Buffetting : Life As a Dogathon Programmer

I was lucky, to be summoned by one of the programmer heads in the latest Dogathon committee as one of them. Since most of my good friends were in it, and for me to lost my direction coming back to the university, I took up the position.

It's a new game, and it wasn't easy.

Brainstorming,
Setting up,
Starting to put pieces together to realize its not working and changing the whole design within hours from the days you have spent,
Having limited amount of resources,
Realizing the limitations you have,
Predicting all possibilities jeopardizing your program,

Kind of a nightmare, but that was what made me love my life.

Changing the design was the nightmare.

From a vertical standing twin arch, I had to minimize it into a single standing one. Not to mention limitations by the cardboard itself of 2mX1m, quite a hard confinement to dabble on.

The nights of trying to put them together and thinking hard on color contrast while consulting my Personal Assistant who (THANK YOU KARMAA) is a freaking talented artist, I practically just knocked out every night trying to live my next day.

Life was literally at its fullest back then, with a lil bit of social media update here and there.

Life as a programmer didn't just revolve around my own program, as it was just setting up and camera angle locking; I had to help out with other programmer's prep like they did for mine.

The PA was a great asset to the programming team, too bad he was hoping to take on multimedia next year instead of being a programmer.

ain't he the cutest PA or what?

The oblivion was 3 days before the Dogathon.

The weather on Friday wasn't bad, but the management was. Wooden pacaks meant to cover the marathon tracks and programmer's boundaries' designs weren't sent to the venue because the lorry didn't come on time. Way to go equipment division!

What else, my humble Hilux have to come into roll.

Thank goodness I'd borrowed it or else we would be sitting vets in the venue.

When we were about to hit the field after 3, after the Friday prayers, Miss Doomsweather decided to pee on us. After a hefty hour of doing nothing, all of us decided to get the ball rolling, DVM  style(with gum boots and all). Seriously, this is the time when you know how useful tools we are told to get ARE.

Friday ended abruptly, with Saturday hitting us even harder.

I was supposed to get my backdrop tested on Saturday, but ended up helping other divisions instead of my own. The parameter was already set up, but Ms Doomsweather decide to throw her PMS on us, with a rain heavier than no other.

I gave up in trying to conduct a test run at all, while the rain continued pouring even after night fell.

Can you imagine 6 guys in the rain trying to put a 50kg banner up around 2 trees under the rain more than 200mm?

It was epic, and thank goodness for the gumboots again.

It was wet.
It was dark only with some lights from the spotlight 500m away.
It was pouring.
It was muddy.
It was cold.

And it was just US again. You never fail to see only that few faces left only in the end of every single Dogathon, and the night before.

The night ended with us going back to the college soaked and holding ourselves together to give a final preparation for the next day. A final cardboard decor 4 hours before we hit the venue the next morning. Wow.

The day itself was just nice, and really was a close call. Ms Doomsweather was on her mood swing, but it wasn't much of a huge one.

The morning was perfect, we were really hoping for a dry night, but the field was still muddy. Dang.

My program went on so so, would have been better if I broke my bubble and promoted harder.

But it would have been even better without our own sponsor doing the same thing for free. Heck, it was Pfizer. The director said I did a splendid job hitting half of my target, while he was expecting less than a quarter.

*shrug shoulder* thanks? I was really aiming for a sell out though.

Anyway, I loved the backdrop. The effect would have been better if the pictures were shot at night.

Wrapping was, easy. Throwing everything?

Life as a programmer was challenging, but honestly I felt really useless, as if I was a failure.

The program didn't turn out as I expect it would.
The participation wasn't impressive.
I had competition, from my own sponsor.
Ms Doomsweather wasn't playing nice.
I don't think I gave it all.

It just feel really devastating when everything ended by 3pm when we started packing. I wasn't in the mood to talk or discuss my program outcome. I just wanted to pack everything and go back to the college.

Everyone else' program was a huge success.

Hide and Seek was a hit, I can literally hear screams every 5 minutes.
Catch and fetch got a haul. The participation was immense.
Master Hunt was better than ever. I heard they've gotten like up to thousand ringgits in sum of the participants.
House of Horror managed to get lots of people towards the end when they've decided to give away the prizes far more lenient.

As compared to mine. As new as the program is, I just didn't feel up to par. Overly ambitious? Very I guess.

I was down to the point I just got all these negative thoughts swirling in my head.

Like when it comes to next year, I'm going to be in a different world again with my current batchmates.
Like why do I have to be the different one again? It's like I have to run away from people because I'm just too afraid.

I ran away from A levels because I was afraid of the pressure.
I ran away from Subang Jaya to Serdang because I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to live with the old life there.
I'd actually planned to runaway from UPM again, because I'm afraid I'm going to be different!

It's like running away is all I do, and sometimes it really boils down to how my family has steered me into.

"There's an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you into the wrong direction"-- JK Rowling.

I don't know. If I were to be more persistent back last september, I would  have been with my batchmates?

Sometimes things just haunt you out of nowhere huh?

Being a programmer was awesome. It's just that, I'm not sure if I will be able to lead divisions next year, seeing how fucked up my program was this year. Will the program be sustained again? I don't know.

It's quite unsettling seeing how being a programer hits me this hard.

Wait, I have another work now, Student Rep of my faculty. Oh great.

After this, I somehow realized, like it or not, I'm destined to be alone.

So be it.

you have to give her credit for the commitment right?