UK ‘Tis :: April :: 2009
UncategorizedApril 30, 2009 6:06 am

Labu, the old alma mater of mine

I was offered a place in a school somewhere near Seremban. A religious school that is, inhabited mostly by hypocritical-religiously-obedient students, controlled fiercely by the whole lot of ustaz and wardens who mostly come from a state somewhere in the east of the country and exacerbated by the fascism of some of the prefects and seniors that was untolerable that is worth to be elaborated in a nasty language, that now, maybe due to the bad prayers on them by the juniors, they are doomed with failed studies, careers and life.

Having said that, I must admit that I myself was appointed as a prefect during my third year of study. My inadequate leadership skill, as well as my commitment issue resulted in me not being elected for the subsequent year. No grudge about it really, as I don’t really fancy that responsibility anyway. I am not sure myself on why the hell that I undertook that responsibility in the first place. People mock you, regardless of which side your stance is. Relaxing the rules and being lenient is a taboo for the fellow prefect colleagues, and somehow, the wardens/ustaz will know about it. Being too rigid as to limit flexibility will result in you being outcaste and treated like the Dalits, the untouchables by the rest of the students.

Upon deep reminiscence, I am quite lucky as I had enjoyed both side of life, one being the prefect wearing blue shirts and dark blue trousers, and the other being a normal student wearing white shirt and pants. Either hunting or being hunted, bring it on, I had both.

To be continued

 

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UncategorizedApril 9, 2009 11:14 am

Life, as I see it.

 What is kasih sayang, when this worldly love is just a particle of a mist from God’s boundless oceans of mercy. I long then, the feeling and the smells of God’s vast love..

I went back to Kedah recently to meet the parents. Alhamdulillah, both of them are in their very pink of health.

I must admit that among my siblings, I am the one who spent the least time with them. Having spent 5 years in a boarding school since such a young age of 13, and another 5 years for my tertiary education, I must say that my relationship with my parents, especially the big boss (or ayah as we called it at home), is not as close as my other siblings.

I envy them really. When my younger brothers can talk with him for hours on almost everything under the sun (yes, literally almost everything, from their frenzied and hysterical obsession with cars and local football development, to the most sensitive topic of mandi wajib and marriage), I can hardly find anything to talk about, despite the fact that I am his first children.

As far as I can recollect, when we were small, he was a very fierce father. Ayah used to whack the whole lot of us, his first three boys, using his black leather belt, to the extent that emak has to stop him and lock us up in a room for the rest of the evening. Reason being: (1)Abang Tam who is the youngest and as the name suggest, is slightly tanned than us was hit and injured while brawling with the kid next door, and (2) the brothers did not protect the youngest brother and fight for him back. That was well fifteen or more years back.

During those days when we lived in Pasir Besar Negeri Sembilan, he always brought me along for his fishing trip at Sungai Muar. I can still remember the day that he quit his fishing obsession altogether when he accidentally hit a cow while riding his Honda Fame. The mystery of how on earth that he managed to hit the bloody cow right in a middle of the day remain unsolved. Due to concussion, he was admitted to Segamat hospital. It is just impossible to forget what a day it was. Emak cried continuously while waiting for Ayah outside the Emergency room. I was busy watching and savouring the ambience in the waiting room. I was simply hypnotised observing the doctors and nurses bustling in and out of the emergency room. Abang Ngah (the second son) was running frantically here and there enjoying his freedom from Emak’s oversight. Abang Tam on the other hand was crying like hell after his persistent childish demand for air Milo kotak from the vending machine was persistently being ignored by Emak. Truth to be told, Emak being herself, while rushing and desperately dragging the three of us to Segamat hospital which is literally one full hour away from our home, had forgotten to bring along her purse. I just couldn’t be thankful enough that an old Chinese man, after observing the havoc that these two stooges made in the waiting room, came to us and offered us $1 coins each for us to belanja. Reminiscing this with Emak last weekend, it came to my realisation that this is the same old man who prophesied that I am going to be a well-to-do man in the future..huhu. How future is the future, nobody knows but Allah. After all, it is just a plain prophecy.

Albeit being lowly educated due to the financial constraint of my grandfather, Ayah is a man of a strong conviction, principle and determination. Thank you Ayah, for authoring his own latih tubi buku 555 (a small book which is usually used to record grocery stores credit purchases) for me to work out with under his strict and harsh supervision, that for this big effort of him, I can read and count when I was even five-year old.

We moved to our own house at a small village in Kedah when I was in standard 4. He bought the house way before Abang Ngah was born, using the gratuity money that he earned when he retired from the army. If not because of him opted for the lump-sum payment instead of complacently earning the petty monthly allowance, we would still be renting a house. If I ever be in his shoe at that time, I wonder whether I would make the same irrevocable decision.

I managed to score decently for my UPSR that I was offered a place in a boarding school, somewhere in Negeri Sembilan….to be continued.

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UncategorizedApril 1, 2009 12:03 am

It’s nice to have you back where you belong

What is glory, when all the glories are attributed to Allah alone..

Everyone who have seen this bank’s scholarship advertisement must have realised that somewhat yours truly managed to get his face printed on the national newspapers. Nothing to brag really, but the fact that the photoshoot was taken way 2 years ago for internal brochure circulation, but was recycled over and over again really makes me wonder on the question of whether the world has really ran out of advertisement model. Afterall I am not that good looking as to attract the likes of Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz to join this bank.

Ok enough of the rambling. If you are one of the scholarship applicant, please read this slowly.

Now the good side of the scholarship:

1) Get good handsome allowance for 3 years

Unfortunately, there is no free lunch in this world.

1) Please mind that the scholarship comes with 10-year bond of employment. If you are slow and steady kind of guy, and willing to take the risk of earning only 3-7% annual increment, with 2-3 months of bonus, then this is just a perfect organisation that you should join after PTD.

2) 10-year of employment is okay, as long as you could join the department that suits your interest. But having it pre-determined for you by the HR due to their sophisticated ‘long term human resource planning’ thingy, it is worth the while for you to think twice on whether to accept the scholarship or not. It is ok if you managed to get a good department that really is challenging in nature, but unfortunately if you are destined by the so called ‘long term human resource planning’ to be in a lousy department, then no one to blame but yourself for taking up the scholarship, stuck and bonded for ten years of doing crap wasting ten years of your precious life.

Don’t repeat my biggest mistake.

Take it easy, step by step.

Don’t be a man in a hurry like what I used to be when signing the contract, as no matter how you fast run, one wrong step, you will be delayed for ten years.

Don’t worry about guaranteeing a job by taking up the scholarship. If you managed to get this scholarship, it is an indicator that you will surely do fine in your career later on, be it in the foreign land or this country. The fact that you won the scholarship at such a young age of 17 shows that even if you have no guaranteed job now, you would greatly survive in the war of finding job when you graduated, with a bigger employment prospect and better future salary.

My ultimate advice:

Apply scholarship from all sponsors. If you get this bank scholarship as well as other non-bonding scholarship [which is now paying slightly lower allowance (lesser by GBP50) than the bank], then you should have already known you true potential.Go for a bigger prospect, whatever your definition of ‘career prospect’ is.

Pick the right sponsor, so that you wouldn’t waste the next 10 years of you life doing crap, and writing this unproductive blog during your office hour.

What’s the glory of having the bank scholarship, when for us, glory is such an impermanent thing….

p/s:btw, I managed to complete the posting just before 9a.m.

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