Like a typical Malaysian, I submitted my income tax forms on the very last day of the deadline.
In total, I have to pay several hundred ringgit in taxes to LHDN, so now the government can use my money to build more SMART tunnels.
My income situation didn’t use to be that complicated, so prevously I got someone else to do it for me. This year is the first year I had to submit my tax declaration as a business owner. And I also took a shot at filling out my tax forms completely on my own.
It’s not easy, mind you. It’s almost like we’re expected have a degree in taxation to be able to fill out these tax forms.
As if it was not daunting enough that a first timer like me had to understand all the different tax laws, LHDN had to make my life more difficult by publishing the forms in BAHASA MALAYSIA.
Being new to this, I was obviously blown away by the various jargons and ended up as confused as a thirsty baby in a tittie bar.
Every few minutes, I have to stop and search for answers online.
It was during one of my searches that I suddenly stumbled upon this gem on Yahoo Answers.
That my friend, the BEST advice ever given.
ADV: Education Is Not For Profit
My father never had a university degree.
He didn’t even have a college diploma for that matter.
No, it wasn’t because he didn’t care about education.
My father was one of the strongest advocates of higher education when he was alive. In his high school, he graduated at the top of his class. He was yearning so much to enter university, yet he never had the opportunity to do so.
My grandparents’ kampung in the 1950s
It was unfortunate that back in his days, there were no universities or colleges in Sarawak. Back then, the only option to further your education was to travel to big cities like Kuala Lumpur or Singapore and live there for 3 years before you could come back with that elusive piece of paper.
Coming from a poor family background and as the eldest child in the family with 4 siblings to support, leaving home for studies was simply too much a financial burden for him to carry.
Growing up, my father always emphasized to me how important it was to complete my university education.
He knew that he had to work twice as hard to get to where he was.
He knew that getting a university degree would put us head and shoulders ahead of everyone else. That’s why he spent a whole heap of money to send his three kids overseas. It is a financial sacrifice he had to put up with, because he knew that in this day and age it’s virtually impossible to survive in a job market without higher education.
But times have changed.
For one, universities and colleges and “university colleges” have been popping up all over the country left, right and centre. Within a short span of 3 years, I saw no less than FIVE institutions setting up their campuses within Kuching city alone.
Families are getting wealthier.
Parents can now afford to send their children to not just KL, Singapore or Australia. But to far far far away places like UK, USA and Mars (in the future).
But there was also one major change back then compared to now. Education has now become very commercialised.
Because there are not enough spaces in public unis to go around, many private education institutions suddenly appeared.
These private unis and colleges provide education, but in actual fact they are run very similar to business entities. Students pay school fees. In return, they receive a service in the form education.
Yes, just like public unis, these private institutions provide education. But no one can deny that their ultimate objective is to generate profit for their shareholders.
You see, everybody wanna make money these days.
But what if I told you that there is a private university in Malaysia that is actually NOT FOR PROFIT?
Would that be hard to believe?
It is not unreal. Such an institution does exist.
Malaysia’s first and only non-profit private university is Wawasan Open University.
Established only less than 2 years ago, the uni is funded not by the government, not by the rakyat’s taxes, but instead by charitable trusts, corporations and donations from the public.
To start with, a substantial donation was made by the family of Yeap Chor Ee, a banking tycoon who founded COCONUT BANK in Penang.
Mr Yeap, now immortalised in the form of a copper statue in front of the Wawasan Open University campus
Although Wawasan Open University is officially our 18th university, it functions unlike any traditional learning institutions most people are used to.
The university is truly a first of it’s kind in this country.
Wawasan Open University is an open distance learning university.
At a distance learning university, students are not required to physically attend classes. Instead they are expected to learn independantly through study materials provided and using of video-conferencing, instant messaging, online forums, e-mails and phone.
If needed, they can look for support or attend regular tutorials which are provided at their regional centres in Penang, Ipoh, Melaka, JB, KL and Bandar Utama.
