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April 2014



For every college student like me, April is like the final few laps of a long distance marathon. Everybody picking up their pace, trying to make that final dash to the finish line in the best possible fashion. Tons of works, assignments are waiting to be finished. A lot of people just like me, scrambling to last minute works and submit our work minutes before it is due. The arrival of April also means that winter is really over. (There’s always a possibility of snowing in May here!) The brutal winter of infinity low temperatures we suffered is no more in sight. It’s always the time to sit on the lawns under the hot sun pondering, wondering what will happen next.

Lots of things have happened over the past few weeks. The mystery of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 is nonetheless the most publicized news over news agencies around the world. I hope April will be the time where more answers will be given the questions asked. Until the plane is found, any possibilities on what happened to the plane are always a possibility. But as a Malaysian, I have to agree with most people in the world that our government is incompetent in dealing with this incident. (FYI, majority of Malaysians didn’t vote for them during the last general election) We lacked the quick response to a situation as we don’t deal with security treats or natural disasters frequently. Conflicting information, false leads lead to frustration and anger in the eyes of the family and those following the news closely. Everybody wants to know what really happens. Personally, I don’t expect a conclusion being concluded anytime soon. It could take months, possibly years. But let us hope April will be good head start for the investigation team in investigating this mystery.

This incident also reminds me on the way our government deal with the last major incident that happened to our country - 2004’s Indian Ocean’s Tsunami. Although we were not hit as badly like our neighboring countries, but still we were slow in react to the disaster. We didn’t have any tsunami warning detectors when it happened and it even took us some hours to realize how devastating the effect of tsunami is. Only after the incident, tsunami warning and alert systems are being set up to deal with any future tsunami. I guess it’s in the human blood that we need a bad experience to happen only then we will think of a way to rectify the problem.

College students like me are not the only ones heading for the finishing line. European football (soccer for my dear Americans) is heading the closing stages, NBA teams fighting for playoffs spots. Teams across European top leagues are battling out not just domestically, but continentally in Champion’s League football. Personally, it’s an open secret how my favorite team has being doing this season. I can’t remember when was the last time I had such a miserable time watching my team playing. Until then, see you next time!


By,
Zhe Xu
April 2nd 2014

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