I remember when I was a student - many many days before computers and game consoles, our favourite after school past time was someone wrote a complex equation on the blackboard and we competed who can solve that one first.
But your English is very good.
It is even better than sloppy native speakers
But I'm Chinese, my father said, "that Chinese don't know how to speak in Chinese?" I mean he wasn't angry or anything, he is just telling me to learn my mother tongue.
To learn another language, one should master his/her mother language. I once was a Japanese language teacher in an English speaking country and this was my personal observation.
@Kedric The problem of learning a foreign language, if you are normally an English speaker, is continued use of the "foreign" language. i.e. if you don't use it you loose it, like Last-In-First-Out memory. In your case you should be immersed in Mandarin and Chinese Bahasa Melayu so that should not be a problem for you. I believe English and Chinese language skills will serve you well in future years.
I studied English on my own since my parents refused to "waste" any money on girl's education. I listened to the English course on a radio for 13 years before be able to speak English. It was a short 15 minutes programme, but listening to it everyday worked a wonder.
When my maternal grandmother was studying, she got a scholarship to study in Oxford, but her family said that a woman is supposed to just get married and have kids.
Such thinking is a menace of many Asian cultures including Japan.
It is changing gradually though. Now we have a female prime minister candidate for the first time in the Japanese history.
It is human nature... no matter the culture, country or how much melanin you have in your skin.
It is interesting to me that the very differences people stereotype show how similar we actually are. The fallacy of Prejudice.
I know many men that act real emotional - and the guys tease them saying, "You are acting like a woman." Yet, it's men acting this way. They don't see the fallacy of the stereotype.
Questioning these assumptions, or even the things we are raised with - are the only course available to overcome these styles of thinking.