I don’t really know what happened, but I was “tagged”. Apparently I must provide 8 random facts about myself and elaborate, or else something bad will happen to me. After the jump.

1. I always rank number 1 in class during primary school, without fail, almost effortlessly
It is not that all my subjects are highly scored, which would then result in higher average, but because my English helped me a lot to compensate for my deficiency in subjects like Chinese. After all, I was the only guy who speaks English at home. When I went to secondary school, I got number 5 in form 1. So I thrived a lot, because back then number 1 means a lot to me. I got number 7 in form 2. (I use to have a lot of “inferiority complex” because of this drop in ranking. Then number 2 in form 3, before I get totally tired of all these and realize how stupid and foolish I was in my quest for higher rankings.

2. I started reading business news when I was in form 3
I read it everyday. I checked out the points of the stock market index everyday single day. I was not really sure why I did so, but it must have been a chance encounter that I just pick up the section of the newspaper and find it so comprehensible and interesting. Much of my writing at that time was very business like. Out of nowhere, I would use the words “consolidate”, “penetrate”, “level playing field”, “acquisition”, “merger”, “expansion”, etc in my essays. Then one fine day, as a result of an accumulation of all the business knowledge that I’ve acquired (see, I’m using this word again), I began to “see” the true Malaysian business landscape. To sum up, Malaysia’s business landscape is, a fragile picture. No innovation and creativity (with the exception of a very few companies), overly dependent on oil/gas and natural resources, not aggresive and slow in action, overly dependent on mere manufacturing (read: producing stuffs by other foreign companies), as opposed to designing and producing own invention. I read with envy the foreign business news section. Big companies like Samsung and Toyota recieved huge coverage from the big news agencies like Reuters, Bloomberg, AP, AFP and so on. Even Singapore’s corporations recieve more coverage then ours. I must say I’m inspired to want to be an entrepreneur some day, to rectify things and to make changes, although it could be hard. But, of course, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

3. I fantasize a lot.
Most fantasies are about business empires, futuristic product design, *ahem* some person, mobile phones, advertisements, ideas for new song melody, how human should act, how government should behave, new features for consumer’s product. Sometimes I’ve been accused of being naive by elder people, because the ideas that I have are regarded as non-practical/non-feasible, and some see it as ill-conceived ideas based on exorbitant ignorance of how the real-world works. I don’t think there is such thing as a naive ideas. I would like to think that those are radical ideas which needed time to be refined. Impossible is nothing, after all.

4. I wish I have the power to stop time
So much to do, yet so little time. I wish I had time to read Charles Dicken’s satire, I wish I had the time to write a complain letter on every single issue to the editor of newspaper, I wish I can do big advertising projects, I wish I can play the violin everyday. I wish I can watch TV or go to the cinema. I wish I had time to go out of home to see the world (I have not been to the newly open Pavilion KL or The Gardens to date).

5. I have the ability to spot evil -friends
Who is a good friend, who is an evil friend? I know. If a person talks bad about someone else in front of you, this person must be an evil friend. What makes you think this person will not talk bad about you with someone else? I mean, whenever I see this person talking bad to me about this B*it*h and that @** ****, I am like, gosh, he/she must be talking like this about me too. But nowadays, I don’t really care about this. There are more important things in life. I have a high level of tolerance of diversity of personality.

6. I wish I was more talented
I sometimes wish I could do better in maths and sciences. I felt inferior whenever I meet someone who can solve a math problem faster than I do. It is not that I do not know how to do, but I just take longer, due to my inherent resistance to worship the thoughts of other men. I wish I can pick up the violin and play “Meditation from Thais” like Sarah Chang on the first attempt, play Chopin’s Waltz on the piano with waltz groove, have natural ability to draw and design complex graphics and many other things. Of course, I am grateful and am happy with who I am. I have the ability to compose (I don’t know how I got that). I have perfect pitch, no big deal, but some say only 1 in 10,000 people possess that ability. I just want to be more talented. I am greedy.

7. I have an ideal life that I wish to live
I always envision an ideal life. I want to wake up in the morning, jog in the woods with waterfalls and fresh air, take a shower in a bath tub, then dress in executive suit and go to work. I want a hassle-free drive to work (no jam), then work like a bee. Discuss highly intellectually demanding stuffs with people, get passionate about ideas, talk about work at the lunch table, then continue working. Stop work at about 6pm and go to a jazz bar to relax. The jazz bar has to play swing and blues. The atmosphere of the bar has to be slightly dimmed. Each improvisation has to be the finest of jazz. Then I would want to swim (at night) at a glass pool, and finally read a book every night, before retiring to bed.

8. I think I can do anything
I don’t really think there’s something I cannot do. I think if I am willing to believe, I will be able to do something. But I could be wrong amid the youthful idealism. Well, for now I would like to think I can do virtually anything. Until something happens to me and tell me I can’t. I am, after all, an empiricist.