The longest, because: after competition prep on Friday, shooting on Saturday, and helping out with admin and logistics for the team events on Sunday and staying the night in school, I was already tired by Monday morning when the camp started.
I was falling asleep within seconds if I so much as sat down, by Monday night, and on Wednesday; "Sentosa Day", spent entirely on Sentosa's Palawan Beach, running around in the sun, shouting and screaming and cheering; by that night, my voice was almost non-existent and I was half-dead on my feet. Enough people kept asking if I was all right to make me convinced that I probably looked only marginally better than Death warmed up, and I think I made Ivan worried that night as well. Sorry, dear.
They were also the shortest five days because those five days were the most fun that I've had in a long time.
The OG that I was attached to was a small one, only seven freshies, but seven freshies that bonded really fast and were pretty enthusiastic; half the group were really sporting, and the other half were the kind who didn't mind going along with everyone else, so we were pretty well set. And although I didn't get to spend much time with them, being busy with station I/C duties or O Comm duties, thank you to Jennifer, Ernest, Benjamin, Elda, Kelvyn, Carrick and Jacinta, my freshies; and the councillors, Desmond (aka Jun Hao), Pearl, Yan Jun, Kah Keng, Siying and our dear OGL, Zonghan, for my first and most memorable Arts Camp as a senior.
Will always remember Ernest's "Shah-gedee" cheer, which he taught the whole house of Trottus while we were on the bus to Sentosa, and Ben's "patented" Ah Beng action: a finger pointed at you, followed with a dismissive flick of said finger, accompanied by a "cheh" sound. By the end of the camp, I'd greet him with: "Chao Ah Beng!" And then we'd both do that action to each other, haha.
When I stayed over on Sunday night, I met Yonghe, one of Ivan's friends from army; he's the one from Dentistry whom Ivan keeps saying will do a crowning for him when he graduates. Which I guess should be sometime next year... Or is Dentistry a four-year course of study? Hm. *shrugs* Oh well.
Night games on the first night was the first time I could actually spend time with my OG, and I remember that that was when I found out how fast they'd bonded: they were already poking fun and making friendly jibes at one another in a way that'd make you think that they'd known each other for years. I remember that Jacinta seemed less enthusiastic then, but she got into the spirit of things as the days went on. Also remember the "food-passing" game during Night Games, the station where the players have to line up, and the first player mixes and mashes up the mixture of flour and chocolate sauce, smears it on the face of the second person, and from there onwards, they're only allowed to pass from one person's face to another.
I remember how Jennifer's face was getting completely covered in chocolate and flour, since she was the second person, and she just kept complaining that none of it was coming off on Kelvyn's face, haha. Which was true; none of it was sticking. And Ben's face seemed to be dirt-repellent too, haha.
Second night:
When the first pair of freshies from Trottus house came in, there was a flicker of hope that they'd actually follow the instructions and find the clues that they were supposed to, but in the oddest twist ever, they turned out to be too imaginative. Haha... the two girls thought that the random dots of glow-in-the-dark fabric paint on the "nonsense" clues that we left lying around were morse code and that the actual clue that they'd found earlier was a distraction!! 0_0...
Oh well. At least they followed the instructions. And they were quite entertaining. :P For those of you who don't understand the thing about the "houses", here's how it goes.
Usually the people in Arts Camp are divided into four houses, whose names begin with the letters A, R, T and S. This year, the names of the four houses are Arlo, Romanov, Trottus and Skylar. These four houses are then each traditionally further subdivided into three OGs, but this year, there were four OGs in each house instead of three.
We were staying in Eusoff Hall this year, and for financial and other reasons, some people had to squeeze; more often than not, it was the councillors. There were cases of two people sharing a single room and four people sharing a double room; not a pleasant prospect. I'd actually resigned myself to the fact that it was highly unlikely that I'd get a room all to myself, but found out on that first night, when we were all checking in, that I wasn't staying in E Block with all my house's freshies and councillors; apparently, I was to stay in A Block with the O Comm and House I/Cs; MC members are sorta considered O Comm, I've been led to believe. And, all of us in A Block each had a room all to ourselves. Except maybe for the House I/Cs.
Each House has a male and a female House I/C each, and I found out later that first night, after our debrief, that all four female House I/Cs were in one room (A107), and all four guys were in the room next to theirs (A108). Ivan, being one of the House I/Cs of Romanov, was thus in A108.
I was staying on the second floor, and on the second night, Ivan moved in with me; both because neither of us minded, and because since Johan (House I/C of Skylar) didn't seem like he'd be spending his nights in the House I/Cs' room, if Ivan moved out, it meant that the remaining two guys, Bobby and Clement, would at least get the beds, rather than sleeping on the tables.
