sOleiLian

From June 8th to 13th, my university played host to the 20th Architectural Workshop, an annual architecture event where students from over 20 schools of architecture in the country would converge at the host university. As usual, both public universities as well as private institutions were here to grace the week-long event. This time around, we had TranXXit as the main theme of the architectural workshop.

DAY 1

• Took 1 whole month to prepare for the event, and this was the day that I’d been waiting for!
• Couldn’t really hide my excitement upon seeing the arrival of the first batch of participants.
• Gave some final touches to our preparation works.
• Ice-breaking at night. Things went a lil’ bit uncontrolled due to miscommunication between the programme organizer and the emcee. Certain elements of the ice-breaking segment were messed up as a result.
• Some unruly participants! Felt like strangling them… >.<”

DAY 2

• Skipped the Opening Ceremony with my pals. Too lazy to walk to the hall from our dorm in early morning. Ended up getting some extra hours of sleep in our beds.
• Catapults in action! Had fun seeing the participants enjoying the time of their lives.



• SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME when a huge centipede suddenly crawled up my foot!
• Scared myself for the 2nd time when I thought I was being bitten by the damn creature after realizing that my foot was in a rare purplish tone. Thank goodness it was not what I’d thought earlier.
• SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME for the 3rd time when another centipede (albeit smaller) crawled up my foot again! Flung my sandal off my foot in the shortest time possible without a second thought. Centipedes… Don’t you ever dare to approach me again!
• Skipped the Performance Night (Part I) due to tiredness. Kinda regret now because I heard it was good! But I managed to watch it on DVD later on though…

DAY 3

• Attended a talk in the morning where prominent Malaysian architects were invited to give a speech on today’s architecture. We were so honoured to have Architect Jimmy Lim (designer of Awana Genting) and Architect Laurence Loh (principal force behind the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion’s restoration works which eventually won the project the Award of Excellence in the 2000 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation) amongst us here. Learned quite a lot from them. :)
• Another game in the afternoon. Later, we moved indoors due to a horrendous downpour in the midst of the activity.
• Watched a bit of the Performance Night (Part II) before heading back to the studio to get some works done.

DAY 4

• Off to Batu Feringghi for some beach games!
• Departed at 6 something in the morning and arrived at the beach to a cold drizzle.
• Forced to work in the rain to get things done. *sigh*
• The sun came out at last! And so the games began.



• Sun, sea, sand. So divine!
• Got my camera phone into action.
• Decided to get some tan, and we ended up getting a minor sunburn. Ouch!
• Took a short nap.
• Packed our things up and said goodbye to the beach.

DAY 5

• All of us gathered at the Fort Cornwallis in George Town.
• First time visiting the fort interiors, and I finally got to see the statue of Penang’s founder, Captain Francis Light.



• And so we began the game of Heritage Tracking. It worked somewhat like the famed TV reality series, The Amazing Race.
• Things went a bit wrong. Blame the committee members in charge of the game!
• Visited the Sri Mariamman Temple along the way.
• At night, we had the Grand Dinner and Closing Ceremony. Various awards were given away to the winners.
• Disappointed that only the participants were entitled to the full course dinner prepared by Eden Catering. As for us committee members, we had economic rice. Sux!

DAY 6

• Crossed the Penang Bridge to visit the White Horse Ceramic World Tiles Showroom in Butterworth.
• Watched some product demonstrations.
• To our surprise, they had prepared a buffet lunch for us. Yum!
• Time to bid farewell to all the participants.
• Glad that the 20th Architectural Workshop at USM was a success! :D

During that week, all participating institutions had their own exhibition booths set up in the designated rooms. Some of their works were pretty impressive and could make you go WOW!

c a t e g o r y | life as a student . passport to nowhere
f l u f f e r p u f f | beaches . malaysia . penang . travel . university life . usm

36 sOleiLians