided to post a "review" on their website and gave Ms Rowling a nasty surprise. I dunno whether it was a true review or not, but I didn't read it anyway. After all, we didn't wait all these years for nothing. (there was also some idiotic guy who confidently claimed on his talkshow that Harry would be starting a muggle business at the end of the book. Git.)

So, while we're all feeling giddy with excitement, let's look back at the past books & how they've affected us (I can't believe its all going to end!!).

Book 1: I had actually seen a trailer of the Sorcerer's Stone movie (I hate it when they change the names, why couldn't it be friggin Philosopher's Stone, there's a distinct difference in the meaning of the two words) before I even learnt of this book. I saw a young Daniel Radcliffe jumping up & trying to clutch at some letters that were flying about everywhere. Then I saw Hermione teaching Ron 'Wingardium Leviosa' & everyone swishing their wands, and also the goblins at Gringotts. I thought they were conducting some wierd orchestra then, and had no idea as to what it really was. Anyway, I first read this book when I was 11 years old. A cousin of mine went abroad to India & brought the first 4 books, and recommended them to me. He claimed that they were very "funny". It was a book, plus it was funny and these were two things I just couldn't resist. It took me 3 days to read the first page, but after that, I was just glued right till the end. It was fascinating...

Book 2: I called my cousin a few days after Book 1 and managed to borrow Book 2. Spent virtually all my free time slumped on a chair and reading it. It was fantastic...

Book 3: Managed to get hold of it, but unfortunately my mom prevented me from readin coz it was during the exams after all. It was a long & agonizing wait, but I eventually got through it and spent the holidays once again slumped on a chair. I found this book a little strange though. Not in a bad way, mind but maybe coz Harry was showing signs of growing up, while I was still only 11.

Book 4: By this time, I had introduced Harry Potter to a couple of people. Both of them loved it and have remained avid fans since. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and after reading it, I was delighted to find out that the first movie was going to be released soon. Then there was that long wait till the 5th book was released.

Book 5: I remember the hype that was caused even here in Male'. They released the book at 4.00 in the morning, though I didn't go there. I only got it that evening just before I went to bed. This book was very different from the previous ones. All that time I thought I was going to read about the adventures Harry & co would be facing while they were at Hogwarts. But this book was a lot darker, more emotional & to my intense delight, looooong. A sinister plot was shaping up. Admittedly, I didn't understand some of the emotional aspects of the book, like I felt irritated at times when Harry lost his temper. I re-read this book an year or so afterwards, & understood some things that I would not have even thought of before. You know, its part of growing up. Anyway, I devoured this one in 8 days (I had to go through a tough, tight schedule...thats my excuse. I like to take my time while reading too, feeling everything thats written in it. I just don't understand these so-called "speed readers") & was already anticipating the next one.

Book 6: I just loved this one. The first few chapters where Harry spent at The Burrow & the Hogwarts Express were a little disappointing, coz I thought they were very rushed and didn't have the same emotional qualities seen in the previous books. But it was just brilliant afterwards. It was dark, it was sinister, and of course there was all the fluff and funny moments. But Ms Rowling showed her brutality by killing off one of my favourite characters at the end. I actually could not believe it at first, and reread that part. But overall I enjoyed it immensely. The plot was just brilliant.

Book 7: Here we're at last. Its been a long, wonderful journey, a journey that began when both Harry & I were 11, and its going to end with both of us as 17 year olds. Its ironic that I read the first book 7 years ago! Its goin to be a busy week for all of us (my unit tests begin next Sunday...gah!!) and I would like to wish you all the best on the final outcome of the book. I'm feeling all giddy at the moment; I can smell the book now...(and I don't care what my English teacher says; I'm NOT going to spend all week reading Newsweek instead of, according to her words, "Stupid, childish stuff like Harry Potter")

Let's all thank Jo for providing us with this miraculous feat of ingenuity. This may be the last book, but the legacy of the whole series will never die. For evidence, see Star Wars. It ended 30 years ago and still remains strong. And now I'm off.

-Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

Funny headlines (yes, they're real)

2007-07-19T23:46:00.000+08:00

1. Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
2. Something Went Wrong In Jet Crash, Expert Says
3. Police Begin Campaign To Run Down Jaywalkers
4. Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted
5. Drunk Gets Nine Months In Violin Case
6. Survivor Of Siamese Twins Joins Parents
7. Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
8. Prostitutes Appeal To Pope
9. Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
10. British Left Waffles On Falkland Islands
11. Lung Cancer In Women Mushrooms
12. Eye Drops Off Shelf
13. Teachers Strike Idle Kids
14. Clinton Wins On Budget, But More Lies Ahead
15. Enraged Cow Injures Farmer With Ax
16. Plane Too Close To Ground, Crash Probe Told
17. Miners Refuse To Work After Death
18. Juvenile Court To Try Shooting Defendant
19. Stolen Painting Found By Tree
20. Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years In Checkout Counter
21. Killer Sentenced To Die For Second Time In 10 Years
22. Never Withhold Herpes Infection From Loved One
23. War Dims Hope For Peace
24. If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last A While
25. Cold Wave Linked To Temperatures
26. Deer Kill 17,000
27. Enfields Couple Slain, Police Suspect Homicide
28. Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
29. Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
30. Man Struck By Lightening Faces Battery Charge
31. New Study Of Obesity Looks For Larger Test Group
32. Astronaut Takes Blame For Gas In Spacecraft
33. Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
34. Chef Throws His Heart In Helping Feed Needy
35. Arson Suspect Held In Massachusetts Fire
36. Ban On Soliciting Dead In Trotwood
37. Local High School Dropout Cuts In Half
38. New Vaccine May Contain Rabies
39. Hospitals Are Sued By 7 Foot Doctors

The Times top 50 worst players

2007-07-06T13:42:00.000+08:00

50 Claus Lundekvam (Southampton)
Saints boss Gordon Strachan paid this glowing tribute to the one-paced Scandinavian in 2003: “He was carried off at Leicester and someone asked me if he was unconscious. I didn’t have a clue. That’s what he’s always like.”

49 Massimo Taibi (Manchester United)
United’s worst keeper ever – in a competitive field featuring Mark Bosnich. The Italian takes the prize for that dive over a shot from Matt Le Tissier, an all-time You Tube favourite.

48 Stephane Guiv’arch (Newcastle)
Milburn, Macdonald, Shearer and ... Guiv’arch! The World Cup winner never came close to that pantheon. Come to that, he’s lagging in Tyneside’s Hall of Centre-Forward Fame (they could call it Striker Grove) behind Cunningham, Mirandinha and Ameobi.

47 Jody Morris (Chelsea, Leeds)
Grew up at Chelsea with Dennis Wise as his mentor, and turned into the snidey kid brother everyone hates. Had all of Wise’s sly tendencies and penchant for a scrape, but none of the skill. Perfect acquisition for Leeds in 2003, then.

46 Nigel Quashie (QPR, Forest, Southampton, WBA and more)
Relegated four times with four clubs – and only narrowly avoided No 5 with West Ham last year.

45 Roque Junior (Leeds)
The execrable Brazilian arrived on loan for a few months from AC Milan in 2003, and did as much as anybody to shove Leeds towards destruction.

44 Sergei Rebrov (Tottenham)
Looked good enough playing alongside Andriy Shevchenko for Dynamo Kiev. Sadly, Glenn Hoddle’s £11m signing never looked the same force with Steffen Iversen.

43 David May (Blackburn, Man United)
The guy picked up Premiership winner’s medals with two clubs. But so did Larry Lloyd.

42 Larry Lloyd (Liverpool, Nottingham Forest)
See David May (No 43)

41 Bosko Balaban (Aston Villa)
They said Deadly Doug was tight, but you can hardly blame him after Ellis fished £6m out of his humbug tin for John Gregory to spend, and the manager came back with the elusive Croatian. He never started a Premiership game and scored no goals.

40 Carlton Palmer (Southampton)
“He covers every blade of grass out there,” said Saints manager, Dave Jones. “But that’s only because his first touch is so crap.”

39 Claudio Marangoni (Sunderland)
The striker swapped the rolling pampas of Argentina for Wearside when he signed for a club-record £320,000 at Christmas 1979. One year and three goals later he went back home. Only Geordies were sorry to see him go.

38 Glenn Keeley (Everton)
Arrived on loan from Blackburn keen to show his mettle at the highest level. On debut in 1982, against Liverpool no less, he was sent off in the first-half, The Reds won 5-0 and he never played for Everton again.

37 Marco Materazzi (Everton)
Yes, he won the World Cup with Italy. But the lean centre-half couldn’t tackle a Sayers’ steak and kidney pie during his pointless spell at Goodison.

36 John Jensen (Arsenal)
Empires rose and fell in the time it took the bubble-permed Dane to score his first Arsenal goal. Searing pace, an eye for goal and a fierce shot were just three qualities he didn’t have.

