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.

This Is A Rather Medical Entry

I smuggled this from a friend of mine. Can't help but to laugh my heart out when reading it. Decided to share it here. According to her blog, http://zaatiliffah.blogspot.com/ the entries below are from real people's testimonials. Hilarious!

You know you’re a medical student when…

1. You take forever explaining to people how long you'll be in school for, and realise you’ll get a medical doctor title the same time your friend gets a PhD doctor title.

2. You get hung-over from work on the weekdays, and from alcohol/intoxicating substances (to try to forget the pain of medical school) on the weekends. 

3. You contemplate anything between dropping out and suicide after you finish each exam, even before knowing the results.

4. The only people you like/adore/have a crush on/fall in love with are your colleagues/seniors/juniors.

5. You get depressed and emotional just thinking about how bad a doctor you’ll become in a few years. 

6. You equate/try to relate each doctor/medical staff you meet with a character in House, ER, Scrubs or Grey’s Anatomy. The wannabe is Cristina Yang, the OCD bimbo is Elliott Reed.

7. You often mumble to yourself, “F***! Am I supposed to know that?” as soon as you see or hear about some disease/symptom/sign that you completely have no clue about. Then you blame it on the medical school for not teaching you that.

8. The sound of a van reversing with a beep makes you look around for someone’s bleep.

9. You answer every question with, “Hmm (pretending to think for a second), I don’t know.” And you know the most correct answer is, “It depends, sir.”

10. You diagnose every single abnormality on yourself/family/friends as a life-threatening condition. You think the tiny haematoma on your finger is a risk for PE.

11. You have a crush on each senior medical student or doctor who teaches you something (of the opposite sex most of the time).

12. You have too many free pens, notebooks, pamphlets, peak flow meters, blood glucose monitors etc. You know the drug reps are trying to buy you.

13. You watch House and ER, and think you can score in the exams and get through medical school. Wrong, only Dr.Wikipedia helps. 

14. You instantly feel that you want to bang your head against the wall whenever someone says “You’re a medical student? You must be very smart then!”, because it’s an unbearable accusation.

15. You have bouts of breaking down, screaming or crying in the last month and wished that you were not a medical student, yet still continue the course as you have no idea what you would do if you quit. Besides knowing you don’t have enough brains to do anything else either. 

16. You feel there is something wrong if you don’t have an exam coming up.

17. You often suddenly wake up in the middle of the night with palpitations and sweating, thinking it’s the day of your exams/OSCE/portfolio review.

18. The only pyjamas you have and want to wear are scrubs.

19. You think the 6-8 glasses of water recommended daily means coffee. 

20. You evilly wish that someone will get hurt/collapse on the train/in any public place so you can do first aid/resuscitation.

21. Your friend is upset/distressed about something and you think “Yes, a mental health issue that I can practise my skills on!”

22. You work out so that you get a six pack, so that you will make a good simulated patient for the seniors. (Pastu kunun malu baju ketat. Pwek. )

23. You hold/shake your friend/partner’s hand for more than 15 seconds and realise you’re taking their pulse.

24. You still have never had a boyfriend/girlfriend (ever) by the time you qualify. And you don’t bother, since the divorce rate is 70% for physicians. 

25. Your friend/cousin zooms in front of you with his brand new car and treats you to lunch with his own paycheck and on top of that, talks about property and houses to buy. And you’re still struggling to buy second hand reference books.

26. You find yourself always carrying a pen even if you’re out for a date/lunch/dinner.

27. You have exams in a few days and when you try doing practice questions, you don’t know what to do with your pen besides underlining the key words in the question.

28. Conversations with people involve “So tell me what happened.”, “So how does that make you feel?”, and “I understand it must be very difficult for you.”

29. You have a fever/flu/cold/cough/sore throat and can’t rest until you identify which patient caused it. Better not be that HIV or TB patient. 

30. You seem to know too much gossip about too many people, and yet you’re not sure how that happened.

31. You’re 100% sure you’re fat/chubby because of Cushing’s, ascites, hypothyroidism or oedema.

32. You often wonder why the heck you even bothered to take medicine when you know you’ll work nights, be underpaid and always have to keep the clients (patients) happy. Just like a hooker.

33. You're overly proud of the fact that you have a non-medic friend. And they’re not invisible.

34. You’re cleaning a patient’s wound (draining pus or any other gruesome theme) and keep thinking about what to have for lunch.

35. You feel upset that everybody is going back early for summer and feel like doing nikah mut`ah, just so you don’t talk to the wall for two months.

36. You describe the hall as hyperechoic, the paint on the wall as anaemic and the bookshelf as elevated.

37. You have a peak moment in life when a senior says “good” or “well done”; it’s so relieving to know you’re not a complete drain on society.

