It’s been a long long since i update my personal blog. I even left my previous blog about my travelling half written. Anyway, a lot of things happened since then.. such as:
(1) my fridge broke down
(2) my interview with CPS (commission of Public Services)
(3) Graduation Planning
(4) election of RMSA
(5) death of Mr.Stuart
(6) incident of my bathroom sink
(7) Easter day
My Fridge meets its maker :p
Let’s get the story going… Somewhere in Feb, i decided to clean-up the fridge since the freezer got too much frost on it that its door can’t be properly closed. It turns out like the chinese saying:不整尤是好，一整就没得救 (it’s okay until someone touches it). The fridge won’t turn cold anymore. I called up the service centre and asked how much it cost to repair it. They say sending a guy over will cost 300rub, while fixing it may cost 2000 rub. I got this 2nd fridge somewhere for a good 3500 rub. Served me a good 1 and a half year. Anyway, recent discussionn with roomate is concluded that we are not getting a fridge anytime soon. For one, i will only be here for another 3-4 month, whereelse he is now in an economic slump. However, problem with the fridge does give me a bit of headache since it is really inconvenient without one. My cooking habit has to change a lot since my choice of food is limited to stuff that can be kept outside the fridge. I just hope my gastritis will not flare.
Interview with the Commission of Public Services
This year, as new ruling of CPS, the interview for medical officer of public sector of Malaysia will take place both locally and overseas. Thus, there are officers being sent over to Moscow, Egypt, Jordan, England, Ireland etc to interview the graduating students. My interview was on 12th March 2008. (see below)
As you can see, my interview is on the 1st day of the schedule of interview sessions in Russia. I’m not too worried about the interview, since there is nothing much i could do to prepare for it. Rumour has it that there will be questions on general knowledge about Malaysia, as well as medical orientated questions. Anyhow, some said that the interview might be conducted in Malay Language to gauge our language command for doctor-patient interactions. I’ve always done well in Malay Language in the past, but my skill seems to became rather rusty after 6 years being in Moscow. In fact, to certain extend, I would be more comfortable answering question in Russian Language than in Malay..haha
Anyway, Interview was a breeze. The general question are really “general” and the medical question can be answer in English, which i find no difficulty in doing. So, i’m pleased to announce that i passed my interview and “provisionally” appointed as Medical Officers.(* provisionall, because i need to first graduate from medical school :p)
As side notes, most of the students here passed the interview. So, it is nothing to be too happy about. Rather, to fail would be something really daunting.
I promised to call home to tell my family about the outcome, but the phone was always engaged whenever i tried to call home. Perhaps i’ll just send an SMS later on.
Graduation PlanningIf there is one thing that i’ve been keeping mself busy with, it would be getting involved in graduation planning. The Malaysian students has gather since last year to discuss about the matter, because this would be the first graduation where a large number of Malaysian Students are graduating. In fact, we are the majority among the graduating foreign students this year. (67 out of 130 )
The major concern about the event is that, it has been a lil’ disorganised last year, making it somewhat a mess during the ceremony. Many parents will be flying over from Malaysia this year to attend the convocation, so we felt the need to takes things into our own hands.
The planning was going very well until we ran into a 3rd party which interfere with our work. The 3rd party told the students that they are “assigned” to take care of the graduation ceremony and they asked us to pay them 150 USD/person. When asked, they have no apparent plans on anything and fail to present to us with the details. The funniest part is, when we plan out the event, our budget per person is around 150-180USD per person, which covers from venue, robes down to photography. At the same time, this particular 3rd party has a reputation being “profit-seeking”, yet lack the ability to properly handle tasks at hand. Thus, we decided to clarify the matter by asking the official sponsor about the matter. Funnily enough, nobody has actually be “assigned” to take care of the said event, and no one is asking for money from the students. The best part of the story is that the 3rd party dare to deny all his earlier claims and shove the responsibilities to others. Nontheless, we got the students’ support as well as the official support from embassy and major sponsor to run the event. We also clearly state that if the 3rd party were to be running the event, we wont join it. Afterall, it is pointless to attend a ceremony which u knew will be another screw-up.