35 Dean Austin (Tottenham)
The wafer-thin defender earned the wrath of the notoriously fickle Spurs support early doors, and never won them round. Even now, he featured strongly in a straw poll of Tottenhamites’ least favourite player ever to wear the white.

34 Ramon Vega (Tottenham)
The big Swiss was Dean Austin, with (cow) bells on.

33 Alberto Tarantini (Birmingham City)
Jim Smith went down the Spurs road and hired himself an Argentinian World Cup winner in the afterglow of 1978, but the Bald Eagle chose this dud left-back. Blues were relegated.

32 Gary Sprake (Leeds)
The Kop serenaded the hapless Welshman with “Careless Hands” when he threw another one into the back of his own net, hardly a unique moment for the accident-prone Inspector Clouseau of international goalkeeping.

31 Charlie Nicholas (Arsenal)
The much-hyped Champagne Charlie didn’t even amount to Pomagne Charlie at Highbury.

30 Darren Ferguson (Manchester United)
Tried to make a name for himself at Old Trafford in the early 90s, but it was already taken.

29 Winston Bogarde (Chelsea)
For all the good this expensive, non-playing flop ever did Chelsea, they might as well have signed foppish character actor, Dirk Bogarde. Or maybe they did and tried to cover it up.

28 Iain Dowie (West Ham)
Headlines that were never written: “It’s Iain Wow-ie!”, and maybe “Dow ya think I’m sexy.”

27 Eric Djemba-Djemba (Man United, Aston Villa)
One Djemba would have been bad enough, but two of them was more than plenty.

26 Frank Sinclair (Leicester City)
Whatever the opposite of a purple patch is, Frank ‘Spencer’ Sinclair had one in August 1999. In two matches in August he scored two risible own goals, single-handedly costing his team three points. That month of mishaps alone earns him a place in the annals of infamy.

25 Steve Marlet (Fulham)
Mr Fayed didn’t rise to the top in business by not knowing the value of a pound. So mystery remains why he was persuaded to give Lyons eleven and a half mill for the misfit striker. Marlet’s ghost will haunt him to the end of his days.

24 Mark Dennis (Birmingham City)
There were rumours in the game that Dennis could actually play, and possessed a decent enough left foot. But the Blues’ anti-footballer was content to amass the game’s blackest rap sheet.

23 Torben Piechnik (Liverpool)
Graeme Souness faces the bad transfer tribunal again for the inexplicable purchase of the dithering Dane. English football was no picnic for Piechnik and he slunk back to Denmark in short order.

22 John Fashanu (Wimbledon)
Fash elbows his way into the list for a legion of crimes and misdemeanours inflicted on association football in the dubious cause of Wimbledon FC, topped by the assault which shattered Saint Gary Mabbutt’s eye socket.

21 Nikola Jovanovic (Manchester United)
Third-worst United centre-half of all time (see nos 5 and 6).

20 Jason Lee (Nottingham Forest)
“He’s got a pineapple on his head,” crooned fans all over the land in homage to the dreadlocked striker, who couldn’t hit a ruminant’s posterior with a stringed musical instrument.

19 Marco Boogers (West Ham)
He made his mark on English football, but only on Gary Neville’s midriff as a murderous tackle almost wiped out the United right-back. It was all downhill from there, as Mad Marco fled East London for a caravan park somewhere in the Low Countries.

18 Martin Jol (West Brom)
The Dutchman was away from school the day they taught the sophisticated tenets of Total Football, and the no-nonsense midfielder went on to spread mayhem across the midfields of England.

17 Nicky Summerbee (Manchester City)
The mid-90s City ‘winger’ earns his place on account of his singular running style. Arse stuck out in the fashion of a cartoon Mick Jagger, in Manchester derbies he made the ungainly Phil Neville look like Nijinsky.

16 Chris Kamara (Leeds)
For more than two decades Kammy has sported the perma-frizzed coiff of a 60s soul legend, but it failed to distract from a playing style long on effort, short on elegance.

15 Ade Akinbiyi (Leicester City)
Big Ade’s combined career transfer value would dwarf the national debt of an especially ****less banana republic, but he couldn’t buy a goal at Filbert Street after signing in 2000.

14 Micky Droy (Chelsea)
Nouveau Chelsea fans should know that their s****y club’s DNA contains the traces of lumbering 1970s dinosaurs such as Big Micky.

13 Steve Daley (Manchester City)
The poor bloke suffered from one of Man City’s periodic bouts of madness when they insisted on paying Wolves a record £1.45m for him in 1979, back in the days when £1.45m was £1.45m. He never looked close to matching the valuation.

