国油大学华乐团

This is the second time I've written post on this title, but this time on a total different perspective.
When most of the 'old' team members had gone for internship, UTP CO (Chinese Orchestra) has been replaced by some very 'dedicated' people, and CO has been in its 'peak time' ever since.
I've been refraining myself for writing this post for over a month already, due to the reason that it might break a lot of good relationships and I don't want to get into conflicts.
But now, since I'm no more a member of the CO team, I see no reason why I should hold back anymore.

I have been demoted off my post as section head, was kicked out recently, and I received a lot of various reasons regarding those matters.
Talking about creativity, these people are really good, even better than those extremists (RM) in my campus.
Below are the statements given by the four '-less' people (useless, brainless, hopeless, clueless) who acted as high-com during my time in CO:

>> Reason 1: 'I demoted you because you didn't attend the holiday practice...'
For those who didn't know the case, it was a long story...
Basically I didn't attend a so-called 'compulsory practice' during last semester break, because I had bought my flight ticket earlier and these 'brilliant' people announce the news last-minute.
I had told someone in the high-com about me not coming back for practice, but this bastard lied and told the others I never did tell him.
Anyway, it is a really lame excuse that I can never accept as a reason of my demotion as a section head.
Come on, which professional organization will demote people simply because they don't come for one practice, and one with valid reason somemore.
I don't really want to argue over this matter, because when you come to think of it, maybe these people never study Geography before, and they thought Sarawak is just beside UTP, suka-suka can come back...

>> Reason 2: 'I thought u said u want to quit?'
This is one reason I find very hard to understand, even harder to accept.
Man... They can't even communicate with me and ask me about it? What's the meaning by demoting me because they thought I said I wanna quit? And when did I say it?
Haih... Maybe they don't speak human language, or maybe it's me who don't understand human.
Either way, this statement is just too..brainless.. and I don't know what else to say about it...

>> Reason 3: 'It is not good to have you go on as a head...'
A conflict broke up between me and the high-com last semester, because of me complaining the high-com of their lousiness in handling the CO team.
That continues until this semester, where the high-com decided to demote me and kick me out because of my 'bad attitude'.
I can't really say anything about it you know, it's like the ISA case, anyone who oppose the government is the bad guy, so I guess I'm the 'bad guy' in this case.
Even though I knew this is all bullshit, but I can't really argue about it, since people say my attitude is 'very very' bad.
I don't see myself as a nuisance, well... maybe I complain a little more than the others, sometimes even behaved like a mad dog, but I'm not really worried that this kind of attitude will drag me to Hell, because it won't.
It's just me, and I don't see anything wrong about that...

>> Reason 4: 'You can only join either C&J or OCM...'
CnJ (Classical and Jazz) is another musical organization in UTP, which mainly focus on symphony and western instruments, while OCM (Orchestra Chinese Musical) is what we called CO.
Well, the story is like this:
After the performance for Symphony Festival in August, I had decided to take a break and not joining any performances for the convocation a few weeks later.
Then someone from CnJ called me up a week before the convocation week, saying that they urgently need an alto-saxophone player for the convocation ceremony.
That fellow was my friend, so I decided to help out, and to my surprise, they only have one alto-sax player (excluding me) for the convocation, and it was really an urgent need after all.

I then practiced and played for CnJ, for the convocation ceremony, but I have no intention to stay there for long, since I'm still a CO member.
Who knows, those CO high-com, who are usually damn slow in making decision, knowing that I'm playing for CnJ, immediately made a decision to kick me out, even before I actually played for the convocation.
I must say that I'm really impressed by their efficiency in making this decision, even without me knowing that I've already been kicked out until several weeks later.
Man... kicking me out because I played for another party, I didn't know RM also got Chinese division...

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Above are the four reasons given by four different people in the high-com, and they were never same with each other, which makes it all seems political-dirty.
I've been putting it up with CO even after I get demoted from my post as section head, simply because I thought I still have responsibility towards my juniors, and responsibility towards what I joined CO for, my passion.
No organization has ever kicked me out before, CO is the first one to make it happen, and I believe I'm also the first person to be kicked out by UTP CO team.

