By Muhammad Dhiyauddin
The name given to him was Muhammad Dhiyauddin Bin Ahmad Zamri. He was a lost boy trying to get through life one step at a time and facing the hurdles that stand in his way.
His parents are educated people. His father was the highest scoring Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) student in Pahang and is an alumnus of IIUM, currently a lecturer in IIUM teaching accounting. His mother is also an alumnus of IIUM and currently working in IIUM at Centre for Postgraduate Studies. He is the eldest and has one younger brother and two younger sisters.
At the age of eight, his father decided to further his studies and take his PhD in the United Kingdom. To be precise in Royal Holloway University in Egham, England. So, as a family they went to live a life in England for the period of his father’s PhD.
He experienced a different culture after arriving in England. He went to a primary school called ‘St. Judes Church of England Primary School’. The first hurdle that he had to face was the language barrier. Luckily the school he went to helped him with learning English and he was able to converse with the locals within six months. The experience within the school was really fun and different compared if he were to attend primary school in Malaysia.
He also experienced the main religion of England which is Christianity. He was given the opportunity to go to a church and learn how they operate within the church. Similar to schools in Malaysia, everyday there is an assembly at the beginning of school that includes the singing of hymns. The boy got to learn a few hymns and thought it was only songs but later realised that hymns were songs praising Christianity.
The first encounter with snow was also in England. He would play outside with his siblings, friends and neighbours until his feet were cold enough to become numb. And after playing he would rest his frozen feet on the heater to warm his little feet.
Anyway, after four years of living in England, the boy’s father completed his PhD and decided to come back to Malaysia. At this point, the boy faced the same problem as when he first arrived in England, which was he could not speak any Malay. He had only learnt how to say seven days in Malay and that was it. It took him a bit longer to learn Malay properly than he did with English.
He was an energetic and friendly boy when he was in England but after arriving back in Malaysia, he became timid and quiet. This was because he was mocked in school for not knowing how to speak Malay with friends. He did not know there was a formal and informal way of speaking in Malay. He was taught by his father to speak formal ‘saya, awak’ with his friends and not ‘aku, kau’.
When he was in fourth form he did not know what stream he wanted to be in, so he just picked science stream that included the subjects chemistry, physics and engineering drawing. He did not have a goal set in his life yet and after finishing school his goal still has not manifested. This is a problem many have encountered in their life.
He thought he wanted to be an engineer, so got into UiTM that had mechanical engineering but that was not the answer and left UiTM. He then went to IIUM for physical science that was also not the answer because he could not keep up with all the sciences. Now, he is taking communication in IIUM but he has no answer yet, whether he wants to continue or not.
He has regained some of his confidence and is taking Integrated Media Journalism within the communication course. He is more interested in the media aspect of journalism and aspires to either be a news anchor on television or on radio. If that does come to fruition he wants to start a podcast or something along the line making videos that give out news which he takes inspiration from a YouTube channel called ‘Phillip DeFranco’.
He is also interested in cars ever since he started watching Top Gear in England and found out later that the three former hosts of the programme were journalists who wrote about their experiences with the cars that they were reviewing.
He has skills that he needs to hone if he wants to continue on his path of journalism. Currently, he has the confidence to interview random people, writing and editing. He is more comfortable with doing something spontaneously and will affect how he researches the topic and reports about it. This is something he needs to learn to keep in sync with his other skills.
He hopes journalism will be the answer he was searching for and pursuing it until he succeeds in what he wants to achieve. But for now he will focus on the road ahead and not be a lost boy stuck in ‘neverland’.***
(This article is written as part of the individual assignment series for Feature Writing class)