It was really 13 days well spent in SA hall, and I'm extremely grateful to be given this opportunity to experience what hostel life is like...
Kidding. As the days passed, I realized that its okay to close the door even when you go out and go to school. In fact, my roommates and I don't even bother locking the door when we go out especially during the morning rush when role call is at 7am and we're still up there at 7am. You get what I mean... And being an advocate, I learnt that it is extremely important to be punctual. In order to solve our problem, we decided to set our alarms 10 minutes earlier. Unfortunately, it never worked... Simply because we're girls. More time = More time to prepare.
The week passed by in an ordinary fashion. We do our homework every night together and talk etc. In fact its amazing how all of us do not close the door. So basically, when you walk past the corridor, no one closes the door at night. Well, Monique, Vanessa and I had this competition: who sleep the earliest wins... without any prize. And guess the loser every night?
ME. ._.
Haha. I won once though. I think it was the day before our teambuilding camp on Thursday simply because I did not sleep the night before. HAHA. I was too tired to move on so I decided to sleep. Can you imagine 41hours without any sleep? It went well for the first 30+ hours. Until it hit the 36hour mark... that was when I really felt like dying on the spot and there was some 1st and 2nd advocates sharing...
So Friday came and it was our team building camp. Wow.. I was so scared they were going to pump us a lot and that it would become like the SC selection camp. But we have no fear because we're from Saints Advocates. We're going to serve the community... That is what we're here for.
First day of team building camp was really fun. We played games pertaining to the values teamwork such as trust and communication and trust me... I really learnt a lot from these GAMES. Though I haven't fully learn how to trust someone... but I think I'm on my way to do so because I've to or else I don't think I'll be able to work well with anyone since I've an independent mind... trust yourself and god. No one else. Yepp. Looks like I've to open my circle a little bit more. Its going to be tough but I'll try. I've also learnt the importance of working as a team. :))
Well, the second day was actually really really scary. Not scary in a way that they were going to pump us and all. We went for our first SERVICE LEARNING together... THE BIG SWEEP! And I was skeptical of the houses that we were going to clean. In fact, I was AFRAID that there will be bugs and all. I got BAYGON to myself. Yes, thats right! My baygon. :* It was proved to be wrong because most of their houses were really clean. In fact, cleaner than my own room. (Okay, maybe not.. My room may look messy because of my secondary screen wires, bass speakers, laptop and all the books and magazines strewn all over and around the table. I cut down on my wires already by the way... I'm using a wireless mouse) These elderly were in fact very lonely people. I suppose. Because the aunty's house that I went to told me that she signed up because her friend signed up and she told us (denise and I... Because the rest of the group can't understand Chinese) about her world war 2 experience. Well, after that were the activities planned for the elderly and I swear speaking in chinese is hardwork. I... NICOLE ANG... USED GOOGLE TRANSLATE ON THE SPOT. 请给我一个热烈的掌声！Side note: I'm so worried for my chinese now because I'm really bad at it. The worst part of life is that Alevels is soon and Oral is 1 term away. YES ONE TERM AWAY.
Well, we went back and we did mass games. Being blind for like 30-40minutes was a horror for me during the mass games... However, I can empathize them now. Yes, I really can. I felt so helpless I really didn't know what I was doing. On top of that, I totally felt like a BURDEN.
Did outdoor cooking and my group cooked fish and pasta while the others just had Maggie mee. HAHA. (refers to my advocate journal) >> last to finish but I'm glad we did something challenging as a group though I feel that we could support each other and be less individualistic at times. sorry jae eun for ignoring you when you were telling us the story behind our food. I still remember I said "wait uh" Anyway, they woke me up at 4am alongside with Denise, Evan and Liwen to do night trail in batches... I SWEAR sn night trail was nothing compared to this. Really? at 4am.. HAHA. I still remember Evan making fun of all the stations and all of us huddling together because we were so scared. We had the FIND MY HEART station, MAFIA station, NS station, TOILET station and HARRY POTTER station. I swear what evan did was really funny because he made fun of the ghost to make the entire thing less scary for us. (Well, I think he got into some trouble after that. Sorry!) Kicking around the corners so that the ghost won't jump out of nowhere, screaming before the ghost scream at us, singing Chinese ABC because the person said ABC.. We thought she meant sing ABC so we sang.. and no.. so we sang the Chinese version according to Evan and then we read the book. In the end she gave up and just get the book back from us. (Y) Many memories were made... HAHA.
Tried to sleep but didn't.
3rd day was really tiring. two halves make one hole was seriously the game that impacted me the most. It was like the greatest test of my fitness level.
bottles with holes... filling up big bottles with holes...
before we can fill the up, we have to run, jump, duck walk and spin 10 rounds...
By the time we reach the big bottles... No more water. LOL or like 1/2-1/4 left. We took 2 hours 20 minutes to fill one big 1.5litre bottle up. I swear it was tiring because 1/3 of the total strength was left to do the running up and down while the other 2/3 had to sit there to cover the holes. So it was like them trying to not make our efforts go to waste. 2hours20minutes of running up and down non-stop is no joke. It was like 50m x 50-60 to and fro. LOL. 2.5km is ok... the spinning part and jumping made the entire thing hell. Not to mention getting wet from the bottle because we had to hold the bottles on our head.
AMAZING HUH. Determination I swear. It was seriously the most fulfilling task ever. I felt that this strengthened our friendship and teamwork. Yes. It did. And our mental and physical ability.
MY TEAM
End of camp: went back and got my tablet. whoohooo.
Went back to the hostel and slept. Yeap monique and I slept. Vanessa came back and slept. We said that we were going to wake up at 6.30pm for dinner and it never happened lol. We woke up at 7.38pm and rushed like mad to the canteen hoping that there will be food. HAHAHAHA. (luckily there was. We ate leftovers :b)
Aww I actually miss canteen food now. I hate maggie noodles and outside mixed rice :( I eat that almost everyday. I miss having icecream, tomyam/seaweed soup etc. I miss breakfast.. porridge, muffins, unripe bananas. I get bread with spread now. -__-
Monday came... And it was our last night together. Oh before that, we went for some business proposal writing workshop!
We gathered at night at our 4th level lift lobby to camwhore as 4th advocates together. Yes we're 4th advocates.
and we did this.. A remake picture of the night trail thing (advocates journey)
FIND MY HEARTTTTT!!!
And with my team: Kon Bongsa!
Last day... 19/3/13.. MADE FULL USE OF ME STAYING IN THE HOSTEL. WENT BACK TO THE HOSTEL TO SLEEP DURING 2 HOUR BREAK BEFORE CHINESE. THAZZZ RIGHT!!!!!
All in all, this entire hostel stay is worth more than gold. Trust me.. I don't think I'll ever get to experience what is hostel life like unless I become a scholar and go to some other country to study but I'm certainly going to miss staying in the hostel. I'm going to miss the fact that we don't close our doors and that we do everything together. I'm going to miss waking up late :b
But I'm not going to miss the fact that wifi is so precious lol.
I hope that 4th advocates will journey on together and become more bonded. Yes more bonded. Its hard because we have our cliques (me being nowhere again.. I'm like nowhere all the time) but I'm sure we'll get past this stage. Having cliques are inevitable but most importantly, to get out of our own comfort zone to communicate with the rest.
4th advocates up and on!!!!
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