At least it's not vulgar, eh? Haha.. save for the polar butt, of course -- somehow it's alright for animals to show certain body parts where it's unacceptable for the lay-human. Im gonna change another pic, tho.. and that's the one of songhan =.= chuchu, wth is he doing on my blogskin?? Roy, i can understand, but ah han?! wth?
Anw, can you believe this is the last day of the holidays? freaky. How quickly time flies, even when youre not exactly having a heck-load of fun. My holidays werent exactly fun-filled, but id be lying if i said i didnt enjoy it at all.
OKay, on to recent events..
Which isnt really a lot. Let's see..
Christmas party, check.
Christmas Cake baked by me (and Mom), check. (And dont give me that look, i DO produce edible food if i concentrate hard enuff on the cooking of the food instead of the fact that the stuff im preparing is edible.)
Gargantuan turkey, check.
Uncle and Grandma coming over, check (somehow, i didnt really like this part. Not that im mean to them or anth, but.. It's juz tt kind of feeling. Like youre being disturbed. Oh well..)
Research work, definitely check that (i mean, if you wanted me to use two words to describe my holidays this year, it would be "research work".)
Children's Camp, check (and double check, and check again, until it really sinks in that ive done this kinda camp 2 years in a row!! =D).
07s31 Class chalet, check! (i wouldnt consider it life changing, but i guess it sort of set me thinking about stuff again. Like National Geography. "think again".)
...
yeah, i noe.. "Hardy Har Har" to the last comment.
Anyway, im here to post about a new year celebration thingy we had yesterday. Cos fanshu pestered me (ok, it was only in one msg, but that counts as pestering). If not, u'd probably see this post next year. Which, incidentally, is only a couple of hours away! =)
So, yes, we had the party at chu's place. Tho it's e 3rd time ive been there, i still havent been able to convince (in other words bluff) myself tt my place is superior in terms of tidiness or orderliness. That being said, i dont think my place is that high up on the tidiest-place-to-live-in leader board to begin with. Omgdness, i digressed so quickly =.= I really do have to stay on topic.
Ahem! /clears throat/ Ok, so we went to chu's place. I went late (yeah, WT, i know.. "LAAAATE!"), at about 6 plus. Cos of e rain. chuchu, if youre reading this and wondering why i couldnt teleport even tho it's raining, it's cos i was carrying otah. that's one thing tt blocks my teleporting-during-the-rain ability. Anw, okay, there was a heavy rain, but i eventually got there. First thing i saw was that e guys were sitting down at one side, and e girls were preparing stuff. Now, this set up ould have been all well and gd, if it were some other group of girls. But with those particular girls, it meant e guys would have to clear up afterwards. Something which i wouldnt stand for! So i dropped off the otah on the dining table and rallied the guys to fight for their rights.
To prepare the meal instead of cleaning up afterwards.
.. you know, that cause seemed a whole lot more worth fighting for BEFORE i actually typed it out.
oh, i juz realised that i havent mentioned who attended the party. Let's see...
chuchu (of course, it's HER house), meiyee, xinhui (pls dun hurt us!), yiting (the rabbit one), roy, xz, qh, wt, and of course, me!
Some eyewitness accounts have alleged the appearance of one zhuofei, but accounts vary, and there has yet to be any physical evidence of her presence at the scene. /nudges someone/ k la.. jkjk
ok, anw, we finally sat down to eat (e parents of the house left soon after). There was quite a spread.. Meiyee's Mom's Rendang chicken, Chu's fried rice and salad, weitheng's tidbits and drinks (i cant believe you only bought three 1.5s.. seriously dude..), qh's chiken wings and drumlets (ironic, considering he's a chicken himself.. haha), my otah.. (i dunno who bought wad besides tt.. sry), sweet&sour pork, tofu, potatoes.. yeah. and fruits, which i assume are all from chu's fridge anyway.
but, i personally din eat a lot. Im guessing e rest din, either.. mainly cos i was too busy luffing! Lame jokes after terrible jokes were being passed ard e table (and you know im a sucker for those... haha). I guess it was kinda fun having a get tgt, after almost a year apart.
