I am not really sure why I kinda want to write something about this. It just pop up in my mind after I cruised through my old schools. Hmm not really cruising through. More like getting stucked whenever I have to use the road in front of the schools. Apparently, there are many parents fetching their children from the schools with vehicles. Since the primary and the secondary schools are side-by-side, the whole fucking road will be having many fucking cars and other vehicles parked on both sides of the lanes. I have to drive slowly and sometimes there are some fucking vehicles suddenly stopping in the middle of the road because there is a driver’s child slowly moving out from the classroom to a fucking car. So, there. I have used 4 ‘fucking’ words (+1 for this sentence) and technically the word is related with ‘children’.
No, my school days weren't as happy as this
Before I proceed, let me tell a little bit of Malaysian educational levels briefly for those who don’t know. There are 3 levels of school; primary, secondary and tertiery. Primary school is kinda similar to elementary school like in the United States. 6 years in primary school and levels are called Year 1 to Year 6. The secondary school are those junior high school and high school stuff. Lower secondary has 3 years of study (Form 1 to Form 3) and Upper secondary has two years of study (Form 4 to Form 5) plus another two years if some going for pre-university stage (Form 6). But technically, the certificates that students acquired from the secondary school are not on the par of diploma like in the United States except STPM for Form 6. College and university is on the tertiery level. Of course before primary school, there’s pre-school or kindergarten. Locally it’s called Tadika or Tabika; Taman Didikan/Bimbingan Kanak-kanak which literally means Children Educational Park (or Garden, hence the meaning of ‘garten’ in German). Since previously Malaysia was a colonial state of British government, the education here is based on British education but with a mixture of American especially the English language. For example, we learn to write in British English rather than US English but people are used to Hollywood movies so the essence of conversation is more American-like which some British people find it rude. Examinations are graded with A, B, C, D, etc. So, the more As you got, the better. Tho’ for tertiery level, the grades are counted for GPA points.
Early Days
So here I start. My first learning institution was at Tadika Al-Umm, a semi religious kindergarten. The place was at a small mosque and it wasn’t called Taski at that time (Taski means Tadika Islam). We started our daily class by prayers before continuing by learning basic educational stuffs like writing and drawing. Nothing much I can say about my pre-school experience because it’s intended to be more fun and happy (yeah, more like paying around rather than learning). So at the age of 7, children are required to register for primary school whether they had experienced pre-school or not. For the first year of learning at primary school, usually we will learn the same thing we had during pre-school since back in my days, there were a few guys who hadn’t have any kind of learning before that due to family difficulties. I attended two schools back then. The first one was national primary school and the other one was religious primary school. Since a school has 2 sessions a day, I could attend both schools in a single day by choosing which session that I preferred (but technically speaking, both school collaborate with each others for sessions). I had to ride a school bus for my religious school tho’ since it was pretty far. The other school was nearby and just beside the primary school is the secondary school. Malaysia has several known national schools and each type of school is racial school. Since I attended national primary school, it was mainly cater for Malay students. During my time, there were less than 10 people of other races and none of them were in my class either. On fence sitter note, teachers were quite racist even though there were a few Indian and Chinese teachers. So, my friends during primary school were Malays. For Year 6 student, there’s an examination which students have to take for attending secondary school. The important one is for the national schools called UPSR. The religious school also has its own certificate but only feasible for those who want to attend religious schools later on. I got 3 As out of 4 and the other was B (English). Starting that time, my father always asked me to study English properly (I even had to complete the reading of Nelson Mandela life story thick book). I attended the examination for religious as well but I never knew the results up until now (since the certificate wasn’t that significant).
In the Middle
If I got good results for religious primary school, I may attended for a religious secondary school. But like I said earlier, I didn’t even know the result as I only used my UPSR for attending the national secondary school. Since I had a basis for religious education, I opted for additional class during my lower secondary school, Arab language class. For 3 years I learn and studied for PMR, the certificate for lower secondary school. For that matter, I acquired 6 As out of 9 where 3 of the As were language subjects; English, Malay and Arabic. Since I got an A for the Arabic subject, I was also feasible to apply for religious secondary school for upper secondary level along with boarding school. However, I didn’t apply any of those schools and continue studying at the same school instead. For the next stage, I finally have a friend of other races. Two Chinese guys were in my class while there was another Chinese girl that I know in another class. In this upper secondary level, I chose Science IT for my study field (up until now). I acquired only 1 A (distinction) for my SPM certificate and the others were Credits (Bs and Cs while Chemistry was the only D I got which is for Pass). Not a very cool result but it was enough to apply for a college or university.
