afflatus (...creative impulse, inspiration...)

Onward Pak Nan -- cycling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing!

Pic: On flag off day, 27 May 2008, Adnan Osman with Dato' Dr Low, Commander-in-Chief of St. John Ambulance Malaysia

My uncle, Pak Nan (Adnan Osman) is 65 years old. He's cycling all 9,000 km from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China! This will take him 2 months, from Malaysia through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and into China for the summer Olympics.

Datuk Johan Jaaffar first highlighted Adnan's quest in the New Straits Times early this month. Datuk Johan said a duo will be cycling to Beijing, but no, when I called Pak Nan last weekend to wish him well, he said he and his partner will cycle to the Malaysia-Thailand border town of Bukit Kayu Hitam; from then on he will ride alone!

You can read updates on his adventure at his own blog: http://oadnanxtreme.blogspot.com -- please post your comments there and lend your support!

Update 1 June 2008: Join the Facebook Group: Adnan Osman Cycling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing

God, and all people meeting him in Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and China, please take care of Adnan Osman. When I was 21, I cycled from KL to Langkawi. That was not even 1,000km. But my uncle is making history. It's arduous, but I know he will make it. Safe journey, Pak Nan.

For life

We experienced a life and death situation and were in shock for the next hour. After the video above ended, I made a u-turn and Azis, the car salesman sitting bedside me was inviting me to try the manual option of the gear/transmission but I ignored him, deciding to focus on the driving, now that this is my first drive of this wonderful new machine. Up ahead we saw a big truck that had diagonally parked at the side of the road reversing into the road. I looked back to the lane on my right to confirm it was clear for me to change lane to avoid the slowly reversing truck. Azis helped hit the horn while I passed the truck seemingly about to hit us, and then Azis said, "There's no driver!"

Nugget said that we were almost under the truck and we had passed it by a whisker. We looked behind and saw the car on the right lane stopping, and the truck was stopped by the road divider.

What a close shave, us with the brand new car just out of the showroom to buy petrol. Hopefully, though, if something bad had happened, we should have been protected by this touted safe vehicle. But as we recovered from our shock, we were just grateful we escaped, thank God.

And so it was, a memorable event of taking delivery of my new car. This time it is really new, as my previous one from 2005 was a used car, let alone the one before that from 1991! Yeah, most of Cin's cars over the years have been brand new, but all mine were used. So this time, the purchase of my car is special.

See the photo album of us taking delivery of the automobile.

24 years, 364 days

I steal from Bob Sutor the blog post title, "24 years, 364 days". The day I joined IBM was officially 1st. January 1983. 1st. January was a public holiday, so I started work on 2nd. January 1983. Tomorrow I complete my 25th. year as an employee of IBM! In the company we say I join the "Quarter Century Club."

Like Bob, I applied to IBM because I had "worked" there, as an industrial trainee for two months. Since I was a known quantity, I was accepted to start work quite immediately after my final exams and before the results of my Diploma in Electrical Engineering (Electronics) at ITM (Institut Teknologi MARA, now UiTM - Universtiti Teknologi MARA).

I started as a Customer Engineer for the then popular System/34, which was a mid-range (is there such a category now?) system. The PC was not invented yet. More than half my career in IBM were in the services division, supporting other hardware including banking terminals and mainframes. I went on to be managers of various support and services units.

In 1998 I began working with the Government, being a member of the National Y2K Working Group that helped the critical sectors of the country become "Y2K ready." Now I continue working with Government, on other important national IT policy areas.

I started in services, and my latest interest is also in services -- SSME (Service Science, Management and Engineering).

I had met my wife in ITM. My first "bonus" (13th. month contractual  salary) helped fund our wedding in January 1984. We were to be wedded in the evening of that Saturday, and there I was working in the morning, installing a hardware upgrade for the System/38 at Colgate-Palmolive. Our two children (girl and boy) are responsible young adults now, and our additional child in the family (youngest sister of my wife, from another mother) begins her high school life in a boarding school. I owe my family everything for the 25 years. My wife and I will celebrate our 25th. anniversary in just over a year's time -- any suggestion of how we should celebrate is very welcome!!!

25 years have breezed by! I continuously excite myself in work and family.

I did my part-time MBA 15 years after work and have just been accepted to study part-time again 25 years after.

Will I retire in 5 years' time (that'll be when I am eligible to retire)? Or 10 years' time? I don't know. When the time comes, we will know. "Retire" in this case means retire from this company. I don't know what retire means in other aspects of this exciting life.

