My life experience as a foreign @ Malaysian medical student in Turkey-ANKARA


It had been a while since i left my dusty blog without any new posts. i keep writing actually but just feel lazy to post my writings here. actually i wrote this new post when i first had my first year in medical school (+ edited). yeah. the fact is it has been almost a year and not need to get surprise if i say im still in a first year. again? yeah again. it was the toughest stuff to be accepted. it was painful. but remember. let bygone be bygone. i started new life with new spirit and insallah for this time evrything will go smoothly.


"Say:Travel in the earth and see how He makes the first creation,then Allah creates the latter creation,surely Allah has power over all things" Al-ankabut:20


"Travelling brings the culture and the picture of the people and lands very near to anyone and a person not only learns and verifies what he has already gathered about these places and people from books but he has also chance learning many other important and FIRST-HAND things which he would never learnt from his books.One picks up a foreign language (turkish ) in a short time by actually residing within a country which is foreign and when one picks this foreign labguage one also does so very accurately which no grammar on the language could ever teach anyone"


It is through travelling that I come in touch with the different people of unknown lands or region,from different'planets',colourful backgrounds, really make me learn the things that my own region does not provide or has the means or opportunity of providing.people keep asking whether is it hard to stay billion miles away from family etc. yeah it is hard. eventhough sometimes i do feel homesick and feel like wanna go home NOW! but vallah without realizing im getting used to it. fassobrul jameel. patient is good. sucessful wont come without having patience. people even ask. "why dont you just pursue study in your own country? is the education there not good enough compared to education system here in Turkey? " noooo seriously i admitted that education system in Malaysia is good enough. and even foreign students keep coming to Malaysia for education.but im not saying its better in all field. some people who know the quality of education in Malaysia will say "if i were you i will stay study there" . but i do believe Allah sent me here for a reason. If Allah loves a people He puts them to trial He tests them and places them in difficulty


"There are many courses of studies which deal thoroughly of foreign land,language and people.But theoretical knowledge is always insufficient and only when this theoretical knowledge is supplemented by a practical knowledge and experience,the former attains fulfilment. Seeing is believing,one may read and may also commit to memory about the people and countries of distant places situated all over the world, but unless one has the fortune of going out to these countries and sees for oneself the things that one has read with one's own eyes"


"One has to spread out ,move out alone among the strangers ,find out the fortunes of varying natures and conditions which make them realise that there are all types of sitiations in this world just as there are so many types of customs and regulations.After one has travelled far and wide ,one is sure to find so many contradictory customs and habits of the people in all sorts of lands,climates and geographical and natural conditions that one learns not to pass a judgement on anything easily"


Just today i had a conversation with my friend from Acheh,Indonesia. Just imagine in this Gazi Medical Faculty here in Ankara, there are only a little girl from Malaysia n a little girl from Indonesia,which are both of us.there is no other students even boys who are coming from the same country. and seems we are the only from South east asian countries (owh ya. i met a 6th year senior from Myanmar) based on my observations most of the foreign students here are from Afghanistan (the highest population i guess :p) ,Azerbaijan,Iran,Saudi Arabia,Palestine ,Lubnan,Libya and there are also a classmate from Greece (turk). on"


"Sometimes life-long friendships are established with foreigners and interchange of views brings and opens the vistas many other interchanges,cultural,social,political and so on"


Im studying in fully turkish lessons class while my Aceh friend are studying in which lessons conducted in english. English? wow seems luckyy. but waitt. for readers' informations,generally here in Turkey , they do said lectures are conducting in English, but never put 100% hope on it since you will see some lecturers still explain lessons in Turkish language which make you mouth shaped 'O'. thats normal situations confronted by foreigner students who are studying in English medical class.


