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

Blogging

I've made it, posting an article in English, sharing mostly about the current issues ranging from education to social life on every single day for a month, which means that I'm now going for my 31st post.

The basic motive of blogging at the early stage is intrinsically based on my promise made, feeling that it is a must to write more. Although sometimes I found it is hard to keep the promise, somehow I started enjoying blogging soon after that. I've realised that to keep a blog interesting and attractive, you don't need fancy stuffs like popular rock musics or chaotic skins, it just needs to be reader-friendly by conveying your ideas or opinions clearly and directly. Suitable images of photos that pertain to the article would be eye nourishing too :)

How is the improvement? Well, I don't think I've improved much. However it is not fruitless, not at all. Since I started blogging I had to access different websites that I had never been visited, searching reading materials in order to get inspired to share some of my two cents in my blog. It had always amazed me when some hidden statistics were revealed. Frankly, it has indirectly widened my vision towards the informative sources in Internet.

I'm not sure if I will be maintaining one day one post in the coming days. However after blogging in such way I've gained my confidence in writing and maybe, speaking :D

Thanks for always supporting my small blog :)

Hazardous cigarettes

On May 31, 2008, our Health Ministry had announced that the cigarette packs would be displaying the above pictorial warnings. Six required images were gazetted. I think this plan should be implemented earlier as Singapore had already passed the law so that the smokers could be warned the consequences of the bad habit in the year 2004. However, how far have these gory images actually worked theoretically to decrease the population of smokers in our country?

I heard that some of the aged smokers do not really care about the warnings by thinking "what's the difference I can make if I quit smoking now as I've been smoking for more than twenty years? I could have died earlier if it is fatal!" Okay every properly educated individual does know about the serious consequences of this bad habit and I'm not going to repeat the cliche, therefore I would rather reveal some statistics:

• Study proposes that on average a habitual smoker's lifespan will be shortened for about 5.5 minutes for each cigarette smoked, which is not much less than the time he spends smoking it.
  
• For every 8 - 10 seconds, there will be a person who has died from smoking related illness.
• There are 15 billion cigarettes are sold daily - or 10 million every minute.
• Smoking is on the rise in the developing world but falling in developed nations. It is estimated that among the 3 million of people died from smoking in the last year, the developing countries occupy 2 million whereas the developed countries got 1 million. ( Current world population is estimated to be more than 6 billion, therefore )
• There are between 80,000 and 100,000 children worldwide start smoking every day - roughly half of whom live in Asia.

Look at the unscrupulous retailers who have covered the scary images by using the price tags intentionally :(

The Rubik's cube

Here comes the Rubik's cube fanaticism again. I can see many of my juniors holding or playing with the cube in my previous school ( although toys are inhibited in school ) . Well I had almost stopped playing it since last year because it would be boring once you had understood the way to solve it and couldn't beat your fastest record after solving it repeatedly for about hundreds time in using the same method. However learning it is fun and challenging as it is not as hard as what people expect.

The video above is my fastest record after addicted to it for three months :)

Opportunity vs. effort

Some people propose that opportunity is prerequisite to be successful while some people claim that it should be effort. If we review the history and quote the incident where Isaac Newton had discovered the presence of gravity soon after getting inspired by an apple which was accidentally fallen on his head, we could notice that it is the opportunity leading Newton to excel in researching his laws of Physics, yet at the same time we may also conclude that without his effort made to be proficient in his profession as a Mathematician as well as Physician, he couldn't have revealed the hidden natural laws.

Let's take another example, an unknown singer had her talent buried although she had the potential to be as popular as the singing stars at that particular decade, just because there was no music company willing to cultivate her. She was dedicated, however there were just lack of opportunities.

So, prerequisite belongs to? Okay it depends on how we define the word success. Success means different things to different people. Some people would like to explain success in term of prosperity or fame. There is a saying such that even if you cannot achieve something planned, desired or attempted in certain aspects such as scoring a string of A1s in SPM, passing the highest grade for piano examination, earning money to own a house and cars, it doesn't matter as long as you have put in your efforts to maximum and strive for your best. The setbacks play a more important role in your life just because they can be crucial to your success than "smooth sailing" because you might know yourself, your target and the relationship better.

For me, I put more weight on efforts.

SPM

“We want to streamline this as it will also be an easier way to determine the awarding of scholarships.”

