w.I.b:warung ikan bakar:
Harap-harap INI KALILAH !
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
"Hey cousin, do you know that our aunt and my dad read your blog?" - Kenn "Huhhrmhhhaht............!" - Fooji
The 2-week post-exams vacation back home in Ipoh was blissfully, uniquely uneventful. No adventures - just TV, friends, home-cooked food, Ipoh food, uncles and aunties, cousins, nephews, grandma, and yum-cha. After months of hardly any real breaks, this one was excellent.
But then there was this weekend of wedding rituals held last Saturday. First, raw experience as the bestman, with silly mistakes here and there. It was fun nevertheless, with more relatives, and new friends. God bless the new married couple!
This week is all about preparing for India, more friends, and some minor churchwork. Thoughts on business ideas and business opportunities are changing directions, still deciding between volunteerism or fiscal wealth, financial freedom or a glorious modest future.
The year-end season is coming soon, and while I am away in India, I wish you guys healthy and happy. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
God willing, Warung Ikan Bakar will be back in January - with a new look, new focus. Less secrets, less cryptic sad poems, less gossips, less complaints, less personal, more facts, more medicine, more debates.
11 months of Klang 2 months of preparation
2 weeks of intensive study camp
1 icky SPM paper
1 weird clinical paper
1 crazy OSCE
1 pleasant long case.....
God willing, I won't have to go back Klang anymore......
“Do not let your schooling interfere with your education”
I can almost celebrate a 1-year anniversary of blog-bashing my own menara gading. It is not that I am a natural-born-whiner who is too blind to see UM in a more positive way.
I want to love my university. I want to be proud of this school.
It is just that I cannot turn a blind eye to all the saddenning self-destructive mechanisms that the education masters and the administration are planting in our campus. After all, this used to be one of the greatest in the global academic world. What happenned?
Now, I cannot even say we are the top of the country. Those claims that UM is No.1 are groundless.
Tolonglah. fellow UM folks, don’t say anymore that we are the “creame de la creame, the cream of the crop,” or craps like that.
Walau bagaimanapun, I do think that UM, despite being a very rigid and stunted university in many ways, is still a place potential enough to grow great minds, and admirable characters.
The soil is ready, the water too, it is just that the sunlight is rather poor, and the weather bad.
But if God and ourselves say grow! We shall grow!!
So, how do we create an enriching university experience for ourselves despite all the shortcomings, dead ends and wrong impressions? Here’s a list of what I gathered from my 4 years of observation and interaction with people who have managed to have a fulfilling university life-
i. Do not be shy!!!!! Thicken your face. Do not be too timid to ask, to question, to initiate, and to pursue.
ii. Stop being a snobbish jerk. Stop being communal. Stop being a racist. Dump all the racist and uninformed nonsense that your uncles, aunties and some seniors told you. In short, keep an open mind. Question your own pre-formed conclusions.
iii. Get to know the foreigners- the Sudanese, the Japanese, the Iranians, the Iraqis, the French. If you can find them la….
iv. Learn another language. Learn a new sport. Learn to dance. One thing one should acquire in university is a good learning culture.
v. Read Read and Read – read beyond your prescribe text.
Read Farish Noor.
Read from the internet. All the superb discussions in those superb blogs –
Jeff, Najah, TVSmith, the late Johan Ismail, etc.
Read the mainstream media and be critical about it. See the spin, see the lies.
Read the Economist, discuss about the Economist.
vi. Get to know the East malaysians- they are the best!
vii. Seek information and inspiration beyond your lecturers. Go for open lectures, seminars, free speech outside the university. Hear the activists talk, hear the opposition speak their mind, also hear the BN politicians and hear the lies and hear the spin. Learn to recognise crap in their speeches.
viii. Write write write !!!!! Speak up!!!! Share your thoughts!!!! Criticise and anticipate criticism!!!! Listen Listen Listen!!!
ix.Continue your zeal from pre-university days, do not forsake clubs and activities just because you have done it all in secondary school.
x. Aim for the sky so that at least you’ll get the moon.
xi. Find a good set of campus friends who are also looking for some real deal in education.
xii. Know God and seek God.
(Any suggestions to the list?)
If they are going to make our university to be like sekolah menengah, then we should unfreeze our childish expectations of such institutions.
Seek it out on our own, with a healthy appetite for what is wise, what is stimulating, what is enriching, what is meaningful and what is true.
Do not let your schooling to interfere with your education – Mark Twain.
*W.I.B is the personal blog of fooji. He works for the ministry of health seven days a week, skips his breakfast and looks forward to a good dinner at the end of the day.
w.I.b:warung ikan bakar:
