Saturday, March 12, 2005

Orientation Week February Intake 2005

A few weeks ago, Curtin had an Orientation for the new students of February Intake 2005.
Initially, the Orientation was to be taken care of by a group called the Student Ambassadors (SA), which is under the Student Services.
Some CV members joined this group to help out with the Orientation, including a few who had helped with past orientations as SOAR Advisors.
However, things began to alter eventually halfway through the Orientation.

Allow me to begin my report from the night of the Third Day of the First week of Orientation, which was the Degree's O-Week.



Wednesday, 23 February, 2005

Some of the members of CV, including myself, attended a meeting with some of the remaining Student Council....
We discussed about the coming special day... "Chill" Day, which includes the O-City Tour (tour around Miri for the non-Sarawakians mainly) and also the O-Beach Fiesta (O-night celebrated at the beach, the Piasau Boat Club)...
And also on tomorrow's afternoon session, which was the introduction of the Student Council & the clubs in Curtin to the new students.
The MCs chosen for that session were Bay & myself.
We were done with the meeting approximately about one and a half hours.

Immediately after that meeting... we had another meeting, this one amongst the Curtin Volunteers members with Abel on tomorrow's activities, which included Abel's involvement in a Motivational Talk with Ms. Sham & Mr. Anba..
We discussed on what was going to be happening tomorrow during the talk and what we were all supposed to do.
After the meeting, I was certained.. with how the first three days of Orientation have been so boring for the new students, I'm sure they were going to love tomorrow.



Thursday, 24 February, 2005

We, the CV members, dressed in our black formal attire (except Fiona), first gathered at the cafeteria before moving to the Lecture Theater (LT)....
Went into business... discussing and working on the coming orientation sessions....
Had to practise a little on the dancing steps for our tradition song for Orientation, 'Lean On Me'...

Soon, it was time to begin the orientation session... but then.... we had a problem...
the tutorial registrations had already a long queue of students... and including the new students...
We had much difficulty to convince the new students to leave the queue and get into the LT...
After much frustrations and many reluctant students, we were able to convince many of them to stick with the Orientation...
However, the more stubborn ones.... left a painful mark in some of our hearts....

Anyway... we got to round up most of the new students that were outside in the queue... and the session finally began..
First, with an early energizer to liven the people up... with a little of... DANCING!
All of us CV members stepped up in front of the new students and in the lead were Gretchel & Joanna...
Whatever dance steps the two do, everyone else was meant to follow...
Abel just never seem to forget the students' reaction when the music began and Gretchel, as many of us knew, being excellent in dancing, left practically ALL of the new students stunned. Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The new students were probably had a 'cultural shock'... the last few days had been barely lively and now today, we were bringing some party into the Orientation!
Besides that, it went great, cause we had the help of Abel to control the crowd....

After the energizer, was the Motivational Talk by Sham & Mr. Anba, two amazing lecturers in Curtin...
Sham (She prefers to be called so than with a 'Ms') especially was a particular speaker that the audience (including myself) was attracted to.. with her VERY powerful speech....
it even frightens me some times as she speak... hahaha!
Somewhere during her speech, we had a competition between groups among the new students, of making straw towers...
I won't go into details... but all I can say that was some of the students were quite creative at creating their straw towers....

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The new students making their straw towers.

ok... this session over, was lunch break... but mainly for the new students...
we, the CV members, stayed back for a little to practise more on our 'Lean On Me' dance again...
Soon, the Student Council members came on the dot at 12.30am...
then they took over inside to set everything up for the next session while the CV members went for lunch break..
While lunch break, got to interact with some of the new students, who were at the cafeteria... and we got good feedbacks... they'd enjoyed themselves today, much more than the earlier days, thankfully...
And oh yeah... during the earlier session, Abel was finally able to get the new students into their groups to prepare for their group performances for the coming O-Beach Fiesta... Hooray!!

