merdeka
MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA!
Those were the cries of Tunku Abdul Rahman when Malaysia gained its independence from the British 50 years ago.
My (short-term) merdeka came just before the clock hit midnight on 30th August, moments before the historic "tiga satu bulan lapan". In retrospect, it has been 2 weeks since International Ball concluded, a successful ball which i think will get people to reflect on that "Once Upon A Time".
Organising International Ball was really a new experience for me. It's not so much about organising a large-scale event (MAF was the max...4000 people), but planning for a ball lets me put all those experience i got from my days in acs(i) to good use - the key phrase: must be Glamorous. Planning for decor was the most exciting - I wanted to borrow the idea of having different sections of the venue to reflect different 'moods', like different countries with their own unique fairytale atmosphere. However, we ended up doing something else that was similar - having a combination of 3 different shades of purple as chair ribbons and table runners just to break the monotony of only having one colour. If you arrange them in alternate rows, coupled with a canopy above you, a 'white-barked' plant with blue lights as a table-centrepiece, and a castle in the foreground and two silhouttes of a prince-princess couple in the background - the empty Auditorium was transformed completely for a one-night only event.
The pre-event planning with other clubs weren't easy at all, as different people had different expectations of the event. and i guess my idea of a ball, and expected roles of committee members during the ball were different from the rest. you really can't have everyone in the background, or everyone in the foreground doing work at the same time. there's got to be a mix, and really, if you're in the background and think you don't get enough attention or limelight you shouldn't be angry or jealous with those in the front, and don't point the finger to them saying they didn't do anything and say the people at the back did MORE work. One thing that saddened me was people thought the work i did was insignificant, just because i was mainly working in the shadows and doing the travelling to venue to settle things. and when i mentioned that some jobs were unnecessary, some thought i had lost interest in my job. during event, just because i managed to squeeze some time to take some photos, people were mad at me because all of them didnt have to chance and accused me of not doing 'enough' work as an executive. question was, why didnt you ask me if you really needed help?
that's an episode of my life that i'll remember - sadly not a very pleasant one. with that happening at the start of the ANU Students' Elections last week, it nearly killed my confidence. thankfully, my fellow buddies in the "Innovate for 08" team had confidence in me, and that mattered. a lot. election week was an interesting week. i witnessed political backstabs, people giving false information, people claiming they are something but really they are something esle, popularity battles.. etc etc. Our 'ticket' (election group) ran the campaign "vote for policy and NOT dirty politics" when some people distributed flyers that were directly attacking members of our group. i'd really like to work with that group of people, almost everyone got the posts that they ran for, not for me though. most of my friends thought i'll definitely get it, but maybe because of that they didn't vote? it's just like how the general population tipped our group as the favorites to win. yeah.. that's good, but we still need you to vote! no point just being the favorites with no votes. the voter turnout was about 21% (roughly 2000 votes), and that's the highest voting rate in Australia Yes, voting rate is higher than the Aust Federal Election's. Now that I didn't get my job, I probably might apply to be a senior resident in bruce hall next year.
Final week before hols - EXAMS!!! Initially wanted to just not sit for an exam and 'redeem' it, but after my friend grace "strongly advised against" that decision of mine, i decided to study for it... just barely 1.5 days before exam. By God's grace, I managed to finish going through my lecture notes and tutorials, and exam was ok for a stats exam (if stats exams are ok, it means they are hard.. if not ok, means exceptionally hard). Monday & Tuesday had one exam each, then started to do my forecasting assignment on wednesday morning. Forecasting is really interesting, but it really takes up so so much time to get a right model. so many considerations to make, like trade-off between model accuracy versus forecast accuracy. i needed to make an excel forecasting software for a 'client', so there's also the tradeoff of not using so many information versus having more info and getting better forecasts. i will surely remember having to stay in the computer lab from start to end of the assignment, coming up with a model and realising we will not have the info we need by the time we need to conduct the forecast, and then doing another model and realised i took the exact opposite approach of what is needed, then barely finishing a model before the assignment is due at 5pm thu, then coming back for SR meeting, and finally rushing the excel forecasting spreadsheet. and then it was 11.55pm when i emailed my lecturer with my completed work.
and it felt like Merdeka after that. (i had a tutorial quiz the next morning, but really, it ain't significant at all compared to what has happened over the last 2-3 weeks)
it's sad m'sians don't celebrate Merdeka here. The UMNO Club had a merdeka dinner last week, 10 days before merdeka.. but i didnt attend it since i don't agree with the idea of a dinner to celebrate merdeka. i'd rather they take the money and make it into a kenduri kind of an event nearer to merdeka.
last year i remember going to the joget melayu dance guys and girls to sydney to perform during malaysia-fest. same time last year, i went crazy over a girl during that time, but soon realise that she was not suitable for me. had just listened to a sermon by TD Jakes when he spoke during hillsongs conference. he was talking about seasons, and how God is a planner, and we all have a plan for us. and he used the analogy of the eagle for most of his elaborations. One thing that was really catching that he said was...
" in a storm, birds normally fly into shelter and away from the storm. but the eagle spreads its wings in the storm, and uses strong winds and lifts itself up Above the storm.....
... also, eagles make love in the air....at least they know they're not hooked up with a chicken"
but also, why great people fall?
a boy watches an eagle fly down...then up.. but then crashes. the eagle wasn't shot dead, but it was carrying a weazel. the weazel(the eagle's prey) was biting the eagle's chest. the eagle died not so much because the weazel had resisted the eagle, but really, it was because the eagle chose not to let go of the weazel.
*ching i have the recording, i'll share it with you next time
now, time to finish my game Fallout:Tactics and not let it distract me from studies next term!
