AIMST

So here's another quick update.

First off, I've managed to scrape through to a JPA scholarship for medicine at AIMST. Actually, just for Foundation in Science, whether the sponsorship will be continued will depend on my results (again).

Next, in comparison to KMS, AIMST is similar to heaven. We have a LAN port in every room, a much, much cooler atmosphere and laundry service. Study hours are from 8 am to 4 or 5 pm everyday but the schedule is much FASTER!!! Each subject has 3 hours of lectures and 2 hours of tutorials weekly.

As for lab sessions, we have 2 hours a week, rotating Physics, Chemistry and Biology lab sessions. Due to the obscenely high number of students in this program, we are having approximately 100 students in 1 single lab.....

Food, I shall not comment on, with this exception: Plutonians may feel right at home.

However, weighed with KMS, the hostels are a tad small and the furniture cannot be arranged to provide any inkling of privacy. There are 3 4-person rooms in each unit, which also contains 4 toilets and 4 shower rooms.

Lastly, it is to be emphasized that only 200 students are admitted into the MBBS course each year, so almost no students not from Foundation are admitted. Among the Foundation students here, competition is very great, as there were three intakes, amounting to about 500 students. Hence, many wasted a year and went home disappointed, or they could repeat Foundation. I shall leave it to readers to decide whether this is worthwhile.

Anyway, I'm having my assessment week so that's all for now!

Haunted

Jut realized I must be haunted by spirits of carelessness and laziness.

How much more can I achieve if I were only just a little more hardworking and cautious??
Definitely more than second best.

18th!!!

Today I commemorate my 18th year of existence on this wonderful earth.

I shall forget all my woes and look forward to a better future (it's cliched, I know.) for this single day.

Cheers to all!!!

Kolej Matrikulasi Selangor

HAHAHA
Thank God blogs are not blocked.
Here in this wonderful dreamland, Facebook is only available after 5pm, and every other page used for entertainment is BLOCKED!!!
Hence, I'M BACK.

OK, before I have to go back to class, here's a quick update.
Venue : KMS
Activity : ZZZZZ
This is because all they do here is so amateurish and at such a slow pace!!!
LOVE IT here!!!

P.S. I love being sarcastic.

New Beginning

Going to start college soon, in about 2 weeks time.

As I won't be having time to play all sorts of online games, I guess it's back to blogging, particularly in light of so many controversial happenings around the globe.

Be writing more soon!!

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!

I AM NOW OFFICIALLY UNSHACKLED FROM SPM.

Enough said.

Prefects' Leadership Camp 2009 (Day 1)

March 15, the first day of the camp.

Firstly, we had some ice-breaking games. Well, I think the ice was broken and emotions definitely soared, but I'm afraid I didn't get any new names. Next, we're supposed to look for coloured strips of paper with our names. Cute, but no one stopped to think what happened to the unfound paper. Save the environment! Or so they say. From the colour,we get our teams. It's really unfair, as team members were pre-selected by members of the commitee, causing an overflow of talent, skills and other assets in a few teams, but a lack of the above attributes in others. This created a situation where the points gap between teams got as large as a bronchiosaurus.

Later, the bus ride. Or rather, the wait for the ride. Everyone sat around the school in expectant of the slowcoaches. We had wonderful school buses which rank of every odour one can think of, or maybe it's just my overly sensitive olfactory senses. Boring trip, without any of the expected mini-games. Hmmm... I guess the games commitee were too caught up in the rest of their work.

Nearing Nur Lembah Pangsun, it began drizzling. We had to carry our luggage all the way to the cafeteria, if you guessed it, underwater. The 'cafeteria' was a makeshift structure and all the luggage were drenched. Not bad for our first time there, huh? Anyway, lunch was a normal affair, with rice, 2 curry dishes and a drink. Little did I know that was to be the standard rations in the days to come, no matter breakfast, lunch or dinner. Lucky I brought some medication for my throat, lest it gets too 'spiced' up!

After the hot meal, everyone hung around our 'cafeteria' - two piece of canvas on a few metal poles (the concrete one is occupied by another group of lodgers) - and questions start to arise as to what in the world were we supposed to do. Turned out the tents were not ready yet! Anyway, we spent our time chatting and bonding. (Dennis kept singing his favourite song...) At long last, we moved to our tents form by form - yes, under the rain again - and it was out turn when we realised we have a shortage of the amazingly suffocating tents and the Form 5 guys shall be sacrified- let us sleep in the hall, please...... In the end, we left our luggage beside an old well, under a roof and went onto the events, leaving matters to the organisers.

First up, the obstacle-course-canopy-walk-flying-fox combo, where teams can experience these three outdoor games at different orders to save time. Well, they are quite enjoyable, as a new experience for this city guy. My group (Blue rocks!) did the obstacle course, flying fox and then the canopy walk. The obstacle course requires a lot of team work and strategy, with the males lending their strength to the rest of the team on many occasions. Next, the flying fox activity was pretty boring, but my views are contradicted by some screams. However, as only a maximum of two can go at a time, the longwait totally neutralizes any exhilaration felt during the ride. Lets not even bring up the mosquito infestation. When we finally finished 'flying' it rained, and we walkedthe canopy under slippery conditions. In fact, harder was the climb up the slope to the hanging bridge, as the mud-packed ground provides no friction whatsoever.

Then, it was bathing time! That was the first time I bathed with a whole bunch of males under the sky! As it was open-air, rain poured, and it was pointless to wipe yourself dry. Dinner was a customary affair, as stated above.