WOU’s Penang regional office
The one big advantage this form of studies could bring is that working professionals or homemakers might find it easier to fit part-time studies into their schedule. By learning at home, these adult learners can still get a degree without going to classes.
The downside is that when it comes to distance-learning, A LOT of self-discipline is required on the part of students.
No one is gonna stop you from reading kennysia.com or update your Facebook if you’re supposed to be reading your course materials online. But hey, you’re the one who’s gonna suffer when exams come around!
I know. Distance learning have always sounded a bit dodgy, but really, it’s just mindless paranoia.
If you noticed, traditional universities especially in Malaysia has always been “spoon-feeding” information to students. A lot of students rely way too much a lecturer or a tutor to be physically there for them to learn something.
With distance learning, students have to learn on their own. But they’re also allowed to make contact with the lecturer or tutor online if they have trouble understanding course material.
And this concept have proven very popular overseas. In Wawasan Open University all courses are fully recognised in Malaysia, so there’s nothing much to worry about.
The most attractive thing about studying at Wawasan Open University is their course fees.
The fact that it is non-profit means its fees are significantly cheaper than at other universities.
Just to give an example, a typical bachelor’s degree in e-Commerce may cost up to RM50,000, while at Wawasan Open University it is around RM17,000.
If both can offer you the exact same qualification in the end, which one would you choose?
I call Wawasan Open University the AirAsia of university education.
It’s cheap, it’s convenient, it’s very accessible because almost everything is done online.
Already in their second year of establishment, and the university is offering eleven bachelor’s degree programmes in the fields of business and science, as well as ce-MBA and ce-MPA for postgraduate students. More is of course expected to come.
The oldest WOU student is 71 years old!
Honestly, I love the idea of a non-profit university, I love the concept of self-learning, and Wawasan Open University encapsulates both.
True, most Malaysians may not immediately warm up to the idea of an open distance learning university.
But I reckon for anyone who have self-discipline, Wawasan Open University is most definitely worth a shot.
If there is one university that is able to provide the type of higher education my father was financially deprived of in his younger days, this must be it.
Caught In The Act
My eyes.
They are NOT staring at where you think I’m staring.
I’m innocent I swear.
Wild, Hot & Sweaty
Over the weekend, I was in KL to attend the Nuffnang Wild ‘Live’ Party.
Yo.
The event was another one of Nuffnang’s large-scale blogger gatherings since the Pajama Party they hosted in March.
Hey, blogging is never meant to be a solitary exercise and well-organised parties like this one is especially fun to go to.
It’s also a great opportunity to get to know a hot chick or two.
… and maybe a cock.
Being an animal-themed costume party, I half-expected that people might don’t care and just turn up in nothing more than T-shirt and jeans. How wrong was I!
Almost everybody came sportingly dressed as outrageous animals, took part in games, danced and really just completely let go of themselves.
Tarzan Liang (aka Coolest Emcee In The Whole Of KLâ„¢) was again the host for the evening.
Boss Timothy giving the welcome speech.
I thought he might come as a mole (y’know, ‘cos of his trademark mole?) but he came as a lion instead.
Cheesie came as a sexy lioness.
Look, she brought along her lunch box so she didn’t have to eat all the animals there for dinner!
How considerate.
Chris Tock came as a cow, with his udders all hanging out.
The guy won a RM4,000 laptop for being voted Best Dressed!
From left to right, that’s Pinkpau Su Ann as a lady bug, Suet Li as an ostrich and Jolyn as another lioness who came running all the way from Penang.
Su Ann brought along this gigantic leaf and said its her home.
As for me, I came dressed as…
WINNIE THE POOH!
The costume was damn hot ok. Was sweating throughout the entire evening.
A lot of people came up to me and asked where’s my pot of honey.
To that I say, “screw the pot of honey!”
Winnie the Pooh is all grown up now baby.
