Liverpool played out another 1-1 draw against Arsenal, although with a much different line-up.
But I'm not blogging on that? Because I did not watch the match. Because I went to my batch dinner.
UTP's degree programme consists of two foundation semesters and eight undergraduate semesters. We are January 2004 intake, making this semester our ninth semester here. For engineering students, we have one more semester to go, while for technology students, this is their final semester. So, 5th of April was chosen to commemorate our five year stay here in UTP (it is really unfortunate that Liverpool and Arsenal had to play on the same date, isn't it?).
It was a night to remember. It was a night of joy. And really, I had a great time, just as I did in Chemi dinner a year ago. Yup, there were some glitches here and there, but you don't want a post mortem, do you? This is not a repetitive event like Career Week or Convo Fair where you can pass down the mistakes you've made to your predecessor to make sure they won't repeat the same mistakes. Things are not perfect, but I'm not going to list it here, because it makes no point. The bigger point to be seen is that, it was a success, everyone had a memorable night, everyone had a night to remember for the rest of their lives. Thank you Zainur and Dede, the co-directors (I don't know which one is the true director, I guess both of them are directors) , thank you to the committees, and thank you to everyone that participated.
160 is a lot of people (although our batch is estimated to be around 400, you can't expect everyone to come) and when everything is over and the photography session begins, then only you'll know how much in common we all are. There are pictures of the football teams (Picisan FC and Freestyle FC), the band (the Capoiz), respective courses, then by channel, by state, by fan club, by CGPA, what else? It seems anyone can be connected to anyone else by any connecting theme. I mentioned in my promotional flash movie, that you don't need to worry if you don't have friends, because everyone in your batch are your friends. I just made that up, to pancing orang to come to the dinner. I never really thought it was indeed very true.
Was it better than Chemi dinner? That is very subjective, and it would be even harder for me to spit the truth due to my biasness. But this dinner is certainly much more organized - they had door gifts, band performances, montage, photographers, games, cake cutting ceremony (I almost forgot that, even though 5th of April isn't exactly our birthday, I wonder if anyone knows when is our birthday). This dinner had much more participants, making it a much more difficult task to organize the flow, and to make sure everyone is involved in the activities, but the committees did an accomplished job in achieving so. Congratulations. Again, thank you. Thank you is such an overused word, it often dilutes the true emotions of the sayer, but I really appreciate the effort that everyone had put in this, to organize it, to pay for it, to come and participate in it, to enjoy it.
But as mentioned, there are some low points. In the organizing perspective, I won't say much. You guys have put in the effort, and unfortunately sometimes things won't go perfectly. But there are things that I do want to mention, regarding things outside or the organization. It is more of a personal matter.
May 03, the previous batch before us, also had their dinner last semester, while we were on industrial internship. Their night was as joyful as us, I believe. But they'll never anticipate the consequences. Pictures of them somehow got leaked and spread throughout the world, but more importantly into PETRONAS' email chain. A bad image was projected, and the organizing committee had some tough time to endure in the aftermath.
Even this writing of mine is controversial, because I should not disclose any degrading stories to the outside world. But, I don't know, I'm just too coward, I guess, to spit it out. Whenever I write, I will always hope that someone somewhere sometime will be inspired by my writings. That they'll learn something from it. That is what I'm trying to do here. I hope that, at least, I can make people learn from their mistakes, and that is my main purpose. I will not attempt to bring down or degrade anyone from my writings, let alone posting pictures on the web for the world to see.
Everyone has their right of freedom. Freedom of choosing whatever they want to wear and so on. You may argue that covering your aurah is against the shari'ah, but it is not against the human law, so it is legal. But to me, is it worth it to strip the things you have covered so gallantly over the years just so you could wear one special dress for one night? In fact, both the Queen and the Female Best Dress award went to two lovely girls who did not fail to cover their aurah.
