LIMA '15: Pre-show

Still trying to move on from LIMA '15? Apologies for if you decide to continue reading this and the upcoming 2 blog posts, your mission will fail miserably..at least a week or month or two :P

This post will be so unfamiliar to the most of you as it's what happened behind the scenes ;) Let's doooo thisss!

Being part of the LIMA Volunteer Programme in 2011 and 2013, no doubt I jumped at the offer of being part of the 10 people team, named the Volunteer Leaders. Basically, the 10 of us are put in charge of different departments to handle in terms of volunteer recruitment and ensure they know their job specifications. The Volunteer Management Department(VMD) is as follows:

Registration: Vern, Gup

Organiser Office: Char, Shafirah, Izyan

Operations: Shamin

Liaison Officer: Syaim, Umul, Jaudah, me

On the 6th of March, five of us had to go up to Langkawi earlier than the volunteers in order to prep for the event. What that basically means is try to settle everything before the volunteers arrive so they wouldn't need to stay back late to get things done like we did previous years haha Lucky them.

I was more than happy to do it although it entailed way more work than before. That's cz I get to skip boring ol' classes!!! hahaha Kidding!!! (not) I mean, working with your favourite people in Langkawi..what more can you ask for? hehehe

Us in Subang airport awaiting our flight

As soon as we touched down on the familiar land of Langkawi, Aizad picked us up and informed us of the change in plan. Plan was to check into our hotel before heading to the Mahsuri International Exhibition Centre(MIEC) to welcome the Minister of Defence. But nope! He was arriving soon, so we rushed to the hall to prep.

 One with the big guy!

The minister was really nice, like a happy baby to be exact haha He was all excited and smiley throughout his tour! Even invited Gup and I to some conference or meeting with other ministers and big shots (which never happened cz we had no clue what he was talking about lolol).. and our favourite quote of his- "One more week, guys!", said the minister with a toothpaste-advertisement smile right smack in front of Gup's face hahaha

Dinner that first night was Turkish Kebab! The same one we had back in 2013. Except...back then it was a small pushcart, now it's a shack! Good business, I see.

Still as good, but no more deer meat :(

Maneuvering around was made easy this time round as we were provided with a Nissan Serena to move around! It was because our hotel, Senyum Inn was the opposite direction of Cenang Beach hahaha Nolah, that's not the real reason... some nights/mornings, some of us would have to go to/back from work earlier/later than the rest. So that's for that.

developed an attachment to our beloved Serena

morning faces

Every day for a week, we're just busy with our respective workload in the very hot office, being very sweaty and oily. Lucky the Registration team who moved to their cave on like the third day we were there(cz they have air-con!!!) The OO wasn't in the most conducive condition to work in, but there was nothing we could do but buy supplies of cold drinks, namely Starbucks and Boost from the airport next door to cool ourselves down hahaha (read: excuses!)

us, pretty much on a daily basis

take a guess on which is mine :P

We needed a spark in our boring routined "cacing kepanasan" life on one day, so snuck out we did! Gup and I went to Cenang for tea time, while the rest went back for a nap hahaha Kinda backfired cz we were asked to go back to the office for some work *face palm* It was worth the adrenaline though LOL

sneaky tea time at Red Tomato

We weren't tied to the office during the first 3/4 of the week since we had a lot of time to prepare things like the nametags and delegates' folder...which was nice, cz we had the freedom to take our showers and have dinner outside before going back into the office.

tried the new Honey Vanilla Macchiato. The honey was yummy, but it doesn't go with coffee :(

Being part of the organizing team has its perks. Free fancy dinner, for one hehe MD had a small meeting with the entire office and at the end of the serious conversation, he announced that we'll go for dinner that night. So exciiiiited for free foooood! Free food with awesome people, even better!

LIMA team at Sun Cafe

To my surprise, Miss Azlin wanted to share food with us! She's a regular girl after all! :X Miss Azlin, Gup, Umul and I ordered a few main courses and share share :D I love doing that cz my logic is, we get to taste a variety of food without sacrificing the portion.

spaghetti, pizzas, lasagna

beef lasagna

chocolate lava dessert

the lemony dessert on the left was so refreshing! Very much preferred to the lava.

Our breakfast every day was supplied by the tour agency HW LIMA works with in dealing with the volunteers' accommodation and travel (eg. bus), since Senyum Inn doesn't provide breakfasts. I have a tiny little complaint- the breakfasts are so lunch-y. As in, we get rice with chicken and gravy almost every day with maybe a fried rice or fried noodles or two in between.

One morning, I was just like "Screw it. I need some breakfast that is breakfassy. Who wants to go to McDonald's?" hahaha We're pretty much the earliest to arrive in the office on most days, so we had time to spare before work begun.

now, this is breakfassy breakfast.

