Éclectique

DISCLAIMER: There is no structure with this.  There is no goal.  I am just typing away to get my fingers moving.  It has been a while since I was able to type for long periods of time without cross-checking my facts or googling a potential argument every few seconds. What should I rant about? School?  That's overrated and stressful.  Paris?  Many have done it and quite frankly, I feel no empathy.  I rarely have.  I am upset that ISIS Daesh has the nerve to claim to represent Islam, but other than that, I feel indifferent.  Indifferent is a strong word.  It's not that I do not feel terrible to what has happened to the citizens of Paris, but rather I have lots of things I must worry about myself.  So, I'll nod and say "oh, that's terrible" and get back to work without missing a beat. I feel alone.  Dumb.  Outclassed.  And yet, today, of all days, I have a tinge of "I can do this".  No pep in my step, but rat...

FINALS IN 3 DAYS! My first semester has almost literally flown by.  I'm not ready for finals.  I feel too spread out.  This is ridiculous.  I have 5 courses.  One of those is broken into 3 separate classes.  How am I supposed to achieve a good grade like this?  Chemistry is going to REALLY drag down my grades again.  I hate Chemistry.  I know what I want to do; design and analysis.  Mechanical Engineering.  It's all math and physics.  That's what I want to do. I don't want to have anything to do with molecular mass or all that. Sigh.  2 of my new friends are already dropping out of Engineering.  It IS a tough course here...  They literally aim to get half the students out by year 3.  I'm not exaggerating.  HALF the students enrolled in the engineering course are NOT going to get past year 2. I need to aim as high as I can and work as hard as I can.  Insyaallah I will get there.  Never EVER...

1 minute into the lady's speech & I can't stand it anymore. Miss Bawani's tone may have sounded 'heated' but as a debator, I call that passionate. I call that conviction.  Based on her content, I call that prepared. Most of all, I call that, having a stand.  Yes, Ms. Sharifah also has a stand but I do not feel that her responses are appropriate nor within the nature of a debate. I personally find the response "then go to those countries" a coward's response. Why? Because the reason many have not done just that is because we/they are unable to.  Others on the other hand, have decided "NO! I will stay, and I will improve this beloved country of mine!" Tunku Abdul Rahman was one such man.  Tun Dr. Mahathir was one such man.  Miss Bawani is one such lady. I find that a sign of patriotism.  Wanting to see the country prosper.  Yet, they are shot down.  Broken & trained to live within the four sides of a box.  To be born, follow orders, a...

Classes have resumed.  Last two semesters have felt like open season & I was the deer.  Mechanics & Heat  in the short semester, then Multivariate Calculus in the following semester were really a blow to my CGPA. I've probably rambled a lot about this so I'm not going to say anything more.  Let's just hope that hunting season is over & this little deer is not going to face anymore trouble. This semester I'm only taking 3 subjects; Thermodynamics, Electricity & Light, & retaking Multivariate Calculus.  Multivariate Calculus has a new lecturer so hopefully she's good.  Going to work hard at all my papers now.  Have to.  Need to bring up my CGPA so I can apply. Talking about applications, I'm now looking at Canada rather than the States due -- primarily -- to safety issues...  There has been literally a shooting every week.  It's frightening.  Going to apply to McMaster, University of Calgary, & Queen's. ...

Wow. If blogs could be dusty, mine would be covered in a considerably thick layer of it. Hehe! I'm sorry I haven't been blogging in a while -- I noticed that a lot of people are writing that. College life has begun for me. So far, so good. My primary worry? It isn't the heaping amount of homework that we don't have to hand in -- yaay! --, it isn't the onslaught of weekly quizzes & everything being practically rushed because it is a short semester, no. It is the fact that I got locked out of my student e-mail... -_-" Somehow, the servers were reset and so were our passwords. I didn't know that so I just kept trying and trying until I was locked out. Had to make 2 trips to the IT Helpdesk. Hopefully this one will work out. Otherwise, I'm quite good. Hehe! Tomorrow is going to be another long day, but at least it'll be spent learning, not waiting like today. The Sunway Campus is quite nice. I don't think I'll be doing any extr...

Finally the weekend is over. Time for me to recover and recuperate. On Friday, I had my Bronze Medal examinations. I passed so now I'm a qualified life guard! Hehe! It was actually a lot of fun! There were only 2 timed events. The first was to swim 50m (any stroke), rescue the victim and tow him back 50m with the assistance of an aid (a short rope). The time to beat was 00:03:00 minutes. I clocked in 00:02:48. Hehe! The other timed event was the rope toss. You have to gather the rope, roll it so that you can toss it well to the victim who is about 10-20m out in 'open' water. Time to beat; 00:01:00. My time: 00:0043. Muahahaha! I also did very good for the other events. My 'victim' -- a fellow exam taker -- said that my chin tow was very comfortable. Muahahaha! Luckily for me, the guy was a floater, despite being on the heavier side. Me? I sink. Heh heh. Sorry. He had a bit of trouble with me. Hehe! Saturday was my SAT. Huh. Go figure, the ...

