Hutang Aku Dengan dotwrite (aka My Debt With dotwrite)

(Warning : Contents of an alumni's mushy ramblings up ahead:P)

Late last year I was invited to be a guest writer on dotwrite by Ren Chang, and he asks that I write about the Sunnybears, this crazy bunch of AIESECer friends that I have (better known as the Youthopia 2005 OCs) , and to write about the "special bond" that exists between us bears, which I believe he finds quite inspiring :P

Well for past few months I have been seeing emails recruting newies to join the dotwrite team to replace the "old geezers", one of them being Ren Chang himself :P.

So yeah, I figured it's about time I fulfilled my promise ya? (Nope, Ren Chang I havent forgotten..:P)

I've actually put off writing about the Sunnybears, because simply speaking, I don't think there is any amount of writing that can do justice to the bond that we have. Our friendship, though definitely strengthened and sealed as lifelong friendship by the time we spent on Youthopia, definitely did not start with Youthopia itself. All of us already knew each other in AIESEC for at least 3 years prior to being in the OC, grew up and build up AIESEC in UTM together, saw AIESEC in UTM almost being disbanded and saw it being declared full status together, and when finally we were given the honour of hosting NLDS in UTM for the first time ever, everything fell into place, and I don't think that any of us in the team ever doubted that we WILL be one of the people who made Youthopia the event to remember.

And what a team it was. With personalities so diverse and different, we could have easily turned into just another group with little divided cliques in them. But in our own dysfunctional way, we melded and made it work :)

I guess the moment that it really hit, what an absolutely great team I was in, was on the Opening Dinner of Youthopia itself. Unlike pretty much every other AIESEC event that I have been to, the Opening Dinner went so smoothly that we had around half an hour extra time before we could announce the time to break the fast and have dinner. With all the introductions, speeches and lucky draw said and done, Megat and I (the emcess) were getting all panicky and stuck at how to pass the extra 30 minutes. As we were showing the sponsors' video (thought of at the spur of the moment), we went backstage to discuss what to do next with two other OCs, Wei Ling and Jinn Kae. After some hurried conversations, we decided on showing a short documentary Megat has made, and as the four of us stood there looking at each other hoping so much that we won't screw up the Opening Dinner...

...we hugged.

A really spontaneous, warm, we're-in-this-together-hug.

I think any lesser team would have started pointing fingers at each other and curse and say things like "You didn't plan this well enough!" or "How come you don't have Plan B!"...but we resolved it with a hug:)

But that was more than year ago.

Now, most of us have gone our separate ways, found jobs, gone on traineeship..pretty much established a routine "adult" life. Though we don't see each other as much as we used to (during Youthopia days we were constant makan amd mamak companions :P), being geographically apart and all that, we still are, and will remain...the Sunnybears :).

It's the kind of friendship that you can easily pick up where you left off... When we meet again, the inside jokes are still familiar, the reactions and facial expressions are still as you remembered...the only difference is that our stories are richer, our views wider, and hopefully, our love and appreciation for each other's friendship, stronger.

When we were still members in AIESEC, we alwasy ask our alumni, "How has AIESEC helped shaped your career?," "How has AIESEC helped you achieve the success you have today?" And they will always give some standard AIESEC textbook answers like "It helped me develop my communication skills etc etc etc....":P

For me, as a young alumni still struggling to find my place in the less than ideal working world ( a far cry from AIESEC where there ARE people genuinely trying to make the world a better place), I cannot say for sure AIESEC has given me that much of an edge skills/capabilities-wise...

...but what I CAN say for sure is that, whenever I get discouraged and start feeling frustrated at what a screwed-up world it is, all I have to do is lift my head up and stare at the picture tacked on my cubicle wall, of a bunch of smiling youths in white shirts and blue jeans...

...and I know that there is still a lot, a lot, A LOT, of good in this world :)

"What more can you ask for from 4 years of love and labour in an organization, than the knowledge that you have in return, something that might possibly...last? A warmth that will stay with you your whole lifetime..."