The orientation was undoubtedly the best experience of any welcome into any organisation I ever had up till now. University and army do not have orientation I think, and definitely when one starts working, there will not be one too. So this orientation is probably the best and the last my batch mates and I have had. Period. =)
The programme was 7 days in length (excluding weekends), the longest orientation in the whole of Singapore with respect to JCs. Truthfully, I didn't really like the length of the orientation because I have a certain indescribable irk towards icebreakers. In addition, when I saw the programme consists of dances and subsequently the video of the batch dance, I kind of dreaded it.
I'll skip all the lecture parts of the orientation. I learnt to sit at the back of the auditorium if you want to... this doesn't need explanation. You cannot see the lecturer and vice versa. You do the inference. Had experience of mass lecture in high school already during maths lessons in Sec. 3 term 1 (which failed). Basically, the bigger the place for mass lecture, the easier it is to lose concentration. And the only good thing I heard was that you get to display your creativity and fashion using your shoes, just that the pair cannot be too eye-catching. :P
Enough of the boring part of orientation (oops!), let's get on with the fun! There are many icebreaker games I learnt other than the traditional whacko. Well, in high school there were only boys... not much variety, but in JC, the range of games is overwhelming, e.g. Game of Tempo and Game of Concentration. The forfeits are much much worse now that there is the presence of the opposite gender. An example is go up to a random girl and say a pick-up line without laughing yourself. *Shudders* I didn't really enjoy the icebreakers, to say the truth. Wasn't devoted to Orientation Group (OG) 13, my OG... yet. What an unlucky number too. @.@
What then made me feel more belonged to the OG? The OG Games of course. The 1st day was dry games. The sun was unmerciful, as always. But well, while the girls were complaining of the unbearable heat and ended up using the laminated piece of paper with the OG number printed on it as a fan, I was rather oblivious to the heat. Many a day clad in some heavy dark uniform under the hot sun doing drills and stoning finally does have some use. I can bear with more heat than the average person. Haha. :X I didn't really participate, as I'm not sporty. Hence, well I can only cheer along and feel slightly closer to the OG.
The next two days of OG games are wet games and I can say the Council was really quite creative. There were flour, soap and of course lots of water. And I must say I love the games!!! I don't usually like to get wet unnecessarily but the games were so successful that I actually want to get wet! =D (partly due to the lousy weather) I participated more actively, to my own surprise and well my OG bonded more closely. We only won 1 game on the 1st day, but we won 3, drew 1 on the 2nd day and won 3 on the 3rd day (everyday there were 5 games). We proclaimed ourselves the wet games experts. Haha. Several games were based on the simple game of scissors-paper-stone (eagle-chicken-egg counted in also) and they were well dependent on luck largely. After one game of base-water bomb on the third day, I actually went crazy enough to dump a bucket of water over my head. I was rather cool despite the glaring sun for the rest of the day. Though the shoes were not so comfortable... The water slide was the most epic. It was freaking hard, got drenched. Now I know how the participants of the NP Unit Camp last year felt. Except the slope was steeper even though it was shorter than that at the SALT centre. But hey, it was still a very enjoyable experience for me. On the last day of the OG being together, we went for dinner. The food wasn't really nice, but well it's the spirit that counts. OG 13 FTW! We're still keeping in touch via mass conversations on MSN and the organisation of several outings (albeit me not going for the one yesterday because it was just too far at the South-east of Singapore).
Can one trust the friend of a friend? I personally doubt so. The friend of your friend isn't bound to you in any way... Next time, I'll just watch my mouth and withhold what I want to say, even to a friend before some secrets are revealed and what I say end up causing unwanted trouble for myself. Again, I do not trust people easily. Don't like the chances of being back stabbed be too high for comfort. And some things are meant to be kept to oneself as a secret when a friend says. Some people just don't get it that when one says can, it actually means cannot. Makes you wonder again whether the friend is a friend. Con of cyber connection, as I said before physical contact is the best to know a person thoroughly. -Censorship enabled- While I do not hold back on language, I find myself now holding back on content even when talking to friends to prevent the secrets being used as a weapon. I do not censor myself only to two to three people, including my cousin in, since he knows too much already. Hence those who know what goes on inside me can be counted using fingers of one hand. And that's quite sad, for me. )= Can only blame myself for not trusting people easily. And I seriously do not like cyber connection, it sucks to the core. Period.
Should I go for faculty dance training form 3-6pm tomorrow? It's super late. Argh.
