PRE -UNIVERSITY SEMINAR 2009!!
woo! ok, that was faked enthusiasm since i'm still pretty tired. but i felt that way or another throughout the camp, with good food (uh at times), good company, good programme, and GREAT groupmates. a five-days long seminar on the theme: From Crisis to Confidence, Lessons and Opportunities.
Day 1
It starts at home, where i woke up pretty early (but not as early as the rest of the week went), to...BAKE CUPCAKES! i had to make three batches, since it was the first time i was using the recipe, and had a pretty small yield. but, there was double choc (white chocolate coveres) and dark choc centered cupcakes. i managed to finish baking everything and clean up, just that lunch wasn't covered by the time i had to leave. cooked noodles and brought it into the car to eat while my brother drove and picked Trudy up before we headed to Prince George's Park Residences. [fancy name eh? it was prety impressive, definitely much better than NJ hotel i bet. haha] check in went rather smoothly, except that we NJ people didn't get to meet up as a group before we were divided into our seminar groups. so no chance to distribute cupcakes ): but one hilarious thing did happen. wen loong. he was really outstanding at check in. visually that is. he was the only one wearing the BRIGHT RED NJ blazer in the hall. haha. apparently he didn't read the info pack properly, and arrived 2 hours early too! talk about embaressing. oh wells, at least it wasn't me and it started the day with some fun (: ok, from there on it was all seminar group 24!!! my big bag was a little cumbersome, haha, plus my new SLO had to help me carry my cupcakes up to the room. after much hoo-ha before about the impressive rooms, my expectations were pretty high and i was pretty excited to stay in it for the five days, but when i finally DID see it, it was...normal? haha. single bedroom with a closet and desk. sufficient, and clean. besides, we weren't paying for anything for this seminar, so what's there to complain?
1pm: changed into the next attire we had to wear, then explored the residences a little to familiarise with my cluster-room/group mates Madeline and Joyce, before the real programme started. There was a SUPERMARKET on campus! 'Nanyang supermarket' pretty ironic, since this was NUS and not NTU. haha. the time to meet arrived.We had ice breakers first, after the intro speech and verious briefings by the teachers in charge, where i finally got to know the dear two-four. an interesting bunch of people, a little sexist and quiet at first, since we mostly didn't know each other yet. understandable. so long as it didn't stay that way. Next was campus chase, almost like orientation station games around the PGP residences.it was fun, having to work our hands, teamwork, and brains. that did generate a little more hype within the group. after that, with our group symbol/doll [one of the station's activities to make a doll to represent our group - a newspaper stick man with a picture of ananda-the guy who acted in The Leap years, as the face. it was pretty nice (:] went for dinner at the Golden Spoon [ funny name for a canteen, while the other was called Foodgle]. I was in charge of ordering all the chicken rice from one stall for those who wanted, which was about 8 plates. although i was third in line, omg, it took about 20 minutes to get the food. since the people in front of me had the same idea of mass ordering too. there were three people manning the stall, but only one was chopping chicken rather slowly, hence the wait. well, rushed through my dinner so that i could go bathe, and was almost late for the night activity as i waited for mad to finish bathing too. quilt weaving was up next, and although i like to sew..it's sewing bags and pouches, where the straight lines and a sewing machine is involved. but to HAND SEW a pre-design onto a piece of cloth with limited materials, that was a pain in the ass. for the first night at least, since i hadn't touched a needle and thread in quite a while.
10.30pm: attempted quilt weaving ended and debrief ended. from there was supposedly own timing. time for cupcake distribution, which i basically msged the NJ girls to come to my room to get them. they were recieved rather promptly. haha. the second group that arrived consisting of matilda, rachel, audrey, bandana, lavania and joyce turned it into a cupcake/gossip party in my room. haha. NJ gossip mostly. so those pre-u sem people who are worried, don't be. haha. that dragged till about 12.30am? so much for sleeping early. imagine, the first day only started at 1pm, yet so much was done..how about the next 4 days?
