~ LIFE ‎

"When you rise in life, your friends know who you are! 
When you fall down, you know who are your friends."

A friend in need is a friend indeed

Ilhan with his cousin Akimi (USJ, Umar Rais' wedding)

~ Picture by Zaidatul Hasnida

As fas as I am concerned this was the longest week I have felt in years. The mid-term exams filled up the week like there is no tomorrow. My paper was Quantitative Methods (QM), statistical for business and economics. Having a background in Industrial Chemistry and postgrad diploma from the National Institute and Public Administration of Malaysia (INTAN) and the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR), Kuala Lumpur certainly did not help me at all in doing my calculations.  Even with my High School to undergraduate level Modern Mathematics and Additional Mathematics did not prep me well to sit for this exam. 

However to off-set this feeling - I was somewhat relieved that I was not the only ONE. 

You could hear, gasp, sighs, and arghhh....! literally in the exam hall. One of the students gave up early and dashed out of the hall in 30-minutes of the two-hour exams shaking his head in disappointment. I felt sorry for him, but then again I'm not his professor. 

Even with my Toyolnomics - cheat sheet that was allowed during the exam was unhelpful. I stared at my notes for about 5-minutes and scanned over and over again looking at which formulae is applicable in the solution needed. I did my utmost best and hope that at least I get sympathetic (pathetic) points.

Toyolnomics 101

Getting out of the hall after two hours - I had about 30 minutes to spare before making my way to Itaewon Masjid.

I surfed my Facebook and came to this perfect picture to underscore my feeling towards my QM exam:

Hell yeah

Haha....

Alright, now to rewind the week that was. Returning to excellence!

On Wednesday (28 March 2012), POSCO TJ Park Foundation held its annual POSCO TJ Park Prize Ceremony Award for outstanding citizens of the world in their contribution for the betterment of the society. 

This year's award was given to three fine recipients - two Koreans and one from Cambodia.

POSCO TJ PARK SCIENCE PRIZE

Jin-Woo Cheon
BSc. Chemistry, Yonsei University, PhD University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

Professor Jin-Woo Cheon is a world leading authority on synthetic nano-chemistry. He has pioneered and established nano-medicine, an interdisciplinary convergence area, by combining the fields of nanoscience and medicine for the first time in Korea.

Professor Cheon became the only Asian senior editor of Accounts of Chemical Research, an American journal of chemistry that is among top 1 percent with respect to the citation impact factor. He is also an editorial board of member of Nano Letters and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), demonstrating Korea's academic prowess in science and leading the field of synthetic nanochemistry.

POSCO TJ PARK EDUCATION PRIZE

Jong-Moon Kwag
Principal of Hangyoere Middle and High School

Joon-Moon Kwag, principal of Hangyoere Middle nd High School, has presented a new paradigm of education in Korea throughout his life-time endeavours to afford underprivileged youths education that promotes their creativity and upright character through nights schools and alternative education programs. He is also an educator who takes the initiative in helping young North Koreans defectors adapt to life in the South and giving them new hope. 

He has set a shining example to the educational community, which had previously taken little interest in alternative education, much less recognizing it. As a strong advocate for young North Korean refugees, Principal Kwag is expected to continue to make unwavering efforts to empower and help them self-develop and realize their dreams for the future in a safer environment.

POSCO TJ PARK COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT & PHILANTROPHY PRIZE

Somaly Mam
Founder of AFESIP, Cambodia

Born in 1970, when the civil war broke out in Cambodia, Somaly Mam began life as an orphan in extreme poverty. At 16, she was sold to a brothel and subjected to horrible treatment and exploitation. A few years later, she escaped the brothel and briefly stayed in France. She then returned to Cambodia and worked as a voluntary Khmer interpreter at international organizations, where she met many women and girls who were enslaved just like she had been. From that moment, Somaly Mam began rescuing victimized women with the belief that she had to stand up for them.

