Student Life

Salam readers. PERKIM (Islamic Welfare Organisation Malaysia) society had organized a trip to an orphanage at Ampangan, Negeri Sembilan today. Its not that far from our campus at Nilai. They are trying to find volunteers to join the program, and apparently they are short of brothers. So i volunteered myself because i got no plans to do on that sunday anyway. So why don't I do some charity work :D We gathered in front of the library at 8.30am and boarded the bus at around 8.50am.

The society expected that there will be 20 brothers and 20 sisters. But actually there were only 10 brothers and almost 30 (or more) sisters who participated in the program.. It seems like sisters have a softer heart than brothers to do this charity work... So that makes these 10 guys exceptional :D And there was also a coincidence but i still can't find any human reasoning behind this coincidence, the sisters were a mixture of Economics (ECONS), Human Science (HS), Bachelor of Arabic (BAR) and Bachelor of English (BEN) students but the 10 brothers are ALL from ECONS!! Go ECONS!! ECONS boys are more enthusiastic! Yeah! :D

huhu.. i don't like my new haircut :(

We arrived kinda earlier than expected at around 10.05am. The name of the orphanage is Pertubuhan Anak Yatim Darul Aminan (PAYDA). We hopped off the bus and we were greeted by a brother there. He was so nice and polite and invited us to have a seat. As we entered the place we saw the young orphans there. Some sitting and some standing looking at us. We can see in their eyes that they are actually shy. Some came up to us and shook our hands. There are currently a total of 33 orphans there, 17 boys and 16 girls.The youngest is 4 years old while the oldest is 16 years old (Form 4). The orphanage is just a small single-storey house. It is situated in a village-like area.

The orphans

The first tentative for the day is the ice-breaking session. Each of us is appointed to handle 1 child each. We, the facilitators (abang-abang fasi) have to introduce ourself briefly and then the children themselves will rise and come to us! When they came to us that means they have chosen us to be their abang fasi! It was awkward at first, for both us and the kids! But then we managed to sort it out. A boy named Azrul came to me and then all of us were given 1 hour to talk and getting to know the child better. So Azrul and I went to the dining area of the house and we talked about a lot of stuff!

We talked about school, uni, hobbies, ambitions and many other stuff. Azrul is a form 2 boy and his ambition is to be a an Astronaut! He told me that he's interested in going to outer space and exploring new planets. InsyaAllah, I pray for him that one day, his dream will come true :) I even asked him nicely, how did he became an orphan? He told me that his father passed away when he was in primary 3. He was at Johor visiting a relative when he received a phonecall saying that his father just had a heart-attack. He was trying his best to return back to his hometown as quickly as possible but it was too late. His father had already passed away.. He didn't even managed to see his father taking his last breath. He only managed to see his father while he is already in the coffin in the funeral. Innalillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Raji'un..

Azrul! My new foster brother!

So 50 minutes has passed since we talked but it didn't even feel like it has been 10 minutes! The next program is just basically like a quiz. The sisters from PERKIM asked the children questions on ARABIC! Because most of the PERKIM sisters are from the program BAR. I love arabic so i helped Azrul in answering the questions. The kids will get sweets or chocolates when they answered the questions correctly.

Not long after that is lunch and zohor prayer time. We brought a lot of packed lunch from campus and we had lunch together with the orphans. After that, all the brothers; abang fasi and the children; walked together to the nearby mosque to perform zohor prayer.

When we returned to the house, another activity awaits us. Two of my ECONS friends conducted the activity. We basically have to say the tongue twister while our hands do the correct hand gestures. Its a really fun and interesting game! And then we had a couple more fun games like the traditional malay "Goreng Pisang! Goreng Pisang! Goreng Pisang Sekarang!" game. The brothers owned that game! The brothers are more spontaneous than the sisters! Then there is also the Spelling Bee game. Each of the children is given a specific word in English and they have to spell out the word correctly. Of course we facilitators are encouraged to help them out!

And then without realizing it, its already 4pm and we were already at the end of the whole program.. Each of us (facilitators) is given like a small square shaped gift to be given to our chosen kids. We are also encouraged to write a message on the gift before we give it to them. The message could be about giving advices, words of wisdom, studying tips. As long as it is a message honest from our hearts. At the closing ceremony, Nizam, the president of PERKIM who is also my Maths classmate handed over the token of appreciation to the "mother" of the children. She is called "mother" because she is the one who lives in the house and takes care of the children as if they are all her own real children. "Father" wasn't there at that time. And then there was the photography session.

All of the male facilitators and children

I had a great time going to this orphanage. I would've regret if i didn't go to this beautiful place filled with beautiful children. We should be thankful that most of us still have parents who are alive and well. These kids are still young and the have already lost one or both of their parents.. May Allah give them strength and guide them to become successful people in the future InsyaAllah.. Ameen.

