Korea - the 1st day - 1st part

24th October 2006

KLIA, me and my sister are taking Cathay Pacific flight from KL to HK. we were there around 3.30pm to catch the 5.55pm flight. Reached HK airport by 10pm to transit to Incheon by 12.20am.

so for 3 hours there, we wandered around the magazine shop where i bumped into some porn magazine that displayed shamelessly (haha), this amazed me! then we rest at the food court area... didn't buy any food, my sis slept for a while, and i was busy preparing my powerpoint presentation with my laptop there. it was so quiet, 90% of the stalls have already stopped their business for the day, the cleaning ladies came out to work. so we left that area and proceed to the departure gate 25 for our flight.

25th October 2006

The flight was on time. we had our supper on plane and i was hoping to catch "the lake house", but was too tired and dozed off. later about 3am i was awake by this severe headache, more like a migraine or electric shocks, that maybe due to the pressure change... didn't know i have that problem. but luckily we were about to arrive at Incheon in less than half an hour time... so i rubbed my head.

We arrived 3.40am or Korea time 4.40am, and in this early morning, me and my sister were stopped by the imigration officers and were detained for interrogation. i was so blurred i didn't know what happen but just follow the direction given by the officer and went into the room. later i saw my sister walked in too. the female officer hold a small microscopic lens and inspected every single page of my passport, same thing to my sister's too. the male officer who's infront of my sis kept on asking her what's her purpose of going into Korea. i found the whole thing funny though. after about 10 minutes i finally realized i could be held here for a long time... so i asked the lady what seems to be the problem?... then only she threw me a smile and explain that Malaysian passports are easy to forge. mmm... so by then i was a suspected "jump aeroplane" person. then finally she asked me the million dollars question of why i went to Korea, so i answered her for conference. her eyes sparked a bit and asked for any documentation to prove, for that i passed her the invitation letter of the conference. then another officer (of higher rank) was called in and after a while we were released.
about 5.30 in the morning, nothing was opened, we wandered the airport to familiarize ourselves and to look for any information booth. the first thing we did is to rent a handphone of GSM system and insert my sis's sim card in. Tada it works wonderfully, it was so easy.

Then we found a spot and sat down, can't sleep at all... i guess we were too shaken by the imigration drama. haha. we waited until 6.30am when most of the counters and shops started business. we approached a few airlines like Korean Air and Asiana Air for tickets from Gwangju to Jejudo after my conference, but to my surprise they were ALL FULL... which made us panicked cause it would ruin and totally change our traveling plan...

Here is our original plan:
25/10 - morning take bus to Cheongju, reach there by afternoon for Hotspring and flower rice. evening take bus to Namwon to stay a night.
26/10 - morning going to Jirisan national park to hike and to experience autumn red maple forest. afternoon take bus to Gwangju and i'll be able to attend the welcoming dinner.
27-29/10 - my conference. then by 29/10 evening we take plane to Jeju
30-31/10 - tour around Jejudo and shall take the earliest flight on 31/10 back to Seoul/Gimpo airport, then the rest of the day until 1/11 will be at Seoul before our flight back to Malaysia on 11am.

but now, if there's no ticket from Gwangju to Jejudo, we sorta wanna change our plan to go Jejudo first then take a reverse plan to tour all the way up north... so we checked with airline and it seems that all flights to Jejudo from Incheon was also FULL until late evening.... OMG!!

We got panicked, until 7.30am when the famous travel information booth opened, we quickly ran there to seek for advice... i shall skip all the craps... and go straight to 8.15am... yes, we spent 45 full minutes there asked this and that... there must be 10 different plans, and we finally settled to go to Cheongju by airport limousine bus (original plan). the girl at the counter was very helpful. she phoned to another person and confirmed that there's a direct bus from Cheongju to Jirisan national park and we can stay a night at Baemsagol Valley which is located inside the Jirisan. she pointed us to the correct gate and taught us patiently how to buy ticket from which counter and how much... so we just followed and finally got our tickets 8.30am... then only we realized we were so HUNGRY. my sister quickly ran to a shop to buy roti and milk while i went to find the correct bus and hold it. it was a pain in the a** for there's no English word at all and people there don't speak English at all. so i have to compare the Korean words printed on my ticket to every bus and finally found it... my sister ran in on time and the bus left punctually 8.30am... phew....

