Natwest: There's A Better Alternative

Natwest has never struck me as the best bank for students in the UK. Nonetheless, like most of the students particularly in the Nottingham Uni, opening account with them seem to be the most convenient choice. This is due to the fact that they have the most branches throughout Notts. They even have 1 right inside the main campus for crying out loud. My friends recommended me to open my bank account with them on the convenience ground.

So I did. I opted for Student Account which last for 1 year and with a fee of GBP7 paid monthly. Under the account, I have 2 debit cards (under the new regulations, international students are not eligible for either credit cards or cheque books) and free overdraft up to GBP1000 (I think). On top of those, I also got a Railcard (which gives me 1/3 discount on british rail services), discount on concert tickets, international call sim card, insurance on 1 gadget, insurance on laptop and many others.

As months passed by, I realized only the Railcard really benefited me. I only used it once actually. I only use 1 debit card because the other is effectively redundant and I never overdrafted. GBP7 per month proven to be a waste. According to the contract, I could terminate the account after 9 months but I can still continue with the basic account which is free of monthly charges.

"Impatiently, I told the lady, never mind terminating the Student Account, how about terminating the whole Natwest account altogether? This quickly followed by another lady who brought me into the office.."

I never saluted Natwest's customer services. You see them saying hi but at the very same moment you know right away they don't mean it. They just wanna go back home at 3 (yeah, that's the time most branches close) and get this over with. If you wanna deposit money, time is not a problem. But, if you wanna do something other than that, say, if you sponsor wanted bank address or IBAN. They sure took a long time to process it and say 'we don't do that, they are in your bank statement'. Or, when you wanna buy the card reader you required to transfer money online (my HSBC doesn't require this btw), they just say 'we don't have that, you'd have to apply online'. In the whole branch, they don't keep it. This mean you have to wait for 2 weeks before you get the card reader delivered before you can transfer money online.

"She asked why do I wanna terminate the account, I just told her I got my HSBC.."

Anyway, I went to my branch to terminate my Student Account. The lady said I need to bring all the packages they given me when I first opened the account 9 months ago. What? The package included mostly all the pamphlets about the account. Plus, I paid GBP7 every month for 9 months. That amounted to GBP63. I thought I owned them. So I told the lady. Took her long time to discuss this with her colleagues. I have to stand aside to let queue moving. And I have a class waiting. Impatiently, I told the lady, never mind terminating the Student Account, how about terminating the whole Natwest account? This quickly followed by another lady who brought me into the office and asked only for the Railcard. What? Never mind, I don't really use it anyway. I agreed. She told me it's gonna take months before they really cancel off my Student Account. Huh? This means I have to still pay the fee until it really stopped. Kept my cool and said I'm fine with it. She asked why do I wanna terminate the account, I just told her I got my HSBC..

I checked online about other complaints. Apparently, they also have problems with things like delivery of cards (for example if you lost yours). Some guy had his new card delivered to wrong addressed 4 times even he repeatedly told them to send it to nearest branch. When they did send the card to the nearest branch, it's not the nearest branch to him and they didn't tell him which branch. Natwest also has history of unethical credit issuance to students. A student, was given overdraft of GBP1000 and GBP500 credit card. He overspent with both. Instead of stopping his craze, Natwest increase the overdraft limit as well as the credit card limit. He overspent again. In the end, Natwest offered a loan with 21% interest to pay up the overdraft. Took him 5 years to clear this up. He is not alone. Apparently, many similar complains are found on the web.

It gets worse actually. Natwest under their parent company Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) reportedly has been doing dubious businesses using their customers' money. For example, The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline which is considered to be an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe in the making, and it breaches the bank’s code of conduct (Source: Friends of the Earth). NatWest also collaborated with the Nazi regime appropriating money from Jews. They have admitted they have a large number of unclaimed Holocaust-era deposits but they refuse to publish their lists of depositors.

That's my story with Natwest. I'm sure you got yours. Currently, I do most of my banking with HSBC. Yeah, the have their own problems, particularly in the loss of medical and insurance details of 370,000 customers in 2008, but so far I'm more satisfied with them than with Natwest. Compare to Natwest, HSBC is international bank proper. You can easily find their branches everywhere around the globe. This is welcomed by international student like me who love to travel. Plus, as of 2009, HSBC is both the world's largest banking group and the world's 6th largest company according to Forbes Magazine. Abbey (now Santander) is also a good alternative. They are the largest bank in euro area in market capitalization. They now offer Zero Credit Card which impose absolute 0% on foreign exchange fee, cash advance fee and others.

