By Nurul Amiraa Mohamed Rafic
SERDANG, Nov 18 - "If I was not unconscious at that time, I would have stopped you. It was outrageous as you could have hurt yourself," said Izyani as she recalled the words uttered by her husband who scolded her for her unexpected action in the tragedy that occurred last October.
In fact, she was scolded not only by her husband, but also the neighbours and family members who did not approve of her action.
"Please, I want to go in. I must get my pendrive. It is very valuable to me. All the research data for my master’s degree are in it," she pleaded to a man who was helping to extinguish the fire at her house in Dengkil caused by a short circuit last year.
She begged repeatedly, but when her appeal fell on deaf ears, Izayani made a bold move by pushing her way through the crowd who tried to stop her and rushed into her house.
If she was not determined to get her pendrive, Izayani would not have graduated at the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) 43rd Convocation ceremony today. Tears began to fill her eyes as she recounted the hardship she had to face during the final year of her studies.
She had to re-conduct her research and made major corrections to her research process; as a result, Izyani Raship, 39, took almost a decade to complete her master’s degree in Master of Science in Plant Physiology.
Izyani had to change her research title, add more experiments, correct her thesis and even defer her studies a few times as she had given birth four times throughout the course of her study, yet none of these obstacles managed to break her spirit in pursuing her dream to own a master’s degree.
"After my house was burnt down, I paid the tuition fee using the RM20 notes that I had saved every time I received them since last year. At that time, my husband was on sick leave after he succumbed into a coma due to severe burns. Thankfully, the money was enough to cover for everything," she said.
Now, Izyani is working as a research officer at MARDI, a post she has held since 2004. She said that she would not refuse the chance of pursuing her studies at a PhD level in the same field in UPM if she could afford it, or if she was offered a scholarship in the same field of study. - UPM