I initially planned to use a lot of profanities and foul words in this post, but then I thought: "what for?? Those idiots won't understand anyway..."
Nothing much to say, just want to apologize to all my juniors who are still in the CO team, sorry I left you all in the rubbish dump, please take good care of yourselves...

The greatest failure in music history, people who play music for the sake of performing to increase their own popularity, rather than learning music for the beauty of music itself, and for the burning passion for music.
I feel kinda sorry for the composers of the songs we've ever played, for their efforts and hard work had come to waste.

Reading back my first post on UTP CO a year ago, I couldn't understand why I wrote: 'I felt like somehow if the whole world turns against me, I still have this bunch of friends by my side, to accompany me and to guide me'.
Maybe it would have happened if it was a year ago, but it all seems so impossible now.
I don't believe in people saying: "I'm sorry things turned out this way, but I hope it won't affect our friendship".
To me, that's bullshit.. Once you start to mess with my life, you're messing with our friendship.

Leaving CO makes me realized something, that I could also live well without it.
Thus, I want to give my best wishes to UTP CO team, hopefully they can excel in what they did, and finally be as popular as RM in UTP. Cheers ~

Makan?

It has become a part of my daily life, smsing friends everyday to ask them to eat together with me.
But sadly, since I did it from the start of the new semester, not even once they reply and say: "Ok, let's eat together..."
Can u imagine a person lost his appetite not because the food is too bad to swallow, or the environment is too bad to coop with, but because he has no one he can eat together with?

My wish for the new semester is to have friends to eat together with me everyday, so pathetic, yet so truthful.
The fact hurts that I've become like an alien here in UTP, asking people as if I'm begging them to eat together with me, and yet no one did so...
Below are a few people that I often sms them and always get back the same reply:

Y. Y.: "Got class..."
~ Seems like the ICT students memang busy.. everytime I message sure got class, kesian nya...

Jui Boon: "Eat ady..." or "I'm outside nw, want 'tapao'?"
~ I can't complain much about him lah, since he did asked me whether I want to 'tapao' or not, so I eat quite a lot of his 'tapao' but never actually hang out with him a lot...

T. P. H.: " "
~ I don't know what to write, because this fellow never replies me.. I don't know where he bought his handphone, but my sms never reach to him. Whenever I pm him, he'll like: "Huh? Ya ah? I never receive ur msg leh..." Haih... go change ur phone lah, Tee...

J. Z. - I never ask him to makan, but I did asked him to call me whenever he wants to go for sports, and he never did.. Can't blame him also, PE students memang busy...

Philip: "I got class lah later..." or "I don't want to eat lah nw, got work to do..."
~ I try to avoid talking about this guy as much as I can... I used to treat him as my best friend here in UTP, but the truth proved that he simply doesn't care. I know he also tired of all my complains and 'lectures', so I'll just leave him be lah...

I don't know why I became like this...
I know there must be something wrong with me, but I never figured out why.
There's one time when I went for dinner and met my friends eating there also, so I sat down together with them.
Through out the dinner, the only thing I said was:
"粉肠，吃饭没叫我..", and that's it...
No words came out of my mouth after that, as if they are all strangers. They talked among themselves, as if I'm a stranger too.
These people I considered them closest to me in the whole university, and yet it turned out like this.
It affected me so much that I couldn't sleep that night, repeatedly thinking about that incident.
How I could ended up like this? If it was 3 years ago, I could never imagine that I will one day become so pathetic, so desperate, feeling so lonely and so hopeless.


However, there are some people here that really cares about me, and for that I'm grateful.
Here also I want to specially list out and thank these people for their caring and concern:

My 'mates' (roommate and coursemate): Adi, Reza, Azlan...
Now I always hang out with them after classes, and it's really fun to mix around with them, feels like I'm half a Malay already... =p

COP church members - whenever I posted a sad or negative caption, they will pm and ask me how's my life and everything. God bless u guys.
Especially my senior - Jesse, who took his time after prayer meet to come visit me and listen to my story.
I was surprised, but it was nice to have someone visit me. Thanks..