After that, we gathered ard on e floor and played an alternative version of truth or dare, using cards. The person tt got the joker would set a truth/dare, and get someone to do it. That someone wld be decided by e number on the card they were holding. So if the joker dude called out a number, e person holding tt card wld kena. haha..
I think it's cos of e position i sat in, i always got joker. (Muz be fengshui la..) So in e end, we reshuffled e cards until someone else got joker =.= Another thing was tt i din get to do any forfeits. This may be a gd thing for short games. But if it lasts for hours, you'd like to have to do smth. Yes, boredom makes you go a little nuts.
The forfeits were kinda funny..
1. XZ had to confess abt e most romantic thing he did for a girl. Which was to run around the field 10 times, singing love songs to his love interest the whole time. In between songs, he would (screaming) profess his love to her. Amazingly, he completed the 10 laps in an amazing 10 min 25 sec, with energy to spare to scoop her up in his arms and carry her all the way home, wedding style.
Ok, i made that up. But if he really did that, he should... apply for the Olympics. Or for permanent membership in Woodbridge Hosp.
2. XZ and Roy had to tango. With the flower-in-the-mouth thing. I still cant believe Roy din noe he had to put his hand on the girl's (XZ's) waist.. =.= ignorant..
3. XZ and WT did tt really obscene pumping-on-top-of-each-other-and-bread-in-mouth thing. I dont wanna elaborate.
4. XZ and meiyee had to take a very embarassing looking photo.
5. XZ got his nails painted. And got nailed down by the rest of the guys till his nails dried!! Damn, he put up a fight. Almost worse than ruiyong when he's excited. Wah.. e part when weitheng asked how long we had to hold him down for till his nails dried.. we almost gave up when we heard "10 min" hahaha!!
(As you may have noticed, XZ got forfeits quite a number of times..)
6. WT and YT did a pole dance. Naturally, WT was the pole.
7. WT and YT again had to pose for some really weird looking pic. WT ended up looking constipated.
8. Roy and Qh took a wedding photo (with XinHui and Meiyee being the flowers at the side).
9. Chuchu and Yiting also had to call random ppl and engage them in conversation for 3 min. I think they failed. Chu, were u supposed to hook up meiyee's fren?? lol.. Tt guy was damn confused lo..
10. Xinhui and Chuchu also posed for some random photo which was supposed to look sick, but failed terribly.
After tt, we played "I never". Which got sensitive. As it was supposed to. Haha.. SOME ppl even admitted to things they din do, by accident.
I kena bullied at this game lor.. "I nvr had a pet goose", "I was never an only child for 17 years", etc..
But mainly, it was a guys vs. girls "I never" session.
Aft tt, close to 10.30, i had to go off. Roughly at tt time everyone had to leave too, so we helped to clear up, sort out the monetary issues, and turned down Mrs Ouyang's offers of tangyuan. haha.. Actually, it's quite misleading to say we cleared up, cos we din do a very gd job. But oh well.. haha.
So, that concluded the day at chu's place for a random party.
And with that, i'll return to trying to churn out that research plan and research paper =.= someone save me from all this.. X.x
12/31/2007 11:03:00 PM
SHACK LEH!!!
the 2 day overnight camp has ended about 5 days ago. So simple calculation would tell you it took place on 10th and 11th Dec.
okay, basically, e kids were cute.
these were kids from lutheran childcare centre, age range: P1 to P6, gd mix of boys and girls.
it's a 2 day camp, so i guess it's only right to divide it into 2 days. (For those of you that dont like long posts, a warning here: it's gonna be pretty long).
Day One
Well, well.. Day one.. what can i say..? we started early, meeting at 7.50 (supposed to be at 7.30, but SOME people had to be late.. haha)
The weather started out fine, as Shawn and I unloaded the logistics for the whole camp from his dad's car (which, among other things, included sign boards looking like we were going for some kind of save-the-park protest). Another thing we brought, which i was quite proud of was a trident (for Tryton), a ice staff for Glacius, and fireballs for Leiress. Kima's mask was later brought by Toutou.
