GOSH I’m taking such a freaking long time to write and account for camp Ignite. It’s been a week!!! Slept my fever away yesterday evening (what I mean is 26th) when I couldn’t write any longer. I must admit that I never seem to have enough stamina for writing. It sucks (not the writing part la) =( What a sad case man.

Guess what?
What. – 1 May, 3.46am
Guess what??
I’m done. =) – 1 May, 3.56pm

[ Day 4 ] 21 April, Friday – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Waking up to the most anticipated day of camp, there was an inevitable sense of foreboding throughout the day; we were to confront the four other giant schools of TP in – The Final Clash. Half of us who returned in the middle of the morning had merely several hours of rest, which explained for our loafing around when it was time to get up, probably at 8 or 9am. I had worn my white collared class shirt along with PL shorts. Breakfast was consumed in Design canteen, where I ordered the usual sausage + egg + toast set and sat with Wee Teng, Li Jia and some others.

The empty space under the overhead walkway served as a usual gathering location. In our sub-empires, all the freshies sat accordingly on the brick-tiled floor and listened to the briefings that were taking place. Moses and the lecturers were too present, with Moses introducing to us the different lecturers again and instructing us to rearrange ourselves by our courses. He made it a quick one and by the time we settled down, I could only see Samuel nearby but not Li Jia and Syahirah. Oh yeah, IMD and MOI(Moving Images) were always being grouped together; reason being that it was initially IMD but it had to be split into these two in order for the students to major in somewhat different fields.

Then came the request from Odilia for volunteers to join the telematches that were to be held later on, it was probably the same for other sub-empires too. After some consideration, Wee Teng and I decided to fill up the positions along with others. I didn’t know what was the rearrangement for because we had to get back to our sub-empires again. GLs began to take down the shirt sizes from their group members on a list for the camp shirts that were to be issued. Of ALL the colours in the spectrum, Design had got to be turquoise! Urgh. While Business had yellow, IT blue, Engine black (suitable for the amount of soot they generate :D) and AS apple green, Design somehow just landed with the seemingly worst colour. Garh! And it was a shirt a tad oversized that I got. About the xs and s matters… Jen (it was Jen wasn’t it. oh dear) and I thought xs would not fit well and when Odilia handed us the s shirts, the fitting was kind of awful. No more xs though, so we had to make do with the s. Apart from the school shirt we were given the Ignite t-shirt, there the one used for the t-shirt design competition, and luckily we two managed to get xs after requesting for the change. But very unfortunately, the white Ignite shirt had the logo printed inside which means when you wore it the right way it only showed fourskin’s green logo at the back. Hence it was up to the wearer; a very plain white tee with no significance or a tee inside-out with the IGNITE logo!

An allowance of some time was provided for us to head back to the dorms and change into our turquoise Temasek shirts. Anyway we deemed it too bothersome to queue for the toilet (our level had only two, two cubicles for each) so most of us did it in the dorm. I’m not quite sure about other dorms but it certainly reminded me of the times after guzheng performances when all of us changed in the guzheng room without bothering so much about curtains and windows and all. Lol but in this camp it was different of course; had to be more discreet hahaha. Holding Ignite t-shirts in one hand, flip-flops in another (wait wait, I’ll come to this part soon) though I left it in the dorm on purpose because of the game I was going to be involved in, we freshies were made to squeeze between the two narrow bricked walls on ground level. The reason behind those flip-flops: Design response.

I can’t recall which came first (this probably came after lunch but nevermind) but onto the topic of responses… we kind of had enough original ones to break down Engines. Cheer/response practice session cum briefing lasted about one and a half hour, with the camp commitee scattered on the flight of staircase and all around the corridor upstairs, gazing down at the little ones. Differing from a large part of those we learnt the previous days, new reponses were passed on which required of us even more lameness and dumber-er actions, all of which I prided in. (ha ha ha ha) When other schools had something to say, Design’s first reaction would be: 1. “Eeeeee(lean back and look disgusted)…” then bend forward and “Uegh.” Another instance of irrationality: 2. “Mum mum mummm mm (hands pecking at our own mouths)” Pause. Followed by an exaggerated “BLEAGHH.” Design is hot and sexy, so when the camp commitee held the toilet cleaners’ “Cleaning in Progress” signs up, we had to shake and purr “We feel so dirty…” They shot water at us. “We’re still dirty…” lastly, “Wet t-shirt contest.” For the nth time, I’m telling you Design cheers contain no logic or rationale (if you’re wondering why this word kept appearing — it’s one of the judging criteria for the t-shirt design competiton lah). So don’t bother trying to make any sense out of it alright!

(high pitch for every “sea” and “weed”)
I say design you say sea, you say sea, you say sea
I say design you say weed, you say weed, you say weed
I say design you say sea, I say design you say weed.
I say design you say — (imitate a whistling sound)sea-weed!

When the time came for some actions, they’d shout “Butterfly!”. Usually, a normal person would immediately think of using both hands, thumbs interlocked, to achieve what seems like a butterfly in motion. As for us, it had to be none other than Butterfly – the slippers effect, designer styled! Dangled our flip-flops in the air like how one would play yo-yo, easy as that. Other than this, there was a kind of clap specially designed for us that imitated a seal while going “woo ooo oo oo o”(cross breeds between seals and chickens). Spasticity! And yeah, another funny response reminded me of graphs, as in curves directed up and down. When it was time to applaud other schools, there would suddenly be an influx of mosquitoes, then we would endeavour to kill them one by one, one by one.

Well, so much for the clapping of hands. Regatta was lined up after the telematches. As you can see, the other giant schools had manpower while our dragon boaters only had us to support them by singing “Row row row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily merrily merrily merrily hopefully (pause) we win.” To the humourous genius who had come up with the following — I’m utterly speechless. “(sing out the intro) >> Under the sea, under the sea. Our boat is better, your boat is going under the sea.

We went back to ground level for our catered lunch consisting of spicy bbq meat, rice, veggie and a delicious mini cream puff and ate outdoors (under the walkway again!) within our sub-empires, mostly in circles. Three whole days of orientation camp and there were still people who couldn’t recall everyone’s names (sad to say, I’m one of them. STM epidemic!), therefore we made everyone introduce themselves once again. Halfway through Izkandar dropped by and somehow got targetted for — Surround sound!

