The Column. Uncensored.

On (or is that In?) hindsight, I should have known that my last column for NST would be heavily edited. I mean, what was I thinking? Writing such a risque piece for a stodgy establishment like mine? I don't think I'll live to see the day when talk about condoms, porn and the missionary position will be printed in my paper. And no, I'm not bitching, nor am I angry or bitter about it. I completely understand why the cuts had to happen. Seriously!

But thanks to the blogsphere, the original incarnation of that dirty ditty will see the light of day. So, here it is. Bigger, longer and uncut.

Tun Dr. Mahathir must be sorely disappointed in us. After all, hasn't he for the longest time wished, hoped and aimed for a Malaysian population of 70 million souls?

And instead of heeding the old man's call to be fruitful and multiply, what do we do? We go and reduce our birth rates from an ego-boosting 6.2 to a measly, morale-sapping 2.2. Shameful, really.

I for one, know exactly who is at fault. Ladies and gentlemen, the finger of blame should be pointed at none other than Ananda Krishnan.

Yes, the billionaire industrialist is to blame for the lack of fruit falling from our loins these days. No, this is not the plot for the latest James Bond movie. My reason for blaming him can be summed up in one word: Astro.

Think about it. What do most of us do when we go home these days? Do we rush home, tear off our clothes and jump into bed in a frenzy of lust. I wish.

No. We plop ourselves down in front of our flat-screen plasma TVs, turn on our decoders and gobble up the latest tele-novela on Astro Ria, the newest never-ending drama on Vanaavil, the current soap on Wah Loi Toi and the flavour of the week on American Idol.

And what about Saturdays and Sundays? What used to be date night is now more often becoming a night where we men would rather watch 22 other men sweating it out on a football field a zillion miles away instead of cozying up to our better halves. And don't forget those European football games in the wee hours of weekday mornings. Since we all have to be at work the next morning, what are the only things left to sacrifice? Sleep and sex of course!

But, it's not solely Ananda Krishnan's fault.

U.P.M, I think, had a point when it said men were at fault for the declining number of Pampers consumers in the country.

Think of 1980s fashion. I for one don't believe it's purely coincidental that birth rates plummeted in the 90s. Remember those crotch-hugging jeans of the 80s that all but cut off the blood flow to the nether regions? I don't have scientific evidence to back me on this, but I dare say all that confinement was not good for the unborn children we men had swimming inside us. I mean, how would you feel if you were stuck in a car all day with the windows rolled up? A trifle toasted?

Then there's the issue of underwear. I clearly remember the kind of underwear my grandfather - a fertile fellow if there ever was one - used to wear. They were either the Crocodile/Scuba brand briefs (spectacularly unstylish, very roomy), or striped, baggy boxers.

And what do we wear these days? Tight, 'bikini style' briefs designed to make a cocktail sausage resemble a frankfurter. Very flattering, I'm sure. But all that mashing up is bound to do some damage. No wonder my grandpa had 7 kids while I still don't have any little Marcs scampering around.

Equally culpable are those 7-11 joints out there, with the rows and rows of colourful condoms (some of them are more gaudily packaged than candy!) neatly stacked on the front counter. Where would we (or should I say, wouldn't we) be, if these slimy pieces of rubber had 50 years ago been as widely dispensed in sundry shops? And ended up in the wallets of our forefathers? The next time you find yourself reaching for a condom in 7-11, think of what the wise men of Monty Python told us – every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great.

And what about pornography? Surely there's some blame to be accorded in that direction too. 50 years ago, when 'blue' movies weren't so widely available, most folk were satisfied to 'do it' the good old-fashioned way – missionary style.

But now, after being weaned on years and years of illicit porn viewings, men are under pressure to live up to the skills displayed by all those pony-tailed, mucho-macho dudes with elephant trunks hanging between their legs.

Now, the trusted missionary position is no longer adequate. Instead, we've got ourselves twisting into positions and formations that even contortionists would find difficult to replicate.

Yet, most of these fancy techniques don't have the one crucial thing the missionary position does when it comes to sowing oats – gravity on its side. After all, isn't it easier to walk downhill instead of uphill?

But thinking about it, perhaps it's better to have fewer kids these days. I mean, I certainly don't want to have any while the nation's education system is still – to use a Mahathirism – flip-flopping. Or while the killers of sweet little girls and boys are still walking free. Or while nimrod politicians still tussle for power and prominence.

Maybe it's a good idea to hold back on trying to reclaim our pride until we get these things sorted out first. After all, we still have Astro, sexy underwear, colourful condoms and illicit porn to keep us occupied in the meantime.

Sacriliege. Desecration. Just another day in the life of Malaysia.

A lot of what's going on in Malaysia slips by me these days. It's hard to keep tabs on the country when you don't live in it. One that I would have completely missed, if not for a chance email I got from a friend, was the 'investigative' piece written by Al-Islam magazine.

Two 'intrepid' reporters from the magazine were tipped off that Muslims were being surreptitiously converted into Catholicism by churches in the country and saw it as their duty to go undercover to find out if it was true.

As a journalist with pretensions to being an investigator myself, I can understand their excitement in getting the tip-off. After all, I too would be similarly excited if I were to get onto a story that was so obviously sensational and so obviously up my alley.

So, these two men went to a church one fine Sunday and decided to find out if the allegations were true. They discovered it wasn't. Their curiousity satisfied, they should have done the right thing and left.

They didn't. Instead, they stayed on and during the Mass, joined the Catholic congregation in accepting the Holy Eucharist.

