Sunday, July 17, 2005

tell me tell me who's the best

of course my OG moogle lah~

you guys rock! best OG of UOC'05. my pride and joy.

long time no blog. suffering from a tiny bout of fever and headache. watched bits of minority report. interesting direction and cinematography. now i don't understand CSI 'cos i never watch the beginning. =( never mind got new york later.

long post ahead.

camp was a blast. let's go day by day.

day one

lugged my heavy bag to school to hall 15 common hall. said gd mornings to my fellow seniors and main commers. hung around and read newspaper while preparing our fake freshie jac to his role. jac is actually a year 2 student, but he's posing as a freshie in case we need someone to spy on the group or to raise morale and spirits. had mini briefing from my GL, jamie before setting off to boon lay MRT to meet our group. and wow! by the time we got there 10 mins late, most of my freshies were there already! so chelsea and i bumped along to mac to book seats to have brunch. i saw 2 of my tj band juniors on the way to lunch after their medical checkup. chatted with 2 of the girl freshies. had lunch. go NTUC buy biscuits and water for freshies.

after brunch we all made our way back to NTU. we seniors taught them some cheers and ice breakers. initially the atmosphere was still quite foreign. then my chairman of committee aka slave driver got me to narrate the opening GL skit. so i was backstage rehearsing with the 8 GLs and the chief GL shilun who were being all funny. opening skit drew many cheers as each of their GLs came onstage to introduce their group names. and it was one lame skit with lame actions. so quite funny also. then introduce the main people in action. kaixiang my chairman, shilun and of course the chief programmer mingxu.

then it was round school games for the afternoon. had the squeeze-people-onto-newspaper game, squeeze-people-into-a-toliet-cubicle game, pass-food-using-mouths game, protect-mummy-from-water game, which got them soaking wet. then there's a game where they figure out a route through 16 squares via trial and error, almost slipped on the water and detergent. then there's the spiderweb game with added mustard, honey flour on the raffia strings. there's passing-the-chairs also. pretty standard. the group was pretty enthusiastic with the games. we seniors got them shouting the cheers and singing songs to please our dear programmers.

getting tired as we made our way back on foot to comm hall for dinner. got them to rest and play more ice breakers to rest their tummies. then it was team fortress. made our way to coffee club express where programmers briefed them. one boy and one girl, holding hands at all times, to solve clues about NTU given to them. answers are found at places where they have to go pass 'police', programmers and seniors with water guns and sponges and emulsion paint. alex, my AGL and i got bored sitting around and looking at 2 seniors play pepsi-cola, so we decided to grab 2 extra sponges and walk around and scare people. quite fun!

then it was initiation. most fun for us seniors. we blindfolded our freshies and led them through stations around campus and do ridiculous things. first was a giant slide, which we made them believe they were sliding down nanyang lake. along the way we tickled them with leaves and branches and irritated them. =) got them to wash off the detergent used to make the slide smoother as it'll cause rashes on sensitive skin. then walked to heritage centre where they ate disgusting concoctions of mustard wasabi and chilli sauce on cornflakes. then made them feel and pass a squid, fish and tofu. the girls were super funny! and they dropped the things so many times. so funny so funny. then we walked the neverending stairs up to SSC where they played the cat and mice game. prior to that the programmers loaded them with flour, eggs and water. then it got so late we didn't have time to play our last station which was the tunnel walk. and it was a nice station!! was looking forward to it. but oh well. went back and had supper before turning in so tired. lights out at 5am.

day 2

woke up at 7am. had breakfast before walking in a slight drizzle to SRC pool. the rain was intermittent and forced us to start late. then it started and after 2 hours plus it rained again with thunder and we were forced out of the water again. groups were left with one station. so decided to cut exercise and proceed back to comm hall. but for my group, our last station was the confidence jump which was decided if the rain stops before 12pm we'll proceed with the jump. it was the 3m and 5m diving board. so exciting. it was also equally exciting watching them jump. and the time leading up to the jump.

dragged our sleep-deprived bodies back to hall15. had lunch before having series of talks. our NTU cheerleading team came and gave a performance cum tiny teaching session of the standard lift of the girl onto the guys' hands. quite fun. then had sponsors talks where i went back to hall 7 to do hall stuff with hall office. escape boring talks. hee~ came back in time for fright night preparation while the freshies do their secret pal(SP) stuff.