12 Terry Hurlock (Millwall)
Graced Cold Blow Lane during The Lions’ unlikely late 80s spell in the top flight, and unleashed a short-lived reign of midfield terror. Hurlock, a one-man disciplinary crime wave, remains, unsurprisingly, a cult hero in Millwall-supporting enclaves of south London.

11 Billy Woof (Middlesbrough)
Even three decades down the road Boro fans are still convinced Billy only ever got a game because he was the son-in-law of John Neal, the manager.

10 Vinnie Jones (Wimbledon and more)
Told Kenny Dalglish he intended to bite off his ear and spit in the whole. And they said there were no characters left in the game.

9 Ian Ormondroyd (Aston Villa)
Nature’s prototype for Peter Crouch lived at the same lofty altitudes as his Villa Park successor, but perhaps lacked his touch and speed – so why did he play on the wing?

8 Andrea Silenzi (Nottingham Forest)
The Italian who looked much like a horse turned out to be a load of pony at the City Ground after his multi-billion lira move from Torino in 1995, and pips Justin Fashanu as Forest’s greatest transfer rick ever.

7 Li Wei-Feng (Everton)
Arrived as part of the same strange deal which brought the not-too-bad Li Tie to Goodison in 2002. Why? Perhaps he came free, like the prawn crackers we get in our Chinese takeaway when we spend more than a tenner.

6 William Prunier (Man United)
The baldy Bordeaux triallist starred in a calamitous 4-1 defeat at Spurs on New Year’s Day 1996, and he was bundled back onto a plane to France the next day.

5 Arnold Sidebottom (Man United)
Ryan’s dad also bowled quickly for England, but the centre-half injected no discernible pace to the worst United team since records began.

4 Istvan Kozma (Liverpool)
Yet another Souness master signing – the abject Magyar cost £300,000 from Dunfermline in 1992 and played just three games for the Reds before Souey realised he’d made one more transfer goulash.

3 Gus Caesar (Arsenal)
“... painfully, obviously, out of his depth ... he looked like a rabbit frozen to the spot ... and then he starts to thrash about, horribly and pitifully...” not our words – those of ultra-loyal Arsenalist, Nick Hornby.

2 Tomas Brolin (Leeds, Crystal Palace)
Hard to imagine that Leeds United, normally a model of fiscal probity, paid £4.5m for the Swedish meatball in 1995. A good footballer treats his body like a temple. Brolin’s was a bouncy castle.

1 Ali Dia (Southampton)
Was he George Weah’s cousin? Was he hell! Neither had the impostor won 12 caps for Senegal, nor had he played for Paris St Germain. But it took Saints boss Graeme Souness a whole 52 minutes to suss he’d been had in 1996.

Who thinks Titus Bramble & Jean-Alain Boumsong deserve to be mentioned?

Torres signs for Liverpool

2007-07-05T17:12:00.000+08:00

Liverpool FC confirmed yesterday that Spanish striker Fernando Torres have signed for the club. Torres, 23, has been a peripheral figure for his previous club Atletico Madrid after breaking through their youth system, being the top goalscorer for them for the past 5 seasons. I don't remember feeling this excited after we signed anyone before, so give me some time to do a little something

*hops around the room whooping

Alright then, here's a typical summary of the guy:

"A technically-gifted attacking player with a dazzling turn of pace, Fernando Torres possesses self-confidence and ability in equal abundance." -uefa.com

10 things not many people know about Torres:

1. The 23-year-old spent his early years in football as a keeper: "I played in goal until one day I got a couple of teeth knocked out by the ball," he explains. "I decided then that my career between the sticks was finished. Great save, though!"

2. Torres was snapped up by Atletico Madrid at the age of 11 after scoring a whopping 55 goals in his first season for amateur side Rayo 13.

3. It was just three years before the transfer rumours started. Aged only 14, the striker was linked to a host of European clubs, with Arsenal reportedly having a bid rejected.

4. In 1998 Torres was voted the best under-14 player in Europe following some dazzling displays in the Nike Cup. He'd later win player of the tournament at the 2001 European Under-16 Championships and 2002 European Under-19 Championships.

5. He was just 19 when he was named Atletico captain – the youngest skipper in the club's history.

6. It wasn't long before international recognition came. The striker won his first cap against Portugal in September 2003. Current Spain boss Luis Aragones describes him as a player who "never scores two goals the same".

