Sunday, October 4, 2009

My Conversion Course

I was quite disappointed, when I haven’t received any call or any offering letter at the early of September. Normally the "Tambah Opsyen" course will start by the time UPSR started, but who know this year will postpone? By the time I received a call 10 days before the course started, at noon, I was surprise and happy.


So I prepared myself to attend the course on time on 28/9/09, but my headmistress called me back to the school at the last minute to do something urgent. After that I only started to go to ELTC around 10am. While heading to ELTC, I was thinking that by the time I reached there, properly every one already went back home and the hall was empty. Thank God that the traffic was not bad and I arrived at 11am.


There is a rule that outsider or those who attend courses in IPBA are not allowed to park their cars in the IPBA. They have to park their cars outside the IPBA or at the hostel compound. So by the time I reached, at 11pm, the road along the IPBA already full of cars. I only managed to find a slot at the far end of the road and there is about 400m from the IPBA main entrance.


So I rushed to the ELTC yellow block and almost tripped myself while climbing the stair. I pushed open the door without knocked on it (I forgot!) and I saw a girl was standing at the front and 23 pairs of eyes were staring at me. I thought she was introducing herself as she is the participant also, so I still got on time because it’s only at the introducing section. But when she turned at me and welcomed me with her bright smile, I realised that she is Ms Elaine Pang, our coordinator! I was so embarrassed and I just walked to the back seat with my head down.


Ms Elaine explained the basic of the course and after that she gave us a proficiency test, a test that contains all sorts of grammar questions and also comprehension. Although I felt there was still a mess in my mind, but hopefully I can do well in that test. After the test, Ms Elaine told us about some of her experiences on work and also on life. She also gave us some useful tips so that we can “survive” at the end of the course.


The participants there were very friendly and we quickly make friends. Time passed very fast and it was already lunch time. It was a sumptuous lunch and quite delicious. After the lunch, we had a rest for 1 hour until 2pm. Then we were sent to the resource centre to get to know about it.


Mr Roland, a good-looking librarian who gave us a short briefing about the resource centre, as the resource centre is one of the most promising library in Malaysia. He was quite nervous while giving the briefing. I can see he face turned from dry to wet due to the sweat and he also admitted that he was trembling. We can search the books we need just by using the searching software as long as the resource centre has the books.


After the briefing, Mr Roland showed us how to use the software to search for the books we need. Then we browsed through the resource centre. The resource centre is quite well organised and it was quite easy to find the books. After we spent some time in the resource centre, it was time for us to leave the ELTC and end of the day one in ELTC.


Lovely Ms Elaine with her chiong sam.