And this adds one more to the list of interesting experiences that i had during my Student Life. Thanks for reading. Salam :)

Salam readers. A few minutes ago I just submitted an application for a SCHOLARSHIP from Shell!! :O

Yes a scholarship. Everyone wants to get scholarship am I right? I mean who doesn't? The rich people who believe that they are economically dependent on themselves and their families A few thousand bucks flowing in through your bank account every semester. THAT is sweet stuff. But getting a scholarship is not easy. There are a few requirements.

The first requirement is you must have an EXCELLENT ACADEMIC BACKGROUND. It's obvious isn't it? The first thing that people want to see in your scholarship application form is your academic background. Even in the application form, the first thing that you need to fill in after your particulars, is your academic results. As for Shell example, you must have at least a CGPA of 3.5 to be able to apply.

The second requirement is you must involve yourself in A LOT OF EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES. This is basically your involvements in CLUBS or SOCIETIES and SPORTS in your school/campus. It is better if u hold a higher position in the club or society.

These two requirements are VERY IMPORTANT INDEPENDENTLY. Even if the academic background carry the greater weight, you can't just have a very strong academic background, but you don't involve yourself in any curricular activities. Let me give you an example, if you have a CGPA of 3.59 and you're applying for a scholarship and there is also another student who have a CGPA of 3.59 and is applying for the same scholarship. But there's only one seat left for the scholarship! So who's going to get it? Of course they will look at your extra curricular acitivites and see whose is better.

Again I want to mention, getting a scholarship is not easy. Getting a scholarship is just competing yourself with other scholarship appliers. The companies/institutions/government want their scholarships to be given to the BEST OF THE BEST STUDENTS because scholarships given are limited.

So if you're a student and u already met or believe that u are going to meet these two requirements, don't hold  your back for applying these scholarships because u got absolutely NOTHING TO LOSE. Aside from filling the long complicated application forms :/ The cash u get from scholarships is really luxurious and will lift the financial burden of studying off your shoulders. Or your parents' ;) There are a lot of companies and institutions and of course the government who are giving out scholarships out there. Either if its for ur High-schooling, Bachelor's Degree, Masters or PhD.

So all the best in your scholarships and studies :) Thanks for reading. Salam.

P/s: That old man is not me

Salam. I am now back at campus. Arrived here at 3pm. I was the first one to arrive among my dormmates. The dorm is a mess -.- At around 5pm Zul came. Ahh.. a bit relieved. I don't think i'm going to survive the night here alone.. There's ghosts here!! Waahhhh its freaking scary alone in the dorm!

Well ok not much to talk about in this post. Just want to share with u guys that yesterday me and a couple of friends went to One Utama at Damansara. Just hanging around there. We wanted to play pool + bowling + watch movies but unfortunately we can't do any of that because they're all filled with people! Yeah yesterday (Friday) was a public holiday because Malaysia won the footbal match with Indonesia.

But we didn't go there for nothing. We had lunch at Pizza Milano. The pasta + pizza there are awesome!! Mujahid bought himself a new electric guitar amplifier. He's so happy! Read his blog post here. Then Hakim and I went to MPH bookstore. Hakim bought himself 2 english novels while I bought 2 malay novels. Both of my novels are from the same author, Habiburrahman El Shirazy. I love his literary work. They're RM25.90 each so my total payment is RM51.80. We both paid together and i gave Hakim RM50 so he treated me RM1.80! Thanks Hakim :D After that we had some Japanese Crepes. I don't even know that japanese have their own crepes o.O So we decided to try it. Crepes are supposed to be hard as in toasty + crunchy but japanese crepe were.. soft + chewy. Its weird. But the filling was sweet :D After a long day at OU (not very long) Hakim sent me back home..

Left: Me, Hakim and Yusuf (mujahid's bro) at Pizza Milano

Japanese Crepes. The display shows that the crepes are so toasty + crispy!! But actually the ones we ate are really soft -.-

The 2 novels that i bought. I read Dalam Mihrab Cinta last night i already finished 3/4th of the book :D There are actually 3 or 4 stories in that novel. They are all compiled into one novel. As usual Habiburrahman El-Shirazy's novels are all touching ;( I'm going to read Bumi  Cinta after i finished Dalam Mihrab Cinta.

This morning before i arrived here at Nilai, My family and I went to my new Aunty's house at Taman Seri Putra. Its very near to Nilai so that's why i decided to go back to campus straight away! Her new house is a Semi-D. Very beautiful! Here are some pics i snapped using my new camera there :D

Beautiful Semi-D

My family with my new camera :D

She even have a nice fishing pond! But no fishes yet..

Sorry can't upload much photos of the house.. The internet here is too slow.. You can see more of them at my facebook page :D Ok that's all i'm gonna write for tonight. Got to finish up some assignments that i have to submit next week... Salam :)

EDIT: Hey i just realized this is the first post in the year 2011! Happy new year readers and May Allah shower us with His blessings during this whole year :)