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Today I would like to share with you an interesting story. Well, you know how I like to tell stories especially as a way for me to vent out. And this one is a true story too. It goes like this...

I know someone - know REALLY well - who has a sibling that was sponsored by the same people sponsoring me - Malaysia's taxpayers - to study abroad in an Asian country. Let's call this person X. Okay, so I heard X was the best student during X's preparation class in Malaysia for this specific country. Cool, right. And then off X went.

Two years there and X did okay. I'm not sure if X did great, but okay, definitely. And then going into X's second year, X broke up with the person X was in a relationship with at that time who was in Malaysia. X was heartbroken. What did X do next? X did not go to class...for one whole semester. What a waste of taxpayers' money.

And so being good parents, X's parents flew all the way to this country to try their best in giving X the support and motivation for X to go to class. X's mother even went on and called the department that handles X's sponsorship and begged them to give X another chance as she explained the situation. And this is my favorite part, guess what their response was...

"Oh we understand. This happens all the time. We're going to give X another chance."

WE UNDERSTAND. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. X wasted SIX MONTHS worth of tuition money and they said they UNDERSTAND because of a BREAK UP. A BREAK UP with someone who's not even X's fiance/fiancee!

And then yesterday, alhamdulillah, I got the green light letter from them. And the first thing they mentioned in the letter was 'If by any chance your performance dropped being caused directly or indirectly by this marriage we're going to take back your scholarship and you will have to pay back.' I was like, "Duh." Being married or not, when we signed the blue paper agreement, ALL of us agreed to maintain our performances or not they have the right to stop sponsoring us.

But the thing I am so disappointed is that when a student DID NOT APPEAR TO CLASS for one semester because of a BREAK UP, they UNDERSTAND. But when my dad went to meet the director personally, he said, "If your daughter's performance drop, we won't accept excuses such as it was a new environment or we can't understand the lecturers' accent. We will straight blame your decision to get married as the reason."

Okay people, you be the judge.

-C-

p/s: Yes, I'm not afraid to criticize them so that they'll make better judgement for future students and also make better use of taxpayers' money.