WeLcOmE tO tHe WoRlD of WiNnE tHe PoOh!!!

Thursday, August 17, 2006

This week is my first week of school in NUS... Hm... It was a great change to adapting into a totally new environment and challenges. It was not easy. I felt the stress coming straight at my face. Can you imagine going into a module lecture and not knowing what the lecturer or Professor is talking about? Haiz... I really disliked elective modules and this semester, I got to take 3 electives: Singapore Studies--> Nation building; Introduction to Nano World and Financial Accounting.

For Singapore studies, it is something like Social studies that we took in sec sch but it is a lot more tough. More essays and read-ups have to be done... Introduction to Nano world, topic wise is quite interesting, but also got to write term paper of 4000 to 5000 words... Die liao! Lastly, for financial accounting, first lecture I really don't understand anything that he said. What is he talking? Really cannot catch anything... That is why was forced to buy the textbook for financial accounting. Hope that I can understand after reading it...

And also another is everything needs money!!! Oops... I already spent $77 buying only 2 textbooks. Hm... More to come I guess. And I already spent quite a lot during the orientation week and matriculation packages that I bought. Oh no!!! Money just fly away... Very Expensive!

Friday don't need to go school as I only had 1 maths tutorial and tutorial only starts from week 2 onwards... And this weekend had a chalet outing which I have been anticipating for a long time... Poly class 04 chalet, was hoping that it would turn out great and fun!!!

Pooh tagged :)

Monday, August 07, 2006

These 2 weeks, I was preoccupied with NUS stuffs. I almost went back to school almost everyday to settle stuffs as well as to attend extra maths revision lessons.

Monday (31 July 2006):
I went back school to attend school of engineering's welcome tea as well as to attend some talk for poly students regarding module's exemption. After that, we had to decide if we were going to join the engin's orientation week (O Week). Each person had to pay $15 for that week. Initially, we wanted to join together asa one whole "LUNA" group but we were rejected. So, in the end, only 6 of us joined, while the rest of the LUNA group just clashed our groups.

After the talk, a lot of question marks on my head, bidding for modules was quite tough to understand at first. As we had to make our own choices of what kind of modules we want to take, organise our own time and have to complete the requirements. A lot of decision making to do for university's life. All I could do after that, was to go home as ask seniors... Oops... Got to trouble them lorz...

1 Aug 2006 (Tuesday):
I was at home the whole day, slacking and rotting as today is the only day that I can rest for the whole week... So was surfing the net to look for modules and doing module's selection stuff...

2 Aug 2006 (Wednesday):
Today is the day my QET results will be out... Sadly to say that I failed my QET, so I got to take an extra english module for 1 semester. I sort of expected of this failure as I didn't really study and my english is not good all the while. Also, I meeting shuling, YY they all for module discussion. haha... As we got to bid for modules on thursday, so we decide to take the same one so got companion.

Then, in the afternoon, I got to go to school for maths revision lecture 1. The first lecture is about sets, functions and complex numbers. hm... it was quite tough, although, we learned before but I guessed it was because I didn't touched maths for almost a year, forget le. I really got to brush up my maths as it won't be easy when school starts as the cirrculum will go very fast de.

3 Aug 2006 (thursday):
Today is the day when I have to matriculate. Matriculation day was quite fast de wor, I got to queue up and to go from one station to another to hand in the required forms and get our password and userID for our computer access. Also, we have to go upstairs to attend CCA fairs. hm... I was carrying lab top lor, it was super heavy, no choice as I thought I would be bidding for modules. Then when we go upstairs, we were been psyco to buy their matriculation packs and engin packs. Those packs were not free, each cost $10. haiz... pay here and there... For the CCA fairs, I left my names at a lot of booths, as all seemed quite interesting.

After that, went to meet Serene, May Fang they all to start to bid for modules. However, they say that the class timetables still not out yet. Sianz... So don't know to start bidding or not. Luckily, we met one senior, so we asked him to help us. He advised us to call the lady in charge of our timetable matters to ask. However, she said it was not out that soon. So no choice, we had to bid first then decide.

I got to rush for tuition but I was carrying so much packs and my lab top. So, I took cab home first to put my things before I go tuition. After tuition, me and my mother and brother went to Tiong Bahru Market to eat. We specially go ther eto eat the famour Tiong Bahru Chwee Kuey. And a few of other stuffs. I actually met my ex-GSK colleague with his family. he even asked his children call me... So sweet...