After that, they left, spat out the sacred wafer and took pictures of it, probably not even realising the gravity of the sacriliege they had committed.

What they did insulted, infuriated and hurt Catholics around the country. The government's predictable lack of a response only made matters worse.

Emails began flying around (I got one of them). Police reports were lodged. Angry missives were sent to the magazine (once again, I was one of the writers). Blogs and letters, including input from people like Martin Jalleh (who wrote a fantastic open letter which was picked up by many outlets), Khairy Jamaluddin (the cockroach probably wanted to score points), and Lim Kit Siang (also never one to pass up the opportunity to score brownie points), were plastered all over the web.

And ultimately, nothing has happened.

Some time back, Herald - the Catholic weekly got into a court battle with the government over the use of the word Allah. They were threatened with closure if they didn't rescind the usage of the word.

Cast your minds back to an incident that took place sometime before that, when the Danish publication drew a caricature of Prophet Muhammad. The furore that greeted that piece was awesome. Even in Malaysia, there were calls for public apologies, threats to boycott Danish products, etc.

Yet, when the shoe is on the other foot, these same people, these defenders of the faith, are nowhere to be seen or heard.

The lack of respect, the lack of grace and the lack of understanding shown to other races and religions in Malaysia is becoming worse by the day. From having to deal with catcalls of 'immigrant' and 'squatter' to playing on uneven fields during court cases to now having our most sacred religious rites - Catholics believe that that little wafer is literally the transfigured Body of Christ - desecrated and defiled.

Our Muslim brothers in Malaysia are in an enviable position. They have the full machinery of the government, an Islamist opposition party and the institution of the Sultanate to protect and speak out for them.

What do we non-Muslims have? Only the leaders of our churches, temples and tokongs. That's it. I suppose that makes us easy meat - sitting ducks for all would be crusaders to target.

It's precisely these kinds of things that make Najib's high-falutin' 1Malaysia campaign come across as just a lot of wind being released from the rectum of another political gasbag. All this talk of unity and togetherness, my dear P.M., rings shallow when you don't walk the talk.

I can bet that if the situation were reversed, that if, say, a journalist for the Herald were to go undercover into a mosque, he would be locked up under the ISA faster than you can say Al-Islam. I bet that the paper would have been shut down unceremoniously in the blink of an eye. I bet politicians would have jumped up and down spewing all the rhetoric that they could come up with. I bet that the more fanatical of our Muslim friends and politicians would have taken to the streets, swearing the bathe the keris in blood. After all, they've threatened to do so for far less before.

And what do we do? We gather in our churches and pray for things to become better. We write our letters and wait, mouths open, for responses that never come. We lodge our police reports and get fobbed off with fine words and empty promises. We turn the other cheek, while at the same time, keep getting slapped over and over and over again.

~ I'm not concerned with you liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being ~ Jackie Robinson.

Flouncing about in Florida.

Going to Florida was always going to be the highlight of my July. Meeting my fellow Fellows, seeing Katie again, checking out sunny Florida - all these prospects had me in a state of high excitement.

I was also actually looking forward to Poynter itself. All my colleagues at the Post-Dispatch had told me what a cool place it was. Former Friendly Fellow Audrey Edwards also said that the mid-term seminar would actually be the point where I would start to see things differently and begin to settle down.

So, it was no great surprise to find out that they were all right. On all counts. Poynter was a really cool place and it was the point where I began to see things in a different light and feel more settled. Which, if you think about it, ain't that great a thing, considering that I'm settling just as I'm beginning to get ready to return. - _ -

The weeks preceeding Poynter were relatively quiet for me. I did a couple of interviews - one a follow up on an earlier story, the other a Q&A with a college student who gave up his studies to volunteer with the American Red Cross in Baghdad.

Going to Poynter, I had a pretty set idea on what I wanted to learn. And multimedia wasn't really high on my list of priorities because my paper back home seemed hell bent on having the world's worst (and ugliest) newspaper website.

In a happy coincidence however, they revamped the site to give it a more streamlined and multimedia intensive look, giving me the impetus to actually learn more about multimedia myself.

And we certainly did learn about multimedia. There was so much information given to us that at times I felt my brain would just go kaboom! Soundslides, Audacity, Audioboo (for my Iphone), Bubbleply and the entire battery of online tools we got from Ellyn Angelotti (though most of them aren't available outside the U.S.) all open up such an array of storytelling possibilities for reporters. I'm still so excited about them!!!

And it wasn't only multimedia. Roy Peter Clark focussed on plain, old-fashioned writing skills and that was just as interesting, challenging and exciting as all the multimedia sessions. After all, no matter what happens, I'll always consider myself a writer first and foremost.

One of the most unexpected things was the heavy focus on training our fellow reporters when we go home. I really enjoyed this part, especially since I do enjoy guiding and mentoring my younger colleagues anyway. To be actually given tools and knowledge to do this better was an enriching experience. To be given these tools by folk as seasoned as Bill Mitchell and Paul Pohler was both humbling and uplifting. Humbling because seeing them in action made me realise how far I had to go if I really want to be a good teacher and mentor. Uplifting because it showed me that these gentlemen, men who'd been there and done that, were still humble, approachable and down-to-earth despite their experience and their achievements.

I took what I thought was a vacation to Disneyworld with Hoon after our Poynter session. However, I - quite cleverly if I do say so myself - managed to sell the idea to my editor. On top of that, I also managed to work in a multimedia slideshow to go with it. Not bad, huh?

