truth

i couldn't agree more with the star columnists. label me as bias and i still will say the star papers have one of the greatest columnists. they are very critical in their writings and give much to ponder especially for the general malaysians. be prepared to learn from them.

accept the truth instead of staying in your own comfort zone. it is true that the english standards are slipping. i find myself not learning much in secondary schools. i will tell you these. those majority who score As for malaysian papers should not be so proud of yourself. if you are a hardworking students and great memory skills, an A is in your hand. and still i can't fathom why some students refuse to learn. so as to call themselves the nationalists. learn their mother tongues is of importance. yeah right. the language nationalist. i call that coward.

be ready to embrace globalisation my fellow malaysians. take it as a challenge. nothing is too hard, other than finance though =S there is nothing wrong being comfortable with your own mother tongue. learning another medium is not bad either. in one way, you are broadening your social network. get to know more people and be more confident about yourself. everything to gain but nothing to lose. i can still remember how shy i was back in form 2 when i started an English lesson with a private tutor. apparently, all the students are like very fluent with their speech. grammar almost perfect and the flow is as smooth as the silk. i was slightly taken aback last time. honestly, if you are willing to get out of your comfort zone, people will appreciate your effort to learn. be ready to be corrected and thick faced. the transition is not easy, trust me. i have come from a mandarin speaking family and grown up with majority Malay speaking friends.

i can't claim myself as a fluent english speaker but i now can construct proper sentence and occasionally realise to correct my own sentence. but i have a bad habit. i tend to speak to friends with the language they are comfortable with. i don't enforce a rule that you have to speak english with me. the transition is almost instinctive. i still have this habit of conversing in english with friends from non-chinese background though they speak mandarin well. the hokien will call this a "piak". hard to get away from. there is this time my friend was getting frustrated with me because i always speak english with him though he is trying to learn mandarin. i was like... "sorry, i can't. when i see you, the medium of language automatically switches to english".

yes, one more thing. i strongly recommend you reading musings column written by marina mahathir. despite having such a profound background, she is very humble and liberal in her writing. one of my few respected malaysian figures. she is always involved herself with humanitarian work especially in empowering and protecting women. she has so much to offer. hopefully in the future, more people would be like her and this world should be a better place for everyone to live in.

blogger is listening to himself monologuing.