♥ BABYT'S WORLD OF CRAP ♥

Friday, April 08, 2005

Everyday, 6.30 p.m. is dinnertime. For most of us (who were not so hardworking) will stay in the dorm and prepare our own dinner ourselves. Well, we’ll have instant noodles instead. It’s really troublesome to go to the canteen because we had to change from our sports wear to our ‘baju kelas’ (Class uniform), which is so uncomfortable and not to mention ugly. Imagine wearing some sort of blue long sleeves shirt with a pair of trousers and heels just to go to eat. We don’t even have time to bath before changing into our baju kelas or what every trainee calls it - factory workers’ uniform. I really don’t get the whole purpose of having us changing into our class uniform (baju kelas) for dinner. I mean, what’s the difference if we wear our sports wear? It’s still attire provided by the government. Since that’s the rule, my friends and I resorted in eating in the dorm or going to the café for dinner. (The café’s food is not any better than the canteen’s actually but then at least we don’t have to wear our uniforms while eating there and we can also take our time to bath before eating there) Occasionally we might consider having dinner in the canteen.

After dinner, we have all the time for ourselves until 9 p.m. So usually it’s bathing time and after that I will hang out in my dorm, listen to some music, chat and relax. Usually at 8.45 p.m., after the Muslims had pray, the siren will ring. All of us will be then wearing our class uniform and will be rushing out to line up in front of the hall. Only then will we find out about what we are going to do next. Every night, we do different things. We usually have ‘malam kebudayaan’ (cultural night) on Monday. During cultural night, we had to group according to our race and discuss about our performance for the last day of National Service. Each race have to perform their own traditional dances, songs or whatever they think is related to their culture. I usually find Monday nights boring because the Chinese usually ended up doing other things rather than discuss. Even if they actually discussed about it, I would care less. I mean, in the end I’ll just do what ever they want me to. So usually my friends and I would secretly sneak back to our dorms and carry out our own activities instead. Sometimes at night the teachers will give us talks or lectures on the programmes on the next day. Usually all these night activities will cause my bad moods to erupt suddenly from nowhere. I mean, it’s nighttime; everyone is exhausted after a whole day of tiring activities and still we had to sit through almost an hour or more of hypnotizing lectures making us feel worst. Oh and then at eleven o’clock should be our bedtime but then they made us sing ‘Negaraku’ (our national anthem) and ‘Wira-wirawati’ (the National Service Theme Song). By doing this, they delayed our sleeping hour to like about half an hour late. Our sleeping time is extremely precious; well at least for me it is, even though I must admit that I don’t sleep that early in camp sometimes.

After our Hari Raya Haji holidays, (Which we went home for 5 days) we went back to camp to find that we were placed in different groups for the character building module. I was really sad. I really like my old group members (from D1). Besides, I was actually really worried that I wouldn’t click with my new group members. It’s a whole new beginning and I will have to make new friends once again. That day, my friends and I went to check out the name list, which contained the names of our new group members. I was extremely nervous even though I know it’s just a temporary thing, I don’t know why. I wasn’t that happy that Huey Ning, my closest friend wasn’t in my group but fortunately I had Si Mei and Ah Chin in mine. We were divided to 4 groups or classes to be precise. I’m in Class 4 while Huey Ning was placed in class 1 with some of her other Alpha friends. Yin Yin was alone in Class 3. Even though we have new groups for character building, in the afternoon (2p.m.), I’m still in Delta for the physical module. (Yup, we’re still not done yet with the physical stuffs) So at least I still get to see my old mates. Character building was the WORST module of all four modules. Just ask anyone out there the worst module among the four and I’m sure that the answer would be character building. Maybe you don’t even have to ask, they’ll just tell you that. I apologize but I really have to say this, what in the world is the government thinking when they were creating this module. The whole module is a mistake. They should cancel it or at least redesign it.

During character building, we were supposed to learn how to be more confident of ourselves, how to make full use of the people around us and ourselves. But in the end of this module, I don’t really get anything. I’m still the low self-esteem girl and I don’t feel any extra confident at all. The activities and games designed in this module are way too outdated for our age. I mean, how can you actually treat us, teenagers like little children. I consider myself totally immature and childish at times and even I find the activities extremely kiddie. What do you think more matured teenagers out there think? We have to do silly hand actions, play games that are not fun at all, make funny noises, complete workbooks and the list goes on and on. My friend, Ah Chin even destroyed her workbook by tearing it to pieces. She doesn’t care at all. (Well I guess I handled my stress better than her) There was even this silly song (I’m not even sure whether I should call it a song) called ‘Roti Canai, Char Kuey Tieu’ or something and we actually had to sing it. So you expect 18 year-olds out there to actually enjoy themselves singing this. There are so many other ways to teach us how to really build good characters. Fun activities are necessary to help succeed this module but definitely not the activities they had arranged for us. I was enormously shocked when I found out that the government spent millions of Ringgit (our currency) to invent these activities for us. I’m like; why not pay me instead because I can think of something better. In fact, I think everyone can think of something better than what they had came out with. Well, in my opinion, it’s better to have chat sessions instead of us hearing what they have to say most of the time. It’s good to have more teachers to really get to know each and everyone of us. Then only can they recognize our problems and help us overcome them. They should also do sessions in small groups so that everyone has a chance to speak up. This might help boost confidence and that’s exactly what we want – help teenagers be more confident and be able to express themselves. For me, I’m really shy when it comes to sharing my opinions in public and believe me; I can never do public speaking. But when I’m force to, I’ll at least try to. For my case, I only speak up when people ask for my opinions. Usually I keep my mouth shut. (But then when I’m with close friends, my mouth just can’t stop functioning. I’ll keep talking and talking) For others, they might have other problems when it comes to opening up. So this module should create chances for teenagers to speak up their minds. Do activities that require presentations and thinking. I could really use some mind exercises that help increase my IQ. Besides this, it’s also nice to help shy and quiet teenagers learn how to mix around. I noticed that in my camp, they are a few candidates who always stick to themselves and they have no friends. They are really nice people but it’s just that they find it hard to connect with others. One of them is this quiet girl I know named Tieng Wei. Seriously, the character-building module really needs some modification. DO SOMETHING QUICK before more victims go crazy. I’m sure if the government would put their minds to it, the outcome of this module would be more beneficial and would serve the purpose.

With Lots of Love & Hugs & Kisses & Chris Richardson's scent from BabyT ;