27th August 2003, Wednesday (KrazyKreaturez's Journal)

I can't really remember what happened, but I guess it was just a waste of time.

26th August 2003, Tuesday (KrazyKreaturez's Journal)

We had a series of talks and stuff. Not much excitement going on except people coming up to me and trying to advise me to stop being so rebellious. I didn't know Malaysians were so like this...

25th August 2003, Monday (KrazyKreaturez's Journal)

First thing’s first. Meet up with the group to learn the new cheers, again, following Malaysian Timing. At first, it was just Sheena, Sook Yee and me. All of the cheers that they made up were sort of parodies or remakes of famous songs, such as Stand By Me and YMCA... I was disappointed as I expected them to come up with the short cheers that I was used to in Singapore. Anyway, we decided on the YMCA one that went:
Black Cats, and the four-leafed clover,
I say Ladders, and Lucky bunny tails,
It's so super super, Superstition,
*clap clap clap clap clap
That's why we're gonna win it,
Su-Per-Sti-Tion
We're gonna sing it,
Su-Per-Sti-Tion
It's gonna be a snout,
We're gonna take you out,
So Superstition RULEZ!
Catchy tune, but wasn't really into the idea. But I dont know what the seniors wanted, so I guessed that it would be okay. The rest of the group arrived slowly, one by one, all clad in green... We quickly arranged ourselves such that we formed a mountain of green, Vasan being the tallest in the center and me at the side. Sheena and Sook Yee the 'rap star' and 'bimbo actress' took to the sides. Without wasting time, we thought of stupid gestures to go with the song. We practiced a few different formations but soon discovered that simplest is the best. So we just stood in one line an viola! we got a nice formation and great opening. How can we not forget Vasan's cute-three-dimpled-smile-with-nice-white-teeth?

Basically, the signature hunt is already on the way and we could hear people screaming their lungs out, cheering and laughing. But first, we had to attend another boring talk which I guess is worthless as I can't remember what it was about...

It was a fun time, getting signatures and performing our YMCA song. I knew some of the seniors weren't too happy with our cheer because it wasn't dirty or anything! but they still like the catchy tune and of course, VASAN!!!

Icebreakers. I was really pissed at the way the orientation was run. There wasn't much co-ordination with the admin side of IMU. I mean I was late for the icebreakers because I was caught in class. Anyway, I didn't had time to change out of my good pair of trousers and that pissed me off too.

The icebreakers started off with a rhetorical question: Are you ready? I shouted a clear NO for fun, while others were mumbling in small voices, 'yes'... The seniors were looking at me with an eye now... HAH! Then we started off the games while being pelted and bombarded with margerine, butter, eggs, flour and water. I gathered what I could and threw it back at them... I wondered why they were so angry at me... I just sat there gathering what I could and taking whatever shit they were throwing at me, while everyone else were running away screaming. I don't really know what the seniors were thinking, but I guess that they were fed up with me as I didn't seem to respond the way they want me too. The next thing I knew, I was getting married to a guy named Eugene.

I was given water balloon breasts, hair made up with margerine and eggs, and flour for make up. I was married in 5 different languages and water poured all over me. I dare not ask what was in the water... When everybody was screaming and running away again, I just sat there. When the commotion was less, I took my breasts and threw them at the seniors. Even with a load of crap blocking my eyes, I managed to make direct hits on 2 seniors. I was rather proud of myself.

From that time on, I was a target. And I brought my group down with me. Seniors came up to me to advise me to keep my cool. I was wondering what was wrong with what I did...

I scrubbed my orientation clothes 3 time before putting it into the washing machine. And it came out not as spotless clean, but clean enough. I wonder what was installed for this week...

22nd August 2003, Friday (Krazykreaturez's Journal)

The next few days of orientation consists of mostly talks and stuff. Boring. And of course I made a couple of new friends. A guy from Kenya, one over-friendly guy, 3 of my soon to be PBL-mates. No improvement with girls though, but there was one really good looking tanned-skinned girl. Other than that, I didn’t see much else.

Close to the end of the day, the seniors finally introduced themselves and divided them into groups. Ah, Stephen, my protector! And Jenn Ping! I am saved! Next thing I knew, I was a group leader of a sad looking bunch of people. We introduced ourselves first, Aliaa from Ipoh, Sholikhah aka Angah, Nurbaiti, Sheena (“Spare me the Queen of the jungle jokes!” Right… okay…), Vasanthakumar aka Vasan, Me, Kenneth from Klang, Sau Ming, Sook Yee, Jo En from Cheras, Jenny from Sabah, Yick Yeong wants to be known as Song, and Iqbal Harris (“You can call me either Iqbal or Harris). I had a plan forming in my head, and I will try to bring this group up, I have been into many orientations before, lead 2 of them in fact. My group’s next task was to elect the IMCC, the worst yet fun position in Orientation. Seniors came to help, selecting Kenneth to be, but he wasn’t too keen as his girlfriend won’t like it. How annoying is that? Hiding behind your girlfriend… Luckily Vasan agreed to be the choosen one. And of course we had to name ourselves. Sook Yee, ah yes, a pretty sight indeed, came up with Cloud Nine, but they didn’t like it. The seniors wanted a dirty name though, so we came up with Superstition.

I put Sheena and Sook Yee into the Cheer group, being the noisiest and the liveliest of the bunch except this loud mouth guy they had for a leader. The rest, I put in the flag group. An exchange of telephone numbers and we called it a day.

