Shop And Starve!

Just Fur It.

I was really shocked. Really shocked. I mean as in electricity shock.

Mum actually let me to go out with my friends. To Sunway Pyramid!

But I kinda regretted though.

Just a bit.

Hitchrode Wei Hong's car that Friday with Ker Fang, Chia Yen and Yien Lu on board. Obviously Wei Hong does the driving. He's steady. How can you expect a lady driver like me to drive that fast alone?!

I'll pose a danger to all drivers on the road, my mum said.

Upon reaching Pyramid, we went up to Asian Avenue to search for our performance skirt - pleated skirts. Those are like the skirt from a Japanese uniform la, just in case you didn't know. And we couldn't find one. One of the shops salesgirl told me the fashion of wearing this sort of skirt is no longer on, so, most of the stock were sent back. Lols.

Outdated, are we?

If we can do well in our performance, we sure can turn back on the pleated skirt heat!

Anyhow, after wandering in Asian Avenue for like almost 1 hour, we finally left that place with sheer disappointment along with Keng Wei and Kevin Lai. Kenneth was there but later on he left on his own with his girlfriend. Haha.

They went off to the ice rink in Pyramid, well honestly, that's what youngsters do right? Since I do not want a hump on my head or a swollen nose or injuries on my body because the next day is Famine 30 event, I decided not to enter and went off to shop alone. Alone.

I was introduced to a USJ 8 girl too by Sean. Her name was Jessica. I was introduced as 'the dance club president which I have been talking about' to her. I was kinda shocked when she see me as if I'm a person who knows all sorts of dances, ie. dance expert la. I quickly explained that I opened the club for fun only. Then we had a little chat here and there and realised that she knew not less about me. Sophia told her about her dance club president. She's from Taylors too.

Actually, my main purpose of coming to Pyramid was to look for skirts and anime.

I went to Popular and got myself some stationery supply, a novel which I have been longing to read all this while -Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and another book by 许有彬 - 55年.

Then, I went strolling around in Asian Avenue for quite some time to thoroughly look for the pleated skirts, unfortunately, either its too flowy or OMG, too short. So, I went out instead. I climbed up and down, north to south, west to east and finally, I found it!

This shop!

They sell pleated skirts, wih 10% off. I quickly called Chia Yen, and sent MMS of the shop and some samples of the skirt to Keng Wei's phone since his support MMS.

Nice. RM45.

Drop by at Speedy to look for Howl's Moving Castle movie, they had one left! But unfortunately it is cantonese/japanese version but still better than malay right? Got it, DVD, RM19.90.

Went to buy sushi, to be more specific California Rolls for my sisters and some Japanese crackers which they were having promo out there.

Pa came to pick up me. Realised just how many missed call I've missed.

Watched the dvd at night and midnight. So twice viewing on that day itself, because, IT WAS JUST SO FREAKING WONDERFUL! GO STUDIO GHIBLI!!!

And too started reading the book.

Slept at 3 and woke up the next morning with an empty luggage around 8am. I was kinda rushing around to pack my stuffs for the famine 30 event which gonna be held in HELP University. I gotta be there before 10am.

Starting of A New Batch of Memories.

Mum helped me to pack, while scolding me when I was showering in the bathroom.

Keng Wei came to my place when I was mid-way showering and ate his breakfast in the living hall, McD.

We left around 9 to HELP University, which is located somewhere in Damansara and hell knows me know where is it. Sometimes I too wondered how my parents know their way through KL just like that. I mean, like that la.

We had to register ourselves at the main entrance for the AH1N1 declaration stuff and Keng Wei was kinda stunned not to have his name in the list. But luckily it was easily completed by just filling up some form for the declaration that I have no H1N1 thing.

They sprayed some sort of aseptic liquid onto my hands after they used some body heat scanner to scan my forehead for fever. The feeling of the liquid on my hands was just so weird, though they just evaporated off in less than a minute. But, it's feels bad to have some unknown liquid to be on your skin right? It's just gave me the tinge. Keng Wei told me too.

I wore the mask on, marked N95, and went to register our names. I asked if I can have the whole team of 10 consisting just my friends? The person said no. And me and Keng Wei WERE stuck in Group 54.

A few minutes later, Koshiela and Jasroop came in. And me and Keng Wei were devastated to have registered ourselves earlier. But I came up with this idea.

I took off my mask and went to the registration table again. The very same person-in -charge asked me if I have registered. I said I am waiting for friends. And this really shows that, the mask has done a real good job to conceal our identity. LOLx.

We stood a little bit longer on aside and saw the other group of our school's upper 6 coming in. We asked them if we could be in the same team as theirs, they agreed. They helped to 'reregister' us, so called, and we 7 seafieldeans got to be in the same team - Group 56. Sounds better than 54.