7. Torres is no stranger to the hairdresser's. One fansite has counted 11 different hairdos since his first-team debut in 2001, including a mullet and a Mohican.

8. Talking of his appearance, the Spanish international is known in his homeland as El Nino, or The Kid, because of his baby-face.

9. Torres also has a penchant for tattoos. The striker has at least three to date, including one of his Atletico, Spain and now Liverpool shirt number, nine, on his right arm.

10. In May 2007 the forward revealed the words "You'll Never Walk Alone" (which is Liverpool FC's motto) written behind his captain's armband during a game against Real Sociedad. Two months later he signed for Liverpool, leaving the Vicente Calderon with a record of 82 goals in 214 league appearances.

Bizarre injuries: Part II

2007-06-20T01:26:00.000+08:00

No that's the wrong ball!!!

Alright here you go:

RICHARD WRIGHT - The Everton goalkeeper faced most of the summer on the sidelines after damaging his shoulder falling through a loft as he was trying to pack away his suitcases.

SEAN FLYNN - The then Kidderminster captain suffered a broken nose, busted lip and bruised toes after tripping over his son's toy cars.

KASEY KELLER - The American international knocked out his front teeth while pulling his golf clubs out of the boot of his car.

ALAN WRIGHT - The diminutive former Aston Villa full-back strained his knee by stretching to reach the accelerator in his new Ferrari. He subsequently swapped the sports car for a Rover 416.

DAVID JAMES - The England goalkeeper once pulled a muscle in his back when reaching for the television remote control and the keen angler also tweaked his shoulder when trying to land a monster carp.

STEVE MORROW - The former Northern Ireland defender broke his collarbone after falling off the shoulders of Tony Adams while celebrating the 1993 League Cup final win against Sheffield Wednesday.

CHIC BRODIE - The Brentford goalkeeper's career came to an abrupt end in October 1970 when he collided with a sheepdog which had run onto the pitch. Brodie shattered his kneecap while the dog got the ball. "The dog might have been a small one, but it just happened to be a solid one," he reflected. Poor fella...

SVEIN GRONDALEN - The Norway defender had to withdraw from an international during the 1970s after colliding with a moose while out jogging.

ALAN MULLERY - The England star missed the 1964 tour of South America after injuring his back while brushing his teeth. Hope you now understand the risk we put ourselves through everyday.

LEE HODGES - The then Barnet player slipped on a bar of soap in the shower and wrenched his groin. Ow.

Apologies & promises

2007-06-16T23:06:00.000+08:00

I know I know, its been over a month since I've posted anything. I'm extremely sorry for those of you who've come here, expecting somethin nice & interesting, but in the end leave disgruntled at the lack of activity, wondering whether this is one of those blogs that dry out after a month or two. I have an excuse for this, and I assure you that its a bloody reasonable one. See, I've been making my backside sore over the past month while working my brain to its limits. Thats exams for you. They ended today & I'm trying to make the best use of it (school resumes tomorrow.... aaaaaaarrgh!!!).

I should have let all of ya know about this, and I'm pretty sure that I've lost a lot of readers over the past month. So I'm going to make this blog a little...interesting lets say. My head is currently spinning with ideas & I'm trying to figure out what I should treat you all with first. How about you givin me an idea? Alright alright I've actually run outta ideas, the bloody exams have taken their toll on me. But fear not, I'm looking forward to hearing from all of ya!

Here's a little treat for today:

*scratches head, shrugs & signs out

Bizzare injuries; read & enjoy

2007-05-11T05:24:00.000+08:00

- Robbie Keane (Tottenham) – Damaged his ankle standing on a TV remote control.
- Jason Koumas (West Brom) – Got an eye infection from the fertilisers used on the Fulham pitch.
- Rio Ferdinand (Man. United) – Whilst watching TV he pulled a leg muscle after having his leg on a coffee table for too long.
- Lucas Radebe (Leeds) - Aggravated a knee injury when he slipped on ice whilst taking the bins out at home.
- Bob Taylor (West Brom) – Injured his Achilles as a result of friction from his new leather shoes.
- Derek McInnes (West Brom) – Damaged his ankle whilst failing to negotiate a traffic cone in training.
- David James (Portsmouth) – Admitted that he had ‘injured’ his concentration whilst playing too many video games.
- David Batty (Leeds) – Aggravated an Achilles injury when it was run over by his toddler on a tricycle.
- Darius Vassell (Aston Villa) – Gave himself a toe infection after he decided to drill a hole in his toe to relieve some blood. Half his nail went in the process.
- Michael Stensgaard (Liverpool) – Dislocated his shoulder whilst taking an ironing board out of the cupboard.
- Dave Beasant (Chelsea) – Dropped a jar of salad cream on his foot and missed the start of the 1993 season. Just as well if can’t even handle a stationary object.
- Darren Barnard (Barnsley) – Out for five months with damaged knee-ligaments after he slipped in a puddle of his puppy’s urine.
- In 1975 Manchester United keeper Alex Stepney managed to dislocate his jaw while shouting at his defenders during a game against Birmingham City.

