Beberapa hari yang lalu, Prof Radz dengan ikhlas telah menyatakan ketidakpuasan hatinya dengan 'pemenang' Anugerah Cemerlang tahun ini yang kata beliau perlu diberikan kepada pensyarah Akademi yang bukan hanya cekap menjadi kerani - tetapi yang dicari adalah ahli akademik dalam erti kata sebenar, someone with true 'academicability'. 

As expected, he was attacked by the lady co-ordinator and even his close friend for his views until he was really upset. I received his sms-es regarding this and i too was sad. Not because he was verbally abused, but because do we need people's permission to have an opinion?

The fact that Prof Radz mentioned my name, made me doubly sad. Anugerah dan penganugerahan adalah seronok untuk diterima, tapi kalau tidak diberikan adakah bererti kita perlu berhenti berusaha? We work not because we want people to recognise us, we read we write - we do everything, because we hope to contribute something good to the world around us before it is time for us to die.

I thank you Prof Radz for proposing my name. But you and i both know that our campus, our country is ruled by 'them', mereka dengan pandangan dunia kedaerahan yang cepat puas hati memuja memuji jagoan kampung di kalangan sendiri.

My friend, let us stand down and live on to fight the good fight. And my friend, for your support - i thank you. How small i feel, with you as my friend.

Last week has been quite hectic, even though it was a holiday period. Editing a doctoral proposal is not easy what more with July coming... soon. I was fully awake most nights, writing and updating all my blogs, The New Teech Times in particular. Slept at around 5 am or 6 am, on one day i was up till about 9.30 am - reminds me of the 'good old days' at university with my assignments and all.

For my English for Academic Purposes group, I set a few fairly easy tasks that forced them to go online, to focus on grammar and to closely follow conventions for academic writing. Suffice to say, nearly all of them failed in one area or more. Some did not even finish the set work!

Are we lazy because more than 400 years ago, that was the opinion of the Europeans? In 2009, my students might prove the bloody Europeans right. Are we really lazy? Don't we care about our own work? Don't we take pride in our own initiatives? Don't we know that our work is really a reflection of ourselves, really?

As a teacher, after all's said and done... i pray my students will not prove the Europeans right. Amen.