World Champions!

 

We are the championsss... Of the worrrllddd

It's Aron Ralston!

In 2003, this fearless adventurer amputated his own arm when it got stuck under a bolder while he was hiking. His incredible story became the movie '127 Hours' starring James Franco. Aron will be speaking at #Lesa2019 later today!

Lesa 2019 Is Finally Here!

 

#lesa2019 is finally here! Get ready to rock n roll these next two days!

3 Things About Joker

1. In the film, Gotham was experiencing a strike by sanitation workers. This actually happened in New York City in 1968 when 7000 sanitation workers went on strike after the Mayor thumbed his nose to their demands for better pay. In just a couple of days, New York City was already drowned in garbage. The stench became unbearable and rats could be seen even in the more posh parts of the place. The city then declared a State of Emergency!

The Mayor still held out, but a few days later, with 100,000 tons of trash now uncollected, the sanitation workers finally won. That changed the collective attitude towards garbage men. These people are actually doing an important job. Today, sanitation workers can earn up to USD70,000 annually (with all perks and overtime thrown in). “They keep the city running”, it is said.

Now, think about those days during public holidays, especially when 2 or more holidays coincide with each other and rubbish goes uncollected at YOUR housing area. Is it a pleasant feeling? Yes, it’s a dirty job, but a very important one.

Unfortunately, even after a very serious lesson learnt in NYC, the world is still stuck in a system that rewards bullshit jobs over the ones rendering critical services. (To know more about bullshit jobs, google it). Why are teachers and nurses still low on the pay scale, when agents of capitalism who merely manipulate money and don’t really create anything, get rewarded handsomely? 

What’s stopping us from just saying, from this day on, teachers, nurses, the army etc, will be paid more than these greedy bozos? Because they don’t have degrees and MBAs? Really? That’s more important than teaching our kids to be good, knowledgeable human beings and saving our lives? 

2. Extreme self-bias, lack of empathy and plain ‘ol ignorance will literally kill society. Self-bias in a sense that all I care about is my own perspectives and beliefs, and that’s the end of it. Stuff like mental illness means nothing to you and it’s not really your problem. 

There is no need to find out more about this mumbo jumbo cos really, people should just toughen up and not bother society with it. And of course, it goes just beyond that. What do we really know about the people who live across the street? Are we the ones oppressed or the ones doing the oppressing? 

The badge of self-entitlement comes from this severe lack of perspective, driven by nothing but dogma. I’ll have 10 of these, you can have 2. I don’t really care if you need 5. It’s all about me, really. 

3. Capitalism can’t solve problems that capitalism itself created.

Civil Servants To Lose Their Jobs In The Near Future?

This is such a fascinating topic because the issues are way more complex than the obvious political ones. It's actually a global phenomena that encompasses education, humanity and what is called the Industrial Revolution 4.0. And really, politics should be the least of the worries.

The thing is, if you listen to any futurist talk, they'll give you more or less the same estimates: In about 10 years time, almost half of the jobs we have today (as we know them) will cease to exist. And you know why, right? Robots.

When we say robots, we don't necessarily mean the Twikis and R2D2s of the world, but the AI that we have already begun to depend on, whether we realise it or not. 

Back to that popular prediction of disappearing jobs; the good news is, there will also be in turn, new type of jobs being created. This has already been happening. When we started the new media initiative at Media Prima about a dozen years ago, we also created new jobs that that never existed cos we were digitizing content. Then social media came, and we created more jobs to take on those tasks.

In banking for example, we hardly see a human banker these days. We move money everyday simply through our mobile phones.

And today, more than half of the things I'm doing at my current job, didn't exist when I first started a career in content.

So the question now is; how ready are we for the (near) future?

The hard truth is, the days of having a job for life is OVER. What you're doing now, or the way you're doing it will be obsolete. No matter if you're in the government or private sector, or even freelancing, the "threat" is real. And it covers all sectors; banking, education, manufacturing, media, etc.

Stop thinking that the government or anyone else MUST give you a job. The world is moving from lifelong learning to lifelong employability. We've got to be able to learn and adapt. We will be doomed if we think one piece of paper or skill will get us through the next 20, 30 years. 

Consider this: "According to The World Economic Forum, an estimated 65% of kids enrolling in primary education today will end up working in jobs that haven’t been created yet."

But of course the question now is, do we actually want to ensure our own survival? For example: If we were to put 50,000 people from the civil service into a pilot project to learn all-new skills, what would the take up be? 

The future won't be "comfortable". It won't wait for you, and It certainly won't give a crap about what you feel you're entitled to...

This. Is. Malaysia.

 

The WhatsApp group was talking about nasi Beriyani earlier today, and suddenly I was also terjebak looking for rice. 

Walked down to Brickfields and stopped at Sithique and ordered nasi tomato with kuah campur and ayam goreng. The place was crowded as usual, so people had to sit with random strangers. 

Then I looked around. Different races eating the same food at the same place. We had the young and old. Some dressed the same, some differently. Some more sophisticated than others. Some speaking Malay, some Tamil, some the normal Malaysian English. 

It was busy and chaotic, but it was beautiful. I told a colleague of mine later how we're a peaceful yet complex country. And it's hard for a foreigner to truly understand what makes us all Malaysian. 

We have some rotten apples as well (and I give up hope sometimes), but at the end of the day there's still hope in every day, regular Malaysians.

