Hey, guys! I'm back to share more artwork of my novel characters! Just so you guys know, I'm writing my novel besides working on a new short story featuring Melissa Trixton as the main character [which is also written in first-person!]. Anyway, here they are.
Kudos to the artists for taking their time to draw such brilliant art. Always motivates me to write more whenever I see them. :]
Artwork of Samuel "Salmon" Barry by Fachrusy.
He looks adolescent here but that's completely fine. As long as he looks like a ding-dong suave young man.
Another artwork of Samuel "Salmon" Barry by Jhon, the same person who drew Cassie and Dyven in the previous post. This one looks more mature, but still a doofus handsome knight-in-training.
Artwork of Alluriana Hyland in a waitress uniform by Phoebe. She has always been my favorite in the novel and seeing her in visualization just makes me like her ten times as better as all the other characters. Really captures her feminine features here, oh, what a tease she is.
Again, thank you guys for spending the time to draw the characters. Hope you enjoyed admiring their artwork as much as I did. Oh, how I wish I could draw!
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EDIT: On a side note, my friend has just started out his DeviantArt account! He hasn't drawn much yet but do see his artwork there too. You can find his DeviantArt account here: http://lester2208.deviantart.com/art/Zone-Tan-692879582
Hey, guys! I'm back for part 3 of the camp, covering the third and also the final day of the camp. Yesterday, I went to an education expo down in Kuala Lumpur, though there wasn't much to see. Wanted to write at night, but sleepiness got in the way. So, with that said, lemme get right back into the story!
Day Three
I woke up at the same time as yesterday: 7:15 am. Energy rushed into me almost instantaneously, knowing today would be one of the best days. Hearing from Ms. Connie and Kurniati yesterday, they mentioned a surprise in store for all of us during the end of the day. Quickly, I got dressed for the day and got my things. This time, I didn't want to wait for my other housemates since I was going to run late, so I excused myself by telling them I'm going off and went off alone. Well, not really, because I bumped into Kalai, Kayal, and Khirtanaa, three girls who came along during the camp. Arriving there 5 minutes late, I ate my breakfast then went up into the lecture hall.
Once everyone was assembled in the hall, the first lecturer of the day came inside. I was more acquainted with the rest of my peers now and was able to greet them more casually, and also recognize them. (Yep, that icebreaker really worked.) Looking at the agenda, I found that today, there were two lectures. Cool, I thought. The first one began momentarily and it talked about computing and IT by Dr. Lau Sian Lun. Out of all the sessions so far, this one was less... exciting. Mostly because the slides were just text and had no pictures or videos or anything—completely text. First time I felt sleepy in any session (lol). But nearing the end, a cursed stomachache had to trigger in my bowels and I had to rush to the toilet. Spent a good ten to fifteen minutes there I think. Wasn't pleasant; my stomach hurt.
So after that toilet break, I returned and found that the next session had begun. It was about Biological Sciences, by Dr. Gopalasamy Reuben Clements. Out of all the lectures, this one was really creative—too creative. The professor made a parody of Jungle Book, called Jungle Book II, where Mowgli travels to the Malaysian jungles for us to get to know the wildlife in our country's jungles. At first, it was cringy. But we did get to know what a "Conservative Scientist" was (which is a pretty cool job, I must say) and how people live in the jungles. We also learned that panthers could be found in the jungle, and so do elephants and wild dogs native to Southeast Asia called "dholes". All in all, even though the presentation was cringeworthy, it was still a cool one. Oh yeah, and another group photo before the session ended.
The next session marked the return of the Trainsition team. For this session, the Peacock Guy told us the basics of interviews and also companies providing several types of scholarships. He also showed us several questions coined "Curve-ball questions" designed to use our critical thinking skills to answer. After that, he showed us two scenarios. The first one required some of us in a group to discuss among ourselves as ministries to reach a consensus while also going below the 1 billion ringgit budget. Two different groups will be playing the first scenario. The second scenario required seven of us, as survivors, to decide who to be on the boat since it could only support three people to reach an island some kilometers away. I knew this wasn't going to go well since a large group of us had to decide and solve a single yet huge problem. After discussing, we were tasked to present our results too.
