Monday, September 06, 2004
Post Orientation
Finally, the hectic pace of the week ends. The week meaning of course M2/04 Orientation Week which had our Respi Exam placed right in the middle of it. But does that stop me from 'orientating' the Puppets? Of course not!
I've breezed through the rest of my fellow bloggers' blog and i can see that many had blogged about that Orientation Week. Each had blogged about their specific events, so here I come to debrief you guys on the Orientation (my point of view) and of course Variety Night, my little baby.
Orientation M2/04
For us, the Orientation started at the start of CVS, when we had our first meeting to organise the Orientation. We had an election to elect the committee members and to decide on the theme of the Orientation. We confirmed the theme of Variety Night and the rules of the Orientation.
Then there was silence as we went on our work, preparing for CVS and Respi. Busy with rotation and stuff, Orientation was like at the back of our mind. Then two weeks into Respi and two weeks left, we realised that Orientation was just around the corner and nothing was done. So there was a full out work to try to organise the Orientation the best we could.
The T-shirts design came out, I helped to prepare it. The booklets were ready for printing, I redesigned the whole thing. I helped in everything, except my own Variety Night. Hehehe... was too lazy to think for it.
The Orientation for the Juniors started on Friday 27 Sept with the meeting of the Orientation Officers (OO) and the Juniors (Jrs). 12 different groups were placed in the PBL rooms to decide on their leader, IMCC, BBQ rep and of course their group names and cheers. The Seniors went around hasut-ing the groups to pick the IMCC that they, the Seniors want.
Monday
Supposed to be studying, but hanged around Food Ave to play Settlers of Catan. Then the groups came to get my signature. I am after all, the coordinator of Variety Night. The first group that came, I sent them away on the white lie that says: I have PBL. Then the next group is Bryan&Thaven's group. Had the jrs form a line and the IMCC crawl between their legs. Pretty sporting group. Would have 'orientate' them more, if not for time-restraint for PBL.
And of course the Event of the Day: ICE BREAKERS! Kudos to Eugene and Audrey who managed to handle the event even thought respi exam was just like 48 hours away.
Tuesday
Holiday.
Wednesday
After Respi, it was full out orientation for the jrs. The m2/03s were on the roll. It started with the Traditional Horse Race, which the Milking Tits won. Then cheer fights and tortures just went on and on.
That night, I went over to Big Siaw's place with Ken Rhee (my partner) to start on Variety Night project. Yup, we only started on Wednesday, thus it is pretty impressive no? We threw ideas back and forth, Ken Rhee, Big Siaw, Richard and me. There were many ideas. Lord of the Rings background with the quest to be the Master of puppets? Medieval storyline with Juniors fight each other? Comical storyline? Till late into the night, we argued it out. Richard went home to sleep, Big Siaw fell asleep, and yet it went on and on.
Thursday
Then about 3.30am (we were still undecisive of what to do, but we had some idea) i received a message from Richard that said: Dont you have clinical visit tmr to Nilai? I was like "Holy-shit!" So I like rush home about 4 and fell asleep. Got bout 3 hrs of sleep and it was the drive to Nilai. Went there and fell asleep at the waiting room as we waited for the guys who arrived like one hour later. We hanged around for another hour before cabut-ing.
Arrived back at IMU and found out that my partner-in-crime had gone missing. We were supposed to be doing the Variety Night thingy together, but he had gone missing. Even his girlfriend couldn't find him. It seems that he had not gotten any sleep the night before and had walked all the way to Puchong from IMU. Talk about insomnia.
But we managed to get him on the phone and we told him to sleep. I'll try to handle everything myself first. So I slaved away on my own in the Student Lounge trying to make ready whatever I could do.
Event of the Day: Treasure Hunt
Wanted to join, but couldn't as Ken Rhee and I had to finish up for Variety Night. We wanted the CKO to print our posters and they had the nerve to said: Sorry, we have a backlog of work, thus cannot print for you guys. Tmr we have to promises. Wahlaueh! When we went there, they were sitting around, shaking legs and they said that there is a backlog of work????
Dismayed, we decided to go to Carrefour to get it printed and at the same time to some shopping. But at the shop at Carrefour, our throat were almost cut. RM18 per poster? Excuse me? In CKO, we just had to pay RM4 per poster!!! We turned down the offer and decided to pray hard for the CKO to be free the next day. We bought papers and blu-tacks and returned to find that Treasure Hunt was a mess.
News were that some groups messed up and some stations screwed up. But it was only miscommunication. Things like this happened. But don't you think that this is more like a treasure hunt? In real treasure hunts (Amazing Race?), you do get lost. You reach the wrong place, you had to make U-turns... so what is the problem? It is the OOs' dumbness that led the group astray, not the committee's fault. So those who are blaming the committee, or intending too... try to look at it from a different perspective.
