Asean Logics Kuala Lumpur 2010

What I will post here will be:
1. The experience I got there.
2. The issue and points I got there.

At GMi,
we were supposed to start moving to IIUM by 7am. But guess what? We started hitting the road at 8.30am!! Damn! I was so pissed off!!

At IIUM,
start of the program. The first issue brought forth was an introduction of ASEAN. What is ASEAN? It is an organization of Asean countries, which currently their mission is to create a 1Asean Community, just like the EU. Speech given by Mr Haji Zafri, vice president of PEMBINA and Ms Rabiatul Adawiyah, vice President of UiTM SRC.
Further in the forum, they gave explanations of this mission in the perspectives of Islam and also IPT, focusing more on youths as pertaining to the Program's objective.
So many things I asked, all of which I see has so much contradiction and hindrance from the real world. (I'll explain the issue brought forth here in the 2nd part)

Then the second issue is more on the youths' perspective; how exactly they can attain the objective of Asean and what obstacles we face. The speakers were brother Ibrahim Sani, former debater of IIUM and Dr Farish A Noor, world renowned social scientist.
Their speech was totally excellent! Superb! Awesome!
They presented,
how to engage with the current status quo, what is our first step to achieve this 1Asean Community starting from school and later on, what quality is required to ensure we are able to accomplish our mission. He said, it is better if we had no experience ourselves, so that we will have more freedom to govern our field with more creativity. (by brother Ibrahim)
how the youths evolved over the years. He really described it from the very beginning of history like Syed Burhanuddin Al-Helmy and Yusuf Mustafa, till today. How exactly we, the current youths, mostly lost the burning spirit of 'youth movements' due to the 'youths culture'. Did you know, that youths are the sole reason/entity that causes Social Change? (by Dr Farish)
I tried to convey some things I think is crucial to complete the package they are giving us, but those delegates took our chances as participants to ask them! Like, they got a whole ten days before to do research and a whole hour after this to their own and they're taking our time? i was really frustrated!!

Then the third session was the presentation of results of research by the delegates.
Finally the closing speeches by the invited VIPs which one of them took almost an hour! lol I assumed most of us were sleeping off, even me!!

Finally, it was time to go home around 7pm. Tired, yeah. But I got valuable lessons too. Didnt go for Physics class that night. Unable to attend.huhu

ISSUES and QUESTIONS:
1. When instilling unity into youths, the politicians seemed to do the opposite of this.
2. To start exposing the youths to beneficial social activities ie ASEAN stuffs during tertiary level is not so efficient, isn't it? I mean, it should start from the primary stage in other words, to change our ways of educating the students.
3. How exactly are we to determine our own paths when our very and only way to become what we want eg politicians are officiated or should I say, filtered by the politicians themselves. Whats with our very own Exam-Oriented System and not to mention all the entities taught to us during school, isn't it unfeasible to accomplish the objective?
4. Since Youth Culture negates the growth of Youth Movement, is it possible to synchronize the two of them, since we (youths) are already attached to it?
5. Never give a public speech more than 10 minutes. You won't achieve your goal.

Debate~

Previously.....

The Most Prestigious 9th IIUM Interschool Debating Championship 2010 is here!!

Fewer schools, yet addition of another category; Arabic.

Same dinner, yet the multimedia presentation never failed to steal my heart.

This year, I'm looking forward to four schools;

Sri Ayesha Islamic International School (SAIS),

Maahad Hamidiah Kajang,

Kolej Islam Sultan Alam Shah (KISAS)

and

Sains Tengku Abdullah (SEMESTA).

And the result.....

Can't tell now. Secret. Geheimniss. hehe

Anyway, it teaches me a lot on being a teacher as well as a friend. Its more than just accompanying; its what you do while accompanying.

Eventhough I know I have trials this week ( the week of the debate!! ), where many might think I'm crazy doing this when this trial is coming up, but I have my own agenda.

To prove that I can handle 'debate' with my studies.

I sorta did it.

Alhamdulillah.

SEMESTA's "PETAH BICARA"