Right off the bat I'm sure you guys are wondering either; (A) What on Earth do those acronyms mean? (B) Aqil mentioned them before... But I can't remember... Either way, I'll let you know. SAT stands for Scholastic Assessment Test -- formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test. TOEFL stands for Test Of English as A Foreign Language. Right now, these two are my top priority. Preparing for and taking the tests. For the TOEFL, I'll be taking TOEFL iBT which means internet-based test. I recently bought a couple of books to help with preparations. The titles are; Cracking the SAT 2011 Edition and Cracking the TOEFL iBT 2011 Edition . Both are published by The Princeton Review. Cracking the SAT 2011 Edition by The Princeton Review Cracking the TOEFL iBT 2011 Edition by The Princeton Review Insyaallah I'll be able to do it. SAT so far seems quite doable. Hehe! That's all for now. Au revoir!

There's so many questions! What do I want to do? where do I want to go? how am I going to afford it? Let's start with the first question; what. What do I want to do? I feel like taking engineering but I'm not sure I can carry it -- thanks to poor grades in Add Math so far. I really REALLY hope I did way better this time. Insyaallah. If I do go for engineering, what type of engineering? Not civil. You're not supposed to take that right away, I think. Mechanical? I like to tinker with stuff but I'm not too sure about job opportunities. -Sigh-. Second question; where. This is very much depended on what course/field I'll be taking. But I really really want to go to the US. Maybe Canada. Ivy League colleges are too expensive. The US and Canada have a lot of good colleges. I'm looking for a QUALITY education. Any good college should provide that. I'll just have to keep scouring. Right now, I'm just looking at application deadlines, ent...

I've finally finished the heaviest of 9 of the 10 subjects. Like I've written in my previous post(s), I'm taking 10 subjects totaling about 23 papers. O_O". So I've done 21/23 papers! YEAAH!! The heaviest are over! Today was Biology. Next week is English for Science and Technology (EST). I'm not panicking too much because all I need to do is read through my National Geographic magazines. I have around 2 years worth of them. Hehe! Great pictures AND great articles. I guess you could say that National Geographic is what got me into amateur photography and writing. To top it off, I've always loved animals and the environment and issues that matter so it was a really natural fit. When I mean issues that matter, politics doesn't fall under it. Unless it's something really major and/or will affect me. Speaking of which; in Malaysian newspapers and/or news networks there's too many of these things: 'Politics'. It's rarely abo...

So I've made it through 7 subjects totalling 15 papers. Phew. 3 more subjects to go. That means another 8 more papers. O_O'. I have 3 days to brush up my Chemistry then one day to memorize Biology then 1 week to pour over my NatGeo magazines for EST. At least after Biology, I can hit PCP!! YEEAAH!!! So far, SPM wasn't too bad. Insyaallah I will be OK. I hope so. P/S I've managed to keep my promise of staying off Facebook for 3 weeks. I'll stay off until AFTER I sit for my EST papers. Why? Because I know I can do it.

Trials are over! Phew. At last. But unfortunately, those are only the trials. The real SPM is yet to come. -Sigh-. At least I'll get a break, I hope. Hehe. I'm going to enjoy not studying right now. Au revoir for now.

It's nearly the end of Ramadhan and tomorrow, I'll be hitting the road heading back to my 'kampung' or village in Perak which is about 100+ kilometres up north. My father said to brace ourselves as traffic is bound to be heavy, especially with Eid il Fitri right around the corner. I'm bored and I can't sleep. Lately, the state of our education system keeps playing on my mind. Learning is supposed to be fun. That's the most efficient way to learn. Where you see it's application in daily life and you get the appreciation because you know how it works. Well, when the students despise going to school, something isn't right. I can tell you for a fact, I learn best when I know and understand it's application in daily life. That really helps me. Like history, it's facts regarding what has happened and I kind of like history so I'm sort of alright there. Modern math is fun to do because our teacher really walks us through it one by one, ...

The 1 week semester break has been extended to 2 weeks due to Eid il Fitri. So once school reopens, it's 3 days of school and then on Thursday, TRIALS! Huhu. So for those of us in Form 3 & Form 5, these 2 weeks is not so much a holiday as it is a study-a-thon. I feel our exam-oriented system is stressful on students and actually limiting our opportunities to be all-rounders. Too few are scoring A+'s AND excelling in the co-curricular activities. Our syllabus is heavy and I think getting heavier. History is about to be incorporated into the primary school syllabus. The Standard 1 kids are already learning Science. It is literally back-breaking work. Those little kids in Primary school can't lift all those books without damaging the back posture. And when we consider leaving the heavy textbooks in class. It's not allowed. What the? Anyway, I'm bored and having trouble sleeping. My birthday is in about 2 weeks and my family is asking me what I want for...