I have the whole week of with not much to do. I have 21 days of leave that I carried forward from last year. I'm trying to finish as much of the leave as a I can by the first quarter of this year.
Surprisingly I woke up at 6AM today. I did some light exercises and bought nasi lemak for breakfast. Looking around, there wasn't much to do and I jumped back into bed. So much for an early start to the day. I woke up again at lunch time and here I am still sitting in front of the PC surfing the net.
Lately, the newspapers and the news on TV have all been about the election. The producers have dedicated more time to government propaganda. Usually the first block of the news is about national stories, which could be crime, politics, PM and DPM's visits, etc. Now it's all about what the government has done for the people. The campaigning has most certainly started.
Out of curiousity what the opposition has been doing to prepare for the election, I visited the DAP website. Since they are most likely to contest PJ Utara, the constituency that I am staying and working at, it would be nice to see what they are working on.
Well, I didn't find the name of their candidate... yet, but I did find out that their slogan is "Jom Ubah". Sounds a lot similar like the theme for some of the presidential candidates in the US. Obama's fighting theme is about change. Change for the better I hope.
I did find a DAP TV commercial. Looks like the DAP campaign style is copying a lot from the Americans, they're getting a lot more savvy.
I took a look at some of the blogs of their Parliment representatives too. It looks like everyone is busy preparing for the coming election. Teresa Kok recently when around town with a lion dance troup to collection donations. That's quite creative I would say.
I remember elections are always stressful time, even for the press. In my office they setup an operation centre in the theatrette the last election. It looked like the NASA mission command centre with rows of PC's and a large monitor up front.
In 1999 when I first started work as a reporter, one of things I had to do was to answer the phone during the election. I remember the night the results were being announced and there was a lot of calls coming in enquiring about the late result tabulations for Terengganu.
A few called in to swear at us and also remind me about eternal damnation. After awhile, I just picked up the phone answered with "hello" and then put the receiver on the table and every few minutes say "okay" into the receiver and go back to my work. Most of them are so engrossed in quoting the holy verses to me they don't realize I'm not on the phone. They just want someone to release their frustration on.
I speak fluent Bahasa Malaysia (yes, it's Bahasa Malaysia now, not Bahasa Melayu!) so a lot of the callers assume I'm a Muslim. One caller after ranting about how lying will lead to eternal damnation asked if I was a Muslim expecting a yes from me and I replied no and the guy kept quite for awhile and then hung up after ranting on for awhile. His sales pitch didn't quite work on me.
This year I most probably won't be involved with the election. I hope. I just want to be a regular voter. Hrmm... now that I think about it, I do hope I'm not travelling around during the election. I want to make my vote count this time around.
Okay, it's time to get out and explore the world!
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