I ended up being in the first team, which my ministry was Science, Technology, and Innovation (I thought was pretty nice to have). The rest of my group was Kalaiarasan, Foreign Affairs; Kurniati, Women, Family, and Community; Shelly, Roadworks; Kalai, Human Resources; Phoebe, Higher Education; and finally Jun Wei, Trade, Cooperation, and Consumerism. Our ministries' proposed budget was 1.8 billion, which was over the 1 billion budget. My ministry started out with a proposed budget of 100 million, which I didn't think sufficed since STI would require a whole lot more. And I didn't think this group would work since we had the only two Eagles in the same group. Two power freaks—oh, the humanity! Well, just because I felt that way didn't mean I would give up on the group so easily.
So upon starting, we tried to lower each other's budget while not defending ours because we didn't know what we were doing. Until one of the Trainsition members told us what we should be doing: defending our rights while also attacking other's rights to reach a point where both or more ministries could agree with one another. So, all of us got into our characters as ministers and introduced ourselves as well as our projects one by one. Then came the point where we proposed how much money we needed and then opposing the said propositions while also giving points. All of us worked together to lay out points. I requested more budget since STI would obviously need more to cover up the rest of the ministries' lowered budgets. In the end, we did manage to reach 1 billion (800 million cut!) but we used up a lot of extra time.
When it was our turn to present, we agreed that Phoebe should be the representative speaker of all of us. She told everyone in the hall of our plans. The Peacock Guy then pointed out how only STI got an increase in budget whereas everything else was lowered, which I had to speak about. I explained that our group decided that STI was the key in the discussion whereby the project was STI could be used to overcome the other problems faced by the other six ministries, along with examples, to secure my point. It ended up our group being praised by the Peacock Guy for giving a concrete point to support the result of our discussion. What I thought wouldn't work since larger groups equal more problems in a discussion ended up becoming a grand success. What an awesome group! (By the way, this session also finished very late.)
After that session, we took a group photo with the Trainsition team after filling up our feedback forms. Gonna miss that Peacock Guy—he was an awesome person. Then, we had our lunch. I sat with the Tropicana trio and hung out with them for a short while before returning to the hall. Once everyone was in, we were greeted by several foreigners who came from Bain & Co. Yep, those were the people we had to speak to for a few hours. We got into our reflection groups. Our group went to join Mr. Robert Oushoorn, the partner we picked, and the second partner happened to be Mrs. Kenzie Kwong, one of the founders of Leaders' Quest. We took them to the grassy sky platform on the next floor for our talk.
As a group, we introduced ourselves as they did too then we delivered our elevator pitches that we rehearsed the night before. It went well. We also asked them to give us their elevator pitches. After that, we began asking them questions while I recorded all their words on my notepad (journalist-in-the-making!). We continued the conversation which was indeed interesting—so interesting that time had to be in the way and we had to go back to the hall soon. That was when Mrs. Kenzie told us that we had forgotten to let them give feedback on our elevator pitches. Simply, we had to do it again so we could receive the feedback. Mine, according to them, was great as it showed passion except it lacked elaboration on why I had these passions. I resolved to improve my elevator pitch. I really wanted to have them ask questions for us too, to balance the conversation, but we ran out of time, unfortunately, and so we all returned to the hall.
As the groups returned one by one, the session with Bain & Co. ended with our thoughts and their thoughts on the conversation we all had. I managed to get Mr. Robert's and Mrs. Kenzie's contacts. Sometime during our time away, my classmate's mentor arrived. We took a group photo in our reflection group with the two partners before they left. Honestly, it felt a little bit awkward to speak with such influential people, knowing that I felt a bit inferior to their status. However, it went better as I expected.
