An Amazing Story About a Selfless Man

This morning, I was in Tawau for a meeting. After it ended, I asked my Site Supervisor to take me for a quick visit to an old project site - a massive storm drain which we had designed and supervised way back in 1989. I wanted to snap a few photographs for memory’s sake.

After taking the photos, I jumped down from the edge of the drain to the roadside verge. In that very moment, disaster struck - my handphone slipped out of its casing and plunged straight into the murky, rubbish-filled, foul-smelling water below.

It was horror of horrors. The thought of losing the phone itself wasn’t as painful as the idea of losing hundreds of precious contact numbers stored inside. Looking at the water’s condition - the depth, the stench, and the trash floating about - I knew there was no way I could retrieve it.

Then came an incredible moment. Without a second’s hesitation, my Supervisor removed his shoes and climbed into the waist-deep water to try to recover it for me. At first, he tried to feel for the phone with his feet. When that didn’t work, he climbed back up - only to discover that his own phone, forgotten in his pocket, had been completely soaked and was now lifeless. I felt terrible.

Still, he didn’t give up. He stripped off his shirt and went back into the drain, this time using his hands to search. After nearly 15 minutes of determined effort, he suddenly yelled, “Got it!” To my amazement, he had found my phone at the bottom of the drain.

Of course, my phone was waterlogged and dead on arrival. But there was one silver lining - I managed to retrieve the SIM card, sparing me the nightmare of rebuilding my contacts list from scratch.

Back home, I remembered a tip someone once gave me: dry a soaked phone with a hair dryer. I tried it, and to my utter relief, the phone powered back on. Everything was intact - contacts, messages, photos - praise the Lord!

I immediately tried to call my Supervisor to share the good news, but naturally, his phone wasn’t working. So I sent him an SMS through one of his friends, asking him to try the same drying trick. An hour later, he texted back with equally wonderful news - his phone had revived too!

What an unbelievable twist to an almost tragic story. Both phones, back to life.

And for the record, the true hero of the day - the “saviour” of my phone - is none other than Maznan Madun.

Lok Kawi Widlife Park

We are expecting some family members of our China Chinese cell member coming from China to KK in mid-August for a week or so. One of the items in the itinerary is to visit a local zoo in KK area.

Somehow, we knew there is a zoo somewhere near KK but not very sure of its exact location. Then on Saturday, 11 August, a group of students and lecturers from Gaya Teacher Training College had an excursion to the Zoo. We finally got the chance to explore this place.

As it turned out, this is quite a well-stocked zoo. For the first time, we had a close look at the Probosis monkey. In the past, we could only have glimpses of these monkeys on tree top along Sukau River or Klias River at long distance from us.

Other attractions are elephants, bears, tigers, rhinosaur just to name a few.

Our next visit will be on 23 August 2007.

Computer Laboratory at SK Bahang

Finally, the lab. is completed. For Paul, this is one of the first projects that can be included in his CV. Not bad after all considering the hoo-ha: such as honeycombs n the concrete pour we had in the beginning of the project.

The Ex-Fifians Met Up Again

Patrick Tan and his wife, Jenny were in Sabah with a delegation of oil palm growers for a study visit to the estates in Lahad Datu. After wrapping up their official program, they decided to extend their stay by another day and a half to catch up with old friends in Kota Kinabalu. Instead of flying directly from Sandakan back to Kuala Lumpur, they made a short detour to KK.

As always, our reunion was filled with warm conversations and laughter. This time, however, our talks went a little deeper as we reflected on the theme of “living a significant second half of our lives.” After all, most of us are already in our fifties - an age where such thoughts naturally come to the forefront.

Before their evening flight, we gathered for lunch at the Salut Seafood Restaurant. The choice wasn’t mine - Patrick had heard from friends about the supposedly “good and cheap seafood” there and was eager to try it. Unfortunately, the food and ambience turned out to be rather underwhelming - neither particularly good nor memorable. Still, with old friends around, the experience was less about the food and more about the company, which made it all worthwhile.

We were also delighted to be joined by another pair of ex-MU 5th Collegians, Peter and Joyce Lai, which added even more warmth and laughter to our brief but meaningful reunion.

From left: Joyce, my wife and Jenny.

From left: Patrick, me and Peter Lai.