It's All About The Experience
Archive for May, 2008
Charity: Rural Service: Chapter 2
May 7th
Chapter 2: The Preparation
As mentioned previously – solid progress were made during the holiday period. Venue was fixed: Kampung Baru (village) Liman Kati, Kuala Kangsar, Perak, from 11-18 July ’07; preparation period from 6-10 July ’07 in St. John’s Hall, Ipoh, Perak. Each department too had churned out pretty good details of their activities. We communicated using mostly emails and smses. Below is a list of activities that the counseling department had contributed (some were used, some as back-up) :-
Counseling activities
- Family Unit
- Sharing with Kids
- Campaign
- Movie Night
- Motivational Talk
General activities
- Cross the River
- Friendship Card
- Make a Kite
- Fill the Bottle
- Treasure Hunt
note: I wouldn’t explain in detail how this activities/games are executed/played because it’s going to be very long. I have some sort of a doctrine of these activities described with sketches and if you are interested, let me know. I’ll be happy to share.
Came July 6th, we were all eager to meet up in St. John’s Hall for the preparations. At the time, counseling team members had already reduced to 3 members including myself. For those who dropped out, I merely asked the reason for it, but never persuaded them to stay for this is a voluntary service and when one could not make it, I didn’t want to force it. In view of such situation, I was given an option to pull members from other department to join counseling team but I decline for two reasons. First being – it would be unfair because each and everyone of us had chosen the department of our choice and I certainly do not want to coerce anyone to join a department they did not choose. Secondly, I thought managing fewer people would be easier. In the end, I opted for the leeway to ask for extra helping hand from other departments on as-needed basis and that worked out just fine.
Anyway, I think it is high time I do justice to the rest by listing out the people who had contributed to the rural service programme in Liman Kati.
Project Director: Lim Kha Loon
Asst. Project Director: Look Chee Fai
Secretary: Leong Pei Chie
Asst. Secretary: Low Chee Huey
Treasurer: Pang Kee Yong *
Social Department:
- Derrick Tan Kok Leong
- Lee Wai Lun *
- Toh Jia Lin
- Lee Jun Jia
- Chin Kim Foh
- Kang Hooi Yee
- Tang Ang Khian
- Ho Ching Shearn
Counseling Department:
- Lee Teik Hui
- Suan Tee Hooi
- Chin Xi Yi
- Leong Pei Chie **
Education Department:
- Lye Suet Yeng
- William Yam Chee Wai
- Hoe Fook Yong
- How Mei Le
- Chua Boon How
- Teo Teck Guan
- Tan Boon Tat
- Looi Lee Teng
Promotion & Publication Department:
- Melvin Tan Zi Hern
- Foo Ngai Yoong
- Ian Leong Mun Choong
- Ong Yuih Yee
- Gabriel *
- Low Chee Huey **
* Helped out in preparation despite could not join in the actual service.
** Support member.
Preparation period proved to be very fun and everyone bonded well and was in high spirit. A lot of ground work and props are done in this stage. Now I’m going to let the photos do the talking.
This is where we slept, worked, ate and fooled around. Guys and girls were separated of course. See the metal gate?
St John’s Hall Compound. We stayed on the first floor. The rent was only RM 300 for that 5-days. Opposite is the DR. Seenivasagam Park.
Aren’t we dependent on them computers? Everywhere we go, the computers follow. They get the work done and provided us entertainment. Jun Jia & Melvin
Chat or discussion? Teck Guan, Boon Tat, (who’s @ the back?), Fook Yong, Mei Le, Suet Yeng, Me.
A group photo on Chee Huey’s b’day.
We work hard and also play hard. Hooi Yee, Derrick, Yuih Yee, Melvin, (who’s that in red shirt?), Xi Yi, Fook Yong, Gabriel, Me (doing some paper work behind), (unidentified tower).
That’s what we ate most of the time – ‘tapau!’. Yuih Yee, Hooi Yee, Ching Shearn, Ian, Mei Le, Teck Guan, Jun Jia, (too tired to guess).
Property of education department. Volcano! It’s made of newspapers and plasticine. I’ll describe how it works other time.
Another toy from education department. They made quite a number of props for the science fair.
The tornado, again by education department. They get most of the how-tos from Internet.
We are all ready to listen to some talk which I don’t quite remember. Chee Huey, Jun Jia, Teck Guan, Fook Yong, Xi Yi, Boon Tat, Me, Kha Loon
This guy started talking. He looks familiar, I can’t recall now but I know he’s in politics. I’m not interested in politics. This programme is back-up by MCA but nevertheless what we did has nothing to do with it regardless of their intention. We just wanted to have fun!
What does it says behind I don’t know cause I don’t know how to read Chinese. This guy was next. He talked and I fell asleep. So as few other friends who were hiding behind the front liners.
