Prefects' Farewell 2005

OK, I went for the Prefects' Farewell party yesterday. I drove there on my own after dropping my mother at the hawker centre (as usual). I thought it would be difficult to get a parking so I went there half an hour before the time it was supposed to start (it was scheduled to begin at 9.00 a.m.).

Upon my arrival at the school, I was surprised to see so many empty parking lots available! So, I'm one of the earliest to arrive! I parked my car, stayed in it for a few minutes and left to join with some of my friends. At the school foyer, I met some other prefects and we began a conversation.

At around 9.00, more and more people have arrived. By this time, I'd already registered for my attendance and noticed that the car park was already almost full. Jared Ee, Puventhiran, Moganasivan and the others have arrived. I asked Moganasivan and Puventhiran if they'd finished watching Russell Peters' comedy talk. They said they had and we all had a good laugh at some of his jokes.

Just then, Rocky Yee suddenly appeared and with a huge grin said that someone (no names mentioned) parked his (not Rocky) car in between two parking lots. One car in between two lots! Could you imagine that? I actually laughed! So did Bernard and the rest who were there. We went to see the car that was supposedly parked in between two parking lots and found Rocky's story to be true. This good fellow parked his car right in the middle of two parking lots and just walked off! We knew whose car that was and told the driver about it (he is just a new driver). He couldn't believe it but came out all the same. And when he saw his car, he was rather ashamed. Immediately he corrected the way he parked his car. Bernard (who has been driving for months already), stood there laughing all the time. My, my, this friend of mine certainly has got some parking practices to do and polish up his overall driving skills (his car was hit by a motorcyclist during his first day of driving to school, accompanied by the father. Poor him!).

Anyway, the Prefects' Farewell, much to our chagrin, was delayed for more than an hour! Our teacher advisor must have forgotten that we were having a farewell, for the organiser kept on saying that we need to wait for the teacher. So while waiting, we chatted. And once she arrived, we began straightaway with an ice-breaker. After the games, we had a few very very short speeches and then waited for our food to come.

The food arrived eventually and we helped ourselves (it was a buffet) to it. The food was rather delicious and we even had a few prefects pretending as deejays and entertained us quite a bit. We continued our chatter and then moved on with the souvenir presenting ceremony. I received a plaque as a remembrance of my service as a prefect for the past a year or so. We then were given the time to ourselves and could have left straightaway if we wanted to. After staying for another 10 minutes (took pictures), I made my move.

Overall, the farewell hasn't been so memorable. Last year, we had more activities and the farewell lasted longer. We had more games and more conversation. Nevertheless, I'm very grateful to the organising committee who made this farewell possible.

Note: I'm still waiting for my prefects' newsletter. They'd better be ready by Monday!

All in one

All right, some of you might be wondering what have I been doing because I haven't been updating my blog for quite a few days already. Well, actually I was busy studying and revising for my trial exams, therefore I've cut off some of my time for homework and revision. I'm quite determined to do better for the trial exams. But let's cut to the chase.

On the 21st of August 2005 (Sunday), I attended the school play "Mulan", directed by Ms. Corrinne Mah. I drove there at around 7.00 p.m., thinking that I should be able to get a good car park near the basketball court. However, when I arrived, to my horror, there weren't anymore! So I had to move on to the teachers' car park and parked my car there; no one bothered, and the traffic marshals directed me there. Upon my arrival at the door of the hall, I produced my ticket and was taken to the VIP seat (blue cushion chairs with arm-rests). There I was joined by Victor Ho's parents. As it was still early, I'd decided to see how the musicians were doing (at the same time comforting Victor and Aaron Oo so that they wouldn't be too nervous; it was their first time in the drama). This year, the orchestral group was by far the biggest ever, with more than 20 musicians.

After a while, Aaron Oo pointed to me Chan Ka Yinn, a musician friend of mine whom I've not met for a year and a half (he transferred from SMI to Sam Tet). Ka Yinn told me that he was going for the Sunday performance as well. Gosh! He's changed so much that I could hardly recognise him. Neither could he recognise me until Aaron pointed us out. The first act of the drama was mediocre, but I admired the dances. The dialogues were nonetheless satisfactory but the singing parts were easily drowned by the musicians. Nevertheless, overall it was a memorable performance.

