Mengasah gading.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Syukur Alhamdulillah, Anna dah dapat dah result tuk sem pertama di KLIUC. Resultnya? Memuaskan.

2A dan seketul B+. Walaupun harapan nak score all A's tak tercapai, ni dah cukup bersyukur dah. Dan melihat GPA 3.8 tu? Wa tatau nak express macam mana kegumbiraannya. Dulu selama Anna study tak perabih tu, dari Matrik Bangi, ke UIA ke Lim Kok Wing, tak pernah nak kecapi GPA lebih dari 3.0. Rasanya paling tinggi 2.8 kot, average 2.5, dan below 2.0 pon pernah dapat!

Dulu, Anna pikir 'alah takat pass sudahla'. Kenapalah dulu mindset macam tu? Sekarang ni dalam kepala otak nak score A. We should always set our ambitions high. Dan jangan putus asa.

Hari tu Anna dah nangis gila-gila, stress yang amat, rasa macam nak give up, masa tu kena buat group presentation (2 orang), bayangkan Anna tak siap pon slide, dalam kereta menangis sepanjang jalan. Nasib baik groupmate tu sangat supportive dan berjaya menenangkan Anna, dalam kelas tu tengah member duk present sempat siap. Dan tup tak, tengok carry mark, Anna dapat highest. Tapi beza 2-3 markah je pon dengan lain. Ini untuk subjek Mass Media. Tapi Anna silap percaturan sedikit. Awal-awal dulu pikir 'mass media kacang je...'. Study pon main-main. So memang terserlah dalam keputusan. Sebab tu tak dapat A. Memang padan dengan usaha dan muka.

Subject Pengajian Malaysia tu risau gila-gila. Yelah subjek macam sejarah, bab hafal menghafal memang fail. Sejarah dulu pon rasanya dapat 7 ke apa, teruk gila okay. Dalam hati rasa tak mampu nak score, tapi tekad jugak, buat yang terbaik yang Anna mampu.

Dan Anna jenis kalau dalam klas mesti nak duduk bahagian depan. Tak suka duduk belakang-belakang. Rasa macam tak puas kalau duduk kat belakang. Dan sebab Anna memang rasa lemah dalam subjek ni, Anna pay full attention dalam klas, catit point penting, so bila study balik, taulah mana yang perlu concentrate. Untuk subjek Pengajian Malaysia ni, lecturer dah bagi dah buku yang ada notes semua, tapi Anna siap beli 2 buku teks, takut punya pasal. Memang berbaloi.

I want the lecturer to know and remember me by name. Dengan cara itu, Anna pon akan memaksa diri untuk lebih rajin, yelah, lecturer dah kenal personally, dah cam muka, kenala lebih rajin, kalau tak malula kan.

Dan bila tengok carry marks tu Anna dah sedar, setiap satu markah tu sangat penting. Rasa rugi gila hantar assignment lambat satu hari, sebab potong satu markah. Memula pikir 1 markah je pon, tak banyak, tetapi sebenarnya banyakkkkkk memainkan peranan 1 markah tu. Hoihh. Kuiz-kuiz tu, 10% pon sangatlah crucial. Kedatangan? 10 markah free okay? Rugi kalau tak datang.

Then subject Theories of Communication. My favourite subject. Remember the two essay's that I shared? Latest yang entri sebelum ni 'Applying studies to my love life' ha, yang tu Anna dapat 9.8/10! Lecturer cakap that's really good. Waaaah. Kembang mekcik. Then first assignment 'What is theory?' yang tu dapat 5/5. Hahaha. Kelakar pon ada. Tak sangka boleh dapat marks macam tu. Alhamdulillah.

Tapi tak taulah sem yang akan mendatang. Short sem mudah sket lah nak score sebab tak banyak subjek. Pon first sem, mungkin masih senang. Jadi lepas ni nak maintain la GPA tu pulakk. Tu yang haruuu. Yang bestnya kan, kat KLIUC ni, kalau dapat GPA tinggi, akan dapat diskaun untuk student fees. Anna patutnya bayar RM6,000 untuk sem yang baru ni, lepas tu since ayah Anna kerja jugak sana, dia dapatlah staff discount, tambah plak ngan GPA ni, dapat lagi discount, so nak tau berapa je perlu bayar? RM2,000 je kot! Hahahahahahaha. Kelakar kan?