the girl at the information booth told us it will take 4 hours to reach Cheongju, so we expected to reach there by 12.30pm. so we slept and slept. i woke up around 11am, and just a while later we arrived at Cheongju...
WAIT A MINUTE... aren't we supposed to only reach here by 12.30pm?? how come now only 11.20am dah sampai pun??

anyway, since we were already here, so nevermind lah, early is better than late mah... we didn't suspect anything wrong. then just when we stepped down the bus, we saw another tourist information center, so we happily went in hoping to get more information. the girls inside the center were so so helpful and friendly. only 1 girl - i think called Minghyang or MingYung or something, their name sounds all the same... - who can speak good English. and shockingly to us, there's NO direct bus from Cheongju to Jirisan as been told to us by the girl in Incheon!!!! *add thunder storm sound here*

So, we showed Minghyang the plan laid down by the Incheon girl, and she told us laughingly that we have come to the WRONG city!! the Incheon girl meant "Jeonju" and not "Cheongju"... pengsan terus...!!! no wonder so fast reached liao lah, kononnya Jeonju is yet another hour away from Cheongju... GOODNESS!

But not to worry, Minghyang said, since you are here might as well visit some of the tourist spots here lor... she recommended some fortress and paper museum, but we were having the hotspring and flower rice in our mind. then she checked checked and come back to us with yet another shocking news - if we want to catch the last bus to Jirisan, we only left a little less than 1&half hours in Cheongju, which means hotspring and flower rice are just too far from us!! so we suggested take taxi there, we rather pay more money than doing nothing there... so this very helpful girl walked us to the taxi stand across the road and checked with the driver, and again we were so disappointed to find out that to take taxi to the flower rice will take us 20 minutes, to and fro 40 minutes, which means we only have less than 40 minutes... sigh...

no choice, Minghyang then suggested us to take bus to the nearby paper museum. we waited at the busstop where i suddenly miraculously know how to read Korean words on the electronic board and found out we have to wait for another 22minutes before the next bus arrived. i confirmed it by miming to the ajumma (aunty) there... so me and sister decided not to go anywhere but to find ourselves some lunch and hop on to the earlier bus to Jeonju then to Jirisan.

We went to the nearest shopping mall, if not mistaken it's LotteMart... and immediately my sister was all hyped up! why? because she found a bakery called "Paris Baguette", not because the bread there are of any special but because the spokeperson for the bakery is Hyun Bin - her idol. she snapped snapped some photos, and the ajumma inside started to giggle and a few of them started to gossip. we left the bakery without buying anything.

then we stopped by a fastfood restaurant because we can't find anything decent to eat. so we decided to have something safe. it's called Lotteria, and we have a rice burger with some cheese roll and mixed salad. quite yummy the rice burger. not bad not bad. for 2 sets of the meal, it costs us Won8500, which is RM34 (expensive also hor). only problem is we went thru hard time explaining what we wanted to order cause again they don't speak English not even a single word... sigh...

Then we went back to the information center, told Minghyang that we didn't go anywhere, she was so surprised... we took our bags and laptop that we left there earlier and proceed to the bus terminal.

This time we were extra careful when purchasing ticket, cause we didn't want to end up in Seongju or Keongju. so we have already asked Minghyang to write us our destination and plan in Korean on a piece of paper.


We went to the counter and showed them the paper and asked for 2 tickets. and this time we were quite sure we got on the correct bus. i think we must have left Cheongju around 2pm. We should reached Jeonju 3.30pm so that we can catch the 2nd last bus to Baemsagol by 3.30pm too, or else we would have to wait for the last bus which was 5.05pm... and yes, that day must be our unlucky day, we reached Jeonju 3.35pm, and the 2nd last bus has left....

to be continued...

The early morning radio show

It was 19th October, a fine thursday night. i have just finished watching "Open season" on IMAX and have been both amazed and tired of experiencing the 3D effect (again, last time was "Polar Express"). After saying goodbye to my friends in Times Square, i sped my way to Angkasapuri, get lost for a while cause the hidden entrance was so freaking hard to find! finally by 11.20pm, i managed to, after much worried and frustrated, find the glitzing grand entrance of our famous government owned radio and television stations - RTM.

