2012

    Hey there. New year is coming up, and I've been so much in 2011 mode, I don't feel it's coming to get us. 2012 has been such an enigmatic number this year, with all the claims that it's going to be the end of the world.
    Next year's going to be a whole new experience because it is the first time ever I'm going to celebrate new year without having to worry about school. No more classes and waking up early to school, and no more uniforms, school anthems, long and boring assemblies at the beginning of the year, homeworks and most importantly, green pants. Not having all them makes me eager to step into a new year, but that also means I will have nothing much to look up for next year, since going to school had made up most of my past years' agenda.
  So, I hope that this new year will give me the chance to learn new things, gain better experience and progressing to be a better Mohammad Ramdzuanny Bin Musram Rakunman. I haven't set any specific resolutions yet, but there's one thing I want to improve: my writing skills. Insya Allah I'll be a better writer, and continue to write better things and thoughts.
  Happy New Year everyone. Have a vivacious 2012.

Planking?

   Hey there. Look at the post title. Know that stuff? Have you tried it before? If your answer is yes, be prepared for what I'm gonna write. If the answer is no, congratulations for being a person with a good common sense.

  First and foremost, what is actually planking? Look up for the definition in a dictionary somewhere, because I'm not gonna bore you with words. Here's a photo of it, at least. But for me, planking is playing dead by laying on almost anywhere, face down, while remaining stationary. To some of you fellas out there, this is the coolest thing ever. For me, it's one of the most nonsensical viral thing ever infected the world. Plankers seem to find much joy and sense of satisfaction by laying down on almost anywhere. The weirder the circumstances, the better the plank would be. And they post their pictures on the Internet for everyone to see. I don't know what fun planking can bring them, and let me redefine what actually you guys are doing: Putting your face on some surface that have been stepped by thousands of other people with their "clean" shoe soles and being proud of it. This is the thing that you have done when you plank on floors. But if you plank on other bizarre places, for me that means: You are telling other people that it's damn fun posing as a plank wood on poles and street lamps (YAY!). Get a hobby, man!

   Seriously speaking, planking can put you in deep shit. Examples include a young man from Brisbane, Australia who plunged to his death by planking on a seventh-floor balcony on 15 May 2011. Don't believe it? Click here, then. He was just 20 at that time. Pitiful period of life ended by the most unlikely cause. 7 doctors and nurses  of Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England planked on duty, and was consequently suspended. Somebody even got charged for planking on a police car. What is he going to answer when his friends ask what he did to bring some police after him? Playing dead on a cop car?

   Concluding this post, I would like to say : Enough planking guys. But, this is up to yourselves whether to heed this or not. I'm not actually anti-planking and I have no problems with plankers, and if you find this hobby suits you and you can be really happy with it, just continue. After all, everyone have their own thoughts as well. I have done a lot of stupid things myself that I thought was cool, to some other people, they may not look cool. I posted this just to share my own reasons why I don't plank.

 I want to apologize if I had hurt any plankers out there, and once again, this is just my thoughts on planking. Peace!

One man dies: A million cries.

So. My condolences to Mr.Steve Jobs' family. May his soul rest in peace. Well, though I don't really know this man nor recognize him for what he had done, but I observed enormous impact of his death to the society. Maybe that's caused by his status as one of the world's technology personalities, or just because people love to hear his quotes.
 But, remember this guys, he is just another rich guy who dies because his time has come.

Another rant on education.

Well, I have just finished my trial, to tell my readers the truth, it's not that good. Though my teachers had gone through the trouble to give their students the topics we should study, my results are pretty much the same. Except for Chemistry, which went well, and Biology and Add Maths, which went not-so-well.

So, when I was discussing my Biology paper with my teacher, I noticed that a lot of my answers did not get marks because the answer scheme specified different criteria for the answers. Well, blame me for not studying, but the most annoying thing is when the way the question is asked does not reflect the answer it requires. The questions simply asked for an explaination, but did not specify in what way the examiner wants an explaination. The same goes for Add Maths, where I didn't get marks for my answer because I showed the steps required at wrong part of the question. The question I was answering was numbered b.ii. and 5 marks are allocated for the question. I got the answer correct, but I wrote the steps required to get 5 marks at the beginning of the question, which was part a.ii. , so I got only 1 mark out of ten.

