Category: Article

Sometime I just got bored and make some article.

Categories
Article

What’s special about IIUM?

This article was never finished. I publish it in relation to this article, because it shows the environment of IIUM. Some part of this post was cut and some part was added to better reflect the changes.

Assalamualaikum everyone. One of the most read article from this blog is the Past, Present and Future of IIUM. In that article which is actually an assignment for one of my class, I wrote about what I think about IIUM. Two years has passed and I’ve just ended my final studying semester from IIUM. So today I’m going to write an update regarding that in the perspective of a graduating student. I’m going to talk about IIUM Gombak specifically, not CFS or IIUM Kuantan or any other IIUM campus. I’m also going to refrain from talking about Kuliyyah of Information and Communication Technology (KICT). That will come later as a separate post. This post is more of a general review without considering a specific Kuliyyah. Although admittedly, my perspective is influenced by KICT.

The original article have a general critical tone towards IIUM. Somewhere in the article I said that IIUM is not very international, not very islamic, not as “university” as it should, but it is in Malaysia. This is, (although there are some truth to it) not a very comprehensive assessment. There are certain characteristic that makes IIUM special, and I think that article does not do it justice. 

Lets starts with the general physical inspection of IIUM Gombak. Generally, other public university in Malaysia is characterized by a large area with distinct discrete buildings forming the individual faculties, residential area and other facilities.You would definitely need a vehicle to travel between these buildings. These university are generally several kilometer square wide. Some university are effectively a town with faculties scattered throughout it. IIUM Gombak is not like that. IIUM Gombak is characterized by a large circle (not really a circle) of one way road. Most of the faculty (called kuliyyah in IIUM) and facilities is located within this circle. At the center of the circle, lies the main mosque and administration offices. Around it are the various kuliyyah except KICT as KICT is a new building outside the circle, on a hill. Surrounding this circle is the student residential area and some recreational area. Because of this, the university is quite compact. There is no distinct physical separation between kuliyyah. Most kuliyyah are effectively connected to each other. The good thing is, you can walk around the campus without a vehicle. In fact, there are dedicated tunnels under the main one way road between the residential area and the center of the university. However, it would still take about 30 minutes to walk from one end of the circle to the other end. So a motorcycle is recommended. A car however, is not so recommended because you would have trouble finding a place to park your car. That is, unless you study in KICT because there is a lot of empty parking space in KICT.

The climate in IIUM is relatively cold. Some foreign student said that IIUM is quite hot. I’m guessing they never stayed outside IIUM, because its a lot hotter outside of IIUM. The cold climate is because IIUM is surrounded by hills and forest. IIUM Gombak is located at the edge of Selangor. In some way, it is a bit remote. However, there are bus shuttle to the Gombak LRT station and its connected to a highway. This makes IIUM feels like it is somewhat in an urban area. Because it is surrounded by forests, you may stumble upon various form of wildlife. Sometimes you may stumble upon the biggest butterfly you have ever seen. Sometimes a group of monkeys visits you room. Other types of wildlife includes lizard, snake and wild boars. The geographical nature of IIUM, coupled with a not-so-modern building design feels a bit like a garden. There are two rivers flowing through the central complex. Unfortunately they often looks murky. There is a lake at the north of IIUM. Unfortunately it is now a field due to sediment accumulation due to the logging north of IIUM. It was still a lake when I was in my first year.

All buildings in IIUM follows a similar design. I’m not exactly sure why. The KICT building is a bit different, probably because it is relatively new. The design is a bit brownish with blue roof. It is not modern looking. I would describe it as ‘conservative’. Only Kuliyyah of Architecture and Environmental Design (KAED) is a bit different with its main building partially having a wooden structure. One unique thing I found in IIUM is the strange toilet design. Yes, I’m talking about toilet, as strange as it is. There is always an empty space at the side of the toilet where the pipe is hanging at about 1 meter from the floor. This is consistent on every building including KICT. This means that the pipe will never touch the floor. An ingenious design that I hope every toilet would follow. IIUM is a class based university. That means, you don’t see many lecture hall. The lecture is generally conducted in class of no more than 40 student. I generally expect a university to have a large lecture hall. That is not the case with IIUM. The conservative looks, with many classes makes IIUM looks less like a university and more like a really fancy high school.

Physical appearance is only one aspect of a university. Lets talk about the people. In the previous post, I said that there are less than 30% of international student here. And that Malay and foreign student don’t mingle much with each other. That still holds true. However, as low as the ratio may actually be, I don’t think there is a lack of it. Not anymore at least. That is because, I don’t feel the presence of a foreign student as strange. When I see an African, my mind probably says, “That is an African. Ok.”. The lack of international student is not an issue, its the barrier between them. There is a large number of nationality in IIUM. If you asked me from which country that guy is from, I would say I don’t know. Even the one that looks like a Malay (and is a Malay) may actually came from Indonesia or Singapore. The diversity brings a strange sense of non-traditional feel. This is very apparent in the practice of Islam here, which I would describe as lack of Malay-nes. For example, all (most) of the mosque in Malaysia would recite ‘dua’ together after congregational prayer. That is the practice of Mazhab Shafie. However, with the introduction of other culture with different Mazhab, most of the musolla here no longer do so, with the exception of the main mosque. This is probably because most of the time, the imam of the musolla is not a local student. But even with local student, the congregational ‘dua’ may not be recited. Another example would be loud zikr. Throughout my studies in IIUM I can’t recall hearing zikr from the musolla’s loudspeaker. Where as that is very common in Malaysia. So does the readings of ‘yasin’ on friday night. Almost nonexistence. In IIUM ‘songkok’ and ‘kain pelekat’ does not represent that someone is pious. And righfully so, there is no way to know the iman of someone based on his clothing. I also don’t see much ‘serban’ around here. If you are expecting the environment here to be like a religious school in Malaysia, where most student would wear white dressing and ‘serban’ you are severely wrong. The flavor of Islam here is quite different.

Because of the diversity, the Friday khutbah here is conducted in either English, Arabic or Malay. You heard that right, khutbah in English. The Arabic khutbah here is ‘unscripted’ compared to in normal Malaysian mosque.If the khutbah is conducted fully in arabic, someone would give the summary in english after the Friday prayer. Even if is scripted, the script changes. Sometimes they bring some mufti from arabic country to give khutbah. Sometimes big international Islamic celebrity would give khutbah in IIUM, like Mufti Menk, or some western preacher. This means the khutbah here can be quite interesting. Listening to a normal Malaysian khutbah feels like a significant downgrade. Very significant. However, that really depends on the week. Sometimes the khutbah can be as dull as a normal Malaysian khutbah. The ‘unconventionality’ of IIUM is best exhibited by the fact that IIUM is the first place I see that the khatib uses a powerpoint slideshow during his khutbah. 