This was not my first time here, last time i was visiting my friend who worked there as news editor, so i was very well awared of the procedure of surrendering my identity card and some interrogation... haha... like visiting palace like that. then i walked my way toward the radio building and looked for AiFM. when i walked pass a whole stretch of radio studios, i can feel the coldness, not only from the centralized air-cond, but also of the clean empty well-lit corridor, which really was lacked of human warmth, and i wonder to myself - who would want to work here? it's the feeling of loneliness that killed me.

Half way through the corridor i found AiFM, i showed myself in to the guest room and i saw JiAn (the DJ) and Ho YuHang (film director) were inside the recording studio doing the 1st 2 hours of the show. I was scheduled for the 2nd half which is very much graveyard 12-2am. it was a torture for old man like me to stay up and awake after 12am nowadays, and of course the DJ noticed this, so this has been some sort of practical joke for the programme that whole morning... sigh...

so, how was the show? i must say... boring... maybe because of the topic we discussed, or maybe because of the mode of delivery, or maybe it's due to the content that lacks depths, or even maybe due to the late hours, i can't help yawning...

2 films we discussed. the 1st hour we talked about "the sound of music", the ever ever classic musical. and the 2nd hour we talked about "dancer in the dark", the ever ever cult musical. i told JiAn that for the classic i will mainly focus on my nostalgic but faint memories of watching it, hence it'll be mainly personal, but for the cult i would really like to discuss the inconventional usage of musics as motif and style. but i have to confess that i was and am still disappointed that we ended up recalling the plots and playing the songs.

i have to admit that i'm not familiar with the show at all... maybe his format is like that - talking about plots... but i'm sure that's not the case with other guests like Tsai MingLiang or Yasmin Ahmad... maybe it's me... i don't know... maybe because of the DJ's lack of interest in musical genre. OK, i was the one who wanted and suggested the topic - musical films, and JiAn already told me that he wasn't too familiar with musicals, and even he is kinda cynical towards musics in films. He believes that if films can touch people without music, why do we need music? and he also expressed his disgust of the "abuse" of music in most Hollywood films. i dare not agree at all.

here's my arguments! i studied music, i played piano, i learned music theory, i have my diploma in pianoforte performance. to me, music is an expressive channel. musicians use music to express their love, hate, passion, anger, without the help of visuals. musics has its own history thousand of years before film. So, i always believe that if use properly, music can be a very effective element in telling film stories. let's not condemn music simply because a few films overload with meaningless music. i can give you tons of examples, but i guess i'll save this for future post.

that's the reason why i would like to talk about musical on his show - to argue for the importance of music in movie, and to talk about few films that creatively use music... but we ended up talking craps... i was also deeply disappointed of myself not being able to uphold my intention due to the domination of the DJ, just like i was told by a few friends that the DJ was doing perhaps 80% of talking. it is not easy to cut in an unplanned speech of an agressive DJ. i was known as the most, if not second most, sarcastic lecturer in my university, or even my ex-college... but i was shot down that night - for my age, my job as lecturer in an "university", and my all-so-mainstream taste of films - which i unwillingly laugh it off during the show. it's pointless to argue with a young and talented DJ, which only will make me 'sound' shallow on air.

ok, i'm not here to backfire or anything, if i want to talk bad about this i may go on and on for 2 nights. in fact i'm flattered that an unknown guy like me was invited to a national radio to talk about films, and i admire his (the DJ) passion towards films - i mean how many people will dare to host a radio show about films? more so, with an intention to promote local films and independent and alternative films. but i told JiAn over the phone 2 weeks before the show that radio is just not THE medium to do show like this. i meant to say that radio is mainly an "audio" medium, hence it is weak to convey a "visual" medium like films. Television will be a perfect medium. but i still think the show is necessary looking at the lack of programme of this kind. some TV programmes are targeting movies, but they are just a mere promotional tool to promote mainstream commercial movies, nothing critical. hence, i still think the shows should go on. so, gambatte JiAn.

I'm back!

ok, i "was" back last wednesday night. touched ground 7pm and damn drained out. Korea is okay, i have had so many wonderful experience and have done some soul searching too. so, all-in-all this trip is worth every single cent that i spent. i'll definitely go back again, maybe end of 2007 or 2008.

10 impressions about Korea & Koreans

1. They are driving in the different direction, so Malaysian license holders cannot drive there. and i have a hard time accustom myself to "look left" rather than "look right" when walk across roads! (nearly got banged few times)

2. Koreans are so good looking!! okay, apart from the surgery thing, they go out wearing great attires!! men wear formal tie with suits, girls all make-up and wear fancy dress... the view on the street is nice and eye-feasting.