In the meantime, seeing majority of the Design freshies cohort in TP AND Ignite shirts, we didn’t hesitate to wear it over because we were told to “strip” off our white tees and wave it when we entered the sports field, only that it got quite warm after a while. I vaguely remember Moses reminding us to hold the design magazines (they issued it afterwards) and read it like nobody’s business, or plain nerds, just to make a grand entrance. Besides that, props like dustbin lids (nope not the flat ones with handles; TP dusbins are round and fat so you gotta pull them off, just like oversized helmets), slippers, cardboard cores of tissue rolls (the longish type), pots and pans (oh that was last year) and who knows what else were included. Whoopie! Like I’ve said, Design is small but powerful =D

I was allocated to game one (five games in total) together with Wee Teng and participants from other empires. Very fortunately, I found out it was the game we played on day 1 or something at the longest flight of staircase in Design school. Geared up for the challenge, the games people were led to sports complex via the usual path, past the vast garden area. It so happened that we stopped just outside the Student Development Centre and saw a whole batch of Engineers coming our way. Black appears so menacing, don’t you think so. For some inexplicable reason, we beefed up our defenses as someone shouted “Chicken wings – UP!” followed by our *oo! (high-pitched like a chicken)* and couldn’t stop once we started: “Eh, eh eh, eh eh. (x 2) Eh, woosa eh, woosa woosa woosa eh, hey!” For quite some time we chicken-winged at the Engineers until they’d stopped in their tracks with utterly blank faces wondering what now. Lol even their leader had to gesture for them to keep walking hahaha! Guess they got a pleasant shock in their first encounter with the nutty Designers.

Sports hall was packed with game participants in their respective school shirts, with the exception of Designers that were clad in double layers; white Ignite shirts above. Out of the blue, names of friends like Ruiqi, Nelson and Jeremiah came into my mind, cos they supposedly were TP freshies and I was just wondering if any of them took part in the games. Anyway, from the inside, we could obviously tell that the voluble cheering contest had already begun such that the student councillors had a terrible time (even with shouting over the loudspeakers) explaining to us about the games and rules. By order, game one was the kickstart of the whole telematch as well as the whole sports event. One of the rules was that a girl had to pair up with a guy within the group but there was a slight ratio difference and I partnered Kim (knew her name during the friendship dance on day 1 or 2).

Then it was high time to meet for games – and opponents. The battle of the five schools! By the time we jogged out to the track, we were sweating buckets and thankfully we could strip off the white shirt and waved it as we were told to. I can tell you, the atmosphere was incredibly exuberant, although you might be thinking it as yet another sports day, especially the drumming and screaming and waving at the grand stand. Placing our shirts in a pile (I rolled mine up so that I could get it back instead of someone else’s) along the track, we formed a long line with a catcher holding a pail cutting right between 8 pairs of participants. Each pair held a cloth between while 6 people at the two ends did the waterbombs – two to fill the plastic bags and tie it while the third one threw the bombs at the first pair from some distance.

I noticed there was a pair that looked quite young, or supposedly childish. As the game began, I aimed the first bomb with them trying to catch it with the cloth (holding it like a hammock). Apparently they’d flung it to the next pair without syncronizing or aiming, and looked on at how the next pair did instead of turning back here. In this way some time and a handful of bombs were wasted. The competition was fierce and I couldn’t afford we couldn’t afford to lose, so I kept shouting for them to concentrate, to turn back here and await the next one, to hold the cloth a little tighter but it was quite in vain. This continued for a while and I got a bit irritated. Until the the game ended, a councillor approached me and told me “They can’t hear you.” and I’d thought, okay, maybe my voice was too soft to be heard over the din. But wait! No one told me they were hearing impaired pri/sec kids, or rather I had not noticed or even gave any thought about it. Now as I recall their madly excited and jovial expressions, I am utterly ashamed and am still regretting for my hot-tempered behaviour. Maybe I looked like an idiot shouting instructions to them and had probably ruined their day. This was one big regret from camp Ignite; I remember feeling extremely upset and lousy and brooding over it for days.

Back to the grand stand together with Wee Teng. Managed to squeeze through and make it to the top step where we could see what was taking place on the track, and slung the Ignite tees over our shoulders as towels for our dripping necks and faces. It was then that I figured out which colour and sections were for which schools. Engine was on our left! Anyway the games continued, I wasn’t sure what they were called but there was one which contestants formed a long line on the chairs and passed the last chair over till they reached the finishing line, another one where a circular area in the field was divided into 5 by nets and each group had to hit the very large (approx. 1.8m diameter I think) ball to the other and not allowing it to land in their own section, then they had one to do with soccer and the dressing up of their models(it’s diva again LOL). I didn’t know why but it had seemed like the idea of a sports event was entirely new and absorbing; I probably cheered louder than I ever did in PL.

Diagonally behind us to our left were maybe 3 pro percussionists who led using tools of their trade; green dustbin lids (the round and fat and helmet-like ones), toilet roll cores and slippers. Man they were knocking and hitting so loudly they could have raised the dead (T_T)” but nonetheless that was what spurred us on for cheers… Somehow, we had competition from the Engineers! Who knows what was going on behind lah. Anyway, although the cheerleaders couldn’t really be heard, we always picked it up by listening to what people in front are cheering. And when the telematches had all ended, we all did the Chicky dance, even student councillors on the track. Haha it was indeed something we don’t do everyday, so when it’s time to be enthusiastic, I really love to give off my best.

Towards late afternoon, there was a slight drizzle (we started singing “Rain rain go away”) as all of us proceeded to Bedok Reservoir via different routes to avoid human jam. On the way the rain suddenly became heavier and we were left without a choice but to run back and seek shelter at the Design school building. The rain subsided, the sun came into view and Design school was packed at the furthest end (Business at the other) from the stage under shelters made up of canvas sheets and upheld by metal poles. To our right was Engine (AGAIN), IT, stage, AS, then Business. Our leaders also brought along the GIANT Ignite banner secured by bamboo poles which gave them a lot of trouble; it acted like a sail and almost flew off into the waters. Below us was a slope with gentle gradient that was slightly waterlogged due to the rain, but we sat, anyway.

