And its the end of FOC 2020! (I refuse to call it Business Camp cause we started off with FOC and it sounds more 亲切 than Business Camp haha) Although there were various hiccups and imperfections during the camp, I’m glad it went quite well and I really think it was a much better camp than last year’s haha =) FOC 2010 rocks!
Day 1
Basically we just gave out the goodie bags and stand around/ help for the sponsorship talks in the morning. After that I was station master for a station game “ Apple of My Eye”. Basically they had to go in pairs and look for mentos in a basin of flour using their mouths only. They will then spin rounds before trying to take a bite from a hanging apple. I was doing the flour part which was quite gross/messy at times haha. Towards the end, it was just like trying to chase away all the cheating freshies and OGLs who are trying to poke their way through to find the mentos beforehand. It was seriously difficult to juggle with so many people around all the time and after a while I just close one eye and let it pass haha. Afterall the highlight of the game was the apple part, which produced quite a lot of epic funny moments haha. At night was SP stuff and Treasure Hunt, where I just walked around taking random photos for my post-event report. I went in as a fake SP at some point of time cause they didn’t have enough guys and apparently I was so irritating that the girl was super disturbed haha. Oh well, I was meant to be rejected anyway haha.
Day 2
Sentosa Day! Woke up super early and headed down to Sentosa on the logistics lorry cause I was a station master for one of the morning games. Actually I don’t really understand why they need the station masters to report there so early but since I’m not the one in charge, I will just leave it to the planners. I don’t particularly mind having to go there early anyway and I just slept for a bit more in the pavilion while waiting for the rest to arrive. Doing some 200 seconds game where they are supposed to spilt beans, form a line with whatever items they have and do a small human pyramid within the time limit. Its quite a slack game and more for them to take those commemorative photos while doing the pyramid. It was raining quite a bit in the morning and we had to relocate to a tentage elsewhere on palawan beach. I think many of the OGs were actually sheltering there so we were able to finish all the OGs ahead of time and went back to the base pavilion real early. Afternoon was FF revelation (which wasn’t really effective) + the usual mass dunking and beach games. I wasn’t involved in beach games so it was the usual take photos etc. Oh and we were busy for a while taking the required photos for our sponsors but we kinda “cheated” cause Sentosa side didn’t allow us to put up banners or anything. At least they were done convincingly enough haha. Night was SP again and supper back in school.
Day 3
Pool games in the morning. I was doing Saw VI Fest which I think is unnecessarily complicated and difficult game to manage. The first 2 games were quite messed up but it got better after that cause we became more experienced with explaining and stuff after the 2 games haha. I got dunked in the pool after that and had to go back to Biz wet cause I didn’t bring change of clothes or anything =X Imovie lesson and movie-making was in the afternoon and it was super tiresome and irritating. We had to start real late cause the Dean came really late. The freshies doesn’t seem appreciative of the event also and there were all sort of logistics issues like lack of memory card readers, cables, thumbdrives etc. to transfer their videos/photos, even though I already told all the seniors to prepare cables and card readers and whatever things they need for the event. And they just cannot keep to the timings and there was a huge delay trying to find and pass message to all of them. In the end, we over-ran by about 1h and lots of them didn’t finish their videos. We had to ask the sapura people (distributor of apple pdts in singapore) to help us export and burn the videos then pass them back to us the next day. I think it made us seem really inefficient and substandard really but there wasn’t much I could do to salvage things. At night was SP revelation with all the gross horrible forfeits imposed by some sadistic deprived OGLs/seniors (my opinion) and after that “SP Walk”. I don’t think I should talk too much about the walk haha but i was involved in it also. It was quite fun for a while but after you do it for like too many times, you get tired and sianz and it doesn’t help that I was like stationed by myself in the corridor haha. But I thought that the freshies were really like into it and they were really bonding together haha – like its one of the shared memorable things/experience that they can talk about afterwards.
