Balloting #PRU14

The day has finally arrived. The day started early for me and I had to confess that I was feeling excited. Although it was not the first time I would be casting my vote, there was something in the air today which made me feel optimistic.

And it had nothing to do with Diva Azwan Ali whose name will appear on my ballot paper.

I went straight to the ward for a quick round, and since Julia was sorting out my Mum at the Bukit Antarabangsa with her vote, I decided to have a quick breakfast first.

That final pushPAS had a woman candidate here... and a big flag!I finally arrived at Bukit Antarabangsa at 9.30, joined the queue in the bright morning sun which was a good 150 meters long. The first lot - including my Mum - had already fulfilled their duty and had left the centre. Plenty of people were canvassing, including the Parliament Candidate for a certain party who came to shake our hands, trying to convinve us to vote for her if we remained undecided. The whole situation was jovial, plenty of banter and everybody were in good spirit.

But unfortunately, SPR was not at their efficient best. It took me almost 3 hours to complete the process and not without some confusion in between. And that was despite knowing my lane and serial number up front.

The Menteri Besar has his state seat here at Bukit AntarabangsaBN was based across the road. And they lost big here!The queue was just as long back in 2013, but it took me less than a quarter of the time. The instructions this time were pretty confusing, as we were told to queue at a wring lane, with people coming later being able to get in front.

I thought that the wait was over when I got into the voting centre compound, but it was not to be. It took a good hour before thengs were moving and I felt that the procedure could have been refined and more efficient. Luckily, there were no incidence at the centre because if so, I don’t think that the SPR were able to cope.

Entering the voting centre compound finally ...Not much longer to go ...All done ...I was done by noon and headed back to the apartment and had a shower before going out again for lunch at Pavilion. The city centre were very quiet and with the nice weather, I decided to enjoy the day.

Next came the wait for the results ....

Day Minus 1

I have just finished my clinic this morning and half of the patients on the list did not turn up. I am pretty sure it had a lot to do with the election tomorrow.

The road heading to work this morning was practically empty, and the hospital lobby was also rather quiet.

There would be more shenanigans tonight with the parties trying to pull last minute fence-sitter to vote their way. There would be a national address by Najib while at the same time, Tun M would be blazing the net. I hope that there would not be any blocking of the bandwidth - I already had VPN installed just in case!

It will be a fun day tomorrow hopefully and I am praying that there would be peace.

Exciting Times

Another 2 days. Then it would be another public holiday, but this one would be like no other. It is going to be the public holiday for the 14th General Election #GE14.

I will be voting in Bukit Antarabangsa as usual, plannng to finish my rounds super early and be at the polling station by 10 when the first wave of people were done with their voting.

My Mum would be there as well as Julia, but Mum would get a special lane as “warga emas”. She would not be canvassing like she did in the past election. In fact, she was getting worried about the way the country was heading as well.

The mood in town and work place had definitely changed. People seemed more optimistic. There might not be a change of Government at the end of the day, but the messgae from the Rakyat seemed to be loud and clear. The statements coming out from the ruling party did not help matters as well. They seemed rooted from the 80s. Same old tactics. Same old excuses.

From the seat at the balcony ...You can find me here as the results come trickling in ...The Internet certainly helped disseminate information more readily. There was no need to pay for the bandwidth. Only one party who paid for adverts and all it did was made me wonder what their strategies were. Listening to the mainstream TV also did not help. Lopsided reporting with poor journalism making me cringe everytime I switched TV3 at 8 pm - or at any time for that matter.

We crave news and an open mass media would be something worth fighting for no matter who would be ruling. We live in an information age and the more we were curbed, the more mistrust there will be.

With Tun M promising Thursday and Friday would also be public holidays should he become the next Prime Minister, even my boys got excited. “Will I get 3 days off Daddy?”, Idlan asked. Bless him. The country definitely needs a change. For the sake of the next generation ...

I will be spending the rest of Wednesday hooked up to the net barring any disaster. The calendar for Thursday morning was also quite light - something I planned. I will be on the sofa at my balcony, enjoying the breeze out in the open. Hopefully with that, it would be a wind of change. In shaa Allah.

ASTRO On Demand

I must confess that all this while, I had been taking it for granted. I was flipping the channels and Netflix when I accidentally pressed the VOD button on my ASTRO remote. Then I learned that the new WestWorld season and episodes were out. And to my surprise, they were free and available through the box, via the internet. And they were the uedited US versions.

More exploration and then I learned that the fifth season of “Silicon Valley” was also available. Far out!

I was done with the WestWorld - only 2 episodes released so far - and was catching up on Silicon Valley. The WestWorld episodes were pretty heavy stuff though, with revelation aplenty. Too much for casual viewing ....

Anyway, the point of this post was clearly ASTRO offered a lot more that met the eyes through their “on demand” service. Most of the movies needed paying though and selection were pretty limited. But when it came to TV series, they were free, up to date and were the US versions. Not to be missed!

Last Sunday

Ramadhan was coming soon. And I was running out of weekend since doing photowalks during Ramadhan could be a bit of a struggle.

Sunday came and it was a beautiful one. I decided to have a quick walk around town - Anita was out with one of her friends attending a workshop.

Quite a nice outing it turned out to be, although I could have taken more photos. I spent much of the time just sitting at cafe as well as settling a few stuff on the net. A nice walk none the less ...