In the spate of races that followed, half the time I couldn’t tell (not so sure about the rest) one boat from the next or just which boat we were cheering for. If I’m right, there were teams from the camp commitee as well as each empire and the society for the deaf (and what else?). For a large part of the time, Design was the one cheering and contesting with Engine, so much like hooligans right from the beginning. Emitting our strengths and passion, we chanted “DESIGN WILL WIN THE WAR” and “Hooga shaga hooga shaga hoo – DESIGN!” repeatedly. And we really believed so. Seriously our volume was no match for the other schools but it was the unity that counted – I saw all of us playing our parts by contributing to the noise level. Towards the end, or even halfway through the races and cheerleading competition, I was so out of breath and exhausted like a deflated balloon (does this remind you of the orientation package?). I wondered was it because we didn’t exactly save our staminas for the latter part of Regatta – the one major event that stole my voice away.

On the slope we sat and stood, stood and sat. As evening at long last impended, our dragon boaters returned to catch the final results – we lost the overall to Business for the second time; IT was awarded the best spirited school while Design came first for cheerleading. On hearing them announce “Design”, I’d been too tired even try to sound rah-rah and so what if they won the other awards? It certainly didn’t bother me because in life, it’s always the process that matters, anyway. We’ve had tremendous fun; that had made up 3/4 of it. As we sang in accord the songs “Go Temasek Go” (signing along as well) and the Temasek school song, I noticed how exquisite the ripples created by the wind looked on the surface of the water that reflected volumes of clouds and the sunset. A pity there wasn’t a chance to take pictures. ARGH.

We headed back to TP, stepping over muddy fields and grass patche where gigantic and pestilent red ants ruled. Yuck, there was a sick little creature who refused to let go even after I pinched it. After some time, everyone gathered at the ground level within the interesting bricked-walls with Moses at the top of the staircase with all the camp commitee present. For the first time Clarence the chairman, aka the person from whom we never heard but things happened in accordance to plan, read his poem and spoke of his feelings about Camp Ignite. So did other heads. Final words from Moses, he spoke of his intention of granting us a free public shower — what the seniors had gone through in their orientations and they weren’t about to let us off anytime. Sensing the danger, I quickly hid my handphone in Yiling’s plastic bag, secured it and heard Moses mentioning water hose and bombs. How could we not feel victimized in that tiny area with nowhere to run?? If you’ve come across gas chambers in the Holocaust, that was exactly how it felt or look like. Together with the ending paragragh of his “speech” came the shower of mineral water and grape chew candies that took us by shock. It was raining outside, raining mineral water inside. (T.T)” This was how we ended up like drenched chickens (???!) — shirt, Ignite shirt, shorts, shoes and all. Lastly to get out, we ran through a manmade waterfall at the top of the staircase before we were freed from that gas/water chamber. And it was way too cold for my liking!

Back in our dorms with squeaky wet shoes, we needn’t worry about packing ‘cos we did it the previous night. While most of the groups had gone, Edna’s GLs gave us a debrief (Wee Teng and I were late. boo) and wrote comments on everyone’s cards that were being circulated. I was in the process of drying when Alex broke a balloon filled with water on accident where I was sitting. Garh. Previously they announced that there was a Jam and Hop at the sports hall after the activities for the day, but I wonder how many actually stayed. Kudos to them, save the happily sadistic GLs hahah.

With that, Camp Ignite ended well, as quickly as it had been ignited. On the way home I dozed off in the bus and got home, slept till 4pm the next afternoon. Up till now my mind’s still brimming with Ali-ting-ting-tings and the times we Chicken-winged. I believe it will continue for a LONG time to come! Ultimately I love the camp so much and through it, we showed the world that Design is the rah-rahest in TP. True blue rah-rah Designers =)

[ Day 3 ] 20 April, Thursday – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

I can’t make out exactly the time that we got off our sleeping bags, but a handful of us were already in the outfit for day 3 so it saved the fuss of queueing for the toilet besides having to washing up. My sports attire – black tee and PL shorts (fyi, I haven’t thrown them away okay). Had breakfast with Wee Teng, Li Jia and Yiling at the Design School canteen where I first tasted a breakfast set from the Western food stall my friends from TP had been recommending me. Just like they’d described, the food was tasty and appetizing as compared to that from the other stalls.

At one point of time, some groups were below the overhead walkway when we looked up and saw some Engineers walking past. Our immediate action was – Chicken Wings UP! and did what we were supposed to do. How we just loved disturbing the Engineers, lol. All the rest of TP freshies were also having their orientation. I remember the whole stretch of walkway to sports complex filled with freshies like ants, with majority in long pants (haha so disparate from Design freshies when majority appeared in shorts and very casual wear), fanning themselves incessantly; they are BIG schools, you ought to know.

Honestly, for now, I cannot seem to recall what happened in the morning. Isn’t it ironic that Day 2 was pieced together so perfectly (almost) while Day 3 was such a blur? I wonder is that STM working on me. (:S) Shrugs. Anyway, somehow, we were briefed sometime on the previous day regarding our main activity for Day 3, that is to discuss and come up with a t-shirt design that has got to do with our camp theme, Ignite. A plain white tee would be handed to each sub-empire, with fourskin as the ultimate sponsor, that was up to us as to how the final product would be presented. The first venue we visited was Mensa 1 canteen where we took off from where we had left our discussions; the letterbox, metamorphosis process of butterflies and the black/white to colour concepts. Lunch came as quickly as breakfast did, even I, too drowned in weariness, regarded eating as the last thing on my mind. Discussions resumed with some progress at last, though I had no idea how come soft pastels were used. No paint? (:O) All I know is, Odilia played Fuzzy Wuzzy with us whilst working on the ideas.