Third day, Sentosa Day, proved quite fruitful for my house; Trottus, that is. Both my house and OG seemed to be far more bonded than the other houses, and my OG's morale soared even higher when we won five of the eight inter-OG games that we played. Later, when there were inter-House games, Arlo won the first one, which was called "Synchronised Swimming", for obvious reasons.
And during Romanov's performance, Ivan decided to give the entire camp a preview of what could be expected of him the next night: mini-bash night. What happened was that while his entire house was standing knee- or waist-deep in the sea, singing a song which I can't remember right now, he started dancing, using those cheesy moves which according to all the rest, are typical of Mambo Night. -_-
Wan-Tsin was the one who drew my attention to what was going on, I think; I was rather preoccupied with burying Isaac's legs in the sand then. :P And when I saw what he was doing, I had no idea whether or not I should laugh or die of embarrassment. :P
Later, when the house was done with their performance, Steven actually requested that Ivan perform his little routine all over again for the O Comm, and while everyone was cheering, another little chant started from where Skylar was, much to my mortification: "Gerri, Gerri, Gerri..."
Oh, Good LORD. 0_0
There was no way I was going down there to dance with him, for goodness' sake. I don't dance. Bleah. :P
Anyway, Trottus' morale enjoyed another upward rush by the end of the day, considering that we won the impromptu cheering competition before the start of "Gladiator" (the name of our Sentosa waterbomb game) and we won "Gladiator" itself as well.
I came down from my high pretty fast though; kinda like falling down ten storeys of flights of stairs. -_-
Despite the fact that I was starving, I had zero appetite for dinner (reduced to a minus-ten, given the quality of the food), but which I ate anyway, leaving most of the rice. And after doing my part in ushering the freshies off to their speed-dating venues, I sat down at one of the benches along the beach being occupied by our people and tried to get some sleep, but wasn't very successful; for some reason, I kept falling asleep, only to wake up again after about ten minutes. Not very restful sleep.
There were a few times however, when I was somewhat lucid enough to figure out what was going on around me, and during those times, I usually amused myself by watching Engin camp's activities. Yes, they were at Sentosa too. At one point, while a large group of our freshies (two Houses, I think) were having their speed-dating on the beach, near the suspension bridge, one group of Engin freshies came to their station, which happened to be almost next to the bridge.
I watched them do inane things at the station I/C's request (which, I know, is really just part and parcel of any orientation camp, but this was... *really* inane), kick their slippers into the sea while blindfolded (I never saw if they got them back), and then to round it off, the station I/C asked them for a cheer: "I want it so loud that it'll stop the Arts people having SP!" (SP stands for "Secret Pal"; not really what was going on, but since SP activities are common during NUS orientation camps, I guess the speed-dating really did look enough like one of them.)
When she said that, my eyebrows lifted. This, I have to see, I thought.
I did a quick assessment of the situation. A large group of Arts freshies sitting and chatting one-on-one, over little tealights placed on the beach, about 20 metres away from the Engin freshies. Said group of Engin freshies, total strength of twelve; sex ratio, more or less even.
The station I/C asked them to say the "Ecstasy cheer", which, ironically enough, *we* had altered a little to make our camp cheer. See, our theme for this year is drug-based (I still haven't figured out why OSA didn't make a fuss over that :P), so we changed the cheer to the "Artstasy cheer".
And then the Engin freshies started cheering.
I watched them for about ten seconds before deciding that it didn't seem like our freshies could hear them, much less have their interaction be disturbed. No offence to the Engin people, but my seven freshies could probably equal or be louder than that group. :P
So, when everything was over, we had a bit of fun at Engin camp's expense (we just cheered really loudly in front of some of the seniors being station I/Cs); I actually think I even saw Rayner disturb their freshies, haha. The thing is, Engin camp were leading their freshmen around during our speed-dating activities; the Engin freshies were blindfolded and made to walk around in single file, hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them, with one un-blindfolded senior leading them. I think I saw Rayner go up to the back of one group, tap the last girl on the shoulder, and then the next thing I knew, the line was broken in two. Wahahaha... :P
Boarded the buses to take us back to Eusoff Hall, and since I was on the second bus back with the rest of my house, I went to take a quick shower before debrief, and while I was in the shower, I could hear several groups of freshies making their way to Fong Seng, evidently still in very high spirits, from the screaming and laughing and shouting and spontaneous cheers that I could hear from the second floor washroom.
