Another religious piece

Being a weak atheist, I always question myself, can human embrace to no religion? Without religion, can human still be able to generate and bring forth the civilisation assimilated with bloom, dignity and humanity? We shouldn't miss another point we must take into consideration: "Why is that religion there?"

Despite the different identities of each religion, I was so naive to categorise religions to an equal group of education based belief that has only been attempting to indoctrinate the followers without using justified theories in order to build a fine character. I have never been able to come so close to religious topics before stepping in a whole new environment which is totally different in comparison to Chinese Buddhist society I was bound and inclined to.

I was warmly invited to visit a church for my very first time in Subang. The to-and-fro trip took us two hours on the road. During that direct exposure, I learned a lot about perception of Christian towards the religion that has the greatest population of followers in the world. However the more I discover, the more I realise what I really need. Honestly, although I'm not a strong nor a devoted Buddhist, I felt embarrassed and challenged in the sense that I can't force myself to resonate with the talks given by those pastors. The reason is just simple, I don't believe in the existence of deities. Consequently, I felt so sorry whenever I rejected their invitations after that. I do appreciate their hospitality very much.

Besides, I constantly questioned my another housemate, a Bajau from Sabah who worships Allah. I asked something fairly sensitive, I consulted his opinion about why a Muslim can't convert, why Islam forbids pork etc. His told me he can't question or critic what has been stated in Al-Quran, he has no right and necessity to do so and it is possibly considered insulting the sacred ancient intellectual heritage.

On the other hand, I attended meetings held by newly formed Buddhist Society every week. Most of us had misunderstood Buddhism. Instead of religion, it should be called education by Dhama granted to mankind. There was a monk once told us: "If you are a free thinker, it is the best for you to attach to Buddhism."

We would always include this unique phenomenon whenever we were to write an essay concerning the mixture of compromised multiracial and multireligion background in our country, however those were the moments I felt I couldn't be more agree with that.

The Experiment

About five years ago, I remember my brother once told me there was an experiment featuring the incredible effect of human thoughts or speech that could be directed to non-living things such as water droplets, discovered by Masaru Emoto who was the first man to begin this quest. He consolidated his controversial claims by gazetting his microscopic images of different water crystals resulted in his experiments to the public.

I didn't believe in it, until my scepticism ceased a little after I had come across with some positive results shared by people on YouTube and some related articles trying to explain the theories inside this mysterious response shown by non-living things. It happens to be totally out of logic to me. The behaviour of water droplets which is only explicable using non-scientific sense has thrilled me to try this out by myself, using rice which may show the similar response. I would soon gather a group of mates in my college to test the plausibility of this renowned Emoto test!


First you have to prepare two identical containers which are then filled with equal amount of cooked rice and sealed, preventing any other factors to intervene the only controlling variable. Then, write two contrasting phrases such as "I love you" and "I hate you" on pieces of papers and paste it, or directly on the container. Do notice in this experiment, your speech is vital as well, so prepare a few words to be spoken to each of them daily and repetitively. Make sure whenever you are showing love or hatred, you mean it. If things go smoothly, you will notice the rate of decomposition of the "poor" rice is much faster than the other one.

If this is your first time to know this, I'm pretty sure you are doubting it too. But isn't it fascinating? Hopefully I will not get a fruitless result :)

IELTS

In case you don't know what IELTS stands for, it is actually the abbreviation of International English Testing Language Testing System.

First of all I would like to critic my previous IELTS lecturer once again.

Disclaimer: If you have been following my blog for a certain period you could notice how intensely I have been criticising many aspects of my current college, but that doesn't mean I was showing my sheer hatred towards KTT. In fact, I'm concerning the issues that annoyed me, and having an urge to share it with my nearest people. I could have ignored all the flawed, the preposterous one happening around me. But after all I felt it might be better to voice my dissatisfaction and disappointment in order to let myself out.

I had never seen such an irresponsible lecturer in the sense that she had cancelled 90% of her classes since I enrolled in A-Level program 6 months ago. Just imagine I was supposed to attend 2 lectures per week, but I ended up by having less than 5 lectures during the six months. If this doesn't sound shocking, listen to this one: she had fled away all in a sudden with some money that students paid to purchase IELTS reference books! Seriously it can be considered a crime. Consequently, a new IELTS lecturer is taking her place now, bringing both great news and bad news, where there is a resurgence of IELTS teachings but we have to pay for another IELTS reference book of a different version.

Back to the title, all of the scholars in preparation to travel aboard to India, Polland, Czech Republic etc. for tertiary study in medicine or dentistry have to pass certain cut-off points depending on the university we apply. IELTS includes four main tests - reading, listening, speaking and writing, with the achievement of each represented in band form ranging from band 1 to band 9.

I had a listening test in this afternoon and I find it challenging to recognise and read the British accent. I take IELTS more important than any other subjects I'm taking now.

Revealing unpleasent sight

It was a lovely afternoon when my roommate was enjoying the breeze in the balcony. Suddenly he smelt something. To his surprise, he saw a guy holding a lighted cigarrete above him in another balcony.

"What are you looking at? Strange? I'm not going to die because of this lah!"

