Assalamu'alaikum readers.
So I've just finished my final examination papers for semester 1, 2012/2013 and I'm currently home.. for a short while. Usually there are holiday-breaks for students between every semester, sort of like a transition time between one semester to the other. And don't get this post wrong, my university do give semester holidays to the students, 3 weeks to be exact. It's just that I won't be experiencing much holiday because I have a lot of activities to be involved with during the holiday (actually just two).
So my final paper ended on last Monday (7th Jan) and on 8th I went back home to rest myself from all the stressful studies. I have to get back to UIA on the 13th because on 14th till 17th Jan I will be joining a program called Steadfast Enhancement Training (SET). It is an event organized by a club in UIA called student facilitator club (Steadfast) and I just joined the club this semester so I have to get involved with their events. I don't know much what SET is going to be all about but basically my guess is it's like a motivational camp. The participants will be all from the club members so I think this is a good time for me to get knowing and close to the club members because I'm still new in the society. Hopefully good memories will be in store for me! The camp will be held at Sungkai, Perak.
And on the 19th Jan till 9th Feb I will be having the ROTU annual camp. Yes 22 days of training. During the whole 3 years of ROTU course. there will be a total of 3 annual camps, each during the break between semester 1 and semester 2 of my academic year. So this will be the second annual camp for us intermediates (2nd year cadet officers). So yeah we will be having 3 weeks straight of training. The first 2 weeks of training will be held at Markas Palapes, University of Malaya. That's where we usually have most of our trainings at. The final week will be held in one of the reserve forests in Malaysia. Still not sure which forest/jungle this time. Last year while we're still juniors, we went to Sg. Tengi at Ulu Selangor. Part of the annual camp training during juniors is we learned about Counter Insurgency Warfare (CIW). We had to set up a base in the jungle and learn basic tactical movements and all that. What we're going to do this year as intermediates are we will be doing the advance phase of Conventional Warfare (CW). We have to move (literally walk) with our >10kg backpacks for more or less 20km. Yep. And not just that, that are few other things we have to do along the way like clearing bounds.
Ok enough of the military talk. Not like most of you are going to understand all the military terms anyway. So basically what I'm trying to say is I won't be having much free time this holiday.. as usual. For 3 years my semester holidays is going to be like this. Part of the sacrifice that cadets have to go through. But Insha Allah there will be a lot of hikmah and blessings from Allah for all of this that is happening. Being busy ain't that bad. Being idle is worse. I hate the fact that I admit to myself that I have nothing to do at certain times. A bit of time for yourself is ok but too much is not helpful. We have to get involved with people around us. So I guess that's the reason why I like to keep myself busy most of the times.
So yeah till 9 Feb is the ROTU annual camp and actually my second semester has already started by then. It begins on 4th Feb. So I have to burn the first week of the semester. Again, sacrifice. That's all I wanna say. Not much holiday. Till next time, thanks for reading readers.
Assalamu'alaikum readers. It has been a while.
There are 2 main reasons why one does not update his blog:
1) He has no idea what to write.
2) He has a lot of ideas on what to write but he doesn't have time to do so.
And the reason I haven't been updating is because of the second reason. I just got myself involved with so much activities in my University that I really don't have the time to update my blog. And now I have the urge to write down a post since I have time. If you don't believe that I am actually busy, allow me to tell you the things that I have been done since... *checking the date of my latest post* 5th July 2012. Oh wow that's a really long time ago. Scratch that I don't think I can remember what I did since that date. the beginning of this semester, that is somewhere in middle of September.
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| Convest Logo |
Every first semester in IIUM, there is a big annual event called Convocation Fiesta or Convest for short. The duration of this event is spread out for 2 weeks from the final week of September till the first week of October. The objective of Convest is like a symbol of appreciation and farewell to students who will be graduating from the university, but that doesn't mean that they are the only ones involved, all students (even outsiders) can participate in Convest. So what actually happen during Convest? There will be a lot of other events, performances, shows, etc (13 or 14 events i think) to make IIUM very lively during these 2 weeks.
And for each of these events to run, there must be an organizing committee for each event to organize and handle the event. Organizing committees consist of a programme manager, secretary, financial controller, head bureaus and subcommittees of each bureau. The number of bureaus in an event depends on the nature of the event itself. Can be 5, can be 7. The number of subcommittees in each bureau also depend on the nature of the bureau. Some time at the end of the second semester previous academic year I think, they were asking for volunteers for Convest. So I filled up the online form. And during short semester, they called me in for the interview. The interview was just a laid-back interview, not a stressfule one. Just asking to introduce myself and asking about event organizing experience and etc.
