So anyway, something life-changing happened over a month ago.I....... entered AAJ. What is AAJ, you might ask. AAJ stands for "Ambang Asuhan Jepun", a Pre-University Programme in University of Malaya for JPA(Malaysia's Public Service Department) students who are bound for Japan. The offer came very suddenly, I only found out that I passed the JPA interview 4 days before the registration day itself so everything(packing my bag, getting ready the relevant documents etc etc) was done in a hurry.
The registration date was on the 4th June 2012, a date that I will forever remember. Because from that day forward, the course of my life changed.. cheh, why my word so deep one I also don't know. Honestly, for the first few days, I was still unsure over whether I should stay in AAJ and do engineering in Japan(one of my favourite places in the word) or leave and go to Kolej Tuanku Jaafar(KTJ) to pursue my A-levels(and hopefully after that pursue economics in U.S.A).
There's one other thing I feel I should mention.. AAJ is an all-bumi program. For those who don't know, bumi is short for bumiputera, a term used to call Malay and the "natives" of Sarawak and Sabah. So in short, AAJ does not allow any Chinese or Indian to enter. I shall not comment on AAJ's all-bumi policy because I wish to maintain this blog as politically neutral and I do not want to arise any controversy.
To be able to understand my story in context, must know some background details on me .. I'm from SMK. St. Teresa Kuching, a convent school in Kuching. Most of my friends are Chinese and I talk to them in English(at home, I speak Malay lah) and to be brutally honest, I'm not very religious. So when I entered AAJ, I had a CULTURE SHOCK. I wondered whether I'll be able to fit in, whether anyone would even want to befriend me and whether I could survive there. The deadline for me to make my decision(on whether to leave AAJ for KTJ) was the end of the first week. So I spent the first week thinking over the pros and cons of both AAJ and KTJ. Called a lot of my friends, asked advices from them. Cried a lot because it was such a big decision and I felt as though a heavy burden was on my shoulder. The decision I make would change my life forever so I had to think carefully.
The deadline, Friday came too fast. By then I was 80% sure I was gonna leave AAJ for KTJ, after the lecture I planned to go to the AAJ office to tell them I was leaving. But when the lecture ended, something in my heart pushed me to reconsider my decision and ask for the lecturer's opinion. So I stayed back and had a chat with Zoraida-sensei. Because of that one little action, my whole life changed. Decided to stay at AAJ instead. Zoraida-sensei was telling me about how even if I were to study engineering, I don't necessarily need to become an engineer(good examples are my teachers who studied engineering in Japan but came back and became Japanese language teachers), after my degree, she said, I could consider doing a master's in economics. In fact majoring in engineering doesn't mean every class is exclusively engineering-related, I would also be able to take economics classes. Having the technical knowledge that comes with engineering would also help broaden my mind and see problems in a different way. To make the story short, in the end I stayed at AAJ.
It's a decision that I don't regret. Life at AAJ is actually quite fun now. Made some friends, laughed a lot, teachers are nice and my classmates are great. I would make a separate blog post on my life in AAJ, because my inspiration to write now has gone so I don't want to continue liaw :P
P.S: Sorry for any grammatical mistakes, my english has gotten worse ever since I've been here. I only use English once a week during English class and at the same time I'm learning a new language(Japanese) so please excuse any language mistakes that you see :( can also complain about grammar in the comments section so that I can learn from my mistakes hahaha.