Anyway... came the next session.. Student Council and Club Presentations...
in this session, Bay & I got to be chosen to be the MCs for the day...
First, the session started off with our 'Lean On Me' dance.. haha! It was great!
After that, the new students were introduced to the Student Council members and some of the clubs available in Curtin....
have to say.. it was quite boring actually.... mainly during the club presentation part... until the end of it when it finally came to Curtin Volunteers! to present....
and that I believe got the people's attention, cause Abel was asked to talk briefly about the organisation by one of the two CV presidents, Snow Jae...
at the end of CV's presentation by Snow Jae & Serena (Both presidents of CV), our CV dance group was brought forward to dance 'Just A Little While' by Janet Jackson... (the same dance we did for the charity event last year, Dance for Humanity)
The group consisted of five only, Gretchel, Joana, Navodi, Giegel & Azie.. I came in somewhere in the middle to do a 'cartwheel'... (lazy to explain what that is....)
There was a little accident and problem that followed after that, but thankfully no one was injured and everything just went on as usual...

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Raymond presenting the Student Council.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Some of our CV! girls dancing to Janet Jackson.

OK.. our presentation over... it ends the session then.... and our work was done...
earlier, we had allocated an hour's time for the new students to do their tutorial registrations after the session and so they went off to do that....
Felt great and so cheery during the orientation.. sigh.. just loved it...
Foundation O-week next week.. now time to rest for now...



Monday, February 28, 2005

This part of the report is mainly involved Student Ambassadors (SA) and the CV members that joined SA, which included me, Azie, Izzah, Gretchel & Nichalos...
Early morning at Curtin, things were quick to get a little hectic...

ok... let me begin... there at the Student Services... was SO MANY students.. both current and new...
Things around the Student Services was hectic and so disorganised... naturally...
there was some of us, SA, to get ready to give some of the new students a campus tour....

During lunch break, I got to talk to Abel.. Abel was supposed to be the person-in-charged of the ice-breaking session the next day...
he had a quick thought and later told me to contact the other CV members for a meeting that evening...

That evening, there had been a slight confusion on our meeting venue... hehee...
The CV members gathered at the Engineering Meeting Room (which is above Student Services), and was surprised that Abel was so late.... btu then, he contacted us and turned out that he was waiting at the Council Meeting Room at the Admin. Building...
We were quick to head there to meet with him...

Less than 20 of the main active CV members were present for the meeting...
We made discussions on what we were gonna do for tomorrow's session... with that main objective in mind, which was to place the new students into different groups, which in conjunction, works for the group performances in the coming O-nite...
We were able to decide to use the same gimmick we did for the Math Workshop all so long ago last October... using animals and having the new students to make sounds and act like that corresponding animal..
with different species of animals, the new students would be able to find their own 'species' and form one group!
we had some more other discussions, but this was the main one... other discussions would include the activity plans for the final day of orientation.. 'Miri From Dawn to Dusk' is the title of that whole day...

Anyway... after that, some of us went out and ate dinner at Al Fresco...
This was also when we got reunited with Jenny....



Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Morning on campus, we needed to get ready before the ice-breaking session at the Lecture Theatre Foyer (LT Foyer)...
The turn out of the new students were quite well... as there was quite a large number of them...
We distributed pieces of folded paper with the animal types... and we were able to gather them into groups soon enough...
In groups now, they were told to pick a leader and an assistant leader for their groups.
After that, every group was to think of a group name and a cheer for the group....
Anyway.. overall, all of this was achieved in around twenty minutes time... supposedly...
They performed their group cheers to everyone else and with the session over with... they were brought to the next session of the orientation...

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
One of the groups (Cat) performing their group cheer. *Meow*

MC for this part of the orientation is, as last week, Andrew Wong... by the way he's a Degree student....
this next session is the official welcoming of the new students to the Curtin family...
during this time, Ms Rismaliza, our new Student Affairs Officer informed me to take over for Andrew after this session, cause he'll be having class later.. (Degree students begin their semester during the Foundation O-week)
I agreed to it...
I dare say this, it became apparent that CV was taking over most of the Orientation after that....