The group photo after the talk. Where is me….and William? We’ve gone to the mamak nearby for a chat in a language that I’m more familiar with! Hahaha.
Yea. A place more happening after the talk. This is Kopitiam in Greentown. That’s William crouching. Compare the smiles with the previous picture. This is pure, that was pretentious. Sweet!
Wah, no need to comment. This is my counseling dept. Xi Yi, Me, Tee Hooi.
Best buddies
The junior girls. Mei Le, Lee Teng, Chee Huey, Ang Khian, Hooi Yee, Jia Lin, Ngai Yoong, Tee Hooi
Mr. Tang the funny man. He gave some pointers on how we should act and do when in service.
Mr. Lee. He’s more serious but nevertheless gave us a good pep talk!
The group photo. Don’t know why the front people are so dulan (dull) looking. Maybe it was evening and everyone’s sleepy. Yea I think I was feeling sleepy that time.
Back to work! This is Pei Chie, behind is Gary. They are painting the love…..
You’ll see what they are for in the next chapter.
This is for the last day of the rural service. Told you we got it almost all covered up during the preparation period – from day one to day eight!
This is a piece of art that I did for the school wall mural. But it was not so suitable.
This was also not suitable
This one faired better. It was used in a booklet. These 3 e-arts are drawn using Adobe Flash
Another more suitable design was chosen for the mural instead; you’ll see it in the next few chapters. If I’m not mistaken it’s about 2 meters wide and 1.5 meters in height. Well, is not conventionally big for a wall painting, but it was good enough since none of us had actually did a wall painting before. When the design was chosen, we got it printed out on a transparency and we used a overhead projector to project it on, if I remember correctly – 4 pieces of white ‘mahjong‘ papers which were taped on the whiteboard. Next we traced it using pencil and we would use it to trace on the actual wall in the Liman Kati primary school. That was the method.
One of the dance rehearsals. It was like hand movement-to-match-song-meaning type of dance. Too bad the song was in Mandarin, so it was hard for me to catch the meaning and thus could not anticipate the next step. I had to do it by sheer memory. In the end it didn’t work so well for me because we had two of this type of dance for the opening. Actually that’s one more for closing but is not compulsory for everyone – luckily. So I ended up joining the few playful ‘monkeys’ who always stood behind during reheasals and fooled around.
Dance rehearsal. Jun Jia leading. While the rest were dancing, Pei Chie and I were behind tracing the mural into the ‘mahjong’ paper
These are the bunch who would be standing in front during performance simply because they are better at it. The ‘monkeys’ would be standing behind. Try to note the whiteboard at the back. You can see the ‘mahjong’ papers draped over it.
The juniors
One last walk in the park!
One of the favourite nocturnal activities when the rest were sleeping.
Tee Hooi: Hmmp! What were you doing with Yuih Yee last night? If you want to be intimate with him, don’t get caught on camera lah’
Fook Yong: Hmmm…don’t know why I’m so tired…. Sorry lo we got ‘tangkap basah” (caught red handed). Don’t get angry with me ler….
While I was sorting out the pictures, it occurred to me that we were actually lacked of proper documentation. Although we took lots of pictures but many do not show the process in which we were actually working. There were so many things that we had bought; we did a lot of paper work too; had group discussions; rehearse event flow and activities; prepared props for station games; get stationeries and miscellaneous tools read, etc etc. 5 days preparation was just nice and may I add we prepared well indeed. I wished more seniors – my own batch friends could join or did not drop out because we would have had so much fun together. I also wish to show you more pictures but to save my precious space, I have no choice but to select only a few to tell this story.
Well at last the moment arrived. 11 July 2007 was the date. We loaded our stuff – props, baggage and our asses into a chartered Sri Maju bus and off we headed to Liman Kati for the real business.
Off to Liman Kati in good spirit!
Coming up next:- Chapter 3: Day One
Charity: Rural Service: Chapter 1
May 6th
Chapter 1: The Recruitment
It was nearly a year ago since I’ve joined the rural service programme. Nevetheless, I’m compelled to share my experience which has been most wonderful. Pardon me for I could not possibly delve into every detail because it would take hundreds of pages to write but I’ll try to describe this journey in the best possible way I could.
It all started as one of the activity line-ups that we would execute under the Chinese Society. Sad to say, this society is not an official society in UTP because of the unfavourable protocols in setting up a club/society there. Anyway, this idea was the brainchild of the then president, Lee Ming Hwa, my ex-fellow chemical engineering coursemate, to do rural service having seen many institutes have done and benefited from it. She however was unable to join for she has been rightfully given a chance to further her study in petroleum engineering in Australia. With her absence, the project somehow found a new manager, Lim Kha Loon.
