#new. and and an interesting enrichment activity. nevertheless. the things we fucking do for Little Fictional Guy!!!!!

[intertexts]

this is gonna be such a fucking interesting challenge. hey siri lets see how roswell does writing about a guy they fucking know deep in their bones, not even angsty self-projection but just genuinely feels correct for the character, is tearing himself the fuck up on a regular basis. without severely triggering themself into a spiral the likes of which has not been seen for years. fun puzzle!!!

[moodyf0ody]

Introspection

It’s March! February has been a crazy month, I think so? Or was it the start of March? I don’t even keep track of dates anymore, everyday just passes and I just try my best to get my responsibilities done for the day. Everything that went by has been a blur, but some of the events have been so significant that I can’t help but learn from them. 

1) Reflecting on Class Time I realise how boring my teachers are. Really BMS is so repetitive but I still don’t know how to apply so I really think our teachers should give us more homework, including more essays and case studies. We’re getting so much less than the Science students and it may be that the Social Science teachers think that since their subjects are a little easier to understand, they don’t have to pressure us. Of course we have the option of doing our own work and passing it up to them, but how can we know which are the best questions to attempt, and if they’ll ACTUALLY mark it?! Damn it! 

ESS is such a drag, the presentations in class are better than having her present. But still, it’s a damn Science subject, you’re supposed to explain the concept to us first, not have us speculate about it. How does it make sense that our teacher has to study before she can answer our questions, especially when our questions are PURELY subject matter we don’t understand from the textbook? I also feel like the textbook does not even explain things, it just states them. What even is ESS? Why are my answers so different from the marking scheme. How am I supposed to find the time to practice questions also? How do you apply the damn thing! 

Maths is fine because maths just always makes sense, I think? I’m not practicing enough and I hate that! I guess I’m so swamped with my other activities but I shouldn’t make any excuses. I”m not efficient enough. Nevertheless, my Maths teacher does not inspire me to see the Maths in the world. Bummer! I think that is her job! 

The languages on the other hand have been so so enriching. English has had me thinking about how people should use language to convey important issues to each other. It has me thinking about how powerful language can be if the user of it has something to say. If only there people who were willing to listen and dwell upon the words, too! But of course, since so many people abuse the language and use it to maybe hurt people (NOT constructive criticism), it could be disastrous. However, I wish my English teacher knew more about the world because she doesn’t seem 100% aware on global issues, OR SO SHE SEEMS. I want more from her, more insight, more cultural artifacts that I can refer to. Oh, but I was pleasantly surprised when she brought in the John Barleycorn piece and I took about half an hour just trying to read one paper of it. But I made the correlation that John Barleycorn was not a person but a drink and it turned out to be what the author intended. That was when I started thinking, shit, that’s how it works! Everything is a fucking metaphor, people ARE actually saying EXACTLY what they mean, but NOT EXACTLY at FACE VALUE. It just depends on who’s listening. 

My Malay teacher just has a way of telling us things, she doesn’t need to have tons of knowledge about global issues, but I think she would be elevated onto as Ruth says, ‘unicorn level’ if she did. I love the concepts that she uses, and her energy is infectious! I nearly never fall asleep in Malay class. We started on our Reflective Statements and Written Assignments, and I think it’ll be interesting for me to discover which issues I am inclined towards. So far, it’s the negative issues portrayed by Naguib Mahfouz in Midaq Alley. Midaq Alley is so much fun, it’s so funny, ridicules the Arab society, reaches out to women and just makes me reflect upon the many characters in my own culture. I feel like I am so shielded from the bad in my country, I need to find more holes to peek through. Btw we just got a sneak peek at what we’ll be tested on in Paper 1 and it’s really cool how it works. I can’t wait to do more research on my Malay culture and history to understand why we do what we do and say what we say. Why is it that materialism is so prominent in this culture, and women oppression, and social status, and religion is sometimes used as an excuse, and also how religion can be a saviour? It’s so very exciting! I just came across some twitter accounts of Malaysian designers collecting some of our cultural artifacts, and I feel a certain way when I learn about my roots. But I only see the beautiful parts of it, I haven’t taken the time to really go through the dirt :/ I’m excited to see how my teacher tackles Madame Bovary, so far, I’m not really a fan of it. I like the element of how Emma is so brainwashed by romantic novels though, kinda seems like Flaubert’s mockery towards writers who write to do just that. Hm! 

Econs is the same as business. Sometimes, it’s really interesting but I think my teacher’s VOICE is just so sleepy. I like how she provides us with a lot of materials though (kind of a lot). Some tutorials and calculations, and she mixes things up in class sometimes. We just started learning about GDP and I’m thinking, how the hell do they do it in real life man? Going door to door obtaining all the data, and with all the possible inaccuracies, wow I’m excited to learn more about Econometrics. Intimated as well to be honest with ya. Although I really wish she could make relations to real life situations, like the economic conditions of our country at least you know. I mean I don’t have enough time to do the research and exploring, I have 6 subjects, isn’t she supposed to give it to me? Make use of class time? 

