Update!

It has been more than half of a year since I last updated this blog before heading to India.

I'm currently enjoying a short semester break, a period of time where I can temporarily escape the hectic university life. Yes, it is hectic, considering the fact that we have to attend six days of classes per week. The Saturday is just another day of waking up early in the morning and dragging ourselves into the classroom for hours of lectures. How about Sunday? Having greatly deprived of adequate rest throughout the week, it is the only day that I'm allowed to sleep until whatever time I want. After that, I have to revise the topics taught by the lecturers for the rest of the day if I don't want myself to get embarrassed when bombarded by questions from lecturers in the next day. I would find myself guilty if I don't revise something on any day. Time management is the tricky part. It is hard to decide to work, play or sleep.

The diagram above explains everything.

Nevertheless, I never imagined how much I could have learnt during such a short semester. In short, as a first year undergraduate taking Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), I'm required to study three main subjects namely anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. Anatomy has been generally recognised as the most dreadful subject that everyone of us must face. It deals with every single detail of the human body structure, thus posing a large workload one has to strive very hard to gain an understanding. However, I can see it is of great importance to absorb as much knowledge as we can from the scale of a single cell to the gross structure of human body, as it is the basic of everything. Physiology is dealing with the function of human body, whereas biochemistry gives a macroscopic view at the happenings such as metabolism running in the human body.

I once heard a comment from a working doctor:

"One need not to be a genius to choose this career, what it takes is actually the diligence, perseverance and self-discipline."

I agree. Medicine is a field of wide knowledge. Unlike how we have been studying in the secondary school, there is no fixed syllabus or textbook in the medical school. Information is everywhere, and from the well-categorised source of medical knowledge, we need to put in great effort to integrate, store and apply the knowledge.

Yes, we study a lot. No matter how badly we are going to forget the details after several months, we are forced to cram everything into our mind, and expected to recall it during examinations, especially the oral test called "viva". I have been lack of confidence at speaking, moreover sometimes it is not easy to understand the English spoken in their accent, I'm always afraid of having any kind of interaction with the Indians in any session. Not to mention I'm always confused by the indication shown via shaking head. They shake their heads for saying yes and do the same for saying no.

India is a unique where we can observe a lot of extremities. We get to see how the poor blends with the rich, how the wealth mirage is accompanied by severe poverty, how the high-tech companies and skyscrapers mushrooming in the cities where man power is still the main workforce of everything. Men form a the line to carry and pass bricks, they build ladders using robes and woods to reach the great height without using machines.

If I'm asked "How's life in India?", I don't know how to provide an answer. I can't think of a positive thing to share with. I came across with a lot of negative incidents: Open defecating or urinating, reckless driving on the road, dirty streets where people spit and litter everywhere, unscrupulous auto rickshaw drivers who love to earn more via cheating, slow action by staff in public sectors, unstable electricity where at least ten blackouts happen everyday, beggars chasing after you, extreme weathers, not-so-tasty-food, terrible road condition, the over-obsessed students, the lack of courtesy, and more. Life has been depressing knowing I have to spend five and a half years in this land. By the time I'm back to Malaysia, I am a man of 26 years old, if everything goes as I wish.

Life is tough in India. I'm truly honest to point out this. We need to be mentally strong or else we are going to trap ourselves in the maze of troubles. It would be a different story if one goes to some other countries such as Australia or UK. Frankly speaking, I feel a little envious when I see friends of mine are currently going for their tertiary studies in those countries. Every photo taken there seems to be more scenic.

However I'm very grateful to have been granted the chance to pursue my dream in India. I believe the hardship and challenge could help to train and prepare myself to traverse into medical field in the future. I do not regret to have chosen this pathway. People often say it is good to enroll in medicine or dentistry in India. I'm not sure if this is plausible. From my point of view, I could just say the way we are educated in the college has been a great experience. We are able to gain great exposure towards some aspects where it is not possible in my own country. For example, we have relatively complete specimen and enough number of cadavers to study in the dissection halls. Professors are professional, they are highly experienced at teaching undergraduates. I'm impressed by each of them. I'm quite sure they are much better than the professors in my own country. I guess this is the only positive thing I'm able to talk about India.