Schools Kill Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

Albert Einstein

"All children are born Artists, the problem is to remain an Artist as we grow up"

Pablo Picasso

"We don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it, or rather, we get educated out of it"

Sir Ken Robinson.

Those are so true. A humorous but relevant talk by world-renowned British Educationist. Sir Ken Robinson is multiple awards winner for his contribution to Education and Arts. He chairs the British National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education. He was knighted in June 2003 by Queen Elizabeth II for his achievements in creativity, education and the Arts. He also worked with other various governmental and non-governmental organizations. The incomplete list is below:

1. Royal Ballet

2. Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

3. European Commission

4. UNESCO

5. Council of Europe

John Wooden: True Succes

I don't really like motivational speeches. They're too generalized and broad plus they are all common sense. No matter how many speeches you heard, if you're just a lazy ass, you remain a lazy ass. Some guys believe it takes a woman to change a man's life. That's just weak. It also takes a woman to ruin them.

Anyway, John Wooden is retired college basketball coach and a member Basketball Hall of Fame both as player and coach. He won 10 National Championships in 12 years while at UCLA. This is unmatched by any other college basketball coach.

When he first signed as their coach in 1948, UCLA just had 12-13 losing season. He quickly turned this around in his very first year where UCLA became PCC Southern Division Champion with a 22-7, the most wins for a UCLA season since it started playing basketball in 1919. They also won 3 consecutive seasons making him the champion coach in his 4 years with UCLA.

In his last 12 seasons. He won 10 of them including 7 in a row from 1967 to 1973. His UCLA teams also had a record winning streak of 88 games and four perfect 30–0 seasons. In 1972, he was Sports Illustrated magazine's Sportsman of The Year Awards. According to his own writings, he turned down an offer to coach the Los Angeles Lakers.

He is now 99 years old. I admire his speech because it's very specific, clear and witty. He loves poetry very much and this is evident in this speech. I watched the video for 4 times without getting tired of it.

"The Journey Is Better Than The End"

Cervantes as quoted by John Wooden

References:

1. wikipedia.org

2. ted.com

My first full cover since I started to learn to play piano/keyboard last April. Took me over a month to finish it. There are flaws here and there, more prominently at the closing of the song. This is not the original song. I learnt the song's parts from youtube tutorials and scores and remixed them myself.

Andrew Furmanczyk: My Youtube Piano Teacher and he's younger than me

I started playing piano (keyboard actually) when I first came to Nottingham. Life here really requires me to learn things to survive. Nothing much I could do here except for football and occasional night outs. That of course inclusive of clinical routines. I was looking to learn to play a musical instrument. Guitar certainly topped the list but I'm not really a fan. Then I realized my new housemate plays a keyboard. The idea struck. I browsed the internet to check for basic tutorials and bought myself a book. My housemate also helped me to learn some simple songs.

I realized it was something I want to make as a hobby and bought myself a keyboard. New problem arose as my interest grew. I no longer want to play by fingering or by songs, I wanted to know the theory. I couldn't really grasp the notes in my book and having piano class was just not the alternative with the hectic clinical schedules.

I checked around youtube for luck and luck was what struck me. I came to know 'Lypur', the nickname for Andrew Furmanczyk in youtube. I thought its going to be basic tutorials like what I expected to find out but I was proven wrong. He taught almost all the theories and hands on in staggering 40 videos.

He has a his own teaching website: http://www.howtoplaypiano.ca they are all for free! the videos were of course in flash youtube format. He teaches how to read piano notes all the way to putting emotions into your music. His motto is simple "give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish, you feed him for life". In the context translation, it means: he's trying to teach people how to play piano and to the extend of how to compose music.

He started to play piano at the age of 5 and compose his own song 4 years later. He won several piano competitions. He youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Lypur boast over 25 thousands subscribers. He teaches 30 students at his place beside supervising ice skating and ice hockey and he's 22.

Check his full biography: http://www.howtoplaypiano.ca/bio/

I am now 23. The best thing I have in my hands is the fact that I'm studying Medicine, full stop. His life story is really a slap to my face. I've been living with nothing to prove and nothing to be proud of. Just happy with my own tiny world. Being happy with enough money and good family is not the way I want to die. There's more to life than that.

