My new life in Kursk

“Zdras-tvui-tyeh”(hello) everybody! Finally I have arrived at Kursk and never before had I travelled to such far places in my life. It took me about 20 hour’s time in all travelling from Malaysia to Kursk. I was wondering whether I’d chosen the right way of spending my next 6 years in Russia to study medicine. Anyway God has brought me here and wants me to learn something new but of course, this is my own decision. Being here at Kursk is really far from home and everything is new for me because they can hardly speak English. So we would be having troubles in communicating with local people especially when shopping or taking a bus. So we have to learn their language in order to survive. When the 1^st day we arrived, I’d already expected how the hostel will be and I’d been arranged to stay with girls on the same floor whereas guys would be staying at ground floor and here I met back my old classmate, Alexander, my old friend, Stephanie and some La Sallian as well. Since most of them did their pre-med in Malaysia and only some like me did STPM, I have to try my best to get to know them as we would need to form a class group of 12 soon. Luckily they are friendly and the good thing is that most of them are Sabahan. But there are lots of Indian here.. haha~~

After I settled down all my stuffs, we were brought to our uni which was about 20-25 mins walk from our hostel. We also need to do our own cooking, so there’s a lot of things to buy like heater, water filter, adapter, Russian sim card, winter clothing &medical courts, cooking utensils, mineral water etc. Owing to high calcium contents in the water, we have to filter the water before consuming but nothing is 100%.. so it’s advisable to buy or order mineral water outside. Besides, some food like “lap-cheong” or Malaysian curry-source cannot be found here and one hanger can costs up to few ringgits. So we have to bring them from Malaysia.

Kursk is very big that all of the buildings are far apart from one another but there’s no tall building here. All fast food restaurant like MacD., KFC is not available yet in Kursk and there’s also no English movies at cinema. Lol.. Thus we prefer self-cooking rather than eating outside which is more costly. Russian people are not friendly. They cannot stand people who are noisy. They hate people blocking their way as they walk super fast. They hate people eating while walking. If you’ve done one of these that I mentioned, they will shout at you in russian or just push you aside to show their anger. They like spitting around so you shouldn’t ever walk close to them.

We also have entrance exam (Bio,Chem,Eng) for all the new students. I am taking Bio, Chem, Biophysic, Anatomy, Russian etc and would be very busy in my studies. The 1^st 3 years will be pre-clinical where we are spending most of our time in class and the next 3 years will be clinical where we have to start attending to the Russian patients. My class starts on 15 of October so now I am very free to do what I want to like shopping and sleeping.. haha

I hope I can adapt to it as fast as possible as this will be my second home for my next 6 years life in Kursk. “Da-svi-da-ni-nya”(bb)

Hello, everybody !!

Hello, greeting to all my friends by maxi, I’m back here, my lovely hometown Sabah.. haha.. Since there are still many of you are wondering about my whereabouts, just kinda write this post to let you guys know about my situation for the time being..(I was coming back here last Monday’s evening)

So I had a great time with my buddies during my 1-month life in UM. I could hardly stress out how much I was going to enjoy playing and gathering with them day and night. My 8^th college was considered lucky in the sense that we have had around 100 plus Chinese out of the total of 300 freshy staying in the college. Most of them were quite friendly and helpful. But there was a few you would find them just sitting and doing their stuff quietly and had been isolated to stay inside their rooms. Everything in KL was just the same as in KK except the interesting thunder which can make you deaf and heart-attack, air-pollution happened elsewhere, and traffic congestion happened even inside the campus. So we had to be-careful while crossing the road as most of the motorcyclist won’t stop for you!

About my Geology department, we had the most “lc” tutor and yet the only one prettiest Chinese girl among the tutors. Among the 1^st-year juniors in the department, there was only 5 Chinese including me, 2 of which were taking pure Geology and the others were Applied Geology and I am the only Chinese “guy”. Geology covers the subjects like Intro to Earth, Rocks and Minerals, Geological Mapping and Graph study etc and it took me 18 credit hours. The part that I like best was during practical time where we were allowed to examine all different samples of rocks and minerals. It took us about 2 hours for that and I was dreaming and did nothing during that time... so relax nia ^^ Good time flew quickly when I realized I had to sit for a test of all this minerals. Nevertheless, I still don’t know my result because I was coming back here..

