Any reader would have been aware that my blog had been dead for the past few months. With lectures, assignments, tutorials, labs, etc up to my eyes since I step foot in UTP, I barely had time to blog. Hold on, that doesn’t mean my whole life is as mundane as paper and homework without fun. Instead, there are many great events that I can’t wait to post on my blog. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a quick update of my life from in August. Events are mostly in chronological order, although I might forgot most of the specific date.
Chinese gathering
Held annually, this event is to welcome the new batch of Chinese juniors and more importantly, to form new friendship and bridge the gap between the seniors and junior. As the January intake batch, we had attended this event before, and now it is our turn to host this event for the July intake juniors!
Overall, I must admit it was a success. Attendance was great, due to the fact that the July intake has more Chinese students, more than double the number compared to the January intake. It is indeed unusual to see so many new faces here. The events carried on, which then proceed to a few round of lucky draws and games. Sad to say I was stationed outside to collect the entrance fee or as I called it “lifetime membership fee”, so I had missed more than half of the event. Other than that, everything was great and everyone did a splendid job. I’ve even meet an old friend whom I lost contact with after primary school. I never dream of meeting him again in UTP. Before ending this, I must say good luck to all the juniors in UTP, study smart and remember the “skills of survival” in UTP. hehe
Quite a number of juniors turned up
A group photo of all committee members. This year's theme: blue for guys, yellow and white for ladies ^_^
Symphony fest
Music, who doesn’t love it? It is the central of everyone’s life. There are so many variety of music yet it is the universal glue that holds us together. This is what symphony fest is all about. For music lovers, this is surely an unforgettable night and experience. Performances are by:
1. UTP choir
2. UTP Virtuoso
3. UTP Gamelan
4. UTP Chamber group
5. UTP Orchestra Group
6. UTP Orchestra Indian
7. UTP Orchestra Chinese
8. UTP Performing Arts Group
I love each and every group (of course I love my Chinese orchestra the best!). My soul lifted with resonance with the music and songs. The performances are superb! Each group is unique in their own way, there’s no best group or competition here. There’s just the variety of music which made everyone special and important. For solo performance, the soloists are great too. I was especially awed by the two pianists. They are exceptionally fantastic!
Sorry for the shoddy pictures. This is what happen when you don't get the front seat tickets or buy a better camera @_@ There should be more, but I don't have all the pictures. For more pictures, kindly visit steward's blog.
UTP Indian OrchestraOlympic 2008/08/08 8.08pm
Hosted by China this year, the grand opening of Olympic 2008 was truly great and stunning. The time, effort and money that had been put into were worth it. Throughout the Olympic, I’m only particularly interested in badminton. Malaysia won a silver medal in badminton. Congratulations to Lee Chong Wei! Malaysians will surely be proud of you! Olympic draws to an end on 24 August, too bad I miss the closing ceremony.
English Debate
With me, Hon, Steward and Chan naming our group, “The Gang of Four”, we decided to participate in the English Debate Competition hosted by the English Club. We’ve got a very interesting debate topic: “The House will Decriminalize Prostitution”. Since we are the government side, it means that we have to support prostitution as something legal. From a moral point of view, we had the disadvantages. But we managed to come up with some good points too. In accordance to Harm’s Principle, which states that one has the right to do whatever he or she desire as long as others are not harmed. So, a woman has the right to use her body for prostitution if she is willing to. Second, by legalising prostitution, we can reduce rape cases since men, by paying a sum of money, can find a legal way of getting sexual pleasure without raping. Third point, is something about sex tourism which I had no idea what I’m babbling about and I totally blew it. In the end, we lost, but by a very close margin. Others factors that cause our loss include a weak opening with no clear definition, no clear stand, no clear explanation of the role of each team members, my points all scattered and disorganised and a lot more I think. That was a great experience, but I think I prefer to dwell in written text and literature since I can write better than I can speak.
