Journey of Discovery: Life In Labuan Matriculation College( First Week)

Well, at first when I first stepped into the Kolej Matrikulasi Labuan (KML), I was like “Wao!”. There were a lot of people especially Malay students and students with different ethnics. Besides that, KML was much more better than what I expected. Before coming to KML, I was thinking of how worst the college will be and I never think of the good side of this college. However, after visiting the college around with my friends , I realized that this college was not that bad as what I used to think of coming here. The college was very big. For me, just imagine how big it should be to accommodate all the 3000 students here. And secondary school was just a small tiny, little part of KML.

Many of my friends and the ex-students did tell me that the college was not that good and everything was in bad condition as well as, the students here suffered a lot and faced with several problems like water shortage, no internet service, the bad weather and the worst condition of the hostel.

For the water shortage problem (that I worried the most), luckily for me here, I did not face with that situation. For the block where my room was located, we did not face water shortage problem. The water was very very enough . Furthermore, my washroom did have showers. Thanks God!! But the other blocks where my friends used to stay in were not that lucky. Some of them had to bath in an open-public space and the water was very very dirty, leading to skin allergy. And for the girls blocks, they faced extremely worst water shortage problem. They had to fill their pail with water before bathing unlike guys who went straight away to the bathroom, turned on the shower and straight bath. And there was only water supply during 4 to 6 in the evening for the girls. That’s bad.

Besides, we could not access the internet here too. That’s made me feel really sad about it. Miss the time where I chat and skype with my friends, facebooking and blogging. My friends and I even went around the school hunting and searching for the line. Even celcom broadband can’t work. Damn! The only two places that students can access the net are the library and the cyber café. I used to go to the cyber cafe but that’s not cheap. It was RM2 for an hour and it was very expensive. For the library, it was free but it was only opened starting from the 1^st of June.

The weather here is in extreme super- hot condition in the morning and in the afternoon, starting from 10 morning till 4 in the afternoon. Gradually, I used to the weather here and it’s not a big problem for me.

Lastly, the hostel condition. For my room here, it’s not that bad. Each room can fit in 4 person and I was the only Chinese in the room. However, those Malays and Bumis were friendly. For the facilities in the room, everyone had a single bed, a study desk, a book rack, and a big steel cupboard for us to put our clothes and belongings in it. And i was quite satisfied with my room.

For the first week in KML, we had orientation and it was really tough. The programmes scheduled every day were packed and we could hardly gasp. It started from 4.30 morning till 11.30 at night. We had lectures, games and the main objective of this week is to know more about the school and to make new friends besides mixing with the others around. Imagine we had to wake up at 3.30 in the morning to take our bath and we were allowed to go back to our hostel the earliest is 11.30 at night. Punishments were given for those who were not punctual. For the first day and second day, everyone was still energetic, but after that you could see more and more people sleeping inside the hall during lectures and I was one of them. =) We did watch a movie together in the hall which was Ice Age 3. That’s cool.

As for in the weekend (yesterday and today), I had outings with my friends. On Saturday, my friends and I visited the only one and yet the largest shopping mall in Labuan. It was as big as half of the Spring. It was quite small though. The only thing that attracted my attention was the duty-free shop. Imported chocolates, electrical goods and alcohol were cheap here. I will definitely grab some chocolates home during holidays! There were grocery shops everywhere but they were small (like Ting & Ting in Kuching).

And for today, I joined my friends to church. And after that, we went to have pork rice and yesh! I finally had the chance to eat pork- my favourite BBQ 3 layered pork meat and char sio rice. Then, we went strolling around again.

These are some random pictures i took in KML:

That’s a brief intro about my life here in KML. If I don’t get JPA scholarship, I will not feel disappointed anymore as KML is not that bad. Besides the facilities, one of the news from the lecturers is that KML is recently recognized by the whole world and we have the chance to apply for JPA scholarship again and we can go abroad to study. I just hope for the very best.