There was a discussion session later. where the juniors were verbally harassed by the organizers for being slow. Well, what would you expect when there wasn't a rain plan? Of course the participants would get disoriented and it's their first day so naturally they're slow on the uptake as they're tired! People are not born with rocks in their skulls for a reason. After the loooong reprimand, when even my patience is exhausted, they moved on to the activities. Each team are supposed to wrap three eggs in some sort of pouch and keep them intact throughout the camp. Plain waste of food when Africans are starving. Anyway, we went to bed after that. The good news: all of us get to kip in the hall!

Speeches

Well, it's astonishing when our Headmistress went upstage and started berating us for our dismal toilet usage. It seems that the female washroom has been clogged by a large quantity of tissue paper and wrappers and errrmm...... sanitary pads......... What a disgrace!

However, the issue in this post will not be the way Malaysians dispose of their trash,but on speeches. Firstly, it came as a huge shock when Pn. Lee began screaming her head off when she normally looks so "grandma-ish", if you get what I mean. The passion in her voice, it's as if we just wrecked her home or something, oops, I forgot the school is her second home... I think that's what grabs the audience's attention. I've seen many speeches, but less than some, and a good speaker really lets the audience feel the speech. On the other hand, monotonous presentations bore people to death. Ever heard the saying, "sleeping is a waste of life"?

Also, anyone calculated the length of greetings in a speech? Especially at formal events, speeches in Malay particularly, takes around half a minute. 30 seconds isn't long, one might say, but in an 8-minute speech for instance, that's like 1/16 of the total time, couldn't one say something else instead of acknowledging the presence of the audience?

Is anyone aware that not all speeches are written by the speakers themselves? In fact, the profession of a speech-writer actually exists! The question is, can the speaker convey the writer's message. Everyone speaks in a different style. Although it's possible to model yours based on someone else's, the style will definitely vary slightly, especially the accent, gestures, volume and emotion. No two persons in the world are exact replicas of each other (yet)!

Some people have a very soothing voice. When they speak, it actually sounds like your conscience whispering in your ear. Creepy, but it certainly gets the message across. However, those people will need a mike in public presentations. They tend to speak softly so when addressing the public, those people with LOUD, but unmelodious, voices have the advantage. Seems like God's fair after all.

Also, different speeches are for different peeople. Like an enviromental speech, the speaker should have the suitable passion, not like some History teacher, or with an idotic, cheerful tone. Kinda ruins the whole point of the speech.

Lastly, keep the speeches short! If you wanna say a lot of stuff, blog!

Failure

Failure - the inability to accomplish an objective; the model for future attempts; the bringer of despair; the mother of success.

Is failure positive or negative? It's just how one looks at it. Take this for example. Stand face to face with another person. Tell him/her to imitate you. Look to the right and say "Look right."
Observation: The person will probably ask, "Whose right?"
See my point? It's actually just the perspective, but it'll totally alter one's reaction.

One's failure may be another's success. Lets say I got 80 marks for my Add Maths. Many might think that "Wow! An A1! Excellent!!" but I would be like "No..... I didn't get 90...." Get it?

In the end, it's just about how high you're aiming. If you are after 80 and you got 81, you'll be happy like hell. But what if you got 79? Would it be like the end of the world? Just 1 more point to your aim? Will you feel the desire, the regret, the despair?

On the other hand, why don't you just set your sights lower and feel the immense satisfaction of attaining your goal? If not for the fact that you'll feel as if you just conned yourself? We'll know, ourselves even if everyone else doesn't, that we're not doing our best. And we'll be lying to ourselves if we did.

What can we do? I think that should be clear by now. Just give it your best, even though you know you'll never succeed.

"Do or do not. There is no try."

Master Yoda

Who knows, maybe God will decide to extend a hand of aid to you, for once.

Anyway, good luck to all of you, no matter what is your quest. And remember , so long as you're trying, you'll never fail.


BEST OF LUCK!!!

My Thoughts

Just had a meeting on Friday. Took like tonnes of my valuable, precious time on Earth. Anyway, these are just some of what I thought during the looooooooong session - It's amazing what a bored mind can think of. - so, if you're expecting a bit of philosophy, wait for the next post. :)

Anyway, The Saw mentioned us taking of our ties outside the room was inappropriate. It was assumed that the action of removing a strip of cloth strangling your neck as a prelude to stripping. I couldn't care less. It was suffocating me! But thank god my classroom is quite near to the Room. Anyway, anyone notice that if we take it off in the Room, it's more like a perverted thing? Cause there's like 50 of us in there, all 'stripping' at once, in a rooom...... lol.

Next, we're supposed to stand like statues during assemblies. Well, so as you know, movement is one of the characteristics identifying humans as a living being, including respiration, excretion and response to stimuli. How in the world are we supposed to freeze under that sweltering ball of fire in the sky? How can we not move when we are half-asleep listening to boring old speeches on toilet usage (and blocked toilets too!)? Would you rather us sleep-stand? It's not like we're blocking anyone's way whatsoever.


And TALKING during duty! Well, I know for one that communication is essential for efficiency (check the military for example). Anyone wonder why the radio, the telephone and Live Messenger was invented? What else do you think we can do during those periods of boredom? Besides fantasising, of course. Thank god that illogical rule has been abolished now.


Moving on, exams. I seriously think duties should be suspended during the examination period. For all I care, exams define the life of a student. It's not like the school's unable to function without us anyway. There will not be disciplinary apocalypse if we're not there, either. Our results are seriously affected, even. Plus, we can't study duriong recess and we're supposed to keep the students out of their classes too!

Continuing, I'm also immensely dissatisfied when we're supposed to stop students from eating in TOILETS -ridiculous, isn't it?- and we can't keep text books in our lockers. But that's for next time, so bye for now!!


PS: I hope I didn't offend anybody. If so, you're welcome to share your thoughts on the above topics. Just don't curse me, k?