The Miri City Chapter

The Miri City chapter... a chapter that I will definitely not forget so easily...

Allow me to start from Monday...
I came to school early with my brother to do my usual shift in the Student Council room...
then, spent time at the CV booth... nothing much was happening there... and I had nothing to do...
I had assignments, but I needn't do them finish within this week (though it'd be so much better if I did)....
so it finally got me to decide to do something that I've not been doing for a long time.... writing my story.. I wrote for hours at the cafeteria...

I decided to write a novel version of that SPM 2003 essay of mine (that was posted some time ago)...
I've already planned out how the story will be and how the character development will be...
just hope that it'll turn out all right...
Chapter ONE, which is partially taken from that essay itself, had been written and added...
Chapter TWO will talked about something in the past... which I can't wait to finish...
and then Chapter THREE I will have to see how the end of Chapter TWO is..
hehe... I got Diana to read through what I've written.. her comment, "I just wish you would write finish the story" or something along that line...
haha... she just can't wait to find out what happens to one of my character.. hehe... some of you read my essay would know which one... hehe...

anyway.. that evening, had a meeting with Abel, along with most of the CV! EXCO members and CV!A...
got to discuss on lots of things... our last meeting was few weeks ago at Daryll's house...
after the meeting, the girls did their dance performance in front of Abel and everyone else there... the Cultural and modern dance, which would be performed on the night of Miri's Proclaimation as a city, May 19th, 2005...

Tuesday.... came to campus again... got to get into the Student Council Room first that morning for my usual shift... and got to use the computer to do some online and also work...
worked for hours... before I left...
spent time at the cafeteria, writing a little of my story... this was the time that I had Diana read the story...
then meeting with Mr. John Rowe, the Head of Student Services of Curtin down at Perth...
he wanted to meet with the Student Council to hear from the student representatives of anything regarding the services of the Student Services here...
lots of negative feedbacks, unfortunately... though true enough, all of them are usual to find in such work, as he said.. just a matter of degree....
hopefully, the Student Services will improve after this...

after that meeting, it was time to proceed with the dance performances...
a rehearsal was happening at Miri City Fan for all the performance that will be happening on the 19th...
there, got to meet with one of the MCs for the event on the night itself... who turned out to be my Primary 6 teacher, Mr. Tajuddin b. Ramli... not sure if that's the correct spelling, but pronounciation is definitely there...
the girls did all right for their rehearsal performance...

after that, some of us went for dinner at Sultana.... Abel, Sara, KC, VJ, Iqbal, Tompoq & I.. most of the girls headed on home...
later, only Abel, Sara, Iqbal & I were left... we were, very later, joined by that fellow, who was one of the judges for the Keling competition last week.. didn't catch his name...
hahaha... quite an enjoyable guy... Abel so enjoyed his company... haha!
anyway... I got to go back to shower before going back to join them before we all left...
I was allowed to stay overnight at Iqbal's cause I needed to do some work...

Abel had suggested that the boys join to dance as well at the end.... after informing some of the girls about it... it was agreed...
so at Iqbal's, we added the song, 'Just a lil while' by Janet Jackson... and got our dance steps back for a while..
when left only me & Iqbal... I did some work on his computer... couldn't finish it though... sigh...
slept at 4.40am... and then wake up at 9.30am I think... not sure...

ok.. before I continue on and on about my days.... here's a little something to lighten yourselves up...
a picture that I found somewhere in Multiply...



Wednesday.... May 18th 2005..
After leaving with Iqbal... got to join with him, some of the cultural dancers... Diana, Kelly, Genesis and Angeline out to buy stuffs....
after everything, I headed home to shower et cetera... before I joined them later at Miri City Fan for the second and FINAL rehearsal...
we did our thing and Abel got a lot of good comments from his friends about our performance...
but then, we were told by the organiser to cancel out our cultural dance....
we all got so frustrated by that and were arguing to keep with it...
reasons after reasons were given to us about why we should do so... Abel was so frustrated about it...
in the end, we got to persuade them to just allow us to shorten our time...

after that, we went to eat at the coffee shop near Abel's house... and next to PETRONAS station...
Jimmy, Lis, Sara, KC, Abel, Iqbal, Diana, Kimmy, Tompoq, Robert, Angeline, Zachary, VJ, Debbie, Kelly & Genesis.. I think that's all of us that night..
after dinner there, headed to Iqbal's house again... to re-do the song so that it'd be shorter...
had a string of luck thankfully and the song came out all right and shortened...
Iqbal later sent me home, accompanied by VJ....
I slept at about 2am...

