This picture is taken nicely right?? Well, it was taken by my friend, Ewen. This picture was taken when I went to Dannok, Thailand last year. We took this picture beside a Mc Donald restaurant. In Malaysia we cannot find a Uncle Mc Donald figure that do a "SAWADIKAP" hand gesture like the figure did above. That's Thailand's special culture! Well, do you curious about the girls in the picture? The girl on the left is Feon. She is my ex-roommate. Ex-roommate means she is not longer living same room with me, which is a sad case for me. She is a cute girl, brilliant as well. She has a bright smile and a pair of bright big eyes. She is a Finance student in UUM. Opps....forgot to introduce myself. The girl on the right in me, the one with short hair and pink colour blouse. My name is Chan Si Fong, an UUM student too. I am studying Communication course right now. What's special about me? I do not know too. Just simply talking about my background first. I am 21 years old, a Johorean. I was coming Sintok, a jungle in Kedah, which is about 900 km far from my hometown, just for fulfil my university life. UUM, Universiti Utara Malaysia, in English is called Northern University Malaysia, is really located at the northeast part of Malaysia! Thailand is even nearer than Alor Setar from Sintok, which surprised me the first time I knew about that. My school is an unique school, which I believe is the only one university in Malaysia(or maybe in the world) that bounded by jungle. Well, bounded by jungle means the outsider who want to enter the university will only see TREES before they enter the campus. The whole campus is bounded by trees. The amount of trees is more than the man-made building. I think 90% area of UUM is made by these trees. I think my eyesight should become better after I came to UUM since everyday I see the trees more than I see everything else! Sintok is a rural area, means we cannot enjoy city life here. There is no Mc Donald in Sintok. The nearest Mc Donald outlet from UUM is located at Dannok, Thailand, which is the place that I took the picture above. There is no Karaoke, no big shopping mall(I wonder C-Mart counted as shopping mall?), no night life(although I never enjoy night life in my hometown), no cinema, no entertainment facilities that the youth want around the university. However, we have a lot of trees here, which is rare to be found in the city. Despite the lack of entertainment facilities around UUM, UUM is a beautiful and large university. The only one advantage of studying here is we can travel to many places around Kedah: Thailand, Perlis, Penang and other states that near Kedah. I do not have many chances to travel these places before I came to UUM because Johor is too far from here. Therefore, after I came to UUM, I have chance to visit those places. Aside from traveling around, I really do not find other activities that I enjoy to do in the university life. I seldom join university activities, because I do not want to get myself too busy. I have too much assignments to be handle-I think Communication course have the largest amount of assignments among the courses that UUM offered. Hence, everyday my life is full with assignment, assignment and assignment. This type of university life is really boring, so I talk to myself I need to participate more on other curricular activities in the next semester-trying to be more active but not get myself trouble with too busy life. I always say this to myself but at the end I also always failed to to this-never mind-I still have another 5 semesters to be spent at here. I had became an university student for about one year. The university life is really much different from secondary school-we do not have fixed classroom and fixed classmates. We met a lot of classmates every day, but after few months we may not meet each other at the same class anymore. I always see my classmates on the way I go to my lecture-too many of them-but we only say Hi and Bye. This is because every one is rushing for their own matters. I always walk very fast when I am in the campus-rushing for attend lecture, rushing for meeting friends or course mates, rushing for taking bus to go other places or go back to the dorm. About the matter of taking bus, that is a horrible experience for every students in UUM I think. Every time when we want to get on the bus, I feel like we are like the prisoner who want to break the prison-all of us want to get on the bus faster so we can go to another place faster. No one will queue up or show your their gentlemen manner and let you get on the bus first-even the guys. Every one is like "I cannot let you get on the bus first if I do so I will be late!" No way to be a manner person when it comes to taking the bus. It is a shame for us, the university students, to act like a person who do not know what is civilization. Although I myself also one of the kind, but I am being forced! Sometimes I do not want to get on the bus urgently but the people behind me always push me harshly so they can get on the bus faster! I do not even move my legs; someone behind me will "help" me to get on the bus. I wonder if they will die if they do not get on the bus the first before anyone else. Boys also do not show they are gentlemen when it is coming to get on the bus. This phenomenon make me speechless. How would the university students-the future leaders of the nation-behave like a "beast" like this? Despite from this, I still find the students in UUM quite friendly. I met many friends here, all of them are kind and helpful people. I thought I will met mean and wicked people in the university before I came here, luckily I have not met any one like this so far. Although I have not met some one that is really mean and wicked, I had met many types of people here. Some are clever, some are hardworking and some are lazy. However, I do not think I had met some one who is stupid, because the one who qualified to attend the university must have ability. So no one is stupid is the university, but there are many lazy person. The lazy I mean here is lazy to think, lazy to react and lazy to take action. As an university student, I thought every one should know how to be a hardworking person. However the reality is not. Many people that I met behave lazy. When it comes to assignment, they are lazy to search the information. They always say "I do not know", "I cannot find the information", "Can you help me to find those information?" etc. I had met many people like this when comes to assignment. Most of time when they came to me and tell me they cannot find some materials, I will find out in the end with just few clicks in the google. I do not know how much different my google with theirs. Why I can find those but they cannot? I really feel speechless about those called-university students' attitude. How could they survive after they graduate? Do they think their colleague and boss will help them every time when they are lazy to think and act? This is a terrible phenomenon that I found among the university students here. Of course I also met some people which have high initiatives and always perform their best in their tasks, but the amount of this type of people is like the pieces of the iceberg. I really admire those people who have ability and capability to do anything even those things are challenging. They do not ask for others help before they had tried their best. This type of spirit is I hope to find on all the university students here. However, the reality is not as good as I imagine. There are too much of disappointment I found at this jungle, but there are still some happiness. I have an ambition that I want to achieve before I came here: my ambition is to become a translator or editor. However, my desire to pursue my ambition became lesser after I came to UUM. This is because the course offered here is not related to my desire career in the future. I fell totally lost when I found out I being assigned to study Communication course in UUM-this course and this university is not what I want. However, I still need to accept the reality. I still came to this jungle, I still try my best to study hard and get good result. God bless I did not disappointed myself- I received good result in the past two semesters. Although I am studying what I do not have interest in the first place(I do not hate it either), I still do not allow myself to loose up. I try my best in the assignments and tests. I want to get good result every semester and graduated with flying colour. After I came here, I start to wonder what I want to do in the future. I still do not have a clear idea about my future-what career do I want to pursue? However, one thing is certain-I want to get as excellent result as I can and gain as much knowledge as I can in these four years. I want to graduate successfully-my desire is to get the first-class honour degree. It is my dream currently. I do not want to think about my career first because I know the destiny will arrange for me. I do not think much after I came here. I do not care whether I can to pursue my ambition that I want to before in the future. All I care now is the degree certificate that I will get in 2016-I know this piece of paper will decide my future life. I am not trying to become a study machine- I am not because I do not study all the time. I just want to be an excellent student in these four years. An excellent student does not mean excellent in the exams only-it means excellent the thinking and behavior. Thinking is important for an university student. I found that many university students still do not know what is critical thinking. They only know how to study and memorize notes but when it comes to thinking they failed to do so. They do not have mature and critical mind. This is what I feel sad for Malaysian students. I know that I have a clear mind and a brain that do not lazy to function: I want to utilize my brain and think as much as I can in the coming years. I do not want to be a machine and only repeat the same routine every day. I know what I want to achieve and I will try my best to get it. This is me-an extra ordinary girl.
