马来西亚的华语 , 世界的汉语

我的收藏品们，当然还有我弟的。

我不懂自己有没有资格说我是爱华语的，但至少我欣赏并喜欢着它的美。家里有那么一位，也跟我一样，被这书香气给渲染并且乐于让它缠着不放。人，无论怎么努力忘记，根还是在的。

马来西亚水准的汉语，会让真正修读它的人为之惭愧。说实话，我也深感羞愧。现在，它在我的生命里已沦落成只剩下一个用处。除了平日用来沟通以外，我已经很久没将它捧在手心里品阅它的美。曾几何时，欣赏它成为一种奢侈。大学的日子除了忙还是忙，忙得我将很多重要的事情都抛弃了。现在，还捡得回来吗？

很喜欢以前那段日子，书写如行云流水的我，闲来无事，提笔也成章。如今，用华语写作竟让我无所适从，阵阵歉意涌上心头。如果身为华人子弟的我，不以身作则的话，那么如果某一天华语被埋没了，怪谁呢。

最近我家老弟买了本什么《第八届全国中学生作品文学创作比赛得奖作品集》，不看还好，一看竟差点气绝。里头有篇小说竟然串改前几届的作品。这也能得奖？！ 出版商每一届都是一样的，难道真的没注意到吗？这怎么对得起读者，对得起其他参赛者呢？

且不说抄袭事件，我想现在的中学生们脑袋被荼毒的程度也算深的了。从第一届到第八届，堪称“一届不如一届”。 故事情节除了越来越像狗血韩剧意外，该有的文学水准也滑落了许多，让我一度怀疑自己是不是因老了口味变得挑剔，直到我翻出前几届的作品才发现不是我的问题。感叹。

老弟的华语老师的水准也令我甘拜下风。好些天前我忍不住写在我的面子书涂鸦墙上，以显示我对她的“佩服”。 

唉，难道真的是我笨？世上最低水准的“暗喻”修辞手法被批成“用词不当”，我家老弟含冤哪！

这样的老师，会培育出怎样的下一代？！好一个“用词不当”！

可怜的华语，我们能够捍卫的还有什么？

On the journey...

I've complained before I hated jobs that require me to sit in front of the computer for the whole day. But for the past few days I have been sitting in front of my laptop with fingers flying over my keyboard and just like every mother in this world, hoping her new-born child to be as perfect as he/she could be. Haha don't get me wrong, the children I am anticipating would no doubt be the novel and short stories I have mentioned in the previous blog. 

But there is always but. My brain seems to get stuck in damn thick sticky gooey jam and all those words came out jumbled like the wool meddled by cat. See, you got me? I don't even know what I am writing. All I did was a sudden insane typing and sudden halt. sudden typing,  long pauses and buffering. What the... I am going mad on myself!

Oh.. maybe I should have regretted. So far all my work are in pieces. and I don't even know what will happen next. Let's find out of where this journey will lead me, shall we? Off we go!

Aha!.. Ryan Higa is in Singapore and I could hardly control myself to stay in house. My fingers almost clicked on the purchase button of that damn plane ticket to Singapore and I had to drag them back before they did anything stupid. Oh how I wish to be there.... I wanted to see him.................

But then my rationality kicked in that I should not spend extra money! and also I should not able to enjoy seeing him if I were there because I really don't like the idea of being in huge crowds. But I still wanted to go there! Oh dammit! I think I need some medicine to get rid of this madness.

Gotta go! Bye!

Painting fun!

Haven't paint for years... since Form 3 I think... How many years is it? A long 6 years! I have absolutely no talent in art, sucks at crafts but love to play with colours. My first project was done when I was two or three, a wall graffiti on my grandma's house's wall, which make my parents and my grandparents mad, but too bad I didn't take a picture of it. And since then my mum sent me to art classes, but to her and my disappointment my drawing still sucks. Nevertheless there is still one thing that I learnt: playing with colours! 

My brother also went to drawing classes as my mum insisted on us learning visual arts. He turned out to be the opposite: he does well at sketching but sucks when it comes to painting or colouring. And now his school asks him to send in a piece of painting for competition.... and seeing him painting makes me want to paint too. So I did this!

This is my first time trying to paint after six years of fooling around so please don't criticise my work....lalalalalala~

Challenge accepted!

It's semester break for most of the universities and most of my friends are currently working. I think I am the odd one out since what I do is to stay home and..... hey! I am not fooling around! Well, for the first two weeks I think I was, but certainly not now. Not to mention I am on the journey of becoming a "nerd", or what I called self-enrichment, which is basically dump myself into piles of books. 

This is a teenage-novel writing competition. Just when I saw this, I was pretty much into it at first thought, so I started doing some research. Yet, the requirements for this competition seems quite difficult for me to achieve: it should not include paranormal, violence or pretty much anything that is considered negative. Ermmm... I am a person with lots of dark thoughts and those certainly can't be of any use if I were to start this novel. Huh... and no romance some more. 