Unsurprisingly, this unconventionality can be opposed by the largely conservative Malay population. It is not surprising to see people to remind future student to be careful of the various ‘teachings’ of IIUM. Whether these ‘teachings’ is correct or not, I’m not the right person to answer that question. But consider this, these people speak Arabic, the language of the Quran. Which is one of the reason why the Imam of the musollah is usually an international student. They memorize and recite the Quran very well. In (Ishak usually) congregational prayers, the Imam would recite surah which I did not recognize likely because it is somewhere in the middle of Quran. What’s amazing is that, if the Imam forgot the verse (and stutter), several of the ma’mum would remind him (by reciting it loudly). That means, there are several other who remember the surah. This is in the musolla, not the mosque. The ‘level’ of Islam can especially be felt during the month of Ramadhan. Like most Malaysian mosque, IIUM’s mosque conduct 20 rakaat of tarawih prayer. However, 8 rakaat here is as long as 20 rakaat in most mosque. It turns out, it is harder to do 8 long rakaat than 20 short rakaat. Things get even more serious at the last 10 night where dozens of people bring pillows and mattress to spend the night at the mosque. I don’t know about other area in Malaysia, but from the perspective of someone from Meru, Klang, which I would consider a bit religious, seeing people bringing mattress to the mosque is quite strange. Of course, there are a couple of people who spend the night near the end of Ramadhan, but rarely up to a point where they bring matress, and in IIUM there are dozens of them. This is up to a point where the mosque management have to ask the people to stop hanging their clothes on the second floor (there are better area for that on the lower floor). Perhaps such activity is normal in the more religious state such as Kelantan or Terengganu, but not in Klang, not up to that extent. 

IIUM student are also quite charitable. A few months (or year?) ago a viral post in Facebook tells a story of IIUM student who can’t afford to pay for his/her food. That resulted in multiple campaigns around the campus that attempt to seek and help these people. In KICT for example, the welfare committee of ICTSS decided that they would give out free food to whomever needs them. They just bought dozens of food packages and just left them out in the open. So you don’t need to register or anything, just take it. The funds for the food is provided by the student and also the lecturers. In multiple Mahallah, the student launched various coupon system where those in need can take the coupon and use it as a currency to buy food. However, I personally have never seen anyone using it and I probably wont. I do doubt the implementation of the campaign, but it is better than nothing. Occasionally, I found myself in a situation where the cafe’s cashier said that someone paid RM 1 for my food. Who did? Who knows. All I can say is, may Allah bless that guy.

All of this contributes to the relatively safe environment of the University. At least it feels so bit so compared to the outside world. Maybe deceivingly so. This safeness is especially true for a Muslim. In a world where “Muslim are terrorist”, IIUM turns out to be a place where a Muslim don’t have to worry about praying during lecture time, as the lecture time already take that into account. You don’t need to worry about ‘where is the musolla’, as every kuliyyah here have one. And the musolla here is not some kind of extra room re-purposed as a musollah like in some shopping mall. It is a musolla built as a musolla. There is no such thing as ‘awkwardly pious’ in this place, as you can expect everyone here to be at least a bit religious. Islam is not a trend nor a culture here. It is the norm. If you came from a place where being a Muslim is not a problem at all, this probably isn’t a bit problem to you. But the urban area, even in Malaysia is not built to specially to accommodate Muslim. If you are a devoted Muslim, looking for higher education in a non-religious field, there are not many places like IIUM. This is especially true if you think of Universities outside Malaysia.

 

Categories
Article Politics

Review of IIUM

Assalamualaikum everyone,

It has been about 3 month since I left IIUM (International Islamic University Malaysia). Technically, I’m still a student because I have not graduated yet, but my time in IIUM is practically over. So I figure I want to make a review of IIUM as a follow up to a popular article in this blog which is The Past, Present and Future of IIUM .

I’ve tried to make this article a few time actually, starting before Ramadhan. But, I never got to finish it. I went so much into details, I can’t properly put into words what I thought about IIUM. But the more I delay this article, the more the memories become blurry.

To make this article simple, I won’t describe much about IIUM. I’ve describe it quite well on a draft before which I probably would publish on another article. This one is a summary of an introverted KICT (Kuliyyah of Information and Communication Technology) student towards IIUM. I won’t be discussing much on KICT as it deserve its own post. Additionally, it is mostly a criticism rather than a more positive outlook, which I’ve described quite well on the draft.

Feels of IIUM

In summary, the feels of IIUM is quite ‘garden-like’ and very safe. However, I think the safe part is not a very good thing because the world is not safe. Of course, there would still be theft or other crimes in IIUM, but you get the feeling that almost all people here is nice. The ‘safeness’ can be shown by the fact that IIUM provides residential place for all 4 years of study. Even through internship, you can request a room. This is in contrast to other university which sometimes do not provide a hostel for the older student. Because of this, I feel like there is a significant ‘gap’ between before IIUM and after IIUM. I feel like this is not very good towards the growth of the student.

Not only that, but the environment here is quite comfortable for a devoted Muslim. Too comfortable if you ask me. You can find musolla almost everywhere and the time of the course matches prayer time. Additionally, being pious here is not a very strange or contrasting characteristic. In some way, it is the norm. Because of this, it is quite easy to be a devoted Muslim here. However, the outside world is not so forgiving. Of course, that really depends on the place where you work, but if you are unlucky, finding time and place to pray can be a problem. Heck, I could see a situation where even praying five time a day can be seen as bordering extremism. If you have a daughter that you want to keep safe, I could see the point of sending her to IIUM. But if you want her to be independent and can handle the world and all it throws at her, she will need to work more.

It is quite strange that the criticism that I have towards IIUM is that ‘it is too comfortable for a devoted Muslim’. I sound like a ridiculous person. What are the other options? Reduce the number of surau? Make a course during prayer time? Of course not! IIUM did a great job of making it a comfortable university. From the perspective of the university, in this regard IIUM did a great job. But you have to keep in mind that the world can be a dangerous place and I don’t think IIUM did much to prepare the students for it. Of course, you could just find a job in a Muslim company. But in that sense, just being an employee seems to be the limit of an IIUM graduate.

Islamization – Synergy or Compromise

By the looks of it, IIUM aims to integrate Islam with worldly knowledge. I’m sure most, if not all of IIUM student would understand what this means. Basically, we have additional Islamic subjects. All of the student is required to take some Arabic class. And in our non-Islamic subject, additional mark is given if we could relate what we learn with Islam. By the looks of it, ‘general good’ is not considered Islamic enough.

