I found the interesting tree at the left in the heritage village of Sabah Museum last Saturday. Probably I am dirty-minded, I find that the tree is very “sexy” and reminds me of something stimulating. 🙂

Talking about the Sabah Museum, I remember I went there in 1987 to look for a geologist. This was because I found a few stones that looked like fossil (See picture below. Click to see the larger photo). Long before the movie “Jurrasic Park”, I already loved to learn about dinosaurs. Early in high school, one of my ambitions was to become a fossil hunter and my dream destination was the Gobi Desert of China, a potential place where we could find fossil of undiscovered dinosaur species. Unfortunately, after knowing my target, my parents said, “What use to become a fossil hunter? No money one. You can eat fossil meh? Become an Engineer / Lawyer / Doctor lah, make $$$ bah.” (Sadly speaking, nowadays, there are still many Malaysian parents brainwash their children like this.)

After reading all the books about fossil and earth history, I knew that it was impossible to find the fossil of dinosaur because Borneo island did not exist during the dinosaur time. But I hope to find the fossil of seashell or fish. All my friends laughed at me, “You ini shock shock lah. There is no fossil in Sabah!” I went to a few mountains, dig around based on the tips written in the books, and found a few pieces of fossil. The geologist confirmed what I found was seaweed fossils. He even gave me a limestone with shell fossil on it. (I tried to find more fossil later, but I always got the similar and incomplete fossil. After I went studying overseas, I stopped this hobby.)

I displayed all the fossils in a science exhibition of my school. I didn’t win any prize, but I was happy because I proved to the people, who laughed at me, that they were wrong. From that time on, I understood if you wanted to be different, you got to prepare to hear many sneered at you. That’s why Galileo is the scientist I like the most.