Varsity Lake,
Little did I
know your beauty, little did I know you once have a twin. The emerald grass I straddled
as I bid for shortcut to the library, was once your twin. I guess sedimentation
has slowly turned it to be shallow and eventually swallowed by avalanche of
soils and sediments. It’s regrettable. The beauty that plays an irreplaceable every important role in keeping UM at a cooling temperature.
It’s
sweltering hot nowadays, and everyone is complaining on FB wall. But they don’t
realize that they are repeating the vicious cycle. The number of single
occupancy vehicle is substantially high, blame it on human’s selfishness on own
comfort (riding with air-cond and pumped up songs) and also the ineffective
public transport. Now as SOV increases, carbon emission is high too which
contributes to the heat. As much as you question naively on what has happened
to Mother Nature and victimizing yourself for the torture, please do reflect on
your own carbon footprint.
The weather
pretty much struck our Varsity Lake. No matter how yucky the lake is with the
occasional conspicuous greenish kind of slime, eutrophication, floating dead
fish, pungent smell, at least the amount of water is still at acceptable level.
I was dumbfounded when I witnessed it myself that the merciless Sun has
evaporated 99% of the water that the base of the lake, its sediments, residues
are left naked and exposed. It jabbed my heart.
Thus, I insisted
to take part as a volunteer to clean up despite feeling exhausted, fatigue and out
of breath! This time, I don’t care what people will comment upon seeing the
pictures posted on my wall, in fact, I believe I am gonna set a good role
model.
Wading through
the thick benthic layer is a truly an amazing experience, myriad of memories
gushed into my mind: the layers in the lake I’d learned during form 5, hydrology,
coastal management class, all these felt so unreal when you are experiencing it
genuinely by yourself. Lots of shrieks and laments on how disgusting the experience
for having murky, yucky, ammonia smelled slough all over your leg. No land can
support your weight by means you will be submerged deep in the lake base if you
do not carry your foot for the next step. Funny how this turned to be a joke
for high weighted people. But I became one of the victim too! Blame it on the weight and also cohesion and adhesion forces! Squelching sounds everywhere, and getting boots stuck in the mud.
Numerous types
of wastes could be found. Most of the time the rubbish left us with slight
hint, showing us a parcel of themselves amid the mud, so that we could pull
them out for air. The composition of
rubbish are mainly plastic bags, packaging wastes – surprisingly rice packaging
– bottles, toiletries, glass, cans, woods with nails, paint containers and
rubber. More astonishing “treasures” are like sanitary pad, underwear, clothes,
fish skeleton with the bait still attached to its mouth and e-waste.
As the Sun
getting more cruel on us, Affan called it a day and we headed for light
breakfast. As we gathered for group photo, I never realize the presence of Dr
Halim, the respectable lecturer with mihun white hair and beard.
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| Getting down: I'm still overwhelmed with the experience that we could actually walk on the bottom of Varsity Lake! |
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| Look at the blazing sunlight radiating happily up there. I just enjoy the morning sunshine! |
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| Yes I admit, opening plastic bag with glove full of mud is really tough! |
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| Finally can tapao those waste |
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| Kids having fun! It's good to expose them on environment at tender age. |
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| All Good Samaritans! |
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| Waste segregation in process! |
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| And all the "treasure" in the lake |
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| All my Malay counterparts laughed at my very Cina-ed slang Bahasa as I said "Straw, straw, straw". LOL! |
Despite the scorching Sun, the unbearable sewage-smell, numerous cuts on the feet from clamp shells, it was totally worth my time with high returned of satisfaction. For those who procrastinated and failed to wake up, they lost abundant.
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