Do cats become white butterflies after their death?

Very intriguing question, is it not? Why and where did I get this idea from? Simple. 2 nights ago, I had just reached my campus from the bus station. I’m sure many of you are aware that I am petite, so imagine myself carrying 2 luggage bags, a big paper bag and also a handbag – I looked like a retarded young girl walking alone in the street whose face looks like she really needed help with her things. So anyway, I was walking back to my hostel when suddenly a white butterfly flew across my nose. I immediately recall the white butterfly I saw about 6 years ago (obviously it wasn’t the same butterfly, duhh). You might be wondering what rubbish am I writing now and what do butterflies have to do with cats. Well, you might have guessed it after you first read my title. A little reminder for those who think that stories about cats or animals are boring or ridiculous, read no more. For those who do believe in miracles and have very tender loving towards animals especially cats, sit back and relax, and enjoy my story.

16 years ago, when I was 4 years old, my family adopted a Siamese kitten. My mom saw this mother cat who had just delivered 4 cute kittens and one of them had very beautiful blue eyes. One day, my neighbor saw the kittens in a small pot in her garden and called my mom asking her does she want a kitten? And my mom told us if possible, she wants the blue-eyed kitten. She said she doesn’t want to promise anything because she might not be able to catch that particular kitten. And so she went to catch the kitten and what do you know, lucky for us she caught the kitty that we wanted. I was so excited that I immediately bathed it and we discussed what name should we call it. At that time we thought that it was a girl (a female). When we were all cracking our heads thinking of what name should we give it, the radio was on and that particular moment, the radio announcer’s name is Tammy. So at the very spur moment my mom came up with this idea f naming our new kitty, Tammy. That is the very beginning of Tammy, my new kitty.

Few months after we got Tammy, it started to show its true ‘identity’. We noticed that Tammy is not a girl, in fact, it is actually a male. We didn’t want to change its name, so what we did was we added a new name for it – Boy. Its new name is Tammy Boy. My family and I had raised it to be the smartest, intelligent, adorable and lovable cat. I on the other hand, practically grew up with Tammy Boy since I don’t have other siblings at home. Let me just skip the years that I’ve spent with Tammy because if I carry on telling you what things that he had done and the wonderful times we’ve shared, my laptop might be drenched with tears as it is hard for me to even write what I’m about to write now.

Tammy had always been healthy and we didn’t even realized that it was coming. In the month of February 2004, Tammy had trouble urinating. Whenever he urinates, we could see blood. We thought it was just because of the worms in his stomach, but one day, Tammy really had trouble urinating. He tried to urinate but he couldn’t. We took him to the veterinary to check what seemed to be the problem. My mom and I were shocked when his vet, Dr. Inderjit told us that Tammy had gallstones in his bladder due to lack of water. She tried to take them out, all of them but it was too many. When she pressed Tammy’s bladder I could see the pain in his eyes. I couldn’t see no more so I turned around. Dr. Inderjit said that his condition was quite bad and he had to go through an operation. Mummy agreed so we left him at the veterinary for one night. I kissed Tammy goodbye and told him to be strong.

The next day, I went to school early in the morning as usual and came back at 2 something. I went straight home to see Tammy. When I arrived home, I ran to the back and looked for Tammy. Tammy was put in a white cage that papa had just bought for him for his recovery after the operation. As soon as reached his cage, I could see Tammy was no longer like himself anymore. He moved very very slow and his eyes were too droopy. Mummy said he was acting that way due to the anaesthetic and that soon he will recover. It was only in the matter of time. I could see the stitches on his stomach and his eyes truly sent the message to me that he was in pain. I opened the cage and stroke his head slowly and kissed him. I said “Adik, be strong, Kakak saying Tammy.” Somehow could see tears in his eyes. I looked after Tammy the whole evening, did my homework while accompanying him. That night, we put Tammy in my grandma’s room and I stayed there that night, never left Tammy out of my sight. Mummy was in front, in the family hall when she first saw a white butterfly flying out of Opah’s (grandmother’s) room. She was so impressed with the butterfly because it was really really white and beautiful, nothing like the butterflies that we’ve ever seen. Believe me. I saw that butterfly too.