Well, the next on the agenda was actually Rest & Free Time, but we had to stay in our reflection groups for the third day's reflection. After that, with an hour left on the clock before dinner and the surprise coming up next, I traveled with Phoebe and Crystal back to our accommodation. I put my things there, hung around for a while and played Osu! before deciding to go back to the university for dinner. Extra walking was totally worth for what's coming up later even though I loathed it. I ate dinner alone as everyone wasn't there yet, save for some mentors and the CtG team. When I finished, everyone had arrived by then, but Ms. Ida came to give me the evaluation of the group's and my performance on the group discussion earlier.
After that, I went to sit with the Tropicana trio, where Phoebe's and Crystal's mentors had had already arrived. Wei Pin's mentor, however, hadn't arrived yet. I chatted with all of them until it was time to depart for Sunway Pyramid. I was then told that we were going to an Escape Room, which thrilled me since I'd always wanted to try it out once. The walk to Sunway Pyramid was tiring, especially with the uphill walking, but we eventually reached our destination. The Escape Room studio (not sure of the proper name) was called Mission-Q.
All of us, mentors and CtG team included, went inside. We had to group each other with at least 7 people and pick a room to play. There were 5 rooms: The Harvest, Knock Knock Who's There, Saving King Arthur, The Tomb of Life and Death, and The Imperial Mausoleum. I wasn't a fan of horror, but I managed to find other people who weren't fans of horror and groups up together. Kurniati wasn't up to horror either and neither was my classmate's mentor. We ended up choosing Saving King Arthur since it was fantasy-themed. After choosing, we had to keep all of our accessories and belongings in a locker before entering the room. Then, we went to our room and were briefed for a moment. And then, we were all alone. Oh, goodies!
Well, I would tell you what happened in the escape room throughout our time there, but I think I'd rather keep the experience a secret in case some of you readers go to Sunway Pyramid and play that room while knowing everything, which would be unfair. However, what I can tell you is that Kurniati has a dead eye's accuracy, everyone used their brains to solve weird yet creative puzzles, and that we managed to escape our room in time. After escaping, we took a group photo. Our group managed to achieve the 3rd fastest (woo!) of that room and were placed on the leaderboard. Finally, we took one last group photo of everyone once they returned (wow, that's a lot of group photos) saying Connie! before taking our things and returning to the Sunway-Monash Residence. None picked the 5th room apparently. That walk home was also an extra long walk if you're wondering.
While I was preparing to sleep, the door somehow had to freaking close on me with the keycard inside the room. I facepalmed and facewalled and also facedoored. Asking my housemate Rhyshie for help, we went to the control room to help open up the door. Thankfully, I didn't have to pay anything as a summon. After that, I dressed for the night, packed my laptop since the Wi-Fi would never work for me and other things for tomorrow, and slept.
Day Four
And then the dreadful final day. I woke up later than usual since I had already packed everything prior. I arose from my bed and grabbed my duffel bag and my laptop backpack then left the unit. I reached there for breakfast, but nobody was there, so I ate alone. The rest of my peers eventually came. After breakfast, I joined the Tropicana trio and went with them to the hall.
Once everyone gathered, we listened to talk by Soon Teck, who had a Sunway University scholarship. I met him earlier during the first day and learned that he learned from zero English to really fine English—in the span of 6 months. Wow, if I could learn Japanese at that pace, it would be great. Next, we had to be in our reflection group and had to reflect on the past 3 days and what we'd learned throughout our experiences. Then, one of us had to tell everyone else about the summary of our group's reflections. Imran agreed to do it, so when it was our turn, Imran spoke about our reflections as a whole. After everyone reflected on their parts, Kurniati went up front and explained about her background and her pathway to getting an A-Levels Scholarship followed by Shamirah. The talks were all inspiring and admirable. I even managed to write a bit on their details on my notepad (hooray journalism).
