Zhu Zen’s Surprise Party and The First Years’ Rag-I mean Orientation.

For the past few days, my modem’s DSL light has been blinking non-stop after a storm at about 3am on Wednesday. Needless to say, I’ve been clawing at the walls. Sort of like an Internet withdrawal syndrome. However, I now have time for many other activities.

Before we go on any further, I need to feel kembang about this first:

DAMN NICE RIGHT. This is between the dental faculty and the girls’ hostel at dusk.

I’m particularly proud of this one time when I was planning the games for the 1st years’ orientation/ragging session, while watching my pirated chinese serials on dvd and making the video presentation for the Dental Dinner on Windows Movie Maker. Multi-tasking genius, that I am. 😀 This reminds me of the time I was trying to talk to Chee Kiang while he was trying to download his notes from the NUS student portal. He couldn’t talk to me while downloading his notes. He can’t do anything else when he’s concentrating on something. We went to eat after a bit and he was getting acquainted with a PDA phone so I thought that it would be a good opportunity to polish his nearly non-existent multi-tasking skills. (Guys. Pfft.)

I was throwing him random questions as part of the training. Good thing I asked him, “Okay, next question, When’s your mother’s birthday?” He looked up from his phone, slightly confused. “Er… September 4.” My eyes were wide, “OEI! It’s 3rd September today leh!” and his eyes became equally wide, “Oh fuck!!!”

Hahahahaha.

Okay, back to the sad story about how I’ve been living for the past few days without the internet. 🙁

Lie Yuen and I have been turning and offing the modem every time we walked pass it. I’ve been calling Streamyx in 6-hours-intervals. Apparently it would be settled in 24-48 hours. Damn fucked up lah. Kedah had a public holiday on Thursday and Friday is Kedah’s Sunday. Then it’ll be the weekend for all over Malaysia(though Kedah works half day on Saturday and Sunday is Kedah’s Monday.). Sadness. I hope it doesn’t involve me taking the modem to TMpoint to get things fixed.

Other than internet related worries, we’ve been watching this TVB series called Maiden’s Vow. The both of us formed Jolene-and-Lie-Yuen-shaped holes in my bean bag and were stuck at that position for like 6 hours. The only exercise I got was going down for a bag of crisps, then going down again for the Meiji chocolate that Lie Yuen brought back for me, then going down again to take my comb of bananas.(I finished one entire comb because I have a very serious maggots phobia.)

The show we’re watching is about four generations of lovebirds who have tragic love stories. The four women are related. As in one is a great great grandmother of the narrator, one’s a great grandmother and one’s a mother to the narrator. The narrator plays her modern self. All the women are acted by Charmaine Sheh and the guys in all the generation is acted by Joe Ma. Just look for Maiden’s Vow on Spcnet.tv’s reviews and you’ll know. Anyway, in one of the scenes, the third generation character would not have gotten her job at the advertising agency if she was married as maternity leave would be a burden to the company.

I was thinking right, I better have all my kids before I open my own clinic. Or else, if I open a clinic before I have more children(or any children for that matter), I would have to close shop for awhile. ;P

Then as always, my thought process takes on a life of its own. I was thinking that maybe when my clinic is closed, I can paste photos of my baby on the door, letting passerbys and patients(who didn’t know that I’d be closed for 2-3 months) alike to see how my little darling is growing day by day. I’ll drop by every other day(while my mum helps me at home with the newborn;p) to check on things and replace the photo on the door with a new one. Heheh. Good idea!

Aih, back to my internet-less story. I’ve also been able to allocate some quality time for my Harry Potter Book 7 THAT I’M STILL NOT DONE WITH YET.

Nothing beats a rainy night in, with the air condition set at 21 degrees celcius and the blanket covering the colder body parts and a long awaited book in hand.

On Wednesday night, true to the BDS Batch 1’s(that’s the name of my class, FYI) tradition, we gathered outside Zhu Zen’s house to surprise her on her 22nd birthday.

The lot of us standing outside, waiting for the clock to strike 12. We got a little too noisy and I guess it kind of spoiled the surprise for Zhu Zen already.

Sitting inside the living room, making even more noise.

Ah Thong decides to contribute to the noise.

We came up with the brilliant idea of singing the Happy Birthday until Zhu Zen comes downstairs on her own accord. She’s the shy type so she wouldn’t dare to come down as she knows we were there to give her a ‘surprise’.

The very delicious cheesecake from Secret Recipe.

Sett, Jimmy and Andy sticking candles into the cake.

Maxis looking at Zhu Zen coming out of her door.

Zhu Zen coming down the stairs paisehly. Hehe.

I always love the way how candles on a birthday cake can illuminate so well. 🙂

we bought Zhu Zen the cutest looking pig! It’s a square pig. Damn nice to hug one.

Lie Yuen and I feeling very sad in Poh Yee’s room as the internet in our house was still down. 🙁

On Thursday, we went back to university for the first years’ orientation/ragging. Since we had the entire day, we could have the session under sunlight, for once. My batch and the previous batch’s orientation were all held at night due to our hectic hectic schedule!