I've managed to also get quite a nice gig at work now - doing club reviews. So, essentially, I'm going to be paid to eat, drink and be merry. Not the worst job in the world.

Life's looking good.

Bullshit, bullshit and yet more bullshit.

Is it just me or has my newspaper's claim to being the most literate (a position not too difficult to achieve in Malaysia) paper in the country gone to the dogs lately?

Yes, we are BN flunkies. But at least we've (almost) always been BN flunkies who wrote in polished, grammatically accurate and intelligent-sounding English.

The quality of the writing these days however - and this is down mainly to one culprit - has made us the laughing stock of many a reader, blogger and reporter out there.

Using multi-syllabic words and lengthy sentences is a tricky enough proposition when the writer knows what he's writing about and has a good command of the language.

When the writer doesn't and has, at best, a tenuous grip of English (and reality, judging by the content of his comments), the results are farcical articles couched in absurd turns of phrase (like 'Anwar Ibrahim moshes his way surrealistically to the House') and totally inappropriate usage of words (like 'cadre' to describe an individual).

Here's my particular favourite - 'If you are to base last week’s rampage of putting the blame solely on the MACC and implicating senior Government leaders, Pakatan Rakyat minions will insist no less than a guilty verdict, that some MACC perp pushed Teoh Beng Hock out of the 14th floor to his death for no reason other than wanting to torture the young man.'

Forget about the incredibly unwieldy length of the sentence. Forget about the weird choice of words and the inappropriate use of the second comma.

Just think about the last part of that sentence - 'some MACC perp pushed Teoh Beng Hock out of the 14th floor to his death for no reason other than wanting to torture the young man.' Is it just me or is pushing somebody to his death a little counterproductive to torture? I mean, you ain't gonna get no joy out of torturing a dead man, are you?

I can understand grammatical slips. I'm as guilty of bad grammar as the next person. Not all of us know when to use the semicolon instead of the comma, whether to hyphenate the words or not and when to use '...' instead of "...".

But what I don't get is why use so many big words when you can say the same thing more succintly and clearly with small words. What are people like this trying to prove? That they're clever? Even Hemmingway and Orwell were able to get by without the 'benefit' of such idiotic bells and whistles, for crying out loud!

If they would just google their name, they'd find out what people actually think about their 'command' of the language. I'd prefer to be repeatedly kicked in the balls while at the same time have root canal work done without anaesthesia rather than be subjected to an article like that. Seriously.

Even more baffling is how such shameful goings-on can...well...go on, with absolutely no intervention by the editors and the powers that be. Toeing the party line is one thing. Doing it in such a shambolic manner is another entirely. When us 'normal' reporters fuck up our articles, they usually end up on the wall of shame at the office. But when some people routinely inflict grevious bodily harm on the English language, the result is an online posting trumpted on the home page of the newspaper with the grand tag of 'Online Exclusive' attached. It would be funny if it weren't so damn embarrassing.

There are so many good and potentially good writers in the company. Writers with wit, grace, insight and charm. Many of our sub-editors are handy with a pen too. Yet, it is the grotesque work of certain twerps that we are promoting. Why? Why? Wwwwhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy????????

The paper is moshing its way surrealistically to the bottom of the junk heap.

My week as a shutterbug.

<---- This is probably my favourite picture ever taken. I love the emotion.

It's been a good couple of weeks at work. The training plan that I worked out with Elisa and Christopher saw me spending a week in the photo desk right after my stint at the editorial desk was over.

I had really been looking forward to this because the new camera had given me photography fever. In a big way. I've been so taken up with it that I spend hours online looking up Steve McCurry pictures (Thanks for pointing out to his website to me Kamsie!), and visit websites that give photography tips.

The craze has gotten so bad that I'm beginning to see the world in terms of pictures! I'd be minding my own business, walking down the street and then I'd see a person, a tree, an animal or even something like a doorway or a window and I'd get immediately excited about how it would look in a picture. Then I'd cuss myself out for not having my camera with me at the time.

<---- This father-son moment at the Central West End Art and Taste Fair brought back memories of my own childhood.

But anyway, back to work. The week spent in photo desk was fascinating, probably the most educational time I've had since coming to the Post-Dispatch.

I covered the Central West End Art and Taste Fair, the Missouri Botanical Gardens' 150th anniversary and adventurer Dan Cook's visit to St. Louis, among others.

<--- I experimented with being arty-farty. Not too bad, if I do say so myself. :)

Some of the pictures were used as slide shows online while others were published in the paper. The week culminated with me being sent for an assignment on my own (the previous ones had me shadowing Elie Gardner). I was assigned to do a portrait of a lady who collects and makes blankets for sick kids in hospitals. The assignment went well and the picture got published a week later.

All in all, I emerged from my week as a photographer with a greater understanding of the technical aspects of photography, such as how aperture, shutter speed, lighting, etc affect the quality of a picture. At the same time, I also managed to develop my 'eye' for a picture better, improving my composition and framing skills.

<---- What's Oscar de la Renta or Versace compared to the beautiful gowns mother nature dresses her children in?

To me, these skills are very important because I want to ultimately become a self-contained journalist who's output will include articles, pictures and multimedia and will need minimal, if any, editing before being ready for the paper or website.

With the added knowledge and increased confidence in my photography skills, I'm just that little bit closer to getting to where I want to be.

Once the photography week was finished, I went back to the newsdesk only to find that Iran was in the throes of its post-election unrest. Christopher suggested I do a story on local Iranians and how they felt about what was going on in their homeland.

