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Enjoy your stay

It's been so long, and so much to blog about. I think I'll classify it according to the dates of these happenings.

21/11/09 (Saturday)

The day of I.T Camp. I was very excited for that day, since it's been quite some time since I attended the last camp. Even though it was only a 2-day, 1-night camp, I had the feeling that it would be more entertaining this time round in the status of a Sec-3 senior.

Well, first things first. Early that morning, as mentioned before, I woke up at 8am to start work on my pasta. Sigh, cooking really isn't easy. I was supposed to arrive in school at 10am, turns out I was late for a good whole 30minutes. And I hated it when I found out I lacked olive oil...

The general setup...


Chicken sausages for that breakfast feel.

Boiling of the spaghetti.

Preparation for making scrambled eggs. Salt, eggs, and low-fat, low-cream milk.

(Is it just me or do I feel like this is somewhat turning into a cooking show...? Um, whatever.)


Whisking eggs into a frothy substance takes at least 2 minutes of muscle-aching whiplashing.


Tossing of spaghetti in olive oil... or, the supposedly missing olive oil. I couldn't find any...

Scrambled eggs. They didn't quite turn out to be what I thought...

Rojak the spaghetti, sausages, bacon ham, scrambled eggs, and spaghetti sauce together and this becomes the product. (Shit, I think I see my reflection burning off that kettle.)


Like I said, I was already late for the camp, so I had to take another packet to school to consume as my breakfast. The rest of my group worked on some Stop-Motion puppet touch-ups while I happily tucked into the meal. Haha.

Probably by now, many of you would be wondering, what's a guy's business in a kitchen? My reply would be, what's there not to be? Precisely because not many guys like to do this, the novelty lies straight there. This cooking expedition could be considered a success, or at least my taste buds tell me so. Cooking is an invaluable skill to acquire, especially in survival context, and has nothing to do with gender stereotypes.




Later that night...


Time of photograph: 2a.m
After intense water games of people throwing water at each other and getting themselves wet to the tip, I.T club was given free time in the Com. Lab. Apparently, people thought it wise of themselves to turn the place into a DOTA LAN Gaming Centre. The dimming of lights to give it a more LAN-like experience was my idea, much to the delight of the gamers. And since I didn't play DOTA, I just continued working on my I.T project research. While some people played with cards, and some were on a raging surge of phone chatting with their other halves. (Who knows? Maybe it was phone sex....blahblahblah.)

At around 2.30am, I dragged my DOTA-maniacal group mates back to the IT resource room to start work on the project after I finished my research. Games aside. For me, this was where the fun part really started. I had lots of Laughing-my-ass-off(s).

Anyone tried walking around the school late at night? It's definitely creepy, especially when our wedgie-tight budget makes it impossible to open up the lights for camp-goers. Even the trip from the Com. Lab. to the I.T Resource Room held several scares. (But most probably we were just scaring ourselves.)

When I took these photos, Frederick's response was immediate. "What if you photographed something you 'weren't supposed to'?" All I wanted was to capture our school corridors in a night perspective. Um, by the way, we were on our first trip to the toilet together (Yes, together.) when I took this picture.


Frederick's protest was also the same in the case of this photo. The photo above was taken on the 3rd floor. On the 4th floor, it was pitch black darkness, my camera can't even see much. The green thing's the exit sign, the white one is ah... A lamp from the parade square, I think?


On our second trip to the toilet, however, I started telling a ghost story which I heard from one of my ex-teachers. At that time, Ivan, Frederick, Phil and I were walking together in a group (Yes, again.), the more we walked, we realised that our footsteps were accelerating quicker and quicker. In the end we wordlessly arrived at the toilet entrance sprinting. LOL. Later communications revealed that we were all having the same thoughts. We started running because all of us felt something following us from behind... Probably just some psychological effect from the story I was telling. Haha, and Phil. You should've seen yourself, I still remembered you pushed Ivan to the back of the pack while running! You scared him good, though.

I had quite a few scares of my own as well. Well, not really. More like I was scaring people...
I hid in the nice cubbyhole of a classroom exit which was beside a toilet waiting for Frederick to finish his business and scram out. He just walked past me without realising that there was something there until I moved and he saw motion in that dark corner. He actually dashed all the way back to our bunk with me hot on his heels. He didn't know that it was actually me until I came into the lights of our bunk. Too late, by that time my tears were already flowing from the laughter. He actually thought I was some kind of apparition!

And so...the night of work (and fright) continued till around 4am in the morning. Our CCA Teacher I/C shooed us back to our bunk for sleep. Surprisingly, a whole lot of us (except for a sleepy/lazy few) woke up at around 7am for morning P.T. Hence in resultant, most of us only had around 3 hours of sleep before a brand new Sunday smacked straight at us.




22/11/09 (Sunday)

What's your first impression when you see this? A rifle execution scene back in the time of WWII? My exact sentiments. C'mon juniors, it's only morning P.T and games, not punishment and death, why so emo?

A busy morning indeed, after playing a nice game of 3-point shots with Lionel and coaching Shi Hui on some of the basketball basics, breakfast and a nice, cold shower was up next. Shu Shan actually offered me instant noodles for breakfast. What? No! In the end I got bread. Can't complain, at least that's better than Maggi.

Next stop. Club outing to West Coast Park.

The white sand here is gorgeous.

So, over here, all the I.T club seniors were given posts at different stations. Since the juniors were the ones attempting 'The Amazing Race' this time round, we get to 'supervise' them through the different stations.


