Ambang Asuhan Jepun

I know I haven't been updating my blog much lately, haven't been feeling particularly inspired to write anything. No wonder no one reads my blog, I'm too unpredictable when it comes to the frequency of my updates :P

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.