This Is The DAY!!!

Today, we will know the results! Just a few hours more!
Pray for us!!!

The Day After Yesterday...

Today, is today. Yesterday is the past. Let go of the past~~~

Well... Enough with the monotonuous tone! *switches to a more cheery and chirpy voice*
I'm so not faking it, mind you!

Basically, I think I kinda bombed it during the presentation. I mean I had a little problem with my speech. I didn't really prepared it. I didn't want to be the only person who has to speak the whole time which is why I asked Khai Chee and Wei Soong to give some examples on violence. I spoke quite fast I think. My mouth is like a bullet train, so I'm told (since primary school xD).

Anyway, the presentation didn't go so well as I expected as I was nervous. Argh! Kill my stage fright! This presentation gave me a good opportunity to practice my braveness to speak in front of strangers. I believe I managed to babble non stop without saying any main points. xD

All we can do now is wait till Saturday for the results. Let's hope for the best!

PS: Wei Soong, just wanna say sorry. I believe you would have liked to join the other group for the performance as it was your dream. I'm really sorry...

Tomorrow's The Day!!!

Yup. Tomorrow is ... PRESENTATION DAY!!! Why did I choose red for those words? It is because, red kinda symbolises fear. At least for me. I fear red. Red means angry, blood and ... lipstick stains on my shirt (Just kidding xD). Anyway, the truth is, red seems nice xD

I've like just finished my presentation materials and report. Gosh. We are like in a hurry. We were rushing like headless chickens crossing the road without seeing the oncoming car. Bad example. Violent xD Anyway, to the main point, which is ... we are 99% finish. Can't wait for the last percent! So excited! *dances all around*

I hope we do well tomorrow! Wish me luck! Knock on wood!

Just Another Day

Today, we started taking down our stuff from the board. It's amazing how fast we can 'demolish' stuff than build it. Things we took more than a few hours to do was destroyed in minutes with lesser people. We were kinda 'violent' while tearing down the stuff xD We were like Godzilla demolishing a city. We were like a nuclear bomb killing millions, literally. Enough with the dumb examples xD

Anyway, today we went into a few classes to promote this anti-violence campaign. I think we did normal. Not extremely bad, not extremely good, just normal. N-O-R-M-A-L kind of normal. I guess there isn't much things to blog about today.

Other than that, we did the poster pasting too. We pasted our poster all around school. Everywhere. We even left our posters on our teachers' cars xD I took pictures of those. But too lazy to upload it up here. Just gonna bring the photos to the presentation.

About the presentation and report... I DON'T WANNA WRITE IT!!!! ARGH! I don't have any inspiration to write it xD Maybe because the fact that I'm currently sick and inches from my death door contributes to the fact that I'm having a writer's block. Or maybe I'm just lazy to type it. Nah. I'm really sick. Thus, having lazy fingers and writer's block. You should feel lucky I'm writing such a lengthy post today.

I guess that is all for now. Sorry for this not-so-witty-post. Currently signing out. Peace dude and dudetes.

An Article

Not entirely unrelated, by a woman named Jes, from

Shame and Telling

Raped. Molested. Incest. Abuse. Sexual Assault.

These words have such power. From us, they have taken control, safety and power. In replacement, we have been given hurt, anger and shame and we are silenced by it. They have power over our families, our friends, our peers and co-workers, too. These words have the power to them say things like "Are you sure?" or "Why didn't you do this, that or the other thing?" They make them call us liars. They make people we know and trust physically recoil from us, look away or just blush. It's all hurtful, so hurtful that it silences us.

Why do we feel shame? Before we even tell, we are ashamed. This is a society in which sex crimes are unspeakable. When we tell, our feelings about the rape, molestation or incest are influenced by the way the person we trusted enough to tell reacts to us. To those of you who told and received no support, I applaud you. Your search to heal is just heroic, and shows unwavering bravery. To tell takes untold courage. Again, I applaud you in your search to heal despite the shame given you. Rape is not the unspeakable crime; What your friends and families did by silencing you with shame is.

So why DO these people we trust so much look away?

Fear. Thinking that, "Well, rape happens to other people. Not to people I know. If it happened to someone I know, then it can happen to me, and it can't." Therefore, my friend, my daughter, my sister, wasn't raped."

Ignorant. Just fucking ignorant.

Control. Blame is a way to control. We blame our own selves, too don't we? By saying, "Why didn't you, run, scream, fight harder, etc...." our friends, families and peers put the control into our hands. They think..."If she had fought harder she would have gotten away. If she had yelled, someone would have heard her. I would have yelled. I would have gotten away. I would have been heard. This can't happen to me." It's a way for non-survivors to think they actually control their own environments. "The survivor, she didn't. But this can't happen to me." When we blame ourselves, we give control back to ourselves. I should have fought harder. I should have yelled. It's a way to protect our own mistaken belief that we control our own lives. We don't. Shit just happens. Us survivors, we learned that, in one heartbreaking minute.