The next day, on the 10th of February 2004, I went to school as usual, I kissed Tammy before I left the house. After sending me to school, mummy brought Tammy to the veterinary for check up. During my 5th or 6th period (I couldn’t really remember) around 10am, my father came to school to pick me up. He told me that Opah received a letter from the Jabatan Pencen Malaysia and we had to go to Putrajaya to settle some stuff. On the way back, I asked him what about Tammy. He said don’t worry about him. I said ok and we went straight home. I was very excited on going back home because I could see my beloved brother, Tammy. As soon as I reached home, somehow I had a very strange feeling about this. Mummy was at the porch, smiling unwillingly while arranging some things. Immediately after I got down the car and when I was about to ask mummy how was Tammy, mummy hugged me tightly and told me that Tammy was gone. There was a moment of silence for about 30 seconds and both of us burst into tears. I asked her where is Tammy, she said he’s at the back. So I ran to the back of my house where Tammy was at. I simply couldn’t stop myself from crying as I looked at Tammy’s lifeless body in the white cage that was supposed to be used during his recovery. I opened the cage and I could feel Tammy’s body was already hard and cold but it was still beautiful and perfect as ever. I could still see the stitches on his stomach and I still couldn’t stop crying, even now when I recall that moment. Even my parents and grandmother were crying. We were so attached to Tammy and he was really loving and pampered and some might say he was a spoilt brat. We buried his body at our house garden near the pretty flowers are at(I don’t know the name of the flowers).

You might feel this is a little odd when I say that his death really has a huge impact on my life. You might also think that I’m going a little too far on this and I’m being too extreme as some people might call it. My emotions and my feelings are real, and nothing is fake. I know it’s hard for some to believe this, but to those who had experienced the same thing will understand how I feel.

The night when Tammy passed away, mummy told me what happened at the veterinary. Mummy said when Dr. Inderjit was doing the normal check up, she said Tammy was not doing good. His heart beat was extremely slow and his condition was really bad. During his final moment, Tammy looked at mummy, deep in her eyes as though he was telling her that he was about to leave to a much better place, where he could not feel the pain any longer. That long look that had struck her deep in her heart was the last time she could ever see Tammy Boy’s clear blue eyes.

I’ve also heard numerous stories from my friends about the white butterflies found after their pet cats’ death.

After Tammy’s death, after the white butterfly incident, it kept me wondering,
Do cats become butterflies after their death? I know it is a bit silly but do think about it. Is it possible?

 

Signed, sealed, posted,

Dottie.

Good English, Bad Teachers or Bad English, Good Teachers?

To some, they might take a little while to understand the title but for others it’s a piece of cake. If you’re having trouble to understand my title, BLAME YOUR ENGLISH TEACHERS!

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against English teachers – being an English Teacher-To-Be myself. It was that one article in NST’s 14th August 2011 issue that triggered me to write this article. The title in NST reads “Easygoing style firms up students’ English”. I know, you might think that there’s nothing wrong with the title, in fact I do agree with the title. I personally think that students who learn English language or any languages for that matter should be taught in a laid-back environment. So what is it that I disagree about the article? Read the cut out statement below:

“Strictly speaking, the 17 American Fullbright Scholars posted in Terengganu secondary schools as English Teaching Assistants (ETA) are not qualified teachers. Yet, they have been successful in improving the students’ grasp of English …………………..the ETAs have been successful without even a syllabus“

Notice the bold words? Yes. That’s what I don’t agree with. Though it might seem to be a good initiative on improving our students’ English language, but it is totally unfair for our very own qualified English teachers. These teachers had learned a lot in classrooms and had undergone intensive trainings for a minimum of four years just to be called “teachers”. All those years of studying Phonetics, Morphology, Socialogy, Literature, Methodology, Syntax which basically are the science of English language mean nothing because at the end of the day, they won’t be picked.

