Sociology Trial

Today is the the day of the last activity for our sociology class, which is the court trial. Our class was divided into two groups with a different case for each because of its size. Our group was the prosecution for the euthanasia or mercy killing case. The way the entire trial was conducted was actually very interesting. We had to make up our own evidences and present the whole case as if it had really happened. The end result is that there was a lot of fun in making the whole event seem real and acting the part we were each supposed to be. Admittedly this was one of the most interesting parts of the sociology class, and we the the most fun with it. The actual trial lasted a ridiculously long time- the first case started around 4 pm, and the last case ended after midnight. It was a tiring but interesting experience, and we all had time to take group photos later.

Our prosecution group

The entire class

Birthday party, tree planting

Today has been a relatively eventful day compared to the last few weeks, which feels to have been nothing but tests, averaging one test per week. So it's nice to have a change.

At exactly 12 am this morning, we celebrated one of my friends' birthday. It was more of a last minute arrangement, and we went out to buy the things just before midnight. Then after some.. arrangements, we managed to get her friends to bring her to the bridge/terrace overlooking the swimming pool, where our attempts at making it a surprise ended up with amusing attempts to cover it up. Everything went smoothly once it started running though. We spent over an hour there playing games and having fun. We ended and packed everything up at around 2 am. Anyway, happy birthday Mik Xin!

After a short sleep, I followed 2 other friends to Kota Damansara for the Canon Goes Green event. It's a volunteer event where any volunteers can join, and the main activity was tree planting. We were all supposed to plant a total of 2500 trees in the area around Padang Kota Damansara. 2500 sounded like a lot but there were several hundred volunteers present, resulting in a surprisingly fast conclusion to the tree-planting. With all the volunteers divided into 14 groups, and each group tasked with planting one species of tree, the whole tree-planting part only took about 40 minutes. Besides tree-planting, Canon also had organized many other things, including some singer to perform at the main tent. Canon really went all out at this event.

The main tent

The resting tent

Homemade instrument orchestra

KLIMUN photos

Finally managed to get the photos from KLIMUN up.

The hallway leading to the General Assembly hall

The GA hall

Sweden: Si Ning, me, Carmen, Sher Minn, Yin Wei

Security before going up to the KLCC skybridge

The bay of elevators leading to the skybridge

Room before the skybridge

Views from the skybridge

Skybridge

Group photos

With Datuk Dr Ian Chia of UN Association Malaysia

With Secretary General of KLIMUN, Anna Joy

Time really flies. Most of our mid-term exams are already over, with just one more calculus test before the Raya holidays. And from there, just one month away from the final exams. Both the SAT Reasoning and Subject Tests will also be coming up. At least I can look forward to music lessons from the IMPAC club. Finally get the chance to learn some music after waiting so long... Yay.

KLIMUN

This entire week has been devoted to the KLIMUN (Kuala Lumpur International United Nations). It is a kind of conference that aims to simulate an actual United Nations conference in solving a particular problem. We sign up as delegates and choose to represent a certain UN country in a certain committee (political, economical, technological etc) My group represents Sweden and I chose to represent the ecological committee. Because it's an international event, delegates from many countries came as well. We have a whole group Czech Republicans here, as well as some from Tanzania, Botswana, Zimbabwe and other countries.

The actual conference started on Tuesday where we were supposed to be lobbying and forming allegiances with other countries, obtaining signatories and donations and writing resolutions. Everything would have gone smoothly that day if only the news that the SAT results had not come in at a critical moment when we were finalizing our resolutions. As a result, there was a slight panic and confusion among some of the AUP students of INTI... Luckily I found that I had passed the cut-off point of 1800 marks... with an entire section missing from the final score... How lucky >.<

The second day was for the committee debate, where we presented each of our resolutions and voted for them. This is where the situations are simulated as in real life. It was interesting, with some amusing debates by the different delegates. They also presented us with a crisis that we were supposed to solve in 20 minutes, divided by continent. Europe (our continent) was the only that joked and laughed through the entire 20 minutes, and our resolution was the one that passed.. so of course we were talking about it some time after that... We were also just informed today that our resolution made it to the General Assembly on Saturday, which means it was among the best in our committee. At least we got something out of it.

We're going to have the mid-term exam for computer class next week, right after KLIMUN... 500+ pages of the book and I've barely touched anything. This will be a first.. Let's see what happens then... O.o

Cosplay

Went to One Utama yesterday to see the ANIMAX Youth Festival. Actually we went there only to see the cosplay. It was my first time actually being to a cosplay event, so it was quite interesting. The participants were dressed up as various anime characters, and some of them looked quite similar to their anime counterparts. A guy actually painted himself blue to portray the Naruto character Kisame, complete with sword. The MC kept referring to Kisame as "fish" and "Nemo", probably related to his water abilities and blue color? (I have to practice writing in American spelling now, as that's what we have to do for the exams before US) It was more of a competition, so all the participants had to do some performance on stage. Uraha from Bleach was quite funny, he did some weird dance that caused the MC to joke that representatives from a hospital for "sick" people should be waiting outside... There weren't many participants actually, only 10 of them, as it was a small scale event. I'll update this post with photos after I can get them on the computer..

INTI Life

It's been about a month at INTI already, and a lot has happened. INTI is actually quite an interesting place, not really boring, except the weekends.. There are plenty of activities here, though they are winding down because it's the end of the semester. We are the odd bunch, coming in in July, smack in the middle of other semesters in a special intake of our own.

The first week, orientation week, or called OLE (don't know what it means, I've forgotten), was already quite a surprise to me. Being a victim of the National Service Program, and subjected to three months of military torture and treatment (as well as their absolutely, ridiculously narrow-minded thinking and reasoning), I think I've become too accustomed to the military administration. The openness of the way orientation was conducted came as a slight surprise to me, especially when one of the first things we were asked to do was to find a partner of the opposite sex. This was a change from a place where it was literally a sin even to look at members of the opposite sex, much less talk to them @.@. At least I'm back in a normal community.

Back to to the present. On the third day of orientation, Thursday night, there was a celebration for American Independence Day. Yes, we celebrate America's independence here, due to the fact we will eventually become part of American society... The celebration was interesting enough, there were performances, oldies from the 60's or 70's, and dancing O.o

One of the singing performances

Scene of the celebration, taken when everyone was eating at the sides

Everyone doing the YMCA dance in front

YMCA again, much later in the night

And on the last day, we had our own performance. We were supposed to sing our Voice of INTI in the most creative way possible, and present an invention that was supposed to change the world for the better.

One of the groups presenting their invention

After orientation week, classes started. Overall, facilities and lecturers here are quite good. The thing I like about INTI is that all clubs and societies are run independently by students, without control by administration staff. The number of clubs here is overwhelming. There are generally special events every Wednesday, and one of the most interesting was The Idol. Anyone who knows American Idol or Malaysian Idol (and any other countries' idol) would roughly know what it's about. There really are a great number of talents in INTI, and it has produced stars too, Desiree (forgot her Chinese name) being one of them.

Opening song performed by all finalists

Recently there has been a decline in the number of events, because as I said most people are having final exams now, while we are still barely halfway through our semester. The first three weeks of classes were interesting, even though our workload has increased. Nothing much to say about those for now.