Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronnie44052/3151568446/

First of all, sorry for the lack of the update. Some of us could not access Volgotimes at all while others were experiencing crawling speed while loading the site about 10 days ago. Then, Volgotimes was hosted in a Malaysian server, and I am not entirely sure but I suspect it has something to do with Streamyx (the date fits) or perhaps it was the host’s problem itself.

I have since migrated Volgotimes to a US server, the downtime was not pleasant but the final outcome is not all disastrous, though. Throughout the ordeal, I learnt to migrate the whole Volgotimes site and now it is faster than ever. Previously I was unable to burn Volgotimes feeds using FeedBurner but on this server, the process of feed burning is as smooth as it ever could be. This also means that you could now subscribe to Volgotimes feeds through email or RSS reader of your choice, so that you would never miss a single update anymore. I shall provide tutorials on how to subscribe either via email or any RSS reader in another post.

I don’t know how the year has been for all of you but if I were to describe my year 2008, then it was mostly uneventful, exciting at times with some balanced ups and downs. However, I am extremely glad and grateful that nothing really unfortunate befell my family and friends and to have learnt many things throughout the year.

Reflecting on a wider scale, I believe the proposal to have summer practical session has brought us all together under the banner of Malaysian Student Association of Volgograd (MSA), it was the first time we have an issue which concerns everyone and which we all contributed in one way or another to solve the problem. Hopefully MSA will continue to be strong and active in looking after our welfare for many years to come.

Back at home, there is massive political upheaval throughout the year but hopefully peace and our unity could be preserved and good things will come from the recent political developments. No doubt, inflations is a serious problem following the unstable world price of oil but I am sure the people has learnt to cope with the inflations and price of commodity now.  I think it is also worth mentioning Datuk Lee Chong Wei has come closest to the feat of winning a first Olympic Gold Medal for Malaysia in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Just when it seemed that all troubles have been left behind, we were shocked by the news of the terrible landslide in Bukit Antarabangsa. There were less than 10 deaths and some property loss but at least the authorities are paying attention to the danger of landslides now and would not blatantly approve hillside development proposals anymore.

There was also much news about United States of America in year 2008 (or should I say in every single year?). Firstly, US finally have an elected colored President, many have said that this is good development and a testimonial to the success of democracy in US, where in a free society, all races are equal and even immigrant race could benefit from it. Lastly the Mumbai terrorist attack at the end of November seemed to be the worst speck in the history of 2008 and best be deplored and may terrorism be wiped from the faced of earth, forever.

So what to expect in 2009, the year of the Ox?

I think this will be my longest rant on Volgotimes, don’t worry because it will rarely happen again unless I have something really important to convey. As I am writing this sub header, I feel like a fortune teller, like Lilian Too.

Well, I am not a fortune teller (yet?) but I am going to speculate, from what little that I have read or heard about the fortunes in 2009. There is already news that more than a few companies will be retrenching their staffs in first quarter of 2009. This is usually what happens during a recession. Some people will be out of their jobs but people who are working with multinational companies should not worry too much because salary for Malaysian employee is relatively low compared to their peers in the region, and a regional executive is more likely to be given the boot rather than a supervisor or secretary in Kuala Lumpur branch.

Year 2009, the year of the Ox will be tough, but people who make the extra effort or work as hard as the Ox should have no problem sailing through it. Although recession is not something to be happy about, it does give us a chance to assess our current lifestyle and get our priorities right. Chinese believe that whenever there is danger, there is also opportunity to be found. So instead of lamenting about your fortunes in 2009 and whining continuously, be ready to improvise and snatch the opportunities when they are present. Do not take success or failure too seriously, for one closed door may lead to another larger open doorway, as long as you are determined, fortunes will not desert you.

Wish you and your family a happy, healthy and prosperous year ahead

“Happy New Year 2009″

I cannot help but notice Kakiis, a new Malaysian social networking site with integrated micr0-blogging feature. Kakiis is noticeable because of its creative ads (you might just notice its ads on this site itself if you are observant enough) on major online advertising network, namely MSN and Nuffnang.

So what exactly is Kakiis? According to their own description:

Welcome to Kakiis, an online and mobile social networking community that connects people through networks of friends for communicating, sharing and making new friends.

Being a little kiasu and wanting (badly) to feel proud about a Malaysian product, I decided to register on Kakiis.com. While registering, I also read through its Terms of Use (TOS) and apparently this social networking service is solely open for Malaysians use only because you are required to fill in a Malaysian cellphone number before you are allowed to register (okay, to be more precise anyone who has a Malaysian cellphone number could register on the site).

