Orientation Week

Survived orientation week.. it was over at 4.15pm yesterday. It was huge relief to get over it.. I thought I would just go back to my room and sleep for the rest of the day, but when I got back to my room.. somehow there were too many distractions to fall asleep.

Okay, on registration day it was ok, quite efficient I must say. Move on to.. let's see, moral session? We have 'moral sessions' during the Muslim prayer times. It has nothing to do with Moral though, just some games. The 1st Moral session we had was.. well, not good. Really. In my humble opinion the seniors who handled us probably relished the thought of having new juniors to torture. They shouted at us like we were animals and scolded us for every tiny fault. Eh friend, we are NEW, remember? Anyway, the 1st session left me with a bitter aftertaste. It reminded me of PBSM days.. especially PBSM camp time..

Then my roommate asked me how things went.. and I told her about the Moral session, how I felt about being treated like that. A few other housemates were there, and they said that in previous years it was much much much 'fiercer'. Haha, I told her about a particular senior.. without knowing that she is pretty good friends with that girl. The next day(we had a public holiday during o week) that senior was in our room and talking.. and asked me how it went and whether she was too fierce. =P My eyes 'terbeliak' at that question. I immediately turned to my roommate and said, "You told her!" But of course she defended herself and said nope, she didn't. Haha. Anyway I just said yeah a lil' too fierce.

Then we had more taklimats.. some simple exercise every morning.. jogging, 'senaman seni'.. no big deal lah. The talks were mostly about.. truthfully I don't know. But the talks were given in a 'friendly' manner, not like in school days where the teachers made it all stiff and formal. The rules about clothing.. I find some of it silly, but not gonna make a big deal out of it. They keep talking about 'distracting students from studies' if we dress too sexily. I was from SMK Taman SEA where there were so many teachers who never did follow such rigid rules, but I never heard of students who were 'distracted from their studies'. Their logic is similar to the 'wear sexy and get raped' kinda theory. Blaming the victims instead of the predator.

So our schedule was something like, moral session, morning exercise, breakfast, talks until dinner time, then moral session, then final talk, and back to the room. We were woken up at 3am every morning, the seniors rode on motorbikes and honked and announced and blared the sirens and shouted. Yeah, 3am - 4am during orientation week is really really irritating and noisy. As my house only has 2 juniors, the other 8 are seniors, the both of us never did switch on the lights until much later. When the 'motorbike people' saw no lights they really really harrassed our house. Until one morning they announced, "RUMAH (my house number) SILA BANGUN!" Hahaha. My house is the last house in the row with juniors I think, cause all the motorbikes make a U-turn when they reach my house.

Anyway, we had to walk back every night during o week. We left IPDA at about 12.30am to 1am, and reached back to our rooms at about 1.30am.. sometimes later if they decide to direct us to the field and give us more lectures. The lack of sleep very nearly killed me off. Thankfully the activities during O week were pretty relaxed, and not much energy was required.

In the end, I found out that the Moral sessions were really the only thing to look forward to during O week. It was actually a session where we could have fun and just play games. And besides the seniors were nicer after the 1st session. Minus the fierceness, the activities we did were really tame as compared to the school camps I used to attend. 'Punishment' for losers were.. well, fun and not at all stressful. haha. The worst punishment we had was the one time we had to take sweets out from flour using our mouth, and even then the seniors allowed us to wash our faces and mouth immediately after doing it. This kinda leniency you'll never ever see in school camps. Haha. They even gave us tissues! When we had activities that were slightly dirty the seniors had wet cloths and tissues ready for us. That's really great IMO. Hehe.

On Thursday I had a pretty bad day though. I had a bit of diarrhoea and had to run to the toilet pretty often. Stomach problems plus lack of sleep was a really horrible combination. I kept debating whether to declare myself sick or not. But I decided I wasn't.. so I survived orientation that night. By the Moral session that night I was perspiring profusely whenever I felt any pain in my stomach. But with God's grace I survived it.. although I really felt like death was better at that time. Lol. Thursday night we reached back at 1.40am I think, and after showering I had to write a report on one of the sessions.. so I ended up sleeping at 2.40am that night. And got up at 3am. I had to summon ALL the hard-earned discipline I gained during tough badminton training sessions just to get up. Friday morning was when the exhaustion really hit most people. The seniors had a really rough time trying to get everyone up, and some of them only reached IPDA at 7am. Seems seniors had to go to some houses and knock on the windows. Lol. Friends called the handphones to wake their friends up to no avail.

