Never did I know the “Seminar Kesedaran Bahaya Dadah” can be so interesting. It was certainly eye opening, mind blowing, best ever ... ok, ok, I'm exaggerating. But, it was good, really.

I signed up as a volunteer from Lighthouse ( http://www.pohd.org/pages/ministries/ministry-with-ruralurban-poor/lighthouse.php ). Had been volunteering there on weekly basis for some time, well, long enough to get this invitation. :)




Nonetheless, I didn't get to attend that because MH's family was in town last weekend. Had to skip Fr Fabian's session on Parish Human Development at Holy Spirit Cathedral on Sunday evening as well. Anyhow, more stories on Lighthouse some other time.

Back to the seminar, it was given by truly hands-on people like Mr Gideon Khoo, the principle of the Hiding Place (https://www.unodc.org/ngo/showSingleDetailed.do?req_org_uid=1918 ), staff nurse Jubaidah, the winner of Dr. Siti Hasmah Award 2006 ( http://malaysianaidsfoundation.org.my/redgala/2006/dsha.htm ) and Chief Inspector Tan (he didn't show up though).


Do you know?
- Not all drugs are additive. Ganja (Marijuana) and Ecstasy are not. You won't experience withdrawal symptom once you stop using them.
- How do people get addicted to ganja then? It's because of the greedy drug dealer aka “tai ko” spraying the pure ganja pill with highly additive morphine.
- Ecstasy addiction is more psychological rather than physical - the "syok" or high feeling that ppl keep going back for.
- Ecstasy is dry and dehydrating. So it's seldom taken with alcohol. Now you know why a jug of Pepsi or water is equally as expensive as beer at night joints.
- Ecstasy tablet is often mixed with glass powder by the manufacturer; to cut the bloodstream, for a faster kick!
- Highest HIV/AIDS cases found in the holiest state of Malaysia -> Kelantan.
- ~70% of HIV infections contracted was through heterosexual activity and ~30% through injection drug use. (All the while I thought it's the other way round)
- Same statistic applies to Kelantan. ~70% thro' heterosexual relationship. (Kelantan is near to Sungai Golok)
- Most FAQ: can a mosquito transmit HIV virus?
- Most funny question: My grandfather smoked opium last time. Can I inherit HIV from him?
- Due to the long inactive/dormant state of HIV, some of the patients will eventually recalled and confessed that they visited Thailand 10 years ago.
- 70% of the patients are totally not aware of HIV/AIDS. (I thought we have high literacy rate)
- A few years back when there is no test to screen the ecstasy user, the inspector will put the suspects in a room with blasting music. Those who shake their head will get a tongue lasher.
- Glue sniffing is not chargeable in the court.

**Disclaimer : I do not guarantee the accuracy of the here above statements.





Belle joked that drug addicts on the street will start running away from us if we wear that given t-shirt with the AGENSI ANTIDADAH KEBANGSAAN logos. Most of them are just too familiar with it since they've been in and out of the Pusat Serenti.

Got locked out from my linux workstation early morning. Browsed thro’ EETimes, Malaysiakini, thestar; checked my hotmail, yahoo & friendster (with my laptop) and at 7am I was done with those. So, to kill some time while waiting for the IT guy to report to work, I “wu liao”-ly clicked at the pop-up link that brought me to complete a set of 130+ tickle questions. At the wee hour of the morning, I scored 131.

Congratulations, Hui!Your IQ score is 131
This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others. Your Intellectual Type is Visual Mathematician. This means you are gifted at spotting patterns — both in pictures and in numbers. These talents combined with your overall high intelligence make you good at understanding the big picture, which is why people trust your instincts and turn to you for direction — especially in the workplace. And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results.


Curious to know what 131 means, I asked the person who knows best -> the omniscience Mr. Google. Look what I've found at the first return of the search.

http://www.audiblox.com/iq_scores.htm

Half of the population have IQ’s of between 90 and 110, while 25% have higher IQ’s and 25% have lower IQ’s:
Descriptive Classifications of Intelligence Quotients

IQ Description % of Population
130+ Very superior 2.2%
120-129 Superior 6.7%
110-119 High average 16.1%
90-109 Average 50%
80-89 Low average 16.1%
70-79 Borderline 6.7%
Below 70 Extremely low 2.2%

Apparently, the IQ gives a good indication of the occupational group that a person will end up in, though not of course the specific occupation. In their book, Know Your Child’s IQ, Glen Wilson and Diana Grylls outline occupations typical of various IQ levels:

140 Top Civil Servants; Professors and Research Scientists.
130 Physicians and Surgeons; Lawyers; Engineers (Civil and Mechanical)
120 School Teachers; Pharmacists; Accountants; Nurses; Stenographers; Managers.
110 Foremen; Clerks; Telephone Operators; Salesmen; Policemen; Electricians.
100+ Machine Operators; Shopkeepers; Butchers; Welders; Sheet Metal Workers.
100- Warehousemen; Carpenters; Cooks and Bakers; Small Farmers; Truck and Van Drivers.
90 Laborers; Gardeners; Upholsterers; Farmhands; Miners; Factory Packers and Sorters


WOOWWW….. Mr Glen Wilson & Miss Diana Grylls certainly do think very highly of the Engineers.


