KAA - 5 Years of High School Memories

Assalamualaikum and hello!



Now that Uni is going to start, I have approximately a month left before venturing to the next crucial phase of my life. Hence, I’m trying to write more frequently so that my blog wouldn’t be too empty when I’m busy with my foundation year later.

Alright, this morning, I’m accompanied by the sound of calming rain pouring down greeting the early birds (not an early bird but I’m lucky to be one today), a full cup of hot tea to become the warmth to the cold morning, a piece of my favourite croissant that dad bought upon coming home from work because he knows I need to eat one every morning as my breakfast, and the spotify playlist playing the OSTs I loved, it’s playing Sori by AKMU Suhyun from Mr. Sunshine now.

With the great combination to start the day, I’m going to reminisce my good ol’ day as a Kelas Aliran Agama or KAA student in my high school for 5 years.

So, where should I start?

It was during the end of 2014, I was 12 years old, just ended my primary school life, that my mom asked if I want to take the test for KAA in the high school I’m going attend the next year. And I was just like ‘okey I will’. That time, I never wanted to be in KAA, I only know that it’s a ‘special’ class with extra subject of Arabic, and I despise Arabic that time. Why? Ermm, my previous Ustazah in my primary school was too strict and scary that makes me hate the subject lolol.

Ok but anyway, I didn’t study for it, i mean, who does? i see no one studying before the exam (this is a bad guide #dontfollowus hahaha). I was only skimming through the few first pages of the reference book of UPKK during the morning of the exam. Then I answered the exam, both writing oral test, and waited for the test result for a few days.

Dad went to check the results and, my name wasn’t in the passed list. And I was, ‘okeyh’. Like I said earlier, I didn’t care about it nor that I want to be in that class. And my parents didn’t care about that too so, ‘okayh’.

But me as a curious cat, messaged my friends from my primary school who took the exam too via Facebook Messenger. And guess what, all of them were accepted except me.

Welp.

I was feeling quite embarrassed. Knowing that I’m the only left one is NOT cool, well that’s according to my old immature proud little self back then haha. But yeah it does feel quite terrible to be the only one not passing in something you took together :’)

   

Fast forward, I started my high school life. Because I’m a foreigner, my name wasn’t put in the list of the class distributions in the first day of school (which is weird because I’ve registered earlier long time before???). My dad asked one of the staff or teacher idk I can’t remember, which class I’m going to be in, and she said 1E which is the last class. And I was like ‘uh okayyh’ . Thankfully we went to the school office and the secretary told me to get into 1 Bestari, which is the class for those who got straight As in UPSR, thankfully, that means i would not go through changing class again after this.

The first month, I was having an okayh life of high school, still struggling to make friends and adapting with the new environment. Though I still remember how exhausting and hectic was the orientation week, that first week of school was very tormenting that I felt like quitting school :’ i think it was the first moment i feel so stressed out and depressed to be in school in my entire life.

So, all form 1 and form 2 students are supposed to be having school in the evening session (this is normal at Malaysia, to have 2 session of school because most schools couldn’t provide sufficient classes for all forms) excluding KAA. But we were lucky because the school decided to let us, 1 Bestari students to be in the morning session of school yeyhh!! And because of that, we often meet 1 KAA students because we were the only form 1 classes in the morning session.

1 and a half month passed by, when suddenly an offer message to enter KAA class slid into my message inbox.

Ummm wait what?

Told mom and she said it’s up to me if I want to accept it or not. I was torn between. I still don’t have any interest to learn Arabic (I was relieved before to know we’re not going to learn it and only KAA students will have to lolol). I asked my close friend in 1B for advices, and she told me to just accept the offer because there’ll be many advantages for being in that class. Well, that’s true and very obvious though. I’ve been envying their class because they get to have a permanent class which they gonna use for 3 straight years (while us going to change class every year), the class decorations is 😍😍 and the students there seems friendly, and more outgoing compared to 1B 😂

I made a comparison table in a blank notebook. I remembered writing the cons and one of it is that I’ll need to learn Arabic and having class ended later than other classes.

I don’t know what makes me take the decision in the end but, yup, I accepted the offer.

My other 2 1B classmates who already moved to boarding school earlier also got the offer and they accepted it. So we three, along with other few from other classes, enter KAA as the ‘second intake’.

I remembered my first day, it was…. very hectic. I didn’t remember what happened or what I felt that day but it was just very hectic haha. Luckily there are some friendly pals in the class who greeted and helped me so that I won’t feel too awkward. But one thing I remembered is that, it was during my first Arabic class and it was the last period of the day. I couldn’t understand a thing and made a repetitious mistake in making a simple Arabic flowchart table. We weren’t allowed to go home unless we completed it correctly. I tried a few times and couldn’t get it right. And worst of it, I was the only left there, those friends that I just made earlier already went back home.

But luckily, one girl stayed and helped me. If you know her, her name is Izzah. I was VERY VERY grateful that I still remember it clearly till this day. She’s like the saviour of my gloomy and dead-end moment. Thanks to her, I managed to complete it and went home, with the pang feeling of nervousness and feeling very stupid. Yup stupid, I felt very stupid in my first day as a KAA student.

