Thursday, July 03, 2008
AKID FOC 08

I had much to expect for the upcoming AKID FOC 08 camp. It was my 1st university camp and I had many good reviews about it being a fun and wild camp.

By the time I reached SDE, the place was already filled with people, both participants and OGLs. I was allocated to the "Starck" group. Phillip Starck, being an industrial designer from France, was by far the only ID group among the other 8 groups. He became famous from his out of the world design, the Juice Salif, it looking like a spider or a face-hugger from Aliens. It was nice seeing a familiar face in my OG; Leon, being my secondary school classmate. There were other people with unique backgrounds; A thai guy who is 2 years younger, Myammar born guy, a guy who is pursuing a degree even though he is in his thirties.. and a significant bunch of girls~ Our OGLs were very friendly with us. They were filled with energy, trying to spur the team on with cheers and games.

The 1st day started out with station games in the afternoon. It was your pretty standard stuff for a normal orientation. We were pretty much losing almost every game. so much so we started calling ourselves "L*ser" (losers) It was good humour involved and we were enjoying the company, even though we were still losing~ We later played a game called "chicken". I must say, it was one of the most violent games I have ever played. It was a game that showed the real barbarians in some of the girls, pushing, scratching and launching their chest over to the guys, only to shout "molest" in attempt to make us stop defending our chicken. By the end of the game, many people were so called "violated", the chicken being the main casualty from all of the rapes happening around. I had my share of crazy girls coming after me. It was little wonder why the shagness of the game overhauled into the night when we were planning for our Fort Construction(Building of a fort and being able to withstand water bombs). It got worse when we weren't allowed to bathe. For some reason, we were not allowed to be in the school premises. So off we went to Fong Seng, the nearby coffee-shop to eat our fair share of oily food. After eating, as we continued to wait, the OG decided to sit by the side of the road to play games to entertain themselves. I resorted to another means of entertainment.. (Thank you! :D) We finally bathed at close to 1am.

Day 2 was a little more exciting. We had our fort construction, and it was the time when my scouting skills came into play. With all the knowledge of lashing flowing back into my veins, I whipped out a sturdy tripod, standing the tallest among all the other structure. Its supports consisted of metal bars and there is a water-proof wrapping around its whole body. It looked like a crossbreed between a lighthouse, a black widow and a lady. It was ugly. We managed to smoke through the whole presentation ( thanks to Simon and his incredible skills of smoking) and off we went to try out the toughness of the tower. Water bombs flew in all directions, but none managed to penetrate the impregnable fort, as it remained standing throughout the whole water bomb war. It was the largest scale waterbomb war i have ever since, numbers staggering to up to 500 water bombs. Once again.. the crazy games from arch-rivals Pei showed up and gave me showers of blessings, leaving me soaked to the bones. Imagine 5-6 girls chasing a poor innocent soul down the court with all their waterbombs.. Hmmmmm.....
I had left earlier to catch Esther's performance, but upon arrival, i was immediately dragged into the initiation of the secret pal meeting. This is a dark ritual that every NUS student who is attending a camp will have to face. Apparently, SDU is leaving up to the name of graduate falling in love with a graduate, so by sponsoring for camps, Camp committee must inject a bit of "love" into their activities. I was blindfolded and led into the studio and made to sit on the chair. Behind me was a black cloth, where my secret pal hides beyond it. Given the secret name of "John Lennon", my secret pal's name was " Yoko Ono". When you are stuck in the situation like this, you make the best out of the situation. I started talking everything under the sun. About school, about CCAs, about where she stayed. You name it! It was good that she was rather conversational too, making the whole affair less awkward. We were treated to a session of mass dancing after the secret pal meeting, finally sleeping at about 2am.

3rd morning just got weirder. We were greeted with the blindfolds again. This time, John Lennon had to feed Yoko-Ono breakfast, consisting of a slice of peanut butter bread, a slice of of Nutella bread, 2 bananas and 2 bunches of grapes. We took some times groping at the food, launching it at each of our faces, and attempting to chew each other's fingers off, but to me, it was great fun to find ourselves in such a situation. The conversation continued on, this time about travel and a bit on my army life. And apparently, a couple was smearing the bread spread over each other's faces. Day 3 was dedicated for the water games, but due to some problems, they were conducted in school, in a "safe" manner. Once again, the games revolted back to the JC orientation style of playing it, with a few humours here and there, like how Htin Aung would eat a banana like a real monkey, and how Joanne was scary with her diao look, and how Simon was able to dodge all waterbombs coming at him blindfolded. There were talks in the evening, many of them directing towards the Aki people. As for us ID people, we were introduced by our seniors. No regrets though, she was super humourous and animated. Being in a rather small family, having friends within ur course is very important. At times, it also felt like ID is inferior over to Aki. I try not to influence myself too much with such thoughts, and focus on what I like doing best. We had our little MTV discussion before calling it a night at 1.00am.

Out of all the days of the FOC, I must admit that the last day was the most fun out of everything. We started the day by travelling down to Sentosa. It was a splendid day for a great tan with the sun shining bright. We were joined with the PRRE Campers from the other side. Personally speaking, they were a lot more enthu than the Starck people, and there was a certain drive in being the best OG in their camp. We started by exchanging cheers. They had a whole mouthful of it. Ours came in spits. But things slowly warmed up, as I predicted, when our guys started playing the games. The games were amazingly fun. There was Human Pyramids in the sea, Food relay around coconut trees, Dog and bone while piggybacking a girl in the sea, Water-bomb volleyball with someone's shirt, sand sculpturing, Mua ji in a fun way (always regarded as an army punishment). I hated the pingpong ball though. it requires much arm strength and a certain technique which trembling limbs cannot master. Nevertheless, we had our fun and laughter all throughout the day, only coming back to school by 3.30pm. At 5pm, we were asked to perform our MTV skit(A skit which consists of a MTV song and dance/skit) It was interesting to note that out of all the 8 groups, 7 were consisting of cross-dressing guys with their fake boobs and sex of all sorts (gay kinds, prostitutes, adultery) We had our S Club 7 "Don't Stop", it being the cleanest out of all of the skits, making us the winners of the whole skit competition. Credit goes to Wei Chin and Raj, who could act the pure and innocent couple out really good.

As the orientation camps draws towards a closure, we were finally able to reveal our secret pals. Dressed in our formal wear, we were supposed to head down to the Butter Factory, but due to the unsafe conditions, the seniors had to revamp the examination halls as the dinner venues. Candlelights were placed on the 50 or so tables within the room. Rose Petals were scattered on the floor. On the table was a stalk of rose and a pair of ear-rings as gifts for the female secret pal. It was noticeable that the seniors did put in a lot of effort to make this come true. And then, for the 1st time in the FOC, i finally get to meet my secret pal. Her name is Alyssa from the group Mies. I had no idea how she looked throughout those 4 days; didnt bother guessing so as not to spoil the hours. After exchanging gifts with each other (Coincidentally Alyssa has given me a frog fun. We had a good time sharing at the table while dinner was served. It lasted for close to 1 1/2coinbox), we were treated to a Clubbing event at the studio. Yet another elaborated effort from the seniors, attempts to reenact the clubbing scene was successful. There were bars with fake alcoholic drinks, pop-corns and donuts. An aisle with spotlights and a cool lion banner at the end of it. And walls for you to vandalise on. It was a homely place and everyone was comfortable with each other. We were even coaxed into a SDE mass dance towards the end of the day. My experience for AKI FOC 08 ended at 12am.

Overall.. it was a great camp. Made new friends. Played games I would never dare dream of playing. Had a better picture of where/What Im heading too. The future looks less uncertain now.