My Grandfather

My grandfather is a teacher (note the tense). Formally, he was a teacher, but up till now, he never gave up what he had been doing all his life: teaching. My grandfather, or Tok Ayah, as we call him, used to teach Bahasa Melayu at schools during the post-World War II era. Today, Tok Ayah teaches the Holy Koran, at homes to his children and grandchildren on a monthly basis, and to his neighbors at a mosque near his house.

Once, on a long holiday after graduating from high school, I spent a week at my grandparents’ and got the chance to experience his daily routine. My grandparents live in Batu Pahat, Johor, about 4 hours drive away from Kuala Lumpur. Before Maghrib, he would get himself ready, with his favorite white jubah and neatly wrapped serban around his head. His articles would be ready on his table, several copies of it lay there, “Ikhlas” it reads. As I drove him to the mosque where he teaches, he told me about his life as a young teacher, how he got married real early, became a teacher to students only a few years younger than him, and how he made it to be the principal.

I’ve heard the story many times before, but it never bored me. I assume he’d forgotten he told me the story. As he is getting older, he keeps forgetting things. Sometimes he would forget things such as his glasses, or brought the wrong article, or even forgot the way back home. I remembered one time when we went to dinner at a nearby Thai warong. When the food arrived, my grandfather already had a fork in his hand. Just as he was reaching for the food, he stopped. “Atok kenyanglah, Opie makan la dulu. Atok nak bungkus je”.

My grandmother gave a puzzled look and tried to persuade him to eat. For after awhile of trying, he still insists on not eating. We thought that he had a stomachache or lost his appetite, so we let him be. After finishing our dinner, we decided to take the leftovers home, and so we called for the waiter. Realizing the food untouched in front of my grandfather, the waiter asked: “Atok, kenapa atok tak makan?” He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but then he turned to the waiter, grimaced and said “Atok terlupa bawak gigi” as he pointed his fingers towards where his teeth were supposed to be. We all laughed. My grandfather smiled and his face grew red. This is not the first time Tok ayah left his teeth at home, my grandmother told me. Poor Tok ayah…

Tok ayah may be old, and keeps on being more forgetful. But one thing I am sure is that his passion for teaching will never be erased from his mind

Rossa Gave Me a Kiss!

Most International Baccalaureate (IB) graduates would agree that one of the most stressful times of their life was during their 2-years of IB. Stressful IB students, as I am back then, would do strange things just to take some load off our minds. For us, the IB boys of MARA College Seremban, we had an odd way of releasing stress: dancing! We would secretly download video clips with a dancing scene, and we would just dance to it. Most dancers enjoy the dancing itself, but for us, we just enjoy laughing at each other's hilarious move. Totally works on releasing stress!

That was when I saw Rossa for the first time in my life. She was on the screen of my friend’s PC, dancing to her chart-topping song back then: ‘Pudar’. “She’s drop-dead gorgeous!” my friend would say, and I would definitely agree. We were so obsessed with her dance that we completely memorized the dancing steps! Once, while we did a motivation program for high-school students, we even did the dance in front of the students. Crazy as we were, we survived the 2 years of IB. Soon after graduating, I made a decision to go separate way from my friends and study medicine in Indonesia. I made the decision based on many reasons, but none of them include meeting Rossa (Indonesia is her homeland). By that time, I forgot all about Rossa.

That was till 2 years later, when Rossa came back into my mind. I was having lunch with a friend at the time. “Guess what, I have a date tonight!” said my friend. “Wow…With whom?” I asked. “Ehem…a celebrity”. “What? Cool…which celebrity?!”. To tell the truth, I was expecting a name that I didn't recognize, because in Indonesia, they have lots and lots of talented celebrities that I can’t even catch up with their names! But I was wrong when she answered:

“Rossa”

It took me awhile to digest it, and the first vision that came into my mind was a dancing scene from Pudar video, and us, the boys of IB, dancing along with her. ‘How in the world could my friend here get to date with Rossa?’ I thought. I was soon told that she entered a magazine contest, and as a grand prize, she won a date with Rossa! I thought this would be the chance for me to see her in real life, so I decided to tag along with her to the restaurant where she was supposed 'date' Rossa. I didn’t mind waiting outside, my plan was just to see her in real life, probably while she was walking out the door, escorted by the bodyguards to her car.

