My First Year at DMC

Last night I had a strange dream. I was lying on the floor in my room quietly. Everything kind of turned into a dream and I was not there any more. I was watching my life from the outside but I was not an active player in it. Everything seemed very strange and unfamiliar. I could not believe that I was in university and that I was with all these people I did not even know. There they were, my classmates at university, my friends in the Thai class and of course I saw my Thai teacher, standing and having a white shirt on. I thought, what was I doing there? Everything in the dream then turned into complexity and I no longer comprehended it. It was gone before I tried to figure it out.

I was up again a few munites later! I thought, what was it and what was I doing there? I remember thinking that I cannot call my school, my department familiar and comfortable places to be as I have been here for 10 months (less than 1 year) and it seems hard to me to call my classmates good friends. I realize that my former life does not exist any longer. What is my former life like? I remember that I really had a great time in my English language part-time class with other 200 students and of course my most favourite teacher, Sean Vit. and I imagine that my life in high school could have been better if I had meant it that way earlier. But in fact, it was not. I dropped out of the class so often. I also remember that I did not like my class-controlling teacher and other teachers as well. It was, to me, like a dark age of the history of my life. Many times before, I had a terrible dream about my 12th grade. I dreamt thatI was and would always be in the 12th grade. Oh,Gosh! When I got up again,I found my body sweat and shake because of fear while asking myself if I would really go to my class of the 12th grade the next morning. Obviously, I found myself scared of this period of my school life. How horrible!

However, now I am rather happy that the former life is all over. I come to realize that my life five years ago was really different from my life right now. It was when I entered my department(DMC), that I knew I was so scared but hopeful that something terrific, something magically blessed would come to life soon. I could not look at everyone I met there in the face on the first day. I had to go through 3 stages of the exams the following days in order to be eligible and admitted into the school. I always did my best in the tests that I presumed were not tough but were thought to be by other candidates. The first tests were a one-hour Khmer writing and another one-hour English language testing exam; the second test was, if my memory serves me right, a two-hour general knowledge English test while the third one was an interview. I was interviewed by Mr.Teang Sopheak Vichea, the co-director of DMC; Mrs. Eva Rhode, a German lecturer at DMC; Mr. Wofgang Mayor, President of Konrad Adaneur Foundation; and Mr. Reach Sambath, Spokesman of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The cool air inside the interviewing room turned my hair and so I was numb with cold and fear. I could hardly know them and what I was doing there. I was sort of a rude person with no emotion like smiling shown at that time. I spoke English with them, unfortunately, with some horric difficulties and did have a go at impressing all of them. But I thought I failed to do this. Of course, some days later I went to see the result. I passed among 30 students!!! For some reason unknown, only 28 students including me were admitted into the first year DMC class. Some others reportedly overstepped the legal boundary as they received one scholarship from some university before; therefore, this second scholarship offering was rejected by the head of Department of Media and Communication. They could never study here unless they gave one scholarship up.

About a year later, I found myself there again. What did I learn for these two semesters along with other 27 friends? I feel that I have learned a lot about my subject and that my knowledge has been broadened as well. Further, my marks over the 2 semesters are the highest among my classmates’ but I know that it is nothing to pride myself in because my mark is just 85% out of 100% of the whole scores. I’m happy about my recent state of mind because I have done my level to complete all the tasks, despite some difficulties. So, I must give a lot of credit to my teachers, my friends and myself for updating my brain and knowledge. :). Knowledge accumulating takes time, patience and efforts and I must admit I did not spend my first year at university in vain at all. Everything I knew and studied was really worth getting to know. All the subjects are just fantastic because they have helped transformed my thinking. All the teachers are strict, nice and not easy to trifle with but I like all of them. They have trained me hard, entertained me and educated me in all the subjects. All my friends have spent their time with me, joking with me, jerking with me :(, mocking at me, and calling me “Queen of Laughter”. I had laughed a lot during the lessons in class. My laughter could make them bored and happy at the same time if I could maintain the tone of my laughter. Some of my classmates had tried to overtake me in the class but they couldn’t. Nevertheless, it was fruitful because their efforts had scared me and pushed me to learn harder at school and at home. I’m feeling comfortable and expecting to be with them in the next 3 years to come. I, somehow, am being surrounded by different people. Everything works out very well with diversities of ideas, ways of lives and heart.

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