nasi le-MAK: SUMMER PART V FTB RUN 3 & CONVOCATION

ONE LAST RUN

By the time it was run 3, I was pretty much sick of Sarimbun camp. But this time for some god forsaken reason, the sense of ownership came back to me. This was because I was going to run 3 as a solo faci. I managed to get myself a steady bom pi pi co-faci. But unfortunately she did a superman tumble and her herself during some dirt bike event organised by SMUX a day before day 0. So it was set in my mind that I was going to be a solo faci and since I was gonna be one, I might as well be the best one there ever was.

Fake and real freshies with me and Joan!

On day 0 we had our pre camp lunch at saizeriya with Zongwei and Chee Ming acting as fake freshies. Their job was simple, to confuse the kids and make them go wtf is happening. I would say Zongwei succeeded as after the lunch he even proceeded to buy trash bags with the freshies and act confused and all. Chee Ming got exposed on the day itself together with Hong Rui. What stood out during the lunch was that one of our freshies was complaing about her lunch. She even called the waitress over and complained that the dish was a bit chao da as compared to what was presented in the menu. She even threatened to complain to the manager. That was when I knew this run was not going to be an easy run. Hong Rui pat me on the back and told me,"Life's tough."

Afterwards we went back to SMU labs for the usual admin brief. After a few hours of the brief we proceeded to have dinner. And my run 2 freshies was saying I pangseh them for dinner. Apparently Pauline put my name inside to have dinner with them. But as I mentioned in previous post this is a commitment I made and I cannot shirk away from it. So I stayed back for some great chicken rice. This was the first time FTB catered a great meal for us and it even came with soy sauce and garlic. It was dejavu as we went to the sports hall to rehearse our cheer and faci performance. After that Chris suggested we go for supper and we went to some Japanese place beside Rochor beancurd for some ramen. Jingyang got exposed as a virgin boy and everyone has been calling him that since then.

DAY 1 with a co-faci

Despite my numerous warnings to her, the limping Joan still went back to FTB for us. She said she didn't feel right to leave the freshies in my lone hands and should play a part in the ice breaking session. So as usual there was a gathering in the sports hall and we went through the introduction skit. This time though it was fun as our clan head had a beard. So we shouted "Shave shave shave shave shave shave shave shave shave shave shave shave ABENGATION" in the tune of SHOTS by LMFAO. After the cheering we went towards the upper level of admin building for icebreakers.

Fastest hands

The station games were lame as usual but the freshies had fun going through most of it. This time we were not able to play giant skip as it was raining. Oh well, looks like I just do not have fate with that station. After the station games and lunch, we proceeded to labs for some life lesson. This time i put on a serious front and told them that life lessons was an essential part of ftb. This was because my score for the previous run was pretty sucky compared to run 1. We went in depth in this discussion and I was surprised at some of the things they told us. One of our freshie revealed her age that she was 23 and went through ITE and poly. Another told us she had trust issues and was already tearing. Before everyone starts to cry i had to interject and end the session on a happy note.

HAN SOLO

Afterwards, we went onto the bus for sarimbun and I was a solo faci again. The office of student life did not clear Joan to go to sarimbun as she was limping and felt that it was not safe for her. Thus, I went ahead and was mentally prepared for this one hell of a ride. After we reached sarimbun I broke to them the good news that we would not be required to pitch any tents and could just sleep in the tentage. I went to put down my stuff in the bunk to chope the lower bunk again. I then brought them to the Abnegation tentage to play some games and burn some time. We had 2 hours of bang bang chucky chucky, Yee-ha and Ninja. I could tell they really loved ninja and they got into the groove of it quickly. A few groups combined and we started to teach them the clan cheer.

NINJA

Soon it was dinner time and MASS DANCE. Luckily Sharmaine was also a solo faci and she agreed to dance with me for mass dance. She was also my dance partner during mock camp so we had no issues doing all the spins and holding hands stuff. Soon it was campfire and the mosquito game was pretty lame as we didn't get any stickers to paste. The campfire was cut short as the cheer teaching session was getting too boring. The dirty dance off was quite fascinating and we went back to our tentages. We practised a while for the faci performance before we went back to our group for some talking session. We played the usual traffic light and first impression before I sent them to sleep. I went back to the bunk to discover 3 bags being placed in the place I put my bags at. As usual I had no morals so I shifted all the bags away to clear space for myself.

THE IRRITATING FRESHIE STRIKES BACK

As predicted, I woke up as if I just had a car crash. I went to the tentage to meet my freshies before bringing them along for IFA. I was telling them that the best group was able to get some apple pies and they seemed pretty motivated to play the games. However, after the first 4 games I realised that this group was too chill and didn't really excel at these type of games. We won only for the games that involved thinking and luck. After lunch it was another 4 games which included butter slide. Even though we got trounced at the butter slide, I was happy that my freshies had fun and enjoyed themselves.

However, disaster struck around lunch time when one of my freshie performing kept pestering me for the phone. I told her straight in her face that there was a chance I might not be able to get her the phone because I was a solo faci and at 2.30 I still need to bring the group around for the next games. However, she could put herself in my shoes and think of my perspective and threw a tantrum. I snapped at her and luckily Charmaine stepped in. She agreed to bring her and take her phone for her while I entertained her group. For that I really thank her from the bottom of my heart as I cannot handle these type of people. Who comes to camp just to complain and whine repeatedly and not play games because they are scared of being dirty. These kind of people are a detriment to society and no matter what prestigious course you are going in SMU, you are still not well liked by me.

Afterwards it was dinner and preparation for performance. All 4 clans were outside the faci bunks practising them asses off for the performance. It was quite a sight as we cheered for each other to do our best. The freshie performance was well done but we lost to Dauntless due to their unexpected skit. We danced our hearts out for the faci performance and soon Stereometa took over and had the kids partying. Most of the facis proceeded to the MPH to talk with each other and I sat down with the Dauntless run 1 people and bitched about random stuff. I went back to the tentage soon after to bring Kelvin, Shaun and Shihui who were leaving the night.

BEST FACI

Things always get better

On day 3, I told myself I was going to handle that troublesome freshie whether I like her or not. What I learnt was that she liked to be in charge. So when we merged groups to play games, I gave her the chance to take charge. She explained the rules of catch a mouse to the other group and we had a little fun. Afterwards, she became more open minded and friendly towards the rest of the group. I sort of forgave her for her little coup the previous day and we all had fun in the end.

AMAZING RACE WAS AMAZING

As we were trying to gun for best clan, I pushed my groups to the limits as we were running around the campsite to complete as many games as possible. We broke some record that day as we cleared 12 stations in 1.5 hours. I was proud of them and told them so. The smile they gave me back was worth all the effort I put in for the past few days. In the end we didn't win best group or best clan, but in my heart, this was always going to be the group of freshies that have a lasting impact on me. Not because they were the craziest or the most competitive. It was because it taught me precious lessons that could never be learnt in the classrooms of SMU.

By the muddy Gaps in the wall

Its been a long run in FTB, starting from faci training in mid june to mock camp in late june and run 1 in early July. The facilitators and organising committee has slowly became one huge FTB family and I was glad to make good friends out of it. We have some bitching buddies here and there. We also had jokers who have fun all the time. Lastly, we all had fun and gave our freshies new insights into student life in SMU.