I am not entirely sure yet how this service works, generally I think it is based on community or user groups because its main navigation bar consists only of your own profile and create a circle menus. Circle is the equivalent of community or user groups on Facebook and Hi5 (any other services having similar features?). Having no friend on the network, I am left with but 1 option – I created The Volgograd Times circle on Kakiis.

Unfortunately I am not able to show you The Volgograd Times Kakiis Circle page if you are not a member of Kakiis, unlike profile pages on Friendster. I am inclined to believe that Kakiis is not a completed platform, there seems to be too little on offer there right now and I am not even sure what I could do once I created the circle. Either that or the developer really needs to work hard to add extra atrractive features on it, otherwise it will be deserted (like Volgotimes? Do comment below to show that Volgotimes is not deserted).

If anyone would like to explore this network together with me or would like to join The Volgograd Times circle, kindly comment below with your email (in the right field please, not in the comment field to avoid spams) and I shall hit you up with an invitation as soon as possible.

Meanwhile I would like to give some feedbacks to Kakiis developer.

1. Please allow users to register without a Malaysian cellphone number.
2. Please set up a contact form or leave your email on your mainpage. I really hate services which are not sensible enough to provide any communication method whatsoever. I mean it!
3. Go post a video on YouTube regarding your services and features. Although your ads are attractive, so far I don’t see them being relevant to what your services are about.

Do you have any other complaints or suggestions about Kakiis?

Falalalala~ lala la la!

Christmas is back with a vengeance and Santa’s gonna ride his sleigh over your ass soon! The season of giving and being thankful for the people around you, even if especially if they annoy the hell out of you, is upon us!

Short history lesson: Christmas is the celebration of the birthday of Yehoshua the Nazarene some 2000 years ago. Sure, technically, it’s almost certain that he wasn’t born on the 25th of December but that’s not important! The important thing is the spirit and symbolism of the celebration: hope, reconciliation, forgiveness and thanksgiving to name some.

This article is actually about the JE Christmas Bash. Now, let it not be said that I did not warn you people: This Bash is organized by the JE – the Jesus Embassy. It is a religious group and therefore, there will be some elements at the Bash that some people might find offensive. I mean, I haven’t seen the agenda but there might be prayers, carols and the songs might revolve around Jesus. I know, it IS Christmas, what did I expect, right? But I do know some people who felt they were caught off-guard in the previous Bashes, so I might as well add this warning here.

Being a Malaysian, let me begin with the food. If you’ve never had authentic russian food, this is the place to have it. First of all, it’s free. Second of all, no, it’s not the weak-ass generic-tasting kotlet pa-kievskii that went up by 13 roubles since I first came here. No, these are real home-cooked Russian delicacies. Sure, it might be the same salat s krevetkami and the chicken you can find in any stalovaya but seriously, these are home-cooked. Come on, you know the difference between home-cooked and commercially sold meals, right?

What is Christmas without caroling, eh? Yep, usually, the Bashes open up slowly with carols. It’s hard to believe that the choir members are students from our very own university. These are the everyday people who we interact with, yet once a year at the Winter Solstice, these people unleash their angelic voices upon us. And every year I get that feeling of awe at the harmony and unity that these people beam.

A staple of the JE Bashes would be at least two modern dance performances and at least one performance art. I’d be very surprised if the LIFE dance group isn’t invited to perform and/or if there won’t be a break-dance show by the African students. Personally, the highlight of the night for me would be the performance art thing. In past years they had sketches, comedic lip-synching and, last year, they even had a very deep mime act. I actually keep score with myself whether each year performance trumps the year before or not. So far, it has not been disappointing. I sometimes wonder from where these people get the creativity to come out with this stuff.

Now, no party deserves to be called a Bash if it doesn’t have an open floor session, does it? Don’t worry, JE Bashes traditionally open the floor to boogie-woogie. Last year, they actually had a live band! Not your mellow yellow bands, either. They had a Real Rockin’ Band! To be COMPLETELY honest with you, dear readers, this is the part of the night that rates the lowest on my scale. No, not because the song selection sucks – they rock. Partly it’s because of me having two left feet that couldn’t decide which would be the right foot, but a bigger part would be I feel that I’m too old for these things.

Yes, I’m younger, much younger than most of you think but I’m a recycled soul. In the immortal words of Kipling, “He never wasted a leaf or a tree, do you think he would squander souls?”

But I digress. Let me end this with the details now lest I get chastised for my haranguing. Damn, Kipling got me all literal and shit.

