“I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.”


skin follow flavors

It's hard to explain or even grasp the concept of how stressful and mentally damaging higher education can be. It's probably just me, but then again I see people having a mental breakdown on a daily basis. We are given tremendously hard coursework and very high expectations to ace everything. And I am honestly not someone who likes to put the blame on the system, I just feel that I am not vocal enough regarding my distraught.

I've been trying to write an obligatory end of semester post and despite the exciting things that happened, the highlight of the whole semester would be the time where I broke down and cried in the examination hall. I've never done that before. I've been displeased with my performance before, I am aware that the ratio of answers I am confident are right to the answers I think is right to the answers that I have no clue of has been highly compromised before and as horrified I am with myself, I always cry after the exams, not during, this was a new low to me.

See the thing is, I feel like I've worked really hard for this subject. It's an 8.30am class and for a huge majority of the time I come in half an hour earlier. I was the first to present individually, and I handed in my assignments a week earlier from the due date just so I can have the lecturer comment on whatever's lacking so I can fix it before submitting it for real. Heck I even read the whole book, I did past year questions, we had a study group! And it was the functioning kind, not the kind of study group you say you have but end up reviewing a few chapters before talking for the rest of the day. This was a real study group!

The quizzes were the weirdest thing. We didn't have questions given on paper, or written on the whiteboard. We had it on a timed powerpoint presentation flashing in front of us like some weird ass game show. We had approximately 1 minutes for each 2 questions which could be a yes/no answer question or fill in the blank or a short answer question. Then there's a lightening round where the slides repeat but faster and sometimes I didn't even had the time to read the last question properly but well, tough luck.

I knew my quiz marks, I knew the questions that I could answer, and whatever that I couldn't, I knew I had no marks for it regardless if I answered it randomly or not. I'm fine with the quiz marks, I know it was my fault, but knowing that I had average marks for my assignments made me furious. I didn't hand in my assignments early so I would get an average, I wasn't aiming for a pass, I was aiming for a solid full mark. And we didn't know our assignment marks until the day before the exams and I just felt so betrayed.

How our system works is that we have a percentage for exams and a percentage for all the coursework done and a combination of both would determine our final grade, but for different universities, the carry mark percentage is different for each subject. My parents work at UiTM so I know that their maximum carry mark weightage is 50%, but for UIA it could go up to 80% and most of the hard subjects takes up 60%, so it is a big deal. It is a really big deal, you know your chances for getting an A in a subject or lack thereof.

What was embarrassing during my breakdown was that the lecturer saw me crying and I didn't know how to tell him how betrayed I felt with his marking scheme and quizzing techniques. I just cried. Because I wasn't good enough, that another semester pass and still I won't get a 4.00 flat GPA, that this subject would be my downfall and regardless of how much I gained from explaining things in study group and how well I do in the final exams I still cannot recover from my carry marks and everything made me feel so sad.

For the record, only one person got an A, and only one person got an A- out of the whole class and it's sort of unfair to be compared to them because they're freaking genius and not to mention also Kashmiri. It feels like going to class with the 3 idiots (the genius ones of course)

When people ask for my results, they wouldn't consider my struggle nor the unjust system. They would see me, scoring low, because I'm not smart enough.

And everything just makes me so sad.

Labels: college, menbung, rant

the first time i heard the term ghost writers, was when i read a story of the whole process. It's interesting and sort of mind-blowing because I always thought celebrities wrote their own autobiographies, they're artist, they have a passion towards art and writing has always been a medium of expression. I just thought they took an alternative form of art and expressed their life long journeys towards stardom through writing. It never occurred to me that someone else might have written it for them. Someone whose name is nowhere near the front cover or credits because they carve someone else's story, not theirs, giving a voice for someone else's substance, like singing in behalf of the mute. Thus, ghost writing.

I don't know what to feel about ghost writing. On one hand I feel bad for the writer, because they work so hard on this book and invested a lot of time and effort (and let's be real here, imagination) and someone might laugh at a joke they made up but people would praise and admire the celebrity in which the autobiography is referring to. It's like praising Danial Radcliffe for coming up with Harry Potter. "A room that only appears when you really need something? I don't know how you come up with these things." He didn't, which is why I find it ridiculous that the ghost writer's name is rubbed off the credits.

