Pope Benedict XVI has had a little more interest than he realised while delivering a speech in the Czech Republic.
The Pontiff was speaking at the medieval Prague Castle's ornate Spanish Hall at the end of a concert perfomance.
While he was addressing politicians and diplomats, a spider appeared on his white robes.
It disappeared from view for a moment, but then could be seen crawling up the right side of the 82-year-old Pontiff's face, then reaching his ear.
The spider then reappeared on the Pope's left shoulder and scampered down his robe.
It disappeared and Benedict XVI carried on. He is on a three-day pilgrimage to the Czech Republic and urged the heavily secular nation to rediscover its Christian roots.
Your adrenaline's rushing. You feel panic setting in. You're in danger. You must keep it together. The best way to survive a dangerous situation is to stay calm... The Pope did it well... He didn't freak out at all. I would've gone mad and started killing the little animal with the nearest object I could find. Didn't matter if I was being filmed and broadcasted live on TV.
Dare not imagine how things would've been like had it been a bigger spider...
The YouTube video above received rave reviews worldwide.
Today’s entry is inspired by this article from “The Nut Graph”: Trusting the Police.
This was what happened to my car when it got hit by two “Mat Rempits” who luckily didn’t smash up any other part of my car. They saw me staring at them and then quickly sped away. I must've looked very scary to them.
The backside portion of the car
It’s not exactly that obvious if I didn’t tell anyone about it. My creative friend said the blue-black smudges looked pretty artistic, so I didn’t get the car repainted until now. Those wild streaks of colours must've reminded her of some form of weird abstract art…
Example of an abstract art painting
Knowing very well that no action will be taken against those two boys who rode that blue Yamaha with the numbers “X44”, I still decided to make a police report anyway. I drove to the nearest Nilai police station and waited for almost 20 minutes before making my report because there was another person making his report when I arrived.
It was a very warm afternoon. The office was musty and the atmosphere was gloomy. I was the only girl at the police station. I made my report; the policeman at the desk took down my report and typed out the report v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y on the computer.
Once the report was done, the policeman printed out the report for me. And then he said something that totally made my mind stop working and heart stop beating for about two seconds: “Actually, that area where the accident took place was at Sepang. You are in Nilai area. You should actually make your report at the Sepang police station…”
OKAAAAYYYYYY… So since it was the weekend and I had too much time to kill, I drove to the Sepang police station.
It’s a long winding road
I walked into the office and saw a middle-aged man lying down on the couch (we shall call him “couch-guy”). He was munching on something (presumably food).
So I told the couch-guy that I wanted to make a report because two boys damaged my car with a motorbike.
Couch-guy could've probably thought, “Astaga, small matter like that also want to report??”
Anyway, I walked to the counter and a policewoman took down my report. She typed out my report on the computer letter by letter… using two stubby fingers… from her two hands… despite the fact she has EIGHT other fingers.
Couch-guy asked me for the motorcycle registration number. He checked the number from the online database system and immediately got the owner’s profile. Now why couldn’t they do this with the police reporting system so I didn’t have to drive from Nilai to Sepang just to make that one-page police report all over again?
After printing out my report, another policeman took out a big SLR camera to take a picture of the artistic blue-black portion of my car.
Soon after the photo-taking session, I drove out from the police station. That incident reminded me of a casual phone conversation my former colleague once had with one of her friends from the police force…
Former Colleague (FC): Hello, friend. How are you? Can you help me check if I have any police summonses to clear up? I’ll give you my car registration number- ABC 1234.
Police Friend (PF): OK. Checked already. No summonses.
FC: Can you help me check another registration number? My friend’s car- XYZ 4321.
PF: OK. Your friend has two summonses yet to be settled…
It perplexes me as to how simple and convenient it is for traffic summonses to be checked, but so extremely difficult for any normal citizen to make a simple police report.
Wooowwww! Better than Kenny Sia’s website! Better than many other corporate and higher education institution websites too. Seriously, no joke. It takes a lot of effort to come up with such extensive website content, inclusive of time-consuming content management and archiving. Its online makeup and layout are impressive, I must say.And now that I’ve told you about it, you’re all gonna go visit that website, aren’t you?