Being a TESL student, I totally disagree with the idea of hiring non-experienced educators to teach our students just because it’s their Mother Tongue language. It is a huge problem now in Malaysia where the English teachers fail to improve our students. If really that’s the case, we should focus on what teachers should learn during their trainings. What teachers or future teachers must learn and focus on is Methodology. The another problem is the method that they use is very old fashioned. They need to learn how to tackle these students. One of the syllabus that must be taught in Methodology subject is how to overcome the student’s shyness and how to make students comfortable with themselves hence the environment should be a very laid-back classroom.

First we have to take a look at what makes our students reluctantly learn the English language. The main reason is simply because they have no interest in that language but they were forced to learn it and our government has put the pressure on both the students as well as the teachers. When students are forced into something that they don’t like, it will not only discourage them to learn that particular subject but that hatred feeling towards the subject will start to grow and blossom.

If you still insist on having the non experienced educators to teach our students, you can do so after school by having extra classes. But please always remember to prioritize our local qualified teachers. Give them a chance. I know we can do it. Whatever happened to the slogan “Malaysia Boleh”?

Signed, sealed, posted,

Dottie.

The Story behind Street Fiesta 2011

Just recently, Perak BN Youth organized Street Fiesta in conjunction with the UEFA Champions League Finals that saw Barcelona played against Manchester United on the 28th May 2011. Of course, without any doubt, Barcelona won. Woo hoo! But that my friends, is simply another story. Today I’m writing about the event itself, Street Fiesta – what really happened throughout the preparations.

Tri-Silver Holdings Group (TSHG) took charge of the whole event as the event planner. The men behind TSHG are Mr Megat Shahrin Hamdan and Mr Azman Bakri. Many might not know this but Street Fiesta was their very first event. TSHG is known for managing Perak News.com – an online news resource which covers issues mainly in Perak.

The Press Conference was held on Friday, 20th May 2011, exactly a week before the actual event. I understand that the staff of TSHG only got to know about it on Wednesday, 18th May 2011 and began all the preparations immediately. During the PC, I was asked to be the Emcee/Host on that day and I accepted it politely.

During the PC

On Monday, I was “kidnapped” by TSHG for a week to help them in promoting the event as well as to invite participants to participate in the competitions that they were organizing.On Tuesday, 24th May 2011, the flyers had just arrived and only then we could give it out to public. While I was sitting, waiting for a meeting to start on Tuesday evening, I looked around and everyone – from the big bosses to the black ants on the floor were very busy working like there’s no tomorrow. Well, it’s no surprise that they only had less than a week to settle everything and I said to myself it is nothing to possible for this event to happen.  Honestly, I was scared that this event might not even happen. Why? Please continue reading.

My task was to help especially with inviting celebrities to this event. The budget for celebrities was RMXXXXX. Sorry, don’t think it’s appropriate for me to publish the exact amount here. Let’s just say it’s the same amount you pay for the downpayment of a new Honda City. *Cough*  Nonetheless, by pulling some strings, we managed to get few celebrities who were willing to work within that budget (thank God for that) The next thing that got us feel like shaving our heads were the participants of 3on3 Basketball and Street Dance. The Street Soccer rego form were selling like hot cakes.

 

Personally, being an experienced organizer myself since my days in Penang, I can say that the preparations were done in very last minute. When organizing a huge event like this, the minimum time frame that you need is AT LEAST a month before the actual event. That’s the time when you publicize the event, invite people to come, promote to organizations as well as getting sponsors. I still remember back in ’08, I was part of the organizing committee of Occupational Safety and Health Intervarsity Debating Tournament or popularly known as OSHIDT (pronounced as Oh Shit!) which was one of the events that I handled. Specifically the program secretary (or sexytary as my friends called me for some reasons which I don’t know)  it took us more than 3 months to organize this program. For the record, it was our very first intervarsity event thus making it our first newborn baby. Though it wasn’t the same as Street Fiesta, but every event planning has the same basic. To those of you who remember, i did mention this in an article I wrote sometime last year. Click Here to read it again (Refer to paragraph 4) So as I was saying, it took us more than 3 months to look for sponsorships, participants, accommodation, food and runners. Alhamdullillah, our baby was a huge success. Not that I’m saying Street Fiesta wasn’t successful but just keep on reading.

