Cita Cita

Apakah cita cita anda? What is your ambition?

This seems to be a perennial essay question favourite among our BM and English teachers when we were younger. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if teachers today still set the same question.

If memory serves me, I think I wrote that I wanted to be a teacher. Of course, all that changed when I discovered computers. My dad, on the other hand, was hoping I would be a lawyer. Considering that I can get quite emotional sometimes when getting into arguments, I don't think I would have made a very good lawyer.

I also thought I could be an electronics engineer, but a lot of the stuff about it wasn't intuitively obvious to me. Software and computer architecture, on the other hand, I could get my head around.

The other day, as I was running in a 10km race, I thought to myself that I wanted to achieve a certain timing for 10km before I hit 40. Then suddenly, I thought about my life and whether I am happy with what I have achieved so far.

Then I realized that life is a bit like the race I was running in. Does it mean that if I fail to get 1st position, I am a miserable failure? As I looked around, I realized that a lot of the people in the race are just happy to be running. They are running for the sheer joy of it, and to compete against themselves, trying to become better each time.

And I suppose life is also like that. As long as we're happy with what we're doing and what we have, it doesn't really matter that we're not number 1. No one should judge us, and neither should we ourselves against others. As long as we are happy with our own lives, what other people think do not really matter.

Of course, our cita cita should spur us on, but it should never push us to the point where we become miserable with our lives.

Sarawak Anthem

I am not sure how many of us may remember this, but in 1988 (our Form 5 year), Sarawak changed its state anthem.

From 1973 to 1988 the state anthem was "Sarawak Bahagia" and it went something like this:


Then from 1998 onwards it was "Ibu Pertiwiku", and it went something like this:


Somehow I preferred the newer version better, I found it more moving and sentimental :)


Just as a side note, for me coming from Sarawak to KL during the late 80's felt like going into a different country, everything was just so different. Now, as I watched the video of the anthem, I felt homesick and long once again for that place I have called home in my youth.