To paraphrase George Santayana: A college without a memory is a college of madmen.

A great many memorable things have passed since my last entry, each one another fine addition to the history of our infant college.

I would like to start with the Great Sapphire Landslide Victory of Bangsawan 2005.

This amazing house went home with many an award for the night, including best props and backdrop, best costume, best script, best actor, best actress and the most coveted prize of them all: best drama. This came as no suprise since Sapphire's offering, to me, was the personification of Bangsawan. It was a tale of forbidden love, faithful servants, royal curses and of course the meddling of foreigners and their deceitful ways.

Having sat through their impressive offering, some may ask why they didn't make a clean sweep of all those hampers.

The answer would be that Sapphire, although adjudged the best overall performer, still had some strong contenders. This came in the form of Diamond, who collected the prizes for best director, best lighting and sound and best supporting actress. If Sapphire had beaten Diamond, it was probably only a marginal victory since their Diamond's drama still managed to captivate the audience despite starting at the sleepy hour of 11 pm. The premise itself is unique (at least to me) as it told of a vengeful bride princess, whose husband was killed on their wedding day, who seeks to reclaim her sovereignity. Between the excellently directed opening fight scene and the heart-wrenching final battle, our princess goes about disguised as a man, and accidentally wins over the heart of the daughter (the role that won best supporting actress) of her hubby's killer.

Not to be outdone, Topaz, last Bangsawan's big winner, managed a best choreography award and best supporting actor award, for which they are very thankful for. Topaz went on stage and performed what was suspiciously a similar plotline to previous bangsawans. They argue reinterpretation and continuity, I argue 'where's the originality?'. hehe. Their trademark silly antics, ridiculously funny lines and sixties pop music went down like a house on fire with the judges (who were affiliated with TV3's somewhat funny comedy troupe, scenario).

The only low point of the whole Bangsawan was Garnet, or rather Garnet's cold dismissal from the awards sheet. What was touted as the most entertaining Bangsawan in recent memory didn't bear fruit for this house as they came back empty-handed, quite unjustly so, as many would agree. But the Garnetors themselves didn't complain as they left the hall in the knowledge that they had done their best. Stand proud Garnetors =)

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Referring back to George Santayana, an occurance that would want to be erased from recent memory is the case of the madman. Or rather, the case of the madman who allegedly urinated in the male TV room.

Talk about paradigm shifts. The deposited liquid is allegedly a student's. The motive, in response or retaliation to the warden's disagreable ways. And the result, total shutdown of the TV room until further notice. Not to mention the cleaning up and disinfection of the room.

The thing is, the teachers and staff were so quick to jump on the conclusion that a student did this in protest. Maybe its my sense of goodwill, but I cannot imagine that a student, especially one of ours, would do such a thing. If they had made a song to mock the warden, I would have believed it. If they made jokes about the warden, I would have expected it. But to urinate in the TV room as a show of protest ? Come on.

Besides, I've personally witnessed a cat marking its territory in my room one idle sunday morning and it smells as bad as our toilet. Why can't it be a cat, or one of the many monkeys that have started a new wave of invasion who did it ? Why must the blame be on the students automatically ? Heck, why can't it be the Warden himself who did it. Its no secret that the Management is unhappy with the students constant "abuse" of the TV rooms. (Apparently "abuse" in their definition is well, actually using the TV rooms. Go figure.)

Its also been heard that our hardworking mr new warden goes around looking through every nook and cranny to find even the smallest dust particle so that he can tell off the students. Now that dude's a certified madman.

Not suprisingly, so far no parties have come forward to claim this act of terrorism.