Happy Diwali

Today marks the celebration of Diwali (also known as Deepavali), the Festival of Lights in the Hindu religion. It is an important festival of the year for the Hindus to celebrate and perform traditional customs at home.

 

Even though we had an early celebration of the DeepaRaya gathering, the MASA would still like to take this opportunity to wish all Hindus, whether it may be here in Lawrence Kansas or even back home in Malaysia, a WONDERFUL DIWALI AND NEW YEAR! As you celebrate this holy occasion, the most loving thoughts and wishes are for you.
 

MASA Meeting 2

The Malaysian Student Association had their second general meeting this afternoon! Since the Eaton Hall's Library was closed today, our president had us gathered in one of the classrooms in Eaton Hall. We discussed about the past DeepaRaya gathering and how we could improve future events. Other than that we started to discuss about the upcoming events to be held. And since Fall has already arrived here in Lawrence, some events would be limited due to the cold weather. Therefore, we started to plan future events for the upcoming Spring 2015 semester. Here are some of the events planned out :-

 

• Badminton Tournament. As for tournament ideas, what better way could we describe Malaysia than for our passion towards Badminton. This might yet be one of the biggest events we have planned so far because we are planning to collaborate with KU'S Badminton Club for this tournament and have it open for all KU students. Planning are still in progress.

 

• Explorace Game. This would also be a collaborative event; with KU's Asian American Association. Explorace games have also become a norm back in Malaysia, so why not bring it here and ask everyone to join in the fun? The game might take place within campus grounds (KU is pretty big, so don't underestimate it) and include a wholesome loads of fun.

 

 

DeepaRaya Gathering

It's the day we have all been waiting for *drum rolls* ... our DeepaRaya gathering day! Most of us have been long waiting for this day to come. Now why is that? Well it's because it has been forever since most of us had NASI LEMAK! Yes ladies and gentleman, it is possible to have our traditional favourite nasi lemak here in Lawrence Kansas. But also other than that, it has been a while since the MSA have come together for a potluck.

 

So officially, we held our DeepaRaya gathering on Sunday, 12th October 2014 from 7.00 P.M. until 12.00 A.M. at the Meadowbrook Apartments clubhouse. It was certainly a night to remember! Almost everybody brought a little something of Malaysia to the gathering.

 

Here are some pictures of the mouth-watering Malaysian dishes of the night! Just to name a few, we had nasi lemak, ayam kari, mee kari, ayam masak madu, kuey teow, sayur kubis telur, ketupat. Just when you thought being in a campus town would seclude you from any key ingredients to make a fine dish that reminds you of home, guess again ;-)

 

 

We were more than happy to welcome friends and also alumni's with open arms that night. It's true when they say the more the merrier. I think we had more or less 30 people who joined us. Here are some pictures of their happy faces! :-)

 

Of course, what would the night be if we didn't have games to play. Our friend, Ben, brought over his Ultimate Werewolf card deck. For those who have played the Mafia Game, it's almost similar to it. But as for those who never heard of neither those games before, well it kinda goes like this;

There will be a moderator who narrates the game, the moderator shuffles the card deck and hands one card to each person playing, everyone will have a look at the card and not show it to anyone else. The card that is picked is the character that the person plays. The moderator then begins the game. It is played through day and night rounds until the Werewolf has been eliminated.

I could go on and explain specifically how the game goes but I think that would take me another whole post, so for those who are really keen to know, here is a link :- http://www.brenbarn.net/werewolf/rules.html .

Here is Ben constantly repeating himself trying to explain the game to everyone. Even though it was confusing at first, everyone soon got the hang of it and had such a great time!

 

Everyone was just having such a good time that not most of us noticed it was already midnight. Just when we were in the midst of a hilarious time trying to debate who to kill off in the game, the guard came by to close the clubhouse since it was pretty late. We all still wanted to continue the game, so we headed to our president's apartment and took it from there.

Playing the game might be fun but it's the conversation after the game that is the best part! Finding who killed who, who saved who, who tried to kill who, who blamed who.

