Coming straight on the heels of Oikos: The Escapade, I was physically not at my best as I checked in for SMUX Camp. But there was a palpable sense of relief. Finally! On to the last camp out of 4 (SMUCF Camp, FTB, and Oikos: The Escapade being the others).

SMUX Camp was different from the other camps in that the camp was structured around a certain fixed set of activities, instead of the generic bonding, station games, and performance nite layout of previous camps. And it was refreshing, to be able to get to know my group mates better through activities instead of being baby-sitted through specific bonding games.

My group, Chubby Bunnies, was great! Lotsa nice, fun people. They made the camp fun and enjoyable despite my tiredness, having come straight from Oikos. Thanks guys!

And the activities were fun! These included:

• LaserTag

Outdoor version of the popular LaserQuest. Use your laser guns to kill your opponents! Quite fun, but I think I prefer Paintball and LaserQuest.

• Roller-Blading

Me being a total roller-blading noob, I spent the 90min learning to blade! But that’s ok. Good experience.

• Outdoor Cooking

Great time cooking and eating with my group! Nirali insists we can open a restaurant (haha!)

• Ice-Skating

More familiar with this (having ice-skated before). Took a while to get the hang of things but enjoyed the cool environment and the feeling of gliding over the ice effortlessly!

• Camping

An integral element of any SMUX Freshmen Camp. Unlike other camps, we get to sleep in less comfortable surroundings (not in SMU seminar rooms or classrooms). We camped along Changi Beach. But didn’t get much snooze time as we spent the night playing Indian Poker and Heart Attack, among other card games…

• Cycling

Was looking forward to this the most. We actually ended at a mountain-biking adventure park at Tampines, which was previously unknown to me (thanks SMUX!).

• Underwater Hockey

After the toil and sweat of cycling, what a refreshment to get into the pool at SAFRA Mount Faber! Whoosh! Totally enjoyed my time there. Underwater hockey is kinda fun, but mighty tough as well. Those who can take long breaths are well-suited for this game. Not me though.

• Intro to Diving

Nice intro to diving, which further stimulated my interest in diving. I now definitely want to learn diving!

• Trekking

The highlight of the 3rd day. We trekked from MacRitchie Reservoir to Bukit Timah.

Not to forget, on the 2nd night, after the staple performance nite (even SMUX camp cannot evade that!), we tried to crash Bondue Run 2, which was running concurrently with SMUX Camp. Thankfully, we were refused entry. The freshies there were totally wasted. A seminar room was converted into a club, with wild dancing, free-flow of alcohol, and crazed revellers (haha!). People were drunk and high along the corridors and in the various rooms. Hmm, de-stressing before the start of school!

Overall, SMUX camp was highly enjoyable, and a great end to the orientation camps!

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Oikos: The Escapade marked the first of a double-header of camps within the span of 1 week for me (SMUX Camp started on Wednesday and overlapped with the last day of Oikos). Had a good mix of people in my Breakfast at Tiffany’s group (the group name was assigned to us… we had no say).

Overall, not too bad. A typical orientation camp, with the necessary bonding games on the first day (pass the donut, feed the tau huey etc…) to break the ice and gel the group. Of particular note was a mass ice-breaker game, Burst Those Balloons, which was rather fun. The momentum was broken abit somewhat by an academic talk in the afternoon, but the bonding games resumed after that with Makansutra, where we went to various eating places around SMU.

2nd day was all Sentosa. Had a good time out in the sun, getting dirty, sandy, and burnt! Station games were good, proud to say we won the Tug of War! Night activities consisted of a buffet dinner, performance night (as usual) and stage games.

In terms of wildness, alcohol, partying, and general chaotic behaviour, Bondue (School of Business Freshmen Camp) sure laid the smackdown on Oikos. This camp was comparatively tame (trust me, my SMUX group tried to crash Bondue Run 2 on their 2nd night, and the Business freshies were havoc!) for which I am thankful. I had no intention of getting drunk, wasted, and high (which was the state of 90% of Bondue freshies on the 2nd night).

Thanks to our facis, who were great! Kudos to Farhan and Adele!

Not much else to say, other than that I’ll be meeting most of my group mates around school (we’re all Econs freshies after all). Probably in classes and possibly as project mates.

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Freshmen Team-Building camp was certainly better than expected!

