The Inkless Pen

Day 8: Why Won’t You Float! Godammit!

The day of the excursion was one I look forward to very much. I have never gone kayaking or river rafting in my life before. Yes as most of you can physically judge, I do not go out a lot… I rather spend my days on the bed gleaming things on the square screen. So the entire congress hopped on buses to head to our destination.

Along the way, the Malaysians thought is was a great idea to play a drinking game on a bus which I thought… “good lord, hell if they are gonna get drunk and raft with me!” Telling myself in an African American tone. However as the game went by, I picked up the game real quick even-though i wasn’t playing. So, the game is called Who’s the B*tch. Its’ really simple. At each players turn, they draw the top card of the deck and each card represents something. 1 to 9 shows how many gulps a player can distribute to the others, 10 gives u the power to initiate a thumb to forehead sequence; the last to put their thumb to their forehead has to drink. Jack represents happy hour and the queen initiates the carousel. The Carousel start from the person on the initiator’s right. So he starts drinking followed by the next person going in anti-clockwise motion. Everyone is not allowed to stop drinking until the initiator stop. The king starts a rhyming game. Whoever unable to name a word which rhymes loses and forced to drink. Finally, Ace represents the B*tch. Being the B*tch, if another player answers your questions he is forced to drink.  

Enough with the game… >.> Let us proceed to the Excursion
So this post would not have any pictures because very few of us have water proof cameras. Being not really in with the group of Malaysians. The bus ride continued with a very scary ride on a truck. with lots of us packed standing on the back of a truck swayed, bounced, screaming and laughing for our lives…Oh jega and whoever else that was behind me I’m sorry for putting my 90 kilos on you. The truck was slunting when it was going down hill, what was i suppose to do?… while waiting, I was kinda accidentally out-caste but lucky for me I found Fahmi and Mirrah. Praise the lord or else i might have been stuck with someone i didn’t even know which would have made my experience super awkward. We three decided to get on the kayak together. However we soon to regret our choice of boat. With no prior experience, we got stuck on rocks swirl around in circles and capsized… We kept trying but the kayak just wouldn’t float… Wet and very frustrated we decided to pull to the side and find out what was wrong… Then, I saw the cap of one end of the boat was missing which let the water go in to the kayak, leaving it to sink to the bottom… SIgh… It was so freaking heavy therefore we had to ask for help…

Luckily, one of the facilitators saw us and replaced our kayak with a proper one… And soon our journey kicked off smoothly until we again got stuck on gigantic rocks…LOL With just one oar, Fahmi took the lead in rowing but we did take turns after he got tired. I really had no idea what I was doing  but i tried to learn. When i held the oar we crashed to the side, flowed backwards, and not to forget twirling around… Mirrah and I were honestly not good at steering… After our huge stall at the start, we manage to finish the route in time although we were one of the last ones.

The excursion ended with dinner at a small village. I was super glad that we didn’t give up on the whole rowing experience. It may have been rather hard at the beginning but it ended up one of the most enjoyable days of the congress.

Day 7 Part 2: Thai Art

I thought making part more of a photo blog post because it’s hard to find words to describe their beautiful art.

Amazing Embroidery On Their Costumes

“I have more swag than all of you~”

The Dance of Rama vs Asura

Die Demon!!

My turn to hop on the demon ride!

Is that leg even attached to her? I cant even lift mine to my lower body

Some Muay Thai With wooden swords

I am afraid to show my gamer side but this is : FATALITY!

Giant loy krathongs

Tiny one~

Floral Garlands ~ I have no patience to insert on petal at a time >.<

I somehow feel I am not playing it right… sounds so screechy~

Note: these picture are not all mine and i am just using them for entertaiment purposes.

Day 7: Dilemmas

Today, I planned to attend the Live Public Awareness Campaign in the morning and the Contact person’s Workshop in the afternoon. Weirdly enough, it would be my FIRST workshop I am going to attend since my arrival unless you count the symposium as a workshop then maybe it’s the third and forth respectively. Prabhpreet decided to skip the morning’s program leaving me alone again. However, I was fine with it. I didn’t know why. I just felt motivated to do so. If you would found me in the morning back in Malaysia the week before, I wouldn’t answer you til the afternoon. (busy hibernating my life away…) The Live tobacco awareness campaign was headed by Sharon and Jane. A short presentation was presented and suddenly, it hit me that his event is gonna be held for the whole day which means I could not attend the workshop in the evening. Yes, oh dilemma happy to see you return to my life.

