You know, exams are the greatest mental torture in the world.

They take every happy and colorful moment out of your life and replace it with stupid numbers and symbols…

… at least that’s what my exams do.

My final exams are coming – next week. And every single day is basically either:

- studying and trying not to fall asleep on the papers; or the more common alternative:

- not studying, keep enjoying the wonderful life that we are blessed to live in… but feeling dead guilty about it.

If my head exploded due to the pressure, do I get to claim life insurance? Or is there an exclusion clause in the insurance policy for this?

Sigh… really miss the peaceful and relaxing Smokehouse that I happen to have visited last week on Cameron Highlands…

Huhu… I want to sit in the lush green garden, feel the gentle cool breeze and forget all about electronics and maths…

… and, I want to be faced with an abundance of lovely flowers and greens and not symbols and numbers…

… and while we’re here, I want to sit on this couch, sip some tea, take a nap, and throw those annoying past-year exam papers away…

… maybe into the back of the fireplace… good idea… *drools*

Bottom line… I don’t want to be here stuck in my room with exam stuff!

Then, people might say: “aiya, if you studied earlier then wouldn’t have to study so much now lor…”

… That is – without an effort for a better word – bullshit.

Now, don’t be too quick to judge me, please, hear me out:

Because studying is never enough. You won’t feel alright until you’ve studied through every single free time that you’ve had in the days leading up to your exams…

… and now I’m not grumbling about not having enough time to study but the process of saturated studying itself.

Now do you see why I declare having studied earlier wouldn’t have helped? It would help the results, sure, but not the pressure of pre-exam studying.

By the way, read carefully, please  – Even if you somehow managed to study ferociously hard in your ‘normal days’, the insane motivation that drove you through all the intense, ‘normal’ studying would definitely not leave you at rest on your ‘exam days’ as well.

Get it? That’s what I’m saying.

Come on, why is this news to you? You’ve never been a college/university student before? Or were you a hardcore oh-I-so-damn-lurve-studying… nerd? (Or maybe you were just exceptionally smart, I dunno )

“Nerd or Die”.. I think I’ve mentioned something like this before in one of my earlier entries… You either be a nerd, or you have to go through hell studying…

… or you can choose to Die – fail your exams!

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No offense people, please. I’m just trying to let of steam a bit… It’s been a really tough week…

So, unlike last time, I now choose to sleep like a pig…

… and still pass my exams!

Come on, folks, life is too beautiful to be ended with a bloody, gruesome brain explosion on top of your college text book.

There are other ways of doing good in exams than stressing through the final hours!

Like, erm… you know, studying earlier and not wait till the last minute!

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… Ok, ok, I know – such a meaningless blog entry…

Guess that’s also one of the negative side-effects of exams – can’t even blog properly…

Gotta go back to my books and notes!

Yup, you guessed right, I was back in Ipoh for Chinese New Year last week, that’s why I couldn’t have any updates…

Before anything, I WANT TO COMPLAIN AGAIN! First, it was the ‘i’ button; now, my whole laptop breaks down on the eve of Valentine’s day!

When I was planning to buy a laptop a few months ago, did my friends not totally warn me that the brand ‘A*er’ was unreliable? I think THEY DID!

ARGH!!

Now I have to go all the way to Low Yat to claim my warranty!

I’m writing this entry with my desktop, which I sort of ‘neglected’ since I bought my laptop…

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Multimedia University is the number 1 university in Malaysia?

Hmm, I don’t think even the President of MMU dares to make such a statement… At least not in public.

After all, making such a statement would make the person who said it seem arrogant, and even ignorant, since there are so many other respected universities such as UM, USM, UKM and many others whose names uniformly begin with ‘U’ and end with ‘M’ in our country that would appear as better candidates for position of ‘number 1′.

Furthermore, students from other universities would probably start flaming the guy who said it.

But, could there be any truth at all to the question I posed above?

Apparently, there is – to a small extent. Recently, a weblink that was forwarded to me caught my attention. It was a list of the ‘Top 200 universities and colleges worldwide‘, ranked by web popularity

It came as no surprise to find that MIT and Stanford University topped the list. Sometimes, I find it ironic that people always mention Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge as being the top universities in the world, and not even knowing what ‘MIT’ stands for!

You know what? Gordon Freeman, the guy that you play in the game Half-Life, is from MIT! (Don’t simply believe me, check Wikipedia!)

By the way, Harvard is in the 4th place, and Cambridge and Oxford goes way down to 24th and 25th.

Closer to us, Hong Kong University and NUS ranked 8th and 20th respectively. (Hey, it has been my long-time dream – but just a dream, I don’t expect it to ever happen – to study in HKU someday…)

I wondered if our great Universiti Malaya made it into the top 200 list, so I pressed ctrl+f and made a search for the word ‘Malaysia’, and the page went way down to 182nd. Curiously enough, I saw:

Not bad, isn’t it? The only university in Malaysia to make it to the list!

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Speaking of our university, our dear 11-years-in-office President Prof. Datuk Dr Ghauth Jasmon, made a sudden retirement last month! He is now being replaced by Prof. Dr Zaharin Yusoff.

Maybe I was not updated enough, but I really heard nothing about Prof. Jasmon planning to retire…

Most people that I know didn’t see it coming, many were shocked, some outraged. Moreover, apparently a number of professors, lecturers and staff were so upset with the management that they resigned and left the university.

This includes the great Prof. Dr Chuah Hein Teik, the very respected and cherished Dean of our Faculty of Engineering – gone.

