Monday, October 09, 2006
Post Hell Week 2006
Hell Week is over, and I survived! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but a lot sure has happened in a short period of time. So, in order to make this post less taxing a read, I will be truncating a lot of pointless rubbish (like how we approached people to get them to vote) and talk only about interesting pointless rubbish (the drama!).MUSA Elections Drama
Let me first begin by announcing that the MUSA Elections were chock-full with the kind of drama you might find in a TVB serial, mostly revolving around a certain individual named Daniel Tan, who was running for the post of President in the ACE party (for those who forgot, mine was SPEAK). Daniel made a racist comment on his blog about two months ago, in August, which was later spread round the campus by word-of-mouth and an apparent (I'm not sure about this) petition initiative by a group of students.
Although I am totally against racism and marginalisation, these matters usually do not concern me, especially since his comment wasn't extremely harsh or controversial. In fact, it was just a typical, uncreative racial slur (hey, if you're going to slander someone, at least do it in style). But on the day of the Presidential Debate, when SPEAK's Dahlia went up against ACE's Daniel, a member of the floor went up to the mic and asked the latter about the aforementioned comment.
Active SPEAK members. I hate the way people alwaysmanage to take blurry pictures with my camera.
So we got Taha to take a picture withhis own camera instead.
Despite the hard evidence being circulated, as well as an on-site laptop accessing the incriminating blog post, in true politician fashion Daniel denied the allegations. Of course, elections of any sort will have their political manoeuvring, so his actions were not surprising. What incited the rage of the entire (by this I mean only the active members; there were asses who simply couldn't care less to help) SPEAK party as well as put us at loggerheads with the rest of ACE (where I have a couple of friends) was Daniel deleting that blog post and later lodging a complaint with the elections committee, accusing us of defamation.
Goodbye friendly competition, hello American politics.
Fortunately, a show cause meeting (whatever that means) with the committee proved fruitful thanks to the large amount of evidence supporting our case, leading to the eventual disqualification of Daniel from presidential candidacy (apparently due to dishonest conduct). Personally, I think that the matter would not have been blown out of proportion had he simply apologised for the comment during the debate. Sadly, he didn't, so I guess it's only right for him to pay for his actions.
Oh, and after that, there was a short period where SPEAK and ACE members were busy finding fault with the other party, complaining to the elections committee about any petty offence of the elections regulations, ranging from campaigning on MSN before campaigning period to buying a soya bean drink outside of campus grounds wearing a campaigning T-shirt. It's stupid and juvenile, but altogether hilariously amusing, really. The elections committee probably thought of us campaigners as no more than little children with fingers a-pointing, tattle-talers of the highest degree.
Considering that we're all university students, it's actually pretty embarassing.
In any case, as of today, Daniel had revamped his blog to remove all evidence (blog posts, visitor comments, etc.) that the entire elections debacle actually occured. Since he bore the brunt of the shit that had occured throughout the week, I guess his final manoeuvre was justified, after all.
YKLS Concert: A Malaysian Affair
Concert was a friggin blast! According to Axcess, as of Thursday we had only sold 57% of the tickets for Friday night and 46% for Thursday night, but Sunday afternoon was sold out (mostly due to the seats we gave out to charity). But when the final hour came, we discovered that the place was sold out completely! For all three shows! Imagine our elation when we came out to sing to people who had spent their hard earned money to sit on the stairs for our show!
Before this, I had thoughts of quitting YKLS next year (after only one semester with them) due to the obscene amounts of driving (or carpooling) required to get to the practice locations (more than 50km every night), but now I am sure that I'll return for another stint there. The experience was just so damn rewarding~
Goodbye friendly competition, hello American politics.
Fortunately, a show cause meeting (whatever that means) with the committee proved fruitful thanks to the large amount of evidence supporting our case, leading to the eventual disqualification of Daniel from presidential candidacy (apparently due to dishonest conduct). Personally, I think that the matter would not have been blown out of proportion had he simply apologised for the comment during the debate. Sadly, he didn't, so I guess it's only right for him to pay for his actions.
Oh, and after that, there was a short period where SPEAK and ACE members were busy finding fault with the other party, complaining to the elections committee about any petty offence of the elections regulations, ranging from campaigning on MSN before campaigning period to buying a soya bean drink outside of campus grounds wearing a campaigning T-shirt. It's stupid and juvenile, but altogether hilariously amusing, really. The elections committee probably thought of us campaigners as no more than little children with fingers a-pointing, tattle-talers of the highest degree.
Considering that we're all university students, it's actually pretty embarassing.
In any case, as of today, Daniel had revamped his blog to remove all evidence (blog posts, visitor comments, etc.) that the entire elections debacle actually occured. Since he bore the brunt of the shit that had occured throughout the week, I guess his final manoeuvre was justified, after all.
YKLS Concert: A Malaysian Affair
Concert was a friggin blast! According to Axcess, as of Thursday we had only sold 57% of the tickets for Friday night and 46% for Thursday night, but Sunday afternoon was sold out (mostly due to the seats we gave out to charity). But when the final hour came, we discovered that the place was sold out completely! For all three shows! Imagine our elation when we came out to sing to people who had spent their hard earned money to sit on the stairs for our show!
Before this, I had thoughts of quitting YKLS next year (after only one semester with them) due to the obscene amounts of driving (or carpooling) required to get to the practice locations (more than 50km every night), but now I am sure that I'll return for another stint there. The experience was just so damn rewarding~
Balqis just had to spoil the shotThe cast party after that was pretty fun, too. It involved the handing out of awards (as voted by YKLS members) of which included categories such as Most Bootylicious, Last Virgin, and Most Jiggiest (I got nominated for this last one!). There were performances by some of the members too.
Needless to say, we created a lot of noise pollution for the innocent people trying to enjoy their meals at Chef & Brew that night. Even the workers there had to stay back late because of us selfish people.
After it was all over, we sang a final, riveting performance of Kenangan Lagenda (a piece from the concert) together before engaging in some dance floor antics. It was then that another member of the choir, who has a background in performance arts, told me that my moves were "Not bad".
*Beams with pride*
For the record, I can't actually dance for nuts, not even my own. My brother (who's really good at it) has especially scathing comments on this subject, so any compliment I receive will be trumpeted to no end.
*Cough*
Let's just say that I'm a pretty happy guy now, okay? And I might post more pictures if and when I get them from any of the other members who don't have shitty digicams.
Accounting Assignment
Gave me less headache than expected... Okay, I admit, I
In any case, I'd like to thank all my Monash coursemates who aided me in the final hours prior to the submission of this assignment. You guys are the bomb!
Conclusion
Umm... Yeah, well, that's about it. Conclusion. Finish! Habis. Thanks for reading.
