The Pancake Review

Hello people. For the very purpose of ranting I’m going to try and write a decent and chronological account of my first week at the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

A little background would be nice first and foremost.

I was raring for a Cambridge LL.B and the Cambridge tutorial experience. Hell, Oxford would’ve been pretty okay for me. But it wasn’t to be. So the backup plan was (should I HAVE to end up studying in Malaysia) IIUM Law. And it was my first choice (I’d only filled 4 of the 8 choices) and looking back I could probably say the ONLY tangible choice for me as the other universities don’t strike my fancy. UiTM and its gigantanormous population of Malays; UM for..wellll….the really old campus. IIUM was my only pick as I’m quite familiar with the Main Campus, but I really didn’t know what to expect at the Matriculation Centre in Petaling Jaya. Having my plan of 1.5 years of A-Levels, UCSA applications, LNAT exams, Oxbridge interviews in Malaysia and then a terrific Oxbridge experience for 3 years, summer jobs and internships at the best law firms around there, 9 months chambering, killer dissertations and finally an invaluable degree and a shag-tastic job at the most prominent firms in the UK, slashed and obliterated, I found myself in a state of utter despair, and had to rebuild my future plans from scratch.

Trust me, it was a very long time before I could regain my concentration and thought to figure out how to go about planning a totally different plan. But thank God I did, and I filled up the forms needed, and got on with it. I had an offer to study at the IIUM Matriculation Centre for a year, from July 2006-June 2007, and for 4 semesters which got me quite perplexed at first.

Anyway, I went with a heavy heart. I didn’t wanna leave my family behind (even though it’s only about 30 minutes from Wangsa Melawati to PJ, and I could always go back by LRT…)and my life before, my TV and Blackburn Rovers (we’re going to Europe dammit!!!) and Jussi Jaaskelainen….It was gonna be hard and I’ve been nothing but bitter about everything. Now as I’m writing this I believe my bitterness has somewhat toned down a bit. I’m in the comforts of my home but I’ll hacve to go back at 6pm. Sucks ha?

Registration day on July 2nd was hectic. The Committee members who were really 2nd year students at IIUMMC were nothing but helpful and friendly, they really were. By the time my parents left me there reality somewhat slapped me hard. I’m all alone now…I’ll be on my own. Met my roommates who were really nice people, and shortly after the Ta’aruf (Orientation for you buta Arabic out there….*you too*) program commenced. It was a gruelling week, let me tell you….having only 3 hours of sleep was a killer. When I got home I had rashes and eyebags. The shower and toilet was….clean, but pretty old. I’ve never been a fan of communal stuff. Most of the time we were stinky and sweaty from all the waiting and getting used covering up every damn thing was quite a challenge, but it turned out fine. The food was okay I guess, but we didn’t have enough fibre so I had trouble shitting..somewhat. I was missing home and my family all the time, it was probably the worst thing I had to endure. My friend told me there were some sacrifices I would have to make in order to succeed. And this was one of them.

On the third day I guess we had an English Placement Test. I wasn’t too scared about it in particular, but when they told me the English test is going to determine how long the program will be I was panicking. My head’s pretty stupid after 5 months of not doing anything. Then testing day came. It was okay. I think I butchered the argumentative essay. It wasn’t up to my own standards, but I hope that the examiner won’t mind too much on the contents. I hope they’ll only look for grammatical errors and all those technical stuff. I think I had the name of the founder of Apple company wrong. But I hope he/she doesn’t know better. It’s always important to cheat with confidence if you want to cheat or lie. Hah,. At the VERY LEAST, I got his first name right. Steve. Steve Bloom, I wrote. But it was STEVE JOBS!! dammit! Hahahahaha…

But anyways, I hope I got high marks and get called in for the interview, and the listening/speaking test majiggy….and Insyaallah…get an exemption. Arabic was easy….easy peasy….it only took me 5 minutes hahahhahahahahha~~~~~!!!

Another thing, now I’m in Mahallah Khadijah, or Khadijah College if you will. It was a former hospital building (largest college in the campus) and everyone dubs it Kingdom Hospital, for reasons I think you’d already figured out. Apparently it’s the most haunted building. And that got me really scared, so one Friday night my roommates and I recited Yaasin and some prayers for His protection; against things our naked eyes can’t see and from humans who wish to do harm. I have to say, I slept better that night, as did everyone else.

I was quite traumatized by the appalling English. The professors and the big people..all of them. The only two people whose English struck a good chord with me were Sister Nani Abdul Rahman and Associate Professor Muhammad Arif Zakaullah. Sister Nani in particular was very very inspirational in her speech…duh. She is my role model for now~~~graduating with a 3.9 CGPA and the Best Speaker at som tournament in Vienna and having the opportunity to dine at the the same as the people from the WTO….that is just..beyond amazing. She is my idol. I want to be just like her, if not better, Insyaallah.

I only have 2 hours ++ before I have to leave home for IIUMMC….hell….aaargh. I’ll be getting the EPT results back on the 11th. Wish me luck that I get called in for the 12th, and get an exemption.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 9th, 2006 at 12:29 am and is filed under Pancake of The Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.