To start it off, the first thing when I open fb today, my news feed was flooded with graduation photos, then it hit me that today marks another significant graduation day for the juniors as well as students from other courses, (congrats!) which also reminded me that I've been officially graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Science (Architecture) for about half a year since 24th May 2014.
Before memories starts fading, I'm gonna jot down every single moments in this blog post today (the advantage of having a blog!) to remind me how far I've come and gone through this whole 4 architorture years (and I haven't even started my masters yet, fml). Oh btw, I can't really remember exactly which trip is when so I've just roughly put them in.
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Starting off with my very first year in foundation (FNBE 2011). I still remember the days when I just enrolled into this course, I was so nervous and scared meeting new people, busy worrying (because I took commerce in high school) whether am I able to cope with the course and all since most of my friends are studying accounts in Sunway and I'm the only one in Taylors studying architecture.
And I've also heard that most of the students in this course are top students/high achievers whereas my results at that time was just barely at the border line. But after 4 years of studying and including internship, I am quite happy that I've managed to get through all the sleepless nights as well as coping up with the stress (more to come during masters T___T) and also meeting new people and dealing with clients/suppliers.
First week of orientation, the days where everyone
just started knowing each other and still very naive.
Days where we have colour dress codes for every Friday,
we even set a language day where we can only speak that
language on that day.
One of the first few projects where we have to find partners and produce something out of recycled material. I think our theme was Rockstar.
Recycled Material -
Shirt : Garbage bag, broken cds, expired mirror finish sticker.
Guitar : Cardboard and wires (spray painted)
Then we headed to Spore for our next project where we have to do research about buildings in Spore.
Us stopping somwhere in the middle of the mountain just to get this shot, lol.
I also remember 2 of the guys were shouting dog names and honing while
making every corner at the mountain, hahaha.
Proceeding to Year 1, well sad to say there were initially about 80 students in FNBE, but it cut down to less than half cuz alot of them drop out and some of them were studying Quantity Surveying and then we were combined with another batch of FNBE students.
We then later on had to produce a 1:1 scale (human life size) structure base on the first project that was chosen by the lecturer.
And this, was the chosen sculpture for my group. (This time in group of 15)
I still remember we were given a short amount of time to produce such a huge scale project, and we were brainstorming on how to produce a free standing sculpture that is made of paper. The trick to this project is that we weren't allowed to screw/drill any holes, and most importantly how to make a cardboard stand (since cardboards/papers are similar and are very flimsy/easily torn. Plus adding card boards together carries quite some load which will lead to collapse of structure).
So at the end of the day the cardboard was internally supported with wires. The process was a torture since we had to mass produce and cut about 100++ model boards in factory mode, plus folding the cardboards. I think the most challenging part was still to make the cardboard stand but it was all worth it la since the lecturer said we produce the impossible that is to make paper stand. Speaking about the power of teamwork!
We then also had countless of sleepless nights producing models/buildings made of balsa wood and toothpicks. And this time around my group had to produce Agora, the ancient greek market.
Then we also had many sleepless nights cracking our heads producing diagrams for studios....
Days where we have to go down to construction site to understand/documenting/sketch construction process..... (in the process we also had alot of troubles contacting engineers/contractors who are willing to talk us through the whole construction project)
Attending architectural workshop in Johor for final installation where everyone was busy with their final projects. Overall we had a bad experience in sleeping in their hostel where the rooms were in pretty bad condition, no air-cond, walkway was super dark and scary, their bedsheet smells really bad (good thing we brought our own bedsheets), no hot water in their toilet and looks pretty scary with the lights flickering (was so afraid that I would see "something", and wake up calls on 6AM every morning... But it was a great experiece exposing to other institution's work and meeting new people!
Days where we attended Arthur's Day and partying together regardless of crazy amounts of assignments and projects with tight submission deadlines....
Then another sem just passes by, and we were travelling again. This time around is in Penang, where we had our first picnic, first drive through the hills and Penang bridge (just got our licence that time), taking stupid photos and poses in the middle of the jungle trekking.
