pelf-ism is contagious

WARNING: Lengthy post ahead. Proceed ONLY IF you do not mind (a) seeing pictures of me plastered all over the post AND (b) the sub-standard quality of the pictures. I do not have a scanner so I took pictures of the pictures instead.

Feli asked me the other day, whether the wardrobe in the hostel was big. I went through my photo album but could not find any pictures of the hostel room. But I “found” the following pictures, tucked nicely in the album, collecting dust. Hence the decision to let you take a peep into my Bachelor days. Bachelor, as in, Bachelor degree la..

This is the photo album I got for myself. I have seen how my seniors tucked their photos into a shoebox and I made a mental note that I must NOT do that. So I bought an album, and I chose one that looked like what I was doing..

So, one of the earlier pictures I had was this, which was taken at Sekayu Waterfall. It was our first sampling trip, and I did not know what to expect, what to bring, what NOT to bring.

The only thing we knew was that we were going to do water samplings. We were expected to collect water samples from the waterfall, from the reservoir, channel the lake water through a series of sieves (pic), collect samples in the specimen bottles and bring them back to the lab for further analyses.

In my first semester, we were all requested to take up an extra-curricular activity, which was worth 1 credit hour. And since I had no prior swimming lessons, I took that up. The person in the picture was my roommate from Penang. For those who didn’t already know, the girls’ and the boys’ pools were separated (I think they still are).

One of the earliest trips to the islands was to Kapas Island, organized by the Christian Fellowship. But some smart-a$$ed guy pushed me into the boat, and I sprained my ankle..

.. And was teased..

The first time I was introduced to the turtles was when a lady lecturer (now my Supervisor) invited us the “new kids” to release about a hundred green turtle hatchlings. I remember going to the campus at night, unaware of what to expect. We have a little bridge on campus that connects the campus to the sea, and there is a gate in the middle of the bridge to prohibit access to the other side. The gate was locked and guards who were “safe-guarding” the keys did not seem to be around, so this lady lecturer led us to climb over the gate. I was like, “WOW, this is cool!” So we climbed over to the other side and released a bucket full of hatchlings..

The pair of hands on the left was the lady lecturer’s and on the right, mine :))

The first time the entire course “buka puasa beramai-ramai”, we went to this place called Sutra Beach Resort. The resort is located about 15 minutes from campus, and we all dressed up and had good dinner, after a couple of months eating crappy Malay food. After dinner, we proceeded to one of the “air buah” stalls and challenged ourselves to the gigantic orange + pineapple juice (pic).

Another picture to show how humungous it was. Apparently, if ONE person could finish that by himself/herself, the drink would be on the shop. Otherwise, we would have to pay for it, and it cost RM 35! There was a time when we had to pass the gigantic glass around and everybody had to sip a mouthful of it. And by the time we went back to the hostel, one of the Malay girls ran straight-away to the toilet and puked!

During the holidays, a couple of us went to Langkawi Underwater World for a self-initiated Industrial Training. The one in the picture was my other roommate from KL. We learned about the filtration systems behind the beatifully-decorated glass cases and we learned to bake food for all the animals on display - certain animals preferred certain sizes of food, and of certain colours..

In my second year, I initiated another training at the Turtle Sanctuary in Masjid Tanah, Melaka. And this time around, I brought my sister with me. We helped cleaned the big water tank that was housing a green and a hawksbill turtle, separated by a steel fence.

I celebrated my birthday in Pizza Hut, surrounded by (mostly) guys.. I seem to have more guy friends than girlfriends, at least in the university..

The above picture was taken at the end of our Planktonology (the study of planktons) classes. Somebody suggested that we take a group picture with the well-liked lecturer Note that during my time, there were only 20 students who came to do Marine Biology. But the numbers have been increasing since then. And our course was the only course where the non-Muslim students out-numbered the Muslim students..

In my third year, we still had field trips to go to. The picture above was taken at Tumpat, Kelantan, when we were there for a 5D4N field trip (I know the picture is not clear, but I have warned you, no?). We had to come up with an inventory of the mangrove trees in the area, measure the diameter-breast-height (DBH) of the trees, estimate the cover of the trees etc. And we had to plant 1,000 mangrove trees before we came home!

