Cricket.

You could be forgiven for not realizing this, but apparently there's a huge international sports tournament going on: the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. Being a football man myself, I've never really cared much for following other sports, least of all a sport that virtually no one in this country cares about or even knows the rules of.

Malaysia is a football-mad nation. As I perused the sports section of the newspaper today, half of it was talking about local and international football, while other sports took up the other half. This included the Cricket World Cup, which took up maybe a single page, and even that was nearer the middle of the paper than the back. The lack of coverage in the written media clearly indicates a distinct lack of interest in the event, and, of course, the sport itself.

Photo courtesy of Indian cricket legend MS Dhoni's official Facebook page.

If you, dear reader, are an avid cricket fan, then I hope you can forgive the country's collective ignorance and disinterest in the game. I do not intend to offend anyone, but the fact is just that we Malaysians are simply far more interested in other sports, including (but not limited to) football, badminton, golf and F1 racing. Most of us have no idea who the two cricket players in the above picture are, even though one of them has his name written on the back of his shirt.

I recall a time back while I was in boarding school, when the school decided to start a cricket team to compete in an inter-school tournament involving other SBPs (fully residential schools, for you non-Malaysians). Almost no one was interested in joining and, since all the sporty types were already involved in other games, the school ended up sending a team full of bookworms looking to get co-curriculum points for their CV. They ended up getting soundly beaten, of course, but one would think that they hardly cared.

As for me, I've only recently started opening my eyes to the world of cricket, mostly from having university friends from countries where the so-called 'game of the lords' is a pretty big deal. I now have a rough understanding of how the game is played and how scores are calculated, but I'll never fully grasp cricket until I've actually played it. Hopefully I can do that before I graduate.

I did a bit of reading on cricket last night, and I found an article explaining why the World Cup only starts getting serious in the knockout stages. I found it an interesting read at first, as it explained how in the 2007 edition, India got eliminated early on and millions of cricket fans basically stopped watching, causing the broadcaster to miss out on a serious amount of advertising revenue. The tournament was then restructured to ensure the big guns stay in the competition for as long as possible.

But then I made the decision to read the comments below the article and...well. If I wanted to read internet comments written by angry Indians, I might as well scroll through my university's confessions page - at least there I'd know whether what was written was justifiable or otherwise. Being a distinctly non-cricket and non-Indian person, I had no idea if those commenters were right to be so offended by the article. Anyhow, I guess it's not really my problem, so no point in dwelling on it.

It's true that you learn a lot at university, and not just the stuff you get during lectures. Cricket is one sport that I never thought I'd show any interest in, but the fact that I've written this post indicates that I was mistaken. My interest in this sport, however, is probably just due to my natural curiosity instead of genuine enthusiasm for it. The article I mentioned earlier stated that 80% of Indian males under the age of 25 follow cricket to some extent; I couldn't just let myself be completely ignorant of something that so many people are crazy about.

Like I mentioned earlier, I really do hope I'll get to play at least one game of cricket before I graduate early next year. After that, I don't really see how I'll ever get the chance, unless I somehow move to a country on the subcontinent.

They say love makes you do crazy things. On this evidence, I'd argue that curiosity can have the same effect. 

Orientation.

You know how some people log into their social media accounts after a lengthy period of inactivity and post stuff about their Facebook/Twitter/blog/etc. being 'dusty' and pretend to blow the dust off? It may have been kinda funny or witty when the trend first started, but it's been grossly overused to the point where it makes people (me) want to bang their heads on any available flat surface at its sheer lack of originality. Everything - including (but not limited to) jokes, music, films and books - gets old with repetition.

Next week I will be registering for the first semester of my final year at my university, and in the time it has taken me to reach that point, I have taken part in eight orientations for new students. The first seven of those ranged from 'just plain bad' to 'alright, but still kinda meh', but the most recent one, which just ended yesterday, can be honestly described as being pretty good. The main difference between the eighth orientation and the previous seven, was, of course, the lack of repetition.

My first orientation was for the June 2013 intake. I don't have much memory of this one really - I don't remember being an official member of the orientation committee, but I do remember helping out a bit, so still I count it as my first orientation.

But then I joined the Student Representative Council (SRC), so I was made to be a part of almost every orientation from September 2013 onward. I would probably have taken part in more if a couple hadn't clashed with tests or exams.

The thing about the orientations between my first and last ones was that they were all almost exactly the same in terms of program flow, structure and personnel. There were some variations in the first few in terms of games and activities, but eventually, for some reason, the people in charge of running the orientation just settled on a particular set of games that would be played for every single intake from then on.

What I found incomprehensible, however, was the fact that, despite things being pretty much the same for every orientation, the same mistakes were constantly being made. What was worse was that these same mistakes always seemed to be made by the same people. Any improvements in the quality of personnel were minimal, which is unsurprising when half the personnel is the same every single time. You can't polish a turd, and all that.

