I started smoking at the age of 14. Nobody had any influence on my addiction to cigarettes when I started. It was that one night, I had a dream of smoking Benson & Hedges. It was a very nice feeling. The next day, I illegally jumped out of the school fence and bought myself a small pack of Benson and a box of matches. I smoked a stick and it was the same feeling as in my dream. I then became addicted.
The night on the same day, I was about to have my cigarette in the school toilet. To my surprise, I found some of my closest friends smoked too. They were very shocked in the beginning and then were very happy that I too smoke. It was a very memorial night.
For 28 years, I had nothing against smoking. In fact, I thought it was a moral obligation. It was the physical embodiment for my individual spirit. Smoking was the main reason why I had been very productive. Never had I questioned anything regarding deteriorating health or anything on the economical factors. To make it even worse, I used to point out that smokers are important to the nation’s economy as we pay ‘tax’. Non-smokers should even thank us for this. For some reason, friends just cannot argue with me.
Three months ago, something did happen when I was presenting a seminar where a gallant participant embarrassed me of my smoking addiction. Since then I started to rethink on this addiction. Finally I quit.
The truth about smoking, in my own words now:
Think of the money I could save.
Very difficult to give up - not looking forward to withdrawal symptoms.
Bad for health, too expensive, very hard drug to give up.
I wish I had never started.
It doesn’t do me any harm but it doesn’t do me any good.
Horrible really when it boils down to it - just say you can’t taste things properly and it is right when you stop smoking things taste a lot better.
Filthy habit.
Years ago they were cheaper - it is getting too expensive now.
Will kill me in the end if I don’t stop.
Anybody who starts today knows of the down side. When I started nothing was said about health side.
It’s all pointless really.
My children keep telling me to give up.
My chest is probably black!! I would be healthier.
No plus points - stained teeth, blackened lungs, bad arteries, etc.
The harm a cigarette can do, I realise that I am throwing away my money to kill myself!!!
Effect on my wife and children.
It is an idiotic thing to start to do.
For the small amount of pleasure it gives me, it’s not worth the hassle I get.
I would be richer.
Offensive habit.
It’s a killer.
Because it comes to control your life - I have a physical craving which stops me doing other things.
Don’t like smell on clothes.
Feel I’m addicted to a drug.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Outta Surfin Stuffs
Find seven hearts from this picture.
Your sleuthing gear includes a micro listening device for those not-to-be-missed conversations between bosses. You also get two discreet mirrors which can be used singularly or can be built into a simple periscope—essential for snooping over cubicle walls. And don’t forget the two-in-one invisible ink pen and decoder that lets you record classified information without being discovered. In short order, you’ll be the CEO—that’s Chief Espionage Organizer-and hot on the trail of the latest office coup!
Thursday, September 21, 2006
My Mistake: Neglecting Solat
Back in Montreal, September 1983:
Brother: Are you a muslim?
Azer Mantessa: Yes, I am a muslim.
Brother: Do you pray five times a day?
Azer Mantessa: *scratch head* Errr aaaa errr aaaa errr
In 1977, I was accepted in a fully boarding school in Kedah. I was then 13 years old. It was the first time of my life being away from home, away from family and relatives and certainly away from my parents constant monitoring.
This sudden change had changed my life in many ways. I met many new friends who are intellectually competitive, stayed in an environment which demanded a lot of my independence and learned many new things. It took me only two weeks where I started to neglect solat. I was not so sure on how it happened but for sure, nobody ever reminded me to pray when it was the time to do so.
The school made it compulsory for us to perform maghrib at the mosque. In mid 1978, I started to even ‘ponteng’ solat maghrib when me and some of my friends thought it was so cool to play hideout from the prefects. Those days, that we get ourselves caught by the prefects was considered as a cool thing. We will consider it funny and something to be proud of when our names were announced as those who were caught. Having these kinds of attitudes, I took solat duty lightly.
In September 1982, I was sent to Welland, Ontario, Canada to further my studies. There were 20 of us Malaysian students who were in the same high school for our grade 13th. We had to obtain a high school diploma before we can apply to further our studies in the universities. I stayed with a dutch Canadian family who were very secular. They never really bother about any religious matter and things started to be getting worse; I did not perform solat for the whole 12 months there.