UTP Chinese Society Logo
Soon after, the recruitment began. I remembered there was a form to fill in personal particulars and to choose a department of your choice and also a section to describe past experiences. After a few weeks had elapsed, all the forms are collected back and the Chinese Society committee called for a meeting to set up the ‘high committee’ – so to speak, for the rural service project. There were the project director, assistant project director, secretary, assistant secretary, head of department and their assistants for social department, counseling department, education department, and lastly promotion and publication (P&P) department. Being one of the senior (yea..I was and am getting old) and a committee member of the Chinese Society as sponsorship department head back then, I was given an opportunity to head counseling department. For your information, this department was the least favoured of the lot, and I can understand why. I was probably the only few who ticked that in the form. Well, I simply agreed to head counseling department despite no clear thought of what counseling department is suppose to do other than…..counseling? Anyone?
After the committee had been formed, we then proceeded to locating team members in each department with the recruitment forms that had been collected back as our initial guide. Following few small meetings amongst committee, came the ‘bigger’ meeting where all interested participants were involved. A quick introduction was given before everyone adjourned to the department meeting led by respective head. The purpose is for team members to get to know each other and more importantly to discuss the activities to be done during the rural service. This was how I started counseling department meeting:-
Me: Hi, I’m gonna speak in English cause I’m not good in Mandarin. (smile…)
Team: (looked at me with blank expression)
I thought they were going to bolt to another department like Speedy Gonzales thinking that this guy was nothing but an idiot, until one spoke.
A Guy: Yea…that’s good. Cause I don’t really understand Mandarin too.
A Girl: Ya, me too.
Fuh…what a relieve. Counseling department stood 7 members strong and had a very healthy mix of both sexes. Plus few members were actually quite caliber based on their resume. Furthermore, from my initial ‘test’ these team members turned out to be quite kind and supportive, or so I thought at first…
In that meeting, we took turns introducing ourselves, explaining why we wanted to join rural service, any health problems, note their skills and share past experiences, and most importantly discussed what we wanted to do for the actual day of rural service. During this early stage, nothing was really finalized and concrete. For one, the venue and the exact time of the rural service were still undecided and the lists of activities were still vague – like a broad idea without elaboration on a piece of essay.
On and off we had somemore meetings for updates and discussions but the progress were pretty slow partly due to this ‘early-stage’ period and partly due to the very busy schedule that everyone had had to face in UTP. Despondently to say that along the way, especially towards the end of semester, quite a few participants decided to drop out. This seems to be the trend for all the departments but counseling department was the worst hit. My supportive team members were peeling off one by one.
At the end of the semester (end of my 3rd year 1st semester), the venue was yet to be fixed but the rural service were to be from 11 to 18 July 2007 and the preparation period, 6 to 10 July 2007. After the end-semester exam battle, holidays rolled in. I looked forward to seeing the success of this programme despite at this stage, we are only armed with outlines of events to come. I was committed however disheartened by members pulling out one by one when nearing the preparation period. Only during the holidays solid progress were made and I was pretty sure all would go well…..or would it?
Coming up next:- Chapter 2: The Preparation
V5 Logo Competition
May 5th
These are the logos I created for my university hostel (they called it village), Village 5 (V5) logo competition. Didn’t win though.
Software used: Adobe Flash
RWP-Process Logo Competition
May 4th
Around 1 month, Ranhill WorleyParsons (RWP), KL Process department needs a logo to represent its department and so a competition is called. Organized by the Process Social Committee or fondly known as PSC, my colleague Li Yen and I decided to team up for this competition. She would sketch some logos on paper and I would draw them out using Adobe Flash, and also created a few pieces myself or add some twists in some of Li Yen’s creation. We managed to come out with quite a number of logos and each design with different colour combination. Here’s a few:
We submitted almost all of them but to our dismay the winning logo was to be determined by voting of all the process engineers. Having sent too many logos have ours spilted – few here and a few there thus never could gather enough votes to win – BIG mistake! During the process department gathering aka ‘party-in-office’ the winning logo was announced.
The Winning Logo
The winner got his well deserved prize and the rest of the participants earned a packet of KidKat each. Well not too bad for the both of us – it was a good experience, at least for me because I get to improve my logo designing skill using Adobe Flash.
Just as we thought it was over, something interesting happened last week. The PSC head, Behnaz came over to my work station and presented a voucher for two to a weekend high-tea buffet at café on the tenth in Crown Princess Hotel situated just adjacent to Empire Tower where we were working for getting the third placing. Needless to say, we were surprised for the competition expired a month ago. So receiving such reward for our little effort couldn’t have come more timely during days where office life seems a little dull. We were thrilled like little kids.
This fired my enthusiasm to join another logo competition for the Graduate Development Organisation (GDO) and this time I’ll just send 1 design. Let’s see how it goes. The winning prize: RM 100 and your logo will appear in the T-shirt worn by GDO members throughout Malaysia.
SWEET!
