As for today, I have no other class other than Leadership class. Though I felt so lazy to prepare myself before going to class, I arrived around a quarter before 5. Well, that's early.
After waited for almost half an hour, Br. Said came and he said a few things that needed to be cleared among us. He also talked about some people who have this mind-setting that Friday is considered as weekend. As far as I concerned, even since my Matriculation days most of IIUM students had this idea of going back every Friday and some even going back on Thursday if they don't have class on the next day. Back in Matric also, I still remember there are some students claimed themselves as members of PBSM - not Persatuan Bulan Sabit Merah but Persatuan Balik Setiap Minggu. I don't really get these particular of people as for me who considerably a bit independent as I went to boarding schools and need to get on flights to reach home, I wonder when these people started to grow up and enjoy a little bit more of living independently. Don't get me wrong but going back home for every weekend? Especially most of programs held in campus held during the weekends and no wonder why not a lot of students participate in those programs.
Br. Said also advised us to solve our problems right away and not to postpone them as it'll lead to a lot more problems in future. I'm totally agree on that. When it comes to assignments and reports, I preferably do them before I get onto my revisions. But the problems rise when I have to do them in group as synchronizing the time with other members and setting up a place where we could meet are sometimes hard to be done. The solution is to divide the tasks given and do it ourselves. When everything's ready, we just need to compile and submit the assignments.
Other than that, he also advised us to brush up our English vocabulary and familiarize ourselves with Medical terms such as tonsillitis, etc. As a Biomedical Science student, I have to agree. Well, having basic in Medical terminology helps a lot especially when it comes to studying Physiology, Anatomy, Pharmacology, Pathology and other related subjects.
We also need to enhance our language skills, especially English - our medium language in class. I am totally agree on that as I'm sick of people who have their gut to come up in front to make announcements or giving out talks on religion but speaking in Bahasa and basically I have to translate every single word to my International friends. What's worse? They speak in dialects that I don't even understand. It's not that I'm incapable to understand but at least when it comes to serious stuffs, if you don't want to speak in English, speak in standard Bahasa at least as some of the International students can understand a bit of it. I think if you want people to take you seriously, you have to be the first one who's taking what you're trying to convey seriously and let's start with the language. Who cares if your English broken, why bother to laugh? Babies don't run right away after they were born. My English isn't something that I can proud of but at least I learn and improve every single day. Come on, people! Speaking in English it's not that hard like other foreign language, take Japanese for an instance. There are more than 50, 000 'kanji' registered in Japanese language an I have to memorize at least 2000 in order to pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 4 or read the newspaper.
Back to my Leadership class.
As usual, we're going to have another 2 presentations. The first group for today was the third group. They were presenting on communication skills. Basically, half of the presentation was in Bahasa. There were two parts, the first part was about The Deaf who was trying to tell The Blind that his money was stolen. That was nice, I think. The second part was about the dos and don'ts in interview session. All in all, I think the group's presentation was okay and entertaining but a bit informative.
The second presentation was brought by the fifth group, headed by Nini on organizational skills. The group portrayed the importance of organizational skills through acting by the group members. Unorganized company can be seen through its workers who lack of skills and this had resulted in the company's bankruptcy. All in all, the acting was nice and the message was delivered.
Of course, being organized is very important when it comes to a student like me. In organizing my learning materials, notes, reports, assignments, projects, and other things, filing system and notebooks offer me a big help. Having an Apple MacBook's application such as iCal helps me to sort my schedule smoothly, Address Book to handle my hundreds of contacts, iWork that works better than my Microsoft office and most importantly, all these things can be synchronized in my palm-sized iPod Touch which is highly convenient for me. Not to condemn the traditional executive diaries or phonebooks, but I'm just saying hello to 21st century!
In a nutshell, I enjoyed today's class and hope more things will be brought on the table for the next coming classes.
That's all, folks!