Some 450,000 students sat for the SPM exam last year.

Muhyiddin said teachers would also be able to focus better if students were only allowed to take up to 10 subjects because they would not be burdened with teaching other subjects.

“Parents also will not have to rush their children for too many tuition classes.”

On the grading system, Muhyid-din said instead of giving students 1A, B or C, their grades would include A+, A and A- from next year to make it more effective in deciding who was most qualified for a scholarship.

(quote from The Star)

I have put the quoted phrases in bold as I found they are arguable. I wonder if the government did pinpoint the real flaws existed in the previous SPM exam system, analyse deeply and then make the decision wisely.

• Easier way? Even if the subjects are limited, the problems remain unsolved if there are still a bunch of candidates with a string of A1s under the artificial low threshold to score an A1 for each subject ( except BC ) . The JPA will be in hot soup again, just imagine that there are possibly more than two thousands 10 A1s scorers waiting for their deserved oversea scholarships, yet not to mention the bumiputras and the poors to be taken care.
• Focus better? If they really mean it, why do we ( non-Malays ) need to study Pendidikan Moral ? It is utterly useless!
  
• Tuition classes? Normally students who attend insane number of tuition classes just don't know how to manage their own schedule. They follow the tuition teachers blindly, but it has nothing to do with taking more subjects which don't really need tuition. It is subjective and depends on the students. Some students don't need tuition at all.
  
• Grading system? Well, what is the difference between getting 10 A1s and getting 10 A+s? I thought the term CGPA will be recommended when I saw grading system. To really make it more effective in deciding who is qualified for a scholarship, improve the grading inflation is the only way and once it is really tough to secure the A+, I believe no more candidates will consider taking so many subjects.

There will be another change soon, which is now debated hotly. Perhaps the controversy arose when the JPA scholarship had not been distributed evenly is the main reason to push the government to make the decision of limiting SPM subjects from the year 2011, but what is the motive of changing English to a must-pass-subject which is as same as Bahasa Melayu, to secure the SPM certificate? This is a stepping stone to bring the deteriorating command in English back from the edge but I don't hope to see that another artificial threshold is created again after finding that there are just too many who can't make it.

Subscribe or not?

I'm still wondering if it is necessary for me to subscribe to a broadband service in order to access the Internet while taking my A-Level for 18 months later. It is for sure that I will bring my laptop along.

Unnecessary because :

• Unlike AUSMAT or SAM, we don't really need a vast searching via Internet for more information to complete the assignments for A-Level.
  
• I asked myself about what I would be doing all the time while using the Internet since I started using it. Entertainment occupied 70% of the time. I need entertainment but I don't hope to get myself distracted towards it.
  
• Newspapers are available there, therefore I don't need to check for the daily updated news via Internet. I prefer reading newspaper too.

Necessary because :

• The college does provide Wi-Fi service which we have to pay RM25 per month for it. However, according to the users' feedbacks which are mostly negative, it only works roughly 10% all the time.
• I would like keep in touch with my friends and family via messenger or web cam.
  
• I guess I will have enough time to update my blog in order to share my college life. Uploading photos does need a stable line. It will be terrible if the saying about "the connection provided can't even get into google homepage" is true.
• I believe I will rely so much on the google translator, the dictionary websites, the encyclopedia websites ( Wikipedia will do ) and the google searching engine for convenience. I'm sluggish when flipping a thick dictionary manually. Moreover, Google and Wikipedia favor me in term of ample information.

Feel free to share your humble opinion in this piece :)

Malaysia style

Note : I write this for fun :p

DotA a.k.a Defence of the Ancient is a renowned custom scenario which involves 10 players or less per round. The objective of each team ( 5 players ) is to destroy the opponent's Ancient, heavily guarded structures at the opposing corners of the map.

However, it is familiar to every online player that most of the Malaysia players are now somehow showing disrespect towards this game.

They play self-centered and arrogantly. They quit the game whenever they want, leaving the other teammates in misery. They often wrangle for whole game long just because someone has insulted : " u r noob " ( Ya I could hardly find anyone who does use proper English while communicating in the game, they tend to use "me" rather than "I" ) . They coin their own rude words to drag the opponent's parents of even ancestors into their quarrels.