Getting the story done was a little tricky, because I didn't have any connections here. I got one contact from fellow reporter Doug Moore, but the guy didn't want to be interviewed. I also tried going to a mosque to see if I could find anybody. The first time, nobody was there. The second time, the only one there was the imam, who said the last time he had been interviewed, the report got skewed, resulting in him losing his job and being interrogated by the CIA. Needless to say, he didn't want to talk.

So, I googled up Iranian restaurants in St. Louis and started from there. I spoke to the owner of the restaurant and once I had interviewed her, asked her for other contacts in the area. From then onwards, it got progressively easier.

Their stories were compelling and I think the editors agreed with me because they decided to out it on the front page. :) One of my stated goals in my fellowship application was that I wanted to get a front page story for the paper I would be working at. Looks like that goal has been achieved a little ahead of time.

And so, as July beckons, I'm working on what has become something of a pet project for me. As always, I'm a little paranoid about giving out details of a story before it's published. But let me say this - the angle is interesting and if the pieces fall into place, it'll be an interesting story and hopefully my second page one. :)

Missouri meets nasi lemak.

I'd promised Elisa and Elie nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis. No, wait. Let me correct that. I'd tantalised Elie and Elisa with descriptions and pictures of nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis.

Upon hindsight, it wasn't the smartest thing I've done. Setting the expectations so high was asking for trouble. The pressure that came with cooking the best possible nasi lemak (well, the best nasi lemak a bachelor living in a foreign country can cook anyway!!) had me in a dither for more than a week.

Even organising the dinner wasn't easy! Everybody's schedule seemed to clash and we couldn't seem to find a single night when everybody was free. Somehow, we finally decided on last night and the only casualty was Jeff, Elisa's husband. Those who could make it were Elie, Repps, his wife Stacey and Elisa. Also present was Derrick, the guy who was repairing my computer. But since he was allergic to shrimp and couldn't eat, let's not count him.

So, anyway, I got lucky on Monday, when I found pandan leaves, some decent looking coconut milk, lemongrass and even banana leafs (to line the plates with) for my Malaysian meal. It seemed that I had every single thing I needed to make the dinner a success and I decided on shrimp sambal.

But, the omens didn't look good from the moment I woke up today. I went online early in the morning to read up on background for my assignment today. Then some stupid software update came from my Internet service provider and the bloody thing just lobotomised my entire operating system! Kaput! My whole computer died! Finito! Adios amigo!

I freaked out! My songs (there are 19,000 of them now!), my pictures (God knows how many thousand of them I have!), my videos, my documents, my files....I could see them all disappearing in a puff of smoke in the shape of the Internet explorer logo.

And that was just the beginning. It just went downhill from there. I got lost three or four times on the way to Ballwin (a nearby city) due to highway closures. I reached there only to find that the place I was aiming for was closed. Then I got lost three or four times on the way back. Embarassingly, I ended up in the same place I got lost on Monday when I was shopping for food. So much for the convenience of GPS...

There were other speed bumps during my day as well, and all these led my superstitious heart to believe the nasi lemak dinner was doomed.

In the beginning it seemed like everything was going to be alright. The nuts and anchovies turned out fine (but then again, if I can't even fry the bloody things right, I've got no business attempting nasi lemak!), the eggs were boiled perfectly and the cucumbers were just on the right side of crisp.

<--- (The rice looked absolutely fine BEFORE it was cooked!)

And then came the rice. I had bought the best possible quality of rice and the best possible coconut milk i good find. I estimated how many people would be there and decided that 4 cups of rice would be enough. Which meant 8 cups of milk. Only prob was, that would take everything right up to the brim of the rice cooker.

Against all the alarm bells jangling in my head, I put it to cook, the edges of the milk coming crazily close to overflowing from the cooker. I said a little prayer and left the rice to its own devices while turning and addressing the shrimp.

The shrimp sambal was a little tricky, coz the lime that i used as a tamarind substitute turned out to be too sour. But, nothing I couldn't balance out with a dash of sugar.

I hadn't even finished with the sambal when I heard the pop of the rice cooker button and knew my coconut rice had been shot to shit. One look confirmed it. Instead of a beatiful, moist and rich bed of pearly white grains, I saw glob of crummy-looking, 1/4 cooked crap which was basically inedible.

Btw, Derrick the computer guy was on hand to watch me freaking out.

So, a little McGyver action was called for. I chucked out half the rice (oh how it hurt me to waste the Thai jasmine rice like that!) and put the rest back on to boil and quickly decided that if it got screwed up again I'd just make normal rice.

Thank God, it was okay the second time around. I decided that if that wasn't enough for the gang, I'd just make another batch later.

The next problem was the flies and the smell. The shrimp paste (belacan) I used stank up not only the whole house, but also the whole corridor of the 5th floor and the whole elevator for good measure. The stench attracted a swarm of flies (the first flies I've seen in St. Louis!). Arrghhhh!

Stashing all the food where the smell wouldn't escape, I went on a merry run around the house trying to chase the flies out. Have you ever tried herding flies? Not the easiest exercise around, let me assure you. In fact, I would not be surprised at all to find that I have one hardy soul still clinging on to the edge of my couch or something.

Even more embarassing was that when I was going down to pick up Elisa later, I bumped into one of my neighbours who was bitching about the smell in the place. She said it smelled like "week-old Doritos" or something.

I nodded sympathetically and said, "Thank God my apartment is okay. All I get is the smell of the food I'm cooking." (!!)