4 Aug 2006 (Friday):
Today, we have to attend 2 maths lectures, one is on differentiation and another is on integration. Meanwhile, we got to monitor our bidding's status, to increase or decrease our bids. haha... Quite interesting, just that we scared if can get that module or not... Heyz... Luckily, at night, we knew our results already: I got Financial Accounting using 500 out of 750 points and Singapore Studies, Nation Building using 1 out of 750 points too. So i secured 2 modules but got to bid for another 1 general module called Introduction to Nano World.

5 Aug 2006 (Sat):
Sad to say that I had to go back school for orientation. However, I can only make it for the morning so just went for the morning activities and afternoon had to go to church. In the morning, we were late for orientation, just played 2 games called the animal game and big fish small fish. After that, we had mass dance practice for almost 2 hours. The mass dance this time was shorter but it was a couple dance... Hm... quite tough as the music tempo was quite fast, quite tough to follow up. After dancing, was our lunch break. After our lunch, we played faculty games but we only managed to play 1 of the station which is twister before we go... Then it was a tie between 2 groups. After that, some of us left.

7 Aug 2006 (Mon):
I was deciding to go to school or not... As I had to settle some CPF stuff in the morning. In the end, I was too lazy so I never go. haha... I only went for our OG's outing in the afternoon. We met at 2.30pm in NUS to go together to Pasir Ris Chalet in Joshua's car. But before that, we had to go to Joshua's house to take potato salad which his maid had made for us...

After that, we set off to Pasir Ris Downtown East Chalet. We reached about 4pm. From then, we began to play gamble cards until the time we can eat. As usual we played Da Tee and bridging. I don;t know how to play that bridging game but they taught me how to... The seniors were busy preparing the BBQ startup and helping us to barbeque. We were so pai seh lorz... Food sent to us and all we do was eat and eat. We did had a great fun spreading scandel and teasing the peoples. The whole night we just played cards and we also accompanied that serene to walk walk outside... We had a great time out there... I will miss all the Luna people and hope that we do keep in contact:)

Pooh tagged :)

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

It had been a long time since I updated my blog. I was occupied with my camp as well as my QET. Finally, all is over and for QET, I would have to await for 2 Aug, for the result's release but I didn't pin high hope on it. Haiz... Well... I am back with the camp's updates:

This is the first camp I have been to since secondary sch's adventure camp. On the whole, I did enjoyed myself and knew a bunch of good friends. First of all, I proudly present those waistbands that the councillors had done for us:

Sadly, they spelled wrongly my name: it should be "Cindi" not "Cindy". I don't blame them as the name list spelled my name with "y". I find that the picture on the waistband was very cute, it represents our group which is LUNATICS, LUNA for short.

First day of the camp (17 July 06):
Our gathering point was at one of the lecture theatres. After which, we were brought to our respective groups. We had a brief introduction before the councillors started to teach us to cheer.

You can see that every group was cheering and shouting...

Let's take a group picture first!

After that, we had a simple camp opening ceremony before we break up into our respective groups to start playing ice-breaking games. The first game is none other that game which we had to memorise everyone's name:

Indeed we did have great fun memorising the names of our group members. What come after next should be Wacko!

After that, we played a series of games such as the titi-tootoo game and the sadist game which is called "Ouch! OB! OB!". This game consists of a lot of pinching and beating. It goes like this: One person will start the ball rolling, can call out any names in the group. When this person A name's being called out, he/she can turn either left or right to beat the thighs of person B. Wheras person B had to pinch person C until person C shouted "Ouch!" Then person A can stop beating. Then after that peron D will just shout "OB! OB!", the person beside can then call out another person. To add challenge to this game, the councillors wanted us to sit alternate boy and girl so that we won't be soft hearted when it comes to beating and pinching. Evil, right? The below picture portrayed why this game is sadist:

Every game will always have 4-feets one. I got that lorz, so shuay, luckily for me, me and another girl had to do 4-feet. Guess what? They asked us to carry our flag and go around every group to shout "Luna, Luna, ..." So pai seh lorz...

