m*laysia book of what??..

hey, morning people..

was reading my daily news at www.thestar.com.my today and saw this article -

Malaysia Book of Records

The daily also reported that a private school principal made it into the Malaysia Book of Records for giving 50 hours of non-stop tuition lessons.

Dr Alan Diva, a 44-year-old from Kluang, Johor, started the lessons on Aug 17 before completing the rare feat on Aug 19.

More than 1,200 students were part of the record. They were divided into 17 groups, each attending a three-hour lesson.

After the lessons, Dr Alan, who looked exhausted, was found to be fit by the medical doctor on stand-by.

During the feat, he had 10-minute food and toilet breaks after teaching for six hours.

...

seriously, we're starting to put ridiculous items in the malaysian book of records. dont get me wrong, i think the book is amazing that it captures Malaysians' amazing feats.. climb mount everest, swim across french channel, first malaysian to win noble prize.. these are all amazing things and i salute those who have the guts and talent to achieve these.

but then you get articles like the one above.. record for giving 50 hour non-stop tuition???>. you call that a record??. he probably did it just so he'd earn alot of money.

and you got all these records on longest / largest / biggest.. food!!!.. we've got the longest sandwich, longest pulut kuning, longest keropok lekor!!.. i mean seriously, its getting a bit ridiculous.

i remember a few years back where a singer got indicted (if you can say that) into the book of records for being the FIRST ARTISTE TO SING AT THE REVOLVING RESTAURANT IN KL TOWER!!!!.. wow, that's just amazing..ly stupid.

i'm surfing the book of records website now to see if there is actually anything worthy of a book of record entry.. (15 minutes later.. i dont have that much research time)... they've divided them into categories and this is what i found..

category - Outstanding achievers.. (there must be something amazing here)

items within it:

1. The highest can stacking record.
2. the biggest dinner gathering.
3. first malaysian solo sailor around the world (worthy entry)
4. world's longest coin line
5. longest malaysian flag displayed on the great wall of china (worthy entry)
6. the most number of trees planted in one minute (what the???)
7. the biggest teh tarik event (due to number of participants. wow.)
8. first malaysians to walk the 'Last Degree' to the North pole (definite worthy entry)

from this category alone you can see how umm.. ridiculous this thing has become. Like i said before, its amazing how some of these entries are achieved (read 'worthy entries'). it takes extra human resilience to do what they've done and i think that is important as a main criteria for entries.

the fact that some people can enter for the 'biggest dinner gathering' is just because these people have nothing better to do than to just be in the book!!.. everyone else in Malaysia are not trying this because unlike some, we would rather do other things than obtain cheap publicity.

i'm not gonna waste my (and yours) time in listing down all the other categories and the entries. however, i did have a quick glance and like i said, there are a number of things which are amazing and are definite worthy entries in the book. .. (first satelite, tallest building, etc).. but then majority of the entries make the book rather childish and dumb. theres even an award for 'FIRST LRT TREASURE HUNT'.. i mean come on!!.. that can't seriously be a worthy entry.

oh well, i guess i'm just bitter that i'm not in the book. wonder if i can create a new entry that i can be first / longest / biggest / largest at.. hmm.. how bout the 'FIRST PERSON TO COMDEMN THE MALAYSIAN BOOK OF RECORDS'???. hahaha.. or the first person to create the word 'carmouflage'.. hmmm.. probably not. oh, how bout 'LONGEST LINE IN A BANK'

anyway, shall not bore you further with my rantings. haha.. i guess what i'm trying to say is that there should be some proper standards for an entry into the Malaysian Book of Records!!.. we are very talented people and i'm sure we can do much better than just 'largest dinner gathering'. how about 'highest number of malaysians enrolled into Harvard'? 'FIrst malaysian to win Noble prize'

having said that, i need to restate the fact (just so that you dont report me to the Ministry of Domestic Affairs or seomthing) that i am extremely proud to be Malaysian and i'm sure we'll do spectacular things for the country!!.. i guess while waiting for that moment to arrive, we have to make do with 'LONGEST STAY WITH SNAKES'..

well, here's wishing everyone a Happy 50th Merdeka!!!..

f

p/s - for the 'longest hours providing tuition', i wonder how much did the students actually learn???.. isnt that the whole point of the tuition??