Sheena came by that night, I lent her my ‘baggy pants’. She talked quite a lot, and made it worse by asking me, “You are not Singaporean, are you? Coz I won’t be talking to you right now.” And you think Malaysians are much better? Maybe you are not worthy of talking to one… well, goodnight then.

21 August 2003, Thursday (Krazykreaturez's Journal)

I woke up, still thinking whether I should study for this English Placement Test that we were going to have in a couple of hours. I decided not to and fell back to sleep, dreaming about what the English Placement Test is like. After waking up, eating breakfast and washing up, Choon Keong and I went to Uni again. I can't remember what we did before the test, as all I remembered was this dumb test that we have to take. What would their standards be? I mean Singapore education has been so much higher than the triple-one-nine paper, and what could be worse than GP?

I was right in the sense that the test was easy. The answers were ALL there!!! of course there were other false answers which we were supposed to eliminate and choose the right one... Negative marking? It's too small a percentage, it won't make a difference. Was there even negative marking? I don't remember, I didn't really care about them... So I sat down and followed instructions and started on the paper. It was a breeze, except for a few questions which unti now, I think we can still debate on. pick the odd one out: Carcass, Remains, Body, Corpse... or was there Cadever in there somewhere? I put body as it seems that body can mean it was alive, too, right? Somebody said it was carcass coz it's only for animals... debatable, debatable... anyway, that is the most confusing one that I remembered doing. Then the last question, the essay one. I looked at my watch and there was about an hour left. Wait, wasn't this a 1 and 1/2 hours paper? Good Lord... The question was asking us to write a letter who was planning to come to Malaysia, but was scared of the SARS outbreak around the region. This should be easy, i thought they would ask some more current issue in which I would not have known through newspapers as I don't read them save comics. Tell him/her about what the Government has done about it. This is good, all I have to do is write what the government has done. I mean I have been working and reading campaign ads... THAT WERE IN SINGAPORE!! I realised that I dont know jack about what MALAYSIA has done? panic attack!!!

I calmed myself down and started drawing a plan on what to write: Masks, campaign ads, hospital measures, did I include restraining orders? and whatever I could think that the Malaysian government is capable of. I mean after what I have gone through in Singapore, and those times travelling back and forth inbetween countries, I guess I could crap a little... I began writing... but stopped at the first line. How do you start a letter? It's been so long since I have even wrote a decent E-mail!!! another panic surge...

I raised my hand for another sheet of paper and wrote in the final words of my essay. Now, this wasn't that bad a test right? I wondered what they will do if we failed this test. I remember when I visited the Uni during their open house in March, they said that my lousy B3 for GP is VERY good... I guess I wont be able to find out about these English classes... Anyway, I don't recall what we did after the test.

Next thing I remembered is that I had to go to attend some stupid talk about library and computer room usage. Apparently the first few groups were late and the whole session got mixed up and everybody came in as they pleased. I met a Kenyan by the name of Rassam. nice guy. Soft spoken, but we got aquainted. Next person I met was Khairi, JPA scholar i think. Nice guy too, quite a good command of English as we spoke quite alot, asking about what we know about IMU.

Then, finally we managed to get into the computer lab for the briefing. Khairi and me sat in the front row, beside a girl named Michelle from PBL G. We checked our mails while waiting for the briefing to start. I was scared at first, but nobody got into trouble and he even encouraged us to do so as he needs time to prepare the slides, so I checked my mail... nothing new, except a mail from Celia trying to make deals about the Lord of the Ring Cards. The day ended, and I knew 3 new people now... :)

20th August 2003, Wednesday (Krazykreaturez's Journal)

The day was a rush. In the morning, I had to take my driving test, this being the only day left for me to be tested. I woke up exceptionally early today, and made sure my things were packed and ready to go. Most of the stuff were already in the car, and the rest are already in Vista, all that was left is me. I was nervous, but not as nervous as going to a new school with new faces all around. I have heard of the horrible stuff the do to the new comers and I was thinking of devising a plan that will keep me safe from all that. Though Stephen had assured me that this time it will be different, and I took his word for it. I wanted to keep a low profile; not planning to make myself known, make myself famous.

The test was a steal. I had to rush through it, and nearly screwed up the road test as the tester couldn’t speak up… So I made my U-turn in a rush, signaling for less than the required 3 seconds. Ah, well. Lost a total of 3 marks of the 20. I thank her, got down from the car and finished the test. There. Done. The next test: Adapting into IMU…

I couldn’t really sleep in that 1hour plus journey, thinking of the test and IMU. The next thing I knew; I was rushing up to the MPH to sign up. As I receive the necessary documents for orientation, I stumbled upon the PBL list and I started browsing through the long lost of strangers. Oh, another Grace Chew Wei something. Sien Hui is here and so is Choon Keong. No Kenny Tan. Wow, a Thai in my group. Will this be the Orientation groups as well?

Then, after meeting up with Choon Keong, we went to the introduction talk by some of the professors. Even though we haven’t seen her for a long time, looking for the only other person we know, Sien Hui, was easy. We sat down and I began scanning the hall for potential girls. None of them really caught my eye, but my vision was obstructed by the people around me and I had to pay attention to some big shot speaking in front.

The tour of the campus was nothing much. I like exploring myself, but there wasn’t much to explore in this shopping complex. Then when we reached the Medical Museum, we were allowed to ask questions. Some guy (later whom I know as Richard) asked about orientation. He’s a goner, seniors are gonna get him good…