It is quite an unexpected as well as unpleasant sight to me, considering the fact he is a JPA scholar, the educated one who is going to traverse into medical field, and has the responsibility to advise people to stop smoking. However he is not the only person practising something ironic and contradicting to his prospect in my present college. They are a lot including seniors. Moreover, it has been stated smoking inside the college compound is prohibited and penalty of RM100 would be charged towards violator. Well, I haven't come across any news that any kind of penalty had been charged on them since I was here six months ago. The guards ignore that too, so do some lecturers and wardens. I can't tolerate indifference shown by the administrators. Honestly I have no prejudice towards smokers, but in my point of view, smokers are not qualified to contribute himself in health care related career seriously. Even if they are, don't you think that their patients would surely doubt their credibility in diagnosing ailments or prescribing medicine?

Put this aside, I would like to share another thing that was annoying. It happened for days continuously in the last month. When I was in my mood of revising and there came a deafening bang inside the hostel. Apparently someone was trying to get into our nerves by lighting firecrackers. My instinct told me that was another immatured scholar, but I could never identify the nuisance maker. In my previous secondary school, if you tried to challenge the school rules by having such explosives, you would be expelled without any tolerance or consideration.

Please return me the serenity of my lovely tiny college :(

Swooned

I'm swooned by the actress. It has been years since I last sketched someone's portrait.

Stop!

This is something I concern but hasn't been shared in my blog. As an average Internet user, I'm sure you would have come across all kinds of forwarded emails from your friends including love stories, friendship interactive pieces, news, something hilarious such as links of videos and photos, or chain letter the cynical hoax and others.

Yesterday there came an email titled "Stop the killing of seals!" with some bloody photos attached and condemnation in response to human's cruelty towards the innocent, defenseless animals. I did receive the email of the same theme several weeks ago, with title "Stop whaling!".

Even if you are not a biology student, you are having no problem to figure out the similarity that whales and seals share. Yes they are endangered, going to be categorised as extinct animals soon. Personally I support what some humanitarian organisations are currently in their endless attempt to eradicate barbarism, urging the leaders of the world to show concern and response.

But ironically most of us are consumers in term of feeding. Not all of us are vegetarians. I had just found out actually there are more chickens than human population in the world. We don't take the slaughtered chickens, fishes or whatever belong to livestock as example because they are numerous and hardly to go extinct. If you are patient enough to reach this sentence, I hope you have got the point I'm going to raise. What is the difference of human cruelty despite the fact above? What defines cruel? Does the image of whaling overlap your sight when you visited market places, watching how the fishes got their head off?

If possibly chicken is on the verge to extinct, email titled "Stop slaughtering chicken!" would probably be spreading throughout the world.

Another incident

It was an afternoon when my housemate wondered what's happening to our newly bought washing machine. The water clogged inside the wash tub instead of draining out. The clothes were still soaked after procedures of washing, rinsing and spinning. He was soon able to check out something bizarre - which you won't expect to happen.

There was a blockage in the end of the drain hose.

Imagine how you would feel knowing someone had the intention to spoil your washing machine. They are peels, egg shells and candy wrappers which are classified as rubbish.

This is the compartment which has been occupied as the "secret base", or the workshop of some resident kids aged ranging from 8 to 12 years old. They are creative to modify their bikes to a scooter-like vehicle and have fun at the inclined road in front of my college. That's why I have to tolerate the hammer tapping sounds almost everyday. You might be wondering why they are residents in my college, well, it will be a long story which I'm not going to share at this instant.

They did it mostly because of the intruding discharged water. We had informed them about that, and they have spacious compartment regardless of that corner we need, so I have no idea about why it led to the revengeful and ignorant act.

So they thought we would never notice the blockage? Hah, they are kids.

For KTTians : Pak Cik Parang definitely didn't tell them about that.

My beloved father

This post is dedicated to my father, and everyone who loves his or her mighty father.

It has almost been four months staying far apart from my hometown. I could only return there occasionally to meet my family.

I didn't know I would actually miss them so much - my siblings whom I always exchanged hot words with, my parents whom I still owe them a big hug and "I Love You!", my grandmother whom I put aside her conservative advice, or even took it as jokes. Not to forget my grandfather who had passed away on April Fool eight years ago, whom I had missed the golden time to fulfill filial piety.

I thought it wasn't a big deal to be here since I would have gotten used of the hectic lifestyle here but thing doesn't appear to be easy, especially when it was the day my father stepped into a new age, without his eldest son beside him during the celebration.

As you can see that's how powerful time has been leaving irreversible traces between the 15-year-interval.

Here is a short description about my father:

My father, Mr. Lui had been working as a teacher for decades before playing an significant role as the well honoured headmaster of one of the most prestigious local primary school. He had endured and at the same time surmounted the intense hardship all along the way. Having said that he is experienced in the educational career, he always had a lot of interesting, disheartening, and the stories which could tug at my heart strings. For instance, he shared the incident of how he persevered to travel more than two hours per day to a school located in rural area when he was a fresh teacher, and how his first salary was scammed by a senior teacher. I'm sure if he is to publish his memoirs, a great number of readers will be attracted, however he doesn't seem interested. He never failed to be the responsible head of household. He indoctrinated the importance to have a close-knit family, and to bear in mind that nothing stands more valuable than family. I have inherited almost all of his good traits - drawing, Chinese calligraphy, the rational way to think, and to be noble. It will always be a great time whenever he is beside us.

Here comes some photos of the celebration.

For those who can read Chinese, do kindly click on it to view the reflection by my father.

So, I'm here to wish my father a happy birthday, stay happy and healthy!