I have been accustomed to the lack of courtesy among the less-educated players in the infested Malaysia room. I would just prefer to type "msia style" or remain silent whenever I encounter this :p

Rubella

I have miserably decided to countermand my intention to attend my best friend's birthday party at tonight after my doctor had diagnosed that I'm infected with rubella, a highly contagious disease.

I googled for the symptoms of rubella, they are mild fever, headache, loss of appetite, mild conjunctivitis ( no wonder I feel pain whenever I twist my eyeballs ) , a stuffy nose ( this is torturing ) , swollen lymph nodes ( yes I have one behind my left ear ) , rashes appeared on the face spreading downwards ( my mother did worry if I got dengue fever ) etc.

I was wrong when I related my illness to the extreme hot temperature, instead it is more likely that I was infected during the medical check up in the hospital. Hospital is indeed a dangerous place.

It would be considered as selfish if I'm still being stubborn to spread the virus among my friends in the party, who knows one of them is now pregnant? :p

Note: Rubella may cause miscarriage or the baby can be born with severe disorders.

Chain letter abuse

Don't be fooled by this cynical hoax by forwarding it on. Somehow it irritates me in the sense that the killing job could seemingly be done in such an easy way, ridiculous. I would consider it as a kind of ignorant spam created by those kid who didn't know how to fill up their boredom in a better way. The basic premise of the hoax - " Organisation X will donate Y cent to victim Z every time this messege is forwarded " is just a phycological trick to the recipients, which just doesn't come true. If you are really ardent towards the poor maybe you shall visit here rather than forwarding the hoax blindly.

Untitled

I'm feeling sick for the whole day and I guess the main reason is exposing myself towards the extreme heat during the treasure hunt in yesterday. Besides, I didn't get enough rest nowadays, causing my immune system to be more vulnerable. I would like to sleep now rather than searching stuffs to be shared in my blog. Good night.

Treasure Hunt

Feeling exhausted and resisting my heavy eyelids from closing, I'm trying to create my 21th post.

I participated in a treasure hunt contest held by YMM ( Young Malaysian Movement ) in this morning. There were twenty groups which consisted of two persons each, riding bicycles and solving the tricky and mind-boggling questions all along the 50km roads. We scoped out every details in banners, shop signs and even the small torn advertisements of illegal money lending which were pasted everywhere especially for the questions which required us to find the small codes, serial number or something like that. Some of the other questions didn't deal with luck so much, instead, the logical thinking and analysing ability would do. We violated the rules by grouping six contestants as one of our strategies. It worked so well. We deceived the other contestants by distracting their attention to the wrong spot intentionally ( it was funny ) rather than staring at the object that supposed to be the answer. This was our strategy too. We were requested to collect the aluminium cans we found anywhere while protecting a small egg given by the authority. We ended up by winning RM30 each after dividing the cash we had won equally :p

It is a creative activity in promoting green environment, no cars, no pollution.

Medical check up

It was the fourth time I went to the Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah for medical check up in this morning. My friends and I had made a wrong decision to choose this "old hospital" instead of Kedah Medical Centre which could have completed our check up within two days.

We were ordered to fill in the forms beside the counter in the first visit which could be frustrating as we needed to repeat writing our names, IC numbers, home addresses which were the longest and all of us got fed up and started blaming about what we could think of. We peed into two urine containers and got our blood extracted on the same day. I could feel the pain when one of my friend was torturing by a nurse who could hardly find his vein and poked the needle in and out for about 6 times. When we were going for our Mantoux test ( test if we acquire tuberculosis ) , the nurse appointed us to visit the TB department on the next day, therefore I thought the whole process must be complicated and time consuming, but I found myself wrong in the second visit.

The whole Mantoux test ended up within 5 minutes by injecting a small amount of tuberculin beneath our skin that would be swelling for a while after that. I wondered why the nurse ( or medical officer ) wasn't willing to do the same easy-looking task during our first visit. I was shocked when I accidentally saw that there was a bruise at the part where my blood was extracted. My friend told me it was normal.

It was our third visit to Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah to examine whether we did have the possibility to acquire TB by measuring the diameter of induration which was explained that it was due to our natural immune respond towards the bacterial protein. My induration showed 6mm. According to the medical officer ( or nurse ) , those whose induration size exceeds 10mm are in high-risk category. We were then joking with another friend who had his size greater than 10mm by not socialising with him anymore. My bruise was getting more serious.

