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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

ProGram Integrasi @ AKL

Diary for my short trip to Auckland.

I felt fortunate to be chosen to attend this Program Integrasi & Perpaduan Nasional wks ago;) I nvr think of it since I m not top 5 committee in wmso nor even top scorer for academic ;p I rmb when Aio text me that day n asked me to call aunty, I froze for a moment. Thankfully it was a good news =) I wasnt really keen to join at 1st, since I will be having a heart-breaking Audit & Tax test on fri n i wanted my break for the wkend before my torturing study wk starts. But looking at this golden opportunity n since the whole journey is free, i decided not to miss it which means i hav to sacrifice my wkend. aha..

The program began on fri night. Since I will be having test on fri evening, it was really sweet for aunty to arrange me an early flight on sat morning. Thankfully i m not on my own, since wyne accompany me along, I felt much more secured. I bet she was really hapi this time as she replaced elun for taking part in this programme, how lucky ;)

So there I am , at the domestic airport, before boarding the plane;)


My light bfast on the plane : cassava crisps n coffee ;)

8pm sharp. arrived at Auckland. I was really lost that time since I hav no idea at all who gonna pick me up n where i shall heading to. In my mind, I thought there will be someone waiting for me,at least someone who hav a name plate with my name on it. haha ..ok, maybe i m thinking too much, i m not vip watsoever. I approached the shuttle driver, thinking that maybe they will hav some sort of idea, but end up the driver laughed at us, since v hav no idea where we wanna go n we dunno what name the shuttle is booked under...we were standing in the rain, dunno wat to do. wat a mess. such stupid. I wanted help so much,hoping someone could tell me wat i should do..thankfully not long after, Aio managed to reach Aunty for me.

Shuttle dropped us off at YHA bckpackers. Aunty asked us to check in before walking us to the place where the program was held.

So there I was, at Auckland YHA bckpackers;)

While we were waiting for aunty, we realised that evy street name was just right under our feet. cool huh?without realising it, u will still search frantically for the street name plate...XD

Since its almost tea break, aunty brought us to our so called canteen or dining venue. Our program was held inside the faculty of engineering but we hav to walk to the opposite road to the quad for our meal.

Morning tea break : Fried mihun + kuih talam ..yum yum;)

We also hav pic with our facilitator : Prof. Raduan & Mr. Abd Rashid

During tea break, I recognised many familiar faces. hee;) most of them I know them via Bersatu Game. It has been so nice to meet them again! especially Que n Hanaa, we are the ex Intec-ians! :D

This was around the uni area,i think akl uni has better building than welly;p sound so pro-akl rite now..haha

Bck to program! We were divided into groups of 8 to discuss about the current Malaysia Issues. Since they hav divided their groups prior to our arrival, I hav no idea which group I will be n wat discussion hav been goin on so far. Finally I was in the same group with mainly ppl I know, Aio,Que, Sheng & Hazwan while wyne was in the same group with Hanaa, Iqa & Amir.

It sounds abit like BTN really since we get to eat after each session. the difference is we dont hav to sit for exams like Btn & I was surprised to find out that it was a matured discussion among us.

this was the room that we used for the 2days program:

So I was in this Durian Paua Group! ha..i wonder y they actually put durian n paua together...some group hav really cute names like underdog aka iylia group, Joey's aka jo's group, Rentap,pengoncang dunia aka Iqa's group.

After discussion, each group hav to come out with 3 main current hot issues at Malaysia. As my group has mainly discussed most of it earlier of the day, by the time i sit down, I was finding it quite difficult to grasp what they hav discussed up to. U know i felt so stupid-ish somehow since i m so ignorant of some of the issues. I just know wat is happening to M'sia generally, but when it comes to detailed info, i need help though. my bad,i dun really read newspaper :(

Especially on the area of politics, I was surprised to find out that my group mates hav come out with lots of thoughts. woo~ Bravo peeps! so memalukan since i dun really hav much idea on politics. In fact, its too sensitive n i dun really care. But thank goodness, I hav abit knowledge about the economic issue like re-peg RM & removal of 30% quota. my dad should be happy to hear that since he is the one who encourage me to take commerce stream when i was in form 4. When it comes to Social issues like Rempit, Ah Beng & Ah lian & the lack of unity among younger generation, i believe evy1 has a word for that. Looking further, it was really sad to say that there r actually alot AlOt ALOT of Issues happening in M'sia which need to be addressed further. Quite scary though.

