Its 4am

Life, a journey or an illusion?
Is it a journey because we're disillusioned?
Or is it an illusion because we're afraid of the journey?

Suppose, it's a journey, then life would be a long and winding road,
An illusion is only a mirage, unreal.
Our existence becomes meaningless, nothingness
Then, Life is better-off a journey.
...............

10,000 on Picket IN KL - 3rd NOV 2007

WHAT? THAT HAPPENED? WHEN?......

That was the answer I got from every person I related my account of 'the' massive (10K strong) employees strike in and around Menara Maybank, KL last saturday afternoon. Then why wouldn't ppl know? What happened?

I don't know the 'inside' story but it seems to me that our media has been stopped from publishing extensively on this. I was there, (on the way home from Malacca, scouts hike/thing). There were tons of ppl with banners and t-shirts, buttons, pembesar-suara and the entire street of vehicles were honking as they passed by...

Banners such as MAYBANK ROMPAK BONUS KAMI! were all over.... SOme went "WE ARE UNDERPAID"others went "THEY OWE US 30% + 3 MONTHS", my fav banner "HONK IF U SUPPORT US!" hahaha, and lots more... apparently it's the banks' employees union who staged this picket strike, pretty impressive I would say (being there and all) was exciting, never seen a 'real' strike(picket, not so serious) before... I was thinking,this is huge man, sure make front page tomorrow...I swear I saw loads of ppl with the mediaTag present with their huge SLRs, there were like at least 2 dozen policemen...and yeah tons of 'KPC' onlookers like me... watch the vid:



Funny thing is, next morn, In the STAR u get a like 5cm X 15cm picture-less article on this strike!....and its like on page i dunno what? Hmmnnn....strange....

FROM GOOGLE NEWS:
Saturday November 3, 2007

Bank staff to continue with picket

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) will continue to picket in front of banks for months or even a year until they give members their due right, said union general secretary J. Solomon.

Today, the union is organising a national picket of 10,000 members in front of Menara Maybank here to show its disappointment over the deadlock in its collective agreement dispute.

Solomon said the union had asked for a 30% wage increase and a cost of living allowance for the workers, and the banks agreed to the 30% pay rise provided they do away with the two months' contractual bonus.

“This is the first time that banks are trying to take away what little we have,” he said yesterday at a press conference.

He said the union was in favour of the banks introducing performance bonuses in addition to contractual bonuses but not for the former to replace the latter.

NUBE is the union for the lowest category of bank workers comprising clerical and non-clerical staff and their wages start at RM662 per month (non-clerical) and RM995 (clerical).

Solomon pointed out that even a clerk in the government sector was paid higher, with a minimum salary of RM1,300.

He stressed that members needed the pay rise so that their standard of living could go up, adding that the lower-income group spent their money in the country.

“Bank executives and management are paid RM10,000, RM15,000 or RM20,000 a month and bonuses of 10 to 15 months, and they are the ones who spend their money abroad,” he said.

Solomon pointed out that during the 1997 financial crisis, NUBE got members to agree to forgo their salary increment and bonuses to help the banks through the difficult times.

He said now that the banks had recovered financially and were reaping billions in profit, they had forgotten the sacrifice made by their workers.

Solomon said today’s picket would be directed at Maybank because it was the premier bank in the country and had made RM5.7bil in profit, and it was also a member of the Malayan Commercial Banks Association.

Sometimes Students Gossip about the Darndest Things...

OMG, no one would guess what happened 2 days ago in uni. Ok, we have this macro and Corp.Fin. lecturer whose name is Valerie Loh (Anyways, liz/janelle if ure readin, she's Philip Loh's daughter). Imagine this lady, she's like prolly 28, has nerdy (see what i mean about making ur blog private?) style glasses and basically hunches and talks like she's announcing an obituary, but above all, we actually like her, seriously. She's really amusing to watch (at least all my classmates think so )

She sez lame-ass stuffs to herself under her own breath sometimes (loud enuff for us to hear). Imagine a nerdy looking serious lecturer talking about IS-LM-BP models and then suddenly out of nowhere she goes "You know the other day i almost killed myself, tripping over goodie bags left over from the prom in my room, its a huge mess" (it's not funny at all, its really damn random and awkward, even worse that she giggles at herself after that) Ok, then fine, u get the picture of how Miss Valerie is like...this goofy sort of dorky individual in a very likeable kinda way...

So 2 days ago, in macro tutorial, we couldn't concentrate. Miss Valerie was all dressed up and pretty with make up n all. So i was asking the guys, "dont u think she looks pretty today?" and unfortunately for me, the 1st dude i asked was this guy named waikit, u see waikit had seen valerie's bf (when none of us suspected she was dating anyone) but anyways, waikit answered "well the thought of whom she's dressed up for, spoils the whole thing"....so thats how we found out about Miss Valerie's bf and him bein likened to a char kuay teow seller style kinda guy accordin to our only eye-witness, waikit...

Class ended (we spent the entire class gossiping about nonsense) After class i was walking with this girl isabelle who has a really strong american-british accent (intl school kid). SO i was randomly saying, "i wonder if Valeris's bf is waiting for her at LC?" "Hmmnnn, I wonder how he looks like?" Isabelle added. Well u see Isabelle wasn't really payin attention to the gossiping back in tutorial class. Isabelle then said "You guys were saying he looks like a char kuay teow seller?" I pointed towards waikit who was ahead of us "I don't know, ask waikit la, he's the one who saw them at....." suddenly Ahmed who's walking next to waikit turns around and says "Hi Miss!"

I stopped dead in my tracks......omg, in my head.....fuck!

Turned around praying in my head, pls pls, let her not hear the char kuay teow part, pls pls lets hope that Isabelle's accent sounded ang mor enuff to pass 'char kuay teow' as soemthing else...mb she missed it....Nope, unfortunately for us, Miss said "I heard what you guys said, every single word." "OMG, Miss Marilyn!" Phewww, not Valerie, Thank you Jesus....

So yeah, next time if any of u wanna gossip, one advice, watch ur back!

Btw, Miss Marilyn was cool, she's those jokey kinda person, She told belle that we shan't worry about it, cos apparently lecturers gossip a much more awful lot about the students..... wow! good to know....