In real life situation, it doesn't matter how do you get the answer, but  it's about as long as you get there. So, the education system is based on the answering techniques, not on the knowledge of students. That is why, Malaysia produces so much straight As students, but only small percentage of them are really capable to produce something different. The grading system is also a mess. "A"s were used to mark very distinguished achievements, but now, A means average. What you can do without a straight A result? The answer is struggling to find scholarships,pleading and begging for somebody kind enough to pay for your education.

So,enough for today. Maybe I don't have the solutions yet, but someday I will. And when that time comes, watch for my name in newspapers. Haha.

Ramadhan is here...

  Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. So, Ramadan is here already. Though it's kinda late right now, I would like to wish Muslims Selamat Berpuasa!

BERSIH already???

Hey. How you're doing, guys? Haha. Yesterday was the BERSIH rally at KL and the news and the political blogs were crazy about it. Well, I can't help being intrigued by it myself. So, I'm going to write something about this.

Firstly, I don't know where do the BERSIH supporters put their brains. Maybe they don't have any. They claimed the election in our country is damned dirty and corrupted, and they want to bring this matter to our Agong and 'clean' our elections to make them more justified. In other words, they think that the government has control over SPR.

Let's reexamine their claim. They forgot that, last election, BN has lost 5 states to the Pakatan, and among the states lost are Selangor and Penang, which are rich states, and everybody wants those states. If the government controls SPR, why did they lost those states? If they really want to lose some states, they should just let Sabah go, because Sabah is a very poor state right now. But the fact is, BN had always won in Sabah by strong majority.

Secondly,erm..I don't have the second point. Anyway, I hope the BERSIH supporters get what they want. And the police gave them what they really want. After gallons of water blasted towards them, I think all of them are already BERSIH by now. They should be grateful to the police for blocking their way. You don't always get chance splashing in a lot of water without worrying about the bills, do you?

SPM is getting nearer? So what?

Seeing my friends getting busy preparing for the SPM reminds me of PMR a little while ago. Somehow the tension is building up, and the worst part is I haven't gotten any motivation at all to study. Which, according to most people, is bad.

Maybe it's not myself to blame anyway, because years ago, before PMR, there were the teachers, guest motivators, and generally the society itself stressing how IMPORTANT PMR was. PMR was the center of all our actions. Playing, having fun and generally most of things were forbidden to us, in order to prepare for PMR.

They used to say, "Play all you want, after PMR. Get good results, and do whatever you want." Some lucky kids even get large sums of money,or cool gadgets from their parents and families after scoring so well in PMR.

Ironically, the first thing they said to us when we entered Form 4 was, " DON'T ever think that your PMR results will get you anywhere." Hey, what? Before PMR you said it was everything, and now you are saying it's a piece of trash. And because of that, I have lost faith in getting straight As cause it won't get you anywhere. Once the result comes out, even if you get straight As, well, maybe the limelight will be on you a little while, but soon, it will disappear. The same struggle to get into universities, studying to get flat pointers, freaking and exhausting life of  a student, repeats all over again.

So, my point here is, try to take things as they are. So what if you don't score so well in PMR? Or SPM? It's not the end of the world. Because the most important thing is how would you take opportunities. Yes, maybe these exams are opportunities, but remember, it's not the tool, but the hands that use the tool. A deadly gun could be useless in the hands of a blindfolded man, but an innocent pen can be the sharpest blade if wielded by an assassin.

Instead of struggling to get straight As, try to make those results beneficial to get what you want. Put in simpler words, don't take more than what you need. Don't push yourself to get straight As if you don't really need it. Except, if you really need to score in all of the subjects to pursue the career you desire the most, then, go ahead. But I don't really think that you really HAVE to score on all subjects. For example, a pure science student pursuing a career in medical field does not need advanced physics. All that is needed is some knowledge on that matter, but not extensive knowledge that may burden the student. That is why university courses are offered with specializations in only one field.