...and then, back to work. Delegates' schedules after schedules, the never-ending delegates' list updates, printing of delegates' names for the folders, arranging the welcome packs. Man, there was a lot of confusion! Especially when the list updates are super last minute *sigh*

my favourite colleagues

Work was eye-straining and brain-mushing lol On the bright side, we have our own workspace! Not sure if the rest were as excited as I was, but I was so damn happy to have a desk to myself hahaha Not that I don't already have a study table of my own back in the hostel, but having desk in an office made me feel sorta like a grown up haha I just can't wait to grow up, huh?

busy me and a drained Syaim

Thennnnn..the day we've all been anxiously waiting for.... *drumrolls* The volunteers are coming to Langkawi!!!!!! Slight tension that morning as there was some complication back in Kuala Lumpur. Thank God it was Vern, Shafirah and Izyan who was there to handle the volunteers. Knowing Vern, no matter how complicated and stressful the situation, he'd remain composed and calm and find a solution. Phew!

Some volunteers were rather irresponsible, bailing on the morning itself. Some funny ones too..they were already on the bus, but didn't sign on the attendance sheet, leading to Vern thinking they're not on site. We called our respective "lost" sheep and off went the bus!

before the sheeps went missing

Met the volunteers at Melati Tanjung, where Gup, Char and I moved into (cz Senyum Inn was so unhappening hahaha). While we were groggy and sleepy, although ecstatic to meet them, they were so energetic! It made me wonder if they're that excited about LIMA, then one of them told me they slept the entire journey. And it all made sense then hahaha 

our sheeps!!! our hungry sheeps :(

...and the wolf lmao

MD gave a short speech, like 2-minutes short, and passed the time over to us. We introduced ourselves by department so they'll be able to put a name to a face.

Head of Registration, Suren with VMDs, Gup and Vern

Liaison Officer VMDs, Syaim, myself, Jaudah and Umul

The volunteers were segregated by departments in order to get their uniform, name tags and specific briefing on what their jobs were for the following day. Sorry LO team for the complications! :'(

Administration team

LO team, yes, that's me on two chairs XD

Registration team

Operations team

Having the experience of being an LO, I know the volunteers would have nothing much to do on the 2 days before the event. Their responsibilities were basically to contact their Accompanying Officer(AO), arrange a meeting and to show them around the hall. That would be a maximum of 2 hours? The rest of the day is usually spent fanning themselves and sit around the Volunteers' Lounge.

During my days (gosh, I sound old!), I never got to sit around cz there were booklets to be done. So I'd help with the booklet-making process. But this time, we've done it all...so that leaves them with nothing to do :/

Good thing there was the Opening Ceremony Welcome Pack to be done, over a thousand of them. Since LO has the time and manpower, I got them to do it for us heheh Special thanks to Faris for helping me so much in coordinating the task! I'm so glad to have him in my team cz he's very responsible and reliable :D

factory workers :P

The packs were done in a snap of a finger! However, certain contents were still not available, so we had to wait for the stocks to come before going for Round 2. Thanks to the suppliers, we had to do a 2-time job and at a super last minute.

The LO VMDs, together with some volunteers had to finish up the delegates' folders (which was found to be messed up) till like 2am or later. I was so sleepy drunk, my brain almost shut down.

We were running on less than 4 hours of sleep, Syaim took any opportunity to just nap lolol

giving Syaim a foot massage hahaha

Just one day before the event day!!! Things were starting to come together. We had different tasks to handle and lots of impromptu moments that had to be dealt with..stressful, but these things can't be learnt in school. And it's part of the fun of working at LIMA, really hahaha..as sadistic as that sounds :/

Since there were four of us as LO VMDs, Miss Azlin gave us different tasks to handle. Syaim and Jaudah was to be at the Delegates' Info Counter, where the AO's would collect the folders. Umul was in charge of the booklets, in case of any additional delegates who were visiting or if there's a change in name. I was put in charge of the Delegates' List for the exhibitors. I liked what I did, was kinda fun meeting the exhibitors, but a little intimidating too.

LO's for the Prime Minister

This was also the day I didn't have any sleep at all. Reason was the hand fans stock for the Opening Ceremony's Welcome Pack only arrived at 12.30am. With a manpower of less than 20 people, we got it all done by 4am. Craziest thing I've done.

Went back to the hotel for a shower and got ready by 5am for the bus. I managed to steal a couple minutes of sleep on the bus thanks to Muiz's shoulder hehe Then it was just the event day, running on zero hour of sleep.

New experiences every LIMA, definitely lol

Andddd that's it for the pre-show! Event days are more exciting, wait up for it :)

Ps: On my way to Malacca to meet some LIMA peeps!!! Talk about trying to move on :P