Journal of Cabaran Angkasawan Malaysia

p/s : all 28 of us needed to do journal regarding the program. we have to send it to Siti Natrah within a week. i had sent it already just now. and this is the piece that i sent to her :)

January 23, 2011

Sunday

I woke up early today just to start a day with hopes. Today was the first day of Program Cabaran Angkasawan 1 Malaysia. 4 out of 5 candidates from East Coast Zone took a flight from Terengganu to Kuala Lumpur. Since we arrived there about 3 hours earlier than others, we went for a drink with Zul, PCA1M's facilitator. After picked up the Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan's participants at LCCT, we went straight to Planetarium. We explored and learnt some new things regarding the space in the Planetarium. Facilitators distributed bags and t-shirts to all of us before dinner. Around 8.30 pm, we gathered for some briefing about the whole program by the CEO of Yayasan Angkasawan Malaysia, Colonel Dr. Zulkifli and Major Dr. Faiz Khaleed. Distribution of groups and topics for public speaking also were given that night. After that, we checked-in at Kompleks Belia Sukan Kampung Pandan, had a good sleep for tomorrow's activities.

# Just be yourself. No acting required in this program. - Colonel Zulkifli

January 24, 2011

Monday

The second day was awesome. All the candidates were getting close to each other and can blend in so well. After having our breakfast, we went to Pusat Sains Negara to learn more about science and to do some research on our public speaking's topics. I've been given the title of The Earth's Magnetic Field. The presentation will be on Wednesday as stated in the schedule. The next destination was TUDM. Colonel Dr. Zulkifli perfectly with his full uniform, greeted us and brought us to a lecture's room. He gave a talk about the aircraft. He also let us tried the centrifuge of 5G power. After doing some medical check-up, one by one was brought to the centrifuge to let us feel by ourselves how it worked. My adrenaline rushed when it was my turn. Although I was not really good at straining my muscles, I didn't passed out and managed to control the impact of 5G for 10 seconds. Thank god. I felt so delighted. Then, after took some group photos, we went back to Planetarium for dinner and personal admin. Around 11.30 pm, we're off to Kuala Perlis. In the bus, we were surprised by Badrul who told us that our public speaking will be held one day early. So, we have no much time and most of us, started preparing for the public speaking.

January 25, 2011

Tuesday

We arrived at Kuala Perlis just at the right time for Subuh prayer. We stopped at Masjid Kuala Perlis and then, continued our journey to Jetty Kuah at 8 o'clock. Our ferry was at 9, so we had our breakfast first while waiting for the ferry. In the ferry, most of us prepared our public speaking texts. We were very nervous since we're not fully prepared. The public speaking started at 2pm and when the rules were mentioned by Dr. Faiz Khaleed, it made me more nervous because he told us that we're only be given a 3 minutes chance to talk and elaborate on our own topics. So, I need to shorten my text. When it was my turn, I breathed deeply and just talked about The Earth's Magnetic Field as what I got during the research. Then, we had psychology assessment where we need to memorize some words and be given 1 minute to recall them and wrote them on a piece of paper. It might looks easy but to certain people it's quite hard. Then, we've been asked to draw our figures and our dream cars. This is to evaluate our attitude based on the drawing. I drew a Jeep and at first I have no idea what does it means if the psychologists saw our drawings. But then, they told us that based on our drawing, it can showed our alertness towards some small things such as wipers, side-mirrors, abs and etc. This is to see how safe and dangerous we are to the surrounding. The psychology slot was continued with a psychology paper test. At night, the facilitators gave us two tasks on micro gravity and magnetics. We've been given some stuff like wires, bottles,`nails, boards and etc to do our own crane. Some of us managed to do it well but mine is not goo$ as them as I didn't managed to`complete the wire circuit. We h!d so much fun that night and our friendship knot become tighter every second.