When it comes to presentation, my group proudly present our excellent presenter, dream- to- be-politician, Mr. Sheng. Well done Sheng!=)) I dint know u can present so well especially in such sensitive area like Politics. Salute salute! ;) Que & I were really concerned whether wat v has discuss on these especially on politics will interfere the ISA. Somehow that held me back, but it was really good that Prof. grant us permission to express all our thoughts honestly. not too bad it seems. Sounds like M'sia govt is acting good here;)

Proud to say, each group has its own good speaker. How amazing student can talk about issues happening in 1980s, 1990s, the internal UMNO issues, comments on who will be the next prime minister. they sound so politician really..
Raja from Christchurch,being one of the good speakers, i respect him since he is so good at all this. I wondered how much research he has done.

Via this program, I was really impressed by all the speakers. Proud to say, Jo was one of them:)
I can stil rmb some line of words from her, it sounded stg like this:
"M'sia mcm tak ade identiti sendiri, Jepun maju, kita ikut, Germany hebat, kita pula ikut Germany.. kita ni dapat madu dari sepah, kita ambil sepah baru sedangkan sepah sendiri masih baik lagi.." commenting on the attitude of Malaysia govt. which dont hav its own mentality.

While the Rentap group was saying about budaya & bahtera. "kita ada budaya unik kita sendiri sedangkan kita tidak bahterakan". this was related to all the campaign held throughout m'sia such as Tak nak, Belilah barang buatan M'sia, all these campaign doesnt seem effective. why? bcoz they just happen to be hangat-hangat tahi ayam for just a while, the life span was about 3 mths max. where after that evy1 tend to 4gt wat is happening. I m sure evy1 agree with this depiction, the undeniable fact about m'sia campaign.

Regarding the Slogan like M'sia Boleh, I truly agree with Wei Hong, he mentioned that "Tak guna kita sendiri je tahu cakap 'M'sia Boleh', kita nak org luar kata 'Msia Boleh' sebab kita Boleh!"

One of the issue was targeted on the current education system. It was one of the main concern as we think that our edu system has placed too much emphasis on academic excellence where in evy student perception, getting as many A's is the ultimate goal for success. Very little emphasis is placed on co-curriculum activities. Looking at us, the product of this system, our skill of memorising may achieve 99% score but our understanding n critical thinking might be just as low as 1%? I rmb as long as I could hafal the whole sejarah book, I got an A for my SPM. u ask me whether i understand evythg, i will shake my head. When compared to the kiwi's, i am impressed when they r such creative thinkers & they r bold enough when it comes to expressing ideas even in such large lecture. Cant we, M'sian be like them too?

After a hot debating goin on, we were given a chance to attend the Raya Open hse organised by Auckland student in one of big hall, Fale Pasifika complex in the city campus.;)

Outside the hall....the hall was quite unique in its own way. It was timber made with a big round roof 'hat' . the exterior looks stg like a mosque stg like a stadium;)

Even though the complex is spacious, but still it cant really accomodate evy single one. maybe there r too many of us ;p I dont get a seat either. This open hse was kinda a grand one, since Dato n all the officers have attended. I still figuring out the hidden meanings behind Dato's words when he mentioned that "....here(auckland) is better than Wellington.." in his opening speech. I felt terasa for a while. Dont we treat him well enough? ish ish...

Menu of the day: rendang kambing, vege salad, nasi beriyani, telur sambal, cabbage with kunyit, curry chic...Spicy hot n sgt sedap oh! we also hav cake, puff, fruit salad n ice cream as dessert;)

the 5 wellingtonians!
With all the hebat-hebat ladies: Hanaa, Que & Ying Swan
& the guys: Hafiz, Hazwan & Raja
Mainly all of the participants for the program, student leaders from MUMSA, WMSO, PETSOC,CMSA, UMSA.
I met up with some Auckland peeps too, Roger, Diana & Marilee:) So happen, Abg Rudy & Pn Siti also came to akl for JPA briefing.

Of coz not to miss out, we met up with our cinderella Sarah;) when I text her that I m at Akl, I believe she got so surprise. Anyway,thanks darling for meeting up even though u r bz with assignments!