Jalan-Jalan UK 2019

Here's the video!

Jalan-Jalan UK 2019: Aidilfitri Edition

The plan was actually to go somewhere else. Somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere. But the universe, and the fact that I was outvoted by the fam, brought us back to the UK this past mid-year school holidays. Of course this was the second year that the holidays coincided with Ramadhan and Syawal, so we did have to be sure we wanted to celebrate Raya in a foreign land. In the end, we were REALLY sure : )

We also did a couple of different things this time around. I booked Qatar Airways for the first time ever, after reading the good reviews. And I also booked our hotel room by searching on FB for a Malaysian-run homestay or Airbnb. Both turned out well... with a couple of surprises.

So the flight and transit from KL to Doha to Heathrow all went well. The Doha airport of course looked and felt new. They looked all prepared for the World Cup deluge in 2022.

At the Doha Hamad International Airport

From Heathrow, with our Oyster cards all topped up, we decided to take the Tube to get to our accommodation. It's been some two years since our last trip, so we were all super excited lah. But unlike most of our other trips during Autumn/Winter, it's sunnier and warmer this time around (although it did return to form during the latter days).

After a train change, we finally arrived at Queensway. Ah, Bayswater. The sights, the smells... how we've missed thee. As we approached the building of the accommodation just around the corner from Whiteleys (that's currently under renovation), we saw the Malaysian flag, and the Grand Plaza Apartments, managed and owned by Felda. So yeah, they probably sublet a couple of units to the Vista London folks to run it as their own rental business.

There's also a Malaysian restaurant here called Selesa

We left our bags there, since it was still around 9am, and headed out to, where else, Hyde Park! Oh yeah, it was also our anniversary, and the first we're celebrating in London. Chewah!

Another special anniversary for us :)

A beautiful day, huh?

We also headed out to Covent Garden for some shopping and just to enjoy the street performers and unique stores and stalls.

We went back to the hotel to check in, and yeah, the room was as advertised and shared through Whatsapp. It's bigger than the average London hotel room with a kitchen, nice size bathroom and a big bed with one sofa bed. A good deal, I must say. That same night was of course the UEFA Champions League final! We watched the game in the room, and as you might have heard, Liverpool won their 6th title!

I was confident of us winning vs Spurs that I had already made arrangements for us to go to Liverpool the next day to be part of the Trophy Parade. Woohoo!

You can read my story on the parade HERE and watch the video HERE .

The following day, it was time for a bit of sightseeing and a lot of shopping of Liverpool stuff at the LFC store! And oh, it was definitely colder than it was in London. Both wifey and Tia quite like the cold, but can't really stand it, so we always had to get indoors where it was warmer : )

We then took the train back to London, and waited for the announcement on when Hari Raya Aidilfitri was. Malaysia would celebrate it on the 5th of June, but we received news later that night that the UK would be welcoming Eid on the 4th! Sehari untunglah. Hehe.

So the next day, it was time to get all dressed up for Hari Raya! The "sebak" feeling was a bit more than usual as we played the Takbir Raya that morning. We had also brought some food to be cooked and yes, we had lemang and chicken rendang!

And here are more of our Raya snaps. Go #TeamRayaBayswater!

Later on that day, we hung out at Westfield London as Tia was meeting a friend there. And we had Lebanese cuisine for lunch. Definitely a different kind of Raya this year.

#SixTines !

And oh, dinner at our favourite Bayswater restaurant, Noodle Oodle!

The next day, we revisited some of our favourite London spots. And the weather was quite lovely too.

And we also headed out to Camden, which was apparently Tia's first time ever!

Fish and Chips, of course, my favourite thing to eat now. poke!

And it was indeed the first time for all of us when we took the train out to Bath! It was also a trip I bought tickets for well in advance, so the fare was rather reasonable (yes, this is an official tip: always buy train tickets in advance for better rates!)

We reached Bath close to noon and we were blessed with another day of good weather! The High Street is near the train and bus stations, so it was really easy to explore the shops.

But we also went straight for the highlight: The Roman Baths!

From Wikipedia: The Roman Baths complex is a site of historical interest in the English city of Bath. It is a well-preserved Roman site once used for public bathing. The Baths are a major tourist attraction and, together with the Grand Pump Room, receive more than one million visitors a year. Visitors can tour the baths and museum but cannot enter the water.

What a great and enlightening tour it was! We were famished after that and we were lucky to find a burger place that served Halal meats. So sedap!

We continued walking after that and stopped by Bath's famous landmarks, the Circus (which is a historic street of large townhouses, not an actual circus), the Crescent and the Jane Austen Centre.

Another highlight was the Fashion Museum, which Tia absolutely loved! Ah, what a day it was.

On our final day, we still had time for one last shopping spree at Westfield, although this time around, we had to endure the London rain while getting there.

Then it was time for us to return home. A glorious week indeed filled with awesome memories.

I had my favourite almond croissant literally every day!

Some of our London loot

The flight home though gave us a bit of a drama. There was a long delay on the tarmac at Heathrow due to technical issues, and we arrived late in Doha and missed our connecting flight to KL!

They got us seats on the next flight, but it was some 6 hours away! But they ushered us to the very nice lounge, so we had a comfortable nap and some breakfast as well. Our holiday had an unexpected "extension" but really, we had no complaints, having had the time of our lives the past one week. And yes, we'll be back...