Finally, the very last session of the camp: the pledges. We were tasked by the CtG team to make a specific promise on something we'd do for the following months. I wrote mine after a very long period of thinking. Once I was finished, I got a call from my mother than she had already arrived. Which meant that I, unfortunately, had to go. The session picked up the pace and we had a final group photo before I had to rush out. Honestly, I really didn't want to go that fast and personally say my goodbyes to every single one of my peers. But I couldn't—so Ms. Connie had them say goodbye to me as a choir of voices instead. It was a bittersweet farewell.
The experience I had from this camp was something I would never forget in my life. "Great" isn't enough to explain how much I truly felt. Everyone was so supportive of each other and I've met some people I admired, inspiring me. I think most of my friends would end up as a character in my book (in a good way, I mean!). It was definitely a wonderful time spending my four days for the camp.
Oh, and lemme attach a video by Closing the Gap on the camp. Enjoy!
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And thank you guys for reading my whole experience on the camp! I had a fun time retelling the story of what happened and I hope you guys had a fun time reading it. Thanks again and leave me a comment if you have anything to talk about—I'll be sure to reply!
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!
Hey, guys! I'm back from the camp I mentioned a few days ago. To make up for the lack of activity the past 6 months, I'm going to spend some minutes (or hours) to tell you what happened, in detail I guess, during the 3 days at camp. It's going to be pretty long, so bear with me.
Update (while editing): Yep, this is going to be hella long so I'm going to split this into three posts. Hopefully, I can post all on the same day.
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Before I get started, I just wanna let you guys know that since the beginning of this year, I was involved in a program focused on helping teens with low income but great potential to prepare for life after SPM and working our way to our dream career while also covering up our people skills. The program is called Closing the Gap, which is organized by Teach for Malaysia.
Anyway, in June, they had organized a camp at Sunway University for us to experience life in university, titled Residential Camp, from the 5th to the 8th, which is during my semester break. First impression: Hey, I get to live in a university for a few days; would be pretty good to get the gist of how living on campus feels like. So, I agreed to join the camp. Then, we were told that we were going to live in a condominium at the Sunway-Monash Residence and that we're going to be living in single rooms. Cool. (Actually, the word "camp" here is a bit metaphorical, so let's just call it a type of campus stayover.)
A week before, the agenda for those 4 days 3 nights came and I took a look at it. It was filled with a lot of workshops and even a session of a personality test, an interview simulation, and even some hours with people from a business company. Wow.
Day One
Then comes the date. I've already packed my things on the day before. I also packed my laptop to blog about each day at night after the activities are done. I woke up at seven in the morning to have breakfast before traveling to the university. Actually, the registration starters at nine—and the first activity of the day starts at ten. But I liked being early, so I chose to wake up at seven. Yippee me.
So we reached our destination at around eight (I think) and took my things, which is in a duffel bag full of clothes and a toiletry bag, and my trusty laptop backpack. I reached where the Closing the Gap team was having their workshops, put down my things, and registered. Honestly, I felt excited but also nervous. I didn't know what to expect living alone since it was my first time, but definitely excited to be with CtG again.
I waited until everyone else arrived. We ended up having 22 students, including yours truly, in Lecture Hall 5, which is the rendezvous point. I was supposed to have a schoolmate coming along with me for the camp, but I found out he was accepted for the ASEAN scholarship and had to sit for an examination—but that exam conflicted with the camp's dates. Too bad, huh? But good for him, though.
So, we had our opening ceremony and an opening speech by a Harvard alumna named Jacintha. She told us of her father's struggle back in the days. How he lived in a village with a poor background and how he had to walk for a whopping 5 days just to get to school! If I were at that situation, I'd be whining to my parents that I'd stop schooling or I'd just live at school for the rest of my education years. And at school, he had trouble communicating in English, but his American teacher did not give up on him. So, he did not give up on himself. Learned English he did, every day. Never give up he did. Truly an inspiring story of determination. Cassie could learn from that.
