TabIe of Contents

1.0 Bibliographic citation

1.1 ntroduction
ntroduction
Biography
1.2 Summary
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Themes
1.5 ssues presented
1.6 Tones
1.7 Critical analysis
1.8 Recommendation


1.0 BibIiographic citation
ow, J. (2010). Behind That Shiny Resume, jotting of a troubled college student.
Singapore, Armour Publishing Pte. Ltd.
1.1 Introduction
Introduction
After searching for numbers of books found something that catches my eyes.
t is written by Jasmine ow. The book title is Behind That Shiny Resume, jotting of a
troubled college student. This book is her first book been publish and she achieve
this at age 21 while she still study for his first bachelor. Lucky to her Armour publish
this book and soon enough it had become one of the bestseller at most of the
bookstore and also being nominated to readers choice award 2011.
Biography
Jasmine ow is one of the best achiever that Malaysia had. She have very
long list of achievement, start with her academic result that is; PMR 8A, SPM 10A1
2A2, SAT1 2320, SAT2 Perfect scores in mathematics, chemistry and physics.
Furthermore, her achievement continues with in debate society at National Junior
Collage up till national champion and best speaker in Chinese Debate Competition.
She also involve in community work such as tutored a selectively mute girl at a
student's care service centre and collaborated with officer from Tan Tock Seng
Hospital to organise a CP project.
Jasmine ow continue his passion in writing after she finish her A level at
National Junior Collage Singapore under ASEAN scholarship in year 2007. She now
is continuing her study in journalism at one of the top collage in Malaysia. She had
experience lots of trouble to be a person that 90% will be achieving winning in each
competition or in academic, but soon enough she also appear to face trouble from
the mighty. She had been diagnose to have Cylothemia bi polar that cause such
trouble in his life especially when she at the end of the A level.
1.2 Summary
ow, a Malaysian high-achiever resented her academic genius from a
complicated and lingering clinical teen depression that stubbornly stayed the course.
She would learn to celebrate life again. Her Christian testimony eventually evident
and coined from the onset of heavenly love & healing; of which this present student
of journalism professes with great expectation towards the end of her story. ow's
tender story derives its beauty from a brutal honesty told through caustic speech &
steely perceptions. Her efforts are almost methodized in her many dislikes and
resentments of the ordinary as much as she stays idealistic for what one may only
assume to be an elusive eternal beauty. Her thoughts and little essays are
painstakingly structured and well-regulated in a way that stays obvious of many
feature journalists in the presentation of tidy articles. She also seems doubly sure in
the way of cynicism although she would later reproach her own initial thoughts with
virginal meditations of love and joy.
However, the book is heavy with emotion and be warned that this sometimes
starched content may easily draw on a slight listlessness for the reader not as
familiar with the subject of depression or of ow's fearless, candid lessons measured
from hindsight. Still, in the light of a willing party, there is much wisdom to be learnt
and philosophy built from society's cultural values and traditions may take a sound
beating. There is no doubt that Jasmine ow's story although narrated starkly and
early in youth, is one that signals a necessary, industrious hope for a highly-
promising writer whose resonant voice stays becoming against an urgent timeline
measured with the studied if not threaded silkiness common of a spider's lovely web.
1.3 Purpose
ow wrote the book that presented in diary type of writing is very intelligent
and interestingly to reed. The purpose of the writer can be conclude as first to tell
readers the feeling of loneliness and how this can affect your life as whole. The
writer writes back all her memories into diary that come with very detail explanation
and reflection from the new ow. Every new chapter the story move into something
new, the story start to play with reader's emotion. Next to it is to share experience of
her achievement and her experience study at other country. Here she reflects back
the way Malaysia education and Singapore "students here learn about globalisation
in Sec Three. What did we do? Personal letters to friends describing places of
interest in our hometown at secondary education. The third purpose is to share with
people about depression and how this cause trouble to everyone. Depression is not
something that can be cure by taking medication only. Depression is one of the
enemy to people that are putting their mind into tons of pressure and then suddenly
they happen to lose hope and lost their ability to judge good and right " to a dear
person who suspect spreading yourself out on the floor can cure unhappiness.
1.4 Themes
Behind that shiny resume bring to the reader themes of hope, sense of self,
god and spirituality and isolation. The themes are distributed as various parts. First
theme of hope, hope to rebound is what the writer try to achieve here in her writing.