Ultimately though, everything turned out fine. The guests at my fancy dinner party (did I mention that everybody had to bring their own chairs coz I didn't have enough?) enjoyed the food, even though Elisa was worried at first about the smell (her exact words were that "it smelled like feet.") In the end, she even packed some home for Jeff, who's a big fan of spicy food (and whose Mexican chilli, which I ate a few weeks ago, actually made me sweat!)

<--- (The final result sure looks good though!!)

And so, I now am looking forward to cooking more for my friends without so much fear of messing up or not doing justice to Malaysia's awesome cuisine.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da...life goes on....

The Beast that is Blogging

I've always viewed blogging with equal amounts of trepidation and contempt. Trepidation because it mainly seemed to be a hotbed of malice, spite, bitching and backbiting. Contempt because most of what passes as "news" on blogs is a combination of hearsay, rumours and fairytales.

Yet, it's undeniable that blogging has caught on and irreversibly changed the Internet and the newspaper industry. Publications that at one point turned their noses up at blogging are now desperately trying to get onto the bandwagon, while papers that embraced it are now looking for the next best thing. Most have realised that blogging, coupled with proper journalistic ethics and principles, can be a powerful tool in reaching out to your audience.

One of my main aims when I came to the Post-Dispatch was to explore blogging and online journalism. While it's embarrassing to admit that the New Straits Times is still in the stone age when it comes to our online presence, it does mean that there are a lot of innovations which other papers have successfully implemented which we can cherry-pick from.

And so, these last couple of weeks were notable for the fact that I was stationed at the editorial page desk and churning out at least one editorial blog a day.

The experience has been fun and illuminating, and has raised just as many questions as it has answered.

What have I learnt? Well, mainly, and most importantly perhaps, I've learned to develop a thicker skin. Almost every blog written by the editorial writers, including myself, has been subjected to a barrage of criticism and complaints. This is even in cases where the blog entry is one which is, say, about the necessity of having a helmet law, or the need for stricter control regarding texting in vehicles. What appears to be a matter of safety and common sense for the writer can be a totally different issue for some people and they will vehemently, passionately defend their rights not to wear helmets or to text while driving.

This raises a very interesting question. If much of the blogging receives such a negative response, does that mean the writer is out of touch with the common man? Has he become too highfalutin for his own good? Or does it mean that it's only the crazies and the ones who have something bad to say that respond? Do the ones who agree with the ideas just read the post, nod and move on? For my own sake, I hope it's the latter and not the former. To be out of touch with your audience is to hasten the demise of your career as a journalist, methinks.

However, the blogsphere is amazing because it gives you an interactivity that you've never had before with your audience. Done properly, it can engender great discourse with a great flow of ideas from all sides.

I've experimented with this notion, both in the tone and in the content of my blogs. Unlike the other editorial writers, I am not an expert on any of the subjects debated on in America. As such, the tone of my blogs is that of a person who is seeking answers and asking questions of the audience instead of telling them how a thing is or trying to "educate" them on a certain issue. I've noticed that people seem to respond well to this. Maybe they feel good that their opinions are being sought or that their ideas seem to count to the writer. I don't know. But it is something which I'll seek to delve into more fully when I get back to Malaysia.

Blogs are also useful when you want to gauge what people's sentiments are on a certain matter. For example, I've been curious about the ethical debate surrounding undercover reporting in the US ever since I came here. But, most of the opinions I got were from journalists and pseudo-intellectuals who were dissecting the issue and I wasn't sure how attuned they were to the sentiments of the reading public.

So, I just put the question to the readers and got some pretty candid and revealing answers - which were quite often, totally different from the views of the people who dreamed up this notion of ethics.

Blogging is also as much about new techniques in presentation as it is about new techniques of communication. With blogs, you can include pictures, sounds, links, animations, videos and all manner of multimedia. It's an amazing playground for a journalist as it enables him to exercise his creativity to the fullest. While I haven't had much time to explore a lot about this element of blogging, I have a rudimentary grasp of the basic ideas and fleshing out this skill is on my wish list of things to pick up before I go home.

Tempus Fugit.

My oh my, how time does fly. Caught between settling down in St. Louis and my orgasmic throes of self-pity at being given the chance to experience what most people can only fantasize about, I almost missed the fact that it's been close to 2 months since I came to the United States and a month since I landed in St. Louis.
A lot has happened since then, some good, some bad and some pretty ugly.
Most of what happened in the first two weeks of May have already been addressed in my entry of two weeks ago. Here's what's happened since then.
Most importantly, I got my first few stories and bylines out in the paper. The first was about the Annie Malone parade - the second largest African-American parade in the country. I covered the parade as well as some violent clashes which occurred shortly after it, and which seemed to be a yearly ritual, as one look at the paper's archives showed me. (And by violence, I mean the bust-a-cap-in-yo-ass kind of violence!)
The next day, I assisted reporter Doug Moore to find out why this parade is plague by this kind of unseemly behaviour. My task was to call the CEO of the Annie Malone Center and do a quick phone interview, which I did. The guy was quite defensive, despite me trying to point out to him that the intention of the story wasn't to put any blame on the foundation. But, he wasn't really keen on listening. The good thing though, was that the story generated a huge amount of buzz online! Talk about making a quick impact!
What really took my by surprise though, was that the next day the bugger actually held a press conference to denounce the paper and me specifically for being racist!! He said the only reason we covered the story was coz it was a black parade! Crazy! It amused me and pissed me off in equal measure. Amused me coz I think he thought I was a white boy (another reason to hate my name!!). Pissed me off coz I'm not racist! A line-up of my ex-girlfriends would resemble the bloody United Nations for crying out loud!
So, now I have one angry brother to join the legion of anti-Marc Indians from Malaysia. Great!
My story on an Indian temple project which never took off was also published, and it made the front page of the community section, I'm happy to say. :) That piece too generated quite a bit of buzz.
Unfortunately, things just kinda died off after that. I was asked to do a piece on Sri Lankans in the US after the fall of the Tamil Tigers, but i couldn't manage to find any Sri Lankans in St. Louis.
After that, I had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend in Atlanta with my uncle's family and felt even more depressed to come back to an office where everybody seemed to be working except me.
I began to get pretty depressed and agitated, not having anything to do. You know...idle minds being the devil's playground and all that jazz.
Happily, the week ended on a better note than it began. I had a meeting on Thursday with Elisa and my editor, Christopher Ave. There we thrashed out what my goals for the training would be. They included:
1) Improving my skills in writing columns and editorials
2) Working on investigative journalism
3) Working on photography and video skills
4) Improving my interviewing techniques