3. Koreans are nice people. I'm not surprised if it's one of the countries with lowest crime rate. the atmosphere is so peaceful. even if you leave your laptop or handphone on the table, no one is going to steal it! stealing and cheating are just not any part of their lives.

4. Another prove is no one is going sit on the seat for handicaps or senior citizens on subway trains... i mean none!! unlike malaysia. even if the trains are totally full, the young and trendy and hip teenagers will not even sit on those seats!! i'm genuinely impressed!

5. They are really helpful people... ok, although most of them are of no help because they can't speak a word of English, but they are STILL helpful people. even if you have made known to them that you don't know Korean, they will still try to help you by speaking non-stop Korean, as if you somehow will miraculously understand them! hehe...

6. They are really warm people. Most time when we met a group of unlces and aunties, they ill extend their friendship, hand you some food and drinks, give you a ride, bring you personally to the place you ask for eventhough it means walking away from their work for 10 minutes!!!

7. Their food is always red in colour!! hehe... okay, and most of the food are vegetable, they seldom have meat. and Koreans love spicy and hot food!! some are so hot, i as malaysian also have to admit "kalah"... and yes, most of the food are also fermented... my sister on the way back told me that "the whole country has this fermented smell" and too much of the smell makes her sick!

8. cosmetic and facial masks are really cheap there!! no wonder people there have so beautiful and translucent skin texture! okay, i've bought a lot of facial masks too! :P

9. Korea is not a "friendly" place for foreign travellers, especially backpackers... cause it's really really hard to navigate around Korea for there is NO english words at all!! no english on road signs, billboards, notices, public transportation, ticket counters... and to make it worse, most Koreans don't speak English at all!!! so you better bring along your english-korean dictionary, or follow tour where the tour guide will do the job for you.

10. It's FREAKING expensive in Korea... bring a lot of dough or you shall starve to death!! one proper fried rice in Korea is close to RM20 per plate. a bottle of mineral water is about RM2.50. BBQ set for 2 person is close to RM200. youth hostel or even homestay are about RM100 per small room. proper hotel room cost about RM200 or more!!

Lost my voice...

i lost my voice. my throat was getting dry, there's sign yesterday. and this morning i woke up realizing my voice has gone... so i figure writing is my next solution. damn the bloody haze!

update...

school reopened, the kids are back to the circus, life is again full of endless classes, supervisions and meetings. but i guess it's time for me to step back to become an observer like before, i like to be a hunter and not otherwise.

many things happened/happen/happening recently, which got me again thinking and questioning about my next big move. after a short chat with Yasmin Ahmad over dinner yesterday, i suddenly relive my passion for filmmaking, yet again. i always like storytelling, i have tons of stories in my balding head urging to come out... but where is my passion? i'm waiting for a perfect timing, but i guess it will never be perfect. i just have to start somewhere.

Towards the end of the dinner, she asked, "what do you think constitutes good screenplay?" and it did sound like a test to me nonetheless. :) i was speechless, i struggled with my answer. being an educator, we have a syllabus to follow, we read books written by both academicians and industry people, and i don't think those are the answers to her. i know damn well about conflicts, characters, structures, climax, turn of events, subtext, context, whatevertext, blahblahblah! but the truth is, i was never fully convinced these are the ultimate answers to all screenplays.

perhaps i shall put it simply, "a good screenplay tells a story about people in an interesting way". and by no mean this statement is going to be conclusive, i'm still learning.

I'm going to Korea soon! :)

September 21st, 2006

Today i received a long awaited email from the Asia Culture Forum... finally, after 10 days delay, i've received their confirmation email... at first i thought i don't have a chance already, so i've already forgotten about the whole thing, and didn't do my preparation at all... now i've gotten it, i start to get panicked already!! i have only a little bit more than 2 weeks to write a FULL RESEARCH PAPER!!! gosh... how can i do it!!

but but but.... i need this... for my career, and also to go travel in Korea! so, i don't care... i'm going to break my butt this two week doing a fulltime research and writing and make it to the deadline to submit my full paper! and actually, i have no turning back already... my name and title have already been printed on schedule and website... so if i ever rejected them, i'm going to have a bad name!!! super tension...

