Wirajaya!

Wirajaya! I like this the most. Wirajaya is an activity of jungle trekking and camping in the forest. It was a cool activity. Get to be close to the mother nature, since most of us stay in the hustle bustle city. Besides that, we get to experience life in the jungle.

So,let's start from the day before Wirajaya. We were all given the eguipments needed such as ponco, bag, solid fuels,etc. Later, we were gathered at the padang kawad to receive food for our journey tomorrow. Food given were a instant noodle, rice, onion, tuna, sardin, salted fish, oranges and mineral water. After everything was given, everyone returned and had a good sleep to be well prepare to face the coming challenge the next day. Some, who do not wish to go for this challenge, prayed hard that the next day will be a raining day.

The next morning, after breakfast and some short briefing and prayers at the padang kawat, our camp commander gave some advice and hoped that all of us will be back safely. After all those anti-mosquito or anti-leech measures, we were all ready to start the challenge. It started with ALPHA company, followed by BRAVO, CHARLIE and DELTA with 10 minutes gap between each company so that they do not meet during the journey.

It was really a tiring journey. Going up the hill, crossing rivers, striving among weeds were several obstacles that we faced. Not to forget, our heavy bags full of food and clothes made us feel more tiring. But anyhow, once you start, you need to continue. There was no choice of stopping in the middle of the forest. I was given the opportunity to lead my company to the destination. Using compass and with the assist of my buddy, Amy, we managed to lead them to the right check point (except the last check point which is the campsite, we exceeded the location).

Upon reaching the campsite, we immediately cleared the area and built up our tent. Then, we cooked as we were not provided lunch. That was the reason why we were given food the day before. If we do not cook lunch, we will starve! After the hard effort to reach the campsite, we are not only exhausted but also damn hungry. Lunch was great. They might be just simple food, but we cooked them ourselves, our effort. After lunch, we washed up all the utencils in the nearby river, the only water source.

Initially, we were supposed to have activities like Pertolongan Cemas and more in the afternoon, but due to the rain, we were asked to remain in our tent. Our lack of focus during lesson and our bad skill in pitching the tent caused our tents were flooded. Water flowed in and we had no choice but to clean up unless we wish to be soak with water. We thought that the rain will subside. Contrary, it rained more heavily than before. Lightning striked. Our trainers had to ask us to pack our stuff and return to our camp. Never do I expect, the campsite for Wirajaya was just 5 minutes from our camp. Ish! We used hours to reach there, but actually we can just reach there in a couple of minutes! We have been conned!

Soaking wet, everyone gathered in Dewan Syarahan. After returning some briefing, we were allowed to return to dorm and freshen ourselves. Haih, sad to say, that is the end of our Wirajaya. We don't get a chance to overnight in the forest. Anyway, striving through all the obstacles to reach the campsite is a valuable experience. In short, Wirajaya was a great challenge to me!

Out of sudden, i just have the urge to blog..so, let me think what should i talk about in this post...ermmm...let's share about night duty.

Night Duty - a duty that is done in the night to ensure the safety of all trainees. It starts at 11.00 pm and ends at 5.30 am. It is divided into 3 shifts; 11.30pm-1.30am, 1.30am-3.30am and lastly 3.30am-5.30am. Basically, night duty is not a hard task at all. I am serious. You all might think that you must be awake all the time, or keep on patrolling the dormitories area. This assumption is so wrong. Most of the time, the trainees on duty will be in the bilik rehat. They will only patrol 2-3 times during their respective shift.

Ok, let's start about how night duty works. Firstly, at 11.00pm, all trainees who are on duty are required to report yourself at Bilik Rehat Jurulatih. There, the trainers in charge will brief us. After the brisk briefing, walkie talkies are given to the trainees, one for the wira and one the wirawati. And, then all trainees on duty return to their dorms to take along their stuff (pillows, blanket, Maggi Mee**popular item**, snacks,etc). Hah...one thing i forget to mention, all trainees on duty need to wear full celoreng! Lol..with the spike boots on for duty.

During my days there, I was on duty during the night for 3-4 times. And during these times, I had some enjoyable time and also unforgettable memories. Let me list them out.

1st time duty - I, Norain and Fiza fell asleep. Instead of patrolling for 3 times, we only did twice.
2nd time duty - I had a bad cough. I was coughing the whole night. So, i was asked to rest instead of patrolling. Thanks to Aina and Mira, for doing the patrolling.
3rd time duty - I think is with jessie this time. Lol. Diea accidentally changes the walkie talkie's channel. Can't reach the teacher in charge. I spent my time doing my cross stitch.