I think my 4-feet is nothing compared to the poor "couple" who had to do 4-feet in front of another group:

After playing the introductory games, we proceeded back to the lecture theatre for a professor's talk and buffet lunch. After lunching, we played a few more other games like the animal games, ...:

After that, we returned to the lecture theatre for our dance practice. The councillors showed us an overview of the dance that we had to learn. Wow! It is really super difficult, this dance is Hip-hop dance with a lot of tough dance steps. haha... I don't know how we are going to master that dance. We were brought to one corner of NUS to start learning our dance:

Finally, after our dance practice, we started our food hunt around NUS. Every group had to complete 8 stops and the last stop at Sentosa's saphhire pavillion. Every stop would be at one of the faculty's canteen. At each stop, we would have to draw lots and buy food according to the condition stated on the paper and finished the food before going to antoher stop. Every group was given $50 to spend. The winning criterias are the group which spent the least and the group who reach the final stop, Sentosa, first will win.

I remembered we had white rice, chocolate eclairs, almond chocolate, 1 slice of tomato, mango juice, jap food and plain water. Guess what, our competition was quite tight as we met AQUA's group (Shuling's grp) on the bus and 2 other groups at Harbour front. So in the end, due to a lot of people on the bus, we were separated with some of the councillors. In the end, we became the 5th.

When we reached Sentosa, it is time for us to check-in with our luggages. Luckily, they didn't ask us to bring our luggages with us. The logistics team helped us transport our luggages to Sentosa using lorry. Our group had 8 girls so all were be squeezing into one room. After putting our bags in our room, we hurried down to have our dinner by the swimming pool:

The councillors also told us that they would be away, preparing for the fright night. After our dinner, we had our first interaction with our S.P. which means secret pal. We were asked to gather at the Sapphire Pavillion. Everyone of us was given a nickname. My nickname was "Trinity". Then the guys were taken to another location. Then the girls who remained at the Sapphire Pavillion, began to be divided into small groups. We were blindfolded and taken to the beach. We, girls, settled down by the beach, blindfolded, awaiting for the arrival of the guys. After that, the councillors were quite mean, they even forced us to hold hands while talking. Even worse, they asked us to share 1 strawberry pocky stick. Wow, first time sia, but never kissed as we got our hand to block. They even asked the guys to buy us rose and ferro roche.

After talking for almost an hour, I think I was bullshiting all the while, the guys were brought back to their gathering point followed by us. Then we were back into our groups to play games while waiting for our turn to go to fright night. Meanwhile the councillors were busy making up and getting dressed up, preparing for the fright night.

We really waited for a long time before our turn to go to fright night. Some said that the second group encountered some problem that is why for the delay. We played a lot of games for several hours. Until 1 am plus, then it is finally our turn to go for the fright night. It was rather a long and tiring night... We were lucky as they decided to use lorry to bring us there instead of walking. This indeed saved us from walking the long distances. When we reached our destination, we were asked to walk into the jungle. Afterwhich, we were divided into groups of 2s and 3s and one after another would start the fright night journey.

The route into the jungle was completely dark and eerie, we were only led by dim red lanterns and green light sticks along the way. I was with May fang and another guy, the 3 of us, clinging onto each other. I think the guy was quite scared because of us, 2 girls screaming lorz... haha... Poor guy has to open every door that was told to, since he is the guy... Oops... I think that practically all the house were quite scary and we were scared by those "ghosts" who suddenly popped out from no where... On the whole, I felt that the fright night was quite successful as it did scare the whole group of girls out of our wits. This fright night is like a finale for the first night at the camp, can you imagine we slept at around 2 to 3 am since we have to wash up...

Second Day of the Camp (18 July 06):

Early in the morning, we were all up quite early around 7 plus, we woke up already even though we only have to report at 8.30am. We even shared our scary experiences from the fright night, some was quite hilarious. After wash-up, we went to bring Serene to chalet as she could only make it on the second day of the camp. Then, we had our breakfast before we set off to our dance practice again. This time was quite taxing as they taught us the whole dance, a lot of dance steps, longer hours of teaching. However, I can only catch half of it or quarter. haha... Nvm, people dance in front I followed.

