BLOG ENTRY #8 [24/5/19]

NAME : MUHAMMAD RAHIMAN BIN ABDULMANAB 

MATRIX NUMBER : WIF180046 

Assalamualaikum and a very good Friday I wish to everyone reading!

After nearly 3 months and 7 blog entries, we've finally arrived at my last ever blog post regarding my  Social Engagement experience. Phew, time flies so damn fast. It only felt like yesterday that I went to SK Bangsar.

As I said before in my previous post, for this last written entry of mine, I'd like to elaborate on the overall reflections that I had for the past 3 months.

One of the things that I can reflect the most throughout the entirety of this course is that I get to gain a valuable experience in conducting and handling activities pertaining to social engagement or participation. I, for one, love to help make a change in society. I would try my best to cease every opportunity out there to make a difference somewhere in the world, no matter how small or minute. Knowing that whatever I do, can touch the lives of others in a positive way makes me feel happy. Hence, this course provides just the platform I needed to use my existing skills, knowledge and experience to contribute to the society in general. I was worried that the objectives of our Social Engagement programme might not be achieved at the end of the day and that we failed to contribute something positive towards the students there. In order to fully ascertain whether the students assigned to our group really enjoyed the experience we provided, I made an impromptu feedback session during our last day where the students get to write their feedbacks towards us facilitators. I'm really proud with that initiative I made, because it made it easier and clearer for us to gauge how well we did throughout the two-day programme. We were shocked that not only we got great responses overall, but also some of the feedbacks were really personal and it showed that we managed to really make some difference in the students' lives, even though it's only a two-day programme.

Moreover, I also learnt regarding teamwork and project management. For instance, I get to work with international students and people from different backgrounds as a team. Initially, when Dr. Nazean said we're allowed to choose our own teammates, I was dead set on choosing my friends. But, as I've explained during my earlier blog posts, that wasn't the case. Instead, I had to be assigned into another group consisting of people I've never met before. At first, I was rather sad that I couldn't work in a team with my friends and that now I have to deal with strangers instead. Not to mention the language barriers between me and the international students. I thought that my Social Engagement course experience is doomed from that moment. However, I'm glad that I proved myself wrong. If it wasn't for this course, I wouldn't have known Marijana, Omar and Fahad who were students from abroad along with my other teammates. We worked together really well and the element of cooperation and synergy are strong within our team. I remember us being meticulous in planning out the activities just to ensure the best experience possible for the students of SK Bangsar. We discussed on how suitable and enjoyable the activities were, or on whether they fit the age group of the target audience. Marijana was also very kind to offer us a lift to the school since she owns an Avanza. Honestly, everything from the transport, food and event planning was well-executed in our time, so I have to say, I am satisfied with the outcome! Big thanks to my team, I couldn't do it without all of you.

Furthermore, I also gained a lot of experience specifically on handling kids. For your information, I'm not exactly very good at communicating or facilitating kids. For me, the age gap is too far for us to really relate to one another. So, when Dr. Nazean informed us that we'll be going to SK Bangsar to conduct our Social Engagement programme there, I was a bit shocked and worried. Worried that I might not be able to effectively handle the kids there, despite them being Primary 6 students. Not to mention that I speak English more than I speak BM on a daily basis, so knowing myself, I might find myself having the tendency to speak in English rather than Malay, which might prove to be difficult to some of the students who are not so fluent in English. Since I was the only one in the team who had experiences in facilitating before, I was the de factor head facilitator. Nevertheless, I tried my best and even requested help from my fellow teammates in case I couldn't communicate well with the students especially my step brother, Hakimi. Thankfully, everything went smoothly throughout the activities held, and we bonded well with the students. Even though there were some hiccups (like the one where I snapped in front of the kids for misbehaving), but I'm happy with my self along with my team for successfully becoming facilitators and help make a success out of our programme.

The last thing that I can reflect on is something more personal, which is regarding my interaction with my step brother, Hakimi. This was honestly the hardest and most challenging part of the entire Social Engagement course, which is trying to maintain a consistent and mutual communication and interaction between me and my step brother. Initially, things went really well right after the iLearnAce programme. He's still got that enthusiasm and excitement. I remember how eager he was on doing the objective practices and primarily the mind maps. But, the eagerness faded away very quickly. While my teammates' kids at the very least still attempted the exercises there and continued to explore the features inside iLearnAce, Hakimi didn't bother doing so. At first, I tried to think positively and convinced myself that perhaps he's busy with something, but as weeks gone by and time goes on, I realised that he has lost the determination to do the exercises inside iLearnAce, despite my regular weekly reminders. The last time he had ever done an exercise, the last time I've received a notification from iLearnAce that Hakimi has done remotely anything on that website was a the week after our programme was held. Meaning, three months afterwards, no progress was made.I was honestly self-conflicted and frustrated with myself because of this. I didn't know how else am I able to convince him to actively use iLearnAce. If you read my other blog posts, you'll know the struggles I faced in trying to actively communicate with him and also his dad. I even resorted into asking advice from my friend-slash-teammate, Afifah. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way mad or frustrated towards Hakimi. I understand that he's still young, and so he'll need extra care and reminder when it comes to these kinds of stuff. However, since our interactions and communications are only limited to Whatsapp, there's only so much that I can say and words can convey. It's also hard for me to converse with him as a step brother, as I've never had such experience before in my life. I'm the youngest in my family, so this was frankly my first time experience how it feels like becoming an elder brother. I've learned ways on how to properly interact with kids or those younger than me. It surely takes a lot of effort, and a lot of experience has been gained here definitely.