After debrief: went back to room, promptly flopped on the bed and almost fell asleep straight away. Almost, because Ivan was in the room gathering his stuff to go take his shower and I was talking to him; I'd have fallen asleep if I hadn't been doing anything. Well, actually, he was trying to talk me into sleeping in the next day, since the first few hours of the next day would be taken up by sponsorship talks for some of the sponsors for the camp. He even wanted to tell Hock (our dear project director) to let me in sleep in late; not that I didn't appreciate the concern, but I didn't think it was very fair; I figured that everyone else was probably just as tired.
Ivan insisted that my case was different since I'd had my archery competition stuff just before the camp. Told him not to bother with it, but being who he is, he told Hock anyway. I have one of the sweetest boyfriends in the world, I know. :)
So when everyone woke up at 8-plus the next morning, I woke up at about 9.30; wasn't much of a lie-in, but we have to be thankful for whatever we can get, yeah? Might've been able to sleep for longer if I wasn't one of the station I/Cs for Jianwu's war games, but oh well. My voice was scratchy and almost gone, my eyes were puffy, and later, Aaron made a comment about how I looked like I needed life support. :P
I survived the war games anyway, although it really was damn hot; big contrast to the weather that we'd had the previous day for Sentosa-- there'd been just enough cloud cover to soften and diffuse the sun's rays without making it look overcast and gloomy.
It's funny when you realise that half a day can pass so quickly; immediately after the war games(at SRC), the freshies were told to make their way back to EH to wash up for SP night (and mini-bash after that); when they finally get to meet their SPs (for those who don't know, any prior interaction between SPs is done blindfolded and only by way of handwritten letters; the letters are addressed using nicknames assigned to each pair by the comm; things like Beauty and Beast, Jack and Jill, etc.).
Dinner that night was good. Considering that it wasn't the catered food again, but was actually cooked by the EH kitchen staff. And there were proper plates and cutlery this time, not like last year, when we had packed rice and plastic cutlery, haha. But I didn't really mind then, anyway. :D Ivan was so excited about mini-bash (which traditionally comes after dinner on SP night, so that after meeting their SPs, they can all buy each other drinks later; at least, that's what SDU thinks...?) that he was starting to dance in his seat. -_-
Had to leave halfway through dinner though; went with Tim, Yuimin, Xuzi, Beng Chong and Fiona to Planet Paradigm first to check if the place was ready and to see where and how we could hold our programmes once inside. Well, actually just one programme; mass dance competition. Haha.
Was on bouncer duty with Beng Chong till 11 (Beng Chong loved to tell anyone who asked, "Why're you out here?" that we were "bouncing" -_-||), but at about 10, Yuimin told us to go in and watch the programme
So. Mass dance, which, this year, is demonstrated by Ivan and Fiona. Paradigm had poles on one of their podiums, so before the final demonstration of the dance before the competition started, Chong Han asked Ivan and Fiona to pole dance. I didn't see that when I came in, but I was standing next to Don when he offhandedly remarked that Ivan was "damn hot" and "damn sexy lah!" 0_0
Er. Right, Don. He did seem a little... happy, though. If you get my drift. Although he'd later claim that he hadn't drunk anything yet at that point. Never mind. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt. (Although it isn't clear exactly *what* we should doubt... :P Kidding, Don. Really.)
But anyway, mass dance competition. :D Trottus won!! Haha... and Ernest and Jennifer won it for us! The other three houses' representatives either forgot the steps of just didn't have the right amount of energy in their moves. :D
When Alvin came to take over from Beng Chong and me from 11 pm to 1 am, I went in, found Wan-Tsin and Rayner seated at a table near the dance floor, watching their freshies' stuff. Well, okay, actually, it was more like Wan-Tsin was watching the stuff; Rayner kept popping down to the dance floor every now and then, and everytime he came back, he'd ask Wan-Tsin to go dance, by lifting his eyebrows in typical Rayner-fashion, and doing an exaggerated bopping motion with his whole body, haha.
Also mildly entertaining was watching (year 1) Clement dance; he was dancing *off* the dance floor, behind and to the left of the higher podium, near the tables. He was dancing this crazy, really tiring-looking dance; at times it didn't match the music that was being played (R&B), but I doubt he cared. :D
Eventually, when their freshies came back and the two of them were nowhere in sight, I wandered over to the table where some of the comm members were seated; Diana and Grace had a drunk Jianwu sitting between them; seeing Jianwu drunk is also... quite entertaining. And I must say that Jianwu is the most funny drunk that I've ever seen. :D
He'd sit quietly bopping to the music, then every once in a while, he'd shout and whoop and he'd start shaking and dancing while still seated on his stool, and then he'd quiet down again and start saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm drunk, I know", much to mine, Diana's and Grace's amusement. :D
Rayner and Wan-Tsin came over to join us shortly, followed by Don, bearing two bottles of Heineken; one which he put on the table, and the other, which he took a very long swig from.