I love you papa! :)

Standing on the cross road

When I was in standard one of primary school, my teacher gave us a task – to figure out what possible jobs we would like to strive for, and fill in a form by arranging them in sequence according to our preference. Besides writing essay titled “My Ambition”, it has always been a trend among the teachers conducting such a survey to their students, for the reasons you know why. As expected, doctor topped the list as every one of us was looking for the most prestigious title. Yes, we were proud of ourselves to have our own preliminary ambition.

During secondary study, we had to face the fact that finding a job in response merely to our own interest would not eventually pay off. Who don’t wish to get himself into something that he really likes? But there are just too much factors we hadn’t considered. I would like to point out the main considerations taken care while people are looking for a job again, other than just the affinity towards the job – social status and respect, monetary stability, job satisfaction, or more simply to be simple and secure and so on.

For instance, my college has always been nurturing the doctor-to-be and dentist-to-be. I did ask the scholars around me concerning the reason they decide their career prospect to work as a dentist in their future. So far the answers I got are what you could always have expected. I’m able to bring it to a small conclusion, as it is two-fold. They prefer to traverse into a health care related field but they don’t seem to have considerable interest in this. A simple question will do – do you like watching into people’s mouth? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to expect an answer “yes”, I’m just wondering about what people tend to grow an interest in. Honestly I haven’t come across with anyone who can give me the powerful evidence that there would be no other job more suitable for him than a dentist. They have no idea about what else they should be. In fact, too many choices are available, which would trap them in the mist of puzzlement.

I used to be in the same circumstance. But we did have adequate time to make the right choice, didn’t we?

Consequence of exam-orientated culture.

I'm currently tackling Cambridge International A-Level program. So far the syllabus of text books doesn't really pose much trouble to me but I had soon found out what I have to surmount - laboratory sessions. I'm utterly clueless in handling the apparatus in appropriate way. I'm puzzled to select the suitable one before proceeding to the next procedure if the list of apparatus required isn't provided. Well, I attribute it as a part of consequence of practising an exam-orientated culture in my previous school life.

Honestly I've forgotten how many experiments I had conducted during my high-school period, but I can tell you experiment wasn't something significant to us at that time, just because there wouldn't be any practical test in SPM. We could memorise everything written in black and white in order to tackle the question concerning experiment planning, without having the urge to grasp more. Every class of my secondary school comprised of more than 45 students which in turns results in an insufficient capacity of science laboratory. We had been going through almost every experiment by our imagination, or sometime we were lucky enough to observe the demonstration by our teachers in front of us only.

I have to accept the fact that regurgitating the particular reference books would in turn ensure us to score well in papers but it seemingly doesn't benefit us in the same way whenever it is the time to put it into practice. To traverse into medical field, we should have acquired the proficiency in this part. So I come to here, my new college, equipped with merely the scarce experience in this part, hoping that I would be able to polish my practical skill other than struggling for an improvement in linguistic skill during the short period I'm going to stay here :)

Buddhism, my religion.

Having mixed with peers who are mostly comprised of Buddhist along the period I was raised in my hometown, I was surprised by the fact that majority of the Chinese in my college, especially those eastern friends embrace Christian values. Well, I'm a Buddhist, but not the devoted one. Religion is something profoundly abstract to me. I didn't visit temple as regularly as Muslim to mosque, or Christian to church. The incident that motivated me to touch something religious at this time is that there is now a freshly formed association namely Buddhist Society in my college. Although I don't own a great depth of knowledge regarding Buddhism, it doesn't simply mean I'm not interested to explore more about it.

For now I advocate the saying “多个香炉多个鬼，没有香炉没有鬼” which means "to have more censers will result in attracting more ghosts" in direct translation. (Sorry for the not-very-precise-translation as it could be done better) I would like to stress on how sceptic I'm towards some aspects of the religion despite of the actual underlying message of the proverb. Normally Buddhist worships Buddha statues to attain spiritual comfort, hoping he will get rid of disasters or ailments. Some of the believers would make wishes to bring themselves about wealth, and this is the group of people that is prone to superstition.

I'm now going to review several religious acts here, whether it is significant or not. Is burning joss sticks, paper money and incense significant? In my humble opinion it creates pollution rather than achieving what the believers intended. It consumes multitude amount of one of the most essential elements on our planet - paper and it would end up turning into greenhouse gases as well as other harmful byproducts. I'm not going to comment more about the disadvantage of "open burning", yet I often found it ridiculous to see the people burning some high-tech oblations to their ancestors. If they are to burn a paper handphone, I would recommend them to burn an extra Digi simcard too, since it provides the widest coverage :)

I'm not sure if ancestor worship is related to Buddhism since religion would have undergone diverse variation before spreading to every corner of the world. Buddhism I've been following may not share the same aspects with that from the place it originates. It could only come into contact with me when it was festive season such as Wesak Day or it came the traditional funeral. So I might have digressed in some points I've raised here to the extent where it sounds ignorant for me to be a Buddhist.

*This post did occupy a long time of mine, thanks for reading it and it is always welcoming for you to share your two cents about this :)

The day I had forgotten

"Hi Jin Xiang, are you free now?" she phoned me, "Can I have a chat with you?"

"Hi, sure, no problem." I was rather shocked about what brought her to make this sudden call.

"Do you know what day is today?" she asked, smiling. I knew that from her intonation.

"Err..." What a typical question, but it took me about ten seconds before I could only barely break the silence.

"Oh no! Please don't tell me you have forgotten it!" she uttered in dismay.

"Sorry, give me more time to think about that," I replied.

