The D Day today

Raden Adjeng Kartini, says the history book. An article in the The Sunday Star named her as Raden Ayu Kartini.

She's Javanese for sure. The latter is probably easier to our Malaysian tongue and hence it was used in the article. May be, I dont know. Apparently she played an important role in the birth of nationalism in South East Asia, or Indonesia in particular. She reckoned in order for Indonesians to get out of the poverty cycle, education is the keyword.

However, she died at 24 while giving birth.

But her effort would not go unnoticed or unremembered. She is considered as Srikandi in Indonesia and would be fondly remembered for her effort.

And why, you would ask, that I would be talking about this Indonesian lady who died in the 1900s in Indonesia?

The truth is I am sitting for my SPM and the history paper today (Tuesday).

Eh, I mean, my son Arif is sitting for SPM and his first paper is today.

But of course in this age, it goes without saying that the parent – in this case, it is this blogger, would be sitting for the same paper too. So I had been in the past week reading along his text on history, which is not really this blogger's cup of tea.

I mean years ago – 28 years ago to be exact, when he was sitting for his SPM, we had the choice to choose geography over history and I believe over 90% of us chosed geography which resembles more to science than history.

Nevermind that this blogger during F1 would want to be a archaelogist! So Add Math, Physics and Chemistry; these were difficult subjects to him then. But now, they are a piece of cake.

Sort of. With the benefit of hindsight, of course.

But Biology is still not my cup of tea, just like history or Bahasa Melayu.

To be honest, I am taking it easy this time around. Que Sera sera, so they say, what will be will be.

Sure, I would do anything for him to get good results. But life is a marathon and not a sprint. My regret in life was treating it like a 100 m sprint when it is really is a 42km run. By the time one reaches 100 m mark, one was almost dead if one were to sprint ala Carl Lewis.

So Arif (and Akmal of course), good luck and all the best for tomorrow. I do wish I have one more month to prepare you for the exam. But then again, it would still be one month short and it would never end.

In the end, what is more important is how you lead you life in the future.

EPILOGUE

I don't remember my SPM that well in 1980 beyond the fact that we were all expected to breeze through. The expectation were high but so were the confidence then. To be honest, at that point, we didn't really care much. Many of us were already visualizing ourselves in Australia or England, or in this blogger's case America.

Someone with his dad in Dewan Bahasa was putting out spot questions for BM on the Dewan Makan notice board. Hampeh, to be honest; we should know better though.

I don't recall much of the other papers. Add math and physics – we were quite nervous then. After all half of the us failed our first add math exam in F4 with getting the egg. This blogger was lucky he was not in that esteemed group. He probably score a 6 (out of 100 of course!).

Aah TY! Where would we be without you?

Honestly in hindsight, except for may be Rashid and Rozhan and a few others, I am not sure if many of us cared that much that year for our SPM.

If at least in reflection.