Oh by the way, have I mentioned that for the entire first module(9 weeks), I have a damn relaxing schedule?

On Monday, I only have one practical in the afternoon(2pm-5pm).
On Tuesday, class starts at 8.30am and ends at 10.30am.
On Wednesday, I’ve to do hospital rounds from 9am to 12pm. Class resumes at 2pm right up to 6.30pm. Nevermindlah, tahan abit.
On Thursday, class starts at 2pm again! Another practical.
And on Friday, this is the best.. CLASS starts at 9.30am to 1pm!! Yayyy! I can take the early bus back home! Woot!!

THIRD YEAR ROCKS SO FAR. Save for the studies though, I have NO idea what’s going on. Medical, Surgery and Endodontology are confusing me. But let me continue with the brain fermentation for another week or two before I see what’s up with third year. Heh.

All week, the juniors have been coming up to us for signatures as part of their orientation program.

Oh, oh, damn happy, so far, about 7 juniors have came up to say hello as they recognise me from my blog.(Very easy, just google AIMST dentistry and Jolene Lai’s on the first page with her million and one photos about life as a dental student at AIMST.) Oklah, cheating abit, out of the 7, Kenneth added me on MSN after stumbling across my blog a few months back, Zi Wei told me about a year ago that she read my blog after Gillian sent her my link and another one guy called John remembers me from my National Service posts day. Kembang sial!

l-r: Zhu Zen, Lie Yuen, Me, Poh Yee on a grassy patch.

Walking towards the big open pathway where the orientation was being held.

Us old farts coming to see how the second batch are doing.(and what they are doing to the poor first years’.)

One of the games: Stuffing a mouthful of ginger among many other gross food stuff without spitting it out while doing various activities.

Poh Yee and Yi Chin.

i’m not sure if it was Lie Yuen or Me who took this shot. This is part of the administration building.

Look at how big the area is. We will never suffer from lack of space ever again!

Lie Yuen and the rest camwhoring with the vastness behind.

Nien and I.

The juniors were supposed to pour this over themselves.

Worms and fermented yogurt and..er I don’t know, Pandan leaves? There are some sweets at the bottom that are supposed to be fished out.

Much thanks to my Gorillapod for this photo.

Ei Leng and I.

Cassandra and Lie Yuen.

More of the second years. I guess they were taking a break after many rounds of games.

And the moment that we’ve all been waiting for, the first years descend the stairs with Kumaran leading the way.

l-r: Ken, Nien, Adrian, Tee Luun, Poh Yee, Lie Yuen, Cze-Yin, Zhu Zen

The lot of ‘super seniors’ checking out the first years’ signature collection. Some of them put a lot of effort into decorating their signature paper.

Zoomed out.

Look at them, streaming in, unassuming.

Ken, explaining to the juniors about his game.

Junior Khim Yik, participating in a game of charades.

It’s good that they were so sporting.

And I’m not sure exactly what game this was.

I guess Stephanie was demonstrating some game to the juniors. And that in the background, ladies and gentlemen, is the unready dental faculty and dental hospital.

A game of Whacko at Ei Leng’s group.

This is the station with the disgusting ginger.

just one more for that cool water droplets effect. The guy on the left is my brother’s age(18)!! So young right. Most of the first years are my age or a year younger than me only. Not so good news if there are interested female parties in my batch..if there are any. hehehehe.

This is game called Spiderweb where they have to pass their teammates through the holes without touching the rafia strings.

More charades.

This is me and Melvin. Responsible fella, running around ensuring that things were going smoothly.

Yi Chin and Seok Mei.

Ebby and Kumaran.

A game where they would have to hop around without allowing the balloon to fall on the floor.

A game where each team can only have two pairs of legs and two pairs of hands on the ground.

My foot with the water balloons as a background.

Kena tempik, kesian….

ugh. Flour and raw eggs.

OH! Check this out! The hills situated behind my university(which leads up to Gunung Jerai a few kilometres away) was enveloped in mist. Makes it seem as if my university is up in the mountains and that we would need jackets when we walk around campus. If only. *sigh*. Rainy season now in Kedah.

A zoomed out photo.

Myself and Seok Mei.

This game was DAMN funny. I enjoyed watching it elsewhere. This is the brainchild of the very intelligent Maxis(the joker in my class, not the telco). Two teams. At either ends of the line of chairs. The point is to reach the end of the other side but if they bump into each other, then they would have to one two jooz. Loser gets out while he tries to sit on all the chairs(speed!!) and the next team mate from the loser’s team tries to take over by coming on in the opposite direction. Okay, I’m starting to confuse myself too. It’s damn fun lah.

Awww, see the poor boy’s face.

That’s Kenneth, on the ground.

One, two, jooz!

Two juniors who look alike!

Cze-Yin tries to resist my advancements.

That four legs four hands game again.

Face painting on the juniors too!

That’s egg on her hair. The poor dear. 🙁

The security guards took some tables and chairs out to watch the games. Hehe.

Spider web again.

Wah damn proud! They used my group’s idea from last year’s orientation!

Damn gross.

Ah, the face paint that will turn their skin read.