After dinner & once I met with Sarah, We decided to go for jalan-jalan instead;)

We passed by this beautiful campus. People, this is SchOOL of BuSiNess at UNI of Akl!!! I m so envious. Omg, the whole building was made of glass, full round reflection, very mesmerizing! i wish i could be one of the student here,can I? :p



Even the garden within the campus is pretty too. Sarah, i m jealous! lol

When we passed by Albert Park, the nicest garden at Akl..as usual it is alwiz lived up with colourful n pretty flowers;)
Important thing is this time the flower theme is PurPle. ^.^ purple-ish flower beds!

On the way to the Sky City...our usual lepak place;)

Since its was wkend, there is not much place we can hang out to. Thankfully my must-go-shop: the $3 Japanese Shop is still open till late evening;D After grabbing some stuff, we went to Mr Whippy. Sarah & Wyne hav yoghurt ice-cream while I got myself a cup of mocha. I think i was overdosed on coffee since its my 3rd cup of coffee for the day.

We could see the Sky Tower not far away. Due to the breast cancer month, the Sky Tower is lit up with Pink colour. Frankly I dint know the sky tower will change its colour according to the event for the month, this is simply so sweet;)
The Sky Tower looked good in pink but i wonder y the colour in my pics looks more like purple-ish. Yay, its my colour! this is why i love Akl so much...=p
We bade goodbye to Sarah around 9pm. This cinderella hav to get back home early to continue her assign =p Since the night is still young + wyne has finally join the 20th club, so Wyne & I decided to hav a casino tour at The Sky Tower;) woohee~ I was really eager! after so many years of waiting. i wanted to hav a look..really....

So after changing off my kebaya n my hurting heels, there we go. As predicted, the security guards requested our passport identification before entering. Obviously, our small size statue make them think that we are still under age. The guard's reaction after viewing wyne's passport was "oh..u just reached the age!" haha. funny.

Well, we are not allowed to take any photographs even at the entrance of the Casinos. I did feel like snapping some pics, but judging that there is CCTV at evy single corner, so i just decided not to take the risk.

Well, it was an experience;) there are fleet of gaming machines, lots of table games which consist of black jack, money wheel, Baccarat n the famous Roulette where v used to watch this in many HK drama series. Somehow we felt abit bored since we hav no idea how the games work, but to some extent, its quite entertaining to see how ppl bet.

On sunday, we hav another discussion goin on entitled "my malaysia". Prof. wan us to think of the characteristic of Malaysia that we dream of. There were so many things jotted down in our wishlist, ranging from good public transport, cleaner public toilet, better edu system, freedom to speak our thoughts, unbiased & stable politic environment, in short a safer n happier place to be:)

Towards the end of the program, I managed to hav a snapshot with my fellow group mates;)


Food has been all good.
Akl is such a wonderful food haven, i wonder how much i hav gained from the past 2 days of eating n eating good food. I shall not complain. evy meal is a blessing;)


Some las group pics before putting a full stop for this program.

In the ending speech, Prof. Raduan has sum up all our ideas n thoughts which will be used as a feedback to the policymakers. He was saying that there are 5 inputs for Policymakers, from the alphabet A to F: Assessment of what has happened, determine the Base line (what is the current situation), identify the Components need to be addressed, get the Details, Examine them, get Feedback!

All the facilitators hav also encouraged us to seize evy opportunity we hav. Go n see the world! ;) Stay united. Harmony. Respectful. Trust. Transparency ;)

There is one line from Aunty that I like: " we are the reflection from our past, yet we are the mirror for our future". It was pretty sad though when comes to think of it that this is the las programme held by aunty. But aunty hav been so optimistic;), she ended her speech by saying "Goodbye is just the beginning..." Sometimes i reckon aunty is so good at rephrasing words;)

Truly, I felt honoured to attend this. Thank you aunty;)

I reckon it was really a matured yet inspiring program held. Initially, i thought this program aimed to 'brainwash' us somehow but it turned out to be another way. I hav became much more aware now n it has provoked me to think further what i can help my country. M'sia lah, tanah tumpah darah kita (aunty rose, 2008);p

Somehow, It makes me really think...

I realised I did not really read enough, like wat Sheng said, on average M'sian only read 1page of book annually. Such pathetic statistic. Yea, true, I hav been inspired to read more...more n more..

Malaysia, its time to wake up n address all the issues happening around. Tepuk tangan sebelah tidak akan berbunyi, stay in unity, M'sian! No matter what happen, we are still m'sian, arent we?

I want My Malaysia to be a destination which do not refrain me from goin bck. a place that make me feel peace n secure. a paradise that i feel i belong to. a loving country where i m proud to say "saya lah anak Malaysia".

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