Utusan Online_010114

Utusan Malaysia_010114

FINALLY...MAYBE

After 5 months of agony, countless hours on the phone talking to Customer (not) Careline and endless emails, I've finally terminated my P1 WIMAX account.

Despite that, I am still not at rest due to horror stories by previous customers who terminated their contract and returned their modem, but few months, even years later, receive emails and calls that they owe thoudands of ringgit with P1 WIMAX and their names are blacklisted in CTOS.

Currently, if you google P1 WIMAX, the Facebook page called P1 Wimax Sucks hits number 2.

It shows how 'fantastic' this ISP really is.

Go Petition

<a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bantahan-penyelewengan-p1-wimax.html">Bantahan Penyelewengan P1 Wimax Petition | GoPetition</a>

P1 Wimax Sucks

Be careful with these con men. They'll suck you dry. There's even a link on FB and you can join thousands of mistreated customers here at https://www.facebook.com/groups/159121421506/

Even long after customers terminated their service, they still receive an enormous amount of billing charge and their names are blacklisted in CTOS.

I was a victim too of their false advertising. 

If you're a victim, please complaint to the following links:

www.skmm.org.my
www.cfm.org.my
www.ppim.org.my/v3
https:// ttpm.kpdnkk.gov.my/etribunal

UUM CONVOCATION_301113

After 2 years of toiling between work load and study, I have finally graduated on November 30th, 2013.

My family and I drove all the way to Penang because all the hotels in Kedah and Perlis were fully booked. I received the convocation letter only 3 weeks before the commencement of the ceremony. One of the many 'perks' of being an off campus students.

On the 29th, we made a move to Kedah, to UUM, to collect the robe, hood and mortar board. I had to pay RM5 for the convocation bag to stuff all those mentioned items above. Another RM50 for pictures in the convocation hall and RM140 for the obligatory family photo, with the background of book rack, you know the deal.

What I can say is, UUM is very entrepreneurial, everything has to be paid.

There were booths set up even at the convocation hall. The payment slip for pictures in the hall of you receiving the scroll was collected seconds after you were at the stairs leading up to the main stage. What a mood spoiler.

Overall, I spent almost 1k for all this flashy display and finally was awarded Masters in Applied Linguistics. I understand why 2 of my coursemates didn't attend the long and strenuous event.

Despite that, receiving the scroll from Seri Paduka Baginda Yang Dipertuan Agong, Al-Sultan Almu'tasimu Billahi Muhibuddin Tuanku Alhaj Abdu Halim Mua'dzam Shah Ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Badlishah was an indescribable experience that only happened once in a lifetime.

And seeing the recipient of Pingat Emas for 6 semesters of attaining Dean's List made me think life is unfair as during my first degree, I slaved away to get 12 semesters of Dean's List but no proper recognition was given. The same for my second degree. Attaining  between 3.8 to 4.0 CGPA but no recognition too. Maybe it was because during my first degree, it was a twinning programme. And for my second degree, it was an off campus programme. Maybe for my third degree, I had to take a sabbatical and pursue full time study in one particular university.

From a reserved girl in school that nobody noticed, to a broken woman from shitty relationships, to a defeatist and pessimist, now I rose above the challenges and achieve this feat. Now, I won't doubt what I can do and how far I can push myself. Because I know I am worth it and I can do what others told me I can't.

Believe in yourself and you shall see what you are made of.

 

Israel VS Palestin

Not sure about the source, but hey it doesn't hurt right? -

Google launches a vote to name Israel or Palestine on its map in Google Earth. So far 72% voted in favour of Israel. Please send it to each list you have to vote for Palestine.

All you have to do is click on the link below and then select the Palestinian flag ...

Thanks for your support ..

http://www.israel-vs-palestine.com

PLEASE SHARE WITH OTHERS

STUPIDITY

Now I know that intelligence doesn't mean that you're fair and know how to look after people's feelings. The more you think that you're smart, the less respect you have for other people. You think that you're the only one who's correct and other people are wrong. You would think the sun shines out of your ass. And other people are just stringing along for the ride. You think that everyone is just a donkey with their speech becomes obnoxious sound and their characteristics are jerky movements that result in them looking like jackasses. When you're surrounded by fucking idiots who just stand around doing shits and waiting to be helped on their hands and feet.

