Equal Opportunity for Travel

Change.org|Start an Online Petition »

Greetings,

I just signed the following petition addressed to: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of every country in the world.

This petition was created by Chip Huyen. She is probably one of very few Vietnamese backpackers you'll ever meet. She started her round the world trip in May 2010, and hasn't stopped since then. To finance her trip, she finds odd jobs on the road and hosts a column for a Vietnamese newspaper. Her biggest problem is not how to make money, but how to get visas.

----------------
To make traveling as an equal opportunity

When I was in Israel, everybody told me not to go to Palestine. “Palestinians are bad people. They will mug you, they will kill you.” And when I was in Palestine, I heard the same thing about Israel. “Why would you want to go back to Israel. People there are horrible.” The truth is that I met amazing people in both places and had great experiences. But I had a hard time explaining to people I met there that those on the other side of the wall are also humans who are just trying to hold on to life. They also need to work to make a living, they also have a family to love, they want the same things we want and they are scared of the same things we are scared of.

I took me a lot of nerves to decide to travel in Africa. All I had ever heard of this continent before setting my foot here was famines, droughts, AIDS, rapes, human trafficking, tsetse and all kind of weird traditional practices. Only when I’m here that I realize that Africa is also a place to LIVE with its own charm and its own pace. Nobody can beat the Sudanese and the Malawian for their friendliness. No country can beat Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa for their vast wilderness. Ethiopia is second to none when it comes to traditional dance and music. Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Lagos are among the fastest growing cities in the world. I stop judging circumcision or body scarification, but simply accept them as different facets of cultures.

There was one country I decided to skip out of fear: Somalia, a country whose name has been synonymized with crimes, rapes, war and piracy. But just few days ago, I met a 27 y/o girl who hitchhiked through Somali and Somaliland all by herself. She’s hardly any bigger than me, and her backpack is twice as big as she is. “This is absolutely an amazing country, people are very warm and friendly. I had no problem at all traveling there alone,” she told me. I couldn’t help but laughing at myself. I thought that I knew something, yet I still let myself fall into the classic trap of media’s brainwash. Forget what you’ve been taught, forget what you’ve been made to read. You can never understand a place and its people until you are there.

I believe that mutual understanding is the key to world peace, and traveling gives you the first hand experience to really understand the world around us. As we understand more, we judge less. As we judge less, we are more willing to accept, rather than to hate or to be afraid of, the differences. We will not hate somebody just because they are of different color, different religion, or different culture. We will not let the bombings done by few people turn us against the whole nation. We will see people as what they really are, rather than what the media or the government wants us to believe.

I’ve realized that traveling is a powerful educational tool. I’ve learned more in the last 18 months of traveling than in 12 years of schools: about history, geography, politics, cultures, business and almost everything else. I’ve used super innovative web and services in India, as well as advanced technologies in Israel. I’ve learned about filming by couchsurfing with an ultra talented director in Pune (India), following an aspiring actress to a bunch of film sets in Mumbai (India), hanging around with a globe-trotting guerrilla filmmaking group in Mombasa (Kenya). I’ve learned about gambling by watching my friends playing poker for a living in Kathmandu (Nepal), by working at a casino here in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). I’ve learned about Tibetan Buddhism by staying with a Tibetan family in Sikkim (India), by meeting Dalai Lama. I’ve learned to sail, I’ve learned to rock-climb, I’ve learned to cook dishes from different countries, I’ve learned to make my own jewelry from recycling materials. As I travel, I’m introduced to many amazing ideas that I had never heard of, or thought that they would be possible.

My decision to start traveling is the best decision I’ve ever made so far, as traveling really helps me grow up. Traveling exposes me to different situations that help me understand my true self. Traveling teaches me to be independent, to be easy-going, to be adaptable, and to be tolerant. As I travel, I have a chance to meet amazing people: those who teach me, those who inspire me, those who become my best friends and those whom I’ve fallen in love with.

I know, I’m just damn lucky to be among the 0.001% of youths from developing countries who have a chance to travel. Traveling is still a privilege of people from developed countries where they have better finance and better passports. It hurts me that many people my age will never make enough money to get out of their countries to see what the world is really like. Even if we do, most of the times we are put back by the mission impossible to get the necessary visa. Those who were born with American, European or Australian passports will never understand how painful it is to always have to apply for visas way in advance for every single country with little hope that your visas will be granted. You can’t be spontaneous. You have to spend a lot of money. You have to gather a lot of resources. It’s like we are being punished for what we have no control over: for being born in the wrong country, for being born to parents with the wrong citizenship.