 

That week, I followed Ikha and Lynn to schools to invite them to participate in the competitions. First we went to Sam Tet School and wanted to meet the Principal to invite their students to participate in 30n3 Streetball Comp. Instead of meeting her, the Basketball teacher came into the school’s office and met us. I must say, the teacher wasn’t pleasant at all. She was harsh and unladylike. She gave a lot of excuses yadaa yadaaa. She told us that we need to get an approval from the PPD. Without any questions. we went to PPD but unfortunately no one was there due to SUKMA’s closing ceremony rehearsals at the Stadium. It took us awhile to decide whether or not to wait for them and we finally decided to just go on with it.

 

Fast forward to Saturday, the day of the event. We started on a late morning and everyone was so busy and the Malays call it “kelam kabut” But I know, deep down inside everybody was excited and can’t wait for the event to start! (I know I was)  When the sun was a little bit to the West, the program kicked off with teams registration. The secretariats were running around getting things done. At around 6pm, the Townhall Meeting started. I think that the Townhall Meeting was a great idea but sadly there were no positive response from the crowd. Other interesting sites at Street Fiesta were the Inflatable Wall Climbing, Ladies Uptown, and exhibition booths participated by Jabatan Pertahanan Awam, Yayasan Bina Upaya, Polis Diraja Malaysia, CIMB Bank and many more. My gig started at 9pm when I hosted with Abg Black, a local deejay to pull the crowd to have fun and participate in other activities that we have.

Abg Black and I at the centre of the stage

 

The center of attraction would definitely be the live Finals match between Barcelona and Manchester United on the big screen. Starting midnight onwards, the crowd was getting bigger and bigger by every minute. My job finished at 2.30am and I went straight to my room, showered and went to bed. All in all, here comes my conclusion.

 

Despite having to organize a huge event under an extremely short period of time, the organizer TSHG did a great job. Not really a fantastic and superb job but hey, great is good enough already to pull off such event. Two thumbs up to the Big Bosses, Mr Megat and Mr Azman and to all the secretariats for their hard work and sleepless nights. There’s always room for improvement though and I believe you can pull off any other event anytime. I have faith in you!

 

This is Nisa Dottie signing off (for now)

Roger and out!

 

 

Istiadat Konvokesyen UiTM ke-74 (My Diploma convocation)

Today I’m writing about, oh well, you’ve guessed it right, my Graduation day. My Convocation ceremony was held on Saturday, May 14th 2011 at Dewan Agong Tuanku Chanselor, Universiti Teknologi MARA Shah Alam. My batch was the first batch to hold our graduation ceremony here as it is a new building. I’ll start off with the time I woke up.

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 8.30am. I bathed and went down for breakfast with Opah (my grandma). Mummy and Papa went out for breakfast. After we had eaten, Opah and I went back to our room. I was so excited because it was time for me to dress up. Weeee~ So I changed into my Kebaya, made specially for this special day. Put on some extra make up did my hair(ikat saperuh je) and voila!

Opah and I just before we left the hotel room.

Left the hotel and went straight to Giant section 7, where we were supposed to park our cars and ride the UiTM bus to the Graduation hall. Once arrived, we had to climb up a hill (got all sweaty and Mummy complaining). You know what the best part was? My left shoe sole decided to fall off. A very convenient time, ain’t it? It was super hot and my left shoe was crazy had to wait, lined up for forty-five minutes in a very congested and hot hallway (you have noooo idea how hot and how stuffy it was unless you experienced it yourself) After a torturing 45-mins congestion, we finally get to walk into the hall. Yipee!

The ceremony was divided into 4 sessions because there were 1000+ graduates that day (sidang petang) and my course (Diploma in Hotel Management) was among the 2nd session (thank God but we still had to wait till the end) While waiting, of course we had to snap some pictures right?

The stage.

Popo and I

Joyce and I

My number was 456. Lucky number I must say because i didn’t fell on stage (Noel, In ur dreams! HAHAHAHAHA.) I tried uploading the pictures while i was on stage but had some problems. If you want to see more pictures, you may go to my FB page.

