Weekend Updates

Very tired lately. So many things have happened. I'm fighting to find time to study, to find time to just talk to myself over things that have been bugging me emotionally. It hasn't been a happy week though many exciting things supposedly have happened. Feeling very insecure.

This was a week of many first times. Yesterday night we had a Lorry Block Supper outing. We went in groups of 10 or more on different lorries and went to Bedok and Geylang for supper. It was the first time I sat at the back of a lorry. Brings back OMC memories when Swee Yee and I used to squeeze in front with Kelvin driving, or when we got lost trying to find SDU's building with Chun Ping driving.

Sitting behind was very different. We got to blow bubbles too, and it was the first time I actually properly blew bubbles (not counting the times I played with soap while bathing during primary school). But when the lorry was driven out it was hard to blow bubbles anymore. I liked the feeling of the wind rushing by and the scenery moving slowly without and being able to stare straight at the things next to the road without having to look through a glass or something like that. And it gave me plenty of time to think.

I lost something quite precious this weekend. Thanks Tirza and Jon for helping me look everywhere for it, and sorry for causing you two to be so inconvenienced looking for it. My weekend was very unprofitable, because I wasted much time worrying over this. But I still believe God has a purpose in it, and I'll find it somehow. Thank Him I have you two around, thanks for understanding and going out all the way to help.

Room balloting has caused quite some rife and strife among our hall seniors. Everyone's so obsessed with staying together with their cliques that sometimes you wonder if they think that Raffles Hall only consists of their cliques and no one else. All the true colors of Rafflesians show up and many not as cool as green. And it's only for a room that they are going to stay in for just half a semester! It's bad enough if you want to bully people as a group if you have the points to do it, but the thing is, some people don't have enough points and still expect to anyhow have the room they want! No, I'm not talking about people who want to stay in single rooms although singles rooms are lacking this sem. They are those people who expect others to willingly move away from a room of their choice, just because they want to be together with their friends. And those whose faces turn ugly when others displace them. My hand always itches to comment in the chatboxes of the rooms of these 'balloting bullies' but I managed to restrain it with much effort. Hence, I'm ranting in my own blog instead.

I think if someone has worked hard for his/her balloting points last year, (and a tough year it was too), there's no reason why he/she should be expected to ballot for another room just to let you stay with your friends in a particular block. Either not be so choosy and move to some other block with your clique, or stay in different rooms! It's not that the rooms in each block, or even between blocks, are so far apart after all. Don't bully your juniors just because they are too nice/polite to retaliate. Urgh. So disgusting is the way some Rafflesians treat each other, especially for those who claim they love hall. Fortunately, for girls' rooms, there aren't so much politics. Hopefully the JCRC can settle this properly.

On a happier note, we just had a nice reunion dinner with Swee Yee . Going to miss her after she goes to Canada this semester. Swee Yee is like the only person I can always sing and go crazy with in the most normal occassions. OK, maybe with the exception of Wing Mei, but that's a different kind of craziness. It was good to see Alex again too. :) Somehow I think this reunion has brought us all closer together again. Looking forward to staying next door to Zjun and Wen Qiao, and near to Lin Yan as well! We are celebrating Papa Phea's birthday tomorrow too.

Group picture!

I like this picture. Shu Lin, myself, Swee Yee the Megawatt Lightbulb and Jon.

Oh, I just found out I couldn't overload RH-Ed because I'm in Phoenix! Such a shame. :( I really want to join RH-Ed again! I wonder what the rationale behind that is. Maybe they don't want us to double-count for the same articles.

This video has somehow made me feel Malaysian all over again. Being in Singapore makes me feel more like a 'Singapore PR' than Malaysian somehow. But the video has brought back memories of my primary school days and the fact that I told Mable that we should learn to love our country because it is the country we grew up and are groomed to be who we are. I'm glad I found that feeling again. As the world grows more borderless each day, nationalism might mean less and less. But still, to have as sense affliation to a country that you feel that you still belong to, no matter what IC or passport you're holding, or where you're at... I think that's a good thing :)

26 August 09

If I could, I'll just name every blog entry I have 'updates'. But that would be too boring. Not that my current blog title is anything exciting either. Well, I guess I am a little boring as a person, in essence.

If you feel bored when you visit this site, try playing with the fishies on the left. They follow your mouse's lead. And if you click on the 'waters' see what happens! It's quite interesting for a short term. Once I tried twirling my mouse round and round watching the fishes trying to follow me, but being unable to keep up. Ahh... feeling of being ahead. Haven't felt that for such a very long time.