Audrey the bee flew to my direction thinking I have honey, but I gave her Carlsberg instead.
Finally met Suet Li after hearing about her for so long.
Before this event, I actually thought Suet Li hated me a lot because she boycotted my blog once due to kennysia.com being so mainstream.
But she turned out really nice, and we even camwhored a bit.
From Dreamgirls to bloggers, my girls Adeline the leopard and Hanis the moth.
Five months ago I was dishing out criticism on the clothes they wear.
How strange it must be for them to look at me now dressed as Winnie the Pooh.
With that girl Cynthia, whose boyfriend defeated me in a not very close fight for this year’s CLEO Bachelor award.
Now she wanna kill me. What lah.
Lots of people dressed up as bunnies.
Liang: “Wow, check this out! Four female bunnies to one male. You must be leading a good life my friend.”
Male Bunny: “Yea, but too bad I’m gay.”
If all bunnies are like that, they’re gonna go extinct soon.
How awesome is that elephant costume!
Apart from being nominated for best dressed, Shad also won a special prize for featuring his pet TAPIR on his blog.
There’s a cow walking around letting random people cop a feel at his udders.
If only I could do the same thing to girls, the world would be such a beautiful place.
The gorgeous Nuffies from the front.
And from the back.
Oi, look at our tails lah. Don’t stare elsewhere ok.
The buffet dinner served at Modesto’s was fantastic.
It was so good, a cow walked into the restaurant to have his dinner there.
Next thing you know, he walked into the kitchen and mysteriously disappeared.
*cues X-files music*
A chicken and a pooh bear shaking it on the dance floor.
Something you don’t see in Zouk everyday.
I was playing with Cheesie Lioness’ tail, but this picture ended up looking very salah.
Bad Pooh Bear! BAD!
This is Estee the butterfly, who flew in from Singapore.
This is me wearing Estee’s butterfly wings.
This is me wearing Estee’s butterfly wings, Su Ann’s ladybug cap and WenQi‘s bunny ears.
This is me wearing Estee’s butterfly wings, Su Ann’s ladybug cap, WenQi’s bunny ears, Robb‘s porcupine backpack, pulling on Chris Tock’s cow tits.
All in all, an extremely fun evening out and I cannot wait for Nuffnang’s next blogger gathering.
Of course, there are heaps of other photos but I cannot possibly post them all. I’ll let you browse the other blogs for them.
So I’m gonna conclude this entry with a very special community service message.
Stop Animal Abuse.
Please, animals have feelings too.
ADV: The Cheapest Way To Win A Trip To Old Trafford
If you go the your local supermarket these days, you might notice something a lil different.
No, it’s not that just prices of everything seems to have gone up since the 40% petrol price hike.
It’s the fact that Mister Potato has gone from looking like this.
To now looking like this.
Yes, seems like Mister Potato has decided to abandon his potato farm in Mexico, shave off his moustache, put on his jersey and start a new career as a professional football player.
Gotta say though, without his moustache, Mister Potato bears an uncanny resemblance to Portugese winger Cristiano Ronaldo.
Heh heh heh. Of course that’s not exactly true lah.
That’s the new promotional packaging in conjunction with a massive campaign that the snack food co is running.
And I do mean MASSIVE.
To celebrate the downfall of office productivity due to football-crazy Malaysians staying up till 5am every night to watch the Euro 2008 live, Mister Potato has unveiled their football-themed packaging as an homage to our love for all things football.
However, the boffins at Mister Potato has taken it a step further.
In addition to the new limited edition packaging, Mister Potato is giving you guys a shot at an opportunity of a lifetime: To watch a football match LIVE in arguably the most famous football stadium of all time.
We’re talking the Theatre of Dreams.
Home of the Red Devils.
Stomping ground of Manchester United.
The Old Trafford in Manchester, England!
It is not just going to be that one or two lucky buggers that will be going on this all-expense paid trip to Manchester, England.
No, not even ten. Not even twenty.