So I was waiting outside when the main door opens. I was half-expecting Rossa to come out, but it was actually my friend. “Come on in, the photo shoot is getting started” she shouted.“Come in? Am I allowed to?”. “It’s okay, I even told Rossa about you memorizing the Pudar dance”. “Whaaat? How did she responded?” I asked. “Well, she was not quite surprised at first. But when I told her you are a guy, she was like: Yang bener?! (are you kidding?!)”.

Excited, I went inside to meet Rossa in person for the first time in my life. She was smaller than I expected. Maybe because most of the celebrities I met in real life are tall. Rossa is just a cute and tiny, but she’s beautiful the way she is. She may be small, but when she starts to sing, she’s larger than the world. So as a prize for memorizing the steps of ‘Pudar’, I got myself a kiss from Rossa. Okay, not a real kiss, but a kiss on a paper:

Dear Lutfi, love, Rossa

Look at others as human beings

The world is not in need of more guns and generals, but of more hospitals and doctors

In the World Health Organization (WHO) committee of HNMUN, being a medical student puts you among the privileged few. I was asked by an Armenian delegate sitting next to me: “What in the world is MDR-TB?” Before, a delegate (no doubt a medical student), have been using the acronym which stands for ‘multiple drug resistant tuberculosis’ and other technical terms such as prophylaxis, palliative, DOTS, etc, which sounds unfamiliar to the students of law, government, economics and politics (which made up the majority of the committee).

Other than being able to understand the technical terms, and being a walking dictionary to others, being a medical student gave us an advantage to look at problems substantively. Politicians and economists like to talk about the legislative stuff, and they talked a lot too. But they don't quite have the correct idea on the real situation we’re facing. “Developed countries must supply more AIDS-curing medicine to developing nations!” one said. Well, if there is a cure for HIV/AIDS, we would have eradicated it from this world long time ago.

Realizing the flaws, once in awhile, they would say “Let’s hear the medical point of view”, signaling the need of someone with medical knowledge to speak up front. Throughout the conference, I was invited to speak a few times, and I’ve never felt more purposeful in my life. When the world asked for your opinion, why shouldn’t you feel so? I guess one of the best things about being a doctor is that people believe whatever you say. I am lucky I did my research before. At other times, I would most probably take an ‘intellectual guess’ =P

However, one can’t possibly deny the strong correlation between politics, economy, social systems and disease. So, like it or not, we all have to work together. One time I raised an issue on economics, about how the policy in the IMF and World Bank affects the healthcare system in many developing countries, and the next day, they brought a representative from the World Bank into the committee, in case people like me who lacked knowledge on economics asks the same dim-witted question again. I didn’t talk about economics again that day. Leave it to the economists, I did =PIn the end, despite our academic differences, doctors, politicians and economists worked together to find single resolution. The best thing about health committees such as the WHO is that we couldn’t disagree upon each other concerning the main goals. Of course, no sane person would disagree on eradicating infectious diseases from the world, yes? In other committees, such as the Security Council, they had about a dozen of resolutions to be voted. We had only one resolution, and the voting is just for formality. It was inspiring to see each and every country, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, raising their placard, agreeing on single resolution.

HNMUN was a grand, once in a lifetime experience for me. It was a wide-eye opener. Where else would I get a world-scale experience if not attending the real United Nations General Assembly? But then again, it wouldn’t be the same, because in HNMUN, they send students instead of real diplomats to a United Nations conference. What you’ll get are scenarios impossible in the real world. The United States in alliance with Venezuela, Iraq having dinner with Iran, India working together with Pakistan and suddenly obscured countries such as Saint Kitts and Comoros’ opinions is taken into account. I’ve never knew there’s a country which starts with ‘saint’!

As students, we realize the politics and international affair of our countries, but despite that, we looked upon each other not based on race, religion or political views. That’s the best thing about Harvard National Model United Nations: we look at each other as humans. We believe that the only real nation is humanity. We're all humans, aren’t we?

If You Are Waiting For Tomorrow, Why Not Do It Today?

This post is dedicated to my sister, Fatin, and is inspired by her post titled Memories That Remain. Yup, Fatin is the one I wanted to eat along with fruit loops back when she was 1 =P

If you’re waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes, you’ll surely regret the day
That you didn’t take that extra time for
a smile, a hug, or a kiss,
And you were too busy to grant someone, what
turned out to be their one last wish

- Norma Cornett Marek

No friend can promise you that they can still be here tomorrow. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. We keep on thinking that everything will be the same tomorrow as it is today. But the fact of life is that everybody has their own path in life, and most probably, sooner or later, you won’t be going the same way. Yet, there’s still many of us who don’t realize what a blessing it is to have your best friends around. Until suddenly, one fateful day, you realize that you have one last day to spend with them. When that day comes, everything else seems irrelevant. It doesn’t matter anymore how many arguments you won on who’s right and who’s wrong. It doesn’t matter anymore how much they owe you for buying nasi lemak when they forgot to bring their wallet. It doesn’t matter anymore who got the most ‘first place’ in class. It doesn’t matter anymore if they cheated when the teachers asked to mark their own homework.