Before I end this article, I’d like to say I’m grateful to everything I have. A big THANK YOU to Mummy, Papa, Opah and Acho for supporting me throughout my 3 years in Penang.

Mummy, Papa and I

My family excluding Tammy (who was at home)

Eczema

Have you heard of ‘Eczema’? No, not Alzheimer, but ECZEMA. There’s a huge difference between those two and let me show you.

To those of you who do not know, Eczema (ɛk sə mə or ek-suh-muh/ig-zee-muh) is a chronic skin disorder that involves scaly and itchy rashes. The term eczema is derived from the Greek, meaning “to boil out” because the skin seemed to be “boiling”, according to ancient medical practitioners. Alzheimer (ɑlts haɪ mər/ælts haɪ mər/ɔlts haɪ mər or ahlts-hahy-merz) is a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 50 to 80 percent of dementia cases. If you still do not understand (which probably due to brain freeze or lack of vitamin D), eczema is a SKIN disease while Alzheimer’s is a BRAIN disease (well sort of)

So for today’s article, I’ll be focusing on Eczema. The following are the causes of Eczema:

• Stress
• Allergies to pollen, mold, dust mites, or animals
• Colds or the flu
• Contact with rough materials
• Dry skin
• Exposure to environmental irritants
• Exposure to water
• Feeling too hot or too cold
• Fragrances or dyes added to skin lotions or soaps

Therefore to limit irritation, avoid potential chemical triggers by opting for soapless cleansers and wearing gloves when cleaning or gardening. If those don’t help, redness could indicate an allergy to nickel in jewelry, chemicals in products, or antibiotics. I take myself as an example, I have Eczema. I can’t wear nickel jewelleries, wash the dishes with my bare hands. As Penicillin is one of the best antibiotics for most people, I’m allergic to it.

There are few ways to treat Eczema. If you have rashes on your body, DO NOT scratch them. Believe me, I used to scratch as I could not stand the irritation and the effect was really really bad. Keep water contact as brief as possible and use less soap than usual. Short, cooler baths are better then long, hot baths. Do not scrub or dry the skin too hard or for too long. After bathing, it is important to apply lubricating creams, lotions, or ointment on the skin while it is damp. This will help trap moisture in the skin.

If your condition gets worse, do consult a skin specialist. I would suggest:

DR. SIVADAS, 

Klinik Nagoke

No. 9, Laluan Sungai Durian,

31800 Tanjong Tualang,

Perak Darul Ridzuan

05-3609217

Street Fiesta – 28th May 2011

Barcelona fans and United fans in Malaysia! Here’s your chance to watch the UEFA Champions League Finals – on a big screen of course! The Barisan Nasional Youth is organizing an event called Street Fiesta. The event will take place at Dataran MBI Ipoh on the 28th May 2011 from 3pm to 5am. Yes, you read it right, it’s from 3 in the afternoon until 5 in the MORNING. So how will this event be beneficial if it ends in the wee hours? Well, to start off, it is filled with programs that have been coordinated for the whole entire day!

• Street Soccer Competition
• 3 on 3 Street Basketball Competition
• Street Dance (Shuffle)
• Flea Market (Ladies Uptown)
• Cybergames
• Celebrities Appearances

On top of all that, the main attraction of this event would definitely be the live telecast of UEFA Champions League Finals, Barcelona vs Manchester United. Woo hooo! The show airs at 2.45am, Sunday morning. One thing’s for sure, whoever wins this game I’ll be happy because I support both teams! So come one, come all to Street Fiesta! Come and support your team!

For more info, go to Peraknews.com

Food, food, glorious FOOD! (One of the contributing factors for me being fat!)

Today, I’m writing about, yes you’ve guessed it right, food. What are we without food, right? (or is it the other way round) Whatever. Anyway, in today’s post, I’m gonna write about four of my favorite restaurants, where and what is it that they have that I love so much.

To begin with, let’s go to Putrajaya, the federal administrative centre of Malaysia. Click Here for more info. What’s special about Putrajaya is that my number one favorite restaurant is here.

