Study and more study

Okay now, its 14^th of May and it’s already Friday, which means mid terms starts in two and a half days. How do I feel about midterms?? Not much actually, I’m not afraid nor nervous. Well, maybe a little bit. Who isn’t right?? It’s the first exam for us March intake people, and we don’t know how the exams will be. It’s not high school anymore, if you fail, you sink, then you die. In high school, you could get whatever grades you like, fail, pass or excellent and you’ll still be able to continue high school. Here in college, you’ll have to maintain a certain grade to be able to continue on with the course. If you fail to maintain that lovely grade, I guess you’ll just have to start all over again, a waste of your own time and precious money. Sure, college is much more fun compared to high school, but remember, how you perform during exams is really important. So don’t screw it up.

For the whole week, we’ve been talking about the exam formats and tips in class. Oh, and the lecturers keep emphasizing on punctuality during the exams as no extra time will be given if you come into the exam hall late, and copying or plagiarism is taken seriously and we were warned. Now, some subjects are simple and easy while some really needs you to take time to understand and get the concept in to your head. Fundamentals of Management for example, it’s all about concept and not memorizing. Well, all the subjects are about concept and not memorizing actually. College encourages you to think, understand and have your own ideas, not memorize. CSS or College Study Skills are one of the easy subjects that require no memorizing whatsoever. It’s basically English and is a real simple course.

Well, what have I done to prepare for my exams? I revised the notes, did the revision questions and had a group study with my course mates. Oh yea, Ms Sureka; my IT lecturer gave us some questions to do during tutorial today, and I was amazed how easy the questions were, even though I had not started revising IT yet. I finished it really fast too. If the exams are that easy, then I think I’ll do alright, if they’re not, then I’ll go prepare some rope to hang myself. IT is still a weeks time away and there should be hopefully enough time for me to finish revising.

Besides that, I had a group study session with See Yuen and Xian Gang at Starbucks just now. The reason why there are only three of us is because the less people there is, the less talking and distractions. We discussed on subjects like Mass Com and Fundamentals of Management as these two subjects have a lot more to cover compared to the other subjects. Mass com has about seven chapters that we’ll be tested on, so there are some things we might not understand completely. The strange thing is, I actually concentrate better in Starbucks compared to studying at home, might be the coffee I guess. Oh well, go figure.

Sports or music?? I'll do sports again

Ahhhhh, sports; the all time favorite of us Malaysians, its either we like playing sports or we like watching sports. The late nights at the mamak stall watching football matches and sipping on the tarik. That’s the life, other people might think we’re crazy to be out so late at night just to watch a football game but the experience and the friend bonding is seriously awesome!!! Now, let me tell you what I think about Malaysian sports. Okay, let’s start with badminton. We all know that our beloved country is ranked one of the best in the world of badminton, thanks to Datuk Lee Chong Wei and the other players. He really has outdone himself and put Malaysia on the world map and let people know that Malaysia is actually good in sports (certain sport’s that is).

As good as we are on badminton; every dog has its day. Malaysia lost to Japan in the first time of history of the Thomas Cup Finals. Everyone was stunned, even my mom. No one ever thought that we will lose to Japan. It was really disappointing but it was a good game, that’s for sure. Well, maybe not. You see an incident occurred after the Japan game, doubles shuttler Mohd Fairuzizuan lost his cool after losing the game to Japan. The ugly incident took place after he retaliated to the foul language and a vulgar sign showed by a fan. Seriously, you’re a fan of Malaysia and this is how you show support to your country player? Sure, we might have lost, but we can’t win every time right? Now the poor guy has to receive disciplinary actions.

Okay now, enough about badminton. Let’s talk about football, I’m sure most of us are football fans right?? Sadly, I’m not talking about English football; I’m talking about Malaysian football. Yes, when people talk about English football, they have that happy joyful look in their eyes, but when it comes to Malaysian football, no one talks much about it. I’m sure there’s a good reason why people do not support our local teams. To start with, our local team has never really won any games other than Sea games. Well, maybe not Sea games, we are practically at the bottom of the barrel. Even Myanmar can beat us at football. Compare Myanmar to our country, we are so much better off and developed compared to them, and yet they are able to beat us. It’s a real shame actually, we are from Asia but it doesn’t mean we can’t qualify for the world cup. We should follow the footsteps of countries like Japan, Korea and China. South Korea even has a player playing for Manchester United, to have an Asian playing for an English Club, is something to be proud off.

Other than that, our Malaysian hockey team is doing alright. We are just one point below third place, but India is doing really well with ten points under their belt. China and Egypt are at the bottom two, with one and null respectively. Oh well, at least we’re not at the bottom.