After the interval between the first and second act, suddenly, in the dark, a man stood up from the front row (seats with red cushion arm-chairs) came to me and offered to exchange seats with me. I looked to the front and found that it was Ka Yinn who motioned me to come in front. So it was his father who made the offer. In the dark I couldn't see him properly, but I thanked him very much (obviously the father wanted me to sit next to Ka Yinn and talk to him. Either that or he also wanted to speak to the Ho's). In the middle of Act 2, an embarassing scene occured (I was actually unaware of it as I was looking at the left side of the stage). During a dance, I was watching Gary (playing the character Captain Shang) singing until Ka Yinn suddenly nudged me and asked me to look at the left of the stage. What I saw made me dropped my jaw, and intense laughter started to rupture. I covered my mouth to keep my laughter soft. Guess what happened?

One of the actor's, playing the character of the Guard, pants were torn in the middle! Oh my God! I was very, very thankful that he wore his underwear (which clearly shown). Poor boy! His face became so red with embarassment. When he went back-stage after the dance, he immediately changed into another pair of pants. How he tore that pants I couldn't understand. The pants he wore was made to stretch and not to tear so easily; you know, the type of pants made for those learning martial arts. I wonder how that hole appeared. It's only fortunate that those sitting behind at the hall couldn't see, and those sitting in front are mostly adults and well-behaved Michaelians. I actually felt sorry for that boy. Overall, it was an effort worth putting in. I enjoyed Navin very much. He played the role of Mushu the dragon. He looked cute with his dragon costume.

On Tuesday, 22nd of August, I went for my group study with Jared Ee, Moganasivan and Puventhiran. As usual, I drove there after dropping my mother at the hawker centre. We revised Biology and Physics. After the revision, I asked Jared to give me the soft copy of Russell Peters' comedy show into my flash disk. I came home and watched it. Imagine how much I laughed at his jokes, some which are dirty jokes. Oh, what a show! it lasted for 45 minutes!

Today, Wednesday the 23rd, I went for my group study again, but at 9.45 a.m. I had to leave because I had made an appointment with Ka Yinn to meet him at his house. He wanted me to show him some of my musical repertoires and he'd like to share his with mine. I gladly obliged and arrived at his house at 10.00 a.m. His mother welcomed me into the house and Ka Yinn brought me to his piano room. I noticed that he uses a Kreutzer piano, which I'm quite unfamiliar (I'm more familiar with Kawai, Yamaha, Petrof, Wagner, Steinway & Sons, etc.). He expressed his love towards Mozart pieces and I showed him my collection of Mozart. I then showed him Debussy and Beethoven. Although he is knowledgeable in piano, he admitted that he was ignorant about music by Beethoven (he was first impressed and got interested into playing the piano after listening to one of his friends playing Mozart). I first played for him Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and then I introduced Debussy, which he found uninteresting, commenting that Debussy's music is too difficult and very atonal. I played Beethoven's music and he was immensely surprised by the way Beethoven composed his pieces. It was as if he suddenly got impressed by the style of Beethoven's composition and also by the way I played his pieces (some of my friends don't call me "Beethoven" for nothing, seriously!). I performed the Pathetique Sonata and a Sonata in C-minor. He took my book and continued to flip the pages, saying that it's very amiss of him to be so ignorant towards Beethoven.

I stayed there until it was 5 minutes to 1.00 p.m. I was preparing to leave when Mrs. Chan, Ka Yinn's mother, invited me to stay on for lunch. I was taken by surprise as this was something very unanticipated. Politely, I obliged and came out. There I saw a man who advanced to me with a smile. Gosh, could this be true? I actually met Mr. Chan Kok Keong, a lawyer by profession, one of SMI's luminaries (for those who has the school magazine, just refer to the SMI Luminaries section). I told him that we've met before in the drama and he said that he knew. He gave me a hearty hand-shake and ushered me to the table. There, I had my lunch and we all had a nice talk about various issues. Mr. Chan was certainly very friendly and we had a talk for about 20 to 25 minutes. He'd come back from work for lunch together with the family. "How nice," I thought.