Eventhough im from turkish class,sometimes if i do have extra times i do participate in English medical lessons or refer their slides for better understanding since the notes are fully in English. Eventhough both of me and Wanti already can communicate in Turkish,(and even sometimes speak little Turkish to each other instead of speaking bahasa :p) we still confronting problems with our lessons. but i think this friend confronted bigger challenges when she was in first year as when i was attending TOMER,which is Turkish Preparation Course for 8 months,she already started her 1st year medicine in that class instead of attending TOMER since at that time there was new rule by goverment scholarship which saying that those who are going to have lessons in english no need to attend TOMER but must submit TOMER certificate within 2 years. you cant imagine when you first attend that medical lessons with only little Turkish basic,then the lecturers explained everything in Turkish,you just rely on your English Notes to pass the exams. then you need to learn Turkish language by yourself in order to submit that certificate and pay the language exams fee by your own! thats what my friend was confronting! now i realized even i keep saying im having difficulties with medical lessons here,bla bla bla::: still what my friend had experienced might be tougher than i what i had. at least i had 8 months turkish preparation course and attended medical lessons fully in turkish with turkish language on mind.yeah it still difficult. but if put all the laziness away and what we call in turkish,"bahaneler" means smthg that just to distract,insallah i could be successful student aminnn.


but yeaah. its scary you know when you heard last 2 years there were about 80 students who had failed on first year studies and need to repeat their whole first year study. and out of 30 foreign students there, less than 8 who had passed and the rest who failed were turkish(and now i felt what they felt )and the foreign students who passed last year were those who repeated in previous year. Allah korusun. May Allah protect us.


There is no doubt how tough medical field is and its getting tougher to learn medicine in this foreign language . actually not only for medicine! dont think your course is the toughest compared to others! its normal for foreign students as i mentioned. after had conversation with my Malaysian friends who are studying in Spain and South Korea, i realized that im not the only one who are in such trouble. they do having lessons fully in spanish+catalonian ,and Korean language (future engineers)


Back to Gazi Tip ,for first year students there are 3 different classes,an english conducting class and 2 turkish conducting class. since last year the quota for first year students are 'exploded',they divided turkish classes into two group A n B. in my class there are about 280 students and less than 10 are foreign students i guess. sometimes i couldnt even detect who are foreigners and who are Turkish. because as i heard there are some students from Azerbaijan and they are already Turk and speak almost similar language with Turkish so we didnt count them as foreigner other foreign that i know are Afghans,palestinian, the other foreign students are in english class (this year there are a lott arab students from KSA). sometimes we do have same labarotary lessons with students who are in english class. and that made me feel whaaat, i wanna join other foreign students theree. the teachers just explaining to thdm in english in another table next to us. but in order to get used to turkish terms, i stayed with other turkish students.alone.::: i do feel special at the same time
i realized last year i had problem in adapting myself in the class ,lessons. maybe other foreign students feel the same. this is always happen. once the lessons started i started feeling sleepy and sluggish because my mind couldnt accept the teaching is trying to convey.sometimes i shouted to myself "how i wish my mother tongue is turkish! i wish i dont feel the gaps being a foreigner!i wish no one realize that im a foreigner! and i wish evryone treat me like other student,not as a foreign student!i wish im a cheerful girl who can make evryone smile! i wish and i wish..."that was things that keep disturbing mee.poor girl. now im changed inshallah. whatever it is i must continue this jihad. learn from pst mistakes.


"The greater the hardship The greater the reward.the greater the difficulty,trial or tribulation the greater the reward will be for us from Allah."


before this when i was back in homeland i always wanted to be in this condition.,i mean experience live as a foreign student in an alien land. but its not that easy when the time come for you to adapt with evryone,surrounding. . when i was in school,people regarded me as a "silent student" since i wasnt that talkative. until now. but if people know me (family besties )well they know that ...hmm this girl is quite talkative :)sometimes if i dont have something necessary things to talk about i do keep silent. until many people always ask me" why dont you talk. why dont you laugh" the blurred moment when teachers and students were laughing in class because teached make joke and you keep silent and dont even smile for me there is nothing funny.lol . maybe because i have problems due to language barrier. when i was in TOMER alhamdulillah evrything was fine. seriously i could adapt with evryone well alhamdulillah .maybe because the surroundings are different. everyone there were foreign student like me,so we didnt feel gaps between us much except when any of us speak turkish better than others.just a small competition not like now i have to compete with hundreds of Turkish students . but there is nothing impossible as long as we put 100% trust on Allah,put effort ,confident and tawakkal. thats the only secrets.