That afternoon, before the next session, there was a little promo on the event 'Miri From Dawn To Dusk' that's happening this Saturday...
Andrew helped to promote the said event... though with his lack of knowledge on the event, there were some notes to help him through...

anyway, the next session was introduction to the campus rules/policies/etc and all that..
pretty boring.. and at the end of it, I and Kimmy tried to liven things up, but weren't really...
Abel, who happened to be there to check on us, decided to take matters into his capable hands.. and he energized the place...
With time to spare, Abel used it to have the group to discuss on their group performances for this coming O-nite, this Saturday...
but before that, he helped introduce the tutorial timetable to them... and helped to explain how they should read the timetable... with that over with... the groups were formed and both CV & SA members that were there went to help around.. both to explain the timetable to those who missed Abel's lecture or to help them conduct a little of their discussion...
after that, Abel went off and just let us go on with this... soon enough, everyone began to go on home... until there were some of us there... six of us to be exact... I, Iqbal, Azie, & three new students, Janice, Anabel & John(?)...
These three were of the Elephant group.. and as the days had shown, the Elephant group's cheer wasn't really good... and was proving to be 'hurting' Iqbal's capabilities to conduct a group so far... hehehe!
there, we got to discuss on their cheer and finally we got to have one better cheer for them now.... better than their last one at least...

That night, at 7pm, there was supposed to be a meeting with Student Council as planned during last week's meeting with them... but it was cancelled and moved to the next day at the same time....
tomorrow's Morning Energizer session had been placed under Izzah's hands... (without her beforehand knowledge, for your information)...
So we of CV had decided for a meeting that night....
We discussed on what we could do for the energizer session... and we made a finally decision to do a game called 'Monkey See, Monkey Do'... I won't elaborate further from there, as this is a CV 'trademark' in a sense...
Then some more discussion were done, involving the Orientation night... but I forgot on what exactly....
Over with the discussions, we had to do some practise for the energizer session.. did the practise about half an hour and then we were done...

Anyway.. I think we went out to Lou Bin Tang, somewhere in the Senadin housing neighborhood... if my memory is right...
and oh yeah! Jenny, who had stopped her studying in Curtin, was meant to go back the next day... but with much convincing and Abel's working... she was able to stick around til the last day of Orientation... YAY!!



Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Morning... Energizer session!! Gathered the groups together and so we began the session...
Everyone had fun during the 'Monkey See, Monkey Do' part of the session, which was great....
However, the fun had to end and then we moved on to the next session, introduction to the foundation program and the lecturers....
Actually, at first I just stuck around the LT Foyer where the Energizer session was held earlier.. together with the other CV members... but then suddenly I was called to MC the Orientation... immediately I rushed to the Library Reading Room where the next session was being held...
didn't understand what happened to Andrew, or for that matter, the other SA members... but didn't care at the time...

after the introductions of the lecturers to the new students, the new students were brought to do their tutorial group registrations back at the LT Foyer...
Which then left only a few back at the library reading room.. namely Me, Abel, Iqbal, Azie & Mdm. Bibi Aminah, the Director of the Pre-University Program...
We got to talk together there... there were some inside matters that's been bothering all of us as of late...

Anyway, back to the Orientation... the next session was introduction to the campus policies and all that...
quite a boring session like some others as well.... thankfully, Abel was there to save the day when he appeared to check how we were doing... he gave an energizing talk with them, before there were all called into groups to discuss on their groups...

That evening, we had another meeting, as the next day, for the morning energizer session was also under Abel..
We discussed a little on that, but we were low on new ideas... so we decided to spend half of the one-hour session for the energizer and then the rest a little for the group's own discussion for the performance...
Tomorrow's activities are going to be done nearly the same as last Thursday's... which meant formal attires and stuffs.. with something extra...
tomorrow, at the end of the day, there'll be club registration... which means, it's also time that CV gets new members in... and Abel wanted us to do something special... taking how the CV of Curtin Perth did as an example and aspiration...
We got to decide on selling our CV T-Shirt during the time and also give out personally made bookmarks to the newly registered members...
our meeting continued some more on the activities in the evening of this Saturday (Miri From Dawn to Dusk), before the actual O-nite begins....
we gotten to know the final draft of the schedule during the day itself... and we've been assigned our duties and have gotten to know what we all were supposed to do and need to do... which then ended the meeting...
But then, remember, there was supposed to be a meeting between the Student Council & CV...
mainly for CV to report on their plans for O-nite... and done on 'Miri From Dawn to Dusk'... we got into discussing some complaints on services around campus.... and there was plenty.... won't bother to talk about them...