One more thing. The most unforgettable one. It was the time when Aina called all the trainees to wake up in the morning. It was so hilarious. I was laughing all the way when i was following behind her. This is what Aina's said:

"BANGUN, BANGUN,BANGUN! Masa tidur anda sudah tamat. Bangun pagi, gosok gigi, cuci muka dgn produk safi. Selagi anda tak bangun, selagi itu saya akan bercakap. Sembahyang sebelum anda disembahyangkan".

LOL.

Roughly, this is all about night duty :)

Ok, it has been very, very long since my last post. Haha..just that I don't have the mood to blog and after so long, I have the mood to blog about NS again. Hehehe...

My last post was about Integrasi and my post today will be about PPSB. PPSB stands for Program Penghayatan Sastera & Budaya. It is mainly a programme to learm more about the Malay literature, poetry, etc. For instance, sajak, syair, gurindam, pantun, seloka and lots more. So, a group of teachers from Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka to teach the different type of poetry in Malay.

We were generally divided into 3 major groups, namely Anafora, Metafora and Epikfora. Each group is required to come out with a presentation with one of the sajak in the list of sajak given by them. I was in Anafora, with my Serindit friends and also some of my friends. And because of this, when the teacher asked for Chinese to read sajak, my friends all called my name, In the end, I am chosen to read part of the sajak with another 2 of my Serindit friends, Wani and Azam.
At first, I was quite reluctant but after practising for long, I am ok with that. The sajak that was chosen by Anafora was Titisan Darah di Tanah Indah by A.Samad Said. Meanwhile, the other group members are involved in the choir, pantun, dancing, silat, etc. It is like all combine into one. It first started with the choir , followed by the sajak while the dancers dance, and later towards the end of the presentation, the pesilat will perform and finally end with 2 verse of pantun.

After 2 days of practise, we finally performed on stage in front of TKP and the other teachers. And guess what, ANAFORA was the champion for PPSB. Never did I expect that. I guess luck was by our side.

p/s: upload the pictures later. having problem uploading them

Integrasi

Integrasi. It is one of the programme there. It was held a few days after the Chinese returned from their Chinese New Year break. And, this programme was not conducted by the trainers in camp. It was conducted by a company called Starza. In this programme, there was 3 main topics that we studied together; Keagamaan, Kebudayaan and Peranan Lelaki & Perempuan.

Integrasi was quite an interesting programme, as we got to know more about various culture in Malaysia. We get to know about the local dialect, food, dance, traditional clothes, and more. We even get to know 'pantang larang' of different races during birth, funeral and also in daily activities. We get to know other people cultures, and they get to know our cultures, that's what we called Integrasi.

Besides that, on the last day of Integrasi, each class were required to do a presentation in the hall. Each class was given a theme. The theme given were Kematian Orang Cina, Perkahwinan Orang Cina, Tahun Baru Cina, Perkahwinan Orang Melayu, Kematian Orang Melayu, Rumah Terbuka Hari Raya and Rumah Terbuka Deepavali. My class was in charge of Rumah Terbuka Deepavali.

Among all the presentation, I preferred Kematian Orang Cina and Perkahwinan Orang Melayu. Why? Let's talk about Kematian Orang Cina. When we had our integrasi programme, the Chinese was still celebrating CNY, so it was not encourage for Chinese to do all this. Thus, the Malays played the main characters like the victim, the bomoh, etc. The Malays acting was so enjoyable. It was so hilarious to see them acting. The way the victim's family cried, the way the guy called Rabani acted like a bomoh, and many more were so so funny. As for the Perkahwinan Orang Melayu, it was quite enjoyable to see trainees acting as if they are getting marry. Although I don't really get the whole process, but I roughly know what they are trying to show us. And, the most exciting part for me was the bride and groom was sprinkled with air mawar during persandingan. It was as if it is a real marriage. Hahaha...and the bride and groom were just young teenage. Haha..

Overall, integrasi was fun. At least, we get a chance to escape from CB, which was quite boring. And also, get to learn more about our cultures and others cultures.

Pertandingan Sukan Air

I know it is kind of long since my last post. I am kind of lazy to blog...hahah...Ok, this post will be about Pertandingan Sukan Air. I will just make it short and simple.

If I am right, Pertandingan Sukan Air was held on 1st March. Everyone went to the place where we had our practice (Tanjung Dawai) with our company T-shirt as support to our company. Upon reaching there, we sang the Khidmat Negara song and soon, the competition started.