During my final year, I attended a workshop at the WorldFish Centre in Penang, and met a lot of scientists who kind-of encouraged me to carry on working on my final year project, which by the way, required me to go to the sea on full and new moons, deploy a few self-made plastic traps with artificial lightings and hopefully those traps would attract fish larvae/zooplanktons.

I also went to a Brackish Water Field Station in Gelang Patah, Johor, to test my light trap. I know, the light trap looks very funny and incapable of doing anything but that was only one of the challenges we had to face - namely lack of funds to support each Final Year Student’s project, lack of resources, and lack of time to experiment on different stuff.

There came a time when we attended our course nights organized by our juniors, instead of us organizing it. It felt great to be a senior, I realized, provided that the juniors treated you as one But juniors these days are really… *shakes head*

Last but not least, one of our last field trips was made to Kuala Ibai to collect specimens that dwell on muddy bottoms. When we got back, we were required to simulate the natural habitat and display our specimens in their “natural habitat”. And this was what my group came up with (pic).

And in case you are not YET convinced why I should stay in this line to save the turtles that are already critically-endangered, here’s why..

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Let me show you something before somebody starts to flame me for the earlier post I wrote on how some students really should be thankful to be offered a place in the public university and that they should not make a big fuss out of nothing because there are a lot more students who are sufferring in silence. These are the students who did not manage to get into a public university. What is worse is that the majority of these students cannot afford private tertiary education.

I do not normally blow my own trumpet, but I thought maybe what I had written over 4 years ago could be a source of motivation to students who had been offered a course which is not their choice.

I have no idea who submitted the article to doctorjob.com.my but anyway, I am reproducing it here:

Making the best of things

I CAN’T recall exactly when the news broke out that we could check our applications to local universities on the Internet, but I can remember every other detail vividly. I’d like to share my experience with the thousands of students who are currently waiting for admission into local universities.

I was on my way home after sending my sister for tuition when a Form 6 friend of mine called. I couldn’t answer the phone as I was driving. I returned his call when I got home, thinking that he only wanted to chat with me. That was when he told me that the results of our applications were out. Then he told me that I would be sent to Terengganu.

I thought, at first, he was joking but he sounded serious and asked if I actually applied for Marine Biology in Kolej Universiti Terengganu (KUT). My heart was pounding fast, I almost stopped breathing. After saying goodbye, I thanked him for informing me and hung up.

I nervously flipped through that day’s newspaper for the website address. Found it! I quickly logged on to the page, keyed in my IC number and pressed the “Submit” button. My heart sank when the new page was displayed. Before I knew it, tears started rolling down my cheeks. Terengganu? Marine Biology?

Terengganu is far, no doubt. Far from home and friends in Malacca and far from relatives in Ipoh. And “Marine Biology”? I asked myself over and over again. I couldn’t even swim, let alone dive and work in the sea. How was I supposed to go about it? I disconnected and called my aunt in Ipoh. I started crying before I could utter a word. After quite some time I finally told her what had happened.

She listened patiently to my complaints and then, being ever so supportive, suggested that I take up the course first and appeal to switch to another course after one semester. She also suggested that I make a trip to UPM Serdang to file an appeal.

The next few days seemed like an eternity. Though I was eager to go to university, I was also wondering if I should take up something else, something that was my choice. I searched through the papers, but I couldn’t find any private institution offering “Food Science & Nutrition”. I wrote countless e-mails to the person-in-charge at KUT, asked them about the course, the syllabus, the career options available after graduation and also scores of other questions. Unfortunately, none of the questions were answered. When I finally got the offer letter from KUT, I called them personally.

Questions about the course still remained unanswered, but I did find out more about the hostel as well as transportation in Kuala Terengganu. I knew I had to make up my mind as soon as possible and proceed with life. I knew I couldn’t continue �grieving� about the fact that I was sent to Terengganu. And I decided to give myself a chance. A chance to take life’s unpredictable turns and live with it.

My uncle drove my Mum and me to KT as my father was out of town. We reached a day earlier and I tried my best to familiarisze myself with the roads and the landmarks in KT. We found our way to KUT the next morning, at about 8am, in time to register myself. Banners were put up to welcome the new undergraduates. Many people were at the registration area, parents and grandparents, siblings and other family members. A canopy was prepared for the parents and another one for students queuing up to complete the registration.