But on the other hand, if the ghost writer were to publish his own autobiography, the celebrity would still have more book prints sold regardless of the quality. The celebrity would gain so much more by doing this, by having people think they wrote their own stories. The ghost writer wouldn't gain much in comparison if he revealed that he did writer for that person. It's logic that the ghost writer should stay invisible, low-key and non-existent.

I ghost labor for people sometimes, and to be honest, it feels crap. Entering a photography contest under someone else's name, and when the photos gained recognition, that person acted as if those photos were hers. Designing a poster for an event that I am not partial of, and when people praised it, the person supposedly in charge of designing it acted as if she actually did. Becoming a part of a group for a project of a subject that I am not even registered for, and ended up coding 60% of the program.

I try not to be bothered with the feeling of being used, and at most time I'm fine. It's not that I was tricked into doing this, I knew this would happen, but I sort of hoped that I could get at least something in return. I mean I know people praised my work. Technically they're praising my abilities and as flattering as that sounds, their praises aren't directed towards me. It's directed to someone else who are not bothered to correct them. The fact that they let the misunderstanding to take place suggests that they prefer for it to be that way. It's like having your friend copying every single answer you wrote in a test, you both end up getting full marks but everyone's amazed by your friend and keeps praising her like "omg you're so smart, how is it even humanly possible anyone could get full marks?" and they don't even notice you exist.

you know what I mean?

But logically speaking, I don't know these people, and they don't know me, so even if it is revealed that I was actually behind those work, it wouldn't do me much good as opposed to the people actually getting the credit.So I try not to be bothered by it. I'm not, but when I see people praising someone else over my work, it kind of triggers that feeling of being used and reminds me of the injustice that I'm putting myself into. Logically, I know I should just brush it off and most of the time it really doesn't bother me. But logic aside, it does actually make me feel crap.

I don't know, I just want to be able to put my work in my portfolio, or gain co-curricular points for it, or let it get paid by actual carry marks, effecting my actual cgpa. But when these thoughts come to me, I feel selfish and I feel that I'm not doing this out of sincerity. I want to be sincere though. I sincerely want to be sincere. It's just hard when I feel used at the same time.

(inserts he-man gif because i somehow feel it is strangely very appropriate)

Labels: personal, rant

one of the things that i find very offensive is when people stop listening to you mid-argument and brushes you off saying "yeah whatever you win."

Labels: personal, rant

One of the subjects I'm taking this semester is Accounting, which is quite baffling because why would an ICT student ever want to do .... accounting? Not financial management— but accounting all the stockholders' equity and liabilities and trial balancing debit credit, and adjusting accrual revenues and credit unearned service revenue and depreciating buildings and journalizing and ledgering and everything's just so foreign to me, that it kind of hurts. The main reason why I took ICT in the first place was because a) I like codes, b) No Biology, and c) No Accounting which apparently I have to cancel out because it's a Kulliyah required course. But the thing is, it's not just the subject per se that I'm having a problem with, the whole environment of the kulliyah is quite overwhelming.

I mean, going to classes is very important to me. Skipping classes is not much of a problem, it's being punctual that is. My record of being late is an hour and a half (but that was the end of semester so, doesn't count), I'm usually 20 minutes late, on bad days 40 minutes, and not to give a bad impression to people about my Kulliyah, but ICTzens are generally always late. If you think I'm always late, I rarely am the latest to arrive. Occasionally other people come after me, and it's almost normal to have the class start 10 minutes late and still have people coming in during lecture. I guess what I'm trying to say is, we're more relaxed people. What I like about my ICT classes, is that there are no pressure, and so the learning process is purely based on genuine interest & passion.  

So when suddenly, we're in the midst of everyone being 10 minutes early, it's hard not to look like a delinquent. It doesn't help that ICT is the only Kulliyah that obligates Accounting for their students (aside from those in Econs, obviously). Which makes the class unevenly divided to a majority, consisting of Economy students  who pretty much understands, learnt and breathed Accounting before, and the minority, consisting of ICT students, who are entirely clueless. And everyone's just so obedient, doing homework and asking questions and participating in class which makes us look awfully unrounded unorthodoxed human beings.