But then again, it's the education policy to blame. The education system is full of uncertainties. That is why they make us study all subjects and specialize later. When growing up,we may develop a lot of interest in a lot of subjects and this may cause confusion in choosing a career.So, when they made us to wait until Form 4 before choosing the desired stream, it's causing a dilemma in students. They don't know what to choose. Even worse, some students are forced to study what they don't want to. This happened to my cousin, where she scored straight in her PMR, and with that result, she is put inside the science stream, which she disliked. In matriculation colleges, students applying for science stream is being "thrown away" to other courses, which, might not be their choices.


The thing that we should do is nurturing the interest and ambition in our future generations since they are young. That is what they are doing in UK and some other places right now. So, there won't be any problems concerning the choice of courses when entering high school. The interest is developed during their early education, and they are given the choice of taking the subjects they like, instead of trying to become the Jack of all trades, but as the Malay saying goes, "Yang dikejar tak dapat, yang dikendong berciciran."

Things that I love about Sabah.

What's up? Well, another day, I guess. Haha. So, this is how I got the idea to post this tonight. I went to KK from my house in Beverly Hills, Penampang, boarding a bus to go there. Buses, as you Sabahans out there knew, stop at the Wawasan Terminal. So, to go to Center Point, you have to cross a busy road in front of the Wawasan Plaza. Yeah, just writing these down in case someone who doesn't know anything about KK reads this. So, as the road is the main pedestrian path to the other side of the road which CP and other malls are placed, thousands of KKians cross the road everyday. There are pedestrian traffic lights placed there, but nobody seems to care about the red lights. So,  I present to you, things I love about SABAH!

• We jaywalk all the time.
• We don't waste money paying information counter attendants. We know how to get around. Let the tourists find their own way.
• We have a very versatile word to express a lot of things.BAH.
• We help to ease the traffic by not using taxis as our main transportation.
• And,that helps the environment too.Buses are more dominant here. That means a lot of carpooling.
• Our BM is the best in terms of pronouncation. Baku bha BM Sabah!
• Sabah helps the refugees from Philipines by letting them live here.
• Unduk Ngadau bha sini tiap tahun!

So, that's all, maybe. Haha!

It's been a while...

So, this is my first post after a long break from blogging. It's just most of the time, I don't have anything to write about. I'm not the type who keeps his blog as a diary. Instead, my blog is something I do to cope with the boredom, and to give my opinions about the fast world we're living in.

Well, while I'm at it, I would like to write some words that I quoted a while before, and just recently, one friend had quoted it back to me.(meaning those words must be quite inspiring, haha!) So, let me share these words with you.

"Our life is just like reading a bedtime story. Every event is just another chapter. When we are stuck in something that we don't wanna go through, just remember to finish that chapter first before we go to sleep, because the story won't be so good when you frequently stop reading after each page."

So, guys, whatever comes in your way, just go through until you reach the last page of the chapter, so that you can go to sleep with no worries, because no one will ever know what God has in store for us.

Got nothing better to do, so I decided to go blogging.

Okay, now I'm addicted to blogging. Facebook is going to be a has-been soon. Haha. Anyway, speaking about Facebook... Hurm... I'm sure all of us are damn addicted to this thing. It's the trend in the world that we are living today, and it's writing new chapters in the history of human communication.


The rapid growth of Facebook has surely made Zuckenberg(is that his name?) richer every second, as the world is stuck in front of the monitor wasting their precious time for Facebook. Well, can't blame Facebook for being sooooo addictive. The world surely loves to socialise, and people seem to not be able to log out from FB though we are sure there won't be any new notifications.(haha.got this one from Ardy Safian)

BUT, ironically, the world that we knew as the world that loves to socialise and 'friend'ing people from all over the world don't seem to know people that surrounds them. The proof is, we hardly knew about our neighbours. We don't talk to them and even casting a smile to our neighbours could be such a hard job to do.
And, what do we do when we bump into strangers on the streets? Apart from a simple 'sorry', we don't even take the time to look at them or maybe, just smile. It's different on Facebook. We poke our friends all the time and we claim to be friends with strangers we haven't heard of. Haha. What an irony.


