Hi everyone
MSA was really busy last weekend as there was Dragonboating on Saturday (9/5/09) and Riang Ria Makan on next day (10/5/09).
Not just that, MSA is still organising another event before Semester 1, 2009 ends right before exam starts. That is
MSA on Ice which is on week 12. Anyway I will blog all the reviews and the up-coming event one at a time.
Now, let see what happened on "Dragonboating Day". (I don't think I should address the day of Dragonboaitng event as "Dragonboating Day", but never mind lar)
Everything begins when everyone woke up super early in the morning as we need to gather at MUV as earlier as 8.35am. Crazy, right? What to do? Macquarie University is so far away form the Anzac Bridge. Technically, Macquarie University is very far from the rest of the Uni and the city.Heiiii!!!!! This give me the feeling of staying at "Ulu-ulu" areas. (Ulu-ulu is a slang form Malaysia which means countryside or outskirt area).
After grouping at MUV, we have to take the bus to the city, another approximately 1 hour gone. At least we can sleep on the way to the city.(Not Bad)
Now, here's the funny bit. After reaching the city, we took the wrong bus to Anzac Bridge ending up at some unknown place. Due to this incident, we were kind of late maybe not so late if we consider Malaysia time.
Here's where the fun begun. On arrival, all of us have to change clothes, learn all the very very important safe prosedures from
Naga Spirit Team and do warm ups. Suprisingly, there's a lot of us who can't realy swim and a lot of us asked for Safety Jackets. Everyone was very ecited.
After the very important briefing from
Naga Spirit Team, we have to take turns to enter our boating. It looks a lot harder than you thought. The boat was wobbling all the time. (Really scary.)
Then, MSA's Naga Spirit leader started to teach on how to paddle the baot and control the movement of the boat. Since all of us were newbies, including myself, our paddle timing was really off and sea water was slashing everywhere. Almost everyone was soaked with the salty sea water. With more practise, we were getting better ie fewer water splashing and better paddle timing. ( Forgot to mention, there were 16 MSA members on the boat with 4 guys only. Where were the rest of MSA guys?)
While we were practising on the boat, we had some unexpected encounter with jellyfish. Since no electronic devices were allowed on the boat, there's no photos. (Sorry guys). The jelly fish looked like really clean, whitish, transparent plastic bag floating in the sea water. (that's the best description that I can think of right now while blogging)
After few round of practise, the dragonboating race begun. I don't remember who was in the 1st place. I could only remember MSA wasn't last. (Not bad since all of us were new to dragonboating.)
The final race was between SUAMS and MSA to decide who was the third place. Unfortunately, SUAMS beat us 2 out of 3 race. Too bad lar. At least, all of us had a great time on that day.
After the race, it was mingling and photo time! Oops! Before that, all four boats were placed back into its original place. You have no idea how heavy is the boat. All I can say they are freaking heavy. I remember correctly, we need nearly 25-30 people to carry each boat.
Later, it was lunch time or more like pizza time. More photos were taken and more pizzas gone missing (where else into stomach loh). The atmosphere were filled with joy, laughter and happiness. Great time to rest and to relax after all the hard work.
All in all, the outing was very fun and enjoyable. I recommend all MSA members should at least go for this fabulous dragonboating once during Uni years. The key lesson of the day was Teamwork! It will take every one's effort to move a dragonboat and everyone needs to work as a team to share the burden of the boat. Of course, all these will bui;d up better friendship.
I do like to add that dragon boating is very fun but it comes with costs like bady aching the day after, back pain and shoulder blade pain but all these will recover in a few days. hahaha. The pains prove that you work hard padding the boat.
I think that's all for the 2009 Dragonboating. Let's enjoy the photos.
From
Lawrence
Your MSA Publisher
