Aku adalah..

Jangan jadi bitch.

Berhenti overthink.

Just do it. 

Unpredictable

Sometimes, it feels good to do the unpredictable
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until you woke up subuh gajah

Orang Kuat

Tie kemas

Baju kemas
Rambut kemas
Misai janggut kasik pulas
Susuk cergas
Tuxedo keras
Muka smart
Hidung tajam depan
Senyum menawan
Double-chin tak tahan

Dah puas ?

Apa, Kau sangka kau kuat ?
Cuba, cuba ulang balik.
Tuh, nampak raksasa kat depan ?
Pergi lawan, pergi !

Eh, tadi kata senang ?
Tadi cakap kuat, sekarang, mulut ketat ?
Tadi kau pahlawan, sekarang kau pondan ?

Mulut ko memang macam palat eh ?
Sekejap memuncung, sekejap menyendat ?
Eh, Kau cakap senanglah setan !! 

Dinamik Debat

DINAMIK DEBAT

Semua orang suka berdebat. Tak percaya, bukalah internet. Pelbagai jenis manusia dengan pelbagai jenis idea berbahas. Hujah dilontarkan. Sejurus itu juga dipatahkan. Fakta dibawa depan. Sementelah itu juga disangkal mampan. Itu belum campur golongan yang kerjanya cuma mengangguk dan bertangguk. Belum campur mereka yang membuka perbualan kedai kopi mengulas isi debat yang berlanjut. Belum dikira juga si pemerhati yang pemikirannya masih sekujur "berbalut".

Debat. Setiap aspeknya mempunyai peminat.

Berlaga hujah di alam maya dengan berlaga hujah di alam atma ibarat dua alam. Tidak mungkin, bahkan tidak adil untuk disamatarafkan. Mereka yang berdebat di internet umpamanya, banyak mengambil pendekatan lempar batu, sorok tangan. Memang seronok menyangkal hujah seseorang itu lantas mendedahkan pekung di dadanya. Kemudian dipetik pula kalam emas daripada mana-mana tokoh yang disegani masyarakat, sebagai madu bicara. Manisnya paling dinikmati apabila hujah yang tadi kita cantas itu, kini telah kita sumpah menjadi semata hempedu.

Tetapi kita tahu kita selamat.

Kerana kita dengan lawan bukannya berdepan rapat

REALITI DEBAT

Pencadang perlu bijak. Sebaik mendapat senarai usul, satu strategi perlu disusun dan dicanang. Pencadang yang hebat mampumengembara masa. Dalam bahasa mudah, beliau mempu meneliti sesuatu usul itu secara retrospektif. Kenapa tajuk ini dibawa ke meja perdebatan ? Apakah isu yang cuba dibangkitkan ?  Dimanakah perselisihan ? Pembangkang yang kritis sebaliknya pula mampu membaca minda. Mereka dapat meletakkan diri mereka di kerusi Pencadang. Mereka mampu menduga hujah usul. Apakah pendekatan yang bakal diambil Pencadang ? Di manakah aspek usul ini yang mampu Pencadang tekankan ? Hujah yang bagaimana pula bakal mereka utarakan ?

Di sebalik semua itu, Pencadang juga sebenarnya punya kelebihan yang satu. Mereka berkuasa mengubah tempo permainan. Iaitulah Kuasa Penakrifan. Pencadang berkebolehan  menakrifkan tajuk yang dibincangkan mengikut kelebihan premis mereka. Adakah Pencadang akan mengecilkan skop perdebatan ? Supaya dengan begitu, mereka mampu mengheret Pembangkang ke lembah sempit lantas memberi kuasa kepada Pencadang dengan lebih. Atau meluaskan ruang lingkup perbincangan ? Tentu sekali Pembangkang akan gagal membaca sukma hujah yang bakal Pencadang dilontarkan. Penakrif Judul melawan Penduga Usul. Meja perbahasan bakal milik siapa ?

Di dalam sesebuah medan perdebatan, situasi yang berlangsung memang persis sesebuah peperangan. Setiap pihak berusaha mencari kemenangan. Pencadang dan Pembangkang bertemu julat. Masing-masing membawa selambak kertas. Berisikan matan usul beserta penegak judul, mereka mara ke tengah-tengah arena laga. Mata bertemu mata, bukan tanda berkenalan suasa, tetapi suatu dalil perakuan; Bahawasanya, aku dan kamu bakal berlawan.

Pencadang pertama bangkit. Api perbahasan mula dililit. Usul ditegak, hujah dibiak. Pembangkang mula cuak. Menerima definisi usul yang diutarakan pencadang, atau menolaknya mentah-mentah ? Mencari suatu titik temu, atau bertembung dari lain sudut ? Pencadang sudahpun membawa judul. Susur galur usul pun sudah dibentuk. Soalnya sekarang adalah di pihak Pembangkang. Adakah mereka akan duduk termangu tenat, atau bangkit menyangkal kuat ? Yang pasti, Pencadang tidak akan mereka biarkan berdaulat.

