Merdeka Randomness

It was still dark and gloomy when my alarm cheerfully went off, playing the intro riff of 'Stars' by Switchfoot, effectively waking me and the neighbourhood along with it. Drat, I couldn't believe it was morning already. I was just getting adjusted to sleeping late and waking even later for the holidays, but before I knew it, them good ol' hols were over.

Well, no matter. I doused myself with coffee so I'd at least look alive in school. I packed my bag, and boy was it heavy. To top that off, my head was still cloudy and brain laggy from lack of sleep.



















Need. . .drugs. . .I mean, caffeine. . .

I got to school, not looking forward to lessons. But surprise, surprise; Mr Jonathon (yes, it's spelled like that, which proves to be a huge inconvenience to me, since all the other teachers think that's how my name is spelled too) Shaw, our IB coordinator greeted us this morning and made a spectacular announcement.

Turns out our school (actually, just the 50 IB students in school) is invited to play the Chinese Seasonal Drums for the Merdeka Day parade this Friday.

Ooh La La.

That means no lessons for 4 days, since we would be practicing for just about the whole day. I don't have to bring my brain along then.

And at about 9 am we hopped onto buses that would take us alllll the wayyy to Dataran Merdeka, at the heart of Kuala Lumpur to play the drums, or at least look like we know how to play the drums. Most of us were informed just today about the event, and most had no clue as to HOW to even play the drums.
















Those two sausages are actually drumsticks. No, really.



















They're big, scary and make a lot of noise. Hmm, reminds me somewhat of Yvonne someone I know.

So when we reached, the buses had to stop about 1 kilometer off from the practice area, since the roads were closed. We took a long long walk and accompanied some military vehicles along the way (they were going in as well).



















An awesome looking artillery piece. Or, that's what I think it is. Maybe a giant pogo-stick? I don't know.



















I have no idea what that is. But one can speculate. Maybe it's a repair/spy drone (think Command&Conquer 3). Either that or a big round pot to cook lunch in. You NEVER know, it just might be.

When we arrived, we saw people PRACTICING. They must have been for the whole past week. We just went there to LEARN.

Wah, like that sure-die lorr. How leh?

For the rest of the time we were there, it was just bumming around until we got our drums. When we did, it was time for more bumming around. We didn't actually get around to doing anything, and the guy who was supposed to teach us wasn't even there. It was just hitting the drums in random beats, everyone playing their own concocted rhythms and generating (generally) unwanted noise.

If our 'learning' continues at this rate, the Merdeka celebrations are DOOMed. Doomed, I tell you. There's no better way to screw up something than invite the whole clueless lot of us over.

Before we knew it, the clock struck 12.00noon and we sauntered off to lunch, reveling in the fact that we practically wasted a day away from school. Of course, later we went back for lessons lah. We'd grow stupid if we spent all day hitting drums, you know.

Today was only the beginning, and we'll see how it goes tomorrow. I'll remember to bring my camera this time. Alrighty then, I should be sleeping pretty soon, seeing that I have to be in school at 5.15am tomorrow.

P/S : I just remembered. On the bus Andrew was revealing to us the secret art of Catching-A-Mosquito-In-Your-Sleep. I absolutely have to tell you about it sometime. It's an ingenious idea, and it supposedly works :)