Evryone will confront moments of grief,moments of sadness,moments when things are not as they feel or would like to be.But the difference is patient,the believer believes in the decree of Allah,the believer seeks the reward of Allah (subhana wa ta3ala) at that time


5 January 2015

 Gazi Tip Kare Carsi

beginning of a snowy dayyy 
 -9 celcius

Turkish people ~ from a Malay's sight

#I wrote this post about a year ago, but just now having opportunity to publish it #

Based on my experiences living in Turkey for almost a year, I could see that  Turkish people are  kind towards foreigners, yeah as people called “misafirperver” ,welcoming people etc . Maybe in Malaysia also people are saying the same, but im saying it generally. I could see clearly their sincerety when helping me especially when I first reached  Turkey with zero Turkish language. 

How difficult the condition was because I wasn’t be able to interact with them because some of them with zero English J  so we just communicate with bahasa “ayam n itik “ :D Just today its clearly proved by a cute Turkish girl.My Malaysian friend just arrived Ankara from Malaysia and since she is still new here she didn’t know much about the place. We were planning to meet somewhere but because of the place is quite far from hers it was bit difficult. Then the girl who can communicate in English little  helped her to get in the bus until the 30 minutes journey ended. I was surprised because she was not going to the same direction as my friend did but just sent my friend to meet me in that place and return back to her place which took 30 minutes.May Allah bless her for her kindness. 

There was also one time when I went to a kind of rural area in Ankara to look around the place and I stopped by a roadside because there was a man selling a flock of shoes which attracted me much. I expressed my desires to my friend, how pretty the shoes was but without having any intentions to buy it since I already had one.then there was a woman with her girls passed by and approached us.She asked me which one did I want because she will buy it for me.i was shocked because I didn’t even know her.maybe because she saw that im a foreign student and she struggled to help me as much as she can.at the end, I refused and she was just ok.

                                  Baba n me,  ISTANBUL - 2013

There was also one time when I was in Istanbul. I took a box of cargo sent by my family from a Turkish friend who just came back from Malaysia.it was almost 10 kilogram and I must carry it for about 40 kilometres journey to my friend’s house by changing several transportations. My hands was getting purple-reddish due to carry that box. Until I reached the residential area, I stopped for a short rest because it was tiring. 20 minutes left for walking. When I continued my journey, suddenly 16 year old a high school boy appeared and offered to carry the box until my friend’s house. I was like wow! Released Alhamdulillah! :D he didn’t talked much just asking where Im from and continued the journey. This time I could feel he helped me not because im a foreigner, but because had taught by his family to help people whoever he/she is.

My friends and I also even have Turkish family here in Ankara. We got to know each other when we attended Arabic class in a diyanet centre in Kizilay. They always invite us to have dinner or lunch in their house about once a month. I was dreaming to have a Turkish family here since im going to stay in this foreign land for almost 7 years insallah. We do feel need of a family when we  being far from our own beloved family.its not an easy decision to leave our beloved family in homeland because it needs a very big sacrifice.even when I was in boarding school, SM Sains Muar which is located about  2 hours from my house in Bangi, I kept  feeling homesick :# Thanks allah for giving me such strengths to struggle for jihad in this foreign land,which took about 10 hours by plane! 

 

Back to our Turkish family, the family consisted of a parents, 2 daughters and a son. The daughters are Merve Nur,17 and Elif 13 year old while the son, Yusuf is 8 year old.im happy to be accompanied by them. Surely I will never ever forget my beloved family in Malaysia since I miss them a lot allah knows but sometimes the sadness of being lonely disappeared when replaced by the happiness from this bless family.the Turkish mother always reminding us not to feel isolate here because we are muslim brothers,sisters are like muslim family without borders.alhamdulillah cok sukur :D

yeah, am an "alien" :#

Selam alaykum. It had been long time I didn’t write  any  posts here. I just came across with an issue which  currently affecting me. Regarding befriending with foreigners. The word “foreigner” for me changes depends on several aspects.it might be people who don’t have blood relatives wih  us, or those who maybe do but seems not because we are not used to them. In Turkey sometimes they prefer to call foreign students as “misafir” which brings meaning guest rather than calling them “yabanci” which means “foreigner”. “Foreigner” that rounding in my mind now those who are not sharing the same homeland,languages,cultures and traditions with us, that’s the general thinking among us when we mentioned about’ foreigner’.

