Singapore Polytechnic - ROCKING MY WORLD! (Part 1)

Foreword: WOOHOOOO! There's never a dull moment when you're at Singapore Polytechnic, as I came to find out even before school officially started... sensational activities, innumerable friends and best of all - looking forward to school every day. I have never regretted choosing Singapore Polytechnic as the school of my choice. Here's a recap of the first orientation event I went for.

05.05.05 - 3pm-9.30pm - East Coast Park Pit 28

An impromptu photo of my recent acquaintances: (from left) Me, Vinson, Aaron and Jeremy. Too bad my group didn't take a proper group photo.

The perfect numerical day for the PERFECT gathering of freshman ("freshies") and seniors. Well, the weather wasn't that perfect - the torrential rain had dampened spirits amongst us and wiped off most games from the schedule of activities for that day.

[Mad rush for time!]
I had just finished a briefing for my Freshman Orientation Camp (School of Info-Communications Technology) and was rushing off from Dover MRT Station to Bedok MRT Station. Luckily, though the meeting time was 3pm, they waited and I managed to catch them at 3.30pm.

[Getting there was tough man.]
Well, since showers from heaven were pouring down so heavily, we took a bus from Bedok Interchange and alighted somewhere in Marine Parade. Walking through the void decks of the HDB estates was more like wading feet-deep through rivers of water. UMBRELLA SHORTAGE! (I had to share mine with two other people.)

[Underpass Havoc!!]
Down at one of the underpasses connecting Marine Parade to East Coast Park, a noisy revolt gang of around 100 members were making a din. Not quite to that extent, but we DID make a lot of noise down there - got into our groups and formulated our group cheer/song. My group Team 2's one went something like V-V-V-I-C, C-C-C-T-O, O-O-O-R-Y, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! VICTORY VICTORY IS THE BEST!. Lame or whatever you might think it fit - take note that we were already drenched mice cuddling together in a mousehole. Haha. What followed were the mass singing of popular songs like "Therefore Being Justified By Faith" and "Peace Like A River" (with actions).

[Beach games! SH-IOK!]
The first game when we arrived at the beach was what I would caption "Fill-The-Bottle." (I had already played this game before.) Basically we had to fill two 1.5 litre bottles with seawater using whatever means deemed fit. For my team it was the boys' shirts and a pair of Converse shoes from Jeremy ("Oh - my Converse shoes!" - Jeremy). We lost. Forfeit for our team: Jump into the sea (of course the shallow regions) to get wet.
We won the second game of "Pass-Things-using-Chopsticks." There were ping-pong balls, rubber bands and marbles.

Forfeit for the other team: Do the Banana Dance inside the sea! This included "Dip Banana" so that we could sabotage the other team to get wet!
Third game was "Poison Ball". We won as well too - we had agile boys in our team. Haha.
The final mass game was "Build the Firmest Sandcastle and Collect Water Bombs, then Attack your Opponents' Castles." It was one whole lot of a mess - we got drenched sourly again. This time with wet sand. But what a great time we had.

[Wash Up & BBQ]
After a quick wash-up we sat down as a team for a meal of BBQed food (or should I say - cold dish because of the rain - just kidding). Only there wasn't enough. The expected turnout of participants was lesser. Even so, the timely rest was enough to invigorate our senses.

[Gathering/Sharing/Closing]
More songs like "Peace Like A River" and other games emerged again. Later we broke into our teams again to share with each other about our Christian walk with God. Those who were not Christians took part in the Sharing of the Life - the Good News of the Gospel - and considered whether they would like to accept Christ into their lives. A closing with the evangelistic songs "So You Would Come" and "My Redeemer Lives" ended the night on a sweet note. Accompanied by the guitar, melodies of the Christian songs filled the otherwise quiet and damp night air. I felt really encouraged during this choral gathering.

[Credits]
First and foremost, thanks to Joseph and Angela, our team leaders, for being such great Campus Crusade leaders to our team (Team 2 - VICTORY). They never failed to bond the team together and even assisted us in our games when they weren't required to. Suffice to say, going all out to care for our team members was very appreciated. Next, thanks to my team members for making our team such a success! We bonded well all throughout the activity. Not forgetting ALL the Campus Crusaders for making the event feel worthwhile (and our BBQ Chefs too). And thanks to Ronald for his friendly correspondence/follow-up with me, even after the BBQ.

P.S. Campus Crusade, here I come! CCA Week's coming soon and I know what I'm going to join!