38. Your intelligence/stupidity and fitness to practise is assessed based on which medical school you go to. Of course you're stupidest and unsafest if you're from Manchester.

39. You get turned on by every other male doctor, but feel nothing when performing a testicular examination on a young fit (soldier!) patient. Without gloves.

40. You’re content knowing that you actually do lead a normal and sane life. Even if it’s just a few hours in a day, while you’re asleep.

41. You don’t know why your handwriting has increased in size and incomprehensibility.

42. You’re completely socially retarded when you hang out with non-medics as you don't know what to talk about besides your miserable life as a medical student.

43. You see an extremely fit and hot person at the gym and the first thing you notice is their appendectomy scar.

44. A patient/doctor asks if you've done a procedure before (e.g. cannulation, suturing) and you say "Yes", without revealing the fact that the previous patients were plastic models.

45. You know you’re too old to be studying anything more intensive than a cookbook, and there’s practically no more space in your brain to fit anything.

46. You don’t understand why summer vacation is only one month, although summer itself is three months.

47. You hate someone and know exactly how to kill them even without involving cyanide or carbon monoxide.

48. Sarcasm is your second language. After swear words/cursing.

49. You look at people’s hands and arms and wonder which vein would be a ‘good vein’ for venepuncture or cannulation.

50. You wash your hands after meals and the loo using the 6-step technique.

51. You’re secretly happy that the really smart guy stopped medical school and start complotting who next to eliminate. Just so the normal distribution skews to the left so you won’t fail.

52. You can tell what day it is from knowing which consultant is doing his ward round that day.

53. School is anytime between 9 to 9. The next morning, I mean.

54. You think every male wearing scrubs is hot/sexy, no matter how ugly they really are.

55. You wonder where they keep thyroxine and morphine so you can steal them.

56. Your roommate, housemate, neighbour, boyfriend, girlfriend, any close friends and practically everybody are not spared from being your simulated patient (or stimulated as Kak Zy calls them ).

57. You can’t wait for weekends, so that you can catch up on your readings.

58. You don’t look at people’s faces when you talk to them. You look at their neck – for carotid pulsations, JVP, thyroid, SCM, thyroid cartilage, …

59. You lose weight just from walking around and up and down 5 floors of stairs for 4 hours for ward rounds.

60. You blame neurotransmitters and hormones for anything going wrong in your life.

61. Your hair starts greying and falling out at the age of 21.

62. You have a list of pathologies that you don't mind dying from. Definitely not cancer though.

63. You count the days till your next more-than-two-days-weekend-break, which is at least 4 months away.

Oil price falls further to $118

It's about time. Experts were months ago predicting that the economic will restore its order once the demands go down amid the ever rising oil price. Now, not just the demands go down, the oil stockpilings are also being increased by OPEC esp the #1 producer, Saudi Arabia after a plea by the US. Nevertheless, this could just mean a rather temporary decline with the things going around the globe esp the depleting of the most important nonrenewable resource. Click the link for full news from BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7542766.stm

A Rather Inspiring Story

I got this from the net. Worth the 5 mins reading.

my parents got divorced when i was 17, just a few days shy of my SPM exams. before that, my family was quite well off since my dad works in one of the GLC and was getting quite a lot per month. when my dad left, my mom had to work as dad left us with nothing at all and no monthly allowance.

my mom only finished standard 6 of school, broke, and heartbroken.

none of my rich uncles (my dad side, one datuk, one tan sri) wanted to help. my mom looked like a beggar.

and the govt didn't help at all. until today, my mom's name is nowhere to be seen on the "ibu tunggal" list. call it weird, call it overlooked case. but everytime i went to Baitulmal to get some help for my mom, i was shunned away.

ok. before my parents got divorced, my mom bought herself a van. it's easier for us (kinda big family) to travel in it. so what my mom did? she started to drive kids to school (without permit, coz it'll cost a bomb to apply for a school bus permit)

first 6 months was hell to us. i remember waking up on raya morning only to find there's no food in the house and my mom was crying quietly in her room. that was one of the saddest day of my life. being the eldest child, i feel that i have a mountain to climb to save my family.

i sacrificed my studies. i never got the chance to finish college. i went to work here and there. sometimes double shifts just to support my family.

sometime later my mom's business got better. she got herself the permit she always wanted (took her 4 years to get it), bought a proper bus.

on the other hand, knowing that i will never have the chance to learn properly in college, i started to learn from tutorials on the net. this was during 1998, when the net was at it's infancy in malaysia. i learned everything from photoshop, to java, to video editing, etc. i saved some money (waiter during the day, burger stall during nite) to build myself the best rig that time (AMDK6-2 350Mhz, 256mb RAM, 20GB HDD) and use it to learn. after i've completed some freelance projects, my confidence grew and made me try to apply for work.

finding work without a cert is VERY HARD in malaysia. no matter how good you are, if you dun have the paper, nobody would want to even read your resume.