More to follow later...too sleepy

Artemis Fowl

2007-04-27T01:47:00.000+08:00

Of all the books I've read in my life, this one is just unique. Its actually the first book of a unique series. Written by Irish author Eoin Colfer, its about a 12 year old boy who also happens to be a genius & criminal mastermind. This is the first ever book I've read that blends fairies with technology. Now, I'm aware that this might sound somewhat childish to anyone who haven't read it, coz I was a little skeptical too when a cousin of mine offered it to me. But once I started reading, I just couldn't put it down.

Anyway, the story starts with Artemis Fowl tryin to track down fairies. These fairies, also know as The People, aint the sort we know about, you know, those glittery things with wings. In this, fairies are classified into families. Among them are elves, dwarfs, gnomes, sprites, trolls, demons, centaurs...

These fairies were actually driven underground about 10,000 years ago after The Battle of Taillte, a war in which humans emerged victorious. The People now live underground (with the exception of demons, which will be found out in the 5th book of the series). You'll be surprised by how technologically advanced these fairies are. I really don't know where the hell Colfer gets his ideas from...

A scorcher of a Saturday evening!!!

2007-04-22T03:16:00.000+08:00

I've just had one of the best Saturday evenings in my life. Yup, Liverpool, the mighty reds have secured a Champions League qualification spot with a 2-0 victory over Wigan. Great to see Dirk Kuyt scorin a brace...bring on Chel$ki, who incidentally are playin tomorrow & can narrow the gap to just 1 point with the Scum (not that i like chel$ki, but i just happen to hate Manure more). Hahahahaaa really enjoyed myself watchin them labour over the "mighty" Boro. Thats not all, as once again Arsenal somehow failed to beat a team after almost flirting with the ball from start to finish during the game. Also its noteworthy to point out that Everton lost. Its late so I'm goin to bed now (with a huge smile on my face)

Apologies to those who don't follow football & cudnt make neither head nor tail out of the above ramblings

10 books the nation cannot live without

2007-04-20T22:39:00.001+08:00

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the World Book Day, a survey was conducted in UK to find the ten books the nation cannot live without. Here're the results:

1) Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 20%
2) Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien 17%
3) Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 14%
4) Harry Potter books – J K Rowling 12%
5) To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee 9.5%
6) The Bible 9%
7) Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8.5%
8) 1984 – George Orwell 6%
9) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 6%
10) Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 0.55%

Interesting to see the bible down at sixth eh? Ah well, keepin that aside, how many of those books have you read? I've read the Harry Potter books & His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Both of them are absolute crackers I tell ya, & I'll post about them sometime later. Who else finds the lack of a William Shakespear novel surprising? I certainly am, not that I'm a big fan of those in all honesty, but no one can deny that the bloke's got class! Anyway, I'd like some feedback from you all, let me know about some of the above books if you've read them.

Angela's Ashes - a must read ppl

2007-04-19T18:06:00.000+08:00

This book is basically a memoir of the childhood of Frank McCourt, an Irish-American teacher & author (now retired)

The following extract from the first chapter of this book beautifully sums up what is expected of it:

"When I look back at my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable chidhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years."

What makes this book so intruiging is the way McCourt has written it the way he saw things during his childhood. Everythin is seen through his eyes, from the woes to the unexpected truimphs. The frequent usage of poetry, black humour & Irish slang had me absolutely hooked

Calling all Maldivian Liverpool FC fans!

2007-04-19T16:07:00.000+08:00

Who watched last night's game agains Boro? I, unfortunately couldn't but I do have a general idea that, although our performance wasn't spectacular, we were effective. Thats all that matters at this stage of the season, eh?

Stevie G got the job done last night, so happy for him. Hope he gets the PFA player of the year award, though I doubt it, with everyone fallin for Cristiano "Touch Me & I Fall Like I've Just Been Shot" Ronaldo...wot a shame.

Another positive from last nite's game is the fact that we only need 3 more points to guarantee a Champions League qualification spot. Bring on Wigan!!!