Surat Sikh Conference 2009

Surat Sikh Conference is a conference held in New York every year where Sikhs between the age of 18 to 35 get together to discuss current Sikh issues. This years theme was about the problem faced by Sikh farmers in Punjab. Formerly the most prosperous state in India, modern day Punjab desperately struggles with grave economic and environmental problem. From 1997 to 2001, the Indian Government reduced distribution by the Public Distribution System (PDS) by 20%. In 2001 there was a food surplus of 38 million tons while there were 320 million malnourished or hungy Indians in the same year. This clearly shows how the decision of PDS to reduce the distribution has a drastic effect on the farmers and the villagers. There have been shocking statistics on reports of Punjabi farmers committing suicide where 1 Punjabi farmer commits suicide in 3 days mostly because they re in debt. The conference discussed about this issue. We even spoke about the tragic 1984 attack on Sikhs. 2 speakers who lived through those attacks described the whole thing. I am personally shocked that we have not got any of our rights served and not many people around the world know about what happened.

Other than the discussions, we had a bhangra night where the famous Bhikram Singh performed. We went ice skating at central park, imagine skating outdoor in the middle of new york with buildings all around, and sikhs all over. It was so much fun. The whole conference was awesome, met so many new people mostly doctors and dentist. I personally hope we have a conference like this back in Malaysia. All we have are camps but not these kinds of conferences. Fellowship Camp may be the closest to this but we need our Sikh youths to be more informative about current issues faced by Sikhs around the worls.

Penn State 2009 Season

2008 has past. Penn State will remain Penn State. without looking back, 2009 is gona be our season!! Hands down ours. All comes down to inches and seconds, and we re gona fight for that inch and seconds. Cause we know when we add up all those inches, thats gona make the difference between winnning and loosing, between living and dying. We are gona have the penn state nation wiling to take that extra inch toghether to the national championship in the 2009 season cause WE ARE PENN STATE.

College Football- Road to Big Ten Championship

So basically American football is a new passion i ve possessed, one big reason is because Penn State has a great Football program and they have the best fans in college football. I ve learn to love this team and have started missing EPL games for these College Football games. Penn State is in the Big Ten conference where they play their college football games against other big ten teams. and they will rank us with all the other teams in other conferences. Right now with 3 games left, we are ranked 1st in Big Ten and 3rd in the country behind Alabama University and University of Texas Austin. We played our biggest game of the season last night against Ohio State where people said that if we beat Ohio state we will definitely be considered for the NCAA championship game to determine the best college football team in the nation. The game last night was a very defensive display with very little yards by both teams but a mistake by Pryor, the Quarterback of Ohio State when he lost the ball and gave us an interception where we scored a touchdown to win the game 13-6. We played at Ohio State and we have never won a game there since we entered the Big Ten conference back in 1993. The win last night was a memorable win with our biggest win of the season. Students here celebrated with a big time riot downtown State College. We have a creative and hardcore offensive line lead by Quarterback Dryll Clark and wide receivers like D Will and Norwood. Earlier in the Season we beat Michigan after loosing to them 9 times in a row. This I would say is our biggest chance to get into the NCAA championship and be the best College Football Team in the country.

Here is a link for those who wana know more about College Football and rankings.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/index

summer break - Malaysia

summer break Malaysia

- langkawi

- genting

- jamming

- performances

- gurudwara

- parties

- weddings

- shopping

- college ball

- prep for migration

Mid west games 2008

Mid West Games is this event where al malaysian students studying in the States come together representing their university in games. This year it was held in university of southern illinois which is about 14 hour drive from PEnn State. The penn State contigent took a bus there a day before the games. It was pretty much like the olympics with events like swimming, athelethics, soccer, bowling, congkak, volleyball, tennis, basketball, ping pong, and alot more..We had a big contigent so we took part in almost every event. I was the soccer captain and played volleyball for penn state. We manage to get a silver medal in mens soccer, bronze medal in volleyball and a whole lot of medals in other events. We manage to win the overall championship and it was all worth it.

Catching up

Well, its been a long time since i wrote on my own BLOG. I finally realise im not a Blogger..but what i can do is write maybe 2 sentences and throw in a bunch of pictures..hahaha. so since spring break, i have just been cathcin up on assignments and finals. Vasakhi, International Soccer Tournament(ISC), Maryland Field Trip with my Geoscience class, and Semi Formal were the few things I did while cathcing up on assignments. The Sikh student association booked a small hall and a family brought SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB JI. So all Sikhs around the area (students and families) got together and had a celebration with kirtan and langar. I represented the Malaysian team for the ISC soccer tournament and we lost our group stage last match against BRAZIL. so that wasnt too bad. The Maryland Geology Field Trip was a day trip. We hiked and walked by the great falls and explored facinating geological features. It rained badly and non of us were up for it. So the trip back (4 hours) was not at all comfortable (all soaked and wet).

Spring Break

With limited finances and the ever awaited midwest games during the summer, I had to spend spring break bumming around watching movies and playing soccer in the university itself. Went to pittsburgh (3hours away)for a day and loved it. Pittsburgh is an old but beautiful and amazing city filled with steel bridges and old structures. University of Pittsburgh (1787) is one of the oldest university in US. Their buildings and the interior looks alot like those buildings in 'Harry Potter'. The Steelers/Panthers stadium is another must see site in Pittsburgh. Got myself a drumstick from Hard Rock Cafe Pittsburgh. I drove back the whole way making it the first time driving long distance in the States. It wasnt as bad as I thought it would have been, but the fog troughout Altoona made it a lil harder. Besides travelling to Pittsburgh, we played alot of poker and I guess im an addict now. Some of my friends from University of Tulsa visited us here and those were the best 2 days of spring break.