Happy birthday to me...

Today is my 'umpteenth' birthday. I feel a bit 'old' today. Normally I feel young because I am surrounded by young collegues. I guess today, after getting few birthday wishes, I realise that I'm a year older. Older? How I wish I could stay young forever. I am.. well, at least deep down in my heart.
Shouldnt I make a resolution or that sort of vow that people use to commit themselves every new year comes ? I guess I should. I am very thankful to the Almighty Allah for blessing me with so many good things in life. What are we without His blessing. For that, InsyaAllah for years to come, my oath is to always be a good muslim because that covers everything in life.

Time to get back to work

Class resumes today after a long semester break. I always feel excited about teaching new students and new subjects . This semester , I was given a new subject which I have never taught before – ELT 3722. Great. Some changes will do me good I think. I do miss my PIP classes though. I’m sure my successor, Madam Chia will be an excellent coordinator for PIP. So this semester, I am teaching all the DECOM students, semester 3 and 4. In terms of language, these students are not that bad, their English are quite good so basically I just need to do merely ‘polishing up’ work. That is one reason why I miss teaching PIP – in PIP, the lecturers need to do much more – not merely ‘polishing up’ work. The students are rather , sorry to say, weak but the satisfaction of teaching is there ..well sometimes, not to forget the frustration is sometimes there too .. when the students, upon attended your classes have shown some improvements .. some could make it and manage to enroll in the DECOM course! What a lovely feeling. At that time you are not sure whether you are proud of your students or you’re proud of yourself. I just hope upon completion of this semester, I’ll manage to ‘feel good’ with myself. I hope my students will benefit and appreciate having me as their lecturer. I know they will if I do my job well. And that is just what I intend to do . InsyaAllah.

YES ! I made it!

Finally the much awaited comprehensive master TESL result is out.I received a letter from UPM yesterday evening saying that I've passed the exam. Thanks to the Al-mighty Allah for granting my prayers. I also need to thank a handful of people who have helped me, directly or indirectly, in making me a 'Master holder'.
Firstly, to my dearest husband who was and is very supportive and understanding,who has never complained about my lack of attention to him for the past one and the half year, never said anything about me always bringing home food from elsewhere and never cooked for him, and how he had to spent the weekends by his own because I got classes in Kuantan. Thank you my dear.

I also thank my beloved mother whom I'm sure always prayed for my success especially when I told her that the comprehensive exam was difficult..she was very worried that I might not make it. Thanks mak..I know you always pray for me.I love you so much.

Lastly, I need to thank my friends - my study group - 5 of us - Umi, Ayu, Dahlia and Aida , without them, I dont know whether I will survive until the final semester. I need to personally thank Umi (who always 'pushed' me to study, always urged us to get the assignments done quickly), organised and arranged our study group effectivly and efficiently.
To Ayu, thanks for teaching me statistics and other subjects. I was always 'lost'(Actually, thanks for being so helpful and patient in teaching and clearifying things that i dont understand - i know it must be tough to teach someone who is not clever!)
And also thanks to Dahlia who has been a very good teacher to us during the discussion and study group sessions. It was always Dahlia who did the most explaning part in our discussion sessions. Obviously she read and knew alot. Umi read alot too but she had problem in explaning what she knew. Both of them are top scorers. Congrat my friends!
Also thanks to Aida whom i feel is very much like me. Both of us are a bit 'slow' compared to our other study group members. But Aida..we made it, in fact I'm sure we are much better than some of our Master classmates. Let's be proud of ourselves.
I also would like to thank Ahmad, and all my Master classmates for being so cooperative. It was really fun being with all of you every weekends at Vistana.
Finally not forgetting, thank you to all our lecturers who have taught us - Dr. Fauziah, Dr. Noorreen, Dr. Jaya, Cik Pah, Dr. Edwin, Dr. Sahandri, Dr. Ghazali, Dr. Arshad and Pn. Juriah - for the knowlegde that you all had imparted to us.
Thanks alot.

Where is my result ?

Umi, Ayu and Ahmad have got their results via the mail. They made it ..they passed the comprehensive exam. I have not received anything. Is this implying a 'bad' luck? Those who failed will get their result later? Oh no.. I got to pray harder!

A yet another trauma stretch...

Waiting. It's not a pleasant thing to do at all, what more when you are waiting for your examination result which you are not so sure whether you'd given the correct answers or whether what you'd merely done was writing what you knew, instead of what were asked ...... I am not at all confident with my 'Second language Theories' subject. I just pray that I wont fail that paper.
I recall an old malay song entitled "Pernantian satu siksaan". Yeah. there's truth in the song...waiting for something uncertain is indeed a suffering!

Time flies...

Suddenly I feel like the huge rock on my shoulder has fallen down. What a relief! Finally the much awaited yet terrifying moment came - our comprehensive exam or CE as we called it which covers everything that we had learnt from semester One. To be frank, even though it’s over, I don’t really feel good about. The worry is still there. I might not it. I might fail. I don’t feel good in the Cik Pah’s TESL Methodology. The question was quite complicated. Got to relate this and that. Anyhow I just answered the questions from my own perspectives, based on my readings of course, and to the best of my ability. I always pray to the Almighty Allah that my friends and I will made it. The result is due to be out in three weeks time. The means undergoing another horrifying phase in a life of a student.

A stress period

Within a forth night, we- the master TESL students are going to sit for our comprehensive exam (CE). This is the peak of our program. The most scarry moment. The is a test whether we have understood what we'd learnt during the One and a half year course. The first paper, we have to really know about research and statistics. I am in the mid of trying to memories the statistics -the anova - the differences of means, the df , the variance, F value and what not.
For the core papers, I choose Cik Pah's & Dr. Noreen's Second language Acquisition (they are good and sporting lecturers) and Dr. Arshad's Testing ( I choose his subject because I have keen interest in this subject - and Dr. Arshad is very good-looking too) .
For the elective papers, I choose Dr. Jaya's Material Development because I enjoyed his class very much, (He is such a talented comedian) and also Dr. Noreen's Oral Communication (because she is young, understanding and most importantly, good looking!)
Got to study now. i'm really worried. Time is very precious for me nowadays - i really got to organise it and set priority. I've got a bundle of my students' assignments and exam papers that need to be marked. I just wish myself luck!