Genting trip
With tons of stress weighing on the shoulders, what better way to unwind than to escape into paradise, even if it is one day? This Genting trip is self-organised by our batch of close friends, with everyone skipping the Friday lecture. We departed on Thursday night, and on my way I realised I had forgotten my jacket. Oh well, prepare for a hell of trouble.
I slept most of the way on the bus, then stayed overnight at a Mac Donald restaurant, then finally arrived in Genting on Friday morning. The weather was fine, just cool and humid, so I thought my no-jacket dilemma was over. But I was wrong! We took a cable car that goes up to the resort. The climb was infinitely high, and the view was spectacular and breath-taking. But at the same time, it was getting colder! By the time I reached the top, it was bone-chilling. Thankfully after a while I get used to it so the cold didn’t hamper me from having fun at the theme park.
I tried everything that I had not dare to try in my life: turning 360° on a roller-coaster, dropping 100 miles from space-shot, flying on a spinner and lots more. I realised the ghost house still frightens me, spinner is a horrible nightmare that make me wanna throw up, and space-shot is not as scary as I imagined. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it the most, although most people would say it’s the scariest.
At night, we spent the rest of the time shopping and playing in the indoor theme parks. Some rides are quite relaxing such as the water boat ride, flying boat ride, and Ferris Wheel. The most fun, however, would be the Bumper Car! It’s the only time where you can drive a car and not worry about accidents. Instead, knock their breath away by driving straight into their cars! We’ve played a few rounds before being satisfied. Then Steward, Chan and I went to Starbucks Coffee and I ordered my most expensive drink ever in my life. Oh well, it’s only once in a while. We decided to call it a night, then went back to our room and chat for a long time before finally hitting the sack.
We spent the whole morning travelling and finally arrived in UTP by afternoon. It’s time to go back to reality and meet more assignments and lectures. Well, that’s life in UTP. The Genting Trip was fun and enjoyable and it was good that we can get out once in a while. If there’s another trip, don’t forget to count me in!
Not many pictures here. Most action-packed rides are in video format.
Cable car view. That will be a nasty fall...
Outdoor theme park
Indoor theme park
Group photos
My birthday (Double bash)
Just so you know, 18 August is my birthday. Don’t worry, this is not the part where I will tell you I’m covered with eggs and yucky stuff. I was fortunate enough to dodge the UTP tradition in which every birthday boy or girl must be taunted by throwing eggs and water on the person. My inbox was buzzing with new messages that night with lots of friends and my family wishing me a Happy Birthday. Then, I was tricked downstairs supposedly to order a hamburger for supper. Then out of nowhere a pail of water was thrown over me. Well, almost. I was fast enough to avoid it. So they had to try better next time (or next year). Still, I appreciated their time and efforts in celebrating my birthday. Thanks a lot!! You guys really made my day special.
My birthday was not over yet. Yup, it’s a double birthday bash. One with my friends, one with my family. My dad came to UTP for work purposes for a few days and it was such a coincidence that my birthday is one of the days. My dad took me out for dinner that night, and it was truly great to see my dad. We had so much catching up to do. He would tell me what’s happening at home while I’ll tell him about my UTP life. We got lost while finding the hotel. I was no help since the place seemed unfamiliar to me as well. The only places I’ve visit in Ipoh is Jusco and Ipoh Parade. Haiz....
For my birthday presents I got:
1) A very expensive dinner in Sushi King
2) A 3-in-1 scanner plus printer
3) A big ‘angpau’ from mom and dad
But the most precious present of all is the time I’ve got to spent with my dad. Thank you so much! You and mom are always the best!
By the way, since I’m legally 18 now, there’s a lots of things that I can do and can’t do. Yes, being 18 means changing into an adult who is more mature and wiser in thinking. But changes aren’t easy, and I can’t transform into someone better in just one day. It’s all about time and experience that I gained through life which will ultimately shape the person I desired to be in the future.