Sebenarnya RUGI kalau tak study pepandai ni. Result nak tunjuk possible employer pon rasa syok. Lepas tu, boleh dapat scholar pulak tu, dah seb duit. Tapi memanglah, it's not all about the paper bila masuk dunia kerja, skill lain termasuk communication skills, pembawakan diri tu semua sangat penting. Jangan jadi Jack yang skema, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Rasanya menyesal sangat dulu buat main-main. So to all you kids yang masih tengah belajar, jangan pikir just nak pass, just nak dapat segulung ijazah, itu salah. A very wrong mindset, aim to score. Bila masuk kelas tu, dengarlah lecture betul-betul, serap segala ilmu yang diberi. Masuk dengan niat 'aku nak belajar sesuatu'. Even though korang rasa 'eleh, ni aku pon tau / alah balik leh carik kat internet' bla bla bla. Salah tu, that's what happened to me dengan subjek Mass Media tu, taking things for granted.

Walaupun rasa susah, rasa tak boleh, rasa nak give up, try your best. Tell your lecturer your problems. Insya'Allah they will help you out. And kalau boleh cariklah kawan yang sama-sama rajin, motivate each other. Both my buddies, Nasya and Marina pon, score jugak. Rasa happy gila, sebab kitorang satu geng, study sama-sama, buat assignment sama-sama, presentation sama-sama. Kami buat discussion, dan tolong each other mana yang mampu. Dan jangan kedekut ilmu.

The more you share with others, the more others will share with you. Sharing is caring katanya. Tapi jangan pulak time exam nak share. Ada ke patut budak foreigner ni duk 'psstt pssttt' kat Anna tanya jawapan, time tengah final, dalam exam hall tu. Selamba diorang duk cakap and discuss. Ayoo. Dalam kelas duk kat belakang, bising main-main, lepas tu time tengah exam tu pulak gelabah nak tau jawapan. Orang pon tengah gelabah nak jawab, ada pulak yang duk psst psst. Haish. Tak pasal-pasal ada orang masuk wad kecemasan sebab ada pen tercucuk kat dalam lubang hidung. Stress makcik.

Anyway, moral of the story is have a postiive mindset. Pergi belajar untuk mendapatkan ilmu dan bukan untuk segulung ijazah sahaja. Bila pikir macam tu, secara tak langsung ada keinginan dan semangat untuk score. Belajar pon rasa seronok. Ni cuti dua minggu rasa kering otak, tak sabar nak start klas balik. Weehooo.

{ANNA}

Applying my studies to my love life

Hi all. Thought I'd share another one of my assignments. We had to apply what we studied in class, the theories we've learned to real life experiences. I decided to write about my relationship between my husband and I. Enjoy! {ANNA}

Having the privilege to learn Theories of Communication for a couple of weeks now, I’m beginning to understand the development of my relationship with my husband and how it progressed from being a friend, to a boyfriend, and now my dearest husband. That was a little over a decade ago since 2001. We got married in 2008. And in 2010, we had our very first child.

Let me first narrate how it all began. We first met in an internet chat room of the university that we went to. I was attracted to his username and decided to send him a private message. If I remember correctly we started to talk endlessly about our favourite music, and discovered that we had a lot in common. This went on during the semester break. We exchanged phone numbers. From online to the telephone line we conversed for hours and hours.

The holidays were over, and we decided to hang out. Prior to the meet up, somewhere along our conversations we did bring up the kind of clothes we wore and talked about shoes. Coincidentally we had shoes of the same kind, a pair of sneakers, his were blue, and mine were red. We both decided to wear those shoes going out. The thing about these sneakers is that, the dirtier it is, the better it looks. It’s meant to look worn out. This information is crucial point that led to our relationship.

Before I move on with the story, I’d like to highlight that the conversation we had about our tastes in music and clothes is only touching the surface, the introduction was just an ice breaking session. According to the social penetration theory, it is the superficial layer. And sharing the same likes in music as well as footwear, naturally it led to a connection that made us agree upon this face to face meet up.

So came the day of our ‘date’. It wasn’t really a date since I did tag along a friend, and my intentions were only to get to know basis at this point. As promised he wore his blue sneakers and I wore my red sneakers. I noticed that his shoes were squeaky clean. And couldn’t stop ridiculing him of how uncool it was to wear clean sneakers. This lead me to purposely step on his shoes to make it look dirty and of course cool, at least according to the ‘the dirtier the better’ rule. And this act of staining his shoes, sparked fireworks, and I felt butterflies flying in my tummy! I quickly stepped away and tried to laugh hoping the butterflies would fly away. I must have blushed.