 

"Izin laluan !". Bingkas bangun ketiga-tiga pembangkang. Hujah Pencadang kedua ternyata tidak konsisten. Konsep usul yang dibahaskan Pencadang pertama gagal didukung dengan satu nada. Pembangkang berjaya menghidu peluang. Tetapi peluang itu cuma akan menjadi pejal andai dimanfaat. Soalan memohon penjelasan ? Ataupun berbentuk sindiran ? Bagaimana pula jika Pembangkang menyoal pendirian lawan ? Menimbulkan sangsi juri kepada Pencadang, atau sekadar bermain tali, memprovokasi pendirian Pencadang yang lalang ?

Izinlaluan lantas diajukan.

Pencadang terkasima. Realiti datang menghenyak. Baru mereka sedar, di hadapan mereka bukanlah Pembangkang. Tetapi seekor Musang. Yang rajin memerhati dari tepi belukar. Sabar menunggu peluang. Menerkam demi membenam ! Pencadang perlu menyusun barisan. Izinlaluan si Musang memang menjerat. Jerat yang jelas melilit ketat. Tetapi Musang binatang gopoh yang berhati kering. Mereka lupa Pencadang berakal Kancil. Izinlaluan Musang sudah Kancil agak. 

Jaga kau Musang berlicik lebat, kau punya jerat, aku punya keramat !

Musang dan Kancil mula beradu. Hakikatnya, kedua-duanya tahu. Mana mungkin mereka mampu menyerang satu sama lain secara semberono. Masing-masing perlu mendengar hujah yang disampaikan lawan dengan penuh. Telinga perlu dipasang, barulah peluang dapat dihidang. Pembawakan hujah juga mestilah sempurna. Benar, Pencadang berkemampuan untuk berhujah dari segi istilah. Namun mereka juga harus sedar, bahawa disana adanya juri. Semestinya juri mahukan sebuah perdebatan yang bertaraf mahasiswa. Takut-takut, berlaga hujah yang dipinta, berlaga istilah pula jadinya. Ibarat sebuah okestra, perbahasan perlulah punya susunan isi yang gah. Disamping usul beserta hujah yang selari, penyampaian hujah sesama rakan sepremis mesti disampaikan secara sinergi. Cara pembawaan usul haruslah mampu dihadam lumat oleh penonton. Sekali-sekala, hujah yang dilontarkan, lebih halwa digambarkan dalam bentuk analogi yang mafhum. Barulah usul dan hujah yang kabur dan kelabu itu, mampu berpadu menjadi satu. 

Pencadang dan Pembangkang kini jelas bertemu ruas. Hujah, statistik, fakta, pendapat, isu, kajian, perlian, dan andaian bertukar balas. Ibarat perlawanan pencak silat; Buka bunga. Senjata dan sarung berpisah dua. Keris dihunus. Cucuk !! Berjaya dielak. Peluang terbit; Tangan dililit. Tengkuk dicekik. Tepis !! Terlepas. Gelanggang mulai riuh. Pencadang dan Pembangkang, dua-dua sedang berpeluh. Namun, perhitungan masih belum selesai. Segala hujah dan balas, bakal disimpulkan di dalam arena pergulungan bahas. Di situlah, segala jurus pemusnah bakal dilepaskan. Ayuh kita lihat, pencak siapa lagi keras ? Siapa yang menumpas ? Dan siapa pula akan tertewas ?

Dinamik sebuah debat nyata mendambakan mahasiswa berakal ligat.

Yang telinganya mendengar cakna,

Lidahnya petah berbicara, dan

Mindanya bertindak sebagai nakhoda

Pendebat-pendebat semua, anda sudah bersedia ?

Wahai pendebat semua, anda sudah bersedia ?

How We Perceive Genius

How We Perceive Genius

In 1918, young,Lewis Terman works as a professor of Psychology in Stanford University. There, he met a boy who can play piano in the most beautiful manner. The boy's talent can only be summed in one word ; genius. His name was Henry Cowell.

He was the school janitor.

Lewis Terman was intrigued. Stunned, to say the least. For a professor whose specialty dwells in intelligence testing, certainly the story of Henry Cowell was interesting. How many genius person could be out there, living among ordinary human beings? Terman begin to look for others. He found a girl who know alphabets at the age of 19 months. Then, one who read Dickens's and Shakespeare's at four. There was also a young man who can memorise precisely the long passages of legal opinion, such that his professor kicked him out of law school thinking there is no way a human being can possess that kind of memory. In 1921, Terman makes the study of these gifted persons his lifetime work. By the time he finished his work, he had collected intelligence information of more than 250,000 high school student. He nicknamed them "Termites".

His findings, which would shape our perception of the genius many years later was kept in a thick red volume journal titled “Genetic Studies of Genius”. It is one of the most famous psychological studies to date.

*************************************************************************

Really, much of our perceptions regarding gifted people are practically linear. We tend to see geniuses in terms of Patch Adams, John Nash of "A Beautiful Mind" or House. Yet, time and time again, when mapped on a single paper or studies, these group of amazing talents looks more and more like, as awkwardly as it sounds, a tree. It's just like Biology 101. The tallest tree in the forest does not only come from a fine seed. It also receive the most sunlight, the better fertile, and the least mite. It also, fortunately, wasn't cut down prematurely by humans. And, that was exactly what Roger Barnsley, a psychologist found out.

