What are you waiting for? What’s all the procrastination about?

My dear fellow Malaysian,

4.39 million Malaysians over the age of 21 have yet to register as voters.

That’s roughly 28% of our population.

If you’re complaining about…

• the government,
• the roads,
• the slow service,
• corruption,
• petrol,
• the Perak fiasco,
• the current political drama going on in both sides of the fence…

…. what are you waiting for?

VOTE.

If you’ve already registered, good on you. But for those of you who haven’t, and don’t know how, I’ve got the perfect solution for you.

Have you heard of Project Epic?

They’re a bunch of young people, like you and me, dedicated to studying how they can apply leadership and value-based principles in their lives and the lives of our youth.

One of their principles is to be externally-focused — to always give back to society / the community.

They originally started Project Epic with a predominant focus on the plight of the Malaysian Orang Asli (natives) and how we, as young Malaysians, can help to raise their standard of living in the long term.

Their first step?

Building the Orang Asli toilets.

You may ridicule it, laugh, or scoff at it, but there are countless people out there who do not have access to basic facilities that you and I take for granted. Like toilets.

But Project EPIC doesn’t stop there. Toilet-building is only step ONE. In light of that crazy, scary statistic out there, they’ve recently taken their “giving back” one step further.

They’ve realized that, you know what, people that surround us daily need to start having faith and hope in this nation. Yes, while it’s been a challenging journey and developing positive feelings for a nation that displays blatant disregard for ethics is tough, there is still hope.

While Malaysia is disillusioned, and is caught in this sordid, sad wave of helplessness, Malaysians have stopped striving for its YOUTH.

• We want to believe that the power of ‘one’ is not simply overrated, just rarely challenged
• We want Positive Action not Negative ReactionsWe want to integrate not tolerate
• We want to stop complaining, and start acting
• We want our friends to stop migrating overseas and our parents to stop telling us to do so
• We want to be colour blind to our neighbours
• We want to stand up to be responsible for our collective future and believe that others want to as well

And with that, they launched….

EPIC for UNITY

Come this April 3rd & 4th, Project EPIC is launching a year-long campaign at all major, high-traffic shopping malls in the Klang Valley.

No, they’re not politically affiliated.
No, they do not gain an ounce of monetary benefit from this.

All they gain is knowing that, they have taken the FIRST STEP in helping you create a better place to live.

If you don’t know where to register, or how to register, or what to do even.

Just be there.

There aren’t that many high-traffic malls in the Klang Valley, so you know what to do.

Take the next step today.

EXERCISE YOUR BASIC RIGHT AS A CITIZEN IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY.
VOTE YOUR CHOICE.

If you’d like to contribute, don’t hesitate.

WEBSITE: http://dosomethingepictoday.blogspot.com/
EMAIL: dosomethingepic@gmail.com
CALL: 016 3177788 (Jasmine)

She just sent me the video of “We Are The World 25″ for Haiti

It’s a really good song, mind you, and I love that Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie placed all the strong vocalists in the beginning, where I feel more emotion and power is needed to convey the message of the song – Jennifer Hudson, Josh Groban, Pink, Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion.. you know what I mean.

But Bee Sim has beef with the fact that Miley Cyrus has a few lines among the greats.

Here’s an excerpt of our conversation:

If you guys don’t already know (or follow my Twitter-feed), I spent Nov 16 & 17 at the Youth Engagement Summit 2009 all the way at PICC which is situated in a God forsaken place Putrajaya.

And let me tell you… it was an awesome event.

Actually, my involvement with YES2009 started out way before that. Not because I was part of the organizing team, nor was I a volunteer, nor am I a Youth Asia employee. In fact, it started out on Saturday night, November 14th (actually, it started out way before that. But it’s a story for another time .

I followed Khailee and Nguyen to PICC to meet up with Joel, Esther, Joanne, Audra and Lina… and spent the next few hours packing 500 goodie bags with the latter 4. Poor Esther’s hands were covered in paper cuts while I had an ache in my left butt cheek from weird sitting positions.

But I digress. Back to YES2009 — the actual one.

I was originally supposed to go as a youth delegate with the Youth Asia team but at 1.30AM on Sunday night, Khailee’s designated photographer bailed for a family emergency and I ended up being his sub-par, amateur replacement. So instead of sitting put from 8.00am-6.00pm each day listening to talks, I ended up shadowing Khailee for two entire days taking photos of him like his personal papparazzi -__-

I was rather reluctant but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I can never stay awake for talks no matter how much sleep I get or how interesting / funny the speaker is (all HELP Psychology students know that this includes lectures, and even some tutorials). So I was wondering how the hell will I be able to stay awake with only 2.5 hours sleep on Sunday night, and 3 on Monday night?

But thankfully, with the adrenaline rush and the running around, I pretty much was on my toes and heard (almost) everything I wanted to listen to. Plus, being Khailee’s shadow for the day I managed to slip myself into all the press conferences and eat at all the VIP areas

Day #1

String of opening speeches by Datuk Johan Jaafar (CEO of Media Prima), Haminder Singh (organizing chairman of YES2009) and Khailee.

I don’t know where the rest of the opening speeches are… but here’s Khailee’s, courtesy of Global Vision and Jia Ling (Khailee’s camerawoman of the day).

Click here to view the embedded video.