I just got my new project but my group has not started working on it yet. We just managed to get everyone settled down, and choose project leaders for different projects. At first we wanted to settle the leadership thing by playing 'rock, paper, scissors', the good old way of doing it. Unfortunately, we were meeting on MSN. But MSN has improved by leaps and bounds nowadays, and they do let you play that particular game online. Still, we decided that it was too tedious and decided to do random number picking instead. I got to lead a project that is still an unknown. In fact the module itself is a black box to me, because we haven't started learning the examinable part (and the project part) proper. Oh, well, come what may :)

On a happier note, the RH walkway is open for use, finally. I expressed this on my facebook, and have received the highest record of people 'liking' my status thus far. A covered walkway does mark RH history after all. No more getting wet running back from classes (unless you stubbornly want to soak by taking the engineering faculty route). And for us who witnessed and lived through the construction of the walkway, we don't have to go one big circle under the sun just to get to YIH and the places nearby, or the YIH bus stop. I don't mind going under the sun that much, but I do remember the time I carried a whole box of curry puffs from YIH back to hall, it actually rained. I bought an umbrella, but it was of no use at all because both my hands were occupied (and aching under the weight). So you see, living a life with the absence of a covered walkway is quite a pain, and it helps you appreciate the walkway more.

I did skip all my activity interviews after all. The Chairpersons agreed to let me off. For my filler-choices, I politely told the Chairpersons that I want to let myself off, and the were OK with it. I do want to join so many things, but yet I am afraid I'll wreck my CAP further this year. In fact everyone's so enthusiastic about everything, I have this little nagging feeling that I might not even get to stay in hall the coming academic year. Ah wells. As long as I get to stay somewhere on campus, it's fine and dandy.

Room balloting sessions are approaching and I think I want to occupy the room I stayed in Block 4 when I was in Year 1. Hopefully it will make me feel young again :) The view out there is pretty nice (there are trees outside the window), but it will be a different kind of nice from my current room which overlooks the takraw court. You see people from this room, but in the Block 4 room, the main view is trees (and maybe squirrels if I'm lucky). Trees do mean mosquitos, but since Tirza and I are people mosquitoes do not have a passion for, it's of small matter to us. Much as I look foward to staying there again, I dread moving my things over from Block 5 to Block 4.

That's enough of updates for these few days, I think. Shall blog again if I have more.

The Dawn of RH Activities 09/10 (Maybe)

This week is an exciting week. Interviews of RH-Activities should be starting! :D And the most exciting part is, for the first time, I'm planning to skip all my interviews!

Actually, the good thing about being year 3 is you know most of the Chairpersons, and they know your capabilities, so you get to save each other's time by calling interviews off. In fact I have two emails from different chairpersons calling all interviews off already. And some of my activities I don't really want to join, so not going for interviews (but politely informing the chairpersons first), would result in their wanting to rank me lower (which is a good thing).

I really have no idea what activities I'll finally end up with, with each committee having manpower scarcity and wanting people in badly. I do want to join lots of things but time is a precious commodity. Ahhh. Once the pull of hall activities get to me, I'll end up all enthusiastic again. This year, I'll try not to be too enthusiastic for my own good. (However, from past experience, the over-enthu blood is in me and would be kind of hard to suppress. Hmm. This sentence is just for the eyes of potential Chairpersons of course.)

I'm behind in my readings! This is the horrible vicious cycle all over again. (And oh, there was no RH-Activities for the past 2 weeks!) This cannot continue or I shall be driven insane by academic guilt. (Thinks of Lorry Block Supper this coming Friday.)

I shall psycho myself to love my books more than my CCA's this semester. Is it even going to work? Or does a balance of both actually exist?

Tirza, I more than half-wish I was an auditor too.

New Blogger Template

I just painstakingly edited the template of this blog, as you can see. It's cuter now. It took me quite some time to experiment and insert the relevant HTML in and make the size of the chatbox fit, for instance, after changing the template.

Oh, in case you guys think the comment link under the posts don't work, you must click on the number on the link, not on the word 'Comment' itself because that was not hyper link. For example if you see Comment (0), click on the bracketed '(0)' to post comments. But many are too lazy to comment there after reading anyway, including me. I usually leave a message in people's chatboxes instead.

Oh, and come to think of it, I have recently found fancy in a facebook game 'Country Story' from the producers of Pet Society and Restaurant City.



If you hate the fact that you always have to stay logged in in RC in order to level up, Country Story is just the opposite.The things I like about the game besides the nice and cute graphics are firstly, you do not have to spend much time playing (because even if you want to you can't), and it actually teaches you to plan, quite useful in learning to strategize options for money-making. Virtual money making, that is.