I had been hanging out with friends for movie or window shopping when I was there during weekend. I was free from Friday to Sunday and we would rather go to Mid-valley as it’s the closest shopping mall to UM. But it’s quite boring there because all things were so expensive. For other part of Kl, we just need to take a bus around 2 mins drive from the campus to the LRT station. So it’s very convenient (not meant to cars) and thus I can go so many places I want to.. I also met the orang putih from USA who wanted to get to know our culture and to connect with the local students and the true story behind this was that they were here to complete their mission by finding someone to be their mentor as being told in bible. So I joined them and went to some famous places like “French town and Selesa hills”. I also went to Penang with my friend during weekend and I got to eat all the best food in Penang, pretty nice food and nice place ^^ (but quite disappointed to the Penang bridge laRh..)

Apart from the activities in UM, i also joined CLC, an off-campus unregistered body which has been purposely established for Christian students in UM. So I go to Methodist church at Damansara every Sunday and sometimes we went to 1Utama for our lunch. I also went to pasar malam in SS2, just few km away from campus.

So nearly a month later, my Russia’s agent has confirmed me my seat for medicine course in Russia which will be commence on early of September and my scholarship has been approved, so I decided to travel back to Sabah to do some preparation for my further studies at Kursk, Russia and scheduled my departure from Sabah probably after Raya. So the entire medical degree course is 6-years and bonded by government for 10 years after graduation. The return flight fares is around Rm4000++, so I might be coming back once a year most probably my summer holiday from June to August. The place I will be going to is called Kursk, few hundred km north from Moscow, the capital city of Russia. So far the person I know is Alexander Alvin (5 Vega).. haha Nel ^^, 1 UM Sabahan friend & my Technics Music school friends, we are all going for the 1^st years on this coming September...

So I quit UM starting from 9/8/10 and I didn’t receive any payments or bills yet from university J .. hehe

Well, so now I am pretty relax at home and can wake-up at 11 the next morning... haha By the way, Good luck and best wishes to all my friends whether in Uni or in college and take care ^^

My Uni's Life

Assalammulaikum Alam@#$%katulahi dan selamat petang! Well, this is how the lecturer greet us everyday as majority of them are Malay here in UM. As I have no class on tomorrow morning, which considered the most relax day I have in the days of study, I can sleep late to do my fbing and blogging. UM- "Universiti yang terulung, terunggul, terkenal, terhebat, terkemuka dll di Malaysia" This is another trendmark or slogan for them to welcome the freshysss in UM...

So, I went to KL last saturday morning and I arrived at LCCT at about 11.00am. After having my luggage with me, I took the bus to KL Central and my brother's friend came to take me aride. UM has 2 main gates which are KL & PJ gate. I was first brought to the KL main gate which could not be seen from outside of the campus because the road was narrow and yet no clear guideline provided in that area. The gate was old and urgly and as I went further into the campus, it was like a small old town with all the building being disorderly built. Thus, I could not recognise the position and the direction of the road except for the main building like library and the Law & Medic faculty as they were the most beautiful and biggest faculties in the university. The Law's architecture is like the British building style with colourful and attractive appearance whereas the Medic faculty has several main building and one big hospital with more than 20 levels outside the campus area. Anyway, I continued to seek for my College/hostle where the place I live and finally I found it is situated slightly on the hill which required around 15-20 mins walk from my Science fac. Science fac is the 2nd biggest among the faculties and is divided into few departments like Geology. So my department is just opposite to the main building of Science fac.

My lecture looks like a Parkistanist because he's muslim of course and his moustache is super duper pretty long like water-fall.

My college is very special because it's called KK8 - Kolej Kinabalu 8 which have been donated by the Yayasan Sabah. So I'm proud to be a sabahan but I was disappointed to know that I'm only the sabahan in the college. Luckily many of our neighbourhood Sarawakian are here and I need to get to know these Semananjung people and also be able to mix with other races espeacially the Malays. The life here was similarity the life in PLkN, which I have to do everything myself. The orientation wasn't quite bad as there was no more such things so-called "ragging" here. During the orientation week, I used my hand to eat because they didn't provide us the spoon and fork. So I got them from my Perlis friend and take it out everytime I go to eat.

My room is not that bad compare to other college room but it's old and dirty. I'm living with one Malay senior and the another senior will be coming in for the next sem. So I'm told to take the double-tek bed because the single bed is being reserved for the seniors.

Here my college is well-equipped in term of facilities except no swimming pools.. There are more the numbers of Chinese freshy this year and the chinese club is called= "cc", sound like sissy, haha this makes me think of Nelssy...

