Hi, everyone. Its the first day of Term 4 today, 12/9/05, Monday, and the time now is 12.30p.m. What am i doing at home, when its school hours? Obviously... I'm sick. Yup, sick on the first day of school. =( Haiz. sad... But nevermind, the focus of this blog entry is not on my illness, or how i got infected. (Maybe i will touch on this after writing the main topic) The main topic is
MAF... the
Mid-Autumn Festival Celebrations 2005 organised by HCICO and NYCO, that took place last Friday in HCI. For those who are not in Chinese Orchestra, HCICO organises a MAF celebration annually with a girl's school, and this year its NYGH. Since its so important, i'll start with a proper and formal tone...
9th September 2005, FridayI woke up very tired... having edited 200 sets of programme booklet one by one manually all because i did not confirm the MAF groupings with my Nanyang counterparts before sending for printing. Anyway, for some particular reason, the atmosphere was very strange that day... right from the start when i woke up all the way after i reached school. I boarded bus 157 (double-decked) and i went to sit on the upper floor. The bus was quite empty. Then after a while, TV mobile started screening a programme on the SPI, Singapore Paranormal Investigators ... which investigate on ghosts and stuff. It started getting cold... (air-con) and everything seemed so weird. When i reached school, i walked all the way to the MPH. The whole area was dark (obvious since its 6 something). Since i still had to fold one by one all the booklets, i went to the concourse benches to sit. The whole situation was eerie... and i was alone, with KKH on my left. i started folding... and all of a sudden... the lights went off (don't forget... its 7am le). i heard some noises, and all of a sudden, a big roar. (just the fountain starting to gush out water). So as you can see, the whole thing was my imagination. very stupid indeed. Haiz. Anyway... i'll continue.
At 7.30 sharp, i went to the MPH to wait for the others, while still desperately folding the programme booklets. Luckily, the girls arrived shortly after and solved the problem quickly. Zhi guang arrived with the keys to open the MPH. After settling all the stuff, the participants arrived. The briefing started... and finally the ice-breakers commenced. (Fast forwarding)
Being one of the photographers of the day, i went around taking pictures. The game for icebreakers was wacko and held at parade square. Sadly, i made a mistake in snapping to many pictures of the game... and used up the first li-ion battery that i brought. But its not wasted, cos there were many candid moments that were featured. Koy Min was gao3 xiao4 lor... refused to pose for the camera. I only managed to take a photo of him by zooming in from far away.
After this was game 1 for Group A and game 2 for Group B. I went to shoot Group B since game 2 was also held at the parade square. Game 2 was made up of 2 parts: 华乐猜猜猜 and 接力赛. The gamemasters are Jie Lun, Keng Wei, Ziyi and Shawn. Game 2 was indeed fun. For 华乐猜猜猜, participants have to send a representative to act out keywords given to them, and let his/her group members guess what it is. 接力赛 is the most fun... cos group members have to tie their hands and legs together and walk together as a group, while answering questions along the way. Jia da was trying to snap pictures of 1 boy and 1 girl together, exploiting the fact that they were unable to move freely. lol.
After this, i followed Group B to the concourse for Game 1, which was organised by Ben, Hannah, Chunyang and Juliana. The name of this game is 嫦娥寻后羿, where participants have to search for clues in hidden places all over the school. Mainly, i followed 2 groups: chenyang and Sua Yu's. The forfeits were the highlight of the game. Forfeit 1 requires them to eat lime; forfeit 2 requires stuffing ice into their shirts; forfeit 3 requires a HCI boy to wear NY uniform and a NY girl to wear HCi uniform. Obviously, the most interesting part was the wearing of Ny uni. Francis was the unlucky guy. But he took it in his stride and did well. Applause. Meanwhile... or rather before that, Yao Hui was the guy in Group A who wore the NY uniform. He looks so chio ... lol.
Up next was lunch for group A and xiaozu practice for group B. The practice was for the skills interaction held later on. Being in A, i followed them to eat. The food were ordered from the Western stall... so everyone enjoyed it. After which, it was xiaozu for Group A and lunch for Group B. Me and Yao Hui (弦乐美女) decided to teach the ny sec 1s. Haiz... their sec 1s are pro-er than ours lor...
So after that, it was Game C for Group A and Dazu practice for Group B. I followed group B once again to the MPH. It was a sad case for Group B, as the school suffered a powe failure at this point of time.... so the whole MPH was hot and stuffy. Nevertheless, their practice was very productive. It was at this point of time that my 2nd li-ion battery was flat. Thankfully, Zhengyou lent me his camera to continue my job. After taking some pictures, i went to the bookshop area to snap Group A playing Game C. It is also composed of 2 parts: 月知，我知，你不知；月会，我会，你不会 and 月宫迷魂阵. The gamemasters are Adeline, Yong Hui, Peng Rong and Yong Lin. Part 1 requires participants to guess the name of songs while part 2 is a question and answer game. Grids are drawn and the level of difficulty of the questions are determined by it.
After which, it was time for Dazu for Group A, so i went back to the MPH. Yao Hui kept scolding me during practice cos i kept playing wrongly. Grrr... how can i forget how to play 攀登? After dazu, it was time for the real skills interaction. Group A was first. Under the skillful guidance of our SC Jia Da, we put up a brave fight against Group B... but lost eventually. Lol. But after this serious part of MAF, we have came to the most interesting part.... the MASS GAME! --> waterbomb!
The mass gamemasters were Shiao Hong, Ming Yi, Phoebe, Yong Jie, Randy and Liu Hao. The "structured" part of the mass game consists of 4 obstacles: 抛个月饼、逃避弓箭、嫦娥“月”过 and 落花流水. i shall not touch too much on these cos i was away in the toilet during this time. haha. By the time i got back to the side field, all the teams had completed the tasks and were off into the free bombing section. This was indeed the best part of MAF. The gamemasters had tied i think more than 1000 waterbombs for our playing. Initially, all was well and i just got hit by a few occasional shots. My first target was Lim Yi, who was standing at the top of the track room, and me, on the field. For some reason, my aiming was off target and i hit Shengbin instead, who was standing beside Lim yi. Lol. I also decided to throw at Zi Wei, who threw one back at me. XD Till that point of time, the best hit was by yueyang, who was clever enough to trick me by calling out, "Eh, Gim Thia." I turned around, and was hit right in the face. haiz... im always so gullible.
But the "best" is yet to come. While i was stoning on the field, i suddenly felt someone grabbing me and locking my arms. Then next, 2 people came rushing down the stairs with pails... and of course, i was pailed. It all happened so quickly... up till now i only knew that hongshen and koy min was involved. Dunno who was the other guy... So instantly, i was drenched wet. After some more water bombing, i went back to the MPH to fetch a dry shirt. I was so wet that even my shoes were soaked lor. But the unfortunate part was that i only brought a shirt, and did not have any shorts to change into. So for the rest of MAF, i was shivering from the wet shorts. Eventually, I decided to take off my shoes and socks. And i went down to the canteen for dinner with my bare feet.
After dinner, all of us went back to the MPH for the prize presentation and the finale: a skit about Chang'e, Hou yi and Yu Tu (Jade rabbit). This was the last event of MAF, and it was time to bid farewell... However, MAF has not started (lol. inside joke)... so some of us in the OT decided to go KAP for supper. There, we chatted and gossiped for quite some time before going home.
Ok, so thats it. This is my last but best MAF. Next year will prove to be a different experience when i return as a retired HCICO member. Lol. Thanks for reading this long and uninspiring blog entry. Bye!
