wow. im back in civilisation again. not that i was uncontactable [well almost, considering my operator switched to msia network immed when the bus turned into camp christine], but im finally back home sitting in front of my lappie blogging. (:
im still feeling sleepy. very sleepy. such that i wanna pon finance later. ahhh. or maybe i could sleep during that 3 hour break we have. but but. BGS! acks.

boy im really really tired. tired. but satisfied and happy. this has got to be the best weekend i've had ever since the last volunteers networking camp. was there in 2004 as a participant, back again in 2005 as part of the organising committee and i must really say, i loved every single minute of the 7 meetings, one shopping trip and the final weekend with all of us together. they make me feel simply so much at home. the gossip sessions [i.e. love is in the air ~ aundre] and bitching sessions [about last year and this year's camp participants ~ peiling and aundre]. everything. i just felt so comfortable, so me. besides the fact that i had someone to bicker with throughout the entire camp which made the entire trip humourous and funny, thanks aundre. muahaha.

aside from feeling totally at home, volunteers networking camp 2005 gave me the chance to work with very different people [almost similar to post camp project 2004 (: ] where i get to work with working adults and people beyond our usual social circles and comfort zones. really learnt alot from them, and the main learning point for our committee this year is "flexibility" i'll come to that in a short moment. but anyways.

i wanna describe whatever has happened over the past 31 hours. ever since i stepped into NCSS at 1030am on saturday morning.

Time: 1030am, saturday 5th march 2005

reached NCSS, signed in under visitors and saw sharon's and michelle's names. presumed they would be at the lounge, went straight up to the 4th floor. dint see anyone in sight, except for a mess left by michelle [recognised her stuff] cuz she was working on the banner. looked about the 4th floor, dint venture into the office though. found sharon, was wondering where michelle went to when michelle appeared from the office. wah xia dao. muahaha. started helping her to work on the banner, the rest came in dribs and drabs.

cuz the lounge floor was carpeted and we had to sit on the floor to work on the banner, i took off my slippers. and they disappeared soon after, cuz aundre was wearing them all over the place!! argh. bugged him to return me my beloved teva slippers but he refused to. blearh. coincidentally, peiling was wearing the exact same pair of slippers too! hahaha. did some last minute prep, had a last briefing before the advanced party moved off to camp christine first while some of us stayed behind to await the arrival of camp participants for registration.

Time: 1330, saturday 5th march 2005

camp participants slowly came in, in groups or single, together with their VWO mates, we gave them their folders from NCSS, stickers and wooden pegs for secret angel [another name for the angel mortal game]. was quite sians for a while cuz there were too many of us there at registration. gary was the main man here, with sumesh helping to collect the money and issuing reciepts. we were bumming around occasionally, with aundre pretending to be the flight stewardess at the counter before check in. too bad he dint dare to try the machine on any camp participant. wahaha.

bus came at about 1445, slightly late. by then we had separated the camp participants into their groupings, allowing them to get to know each other, and to mingle and chat. after that, red and blue teams followed aundre onto one bus, while green and yellow teams followed me onto the other bus. and we set off! (: whee.

Time: 1500, saturday 5th march 2005.

on the bus. i was leading the bus ice breakers. felt a little awkward initially cuz im usually not the one to try and ice break everybody, or to lead in such stuff. hey i can be shy and quiet alright? grin. the moment they said we had overwhelming response and the participants had to be split into two groups, i was like "shit". more shit when i was arrowed to lead bus ice breakers but just went ahead with it. thankfully the two teams were responsive and active enough. grin. thankfully. edmund was on my bus together with gary and sumesh to help me also. phe. :) but i was yakking non stop on the way to camp christine for a whole half hour. playing games, doing introductions. i felt so much like a tour guide as i had to move around on the bus encouraging interaction. and i nearly fell a few times. muahaha. oops.

Time:1530, saturday 5th march 2005

reached camp christine. saw gary harris! apparently his bro was one of the participants and he decided to come back and kaypo! great :) some participants who drove there were alr there waiting for us. oops. was half an hour behind time [due to some unforeseen circumstances back at NCSS, looking for a missing beige top malay lady. humph. ] so hurriedly started ice breakers at camp level. twas supposed to be me and peiling, but aundre conveniently took over, hence i was slacking. grin. but i took this time to set up my station for team building games 1 which was immed after ice breakers, as my station was the memory game mah. tried to hype up the participants slightly, hoped it worked. muahaha.

