Manusia seperti bintang-bintang bertebaran di langit,
Dunia serupa bulan bulat sekadar satu cuma,
Mengapa kita kehilangan daya membancuh warna,
Seperti bintang mengilau cahaya ke bulan purnama?
Berlagulah di serunai hayat yang senafas hirup,
Nyanyian persaudaraan dalam batin yang harus hidup,
Meski antara kita faham-faham berlainan terpaut.
(Usman Awang, 1959)
On 23rd and 24th May 2015, our research group
organised the first hiking and camping activity for the group. The event took
place at Sallochy, near Loch Lomond which is a decent 1 hour drive from Glasgow
city. Coming from Malaysia, a predominantly rainforest country, going back to
nature and countryside is a reminder of my home.
After picking up everyone, we drove and reached our campsite around 10 am. We
set up our tent and immediately went for our first 2 h walk.
The weather was just brilliant and as I learned earlier on, being here
in Scotland, a nice and sunny weather is a precious commodity. You have to
enjoy it while it lasts. The view along the way is just breathtakingly
beautiful. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
We had our lunch afterwards, and we went out again
for a second walk while some of us stayed behind to play board games.
The weather is still very nice at this point, so we
decided to go for a longer hike up a nearby hill for ~3 h.
We were back at the campsite in late afternoon.
Everyone was very hungry at this point, and we fired up the barbeque pit. There
was a light shower but that didn’t stop our chef (Dimitrios) to barbeque a
whole campsite worth of food! We had a card games afterwards in the tent while
we wait out the rain to abate.
We got our campfire up and running when the rain
subsided, and the marshmallows and sticks came out! As camping traditions go,
this one can hardly be left out. Our marshmallows grilling was cut short by
further downpour but by that time everyone was full of marshmallows and ready
to go to bed.
The next morning, we got up, had our breakfast and
started to pack up our tents and stuff. Some of us decided to continue the
adventure a bit longer (~ 4 h), so we went for a hike up Conic Hill near
Balmaha. It was a pleasant hike with a lot of steps and a bit more difficult
towards the top, although it can be harder on knees on the way down. It is a
lot windy on top but the view is priceless.
As I observed so far, the prevailing thought among
the international students is to form or join nation-based support societies.
While this is good in term of reducing the feeling of alienation in foreign
land and having support from people of the same culture, it is undeniable that
full dependence on such groups can further deepen the division between local
and international students.
It is of my belief that to remove that feeling of
alienation and bridging the gap, group activities such as this would serve the
purpose. People would have different approaches to this; some would feel
apprehensive while others would have no problem at all. My approach is as
simple as bungee jumping; just take the leap. A variety of group activities
would benefit the more apprehensive people as they would like to feel
comfortable doing something in front of their peers without feeling
self-conscious.
There is a whole new world behind that feeling of
alienation. Once I get to know my peers, I know that some share my aspirations
for world peace, some are as enthusiastic when discussing regional politics and
some others simply share my love for video games. From there, establishing a
good teamwork is just a straightforward path.
This is one of the events that we hope to repeat in
the future, to strengthen the bond we have as a group and to have brilliant
exchanges of idea between us while keeping ourselves fit and healthy.
Special thanks to Mrs Monika Warzecha and Miss Elanor Brammer
for making this event possible, to Mr Chinnakrit Prasertwongsa, the one not always
in these superb pictures because he’s the one taking them, and to Dr Dimitrios
Lamprou for bringing more food than we could possibly eat. This is one of the
events that we hope to repeat in the future, to strengthen the bond we have as
a group and to have brilliant exchanges of idea between us while keeping
ourselves fit and healthy.
If you would like to see more photos from the group day out please click here.
About the Author: Mr Muhammad Taufiq Bin Mohd Jailani. Taufiq is a PhD student currently working in
development of drug-loaded nanoparticles for targeted lung cancer therapy after several years of service as a hospital pharmacist.
Fantastic blog, thank you for sharing, great photos, My team went on a team building london event last year and was very beneficial to moral and team building, very professional company, check them out http://www.espionagemissions.com/team-building-in-london
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