I made the trident out of a broomstick (trade secrets, sorry, i cant divulge more), the ice staff out of a bamboo pole and some tinsel, and fireballs out of plastic bags and tennis balls. still quite proud of my creativity, considering i finished all of them in a total of 2 hours.
It's a pity all weapons (except Kima's mask) were lost in the tempest that befell our camp soon after.
Anyway, by 9 am, the monsters approached. i gathered my men, and began my peptalk:
There may come a time when men shall fall. But it is not this day! TODAY.. WE
FIGHT!!!!
Sure, that drew a few looks, But hey, i had to say it. It was in the script. Really!
Anyway, we managed to hold "Pass the fruit" and "Quidditch" before it started raining. Quickly, we moved the kids under shelter. Then the rain stopped, we started the games again. and then it rained again.
This continued a few more times till we started to get a hint.
By then, the kids were soaking wet, and i was running around in the rain looking for my scattered EXCO-cum-station masters. Some of the EXCO did the same, like Shawn, Weitheng, Chuchu, and xianzheng. I was looking for missing EXCO members (that turned out to be just roy.. haha)
Sometime in the middle of the camp (and also in the middle of the rain), Shawn slipped and fell. Personally, it looked funny, but i guess i was more worried than amused, so i din luff. He's fine now.
i think.
anyway, we arranged for the kids to go back to the centre, get a nice bath, and everything, while we too made our own way back.
The kids got a chartered bus. We werent so lucky. Walking out of pasir ris park, the rain started pelting down on us again, unrelenting.
some of us with more precious items made a dash for the shelter (about 100m from where we were when the rain started.) I was one of them. but i dropped someting, so in the end i just walked back with everything, using myself to try and block the rain. This proved to be rather unsuccessful, cos my clothes were dripping wet from the very rain i was trying to protect the stuff from.
in the end, reaching white sands, we got cabs and went home for a bath.
The driver wasnt extremely amused seeing four wet kids (the four musketeers -- Roy, XZ, Weitheng, and myself) in his cabin. But somehow, he just drove off with us in it. Man, business must be harsh.
Reaching back home, i realised something that will not be stated here. This is mainly for us 4 musketeers to know and no one else. so there.
Anyway, after our dynamic entry, during which we wet the floor (it's hard not to when you've been soaked in the rain for the past couple of hours), Xian Zheng lined up newspapers along my whole hall, thinking that i wanted him to prepare some kind of red carpet thingy. We scolded him.
When the papers were PROPERLY positioned to soak up the rain water in our bags, we moved on to the bathing thing. Roy and Xian Zheng bathed together in my bathroom (i really dont wanna elaborate), while Weitheng waited (smart one). I bathed in my parent's bathroom.
After that, we all had a short lie down in my car bed.
And then we had warm noodles and soup to warm ourselves up.
And then we were out again, to face the kids for the remainder of the camp for Day One -- the BBQ. This we did indoors, which was wise, considering the rain came soon after we got the fire going.
This part was kind of okay. after that shawn and i had a short debrief with everyone in our panic room, and then we had a short discussion with the principal, Mrs Wong.
By 9.50, we left the place (slightly before this time, Silin sprained her right ankle, which Chin Hian treated). This contributed slightly to our slowness, and so we reached my place (where the EXCO would then have our midnight-madness).
Alighting from bus number 29, we reached my place quickly (by then it should have been close to 11). I regard this as one of my favourite times of the whole camp, not cos it was fun (quite the opposite). Rather, i enjoyed it cos we all worked together, almost like clockwork.
After delegating work to the various people, Xian Zheng and i went to sawing the bamboo poles to the desired length for Day Two's activities. Meanwhile, Toutou and Silin were balancing the accounts; Weitheng and Wynne were preparing that superb schedule; Shawn and Eunice were doing up the station games prep; Chin Hian, Chuchu, and Roy were doing up the presents...
Eventually, we got everything done in aboout 2 hours (or less? i wasnt checking the time). Everyone did great, and i was thinking to myself how could this camp possibly be done without such a great team. I know everyone was stressed out la, but hey, to see everyone band together, and fight the fight as one, i cldnt help but feel really safe, and.. well.. i guess words cant describe it la.
