Orientation week at UTAR

I've been waiting for this day to post this post on my blog. FINALLY, something to write about college. Like any other freshman starting college. I spent days and nights one month before college thinking what would my college life be like. Who i would meet, what type of problems and situations i would encounter alone at Perak? That's right, i've decided to pursue my studies at UTAR, Perak Campus. Of course i really wanted to go to KL colleges, i mean it's still in the cities right? It would be totally different compared to somewhere like out of town and deserted like. Of course, then, i didn't know what amazing life i'm about to encounter here. Amazing stuffs waiting for me to unfold. 

Days before going to Kampar really is very stressful and annoying. Troubled by thoughts that i'm about to leave home 180+++km away, i was in a really bad mood. Thank goodness my mom and dad understood and they put up with me. Thanks mom, thanks dad.

My mom were the one prepping all the stuffs for me. One month before coming to Kampar, she'd been really busy buying this and that for me. Whatever that i wanted, she would get it for me in no time. That's when i know, i'm really going somewhere far away from home. She prepared me everything i needed to survive with no problems at all. Dad told her that she prepared too much. And since i was in a room with my childhood friend and my best friend, May, i was afraid my stuff would overtake the whole room and there would be absolutely no space to travel around in the room. And that would be terrible. So the night before going to Kampar, mom said "I'll try putting the stuff in the car and see if it fits, and if it doesn't, i'll bring the rest next time."

Next thing i know is, the next day, she fitted EVERYTHING in the car nicely and we departed. With the bicycle in the car with me. Eventually, she took off the whole backseat of the toyota Avanza. That's why even a bike on it is no problem at all.

In the car with my stuff fully loading at the back of the seat. Bike, bag, laptop, camera, all the valuable stuffs. O_O

then there were both side of the family trying to settle us down and arrange our stuff. And you know what? The stuffs fitted perfectly in the room, and there were lots of space to walk too. 

The first day was really the most tiring. Because we have no experience whatsoever, so we had to arrange our stuff according to logic thinking. As you can see, there were lots of cookery around and bottles scattered around on the table on the following image.

We know NO ONE, it's Perak, and we're alone here. We didn't explore Kampar on our first night here, we decided to just cook some plain food and just get over with it. It was a fun experience cooking in Kampar. HAHA, i just cooked some rice, added eggs and some sea weed on top. There goes our dinner.

The thing about my place, is the fridge. That's the most headache part of everything in this place. The fridge is so dirty and frozen, it smells both awesome and looks displeasing. NOT PLEASING AT ALL. So my mom said "Since they're all on their sem break, why don't you guys clean the fridge instead?" And i asked myself "Why should we be the ones taking initiative doing this?" But if we don't, who would? So one hour and more is used up cleaning this fridge and knocking all the thick ice off the frozen part of the fridge. Very.....interesting.........

Before...

After........

knocking the ice off wasn't easy, it took me one hour to finally get to get the whole ice out in a big piece like this. Previously were just flakes and flakes of little pieces. My hands were red and swollen from all the cold. 

May cleaning the fridge.

When i saw my table like this, i was like "No no, this cannot be, i must do something about this...." 

and TADAA!!!!

second day of orientation, we were really blur when we cycle down the street. We didn't know to go left or right. Cycling in the morning is really cooling and refreshing. Second day is campus tour. Basically the seniors bring us go around the campus and show us the university. I've gotta say, this university is BIGGGG. We walked for 2 hours or more only finish the tour. By the end of the tour, we were invited to join PMP (Peer Mentoring Programme) I didn't know what it was, or what u would do about it. I just joined it, and of course May joined me. 2nd day of college and i'm actually already doing something. WOW.

The next day itself, i was told that i've been accepted into the PMP group, and i was like, Wow, that's really efficient. And so the girl, which is the leader of the group told me that we were having a dinner that night, i'm a person who's really weird with strangers, can say that i'm really anti social, and so i asked May, and i thought i should give it a try, and so i agreed and they said they would meet up at my place. I didn't know who was coming, but there were definitely lots of friendly people around and we mixed up and talked during dinner time. That's my first batch of friends in Kampar.

