Advocacy, oh my!
Another hectic week. And it’s only the second week of my course. In fact, already two people I know have dropped out of the course, most likely due to the amount of work involved.
I’m starting to get used to it though. When there’s a lot of work, I just put my head down and do it. When I have to wake up early for class, I just sleep early. It’s slowly becoming automatic. True, at the end of each day, I will be physically exhausted, but so far, it’s not something that I can’t handle. Syukur for that.
One thing about this course is that we have to give feedback on what our peers are doing. For example, there’s this module called Advocacy, which teaches us how to present in front of the court. Our first Advocacy presentation was an opening speech of a criminal trial. We’re required to wear a suit for the session, which I must say I enjoy, somehow one gets that extra bit of confidence when one is dressed smartly.
I must admit though, I thought I would do better in it. I’ve never had a problem with public speaking, yet during that session, the confidence that I thought I had was suddenly lacking. I kept looking at my notes, even though I more or less had my speech memorised. And my pronunciation and use of language was embarrassing! Perhaps it’s because we have to speak formally, the words doesn’t flow as smoothly as when one uses everyday language.
In any case we were supposed to give feedback on other people’s presentation. Not just praises, but also constructive criticism. While I could easily give the strong points of the other’s presentation, it’s the criticism part which I had a problem with. I think generally we Malaysians are not used to face to face criticism, so I could not appreciate the fine line between what’s constructive criticism and what’s not. So for the fear of hurting anyone’s feelings, I just avoided criticising anyone at all.
I think that’s one of the difference between the people in the UK and Asian people generally. The British, and perhaps other Westerners, speak whatever that is on their mind, they’re very opinionated. As such, when they’re criticised, they do not ambil hati most of the time. We Asians however, and Malaysians specifically, tend to keep our thoughts to ourself, at least when we’re facing the person. So if someone does speak up and criticise, for example, there’s a tendency that we’ll become emotional and ambil hati and stuff like that.
Spare a thought for the Toffees
Everton lost to Dinamo Bucherest 5-1 in Romania yesterday. Although there’s still the return leg in Goodison to play for, any realistic Evertonian knows that our European adventure is over. Which leaves me gutted. All last season’s hard work, gone down the drain in one month.
Yet that’s the meaning of being a fan, isn’t it? If you can’t handle these kind of things, then be a glory seeker. If I’m not a true fan, I’ll changing my support to Chelsea by now, wouldn’t I? But I won’t, and I’ll still be loyal to the Everton badge.
And it’s not the end of the world for Everton. We’ve been out of Europe for so long, so this is a learning process. We’ve got massive injury problems (Beattie, Van Der Myde, Koldrup, Pistone, Naysmith, Vaughn) and because of the small squad we have, Moyes have quite a limited selection. Yeah, we’re not in the best of forms rite now, but I guess better to have it now, early in the season, than when the league table actually means something. Who knows, perhaps after our players are fit again, we’ll challenge for a place in Europe again this season. I mean, no one ever imagined it last season, and that’s what happened. Who’s to say this season will be different, eh?
