Saturday, July 26, 2008
Finally, an update
Yup! Finally, an update from yours truly. It's been three weeks since I last updated, but that's only because I was just really busy during those weeks (in fact, I just got back from the first day of the street carnival Plug and Play Youth Festival), but what else is new, eh? Since I don't wanna be backblogged too much, I'll try (emphasis on try) to make this post a little bit more concise than usual.
Anyhoo.
7th to 11th July 2008 - Monash Orientation Week
First of all, orientation was chaotic but quite worth the effort pulling through it. I can't thank the other buddies (aka student helpers) enough for making the week bearable. You see, I was a Chief Buddy, i.e. somebuddy (har har) who's in charge of leading and delegating work to the other buddies. There were six Chiefs in all, one for each school, except two for Business and Engineering because this semester's intake for those two schools were huge. A Chief Buddy is also in charge of leading a colour house for the MOlympic Games.
Being a buddy for Orientation was similar to those held in recent semesters, so I'll skip that part of the week and go straight to the MOlympic Games.
Remember how I said that to make the MOlympic Games succeed, we have to go crazy with the silly and just have fun? I may have taken it a little bit too seriously because that's what I did as Chief Buddy for the Purple Team, Business Beta; and the first thing I did was to go shopping for cloth at Kamdar with Izuan (Chief for the Red Team comprising the Arts, Science, IT and Medicine schools) to make a flag for our teams. Then we shopped for stationery, facepaints and other assorted materials at 1 Utama.
Yeah, we were two guys walking into arts and crafts stores enquiring about paints, and later into Home's Harmony to look for fabric upon which to use those paints (which we failed to do, but in the process, stopped to admire tapestries). Imagine how gay it must've looked.
Anyway, on Tuesday after orientation activities, I dragged four of my Purple Team buddies (thanks to Adam, Michelle, Neysa and Samantha!) to shop for even more materials for our booth at Mydin.
Still looking gay happy here
And I stayed up til 4.30am onWednesday night Thursday morning making a box kite (so ambitious!) for one of the telematches, a kite flying game. On Thursday evening, after the Transitional Issues and Assertive Skills workshop (will blog on this another time), I tried flying the kite but failed miserably.
Learn to fly
The aftermath
It was promptly dismantled to make way for two more kites that also, unfortunately, did not fly. Woe are us who've never in our lives made kites.
While in the process of making said kites, our exam results were released. They were much better than my previous semester's results, though:
Bloody hell @ the single credit!
For understandable reasons though, the mood at the field where people were busy decorating booths became rather sombre.
Anyway, after all the sombre-ing, kite-making, booth-decorating and flag-designing (yeah, the aforementioned cloth that Izuan and I bought were for flags), the buddies and I got ourselves dinner at Kim Gary in Sunway Pyramid as a pat on the back after a hard week's worth of work.
Me, Adam, and (Ms) Edwina from Student Community Services
Michelle and Neysa
My awesome Double Cheese-baked Rice with Unagi and Abalone!
And nwe finally arrive at D-Day, the MOlympic Games itself! The day began with the final touch-ups on the Purple Team's booth, as well as applying facepaint on our members, buddies and freshies alike.
Preparing Edwina as the team's mascot
Purple Team's most helpful freshies
I ended up being the only one with facepaint actually applied on my face. By the way, Barney was our unofficial team mascot. He gives Edwina the power to grant PTPTN Loans
We even had a flags and oath taking at the opening ceremony, led by Yung Lin from the Green Team (Science). While waiting for the Pro-Vice Chancellor to come on stage and give his speech, the teams began engaging in a war of chants and cheers.
The Purple Team's was (my silly creation, as usual) "Barney loves you but we'll... CRUSH YOU!"
Yung Lin even said "Dum" several times to imitate the sound drums make as an indication of when to raise and lower your hands/flags for the oath-taking. Funny shit, that
The opening ceremony ends with the event being officiated by the PVC, releasing a few hundred helium-filled balloons into the sky. Being somewhat of an environmentalist, I insisted not to release about 15 of the purple balloons given to us...
