Jimmy Durante

He said, "Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down".

My co-supervisor once told me. And I took that to heart.

I believed it is true in the context of my co-supervisor and I. She was my lab demo, which I really looked up to. You can have a lot of lecturers and teachers in your life, but to have one that truly care about you is rare. And she is of that rare species I found on my first year degree.

She helped me really learned the basic hands on, that I excel in all my labs afterwards, and even argued with one of my other lab demo for teaching me the wrong stuff in her lab. And now, five years after, throughout my Master and after finishing my Master, I found it exciting to help this co-supervisor of mine to have a better understanding on my work for she was once helped me although I am nobody for her at that time around.

During my first class that I taught in 2008, a lab demo in Microprocessor-a third year degree subject, there is this one particular boy that really caught my interest in class. Let us call him E. It is a programming subject, and this guy always came with a weird coding, not always working, but eager to find clarification on why it is not working. He asked a lot of question in a very down to earth way. I don’t always know the answer since it’s my first year, but there’s never a slight of expression in his face that shows, “You’re my lecturer, you’re supposed to know.” Never.

So, I tried in every way possible to assist him in anything that he needs to know. Sometimes his question is beyond my knowledge, so I called my coordinator to ask him.

Until recently, I’ve been a new member to the solar car committee. A task I’ve been dreaming of since I was in undergrad, I want so much to contribute, now I’m in charge of the AI part. But I know nothing about the car. So, the committee decided to have a student leader of this project to explain everything to me. Do remember that I know nothing, never looked at the inside of the solar car, did not yet study anything, meaning that the student would have to answer a lotttt of funny questions from me.

And this very patient student did answer everything, explained from A to Z. And guess who he is? Yup, it’s E.

Superwife

I want to be a good wife to my husband. I really do. Not just another wife, I want to be a superwife. I wanted to make my hubby happy, cuz seeing him happy in return never fails to make me happy.

I did not have much examples of a newly married superwife that inspired me. My cousins were all depending on maids, or mums or some in a long distance marriage, so I really did not have any idea how superwife should be like.

I've always inspired by Posh and Becks since they are always with each other through thick and thin. And always ALWAYS holding hands in even the most ridiculous situation. So I began to call this one newly married couple in my office, Posh and Becks --> Indonesian version, cuz they're foreigner. Haha. They would always hold hands each time I saw them, even when they were eating. (Seriously! My friend, once even got disgusted with them)

See, the wife was a lecturer back in their country. And both of them came here because the hubby is furthering his Master. The wife had to stop working completely, and each day is filled with following the hubby to office. Which I think is a big sacrifice, from a career woman to a full time housewife, with no entertainment, no friends, and her life is her husband. Amazing, huh?

So, yesterday, this lucky husband came to my office and told me that he just finished his research. Trust me, I hardly even talk to this guy. But, he came eventually, with the wife. And told me that because of that, to say thanks to Allah, the wife cooked some Indonesian foods for everyone. Sweet kan?

And thatfood, which I forgot the name, tasted like one of the best thing I've ever tasted. Probably because of the sincerity of this wife. And while I was eating that, I stopped and pondered, how thoughtful that wife was. I couldn't stop thinking of her. The husband must be really proud and happy having her as a wife.

Today, as I was browsing through fb, i saw the husband's status..

Alhamdulillah Alat research ini sukses dan kami sujud syukur di Lab, semua ini tak kan ada artinya tanpa pengorbanan dan perjuangan isteri saya yang selalu menemani saya dengan sabar siang malam di Lab dan selalu memberikan semangat dan membantu memeriksa pekerjaan mahasiswa dan memasak makanan yang enak2. Semoga Allah... yang mampu membalas semua kebaikan isteriku dan juga semua pengorbanan orang tuaku.

And when I read that, I immediately replied..

Your wife inspires me to be a good wife later on.

And I seriously mean it. There goes, I finally have a newlywed superwife as an inspiration. Alhamdulillah, doa dimakbulkan.

.Suraya.

Today I'm early to work. Owh.. wait, my definition of early is that i came at 8.02am. My working hour starts at 8.ooam. ;p Normally i would come at 8.30am, (but i compensate that with coming home late, really late, i work nearly 12 hours a day), so today i'm considered as early. I have this habit of being not punctual. Even for my classes during undergrad, what more for work. But as if that is not bad enough, i normally hardly care if i got scolded for that, realllllyyyyyyyyy baaadddddddd habit ok!