I know, I'm supposed to study, to make an effort in learning things that I don't know, and that's the exact reason why I'm (a bit) monumentally pissed off. I don't have passion in this field. When I took SPM, I struggled for Teras. If I were to selfishly pursue only the subjects I liked, I probably could've mastered Add maths, Physics and Chemistry. But being bad at teras subjects, meant I needed to unevenly divide more attention to them compared to the subjects that I like more, which resulted the downfall of it. I got all A+ for teras (including Add maths and excluding BM), A- for chemistry and B for Physics. It was kind of devastating, but I thought that sacrifice would stop there. I'm entering University, I can choose what I want to learn now, but apparently no. The sad truth is, irrelevance will always be unreluctantly relevant made by some people who probably thought it was okay.

I just wish I can have all ICT subjects for once. I should've taken System Analysis and Design rather than Accounting for this semester. But Computer Organization and Architecture is so hard I wonder which one should I devote myself to first.

All in all, I want my classes in KICT, I don't like being the black sheep of another kulliyah, being outcasted and looked down upon ("ICT students usually fail my class!"), I want less comprehensive income, more public class static void main(String[ ] args){ }. I want less accrual expenses, more Scanner sedut = new Scanner(System.in). I want less ledgers and journals, and more sedut.nextLine(); cause

 

Labels: college, rant

This post is not based on true events or are linked with real people. Any resemblence to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you geek. Douche.

There's nothing more offensive than someone who has the efforts that are not up to par with the intelligence he/she claims to have. It's offensive cause that's defying knowledge. The thing about it is that you're never enough of it. You crave it, you seek it, but it doesn't come to you, unless you earn it. Some things are easy to understand, and some aren't, but that's the price of knowledge: efforts in understanding it. There must be efforts—  different people different methods...but bottom line, there must be efforts. You can't just sit around and expect to be smart, you have to get out there and really learn, not just observe your surroundings. If you want to observe,  let your perspective go beyond the horizon, don't stop at Legoland and Universal Studios and claim you've seen the world. That's not an open mind, that's a single track mind.

Somehow you're justifying to things that do not exist. Failing at something means failing at something, it doesn't mean the system is corrupt or your mind works differently than others. It simply means, either you're not good at it, or you're not trying hard enough.

It's like someone saying I'm not pretty outside, but I'm pretty in the  inside. When the truth is, she's not pretty in both, but was too ignorant to face the fact that she wasn't, accepted the truth that she made up herself, and has no decency to even improve herself. Deluded by the thought that she was good enough, she kept bragging about it and it made her look like a total idiot.

Just because you're not good with books, doesn't mean you're good in the streets. You could be good in certain things, I don't doubt your abilities, but what you keep saying is that you're smart, with no explanations. It's like you're saying that the human brain works only two ways, books and street, and since you can't deal with books, you're concluding streets, which doesn't justify anything. The fact that you're putting yourself next to famous geniuses doesn't make things any better. Their smarts were never street, their only problem was the system, in which they broke, and made their own rules. And how do you level with them exactly?

And don't get me started with common sense.

The thing is, common sense is highly relative to the people you're with. How do you know something is a common sense? Because everyone agrees that these are the most idealistic decision of act in certain situations. Not necessarily people abide it, but people do agree that it makes sense.

But making sense is like an unsaid social contract. I mean, not everyone takes discrete mathematics and understand logical predicates and how to negate a proposition or prove a conclusion, (because some are too street, idk) so how do people make sense again? It's all based on their own mentality. If this happened, that should come afterwards. But what if the things that makes sense in one person's head, isn't exactly common sense, but that person blindly says that it is?

Is it common sense to pressure people to lose weight? Is weight not a sensitive issue to people, especially girls? Is it common sense to make your girlfriend drive a long journey, alone, in the middle of the night? to spend an all-nighter with her? All that during the night before her exam? Is it common sense to flirt with other girls when your girlfriend is so blindly in love with you? Is it common sense to talk lies about her, just to get another girl? Are those really common sense? Cause if it is, I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Is it common sense to tell girls to lower their ego, just because men are known to have larger ones? What are you trying to imply here? That women are not worth having pride? That men are worth their pride so much, they can't lower it? It's like saying I'm born rich, you're born poor, so since you're used to poverty, can't you lose a couple of pennies and dimes to maintain my richness?

No, this is not a negative twist, this is an exact analogy to the statement you just said. It was just as absurd as my statement. And you're the ideal example of common sense?

I honestly find common sense a  bit too pretentious and unnecessary. In my opinion, common sense shouldn't be sensed. It should be learnt, like every other aspect of the world, you need to learn, doesn't matter in the books, on the street, or by being inspired by people, you learn. You don't sense something that seems right and claim to have gain smarts, that's ridiculous.