Mister Potato is going to send THIRTY lucky buggers hopping on that plane to Manchester, England!
This is no joke. This is a true golden opportunity of a lifetime.
Each seat is worth at least RM15,000 and includes flights, accomodation, match tickets and an exclusive tour of stadium and museum.
What’s the catch, you say?
Well, what you gotta do is become the most gung-go Mister Potato wrapper collector in Malaysia.
The limited edition canister seal is worth 3 points, the large packet is worth 2 points and the small packet is worth 1 point each.
Become the Top 30 Football Point collector and you’ll be guaranteed a seat on that plane to Manchester United’s home stadium. Get into the Top 3 and you’ll win RM5,000 spending money.
Easy?
Not quite.
Considering how kiasu Malaysians are now becoming, this is by no means a simple feat.
One thing for sure, you’ll be competing with people who have no qualms spending RM10,000 on Mister Potato products as “investment” just to win that RM15,000 trip to Old Trafford.
If you don’t have that sum of money lying around, how else are you gonna win?
The trick is to collect as many of those Mister Potato packets and canister seals WITHOUT spending too much of your own money.
So what can you do?
Take it from me. Here are THREE tips for you, that’ll assure you’ll reserve at least one seat among the thirty for that all expense paid trip to Old Trafford.
Tip #1: Kidnap Mister Potato
Kidnapping the big-headed mascot of Mister Potato is like almost kidnapping the President of USA. It’s dirty, it’s risky, it’s evil. Yes.
But if you can achieve that, then surely you can get them to give you whatever you want.
Including all the Mister Potato wrappers you want from their printing factory.
Tip #2: Intercept the postages at Mister Potato HQ
Because all contest entry forms must eventually go to the Mister Potato HQ in Subang Jaya, we just intercept the postages before they reach the person in charge.
That’s the idea of Pik Yen, Michelle, Jayce, Nick and Sheng Li, who collectively devised an ingenious strategy to disguise themselves as the official security guards in order to steal the wrappers from other contestants.
They gotta work on the a better diguise though.
Unfortunately, those two suggestions are borderline legal. And kennysia.com shall not take any responsibility if you get into trouble with the law.
However, the next tip is not only effective, it is also perfectly legal. 😉
Tip #3 is…
Tip #3: Become Good Friends With Cindy’s Dad
If Mr Tey can spend thousand of ringgit in SMS votes to help his daughter win Malaysian Dreamgirl, surely it’s no problems for him to buy you one whole TON of them Mister Potato wrappers right?
RIGHT?
Tony Fernandes Read My Blog
Remember not too long ago, I wrote an entry poking fun at how the food on AirAsia does not look anywhere close to their pictures on the menu?
I know it’s bad of me to nitpick on the visual presentation of airplane food several thousand feet up in the air.
Still, you gotta admit that the difference between the picture and the actual product is as big as the transformation of Britney Spears.
Anyway, a few days ago I received a phone call out of the blue from the communications department of AirAsia. The lady informed me that the no-frills airline is holding an event for the launch their new in-flight menu, and they asked if I could come and attend their event.
Immediately, the first thought that came to my mind was, “Oh crap… they must’ve been reading my blog.”
Honestly, I was wondering what their intention was for inviting me.
Maybe there wasn’t actually an event to launch their new in-flight menu.
Maybe they were inviting me to BECOME their new in-flight menu.
At first, I turned down the invitation. Not because I was scared, but because I’ve been flying around too much and I needed to rest.
But after several repeated attempts, I can sense their genuine sincerity in inviting me over. In particular, I was impressed that they can confirm my flights and accommodation 30 minutes after getting off the phone with me. And that was only THREE hours before I was due to fly.
Yes, it was an extremely last minute trip.
So there I was in KL, at Borneo Baruk Club in Jalan Kia Peng (which by the way is my absolute favourite place to attend an event in KL because it’s a Sarawak-themed club and it’s super easy to get to.)