There’s also a category that shows you pictures of a few of the most wanted people in Malaysia. They’re mostly Chinese. Gosh, I’m so proud of my own people…
The RMP, in 2006, surpassed the Interpol crime solving standards.[citation needed]
Note the “citation needed” clause in the sentence above. I’ve included the page diagram here in case someone edits that article and that cute Interpol sentence mysteriously disappears in the mists of time.
Click onto picture to view that cute Interpol sentence.
The Malay language version in Wikipedia can be found here.
Other pictures found from those two Wikipedia pages:
Picture above- a photo with the confusing caption: "Female traffic police officers during Independence Day". I think they're also referring to the ones in black clothes. Undercover cops, maybe... *lame*
Uber-hunky policemen in Darth Vader clothes
Cool-looking female police officers
Photos from Wikipedia portray the policemen as being hunky and well-built whereas the policewomen, slim and tough-looking, unlike all those ponderous, horizontally-challenged ones I saw at Nilai and Sepang. I'm using BIG WORDS such as "ponderous" so that any policeman reading this might not understand me :-D
Those powerful marketing tools in the form of photos from those websites I visited could easily make me and any foreigner suddenly think that our policemen here are as uber-cool as the parkour-loving guy from the YouTube video below…
Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysian Police)
Motto: Tegas, Adil & Berhemah (Firm, Fair & Prudent)
The power of marketing... amazing...
* A similarly-themed blog entry such as this one will be made public by year-end... the most sordid form of customer experience that no other sane human being should go through ever again.
I was sitting in Aunty M's car. She just picked me up from the airport. I was half asleep after the flight, but immediately became quite alive when I saw this...
Malaysia does not have such signboards... and will NEVER have such signboards... hence the culture shock.
A few days later, Aunty M took me to the city. I saw this...
"Wow, this stupid sign seems to be everywhere..." I thought.
And then during an evening drive around Brighton, and some other area which I can't remember, I saw this...
By then, I wasn't that shocked anymore seeing this sign. But after that, Uncle J and Aunty S took me out for lunch one day and then I saw this...
I got a bit surprised and said, "OH MY GOSH! What is THAT?! An escort service?!"
Uncle J and Aunty S calmed me down: "Noooo!! That's a famous construction company here!!"
So, here's a little introduction I got from that company:
Each business division of Hooker Cockram has been tailored to best service the local region in which it operates and our customers in that region. Our staff base is transportable. Many of our professional staff members have worked on projects with us in all of the geographical arenas we operate in.
We trust that you will find our website informative and welcome you to Hooker Cockram.
To Uncle J and Aunty S, I'm sorry you have such an idiotic niece... but Mr Hooker and Mr Cockram so totally deserve each other as partners (business partners), don't you think so?
Methinks I should write about someone I once knew when she and I were much younger, which wasn’t too long ago.
Meet Shanti, one of the main caretakers of Desa Amal Jireh, an organization for underprivileged children. She sings very well, Alicia Keys style, with piano and all. She speaks Chinese just like a Chinese, maybe better too.
It’s kinda cool to be somebody important who gets invited to give away donations at orphanages- photographers take pictures of you posing for their cameras, and then the story about you, the important person, gets published in the local dailies soon after that while you sit in your spacious office to admire your pictures. But it’s totally something else to be THE people running an orphanage, just like Shanti and her parents.
I’ve had the chance to stay at Desa Amal Jireh a couple of years ago (only for the weekend). That was one of those times when I really didn’t know what to do during a boring weekend after a whole week of insane office work and studying.
Volunteering to go stay in an orphanage for the weekend was one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve ever made myself go through. With no prior experience of ever dealing with children before and no child psychology qualifications whatsoever, I really didn’t know what to expect from these children. And I was informed beforehand to be careful of certain invisible hands and quick fingers there too, being the young, cheeky children that they were.
I was taken on a short tour of the orphanage- children of different age groups were put together in different houses- and I was put in a house where around 11 tween girls lived in it.
The girls were very friendly to me. I went there as a volunteer but those girls treated me like a princess- like, seriously, I couldn’t believe it. Paris Hilton should try this sometime.
