KYUEM - Induction Week!

Assalamualaikum, friends! Today is Sunday. one day right after the end of my induction programme in my new college, KYUEM! That's right. I'm officially a college student now. I'll tell you everything about it (except for the things that should be kept secret from future juniors!).

Tuesday morning, my parents and I hauled all my stuff into the boot of the car. Only my parents went with me because it was 6.30 in the morning, my brother was asleep and my grandparents would go see me later in the week. It wasn't too dark outside as we departed. Lembah Beringin was about over an hour from Bangi, so we expected to arrive at around 8 - 8.30am.

Along the way, I took some shut eye and we stopped for breakfast at an R&R. I ate nasi lemak and took a soya bean milk. I didn't feel too nervous actually, but I was hoping that I gain some friends this week. Then we continued on the road and arrived around 8.40am. There were already a lot of people - seniors, juniors, parents, teachers and other staff.

We sat in the lecture hall to hear a speech from the acting principal, Mr. David Kroege. He welcomed us, batch 22.5, as they called it, since we were the January intake. After that was the Parent Portal briefing, and parents were required to stay in the hall while the students went for their registration. Okay, now I was starting to get nervous. There were around 60 of us lining up in front of the registration counters. There, I made my first friend, who was also later my roommate in the apartment we're staying!

Well, I can't possibly report everything that happened this week in detail, but a quick summary; I had three roommates, all of different backgrounds and now we're very close with each other! Our room was also very huge and cosy, as it was an apartment with four rooms, two bathrooms and a sink. I also made friends outside of my room, and I'm so thankful that they were all so friendly and kind to me. The college had four houses - Topaz, Sapphire, Diamond and Garnet. I was sorted into Topaz along with my roommates.

The week was peppered with talks and briefings about the Code of Conduct, University Placement, academics, timetabling, a session with student services, administration office, the resource centre staff and the IT department. It's all the basic stuff, how things work, what are the rules, what to do if you're sick, what happens if you're absent for three consecutive days, laundry, and so on. There were also briefings of what to expect in each subject presented by the respective heads of those departments. I signed up to take Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry (pray for me!), but of course other subjects are available as well, such as Biology, Economics, Accounting and History. We were all required to take IELTS, and English testing system required by universities abroad.

Besides all that serious stuff, the January intake batch before us, the 21.5, welcomed us and divided us into groups for team building activities every time we have a session with them. They were mostly fun - dodgeball, building the tallest tower using only the things we have, writing our first impressions, and even as far as sharing personal experiences with each other. Our seniors were quite strict at first, especially since we have this one activity called the Bushido form. You may have heard of Samurai, right? Well, this is Bushido. We have to collect a fixed number of signatures from seniors, student council members and house captains by the end of the week or else we will get penalised with the Bushido! Scary, right?

Scary or not, we had to face it anyway. I can't spoil it to you what it is since there may be future KY juniors so... just wait and see, okay? They went hard on us, but it was the most memorable thing to me. Just experience it, however terrible it may be, because who knows, it might be fun! Even though I got nightmares about Bushido the night before. By the end of the week, our seniors showed their true colours and motivated us to keep achieving success together in KYUEM (keyword: together).

Speaking of fun activities, I joined a few clubs as well! I didn't want to join a lot, but every club looks so good that it was so hard to choose! In the end, I signed up for MUSCOM, Peer Support Group, Taekwondo, Volleyball, and the Science and Maths club. I'm really looking forward to extra-curricular activities, especially since it would help us write our personal statement.

I know I started this post on Sunday, but now it's already Tuesday, the second day of lessons! Yup, I received my timetable yesterday and we already started classes right away. It was tiring, but thankfully most of classes are close together.

Well, time to do homework. Thanks for reading, assalamualaikum!