slacked around till about 8pm where us 'ghosts' made our way to north spine in the union van. haha~ the sight of 10 plus ghosts all in a van was quite hilarious. programmer meifeng got us to our stations. i was doing a line of absolute-dark corridor of tutorial rooms. with me was huiru, jasmine, rick and allan. we managed to scare the girls with sudden grabbing and quietly crouching in one corner and jumping on them as they walk by. started at 10pm and the last couple only walked through at 3.30am. it was really really tiring and draining. lights out 5am.

day 3

my roomie huiru and i couldn't wake up at 7am together with the rest. so we slept in till about 10am before making our way to SRC field 2 for war games. my group really enjoyed it and was really perked up and enthusiastic. there was NG 100 seconds, fris-fruit, frisbee with balloons of flour/coke and later papaya. and my group was the ultimate winner of all groups. haha~ they're really good with it. i cheered so much with the rest. then there was a flag game. the last one was human sandwhich, where all of us seniors played. got so dirty with muddy water and water bombs. but prior to that, the moment i stepped into SRC and my chariman sees me all clean, he came over and rubbed mud on my hair and face already, despite my screams. and later shilun came along with a whole pail of muddy water and emptied on me. i screamed and hit him nonstop after that. so as you see, everyone was dirty so we needed a bath right? here's where the finale game came in. the programmers prepared close to a thousand waterbombs just for it. lined them up on the cricket line. the game was supposed to protect our GLs from bombs coming from other groups. but of course, everyone got wet, both defenders and attackers. and when the game ended after 5 mins, the remaining bombs were 'free-for-all' and own time own target. we had a bundle of joy playing this during seniors camp. now i just grabbed the bombs and aim and threw. don't care who. my own freshies came and attacked me, but i was more concerned with my revenge, so i attacked the heads and programmers and fellow seniors and some freshies. but we all got wet and all the mud washed off. so it was real refreshing. then as we ended war games, it was tradition to mud-dunk the heads and the GLs. but my too-enthusiastic group mud-dunked us seniors too. so in the end, i was ALL muddy, and had a tough time washing it off my clothes.

by the time we finished bathing it was close to 4pm. then we proceeded with mamasan, where we 'married off' our girl freshies to their guy secret pals. we made them answer weird questions and sing songs and do stuff before they could go off with their SPs. it was quite fun with more 'on' guys. then we seniors went to crystal jade for dinner together before setting off to Coco latte along mohd. sultan for clubbing night. but the screw up was coco latte was playing trance. eewwwww. so we chilled out downstairs with happy-hour rates. drank some jim bean, hoegaarden and 2 cosmos. still not very high. does that mean my alcohol tolerance is not too bad? then groups started to move to mdm wong where there's also no cover charge for both guys and girls. we seniors went in and danced till 1am. music and DJ was good. but the smoke was not as bad as chinablack last year but the music's loudness left me a little deaf when i stepped out of the club. then we boarded the bus back to school and went to sleep. lights out at 3am.

day 4

woke up at 645am. packed our bags and checked out of our rooms. after breakfast all the groups boarded the buses to sentosa. alex, peggy, kaixiang, shilun and i went to sentosa in one of the freshies' car. and surprisingly we were one of the first people to arrive at palawan beach. so we played cards on the sand. quite a nice thing to do under the shade. beach games started with frisbee and handball. my group's really good with handball but sucked at frisbee. so decided we can only play with round things but not flat things. =) had lunch on the sand again. played 2nd round of beach games which my group truly enjoyed too. i was caught with a bout of headache from too much sun. =(

then we had tons of free time with dinner and chit chat and crapping around. at 9pm we made our way to changi aloha chalets where we checked in and rested for the night. the view there was beautiful. just too many insects and mosquitoes. had good times just slacking and talking in the room. lights out at around 2am.

day 5

woke up one of the latest. hee hee~ before we all boarded the bus to NTU to let the hall people collect their keys to their rooms. while all of them were dispatched to their respective halls, the rest of us played games again, and yixiang one of the GLs conducted one really funny mass game. quite fun.
then amazing race started and my group was the last to leave. we went to NIE, bukit timah to have milo dinosaur and prata, harbourfront to buy some disgusting stuff, cityhall to eat those disgusting stuff which included baby food(peas and carrots mashed up), wasabi, cheese, ginger beer, maggi mee, pork liver paste, chilli sauce, thousand island. the baby food is the most disgusting thing to eat. ever. i ate tons of pork liver paste with wasbi and downed a lot of thousand island. it was the most disgusting food comp ever. the tj council ones were at least edible. then the group went around to look for places shown on photographs given to them and had to take one picture similar to the one given, and one with them inside the picture. i didn't follow them, but according to reports and the time on the digital camera, they really ran around like it's a race. and my seniors were so shagged by it. wonder where their energy came from. amazing.

