Merdeka?

This is an overdue Merdeka post. I really did want to write something on Merdeka day, but due to technical problems with the video I wanted to attach to this post, It comes almost 10 days overdue.

Honestly, I wasn't feeling very patriotic on the day itself, when I normally would in previous years. I guess I was thinking about a situation in Malaysia about a friend that made me sad. But i'm not at liberty to discuss that here. The day was spent, firstly sending Imran and Nana to the bus stop, sending Harris back home, to the rec center for "Merdeka Volleyball", bit of badminton, lunch with Qi Su and Meqsu in town and Merdeka cake made by Hani at Rotary court. Not very exciting.

So, Merdeka? I myself truly believe that Malaysia is a special place. If we really try to see everyone as the color grey, and think of ourselves as Malaysians, Merdeka would truly have lived up to its true meaning. I remember in primary school, my best friends were Amritpall Singh and Nicholas Tan. It was never about race then, and I think I'm not the only one that feels that way. Somewhere down the line, people change, people grow up, and more variables come into play. I love the idea that Malaysia is a country with racial harmony, and I want to be able to be friends with people that have different religious beliefs and are from different races. I want to be free to be happy for them when they celebrate their festivals, and I want to have the freedom to share my joy with them when I celebrate my festivals.

I am guilty of the occasional racial name calling, and I know its just not me who does it, but honestly, its more out of habit than malice. I mean, If I hate someone, its because I hate someone, and not because of the race that person belongs to. Maybe that's just me. But even in the this name calling context, it would be better if people say "bloody Malaysians !" rather than specify to any particular race. Hahaha. At least there would be unity even in our negatives.

51 years? My god, time flies. Still, after all those years, we're still struggling, and the sad part is, its amongst ourselves. I guess the world doesn't really see Malaysia that way, and I guess one thing that all Malaysians do best, is not showing the world our true colors.

Happy belated birthday Malaysia. I hope that the drama that is unfolding is for the best. I still love you Malaysia, and believe in the idea of you.

I leave you with a video me and Lutfi made for Malaysian Night 2008, with help from Worm and Haizat. Its called,

"How far has Malaysia really come in the eyes of the World"

Reality Check

It was a busy weekend for MUMSA last week, as we had 2 events in succession. The first was the Unity & Diversity show, where MUMSA is again participating with a dance performance, and also the next day, we had our Annual Malaysian Night dinner.

UNITY & DIVERISTY PERFORMANCE

I know I said somewhere that it would be a long time before I danced on stage again, but that was then, when I was what people called a noob, unaware of the joy of performing especially something that you would never think you were capable of doing ever in your life. It falls under the same category as bungy jumping, you never thought you would do such a thing, but you did, and you would do it again.

Dance practices started about a month before the show, and ideas of what we would be performing came pouring in. At first we wanted to do a five piece performance, malay dance, chinese dance, indian, kadazan, and a modern dance which involved hip-hop and break dancing. Yes it sounds scary, thats what I thought anyways. We ended up doing just the malay, chinese and indian dance. This year, it wasn't just 6 dancers, but we had 19, and that made practices fun. Once again, Caroline correographed most of the show, while Hani and Laili took care of the Malay dance. I have to honestly say, that after watching last years show, Hani and Laili made this years Malay dance simple, compared to Elun's piece. But, it was for the best, as Caroline's correography for the Chinese and Indian dances were intense, and the simple start at the start was needed, especially for the dancers who had to dance all 3 dances.

At the end of the show, we won best unique performance, which I think we deserved because of the different elements we showed in our dance.Video of the performance will be posted as soon as I get a better copy of it, as my copy was shot at an awkward angle, so not everyone is seen, including me..hehe.

MALAYSIAN NIGHT 2008

Due to last years success, organisers Lutfi and Jace decided to stick with the costume theme. This year, it was Hollywood, Bollywood & Mallywood.

Once again a video was needed for the night, so me and Lutfi got to work starting on Friday. We shot more footage on saturday, did the editing saturday night till the night of the dinner. I came up with the idea and so it wasn't that great of a video. It was meant to be more, but I think I did not execute it as well as I wanted.

I went to Malaysian night dressed as a gangster, Al Capone style, American gangster style. It wasn't much dressing up really, believe me when I say others dressed up, with make up and props, but me, a pinstripe suit, and put on my normal face, and I'm a gangster (coz people always say I have a unfriendly face).