Some of us headed on home, but the rest of us had decided to do that personalised bookmark thing that night!
We went out to eat first.. at the coffee shop, Jumbo, situated near Lou Bin Tang...
As we ate there, we had many good laughs... you guys should listen to how Gretchel laughs nowadays... it's just gonna leave you laughing as well... hahaha... Image hosted by Photobucket.com

At Kimmy's place where the others were doing the bookmarks...
We quickly got into things and we were all just being imaginative and creative and just went all out with our bookmarks... signing our name at the bottom of the bookmark we'd created...
We were able to create over 50 bookmarks in a few hours time...
then, we got to spend some more time just having fun... dancing most of the time! haha!
It was great fun... and after 3.30 in the morning, everyone began to go on home to sleep...


Image hosted by Photobucket.com
A look at us making our bookmarks.


Thursday, March 3, 2005

Morning Energizer with Abel & CV!
We enjoyed some more fun of 'Monkey See, Monkey Do'...
and then the groups were allowed a short time to discuss on their group performances....
soon enough, time to get into the Reading Room again for the next session of the orientation....
Motivational Talks by a few lecturers, Mr. Chan, Ms. Beena & Mr. Foad...
After that, the new students were dismissed for lunch break....
that afternoon would be the Student Council and clubs presentations...
this time round, things were a lot simpler for my work... as there was no need to introduce the Student Council....
just greet the audience and then pass the mic to Raymond Ting, the Student Council President...
then the whole Student Council was introduced and there goes the presentation... followed by Benet to announce the clubs to present themselves...
Clubs after clubs and in the very end, was, as before, Curtin Volunteers! presentation..

Before, it was the two presidents that did the presentation, Serena & Snow Jae.. this time it was Kimmy cause the two had class...
Kimmy did a good job at it too... and at the end of the presentation, as before, we had the CV Dance group to perform a little dance...

After that, new students were told to head for the foyer for the club registrations, including CV!...
the CV members gathered in the middle of the foyer and then danced to the 'Janet Jackson' song again...
Besides that, we also danced other songs, including the 'Jungle Song'..

Anyway... apparently, our dancing was attracting a lot of the students... and in the end, we'd actually attracted all of the new students to our CV! Booth from all the other few club booths that were there!
Guess publicity promotions like our dancing can help a lot eh? Just show that you can have fun and still be good at what you do, then for sure people will be attracted to you...
Oh and yeah.. our 50+ personally-made bookmarks? They were all gone even before the booth was done with the registering of new members...
Sales of the CV T-shirts also went quite well...

With registrations all done.. orientation for Foundation now officially done..
we cleared up the CV! booth and most of us headed on home to rest.... or prepare for this Saturday...
Some of us stayed back... according to Iqbal, they were planning to go to Desserts at about 7.30pm... and I'm joining them...

That night, with everyone ready to go out for dinner, we contacted Abel about it and he headed on to Sultana where we'd decided to go for dinner first while we went around to pick up the rest of the gang that is going...
We joined Abel quite some time later... had our dinner, enjoyed talking with each other... then Desserts....
wah.. for the first time that a gang, which consisted of some of the loudest people in CV (Gretchel & Izzah just to name a few), at our favorite spot Desserts, and we were quiet... main reason was identified as 'too tired'...
I still recall something that Izzah kept repeating.. a feedback from a new friend of ours...
"Didn't we just leave you guys at 3 to 4 this morning and now you guys are still dancing like crazy!!?"

Image hosted by Photobucket.com


Friday, March 4, 2005

Evening time, meeting amongst CV to finalise everything for the next day...
And we got to discuss some details that had been overlooked in past meetings... but with Benet who joined us later, we were able to cover them..
discussion went on til nightfall... and then we all headed home to rest and prepare for tomorrow.. the big day itself...



Saturday, March 5, 2005

Afternoon 2.30, Piasau Boat Club.. time to get to work!
The first person I met there was John Mui, one of the Student Council members... then at the restaurant, the Village was setting up the sound system and all that..
soon the others has arrived.... we then went on to prepare for the evening games.. namely, Waterballoon Fight (Kimmy in charge), Volleyball (me) & Tug-of-War (Iqbal)...
Registrations was quite difficult and we had less participation than expected, but we went on with the games....