Tertiery Education
Although there were many choices that can be applied from my SPM certificate, I prefer to take a diploma in any institution. Form 6 and Matriculation college were other available choices tho’ the latter was pretty hard to get (and mostly learning about major Science field). So I was qualified for a place at a new college called Kolej Universiti Teknology Tun Hussein Onn (now known as Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia). For 3 years I studied in Kuittho (Diploma in IT) and it wasn’t that pleasurable for me, at least. Well, my friends were mostly fine. I met with various people be it Chinese, Kadazan or Indian. I was quite active in societal clubs which also led to have my grades lowered in the middle of my studies. The club I joined was a religious club and to some extent some of the guys were too religious where they don’t even care for their studies. I was also involved in students’ representative council. Because of my bad grades, my father kept remind me about my purpose to come there for studies, not to heavily involved on such associations. So I ditched those things and eventually I got a Dean’s List for the next semester. But my grievances were not involving with my own actions like those associations thingy. The last semester was the most fucked up moments in Kuittho. Lecturers and staffs loved to promise many things but mostly ended up in the butthole. There’s bias in term of education levels in FTMK of Kuittho. The staffs there would listen more to Bachelor Degree students compared to Diploma students. So, we had some sort of faculty meeting and we thought we might have some rooms for expressing our problems. Yet, all our expressions were simply denied by those people with excuses. On the other hand, some lecturers love to promise their students that if they do this and that, they will get A for their works. Well, one of my lecturers was like that. I can tell if I eventually complain to him about his promises, he might just giving shitloads of excuses of why I didn’t get the grade. Don’t simply giving excuses, idiot. Then, the most bullshit thing is the final year project. My project was about web portal for business stuff and it was developed using PHP programming language. Back then, open source business was pretty new and popular. Since my industrial training was related to my project, I completed my project pretty fast. A little bit faster than my friends and I even submitted my project thesis earlier than most of others. I ended up getting B+. I am still OK with that but when my friend who actually having similar project like mine but DID NOT actually FINISH the project then getting an A- for that matter, that’s outrageous. Perhaps begging for marks is actually better than having an actual running application for the project. Fuck.
Because of that matter, I really hate Kuittho, emotionally. Technically, it discouraged me to further up my studies for a bachelor degree. My dad told me to apply for bachelor degree study at Kuittho or other university but I simply ignored his request. I’d rather sit on my chair at home in front of the computer. I had no will to study any more. Plus, I didn’t take the MUET examination so it’s quite hard to apply for a degree that time. But my dad kept urging me to submit an application. With a heavy heart, I took a MUET exam and then applied for a placement at Universiti Tenaga Nasional. The MUET exam was quite funny as I didn’t study at all and I got Band 5. Because some of my friends were struggling to get the passable level which is Band 3. Being a private university, unlike Kuittho, Uniten had better services despite it’s total reliability on TNB’s fund. Of course, the fees were high. Those who were applying for study loans such as PTPTN will be getting some hardship like some of my friends. In my portion, I had to pay around RM 36k for 3 years of study compared to RM 16k (moreless) for any local government university. But being in a private uni, environment does different. Lecturers and staffs were nicer and friendlier. Equipments were better despite Uniten ranked 3rd for top 3 private universities around Putrajaya (other tops were MMU and LKW). Studying here was very much challenging compared to Kuittho. Despite the majority of Malays, lecturers weren’t bias much. I have befriended with various people. Including Iranian foreign students. Same like lecturers, there were many foreigners just like my Bosnian lecturer for world history (he speaks English with Russian accent). Still, I had almost no will to continue study. Perhaps I was doing it for the sake of my dad. I totally refused to involve with any kind of student club or society. I even trying not to make myself stand out among the classmates. But it’s hard to be alone. Especially when there’s group assignment lol. Tho’ people there are mostly nice persons. I got a Dean’s List and some good grades on my favorite subjects. I was a little bit slacking during my last semester. Maybe the feeling of ‘I want to get this done quick rawrrr’ has infected me that time. My project supervisor realized why I kinda making things to the minimum and the result was only B+ (he expected me to get an A or at least A- for that because for my Project I, I got an A). Nevertheless, I successfully graduated from Uniten.
Postgraduate
So, I happily did nothing but getting along with my computer at home, again. Ever since my graduation, I haven’t set anything for me to do next after the degree I acquired. Perhaps it’s my rest time for those hassles. Yet again my dad kept asking me of what I should do and shits. Haha yeah, he’d been paying all my study fees, entirely, since he won’t allow me to take any kind of loans for studies (unless if it’s a scholarship but I don’t think I will ever getting one). He suggesting me to get a job or apply for Masters degree. Currently, I am doing both. Well, it’s a contract-based job and I am also taking a Masters of Science degree course at Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka. I am not sure what I should say for my current state except that I am busy.
Actually, it took me several days to write this up. Writing it up a bit by bit. In fact, there are several stuffs I missed to be included within this post. But, oh well, this has already more than 2000 words so it’s better I end it up here. Traaaaaaaaaaa!
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