My new gear

If someone asked me if I ever wished to own a DSLR camera a month ago, I would definitely give a firm "no". However I was quite surprised by how things have turned out to be too, and yes, I'm now shooting photos using a little more advanced camera - Canon EOS 1100D.


I used to have an incorrect perception towards some technical knowledge of the photo shooting world. I thought megapixel fully decides how a camera is worth its price and rating. I had never gone deep into how a camera really works. I was always wondering why people would have chosen a heavy and bulky camera ( I didn't know the referred camera is called DSLR ) rather than a convenient compact camera which has a higher megapixel value.

I was introduced to more photography terminologies and some insightful operating theories of cameras when I stayed with my previous college roommate for more than a year. He was holding a Canon EOS 500D equipped with a lot of accessories. Under his influence, I spent some time to read articles of introduction to photography and related guides from Internet as well as reviews of entry-level DSLR cameras. I managed to catch some ideas of several factors to be taken care of during photo shooting such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc.

Picking up photographing as a hobby isn't as easy as we might think because at the end of the day we are still bound to one of the most important considerations - money. If you have no idea of how much an amateur photographer would spend for basic DSLR camera sets, I shall give you an example here. While we are gradually improving our photographing skills, we need to upgrade our gadgets such as lens. My roommate spent more than RM2000 for normal camera set, another RM3000 for additional lens and digital flash. Sometimes a single lens would cost more than the total amount of money that my roommate spent for all of his photographing gadgets! It takes a considerable amount of money, time, passion, patience, skills building and experience to enter a semi-pro stage.

Why did I decide to own a DSLR camera out of a sudden? My family has been sharing and using a 10mp compact digital camera. I realised the quality of photos could have been better due to some limitations in compact digital camera. I wish to take great photos of each of my family members. Secondly, when I'm in India in the coming August, I wish to capture memorable moments and share it with friends and family. I was attracted by the advertisement of this latest product of Canon, the brown-coloured entry-level camera model which was released in March 2011. Thrust by great interest and urge, permission was gained from my parents, and I finally hold it in my hands.

Just a few weeks after the original set of camera bought, I further equipped myself with several important and handy camera lens and photography accessories as shown below.

Canon lens EF 50mm f/1.8 II

If I'm not mistaken this is the cheapest Canon lens available in the current market. It still costs about RM300. Almost every Canon DSLR user would go for this popular lens as their second lens because of its large aperture. What can a large aperture give? It enables photos taken at night or dark areas to be clearer and most importantly it gives great bokeh (out-of-focus area).

As you can see, the background is highly out of focused, leaving a soothing and blurred effect. A compact digital camera would hardly give us this kind of effect.

Canon zoom lens EF 35-80mm f/4-5.6 III

You might be surprised by the fact that this lens is as old as I'm. Surprisingly it can still fit into my camera body and function well after I found it out in the storeroom. However it doesn't come with image stabiliser (IS) technology. I'm wondering how much its virtual market price is about since no one is selling or purchasing this lens anymore. But I'm happily keeping it in my camera bag although I seldom shoot photos using it.

A tripod

For shutter speed slower than 1/30 seconds and above, the photos taken are prone to handshakes under normal zoom range without the aid of a tripod. Therefore to perform some photo shooting that requires a longer exposure time especially during night time, I bought this tripod with RM50. Moreover, by switching my camera to self-timer mode, I can include myself into the image! For more advanced photo shooting options such as high dynamic range imaging (HDRI), I need to combine three photos of same position but different exposures, therefore a tripod is needed.

I took a family photo with the aid of my tripod.

This is a sample of photoshopped HDR image.

Nissin Di622 Mark II digital flash

Nissin is a third party brand. It does not build cameras. I'm supposed to buy a Canon digital flash, however the market price for getting one having similar function and specification of the one shown above is around RM900. Accessories produced by third parties could be very cheap, and some of them could still guarantee a decent quality and performance. I had gone through the reviews of different third party digital flashes via Internet and asked for some advice around. Eventually I found out the one I bought as shown above has a great reputation. The price of RM470 is within my budget too. Controlling lights could be difficult for beginners. Despite shooting repeatedly to obtain the preferred result, I can see the potential of how the colour and tones of a photo could be greatly improved by applying a particular amount of flashlight at a certain angle properly. Direct flash using built-in camera flash often creates harsh image with annoying shines and shadows. Digital flash is capable of rotating and light filtering, thus it is a versatile device to add more artificial lights. It gives a vibrant colour tone too.

Photo of my grandmother without using a digital flash.

Photo colour enhanced with some removal of undesired shadows compared to the previous photo. Flashlight is bounced from the wall onto her left face.

There are still a lot to explore and learn about. I would appreciate any advice regarding photo shooting given. Hopefully I can share great photos with you guys!

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.

IELTS result

Finally the IELTS result is released! Here is my result:

Listening: 8.5
Reading: 8.5
Writing: 7.5
Speaking: 6.0 =(

Total: 8.5 + 8.5 + 7.5 + 6.0 = 30.5
Overall band score = 30.5/4 = 7.625 ≈ 7.5

Here is the reference of band score:

9. Expert User - native speaker level of the language.

8. Very Good User - excellent command of the language, a few mistakes only

7. Good User - handles language well, some inaccuracies, communicates adequately

6. Competent User - reasonable control of the language, difficulties with unfamiliar

5. Modest User - adequate in own area, difficulties with complex structures

4. Limited User - adequate only in familiar areas, difficulty understanding expression

3. Very Limited User - problems communicating, limited communication abilities

2. Intermittent User - many difficulties, basic information only

1. Non User - understands a few isolated words only

I am quite satisfied with the overall performance despite the poor response rated for my speaking test. However I can't recall much regarding the experience during the tests.