But of course, life isn't smooth sailing for everyone. Friendships come and go, people start to show their true colours, some people might take you for granted as well as creating misunderstandings and bullshits, but there are also friends who stick with you through think and thin.
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Proceeding to Year 2, where we will also meet people with the same situation, and this is where people who are in the same boat starts grouping with each other and the whole process starts all over again where we have to crack our heads start peeling people's mask off to know who are the ones that are true to you and who are the ones who betrayed you and only using you just for the sake of getting better grades.
But overall I still like Sem 3 the best out of all 6 semesters although many stupid things happened again, but in this sem I've also gained many true friends who are willing to walk with me till the end.
Countless of sleepless nights and group discussions after classes, where we even have to meet up during the weekends. Old town was one of our favourite spots back then as the studios are always full of people and we just had to change our locations for better inspirations.
I think the people working in Old town must be cursing the hell out of us for spending most of our days cutting/modelling/messing up their places with model boards and glue stains, haha and also conquering seats.
Nights where we have to camp at at each other's places to come out with sketches, as well as diagrams for presentations. At that time anywhere is better off than staying back in the studio and cuz we also got sick of Old town.
Still worth it cuz we still got an A for this project. Oh btw, this project was interpreted/inspired
by poems given by the lecturer and the theme for that project was poetic spaces.
Had the most juiciest chicken wings to reward ourselves after some major submission.
Location : Stadium Negara.
Moving onto the next project is building construction where we have to produce towers that are 30cm tall with minimal amount of popsicle sticks and also able to withstand a load of 15kg. You have no idea how much we've cursed this project for bruising our hands cutting popsicle sticks as well as poking holes and sewing them to transfer loads to achieve the minimal amount. Stupid popsicle sticks keeps breaking when we poke holes through them! *&@*^%%@)#(
Btw, believe it or not this tower is produced with the least amount of 36 sticks (although the looks not very appealing) compared to other groups with 100 over sticks and able to withstand about 10kg of load (we used the dumbbell load). I think if we were given more time we could have achieved 15kg.
Moving on we had another trip to Belum, Temenggor for our ESD project. We stayed at Belum Resort, you can check this place out if you like to visit this place. Btw it was a 5 star resort and its just very relaxing to have a weekend getaway.
Okay, here's the story, I think this is one of the most memorable ones as this project only requires good photography skills and the rest are just relaxing and communicating with the nature, but the companions and experiences are just epic!
One of the activities was kayaking and rakit, and I'm pretty sure this is a first timer for most of us. So we were to pair into twos, and kayak to the other island. I still remember the first time we started paddling we were actually swirling around instead of moving forward, and to make things worst these two jokers tried to race with me and my partner's boat even though none of us were actually proceeding forward. And we would be screaming at each other in the middle of the lake with echos surrounding, just because I wanted to stop them from smoking the whole pack of cigs. (Sad that Sony Xperia was not introduced back then if not we would've gotten more lake shots)
At the end of the day when it was time for dinner, everyone was laughing each other asses off since everyone had sun burn where you can clearly see red skin tones. As for guys, it was worst since they went topless with just life jackets on, so the mark was clearly seen with deep V and the guys just started hitting each other to see their painful reaction. At night, they were playing prank calls scaring the shit of each other out and gossiping and drinking the whole night.
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The next day, woke up early to get our photographs done and quite curious to know what were the adventures the rest went through the day before. Only to had us dumbfounded by climbing up a very super steep hill to take a shot of.....
And the next destination is to take the Rafflesia flower that is grown on top of the tree, where only ONE SINGLE FLOWER that is bloomed.
So I assumed everyone submitted the same picture since this is the only flower that is full bloomed and the rest of the flower buds looked like this.....
