ThE StRaNgEr #@*

A few months before I was born, my dad met stranger who was new to our small town in Tennessee, United States. From the beginning, dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world.

As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. In my young mind, each member had a special niche. My brother, Bill, five years my senior was someone I emulated. Fran, my younger sister, gave me opportunity to play “big brother” and develop art of teasing. My parents were complementary instructors – mum taught me to love the word God, and dad taught m e to obey it.

But the stranger was our story teller – he could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were our daily conservations. He could hold our whole family spell-bound for hours each evening. If I wanted to know about the politics, history, or science, he knew it all. He knew about the past, understood the present, and seemingly could predict the future. The pictures he could draw were so life – like that I would often laugh or cry as I watched. He was like a friend to the whole family.

The stranger took dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies even made arrangements to introduce us to several stars. My brother and I were deeply impressed by John Wayne in particular.

Dad didn’t seem to mind that the stranger was an incessant talker. But while the rest of us were enthralled with one stories of faraway places, sometimes mum would quietly get up to go her room, read her Bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave.

You see, dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but this stranger never felt any obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house – not from us, our friends or adults. Our long-time visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words that burned my ears and made dad squirm. To my knowledge, he was never confronted.

My dad was teetotaler who didn’t permit alcohol at home – not even for cooking. But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us about other ways of life. Often, he offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (probably too much and too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I know now that my early concepts of the man-woman relationship were influenced by the stranger. As I look back, I believe it was by the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave.

More than 30 years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive, Tennessee. He is not nearly so intriguing to my dad a he was in those early years, but if I were to walk into my parents’ den today, I’d still see him sitting in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch his draw his pictures.

His name? We always just called him.....................


I hope you can think who he is….
This thought provoking tale came through the e-mail.
This story, I take from “THE STAR” newspaper.
This story was sent in by John Forsythe to the starmag@thestar.com.my

email.

SHOPPING ONLINE TIP LIST

Here's a list of tips that I want to shared with you, that how you should consult when shopping online. I suggest you , print this page and keep it in a handy place so it will be easy to review before you order.

1. If you don't feel comfortable buying or bidding on an item over the web, or if you feel pressured to place your order immediately, maybe you shouldn't.
2. Take special care to familiarize yourself not only with he rules and policy of the auction site itself but with legal terms ( warranties, refund, policy,etc.) of the seller 's items that you wish to bid on.
3. Be suspicious of prices that are too good to be true. Also consider carefully whether you may be paying too much of an item, particularly if you're bidding through an auction site. You may want to compare shop before you buy. Make sure there is no extra shipping or handling costs.
4. Read the privacy policy first carefully to find out what information the seller is gathering from you, how the information will be used, and how you can stop the process. If a site doesn't have a privacy policy posted, you may not want to do business with it. If it does not have a privacy policy , there will probably be a link to it from the seller's home page, or it could be included with the Legal Terms.
5. Before you give your payment information, check for the indicators that security software is in place.
6. You should print out and date a copy terms, conditions, warranties, item description, company information, even confirming e-mails, and save them with your records of your purchase.
7. Look at your purchase carefully as soon as you receive it. Contact the seller as soon as possible if you discover a problem with it. Tell the seller in writing about any problems you have, ask for a repair or refund, and keep a copy of your correspondence.

What We Mean By "Magic

This article that I had read, is actually write by Silvia Hartmann.

She said, "What do we mean by MAGIC ..?"

Firstly, we mean magic. Much as some people mean magick, only that I have decided I won't leave that very magical word to the people with the card tricks who have truly made a sham of its usage. I won't be driven out into a small corner esoteric re-spelling of the word but indeed, choose to simply reclaim it and define magic as follows.

Magic is when something happens that is OTHER THAN building a brick wall with bricks, cement, the operating instructions on a sheet.

It is something that is BEYOND the ordinary root digging endeavours and that is why it appears magical to those who can't look any further than the gold coin in front of their noses.

