London...Here I come!!!

6 March 2014 (Thursday)

The mobile phone vibrated in the midst of a meeting for librarians ‘  Hello, Puan June?”. “Yes Encik Osman”. He is the Deputy  Director of  Kajang  Vocational  College. “Puan June, get ready. You would be observed by a Mr. Simon from Westminster Kingsway College based in London this coming Monday”. Oh my God!... That particular Monday (10 March 2014) was the launching of Nilam Reading Program and I was in-charge of it. 3 days to go and I had to settle 2 big things! And it was just a matter of within 4 hours on that Monday.

 

7 March 2014 (Friday)

          The English Department was a beehive of activities. One of it was the pooling of ideas by all the English lecturers to help me out with my preparation for the observation. Oh dear…how am I going to go about with this? By all means….I just had to. The topic for the week was writing a letter of job application. I decided to do group work where the students had to rearrange jumbled-up strips of letter of job application. Besides that, I had to look into the Nilam Reading Program. Thus, Saturday and Sunday had been booked for further preparation. There goes my weekend..!!!

 

10 March 2014 (Monday)

          Thank God…the launching sailed smoothly and 1 more to go. At about 1.30 pm, I was informed of the arrival of the Mr. Simon and here am I still struggling with the handouts needed for the lesson. Well…30 minutes to go. Blah..blah..blah… and thank God, I managed to sail again. During the discussion, it seemed (???) that he was happy with the lesson. Later, I was informed that this observation was the first stage of the English program with Westminster Kingsway College. Most probably in June, the chosen ones will be called to attend a 2-week course and the best 3 will get to go to UK.

 

18 September 2014

          I had totally discarded the idea of going for the course and suddenly…out of the blue..I was given a calling letter to attend this program in Penang. I was at a crossroad; to go or not to go. Piles of evidence to be marked, marks to be submitted, 2 oncoming school programs in within these 2 weeks, 2 surveys to be completed and NOT MANAGE TO, the list goes on…

 

6 October 2014

          It’s travel day. My husband had sweet talked me to go ahead with this program and had willingly promised to accompany me in my journey. At 10 pm we took the bus and night journeyed our way to Penang, reaching here just before the dusk prayer. After 3 buses and a 12-hour journey, we managed to find our way here in Balik Pulau Polytechnic. Lo and behold! “….no one is to yet to be seen and the office is not opened yet”, remarked the security guard. And that was at 9.30 am on Tuesday, 7 October.  Well…to kill the time we waited and lingered at the café. An hour passed by and a Puan Rosni appeared magically, introducing herself as one of the committee and whisked us off to the office to register.

          Finally, 11 am saw us in Room A-G-36. The bags can wait. We hungered for a rest…!!!

 

Written by,

Puan Junaidah binti Samad

Kolej Vokasional Kajang

Puan Zuraini Mokhtar

Kolej Vokasional Kota Tinggi