One of the students asked me why I would seem to rush or always in a hurry when they approach me. Well, for one thing, off lately I have things in my mind that seem to bug me. It is not about the classes or the students, it is something that I have thought about for a while and I do not have any answer or solution to that yet and thus, it keeps bugging me until now. For those who know me quite well, I can appear to be funny, bubbly but I can also turn into a person who appears to be snobbish/surly/unapproachable in a split second.
Well, it is me alright. I do not have multiple personality disorders or am not Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll. Well, the only suggestion that I can give to my students is go and read Brian Little’s book “Me, myself and us”. Yup. I am an introvert alright. I confirm it when I took a personality test when I was in Durham (just for the sake of exploring myself, I volunteered to be a guinea pig when the graduate school organised a workshop)
I had an appointment with two students from IIUM who came to UTM to collect some data. They went to see me in my office around the same time when the monthly engagement was held. So, I missed this month engagement with Datuk VC.
There are some of the things highlighted by him. One of them is about going extra miles as a lecturer cum supervisor. He did mention this in relation to the special student that we have at our school. The special student? Yup. He is my student. A student who emailed me back in March asking to meet me as soon as when I was free. At that time when he emailed me, I was at school. So, sensing his urgency to meet me, I set the time to meet him on the first day I went back to UTM after a year of hiatus (not really a hiatus, but a year of not being at UTM is a hiatus in itself).
I never think about going extra miles will make me famous or to be recognised by the VC. Nay. I am just doing my job. That’s it.
Something happened today when I wanted to take wudu’ at the usual toilet. I met with some of my TEASLIAN students in the toilet. Since all of the cubicles were full, I proceed to pick up the mop inside the tiny storeroom. Well, the floor was dirty with foot prints and whatsnot. I cleaned the toilet yesterday’s afternoon before I left but as expected, it was dirty today.
Some of them were disbelieved seeing me holding the mop and starting to clean the floor. Babes, it is normal ok for me to do that. I use the toilet so, when I see it dirty, I clean it. There are no cleaners to do the cleaning. Nope. Sigh.
If you walk around, you can hardly see cleaners nowadays. When I went to my alma mater last two weeks, I met with some cleaners at Human Sciences cafe. Apparently, they are assigned to pick up empty plates and cups from the table. This is not a common sight at UTM SUB cafe.
I can guess some of them are started to feel guilty seeing me mopping the floor. Yup. Some of them didn’t even dare to enter the toilet after being forewarned by others that I was cleaning the toilet. What a sight to remember for the rest of their lives to see someone who teaches them to clean the toilet! (tongue in cheek remark).
Well, I told them due to limited budget, there are no more cleaners to clean the toilets. I have seen a cleaner cleaning the toilet nearby the Chair’s office though (I know right. It is such a double standard. We have to clean toilets ourselves and those within the vicinity of those with administration position has someone else to do the cleaning). Well, that is not the point that I want to make.
I remember what my late mom taught me. If you can do it, do it silently. Don’t complain. When I am writing this post, I am not complaining. It is just to make others know that it is a common practice now to clean toilets at UTM even though we are the academicians. Well, we use the toilets as well. So, no need to feel entitled that we are better than others to avoid doing the dirty works, right?
Note: To all of my students, don’t be shocked to see me cleaning the toilet. Don’t feel guilty. After all, I am also using the toilet. If you feel guilty, perhaps you can do your part as well 😀 Wait until you be a teacher at a school with limited budget. You will see yourself doing the cleaning too. What a heck! Japanese teachers and students have long make it in their practice to do the cleaning TOGETHER. So, why don’t we do the same, right?
Japanese teachers clean toilet together with students (Photo from Pinterest)Japanese teachers and students clean together (Photo from Factslides.com)
I had a tuition class with the students. Some of them are sad because of their trial results. So, to cheer them up, I asked them to look at their exercise book where they wrote their targeted marks for SPM trial. I told them before if they can get the marks that they set in their trial, I will give them RM100. When I made the offer, I was prepared to spend RM600. Of course, they don’t believe it. After all, it is very rare for them to get such offer. But I am not their typical teacher.
Each of them was hesitated to let me know about their marks. Alhamdulillah, I came well-prepared. I looked at my handphone and searched the marks Ita gave me. So, I read their marks one by one (well, they already know each other marks when Ita discussed their paper a week ago). While reading their marks out loud, I checked their exercise book to see their targeted marks. Ainsyah is the only one who able to reach the target. She has improved a bit (well, from D to C is a good-enough improvement for her). Let’s be realistic. They know it is quite impossible for them to get a solid A (above 80%). I don’t want to put unnecessary pressure on them by suggesting they should aim that high. I told them to renew their target for the real SPM. But I don’t let them know about the monetary reward that I will give if they can achieve their targeted grade for SPM.
Why do I give them monetary reward? All of them come from B40 family. I want to help them to prepare for SPM by having their own money to buy stationery, revision book or other things. So, that’s why I gave them the RM100 reward. I don’t know how I can assist them since I am no longer at school. Last year, when I was at school, Ita and I bought stationery supply to give to all of the SPM candidates. I am planning to do the same this year in sha Allah.
The monetary reward that I plan to give them for their SPM is also to assist them to buy UPU form (yup, they have to buy the code at any post office). Even though they no longer have to fill in the UPU paper-version form like I did back in 1996, they have to buy a password/code to get accessed to UPU online. The UPU form that I had to pay back in 1996 cost me RM100 per form. That’s quite a lot back then (and now). At that time, I worked at MPH Bookstore with RM450 per month (or more if I did lots of over time or OT).
