When I See You Smile by Bad English

I know this is an "old-school" song but I kept hearing this song in my head as I slug through a REALLY LONG QUEUE.
In fact, the queue was so damn long that I officially wasted 5 hours of my life (in total) standing like a statue while waiting for my turn.

Anyway, I kept humming to this tune to keep myself sane during those hours, which are filled with:
1) Crying children
2) People jostling/trying to cut into lines
3) Arguments in local languages which I can't understand; not that I care anyway
4) Aunties and uncles pushing my back and indirectly accusing me of not pushing the person in front of me (fortunately they stopped when I turned and gave them "THE STARE")
5) etc etc etc :-S

Hope you'll enjoy the song as much as I do :-)





When I See You Smile by Bad English
Lyrics copied from here

Sometimes I wonder
How I'd ever make it through,
Through this world without having you
I just wouldn't have a clue

'Cause sometimes it seems
Like this world's closing in on me,
And there's no way of breaking free
And then I see you reach for me

Sometimes I wanna give up
I wanna give in,
I wanna quit the fight
And then I see you, baby
And everything's alright,
everything's alright

When I see you smile
I can face the world, oh oh,
you know I can do anything
When I see you smile
I see a ray of light, oh oh,
I see it shining right through the rain
When I see you smile
Oh yeah, baby when I see you smile at me

Baby there's nothing in this world
that could ever do
What a touch of your hand can do
It's like nothing that I ever knew

And when the rain is falling
I don't feel it,
'cause you're here with me now
And one look at you baby
Is all I'll ever need,
you're all I'll ever need

Chorus

Sometimes I wanna give up
I wanna give in,
I wanna quit the fight
And then I see you baby
And everything's alright,
everything's alright

So right...

When I see you smile
I can face the world, oh oh,
You know I can do anything now
When I see you smile

Oh yeah
Baby when I see you smile
Smile at me

The Star newspaper - Opinion Section - Have a heart for the disabled

MOTHER’S Day is supposed to be a joyous occasion but reading your report “Son wants probe on mum’s amputation” (The Star, May 12) on the inability of the amputee’s family to take care of her breaks my heart.

My mother suffered a debilitating stroke years ago and it is indeed an uphill struggle to take care of her and my aging father at the same time.

What makes things worse is the existence of improperly designed infrastructure as well as the public perception which does not take the elderly or the physically challenged people into consideration.

Generally speaking, infrastructure in Malaysia, be it buildings, roads or even sidewalks, are not disable or elderly-friendly. Not only does it inhibit the mobility of the disabled person but also care-givers. There are many
examples which I can draw upon but some of the most serious ones include the absence of wheelchair tracks, tracks barely wide enough to turn a wheelchair in and those without side bars.

As for the general public, there are sympathetic and helpful people who go out of their way to help the unfortunate ones, but there are also others who couldn’t care less.

Everyone will eventually age or fall sick, so please be courteous to those who are not as fortunate as you are and it is hoped that our Government will take the lead to improve the infrastructure.

CIPLAK,

Penang.

Published on: Friday, May 14, 2010


ORIGINAL VERSION

Be courteous to everyone

Mother’s Day is supposed to be a joyous occasion but looking at recent newspaper report (Son wants probe on mum's amputation; Wednesday May 12, 2010) on the inability of families taking care of their disabled mother breaks my heart.

My mother suffers from debilitating stroke years ago and it is indeed an uphill struggle to take care of her and my aging father at the same time.

To compound to this struggle is the existence of improperly designed infrastructure as well as perception from the general public, which does not take the elderly or the mobility challenged people into consideration.

Generally speaking, infrastructures in Malaysia , be it buildings, roads and even the side walks are not disable or elderly friendly. It does not only inhibit the mobility of the disabled person but also the caregivers. There are many examples which I can draw upon but some of the most acute ones would be absence of wheelchair tracks, tracks barely wide enough to turn, those without side bars, or too steep even to the person pushing from the back.

As for the general public, there are sympathetic and helpful people who go all the way to help the unfortunate ones, but there are some without conscience in their act and manner. There is no clear line to draw upon in this matter but it is surprising to see how intolerant we have warped in this supposedly fast paced environment.

Everyone will eventually age or fall sick, so please be courteous to those who are not as fortunate as you are and it is hoped that our government will take the lead to improve on the infrastructures moving forward.