Ave and I both immediately got to work. I linked up with investigative reporter Joe Mahr, helping him out on the groundwork of a story he's doing. It gave me a chance to see how useful database management software can be for a data intensive story.
Ave hooked my up with Adam Jadhav, who'll train me on video later this week. He also set me up with the Editorial Desk, where I reported for work today. I'll be here on and off this week, and all of next week. And already I'm having fun. I did a piece today on abortion, which is sure to generate me oodles of hate mail. I doubt they can be any worse than what I received at the height of my infamy, but we'll see...
So, all in all, it's been a topsy-turvy two weeks. And something tells me the rollercoaster ride ain't over yet.

The Atlanta trip.

I went to Atlanta last weekend to visit my uncle. A friend from Malaysia was coincidentally also there to attend a biotech conference. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I brought them together. It was a great success as they hit it off immediately. We had a lovely time, visiting many places, eating some great home-cooked food, drinking some fine single-malt whiskey and staying up late at night every day to chit-chat. We visited Tallulah Gorge State Park, Lake Acworth, Coca-Cola Museum and Georgia Aquarium, among others. I stupidly forgot to charge my camera for the Coke and Aquarium trips, but here are some of the pictures from the lake and the park. Enjoy!

The photographer, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and eager to get on with the job.

One of the many stunning views of Tallulah Gorge State Park. 

The leaves on the forest floor make such a lovely pattern.

They were soon running for cover. It started raining cats, dogs and horses. 

Presenting Tallulah Gorge State Park..

And to think we Malaysians actually pay money for pine cones during Christmas. 

Wildflowers are planted all along the highway. Too bad I couldn't stop for a proper picture. :(

I just had to take a pic of this fence! Okay, I'll admit it. I had to take MANY pics of this fence!

Lake Acworth was stunning, to put it mildly. 

My new toy.

Well...I finally did it. I went out and blew a shitload of cash on something which I've always wanted for a long time. A really nice camera. To be more exact, a really nice Nikon D60, 10 megapixel machine, with two lenses - a 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm lens.
Elie, who took me to buy it and acted as my consultant, said that with this purchase, I will not need to buy another camera for years.
Funnily, actually just holding it in my hands gives me greater ideas about taking pictures, including composition, lighting and so many other things which I never even thought about with my old point and click Olympus.
I went on a walkabout at my neighbourhood yesterday and here are the results, along with the mighty machine that made it possible.

The table and bench look so dark and lonely compared to the greenery and brightness outside.

A fountain in front of a Jesuit Church. 
The flower though pale and colourless is nevertheless still beautiful.
I was told that this part of town is colourful, flamboyant and full of murals like this one because it's a gay district. If that's the case, I think we need more gay districts around!

I love how the bicycle melds into the scene so beautifully.

The Angel of Harmony sculpture at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. It's a beautiful piece, and the stuff that makes up its wings are actually chimes.

Another beautiful sculpture/fountain at the cathedral. Elie said the pic would have been better if there was somebody sitting on the bench on the right.

Straub's is the place you'd run to if you're living in the West End and need to urgently buy something for the kitchen. Shop there often though, and you'll find a pretty sizable hole burnt in your pocket.

Purty, purty fountain.

This is the most happening part of the Central West End, where I live. It's the intersection of Euclid and Maryland and this is where all the bars, restaurants and cafes are. A really cool place. Elie and I went for an afternoon mojito at one of the bars here last Saturday! :)

And of course, the thing that's made it all possible...

Bedding in at St Louis.

Well, it's my second weekend in St Louis and I'm beginning to settle down quite well. The going was tough at first, what with having to deal not only with a new job in a new company but also a new town, a new country and new friends. But, as time has gone by, I've begun to get more comfortable in my surroundings. The turning point, I think, was a potluck party (pic below) we had in the office to welcome me to the Post-Dispatch (It also turned out to be a surprise birthday lunch!). The party let me sit down with some of the people I had been introduced to previously and have get to know them better.

The next day, I went to a barbecue at one of our photojournalist's homes. That too was a good icebreaker, especially with the younger batch of reporters whom I'm expecting to meet more on a social level than I will many of the older staff.

And of course, there was a lovely dinner at the home of my mentor, Elisa Crouch last night. I'm not sure what I enjoyed the most - the food (spicy Mexican chilli!), the beautiful home or the enjoyable company.

But, this blog isn't about my skills as a social butterfly. It has to, as Katie said, answer three questions. These are:

1) What I did during those two weeks.

2) What I learned—any difficulties or triumphs I had.

3) How what I did and learned relates to my training plan and goals for the fellowship (or how it taught me something not in my training plan.)