Time: 1715, saturday 5th march 2005 [was losing track of time by then]

station games started, played station games, made them do cheers. the usual. had some interesting time chatting with the various groups, about their VWOs and their various occupations. it was fun to see them strategise how they would remember the 20 items i had in store for them for the memory game. grin. then rico appeared!! ahhh! think that was during the red team's game. happily talked to her for a while. she said stuart and doris were here as well :) happy to see my PCP mates again. grin.

Time: approx 1830? cant remember. saturday 5th march 2005

station games ended, was tallying scores with peiling and fucai. couldnt figure out aundre's scoring. it was campfire prep for the various teams, and we ended up slacking. were looking at the secret angels pegs but no one had time to write notes for their mortals yet. green team came up with an interesting banner, which looked like a funeral wreath from the back, peiling was commenting. then aundre tried to be funny by sticking his head into the hole. ahh if only the camera was there to capture his act cute antics. wahaha. but by then the organising committee was rather impressed with the green team as they were really bonded and united despite the large age gap between the youngsters and the more elderly ones. hehe.

Time: Dinner time. saturday 5th march 2005

quite funny here, cuz we were SUPPOSED to sit with the various teams and interact with the participants. but by the time the committee got our food, everyone was alr seated and we had no seats to interact with the participants. so me gary and peiling made a beeline for the committee table. it took a couple of nods and shakes of my head before i could convince aundre to give up the idea of interacting. soon tien, sumesh michelle and wen joined us at the table, so i guess interacting wasnt as important as filling our stomachs. muahaha.

Time: 2015. saturday 5th march 2005.

training session time. with mr so, for time management. something the committee could skip! whee! so we were outside chatting and taking pictures. some of them sat in for the training session but the programmes group had to practise our campfire songs. was quite shacked by then, so wasnt quite in the mood to sing. oops. hastily chose a few songs and stoned for a while with the 3 of them before we loitered out of the lodge in search of people to talk to. bummed and waited for song session to start. was fiddling with the hifi system with norah jones' second album and aundre took the chance to act like norah jones with the mic. yeacks! everyone was so disgusted, we all left immed! hahahaha. ooh de long came down to look see look see as well, and it felt like a blue team vnc 2004 gathering, cuz me sharon aundre were back as organising comn, stuart was back to help, harris and delong back to lookseelooksee. only daphne was missing. :(

Time: 2200. saturday 5th march 2005.

campfire time. song session was cancelled as there was simply not enough time. hence we just took songs that everybody knew. hee. there was the fire initiation by edmund our advisor and desmond our chairperson (: then i was arrowed by aundre [despite my warnings about me not singing very well] to lead the first song session. did a simple one and threw the mike back at him to do the first skit and cheer item. then i led the next game, kungfu master [yea i koped the idea off from smu freshman orientation. grin. ] and the teams had so much fun! muahaha. red team was soo synchronised. and pam/rimei [either one] overheard the wife of the pres of volunteer circle, mr mike gray, asking mr gray to join in the game. and she was impressed by the game. heh. :) then the long awaited game came. the dancing game. the "traditional game" played each year, according to aundre, but i dint know it was traditional. our long awaited revenge. i.e. long awaited by me aundre and desmond. muahaha. if you read my last year's entry of VNC 2004, you would know what happened. if not, read it now! we were excited to get out revenge and went ard with a zest blindfolding people and making them dance to the dance music provided by soon tien. muahaha. then we slowly eliminated those who dint dance as well by allowing them to return to their seats quietly.

then, the most amusing thing happened. aundre was trying to pull benson [one of our camp participants] to another girl to do some couple dancing, when peiling gestured to aundre to dance with benson and lead him on with the idea that benson was dancing with a girl. so happened i was right next to them, and benson was excitedly asking who he was dancing with, hence aundre grabbed me and made me say my name. so i was like "er, weina.." he went sth like [according to aundre cuz i dint catch that part] "oh weina.. OH WEINA! now grab my shoulders.. " and aundre felt soo weird!! but he followed accordingly and danced, till benson said sth like "now im gonna roll you in and out" and that was too much for aundre. he gave up and told benson he was dancing with aundre and not weina! muahaha. benson was like "oh fuck! i feel raped!" wahahahaha. oops, super amusing la. and aundre had to repeat the story at least twice. grr. but now then i realise how silly we must have looked last year. ahhhhhhhhhh.

went through some more skits and cheers and had the friendship dance as a closure. by then, it was midnight. yawns.