When you know you get to spend one last day with your best friend, the only thing that remains is of the good times together. When you know it’s the last day, you can spend the time taking photos, hoping to capture your memory together one last time. But nothing compares to the memories of just eating together, coming over to each other’s house, go on camping, or riding bicycles together. Suddenly each and every moment spent with your friends, even small things, feels much more meaningful. When you’ve shared years of your life with someone, it’s not easy to let go. There’s so much for you to say, but there’s so little time, and you don’t even know where to start.

Nobody can promise you that they can still be here tomorrow. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. If today is all you get, would you still hesitate to carve a smile, to lend a hug, or to tell your friends how much they mean to you? Live each day as if it is the last chance for you to spend time with them. Spend less time frustrating the little arguments and spend more time saying ‘thank you’, ‘forgive me’ and ‘I appreciate you’ s. You’ll never know when somebody has to go. Cherish each and every moment with them, and life will seem so much more meaningful. So If you’re waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today? Because today may be all you get

p/s: Sabar ye Tin, sume bende berlaku mesti la ade sebabnye. Memang la rase sakit hati skrg, tapi nanti lame2 baru tin akan tau hikmaknye. Anyway, ingat bopie selalu pesan, 'yang penting konfiden!'. Bopie yakin tin dapat masuk MRSM gak. Yakin, tapi if tak dapat jugak jangan hampa, coz I believe wherever you are, you'll shine on for everyone!

Blend in but Stand out

I was going through old photo albums when I found this:

Six-year-old me, reading to an audience a story I wrote myself

Sigmund Freud theorized that our childhood experiences define our life as an adult. If that is the case, the picture explains why I’m addicted to the microphone today =P. The picture was taken on a Christmas concert, right before my class performed. This is a story of how a Malaysian kindergartener ends up reading a story he wrote himself to a whole American audience.

It all started with journal writing. Back in 1994, my family and I had to move to the United States. My father had an offer to do his Masters at Harvard Medical School, and for me, I had the chance of a lifetime to have my first schooling experience overseas. Robert Fulghum, a world-known author once said: “All I really need to know in life were learned at kindergarten”. I agree. Well, maybe not EVERYTHING is learned in kindergarten, but at least I learned journal writing there. In my school, kindergarteners are required to write in a journal entry every single day. I was still getting used to English at that time, and every night my parents would teach me new words using flashcards. With my limited vocabulary and inadequate grasp of grammar, I wrote some hilarious entries. I remember writing:

“I like to eat Fruit Loops AND my sister too”!

What I really meant was that my sister and I like to eat Fruit Loops (the breakfast cereal). Because of my language limitations, I made myself sound like a cannibal for wanting to eat my own sister!

Journal writing is the start of my passion towards reading and writing. From flash card, I turn to storybooks, and after a while, I started writing my own stories. I made a short storybook of my own; complete with illustrations I drew myself, on a folded A4 paper. Sometime later, we had a “show and tell” session where we were to stand in front of the class and share anything we want to. Eager to share the book I wrote, I didn’t think twice before raising my hand. So I went in front, read my story to the class, and showed them the pictures I drew. The next thing I knew, I was made 'Student of the Month'!

Soon, Christmas came, and as a tradition, our school organized a Christmas concert where parents are invited to watch their children perform on stage. Each class has to perform, including mine. So my teacher had this ‘great’ idea. As an introduction, before my class perform, she wanted me to read my storybook to the audience! And so I did... My parents came over to the concert and took a picture while I was reading on stage. It was a merry Christmas indeed

Sometimes we are intimidated when thrown into a whole new culture. But we have to face it. We have no choice, because nobody likes an ugly duckling, or a black sheep, or a wolf that runs in a different direction from the pack. We must blend in. Blend in, but stand out as someone. Stand out as someone competent. Show that you are just as good, but never stand out as an outsider or an outcast. Blending in doesn’t mean that we must lose our identity. It's like being a chameleon instead of a clone. You still retain your identity (as a Malaysian, as a Muslim for example), but you are readily adaptable to changes depending on what is required of you. So get your name known, but never as an outsider =)