Mandarin class

YTAR(Yayasan Tunku Abdul Rahman) camp at Melaka.

Kinda busy doh...After my final exam last sem, Palapes naik pangkat, a very rushed CNY, Hardcore Palapes training with 3 hour sleep for at least 11 days. Choir camp with so much to catch up on. After the Palapes and choir camp, Catch up and reply to all the scholarship news and scholarship assignment as well as registering for new semester. Mandatory Scholarship camp for BTAR (biasiswa Tunku Abdul Rahman) made me miss 3 classes. Coach Jeff asking me when am I going to come for training? Aduh, How to go for training when I have classes on Mon to Wed 6pm-9pm? It seems like I will not be able to go for trainings on Tuesdays or night training.

Whoa, the future BTAR recipients has more pressure as they need to maintain 3.75 CGPA.

Leadership and a greater understanding of Tunku Abdul Rahman's personality and TAR's leadership qualities were the content of the camp with the theme of "The Tunku I Knew"

The Pledge we created:
With pride and honour,
WE solemnly swear,
To serve the king and country with utmost loyalty,
To protect the land and sovereignty of Malaysia,
To uphold ideals of justice, liberty and unity,
To become the living heart and soul of TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN,

As Tunku Scholars,
WE shall be the change we want to see,
And so,
With remembrance for the past and with confidence in the future,
Under the providence of God,
WE shall succeed

Credits to Andrew Dana, Shawn Keng, Endless Kabilan and others Tunku Scholars.

I became MC(Master of Ceremony) during the YTAR camp for one of the activity...Facing my fear of MC-ing.

This semester I have to take English Presentation as English for Academic Purpose is not offered in this Sem...sad la. There's a girl who failed English Presentation and is repeating the course...aduh...Why la, no choice?

Yesterday I receive confirmation email from the KONG ZI institute, UM that I am accepted into the Elementary Mandarin Language class. 

Today at the Mandarin class, I was surprised to see one of my lecturer in my class. Whoa, can you imagine being in the same class with your lecturer as a student also...so, when we have mid term exam, even my lecturer will be studying..LoL. Chinese is very tough because even if you know how to speak doesn't mean you know how to read. The pronunciation and writing are 2 separate systems. This is very different with English.

What I mean is in English you learn the alphabets then you can read or pronounce any word. But the chinese strokes does not show how to pronounce. There are many Ancient language which have come to extinction but Chinese is one of the oldest language which is still surviving now. Cool right? The Best student will be sent to Beijing. (Fully Sponsored by the Kong Zi Institute, UM).

Kong Zi Institute UM is a institute whereby China send teachers to teach Malaysians the Chinese Language.The number of students they will accept are very limited. Originally, the Elementary Mandarin Language Course is RM 810 but the first 100 students will only have to pay RM 500.

I enrolled in this course because I am a Chinese who is not able to speak her mother tongue, I would like to go back to my roots by learning Mandarin. Besides that, being able to understand the Mandarin language would allow me to communicate with others, especially other Chinese people who are weak in English and Malay. In the other states peninsular Malaysia, it is widely stereotyped that most urban KL Chinese people cannot speak Mandarin. I would like to proof this stereotype wrong especially since I am a Tunku Scholar. I want to proof that Tunku Scholars are not only academically competent but Tunku Scholars are also people who are proud of their heritage and will not forget their roots. 

As a Malaysian, the language most used in Malaysia is Mandarin after the English and Malay language and so by enrolling in this course I would gain an extra advantage by knowing Mandarin especially since we are in this competitive and educated society whereby everyone has the same level of education. At the moment, there are some jobs which put Mandarin as a prerequisite to be qualified for the job due to the fact that most of their customers or clients are Chinese. As a Tunku Scholar, learning Mandarin would enable me to communicate better with people especially those in the Management sector.

sliper hilang

Tinggal kat Kolej Kediaman 5 ni stress betul la...
Sem lepas 2 pasang sliper kena curi.
Sem ni, just pagi ini saya pergi kelas 8am-10am, bila balik sliper dah hilang.

Aduh! Sekarang semua kasut saya tak mahu tinggal kat rak kasut yang disediakan lagi la...ish!

eyes, attitude n marks...

I guess something is wrong with my eyesight...
when I first open a book and look at the white page, my left eyes kinda see a blur white ball shape for about the first 10 seconds. After that, it's ok...

Yesterday when I entered Pusat Sukan, everything seemed to dim and someone called my name, I couldn't see him, only the figure of a body until he came like 2 steps away from me then only I could see him.
Today also at the same place, someone else called me. Same prob, the hallway seemed dim and all i could see was a figure waving at me and when she passed by me then only I could see her...

Maybe my eyes was not adjusted efficiently as I was from outside under the sun and pusat sukan is not lighted up...Kinda like the effect when you walk into a dark room from a bright room. Perhaps my eyes takes longer time to adjust...

I feel sad because majority of my classmates got A but I got an A minus.  Argh, people who are not really good in academic get better results than me...WHY!!! We were in the same group and yet they got higher marks than me...

I'm such a sore loser...my attitude is bad and being too Kiasu will make lecturers hate you. Please clean up your personality Mun! You should stop thinking that you're better than everybody else in the world. It's really terrible.

Sometimes I do wonder, are we graded on our attitude, first impression or our answer sheet? 

ACT kdsi 1

You people must be wondering whether I abandoned this blog right?
Well, so after the exams which brought the semester 3 to the end. I had Palapes Laut Kenaikan Pangkat. NO more senior cadet but now a Junior Midshipment. Then of cause was Chinese New Year which was quite packed this year, visiting so much that we didn't have much time to socialise. After that was back to University for Palapes Annual Continuous Training (ACT). This was a combined ACT with all the other local universities in Malaysia which has Palapes Laut. 8 uni all together.