So, everything is fine and in here there is no more embarrassing events happened as if everyone tend to be so serious and mature... Studying in UM isn't easy for person like me because no one get below CGPA 3.0 and even many of the matrix student who score 4.0 could not get into courses like medic and law. They move to engineering or mathematics instead. You can hardly find the weak student here and all of them including Malays are very active in both academic and co-curriculum activities performances...hahaha... Anyway, life is life- a never-ending learning proccess.. As for me, I'll let go of all attachments and try to enjoy life - Life is good!!!

Trip to Kuala Penyu..

Took pictures at Kuala Penyu..

My life has been pretty boring, dull and dried without having a part-time job during this half-year long "holiday", while awaiting for the release of UPU, followed by others Uni's offering, which is a new milestone for my further studies in life. How we think of happiness is different for each of us. Some find happiness in the pursuit of power, reputation, wealth, material gains etc. As for me, happiness can be achieved easily through living peacefully with my family members, or person of whom I take care... maybe through a vacation... XD

Yes, my cousin, my family and I went for a vacation in Kuala Penyu, approximately 120km with 2 hours drove from KK. Tough a merely 2 days 1 night trip, we were exhausted and felt happily throughout the trip. Kuala Penyu was indeed a beautiful place I've been for its attractive sea view, Monkey Top Safari and other interesting scenery. However, there was no any turtle we could see here at Kuala Penyu though. Maybe there was in the past and it was already extincted at present. As like other towns in Sabah, Kuala Penyu is a small town with few row of shops, a market where the fishermen were selling fishes there. At town, we've seen many people were fishing at the beach and sometimes there was a competition to see who got the most fishes at given time..

We headed to the Top Safari located somewhere along the way to the town of Kuala Penyu at last Friday's afternoon. As expected, the weather was bad as it had been raining nearly every afternoon in KK yet we still carried on and prepared for the worst! Luckily there wasn't, so we were thankful to God for the wonderful weather that day. After about 2 hours drove from KK, we arrived and were having a afternoon tea break together with few Japanese tourists before starting our river cruise to see the proboscis monkeys which threaten with extinction, and fireflies at night. It was an amazing view to the weird movement of wild monkeys as we were screaming and shouting of seeing them. Maybe it was a nuisance for the tourists who were together at the same boat with us. One of them was using a super long camera that likely same with or even higher price than our national car, Proton ^^ We could see a lots of various type of monkeys there and it took about 1 and half hour all the way. At night, we also took a 15-20 Mins to see fireflies around the trees at riverside. We were able to see thousands of fireflies sparking its light on a tree. We feel relax and appreciate of what we've seen there away from the hustle and bustle city's life. Besides, we took our dinner there as prepared to us before heading to our living place at Sawangan.

My uncle rent 3 cottages there with all fully air-conditional except for our old, lousy and fragile wooden cottage. It was beneficially for having a kitchen and corridor compare to others 2. We decided to take the old one and let my cousin to take the "better" one. It was actually a private resort owned by the residents living there and they build small cottage themselves to earn money by inviting companions or tourists to stay there. I went and swim at the Sawangan beach which I could see Pulau Tiga straight across the sea. As we can ill to afford the expensive transport fee to Pulau Tiga, we decided to go next time. During our stay at Sawangan, we cooked ourselves and eat Maggi with 3 in 1 coffee to satisfy our hunger. My mom has also bought a huge shell with a mere cost of RM 30, which is pretty cheap that we can't get it elsewhere.

We really enjoy and happy our vacation to Kuala Penyu and it's given me an opportunity of knowing this wonderful place which is new and fresh for me.
On top of that, the fresh air and splendid sunset view is always alluring to me.

Nice weather !!

Dr. Fish, a fish spa that cure skin problems..

The appearance of a firefly..

Views at Sawangan..

Long jetty that need 6 to 8 mins to reach its end..

Beach... clean ...

Pro swimmer...

Our old cottage(night view)

Old cottage in the morning....

Playing at the beach with my cousins...

Again, the long jetty headed to Pulau Tiga which is located across the sea...

Delicious....

Different kinds of shell owned by the residents..

Some special wild mushrooms within the area of the resort..

Huge shell only costs us for RM 30.... weight approximately 15kg..

Operating time for the ferry schedule..

This is the short-cut way to across the river of Kuala Penyu to another side..can save about 45mins all the way..

Each lift about 6-8 vehicles...