I guess, that wraps up my last ever blog post for this course! I'm very grateful for all the experience gained, both good and bad. To my team, I'd like to apologise if I ever did anything wrong. It was nice working with all of you. To the students of SK Bangsar, especially my kid and step brother Hakimi, good luck and all the best for UPSR and for your future endeavours!

Thank you,
Rahiman, signing out!

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BLOG ENTRY #7 [17/5/19]

NAME : MUHAMMAD RAHIMAN BIN ABDULMANAB 

MATRIX NUMBER : WIF180046 

Assalamualaikum everyone. Rahiman back again with another update here in my blog.

As this is my 7th (second last) blog post and Week 12 at time of posting, we're almost nearing the end of the semester and consequentially, my freshman year.

I already planned beforehand that for my second last blog post, I want to use this chance to wrap up or have some form of closure between Hakimi and myself. Because let's face it, after this semester ends, most likely we will not be having as frequent of a conversation as we would for the past few weeks. That's the reality

From Hakimi's perspective, he doesn't know when this project or social engagement course will end. Probably he thought that I'll be tending him pertaining to iLearnAce until he's about to sit for UPSR. So, in one way or another, I'll have to break down the news to him and inform him that starting next week, I won't be checking on him as frequently as I did before.

Last week, Hakimi told me that he's about to sit for his trial exam. Hence, in my previous blog post, I've decided to give him some room to revise and focus on his studies. Whether he used iLearnAce or not during that period of time, I'm not sure.

However, I forgot to ask him during our last conversation as to when is his last paper for his trial exam. Thankfully, Afifah told me that Hamizan (her step-brother) told her that the last exam paper is on last Tuesday.

It took me quite some time in crafting my words carefully before I decided on messaging him on Whatsapp and try to conclude things with him. Heck, I even resorted to asking for advices from my friends on how to best phrase my words. Talk about insecurity.

Once I was ready, I began the conversation by asking him about the trial exam. He replied by saying that the exam was okay and affirmed my rhetorical question that he had his last paper last Tuesday. Not sure whether he's being truthful that his exam performance was okay, but I like to think that he did fairly well in the exam.

However, it took me almost two days to reply him afterwards. This was because I was super busy with assignments which were all due the same week, Week 13.

Once I've managed to complete all my assignments on time and have time to reply him, I decided to text him again.

As you can see from the conversation snippet above, my replies were damn lengthy. First, I expressed my gratitude that he said he did okay in the trial exam, followed by my apology on replying late (it has becoming a habit of mine, sigh). Before I dived into my conclusions and the main gist of the conversation, I took this one last opportunity to remind him about iLearnAce. I told him on how Raya holiday is around the corner and if he have some extra free time (which I reckon he does), then he should try out the exercises inside iLearnAce. I even forwarded the 2 objective questions that I asked him to do last week but didn't due to the trial exam.

Then, I began on opening up about the truth and what's going to happen in the near future. I told him that the Social Engagement course/programme is about to end soon, hence I won't be constantly reminding him to do iLearnAce questions and exercises. I'm sure that he must've found my constant reminders to be annoying and troublesome, despite my best attempts to make it sound as nice and polite as possible. So, I apologised to him if my reminders ever disturbed him too much. I told him that the motive of the reminders were to ensure that he utilised iLearnAce as much as possible, given the fact that his account was fully sponsored until UPSR. Eventually, I expressed my hopes that he'll continue to use iLearnAce in the near future, even add in the little fact that his avatar in iLearnAce is crying out of care.

I also mentioned to him that despite the fact that I'm not going to frequently contact him in the future,  he can always feel free to contact him if he ever have problems or anything to talk to. Another thing that I apologised to him that I found most unfortunate was the fact that I didn't have the chance to visit him at his house. I'm reminded of the early weeks where he kept asking me about when am I going to visit him. I thought I had enough free time, but due to the unexpected packed schedule of mine alongside the issue of transport, we didn't have the chance to do just that.

I ended my reply by saying that regardless, I wished good luck and prayed that he'll be able to succeed with flying colours for UPSR.

To my delight, Hakimi replied by saying thank you. Short reply, yes. Might have not read all the replies, yes. But, I thought to myself that at the very least, he replied my long texts instead of leaving them at blue ticks. That must've been super damn awkward for me.

And that wraps up my last conversation with Hakimi until God knows when. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than open to having more conversations with him. It's just for the sake of formality that I had to be truthful to him about how the whole thing will roll out in the future.

So, that's all for my second last blog post. Stay tuned for a reflection writing for my last blog post later!

