Echoes of thoughts bouncing back in the darkness

I don't read much Malaysian news when I'm too stressed with work/societies/MSoc elections (lol at that one) etc.

But I can't ignore the blaring trumpets heralding the brilliant SPM results (16, 17, 18 'A's?). When will the fanfare stop? Remember the days when 9A1s were almost impossible to obtain? Tell me now what happens to those 15 or 16A1 students when they reach university? I just need to look around Imperial and I can easily tell you that of the Malaysian scholars (JPA, Mara, Petronas) sent here, a good 5% fail and are never heard from ever again, or else repeat a year at the expense of our tax payers money. While the Singaporeans are always in the top percentile, a few rare Malaysians make it there and many more appear to be only mediocre or even at the back of the pack. Why make us feel good about our brilliant SPM results only to be outshone during our prestigious overseas education period?


On the British frontier...

Malaysian Society elections are heating up. Chien liq says I'm suffering from a common disease that afflicts some 'warga emas' of MSoc, namely 'IC-MSoc-Withdrawal-Symptoms'. Yes, CL, no insult of yours goes unnoticed! However this is a society I care too much for to lose to the Malaysian disease of apathy and cronyism and playing of racial cards. Our committee took great pains to build it up, it'll take only a day to tear it apart.


On the academic side...

Andrew says "FYP going up in smoke? Who cares?". Lol... you made my day lah, tai kor!


On other Charlotte-ism's news

Shopping is an afliction and Zhern Yoong will not let me go out unless he approves my dressing style and co-ordination.

I sang at the EE Revue yesterday, and if I get hold of the videos and recordings - they will be posted everywhere - blog, youtube, facebook, etc.

I also stepped on a foot with my 3 inch heels yesterday. That foot belonged to Prof. Peter Cheung head of undergraduates in EEE. If he hadn't been so impressed with my singing, I'm not sure he would have allowed me to graduate.



And on to the weather...

Spring is here!!!

The ASEAN scholarship - would you do it all over again?

Yes, I know my posts have been rather personal these past few weeks. So many exciting and bloggable things occurring in local and international news, and yet here I am wallowing in self pity and defining the word boring. I don't know, maybe the controversial stuff will come back after awhile... when I stop feeling guilty about blogging when I should be putting together my final year project.

Anyway, here's a piece that started out as a discussion in a facebook group (naturally called ASEAN scholars). I never actually meant to go on at length, but ended up writing a full piece, and embarrassing my brother at the same time. And here I shall do it again much to his chagrin. I know he reads this blog because he's not careful about hiding his IP address and I don't know all that many people from pmb.ox.ac.uk...

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One common question that always arises when people find out that I've studied in Singapore (besides the "Eh, how ar? Everyone there very kiasu is it?") is whether I'd still choose to take up the ASEAN scholarship, given what I know now, and/or would I send my siblings/kids there.

Everyone has a preconception about studying in Singapore. It's generally centred around how stressful and exam oriented the system is and the academic pressure cooker/survival of the fittest environment that has been carefully engineered by the Lee family.

I can't deny that I went to Singapore clutching several urban legends close to my chest. "The top students will tear the pages out of library books so you won't be able to study", "Failure is not an option in Singapore, they make you do push ups if you fail", "Exams are a way of life, all you do is study".

It's easy to laugh about it now, because there were times I faced horrors far worse than failing exams - but coming back to my initial question. Yes, I would do it all over again. And I did send a sibling to Singapore, if he hates me for it - too bad for him. At least he survived it to get into Oxford.

I wasn't a brilliant student in JC. I was always bottom of the class, I had strings of 'O's for my first common test. I couldn't even speak any mandarin to save my life. But people tend to forget that successes don't always come in the form of academic accolades and olympiad medals. And once in awhile it's humbling to go from top of my little PJ school to bottom of Raffles Junior College. It's perfectly alright as long as I lived life in Singapore to the fullest, because the opportunities in school were limitless.

Back in my little PJ school, teachers were reluctant to answer questions outside the core text, curricular activities were restricted, and PE was... well, I don't know what it was because we never did anything but copied down notes about netball in our exercise books.

