SPP Interview Expose

Copy this article, post it in your blog, and circulate it around. You may know the guy to whom this incident happened.

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I was at Jabatan Perdana Menteri on 25th July 2007 for an 8:00 a.m. interview with the Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Pelajaran. It was an interview to confirm my placement into the government service as DG41.

The interview letter didn’t state anything about attire. The SPP website stated "baju kemeja berlengan panjang dan bertali leher." See http://www.spp.jpm.my/temuduga-faktor.php. I wore my grey slacks, dark blue long-sleeve shirt, and a silver tie.

Upon arrival at Bilik Temuduga 10, we were told by our room's interviewer that we need to wear a coat.

Nobody brought any coats from our room. We went out to search for a coat. Around 5 other guys in the entire interview had coats. So we borrowed their coats and passed them around.

When my turn came, I put on the coat and went in.

Right after I said "Selamat pagi Dato," he asked me where I got the coat from. I said I borrowed it. He said how come I don't even own a coat. I said the interview letter did not state that I have to wear a coat, or else I would've found one before I came. He scolded me and said I did not know how to interpret the letter.

He asked what kind of pants I was wearing. I said my grey slacks. He said how can that be formal. I said only have 2 pairs of slacks. One black, one grey. The black one, I wore to school on Monday, and now it is being washed. So, today I'm wearing my grey slacks.

He threw my documents aside and chased me out of the room.

He called me in again after a very long time. It wasn't an interview. It was a dressing-down, humiliation session. He didn't really ask me anything much. Here's the gist of what he said:

"Bapa kamu tahu tak, kamu seluar hanya ada dua? Kalau dia tahu, dia malu tak, anak dia macam ini?"

I said hidup saya susah. I explained my family background. And why I have banyak tanggungan.

"You are wrong!! Saya pun tak pernah tanggung orang macam itu. You must change the way you live."

He looked at my shoes, and he said, "Kasut kamu tak gilap."

I said I cycle to school everyday. How to gilap?

"COME ON... YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT!!"

Well, if I don't have a car, and my school is nearby, what's wrong with cycling to school?

"Kamu pakai baju apa itu. Cina tak boleh pakai gelap."

I said I'm a Christian, I don't abide by such superstitions. I said by the way, my shirt is blue. Not black.

"Kamu bukan Cina kah? You must be proud to be a Chinese... Malaysian Chinese..."

What does he know about being a Malaysian Chinese? We don't get Datukships and awards like him. We can't afford to be wearing designer clothes like him. We are not supported by the government's silver spoon in our mouth from the day we were born. We have to struggle to take care of our families. What does he know?

He said, "Dalam PIPP, ada dinyatakan kita harus memartabatkan profesion keguruan. Apa yang kamu faham tentang itu?"

That is the Teras Kelima in the Pelan Induk Pembangunan Pendidikan. I explained that according to the PIPP blueprint, we are supposed to upgrade the intake system of teachers and improve the working environment of teachers. I wasn't taking rubbish. That was the textbook answer.

He said, "Tak payah, tak payah. Kalau untuk kamu saja, macam mana?"

I said, "Kena memperbaiki imej, kalau menurut Dato."

He said "Gaji satu bulan berapa? Pergilah beli seluar..."

He even stood up to show me his slacks. He said a pair that costs seratus lebih would be a good one.

I cycle to school everyday. My shoes aren't shined. I can't afford a pair of slacks that cost over a hundred bucks. I don't have a coat. I guess I'm not fit to be a teacher.

Well, if they can pay me 4 grand a month, certainly the profession guru's martabat will be dipertingkatkan, isn't it?

If what I wear matters so much more than how I teach, then my workplace should not be in a musty classroom. I should be on the catwalk runway.

Here is the Dato’ that should be brought to the public’s attention.



http://www.alumnisas.com.my/asas/asasgmbr/dato%27HjAbdullah.jpg

And we wonder why Chinese parent's don't go...

Seminar Kecemerlangan Keibubapaan
Mengangani Gejala Disiplin Pelajar
Peringkat Daerah Gombak 2007
Perangsang Templer Golf Club

The LCD projector screen shows a powerpoint slide, saying:

Pembentangan Kertas Kerja (1)
"Pendekatan Ke Arah membentuk Remaja Cemerlang"
Oleh: En. Sobri b. Abdul Ghani.

The "Encik" title is cover up. He is actually an ustaz.

He comes highly qualified. He is a graduate on Islamic studies from an Indonesian university. He has 10 kids of his own. "Tentulah dia cukup pengalaman untuk memberi ceramah," the emcee said.

On how to deal with a child with disciplinary problems, he showed us a demo. He said the west calls it "telepathy". It is a three-step methodology.

First, you go into your child's room when he is sleeping. If he is young, the door won't be closed. So it's easier.

1. Kneel down by the child's head. Then, speak in a whispering tone. Start off with love. Example, "Adam, saya sayangkan kamu. Kamu satu-satulah anak ayah. Walau apa-apa pun yang terjadi, atau apa-apa pun yang kau lakukan, engkau tetap anak ayah..."

