Money Making Machine

In the 2nd and 3rd year I was at the uni. I worked in factories during the break so as to get dough to buy a motorcycle. The first one I worked at was a moulding factory that moulds small metal peices like the ones you could find connecting other metal objects like gates, hinges and doors. They were also making highway dividers and lamp posts.

My good looks and chraming personality got me into the highway divider unholy unit. With a supervisor from Bangladesh, I really felt at home in Malaysia. His instructions were fun to begin with and with some tutorial that included a lot of improvisations and guess work, I was announced to be ready to go solo on the 3rd day of work.

Work involved scrapping extra metal from the highway divider after it was galvanized. This was needed to be done as the crude moulding and galvanizing process would leave some blunt and sharp leftover zink on the edges of the dividers.

It was hard work and you could also accidently cut youself but of course nobody would do it intentionally unless you are Kim Jong Ill and this is the global equivalent of the metal factory. I found that the Malay songs sang with Bangladeshi rhythm by the supervisor and his unwitting back up singers helped with the actual scrapping. It must be due to the soothing rhythm or the slow building of develish anger that was pushing ever higher to the point of explosion like hot larva burning its way to the top, hot reddish smoking larva... and usually it was already 5pm and it was time to go home. This went on for a couple more days until I found the soothing rhythm cooling the larva and soon I was singing too.

The boss, a short chinese man, did not like the singing too and his larva must have blown his mountain tops many a time but being an efficient supervisor, he would not want to get in the way of productivity and employees' general happiness.

The House of Man, that was really NOT.

Well, it was not much of a house, I would have to admit early but a house nonetheless. It was my first rented house while at the university. I was only there for 6 days though I paid for 2 weeks. There's no prizes for people who guessed why the escapade did not go as planned.

Reasons:

1. Cleanliness was touchy as nobody would want to touch anything in the house, the only acceptable sustenance was water, straight from the bottle.

2. Difference between night and day: none as people would come and go and do whatever they pleased 24-7.

3. Mind boggling discussions: Unheard of before tall tales of dogs, cows, human and supernatural beings, 24-7

Real Reason for moving out: 7 OUT OF 9 HOUSE MATES WERE DRUG ADDICTS BOOZERS

Man should be able to take a and go through whole load of shit and crap but not drugs and not drug addicts and certainly not drug peddling addicts.

I left. And say no to booze and drugs

Be good at least at one thing

In 1994, I was actually considered good enough to be in the first squad of my rugby team, even denying some former and current state players for the position. As the decision was made by the current star of the national team, it was one of those things people just followed, me included.

By the second game of the inter colllege tourney, I realized that I was picked not because of my good looks and or my non-existing suicidal nature but rather because of my supposed speed and ability to break out of the scrum quickly to support the star player. I was able many a time in a game just to be there beside him and thus gave him more options and time to do damage. It worked well enough though I handled the ball preciously little.

I realized then as I do now that you only need to be good at one thing, one simple but hopefully useful thing and you can actually cut it in this world. I was good at just following the star player and thus I got picked ahead of seasoned campaigners. I am able to speak well and thus, almost always people will see me first.