Challenge

A boy who loves animals, including reptiles comes upon a dense bush. Looking closely at the branch, he spots a camouflaged iguana posing stiffly without moving a muscle. Camouflage fail. He has seen iguanas before but to actually catch one, that he has never done before. Somehow, that thought comes to his mind, and he challenges himself to catch the browny lizardy iguana. After some running and jumping and catching and fleeing attempts by both parties, the boy emerges as the victor, holding the iguana by its tail.


-An original short story-


Challenge yourself. Challenges are the things that make our lives so fun and exciting. So our lives would not be so mundane lah. We all need challenges, never mind our ages or gender. In the original short story above, we can see how accepting a challenge can enable the boy to accomplish something that he never thought of before.


Challenge yourself. The challenge could be anything. It could be trying to have a blog of your own if you haven’t got one. It could be trying to catch an iguana or snake (I’ll pray for you). It could be as simple as exercising everyday or at least 3 times a week. If that’s not simple enough, how about trying to do nothing for a whole day. Ha! I bet that’s the toughest challenge of all.


Challenge yourself. Why am I repeating this? I wonder. Maybe I’m attempting to make it more poetic. Okay challenge myself. It could be trying to run a half marathon, which is my case. It is a challenge that I have to face before heading to the US soon. Half marathon is a serious business. Till now, I still cannot imagine myself running that far. But what to do, I just take it as a challenge lah. There’s no turning back now.


21km is a very long distance. Before this, I only ran 5km, 7km and 8. something km, lilliputian when compared to the body boggling 21km. Pray for me.


The name of the run is called the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2011, a big event that would be held at Dataran Merdeka or Data-run as I would call it (what was famous for the Merdeka history is now the favorite place for running events) on June 26. There are 61 days left, and I have to start preparing myself for this big challenge.


Do check out the Marathon yourself at www.kl-marathon.com

There are many categories of runs, like 10km and 5km as well if I’m not mistaken. So do go challenge yourself and other people too.
This is my challenge, what’s yours?

A blurrr case

It was that close!

An incident of blur that nearly costed me – my grade.

I was taking my Legal Issues final paper, which contributes 40% to my final CGPA, when something totally unimaginably terrible nearly happen to me. I still can’t imagine what would have happened if this terrible thing did happen to me.


Anyway, the clock showed that it was time to stop my furious writing to finish up the essay question. Then I stood up, walked to the front of the examination hall to hand up my paper while shaking my worked right hand, hoping to shake of the pain and numbness of writing.


After that, I went out of the examination hall, and with a  group of friends proceeded to check my Legal Issues carry-on mark, which surprisingly wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Then, after collecting my assignment on the table outside the lecturer’s door, the thoughts of going back to my hostel was all that was in my mind.


I was on my way, walking past the examination hall, and all of the sudden I see my Legal Issues lecturer calling out to me and took me into the examination hall. Bemused, I followed him, having no inkling of what he wanted to tell me. Maybe some advice or last words, thought I.


He then asked the most unexpected question of all that caught me off guard that I jumped inside myself.


“Where is your paper?” he queried.


Not knowing what paper he was referring to, I shoved him the assignment that I had just collected outside his office.


“I mean your test paper,” he clarified.


Then it struck me. Not the realization of something, but a cold blow to my mind. Whatever could have happened to my test paper. I already handed it up, hadn’t I?


Worry slowly made its way into my mind as I retraced my steps back to the table I had sat upon, which was way back at the back of the hall. Weird, my paper was no where to be seen.


I rewound the chronology of events in my head. I remembered walking towards the front, seeing a group of students surrounding a lecturer, and making my way to my bag.


Stumblejohn! I think I didn’t hand up my paper after all. There’s only 1 possibility. I unzipped my bag, and lo and behold – the test paper!


It was a good thing that my lecturer had checked the number of test papers after the test, that I hadn’t head back to the hostel or that I passed by the examination hall again on my way back.


If any of those 3 elements were missing, I would be a goner. I would have failed the course. Wow, it was really close. And I’m thankful to my lecturer who counted the papers.


So see what blurness can bring you. Be extra careful, unless you want to be like me. Be mindful when you’re doing something, or you’ll probably end up like the me who didn’t get lucky.


Hope you’re not blur enough to not understand this post.

Source: A blur blogger

The smallest snake in the world

Abominable to some but cu-te to others, serpents have been associated with many symbolisms, even that of cult. However, these symbolism is not the topic of the day. As can be seen above, the issue today is about size. Do you think size matters? Whatever your answer is, it doesn't matter. You're about to witness the battle between the biggest snake and the smallest snake of all. Which will reign supreme? 


Nah, just letting you on.


Believe it or not, the smallest snake in the world can be found in Malaysia! And I’m certainly not pulling your legs, folks. A few years back, when I was still staying in my old house, I opened the front door, only to see the smallest serpent I have ever seen in my life.


It’s not evidently big, so obviously it wasn’t the size of it that captured my attention. At first glance, it looked like a worm because it is black in color and had worm-like proportions, not that it was visible to the eye anyway.


Anyway, a black worm was enough to arouse my curiosity, so I took a closer look at the lilliputian creature – with a magnifying glass. I was quite fascinated by these thing back then, so being the somewhat zoological sleuth that I imagined I was, I brought the magnifying glass with me wherever I go.


Looking into the convex lens, I spied miniscule scales that armored the length of its body, slightly glistening under whatever light that shone upon it. It was a surprising discovery as it never came into my mind the existence of such miniature a serpent.


How does it live? From what I could see, it could hardly slither around. I thought it could have been a baby of a larger snake. How does it feed then? It’s mouth was just a slit of line, at least from the magnified view. A regular snake’s fang would already overshadow the size of this super extra ordinary snake.


The question that really daunted me was: how did it end up in front of my door, in my porch? Its mobility didn’t seem to allow that, unless it lived between the cracks and nooks of the red-bricked floor, or something carried it here. Until now, I'm still vexed.


Confirming that it was a snake, I told the whole world (my family) about it. But parents, being the adults that they were and are, just nodded the idea of it without really giving much thought. They were in fact skeptical and treated it as trivial, unknowing of the significance of the discovery.


The next day, the snake wasn’t there no more. Only after yahooing the smallest snake in the world was I aware of that very fact. The pictures on the net showed striking resemblance if not exact to the one that I had seen. Too bad I didn’t take a sample of it.


A picture of the smallest snake in the world, also dubbed as worm snakes, below.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

To know more about this reptile, visit this National Geographic page.



Since I actually had seen one of these smallest snake in the world, I have a simple theory of my own. I think it is possible that the worm snake or thread snake can be found in many countries and continents. It could just need a humid environment to survive in, I don’t know. But its late discovery may be attributed to its size and people usually mistaken them for worms. Thus, it may be possible that although rare, this species could thrive in many places besides Barbados, the place it was first discovered in 2008. I remembered seeing this thing back in 2007 or 2008.


So next time if you see a worm, take a close look because you might well be looking at the world’s smallest snake. And don’t forget to take it as a specimen as a proof.