The Variety Night committee (which consists of only Elena(me) and Ken Rhee) recruited help from Evelyn, Richard and Aravindra to decide on how to put up the backdrop. We had the plans, we just lack the manpower. But then Aravindra, using his power as the President decided that it is time for the Committee to put in effort too.
That night, Ken Rhee and I returned to Big Siaw's place to complete the Multimedia Presentation of the Committees and IMCCs. We worked through the night, searching, downloading, super-imposing and refining our work. Thanks to Evelyn, we managed to find good videos to play. About 3am, Ken Rhee fell asleep, with the msg for me to wake him up at 4am. But knowing that he had not had any sleep the night before, I decided to ignore his msg and just do his work for him. I slaved through the night, downloading videos like crazy while the two guys (KenRhee and Big Siaw) snored away.
Friday
I woke Ken Rhee up about 7, cos I had to go back home to bath and change for PBL, and KenRhee was sprawled on the floor right beside the door. So I woke him up and Soon Liang kindly opened the door for me.
Reaching my apartment, to my dismay, I forgot to bring my housekeys. Having no handphone and no way to contact my housemates, I sat down on the corridor to wait. And I fell asleep, curled up by the door. The lady who comes to clean the rubbish woke me up, asking why I was sleeping there, but I just smiled and went on to sleep. About 8.15am, I heard Adeline and San San going to the lift, so I woke myself up and rushed to get them to call Richard to open the door.
I waited till bout 8.30 when my housemate finally opened the door for me. I quickly went to bathe but still was late for PBL. I arrived at about 8.45am, but was slowed down by a group demanding for PBL. I screamed at them for a minute or so before was allowed to rush into the PBL room.
The moment I entered, silence fell. I swallowed and bowed low. "I'm sorry."
The faci did not even look at me. My PBL-mate continued her presentation and I took the only seat left, beside the facilator. I was dead-meat. I sat there and suddenly the faci just went: "Do you know that in UK, the professors who comes for your tutorials have very limited time? That why the medical students have to be in the classes before the professors come. Blah, blah blah." Then suddenly, without even looking at me, "Why are you late? What is your excuse?"
"I...uh...overslept..."
"That's not an excuse." And she went on again about something that just flew over my head. Come to think of it, I'm pretty good at letting things that I don't want to hear fly over my head. Hmmm...
She asked a few questions like "Where do you stay? Don't you have friends that stay with you?", I gave a few answers. Then she asked, "Why did you oversleep?"
I told her, "It's a long story."
She said, "I don't want to hear about it then."
So we went on with the PBL, which of course I did not prepare. I pulled out notes on respi, which had nothing to do with Aneamia, in an attempt to look like I had notes. I was sitting beside that faci, damnit, and had no notes. I spewed nonsense during the discussions, having the MANNER, but not the MATTER. Debate taught me very well, hehehe... I thought the faci wouldn't realise, but I think she did, cos she made a comment bout it, but who cares???
Sigh, the sacrifices I made for Variety Night.
Then it was all out to complete everything in time. Aravindra managed to get ppl to help out to do the film-reels, while Ken Rhee ran off to organize the presentation. I fumbled with the computer for a few minutes, organizing the IMCC presentation. Then I rushed off to the CKO, and God-is-Gracious, the printer is free and I started printing the posters. In Carrefour, it was rm18 per poster, here, I got it printed for rm4 per poster. So much damn cheaper.
It was surprising how hyper I felt, knowing that I had practically no sleep the night before. I was rushing up stairs and down stairs and in my lady's chambers. It took 2 blardy hours to print 12 posters (the printer was freaking slow) so I continued preparing for the IMCC presentation.
I returned to with the posters at about 4.30pm, the ppl helping out were in the SRC room drinking cendol and chatting away. We did the posters together and everyone was like, "I want this poster, I want that Dragonball, I want that X-men!" But we had fun. Then at 5.30pm, we all went up to the Audi to start the final preparation.
What you guys think of Variety Night, aside from the Juniors sketches? If you ask me, it was pretty much organized. We planned a very strict timeline, planning to start at 7 and end at 12, but it started at 8 and ended at 12.30. So everything was pretty well-planned... NOT!!!!
On the surface, everything looked fine. But below it, I was rushing here and there, Ken Rhee was like slamming everything he had into the computer, and Evelyn and Big Siaw, they were running to and from from Siaw's apartment and Audi. Hahaha. Thanks EV and Siaw! And of course at like when the first IMCC came in, we realised that we did not have a crown and a sash. Holy-shit!
But thanks to the Boss above, everything fell into place the last minute and Variety Night was quite a success, considering that we had about 60 hours to prepare it. During the 10 minute break, Richard and I made up a crown using newspaper and aluminium foil. Hehehe... I promised the Miss IMCC that we would present 'her' a real crown and sash when Reuben returns. Hehehe...
Ok, coming to the issue that were bothering some bloggers. The issue on how the juniors sucked and IMCC being too vulgar. I'll first go on to how the Junior's sucks.
