Friday, May 18, 2007

today...



...in Christ alone.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

the truth about Orientation 2007/2008

Here's the truth about the Orientation 2007/2008 for the juniors who just came into the school. I feel sorry for all of you and I truly apologise to any of you juniors who are reading this blog because Orientation this year is going stink.

I'm not one who pushes away his responsibilities and start pointing fingers at everything that goes wrong but rather I am one who cries over injustice and I try my very best to do what I think is right.

Last year, MPPPU 05/06 caught a lot of flak from the school's COUNSELING UNIT(HAHAHA) over the activities that they planned for us, the juniors back then. I thought the Orientation 2006/2007 was really good and I had a lot of fun. I made so many new friends and I think the Orientation planned by MPPPU 05/06 did what it's supposed to do.

So, fast forward to the beginning of the year, the school decided that the Counseling Unit will do it instead of MPPPU. Note that this has been decided WAYYY early in the beginning of the year. Then ONE WEEK AGO, the Counseling Unit wrote a memo to Miss Neo and told off one of my Directors for not preparing the time table for the Orientation 2007/2008. The said that it's MPPPU's job and not theirs and washed their hands off everything. Miss Neo was so angry, she went and had an argument with the 'counselors' about their responsibility that was given to them MONTHS ago. In the end, they decided to hold a meeting between the counselors, school and Miss Neo to settle this problem.

Turns out that the 2 morning session counselors who messed up disappeared and chickened out of the meeting and they got the poor afternoon session counselor to stand in instead. The GPK HEM, who is supposed to be in charge of this also pulled another disappearing act and got the GPK 1 to attend the meeting instead. In the end, there were only 3 people attending the meeting: GPK 1, afternoon session counselor and Miss Neo. Finally, it has been decided that it will be done by the Counseling Unit because it is their responsibility after all that has been entrusted to them since the beginning of the year and we, MPPPU will just help.

Fast forward till today, the 'counselors' didn't even bother to arrange the hall for the lower six students and from there onwards, everything went down the gutter. Loads of reshuffling of programs and talks because the main counselor was absent. I think he must have chickened out.

This one got me really ticked: MPPPU was supposed to teach the juniors how to sing the school song and my directors went around searching for the school song HIGH AND LOW all over the place and the lady counselor had the cheek to humiliate my directors and Miss Neo by calling Miss Neo 'rude' in their brief exchange of words and my directors passive and not proactive whereas they have been working their butts off. Bad case of false accusations and talking without using one's brain.

Then she(the lady counselor) complained everything to me again and said that she had taken the LIBERTY to look for the school song CD for us but little did she know, that SHE GOT US THE WRONG CD! It was embarrassing for us to have to fiddle around with the CD player trying to look for the non-existent track in front of all the juniors and I had to spend a lot of time 'stalling' and teaching the juniors a bunch of 'cheers' to lighten up the boring day(for them).

Finally, the AVA guys came to the rescue with the right CD. I think that's the first time these AVA guys ever did anything right. Well, any help is appreciate anyway, in times like these. Thankfully we got everything underway with the right CD.

I don't know what good came out of today. I think the reception from the juniors were pretty poor because they don't seem to like us very much. I think I talk too much but that's my job.

All in all, after everything's been said and done for the past two days, I have one conclusion to make: SOMEBODY IS TRYING REALLY HARD TO SCREW WITH US(MPPPU) AND HAVING A DAMN GOOD TIME MAKING US FRUSTRATED. Good job messing with us, but we are no where near the edge.

Well, here comes tomorrow...

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

what it takes to keep a cool head

What does it take to keep a cool head in a tense situation? Funny that it comes from me because as a leader, it is one of the main prerequisites of being a leader. It shouldn't come as a surprise really, that when you plan an activity or anything with others that may not go along well with you, things will go wrong and tension will rise.

What a terrific day today, really. Today is Teachers' Day and a very big round of sarcastic applause to STK Prefects for screwing up my teacher's day. We're suppose to CELEBRATE our teachers on this day and thanks to our good friends in blue, today seems to give Miss Neo and MPPPU more drama than we can shake a TV tube at.

I have been told that sharing things will be good for the mind and the soul rather than to bottle it all up and end up with depression. I have learned to let go because hey, that's how I was raised; both in my family and in the youth group. I forgive these blue hippos but I need to rant. Bear with me or else click here and knock yourselves out rather than to read this useless piece of writing.