I think striving to be good and sincere is a better way to lead life. It's all about intention, niat. Why are you doing what you're doing and is it worth the efforts?

Let's just say you're going out of a building, and in the same time, someone wants to come in, naturally you'll hold the door for that person. Right, it's common sense. But if that person doesn't thank you, how would you feel? You just had the common sense of holding the door, why can't people have the same common sense to show some gratitude? See, that's what happens if you do it for the sake of common sense, it's no longer sincere. You're not helping that person because you want to, you're helping that person because it's the sensible thing to do, and you're pissed because the sensible thing that's supposed to happen, didn't happen.

On the other hand, if you're helping because you wanted that person to get in the building at ease, then when that niat is achieved, then you're done. Did he get in the building? Yes. Did he thank you? Doesn't matter. The funny thing about niat, is that you have to be sincere to yourself even though you know it's not the right reasons to act. Sometimes the real niat is deluded by the niat that we want it to be, so it gets confusing, but it's actually quite easy to know your real niat. When the results of your action is out, and you're sad/mad/emotional about something, then that was the real reason you did it in the first place.

If you feel mad when a person doesn't thank you for your help, then that means you're not sincere in doing whatever you're doing. You were doing it, because you wanted attention, you wanted praises, you wanted people to acknowledge your efforts, and to me that is very pathetic.

I also disagree with people thanking or asking for forgiveness just because you're supposed to do it. If you're really grateful, say thank you. If you're really sorry, say sorry. Don't use it for convenience, it just loses the meaning, and it's abusing the language. Sorry wasn't invented for you to get out of inconvenient situations, like what a majority of the people misuse it for. No. It's to stomp, stab and kill our egos and show how much we want that forgiveness. It's blood and tears crumpled into this five letter word. It shouldn't even drip from your tongue unless you really really mean it.

Labels: rant

So I'm gonna do something I haven't done in a while, which is writing about stuff that actually happened, in long, descriptive words. Yup, blogging the 'old school' way I used to way back when roughberrycrunch still existed.

Let's start with something simple, Semester I is over (ooooyeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhh) and no, it didn't wrap up peacefully and full of grace, it was the exact opposite.

Okay, so let me give a clear view about the whole situation. I took 6 subjects, and one of them is Physics. In our examination time-table, Physics is scheduled on Monday, 3rd October. On a side note, my sister Aqeelah was scheduled to fly to Egypt on that exact day. So I kind of had to rush things, cause the Mahallah won't let people leave things in the rooms, and we had to check out and give our keys and those stuff, so I wanted to know how I was going to go home.

I mean, I already went home that weekend to attend the Doa Selamat for Aqeelah and my parents (to Haji), so I've already brought back most of my stuff. What's left is the small shelf in the middle of the room and a few stuff (toiletries, a few clothes that I wore for two days, Physics notes, stationery, toiletries and pillows). I wanted to know, if Abah would come fetch me or I'd have to take a KTM, so I already called Ummi the night before to confirm my status and Ummi clearly stated that Abah wouldn't make it in time, she asked me when would my paper end, and I said 11. Honestly it was 12, but I can go out early if I wanted to, and I did, right after Aisyah submitted hers (I kept kicking the other Aishah's chair to give a hint that I'm done and let's get out of here, but she wouldn't budge).

So here's the thing, my phone got stolen the other day, so I have a new phone, and it's not exactly a 'phone' but it plays that role for me, but the galaxy tab is kind of big and I didn't want to bring that to the exam hall and have it lay under my seat so I left it in my locker. After finishing early, we headed to the cafe and grabbed some drinks and light food cause we were starving (don't ask at what time we went to bed), and waited for the others to finish, then we took some pictures of our last day, bid farewells and stuff, I was totally relaxed and had no worries, weren't rushing to go anywhere, I had everything planned in my mind, when I had back to my room, I'm gonna go lay down on bed for a while, then pack lightly, Abah would drive me here the next day to pick the rest of my things, I'd check out then, I have RM5 in my pocket, the bus ticket t KL Sentral is RM2.10, I'll use the rest to buy a snack at 711, I'll use my touchngo card to pay for KTM, I'd text Abah when I'm about 3/4 stations before Padang Jawa, I'l hop on the car and we'd be right on time to go to the airport, an I'd sleep during the journey. See how planned I was? Can you see how organized my day could actually have been? But no, what's life if it isn't a plot twist?