The idea is that, by such integration, the university could create people who can contribute to the Ummah. People who have high education and at the same time, a devout Muslim. But for me, it seems like a compromise. The student are not really an Islamic scholar, and at the same time, the education is not particularly excellent. And sometimes, the course desperately try to integrate Islam up to a point where we have to wonder does this ‘adjustment’ violates Islam itself. Student who took the course IT and Islam would know what I mean. We could see how this forced integration work with the library opening hours. While other university open the library 24 hours a day, IIUM struggles to keep the library open throughout office hours as it will be closed during prayer time.

Of course, to some point, I’m exaggerating. IIUM student are more Islamic than other university student, and the education is kinda up to standard, up to some point. But it does not look like it is going any further. It looks like it struggle to strive for higher standard. For example, I have to take Arabic class, but it is so basic that I can’t speak Arabic. And most student can’t too. With that, I wonder should I even bother taking the Arabic class? Of course, there are one or two student who could fulfill this high standard, but one or two outlier does not represent IIUM as a whole. Of course, it is somewhat unrealistically high expectation to expect most of the student the be such angelic scholars, but right now, I can’t say that we are either angelic nor innovator.

Administration and Finance

The administration of IIUM have a bad reputation among IIUM students. I guess it is mainly for political reason. In case you did not know, IIUM is largely funded by the Malaysian government. It probably used to be different. In short, don’t say bad things to the government, or the administration would figure-out a way to filter out the ‘negative elements’. But in some way, it is due to the ‘alleged’ corruption. Or that is actually mainly because of its inefficiency. Or perhaps, all of it.

Among the most recent questionable decision is the 5 million ringgit fountain. Which is said to be a donation by the President of IIUM. The students are not very supportive of the change of the fountain because there are other things that should be replaced. For example, the notorious chairs of CAC hall. Or they could fund the covered walkway project that cost about 0.653 million ringgit, which is proposed by the SRC(Student Representative Council), which right now, is asking for donations from the student. Or they could replaced faulty air-conditionings throughout the university. Or, they could divide it by 5 and roughly double the budget given to SRC for 10 years. Or, they could divide it by 5 and distribute it to all kuliyyah’s student society which would (significantly?) increase their budget for 10 years. Or, all of them.. except the fountain.

There are other horror stories of course, but I’m not sure about those. The administration have such bad reputation that there are ‘advice’ among the student society saying that if you manage to get sponsorship from external party, do not pass the money to the financial department (that is the official way if I’m not mistaken) because you may never see the money again.

The name

There are some upsides in IIUM. The name of the university attract certain types of people who are passionate in their cause. I know one of the lecturer in KICT used to work in NSU in Singapore, but choose to work here because of Islam. There are other lecturers too that you can see that they care about the future of Islam. And there are various other students and staff that came here for a similar reason. More often that not, these individual forms the backbone of whatever that is amazing here. However, you get the feel that the administration is holding them back through various bureaucratic issues. Throughout my studies I feel like these people in particular is what keeping IIUM alive. Of course, in any University, it is the people who make up what it is. But a University should act as an enabler that helps the students and staff. But for some reason, I see it as the other way around. Regardless of the ‘penalty’, the asset is here. The name continues to attract such individuals and among the limited reasons to choose IIUM over other Malaysian university, this should be on the top list. But then again.. there is also USIM…

Summary

In some way, I think half of the criticism I have for IIUM (aside from the administration) is simply because it is just different. There are sayings in Islam that “They (the non-muslim) will never be pleased with you until you follow their way” (It is probably from the Quran, but I don’t remember exactly where and the translation is probably wrong). I guess this is probably the biggest argument towards my criticism. “Ignore the non-muslim and just follow our way”. But for some reason, people don’t think about inviting the non-muslim to follow our way. We are always looking for new enemies instead of new friends. This is especially critical in our times because working with non-muslim is inevitable. Instead of finding new ways to differentiate us from them, we should let them in to our worlds and see from our perspective. I believe that is the direction that IIUM should go. But then again, I could be wrong.

Another thing I want to point out is to not be afraid of something which is not Islamic. I’m not talking about things which are clearly haraam such as alcohol, I’m talking about things like Computers. Like I said before, sometimes the university desperately wants to integrate Islam with something that simply cannot be directly connected. It is as if, if you can’t Islamicize it, it is haraam. This is again, in a similar theme that we seems to look for things to be branded as illegal, as our enemy. If they are not us, they are our enemy. Personally, I think this is among the things that is holding IIUM back. We are too restricted, too terrified by such mindset.

For me, right now, IIUM is not the great education center that Muslim is looking for. It is simply playing catch up to other universities. Although I have to give it some credits for making an appealing environment for Muslim… to catch up.

Categories
Article ICPC Linux

How to make a quick and dirty custom Ubuntu-based ISO

TADA

Assalamualaikum guys, Last year, for the first IIUM Code Jam, I made a custom made Ubuntu-based linux ISO so that all team are using the same/similar environment. For this year, the contest will be using a different contest system, so I need to change it a bit. I only have one problem, I forgot how to.

So I made this post to remind myself when I forgot about it in the future, or other people, on how to make a quick and dirty custom ubuntu live ISO. The key here is ‘quick and dirty’. That means, I’m going to do a hacky distribution. That means, modifying files that is not meant to be modified due to reasons such as, if the package get updated, it will be overridden, or there would be scattered files, and it probably will fail signature check. Also, bare in mind that I am not familiar with linux application packaging methodology/convention, etc, so what I’m doing here is likely the wrong way, but quick, and it get the job done. I only expect the ISO to be used once, during the contest.

Screenshot from 2016-03-08 23-59-34
But why?

So the easiest way to make a custom ubuntu-based ISO is to use the ubuntu-customization-kit (UCK) software. By default, it have a GUI utility, but it seems to have errors when I tried to run it. So I’m going to use other CLI utility bundled with the ubuntu-customization-kit. A brief summary of what (in general) are we doing. In general, we are taking another Ubuntu ISO as a ‘base’, extract the contest, modify it then create another ISO from the modified files. I’m probably going to skip some (a lot?) of steps that the gui tools do, because I don’t know how to, and it seems to work fine without it. So… bare minimum setup. The ‘base’ ISO I’m using is not the stock ubuntu ISO, but last year IIUM Code Jam ISO which is based on ubuntu 14.04. So lets get started, first you need to install the ‘uck‘ package. I assume, you are currently running an ubuntu based linux to create the ISO. Then, you run:

  • uck-remaster-unpack-iso <the iso file>
  • uck-remaster-unpack-rootfs
Screenshot from 2016-03-09 00-04-25
Step 1

Both of this command (and all other command in this post) need to be run as root. After you run both of this command, some new folders are created at the path ‘~/tmp‘, and the ‘~/tmp/remaster-root‘ seems to be the root of the linux distribution that you are making. You basically now have access to modify anything by modifying the files in this directory.