The day I stepped into JC was the day I realised some teachers do care about you. My Odac teacher never failed to lead us on camping trips and spur us on to do the impossible even if it meant he had to give up weekends and stay till late in the evening to help us bring down the climbing ropes from the rock wall. My Civics Tutor (or class teacher) never once gave up on me, knowing how little effort I was actually putting into my studies. She was barely 30 and yet had the experience to wield control and gain the adoration of a rowdy class of 18 year olds.

I realised that school facilities made a big impact on my student life. No matter what they say about RJC kids being rich and spoilt, the old RJC was tiny in comparison to many other JCs, old and greying, and yes, the toilets smelt of ammonia. But, coming fresh out of my dilapidated PJ school, RJ was grand! The library had real books and study tables. The track was a real track. There was proper PE equipment, a canteen that wasn't monopolised by one vendor and maybe we didn't have fully air conditioned classrooms or proper desks, but we had AVU equipment and teachers made full use of it!

Sure, it was a struggle to keep afloat in a top JC where everyone was seemingly brilliant. Real life isn't easy, and you have to keep swimming if you don't want to drown. Why should school be any different? But I never saw even a spectre of any Singaporean student who would step on me to get ahead (and even if there were the slightly kiasu ones, they weren't so different from my Malaysian classmates who'd refuse to tell me the name of their tuition teacher for fear of me getting better grades - familiar, yes?) My schoolmates were interesting people. Intelligence aside, they were interesting because they were truly passionate about things - whether it was their sports clubs, or council, or dance or computers. And they didn't do it because they were forced to. They did it because they enjoyed and excelled in it and were encouraged and supported.

Even hall life was fun, if you didn't mind the curfews. Staying together with other people in the same situation surprisingly yielded amazing results. Eating together, studying together, gossipping together, watching tv together, doing laundry together... these people who sat down at my dinner table everyday and complained loudly about the amount of salt the cooks had dumped onto our vegetables are my best friends, even after we parted ways at the end of our JC days.

Deep down, I'm patriotically Malaysian by nature and I still snigger at Singaporean news from time to time, however I can't deny that Singapore gave me a chance to see things from a different perspective, while Malaysia is continuously trying to pull wool over my eyes. Would I do it all over again? Any day, baby, any day!

SPM Sejarah and I have some issues to settle Part II

As mentioned before, SPM Sejarah and I are old foes.

Anyway, I found the new syllabus here:
http://www.geocities.com/rozmansmkbm/
Click on 'silibus' and if you can't see the links on firfox, try IE

I haven't got the time to translate it right now. Will get to it at some point.

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I found some spare time (i.e. I'm procrastinating other things for the sake of SPM Sejarah). Everything here is very crudely translated. I have never tried translating History before!

Form 4
Chapter 1: The emergence of early civilisations
i) Definition of civilisation
ii) Characteristics of civilisations
iii) The process of the formation of civilisations

Chapter 2: The rise of civilisations
i) Aspects defining the rise of civilisations
ii) Contributions from civilisations
iii) The emergence of religion and teachings of the old world (Hinduism/Buddhism/Christianity/Islam/Confucianism/Taoism)

Chapter 3: Early civilisations in South East Asia
i) Forms of early governments (Agrarian and Maritime societies)
ii) The influence of Hinduism and Buddhism on early governments (Ruling systems/monarchy/temples/Sanskrit)
iii) Summary

Chapter 4: The beginnings of Islamic civilisation and its developments in Mecca
i) Early Jahiliyyah Arabic societies
ii) The life of Prophet Muhammad before being appointed as a messenger (rasul) of God
iii) Prophet Muhammad as a messenger of God
iv) The spreading of Islam to Mecca
v) The reaction of Arabic society

Chapter 5: The Islamic Government in Medina
i) First and Second treaty of Aqaba
ii) The Hijrah (Migration)
iii) The Constitution of Medina
iv) The spreading of Islam
v) The Treaty of Hudaibiyah

Chapter 6: The Formation of Islamic Governments and their contributions
i) The Khulafa Al-Rasyidin Government
ii) The Bani Umaiyyah Government
iii) The Bani Abbasiyah Government
iv) The Uthmaniyah Turkish Government
v) The meeting of Islamic civilisations with other civilisations