Serena, Henry, Joel - the few people in UTP who, when sees me eating alone, will stop by to chat a word or two with this 'old man'.. Thanks, juniors.. (^_^)

Mei Le - ajak me makan the first time I posted up my wish of having friends to eat together, but never did go out to eat until recently, which was a very awkward one...
Girl, next time please let me know if u're inviting someone else, so that I can be more prepared, ok?

Jing Ming - I never really did ajak him for makan, neither did he ajak me, but everytime we meet he'll ask: "eat ady?", and it warms me up even a little.. Thanks, bro.. =)

Last but not least, the new friends I made: Chee Hui, Hui Lin, Wan Sin, Joon Heng, Hui Shiong, Xiao Han...
Thank you, knowing u all really makes my life a lot happier, especially that Chee Hui, although he did make me very angry once... >_<

Studying in UTP is definitely a big turning point in my life.
All these years, it teaches me how to live alone, to eat alone, and the most importantly, to survive alone.
I'm no longer the boy who clutch to his family, to his friends, but a guy who can stand alone, with or without anyone else.
Thank you UTP, u are such a great place..

生命的可贵

I had became quite lazy this semester, viewing that my blog hadn't been updated for so long already.
However, during this semester break, I encountered a lot of happenings, which made me realized how precious life is.

13 June - My little guinea pig
It was the week after I came back home for my holiday, which was also the breeding season for the guinea pigs we keep at our backyard.
I enjoyed watching around 14 little newborn guinea pigs in their double-storey house my Dad built, touching them with such joy and care, admiring these cute creations of God.
However, I clearly understand that not all the babies can survive, because when these much babies are born, some tend to be left out of feeding.
On Friday, I let out the guinea pigs for a taste of grass in our garden.
As 'smart' as I am, I decided to let out a few of the bigger babies together with the adults, thinking that they're big enough to be able to eat grass.
That time I didn't care much about the danger of letting them out, as I thought they should be safe in the cage while eating grass.
When night falls, I checked the cage to make sure the grass is still enough for them, then I saw something was not right.
One of the babies went missing, and another one was lying there with its organs outside its body, clearly the doing of wild cats.
I was shocked, realizing the terrible thing I had done.

All the babies I had put out were those healthier ones with bigger survive chances, and I had lost two of them with my silly mistake.
The injured one lying there was still alive and breathing, and I didn't know what to do, whether to end its life or let it live with pain.
Luckily for me, I didn't have to make a choice, for soon enough, it's dead, bloody and cold.
I cried that night, in front of the small little graveyard I dug, for the irreversible stupidity I had made, causing the loss of two cute lives.
I now understand the conflict people have to face when involved in euthanasia (mercy killing), for it's hard to make a choice between life and death at that moment of time.
Now I only pray that God forgive me for my sin, and bless the remaining babies, so they can grow up healthily.


17 June - 四川地震篇
五月十二日，中国四川省发生了一场8级大地震，受到全世界的关注。
我平常没有注意新闻，加上当时正预备大学期考，所以没有特别关注这件事。
放假回来后，我上到YouTube，重新寻找那些四川地震的照片和记录片段，结果看了我页页心疼，幕幕掉泪。
说这是场大灾难，一点都不假。
看着那些丧失亲人，无家可归，甚至有些被压在废墟下不能动弹，无法被救出的人，心里像被刀割一样的在滴血。
虽然我们身在马来西亚，看不到那里灾民的情况，可是身为华裔，同样是龙的传人，看见自己的同胞遇难，怎能不叫人心痛呢？
那些可是我们祖国的同胞，血脉相连的手足啊...


