Airen's Journey : ELEMENT NIGHT 12.0: COHESION

Preparation Period: September - November 2019

Actual day: 19 November 2019

Second time joining this event as a committee and a performer. My position was the same as last year, committee member of Art & Design (A&D) Department and performer of popping team. But both are a complete new team, with new faces. Preparation of 3 months to put up a good show, and I'm proud to part of it.

To mention, this was my first year in degree, facing tougher and heavier workload. Sacrificed a lot to make a balance between preparing the show, taking care of my studies and work, but it's worth it.

Starting off with the new A&D team, it was now lead by someone who are experts in this area, they have a great loads of experience in this field. At first, I don't fit in, because I don't really agree with their way of work. But soon, we bonded together quickly, all thanks to my leader. We starting working way before the semester break. And coming to the campus everyday during the semester break to rush for props and stage design, staying till late night, "belakang" was literally like our second home. We ate and slept there. We even celebrated birthdays there. There were arguments, there were hard times but mostly it was laughs and fun. As the new semester started, we were getting busier with our studies and stayed even later in the midnight to rush our work to meet the deadline. I used to be closer with the Dancing Society's members, but now I sided with A&D team more, since we spent most of the times together everyday even during weekend.

Next, the popping team recruited a lot of new blood, which was great, because everyone has the potential and they're all hardworking. Now that I've experience and has been taking classes, I could catch up quickly and helped the others. The atmosphere of this team was better than last year's, to be frank. And the progress was great. However, majority of them has two performances so they have to attend practice at both sides, and for me, I have to attend to A&D and practices too. But I managed it somehow. This year, I put my focus more on the performances. The dilemma of my everyday was whether to eat with A&D team or performance team, it was always the hardest choice. Running from "belakang" to college hall and back and having to eat two meals so that I could spend time with both sides, those times were precious.

The downside of these was that I neglected my classmates. I was the one always running off after classes or absent from lecture class, couldn't spend more time to build relationship with my new classmates.

As the date of the actual show drew closer, all of us are getting more and more stressed and exhausted. I even took leave from work for 1 month to focus on this event, as I do not have time to commit to it. Progress checks, promotional week and rehearsals were coming altogether. Always reaching dorm at 2 or 3 in the midnight. My housemates could never see me despite living in the same house.

To be honest, I had hard feelings in some parts of the preparation, but those were in past tense. I'm glad that it all worked out, despise me not feeling satisfied with my own performance. I've bonded over with both sides and I'm truly happy that I got to know these bunch of wonderful people. I still remember the night we disbanded A&D officially after dismantling and cleaning up everything, I cried as I saw my leader cried, some cried together too. We had a great dinner together that night and we surprised a member with her birthday too. We still spend the night till midnight somehow. As we bid goodbye, we cried again. Thank you for the good times and memories and companionship. Never thought I could bond so well with them.

Ps. we actually met up to have dinner almost every night after we disbanded lol