I'm not trying to say that we should stop Facebook'ing' but maybe we should take the time to know the people nearer to us even more closer than before. Haha. I mean it. MORE CLOSER. I used 'more' with a comparative form of 'close' to convey my meanings that we should be friends with the people surrounding us first before acknowledging a complete stranger.

Anyways, these are just my opinions, though. Haha ;)

Haha. Why HAHA?

Haha. Okay. Why did I suddenly renamed my blog? Cause I feel the previous name was uncool and it sounds nerdy. Hahahaha. It makes me look like someone that doesn't have any better ideas for naming his own blog. Well, now the blog has a new name, so let me tell you how did I got the idea to name it HAHA ;)

I need a new name that is original,not too long, and easy to remember. And... the name must signify the owner as well. In other words, the name must be connected to me somehow. After thinking for a while, I suddenly realised a habit of mine while texting or typing a message; that is typing 'haha' for no reason. Then, it struck me. Haha is a good name too. And because I laugh a lot, so why not?

Education Issues...again.

I went browsing the Internet the other day to search for notes for my assignments on The Curse novel,and I ended up in one blog, and one post caught my attention. The issue was on our English education in Malaysia.
One guy (or girl?) wrote about the new collection of poems that had been introduced to the syllabus last year,complaining about the lack of language,vocabulary and literary input the new syllabus is offering to the students.


 Well,he complained about the new book,for form 4 and form 5,and he said that the new syllabus has more drawings instead of text,and the components are not educative enough.

Hurm...I don't know whether to agree or not,but let us look on the bright side first. The new syllabus apparently had become easier,and there is not a lot of thing that can be learned from the drama as well.The drama that had been chosen has a lot of pointless dialogues,and he complained that the previous syllabus required SPM students to read a novel instead of the supposed-to-be-funny drama.

One thing you must remember,the syllabus we are using right now is the result from the discussions of a panel of teachers and students that had been selected throughout Malaysia.So,what we are learning right now have become easier,thanks to them.This guy obviously had issues with simpler things to learn,and he demanded the government to put more emphasis on the subject.

But,before they decide on a syllabus,they must have been doing some kind of survey,weren't they? And maybe,the results of the survey showed that the level of ability to speak English among students in Malaysia have dropped to a saddening rate.So,if people can't speak English,don't force them to speak! There are lots of schools in Malaysia located in rural areas which have students struggling to pass their BM exams, let alone English.We are a developing country,and we have to increase the number of passing candidates to rise the number of graduates.We need a lot of university graduates to produce manpower to develop the nation.If we make the syllabus too high-leveled,students will end up failing the subject even when they are not supposed to.What is the use of learning boring literature when you will never use the knowledge for the rest of your life after SPM? Do we really need to speak English like Shakespeare did? The answer is no.The level of English required in this country is not that high,and we hope to produce citizens with the ability to engage in daily and simple formal conversations and write simple essays in English but not to produce flamboyant writers.

Instead of blaming the policy makers,we should improve our students by emphasizing on the teaching of English in primary and secondary schools.We should sharpen their grammar,and their confidence to speak and write in English.What I had observed is, some primary schools don't really teach their students English.English period is substituted with other subjects. Don't blame the literature component when it becomes easier.What we should do is reinforcing the basics,not to increase the thickness of the textbooks.

Haha.Ok.I'm gonna take that back.

Read my last post.And,as you read,I've been a jerk.

OK. I take that back. Collars aren't that stupid.

Maybe I'm doing this cause I think retrosexual fashions are cool.Haha.

Anyway, after all this time, I still can't find any good reasons for blogging.Maybe I should delete this?Not a bad idea.