how did i end up in manipal

so here i go. before i go any further into the topic, just some updates of past 2 weeks or so. i shaved of my long hair and traded it with short, short almost bald hair a.k.a botak num 1. kinda shabby with managing long hair so decided to cut it off for good. and then duit mara sudah masuk, and some people told that is the allowance for books, which means....duit bulanan is still yet to come! (i'm already thinking of stuffs too buy back at malaysia during holidays. @_@). other than that, i think its always been the same stuff, classes, blablablabla and so on.

let's get on with the topic shall we? i think i'm going to write in english for this post, since it would be much easier for me to narrate this whole stuff. some malays or melanaus would come up here and there afterwards, just to preserve the originality or feeeel or the story. mind you, this probably end up as a long long long post but i think its worth sharing. its ok if you can't bear the length, just feels like sharing so that someone else know what i've been through before. so that this hopefully would not happen to any of you who are reading this post now.

college days

my friends here in MMMC probably thought i was from KTT before getting here. *teettttttt. you are wrong. my previous college was kolej shahputra @ KSP, kuantan. don't ask me how i got there, that's mara business for placing me there. and i learnt a lot of things about life and stuffs there. that would probably go down as another separate post. so i was doing my a-level at KSP, for 2 years and bound for UK. i went for several interviews before a-level results came out, 2 of them in fact, which is university of sheffield & university of manchester. i got a conditional offer from university of manchester which i need to get AAB for my a-level in order to continue my studies over there. dipendekkan cerita, i was terrible at chemistry, so i struggled pretty much on catching up with chemistry syllabus during the exam preparation. and when the result came out, which was BBB, yes, you guessed it, i was devastated. -.- to see B for my chemistry was a relief, because i was hoping for at least B for chemistry and the rest for biology & maths would be a straightforward A's. to my surprise, it turns out to be different. BBB it is. huhu. so there goes my hopes of getting to manchester university at the mancunian land of the united kingdom. during that time, i was left with no options and just hoping that mara would have something to do with me. T_T

btn week

so this is when all the hardships of getting to india began. still at sibu at that moment, and i got a phone call from akak mara on 15th of august 2009 telling me that i need to attend a BTN course at negeri 9. the course will commence on 17th of august till 21th of that month. mind you, i live in sibu, sarawak, which probably some of you especially guys at mara that might forget that i need to cross the laut china selatan in order to get to negeri 9? so me & my mother scrambled ourselves looking for the cheapest and earliest flight (flight ok, not bus tickets) from sibu to kl to attend that btn course. and just to rub our noses further into the dirt, mara told that all expenses are not funded by them. -.- luckily mas had offers for kuching-kl flight & kl-kuching flight just at the right time when i needed it the most. still my parents had to fork out rm250++ for tickets and all. thanks to pak cik sidek for helping us with online ticket payment. i owe you that. so off i went for btn a day before 17th august and i stayed a night a my usu's house at kl. the next day i took the earliest bus to seremban & went to the btn camp along with aman and mil.alhamdulillah everything went well that time and the btn course itself was not bad either. to be honest, i enjoyed it pretty much and made new friends there.

my btn group - group 4

makan time!

repelling - very very cool indeed

inside the hall

so it was pretty much a very very awesome week for me after all despite all the troubles here and there. not the toughest challenge i've faced but still the upcoming weeks are going to be the toughest i've ever went through. after btn, i went back to sibu and by that time some rumours have spread among us that we will be sent to india as mara are kind enough to give us another chance. alhamdulillah. cuma terlintas dalam hati, kalau betul la aku fly, how would i face it? aku x ready lagi. T_T

MMMC & mara week

so this is where things go absolutely tough and wrong for me. again, the same story, received a phone call out of the blue on 1st or 2nd or august(not pretty sure about that), this time from miss sheila mohan of MMMC melaka campus though. telling that i need to attend an interview for MMMC intake at melaka on friday, 4th of september. remember i have just got back from btn course few days before, and now i had to attend an interview, at melaka this time.

'apa ingat sibu ngan melaka tu boleh drive kereta 2 jam setengah pastu sampai nak attend interview?'

i was very2 mad at that time considering i've just forked out my parents wallet just to attend a btn course while their son still hanging nowhere to go for medical degree. but still, i got no choice considering that mara has already arranged the interview with MMMC on my behalf. by that time my other KSP friends, KMS & KTT friends had taken the interview and already received the offer from MMMC. so i went to kl (again, this time i got no luck with flight tickets which cost almost rm300 i guess) a day before the interview (thursday). i got to melaka thanks to yana's ibu help and attended the interview. so me and yana went for the interview and well, as the guys told, you already had your offer letter even before you are interviewed. haha.

the next day, saturday me and mil again went to melaka from seremban for the orientation day at MMMC melaka campus. there i got my first glimpse of KMS guys on that day. dalam hati cakap 'mak ai muka sume bijak2 seh'. so i was told that they will be leaving malaysia for manipal on 9th of september. so this unevitable thought went through my mind, if they're leaving on 9th, when would i do? considering i still havent got any papers or agreement from mara on scholarship and all, let alone the visa stuff.