Later, we went to one of the friend's house. And we gathered at the common area downstairs and sat in a circle. We played all kinds of games and for the final one, we were told to draw our dreams and shared it with everyone. I just drew a camera and told them "Basically my life revolves around camera" And others were like really far ahead, like want to be successful, earn money, have family, be happy, all types of different stuff.

Then, we were told to go out and meet other PMP groups. They were also at the car park place. And we gathered and continued to play different type of games with our group and other group. And at one point, we were told to make a circle, then they started singing the Happy Birthday song! I swear i was shocked when i heard "...Happy birthday to Anna...Happy Bda..... to u.." and i was like "how did u guys know about it?" and the leader was like "you filled out the form right? LOL."

With May.

Initially i thought, wow, coming to Kampar spending this year celebrating birthday alone was totally NOT OKAY. But this surprise really changed my perspective of looking at things more differently about Kampar. Hahaha, what a birthday. It changed my perspective about not all people are weird to mix with, i mean, they are really kind people.

After mixing with the new PMP friends, we started going for the next orientation programme together, which at first i thought of skipping. I don't fancy talks and stuff, but since now that i have friends to go together with, why not?

And on my birthday, mom actually agreed to sign me up for broadband! SHOCKING to me. Because at my area, there are lots of university students and the internet speed more or less would not be as fast like back at home. And YES 4G provide some special plans for students, so i guess getting a broadband isn't so bad after all.

To go further into ice breaking, my PMP friends have basketball session. At first i don't really agree because i don't play basketball, but oh well, haha, i decided to join them, and indeed our friendship really do improved a lot. There's a sport complex nearby, so we just cycled there.

All in all, the basketball session was really fun, those that say they didn't know how to play turns out to score a lot of baskets except for me. I'm just running around, making a lot of noises.

After basketball session, there's this pasar malam every wednesday, we went there and bought some food. Everyone buy different types of different food in a fair amount and share it out. In the end, i ate lots of food and only spent less than rm6.

Just look at the amount of the food! Yeah, we gathered at a friend's house again and eat together. 

And then we had games again, this time the game is locking the hands together and see if you could untangle it. 

We actually managed to do it!!! if you could spot me, i don't know why i'm looking so happy. 

One thing i don't like about my room, and i heard my brother talking a lot about it too, is the cockroaches in Kampar. It's like cockroach heaven right there. I didn't know what the previous owner did to the room, but it's cockroach nest there.

We've seen one the other day, on my macbook, and it went into hiding, we decided to let it go. But that day, we've seen it again, on my desk. I said to May "Cannot like that, really cannot, if we don't kill it, that cockroach will never get out." so i took out my drawer and pull out my desk and messed up all my stuff just to find that one cockroach.

Little did i know, there were not 1, not 2, but 5 cockroaches all together!! and MANY MANY baby cockroaches too in my drawer, under my desk, on the floor, everywhere. I didn't see it coming. It was just so disgusting. I killed all 4, screaming and hitting and banging, luckily it's still sem break, nobody in the house to judge me. HAHA.

Now that i'm living independently, i had to do things all on my own. There are 2 managements, KT management and Danish House, i chose KT, they did not provide services to wash student's clothes but Danish's do. But the thing i don't like about Danish is that they don't have Wi-Fi, everything is by cable. And because my macbook doesn't have the ethernet port, i had to choose Wi-Fi eventually.

So we were actually okay with washing our own clothes and stuff, it wasn't too bad. Just that the weather here in Kampar is really unpredictable and it could be really hot and sunny this moment, and really windy and rainy the next.