Shawn and gang left for his place soon after, leaving us to get a gd night's sleep (or what was left of the night). We did just that. After coming up with an all new mass game!
Day Two
This was, really, a cool day. First, we did something really desperate -- calling a cab, and asking if he minded us tying bamboo poles to his window to transport it to Sun plaza park. He did mind, cos we "cant do this with public transport".
So the next plan of action (in fact, the only remaining plan of action) was to bring the poles to the bus stop. Amazingly, the driver allowed us on with the bamboo poles. So much for not being able to do this with public transport.
We met the Shawn gang one stop down (his house is closer to the next stop), and together, we made our way to Sun Plaza Park.
Then things got weird. Initially, everyone was supposed to reach, and start setting up the stations. but most of them disappeared, to buy logistics. So i guess this sort of lengthened the amt of time required to set up.
And, yes (as weitheng predicted), the kids came earlier than expected, cos they woke up sooner than planned.
So there was an immediate change of plans to stall, which i guess worked pretty well. Rather than play Mass games immediately, we had Egg Drop.
I shall skip ALL other team's creations, but i shall award special mention to dear Glacius. Mainly because its design is so revolutionary to the world of Egg drop, even i, a veteran, was impressed. It probably should be copyrighted, so before then, i'll just not talk about the design. Only that it's.. really good. And amazingly, neither quirky quan heng nor (not so quirky) zhuo fei came up with the idea. It was their very own P5 camper. Man, that kid can think out of the box.
Meanwhile, shawn and i (with the help of Toutou and chin hian, who collected water), went to set up the paperman mass games station. This was slightly worrying, cos it was still early in the morning, so it would be difficult to find a place with dry-enough terrain. But, we did it, eventually. Then we did the scout thing with the paperman (tying down like a flagpole).
Water turned out to be a very major issue here, with me lying to one aunty to fill up our three pails once, and qh stealing water from unknown sources.
If you really want me to comment on the water shortage thing we had for e camp, it's this: WHY would anyone lock a tap? seriously. it's not as if water's like super expensive cos we've gotta import it from somewhere. Sheesh. some people just dont think when they go lock things up. /shakes head sadly/ and even if we DID have to pay for it, no big deal. I mean, money does grow on trees after all. just a quick trip up a changi tree or smth'll solve the prob.
Haha.. i dont know which do i have less grasp in: logic or economy =.=
anyway, after mass games, the clouds looked heavy (once again), threatening to rain. but no matter, cos we had station games under the void decks! so no rain would stand in our way!! muahahahaha!!!
Not much comments on this ba.. perhaps that all groups cheated at my station, but due to time constraints, i din wanna let them redo. Oh, and that Glacius was seriously lost for the first half of the game. WL.. they almost walked out of the park, can? =.= dunno who lead them de X_x tsk tsk... walking ard aimlessly like a /coughs/ beheaded chicken.
actually leiress oso la. but not as bad as quan heng.. oops! i meant Glacius.
The idea of riddles for each station was pretty good, so good on you, Eunice, Chuchu, and edna (and whoever else helped come up with it).
after that, we realised Leiress and Tryton were tied. i kinda wanted Tryton to win, compared to Leiress but anyway, we settled it thru a final cheering comp. tryton was gd, not e best, but yeah.. Aie.. i wanted Glacius to win, actually. Oh well.
With Zhuo Fei leading still can, but QH... aie... /shakes head slowly/ haha =) kiddin, dude!
Shall skip the rest.. Just know that Tryton won (Congrats to BK and XH!), and that Shawn and i missed the prize presentation, and that there was a small celebration dinner with most of the AHS ppl. Pity we couldnt ALL eat tgt, but yeah, i guess if we did, the shop wld lose a lot of customers for SOME reason. haha.. too many of us concentrated at one spot oso not so gd la.. if you can guess wad i mean =)
So.. that's it for the programme... But what really makes me remember this camp would be my team -- both EXCO and teamleaders
Team Leaders
the team leaders were broken into 4 teams, Glacius and Tryton from the Water tribe, and Kima and Leiress from the Fire tribe. And here are my camp's heros!