Those were the cries of Tunku Abdul Rahman when Malaysia gained its independence from the British 50 years ago.
My (short-term) merdeka came just before the clock hit midnight on 30th August, moments before the historic "tiga satu bulan lapan". In retrospect, it has been 2 weeks since International Ball concluded, a successful ball which i think will get people to reflect on that "Once Upon A Time".
Organising International Ball was really a new experience for me. It's not so much about organising a large-scale event (MAF was the max...4000 people), but planning for a ball lets me put all those experience i got from my days in acs(i) to good use - the key phrase: must be Glamorous. Planning for decor was the most exciting - I wanted to borrow the idea of having different sections of the venue to reflect different 'moods', like different countries with their own unique fairytale atmosphere. However, we ended up doing something else that was similar - having a combination of 3 different shades of purple as chair ribbons and table runners just to break the monotony of only having one colour. If you arrange them in alternate rows, coupled with a canopy above you, a 'white-barked' plant with blue lights as a table-centrepiece, and a castle in the foreground and two silhouttes of a prince-princess couple in the background - the empty Auditorium was transformed completely for a one-night only event.
The pre-event planning with other clubs weren't easy at all, as different people had different expectations of the event. and i guess my idea of a ball, and expected roles of committee members during the ball were different from the rest. you really can't have everyone in the background, or everyone in the foreground doing work at the same time. there's got to be a mix, and really, if you're in the background and think you don't get enough attention or limelight you shouldn't be angry or jealous with those in the front, and don't point the finger to them saying they didn't do anything and say the people at the back did MORE work. One thing that saddened me was people thought the work i did was insignificant, just because i was mainly working in the shadows and doing the travelling to venue to settle things. and when i mentioned that some jobs were unnecessary, some thought i had lost interest in my job. during event, just because i managed to squeeze some time to take some photos, people were mad at me because all of them didnt have to chance and accused me of not doing 'enough' work as an executive. question was, why didnt you ask me if you really needed help?
that's an episode of my life that i'll remember - sadly not a very pleasant one. with that happening at the start of the ANU Students' Elections last week, it nearly killed my confidence. thankfully, my fellow buddies in the "Innovate for 08" team had confidence in me, and that mattered. a lot. election week was an interesting week. i witnessed political backstabs, people giving false information, people claiming they are something but really they are something esle, popularity battles.. etc etc. Our 'ticket' (election group) ran the campaign "vote for policy and NOT dirty politics" when some people distributed flyers that were directly attacking members of our group. i'd really like to work with that group of people, almost everyone got the posts that they ran for, not for me though. most of my friends thought i'll definitely get it, but maybe because of that they didn't vote? it's just like how the general population tipped our group as the favorites to win. yeah.. that's good, but we still need you to vote! no point just being the favorites with no votes. the voter turnout was about 21% (roughly 2000 votes), and that's the highest voting rate in Australia Yes, voting rate is higher than the Aust Federal Election's. Now that I didn't get my job, I probably might apply to be a senior resident in bruce hall next year.
Final week before hols - EXAMS!!! Initially wanted to just not sit for an exam and 'redeem' it, but after my friend grace "strongly advised against" that decision of mine, i decided to study for it... just barely 1.5 days before exam. By God's grace, I managed to finish going through my lecture notes and tutorials, and exam was ok for a stats exam (if stats exams are ok, it means they are hard.. if not ok, means exceptionally hard). Monday & Tuesday had one exam each, then started to do my forecasting assignment on wednesday morning. Forecasting is really interesting, but it really takes up so so much time to get a right model. so many considerations to make, like trade-off between model accuracy versus forecast accuracy. i needed to make an excel forecasting software for a 'client', so there's also the tradeoff of not using so many information versus having more info and getting better forecasts. i will surely remember having to stay in the computer lab from start to end of the assignment, coming up with a model and realising we will not have the info we need by the time we need to conduct the forecast, and then doing another model and realised i took the exact opposite approach of what is needed, then barely finishing a model before the assignment is due at 5pm thu, then coming back for SR meeting, and finally rushing the excel forecasting spreadsheet. and then it was 11.55pm when i emailed my lecturer with my completed work.
and it felt like Merdeka after that. (i had a tutorial quiz the next morning, but really, it ain't significant at all compared to what has happened over the last 2-3 weeks)
it's sad m'sians don't celebrate Merdeka here. The UMNO Club had a merdeka dinner last week, 10 days before merdeka.. but i didnt attend it since i don't agree with the idea of a dinner to celebrate merdeka. i'd rather they take the money and make it into a kenduri kind of an event nearer to merdeka.
last year i remember going to the joget melayu dance guys and girls to sydney to perform during malaysia-fest. same time last year, i went crazy over a girl during that time, but soon realise that she was not suitable for me. had just listened to a sermon by TD Jakes when he spoke during hillsongs conference. he was talking about seasons, and how God is a planner, and we all have a plan for us. and he used the analogy of the eagle for most of his elaborations. One thing that was really catching that he said was...
" in a storm, birds normally fly into shelter and away from the storm. but the eagle spreads its wings in the storm, and uses strong winds and lifts itself up Above the storm.....
... also, eagles make love in the air....at least they know they're not hooked up with a chicken"
but also, why great people fall?
a boy watches an eagle fly down...then up.. but then crashes. the eagle wasn't shot dead, but it was carrying a weazel. the weazel(the eagle's prey) was biting the eagle's chest. the eagle died not so much because the weazel had resisted the eagle, but really, it was because the eagle chose not to let go of the weazel.
*ching i have the recording, i'll share it with you next time
now, time to finish my game Fallout:Tactics and not let it distract me from studies next term!
thoughts of tanoshi at 1:38 PM
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