"To Reap the Harvest"

*Pictures not yet available. Will update as soon as some show up on Facebook, etc...

Since it's a very long post today, I'll split it up by time period. Feel free to skim over to read just what you want to read...

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Early Morning Prep

Yeah. Today was nice. Although I'm drained, today was indeed nice. As I've mentioned yesterday, today was Canteen Day. I arrived at school at 6.00 in the morning, and though I wasn't the first prefect there, (Bala and Edfred were earlier than me) having the keys to the Prefects' Room meant that I was first in. By the way, I heard from Abg Sathya that last night, when I had already left for tuition, they saw, or felt, some ... "presences" ... Anyway, I was blissfully unaware of this, (I only found out at the end of the day) so I happily explored the results of the last week's effort. Alone. The whole place. And nothing happened. Seriously.

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Costume Description

Anyway, when I was done, other prefects were starting to arrive (6.15+) I placed some finishing touches on the outside of the room and also on my costume. Speaking of which, I designed and built the whole thing myself. It started on Wednesday evening, where I bought plastic bin liners to create the black robe. Then on Thursday, around the second half of preparations, (and after a short nap) I began work on my scythe. With some leftover flat wood from the preparations, I crafted a sizeable blade. (non-lethal of course...) Then yesterday, while the preparations continued, I shinied up the scythe with silver coloured paper, as well as building the staff part. The thing was around seven feet tall, with a three feet long blade. Impressive indeed...

Anyway, robe and scythe, claws and mask. The claws were paper on one hand, and LEGO on the other. The mask was LEGO as well. "Skeletal" was something I tried to achieve. I suited up at around 7+. Unfortunately, I guess I wasn't paying attention during the school briefings throughout the week which stated that the event starts at 8. Bummer. Oh, and since there were no safety pins around, the white cloth disguising the rest of my head (under the black hood) was basically held together by my mouth. I'm serious. I really was biting the thing. That pretty much meant my speech ability was shot...

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Event Proceedings - 8.00 to 9.00

But when it did start, off I went! Blissfully, I walked, or should I say, stalked around the school. And the best part of it all, thanks to my mask and hood, nobody could recognize me! Students, teachers, visitors, all were left wondering who the heck was the guy in the robe! It didn't help that I couldn't speak, (not that I wanted to anyway) so it helped with the disguise. Of course, I could still mumble out coherent words, so I revealed myself to a few folks, like Pn. Tan and... well, actually, I remember only revealing myself to Pn. Tan... (she got her daughter to take a picture with me after that) Everyone else kept thinking I was Yohnny, Hon Sim, Eddy, or many others... (And for those who knew it was me and happily declaring it to the world, I requested them to help keep the secret)

The downside to the secrecy, is that since no one knows who's beneath the robe, everyone seems fine with picking on the weirdly-dressed guy. I'm serious. I got pushed, poked, my robe pulled, taunted, mocked, and generally, made fun of. By the way, ever had a bunch of prepubescent, immature 13/14-year olds make fun of you? There's a group of Indian afternoon sectioners who were pretty much merciless. Especially this one kid, whose name I didn't bother to know. It's as if his whole life is dedicated to being a pain in the arse. (I did get back at him with a swing of my scythe though...) Thankfully, it wasn't all that bad. I did manage to back it up with some harbinger-of-death acting. Speaking of which, there's a few kids who, although seemed to enjoy poking fun at me, they ran away the moment I raised a clawed finger to point at them. Also, there's a few other kids, who also liked taunting me, but wouldn't dare look me in the eye when I went close to pat them on the heads. And now I think I'm getting carried away here...

Anyway, I continued walking around the school until around 9.00. By then, a nice queue had formed outside the zombie house. Also, Pn. Rafidah and Pn. Sumarni both persuaded me to take a break. So, yeah. I had my first break around that time...

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Event Proceedings - 9.00 to 10.00

I switched from my costume back down into tee and tracksuit for my break. I walked around the school to look for drinks. Surprise, surprise, i didn't draw any attention at all! The disguise was that good! (Though I caught a glimpse of Pn. Tan pointing at me and telling her daughter that I was the costumed fellow) Oh, and my shirt and hair were completely soaked. (Plastic doesn't "breathe", if you get what I mean) After a half-hour break, I resumed promotional duties. However, since I didn't have as much time to put the costume back on, it kinda... came out... wrong. I stalked the school for another half-an-hour, then went back to the Prefects' Room to straighten up. When I came out, after walking a while more, my costume started to fall apart. I found Pn. Sumarni and Pn. Rafidah near the DJ's table on stage, and once again they asked me to take a break. This time, I breaked at the DJ area.

