Penangan Cik Siti

It's 10.19am on a bright Friday. Most of my colleagues are on leave today. The office is quiet. Good thing? Maybe. Summore, it's Friday wattt... Tomorrow's the weekend.

When I came in this morning, as usual I would open me email, and read me emails. One of it left me thinking. It's a forwarded email by the way. Someone who's living in northern part of the UK is blowing of his/her frustration on Cik Siti's concert in Albert Hall the other day. Well.. not exactly on the concert itself, but the selling of the tickets. This person, I presume he/she is a student, bought the ticket coz he/she is one of Cik Siti's diehard fans so he/she wants to watch her perform. First frustration, the ticket is expensive. From the way he/she wrote the email, apparently it's too expensive for him/her and not only he/she has to pay quite a sum for the ticket, he/she had to pay around 110 punds for the train ticket plus one night stay in London. Next he/she vented about the ticket price being lowered down after he/she already purchased it cause otherwise he/she could've gotten a better seat with the amount that he/she paid. Then, he/she blew the top because apparently shortly before the concert, the tickets were given freely to Malaysian's students which included his/her sister who's studying in London. Oh, he/she also said something about the promotion was only being done in London.

Now, I am not writing about the concert itself. Was not there, wouldn't know zit about the ticket selling/giving, much less about the promotions done. What I want to talk about is this person who wrote the email, presumably the email is authentic. It was undersigned "Peminat Siti di County Tyne and Wear".

You're a student. Going on and on about the almost-not-there scholarship and how you can't afford to stay in London for a week and how the ticket price should be lowered from the very beginning do not alter the fact that you're a student. The scholarship was given to you to STUDY. If there's left over for you to enjoy yourself, that's lucky. Well, you're lucky enough to be there to study at the first place. The scholarship is for your pocket money and tuition fee. So, if you don't have enough left to watch you beloved song bird performing, that's no one else's fault.

I do not understand the mentality of some people. Someone wanted to borrow money from me once because this someone had not got enough to follow someone's friends to Janda Baik to play paintball. Can you believe that? I still could not comprehend even though it happened years back. I am not on friendly terms with this someone anymore, not because this i-need-money-for-paintball-game-so-could-you-lend-me-some situation but from a different matter altogether.

So you see, my point is, if you cannot afford it and it's not life threatening and something you can live without, why bother in the first place? You could always go and listen to Cik Siti sometime later when you've earned your own money (I'm sure she'll still be around and peforming).

To avoid sounding like a hypocrite, I confess, I do fall victim sometimes for the wants instead of need. Keperluan vs Kehendak. (I suddenly remembered one of the sub-topics for Kemahiran Hidup subject back in secondary school.) But it has always been for stupid little things and not something that'll alter my living condition. So if I was given a choice between "ikat perut untuk beberapa minggu" (quoted from the email) to spend RM1300 for the whole concert thingy and just reading about it in Kak Teh's blog, I'll choose the latter, thank you very much. Ok, so, I'm not a huge fan of Cik Siti, but this is a metaphore if you're willing to open up your mind...

Maybe it's time for us to change our paradigm. Ini belajar tinggi-tinggi pi obersi tapi pemikiran masih di takuk lama. Macam mana nak maju? Not to mention you're going there with DUIT RAKYAT. Grow up. Be more responsible. If I'm in the committee to make the decision, I say, pack your stuff and come back study locally. I should just give the scholarship to someone else rather than waste it on you.

Think outside the box.