Luckily, when I came to Montreal (I got accepted as an undergraduate student in one of the university there), a Pakistani Muslim brother took responsibility in guidance us Malaysian students towards Islamic practices.
Neglecting solat is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. Something which I could not explain but below are the criteria of me in those years of taking this duty lightly:
* I was not a focus student – Education was not my priority.
* My intelligence was below those who do perform solat regularly.
* I was a very nervous person.
* No time management whatsoever.
* I started smoking (Luckily I never take drug and alcohol throughout my life).
* I used very inconvenient words like fuck, butuh, pukimak hang, kepala hotak hang etc in my daily conversation.
* An average and many times below average student.
* Neglected Quran totally.
* Only proud as a ‘muslim’.
* No objective in life.
* Lack of humility.
* Always in a rush.
* Quite impatience.
* Required to be the center of attention with my nonsense talking.
* Too much on TV and movies.
* Non-hygienic.
* Forgetful.
* Lack of leadership.
* Lack of thinking.
* Lack of creativity.
* Lack of intuition.
* Slow in computing.
* Selfish.
* Lazy.
* Loved pornography.
* Spent money unnecessarily.
* Narrow minded.
* Lack of good lucks.
* Blamed other people for being unlucky.
* Totally disorganized.
Brother: Are you a muslim?
Azer Mantessa: Yes, I am a muslim.
Brother: Do you pray five times a day?
Azer Mantessa: *scratch head* Errr aaaa errr aaaa errr
In 1977, I was accepted in a fully boarding school in Kedah. I was then 13 years old. It was the first time of my life being away from home, away from family and relatives and certainly away from my parents constant monitoring.
This sudden change had changed my life in many ways. I met many new friends who are intellectually competitive, stayed in an environment which demanded a lot of my independence and learned many new things. It took me only two weeks where I started to neglect solat. I was not so sure on how it happened but for sure, nobody ever reminded me to pray when it was the time to do so.
The school made it compulsory for us to perform maghrib at the mosque. In mid 1978, I started to even ‘ponteng’ solat maghrib when me and some of my friends thought it was so cool to play hideout from the prefects. Those days, that we get ourselves caught by the prefects was considered as a cool thing. We will consider it funny and something to be proud of when our names were announced as those who were caught. Having these kinds of attitudes, I took solat duty lightly.
In September 1982, I was sent to Welland, Ontario, Canada to further my studies. There were 20 of us Malaysian students who were in the same high school for our grade 13th. We had to obtain a high school diploma before we can apply to further our studies in the universities. I stayed with a dutch Canadian family who were very secular. They never really bother about any religious matter and things started to be getting worse; I did not perform solat for the whole 12 months there.
Luckily, when I came to Montreal (I got accepted as an undergraduate student in one of the university there), a Pakistani Muslim brother took responsibility in guidance us Malaysian students towards Islamic practices.
Neglecting solat is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. Something which I could not explain but below are the criteria of me in those years of taking this duty lightly:
* I was not a focus student – Education was not my priority.
* My intelligence was below those who do perform solat regularly.
* I was a very nervous person.
* No time management whatsoever.
* I started smoking (Luckily I never take drug and alcohol throughout my life).
* I used very inconvenient words like fuck, butuh, pukimak hang, kepala hotak hang etc in my daily conversation.
* An average and many times below average student.
* Neglected Quran totally.
* Only proud as a ‘muslim’.
* No objective in life.
* Lack of humility.
* Always in a rush.
* Quite impatience.
* Required to be the center of attention with my nonsense talking.
* Too much on TV and movies.
* Non-hygienic.
* Forgetful.
* Lack of leadership.
* Lack of thinking.
* Lack of creativity.
* Lack of intuition.
* Slow in computing.
* Selfish.
* Lazy.
* Loved pornography.
* Spent money unnecessarily.
* Narrow minded.
* Lack of good lucks.
* Blamed other people for being unlucky.
* Totally disorganized.
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