"Okay, now you try to recall, what had you done on the same day of today in last year?"

"Wait a minute, SPM trial examination?"

"No."

"We met each other in the tuition centre?"

"No! I'm kind of disappointed eh, I don't expect you to forget this important day. But obviously you do." She reiterated, "That day eh, you called me in the canteen after school. Then?"

I know she would be glad if I could complete the part she left for me. However I had a short-term memory loss. I kept contemplating.

"You gave me something..."

"Oh!" I cried, "Happy birthday!"

"Yup... how can you forget it?"

*The conversation above ended up with apologies and wishes*

Actually I did consider about her birthday since she asked the first question. But I thought it would be silly if it was not. Honestly, I'm very sensitive to numbers, however it is contradicting to say - I don't surprise to have myself forgetting about that, considering the fact that I don't always give every friend of mine a sincere wish whenever it is the moment they have grown older, not even to my closest friends.

Perhaps I should start writing them down.

When I was not at home

My homesickness ceased after staying for a week "in the middle of nowhere" (that's how people locate my college) but not when it came to a couple of days before departure to home. Thanks to my first examination week that has been postponed to a week after this holiday, I would have to reschedule my activities during this holiday. However I have squandered half of it before realizing I have only 5 more days to deal with the books (more than 15 kg) I brought back, but not now. I'm going to use this moment to share something I haven't updated right at here :)

This is how my college looks like.

As you can see the smart-looking guys are my housemates. The first person starting from left is Alee from Sabah, the diligent Malay. The guy in white is John from Sarawak. His greatest interest is Internet business, the field where most of us are not familiar with. The guy standing on my left hand side is called Maegyvear, a Kadazan hailed from Sabah also. Being active in Christian Fellowship and crowned to be "The Prince" during the orientation week, he is undoubtedly the most renowned person in the college.

Thanks to the seniors from the same secondary school of mine :)

I bought a new table for comfort after getting frustrated by the books jumbled up on my small desk, yet the books still jumble up easily. You guys know why.

"Learning is like sailing against the current, you would lag behind if stop moving."

These words are creative indeed.

This is one of the myriad types of bugs I have to confront every night. Somehow the mosquito here appears to be more furious. There was a spider hiding in my sport shoe too, luckily it escaped by the time I grabbed the shoe.

Time to get home :)

My little sister collected these while I was not at home!

First Blood

The title above flashed spontaneously in my mind when I'm going to share my fresh experience in my college. I had my very first blood donation two hours ago.

Before being able to summon my courage to allow my precious blood to be isolated and the needle to penetrate my tender skin *exaggerating* , I didn't know which type my blood belongs to.

It is type O ( I don't know if it is RhD-positive ). How good would it be if donating blood would return monetary reward to us since type O is the "bestseller" :p

I was pretty worried actually, considering the fact that I saw some of the donors turned pale after donating blood. Moreover my Biology lecturer shared his first blood donation to everyone of us - he suffered hyper ventilation and collapsed after that for not taking breakfast.

It was fast - it took only 5 minutes to fill up the packet (450ml) and the needle didn't really induce much pain. I have made a promise to join the second donation.

Try to involve yourselves if there is any blood donation campaign near your area, help the people in need :)

The lecturer

Having the top scorers among the international Cambridge A-Level candidates in the world, I thought one of the best colleges in my country, yet maybe also the smallest in size, Kolej Teknologi Timur to have experienced and excellence lecturers but I soon doubted about their credibility to give lecture to the students who will soon pursue advance study in different critical fields at oversea.

Yes, according to the seniors this doesn't appear to be the fundamental problem, and you might find me grumbling against trifles, because the students here could have been depending on themselves to pass the AS and A2 examinations with flying colours. It doesn't matter to have "good" or "bad" lecturers. However in my point of view this has contributed to an intensely unhealthy learning style. Students and lectures should be interactive to enhance understanding. What's the point of repeating the texts in the text book word by word to us? Let alone the sleep-inducing tone, grammatical errors and the way she was speaking English, especially when pronouncing the terminologies. Try to listen to the pronunciation of "mas" in BM and at the same time understand that she was actually trying to say "mass". I'm not going to pinpoint which lecturer I'm complaining about, and I don't mean to degrade the lecturers here, but it is saddening to know that the better lecturers are in charge of bringing the students undergoing 1 year programme up.

I will be going to my first Biology lecture later. I hope it won't end up disappointing myself again. I promise myself not to disappoint my college too :)

I'm here, far away from my hometown

For the very first day I came to Sepang whereby its roads vary so much from the map given by the JPA, taking more than an hour finding the location of the smallest college in the world in the remote town. I guess everyone who had been coming for Kolej Teknologi Timur would be in surprise once he saw the location and the size of the college which is far beyond his expectation as if he had gone to the wrong place. This college appears to be a single-blog-building comprising of our hostels above the lecture halls. It is very long, about the length of 13 shops in a row.

First day ( 06/07/09 )

• I discovered that there are so many scholarship holders coming all the way from Sabah and Sarawak, maybe 40% out of the 112 of us who will be going to India for medicine.
  
• The lecture hall which I registered as KTT student here is smaller than my previous tuition classroom.
  
• Tranquil, this is the best word if I'm to describe this place by using only a word.
  
• I had established the wi-fi connection provided by the college as a trial user, which means that I will have to subscribe to the "KTT HOTSPOT" for RM40 per semester starting from next week. However I didn't have adequate time to stay online.
  
