Sunday, January 30, 2005
A weekend down south
It was a so-so week I had; skipped classes, cholestrol city, brooding, paranoia, dementia - the works. But the weekend happend to come by and I was given a chance to go melilau in the southern states. Oh yeah.If you guys know me, you should know that I love to travel. See the world, have fun and stuff. This weekend was exactly the template. here's the story...
Me and some of the boys decided to go to Alor Gajah, just to visit that ol' campus. Meanwhile for me, I had the invitation of my lecturer to follow her to Segamat for the Theater Competition that was held there.
So, Friday afternoon we embarked to Alor Gajah by bus. Arriving there we were brought straight to the padang kawad (the same place where GREASE took place) and just witnessing the preparations for the night's Talentime. We also greeted people who we've not seen for a long time. The rest of the boys went back to the hostel to freshen up, while I decided to stay and help out. Stay I did. But when the event started, the boys didn't come because they were too tired. I was tired too but I was knee-deep in the excitement that is Talentime.
The next morning I had to get ready to go to Segamat. There were a troop of students going there by bus but instead I get to ride in the car.
I know the next sentence ain't gonna mean much, but we travelled on The Route One. The old federal road. I know it doesn't mean anything, but to me, the whole strech of the road is magic, knowing that it was the road that connected the whole of Peninsula in the old days. Every town we encountered had this old-school kind of feeling. It almost felt like the modern times didn't get to them.
Then we got to UiTM Segamat. Damn the campus is big! Of course the Melaka campus pales in comparison to this camps which is situated flat out in the middle of nowhere in Segamat. The girls are placed in the girl's block somewhere, while the boys were placed in the big air-cond common room in the boy's block. To tell ya the truth, we looked like tsunami victims. Mattresses were all over the room, luggage strewn everywhere.
Oh, also. We had bapuks on this trip too, and we had to share the same room with them. Brr, scary. They were the dancing troupe, which had no connection to the theater group, save that the both groups were to perform for the cultural festival.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention. The campus had a big entrepreneur festival and the whole campus was a happenin' lot. Can't really describe it clearly because I didn't went around the festival, too caught up in the theater production.
Basically, in my words there at the time, I was busy busying myself being a busybody. Heh heh. I wasn't really on the student's list of people from Melaka (well, hello! I'm from Shah Alam! Intruder!), but I was drafted as the cameraman and the General Slave. Ran around fetching stuff, but I enjoyed every moment of it.
I kinda enjoyed doing menial jobs there in Segamat. I love to do those things when I was there. But now in Shah Alam, there's none of this is happening, and I kinda yearn for it to happen. Sigh.
Oh yeah, I also toured the town that is Segamat. Heh, it's small, all right. But I guess it's bigger that Kangar. Or probably, Segamat is as big as Kangar. But I love the quaint old-school feel of the town. It really is a one-road town, described by Dato' Seri. Actually, it looks like the town was focused on the T-junction and expanded from there. And yes, the town is on the Route One.
The theater night was a rip-roaring event. It was supposed to be a competition between the Southern Zone Campuses (Melaka, Johor and Negri Sembilan), but the N9 campus chickened out of the theater event. Maybe they were too scared. The winner of the competition gets to compete in the finals in Shah Alam. I guess the services of the imported cameraman will be needed once they come here. Oh yeah, the Melaka team will come here. Why? The competition kinda sucks.
The Johor team's performance was so-so at best. Bad voice-throwing techniques, but worst of all, they used mics. Theater ain't supposed to use mics. My lecturer told me that. There and then I was confident that Melaka had automatically won the competition.
What did the Melaka team did? They did the show called "Si Buyau", a retelling of the "Si Tenggang" story, set in modern times. Funny stuff, really. And they managed to keep the crowd glued and in stitches. People commented on the last scene, where the parents cursed their son, as really powerful. The audience was practically silent and was shocked at the drama. We didn't expect that kind of reaction from the crowd, but that shows that the team did a good job.
Oh yeah, people also managed to praise the camerawork that recorded the play. Yay for me ^_^.
I went back on sunday noon, by bus from Segamat to KL. didn't expect it took 3-plus hours to reach KL. The fun thing was, the bus drove along Route One. Yay for Route One. Sad thing, I got a headache on the bumpy bus. Potholes.
Sadly, the day ended on a sour note. Once I reached KL, I headed to Sentral to get a cuppa. I checked in my pockets, and saw my clip-on shades had broken into two. Aw crap. It was a sad thing to see it go that way. But I guess it was its time. I had that clip-ons since when, Alpha MMU 2000? 2001? Really, it was that long. Guess it's time to find new ones. For now, I might forgo the shades for a while. But if there's any discount offers for clip-ons, I'm on it.
Well, so there was my weekend in the south. I had a great time exploring a town I'd never been before, and had a great time hangging around the theater group. Even though there were sad things, but the fun things outweigh them all.
Now, back to this dreary place and thought that is Sec.18. Boo Frickin Hoo.
Bing Bong I win. =P