Saturday is going to be a Holiday. Sunday has always been. And by virtue of Saturday and Sunday being holidays, some really nice people decided to throw in Monday and Tuesday for good measure.

I guess things are looking up.

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Hardly sore about the subject of the previous entry. Heh. ANYWAY, Garnet's Evening last week was pretty good, despite the fact that the turnout wasn't as satisfactory as Sapphire's last semester. Garnet did an excellent job with the decor and activities. Congratulations Garnetors! :)

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MABECS came today, giving a brief but informative lecture on Oxford and Cambridge (or collectively known as Oxbridge.) Looks like lotsa people are applying this year. That's good, right ?

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Oh, by the way, about the New College Logo. I have here my own copy of it, based on memory. That means its not 100% accurate, but it'll do. I think. Check it out.

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The second leg of the DoE silver expedition under Mr. Hanson starts today at 12.30. Lets hope I make it back alive to bring you more updates about this college. But just in case I don't; Here are some things to look forward to :

1) Today's assembly where there'll be a presentation on the Computing Job attachment in KYS
2) College Birthday celebrations.
3) Semester Exams
4) Teacher's Day celebrations.
5) Sports Carnival.
6) MUET Speaking Test
7) Annual Dinner
8) Drama King Henry 10th
9) Student Dinner
10) End of Semester Holidays.

While this is not a comprehensive list, it at least highlights the important ones that I do remember (and I usually only remember important things. I think.)

Having said that, it appears I've forgotten to put in A LEVEL EXAMS which is a mere 12 days away. Best song for the occasion : Muse's Time is running out.

My college is a place where there is freedom of speech.

My college is where the community gets along well together.

My college is where the students have an equal say in the running of things.

Ah, wishful thinking.

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Many by now would have heard of the Shout Out - Shout Back incident. It all began when the secretaryman, moi, replied (Shout Back) on the SC notice board to his fellow students' complaints (Shout Out). In merely doing his responsibility (addressing the student's complaints/suggestions/opinions), he inadvertently irked some fellows in the administration by his perceived convictions (or according to them, his accusations.).

This is the controversial paragraph :

"...Ladies and Gentlemen, the College is not as rich as you think. It’s so important that I get it through you I have to say it again, THE COLLEGE IS NOT AS RICH AS YOU THINK. We just barely get by. To be honest, I don’t know where all the money went, be it somebody siphoning money out of the college, overspending on certain BIG projects like a second water tank which is USELESS, big fat pay checks for executives, sky high electricity bills, mishandling of accounts, I don’t know, we’re just not very rich right now. ... Sure we have a right to demand for certain things. But we cannot bombard the admin with an endless list of demands. We need to distinguish between what we NEED and what we WANT. What is necessary and what is a luxury." Click here for the full version.

Now, the reason that they were ticked off so much is not because I made these "accusations" (which I deny. Come on. Have they ever heard of the delicate skill called sarcasm?) but because there exists some degree of truth in them. There have been official complaints and investigations on the dealings of the Bursar (fat. ugly. thinks he runs the college.). So the things I just made up as I was thinking of ridiculous destinations of the college's money were actually (to a certain extent) true. Well, pardon me for not knowing. SO SORRY.

The outcome, I was censored (Pn Rog personally took down the shoutback) and I (along with Zawawi and Akmal, pres and vicepres respectively) had a little session with the Bursar where he explained not without excessive smiling what a nice guy he is. Hah.

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All the shoutouts (little column on the notice board where the students post their various complaints) came down with the Shoutback. They didn't "make any sensitive accusations". So why did they come down?

Apparently Pn Rog isn't too happy that the students are complaining so much about the Administration's (Wardens, IT services, Student Services, Dining Hall) lack of commitment and incompetence. It makes them look bad, she said. When they look bad, their superiors don't give them high marks and they don't get their monthly bonus for a job well done.

EXCUSE ME ? If they're not doing their jobs, then they don't deserve the bonuses. Aha! So, THAT'S where all the money went.

Geez. What the HeLL is wrong with this place?

I say keep the Shoutouts coming. If the complaint is justified, keep posting 'em. You're fighting the good fight.

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Being an SC is a thankless job.

A new chapter has turned in the history of KYUEM. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to announce the new college logo. While I don't have a picture of it, I can at least describe it.

Its a sketch of a book. Dark blue in colour. With the words KOLEJ YAYASAN UEM under it. Can't say I hate it, just need a lil' getting used to is all.

The new logo was presented in today's assembly. This description was displayed beside it :

Design Rationale

An open book.
An open door.
A gateway to knowledge.
This modernistic logo simplified the 'open' concept and is minimalistic in nature.

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Tomorrow the juniors are sitting for their MUET test.
The papers tomorrow will comprise of the listening, writing and reading segments.
The speaking segment will be held later in May.

So tomorrow will be like a pretty long english class. Nothing new. All english classes seem to go on forever anyway.