[Glacius]
Quan heng
Zhuo Fei (see, i finally got the name right!)
[Tryton]
Boon Kai
Xin Hui (Girl, you sure can cheerlead)
[Kima]
Jenna
Li Ling (aka Jenna's friend)
[Leiress]
Shanti
Hui Bin (aka Shanti's friend)
basically, these are my frontliners, dealing with the kids for almost the whole duration of the camp -- something for which i really have to hand it to them. i mean, at least for me, an EXCO member, i get a breather everytime i go help with preparations. For them, hehehe.. it's entertaining the kids all the way, or at least sticking with them, like it or not. i respect them especially for e times they actually had to stick with the kids for long stretches on end, with no word from e EXCO about the next plan of action (this was essentially my fault, so yeah.. oops =.=) Next year i'll improve on that.
Their ability to just handle them with very little (actually, no) training is actually very commendable. and then to raise their enthusiasm level up again during the games is also a feat. One very gd example wld be xin hui.. wah.. e cheering was excellent. can beat my scouts!
actually, no la.. but it was very gd for kids la.
Another would be how quan heng got all softie over this really smart kid's idea to win the egg drop game. I was gonna think of some evil rule to thwart that kid's plan (he was gonna use a pulley system). Then our dear quan heng was like begging "please, he's just a kid la." and giving me that face.. pshaw..!! that was touching >=)
also impressive was zhuo fei.. considering she's younger than the rest of the team by 1 year, and looks like she can be blown away by e wind. quite level headed. in fact, glacius was pretty well managed overall by both of them (her and qh). i say this cos they're e team with the lowest avg age, but still willing to fight. so i guess that's where it's gd.. congrats to both of you. Pity you guys din win. i bet 20cents on you two.
Kima was run quite well too, considering there's a vulgar kid there. I din bet on Kima winning, so i din pay a lot of attn to them.. oops.. But i do know the Kima team had quite a bit of fight in them, too.
Leiress, too, was pretty okay, with that hyperactive benjamin! oh, Shanti's in squash, so i hope she doesnt challenge me or anth (probably wont ba...). But anyway, i think this group's team leaders managed to keep things together despite looking soft-spoken. Tho, they did have a few discipline cases (i noe cos their team has the largest count of cheating cases.. haha.. =.=) Leiress as the "Slytherin" house? No la, not that bad.. haha.
Anyway, all i have to say is, good job all my team leaders, thanks for coming to help out for the camp, and for not losing a life or a limb in the process. That would have been extremely inconvenient.
oh and speaking of injuries, haha.. Im glad that this year there werent any major first aid cases. Or Chin Hian (our first aider) would have quite a bit on his hands
/Thinks about last year/ haha.. last year, some kid ran towards the next the station during the amazing race. He tripped, broke his sandal, and a tooth. Obviously the case itself wasnt funny. What i found humourous was how i could recall it so vividly, and how trivial i put it when talking about it this year. So, no, in case you were wondering, i wasnt being a sadist when i started luffing at that incident.
Much.. (Muahahahaha!!!)
Okay, so ive talked about the team leaders. But there's a group of people i've saved the remainder of this post for. You see, i love saving the best for last. Whether it's the best parts of my lunch, or favourite songs, or things like thanking..
THE EXCO!!
I really have to admit, this year, my EXCO was BRILLIANT! (of course not saying the last one was bad. esp since the majority of this year's EXCO was from last year! Thanks for coming back, guys!)
So, let's bring out the honour roll!
[A I/C] Shawn
The guy with whom i started this thing to begin with. Also the guy responsible for our stellar cast below. Also the guy who endured the brunt of my naggings, helped me think thru stuff, and supported me on those important decision thingies even before we even decided to do the camp in the first place. And of course for giving me your free time despite your own stuff. Sry to impose on you, but thanks!