Mr. Kabab & Biryani is located at Jalan Diplomatik 3/1, Presint Diplomatik, Putrajaya. It offers traditional Arab and Paki food –  variety of kababs and biryani rice as well as special drinks. What I like to eat the most here is Chicken Wing Kabab. They serve 4 chicken wings, mayo-like dipping, special sauce, fries, roti arab, and most importantly, a BIG chili! Being a fan of spicy food myself, no wonder I instantly got hooked to this special dish the minute it arrived on our table when i first dined here with Yunus. You’ve got to try it to believe me. Another favorite is Lamb Mindy. One thing i like about this restaurant and i highly recommend this place is because it comes with a HUGE portion. You’ll not leave this place still feeling hungry.

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From Putrajaya to Petaling Jaya where my second favorite restaurant is located – The Waterlily.

the outlet in Mutiara Tropicana, PJ

This is a Balinese restaurant which serves contemporary Balinese food. My two favorite food here are Waterlily Trio and Ayam Megoreng. Waterlily Trio, as the name mentioned, has 3 items in a BIG plate which are BBQ chicken wings, Sate Lilit (it’s a fish satay on lemon grass stalks) and Cumi-cumi goreng (fried sotong/squid) while Ayam Megoreng (no i did not spell it wrongly) is specially fried half chicken served with yellow rice (no, not sticky rice/pulut), tempeyek-like keropok and veges.

 

Waterlily Trio

Ayam Megoreng

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was half-way through my meal when i suddenly remembered to snap these pictures. Was too fascinated by the food. 😛

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Next stop is wayyy up north in Penang. To those who don’t know where or what Penang is, Click Here. Penang or Pulau Pinang in Bahasa Malaysia/Malay is 159km from Ipoh and 369km from Kuala Lumpur or 2 hours and 5 hours max by car respectively. I was in Penang for three years when I was doing my diploma in Hotel Management. When I was small, my family and I would go to Penang almost every weekend for makan angin and our favorite restaurant there on the island is Hameediyah Restaurant.

Located at 164-A, Campbell Street, it is one of the oldest Nasi Kandar restaurants in town. Since my campus is just 10 minutes away from the Bridge, my friends and I would drive to the island sometimes for lunch or to places where we usually hang out. Eventhough the place doesn’t look inviting, trust me it is very clean. (my family especially Mummy is very particular about where we eat) Though this place looks cramped, it  has the best murtabak, ayam rose and fish head curry! *drooling. Here’s to show how famous this place is:

By looking at how cramped this place is, where do we eat, you may wonder. Well, Hameediyah has 2 outlets now – old and new. In the old outlet, you may eat at upstairs dining area and an area next to the picture above while the new outlet which is 2 shoplots away from the old outlet is an air-conditoned outlet.

The new outlet

Inside the new outlet.

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Last but not least, to end today’s post is none other than Nando’s!

Yes yes, I’m a proud Peri-periholic! What I would normally order is 1/4 Chicken with 2 sidelines – peri chips and either coleslaw or grilled veges, extra hot flavor – drumstick and thigh with Sparkling Apple. Yummy!

Enough said.

Stay tuned for more! Yours truly,

Malaysia Day

16^th September 1963 is one of the dates that we Malaysians must remember. It is the day when Malaya became Malaysia. This year, 2010 is a very special year as our Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak has declared September 16^th as Malaysia Day and is a Public Holiday to all. The reason why he declared it as a holiday is for Malaysians to spend time to appreciate the day.

This year’s Malaysia Day, I was invited to my friend, Nafise Motlaq’s book launch which was held at Leornado’s Wine Loft, Bangsar. Nafise is an Iranian Photojournalist who has been in Malaysian for few years already. Her book – A Given Path is a photobook which shows the culture of each race in Malaysia. It is divided into three sections – Malay, Chinese and Indian, the three main races in Malaysia. Each section starts with pictures of newborn babies, the celebration of the newborn, wedding ceremonies, other celebrations and followed by funerals. I’m amazed with Nafise’s effort in producing this book because it really opened my eyes to see what I’ve missed. The beauty of this Multiracial country that we’re leaving in and I’ve not even bothered to see for myself all these years.