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And tomorrow night's Evening With Garnet, themed Spooky and Hilarious. A wonderful way to wind down after a day's worth of tests.

Boo!

Day one of college begins with nothing new. Semester exams are 3 weeks away. A levels exams are the the week after. The pool's closed because there's no water in it. To quote (and paraphrase) the notice, "the Bursar's not sure when he can fix that". Man, This is one major water-retention problem.

Its overheard that the college wants to do some maintenance to the pool but doesn't want to foot the bill. I don't know what kind of policy the college advocates, but back where I come from its the person who calls for the service who pays.

Looks like the much-hyped swimming gala will be postponed. It'll be hard to organise it later due to the exams. All our hopes have sunk. In an empty pool.

Sigh.

Here I am (or actually, there I was, since I'm back now.) in our ex-sister school Kolej Yayasan Saad, Melaka (KYSM) . Yeah, you know, the school we used to share a name with right until they decided to give us away for adoption. Seems we were too much to handle. Only financially. I hope.

Physically, the school is larger and more s p a c i o u s. It takes longer to walk from one end to the other. They have much much better facilities. Like a 300m swimming pool. According to a newspaper clipping that they prominently display in the foyer, the pool is the only one in a secondary school in South East Asia.

They also have a fully equipped music room. Enough instruments to make up a whole orchestra. Which, incidentally, they do have. Very well known too, so I heard.

The college's education system is built on these five pillars : Academic, Character Development, Music, English, and Rugby.

Academic : From what I observed, they're really serious about that. Not enough for having school hours which begins at 7.40 up to 4.20 (longer than us, and they're JUST in secondary school! And they also have Saturday classes. So what are we complaining about?), they also have compulsory prep sessions (self-study in classrooms) every evening from 8 to 10.30 pm. No wonder they've been named the top school for SPM and PMR for a few years now.

Character Development : I think this translates to "Get a life". But I could be wrong. heh. Clubs/Societies, Visits to places etc.

Music : Watching MTV all day long. JUST KIDDING. They have music lessons fitted into the timetable. Or something like that.

English : Speaker's Corner, Workshops, a Veritas-like magazine called ARGUS.

Rugby : huh? yeah, I was pretty surprised as well. It doesn't seem to fit in with the other pillars. What's up with Rugby anyway? not everyone can play that game. Half the school population doesn't (it's a co-ed school, see.). They could've used Sports in general, what with the really long pool, squash courts, gym and nicely trimmed hockey field but NOOO, Rugby is THE sport to play. Could anyone be more prejudiced?

Someone mentioned that Rugby is a favourite pastime of Tan Sri Wira Halim Saad. (He's the school benefactor. Notice the similarity between his name and the school's? And he gets his own little bungalow in the school compound. Neat.) Great. So to produce future citizens who are really rich and successful (and earn or buy a few accolades in the process. "Tan Sri Wira". That's a really cool title. Kinda reminds me of the Commonwealth 98 mascot.) they've presumably decided to literally emulate every aspect of his childhood. That's for the boys.

What about the girls then? Oh, I guess they can emulate his wife. I'm just guessing here, but something tells me she doesn't play Rugby. Oh what's that? "Which wife?"? The one he married over the weekend in Singapore of course. Can't possibly be talking about the foreign ex-wife who took away his kids (and almost half his assets). Now, she, on the other hand, is definitely rough and rugby material. That's why they're in the scrum to begin with. Heh.

I'm digressing here. I personally have nothing against (Tan Sri Wira) Halim. I think he's a great guy who has some little problems. But then, who doesn't? I myself wouldn't want to politicise anything. The politicians are already doing a good job at that. Google him to find out more. Back to the topic on the college shall we?

The school population is around 290 students. That's about 60 students per batch. Of which, 10 per batch are non-bumiputeras. I have met some and would like to say that I am very impressed. Not only are they intelligent and accomplished, these students are far from being proud or snobbish. They're just polite and sweet and nice. Almost perfect. Even their ex-students whom I have for classmates now are of the same calibre. :)

KYS is a private school which provides free education. To get in, you have to go through a strenuous selection procedure. Past year statistics show that there are usually 66 students applying for 1 place. Good luck.

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What was I doing there in the first place? The computer club organised a job attachment with them. The whole Computer Club went (that's 5 members.) We fiddled around with some computers, wires, software and a 2 mega bytes per second line. For five days. While everyone else were fully utilising their time to revise and consolidate their notes in light of the ever-approaching A level examinations next month. Gulp!

I've been meaning to mention this for quite some time. About the life in college. That wonderful place we don't really want to call home.

Every facet of college life is shaped by our seniors and their seniors. (and their seniors before that, and their seniors before that . . . )

Like the houses. They only came into being for but a few years. Before this we had the now redundant amethyst and some other precious-stone-themed house. Many of the clubs we have were only recently formed. Just the other day at a Rotaract Conference I met one of the founders of our college's roteract, Sanjiv. He's in UTP now, president of Rotaract there. (how he ended up in UTP is another story; detailing the fragility of scholarships, rendering us to the whims of our sponsors). Not to forget some dead sites littering the net. I saw a Veritas website featuring an online edition.

