Taaruf week is the UIA name for orientation week, and it's basically this horrendous period of time that is purposely organized in a torturous way for all students to have a kick start for the learning process in Gombak. It's filled with briefings and activities and it drags on for a whole week, and I know it sounds fine, that it sounds 'bearable', but to even say that taaruf week was unbearable would be an understatement.

Have you ever heard of the water bottle metaphor on stress? That stress is like a bottle filled with water, and when we have it, it's like holding a water bottle in front of you without bending your arms. It's the kind of pain that you can bear for short periods of time. After a short period of time, you have to release the tension, before lifting the bottle back up, and repeat that cycle! That way you can withstand the water bottle longer. If you don't take breaks, it'd bery very painful. And the longer you stay that way, the more pain you have to endure, until one point your arm can't take it anymore, it might dysfunction. So that's stress, but instead of an arm, stress' medium is mentality. If you don't handle stress well, you might go insane. In order to stay sane, you have to take breaks, you need to have a release, a point where you let go of the stress, and ease yourself for the upcoming stress. Surely stress is inevitable, you have to go through things that stresses you in your life, the differences in different people, is that the frequency of going through it is different.

So Taaruf week for me, is like holding that water bottle for 4 full days. There was no time at all. At All. For releasing any stress, or to relax, or to sleep, or to reprogram my brain for another briefing endurement. Sure I sat with my usual group of friends, but we didn't even had time to even talk properly, or have time for ourselves —  heck, my clothes are still in my luggage, my table is still empty, my locker is still dirty and my electrical appliances are still in their boxes, and the cherry on top of this total lack of sundae, I'm still awkward with my own bed. 

It was torturous because it was mentally challenging. They were like poking at my brain and waiting for me to burst and roar at them. The thing is, it's not like people would listen to all the briefings. Of course, maybe, there is a slight 1% chance students would actually want to know all that, but the majority would pretty much not want to be bothered with all these terms and conditions of being a UIA student. Just put it on paper, skip to the dotted lines, and go on with life! If we get sued, the police would tell us what to do. If the Mahallah needs an evacuation, all the rules would be stated in the announcement. Everything relevant in those briefings would be deliberately repeated when those things actually happen, which is not the case for the present.

A number of people skipped Taaruf week, partially or entirely. The notion of simply not attending the briefings is nice, but the prospect of the consequences are not. They have these attendance slips with 8 boxes on them. Supposedly we'll get stickers at some points of the day, the committees said if we don't have stickers on our attendance slips, we'll have to re-Taaruf which is attending taaruf during the next intake. The thing is, there aren't a definite 8 slots in the tentative, so we had no idea of which slot they'd distribute the stickers and at what time; at the start or at the end. Surely I didn't get all 8, none of us did, I'd admit that. Whether it was an accident or on purpose, I won't reveal, but I'm glad I didn't get full, because I highly question the sanity of those who did. We did predict someone would have a mental breakdown and just screams at the committee with all the indecent words in the worlds, which would actually entertain us very much. Alas we didn't stay long to see if that actually happened.

Time stopped. I don't think I've ever felt time proceeding so utterly slow that it is not an exaggeration when I say that one day felt like three the least. I remember saying "Ingat tak haritu yang kita bangun lambat and then tersalah lalu tempat brothers nak pergi dewan CAC?" and Sha was like "Itu pagi tadi." and it took me a full minute to realize the timeline, the painfully slow timeline that will not budge. It felt like another dimension, where everything goes on forever and ever. And everyday is taaruf week.

Back in CFS, we did have a bai'ah ceremony, but due to the rain, it was almost cancelled. CFS didn't have a hall that fit everyone. If there's one place that all the new intakes can get together, is the field, and the rain made it impossible, but we did get to do the bai'ah alternatively at our own mahallah. You see, I never quite focused on the bai'ah ceremony. I thought lightly of it, I didn't see it's importance, or even realized how big of a deal it is until now. Every single day the committees kept talking bai'ah ceremony. All the pledge, the song, the leaders, the protocols, like Bai'ah is everything and after going through it, I dare say it is.

Bai'ah is a promise. When we read aloud the bai'ah script, we took a pledge, to obey all the rules, all the things stated in the bai'ah. Similar as to how a husband and wife needs to say their wedding vows in order to officially become married, and how a muallaf needs to say the kalimah syahadah in order to officially become a Muslim, me and the rest of my fellow UIA friends need to say the bai'ah in order to officially become UIA students.

Everything felt like it had purpose. The Taaruf week was purposely done so dreadful for us so that we finally feel the sweetness of accomplishment. I mean, when I took that Bai'ah oath, I looked back at the past week- the dreadful agonizing past week that felt so long and I think of how much I've endured, and that's an accomplishment. For us to take this oath, they have to beat our psychological state to a pulp, and then we'll have this burning spirit of becoming a UIA student. I don't know about the others, but I had goosebumps when the rector officially declared us as UIA students. With all the confetti, and the round of applause, the endearing facial expression on everyone. First years and seniors alike, for once the hall was filled with positive energy, and it was an amazing experience.