FALSE ADVERTISING

So, I subscribe to P1 WIMAX 24 month Home Plan which came with 200 minutes talk-time. The vendor at Mydin Mall even gave me a phone with the modem. After waiting for three months, after paying hundreds of ringgit monthly, still I can’t use my phone. I filled up the complaint form at P1 website twice, emailed to customer service countless time and phone P1 Careline numerous times. Now, that’s just false advertising, isn’t it?

P1 blamed the kid I bought the Plan from, claiming he didn’t register the plan completely. The kid blamed P1, claiming he already emailed P1 but to no avail.

I don’t know why but I always got ass fucked by these services. Before this it was Maybank with its stupid worker who gave me a credit card even when I never authorized such transaction. Then, after that problem, came throngs of phone calls from telemarketers. Why God why do I have to be at the receiving end of such idiocy?

 

 

WORKLOAD

I’m sure the issue of overburdened teachers have been discussed for such a long time. Promises were given (placing teachers’ assistants at school or ‘lessening’ teachers’ workload by implementing a formative evaluation instead of summative evaluation) but the truth remains like a black dot on a whiteboard. It’s there but everyone oversees it. But for those who use the whiteboard every other day, the black dot stick out like a sore thumb.

First, it’s the core business of teachers called teaching. Remember that? I bet those who signed up for this teaching thing had this aspiration to teach using various techniques; creatively and innovatively. But tell me, how can we when the students are worse than spawns of Satan? Where 13 year olds SMS each other using names like ‘umi’ and ‘papa’ and talked about stuff on the bed that would make pornographic actors cringe? Where they call their teachers assholes and scratch and puncture their teachers’ tyres? At least, other professions offer insurance for occupational hazards. Teachers? May God have mercy on your souls.

Second, y’all know about how everything is online these days to make students’ management a breeze. It should be, it would be, if teachers didn’t have to key in the same details only a gazillion times. And what the issue was brought forward, guess who were the black sheeps? We were accused of being incompetent and expert procrastinators while the reality was, the system was not ready and no direct orders were given to teachers who were waiting for directions from upstairs.

On a side note, of course there are teachers who really procrastinate things and even worse, some who paid others (usually students) to do their job online. The laptops are like devil’s horn and the online apps are devil’s eyes that would jump out of the screen and engulf them in hellfire if they got close to it. Not just that, when it comes to online test like CPT and the newest one on ICT, when the screen says that the test should be done honestly (alone with only your brain to help you), how many do you think follow the stationary screen? Don’t get me wrong, some teachers (including moi) studied notes for the test, while others took the easy way out by sharing answer scheme of the online test. And I wonder how do you expect your students to be decent human beings?

Third, the teachers are always at the receiving end of every single thing. Your kid sucks at Math? The teacher must be a douche. Your kid watched pornography on his iPhone that you bought? The discipline teacher must be a pussy. Your kid ran away with a guy he knew for 2 days on Facebook? The class teacher must be blind to see your kid’s thunderous rollercoaster emotions in the class. Your kid didn’t finish her homework and the teacher punished her? The teacher must be a sadist.

And of course, giant companies would turn to teachers to promote their stuff and in return, teachers need to do something in return. As if teachers have nothing better to do except for keying in more students’ data online and organizing a large scale workshop in October when PMR and SPM is around the corner, not to mention year end exam.

And don’t get me started on the amount of money and stuff that I sacrifice in the name of the profession. When you have to print out 100 pages of kindergarten’s handouts because your form four kids have the mental capacity and language ability of a five year old. And when your printer broke down, you had to service it and it cost more than buying a new printer, not to mention buying stacks of A4 papers and continuous supply of ink. And don’t get me started on stationeries which the book stores rake in a fortune every time a teacher goes there for a weekly visit. And since I’m currently taking my second degree, when I got my RM 200 book voucher, I spent it on stationeries and dictionaries for my students.