• The hostel is old, but it is spacious. It consists of two small sleeping rooms and a wide living room ( 10 feet x 26 feet ) . My roommate is a Chinese from Sarawak and a Kadazan from Sabah as a housemate. There were only three people occupying this room.
  
• The advertisement board was fully pasted, there were all the second hand items to be sold by the seniors. I saw a “special combo”- a fridge and a washing machine which costs RM600 for the total.
  
• I bought a set of original Chemistry and Biology text books for RM300, I got two free gifts - a disc with questions of pass year papers inside and a Chemistry reference book under the package. This is the first time I spend so much in purchasing books.
  
• I met my seniors from the same secondary school here. There are five currently but two of them ( Indonesia-bound ) will be leaving the college by this week after their 1-year-programme.
  
• During this orientation week, we would be divided into 10 groups. When it was the time to introduce ourselves to the other group members, we found a girl who is not willing to do what she will be doing soon, dentistry. She told us she was forced by her parents to do so.
  After voting, our group was named “Aramaiti”. It simply means the sharing of joyfulness among the people.
  
• We heard something scary and mysterious. It has something to do with the “Tangga 11” while my hostel is just located at tangga 10. The facilitators didn’t want to tell us more about the story. We instinctively thought ghost incidents happened there.
  

Second day ( 07/07/09 )

• I was facing a difficulty in remembering my group members’ names, especially the Malays’ during the ice breaking session in the morning.
  
• All of us have to prepare something for the group performance in the coming closing ceremony, and my group got the title “ Dikir Barat ” ( a kind of Malay cultural performance whereby there are rows of performers sitting on the stage clapping their hands and singing accompanied with the music of Malay traditional musical instruments. ) I knew what it is but the other Chinese in my group seemed never heard of it.
  
• We had to create cheers for our team, however I didn’t have any idea. ( I was experienced in creating cheers, but in Chinese )
  
• We were made clearer about how to use the transport system in this college. There are three vans and a bus which charge different payments for different places we want to go, such as LCCT, KTM, Giant ( the nearest fast food restaurants are available there ) etc. We have to purchase a ticket in the library before using the service.
  
• I paid another RM260 for the old books and pass year papers to my senior. They are all in photocopies.
  
• There are two cafeterias in my college, Indian style (Mamak) and Malay style. The roti canai is my favourite :D
  
• I washed and ironed my clothes for my very first time, by using hands. I know what you are thinking, I never helped in household works before.
  

Third day ( 08/07/09 )

• The lecturers were emphasizing “cut-off points” for A-Level repeatedly. We have to gain 12 points taking from the best three subjects. For an A, 5 points will be given, 4 points for B, 3 points for C and so on. That means, in order to clear the cut-off points, we have to at least get three Bs in the examination. However getting only 3 Bs is below my target.
  
• We had a lot of briefings about the rules applied to us in term of our behavior. The penalty for all the violation towards the rules is money-related.
  
• I felt very sleepy throughout that particular day. I was suffering from sleep deprivation. The mosquito last night was furious.
  
• A telematch was held. We played four games. I felt they still have a huge margin to improve in designing games for us.
  
• The group members started to call me “Leng Zai” which means “smart or handsome guy” in Chinese (-__-lll)
  
• The seniors started to knock our hostel doors to promote their items for sale.
  
• We took the whole night to collect the ideas for our performance. We created a poem talking about KTT. We found it tough to create the claps and the melodies.
  
• There came another housemate, a Muslim from Sabah. He is friendly but a little bit shy.
  
• I had booked the plane tickets from AirAsia company for two to-and-fro trips for the coming semester break in August ( 22-08-09 to 31-08-09 ) and Hari Raya break in September ( 17-09-09 to 27-08-09 ).
  
• My roommate, John is experienced in Internet business, the field that most of the same people at the same age with us don’t traverse in.
  

Forth day ( 09/07/09 )

• Our schedule from the morning until the afternoon was fully arranged with subject briefings. The heads of subjects were giving some words regarding the subjects we are going to taking once the lesson starts in the next week. I will have to take Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and also IELTS which I worry the most.
  
• They college did an aerobic exercise for us. It is as similar as the previous telematch.
  I went to the top of the small hill located behind our college. I could see that the small town was slightly covered in haze. However there was windy. It is an ideal place for everyone to release tension and enjoy the refreshing air.
• We spent the whole night practicing “Dikir Barat”. All of us did a good job in giving cooperation and the complicated performance was soon settled in fast progression.
  
• The girl who is miserably choosing the wrong course remained silent and looked saddening. The facilitators had counseled her.
  

Fifth day ( 10/07/09 )

• A female Indian sitting in front of me showed me her hand phone that remained intact although it was accidentally flung out from the balcony on the third floor while she was waving to the seniors passing by.
  
• I have registered the subjects I will be going to take - Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology.
  
• My housemate, Ali told me that Chinese is diligent in his point of view. He salutes us very much. However in my perspective it is academically obssessed, not really diligent.
• I was dressed in Malay costume for the first time.
  
• We turned out to be the champion of the group performance competition :)
• My housemates watched Madagascar until midnight.
• I found that the Malays are totally different with me. We don't even share a sense of humour. Most of the time I can't understand their slang.
  

