Shoulders and Toes

Most of the time, I would use my backpack to class because for me backpack is much more convenient compared to a sling bag unless I only have one class for that particular day. Besides, I, as a girl have lots to bring; since I am using waterproof sunscreen every day, I have to bring makeup remover, moisturizer, etc., but for stationery, I started to bring the necessary stuff only because pencil case suddenly turned into a burden to my shoulder. Sometimes, just bringing my Acer laptop together with the charger is already making my shoulder aching especially when I have to walk to college from faculty at the end of the draining day. At the age of 20, a laptop and the charger which I think the weigh is not exceeding 3kg.... makes me sick (I think I am in the disadvantage situation as I have small shoulders; broad shoulders always be my dream when I was a kid lol). Hence, this why I proposed to my parents I wanted to buy a very light laptop because it will absolutely lift the burden hehe.

So, imagine the burden of books that those little kids have to bear every day in school. It would be fine for those kids who went to school by car, but how about those kids who have to walk all the way to school? I've been witnessing these scenarios since I was a kid as I went to school by myself most of the times. When I was in primary school, I went to school by bicycle and whenever my parents were off, I forced them to send me to school because it was an obstacle to stay awake at 7 a.m. and rode your bike. Later in secondary school, I walked to school every day because none of my girlfriends were riding a bicycle, and it such a pathetic life I had because Malaysian didn't want to inculcate Japanese's culture. Again, with your small body, you have to bear so much weigh in your back :( Dahla underweight, buku pulak overweight. At the same time, my mom always warned me to walk and sit up straight but I have a problem to make it right because I get used to bend my shoulder a bit because of the heavy bag that I always bear. Luckily I managed to overcome a bit because it is a must to have a proper posture whenever you are on the track because if you didn’t, habis la ko. But sometimes, I bend my shoulders involuntarily; my mom told me that it is one of the consequences of bringing heavy backpack to school. I don’t take it seriously until I see how badly my posture in certain pictures.

After a long mukaddimah about my childhood years, my point here is… it is a good improvement that government now is focusing on how to tackle this problem. Some of us might see this as trivial but little did you know that the health of the youngsters is vital? If the government don’t do anything to fix this, could you imagine how many people would suffer spinal pain in the future? Hence, the government has to spend a lot to cure it because the progressive of the country basically depends on how productive the nation is. Kalau semua dah sakit belakang siapa nak run the country? Kucing ke?

Ha cakap pasal kucing, dulu every time my classmates left their books at home mesti the teachers said “Habis buku kat rumah siapa nak baca? Kucing awak?” Kalau tak kucing nanti the teacher akan cakap “nenek awak”. How could they disrespect cats and our grandmas? I just wanna emphasize that not all kids can handle and follow the class schedule. Not all of them are as diligent as I was to take note on which books that the teachers wanted to use on the next day, what books that you can refer to do homework. Most of them would rather bring alllll of them as it was easier than arranging books by looking at the schedule. Hence, it is important to have a big locker in each class. It’s not necessary to have an individual locker especially in primary school. Kids love to see new stuff. They love to experiment and I bet they will make an experiment with the lockers itself if they were to have an individual locker.

A big locker in a class would be sufficient to occupy the students’ book especially those thicker books. Maybe the schools can set up certain guidelines for the teacher on how to maximize the usage of the lockers in order to tackle this issue. Perhaps the locker is for the textbook as they’re much heavier compared to exercise books. If I am not mistaken, during my secondary years, it was prohibited to left the textbooks under your table. HARAM KO TAHU. But hello, we all love to do haram things in school. However, from what I read in the news is that not all school could afford to put in a locker in a class. Money is the key to education so yeah, especially schools in rural areas; this implementation would burden the school. Another opinion that I found is that, restructuring the textbooks and exercise book which means using a lighter paper in exercise books or maybe students can just use a test-pad instead of the exercise book, and put all the papers in a file. I do agree with this but I think this idea would be more suitable and convenient for secondary school students. Adjusting the weight and the size of the textbooks would be a good idea for me. Though it might take some time to provide and change everything, it will never be too late to make it right. At least, we could provide some comfort to our future generation.

Furthermore, schools that have a stable funding from PIBG, really need to consider to provide a big locker in a class. Maybe for schools that couldn’t afford it, maybe they can create a small area in each classroom to put all the books, just by using a few tables or boxes. It sounds easier but I think I always enjoyed whenever my teachers told me to left the book in class because it is so annoying to deal with a heavy backpack while you are riding a bicycle.

Maybe it will be a bit difficult for the teachers to handle this at the beginning but if teachers as the means to change the world don’t want to start it first, who else will take place? I am glad that when I moved to a boarding school, heavy bag wasn’t really a big deal as we had an individual locker, one big locker in each class, and the most heaven part was you were allowed to put as much as books you want under your desk.

Furthermore, another issue that keeps on running in my feeds is black shoes. As someone who has been wearing black shoes for many years since primary school as I was a prefect, and then I was wearing black shoes again in secondary school as I was a PRS and then when I moved to a boarding school, everyone must wear black shoes; I do believe that wearing black shoes is much better than white shoes. Why? On weekends, we don’t have to spend our time in washing the shoes, because it took such a long period to dry up the shoes especially during the rainy season. Dah la penat sental your shoes pastu kena kapur. Banyak kerja compared to wearing black shoes – you only need to polish it. Nak hygienic sikit, spray your shoes using the anti-bacterial spray. Ala hygienic thing pun takkan la sekolah nak kena ajar? On the other hand, some people contended that wearing black shoes will degrade the students’ discipline as the students won’t bother to take care of their appearances. What do you think? I don’t think so because discipline shouldn’t be indicated by the color of their shoes. There are many other important aspects that need to be considered rather than focusing on how clean their shoes are.

In conclusion, I am glad that the government are trying to address certain issues that should be addressed from years back but, better late than never. However, I realized that this current government is a bit misleading in terms of the PTPTN issue, UEC, MyBrain, etc. I don’t wanna discuss it in details because this can be pretty much tiring for my brain right now.

Before I end this post, what do you think that one is only being entitled to pay for PTPTN loan once their salaries reach RM4000? I just wonder how long PTPTN has to wait for a fresh graduate to get promoted in a better position so that they can reach the salary of RM4000/month. CAMNE NAK ROLLING DUIT? That’s only my curiosity. Do tell me about your thoughts, your opinions are welcome.

Bye. See you!