Screenshot from 2016-03-09 00-07-10
We have it all!

For example, to edit the default background:

  • Copy the new background you want into the directory, preferebly in ‘/usr/share/background‘ (This is in the ‘~/tmp/remaster-root‘, not your running OS root). It can be anywhere, but all the default background seems to be there, so I prefer to just keep it there.
  • Edit ‘/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/10_ubuntu-settings.gschema.override‘. Somewhere in the file, you can point to the new background.
Screenshot from 2016-03-09 00-26-21
Just to change the background…

To enter chroot (Basically create an environment as if you are running from the image):

  • Run ‘uck-remaster-chroot-rootfs‘.
  • You now can run as if you are running from the live installation. This is a good place if you want to install any package. For example, I can install the compiler for the contest by running ‘apt-get update‘ and then ‘apt-get install g++‘.

To add item to Unity’s launcher:

  • This is a bit tricky. First, you need to add a new application entry description to ‘/usr/share/applications‘. For example, I made a file called ‘pc2team.desktop‘ which points to a PC^2 binary I copied before. I don’t exactly knows the syntax/format/keys of the file, but modifying existing file seems to work. For those who are curious on the actual file specification, I suggest you look at this link for an introduction.
Screenshot from 2016-03-09 00-31-59
Minimal description
  • The specification also allow to specify link to a website, but for some reason I specify it as an application and run the browser on click. Likely I can’t seem to make it work last year, so I just do it like this. In this example, the link will open the contest page, which is the new web-based online system we are going to use. It’s basically nothing right now, but on the day of contest, I could modify it to point to some IP through the DNS settings.
Screenshot from 2016-03-09 00-46-29
“gnome-www-browser http://contest.iiumicpcteam.com” ? What is this barbaric hack!?
  • To make the entry, shown by default in the unity side launcher, edit ‘/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/com.canonical.Unity.gschema.xml‘. Somewhere in the file, there is a list of item that will be shown by default in the launcher. Edit the list to modify the default list.
Screenshot from 2016-03-09 00-49-57
So the contestant should not need to go to the menu at all. Just click the big button.

To remove the ‘install ubuntu’ desktop icon.

  • Simply remove the file ‘/usr/share/applications/ubiquity.desktop‘.
  • There should be a better way to do this, but I can’t seems to find it. So this will have to do.

To add default files in a new user home folder:

  • Add any file you want to be copied to a new user’s home directory in ‘/etc/skel‘.
  • For example, I added a file called ‘pc2v9.ini‘ that has configuration settings for last year’s code jam so that we don’t need to modify the pc^2 settings on each teams.
Screenshot from 2016-03-09 01-00-47
Why port 42002? There is a good reason for that….

Saving your changes.

One you are happy with your changes, run these command in sequences:

  • uck-remaster-pack-rootfs
  • uck-remaster-pack-iso

A new file at ‘~/tmp/remaster-new-files/livecd.iso‘ is ready to be used. You can now start a virtualbox to run it, or create a startup usb drive.   

Screenshot from 2016-03-09 01-11-58
TADA!

That is all I know. Hopefully this post will be a good reference next time I do this. Bye!

Categories
Article ICPC Personal

ACM ICPC Singapore Regional 2015

Assalamualaikum everyone.

So, last week, me together with IIUM ICPC Regional Team went to Singapore to participate in the ACM ICPC Singapore Regional competition. In light of that, we were thinking of making a blog post as a documentation for the event. The strategy for making the blog post is that, each member will author their own point of view and we’ll combine them later. So this is my point of view. By the way, mine is more like a series of pictures rather than a long article. So expect some loading times.

Continue reading “ACM ICPC Singapore Regional 2015”
Categories
Article Politics

Paris Attack, november 2015

Assalamualaikum everyone. How are you.

Just now, my Facebook friends shared news about what happen in Paris. Another attack happened.

Ah great (sarcastically)… Another attack…

That is among my first sigh. Of course, I googled to make sure that the news is true. Unfortunately it is. Here comes the headache. Some may not realize this, but every time such attack happen, Muslim will be a victim. Hundreds of non-muslim died in Paris. But because of this, when thousands of Muslim dies, deep inside non-muslim will say “serve them right”.

Its not their fault of course. After all, people did die. I would agree that the media do tend to downplay non-terrorist attack, and emphasize on terrorist attack, but the reality is, such attack did happen. Focusing on the media won’t change it. In a few days, there will be anti-Islam rallies all over the world. And I’m going to receive some post in Facebook saying “Such-such country is so anti-islam as they are hosting anti-islam rally”. I don’t think these people understand the issue.

When a terrorist attack, anti-islam sentiment will increase.

Of course it will. What do you expect? Are you going to blame the families of the dead for participating or organizing the rally?

In several days, there will be posts about “Muslim are not terrorist”. I personally believe such thing is merely a ‘damage control’. Several month later, a suicide bomber screaming “AllahuAkbar” will detonate himself, killing more non-muslim. And then what are you going to say? Serve them right for having anti-islam rally? Or Muslim are not terrorist… again?

Various conspiracy theory will emerge, “It’s all hoax! Those terrorist are actually CIA Agent!”, “9/11 was an inner job”, “Its the US who instill extremism to these people!”. Who cares? It happened. As as far as majority of the people on the planet concern, terrorist did it, and terrorist as Muslim. “Terrorist are not Muslim. They are deviant”. Again, who cares? They scream “AllahuAkbar”. They claim they are Muslim.

For me, Muslim should stop focusing on non-muslim, and start focusing on the Terrorist. Non-muslim post an anti-islam post? Ignore it. It is not their fault. The environment make them like this. Instead, we should figure out how do these terrorist emerge? I’ve read somewhere that some ‘Mufti’ permitted ISIS fighter to have sex with their sister. Muslim would recognize this as a clear violation of Sharia law. I mean, clear as black and white. This is not something which is said by one of the Khalifa Arrashidin (like lashing those who drink alcohol). This is something clearly specified in Al-Quran. Why do these people claim the serve Allah when they clearly violate the rules of Allah. Do they even know? That is one. Why do people says that those who migrated to ISIS were former criminals? Drug dealers and such. If so, why do ISIS even take them? Do they even pray five times a day? Are these information even correct? Does it even matter if it is correct or not?

Personally I can only see one solution for this problem.