Time: 0000. sunday 6th march 2005

it sure dint feel like a sunday and i was still a little high from the camp fire. cheong-ed for our supper which was cheng teng and taosuan by the F&B people, it was damn nice and i took 2 bowls. mistook the ingreadients for plastic bag and was laughed at by aundre. walau. how would i know man. waited for a while before we had our debrief at the females lodge. went through the entire day's programme and listed the goods and bads. poor gary, still had to take minutes. heh. went up to bathe after debrief. debrief lasted for more than one hour. yawns. but we sensed "love is in the air" behind.. and with another pair as well. i wont know who lest they stumble upon my blog since they are all youngsters. muahaha.

Time: 0200. sunday 6th march 2005.

bathed, felt clean for once. hair was wet so we couldnt sleep. peiling and i wandered downstairs and found rimei edmund and pam to talk to. were talking about prospective committee members, but they dint seem to spot any. and then, they told me how they spotted me last year during camp, and it was during post camp proj discussion. im glad they spotted me, for the talent/skills/whatever i have. such that i could be there this weekend too. :) thanks. was just talking kok, then we were looking at the pegs again. for secret angels. by then, we had committee pegs too and cuz there wasnt enough pegs, we had to share, me and aundre shared one. and since no one had written to us yet, we decided to give ourselves food. hence we pegged up oreos for committee people, and added coffee/milo powder sachets for those who had lazy angels and empty pegs. see the love from the committee being given to the camp participants? grin.

Time: 0330. sunday 6th march 2005.

finally decided to sleep. despite my half dry hair only. the problem with long hair, as of how gary suaned us as he passed by us just now. =P

Time: 0530. sunday 6th march 2005.

was woken up rudely by the "clock clock clock clock clock" sounds made by feet on the wooden paneled floor. apparently some asshole decided to bathe at that time. URGH. plus it started to rain. i looked up from my top bunk, saw rimei gesturing the raining sign sleepily, i went back to sleep.

Time: 0700. sunday 6th march 2005.

gave up on trying to sleep. with not working fans, thankfully it rained a little to disperse the humid air circulating the top bunks around us. washed up and wandered downstairs for breakfast. :)

Time: 0800. sunday 6th march 2005.

our dearest chairman was feeling real evil and suggested we do the "traditional" morning game. which is really traditional and on the spur of the moment! so me rimei and peiling were planning how we could tekan the camp participants. food items used: pringles! grin. aundre wandered [ i insist on using the word wandered cuz all of us were so dead and tired.] down with his usual -dontbothermecuzijustwokeuplook- and sprung into life when we told him we had a surprise! ha! told him the idea and he took over from there! grin. managed to zhen 4 camp participants into eating pringles chips in 1 big mouthful and alot at a go. its darn amusing and funny! hahaha.

Time: 0900. sunday 6th march 2005.

post camp project discussion. this year is slightly different from last year's, as that instead of having only 1 post camp project, we are having 4-5 PCPs, cuz we split everyone into different sectors, namely the children, disabled, elderly and the health/family sectors. and each PCP will be focused on each sector only. we had to sit in the discussion in relation to our sector, hence me peiling and aundre went to join the children's sector with soon tien facilitating. alright, the discussion was stale, no one was willing to make any commitments, it was quite a disappointment really, to at least the 3 of us. but soon tien can always see the positive side of such a discussion. heh.

Time: 1045. sunday 6th march 2005.

PCP presentation. none of our biz, hence we were just chilling out to the music on lush 99.5 and staring at the rain at the same time. me aundre and peiling. whoa if we had champange, and the lights were dimmer, it would have been a darn nice atmosphere. sighh. peiling decided to go back into the main hall for presentation, i took my book out to read and aundre promptly snatched my book away from me! whine. blearh. and he was addicted to that book immed. by george iles. blearh. me too kk. sighhh. and he insisted on taking and reading the book for the rest of the day. i was stuck with my BGS text. yawns. well at least i finished reading chapter 2. heh.