Then, we moved on to our next destination, a fast food restaurant. I was famished, and I ordered my favourite onion rings. I felt really comfortable eating in front of him, perhaps it was because of the hunger that I had no shame, I gobbled the onion rings, smacking my mouth together and gulped it down and drank my soda. Not realizing that he was watching me eat. And then there was only one onion ring left, we both reached out for it, but he let me have it instead. Ate it instantly, and only then I noticed he was watching how I was eating. And I asked, with a half way eaten onion ring “Uh, is there something wrong. Do you want this?” while showing the other half of the onion ring. He shook his head while smiling, and pointed out how enthusiastic I was munching away and it made him laugh.

Talking about onions let me relate back to the theory. Coincidentally Irwin Altman and Dallas Taylor the developers of this social penetration model metaphorically use an onion to describe the theory as onions like humans have many layers and depths. So in my event of gulping down the onion ring, and having him laugh about it goes into the middle layer which has revealed both of our social attitudes.

Being comfortable of this new revelation, we both expressed how we felt, especially during the shoe stepping ceremony. I was relieved and delighted to know I wasn’t the only one seeing fireworks and having butterflies frolicking in my bowels. At this stage we have penetrated into the inner layer. We both started to share more detailed information and background information, our beliefs, hopes, and secrets as well. His secret was about this girl he had a crush on, and mine was that I already was seeing someone else. A guy I knew for almost two years. Let’s call him ‘Mr X’.

The relationship between Mr X and I wasn’t doing so good, it was really on the rocks, just on the verge of falling over the cliff, yet we held on. I personally held on, because I assumed he was the guy that I wanted to marry, and believed that he was mister perfect. But when meeting my husband, the title ‘mister perfect’ no longer belonged to Mr X.

This is when I started comparing the two, measuring who is better. I was using the comparison level of alternatives of the social exchange theory. Mr X used to be a 10/10, but meeting my husband, the alternative totally defeated Mr X with a scale of 100/10! I knew then what I had to do. Say bye-bye to Mr X. However, it took me months to officially call it off. It wasn’t easy, because Mr X was quite special to me. But 10 years later, at this moment, seeing my dearest son and beloved husband, watching them sleep every night, I do not have an ounce of regret going for the alternative.

Now that we’re married with a child, it is easy to say that we have entered the innermost layer of the onion, and have revealed our core personality, exposing ourselves to our most basic self. We both have heard various frequencies of each other’s passing of gas, and even the different types of scent. Perhaps we both had too much onion, digging in too deep that we could not hold it in any longer. It may seem disgusting to some, but that is us being our true selves, by not hiding our flatulence.

The theories mentioned in relation to the development of my relationship seem to have been applied almost quite perfectly that it is difficult to find a flaw. The social exchange theory which includes the comparison level of alternatives is something that everyone would most probably go through in a relationship. If it isn’t applicable, it’s just might be because that person does not have the alternative to compare to.

However, having that said, using this standard of assessment doesn’t necessarily mean one has to choose the better alternative. Because, as mentioned earlier, the social penetration theory states that humans are made up of many layers, sometimes what one sees in a person is only a certain breadth of that person, depending on an individual and the level of interaction it may take years for one to get to know a person entirely, at times, it just never happens.

Therefore, to choose what ones measures as the better alternative might turn out to be even worse! When they go in depth one might discover some deep dark secret of that person that is really disturbing. And unfortunately by that time, it might be too late to return to the former relationship. But, if one is lucky enough after weighing the possible outcomes, like in my case, the better turns out to be the best decision ever made.

Imej baru.

Teringin sangat badan berisi. Asyik cekeding je dari dulu. Aku punya kerendahan dalam 152cm, dan ringan antara 38kg-42kg sahaja!

Masa pregnant hari tu, maksimum berat 49kg. Aku sangat syok masa tu, kalau boleh tanak hilangkan berat pregnancy tu walaupun dah bersalin. Nak maintain, tup tap tup tap kejap je turun. Yang tinggal perut je yang agak buncit. Walaupun kurus aku secara asal memang buncit sket, dah bersalin makinla, dahla tak berapa nak jaga, bekung pon tak berapa nak pakai. Haish. Exercise jangan harapla. Kan bagus kalau tang lain maintain isi.

Aku jenis makan cepat kenyang, makan banyak sket mulalah nak membuang. Mak cakap, macam perut burung, makan sket dah berak. Haha.

Orang lain sibuk nak kurus, aku pulak sibuk nak gemuk. Terima kasih pada app FatBooth aku berjaya merealisasikan impian aku tu. Tapi secara realiti, takmola sampai tahap cinta kolesterol. Silap-silap tengok aku kat Hallmark masuk Biggest Loser pulak.