-the loyal supporters-

It started off with canoeing. We started with the single canoeing, before continueing with the double. Two company competed at once. Everyone was cheering for their own company, shouting the name of the contestants. In canoeing, ALPHA's performance was quite good. After the canoeing, the rafting took place. Rafting was a harder task to accomplish than canoeing, I feel. Each company was represented by 10 wira and 10 wirawati. Rafting required strong cooperation from the members. And whether we can win the competition or not, it all depends on the Wirawati's performance. Wira's performance is always better than Wirawati, sad to admit this but is true. In rafting, ALPHA's performance was not that good due to lack of cooperation. I meant the Wirawati.

- canoeing -

We had a short break at about 10 o'clock. After that, we continued with the competition to detemine the position of each company in both canoeing and rafting. For canoeing, ALPHA was the champion for the single category and first runner up for the double category. Meanwhile, for rafting, we lost. The overall champion for Sukan Air was Bravo and we, ALPHA was the first runner up.

- rafting -

In a nutshell, our performance in this competition was fairly good. Something remarkable on that day for me was that I got sunburn after the competition! I was busy shouting and cheering even though I was under the sun. An obvious line can be seen on my neck, 2 different skin tone noticed! It was a super hot day.

One more thing. The ALPHA wira sang this after they announced the result:

....BRAVO menang, ALPHA menang, Yang kalah, Boleh Belah!...

(can't remember the beginning of the song)

Canoeing & Rafting

Canoeing and rafting are under Sukan Air. These two activities are some of the activities that I anticipated for long. Since our camp is a small camp, plus we don't have a lake or pond for us to do these two activities, we travelled to a place called Tanjung Dawai (I hope I am right with the place ...T_T not good in remembering places) where there is a pond (errr..this pond is kind of somewhere in a paddy field...).

-the pond-

We did canoeing and rafting seperately due to limited time factor. For canoeing, Wirawati went for the training first while the Wira did the next day after the Wirawati. We left our camp early in the morning. Upon reaching, we did some stretching and later, the trainers showed us a demo on how to canoe. Earlier before we came for the practice, we had some theory about canoeing and rafting. Besides demo on how to canoe, there was also demo on how to save yourself in case your canoe overturn. Then, it was our turn to try it out. As usual, ALPHA was the first company to start. After putting on the body aid, we were ready to face the challenge! For canoeing, there are two categories; single and double. I did double with Malathi. It was fun canoeing although it was quite energy consuming to make the canoe move forward. Anyway, I think I and Malathi quite well. Here, cooperation is very essential for those who went for the double.

Let's talk about rafting now. Rafting is another brand new experience for me. In contrast of canoeing, rafting needs 10 members per group. One will be the leader, the person in charge of giving direction and also pulling up the group's spirit. Another member will be the 'jurumudi',the person in charge of the direction of the raft. Meanwhile, the rest will be rafting by the side. Like canoeing, we had the warming up and demo session. Again, ALPHA was the first to try. I was in the same group as my dorm mates. With their support and trust, Norain was the captain and I was the 'jurumudi' in my group. Rafting is not as easy as we thought. It was tough when we wanted to make it moves straight forward instead moving to the side. Besides that, rafting needs a lot of energy to move. It was so tiring when we were in the middle of the pond. But, the most memorable moment to me during the session was Norain screamed when she gave instruction."Kiriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii............Kanannnnnnnnnnnnnn.........."It was so loud and her facial expression was so funny when she screamed. It was like as if she was giving birth. Hahahaha.....I was sitting right in front of her and I just can't stand from laughing. It was so funny! Once again, cooperation played an important role in this activity.If there is no cooperation, then we will not succeed in this task.

Overall, I am glad that I managed to do both these activities. And, I would give a thumb up for Sukan Air! :)

Water Confidence

Water Confidence, an activity to build up our confidence in water before we go for our canoeing and rafting. This activity was held at the river in front of our camp's main entrance. After having the warming up session, we were only allowed to undergo the training in the river. Basically, it is not a very tough activity, unless you have fobia towards water! Anyway, it shouldn't be a problem too if you have fobia towards water because body aids are provided. Each and everyone of us need to wear the body aid before moving into the river. The depth of the river that we always thought is shallow is not as shallow as we thought. Aha! Refraction of light! It is actually quite deep...not really la...but your feet cannot reach the bottom of the river.

For this activity, we need to form a group of 10 person. When we were in the river, we were instructed by the trainer in charge to form several formations. All these helped to build up our confidence in water, especially for those who are afraid of water. At the same time, we need to trust our friends cause each of us are dependant to each other. We cannot do this activity all by ourselves. Friends are there to help and give support to us.

It was a fun activity. Although I did shout when I first got myself into the water (it is actually quite embarrassing!), but I do have a lot of fun there. I guess everyone felt the same.