Sure enough, there was in fact a launch for their new in-flight menu.
In addition to good ol’ Pak Nasser’s Nasi Lemak, there’s now Sri Melur Jaya Nasi Briyani.
Roti Canai.
Roti Jala.
1901 New York Chicken hotdogs.
Satay with Rice.
Sarawakian songstress Camelia was on hand to witness the launch, as was stand-up comedian Alfdin Shauki who made a funny comment that normally airplane food taste different on air than on the ground, but in AirAsia, they actually taste the same.
That, you gotta admit is true.
Since Malaysia Airlines started on cost-cutting measures, they no longer serve hot food on the Kuching-KL flights anymore.
And eventhough you gotta pay for meals onboard AirAsia, at least they still taste better than the cold boxed sets MAS is serving.
During the event, I bumped into Kuching-born Jason Lo.
J Lo is a singer, music producer, hitz.fm radio host and now the CEO of TuneTalk.com, which is the company’s soon-to-be-launched mobile phone network operator.
Very ironic, especially since Jason Lo’s recent hit song was “Operator, The Line Is Dead.”
For me however, the highlight of the trip was meeting up with Dato’ Sri Tony Fernandes, founder and group CEO of AirAsia.
Regardless of what anyone think of AirAsia’s services, you gotta have tremendous amount of respect for this guy.
Tony Fernandes is the man who single-handedly revolutionised the entire aviation industry in South-East Asia. He is the person who made it possible for travel-junkies like me to realise my dreams of exploring as many destination in the world as possiblem, and the man who made it possible for me to travel back-and-forth between Kuching and KL so often for work and leisure and not go bankrupt. I use his airlines on average once every two weeks.
So really, you can’t expect me not to have a “man-gasm” when I met him.
Tony Fernandes was busy handling journalists and business associates throughout the 2-hour long event so we did not quite manage to chat up.
It was AFTER the event that I received a call on my phone, from none other than Tony himself.
Kenny: “Hello?”
Tony: “Hi Kenny, it’s Tony Fernan…”
Kenny: “HELLO? Har?! WHO IZZIT? I cannot hear you!”
Tony: “It’s Tony Fernandes.”
Kenny: “OMG! Oh… Hi Tony!”
Tony: “Hey, I got your number from Jason Lo. I just called to say thanks for coming to our event.”
Tony Fernandes then mentioned that he has read kennysia.com before (and Kenny had a second “man-gasm”), and that he’s planning to start a CEO blog soon.
It was quite surreal to think that I am actually speaking to such an inspirational figure, that the 24th richest person in Malaysia have enough courtesy to call me on my phone and speak to me like we’re on the same level.
The sheer experience of speaking to Tony Fernandes is enough to make me feel paiseh over the several times I’ve bagged AirAsia for the little mistakes they have made, eventhough I have always enjoyed using their services and that I will continue to use their services no matter what.
Sorry Tony.
Can I have free AirAsia tickets now?
The Food In Bali
The food in Bali is awesome.
Throughout our one week stay in the Island of Gods, the four of us pretty much stuffed our faces crazy with some of the best authentic Indonesian food we have ever eaten.
The great about thing eating in Bali is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s the lavish RM50 seafood feast by the beach, or the 20 sen pork satays by the roadside in the middle of the mountains, delicious food is everywhere to be found in Bali.
In fact, I might even say there’s no such thing as bad food in Bali.
The hunt for good food didn’t start off quite as smoothly though.
Our first night in Bali, we went to this gorgeous restaurant named Nasi Bali in the middle of Kuta.
Because we’re all in a foreign country, we all wanna try something special and not commonly found back home. Luckily, the restaurant menu was easy enough to read. After all, Bahasa Indonesia shares many similarities to our own Bahasa Malaysia.
My dish
So I ordered this delicious Seafood Nasi Goreng while Chris Tock and Cheesie opted for the sumptuous Balinese Feast.