A country whose sovereignty is not doubt, and whose Islam is not doubt, to eliminate terrorist.

No other situation will fully work. If the sovereignty of the country is in doubt, then the country itself could be labelled as terrorist. If the Islam of the country is in doubt, then a new terrorist group will form, saying that ‘Islam’ is being attacked. If other, non-muslim country attack, then more terrorist will emerge. So which country fulfill this condition? I don’t know. None perhaps. Impossible perhaps. For a country to be considered fully sovereign, the world may demand that it adopt democracy. But if it is a democracy, then most hard-line Muslim would doubt it’s Islam.

Most hard-line Muslim would say, a truly Muslim country must be a caliphate. Well, ISIS is caliphate. Is it a Muslim country? Hisbut Tahrir, an organization who advocate caliphate rule said no, because they do not follow the sharia law. Is that so? Not according to ISIS. But it does have a leader with the title ‘caliph’. What they should be looking for is not caliphate, but sharia law. But what is considered sharia law? I guess, I’m not the guy to define that. But consider this, if you say that scholars are the one who define what is sharia law, ISIS have their own ‘scholar’. Regardless, what matter is that people do not doubt that the law is indeed sharia law.

People would argue, its impossible to have sharia law without a caliphate, let alone in a democracy. But I don’t see why not. If the country parliament voted to cut the hands of thief, would the thief’s hand suddenly be immune to cutting? No, the hand would still be cut. But again, people would argue, that it is impossible that the majority of the parliament would vote for it. My answer is that, that is not the kind of country we are looking for. We want a country in which, not a king nor a caliph, but the people themselves fully, enact sharia law upon themselves. That is the country whose sovereign is not doubt, and Islam is not doubt.

And that, brothers and sisters is what we are looking for.

Categories
Article Linux

What to complain about linux’s desktop environment.

Ubuntu’s Unity:

  • I don’t like the virtual desktop.
  • When you click an icon of an application that opened in another virtual desktop, it switches to the virtual desktop.
  • I want it to open in current virtual desktop. So I have to use middle mouse button.
  • The virtual desktop does not show much separation.
  • I can’t really change much.
  • It keeps taking something from Gnome, which in the end, prevent me from installing full gnome environment.

Cinnamon:

  • It just feels unpolished.
  • For some reason it starts slowly compared to other DE.

KDE:

  • I’m not sure if it is really bloated or just feels bloated.
  • Gradients and transparency everywhere.
  • Excellent add-on downloader, but no decent opaque theme.
  • When you click to open something, you just feel than annoying 300ms delay.
  • Feels advanced, but unpolished. The margin and padding is weird. Its like a prototype. You think that I’ll be awesome, but it keep staying as a prototype.
  • Gtk applications sometime does not work very well. 

Gnome:

  • Lack of taskbar and ability to minimize.
  • Sure, it have some nifty drag and drop trick, but sometime we just want an application to hide from every virtual desktop.
  • I’m using two monitor. To switch application I have to drag my mouse to the top left of a screen. So if I’m on my right monitor, its a long way there.
  • For some reason it does not save the monitor offset vertical offset correctly.
  • Virtual desktop only work for the main monitor.
  • Right now I can’t enable any extension.
Categories
Article Programming Projects

Perbezaan antara Python, Ruby dan PHP.

Assalamualaikum semua, apa khabar, dalam post ini, saya akan mencabar diri saya untuk memperjelaskan perbezaan antara Python, Ruby dan PHP dalam kontext pengatucaraan laman sesawang. Cabaran sebenar saya dalam post ini sebenarnya adalah menggunakan bahasa melayu sebanyak yang mungkin. Sesuatu yang sukar dilakukan memandangkan ini adalah bidang perkomputeran yang mana kebanyakan dokumentasi adalah dalam bahasa Inggeris. 

Continue reading “Perbezaan antara Python, Ruby dan PHP.”

Categories
Article

Past, Present and Future of IIUM.

This is an assignment for my leadership and management course last semester. 

Years ago, when I was stil in secondary school, the name UIA (Universiti Islam Antarabangsa), which is what IIUM is called back then, has a special feel of its own. As you would expect, ‘International Islamic University’ brings great impression on the university. Other university have the impression of having a lot of student or making beneficial research or becoming the best of what Malaysia has to offer. IIUM on the other hand, would hold the hope of Muslim everywhere around the world. After all, at that time, IIUM was one of a kind with a very general name of IIU. We would all expect every IIUM student to be able to speak Arabic and teaches religion. I myself once said that I’ll never enter UIA because I have to learn Arabic. Being a student from a normal secondary school, not even a religious school, IIUM is not the first university to come up to my mind. I would even joke about entering IIUM. And yet here I am, preparing an assignment for my leadership class.

Before I came here in main campus Gombak, I went the usual Malaysian student route to a degree, matriculation or foundation. IIUM has its own foundation located in Petaling Jaya. It was in fact, the old IIUM main campus, which itself was the old Islamic Faculty of University Malaya. On the online public university registration system, I pick UIAM as one of the university. I pick it as first choice randomly, not knowing what I’ll find. Eventually the result of my application is a foundation program in IIUM. I also get an offer from Selangor Matriculation Center, but by the usual convention of picking foundation over matriculation, I opt for the former. My first impression was mixed. Most of the students are not as religious as I thought. They came from schools all over Malaysia. Most of them came from boarding school and some came from famous schools like KISAS or Victoria Institution or MARA full boarding school. Only some student came from normal school like me. Some even schooled outside Malaysia, in Egypt for example. Bare in mind, this is foundation center, almost all student are Malaysian. All student does look similar and usually does not show much different. It does have its own uniqueness. Out of the usual appearances of the student, it is not very rare to find a Hafiz. One of my roommate is a Hafiz. Who knows if the person next to you is a Hafiz? And if he is, it is nothing unusual, unlike back at my old school. Another strange thing I notice is that, most of the student are not exactly performing student. Sure, I have a friend who is the head prefect of Victoria Institution which by my secondary school standard, that is very impressive. I know one of my roommate is an Assistant Head Prefect. Who knows what others are hiding? But academically, I have to admit, I expected more. I was among the top student at my school, but it is a normal secondary school. Which cause me to think, ‘Why do they left normal secondary school to a boarding school if your academic will end up normal just like this?’. Back at my school people keep saying its not easy to enter IIUM, you will need really good grade. In reality however, that is not really the case. Most of the student here are just above average, if you compare to most secondary school student, but not really creme de la crop. I keep asking , ‘what am I doing here?’ being not so religious , on a religious university where most of the student is not as religious as I thought, academically excel except on religious subject in a university where I thought everyone would be some kind of a genius. I could probably have more competition and yet perform better on University Malaya for example, where I don’t have to take religious subject. Eventually I start to think, ‘lets just get through with this’. Think of IIUM, like UITM with less people and more religious subject.