After our lunch, we started our main activity of the day which is Amazing race around Sentosa. Every group has to complete 7 stops all around Sentosa, those who reach the final pit stop first, will win this game. First of all, we had a sandcastle building competition. Each group would be given a picture and have to build sandcastle according to the picture. The judging criterias were the size of the sandcastle and how we present out sandcastle to the judges. The first 3 groups who win this can leave 5 mins earlier than the last 3 groups. We were given 30 mins to complete this sandcastle. So, let's go...

After 30 mins, our masterpiece is completed:

Our Presentation:

We only did a short Singapore wave and cheer, after that we went to kiss our masterpiece...

Sad to say, we were the last 3 groups to leave but that doesn't dampen our mood, we still dash to our first pit stop since it is not far away. It is at the Underwater world. Our first mission was to take photographs with different age groups of tourist. Plus a condition of posing as different characters. So, check it out!

(1) Superman Pose:

(2) Here comes the Ultraman!

(3) The bugs bunney also here!

(4) Bat Man!

(5) Spiderman!

We hurried to our next stop. I think it is at some hut thing. We have 2 tasks to complete. The first task is to count the number of blue dots on top of all the mushrooms found in the forest. For your information, got quite a lot. The second task is to narrate and act out the story shown below " Old Man in An tree."

Counting the blue dots on the mushroom...

The story goes like this...

After which, our next pit stop is near the merlion... So, we dashed across to our next stop. This stop is quite tough as our task is to get 3 different currency other than Singapore dollar and rupiah. So we got to thicken our skin and ask those tourists that we saw, wait also got time limit one, 3 mins.

Wow, super tough hor, we began to disperse and beg the tourists... Not easy as all the other groups in front of us had already approached those tourists before, so left only few tourists for us to ask already. In the end, we still manage to ask for 3 different kinds of currency: 1 ren ming pi (China's currency); french coin and spanish coin. (below picture shows one of our members asking from the uncle for ren ming pi...)

Ok, we hurried to our next stop which is somewhere got maze one. At that stop, we have to blindfolded one of our members then, she had to complete the bushes' maze without touching the sides of the bushes. Then, one of the guy will have to shout across the instructions to the girl who is blindfolded. It is also not easy sia...

We headed to our next stop which is at one of the beach, so we have to take a bus... while waiting for the bus, we took photos again...

On the bus, we headed to our next stop which is at Palawan beach. This stop is quite tough as we have to dig for bottles hidden under the sand in the sea. There were different bottles with different colour tags, so we have to find one which had black tag. So almost all of us went down to use our legs to dig and dig... It was quite a long search before we then find one and rushed off to another pit stop... Luckily, we found... It is really like "Hai Di Lao Zhen" lorz.

So, we hurried to our next pit stop which is at Tanjong Beach, at another end. For this stop, the guys in our group had to take off their shirt and roll over the sand. Meanwhile, they also have to find the Nivea products in the sand and take photo with the products:

So, after that, we headed for our second last stop which is a the other far end, Siloso Beach, so we decided to wait for the beach train...

On the beach train:

Finally, we reached our second last stop. The first task is to design a flag an draw it out...

Everyone crowding around to give ideas for the flag:

Our artist drawing the flag:

I proudly presents our completed flag, Nice ma?

Finally, our last pit stop is to find someone at an island. Our group and another group, AQUA were very close. AQUA group reached one of the island first to look fo that mysterious man but they cannot find it. So they decided to go to another island instead. However, we remained on that island, then guess what, we managed to find that mysterious man. So, WE WON the Amazing Race!!! haha... So cool!

Yeah!!! Hurray!!!

While waiting for other groups to finish the race, we went back to the sapphire pavillion for rest... Meanwhile, we went there to polish our dance steps too, as we had to perform the following day... Scary sia!

So after our dance practice, we had our dinner before we continued with our night activities... The first night activity was Speed Dating! haha... Our group girls and boys each one group. We had to go to 3 different stops, in each stops, we were get to know the other guys from another groups. For the first stop, we had to choose a balloon, inside will have the guy's name who we have to talk to. Depends on your luck, if the guy is nice, he will start the topic and talk with you. If he is not good, too bad, got to stay bored for the whole session. Luckily, this stop only lasted for 15 mins. The second stop, girls and guys will stand in 2 rows, then after that, they were be paired up alternately. The last stop, girls will be sitting inside a circle while the guys will form the outer circle. So the outer circle will rotate and we then get to talk to different guys... This speed dating quite ok, just depends on your luck. But we did manage to find out 1 other guy also from Ngee Ann Poly... So added into our poly gang... haha...