Chris and Cheesie’s feast
Icy on the other hand, decided to experiment with something a bit more exotic and picked a curiously sounding item from the menu called Cap Cay, eventhough she had no clue what Cap Cay is and what Cap Cay looks like.
Good for her. I always applaud people willing to try new things.
It wasn’t when her meal finally arrived that she came to the sudden realisation that “Cap Cay” was actually not pronounced “CHAP CHAY”.
Cap Cay!
Cap Cay is really just a boring old vegetable dish, more commonly known to us as “ZHAP CHAI”.
So much for trying something new.
Now that we know not to order something from the menu we don’t understand, we wisened up and our lunches and dinners since then were nothing but a real treat.
One of my most memorably meal was in Jimbaran, a small coastal town 30 minutes south of Kuta.
At close to 140K Rupiah (RM50) per head, our dinner at Jimbaran was easily the most expensive throughout our entire Bali trip. That said, I gotta say it was worth every cent of it because it was the best grilled seafood feast I’ve ever had in the longest time.
There’s nothing quite like savouring the freshest catch from the ocean, dining underneath the stars on candle lit tables set up by the beach, hair swept by the sea breeze, toes digging into the sand, listening to the crashing of waves, chit-chatting with friends while enjoying the vocals from the group of roving musicians serenading you with a love songs.
It was incredibly romantic.
So romantic that at one point Icy wept uncontrollably during a song.
I don’t know why she got so emotional cried. But I assumed she was hoping to share that magical moment with some hot half-naked hunk.
Instead what she got was Chris Tock.
The food at Jimbaran Bay are one of a kind. Outside the typical tourist traps, food in Bali are all very reasonably priced.
Warung Indonesia, located in the backlanes of Kuta, for example, serves generous portions of Padang food for around 13K Rupiah (RM5) each.
The dirty bakso pushcart at the Ubud Market also sells fabulous meatball soup for an equally dirt cheap price of 5K Rupiah (RM1.50) per serving. Notice that the meehoon they use here are blue in colour.
Bakso to Indonesians are like Kolo Mee to Kuchingnites.
You can never say you’ve been to Indonesia until you’ve had the experience of squating over some strangers’ doorsteps, eating by the roadside with one hand holding the bowl of bakso and the other hand holding utensils washed so carelessly that you could still taste the previous customer’s saliva in it.
As unhygenic as it may sound, the bakso served is always mouthwatering and pack a punch full of flavour.
Just across the road from the Ubud Market is the most famous Babi Guling Ibu Oka.
Babi means pig, Guling means rolling, and Ibu Oka is presumably the Auntie Oka who runs the shop. Babi Guling is Bali’s famous traditional dish and a must-try for any visitor to the island.
Ibu Oka’s warung is like an institution over here. Locals and tourists have been raving about it since the day we touched down in Bali.
Despite being such a huge crowd favourite, Ibu Oka has maintained a modest price of 25K Rupiah (RM9) for a large bowl of spit roasted pig on a bed of rice, pickled veggies and fried pork skin.
We dined at many beautiful restaurants in Bali, and all of them were fantastic.
But if you ask me which dining experience I remembered most fondly of, I’d say it’s at the crappy roadside stall where we had our very authentic local version of pork satays.
We stopped by this insignificant roadside stall after 2 hours of butt-thumping journey driving through pothole-filled mountain roads of central Bali.
I can’t tell you where this stall is located because I don’t even know. We were so far away from the tourist radar that the place we were in was not even depicted on my GPS map.
All our backache were forgotten as soon as we sat down on the wooden benches, eating freshly barbequed pork satays on a mountain village some 1,000m above sea level. An order of 10 sticks cost us just 5K Rupiah (RM1.60), and we liked it so much that as soon as we finished, we ordered another 10 more.
There’s something about pork that conjures a whole new level of taste when they’re done as satays.
One drink I can never get enough of everytime I travel to Indonesia is this concoction they called Soda Gembira which I discovered during my last trip to Jakarta. Essentially, it’s just syrup and condensed milk mixed with iced soda.
