Updates!

A few updates in my life:
1) My laptop went dead on me. I believe it's not salvageable, unless I'm willing to fork up 700 big ones for it. So, I'm currently working on my sister's laptop which she got with her allowance (HA!) and now she doesn't want it. It was supposed to be my brother's slave computer but somehow he gets little electric shocks from using it. I'm now using a laptop named Jen Hoe and has none of my stuff in it except a folder for Afterschool.

2) I finally couldn't take all the pressure from balancing my Stony Brook preparations AND my job that I told Rajah I would quit in the middle of the month instead of the end. He was pretty cool about it. Yeah, I have a really nice boss. If only he could be less demanding. Or maybe I'm just lazy since I've never gotten a real job before and therefore, never known real pressure. [Rajah, if you're reading this, you know I love you! Hahahaha. Please don't write a bad testimonial for me.]

3) I'm finally gonna move to Stony Brook, New York! Yays for me! A lot of people around me has been oohing and ahhing about New York City when I tell them about SBU. It's an awesome place since it's only about an hour and half from The City that Never Sleeps, The Big Apple, the home of The Statue of Liberty, Times Square (THE Times Square and not Berjaya's rip-off version) and Broadway. I really appreciate being so near a metropolitan and all (kinda reminds of of home in Cheras where it's only half an hour away from KL city center) but I wouldn't have minded being in a suburban/rural area because people would be friendlier.

Speaking of moving to New York, these past few weeks has been really busy for me. I had to renew my passport (don't get me started on the immigration department!), apply for visa (who knew I had to pay so much and fill in so many forms for it!?), find an apartment, start shopping and packing and say my goodbyes. Nope, I still haven't found a place. Rent is really expensive, it's about $400 a month. Still, it's cheaper than living off-campus which is about $569 a month, and I can't cook. Meaning, crappy cafeteria food everyday.
I have no people to depend on there so I was kinda afraid of going-still am, a little. Thankfully, my sister has a couple of friends from SBU and I got Ms. Naini to help with contacting a few HELP seniors there. SBU has this Commuter Assistant program too.

I still feel pretty bad about not being smart enough to get a scholarship. Why is it always like that, huh? I've always been in the top class in school and I'm one of the good students in college (I think) but I'm never the best. In school, it was Gayathri and in college, it was uhh...someone I didn't know but definitely not me. I've always gotten better than average scores but not the best. In SPM, I was one A away from a scholarship. Well, at that time anyway. Now, HELP ADP decided to lower their requirements and if I entered college this year, I could've knocked off RM2,000 off my tuition. Not a lot, but it's something. Most scholarships need at least a 3.5 and what do I have? A 3.45! I'm so close but yet so far. I'm always the underdog.
I want to make my parents proud. It breaks my heart sometimes when I see how my dad has to work in Johor, away from the family and his whole life just to be able to support my education. Gah! So frustrating. If only I knew that this day would come. Then I would've taken Form 6 instead and saved us that RM30k. Or at least applied for a PTPTN loan.

I'm crossing my fingers and hope for the best for my experience in SBU. I'll commit all my time into academics, networking and employment. Pray for me!

How it is at work

I used to like answering questions on Yahoo! Answers, especially questions about education. The reason for the past tense is that I got sick of it after doing it for the past 5 days on my job. Allow me to explain: 23rd of March 2011 marked the release of the results of the most publicized (in my opinion) standardized exam in our country. Three letters; S. P. M. In short, it's like puberty for brains. I'm guessing about 90% of 17 year olds in Malaysia takes the SPM (citation needed). So, some of them, fresh out of SPM, believing in everything their parents and teachers tell them (e.g. Get into the Science stream. You should become a doctor or a lawyer.) start asking a bunch of generic questions on Afterschool.my or our Facebook page. The most common one would be; "Hi. My results for SPM is (some-grades-I-don't-care-jackshit-about-why-are-you-telling-me-this-?). What course should I study?" The thing is, I don't really mind helping them find their 'destiny' in life. I actually like doing those things. But can they give me some clues? There's only about a thousand of courses they could do and all they're tellin' me are some grades that don't really matter. 'Cause we all know what the Ministry of Education do to our grades to make it seem like we're getting smarter so the big-wigs at parliament can pat themselves on the back and call it a job well done.

There's one type of people among these that are particularly annoying. I call them the 'Doctor-wannabes'. Similarly, they tell me a bunch of grades I don't wanna know but this time, they focus on the Science grades. Asking me if they can still study Medicine if they did badly in their Biology, Chemistry and Physics subjects. I don't know what the teachers and parents feed the kids but all of them seem to think that doing badly in SPM is of an equal standing to the end of their lives. Okay, so they didn't do well in Science....they can still go into private colleges to do Medicine. The extent of what SPM grades can tell in the future is about as much as my ability to predict what my dog is having for dinner tomorrow night. (Read: not much, only limited to the immediate future if any at all.) But the bigger issue here is not with their Science grades, it's in their ability to see the mistakes in saying; "How to study doctor?", "I want to study as a doctor." and "Choosing a doctor as my career path." If they can't even converse properly, how can they do all that molecular biology, virus detection stuff? I'm also seriously doubting their interest in Medicine. Are they sincerely considering Medicine as a career field because they want to help mankind and all that noble stuff or is it because of the money or maybe it's their parents' lifelong dream after witnessing their children play doctor? I don't know. What I do know however, is that half of them would probably just drop out the moment they know how difficult and time-consuming it is to study Medicine. And then they'll take up some generic course like Mass Comm (#6 in The 10 Most Worthless College Majors list) or Business Admin. This just goes to show how practical us Asians are when it comes to careers. It's all about the money, eh?

Cursed

I'm currently blogging this from my office-YEAH! I got a job as a writer at Afterschool. It's this website that specializes in counseling for after SPM students (I know, what an original name, right?). Anyway, I'm happy 'cause I get to do what I like-writing and get paid for it. Plus, I only need to check into the office once a week. The rest of the days, I work from home. I finished all the assignments I could think of. I'm just waiting for my editor and boss to reply my e-mail now. Since I've got time...I might as well do something 'productive'.

For the past few years, I've been pretty irritable when it comes to correcting English grammar and vocabulary. I've only come to this realization these few days when I suddenly become more acute of wrong grammar in people around me. (Maybe it's because of my new job?) Now I know how hard it is to hold myself down from correcting people's English. I'm not saying mine is perfect. Heck, my spoken English is really bad...people have a hard time trying to understand through all my mumbling. But when I listen to people, I can't help but dissect the words that come out of their mouths and grammatically correct them. I don't say it out loud, oh no. I just mouth the corrected words out or just think them in my mind. It drives me crazy!

I personally know how embarrassing and terrible it feels when people correct me. My dad's been doing it for years and he's proud of it. That's why I don't correct other people. But what if they keep making the same mistakes over and over again!? Someone has got to do the correction, but hopefully not me.

Heh...looking back at my HELP college days, I've seen Trish struggle from correcting people many times. She would literally be in spasms from holding herself back. I didn't get it back then but I know now. I'm not at that level...yet?