preparing for ielts (again).

in spite of the fact i had to send several research writing material to cambridge, i am still required to re-do my ielts test. srsly? why can’t my brown excellence be on par with queen’s english sksksksks.

i am not even sure why i am anxious about sitting for ielts again. it shouldn’t be so difficult since i speak english 24/7. but the thing is, the test is very rigid and clinical, so there is room for carelessness. i guess i should remember to keep to british spelling the most.

anyway, in case whoever reading my blog also needs some preparation tips, i thought of sharing some material that were great for refreshing my memory.

SUMMARY OF THE VIDEO (god bless that user in the comments section).

LISTENING
1. Read the questions properly.
2. Read the questions before the listening starts.
3. Answer the questions on the list and transfer to your answer sheet later. (because there may be corrections/misleading speech) [So, listen to the entire information before answering]
4. Focus on the information. It may not be repeated. Write it down as soon as you listen.
5. Spelling matters. Use British English spellings.

READING
1. Spend 15, 20, 25 minutes on the subsequent test sections respectively.
2. Answer directly in the sheet because you won’t have time in this section later.
3. Read the first question and then look for answers in the text body. No need to read the whole text first and then read questions.
4. Only use the context and info of the text for True/False.
5. If you can’t find an answer then don’t waste time. Move on and come back later. Use your best guess.
6. Take your own watch.

WRITING SECTION
1. 20 minutes for the 1st and 40 minutes for the 2nd task.
2. If you write less than minimum words your points will be deducted.
3. Practice writing at home to get an estimate of the number of words in a given time.
4. Writing should be legible.
5. Only describe the picture, don’t give an analysis.
6. Describe in a structured manner – introduction, two paragraphs (1 para for similarities and 2nd for differences)
7. Pay attention to the trends, highest lowest point. Don’t need to pay attention to specific figures for each year etc.
8. Say – the graph represent, not “we can see”, “i can see” etc.
9. Can use past indefinite or present indefinite.
10. For essay – Put your arguments and support them with ideas.
11. Spend the first 10 minutes on reading the task and thinking about the arguments, making a plan.
12. Use 25 minutes to write. Last 5 minutes to check.
13. The structure is important. One argument should have one paragraph. 14. If you think you are about to run out of time, then jump to your conclusion. Better to miss your argument than to miss the conclusion.
15. Your ideas need not be brilliant, they must be relevant and you should support them.

INTERVIEW
1. Be friendly, smile, make eye contact.
2. Don’t worry about the accent. But be clear and speak loud enough.
3. Questions about yourself – family, friends neighbors music pets.
4. Give expanded answers and not one-word answers.
5. When not sure about what to say, fill it up with an example.
6. Answer the questions one by one. Make sure you cover every part.
7. Practice speaking at home with timing.
8. Just make a story up if you don’t have one. You just need to cover the topics
9. Try the topics at home.
10. The structure here is important too. – Introduction, body, conclusion.
11. Give examples from real life in the last discussion.
12. If you have doubts, then you can ask.

DO AS MANY MOCK TESTS AS YOU CAN.

grammatical range // grammatical accuracy: use a mixture of 6 types of sentences:

simple sentence: one idea
compound sentence: one idea + one idea
complex sentence: two or more ideas [usage of connectors such as “while”, “which”, “although”, “so that”, “in order to” etc.]
conditional sentence: “if…. then…..”
passive sentences
question sentences

the last summer break.

i spoke really soon. when i got a hunch that i am going to receive an offer for the course i applied for, i received it on midnight of the same day. when my friend sent me an email stating that we were not likely rejected by the scholarship committee, i got the legit email on raya day.

last week, i met my psychiatrist for our second last appointment. we agreed that it was now time to make these the last 3 weeks of antidepressants and anxiety pills.

it’s all so scary but it has been so amazing. i opened a new bank account on my own yesterday. when the bank officers asked why, i told them i needed it for my postgraduate studies. they wanted my offer letter as proof of my claim and they were so fascinated and excited for me. i later met my best friend and she shared her secret love song. my heart is so full for her.

and me.

i had dinner with my supervisor, my lifelong friend, my mentor today at one of his favourite restaurants: ajna kitchen (formerly chutney mary). it was a celebratory dinner. it was too bad his wife couldn’t join but on the bright side, my partner was with me! though he was really quiet throughout the dinner. probably because the conversation was pretty much about me and my supervisor.

tbh i don’t know when was the last time we checked in with each other. the semester was so incredibly busy for both of us that i didn’t get to crash his office as frequently and spontaneously as i used to in my first and second year. it was so bittersweet.

