I was quite ecstatic to find out that Eric will soon be learning the Arabic language in school. I don’t know Arabic, but I know how to read and write in Jawi, hopefully that’s a jump start for me to help Eric with his studies. It’s always good to be able to learn a new language; many of my friends who can speak Arab are earning money like crazy. We shouldn’t underestimate our children’s intellect and the ability to learn especially when they’re young.

Which brings me to the topic about teaching Science and Math subjects in English in Malaysian schools. I’m not so clear about the current stance by the government, but it sure will be a sad day if and when the government decides change its policy to not teach them in English anymore. I don’t understand the hullabaloo that’s going on about this. The excuses I hear from people that wants English as a medium be stopped are irrational at the least.

The most popular and laughable excuse is that teaching Science and Math in English is not nationalistic. Is talking in Malay the only way we maintain our nationalist spirit? Does that mean we can’t use Chinese, or Indian or Kadazan language to learn these subjects, for fear that we are not nationalistic? It doesn’t make sense. Talking in English doesn’t make one any less of a Malaysian. People who use this excuse doesn’t understand the word nationalistic. Being less nationalistic is when someone uses the national anthem Negaraku to humiliate people of our country.

And then there’s this talk among “intelects” and “psychologists” that analyzes trends of the primary schools, saying that more students are being expeled because of the increasing failure rate of students as a result of the English medium in Science and Math. So… the decision to expel a kid is made by the English language, not the school itself. I see. Idiots. If the school notices a high failure rate, why not remedy it by giving extra tutorials and talking to the parents on how they can improve the child’s education? Believe it or not, I heard that many schools prefer expulsion because they didn’t want their passing % in the national school exams decrease. Shame on those schools.

Of course, there are those rural folks. Because they’re so rural, they don’t speak English well enough and therefore chances of failure are high. Understandable. This requires the creativity on the school’s side by making English learning more fun. Music always works. I’ve seen a few fellow friends of mine who’ve managed to combine English and Math for effective learning, and my engineer cousin-turned-teacher who did it for his Science subject. We have to prepare rural children to use English. We also talked about how the Internet could bridge the gap for rural community to learn more and faster about the world around us. However, without exposure to English, it will all be in futile.

I want teaching Math and Science in English to continue. Importantly, keep teaching the teachers so that they can improve on their language skills, or even better, draw more talented educators. Give this policy more time. 6 years is not enough. The more exposure, the better.

Teachers and parents, take note.

Christmas this year started well, starting with the afternoon before Christmas having a late lunch, just the kids and myself and their daddy at Sushi King. We enjoyed ourselves so much that I never got the chance to take some shots of the food or of Eric ravenously gobbling up all the sushi. The eve was spent at my cousin’s new house for a housewarming party. Christmas day was spent with relatives on my husband’s side. All in all, spending time with family is always a good thing.

In the evening, while trying to confirm the registration date for Eric’s first day of school, I was greeted with an unfortunate sight of the Stella Maris Primary School website being hacked. The worse thing about it was not the hack itself, but the fact that the hack was done earlier in the month, yet no one in the school’s supposed “web team” did anything about it. It goes to show that not even the Principal or the teachers of the school itself ever bother looking at their own web site, let alone use it.

I got a scare during the checkup with my OBGYN a few days ago when I found out that I had gallbladder stones. My ultrasound scan the next day confirmed its existence; it filled a quarter of my gallbladder. My OBGYN doc told me that it’s most probably cholesterol stones due to unhealthy eating. Big surprise there. He also told me that a surgery is required if the condition is serious.

What he didn’t tell me is that with every surgery, they will remove the gallbladder altogether, instead of just blasting the stones away like I’d imagined. There is almost literally no other choice than removal. No way am I going to have a missing organ in me. Whatever organs I have, will stay with me till my soul is gone from this world. (more…)

This is why I hate living in apartments and reading the news. My heart breaks every time I see injustice done to our children. These couple of weeks I’ve been reading nothing but bad things like:

• A body of a newborn found in a construction site near Menggatal,
• Babies died or are ill due to contaminated milk by irresponsible factory in China,
• A father and uncle r@ping their mentally-challenged daughter/niece since she was 11,
• A 16-year old girl murdered, quite possibly by his drop-out boyfriend and friends.

And here’s what’s happening around my apartment, and in the same stairwell

• A father beating his children (sounded like they’re as young as 9 years old up to their teenage daughter) almost every day and their mother screaming — couldn’t understand what they were talking about because it was all in Chinese but I swear one time a girl even shouted “Tolong” [help]), up until that one day when I couldn’t take it anymore and reported it to the guards; the guards told me afterwards that the father was “just reprimanding them”, and so far till today no screaming… yet,
• A little baby screaming his or her heart out late at night, every night, for more than 10 minutes, almost sounding as if he or she was tortured or something (but I admit, some babies do cry like that for no apparent reason, speaking from experience).

I’m getting very paranoid about the state of things, that sometimes I couldn’t help myself but cry late at night and prayed to God so hard that these children be spared from their suffering.

I hate the fact that I don’t have the guts to do more about it. It’s fear that I may be seen as meddling about in other people’s affairs, which may put my family in jeopardy. My husband even tried to stop me from reporting to the guards when the father/daughter scream-and-slash fest was going on somewhere above our floor.

The school bus may look harmless to you just by looking at the photo, but you didn’t see how packed it is. School children were stuffed in like they were in a can of sardines.

How desperate is a school bus operator for money that he or she (in this case, unfortunately, it’s a she) is willing to let the kids get cramped like that? A bus which is suppose to seat 15 at the most seemed to seat almost 25 kids.

Give me the number of the school bus association, and the next time I see one like this, not only will I report it to the association, I won’t hesitate to report this predicament to the papers.