SMU is the only university out of the 3 national universities in Singapore with a camp tailored for all the freshies. This is largely due to its smaller student cohort as compared to NUS and NTU. Nevertheless, FTB is still divided into 4 runs, and I signed up for the very first.

Upon walking into the registration area, I was pleasantly surprised to learn I was in the 1st group of the 1st section. That meant that I was in Run 1, Section 1, Group 1. And my group (appropriately named by us as THE ONE) truly lived up to our billing as the FIRST group of FTB.

We had great group members who were vocal and enthusiastic. We did well for all the situational challenges, which formed the bulk of FTB. Everyone contributed ideas and were participative. The guys especially helped out loads with some of the tougher challenges (rafting, horizontal spider-web) which required more strength.

Our group also had a great faci, Ben from Band. Benjamin taught us a game, DingDong, which became the hit game among our group. Kudos also to Nicolas, who was our shadow faci (learning the ropes before become a faci proper in run 4).

Highlights:

• Tunneling

Each group was divided into 2 teams: males and females. Each team would enter the ‘tunnel’, with the twin objectives of locating the exit and searching for chops along the way, which needed to be stamped onto a piece of paper that each team had. Problem was, the tunnel was pitch black, which contributed to the fun. There were sections with rubber balls, wooden pillars, and cramped passages. Overall good fun.

• Campfire Night

What camp would be complete without a campfire? Our group was highly spontaneous during this, often contributing participants for stage games (due mostly to our seating right in front of the stage). We were also caught on camera countless times, meaning that we expect to be highly featured during Convocation (where a video of FTB would be screened). And to end it all off, in true SMU tradition, there was a dance party to cap off the night. Revellers danced the night away.

• Final Challenge

The last day of the camp culminated with a Final Challenge. Groups would compete for the titles of Best Group and Best Section. We enjoyed ourselves, especially at the first station, which required us to slide across a soapy groundsheet to obtain jigsaw pieces. We completed the charades station quickly and at the end of it all, buried Ben in the sand.

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Back from a spiritually and emotionally refreshing SMUCF camp! Have to say I really enjoyed it, the people, fellowship, games, messages. All were wonderfully planned by the Planning Comm (thanks Kenji and Co.!) Twas held at the LKCSB, our messages were held in a SR, group discussions were at various GSRs, and we had separate sleeping rooms fer guys and gals in 2 different CRs. (haha, unique acronyms for SMU rooms!)

Justus, Celest, and myself made up a strong contingent from FERC! (Enoch joined us for day 2). But there were many others from various churches and denominations, ranging from the BP churches to the Charismatics to those who had not attended a church service before (hooray to Xing Yan!)

Highlights:

• Messages and Discussions on Colossians: The Ultimate Qualification

We had a series of talks by full-time staff worker, James, covering the book of Colossians in the New Testament. The topic for the camp was The Ultimate Qualification. Discussions after each message were good. Naturally, during the first discussion, the freshies were rather quiet, but by the last discussion, everyone was much more willing to discuss their thoughts on the passage and also share about their personal lives and struggles. Kudos to the seniors! (Zai, Daryl, Luwin, Perry, Corlissa, Evelyn, Michelle)

• Fellowship with Christian friends

It was a joy to meet and get to know not just new friends, but Christian friends, who share a similar conviction. Interacting with new Christian brothers and sisters from other churches is definitely a blessing. We had the largest cohort of freshies ever for SMUCF camp (cheers to those from my group: Michelle, Yin Ling, Shawna, Xing Yan). Looking forward to future CF sessions and retreats during which we can meet-up more and get to know each other better!

• Saboteur

Saboteur is a highly interactive, very fun card game which was the craze of the camp (besides Moods, a board game which is also tremendous fun). Every night, after supper (a SMU tradition), most of us would gather in groups to play Saboteur (unofficially a SMUCF game, as 3 sets of the cards were brought to camp by the seniors!). Freshies and seniors, guys and gals all joined in the fun!

The premise of the game is simple: you are either a miner or a saboteur. As a miner, your aim is to create a route to the gold. As a saboteur, you have to stop the miners from reaching the gold by the time all the playing cards are exhausted. The twist is that you do not know the identities of the other players, which draws out the fun element of the game as players accuse, counter-accuse, block, un-block, and deceive each other throughout the game. Really fun if all players take an active role in the game and do not just sit back and remain quiet. After a while, even the girls were highly active, laughing hysterically (that’s you, Pearly!) and hurling wild accusations.

