Friday, November 9, 2007

Batch Nomenclature

"Hang batch mana?"

"Saya batch 45."


"Huh? Sekolah kita mana ujud lagi tahun 1945. Hang budak MC ke?"
"

'Tak. Batch ke-45, STAR"


(I scratch my head while trying to do some quick mental arithmetics.)


"SPM tahun 2004?"


"Tak, tahun 2005."


I was about to argue that if you take into account people who started life in STAR in remove class then they would be the 46th batch (or is it the 44th?). But then, life is short. So I just made a mental note that junior Starians take a sequential numbering approach to naming their batches.

I think it is already a STAROBA convention that batches should be referred to according to the year they were in Form 5. This way, there is an immediate appreciation of how junior or senior someone is rather than put us old folks through the trouble of calculating where we are on the seniority timeline. Of course, exceptions have to be made for the 1st and 2nd batches.

Then there is the other issue of how to use the year in question to refer to the batch. My batchmates often refer to ourselves as ‘Batch 86’. I'm not sure whether we are using this in the English or Malay sense. It seems to me that it's Malay since the adjective comes after the noun. Or perhaps we are using it in the English sense not unlike how vintage wine is referred to by the year the grapes are grown. Sauvignon Blanc 1986, sir? Perhaps not, considering our lack of finesse.

The other way to refer to batches is by using the preceding coinage 'Fivers'. For example, the boys who organised this year's OBW call themselves ‘Fivers 1987’. I think this is a cool way to describe batches as it immediately denotes that it is the year one was in Form 5 that is relevant (in case people think that it refers to the year we joined Form 1). I’m not sure my batchmates would want to call themselves ‘Fivers 1986’, though. Resistance to change and all that.

There are other variations. ‘Star959’ (boys who were in STAR from 1995 to 1999) comes to mind. Marks should be given for creativity here but this gives rise to confusion (for us old fogeys), unfortunately. Besides, how would the year 2005 5th Formers call themselves? Star015? Another one is ‘Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Ipoh: 33rd Edition’ (again using the sequential approach). Quite catchy I must say although it’s a mouthful.

I must say that some of the methods of batch referencing are just awkward. For example, some batches call themselves ‘Batch of [Form 5 year]’. I think they must be taking their cue from the American ‘Class of [graduating year]’. I’m not sure it's even grammatically right.

But there are undoubtedly wrong ways to call batches. ‘Batch of 46’ or ‘Batch of 46th’ is just bad English, boys. I’m already confused enough with the sequential referencing so don’t irritate me further with grammatical errors. Don’t let me get started on people who think ‘batch’ is spelled ‘badge’.

So what’s the best way to call our batches? I wish I had picked Mr. Louis Rozario Doss’ brains before I left STAR. Feel free to suggest.

======================================

Note: I'm not Czar! Somebody has linked me thinking this is his blog. (Although if I were Czar, I could get away with writing about lots of stuff.)

======================================

My post on "The Perfect OBW" has been followed up in other blogs:

Starians 94

Matasepet

Hope to generate more discussions on STAR issues in blogosphere. Watch this space.

Also, your comments are needed for next year's OBW. Go to the OBW 2008 blog to comment.

18 comments:

japon said...

Bro,

You are right there should be an agreed ways of naming the group .

However, my group did identfy ourself as Fivers 77. We are a bit unique as entered STAR in 2 different years i.e 1972 and 1973 but endup having our MCE together in 1977.

We had given a deep thought and agreed to name our group as Fivers 77 we had this since 1977.

The arguments :

1. That give a u a clue the year we sat for MCE, and we were 17/18 yrs old.

2. It allows those who enter STAR after LCE felt they are in the same of group that in STAR from remove/form1

3. It allows those who left STAR after LCE still be able to 'link' to their group as they 'should' also sit for their MCE/SPM in the same year

4. For those who enter STAR for HSC should be called Sixer xx.

5. For those who stay for the HSC generally prefer to link back to their Fivers rather that Sixers. As the bonding much harder to ignore.

With all the arguments, we Fivers 77, which took the first honour to organise the OBW in 1977. There on , we can easilly identified the organiser by the year of the OBW and minus it 20 eg. 2007 less 20 equal 1987. Thus F87 And they are 37 years old and had left STAR for 20 years.

20 years , not too long and they are not too old. Still energitic and already hold some position and be able to contribute easily.


As you had said, there are several versions of the naming the groups, we Fivers 77 felt that the groups should be name as Fivers xx or Sixers xx ( i am not worry about this as they are only a few of them as we dont have form six since 80's and look at arguments no 5 above)



my 2 rupiah

Jepun 77

tigerlaneboy said...

bro yazid ..... thanks for the input. very valuable information especially from someone in the batch that started it all! i think the gap between the young and senior old boys is so wide that we can't understand each other. maybe discussions like this would bridge that gap.

Azurah Anuar said...

i think my school alumni use the batch '97 (where year denotes the year the batch sat for their SPM/MCE).

but my batch then started the persatuan tingkatan lima (konon-konon to fight for our rights hehe).

so we call ourselves pertima 97.

somehow we need a naming convention so that it'll reduce the confusion (and also the calculation for people who are weak in maths, like i do).

:)

tigerlaneboy said...

wawa ... i'm assuming your school is STF. i don't know any batch '97 girls as you are way ahead of my time (though some people will say that has not stopped me before). keep returning to this blog. there will be an STF-specific post in about a week's time.

akula said...

Its easier to name the batch by the year that we were supposed to complete Form Five.

Bagan said...

Need your inputs for next year celebration. Kindly visit obw2008.blogspot.com for inputs as well as contribution.
Very soon its going to be ready.

Anonymous said...

akum bro. thanx for dropping by my blog and adding me up. I'll sure add u up. by the way i'm one of those performing that night. Band of 36. Main 2nd guitar. Hehehe..by the way i do agree about the names and addressing ones batch. But definitely a big no-no if you suggest persatuan bekas pelajar tingkatan lima. sangat borang! wakakaka

tigerlaneboy said...

akula ..... betul. sampai pening kepala aku trying to figure out which bacth they are masa buat links.

bagan ...... if you need any events publicised, do drop me a line

mozilla ..... OK. Tell me when u guys are going to perform next. I enjoyed your performance.

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