PERSONAL: Nita and Me......

Nita was, and I believe still is, one of the math geniuses in my batch: Class of ’81.

I first knew her in Std 2, when she came to join my class in Std. 2 after her father was transferred from somewhere to Taiping.

Both our Abahs are policemen. The difference was that Nita’s Abah was higher in rank than my Abah. Abah was for a long time, a mata-mata or in the current terminology – a constable.

There are so many memories of me and Nita, not because we are the best of buddies, the goodest of girlfriends (though Timah will never, never badmouth Nita in front of me for fear that I will pass it to Nita^^), but because we share so much:

1. both Abahs police
2. went to the same school
3. classmate from Std 2 till 6
4. schoolmate from Form 1 til 5
5. went to KE for like a few months together
6. younger sisters were, hope still do, friends (lost contact for quite sometime, and I m doing a jejak kasih routine via FB now )– herz Wati, mine Ita
7. younger brothers are of the same age: hers Ijam, mine Wan
8. went to the States to further our studies – Nita in Nebraska, me in Texas
9. was somewhat tomboyish in nature, though Nita outgrew this phase... Me… I think I also have outgrew this phase. Nita and others will have to vouch this for me.

Being the math genius, Nita can handle all math problems with ease. Gave her any math question, she can give you the answer very quickly. She and Lean See, Fatma Najla, Judy, Da, Zainon, Azuan, Zaitun, Ani, Siti Zubaidah, and others whom I can’t recall at the moment..

When we were in Form 5, she gave free math tuition on Saturdays in school. However, there weren’t that many takers. Why… Some of the fifth formers accused her of showing off – nak berlagak, mentang-mentang sains stream.

Nita always has this leader material.. You should see Nita at the recent OGA AGM … She almost took over the whole meeting, but because she has so much respect for the seniors, and because she worried there wasn’t any doctors to give CPR should the unthinkable happened, Nita slowly backed down…

Now she is in full gear with pushing the TMGS OGA Central Chapter with the help of her small band of army – Ena as the Public Relation Officer and Recruiter, Hana as the Secretary and the Form Distributor, Kak Kay as the Liason Officer based in HQ and Tempeyek Deliverer, Shirley as the Counter, and not to be missed Odi as the READER (kah3x )….


Now back to the tuition story…… So, finally, Nita only had me.. the math…., can’t figure out the best expression, here but let’s just say this, if Forest Gump was in our batch, he will do much better than Odi.

The first time, we had a one-to-one tutoring at her home, I brought my SRP math revision book from Pelangi. Can still remember the cover. Isinya lupe, being the math ‘genius’, that I was.

Nita was perplexed.

“Di, buku SPM, form 4 , form 5, tak de.”
“Ade, tapi, Ta, yang Form One pun tak leh faham. Buat yang ni dulu la ye, Nita.”

So, here I was doing my math SRP revision to prepare for SPM. And Nita was going woosh here, woosh that with her SPM level math problems. Keling-keling gak tengok, tapi tak dapat tangkap satu pun. I can hear the Chariot of Fire’s theme song playing in my head as I am remembering Nita raced to reach the end of the line of her problem…

Me, right now, I can hear Darth Vader’s Imperial March with Jim MacKay’s dramatic narration:
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport…
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat…
The human drama of athletic competition…
This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!

“Nita,dah siap.”
“La, apasal jadi macam ni?” (… the agony of defeat)
“Odi tak faham lagi la, Nita”
“Di, SPM dah dekat sangat-sangat ni”
“Tak pe le, Nita. Ada lagi a few months (and if I am not mistaken, less than three of four months away) Sekurang-kurangnya bahagian Form One sampai Form Three Odi boleh jawab.”
“Boleh jawab ape. Yang ni pun tak betol. La nape la Odi ni bodohnye.” (…the human drama of SPM preparation)

Speaking, about ‘bodoh’, I didn’t mind actually when Nita said it to me, though I was hurt and sad when others said it. Reason:

Others said it, and ignored me from their revision group. “Awat, dia orang takut bodoh Odi menjangkit kat dia orang .” Nita, on the other hand, said it, but she helped me.

I am not exaggerating when I said I was stupid ,and totally hopeless, in Math. Miss Ng, my math teacher, now an associate professor at Nanyang Tech, wondered how I managed to be a prefect when I failed all her math tests and exams. “How did TMGS select her prefects”, she said.

Well, the story was like this, Miss Ng: I was made a prefect not because of my academic excellence, but because I was the best athlete in the school for my batch.

Now, if Miss Ng were to ask me to run 100m, 200m and 400m , then I was certain, that I can draw the track diagram, better than the ‘gambarajah Venn’, complete with labels of the starting line and finishing line and the proper scale “dengan nisbah 1: 10”.

And for extra bonus, threw in the name of Edwin Moses, the world record holder for 400m hurdles who is a great physicist, whom I tried to emulate in my dreams, and I mean real dreams, when one goes to bed and have them… which is given a technical term ‘visualization’ by my coaches…

Now, with Miss Ng,… one time she had me stand in front of the whole class, because I kept holding and fiddling with the chalk, and no math formula and solution were written on the board. Cannot tell other punishments she gave…maluuuuuuuuu, yeah rite…

But I must also tell you my proudest and happiest moment with Miss Ng. I did not get a single zero in her class. Why???? Because I was so diligent and good at copying her all her questions verbatim*^____^*. Smart, kan???

I also did this for my chemistry, physics, and biology during SPM, and it worked. I got a 6,6,and 8 respectively. Nice combination if you go into ekor. Hei, wouldn’t you know it, this is my car number… God is indeed great. Jez realize it now… hi3x.

One of the invigilators said: “tak payah salin soalan”, and I just smiled. That did not include making up my own questions and answering them, with the hope that the SPM examiners will realize that “Odi bukan tak baca buku, tapi spot salah soalan”. Exactly like what my students did for my exam Q…as Alin said “Cikgu borek, student rintik”

And proudly Odi would like to tell the whole world that she had a 3 for modern math, and a 4 for add math… The thrill of victory^___^

Either Nita was good, Miss Ng was great, and managed to make a miracle out of Odi….

OR… the graph was very, very, very, very, and I mean very low, for our batch. Anyhow , thank so very much Nita for not giving up on Odi.

FYI, now, ahora mismo, currently, setakat ni, soalan math darjah 1, Odi sure can handle one.. but need calculator la ye….

And FYI also, Nita was the best student of her major at University of Nebraska, Lincoln … a wonderful achievement for a Malaysian, a Malay, a woman, and ---- an anak ‘BOND’… A PERFERCT TEN … to the tune of Nadia (Comaneci)’s Theme Song..

Odi^__^
p/s: How is this ‘Cik Nita n ‘Cik Ena? Tulis-tulis Long Odi okay ke?? Can owez rewrite if u ladies don like it…
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 7:51am