Editor’s Space:

Ah..!!! The Monday morning blues are back!!!! We start a new semester with renewed hope and determination of doing well. So let me welcome you folks back to school. Hope you had a wonderful time during your X-mass break, I sure did. As we take our nascent steps into the portals of 2009 I was wondering if any one of us had planned for the year. The first thing I did was to find all the holidays in this year and started the countdown to my next holiday. I was thinking that even though we do not particularly like going to school, it is actually the only time when we can be frivolous about life and enjoy it to the fullest. Many of us take it for granted that we will see all our classmates (except for a few of ‘them’) after we graduate but it is only a myth, because in reality many of us will move to different states or countries and take up various assignments. So to sum it up I would like to suggest to you folks out there to enjoy the last remaining days of school/college life you have left in Oklahoma City University.

Kara Jin.

Christmas: 2008

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is celebrated on the 25th in December. It is a secular celebration and this was acknowledge by the US government in 1870 when it was declared a federal holiday. Christmas was celebrated at OCU prior to December 25th last year. We had a Christmas lunch and there was also a cultural event presented by the Dance and Music school. The cultural program was exquisite and a treat to watch.
I celebrated my Christmas with my family and friends; we had a 6foot Christmas tree which we enjoyed decorating together. The fun of it was decorating the tree in each of our own creative way. While decorating the tree we shared different events we had experienced during the year and sharing it amongst one another brought us together as a family. After we had finished decorating the tree we took snaps with it and laid out the various presents we had brought for one another. Then we were treated to a lavish lunch prepared by my aunt which I must say was AWESOME!!!!! Finger licking, lip smacking, you get the idea...... After that we headed for a round of siesta and were only back on our feet very late in the evening. We then got to opening our presents and wishing each other. The day was over in a blink of an eye and I had a wonderful time which I would cherish and remember for a long time.

SUE CHANG.

INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE

Hi friends. I, Tahira had the opportunity of covering the International Showcase event this year. We had this event on the 20th of November 2008 at Alvin Café and I was instructed by my E-newsletter chief Kara Jin to get to the event by 7:00am. So promptly I was there by 7:12am, hey do not look at me like that because to the best of my knowledge Kara can’t even get up before 9am, well that is another debate altogether. Anyway so as I headed to the event I was greeted by the familiar faces of the three associations which were participating: The Malaysian student association, The Saudi Arabian student Association and The Indian Student Association. We were ushered into the board room of Sodexho which was sponsoring this event. Let me elaborate on the event a little bit, as some of you may know this was an event organized through the assistance of Sodexho and gist of it was for every association to prepare a food item which may be an entrée or a main course or desert and to present it for lunch on that day. After we were seated in the board room we were greeted by the Head Chef who explained the various rules and how their team at Sodexho would assist the participants without actually interfering with the competition. After the serious stuff was done with then the fun stuff began. The teams were allocated different locations in the kitchen and they went about their work. Since I had no work till the food was prepared I stated to contemplate on life and stated to think philosophically for the next few hours. As the saying goes ‘Time and Tide wait for none ’, time just flew by and we had the students pouring in to get into the café. There was a mad rush to get in and as the freshly prepared food was brought out from the kitchen to the café, it caused a minor stampede as people lost all sense of propriety as they were mesmerized by the aromas of the food prepared by the teams. Being a good connoisseur of food I enjoyed the food to such an extent that I was bought by the three teams lock, stock and barrel. The students enjoyed it to the maximum and finally the event came to an end when they ran out of food. But the event was so popular that the café had record sales for the quarter and they requested the MSA which organized it to conduct it more often. Here's the list of the food that were presented at the event.

Saudi Student Organizations – Kabash
Indian Student Organization – Chicken Biryani
Malaysian Student Organization – Harum Kasturi & Kuih Ketayap

I will leave you with some photographs from the event….

Tahira.B

Folks with a heavy heart we bid goodbye to Yuliana Hermanto a.k.a Yuli a.k.a 'Leader' among her close friends.....She was our Graphic designer and she used to help us out in different activities. She has moved to another university as of this semester and we wish her all the best in her future endevours.

Bye.