Basically you start off as a pretty girl or handsome guy (depending on your gender) tending a farm. You can customize the character and the house you stay in (which is what some people like). There is a number of options of what to plant in your farm, more will be unlocked as you level up. Different seeds give different produce, take different lengths of time to grow, and the produce have different worth. Whenever you work on the farm, you need stamina to do so, and when your stamina level goes down you can't work anymore till you've rested for a sufficient period of time, or after you eat some food. Unlike RC, food is pretty expensive in this game, so the best option is to rest after you've exhausted your stamina. That's why I said you can't keep on playing even if you want to, unless you're pretty loaded with money, which I find usually isn't the case. There are tasks in the game to be fulfilled too, and you need to strategize on how to use your time, stamina and the things you have to select which crops to plant and when to plant and harvest them.

It's good for learning on how to balance expenditure and costs to earn maximum profit, unless you're not concerned about how much you'll earn in the end. It's not important so if you want to play for fun and simply plant stuff you like, it's ok to go ahead too. (I say this because some people will think the planning thing is going to make the game an intellectual one. It's not.)

This game is a nice break from my studies from time to time. And the good thing is, even if you're addicted, you're forced not to play all the time too :) Good for muggers like me.

Half Way Into Week 2

Actually I'm more than half-way into week 2 already, but since most of my classes are concentrated at the end of the week, I might as well say I'm half inside it.

Just back from the most successful points forum ever. There was free ice-cream at the beginning, bubble tea sold throughout and pizza at the end! Not to mention it started with a blast ON TIME, and ended early without too much ado about the points! Almost every question was answered to. And the whole forum was punctured with jokes, so it wasn't dull at all. What a remarkable start to the hall's year! :) Furthermore, we're actually going to apply for our activities right away.

Tirza's auditor and I half-wish I was too. This year's points system is fair (which is the reason why I voted it in), but not very advantageous for me since I have to juggle the horrible 22 MC, and maybe Industrial Attachment in semester two. The forum has inspired me to do more for hall though. This is why I can't stop doing activities since year one, but now the pull of studies has gotten to me, finally. A little too late maybe, but at least I haven't graduated yet. Time to put more of hall aside, and start mugging harder. But that doesn't mean I'll be sloppily doing my CCAs too. I shall just do what I can for this year, and I think I'll most likely get a place to stay on campus, be it in hall or otherwise, for my final year. Final year. The thought of that sure isn't very appealing.

Today I had a horrible viva session, half of it not understanding what the professor is asking. His English was, how to say? Not very understandable, to put it mildly. I hope our lectures are not going to be taught that way. And it made me nervous so the things I said while answering were pretty horrible and ungrammatical too. Argh. Hope I can do better in the next vivas. The report is another headache. I have to prepare half of it on my own and now I've only done roughly a quarter of my work.

Sometimes I really wonder how I'm going to work in the future as a chemical engineer. Are we supposed to concote solutions on-spot, or within a very short time-frame? I'm not good working on my own, or working with deadlines. And if I can't even fully understand an experiment I'm doing how am I supposed to device experiments that might incur a cost to the company in the future? It's not just my CAP that puts me down now. It's my actual capabilities. Why I'm still afraid of programming, handling unknown problems, relying on people to help me, not grasping things as fast as I should. The engineer is just not in me. Or is it? I don't know. God has a plan for me, but it doesn't seem to fit as it should.

Today I got a nice complimentary email that seemed to work the other way round. My performance in all the committes I've previously joined is commendable, and I'm a good person to work with, it says. Being the highest pointer (for girls) in hall last year is something people are always reminding me about this year, but I myself know where my high discrete come from. A sterling performance? That's not from me. Way back in year 1 when I got full discrete in RH-Ed I know why chairpersons like me - it's because I do things that I supposed to, I'm punctual, efficient and don't give issues. That's a good thing, but I can't offer more than that to my studies, to my hall CCA's, to anything else I'm in charge with.

These values are the things I value in my members and people who work under me too. But that will only get you and your committee ahead to a certain point, not all the way. Biz Comm needs people that come up with new ideas, not those who doggedly call for hours in a week, and just follow instructions efficiently. Engineers have to think out of the box, not follow a prescribed method of calculation. I lack imagination, I lack initiative and am afraid of taking risks. That is what's holding me back.

I can survive with people who like me and can work with me. But I'll never make it to the top because I don't have passion for anything yet, that can fuel my imagination and creativity, that will make me bold and willing to take risks. To consider opportunities, to compete with vigour and to love something so much, that I can sacrifice more time for it.