[Games] Roy, Eunice, Xian Zheng, Chuchu, Edna and Donson
Without these guys, I could forget about doing anything this year. Maybe play hide and seek for both days or something, cos no way i couldve come up with THAT many games in such a short amount of time. I apologize for squeezing you guys dry the last 14 days before the camp, but it's amazing how you guys work with such efficiency and quality within that time. You guys are truly amazing.
Special thanks goes out to Roy and Eunice. Roy, for slicing out bits of his own time, while planning his own 2 day camp to help me with mine, and even participating on Day One of my Camp (even staying over to help), tho my camp's Day Two would be your own camp's Day One. I dont think finding such friends is very easy, and i know im blessed for your help.
Eunice, too. i know youre the more fluster-able type. But to remain calm (esp on Day Two. Could tell you were under a heck-load of pressure) and deliver such a great programme. Thanks a billion! And helping me to co-ordinate your games team despite your own stuff. I quote especially, the day before the camp, where you so willingly helped out with camp preaparations even tho your very own 17th birthday celebrations were underway.
Im not too clear about Edna and Donson's sacrifices. Im sure there were, too. Considering Donson had to balance the preparation with his own schoolwork (esp since the camp clashed with your school term). I dont know how you did it, but hey, you, too, delivered.
Chu, thanks for coming down, even on such short notice. Im sure it's quite frustrating at times how i give out last min instructions! sry! thanks for pointing out un-fun portions of the games proposal, even tho we'd all given it the stamp of approval.
Xian Zheng, thanks for enduring the astro-boy jokes, and helping to check thru the games as well. Also, i know youre a busy man (like me), so thanks for helping out despite that.
[Procedure I/Cs] Wei Theng and Wynne
I've always questioned the importance of procedure I/Cs. I mean, how hard can planning a 2D1N camp be? I did it last year, didnt i?
But when their work popped into my email, i realised i really ought to leave this kinda thing to the professionals. I mean, buffer time? bah! how wrong i was to think of leaving large amts of buffer time after ever activity, on a camp that was supposed to be fun-filled! If i'd listened to myself on that one, id have a really broing camp on my hands. For opposing me on that, thank you weitheng.
And wynne, thanks for sticking by the whole thing, along with weitheng. Of course, i definitely have to thank you for helping me find a pair of team leaders. That saved us from severe manpower shortage!
But the day that i realised the true usefulness of Procedure I/Cs had to be on Day One evening, when everything was screwing up big time. In less than 20 min, i got a whole new schedule for Day Two, which even covered wet weather (which did in fact come). The amazing thing was how it accounted for wet weather at various portions of the day, which was excellent.
I feel this group was like super-essential to the camp as well.
Thank you
[First Aider] Chin Hian
DESPITE everything...! haha.. you're a great guy, really easy to make friends with! (despite your looks! hahahaha..!) Just kidding.. You too were super. From helping to jaga the bags, to applying the first aid, to that funny waist pouch thing that turned out to be a first aid kit. Even in coming up with ideas for the presents. It was great. Thank you too!
[Treasurer] Silin
The smallest girl in the team. But also the one that dealt with the most sensitive of issues. Thanks for balancing the accounts. I know it must've felt like you were defusing a bomb at times while trying to balance the money spent according to the reciepts i passed to you (you know, i just found one more reciept i didnt give you. It's for $10.50. were we missing that much?). Thanks all the same, for delivering. Im extremely bad at money (as ive just demonstarted with the reciept thing), so im always grateful for someone who watches the pursestrings for me.
[Logistics] Tou Jun Jie
It seems almost sinful to talk about you last. You, being the guy who i called the most with all my logistical concerns. From bamboo poles, to paper plates. You're the guy i turned to. Super dependable. And fun to make fun of, to boot!
Just kidding. Thanks, too, for coming down a second year to help out, even tho i know all those trips you took from the West just to attend our meetings must have taken a toll on you.
Really appreciate your help.
So yes, that's it for my team, once again, thanks one and all, and do send me the photos you guys took with your handphones/cameras, cos im collecting them..! cya next year!
Oh yeah, speaking of next year, preparation should begin early.. haha. hopefully.
12/12/2007 11:09:00 PM