After lunch, I courteously excused myself to rejoin with Ka Yinn. There, I made my final arrangements to leave. I was already overstaying for 30 minutes (I told my mother that I'd be back by then). Before I left, I thanked Ka Yinn and his father was their kind hospitality. Mrs. Chan was occupied with something else so I asked Mr. Chan to send my regards and thanks to her. He even asked me to come over more often next time (he had a word with me privately about something else, which explains why he would like me to visit more often. Nevertheless, I replied that I could come more frequently after my exams. He understood my situation well as his son is also going to sit for a public examination). There, I left.

Oh, what a day! I'm now having my one-week holidays but I have to make full use of them for my academic pleasures. I still have my Addtional Mathematics assignment to finish! Until then, au revoir!

We won, again!

All right, some of you may wonder how come I didn't come to school for two days already. Some of you might even wonder where have I been the last weekend. Well, it's only fair that I tell you that I was in Kangar, Perlis for 3 days 2 nights.

But why was I there, you ask? Well, Siddarth, Izharul and I were involved in the National Science Quiz 2005. If you had read my previous post, you would remember that we became the Perak Champions and that we are selected to represent the state in Perlis for the Zone Levels.

So, on Sunday the 14th of August, we made our way to Kangar together with Mr. and Mrs. Yee. We left at 11.30 a.m. and reached at around 3.45 pm. We checked in to an inn and was surprised to hear that we were the first ones to arrive! We expected the Perlis team and the Pahang team to arrive much earlier! But never mind. We rested until 6.30 p.m. By then, all teams had already come.

At 6.30 p.m., all of us went to Kuala Perlis for dinner. We had it by the seaside and we enjoyed seafood. Both Siddarth and Izharul hadn't tried them before (not to mention that they were particularly surprised to see the bill!). After dinner, we just drove around and returned to the inn shortly.

The next day, while Mr. Yee was working in Arau, the rest of us, together with the other participants of other states, were taken to a field-trip in Perlis. We were first brought to "Taman Herba" or Herbal Gardens where about 700 species of herbal plants are found and planted here; some are native in Perlis, some are imported. There, we had the opportunity to open our eyes wide towards some of the species of plants which we turn our eyes blind on.

Next, we were taken to Bukit Temiang where we had the opportunity to see grapes being grown in a big scale. Until then, I didn't know that grapes could be grown in an Equatorial climate. According to one of the officers (the name is Mr. Ahmad), in order to make the grape plants bear fruit, they had to drop off their leaves manually, only then will they bloom. All this was new to me!

Then, we made our way to Gua Kelam (a cave) situated very near the Thai border. There, I observed a very strange thing. My handphone, which uses DiGi as the service provider, received an SMS which bore the following message, "DiGi welcomes you to Thailand...". What? Thailand? The next thing I knew was that I no longer received signal or reception from Malaysia but from Thailand (the service provider was "Orange"!) Oh, I wanted to make a call back then! That would be an International call so I didn't proceed on with the call. Anyway, inside the cave, we observed the structures of stalagmite and stalactite and the various shapes of the cave which dazzled and impressed us very much. It was only a small cave so we made our way out soon after we got in.

The final destination was Padang Besar where we were given about an hour to do our shopping there. There were many products made from Thailand and most of the traders are from Thailand. They speak Thai among themselves and when we spoke to them, they struggled quite hard with their poor Malay. Sometimes, they might just switch on to Hokkien, which thankfully I could understand a bit. There, I bought some sotong (squids) to be taken home.

After dinner, we had a rehearsal in the school which was to organise the quiz. We tried the microphones, checked the computer monitors and tested the buzzers. After we confirmed that everything is in order, we returned to the inn to rest and make our last preparations.

On Tuesday the 16th of August, at 8.00 a.m. Mr. Yee fetched us all to SMK Derma, where the quiz was held. The judges were given a briefing so we took the time to make our final preparations in the school pavilion. We spent almost an hour and a half before we were called to register. After registering, the quiz started almost immediately.

Let's skip to the quiz. There were three rounds. In the first round, each participant must answer three questions, each within 20 seconds. In this round, strictly no discussion is allowed. If the participant cannot answer the question, then it will be posed to his/her teammates. If the answer is wrong also, then other teams can steal the question to answer. In the second round, each team had to answer 2 questions. This time, the teams can discuss among themselves and each team was given 30 seconds to answer the question. If the answer given was wrong, then the question would be open to the rest of the teams to grab. However, the most exciting round was the final one. It is based on the saying, "Siapa cepat, dia dapat" (whoever is faster will get the reward). This time, any team can answer the questions posed if he/she knows the answer. The participant who knew the answer would have to press the buzzer and whoever pressed the buzzer first got the opportunity to answer. This is the deciding round for the winners. Anybody can answer the questions. If your answer is correct, 20 marks would be awarded. But if it was wrong, then 5 marks would be deducted. We had to keep track on everybody's scores to determine whether or not we should risk losing 5 marks.