Speaking of this flower, another funny story of a friend of mine was sooo lazy to follow us to take pics (she said she rather sleep in) she asked someone to take a picture of a real Rafflesia that was grew from the ground (since she was from Sabah) and submitted for her assignment, to later on found herself retaking the subject just because the lecturer said it was not grew from the tree and the picture was plagiarized.
We also visited the aborigines, and spent quite some time there with the kids. Wanted to get souvenirs from them but uhhh, the prices were ridiculous.
This little boy was one of my submissions.
Then our course even had activity week where we would travel to overseas to get exposed with other buildings from all over the world, and this year it was Korea....
Then we went to this local Korean BBQ shop which only cost us 10,000 won per person, plus the great hospitality from the locals and unlimited side dishes! One of the best BBQ we had compared to the touristy ones that we had in the whole trip.
Cheers to Korean BBQ and Yakult!
And for the final project of this semester we went to Sekinchan, great getaway during the weekends eventhough its for assignment purposes. Great view, great seafoods, great companies! and oh, this time we're in a group of 30!
Views that we don't get to see in the city.
Then we had our moments during our site visit, walking in groups and talking non sense, syok sendiri while walking, interviewing the locals....
It was raining season when we went, so the water was in high tide, it even flooded the whole road so... even taking of shoes and walking in salt water are also fun times... while interviewing the locals of the site surroundings and their daily activities.
The moment that all of us had been waiting for dinner, cheap and delicious dinner !
Then when we're back to KL, its back to camping at the studio for days with sleepless nights again. Everyone on factory mode cutting and sticking models to build the one part of the Sekinchan fishing village.
One of those nights where we had Snowflakes party for supper! Ahhh, the fun times~
So the end product looks like this. I think each person averagely produced about 2-3 houses, and I've gotta say the most challenging part this time around is to cut the stilts cuz they were super duper tiny and we require loads of them!
Um, later on we went travelling again, this time to Taiwan and then to Spore just to have some fun while joining other groups who were there for the same project.
While everyone was in Spore for project, we were just joining in the fun and entering USS for the first time, and had the most awesome hotdog somewhere inside Chinatown, and KOI bubble tea!!
So moving into the final year, uhhh don't think I can dig really much pictures cuz mostly all buildings and site visits and I just realized we had really little pictures in our final years. Probably we were just really bullshitting alot, too busy/stressed, plus guys rarely like to take pics. So the belows are mostly all compilation of my final years.
I took aesthetic as my elective whereby we have to produce abstract sculptures depending on the theme given on that week. And for the final project, this was what I've produced. Its like a cubicle tower that were supported by transparent triangles, and there was also interpretation to this.
"The intention of this sculpture,
is to freeze the short moment of escape,
the simplicity and freedom,
the breakway from the complex world.
This sculpture is created from plastic sheets
cut out by multiple diamonds that symbolizes
purity and innocence, freezing the
footprint for this small little memory to be
preserved.
Multiple diamonds were folded into half,
orientated and arranged creating multiple
pointed up triangles, representing a strong
foundation or stability as if it is rooted to
the ground through a solid base. These triangles
expresses that no matter how much
the times had passed, or no matter how
much the world had changed and revolved,
the memory would still mark a deep footprint
until whenever.
The perspective view of the sculpture displays
the consistency of layering of triangles
at each level, which hides the meaning of
endurance and faith that helps in manifesting
abundance in life. Eventhough many
memories come and go, many retained
and faded, but this memory indicates that
no matter how much time had passed,
and how much it had gone through or how
complex a world could be, theres always an
breakway as long as theres endurance and
faith.
Lights were used to illuminate through
layers of transparency, or rather any light
rays that penetrates through, would bring
back that film of colours that once lead an
interesting life."
To be honest, I wasn't really confident in passing this elective subject cuz I thought that it was too abstract and I wasn't really sure what I'm doing or rather what the lecturer wants. But I've still gotta thank this lecturer for giving me an A- in this subject, and thanks for acknowledging my final project (I really had tough time figuring how to explain this sculpture and everybody elses one was just mindblowing!)