here, my name is stated: http://www.asiacultureforum.org/cinema/01program.html


September 25th, 2006

Already bought ticket to Korea on 24th October, cost me RM17XX... sakit hatinya!! but all worth it lah. MATTA fair is so FULL of people, and korea trip is HOT HOT HOT... until the extend i was so worried that i might not even got 1 single ticket to go there at all!!! luckily, found this last 4 ticket on 24/10, rather than 21 or 22 that i originally plan. coming back on 1st of November... 8 days there, i shall enjoy to the max!! but now, it's time to continue writing my paper already... cheers!!

random stuffs ~~

finally my busy hectic days are (temporarily) over!! all the classes have been completed, all the courseworks have been marked, all the final exam papers have been submitted! so i shall enjoy my serene weeks to come, reading books that i've bought and borrowed last few months, and watching wayyyy overdued movies in my shelfs, and doing house chores that takes forever to be done!! -.-"

exam

invigilating is one of the lecturer's duties - although in local uni this thing will be conducted by the exam department... but i do enjoy invigilation. and some will ask WHY? simply bcoz i like to observe people. i have a habit of watching ppl's reactions to things, and be amazed how different everyone is and unique in their own way. and during extreme situation (like exam), it's even more interesting to observe...

some are scratching their head, forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, foot out of nervousness, regret and panic... some are quickly hynoptized by the question papers and doze off... some are looking at the invigilators constantly as if looking for inspirations or looking for chance to cheat and peek over others' paper... some are frowning maybe bcoz what they read were not what comes out, or they are trying hard to memorize all the mental map they have drawn but fail to remember... some are grinning maybe they have the "spot-on" questions or just out of plain desperation... some are constantly watching here and there trying to see if others are suffering just like them or waiting to build an alliance with others... some are just write and write non-stop as if they are JK Rowling working on her new prologue or epilogue (gosh how i hate marking long-winded answer scripts!!)...

well, conclusion is, that 2 or 2.5 hours are normally pretty entertaining ot an observer like me... sometimes when some funny actions appear, i can't help but grin... :P

of exam again

on my last day of invigilation, i was the relief invigilator - meaning if some (bloody irresponsible) lecturers fail to turn up, i have to takeover their (bloody) invigilating job!!! and yes, you guess correct - i ended up invigilating- UTAR mah... what do you expect??

and on my last duty of this semester, i caught someone cheating - so unexpected!! a uni student, hiding a finely written notes underneath his answer booklet, always looking around like scary cat, flipping his answer booklet suspiciously, and reading under the booklet in a weird weird angle - come on, tell me you are NOT suspicious!! (how smart!!)

well, i told the chief invigilator about this, and we decided to slowly take action.

well, being a buddhist (haha), i gave him another chance. i stood just in front of him for at least 15 minutes, i even looked straight into his eyes with a i-know-what-you-did-last-summer look in my eyes (i thot it is very obvious liao)... so i told myself any sane creature would have get the message already. then, someone at the back raised her hand, so i walked over to her and handed her a piece of A4 paper, then i turned back and walked in front again... and guess what? that boy was happily copy the answer again from his note.

so i told myself - you treat me like an idiot, so you shall be treated as one too!! i grabbed the note, grabbed his ID card and exam slip, and reported to the chief and handed him the evidence... DONE!!

no, not done yet, the chief then told me that since i'm the one who caught him, i have to write a report and pass it to the exam department... well, nvm, i'll do that since i'm a bit annoyed and pissed... then only to find out that not only i need to write the report, when the board hold a meeting to investigate or to decide their disciplinary action to this student, i'll have to be present too... WTH!!! i felt like i'm the one being punished for catching him!!

these aside

it has been fun catching up with frens - drinking tea and talking nonsense, and window shop... sometimes it's good to just chill...

of buddhism

well, i was lucky to be exposed to buddhism although i was borned in a taoist family. i bought the ideas of reincarnation, karma and doing good deeds. but i have never have any real motivations to explore these knowledge and really read the books...

i joined buddhist society back in uni, but just for a short 1 semester, then i proceed to the swimming team and life-saving society. i read books but failed to grasp the true and deeper meanings... no one to guide me, being the impatient person, i put all these books aside.

but recently, i've chatted a lot about buddhism with my fren and was happy with the knowledge he told me. he was so kind to lend me some books for me to read. well, this time i shall start with some "easy-learning" books so that i don't get "lost" so easily and then decide to stop again. no no no, this time is for longer time, hopefully for my lifetime!

