About Me

The third child out of six children, I was born and raised in Pasir Mas, Malaysia in a warm home and everything was normal. At the age of 15, I was sent to a boarding school (SM Dato’ Ahmad Maher) in Kota Bharu. First time being away from home, I learned how to take care of myself; and other important stuff about life, social skills, self image and self control.

I am not trying to exaggerate things but it was a tough school. I saw and experienced a lot of the bad things about the reality of life that I was shielded before. Abuse of drugs and other chemicals, group violence, bad diet at the dormitory’s canteen, and all the other problems that would make a parent be very worried. But I survived.

Got good result on my PMR exams that I got admitted to MRSM Taiping, supposedly the best high school in Malaysia at that time. Being able to enter a smart school, I thought I was a smart kid, but I am totally wrong. I failed to ace my exams like I used to. I become dumb among my new smart friends.

I realized that I don’t fancy exams anymore, so I took the time to enjoy myself by doing a lot of stupid stuff that proved to affect my character in the future. I loved physics and english though.

After getting my SPM results, I did what a lot of other kids in my situation would do: get my car license, help my dad renovate the house, spend time traveling and catching up with old buddies etc.

Then I went to Kolej Matrikulasi Pulau Pinang because that was the only option that I was left with. Made some friends, spend some serious time doing serious studying… although it was pretty tough because everyone is highly competitive, it was a good time to be me.

Then one month later, I got accepted for a JPA-sponsored program.

My SPM results were not so good, but thankfully it was good enough for the JPA to sponsor me to further my studies in JAPAN.

Packed my bags and I left my new friends and all the great memories we made together in Pulau Pinang, and head to Kuala Lumpur for my basic japanese language preparation and A-Level education at Pusat Persediaan Kajian Teknikal ke Jepun (PPKTJ) UTM Kuala Lumpur.

After 10 months of intensive preparation, I board my first airplane flight to Tokyo to further my Japanese language education at Tokyo International Student Institute located in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Being in a foreign country for the first time, Tokyo really taught me a lot and has broaden my previously narrow and outdated views about the world and the people living inside it.

I am forever changed, for better or worse.

We were given only a year to improve our Japanese languange skills; like it or not, we were thrown into the pits of the Japanese Technology Collages, and I must confess that on the first 6 months in the collage, I didn’t understood anything that were thought in class.

My Japanese language abilities were not sufficient enough to understood Engineering studies, it was a pretty stressing and emotionally depressing experience for me.

There were nights when I thought about giving up and just pack my bags and leave; I didn’t think that I could finish all of this.

Well, I guess I was wrong at that time. With time, and help from my classmates, I eventually learned how to ride the waves of difficulty that I mentioned earlier.

I didn’t excel in my studies, but I did good enough to advance my study years; and time flies so fast as I approach my final years.

Time to make a big decision comes knocking on my door again, but this time I’m determined to answer it with confidence.

I was determined to further my studies after my diploma, so I caved in and lived an extremely stressed life of a 受験生, failing 4 university entrance exams before I was admitted to Akita University.

University enviroment was pretty different from my technology collage days. It was way more relaxed, and the extra free time I got, I spent it on cultural exchange programs and hanging out with friends. And of course sometimes be a complete 引きこもり君.

Ever since I first set foot on Japanese soil, I have always wanted to work in a Japanese company, to taste their famously deadly ‘work-ethic’.

So I did some serious job hunting with enough failures and successes, until I’ve gotten a company dependable enough to my inexperienced eyes.

Now I got a job waiting for me, the next proper thing to do is to focus on credit hours and thesis papers.

2 years ended pretty quickly and the experience of writing thesis papers in the Japanese language was pretty ‘interesting’. I lost 5kgs of body weight in two weeks running up to the final thesis paper presentation.

… To be continued.