Alumni. What does it mean to you?

Not knowing what to do tonight, I flipped through papers and letters on the coffee table. Suddenly I saw this...

"Oh, a letter from Kyudai!"

Feeling so excited, I opened it harshly..

2 pamphlets on Kyudai News.

They still remember me! 

and they took all the hassle to send me the news (even when they can just send it by email?)

That's why I always say to my students- half of my heart is left there.

Alumni is a crucial platform for ex-students to give back to their school. But just giving back is not enough. The school MUST remember the ex-students as well, otherwise, they will forget their way "home".

It should be a GIVE and TAKE, and WIN-WIN relationship.

Come August, the September. Convocation is approaching and I can't help wondering what UKM Alumni does for its members.. 

When was the last time your teacher touched your heart?

This entry is gonna be long. It is a combination of experiences I had over the weekend that really touches my heart. "Touches" not "touched". It touches me every time I recall.

29/1 I went to SMAPK to attend our alumni meeting. After the meeting, we chit-chatted with the Principal.

She told us this.

"Kalau setakat mengajar dalam kelas, itu bukanlah dipanggil "guru", tapi pekerja dalam bidang pendidikan. Pelajar tak ingat pun apa yang dia belajar dalam kelas. Tapi dia ingat ketika gurunya membelikan sebungkus nasi lemak kepadanya . Apa sahaja yang menyentuh perasaannya. Orang yang boleh menyentuh perasaan pelajar dengan berbuat sesuatu demi kebaikan mereka, dialah yang layak dipanggil "guru"."

Her words struck me.

All the way home, these words kept on repeating in my head.

Reason being, today (29th), I was supposed to go to my ex-class teacher's house, to attend his son's wedding. I was very close to this teacher, because he was responsible of developing the foundations of  me, and I haven't met him since graduating from primary school; which is 23 years ago.

A brief description about this teacher:

• He drove a red Volkswagen -- JG245
• Sangat macho, kategori handsome yang berjanggut kambing.
• He was my class teacher, taught us Maths and never failed to amaze us with his stories. 
• He built that sprinter in me -- tiap-tiap pagi sampai sekolah je kena lari keliling sekolah a few rounds, berlatih sprint sampai penat -- but at the end there was always hot milo and biskut kering (syoknyaaa)
• He was also one of our netball trainers -- like any other sports; football, badminton, etc.
• He would listen to us. Fulfill our request to bring our "teater tepi padang" to the stage -- and still remember who played what role (aku pun dah lupa)
• He wiped my tears and drive away fear of hurting myself during my first days training gymnastics.
• He was the only teacher who had ever caned me (and everybody else in the class!) 

His name is Cikgu Rashid Mohd Salleh.

My mother, who attended the wedding, told me that Cikgu Rashid was really looking forward to see me.

Aku telah menjadi sangat tak sampai hati......

sebabnya...when I was at matriculation, I had a chemistry lecturer yang garang but so passionate.

After graduating from my first degree, I heard the news that he was suffering from cancer. Somebody told me that he wanted to see me, but I kept on procrastinating the visit.

Until one day, I received a shocking news that he had passed away....and I regretted for not fulfilling his wish until now....

So back to the story, after finishing the house chores, we drove home to Melaka. Soon as I arrived, I asked my mother the invitation card and saw Cikgu Rashid's hp number.

I smsed him.

"Assalamualaikum Cikgu, Shazlinda ni. Maaf tak dapat datang tadi, ada meeting. Kalau tak keberatan, boleh saya datang rumah Cikgu esok?"

And instantaneously..

"Waalaikumsalam. Jemput datang ke rumah. Saya mmg nak jumpa sangat. Esok datang pukul berapa?"

And so there I was in front of his house the next day at 12 noon.

It was so nice to see him in good shape after 23 years.

We exchanged stories about each other, reminiscing the past memories.

Cerita 1: Drama

"Pada Cikgu, zaman korang la yang paling Cikgu enjoy sekali. Geng Cikgu ; Cikgu Ramli, Cikgu Bahari, Abah awak masih ada. Budak-budak pun tak menunggu disuap. Sekali ajar dah reti buat sendiri. Saya ingat lagi kamu dan Linda datang minta izin nak buat drama. Nazlah, anak Cikgu Muharam, haa..dialah yang jadi permaisuri dalam Ulik Mayang kamu tu. Kamu ingat lagi? ....Patutnya si Lin anak Cikgu Zabidi yang pendiam tu kamu pilih jadi permaisuri..hahahaha"

Cerita 2 : Pontianak

"Kamu pernah nampak pontianak tak?"