from left - awe, redza, matwan, jawo, piq. most right of the pic in maroon is me & mil is next to me. :)

so there you have it. i went for the interview, still no news from mara about what to do, when is the date for leaving malaysia. all i'm looking forward after that orientation day (5th sept - saturday) is get to kl, stay at usu's house and get back to sibu on the next tuesday (8th sept). and the next day which is sunday, yana told me that we will be joining those guys(KMS, KTT guys) for mara pre-departure briefing at mara hq on monday. i still have few days before going back to sibu, so why not? i went for the briefing on the monday. so this day marks the beginninng of the hardest week i've ever faced in my life.

hardest week ever

as i remember, i get myself ready pretty early that day, since the briefing is going to start at 9. went to mara's hq by lrt as early as 7. that day selangor was having public holiday for nuzul quran (17 ramadhan) but kl is excluded from the holiday. so i arrived at mara hq, get to meet cuki, aman, ella & tasha also there to settle mara issues of their own. so blablabla, briefing this and that, me and yana were called up by puan (cant recall her name) and given all this silly loads of forms to fill out. biasalah berurusan dengan these matters, banyak hitam & putih. and to my surprise, i was told that the flight date for me & yana is going to be on 14th of september. that was like 3-4 days left before hari raya! T_T i am starting to worry by that time, thinking would i make it home before the fly date? huhuhu. so the briefing day ends about 11am something. and there i was, left with bundles of documents to fill up, mintak cop itu, cop ini, beli setem itu setem ini, carik penjamin and so on. i was alone at kl with my parents back at sibu. in the afternoon that day, me and yana with the help of her pak su and ibu went for visa, since they told that that is the easiest thing to be done. and so i did but in the end it was too late because indian embassy is closed early (for what reason i do not know).

so left frustrated with visa issues, we went for checkup instead. thanks a lot for yana's paksu and ibu for willing to help me on medical checkup, even though in the end it turns out fruitless since most clinics will need 4-5 days to get the results done. after pusing2 all around kl for medical checkup which never happened, i asked yana's paksu to drop me at bank negara's komuter station across the mara hq there. it was 4pm that time, and i decided to call my mother to tell what's up with this 'fly' issue. after some thought by mak, she told that,

'asri, mai perlu lah kawan mulik tugun sibu lau sung. document2 smuah pitang ngah mak lau sung, kamik settlekan and insyaallah mak & apak akan labik malui kawan tang inan'

simply translated from melanau to bm, my mak told that x payahlah balik besok (since my flight to sibu supposed to be on tuesday@tomorrow) kalau dah macam tu, document2 semua poskan kat mak, mak & ayah akan settlekan & insyaallah mak & ayah akan datang sekali. mind you, during this conversation i was lining up to buy komuter ticket to kl sentral (even selangor cuti pun, kalau dh pukul 4, peak hour memang akan ramai org) and memang x dapat tahan langsung masa tu, i ended up crying after my mak finished her sentence above. just imagine, the morning i left for sibu-kl flight on 3rd sept, my brothers and my sister is still asleep. i didn't even manage to salam or kiss them because i was very sure at that time i would make it home before leaving for india. knowing this really really broke my heart after my mak told me that no need for me to get home on the next day. yes, i cried amongst the many people at that time. memang xde rasa malu2 lagi dh, sebab memang dh sangat2 sedih to know that fact. yes, i know mak's decision was absolutely right, since there's not much time for me to settle this and that before leaving but deep inside me, i need to get back home just before i leave to say goodbye to everyone.

aisya & ehsan

my siblings - taken during last raya

so there you have it. me crying on how i can't get back home just before i leave and yes, it hurts a lot (sorry agak emo tapi thats exactly what i feel that time). so i sobbed all the way till kl sentral (no, no that macho kind of cry, i'm crying like a little boy :'( ) and upon reaching kl sentral, i went straight to the surau because i still haven't prayed for asar yet. there, i cried as i might throughout the solat, and then read yasin few times to calm this broken heart. lagipun time tu bulan puasa, alhamdulillah Allah bagi ketenangan lepas solat sunat, yasin. i stayed at the surau for a little while till iftar, and had my iftar at kl sentral food court. here i met a sis, probably a bit older than me sitting in front of me for iftar too. so she asked me, 'aik, keje jugak ke cuti2 camni?'. i was like, what should i answer? dengan mata bengkak sebab nangis mcm nak gila tadi, i answered,"a'ah, keje kat mara". hahahaha, i was laughing at myself at that time. :p keje kat mara? LOLZZZ. at least that made felt a bit better after non-stop continuous crying earlier. hehe. so after a long day inside the heart of kl, beginning with pre departure briefing at mara hq, then jalan duta for indian embassy for visa (yang dh tutup by 2 kalau x silap) and then all over kl for clinic which offers fast medical checkups (nowhere to be found though) and a funny incident at kl sentral food court during iftar.

i think i need to stop for a while in writing this tragic (if that's it is for you guys, but definitely tragic for me) tale of myself. still some more to go on how i faced those challenges which made me think over and over again, Allah already wrote this in my taqdir and always, there's hikmah in each and everything that Allah had set for us. just like what was told by Allah inside Quran,

terjemahan given below

some text missing : dan rahmatilah kami, Engkaulah penolong kami, maka tolonglah kami terhadap kaum yang kafir.

i believe in Allah, whatever he decides for me, that's the best he want for me. insyaallah akan saya sambung lagi post ini soon. for those who made it till now, thanks a lot for you concern and time reading this post. i really really appreciate that and insyaallah the update would come soon rather than later. :) still some more to go but were almost there to the end.

assalamualaikum.