which do I like more?

If you were to be given a chance to talk to God and thank Him for one thing He has created, what would it be?

Do think about it and leave your answers in the comment box!


My answer? I would be struggling to give one because I do not know what do I appreciate more, food or sound, both of which I enjoy very very much and I really do not know how sad will my life become if I were to lose my sense of hearing and taste one day.

I love music! I love to eat!

Wooooo Hoooooo.........!

My favourite movie star

Is the name spelled Jacky Chan or Jackie Chan??

Hmmmmmm....

NS or Jail?

"Going for National Service camp is as good as going to jail."

Have any of you heard this sarcastic remark before? I have.
And I have been thinking these days, is it better to go for the camp or skip it thereby break the law?
You see, if you go for the camp, it is three months of boredom and suffering; if you skip it, you go to court, pay the bail and go to prison for a period of time hopefully less than a month.
So which is better?
Hahaha!
Do not worry, I will go for NS because once upon a time I sang this song and made a promise to God.

Lesson to learn, do not make promises you cannot keep.

Right or Left....oh, I mean Wrong

This one question had been bothering me for years, yet I do not want to talk as if I were so holy and perfect. If you think I am being proud, sorry for the misunderstanding.

My question is: How should we respond when a student cheats in exam?

Situation: A student cheats and gets high marks in exam.
Are we supposed to report it to a teacher?

Situation: A student cheats and the teacher finds out about it, he gets punished.
Are we supposed to rejoice?

It is a dilemma. I am indirectly helping the cheater by remaining silent about what I witnessed, in a police case I would be considered as guilty as the person who commits the crime if I cover it up. If I expose the cheater I might be considered as not giving him a chance to change.
Justice versus Mercy. Both are characteristics of God.
We are told to love justice, so it means bringing a cheater's actions to light?
Yet we are also told to show mercy, so it means letting the cheater go?

I believe with all my heart that love is the perfect solution because love is perfect.
Love the sinner but hate the sin. How? By caring for students who cheat? Talking them out?
Everybody deserves a chance because Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. But to what extent do we keep quiet about their habit of cheating? How do we warn them not to cheat by remaining our humility simultaneously? How do we keep them from thinking that we are pretending to be holy?

With all that being said, I believe it is not our right to condemn students who cheat. Only the One who has no sin can and will judge man.

How to handle cheating? May God be the solution.
I do my part by abstaining from it as well as helping friends in subjects I understand.

SPM? an observation

After sitting for the exam for a week, I realised it is possible to cheat. Well my desk is in a badminton hall, it is quite a big compound where more than a hundred desks can fit in. There are about six or seven invigilators in the hall, watching more than a hundred students. It seems quite easy to cheat even in this "strict" exam, I do not know about situation in classrooms but through my observation I could see that it is not difficult for students in the hall to cheat. You can just request to go to the washroom and there is your chance. Hahaha!

However, No, No, No I will not cheat.

=)

cheating?

Here's a good blog post by a friend.
I believe this is worth reading, seriously. If you know me, I am not a person who likes reading. However I read everything in this 1500 word blog post!

http://yaroq.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/kopi-kopi-you-cheetahs/

Malaysian Education System

Foreword: I have no intentions of damaging reputations of any parties.

The quality of education during my father's time is much better than now. It used to be tougher and teachers stricter. Students who fail in the year end examination could not go up to the next level and needed to stay back to do the same stuff all over again. Sadly, now even a student who does not know how to write "ABC" can finish his or her secondary school studies and sit for SPM! This is a sarcastic yet true statement. What the heck is the government doing??? In some schools, students who fail Mathematics and Science in PMR are able to get themselves into science stream. Some schools even force students to go into science stream. Furthermore, certain students who are no good in English qualify for local universities. This is a disgrace to our country! The government are overprotecting their people, and this will only make them even more useless. In years to come, Their people will soon be nothing in the world, they can only deceive themselves with their easy-to-get paper qualifications. How can they work for an international company if they cannot even converse properly in English? This is very sad. I am proud to be a Malaysian, but the way the government handle things makes me very worried and fed up.
Now that some people are complaining because their children cannot cope with Sciance and Mathematics in English, the government is thinking about switching it back to Malay again. After making a decision to have these two subjects taught in English two years ago, they want to turn back to the old way again. How indecisive and useless! I hope the government will not make a foolish decision.

Dealing with People

I broke a guitar string yesterday while tuning. Then suddenly a thought came to my mind, the string snapped because I turned the knob too hard. If I were to be gentle and tuned it slowly, the string would had probably remained attached to my guitar.
It's an expensive set of strings, so it hurts whenever any one of them were to snap.

Maybe this situation could be used to illustrate dealing with people?
Say I want somebody to do something, pushing the person too hard is not the best way. Everyone has his or her limits, nobody is perfect. When I want to "tune" somebody whether for the person's benefit or mine, I care for the person and would certainly not want him or her to "break". Pushing them could achieve results instantly but momentarily; doing it patiently is the best way.

This is what I have learnt from a simple experience of tuning a guitar, that is to do things in love with patience especially when dealing with sensitive people and the importance of being aware of their feelings.

Hair? School?