My seventh orientation, September 2014, came at a time when my term as a member of the SRC was drawing to an end. I figured it would be my last since I had no plans to rejoin the Council in the future. Just like a number of orientations prior to this one, most of the games and activities were exactly the same. The only thing that made it different from past orientations was that there were more new people working as members of the orientation committee (OCs), as opposed to the same old faces from before.

It ended up being the best orientation that I'd done up until that point, although that's hardly saying much. I might not have realized it at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight I'll say that it showed how sometimes things need to change for them to become better. By bringing in new blood to be mixed in with the orientation veterans, the program went more smoothly and was more enjoyable to both participants and organizers due to the eagerness of the newbies guided by the experience of the old heads. Personally, I enjoyed guiding the junior OCs throughout the process, which is what us senior OCs were supposed to be doing instead of stamping our authority on them at every chance we were given. I found it detestable when, during the post-mortem meeting we held at the end, several senior OCs chose to criticize the juniors for making some mistakes. Well, seniors, maybe they would have done better if you hadn't waited until everything was done and dusted to address those issues.

Fast forward to after the SRC elections that took place two months later, and I was, once again, called up to help with orientation. As I considered the offer, I realized that my haul of seven orientations greatly dwarfed the number racked up by anyone on the current SRC and the other guys invited to organize this latest orientation. My decision was made; I figured they could use my experience.

As it turned out, this orientation, for the January 2015 intake, was completely different from the previous seven in terms of both structure and personnel. For once, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and not just because none of the other orientation veterans (whom I had never really gotten along with) were involved. We had new games and activities, new leadership and, most importantly, new spirit. Gone were the days of handling orientation because we had to; now we did it because we damn well wanted to. This was helped by the fact that, besides the hand-picked main leaders of the committee, the remaining OCs were selected through an interview process, resulting in capable, eager OCs being called up. This was a welcome change from 'buddy' system of old, which was partly responsible for there being so many orientation veterans who never seemed to learn from their mistakes, in spite of their experience.

In the end, everything turned out well. We had mostly positive feedback from the new students as well as the OCs. As for me, well, anything remotely decent that was unlike the orientations of old was good enough - and this one definitely was. The flow of events wasn't as smooth as we had hoped, but other than that things were just fine. Funny how good leadership, mutual respect, a friendly working environment, and a lack of favoritism can help an event become a success.

(On a side note, I probably would never have been involved with orientation had I not been on the SRC in the first place. And if I hadn't been forced into being involved with all those orientations, I would never have been given the pleasure of helping to organize this one. God certainly knows best.)

If the next orientation was to be organized in a similar manner to this one, I wouldn't mind taking my orientation count to nine. Despite being a massive introvert, there's just something about meeting new students and guiding less-experienced OCs that I just love. Come to think of it, that's probably why I've done so many orientations; to be happy with any situation you need to focus on the positives more than the negatives.

Now I just need to keep that up throughout the final year of my undergraduate degree. Do pray for me.

Brief Respite.

It's been exactly one week since the SRC elections, and one week since I lost out on the post of Deputy President. For some reason, though, it feels like it was much longer ago than that. I guess a lot has happened over these past seven days.

After election day, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my chest. I'd spent a week and a half campaigning with my team - staying back after class and coming to campus on the weekend to make and hang up banners and posters, giving political speeches, chatting people up - basically, putting all our energy into making sure we won the election.

As it turned out, half of the four election candidates on my team got elected to their posts, so I guess you could say it was worth our trouble. After my initial disappointment at losing, I soon realized that there were other ways to contribute to the MIU community even without being in a leadership position. I was at peace.

Returning to my hometown that weekend helped too. I hadn't gone home in three weeks (I usually do so every fortnight), and the warm, familiar surroundings of Ampang were a welcome relief from my recent dip into the dark pool of politics. Running for deputy president of the SRC had consumed me so much that I had been unable to focus on anything else, including my studies. Going home was, as always, like pressing a reset button - it helped me to temporarily clear my head of all the negativity that the outside world insists on feeding it.

I feel a lot better now - mentally and emotionally. Can't say there's too much difference here physically, though, since my hectic schedule forces me to miss lunch most days. Not playing any football at all doesn't help, either. But at least I can concentrate better on my studies, which is just as well since I have some assignments that need doing. I've also had to sit for four different midterms since last week, with another one possibly coming up next week.

This semester has been a heck of a ride so far, but there's still more to come. Even if I were to put aside the tests and assignments, there's still a major event coming up in the first week of December that I have to help coordinate. Things aren't really looking like letting up any time soon.

Well, at least I have the here and now. This brief respite from the drama of life in MIU is what enabled me to write this blog post, and I am thankful for that. Who knows when I would have found time to do so had I actually won that election.