nightmare orientation? come on!

I laughed when I read in The Star, a comment by a worried parent about her son's "nightmarish" orientation in UM.

The funniest part was her rather sarcastic bout the seniors in the medical faculty.

Life in UM is not what he thought it would be – it's been rather like living together with a group of gangsters or in a secret society. Medical faculty students are future doctors.

I did not do my undergraduate programme in UM but I can guarantee you that almost all universities have the same kind of orientation. Come on, there is no big deal with about seniors trying to intimidate the freshies just to show them what respect and the real life away from parents might be. The one-week orientation week is just a small challenge to the mostly pampered freshies.

I've been through humiliation as well during my orientation week; I was asked to sing in the public, then being laughed because of my 'Kuantan-Cantonese' (which is slightly different from KL and Ipoh. Not to mentioned the torture of wearing the same orientation t-shirt for days, waking up at 5 am having to jog for hours, having swollen feet, and lecturing from the seniors who never failed to remind us not to be cocky. And yes, we only went to bed at 2 am. And for the guys, there were room service waiting for them every night.

When I looked back or chat with my friends about our uni experience, we loved to talked about the funny and intimidating moments during our orientation. We laughed the fact that we were so naive and weak.

To the worried parents, she just need to let her son to be on his own and learn to be independent. If she wants her son to be involved in motivational activities, asked him to join camps or society. Orientation week is definitely not similar to national service.

Ministry of Higher Education vs Vice Chancellor

I supposed our Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Dr. Shafie Salleh agreed to retain the continued service of Prof Dr. Mohamad Zohadie as Vice Chancellor of Universiti Putra Malaysia despite the controversial poem issue and his objection to the transfer of UPM’s Aerospace Engineering programme to Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

And let's not forget the involvement of Dr. Shafie to recall the resignation of Dr. Terence Gomez of the University of Malaya, who was initially rejected of a two-year leave application to be based in Geneva after being appointed by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) as the Project Manager for the research area on Identity, Conflict and Social Cohesion.

However I question the constant interference and involvement of the Ministry of Higher Education which seems to contradict with the decisions made by the VC. I somehow believe this will indirectly threatening the position and the credibility of not only the VC but also the universities themselves.

Malaysian Idol no difference from Akademi Fantasia

First, I was disappointed with Akademi Fantasia and gave up watching the show. Then I thought there was still hope with Malaysian Idol. However after the result show last night, I really believe that Malaysian do not vote based on talent.

The voting system might work in countries with large population like the US whereby the chances of fanatic votes are low. I don't see this system works in our country. I'm not sure how many percentage of Malaysians are going to spend 65 sen per vote (which is darn expensive!). I don't even spend on a single vote for anybody and none of my friends did.

Since our judges are not powerful and influential enough to convince the viewers (who are the best and who should be out from the competition), I say we should allocate a certain percentage of votes to the judges and the rest to the voters.

UMNO has a plan for the malays, what does MCA have for the chinese?

I rarely follow up closely with the UMNO general assembly. But this year is slightly different. No, not because of Rafidah Aziz and her AP issue that I'm interested in but rather on the educational issues often debated by UMNO delegates. However, I have nothing to comment about education as I am very satisfy that our PM strongly support meritocracy.

I admire the spirit in UMNO leaders who fight effortlessly for the betterment of their people. While they are chanting Hidup Melayu and Pak Lah addresses his speech, A Giant Step for the Malays, I am asking what can MCA do for the chinese community.

I do not see any convincing action plans by the MCA leaders. I don't even see where is our direction and where the chinese community is 15 years from now. When I read the papers, all I see was their concern in winning election.

Where do the chinese community should go from here? I doubt I can get the answer.