Well, I shall proceed to try to answer these questions now.

Well, the first week was extremely slow. Most of the time, what I did was go out for lunches with various different editors. Though it was interesting (and flattering!) to have such attention lavished on me, it didn't translate to me actually getting to do any work at all for the first few days. I was basically just loitering around in cyberspace, checking emails, chatting, and playing silly games on Facebook.

At one point, it seemed like I had finally found an opening. This was when one of the editors, Kurt Greenbaum, took me out to lunch. The discussion we had led to me writing a blog for the paper which was generally well-received. Doing the blog was also an educational experience as I could see what editing tools they used and how much more control it gave you over the blog than just a normal posting software like the one you'd find on blogspot.com.

So, I thought that things would start flooding in after that and I'd be able to start rolling.

They didn't.

This got me even more frustrated and by the end of the week, I had begun to start feeling useless and depressed. Part of me understood that the editors would naturally be a little wary of giving me stuff, considering how I'm a strange dude from a strange land. Yet, the other part felt like screaming that I was just as capable as any of the people on their payroll and I would prove it if they just gave me a chance!

I wasn't being a complete vegetable though. I had a working lunch with the investigative reporter here, Joe Mahr. I threw some ideas at him and he seemed to think some of them had merit. He also took me to the county courthouse at one point to show me how he digs up court records to help him with his stories. This, I would say, was the single most useful thing I've learned since coming to the Post-Dispatch. It's something that just isn't done in my country and I'd like to go back and find out if it can be used as a journalistic tool. It also dovetails with my hopes of learning more about investigative journalism here.

Yet, it didn't detract from the fact that I still wasn't doing what I'd come here to do - which is to write.

However, my mentor/guardian angel was working feverishly behind the scenes to try to get me something to do. She buzzed about and put the word out to her fellow reporters that I would be glad to do any stories which they wouldn't have time to follow up. This paid off as one of the Jefferson County based reporters, Christine Byers, then tipped me off to a controversy regarding a Hindu temple development in that area.

Glad to finally start doing something, I pounced on it. I worked on it for a couple of days and sent it off to the editor overseeing me, Christopher Ave. I was feeling quite a bit of trepidation at this point, wondering if he would find it acceptable or below-par. Thank God, he didn't. He told me that except for a few minor things, it was pretty okay. It comes out on Wednesday and I'm totally excited to see it in print.

I think he might have also been glad to see that I wasn't totally hopeless and designed to merely be a passenger in the newsroom for the next five months, because he immediately assigned me to cover a massive parade on Sunday. It's called the Annie Malone parade and it's the second largest African-American parade in the country. There're also scenes of violence and murder there every now and then and it looks like it's going to be anything but boring. I'm really looking forward to attending it tomorrow.

Just me.

Sometimes a cliche says it best. In this case, the cliche that would best describe my situation would be time flies.
It seems like only yesterday that I was boarding the aeroplane to America with such trepidation in my heart. In reality, more than a month has passed.
In the past month, I've learnt many new things, made some friendships which I think will be lifelong ones, and had quite a few experiences.
Yet, looking at the big picture, I guess you could say that I've barely begun. One month has passed, and five still remain ahead of me before I return to home and hearth.
I've come to the business end (my how easily the cliches flow) of the fellowship, where I actually knuckle down to work.
Things are slow right now, with the editors at my new paper trying to feel me out and get a rough idea of my skills, attitude and aptitude. Or at least, that's what I think. If not, it just means that they have no idea what to do with me!
It's a little frustrating because I'm feeling quite underworked and useless. And with every passing day that I don't do something productive, I feel the lethargy growing, like some odd species of vine that has clung to me and is now enveloping my body with its creepy tendrils.
There's also the lack of a social network and support system, something which I always thought I never needed - until I came here.
Back home, I always prided myself on being independent and not really needing anybody to really mollycoddle me. In my more fanciful moments, I imagined myself to be some heroic lone wolf character.
But, being displaced to a strange city in a strange country full of strange faces, I realise how important my social network is to me. I didn't feel it so much back at the university because I at that point had my comrades around me.
But now, as I come home to four grey walls and listening to the thundering silence of my mobile phone, I am beginning to understand loneliness.
Being so alone makes me realise how much the people I gather around me mean to me. Family...friends...without these people, it feels like I don't really have an identity. It's as if I cease to become myself when these people are no longer beside me.
Yet, it's also beautiful in a way. But it's a kind of terrible, consuming beauty. Why? Well, this solitude leaves you with nothing but your thoughts. And if a person can't live alone with his thoughts, then that person is damned. But if he can, then he is truly at peace.
Soon, I'll start knuckling down to work. Soon, I'll start making friends. But for now, I'm alone and it's an interesting experience.