• Captain’s Ball and Ultimate Frisbee

We had games every afternoon, either Captain’s Ball or Ultimate Frisbee. These were great fun, but also rather tiring. Great to see that Captain’s Ball is not just a Kingdom Seekers Seniors tradition, but also a SMUCF tradition.

Captain’s Ball was definitely the more fun of the 2 games, especially on Tues afternoon, when we played in the SMU Sports Hall at the Admin Building (due to rain, hence, cannot play at Fort Canning). The games were intense and competitive, and we got to play with people outside of our camp groups, which allowed us to further interact.

Thank God for a truly wonderful camp, a great start to my SMU life, and the brothers and sisters-in-Christ I got to know through this camp. Will be meeting up with them once again during Afterglow, a post-camp meet-up (hopefully doesn’t clash with my other camps…). And of course, the weekly CF Bible Studies once term starts.

So, now I’ve a 1-week break before my next camp, the SMU FTB Camp, which happens 28-31 Jul (Mon-Wed) at Outward Bound School, East Coast Park. Looking forward to it and to more excitement and fun!

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Remember the Human Mirror video I posted about a month back?

That act was arranged by Improv Everywhere, a group based in New York City, USA.

I was browsing through some of their other “missions” and came upon this which I really liked.

Now I am a huge fan of musicals, I really like the choreography, costumes, and spontaneous singing which blend together real well in the best musicals. So this “mission” was something I really liked as I watched it, and I really wish it could be brought right here to Singapore!

Mission: Food Court Musical
Have a group of “agents” spontaneously break out into song in the middle of a Los Angeles food court, while using video cameras to tape the reactions of astounded customers nearby.

Watch the video here:

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Finally, I am an SMU undergraduate, majoring in Economics.

After 3 years of pre-school, 6 years of primary education, 4 years of secondary school, 2 years of junior college, and 1 year 10 months of serving my country in the National Service, I have arrived at this very important stage in my life: tertiary education.

Economics at SMU, Part 1 - Econs??? Never!!!
I did not once think throughout my secondary education and junior college days that I would be majoring in Economics.

In secondary school, at ACS(I), I had studied:

• English
• Chinese
• Elementary Mathematics
• Advanced Mathematics
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Geography
• Literature
• Social Studies

In junior college, at ACJC, my subjects were:

• General Paper
• Chinese
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Project Work

So nopes, no Econs anywhere. In fact, I had not wanted to take Econs in JC, despite much advice to the contrary, for the following reasons:

• I felt I was a Science person
• Taking Econs would have meant dropping one of the three Sciences (dropping Mathematics, such a core subject, is a big no-no). I wanted to keep my options open with regards to choice of courses in university.
• Not taking Econs at JC level was not much of a disadvantage as an introductory economics course at tertiary level would cover all the JC content within a semester. Furthermore, tertiary economics, involving much more maths, was much different to that taught at JC level.

Instead, I opted, and was accepted, for a new course, Engineering Science, that was to be offered at NUS. I felt that Physics had always been my strongest suit and it was only natural for me to progress in that direction.

Economics at SMU, Part 2 - Second Thoughts
So, I entered army with my life direction firmly plotted out for me: Engineering Science at NUS, a job as a researcher in the private sector, perhaps a patent, and a business, in the not too distant future. Safe, secure, no worries, no second thoughts.

Or so I reckoned. But I reckoned wrong.

As I lived out my army days, I matured and came to a better understanding of what really drives me, what I would want to achieve in life, what I would not regret doing. And as I tossed and turned over my tertiary education choices in my mind for months on end, I eventually came to the conclusion that Engineering Science was not the way forward for me. Rather, I would definitely be doing Economics, preferably at SMU.

Here are some thoughts that influenced my decision:

1. Did I really want to live a life as a researcher? I had dismissed the worries of a dull, boring, unglamourous life in a laboratory as just a part of the job. But now I was not so sure. It no longer held the same allure as I wondered if I would be able to sustain the passion for such a monotonous job.
2. What is driving the economy, not just in Singapore, but in Asia? Definitely the financial sector. As any economy matures, it grows from one dependent upon exports to one in which the financial sector plays the most important part. The financial sector is also where the most money was to be made, if you’re willing to put in the work.
3. Would I succeed in Economics? I had come to understand that Economics at tertiary level would focus intensely upon mathematics. Since primary school, I had always excelled in mathematics, so I was sure that this would be a manageable challenge for me.