The titles of the sketches are:
Batman
X-men
Ultraman
SouthPark
Thundercats
Popeye
Doraemon
My Little Pony
Simpsons
Spiderman
Dragonball
Excuse me, but the committee is able to make really funny jokes with these titles. Maybe it's because we are the m2/03s. Like I've commented on someone's blog, only certain people like M2/03 can NOT screw it up. The titles are actually alot easier than M1/04s, as that batch had to follow strict guidelines, but somehow, this groups just manage to mess things up.
There is this guy who seemed to be defending group 9 alot, and let me tell you, SouthPark is easy to play about. We asked for a spoof, group 9 practically plagarised the whole movie. I'm trying to defend Variety Night or what, oh hell! yes, I am defending Variety Night! Cos a lot effort has been put into it, and the people that screw it up are the groups.
But thank God for people like Lai Teck and Hiong Chin who manages to keep the audiences alive with their remarks, which is appropriate and well-timed to keep the laughter coming. And the newly implemented newspaper throwing. Man, that was like the funnest event of that night.
"Try to get it into that hoop!"
"10 points if you hit his head!"
"Bet I can hit him right in the face!"
But actually, the newspapers were given so that the seniors can throw the papers at the groups that are over timed, but looks like it is more fun throwing it at sucky groups. The seniors had fun, except of course for certain individuals, but that is only a minority, no?
And unto the IMCC being vulgar. Well, ex-e-cuse-e me! Newsflash! Newsflash! IMCC IS supposed to be PERVERTED and VULGAR!!! If you ask me, I'll say this orientation's IMCC is way way less vulgar than what we had during m2/03 and m1/04 Variety Night. The questions are explicit? Hmmm... wonder which batch's IMCCs had to hump pails and kuali. Wonder which batch's IMCCs had to dance like Britney and Madonna. And you call the questions explicit? The person who said that m2/04's IMCC is more vulgar is blind and deaf and not to mention dumb!
And on a side note. Juniors can't handle IMCCs? Grow up!
Saturday
Did not go. The alarm was supposed to wake me up like at 9.00am, but I was too tired. Guess fatigue had caught up. After variety night, we went for mamak and i started to have signs and symptoms of exhaustion. Blurred vision, dull migraine, stiff muscles, dyspnoea, unorientated, no appetite... sigh... but ended up sleeping for about 10 hours straight. Would have loved to go for the British Bulldog fight.
Heard a complain that committee did not do a good job for telematch as some juniors got lost on the way to the field. In my opinion, it is all the OOs' fault for being dumb and stupid. They have been to the fields during their Orientation, they should know where it is. So the OOs of the groups that got lost, being the dumbasses they were, they are the one to be blamed, not us.
Woke up in time to go help out at Barbecue night. Ivy and Michelle was running all over the place, trying to set up for the night. Most of the guys are still asleep, thanks to the Telematch, so we girls had to help out. The night itself was successful, but poor Ivy and Michelle were so heated up and frantic. And the amount of food left over, it could have fed the whole nation of North Korea.
Another new implement, the dance floor was quite a success too, I would say. We tot that no one would actually use it, but I was wrong, for once. The juniors were relaxed, eventhough they knew what was coming at the prize giving ceremony. And they took it in stride (sth I am very proud off). Sure, everyone got wet, me too. But it was all in the name of fun.
The BOAT RACE was another hilarious turn of events. YeePei was chosen to give the short story of the Boat Race.
"There is this girl, whose name is Christine. She is like your grand-grand-grandmother of this Orientation. But then she died of Leukemia."
"No, I thought she died in an accident!" yelled a senior.
"I thought it was dengue," came another.
"The story is wrong lar!!!" shouted one more.
So in the end, one senior came up to repeat the story. "The great-great-grand father of Orientation is Ong Kok Hai's son. Christine is this girl who died of dengue."
"No, it's leukemia!" bellowed someone else.
And the argument started again.
"Whatever!" the story-teller finally shouted. "She died. And this boat race is to commemorate her death. So let's have a minute of silence."
Everyone lowered their heads, but many were looking at their watches, timing the one minute. But due to some impatient batchmates, at the 20 sec mark, they shouted, "Ok, time's up. One minute dee."
Whoa, talk about honoring the dead, hahaha...
So Orientation M2/04 ended that night with a welcoming speech by the President, Aravindra. It had been fun while it lasted. We had complains, we had unsatisfied juniors and seniors, but we can't satisfy everyone. Seniors complained it was too mild, some juniors complained it was too rough... what the hell, everyone had fun, right?
To those M1/04s who had been complaining, screw you guys. Sure, words are easy to use, but try it yourself. Let's see if the M1/05 Orientation screw you up and down, inside out. Then only you talk, ok? You want to make Orientation less ragging, sure, you make it.
With that, I declared this Orientation close.
It's not the net result that matters,
it's the day to day struggles people go through that makes one's life important.
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