So, here are the results:

1. St. Michael's Institution (Perak) - 210 points
2. SMK Sultan Ismail (Johor) - 160 points
3. MRSM (Pahang) - ± 110 points (± means "about", I'm not very sure)
4. SMK Derma (Perlis) - 85 points

So, as you can see, SMI became the CHAMPIONS this time for the Zone Levels! We would be representing Zone 2 to compete against Zones 1, 3 and 4 in the National levels! It will be held in KL soon. Wish us luck!

Anyway, hooray! ...Hey, it rhymed!

A shameful experience!

Sigh... Abdul Rahman's death is sad enough, and most of the Form 4 students who know him are still down in the dumps. It is indeed difficult to swallow the fact that one of the figures of your life is gone forever so suddenly. His death was published in one of the Malay newspapers, and also in its website. I took the opportunity to save the article as a remembrance.

Nevertheless, something that I've dreaded really happened to me at last! This is by far the most shameful experience yet. At around 6.30 p.m. I was revising the subject of History when I suddenly fell asleep. I slept for about an hour when I abruptly woke up and found that it was 7.30! I thought the sky seemed unusually dark, and my room lights were off. I jumped out of bed, thinking that it was already Thursday morning and that I was terribly late for school! I thought I overslept so I went to grab my uniform. While I was taking my uniform, I saw that my father was busy filing some of his documents and that my mother's car was not at the porch! I felt devastated and at the same time confused, because my father seemed indifferent. I was really muddled at that time, and I didn't know what to do.

When I was changing, I felt something was wrong. If I had overslept, my mother would have woken me up much earlier. How could she have left without me? Besides, my father would have been surprised to see me in the house. But he wasn't. How could my parents be so heartless? Something was definitely wrong. I couldn't find my watch, and my clocks don't show me whether it was a.m. or p.m. So I fumbled around for my handphone and looked at the time. It says 1930 hours. 7.30 p.m.? Then it must still be Wednesday evening, and I was changing into my uniform! Gosh! I nearly told my father to hurry up and fetch me to school! My mind kept telling me that it was Thursday when it is actually still Wednesday!

Quietly, I changed back into my normal clothes and put aside my uniform, feeling extremely ashamed, uneasy and uncomfortable. Somehow, I was still skeptical so I went downstairs to confirm the date and time on my computer. It shows Wednesday, August the 10th 2005 and the time is 1940 hours. Boy, was I relieved!

Then light dawned on me. Of course! My mother's car is not back yet because she's still working. She'll be back in a few moments. Silly me, I thought that she's gone for work. Haha...

I just hope that this silly antic of mine doesn't become reality some day, and especially NOT during examinations!

Orbituary

Deceased: Abdul Rahman b. Sirajudeen

As mentioned above, one of our friends has met a terrible fate on August the 7th 2005 while on a weekend holiday in Teluk Batik. Due to a big sea current, he was swept off from the beach into the open sea at around 4.00 p.m. and drowned. Together with him were his two other siblings. All but Abdul Rahman were rescued by the father. Abdul Rahman could not be found.

At about 9.00 a.m. yesterday, his body was found by the police. News of his sudden and tragic death reached the school at 1.00 o'clock in the afternoon. I was having my lunch at a quarter to two when the news reached me. At first, I was skeptical and full of disbelief. It wasn't until one of my friends said that the funeral was going to be held at 2.30 p.m. that I realised that I, too, like many other students, have lost a friend and potential school debater.

I was actually about to go for my group study when the news came. As I was the president of the Michaelian Debaters' Club and he was one of my juniors and also a friend, I felt compelled and determined to leave the group study for a while to attend his funeral service. I was then joined by Nicholas Cheong, who is now the new club president.