That's all for the first five days. I enjoyed very much during the orientation week. Although sometimes I would find it hard to resist the sleep-inducing-tone of the lecturers while briefings ( I didn't fall asleep ) , we do know more about the college lifestyle, the average learning hours for each subject, the operating system of the library etc. Starting from next Sunday, 13-07-09, I will be sitting in a lecture hall listening to the teachings by the lecturers respectively. I will post some of the photos in the next time. Keep in touch!

Good bye and good luck!

Today is my last day staying here before I embark on my new journey after rotting for about half of a year. Soon, I will surely be missing everything, my friend, my family, my hometown, my blog and even my annoying Internet connection :p

Good bye everyone around me, my next post might be sharing my college life in Kolej Teknologi Timur, Sepang. In this afternoon, I had just known that there are three India-bound seniors from my secondary school, SMJK Keat Hwa are still taking the Cambridge A-Level in the small college whereas the other two Indonesia-bound seniors have already graduated after finishing their 1 year programme and currently applying their university respectively. I feel rather relieved that some one had promised to take care of me :D

Thanks for supporting my small blog no matter you have just read any single article and got what I'm trying to convey, correcting my mistakes made during blogging, or giving appreciative comments to show concern towards my thoughts. Special thanks my cousin as well as my role model, who had granted me enormous inspiration to start blogging, and also the Recomers, Melzie and Henry for often leaving your footprints here and sharing your piece of mind. Thanks my friends :)

I would like to say sorry if you find that you could have been spending your precious time to read something more meaningful in the other websites rather than reading my posts. Sorry if my redundant English had contributed eye sore to you. I'm struggling in the stage of improving, now and always.

A good luck to everyone and myself, in the future undertakings. Good night :)

Rambling around again

I have never visited a barber shop, not even once. I had my hair cut a couple of hours ago, it was my father who did the job since I was small. He insisted to tidy up my hair so that I can give them a good image on the coming registration day of Kolej Teknologi Timur. I will soon embark on my new journey in a remote but learning-conducive-environment, for a long term of time, rather excited but saddening.

Frankly, I'm a procrastinator and have failed to resist my laziness at most of the time but I'm glad to announce that this will be my 42rd post, on the 42rd day after I started blogging in such an unusual way to me. It has nothing impressive though. I had failed my numerous promises made to myself since I was still a kid, but at least not this time. Can I be true to my word in the next time? Has my English improved? Well, I don't really have a answer. There is still a huge margin for me to improve, not only in this language, it's also my learning method and many other aspects that I had forsaken during the school time chasing for academic excellence blindly.

In this morning when I was driving home, I saw something that annoyed me so much - there was another not civil-minded citizen who opened the car window and simply flung a paper cup outside as if there was a rubbish dump right at the center of the road :(

A shocking incident

It was about 3am when we had stopped playing poker card inside my room located on the 3rd floor of a hotel during a class trip to Kuala Lumpur three years ago. Feeling thirsty but having the water bottles empty, my friend Yu Wei and I decided to get some 1.5 litre mineral water from the nearby 7-eleven. We grabbed our wallets and went downstairs.

The street lights weren't functioning well, causing the street in front of the hotel to be enveloped in darkness. I walked slowly behind Yu Wei along the deserted street fully parked by branded cars. Suddenly Yu Wei stopped. Just when I tried to figure out why, I got my answer in the next second. To our surprise, a lady was approaching us without our notice. We stood motionless, exchanging glances but didn't say any words. She was about 28 years old with brown curly long hair. Although it was lacking of brightness, I could see the heavy makeup on her face and sense the strong perfume smell. The lady in mini skirt holding a handbag gazed at us and started speaking in Chinese.

"Can you come nearer to me?" she requested.

Yu Wei and I remained silent. We were puzzled - Who is she? What's her intention? Why is she still wandering around the dark street at midnight?

"Come here please," she reiterated it while moving nearer to us and stopped three feet in front of us, "I've something to show you."

Being alive to the situation that it was no longer safe to stay there, Yu Wei shouted, "Run!" and both of us fled immediately to 7-eleven, leaving the lady in darkness.

We gasped for breath inside the convenience store. The cashier must be wondering what was happening to us. We dared not to go back to the hotel as the street was the only way getting into it. We hid for ten minutes to discuss the possible circumstances we might meet again. We had reached a consensus - not to say anything and see anything, just run back. After purchasing our mineral water, we summoned our courage and sprinted to the hotel. The lady was still waiting there, but she was not alone - there came another lady in white standing beside, they sent chills up my spine but I didn't care, I kept running until one of my slippers was accidentally dropped on the road! You might not be able to imagine my fear in such an eerie situation. The lady giggled at me and I heard it was a male's sound! Gosh! I quickly grabbed my slipper by hand and hastened back to the hotel, trembling in fear.

It was dangerous to go out at night in such a urban area. We would have lost our property or even life if they were not prostitutes but thugs holding a knife but not a handbag. It was also our first time to have such a close distance with a prostitute.

Note : I want to title it as "Seduced by prostitute" but "A shocking incident" sounds better :p

My favourite teacher

Every average student would have been taught by at least forty different teachers before entering university. We might have different views towards different teachers respectively, whether it was hatred because he had caned us, or loving because she did take good care of us. If we are to point out our favourite teacher, there won't be any absolute answer since everyone has his own perspective towards the teacher's characteristics that favor them. Well, I pay my tribute to my tuition teacher, Mr. Peter Lim.