People who have known me since high school will probably know that I was supposed to sing at my prom, but that never happened, so at Malaysian night, I made up for that, and performed. Hahahhah. It's funny how this year, Haizat transferred from Albany and he asked if I wanted to join him in performing for Malaysian night. What the heck, bila lagi kan. Good thing the performance were watched by friends, and our mistakes while singing were forgiven. It was good, bit nervous at first but by the time the second song came, we were comfortable.

Video me and Lutfi made will be posted up soon as well, and video of the singing will not be posted.

The night was fun, and of course the photo sessions, with all the different costumes. I even got the best dressed, just because Iylia won already for most photogenic. Look at the pictures here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=150568&l=a21ff&id=673915175 , and you'll know why he should have a clean sweep for the awards.

The night ended smoothly, and kudos to Jace and Lutfi for organizing a great event.

REALITY CHECK

P.S : I am officially tired of it. My efforts have brought me nowhere near, instead has made me bitter. I am switching off. I am officially crawling back into my sanctuary where its safe.

The night I became P.Ramlee.

This past week was a fun week for me and definitely or my friends as well, as we were all working towards making Malaysian Night 2007 a success.

It all started when a committee was formed for the MUMSA Malaysian Night 2007 event that happened on September 8th. Everyone had their tasks to do, and mine was to help Razif with the slide show that Imran requested be made, showing all the events/activities that took place this year. Also, Imran decided that there would be a theme for the night, and the theme is the 60's. Straight away, images of P.Ramlee, and sounds of "Getaran Jiwa" came to mind.

Started working on the slide show with Razif down in Kairanga 5 days before the event. We kind of started at a leisurely pace and not until 4 days before the event that we felt the pressure. At that point, Iylia and Lutfi decided to join in and help. The room felt like a hackers hub, with 4 laptops running. We pulled all nighter after all nighter and took turns to nap at certain points in the wee hours of the morning.

3 days before the event however, Iylia decided to make a video for the committee, and asked Lutfi to direct the video coz he's fab behind the camera. I joined in the creative process, and suddenly the ideas were flowing. We finally decided on a plot, and the next day made it happen.

We filmed half of the plot that day, and proceeded by editing that half the same night till early hours again, also helping Razif with the slideshow. We were a fully functional multimedia team. Now I know how my Kak Yang feels when she has to work on production sets, and we're only an amateur team.

1 day to the event and we had to wake up early next morning to get some stuff with Audrey for decorations, and also get to the costume shop. I admit, I had an idea of what to wear, but thanks to Iylia, Audrey and Eugene for persuading me to go to that place. There were a number of choices of costumes and suits to choose from, but I only had eyes for a white dinner jacket. Sean Ghazi in his video "Ku Impikan Bintang" was inspiration for my outfit, and I must say, I don't look half bad wearing it.

After the costume shop and getting decorations, we decided to shoot the final scene and the rest of the movie. We managed to finish shooting pretty much all the footage we needed and would do the editing that night. We finished at round 5.30 and went straight for dinner because amidst all the preparation for Malaysian Night, we had an indoor soceer mini tournament held by the Singaporean club which was called the SEA cup, which consisted of 2 Malaysian Teams, 2 Singaporean teams, and 1 Indonesian team. At the end of that, Malaysia A came second to Indonesia, and Singapore B came third. It was good 3 hours of footy.

We still had the videos and slide shows to finish so, me and Iylia went back, cleaned up and got coffee, coz it was gonna be a long night. On the day of the event, at 4 PM, we finished all videos and slide shows, the main ones at least. So me and Iylia went back up, showered and got our suits and went to the venue to set up.

Wharerata (pronounced farerata) is the venue. It is a function center on campus. Its really a beautiful place, and as people say when the go in, it sure doesn't look like the rest of Massey. Its an old house, something like the old english houses in the small quaint villages in england. Its a real hotspot for small conferences, meetings, parties, and even weddings, so you get the idea when I say its beautiful. I hope.

After we finished setting up the audio stuff, and the visual stuff, me, Iylia and Eugene went to change. 5 minutes later, we were 60's baby!. Iylia and Eugene were transformed with the afro and the rest of their outfit, while I donned the white suit and became the Cabaret ish loung singer type person? Anyways, we got good feedback for our outfits and that made the night more fun.