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Event Proceedings - 10.00 to 11.00 pm

15 minutes later, I was back in costume. Unfortunately, I only made it so far to the Prefects' room before I decided it's too far out of shape. I breaked there, yet again. (I don't think anyone can ever claim to have breaked from duty three times in one day) When I suited up again 15 more minutes later, I left out the claws and mask. I even let the hood of my robe drop down. (My sweat finally dried. You'd be amazed at how much ventilation you'd get from your head) So, I resumed walking around without my mask, claws and scythe. I tried to pass off as a monk, but it was kind of a dumb idea, now that I think about it. I happily absorbed all the surprised faces as I walked past people who went "It was you?" Eventually, I didn't feel right without my scythe, so I went back and took it. Now I was the unmasked Grim Reaper. And I continued to walk around the school. (No more stalking, a cheerful face isn't meant for stalking) Oh, and it was around this time when I finally realized I was the only guy doing promotion for the Prefects' zombie house... (Contrary to a previous plan that involved other zombies stalking around the North Block...)

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Event Proceedings - Rest of Day

Oh, I forgot to mention. While I was still masked, when I walked past 5P's stall, I was "aggresively persuaded" to buy their ice-cream floats. I passed on their offer because, well, has anyone ever tried to hold a drink with clawed fingers? Anyway, after I unmasked, I gladly took up their offer. They even offered me a free refill when I was done. (Which I took up too. Don't tell Pn. Leena!) Also, I bought a burger from 5E. Quote :

Chantelly : Try our Laksa lah.
Me : Well, you're gonna kill me for this, but I ordered a burger from 5E...
Chantelly : *swings foot in my general direction*

And I continued roaming around the school. Along the way, whenever a stall offered to sell me something, I would politely decline, ask them what they sold, and then, raising my scythe, promote their stall to the heavens. You may think I should have charged for the publicity, but it was really just my way of making up for not buying the merchandise. I remember doing that to 5U, 5H, 5I, and many other classes I can't remember. (En. Khairul even offered me a free drink, which I declined) Oh, yeah, I should also mention that I returned to 5P's stall, not for a free refill, but for a whole new drink. Twice. Which I gladly paid for. (So, let it be known that the Grim Reaper recommends drinks from 5 Pintar ;-))

Oh, and apparently I wasn't the only costumed promoter in school today. Though I doubt that 5 Unggul's prawn-shaped headpiece (wore by Choy and Anthony) can be considered a costume. That didn't stop us from jokingly engaging in mascot battle though...

Oh, and the other thing that happened all day. Photoshoots. Almost everyone who saw me wanted to take a picture with me. Guess it's part of the package of being a costumed-promoter. (or in other words, a mascot) From the little fellas in the afternoon section, to the nice folks in the morning section, to relatively unknown schoolmates in L6, and even to parents! Faiz joked about this :

(translated from BM)
Faiz : Nicholas! I follow you, and we'll charge RM1 for a photo with you!
Me : Mmmfff! (I was masked at that time, so I really could only chuckle)

Sadly though, there is one person that I hoped to, but didn't get a picture with today. 陈丽宇

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After the Festivities

We finally finished at 1.00 pm+. After that, the cleaning work began. Man, it's a lot of work to clean out a room filled to the brim with branches (yeah, the upcoming guys happily "deforested" a few parts of the field), dried leaves, sand (mock graves), lengths of cloth, and other what-nots. Alas, no matter how my costume looked, in the end, it was finally reduced to its core components and fulfilled the purpose which it was made to fulfill: Garbage Bags. Yeah, I personally took apart my costume bag by bag to help out with the cleaning. Good thing I didn't get too attached to it. As for the scythe, the stick part was thrown out, but Pn. Rafidah wanted to keep the blade part. (Unlike last year where we threw everything out, this year she's keeping whatever useful props to cut costs next year) Good thing too, as it would be a real shame to throw out something that took me two days to create. Plus it was shiny...

By the way, the grand total of the Prefects' earnings are RM 3k from the zombie house, and RM 1k from song requests. Since the school takes 70%, that means we get to keep RM 1.2k, more or less. Now that's what I call Reaping the Harvest!

I stayed back with a few other guys until 3.30. To be honest, I only left because the remaining guys were starting to talk about the fate of the upcoming board, a topic I'd rather not go in depth into. In what appears to be a case of legendary timing, the moment I stepped out the gate, my parents arrived! (And I didn't even call!)

Of course, it turns out they actually wanted to see if Canteen Day was still on. Bummer.

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Took me two hours to compose this post. Simply because I was juggling between dinner, a conversation, and composing...

And what do ya know, I managed to find pictures after all!

I got this from Corrine. This was early in the morning, when I first suited up. (Not enough camera room for the blade of the scythe)

And this was from Facebook, uploaded by Mei Jin. Honestly, I don't remember why this was taken. I know my photo was wanted, but I cannot remember why Sze Kei (yeah, that's her) was looking at me like that...

Thanks to the respective owners of the photos...

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No poem today. It's not proper to spoil this post with a melancholic poem. Instead, I'll just leave you with the standard Youtube video:



I know it's not exactly fitting to repost a video twice in the same week. But I forgot to mention that this was the song that I dedicated today. The message I included? "Dear Sally"