Yes, I am still alive. Albeit just barely. heh. Thank you to everyone who has smacked me upside the head asking for updates. Well, its the holidays people. Don't tell me you still want to read about the college now?!? Come on, like get a life.

KIDDING! I bet everyone's missing college so badly. Can't wait to get back to good old Lembah Beringin, eh? What with our Uni application results waiting; Our November A-level grades around the corner; and medic interviews all ready to knock the lights out of our future doctors. ;)

Yes, its is a new year. And with it, comes a new SONG for our college. Thats right, a new SONG for our college. Can't believe it ? Then let me say it again : a new SONG for our college!

Well, okay. It's more like a digitally remastered uber uncool techno version. Like how Don Mclean's American Pie was covered by Madonna. Only worse.

But more on that later. First, I've got to do an official summary of the June-Nov 2004 Semester :)
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july
13 induction week and some sponsor-based parties.
august
1 sunway physics trip 2 islamic aspiration week 14 alumni weekend 20 cultural performance september
1 interhouse debate 11 chess invitational 17 british high commisioner visit 25 evening with topaz
october
3 KMB friendly match 3 mooncake festival 4 health awareness week
november
11 deepavali dinner XX the UEM buka puasa 24 swimming gala 25 hari raya open house 26 drama "laughter in the dark"

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Now for the official commentary on the last few weeks of college. Let's see, there was the swimming gala. Which was actually just a smaller scale gala. Can't even be considered a gala. More like a little Swimming picnic. Heck, there wasn't even much swimming involved.

Water polo dominated most of the game period. And it wasn't even water polo by the rules. Then again, nobody really knew the rules. Not even the referee. ;)

The other events were some marble collecting race and row-your-butt-in-a-lifesaver-to-the-end-and-back game. Which was actually pretty fun.

Naturally, there was a seperate session for boys and girls.

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The HARI RAYA OPEN HOUSE is actually a combination of the semester dinner + hari raya celebrations (u-duh.) Suffice to say, it was "very much better" than last year's effort. (sorry dear seniors. hehe). But there is a story behind all that effort. It is not a happy story. It is a sad one. A depressing tear-jerking heart-wrenching struggle of the little guys (us the sc) against the evil forces of THE COLLEGE MANAGEMENT (echo: THE COLLEGE MANAGEMENT!).

Here's how it went: At first, our "BIG IDEA" was a grand finale for the year. A closing of 2004, exams, Hari Raya and out SC tenure, right? Naturally something as big as this ought to be held in the Great Hall. Plus, considering we DIDN'T have a great hall dinner like last year. (The UEM buka puasa dinner was a dissapointment. Dining Hall. Nothing Special. We even had to queue up for our food. No performance. Not even a speech by our new UEM bigshot.)

Then, the first snag : No Great Hall. The College Management (TCM) said it was because of the Exams (but the last paper was on the day before!) Then TCM said it was because of the Drama (Which Mr Cranwell denied. Besides it was on the DAY AFTER!). TCM told us to organise it in the Dining Hall. Considering we were still having our exams then, arguing with them didn't seem like a very productive idea. So we relented.

Second Snag : The Dining Hall people (led by the mario-lookalike Abg Zul) refuses to serve the food. He says that he's understaffed. We were upset. And we knew the whole student population would be too. I mean, would you want to dress up in your spanking new raya clothes only to queue up for an hour to get your food? NO WAY. Plus, this would seriously cripple the atmosphere of the event, not to mention the programme. This time we argued, and Mr Mario said "ok, but find your own caterers." And we did.

Third Snag : This event wasn't bugdeted for. The semester dinner was (slightly above average food. an extra dish or so. and that's it) but a Hari Raya celebrations wasn't. Why? because they didn't think we'd organise an event for Hari Raya. Didn't see it coming they said. We went WTF? (whiskey tango foxtrot) You mean to say a college that organizes super-productive calendar meetings every other week to plan and revise events made a silly mistake? the same college that emphasises Islamic values forgot the one most popular Islamic holiday in the country? we were astonished. No, no, we were dumbfounded. well, you get the idea.

Fourth Snag : We came up with our own caterer. Then suddenly, Mr Mario says that he wont allow it. Yes, you can guess our reaction (waste treatment facility?). He says that he can't allow the students being at risk of food poisoning at the hands of unaqcuainted caterers. I guess poisoning students is HIS job (Yes, there was a case where a majority of the non muslim students had a bad case of diahorea from having lunch. Apparently the lunch was a reserving of sahur food. And not to forget the incident where a student found a maggot in his chicken. When he complained, he was just told to get another chicken. The nerve!). Anyway, so we told him that we'll do the serving ourselves. The first excuse he gave was that "we students would get it all wrong like not putting the correct number of servings on the table and stuff." What kind of idiots does he think he's dealing with anyway? THEN his SECOND excuse was that they didnt have enough plates to serve all of us. How ridiculous is that ? For a college that's planning to take MORE and MORE students, that's pretty silly, even by his standards. I mean, geez.

(pause for breath.)

I bet you're pretty tired of hearing me complain. I'm pretty tired of complaining. To cut a long story short, we argued with tears to make that night as special as we could. With some help from Puan Rog of course (hey, she's not as bad as you think she is.) Abg Mario-Zul conceded, the budget was approved, and whatever second thoughts we had about joining the SC almost a year ago vanished when we saw all the happy faces of our friends at the dinner.

no, seriously.

I guess these are the little things that really matter. =)

NEXT UP => a review of "Laughter in the Dark".