of my parents and rat

one night, i woke up bcoz of nature-call. after returning to the bedroom and trying to sleep again, i heard a noise resemblance to book dropping on table... i got up, and see a big fat rat standing on my computer monitor rubbing its feet... ok, i made this up, i was too shocked to notice any of its actions at all... i think the rat must have been equally shocked by me too, so it jumped off the table and hide under my wardrobe. i was sitting on my bed thinking and panicking of what should i do next... then in a split second, it sprinted out from the wardrobe towards the door, and squeezed itself thru the tiny door gap and escaped! i felt so relief.... gosh, i'm so afraid of rats!!! :P

then the next morning i told my mom about this little rendezvous, she told me the rat also messed up the reading room and left some shites too... hahaha!! and she knows it has been hiding under the washing machine for quite sometimes and mess up the kitchen a little too... but this time it has stepped on my mom's nerve for messing up the reading. so my mom setup a trap, hanged a piece of fried squid - the ultimate bait for rat!!

we don't have to wait for long, the same night (which is yesterday), after a short 1 hour, the rat was in the trap! my parents said let's take the cage out and killed it tomorrow morning with boiling water... a chill sent thru my spines... "should we??" i asked in my heart... okay, my parents have done that before killing an "intruding" rat with boiling water... and i never had a problem with that last time... but i felt so sorry for this small animal this time... it has done nothing wrong, it's only living its most natural way, and does it deserved to be killed?? definitely no. and there's definitely another way of dealing with this than killing it.

i calmly suggest to my parents that why don't they release it tomorrow to somewhere far... my mom said it will return... then i said far far away lah... no reaction from them... well ok then, i will release it tomorrow on my way to work... they said ok... so settled!!

then later at night around 12am, i then felt bad again about this little creature - it has been placed outside the house, and what if it rains? (and yes it really rained last night in the wee hours of the morning) the rat will be so cold!! so i walked out from my air-conded room, and approached my dad... i told him let's go out and release the poor rat now. with an annoyed look, my dad refused as he still have his football match to watch... i said i just need him to accompany me coz it's late at night... well he told me why so "mah-fan" just kill it tomorrow... well nevermind then, i'll go out by myself lah - i told him.

so here i go, in the middle of the midnight... i drove myself and the rat out to the empty ground near a petrol station 5KM away from my house, and opened the cage. the small creature walked out calmly, turned back to look at me as if saying goodbye and make itself into the longkang. i said "amitabha" and may this return goes to my parents. i am happy for what i have done yesterday night... this is perhaps my little step to practice the buddha way.

this is so hillarious! :P

I have a good laugh yesterday, it lighted up my otherwise boring afternoon!

I have learned a lesson from a security guard

i was walking to the cyber cafe last saturday night. i parked my car quite far, so i have to walk pass this corner shoplot. there's a guard sitting in front of the shop. it was quite late, about 10pm, so the shop was already closed. i didn't take note what kind of shop is that, how come they have a guard for overnight... must be some big company huh... but, that's not my point. i saw this guard was holding a book and read. on closer look, he does not look local - not chinese, not malay, and not indian too... more like a mix Nepal-Bangladeshi kinda man. and again... that's not my point. my point is the book that he was reading... one glance, i gotta know already, it's a dictionary that he was holding!!! YES, a dictionary! an English-Malay dictionary!!

now, the moral of the story... we always have some stereotypic perception about these foreign workers that they are (sorry if my language is going to be inappropriate!!) lazy, not intelligent, criminal, uncivilized.... well, sorta, and we seldom see the other sides of them. that night, i have the pleasure to witness this - a man, searching for knowledge. he came to faraway land to seek fortune, or some are here simply to survive. they have a tough life back in their motherlands, they do not have the opportunity for good education, let alone comfortable life. yet, this guard that i saw, not only he is not lazy, he grabs whatever chances he got to improve himself.

i was standing there, stunned and somehow motivated!! --- i can do my PhD -- no problem at all!! i can get my resources much easier than the guard, i'm earning much better than the guard, i have my family and frens to support me, i got all the privilleges that the guard would never have... so what am i complaining about my life?? it seems that most of the time, the person/thing that hampers us is ourselves!!

i have learned a life lesson from a guard i met. have you?