"Err~tak pernah Cikgu. Kat mana,kat sekolah ke?"

"Ha'ah, masa tu kami buat perkhemahan kat sekolah"

"Cikgu sendiri nampak?"

"Yee~saya nampak dia melompat dari pokok ke pokok. Tapi bukan pontianak la, penanggal.."

"Haa! Penanggal? So Cikgu nampak la tali perut dia?"

"Nampak~ berjurai2 bermanik2"...Alhamdulillah, dia tak masuk kawasan khemah kita, dah "dipagar" siap2"

"Huuuuuu~"

Cerita 3 : Cerita

"Balik2 pada cerita Lin anak Cikgu Zabidi. Bapak dia SK Tedung, mak dia sekolah ...(aku xingat)..

Mak dia dok fikir kat mana nak sekolahkan..akhirnya dia dia masukkan SRKM2.

Si Lin ni diam je, saya pun tak tahu dia ni ok ke tidak ke...Mak dia pujuk dia, kata lepas seminggu kalau dia tak rasa tak selesa, Mak dia akan tukarkan dia"

Tapi, biasala, saya rasa saya tahu ubat dia."

"Apa dia Cikgu?"

"Cerita! Kamu taulah Cikgu kan suka bercerita. Si Lin yang diam, tunduk je tu, bila time cerita, bukan main lagi mendengar. Dan lepas seminggu bila Mak dia tanya balik, dia kata; tak payahlah tukar sekolah--sebab nak dengar cerita Cikgu!"

--Hah korang, dah Darjah 6 pun ternganga dengar cerita cikgu!--

"Mmmphh, jangan kata Darjah 6, Cikgu,  dah naik U pun, kalau time cerita--ternganga juga!"

Cerita 4 : Rotan

"Saya ingat lagi, cikgulah satu-satunya guru yang pernah rotan saya :). Tapi sebenarnya saya taklah takut sangat pada Cikgu. Saya lagi takut kat Cikgu Ramli"

"Hahaha~Cikgu Ramli tu garang sampai habis. Kalau saya, garang tu garang juga, tapi lepas pukul tu saya pujuk balik.  Awak dan kawan2 awak pun saya dah anggap macam anak-anak saya sendiri.. Alhamdulillah, anak2 murid saya semua jadi orang."

"Sham, kat mana awak jumpa si Lin ni?"

"Abang nak bawak balik tak kucing ni?"

Family + Cikgu

"Takpe ke Cikgu pakai camni aje?"

"Lepas ni ajak kawan-kawan semua buat perjumpaan kat rumah saya"

I was so happy to see him happy. And he even said that he is gonna find my house in Nilai the next time he travels to his relative's house in Bukit Mahkota.

(Tapi Cikgu kena bagitau awal-awal ya sebab kadang-kadang saya kena pergi bengkel---padahal dalam hati nak selamatkan rumah yang macam tongkang pecah sebelum Cikgu tiba!)

What I did on my 35th birthday

2.30 am : Woke up to check FB posts and open birthday presents from my students :)

Thank you Iffah!!

  

Thank you Shafika & Wanie!!

3.30 am : Solat Hajat sempena birthday
4.30 am : Drafting final QM exam questions while sipping a cup of hot coffee
6.30 am : Solat Subuh + took a nap
8:00 am : Woke up and prepare kids for taekwondo
9:00 am : Breakfast @ mamak and went to the wet market
9:50 am : Played badminton with husband
10:15 am : Fetch the kids from taekwondo
11:00 am : Left for SMAPK Alumni Meeting @ SMAPK
                 Nominated as Vice President 2
2.30pm  : Left SMAPK for home +Zohor
5:00pm  : Watched Spongebob with kids while having kuetiaw goreng yg dimasak oleh Ustaz Wan Akashah.      (Sedap giler!!) + Asar

8:00pm : Maghrib + left for ALPS Electric (M) Sdn Bhd
9:00pm : Left for Melaka
10:15pm : Arrived in Melaka
10:30pm : late dinner + borak2 dengan Mak + online till now

Tomorrow I will be meeting Cikgu Rashid, cikgu kesayangan aku dulu yg dah tak jumpa for about 23 years.  

Kesimpulannya, my 35th birthday was just an ordinary day of which I would run around doing things. Tapi aku bersyukur sebab Allah masih membenarkan aku hidup to read bedtime stories to my children and hug them whenever they need it. I know that I am created for few good causes, if not many. 