Mr. Peter had been teaching me since I was in form two. He is indeed the most hardworking tuition teacher I've ever seen. Unlike other teachers who photostat the grammar exercises from some reference books, Mr. Peter used his own hands to type all the exercises, not by using computer but the classic typing machine. He would intersperse several small pictures within the notes given to make it looked interesting. Another great example is that he would examine every word and the sentence of essays written by his students carefully. He would spend his time telling us our mistakes one by one when he was giving back our essay books. My school teacher was totally different - she marked our essays by underlining the sentences without correcting it, leaving puzzlement among us.

I was pleased by Mr. Peter's unique teaching style, his class would never get bored because he always raised his volume to maximum accompanied by various facial expressions while teaching. Sometime he would share his anecdotes to delight the class. Being a retired school teacher, he was experienced in educating his students as well as handling disciplinary cases. At the same time, he was a indulged reader showing concern towards the general global issues besides having different hobbies such as mountain climbing, jungle trekking, fishing, cooking etc. He had developed certain philosophies about life and always reminded us to be noble, moderate and accept anything that had happened in order to stay happy.

He never raised the monthly tuition fee, it was cheap, only RM25 per month in comparison to the average monthly fee needed to pay for other similar tuition lessons which were normally in the range of RM30 to RM50. He told us having teaching as his satisfying job, it doesn't matter to think over how much he could earn :)

I cherish the moment he was still teaching me. I should have made full use of the time to absorb his teachings and attain proficiency in English to meet his expectation. By the time we left him to take SPM, he had decided to stop teaching temporarily for a year to rest after teaching diligently for decades.

Factors contributing to academic success

What are factors which are related to academic success in high-school students?

Undoubtedly there are plenteous high-school students who have excelled in academic success in our country, occupying the headlines of the newspapers whenever the results of local public examination such as SPM is released, holding their result papers with of a sting of A1s. They would be then awarded scholarships whether by our government, the private agencies or even the foreign companies and colleges. However such glamour is not given but earned. It is even amazing when some of the students with unwavering determination have achieved their academic success despite facing poverty or disability after struggling against the stumbling stones for a long term of time. Back to the title, to some people, academic success could be defined as being able to do well in the examinations. However in my humble two cents the narrow scope should be widened to being able to analyse, synthesize and evaluate the information as well as applying them in the daily life.

The main factor contributing to their academic success is surely family support especially from the parents. To most of the parents in my country, academic success is the only aspect their children need to take care in order to secure their bright future. They have realised the significance of securing a certificate in a university is far more better than the other way such as finding a job after leaving the high-school, which had been done by some parents. Knowing that their children may be discriminated by the tight competition among the students of whole nation, they rather to send them to tuition classes repeatedly for years. They also try to cultivate the children's hidden talent via enrollment into various lessons ranging from piano lessons, dance lessons to art lessons. Normally if there comes the family problems such as divorce or relation break off, the student might find himself difficult to focus on his study. There are so many cases where students having family problems were psychologically affected and eventually surrounded by discipline problems, let alone academic excellence.

Apart from that, self-discipline and will power play a decisive role to every student who wishes to succeed academically. Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state. Therefore students with no self-discipline would often get distracted from their study. Getting engrossed in playing online games is one of the most popular examples among the high-school students in recent years. They don't know using time wisely in order to strike a balance between work and play. Under self-discipline one would regularly revise what he has learned to maintain a tenacious memory. By doing so he needs not to burn the midnight oil during the examination weeks. Procrastination is the thief of time, therefore smart students would not procrastinate their homework without necessity too. Someone that has a strong will would have a greater endurance towards the hardships faced along his school life. He would have planned his future and strive hard by persevering obstinately and indomitably. Having set in mind about the key to success, high-school academic success appears to be just a part of the undertakings.

Conducive environment remains crucial to mould a student towards academic success. There are many students who don't own a conducive studying environment had unfortunately forsaken their study. Maybe they are raised in rural area which is always lacking of teachers and books. Maybe they have to work while attending high-school to ease the financial burden of their family. It is clearly shown the importance of the factor in a Chinese ancient story where a single mother had migrated for so three times, just to get his small son a better place to study. Actually having adequate money to purchase text books, pencil box with simple stationery, a chair to sit, a table to lay your arms on it and responsible teachers, is considered conducive. A number of high-school students benefits themselves by using Internet to obtain extra information associated with what they have been learning for a better understanding. At the same time, some students don't even own a dictionary and have to rely on limited source of information.

In a nut shell, high-school students are teenagers who serve to be the pillar of our country in the next decade as well as the new workforce. Our country should not neglect anyone of the new generation. Their demands and problems should be taken care and solved after proper consideration. Besides excel academically, high-school students should also pay much attention towards the general issues happening every now and then. Most of them don't really bother about the global issues just because it has nothing to do with their study. By the way, one should not follow what has been taught in the text books blindly but applying suitable suspiciousness whenever coming across new information and being able to relate his own thoughts.

Speaking

I seldom speak English. There is no one around me that I can speak with, except myself. I have got used to the broken style while speaking since I was small, therefore I believe I will probably tend to say something foolish like "Yesterday I eat", "He do the job" or "They are my friend" while conversing with the other native speakers. Writing and speaking are definitely two different aspects. You don't have the margin of time to think what's going wrong, especially the grammatical errors, in what you're saying. One of my friends once told me : "Think in English, speak in English, you might see the difference." However learning languages often comes harder to me in comparison with the other subjects. I have spent a lot of time to jot down the definition of the new vocabulary but my memory strength is just disappointing. Maybe I do remember it but it doesn't come to my mind when I'm going to use it. I'm having a low understanding in phrasal verbs too, causing my English to be unnature and immature. My speed of improvement is not capable to begin my life in college. I have to overcome this fatal stumbling stone.

