A day before the end of year 2007, my course mates and I went to a waterfall and playing futsal in Taiping, Perak, about 50 kilometers from our university. It was a different kind of new year celebration as we usually celebrate it by watching fireworks and concerts. [both my arms are still in the pain from sliding down the rocks. Ouch!] Sixteen of my coursemates plus one generous donor came [many thanks to him ;D] By using seven motorcycles and one car, we sure made up most of the scene.
We arrived at Burmese Pool and Waterfall around 4.30 p.m. It has a natural water slide and the water is really cold. The surrounding area is to large to be captured on the pictures. But I did manage to take some:

I got so many pictures to share, but most of us were half naked and I don't think my friends will be flattered if I post it here. lol. On the way back, we came across Taiping Zoo & Night Safari and Taiping Lake Garden. [to see pictures of Taiping Lake Garden click HERE] I should go to Night Safari at least once before my graduation!

After that, we went to Pusat Futsal Purnama. The price for one court is USD14.68 [RM50.00] per hour. Quite a catch considered it was a weekend night. Of course we have to book in advance.
In case you're wondering why some of us not wearing any shirt on, we played on the rule of who get to score first, the other team's member has to take their shirt off. The Malaysian culture called it "togel". The rule usually implied on street soccer to differentiate other team's member. Even Nike already made a short movie about it entitle "JANGAN TOGEL"!
Exhausting and sweaty, I really hope that this 2008 will bring me more friendships and relatively a good year to live. I can't hope better than that. Thanks for reading.
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Finally it comes that time of the year when you need to reflect yourself whether you have done your last year resolutions, hopes, dreams and even small thing you promise yourself you NEED to do. Such as throwing my secondary school books which I put under the stairs for ages. [I should never start from this moment make myself unfulfilled promise]. So, here I come..

THE 2008 resolutions [with no specific order]:

1. Finish reading my The Family Trees novel
Which my dad brought for me. When was that? err.. Two years ago?? The book is about, well family relationship. And my dad somehow thought my brothers and I should read it.

2. Thoroughly read through my emails
I have this kind of habit to just read the end of email first. If it interested me, than I ran the cursor up. [my friends should now how to do the trick by now. lol]

3. Go to Paris or U.K or europe at least once this year
As my holiday planning was reschedule last year. *sigh*

4. Know how to wear sarong or kain pelikat [as we call it in Malaysia] properly
I still don't know why my kain pelikat doesn't hung up like the way it should.

5. Getting good results
I really need to balance it with my extracurricular activities. To make things harder, I am taking maximum credit hour this semester. damn!

6. Should start learning how to save and manage money
I wonder why my scholarship AND my monthly incomes from my parents aren't enough. hurmmm..

7. Setting my blog visitor to 2000 by the end of year
I will write more interesting stuff and try to post as many posting as I can.

8. Meet new friends and trying to remember old friends
I already forgot my primary school friends! and to make matter worst, even some of my secondary school friends. I must by any means try to locate all our memories together. [Especially when the reunion is rumored around the corner. My bad. My bad..]

9. Make more quality times with God
Or should I make it more public? Some of my muslim friends are thinking that I have lack of iman or my belief in God is very shallow. Who are they to judge people?? Marah nih. huh

10. Manage my Facebook, two accounts in Myspace and Friendster
I have so many cyberspace friends than I can handle. Should start limiting my number of friends, tighten up my privacy life [and public lies. lol] and should stop giving people my phone numbers. In other words, Stop Trusting Strangers!

A happy New Year to the world!

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Are you offended by nudity? Honestly, I do not. I think everyone has the right to feel good at themselves. We are supposed to feel beautiful aren't we? Before I go further, may I stressed out that I am not playing truant with my belief or have any intention to offend other or any religion belief.

The Drunkenness of Noah, Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco by
Michelangelo.