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| Event poster |
After a few more days, I was at first chosen to become a subcommittee of Preparation and Technical Bureau (PrepTech) for an event called called Explorace. So the PrepTech bureau involves in the booking of venues for the event, and preparing the items needed for the event. This Explorace event that we're in charge of is basically like "The Amazing Race" reality TV show. Each team of participants will have to go to checkpoints and do tasks and proceed to other checkpoints and do other tasks and etc.. you get the picture.
Our Explorace this time has a little twist, the tasks are not really physique-based (i.e. running, jumping, cycling, lifting heavy objects), but we mix it up with some community service. One of our checkpoints is at an orphanage House called Raudhatul Faeez at Batu 11, Gombak. Some of the tasks there are painting the house, playing games with the children, cleaning, cooking and etc. Another checkpoint is at a local fire station in Gombak as well. Participants have to do tasks such as repelling, extinguishing fire and etc. The rest of the checkpoints are in UIA itself. Some of the tasks inside UIA are kayaking, papaya carving, cycling and many more. So we PrepTech have to acquire all the items needed in every checkpoints, either by buying, borrowing, producing or search for sponsors. We need to be creative because our budget is limited.
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| 2 participants doing the cooking task at the orphanage house, Raudhatul Faeez |
The day of the event was on 6th October. I was in charged of handling the kayaking checkpoint at Maryam Lake inside UIA. The participants have to ride a kayak to the centre of the lake whereby there are a lot of bottles floating there. They have to find a bottle which has a piece of paper with their team number printed on it (each team has their own distinctive number). My job was to give instructions to the participants who arrive and I also have to make sure that the bottles don't drift too far from the centre of the lake, and I do that by getting on the kayak and paddle myself to get the bottles that drift too far. It was a sunny day and I spent almost the whole morning till around 2pm in the lake, on the kayak, under the sun. I got sunburnt so bad. But it was a good experience. The closing ceremony was at around 3pm, whereby they would announce the winners and prizes will be given. Congratulations to the winning teams. Alhamdulillah overall the event went well and the committees have given their all to make this event a successful one.
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| Me kayaking in the lake to get the bottles that drifted too far away |
I was also involved as a committee in a Convest event called ZoMAF '12, but I'm gonna talk about it in a later post. Meanwhile you can read about ZoMAF '11. Thanks for reading readers!
Assalamu'alaikum readers.
I'm currently on my second week of short semester 2011/2012 of my undergraduate study in IIUM Gombak. A short semester is the third semester of the year. The duration of the short semester is only 7 weeks (half the duration of the usual semester). The purpose of the short semester differs from kulliyyah or majorings.
Some kulliyyahs only offers short semester to students that are in need to catch-up with credits left-behind from previous semesters. In other words, not all students are able to take short semester in this kulliyyah and the only students who are taking the short semester are students who most probably have failed one or more courses in the past and wanting to catch-up with his/her other friends academically.
Some kulliyyahs or majorings (BAcc for example) requires their students to take short semester because it is part of their study curriculum. Failing to do so will require the students to extend their study for more than 4 years. This is because, some majors requires a lot of courses and credits to be done and acquired by the students and the kulliyyah have already prepared a study plan showing in detail what courses to take on which semesters. This also somehow reflects the general difficulty of the majoring.
Some other majorings like mine (BScIF) gives their students the free-will to take short semester or not. It depends on the personal study style of the student. For instance, if the students wants to graduate earlier than the default duration (4 years usually), he might want to take more courses during short semesters.
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| source: google |
Not all courses are available during short semester. You might be wondering how can the same courses during long semesters be applied to short semesters because a course in long semester takes 14 weeks for the students to go through. Well, it's easy. Just extend the number of classes per week or the number of hours per classes or both. The syllabus should be taught fully by the end of the semester one way or another.
I'm currently doing 2 courses in short sem. First course, ICT has 3 classes per week with 2 hours per class. This is something that is preferable by most because 2 hours per class is still sustainable. But for my second course, Business Ethics has 2 classes per week with 3 hours per class! I'm still struggling with this course because I can't help myself from sleeping during continuous 3-hour lecture. Moreover, if the course is not that interesting. Just look at the title of my course! (Allah help me, ameen)
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| source: google |
Thanks for reading readers, salam.
Abbreviations:
IIUM - International Islamic University Malaysia
BAcc - Bachelor of Accounting
BScIF - Bachelor of Science in Islamic Finance
ICT - Informarion and Communication Technology
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