Malay Students and Our Problems with the Friends Circle

UK had always been my first choice in continuing my medical study in. I had many country choices during my college time and in IMU. Lot of my friends wanted to go to Ireland and of course a lot more who wouldn’t care to mind which countries they would be placed to. I deliberately crossed Ireland simply because they’re too many Malays there. I’m not a racist, plus, I am myself aforementioned Malay.

In my view, there are two main reasons of why Malaysian government sponsors its students to go abroad: one, they have better education system than ours. two, one which many Malay students tend to leave out, to learn other cultures. The simplest way to learn foreign cultures is to mingle with the locals. Many thought to join the local students during group discussion can be considered as the act of mingling. I deeply doubt if discussion about “The effects of Propranolol on the beta 2 sympathetic receptors” has anything to do with learning new cultures. It is verily agreeable to claim that Malaysians (especially the Malays) students do not extend their conversations with the home students beyond the class discussions except during gatherings.

If a little more effort is put on approaching the local students, our students should not have a problem in getting their non-Malaysians to talk. In fact, the local students are very approachable and friendly in nature. True, while some of them are easy to get close with, others may treat you in an icy cold manner. Sometimes, they can be very cocky and snobbish. No doubt. It’s a rather common sighting here in Nottingham. I don’t view those as a problem, instead, I see it as a challenge.

Back in IMU, I was closer with the Mauritians students than to the Malays. I also have friends among the Malays of course but it was with the Mauritians I hung out more with, talk about my study with, share jokes with, etc. I did all that not by isolating myself from the Malays but rather by opening myself to all kind of backgrounds. I did it by wandering alone away from the Malays. Say, if I wanna play futsal with the Uzbeks, I asked 1 or 2 Malay chaps to join me. That doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t play if none of my Malay friends could turn up. There were many times, I was the only local students playing futsal with students from Pakistan, Tanzania, Cameroon, Mauritius and Iran.

Be it in Malaysia or in other places at all, it’s very unlikely for me to befriend the non-Malay if I’m always surrounded by Malays eg, walk with the Malays, eat with the Malays, study with Malays, hangout with the Malay, etc. There no penetration channel through which the non-Malays can enter. Yeah, it’s possible, if you do all those, you still get non-Malay friends but are they the friends who you learn new culture from?

By culture, I mean not their festivals or traditional dress but rather how they think. Human thought are generated richly by their background (one of its component is none other than culture). The Chinese and Indians surely don’t think like the Malays do. They don’t share the similar types of joke. They don’t even laugh in the same manner for crying out loud.

From my experiences with the non-Malays (I studied in Chinese schools and entered private University in which Malays were among the minority students), I learned different behaviors and put it in practice. In many instances, I could predict how the Malays and Chinese would react given certain set of circumstances. For example, a Malay guy usually waits for his friend if they were to be late for a class. Say 10 minutes late. They go down together. Friends for life. As for Chinese, they usually don’t wait for each other if one of them is late. The late guy would ask his friend to go first or the friend just leaves him. Another almost similar example is during dinner. If the food is served first to a Chinese girl, she would eat first but of course after asking her other friends. As for the Malays, they would wait until all the food is served before one can lift up the spoon or wash his hands.

Above examples are of course the primitive instances of varied differences in cultures but my point I presume, is delivered. It is a good life if you can have a lot of Malay friends who care for you and always be with you whenever you need them but don’t you think life would be richer if the ones who can care and be there for you are dispersed among different skin colors?

I consider myself as a Malaysian not as a Malay. My best friends could be Malays, my roommate could be an Indian and my girlfriend could be a Chinese. A lot of students find it hard to like other races other than their own. How can you expect to like something or someone if you don’t know them? The process of knowing other people take shape in the form of socializing. When you’re with a Chinese or an Indian, try to talk about their interest instead just about study.

We heard many times from our uncles or aunties, the Chinese and Indian are different from us. We can’t fully understand them, god forbid must you marry one of them. We need to protect our own race. If you don’t protect your own people, then who else will? While they are quite true even at this point in time, that doesn’t mean it will remain relevant 30 years down the road. One day (I pray), in Malaysia, we shall see a shift in perception. You’re children will no longer valued from their backgrounds but rather from their knowledge and wealth. I look forward to seeing one day, we become a nation like Singapore and the United Kingdom where race is not a big problem.

I don’t hate the Malays, my friends are composed of Malays mostly. My best friends are Malays (and the Mauritians). I talk in Malay, I laugh in Malay, I think in Malay. However, I believe we’re created to inherit this world to know and help each other irrespective of our language.