But today, i am so motivated to come early to work everyday. Why? Here's a story about a girl named Suraya in my tuition centre. A typical normal story but i wondered why it touches me so deeply.

As i mentioned before, i was a part time tutor for a Standard 1 students in this particular tuition centre. Once in a while, i developed this habit of being late for tuition, though not as bad, but still. Last Tuesday, after buka, i was so full and having a lot of troubles to get up to work. Pemalas.. Ish.. ish.. After a bit of whining and complaining and knowing that i was going to be 5 mins late for the class, i parked my car and rushed to my class.

I saw these 3 girls from my class were playing with the whiteboard. (They have a funny habit of getting excited at erasing somthing from the board. For example, after my class, they would eventually fight, i repeat FIGHT to erase the board. And i was gladly giving them turns of who would rub the board). Deep in my heart again, was complaining on how naughty they could be. I mean i always love kids, but these kids gave me a second thought. Ahha.

Suraya was one of the naughtiest girl in class. Last week, she was absent, the week before was exam week so i did not have to come, meaning i havent seen her for three weeks in a row. As soon as they saw me coming, Suraya gave me the sweetest smile EVER, i seriously mean EVER, and half screaming, "Teacheeerrrrr" ever so manja that my heart just melted there, like a chocolate bar during summer.

See, i learned a lot of things from them, more than i could probably teach them. And with Suraya on that day, i learned that once u gave a little piece of your happiness to a person sometimes, u just gave an impact that is way beyond whatever u could think of.

Being so happy yesterday, when the office phone rang, instead of complaining, i picked up chirpily and it was one of my friend's supervisor. He would normally said hello in a very serious and monotonous way. But after hearing my "Hello" yesterday, he got so chirpy in return and replied in the same upbeat tone as mine.

Just a thought, imagine that Suraya is this supervisor's daughter. Once he got so happy with the phone call he received earlier, he might went back home and shared part of his happiness to her daughter, Suraya. And being so happy at home, Suraya went to the tuition centre and share her happiness with me, cycle of happiness, everybody comes home happy and satisfied.

Just an innocent act of kindness from an innocent little girl and i am fully motivated for the whole week. Suraya.. :)

Simply platonic

I was there on Saturday to witness his graduation. I remembered the first time i met him 6 years back in Upten. We didn't talk much. He asked for my number from Mel. We chatted online, then on the phone for minutes, then for hours, went to the same class together and before I knew it, life is never the same without him.

We went shopping together. We went out for dinner together. He would always ALWAYS picked me up (since I am not allowed to drive at night) although when he stayed in Shah Alam and had to come all the way to Equinne, then we had dinner in Mid Valls, and he would send me back to Equinne and then back to Shah Alam. Before we went back, we normally would stay outside my house and just talked about crap. About UFOs, aliens and all the silly things in this world that only we cared about. He was so knowledgeable that he taught me a lot of thing.. good or bad.. but simply because he said he'd knew i'd manage to differentiate them.

He was not the best person for others. A lot of my friends thought i was weird cuz he was a bit different from others. But what people did not know is that he was there with me.. through thick and thin. And the very best part about us is that; we never had any weird feelings for each other or talked about any feelings at all.. if both of us never beleived about platonic relationship before, this is the first time.

There was one time, when i had the worst time of my life. Last year. He went all the way from Shah Alam to fetch me from office and bring me jalan2 all around Putrajaya for days, although he was sick. So sick until one time he couldn't even drive and we dropped by at the clinic. How lucky i am to have such beautiful soul as my bestfriend?

Through all the years, sometimes we didn't manage to contact each other for weeks.. still when we talked to each other, it feels like we're with each other all the way, though this post might sounded quite romantic in some ways, i tau u tau what i meant. i tak tau if u ever going to read this, but if u do, Naqiuddin Basharudin.. there are so many things i would like to thank you for, as for now i would like you to know how proud i am in your graduation day :)

If you remembered one simple message u sent me about 5 years back, "I hope our friendship continues to grow beyond this stupid uni", well...

A tribute to Yasmin Ahmad

Tan Hong Ming: "Her name is Umi. Umi Qazrina, I like her"

Narrator: "Why do you like her?"

Tan Hong Ming: "She wears earring.."

Some part of my most fav ad that i can remember. Percintaan Tan Hong Ming, Merdeka ad by Yasmin Ahmad.