After the speech, we had a little briefing on the camp then we got out things to prepare for a walk to our residence. What I expected was a tiring walk because of the weight of my things but I'd only have to go through this twice. What I didn't expect was that the tiring walk was more tiring than I thought and that the walk from the university to the condominium took a hell amount of time. I nearly ran out of breath upon reaching there. But we managed to get a keycard to our rooms and the Wi-Fi password and went to our rooms to discover them. My unit had 6 people. 3 other boys were in the opposite unity. I walked around the room, looking at stuff. But looking at the time, I realized there won't be enough time to take out everything, so I called my roommates out back to the university for the next activity on the agenda.
Back after another tiring walk just 30 minutes after resting, we went back to the university and met with Sunway's Student Ambassadors. But I'm kinda already acquainted with them since I've been to Sunway for a couple of times (lost count, by the way) this year. Soon enough, we were brought by them for an orientation around the campus and some destinations in the Sunway College as well. I thought this was going to be boring since I had an orientation of the campus just last Thursday, but they did show some places I've never been told about before. (Still boring though).
Then, we had our lunch at the university's cafeteria, where the orientation conveniently ended too. The food was pretty fair but it was spicy. I hate spicy. :(
I finished my lunch pretty quickly and went back to the lecture hall for the next activity—again with the Student Ambassadors. We were led to the Gallery just outside and were told to sit in a huge circle. Then, we had a game. Not just any game, but a game of making an adjective to go with the first letter of your name. Sounds easy? Nope. We had to memorize and say out the 10 names before us just to be able to introduce ourselves. I went with Creative Chan. Heh. Suffice to say, I did have some trouble, but it did help me memorize almost everyone's names. (Shame on me not to know everyone yet.)
Then came the best part(s) of the day. We were divided into two teams. Ours was named Dauntless. First game: we returned to the big circle and had to write a unique fact about ourselves. Then, we had to fold the paper and randomly pass ours to the next until they said stop. We repeated that until we had 3 facts about ourselves. Then we had to crumple the paper and threw it at the center of the circle at the guy telling us to do things who was at the center of the circle, then pick up a random paper. Next, we were tasked to ask everyone about their facts and linked them to the said person, finishing our paper, to yield points for our group. Only the top five could get points. Unfortunately, I only matched one. Strangely though, nobody got my facts. Did I make them a bit too... unique?
Just in case you guys are curious what I wrote, mine were:
Likes to read up about religions, but is an atheist.
Can play piano, but only online.
Has an unconventional love for onion rings.
After that game, we were then tasked to find the landmark somewhere on campus to take a group photo and come back first to get points. But we were only given a clue and had to ask the people around to find the place. Yep, we had to ask the students or lecturers for a clue. The first clue was talking about a "Garden in the Sky". I thought of the place upstairs, but that wasn't right. Whoopsies. So after my crazy bout of "I think I know!", we asked around for the location. Eventually, the people we asked pointed to the Sunway College 4th floor, opposite of the hall. We got there and took a photo quickly and rushed back. Apparently, we were first and scored points. :D
But I came to realize something. I had forgotten to bring my bottled water and I'm dying of thirst. Worse, I didn't know where I could buy drinks in between the games. Though I still tried to continue on, with a Student Ambassador promising to bring water. For the next game, named the "Human Snake", we had to align ourselves in a straight line and link ourselves by holding hands. I was second in line, so the guy to the left of me was the "head". The game was simple: we had to cross over each other based on the sequence of the links' number, then untangle ourselves. However, because it was too simple, they twist it up a bit by getting the tail to do the same thing. There were three rounds. We won the first and second but lost the third. The third was mega crazy so we pretty much got ourselves to look like we were playing Twister with 10 people instead of playing Human Snake.
