My 2013 Toastmastering Report Card

Here’s my report card on my 2013 Toastmastering activities:

I wasn’t a good speaker and I wanted to speak well. That’s why I joined Toastmasters in the first place. And now I love speaking. To speak well, one must speak consistently. Courageously. And tirelessly.

In 2013, I completed 61 project speeches. This works out to an average of 5 speeches a month. When I look back and finish counting – I have amassed a grand total of 171 project speeches since I became a Toastmaster on July 01, 2008. This total excludes invocations, contest speeches, presidential addresses as well as Table Topics speeches. It's a pretty good accomplishment, is it not?

“Let It Go”, a song from the Disney animation movie Frozen and performed by Idina Menzel is very appropriate as we say goodbye to 2013:

Arctic 30 Finally Free

Image credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24985001

Image credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24462045

Image credit: http://350.org/about/blogs/update-global-day-solidarity-greenpeace-s-arctic-30-freethearctic30 

On December 21, in a post titled "Russian Amnesty", I blogged that Russia had dropped charges against the Arctic 30 activists. They had been illegally held at gunpoint by Russian secret services when they participated in a peaceful protest at Gazprom's oil rig to call attention to the threat of oil drilling and climate change – as a matter-of-fact, their Dutch-flagged ship Arctic Sunrise was in international waters.

The thirty Greenpeace protestors were originally charged with piracy and faced up to 15 years in jail. This was changed to ‘hooliganism’, which could carry six years behind bars. And then they were told they had been freed under a Kremlin-backed amnesty, ahead of February’s Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

On Sunday, Polish national Tomasz Dziemianczuk, 37, flew out from Saint Petersburg to Warsaw – he followed the other 25 who had all left by Saturday. Another four are Russians and they too benefited from the reprieve and are free to travel inside and outside the country.

The Arctic Sunrise ship remains under Russian control in Murmansk and Greenpeace had made clear that it wants its vessel back.

FYI, Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom, whose Prirazlomnaya rig in the Pechora Sea was the target of the Greenpeace protest, has just started oil production at the platform.

Yesterday, I was at the Malaysia Airlines Academy in Kelana Jaya to attend the Kelana Bilingual Toastmasters meeting. I managed to secure a speaking slot and I delivered my CC speech #7 titled “Drink and Live” – this is my twelfth round. I also took part in Table Topics and the TT Evaluator, Shirley Bak kindly presented all five participants a Christmas cookie each! (Photo on the left).

I also volunteered to be the Timekeeper – in order to complete my second round of CL. I can say it was a good meeting and I would give it a score of a 7 over 10.

 

Turun @ Dataran Merdeka

NOTE: Suaram, PAS, Lawyers for Liberty and human rights lawyers to provide legal help in the event of arrests. 

Image credit: http://www.viralnova.com/ron-mueck-sculptures/

If you are to tell me that the people in the above pictures weren’t real, I’d laugh in your face. The truth of it is, though, they’re not. 

They are creations of a London artist named Ron Mueck, who specializes in sculptures. He used to be a model maker and puppeteer for television and films (e.g. He created Ludo the gentle giant in the movie 'Labyrinth'). 

Now, he focuses on making hyper-realistic and detailed sculptures of humans that have museum visitors studying them and even staring for hours. 

And the marking of a pile of exam scripts and moderating another pile are finally completed – for this semester, at least! It was less painful than in previous semesters but these tasks can be a real drudgery.  Anyway, all in a day's work for a university lecturer!

Bizarre Lifelike Sculptures

Image credit: http://laughingsquid.com/eerily-lifelike-sculptures-of-animalhuman-hybrids/

Chinese artist Liu Xue creates bizarre sculptures of human figures that have been augmented with animal body parts. The lifelike sculptures range from centaur-like human/pig hybrids to rather disquieting chicken-people.

Last Saturday, I was at the Bankers Club, Amoda Building in KL’s Jalan Imbi for the Premier Advanced Toastmasters meeting. I was hoping to get a speaking slot – I didn’t – instead, I was roped in to be a speech evaluator for an Advanced speech from the Storytelling manual. 

The speaker narrated an abridged account of “I Love Girl”, a humorous piece cleverly penned by Simon Rich and which appeared in The New Yorker last year (if I am not mistaken). The material was of course brilliant – even the truncated version – and her performance would have been more entertaining if it had incorporated vocal acrobatics and animated hand gestures. Still, a nice speech, nonetheless. 

Overall, this was a good meeting. A 7 over 10 score. 