Today we got our reports for the urinalysis and blood test. However the report for the blood test was not completed. We have to take our next visit, which is the fifth visit, which I didn't expect, to another hospital in order to complete it. Everyone had measured his or her height, weight, blood pressure and sight ability. After that, we headed to the clinics and consulted another medical officer respectively. Actually this was the last step to certify our medical check up forms. Ahah! My bruise can still be seen clearly.

I wonder if there will be the sixth time.

Reading

Except those needed to score in "literature part" in English papers when I was in secondary school, I didn't read any English novel since I was small. I didn't like to write essays in English until I had realised that my poor command in this language was worse than any average standard three students in Singapore when I was form four. I started my efforts to pull my level back by writing more often but it was already too late. Luckily I managed to score an A1 in the English paper for SPM due to the low threshold in getting that so called excellent grade (almost half of the candidates in my school got grade A) , but miserably I got B4 in the GCE O-Level. I'm the particular person if I'm going to put the blame on someone.

Reading in English was just too far away from me by then. But I think it is still the best way to acquire the literacy by ourselves and reduce the redundancy made while writing, therefore I bought an English novel in this afternoon. I guess I will spend the following time in reading my first-buy-English-novel :p

Hot weather

I guess everyone around me has sensed the extreme hot weather nowadays and been wondering if it has something to do with the global climate change. The sun is still blazing, emitting scorching heat. The wind is playing hide-and-seek with us and there are no more kites in the sky. I suspect the highest weather temperature recorded during these days could be rising to more than 35 degree Celsius. I'm sweating although I've set my fan speed to the maximum. I googled the weather forecast for my area, Alor Star for the next 4 days and glad to see it will be raining continuously. If the prediction is true, it will be a welcome sight indeed.

The hot melting weather is one of the symptoms indicating the adverse effect towards the environment disturbance. I've come across with plenteous notices in TV channels and brochures which promoting a pasture green environment. There is now a particular theme in this issue on Discovery channel and a series of documentaries concerning our environment is already available. There have been researches, studies and calculations about the emission of greenhouse gases which contribute the most towards the rising average global temperature. I could roughly remember there were statistics splitting our daily routines into every single action which is causing CO2 emission and taking it into account to calculate the quantity of the CO2 emission. I googled again. The results are shocking.

Here I reveal the statistic about your CO2 footprint when using Internet:

• For each google search, the CO2 emission is 6.8 grams ( same emission as 56 meters of Toyota Prius or running 170 meters )
• For each EBAY auction, the CO2 emission is 55 grams ( same emission as 420 meters of Toyota Prius or running 1275 meters )
• For each blog posted, the CO2 emission is 850 grams ( same emission as 7.6 kilometers of Toyota Prius or running half a marathon )

If you wonder why the amount appears to be so great, I can clarify this to you that the computer terminal is using electricity whereas the data centre operated by Google around the world is consuming power exceedingly. Research suggested that information technology now causes 2% of the global CO2 emission.

Gosh! I'm contaminating the environment while improving English through blogging :p

Sorry

45 minutes, I have been staring at the computer screen for that long. It is getting tougher for me to post every single article now. I'm running out of ideas and feeling desperate that I didn't improve at all. I'm sorry for those who put high hope on me.

I'm depressed now for some reasons which I don't really clear about and start thinking melancholically. I can't control my emotion well, maybe it has something to do with my fluctuating hormone level, the unhappy scenes keep echoed in my mind. I don't like this feeling. It invokes sorrow, disappointment, sorriness , anxiety, anger, dissatisfaction etc.

It is horrible and unpleasant when I spent my time to recall my ugly dark side. I hurt the people around me whether intentionally or not. I took so many things for granted without realising it. I care only my own benefits, while depriving others. I said too much that I shouldn't be saying. I didn't really help when I was helping. I brought more troubles than happiness. I was ignorant and childish when I didn't know how to criticise something in proper manners. I was so persistent in some circumstances, eventually messing the things up. I lied and tried to cover my lies by lying more. I said sorry but I didn't mean it. I gave empty promises. I was too wrong.

I'm truly sorry, so sorry. Please forgive me if I did any offense to you, my family, my friends or who I don't even know your name.

Tonight is not my night.

The way

I tried to type from A to Z without looking at the keyboard, slowly and carefully. It was not slow, but I typed two alphabets wrongly.