在这场灾难中，不乏有一些感人的故事。
被压在废墟下的陈坚，为了老婆和孩子坚持了七十多个小时，最终被救出来的时候却不治身亡。
吊瓶兄弟的李阳，为被困在废墟里的廖波吊输液瓶，让他的这位好兄弟能够存活下来，被人称为“那天最帅的男孩”。
最让我感动的是一位母亲的故事。
她弓著背護住只有幾個月大的女兒，自己早已氣絕身亡。
那三、四个月大的孩子毫髮無傷，被抱出來的時候，還安靜睡著。
替她做检查的医生在裹着她的被子里发现一支手机，荧幕中有一条简讯，写着： 「親愛的寶貝，如果妳能活著，一定要記住我愛妳。」
看到这里，眼泪就唏哩哗啦的流下来，觉得母爱真的是太伟大了。

中国有难，八方支援。
不少人伸出援手帮助遇难的灾民，许多国家领袖也亲自到灾区探望那些存活下来的人。
其中一位就是中国总理温家宝， 他第一时间赶到灾区安慰那些灾民。
我特别记得他当中说的一句话。 他握着一个正在哭着的女孩的手，说： 「别哭，这是一场灾难。你们幸存活下来，就好好活下去。」

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSPNYUO4z6c&feature=related

中国大地震的事件，要写的话怎么都写不完。
我们只能祈祷，求上帝重建他们的家园，抚平他们受伤的心灵。
中国数万人丧失了性命，全球华人却因此得到了一条心。
同胞们，一路走好了； 天堂路上，你们并不孤单。



30 June - 哀悼表妹篇
我回来之前，就听到我妈说我表妹的身体状况不是很好，从小染上的疾病又开始恶化。
这次放假回来，没想到就这样见了她最后一面...

据我妈说，她从三岁开始就染上了这病。
我不是很清楚这疾病的来历，只知道自我懂事以来，她的喉咙前就已经钻了一个洞，说话没有声音。
我跟她的交情并不是很深，可到底也是表兄妹，所以经常会到她家去作客。
在我印象中，她很喜欢看电视，是属於我们说的‘追星一族’。
常常到她家的时候，总会看见她拿着遥控器，和她妹妹一起坐在沙发上看电视。
今年过年回来看见她，不禁觉得小女孩长大了，却没想到几个月后再回来，她竟然走了。

我这次回来不久，她就随着我舅舅到新加坡做检查。
那里寄回来了一份她的报告书，里面写的都是一堆复杂的医学字眼，谁也看不懂，我妈便带了那份报告书去找这里的医生。
那天我也有跟我妈去看医生，结果发现事情不妙。
医生说报告出来不是很好，因为病菌已经感染到她的肺部，加上她的肺功能本来就不好，说最快三个月，慢则一年。
我心里明白他指的是我表妹的寿命，心里不禁楸了一下。
后来结果是，我表妹她不到一个月就走了，证实医生诊断错误，或者他本来就知道，只是不愿意说明而已。

在她走之前，我曾陪我家人进到医院探望她。
看到她的时候，我整颗心像石头一样落了下来。
她的身体已瘦得不成人形，全身被布盖着，手与口都插了管子。
我仿佛看到了一具活的木乃伊躺在那里，挣扎着想张开眼睛，想看看她周围的人。
听他们说，她的肺几乎已经不能操作了，只好靠那些管子来呼吸。
看着那连接她身上管子的仪表，我的心也跟着那几条仪表上的线上上下下。
她躺在那里一动也不动，我外婆就靠在她床边边哭边唱诗歌，看了都叫人心疼。
我本来就是一个感性的人，看到表妹这样子，也忍不住哭了。
那天傍晚回到家的时候，就接到她去世的消息。
本来还想隔天再进去医院看看她，给她送束花还是什么的，结果都来不及了...

盖棺礼拜的时候，我站在表妹的棺材旁边，不禁觉得那两个主持的牧师还真有点罗嗦。
看着她冷冷的躺在那里，心里没有伤感，反而觉得安慰，毕竟她受病痛折磨了那么久，现在终於得解脱了。
在棺材车上，我同她弟妹、和几个表亲一起陪她的棺木到墓园。
我仰望着天，祈祷她一路走好了，希望以后在天上能够听到属於她的声音，看见属於她的新生命。

NUS Trip 2008

WARNING: This is a very long post!!