PENULTIMATE BREAK THROUGH

Back in college years, I was put in the UK group. It was very competitive to be in that group. It was reserved for students who scored certain points. My Universities group composed of: Cardiff, Belfast and Leicester (there were 4 altogether, I couldn’t recall the other one). In order to get into any one of those Unis, I needed to pass the interview selection. It wasn’t meant to be. I didn’t get any seat out of it. I wasn’t really good in English back then and my anxiety had always been my barrier to communicating with others especially in English.

I was then called for Ireland Unis’ interviews. I declined the interview for IUMC with the intention to get the interview for RCSI. To ensure every student gets uni place, kolej mara banting withdrew the name of students who were already gotten unconditional offer out of any interview from upcoming new interviews. I fancied of going to Royal College as compared to IUMC. In the end, I got none, as my name was not even listed for RCSI interviews…

Then, came the Australian interviews, I had to sit for special admission exam for Monash Unis. I really did enjoy the presentation by the reps. Monash were taking around 30-60 students (I couldn’t really recall). I prepared for the interview. Monash interview was very relaxing but I got nervous anyway plus of course my challenged English. So, I again lost in the competition for the place. The number of students who are boundless shrunk, giving me higher chance of getting a place. University of Western Australia came for their chance to interview students. They were around 15 of us for 5 places. I screwed it up yet again.

My dream was always to be in the UK but from the experiences, evidently, I was too inferior then compared to others. Back home in Terengganu, I spoke more in Malay and even Mandarin than I did in English. I was rather an introvert, who found it hard to mingle with other people. This was clear with the fact that, my previous classmates didn’t really seem to like me back in schools and college. To make it more severe, my discipline was beyond words. I always came late for classes. The class bell was my alarm bell and I only came after recess. I put minimal of effort in any team project which gave them more and more reason to despise me. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn. I kept being myself…

I passed MARA requirement to fly but with no place to go to. My college informed me on my last-bullet chance. Auckland. I was so relieved to know my dream of ever stepping foot outside Malaysia had not vanished yet. It was only vanished when I got into the interviewing room. My anxiety hit me like always. Like other people who anxious, I said laughable and stupid things which I could made out from the awkward face of my lady interviewers.

With that, gone all my hope of ever studying oversea. I was enrolled into IMU after an interview. I got it, because they took every interviewee in. After 2.5 years in IMU, I was matched to Southampton, a pretty prestigious Uni in the UK. And, no interview, though, I knew I would like to have an interview after choosing to use English as my primary language when I enrolled into IMU. I was exempted from taking English class because I scored well in the English papers, I spoke English with everyone including the Malays, I started to write blog and few other things to work out my English. As a remedy to my anxiety problem, I was the President of Hostel Committee, President of Malay Cultural Society. Joined Counseling Club and few other stuff. I was an ‘A’ scorer for foundations, cvs, respi, hemato, endo, etc..

My eyes were off the ball when final was approaching. I did something stupid. Very much stupid. I flunked the papers.. also the resit….

I had to repeat semester 5 in IMU. It made me wonder: was I really that fxck up?

I was possibly the man with the most interviews back in KMB. I got the interviews from all countries offered by my college. When I did get the chance of getting to UK, I screwed up the exam. I got traumatized for the first time in my life. I got all C for my papers. The passing grade in IMU during my time was B.

The extra 5 months spent in IMU was like a brick thrown to my face. Nevertheless, it did make me think. I was a scorer in first few semesters but with only lecture notes as my reference. Skipped some clinical skills classes plus hospital visits. The repeat paper was my very last chance of ever continuing on with medicine. The life as a failure dawned before me.

I knew a girl who taught me the proper way of studying. From here, I started to open books and actively involved in PBL and clinical skill practices. All worked up well. Superb, I would say. I was so confidence during my final that I started to prepare my uk visa and everything else even before gotten the result transcript.

I took my result on Monday, Jan 12. I scored ‘A’ in both OSPE and Problem Case, and ‘A-’ for OSCE, overall was ‘A’. God knows how ecstatic the moment was for me.

I’m now in Nottingham, UK. Best Uni I had ever been matched to. It was a wonder how things unwound. In all my life, it took me only 5 months to turn things around. I also learned a lot from a book written by Rhonda Byrne called ‘The Secret’.

This was written out of boredom, hence the lousy grammar.