January 26, 2011

Wednesday

We started our day with some exercises. Then, we went to PLKN Langkawi for abseiling. It was my first time to do so. All 28 of us managed to abseil successfully although there's a member of us afraid of height. Luckily, Awang was up there with Cyndy to comfort and convince her to overcome her fright. After a few minutes, Cyndy made it to the ground. We're back to the hotel to prepare for our next activity which was jungle survival. After been given some tools and tents for our one night stay in the jungle, we started our path to the base camp. After did two psychology tests, Captain taught us a knot (Manuk) and gave a test to all the groups on how to do the knot at a tree without let go our hands from the rope. Thank god, my team could do it fine. Then, we set up tents and cooked for dinner. My group menu was 'Nasi Sardin Kaizen'. The cooking was good and it's an improvement to me as I never cook by using manual's-fire-set-up. After that, we've been given a task to search for three types of insects/animals and my group managed to get a frog, lizard and beetle. All of us were let to take some rest and go to sleep to recharge our energy. Just few minutes after I shut my eyelids, the whistle blew at around 10 pm. We need to gather within 2 minutes in front of the Captain. We need to stay in the sea for 30 minutes as a punishment of being late for 30 seconds. It was very cold. However, we managed to comfort ourselves and had fun by singing together. It was super awesome memories to treasure. After that, they gave us some rest and at around 12am, they called us back for a mission. We need to do an ambush to catch pirates that was told by the villagers that they're trying to send some secret messages to their leader. However, some of us couldn't hold our eyelids and went for a deep sleep. Some of us didn't realized when the pirates came. We failed the mission and being punished. It was very torturing but that is what we need to learn some lesson, i guess. We've been asked to do push-ups, side roll, forward roll, carrying our partners, duck walk etc etc. The punishment didn't stop there as we've been asked to stay at Jirat Inn, Chinese cemetery. They put us far from our friends alone and left us there. Surprisingly, it was a smooth one hour stay except for the mosquito who couldn't stop disturbing us.

January 27, 2011

Thursday

Around 5 o'clock, the facilitators gathered us back. Today was a tough and challenging one as we didn't have enough energy. Plus, some of us were injured. There was a lot of 'rendam dalam laut dalam masa 2 minit!' punishment by Colonel Dr. Zulkifli today. I guess, more than 10 times. We also need to climb up a tree in a minute. Yes, 28 of us on a tree. However, with courages and spirits, we managed to survive and did whatever they asked us to. The first activity for today was explorace. All of us successfully completed the challenge. Then, we've been gather at the beach for some evaluation. After all the 'who do you think the bottom 5 on the list' slot, Colonel Dr. Zulkifli gave us a character and we need to think and give a good supporting reason on why the chosen character should be left from joining the helicopter. After that, we're packed to left our base camp and walked to PLKN Langkawi. There, we're made raft by ourselves and need to paddle them at a specific path as mentioned. It was tiring but we had so much fun working together as a team. After some rest, we played water polo with Colonel Zulkifli, Dr. Faiz Khaleed and the facilitators. That was very enjoyable and we really had so much fun the whole game. I wished that the game was not over. I really love that moments.

January 28, 2011

Friday

We woke up early today because Colonel Zulkifli asked us to be at the lobby at 5.30am sharp. However, some of us didn't realized and oversleep. Luckily, there's no more punishment like "rendam laut dalam masa 2 minit!" anymore. We went to Observatori NegaraLangkawi for a marathon. Then, all of us were very enthusiastic when they wanted to bring us for shopping. We bought chocolates and souvenirs. At 2pm, we went back to de Baron Resort. We had our lunch and prepared for the interview. While waiting for our turn, we practiced our choir songs, Angkasa and Malaysia Inovatif. The time is running out and the last 15 person to interview was just a quick Q&A. Then, we're off to ONL again. Tonight was the climax of all the days during Cabaran Angkasawan as they will announced the winner. Congratulations to Awang Shahrizan who managed to win and get a trip to Star City in Moscow, Russia. He is very lucky to own that prize because how rich ones are, it is impossible to get a chance to visit the Star City. After back from ONL, we had some psychology slot where they told us our positives and negatives behaviour. Hopefully we could improve ourselves and change to the better.

January 29, 2011

Saturday

It's time to say goodbye. We packed our belongings and checked out at around 9.40 am. It was very hard to say goodbyes to all when we had so much fun and had an awesome week together. Although we just knew each other, but the bond that we made is too strong that it felt like bursting into tears when we had to leave each other back to where we came from. We're off to Kuala Lumpur at 11.20 am and had to wait few hours for our next flight at LCCT. We gave a farewell hugs before departing.