It is a personal choice. There are people who did not choose to cover their aurah, maybe because they are not ready yet, maybe because they think it is not their identity. What differs from a girl who do not wear hijab at all, and a girl who wears hijab most of the time except for special occasions like a dinner where she wants to dress more special? The former is being herself, she knows she does not want to wear it, so she doesn't. The latter is, well, opposite of being herself, which is (sorry to say) - hypocritical. This is a very painful thing for me to tell people. "Why do you wear your tudung if you don't wear it the next day?" It is not easy for me to say that. "When you see a wrongdoing, correct it with your hands, if not, with your tongue, if not, with your heart, for that is the weakest form of iman."
Would I recommend girls who are in identity conflict (wearing tudung in front of certain people, not wearing it in front of other certain people) to strip off their veil? Hell no. That would be an even greater failure for me in my attempt to enlighten people. It is hard to take care of our aurah, but since you're already on it, why not just carry on with it? I believe every single one of us has intentions to improve ourself, to be a better servant of God, but if you choose to be comfortable 'being yourself' by stripping off what you've been wearing for years, it would be even harder to wear it back. You know, I know a girl who used to let her hair exposed, but now she's well covered and still doing so. It is a hell of an achievement, and I never get to say congratulations to her till this day.
I don't know if our pictures will get leaked as the previous batch. I'm not afraid of the consequences. I'll be honest, that is my batch. What can I do? It is their personal choice, it is not something within our control. The platform is set to commemorate our stay here in UTP in a memorable night, and that is the objective. What they decide to wear for the occasion is an individual choice. But, I am, how to say, a bit unhappy and uncomfortable, I guess. If they can lose one article of clothing, it would not be much of a surprise if they lose more after this. I'm so so sorry not to say this directly, but you know where my iman stands. I myself am not a very good practitioner of my religion, but I wish people to be better than me. I coined this proverb myself, and I don't know if it exists or not - "When a drug addict says 'Don't do drugs' to you, listen to him not because of who he is, but because of what he says," - but I am constantly inspired by my own words of that. I may not be doing what I'm saying (mengata dulang paku serpih, mengata orang dia yang lebih) but the very least I could do is inspire people to be what I wish to be, if I myself can't do it.
A rather drastic closing to an appreciation post for the dinner.
But I'm not blogging on that? Because I did not watch the match. Because I went to my batch dinner.
UTP's degree programme consists of two foundation semesters and eight undergraduate semesters. We are January 2004 intake, making this semester our ninth semester here. For engineering students, we have one more semester to go, while for technology students, this is their final semester. So, 5th of April was chosen to commemorate our five year stay here in UTP (it is really unfortunate that Liverpool and Arsenal had to play on the same date, isn't it?).
It was a night to remember. It was a night of joy. And really, I had a great time, just as I did in Chemi dinner a year ago. Yup, there were some glitches here and there, but you don't want a post mortem, do you? This is not a repetitive event like Career Week or Convo Fair where you can pass down the mistakes you've made to your predecessor to make sure they won't repeat the same mistakes. Things are not perfect, but I'm not going to list it here, because it makes no point. The bigger point to be seen is that, it was a success, everyone had a memorable night, everyone had a night to remember for the rest of their lives. Thank you Zainur and Dede, the co-directors (I don't know which one is the true director, I guess both of them are directors) , thank you to the committees, and thank you to everyone that participated.
160 is a lot of people (although our batch is estimated to be around 400, you can't expect everyone to come) and when everything is over and the photography session begins, then only you'll know how much in common we all are. There are pictures of the football teams (Picisan FC and Freestyle FC), the band (the Capoiz), respective courses, then by channel, by state, by fan club, by CGPA, what else? It seems anyone can be connected to anyone else by any connecting theme. I mentioned in my promotional flash movie, that you don't need to worry if you don't have friends, because everyone in your batch are your friends. I just made that up, to pancing orang to come to the dinner. I never really thought it was indeed very true.
Was it better than Chemi dinner? That is very subjective, and it would be even harder for me to spit the truth due to my biasness. But this dinner is certainly much more organized - they had door gifts, band performances, montage, photographers, games, cake cutting ceremony (I almost forgot that, even though 5th of April isn't exactly our birthday, I wonder if anyone knows when is our birthday). This dinner had much more participants, making it a much more difficult task to organize the flow, and to make sure everyone is involved in the activities, but the committees did an accomplished job in achieving so. Congratulations. Again, thank you. Thank you is such an overused word, it often dilutes the true emotions of the sayer, but I really appreciate the effort that everyone had put in this, to organize it, to pay for it, to come and participate in it, to enjoy it.