We waited there until someone holding a placard of 56 and we followed them. And hella great, we saw a lot of those with double digits starting from 10 to 20+ are Chinese campers. I was like.. And we the English campers are just 10 teams. Believe me or not.

Team Fifty Six!

We got to the upper level of the floor and reside at a corner of the space which were marked territories of each group in boxes with a masking tapes. Our territory were so small. So small that imagine trying to fit 5 adult guys and 6 girls in there. So I suggested leaving my butt outside the box. lol.

We had a short introduction game, like we got to introduce ourselves by putting an adjective in front of our names. Mine was President Popiah. Haha.

Famine Alliance!

We were given a small grain of rice. Yes, satu biji for us to hold and keep until the end of the camp, saying that they are going to spotcheck us if we are having it or not. We got to safe keep it in a place where we can bring it around. Many hid in their wallets. But mine was way better.

Anyhow, we had a series of games from ice breaking to inter team collaboration. First we had this left, right and bang game, something la. This game was like passing turns and then start 'shooting' at each other, then the last one standing would be the winner. Before the game starts, I've said that I will the 1st or 2nd to be kicked out.

And believe it or not, I was the last one standing with Keng Wei and I wonder how are we supposed to decide the winner. Lol. We did scissors paper stone, and I lose and had to go down representing the team for the final round against other teams' winners.

I was reluctant to go down though everyone forced me go. Sometimes now I still wonder if I have made the right decision of not going down because it has spoiled my image as The Feminist for the sake of the scaredy cat inside me. Am I?

The other game was SlumStar Millionaire. We called out numbers and then the lucky 2 pairs of a certain number would be 'handicapped'. One pair would be tied at their hands, only leaving both of them capable of moving one arm. The other pair would be blinded at one eye.

Star Mission!

Our mission is to sell stars. A buyer would be buying stars from us to make star beads. And each team were given 2 sheets of newspapers to fold stars, as many stars as possible from the newspapers. 10 stars would only earn us 1 rupee.

Sometimes, when we are so engrossed into folding them, they suddenly changed the market price for the stars. 10 big stars for 1 rupee, and the leftover strips meant for small stars are left wasted. It was really sick when your family is partially incapable, and are only able to help you to sell stars which you have made. You tried so hard folding fold and folded all those stars, then suddenly came in the weird market price changes which left most of us speechless. We can only continue to work, to struggle for every single rupee we are going to earn, for the family. We can somehow feel the pain of the poor, extremely poor ones which are suffering to make their ends meet.

We only got 3 rupee. And it's not enough to feed a person in the family. Not enough.

The next game is Refugees Race. It's not really any common game. It's a game designated that each of the camp participants be a refugee themselves. Imagine your somewhere in a country and there was a 8 point something Ritchers scale earthquake, you and your family were separated almost kilometres away. Not knowing where you were or any clue where is your family was, you got to search for them.

Watak saya.

Each of us were given a sheet of paper or the so called identity card which represents our identity in the game. Each name has a family name. Each family are from different countries and has 10 members in it. So we had to scramble around the whole place to search for our 10 team members. We only got 9 despite of the desperate host helped us to announce the De Rocha family looking for our members. But the most important is that the Father must be in.

And so, our adventure begins. We went for a long queue in the refugee registration counter and got our materials to build our house - newspapers, rafia strings, 2 big pieces of cardboxes and 2 piece of black rubbish plastics. The house must be able to fit 4 persons.

Then, we got to be vaccinated or we would be caught by the 'officers' and placed into the 'hospital' for quarantine. Odd jobs were given, but of course with the amount of people in the place, you think the queue would be short? Things comes to worse that if you are queuing for a job and you are not 'vaccinated', you would be caught by the 'officers' once again and this time, jailed. The jobs, were illegal and legal. Illegal, you are risking yourself to be caught and your salaries gone ; legal, your safe but the queue was horrible.

Food were compulsory. You have a list with boxes to be filled by the 'food distributors'. Free food were given out occasionally to some of the listed family members only, like grandparents and smaller kids. Vaccination too. But only for a REAL limited time. Imagine you raced to the front and you are not already eligible for free food or vaccination after a long queue. Pain right?

Refuge is the worse. Now we know.


In the end, we built a small little heaven to fit 4 of us. Luckily. But it's not that we are doing this for prize or some recognition, so we are a bit let down. I mean, no winners no losers, what's the point?

At night, we had to kill our boring time by lepaking around. The mini concert at night was outrageously fun for those who got to sit in front and boring for those who had to sit at the other level, watching at the projector projecting the concert instead. Unfortunately, my whole team was at the back. we were really worn out by the refuge race thing. and we were forced to listen to songs which are performed by the local indies which I haven't heard before. URGH.