Just to sidetrack, here’s an introduction to a super super cool cheer suggested by Samuel, with SURROUND SOUND (credits go to Odilia for the addon). You can probably guess, surround sound means to enclose the target and yell right into the middle, echoing after every line Samuel shouted:

_name_ you yandao/chiobu you look so cool!
_name_ you yandao/chiobu you look like – woo!
_name_ we want you
_name_ we need you
_name_ – we love you… (altogether, then a “stereo” embrace to squash the poor victim)

In the Lecture Theatre, after noon. For the very first time, Edna was the only group there besides a part of Programme. I never figured out the purpose of watching movie trailers like Scary Movie 4, some thriller about a deadly game, but that was just what the guy at the computer did. He was on Yahoo movies. Gradually other sub-empires joined us in the LT, and practiced the Design classics – responses! Responses are essentially our tools to irritated the other schools. Mind you, don’t look down on these because they have the ability when applied at the correct timing to bring about extensive effects! On the screen showed a list of already prepared reponses numbered from 1 to 5 or 6, and everytime someone called for “Design: Response X (x stands for a number)”, we were all to repond with that particular response LOUD and yeah, just the way they taught us how to. For example, 1. *spastic and dreamy expression, tongue stuck out* Urhhh, scared a-not? *point in a very sissy way*.; 2. “Huh… what is exam? Can eat or not?” (Design = no exams); 3. “What is your rationale??” and so on. Besides being extremely retarded, Designers are seen to behave like hooligans/tribal people. Why do I say that? This is a cheer originating from a documentary that goes: “(Something goes here, then followed by some rhythm or *BOMB* and then…) Ba bom ba, ba bom-ah. Ba bom ba, ba bom-ah.” And it continues. Whatever it is, it reminded me of oompa loompas. Maybe it was the way the words sounded; low and repetitive.

Initially they’d planned for activities to be held in Pasir Ris Park and I was definitely looking forward to it. However, due to the onslaught of the rainy season, the outing had to be cancelled. Poor Programme! For all that they’d organized beforehand. Hence, that left us hours on end to prepare our cheers and presentation. Out of the LTs at last. Time was ticking at 4pm+. We hanged around Design canteen. Looking around, someone else was sleeping with his head buried in both arms — Hong Wen! Then came the idea of doodling on his arms, though I wasn’t sure who started it. There, with a black marker, Odilia, Bob and a few others worked on at it, but Hong Wen did appear too tired to even sense it. Haha! Little scribbles and dots were imprinted all over his arms and neck, and the worst was the red glitter someone sprinkled. Someone (the most probably suspect is none other than Odilia!!) took pictures of him in that… state. Out of the blue, someone popped up with the tune to “Bob the builder” and we eventually altered it to become “Bob the DESIGNer!”. And I still wonder what’s Bob’s real name. By this time, the outline of the shirt design was completed and a few butterflies were already filled with colours like orange, yellow, green and blue. Leaving Kaiming, Charmaine, Clarence and ?? (Jaq?) to the job, the rest of us flocked to level 2 which was just above the canteen area for our actual group discussion for presentation afterwards.

Odilia, Hong Wen and Alex were around to aid us, hence, firstly we brainstormed for possible songs or tunes that could be implemented and transformed into our item. I remember contributing the idea of Happy Together’s tune and how to conjoin it with the chorus part; Clarence his “ai yo” cheer; the others the “L-O-V-E” song and something else. In the meantime, Mathilda and Jan took up the lead by working the lyrics out, changing some lyrics and putting them all in order. Dinner was catered downstairs. While I had to sit beside the red dustbin, Samuel introduced “it” in a queer manner as though they’d been friends since a long time ago. _(o.O)” That was great fun, so I just had to join in and feed the red creature with the remains of our plastic plates and utensils. Hey presto! It suddenly dawned upon us that it has a great big mouth (which we intended for Samuel to kiss but couldn’t) that doesn’t close. Hahar. Alright, so much for the dustbin fetish. Fast forward to the final version we all agreed on >>>

Odilia called out “Edna, response number 1!”
Edna: Darrrrrlin’! (making a very sissy hand gesture)

(Edna – separated into two lines; front and back)
Girls: E-D E-D E-D E-D-N-A, E-D E-D E-D / Guys: So let me hear you say!
Girls: E-D E-D E-D E-D-N-A, E-D E-D E-D / Jan/Clarence: ‘cos…

Who’s that group, Ed na-na-na na na-na-na
They’re so cool, Ed na-na-na na na-na-na
Watch them move, Ed na-na-na na na-na-na
‘Cos they’re so smooth…

Clarence: “Remix” (a change of positions: front <--> back)

Aiyo, mai yo, aiyo
Aiyo, jiu gah gah yo
Mai yo, mai yo, mai yo

Wa ai yo! *applause and Odilia runs in, signalling CUT*

Don’t ‘cha wish your GLs were hot like us
Don’t ‘cha wish your members were cool like us
Don’t ‘cha, baby don’t ‘cha?

We’re gonna F-I-G-H-T
We’re gonna S-C-O-R-E
We’re gonna fight, score, beat the rest
Edna, Edna is the best!
*Hong Wen runs in and says something like “fly kite…”*

We’re gonna fight, fight, fight like champions
We’re gonna score, score, score like champions
Fight like champions, score like champions
All the rest can go fly kite
Fly kite, fly kite, all the rest can go fly kite (tune to rain rain go away)
Later kena lightning strike
Ka ka-ka-ka-ka *make funny faces at the audience*

(Half of us forgot and ran backstage)
Response number two!
Edna: Awwwww…. so sweet!

(Shall skip the actions; it will take me forever to describe.)

Time slipped away while we busied ourselves with the final rehearsal outside Design Gallery. Till the very last minute I wouldn’t even deem it final for some actions remained undecided and new ideas kept coming when time was seriously running out. Panic! Of course we had to panic. By 7.15pm we had to report to the auditorium. At long last the whole presentation sequence and movements were settled, thereby, we got to the auditorium in time with good seats that awaited us. Middle column, approximately the 5th row. Yahoo!

For presentation night and fashion show, Dominic and David were emcees while Moses and two representatives from fourskin made up the judges’ panel respectively. Essentially, it was the night for all sub-empires from Fuoco, Fuego, Le Feu, Fogo as well as Feuer to step forward and bring it on! One by one the models (ours was pretty Bernice with all the explanation work left to Clarence) traversed the stage, did a few poses and stood to let us take in the visual appeal while the other made known to us the gist of their ideas on the whole. Sat between Yiling and Vanessa, and somehow later it became Bernice and ??. Sorry for being a nuisance haha; I couldn’t withold my exclamations and awe on seeing their designs!