Although the funeral service was to be held at 2.30 p.m., it wasn't until about ten minutes later that the casket arrived at the mosque in front of the school. As he was in the Michaelian Military Band, most of the band members came too to pay him their last respects. As they walked in and paid him their final tributes, most of them couldn't hold their tears when they came out. I went in also to pay him my last respects and when I saw him, I was still doubting whether I was on solid ground or in a dream. Before I left, I saw Jeevita (my ex-lady headprefect) weeping and sobbing. Vidthya and Tjun Kong, her friends, were there to comfort and console her. Such touching moments made me almost broke down as well.

Abdul Rahman had been involved in several activities, among them in activities held by the Michaelian Military Band, the Michaelian Debaters' Club and also the La Sallian Convention as one of the delegates of St. Michael's Institution. He had many friends who grieved his loss. His news had certainly sent a shockwave to the whole school, including the teachers. Abdul Rahman had been very attached to many, if not all.

Today, during our daily assembly, his death was related by the principal and a short prayer session was held for him. During the prayer, many again cried and it wasn't until I reached my classroom that I also eventually became so overwhelmed and broke down. The final time I met him was last Friday, August the 5th, after school hours when he was carrying a xylophone and was passing by me. He met me and wished me a hello, which I returned. The thought of his death came so sudden that everyone was dumbstruck.

Let this be a lesson that death is always there to remind us that there is actually no tomorrow. We are to make the best of whatever time we have. Although we can defy human laws, we just cannot defy the law of nature.

God bless his soul. Rest in peace, my friend.

Some people just have got nothing better to do

OK, as the title suggests, sometimes some people really has got nothing better to do. What I'm telling you here might and will sound familiar, as it regards someone in my school defaming the good name of SMI. You might know who that culprit is and so do I, but I don't know it (I don't wish to disclose the gender either) personally. However, its blog has made it gain some great popularity in such a short time. Let's refer it simply as Y. I don't wish to disclose any identity as I don't want to be sued or accused of public defamation (like Sharifah Aini and Siti Nurhaliza).

You see, Y was from another school in Lower Six this year. Due to some reasons, it was transferred to SMI. I guess that it had some problems adapting to new life in SMI. It feels that SMI teachers are very hardworking but do not know how to teach. It also feels that the MUET teacher is not good and is getting fed-up about the school.

Worst of all, Y was immensely fed-up with the prefects. In her blog, it posted foul languages, swearing and cursing the school as well as the Prefectorial Board (I need hardly say that my headprefect was angry). It complained that the prefects love to check students' bags and said that we overlook more important matters such as looking out for gangsterism and students smoking. What Y doesn't realise is that SMI is a well controlled school with the lowest gangsterism and smoking rates (I daresay). However, that doesn't mean we, as prefects, would turn a blind eye towards these issues, if any.

It was OK if it had just merely related her displeasure towards the school, but using foul languages and defaming the school name just isn't done! And it had the guts to later explain that the foul words she used were really really rude. How unshameful!

Actually, I would strongly think that Y was unable to fit in to our Michaelian environment well. (I think I can tell you that it came from a Chinese school.) Communications and lessons for the past few weeks could be taxing for it. However, Y was only here for the past one or so months! It is obvious that it should take more time to adapt to its new surroundings!

If it is not able to adapt, why did it come to SMI at the first place? Excuse me, Y, if you dislike the conditions in SMI now, you can really GO BACK FROM WHENCE YOU CAME FROM. Nobody is forcing you to stay and nobody will. Whether you leave or not doesn't affect our academic life in SMI. The school would be as it is without you. It was as it is before you came and it will remain as it is even after you leave.

It is fine if you have some dissatisfaction towards the school or the teachers. But, Y doesn't realise that there is a correct channel to direct its complaints, rather than to write them down in its blog and start to defame the school, writing foul languages and all. I'm pretty sure that the principal is more than happy to receive some feedback about teachers and how the school is progressing. Why, there was an occasion when I saw that something was going wrong in the school and many people noticed it, but nobody has dared to approach the authorities. I couldn't hold on any longer and told the problem the school was facing to the principal. He received me happily. Frankly speaking, our principal isn't a tiger at all! So why the fear?

Y should know that its words have caused great hatred in many students against it. Look before you leap is a true saying.

I don't really know what to say to Y. It seems hopeless for me to say anything as the deed is already done. At best, I could only tell Y to WATCH OUT! YOU'RE DIGGING YOUR GRAVE. THAT'S YOUR FUNERAL.