When I arrived at home, Azwa was being restless, her family's already arrived, and I was like, oh, okay, I'll just take lay down a bit, and then her phone rang, and I asked "Mak kau ke?" and she was like "tak, mak kau!" At first, I thought she was trolling, and I couldn't even differentiate a joke and a statement with that level of sanity, but Azwa shoved the phone to my ear, and suddenly I hear my mom's voice saying Abah has been waiting for me at the parking lot for about an hour, so I went to get my tab, and I had to rub my eyes with the amount of misscalls I received. 18? Bloody 18? Seriously? I called Abah, and he sound kinda pissed so I hurrily shoved EVERYTHING that's in fornt of me, in my bag, and took it downstairs with all the pillows, then I shoved EVERYTHING else in my locker, my desk, my bed, and shoved it in some paperbag, and took it downstairs, and went up again, I asked Azwa to help me with the shelf, and to be quite honest, it was pretty embarassing carrying a shelf that big (1 metre height, about 50cm width), but thankfully that's over. Bid farewell to Azwa, then I totally passed out in the car. That was so tiring, even though my room's on the first floor, but the parking lot isn't exactly near to my block, and I haven't had a decent breakfast, and I barely slept the night before (like seriously, it was roughly an hour) and everything happened quite abruptly, so, yeah, I was really tired, but I didn't sleep, I tried to, but I couldn't. I just rested my body.

When we got home, Abah told me to get in, and that he'd carry all my stuff in, and well, I wouldn't want to object that order, so I attacked the couch (which barely had any room, the living room is scattered with Qeelah's stuff) I was like a walking zombie- wait scratch that, I wasn't actually walking, just sitting, or laying down, so, I was an immobile zombie, I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't get myself to it. Ever since my sleep schedule got messed up, I couldn't get myself to sleep like I used to, it's more unnatural this way.

Anyway, the house was full of woman. Seriously, it felt there were more by the degree of fussiness that was present. There's my grandmother, check. My mother, check, Two f my aunts, check check, and ofcourse the youngest of them all to have a pretense of being a primadonna, Qeelah herself. They were all fussying about how her hard disk is undetectable with Windows, where's the Macbook charger, where's the camera, where's the clothes, which bag is it, what to wear, who's going with whom and a lot of stuff that did not survive in my brain, and I'm just there   lying down trying to sleep, I mean I'd love to help, but there's honestly nothing to help. It kind of made me thinking that I have so many women in my life. So. Many.

We arrived at the airport shortly after Asar, Qeelah went with Abah after Zohor, so we met up at the airport and there's one event that I really want to blog about. Okay, um, the airport was filled with people who's going to study in Egypt, since it's a MARA thing, they were a lot, and they brought their friends and family with them, and you know someone's going to Egypt to study if you see them wearing a nametag with a pink strap

So Harimau Malaya was at the airport too, I didn't get close, just passed by them, I initially thought those were some fans because, well, everybody has the jersey and some were even wearing it last night, but something screamed official on their jackets, and I'm not a football fan so I don't know their faces, but I do know their coach, and he was talking to some white guy, and he was walking beside me, then this guy wearing a pink strapped nametag kind of gave a 'sup' nod to them, I literally laughed at the spot. He was like "Sup dude? Going to some tournament huh? Well, I doubt you'll win, but good luck anyway" LOLOLOL.

We were there for hoooooooouuuuurrrsss, literally, and finally it was time for goodbye. And everyone cried....except me. Lol, okay in my defence, I did not see crying quite relevant to the situation. I mean, she's going there to study, not a war, if God's willing, she'll be safe and sound and smart and come back with Doctor title, and well, isn't that something worth celebrating rather than crying over it. Well of course, we won't see her for the next 6 years, she might come back during the breaks depending on her allowance, but it's not like she's never been away before, she'll be fine insyaAllah, she'll always be in our prayers.

When I got back home, I attacked my bed, I prayed slowly 'Please make me sleep, please make me sleep' and when I blinked, it's already 6 O'clock in the morning. Showered and had breakfast (Didn't eat since breakfast the day before), and well, online since that. :D


I'm quite worried of what I'll be doing now, since my time table is completely empty, until next week that is (We're going to visit Aisyah in Sarawak, how awesome would that be?) In the mean time, I just...

Labels: kawan, keluarga, rant