Exam blues

Exams exam exams, these words are constantly ringing in my head. No matter where I am, on the bed, having my meal even sitting on the toilet bowl, the words seem to keep appearing. Before that, I was too busy with my mass com assignment to care about mid terms, but now I’ll have to get stated with my revisions. It’s seriously frustrating; I’ll be getting a few more white hairs by the end of next week. Surely you’re thinking; why don’t you just sit down, grab a book and start reading. The fact is, it’s not as simple as that, sure, I can sit down, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be studying. There are too many distractions in my room, laptop, phone, magazines etc. The moment I sit my butt down, my mind starts to wander. I just can’t concentrate; besides, I didn’t even get to rest after finishing my mass com assignment. Nevertheless, I did manage to sit down and do a bit of revision exercises. If I’m to do well in the mid terms, I really got to get serious and start doing my revisions!!! How I wish mid terms aren’t next week.

Now, I’m not afraid of exams actually, never was to be frank. Some of my course mates (I can’t say who) are already prepared and ready to kick that mass com paper’s a** on Monday. I can’t say the same for me. In secondary school, I always do last minute revisions and I never really did my given homework. Now, I do finish all my assignments now and pass them up on time, the assignments do make up a huge part of our exam marks so I dare not screw my assignments up , but I still do last minute studying, it has become a really bad habit I guess. Even my mom is more worried than I am, she goes; haiya, what are you doing?? Your mid terms are on Monday and you’re still idling away. Oh well, guess it’s just the way I am, it’s my style and nothing can make me change.

My lecturers have been all so kind to give us tips on what to study for the midterm exams and I really do thank them a lot for that. Seriously, they could just let us be and let us study on our own, but they chose to help us and lighten our burden, so a very big thanks to all my lecturers. Other than that, I’ve been doing revision questions given by each lecturer doing tutorial classes, they post it on Black Board 7 and we bring it to tutorial classes for discussions. The tutorial questions are really helpful; they test how well you know about the chapters and gauge your knowledge. You can even revise the questions and answers for the exams as some of the questions might come out in the midterms. (Hopefully most of them will). I really hope I’ll do well, who doesn’t right?? Oh well, better get started now, till next time.

Sports or music?? I pick sports

Sports, what do I think about sports?? Hmmmm, usually people will think of football, badminton, squash or golf. For me, I think of lion dance, yes, lion dance. Some people might ask why do I say lion dance, it can’t be a sport, can it? Well, lion dance is a sport and is already internationally recognized; let me tell you a little bit more about lion dance. You see, lion dancing is not as simple as you might think it is. The fact is, you have to be in tip top physical shape to be able to perform it; lion dancing involves a lot of strength, stamina and cardio strength as the lion performers are required to jump poles which are ten to fifteen feet high with a base length of twenty, thirty, forty and even fifty feet!!! Imagine carrying a two kilo lion head and jumping from start to the end and back again, It really takes super human strength or a lot of practice. Now, I am not trying to boast or anything, but in my opinion, people don’t really understand this beautiful art form and don’t really give much credit to the performers.

Let me talk about the history and origins of lion dancing. Based on folklore in ancient china, a monster called “nian” appeared and started terrorizing a farming village and its villagers. Everyone was afraid and dare not step out of their houses, seeing the problem at hand; a young villager comes up with a plan. He gets all the villagers together and starts making a lion head out of colorful paper and cloth and waits for the creature to appear. When it finally appears, the villagers use the lion head accompanied by loud drums, cymbals, firecrackers and gongs to make loud noises. Seeing the weird paper lion, and startled by the loud noise, the creature flees the village and never to return again. This is where lion dancing evolved from.

Now, let me talk about the types of lions in the lion dancing world. Basically, there are two types of lions; the northern lion and the southern lion. Now, what’s the difference between the two lions?? Let me explain, the northern lion; also known as “Beijing lion” has a thick long bushy coat. Whereas the northern lion has a shorter coat compared to its southern counterpart. Another difference between these two lions is the style of dancing and stances. The northern lion has fewer moves and stances compared to the southern lion and mainly consist of spins and twirls on top of table. Another thing about northern lion is that there is a female and also a male lion. There is also a lion tamer; a person who has a wushu background, that follows the two lions.

Southern Lions

The southern lion however, has more emotion, moves, stances and tricks. The Southern lion dance consists of traditional ground performances and also high pole performances. Besides that, this style also emphasizes on the lion’s expressions and emotions. The southern lion does not have female or male lions but is grouped in to the futshan and hoksan lion. The differences between the lions can be easily spotted. The futshan lion has a curved mouth and fierce looking whereas the hoksan lion has a flat mouth and has a more timid look. Now, other than the looks, the futshan and hoksan lion has their own style and dancing, let me elaborate more on that.

Now, let’s start with the futshan lion. The futshan style requires much more strength compared to the hoksan style. The reason for this is because the futshan has a fiercer look and therefore requires big movements to completely bring out the lion’s emotion. The hoksan style on the other hand, does not require big movements to bring out the lion’s emotions.

Hoksan Lion

Futshan Lion