When I was just a kid, I used to see someone that could turn his head aside to answer something or watch television while typing in extreme speed, chatting with his friend via yahoo messenger. It happened to be an impossible task for me to type by using both of my hands. I never learned the correct way about keyboard fingering so sometimes I have to glimpse through the keyboard to avoid such typographical errors. I can type faster now, at least 10 alphabets in 2 seconds, or even faster, but up to certain extents, it is the correct fingering which does the job better.

We don't learn everything in the same way. We developed our own measurement towards everything new to us. When learning Mathematics, some new learners preferred to count apples in solving addition or subtraction in the sense that it would come easier while some were not. When writing, some learners tended to write the alphabet "d" by completing the "l" first while there were others who would like to complete the "o" first.

When it comes to a larger scale, for instance, the way of learning, maybe the difference is much more apparent too. Student A doesn't like to waste so much of his efforts in order to understand a concept and rather to memorise the facts one by one. Student B is different. Rather than understanding deeply, he touches everything, however he can't catch the details. Can you say which one is better?

The starting point and the practising method could bring irreversible effects. The equilibrium point is not hard to explore if we can balance ourselves in all aspects and judge everything wisely.

Anticipation

I have been rotting ( not using rusting because "rotting" is more organic ) for about seven months at home while almost all of my friends are already getting into the higher education institutions for their diploma programmes respectively. I hope to start my tertiary study as fast as possible after realising that I'm gradually forgetting what I had learned during the secondary school life. I've started anticipating it and even imagining about the moment I walk into the lecture hall in formal attire, mixing with those English-educated people and practising hectic lifestyle.

Once I've registered in Kolej Teknologi Timur, Sepang, many things need to be changed. I need to be more independent, catering my own food, washing my own shirts etc. I'm already 18 years old, yet I don't know how to control a washing machine. I don't really help much in the household duties because my mother and maid worry I will mess the things up. I never cooked also, even a bowl of maggi mee. It is shameful right?

I need to be more hardworking as the Cambridge A-Level Programme wouldn't be as easy as expected. Before securing my seat in one of the universities in India, I need to pass the cutoff point, that is at least 3 B's if I'm not mistaken. Physics, Chemistry and Biology are compulsory whereas Mathematics is optional. However I won't take the risk by only acquiring the three science subjects. Besides, Mathematics is my favourite subject. The duration for this programme is only 18 months, which is compact for me ( I guess for everyone too ) to tackle the examinations.

I need to keep myself away from the entertainments that might distract my concentration towards study. I shall bring my favourite game, DotA to a halt. I may not hang out with my friends that often, by strong will.

I need to adapt myself to the English-speaking environment. Perhaps communicating by speaking English will improve my broken English by bounces and leaps. I want to speak English loudly, naturally and confidently.

Fun or agony, it depends on how you manage the situation and make use of the time. I believe I can enjoy my future life. All the best to everyone in your future undertakings too :)

Malaysia, my country (part 2)

If you are a streamyx user, I suppose you at least called TMnet Streamyx customer service once before. Yes, I'm one of the Internet users who are always displeased by the snail speed service provided by streamyx. Feeling frustrated, my family had changed the so called "money-saving-package" from RM88 per month to RM66 after finding it promised more than it provided. We have been calling for customer service but it couldn't really help a lot. They insisted us to perform the similar procedure every time, that is restarting our router which we had done it by ourselves about more than a thousand times. Apart from that, I'm afraid I couldn't find anyone of my friends who is satisfied in his or her broadband service too. However, according to my friend who has been studying in Singapore for a while, the speedy broadband which enables the users to establish its connection to stream smoothly even in a car, is now available there at a much cheaper cost. It is saddening when our ministries are planning whatever plans in conjunction with vision 2020 which has something to do with multimedia advancement while we are still troubleshooting the basic and minor line problems.

Some of the constructions in our country are fragile enough no matter how much money derived from the tax payers our government has invested in. It was clearly shown when the roof of the RM300 million 50,000 capacity Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium in Gong Badak collapsed within one year of completion. Fortunately no human life was taken, but we can't ensure for the next time if we are lucky, can we? I'm not going to push all the responsibilities to the contractors but I wonder why the government would give full trust to the bumiputra contractors who know only appointing sub contractors who in turn appoint "sub-sub contractors" and then "sub-sub-sub contractors". These companies don't have the intention to build them and what they know is just securing the government projects to earn big money by providing "cheap materials". Certainly there are bribery and corruption in between the government and the cronies. I know, you know, without having to spell it out. It is interesting to wait for their explanation as there was an engineer who often jogged in the area of the stadium had officially informed and warned government agencies about the bending frame which held the roof. It just went to the deaf ears.