After our speed dating, we had our last night activity which is the Night Treasure Hunt! Each group would be given different pictures taken from signboards all over the 2 beaches: Palawan and Siloso Beaches. So we have to identify and find words and form clues to our final destination... So look out for what signboard we discovered: Those circled ones...

(1) Signboard of Trapeze (Swinging thingy)

(2) It is at some carparks. One of the signboard at the carpark...

(3) For this, they only provide the picture of this froggy... ok la quite obvious...

(4) For this picture, they provided us with the plate number of this bus. It is actually an ice-cream selling stall...

(5) For this clue is quite tricky as they only provided the mouth of this model, so got to match...

(6) For this picture, they wanted us to find out the manufacturer of this spot light in an offshore island... Luckily got bridge to this island...

(7) For this, they only provided us with a small picture of that signboard, only those with sharp eyes can spot...

(8) This is challenging as they only provided us with the photo of the scribbling on one of those huts. Can you imagine, there are how many of these kind of huts alongside beaches...

There are a few more places that we went to, however, our camera low batt so they used my HP camera to substitute. So the effect is not really good. After which, we didn't managed to find all the pictures, we left out 6 of them as we really cannot find. In the end, the word formed is Saphhire Pavillion, so we went back to our final destination. At there, we had to find our flag hidden somewhere in the bushes ardoun the pavillion. But luckily, we still manage to find and that marks the end of our this night treasure hunt game. Haha... We also reach there first unexpectedly.

All of us were very exhausted after a day of running here and there, playing all sorts of games, dancing,... really can slim down a lot after such activities...

We managed to catch some nap at the pavillion before we have to start our dance practice again until 2am... Cannot imagine, dancing in the middle fo the night... at that time, we were dying for a nice bath and a nice sleep... haha... So in the end, we did had a short dance practice, abt 30 mins of dance. But i didn't dance as my knee cap hurts so I just sit by the side to rest. After that, we did our wash-up before we get to sleep. Initially, I slept with serene side by side, but another girl who slept beside me, was quite tall, she cannot squeeze, so i changed place with her to sleep.

Third Day of the Camp (19 June 06):

We were supposed to meet downstairs for breakfast at 7.30am however, all of us woke up around 7 plus, so we hurried wash -up and rushed downstairs for our breakfast. After our breakfast, we had a short dance practice while our councillors preparing another game for us. Our first game was 15-min Challenge. Each group will choose 1 lane, along the lane, we had to complete 10 tasks. So I shall let the pictures show u all the tasks:

(1) First task needed 2 person, 1 person will throw facing backwards and another person have to use his shirt to catch the water bomb that was threw. Not easy sia

(2) Second task needed 2 persons too, 1 person will throw 1 small piece of bread and another person will have to catch it using his mouth.

(3) Third task required only 1 person. The potato chip will be placed on the forehead of one person then, the person will have to twitch his face as much as possible so that the chip can reach his/her mouth and be eaten.

(4) 4th task required 2 persons too, 1 person had to drink coke within 1 min and another person had to eat 1 piece of white bread with nothing on it. Seemed easy but when you try to do, quite difficult.

(5) 5th task is obvious as we had to hold hands and go through the Hula hoop provided.

(6) This task is quite challenging as it tested our accuracy. 2 persons were hold a string and at other side, all of us were try to hang our hangers on the string. Really test our patience and accuracy...

(7) The next task was to blow the ping pong ball from one bowl to another, total had to blow across 3 bowls.

(8) The following task was to stack cards like a 2 rows pyramid at least let it stand for at least 1 min.

(9) This task was to complete a puzzle. The puzzle is quite tough to fix. haha...

(10) Finally, it is the last task, that is to form a chinese words using us. The Chinese word is Cai, Rainbow, cai hong de cai hong.

After that, it were be our beach games. There were 2 kinds of beach games, we played the dry beach games before lunch and the wet beach games after lunch. fter playing so much at the beach games, we went back to bath as we were all covered with sand and drenched. Our last night main activity is the SP night dinner at a restaurant... Followed the night, were a series of events such as games played in the restaurant as well as our dance compeition. Due to some problems, I cannot upload the photos. So I shall upload them in my next entry.

Pooh tagged :)