2) MPAC Wow, I don’t even know where to start with this one. We had 3 weeks of prior notice about the MEGAFAIR performance. It wasn’t a normal skit, it had a theme, intended audience, NO fee, and it was a half hour play. Yeap. I had a small team of 20, barely any with experience and no guidance whatsoever from the teachers. But we had this one senior, and input from Ruth’s friends from sekolah seni. 

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”- Sir Isaac Newton 

This is how we managed to come up with our masterpiece, Nasi Lemak Mawar. We had many problems with the storyline and the script. Our first one was entertaining and funny, but we didn’t give it enough thought. We thought that anything that kind of made sense was okay. Then we received some negative reviews, an especially terribly negative review from YK, but it was exactly what we needed. For many days our teachers were telling us, “It’s not - MEGAFAIR. Think about your audience. You’re supposed to be talking about semangat kejihadan usahamanan! We were not getting it, we were overattached to our script and we were uninspired. 

Until, our senior told us, your plot is completely unrealistic, no one will learn anything from it, it’s a plot with a lot of holes. He pointed out the exact scenes and parts of the plot he had a problem with, and we got it. We finally understood. So that night we called him to brainstorm with us, and he was so willing to do it. It was awesome. Ruth’s friend suggested a simple plot, giving the teachers exactly what they wanted. But that’s just it, before this our conflict was between what the teachers wanted and what we had. Which is in other terms, boring shit and some funny ass shit! And on our first night of practice, our story was incredibly boring. INCREDIBLY BORING. I was like, this is not it. This is not gonna work. We’re doomed. 

At the end of that practice, we gathered together and I was not sensing any excitement from the crew. From my experience, I thought that an indicator of an entertaining play would be that the cast are dying to watch their friends’ scenes. And I didn’t see any of that. Everyone looked like they had something to say, and someone mentioned that we bring a new character to life, someone who actually matters. I realised how in a play, your characters should impact the plot, audience or the characters. And that was really missing from our play. We started brainstorming like crazy. I felt so enlightened and happy that other people were giving input. And it was golden input! 

Later that night, I couldn’t imagine myself sleeping, knowing that my story was not at its best. So I forced Ruth and Haleens to stay up with me and build this damn script. So we got the rough idea of things and since Haleena is great at doing things impromptu, and so is Ruth, they decided that we don’t fuss over a script. We see what the actors do. Ruth suggested that we build the character around what Haleena and Syahmi could do as well. And later on, as I developed the script (little by little) I found myself building my lines around my friends’ personalities. 

Practice was lots of fun, and the ideas were flowing. However, it was hard because some of us had homework and other commitments sometimes, people didn’t really speak their minds. Ruth was supposed to be my assistant director but she spend most of her time just clinging to Karam. I hated having to repeat myself when people were not being attentive, and when people came late. But I found that delegating tasks really helped me, because honestly there is a shiit load to do. 

I got the inspiration to show her visions for the business from a movie I watched, The Princess and the Frog and made a little dance to it. I was committed on that, because I knew that would add a lot of value to our play andI was right. My friends were cooperative as well, but I faced some issues with the music. Thank God, from a movie I watched, “Ferris beuller’s day off” I thought of another song, an even more perfect song to play. And it was a great decision because it was so much more upbeat. 

In the end, I had to make a proper play so that the sound and lighting people could follow (I made sure to assign some people here!) and most importantly to get the flow of the play. Otherwise, you would have people talking over each other and lines that are kind of lame coming out. So a script is motherfkg improtant. Also, we found utility hahaha in doing lines without the script and actions in a circle, running lines lah. 

For backstage stuff, Amin and I carefully assigned who would be carrying what in and out, and we made sure we practiced these transitions, also within a time limit. This was the part that the audience laughed at because of how fast my actors did it, and how LOUDLY they did it HAHAHA. It was really funny. This part was super stressful, but the actors were really independent and they were mainly alert, even at 1 am! Also, I told the sound managers exactly what they had to do, and told the actors exactly where their props had to be and where they had to be. This took a lot of time but it was very worth it, because it was very smooth. We took the time to practice with the EVER SO COOPERATIVE sound and lighting crew and we were so relieved that we did. 

Then it was showtime, and everyone came to watch. Even my family members! The audience was roaring and they were so into the play. However, my mum said the dance sequence was too short. But people still loved it so so much! They thought it was adorable, well-thought out, easy to follow and a good way to promote MARA. I loved how it turned out as well, finding it impossible to accept the credit because I knew it was not one person. It was 100% collaborative and it was beautiful! I learnt so so so much from this experience and I am so grateful to have the support from Karam, Ruth, my parents. To be surrounded by the super talented and hilarious actors I had. For the ideas and inspirations from the art all around us, and from the people as well. I feel so much closer to the school because I have put in a little part of me inside. Hm.