Students Association Election
Follow the heat of general election of Malaysian Government, came the wave of election heat here in RSMU…hahaha. I’m almost amazed with development of this election. I was once the pioneering batch that form the students body so i have seen the ups and downs of it (sadly, most of them are downs).
almost 2 years ago, we passed on our responsibility as student bodies to a new team. After 2.5 year holding on to the post of secretary in MMSA (Moscow Malaysian Students Association), we finally decided that it is time to pass on the job to a new team. Across the 2.5 year, the malaysian student population in Moscow grew from 400+ students to a whooping 1500+, a crowd too big that we found it hard to reach out to. At the same time, throughout that period of time, we’ve also seen many complains about the efficiency of our board in handling many of the students problems. Many problems are left unsolved, while the board member overworked ourselves every single time when we organise students events. But perhaps the reason of having many students welfare problem unsolved was the lack of real power in the student body. And eventually, lead to the distrust of students in our ability.
The previous has been a long-awaited one, where students look forward for a change. Personally, the board also think it is long over-due, because we are all tired of the responsibility proved to be too big to be carrying for that long. During the 1st election, I’ve seen much of the power struggle among the new candidates and their supporters, each with their own agendas. We’ve seen people past getting exploited, rumours surfacing, secret being unearthed. It even progressed into a politic-like campaining and candidates joining force to run for various posts. I’ve also witnessed the reluctance some candidate to be involved, so much, as to i practically forced some to obey to the voices of the students… and with all that, a new team was borned.
2 year passed, while the new team come into power. I was the only remaining advisor for the current team. But, I have long forsaken this responsibility because i’m utterly dissapointed to find the degradation of leadership in the new team. I took no initiative to correct them. Throughout the period of the 2 year, i’ve heard numerous stories of the new team, but never had any of the team member came to consult me directly. So, i assumed they could handle things on their own. Afterall, who out wanna advise from an old-fart like myself :p
With the recent incident about the graduation planning, i came to realise that the new team not only fail to function properly. It had degraded to the extend of misuse of power. It appears that what i’ve heard was just the tip of the iceberg. And during the last 3 weeks, many incidents has been exposed. And to our delight, some of the better ones in the student body finally annouced the election of student association (RMSA) will be held soon. And to stop certain people to continue to misuse their power, the student body has also voted to suspend all resposibility of its president.
Following this were a series of event which make the election a hype. We’ve seen ppl exposing more incidents of power-misuse, complete with evedents. We’ve seen new candidates campaining for their posts. We’ve seen the darkside lurk among us. We’ve seen brave ppl speaking up.
Mr.Stuart Meets its Maker too
Last week, while me and my roomate were studying late, he went out to the toilet. To his surprised, he saw a big rat and with the overflow of adrenaline, he slam the toilet door and sqeeze the rat to death. It has been a long time since i saw any rat around my block. Not after i installed the metalic fencing blocking all entrance/exit from the pipeline compartment behind the toilet. I have no idea how the fella got in, but now that he is dead, we’ve got to get rid of the body. So i bagged him with a black plastic bag and sent him down the rubbish shaft, where i assumed he would rest in peace forever. (But I doubt that there would be peace, since he is brutally squashed, plus we didn;t provide him with a proper funeral, nor that he has any coffin to be rolling-in..muahahaha)
Bathroom Sink: The Downfall
I was rather free this weekend, so i decided that my block needs some cleaning up. It has been a while since anyone had even lift-up their finger to clean up the place. (Even the spot where Mr.Stuart died hasn’t been cleaned!). So I started off cleaning the cooking area, washing the floor, the toilet. Then, i asked my roomate to help take out the trash and also to destroy the ever-growing colony of cockroaches. Then i cleaned the bathroom and wash the moss off its wall. That is when I tripped and landed on the bathroom sink. The sink came-off the wall and I ended up with some bruises. It cost me 600rub and 4 bottle of beer to get someone to fix it up the next day.
Happy Easter
Today, it is Easter day. I would like to take the opportunity to greet everyone Happy Easter Day. Yesterday, the Malaysian Fellowship had a joint bible study session with Mrs.Terri Young (From United States). I enjoyed the stories about King Solomon. I’ve also got an Easter Egg made by the Fellowship group. Yay!