You see, I am not a big fan of Yasmin. Yup i watched all her movies. You can love a lot of thing about her movies, and you can hate as much equally. So i'm in the neutral line. Some controversial parts she showed were beyond my limit, but then again.. you can never hate Yasmin.. you just can't. She touches the heart ever so deeply.

I remembered when Sepet came out, I didn't have any Malay guy friends in uni, all my guy friends were Chinese. After Sepet, one of my Chinese guy friend finally confessed to my girlfriend that he liked her. Even more, he said that he had the gut to admit her feeling because of Sepet. And we eventually got even closer than before.. up until today.

Yasmin Ahmad, we lost such a beautiful soul, semoga roh Yasmin dicucuri rahmat. Al-fatihah..

PPSMI - I finally can have a say in this matter.

Since currently i am a tutor for Math and Science for Standard 1, i think that i can finally have a say in this matter.

See, when they first started this whole thing 6 years back, i thought that it was a great idea. I didn't have that much of a problem cuz in my secondary school before, we learned math in both languages; malay and english. But some of my friends from other schools are struggling to catch up during our foundation year cuz in uni it was 100% in English. So i thought, heyy ok what science and math in English. At least they can learn faster.

But then since March i have been teaching Math and Science on and off. Until i have been accepted as a permanent tutor in my tuition centre currently still teaching Math and Science. I have thought F2 and F3 students and Std 1 until Std 6 students. Then, i realized one thing.

THEY HAVE A LOT OF DIFFICULTIES IN CATCHING UP WHATEVER I'M TEACHING THEM.

Especially in problem solving.

They are good in addition and subtraction, they excel in calculating money and time, but they didn't understand what the question wanted.

The head of the tuition centre kept on reminding me to teach 100% in English, but they do not understand what i'm saying esp the primary schools student. So i have to use bilanguage, whether he likes it or not. Every problem solving needs to be translated as in I am an English teacher.

Example, Science question standard 1:

From the pictures, determine whether they are 'stem' or 'branch'.

After explaining how branch looks like and how stem looks like in English, my students asked me, "Teacher, stem tu ape sebenarnye bahasa melayu?" Yup, so much in finding some definition in English that a standard 1 students can understand about stem.

That is one thing. Or, it can be the other thing. This one student named Nisya in my class is a very adorable girl, 4 years old but her mum sent her to Std 1 class. So adorable, she always wear a pyjama with tudung labuh, haiyoo.. so cute! Anyways, her English is first class. In fact her English is better than some of the Std 1's student.

Then one day, while translating the problem solving in malay, i accidentally asked them in Malay, "So.. Tambah ke tolak?" Then the class went silent until Nisya asked me, "Tambah tu addition ke teacher?"

When they calculated the answer it was "21". Again i made a silly mistake by asking Nisya, "Nisya dapat dua puluh satu tak?"

Nisya's answer, "No, i got twenty one"

My reply, "Twenty one is dua puluh satu Nisya"

Then my other student said, "dua puluh satu tu bukan twelve ke Teacher?"

Haiyaaa... Rosak bahasa. I mean, although i can't really converse in skema Malay, I'm kind of good in writing in Malay. I got A1 for my Malay Language SPM, that means i must be really good kan.

So, the conclusion is, saya sangat bersetuju PPSMI dimansuhkan. Walaupun begitu, saya sedikit tidak berpuas hati sekiranya pemansuhan tersebut berlaku dengan kadar segera kerana ini akan menimbulkan masalah kepada murid-murid saya.

"I never did a days work in my life-it was out all fun"

Since I am in Electrical engineering field, perhaps one of the famous people that inspires me the most is Thomas Edison, the bulb inventor. He failed almost 2000 times before his bulb was working. And his reply to those who asked about his failure is very simple and inspiring, "I didn't fail. I just found 2 thousand ways how not to create a light bulb."


Here are some other famous quotes from Mr. Edison that i treasured most:


"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."


"Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."


"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."


"Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t."


"The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense. "


"I never did a days work in my life-it was out all fun"


Really, it was and still is fun here doing my Masters. And you Mister, you will not let me down with your negative commnets that you don't even sure whether it's true or not.


i will, i repeat I WILL pass my viva perfectly by this year, insya Allah. And you are not bringing me down.


I am in the progress of enhancing my algorithm, and i will be an expert in that field one day. I really will. Ameen. :)