Lucky I brought along my Howl's Moving Castle to be read. Me and Keng Wei did some demo on the rock and roll dance to the upper six guys and two of our classmates. Ash who saw us doing our stunts during a dance class which was held in the Taman Herba the Thursday before as the upper 6s were having their little farewell party with Ms Goh there, tried to do the stunt where the girls got to sit on the guys leg for a short time while the guys are standing. Haha. Some strangers from the campers were watching us, but no harm done, because me and Keng Wei did sat on Ash's lap. Haha.

Ash is a real terror if:

• he lacks of sleep
• no food
• angry

Yeah. He was a terror then. The organising committee didn't allow the campers to leave for their sleep before the little concert ends. So, from what I heard, Ash scolded the people in charge of guarding the place where the campers placed their luggage and place to sleep. He got to nap a while on one of the benches along the pathway of the long long long and long campus.

Me, Koshiela, Jasroop and Keng Wei wandered around aimlessly and pointlessly, besides kena kicked out by the people in charge from the pathway place. ==

So we settled at the stairs which leads to the staffroom a level above. Some of us slept and stared into space.

Bored.

Finally when we heard the news when we are allowed to go back, me, koshiela and jasroop hurriedly rushed back to the 'luggage room' to grab our luggage and rush to pick the 'dorm' nearest to the toilet. Lol. It was like an Amazing Race though. I think we three were the firsts to grab our luggage.

We cleaned up ourselves and settled down at a spot of the 'dorm', with our sleeping bag spread. We sat down and chatted a little before seeing Ash opening the door and asked us if we were ok. We asked if he wanted to play poker or something, later in the night. We kinda agreed. And also, the phone which he was supposed to contact, which was mine, was already switched off, since we were too tired to play games. And hungry too.

Luckily, we were 'sort of' reenergised at the morning. But still, it wouldn't change the fact that we will soon collaspe if we are going to have a morning exercise. We didn't of course. We played a fool over there. Like the night before when we found out Keng Wei was still wearing his that Refugee Race thing identity - Nina Gonzales on his sleeve. We teased him with John Graham (Ash).

They played the marriage counselling centre. Alvin became the counsellor, and the couple, Nina and John will be 'the couple' la. Haha. They scrambled through the drawers of the teacher's table and dug out stuffs to see.

The couple and the counsellor.

All 10 of us sat in the same bus heading towards Stadium Bukit Jalil. It was a long long trip. I'm just bored. I sat alone though, coz it was an odd number for the seafieldiens and my luggage was blocking the way for another seat.

I thought I boarded an Air Asia airplane.

The seats were HORRIBLY small. As in there's no place for you to spread out your legs properly. I feel so restricted, constricted and constipated. I can barely slant a bit of my body just to sleep. My god la..

Many famous singers, Keh-le-fehs, and Ham Chois came to perform that day. == I woke up at the famous singers performances, and slept back again at the the keh-le-feh's part. They gave out soy bean milk too so that we can drink when we break fast later.

I slept through the whole performance, well, I did wake once a while la when I could feel some influential superstars aura which they are going to perform on stage.

Some of the singers are A-Mei, Daniel, Jaclyn Victor and Gary.. And.. I forgotten. I was practically falling asleep or just plain staring at the bottle of soy bean milk, held by a stand in front of my knee. It was such a mental torture. They should have gave us when it's about 6 o'clock!

Worsted torture.

Anyhow, I just slept, awake, slept, awake, climbed out our way to the toilet, came back, slept, awake.. .. ..

Keng Wei accidentaly broken a friend's bottle of soy bean, so he had to give up his as a compensation. Pity.

At the almost end of the concert, we had to do some weird passing around game. Beforehand, we were given small sheets of coloured papers; our team's were green.

Green for trees.

You got to paste the small coloured papers onto the marked coloured space on a board with a certain part of a huge diagram. Well, we pasted ours... And passed it down to the lower stage to the cycling super stars, so that they could pass it to the people on the stage to be pasted as part of the big puzzle of the World Vision Famine 30 themed pictures.

So on and so forth.

A-Mei made her appearance at almost 1/2 hour before the end of the event. She spoke of her experiences in poor countries, shown us some of the videos of her in those countries, and some meaningful videos on the bad side of conserving the enviroment, and of course did some singing performance for us. We were looking at our bottle of soy bean, and our watches, then back to the bottle, after that our watches, subsequently back to the bottle, then.. We were desperate lar.

Can I drink already?

Alas, when she announced that its already 6, the exhausted we shot up with some amazing hell-knows-where-the-energy-comes-from, quickly opened our bottle of soy bean. But, it was metal capped. The old fashion metal caps which you need a cap opener to open it. Someone suggested 'scrapping' the cap off against the back of the seat. Well, that was what I did. I was really hungry!

Gulped down the whole bottle in a minute.

Came back and ate lots of fried noodles from those Chinese restaurant.

p/s: That night, Keng Wei lost in the game of cards like nobody's business.