Broadening Horizons in Kuching

-
Their first time at the beach. No point holding ourselves back.
Anyway, this jumping photo has been a trademark of this programme since 2013.
My students have spent most of their lives in the middle of nowhere. A majority have never been to a beach so you can imagine how much they lack exposure to the outside world. One reason for this is their low socio-economic background & rampant illiteracy in their community. They also lack role models of whom they can emulate & imitate.

It is sad that most of the brightest students end up getting nowhere near achieving their greatest potential. Some of the bright girls hook up with the not-so-smart boys & end up with a bulging belly. Some of them experience culture shock when they leave for their studies & drop out of matriculation/university. Some of them get caught up in social ills. At the very end, those who do make it are very very few.

To address these issues, in 2012, I decided to personally mentor the PMR students. I would meet with them every week to exercise & also talk to them about life & how important education was. I also promised them all sorts of rewards if they did well. One of which was a fully sponsored trip to Kuching if they achieved straight As in PMR. As a result of this mentorship, 3 students achieved 8As in 2012 PMR. And, I took them to Kuching in 2013.

In 2013, I also mentored the PMR students but, this time, I decided it was probably more sustainable if the students were taught to mentor their juniors. I roped in the excellent 2012 PMR students to mentor the prospective 2013 PMR students. In 2013, 2 students achieved 8As in PMR. And, this is the blog post about their trip to Kuching in 2014!

The boat we took from Sibu to Kuching. 5 hours of being tossed about at sea. Not fun.
They tried Kuching Laksa!! Yums!!!
My favourite is at Mega One Food Court, King's Centre.
They also tried Lui Cha.
My favourite is at Hakka Lui Cha on Jalan Intan.
I treated them to their first ever western dinner.
I knew the owner of the restaurant so I persuaded him to sit down with us & share his life with my students.
My favourite is Big Oven in Bormill Commercial Centre.
I wanted my students to be aware of the cultural heritage of Sarawak so I took them to the Sarawak Cultural Village.
I also took them on a tour of Kuching & we visited all the iconic sites in Kuching.
We visited at least 3 malls too. This was their first time at a mall.
Makes me wonder if they've been to online malls like Zalora.
We watched a movie.
Took them on a tour of Swinburne where we got connected with the staff there & found out about their scholarship programmes for Sarawak natives.
Did you know that they have more scholarships than they do students?
If you're a Sarawak native, you can seriously consider Swinburne.
One reason I love my parents so much is they decided to contribute to my vision.
My parents treated us to 2 dinners & they spoke extensively to my students.
All in all, the price tag for this 4D3N trip to Kuching was RM900++

Why spend all that time & money on children who have absolutely no ties with me, you ask? I want to show them that the possibilities in their future are greater than what can be imagined within the jungle. I want them to know that I believe in them so much that I am willing to put my money where my mouth is & blow a large chunk of my monthly income on this trip. This was also my chance to expose them to all the best minds I know in Kuching & allow them to be enriched by their stories.

This trip is more than a reward. It's a gift that keeps on giving. I made it very clear to them during the trip that they have the greatest potential in their community & also the greatest responsibility. God has blessed them so that they may be a blessing to others. I told them to dedicate their lives to living to their highest potential & becoming successful. Then, I want them to return to their homeland & lead others of their kind to do the same thing. Thus, uplifting a forgotten people via their most talented.

To me, this is a small price to pay to make a REAL difference.

View all the pictures here.

Popular posts from this blog

Understanding The New SPM (2021) English 1119 Paper Format

-
Image
This outline & those of other SPM language papers were made publicly available on the Lembaga Peperiksaan Malaysia (LPM) website . I'm sure you've seen the above being circulated on the internet. But, what does it mean? How does this paper compare to the current SPM paper for English? Do we have to change our testing practices in Form 4? At this moment, information is sparse despite great public interest. As the head of the English panel at my school, my Form 4 colleagues will come to me for what to do & parents will ask me what this is about. Until we have very specific instructions from the ministry, this is what I will be telling my colleagues & parents based on the limited amount of information available to me from my intimate experience with the current SPM paper & second-hand information about the PT3 English paper. Let me know if I got anything wrong or if you have more detailed information.
Open Full Post »

What To Do When Your Unifi Service Suddenly Drops

-
Image
After finally putting my kid to sleep, I was about to settle into the couch with my wife & stream a movie, when my Unifi fiber optic internet connection suddenly dropped. When it didn't come back after 1 hour, I realized that I had to do something. Considering that I pay my bills promptly every month, it must be a technical issue. Here's what I did to fix the problem. It look me less than 20 minutes. 1. First, I checked my modem (the white machine). I checked the lights on the modem. When the modem is functioning properly, lights will be on for POWER, PON, LAN1 & TEL1. If the red light for LOS lights up, call 100 to resolve the issue. Also, I made sure that all the wire connections were tight. 2. Next, I checked my router (the black machine). Again, I checked the lights. When the router is functioning properly, lights will be on for POWER, GLOBE, WIFI, LAN1. My POWER light was blinking, so that means that there was no internet connection. Again, I made sure th...
Open Full Post »

How To Fix Logitech Options Not Loading

-
Image
I use a Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard at home & love it to bits. Very quiet & the tactile response is just perfect. Also, it's super small so easy to put away when I need to pile exam papers on my desk. Still, there's one small problem though... It is a compact keyboard so the multimedia buttons double as function keys. I use the function keys A LOT & it's really cumbersome for me to have to hold the "fn" button every time I want to use them. I.e., try pressing alt+fn+f4 with one hand. Thankfully, with the Logitech Options software, I can default to the function keys. A few months ago, I was chagrined to learn that my keyboard had spontaneously returned to factory settings. "No problem", I thought. "I'll just change the settings in Logitech Options." Only to find that the app wouldn't load on my Windows 10 machine, resulting in the blank window you see screen-captured above. "Let me try reinstalling." Uni...
Open Full Post »

A Review of Mosquito Coils In The Market

-
Image
Mosquito coils = The first line of defence against savage jungle mosquitoes. Remember when there was completely no electricity at my school ? It happened during the dry season so the nights were really really warm & hard to sleep with the windows closed. Why close the windows you ask? Because if you don't close the windows, the savages from the jungle will climb in & suck your blood! Literally! I'm talking about swarms of mosquitoes gang-banging your skin & leaving you with clusters of chickenpox-like bumps on your skin in the morning! These guys even bite through clothing!! The itchiness that ensues will practically ensure that you never have a good night sleep. In order to keep those monsters at bay, I had to go really low-tech. I eventually experimented with mosquito coils. There are so many in the market & I thought that all of them worked the same since they had the same basic ingredients. I was wrong. They had different effects on the mosquitoes ...
Open Full Post »

Exotic Fruit: Buah Isu

-
Image
I've been teaching in the Iban motherland for more than 1 year now & I have tasted many exotic fruits exclusively available only within these quiet secluded timber forests. Now, don't you smirk at me! You perverted baskets I call friends are thinking about a different 'fruit'! There are no innuendos here. The exotic fruits that I'm talking about are REAL fruits. First, let me introduce you to the cousin of the king of fruits... Buah Isu Buah Isu resembles it's cousin, the Durian , but I was told that it is NOT in the Durian family. The spikes are longer & they are sharper. They are also very much smaller than the Durians. It's about the size of a man's palm. It has a pleasantly sweet fragrance which is not pungent like the Durian's. Because of it's size, it is easily opened with a cleaver. After opening my first Isu, I couldn't help but bounce off the walls in gay laughter. It was all too amusing to me! I though...
Open Full Post »