Am back. Shared a cab home with some girls from my OG (Orientation Group) and reached home at about 11am, then showered and went to sleep. I’m really surprised at myself! The first night, I slept 5 hours; the second night and felt rested the following morning; the second night, I slept 3 hours, and felt a little less rested, but not tired, in the morning; the third night, I didn’t sleep at all but played cards and captain’s ball, and went to the beach to watch the sunrise with my OG. Didn’t feel sleepy at all!!! I am utterly surprised.
Day One
Upon arrival at NUS I signed in, and discovered that the group names were in Elvish. No matter; but few freshmen could pronounce their group names at first ^^; Chi Hsien, Joseph, Christine, Michelle (S3 person), Xinling (from HCJC but different faculty) and Biyong were in my group too. So many of us from the same JC ^^; Xinling reads my blog!!!
My OG was rather dead that day. Cheer i/c was of the cannot-make-it category; had to make flag and come up with cheers etc; discussions about campfire item got nowhere; I HATE cheering; I didn’t know the people. The games were rather un-fun too. I kept thinking about what I could be doing back home if I weren’t at camp.
Day Two
It got better. The physical games were more fun this time – e.g. captain’s ball, poison ball, games where winners are decided by the scissors-paper-stone method, something that my OG is hopeless at. Got wet often, but that was a welcome respite from the blazing sun. And my OG started opening up and getting more into the spirit. It’s different when you cheer because you have to do so as cheering is part of a camp, but clapping and screaming when you’re trying to encourage a team member that you really care for is a different matter.
Fright Night was the highlight! It was beautifully done by the camp organisers. They made pairs of guys and girls go in at some stations, and individual guys or pairs of girls go in at others. The visuals were gorgeous – anyone else loved the Carnvial Master with doll station? I didn’t scream, especially if a ‘ghost’ led me into a cubicle and slammed the door behind with just the 2 of us inside. If I’m alone with a girl in weird makeup I can’t really get hurt ^^; The people in my Fright Night group were calm, steady people who didn’t scream at all. Though the girl I went with entered the station with dry palms (we held hands) and exited with sweaty ones. I didn’t get to visit the stations outside the campsite, but others said they were really scary e.g. crawling through a pitch-black tunnel and having to scoop up hearts and intestines from a pot.
Day Three
Trip to Sentosa. It was HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT! I had multiple helpings of icecream for lunch. The stations at Sentosa were at opposite ends of the island so we had to keep taking the same bus back and fro (the bus uncle got really irritated at the sight of us) My favourite station was the one where we had to crawl through the water-dragon fountain near the Merlion with a cup threaded on a string (ends of string to be held in mouths of two people) and collect water from the spurting fountains. So fun! Various tourists stopped and took photos.
The final event was a water bomb fight the beach. First we had to crawl on the sand in guy-girl pairs, and then the guys were to piggy back the girls into the sea to collect water bags from some guy in a float. Ach. My OG had a shortage of girls (some not well, some not there) so the 4 remaining girls had to keep going. Ach. Knees scraped and bleeding from the sand, wet up to my shoulders, and the girl OGLs (OG leaders) didn’t want to have a go, unlike the guy OGLs who gamely joined in whenever they could. And the water bomb fight after that was terrible. People just throw waterbombs at your faces and abdomens. It’s really dangerous. I felt like strangling everyone from the adjacent teams. In the end I got sandy and wet again and had to dunk in the sea once more. The queue to shower and change was really long; some poor ladies in bikinis had to wait in line too.
Back at camp, dinner was a buffet event! The satay was finished before my OG got to the table, though.
Then was the campfire. Everyone presented skits. There was a fair bit of low-class humour, as usual. Can’t people do anything else? I went for the limbo competition thing, but it was rather humiliating since Biyong, who’s so much taller, managed to clear heights than I couldn’t ^^;;; I am game and gungho person ^^
There was a Mr/Miss Medicamp pageant too. Shmeen was OG group i/c and was saboed into being Miss Medicamp candidate for her OG, I suspect…poor thing! Had to sashay and dance and all. My OG’s Mr Medicamp candidate is a really cool guy who, when asked “What is the most rebellious thing you’ve done”, picked up the girl MC in his arms and ran around the place. WAHAHAHAHA!
And the mushiest letters for the Secret Pal thing were read out. Of the 5 letters read out, my OG bagged 4!!! When the first one was revealed we didn’t know whether to clap or not because…this isn’t really the kind of thing you’re proud to be winning ^^; And for the remaining two, we just cheered our heads off when the opening lines were read, which kinda forced the poor guys to reveal themselves ^^;;; I’m really proud. I helped the guys with the Chinese words they forgot how to write! (and yes they were from TCHS. I had a good time rubbing that in) It’s strange, because when told to write a mushy letter, a girl’s first reaction would be “How can I get out of this?”, while a guy’s would be “How can I write a good mushy letter? I’ll sleep less tonight.” Good grief. The guy who won the Mushiest Letter ‘prize’ was also our Mr Medicamp ^^;;;
Then the Secret Pals revealed identities, danced, and that was it. We went back inside for a food auction i.e. using the points chalked up over the three days of camp to bid for food. My group got the least points ^^;; and since you don’t know the item on bid till after the bid is won, my OG squandered 660 points on a single packet of Milo crunchies *sigh*
After that we went to clean up, then played some sit-down games and captain’s ball as an OG, before breaking up into smaller groups to play cards or sleep. Played bridge where Christine kept becoming my partner; it was really funny, ‘cos she’s the bad loser kind that will keep insisting on another game if she loses ^^;;
Day Four
Break camp. Breakfast in the morning, then clean up, and then we left the campsite at 10-plus.
Now the generals:
The Medsoc people
Who really put in a lot of effot. They even prepared a skit running over three days that had witches and warring kingdoms etc based on the various group names! And Fright Night was marvellous.
Food
Breakfast was wonderful! Imitation-Breaktalk breads from some catering company, and hot Milo. Packet meals for lunch/dinner were terrible and greasy. I had diarrhoea when I got home; may have been the meals, may have been eating stuff that was left in the open for too long e.g. half-opened packets of snacks on the OG table. Surprisingly, my appetite isn’t small compared to the other girls. (except Michelle, who is apparently blessed with hyper-metabolism or something grr) I don’t like camps because I get dehydrated *sigh*
Injuries
I got a be-yoo-ti-ful bruise on my knee from a game where you have to slither on your bum across benches arranged in a series of L-shapes. And my lousy sandals from OG (I mean the department store) are simply horrible for walking on sand, so I had grains of sand stuck under my soles and that really, really hurt. Couldn’t run at all. And when my sandals got wet it hurts to scrub again them, so I got blisters too. Ach. I’m not really sunburnt, except for my feet ^^; Various cuts as well, but that’s part of camp fun, I guess.
My OG mates
A great bunch, once I got to know them better. Not all of them yet, though. I’ve never been close to Christine before though I knew her since Sec 1. Michelle isn’t just ‘another of those MGS girls’ but a great person who’ll go really far one day. Calvin really reminds me of HH, especially the way they talk; he’s two years older, but doesn’t look it. Ivan’s really easy to talk to. Ack. Too tired to go on to the rest ^^;;
The OGLs
They’re really encouraging, especially the guys. They had to help us a lot and give ideas ‘cos my OG suffers from a total lack of initiative ^^; But sometimes during little packets of free time when waiting for other groups to assemble, Christine would start getting us to discuss group stuff. And then the OGLs (mainly the girls who were with us at all times) would start butting in and repeating the importance of making use of every little bit of spare time. By the time they finished ministering their advice, time was up. Grr. But they’ve done a lot.