We don't want that control, do we? Not when the shame comes with it. But people give that control to us, unasked for. And it makes us really ashamed. And silent.

Discomfort – People are generally uncomfortable with discussions about genitals, and when we tell them that our genitals were so horribly abused, they become uncomfortable.

I was mugged, two years ago. Total control was taken from me, by a man with a gun to my face, and I reached into the back pocket of my jeans and gave him money. He walked away. Was I ashamed? No. Did people treat me differently? No. I found sympathy. "What can I do for you?" "Are you okay?" "That must have been scary." This is how people reacted.

Rape is the unspeakable crime because it involves the control of our genitals. Our genitals to be treasured. They are to be worshipped. We do not speak of them.

Seven weeks ago, penis was put into my vagina without my consent.

The reluctance to speak about a crime involving genitals makes what is essentially a horrible mugging more awful for me. I am horrified that this happened and people don't want to hear about it, even though I desperately need to talk about it with those who can help me make sense out of this world. However, people don't talk about these things, so I am quickly and effectively silenced.

I am silent, because their words hurt, because I am afraid of more abuse, because I am afraid of their pain and their reactions.

For those of you, especially those of you who have been more effectively silenced than I have; I am in awe of you. To heal must be incredibly difficult.

Too many women are raped, molested, abused and assaulted because of the silence.

Too many women feel this Collective Shame, because of the silence.

I am going to ask people a favor. Don't be silenced.

Stepping out can be so frightening, but so much can be gained. Sometimes statistics jump into my head and I can't help but think about what would happen if every victim of sexual assault were to simultaneously scream. People would begin, and those who had hadn't been able to acknowledge what has been done to them, would hear, look around, realize that they were not alone and join in. It would be the scream heard across the world and it would be the scream to change the world. No place would be silent, no person on this earth would not hear that scream and the effects of sexual assault would be frighteningly audible and thus undeniable.

That is an unrealistic vision right now, but it is not unrealistic to break the silence on a smaller scale. End the silence at your own pace. Any step is a good step, no matter what it is. These steps are acts of bravery. Stay safe when you take steps. If just reading this was the biggest step you can take, then good for you. You have something to be proud of. If you can, write it. If you can say your word to yourself, say it. If you can say rape, incest molestation to a friend, try it on for size. If you can yell it, like I did last night, yell it. If you can speak out, then do so.

Any step you take, is a step in ending this collective shame and silence, that we all feel. Now that is empowering, to us, the survivors, and to all women.

__________________________________________________________
Ah, the power of words.

Slogan Image!!!

I made this slogan image in 5 minutes xD

Click on it to enlarge it

What do you think?

WHAT??!!

Judging from the title, you should know that i'm now miffed. Why? Because... Let me give you a short info. My school is sending 3 teams for this competition. 2 teams are from my class. My wonderful team did the exhibition. Right?

And "so coincidently", the other team, seeing how successful we were yesterday, decided to do an exhibition too. COPYCAT ALERT! Why can't they do something different than us rather than follow what we did??!! I feel kinda miffed. Those idea stealers! They will pay for it! Mua ha ha ha~ (No violence here xD)

The team members also kept trying to pry infomation from us. Couldn't they be more original? I mean they have brains. So, think! "Use your brain!" Quote taken from Phua Chu Kang.

Anyway...

Today's exhibition was normal. Though not as many people as yesterday. We only had less than 20 minutes to set up > promote > put away. So, basically, I think we did fine within such a short time frame.

My members think we didn't do enough to promote this campaign. So, we all decided to promote anti-violence in every class tomorrow. We are going to each and every class (82 in total) to tell them what is violence etc etc. With a few more friends helping, I believe we can do a great job. In addition to that, we will do a mini poster campaign too, by sticking up posters all around school.

I guess that is all for today. I really wished they won't copy our ideas...

THE BIG DAY!!!

Mission for the day: To attract crowd to our exhibition
Mission gadgets: Lollipop sweets with anti-violence message paper with it, pens, camera, stickers, poscards, flyers, posters and music.
Mission status: SUCCESS!!!

YEAH! We managed to attract many people to our exhibition. The day started out slow. Really really slow. There were not many people at our exhibition during the starting of the exhibition. But then the people grew and grew! The support-us-then-sign board was a huge success. We had to put up more papers for people to sign. Who knew signing was so fun?

We used stickers too. We sticked the stickers on the sleeves of the shirt of the crowd. We had loads of fun. Our exhibition was 'under-staffed' too. Luckily, we have many friends who came and help us out. A great thanks to them! They include, KeShin, Henry and more. I forgot some. too many people. Haha.

The lollipops were a great success too! We sold those RM1 for 1. It was so pretty. It sold like hot cakes. We even had to make more to sell.