Day 4
Slack the whole day. The skits were substandard (as always) and I did the cheerfight with the rest although we were really late and panicking/running like mad to join up with rest haha. I ended up in the front row but yeah haha it was erm… strangely cohesive doing it with everyone although nobody really thinks its that cool/fun haha. After that changed into our clothes for timbre. We were doing this cowboy theme for the finance dept and I was like FAILZ. The stupid hat (cost me $15 btw) was too big for me and I seriously look quite retarded in it. I ditched it after a while and just left it on the table haha. So it was all unglam photos during timbre that night for me and I’m still considering whether I want to upload my side of the photos. Since I can’t control the pictures in other people’s camera, I may as well try to minimize the damage by not uploading my photos haha. As for the programmes at Timbre night, i thought some of it were unnecessarily long and stupid again and i think the way they decided on the winner was seriously lame (in the end it feels like the emcees decide on the winners themselves?) The ordering of the prizes seem a bit screwed up as well – like 4th place was 20 x 1 free yoghurt vouchers? I thought even the last few prizes of random hampers of snacks and goodies were better than the vouchers. Then again, I’m not in charge of this so I don’t really want to interfere that much haha. After that we did the bizad medley and MC took some photos together =) We headed back to school after that to pack up some of our stuff and we were like pushing all the extra vouchers and stuff to everyone so now all of us have stacks of leftover discount vouchers (most of them useless to us). Went home after that and I actually slept without bothering to bathe cause I was too tired haha.
MISC Ramblings
I joined FOC because I thought (I really did) that it would be fun to help to organise a camp with other like-minded people. Another equally important reason was that I wanted to do something for myself so that my resume wouldn’t look that sad. I also wanted to find something for me to go and chiong, to go and 疯 for myself (much like how I went to India during my NS days). I’m proud to say I think I met all my aims above, although some wasn’t that complete.
When I first form my own sponsors committee, it was really more like trying to drag in people cause my committee wasn’t those kind of “hot popular” committee that other people would want to join. There were some but I was really more in favour of working with people I know (ie. my own alum group people/clique) So I “persuades/forced” some of my friends to join, thinking that we would all have a fun time and they will start to see the fun in FOC sooner or later. Other than that, I also had 2 other committee members – one selected from interview and one attached over from Bizad Club (he’s a total failure by the way). It was seriously hard work trying to get them to work cause some of them didn’t have the needed motivation and mindset and I just gave up on them halfway. If I had really made a mistake by making them join my committee, and if I can’t undo my mistake in any way possible, I told myself I can just take it with me and carry on to finish the job. Even if it means I have to take over and settle everything myself, I really wanted to do my best and finish this sponsorship job. It was really stressful and depressing for a while cause so many things were happening and I really couldn’t find it in me to go on and keep trying my best. One way or another, I got through it and I think things became better cause they manage to find some “meaning/reason” to continue on in FOC main comm. I think it came in the form of the marketing committee (the other branch of the finance department). Cause they were all the gossipy, chit chatty and kaypo girls who likes to gossip and HTHT and find out more about you to create scandals and what not. I think they were lively enough to make things more interesting for some of the people in my committee. I was more work orientated and having difficulties coming to terms with some of them for a while so perhaps they had fun interacting with the mkt comm people. And as it always is, once you have some new friends, you will tend to be more willing to come down and work and all that. I couldn’t give them the reason to be part of the FOC MC but I’m really really glad that they managed to find some sort of reason for themselves. Even if they just want to play and have fun, I guess its better than they totally depise/put down the FOC main comm. Nonetheless, I’m really grateful to them for being with me in the committee. Even if it doesn’t stand for much, I’m glad we made it through together.
As for the marketing comm, I was really quite relieved when our 2 committees became closer and started to interact more with one another. But towards the end of the actual FOC, I was getting more and more irritated and put off by them. Cause they are those kind that can’t seem to stop irritating me with their self-assuming nonsense and non-stop make-a-joke-of-you antics. I think abit here and there is okay but you really don’t have to do it every single time throughout the entire camp. I was so pissed with them for a while on the 3rd day that I had to remove myself from the LT and go sulk in the SR by myself to cool down. I really didn’t want to spoil the camp mood and make everything awkward for the rest of the camp. I was like ignoring their taunts and antics and giving them zero response as a hint that I am not appreciative of their nonsense but its either they don’t get it or they just assume I will be okay with it. It doesn’t help that our comm have plenty of chances to stick together throughout the whole camp =( But if you say the problem lies with me actually, i think it may be true also cause I’m really the kind of person who hates just about everybody =X
BUT as expected, I felt really happy and proud during the last day and at the end of the camp. It was like all our hardwork was really worth it and I didn’t stress/depress/angst so much for nothing. There was something there and we were all part of it. There may be many imperfections but I really think I tried very hard this time round =) I devoted alot of time and effort into this FOC haha and now I just want to hang back and be by myself for a little while. But probably need to wait a while more before I can totally remove myself cause I still have quite a bit of tidying up/ confirmation work to do =(
Okay, this entry is far too long so I shall just stop here. And yup its the end of FOC and i think now I can stop trying to be who I’m really not.