Day 2
6am: wake up time. it's the holidays yet i'm waking up as early as i would for school! oh wells, i took my bath [which is a rarity in the mornings] since it was bloody stuffy in the room and rather warm at night. first attire for the day: Blazer and court shoes. ugh. talk about uncomfortable. went down for breakfast, which was nasi lemak. just rice and a chicken wing. and a wedge of omelette. bah. we had almost an hour to kill after that, before the bus arrived to take us to the opening ceremony. so much for having to wake up so early. could have used a little more sleep.
9am: Opening Ceremony. a rather grand affair i observed. the whole pre u sem was actually a rather big thing i realized. anyway, the keynote address was still the best i've heard so far. by Minister of Education: Dr Ng Eng Hen. Inspiring i would say, despite it taking more than half an hour. very interesting and relevent issues addressed, plus it made me look towards the future. as always, ministers have charisma and made it a light hearted speech injected with humour. he has the soft-spoken voice as compared to other speakers, but full of confidence. i wish i had such a skill. there was even an Q and A session for the minister after his opening speech! haha. truly a seminar. tea came at last, after quite a lot of questions were asked (although i thought some irrelevant), and i ate quite a bit i must say. the catered food was pretty good (: [it's like DUH since ministers are around. haha]
On to the next lecture theatre for the parallel presentations. 3 schools presented [don't think my mind could have lasted more]. SRJC up first, so i guess i was pretty attentive. but that caused the mental drain. spaced out during the second: RVHS, then was just utterly lost on the third: SP's presentation on SWFs {Sovereign Wealth funds, or so i heard} Q and A was interesting. almost akin to verbal battlefield. It is one of the few times you'll see QUEUES of people trying to step up to the mike to ask questions. with 4 microphones scattered around the LT, all had at least 3-4 people behind it. wow. well, as always, battles will have a target. this LT's unfortunate victim was SRJC. not that there was anything significantly wrong with the presentation, i felt they just all wanted to send a strike over and make things difficult, even if the questions seems a little irrelevant or picking at minor details. oh wells. i was a little too sleepy to take part in the battle, as did the rest of the 3/4 of the LT. HAHA.
LUNCH! ate again, before going back to the first LT to have the New Media Arts video presentation, of the top 10 school's videos. NJ was in the top 10! haha, quite proud of it since i was part of that team.we definitely did work hard on it. the other school's videos, some looked so professionally done and a lot more exciting, made ours look pale in comparison. oh wells. we did what we could. PJ won the video thing if i'm not wrong, with camera stillshots and speech bubbles made into a video. interesting.
went back to PGP to rest after that butt-aching, brain draining day, took a bath, then rushed out to get shoes and miscellaneous items from my dad [since we needed wet shoes and apparently ALL the participants weren't aware of the need to bring extra shoes. dinner was pre-ordered by our SLOs while we were bathing, and i stupidly went to order noodles. and so, i had really fat, soggy sliced fish noodles that had starchy soup, which kinda killed my appetite. quilt weaving continued after, and we were all pretty stressed out since we had to finish it that night.
but no, once 11pm arrived i put down my unfinished work and went to join the NJ meeting called on by zai. brought the remaining cupcakes along for the guys i didn't give out the day before, and zai was meant to be punished by not getting a cupcake, for not telling us the venue was changed, but that persistent annoying brat had to get a cupcake :/ oh wells. at least it was entertaining seeing a person deprived of cupcakes for awhile. the meeting was nothing much, a little chat hear and there, and some NUS guy living in the blocks aroung shouting at us to shut up. haha. it was pretty funny, but we did consciously kept our volume down then.
11.50pm. Letts got a call. we all know from who. and when he came back at 12, a hushed birthday song was sung. i left after that, to finally finish my patchwork at 1.30am. sigh. caused a cut on my finger by a needle too:/
[ BAH. it's taking damn long to type each day out :/ ]
Day 3
woke up again at 6, snoozed till 6.20am. didn't bath, blazered myself, and had breakfast of cream bun. that still left me hungry): and so my tummy was growling during the parallel presentations, which i was pretty attentive for. RI(JC) got shot the most for this day, which was pretty sad. either due to 1) this is a rare chance anyone would get to shoot down a top JC, or 2) everyone paid attention to only RJ so as a scrutinize every detail there was to find faults with. well, i was nice enough to direct a question to PJC instead, about sports (: [so me to pay attention to such stuffs]. tea came! and i gorged fed myself full. did i mention that the stuff i've been eating has been super oily? i mean the food was nice, but there was A LOT of fried stuff. that happens with catered food, i'm guessing due to longer shelf life of fried food.
