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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Foreign Faces

I can't get over with the fact that the incident took place at NTU (Nanyang Technological University) involved a (6 years?) junior of mine... graduated from the same high school, SMUK I BPK Penabur, which is now mourning over his death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMUK_1_Jakarta David H. Widjaja was believed to stab his professor supervising him for his FYP (Final Year Project) on the incident took place last Monday, he then slit his own wrists before falling four floors to his death shortly after the attack. It's... a tragedy, for a bright student like him, with such promising talents and future.

As the media is busy speculating about the motives behind his act, I can't but agree with Timothy Hsi, Counselor of SMU (Singapore Management University), that foreign students may feel the strain of their study much more than locals, especially with the need to adapt with new culture, new environment, with these "typical" Singaporeans =)

There's a thread of emails in our young-adults fellowship's mailing list about this news... I learned how media could be misleading. Friends of mine who are familiar with NTU and education system in SG do understand better about the 'politics' and the 'sweep under the carpet' attitude at the aforementioned campus. Some Indonesian secondary students at the school for which I work told me that they don't like SG and its people... and it affects their decision for pursuing higher study out of SG... Sigh. MOE rejected my application to their NIE (National Institute of Education) thingy, somehow forcing me to find other solutions for an M.Ed. And... I never regretted that! after knowing from my current boss, the flaws of MOE-oriented system. Oh, well! Hhmm... I remembered how disdainful William was (an Indonesian student at the NUS Faculty of Medicine) that he had to post on his Facebook the photo of the rejection letter from Harvard Medical School, informing him that Harvard does not have "Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine" in its list. So much of Yong Loo Lin becomes the world famous, he wrote. LOL.

What an image-conscious society. My deepest condolences to David's family...

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