Unfortunately, I'm only able to talk about my game, the Volleyball.. as I have no clue what happened with the other games....
With much assistance from Sara... was able to get the Volleyball game running smoothly...
With six teams, loser-knockout style tournament with only ten minutes limit for each match, we were able to get to a winner... the group called Adolescent!! Congrats to them...
And my apologies to one particular team, who lost in a obviously unfair game... thanks to me... very very sorry for the inconvenience... but we were running low time...

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
A look at the volleyball match.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The inflatable raft that contained the water balloons.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Loaded and ready to go!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Some of the boys working hard at the Tug-of-War, in front of the ladies. Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Speaking of which, some of our CV! Girls also joined in the competition.

Quickly with that over, most of us headed to the showers to get ourselves freshened up for the night...
luckily I was able to be done just in time to get ready before the specials guests started arriving.. namely the Acting Dean of Curtin Sarawak Malaysia, Dr. Barbara Stauble & YB Lee Kim Shin....
By the way, the two MCs for the night were VJ & Nadia...
the Starlet band was there to perform... yes, Azie's family was there to perform.. but only four of them... including Tania, her cousin...
After the speeches by Raymond Ting, Dr. Barbara & YB Lee Kim Shin, there was a official opening ceremony, which was when we all got to the front around the three.... with the press reporters taking photos... (And yes, the photos did came out in the newspaper... I have the proofs)
after that, was time for dinner.. during dinner, there was a musical performance by the Curtin Music Club Band...

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
A performance from Starlets.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
YB Lee Kim Shin meeting some of the new students.

After dinner, it was time for the group performances...
man.. were things beginning to get wild or what....
after the group performances.. more performances by Starlet...
as Starlet performed, people were at first kinda shy to go to the dance floor and dance... thankfully.. some of us, CV! members, were able to get people to step up and soon, more followed and then there was a large group of people dancing to the music and the Starlets even accepted our request for ONE LAST song....
ok.. with that over, more group performances followed...
Soon all the group performances were over and done with... We then had quite some more fun around...
which included CV dance group, Student Council dancing & even the part where EVERYONE danced to 'The Jungle Song'... it was great fun and we all had a good laugh...

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
One photo I took with some of the new students during the night

Then came the climax of the night... the candidates for Mr. & Ms. O-Week... which for this semester is called Mr. & Ms. O-Fiesta...
The candidates for Mr. were Richard aka Coconut Man, Jimmy aka Mini-Bal, Eddie & Josh...
The candidates for Ms. were Melanie, Elaine, Linda, Sabrina & Janice...
there got interviewed by the two MCs, VJ & Nadia.... and the candidates were even told to perform in front of everybody...
anyway... let's leave that aside for now...

this part was then the prize-giving session for the winners of the games that evening... of the Waterballoon fight, Volleyball match & also the Tug-of-War...
and then, the group with the best performance... in third place, Group 7 & 8 of Degree(Brit, Josh, V & others), in second place was Group Penguin & Monkey of Foundation (Johnna and his group) & finally the winner for Best Group Performance went to the Foundation group, Group Elephant & Bird (Richard aka Coconut Man, Janice, Anabel & the rest of their group)

And finally... we come to know who will be Mr. & Ms. O-Fiesta 2005....
For Ms. O-Fiesta........ MELANIE!!! Congratulations, girl! You definitely deserved it!
For Mr. O-Fiesta........ JIMMY!!! Hahahaa! Congrats, my man!! Your singing was excellent!! You too deserved it!
All the rest of you... Thank you for your participation... We're all winners! With our experiences and our enjoyment! Hope you'll all have a great future!!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Presenting Mr. & Ms. O-Fiesta 2005.

Sigh.. now.. with that over... we just enjoy ourselves to some dancing.... haaha!
What an enjoyable night... but to be honest.. it was a bittersweet ending...
not that because it is the end of orientation (the funnest part of university life).... but it's just some of the things that happened that night...
One in partricular was Jenny, who'll be going back to KL the next morning and won't be returning to us for a long time... Image hosted by Photobucket.com


Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Jenny, we're gonna miss you. T_T

And that concludes this CV update of our participation throughout the O-Week!! Image hosted by Photobucket.com