2. Then, speak out your heart's content. Example, "Adam, ayah sangat sedih kerana engkau tidak dengar cakap ibu. Sayangkan lah ibu kau, Adam. Bila mak panggil berpuluh kali, kau tidak menjawab. Bila kawan telefon sekali saja, kau bergegas pergi..." Must maintain a whispering tone. Very important.

3. Finally, end with this. Put your hands of your thighs, palms face upwards, and say, "Pulanglah kepada Tuhan, Adam... Pulanglah kepada Tuhan..." Never say "Pulang kepada ayah," or "Pulang kepada ibu." Because "kalau makhluk panggil makhluk, dia hanya akan buat baik di depan mata kita. Tapi di belakang, dia masih jahat. Mesti panggil dia pulang kepada Tuhan."

You must do it for 3 months. If after a few weeks, you don't see any changes, don't be discouraged. Because his spirit is fighting it. Continue to speak to his spirit. After 3 months, it is done.

Amazing!

Second speaker, En. Ahmad Zamri b. Shamsudin. Again, the "Encik" is a cover up. He is also an ustaz.

This one, he only has 3 children. But what he lacks in progeny, he makes up for it in presentation. He came complete with songkok and black coat. The previous one only had a kopiah.

The LCD screen showed:

Pembentangan Kertas Kerja (2)

"Peranan Dan Tanggungjawab Ibubapa Dalam Menangani Isu-isu Disiplin Remaja Masa Kini"

He played arabic tunes every once in a while. He showed an explicit video of how a baby is brought into the world via C-section, with arabic music playing in the background. He quoted and expounded from the Quran.

The only way to curb discipline problems is to bring them back to Allah s.w.t. We, as parents, must bring them back to Allah. We take pains to make sure they score in UPSR, SPM, STPM, STAM. But do we make sure they make it to heaven? "Sayangkah kita kepada Nabi? Sayangkah kita kepada Nabi??"

I felt like I was sitting through a khutbah Jumaat in a mosque.

I walked out of the hall in disgust. Brushed by the Penyelia Petang and the school counselor on the way out. I hope they will ask me why I left the room. Because my lips are not capable of lying.

Both speakers are Muslim clerics. Both have no qualification whatsoever besides religious education. Both have nothing to say about early child care, teen psychology, phases of development and their needs, or anything professional of that sort. Both fail to tell me what I already know.

Yes, I do not deny the importance of religion is shaping a child's character. But what I got from the whole seminar was, Islamization is the answer. Or, if I were to be less blunt, religionize our kids is the answer.

If I had sat through the whole seminar until the Q&A, I would ask a question to both speakers:

"Saya Joshua Hooi, dari SMK Selayang Bharu. Saya setuju bahawa pendidikan agama adalah penting untuk membina insan yang baik...

Soalan saya ialah, terdapat ibu bapa yang sangat kuat beragama, tetapi anak-anak mereka masih jahat. Bahkan, lebih jahat daripada anak-anak yang beribu-bapa secularist. Apakah penjelasan anda?

Adakah pendekatan yang lain untuk menangani masalah disiplin, dari sudut profesional? Sebab saya hairan, mengapa saya tidak terdengar pun tentang apa-apa cadangan lain yang boleh diambil selain daripada pendidikan agama sahaja."

And watch my Pengetua's face twitch in horror. Tengoklah... Cikgu Cina bujang ini yang tiada bini, dan tak takut mati. Please send him to more seminars.

This seminar was organized and sanctioned by Pejabat Pendidikan Daerah Gombak. Every school had to send 4 teachers from the PIBG. Chinese schools and Tamil schools included. Each participant was charged RM100. The hall was arranged to have a seating capacity of 3000.

If I were to write to the press, my article would have this headline:

Embezzlement in Gombak by District Education Department.

Not fast, nevermind... but must shiny

What do you do when you’re on medical leave, and the weather is good?

Wax your car!

Here are some waxing tips for dummies. From a fellow dummy. You may find it helpful.

Pre-wax preparations:

1. Wash your car first. Any type of car wash shampoo will do. No need to waste money. Buy the type that says “car wash”, not “car wash and wax”. It’s better to wax your car separately.

2. Dry it fast! Before hydrophilic dust starts to stick to your car again. Use a rubber towel. It does a much better job than dry cloth.

During waxing:

3. Wax on. Use a soft, dry cloth (or a special applicator) to apply the wax. Do not use a sponge! It will soak up the wax when you’re applying in on your car.

• You don’t need to polish (as in, rub and scrub hard) when you’re applying the wax. Just apply it.


• Don’t be too stingy with the wax. Don’t apply too thin, until you cannot see the wax on your car. Don’t apply too thick, until it looks like your car kena colgate.

4. Wax off. Now, here is where you need to do the polishing. Use a microfibre cloth to “polish off” the wax. Use one side of the cloth to polish off the wax one time, and use the other side of the cloth to polish off another time. You should be able to see the gleam by the second polish.

• Point to stress: Waxing off is more important than waxing on. Firstly, the shiny gleam effect depends on how well you can polish off the wax. Secondly, if you don’t polish off the wax properly, the residue will make your car look stained.