Fly Like An Eagle by Steve Miller Band

Appreciating Ms. N

Pic: the painting (with Grace blending in)

I was the first to arrive at Ms. N's farewell lunch. When all 14 of us were seated, one of the first things we did was to interpret the painting on the wall. From the insights of OKY and others, we saw a cliff, with a soul at the edge there, perhaps going to take the plunge, to enter the sea, but not for harm, as the bright sun signifies a bright future. The black theme of the painting was not "dark" but starkly "bold."

And so Ms. N had her favourite, unagi. A sumptuous meal was had by all. Ms. N gave her farewell speech and it was from heart that  we saw her sadness of parting with friends.

I gave my speech. The following captures most of what I said.

"This afternoon is about Ms. N. It's a farewell lunch but it's not really about farewell. It's about celebration, and appreciation, of all her successes and achievements with us.

So Ms. N, I thank and appreciate you for the partnership and teaming you have had with me, especially in the committee we are in.

I acknowledge and appreciate you for for making my work easy. You have always been a self-starter and did not need much guidance from me.

I appreciate the passion and dedication you have put into your work.

I admire you for your patience with me with my last-minute changes. For example one day before that one event last year when I said I did not like the door gift -- you took it upon yourself to go all the way to not only change it but also put in your effort to do the needed work with the merchandise provider to prepare the gifts on time.

I appreciate you for your willingness to risk and to venture into something new that you had no idea what to do but in the end made it successful. For example the Merdeka (Independence) Day Parade -- from a feeling of resistance ("I'm not that patriotic"), to happily leading and coordinating so many people for our organization to be in the parade, and not only was it a success, you ended up excited and enjoying it!

I know you'll do well because of these qualities of yours that I have mentioned.

I know we will still be friends and our paths will cross again.

I appreciate you and THANK YOU!"

And as I looked at the painting, I saw Ms. N having boldly taken the plunge, with the bright sun shining. She flies!

"Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac

Back to school

Went back to MSS (Methodist Secondary School -- as we fondly remember how it was called in our time) in my hometown over the weekend. The school had its 100 years anniversary dinner in the school square on Saturday night. A special occasion for us classmates to fill two tables.

Reunion, nostalgia and memories.

When they played the school anthem, our two tables sang along and we made sure we loudly sang the original lyrics which had the last line, "Hail to MSS" -- now they changed it to "Hail to Methodist School" which does not rhyme with "...success" in the preceding two lines!

Several of us reunited for the first time after more than 30 years. We had to put our memory cells to maximum work to remember the faces and the names. Photos tremendously helped, from one photo album taken along by Norizan Wahid that had our photos during those years, and from many photos of members of our batch in the special edition magazine released during the dinner, that included photos of us as schoolkids and our present day photos.

Still, we did embarrass ourselves by not remembering. One of us thought a classmate, Noraini Ismail was our Bahasa Malaysia teacher, Cikgu Habsah. Two of us fondly reunited with a Rubiah Haniff look-alike who played along. Confession -- I thought Noraini was Badariah but kept quiet.

With KH, then with Md. Nor, I walked the school compound checking out our Form 1M1 classroom (where's the stage and where's Miss Norjan?), the door that slammed with the wind to take away KH's finger nail, the staff room which is now a co-op shop, the art room behind the canteen which now has murals all over the exterior wall, the same exact canteen, the bicycle shed which is no more,..., etc. Yes, there are more buildings now, the wooden walls concreted, and freshly painted, but the character of the old buildings I still felt. This is still my school.

There were delightful performances by the present students, and there were guest speakers who reminisced the schooldays and most of all praised the dedication of our teachers. I met a few of these dedicated teachers. Mr. P Subramaniam, who was the Principal when I was there, was happy to meet us again. As was Mr. Thanaseelan, our Geography master who said that he's mostly relaxing these days -- all of us remember how easy he made Geography for us.

Cikgu Habsah, always the smiling teacher who made learning fun, amazingly remembered more of me than I of her -- that I lived in Kampung Melaka, that I was lazy at homework but did well, and that I went overseas for further studies and I returned without finishing to continue in-country -- she's got better memory cells. And now after retirement, Cikgu Habsah is still teaching -- English language tuition.

I wanna teach, too. It's probably in my DNA. My grandfather, Cikgu Dollah whom I lived with in Kampung Melaka was a teacher and headmaster. Mum wanted to teach but didn't get round to it. My two younger sisters teach. Many of my cousins teach. Eventually I will be a teacher, too, I think. And over the last couple of weeks, I've been working to enroll to do part-time studies for a doctoral degree, majoring in higher education -- I am going back to school.

Those Were The Days My Friend by Mary Hopkin