he kept telling me how proud he was of me achieving this feat. it was amazing that it took us a tumultuous yet rewarding three years to come to this point. when i look back, i cannot help but to feel that this was all probably part of a greater scheme of things. lemme tell ya why.

i first met my mentor at the launch of the tunku abdul rahman scholarship in 2016. i wasn’t actually attending it because of the scholarship. at that point, i could barely even imagine applying for postgraduate studies when i was so close to not having an undergraduate in the first place! i was interning at a radio station and began to see a career as a public thinker through media discourse. so i attended the launch to listen to two brilliant malaysian scholars exchange about the tunku and his “intellectual legacies”. they were rachel leow and sumit mandal.

i was so mesmerized by the both of them. their contemplations on the contradictory ideas that the tunku espoused truly shed light on how we malaysians have a terrible habit of caricaturing and simplifying the image of our statesman. after the talk i was really eager to talk to them, but I WAS SO SHY TO INTRODUCE MY SMOL SELF so my friend (which tbh my mom thinks he might be a celestial intervention in my life because all the good things that have happened to me have usually involved him LOL) just dragged me and introduced me to them anyway.

next thing ya know, i ended up starting my degree in international relations at the university of nottingham. by then, imagined malaysia was a few months old and i grew more and more familiar with the work of sumit mandal. i got in touch with him and extended an invitation to him to deliver a public lecture on his study of keramats across regions. i was really excited about the prospect of being taught by him, because he is a remarkable historian i don’t need to even tell you that uwu.

over time, we started talking more and more. i got the opportunity to learn about southeast asian history with a more critical eye from him, alongside the vibrant teaching environment in my department. when i got into my second year, he suggested i applied for the tunku abdul rahman fund. and i was like what me i go cambridge hello puliz arrest this crazy dood sksksksks but anyway it was a great time as i begun to build my confidence and self-esteem as a researcher of history. i thought i should just give it a shot because to a certain extent, i owe it to sumit to believing in me far more than i ever could. so it was indeed a shock to learn that i not only got offered a place to study history in one of the world’s greatest universities, but also be offered a freaking full scholarship to do it too.

and so over dinner, i never realized that he was not aware of what a central role he played in my journey of becoming a historian. he had the impression that it was always on my mind. i mean yeah it was la, but not in the most determined way. it was kinda more like oh hey maybe when i am 40 something i could save up money and become a trained historian. this was mostly because i don’t have the kind of encouragement back home. i am literally the first person in my family to go into academia. well, i guess my relatives did, but it’s impossible to take them seriously when they themselves have ZERO respect and admiration for teaching. in fact, they thought it was silly that i would choose such a “degrading” path over making money. uhhh sorry cyst not into that kind of empty living. rich that it came from people who ran a college for a living.

sorry not sorry.

anyway, i digress. so basically after all these years, i actually spelled it out to him just now at the dinner table. i said “you have been the only guiding force in my life”.

“i could not have possibly been at this critical juncture if it weren’t for your encouragement, support and mentorship. those things have completed changed my life. all for the good only.”

and he was like omg i am gonna cry. man, this dinner was emotional af. there were so many moments we were both choking up, holding back our tears of happiness. it was amazing to be told that i was a single high-point in his time at unmc. that he had so much fulfillment from teaching me. and honestly, how fucking fantastic is it to be told the word “deserving” so many times the past one week about these major milestones. it feels like they are all falling on my lap, and maybe i shouldn’t be too happy about it because something nasty is about to come. but a bigger part of me is just like –

fuck it. ride the waves beb you got this!

maybe now when i think about it, everything was totally meant to be. and i guess this last summer break is a time to prepare for great changes, and no matter what – they are all going to be for the best.

alhamdullilah.

check-in 1#: post-submission vibin’

it’s been quite a long time since i last wrote here. i’ve been quite busy trying to finish my undergraduate dissertation which was due on 24 may. at first, i thought i was not going to meet the extended deadline because every time i looked at the word doc, i was overwhelmed by the sense of shame that came with leaving this project to the final countdown. but then this kiasu-ass fire lit up inside me and i was like…. “dei netusha… whatever it is you die die must do finish on time no need waste the time – after this can sleep lor”. and that was it. game on!