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BLOG ENTRY #6 [10/5/19]

NAME : MUHAMMAD RAHIMAN BIN ABDULMANAB 

MATRIX NUMBER : WIF180046 

Salam Ramadan Mubarak, everyone!

Can't believe we are less than a month from the end of the second semester. Time flies really fast indeed!

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), as swift as time itself, so will be your reading of this post. It is going to be a short one.

Short recap of what happened last week: I voiced my concerns to Hakimi's father for the first time about his inactivity in iLearnAce, since Hakimi didn't seem to take my direct concerns to much consideration.

So, this week was essentially a testimony on whether what I did last week actually did anything to make Hakimi use iLearnAce a bit more frequently.

I waited the whole week for any responses or email notifications from iLearnAce, signalling that Hakimi had completed a practice there, but there was none. Hence, as usual I had to Whatsapp him again to notify him not to forget to try out iLearnAce. This time, I even asked him to specifically do 2 exercises to do. But, as a sign of good gesture, I asked him initially on whether he's feeling well or not, since his father told me last week that he's been feeling under the weather.

Instead, I received two unexpected news that not only he's still feeling sick, but also that he's going to sit for his UPSR trial examination starting this Monday. Figuring that the latter in particular must have been stressful for him to prepare, I decided that it was best for me to not disturb him studying and let him do his own work and preparation. I did however advised him that he can always use iLearnAce for him to study if he wants to.

So, that's pretty much for this week. It's rather short simply because I chose not to burden him with iLearnAce practices when he's preparing for his trial examination. Even though sometimes it is my responsibility to ensure he's constantly using iLearnAce, but knowing how stressful it must be for him, with the mounting pressure and all, I've decided it's best if I give him some room.

At the very least, if he wants to study via iLearnAce, he should do so sincerely. Otherwise, it's futile.

That's all for me this week. Cheers, everyone!

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BLOG ENTRY #5 [3/5/19]

NAME : MUHAMMAD RAHIMAN BIN ABDULMANAB 

MATRIX NUMBER : WIF180046 

Hello everyone!

I'm back after 2 weeks of hiatus from my last entry for my blog. I'm just following the suggested dates that were provided my lecturer. If I remember correctly, this is my fifth out of eight total blog posts.

On my previous post, I highlighted my struggles in consistently reminding Hakimi to try out iLearnAce. I checked his account progress and he seldom used it since a few weeks ago. You saw in my previous entry how I tried my best to coerce or persuade him to use iLearnAce, even by just doing one Objective Practice.

Sadly, as of this entry post, it was to no avail. He didn't do any further exercises inside iLearnAce ever since my last conversation with.

I'm honestly at a dead end and out of ideas when it comes to persuading him further on actively using, or at the very least, use iLearnAce. I even resorted to asking my teammates' advices such as Afifah and Ajwad on what my next course of action should be. Even they had problems of lack of response and inactivity from both their stepbrothers/sisters and their parents.

That was when it occurred to me; that I haven't tried to contact Hakimi's dad for a long time.

So a big part of this rather short blog update is just me contacting his dad and voicing my concerns about Hakimi to him this time around.

The photo above is a snippet of my short conversation with Hakimi's dad. I apologised to him for my lack of contact with him lately due to my hectic schedule, with college projects and all (every single project was rushed to be completed before Ramadan arrives). I told him how despite being busy, I still managed to keep in touch actively Hakimi, despite only getting few responses from. Then, I began voicing my concerns on how Hakimi started becoming less active in using iLearnAce, and how my efforts to persuade him was to no avail. I crafted my words carefully so that I didn't sound like I'm putting too much blame on Hakimi. I was rather afraid because I sort of 'complained' to his dad that Hakimi wasn't doing much progress in iLearnAce his dad would get so mad and reprimand him for it, which is certainly not my intention.

Lastly, I told his dad on how his account was fully sponsored by our sponsors until he's going to sit for his UPSR exam this September, hence it would be a waste if he didn't utilise the app fully to his advantage.

To my surprise, his dad replied almost immediately after I sent my messages to him. He told me that Hakimi was feeling a bit unwell and he's quite busy with his school work. I expected the latter but not the former. Hakimi didn't tell me anything that he's feeling under the weather, to my sadness. His dad reassured me that he'll try his best to encourage Hakimi to use iLearnAce.

Now that I'm done informing his dad about Hakimi's latest updates, I again tried my best to message Hakimi and ask him about his iLearnAce progress.

I told him that if he's free during the weekend, he can try and explore iLearnAce a bit. It was the nicest way that I could think of in trying to persuade him. Then, I told him how I've contacted his dad to inform about his progress and how his dad informed me of him being sick. I reminded him that he can just always be honest to me if he's not feeling well so that I don't burden him too much. His responses were the same, just an 'okay'. That's better then a bluetick, I thought to myself.

And that's all I guess for this week's entry. Maybe sometime during Ramadan, Afifah and I plan to visit our respective stepbrothers as a last form of gesture before we're done with our Social Engagement course. I'll update you guys later!

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