Thursday, May 19th 2005
I woke up about ten minutes or so before 6am... and rushed to shower and prepare myself.... Bay arrived to pick me up even before I was done...
about five minutes or so later, we then went off to pick some other people...
dance practise that morning at 7pm, before anyone have any classes...
some of us didn't make it, but most of us DID practise...
later that morning, Diana & I got to join Abel to check out how our float for the Miri City Parade (May 20th 2005) was doing...
when we finally came there, we were very disappointed with what we saw.....
the float was not as Abel had imagined... it was plainly very upsetting for us...
got to clear things up with the people working on the float and got them to agree to do as much as they could to improve it...
then we went off...

Dropped Diana at Marriot before Abel & I had a little of window shopping at Parkson...
Abel bought a new pair of black sport pants and a new black Nike T-shirt...
then stopped by for a little at my place before we arrived back on campus...
there was supposed to be a final dance practise, but the cultural dancers were off doing their costumes and make, so only the modern dancersdid their practise... before we all went off separately to do our own make-up stuffs... haha...
I took a shower at Iqbal's.. VJ came over a little later... and soon we went off to meet up with everyone else at the Admin building..
soon, we left together to Miri City Fan... had a major problem of parking the cars... but we finally got together and waited for our turn to perform...
The moment came quite a while later and we did our thing!! It was excellent, though the audience gave no reaction.
Just some seconds later, the Muslim's usual prayer started... phew! just on time...
we stuck around longer, taking photos and watching ourselves performing in the camcorder...
Soon, we separated into two groups... one group headed to McDonald to eat, while the other headed with Abel to eat at Sultana...
There to join Abel were me, Roger, KC, Snow Jae, VJ, Iqbal, Robert, Genesis, Zeta, her friend, Kelly & Jimmy...
some time later, Tompoq joined us... and some time later, we walked back to Miri City Fan...
We enjoyed ourselves all the way til the Miri City countdown..
the fireworks, the singing and dancing, etc...
then we walked to Cheerie Berries... I got to join them to dancing for a while.. before coming out...
after that, heading back home with Roger...

Friday, May 20th 2005
Morning woke up at 9am... got myself prepared and then left for breakfast at Boulevard food court with Roger...
after that, went to campus... got to online on the computer for a while... and then we went to meet up with everyone who were involved with that night's Miri City Parade...
then turned out I forgot my Mr. O-Week 2005 sash... had a little trouble of what to do from there... but thankfully, Eddy was able to help...
I waited for Eddy & Tompoq to be done with their Friday prayer... and then I got home...
I took my shower and got all of my necessary items... and then we got to Dynasty hotel...
join the guys at Room 312.... Everyone was so busy to get themselves dressed and make-up...
Iqbal suddenly called and told me that he'll be picking me to go and get the float... which we did together with our Curtin bus driver... (I don't know his name.. Mr. Jonathan?)
when we got to where the float was, turned out that it was ALMOST done...
had lots of final check-ups, lightings were looked at... almost two hours later, the check-ups were done and we finally got to move...
I chose to ride on the float as we drove all the way to our starting point of the procession... boy, was it an enjoyable ride.. hehe!
lots of people drove by, and lots of people waved at me as they did.. hehe! enjoyed the wind too...

