Eid Mubarak!

Wish everyone Salam Idulfitri, Maaf Zahir Batin...

Eid Mubarak!

* I'll be on leave starting tomorrow - 25th Sept till 5th October.

Hati yang keluh-kesah

Entah kenapa hati tiba-tiba keluh kesah. Semakin berdebar. Macam-macam yang nak dikejar. Hairan pun ada. Workload taklah banyak sangat.. Tapi tak banyak benda mampu dibuat seharian. Banyak buang masa kot. PHD proposal masih tak nampak bayang. Semester dah habis.... lepas ni cuti raya, exam, marking and prepare for the next semester lecture. Dapat subject baru pula tu. Next semester workload dah confirm lebih banyak dari this semester. Aku semakin risau..

Risau kalau-kalau by end of year PHD aku tak terbuat. Risau macam-macam perkara akan berlaku selepas raya ni. Risau aku akan kelam-kelibut mengurus masa dan keluarga. Semenjak di Melaka, hampir setiap minggu aku pulang ke Johor. Dan aku dapati memang aku satu-satunya yang diharapkan untuk membantu mengurus keluarga. Lepas ni macam mana? Kalau lepas ni aku ada komitmen lain.. siapa pula? Kalau lepas ni aku start study, buat research, siapa nak jenguk-jenguk mak-ayah kat kampung macam aku buat sekarang? Memang adik-beradik ramai...tapi semuanya jauh-jauh belaka. Yang ada seorang saja di kampung boleh consider masih kecil lagi budak tu.

Risaunya aku...

Yang tambah merisaukan aku.. bila aku dipanggil oleh Dean dan dua hari selepas tu aku terima email ni:

"Salamz Ms. Siti Zakiah, Congratulation! Attached, please find your appointment letter as a faculty's webmaster. Thanks and regards. Abdullah. "

Aku jd faculty webmaster? web programming la yang aku paling lembab sekali. Dulu masa buat asmt, aku upah je anak murid ke.. azhar ke.. buat asmt aku. Memang kantoi.. aku tak ada choice.. dgn degree and master in IT, orang takkan faham bila aku kata aku tak reti buat web ni.

Lepas appointment letter dapat pulak email susulan..

" noted with thanks.pls make our web FBL the best .jeong c.p. "

Menggigil lutut aku... Dr. Dean kata.. aku kena maintain je apa yang ada.. upload announcement or new info (which is aku tak tau lagi nak buat macamana). Tapi orang letak harapan tinggi la pulak. Padan la muka aku.. ari tu masa start buka webpage faculty aku rasa mmg dal jer FBL nyer web. Sekarang.. haa. buat sendiri. Hai... mana aku nak baca jurnal, mana nak prepare kelas, mana plak nak buat web. Kalau buat web ni benda yang aku tau.. tak apala. Ni nak kena belajar from the scratch ni.. Rasa nak jerit jer... "Azhar! Roby! tolonglah akak ni weh...." Webmaster IIC tuh. Aku rasa aku lebih pandai buat ISO documentation dr buat web. Memang sah-sah la.. Pelik bukan? degree ngan master IT tp bab-bab management plak lagi terer. Bab-bab IT semua fail. Maybe pendedahan kerja aku lbh pd mgt bukan IT dari grad sampaila ke MMU. Kat sini pun masuk Faculty Biz and Law.

Lagila kelakar...

Aku rasa kepala aku memang dah weng dah. Macam-macam fikir. Nak buat macam-macam.. tapi kekuatan takdak. Where to start? Bagi nasihat kat student bukan main pandai lagi.. diri sendiri tak terurus.

Ya Allah.. berilah aku kekuatan mengharungi jalan yang aku pilih ni...

I feel upset...

When I started my career here.. some people said that I have to help Malay students bcoz they have been treated unfairly by most of the racist chinese lecturers. It come accross to my mind that Chinese normally are very good and hardworking. Being an educator, I believe in being fair to everybody. Give and educate them full heartedly as what I had done before. Of course, the environment has change.. I'm now in the middle of Chinese community (90% chinese 10% Malays). In few of my classes I have 100% chinese students. And I started found that I'll be very lucky if I can understand their language. At the beginning, with problems that I faced with a chinese lecturer here.. I set my mind to help my own people.

When I started my class last few months, my perception towards chinese changed but for the malays.. it remains. Not all chinese students are hardworking, not everybody in the class are participative and not everybody comes from good family background. Some of them are just below average (based on my observation in class and their performance). However.. Malays are remain the same. Those who always absent are malays, those who have a lot of excuses are malays and those who are missing in action are also malays. A few of them came to me at week 10 just to say.. "Miss, my attendance very poor in your class. I probably being barred from final exam. Could you please help me?" Oh my goodness, if I think as Malay I should help Malays, that would not be the way. And my typical answer was " I want to help you, but if you don't want to help yourself, how could I? " Please don't absent any of my classes after this, otherwise I have to perform my responsibility as lecturer" Am I wrong to be very strict even to my own people?

Yesterday we started the class presentation for the semester. I never had any experience like this before. Too many groups volunteer themselves to be the first presenter. In 1 hour class where I expect max only 3 groups can present their reports.. 4 groups volunteered. and all of them are chinese... This morning, the class was supposed to start at 9am. I reached the class at 8.55am, 1 group already inside the room and offer themselves as the first presenter. I asked them to set their slides and surprisingly they said they came very early just to set up everything and test their slides.

Do you know what happened after the presentation? they came to me asked my feedback and comments or anything that I can suggest to ensure that they score the assignment. Those who have not presented came and asked which part of the previous presentations that they should or should not follow? Oh.. I forget to mention that there were a few groups submitted the report 2 WEEKS.. I repeat 2 WEEKS before the deadline. The reason is.. they want to focus on their mid-term and other assignments. And again, non of them are malays.

I'm not writing to tell everyone that now I'm being double standard to my own people or condemning my own people. But I want all my students who read this (IIC, OUM, MMC - majority are malays) to start thinking how these people who are not given any priviledge as Bumiputra in this country are hardly trying to change their life. In this chinese-dominated university where my own people are considered as minority, I can see that they are still sleeping. They don't feel that they have to compete and stay in complacent zone... It makes me upset and so far I think I failed to drive them on the right track.

Don't you think that one day they are the one who grab all the opportunities and you are still at the same stage, same standard of living. To my dear students... please change.