Somehow the mixture worked really well together, and I love it so much that I ordered it on almost every meal.
Soda Gembira, translated to English, means Happy Soda. And everytime I drink Soda Gembira, I become very happy. Soda.
A word of warning though when you dine in Bali.
Indonesian food can be very, very spicy.
We were at a restaurant called Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck Diner), a lovely restaurant located in the middle of the rice paddy fields in Ubud.
Give their signature crispy duck a pass. Go straight for BBQ pork ribs which are absolutely to-die-for.
On our night at Bebek Bengil, it was their traditional Indonesian Gado-gado that stole the show.
Specifically, it’s the tiny little chilli on the dish that made quite an “explosive” impact on one of our posse.
Something I’m sure Christopher Tock will agree.
Don’t be fooled by his serious face. He actually really liked the chilli.
Just watch his “review” above.
ADV: Of Picky Unemployed Graduates
After spending 5 years in the professional workforce, I finally concluded that fresh graduates who complained that there’s not enough jobs for them in Malaysia must be either: (1) really lazy, or (2) complete morons.
A quick search using popular online job search website Monster.com.my revealed that there’s as many as 79 listings for jobs requiring less than 1 year working experience.
Monster.com is a global online career and recruitment search engine graduates can use to find suitable jobs not just in Malaysia, but throughout 50 countries where it has a presence in. Worldwide, over 7 million job searches are performed on Monster’s search engine everyday.
With more than 80 million resumes on file, it is also the largest global resume database in the world. And that number is rapidly increasing everyday with aggressive recruitment campaigns like these.
According to Monster.com, there’s as many as 39 jobs in Sales, 39 jobs in Engineering and 35 jobs in Accounting in Malaysia.
A lot of these jobs are at prestigious high-paying jobs in reputable companies. Some are even multinationals such as IBM, Tyco and BMW.
More jobs are available for you if you are willing to relocate out of Malaysia, to work in countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Thailand or India.
Surely out of all these, there’s must be at least one position that fits?
It seems to me like the reason there’s so many fresh grads in Malaysia still not able to secure a job is because many of them think way too highly of themselves.
I’ve seen it before. A bunch of rich kids fresh out of Uni walking into the interview room demanding for the kind of salary that even a manager with 10 years experience are ashamed of asking.
One look at their resume, I struggle to find a reason why I should be employing them.
A lot of fresh grads complained that no one wanted to employ them because they don’t have any experience under their belt.
I’m not saying that finding a job as a fresh grad is easy. I’ve been there before. Yellow Pages in hand, cold-calling all 50 engineering companies in my area pleading them to take a final-year engineering undergrad as their intern.
Finally one company accepted, and I went to to intern 6 months for an engineering testing lab free of charge just to gather enough work experience for me to apply for a better-paying job.
After my internship, I worked my backside off for another company for 2 years. Time and time again, I prove to them that I’m a valuable asset to the company that they cannot live without.
I made no demands and my starting salary was meagre.
But eventually they’re happy to double my salary in 2 years because I made myself so integral to their company that if I were to leave them, the company would suffer a loss far greater than what they are paying me.
Look at mah OLD SK00L PC!
Now that I am in a position where I interview and employ people to work for me, all I can say is that some fresh grads should really keep their egos in check before they walk into the interview room. Until they can fend for themselves on the proving grounds, they have no right to ask for ridiculous benefits.
You’re not a student anymore. You are a professional. No longer are employers interested in how many A’s you could score in your exams.
Above all else, the number one criteria I’m looking for is how hard you’re willing to fight to help us reach our common goals.
It’s not that there are not enough jobs out there for fresh grads.
The jobs are there. Monster has such a huge database of them.
Question is, do you have the right attitude for the job?
Fruit Flavoured Condoms
I think we all know why fruit-flavoured condoms are created.