The Christmas Bash: 27-12 1800

JE XMas Bash `08: El Amor Mas Grande
Date: 27/XII/2008
Time: 1800 sharp
Venue: Церковь Иисуса Спасителя <- I’m not quite sure where but…
Transportation: Buses will be made available at both Kim and Hiroshima hostels.

P.S: The good people at JE provided us with a slideshow of last year’s event:

This is a cut and paste excerpt from thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: Every month, at least five doctors are found to be suffering from mental illnesses, director-general of health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said.

He said these doctors were either psychotic or neurotic but still managed to get into medical schools because these schools were not screening students meticulously enough.

“When the doctors complete their two-year housemanship and their applications are submitted for registration with the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), they fail to get registered.

“Their supervisors do not certify them as fit to be registered because of indiscipline and poor attitude arising from mental health problems.

“The mental cases range from psychotic to neurotic. Psychotic cases include delusions and hallucinations, and neurotic behaviour includes anxiety, fear and anger due to the competitive environment,” said Dr Ismail.

These medical graduates, totalling about 60 cases a year, are unable to cope with their housemanship as they may have been pressured by their parents to take up medicine.

Dr Ismail said it was disheartening to note this emerging trend due to an inefficient selection process, adding that the mental cases were referred to the Medical Review Panel (MRP).

Since many of these graduates have spent a lot of money on their medical education, the MRP may extend their housemanship and at the same time send them for psychiatric treatment.

“In the event they are assigned to work, they will be thoroughly supervised and counselled by experts and given light duties until their mental condition improves.

“I am not so sure whether we can identify those with attitude problems during an interview unless such problems are obvious,” Dr Ismail said at a forum on Training Future Doctors: Have we got it right?”

About 2,000 medical doctors are registered annually from 21 local medical schools and 400 recognised schools overseas.

Different medical schools around the world have different selection criteria for their students, Dr Ismail said.

However, he said that the ministry was also planning some form of examination to check their attitude, knowledge and experience after they complete their final examination.

Most of the mentally ill students, he said, could have undergone pressure and depression while studying and faced difficulty in coping in a hospital environment.

The other weakness was a lack of proficiency in the English language.

Higher Education director-general Prof Datuk Dr Radin Umar Radin Sohadi said the ministry was currently reviewing universities’ curricula to ensure high standards in medical education and training for doctors.

“Uppermost on our minds will be the safety and well-being of patients,” he said.

Maintain a Volgo-student community site proves to be quite hard. Even harder than memorizing neuroleptic drugs lah. However, I think the other volgo-community site – tulaka.com is kinda cold as well. After analyzing current Volgograd situation, these are some of the possible reasons why it is hard for us to get hits -

1. Hostel connection yang mahal. I heard people wanna open facebook also need to think few times. LOL. Is this true?
2. Megaphone connection yang kurap? Heard that it got some PMS thing going on one. Sometimes fast, sometimes not moving at all.
3. The site is not famous enough. What to do? I don’t know lah. Any suggestions?
4. Admins are not famous enough (this is not important).
5. Volgograd people is boring. Studies too busy? Don’t lie.
6. Volgograd is boring.
7. Those staying outside not giving face.
8. Volgotimes not enough controversial post?
9. Because football season is over?
10. What you all want lah?

Possible solutions:

1. Admins gotta turn hiphop so that their life is interesting. So that the site will be interesting.
2. Need to recruit more playboy playgirls so that we got more gossip to share? So bad lah this idea. Thought wanna be free from controversy.
3. Volgograd next top model.
4. Advertise! Ok, banners and posters will be printed and hang in all big and small hostels when got people sponsor.

This post is to show that Volgotimes allow crap. Please write in and publish more!

500 just ain’t enough

The Volgo League in its last week, had to take a back sit, people greet each other with “500 cukup ke?” (works for RM and USD), instead of Happy Deepavali.

It has been quite awhile since a topic as juicy as this spiced up our quite boring lives, other than those creatures with perfect legs and bottoms prancing around in heels and colourful boots of course.

I’ve got to admit, it was fun. It was an opportunity to see how people around us are and how willingly they make a joke out of themselves.

Why fun? The Q&A plus commentary session with the MMC turned into a session littered with silly irrelevant questions and it created the mother of all arguments, the topic of the week, the source of quotations, the butt of jokes, all from the matter of scholars’ allowance.

During the session itself, the bickering erupted !

Why? Not hard to understand.

Privates: know how much scholars get and how much it takes to live in Volgograd.
Scholars: want the allowance to cover everything, plus winter holiday’s expenses, new hand phone every year, digicams, and branded clothes.