*Luckily I had saved this post in Word Pad before publishing or else I might have to write it again, it showed "page not found" after I clicked PUBLISH, frustrating huh?

Examination (part 2)

Most of the people find themselves tiring of having the annoying school examinations. It infiltrates the students' life by exerting enormous pressure towards them. The parents are practising kiasusism which is meant by " refrain from losing especially in term of academic ", they send their children to the tuition centres all the way without concerning much about their favor and freedom. Some of my friends even needed to attend more than ten tuition classes per week while preparing for SPM. How stuffy could their life be? This is an unhealthy phenomenon indeed. They had been allocating too much weightage on the examination grades. There had been many cases where the candidates suddenly burst into hysterical screaming while having their exams, which could be attributed to the invisible burden they ought to face all along the time.

Honestly, I enjoy examinations instead of terrifying myself about it. You are given a period of time to prepare yourself and you shall make full use of the time in order to give your best shot in the coming examination. You have the golden chance to test how much you've absorbed, how deeply you've understood and to which extent you've achieved. I love the free essay parts, all the ideas can have their own ways traversing the sentences. I don't like the teacher to deduct my marks for accusing that my points are slightly digressed. I would like to condemn the teachers who won't consider the answers that are not appearing in their marking scheme. In fact they are just lazy to check for the acceptable answer one by one.

I would never try to force myself to burn midnight old, flipping those reference books at the last minute. If it did work, perhaps I shouldn't "waste" so much time in doing daily revision. Despite of doing the same thing just before a few minutes examination started, normally I would only take a deep breath to relax myself. Somehow I feel that it is better for a candidate to sit down and pray silently at that moment.

Basketball and I

" Basketball? Nah, boring sport. What's the point of tossing the orange ball here and there like a mad guy? I prefer badminton. " If you asked me for my favourite sport in ten years ago, I would presumably give you such an answer. But it is utterly different now.

I love basketball much more than any other sports. My perspective towards basketball was twisted soon after my father brought me to watch a final basketball match. The indoor atmosphere was tense. Everyone held their breath when the scores of both the teams were chasing each other while the time left was not plenteous. Unfortunately a key player sprained his ankle and was forced to be substituted. Despite enduring his excruciating pain, he was back on the court just after about five minutes when seeing his team was going to lose the final match. He made a fabulous half-court-shoot just before the opponent team could declare their victory in hand by 10 points lead. All the players were spurred, incredibly forcing the game to an extra time. However, they was defeated after all. They won the applause, the respect, the glory and the honour.

My father bought me a small basketball then. The old basketball court behind my previous house had become my childhood heaven. I could still remember the high and loose basketball rings without net, the slippery ground surface and the lines that could hardly be seen. Although all of the kids there were ignorant towards the basketball rules, we enjoyed ourselves by tossing the ball once we got the ball and normally it ended up as an air-ball ( not hitting the ring ) However there was another threat all the small kids had to face, not the hidden snakes in the two-feet-long bushes, not the bees from the huge bee hive, but they were the local teenage residents who forcibly occupied the basketball and changed it to a football field. Everyone must take his own risk to step into the court once they started kicking their football because the ball might slam at his face at anytime and anywhere. You might be still wondering how they could play football there since there were only two standing basketball posts. Ya right, the posts were their targets. The loud banging sound heard indicated there was a goal and soon the scorer would be showing his insaneness by taking off his shirt and screaming like a mad guy.

Sometime we were lucky, they were willing to play with us, but the kids (included me) could just watch the ball flying above our heads without touching the ball once although all of us did chase the ball hard. It would be considered lucky when you had a chance to snatch the bouncing ball, but unfortunately the ball would be gone just after a couple of seconds. They showed no mercy towards the small kids. There were also some moments when I managed to score and I would be very glad thinking the picture for the whole day. I was just innocent.

JPA scholarship (part 2)

It was another agonizing brief period between the date JPA announced its scholarship recipient and the moment for those who failed to check if their appeals result in positive response. However I couldn't describe the second disappointment for those who are no doubt qualified to secure the scholarship. They are seemingly left aside, tasting the grievance. Uproar continues. Some of my friends are still blaming the scholarship distributing system by attribute its injustice to the hidden conspiracy. They are still struggling for their well deserved scholarship via political organisation while the others are utterly given up after rubbing their tears and concentrate on their pre-university course.