And to my husband who is always understanding (although keep forgetting my birthdays hehe, but not this year), I am glad that I have you.

Lastly, this is a song I love to listen during birthdays. From my  favourite star, Koji Tamaki --HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Enjoy :) 

Japanese grads are Second Class?

I had a hectic schedule last week. 22/12, immersed in marking and grading, 23/12 attended meeting with JICA consultants-Pusat Inovasi Kolaboratif-UKMTech in the morning and then off to Look East Policy Symposium at PWTC. 24/12 submitted grades, 25-26/12 participated in Malaysia-Indonesia International Conference on Economics, Management and Accounting. The schedule was so hard I had to send my kids to their grandmother's.

Oh, back to the title. This was a part of a speech by a minister who officiated the Look East Policy Symposium. He mentioned that there is this perception that students who are sent to Japan are second class students, but actually it is not. Whomever gets a scholarship to study abroad are equally excellent; regardless of where they go. 

But in reality, I think it is true. I am not saying that Japanese grads are of second class, but the perception does. Why do people think so? The reasons might be

1. UK and US are always the first choice. The rich and famous send their kids there to study, so if you are selected to go there, you must be the luckiest person on earth.
2. UK and US have the top (or should I say toppest? :p) universities in global ranking, but Tokyo University, the toughest univ in Japan never topped the chart.
3. UK and US grads are the nation's decision makers. Japanese grads? Do tell me if you know anyone.

Based on my experience, I applaud those who have successfully graduated from Japanese universities. Can you imagine, with zero knowledge of Japanese language, you have to master it in less than 2 years before entering a university that teaches everything (including English) in their language? Not only that, your actual purpose is to master the knowledge but how can you master the knowledge before mastering the language? At the end of the 2nd year of matriculation we had to sit for the  highest level in Japanese language proficiency test (JLPT1) before sitting for another 2-3 exams before qualifying ourselves to enter a university. It was quite painful, but what I learnt from this experience was that we should never underestimate the ability of our brain. All we need is patience and persistence.

On the other hand, those who are sent to English speaking countries are just so lucky. You have learnt English like your entire life and then just learn new things, new technology there. Your probability of passing with flying colors are higher than ours! But this is just a minor concern.

The real issue for me is the third one. Although the program to Japan started in 1983, only 27 years ago, Japanese grads have yet to appeal their presence to the society. We have yet to become the nation's key decision makers. Not many of us are entrepreneurs; what more technopreneurs (the nearest field besides being a technical person at the shopfloor). That is why people think we are of second class.

That is also why I would try my best not to turn down important invitations by the alumni (I belong to JMC/JAD* Alumni). I remembered the first one was to give a motivational talk to JAD first year students who were camping at Gombak (near Perkampungan Orang Asli) and the second one was to attend the symposium as participant cum interpreter. I believe a strong alumni will further enhance the capability of the graduates.

My dream is to see the Japanese grads stand tall, as tall as other overseas graduates and of course local grads, and together contribute to the country. We should be everywhere, just anywhere; private or government, manufacturing or service, having a boss or being the boss, and from there, little by little we should climb that ladder to the top.

None of us are second class unless we tell ourselves that we are. Full-stop.

Meeting sambil berdiri..Ada berani??

Meeting and eating has become a regime in government departments. You can get a full meal if your meeting stretches the whole day. Meeting rooms are so cozy, you can doze off if the meeting is boring.

This culture has never been a practice in a Japanese company (oh should I mention, manufacturing company).  When I was working as an engineer in a Japanese MNC, meeting is usually conducted in meeting rooms in each building you are in. RF Design section was in Building 2, which has 1 meeting room. Meeting is done accordingly, short if everything is ok, a bit long if there is a problem. But never it surpassed 2 hours.

And, eating? NEVER. We were not even served a cup of coffee. If you have a meeting with customer in Building 1, where the General Manager is in, then you will be lucky enough to be served with one. Other than that, you bring your own mineral water la.

You knowla how the Japanese companies are very particular about "Muda" (wastage).They will try their best to reduce wastage in terms of money, energy, time and whatever.According to my husband, the company now is moving a step forward.

To reduce meeting time, make faster decisions, meetings are done standing.The meeting rooms are now locked, only opened for trainings for new staff.Another meeting area will only have a table, if they need to use projector and laptop.And this includes managers meeting which is held every Wednesday. (No wonder my husband looks so tired after work on this day).