Tapi rasanya rahsia nak tambah berat badan senang je, makan banyak yang amat, macam masa pregnant tu. Tapi nak makan banyak macam mana bila dah kenyang? Masa preggy tu selera bukan main lagi. Tapi Anna ni ikutkan, suka je makan, tapi kuantiti yang tak berapa nak banyak. Kalau ambik nasi banding dengan Pitt, err Anna 1/4 kot dari bahagian dia. Kalau makan kat luar, tak habis pass kat dia. Kekadang tu dia siap tunggu tu. Hahaha. Takpa biarkan dia gemuk sket, takdalah nak hensem, I takdalah perlu risau dia dipikat gadis di luar sana, dan aku pon tak perlu la nak masuk Obedient Wives Club / Kelab Taat Suami tu untuk mendapat ilmu kamasutra supaya suami tak lari.

Anyway, kalau ada tip-tip cara nak tambahkan berat badan selain dari makan dan tidur, yang mana aku buat tapi tak menjadi pon, jadi bebal adalah. Sila kongsi. Dan untuk pengetahuan kalian, bila ada orang cakap "Eh kenapa kurus sangat / eh apesal makin kurus / kurusnya you / diet ke / tak makan ke?" Adalah sangat sangat sangat menyakitkan hati. Seriously it is very offensive. Terasa okay? Ingat sengaja ke nak kurus-kurus ni? Huh!

But as always, yang penting nombor satu kesihatan. Alhamdulillah sihat. Cuma kalau dari segi ukuran BMI tu sememangnya underweight, dan kalau boleh nak kasik just nice. Baru lah suami makin sayang. Hah, bolehla aku bukak kelab, Wives Who Want to Look Good For their Husbands Club a.k.a. Kelab Isteri Cun. Ada sapa nak join?

{ANNA}

Perempuan atau lelaki lebih kecoh?

Terima kasih pada komen di entri perihal kencing berdiri, yang mengatakan:

Lelaki boleh kencing sambil cangkung takde pun nak kecoh siap tulis entry camni.. ;P

Jadi sebagai seorang perempuan 'kecoh' aku pon google 'perempuan kencing berdiri' dan rupanya, ramai dah yang tulis akan perihal ni. Antara blog-blog yang menulis entri tentang ini adalah:

justkhai.com "Perempuan Kini boleh kencing Berdiri!"
rohaizad.com "Siapa kata perempuan tak boleh kencing berdiri?"
ridzuanrichie.com "Apa jadi kalau awek kencing berdiri?"
relevensokmo.com "Aksi wanita kencing berdiri"

Ha tengok tu. Dalam top results pulak tu. Sebenarnya laki ke pompuan ke, sama je kecoh. Laki ni boleh tahan kot gossip dan ngumpat. Yelah, jantina mana yang timbul dengan idea kadar harga 'nasi lemak bungkus'? - lelaki. Kalau bab nak sound perempuan yang pakai tudung tak betul, atau fesyen perempuan yang pelik kat blog ke, forum ke, bila dipost gambar-gambar, yang duk komen lebih-lebih, nak jadi fashion police ni? Aku lihat kebanyakkan yang duk ngata tu - lelaki jugak. Ish ish ish.

So guys, mengaku jelah korang pon sama kepochee je ngan perempuan ni. Kan kan kan? Hehe. anyway, ikutkan gender wars ni memang tidak akan berkesudahan. Lelaki, perempuan, masing-masing tak sempurna, tu yang dicipta berpasangan, to complete and compliment each other. Misunderstandings will always arise between genders, sedangkan sesama jantina pon boleh bertelagah pendapat, apatah lagi berlainan jantina.

The most important thing is communication. Bak kata my Theories of Communication lecturer and what I was discussing with my buddy Nasya kat kolej tadi selepas menikmati Nasi Arab with Half Roast Chicken yang sedap gila, konflik ni dan sekali sekali bertelingkah is healthy, sebab bila kita gaduh tu akan keluar segala isi hati yang terpendam. And in fact, when there is no conflict in a relationship, tak pernah gaduh, itu tandanya something is wrong.

So it's good to let it go once in a while, nak merajuk dan bengang tu takyah la lelama. Just work it out. And, takyah la ego sangat, mengalah dulu atau cakap sorry dulu even though rasa diri tu betul, will help you resolve a conflict, dari yang duk rasa nak marah tu, jadi lembut je hati, segan, dan akan rasa nak mintak maaf jugak.

Just an advice, I've mentioned this before, kalau bengang dengan sesiapa pon, marah, putus kawan ke, benci ke, especially dengan keluarga sendiri, cepat-cepat lah berbaik semula. Esok lusa, sat lagi, kalau orang tu dah ditakdirkan umurnya tak panjang, tak sempat nak berbaik dan mintak maaf, mesti akan menyesal selama-lamanya.

{ANNA}