Maybe one day I'll become like that. And when you see that I'm different, do stop to ask me what that motivation is. It must have been a great one. That day is not here yet, but somehow something in me is longing to change, and it's waiting for the right event to trigger it. Someday.

Mongolian Family Song

First time I found this song with the actual people singing it (usually I just hear voices in the video), and hear it in the Chinese version too!



The little girl singing it is a little older than I expected but I still like their blending voices :)

School - The First Week

I have gone through school so many times that the first week seems all so normal after all. I had my first lab, had new lab partners, new books, new lecturers and new modules. The modules this semester look so daunting. I hope I'll do OK in all of them.

Projects are back again, and after this fairly relaxed week, back we go again into that mad cramming, and mugging and trying to catch up with work. Tirza has had a hectic week, and seeing how disciplined she is in working and all, makes me feel that Chem Engin might not be so bad after all.

I'm having another new set of group members for my projects this coming semester - different from the previous ones. I think after these years I'm going to have had lots of experience learning how to work with different people, some highly motivated, while others need to be motivated. Thank God for providing me with group members again this time.

Hall activities are starting to come alive now, although officially nothing is finalized, and the JCRC aren't even elected. I can just feel that Raffles Hall is all boosted up with aspirations and spirit, and part of me really wants to contribute to all that. But looking back at my past not-so-good results (putting it mildly) and the 22 MC of modules to study this semester, I highly doubt that I would be one of the high spirited Rafflesians contributing to hall this year, despite the high CCA points I had last year.

There are always people to carry on the baton in hall, and it looks like the batch of high-spirited year 1's last year (now Year 2), are actively taking up various leadership positions and look well prepared to handle them. I hope this will be a good year for hall, even if it might not be for me, in terms of CCA points. Hopefully I would be able to contribute more to hall than I plan to, this academic year.

There will be this horrible procedure of the whole hall shifting their rooms somewhere in September, but then there's a new prospect of newly renovated rooms and toilets. New facilities! :) I hope it would be really worth it. I looked into the designs of the new rooms and found them quite similar to the old ones in many respects. Our current doors are a bit battered and old, but somehow they feel more homely than the newer ones, and are certainly much stronger too. And I prefer the old roofs to the new ones!

I finally fished my diary out of all my boxes some time ago and it was pure bliss being able to write into it again. I wonder if in this busy semester I might be forced to cut down blogging and fall back to diary writing alone instead. Hmm. But I'm sure I'll be around to blog still, even though the frequency may be much lesser :)

如果 If

I like this song! It is very meaningful :) For those who can't understand Chinese here are the lyrics in English. (Chinese lyrics are in the MV itself.)

If my existence is just like a shooting star in the night sky
Why do I dream of eternity
If my being here is just an accidental chance
Why do I long to be loved

Who can hear me, hear me,
Hear the crying deep in my heart
Who can tell me, tell me,
Where I can find true love.

If my existence is just like a shooting star in the night sky
Why do I dream of eternity
If my being here is just an accidental chance
Why do I long to be loved

Who can hear me, hear me,
Hear the crying deep in my heart
Who can tell me, tell me,
Where I can find true love
Please tell me.

If your existence is just like a shooting star in the night sky
I won't be waiting patiently for you
If your being here is just an accidental chance
I won't use my life to exchange for that.

Do you understand me, understand me,
My heart is bleeding because of thinking of you
Do you know me, know me,
My love towards you will never change.

Who can hear me (understand me), hear me (understand me),
The crying in my heart (my heart is bleeding for you),
Who can tell me (know me), who can tell me (know me),
Where can I find true love (my love towards you will never change)

If my life is not a temporary shooting star...

Hol Storage, Rag Day and Start of School

School is starting on Tuesday (Monday is a National Day public holiday), and after making a rough timetable for the week, I realize that I already have tonnes of work to do. This is going to be the toughest semester yet. I hope I'm able to survive it!

My previous week was mainly occupied by holiday storage. Holidays are over and people are coming in and out to collect their luggage from storage rooms. I have to open the door and refund them their deposits. Although I was only on duty for four consecutive days in the week, I was quite sick of doing it at the end of it all. People called every hour of the day, waking me up every morning, and calling whenever I was eating, napping, talking, even when I was in the toilet! There was never a moment of peace. I walked from my room to the storage rooms about 30 times a day.

Still, this business is a very good source of income for hall. (I don't get paid for doing this, just earning CCA points to stay on next year). Look at the little space before you:


You see that rectangular area enclosed by the four crosses? That's one slot unit, which is as big as half a toilet cubicle. And believe me, that unit can hold a lot of things! If you're experienced and know how to pile up your luggage properly, it can hold up your whole room, or even too, if your things aren't a lot.

