The way

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

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

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

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

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

Anticipation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Malaysia, my country (part 2)

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

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

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

Examination (part 2)

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

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

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

Basketball and I

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

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

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

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

JPA scholarship (part 2)

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

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

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

Achilles' heel

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

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

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

Home

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

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

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

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