Hence, like I said, the activities were okay, but the lack of sleep was really a first I've been through. During camps we get at least 2-3 hours of sleep, and even then most camps are only 3 days, so we are sleep-deprived for only that short period of time. Not so for orientation week..

During my first few days here, I had all sorts of thoughts.. Would Taylor's have been a better option? Why did God send me here? Why not IPBA? And most frighteningly, Is this really God's will for me???? The thought of this not being God's will really frightened me.. but I realised that those were just doubts creeping in. I know God has a purpose for me.. He has His reasons for throwing me here.. to be so far away from my comfort zone. I've no doubt that I'll end up a much stronger person after I leave this place.

1 or 2 years back I felt God telling me that He would make life tougher for me in the future.. I know this sounds silly but I felt Him telling me that a few times. So I've always told myself that life would be tougher for me next time, and I've been bracing myself to face the unknown. But never in a thousand years would I have imagined IPDA would be that.. What a way to strengthen me. I keep being reminded that I'm only 17. Yesterday I was just thinking of the 17 year olds SMK Taman SEA who are still in form 5 and yet here I am, in some far away unknown land. Again, I longed for the life in secondary school days, where I led such a comfortable life. I wondered how life would have been in form 6. I know I would have enjoyed form 6 the way I enjoyed form 1-5. I would probably be busy with the prefects installation instead of orientation week this week. I would probably be training the yellow house badminton players at this point of time. I would be going for youth group this afternoon. I would be playing badminton tomorrow afternoon after church. Just yesterday I wondered why IPDA.. why not the IP in Perak or IPBA in KL? I have to go back to settle my perjanjian stuff, and the journey home is gruelling. To go home would be such a simple matter then.

Enough of that. I know God has a purpose for me here.. and I've really got nothing to complain about. I've got great housemates, coursemates, seniors.. so I'm not miserable. I just question some things..

Proverbs 16:9
In his heart a man plans his course,
but the Lord determines his steps.

Yeah. How true that is.

That's all for now.. =)

God bless,
Jo

Edit: Before my dear readers who have been through all sorts of orientations and camps start telling me that orientation is always like that(the ganas part by facilitators), let me ask you, WHY? Why should the facilitators during orientation week put on such a fierce mask? Why scare us? During the last day of orientation one of the seniors explained that they were fierce because it was orientation week. I bit back my tongue from asking her why. I think I was already too frank during the sessions. Lol.

In Kedah..

Yes, I'm in Kedah now. Sitting on my bed in the.. er, hostel that's a house but a really pathetic house honestly(LOL) with the laptop.

The house is.. well, odd. They built it for students, so I guess that means students don't need a nice comfortable place to live in. The floor is cement and we wear slippers everywhere around the house(except our rooms). When I first came to my room there was only one bed, and it was a senior's one. Haha. The bed came later though. Still, despite my derelict(yay I finally get to use this word on myself!) surrounding, I thank God that my condition is not as bad as some of the newcomers. At least I just moved in with a senior, and she's a pretty neat person. I pity her though, I shall try to be neat. =P

When I first met my coursemates.. first thought was.. OMG! I'm taking TESL, but EVERYONE around me speaks either Malay or Chinese or Tamil!!!

What my teacher told me about my type(English speaking) going extinct she was awfully right. Seriously.

I mean, you can throw me in a swamp, a snake-pit, whatever. But in a group of people who are taking an English course but most of whom can hardly speak English?? Or maybe they can all speak wonderful fantastic English but choose to keep that fact hidden.

However, yes I am coping fine. Try as I might, things boiled down to race in the end. Maybe when classes start things will change.. but for now.. I wouldn't want to blog about it, ask me the details if you want to.