i found a job after about 8 months of hunting.

fast forward to now, i own an advertising company with client accounts ranging from SMEs to big boutiques. and soon i will expand to singapore (hopefully by year's end, God's willing). my mom got 3 school bus with more than 300 kids as her passengers. my sister finished university with Bsc (Hons) in Business Admin, my third bro just finished level 4 of his SKM with job offers from workshop here and there waiting for him and my youngest bro is about to take his SPM, with options to go ICOM or ASK to further his interest in music later.

my story shows that malays do not need help or being spoonfed. all we need is determination and willpower to do it. and let no one say no to our dreams.

my journey is still long. i'm just glad my family pulled thru our darkest period together. that made us closer and made me realise that how valuable my family is.

i know most part of the story will be hard for another malay family/person to live thru. but that's the harsh reality of life. and it made me realised that all this stupid NEP, ketuanan melayu BS is just benefiting the high society of malays, not ppl like my family.

i have plans to make my mom's journey into a documentary. i hope to sell the documentary to either discovery channel or natgeo. i want the world to know that my mom is a superwoman. and she did it all my herself. i'm proud of her..

The Unsung Hero

He was the European most valued goal scorer when in Milan. Now, still regarded as one of the finest in history. Unfortunately he made the bad choice coming over to Chelsea FC. I am a Chelsea fan but I do believe Andriy Shevchenko will do a lot better even up until now had him chosen to stay in San Siro. Nevertheless, I've still seen some of his magic with Chelsea. Below are the great collection of those.

Incredulously Higher Laptop Price

This is actually my response in lowyat.net (lyn) on a complaint made by a buyer who bought a laptop for RM4900 at a kiosk but later found out that the laptop was sold at RM3588 elsewhere. That is RM1312 difference.


"i went 2 evernew it solution n brought an asus m51vr laptop on 20 july for RM4900, but at the beginning i was looking for an acer 6920g, 1 of the evernew sales supervisor name lee recommend me purchase the asus m51vr n bluff this laptop is the latest n more powerful than the acer 6920g!!!!!!! after he bluff me how powerful is it, he told me that thay r having an exchange policy that allow me to change another laptop if i`m not satisfy with the 1 i purchase within 1 month!!! this is 1 of the main reason makes me to buy laptop with them!!!! after that i test it at home, what he said the latest is true but powerful is a naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cant even play devil may cry4!!!!!

i sent warrenty for the dvd rom problem after 3 days, but at time i felt satisfy because they sattle my proble in only 3 hr. but when i went 2 pc fair yesterday i found out that they a selling asus m51vr at only RM3588 WITH worth 800++ free gift!!!

i stun there for a few sec n after that i quickly start calling the sales person n he gives me a bunch of excuses to not let me exchange to another model with lower price also!!!!

i'll do further action to this company if they dont gine me a reasonable feedback.

every brothers n sisters please be aware with the sales supervisor name "LEE" in evernew IT solution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

My reply:

This scenario happens. A lot of kiosks sell laptop way above standard lowyat price. Some kiosks were selling HP TX2032 for RM3'999 tho the price was alredi reduced to RM2799 to RM3099. Now they are selling HP DV3029 for RM3'999 tho the price now is RM3499.

This happens bcoz they buy the units from other resellers themselves at roughly consumer prices say RM3'400 or RM3'450 for the DV3029. They make RM500 profit while other shops make around only RM50-RM200 usually.

This is possible due to the fact that all they pay is for the spot and some cabinets. Get some units for demo which later they could sell for demo price or worst, as a apparent new unit. They don't have ready stock, if customer want, they get from reseller, say, Sri Computers.

The risk is kept at minimum. All they need to thrive is the ppl who don't actually know about laptop pricing. I seen a lot of Malay girls fell into this group.

I won't say their promoting skill is good as most of the promoters are quite young, worst, they don't even understand what they talking about. Try pulling their leg by asking about Puma Platform, the most possible answer u get is 'AMD has two processors only: athlon and turion', worse, they still trapped in the belief that Centrino is a Processor (instead of Platform), they even still believe firmly that Core2Duo with Broadcom Wifi is still Centrino.

Last 2 days, there was an AP set HP Pavilion DV2000 special verve edition in 1 of the kiosk. It got both Core2Duo and Pentium Dual Core stickers on it.
I'm sure some of u noticed this. It has only Intel Integrated graphic chip. The price was RM5'999 which took me aback. The promoter simply said 'this is different, special edition'.

If u wanna buy laptop, try to avoid the kiosk unless ur a lowyat 'regular'. I bought 2nd hand Fujitsu S2210 (that time cost RM4k) for RM1750. Very like new. Full set.

Yeah, if ur a regular surveyor, u cud get lucky from these kiosks.