CIPLAK, Georgetown

Sent on: 12 May 2010

The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho

In this novel entitled “The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho”; we’re posed with the evergreen question of whether human is born to inherently good or bad.

To further “cement” the implication of good versus evil, Paulo even picked the following quote from Bible as the opening act.


And a certain ruler asked him, saying, "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
And Jesus said unto him, "Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is God.”


Luke 18:18-19


Come to think of it, even Santa decided to join in the fray by asking if we’ve been naughty or nice every single year :-P

But then, it’s not Santa we’re talking about here because Santa doesn’t write a book and Paulo does. So here’s the book review.

In this story, Paulo wrote a readable tale about human interaction and how human react to fear, greed and temptation. All of these happened in a really tiny village called Viscos. To cut the description short, it is a small, peaceful and quaint town (though dying a natural death) where everyone knows everyone.

However, this sense of peace is soon shattered by the arrival of a stranger; who have lost his whole family to an unfortunate kidnapping incident. He offered the knowledge of hidden bars of gold (11 bars of unknown purity and weight; but we assume it to be pure 999% and standard 1kg/bar :-P) to one lonely lady called Chantal Prym.

The stranger will divulge the hidden location on condition that the village people sacrifice one of their inhabitants. After some deep consideration, Ms Prym decided to break the news to the fellow villagers hoping that they will stick together and will not sacrifice anyone for the gold bars.

Her sense of assurance was shattered when the villagers decided to sacrifice one old lady called Berta for the gold. Ms Prym went all the way to dissuade the villagers from committing such sin and in the end, no one died and the twisted stranger realized that human have both good and evil in them, it’s ultimately a matter of choice.

I have to admit that Paulo should stick to stories like this (as well as “The Alchemist”) with “isi-isi tersirat” (hidden meanings) which shows us the dark and bright side of being a human. In my opinion, the lure of this novel is its subtle infusion of values which enable the readers to relate the “experiences” mentioned in the storyline better.


Personal rating: 7 out of 10

Cons:
1) Not much character development. Paulo doesn’t dwell much on this department. Instead, he targets on the message he intends to convey to his readers.

Pros:
1) Readable storyline albeit with a rather predictable ending.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The bookstore’s aircon blew at full blast and the weather outside is stormy with a sliver of sunshine at the horizon when I picked this particular book amongst hundreds of books lined up side by side in the store.
OK, I made the stormy weather up :-P the weather was fine and I was pleasantly surprised (priceless moments) as I shopped for books :-)

Anyway, back to the book review :-)
When I read the opening of the book entitled “One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez”, I was mesmerized. The opening lines are rather “flavourful”, which, I take as a beginning of a great story ahead.

I read the novel with gusto until I reached the part about the 3rd generation of the Buendía family living in a small jungle settlement (which eventually grew in size and prosperity) called Macondo; founded by their patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía.

After that, I closed the book gently, threw it on the table, lay down on my bed and slept off.

When I woke up, I don’t even want to touch the book anymore. In fact, this book will have the honour of being placed amongst my list of unfinished books. Why? (do allow me to explain again :-P)

Cos I find that the story is mundane, boring and repetitive; so much so that it felt as if I’m listening to never ending trance music.

Even the very sentence “…as Arcadio/Aureliano faced the firing squad...” was repeatedly mentioned throughout the course of the story-telling.

When I said I’ve reached the story about the 3rd generation, it is not over yet, no no no, in fact, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is about SEVEN GENERATIONS altogether, and truth to be told, I'm happy I stopped reading after the 3rd generation cos I don't think I can last till the 7th :-P

It is essentially about the patriarch and his group of explorers leaving their hometown and journeying thru thick jungles before they decide to establish a small settlement by the body of water, way out of the closest civilisation. After that, strange and unusual events happened repeatedly throughout the establishment, often inflicting misfortunes to José’s family first before it spread to the rest of the community.

I don’t know about the rest of the readers because some people claim that they had life changing experience after reading this book. Others associated this book with Colombia’s progress in broader perspective.

But as for me, I find this book a “tough meat to chew on”; hence, I don’t enjoy reading this book as much as I wanted/tried to.

P/S: Make no mistake; because the writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a 1982 Nobel Prize winner for Literature; thus, he has his share of solid fans and critics. I would consider myself as a critic and not a fan for sure.


Personal rating: N/A

Cons:
1) N/A

Pros:
1) N/A