Life In the University Part 1

It was a date i will always remember for the rest of my life...15th June 1989, the date of the offer letter from University Malaya for the Science Matriculation program. For the first time in my life, I had to fly on my own to Subang Airport by end of June 1989. My arrival was met by my brother who was working in KL. The next day I was dropped off at the entrance of University Malaya 2nd college for our one week orientation program. We weren't allowed to have visitors or calls during the one week orientation. I felt like an alien until I met my former Form 5 classmates Zeti and Nora who happens to be offered the Science Matriculation program as well. Boy, I sure felt relieved at that point.
The seniors woke us up rudely at 4am for our early jog around the football field for almost every morning. Then we are ask to clean up and get ready for our enrollment for the Science Matriculation program. For the whole one week, sports activities as well as other activities were line up for us to do and it was damn tiring. At night we still have to listen to the talk given by the seniors on the life in campus, the dos and don'ts. I practically fell asleep during the talks only to be shouted at by the seniors for not listening. We had to compete in games such as sepaktakraw, volleyball, etc with the other matriculation student from other college during the orientation week. If I don't recall wrongly, 2nd college won the sepaktakraw event  and I have to admit that sepaktakraw is a very interesting game to play and I like it. We almost lost our voice for cheering the boys during the game. On the last day of orientation week, me and my friends decided to walk around campus but we had to pass thru the boys hostel and my first encounter with Kelantanese boys was not pleasant. They tried to get our attention and when we didn't pay attention to them, they call us "HUDUHHHH", Kelantanese slang for UGLY!
After the orientation program was over, we were sent to different college for our actual hostel for the next two years. Me and my friends were sent to 3rd college and we had to commute quite a distance of about one kilometre daily to our lecture hall.

Every morning after breakfast you will see throngs of kids commuting to their lecture hall.  The tutorial class were smaller and I met a few Sabahan students as well.
The first year of my studies I was ask to joint the Sarawakian Students Association and my first assignment was to dance a cultural dance of the Orang Ulu tribe. We had to practice almost every day for our performance infront of the Prime Minister  for the Rukun Tertangga event.

I was relieved after the performance was over and I was surprised by Dr Mahathir's remark that among the dancers, he knew that I did not belong to the Orang Ulu tribe. Well he was very observant

For the following year it was routine for me. My friend Yod got a motorbike from his father to ease our running to and from our lecture hall and she wanted me to be the pillion rider. So for the 2nd matriculation year I was gratefull for that kapchai motorbike. The day Yod received the motorbike, we ride through the highway and were wondering why our motorbike was the only motorbike on the highway whereas all other motorbike was on another lane. We realised that we were on the wrong lane when some cars were honking at us. Lucky there was no traffic policemen at sight. We also almost had an accident at the PJ traffic light because we were chatting while riding and didn't realise that it had turn red and we just drove thru it much to the shock of other drivers with some honking at us.

Towards the end of our matriculation program our class decided to have a party at one of our classmates house. We had a great time and took a group photos of our Class of 1989 - 1991.

Class was tough at that time. Some of the subject especially Additional Maths and Physic was really tough and the lecturer didn't make it easier for us either. I had to resit for the maths paper almost every year. It was stressfull. Some college mate who use to be best students in their school, cried at nite and almost became skizofrenia because of the pressure from their studies and trying to be at par with the other best students.
I wonder what happens to these classmate of mine. I did keep in touch with Mona but I can't say much for the others.
I received a visit from Anna and Lily (former classmate) during that year. We went out and had a great time that nite. I'm glad I went out with Anna before she leaves for US to continue with her degree. For the next few years I was not able to see her until she return to Malaysia. I did receive some photos and short letters from her though. We kept in touch (not so often) although we were both busy with our class schedule.

As I look back at my life, I know that I had two years of fun and an amazing life journey. My road to success was not easy but every step I took, I greatly depend on JESUS. 
Next is my journey as a Civil Engineering student........