**The tickle questions were very similar to my favoriate paper in UPSR. An extra paper we had to sit for in 1991....which was called Ujian Perolehan?!?! Argggh... I can't recall. Anyone can help? What was that extra IQ paper called?

Looking at my brother and I, you can never guess how many seasons we spent under the sun; scaling the hills and bushes, rolling in the field, playing hide and seek at the chalk factory nearby, catching creatures (fish, tadpole and worms to feed the fish) in the drain, making kite with glass-tinted-strings, gambling marbles & collectible cards, making "lastic", etc, etc while our parents were busy working their fingers to the bone for survival. I wish we had a camera to capture those sweet childhood memories, but we don't. These two are the rare photos that I found.





My parents were so cool huh, given the fact that they can even supply us with "strainer" to add to our fun? I couldn't remember if it was only after much begging and crying or was it because my mum was under confinement (deduced from the cloth diapers hanging to dry there) thus we were free to sneak around. :p

If I'm not too slack, perhaps one day I shall blog more on how to make a prefect kite that can fly the highest and furthest, how to make the strongest sandball that can withstand other sandball's knock, the marbles and collectible cards that we won and lose (after all, these "properties" determine your ranking in the neighborhood), the countless childhood games that we played, the leaves and flowers that we cooked, the ducks that my grandma reared, the BMX that we cycled, my childhood life and my childhood dreams.

This is part of the lyrics from Westlife's Season In The Sun, dedicated to all my childhood neighbors.

Goodbye to you my trusted friend
We've known each other since we were nine or ten
Together we've climbed hills and trees
Learned of love and ABC's
Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees
Goodbye my friend it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that spring is in the air
Pretty girls are everywhere
Think of me and I'll be there

We had joy, we had fun
we had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed
Were just seasons out of time

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song
Like the seasons have all gone

Yup, you'll never know what you're gonna get. -- Forrest Gump.

1) A couple of days ago, LiLi told me she saw our wedding album as a promotional/sample album at Aspial Rock Queen bridal show last weekend (http://aspialwedding.com/main_anni.htm ) and the funny thing is, we haven't even saw them ourselves! We are supposed to review the album design next month and can only get the actual album by January, 2007. I wonder how many people will get to see them before us. I wonder if they show them the before-and-after photos :p. I wonder ... Ok, ok, stop wondering. I don't care. I don't really like the photos at the first place. Anyway, I guess this would be the closest thing of being a "model" in my entire life. Pathetic huh?

2) Many many moons ago, during one of the lepak-ing trip at Gurney Plaza, we come across a giant wishing lantern. It was a donation drive to build an old folks home. I like the idea. For a small sum, I can post a wish like "I hope Hui Hui will be smarter and prettier" so I elbowed MH. He sat down to fill in the card. While I was fascinating myself reading other people's wishes posted on the gaint lantern, MH had wrote down his own wish. He wished for "the good health of the old folks there" and pledged a RM50. However, the person in charge told us that we were also supposed to fill in our own wish as for the lucky few Gurney Plaza would make our wish come true. That explained why everyone wrote "I want a RM1500 voucher" which I was so puzzled with earlier. So, MH also wants RM1488 worth of voucher too.

He just picked up his voucher from Gurney this afternoon!!! One of the lucky five. :)




It was vouchers for Dome, Add On and Redbox karaoke, which interest me little. :( How I wish it was RM1500 worth of voucher for Vincci or Esprit or even MPH.



By the way, nope, I didn’t bath with pamelo leaves and UJ, I didn’t manage to scrub pamelo skin to my head either. :p

Have been suffering from a patch of bad luck lately. First, my cell-phone broke down after being drenched with water that leaked from my water bottle during the routine Penang Hill 84 hike last weekend. Luckily it only cost me RM45, a few days out of coverage, trip to Bukit Jambul and trip to post laju office to pick up MH’s old hp that his mum sent all the way from KL.

Then, my laptop went ga-ga from weird signals to blue screen and then completely failed to start. I suspected that the culprit is the user interface, namely the keyboard. Being true engineers, we started to debug with help from Dell’s diagnostic test and service manual.

And true enough, it’s the problem with the keyboard. So we proceed to fix it, taking out the innards one after another and then blah, blah, blah and then blah, blah, blah and bravo, my baby is back alive! Smart engineers! :p







Well, I’ve to confess that I shouldn’t take any credit in the success of this operation. I was preoccupied with a tougher task. I was figuring out stuff like:
- When using first inversion of the tonic triad (Ib), subdominant triad (IVb) and dominant triad (Vb) you should avoid doubling the bass note, but you can double either the root or the 5th.
- It’s better that the space between A to S and T to A is not over an octave although B to T may exceed an octave.
- Use a falling seventh progression in two different keys and a cadential six-four chord.
- et cetera, et cetera, et cetera …

Catch any ball? Me either.