They was waiting for a hockey match when Paula pointed this to her husband. "I thought she was crazy" Barnsley, remembers. In the Ontario Junior Hockey League game that they are watching, they found out that most player, were born in January the first month, with a wide margin. The second most? February. The third? March. Barnsley went home and make some digging. He look at the junior all-stars team. Then the National Hockey League. Same story. 40 percent of players are born between January and March. 30 percent between April and June. 20 percent between July and September and 10 percent between October and December. What did he discovered ?

In another realm of study (named Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study or TIMSS), economist Kelly Bedard and Elizabeth Dhuey found a different yet distinctly similar case to that of Barnsyley. The study reveals that older student have higher percentage of acing the TIMSS test somewhere between 4 and 12^th percentile points. In a simple sentence, if you put two 10 year old students, with birthdays at the opposite end of the year (say, a January versus a December), and put them on the same test, the January student have 80% chance to score higher than the December student.

This kind of idea, eventhough backed by facts, isn't something that the community as a whole can agree on. People have long accept the fact that some people are good because, well, they are good. Bill Gates are rich because he's good at computer and selling stuff. So does Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with him. That list of good people even included Steve Ballmer, the third richest man in Microsoft and Eric Schmidt, the pioneer of the software revolution at Silicon Valley who currently works as chief executive officer of Google. We even have the brilliant Bill Joy who founded the prodigal Sun Microsystems company together with Scott Mcnealy, Vinod Khosla and Andy Bechtolsheim. What about Steve Jobs ? Well, everybody knows him.

But, here's the catch. Look at their birthyears :

1955, 1953, 1956, 1955, 1954, 1954, 1955,1955, 1955.

These guys are not actually really great. In retrospect, 1975 was the year the computer boom hit Silicon Valley. The year where being good in IT and computer stuff was the Tenth Commandmend. The best year for the newly graduates to jump into the technology bandwagon. And these guys happened to be at their most productive age at that time. These guys are just lucky.

True, if we are to say that some genius people are born genius merely on the merit of their birthdates is a case of oversimplification. The intelligence quotient test (IQ) is the obvious evidence. "It is amply proved that someone with an IQ of 170 is more likely to think well than someone whose IQ is 70" British psychologist, Liam Hudson comments. "But the relation seems to break down when one is making comparisons between two people both of whom have IQs which are relatively high....A mature scientist with an adult IQ of 130 is as likely to win a Nobel Prize as is one whose IQ is 180."

(*for the record, Einstein holds an IQ of just 150, an average in relative to other world-reknown scientists.)

Obviously the dichotomy of "genius" doesn't confined solely to the IQ level. There's so much factors that need to take into account. Think about football. Surely having tall players would be an advantage for any team. The players will have a higher chance to head the ball into the back of the net. They can also easily win an air tussle. That should come handy in terms of strategy. The team can be more versatile by switching tactics from defensive to quick counter. Or they can just play long ball (they have tall players remember ?). But the thing is, once you reach a certain height, having tall players just wasn't enough. You need agility, composition and vision to be a great team. These kind of attributes are rarely possessed by tall players .

By the way, do you know the which club in Europe have the shortest player in average.

Answer : Barcelona

*********************************************************************

Reaching their adulthood, the "Termites" debacle was there to see. Although some of them did publish books, thrive in their business, and became state officials, many ended up as mere ordinaries. A suprising number can even be called a failure. Most of them have a good income but not like what you expected from a group of geniuses which possess an IQ up to 200. There wasn't even a Nobel Prize winner. In fact, Terman's fieldworkers did checked up but later, rejected two ordinarily bright boys, William Shockely and Luiz Alvarez.

They both went on to win the Nobel Prize.

p/s : Under no intention was this article written to simplify the question why some people are genius while some are not. To be frank, it was meant more as a food for thought, or perhaps better, a candy to the mind. Just remember the next time you meet a genius, that, it is no more the story of a mere tree.

But rather, the forest itself.

written by

Ahmad bin Abdul Rahim

Second Year Malaysian Student

Faculty of Medicine

Head of Journalist Department of,

Malaysian Medical Student Association of Egypt (PERUBATAN)

just got a reply from KAMM Magazine

Kasr ElAini Magazine	Mar 28 (2 days ago)
thanks :) , it will be revised by our editorial team then you will receive a ...

Ahmad Abdul Rahim	11:51 AM (5 minutes ago)
to Kasr

your welcome

actually i planned to write 2 pieces of article

one about social science (the one that i just sent)

and another about malaysian culture..

because i really think that there should be an intercultural prog between malaysian and egyptian here in kasr el aini

in fact, malaysian students at zaqaziq did such prog there..and it was successfull !!

our MoU classes really widen the gap between malaysia and egypt..

wallahi, 7wa yakhsara

because i reallly think that there are much things that we can share in terms of language, culture, organization

anyway, i really have much study needed to be done..but i can assure you i will do my best to write that 2nd article

hoping to meet you soon !!