Without getting too specific about it, let’s just say, sometimes mommy decides that she wants her banana to taste like strawberries. Right?
Not just strawberries of course. There are a lot of flavours that condoms usually come with.
Strawberry.
Banana.
Orange.
Chocolate.
Mint.
But have you ever seen a condom that comes in THIS flavour?
Excuse me but…
WHY ON EARTH DOES ANYONE WANNA CREATE A DURIAN FLAVOURED CONDOM?
Are you kidding me?
Which idiot would want his dick to smell like something that is BANNED FOR A REASON in hotels, airplanes, buses and trains nationwide?
I know we all love the King of Fruits, but seriously this is taking it a bit too far.
Nobody is asking you to make love to durians!
At least have some sympathy for the girl on the receiving end ok?
Poor girl’s punani is gonna suffer from excessive “heatiness” from taking in too much durians.
Maybe you should get her some mangosteen just in case.
Kenny Learns How To Surf
It’s a disgrace that I lived 8 years in Australia, and during that time never did I learn from those surf-crazy Aussies how to surf.
I knew when I booked my AirAsia flights to Bali that on the top of my To-Do list is to know how to stand on a surfboard.
After all, every holiday is a chance to try something new. My last holiday in Hanoi, I gobbled down a beating snake heart along with its blood.
This time round, I’m gonna ride the waves.
Call me Kenny Sia, the surfer.
Our first night in Bali, we put up at the delightful Un’s Hotel not far away from Kuta Beach and all the action.
It’s clean, it’s quiet, it’s Balinese and best of all, at just US$18 (RM60) a night per person, it is dirt cheap.
Together with my travel mates Chris, IcyQueenGoddess and Cheesie, the four of us booked our surfing lessons through our cheerful hotel receptionist.
Surfing lessons at Odyssey Surf School cost USD$30 (RM96) per day. They aren’t the cheapest, but they are reputable.
That also was when our silly “surfing” conversation with Cheesie took place.
Kenny: Hey, you guys wanna try surfing?
Chris + IcyQueenGoddess: Ok!
Kenny: Cheesie, you wanna go surfing?
Cheesie: Ya, sure!
Chris: What? You’re gonna do surfing? But I thought you can’t swim!
Cheesie: What? SURFING!? No no no! Don’t want, don’t want! I thought you meant internet surfing!
Next morning, we were picked up from the hotel and whizzed straight to Kuta Beach for our surfing lessons.
Kuta Beach is the most famous but arguably the ugliest tourist beach in Bali.
The beach is not suitable for swimming but is there purely for surfing only.
The reason for that is because Kuta Beach’s waves are strong.
And I do mean…
…VERY strong!
Kuta Beach is also extremely crowded with a lot of sunbaking tourists, which could be “a good thing” or “a bad thing” depending on how you look at it.
For instance, this is what we call “a good thing”
This is an example of “a bad thing”
Okayyyy…
Now back to our surfing lesson.
We were given some very basic instructions on dry land.
When our instructor showed us, it appeared pretty easy alright. The basic moves are really simple to do.
There are only 3 steps to remember, which I shall demonstrate to you in this video as follows.
Of course, those moves are a lot easier to do on land than in water.
After 10 minutes of practising, we were asked to jump into the sea and that’s when the fun began!
I want to learn surfing because surfers are often synonymous with the word ‘cool’.
You watch Cameron Diaz surf in Charlie’s Angels. She’s cool.
You watch Kate Bosworth surf in Blue Crush. She’s cool.
Even the penguins surfing in Surf’s Up are cool.
But for some strange reasons, when I surf…
…I didn’t even come anywhere close to cool!
Maybe I’m too fat to surf.
To my credit, at least I did managed to at least stand on the surfboard.
Watch this.
Ready.
Hands off.
Standing up.
Balancing.
Wahey, I got it!
Clap for me! Clap for me!
LOOK AT ME! I’M SURFING! I AM COOL!
Oh shit.