In like 2 weeks later, we have the very first monthly exam. Of course, I did terribly In Arabic because I only learnt it in a really short span of time (justifying my low mark hahahah), I got a C. But thankfully I managed to be in top 3 in the class that time, and top 10 in the entire batch i think? Idk. It was very hard to adapt in the new class, because KAA class have more subjects, classes, works and projects in comparison to the calm and peaceful life in my previous 1B class, it was physically and mentally exhausting.

So, did I regret getting into KAA?

NOPE. In fact, it was one of the best major decision I’ve ever made in life.

The following months and years were full of surprises and funs. I managed to adjust myself better in the class, made a lot of new friends (trust me my classmates are THE BEST HUMAN BEING EVER I’m so grateful to meet every single of them 🥺💗💗💗), becoming braver and more outgoing than my old quite and reserved self, staying late at school to do homeworks and group works, decorating the class, play this and that games with the crackheads in my class, having and hosting an enormous end-year party every year (prepared LOTTA food because all teachers in the school are joining our party too) and of course lastly, becoming a kpopper in the end HAHAHAHHAHA. KAA class in my school is well-knowned to be having a big number of avid kpoppers in comparison to other class, don’t ask me why, I don’t know the reason myself. I got the kpopper virus for being a KAA student lolol.

Of course there are moments when I felt ‘ why did I accept the offer kdvnfwofnw ‘. That was when I was mentally affected with, well, a lot of things. Of course, it was tiring because we have a lot of things going on compared to other class. KAA also bear a huge burden of teachers’ high expectations on us academically and ‘attitude-ly’. We are often compared to other classes for our academic achievements and behaviour. Well the behaviour one is ‘rational’ though because as a KAA student, obviously we need to behave accordingly :’

But nevertheless, it was a fun ride!! My life has been full of colours and surprises. I enjoyed my ‘KAA life’ very much that if I was to be traveling back in time of getting the offer, I would’ve accepted it in a split of second.

I’ve come to love Arabic and Islamic studies by the time passes, and ended up scoring the highest for the subjects most of the time 🥺.  Arabic become one of my favourite subject despite getting A TON of homeworks and bringing a huge thiccc Arabic-Malay dictionary EVERY SINGLE DAY, getting strict punishments for wrong answers and having nervousness running in our veins every time it’s going to be Arabic class because we would get quizzes in every class lolol. But still, it’s very fun and thrilling, leaving me with a bittersweet and an unforgettable memory of studying Arabic with our beloved Ustazah Azlina <3 ( i love her very muchhhh! 💗💗💗)

I’ve also come to like other Islamic subjects, Syariah Islamiah and Al-Quran Sunnah. Actually I planned to drop out of KAA after PT3 because I want to focus to be in Pure Science class, but I glad I didn’t! Even though it was really undoable to be having AND focusing for 12 subjects for SPM, having PDP classes ended on 5:00 p.m everyday, LOT of homeworks and extra classes almost every weekday nights and also on weekend  :’) (but alhamdulillah we get through it askdjdjkdkd)

I reallyyyy love it when we have Arabic Month, because we’ll have many competitions between KAA classes and activities going on, such as Arabic public speaking, dikir arab, kalam jama’ie and hiwar (Arabic dialogue-acting) competitions, *psss my class won the second place during form 1 beating other forms and I was in that team!!!, Arabic souq (where we sell stuffs but by speaking in Arabic!), and lot more thrilling activities!

And lastly, the most prominent reasons why I’m glad to be in KAA class are because, I get to learn the language of Al-Quran, being in the ‘islamic-studying’ environment throughout my high school years, given more knowledge of Islam that I wouldn’t get if I stayed in 1B, creating precious bittersweet memories to be reminisced back in the future, and of course, to be granted a strong bond out of our KAA family.

Yup, a strong bond. I think maybe it’s because we get to be with the same classmates for almost in all of our 5 years in high school that we have a stronger bond with our classmates. We are really comfortable with each other, cracking lame jokes, playing thrilling games, be our own self and exposing our true sides, and overcoming all the hurdles and obstacles together as one. Not only with our KAA classmates, but also with our seniors, juniors and ustazah-ustaz (s). We really feel like a real big family, doing usrah, camping together at school for muhayyam arabi and relate with each other very well (though sometimes we quarrel and fight lmao idk why hahahah).

Special mention to Kak Alia Jafri, for being the first and kindest senior ever for me. I remembered how she messaged me first in Instagram even when I was still in 1B, and we get closer when I get into KAA. She’s one of the reason why I was excited to be in KAA, and try to ace it because I admire her and want to have as a good soul as hers :')  syukran kak Alia! *giving virtual warm hugs  <3

So I guess that’s it? Welp this is a really lengthy-entry hahaha. I literally wrote a 5 year-worth of me rambling random memory of being a KAA student for 5 pages. If you’re reading this till the end, thank you , I really appreciate it ☺️💛✨

The rain has stopped and the tea has gone cold,

Till we meet again in the next posts!

Love,

Heba

(2097 words,  26^th June of 2020, 8:54 a.m)

*currently song playing on spotify; What We Gonna Do by Cosmos Hippie, Cheese In The Trap OST

(pict courtesy of Tumblr, credit to the rightful owner)