long list of college activities

Assalamualaikum and like how every other post here begins, heh, long time no see? We're almost at the end of the fourth month of the year and I'm glad that 2017 has been pretty much more likable than last year... for now. I don't even know where to start with this post as so many things had happened and now I have to somehow fit in everything here because I’ve been procrastinating so long in posting anything new. Due to that, this post will be dedicated solely to what’s been happening in college so far for me. I tend to mention people by name just so I’ll remember them in the future but because of this, I’m worried that anyone whose name I’ve mentioned in this blog would one day read it. Whatever. Incoming super long boring post ahead. 

So far college’s been calm and stable unlike the first semester. Luckily. My new year’s resolution to be more social worked out I guess because I managed to talk to new people yay and became closer to people who were just mere acquaintances before this. And for a while, I thought that I’ve finally managed to come back to my actively participating secondary school self after feeling so suppressed in the first semester. Now that the programme’s going to end and finals are coming soon, it’s time to retreat to my comfort shell.

Academic wise, we still have the same old procrastinating Durrah who finishes her work last minute and prioritize the latest clips of Korean shows over her homework. It got worse with the responsibilities of being a part of the Photocomms department in the Student Council because there were so many posters and stuff to make with all the events happening. That explains the lowering marks of my Biology lab reports and project zzz. However! Alhamdulillah I’m faring better in Mathematics now compared to last semester and I’m actually doing Maths exercises ikr who would’ve thought that there will come a time whereby I prefer Maths over Biology lel. I mean, yo, good job for that 95 and above marks for the previous Maths tests! And good job for that full marks in your English research thesis woohoo. It was a fun experience writing out that thesis paper where each of us had to research on controversial issues, and I chose to write about the limited sex education in Malaysia. Meanwhile, there are friends of mine whose papers are about legalizing prostitution, marijuana, of homosexuality rights in adoption, abortion, etc. We also watched these two thought-provoking movies as a part of our literature which were Gattaca (starring Jude Law and Uma Thurman) that shows a future whereby almost everyone had a perfect genetic makeup and those who do not are shunned, and the movie Skin that focused on the apartheid nature of South Africa that discriminates the black community. The Growing Up Asian in Australia anthology that we studied too talks a lot on issues of racism, identity and belonging. As for Chemistry, well, let’s not talk about that HAHAHA.

Moving on. The MUFY Student Council successfully organized so many activities from scratch this semester which could not have happened without the cooperation of everyone in the council, especially our President (I hope he doesn’t read this haha hi Kajen). Sometimes I wished I joined in the January or March intake this year because of how fun it is compared to the last semester thanks to the student council (naik bakul angkat sendiri lol). Although us in Photocomms hardly was in charge of the event organization, we were in charge of designing the posters, the social media, photography and promoting any events like mad so that everyone joins in the fun. I was mainly making posters and backdrops with Amanda even though I am a total beginner who knows nothing about designing.

There were the two MUFY Orientation camps, one for the January intake and another for the March intake. I’m glad I’m not the one running around this time hahaha but was in charge of this mundane riddle game for both camps. It was fun though making new friends with the volunteers who helped out! I am also very done and amused at the same time with some of the group names like Versace, 99 Speedmart and Tentacles (with their group cheer going all MMMM TENTACLES ok ok u can stop now). 

the January camp poster done by yours truly soz was just starting out with Canva at that time so it looked very messy

ok I hope I improved for the March poster one

random picture

with 1/3 of the march intake!

Amanda and I also had to do the posters with the faces, names and quotes by our student council members at the beginning of the year. Let me just say how panicked we were because we both didn't know how to use Photoshop and didn't know how to remove the background behind people's faces hahahaha so we ended up using Microsoft Word... and Powerpoint... Here's just one page of our attempt with our faces on it (please zoom in on the pictures you'll find some entertaining quotes from us) :

Then we had the MUFY Bake Sale whereby the proceeds went to PAWS Animal Welfare Society. Didn't contribute much myself, but the sales went well! 

  we contemplated on putting our president's face on the board too to attract more people

The Sports department organized a Nerf War during the beginning of the year. Thankfully, us as council members get to go through the test run for free the day before the event so it was pretty fun screaming and running around shooting each other in the wide hall with Nerf guns. On the day of the event itself which lasted until 10PM on a Friday night, had a nice bonding session with the other members while the participants had a great time shooting people. Do you know how amazing it is that the winning group was called the Bin Ladens with one of the members' name literally being Usama I can't even. 

