I probably shouldnt be blogging nor lurking in Malaysia Today and wait for updates on the current scenario. It's taking too much of my life and my attention from work away. Need to have a little.. balance.

It was my first time voting for the general elections this year. When I was younger, my family (and the extended ones) are opposition supporters, just to ensure that the powers are checked and balanced. So, I thought I should be voting for opposition because my family did the same thing. Until the last election, when BN won by a landslide, those were the time when I didnt know anything, that I was glad BN won.

This year's election opened my eyes and introduced me to my responsibility as a citizen of this country. I have never been very interested in politics as I was once caught in the Reformasi 1998 (when I was 16) and the tear gas fired towards the crowd around me, I had an unwanted share of experience by FRU attacks. It was a bad coincident that I was there which made me hated politics because of all the unnecessary 'victims' getting caught in between. So whoever that is ruling the country, it didnt matter to me. I've never tell people that I love this country because I didnt, and I even wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

Still.. this year changed everything. As I am responsible on my daily expenses, no longer getting allowance from my mom, I feel the pinch of the petrol hike, food hike, and the unnecessary inflation that a student has to go through, i.e. increase in charges for photocopying simply because papers are more expensive now than ever. It was unfair. To top that off, the administration in the university, my previous experience with the conversion exams, reflected very much the tyranny of the certain individuals from the current political scenario. Experiencing direct contact with such individuals made me grow up. I didnt want to take part in the election this year as I was still thinking of leaving this miserable hell hole, but at the end, I was persuaded to register as a voter, yet I didnt want to vote. I have my disagreements with the policies, however no words reached me until a friend of mine, who is in Canada now said to me that people who didnt vote have no rights to complain about anything in this country. I thought it was a very harsh statement, silencing my rights to complain, but today, I would like to say the same thing. People who didnt vote shouldnt hope for a better future because they did not play their part. People who didnt sign the petition to free the ISA detainees have no right to say "We are part of history in the making".

As upset as I am with these people, I am even more disappointed to find that some of them are my friends. One even admitted she's a coward and she hid at home from September 15th to 9-16. I told her off for being a coward... but I am quite irritated with her for being such a freak. Yes, we are all disappointed with the current state of the country, but one should fight for it because if we dont, then no one else will. as if complaining will get you anywhere.

Anyway... the sight of her irritates me recently, and it's pretty hard to believe I would get this mad over politics.

Time to write my manuscript.