 

It was just an amazing ending to an even more amazing night! Thank you to all the organizers of the gathering for making this happen and hope everyone had a wonderful DeepaRaya!

Trip to Kansas City Zoo

Every month, the International Student Services (ISS) at KU will organize a trip for international students to explore and visit Kansas City. The ISS even named it as "The KC Trip Series".

 

As for this Fall Break, ISS decided to bring the international students to the Kansas City Zoo! It is home to more than 1,300 animals and has been voted one of America's best zoos in the year 2008. The trip was something definitely worth going for! And it didn't even cost us a fortune, we only had to pay $8 for the bus trip. Most of the MSA members certainly tagged along for this KC Trip Series!

 

Everyone had gathered in front of the Kansas Union and lined up to get inside the school buses. Little did we know that the two buses were already full. So what do we get? Well, we Malaysian students, ALL TOGETHER got to ride the KU van , we felt like special VVIP guests for a moment there! :-D The van had just enough seats to fit all of us in, lucky us!

 

Tiffany from the Applied English Center was our chauffeur for the day and the person handling all the students for this trip. She was surprised too when she found out that everyone in the van was from the same country. We made her guess and her first guess was Indonesia. Close enough haha. We had a good one-hour drive to Kansas City.

 

As we reached the entrance of the Kansas City Zoo, everyone was so hyped up and ready to go! Tiffany gave a short brief introduction for the day and instructions to where we will gather again after the zoo closes. After that, we were off on our own :-D

 



 

As we walked into the front entry plaza of the Zoo, we all went to the Polar Bear Plunge! This zoo has been famously known for their two polar bears, so we didn't want to miss it! At first the polar bears were only chilling around but as people started to gather around the glass windows, one of the polar bears came up to the glass and plunged backwards to entertain the crowd. It was pretty amazing! It wasn't called Polar Bear Plunge for nothing ;-) We also went to the Penguin Plaza afterwards and came just in time for their feeding session.

 

 

Initially we were all together as a group but then some of us took longer time to immerse in the beauty of mother nature and some of us only took a glimpse of the animals and walked on, haha. Eventually, the group became two separate ones.

 

I am unsure what happened with the other group but here are some pictures from our walk around the zoo :-) We first headed to the Africa-part of the zoo, which was divided into subparts: Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and The Congolese Rainforest. You could tell from the pictures that the zoo was really big and they actually made it look like an actual African-environment. Not for a moment did we actually felt like walking on the pavements of a zoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

We got to see the African Elephants, the Chilean Flamingos, the cheetahs, the Southern Ground-Hornbills, the Bateleur Eagles, the Red Ruffed Lemurs, the African Lion, the Meerkat, the Masai Giraffes, the Grant's Zebras, and the Western Lowland Gorilla. I mean there were many more animals but these were definitely the highlights. We then continued on to the Australia-part of the zoo, where we saw the Red Kangaroos, the Bennett's Wallaby, the Matschie's Tree Kangaroo, the Spotted Python, the Green Tree Pythons and the Dromedary Camels. One of the locals was kind enough to help us take a picture of the group! :-)

 



We then continued on to the Tiger Trail-part of the zoo, where we encountered the Francois Langur, the Bali Mynah, the Tufted Deer, the Red Panda and the Sumatran Tiger of course! The main attraction of this whole Tiger Trail. We later went to the KidZone part to pet the Llama, the Fallow Deer, the Pygmy Goats and the Donkeys.

 

 

 

Not soon after that were we united with the other group :-D It was nice to be a big group again and wandering around the zoo together. We visited the Great Ape House together where they just moved in Sumatran Orangutans to the zoo. Somehow we did feel like taken aback to Malaysia for a second there when we saw the Orangutans. Eventually time was ticking and it was almost 5.00 P.M., the zoo's closing time. Some decided to walk back but there were some who choose to take the African Sky Safari (including myself)! So here are some of the pictures from up above the modified ski lift.