At 7 PM, the VIP arrived, Pn.Satinah, our Director of the Malaysian Students Department in New Zealand, and that meant all of us had to be seated. 15 minutes later the event officially starts with Lutfi reciting the doa. Imran was next to give his opening speech which was short and sweet and even got stick from us guys when he mentioned Nana too many times in the speech..haha...all good bro. This was followed by a speech from Pn.Satinah. I have to say, she has a way with words, and knows how to include everyone in her speeches. A very good diplomat indeed.

After her speech, the next item on the agenda was the lucky draw. Cmon lucky number 7 !! because it was my ticket number. As usual, my luck on these kind of things never came through. Shortly after everyone settled down, the first slide show made by the multimedia team is next on the agenda. Me and Razif, who had the most input on the first 3 parts of the slide show, went up front, anxious if everyone would enjoy our hard work.

The lights dimmed till the room became dark, and the only light source was the light from the projector projecting our slide show. Lutfi's intro video came on, and everyone was impressed, and laughed at the ending "no budget" crack. Then it was part 1 of the slide show. It went great. Everyone laughed at the parts we thought they would laugh and clapped at the parts that we thought they would clap. Good start. Very satisfying.

Dinner was served next. It was good food. Worth the money we paid, most definitely. Most notable item on the buffet spread was the roast beef. So multiple servings of roast beef. Delicious. Everyone mingled around during dinner time, which lasted round 30 minutes.

After dinner, it was time for John the magician, once again performing to save our asses in these kind of events. As usual, he impressed us and the VIP's with his card tricks and illusions. Everyone was happy and impressed, and that means his tricks were successful once again. Lucky draw time once again. This time I actually won. Haha. Even though I already knew what the prize was, it was still a good feeling to actually win these things once in a while.

The next item on the agenda was fun. It was time to pick the Best Dressed Male and Female of the night. Everyone nominated had to do a short catwalk and I was one of the nominees. After all the nominees did their thang on the catwalk, it was down to Pn. Satinah to pick the winners, and she picked Audrey and Lutfi as the winners, who in my opinion deserved it.

Dessert was served shortly after, and after everyone got their piece of cake and coffee or tea, they settled down for the rest of our videos. The second part of the slide show got good response, but maybe we shouldn't have put in the soccer edition in haha...the girls really didn't get into it. Then it was time for the highlight of the multimedia team, the video we took 2 days to shoot and edit. A video called "Through Imran's Eyes". Enjoy....








Cracks me everytime I watch it. To Kak Yang if you're reading, I can understand a bit of how you feel on shoots. The crowd loved it. Even after the event, people were asking for copies of the videos, especially "Through Imran's Eyes" and Razif even got a request from Wen Li to make a video for the badminton club if i'm not mistaken.

Shortly after, the committee members of 2007 got presented with certificates by Pn. Satinah. and after that, the AGM commenced for the search for the new committee members. First position up for grabs was the Presidency, and right off the bat, I raised my hand to nominate Iylia. He accepted, and left the room. Next, Amy raised her hand, and nominated Eugene , who was in the toilet anyways. Then maybe to my surprise, maybe not, someone at the back nominated me. I went along with the process, and went out as well. They called us back in, and asked us to sell ourselves on why we deserve to be president. Iylia's was short and sweet, he said "I will continue what i'm doing all along, and have fun doing it". I was next, and said "I'm actually a first year student so I don't deserve to be president, there are more deserving people than me" which was true. Eugene had some beauty pageant answer, which i don't remember. So, went out again, and when we went back in, presto poof, Iylia is the new president of MUMSA and deservedly so.

It went on with the vice president position which went to Razif, the Secretary which Eugene retains winning unopposed, and the new treasurer is Sheng, which was my nomintation, and who I feel would do a great job. I got nominated for treasurer too, but again gave a depressing "i don't deserve it speech", because honestly, I like money, but not keeping track of it.

So that's pretty much the end. We stayed back for around 40 minutes to clean up and have photo sessions. The night I became , or was called P.Ramlee had ended on a good note. My bro got the presidency as he should, and our hard work with videos got great response. Maybe I should charge for every copy I make.