There is a lot of stories to share, hopefully I can come out with another interesting article after this!

Reflection (Part 1)

Having participated in Biro Tatanegara (BTN) course that lasted for five days, I'm going to share what was going on throughout the camp. I had the urge to share my point of views while I was having the course, however it is not easy to recall every single incident that happened and come out with an overall review based on what I had been thinking.

BTN, in case you have not come across with this term, and if I'm not mistaken, was introduced at the early age to mould the youngsters who were thought to raise disciplinary problems in school. Recently it was further modified to fulfill the need to instill patriotism in the government servants and those government-servant-to-be. I guess this is also one of those preventive measures in reducing brain drain.

We didn't have enough sleep during the course, but we did not need to worry about hunger. They provided six meals including breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Teatime would fill in every empty slot of schedule. You would never feel hungry. There would be almost at least a piece of chicken and a fish for every participant in every meal, which is quite costly. The accommodation was the best part of the camp. We were provided a clean dorm with eight bunk beds and new furniture. The campsite is relatively isolated from the city and near to a beach, thus we would feel the calm and windy weather.

On the first day, I was so surprised to find out the campsite actually has a wifi source, and managed to steal some time and stay connected to Facebook for a while before our mobile phones were confiscated throughout the next four days. However most Maxis users received poor signals from the base stations of mobile phones in this remote area. Despite the fact that even if we took control of our own mobile phones, we cannot connect to the outside world with no signal coverage, still, I guess 107 of us were all having a hard time without mobile phone in our pockets.

The whole course was just mainly about presentations and group trainings that involves some aspects to build a civil minded and patriotic soul. Every morning we had to wake up at 5.30am, slightly late comparing to Muslims. We had to take part in so called moral lessons when the Muslims were attending for their morning prayers. After that there would be morning training session. I did not have any experience in marching or foot drill, and it is embarrassing and insulting when the commanders were no happy for he expected everyone of us must have joined a uniformed unit or national service before.

In my opinion, it is just a personal matter whether anyone of us chose to join a uniformed unit, and don't take that as a compulsory when it seems that joining a uniformed unit would greatly help one to obtain extra co-curriculum merit and secure your university seat. Just allow me to speak a little out of topic, I just find it ridiculous when people were so surprised to find out the fact that I, as a PSD scholarship holder, do not hold any certificate of a uniformed team at all. My point is simple, everyone has his or her own liking, interest and time management. When the government is practicing a moderate way of encouraging youngsters to take part in uniformed unit, we can make up our mind to give a full commitment in other kind of co-curriculum activities and the outcomes are beneficial as well.

Back to the marching part in every morning, I truly enjoyed the session as I learn something new instead of listening to cliche that has been aggressively reiterated during speeches given by trainers and facilitators. However when I further analyse the speech content as well as activities curriculum, I notice they had unevenly distributed what they want us to learn and understand in the course by national civic bureau. We were exposed to the content of constitution of Malaysia in different ways. However they just focused on some important clauses. According to the syllabus stated in the official website of national civic bureau, we are supposed to learn about the latest issues, patriotism, the nation history, the government system, social contract, constitution of Malaysia and others. However what had been greatly emphasised was the social contract and some particular facts included in the constitution. I'm glad to learn all of these, and eventually I catch the main point and agenda of the course, which is to indoctrinate participants to understand the social contract based on constitution. Not to say we learn only a little about others but honestly I was a little annoyed by the way it had been emphasised.

Nevertheless, at some point I'm still holding on to my ideology. I would reflect on it and figure out more to share with you next time.

