One Week In

Voila! I have finally managed to appear back to the online world after one week of absence. The Orientation Week here at Intec was long and tiring. It was informative and pretty fun at times, and the facilitators were nice people. But each day lasted from 6.30 am til 11+ pm. And the facilitators adhered to the timing very accurately. There's no such thing as starting late, nor ending early, nor much periods of rest in between. There was of course, plenty of 'ending late's. But anyway, even if we still had that wee bit of energy left to go online after ending the day, there is no decent internet anywhere... I finally managed to get my hands on Digi Broadband. It's not as good as home, obviously, but it'll have to do.

On the plus side, we now have 4 days off to recover from MMS (Minggu Mesra Siswa). Classes only begin on Wednesday. Immediately after the last session last Friday, most of the new students could be seen scuttling across the hostel grounds with their bags, eager to go home and get back to civilisation. Tricia and I stuck around and spent our day exploring Shah Alam, and of course, saying 'hi' to good ol' Sunway Pyramid.

I thank God for the strength He has given me. 6 months ago, I would have cried every time I realized that I'll be away from home for 2 weeks, 1 month etc. But now, even with 2 months until my next long holiday, I'm actually feeling okay and happy with where I am. God heals!

So, what's home for the next two years? Kolej Akasia in Shah Alam. Yes, it's a hostel, but it's called a college... *shrug*. While there are some definite adjustments and changes in lifestyle that we have to adapt to, it's not a bad place to be in.

For example, anytime we want to leave our rooms, even if it's just to make a one minute trip downstairs to the water cooler, we have to begin the process of taking off our shorts and T-shirts... change into our long pants... put on our jackets... and put on proper shoes. Oh, and we're 'fortunate' enough to be on the 5th floor, which is the top most floor. It's no wonder my parents keep saying I get thinner and thinner every time I go home...

Then, of course there's the misbehaving piping. As a church friend puts it, there's either too little water or too much. The tap at the sink has not worked since we arrived, and the toilet stopped being able to flush for a few days. Meanwhile, some other block had a burst pipe. XD

There's also of course the little critters sharing the apartment with us. Ants which appear in the manner of minutes if there's a tiny crumb on the floor, mosquitoes every night, spiders and a big lizard which is currently hiding from Tricia and her rubberband. So yeah, it is a pretty crowded house.

Also, we're in an area where there really isn't anything to do. Which is the point, I suppose. They keep us in a place where there is nothing for us to occupy our time with, except to study. :P

As Esther also mentions in her blog about her Kolej Terlampau Talented, it's the same here. There are 675 JPA scholars here! And maybe a hundred more from other sponsors like MARA, BN etc. The ALM group (A-Level Medicine) is the largest. Lots of doctors and pharmacists coming up... Other programmes include ADFP, A-Level German, Russian, AUSMAT, etc. Classes have yet to start yet, but uh-huh... we're obviously in a community of smarty-pants, which is quite intimidating and pressuring at times, haha.

The A-Levels we're taking is different in the sense that we don't take the AS and A Level exam separately. We sit for everything at the end of two years. So basically, we just have to keep downloading information into our brains and pray our heads don't explode with the overload of facts. Also, it would be good if someone invents an external hard drive for human brains sometime in the next month or so.

The campus itself is a bus ride away. Commuting on the bus back and forth the campus and hostel is of course another part of Intec life which requires skill and strategizing. The campus grounds are big and hopefully we won't feel so lost walking around in circles soon.

So yeah, that's my first week at a glance. Let the journey begin!