Strike a Balance/Independence Day(s)

There's some advice that I could dispense that I could use for myself. Among them would be,"Never make decisions when you're angry or sad. Invariably, the decision made will be wrong and regretable."

Of course, some days you can't help it due to urgency of situation. Most days however, it can be helped.

Another one I should try to remember is,"Never try to blog insightfully when angry or sad. Posts produced during low moods can turn out to be cringeworthy and well,... sound really bad."

Especially if you're me.

Like yesterday's post. Man, that was bad. I should've stuck with the book as a topic. Anyway, after leaving the office, on the way out I decided to stop at the vending machine to get some coffee. Instant cure.

I guess the advice should probably read,"Unless the situation is really dire, don't try to blog insightfully when angry or sad. Posts produced during low moods can turn out to be cringeworthy and well,... sound really bad."

And now, on to other things.

I thoroughly enjoyed the National Day Blogging in Malay Campaign. That was so much fun. I had wanted to do something similar. I had a Malay post planned out. Unfortunately, I didn't write it down because on the eve of National Day, we bought 6 bottles of wine and promptly got very drunk.

So, no Malay post. At least, not until 16th of September, which should really be National Day. Or maybe it should be called Malaysia Day or something like that. Why? That's when Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak joined the Federation in 1963. (Singapore pulled out in '65). That's when Malaya became Malaysia.

It's just my opinion, but 16th of September should be as important to Malaysians as 31st August should be. And no, I'm not just being a disgruntled East Malaysian clamoring for "attention". Just stating a black and white fact.

When it comes to black and white facts on the country's history, someone is not doing their job. I say that because there are, for example, still people who think "East Malaysia" is a different country. You'd think this kind of ignorance should be non-existent now. But no it isn't.

What can you say about that? If there are still people in the peninsular who know next to nothing about us easterners, someone's not doing their job.

Local history textbooks contain too little info about what happened here, in Sabah and Sarawak. Something needs to be done about that. For example, would the ordinary citizen know what happened during the months before September 1963 in Sarawak and Sabah, during the referendum?

Or maybe someone thinks it's not important to know that. I hope not.

It's crap. You go to forums on the Internet, you still hear eastern Malaysians bashing western Malaysians about their ignorance and hear western Malaysians jeer at eastern Malaysians for being "backwards". This is the year 2005. This kind of misunderstanding shouldn't happen anymore.

Someone's not doing their job.

In other news, I owe lots of people (including Microsoft Tech Support) email. Also, I owe some CDs to someone. I'll do those later this evening.

EDIT: Like I was saying....