BTN

Finally the final examination is over and this definitely puts my A-Level course to an end. I have given my best shot in eight of the papers and hopefully I would be able to obtain the newly introduced and also the highest grade of the grading system, A* (A star, quite similar to the A+ in SPM). Before going home, all of us would need to attend BTN (National Civics Bureau), a course that is prepared by the government for those students heading oversea in the future and others. The aim of this course is mainly about instilling patriotism by exposing each of us to historical lessons. This should be interesting, however I'm a little worried as when I was digging some information regarding this course, I came across with a lot of negative feedback. One of my seniors who has already taken the course advised me not to take what would soon be exposed to myself personally. Some controversy arose, and issues were discussed as some news reported that BTN has been proven unfruitful to fulfill the aim, and including some sensitive and biased remarks. At that time, our Prime Minister had shown up and promised the syllabus of BTN would be further speculated and made vary to synchronise the aim when political parties were hotly debating about whether to abolish this controversial course or not. So it remains until now, and it is my turn to experience it. I'm sure I would have a lot of stories to share here after this. Hopefully it does change in a positive way after coming across with intense criticism.

p/s : I spent a number of money, just to buy the strictly designated costume, and everyone needs to do so.

Abolish examinations?

I can still barely remember the title of continuous essay I chose to elaborate on while taking English paper during SPM examination in year 2008. It was asking for the advantages and disadvantages of examination. I thought I had given my best shot and expected to score a satisfying result, but I had to face the fact that my essay could only rank B4 in the 1119 paper (it is the English subject of GCE O-Level examination) when the result was released.

Based on what I read, examination was first introduced in ancient China when the emperors required a system to evaluate the nationwide scholars. Their knowledge of history, their personal virtue and capability in handling or solving problems such as military dilemma and economic crisis would be heavily tested within continuous days, restlessly. Passing the exam was a prerequisite before scholars are awarded the authority of managing a designated mission as "cabinet member" or what has been famously known as "guan", the court officer who was involved in judiciary decisions. During that particular period, serving the government under the emperor's name was the ultimate ambition of every man. They had no choice but sit for examinations.

After centuries, examination is seen to have assimilated into different nations. It eventually becomes one of the most common evaluative measure conducted to different groups of people in various ways, but with a similar objective. Examination has always been hotly debated for its disadvantages as what is happening recently in our society of Malaysia. Policy makers announced it is the time to reevaluate this measure as it seems to bring more harm to students. At the same time, people are suggesting the need to modify the flawed education system by reintroducing a relatively dynamic learning method under an atmosphere that appears to be more conducive and less stress. The most possible outcome is that one or more significant examinations would be abolished.

In my opinion, straight to the point, examination is a system that was well practised for a long term of time before people could really find out its harm. Further analysing would tell us the colossal and accumulative stress does affect the students adversely. However I believe moderate stress is the best motive force that keeps our pace in track when we own a target to achieve.

Another thing we concern is, how are we going to handle the problem of a large number of fresh graduated primary school student with "unknown potential" in their enrollment of secondary school? Apparently there must be a final exam such as UPSR to do this job.

PMR might seem less significant, thus it would most probably be abolished. However, when we reflect on the benefits of taking PMR, candidates can actually find out whether he should prepare himself to pick up subjects of art stream or science stream. Having prepared in PMR, students can be mentally prepared to sit for SPM too.

Examination in Malaysia has been mechanized and doing not-so-good in its quality control. It can be improved, but not easy though. I am wondering why the policy makers do not prefer to modify it before getting rid of it.

Whether there will be a real abolishment or not, this is the critical moment whereby people's concern has finally brought about some stirred movement in the cabinet. However, this is also the moment when a considerate attitude is needed to reach a compromise, or else the latest generation of students in Malaysia will get trapped in the uncertainties in their fate.

If the government does take care of this issue so much, do remember to reevaluate the recognition of Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) of Chinese Independent High School and tune the huge injustice gap existing between the preuniversity programmes.

I remain positive to receive the next news.

The controversy

Since it was announced that the grading system is slightly changed to introduce a higher distinction namely "super distinction" for SPM, I had been wondering how it would result in a different outcome regarding the proportion of candidates scoring the so called perfect result in a particular subject or all of the subjects taken, which have been limited to 10+2.