Time: 1130. sunday 6th march 2005.

the rain was pouring heavily. hence water bombed grand finale was cancelled, in replacement was human entanglement. we started our team builing games 2 and boy there was really fireworks. by then i wasnt in that good a mood due to the lack of sleep, hence i was a little irritable. so was aundre [or so it seems]. when we were playing A-Z scavenger hunt, he sounded rather pissed and harsh towards the groups. but ultimately, it felt as though it was really competitive due to the sparks flying, according to our chairman. and when we were playing "form the longest line" it was so darn amusing to see almost all the guys stripping off their shirts to form the longest line for their group. hence we had plenty of males walking around bare topped irregardless of whether their bods could make it or not. hem hem. hahaha. heh. ended off with human entanglement which took us eons to untangle them (with certain efforts at cheating with peiling's and aundre's actions) cuz there were too many people, and big sized for that matter.

Time: 1315. sunday 6th march 2005.

lunch time. not really hungry. and aundre was still hogging to my book. :( first my slippers, now my books. was just eating my brani and chatting with anyone in particular, considering we tried to remember as many participants' names as much as possible. after that was area cleaning for the participants, while we slacked again. as usual. but we were dead tired la.

Time: 1430. sunday 6th march 2005.

prize, cert and photo presentation. :) soon tien refused to let the committee see the committee group photo before we got them officially from the hands of edmund. muahaha. helped out by passing desmond the prizes and certs from the table and it was quite a long distance, hence i was walking back and forth back and forth, till rimei had the sense to bring the table forward. ahhh. plus i was eating my lollypop as well, orange chupa koped from the green team. hee. the blue cheongsters won! ahh the blue team legacy lives again, cuz us the blue team [i.e. me aundre stuart harris de long, sharon, daphne] won last year too! and the committee photo was totally lovely. oh sigh.. anounced the secret angels game, and we cleared our pegs. apparently some camp participants were nice enough to drop me and aundre a few msges each. :) thankew camp participants. hee. the short but heartfelt messages really lit up my zombified day.

Time: 1545. sunday 6th march 2005.

the comfort buses came. broke camp. bade farewell to those driving off. walked towards the buses. wondered if we bus ics had to entertain the groups on the way back [if i really had to, i'd kill desmond.] but thankfully there was no need to. boarded the bus, aundre left his crackers on my bag intentionally [im dead sure of that] , i passed it to desmond and got desmond to pass it back to him, but he refused to take it. our childish immature bickering resumed again, even though we were that tired. desmond was commenting we were always bickering like little kids at the littlest things. but i cant quite help it if he chooses to mess with my slippers and aim for my head using the inflatable balls!!

Time: 1615. sunday 6th march 2005.

reached NCSS. bade farewell to the yellow and green team people, went back to the lounge and we had our debrief for the second day. the whole camp has ended, but the PCPs are just starting. i want to be involved. pleasee. all depends on soon tien. make us co-advisors! and i'd sound so old. advisor. argh. settled date and venue for committee dinner, 190305 @ suntec rice table! must remember to bring cammie that day :)

having a aching headache this morning. apparently last night's sleep wasnt enough, considering it was my usual 6 hours sleep. suddenly i dont feel like schooling anymore. someone whack me awake please. im just so tired. nothing prof khoo is saying is going into my head. something about relevant costing and automobile costs. i want a break. should i stay for finance or not?

i love my vnc committee alot alot alot. *muacks* to everybody.
special thanks goes to:
soon tien: thanks for inviting me into this committee even though i've alr done PCP last year. its always wonderful to work with you and you are always just so nice!
desmond: our most wonderful chairman, always encouraging us and giving us good advice! :)
edmund: our qian bei who's always guiding us new committee youngsters along. :)
michelle and sharon: our dearest F&B people, kudos to your fantastic food and super nice supper! i took 2 bowls of chengtng lei!! :D
fucai: our log/prog ic. :D thanks for taking up the saigang log job, truly enjoyed your companionship :D
gary: our secretary and treasurer. ahh saw you so stressed during registration and secret angel allocation, hence must thank you properly. :D
peiling: ahh my closest female partner grin. so glad to have you around, similarly from same VWO beyond social service. :) thanks for all the talking/bitching sessions :)
aundre: our prog OIC. thanks for arrowing me half the time, kajiaoing me and making me laugh all the time, no thanks to you wearing my slippers and taking my book [return my book to moi..] but overall, thanks for being someone whom i can really talk to, click with and bitch/gossip with. though we always argue and bicker like immature children. hahaha.


in the meantime, lemme decide if i wanna go for finance. im so zombified.