I tried my best and stretched my ears to the max during listening test. However I couldn't catch up the fast conversation by some speakers with thick British accent in one of the parts. I have got some luck to score well in reading test.

Although 7.5 is lower than 8.5, it is still considered as a relatively high band in writing. I think I did pretty well in that paper as I applied a wide range of vocabulary and structures of sentences in appropriate ways. I wouldn't have achieved this band if I did not force myself to pick up the habit of blogging and intensive writing since I failed to score well in SPM.

The examiner who conducted my speaking test was very professional. She is a woman of more than 60 and has a perfect pronunciation. However, she looked very unfriendly, serious and strict. I tried my best to give my best answer for every question or task given, but I just couldn't escape from the fate of getting such an unacceptable band. In fact, if I obtained a band higher than 6.0 for speaking, even by only an addition of 0.5, the overall band score would be 8.0 or higher! =)

In conclusion, IELTS test is interesting and exciting. Every candidate needs to pay full attention to focus on every test after a certain period of training and preparation. Having boosted with confidence, a little luck is still desired.

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?

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.

Standing on the cross road

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

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

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

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

Consequence of exam-orientated culture.

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

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

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

When I was not at home

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

This is how my college looks like.

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

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

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

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

These words are creative indeed.

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

Time to get home :)

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

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

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

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 :)

Medicine

Fortunately, I'm chosen by the Public Service Department (JPA) to pursue my tertiary study under its scholarship in medicine. People told me that I'm as lucky as winning lottery as the total amount spent on me could be nearly a million ringgits. However it is not the time for me to enjoy the savor of victory, I know I shall start preparing myself mentally in order to push myself through the hardship that I might face soon.

Pursuing medicine means I will works as a doctor a.k.a medical officer in the future. I've read many of the blogs written by the medical students as well as doctors. They share their two cents to those who are going to join the medical profession. As most of the people will say, being a doctor is glamorous and can earn big money. It is a misconception indeed. If we count the salary of a doctor hour by hour and then compare its ratio to the other job, we can conclude that the medical job can only bring you monetary stability but not wealth. A doctor cannot be a millionaire.

What propels me? First, I had grown an intense loving towards science and mathematics since I was small. I expect I will be doing science-related job after I've grown up. It doesn't make sense right? Okay actually I'm finding job satisfaction at the same time. I can imagine when I manage to bring the patient's health back to an acceptable level, all things worth. Secondly, I'm inspired by my cousin, Chang Yang who is currently undergoing his fifth year medical education as a medical student. Apart from that, his siblings are also working as doctors in different hospitals now. This spurs me a lot. My parents were encouraging me to follow my cousin's step since I was in primary school. They even started imagining the time when my cousins and I are working together in a private hospital. In fact, they didn't force me to become a doctor but slowly analysed the benefits of being a doctor to me. Actually there are more threats than benefits for being a doctor but I quite agree with some of the points. A doctor will know more about health and hence he can be the health consultant of the whole family which will then practise healthy lifestyle together. A doctor might develop more philosophies about life due to the challenging life saving tasks.

Good grades in examination is needed to get you into a medical school but grades alone will not keep you afloat for long. You need a stubborn determination to progress in medical field that requires a decade of training. I've heard that a number of medical students were giving up in the first year studying medicine, it is a waste of time and resources indeed.

I've ready to endure the five years of intense study and a full lifetime of dedication to humanity.
I'm one step closer to my dream.

troublesome ENGLISH

Well,this is my first post in English since I had just been blogging in Chinese via friendster. What triggers me in doing so? Hmm, the main reason is to improve my English. I am always fascinated by the way people express their ideas or concepts by using such a good command of English AND the most important one is, they can convey whatever they think precisely and spontaneously which I can't. I'm NOW having big troubles even in constructing a sentence in English, I mean, the words,the phrases can't come out naturally and of course, when it comes to speaking, it will be even worse. I think many of my friends as well as those who have been undergoing a long term of Chinese-speaking-environment will have to face this problem also. My teachers always tell simple English will do, but I believe that when it comes to certain extents it will appear to be not appropriate enough. My cousin did advise me to take a look at some people's blog, for instance, Lim Kit Siang's blog. I find it useful though. Apart from that, I spend most of my time in visiting recom,the worldwide Malaysian students network. By going through the threads, to be specific, the debates on the latest issues like the unfair treatment towards the applicants of JPA scholarships, the contradictory posts that raise controversies, the ironic facts that reflect the truth of our national society, I can merely scratch my head and think: Oh my gOsH! my level of this international language is extremely low. Okay,whenever I take a seat in a cinema from now on, I will try not to rely on the subtitles shown to catch the words spoken by the native-speaker-actors with the "lightning speed" (yeap, for me it is) and soon I will surely be very lost in the mist of stories -___-lll Anyway, it is a type of better training for me,better indeed. I'm one of the typical Chinese-educated students which means, my sentences will sound weird to those who are English-educated. Problems exist to be solved! I hope that I can overcome what I always fear - speak, write, and think, IN ENGLISH =)

*For those who are encountering the same problem, let's give our best shot in improving it!