Well it happened that I’d been hearing something about “diva” and so — he’s the one! One look at the way he modelled, I got momentarily stunned, and perhaps too lost for words. He was in shorts, has long legs and a hairstyle close to the 60′s “Yuddy” look. (Oh dear…) I’m extremely certain he shot one of those “looks” at the judges (first row, directly in front of us). Kind of made my hair stand. Right in front of our noses was a whole row of Programmers who’d came up with such an overused but brilliant idea of passing comments that only the audience had the privilege to see. In their hands held paper plates, on which they wrote in bold black markers, alphabets and words to form some phrases, and MY they had a way of syncronizing by popping them up simultaneously and very effectively for some laughter. Yes they had it: D-I-V-A! and “HOT!” and even more sarcastic remarks AND last but not least, emoticons! o.O” #.@” :) >_< Haha might as well go crazy looking at those.

I must admit that some designs held such high standards and quality that they didn’t seem to emerge from freshies. Personally, I favour the one depicting a head and all the details going on inside the brain, also, some key and lock concept that they related to our theme, IGNITE. It was amazing how in such a short time they managed that so beautifully. =) Thus it all goes to show that being Design students we not only have taste, creavitity but much substance as well.

Fashion show concluded with a final catwalk across the stage and down again by all the models. Next up was the group presentations. Halfway through the programme, the emcees called for Program to present us with – the unravelled mystery of Night Walk. In the form of a short skit…

Coleen and Laura were top students in the school. Laura and Albert were a pair. Coleen was jealous of Laura and intended to sabotage her, wanting Laura to do badly. Therefore she sought for a way to break them up. One day, she found the chance when Laura went to the loo and seduced him in the PIB studio by asking him out to which he heartily (lol) agreed. (In the same room were traces of Laura’s work torn by Coleen when we took part in the Night Walk) Deliberate misunderstandings created between Coleen and Albert caused Laura to flare up and they landed up quarrelling. Albert had written a letter to explain but it seemed that someone brought a penknife there (Laura? Anyway these two were evidences we found at the crime scene). A fight went on between the three on the 5th level staircase of Business School, with Coleen falling to her death. The masked Wanderer, who crushed Coleen saw the whole incident and went on to push Albert over the railings, returning what he deserved for killing Coleen. Thus, Laura went crazy, Coleen and Albert fell (and posed peace V(“,) signs… it was on the stage what! lols) to their death while the masked Wanderer lurked around his dark corner. THE END!

Uh huh! That truly allieviated us of our overnight suspicions. Programme gathered on stage for a cheer and afterwards, had their Antannaes – UP and Ali-ting-ting-ting! Ali-ting-ting-ting-ed! away. Sub-empires also came and go, which finally led to our turn for the group presentation. But alas! we met with a minor crisis, that is, Jan wasn’t feeling well and could not lead. Hence Clarence had to do the job and I think being at the backstage was way cooool. Hahaha, for all you know, our item was over in a wink; hadn’t sounded too audible but was way above mumbling and fumbling with the lyrics like some groups did. Not too bad and it was a great experience nevertheless. Only that I felt rather disgusted at one of the groups; there was something offensive or even obscene in what they/the guy did. You should know what, so I shan’t proceed on to even describe at all. That’s just my personal opinion, meaning no offence though.

Winners of the t-shirt design competition was announced, judges gave away prizes and in return, the emcees presented them with souvenirs – the Ignite badge and the mini flag. Also, they announced for a group of freshies whose birthdays fell within those few days (um, I wasn’t too sure). Each got a plastic knife to keep haha and came together on stage to cut the birthday cake (two more cakes below; three in total). What a super birthday bash! One of the GLs who was a genius at cheerleading taught us the different variations for the “deh…”. 1 – AS (Applied Science) deh. “(hold 2 test tubes, pour 1 over)Doop“. AS deh. “(now the other one)Doop“. AS deh. “(shake both)zhrrr… BOMB.” 2 – IT (InfoTech) deh. “(switch the CPU on)I forgot. This sound la”. IT deh. “(CPU shaking)that sound la”. IT deh. “(Windows starting up)The tune to MS Windows.” HAHAHA, let me just mention the rest: 3 – Business deh. “(think coins)ching!”. Business deh. “(coins again)ching!”. Business deh. “(coins!!!)ching ching ching…” <-- not very fun la. 4 - Engine deh. "(starting a car)zhrrr“. Engine deh. “zhrrr…”. Engine SUPER SUPER SUPER deh. “(think car horns)borh borh borh!”. There’s one more for Engine but I forgot what. Nevermind.

Finally, for our one last rehearsal that night, David made us do Chicken wings in the auditorium. Haha what an extremely funny sight we must have been! It was roughly 11pm, we were told the school’d organized a jamming session at the area outside both LTs. Surely, I got quite an eyeful when we got there; everything – from the atmosphere, the smoke screen, lightings and even DJ-ing equipments like the huge sound systems – resembled a disco or pub. The medics probably shouted their voices hoarse over the blasting music instructions in event of injury cases but nobody really seemed to care anyway. On the other hand, you can call me a nerd; I had absolutely no idea the jamming session was to be that way… the deafening noises and the terribly crammed up dance floor, basically everything. And I had no qualms about leaving for the dorm, which I did anyway. Moreover half an hour didn’t seem exactly adequete hah — being ahead of the lengthy queue during bath time was more crucial you see!

On seeing the several missed calls and smses, I dropped Cathleen a line to find that things hadn’t been going that well and because of this camp, we couldn’t go to youth service on friday. Guess it had to do with AEP again. Garh, by right it should be a passion and not a stress!! =( Sigh. Just like the night before, I took a bath over at the toilet of sports complex, heading back along the usual but somewhat deserted route. By the time I walked past the LT area, it was a little over twelve midnight and campers were still mingling about.

Sometime at 2 in the morning, a handful from our sub-empire decided to go for supper with our GLs. After brushing our teeth, Wee Teng and I casually joined them at the tables along the corridors and prior to that we also invited a few others like Weiling and Michelle to come along. Unfortunately a lot of time was wasted on waiting for the supper proposals to come true while we watched two clips of our presentation on Odilia and someone elses’ camera. Then came the order that GLs could only take food orders, make a trip themselves and we freshies were to finish the food and recede to bed by 2.20am. Now there was a choice between MacDonalds and rotiprata, but somehow the heads let us go in the end (such a abrupt change of mind?). It was the night for rotiprata! Our 2 GLs and Alex brought us along with members from Fuego to this coffeeshop which sold cheese prata that tasted wonderful but at the cost of a bomb. $2! That totally freaked me out. Anyway, they’d set up a long long table to accomodate our large group. I was sitting alongside Wee Teng and Yiling near the end of the table. There was a national team soccer play amongst us (from what I heard), another one who kept talking to himself and a few whom we never really interacted with. One more thing – there was practically no girls from the other sub-empire.

