3 September 2009 12.30am
The result of the teams qualified for the bridge competition had finally come out. Yeah, my group’s proposal had been declined (meaning that my group can no more compete with others). Don’t know how to describe the feeling. Ambivalent. Am I disappointed? Yes, because we really hope can win the competition or at least have some experience with that, but now my group is not even qualified. So, just forget it. At the same time, I feel a bit (just a little bit) happy since I am now free again (need not spend a lot of time to design, build and present my bridge). Therefore, life goes on like normal. Study > Raya break > Test 2 > relax > study week > final exam > semester break > …to be continued.
This semester I have a very interesting lecturer, Dr. Airil, my Theory of Structures lecturer. I say he is interesting because he is a young clever (Malay) lecturer whose alma mater is UTM as well. But later, he pursued his PhD in Imperial College, London where he met his lovely and respectable supervisor, Prof. David A. Nethercot (Dr. Airil always says how powerful Prof. Nethercot is ,hence he is also power gila babi as well (the word babi does not mean any criticism, just simply a word to show how powerful he is, he himself says this sentence in class too)). So, Dr. Airil did go overseas to further study, experiencing western life there.(He likes to play guitar too).
In my opinion, Dr. Airil is clever and confident. When one has knowledge, he will be confident ; when one is diffident, he has no knowledge. Is the second statement correct? Think about it. Since he is open-minded, his way of teaching is different from the others. He does not spoon-feed us. He always ask us to read more and think. He very rarely uses PowerPoint. What he brings when entering the class are just two books (Structural Analysis by R.C.Hibbeler and Teori Struktur by Yusof Ahmad) and several marker pens (red, black and blue). That’s all he brings in. But, of course, he brings along his brilliant mind which is full of knowledge he gains from reading as well. His different way of teaching (asking us to read more ourselves) may not give us good result as we are so used to be spoon-fed (given all the notes and taught what only come out in the exam, however, this way of learning is too exam-orientated. We are pursuing for A instead of knowledge).However, something is much more precious if we get it ourselves. Do it the right way, not the easy way.
I hope that my Uni will have more lecturers like he so that my Uni (and also my country) education system will be better. Meanwhile, all the other lecturers who are teaching me are responsible and good as well. Hehe.
