Once again, the freshies have enrolled and its the return of the ragging orientation week(S). This time, we are the SUPER SENIORS, a stupid name nevertheless but still a mark that I’ve survived 4 freaking years of medical school life. The freshies this year are blur as usual, as after 2 weeks of unofficial orientation, they have not figured out what should and should not be said, what needs to be known and what needs to be done, in summary, how to be streetwise in this sadistic “game” of survivor.

4 years back, the whole thing was probably many times worse than it is now, but the threshold of the current freshies is terribly low. They no longer have to look down and recognize the seniors by the colour of their slippers, the shape of their feet, and the hair on their shins. No more being screamed at the volume of 100 dB or having to do ultra-humiliating things. Only scoldings for not remembering the list of their own state senior’s names and having to find out 10 things about this senior or another.

I am not for one, pro-orientation but neither am I totally anti-orientation. I mean, I do remember the horrible time I had, and I definitely do not wish the same fate upon these poor freshies. However, when a junior looks so forlorn and when asked what is the worst thing that happened to them during the orientation and the answer is “having to find out details about the super-seniors”, I really feel like fainting. If you can’t remember the names of 10 seniors who come from your state, how are you going to remember the 100 different bacterias, viruses and parasites? If you hate having to find out details about this person and that person, what about having to look up information for the problem-based learning classes?

Yes, finding out 10 things about S.Senior X and 10 things about S.Senior Y may seem rather silly, but why don’t you fellas thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to do things worse than that. 4 years back, we would so gladly accept that sort of assignments as it was considered chicken feet, compared to the vast variety of horrible stuff one could be subjected to. One freshie looked at me in horror when I asked him to find out all the capitals of the states in Malaysia, as when he did not know where I was from, I mentioned that I was from the capital of Kedah, and he had totally no idea what was the capital of Kedah. Did he not learn geography? Was I being unreasonable? I think not…

Anyway, another thing that bugged me about this year’s new intake is that a large sum of them have a terrible command of English. They are unable to sustain a decent conversation in English and keep wanting to switch to Mandarin. One girl looked blankly at me when I asked her how many siblings she had. After repeating my question 3 times, I realised that she did not understand what “siblings” meant. So I asked her, “you ada berapa adik-beradik?” She looked wide-eyed at me and answered, “Empat.” WTH.

Another girl claimed to be a fan of classical music. Out of curiosity, I asked who her favourite composer was. She hesitated for a long time, and finally said, “Senior, what is composer?” I said “It’s the person who made the song.” She said, “I don’t cares the lyrics or who sing the song, as long as the sound is nice, I will listen.” Since when does classical music have lyrics to it?

Seriously. I rest my case.