To kutuk or not to kutuk...

Came back from ibadah camp yesterday. It was very tiring, having to spend your weekends at an ulu banat place in Sungkai. Actually, the place was quite OK, and the food was good as well. There were two things that I couldn't stand, the heat (sauna!) and the hostel. We stayed in an overcrowded dorm, very little space in between the double-decker beds, felt like suffocating inside it. Couldn't sleep at night, again because of the heat, and mosquitoes. Alhamdulillah, it rained for quite some time, and by Sunday morning, the weather was a lot better compared to the day before.

We had few dialogue sessions (the put in the tentative as dialogue, but the format was kinda different from dialogue) on stress management, job-interview, and working from Islamic perspective & its challenges. Long as the title suggest, the last one (actually it was the first dialogue we had when we arrived there) was damned boring.

Overall, the camp was OK lah. Not so strict, but I was made to believe that girls can't wear pants during the camp, so...I wore baju kurung almost all the time, different baju kurungs of course! (new record for longest time of wearing baju kurung!) Another thing that really bugged was the language of the MCs and the committees when giving out instructions/information and so on. They had to use English because we had few international students with us. The English didn't reflect the supposed-to-be high standard of English in IIUM, it was pretty sad. I could hear the girls behind me correcting the MCs' English (as well as the speakers) most of the time. I was quite frustrated for some time because people, outsiders, have high expectations on IIUM students regarding their English level, but these people didn't fulfil the expectations. Yet, towards the end of the camp, I realized that rather than criticizing these people, we should praised them because at least they have the guts to speak in English in front of the public. If you asked me to be the MC, who knows...I might even pengsan near the rostrum (hehehe...tak lah sampai pengsan, tapi ketaq gak la pala lutut kejap). I hate when the students kept on correcting the MCs grammar and pronunciation. Guys, if you don't know how to respect your "leaders" in front of you, you need some moral corrections dude! If you feel disturbed by their English, they also feel the same when you keep on disturbing them in your noble quest of correcting their grammar. No doubt, I too felt disturbed by their English, I admit it, but the least that you could do is respect them and allow them to speak. Lepas tu, you can go and talk to them in private, asking them to take English pronunciation or grammar lessons from you, OK?

If there's any IIUM student reading this, I hope you are not offended by this entry. Believe me, people out there have high expectations on IIUM graduates especially when it concerns our mastery in English and Arabic. I know a parent who is in my taekwon-do board, praising IIUM (he didn't know I was in IIUM) for our mastery in English and hopefully in Arabic, and said boldly in front of my instructor, Ms. Tan, aunty Pat and me,

"The best place to do law is in UIA...because their English is fantastic, and one of the most established law faculty!"

I was of course terangkat by his praise, but deep down inside I felt embarrassed because I knew IIUM have yet to live up to that standard. I know, all of us are trying our best to communicate in English and Arabic, to live up to these expectations...but, we need to work even harder, so that when we enter the working field, people will be amused at our language proficiencies. It's not just about language proficiency, we also need to remind ourselves to always observe our akhlaq (ethics) because people always judge us through our behaviours and how we project our inner selves through our words and actions.

OK, I need to rush to my Ling App class now...have a great week ahead!

p/s: didn't have the time to edit this, kalau ada kesalahan ejaan atau tatabahasa, remember, the guts to say it out loud is more important than grammar (hehehe...good excuse eh?)