And the games kicked off! Some were simple, like the Human Structure game:
The subject was "Sweet", and we made a lollipop. Notice how we're all shading our eyes from the sun
Some were simply frustrating, like the Kite Flying game:
Even the RM3 flag we bought from Mydin couldn't fly
And some were just for fun, like the Admin vs Student Council Tug-of-War:
The odds were unfairly stacked in our favour by virtue of sheer numbers
Unfortunately, I don't have photos to some of the funner, odder games, including the hilarious Blindfold Football and the physically intense Frisbee tournament.
Because the Purple Team was one of the smallest teams despite the huge School of Business intake (bloody lazy Business students!), a lot of our members played in multiple games if time permitted. But the most important thing was that we had fun.
Or so I thought.
When it came to the prize-giving ceremony, the organising committee voted me the Best Chief Buddy!
My "WTFMate?" expression (complete with hand gesture) after finding out that I was Best Chief Buddy, and after being drenched by enthusiastic friends armed with waterguns
Even more surprising was when Purple Team was named the overall champion of the very first MOlympic Games!
The Purple Team members
I suppose once again I have to eat my words for lambasting the initial idea of this event; the last time my predictions were wrong and I was this pleasantly surprised was at the Welcome Back Party. Then again, I also predicted that the event will be a smashing success so long as we go all out with trying to have fun.
What can I say? We were really just trying to have fun.
Anyway, watch out for a flurry of updates from me as I squeeze time to blog about the other two weeks missing from this blog.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Over a year ago, I commented on annual inflation rates in another one of my Pointless Facts. Malaysia's was 3% to 4% back then, but thanks to the recent fuel price increase, it has shot up to 7.7%. Also, my (everyone's?) favourite failed state in the world, Zimbabwe, had its inflation rate at a whopping 1700% back then. How about today?
It has shot up to a freaking 2.2 million% just recently.
In fact, inflation in Zimbabwe is so bad that Mugabe's government released a 100-billion-dollar note to alleviate the problem of having to carry too much cash when buying items in the cost of trillions of Zimbabwean dollars.
It must really suck for Dr. Evil if he threatened Zimbabwe in Austin Powers 2 instead of America.
"One hundred billion dollars!"
That's because one ringgit is already equivalent to 5.7 billion dollars:
Isn't it fun learning something new and interesting every time you visit my blog? That's all from Zhen, being random as hell so you don't have to.
Anyhoo.
7th to 11th July 2008 - Monash Orientation Week
First of all, orientation was chaotic but quite worth the effort pulling through it. I can't thank the other buddies (aka student helpers) enough for making the week bearable. You see, I was a Chief Buddy, i.e. somebuddy (har har) who's in charge of leading and delegating work to the other buddies. There were six Chiefs in all, one for each school, except two for Business and Engineering because this semester's intake for those two schools were huge. A Chief Buddy is also in charge of leading a colour house for the MOlympic Games.
Being a buddy for Orientation was similar to those held in recent semesters, so I'll skip that part of the week and go straight to the MOlympic Games.
Remember how I said that to make the MOlympic Games succeed, we have to go crazy with the silly and just have fun? I may have taken it a little bit too seriously because that's what I did as Chief Buddy for the Purple Team, Business Beta; and the first thing I did was to go shopping for cloth at Kamdar with Izuan (Chief for the Red Team comprising the Arts, Science, IT and Medicine schools) to make a flag for our teams. Then we shopped for stationery, facepaints and other assorted materials at 1 Utama.
Yeah, we were two guys walking into arts and crafts stores enquiring about paints, and later into Home's Harmony to look for fabric upon which to use those paints (which we failed to do, but in the process, stopped to admire tapestries). Imagine how gay it must've looked.
Anyway, on Tuesday after orientation activities, I dragged four of my Purple Team buddies (thanks to Adam, Michelle, Neysa and Samantha!) to shop for even more materials for our booth at Mydin.
Still looking And I stayed up til 4.30am on
Learn to fly
The aftermathIt was promptly dismantled to make way for two more kites that also, unfortunately, did not fly. Woe are us who've never in our lives made kites.
While in the process of making said kites, our exam results were released. They were much better than my previous semester's results, though:
Bloody hell @ the single credit!For understandable reasons though, the mood at the field where people were busy decorating booths became rather sombre.