There was mayhem, chaos and mania right after the opening speeches. Khailee and Nando Parrado (the closing speaker for Day #2) were completely MOBBED by the SEA delegates. I got my toes stepped on, bag trodden upon and elbowed just to take these pictures.

One of the perks I got from shadowing Khailee — networking and speaking with people from various industries (and some top business leaders) in the VIP section, and scrumptious food.

Speaker #1: Biz Stone

“Happy mistakes are the best kind…”
~ Biz Stone

If you don’t know who Biz Stone is, shame on you. He’s the co-founder of the micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter.

I took away one main thing from his talk — the true, real reason to why he created Twitter in the first place.

He mumbles. Big time. And he can be relatively incoherent. Yes, I understood what he said, but for most of his talk I had to strain my ears.

But he was surprisingly clearer and more coherent during the press conference? Perhaps he was more relaxed, he didn’t have to speak out of a microphone.. and there were far fewer people. Nonetheless, I’m an active twitterer and it was amazing meeting him in person, hearing him speak and actually asking him a question

Speaker #2: Dr. Mamphela Ramphela

“You are the leaders you have been waiting for.”
“Consciousness that transcends the NOW is SO important.”
~ Dr. Mamphela Ramphele at YES2009

I don’t blame you if you don’t know who she is. Yes, she looks like a Star Wars character from the planet of Naboo (credits to Adrian Lai for that . But this feisty and very, very wise old lady is actually the former director of the World Bank.

I didn’t stay for her full talk (I was at Biz Stone’s press conference) but from what I heard at her talk and press conference has definitely hit home, not just for me but for tons of young people there.

Speaker #3: Sir Bob Geldof

I have to admit. This dude has to be my favourite speaker of the lot. He said many things that rang true to everyone in the room and had such a commanding presence that you just wanted to follow his every word. For those of us who work actively with NGOs and have heavy interest in social activism, Bob Geldof’s words were very useful.

“We should demand leadership. If there is none, we should lead ourselves.”
“Young people should always question.”
“Everyone has the exact same potential if they were given the exact same opportunity.”
“To die of want in a world of surplus is an intellectual and moral disgrace”
“Cooperation, rather than competition, must be the paradigm of the 21st century.”
“If you’re not participating in the knowledge economy, you’re out of the loop.”
“Unless we cooperate as a species, there is no future.”
“You don’t want to be like us! In fact, you threw us out. WELL DONE.” — On South East Asian countries gaining independence from the West.
~ Sir Bob Geldof at YES2009

There were very many more. Unfortunately, I could not write quickly enough.

In summary
It was good. If not, great. Considering how I can barely keep awake during talks of any kind, the fact that I managed to keep awake, take notes, listen intently and learn from these great change icons must say something.

Following this, I attended the officiating dinner with a sprightly Audra and two zombies in the form of Khailee and Joel. The sleepless night before had taken its toll on them and they sat there expressionless for most of the 10 course dinner, only breaking out of their daze to rush at the food. Even having Asha Gill at our table could not rouse them from their daze.

The highlight of the night had to be us taking a photo (my only photo with any of the speakers) with Sir Bob Geldof right before he left the dinner. It made Audra and I so, so happy that it kept me awake until 3am (doing work) in spite of having only a measly 2.5 hours of sleep the night before.

More to follow with Day #2. Meanwhile, pictures!

]]> http://xinch.com.my/day-1-youth-engagement-summit-2009/feed/ 5 http://xinch.com.my/great-sportsmanship/ http://xinch.com.my/great-sportsmanship/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:20:55 +0000 xinch http://xinch.com.my/great-sportsmanship-725/ When Federer first shed tears over his defeat at the hands of Nadal during this year’s Australian Open, a friend of mine lamented his tearful display – where had his strong, seemingly emotionless and ever-so-calm-and-regal hero gone? Had Nadal truly defeated him this time in game, body and spirit?

Typical male response.

I, on the other hand, was just in awe. It was, to me, completely amazing that a great man like Roger Federer could defy all traditional male gender expectations and openly display his disappointment, vulnerability and frustration in the form of sobbing, salty tears in international media! The next day, it was all over the news, and I feel that for most of the world (and reporters), the tears he shed were more poignant than Nadal’s victory.

That makes last night’s win, all the more victorious. Any tennis-fan will know exactly the implications behind last night’s win for Federer. After all, until last night, victory at Roland-Garros had always been elusive. Adding to that, last night’s victory seals his position as one of the best players in tennis history. But more importantly than all that is how relieved and truly victorious Roger Federer must have felt last night, standing at the podium as a winner, and not as runner-up to Rafael Nadal.

Roger Federer will go down in tennis history as one of the greats. At 27, he still has a couple years more to top up the number of Grand Slam titles he holds and be noted as the Man in Tennis. Sampras holds most Grand Slams and Agassi championed all courts, but until this day, no one but Federer can claim ownership to both. So I’m sure no one begrudged him his teary win yesterday as the Swiss anthem played.

Because victory at Roland-Garros was more than just good tennis and more than just that huge ass silver bowl. With his top skill, ballet-like footwork, determination, gentle disposition, amazing sportsmanship and modern masculinity, Federer is, to me, the champion of all sporting history.

Congrats, Fed-Ex. It was a victory well-deserved.

Photo credits:
1. Telegraph.co.uk – Roger Federer’s tears for succession by Rafael Nadal

2. Telegraph.co.uk – French Open 2009: Roger Federer relieved to finally win at Roland Garros