Processing all the above thoughts, I arrived at my final decision to take a bold step and apply to study Economics at SMU. I was naturally elated when I was informed of my acceptance into the course.

Matriculation Day
Matriculation is really important as it signals my official entrance into SMU as a student.

I am eager to finally put my army and working days behind me and re-embark upon my student life.

I completed all the official procedures, including fee payment, making of SMU student card, and a compulsory volunteerism talk. It was great to be part of the vibrancy that permeated the atmosphere, to feel a part of the student population, to walk around the campus as if it were my own.

I signed up for the following camps:

• SMUCF Freshmen Orientation Camp
• SMU Freshmen Team-Building Camp
• SOE Oikos!
• SMUX Camp

Totally looking forward to immersing myself in these camps before the hard grind of studies ahead.

Cya in 4 days, when my first camp, SMUCF camp concludes!

Back with stories and photos (hopefully)!

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In a women’s softball college game in the USA, 2 teams fighting for the lead in their regional league (which would qualify the team for a place in the national championships) met in a crucial game.

What happened during that game might well qualify as one of the greatest sportmanship (or should that be sportswomanship?) gestures of all time.

Watch the video below:
(Warning! This video left me on the verge of tears… I was truly touched.)

Read a news article on this gesture here:
NBC Sports: ‘Unbelievable’ sportsmanship in softball game

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Yang Wu and Wu Ping, a couple, owned a house in Chongqing, China.

Developers wanted to redevelop the area after having obtained government permission. They purchased all the surrounding land, including the houses of their neighbours. The neighbours were each given compensation packages consisting of cash and an apartment in the city.

Yet, the couple held out for more than 3 months, as they felt that the compensation package offered them was not equitable. They wanted an apartment that was of comparable size to that they were about to vacate.

Soon, the developers grew impatient and frustrated. They proceeded to bulldoze all the surrounding land, leaving the couple truly ‘high and dry’!

Imagine living in a house, on an island, in the middle of a giant pit!

Read more about this amazing situation, and other similarly ‘isolated’ homes, here:
Isolated Homes

What was the final outcome of this standoff? Read here:
Chongqing Nail House

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Take 16 pairs of twins.

Put them in a subway train carriage.

Seat the twins opposite each other.

Ask them to mimic the actions of their twin.

What you’ll get is a real-life human mirror as astounded passengers gasp in astonishment as they travel on the subway!

Watch this unique hilarity that follows here:

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Whenever you next complain about the tediousness of work and study, or the long walk home, or the lack of material pleasures in your life, remember Dianne Odell, who spent her entire life stationary within an iron lung, a 2m-long iron tube. She was afflicted with bulbo-spinal polio three years before a polio vaccine was discovered, and spent almost 60 years of her life confined within the iron lung, unable to breathe outside it but determined not to let it destroy her spirit.

Dianne recently passed away after a power failure cut electrical supply to her home, causing the breathing device to stop functioning. Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working, and even tried an emergency hand pump attached to the iron lung.

Dianne’s iron lung, similar to those used during the U.S. polio epidemics that peaked in the 1950s, was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck. She lay on her back with only her head exposed and made eye contact with visitors through an angled mirror. She operated a television set with a small blow tube and wrote on a voice-activated computer.

Iron lungs were largely replaced by positive-pressure airway ventilators in the late 1950s that give users much more freedom of movement. But a spinal deformity from the polio kept Dianne from wearing a more modern portable breathing device.

“Dianne was one of the kindest and most considerate people you could meet. She was always concerned about others and their well-being,” said Frank McMeen, president of the West Tennessee Health Care Foundation, which helped raise money for equipment and nursing assistance for Odell. “Everyone she encountered came to her because they cared about her,” he continued, “so she grew up in her 61 years thinking every person is good.”

“I’ve had a very good life, filled with love and family and faith,” Dianne said in 1994. “You can make life good, or you can make it bad.”

I was saddened upon reading this article, and a song immediately came to my mind.

Give Thanks

Give thanks with a grateful heart;
Give thanks unto the Holy One;
Give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ His Son.

Give thanks!

Give Thanks - midi

This song reminds us to always be grateful for all that we possess, for everything is but the gift of God to us. Our life, health, family, friends. Give thanks.

For the full story, read:
CNN.com: Woman dies after life spent in iron lung

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