One and a half year later, I enroll at IIUM Main Campus Gombak. I was an ICT student so there is no such thing as ‘will you get the course?’ issue because requirement for Bachelor of Information Technology is quite low. Effectively all foundation ICT student manage to enroll in BIT. Some foundation engineering student however, will have to take BIT because of their low grade. Gombak Campus has an entirely different environment. Student are able to get in and out of campus freely unlike in CFS. The area of the campus is huge compared CFS campus, yet smaller that most university in Malaysia. It takes me half hour to walk from my mahallah to Kuliah of ICT. Gombak Campus is quite compact. There is not much space for more development. The climate is cold and it location is close to the jungle. The place is beautiful. Some mahallah even look like a resort. It can be characterized by one large circle of one way road surrounding a central complex of buildings where most kuliah is located. I said most because kuliah of ICT is not in the circle. In the middle of the complex is a mosque. The architecture is also a bit different then other university. It feels… less like a public university, and more of… a garden actually.

One really big different between CFS and main campus is the international student. Almost 30% of the student are international student. I personally thought the percentage would be more than that. Later on, I learn from another student that there were more international student back when the university was founded. But it has decreased. I guess Malaysia is a good country for foreign student because we already have many foreign worker so its not really a strange situation to see other nationalities. Except for African student. The dark skinned one, even darker than indian. These are very rare in Malaysia, but not in IIUM. Unfortunately international and local student does not mingle much with each other. Much like Chinese and Malay in Malaysia. A bit separated but not particularly hostile with each other. I’m not exactly sure why. I’m guessing its a Malay thing. Another thing I realize is that students can’t speak Arabic. Which is not really what I expect in the first place. It seems that IIUM used to have an Arabic requirement of level 4. But now it has been reduced to level 2. It seems that Arabic is not particularly considered important, which is a shame, considering this is an Islamic university. For example, I am currently writing in english. I guess the administration think It is best to use a language most student are able to comprehend. No, the situation is also the same among international student. Most of them can’t speak Arabic too (or can they?), although the percentage are probably higher than local student. Fortunately the friday sermon is usually conducted in Arabic and English. And this Arabic is not the scripted one we usually found in normal Malaysian mosque. The khatib really speak and speak in Arabic. If you want to know how is a friday sermon conducted in real arabic, come to IIIUM. The university also has some required courses which is tailored towards Islamization. For example, tilawah Al-Quran and Islamic World view. But these subject is not really hard or have high credit. But it is still more than what you find in other university.

Another thing I realize is the solidarity of the student. IIUM has always been known to be a politically resisting university. What I do not know is how much exactly, and what kind of things happen. Before I went to Gombak main campus, I knew one event from my friend. My friend went to Gombak campus because he was one of the committee for a sport carnival. He said, ‘heavy traffic jam. The student are holding a demonstration.’ . I’m not sure exactly why, but if I’m not mistaken, it is due to some fault in the student representative counsel election. So last year, the election actually happen twice. Once with electronic machine, and the second one with manual paper vote. So that is interesting. The newspaper however, published only 20 student in the demonstration. But based on what my friend told me, I’m very sure there were more than 20 student. The central government has a tendency to involve in administration of IIUM especially when the 13th General Election is hold early this year. One interesting fact, both the opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim and government leader, Najib Razak, were president of IIUM. So we can say that GE 13 is the battle of two IIUM President. Some notable figures which is not directly in politic, but has been known to be on the opposite side of the government, like Ustaz Ahmad Idris is basically banned to from entering IIUM. Even the previous deputy rector of student affair who is known to be biased against the government cannot enter IIUM. Several talks were canceled after being approved, for example ‘GE13, What is Our Hope’ which was originally intended to be held in IIUM, but later on the venue had been changed to public hall outside IIIUM. And recently with this year SRC election, the deputy rector of student affair made a very suspicious method of election for the SRC president which resulting in a widespread bitterness throughout the university. So this university is not really independent and not really of a say…. university. In conclusion, the International Islamic University Malaysia is less than 30% international, not as Islamic as I thought and is not as a university as a university should be. But it is in Malaysia.

The topic for this assignment is past, present and future of IIUM. I’ve briefly talk about the past, and the about present. So now I’ll have to talk about the future of IIUM. In my first semester, I’ve attended a talk entitled ‘talk with admin’. There, the administration has presented several plans they made. For example, the new CFS center, a solar farm near KICT, a multilevel car park, a centralized cooling system, a cultural village near the lake and an automotive museum. Sounds awesome? It is, but is the plan just for presentations? With various government budget cut after GE 13, and the failure of IIUM to reach a status of research university this year, I’m feeling skeptic. What I can say is about the solar farm. Which If I’m not mistaken, the budget for the first phase has been passed. And If you go to KICT, you will see that behind the new expensive mahallah, there is an empty land, where the solar panel suppose to be. But it should already be there by 2013, and now its December 2013. What about the solar panel at the car park in ECONS? Again, I’m very skeptic. The new CFS Center in Gambang on the other hand, had recently been partially open. It should be fully operational by 2015, but it seems that it is ahead of schedule. The rest of the plans seems to be hopes and dreams, looking at the current geographical limitation and the situation of the lake which is more of a field right now.

Recently, again if I’m not mistaken, the rector said that we will be gradually increase the number of international student up to the limit allowed by the government. Which is 30%. Which means that the number of international student is actually less than that. I personally would recommend they set the quota to at least 50%. Not to mention IIUM is technically a company instead of a public university. So we should not be entitled for that quota too. However, I was hoping for more changes in the environment. I wish there were more program to empower the student to be more open minded and not being restricted thinking ‘will the admin approve it?’. Also, I hope that one day when I graduated, I can speak Arabic. Sure, its not what I’m good at, but how can I say I graduated from an International and Islamic university if I can’t even speak Arabic? I hope the administration will reconsider the minimum Arabic requirement. It might even also solve the integration problem between the local student and international student. Overall with the trend from what I know previously, the future of IIUM seems to be more restrictively international, less Islamic and more performance. However budget cuts could mean some plans will have to be cancelled. The future does not holds very good for IIUM. Especially considering that IIUM can be considered as a ‘fortress’ for political student. The future fate of IIUM may be similar to the Insaniah University in Kedah.

Categories
Article

Islamic Movement and Dakwah in Malaysia

This is actually my assignment for halaqah 2 in IIUM. I try to be unbiased, but at the end it will still be influenced by my opinion. You can comment below but please be… at least try to be… civilized. 