You can pile as high as you want. The sky, no wait, the ceiling is the limit.

We charge $8 per week for each slot. The price has gone up this year but if you think it's too expensive, I guess you must take into account three things.

1. The convenience of being able to store your things on campus.

2. The service - IC's to open the doors for you throughout the day, and keeping everything nice and locked up. But we don't help them to move things in and out. That would be too much.

3. We're a monopoly. No matter what price we set, there will always be a demand. And we do want to earn enough to cover our orientation costs ;)

Anyway, I never store my own things in those rooms. Haha.

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Rag Day came and went. I love our float and shirts! Azi designed the rag day shirts and they were cute. Junda thought it was some sort of environmental society shirt though, because it was green in colour and there was the slogan 'Go Green!'. Green is our hall colour you see.

The float was quite well cladded this year. I guess it's because the bulk of work is done by the floaters themselves since we don't have incoming freshmen. We were also the hall with the smallest number of supporters. But I'm glad our cheers were loud enough to be heard. And many alumni came back to support us too. :)


And surprisingly, this is the year we've broken the curse of not winning anything for years! We won the shield for lowest cost float! I think part of the credit should go to OMC for sourcing materials sucessfully, hehe. But to be fair, Float didn't give us too much work to do this year, in fact they were very innovative and found a lot of things themselves. So all in all, it's Float's credit for resourcefulness and good planning in material usage.

I think our cheering was more wholehearted this year even though our number was halved. I guess when times are good, all we do is complain about hall, but when we know we have to be united, we are a united bunch.

Hopefully, the winning of a rag day shield is just the start of a tide of change to flood into Raffles Hall.

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I visited my granduncle's house on Saturday night. My aunt flew back from America, so we had dinner with her family. The triplets are so interesting! One of them ate twice the amount of dinner that I did. And then we watched transformers, and the kids kept asking me for the time because it was already 9 something and their bedtime was at 8!

Don't think this will ever happen in Mable's case, whatever age she's at. Ahahaha.

Wai Pheng's Birthday

Yesterday was Wai Pheng's birthday. We planned a birthday surprise for her, but it didn't go exactly as predicted. Still the effect was good!

Abigail came to have dinner with us Rafflesians two weeks ago, and suggested a birthday surprise for Wai Pheng. We bought and made her presents! Then I was supposed to ask her out for lunch/dinner and the others would surprise her by suddenly coming out.

Just the day before yesterday there was change of plan. Abigail wanted to contact her boyfriend, Mark, to ask her out instead - then we'll suddenly appear out of nowhere. But it turned out that her boyfriend would be late from work, so the plan reverted to me asking her out. Then I had to tell Tirza who just came back to Singapore from home, and Jiun Ming of our last minute changes.

We asked Wai Pheng to meet Tirza and I at Coffee Bean, where the dinner was supposed to be. She didn't know where that was so we set out meeting place to be at Cold Storage instead. Jon and Abigail then suddenly decided to switch to somewhere else because all of us haven't had dinner, and it didn't do to have dinner at coffee bean. I was supposed to ask her to a certain Thai restaurant and Jon would direct me to it.

Tirza and I shopped in Cold Storage while waiting. There were no directions coming!! And Wai Pheng had already arrived.

"She's here" I texted Jon, after telling Wai Pheng we'd have dinner elsewhere.

"Ok... Coffee Bean then." Was the reply.

" I told her we'll be having dinner somewhere else!" texted me. Since I heard him mention some Thai place earlier, I had suggested Thai food to Wai Pheng, who knew where Thai Express was and was heading towards it.

" OK... Pho Hoa, 2 shops after coffee bean," came Jon's reply. Pho Hoa was a Vietnamese restaurant next to Thai Express. By the time I got this message, we were at Thai Express looking at the prices.

I felt instantly that Jon and I had zero chemistry.

I sighed inwardly, and glanced at Pho Hoa wondering how to direct Wai Pheng over there next. I suggested we go over to Pho Hoa to compare prices.

" OK, so we wait at Pho Hoa," texted Jon.

Pho Hoa was more expensive than Thai Express. Wai Pheng didn't want me and Tirza to spend so much money so she went into Thai Express instead. Giving up, I texted Jon and told him to come to Thai Express. Which they did! And we moved to a four seat table to a six seat one, because JM was coming later.

Abigail asked Wai Pheng to close her eyes and presented a 'cake' with candles in the shape of a heart.