Face it people, if private students were in scholars’ shoes, and scholars were in privates students’ place, nothing would have changed, not a bit.

We can’t blame scholars for being a little greedy and upset. Some do come from not so rich families. And some were actually ashamed when the issue was brought out too.

Nor we can blame private students for being a little jealous. Some are in fact more qualified than scholars on merit and they are sure to be upset if some scholars deemed unqualified in the first place are still asking for more.

But these are mere peanuts, insignificant, not worth to choke each other for. Because at the end of the day, increased or not, scholars wouldn’t die of hunger and private students don’t get anything after all.

You might have missed out that:

1. There is one MMC representative on the Accreditation Board.
2. He is Dr. Yeoh something something.
3. The board recognizes and derecognizes medical universities by taking cue from MMC.
4. Meaning, the MMC actually, unofficially decides all the medical universities’ fate.
5. And, Dr. Yeoh says that MMC are satisfied with us and dropped clear enough hints that the status isn’t going to change, at least not for now.
6. Plus, to derecognize a university, a trial period lasting years will be given before a final decision is made.
7. Plus, we have 2800 students in Russia by now, no government, pro-Najib or pro-Anwar would be stupid enough to rock the boat and become their opponents’ free punching bags.
8. Big conclusion, we are safe, at least for the near future.

Now for some questions:

Would you private students rather see scholars’ allowance maintained and to sit for the exam?
Or would scholars rather have a raise and willingly sit for the exam?

If you went for the rathers, I am sure you would get a HO extension due to mental health problem or, you are too selfish or, you are too greedy!

So now that the shadow of disaccredition  is gone, the haunting, dreadful possibility of having to sit for and failing the exam and selling pisang goreng by the roadside with a Diplom hanging from the tree fades away, and having our prayers answered, why are we bickering?

Why bicker over some anchovies when we have all landed the largest, most meaningful catch we could?

So, check your rod, be it big or small, make sure the next time, you don’t miss out on the catch.

And stop blaming XzzAT and KoXAn (censored by Editor), humans are humans unless you are enlightened or a saint. Try thinking why they did so, instead of jumping to conclusions and making all sorts of assumptions. Thank you.

“a grateful person is a happier person. “

P.S. Editor’s note: All opinions expressed belong to the author alone. We do not wish to promote unrest among Volgograd students. I think the author meant to advise us to not overlook the more important thing we gained from the meeting with MMC and relevant government representatives and stop bickering due to individual opinions and principles that uniquely define each of us.

Here is something to take your head off those thick books.

A friend of mine recommended me this-  Failblog

## Warning ##

Not recommended for students who are easily addicted to funny , crappy images

The author would not bear any responsibility if any of the following or any unforeseen situations happens.

1. Student fails to prepare for classes

2. Student got addicted to the blog and keep clicking “next”

3. Student fails medical school

4.Student laughs too loud till hostel “mama” barges into the room

Adoption Fail

Ski Fail

Braille Fail

Mascot Fail

OK. Back to studies please!

So I sat here yesterday for almost two hours – well not really spent sitting, more of alternating between squirming, lying down, stretching, annoying my roommate, not necessarily in that particular order – trying to think of what to write.

My first idea, since I just finished watching Ichi the Killer the second time, was to write movie reviews on movies you probably have never seen and should see. I wanted to write on Koroshiya Ichi, a movie with excessive violence, violent sex and more violence. A concerned question from the Almighty All-seeing and rather All-too-pansy Admin scrapped that idea out.

Secondly came the idea with the title ‘Mastering Russian 101′, a satirical piece on a newbie’s underestimation of the vastness of the Russian language. But I do think that I could not have written the piece fully without stepping on a whole lot of people’s toes – hell, I might even would have stepped on their gonads for that matter – and since I don’t think the Times support slandering issues, I let that one out.

After a while, my muse whispered to me and suggested for me to write about interesting, at least to me, websites that could kill a few hours of boredom. But I vetoed that for the simple reasoning that people who do visit the site would already have their own time-killing sites.

There were other ideas – Places to visit in Volgograd, Movies I’ve never watched and would respect you so much less if you did, Sustagenius!’s unique recipes that for sure you haven’t tried one, book recommendation, music recommendation – the hell, if I wrote an article for each idea I would have written a whole magazine!

But my name IS Sustagenius! I finally found what to write about.

Do you realize that you have read exactly 302 words on this word? Yeap, an entire post about nothing. I’m such a Sustagenius!