A grading system is like a measuring tool. It is designed to measure something. It should be moulded and calibrated considering the main aspects - is it too long or too short to measure the full size of the object? Is it sensitive enough such that smallest division used is helpful to give a reading including the significant figures needed? Can it be used to measure different objects, and give a comparison of them? A bad tool is not meant to be a bad tool as it might still be useful to measure other objects of different requirements. Applying the same analogy, I soon realised the new grading system is not competent enough to calibrate the candidates nationwide from the same batch in a credible and sensible method.

The SPM wouldn't be so important if it hasn't been included in the main consideration taken into account while the government department such as Public Service Department or other party such as National Bank is going to determine scholarship winners. Therefore SPM result is often related to these scholarships because they are closely linked. To maximise the chance to qualify oneself as the applicant and at the same time secure such scholarships, scoring a perfect result is necessary. It could be scoring all A1 based on the previous grading system or all A+ based on the current grading system. These are so called "perfect result" which would guarantee you, or at least it is very hard to deprive your chance to secure the scholarship provided by government. This is why candidates used to take more insignificant subjects, leading to improvement made to the examination system whereby maximum number of subjects taken has been limited. However, the flawed remains flawed until today due to the lack of transparency as some parties are still seeking for explanation for the unsolved yet prolonged problems, or even some conspiracy as mentioned by others.

How if there are too many perfect scorers? I didn't expect to know there is a large number of "perfect" scorers nor did I believe it if approximately 90% is the official threshold as reported. I'm not certain whether the number of candidates who managed to score A+ for any subjects is almost equal to the figure of the previous batch of candidates, however and still, there is something very obvious and provoking - the steep gradient between Chinese subject and any other subject. All of that is just playing with the normal distribution. Apparently it is not hard to set a threshold with the marks needed as the responding variable based on the proportion of the distribution required artificially. For example, if we want only 8% of those, let say 10000 of them who take a particular subject to get an A+, we can easily determine the threshold of the marks needed for the A+ by considering the lowest marks obtained by the candidates in the 8% of distribution. We might question how if the overall performance has greatly declined and what other changes should be made. In this case, a smaller proportion can be selected, for example, 5% or lower. Therefore, this flexible method is not applied blindly, but considering all the possible situations with a fair solution.

It has been a known fact that the "hardest" subject appears to be Chinese subject. In case you don't know how "hard" it is, you can ask any of your friends who were sitting for SPM in 2009 and could proudly tell you he or she had gotten an A+ in that subject. I don't have an official figure nor statistic for this, but it is fairly easy to spot the flaw when you heard there is only one hundred and more candidates scoring A+ nationwide, while a school could have equal number of candidates achieving the same result for any other subject. Why is the percentage of proportion scoring A+ for Chinese is less than 1% while other subjects can have relatively high percentage such as 8% or even more than 10%? All we need is an explanation.

Put the grading system of SPM aside, I would like to share some of my views towards the distribution of PSD scholarship. I used to think it is the best to give away the scholarship to the best brains. However when I further reflect on this issue, I think of wealth gradient among the people in our country and the way our government is trying to minimise gradient. We can't let the people in poverty to stand in the tight competition alone, that's why some policies such as free tax or extra subsidy are introduced so that they can have a better living condition, although it is still considerably terrible. This issue would be less controversial if everyone understands that. However it is not easy to protect everyone...

[To be continued...]

Untitled (You may suggest one.)

Perhaps I shouldn't have concerned too much. Perhaps I should respond to all unpleasant sight by just a smile, and stay happy because it actually favors us. No criticism, no so called "harsh comments" or "inappropriate action". Perhaps I shouldn't have placed my perspective of views in equal to those, which in turn would easily spark some misunderstandings. Perhaps I should be one of those saying: "Aiya, like that one la, why care so much?" Or perhaps I should just remain silent, be your obedient students and get focused in term of academic attention, score a string of As in examination, or try to secure the top in the world award to appease them before flying to India, then leave here and be happy ever after.