 

   
                                                GAZI TOMER 2012

For most of us, befriending with  foreigners are really wonderful. we’ll get opportunities to learn about many things that we might not even know because keeping ourselves in a bubble not gonna help us to widen our mind..a lot of things we could learn by interacting with those who are “alien” to us .Sharing about different cultures, lifestyles,religions,interests ,education and even improve our language skills .but nowadays what we could see clearly (in Malaysia) there are small group of university students who choose to be away from those who are being called foreigner, maybe because they don’t feel eager to learn new things and  open their eyes towards the outer world. 

Even sometimes there are a lot of foreign students in their school, and even in the same kuliyyah, but this group just don’t have the eagerness to befriend with them, because they are “different” , so they choose  just staying in a community who are from the same race, religion and so on. Of course im not saying that it’s a must for every SINGLE students to get know with the foreigners.but because I do  heard  complaints by some foreign students who are studying in local university, claiming “ why some local students here didn’t even want to talk to me is it just because im a foreigner, come from where another part of the wprld’. And when there are some malay students who are kind towards the foreigner, no matter where does he/she come from, this small community will keep jeering towards them saying that they are discriminating the local without realizing actually they are the one who are discriminating! As I heard also this kind of group also even thinking that those good people are trying to show off their skills in communicating in English. What a shallow thinking, maalesef!

One more thing, from what I heard , some of those group just trying to communicate with foreigners based on the countries that seems they like. Help them just because those foreigners looks attractive and have good-looking comparing to other foreigners  from ‘low standard’ countries who are also needing help. 

Come on my friends,lets change our thinking. Its not what had been taught by our beloved prophet saw. Prophet Muhammad  never taught us to be racist. Even when he confronted with the not yet Muslims, he never told them they are kafirs. He didn’t need to tell everyone he was a practicing and good muslim because people could see by his own behaviours.all the behaviours taught by allah in this bless religion being applied by him in his daily life until his last breath. Being kind towards everyone is really a blessing. Maybe today we could help them for the sake of allah,and in the future when we need help allah will help us in many ways. Being a foreign student in a foreign land also sometimes give the same expression as what foreign students in Malaysia feel.

Actually really, those feeling not really felt by those who are in Malaysia, but im sure everywhere, even in Turkey I had the same feeling which took much time to recover. By seeing this conditions I understand that some local people need us to approach them first then they could start conversations normally, so those who are feeling so “alien” in a foreign land, you will surely confront kinda situation, yeah a bit hard to accept some of them, but instead of blaming the whole race to have the same “antisocial” attitude, try to adapt with the locals and as time passing we will miss those precious moments with colourful people.

And the first step began...

28 October 2013


 

                            My Univ, GAZI UNIVERSITESI ( MAIN CAMPUS)

 

     Alhamdulillah without realizing it had been almost 2 months I got my title as a first year medical student in Gazi University ,Ankara.In Turkey now, as far as I know, there are only 5 Malaysian students including me who are studying medicine.Since Malaysian government hasn’t provide any scholarships for students to study in Turkey, the number of Malaysian students here are soo few. Most of us are supported byTurkish Government Scholarship. Now, october 2013, there are around 40 or more Malaysian students in whole Turkey,compare to Indonesian which around 200 students only in ANKARA. As we are the ‘minority’ here, all of us are living far from each other. We are studying in various city, like me and 2 new friend in Ankara(last year I was the only Malaysian student and it made me being the first Malaysian student who study in Gazi University. Proud? Hehe ), other friends in Konya, Kirikkale, Balikesir, Kocaeli, Istanbul, Malatya, Bursa, Gaziantep , Kayseri,Izmir and Isparta.

          Life as a medical student seriously as what I expected.I just  had my  Semester  1 done last 2 weeks and my second semester had started last week. Life in medical field is not like  in highschool anymore. It will be a long jihad with full of bitter and sweet moments that i will pass through. My jihad journey in this Ottaman land will takes around 7 years insallah including my Turkish course. Im sure at this moment all of my foreigner friends who had just learnt Turkish in a short term as I had must having difficulties in their studies no matter what department they are in,due to the course that conducted fully in Turkish language. 

