Ivan Maulana graduated at the end of the fall semester, but now he’s back, and is couch-surfing his way through the rest of the spring. The native Singaporean sat down with The Argus to talk about his past life as a fire fighter, his love of shotgunning a can of beer in mere seconds, and why the Coxswain is the most important position on the crew team.

The Argus: You grew up in Singapore. How did you end up at a small liberal arts school in Connecticut?

Ivan Maulana: A lot of the people in my high school have gone to Wesleyan. There might be more people from my high school here than there are Wes students from South Dakota. They actually push Wesleyan a lot. I though it would be fun to do nothing in school. I thought I would be doing nothing here, but that was wrong.
The fun part was right but I ended up working way more than I thought I would. That might also be a product of me always wanting to work when I could not be doing work.
I used to think I was going to double major in Dance and Earth & Environmental Studies (E&ES), but there was nothing cross-listed between the two departments.

A: Except “Feet to Fire.”

IM: That’s a stupid class. I didn’t take it because I thought: how do you dance about the environment? I guess there are some themes in common, but I thought it would be very contrived and too political. I wasn’t down with that.
So anyway, with rowing and having to do a lot of rehearsal, I would just lie in bed. My body would be hurting and I would get sick. Instead of getting drunk I was doing a lot of work. So I dropped dance.

A: What was your focus within E&ES?

IM: I’m mostly interested in aquatic and marine environments, especially coastal habitats, which there’s a lot of in Singapore. It’s been really hard for me to find a job in the U.S. My mom always rubs it in because she wants me back home, but I don’t want to go home yet. She says there are more jobs there than people. That’s my plan B, but I’m trying to get a job on a research vessel. I have a job on a boat now (starting in July). The boat is at Puget Sound, near Seattle but even further up towards Canada.

A: You told me before the interview that you wanted to talk about shotgunning beers. When was the your first shotgun?

IM: I learned to shotgun a beer freshmen spring [2008] when I met Chip, a friend of one of the guys on the crew team. His friends really liked shotgunning beer. At first I didn’t really enjoy it, but as my time at Wesleyan progressed I realized that the alcohol content of a can of beer is equal to a shot of liquor. So it makes a lot of sense to drink a can of beer in a single shot. If you’re sitting around trying to start your night, shotgun a beer and things will go well. To some extent I really enjoy the debauchery. It’s almost obscene to put can of beer down your tummy in less that a minute. You probably shouldn’t think about it too much either.

A: Is it true that before coming to Wesleyan you were a fireman in Singapore?

IM: Yeah, every guy out of highschool in Singapore has to do two years of national service. It’s kind of a crapshoot whether you end up in the army, navy, air force, police, or fire department. When I first found out I was going to be a fireman I was upset because I wanted to be in the navy, but I really enjoyed it. The army, navy, and air force are just preparing for scenarios, but we were going out and saving people. My fire station was right in the center of the city, so I learned a lot more about Singaporeans. I went into the houses of poorer people and saw how they lived, I worked with a lot of organizations for fire safety, and got to know the community a lot better, and I felt like a hotshot. Plus they paid me really well. When I was done my commanding officer gave me a plane ticket to travel anywhere. I used it to go to Australia. That was where I did my university applications. I was in a small town in Victoria when I got an email from Wesleyan saying the interview was going to take place in Singapore, so I had to fly home. I applied for the Freeman Scholarship and didn’t get it, but came anyway.

A: What was your craziest fire fighting experience?

IM: There are different kinds of crazy. Whenever I get together with my old fire fighting friends we talk about our first call, the most disgusting, the most casualties.

A: What was the most disgusting time?

IM: My first dead body. It was one of my first days and we went out for a call about a woman who had jumped off a 15-story building and landed on a patio, so no one could get to her. My commander asked for a volunteer to get the body. I was a fresh face and wanted to prove myself, so I volunteered. I was really exited because it was my first dead body.

There are a lot of things you learn in training, but not everything. I hadn’t learned that when someone falls from that far up all their bones shatter. When I went to lift up her leg it was all loosey-goosey. I was really freaked out by that. Her whole body was really soft and it smelled like plasma everywhere. I was freaking out in my mind but trying to keep it together. When we get to the station my gloves smelled terrible, and all the guys were laughing at me because they said no one ever uses their fire fighting gloves for a dead body. The moment I touched the dead body my face was pale. They could tell I was trying really hard to stay calm. After that I was really close with all the guys at the station.

A: What was the most dangerous fire?

IM: It was a factory fire. At this point I was 20 years old and had been promoted to lieutenant. The factory had some kind of chemical powder in it, and there were sacks full of it piled everywhere taller than your head. This was at night, but it was hot. Singapore is so warm that even if the fire isn’t big your always sweating balls in all your gear. We had to move away all these chemicals that might have caught on fire. So there was the firefighting going on, moving around in the dark, and simply moving sacks of the chemicals. There was no one to give the orders but me. I was in charge of 25 men, and some of them were 45-years-older than me with 20 years of experience. They really hated me. I would go home and cry. It was the most stressed I’ve ever felt.

A: As a former member of WesCrew, do you think the coxswain is really necessary?

IM: As a rower I really depended on the coxswain for my mental strength. The whole race happens within 10 minutes, and you’re pulling as hard as your thighs and lungs will let you. My mental reaction was usually to go into a blackout mode, where I’m in autopilot and I’m not paying attention. All you want to do is get to the end. So it really helps to have a person who is focused on the big picture of the race. They keep you connected mentally. That person’s voice keeps you connected to the real world, and you have to do everything she says. I definitely really appreciate the coxswains. They’re great and they have a really hard job to do.

A: You graduated at the end of last semester, but now you’re back on campus. What are you doing to keep yourself busy?

IM: I got back last week. Right now I’m doing a lot of lab work in the E&ES department. I want to get more experience working with data. I’m auditing dance classes, I’m working out a lot, cooking for friends, and going off with my friends to do irresponsible things. Within this past week I’ve hung out more with my friends than I have for the past two years. It’s really nice because I get the best of both worlds. I’m on campus, not paying, and having fun. My only regret is not being able to row now that the team is starting to do so well.