This is what the 'cake' looks like with the melted wax in the middle.

And when it's lighted it looks like that!

The Thai curry was delicious! Pity we didn't take a picture of that. I want more but we can't eat this often as it is expensive.


We did, however, take a picture of ourselves. Thanks to the mirror everybody was in the picture. And Mark turned up later to join in the celebration too. Though we were quite tongue-tied in front of him, and him more so. =p

After having dinner, we got Wai Pheng a cake from Coffee Bean too.

It was yummy-licious! :D


After the cake cutting and cake-eating ceremonies, we headed for home. Simon happened to be in NUS when we were going to the bus stop, so he detoured to Holland V to fetch us back :)

Yay! Was so happy Wai Pheng enjoyed her birthday :) Thanks Campus for celebrating my birthday last Sunday too! I love the choc and green tea cake!

Amazing RHace Part II

I finally decided not to be lazy and continue with writing up part II of the race. Read part I of it in the previous post if you haven't! I highlighted the places we went in the previous entry, to make it a better read. My legs are still aching, but at least I can walk properly now. Stairs are still a bit of a problem.

On Saturday we got up at 730 am and kept our tents. We forgot to take a picture of our tents though. Then we were supposed to go to Changi Village (our next station) to have breakfast, and after that, predictably, go off to Pulau Ubin. Being economical, our team decided to take bus trips to Changi village. Big mistake indeed. A bus which we got on was travelling at snail pace. It was incredibily slow. After putting up with it for a long while, we got down and took a taxi to Changi Village instead.

The bus ride had ruined all our winning chances (however slim). We were the 5th team to get to Changi village and have breakfast. Azi and Rochelle had lots of quiz questions about Raffles Hall, and we had to pick one nasi lemak related food item from the icons of Restaurant City if we got a question correct. After getting 3 correct items, we could eat breakfast, which was nasi lemak! I didn't look carefully at all the items and chose tomato for one of them instead! (Because some nasi lemak do have tomatos.) I should have picked rice! The most fundamental item on the list. But anyway it hardly took much time to rectify the mistake.

Nasi lemak breakfast.

After breakfast we took a ferry to Pulau Ubin. The name means granite island! Then we met Yiqiao there, my roomie for the hols. She and her friends were going for a visit too! So we boarded the ferry together.

Picture taken with Yiqiao next to me.

Our team!

Pulau Ubin was an intersection stop. Two teams had to work together to get a mahjong tile sequence. Since our team was the 5th team, we had to wait for the 6th team to arrive. And they took ages to do so! The reason was because we were a competitive team, while unknown to the RHOCers, the team after us was a leisure team. And being a leisure team, they had no reason to hurry at all. While waiting for them (the first two teams had left the island when we arrived, and the next frantically riding all over for mahjong cards), we biked a little round the island and went to have coconut drinks. This was when I found that I could bike after all! I was soon confident enough to start riding faster and faster on the bike. It was fun!

After one or two hours, Gant's mega team arrived. They were actually two different leisure teams combined.

The mega team. You can see they don differently designed shirts.

We finished the activity at Pulau Ubin quite quickly once we were started. In fact I believe that if there was no delay, we would have been quicker than the first two groups. Everything went quite smoothly. Back on land, we took a taxi to China Town next, which was our next destination. Met poor Liling, waiting patiently for us with a clue. We learned that the team before us left two hours ago. The clue was a CD, and 'Chinatown Complex'. We were actually supposed to find someone to play it for us, but we thought that there will be a RHOCer in a CD shop or something. After going round and round Chinatown, we were hailed by an auntie at a CD stall, who knew what was going on. We managed to get the CD played and there was an image file with a certain seat in a hawker center on top of the complex.

Rushing to the seat, we found another poor RHOCer sitting there, Crystal, who never drank Redbull before, with Redbull to keep herself awake. Ate lunch, and to save time (we were supposed to be waiting there for one hour plus before moving), we converted ourselves to a leisure team too, because we wanted to have enough time to at least go through all the stations. Crystal left with us to Little India, because the other leisure teams will all skip her station. Liling went with us too.

At MRT station station with RHOCers Li Ling and Crystal.

In little India, we had to do three things. The first was to thread a flower garland, actually it was just a few stalks. This was to be done by two of us.

That's me with the garland on. This isn't exactly one of my fav pics.

Jerome was supposed to learn how to make and flip a prata next. But they couldn't let him do that, so instead he had to sell a prata which was bitten at one side for 80 cents! I'd rather make the prata if you ask me. But he managed to sell it to an ang moh (which is what we call Eurasians here), who was sporting enough to buy and eat that. Lastly Jia Voon had to do a henna (google images if you don't know what this is). Jerome and Jon volunteered to be subjects so they both got a circled 'RH' on the back of their hands.

