Lousy Forum.....

A few weeks ago, our lecturer, Mr Terry asked us to attend a forum about children with special needs. According to him, we could learn a lot about the children with special needs from the forum and it would help to prepare us when we take that course at the coming semester. At that time, I was quite interested with the forum because I could legitimately skip work on that day. Erm, I mean I could learn a lot from that forum. : p

The forum was held on the previous day, 29th November 2008. It was supposed to be held after our last Moral Studies class at 2 p.m. On that day, we had to present our moral assignment and hand in our journal to be marked by our lecturer, Mr Michael. We didn’t even break a sweat during our presentation as I think most of us were already immune with the pressure from our previous assignments. Compared to our previous assignments, this was nothing to us. That weren’t anything special about the presentation, so I’m not going to elaborate about it. By the time class ends, all of us felt super relieved as though a 5 tonne burden has just been lifted of our back. Now, we feel as though we could fly.

Before:


After:


After class ends, I went to have lunch with Jian Shi, Xinzi and Rachel WSF. Jian Shi proposed we go to eat fried kuey teow at the stall near our college. We have always wanted to try the “char kuey teow” at that stall. The fragrant smell of “char kuey teow” from the stall has always been very tempting. Before we went there, Jian Shi and I have to listen to Xinzi and Rachel argue for 5 minutes about eating at that stall. ~Sigh~, women, always so complicated. They should learn from men, simple and decisive.

Jian Shi and I ordered 2 big plates of char kuey teow for ourselves while Xinzi and Rachel ordered a big plate to share. The fried kuey teow was really delicious with generous amount of lap cheong and shrimps. (Sorry, forgot to take picture). However, we still have doubts about eating at that stall. If you look carefully around the stall, the hygiene of the stall is terrible. There’s even a carcass of a rat near the place we sit. I was regretted about ordering the grass jelly water. The grass jelly which is used to prepare drinks was kept in an open plastic bag, being exposed to all sorts of pollutants and micro organisms. By the time, I realised that, it was too late. When I ate and drank the food prepared, I kept on hoping in my heart, “Oh, please no diarrhoea, no diarrhoea, no diarrhoea!!!!” Phew, luckily nothing happened to me after that meal. It’s waste for the owner to operate his stall at such a dirty place. If they opened their stall at a coffee shop or a food court, I’m sure they would have more customers. One thing is for sure, I won’t be going back to that stall again. Here’s a picture of them eating:


Jian Shi (looking discontented): Why do I have to eat at such a low class place?


Rachel: No, I haven't put on my cosmetics

While we're eating we overheard what Xinzi talked on the phone.

Xinzi: Aiya, no need to bank in the money la. I still got a lot of money.
Xinzi: Ha! You didn't sell the share aaa! Now, the world is facing a terrible recession.
Xinzi: Faster sell all the shares that I have! If not, I'll lose millions!
Xinzi: Don't worry, I still got a few millions in my Swiss account.
Xinzi: I just bought a genuine hand-crafted Gucci Handbag last week.
Xinzi: See, I'm fine here. So, you don't need to worry.

(She didn't say that of course. I was just kidding)

After we ate our lunch, we went back to college while Rachel went home. On our way back to the college, we spotted a beautiful white BMW which has a modified body kit. We were so mesmerised by the beauty of the car before we spotted something.


Noticed something weird?

Look carefully

Holy crap! What kind of ominous number plat is that! Who in the world would be stupid enough to buy that kind of number and install it at his car! The beauty of car is tarnished by the 4 figures at the number plat.


"die die die die"

For those who don’t know Cantonese or Mandarin, the number 4 is pronounced as “sei” in Cantonese and “se” in mandarin which resembles the word die in both dialects. Therefore, the number plat also meant “die die die die”.

At 2 p.m., we registered our names, paid RM5 and went to the forum. We were having high expectations towards the forum as many professionals who are experienced and have Masters Certificates in the ECE field would be attending the forum. It was a mistake that we regretted dearly later. The forum began with an introduction speech from Dr.Lim Boon Hock who has a doctorate in “Children with Special Needs”. During his speech, he mentioned that all of us should share our resources together during the forum to revamp the education for children with special needs. That phrase made us even more excited. However, as the forum continued further, we felt something’s amiss. The forum was starting to become like an advertisement for Malaysia Care centres and other preschool centres, and the parliament where they debate about new laws and policies for ECE. They kept on talking about how preschool centres should be set up, what kind of law should be enforced, how children with special needs shouldn’t be segregated and other topics that we have learned when took our Foundation course last semester.

In the midst of the discussion, I raised up my hand to ask for some advice on how to manage a child with special needs at my centre. To my surprise, my question was rejected. They said that what I’m asking was irrelevant to the goal of the forum. Goal? What goal? You didn’t say anything about the goal of the forum in the brochure! You just mentioned that the forum was about children with special needs. You even put “No Children Left Behind”. So, how was my question irrelevant to the topic discussed in the forum? I asked how I can modify my lessons so that the child wouldn’t be left out from my class. Wasn’t he the one who said that we should share our resources to revamp the education for children with special needs? By refusing to answer my question, wasn’t he contradicting himself?

We were so disappointed with the forum that we decided to run away after tea break. During, tea break, we ate some of the food prepared to fill our stomach. Besides, we did pay RM5 for the forum. Jian Shi didn’t waste any time in attacking the food. He took as many sandwiches and curry puffs that he could so that he could get back the RM5 he paid. We didn’t think that he was serious when we joked that we should eat a RM5 amount of food to avenge the money that we lost before running away.

Moral of the story: Ask for more information directly from the organizers before attending any forums in the future.