Wednesday, August 20, 2008

BRATs 08' - Kajang (Country Heights) Aug 16-19

I think I was jumping up and down with excitement when I recieved the e-mail from BRATs. The BRATs camp was supposed to be in Kuala Selangor but due to some unforseen circumstances, it was held in Country Heights, Kajang instead.The entire camp was really awesome! I learnt so much and made a lot of new and sweet memories.

I've got so much to tell but I don't even know where to start from. But erm... let's just go with the lodgings first. I was in Country Heights 5 years ago for a DUMC camp and I think nothing much changed in this place. We stayed in Green Scene Coast which is the same place I stayed at 5 years ago! Our villas are awesome!!! I shared my room with Alethea and Atiquah (all 3 of us are ANIME freaks!!XD)

Food? TOTALLY DELICIOUS!! Duh! It's Country Heights we're talking about. Every meal is a wide buffet spread and it's just so awesome. Getting hungry just thinking bout it..~ Food glorious food~

The people I met in BRATs are all really very creative, smart and funny. Everytime we had some free time, we would all mix around and talk about anything or we would all sit in a small groups and torment people with the IQ/Trick games like Grandma, Horses, The clock game, numbers, Black Magic and etc. It was really fun!

I met a lot of BU4 students, 2 students from SBU (I'm just so proud =]), other schools, colleges and states. All of just warmed up almost immediately and we jsut constantly had fun together. The games aside, we all were exposed to a lot of aspects of journalism. Other than writing articles only, each group had to do sound slides (so not easy) and videos (not any easier either!).

The first task we had was to take pictures of a glass of water anyway we like it within 10 minutes. My group chose to show my picture XD (so proud~) and the photographer, Chan was like, "This is a very good shot. Very creative but I just dunno what name to give it. I can't picture a name for it..hahaha." Ok, just for your info, everyone decided to named it "Defying Gravity" =p

We had quite a number of assigments to do during the camp and all the deadlines are absolutely making us stressed up.

Assingment 1 > Do a sound slide about Kajang Town. We wore our BRATs t-shirt and went to Kajang town to do interviews with random people (co-calling) and also to grab shots of the place for our sound slide. It wasn't an easy task cause Kajang isn't really that exciting so all of ushad some trouble finding our focus on the story but we managed to do it in the end though we passed the deadline by more than 6 hours!

What was funny bout this assigment was most of the people we ask to interview either don't know about the history of the town or they just simply don't know a thing about the place *sigh* How very helpful..but nevertheless a good experience. =)

Assignment 2 > Do a video. Our group had to do a video on a shoe factory located in Seri Kembangan. I was the videographer (yup!I got the chance to hold the video cam like some pro!) and it was actually a pretty tricky job. We did 2 interviews; Wen Jie was supposed to interview the founder but after atempting the interview for about 3 times, Wen Jie couldn't connect with the guy.

It was kind of scary when he just stopped Wen Jie cause he said the questions are not properly phrased. So I just stepped in to do it in cantonese cause my mandarine is so "GENG". I was freaking out a little during the interview but we didn't have a choice. I just asked 3 questions keeping it as simple as possible and praise God, the interview was over and done with.

Assignment 3 > Photo essay. The SIMPLEST assignment! yeay!! XD XD


It was a really good exposure and experience for us. Then it came to video editing..GOODNESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!! It's one of the most draggy process ever! We had to do voice overs (voice recording) for our sound slide and video with only one laptop. My group members didn't know how to use the windows movie maker except me, Marcus and Crystal (our leader). We were practically rotting in front of the laptop!

The video editing took us a lot of time but it was fun doing it with everyone helping out. The voice recording was also fun though a very tedious process. @_@ Our videos are not exactly good but we did it as a team, so we're proud! Go PHABs!!! (that's our group name by the way..)

It was really eye opening for all of us, being a journalist is hard work and it takes a lot of creativity and skills. Ivy our coordinator said, "I think those of you who came here wanting to be a journalist will now think twice before you choose this line ar..haha..got scared already." If it was me, ya, I think I would reconsider picking this profession! =p Very stressed and tiring!

All in all...I think I'm proud to be a BRAT! XD

Go check out the photos >>
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148513&l=17c5b&id=567510583

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