Our last stop was a Botanic Gardens, where old RH once was. We were to do three things - walk one whole round and back on a foot reflexology path (advanced version), take pictures of 10 mystery things around the gardens, and find a mystery person who has the clue to the next station. We decided to only do the reflexology path. Gallivanting around Botanic Gardens, which was really big, to find 10 obscure things certainly didn't sound fun. And since we were a leisure team now, it was ok to skip that bit of the station. Imagine, team no. 4 which was an hour or two ahead of us, was still there searching when we came round.

The foot reflexology path walk was painful, but kind of refreshing too. I was the only one who walked the whole round among us. Jerome almost made a full round too. As for the mystery person, it was Mr Leong, our hall manager, who was supposed to give us the final clue that says: "Advance for home. If first, collect $500.' We didn't find Mr Leong, because we already knew what to do. So off we headed for home, and towards the $500 which has already been collected.

Jon had this brilliant idea of eating ice-cream before going back. So we enjoyed choc ice-cream with oreo bits in them costing $9.00 between 4 of us. It was really a lot of ice-cream, so it was worth it. :) On our way to the bus stop, I finally got to enjoy the luxury of being able to hobble at last. Before that I was still running and striding on my poor legs.

Back in hall, I anticipated we would be among the last or almost the last because of the ice-cream delay. But, as Su Bee solemnly announced as we stood on the 'mat' with a Singapore map, we were the 5th team to come home, and the 1st leisure team! Sadly there's no prizes for the 1st leisure team, but the whole experience was already like a prize itself.

JV and the last clue box. Note that our boxes has a green stripe in the middle!

Su Bee (keeping a straight face): You are team number... 5.

The team that won the $500 were 4 'strong men' as we termed their team. It was a close fight between the first and second team. I wonder how many teams have cabbed all the way, and incurred big losses. But still, the bikes, the ski tickets, the hamster ball experience as well as most of our food were free. And the whole experience was so different from the conventional orientations and senior's camp.

Have to hand it to RHOC that we have such an awesome time! No regrets doing more holiday storage opening and closing to get this in return, with BBQ dinner to boot. I was rendered an invalid for more than a day, but I'm moving quite well for now! :D This is the first time I really overstretched myself physically, and I have mixed feelings wondering whether I should do it again next time, if there is such a chance. Still, thank God for good team mates, organizers, and BOPers! I hope they took lots of photos of us!

Amazing RHace Part I

The Amazing RHace was fun :) So action-packed that it's going to take two posts for me to blog it out in full. But I'm really sore all over now and I realize the style I walk now is so similar to Po Po (my grandmother).

We gathered at the upper lounge at 930 am in the morning to get our shirts, and name tags. The name tags had our names, phone numbers, emergency numbers and all on it, and our allergies too. If we had amnesia or were in any helpless conditions - e.g. cannot talk, that will probably tell people of our identities and save our lives. Ironically, the string kept being twisted round our necks - it might be an attempt to strangle us at the same time too.

All the RHOCers were dressed in pink this year (poor guys). Derek and Calvin briefed us regarding the activities and rules of the race. We can only use public transport to travel around, no private cars or bikes. Our first destination in Turf City. We were supposed to find our way there ourselves, and I've never even heard of Turf City. Half the teams used cabs, Kelvin's team flagging an enourmous 'HELP' sign, much to our amusement, an attempt to make it easier to hitch hike, but I don't think it helped much. We had only partial transport reimbursement, so my team (Jia Voon, Jerome, Jon and I), took bus 151, a much cheaper mode of transport to Turf City.

The bus stop was quite a distance from Turf City, so after getting down from the bus we half jogged, half walked to Turf City. It was a bit hard for me to keep up with the guys, but thankfully, my bag was packed to be light, so it wasn't as bad as it could be. When we reached, we saw one of the first few teams departing from Turf City on a cab. We were supposed to shop in Giant for food items that cost $9.95 in total, out of which at least one item starts with the letter R and another the letter H. After grabbing Ruffles and some other foodstuff we rushed to the counter, only to find that something on our list was discounted. The unwelcome discount messed up our calculations so after some recalculating (several times because the first time we calculated wrongly!), and changing of receipts, we passed the first destinations, and were the 2nd last team out of 9 to leave the place.