Assalamualaikum. The term “islamic movement” has a broad meaning. If we just google term “islamic movement” of course, we will most likely to encounter article about terrorism. Such situation is quite sad as the reason why most islamic country are weak right now are because they have been colonized by the west countries and after the world war 2 most country gain independance but the islamic institution has been lost. Most of the newer government is a more secular government or even dictatorship. Whether this new form of government is good or bad, that depends on people views. Regardless, one thing remain true, the Muslim has so far did not achieve the same state as we were at The Golden Muslim age.
In according to that, some peoples has form groups that aims to relive the age Khalifah. Most of them are politically based, having their objective is to first, change the government and implement the Syariah law. But whether these people are right in their way or have they gone astray remains to be debated. Because of that, for the purpose of this discussion, we will try focus on the Islamic Movement that focuses on dakwah and we make a special focus in Malaysia as the writer of this article is a Malaysian. To put the situation into perspective, years ago, during my mother’s childhood (which is about 1960) malay girls went to school wearing skirt. Nowaday, female student wear “baju kurung”, with hijab, and even most Chinese wear baju kurung (but no hijab).
The term “dakwah” is an arabic term that refer to missionary activity. The term also refer to the act of renewing commitment to Islam. In Malaysia, the rise of Islamic movement were inspired by several event such as global Islamic movement and also the racial riot at 13 march 1969. At that time, even though the majority and also the original ethnic of Malaysia is Malay (and also the indigenous like Kadazan and etc), Malay own only about 2.7% (some say 6%) of the country’s wealth. Nowaday, the malay have control of about 18% to 30% of the economy. The difference in economic causes tension between the Malay and the Chinese. The tension was escalated even more when the Chinese majority Singapore separate itself from Malaysia at the year 1968.
The racial riot was started when the Chinese majority party the Democratic Alliance Party (DAP) won the election and they were having celebratory march. The tension break when they divert from their original route to a Malay populated village, causing massive fight between two party. A reported 168 live was lost, although foreign media said that the casualty amount to 2 thousands lives. From that moment on, many changes to the government and society were made that aim to improve live of Malay and indirectly Islam in order to balance the Chinese-Malay economy. Among the most popular society that was created from the incidence is ABIM.
ABIM is Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia or in english, Malaysian Muslim Youth Pact. ABIM was formed at University Kebangsaan Malaysia by a group of student in order to take care of the welfare of the Muslims. ABIM is officially a non-political society that take neutral stance in politic. Allthough neutral, ABIM is considerably vocal towards the government policy under the leadership of it’s first and second president, Ustaz Razali Nawawi dan Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim. This contribute highly to its popularity. In 1982, Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim joined UMNO (United Malaya National Organization), the ruling political party back from independence until now. That move was highly criticized as ABIM is a non-political party. At the very same year a new president was appointed, and ABIM take a less vocal attitude and focus more on solving issues. From then on, ABIM popularity had decreases.
Another society, PERKIM has a similar objective. PERKIM was founded by Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s first Prime Minister. PERKIM means, Pertubuhan Kebajikan Islam Malaysia, or in english, Malaysian islamic welfare organization. PERKIM is among the most prominent islamic society in Malaysia today. Although PERKIM’s aim is to provide welfare to all muslim in Malaysia, it’s main focus is probably towards new muslim. PERKIM has been known to provide support for new muslim in terms of education, moral and physical. This focus on new muslim can be seen on it’s main website which feature Chinese text. PERKIM is a non government organization, but it is generally funded by the government through government official including the prime minister himself. Even so, PERKIM has been known to be politically neutral or passive. The government had also funded YADIM, Yayasan Dakwah Islam Malaysia or Malaysian Islamic Dakwah Society that officially focuses on Dakwah towards the non muslim. YADIM is actually an organization that aims to unite different dakwah activity around the country.
In 1990, PAS won the state election in Kelantan which was previously held by UMNO. PAS, Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party was founded before the independence and even take part in it. Allthough the majority of PAS member is Malay, the official member requirement of PAS is the person must be a Muslim. The winning of PAS in Kelantan mark give a new hope for muslim to form an Islamic State. PAS is known to be among the party (or the only party) that demand full sharia law to be implemented . PAS is also the first party to put an ulama’ as the State Chief Minister. Although PAS has rule over Kelantan for more than two decade now, the result is still questionable. Kelantan is currently reported to have the highest unemployment rate in Malaysia, although they could argue that most graduate from Kelantan involve in business therefore not officially employed. Kelantan people has also been criticized as among those who has little manner and more extreme in comparison to other people. Such sentiment is visualized by a local movie “Aku Anak Kelantan” which tell a story about a Kelantan youth migrate to Kuala Lumpur and become a gangster. PAS members are also known to be somewhat extreme in their view of other political party’s member partcularly UMNO members. The Opposition said that most of the sentiment and report were fabricated by the Government media. They Opposition also mention that they cannot fully implement Islamic law, as state government only hold little power and the central government abuse the law to reduce the power of Kelantan state government in various way, such as the oil royalty issue. Among other critical comment on PAS is some member of PAS have connection with Shia, Al-Arqam and also Pluralism. On the plus side, Kelantan is known to be the base and funding of multiple Madrasah and Pondok. Since the rule of PAS in Kelantan many liquer store and movie theater has been said to be closed.
The racial raid of 1969 also cause several educational reform that is biased toward Malay. Some of it indirectly benefit the Muslim community such as the building of the IIUM, International Islamic University Malaysia and also USIM, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia ( Malaysian Islamic Science University ). Some people argue that the building of these University and also many other islamic program are just to gain the support of the people. The racial raid of 1969 also cause the government to issue a law in which every public university in Malaysia must have a certain ratio of malay. Regardless of the reason politically motivated or not, the formation of islamic public university and also the public university quota law has indeed improve the live of malay and open up discussion about Islam. Due to that islamic education has flourished and the people are starting to recognize the different between Malay culture and Islam.
Around the year 1980, the industrial sector of Malaysian was developing at a rapid pace and therefore demand more worker. Because of that, many Malay migrate to the city. Unfortunately, Islamic institution on the urban area was very scarce and that cause problem to pray and do other ceremony. To compensate for that, some muslim form groups that aim to help each other spiritually with activities such as halaqah and the occational talk. Among those notable groups are Al-Arqam and Jamaah Tabligh. Al-Arqam is a non-political group that aim to relive the live of the four Khalifah but now declared a deviated teching. Al-Arqam started as a group of Malay who gather money from themselve, then they buy lands, live there, plant vegetables and aim to provide environment close the the day of Khalifah. They were declared as deviated at the time of Mahathir Mohamed. Their leader were jailed under ISA (Internal Security Act) but released when ISA was disbanded. Because of that, nowaday we see the rise of Al-Arqam teaching. Among the teaching of Al-Arqam are, they belive Ali was suppose to be the successor of Muhammad SAW ( but they differ from Shia because they have no 12 imam ), claim their leader get spiritiual enlightenment from Imam Mahdi, and Imam Mahdi will come to Malaysia at the year 2011 from Mekah to make an Islamic state. Clearly Imam Mahdi have not arrived yet, and I doubt Malaysia is his destination.
Jamaah Tabligh on the other hand is a global Islamic dakwah movement. Its is probably the most widespread islamic movement in the world although the actual number cannot be verified due to the very informal nature of the movement. Jamaah tabligh was founded at 1926 in india by Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi. It has its own practice that in a sense it is another sect of Islam. Jamaah Tabligh is a non political party and has always been so. They believe that in order to change the community / government we first need to change the individual. Member of Jamaah Tabligh will “go out” to various mosque to practice dakwah. There, they basically read hadith, remind each other of the sunnah and go around the mosque to ask people to come to the mosque for a talk in which they basically talk about iman. Jamaah Tabligh tend to go out for 3 week, 7 day, 40 day or 4 month. They fund themselves and have no registration or membership fees or any formal ties. Jamaah tabligh only preach to muslim. They do not preach to non muslim. Some people even claim that Jamaah Tabligh is against preaching to non-muslim. Various organization had accuse Jamaah Tabligh to fabricate hadith and their practice is wrong. Some criticize them up to extend in which they say Jamaah Tabligh is deviated. These criticizing people are most probably from a political party, as Jamaah Tabligh do not support any political agenda.
Sources:
Sylva Frisk(2009), Submitting to God: Women and Islam in Urban Malaysia.
Sejarah, ABIM http://www.abim.org.my/v1/index.php/profil/sejarah26 March 2013
Latar Belakang, PERKIM, http://www.perkim.net.my/content.cfm?ID=CC14391A-BE83-4DB5-314F2A2B9DA9C3AD, 28 March 2013
http://www.yadim.com.my/, 28 March 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah, 28 March 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablighi_Jamaat, 28 March 2013
Categories
Article Personal

