June 10, 2017

I Went to a Camp! Part 2

Hey, guys! I'm back for the second part of the camp: day two. Before I begin, I'd like to tell you that I have gone to the 2nd Asian Leadership Conference today and learned a couple new handy tips on leadership. The 1st one was in January. Anyway, without further ado, allow me to tell you what happened on Day Two.

Day Two 
I woke up at 7:15 am and got dressed for breakfast. I had to wait for the rest of my housemates to ready before departing to the university. Suffice to say, we were almost late. Nevertheless, we still made it in time and had our breakfast, then went into the hall for the first activity of the day.

Once everyone was in the hall, we were introduced to a Canadian man, Professor Harold Thwaites, who was the dean of the university's faculty of arts. So yeah, we had an introductory lecture on the field of arts. We learned about the annual Expo event which showcased the ideas of several countries of the world in relation to the theme, which was usually related to the future, in grand scale. We were also shown a video of a beautiful dance that involved water and digital rain. Marvelous, I say, truly marvelous. When the lecture was over, I asked the professor if Sunway offered Creative Writing courses. Unfortunately, they didn't (currently), but Sunway's arts programs mostly included that subject, which was pretty rad. I mean, I could learn something else, but also learn the subject I enjoy at the same time. Would open up to other career choices.
Still targeting a major in Creative Writing, by the way.

Before the professor left, we all took a group photo with him. And I looked derpy in the photo, as always. Anyway, when he took his leave, a group of two guys came in. A cameraman Adrian and the speaker whose name I kept forgetting, so let's call him "Peacock Guy". I'll explain why I call him that later in this post. They make up the organization called Trainsition and they had a load of sessions with us. The first of which is about writing resumes and personal statements. One thing to note: the session was completely wild. The Peacock Guy really liked to get us in an interactive environment, and I liked it too. Wasn't boring, that was for sure. And it was awesome. I'd had learned about resumes beforehand, but he really gave insight on what to write and how to write. I also received a handout of personal statements where we were tasked to examine and proofread various personal statements, but I've yet to do it.

The session went longer than it should have had. Way longer. So our lunch was kinda cut short, not that it mattered. After lunch, we were back with the Peacock Guy, who taught us about communicating effectively. This workshop was even more interactive than the last, with him calling us out for a little advertising. We were face to face with a brand of Dynamo and were asked to volunteer to promote the item. And of course, I participated, why wouldn't I? :P After that, the next slide was about trying to convince potential buyers to buy the brand of car. I didn't participate this one, though. My other friends, however, were called out by the Peacock Guy. Lastly, the last slide introduced us to a type of communication we would use to sell ourselves to a boss in a very short time. The term was coined an Elevator Pitch. Well, I had no clue what that was, so I kinda screwed up with that when I came up for a try. Still, Imma research a bit on this Elevator Pitch thingy.

That session ended way past overtime too. But after a short break, they were back for the third session: Personal Branding. No idea what it meant, but it sounded pretty cool. However, what I got was completely different. This one told us about how we dress could potentially affect the outcome of an interview, be it a scholarship or a job. The Peacock Guy showcased several choices of clothing and the liability to wear to a job. Some of us had to go out there and wear some clothes. Nifty clothes, if you're wondering. Now this was extremely informative. Not just for general knowledge, but for my writing. I had been looking for information on clothes so I would know how to describe my character's clothes. What a lifesaver! I literally took a photo of every single slide of clothes for reference. Woooo! THANKS, TRAINSITION!

And that session also ended way past overtime. (Seeing a pattern? lol) The next one, which is the final session with Trainsition for the day. It was a personality test. Expectation: MBTI. Realization: a personality test with an unfortunate acronym of DOPE, which stands for Dove, Owl, Peacock, and Eagle. The test was more to a person's work habits. As an INFP, I expected myself to be in a group of peace-lovers. But nope, I was an Eagle—who are control freaks, if you're wondering. Uh oh. I thought the personality test messed up, since Ms. Ida, who was another CtG team member, and also a fellow INFP, also got an Eagle. But when I looked at my result again, I realized I had an almost equal score on both Eagle and Dove, which the Peacock Guy explained shouldn't be possible since the two traits conflict. But I got it anyway. Oh, right! The Peacock Guy was the Peacock Guy because he was a Peacock in the DOPE test, so yeah. So what? Was I supposed to be a guy who loved to manage things and put himself in control but also a peace-lover and practiced relationship-making? But now after countless reflections, I find that being an Eagle-Dove did cover each other's weaknesses. Pretty cool, I realized.