After Friday prayers, I dashed straight to Gombak using the train to be fetched by Faiz. The convoy consisted of me, Faiz, Zamir, Syazwan, Farhan Nur Diyana and Farhana.
We're going to SEMESTA!!!
On the way, upon reaching the toll, the car in front of us (its a Merc) tsangkut at the Smarttag. Jenuh dia cuba sentuh kad di TnG skrin, xberhasil. Sampaikan dia tpaksa kluar kreta, hulur2 Smarttag dia kat sensor!
Kitorang kat blkg dah gelak gila2!
..........
At Bentong Mosque, I saw something; a Savvy parking in the middle of the road. Macam xbsalah je dia. Seltsam...
Never seen someone doing that throughout my life before.
..........
Setibanya di SEMESTA...
A hundred and twenty students were waiting for our arrival! lol
Seriously, we weren't expecting that amount of people. But, think bout it again, its an appropiate amount to have a good start to establish our debate culture.
All we did was just introducing ourselves and sharing our experience.
(my knees were shaking. Nasib baik pakai seluar tebal, blh cover)
That night after the session, me and the rest went to Warung Zul to discuss what to do for the next day (baru dapat jadual). We were not prepared as in what to teach actually, and we had a head-cracking time trying to find the suitable activity for the dear students. That time was the first time I'm cooperating with them in doing something like this and I can feel the euphoria of critical thinking coursing through my veins! (even though I was reeeeeeeeaaally sleepy that time)
Knowing I'm not as good as them, I practiced that night a bit for tomorrow.
Man, the hotel room was VERY cold!!!
Susah giler nak bangun pagi!!! Brrrrr!!!
..........
Our english category was held in the meeting room, EQUALLY cold! Mostly theories on debating.
I'm getting better at confronting them this day. Not shaking anymore. And I did my job to convey what I have to.
Zamir and Faiz were really great in their job.
..........
Gymnasium; where the war begins.
The students were to be in groups of countries and tell the 'world' that they deserve to live while the world is drowning in the melting of ice at the polars in this global warming period. Only place to survive; Mount Everest.
Totally fun! So many brilliant and creative ideas thrown out by them!
I liked the perspective they took; different. Malaysia talked bout politics, South Africa touched on their ability to adapt, Palestine takes sympathy as their asset and USA, as usual, their power.
..........
Debate pulak petang tu. Sambil tu, ada students yg kne stick to us meanwhile. I tried my best to have them speaking, but, whoa! its totally not as easy as ABC. I got a girl who's reeeaaally shy (in blue) and kept smiling in a cute manner; but not speaking!
So, what I did was:

1. Read a text - to hear their voice
2. Recite a sentence - to magnify their voice
3. Act - to instill emotions in their speech

Yeah, it went quite well to me.
..........
The night was absolutely different experience for me.
It was the FIRST TIME EVER me having my audience laughing throughout my speech! I was so excited!!
*credits to Sri Ayesha for this =D
Malam tu gak, ada someone approached me to speak a few troubles he's facing himself.
*BEEP! Error, can't story anymore on this*
..........
Last day.
We, Muhammad, Zamir and Faiz, gave a public speaking demo. All of different types.
I also managed to teach them a few extra stuffs:

1. Difference between listen and hear
2. Songs - what to listen and why listen

There were public speaking competition amongst the interested and haven't-spoken-yet persons. Zamir even organised a PASUKAN SORAK! Zamir, you are 'someone'!
My speech in the closing ceremony, debate style, was something I picked from the previous year's IIUM Debate speech by Faiz himself.
And lastly, we presented something they've always done to us; bdiri dan ucap sama2 "terima kasih SEMESTA!" lol
The ending was the best in my life.
We were swarmed by the students to get our autograph, e-mails and other stuffs. I finished the last (probably i'm more famous, hehe)

LESSONS LEARNT:

.1 Believe in yourself.
.2 Never reject something unless proven wrong and not beneficial.
.3 Everyone has the potential for anything. The thing is, to find the trigger to unleash it.
.4 My messages are not the normal "all the best", coz I believe in effective and thought provoking messages do change a person.
etc...

Tagged persons here are:
Mia, Amir Gaga, Arif, Taufiq, Eizleen, Haiqal, Dina, Vishnu, Adil
(yg mana xde, sori ye. xingat nama. hehe)

Finally I'm reading the News!

Here are some updates I got which got up my nerves.

1.
Some guy said, we must reduce this so-called big problem of anak luar nikah fast. How? By giving sex education to the society ie how to do 'the thing' without getting babies eg using condoms, IUV injections (maybe not IUV, something...lol) and pills. What's more "interesting", he gave a suggestion to reduce HIV cases by giving free injection needles to drug addicts.
His stand was, to tackle the BIGGEST problem first ie the massive anak luar nikah spawning first, then tackle bout the behavior and social problems of the society.

-The Star, Thursday 1 April 2010

I have one thing to say. BULLSHIT.

This guy totally (to me) don't know what he's saying!
To rebut all his points, I have one point to crush em all.
Just imagine, if you are trying to finish all the cookies on the table at home, not wanting them to exist anymore there. No matter how many you eat, its just gonna come back as long as there are shops selling it, trucks delivering it, factories producing it and human heads who thought about it.
And even more will come when the house members found out it finishes quickly, they'll surely buy more, therefore you'll have to eat more to finish them.
See?
To eliminate the problem, you have to go to the source, no matter how slow it is.
In this case, tackle the younger generations first, as they're the ones growing up and still able to be amended. For the current generation, they need to be shown hard, black-n-white evidence of the worst consequences of their obnoxious acts.

This has burned my spirit to be a teacher even more.

2.
The blizzard causing a student-filled bus to crash down a bridge nearby Glasgow.
Floods all around.
Blazing heat and continuous rain, in weird orientation in Malaysia (Bangi, my place).
Haze covering the atmosphere.
So many environmental problems and issues and yet, we seem to say, "how's the day?" as if nothing is abnormal.
The thing is, many campaigns have been done to preserve and 'repair' the environment.

Go Green theme in many events eg GMi Open Day (my place again. hehe)
No Plastic Day every Saturday in supermarkets.

But I've seen some scenes that I think we need to do something to clear our heads, I mean, especially privately if we must.
Someone scolding the cashier over the loads of things he had to carry over to his car due to no plastic given to contain them. When told he must pay for the plastics, he got even mad. Lastly, I don't even know what happened coz I have dismissed myself away. But I saw what I have to.

Lets think about, what's in his head at that time, and what is so wrong about the whole plan of 'going Green'?