That’s a cardboard dart board in case your were wondering. There’s was a 3 day orientation camp in SP since last Friday comprising of juniors from The Rotaract and Leo Club, ending on the third and last day (today) with a city-wide treasure hunt. Peili called me to help out as a station master pair for today’s event which actually came rather obliging as I actually couldn’t not make down to the whole camp itself due to my schedule.

My station is suited at Far East Plaza, with seven more located a few key landmarks around Singapore, namely the Arts Museum, Esplanade, Fort Caning, just to name a few. Our station has a challenge involving blowing spit balls from a straw onto a dart board with rings demarcated with 5 point intervals, where a score of 100 is required to process with the next given clue. Teams will then allowed to leave after they had cracked the riddle to the next destination and everybody hydrated with ice-cold water (safety measure as some teams actually ran from fort canning all the way here to far east).

The ice-cold water was provided courtesy of the very kind staff of Burger King Far East Plaza who always happily filled up our 1.5L PET bottle for free everytime we approached them, totaling almost 8 times for all our teams. Teams generally come at 30min blocks during the 9am- 3pm event, but was dampened by the rain causing few delays, but nevertheless everything went smoothly.

Attempting the challenge

The Next Clue

Burger King – Special Thanks!

We actually had quite some free time between groups, saw that coming with some of my homework and my laptop there to finish some chores of my own, besides finding out what I’ve missed during the camp. Learnt about their adventures over the past few days, namely their ice-breaking sessions, cheers and especially the night walk where Peili have to go around campus as a ghost to scare the juniors who made their tour around campus around a planned route in pairs, bizarre!

With all of the DME students already starting on their Final year project (FYP), my team on the DME CIE option will start ours next semester – it being a dedicated whole semester concentrating day-to-day on project work itself. My team of 4 was finalized, so was our intended project to build a compressed air-powered mini car in the light of Singapore’s Green Movement.

🙁 However, my Final Year project plans took a blow the last week, as one of my team members from Burma wanted out of the team (which we actually planned and finalised few months ago) to another because of a personal reason on his part. Not only us but even our teacher and supervisor in-charge was rather puzzled sudden and unexpected change and movement – considering that our “teammate” actually consulted the other team (which he wanted-in) and our teacher in-charge, all without my team’s knowledge.

😯 As the saying goes: “Betrayal is more painful than death” I will not tolerate any sweeping actions which compromises the team’s integrity and stability. As what he wanted, that ex-teammate left the team as he said he “desires” to be with another person, ahem… a guy on the other team (I am not making any assumptions here, but I will leave that to you), bringing my team’s total strength to 3, the smallest CIE team for a non-research based, major special project (SP) so far.

Well at least with this spade of incidents, this only made the rest of my team stronger in bonds as ultimately it’s the pure and combined effort of every single team member in which will make our project an ultimate success.

😎 Oh yes, what are we building now this FYP, it will be a 360 degree gaming motion simulator, will provide more details when the time comes!

The week’s been very slow lately, with 0km of runs covered, lots of work/chores piling up, a packed weekend agenda all coupled with a large sleep debt. I simply just cannot get the hang of 8am classes, which I am always late for and takes up 4/5 of my school week.

But that didn’t stop me from “killin’ myself” by going for a 14.55km run this evening despite 5hours of sleep last night & a 8-5 timetable today. The funny thing is that I am very much more awake then what I was a moment ago…

Some interesting line ups for the week would be:

Tomorrow – SP Blood donation drive

• Friday – Overnight CS gaming session with my colleagues
• Saturday – Track & Field Farewell visit to National Stadium
• Saturday – Track Marina Bay Steamboat/Mother’s Day celebration with Family
• Sunday – Aid Rotaract Club Freshman Orientation Treasure Hunt at Orchard Road

I have to squeeze in another 7km of runs and a swim in the week to meet my weekly quota, also on top of finishing all my required tutorial work and freelance jobs planned for the week. Hey a person also have to relax right?

They had some kind of Microsoft mini carnival at the auditorium today, notably is the hold your vista contest, where anybody can participate by holding up a MS visual basic 2006 bible in one arm extended. The longest winning a copy of Microsoft Office 2007. They also have lucky draws to win an Xbox 360, non to mention CO2 booths selling PDA phones. Overall quite badly organized and rather amateurish as well haha. Pathetic… wonder how much those Gates minions are paid by the hour?

Choices today: Go watch Spiderman-3 with cousin, go for a relaxing swim and tan by the pool (as the sun is so freakin’ invitingly hot today), go to campus for junior’s orientation & street soccer or stay at home to finish up another few more tutorials to last me till mid-semester.

Though I am not totally the best of shape, went for the soccer instead. Bagging 2 feet blisters on top of 1 goal & 2 assists for my team on the quick 2 goal/match eliminations we played. No credit for goalkeeping though which I sux greatly at, but one of our freshies who played is quite good at it, something I guess weiwen, alvin and me could learn or two. Lunch was on our own pockets in FC 3 contrary to food catering previously. They had blended Kiwi juice on the specials going for $1 at the drink store – great value! Basketball was on next, but left after lunch. Met Guetping and Yiying on my way out who came in for 2pm track training. Heard that the rest carried on with Bball till like 5pm? So no training?

I was late and had to make a choice between 2 bus services arriving together at the stop today (service 14 and 147, both superbuses which I can take to campus). Though 14 has a shorter traveling time, the 8am peak traffic at the AYE always slows things down considerably. The service 147 thou, spots the newer Volvo B9TL series, which also plys an alternative route to campus with an additional but justifiable traveling time of about 1 min, which is also the main reason why I took it.

Service 14 left ahead of mine, later do I know that bus service which I had been following for the next 3 bustops suddenly stalled in the middle of the road… then it’s hazard lights came on. BreakDown! wooo! You could just feel confusion and puzzled-ness painted on the morning rush-hour commuters faces as my bus passed theirs. Lucky me, cus I could actually be in that bus!

Thursday morning classes are exceptional strict in attendance, particular Lab practicals where any additional minute of lateness will mean 1% deducted your personal Laboratory report score, the maximum being 30% off where attendance will be marked as absent. All these are courtesy of the tutor who tracks every student’s entry into class with a time stamp. I was thankful and early, in fact by 10mins for an 8am class, arriving even before my tutor. Maybe he should give an inventive for those who make an effort to come early right? so that’s an additional 10% score for me? (or you can come 100mins early and get 100% of 1% of your report)… Fat hope I guess.

It’s week 3 and I had already completed enough tutorials in advance to last me till week 5-6, should keep me free from homework for a while. Good luck to those in Uni mugging for Semester exams coming very soon!

Mum ain’t trading these 2 days because of Tokyo holidays, should be dropping by and meeting her at Raffles City tomorrow to buy a birthday cake for Dad’s Birthday on Saturday, wonder which favor will I, ummm he would like?