Being raised in an Islamic and Asian cultured community have really taken tolls in our mindset. Nudity and sex are the definite taboo to be talk out loud. We are suppose to be gained the knowledge by ourself and somehow be expert about it just in time before we get marriage. Strange and funny isn't it? Sadly enough it is true.

Although "nude", "naked", "stripped", and other terms have the same objective meaning (i.e., not covered by clothing), they have differing subjective connotations, which partly match their differing etymologies. The book Nude, Naked, Stripped suggests that these three terms define a continuum ranging from artistic or tasteful absence of clothing by choice, at one end, to a forced or mandatory condition of being without clothes (e.g., a strip search), at the other. In general, a "nude" person is unclad by choice and is generally shameless; a "naked" person is involuntarily caught undressed and is generally embarrassed.

It is religious opinion that a naked body is indecent. It is religious opinion that sex is lewd. It is a common religious opinion that sex and nudity are equal, though others that are not religious may feel that the two are equal. Exactly how is someone harmed by you being naked? Anyone?
As the matter of fact, I were brought in an open minded family. My brothers and I were always be given opportunity to express our opinion. However, we still do not talk openly about nakedness and sexuality. The furthers i can remember talking about sex is when I was 16 years old and my mum said something like this, "I don't stop you from seeing girls, but I must warn you not to splashing any bad color to our family name." Hurm.. Does she made any sense?

In other words, what my mum was trying to says is "Do not make other girl pregnant". Of course my immediate reaction was [being a shy child] just got up from there and went to my room. lol. Seriously, what suppose I do? Well, after another 4 years of living, I reflected back at the moment and thinking that I should really say something like this, "Sure mum. But if just in case I am in the mood of getting sex, what necessary action of protection should I take so that my girlfriend won't be 'pregnanted' by me?"

Err.. Are you out of your mind?? I won't by any means saying those words even at any desperate moment such as when my cat is trying to drink my coffee. Why? Because no matter how open I were brought up, I still have a large social and culture walls to be torn apart. It is totally different with my cousin though. He has been living in LA since he was a baby and only coming home to Malaysia at the age of 15. Which means 15 years of living in a different culture. Plus with parents that is really really open minded. They even talk about sex in dinner table, if that helps. I know, it gross.

"I honestly don't understand the big fuss made over nudity and sex in films. It's silly. On TV, the children can watch people murdering each other, which is a very unnatural thing, but they can't watch two people in the very natural process of making love. Now, really, that doesn't make any sense, does it?"

Back to nudity, as Sharon Tate said as quoted in Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders (2000) by Greg King above, movie is one of the main source of public nudity in our life. [of course this by this I mean just in Malaysia and please just ignore the fact that we can surf internet at any time by all odds] My buddies and I were watching American Pie 6, Beta House which really enjoyable and funnier as usual. [which I might want to give it a review just after I watch I am Legend this Christmas's eve] The point is, American Pies as we all know have a lot of nudity, which is cool if I am watching with my male buddies. We laugh and really having fun together. Which bring me to the second point. Are we aroused by watching female nudity publicly? The correct answer for a normal person should be NO.
At the first moment we saw a naked figure, we will be aroused by it. However, the more common your saw them, your will not. By a kink in human psychology, the act of revealing skin or even removing clothes, even when only to show another covering layer, is often regarded at least as erotic or offensive as the actual sight of bare skin.

"The fear that seeing naked people in some way harms children is not supported, however, by academic research. The small handful of studies on this topic in psychology and sociology have shown, instead, that children reared in an atmosphere containing family social nudity may benefit from the practice." -Mark Storey in Children, Social Nudity and Scholarly Study

Honestly, I always think on movie or on stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience. lol. Anyway, for all my un-open-minded-yet readers, please stop referring nude, naked, stripped and other same meaning terms with sex. It is related, but not all the time.


[bluecrystaldude]
P.S: I have changed back to my old name, if you haven notice. Thanks for reading.

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