Looking Like A Long Semester.

I was recently given a project to work on for my Financial Accounting class. It's got something to do with how Malaysian banks are helping people to grow financially, and the report has to be at least 75 pages long. It's almost like I'm already in the final year of my degree, when I'm supposed to carry out some kind of research paper.

It's this kind of thing that discourages me from becoming an academic. I mean, to become an actuary I don't need a Master's or a doctorate. Heck, I don't even need a Bachelor's degree - all I need to do is pass the professional papers. Easier said than done, naturally, but right about now it seems preferable to writing a thesis.

In any case, the fact remains that I am currently doing my Bachelor's degree, and I do  have to carry out this project if I want to get a good grade for this subject (which I obviously do). At least it's a group project, so that means I won't have to shoulder all the burden. My partner/classmate seems to have improved herself as a student (read: she's more mature towards work now) since our last semester, too, so that's encouraging.

Anyway, soon after I was given that hefty-looking task, another one came my way: I was elected as interim president of the MIU Business Students' Society. Or at least that's what I would have called it, if the rest of the committee hadn't voted in favor of the name 'Business Edge'.

Well, the club hasn't technically been formed yet. It was supposed to have been a long time ago, but for some reason the people put in charge of preparing the documents required for its formation never got round to preparing them, so now a new committee's been set up to finally get the job done.

So we had a meeting to select this committee, which would also double as the temporary committee for the club itself. Long story made short: I was more or less unanimously picked as president. My classmate, by the way, was made secretary, which would make our current task of preparing all the documents necessary for the official formation of Business Edge a whole lot easier to manage.

Besides that, I also have a video to shoot for my group presentation for my Ethnic Relations class. It's a good thing my groupmates are fairly competent and cooperative, so teamwork shouldn't be too much of a problem. What is a problem, though, is the fact that it has to be in full Malay, which isn't a language any of my other groupmates speak regularly or with much eloquence, and also that our presentation topic needs to be based on something from the subject syllabus, which mainly consists of topics similar to those you'd find in SPM-level History textbooks. History was my third-least favorite subject back in my SPM days, after Bahasa Melayu and Islamic Studies, so I'm obviously less than thrilled about that.

Still, at least I'll be able to create a video - it would be my second time doing this while in Manipal - which is something I genuinely enjoy doing. Obstacles are nothing but challenges, and all that.

It's shaping up to be an interesting semester, especially if you consider the variety (rather than just the sheer volume) of tasks that I'll have to undertake. Sure, it's going to be a long, hard slog, and sure, there will be much frustration. However, I believe that this will be good for me, as I'll have learned plenty by the time it's all over. This is why people go to university: to get a good, all-round education. If I'd simply gone ahead and done the professional papers without getting a formal university education, I would have been deprived of all this.

I love it here. I really do. 

When Inaction is Better.

There are some things better left unsaid. 

“Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day let him speak good or remain silent.”

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

[Bukhari and Muslim]

A friend of mine recently told me that I have a talent for knowing when to say something and when to keep my mouth shut. The extent to which this statement is true (and how serious my friend was when she said it) I may probably never know, but to me it seems that for this to actually be called a talent kind of implies that many other people aren't very good at it.

Being an introvert, keeping my mouth shut comes more naturally to me than it does to others. Growing up, I've never really understood how some people can chatter on and on without so much as stopping to take a breath; personally, even ten to fifteen minutes of non-stop talking exhausts me and prompts me to seek out an excuse to take a break from the conversation. Add in the fact that I tend to speak in, shall we say, 'hushed' tones of a volume so low that I am constantly asked by others to repeat myself and it's clear why I don't talk much.

They say the tongue is sharper than the sword. One can only wonder how many arguments throughout history could have been averted had more people been able to hold themselves back from saying words they knew would be better off unspoken.

There are some moments better left uncaptured. 

Image courtesy of iamlostandfound.wordpress.com

The above image is from the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, one of my favorite movies of all time (just because it was released at the end of last December doesn't mean it's not better than other older movies I've seen). 

In this scene, the guy with the camera, who traveled all the way to Iceland, climbed up a mountain and waited for hours alone in the snow just so he could take a photo of a snow leopard, decides not to do the very thing he came all this way for. Simply because he likes the moment.

In a world that is obsessed with recording every single moment of every single day, as evidenced by the popularity of websites like Twitter and Instagram, it was warming to know that I'm not the only person on Earth who doesn't mind not taking pictures as reminders of a particular moment in time, even though I have the means to do so. Sometimes I just prefer to live in the moment, which might just pass me by during the time it would have taken to whip out a camera and snap a photo.

Some memories are just better off sealed away in the mind, where you are free to relive them at any time you please without limiting yourself to having to view something tangible like a photograph. Indeed, it's as if photographs are losing their value with people taking photos of everything from their breakfast to their own distorted faces.

Kinda makes you wonder if old-timers would reminisce so fondly about 'the good old days' if they had stacks of pictures to remind themselves of those times.

There are some stories better left untold.

In the days following my umrah in Saudi Arabia, I'd planned to write a great deal about the ten days I'd spent in the land of the Prophet. There was so much I'd wanted to say, share and reflect upon. However, travel fatigue prevented me from writing about my trip right away after I'd reached home. Eventually, I got lazy and just didn't feel like writing about umrah even though a part of me wanted me to.

