My High School Life

The main entrance

This school is under the state government's management

How’s your high school like?

üA big mess

ü Meeting a bunch of morons

ü Learning all stupid stuff

ü The place I got bullied at all times

Do all these describe well your high school life? Oh God, I see…just like you never enjoyed your school before. All I can say “What a pity!” At least, you got strong reasons for hating school in your whole life. Sorry, couldn’t help.

The term ‘high school’ is widely used in the US whilst the UK prefer ‘secondary school’ instead. In many Commonwealth countries like Malaysia, British English has been widely spoken and taught in local national schools.

Do you want to know how my high school life was all like?

ü Lots of fun, pleasure & trouble

ü Making friendship with lots of real mischievous kampung boys

ü Learning foreign languages, religious, factual & general knowledge

ü The place where I wish I could be a student all over again

Quite incredible I can still recall what mostly happened on my first day in high school. In class, I got surrounded by a bunch of morons who eventually become my good fellas. Most of them, I’ve been slightly out of touch with for ages and some others, I’ve still kept in touch with up till now. Friends forever, YO!

Overall, the best classes ever were all in 2001 & 2004. All just because of the very strategic class location. Both classes were facing the blue South China Sea. How could that be? Both were truly located on the fourth floor – the highest floor. GAYAT tak? Justin Bieber says “I never say never”.

Hold on! I realise I overlooked on one important thing I should have told earlier, SCHOOL ICE-BREAKING. My high school was named Sultan Zainal Abidin Religious Secondary School. Anyhow, Terengganuvians would rather call it with a wide range of names. Popularly called SMASZA Ladang.  This is the only MALE school  in this state. This school location is right within the city center of K. Terengganu. Real strategic, eh? No wonder hotels and apartments are its ‘neighbors’. Gotta tell you the beach is only approx. 700m away which is where the South China Sea is. J

Can you imagine of this spring-like cafe in a male school?

The school bus

Every morning, I turned up to school quite early, normally by seven-ten A.M. School began at 7:40 but today a half past seven. The morning phenomenon was a whole lot fresher and more restful, of course! During my era, we could clearly see the ocean, the big waves, fishermen’s boats and the shining sun! Indescribably lovely! Not to mention the blowing wind got me real calm as if I felt like spending every whole morning outside the class, might I?

One more thing that kept my strong remembrance about high school, Akhil Hai’s nasyeed songs. In case you forgot, I was studying at a religious high school where all are Malay Muslims. So nice when I had been able to listen to all zikr songs in the mornings. In a way, it made me a lot closer to the Almighty and be more grateful for all I had enjoyed.

JIPANG is derived from the words ‘Gila’ and ‘Pangkat’. I’m OK if you label me that way for having been holding too many positions in school. Just because, by doing so, I didn’t seem such a bum at all! After high school graduation, I don’t think I had been accountable enough for each post I held. How evil I was! HEH HEH.. J

I used to hold high-class positions such as President of the English Language Society, President of the Red Crescent Society, President of the School Librarian, Vice President of the School Cooperative Shop, Vice President of the School Musalla, Secretary of the Qur’an Club, Committee of the Islamic Studies & Arabic Society, class monitor etc. I told you, SO JIPANGing. There’re randomly another thirty positions I refuse to list here. It’s not nice to boast myself. Tuhan marah!

What’s more exciting about my high school life, that’s where I learned English. I mean I REALLY was learning the second language as seriously as I could. I got aware that English is fun since then! Form 3 life must be the very witness of my improvement in the English language mastery. If you ask me, English is such a hard language just like Arabic, it’s however not impossible to learn and master it. That’s what I’ve been doing. J

A five-star hotel-like male student lavatory!

The fountain

Can’t deny that I hated high school so much during my school days and either did you, right? Ironically, was I to be given the second chance to be a high school student back, that’s the school I wanna study all over again. Yeah, I know this sounds completely impossible.

I didn’t really take co-curricular activities for granted so you can say I was a little active in school participating in a few competitions! I used to represent my school in some English Competitions in upper form, either in essay writing or even quizzes. Not only for the zone level, I’m so proud of myself in that I competed for the STATE level competition too! All my big thank goes to my English teacher, Pn Hjh Sabariah Abd. Mubin who picked me on her own. Lucky me!

The religious high school student is to learn Arabic as early as thirteen years old till seventeen. I got lucky cos I studied both Communication Arabic in lower form and Advanced Arabic in upper form. Arabic grammar is slightly more complicated than English. Yet, doesn’t mean I couldn’t cope with the Middle East language.

One of the dining-room-like student recess spots at the cafe

The hostel banquet - we've been winning the best school hostel management award in a row!

We got other additional subjects taught in Arabic as well named I’dadi like Feqah, Tawheed, Sirah (Prophethood History), Hadith and Hafazan (Quranic Memorization). Of all these five subjects, I was super good at Tawheed and you know what? I once scored 100%!!! Fuyoo! FYI, I never flunked Arabic, ever! I OFTEN scored the subject in all monthly tests and yearly exams. Hey, I was pretty brainy! KWANG…KWANG... J

Now that you have known all this stuff, my advice to you, get appreciating your school life like your sweetheart and enjoying your school days very much like playing a video game before you graduate especially if you’re currently an SPM candidate this year. Wish you luck!