Chapter 7: Islam in South East Asia
i) The arrival of Islam in South East Asia
ii) The spreading of Islam in South East Asia
iii) The influence of Islam in South East Asia

Chapter 8: Changes and influence of Islam in Malaysia before the arrival of Western influence
i) The effects of Islam on politics
ii) The effects of Islam on social culture
iii) The effects of Islam on the economy

Chapter 9: Developments in Europe
i) Social and cultural changes in Europe
ii) Travels and explorations
iii) The agricultural and industrial revolutions
iv) Western imperialism in Asia

Chapter 10: The British policy and it's effects on its national economy
i) Traditional economy
ii) Trade
iii) The British policy on agriculture
iv) Effects on its economy

Form 5
Chapter 1: The beginnings and devlopment of nationalism in South East Asia
i) Western Imperialism in South East Asia
- Western Imperialists
- Factors of Imperialism
ii) Changes in political systems
- The introduction of Western bureaucracy
iii) Nationalism in South East Asia
- Factors concerning the rise of Nationalism
- Developments in Nationalism

Chapter 2: Nationalism in Malaysia pre and post WWII
i) The trials and tribulations (hehe... being poetic) of local leaders in opposing the British
- Reasons for opposition
- Opposition events of local leaders
ii) The Nationalist movement up till WWII
- Factors catalysing nationalism
- Islamic movement raises the thinking of the races
- Newspapers, Journals and Novels as instruments of awareness of nationality
- The nationalist fight by Malay organisations
- The Nationalist movement during the Japanese occupation

ps - I just refuse to translate the rest, because it is becoming rather depressing. Unless someone does it for me. *hints* I am also appalled at my translation skills... bleargh!

pps - Thanks for the help guys! I will eventually link some of this stuff up with wikipedia when my next bout of procrastination comes around again

SPM Sejarah and I have some issues to settle

Just 2 months ago, my mother gave my brother and I the excruciating task of coaching my little sister for her exams. Science and math are pretty much subjects we're able to coach her in with one eye closed. Give us history and we balk at the sound of it.

Clearly History and I were never the best of friends.

Anyway, I decided to tackle it since it's only Form 4 history. Sejarah Dunia. I never liked mugging dates, but world history was my favourite part of it, due in part to my love for art museums and other boring hobbies like spending 7 hours exploring mummies in the British musuem.

However I reeled in horror when my sister showed me her textbook. What used to be 4 or 5 glorious chapters on everything from the Reformation up till Imperialism and the brink of World War I, had been squashed into 1 chapter. And in place of all that was several chapters on Islamic history. Huh?!!

Now I don't abhore Islamic history. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I know the Ottoman empire was not a revolution of footstools. When I was travelling in Andalucia, I bored Lionel with more facts than he wanted to know about the great Islamic empire before those Catholic brutes came in and wiped them out. I know the life of Prophet Mohammed and I can name early Islamic Mathematicians and Astronomers and I know they invented the concept of zero (the nothing that is).

However, my impressive (pea-sized) Islamic knowledge aside, what is the point of this as we begin to prepare the next generation to face an ever-shrinking global world? My sister knows close to nothing about world history. She doesn't know the effects of the Renaissance, she thinks the industrial revolution is solely defined by the car and paper making industry, she doesn't know about the cold war nor about Napoleon. And it doesn't help that she doesn't read any books that aren't teen-lit!

After ranting for awhile about my sister's blinkered education to my mother who wasn't listening (and has frankly given up on Malaysian education after three children who bluffed their way through the system), I started wondering why no one has complained about the new history syllabus.

A quick check on the internet turned up... nothing! I can't find the new syllabus anyway. I mean, I didn't spend like half a day searching, but you'd think that it shouldn't be too hard to find. The MOE website returns nothing. In fact clicking on a link to Secondary School Education gives you a blank page. Clicking on Examinations tells you nothing either. I think I'm doing it all wrong. Search engines don't like me.

Anyway, if you find out, let me know.

I know I could just ask my sister, but she currently thinks I'm a trouble making nerd.