Being an accidental "lecturer"

me surrounded with alot of winners here

Questions 

 
Alot of people esp friends asked me " Andy, how the hell you end up being a "lecturer?".......I simply replied " I don't know and i have no idea"..... In life you don't know what is going to happened tomorrow. My friend said " kesian Pak Mail and Piya....takder orang nak layan"........( for your information Ismail Zain and Redza Piyadasa is an educationist first then only a writer and finally a practising artist ).

God bless their generous soul  as they are wise and experienced. Both of em still educates us with their extensive body of work.When my pal said that, i was worried and thinking....."are we going to be like them in the future where people don't understand what we are talking about?"

Socrates killed himself rather than face the stupidity around him man...............(google why he drank the hemlock )

"Academic"
Being an "academic" staff or dealing with "academic stuffs" here is not easy, exposing yourself to various philosophy, epistemology and reading depressing, heavy complex writing - dealing with history subjects is a chore.Yes..... I slept in the lecture hall when i was a student and truthfully yours truly here is not a exemplary student either.

I found out the hard way to exposing someone new is one thing, understanding is another thing.

When i was in the second year, i realized that all academic writing, their "academic" prose and structure hides the real meaning.

rather than explaining it directly, it's filled with jargon and pusing here and there - until you pening.

Mind you there are no graphic images or other helpful visuals to show it works. Till today i try to avoid those depressing German based philosophers....the French are slightly better even though they still twist their word here and there but you will get what they mean finally.

( notes - Barthes )


Understanding Towards Anything should be made simple.

 
Then i realized that all theory related stuffs should be explained easier and simpler. Why it should be explained rather making it worse than the first place. My student essays is all rejected due to my layman explanations to complicated theories.

It's not deemed as a "worthy academic report"....i got a D while my brilliant pal copied my essay and he got an A (yes Mizi...that is you ).....

since that day i classified D as Diligence, E as Excellent, F is Fantastic.

A is for those Apple Polishers. 

Anyway come to think about it, the world is filled with confused people anyway.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkings talks about the mechanism of the universe and other mind boggling crap in basic english..BASIC ENGLISH...

pen"SYARAH"

 
fast forward, I accidentally went for an interview to be a "lecturer"...( before that i drove a truck delivering furniture, working as a cook in KFC and various work places which i am pretty proud off which includes baking cakes )...You see the word of "lecturer" is bersyarah.....you lecture.

To be honest, alot of people thought being a lecturer is easy....you just talk, instruct, and get holiday breaks....but the worse is what if you don't know what you are lecturing and worst is instructing your "students" doing the things you don't understand and taking home pay which is called GAJI BUTA.
 

take a look at the definition of the word "lecturer"

[lek-cher-er] 

noun

1.a person who lectures

2.an academic rank given in colleges and universities to a teacher ranking below assistant professor.

 

Honestly most of my professors are pricks. 

Seriously I dont know how they get to be one at the first place.  

Students being students especially Asian students seriously are afraid of asking the magical word "WHY?"........its like Oliver Twist asking "More......" If you ask this magical word, you will not get the answers, the lecturer will look like you are some sort of lost hunchback alien.

Trust me, i can spot a last minute assignment as i know.  

A thief knows a thief very well.

Now thief must know how to use chat GPT well enough.

Until today im amazed how i survived my student days without the Internet.

Dealing with History subjects.
I don't know when i got started "lecturing" History subjects. I don't know why i love reading historical stuffs.Thanks to Channel 555 -  history is groovy thanks to Morgan Freeman narration ( for your information only the elites have a say and the decisive force shaping history and major events ).

History is a documentation of what, where and what happened in between.

ART and yes history
Art history is quite fun in terms of READING how those artists expressed or most of the time argued themselves. My sis asked me " why does artists loves to argue?".....i replied " Sis...its normal". If i dont like the French school headed by David, i shall follow Delacroix. Every art movement is born out from frustrations and yes you need to add alot depressions, anti-depressants, guns, arguments and sick people too.

Once in Form 2, my teacher got pissed off when i asked if there is any dinosaur exists during Zaman Kesultanan Melayu Melaka.....i dont get any "answers" but i got punished. ( I blame Spielberg coz the  Jurassic Park is so damn awesome ).....due to that experience, i try to entertain as many questions i could if any students asked me questions.

Mind you, there are two types of questions. One out of curiosity and one out of ignorance.

Lo and behold - Prof Khoo Khay Kim from University Malaya declared that Zaman Kesultanan Melayu Melaka is a myth.

Myth?!!!!

I laughed out in my car....my mind raced back to my history teacher.... dinosaurs is not a myth, its real.

myth made real by M.Nasir

 
Anyway back to Art History, artists are volatile in nature, they are weird and most of em are males before the Modernism era kicks in. I still remember in one seminar, they asked " Anderson....why they love to paint nude women?" ........Women artists are barred back those days and i asked him, all artists are males....so what males like to see?

Boobs and Assess.

you need common sense to answer a question - not a lengthy philosophical explanations.

Plus Art History cannot go over 1 and half hours. The maximum limit is 1 hour and 10 mins. You add another 40 mins, you end up talking to yourself. Another thing being a "lecturer" you need to realize that you need to be an entertainer.....if you have 40 students, means you need to deal with 40 different attitudes.....and like a magician or a musician you need to show your best tricks...if your trick tak laku...mintak maaf la......

you need to equip yourself with the latest lingo, the Gen Z  sus vocabs jokes to engage your audience.

Like my friend said "Kena buat lawak braderrrrrrrrr"......

Dont Lecture, Inspire

And yes I hate the "lecturer" word. It should change to "collaborating" or "facilitating".....being a lecturer doesnt mean that you are perfect or know it all....you are subjected to make mistakes and yes we need to show that we are human after all. 

So to all my fellow friends who happened to be teachers or lecturer now, remember that we used to be students last time, so its better for us not to be the teacher or lecturer whom we despised.

For my fellow students, forgive my mistakes. I'm human.

I'm blessed to have to meet you and spend 12 - 13 weeks with you guys, shared you stuffs and not to forget i did also learned one or two things from you also.( Like i always said in our introductory sessions, all of us meet in this lifetime is due to our previous karma, so i don't know what i did or owed you from my previous life, but trust me, i am trying very hard to pay what i owe to you guys here in this lifetime)

Art is something beautiful, unexpected, fun, playful and unpredictable just like life. Just make sure all of us don't kill this spirit.Being an accidental "lecturer" for 11 years now can be fun too when you dont perceive it as a real job. 

Your Truly.