I was making new friends even when I was queuing up! And in less than 30 minutes, I met a few girls from Penang, as well as a coursemate who happened to be my roommate. After completing the registration, I went to get my room key and filled up more forms. The next few days were spent with my two roommates, an Indian from KL and a Chinese from Penang. We did practically everything together. Orientation was very tiring but fun. That was when we got to know our coursemates as well as our seniors. The seniors were very nice people, well, at least they didn’t make us kiss the pipe or get the cutest boy’s phone number.

After the four-day orientation, classes finally started. There were some “funny” and “weird” classes in our first semester, or so we thought. I’d never thought of doing Aquatic Botany or Aquatic Ecology in class. The lecturers were friendly and we got along quite well. We even had a few field trips where we worked outside the class. We went to Pantai Chendering to collect some algae and to Taman Pertanian Negeri Sekayu to do some water sampling.

I’d never exchange those wonderful moments in my life for any other things. And how could I ever forget our “course orientation” where we had to swim about 50-100m out into the sea (it’s the South China Sea, mind you) towards a boat. We had to get up the boat and some seniors were there to teach us how to jump off the boat. After jumping, we swam back to shore. It was a scary experience for some like myself who didn’t know how to swim but some boys did it twice, if not thrice. (I had to attend swimming lessons every Monday in the public pool in KT).

Classes were pretty much the same for the rest of the semester. We had assignments to hand in, there was a lot of reading to be done and I was glad that the library opened until midnight. There were also group projects where we learned to communicate with our coursemates. And there are, of course, scores of tests and exams we all dread.

The beach, which was about five minutes� walk from the hostel, was another thing that kept me going.

Staying in a new environment such as KT also meant that we had to explore the place. We made countless trips to the town, which is about 20 minutes from the hostel. For shopping, we would go to The Store; Chinatown was just across the street.

Life in Terengganu certainly wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The same applies to taking up a course that is not your choice. After the first semester, a few of my coursemates requested to switch to the courses of their choices. But I didn’t. I felt that I was already falling in love with what I was doing. In fact, I am now looking forward to taking up a Scuba diving license in a month�s time.

Finally, I believe that life is what we make of it.

Chen Pelf Nyok

So you see.. Things might not look favourable to you at this point of time, but things do change. And one of the reasons I “encouraged” Feli to come to KUSTEM is because I do not want her to waste an opportunity to pursue her tertiary education just because she is afraid of going to a place she has never been to before.

I didn’t mention that I received a book from my friends for my birthday, did I?

Anyway, a couple of them passed the hat around and bought me “Life and Death in Shanghai” by Nien Cheng. In fact, it was one of the books that I never failed to lift whenever I went to Pustaka Seri Intan, say, about once every other week. The book was not exactly expensive, it was about 40 bucks but being the kiamsiap person that I am, I rarely spend that amount of money on a book that I know I will only read once. I always say a little prayer and hoped that the price of the book would drop a little so that I would buy it. And, by the way, Pustaka Seri Intan is the only notable book store in KT, which pales in comparison with MPH or Times or even Popular.

So since I am still at it, maybe I should also mention about the weird “birthday celebration” that I had this year.

I sent J to the jetty to Redang on the day before my birthday - he carries out his samplings in the island. He usually goes in for a few days so I did not bother to ask whether he was coming out the next day to celebrate my birthday. I didn’t want to give him the impression that I demanded his presence on my birthday though I secretly hoped that he would come out the next day.

But he didn’t. He came out on the same day, after his routine samplings. Without informing me. So at the stroke of midnight, he called me but since the phone reception was bad in my room, he asked me to go stand at the gate for better service. So I did la. When I pulled open the curtain, he was standing right in front of me with a chocolate cake and a bouquet of roses! Boy, was I surprised..

On another note, my postgraduate friends also bought me a cake and waited for me to appear at the post-graduate room which also serves as our usual meeting point. I did not know they were waiting for me so I did not turn up la.

So the cake that they bought me sat in somebody’s fridge until the next working day. So my birthday cake became my belated birthday cake. I was so shy for causing all the unnecessary trouble that I just quickly made a wish and cut the cake.

But that was not all. For reasons that I have yet to ascertain, they did not give me the book present on that day. It was about one or two days later that I saw it sitting on my desk, nicely wrapped.

Anyway, to cut a long story short (I know it’s been too long), I celebrated my birthday over a span of 4 days. Jealous or not?! *winks*