In conclusion for the day, we left there at, say, 3.30am? Back to TP, I heard Alex and dunno who mention they were not intending to sleep yet. But what was there to do o.O” Anyhow, there was no stopping us from returning straight back to our dorms and we simply plopped to bed. Onto the sleeping bag I mean. Or floor. Heck, who bothers about the aircon?!!

…continued from the previous entry. Entry number 401! I shall make it a long long entry, so do take your time. Read on!

[ Day 2 ] 19 April, Wednesday – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

I arrived in TP at nearly 9am in a grey baleno Thursday shirt (darn, should have worn that the next day) and bermudas. At first sight only the Design School building was packed with campers in all colours and variety of sports attire and casual wear. Went up to my sub-empire Edna at one corner near the railing and stood with Wee Teng; that’s one person whom I’ve talked the most to so far, which isn’t a lot actually. Following that we were shown our dorms which turned out to be on the 3rd storey and we were grouped according to our empires and genders. My dorm – Fuego, girls. Had brought a sling bag (the one that they gave out during TP open house 06. haha) and another plastic carrier with a sleeping bag and everything else in it.

Having put aside our bulky load, we headed for the auditorium for “The Man”, Eric Koh. Unlike the previous day, this time I got to sit with people from my own sub-empire and didn’t feel that out of place anymore. There, he gave us a more indepth view of APEL and the new block system that our batch is going to undergo this semester. Also shown us the timetable format; we do not have school on Mondays! *hurray* Besides this, we had the E! entertainers up on stage again, and then a song presented by Moses, composed and written by Richard Wee. To cook up some special effects (in order to hide those courageous volunteers at the front), Moses ordered for the audi lights to be switched off except for the spotlight on Richard and the piano, and the screen with the lyrics. “Open The Door”, he sang. We sang along too, for the tune was somewhat catchy.

On our way out of the audi, each of us were given an apple by the “Program”-ers which we consumed along the way towards the sports complex. They’d made us arrange ourselves according to our courses and brought us to our respective studios/workrooms. Interactive Media Design (denoted by IMD) is on the same level as our dorms, 3rd storey. Absolute coolness – the “junior (year 2)” seniors as well as the studio! An informal introduction to the course and the studio. As we sat on the floor, they mentioned about what we will be doing for the first few weeks that’ll basically be similar to fine arts *cheers!!* and talked about how crazy they are in class, why we should not disturb the year 3s and how they’d throw crushed papers down at them if ever there was too much noise, why we should register for the CDS courses almost immediately, why IMD was split into IMD and MOI etc. In fact, after that short session, I was almost certain that it’s the right course for me, not so much of VSC anymore. =) Fun! I could sense so much fun involved haha.

Back to the sports complex, in our sub-empires within Fuego. More ice breaking games and a little dance that went with a poem like this:

It’s just a jump to the left
And a step to the right
Put your hands on your hips
And bring your knees in tight
It’s the pelvic thrust
That drives you insane
This is how you do the Fuego swing!

We were made to find a partner (a girl to a guy) and I ended up with Lala for the Design mass dance. That’s one of the funkiest thing I tell you — we’re going RETRO! The dance – to the tune of Twist and Shout (reminds me of Leslie singing in ??????!) – demo was by two pairs of entertainers (with Rachel & David = scandal lols) on the level 2 as well as Programme all around us. I can recall the E! entertainers wearing pink tees with a huge green E! printed across the front and most of them were either at front end of the hall or upstairs where we could see them. I must admit I’m really bad with dance moves such that poor Lala and I got so confused after a while, but nevertheless the cha-cha-cum-a-go-go session was superbly priceless. Following that, we did the chicky dance! Again I felt like an antique because it was my first time hearing it, though I vaguely remember seeing my ex-classmates do it before.

Sweated buckets in that huge but stuffy hall. Lunch was at Mensa 1 canteen at the Student Development Centre, our first time there, then we were off for station games; this time round it was all over TP campus, beyond Design School. Some three games that I can recall… Twister was designed in this fashion such that we had to place our hands and legs on red and black ‘x’ marked on the ground while some had to balance two buckets full of water above the ground, and the station masters shot water at us so being wet wasn’t a choice. Netball sandpit – we divided ourselves into two groups and each side had to build as many sand castles possible while a few created water bombs. The aim was to destroy the other group’s castles, but you know human was always the easier target. Haha. @ Engineering School outside Temasek Convention Centre, we each had a character name pasted to our backs and had to go around probing and guessing and finding our partners, afterwhich I found out it was “Romeo” for me and “Juliet” for Jeremy Lin(I think) lol. Towards the evening at about 7pm we visited our last stop, something like Musical Chairs around the mushroom-like structure at TP entrance where we circled the mushroom while Odilia and Bob signaled for us to stop. Station masters were Huiyu and ??. Oh, that was the first time they’d seen players not wanting to grab the seats haha, all because our shorts were meant to be cloths to wipe away the vile blend of flour, water, ketchup and whatnot. First round, I surrendered – because thankfully Jan sacrificed her shorts for one of the dirtiest chairs – and waited on the steps with the rest. The overall winners were sporty enough to join us in our forfeits; crowded together and got drenched by a bucket of water poured overhead, not forgetting the waterguns of the scandalous entertainers (haha) in rollerblades, finally sitting down on the pool of water where it got polluted distinctly by Clarence’s flour-y (say also~{#,~} flowery, cos it’s true he’d worn that) pants.

The sun dropped and we were still on the overhead walkway chicken-winging at the other sub-empires. (double haha) At 7.30pm we proceeded to the Lecture Theatres (either 24 or 25) and soiled the LT seats with our wet and grimy butts (this doesn’t apply to me though). Whoops. There and then we learnt how to sign the alphabet family from this man who signs as a job for the hearing impaired. One of our goals was to break the record of 3000+ students and sign as a school the song Go Temasek Go! (underlined words are what we signed; words in brackets are replaced):

There I see my (school)poly
Fills my heart with glee
Window light that shines like stars
Bringing joy to us

We can climb the highest (mountain)peak
With our strengh and (brave)feat
Working hard in harmony
One big family

*Go Temasek, Go!
I believe
I embrace you
Go Temasek, Go!
I rejoice
I adore you

Students work in harmony
Working for our dreams and goals
Wonderful society
Temasek you, way to go!