But magic isn't spooky.

Quite in the contrary.

Only when magic is allowed to re-enter the world of the living does the world slowly begin to make any sense at all.

It is the science of those realm that TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY EXIST WITHIN CREATION but have been just as totally and absolutely ignored, and misunderstood, by a great many very, very stupid people over the last few hundred thousand years or so.

So here is my personal definition of "magic".

The Creative Order created the universe. It is the ultimate force in the universe and to study the Creative Order and its unbearably wonderful ways is THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE HUMAN ENDEAVOUR.

The Creative Order is totally logical and totally sensible in all ways. It just sometimes seems chaotic to those who don't understand how it works just yet.

There is much, much more to the workings of the Creative Order than any living human being (and including all dead human prophets!) can ever understand. It is vast, immense, immortal and immutable and if it could laugh, it probably would at the megalomania of men.

However, we can try and study it. We can try and understand it, try and BE TAUGHT BY THE EXAMPLES OF THE CREATIVE ORDER that we actually are and which of course exist all around us, all the time.

That study or exploration or homecoming I call "magic".

It is simply so that if you KNOW that the Nile will flood its banks at regular intervals, the people who DON'T KNOW THAT and are constantly surprised that it is happening again think you to be a "magician".

And indeed, you are.

Much like a pigeon, really, who can detect a power line from 30 miles away is a magician to those people who can't.

The Creative Order is magical in nature, and the more we understand it, re-learn to move with it and basically stop fighting the one true order of the Universe, the better life becomes, the easier all manner of things become very practically and the happier the life you lead.

It is simple and has nothing to do with reward or punishment, other than in the sense that if you stop bashing your head against rocks, eventually you will find that your headaches recede in a very simple cause-and-effect.

The Creative Order gave birth to each one of us very personally, and us as humans with consciousness in particular.

The creative order doesn't make mistakes.

Only human beings do.

When we stop aligning ourselves with the faulty learnings of humanity and strike out on our own and take as our teacher the creative order and our own selves instead, that is when we start to actually work with true magic. That is when the "powers that be" get very nervous, because they are about to lose control of such individuals forever and that's why there is so much utter nonsense and so many scary old wife's tails (!) attached to the topic.

I don't believe in black or white magic, only pure magic. Pure, true clear magic that does nothing but celebrate the splendour of the creative order and seeks to celebrate it in every way.

You can't make pure magic when you are terrified of your own dark side, or your head is full of half lies and chinese whispers of the past.

You can't make pure magic from a place of anger and injury, or from a place of need and desperation.

All of that has got to go first for it lies in between ourselves and the wonders of the creative order, our own true parentage, our only real home and hearth. So there is a strong component of "preparation and healing" as we each begin to get ready for the high energies of the creative order that you simply cannot handle without burning to cinder if your channels are still a Gordian knot of fear, terror and unresolved injuries.

The closer you get to the high energies of the creative order, the more your power to create true magic grows. The more magical you become in every way. The further away, the more the same energies if called upon will burn you, hurt you and create havoc in your life. It's all very simple and very logical, very cause-and-effect.

And indeed, in my estimation there is no holier endeavour, no truer effort nor more extreme rewards than to engage in the study of the creative order, and to begin to re-learn the lessons of true magic which were our birthright and given to us just as a standard by the Creative Order itself.

The Creative Order did not give us legs so we would crawl on the ground. It did not give us eyes so we would shut them to the pure beauty of its existence. It did not give us a heart so that we would be stones and never sing or cry and it did NOT give us the minds we have so that we don't do anything with them but churn out rotely repeated nonsense all our lives.

We are more than that. Much, much more.

Magic awaits.

All of it, all the time, everywhere.

Let's see if we can't go and meet it half way.

The Art of Convincing Myself

This particular post might change some people's minds about how things are going with me... but that is not its intention. I just want to express my feelings and this is how I am feeling right now.