Performance in Convo fair
Perhaps inspired by the last Symphony Fest, I decided to take part in this year Convo Fair Chinese orchestra performance. We had to practise almost every night from s early as 7pm to as late as 11pm. It’s been a long time since I last touched my Er Hu so I practising was slow and difficult for me since I had to start all over. I managed to master just almost 2 songs out of the many songs. Other Er hu players are way better than me and the gap is evident. No doubt, I still give all my best during the night’s performance. Everyone did great even though I feel we are a bit unsynchronized at the end. We end the performance followed by a huge applause from the audience. It rained heavily that night right after we finished performing. I was stuck for more than one hour before the rain finally ceased and I went back to my hostel, exhausted, but no doubt happy with the performance that night.
Gua tempurung and Kampar trip
OK, it was another typical boring afternoon. Suddenly, Jonathan suggested that I went to Gua Tempurung with them, the other consisting Michael and Graham. Four person on a trip heading towards the middle of nowhere on a hot lazy afternoon? No way I’m going. But after second guessing, I do have the time to spend, and it’s the first time I actually went into a cave, so in the end I agreed. The driver was Graham and he “CAN” be a good driver. He can drive and manoeuvre the car perfect but he like road thrills so we had lots of "thrilling" experience on the way that I won’t dare to elaborate with details. We reached Gua Tempurung after about an hour drive. The cave is cool and humid, totally unlike the hot afternoon weather outside the cave. We saw lots of cool and intriguing rock formation that resembles the shape of humans and animals. Then there's nothing more to see. We took a few photos and left.
Next, we went to Kampar and there’s a shop that specialise in selling CB aka Chicken Biscuit. ‘Interesting’ brand name I must say, but the taste of the biscuit was really unique and delicious. Whoever would have known that chicken meat can be processed into biscuits? After that, Graham went to visit some friends in UTAR. The surroundings are really conducive and beautiful like in the European style country. We drove one round to check out the facilities, then we head straight home to UTP. Jonathan and I slept all the way back. Was the car ride too smooth or too rough that we had either slept from sleepiness or dizziness?
Tambun trip
A trip to the Lost World of Tambun. On Saturday, a small group of us (Chan, Hon, Steward, Lim, Jonathan, Chin, Serena and me went out for a one day trip to the Lost World of Tambun. It was another fun and exciting experience. Tambun is mostly based on water theme park. We tried everything, the water slides, artificial beach-like swimming pool, and 8 person on a double-tube ride through a channel of water. It was fun and everyone is soaked wet from head to toe. On dry land there’s the nightmarish spinner than I regretted sitting on and the pirate ship that I refused to take after getting dizzy from the spinner. After all the fun and excitement, it’s time to leave Tambun behind. We went to Jusco after that. The rest went home early so there’s 5 of us left. We played bowling which I lost very badly, and we went shopping in Jusco supermarket to buy all the essentials that had run out. We faced a huge problem later trying to find a taxi that will take 5 of us people at one go. Luckily, we still finally made it back to UTP late at 10pm safe and sound.
Merdeka day over…
This brings us to today, which I finally finished updating my blog. Looks like Merdeka passed by without much fanfare or celebration here in UTP. It was like a lonely and silent dessert here due to most people going back home for the holiday. Merdeka feels like just another holiday to me. It’s not that I don’t love the country. I loved Malaysia so much for it was a peaceful and stable country compared to other countries that are in worse condition. Even though there’re constantly some political bickering at times and other problems related to oil price and economy, we people are so lucky that we had food to eat and a place for us to sleep under the roof at the end of the day. This is what Merdeka means to me. Another year of peace and prosperity to the country and people. There’s no need to be fancy with all the flags sticking on top our cars or waving the flags shouting just to create noises. We will know it deep down in our heart if we truly love and appreciate the country. I will end my blog here. Sorry this is such a long post. I don’t have the time to write a short one. :)
1 comment:
wanna tell u~
i nearly die to read ur blog!
too long la==
anyway
seems that u r very enjoyable at utp
so prepare to wait for me at there
hehe
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