A Little Older, A Little Wiser

Malaysia celebrates 50 years of Nationhood in 6 day's time. Yesterday evening, we had our Merdeka Campus Walk (but without the walk) at the Sports Stadium.

The first thing I noticed when I reached the Stadium (after almost half hour of walking from my office at Korporat) was the row of familiar-looking packages of food laid out on a long table. "Not again" was my first reaction. When I got closer, I noticed that the packages were not white but brownish. Ah, we have become wiser. This time around they used EcoPaks which are totally biodegradable since they are made of palm fibre and has no wax coating. Still alot of thrash but let's take it one step at a time. Good job to the organisers of the event.
Remember my earlier post "Please, Walk on the Grass"? I am happy to report that the new pedestrian walkway at the Aman-Damai hostel area (closeby the Stadium) has been completed. They covered up the open drain and now we have walkway which is shielded from the traffic by huge beautiful christmas trees. Another great job, guys. Now let's remove the old pavement of interlocking blocks and plant more grass instead.

Below are some images from the senamrobik that evening.

University top management including
the Deputy Vice-chancellor (Student Affairs),
staff and mostly students at the senamrobik.
Hey, I still haven't got my rhythm

Now we all want to fly - the Jalur Gemilang

The ladies - making their presence felt

More ladies - old friends from HBP

Yes, we are little wiser and we are happy with that. But much more can be done. I had an earlier conversation with Anwar Fazal in my office that morning and we talked about the recent RCE Conference and what more could have been done to internalise our habits and practices, such as not handing out drinking water in disposal plastic bottles and containers. And yes, there were boxes and boxes of drinking water in plastic boxes at the senamrobik. Let's think about how we can overcome this.

I also chatted with Azman, our Registrar. And this is the second time he has surprised me with his ideas for sustainable development. At almost every event, we must have a lucky draw to attract the crowd. But why give them hampers with junk food and wrapping which ends up in the thrash? He suggested giving the lucky participants food coupons to be used in the canteen. I think that is a great idea. We could also give them vouchers to buy books from our USM bookstore or other bookstore - after all, we are a community of intellectuals, right?