                                   My first day in medical lessons. 

I was informed to gather in a hall in level 6 of the dekanlik building for taklimat that given by the faculty of medicine high committee members for first year medical students. i heard from my friends that for last year session there were about 80 medical students who had failed in their first year studies. And since the number of foreign students are few, almost all the foreign students had. This news really scared me Allah knows. Being a foreign  student in a class with almost 300 turkish students is a very big challenge for me n other friends. When I entered my class, Amfi 5 for the first time, nervous feeling overwhelmed me. You cant imagine when you entered a class, no small class, a big hall full with hundreds of Turkish students  and at that moment you cant detect any of foreign students among them and you are seems the only one. All eyes are staring at you because you are obviously an 'alien'. That’s what I felt.i was not scared being a foreigner among the locals,I got used to it since I’ve been in here for a year but what I was thinking is about how my study gonna pass. There are a lot of students who will compete  me. 

 

our DNA project

           The first point is the Medical studies itself, yeah it’s one of the toughest department s and all the students who are eligible for this department have excellent background when they were back in school.but dont forget when you success in highschool doesnt means that you will be the most excellent in university unless you struggle, My friends keep asking me how many markhs that I got during high school that allowed me to be here , in this ‘nerd’ faculty. now i dont care about what i got in the past besides trying to achieve what in the future.

         The second point is learning Medicine 100% in Turkish language. At first I think this is one of the craziest decision that I’ve made.while my malay friends in Malaysia and in another countries studying medicine fully in English which are already tough, Im studying medicine in this foreign language that I’ve just started learnt from zero during 8 months. but seriously, seeing other malaysian friends who are studying in other countries n in alien languages also motivating me to study harder since im not the only one who are confronting this tough conditions,

          For first semester’s lessons, I had Organic chemistry, Tibbi Biology, Public Health and Medical History and Etique. I supposed to study Turkish Literature ,English,Ataturk’s Revolution and History for that semester but I just started in second semester. Those subjects (literature and history) which I used to consider as ‘unimportant subject’ are compulsory subjects for first year students in some departments. Before I learnt those subjects, I realized that if I didn’t have  chance to learn them now, I don’t think I will obtain such precious  knowledge. Knowledge is still a knowledge. So I should be grateful for having chances to learn it ,vallah im feeling so lucky.

             For this semester Im studying Biochemistry, Tibbi Biology , BioPhysics, Psikiyatri and Public Health. I will learn Histology, Anatomy etc in another semesters. In my school, within a year (September-July) we have 5 semester (komite).

           When I had my lessons in the first week,  I really couldn’t focus on what lecturers were explaining, I tried to but I could only catch few words and it was really bored for me. I felt very sad vallah but I believe it was just a beginning. Actually until now im still having the same problem but Alhamdulillah its not as bad as before. Im sure insallah day by day it will get better until I can understand full lectures insallah, and I also can achieve good markhs as other students if I put more efforts on study and keep relying on Allah . I just got my result for first semester exam and it s a dissapointment for me. I got 41% for the 100 objective questions. When my other foreign friends asked about my markhs I told them and they keep supporting me. They said I did a good job because its not easy for a foreign students to get high markhs. we wont be able to compare our markhs with Turkish students in this early stage because they are studying in their mother tongue. 

        One of my friends, Zuhre from Iran keep advising me with supporting words .She was one of the foreign students who had repeated first year . I believe on her because she is experiencing more as she was in the same year last year. She told me I must keep go on my efforts ,as she said last year there was a foreign student from  somewhere in Africa (just like me , didnt know turkish at the beginning) who got only 8% for semester 1 exam but she didn’t lose hope and finally able to  pass her first year and now studying in second year. So no matter how many markhs I got now, it doesn’t mean I will pass or fail later , my istiqamah efforts will guarantee my success later insallah. I knew some of my Malaysian seniors who are now already in the third year. So if they able to reach such level, why cant i? they also had pass through the hardship that im feeling. So I talked to them , asked for the tips of their successes, and insallah will keep thinking positive.