 

Our day soon came to an end and it was time to go home. You could say that everyone was dead beat when we got to the van and everyone just fell asleep through the whole journey back. It was a great day together and a great start to this year's Fall Break! There you have it, a picture of the MASA family :-)

 

 

Eid Mubarak

Today, all Muslims across the world unite together in celebration of Eid al-Adha, known as the Greater Eid. It is also known as the Feast of Sacrifice and is one of the two most important celebrations in the Muslim calendar.

Therefore, MASA would like to take this opportunity to send out to all Muslims our WARM WISHES ON EID-AL-ADHA! May this holy occasion bring forth peace and happiness to your heart and home.

KU's Homecoming 2014

Guess what Jayhawks? Homecoming is back in KU! For those who are unfamiliar with what exactly is this homecoming, well it's simply an annual event held by a university to welcome visiting alumni's. This year's homecoming was held from  September 21st until September 27th. The KU Alumni Association held countless exciting activities throughout the whole week and this year's theme was Roll with the Hawks.

 

 

To name some of those activties is the Glow KU tradition. Students from on-campus and off-campus showed off their school spirits by decorating their buildings with red, blue, yellow and white lights (Christmas is coming early I guess). This year, Sigma Kappa sorority won first place! And behold, their Glow KU house!

 

 

To kick things off that very Monday, the Homecoming Sign Competition was held in front of Watson Library's Lawn. Students of KU got to show their creativity by decorating a plywood signs. Since the Homecoming's theme was Roll with The Hawks, there were a lot of board games that students used to inspire their design.

 

 

Another fun event was the Chalk 'n' Rock competition. Students passing by Wescoe Beach last Tuesday would know what happened there! You could see a lot of students working hard and absolutely having fun decorating the sidewalks in front of Wescoe Hall using only chalk! 

 

 

But the most anticipated event for this whole week where everyone has been long waiting for was the HOMECOMING PARADE! This I when all of KU students and the Lawrence community get together at Massachusetts Street in Downtown Lawrence to get their school spirits on and support KU's football team for the upcoming Homecoming football game.

 

So of course, the Malaysian Student Association took part in this parade to represent our beloved country! Even though not many of the Malaysian students could make it, those who still came made the best out of it and had a blast!

 

We took the bus from Kansas Union all the way to Downtown. All the international students of KU had gathered at South Park on Massachusetts Street.

 



 

Steven Sweat, one of the program coordinators from the International Student Services, was in charge for the day and helped distributing all the country's flag. 

 

While waiting for all everyone to gather around, we took the opportunity to meet new international friends and took pictures with them!

 

 

 

Finally, the official photograph session took place. Knowing that there were more over than 100 countries, it was a bit difficult trying to fit everyone into the picture (let alone seeing our faces haha) but we managed to pull through and got perfect shots!

 

 

 

Of course we had to have our own little Malaysian group photography session. All thanks to the club's official photographer, Zee! By the looks on our faces and how huge our smiles were, you could tell that we were super excited for the parade to start! Two of the club's member, Aaron and Brandon, had proudly worn their old PLKN uniform from years ago. As for the ladies, Tabitha Yu Wei Zee and Puteri, had worn our traditional clothing of baju kurung and cheongsam. We were absolutely in high Malaysian spirits that day!

 

 

And when I said high spirits, I really did mean it! We took the time to reenact the monumental statue of Malaysia's Tugu Negara. Here is a picture edited by the Club's Vice President, Jason Eng. You could say that we came really close to it right?

 

After countless and hundreds of photos taken, the parade had officially started and you could hear the music playing from the marching band, the cheers from the crowd and the chants from all the students of KU. Downtown Lawrence was the place to be on Friday! You could see all the theme-based floats, all the vehicles and banners making its way along Massachusetts Street. Most of all, I am pretty sure everyone saw us happily waving our Malaysian Flag and even singing the national anthem Negaraku!

 

 

 

The parade soon came to an end but we were still in high spirits, so we continued on taking more photos and re-enacting the Tugu Negara once more since more Malaysian students joined us.

 
We absolutely had a wonderful time throughout the whole Homecoming Week in KU! Hopefully next year's homecoming would have more exciting events and there would be more Malaysian students joining us in this annual tradition. Rockchalk Malaysia!