But I don't. To refrain myself from the urges to share something neglecting its fact as either positive or negative has been something more difficult than to keep my mouth shut. Some people don't understand the fascinating and intriguing part we could indulge ourselves in during arguing against a statement or topic by contributing constructive thoughts, and have a great assimilation of others' thoughts, so that things can eventually end up obtaining a valuable outcome. Curiosity and sense of accomplishment are playing a main role. People tend to lost the interest concerned in the sense that he doesn't prefer to share his very personal piece of two cents could be a result of flawed environment he was being brought up. For example, the repeating cliche during constructing an essay without really trying to inject some fresh ideas whenever possible, could curb his sharing ability.

When something has been done with a large margin of improvement, I speak. When I saw something flawed or wrong, I speak. Before I speak, I do something which most of the people don't, that is I reflect on whether I'm trying to contribute to, or encourage the flawed or to the wrong. At the same time, we can't dispute the fact if we don't stay in the flawed, we are the ones who face disadvantages. It can be a hard time to balance everything during this stage, but this is what prepares us to have equipped all of the traits needed in order to push ourselves to a further level of aptitude in the future.

We can choose to show indifference towards the flawed, because of "it is none of my business, as long as I happy, it doesn't matter." or "I can't do much to change that, don't let myself to get into trouble, so just let it be." Here is a question to think: Are we entitled to do so? And here comes a good lesson to learn - to be able to achieve the goal with minimum arousal of less significant circumstances which might in turn lead to a complication that may defeat the purpose of the initial intention. Expect the unexpected and accept the unacceptable. Which one do you choose?

Flawed?

It has been more than 8 months since 6th July of year 2009 when I registered myself as one of the students in Kolej Teknologi Timur to enroll on Cambridge A-Level program under the scholarship awarded by JPA. Here is the schedule of the 18 months (1.5 years) I would like to share.

The A-Level program comprises two main examinations we have to go through. The syllabus is divided into half, which in short namely AS and A2. Both of them account for 50% of the total marks that would in turn determine the grade (A, B and so on) each. Theoretically I could have 9 months to deal with AS syllabus and another identical duration for A2. However I have to wait until the May and June to take AS papers, and there starts the A2 syllabus before the examination. When is the A2 examination? 4 months after AS examination.

So, I am wondering why the schedule is fixed in this way. I do not have any intention to bring about my own dissatisfaction towards the imbalanced schedule, as I would have decided to take STPM that includes all the syllabus in only one final examination, if my SPM result failed to attract any scholarship. Moreover, some friends of mine here are actually enduring a tough stage - they have no other choice but are forced to complete the same syllabus within one year, not to mention the entrance exam to pass as one of the prerequisites to grab a seat in any prestigious universities abroad. While some of them might be proud of that only Malaysia can provide the insanely shortened duration of A-Level program in this way, it seems that none of us are actually aware of the improper management to plan the foundation course provided to scholarship holders based on the dates of intakes stated by particular universities.

In my opinion, A-Level is not as tough as STPM in term of the academic coverage, but it does take time to fully prepare ourselves before stepping in the examination hall to apply what we have learned. This is just my little concern as a Malaysian blogger, who welcomes anyone to clarify anything I might have missed or pointed out wrongly, or justify the need to change, for a positive outcome.

The Beneficial Course

In the last two days, I spent my time in Lu Jiang Cultural Centre located just a stone throw away from The Mines shopping Mall. It was a two days and a night course or camp held under the support of more than 20 college mates having an intention to explore more about Di Zi Gui (弟子规).

Di Zi Gui is an ancient Chinese teaching advocated by Confucius, where it has influenced a lot of learners to behave positively and wisely. It is not only a compilation of intelligence inherited from the Chinese ancestors, it also serves as a guidance to a happy life. Some people might have misconception such that Confucianism is religious and it could pose conflicts to their existing mindset about the way to live their life. In my opinion, unless you have not been exposed to those Chinese historical stories or anecdotes at all, you would at least have a sense of resonance with the Confucian teaching because Di Zi Gui is closely related to the analogy extracted from those allusions.