Which brings us to the fourth point. Teachers spend more time at school than home. Meetings that lasted until 6 in the afternoon. Friday’s and Saturday’s extra activities. Moreover, if your school were involved in some sorts of national level competition, prepare yourselves for being the school’s ghost, haunting the school night and day, leaving you kids and spouse at home as your job demands more. If you’re single, everyone assumes you have no life and not a single shred of responsibility and that makes you a possible candidate to receive all jobs.

With all of these ramblings being said, do I regret being a teacher? Before this, I would say no. But right now, seeing a colleague or two resigned due to unlimited of stress, secretly I applauded them for their resoluteness and wishing I have the brevity to follow their footsteps.

COURSE

We rarely stop to appreciate the beauty around us. How can we with all the ugliness around us? Children were poisoned and left orphaned just because they were born in the wrong country. Or how about those who were born in the right country but were snatched away from their parents and crippled (intentionally) by good for nothing criminals who profit from others’ misfortunes?

Yes, it is very hard to feel happy and see beauty when the world around you is dirty and filled with misery. When you want to shut down when the noise becomes so unbearable. When you want to be temporarily blind because the scene unfolding in front of you is too horrid to witness.

People tend to reprimand negativity by saying, “Be grateful!”

And they ask, “What more do you want?”

And it is hard to begin when everything is in shambles.    

FACADE

So, as you all know my school came up second place in a national level competition which we have been gearing for since last year. The prizes? RM3.5K, Microsoft Surface, trophy and certificate.

Almost a year of hard work and thousands of ringgit (trust me, that 3.5K times 6 or 7 to get the amount that we spent for to get into the national level) and the energy and time by everybody in the school (not just the teachers and students but parents and staff) to put our school at par with 15 other schools all over Malaysia.

How I felt couldn’t even justify the sleeplessness of keying in data (since I’m Guru Nilam so that means I have to key in volume of books read by every students in the school for both BM and BI from January until the end of the school semester) for 2012 and 2013. The increment of my spectacles’ power seemed belittled by the rewards that we got from the competition.

What I gained from the competition was not from the crowning moment itself but the ‘Bengkel Kerja’ a day before the actual event where library teacher from the school selected needed to demonstrate and justify why their school was selected to represent the state. Corporate video and powerpoint presentation flashed through and the recurring pattern was how every school highlight their participation and excellence in all aspects from district, state and national level for both students and teachers. I felt like I was in some bid to host the2020 Olympics. Every school brought forward their achievements and kept pasting it at our faces like their lives depended on it. Where was the school built for nurturing children instead of a factory to produce students who get straight As and make their mark in sports and other academic competition?

And then we are worrying about how our students have no balance between work and play. And how during exam fever, we heard stories of suicidal teenagers and teenage runaways who just could not cope with the pressure of excelling to their fullest potential. How stressed it is to be the pillar of hope by parents and teachers alike who pushed these kids (they may be big physically but deep inside they are still children who like bubble gum and cartoons) who always reminded these children the importance of studying and playing in sports but forgetting that these children are in fact, children, who need comforting voice telling them that “Hey, it’s okay to fail once or while” and “It’s not the end of the world” if they didn’t get that number one spot in the classroom or if they didn’t get first place in that competition. I looked at the corporate video and I could taste bile in my throat. How I would not subject my kids to torturous routine that makes children today unable to enjoy their childhood. Seriously, how many kids today have the time to watch the rainbow or enjoy looking up the stars at night? They are more worried about missing their extra classes and weekend tuition.

Such a sad and sorry state of children today. Makes me think a thousand times about bringing one into the world. Why would I want to bring a child up just to bring him/her down with high expectation and unrealistic hopes placed upon his/her little soul? Unfortunately, that’s the reality today and by the way the society is putting emphasis on overall excellence, I think it is still a long shot until we finally realized we are going backwards instead of forward.

HYPOCRISY vs HONESTY

Office politics yet again in this post.

You would have this trying too hard to be perfect colleague who would constantly talk about how perfect her/his little family is. How bright his/her children are. How doting his/her spouse is. And yayayayadadadada.