She bring a lots of story that reflect how cruel the world to herself. She need hope to
push his mind out of delusion and out of the world of depression. From the author
point of present reflection the readers will notice how happy she is when she had
pass the worst moment in her life. As person that the goal is to achieve a good result
and be a person that exceed everyone expectation she need a lots of hope as
pieces to bring happiness. Hope here also reflects back the way she wants to
rebound from the mistake that she makes.
God is one that we will but faith on. God also will always be the last result for
us as human because after what we had done in our life the one that bless it is the
god. Here the authors bring the story how she blame Jesus because give her a
miserable life that cause him to feed to depress. From the book also we can see that
she rebound back to become a batter person when he notice that god is only helping
her by giving his lot of chance and give her a family that not all people have. "Thank
you for seeing me through my JC2 year. ou promised that you would never
abandon me especially in though time, and although didn't feel you all the time.
The last time that connect to those two are sense of self. Find the strength
from within are hard to some people. There is lot of trouble that people will face in his
whole life. People do believe in their instinct but sometimes there is also a doubt that
causes people to change. Strength from within can be only be set when we start to
believe in god and we have hope in something especially in our life. The authors
bring the sense of strength in this book when she starts finding her strength back to
rebound and to believe back on his religious. f there is no strength from within her
body may be she already at place that she continue to feel depress ", Jasmine ow,
have decided that from this day onwards, need to start exercising one of the
weakest muscles have right now: my will.
1.5 Issues presented
ow books had brought a whole new perspective about life as an excellent
student. Before this people only know about how people study to excel but by
reading this book the author bring the problem that excellent student happen to face.
Not every excellent student have good luck and happy life, they are also human so
that might facing bigger problem to be compare with normal student that live as there
is nothing to worries. ssues that ow presented in this book are; depression,
education and friends.
The main issue that are being discussed in the book is depression. As an
excellent student ow had push her body to a limit that unfortunately cause her to be
diagnose as person with bi polar mood swing. The main discussion about depression
is how she reacts and people surround her react to this problem. People tend to put
depression as a minor problem because they think they can control it.
Next is the issue of education. As a student we are prepare to face lots of
assignment, course, project and also social service, but one that the education lack
is to introduce us to how the world move. The education that being given in Malaysia
are said to be so much difference to fully develop country. As ow compare the
education in Malaysia and Singapore show that our students still learn about festive
season at age 15 but at Singapore the student already learning about globalization
and about life as a community "in fact, their education system teaches and
encourages them to care about their community.
Third issue that ow bring into the book is issue of friends. How friends affect
us and how friends can change people to be somebody. ow had lots of story about
her friends. Start with chapter of roommate "lunching with Emile and Xu today, we
were talking about how we have influenced each other's live. The story of friends
goes on within other chapter. ow also bring the story how friends can be best mate
and friends also can be the devil that teach us to do something nasty.

1.6 Tones
ow writes a lot of story of herself in this book. Some parts of the book
especially when she talks about her depression she will use angry or mad as her
tone. As like this sentence " eah. all these people with yellow pom-poms in their
hands. get so, so mad want to swear at them. She also shows her emotion that
she mad at something or someone when she have problem especially with her
mother or her friends. "Are five lines enough for you buggers to get the message?
ALREAD KNOW! Besides both of the story she also mad when her father tells her
that she need to pace in studies "so you're accusing me of not pacing myself, huh?
have tried so hard, SOOO HARD, to find a balance, and never good enough.
Next tone that occurs in most part of the book is happy. She was very pleased
when she has faith to the got. She feels so happy because the faith that had lost
before had come back with more light. "God has always been and will continue to be
right there waiting for me. Next example that can be brings on is "thank you that you
are not a good of impossible expectation. Thank you that you understand my
weaknesses, and you don't despise me for them. She also show happy tone when
she know that she still got people that always stay at her back to support and give
hope. " am thankful to all the people who helped me survive every single day of
torment. Now, life is beginning to be beautiful again. She also show her happy mood
when she had back the confidence that she lost at Junior College at Singapore. Here
are two sentences that highlights the happy moments. " was confident after my first
month that was going to cope here and " felt more inspired to study and improve
and do new things in this supposedly unconstructive environment.