I started to wonder if it was really necessary for me to write a whole post about it. I mean, I'd actually uploaded only two photos from the dozens my family and I had taken while we were there. It showed that, for some reason, even though the trip had been immensely memorable, I didn't feel the need to actually tell people about it - not in its entirety, anyway. Most people who asked me how it went were met with vague, generalized narrations.

In the end, I decided that it was a story that was better off kept to myself. People say that the experience is different for each individual that goes to Makkah, and I couldn't agree more. Indeed, why would I share mine with other people who wouldn't ever be able to relate to it?

I'm sure most people might disagree with this stance, and I'm afraid there's not much I can do about that. But the fact remains that umrah had a profound personal effect on me, and I do not wish to let the experience venture much further from the confines of my memory. Just as I said earlier: some memories are just better off sealed away in the mind. 

The Two Talks.

I wanted to write a good deal on my trip to Saudi Arabia to perform umrah several weeks ago, I really did. I had envisioned myself writing two or three posts on the matter; such was the volume of words in my head that were just begging to be typed out. After all, the ten-day experience was the longest time I'd ever been on foreign soil, if you'll exclude my two months in America after I was born, of course.

But then some things turned up and I had to put off my writing about the trip. Information tends to gradually detach itself from your memory after a while, and it was no different here. As time passed and still nothing got written down, the numerous details that I'd planned on reproducing here got lost in the recesses of my mind.

However, I do still intend on writing at least something. Eventually. It's just after eleven at night as I'm writing this, and I don't intend on forcing my mind to cough up details of Saudi Arabia right about now. I've decided that I'll write it out slowly, bit by bit, and post it once I'm done. Yes, that sounds like a reasonable plan. I am midway through my month-and-a-half-long semester break after all, and currently at home in Ampang rather than in Nilai this whole week.

One thing I would like to write about at the moment, though, is my first visit to Rembau this year a couple of days ago. Note that I used the word 'first' because I expect to be going there again at several other junctures this year, and most definitely at least one more time this month.

Anyway, there were three other guys with me this time around (their names, in the context of this post, don't matter, and it's not like I normally use names on this blog anyway). The purpose of this trip, as far as I knew prior to that day, was to give a talk to the current Form 5 students (i.e. students in their senior year, for those of you unfamiliar with the Malaysian education system) to "share our experiences".

I'd been wondering just which part of my unconventional journey through tertiary education I would be talking about when I was told by the guys who'd come along with me that it was actually supposed to be some sort of motivational talk to get the kids fired up for The Big Exam in November - they'd even prepared a slideshow for the occasion.

Ignoring the fact that it was still only January and that November was ten months away and that any motivation we'd manage to build up would very likely mostly dissipate by the end of the week, I figured I'd just go along with it and give it my best shot.

Before we could talk to the Fivers, though, we were asked to speak to the Form One students (freshmen) first. They'd only been in the school for one week and, according to the teacher who'd asked us to speak to them in the first place, they weren't exactly having the time of their lives there. One kid had even left the same day he came.

The talk was, of course, impromptu, but I think it went well. The four of us talked about why being in an SBP (fully-residential school) was such a great opportunity for them, and why it would be a shame if any of them were to turn it down. I didn't do much talking myself, mostly because I really had no idea what to say and the other guys were already doing pretty well talking about their own SBP experiences, but when I was given the microphone, pretty much all I could talk about was how much I enjoyed playing football during my two years in Rembau.

After that was over, it was time to move on to the main event. We went to the school surau for the talk, where we found our audience already waiting for us. Not an ideal situation, personally speaking, as I usually prefer to get anywhere early so as to not keep others waiting.

So then the talk began and I was first up. The topic I'd been given was something about the competitiveness of the SPM scene, and how more and more people were getting straight A's every year. Sounded simple enough, as all I had to do was tell the kids that they weren't as smart as they thought they were and that there were, in fact, plenty of others out there who were better than them. Or something like that.

I wasn't provided with feedback on my slot afterwards, so I don't know for sure how well I spoke, or to which extent my message got across. What I do know is that if someone had recorded my speech, and I were to watch that recording, I would have hardly recognized myself. I was enthusiastic, I was animated, and I got the crowd going on several occasions. Quite a far cry from my usual monotonous, expressionless, deadpan demeanour.

The two guys who spoke after me (the third was the emcee) were a bit more reserved during their parts of the presentation, as they focused more on substance rather than style. Their approach was more in line with how everyone expected them to talk, rather than my blow-expectations-out-of-the-water effort, and I suppose more fitting with their respective topics.

Hopefully, our little talks with the two batches of students that day were fruitful, especially from their perspective. The results, though, won't be able to be clearly observed until later in the future.

From my own perspective, however, I do believe that I was positively affected by the whole affair. My unexpected performance in the school surau that day has led me to realize that, yes, I am capable of pulling such a thing off. I'd always imagined myself as a charismatic, occasionally funny speaker only for things to ultimately not quite turn out that way, but this time they really did. Sure, I could have done better content-wise, but other than that it was great.

And there I was, thinking that I knew myself. Turns out that you find out new things about yourself all the time, and I certainly did on this occasion. Here's hoping than I can put my newfound speaking capabilities to good use in the future.