Yes, I know it's been quite a looooooong time since I've updated. I didn't know so many people actually took the time to read what I had to crap! Hahahahaa... It's been almost three weeks since I've last wrote anything but TONS have happened. The most difficult thing with coming back after a long hiatus is decided what to write about. So why not pick up from where I left off last... Techflow Massive Cameron Camp!
We left on a friday afternoon. There were almost thirty ppl coming up by chartered bus. Being "really smart" engineers and all, we slept on the straight roads and started bising-ing on the windy roads. You would think that anyone would start heaving up whatever they had for lunch, but nooooooo~, everyone was too busy ooo-ing and aaah-ing at the sights and lights going up the hillside. Stomachs of iron, we has them :D. But back to the sights... they were awesome! I've never been up to Cameron's at night, but all the tea plantations and other farms were all lit up with the soft warm glow of sunny lightbulbs. And they were everywhere! Don't have any pictures to show, but you'd have to be there to appreciate the beauty of the whole thing. It was breathtaking. :)
Barre I.J. Center: Where we would be investing the next three days of our lives.
We arrived at the quaint retreat of Barre I.J. Center close to 9pm (i think), had dinner (we were STARVING), and started with the 1st session with ice-breaking. One of the games was the balloon game. We had to write some stuff about ourselves on our balloon and then, after mixing all our balloons up, we each picked a random balloon and we were supposed to guess who that balloon belonged to based on the written characteristics.
That was when I discovered that engineers, besides being "really smart", can be "really creative" as well.
Everyone was either one or more of these things: smart, cute, pretty/handsome, or fun. Oh boy wow! Really? That could be describing anyone in this room! I mean, I'm all of the above too!
... ok never mind...
The guessing game was absolutely funny as we tried to match vague characteristics with even vaguer (is that such a word?) people. Some were pretty hilarious (like Shwe's balloon, she wrote: "The Great" on it).
Valerie trying to sneak a peek at mah balloon.
I got Carolyn's balloon, one of the most sadistic juniors I've ever had the chance of knowing. Nuff said.
Carolyn:
Don't mess with her. She likes to give random, out of the blue pinches.
I got the blue black marks to show for it.
I was so hungry I ate my balloon.
After that I went to bed. Yup, "I" as in singular. Cos everyone else was still high. Me, on the other hand? I'm getting old... :P And it was the coldest night ever! Brrrrrr!
The next morning, we all woke up at the break of dawn for devotion. It was great to hear everyone share about gifts and talents and how we should offer all that we have to God. After breakfast, we had another session of ice breaking. We were all seated in a circle, then one of us was blindfolded, given a rolled up newspaper and had to stand in the middle and swing wildly around, trying to hit someone. Then we had to guess who we had hit based on their voices.
You guys are evil.
We had the morning session, as usual Ps. Ernie drew from his expansive repertoire of songs of how he found God and played a few foot tapping favorites. Next up... station games around Camerons!
At the 1st station, we arranged all the books of the bible in sequential order. 1st team to complete is the 1st to venture out into the town. We got last, even with help from Mr. Michael and Mark and Daniel. Hahahahah! More bible study anybody? :P
But no fear! For the 2nd station, we ran a MILLION miles to some botanical garden where we had to count the colors of the flowers that were there. We counted like a GAZILLION hues in 10 minutes. :D The 3rd station was the bus terminal and we had to sing the UNITEN anthem to an adoring public audience. I forgot the words and just "hmmm... ahhh..." almost half the song.
The 4th and last station, we had to memorize a TRILLION items from a food menu. Mark was nicely looking at his cousin's photo, while all along we thought he had a picture of the food menu on his phone and checking on us. It was around this time that another team caught up with us, making us realize that we were actually in the lead! So we ran all the way back to Barre I.J. We got 1st! And we ambushed the last team! (Sorry William... Better luck next time!). Thanks Mark and Daniel and all involved who went all out to embarass us prepare all the games!
The Winning Team. :D
One massive water balloon fight, Captain Ball game (in which we extracted a sizable rock from Joshua's wounded arm) and ravenous dinner later, we prepped up for malam mesra, themed: Pirates of Cameron Highlands. Ridiculousness of the highest order ensued. Oh, and we played more station games. One of which included spitting sweets. Gross out awesomeness!
Arrrrrrrrrrr! Hoo-ah!! We be da Blu-Ray Pirates!!
Fast forward to the last day, we went to town. Ate some tasty strawberry honey pancakes and headed downhill to Rowen's and Bobby's strawberry farm. We got a backstage pass into the farm and it was awesome! Got a bottle of jam. We also got scones from Rowen's aunt! The best scones... EVER!
I swear the strawberries there are the size of my head.
It tastes even better in your mouth. But I'm sorry... you only get the picture. :P
After a smorgasbord of gorging ourselves, we left and stopped halfway down Cameron's for more feasting. This time at the pasar pagi (it was more like "tengah hari" by then but i don't know what else to call it). We had corn, fried mushrooms and I got chocolate strawberries too (courtesy of Carolyn, who by now was so overwhelmed with guilt from torturing me throughout the whole camp, so she decided to compensate :P).
This time, we being "smarter" engineers, we slept on the windy way down and woke up on the straight highway. Then we bising-ed and crapped and told ridiculous stories and jokes til we got back to UNITEN.
Random photo time!
Cool People Posing.
Some of my Favorite Retards.
Me indulging in one of my favorite activites at camp.
The rest are just sleeping. Tsk tsk...
Oh yeah, we got back and almost immediately went to eat somemore. Bak Kut Teh at Mungo Jerry!!! Pork Heaven! What a way to end the best camp I've ever been to! :D
I've learnt one important thing: It doesn't matter where you go or what you do or even when or how you do it, it's the people that you hang out with that makes life awesome.
P.S. Pictures plucked from Facebook from Shwe's DSLR and Mr. Mike's Camera. :)
