_____all about them words____

Monday, March 20, 2006

*yawn* Feeling tired now... better hope this update turns out to be coherent.

Had Interact Club's Annual Camp on Thurs and Fri =)

This year's camp was "special", because that there were 4 males out of about 60+ new members.
It's as though guys have suddenly become uninterested in community service. After all the preparation in the morning, the camp officially started at 1pm. As they commenced with the icebreakers, some of us went to East Coast Park to begin our preparations for the games.

It was a long wait, so we played around with all the materials that we have brought. That was when we realised that some of the bananas that we've brought were, well, rotten. So I dug a hole with a bamboo pole and buried one particularly rotten one -_-"

The games went on rather uneventfully, or maybe it was because my station wasn't really interesting. Things only started to get fun when the grand finale was held. The chaotic way in which the members tried to pick up green beans with chopsticks in round 2, the wild and wet round 3 where the members had to fill up a cup by wetting their clothes and some bandanas with sea water, as well as the slightly obscene final round involving a banana tied to each member's waist, all combined to give a fun, albeit chaotic finale. Then it was time for the forfeit for the two losing teams. It was fun to make that vicious concoction of flour, eggs, tomato ketchup, sea water, bananas, and whatever else we could find... but throwing that pail of gooey vomit-like substance at the losing teams was another matter altogether. Anyway...

*description of scene deleted due to gruesome nature of forfeit*

By dinnertime, we finally saw the true Kristin - 90% auntie, and 100% loudhailer. She paid attention to every single detail in all she did, which was supposedly good, if only she didn't tell everyone about how this extra item cost us an extra 50 cents or whatever. Also, she practically force-fed us with all the extra packets of dinner. We joked about how she could be a future economist, advising the Prime Minister on the country's finances. "ZOMG Mr PM, we spent an extra 2 dollars for National Defence this year!"

The night games were fun as well. In the Treasure Hunt, aka "National Treasure", the teams had to go around the college, picking up clues that would lead them from one station to the next. The station at the stairs at the PT was particularly interesting, because it was the darkest and hence the scariest place in the school.

The second day, we had our visit to IMH, aka the trip planned by me ^_^
After the presentation by the IMH staff, followed by the refreshments, we had a tour of the facilities (including a "Thrift Shop", which was something like Cash Convertors, but much much cheaper. One really beautiful painting of a snowy scenery was a mere 18 dollars, for example). Finally, there was the ward visit. Nothing quite prepared us for what was in store. The ward my group visited was quite okay, excluding this man who kept hitting himself on the head, these men which kept talking to themselves, these incoherent men... yeah, you get the idea. It was therefore quite surprising that we were able to carry out our original plan of teaching them origami. Most of them, despite their mental disability, were actually rather normal after all. Seeing the patients' happy looks after completing the folding of whales, penguins, cranes and other origami figures gave us all a sense of fulfillment. The trip seemed to be huge success =)

Still, everyone had their fair share of... well, scares. Like how one of the patients grabbed the water bottle of one of the year 1s before escaping from the ward. It took 3 nurses to subdue him and bring him back to the ward. Three patients surrounded me and bombarded me with questions i didn't understand, and in 3 different dialects, while I was trying to answer my phone call. Zuo Yi was flashed at, literally, by a female patient >.<

In the afternoon, we had the urban hike, which would have been more fun if my group was enthusiastic from the start. Still, it was funny how they struggled to answer the absurb questions in the worksheet. Especially when the indian boy who looked as though he had never entered a library in his entire life took ages to find a book @ NLB, and eons more to find the law of universal gravitation in the astrodynamics chapter of a maths handbook (yeah, that's an example of an adsurb question). What a pity we didn't get to visit the haunted houses at Grange Road at Orchard =(

Oh, enough about the camp =x

Sat was the final round for the World Bank Challenge, to be held at NUS. We initally wanted to forfeit it because none of us could make it. Yet somehow Su-e, Kristin and I were able to squeeze some time out to take part. Eric, Susanto and Adith were able to join us later on as well. The other three teams/finalists were very impressive. Their bulletin boards were filled with colourful pieces of paper, lots of useful information... and our bulltetin board had a clear folder with our proposal in it -_-"

Then it was time for the presentation. The first group, "Fortrees", a team from RGS, presented their project. They were excellent to say the least. Their project showed depth and insight... and was interesting as well. Their presentation included a humorous video and a song. The next team was "No Sweat" from Hwa Chong Institute. Their presentation was in no way inferior to the first group. They had even designed their own clothes for the project, and had this mini fashion show. Then it was the third group, also from RGS, who presented their project on sweatshop labour and poverty in SE Asia. Finally, it was time for us to make our presentation... which I felt was nothing impressive compared to all the groups before us.

Fast forward to the prize presentation ceremony, and to be honest I wasn't very concerned, because I really thought we stood no chance. I guess the others felt the same as well. Surprise surprise, the emcee announced the two third runners-up, and they were... Fortrees and No Sweat. That got us all excited. From the looks we exchanged, the general feeling was "Second! not bad, considering how ill-prepared we were".

Some sort of minor explosion took place at where we were seated when the emcee announced tha the second runner-up was none other than... the second team from RGS. Kristin promptly switched on her "auntie+loudhailer" mode as she "omg!"-ed us. It took a while for the fact that we have won the challenge, as well as 1000 dollars, to sink in. Apparently everyone thought we were the underdogs, and rightly so, except for the judges. Even one of the organisers told us that we were "very heng" to have won.

These two days were really enjoyable. Successful camp + successful IMH visit, entirely planned by me + victory in the World Bank Challenge = Self Confidence +1, Sense of Achievement +1

=D

Quote(s) of the day
[12:31] (nfield) I'm not sfunlk
[12:31] (nfield) drunk
...
[13:12] (nfield) OKAG
[13:12] (nfield) IM NOT DUNK
[13:12] (nfield) DRUNk
[13:12] (nfield) I"M JusT EXFE$ITD RIGK!
...
[13:41] (nfield) i neeed sleep
[13:41] (nfield) nihgt
[13:41] (nfield) nhight
[13:41] (nfield) night

many things unsaid @ 2:27 pm

Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home