anyway, we arrived to our starting point in time and then off we went back to the hotel, for Iqbal to finish up with his dress-up...
everyone else went on ahead to the lobby and got the chance to take each other's photos...
when everyone was ready, off we went, walking to where our float was parked...
We had a LONG wait before the procession actually started...
during that time, people were going around, looking at all the floats that were there...
There was a competition for the best float or procession group for different categories... Our Curtin float was in the 3-tonnes category...
Our people wore different costumes of different cultures or countries... three that represent Malaysia (traditional costumes) {Diana, Melanie & Genesis}, two Philipines {Abel & Gretchel}, two China {Roger & Snow Jae}, one Indonesia {Debbie}, one Thailand {Joanna}, one India {VJ}, one Pakistan {Sara}, one Brunei {Tompoq}, one Korea {Daryll} & extra two more who wore the 'graduation robes' {Iqbal & I} to represent university...
With everyone in their various costumes, we stood at our positions around the float... the girls, except Diana, stood on the float itself... then all the boys, except me and Iqbal, stood at the side of the float...
Iqbal, Diana & I stood at the front of the float, Diana to be carrying the sign with our Curtin name on it... the two boys were there to accompany her and help her if need be.. plus we're the one to be guiding the driver so that he doesn't drive off into the crowd instead...
During our wait for the procession, supposedly, some judges came over and analysed our float and suffs... during that time, there had been a lot of people who cmae to us to take photos...
felt like some.. display items... haha.... but my smile was on for so long that honetly it was starting to twitch... haha.. but it was still enjoyable...
The procession began at 8.30pm... but our turn to move only came at before 10pm... since they were a lot of people and different groups that joined in the procession.... our float was numbered 72... so yeah...

The procession was long and there were a lot of spectators... the kids espeically I noticed enjoyed watching us as we come by... the boys were, as stereotypically, interested with our girls.. and even the girls were interested with some of our boys... *coughMr.Koreacoughcough*
most of us found ourselves shaking hands with many hands that night... and waving our hands at the spectators a lot and smiling even more so that night...
so much so, our arms have gone aching, our feet have practically gone numb, and even the muscles for our smile got cramp or achy too... hahah
after the long long walk, I just couldn't wait to buy something to drink and eat.... and then sit down and enjoyed the liquid going down my throat and the solid food going into my stomach...
I actually bought three drinks straight after I was done with the first one... haha... that was just how thirsty I was...
then we waited for quite a while for our Curtin bus driver to drive by with the bus from Dynasty Hotel....
We returned to the hotel to retrieve all of our stuffs that were left there.... before we headed back to campus....
most of us just slept in the cold cold bus... thank goodness for my long sleeves.. hehehe... Miss Thailand couldn't sleep cause of the cold...

I got home with Roger.... showered... drank milo and then slept.... I slept all the way til late that Saturday morning...
only to get myself to stay up cause of all the sms that's been coming in to my phone and me replying to some of them...
that afternoon, I spent all of my time online.... as my last blog had proven...
somewhere that afternoon, I've gotten to know from my mother that Curtin's float had emerged champion in its category, the 3-tonnes category... and I was like... "What?!"
it had been published in the Chinese newspaper, United Daily News....
I smsed Abel for confirmation on it... and he called me and said that it was wrong information...
and sometime later, suddenly Abel messaged the CV members to join to Desserts for some relaxation...
at that time, I had the feeling that there was good news to come and I was thinking it was possible that the information was true.... but didn't think much of it...
I joined and Abel was the one that fetched me.... then also fetched Diana...
Abel supported his argument saying that the Curtin float had the budget of only RM9,000 while the two major oil company, PETRONAS & Shell had budgets of RM65,000 & RM200,000 for their own floats...

but when at Desserts, Abel made an announcement that confirmed that Curtin DID indeed become champion of that category! WOOHOO!!
but then again, I was like... "Abel!! You cheated me!!!" haha!
it was quite an enjoying time at Desserts... with Abel, Diana, Iqbal, Sara, Daryll, VJ, Snow Jae, Serena, Tompoq, Genesis, Angeline, Zachary/LC, & Jimmy...
after Desserts, Abel, Iqbal, VJ, Daryll, Snow Jae, Serena, Jimmy & I continued the night at CM2.... a coffee shop near where my grandparents' house, which is nearby Dynasty Hotel...
Had quite a great time there... *coughMr.Koreacoughagaincough*
talk, laugh, drank, ate... lots of fun and relaxation that night......

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"A family consists of those closest to you, bonded either by blood or mere friendship."
I believe I don't have to say much about this quote of mine...

Anyway... just to end my blog entry... I'd like to comment about this picture...
I was thinking that we should do this at Curtin too... hehe!