And to my amuse, quite shocking that I took islamic architecture for my final year elective, just because I heard frm my peers that this subject is more relaxing compared to the others, but it wasn't all that true la, but half of it was, heh. Btw, have a look of my islamic architecture blog if you're interested.
Then we also had days where we would see double rainbows after a heavy rain and chilling around...
Like every other semester, we traveled one week again, this time to Medan, Indonesia.
So a little introduction about Medan, the first thing we reached Medan, I thought that it was very congested and packed, even their buildings have no set backs. The distance between the built houses and the moving train was just like what, 2cm away? Imagine that.
Later on we went straight up to the mountains where my friend's villa is located, and the whole feel was just like in cameron highlands with the cool breeze and we could hardly find anyone.
In the airport having breakfast before checking in.
The infamous Lake Toba
Then we head to this themepark, I think its called Green Hill Park, forgotten how much we paid but confirm less than RM20 and I think we were like.... quite shock la, to enter a themepark less than RM20, got free souvenir sumore! But the bad side (or good I dont know) is that, we're the only ones and a few other people plus with crews in the whole themepark, at least Sunway Lagoon still have some people during weekdays, but this is totally like ghost town.
Very delish nasi padang!
So the beginning of sem 5, we were required to do our internship in architect firms and the first few days of work my colleagues greeted us with folding about 1000 submission plans because we're just unlucky like that. So happen there's 2 clients and bombas that requires the submission drawings on the same day, fml.
Then when we're back to uni again, the same thing starts all over again. Sleepless nights...stressed... picking on our friends... and all the bullshits and non sense again, lol.
This was one of our trips where we paid a visit to the
orphanage just because some of them needs to take moral education
in order to finish the course, and I was just tagging along as a volunteer, lol.
So in this final year's activity week it was Berlin, Germany and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the architecture there since it's a metropolitan city, and the level of details in their olden buildings are just very mind blowing. It was just a whole new level all in all compared to KL city, especially with their green technologies and all.
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We also paid a visit to this infamous architecture school in Dessau, which is quite well-known in the architecture field.
Due to our asian-ness in us, we couldn't survive just by eating currywurst and pork knuckle the whole journey, so we decided to go search around what is famous in Berlin and we stumble upon this, Burgermeister located under a train station. I've gotta say this burger joint is so hipster and we can NEVER find this in Malaysia! (unless we do but I haven't come across cuz the ones in msia is very cafe-like)
We even ate there twice regardless of the queue, and the freezing whether. Imagine the things we would do just to eat this burger!
Then we had to try this huge street pretzels, I would say it was at least 3 times bigger than Auntie Anne's so you can roughly imagine how huge it is.
But sad to say that this pretzel was pretty tasteless haha, super original to the max.
street performer at the Brandenburger Tor.
Now the rest of the pictures are in the final year already, sadly not much of pictures cuz mostly all individuals and reports, not much of pictures.
Finally a complete picture of us. If you realized in
the other photos we're always lack of someone.
Lastly, the long awaited graduation day is here! First of all, I am very grateful to all the lecturers who had guided me along this journey, as well as friends who sticked through thick and thin although some might have come and go, but most importantly is that all of us have managed to pull this 4 years of architorture years! It was one hell of a roller coaster ride and I really couldn't imagine myself studying other courses cuz I really have no idea what else can I study since I don't really like numbers, sciences, law.....
So for me to remember this very special day, this is how I really felt on this day itself!
I would also like to thank this woman here, for sticking with me for the past 3 years in degree life. No matter what I've gone through and how much I've showed my temper, you were the only one standing strong eventho sometimes I really felt that we might be apart one day, but hey! I'm glad you're still here and I must admit that you really have a very good temper and I wouldn't let you go as a friend! Thanks for all the help, the sleepless nights with skyping each other while not talking and just doing work, waking each other up and annoying each other, all the heart to heart and bitch talks and all the room mate sessions whenever we're on our field trip!
Class of May, 2014
Next up, Masters graduation in UK, 2017!
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