I wish I could sit here and tell you that I feel that radiation is the logical and best next path for me. Unfortunately, I can not do this. Yes, I am doing it and I will continue the therapy but I can not honestly say that I feel it is the right path for me at this time. I believe I need to just trust the doctors and 100% of everyone else but in my heart I am not yet convinced. Will I ever be convinced? I wish I could answer that right now. So why am I doing it if I am not convinced it is the right path? For once, I just have to trust the doctors. Do I trust the doctors? I trust very few in the medical field. Is it important that I eventually convince myself this is the right path? Yes, it is very important for my mental health. Why? If radiation doesn't work or the side effects get severe, I will always question why I didn't follow my instincts. It's not like you can undo it once it begins.

So why am I not convinced? I really wish I could answer this. I'm typically a very logical person and this is good and bad sometimes. It's good because I weigh out all the options. It's bad because sometimes I pick up on things and ask questions that have no answer. I believe this is where the current problem lies. I have questions that just can not be answered and because of this, I can not convince myself that this is the right choice. This is just one of the many things I feel are working against me in convincing myself of this being the right path. Others include the fact I am still not having any symptoms, this tumor has not showed change in the past year, I have not received "my" sign that this is the right path (I have every other time prior), I had less time to contemplate this decision, and I'm not sure the benefits can truly outweigh the side effects.

So you see, I'm in a very confused mental state right now and this will probably be even more affected by the fact that I will probably never get myself convinced of this choice. Unfortunately, if I come to the conclusion that this definitely isn't the right choice... it's a bit too late.

WHY ENGLISH CLASS ???

I've read about the article that paste on English department's board last year about the lazyness students to attend English classes. In my thought, all of the reasons given were not relevant and strong enough to support your main idea and to hate English subject for the rest of yourlife! So, down here i'm going to demand all of your points and influence every students to love English subject.

I think the main reason you're lazy for English classess is because you are lazy and never want to. This is because you found hard in learning English and of course you hate that subject very much and maybe you hate the lecturers too. Thus, you got bad results in English subject and started to disregard it. You concentrate to the other 'important' subject and ready to let go English simply like that. But you didn't realize that English subject is much more important than the others. I said this because, in university(your dream further study) you're going to learn every subject in English especially in science and mathematics subject.

Even, most of the revisions books in the library are in English. Also, you got to do all the assignments given in English too. This shows that English is our second language in daily lifetime. Yes, it's better to speak in our mom's tougue but it's not false to learn other languages if it needed in our lifestyle. Not just specifically in studying , but when you reach to work one day, you got to face the environment that needed you to excellent in speaking English not just know "I,You,Yes,No" words only. Even, the interview will also be in English sometimes. If you are not good in English , it's hard for you to get the job nowadays.

Thus, it's an international language and used to communicate with other people in other countries especially in doing business with them. Even, if you wish to travel overseas for vacations or 'honeymoon' maybe, you found very hard to speak to the people witout using English language. I'm not giving nightmare to others who are weak in English even I'm myself not too good enough but to attract every students in matriculation that read this my blog to love English subject. I mean really enjoyable. The lecturers really tried hard to make English subject fun to learn and easy to understand by doing many kind of interesting activities such as group discussions, games drama presentations and some got chance to watch movies too.

They did this not just to teach English only, but in the same time they teach us how to cooperate in groups besides enjoying ourselves and release tension by learning English. But it looks like students doesn't give much respond or feedback to the lecturers. Sometimes they felt like teaching to the "chairs and tables". Why this happened ? Because you are too scared to speak in English ? And why is that ? Because you are afraid that people ill laugh when you start to speak ? Oh crab! Come on, just don't care about it. Even they all also bad in their own speaking. Try it yourself! Forget about the wrong grammar and bad pronounciation. Thus we are still laerning, right! As long as you are willing to try. It maybe takes time to discover the whole English but at least you start it from now. Try to talk English with your friends and your lecturers daily especially in English classes.