My "brandless" VAIO ^^ Failed

Haih.. I'm here to comment about Chin's blog regarding the unsatisfactory incident which happened today. I must say that I'm not blaming for anyone else but for the VAIO which i have been trusted in and confident enough when I bought it at Karamunsing. May be I'm the unlucky one to face this kind of problem that my screen will suddenly black-out and all the keys may not be functioned as I was watching some movie and even play farmville as well. But that's what I'm disappointed with them who said that mine was a particular problem and it seldom happened in Sony, and I also worried that the problem is not going to solve as the thought we had expected because it happened occasionally which the technician cant make out their mind without a proper checking. My mom also scared that the chips would have been stolen by the time it's done because my Acer desktop was like that. lol.. Hopefully it would be ok!

So we are taking it to service at Lintas there and we bought the protector to protect the laptop to maintain its new. But we can't find anyplace that the worker was able to do that kind of service except jes's place but they need to charged. Finally i intended to do it myself because I never thought it was that complicated and difficult to use that to cover my laptop, also because of the charged in which I can eat many things with that. So I made a quick decision and Nelson did remind me but why I didn't listen his advice because he give me options, freedom of deciding on that so I didn't take it seriously. I mean you didn't stop me and I also dunno you did it to your laptop at jes's there.. so I really confused and again need to rushing to that service shop. I think I wouldn't bother about the protector thing 1st since it's still new and I'm still at kk here. Maybe I will buy a new one until I have my further studies...

A miserably week

Today I am so desperate to write a post concerning my bad experience upon the stupid incident which was happened in school on Tuesday after I told Nelson about this at Mcd. The stupid troublesome shell scholarship which I have been doing it for years", required a lot of things from me like CV, the uploaded documents(IC, birth cert, kokum, pay slip, results, & all pro sijil) etc. By the way, I thanked nel2 that he managed to solve the knotty problems of the size documents which he did it for the whole night. lolz... I returned your favour liao ah..

I was happy after uploading all my stuffs and successfully submitted my application form via online. After that, Joanne and I went to see Mr Teh happily to apply the UCAS things at his office. I thought the process of the application would be simple as it has been a online process. Suddenly, he wanted our own personal statement and an official school reference letter once we filled up the personal information & academic parts and it brought up the problems for me. Perhaps it seems to be easy for Joanne but I took it for months"-

Hence, I went to see Pn Lim and asked whether she could help me to write the reference letter. cb At first she don't even look at me and tried to skip my question. "I don't know how to write" -- this was her sole reason to deny my request and she kept telling me to ask Pn Agnes to write. Then, I had to console her so that she won't angry. It was as same I convince her in anyway I could as that I did it for a child. Finally, she reluctantly helped me to write and yet she still dunno what to write about and kept asking on me to provide some ideas for her. After talking to her for few hours, it was done and I went home happily. Then, I called Joanne and she told me that they wanted a formal letter like the testimonial that I received from school. omg!! means the letter from Pn Lim was useless already! That was really worried me and I had to look for Pn Julia. So I traveled to school on Monday and Limmie and Crystal were waiting for their beautiful photo... HAHA!! It was so difficult to see Pn Julia and I tried so hard to get into her office. But she told me to write myself and gave it to the clerk to type it once I finished it. lol.. That cb Pn Lim said that Pn Julia would write for me. Thus, I returned home again with empty-handed. I wrote myself the letter and praised myself on what I had contributed to la salle.

The following day, I traveled back to school again at noon. I brought the draft to Pn Agnes to check my grammar as well as the mistakes. But it was very suffering for her as she dunno how to correct it, and sometimes she could not even spell some easy words. So I gave it to mr Adrian to check and luckily he was free at that time. Then, I borrowed mr Chua USB to transfer my document to another pc to print since I was using Agnes laptop. I started to find printer in the teacher's room but all the printer couldn't function well.. noob maintenance!! omg!! So I carried Agnes laptop to the stuff office and tried to borrow their printer. I was happy to see that the ink was almost full in both black and colour ink and there was a HP brand computer with window 7 processor . I connected the printer to the laptop but it took years to install a new software, can't run at all!! Then, I transfered my document to the HP computer to print it. While attempting for so many times, that cb Muyun told me that the printer "sot" already. I speak to her gently to confirm which printer was functioning but she was trying to skip my question and not willing to help me! She said all the desktops were quite new, she doubted mr Chua USB contain viruses and spoil their PC. I was almost in despair of doing all this stupid things. Agnes told me to do it at home and it was already 2pm. lolz.. Waste a lot of time there!!