Anyway, after all the sombre-ing, kite-making, booth-decorating and flag-designing (yeah, the aforementioned cloth that Izuan and I bought were for flags), the buddies and I got ourselves dinner at Kim Gary in Sunway Pyramid as a pat on the back after a hard week's worth of work.
Me, Adam, and (Ms) Edwina from Student Community Services
Michelle and Neysa
My awesome Double Cheese-baked Rice with Unagi and Abalone!And nwe finally arrive at D-Day, the MOlympic Games itself! The day began with the final touch-ups on the Purple Team's booth, as well as applying facepaint on our members, buddies and freshies alike.
Preparing Edwina as the team's mascot
Purple Team's most helpful freshies
I ended up being the only one with facepaint actually applied on my face. By the way, Barney was our unofficial team mascot. He gives Edwina the power to grant PTPTN LoansWe even had a flags and oath taking at the opening ceremony, led by Yung Lin from the Green Team (Science). While waiting for the Pro-Vice Chancellor to come on stage and give his speech, the teams began engaging in a war of chants and cheers.
The Purple Team's was (my silly creation, as usual) "Barney loves you but we'll... CRUSH YOU!"
Yung Lin even said "Dum" several times to imitate the sound drums make as an indication of when to raise and lower your hands/flags for the oath-taking. Funny shit, thatThe opening ceremony ends with the event being officiated by the PVC, releasing a few hundred helium-filled balloons into the sky. Being somewhat of an environmentalist, I insisted not to release about 15 of the purple balloons given to us...
And the games kicked off! Some were simple, like the Human Structure game:
The subject was "Sweet", and we made a lollipop. Notice how we're all shading our eyes from the sunSome were simply frustrating, like the Kite Flying game:
Even the RM3 flag we bought from Mydin couldn't flyAnd some were just for fun, like the Admin vs Student Council Tug-of-War:
The odds were unfairly stacked in our favour by virtue of sheer numbersUnfortunately, I don't have photos to some of the funner, odder games, including the hilarious Blindfold Football and the physically intense Frisbee tournament.
Because the Purple Team was one of the smallest teams despite the huge School of Business intake (bloody lazy Business students!), a lot of our members played in multiple games if time permitted. But the most important thing was that we had fun.
Or so I thought.
When it came to the prize-giving ceremony, the organising committee voted me the Best Chief Buddy!
My "WTFMate?" expression (complete with hand gesture) after finding out that I was Best Chief Buddy, and after being drenched by enthusiastic friends armed with watergunsEven more surprising was when Purple Team was named the overall champion of the very first MOlympic Games!
The Purple Team membersI suppose once again I have to eat my words for lambasting the initial idea of this event; the last time my predictions were wrong and I was this pleasantly surprised was at the Welcome Back Party. Then again, I also predicted that the event will be a smashing success so long as we go all out with trying to have fun.
What can I say? We were really just trying to have fun.
Anyway, watch out for a flurry of updates from me as I squeeze time to blog about the other two weeks missing from this blog.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Over a year ago, I commented on annual inflation rates in another one of my Pointless Facts. Malaysia's was 3% to 4% back then, but thanks to the recent fuel price increase, it has shot up to 7.7%. Also, my (everyone's?) favourite failed state in the world, Zimbabwe, had its inflation rate at a whopping 1700% back then. How about today?
It has shot up to a freaking 2.2 million% just recently.
In fact, inflation in Zimbabwe is so bad that Mugabe's government released a 100-billion-dollar note to alleviate the problem of having to carry too much cash when buying items in the cost of trillions of Zimbabwean dollars.
It must really suck for Dr. Evil if he threatened Zimbabwe in Austin Powers 2 instead of America.
"One hundred billion dollars!"That's because one ringgit is already equivalent to 5.7 billion dollars:
Isn't it fun learning something new and interesting every time you visit my blog? That's all from Zhen, being random as hell so you don't have to.