After so long didn't update my blog, finally I can enjoy the full speed of the Internet connection and start blogging.
But of course, it's around 3am in the morning , and everyone else are sleeping.. =P

Anyway, I went to an awesome university called NUS (National University of Singapore) on 20th March 2008, a few weeks back.
It was their annual Arts Festival, and we UTP Chinese Orchestra team had been invited for the guest performance.
Together with us there are also some secondary school boys and girls from Taiping, mostly Form 3 and Form 4 students.
Our teacher had them helped us out because our standard here in UTP, sad to say so, is still quite lousy...
It's quite embarrassing actually, seeing those kids playing like experts, and we seems like new-learners in front of them...
Well, I guess it can't be help, since they have the opportunity to learn since they're young.

We had a few days intensive training workshop before we left for NUS, so-called to polish up our skills, but basically what we did was just watching the "experts" playing.
At the last day of the workshop, everyone is very excited about going to NUS, providing that it's one of the best universities in Asia.
We finished practice around 9pm at night, after preparing our vests and everything, we went back for some sleep, as we're told to gather by 3am the next morning, but then some bastard ruin my night by passing me 100++ T-shirts to distribute.
I rushed like hell in that few hours and hardly even packed my things when I left to gather with the others.
Damn that fellow....

Back to the story, we took off from UTP around 4am, thanks to the "early" bus-driver...
It is a 12-hours long journey to Singapore, so I take the time to replace my sleep the night before.
However, it's not easy to get to sleep when there are children on board. Those secondary school girls seriously are very active, especially one of them who keeps walking around in the bus collecting donation from us.
They reminded me of my secondary time, when I had so much less worries, less suffering; enjoy everyday going to school, enjoy the kinship between friends, the pureness of mind, the sweetness of relationship...
All these seems so far away now, left only the memories of the old times.


After passing Singapore custom, and finally we reached our destination: NUS.
The first thing in my mind when we entered the campus: "Wow... the campus is BIG..."
Most of us complaint when we have to walk from UTP main gate back to our village, but in this campus, it seems nearly impossible for the students to walk.
They even have taxi and chartered bus as their daily transport, no kidding...
One more thing I noticed when our bus roamed about the area trying to look for our hostels: "The students here definitely are rich..."
Of all the cars we saw in their carparks: Mercedes, Honda, Artis, Vios, Mazda, and many more which I don't know the names...
Man... How I wish I have one of those rides...

We reached our place after a few times rounding the area, and we brought our stuff up to the hostels, and found out that our suites look nothing less than a hotel room.
They're air-conditioned, with TV and everything, standard facilities for a hotel room. It was awesome...
After we put our luggage and everything, we started our activities for the day.

First, we went to their arts museum in their University Cultural Centre (UCC).
Wow... They have a museum in their campus...
Frankly speaking, I find most of the paintings exhibited there are quite disturbing.
I don't know, maybe that's what art is like...









We spent a few hours exploring the museum, taking pictures here and there. All of us seems very 'semangat' in posing for the camera, and we had a lot of fun.
It was quite a while before we were hungry, then headed for the university's canteen for dinner.
The canteen is like some sort of food court in shopping center. Compared to UTP's canteen, haih... terrible....
But then, the food is much more expensive, since everything is twice the price in Malaysia.
After meal, we went back to our VIP suite to rest, thus ended the first day in NUS.


The second day morning, we went to a beach park for some outings.
Initially we had planned to go Sentosa Island for the whole day, but since we have practice session in the afternoon, the Sentosa trip was cancelled. T_T
The beach park was big, but it's very boring when u don't know what to do inside there..
We ended up playing roller blades, and as some of us never skate before, one of the girls even got hurt, and was sent to the hospital.
I felt a bit responsible for her injury, as I'm the one who let them played the skates. Sorry~~

After the beach park, we went to a shopping center named Vivo City.
We had our lunch there, and did some window-shopping (the things there are freaking expensive...) before we left and went back NUS for the afternoon practice.