Silently,I contemplate about the situation, weigh the pros and cons of both events in my brain, rambling in the head of mine during the Thai Freshmen performance. I actually manage to list this out:

Live Campaign Pros

Networking
Learn about public health campaigns
Have a bit more fun
There is a certificate involve

Cons
Miss out on the CP workshop
may learn things not usable in my university/ country
lose points if I want to run for my National club’s CP position

CP workshop Pros

Learn about being a effective CP
learn about the CP e-group
gain more experience
have a upperhand if I want to run for the CP position

Cons
Principle wise, I am against leaving half way through something
Dont look good for leaving a project halfway
less fun
less interaction involve
leaving my group all of a sudden

More later on my dilemma. The crowd started to move to the swimming pool area to prepare for our live campaign. It was really nice to see everyone designing, drawing, and painting banners and poster. I’ll just let the photos do the talking.

The preparation was very fun and the it was off to an early lunch with my dilemma still lingering in my head.

Once for all to settle my dilemma, I went to talk to Jane about me wanting to go to the CP workshop. She was nice to let me know that it doesn’t matter, just choose you feel you’re more interested in. In the end, I just decided to just go through with the Live Campaign because after a very fun session in the morning, I expected more later.

The day went on as I expected, It was a blast! Great people, funny occurrences, and an educational experience. In the morning the RCs thought us a few Thai chants or phrases for the street demonstration. It was pretty ironic. We were wearing “Yellow”  T-shirts walking in the streets shouting slogans. To learn why I felt this was “Ironic”, just google “Bersih 2.0”. :D

We were separated to two big groups and located in different start positions. The groups will meet at the same checkpoint and the freeze mob will commence. Here’s a snapshot of our freeze mob.

Us marching our way to the checkpoint

Overall, it was really a fun experience. However, demonstrations like this may be “too outrageous” for my country.

More to come!

Day 6: Elections, MyPSA’s Full Membership and The Multicultural Night

To some today was the highlight of the congress as the first round of  elections has begun. However; for me, it was another day of being a  scrutineer. Just a short introduction to the elections, the executive  board are elected by the General Assembly every year except for the  Secretary General and the Treasurer; the elected individuals for these  posts has to carry out their duties for 2 years. (Please correct me if I  am wrong!) The election was carried out as followed:

i) The candidates have to submit their nomination form before the closing date.
ii)The nomination form will be reviewed by the General Assembly
iii)The candidate has to give a motivation
iv)The floor is open for discussion
v)The Q&amp;A session is closed and the closed discussion
vi) Secret voting is carried out and votes are tabulated.
vii) Results are announced

However before the elections, let’s backtrack to what happened in the morning. The General Assembly invited  my sister, Melissa Hong to present her report as the APRO RWG  Chairperson. She carried on with MyPSA’s presentation for full  membership and with much delight, I would like to quote Mr. Prabhpreet  Singh “MyPSA, Full Membership IPSF 2011!” Owh Good Lord… The GA  continued with the elections and that will be reported on another post.

Melissa Hong presenting her report as APRO RWG Chairperson

Apip & Melissa Hong during the MyPSA Presentation

Malaysian Delegates

If I could summarize what happen that night, it would be ” An awesome night of drinking, dancing and games.” Like seriously, everyone was dancing on and off the stage and there would be crowds of people at the side having their share of international delicacies. The French brought champagne, Denmark were sharing their colourful spirits, Romania indulge their visitors with wine and marmalade, even Malaysia had their own mix of Milo+ Vodka which to my surprise, it wasn’t bad. In fact, it was quite nice. The Tunisians were really pulling a fast one on people with their pairing of local pepper puree` and local liquor. (I forgot was they were called) The pairing gave a “wasabi effect” which caused the nostril to flare with heat. I also tried goat’s cheese and Foie gras at the French corner. I really love the “Airhead” candy from the USA. (I don’t get much artificial watermelon flavored candy in my place.Sigh)

As for the dance, i take my hat of to Japan with their extremely “KAWAII” dance which was very energetic and synchronized. Lithuania did a great job of making me laugh. Everyone was hopping, spinning, kicking and swinging their legs all around while trying to catch up with the gradually increasing speed. It was a rave and with the Korean hype presently, everyone was no stranger when the Korean tune started to blast from the speakers. Indonesia definitely won in the costume department. I am amazed by their dedication because all the Indonesians were all in their traditional attire and they performed the Poco-poco.