And what most important is I must get rid of my emotional that sometimes made me lost hope . as long as I have Allah beside me, insallah the successes are mine.Pray for all of us here

MY PENPAL WORLD! :D

 Merhaba! It's been a long time since i planned to publish this article that I wrote about 5 months ago. and just now it came to my mind

  I have been involving in the cyber world since a very young age, 8. I’m enjoying myself on internet by joining the penpal sites since I love to get know people from every nook of the world.By befriending with them, I could wider my mind withsort of knowledges especially aboutdifferent cultures, religions and languages, which I loved most :D . Besides , I realized my English is improving little by little eventhough Im still not a good English speaker and writer. I also got  chances to learn other languages such as Arabic, which should be my 3^rd language, Spanish, Japanese , Turkish and so on.

     I have a lot of besties from Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, France , Finland, Saudi Arabia and many more countries. Internet is not the only medium for us to keep in touch, since we do snailmailing for several times! We used to swap the coins, stickers, keychain, postcards and even hijab! Eventhough some people might think the hobby im having is quite bored n childish?,im still attaching on it.

   Since I was in  primary schooI, I kept dreaming to visit my penpals in their own countries and sleepover etc in their houses for some time. I really want to experience real life of the local people  Until 2010, my dream became reality. I visited Egypt for  weeks and visit 2 of my penpals in Cairo. One of them , named Arwa is a young British Egyptian journalist. It was a coincidence that she was in Cairo since she is living in Manchester, UK with her family. Another friend named Bardise, she came to my aunt’s house in Cairo with her sister.We met in the last 4 hours before I left Egypt! Eventhough I didn’t get the chances to spend more time with them I’m still feeling so grateful because got the chances to meet them face to face. I was like, LIVE! It’s a reality! Haha because before that I just ‘met’ them online.

        One of the best penpals I ever had since I was 12 is Muath. He is a 23 year old boy from Baghdad , Iraq. I knew him from a penpal site and at that time, he was  only 17 year old. He is very kind and open-minded person. We had  many issues to talk about , about our families, life as a Malaysian-Iraqian, education systems in Malaysia-Iraq and had never get into nonsence issues as some people might do. As time passing by, we had lost contact for almost 2 years. One day, I checked my email and was shocked to notice an email from him in my inbox. In that email, he told me that he was just  started his study in my beloved country, Malaysia and still learning  Malay language . His family left Iraq and they are now living in Muscat, Oman because of the bad conditions occurred in some parts in Iraq. Until that time, he was studying in International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) for Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (around 5 years)  and can speak Malay-Indo better than I am! But unfortunately, during that 5 years, we had never met even once! I don’t know why, I just can , but at that time I felt bit shy to tell my brothers and sisters if I meet my friend who is a boy. And now I felt bit regret :P lol no lah. Nothing could be done.Let bygone be bygone.And what glad me most is he told me that he had planned to pursue his Master Degree in my own university, University Putra Malaysia (UPM) since the university is one of the best research university in Malaysia.I was like WOW. Because we had known each other from a penpal site since 6 years ago, and now we are going to struggle for studying under the same school!

         Before I left UPM , I had spent much time in the administration offices to settle with my application to leave the university. And believe it or not, when I was at the office, I saw a foreign guy who was sitting on the chair, waiting for his turn to get to the payment counter. My sister told me, "Aah, look! he looks like your Iraqi friend, Muath" .  I look for  a glance and then left because I was in hurry, without remembering that he will pursue his study there .

          And days after that, I saw him online and he told me that he had enrolled in UPM since a week ago. Then I just remembered about the Arab looking guy that I met at the office days ago, I asked him whether he went there on that day, and his answer was yes. I was like.whaaat Im really sure that was him! Finally I met him but unexpectedly and didn’t even get chances to talk and even say a salam.So days before I left Malaysia, we planned to meet incase, in the next summer holiday I will be in Malaysia and he will return to Oman. Again unfortunately, I had another stuffs to be settled and we didn’t meet until I put my last step in my homeland. Insallah maybe another time we will have the chances to meet and share our experiences after long-term friendship. I just wanna share this experiences because for me its amazing coz full of coincidences :D

12.33 am

14 February

My beloved house, EMEK, ANKARA