I Was Just Thinking About...

I'm currently enjoying a highspeed and mysterious wifi connection which is accessible in my room. It has been ten days since I came back and now my time here in Penang is up. I can proudly declare that I've utilised my time well. :) I got to spend time with my favourite people and most importantly, my parents. I'll miss them dearly when I go back there - though they're just a phone call away.

I realised that I've changed my perception towards life since I left Disted. I somehow couldn't find my real 'self' when I was there (in Disted). I wasn't happy, to say the least. There wasn't something that I could do to bridge my thoughts and what I was doing. I lost determination. I was deprived of motivation. I persisted for nothing. Partly because I was ignorant of the fact that college is different from highschool.

What I detested most about college is the students. Some of them are just so apathetic about whatever that is happening around them. Ignorance - is definitely not a bliss. I would somehow love to direct this question to them: Why do you go to college? I remembered once a student answered my ESL lecturer that he came to college because his father wanted him to, and it's not his will to do so. I find this response appaling. Right to the core of my heart. It took me months to persuade my parents to send me to college because I want to learn. Differently. I don't want to be tied to our Malaysian education system, which requires us to learn things and take subjects which are unnecessary. I thought somehow I can learn more.

Yes, I did learn a lot of things from there. Partly because I've had wonderful lecturers for the subjects which I took. However, I was disgusted (still am) by some who didn't do things seriously. And it's quite obvious that they didn't put in their effort in doing so. It's none of my business to care about all these things but I hated the fact that their parents send them there in hopes of them being able to achieve something in this phase of tertiary education. Shouldn't they feel blessed to be sent there instead of being thrown to study the gruesome Sixth Form? Yet, they were not making good use of this opportunity which I almost lost hold of.

I somehow share the common beliefs with my friends in Uniten. There's Billy, who is (according to himself) bellicose, smart, SAT 2400 achiever etc.. He may seem like a braggart but he has taught me a lot of things. He taught me how to think big. Although it's rather annoying to talk to him especially early in the morning when you had a late night last night, with him talking about the most random things under the sun, he is able to feed you with some food for thought. He likes to do things in a big scale, exaggerating things. You might sometimes need to drag him back to Earth when he starts talking or planning things. But at least those thoughts gave him new ideas.

Most of my friends in Uniten are from humble family backgrounds. Some of them have 10 siblings! But they have a purpose in life, they want to do their families proud. I guess the best achievement in life would be self-actualisation, according to Abraham Maslow in the hierarchy of needs, which I can rememberly clearly from doing my last Psychology presentation which I never had the chance to present, anyway. It doesn't matter what you achieve, how much you've achieved. It's about whether you've found yourself in the process of achieving it.

Also read: This.