Dedicated to Diamond

First house party out of the way...Diamond inducted its juniors in style. Friday night, 8pm, juniors await their punishment at Jap Garden, while the seniors had closed...door? meetings in the Foyer. A stage setup where the security guard sits...then they were brought in, to raucous name calling, one by one, a la Harry Potter's Sorting Hat. Everyone did a little courtsy of sorts...cute.

A fantastic night ensued - all met up with their pet families, SOME with the wrong ones. The seniors were given strict instructions, under pain of death, to accept any "illegitimate kids" who owned up as their own. REALLY hilarious scenes of 2 pet parents and 6 kids mushroomed, no thanks to bad letter writing habits.

Then...the food, standard issue dining hall fare...then the junior performances. As befits tradition, the junior boys INVARIABLY ripped off Malaysian Idol, while the girls danced their way through the annals of time, from the 60's Dancing Queen to the Linkin Park of the new millennium. Glad to see ALL girls were not afraid in parading their stuff...we boys have but the purest of intentions.

Seniors...video, tearjerker, the Muaz-es and Taj-s of Bangsawan reminding what kinda seniors we'll have to be. Then the assassination ceremony. With as little fuss as possible, the juniors were blindfolded (judging by the way they could still stare squarely into each others' faces as they gabbled on nervously, you'd imagine the blindfolds weren't working), led gently (in most cases) by their leering pet parents off to the Orde Cosmos...and seated in a circle. Samurai-esque.

THEN the Scream. Nabila (host for the night) told them (cue: ominous music) SOME juniors had found the wrong pet families...and therefore, as Diamond focused on teamwork, all were to be punished together. A dizzying spectacle of water and flour followed, all seniors tucking in happily at the Feast. Juniors, of course, in true KYUEM fashion, retaliated by hugging their favourite seniors.

THEN the diamond cheer, then the inevitable milling around to say teary goodbyes to newfound family, then the promises to stick together for better or worse...We'll see, Diamonders.

But then again...Diamonders this year are a very unique breed, artistically able and gung-ho about everything, and we seniors promise we'll give you a unique dose of Tender Love and Care...

...we owe it to our seniors.