Clovers & Roses

(Another "throwback" post because I am seriously behind all my blog updates. This is also a very long and wordy post so you can scroll through the words and go straight to the pictures if you like.)

The next event that I will be sharing/updating about is probably the highlight of last semester. 

I've never mentioned this before (at least I don't think I've mentioned this in my blog) but my course is actually an optional twinning course. I have the option of studying all 4 years locally for a Bachelors of Pharmacy certificate or doing a 2+2 twinning to Cardiff University in Wales, UK which gives me a Masters in Pharmacy certificate. Essentially both are the same level. The only difference is that in the UK they refer to a degree in pharmacy as Masters of Pharmacy instead of Bachelors of Pharmacy in Malaysia. If you read my short bio on the left, you would know I am doing the local option. 

As my class is the junior class of the entire SOP, we were given the task to organize a farewell dinner of sorts for our Year 2 seniors because half of them will be leaving for Cardiff come this Fall. A committee was set up (I am not one of them although I played a small, tiny part) and plans were made. A theme was selected and this year the theme was:

THE BLACK DIAMOND

Intriguing theme right? 

I have to give credits to those who were the brains behind the theme and organizing because it was really unique. I won't list out the entire committee because that would be a very, very long list. This event was a black tie event which meant proper suits for the males and proper dresses/gowns for the females. 

Now to the tiny role that I played.

I was approached by the organizer to be part of the entertainment for the night. The entertainment involved a short play which gives out hints and clues to the guests for them to answer several important questions at the end of the play. See what I mean when I say it's unique? And the more amazing part was this play was written with pharmaceutical/medical skills incorporated in it. I know it sounds a little confusing but I will explain it.

The entire story of the play:

(You can skip this part if you're not interested because it's pretty long haha)

This play centralizes on the main character Diana who is secretly immortal. Diana had parents who were scientist and developed a formula called the Black Diamond which enables immortality to be possible. Because of that, many parties were searching for her parents and also this Black Diamond. Her parents decided to hide the formula by incorporating it into her DNA (not revealed to the audience) before dying and leaving Diana alone in this world to survive. After hiding for many decades, Diana decided to come out from hiding and lead a regular lifestyle wearing a black diamond ring around her neck as a reminder of her parents' sacrifice. Because she had the appearance of a young adult, she enrolled in university like most young adults and began living her life. She made friends and eventually her secret was discovered by a secret agent named Darren through a mission assigned to him. They were both in love with each other when he found out about her secret. Diana felt betrayed when she found out that he was a secret agent. She avoids him at all costs and he relentlessly pursues her hoping to tell her that he will not share her secret with anyone and will keep her safe from Agent Jessie who is hunting her down for the Black Diamond. Diana has a best friend named Winowa and a little drama unfolds as she thinks that she is being used by Darren just to get close to Diana. They got into an fight and Diana appears and confronts Darren. While Darren explains himself to Diana, Agent Jessie appears holding Winowa hostage and asking Diana to surrender the Black Diamond. Because no one knows the exact location of the Black Diamond, they assumed it was the diamond ring around Diana's neck. Diana surrenders the ring and Agent Jessie shoots her. Before dying Diana confesses to Darren about the real situation and hands him a bracelet which contains a chip with all the information about the Black Diamond. 

After watching the play, the audience had to guess where is the Black Diamond. 

The role that I played was Diana. 

I had to be the immortal girl who finally dies after a gunshot wound. I know most of you would be thinking "If Diana is immortal, how can she die?". This is where you have to differentiate between immortal and invincible. Although Diana does not decay, she can still be defeated and overpowered by wounds like gunshot. At least that's my theory to it. HAHAHA

Accompanying me were several of my coursemates playing Winowa the best friend, Darren the secret agent and Agent Jessie the evil agent. 

Besides the play, we also had to do a short dance to the song Impossible sang by James Arthur. The dance was sort of interpretive of the entire story.

(Copyright to respective studios and the artist. I do not own anything.)

However, this event did have several minor glitches. 

The venue was actually the waterfront/pier area of Lakeside. We were supposed to dine there and the play was also supposed to happen there while the guests were dining. We practiced on site several weeks and thought that we got everything covered. 

On the day on the event, the weather forecasts were not on our side and a few hours before the event was scheduled to begin, the skies thundered and rain poured heavily. The entire event had to be moved indoors to Temptations, the hospitality restaurant catering for our event. 