My friend even told me that he heard some lecturers ‘indirectly’ expressing their dislike and frustration towards the current management in their lecture sessions!

However, there seems to be no official clarification as to what exactly happened that effected in the great change in management. There are many theories and suspicions arising among students, but as long as the university stays silent, we can never be sure.

Indeed, the university made mistakes before, could this change of management be another one?

Just a random photo of water unknowingly being wasted in MMU.

To add to the thought, I notice that it was mentioned in a farewell notice allegedly written by Prof. Jasmon: “...my term as President has been determined to end on 31st December 2007…” Notice the passive voice in present perfect tense – ‘has been determined‘…. Hmm…

A blogger posted a copy of the Prof. Jasmon notice in his blog.

Well, it could have meant nothing, maybe he meant ‘…has been determined (by himself)’… I wouldn’t know…

But anyway, we’re really gonna miss him. Although I’ve never seen him much, he was no doubt a great President; or else we, the university, wouldn’t be having the many achievements that we are so proud of.

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In other news…

Alvin, my housemate, STOLE MY HAIR COLOR, I mean, dyed the same color as mine!!!

OK, he didn’t really steal… His color is, in fact, slightly more ‘brownish‘ than mine. And actually, the color in the photo is slightly amplified using Photoshop… Because, remember? My uncooperative camera somehow doesn’t capture red-colored hair!

Ah, anyway. My hair is completely black now… Dunno whether I should try a new color anytime soon… Sigh, guys’ short hair really makes coloring an extremely short-term thing.

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Oh ya, before I end, Happy (early) Valentine’s day!

I’ve been thinking a lot and I feel like ranting a bit, you know, just to write what’s in my mind right now.

Actually, not really now, I thought and wrote this stuff up during my previous final exam period. Although that has quite long passed, but I think I should publish some of my thoughts in my blog, so…

Anyway, if you happen to be reading this, you might find this post somewhat pointless, I’m sorry but please bear with me!

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Why is everybody so worked up about the final exams?

To get good results? To secure a good job in the future?

This (for now – last) trimester, I boldly withdrew three out of the four core subjects that I am taking, resulting in only one single subject left to be studied for the finals.

Hey, none of them were barred, none of them cancelled. I just wanted to withdraw, so I did!

LOL! Alright, I withdrew the subjects because I’m changing my major next trimester, and the subjects that I dropped are those that are not in the syllabus of the new major.

Just to clarify, I’m NOT changing my course! I’m still doing a Bachelor of Engineering, but merely taking up a different major.

Of course, there are still two other art subjects – Law and Moral – but both of which are absolutely not worrying. In fact, I have a very good record in scoring arts subjects.

My liberty from much studying during this final exam period gave me the opportunity to take a good look at the people around me, the people who study hard everyday in the library, the people who complain and moan in anguish when they find that they’ve made mistakes in their papers…

I’ve experienced this before, the tension of a tremendously difficult paper coming up in seven days, and as it comes closer, you find that you’re less ready, and in panic you come to the realization that more subjects are coming up after this week’s paper, and you just can’t be less prepared for them.

Don’t tell me that it is my problem that I didn’t prepare earlier, or I could’ve concentrated more in lectures and consulted tutors about my problems during tutorials… I know I didn’t, but how would I’ve done?

I mean, if I’m simply not interested in what I’m studying, will that alone effectively doom me from getting the certificate?

Is it so straightforward that anyone must be genuinely interested in his subject to stand a chance in graduating? And the alternative to which is daily forced-studying, swallowing things that are so utterly bitter to his academic taste buds?

And because of the extra effort in studying needed to compensate for his lack of interest in the subject, a person would have to sacrifice a significant portion, if not all, of his private and social life to study things that he knows would be of minute use in his future. In short, it’s either Genuine Interest or A Nerdy Life.

Why, I cannot see any balance, any centre point, between the two. I don’t think there’s anything such as living a life of having both hard studying and remarkable sociability.

The determination to do well in one’s studies inevitably removes most motivations to improve sociability

And the converse is also true – If you strive to improve your social life, you’ll put in effort to improve the enjoyability of your life; And I tell you what:

- preparing for final examinations long before they come,

- putting in every ounce of concentration during lectures teaching about formulas for magnetic flux densities and multiple integrations,

- and pestering tutors about the same boring stuff

… are NOT AT ALL considered ‘enjoyable’ to my mind. >.<

So we extend the theory – If you don’t like the subject that you’re studying, you’ll either be a nerd, or you’ll do terribly in it.

Is it really necessary? Is it really worth it? I mean, is the certificate really worth that much? Is it important enough to justify the untold amounts of stress on the body?

Do employers nowadays really consider your academic transcript to be the most important thing of all? Or is there other things that matter just as much? Such as experience, accountability and perhaps, language proficiency?

What about your working attitude – how sincere are you to your duties, and how important are they to you in return? Are you willing to learn?

Perhaps your interpersonal skills - how much of a team player are you, are you capable of motivating and infecting your co-workers with enthusiasm?

Or maybe your management skills - how do you manage time, perhaps lead a team of people in completing a project?

Oh I dunno, if these skills are equally sought after by employers, then ‘nerds’ and students who are fervently studying every single minute, who simply have no time for soft skills, socialising, or any knowledge beyond their major, are, perhaps, in quite a disadvantage here…

Sigh… Let’s just hope that whatever I choose to do now is not dooming mine, or someone else’s future. I’ll think about that later.