Then came dinner below the bridge/overhead walkway for Edna (correct me if I got the wrong order) before the briefing for the Night Walk. Back to the LT, I sat between Yiling and Charmaine. Gradually the atmosphere had quietened down because we were getting on to “serious” matters. You can consider the Night Walk a rather big activity because they do it every year and something’s bound to happen, just something. Dominic began to talk in whispers, with people like Alex, Izkandar and a few others coming forward to contribute their own “experiences” (not forgetting some reenactment of various stories), endeavouring to frighten all the poor freshies. Haha, they spreaded the rumours of some ghosts they’d come across in Design School (VSC darkroom, 3rd floor staircase, some triangular area one…) as well as the white styrofoam offering box that one should never, in any case, touch somewhere in Business school. Nothing was really that freaky until they mentioned the tapping of shoulders. Yuck, hearing that did scare the daylights out of me.

It was nearing midnight when they had the lightings dimmed and informed us regarding the rules of the Night Walk; the overall aim of the game was to explore the campus (probably more restricted to Design and Business Schools), pick up clues along the way, meet the Wanderers, and hence solve the final mystery. Green lightsticks would be placed on the ground to lead the way; red lightsticks were for emergency in event of someone fainting/having an asthma attack; people with blue lightsticks were not involved in the game; yellow lightstick carriers proved to be the Wanderers whom we could only question for hints but not touch. Reason being – what if they weren’t real Wanderers? What if it was something we ought not to see? Ren Jie, head of medics, stepped in to warn us not to scream, not to tap anyone on the shoulders, not to run/scream along when someone screams (one screams, everybody scream), not to freak out if we see something etc. The police had been informed about our activity with an ambulance at standby (:S), and at that time he informed us about a case of asthma attack from the group that just went off. (dots. Now I wonder how true is that.) No matter what, reporting time was 2.30am, back at the Design LTs.

Edna began the walk just after midnight. By the time we stepped out of the LT, Wee Teng and I were yawning our jaws away, unable to sense anything eerie in the surroundings. Then, at the ramp, we came across our first Wanderer – the towering guy in black cloak with long fringe and spects who refused to speak. Along the way, out of curiosity, I started looking around at the darkest corners wondering if something would appear. “It” did, or rather he. Vividly I saw someone standing at the 3rd floor window looking down; lighting was faint, casting only his silhouette against the glass. Gosh, I’d wanted to laugh when he’d disappeared for a moment and caught him moving back to his position again. Hahaha. As we explored the different levels of Design School, Wanderers either conversed in groups which we had to listen to find out what was happening (sometimes they would lead the way to the next clue/venue) or stood/wandered alone, unnaffected by all else and remained in their “states” after they’d died (ghosts what) or after what’d happened. Although we travelled within our sub-empires, most of the time I couldn’t exactly catch what the Wanderers said or what clues were there, whether it was in the PIB workroom, ADM studio, corridor or walkway, we only followed. It was not until we proceeded to Business School that I began to pick up something; the half-eaten sandwich could signify an alibi; the vampire-like figure in orange could be telling us to go that way (by drawing an arrow or what’s seemingly the letter D) or just a hint; the masked figure at a corner could be a witness; the corpse wrapped in black rubbish bag was evident of a death case; blood splodges all around could also lead the way; the crime scene on the ground floor showed two human outlines sprawled awkwardly which could have happened by leaping from the above levels.

On the 3rd level, we caught sight of the demented girl (who supposedly put up a vanishing act by fleeing upstairs) and followed suit to the 5th level. There, a male and a female ghost (they had white powdered faces and thick makeup) Wanderers hovered along the corridor, biding for a chance to snap and scream at the freshies’ faces. Haha they indeed offered a wonderful scare because I was all tensed and eager to find clues. Kudos to the Wanderers and also the demented girl who held a penknife. Who knows what she’d do if we probe any further, lol. The last and final clue we arrived at was part of the crime scene where the pair jumped off from, the 5th floor staircase with railings so low that it could just as well be rendered useless. Whilst waiting for our turn (another group was there before us), the female ghost suddenly walked in with the same stoic expression, probably to create some chaos at the crime scene. Of course we gave way, but heck she came over and asked “Game ending already right?”. (T__T)” Hahaha that really killed me man. Having found a long letter as well as a penknife, it was time to return to the Design LTs. Thereafter, the organizers made known the falsity of their stories told prior to the walk (yeah, expected!). Night Walk was a great job nevertheless! The most memorable and the freakiest, ever =)

Met up with our GLs outside the LTs and had a short debrief. Warm water was only available in the toilets at the sports complex. Although it has a whopping ten shower cubicles, I only got to bathe at 3.30am after queueing for like half an hour. Took a long walk back to Design School, our dorm, settled the sleeping bag and shared it (together with Yiling’s thin but gigantic sleeping bag) with Wee Teng, Bernice and of course Yiling herself. Sleeping was one thing I detest about this camp; our dorm was already infested with a crowd of tired girls and they were still trying to squeeze in, say, 5 more o.O” Didn’t make too much sense especially when some of them were lacking the space to even stretch their legs. Towards the middle of the night, or rather morning, the aircon got far too cold for me partly because I only had a useless towel as a blanket and also a sweater. At 5.30am or so I heard many people tossing and turning like I did, and with alarms going on and off simultaneously till 7am, a few hours of sleep certainly wasn’t adequete. First day of overnight camp – already dying from fatique.

In total, I have been awake for 6 hours today. Yes it’s 22nd April, the day after Camp Ignite’06 officially ended. The shocking truth is that I actually woke up at 4.45pm to question myself – what day’s today? That’s nearly 15 hours of sleep if you ask me. So now you can get the idea how much energy I’ve dissipated by the amount of sleep I had to regain afer the camp. The first day of camp isn’t that far away, but so much has happened in these three days that it takes a great deal to remember them all. Well it seems that Loyalty has set in and if you’re from the other four schools, you jolly well not lash out at me because DESIGN IS REALLY THE WILDEST AND ‘FUN’NEST SCHOOL ONE CAN EVER BE IN and I really really mean that. =) I bet none of the other schools possess the creative and humourous braincells like we do. Unlike those in the “ka-ching $$” BUSINESS; perhaps people with ENGINEs that go “deh-eh-eh-eh”; what about IT leh, or even people with tees AS green AS apples — cos’ we do chicken DESIGN right ;) Did I hear chicken? Lol. Three years in Design school. I just cannot wait.