The first panel discussion came up, and well, we had to wait about 15 minutes for the guests to arrive. that set the pace for me for the rest of the dicussion. I TRIED my best to keep awake, but having a full tummy and little sleep causes one to doze off even if one doesn't want to. how embarressing. i was sitting in the centre wearing a RED blazer, falling asleep while the speakers presented. it helped a little that kenneth just slept blatently throughout the whole thing beside me, with his whole body tilting to one side. oh wells. glad that embaressing scene's over ( and to think i'll just go ahead and sleep during lectures). LUNCH! ok, didn't have much appetite i think. OH YES. i remember now. i was suffering from my morning sinus the whole morning. that's why i was so tired and slept. all due to a rainy morning. but luckily it cleared by midday, thanks to lunch (:
on to sentosa!! i have to applaude the SPF (special programmes facilitators) for coming up with such unique spins on games that have always been commonly played. where there's three-way captain's ball, with not one but TWO YOGA balls, three way siamese soccer, where it's a cross between street soccer and the three-legged race.minefield was pretty normal, where a person is blindfolded, and the partner has to guide them to pick up coloured balls without touching 'mines'. those were the beach games, the other two activities were a mini-GPS-guided race to carry out some activities, and rafting challenge between palawan beach and the southern most island of sentosa (the one where the rope bridge links the two islands). tiring that was. but there was entertainment. a couple making out in the sea for more than half an hour (i mean they were there before our GPS race and still there during rafting challenge.haha.) in full view of everyone on the beach..
it was a tiring but coincidental day anyway, since i got to meet dickson (who was an SPF for the rafting challenge), and aleee, who was there with friends to suntan. haha. but thanks to the activities and tight schedule, i couldn't get to talk to them much. rinse off all the sand after the awards ceremony on palawan beach, and went back to PGP wet. (it took longer than i thought, so i was wet for about two hours before i could take my bath and be DRY at PGP.) dinner was meant to be ate on the beach in sentosa, but due to logistical problems, we ate back at PGP at the plaza. pretty cosy, dark ambience, around a small lamppost. SG24 dinner!haha. after bath was the last quilt weaving session, but since i already handed that up, i just helped around..then did LAUNDRY. it's quite troublesome, just to use the machine and dryer. i mean i think i might have finished earlier if i just handwashed everything. firstly, the laundry room was pretty far away. secondly, we started at 11 plus. thirdly, the machines required all 20 cent coins.fourthly, washing plus drying took 30 minutes + 40 minutes. but due to inexperience and insufficient detergent, me and mad used up a total of $6 on washing, washed the clothes TWICE, thus ended laundry at 1.40am. thanks joyce for staying up with us, or should i thank your insomnia? haha. i ate cup noodles while waiting and managed to read about 10 pages of the book i brought along?
Day 4
oh man, i woke up to the knocking of my door at 6.40am, when breakfast is at 6.45am. so much for 3 alarms. this time, we went for breakfast first before getting blazered up. and then it occured to me that this was the second last day of camp already!! saddening. i was actually getting used to dress up in formal attire every morning then, stockings, skirt, shirt, tie, blazer, court shoes. and then off to the last round of parallel presentations.
tea
panel
lunch
CBD - amazing race 2nd
packed chicken rice
pantry/SLO cards
macs
bonding
debrief
attempt to stay up
NJ meeting
seminar/reading room/pantry
room check
read book
pack
joyce window chat
card delivery
sleep - 3.30am
Day 5
wake 7.30am
bath
pantry breakfast
cheng aik leaving
closing
standing
crystal token
camwhore
tea reception
group photos
room check out
lunch
come home
SLEEP
work not done
book not read
pictures
decrease dependency on laptop
bonding?
enriching experience
isabelle, kenneth, nicholas x2
i seem to be having a sore throat now, either from disuse, or all the oily food has finally caught up to me. i still need my night-sleep, despite having slept so much in the day already. i'll try to link the words above tomorrow or something, so that it'll be more coherent.nights!
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