Charades. Disturbing.

ehehhee.. Kenneth’s charade card instructed him to do a horny pole dance. We asked him why didn’t he use the pole behind the tree instead. lol.

More juniors. Sorry, I forget names too easily. 🙁

Me squatting down unhappily, worried about the impending rain.

Us old farts waiting for Nien’s boyfriend, Brian to come by with her car to take us to dinner.

The area around the new campus is more kampung compared to the area around the old campus.

Cze-Yin pan cute.

More of my nice nice sunset shots.

A vertical one. I love my gorillapod SO much.

At night, I had my batch organise ice-breaking games for all the batches. The turn out was better than I expected it to be. A lot of my classmates asked me where I got the ideas from. 🙂 As Nien mentioned, I really utilize the internet. I got the games from a Girls Guide website. Camp games at its best!

This is just part of the crowd.

Dividing them into groups.

More of the crowd. I’ve never been happier to see so many dental students.

The first game was a tissue paper introduction game. We didn’t tell the juniors what we were up to. We will pass a toilet roll around and ask them, “How many tissues would you need?” and they would take as many as they want.

Then when everyone has finished, they would have to count the amount of tissues and tell the group that amount of things about themselves.

Some took like 42 pieces. So man man lei la.

The great digital clock that chimes every hour. It also helped us keep track of the time during the games.

The groups in their respective circles.

The next game was the Great Shoe Dive. Everyone throws their shoes in a pile and they are required to take random shoes with unmatching sides.

They would then be required to put each foot next to the matching shoe. And like wise, the other leg. So it was supposed to be a tangled mess. But most of them managed to form a circle. How strange.

At least these group got closer to what I had in mind.

Another game was the hog call. No photos of that one just videos. But since my internet is down, I’m not posting it up yet. 🙁 Later lah. it’s damn funny. Divide the groups into pairs. In each pair, there should be a machine and then an animal. Each machine and each animal must have a sound each and only the both of them can know what sound it is.(Ie. Train=toot toot, pig=oink oink). Then divide the machines and animals into two groups. Far away from each other. Then get them to close their eyes and tell them to find their animal/machine partner. It didn’t work. ;\ But it was damn funny to hear all those noises. I was laughing so hard. Video coming soon.

The next game was called chairs. We didn’t have enough chairs so we used newspapers instead. Chairs would have been much more fun though. Everybody is supposed to sit on one newspaper/chair. When I say, “Move 3 places if you have a brother!” Then those who can relate to the statement will move. Those who are not related to the statement should stay put. So the idea is to get people to be cramped up on one chair as not everybody can relate to the same statements! However, newspapers were good enough lah. The whole idea was to get people to respond to questions that might not have been asked before.(Ie. Move 5 places if you’re in a relationship!!)

That’s me, conducting the game. It’s surprising that my throat is still okay after a night of shouting. Hope I didn’t sound too shrill.

Not so great photos because it was from a video. Yeah, there’s a video of me shouting out instructions.

Probably there weren’t enough questions for Poh Yee. Hahahaha.

More of the circle. It’s damn big.

We asked questions like “Move 5 places if you think someone in the circle is cute!” and with a lot of sarcasm in my voice, “MOVE 10 PLACES if you’ve started studying!” Since most of the juniors were quite shy, when I asked, “Move 4 places if you’re wearing something other than white underwear today,”. Surprisingly, almost every got up. Damn funny. hohohohoh. It’s a great game to play at a party as the questions could’ve been more hamsap. Aiseh. Political correctness eats me up sometimes. ;(

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stick around as most of us were pretty tired out. Apparently the batch 3 wanted a photo with the entire bunch of us. Nevermind, the dental dinner this weekend will take care of that. And everyone will be looking fantastic, so no worries!

So us Batch 1s did our usual tradition of going to the mamak for a drink before calling it a day.

Ee Chean’s car and Lagenda Heights.

Maxis giving me a fake smile. That’s not his real smile, okay.

Xinyi looking so porcelain. 🙂

Sock Nee’s doing the shaking peace sign.

And this is me being unhappy with the services that they offer at the mamak. I asked for Roti Tisu. Waited damn long and when it ‘arrived’, this was what I received. After that, the entire table kept asking me for tissue.

It’s good to have a spare camera now, as Lie Yuen can run around to help me take photos too.

But of course must tahan her incessant camwhoring with the rest. 😀

Am I that disgusting ar, Poh Yee hah hah hah?

Discussing the questions for the “chairs”(replaced with newspapers, remember?) game with Nien.

l-r: Poh Yee and Derrick(must be him on the phone, who else), Lie Yuen, Me, Cze-Yin.

Me being proud of my new campus. My uni is like Malaysia. I love the country and sometimes frown at the government.

Thanks Poh Yee for temaning me to act stupid.

Quite a nice shot, Lie Yuen.

This was taken when it rained during dinner time.

Lie Yuen took this photo of me while I took pictures of the beautiful scenery.

Our internet is STILL down as I’m writing this, so we’re currently at Nasmir(a mamak) using their free wireless service. However, electricity is RM1 per hour. Oklah, a good deal.

Everybody please pray for my internet.