Whining Lot

Hiatus. Busy. Lack of focus. Struggling to keep everything in place.

Well that explains the long absence of any posts from this blog despite so many events taking place.

But we should begin with updates of MCKK-related events in the past few weeks.

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1) Premier Cup Football (MC vs VI)

To those who are still unaware of the results - wait for it.

It's 11-0 for the Under-13 and 3-0 for the Under-18. The matches were held last weekend in KL.

2) UIA Debating Tournament

Our English and BM teams were ranked first and second respectively after the preliminary rounds. English team was undefeated throughout and in the process defeated St Xavier, the undefeated defending champion for the last 3 years. Unfortunately they lost to SSP in the quarter.

The final was between RMC and St Xavier and I could only laugh looking at the quality of the final debate. It was so bad with so many broken English that Hishamuddin looked really uncomfortable at the VIP seat, as some speakers kept mentioning the word "limitating" as opposed to "limiting". Needless to say, St Xavier (which was earlier defeated by koleq) won and deservingly so.

As for the BM, I am loss for words. After 3 straight years in the final and 3 straight controversial results, I have nothing else to say. I only need to point out that we lost by a margin on 1.5 (small margin) and jury of 4-3. One of the wise adjudicators that day was actually the coach of our opponent.

Apparently there had been some objections the night before the final but since this "whiter than white" coach went on to declare his interest and promise that he would be impartial, the organiser allowed him to adjudicate his own team. The rest, as they say, is history.

Perhaps the consolation was Aslam and Fendy being announced as the top 2 overall best speakers for the tournament, by a big margin leaving other debaters. Fendy was also announced best speaker for the final.

I was satisfied looking at the final, as we always tell the kids that do not pay attention as to who we are up against, because your real opponent is always our high standard. So long as we conform to our high standard - win or lose is secondary.

As for the adjudicators and some of the organisers, I wish they did not come to see our boys and tried to alleviate their misery (and failing miserably at that) by telling how they were so much better than the other team - but stop short of telling why they were denied the winning for 3 consecutive years.

If you want to be warped by the narrow confine of school rivalry and childish mentality, by all means go ahead. We have no problem as you will not go far in life. But can you not try to justify it to us because frankly speaking, I was quite disgusted.

3) HELP University College Debating Tournament

Dejavu. We were up against a team with all non-Malay speakers, the judges were all non-Malays. The daughter of one of the judges was actually with our opponent and I initially thought that judge was the teacher for our opponent since she was with them all the time. No prize for guessing what happened to the first team.

Lost to a non-entity team, whose arguments were so out of this world that the fact they were accepted by the judges indicates the judges' own mental capacity - nothing more than a 14 /15 year old school children.

The second team, which I expected to lose all along, sailed through to the next round (octo-finals) in June.

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Now on to the real issue.

The whining lot.

I am quite disheartened to notice that there is an increasing trend of budak koleq whining and complaining everything under the Sun, especially the really junior ones.

The amount of complaints and the kind of complaints (or whining) that I had to deal in my encounters with koleq boys really tested my own patience.

Why it has come to this?

1) No fire drill. Not even a lecture. Not even push up. Well they might as well enrol to Raja Perempuan Kalsom. I never like physical means to push through a message, certainly what ever meted out should not cross the boundary of physical contact. Yet punishment is necessary to mould characters at young age, especially fair punishment given out responsibly.

2) Parents. If any parents are reading this, being adult and "sudah lanjut usia" myself, I understand the parental instinct. However, we make an informed choice to send our kids to a boarding school, especially old boys who know what kind of system is in place in MCKK. If we don't wish our kids to be subjected to this, well don't enrol them in the first place. Send them to SMK Damansara Jaya - they offer better facilities and all that you cannot find in Kuala Kangsar. But to send our kids there and entertain their whining on some small matters, we do not do justice to both the kids and the school. We cannot have the cake and eat it too.

MCKK is an institution for boys. Psychologically, they need more rules and discipline especially at that age. In a place like MCKK, it is not the formal education in class room that is important, it is the value inculcated from the very young age. How was the value inculcated and cultivated - well through out of this world methods which the majority may not agree with. If you take away all these mechanisms that had worked all these years, it's nothing more than a mediocre school which happens to have a very nice colonial building.

Enough said. I whine a lot myself lately.

It has been bad.

PS

1) Ohh in case I forgot, the score was in favour of VI. Koleq was beaten 11-0 and 3-0 for U-13 and U-18 respectively. This is like what we do to Tsung Wah in hockey! I reserve my own conclusion.

2) Some pictures from UIA.

4 generations of MCKK debaters - with one of the doyens Bro Faisal Shahbudin & Son (Class of 87)


BM team - In Action 1



Captain and 2 coaches - ala America's Next Top Model



BM team - In Action II


BM team - In Action III


Sebelum kena tipu, semua happy


Selepas kena tipu, muka monyok


3 masters from 3 generations


Pergi tournament la ni kena naik bus express!


"Kitorang memang suka balik KK naik bas mcm ni in full Malay"