When you're trained to speak in English daily, it wasn't a problem anymore and slowly you could pronounce it nicely, You won't embrass yourself then. The important thing is when you read articles and magazines or books don't be lazt to refer dictionary if you don't know or con fuse with some difficult words. Vocublary may helps you. To be good in English, you also should read more English books. Doesn't matter if it a love story books, mystery/horror books or even fairy tales as long as it's English and you found enjoy reading it. There is a thousand reasons to avoid something but there is still a million ways if you want something.

Where there is a will, there is a way. Remember that! Persuade yourself to love this subject. Wishing you all the best and remember never give up no matter how hopeless. So, let's get together and have fun in learning English!!!

STUDENTS LIFE IN MATRICULATION COLLEGE

A matriculation college is a place where many bumpier students qualify to continue to degree level in science, technology and accountancy domain. There are only nine matriculation college in Malaysia. To facilitate all these students, cafés and laundry are built to make them feel comfortable in matriculation college. Some trees are planted there nice view and to provide greenery and also shade.

For most students studying in matriculation, the daily task of going to lectures or tutorial classes then coming back to hostel is a much practiced and tolerated routine. Often, some of them do not go to the lectures or tutorial classes. This is caused by sleeping late or tired and as a result they will get red marks from lecturer.

Lunch, for most matriculation students, is a quick one at the most common and comfortable café or shop where they eat daily. So, come lunch hour, hordes of students stream out of their study places towards the café or shop. They all have one objective in mind that is to fill their empty stomach. So, boy students with ties and without ties head for their favorite food at best café as quickly as possible the lunch food is sold out. Girls students in costumes of all sorts likewise do the same thing. The variety of food available, for one thing, is plentiful. The price, however makes one think about how suitable food price is in a study place.

In that one hour or so for lunch break, there are some students, who can squeeze in a bit of study or sleep. Because for them without study a lot of time, they will be in lose in our examination. While, several of them without a light sleeper, they will be sleepy in the lectures or tutorial classes in the evening.

Besides this, there are a lot of smart and best students. All going round with books. Among them, some get excellent exam results while some of them are do not get excellent exam result. Practically all of them seem to be really hardworking and study smart in their study. Life is rush in here. It is a never-ending pursuit of money to make ends meet, or to put into the bank.

In the evening, many students will perform physical activity by playing their favorite sports such as a badminton, football, tennis and another sports. But half of them will be involved with compulsory cocuriculum, their activities such as a ‘kawad kaki’, also badminton, football, and basketball. However, behind all these activities there are the less active students who sleep or study in the afternoon until evening coming. They like to go out walking or riding the bicycle around the matriculation college area before they go to eat at the café in the dusk time.

When night comes, matriculation college becomes alive in different ways. The light in the hostel shines brightly until 11.30 p.m. This is because the students will study and do their assignment that the lecturer have given in lecture time or class time.

Busy it may be ordinary days, lecturer matriculation college room become a ghost time when examination comes. It is evident then that most students who study by self comes to see lecturer to solve the difficult questions that they cannot solve even among their friends. What a contrast it is to the normal hustle and bustle. So, on. After examination, they have holidays in one week only before coming back to second semester at the matriculation college.


It feels as though a giant is sleeping and recuperating from the hectic activity of normal days. Then all too soon the students come back, to reinforced and ready to make matriculation college wake up from its slumber once again in the last.

Thus life in the matriculation college goes on, hectic and fast, filled with hardwork and struggle, hopes and dreams to succeed in studies and can go to the university.

This article I take from Mix-Max Magazine. Actually this magazine was produced by my friends and I during study at matriculation last year. I like to post this article to my blog, because it one of really interesting that happened in my life. It was the placed that we should be smart in whatever we do.

Alhamdulillah, my friends and I was finished study at there with gratefully.