University Malaya (UM, Kuala Lumpur)
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM, Selangor)
Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM, Selangor)
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM, Penang)
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu(UMT, Terengganu)
Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP, Pahang)
Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM, Kedah)
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM, Johor)

Our training was about 2 weeks at Kapal Diraja Sultan Idris (KDSI 1) aka Royal Malaysian Naval College, Lumut, Perak.
We were tahap satu (level one) trainees, while our seniors were level 2 trainees.

Our seniors made us shine our drill boot in the bus throughout the journey to KDSI 1.
When we reached there, we mustered then fill up forms and  muster and off to our rooms to clean our cabins(our rooms are called cabins). Muster. Briefing at night (no dinner provided as training wasn't officially started). I'm in Thana Alpha division, tahap satu and on hijau satu watch/awasan. 31 of us in Thana Alpha Tahap satu,

A normal schedule would be:
4.45am  Early Morning Activity (EMA) [jogging, jumping jack, push up, buffer, sit up and ect]
6am breakfast
Morning class
stand easy(snack time)
Class or Marching
Lunch
Class
3pm EA (Evening Activity) [Run, jog]
tea
preparation for night round
dinner
8pm Night round
11 ish pm supper
12am pipedown, [light out and no movement allowed but of cause we curi-curi shine shoe, iron baju, bath or wash clothes as quiet as we can, study.]


As tahap satu we are under ALPHA ROUTINE. This means run when we are under the sky.

Basically the whole camp was filled with 

muster, 

count strength, 

change rig (uniform), 

mess etiquette (eating square ie asking permisssion for everything, waiting for everyone to get food, permission to sit down, permission to eat, eat with fork and spoon quietly, eat with hand raising up spoon to mouth level then bring spoon to mouth in square position.),

constantly ironing clothes, shining shoe, 

cleaning room and preparing for night rounds (no dust, standardized arrangement for everything eg. clothes type and folding, hanger color, curtain and every layout, reporting, toilet must be dry, clothes must be color, non-palapes things must be hidden from sight, bedsheet and everything must be neat and exactly same). 

Class about navy communications(terms, Morse code, radio communication), seamanship (knots), damage control and fire fighting, core values,general navigation, international rules for preventing collision at sea, weaponry, marine engineering.

No time to rest, everyday maximum hour of sleep is 4 hours. With a mean time of 3 hours of sleep for 12 days, most of us only remember feeling sleepy throughout the training.

Fighting the sleepy feeling, Muster, Run and gobbling food in 5 minutes 

made up at least 90% of the what we did.

Exam was hard as there were many things to memorise and a major portion whereby we have not learn yet. 

Most of the lesson instructors did not know how to deliver the teachings well. 60% to pass or not next year we have to repeat the paper. Thank God, some instructors helped us out during the exam...huhu.

KDSI was kind enough to let non-muslim go out to church, buddhist temple, hindu temple eventhough they had some misunderstandings...LoL

The Christians were chinese and Bumi but we were sent to a Tamil church and so non of us understood anything. LoL

The Buddhist were sent to Hindu temple. LoL, I guess Malay Islam people don't understand that Tokong and Kuil are 2 different temples. 

This is the first time I was scold by an officer because I'm too Lurus Bendul.

It was a really multicultural festive month.

Chinese New Year

Chap Goh Meh

Maulidur Rasul (Nabi Muhammad birthday)

Taipusam

Another activity we did was sailing, well,not really sailing but visiting the Malaysian Royal Navy Battle ship and entering a Malaysian Royal Navy multi purpose command and support ship (mpcss) and watch the training when there is an air threat at the sea. The ship sailed from Markas Armada to Pulau Pangkor and Pulau Jarak and back to Markas Armada, Lumut. We were on Kapal Diraja Sri Indera Sakti. We are not to post up pictures taken in the ship as it is rahsia negara. If other country see then they know our weapons, layout and operation thus we will be vulnerable. O.o

So, here's a pic of the ship with us on it, just the outside.

The weather at KDSI 1 was terrible scorching hot. Just stand 1 minute under the sun and we were sweating like pigs, literally wet like asthough we jumped into a swimming pool. And we didn't have any water cooler or water filter,thank God we didn't die of dehydration. My uni had 4.5 liters of water and a 100plus 1.5 liter bottle to survive for about 12 days. 

The training at KDSI 1 was not as torturous as our previous ACT at KDSK last year. :)

OK, now some of you know that I have been trying to quit PALAPES a long time already, since 1st semester but was unsuccessful.

Malam Mesra we had standing ovation from all the audience , our presentation was the most proper and matured presentation compared to most of the others who did quite moral degrading skits but we somehow did not get any position. LoL. Whatever la. One team had 2 places ie 7th place and 2nd place. I really wonder how is that possible...haha. Malaysia Boleh, Navy Palapes Boleh.

I thought If I fail the exam here then maybe I can use it as a reason but I think I pass the exam la.

Hmm, so I'm already half year there, after June, my 4th semester is over and I'll be senior Midshipment already and then another year and I'll be a Subby (officer). I've already spend was wasted so much money on this Palapes and to get back the money I spend is highly not going to happen. So should I continue on as I'm already half way there or should I drop out now? I'm in between, just at the line of no turning back. Myself is telling me to quit but my other self is telling me that Since I've so close the finishing line, why not continue all the way?