jasmine and i went to carrefour to get BBQ supplies. then together with alex went to eat gelare! haha~ before heading back to aloha in his dad's car. came back, i was so tired i actually slept for an hour before waking up to get my freshies ready for cheer fight. although the M groups were reigning champions since the cheer fight started (including my year! it was really exhilarating! just shout and shout and shout), we didn't win this year. oh well~ let other people win sometimes lah. the freshies were somewhat disappointed. but they were ok after a while. =)

as we got ready for BBQ......it started to rain. darn. so we seniors cooked in the kitchen for our juniors. by the time we're done it was probably 3am. i went to bathe and rest while the rest of them started drinking outside. most of the freshies went to bed too. then at 4 plus am it was time for our tradition. we blasted their aircons for 15 mins before sneaking in, stealing their blankets and dunking them in ice cold water. then the seniors ran into our room and locked the door so intially the freshies had NO idea who did it. after they calmed down alex went out to talk to them. haha~ hey. we got it last year too! minus the water. i woke up shivering so badly. can still remember. finally went to sleep at 530am.

day 6

woke up at 9am. had breakfast before gathering to the announcement of our pagent couples, best freshie awards and group awards of cheer fight champs, fair-play award and best OG, which we won!! and that left my juniors really really over the moon. after we breaked camp officially, we got our group back to our chalet and talked to them for awhile. got their sentiments about the camp overall. most of them were really appreciative of us seniors and how caring we were, feeding them bi ba gao and honey lemon water and strepsils. they also thanked their fellow freshies too. the entire group was really cooperative, no scandals nor problems within one another and it was good 'cos we had a variety of personalities and that contributed to their 'self-entertaining' factor and that they didn;'t need us seniors to keep them occupied. they can do it among themselves.

ah. what a camp. what a group! moogle. best OG. =) we went to tampines mall foodcourt for our lunch before heading home. took tons of photos. really enjoyed it. looking foward to a KTV and bbq outing.

reaching home, i checked mail which was flooded. watched abit of LOST marathon before leaving for tokyo kosei wind orchestra concert, which was part of WASBE conference 2005. the concert was unbelievably good. they absolutely flawless. played to a sold out esplanade concert hall.

actually i cannot think of a word to describe how good they are. they're truly world-class, the best wind orchestra in the world. i never heard such perfect execution. every single player is a master of his instrument, effortlessly playing each and every note and every player coming together to produce such a perfect piece of music, every composer and conductor's dream. the conductor douglas bostock, english, was very good. he's very precise and expressive and the orchestra is very sensitive to his conducting. very good chemistry despite an english conducting an orchestra comprising all japanese. as i sat there and listened to every piece they played, i was stunned. really too shocked to speak at how good they are. at 3 pieces it was SO good we clapped and got the conductor to reappear onstage 3 times before we stopped clapping and allowed them to carry on with the program.

about esplanade concert hall. i realised it is actually a really good concert hall. even though the orchestra is playing at forte (loud in music italian terms) i could still hear each and every instrument, even the softer ones like the harp and english horn. truly amazing. a world-class orchestra in a world-class hall. i couldn't ask for more.

gave them a standing ovation. amazing amazing.

after that went to meet sam to check out his friends playing at baybeats. quite impressed with the band. vertical rush. had dinner before going home. really really tired from camp, and i think i'm still mad to go out after that.

but the concert was really worth my sleep-deprivation time. truly. must get my hands on the CD recording.

i have many ramblings on the NKF issue, being a person who is engaged in fund raising and volunteer work and not really liking NKF's methods. but i know that the cause is still right. they're real people who need the money to do dialysis in order to survive. that's probably why i haven't withdrawn from my monthly contribution from my POSB bank.

my grouse is with durai and his extravagance. and his board of directors. this issue dwells on ethics and morality. not so much on transparency, maybe only the fact that NKF should have been more transparent with its finances and expenditure reports. especially since they get so much donations.

why did he spend so much of NKF's money, and his board knows nothing about it? why does he command such a high salary?

ok..i shall ramble some other time. time for bed.

toodles. =)

This girl posted at 9:48 PM