Thank God for wonderful seniors though. Some of them have been really great. Hehe.

Okay, that's all for now.. still have loads to unpack. Have a great day!

God bless,
Jo

Last Day...

3.24am and I'm not sleeping. With such a messed up bio clock I really wonder how I'm going to sleep at decent hours when classes start again.

Or maybe I'll just pull through college life the way I pulled through school life.. sleeping late and waking up early every morning. And feeling like dying every time I had to force my wretched body up.

I think life in IPDA won't be as hectic as before though. For one, no more tuition. Lol! I had to take 3 extra tuition classes last year because I took 3 extra subjects which were not taught in school. I'll never forget how I started Commerce tuition in August(few months before SPM) and having known nothing about Commerce up to that point. I don't know why I took such a stupid risk actually. Lol. In tuition I must have looked smart or something cause my teacher kept picking on me to answer the questions. Of course I couldn't answer most of her questions and eventually she started picking on another student who obviously knew his stuff.

3 tuition classes.. wait, 4 including BM. And prefectship, PBSM, Sejarah & Geography club, Christian Fellowship, Yellow House and of course, badminton... It's no wonder I led such a gila life before. I don't think life in IPDA will be like that anymore. I'm not going to throw myself into so many activities anymore. I did all those before because I really enjoyed it.. and of course, because I wanted the remote chance of getting a scholarship. =P Actually, I did not really enjoy prefectship, I just enjoyed entering classes late and no questions asked. Plus I felt it was too close to the end(stepping down) to resign..

Now I'll probably just join what I really enjoy and relax the rest of the time. No more crazed hectic life for me, thank you very much.

Looking for a badminton group in Kedah.. really lazy to jog to keep fit.. but if I can't find a group around my level than I'll just have to start jogging..

I'm getting random here.

K off to bed for now.

God bless,
Jo

Life _ _ _ _ _

Fill in the blanks. However you want to. Take it in what sense thou wilt.

Feel like screaming blue murder today. Gah.

So few days left and yet so many things to do.

On top of that I'm coming down with a cold that I fought so very very hard against the past few days. I've managed to fight off colds the last few rounds, but I guess this time it's just not gonna work.

And I've got to walk around on a pair of horribly aching legs due to heavy training yesterday. You have any idea how hard it is to pack and prepare your stuff on a pair of legs that scream in protest whenever I move? Squatting down is the worst! Top that off with a cold.

Oh, and I just found out that I somehow didn't get/missed my 'Surat Tawaran' from the MOE. I don't know how it happened, I don't know if it's my fault or not, I just know I don't have a letter that I am supposed to have downloaded from the website. On any normal day I won't bother much about it, but to have that on top of a horrid day is like piss icing on top of a shit cake.

Forgive my language. I'm usually more civilised than that. But hey, I'm not exactly in the mood to bother about manners.

Have to transfer my things over to another laptop now. I've never used Windows Vista before this and suddenly I've got to do it in a few days. Which, mind you, are totally-packed days. If I'm not out I'm packing my stuff. If I'm not packing my stuff I'm looking at the things I need to photocopy and certify. If I'm not doing all of the above then I'm probably fast asleep in bed, exhausted. Which rarely happens, if that had happened often enough I probably won't be feeling so shi-..sick right now. With my computer skills(lack of, rather), I'll probably struggle with it for a few weeks.

Leaving home on a scholarship is no easy task. You not only have to worry about what to pack, but what you need to fill in, certify, sign, get others to sign, all sorts of documents.

Ok I'm off to search for more things to photocopy and certify.

Have a better day than I did.

Sleep enough, don't get sick.

Don't be stupid enough to miss an important 'Surat Tawaran' letter.

Don't train so hard if you know you're gonna need your legs for important work the next few days.

Don't rant over silly things.

Lastly and most importantly, leave everything to God. Pray to God sailor, and row your boat.

God bless,
Jo

Ouch

Tried to sleep early last night. I actually went to bed at 12.30am because I had training today at 8.30am. Ok, honestly I went for training because I wanted to see my coach(Beng Tiong) before I went to Kedah. Haha. Not because I want to train.