The author also brings in the tone of sad. ow, paly with this mood almost in
every chapter of her life. She always cried and begs for help " cried and cried and
cried and cried last night. On my mother's lap. She also feels sad when she had to
combat with people words especially when about her body figure. "They borrow my
clothes and are dismayed when they can fit into them because 'm supposedly sizes
bigger than them.
Last but not least tone of disappointed also occurs in the books. She very
disappointed when she did not try to answer the exam at Junior College. "But in
there, didn't try. didn't try at all. didn't even read the question. She also
disappointed when let the depression concur herself. "For despite my overwhelming
list of achievement, sorely lacked stress management skills.
1.7 CriticaI anaIysis
Everybody got problem to face. Everybody have up and down. As for student
there are facing numbers of courses, assignment, and co-curriculum activities to
attend to. Although people see it as a way to have a batter life, but there is problem
coming also in this way. Their problem here are much discuss also in the book that is
education, surrounding and depression that may come as whole or one by one to the
student life.
First is the education. Education is important to let people to be somebody in
this money orientated world. For some aspect education is very important till family
have to push their children so hard till they don't have time to play and enjoy the
world as kids, teenage or adolescence. Education in Malaysia is very politic
orientated. For some people this is okay till the politician did not mix the education
with politics, but for some people politician should pass education to someone that
had put his life as whole in study of education in Malaysia. Here in the book ow
shows us how education in Malaysia is not relevant to the world of globalization.
People at Singapore learn about community and globalization but back here in
Malaysia us still focusing in festive seasons. Besides that, she also compare and
contrast the education system when student here tend to do last minutes worked
rather than did assignment in well planned way. " was also shocked at how last-
minutes people can afford to be when it comes to assingments! Here in the book
also she brings out about how the expectation of our education is much lower than
country that she had been study before. " found the expectation significantly lower
than the expectation placed on us in Junior College.
Furthermore, behinds that shiny resume also bring to us story of people.
People surround us is almost like bacterium. Bacterium can be classified into three
groups that are bacteria that bring goodness, bring harm, and bring nothing to us. As
like people around us, it's hard to find somebody that always bring us happiness,
bring us the laugh, bring us the luck but it is very easy to find someone that will suck
everything from us and leave us nothing. The one that in group of bring nothing is
people as like our schoolmate, officemate because they come to us to talk on
something but happily not to do dis because he got intention to make us happy or
make us feel miserable. People in this book are wide, priest, family, colleagues, and
up to the canteen workers " like the new caterers too. The Kadazan guy Freddie,
and all the Chinese kokos & jiejies. They all play their role in this book. They give us
seductive to live in this world, they bring us a smile and they also may the cause we
feel want to jump from KLCC to end our life.
Last is how education plus with the people surround us can cause depression.
Depression can come at certain stage. t may come early to certain people, and it
also may come at very late time so it all depends on the situation. Here in the book
the main reason she happened to be depress is because the burden of excellent
student to meet people expectation and how the environment did not support her to
be someone that strong and can manage her stress. Every people think that being
an excellent student is the best thing but they forgot about how this excellent student
facing the burden and how stressful their life too meet the family expectation
especially. Some people forgot that stress may come to anybody and it will spark lots
of trouble ranging from, loss of faith in religion, social life, and relationship. Stress if
not been control and balance in our life may cause lots of trouble. As like ow, she
had to take lots of drugs in other to control her problem with stress. She some time
do think like the Jesus are not one that bless here in her life because the stress had
play her mind till her forget that God is the one that give her the achievement that
she had before.
1.8 Recommendation
Books are nice to read when the whole is a collective of ideas and
experience. Behind the shiny resume; jotting of a troubled college student, are one of
book that surely bring a hint to people about life as excellent student. recommend
this book to those people that one to know how hard to be an excellent student and
to every mother and father. This book are good reading material to parents because
it tell us that every child need some space to take a breath and please, please don't
expect too much from them because the more you push them to the limit the fragile
they can be.
Moreover, the book also let the readers learn about depression. Depression is
one of the mountain that excellent student to pass on because of the number of
hope, expectation cause them to push their body to limit and this cause lots of
stress. When the student lost their ability to control it suddenly causes much more
trouble as like the writer happened to experience. She had to face the black day in
her life because she can't manage to control the stress that she pick up when study
at Junior college.
n nutshell, this book is very interesting to read. Behind the shiny resume, is
the book that will change people perspective about depression, education and
people? Although it lack of highlight about thinking critically but at least it show to us
how student think and they make decisions.