A few hours before the event, I was at Wei Li's place in PJS 7 together with her and Jee Nie getting ready for the event. I was a huge bundle of nerves because I was going to do this play and dance in front of the entire school and possibly anyone else who was walking by the waterfront area that evening. The pressure was on! 

When it started raining I became even more nervous than before and it was for very good reasons. One: I never practiced indoors for the play and everything was essentially messed up in the order of scenes of the play. I was worried because doing it without practice in a completely new place would be difficult because I was not comfortable and my bearings would be messed up with the actions and everything. Two: I was wearing a maxi dress. A cream colored maxi dress to be exact with my favorite glitter platform pumps. It was raining and I had to walk from Wei Li's place to campus. How can I not worry? Three: My hair was nicely curled by Wei Li and pinned in place. With the slight drizzle by the time we reach the campus, my hairstyle did not even last through the photo shoot session.

Lucky part, Fiqa was driving and she offered to fetch me, Jee Nie and Wei Li from Wei Li's place because of the rain so my dress was saved from getting stained or drenched by walking.

The food prepared by Temptations was superb that night. The menu selection was really good. I enjoyed eating although my stomach was in knots about the play. I became a little "diva-ish" and at one point refused to go through with the play (I apologize profusely for that!). I was nervous and I really didn't like to go through things unprepared especially in such a grand event. In the end, the organizers explained to me how crucial it was to have the play because this whole night was centered around the play so I bit my lip and went for it. 

Dessert of pastry stuffed with cream and drizzled with chocolate. Simply delectable!

Cocktail style entrees. Smoked salmon and mini chicken in tomato base tarts.

The play went really well given the fact that we did not practice it indoors at Temptations before. My friend Elaine who played Agent Jessie was actually given a toy gun that emits a shooting sound when the trigger is pulled. Not those fake shooting sound but real shooting sounds made by gun powder. How cool is that right? 

We told no one about it and only us cast and organizers knew about the gun. During the scene where Agent Jessie points the gun at me, everyone probably thought that the gun she was holding was just a toy gun prop. So you can imagine their reaction when Agent Jessie/Elaine pulls the trigger and a loud "pop" sound radiates through the entire restaurant and me standing on the small rectangular stage collapses for real. Everyone was like "aagghhhh!" in shock when I collapsed very realistically I might add :P 

Agent Jessie doing her thing.

I was so happy that they had that exact reaction that we wanted them to have. The surprise worked and they were really into the play by then. I become overcome with happiness that I started smiling and laughing. In the scene where I was supposed to be dying -.- 

I overhead someone saying "Wait, she's laughing and smiling" and everyone started laughing. I had to bite my tongue and deliver my lines as dead looking and sounding as I could. And the play ended. 

That's just one part done. I had to move to Lecture Theater 12 immediately to prepare for the dance. My nerves were again in a huge bundle and I was really worried that I will screw up the dance number because we only had a week plus worth of practice and to be honest, I haven't done a public dance performance for so long that I mess up really easily. 

During the dance, we all messed up. All 5 of us messed up and it was actually not a big deal because the audience enjoyed it. I was laughing and smiling throughout the dance because it was hilarious and the audience was laughing too. 

The event continued with awards presentation to several lecturers as well as several video presentations. Not forgetting that we were sending off the seniors who are Cardiff bound, the organizers played an extra special video which featured one of their previous lecturer who has left the faculty. Our seniors were pretty touched I would say. A group of us also sang the traditional sending off song Auld Lang Syne. 

Finally, the pictures. There are a tonnes of pictures taken by professional photographers as well as ourselves. I won't be posting all of them of course. Just the ones that I think are nice. 

(DISCLAIMER: Several photos were taken from the TuPSS official Facebook page but I watermarked it anyway to prevent any possible thefts from my blog. The rights of those photos belong to TuPSS and also to the respective photographers.)

First picture together in Temptations

Jee Nie being the photographer

My girlies in white <3

Funny/weird faces is a must!

Wei Li and myself

Myself, Wei Li and Mun Yee

Mwahhhh!

My very gorgeous Perak girls

Mun Hui and Mun Yee

With the Mistress of Ceremonies for the night, Tiffany.

Inseparable 5.

Now for the candid shots and several of my solo shots. Heehee 

The event was overall a success I would say. Another one for my book of memories. This event also pretty much ended our Year 1 as juniors. Come September we will be Year 2 and senior to a new batch of juniors. After what we did for our seniors this year, our juniors have a lot of expectations on their shoulders because we raised the bar really really high :D

A night of laughter

A night of tears

Definitely a night of glamour

and a night with memories

Until the next Gala Night

This post is a 'throwback' kind of post because I've been blogging more about the present that I left out this event so bear with me as I flashback and relive the moments again. 

