Annual Dinner 2007

On 3rd November 2007, the group of us the Cohort 1 TESL coming-soon-teachers celebrated our 'last' annual dinner in Concorde Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. Just as the word 'last' is used, it conveyed the anxieties in each of us for that evening to come.

If you haven't known or heard, this year marks the last year of 6-years academic life in college and in universities for me and my Cohort friends.

Themed as a "Hollywood-Glam" evening in Concorde - in which the theme sounded so glamorous and sophisticated, I must say the preparation for that evening by each of us had been strenuous. Some had this planned like months ago, while some waited till the very last moment to go hunting for dress. And the most unbelievable part was that even the boys were putting in effort to make themselves look good and handsome.

And when the evening came, we were welcomed by red carpet (just like in Hollywood). ones who arrived earlier were seen walking around taking photographs, be it candid or posed. We all just couldn't stop being in the photograph as well as posing then.

All the girls especially were exceptionally beautiful that night. Dressed in dresses, gowns, costumes and even Kimonos, it showed how much we have changed in terms of fashion and styles over the years in overseas.

When it was time to start the ceremony, we had Madam Elizabeth who is our coordinator to give her speech. In her speech, she expressed her feeling on how fast time - this year particularly - has passed, and that it was a great thing to have coordinated us. Besides wishing us all the very best in our future undertaking, she praised us for how we have been throughout this year, and our costumes that evening. Thank you Mdm Liz for that!

Besides all the 'makan' and chitchatting, we also had some great performances from some of us. The first one was the best, it's a performance done by a bunch of girls, dancing on the song 'Big Spender'. Other performances included songs singing by Aida and Izza; Amy, Izan and Valerie; and us the boys on the song 'Save Tonight'.

What were also in the evening which i was not too clear of its particulars were Academic Awards, Sport-men Awards, Best-dress Awards and etc.

The evening was paid off with great success. Basically, everyone was having so much fun, and everyone was beautiful and charming. There's actually not necessary to choose the Best-dress persons, as each of us just looked great!

Reflecting on that evening, one of the things we all have come to acknowledge is that time is running up as all of us will soon be departed to different part of the country. And that's where roads will be diverged for every one of us. Certainly there is no return in what we have come to become. And this college life, has no doubt come to an end at last.

Another thing that some of us have thought or started to think about is our journey in years to come. As life goes on, the digit of our age increases too. The issue of having a family of our own is slowly igniting. Some have while some prefer to wait. As for me, I am still waiting, patiently for that time to come.

~ QUT forever~

the boys

me and Madam Elizabeth

*Chew Wei, Ah Po, me and Cheryl*

for Miss Leow

Miss Leow's in the centre

Sorry for the late post. This should probably go up latest by late last month, but the lazy me was just too lazy to write about it. So here it goes:

On October 22, 2007, the whole community of Institut Perguruan Bahasa-bahasa Antarabangsa celebrated a retirement ceremony of Miss Leow Lee Lin. Serving in this college since 1st December 2001, she has touched the heart of many students, colleagues and people. And i was one of them.

And her departure from IPBA is a lost to many who need her.

I knew her because she was my Language Description (LDS) lecturer during the Foundation. And the I was ignorant then, never cared much about what i studied because learning LDS is about the learning and understanding of grammar rules. For rules are unbreakable, they bored me.

But something about Miss Leow is that she managed to catch my attention when she taught. Sharing stories is one of the things she liked doing. She would share with us how her life when studying abroad, where she comes from, how to survive when going to 'ang moh(orang putih)' tempat, the culture overseas. This small little things that she did every once a while were what i was looking for to listen.

And this time round, I was asked to produce a video for her in conjunction of her retirement. It was not easy in retrospect. I wanted the video to be lively, enjoyable and more importantly integrate elements of students who are now in overseas. So, i approached my friends there to offer a hand. Thanks to Jarod who was the first to agree, later came Guna (from UOA) and Shim (from MacQ).

On my part, my team and i had to chase after some lecturers and students for their thoughts on her. Despite some problems faced dued to the dawning of Hari Raya Aidilfitri, I managed to gather all the neccesary information.

On the night before the Monday of her retirement, all committee members gathered round and share their product. Mine was in too. All of them were quite excited and positive about it, except the element of music which was a little saddening for which Miss Leow did not like. Furthermore, the draft which embedded with Jarod's song was too lengthy (more than 10 mins).

After a long discussion with Allen, who was the representative for Miss Leow's retirement, we decided to break the video into 2: one which is of production by me, and one which is a special message for Miss Leow from students of VUW.

The day came and the ceremony began. We have performances from the group of French students, Japanese students and German students. Too bad, i was in charge of the technical part, so couldnt get the chance to shoot photos of them all.

OURS 1 was a blast, cos what we did (includes the singing of 'You raised me up by Westlife' by all Cohort1) really made her tears dropped. And the video and music video (by Jarod&team) really impressed her.

In her speech, she thanked us for all the things we did for her. She said that in her life, she has gone through the good times and not-so-good times. She won't call the latter bad because that's what taught her later in life. One thing i liked about her speech was when she shared with us her experience once with a taxi driver. The taxi driver once said that dalam dunia ini, kita ade suka dengan duka. kita tak boleh ambik suka kemudian buang duka, atau ambik duka buang suka. kita mesti buka kepada kedua-dua.

To me, apart from telling us that we need both happy and not-so-happy moments in our life for which we have to face, I think what she's trying to say was that in the line of government service, there are times when we don't like what we are asked to do, or when our opinions are halted or when we don't agree with our orang atasan, we have to be patient and opened to what they said. And it is when we are opened in our mindset that new understanding and wisdom can fall in. How meaningful was her speech.

So, to Miss Leow, you are one of the greatest teachers I'd met in my life.

Our Cohort 1 raptai performance on 'You raised me up'

That's Faisal and Hani (MC for the day), Faisal, Anas and me (Technical)