At about 2.15pm, that cb Muyun told me to ask permission from the head of stuff, the room beside Pn Rana room, eventually I found my ideal old printer and very grateful to the stuff because she was very kind and allowed me to use her printer, not like the cb Muyun. Then, the cb Muyun came in and kept blaming me for using their pc and warned me that I couldn't bring any friends to use their pc or printer. I tested myself the printer for a few times using a plain paper and since I dunno how to set the margin, I used the plain paper for test to match it with the real ones. Unfortunately, I was too panic and the paper that I put into the printer was stuck together with another paper inside the printer. The printer was jammed and can't function anymore. Muyun was at the scene and she saw what I did it to the printer. Her face changed to red and blamed me for my failure to use the printer. She said to the stuff habis lah, habis lah!!! Kenapa kau jgn tolong dia buat!! Moi, tolong dia buat la!!! diu.. all these kind of words kept repeating....

After the stuff settled the problem, then Muyun calm down already and her face back to normal. I printed it out and needed a sign from pn Julia. But she has gone and one of the stuff told me that she was headed to her car which was near the school hall. She told me: Kerja dialah, cepat la belum dia jalan... So I ran as fast as I could to chase her. Once I arrived there, she was already inside the car and she was making a right turn to move over the school gate. I can do nothing but standing there to see her left school. Then I went back to the office and told them she has gone and they said: yameh?? begitu lajuka dia jalan? normally dia jalan lambat punya bha.. kenapa hari ini begitu cepat ah?? haih..seems non of them can be trusted...

So I gave her some time to sign the letter and I went back school to take it yesterday. While arriving school, I realized that it was the school holidays and luckily the clerks were working. So I walked inside the stuff office and there was 1 man(the school driver) and 1 woman(one of the clerk, not Muyun). I asked her where's my reference letter which is given to Julia and sign? She asked me to wait for Muyun without helping me to find it. Another cb clerk besides Muyun. Then, she helped me to find awhile and asked me to wait Muyun back. So I found it myself and check all the stuff tables except hers and even entered principal room to check. Then she stood up and said to the man" adakah dia dapat kebenaran utk masuk bilik pengetua" and she said to me " tak boleh masukk sesuka hati , pengetua marah nanti !! Then I went out the room and check again the stuff table and I saw that cb stuff was playing Tagging picture >> Facebook !!!!!!

Then, after waiting for nearly an hour, I got it from Muyun and surprisingly, the sentences were changed and they told me Pn Julia rewrote the letter herself. Although all the afford I did was perished, but I was happy that I got her sign and I read it before leaving school. Omg!! I found something wrong on the letter and she was not at school as it was the school holidays. She typed 2A instead of 1A of my stpm result ... lolz.. I have extra 1 A in my stpm result already. Then I asked that cb Muyun and she said to the stuff: Tak tau er saya, saya tak pasti dia ade save tak? nanti dia marah lagi kalau suruh dia type balik.. takut o dia!!!! Then she said to me" you type it balik la then give to pn Julia monday" LoL.. I need to wait untill next Monday if I need to ask her to change it but it seems impossible because it's almost deadline. So i decided to liquid it myself and give it to Mr Teh. To my great delight, Joanne said it was acceptable and Mr Teh will help.

Every person speaks different ways and really confusing.. I hope my personal statement and the reference letter can be accepted by the institution.

CNY is coming LIAO......

HAha... CNY is just around the cornea and there is traffic congestion everywhere in the city of kk. Well, we were on the way back from 1b at yesterday's evening, which we were stuck in the traffic jam for nearly an hour. Sitting on the car were crystal, kwong, chin, nelson and me and we can do nothing inside the car but praying and waiting.. At the beginning we feel excited and happy of the trip we have been to but a moment of hush and disappointment of being stuck in the traffic jam. LOL.. I must apologize for not being to reach nelson's house on time and make you late for the dinner, Lizhen!! Haha, don't be angry "P. Hopefully, you guys enjoy and satisfied with that.

There is lots of unhealthy food you can eat during CNY, but take better care of your health and drink more water to make sure you're not getting sick like me!!! Now I'm having a bit coughing and sore throat because eating too much of koropok!!!

So wish you guys having a great day and take care of yourself the oncoming of CNY..

The First, The OnLy, & The LaST...

Well, This trip is the best ever trip in my life and the most important thing is our relationship is getting closer .. I hope we can keep in touch after the trip and in the future, our relationship will be maintained as what we were in the trip... Lots to say, can't express by words...

Thanks for everything.

Thank you God,
Thank you Jamilah,
Thank you Joanne ,
Thank you Theresa,
Thank you Gan
Thank you Ng ,
Thank you Yap,
Thank you Nelson,
Thank you Chin,
Thank you Jason,
Thank you Jesper
& Thank you Kwong

FOR MAKING THIS TRIP PERFECT !!
WE will always REMEMBER !!