Old Wine in a New Bottle

Monday, January 7, 2008
The Dec. 07 - May 08 started on Monday Dec. 31st followed by the New Year Day on Tuesday.

On the first day of the semester, I was in campus by 0730hrs eager and motivated to embark on my pedagogical assignment. At 0735 hrs I took my breakfast at the MARA Corner alone. By 0820 I was already in DMK 3 to launch my teaching. Unfortunately nobody was around. I fixed the OHP, which I carried from the 15th floor.While waiting for the audience to come in, I scroughed through the notes of BEL 492. It was 0830 hrs when the lecture should have started. Nobody showed up.

Time ticked by. Waiting is not my game. I waited and waited until 0930 hrs when I decided to call of the class carrying the OHP to the next class which should start at 1030 hrs, BEL 422. As usual I was ready for my next lecture. There I fixed the OHP again in Z 13 6. Then the same experience of having an empty class occurred. So I called off the class at 1100 hrs.

Then I started to ponder about the attitudes of the previous and the current students towards the old habits of abstaining from lectures when a holiday is coming. I have been lecturing for the past 23 years in ITM, now UiTM. UiTM is considered a New Bottle and the Students are labelled as the the New Wine, as the Engllish saying goes. With a new terminology I expect the students would have new attitudes. Unforunately, only he bottle is new. The new students still possess the old habits of abstaining from lectures whenever there will be a holiday next.

The attitudes of the Bumi students must change for the better. It's the Bumis themselves who can change, not others. My expectations hat the new students would inculcate new attitudes were high. As mentioned earlier, t's a new bottle with old wine.

Hopefully as the semester moves on, the wine will change and it will take some time because Old Habits Die Hard.