When I just started my Latihan Ikhtisas, the SPM results were announced at the end of March 2018. I still remember Cikgu Mun, the school counselor used her own money to buy the code for some students who did not want to apply to any matriculation centre or Asasi via UPU because they didn’t have the money. Their parents could not afford to buy it. It breaks my heart. I don’t want the students to stop from furthering their studies to higher level feel hesitated due to financial constraint. So, by rewarding them with monetary reward, I hope that at least I can help them in certain way. As a teacher, it is difficult to ignore such predicament that your students are experiencing. After all, it is not their fault to be in that situation.
Let’s face it. I am not getting any younger. There are times when I have the tendency to spring clean my email without thinking too much about whatever information I should take note of or concern about. Some of the information is presented in poster format. So, what I do is before I delete any of the email that I receive, I will “transfer” whatever information/posters that I consider as “worth” to be shared and remembered.
I know that some might feel “disturbed” to find irrelevant information from my post. My stance: Just ignore whatever information is not important to you. But I would like to thank you because you take the time to read my post. This is why I feel shocked when someone accidentally came across my post about the pouches. My first reaction is “Alamak, malunya ada orang baca“. But, when Assoc Prof Dr Nadiatulhuda emailed me asking to let her know if I would make a sewing session, I was starting to think that perhaps I should have a support group to unwind doing common thing. It does make me to question myself “Am I a loner?” Indeed. I don’t change much over the years apparently.
The fabric of this baju kurung was given by a senior colleagues as a gift for my PhD completion. She said that I need to wear something cheerful, pastel color clothing. Well, I have pastel color baju kurung but at that time not as many as darker color ones. The tear was caused by an over-heated iron. My fault, really.
A Thai advertisement on road rage makes me think how easy it is for us to lose control of ourselves and how easy it is for us to be a rational driver. All it takes is compassion. Sometimes, when people overtake me on the road, of course I feel shocked and angry but I would say out loud to myself “Perhaps he needs to arrive to certain destination due to nature’s call” [Agaknya dia nak pergi tandas kot]. It does work for me to calm myself and not to get angry with those drivers who drive recklessly.
There are times when I am stressed that I find it hard to stay focused on the road. So, when this happens I have the tendency to either drive a bit slow or fast especially when I am using Senai-Desaru highway. But what I don’t understand is there are some drivers who like to tailgate me for no reasons when I drive a bit slow or fast. Come on, man! I am not inviting you to have a race with me. Just leave me alone.
All of us know about the story between the late Arwah Syed Muhammad Danial (Al-Fatihah) and a Mr. Yew Wei Liang. Perhaps we can learn couples of things from their story and the story in the advertisement. We need to have the “co-driver” in us [we don’t need other person to remind ourselves, right?]
I got a request from my IIUM friend to vote her former PhD supervisor for a nomination of EduTech Awards 2019 (Tertiary Category). So, some of us asked why should we vote her because we do not know her contribution in a field of Education Technology. Sound fair right to ask such question? But, for me, as a fellow Malaysian we need to support our own people. Sometimes, more often than not, we do not know their contributions to the country due to lack of awareness about their expertise. So, let’s support each other. Click HERE to support our local talents:
Zainab Batin, School Senior Advisor, Labuan International School, Malaysia
Dr Nor Aziah Alias, Director of Academic Development, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
I had a little scary moment yesterday when my Dell laptop when “black” when I was using it. I called En Zul who repaired my Dell laptop when the battery was overheated. He suggested that I met him earlier before he went out to service laptops [He is always on a move]. I gave him my laptop and off I went to UTM a little bit late today. I arrived at quarter before 10am.
As I parked my car, I heard a tone from my phone to indicate incoming messages. En Zul said that the problem with my laptop is not the hardware like motherboard or RAM, but with the software i.e. Windows. Alhamdulillah. What is wrong with my Windows? I haven’t updated it for a quite some time. There you go. It does reflect that I have a lots to learn about computer/laptop. 😀
Since I finished my PhD, I never care too much about how I am being evaluated. But something made me change my view. It is not that I am being calculative now but I am more aware what is going on around me in terms of why certain people act in certain way.
Webometric was introduced more than 5 years ago. But, the award in Citra Karisma on webometric was introduced few years back. One of my friends said that bonus marks in ELPPT are important to ensure that you get more than 90% every year. All of these while, I am not that enthusiastic in keeping my webometric active. But after Latihan Ikhtisas, I realise that I am having difficulty to write down my thoughts.
Being one whole year at school made me preoccupied with other things than writing such as creating handouts, worksheets, examples of composition and such which are different from tertiary level of writing. So, I am having this phase of “reclaiming” my identity, my roles as a lecturer, not a teacher. This is the hardest part. I am not sure if others who had undergone Latihan Ikhtisas experienced this. But, I am experiencing it now and it makes me wonder why such thing can happen to me. I am still trying to find out the answer.
Not only that, when I was at school, UTM introduces e content as one of the categories for bonus marks. I am struggling to adapt to some changes at UTM. Some might say that nothing much has changed within one year, but for me, I perceive it as something new. Is it because I am looking at the changes with a new perspective? Like a short-sighted person who is given corrective glasses, finally I can see things “clearer” than before.
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