She founded the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007 to support organizations committed to eradicating human trafficking and to provide victims and survivors with a platform to regain a voice in their lives. The Foundation also runs awareness and advocacy campaigns around the world to shed light on an end to modern-day slavery.

~~~

The three recipients have one thing in common - service above self.

You can say the Professor of Chemistry probably came from a well to do family and had everything he ever wanted given to him on a silver platter - but to spend hours and hours of your time doing research on how to use nanoparticles into a patient's blood vessel so that they attach to cancer once detected and then treated is called (phew..!) PASSION. 

As once a chemist himself though not on nano-tech, but on explosions (yes, my thesis was about chemical explosives substances and tests from the Israeli science journals). I got lonely in the laboratories and chose public policy over chemistry. 

Some say I wasted my scholarship doing my science undergraduate degree but I preferred the Harvard professor who gave a talk earlier in March on education - to prepare an engineer, he must not only be good in Mathematics and applied science, but he must also be a musician, having the sense of arts and creativity that will make him a complete engineer. 

When I see most of my colleagues in the management and administrative fields such as I, who have degrees in Mechanical-Civil-Electrical Engineering, Biotechnology, Environmental Science and even Science Fisheries and learning new areas to equip themselves as policy-makers, a wise decision to recruit them.

They'll become better analysers/thinkers (not to say graduates in Economics, Accounting or other non-science field as unimportant, but they do have added advantage though).

The second recipient, an educator who started his own school to accommodate the underprivileged Koreans and setting an alternative education such as vocational and technical schools. 

In Korea, as my Korean friends informed me - their university graduates are inflated. South Korea sees a 3,000,000 rate of unemployment who are highly skilled but not enough work to give them. Yesterday during Academic Writing class, I explained to my Korean classmates of the blue-collar vacuum that Malaysia is facing but is currently addressing it. 

We have Institut Kemahiran Bina Negara (IKBN) National Institute of Skills, IKTBN (National Institute of Higher-Skills) as we do not want Malaysians who have degrees with 3.96 CGPA but do not want their hands dirty handling engines, being electricians and repairman. I gave the example of industrialised countries who have professional blue-collar jobs and get paid highly by the hour. 

Sooner or later, countries like mine will have to pay higher price for someone to replace our Astro decoder/satellite dish (which is about RM100 now - US$30/35,000 Won) or plumber, wiremen etc.

The last but certainly not the least of the recipients - is my inspiration, Somaly Mam. No college degree, no family, nothing. She said that she did not have a proper name when she was almost five or six years old. 

Her parents were missing or killed and at 16, she was sold as a prostitute. How do you beat that? She picked herself up, went and learned to speak French - she could have just stayed in France and enjoy all the welfare benefit the French government gives out to their people. Lived a comfortable life, maybe have a French husband and stayed content.

NO - she returned to Cambodia and became their saviour. This did not involved millions of dollars or highly connected people, but through her hard work and dedication. She cried when she gave her acceptance speech and I felt sad that she had to go through all of the traumatic experience, but moved on to become a key player in eradicating modern-day slavery. She is indeed an inspiration for the empowerment of woman in my region.

I wish to congratulate all of them and hope that their efforts will be exemplary to others.

POSCO Center
Ms. Lee (Student Affairs) and Ms. Nurgul (POSCO Asia Fellow)
Two-months without haircut. NEW Record!

~Picture by Nurgul

~~~

LIFE PART II

I missed two wedding occasions in my family this year. The youngest daughter of Paman Hasmoni Salim and Che Hay Rahil Abu Bakar - Mrs. Siti Halimah's wedding was last February and my other cousin, Mrs. Nadiatul Sheema which was held yesterday, Uncle Norahim's daughter. 

Congratulations Limah and Sheema! Selamat Pengantin Baru!

Cik Limah with hubs - welcome to the family!
~ Picture by Halimah

Sheema and hubs - met him once at another cousin's wedding...
~ Picture by Shariffuddin Abdul Rahim

Weddings in Malaysia are huge events not only for both families where the house of the parent's bride and groom have tents and lightings, catering and such, it also involves the whole neighbourhood and community as roads need to be closed 2-3 days prior to the wedding day. Wedding cards and invitations can easily exceed 1,000 for a wedding reception from 12.30 to 4.00 p.m.

Families in Malaysia are extended until, I don't know - from the Malacca's sultanate perhaps!! Hehe... 

In Kedah, north of Malaysia on my wife's side, it gets more complicated. Every one is PakLang (Uncle Lang), PakNgah (Uncle Ngah), PakLong (Uncle Long), Pak Menakan (general uncle) etc.

Everyone is a family by marriage even if its your 10th cousin! As they say - distant smell-smell (direct translation of bau bau bacang)

In all, March was a good month. April will be great. May is M-A-L-A-Y-S-I-A spring break.

I got a great package from my old friend Khairul Anuar @ BUNGA (FLOWERS - lousy nickname for someone who represented Johor's state (south of Malaysia) martial art athlete and a varsity rugby player) who despite his busy schedule doing his PhD in Nuclear Physics (yikes!) took the time to buy my favourite stuffs at Walmart. 

He is one of the perfect example of when you fall down, you know who are your friends - we had our ups and downs during our uni days and he had also given me confidence in my career as well. 

Thanks old friend. (do I still need to pay this? Haha) OK.. OK I'll maybank2u soon.

Bunga's package from Rolla, MO USA - thanks brother!

And to reminiscence my schooling days when you don't do your homework, fail in your duties, did not clean your room, your shoes are not shined or all of the above.

Running the college parade square should make up for it....

Run Boys RUNNNNN...!

Picture by OP Chan Jun Kwan ~ Commandant Boy 2011

And thank you for reading.