Stain-free Apparel

 

Image credit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2525274/Student-invents-Silic-T-shirt-thats-impossible-stain.html 

San Fransisco-based student Aamir Patel has created a wearable material that can resist any spills and splashes including Coca-Cola, tomato ketchup, mustard, milkshakes, beer, ink and even red wine. 

The clothing has billions of silica particles bonded to the fibers. Water-based liquids form a 150-degree sphere on this material and roll off. 

Also, the shirts can't be washed with fabric softener and need to be put in a tumble dryer on a low heat after every three washes. No bleaching or washing with colors and no ironing. No dry cleaning too. 

The business student had started a page about the invention, named Silic, on crowdfunding website Kickstarter. He has already exceeded his target of about $20,000 (£12,250), before the campaign closes on January 26, 2014. 

The apparel is to be priced at £30 and it is expected to be on sale online from May 2014.

It’s good to know that the Church is standing up to the likes of Jais! Catholic churches in Selangor will continue to use the “Allah” word during its weekend services in Malay despite the state’s Islamic Religious Department (Jais) intention to send them reminders on a 1988 state enactment prohibiting non-Muslims from using the word. 

Catholic weekly Herald editor Rev Father Lawrence Andrew said Article 11(3) (A) of the Federal Constitution prescribes that every religious group has its right to manage its own religious affairs. 

“Our religion cannot be managed by any Muslim group. It is against the Federal Constitution.” He told The Malaysian Insider yesterday: "We will continue to use the word ‘Allah’ in our masses.” 

And he added, “At the moment, the case is still in court and no decision has been made yet. They can’t preempt this.” 

Aside from the Catholic church, other Christian churches, such as the Sidang Injil Borneo, also conduct services in Malay and other native languages from East Malaysia, and using the “Allah” word.

Murphy Pakiam Finds His Courage

Murphy Pakiam who has been elected Administrator of the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur, finally found his courage on Wednesday. He then decided to discard his normally non-confrontational stance to publicly criticize Prime Minister Najib Razak for his insistence that the word "Allah" was off limits to non-Muslims.

Image credit: http://news.abnxcess.com/2013/12/umno-ga-2013-najib-tells-opposition-to-accept-that-bn-won-ge13/

Pakiam claimed Najib (above photo) had said this during the UMNO AGM, which he described as disappointing and shocking.

"What did he say? Even if the world talks and laughs about this 'Allah' issue that Malaysia will not allow (its use by non-Muslims), we (government) will defend the exclusivity of its use”.

Pakiam intoned: "This is not a man who is educated in our Catholic school. By talking like that, you are just a bickering politician, I am praying that Allah will enlighten him to become a statesman". [Note: Najib was educated in St John's Institution, one of the country's storied schools].

And Pakiam even used the “Allah” word!

He said that Najib's stamp of approval of the “Allah” word as being exclusive for Muslims was, in fact, inciting right wing groups against the Christian community.

Liverpool slipped from first to fourth place in the EPL table after losing 2-1 to Manchester City on Thursday. Philippe Coutinho gave the Reds a 24th-minute lead after a neat team move. However, Man City captain Vincent Kompany headed home an equalizer seven minutes later and then Alvaro Negredo put them in front in the forty-fifth minute with a tame shot that Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet could only palm into the net.

And Liverpool is dethroned.

North of the border, Virgil van Dijk's impressive fifth-minute goal was enough to defeat St Johnstone and move Celtic 11 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership.

A Teddy Bear for Dinner

The photo shows a culinary creation sewn together from cuts of poultry, with what looks like olives for its black, cut out eyes. Image credit: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/the-nightmare-before-christmas-the-terrifying-turkey-bear-9022088.html

Chef Simon Hulstone uploaded the snap of a teddy-shaped lump of meat on Sunday, and joked that he had made it for his children for Christmas. His friend then shared the tweet with his own followers. 

It soon emerged that the strange bear was the making of Russian artist Viktor Ivanov, who created the meaty ted out of clumps of chicken rather than turkey as was first assumed. 

I think I’m going to skip dinner tonight. 

Last Monday, MidValley Toastmasters had their meeting #230 and I was there at the invitation of VP Education, Timothy Nakayama. I was given the task to evaluate him since he was delivering an Advanced speech from the Storytelling manual.

Overall, it was a good meeting except that members didn’t know how to keep time. The meeting started two minutes late. By the time we had our refreshment break, we were twenty-nine minutes behind schedule. As the meeting dragged on, I chose to leave at 9:56 PM, i.e. immediately after the grammarian’s report – and just before the timekeeper’s report – where we were already 51 minutes over time. 

I am going to give this meeting a score of a 2 over 10. This club is guilty of willfully neglecting timeliness – and it is both annoying and disrespectful.