[ 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

The New Beginning is just hours away. In a few hours’ time, I’ll be compelled to adapt to a totally new environment, new people, weird people (considering the first impression of my OGL who dropped by to pass me something), new course, new subjects, new way of getting along with people, new canteen, new variety of food (no doubt it’s good hehe), new way of wearing the “uniform” which is to be un-uniform daily, new travel routes, new people on the buses and trains now, new timetable, new haunts, new ccas, new friends, new acquaintances, new friendship circles, new sort of projects, forseen failed endeavours to get along with the new other gender, new smells, new sounds, new things to do, new rules, new unwritten rules, news, new belongings (great if they could be: ipod video, laptop, blah.) to bring to school…. and the list goes on and on. I’m pretty sure I’ll find out alright once I get there. 9am @ TP.

All these while after graduating from PL, I haven’t written any entries to sum up my four short but enriching years there, and I’m not going to write one anytime soon. Just the thought of it makes me want to unearth everything and lay it all out. Reminisce, is the word. But time hardly allows that, and instead forces us to move on. I know I have to, am compelled to. Nevertheless, I still can take a step back into the past because it’s all in my diaryland entries, my written diaries, the digital photographs, behind the individual msn contacts, the long pages of forwarded emails, the handmade gifts, the letters, the scribbles, the yearbooks, the school textbooks, the torn and tattered foolscaps, the stack of printed information, the binded folders, the ring files, the Hang Ten logo lookalike socks, the white belt and the old school tie, and most importantly, *points to my temple* here!

Goodbye red brick area! I still miss the old PL building more than the holding school. Tomorrow is a new day, a new beginning, and so I’ll look forward to it. Meanwhile, let me catch my serial…….. sayonara!