The second place was in an open field, or grassland. (Note: I'm really bad at remembering directions, places and names, so a lot of my narrating will involved funny unnamed places.) The station was closed so we took a queue number and waited for it to open. All the teams were there, and we had lunch, which turned out to be the food we brought in Giant. Too bad my team only got junk food. :S We should have made healthier choices - if only we knew!

Us at the open field with Newater and 'lunch'.

Our next activity looked like this:


Giant hamster ball! This is not our picture - because none of us were in a position to take it! There were straps and belts inside the ball, and two persons were to get in and be rolled all down the slope on the grassland. That was me and Jon, in the case of our group. It was fun! Everything was spinning on top speed, and all I can see was sky, grass, sky and grass while being rolled up and down again. Jon was shouting and screaming more than I did. Hahaha. But that's not the end of it. After the rolling down, the other two members outside (Jerome and Jiavoon), had to get in the ball and hamster walk all the way up! It was quite difficult, and you tend to fall on each other while doing that. But I think it was quite fun too - Jia Voon never seen Jerome laugh as much before!

The third activity was a 'deadly laser quest', a game where you put on a jacket with sensors on shoulders and a sort of 'machine gun'. If you shoot anyone from an opposite team on the sensors at the front, back, shoulders or on the gun tip, you gain points. If you get shot, you lose points, as well as lose the ability to shoot (and be shot) for 10 seconds. The team with the most points win. Jon was the top scorer in our team against another team, but unfortunately we lost mainly thanks to me, the bottom scorer in the whole group. I was rather passive with the shooting, and got myself ambushed at one point. Sigh. The whole thing was a little too exciting for me too. The room dark, there was loud music playing and there were holes on the wall. There were kind of neon lights on us, and on the walls too.

Being bottom we had to leave 10 minutes behind the team ahead of us. We took a taxi to ECP, and next up was water ski-ing where one member in the group had to ski a full circle round the lagoon non stop without falling into the water. Jon grazed his leg and said he wanted salt water on his wound so he went. Which was a good thing, because many other teams lost precious time there and he was able to do it at the first go. We moved our rank up to being the 5th team in the race.

Jon in the middle of the water.

The next destination was Old Market ('Lao Pa Sha'), among lots of food stalls. We completed a some puzzles and brain teasers, and had to order Century Egg Porridge, Chicken Wings and Pineapple Rice for dinner. The games were finished really quickly, but the Pineapple rice delayed us. It took so long to buy them! After having dinner there (50 minutes of enforced rest was allocated), we took a bus to the MRT pass under the Durian. There we had to complete 4 friendship bands and make stars from straws.

The stars killed almost everyone of the earlier teams, they took a long time to finish. Our group's progress was fairly good, though we wasted quite some time there too. It's supposed to be a station to give advantage to girls, but my friendship band look worse than Jon's. Still I managed to do two, because the star straws were left to Jon and Jia Voon.

At night, we went to east coast park, had Macdonalds, cycled a bit and pitched our own tents. My cycling was really wobbly. And it was the first time I pitched/stayed in a tent! Sadly, our tent was a disaster, because the sticks they gave us was of different lengths. We stayed in another nicely pitched tent later on. But before that we had to walk to Bedok for our next quest first. Most of the other teams opted to cycle, and go through a longer route with more stations instead. But since JV and I were not comfortable with the bikes as yet, we chose to walk.

Us at Macdonalds. The photos here don't have Jon because he's a bit photo-phobic, and is always at the other end of the camera.

It was a fatal choice that killed my legs. In order to out-walk the cycling teams, the group was going at top speed (though not running), and I had to stride, and occasionally run to catch up. Since I'm a girl, and one with short legs at that, I had to stride more frequently than the guys and occasionally run too. By the time we reached the food court and had bak chor mee + durian prata (which was the 'task' next station), we met all the earlier cycling teams, and set back at almost the same time. But since the cycling routes were shorter by then, we fell back and ended up the 4th team at night. And by that point, my muscles were screaming for help.

I didn't bring any soap, just a towel, but Yi Shiean had shampoo and conditioner, so I could bathe. And for once, because bathing was a luxury, the cold water didn't feel cold to me, although the other girls complained the water was freezing. I made a mistake by sitting down right after coming back, resulting in severe muscle aches the next day as well. The 'zheng gu shui' I brought along for muscle aches didn't help much, but it stained my light green orientation tee instead :S It was stupid of me to forget to wrap it up when I put it in my bag. After bathing we slept in the tents, Yi Shiean joining my group's tent. The floor was hard, there was no pillow, except for jackets, and I had to change my sleeping position a lot. But still, I fell asleep and didn't feel like getting up at 730 the next morning.

(To be continued...)