Students' Festival 2009 Awards Ceremony

Every year during spring time, all students across Russia will be celebrating the annual Студенческая Весна (Student's Spring Festival). The festival usually lasts for a month - basically its a month of talent competitions. Students from all over Russia compete in different categories and the main aim is to grab the Laureate Honors awards. In Malaysia it would be the equivalent of a "Festival Ko-Kurikulum" or something like that.

Last year, me and my friends (my music-band mates) competed in the Instrumental Music and Vocals category and we managed to get the 1st Degree Laureate Honors award. This was a first time in the festival history that a group of international students took the top award.

This year, we competed in 3 categories and the results were as follows:

1) Instrumental Music & Vocals - 2nd Degree Laureate Honors

2) Contemporary Classical Music - Festival Diploma Award

3) Original Genre & Illusion - 2nd Degree Laureate Honors

For the Original Genre & Illusion category, we performed a Sarawak-Sabah cultural fusion dance which was the opening performance for this year's festival (WOW - talk about being honored up to that level)

If you are interested to see our Original Genre & Illusion performance, you can go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1BFnk7w9iI&feature=channel_page

For next year's festival - we will surely do our best again!

Instant Cure for Flu - Терафлю!

I never thought that the common cold could be treated in less than one day! Before this I used to intoxicate my system with a maximum of 8 paracetamols a day taken in 6 hour intervals just to relieve the catastrophic symptoms of flu - and in most cases, I usually don't feel any better after that hepatotoxic regime. I'd still be sneezing, coughing up phlegm, plugging my nostrils with tissue paper and stuff like that for the next 2-3 days.

But now, thanks to Терафлю (pronounced as te-ra-flyu) I got better (seriously better) even after taking only one packet! Wonders of Russian pharmaceuticals.

Its easy to take, just dilute one packet of this "healing elixir" in a cup of warm water and just gulp it (although your taste buds will scream in agony)! Best to be taken before bed (as per written on the instructions) GUARANTEED - you will have a sound sleep, without any blocked nose or headaches or nausea or anything.

Comes in 3 "lovely" flavors - Lemon, Forest Berries, Ginger (although I don't think it would make a big difference, I guess they all have the unpleasant after-taste)

For the concerned pharmacist/physicist:

Contents: active ingredients include 325 mg paracetamol, 20 mg feneramine maleate, 10 mg phenylephine chloride (plus flavoring, sugar, this that this that lah)

Effects: Antipyretic, anti-oedematic (?Did I translate this word correctly - противоотечным?), analgetic, & anti-allergenic action.

Pharmacologic group: non-narcotic analgesics, alpha-adrenomimetics, H1-histamine receptor blockers.

Indications: fever, chills, headache, flu, stuffed nose, sneezing, malaise.

After this, flu is no more a big problem. Just take a packet of Терафлю! And smile the whole day :)

Volgograd - The City of Heroes

Suddenly, I missed Volgograd. My 3-day stay in that beautiful city had really made quite a strong impression in my mind.

I remember that in Malay we have such a proverb that says "Hujan batu di negeri sendiri, hujan emas di negeri orang - lebih baik lagi di negeri sendiri" - which is loosely translated as "Although it rains stones in your motherland, and it rains gold in a foreign land - it is better to be in your motherland". I don't really see where this proverb is coming from or going to - back home we NEVER had stones falling as rain to begin with. Anyway - comparing Kursk and Volgograd (in this case it rains stones in Kursk and it rains gold in Volgograd), I pretty much prefer to be in Volgograd.

Remembering Volgograd also means remembering Volgo Games 2009. My experience participating in the annual intervarsity games was a very exciting one as it was my very first time representing my beloved university KSMU. Sportswise - I used to do well in tennis back when I was in secondary school. But this time - being a part of the athletics team was a different thing altogether. Middle distance runner? Haha. I never thought that I was a middle distance runner. I never even thought that I could run 400 metres non-stop. And the most astonishing thing is that I was able to bring back a bronze medal - now that's cool! (I was eyeing on the medals this year, just because they looked pretty and unique - see the medals below!)

It was a great experience to meet new people here and there, and to get to know people from your own university even better. I mean, I don't know about other universities but here in KSMU, you can go through 6 years of studying without even knowing that this particular person even existed! So that means more friend requests in facebook - YAY!

Hope that next year in Kursk, the intervarsity games would be better, packed with more fun and excitement! (And hope we will take back the overall champion trophy from Volgograd LOL)