Saturday, May 05, 2007
Of Pachyderms and Pacesetting
You cannot imagine how relieved I am that Labour Day finally came around (and past). Finally, after so many days of irregular sleeping hours and beating my body around, a two-day break dropped by to save my life.
Hmm, that sounded so awfully familiar...
So, what's been killing me softly (again)? Lots, actually. Let it be said that I only got around four hours of sleep a night for almost two entire weeks; and I normally need a crapload of sleep to survive!
However, there were two highlights last week which I'd be doing injustice to if I decided not to mention a little something about them:
Saturday 28th April
Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary Trip:
Organised by the Nature Society (MNSM), this trip was to raise awareness about the plight of the pachyderms in Peninsula Malaysia. The participants met up in the Monash foyer early in the morning, before 8am. Of course, as is typical with Malaysians we only left at 8.45, forty-five minutes after the designated hour due to the driver breakfasting somewhere nearby.
The ride to Pahang took forever; the driver took the wrong exit from the highway and we ended up in Bentong instead, a mistake which took quite a while to rectify... Hence the passengers were forced to entertain themselves.
We didn't do terribly much there; first a documentary screening, then a short lunch break, and then messing around with the elephants. I'll let the pictures speak their thousands of words.
And we even donated around RM800 to their cause, because we're that nice.
So after the entire thing was over and we headed back home, I went back to the Business Law assignment I was referring to in the previous post. Slept for two hours from 12 to 2am, back to the assignment... until...
Sunday 29th April
Malay Mail Big Walk with Team Monash:
Yup, Monash Malaysia sent an entire team of people (about 50-strong) to participate in the Malay Mail Big Walk in return for the newspaper's sponsorship of one of MUSA's upcoming events. We even got a dude and dudette from Down Under to help us out, plus a whole bunch of Monash freebies (check out our yellow dry-fit T-shirts)!
Anyway, a continuation from the story above: I continued to work on my assignment until at 4am I decided to read up on what racewalking was really about, discovering the art of hip-swivelling and arm-pumping in the process (which actually helped somewhat during the real thing). By 5am I already had me a little breakfast of a pear and two half-boiled eggs, and decided that I was good to go.
Flash forward to two hours later, it was 7am and logistics were a nightmare. Due to a failed attempt at alleviating said nightmare, I didn't have time to warm up at all before the gun was fired and the participants already walking off. Without another second wasted at thought, I began swivelling my hips and pumping my arms like a madman to beat the crowded mass that tended to build up at the back of the pack.
Thanks to sheer grit, determination and zero training whatsoever, I surprised myself by being the third (I tied with Kim) Monashian to finish the race, with a time of 1 hour 32 minutes! Bloody hell, I was so proud of myself that my ego got inflated to ginormous proportions for a moment or two back then. The worst (and by that, I mean the best) flattery I got was from Elaine (whose face I poked en route to Kuala Gandah; see above) who asked if I used to be an athlete back in secondary school (she was a schoolmate, too).
Ahahahahahaha! Talk about ego-fellatio!
My goofy hair and me.
Kim, who does not have goofy hair. I actually beat him by about, say, five seconds? Heh.
(Most of) Team Monash. Notice that I'm not in there...
The Monash Cheerleading Club. They didn't cheer for me because I finished before they went into position. I felt really cheated that day!
I was this close to shooting myself to end the pain. The laughter further proved my insanity then; possibly another side effect of the goofy hair (besides goofiness).Well, we got goodie bags, a certificate of participation and other stuff. Later I had lunch, then headed home with aching joints, took a long shower and finally slept for a couple of hours.
I only woke up when it was time for choir practice, in the evening... after which I went immediately back to that Business Law assignment which was due the following day.
Thank goodness it's all over (assignment included); now I'm ready to do it all over again, with the MUSA Flea Market, an MPAC fundraiser plus 'street' performance, the Student-Staff Liaison Committee Meeting plus some overdue YDC-related work next week. Oh joy!
Wait a damn minute... Where does my studying fit in all these?!
Pointless Fact of the Day:
I'm still a teenager! For now.