MPPPU('We' from here onwards) have been called to take part in the school's Teachers' Day celebration ONE AND A HALF MONTHS AGO. We were called for the very first meeting and rather than have a civil meeting between the the prefects and the MPPPU, the TEACHER-IN-CHARGE and the prefects treated us as second class citizens during the meeting. Making snide remarks about how MPPPU is soooo busy with their work and not willing to help the school, blah blah blah. We took it in stride because we know what we have done for the school and what they say simply isn't true. So, what the hell, we just let it go.

That was the first and the last meeting we ever have regarding the Teachers' Day because for some reason, SOMEONE thought that MPPPU didn't want to help out anymore and we washed our hands off everything. The blue hippos assured us weeks ago that whenever they have a meeting, they will call/update us on what we need to do. So, for many weeks no one came to any of us and until I asked one of the prefects and she said that we didn't want to help them anymore and we 'washed our hands off everything'.

Naturally, I wasn't happy that they said something like that which didn't make any sense at all. Miss Neo thought, "What the heck" and we were told to do what we were told to do in the first meeting WEEKS ago. I was told to be in charge of security and the arrangement of the students. I spent my time and energy to plan and notify the head prefect(another Forrest Gump but minus the sincerity and other goodness) that I need a certain number of prefects for the event, which is only 10 for the boys out of 120+ prefects that they have in the school. That is, ladies and gentlemen, 8.33% of the prefects.

I reminded him the day before the event, which is yesterday, about what we need and plans that I need to have prefects to do their duty at the gate and Forrest 'Head Boy' Gump said "Okay, no problem."

The morning came and what was supposed to be a fine day turns out to be one that will shorten my lifespan by 10 years. Firstly, once the students start to gather at the sports complex, I have to arrange them and get them to line up properly. The fantastic thing is this: NO ONE WAS THERE TO HELP ME. My MPPPU Directors were busy trying to register the lower six students that is understandable but I expected the prefects to be there. None of these blue hippos were there and they only came down to help me once the even got started. What is the point of coming if you come after everything's been done? I hate to arrange these boys because the lower form kids will never listen to us form six'ers. Probably because we don't speak the same language and think on the same wavelength.

Anyway, what's done is done and I thought, "Okay...let's move on." I went and tried to look for the person in charge and everyone said "No, I don't know anything about this. Don't ask me." This is Malaysian bureaucracy at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. We are breeding these prefects who are supposed to be leaders to pinpoint faults at other people and teaching them to apply 'bureaucratic red tape' to their menial duties. Referring one person to the other pointlessly until one sad boy told me that our dear Forrest Gump is in-charge of everything.

Fair enough, I went to look for him and I asked him, "What happened? WHERE ARE THE PREFECTS WHEN WE NEEDED THEM?!" He had the cheek to answer me, "Uhh...they weren't there? Well, I was busy preparing the 'gimmick'(which was a lame bullshit stunt that they pulled during the event to make the funnies)" And naturally, I was angry.

Right after all these rubbish, I had to run off with a couple more directors of mine to 'escort' the teachers to the sports complex because we are wearing blazers after all and we look a lot better than the blue bums. We ran to the place where all the teachers are gathering and what happened is that they took off without us! Obviously they are doing all these just to spite us. Stress, stress, stress.

To add salt to the wound, many seniors(upper six students) from PU2B2 and PU2B3 thought it would be a splendid idea to come late at 10:30AM because Teachers' Day celebration is a pointless event and they rather come late just to do their compulsory experiments. I had to rally for help from my own MPPPU Directors because none of the prefects who promised to be there at the gates were there to do their duty. NO ONE. ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WAS THERE.

These kind of things seems to happen to me all the time. I must be really unlucky or something. I'm sad to say that's only the first half of the story. If you want to, you might want to go and watch YouTube or something. Or else, here's the second part:

Another teacher who has nothing to do with Form 6 come and told Miss Neo and I that our own directors are letting the students go back early. The whole thing was a misunderstanding because the said student, who supposedly left early, never stepped into the school at all! Here's a fine example of teachers always trying to find fault with us.

I really cannot take any of these bullshit any longer and Miss Neo and I went to see the discipline teacher. We had a long talk about the general attitude of the prefects and the teacher in charge of them. We came to a conclusion that we will hold a meeting between the MPPPU and prefects in the presence of the principal and other administrative teachers. We want to solve this 'relationship' problems in that meeting to pave a new way for the coming generations of MPPPU and form six students to come.