Why I apply for this scholarship.

This is one of those essay where I write and suddenly I just spew everything out from my finger. Be careful, this articles maybe too frank.
Details of extra-curricular activities. And reason for applying.
Assalamulaikum, and hello. My name is Muhd Amirul Ashraf and this is my testimonial on my co-curriculum activities and also reason for applying for The Star Education Fund.
My primary school is SK Sungai Binjai. Needless to say, many of my activities there, is quite irrelevant right now. In my secondary school which is SK Meru, I do hold several position. Unfortunately I cannot say that that many of my position bring any meaning. Being a normal school instead of cluster or boarding school or MARA, many of the club there are simply just for “name”. Since I join the club in CFS IIUM I learn that the structure of (some) clubs in SMK Meru are simply wrong. In SMK Meru, most of the club advisor tend to just “veto” who get the position. Due to my academic standing which is quite good, teacher do tend to pick me especially since I’m quite active in volunteering on activities like the annual camping or cleaning up the mosque and also once become the access room prefect and later on my form 5 an actual prefect.
In form four, I was CEO of the young entrepreneur club. The young entrepreneur club is a little bit different that other club because it has a subclub called “Permata”. I was the CEO of that club. Under the program of “Permata” or “PUM”, a group of 25 student of each school (preferably form 4) will make a company, and do business. I won’t lie. My company went horribly wrong. That is why you don’t see the certificate of it. Because I do not want to put it in there. I could blame it on the Principal for being biased toward the Koperasi and Canteen, or the advisor for not allowing us to actually hold the money as the requirement of the program, making a real company. Or I could blame the economic downturn that year. But at the end it seems that it is actually my fault for not doing much to help it. The CEO next to me have the same problem (the implementation of program) and so do the CEO after him.
Also in my form four, I was the Director of the Theater team. That went quite well, as you could see on one of my certificate, my team won the Klang Theater competition in 2009. So the directing went well, everyone gave input, and I actually do something. Although the state competition was canceled do to H1N1 plaque, because it was the school’s first theater team, the accomplishment is quite appreciated. On the next year, we only get the third place in Klang’s Theater competition. The first place is won by Semetis, a new contender, which I agree they should win. The second place is won by Dato’ Hamzah, which I totally do not agree. Many competition, that I enter seems to have this strange attribute of “something is really wrong with the judge”.
Aside from that, I had also participated in numerous competition, like the Media Competition, Public Speaking, Chemistry Experiment, Biology Quiz, Forum and stuff like that. Notably the Physic Quiz, in which I received a national silver certificate which mean secondary level. Other than that, I cannot say I have any higher level certificate.
In CFS IIUM (Center for Foundation Studies IIUM), I mostly join a club called PEERS. PEERS is basically the club under the Counseling Unit, or in secondary school term, “pembimbing rakan sebaya”. There I volunteered and join many activities, like Mahabbah Visit to School to MATIQ, the syawal gathering, Counceling week, and others which I cannot recall. I did not accept any position as I fear things would get horribly wrong as in my secondary school. Other that that, I also volunteered on the IPTIM(Institut Pengajian Tinggi Islam Malaysia) Sport Festival 2012 as a committee of the Liason and Welfare biro.
Since I was young, computers has been very interesting for me. My secondary school is not really cooperating in allowing me to enter the IT class. And so, you see that I do not take ICT on my SPM. They say that I am too clever, “why would you want to be a programmer when you can be a doctor?”. So, when I get B+ in biology in SPM, I’m quite happy. Regardless of what people say, I started to learn programming on my own when I was form 3. At first I learn JAVA, and from there I’ve learn a lot as you can see in my resume. I’ve made several project of my own. None is really successful. I mean, if one of my project can generate some revenue, I won’t be applying for this scholarship right? Anyway, a project that I would like to point out here is the Automatic IIUM School Formatter. For me, that is my only project which people actually use. You can see it at http://iiumschedule.appspot.com/. At the start of a semester, I can say that at least 20-60 people use it. Not much, but these are people which is not in my social circle. Not to mention that it has only recently been ported for Main Campus user instead of CFS user. So, for me this project is noteworthy.
The reason I am applying for this scholarship is to get financial aid for my study. I did point out in my resume that I try to work as a freelancer. But frankly I am not good enough. And when I actually do have a client, I will have a hard time trying to manage my time. As an addition, because The Star Education Fund is actually funded by many corporate sector, a link for a starting career is really appreciated.