They have been implemented this kaizen for about  a couple of months now. I am not sure how they quantify the results of this kaizen effort, but I am pretty sure everybody would want to end the meeting quickly.

Who wants to stand up and argue for more than an hour??

It is time for new DIARY!

Today we spent some time at Low Yat and KLCC. Had lunch at KLCC and then singgah PetroSains, then off to Kinokuniya.

As usual I will go to the stationery corner first and then only the book section.

Hah! The diaries & schedulers for 2011 is out!

Only God knows how fussy I am about diaries. Well, I used to keep the 365days diary during my early years in Japan. Later when I got busier, I turned to scheduler, in which I will plan and record my daily activities.

In Japan, scheduler is a must for nearly everyone. Even the teenagers keep their scheduler. And the new designs would come out as early as October, because usually the calender will start from December the previous year. And the design...oh...just can't help it. Sooo many!! A variety of choice on the sizes too! ( I will upload the photos of my previous schedulers later..no time now lah)

So, what is the design of my choice? Whatever the cover is, the internal part must have

1) Large monthly view, where I can see my overall schedule of the month (this is the reason why I don't use scheduler provided by UKM)

2) No week views. No need for that. I plan by month

3) Ample pages at the back to jot down prompt ideas.

4) The scheduler must be easily opened, meaning that it is flat when I am writing on it.

Oh ya, back to the Kinokuniya story, too bad the imported diaries and schedulers from Japan are way too expensive. And the locally produced ones, not attractive at all. I will wait  until more designs come out (which is unlikely for the local product) tapi takpelah.

Uhh..tak sabarnya nak dapatkan scheduler 2011. New scheduler will bring new spirit of the new year..:))

Program Knowing ASEAN+3, Tokyo-Yokohama 2009 (PART 1)

I was called to our Centre Chairman’s room a few months before to help the students finding funds for this project. The project, Knowing ASEAN, is a program where students travel to ASEAN countries to establish network and learn more about the country they visited. This year, they are extending it to Japan, so that is why it is called Knowing ASEAN+3 (+3 is Japan, Korea and Taiwan). And when it comes to Japan, there is none other in the centre but me ;).

This program was realized last week, after rigorous efforts made by the students (and me, lol). Finding fund was so difficult in this time of economic crisis, so besides cutting the itinerary short, I have asked Matsuzaka-san, one of my good friends in Fukuoka, to introduce me to someone in Hatobus (he worked in the company before). So he introduced me to Yoneda-san whom later I realized is one of the managing directors of the company. Yoneda-san really listened to our needs, and even gave us some discounts on the whole charges. Matsuzaka-san told me that Yoneda-san arranged everything on his own-which task he can always handover to his staff.

So, there we were, on a plane to Narita, on 6^th Dec, 2009. For many of the students, it was their first trip overseas-and of course, their first flight. For me, it was a homecoming, although I only spent 3 months of my total stay in Japan in Tokyo.

We arrived at about 7.30am in Narita, but the immigration queue was so long we finally got out at about 8.30am. After buying Tokyo Metro Pass which is cheaper for Narita users (Yen710 --> Yen600) and rented Japan sim card for 105yen perday (which is much cheaper compared to roaming), we took off to Tokyo Keizai University(TKU) by Hatobus. We were very fortunate because the weather was very clear we could see Mt Fuji from afar.  We finally arrived at TKU at 11:20am due to the traffic jam. Prof. Tajima and his colleagues welcomed us with a speech and a lecture on SUICA-how it helps in retaining customers. Then we went on a campus tour and lunch with the Japanese students. There was an “ikemen” in the group and I saw how interested the girls were on him ;). Finally, we moved on the next destination, ASEAN-Japan Center. Like others, I was so tired but the topic presented during this visit was very interesting to me because it was quite related to my phd research proposal theme. Obviously, most questions during the session came from me. Oh, I just wished I had more time there. The session ended at about 5pm and as we went out of the building we saw Tokyo Tower standing proudly not far from us. Apalagi, keluarlah semua jenis kamera!

Finally (nilah baru final), we arrived at Ginza Capital Hotel for check-in. The room was small, as expected, but for me, ok aje. Sangat letih, but I wanted to wait for SMAPxSMAP at 10pm. Meanwhile, as usual, there was Hey3x and on that day it was ARASHI special. At 9, I could not bear it anymore so I thought of getting a nap for an hour before 10. Bangun-bangun aje dah 1am…Missed SMAPxSMAP..GERAM!!!