tq Prez for the poster

Ok I’m trying to remember what comes next. Oh right, the Spirit Week. There were themes for each day of the week and we just have to dress up according to the theme, with the winner getting prizes. There was Pyjamanday (lots of onesies spotted), Twinning Tuesday (the only one almost everyone joined in because it was easy), Gender Bender Wednesday (LOVED SEEING ALL THESE GUYS ROCKING DRESSES ON AND DOING BACKFLIPS HAHAHAHA), Tourist Thursday and Fandom Friday. I dressed up as Kaonashi/No-Face from Spirited Away on Friday and had fun walking around the campus anonymously. The costume was basically just me printing out the face and sticking it on a cardboard before sticking it on the opening of my mom’s black skirt before putting it on my head. Won the Fandom Friday lol. Check out more pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #mufyspiritweek ! 

Amazing posters done by Amanda, June and Peter! 

Fandoms of Rick & Morty, Spirited Away, The Purge, Sherlock Holmes, Saltbae, Suicide Squad and Where's Waldo? unite.

Just us doing the mannequin challenge super awkwardly

the winners!

What’s next is the MUFY Talent Quest which is a contest of showcasing your talents (duhh). Did the poster… which led to me making the tickets.. which led to me doing the backdrop for the show on real day for every contestant… which led to me being the one in charge of sitting in front of the stage in the corner controlling the slides on the projector and being the first to know the winners so that their names can be put in quickly before being shown to everyone. Dude I was just a normal audience sitting among the crowd six months ago what is this. It was fun, and I had the chance to be in the rehearsals watching all these talented people practice too. The winner did an amazing beatbox performance with the second place being a saxophone performance and the third place singing Adele’s song. There were also dance performances, a magic show, a girl playing the pipa hauntedly, and a diabolo performance (which I thought should have won I got goosebumps). 

idk who he is but he did a vlog of the talent quest! the talent quest is from 6:08 to 15:08 do watch! i would recommend watching the diabolo performance at 7:01, the song cover by my amazing jpa scholar buddy ruo wen at 7:15, the haunting pipa at 7:36 and the moment at 9:08 during the lecturers' special performance when everyone turned on their flashlights, the beautiful duet cover of alicia keys' if i ain't got you at 10:22, the 2nd emergence of adele at 10:45, the super lit beatbox performance afterwards who began it with PPAP hahahaha and finally rachneet's group dance performance ranging from sexy to bts' song suddenly appearing at 12:55. kudos to you if you actually went through all the ones i recommended I LOVE YOU!!

Right on the next day we had the MUFY Running Spartans, which was a parody of Running Man obviously. There were like 17 teams taking part with everyone having that t-shirt with names that can be ripped off. EVERYONE WAS SO VIOLENT THERE WERE SCRATCHES, BRUISES AND BLOOD EVERYWHERE IM NOT KIDDING. Not to mention that we used the whole college building from the North part to South, all four floors. I handled the station game where teams had to compete being in the photo frame with a certain pose within 10 seconds. It sounds like nothing but someone got injured and until now he still can’t walk properly, and these two teams was like chest-to-chest shouting at each other almost having a fist fight. I joined in one of the groups to replace someone and failed miserably lol got chased by three guys who killed me instantly. Had a fun day though!

the chaos in these pictures i tell you ah

with some of the participants

The upcoming event which would probably be our last event too is the MUFY Games on the 27th April. It’ll be like a Sports Day I guess and all the classes are cancelled for the day. Out of all the games, this girl here chose the least sports-like game to join.. CHARADES. Let’s hope it ends well later. Posters done by me, Peter and Amanda! 

So I guess that’s it for events. Are you still reading this? Wow. Amazing. Thank you. Anyway, we had these talks from Monash from different areas of study. Amira, Sharmilee, Phei Nie and I were probably the only insane one going to talks every day while most people only went for one or none hahaha. Went for the science, medicine, pharmacy and psychology talk. We also had to submit our university application forms by the 5th of April and yeah so it’s confirmed that my first choice is to do Psychological Science. Insya-Allah if nothing goes wrong and my application is accepted I’ll probably enter the July intake. 

That’s it for now about college! Here’s to one more month before pre-university ends, and… three more weeks to finals nOooOOoOOOOOOoo. Other things in life like feelings, entertainment and my birthday celebration will be saved for another post. Thanks for reading!