We decided to extend our exhibition till tomorrow. I hope tomorrow will be as good too.

Layout DAY!!!

Today, we started on our boards. Let me launch into story mode!!!

About 3 of my team mates went to the stationary shop near our school right after school ended, that is 3.10. Others either waited or went for their respective tuition. We have our school life to get on xD Anyway, I went for my tuition too. Bad old me. Blame me. Haha. My tuition ended at at 4.30. After my tuition, me and my other team mate who attends the same tuition as I, ran all the way to our destination. We started to help them put up the layout. We ran out of papers, so I had to drive (it's faster) myself and a few of my team mates out to buy the materials while the others stayed behind to learn how to fold the paper flower sweets.

Let me fast forward to 6pm. The layout was half finished and many of us had to go back already. Luckily, 3 of my members offered to help finish the layout as they can stay behind. Ah. The wonders of teamwork!!!!

I had to fetch 2 of my team mates out, so I went back too.

Now, all I can do it wait for tomorrow to see the results...

Discussion Numbero Dos (In english number 2)

2 more days till we start our exhibition and we have nothing. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Kosong. We were in the state of freaking out. We were desperate. We discussed another time. This time, we discussed for quite a long time, as 2 teachers didn't come today and we had about 3 periods of free periods. That equals to about 120 minutes, 2 hours.

We discussed the layout for the exhibition boards. And the layout for the place of the exhibition.

Discuss Discuss Discuss

2 hours later...

We finally decided on how to decorate the exhibition boards and of course, the layouts. We also decided to sell the lollipops by using paper to fold around the lollipops, to make it look like a flower. I'm positive it will look nice. Hope to grab a photo of it soon. As time doesn't allow, we have only tomorrow to put up the layouts and everything before the BIG DAY...

That is all we did today. Let us all hope for the best!!!

Obstacle!!!!!

We met our first 6 foot tall wall which we had to climb over. Literally. Our teacher told us not to do our exhibition on the 25th and 26th of June.

Not enough time lar

That was what she told us. She said if we did the exhibition on the 25th and 26th, we won't have to prepare our presentation. I do agree with her on that point. So, we decided to move it forward to the 21st. Which was co-incidentally (Or not co-incidentally) was our school's teachers day celebration. I thought it was a great idea as there will be more people to support us then.

21st. 3 more days. Could we do it within these 3 days? I wonder....

On with another story of the day...

One of my team members suggested to show the students a video on violence on the day of the exhibition. I thought it was a good idea. But where should we get the video?

As the project manager (Fuyoh. Nice to call myself that lar), I was supposed to call AWAM, the organiser to ask if they could provide the videos. I called at 3 something. The person who picked up the phone said the person in charge wasn't in the office and told me to call later.

Attempt number 2 was done at around 6.30pm, I think. Yay! The person in charge was in and I was connected to the person. I was greeted with a chirpy voice. We started to talk.

I'm too lazy to type out what we talk. But, I'll just sum it all up. Abby, the person in charge, told us that they can't provide the video as it would be unrelated to our topic. And they want us to do our own. She also told me that we could film the places where violence occurs around our school. When she said that, I thought of the railway track near our school where snatch thieves lurk. But then I thought of safety. It's kinda dangerous for us to take a RM1000 camera/video cam to a dangerous place to film it. I was having mixed feelings. It was like watching your mother in law nearly driving off the cliff with your brand new car. In the end, I decided against it.

So, I guess that is all for now. Hope for the best!

Discussion

We started to look and think for ideas for our project. We discussed this matter during our 2nd recess. The small discussion took about 25 minutes or so. We decided to do an exhibition. It's actually the first campaign exhibition we have ever done. And it's also a first for the school. Our school never participated in these kind of competitions before, so I was told.

Ideas started to pour in for the exhibition.
Games! Food! Signature! Newspaper! Music! Sweets! etc etc...

Basically, the ideas were kinda unorganized. So, we just jotted down the ideas and started to cross out the non-logical ones. Finally, we were down to...
1. Newspaper cuttings
2. A small test to see what is your violence percentage
3. A board for people to sign on, to show support
4.SELL Lollipops! Yup. I know. Childish xD

We decided to put the exhibition on the 25th and 26th. I hope everything goes well.

Got to know...

Today, I got to know about the competition organised by AWAM. It's about anti-violence. Hm... I'm supposed to create a project to... to... well, support this motion with my team of 10 members, including me.

The first problem we ran into is... *Drums Roll Please* ... finding members. Yep. Many of my friends declined to join this competition.

Too hard lar. Where got time? You so free ah? Why you want to find trouble leh? I support violence wor.

These were the response I get from most of my friends.

After searching and searching and more searching, I finally found 8 more person to help me.

We are now one step closer in winning the money!