Perhaps not just the large obvious things like clubs and constitutions that are significant, but also the little things; the urban legends, if you may. The Flabby Ricky song for instance. The story goes that someone knows a senior who knows a senior who's chaletmate was the famed very-convincing-impersonator in that song. And it follows that none of the Segerombolan Batak gang went overseas. Of course, I don't really believe it, but hey its legend. These guys have become legend.

And are very talented. I just love the Craig David's 7 days parody.

We shouldn't also forget the guy who almost scored full marks for a history paper. a history paper! 99 or something. Or one super-dee-duper senior who went to oxford for engineering who was a mensa member. Or the great 1 month long induction program. Or the fact that there used to be two inductions per year, one in january and the other in june. (and we actually had ragging then) Or that our seniors were not just sent to UK, but also to the US and Australia. And that SC president who was asked to step down, you know the one who had a lasting quarrel with our ex-principal Mr Morris. (But I hear, then, everybody had a quarrel with him)

Our college isn't that old, but a mere 6 or 7 years of existance has created such legends shows the capabilities of our students past and present. Think of the great limitless possibilities open to you. Go ahead, start that club you've always wanted. Make that song. Do what you love, and love what you do.

And leave your mark.

Battle of the Bands was a roaring success. Period.

Everything about it was purrrfect. The Bands were awesome. The technicals were accurate. The audience was lovely. And the MC's, boy were they cool or what. (heehee.)

A nod to the organizers Liza and Khalid for working their bums off for this. (Especially Khalid, who not only had a sore bum afterwards but also a sore throat, having screamed and shouted in fury during the ill-paced rehearsals.)

The victors were a senior band called NVB (no vision boys). An all black-outfit bunch that performed Swing-swing and Highway Star. And whose singer (the great Apu) looked totally in his scene. (Read: Crazy, Drunk and High). They really had showmanship; One of their guitarists came on stage with a huge ridiculous-but-no-doubt-very-hip wig. A real spectacle.

Second came an almost all-girl band called Bleach with the organizers Liza and Khalid on guitars. And our lovely SC Vice President Nadiahtaj on drums (who incidently won best musician. which not everyone found acceptable. way to go, taj!)

In third place was Ze Flying Walrus who performed an excellent rendition of Muse's Time is Running Out.

The other bands were very very good as well, like Bulat (the band formerly known as equinoxx; formerly known as WC) whose frontman won best vocals. Then there was the electrifying Pillow Fighters whose performance of Cake's I will survive, Stroke's 12.51 and Foo Fighter's Times Like These really won the crowd. Even their lead vocals looked and sounded sufficiently stoned for the part.

Oh, and then there was the staff band called The Real Stuff (Or wassit The Right Stuff?) made up of the Dining Hall crew. They were seriously very strong contenders, and probably would've won something if the majority of the judges understood any BM (Mr. Fellender, Mrs Parker's husband uhm Mr Parker, Mr Dant and two members of the specially invited Jeapordize band.)

The not-underground-not-yet-mainstream Jeapordize delighted us with two beauitiful songs whose names I can hardly remember. One of them was called My Girl I think. These guys are just oozing with potential. Look out for them in a record store near you. :)

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Housetrips should be over by now. Mine was enthralling. Glad I went. I hope everyone felt the same way. Enjoy the rest of your holidays. Or your time, in miserly frozen London. :D

During the course of the week, The Taekwondo Club had its Upgrading Test (everyone passed, I think) and the Garnetors are preparing for their Evening With Garnet. The theme is spooky and hilarious. Its going to be held the week after we come back.

The Swimming Club will hold a Swimming Gala for the boys, on the wednesday also the week we come back. The girls' will be on wednesday the week after that.

Assembly was organized by Sapphire with a presentation by Mr Small. He urged all of us to adopt healthy scepticism. Hmm, suspicious, no?

Veritas finally came out. Caused a lot of fury, especially the Blackadder bit. He (Mr. Blackadder) had a sackful of ammo and he fired everywhere. The SC, the House committees and even the Rugby Invitational organizers. Even Pn. Rog's not too happy about it. Things like these can cause college disunity. I just hope people realise that Veritas and Blackadder are two totally separate entities. My poor editor, having to worry about the consequences. Supporting you all the way, Daya. :)

But otherwise its a nice bumper issue. Something to read if one gets bored in the coming two weeks. Speaking of which, today is the last day of college. Housetrips will begin today. Most houses are leaving this afternoon. Topaz is going to Cherating. Garnet too. Diamond to Langkawi and Sapphire to Pulau Kapas.

And I have to start packing.

You fell for that? haha.

Maan. Seriously! How would I know where your entry statements are. Go look for them! Go! Shoo!

heh. well. click on the back button to return to the current post, bozo.

lol =)