i had at least 10 days to write up the remaining 6000 words, alongside reading up about hugh clifford for the final chapter. it was terribly intense especially since i was even hit with a terrible flu (of which i am still trying to recover from because of a relapse lol and it is starting to feel like a lung infection). the good thing was that i had the motivation and loving support of my mom and partner to persist with writing. ultimately, i ended up with a decent piece. in my heart i knew that i could write a much better thesis than this, but i decided that i cannot be continuously punishing myself for the horrible circumstances i have been in for the past year. it has been very challenging to undertake a rather original research project, while coping with negativity in my surroundings, work commitments, as well as recurring endo flare-ups (including lumps in both my tits… haiyo). i think i deserve that pat on the back for carrying the burden of this situation while writing papers that got stellar critiques.

i wouldn’t be able to imagine this at that point in time. but now that i am looking back, i am like “ok la, i am really too hard on myself”. it is okay to falter, stumble and potentially fall flat on my face. i am not one to cope with failure well. in fact, even if the incident was completely out of my control, i tend to perceive it as a personal failure. when i could not secure a scholarship for my final year, i saw it as a failure on my part. i felt i didn’t get grades that were good enough, i was a bad daughter for not withstanding the financial and emotional abuse of my father so that i had security, and that i was simply unworthy of any form of protection. it did not help that a potential funder mocked my estranged relationship with my father. it hurt my feelings a lot, but then i realized that he is an archaic, colonial male that would be too shallow to understand the complex lives of coloured women like me. then i totally bounced back from it. it helped that my mother stepped in as well and removed me from the equation.

the rockiness of my relationship with my partner continues to be seen as my personal failure. this is because i see myself as someone ill and constantly in need of a care-giver. in some situations, partners are able to take on that role due to their strong health. but in reality, this is not at all experienced by many couples of my generation. i am learning to take several steps back and find healthier ways to cope with my situation. it helps that i do not talk to A LOT OF PEOPLE anymore. i am bamboozled by how many idiots i have let into my life (although my partner would probably think this is a judgmental remark to make but tbh i really couldn’t be bothered at this point after how much drama most of them have brewed in my life). however, there is a sense of loneliness that plagues me because i do not trust most people in my surroundings anymore. i am slowly trying to check in and build relationships that are solid. for the time being it seems to be working out well. i guess it is also helping ease pressure of me and my partner. the prospect of long-distance is also crippling, but i guess we will be ironing these details out in the near future.

apparently i got the scholarship to cambridge. they’ve just been procrastinating on sending the letters out due to some bureaucratic shenanigans. it doesn’t feel real just yet, so i haven’t been able to process it. although, i really do need to get to fulfilling my conditions especially resitting my goddamn ielts exams. yikes. i will most likely be going out in the first week of september. i will be following my sister to andalusia for her dressage training programme. i can’t wait… i have never been to europe. and after that, we will be heading to cambridge to help me get settled in my new place. i opted for russell street instead of the meadows because i am not really a fan of sharing bathrooms hahhahaha. the russell street rooms are also for graduate students only, which means i can avoid undergraduates… yipee.

another great thing to happen is that my flare ups have been dormant for a while. it is most likely because of this medication i am on called visanne. i am still annoyed at my previous gynae for deliberately avoiding me from a more cost-effective, and no side-effects solution like visanne. it would take time to shed off the damage lucrine depot has done to my body, but i feel pretty great the past month. the best thing to happen was losing 5 kgs of body weight!!!! i feel and look great, especially after my partner treated a day at the salon to get my hair coloured!

coffee with my sister after my post-submission birthday treat at the malaysian philharmonic orchestra. ugh, i love that guy uwu.

anyway, i still have two writing projects to work on until mid-june… the first is the delayed book project with farish noor ahahah… glad to say that it’s not my fault but also feel bad about the burn out. i will need to edit my thesis to meet the format requirements plus an additional 3000 words. sounds daunting but when i wrote my chapter on clifford, i instantly knew that there is so much more to include. i didn’t get to indulge further in the ‘lazy native’ tropes and how he is proof that colonial discourse is ambivalent and hybrid, as bhabha describes. i was deeply fascinated by clifford’s conflictual expressions in his writing. clifford’s life as a young british man who had a class-informed racism towards malays just opens up an avenue to critique present understandings of colonial discourse in british malaya. i hope that my contribution to the study of malaysian history through the critical study of the pahang civil war truly makes a difference.

but i wouldn’t know that would i?

i was also invited to write a 2000 word op-ed for a singaporean anthology called budi kritik. it is quite an honour to be asked to write off lately. i was not confident about the quality of my writing for some years now, and the recent developments have really been confidence-boosters. i look forward to my eventual recovery so that i can work on these two projects.

i guess i am delighted to have checked in with myself and let you and myself know that i am doing just fine. i don’t have reasons to be sad for the time being and maybe perhaps, a lot of things are simply not worth being sad about anymore.

pax.