Two days later, another "mission" popped out. I am to write some short stories (English ones) to send to our lecturer to view and edit and gain a chance to publish them. But but but... all my ideas and languages are a total jumble and I don't know which to start first! English or Chinese? Novel or short stories? What about the ideas? Genre? Chaos.

What makes situation worse is that I have not written fiction for a long time, I think I stopped after SPM, which make it...4 years. Oh goodness! Since then I have been writing for the sake of assignment and exams that are not "creative" after all. I do manage to write a few poems, but poems do not need as much details and length as novels! 

Well, let's see if I can get one of these missions accomplished. Both challenges accepted and I promise to send in my work. For now, let me get lazy first XD 

Bye! 

Going backwards?!

Been disappearing from my blogging for about a couple of weeks now, and sorry to say there was no reason behind the whole disappearing act of mine. I am well-known for my laziness. 

So far finished my finals and got back home. The first thing I did was not watching dramas, not sleeping, not fooling around, but threw myself into my own big pile of novels. I also found myself reading old novels and organising them as well. The funny thing was, I even went through my high school essays and amused by them. How could I write so well back then? I mean, why can't I write as well as how I wrote in high school? Why am I going backwards?

Because I am so ashamed that I went backwards instead of improving, I started my own journey of self-educating. I started doing stuff that I used to do in high school: jotting down noting, having my own vocabulary notebook, reading articles and essays, revising grammar and stuff like that. Been doing that for both languages: Chinese and English. It is shocking to me that I had already forgotten most of the stuff I learnt. And because of that, I am putting extra effort to recall them and secure them in my mind.

One thing I don't like about university is its education. So far I have gone through a year of study, but when I wanted to conclude and reflect on what I had learnt, I couldn't find much compared to high school. Seriously, I am in the opinion that studying in university makes me a worse person. Despite growing old, I don't think I become wise. Let me list down what I had learnt in first semester:

1. WUS 101 CORE ENTREPRENEURSHIP    

2. PGA 101 LEARNER AND LEARNING NEEDS 

3. PGA 102 ADOLESCENTS' INTRAPERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

4. HXE 112 READING AND WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE 

5. QMT 112 COMPUTER SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS

6. PET 224 COMMUNICATING IN SPEECH AND WRITING IN TESOL    

7. LKM 400 BAHASA MALAYSIA IV   

First, I don't even have entrepreneurship skills after going through that damn course. Second, I memorised the theories and passed my exams for both PGA 101 and PGA 102 courses. For the literature thing... it was made too rushing and rather than spending time to enjoy it, I had to do more memorising work to cope with exams. QMT 112 appeared to be the most enjoyable course, because to my surprise we didn't fully utilise the computer software we have, not even Microsoft Word. PET 224 was enjoyable because all I had to do was to prepare speeches and present them to the lecturer., but my writing hardly improved. The last one, Malay language. I don't know what happen to USM's Malay language but it certainly differs from what I had learnt in high school, despite referring to Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, I still get things "wrong". I don't know why and my lecturer did not tell me why. so don't ask me.

It is clearly seen that I have not learnt much, didn't I? I couldn't see myself benefited as a learner nor as an educator. A big NO.

My second semester was so hectic that I wouldn't want ti mention it, but let's just see what I had studied. 

1. PET 101   EFFECTIVE READING SKILLS FOR TESOL
2. PET 102   ORAL SKILLS FOR TESOL

3. PET 103   EFFECTIVE WRITING FOR TESOL

4. PGA 103  TEACHER, SCHOOL AND SOCIETY

5. HEA 101  INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE

6. SHE 101   ETHNIC RELATIONS

First one, no comment. Second one, you saw the crazy stuffs I posted and this was the course that made me crazy enough to remain insane. Third one, I loved it because of the lovely lecturer. Fourth one, as a teacher, you should be capable of doing EVERYTHING.  Fifth one, I don't understand what the stupid introduction was doing here, and I don't understand what and why I was studying this crap.

Last one, it is not about maintaining good relationships but the opposite. Good job done. 

So what have I done other than growing old? Going backwards! Not only the skills I cherished went backwards (writing for instance), I think my mentality had also deteriorated because of the faulty and misleading teaching that somehow made me feel uncomfortable while digesting them... I had to endure the pain of holding them in my brain and then threw them all out after exam. How torturing.

If I were to find fault, I think I would end up in trouble. Malaysia is NOT the place that appreciates criticism, regarding it is positive or not. So I might as well not abuse my freedom of speech and keep my thoughts to myself.

In the meantime, I am on a constant battle with myself on the route of self-improvement and self-enrichment. So wish me good luck!