So after that session ended, I resolved to go and play the piano I had found on the previous day with Ming Lok. And so we did, but I totally forgot how to play and horribly messed up Long, Long Ago (which was a Grade 1 song. Yeah I know I'm noob). But while we were playing, we encountered the trio who sat behind us: Phoebe, Yuen Yen, and Wei Pin. Phoebe wanted to play the piano, so we let her and she played River Flows in You by Yiruma. It was amazing and I felt a little mushy inside after hearing it. She was a Grade 6 and I stopped at Grade 1. Derp me. Anyway, Ming Lok and I then chose to go to the Student Life Center to play ping pong.

But! The ping pong table was occupied so we couldn't play obviously. I split with Ming Lok there since he wanted to stay and I wanted to leave for the accommodation. Though that was where I bumped into Yuen Yen and Wei Pin again. I chose to follow them just because and I got to know them. We went back to Phoebe who was at the piano, playing a song I didn't know (a Chinese song). After a while lingering and listening to Phoebe play and Wei Pin sing, I followed them to dinner. Well, we wanted to return to our rooms, but dinner was almost time, so we went to the cafeteria instead. I sat with them during dinner. I was kinda curious about them since I never really spoke to anyone else rather than Ming Lok. I learned that the three were from SMK Tropicana (not that I knew where that was... until I Googled much later).

After dinner, I followed them back to the condo, where the final session was held—at the student lounge. On the walk there, since I was so terrible at names, I asked Wei Pin and Yuen Yen for their English name. Wei Pin didn't have one, so I had no choice, and I did sometimes mess up his name. For example, how I typed his name "Chow Pin" several times until I realized it was "Wei Pin" while writing this whole recount. Yes, that happened while writing. Don't judge me! >:( Back to the story, Yuen Yen said I could call her Crystal—which was indeed so much better. On that same walk, I learned that Crystal was also a writer, who writes in her free time and in Chinese. A novelist too, who would write short or as long as 200 pages. My heart screamed. I didn't know there was another writer in that group of 22 people, and for the first time, I met with another writer—personally! Holy moly, my day suddenly got better.

For the last activity, we gathered at the student lounge, and in our reflection group. When we went in, we saw a freaking slide from the second floor to the first. Suffice to say, the Tropicana trio, especially Phoebe, freaked out about sliding down. I wanted to slide too. 0:) Following Ms. Connie, we went outside and sat under a gazebo. I sat next to Imran, Crystal sat next to Wei Pin, opposite of us, and Kurniati sat next to Ms. Connie. Just like yesterday, we reflected on the whole day. After the reflection, we had to give Ms. Connie our elevator pitch for the meeting with the partners of Bain & Co. Oh right, earlier (I forgot when; shame on me), we had to pick two partners to talk to for tomorrow. We ended up picking Robert Oushoorn, from Amsterdam. However, there were two people with missing profiles and the rest were already picked, so we could only pick Mr. Oushoorn, the other guy was up to fate. Resuming, I tried my best making one and made it sound casual since the pitch was in a casual conversation. (I asked.) Anyway, it went well and everyone else's pitches were pretty cool too. Especially Imran's, who cracked an awesome witty joke. (y)

After the reflection and pitching session, I spoke with Wei Pin. I figured his mindset was completely different from anyone I've had ever met. Completely neutral. No overthinking, no nothing. He just thought of the present and nothing else. He sounded like an extreme version of my brother. A hard ISTP, for sure. So I recommended him to try out philosophy, which I found was an interesting yet crazy subject. I explained to him what philosophy was all about and how he was suited for it. He said he'd research about it. Now, I just hope he'd be considering. Malaysia would likely need philosophers for cultural development. :3

So after that little talk on philosophy, I said my good nights. But before I went, I slid down for the lulz. That was definitely fun! But, the day was ending. It was getting close to midnight. So, after lingering for a while and listening to other's reflections (with permission, of course!), I went back to my unit, changed, wrote on my story, and slept. Also played a nightly game of ping pong using the dining table with the rest of my housemates for a while before sleeping. An awesome day this day was. But tomorrow was going to be better, and I can assure that.

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So stay tuned for the 3rd day of the camp. I'll probably join this with the 4th day since that was until only noon. I can't believe I met another writer, still can't shake it off my mind. Haha! So, see you soon guys, and thanks for reading!

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