But – the rest of the entry can. *laughs* Three days to account for! And that’s going to take quite some time. Be updating here soon.

Anyway, here are five random facts:
1. I currently have 129 new mails in my yahoo account.
2. Nope, they’re not junk.
3. I’m waiting for Scary Movie 4 to screen.
4. The other window is at www.yourdictionary.com
5. It is 12.47am now.

(To be continued…)

Hello, this is the zombified freshie speaking. She’s returned earlier on from TP Design School’s Camp Ignite’06 pretty drained out and tired. Zombified because she slept at 3am and had four hours of sleep, lasting for almost twelve hours before she finally got back home.

Today was the first out of the four days of orientation, with a two-night stay when we return for camp tomorrow. As I have expected, I didn’t see any familiar face there right from the beginning when we gathered to register at 9am and were told to report to Auditorium 1. Generally TP design students’ looks were fairly surprising, and soon all the freshies filled up the whole auditorium according to our colour tags which was intially sorted out by empires and sub-empires. I sat on the extreme right of the 5th row, and “Fuego”‘s my empire name with “Edna” as my sub-empires’. “Fuego”… something to do with burning, or ignite. In Spanish, I’d heard them say. I sat with Rachel from PIB(if I didn’t remember wrongly) throughout the whole morning session inclusive of the camp introduction by the means of a video clip and the designer-to-be seniors of course. Ah-hah, the awesome video clip was a production from Interactive Media Design course *cheers* and it suddenly struck me that the use of photos with the mysterious appearances of some symbols resembled “Final Destination III” from what Wee Chair told me about. :S It’s so cool yet freaky, but nonetheless it ended up as a stupid blunder, a mistaken agenda. Of the E!(entertainers), David is just cool because he has a way of entertaining us with hilarity and lame things that aren’t too cold. The rest are not too bad either. What made us go “errrr..” were the cheers, or seemingly jeers that were taught to us. Haha we have the antennae one, the chicken wings one (for irritating the other TP schools… is that the one?!), the funny TP school song that I didn’t exactly catch, the very “deh” one… and etc. Yeah you know, the cheers.

Had our first 1-hr lecture from Moses Wong, director of Design School, and he talked about the statistics of applicants who chose this school, how they couldn’t enter because we were chosen, what we should remember for being in Design (to Receive; our Attitude; [what's T??] ;to Shine. Shows that I’ve been attentive. To a certain extent =) and that “Eric Toh is the guy”. That’s for tomorrow morning, a talk at 10am on how to survive in Design School or something. After the lecture, we were dismissed for lunch which turned out a little worse than average. (:P) At one point of time I didn’t know where to go or who to follow and ended up at one lonely corner looking through my smses. Luckily a GL came over to offer help, but I met Wen Minn and her group of friends. Hence we walked aimlessly at first, finally following the crowd to the sports hall at the other end of TP. Now I realised TP is really bigger than what’s on the campus map, and even bigger than what it seems to be. It’s a HUGE campus out there =) Along the way, they’ve the very interesting bookshop, lan-gaming shop, desserts cafe, gym, track and a few more which I haven’t exactly noted. Man, it’s great to be in TP campus, when I come to think of the 3 years I’m going to spend there.

Typically, we settled down in the gigantic sports hall according to our sub-empires. Had a long long ice-breaking session with common games like “Blow Wind Blow”, “Fire, Hunter & Earthquake”, “Friendship Dance”, “Whack-o (bleh I hate this one because it forces you to remember peoples’ names)”, “Follow the Leader” and who knows what else. By the end of Whack-o, I was so confused and could only match names to the colour of their tops. Even more so when I tried harder to recall some peoples’ names. Now I’m quite certain I’ll be lost again tomorrow, lol. Well once again they taught us some more group cheers and a funny dance thing. Collected our Prox cards (which we can use to enter certain rooms or make use of exclusive facilities) and afterwards went around to play station games at around 5.30pm. This was designed to introduce some of the places, rooms or staircases within the Design School building. If you talk about the kind of games we play at the stations (my group went to 3 or 4), it is undoubtable that there were those especially to make you wet. Well I’ve gotten a taste of waterbombs thrown down from the second storey and my hand hurt! Storytelling was lame and needed a whole lot of cooperation. So there, it was Clarence who ended up organising and weaving the “props” together in order to create a lame but funny story. In pairs, one had to be the prop while the other came up with one or two lines to contribute. And anyway, with sooooo much creativity, I wonder how he could be struck with a case of severe STM (short term memory. period.) Wait, what did I just say STM was? o.O Lol, he couldn’t remember people’s names and it was much worse than my situation. Hello, I am Shauna. Ashley. Clarissa. Easter. Eunice. Eh.

Anyway that’s one happily enthusiastic guy in our group. Reminds me of some classmates in PL. The games ended at about 7, got around to feedbacking about today’s activities to the GLs and finally dismissal was at 7.30pm. While walking out I exchanged contacts with Wee Teng, hoping we don’t get lost in the crowd tomorrow haha. Hopped onto bus 23 at the bustop opposite TP to Tampines Interchange, then bus 22 back home. I can tell you, the journey was loooooong. I couldn’t manage to read my book and instead fell asleep like three times on the journey. And it wasn’t even near my house yet!! T_T” Oh dear.

For tomorrow’s camp, we’ve gotta go because (sad to say) it is to earn the credit for APEL 1 (say Apple) – Applied Principles for Effective Living (it’s a TP core subject). Cannot pon! Gosh I can’t imagine what lies ahead for Camp Ignite’06 – Day 2, Day 3, Day 4… …

Ring ring ring! It’s only the end of Day 1, for now. And I ain’t suppose to be blogging right now. *pulls a face* I know I’m already sounding rowdy at this point of time, but please don’t be surprise if I come back from camp all perky and excited and screaming for more. Hmm, that’s what they expect in the first place. -12.50am