And usually this little person would try his/her hardest to fit in into that exclusive little group in school. So he/she would organize a potluck event where he/she pretended to cook for everybody but at the same time, asked for money, albeit indirectly for the sumptuous meals that he/she begrudgingly prepared (yes, these people don’t understand the concept of potluck).

So, you have to choice. One, you pay the price, albeit begrudgingly because you don’t really like what’s on their menu. Two, you decided not to show up for the gathering and didn’t eat the dishes prepared and didn’t pay for it because, hey, like any logical person would think, why pay for shit that you don’t use/eat/take?

Nevertheless, both options have their consequences. One, if you voiced out your opinion about you not liking what’s on the menu, you would most probably be labelled as a sourpuss or party-pooper because you don’t have the ability to pretend for a second that you actually can stomach the dishes. Hey, people value hypocrisy than your honest opinion. Two, if you didn’t pay and didn’t eat, that particular little person would brand you as anti-social and refuse to sit next to you when they see you at the canteen.

Now, normally, me 5 years back would say, Fuck You and just walked off. But since I’m turning 27 this year and slowly try to accept the fact that we live in a community, it’s pretty much sucked a lotta ass when you are not behaving according to the norms, which you deemed are trivial and not vital to your humane existence.

Now me, I don’t really give a shit if you want to act tough with me. I survived 6 years of mental and social torment which I believe was partially my fault. We were all young and reckless and believe our lives were more important than others.

But when you’re older than my mother and acted like a little kid, sulking just because people don’t want to eat your cooking, you’re just asking to be punched in the face. Grow up! Just because your husband does not provide the positive reinforcement needed to make you feel better about yourself, don’t give others shit for your husband’s job to tell that you’re pretty and sexy everyday.

If I were living in an alternate universe where social rules do not apply, I’ll happily walk away and never turn back. Unluckily for all of us, we cannot just walk away from our jobs and people who make it hard for us to ignore them. People who are only nice to you when they need something from you and pretend not to see you when you’re of no use to them. I’ve experienced a lot of encounters with people like this and frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of being chosen last. Being befriended when there are nobody left. Do you know how repulsive that is? To be alone and left alone at any opportunities that arise? It makes my stomach lining curl up and bile coming out of my throat. That’s how sick I am to all these pretentious bullshit around me.

P/S: I heard one of my colleagues quit teaching due to stress. Pretty soon, a lot of young teachers will follow suit. If things don’t change.

DIRTY HOE

Well, if you are teachers, then you are well-aware of the tactics in major examination. And yes, I’m referring to the arranged seating in the exam hall. If you are students, you’ll probably meet teachers who ask you to be ‘kind’ and share your answers with the friends next to you.

And all the students who are deemed the hope of the school, those who are straight A’s students, those who are in Malay ‘ditatang bagai minyak yang penuh’ (I cannot think of an idiom that matches the famous Malay saying) since they are viewed as the ones most likely to succeed will be seated next to those from the last classes, those who are deemed as the trash of society and will most likely to be drug dealers or good for nothing type of brothers or sisters.

And then in the school meeting, the problem would be these delinquents would disturb the good students. Badgering the good students even before they started answering their own papers. And when the powers that be asked how can we curb this problem, my sarcastic remark (which I keep in my mind) was “Stop arranging the kids according to your evil plot a.k.a putting the good students among the bad students so the bad students can take the advantage to copy from the good students”.

I know we are so cooped up with percentage and the good name for the school but come on, are you kidding me? Teaching kids at an early age that they should depend on dirty tactics to survive? So that they could be successful at the expense of others? So that they can take other people’s place that others deserved just because they get extra help to cheat in the exam?

I don’t know how the schools have downgraded from the past decade that I was out of it. I thought the school was supposed to be a place for kids to know the right from wrong, to discern good from evil and to maintain their veils of innocence for as long as we can.

But I guess others have the wrong means to get to their designated destination. No matter what the means are. Even when the means put other kids at a disadvantage just because we want to save a few students who are meant to doom anyway by their own admission?