Some of the changing policies of JPA sound ridiculous to me, for instance, there is a recommer who applied for biotech or pharmacy ( I'm not sure ) but it all ended up by getting medicine course. He accepted it anyway. Another case that might convince you about their unpredictable respond is happening to a guy who initially secured a place in IPTS for the pharmacy course and did not appeal, was then given the oversea program to New Zealand. It reminds me about the technical problem occurred in the announcement of the list of candidates selected to study in University Sains Malaysia (USM) which irks the parents of the 4574 candidates who never expected such an absurd error to be happened. The above incidents could be a kind of disgrace towards our country.

However, there are also a group of lucky people who would never satisfy with what they had gained. They request to change their country despite being grateful and appreciate the coveted "shark fin". There comes a recommer who got Canada and she is not satisfied with the reason "I'm not fond of that country". Her thread was bashed heavily later. It has no wrong with feeling disappointed when you didn't get the country you prefer, but being not to appreciate it would be a kind of greediness indeed. This morning an auntie had called me to consult my opinion about her nephew, who is selected by JPA to pursue his dentistry course in India. She told me that his friend is selected to Australia so she would like to appeal again. She is ignorant indeed to degrade the dentistry of India.

Achilles' heel

When I was reading the book titled " A Dictionary Of English Idioms ", I had come across this phrase, Achilles' heel. Apparently Achilles is an ancient Greek name. It must have something to do with the Greek mythology or something that was really happened, and then constitute to some historical facts. The dictionary defines the phrase as " fatal weakness or the only weakness "( I translate completely from the Chinese definition). I googled this phrase after finding myself interested to know more. According to Wikipedia, the meaning is almost the same but it provides extra articles to explain more about Achilles.

Classical myth attributes Achilles' invulnerability to a treatment of Ambrosia and burning away of his mortality in the house fire except on the heel, where he was held by his mother Thetis. There is another rising myth stating that it is actually his mother dipped the infant Achilles the river Styx which could confer immortality, holding onto him by his heel. However both the myths end up by relating Achilles' death to his heel wound caused by a poisonous arrow which couldn't hurt him in the other body parts. I was then satisfied by the definition given "An Achilles' heel is a fatal weakness in spite of overall strength, actually or potentially leading to downfall ".

Okay where's my Achilles' heel? Which one of my characteristics is referring to it? I guess it would be my lack of perseverance, being a procrastinator, low general knowledge, speaking louder in words than in actions, afraid of my own's shadow, absence of mind due to the distractions around me and the most fatal one towards a doctor-to-be, that is communication skill. I write more than I speak. I can write using rhetoric in Chinese but speak in an opposite way. People think I'm a dull guy who is non-sociable when they speak to me. In fact, I don't think it is necessary to speak much. I'm emotionally rich in the written words. Therefore I'm worried when it comes to speaking which is all-in-English later. I'm packing myself up, reloading the language bullets and polishing my tongue now. I hope it works :)

Home

Home is the place you want to go when you're frustrated and tired. Home is the place for you to forget those unpleasant incidents happening everyday. Home is the place where you rely on. Once you've got home, you are safe.

Every creature ranging from tiny hummingbirds to huge whales has its own sweet home. Going home is everyone's privilege, no one shall deprive it. Children should not sling the bee hive by using stones. Rivers and the sea should not be contaminated by spilling the poisonous wastes towards it which could irritate the innocent aquatic lives. Monkeys shouldn't be incapacitated, imprisoned and humiliated by the visitors in zoo for the rest of their life. The wildlife their own home, the sacred jungle which shouldn't be intruded by the hunters.

If you think a tranquil and harmonious home is more valuable than enjoying materialism ; If you think a well-being and united family is denser than owning wealth, countless property and being powerful to give command in the family ; If you are the prestigious one ; Even if you have some imperfections, you are the lucky one, when your family is still smiling, waiting and welcoming you to go home.

A few bricks and mortar of the wall structure, together with the roof and doors, windows with curtains, carpets that are on the ground, are not enough to constitute a family. It must be combined with friendship, family unity, warm-hearted partners, and therefore it is considered home.