Post-wax precautions:

5. Do not park your car under any trees! Or you will kena chiao sai! The last time I waxed, my car got bird poo-ed within 24 hours.

Birds always love to pang sai on clean, shiny, gleamy cars. Why? Lemme ask you la... When you go public toilet, do you look for a dirty toilet or clean, shiny one? Of course the clean, shiny wan, rite? Use your blain! Use your blain!

Waxing can be quite time consuming. Make sure you have a lot of time to spare before you start. The first time I did a wash + wax + window job, it took me more than 2 hours. Yesterday, I did it in only 1.5 hours! Vast improvement. I believe I can go much faster when I get used to it. Yesterday was only my second attempt.

This post was sponsored by Meguiar's Gold Class wax.

To my brethren, whom I love

We are the Brethren. The world knows us as the Brethren. We do not want to be called a denomination, because a denomination is an institution governed by the laws of man. We believe that man has no right to make rules and regulations that institute a denomination. We believe only the Bible determines how believers should conduct ourselves.

Therefore, we strive to be denomination-less. We call ourselves the assembly. As in the assembly of believers.

However, the fact is, there is nothing we can do to shake off our denomination tag. No matter how we try to change our name. The way we name our churches gives us a distinctive in itself. Even if we call ourselves the “nameless church,” we are still a denomination, i.e. the nameless church.

We have an identity that we have put on ourselves ever since we were founded. We are who we are. We are the Brethren.

The world knows little of us. There are relatively few of us in the universal body of Christ. What pains me is how we see other Christians who are not from our assembly. Eight things I have to say to us, nine that sorrow my heart.

1. Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh… that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:11-12)

The barrier between the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision have been brought into the same commonwealth, as partakers of the same promise, through the blood of Christ. A barrier of such a great magnitude that extends across cultures, races, languages and spiritual background could be reconciled by Christ.

But yet, we see other Christians who are not from our assembly with a highly prejudiced eye. Even those who are of the same skin colour, who speak the same dialect, and are already citizens of the kingdom of God.

2. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. (Ephesians 2:14-16)

Christ Himself has put to death the enmity between Gentile and Jewish Christians by His own flesh. But yet, we erect walls of separation among fellow Gentile Christians who are not from our own.

Christ has made peace for two very irreconcilable people groups who profess to follow Him. But we keep our distance from Christians who are from outside our assembly, and do not even want to be seen with them.

3. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If fthe whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. (1 Corinthians 12:14-18)

We interpret this as a teaching for the local church, but fail to see it extending to the universal church. God has set each of us in our places just as He pleased “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:12-13)

But we see other types of Christians as though nothing good can come out from them.

4. Paul exhorted us to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)

But we think as though we are exclusively correct, and better than everyone else.

Once I visited a Baptist church during one of my dark patches of my life. The head pastor came and spoke with me. He asked me where I was from. I said I come from a Brethren church. And he said, “Thank you for being gracious to us.”

Can we find such humility from among ourselves?

5. Jesus prayed, “…that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:22-23)

If Jesus’ prayer cannot be interpreted as a prayer for all believers in the universal body of Christ, I don’t know how else it can be interpreted.

6. Paul wrote, “Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”

Have Christians from other denominations caused any evil to us? And yet we see other types of Christians as though they are the source of defilement to the sanctity of the body of Christ.

What regard do we have for them? If there are two ways to see something about them, we do not choose to see the good side of it.

How peaceable are we with them? Have we even tried?

7. Paul also wrote, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” (Romans 8:16-17)

We, together with other kinds of born-again believers, are joint heirs with Christ! We inherit every blessing that Christ inherits, together with Christians all around the world!

But yet we treat other kinds of Christians as though we don't share anything with them at all.

Are we pompous enough to say that they are not joint heirs with Christ along with us, when the Spirit Himself bears witness? Unless we go far enough to say that other Christians from outside our assembly are not the children of God. Have we gone that far?

8. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:3)

There are 31,103 verses in the bible. And we have made every effort to ungraciously divide ourselves over 82 verses in the bible.

9. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. (Romans 15:1)

Given the assumption that we are doctrinally strong, do we bear with other Christians who are weak? We have preferred to not be associated with them because they are theologically inferior.

We who are strong in our theology… How strong are we in our application of it? For as long as we always think less of Christians who are not similar to ourselves, we are crippled babes in the practice of our faith.

We may have gotten our apologetics right in all areas in Scripture. But woe befalls us if we are found to fail badly in how Christ teaches us to live.

I am born a Brethren, bred a Brethren, serving as a Brethren, and intend to remain a Brethren. But one thing I strive is not to be denomination-centric. I believe it will do well for us to think likewise.

I love patriotic songs

Buruh, nelayan dan juga petani

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Beli Myvi lagilah bergaya!

Alam cyber teknologi terkini
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Biar di kota ataupun desa, kita semua
Pasti nak terketawa!

One true test of maturity is the ability to laugh at ourselves - Someone-say-wan-I-can't-remember-who