I have a dream, ridiculous it might sound, that every youth from developing country who has the guts to travel will be able to do it. I propose the establishment of a foundation, called Traveling as an Equal Opportunity Foundation (TEOF), that will help youths to achieve their dreams.

Eligibility to become a TEOF youth:

- Youths between 18 and 25.
- Fluent in English.
- Wish to travel.

TEOF will do:

- Advocate for “traveling as an equal opportunity”: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of every country should make it possible for TEOF youths to obtain the necessary visa to travel in the country.
- Sponsor visas.
- Provide information and consultancy.
- Provide financial support (limited).

TEOF will be run by youths and for youths with local chapters all over the world. The local chapters will make sure that traveling youths in their locality are not doing anything illegal. TEOF will provide support and consultancy, but TEOF youths are expected to be responsible for their own safety and finance.
---------------

So if you're a keen traveler, do sign the petition. As Mark Twain always say,

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

Sincerely,

English Pronunciation

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

Peace out!

And God blesses EVERYONE

I'm throwing caution to the wind and I am going to wish EVERYONE a very MERRY CHRISTMAS. *checks self* Ooh look, my religion is still intact.

Every holiday is a joyous occasion as families gather to enjoy each other's company. So lets embrace that spirit and rejoice that once again we are able to be with the ones we love.

Peace out!

This poem is dedicated to those who made my life miserable during my boarding school years in Penang. Funny now that you're the one looking me up and trying to "reconnect". Funny how life turn out eh?

A Loser is...

 (James Vera)

A loser is one who throws wrenches in the gears
One who pulls out the nails holding up everything he's known for years
But when he finds something special he holds it dear
And when he loses that everything he's not afraid to show tears

A loser is one who presses on through the dark
One who's life has given him many marks
With fists bleeding but he still swings
Fighting for what he believes means everything

A loser is one who falls and falls again
But at the end stands tall with many friends
The sky brightening with vanishing clouds, the loser wins
Crowds now thankful for everything that he gives.

Peace out!

The Staging of Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author"

Come one! Come all! Watch IIUM's latest theater offering. In an attempt to show a more serious but humourous side of the theater scene they bring to you Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author"

The most popular of Pirandello's comedies, "Six Characters in Search of an Author" tells the tale of six characters whose author has failed to complete their story. Driven to play out the life that is rightfully theirs, these characters interrupt the rehearsal of another Pirandello play and request that they be allowed to live out their lives there, on the stage. Thinking it an interesting theatrical experiment, the manager consents. She soon regrets her decision, however, as the characters refuse to stay within the arbitrary boundaries that she has set for them. Their rebellion against their creator leads them to attack the foundation of the play, ignoring all stage directions and the pleas of the manager until, in the end, tragedy strikes.

Shows: 3 night (7th, 8th and 9th June)

Showtime: 8.30pm

Venue: Main Auditorioum, International Islamic University Malaysia

Tickets: RM 5

For more info contact Aisyah at 013 2171 595

So come watch fictional characters actually come to life and start harassing living breathing pople on the stage. Hope to see you all there!! Peace out!

Support Earth Hour 2011

I'm in the dark... blogging. Peace out!

Date a girl who reads...

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

- Rosemary Urquico

Peace out!

Freedom for Libya

If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary. - Malcolm X

The Libyan people are going strong against the government!
Almost 100 people have died for freedom in the past 3 days! These people died to see a change! They died to give the rest of us hope! And even though they are no longer a part of this world…we need to keep them in our hearts. The Libyan people need to keep fighting for their freedom! Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.

Please reblog and tweet about Libya to raise awareness. Please, I am begging you! Help my people! One tweet and one blog post will not affect your life, but it will affect theirs! The people need help: the media can’t get in, the phones are all monitored, the hospitals are overcrowded and are in desperate need of blood, people are hurt and dying, the army is ruthless, and Gaddafi is still there…but the people are not giving up hope! That means, neither can we! Hope for all!

Vive la Libye!

Peace out!

You all ROCK!!

Despite my constant absence from the blogging world, there are those still interested to listen to what I have to say.

For that I thank you.