Tok Pa’s Lecture & 2 People Reminiscing Back

In my family, from my father’s side,
each time you’re about to move to a NEW PHASE in life,
You’ll get a lecture from my grandfather, Tok Pa.

Be it when you’re stepping into secondary school,
moving into college, finally being conscious of the opposite sex,
getting married…

Although I said lecture, it’s not in a nagging way.
It’s real- grandfather to grandchild-
talk about life.

Last night,
I got my ‘transitioning into university life’ lecture- Part 2.
(Part 1 got triggered from last week)

After he’s finished with his part,
he asked me what else I’d want to know about.

I mentioned about how scary it is to meet people that you really just can’t agree with in college.

TOK PA:
Ah, about that.
I think it’s better to ask those who have been through this same thing.

As if it was God answering our call,

Mak Su (my aunt) entered the house looking flustered from work.

She paused after sensing the silence and realized that Tok Pa and I were looking at her for a long time.

MAK SU:
What?!

TOK PA:
(smirking)
Why don’t you ask our social butterfly there?

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And so this got one person to reminisce back about her old life in college.

How she had a bad reputation,
got kicked out by her dorm mates,
joined the cooler dorm mates…

Feuh, what a way to start her first semester, right?

Then my dad jumped in on the conversation too.
He recalled what a glorified creature he was back in the old days.

DAD:
I was friends with a lot of the seniors back then.
The guys of my batch were extremely jealous of me!

But they can’t do anything to me!
Because they were afraid of the seniors.

Yes, that’s right.
NOBODY had the guts to bother me!
(cackles)

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And when you’re in university,
you really can’t avoid getting some weird people in your room.

My dad didn’t describe much about his dorm mates.

But Mak Su had a really dangerous mixture of roommates.

There was one girl who kicked her out of her dorm earlier,
One girl who sleeps naked in her bed with a big knife under her pillow,
and one really emotional girl by the name of Susila Anak Kambing
(An example of the name since I can’t remember it correctly)

MAK SU:
The third girl was the most problematic.

Each time when we’re saying something like,

“Hey, I feel like eating lamb.
Aku rasa aku nak makan kambing la.”

Then she’ll start shouting,

“Oh, so kau nak makan bapak aku la?!
Kurang ajar kau!”

She’ll get so emo about it and locked herself in her room for the longest time.

I mean, we were talking about lamb’s meat! Not her father!

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When my dad continued on how he was the envy of his peers,

JAZ:
(whispering)
I think my dad is still living the ’sorority life’.

MAK SU:
Let him be.
He can’t let go of it.

DAD:
Of course I can’t let go of it!
‘Sorority life’ rawks~!

Yeah, believe it,

Your papa rawks!

To Matrics Or Not To Matrics?

The proper English for the title:
To Apply For Matriculation or Not To Apply For Matriculation?
(But that title would have been too long)

So here’s a post on some of my takes on matriculation a.k.a. matrics

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Matrics is like STPM/ Form 6.
You take them up for your pre-university course before going up for a degree.

The difference is, your chance to apply for matrics comes BEFORE you even sit for the SPM papers.
And it only comes ONCE.
So it’s a now or never chance for us then.

Most smart students went to apply for it,
regardless of what courses they are actually interested in or whether matrics is really relevant for them.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t a smart student.
I was a stubborn twit.
I didn’t apply for it for certain reasons.

Which most would consider stupid since:

• If you get matrics, at least you have a path to continue your studies if you’re rejected by the IPTA.
• You’ll have more options to choose if you get accepted by both matrics and IPTA.
• You have NOTHING to lose in applying.

Really?

Do you REALLY have nothing to lose by applying?

There was a rumor going around:

If I did get accepted by matrics, my IPTA application will be terminated automatically.

Not True!
I have friends who got both matrics and IPTA entries.

So matrics really have no effects on my IPTA applications whatsoever?

Aha! THAT’s the real question here.

There’s no official answer for this.
But sources have said that it DOES affect the IPTA admissions.
It makes them consider less of your application for the IPTA.

If you look at it one way,
it’s unfair as matrics and IPTA are two different institutions.
Why mix them up to have one affecting the other?

But looking at it from another way, it is somewhat sensible.

So let’s look at a very common case here:

Students who are interested in Science courses.
(Regardless whether it’s medic, biotechnology, farmacy etc)

They applied for the Science matrics and the Asasi/Foundation in Science for IPTA.
They got accepted for the Science matrics.

 

Now, if you are the person in charge of the IPTA intakes,
you will look at this applicant and you see that he/she already has a place in matrics under the same subject.
So would you prioritize so that this person will also get the offer for IPTA?

Despite having hundred thousands other applicants who are also fighting for this same course that have no placings in the matrics?

I’m not saying that it is fair to disregard IPTA applications after seeing their matrics results.
Nor am I saying that it is unfair that some have the luxury of getting accepted by both offers.

But I can see why they had to do that as it is necessary to sacrifice one’s OPTION to
offer another’s CHOICE.

Although you have two options, you can only choose one.
Thus, wasting one chance for those who have none at all.

 

So now, do you REALLY have nothing to lose for applying to matrics?

UPU or IPTA Application Results: Accepted!

Woohoo! Yeah baby!

Unlike most courses, this course actually required an interview.

Which is good:

My paper qualifications are much of a fail.

Having an interview would be another chance of proving myself of my worth. Plus, I’m better at that than answering subjective questions on the structure of chemicals and the formulas of physics.

There’s not much competition.

Eventually, I did pretty well in the interview, Alhamdulillah.

And as you can see from the image above,
I got accepted!

I’ll post more on the interview I went through, and some rumors that got cleared after these results.

The MiaB Mural

When I went back to school,
I made a mental note to pay a last visit to the MiaB mural.

What is the MiaB mural?

It is what I would call as the
‘unsung scream of angst’ in school.

If you look at the mural normally,
you wouldn’t know that there was a very RAW message painted on it.

But if I point you to a certain space,
then you can definitely read the bold sentence of it.

See why I find it as a unique class mural?
Because the words are actually noticeable,
but people won’t notice it unless you point it to them.

The story of this mural?

There is a teacher in school, let’s assume that it’s a guy by the name of “Has”.

The students in 5G were painting the mural of the class.

Has came in and observed their mural.

Has insisted that they paint over it because one section of the mural had slight implications of ’sexual contents’.

Annoyed, most of the painters went inside the class and screamed their heads off.

But one painter remained calm and continued painting.
She decided that it was better to express her dissatisfaction in the form of art.

And that’s how the MiaB mural is created.

The hidden wonders of SBS?

IPTA Application Status: SENT!

13th March 2008.
The day I’ve sent my IPTA application.

So, we got the SPM results already.
Next step is to pick 8 of the pre-u courses from IPTA.

One Problem:
I’m unsure of what to pick.