Suddenly woke up at 2am though. And felt wide-awake, couldn't sleep after that. I knew I HAD to sleep, no one can survive a gruelling nearly 3 hours of training on only 1.5 hours of sleep! But I just couldn't. Gave up by 5am and decided I'll just die during training. Haha.

So.. well, like the last time, I went late. =P I really can't help it, training at 8.30am is asking a bit too much from me. I mean, 8.30am! Who's awake at that hour, much less ready to train???

Anyway, went late and the rest had already started countless sets of all types of footwork. By the time I warmed-up and joined them, some of them could barely walk. Lol. Seems they actually came at 7.30am and started physical exercises immediately after warming-up! *salutes* Sorry lah, I'm just too old for this. I'm no longer a competitive player. Haha.

So did all sorts of footwork/agility exercises for about 30 minutes. And this is because I started training late. =P The rest of them had been training since 8am. I started at 8.45am. Haha! Still, I nearly died. Seriously. I've stopped consistent training since February, only the occasional once a week here and there. My fitness level(together with my 1.5 hours of sleep) has dropped dropped and dropped. I feel so bad about it. Haha. I ran 3km, 1.5km, 800m and 4X400m for sports day last year. This year I think I'll fare miserably in all of those events.

The final exercise was bad. Really! I don't know how many of you will understand it, I suppose only those who've undergone serious training for a sport will really understand it. Well, the earlier exercises were timed like 30 seconds to 1 min, in 4 sets. The final exercise was a killer. 3 minutes of non-stop footwork. The Bulgurian guy next to me was huffing and puffing and snorting his way through the exercise. Hello, last I checked I'm a nobody, why am I training next to international players?? I felt like my legs were gonna cramp any second. My fault lah, I just stretched for warm-up, was too tired to do some jogging/footwork. =(

The good news is, I didn't get any leg cramps.

The better news is, OBT had us all to use squash racquets to play badminton. LOL. For about 1 hour. Goodness. I discovered that perfect cross nets and net shots are really really easy with squash racquets. The thicker strings maybe? Or lower tension? It's so easy to control. I think lower tension. *shrugs* Anyhow all our footwork and shots were elephant-like. But thanks to my previous squash-training my shots could reach reasonably far. Lol.

Then we played with badminton racquets again! Hahaha. Needless to say our racquets felt like feathers.

Had a good time laughing at an argument between the Malaysian and Bulgarian player. Lazy to go into details but they were very very entertaining. The Bulgarian player especially because of his really-hard-to-understand accent and his vocal display of sheer enthusiasm whenever he won(or thought he has) an argument/point. This player is a refreshing change as compared to the previous few Australian/NZ players. The Australian and NZ players were so.. polite. Haha. They seem boring compared to this guy.

I thought my legs would be aching terribly by now but no, they aren’t. I’m not too sure why. Maybe tomorrow. Haiz. I’ve got to start consistent training/exercise again though. I’ll see how things are in Kedah, if I can’t find a badminton group hopefully there will be a good place to jog.

I look at all the stuff in my room and swing between depression, exasperation and frustration. *sigh* There are sooo many things to be done. The forms came by post a few days ago. And there are sooo many forms to fill! They want copies for everything too, up to 5 copies for stuff like IC. And FIFTEEN passport-sized photos. Haiz. I’ll just print the photos out. But everything looks so daunting I just feel like shoving everything aside and playing my guitar. *Oops that’s precisely what I did.*

Oh btw yeah I had a great time in London. =) My biological clock was perfect for London time! I actually went to sleep at 9.30pm some nights! Lol. Because I sleep about 3, 4am in Malaysia, so the timing was kinda perfect for London I suppose. I went to see my future uni too. Haha. Provided our government doesn’t collapse and all scholarships are withdrawn or something I’ll be headed to the uni of Portsmouth in 2 years time. Seeing how unstable our country has been of late I’m really doubtful about getting to fly there. But yeah, anything goes for me. I’ve left it to God. =)

Need to start looking at the forms and what needs to be photo stated and certified now. Have a great day and God bless! =)