I'm trying to be calm but the more I dwell on this, the more it's going to kill me. And I guess that's what the prefects want the most. I have 3 more months to hold this post and you can be sure as heck that I'm going to go out with a bang.

I really don't want to continue any more even though there are so many things that I did not share and should probably be left untold.

Oh and Happy Teachers' Day to all of you out there!

Monday, May 07, 2007

bad habits

They say bad habits are easy to pick up but hard to put down. I say that is very true.

I have a very strange bad habit and in a moment you'll know why. I have read multiples articles, studies and discussions on the human habit and the psychology of the human mind because these things interests me a lot. Plus, as a magician, it gives me an invaluable advantage over my spectators to know what are they thinking and how they will react even before they know it themselves through mere suggestions of words and thoughts as well as their body language. Thus, bad habits and other psychological 'disorders' interests me as well.

I wouldn't call my bad habit a disorder. I really annoying bad habit maybe but not until the stage of a disorder. So, what's my problem?

I LOVE to rearrange my things. I really like things to be tidy but if you come over to my house and look at my living area you'll think I'm a messy hobo. In fact, I sometimes fail to even look for things that I have put down moments ago. That's how messy my drawers and even tables can get but that's not that point. The point is, I only rearrange everything when I'm nearing exam or a deadline.

Just ask my mom and she will tell you exactly WHEN will I be sitting for any exam or tests; that is when I start to rearrange everything in my room, desk and everything. Where I place my books and notes never bothered me but once the exam is near, everything will get some sort of new arrangement. I would sort all my notes out(which I usually don't because.... hey, it's MY notes!) and file them accordingly.

My mom decided to name this bad habit of mine. She said it's called: LAZINESS.

Heh.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

it takes quite an effort...

...to pull off the greatest illusion in the world.



This one's for you, King of Gags. :)

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

There's MAGIC everywhere!

Tons of things happened today.

First of all would be Eden's Open Day at the Kg. Paya Community Hall. It's a pretty big place and I believe that other than the rain, everything went pretty smoothly and there seems to be enough space for everyone, which is usually a problem at big fairs like these. Many different churches and NGOs come together to bring awareness to the community around Kg. Paya about Eden's Community Centre's existence and overall I think the even was pretty successful.

I had the opportunity to do something I have never done in my entire life: TO BUSK! After standing and doing magic for 8 hours straight, I have a great amount of respect for street buskers now. It isn't easy, alright... I have made a grand total of RM39! That's not even enough to cover the cost of the props! Hahaha...

I stuck a piece of polystyrene in front of my little space at AYA's stall that says "Any contributions are WELCOMED!" to let people know that they can pay me whatever amount they feel I'm worth. Well, after this experience, I think I should change the words into something that says "GIVE ME YOUR MONIES". Hehe... I think I have done magic to roughly 150+ who drop by our stall and out of those only 30% contributed with an average of 2 coupons. So many times when the kids wanted to give me their monies(Okay.. okay... it's money, I know...) their parents would urged them away.

lol.

I think this is another great experience for me because doing magic for friends is one thing and it's an entirely different thing to do magic for monies. A friend saw my 'earning' of the day and told me, "It's alright. We live in Malaysia, anyway, where buskers aren't really appreciated." Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not complaining. I'm just a little disappointed with the general attitude of Malaysians(I may be over generalizing people here). So many of them come up to me and ask if they need to pay after watching me do my thing and once I told them they can 'pay me whatever amount they think I'm worth', they walked away. Fantastic.

It's really boring for me to do the same thing over and over again(I think I did my Ambitious Card Routine for a million times today) but to everyone else who drops by, it's brand new thing that people usually have not seen in their entire lives! So, everytime I get a new group of people, I would need to put on a Mr. Charming smile and start afresh. What a challenging experience, I must say...

Other than that and the rain, it has been a great day for me. Gave out my cards to a lot of people. Maybe I can expect some calls from some hawt girls sometime soon. Hehehe... In fact, I'm very much surprised that a lot of my teachers dropped by. It was fun fooling around my very own teachers.

After the event, Yi Wan and I thought it might be a good idea to check out the old haunted hospital situated along Jalan Hospital (haha) but that's a post for another day. Promise! :D

"People always ask me... whether I do this for love or for money. I say it's for LOVE! *cheers* The love for your money!"