Several months back, the School of Pharmacy (SOP) in collaboration with School of Medicine (SOM) from Taylor's University organized a Public Health Campaign (PHC) at Tropicana City Mall. It was the first PHC that was organized by these two schools. Seeing as I am part of SOP, I had to participate in this event. I was assigned under Stage Activities & Protocol as the event's emcee. It was a three day event and though three days may sound like a short period of time, every night I reached home at almost midnight and literally dropped on my bed and slept. It was really tiring because we arrive at Tropicana at 8 AM to set up our booths and everything and we only leave Tropicana at 10 PM when it closes. 

Basically what we offered at the PHC was free health screening tests and consultations by our staff as well as the staff from BP Healthcare. And what I had to do was basically entertain the crowd at certain time intervals while the tests were on going. Initially, I thought it would quite easy to do but turns out I was quite wrong. It was quite nerve wrecking at times.

We had quite a huge turn out of people who went for the health tests and consults. The last tallied total was 1600 people I think which doesn't sound like a lot but it was a lot to us. There were also some talks by our lectures at intervals as well games to give away some goodies. We even had some games for kids because we expected lots of parents to have kids around them while they go for these checks.

Candid shot of us entertaining kids Excuse my expression as well as Mayin's.

Doing my thang with the mic. Lol Wei Li and Xin Yu assisting me with the Health Quiz.

I have not actually emceed an event that was at this grand a scale. The last time I emceed was in high school. I was 16 and I was randomly selected to emcee the annual Rangers campfire. There's something about emceeing that requires one to have very thick skin and confidence as well as charisma. Like you really (and I really mean REALLY here) need to know how to work a crowd and keep them buzzed so to speak. They need to feel all cheery and happy and excited to be there and obviously I have to push this 'energy' towards them. Not as easy as it sounds.


Throughout these three days of emceeing I actually brought an extra pair of shoes in my bag. I had to wear pumps during the official opening ceremony because the podium was too tall (or rather I was too short) which made Dr. June laugh because she couldn't see my head until I swapped my flats to pumps. I had the most solid calf muscles after wearing my pumps and walking around in it for half the day. Thank God there were no blisters.


Overall, this Public Health Campaign was a really great experience. I got to try emceeing on a grander scale and also tried out several cool machines that were provided by our sponsors for the event. I've never seen or used most of the high tech weighing machines and smokerlyzer so it was pretty cool to experience handling it as well as using it.


Now for the best part of every post,
PICTURES!
(I didn't go around taking pictures of the stations and high tech stuff because I was busy at the stage with my mic.)

Stage Activities and Protocol team. (Left to right: Wei Li, She Yee, Samantha, myself)

Mun Yee, Wei Li, myself on one of our break time

Wei Li and myself (We were trying to capture the ceiling with it's rainbow colored transitional lights)

Wei Li and myself trying to be funny and weird

Selfies for us vainpots!

Mun Yee, Wei Li, myself

Me with Wei Li, Mun Yee and Mayin after their short skit

Wei Li and I on Day 1

Half of TU School of Pharmacy Year 1's (The other half were in UKM for the Sports Carnival which was on the same weekend as PHC)

All of us! TU SOP students (seniors & juniors) and staff with SOM students and staff.

Oh and before I forget, Day 1 of PHC coincidentally fell on Mun Yee's birthday. We obviously couldn't have a celebration because we were all busy at the PHC and Jee Nie was in UKM bagging gold medals in the women's ping pong event and also running. You go girl! :)

We did however surprise Mun Yee with a slice of cake from Coffee Bean. It was totally last minute but Mayin bought the cake. Me and Wei Li went hunting for a lighter to light the candle and we sang "Happy Birthday" as well walked towards Mun Yee. It was kind of impromptu but we were glad that Mun Yee liked it.


Which birthday celebration (sort of) does not have pictures right. So here's another round of 'em.

Me with Mun Yee aka birthday girl :)

Group shot

Kisses for the birthday girl! xxxxx

Wei Li and Mun Yee

Mun Yee and her surprise slice of cake. *The cake was really really good btw*

 Because I am such a vainpot so here's pictures of just myself. Yes, thick skinned and shameless and vain as hell but hey, I'm a lady so you cannot blame me for that :P

Last day on the job!

I can haz big buggy eyed sunnies! (Wei Li's sunnies)

Peek-a-boo I see you?

Ginormous heart. MINE ALL MINE HEHEHEHE!