Many students are said to be having disciplinary problems in school due to what they have on their heads. The school rule forbids too fancy hair styles. When I was a few years younger, I was one of the worst concerning this issue. I was VERY particular about my looks, body height, weight, complexion, and hair, of course. All these thanks to puberty.
Unfortunately, in Malaysian Secondary schools, or at least in my school, some teachers just want to keep your hair short for you. In other words, they would make use of the scissors if you do not visit the hair salon after being warned to.
Teachers do it for various reasons: (I think)
Those who care for students want to keep them out of trouble.
Some do it to show that they are not bias towards students of different races.
Some are simply following instructions.
Others just want to make lives of students miserable.

From my observation, I find that teachers look at the students more than they look at their hair.
They usually go easy on students who are apparently good and have no intentions of keeping their hair long; Teachers tend to be more strict towards students who usually keep fancy hair styles.
And I once was one of those who always get warnings and free haircuts from teachers in school. I remember once when I cried after getting a terrible one. The hurt then was tremendous yet evitable. All because I was immature and could not see the big picture.

Now, I no longer wish to go against the school rules after learning and deciding to put myself in the teacher's shoes. The teacher who gave me the worst haircut ever had to be so irritated and annoyed by my bad attitude, he is a nice person. But he had to show fairness towards Malay, Indian and Chinese students. I kept my hair long over and over again and perhaps that annoyed him then. It is not easy to be a teacher in Malaysian schools, it is even more difficult when it comes to dealing with stubborn adolescents.

To all students: It is not a health hazard to keep your hair tidy and neat within the school rules. It is good to have good relationships with teachers.

I want, I want, I want

There are many things I want and few of which I think I really need.
It's a yucky feeling when you can't get what you want rite?
Recently I've been having problems saving up and the quantity of the contents in that wallet seem unpredictable.
It would be very very very nice if somebody could get me a new guitar. And it would be a thousand times better if he or she gives me the modal Ben's using!
Sigh, I really want that guitar but it is so unrealistic. That lovely thing costs more than a thousand pounds!

Ok, time to be a bit more realistic. I want good guitar strings and capos. Elixir strings are the best but they can be quite difficult to find in this little town called Kluang, and they are not cheap either.
I want a computer with a larger RAM and be virus proof. Well, only the larger RAM part is possible I suppose.
I want to be taller, but.... sigh..

Hehehe! These are only a few of my wants. The post will never end if I were to continue and bore everyone with my self-centered desires.

Right or wrong

Hmmmmmm...
Is it wrong to skip school when there's no paper?
Today they had Tasawwur Islam paper, which was the last paper for Trials. Only few took, while many didn't come to school.
I don't see anything wrong with that. But still I went to school. Stayed at the library for the whole day, reading and talking, building relationships with friends.
But something that I don't understand is why can't the teachers announce officially that whoever not sitting for a particular paper need not come to school?
Why let students be uncertain whether they need to come to school or not?

If I were to be in charge of a school, I would do a better job! Students will hate school less and thus, resulting in a better society.

Sejarah

I don't understand you;
You don't understand you.
Why are we forcing ourselves to get along?
Why must we make each other miserable?
Why won't you leave me?
I have not sinned against you.
O how much I would appreciate if,
this cup of suffering could be taken away.
O Sejarah, Sejarah!
Away from me for I do not know you.

Hahaha! I regained a long lost interested and skill in sketching during my history paper.
There was so much time and my butt was aching, I was restless.
And I began musing, thinking about how the people around have been a blessing to me. And I tried to express it with a pencil. Besides that, I also sketched down a desire I had- which is my desk becoming empty, without any test papers on it and without me sitting on that cold chair.

I miss you

Hmmm, just randomly using my brain.....

If you can't see somebody but you want to see that person, it means you miss him/her.
So, inversely:
If you can see somebody but you do not want to see the person, does it mean you miss him/her too?

teacher says that a negative number multiplied by a negative number produces a positive one.

PLKN

I've been chosen for National Service 2009.
Is it a good news or a bad one?
What will happen to me?
Every year, without fail there would be news of NS trainees dying or getting injured. Will it happen to me? Or will it happen to others? My friends?
Program Latihan Khidmat Negara, will I learn to love this country even more?

time

Blogger Blogger on the screen, what's the fairest of all things?

hmmmm..... The fairest is..... TIME! Everybody is given the same amount of time each day regardless of race, social status, nationality, number of cars owned or whatever else.
Time is the perfect metronome.
Nobody can change the time or manipulate its speed.
We are to manage our time wisely because we are stewards of it. How to manage time?
It's less then 100 days to the Final Exam!
There are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute...
I can remove the battery from the ticking clock but time will not stop for me, not even for anybody else.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

William Shakespeare.

Life is short, so what are we going to do about it?
Why do people spend all of their time going after money? Will I become like that when I finish my studies?
Right now, I just need to behave in school, study well, and try obtaining good results. What's next?

My greatest fear is to live for the wrong purposes
and then regret when it's too late.
Joel Yap. (8.8.2008)

Welcome to The Mirror

Welcome to my new blog. This web page will contain mainly my reflections and musings. What I think about, opinions towards various stuffs. Basically, a more serious blog.
So have fun reading, perhaps later on when I start to update more often.
Do leave comments on my posts. Please.
Hope this will be a successful Mirror to my thoughts and myself.
More importantly, I hope that people who visit this Mirror and I will be able to grow and mature together, through sharing and commenting.
Joel Yap.