We reached the centre at about 8.30am on the last Saturday. A teacher welcomed us through a polite ninety degree bow. We were really surprised as a man with approximately three times our ages could show his respect to us in this way. He spoke softly, gracefully and gently. This is a trait we could seldom come across with especially in this modern era with everything should have done quickly and harshly. The place is clean and interspersed with traditional Chinese decorating. Lanterns, calligraphy couplets, wood carvings, the ambiance had really thrilled me as I have a great interest in these! The staff were dressing in samfu and cheongsam too!

The courses were fantastic and insightful! Because we had only two days and a night, the courses were tightly packed. I particularly salute Teacher Song, a kind woman whose great proficiency of linguistic skills were shown in her fluent speech conducted in many languages and even dialects!

We were introduced to Di Zi Gui, learned about practicing healthy vegetarian diet and sharing of allusions which I miss a lot since primary school. Di Zi Gui is based on eight-fold virtues: 孝(filial piety), 悌(brotherhood), 忠(loyalty), 信(trustworthiness), 礼(propriety), 义(righteousness), 廉(cleanliness), 耻(shame).


There was a session of movie sharing. I strongly recommend the Korean movie to you, namely "The Way Home" which tugged at my heartstrings to the extent that I phoned my grandma after that to express my love to her which I had never done before. However she didn't seem to have any response to my words. I expected, as I have written somewhere in my blog that my family is very conservative, we don't take much obvious action to express our love to each other. However, we do know how much we love each other.

Talk about love, I eventually realised that family love is the foundation of love, it is the fundamental relationship that everyone has the responsibility to carry. How could we expect ourselves to have a true friendship, or to have a long term and "high resistance" relationship with the one we have chosen, or in my case, to have the compassion needed in my future profession towards the patients, if we have failed to do so to our family?



An ideal place to live =)

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Examination

It has been three days since I started my blog. As the promise goes on, I will be squeezing my brain once again at tonight. Normally I'll find something that inspires me in recom but the topics left are seemingly too tough for me to express my point of view in English. Suddenly I think about examination, it will be interesting for me to write indeed.

Many people did ask me for the secret to score a string of A1s in this examination. Well, I'm not trying to reiterate the cliche or general statements such as 99% of perspiration and 1% of inspiration, unwavering determination, full commitment etc. However I may share some of the less abstract ways to improve your performance during the examination.

First and foremost, do not burn midnight oil during the examination weeks. Well, as we know, lack of sleep and tired mind will affect your performance adversely. It is definitely not worth to cover just a few more topics but you are emotionally distracted when answering the questions. Secondly, try to make short notes that could be able to recall you the complicated mathematics concepts or the chronology of the history stories. Read it before you enter the examination hall, it can act as a kind of confidence-booster too. This way comes handy when there is really a bunch of points or facts you need to memorise. In fact you can even draw something inside your short notes, it works! In addition, I would advise you not to discuss the questions immediately after you have submitted your paper. It is because you might lose your confidence once you have spotted some of your answers are wrong. ( Actually I didn't obey this during the SPM weeks, I wonder if I could still handle the next paper IF I knew my points of essays were really digressed :p ) Apart from that, utilize the time allocated for each paper by checking the answers. I would like to mention the subjective part where there will always be cases about losing the marks for the entire question just due to a tiny error in using terminologies. Besides, do study the format used in the particular subject rather than spotting which question will stand a higher chance to be asked. Last but not least, stay relax and refrain from getting nervous to tackle the exam questions =)

For the examination such as SPM, you will have to prepare yourselves for about two years therefore you definitely want to answer the questions at your best performance. I hope the advice above will help. All the best to the dedicated candidates of the coming SPM! Keep in mind that SPM appears only once in your lifetime! ( You don't hope to take it twice, do you? :p )