Maybe I am still green and naive at the real truth behind the success of a school. But if I am right about the wrong means to get the percentage that we wanted, that I’d rather be naive than condoning the dirty tricks that teach the students to lie and cheat.

But again, I’m just a subservient servant serving selflessly for the sake of a higher power above me.

NIK

The classroom was empty except for a couple of cats at the back of the room. Nik knew that she was destined to be the earliest person to arrive and the last person to leave. This was because her mother worked at the school that she enrolled to, hence they have to arrive early at school and be among the last ones to leave, well after 5 p.m. when the office hours ended.

Nik took the broom and started sweeping the class for that was her routine everyday. The duty roaster was just an illusion. Another tapestry put on the notice board to decorate it. She did not mind although her friends who were supposed to be on duty never even say a simple “thank you” for her deeds.

And look at the state of the class! Food wrappers strewn all over the place. Water bottles everywhere. Why was it so hard to throw all the unwanted items in the dustbin? The dustbin was like just a few steps away, but being typical Malaysians, they were all too lazy to get their big, fat asses and walked there.

While mumbling away a few incomprehensible sentences, Nik swept the classroom clean. Then, she wiped the whiteboard from markings from yesterday’s lesson. She felt sweaty and the uniform stuck to her body. Her hands felt rough due to the dust. So she made her way to the toilet.

The ladies was like a scene from a horror movie. It felt creepy just by standing outside the entrance. The aura was nothing like, say, a toilet in SOGO. It was poorly lighted, and the smell emanating from the toilet was unbearable. But being a student, she had to suck it up since it was the only toilet available. Nik knew nobody was in the toilet since the light was not even switched on. Nik flicked the switch open and tip-toed to the nearest stall to the entrance. While she was doing her business, she heard the water dribbling from the pipe in the sink. She also thought about the new boy who just moved in from Penang in her class. What’s with his thick eyelashes and well-structured nose since the boy was of mixed parentage, Nik felt like he was watching Shah Rukh Khan in real life. Oh, how wonderful if the boy made a move and asked her out on a date.

The door to the stall next door suddenly creaked. Nik’s heart thumped as she was pretty sure that nobody was around when she came in just now. She braved herself to unlock the door to her stall and peeked through the slit in the door.

She saw a cleaner mopping the floor. It was strange that she did not recognize the cleaner since other workers at the school was a friends of her mother, so she was familiar with all of them. She couldn’t take a good look at the face of the cleaner since she had her back to Nik.

Nik decided not to say anything and proceeded to go to the sinks to wash her hands. She noticed something strange about the cleaner. She kept mopping at the same place for quite some time. And the white pail that she had with her looked very old indeed. Nik braced herself to look inside the pail.

It was filled with red substance that looked like blood, thick and creamy.

Nik was startled but she kept her composure and walked out of the toilet.

The day began and Nik soon forgot about the incident in the toilet once her classes started. Soon, during recess, there was a commotion at the same toilet Nik went earlier this morning. There was a crowd gathering there and they were whispering to each other. Nik was puzzled and tried to asked somebody what was happening inside the toilet but evberybody was minding their own business and nobody answered her. Suddenly, the police emerged from the toilet, and what scared the crowd the most was the fact that they were carrying a body, wrapped in a tell-tale black plastic that they always used to cover the corpses. Everybody gasped and took a step back but they were also curious as to who was under that black cover.

Suddenly, the crowd let out a cry when one of the hands jutted out from the cover. The tip of the fingers were blue and Nik was shocked to find out that on the ring finger, the body underneath the cover was wearing the same emerald ring that Nik inherited from her mother who got it from her mother who was Nik’s grandmother.

Nik felt her heart stopped and blood from all over her body rushed up to her head. She felt her body became lighter and when she took her hand to her face to see if the emerald ring was still there, she felt ice cold even though she was standing under the sun.

She thought to herself, “Oh shit, am I dead?”

And her question was answered when she saw her mother broke down and cried her name when one of the policemen open the cover to the corpse before they took it away in the police van.