We were brought to their UCC hall, and it is BIG...
The hall they use is designed like any other standard orchestra hall, and it seriously is grand.
It is just slightly smaller than our MPO hall back in KL, and to think that the hall is just for the Art students, wow....
Unfortunately, the camera was unable to capture the grandness of the building, what a pity...
We had our practice for a few hours, then we're off for a whole night rest again.
Thus the second day ended.


Finally, the big day has arrived.
We went back to the UCC hall for some more practice in the morning, and were told to be all set during the afternoon.
After lunch and everything, we gathered at the preparation room backstage for final tuning and rehearsal.
It was a long time waiting, as we are all looking forward for the big night. At the same time, we took quite some pictures while waiting in the preparation room...

tuning and practice

tuning and practice...

more tuning and practice...

the flutists

the violinists

the wind boys

getting ready...

me and Gary

the cellists

the "siblings"

two handsome boys...

the macho guys

with So-Na teacher, Wen Tai

the girls

say cheese~~

While we're preparing at backstage, I began to tell some of my "favorite" jokes, then a number of people started to join in.
We're laughing so loud back there, that we're even hushed by one of the NUS players.
Anyway, it's then I realized that the mind of those secondary kids are not so pure after all.. They were able to come up with some really naughty stuff, and it was me who's laughing my head off.
I thought there'll be a communication gap between us, since our age are so far apart, but it seems like children nowadays are not simple, not at all...


When the critical time came, we were both nervous and excited to go on the stage.
It's a different feeling being on stage for the real performance compared to the time during rehearsal. We were standing in front of a large number of people, and it was exciting.
In no time, we had finished performing 3 songs in a row: 'Mei Gui Xiang', 'Hong Qi' and 'Storm'.
We're performed on stage for around 15 minutes, and received a big applause from the audience.
It feels great under the flashing lights and the cheers of the crowd.
After our performance, we went back inside the hall to enjoy the performance continuing throughout the whole night.
No doubt, the event was grand, and the performances followed behind were simply great.

After the whole event, we stayed back to take picture with our UTP Rector, who was also present that night for the Melodious Affinity.

That night after performance, we went out for mamak.
As everyone were already tired, we went back and sleep straight after eating.

The next day, after packing everything, we left NUS for another 12-hours journey return.
On the bus, we started to pass around books getting everybody's contact.
We also get the chance to take more pictures together, and below are some random pictures taken in the bus...

Huang Jing - the serious president

Yun Xin - the "loudspeaker"

Ming Hui - the small beauty

Pei Pei - the cutest but also the weirdest one

Shin Earl - the macho girl

'Lo Lo' - Hui Ting

'Si Fu Zai' - Kok Chuan

the "golden child" - Chin Tong

At the back of the bus, we formed a group that share all kind of jokes behind, mostly dirty jokes..

I suddenly have a lot of of small "fans" surrounding me listening to my jokes.
Well, I guess a nobody like me can be famous also sometimes, even though it's for the wrong reason.. haha... =P


After a while, some of the people left earlier by using taxi, only left a few of us and the Taiping students.
We accompany those students all the way back to Taiping, and along the way, I shared some of my real-life stories with them, and surprisingly, they were good listeners.
It was the time to say goodbye when we reached the gate of SMK Hua Lian, and I felt reluctant to bid them farewell.
It was only a few days we've spent together, yet we felt so close, and it's sad to see them leave.
On the way going back to UTP, I've already started to miss them.
Somehow the bus felt so empty and liveless without them.

To all my new-made friends in Taiping, I missed all the jokes we shared, the laughter we've made, and the excitement of sharing my personal life with u kids.

Maybe to u, I'm just another university guy who loves to tell dirty jokes, but remember this, I shall miss u all, and I promised I will visit u guys again in July.
Hope to see u all by then, and good luck for your concert.
May God bless u all. So long! ^~^