That's Shao Qiang sitting on my station. It's some sort of sport equipment which you're supposed to sit on following which you spin yourself around. Sounds dizzying? It is. My Sec 2 juniors will tell you that.
However, I don't think I'm going to make any new friends with the juniors during this outing. After all, being the one in charge of giving instructions for this station, I did told them to spin on the equipment 20 times, walk in rotational movement towards a lamppost and swing/spin around it 10 times, run to a tree and then back to the station. Actually it wasn't that bad, just a few minor casualties like one or two giddy falls into the sand, one or two near-faints, and maybe one or two who lost their sense of direction for a good while. I still have a heart, right?

Shu Shan: “果然是我的老爸，真会捉弄人。”
A translation of that would mean, "You are my good father after all, always the one with the cruel tricks for people."

FYI, she was the one who went around acknowledging people as her relative and parents. Lol.



That's Shao Qiang and Jean's station. I kept getting the impression that SQ didn't quite like his partner. Maybe it's because of the bright flashes...of light from the Sun which made the day quite unbearable...?


It always feels great to be taking a picture with someone so cute and panda-like. (Cheng Yang's idea of a panda)

In general, this year's I.T camp has had to be the greatest out of all 3 years. For once, the takeaway food was edible...at least.


23/11/09 (Monday)

Free from school. And on this day I've decided to go gift-hunting for Jiao Min in Bugis, along with Shao Qiang, who wanted to buy a new jacket. We spent a whole afternoon scouring Bugis Junction, Bugis Street, Hylam Street, and the gigantic department store BHG for what we were looking for. Or you can say, window-shopping, actually. Just taking a stroll there after not visiting that place for so long due to shopo-phobia. For SQ, it was his first time there.

As you can see, one hasn't been there for a long time, and the other is totally foreign to the place. Quite a hassle to get around, as you can imagine. The funniest part of the whole trip was when SQ discovered that his water bottle was leaking and had turned his bag into a reservoir of drinking water. What I cannot believe was that he actually turned his bag upside down and emptied all the liquid inside, right there on Bugis Street! LOL, he made an old lady in front of him jump when he did that.

One whole row of men's wear in Bugis Junction. Gosh, just taking a walk in those stores alone is enough to make you feel cool.


After all that trekking. We went to TeaDOT Cafe to get ourselves refreshments.


That's my latte in the foreground. They gave a funny name for it... I think it was called the 'Tired Coffee Latte'. SQ's beverage in the background was called 'Violet Dream', I think... some tea stuff.

Businessman on his billion-dollar project talks... Look at that stance.



Reached home after a long day at about 8.30pm. Ended the day with huge plans in mind for another hectic tomorrow.



24/11/09 (Tuesday)

Woke up at 6.20am to meet up with Phil later for fitness training, and also to run some very special errands. Jiao Min, I hope you liked the morning postman?

Perhaps I should exercise with friends more often instead of running alone all the time like the cold person I am. Jogging-cum-chatting with Phil had been a nice experience. Two men tearing our muscles apart on strength training equipment had been almost high.

Oh yes, Quote of the Day: "Ugh Phil, mind your fluids!"


The afternoon was spent with Jiao Min and her friends. Ooo, do I really love Italian cuisine that much?

I had Italian Bacon and Cheese Bolognese at ambush, an European restaurant. The branch at Jurong Point was in open-air space, very classy indeed. However, it is this search for class which made Kriscillia drag her feet around the complex with a distinct whine, starving. Then they complain that I'm too fussy about food, wth? This is called MAKING CHOICES.

Moreover, Jasmine and Kriscillia kept making esoteric jokes which both Jiao Min and I didn't quite catch (and most probably I never will). Tsk, annoying. The two left us soon after lunch due to enigmatic reasons, which left us to go for our own plans...






Thought that this wasn't too bad a place to let someone have some fun on her birthday. The Singapore Discovery Centre was a enticing place to be.


This is the Upper Exhibition Hall. Hm, I was just wondering. Does anyone know what's the purpose of that giant sphere in the middle of the hall?



Holy cow, they had a wartime simulator there. A Made-in-Singapore product, even the voices were distinctly of Singaporean soldiers. Gosh, they had UAVs, Apaches, F-16 Fighter jets and almost the whole of Singapore military vehicles in it.



A giant dome with many small screens along the aisle and one walkway in the middle. From what I saw, I'm assuming that it was also a simulation, but one for the parliament of Singapore. Different screens had like "Design Sector of Orchard Road", "Design Sector of Bugis" displayed on it.



Oh yes, they had this annoying robot with a freaky voice who kept screaming weird things at me. It actually freaked me out, damnit... I think it's name was 'Little George'. You actually let Jiao Min had a good time laughing at me. Watch out, GEORGIE.

We went to their 3D Theatre next whereby I had my first go at a 3D movie experience. Wow, I could have almost reached out and grabbed a snowflake...

At the end of the day, we took a double-decker bus back to Boon Lay MRT Station whereby we proceeded our way home. Ooo yes, double-decker buses! They let me feel like I was back to being a 7-year-old again! I used to love them when I was younger. But it's been many years since I rode on a double-decker bus...Finally today I got the chance. Oh well, maybe I really shouldn't get this excited on double-decker buses.

On the MRT trip homewards, I got to help a mother and her young little baby push the pram through a crowded train. I think the baby smiled at me! Ah, if it's one thing I feel complete adoration for, it's cute little ones like him (or was it a her?) I'm not sure. Little babies are just so adorable.

It has been a tiring day but the time was inestimably cherished, that I can assure you. I wish you a Happy birthday once again, Jiao Min. Je t'aime.