My Year In Review

2008 was more than just 365 days connected to each other by virtue of their places in the calendar. It was, as all other years before it were and as all other years after it will doubtlessly be, full of drama, full of joy, of sadness, of pathos, of tragedy, of excitement, of dullness. In short, it was life.
Many things happened, naturally. But the one defining moment that stands out above all the rest was the passing of Kuldeep. His untimely death brought into sharp focus how fragile and tenuous life actually can be. Now, months from the actual incident, not a day goes by when I don't think of him, or miss him or wonder if he's really gone.
His death, and the subsequent devastation in wrought on his widow, Manjit, made me think of what would happen to me, of how I would react, when the time came for my father to slip the mortal bonds of earth. He's the most important person in the world to me and if I could, I would want him with me forever. But, that is not the nature of things and he too eventually will go. But, the thought of being orphaned, of losing his wise words or ready smile terrifies me. It really does.
It was ironic that Kuldeep died exactly a day after I went bungee jumping. The moment I jumped from the platform and into space, trusting only the uncertain hold of a bungee cord, was one in which I felt utterly exhilarated and completely joyous. The uncertainty of it all - the possibility, however remote, of a messy end, was like an intoxicant, an aphrodisiac and it was a sublime experience and made me alive as I'd never felt before. And the next day, my friend died.
In terms of work, it was a year of new experiences, both good and awful. While not exactly covering myself in glory, I acquitted myself reasonably well and worked my pants off to try and bring in the best stories I could. Of course, everything good I did was marred by one moment of arrogant idiocy, marked by a published piece which was greeted by a righteous torrent of abuse from the not-so-adoring public.
After that, whatever I did seemed to be an effort to make up for that sin, to purge that stain on my record and on my soul. Yet, nothing ever seemed to do it and I'm slowly resigning myself to the fact that it was a very precious lesson learnt at very high a cost.
2008 was also a year of friends gained, friends lost and "friends" discarded. Besides Kuldeep, I lost two of my best friends to totally differing fates. Taran got engaged in mid-year and will be getting married later this month. We've grown from boyhood to manhood together, known each other for 15 years and have seen or spoken to each other almost every day of our lives. I'm happy for him - that he's found his soul mate, but am a little melancholic in the knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again.
Dominic, on the other hand, has become a sailor. This is the same guy who helped me through some of the toughest times in my life, and who's become my pillar of strength and my source of advice. Suddenly he's gone and it's as if I'm floundering without a rudder.
Yet, life is nothing if not balanced. While my two best friends slowly fade to black, others step up to take centrestage. Lovely people like Jacky and Melissa, like Audrey E, like Leslie, like Eve, like Darshini, like Ranjeetha - these people have become more important to my well-being and my sanity. A lot of people flit in and out of our lives, seasonal friends who are good for that period of time. I don't know and wouldn't presume to say that these people are above being just seasonal buddies, but I have a good feeling about them.
As for friends discarded, what need I say? Life's too short to waste on people who have no respect for you, only come to you when they need something or only use and abuse you to feel better about themselves. Naturally, this category would include people I wouldn't care to name. It's easy to feel pissed off about it, but I'm trying to take the high ground and just think that it was good while it lasted.
Finally, we come to the issue of l'amour. Always one to bedevil me, this year has seen it taken to new and more ridiculous heights.
From having a blazing row with my family (simply because of my own stubbornness) over somebody who was patently wrong for me and over a relationship I knew would not last, to going against my usual nature and falling deeply in lust with somebody and engaging on a torrid affair despite knowing the damage it could cause, to finally rounding up the year making an amazing connection with somebody and probably falling in love with her only to be buggered by the problem of "bad timing" - 2008 has thrown a lot of curve balls my way.
But, that was in the year past. It's 2009 now, and we're at the tail end of the first decade of the new millennium. And what have I decided to do?
I've decided to look internally, and to the higher power, for the answers and not just float along with the tide.
I've decided to be in more control of my emotions, to guard my heart with greater care.
I've decided to save my time, my energy and my love for those that deserve it and to be cleverer with how I handle the "hi-bye" friends.
I've decided to try to curb my negativity and self-destructive tendencies.
I've decided to use my 6 months in America to learn as much as I can, experience as much as I can and come back a better man.

New Year resolutions have a way of being routinely broken, which is why I hesitate to lump these decisions under that category. So, I'll just call them things I need to change about my life, for my own sake.

~ Live well, laugh often, love much ~ Italian proverb.

Christmas and other ghosts

It's the same story every year. As Christmas swings slowly by, I begin to get into the mood by blaring out carols on every available music player. Throughout Advent, the excitement and anticipation builds up, thanks in no small part to the frenzy of shopping, music and parties.

But then, as the day itself dawns ever nearer, the delightful mania loosens its grip and is replaced by what can best be described as a hazy sense of melancholy.

Christmas can be the best of times and the worst of times. The best of times because that is often when all that's good about a person's character comes to the fore. When peace and goodwill become more than mere words. When giving is indeed better than getting. When we truly take pleasure in other people's joy.

Come Yuletide, my mind always trudges back to the Christmases of my childhood and my early youth. Half remembered images from when I was a toddler - like the trip to Sungai Wang in 1985, where i took a polaroid with Santa on his sleigh.

Crystal clear memories of the preparations we would undergo when grandpa was still alive. The records that would be playing. Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Ray Conniff, and always on the night of the eve, - Christmas Bells.

The fun we kids would have when opening up our presents on the day. The bread pudding Aunty Nicole would make, rich and dripping with brandy and with creamy caramel coating the sides and bottom of the pudding.

In my teens, it would be the excitement of midnight mass, when all the plain Janes from Sunday school would magically transform into lovely swans and how we boys would go around, huge foolish grins on our faces, wishing all and sundry a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I still wonder when exactly everything changed. When that sense of innocence was lost. When the real world started intruding on Christmas. And with the whens come the whys, the hows and the whats. Each question breaking the heart a little more that the one before.

The tragedy of every passing Christmas for me is the knowledge that as I grow up, grow older and grow wearier, the magic of Christmas dies a little bit more. As I see how everything around me - from the people, to the memories, to the world itself - changes and becomes a little more cynical and a little more bitter, I long for the past and wonder if the future will bode better or worse for me, for my loved ones and the world.