The Kimono Girls

The Koreans strutting their stuff

The American were having a beer pong competition at the back of the area. Let’s just say that all the games involve drinking which was a downer for me. I HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO DRINK SOMEONE TEACH ME! PLEASE! :D. Everyone had such a good time but I think some had too much of a good time which may caused a bad hangover on the next day

Beer Pong!

The Finnish & Swedish up on stage

Everyone’s partying Hard!

The Executive performance: cause Baby you’re a FIREWORK!

Note: I hope u guys would visit Mr Surapong Ardhan album. I took most of his photos for my blog

Day 3 : The Party by The Pool

Where do I start… On my first International General Assembly or should I just jump to the pool party? As I much, I want to skip the general assembly, I must be discipline and true. It is a journal after all… So, we Malaysian delegates had an arrangement where everyone will be taking turns to sit for each GA session. After finding out that all our official delegates are yet to show their faces, my sister just asked me to pose as a mannequin just to show us, Malaysians are very dedicated to the cause. And besides that, we are applying for full membership this year.

                So, I was obligated to sit for the 2^nd Ga session which took place in the Jootee Room. Let me just quickly go through how a GA works.

1. Proposed motion read
2. Sit and listen to presentation or motivation for motion
3. Explain, Discuss and Squabble
4. Close Motion
5. Vote for motion
6. Repeat all over again

Parts of me wished, I was scrutineering rather than sitting and just listening to the reports. Not that, it wasn’t informative; it was just dry like a bone, in the middle of a desert. But as the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for”.

Well, while the standing orders were going on up front, I was reading through the executives’ reports and also the Bid Book for IPSF 2013 published by KNPSV, Netherlands. All I could say about the Bid Book was that it was pretty Awesome~ It really shows a depth of experience and professionalism. The presentation of the magazine was really like some high class tourism magazine. “How not to gain a unanimous approval lah.” (please forgive my Malaysian slang) Therefore, I hope to see everyone in Utrecht, Netherlands. On another note, I wish to welcome New Zealand Association of Pharmacy Students –Ortago (NZAPS-O) , New Zealand and Asociacion Colombiana de Estudiantes de Quimica Farmaceutica (ACEQF- Antioquia), Columbia to IPSF ( the name is a mouth full to pronounce.)

                Finally, to the pool party, I guess I skipped the tutorial on parties. I think it is key to be a little late because the party only picked up an hour later or so. After being educated the whole day in the GAs, I was desperate to have fun. However, my lack of social skills and awkwardness really was being a pain in a butt. Conversations were mostly with my roommate/ classmate, Prabhpreet. But, it went dark when he decided to go buy the Thai teleco card and left me alone by the pool. Whiny as I may sound, you never leave a man behind to fend for himself. D:  I find myself lurking through the crowd of people, taking pictures of the party scene.  The music didn’t really help the start of the party. I love my acoustic songs but not for a party.

There was a t-shirt painting booth nearby the pool. They prepared paint and markers for us to write and design our shirts. The RCs suggested that we should get our names written in Thai and that is when everyone started to ask each other to write something in their native language. Names, messages, and signatures were being written all over on the white “Lactasoy” shirts.

Then, appeared Jane and Radek dressed as the Mario Brothers; Jane as Mario and Radek as Luigi. Hilarious as hell they both are. The party continued with me hanging out with the Singaporeans on the dance floor. They were playing some upbeat mix of English, Korean and Thai songs. Everyone was chatting, playing in the pool, drinking beer and dancing. What turned out to be a slow evening was really turning into a rave. Although, it was a pool party, I had no intentions to go into the pool. More pictures were taken and more autographs were traded as the night continued. As a side note, the beers in Thailand were pretty smooth unlike the ones I have tasted which were harsher to the taste buds.

Jane as Mario and Radek as Luigi.

Note: I don’t realize my grammar mistakes until I post it up