And i really really really misses my dog. I missed the furry monster and warmth i feel every time i hug her. There's this guy in Kampar who brings his miniature poodle in his bicycle basket everywhere, and the name's Angel, so cute, when i see angel, it makes me think of Heartsey. :(

I can say the food here has a reasonable price, sometimes the bowl can turn out to be really big.

i have a bunch of outgoing friends who are really open and doesn't really matter their appearance, hahahaha. We have Peer Mentoring Programme opening ceremony and we decided to let the guys to wear girl's hairband while the girls wear some really awesome hat, we were planning on making a really awesome appearance on the opening.

If that day i didn't went for the campus tour and signed up for this programme, i would not have met so many amazing people that were there for us. We were basically a family right here and took care of each other. Especially the boys, they were really kind to help us girls buy stuffs at new town when we wanted to buy something.

During the PMP opening, we did a lot of really awesome stuff together. Like playing stage game and knowing one another (other PMPs) through ice breaking games. We all planned to wear white to the opening.

Like i said, girls wear hat and guys wear hairband. HAHA.

With Pei Shan, my pmp friend. 

We have lots of stage games and this is one of it, crawling among strings and chairs.

Such a big group together.
Group shot after a stage's game.

With BFF, May.

All the PMPs.

My team.

Coming to Kampar means no transport to church every sunday, so i had to look for transport at my university's catholic student society, but because it's still sem break, there were no transport arranged for us yet. That saturday night, two sisters (nuns) came to fetch us at our place and i so happen to know a new friend name Grace. We went to a church at Bidor and it was a really small church conducting a mandarin mass with not more than 100 people attending the mass, the PA system was really bad too. All in all, the church was really small.

After the mass, the church also offered us dinner. The food was all home cooked food and it was really tasty. But i accidentally bit a piece of bone and damaged my braces bracket, and it just dropped out. Now i'd have to wait for my next appointment!

This is Grace. 

After staying for some while, we felt that the room is really messy and needed some tidy up. Rearranging the room is to make the room bigger, and also clean up the room so that no cockroaches will be in here anymore.

So me and May started rearranging our "furnitures" and beds and wardrobes and stuff, we even combined our beds together. After rearranging everything, the whole room looked very spacious.

Kampar's rainy day, actually there's a double rainbow if you see it more clearly.

I'm staying at Westlake area called Oxford and opposite my place is called Beijing B.

PMP group's steamboat dinner. All the food and stuff. We cook it using 2 rice cooker.

At one point, we open the rice cooker lid because it was boiling and the electric at that floor just shuts down. We were all really shocked, but after that we all continued cooking as usual.

Cute Jasmine. HAHA

And of course my class starts one week after the orientation week. And it was okay, it feels like i'm at tuition during secondary school times. The lecturers kept on saying stuff like "Now you guys are adults, i will treat you like adults, do what u think it's right. I'm not TEACHING you, i'm SHARING with you. And it's a two way thing, when i ask, you answer, any questions, just ask." Makes me feel like i've really grown up.

Because i took January intake, all the students cramped into a tutorial classroom, and it actually fits, just that more chairs and tables are needed.

And this would be the Dewan Kuliah, which is the lecture hall.

Living with a roomie was no biggie, we both grew up together, but we've not lived together before. But i think we did just fine. We always off the light together at night when one sleep, the other follows, so the blindfold we buy we seldom use it. But just for incase we have to study late nighter. :P

Downstairs of our house. It's all bike parking inside. Of course you'd have to lock it or else someone might try to steal it. Though i'm not really concerned about my bike being stolen because it's an old bike already. :P

Like i said, the weather here is really really weird. It's always cloudy and it makes you so stress everytime. Luckily we have a friend who drives, so whenever it rains, he would give us a lift. 

Outside of the housing area, the street to university is stalls of food and delicacies. They sell all types of stuff and u can see people walk around outside every night looking for food because this is closer compared to cycling to new town.

Dreamcatcher - believed to give its owner good dreams.
I have one of this in my room brought by May.

K i think i'll sign off now. I'll post more post about my college life perhaps. 

Anna signing off,

kthxbai