Rambling

Well, Transformer appears to be a hot topic recently, soon after the movie had been released. I'm not a fanatic fan of Transformer, however I was really amazed by the advanced animating technology by which the animation of the conversion from a vehicle to a robot and vice versa was just awesome!

While I was watching it, there were people around me coughing all the time, I felt rather uncomfortable as the H1N1 epidemic had reached my town area :( However I couldn't find any table or statistics showing the number of the infected victims and also the area of my country via google, maybe my searching skill is terrible.

By the way, I wonder if the aliens or the UFO's would land on the other countries except USA. Yet, it is always the USA military fighting the aliens :D

Nah, just rambling around here, couldn't think about a better topic to be shared with.

Does it really matter?

Race barrier could be seen everywhere in my country.

When I was in my secondary school which comprised of Chinese in majority, the Malays were badly discriminated by the others. The school had always been grouping the Malays to particular classes, perhaps it was just promoting racism as there were two totally different societies which seldom mix nor communicate. Quarrels or fights often sparked off between them due to lack of respect and tolerance. Some of them even dared to challenge each other by insulting their religions respectively.

I faced the problem when I was taking part in a poster designing competitions held under anti-drug campaign. I was the only Chinese. ( It is normal when there are no or less Chinese attending a campaign. In fact, they don't even know there is a campaign ) I could feel it, the racist and unwelcoming expression from their eyes. I was rather peeved when I came across the biased judgement which had deprived my winning seat for so many times. I did tear my certificate into small pieces in anger after that, irrational and impulsive, I know.

Religion continues to be a sensitive issue in our multiracial nation. Until today, the invisible stumbling block is still remained unsolved. The Chinese society has never been satisfied by the commitment of the government on solving the problems or meeting the demands such as funding for Chinese-language elementary schools. The Malay society feels offended, thinking that their privilege presents in different quota systems are getting eroded when the other races question and comment on it. Moreover there will be a big change according to the "One Malaysia" plan. The Indian society was provoked when some of their temple was going to be demolished and it had precipitated resentment which was then fueled by other artificial and racial coloured issues. The situation had gone worse when they started protesting in an aggressive manner via Hindraf which was then declared illegal.

The former Prime Ministers had failed to break the barrier among the races. What will be the next suitable strategy proposed? How about the outcome? No one can presume it.

But I'm sure, we can make the difference if we don't see the difference.

Note: I didn't do much research while mentioning some of the topics. I'm sorry if there are inappropriate or wrong statements. Feel free to correct it :)

The King of Pop

Movie

Animated movie is my favourite. I don't really know when was the time I started growing an intense loving towards it. I patronise Ice Age, Madagascar, Bolt, Monsters vs Aliens, Corpse Bride, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, Cars etc. Somehow movies like Star War and Terminator are just not my cup of tea.

Some of my friends feel that watching movie is a kind of monetary waste but I think it worths. Watching movie can train our listening skills and logical thinking. However some of the scenes showed were beyond my comprehension :(

Movie is an art, which needs to be appreciated by every audience. Some of the directors would like to satirize hot global issues such as pollution or teenage problems. Some of the directors have a good sense of humour and his masterpiece would fill the cinemas up with laughter. Well, since there are more and more movies being showed in vast themes so it is getting harder for them to exploit their creativity in order to inject something new into their films.

Ice Age 3 is about to be released soon :D

Matriculation

When my friends had enrolled in the matriculation course, I thought they could start adapting themselves in the new learning environment without having any extra problems. However the luck was not at their side.

Some of my friends were not allowed majoring in Biology. The authority insisted them to take Physics by depriving their right to choose what they needed for. However, the bumiputras were granted the same right. The uproars lasted for two weeks before it could be settled down. I wondered if they did consider the possible consequences by doing so. One of them had already left the unfavorable college to enrol in form six before the positive respond came upon their appeals.

Besides that, puzzlement arose when those who were awarded JPA scholarships to pursue their tertiary study in one of the local public universities, had to take matriculation. However there were lack of instructions by which college to stay whereas there were scholars who were already accepted by their matriculation college respectively. They sought for help from the seniors in forum or any other similar ways. My friend also told me that he was then accepted a list of local public universities he could apply for but the top universities such as UM or USM were not in the list. He wondered if it would be better to reject the JPA scholarships.

It was just a mess.

The Padang Besar Trip

It was a joyful morning when my friends and I took a memorable visit to a rural area, Padang Besar in last year. It is located near Thailand and comprises of the wide sugar cane farms. It was the place where we got ourselves closer to the nature and it was also the first time we took so many snapshots.

Most of the students who were not much less than our age at that time didn't go for such an outing. They would rather prefer staying at home or wandering inside a hypermarket. It is really a must for the urban children to expose themselves towards the natural environment instead of the concrete walls and the tarred roads, listen to the chirping melodies instead of the irksome drilling sounds.

Let the photos do the talking :)

There were six of us, the sun was rising and the air was refreshing.

Darwin's theory of human evolution?

I couldn't do that.

It's Kung Fu time :D

I love this photo :)

The emperors had conquered this bare land after spilling a river of blood :D

Somehow my friend had a precise timing.

We found two abnormal hills, try to figure out what they were :p

There are ups and downs in our life.

Have fun! :D