JPA scholarship

Nowadays the system JPA giving out the oversea scholarships has been criticised either in positive or negative responses. People accuse JPA for its lack of transparency, unfair treatment towards the candidates who did extremely well in the 2008 SPM, the uneven distribution which doesn't follow the quota at all etc. When I flipped the newspapers to get myself into the news of this issue, there are only unsolved endless cases of students claiming that they have more A's for their previous SPM results therefore they should have awarded the coveted JPA scholarship. Yes, this problem had been existing since a few years ago when it was believed that the SPM level started deteriorating in term of syllabus. Check this out, there were only 60 candidates who managed to achieve straight A1s in the SPM more than 10 years ago but there were nearly 2000 candidates who did the same thing in the last year! Here raises some new thoughts - are these new generations getting wiser? Or the level for the candidates to score A1 in each subject is decreased? I would absolutely agree with the declining level and for the former one, I guess not at all as I am the one who has come through such a "easy-to-score-A1-era". Okay,if it doesn't sound convincing, I'm just showing some examples here, for the less shocking example I would like to mention my friend A who had abandoned the whole form 4 syllabus of history subject in SPM 2008 without fear but yet he managed to score an A2 for it. OK FOR THE SHOCKING EXAMPLE ( actually I'm not very sure if it is true but it will sound ridiculous if it is true ), my friend B who did only a question in his additional math ( index number, section C, which was taught by his friend one week before the SPM ) could unbelievable pass that subject! I would call that miracle. So please judge the whole case with another perspective and stop being very proud of our "more-and-more-brilliant-students". No offense. I know some are great indeed.

However, there is also a welcome sight for us (2008 SPM candidates). The hard-to-score-A1-subject which is generally believed among the Chinese that it is just a type of conspiracy played by the politicians to reduce the number of Chinese candidates with straight A1s IS NOW slightly ( or greatly for some people ) "improved" by setting the threshold to obtain A1 lower than the previous year,that is from 1~2% to 5~6%. Will the percentage keep rising or drop back in the next year? Who knows?

Okay here comes the well-known trend among the young candidates. Sadly most of them have a misconception that "the more the merrier" in term of A1s under the effect of A1 glorification after the most A1 record had been broken,again and again. Can u determine a person with 16A1s is definitely smarter than another with only 10A1s? Yup I agree with the statement that the former has a great ability to cope with more subjects, but do consider there are boarding schools which just allow the students to take not more than the compulsory subjects. Perhaps the students will be the innocent victims in this scenario by being rejected in applying JPA scholarship. Does the SPM result slip ( tuition-boosted ) with more than 15 or even 20 As smell better? Is it a necessity for a student to take more subjects which he doesn't like at all rather than to concentrate on the subjects he chosen for his interests just to prove that "ohya I can do what u did, I am more deserved to pursue my tertiary studies under JPA scholarship"? It is unhealthy. Some people might say that if we can exploit and benefit ourselves from the flawed system ( scholarship awarding system ), so why don't? Yes the system is flawed, therefore we should improve it but not exploiting it. To address this problem, we should not blindly follow the unhealthy trend by choosing 20 subjects in SPM. The quality should be emphasized but not the quantity. ( Perhaps, in the future, there are 1000 branched subjects, each subject consists of a couple of questions and a student must end up with 300A1s to secure the JPA scholarship )

I think it is a must to discuss and improve the procedure of choosing JPA scholars. There was an example that a candidate who had taken 10 subjects but ended up with 9A1s and an unlucky A2 in moral education. He was excellence in co-curricular activities, yet he was rejected by the JPA scholarship givers with the reason : not having A1 in moral. Oh my goodness, doesn't it sound illogical for him to get rejected just because he cant follow the dead format ( nilai + elaboration1 + elaboration2 + blah blah ) of that useless subject? ( to prove that it is useless, get knowing with one of my friends who did score A1 but lack of virtue and be proud of using rude words in his communication way ) I will be the first one to agree if this subject is been asked to be abolished :p

Today there is a saying that the government will limit the total number of subject to be taken in SPM for each candidate to 10 by the coming 2011. It is believed that in the coming years there will be no students appealing for the same case. But, seriously, is that the best solution? I would like to know if JPA will have a lot more of fun in choosing JPA scholars among the straight 10A1s candidates if they really enforce this. For me and perhaps everyone that has a better perception in this issue, increasing the difficulty of the syllabus and setting the new threshold in getting A1 to a higher level is indeed the most rational solution. Don't forget the JPA scholarship derives from all the money of tax payers. Do appreciate it if you get it ^^