But as mentioned, there are some low points. In the organizing perspective, I won't say much. You guys have put in the effort, and unfortunately sometimes things won't go perfectly. But there are things that I do want to mention, regarding things outside or the organization. It is more of a personal matter.
May 03, the previous batch before us, also had their dinner last semester, while we were on industrial internship. Their night was as joyful as us, I believe. But they'll never anticipate the consequences. Pictures of them somehow got leaked and spread throughout the world, but more importantly into PETRONAS' email chain. A bad image was projected, and the organizing committee had some tough time to endure in the aftermath.
Even this writing of mine is controversial, because I should not disclose any degrading stories to the outside world. But, I don't know, I'm just too coward, I guess, to spit it out. Whenever I write, I will always hope that someone somewhere sometime will be inspired by my writings. That they'll learn something from it. That is what I'm trying to do here. I hope that, at least, I can make people learn from their mistakes, and that is my main purpose. I will not attempt to bring down or degrade anyone from my writings, let alone posting pictures on the web for the world to see.
Everyone has their right of freedom. Freedom of choosing whatever they want to wear and so on. You may argue that covering your aurah is against the shari'ah, but it is not against the human law, so it is legal. But to me, is it worth it to strip the things you have covered so gallantly over the years just so you could wear one special dress for one night? In fact, both the Queen and the Female Best Dress award went to two lovely girls who did not fail to cover their aurah.
It is a personal choice. There are people who did not choose to cover their aurah, maybe because they are not ready yet, maybe because they think it is not their identity. What differs from a girl who do not wear hijab at all, and a girl who wears hijab most of the time except for special occasions like a dinner where she wants to dress more special? The former is being herself, she knows she does not want to wear it, so she doesn't. The latter is, well, opposite of being herself, which is (sorry to say) - hypocritical. This is a very painful thing for me to tell people. "Why do you wear your tudung if you don't wear it the next day?" It is not easy for me to say that. "When you see a wrongdoing, correct it with your hands, if not, with your tongue, if not, with your heart, for that is the weakest form of iman."
Would I recommend girls who are in identity conflict (wearing tudung in front of certain people, not wearing it in front of other certain people) to strip off their veil? Hell no. That would be an even greater failure for me in my attempt to enlighten people. It is hard to take care of our aurah, but since you're already on it, why not just carry on with it? I believe every single one of us has intentions to improve ourself, to be a better servant of God, but if you choose to be comfortable 'being yourself' by stripping off what you've been wearing for years, it would be even harder to wear it back. You know, I know a girl who used to let her hair exposed, but now she's well covered and still doing so. It is a hell of an achievement, and I never get to say congratulations to her till this day.
I don't know if our pictures will get leaked as the previous batch. I'm not afraid of the consequences. I'll be honest, that is my batch. What can I do? It is their personal choice, it is not something within our control. The platform is set to commemorate our stay here in UTP in a memorable night, and that is the objective. What they decide to wear for the occasion is an individual choice. But, I am, how to say, a bit unhappy and uncomfortable, I guess. If they can lose one article of clothing, it would not be much of a surprise if they lose more after this. I'm so so sorry not to say this directly, but you know where my iman stands. I myself am not a very good practitioner of my religion, but I wish people to be better than me. I coined this proverb myself, and I don't know if it exists or not - "When a drug addict says 'Don't do drugs' to you, listen to him not because of who he is, but because of what he says," - but I am constantly inspired by my own words of that. I may not be doing what I'm saying (mengata dulang paku serpih, mengata orang dia yang lebih) but the very least I could do is inspire people to be what I wish to be, if I myself can't do it.
A rather drastic closing to an appreciation post for the dinner.
Anyway,
ReplyDeletethanks for the commitment and sacrifices throughout the preparation.
tak kesahlah brape byk flaws skalipon, it was indeed a great night!