Those girls I stayed with led very systematic lives within the household, just like any normal family unit, with their own daily routine. The elder girls took care of the younger ones; and each girl had different responsibilities in the house- cleaning, sweeping, cooking, washing.
It was almost lunch time. I sat down on the floor with a group of girls to help them cut vegetables (if my mum reads this sentence, she’d probably say I’m biased, racist, whatever. I rarely help out in the kitchen back at home). Once they were done, one of the girls took the vegetables and started cooking it. A few other girls went on to set up the table and get the eating utensils ready.
“Sister, sit down, sister,” one of the girls said to me.
I sat down and she placed a plate of rice in front of me. We had “nasi lemak” together that afternoon. The girls made sure I had enough food to eat. And I started wondering why I was even there in the first place as a so-called volunteer.
After lunch, we sat down on the floor at the living room to watch TV.
Just like any normal family unit, it is never intended to exist without its usual bickering or two (or more). Someone said something to another and this girl started crying and then ran out from the house. Before she left, she cried to another girl, “You’re saying this because I don’t have a ma and pa!”
The atmosphere in the house became momentarily tense. I was shell-shocked.
“Nevermind, she’ll come back,” one of them said to me.
That night, a few girls made up the bed for me, the so-called volunteer.
“Sister, you sleep here tonight,” a cute and plump Chinese girl told me.
I had difficulty falling asleep that night. There were just too many things going through my mind as I thought about those kids staying there.
Visiting underprivileged kids just to take pictures with them for publicity purposes is one thing. But really spending time with them and feeling their joys and sorrows only made this experience all the more intense and memorable. It somehow trivializes all the other problems that I usually hear from friends: “Die lah, got exam tomorrow”; “I want a car! I want a car!”; “I hope I find a boy/girlfriend soon”; “Does this dress suit me?”.
I mean, who cares :P You have your own hierarchy of needs to take care of, and I have mine too.
Sorry, I forgot. Digressing as usual. This entry is supposed to be about Shanti. She’s one of those chosen to receive CLEO’s Young Achievers Awards this year. Read about her here. Get a copy of CLEO (October 2009 issue) and see Shanti’s pretty picture in the magazine…
There was this one time not too long ago when I was about to board my flight back to Malaysia from this other country.
I was sitting at my own corner minding my own business when an old man with a funny accent suddenly started talking to me. He sat a few seats away from me. He said, “Hi, where are you from, I’m going to Malaysia and then to Lebanon with my family. Flight might take around 24 hours…”
The Mr. Bean icon indicates where the funny old man was seated at that time... icon is also for concealing his identity.
“What family?” I thought, “Where’s the rest of his family such as A WIFE and probably a kid or two running around?”
“You came here for holiday? Or are you from here?” old man continued asking.
“Uh… holiday…” I replied, shifting uneasily at my chair.
“Are you married?” old man asked.
SH*TTT!!! Should I say yes or no?! Yes, no, yes?? What??!!
“Uh… yes…” hesitation laced my not-so-convincing answer.
Oh boy…
Suddenly, a woman, two pretty girls in their tweens and a tall, good-looking teenage boy appeared from goodness-knew-where. The woman took a seat next to me in spite of the presence of many other empty seats near that funny old man. It was that funny old man’s wife.
Whoops... here comes the wife :P
The funny old man’s conversation with me stopped right there and then. Oh thank God, yippie…
The lady turned towards me and asked, “You’re going back home to Malaysia or visiting?”
“Go home,” I answered.
Then came that sudden million-dollar question again, “Are you married?”
So since I already said “yes” to that funny, friendly old man, I better say “yes” to the wife also, right? One lie leads to another.
“Yes, I’m married…” I answered oh-so-convincingly in spite of the absence of an object that resembles a ring around one particular finger of mine.
“Any children yet?” lady asked.
As that question was asked, I suddenly and finally understood the meaning of life, the theory of relativity, creationism, epistemology and theories of psychotherapy, as though struck by lightning, and that there’s something extremely important missing from my life. (this blog is full of rubbish, seriously)
“Hmm… no…” my voice trailed off.
“Well, maybe not now…” the lady smiled.
I smiled back...
Moral of the story: Wear a ring.
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Imagine saying that on your wedding day... Crap, man...