I remember thinking at that point of the night that Don was going to get *really* wasted, and I was proven right later. In fact, it seemed that *quite* a few people got wasted. Quite, er... happening for a mini-bash, I guess. :P
So I spent the first half of the night sitting quietly at the table with them, Ivan joining us occasionally when he decided to come down from the podium, haha. And while I was sitting there watching the dance floor, I made a few observations about how certain people dance and how typical of their character their dancing style is. Somewhat... interesting, but we won't go into that.
And then at just a little after midnight, they played Bon Jovi's "It's My Life".
That song has a lot of memories for me, especially since that was the song that got my whole OG onto the dance floor during my freshman Arts Camp last year; I still remember that all of us, freshies and councillors danced, standing in a circle, and when the chorus came on, we put our hands round each others' shoulders and jumped in a circle together; sounds quite spastic, but it was damn fun, haha.
So I got a second wind then; had to be running purely on adrenaline. I went down to the dance floor with (year 2) Clement, Beng Chong and Swee Giang, and we found ourselves a little empty spot just in front of the higher podium. Beng Chong and Swee Giang kept trying to get Ivan to notice me, since really, we were right in front of him; in the end, I decided to spare them the effort and just reached up and patted Ivan on the arm to get his attention.
Ten seconds later he pulled me up onto the podium. :P
Later, he'd tell me that apparently, I surprised a lot of people. Ivan says his own reaction to seeing me on the dance floor was "Oh my God, she's dancing," and when he pulled me up to the podium: "Oh my God, she actually came up!"
I suppose I'm just full of surprises, aren't I. Heehee. Ivan just seemed really happy that I "really" was his "techno princess" after all. *rolls eyes* :P
Only danced for about a half hour or so, I think; the rock music ended and they started playing "Milkshake", which I don't particularly like (not the drink, the song), so I stepped down and made my way back to one of the tables.
Later during the night (morning?), towards the end, when the dance floor was almost empty (either because a lot of people were wasted or because they were just tired and sian after about 4 hours of dancing), by some strange stroke of luck, they played... techno. Yeah. I have no idea if the DJs realised it, but Ivan sure as hell did.
He ran and jumped up onto the higher podium immediately and, it being empty, he had it all to himself for about ten minutes, until two other guys joined him. The whole bash ended shortly after that, about an hour later; I left on the buses with my house, and while my OG wanted to stick to the tradition of not sleeping on the last night (starting with going to Fong Seng for supper), staying up to play Truth or Dare or just to yak the early morning hours away, or whatever else have you, I had to decline. The adrenaline had worn off by then, and the second wind with it. Another ten-storey drop.
The next afternoon, after everything had ended, some of us lazed around in the clubroom till evening, surrounded by the miscellanous logistics (otherwise known as "junk") that had been used for the camp. Ivan and I managed to catch forty winks, and sometime around 6 in the evening, Yuyan read aloud a message from Xinyan which urged us to go outside and look at the beautiful sunset.
I led the group of us up to the Central Library rooftop, since I remembered that was the best place in the immediate vicinity for watching sunsets; found out during the Rag initiation barbecue we had last year.
Anyone who saw the group of people on the rooftop must've wondered what the hell we were doing; all of us (except Ivan) were wearing the maroon-coloured Arts Camp T-shirts that the O-Comm were given, different from the lime-green ones that everyone else had.
I wished so badly then that I had a digital camera; the sunset was a beautiful one, but at that moment, what made a better picture were the people around me, standing, sitting, lying around on the rooftop, bathed in the orange light of the last of the day's sunlight. I was seated next to Ivan, Xuzi was lying down not far from us; Yuyan and Don stood just down from him, their elbows propped on the wall behind them, and Chong Han and Tim sat in front of them.
It looked like a freeze-frame screenshot straight out of a coming-of-age movie, wherein the young characters look ahead to a future that they have no way of seeing or knowing, but which they know they'll meet head-on, regardless.
And as time stretches on ahead of us, at the same time, I've left behind five of the happiest months of my life; thank you, my dear Ivan for the five months of your time and your love and the gift of yourself. :)
After the first day of my archery competition, when Kenneth was driving some of us down to Clementi for dinner, he had this song playing in his car; the seniors told me it's an old song, but I don't remember hearing it before. Anyway, after listening to it, it does sound a lot like the early days, when we were still just friends, and when we finally made the step to become something more.
"Collide" by Howie Day
Happy five months, dear.
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