The Guest of Honor who launched the book was Marina Mahathir, who is one of my idols. It was indeed a very special day, not just because I had the chance to meet Marina in person, but it is the day I realised despite having different skin color or different culture, we are still the same at heart. We are one. Even though it was just a mini celebration in Bangsar, I could still see unity in everyone as all races, Malay, Chinese and Indians gathered here to celebrate Malaysian Day together – as ONE.

Nafise Motlaq.

and of course, a picture with Marina Mahathir =)

HAPPY MALAYSIA DAY EVERYONE!

p/s: sorry for the late post as i had encountered some technical problems.

3 REASONS WHY POLITICIANS & CELEBRITIES SHARE THE SAME SIMILARITIES.

1. THEY APPEAR ON THE FRONT PAGES OF LOCAL NEWSPAPERS.

Politicians make headlines by marrying more than once while celebrities make headlines by divorcing more than once.

2. THEY HAVE SEX TAPES

Politicians have sex with their partners and “accidently” got caught on tapes while celebrities purposely shoot their own porn videos.

3. THEY ARE GOOD ACTORS

Politicians will debate and even throw chairs to each other in the Parliament, but the next thing we know, we’ll see them hanging around with each other at a Mamak stall while celebrities have fight scenes on camera and later gain an award for their act. After shooting, they will go to the same Mamak stall where the politicians go to.

p/s: All politicians are not the same in every parts of the world.

MEP REVIEW

A general question to all – do you read magazines to improve your general knowledge or just to read about celebrities’ latest gossips? If you do read magazines to improve your general knowledge, vocabulary and grammar, the best magazine to read is MEP – The Magazine Towards English Proficiencies. The name itself explains what this magazine is all about. It has a complete package – useful information on what’s going on (no, not about who Kim Kardashian is currently dating or with whom Paris Hilton is shooting her next porn movie with) but what is really happening around the world.

The magazine is divided into few sections, in which four of them are published every issue. The four sections that I mentioned are Feature story, Medicine & Health, Profile and Language Matters. There are also sections on entertainment, history, leisure and also teen stuff but these only published in any other issues.

It is a norm for magazines to publish the feature stories in the middle of the magazine but unlike any other magazines, the first section in MEP is the feature story itself. So far the feature stories that have been published are very informative. From the global warming issue to skyscrapers, oh and also Robert Pattinson (yes, the pale not-so-bad-looking vampire that everyone’s talking about). Mind you, this magazine is not targeted to nerds only.

Medicine & Health section is also very useful as it writes about what symptoms are associated to what diseases and how to prevent from getting sick. In one of the issues, they wrote about acne problem and that is something that would definitely attract girls (and boys too) to read. In Volume 4 for example, the topic was about what we need to know about Influenza A, or better known as H1N1. This topic comes in handy since the second outbreak has just started recently.

As I mentioned earlier, MEP is not restricted for nerds only. Why did I say so is simply because they do have a special two-page profile on selected celebrities (if you’re hoping for gossips, keep on dreaming). They write about the celebrities’ background, their achievements and what are they planning to do in the future. So far, they have written about Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza, Mokhtar Dahari a.k.a SuperMokh (the famous football player) and Robert Pattinson just to name few.

History is one of the interesting sections in MEP. One can learn a lot by reading the articles on leaders that have conquered the world such as Julius Caesar and Ganghis Khan. The history writes about the background of the kingdom – what happened before and after these leaders was born, also about what they have done that contributed to the society and how they changed the world.

Searching for words that you don’t know in the dictionary while reading an article is time consuming. Therefore, it is very convenient for readers to understand the articles published in MEP because translations and meanings to some of the hard words used in articles are provided. Readers can learn new words everyday. Apart from that, there is also Language Matters section. It has word games, English idioms & expressions, problem solving cases and also language exercises. To me, the hardest English exercise in this section would be the problem solving. In some problems, the story line is quite long and really cracks your head before you even solve the case.

You can get all these at a very reasonable price – RM10 (West Malaysia) and RM12 (East Malaysia). Get your copy today and learn English the fun way!