Zhen was here at 2:04 am,
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Saturday, July 05, 2008
List of Stuff That I Have to Do: July 2008
Well, this is just an update while I'm still rather free before things go apeshit for almost the whole of July. You see, Monash's Orientation is just around the corner, and historically, the first few weeks of classes as well as the middle of the semester tend to be packed with the most activities.
But before I go to my usual "List of Stuff That I Have to Do", let's recap the holidays ever since my last paper ended on 20th June:
But before I go to my usual "List of Stuff That I Have to Do", let's recap the holidays ever since my last paper ended on 20th June:
- Played and completed MGS4 (whooo!)
- Met up with ASEAN Scholar and high school friends a couple of times
- Failed to go to Cameron Highlands
- Played and completed LEGO Indiana Jones
- Went to hike Bukit Tabur... but it rained about 40 minutes in
And that's about as interesting as my holiday got. In fact, out of the 23 days between 20th June and 14th July when classes begin again, I have spent and will spend a total of 14 days in uni. Talk about slaving yourself to your (and once again I remind you, a non-paying) job.
With that out of the way, let's move on to the List of Stuff That I Have to Do (for the month of July 2008):
With that out of the way, let's move on to the List of Stuff That I Have to Do (for the month of July 2008):
- 7th - 10th: Orientation Week
- 11th: Monash 'Sports' Carnival aka MOlympic Games (groan...)
- 12th - 13th: Eventide Prerelease (whooo! Yes I'm still a geek at heart)
- 12th: Young KL Singers Live on Stage aka Talent Night(?)
- 14th - 17th: First week of class, and period of non-activity I can appreciate
- 18th - 19th: Orientation Bash: Camp at Bentong (hopefully this is good)
- 20th: Student Council meeting
- 21st - 24th: Clubs and Societies Week (hopefully my last one as MNSM president)
- 24th: Monash Sunway Campus 10th Anniversary Gala Dinner
- 25th - 26th: S Factory Street Carnival (really, really not looking forward to this one)
Jam packed is all I can say about this July. As for why I'm not looking forward to the terribly named MOlympic Games, it's because I find it a complete waste of time on the Student Council's part and money on the Admin's part. This is the first time ever that I hear of a university forcefeeding its student body with an activity that will most likely fail to a certain extent.
Sports carnivals are something you do in highschools, and occasionally, in university. Sports carnivals in which you don't actually play sports but rather, telematches, are something you should keep out of universities entirely. Especially if they're only two to three hours long but take up so much manpower (slave labour more like it) and money (thankfully, not the Student Council's money or the Admin will have an incredibly irate treasurer up their ass) and will only cater to a select few people who just might appreciate it.
I hope I'm wrong about this, like I was with the Welcome Back Party. But I heard that some people have come up with the idea of making us do things like a march-past as well as an oath before the games, and I'm more skeptical than ever.
Unless maybe, just maybe, because we realise that this event is silly to begin with, we just go crazy with the silly and not take the whole event seriously at all. Now that just might be fun.
As for the rest of the stuff that I have do this month, I'll blog about them as they occur. It's time to hit the hay for today.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
For some reason, whenever I'm in the car with Izuan we spot vehicles with funny things written on them.
Sports carnivals are something you do in highschools, and occasionally, in university. Sports carnivals in which you don't actually play sports but rather, telematches, are something you should keep out of universities entirely. Especially if they're only two to three hours long but take up so much manpower (slave labour more like it) and money (thankfully, not the Student Council's money or the Admin will have an incredibly irate treasurer up their ass) and will only cater to a select few people who just might appreciate it.
I hope I'm wrong about this, like I was with the Welcome Back Party. But I heard that some people have come up with the idea of making us do things like a march-past as well as an oath before the games, and I'm more skeptical than ever.
Unless maybe, just maybe, because we realise that this event is silly to begin with, we just go crazy with the silly and not take the whole event seriously at all. Now that just might be fun.
As for the rest of the stuff that I have do this month, I'll blog about them as they occur. It's time to hit the hay for today.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
For some reason, whenever I'm in the car with Izuan we spot vehicles with funny things written on them.
I'm not censoring this one because he obviously wants his number to be known.
You can call this guy up for a shag! Maybe if I put my number on my car like he does, I might get to see some action myself.