So after that game too, we had to go for another photo hunt. This time, the clue was a question. "What are the facilitators wearing?" This one was pretty obvious and both teams figured out in less than a second. We rushed to the I <3 SU statue-slash-arch thingy and took a picture of it. Quickly than ever (since they were close behind), we rushed back to the gallery. Turns out, we managed to reach first with the picture again! But turns out too, I'd never been more thirsty in my life than now. Thankfully, one of the ambassadors led me to a water fountain for me to drink up. Whew, I thought I was gonna collapse from exhaustion.
I came back to the Gallery, refreshed, and with the other team back. I reunited with my team just in time for the third game. This one had us reuse our embarrassing adjective names. We were given time to ask and remember the names of the opposing team before the game starts. For this one, one of each team had to go up front and face a blanket. When the blanket lowered, both rival team members had to call out the other's name as fast as possible to earn points. One thing I knew: I was probably going to screw up. I went up second and was face to face with a person I kinda knew. But I went blank for a few seconds (both of us did), then we called out each other's names. But what came out both of our mouths was a butchered version of the other. We both ended up as a tie and scored zero. Haha. The rest of the game flowed pretty well, but I couldn't tell which side was winning. According to the scorekeeper, both sides ended up with an equal amount of score. No tiebreaker, however.
Like the previous two games, we were tasked once more with another photo hunt. For this one, we were given a picture of Beethoven and the question: "Where does this person practice?" or something like that. All of us thought of the art room, but they clarified the instrument, not the location. So we asked the students the location of a piano. It was also in the Sunway College, but on the second floor in the study area behind the Financial Department. We found it way at the back and took yet another group photo. There was a sign near the piano that stated we could play only after 5:30 pm, which made me scream internally. There was a piano here? I could play the piano? Cool! We dashed back to the Gallery, and again, we were first. I went to get another drink before returning.
When the other team returned, with all of our tired as hell faces, we were asked if we would want to continue. But we all said "No", and so the scores are tallied. It ended up with us winning. Best team ever! Each of our members won a mascot pin badge, then we posted for a group photo. With the games finally done and the high possibility then I was going to get cramps and aches, we returned to the hall for the next session after a short break.
According to Ms. Connie, one of the hosts of the CtG program, this would be the only time in the whole camp we would be active since we were going to spend the rest of the days in the lecture hall. Not that I minded, though. The next session was a talk on scholarships by the Manager of Scholarship, Ms. Soo Ee Sarn. One thing I could glean from that: I didn't know that there were 30 different kinds of scholarships that cover almost every single aspect. She also conducted a short interview listing out the common interview questions and the ability on how to "make a good impression". I tried answering some of those interview questions and I learned how pushy the interviewer may get. Seriously, a question that leads to another question. So I locked these in my mind: be extra specific and I definitely needed to practice ahead of time. Anyway, she concluded the talk by saying the key importance was to "make a good impression", not whether one was right or wrong.
After the talk, we had our free time. I chose to hang out with a new friend, the guy sitting next to me, Ming Lok. He was a real sports junkie. He invited me to play ping pong, which I was terrible at, but I agreed anyway because why not? So I led him to the Student Life Center in the college to play. We played for a good 45 minutes of hitting the ball into the ceiling several times and swatting the air until I suggested we played darts. I love darts, by the way, even though I never played it in real life at all. I remembered there was a dartboard in the Life Center too. But for who-knows-why, there was the dartboard, but no freaking darts. I was tempted to ask where the darts were, but Ming Lok suggested we resume playing ping pong. But I said I had enough since I was already tired. He then said he was going to return to the residence, but I chose to stay. I didn't want to walk all the way back just to come back again here for dinner, then walk back again to sleep.
So, I went back to the lecture hall where I conversed with CtG team and relaxed until dinner came. Dinner was definitely more delicious than lunch. After dinner, we all returned to the lecture hall. Everyone but me went home to change before coming back. I shrugged. For the last activity of the day (whew, am I writing long), we were asked to go into a group of five, dubbed the reflection group. I chose to join a random group and sat together. I tried recalling the names of the others: Kurniati, Chow, Yuen Yen, and Imran, which I could. Celebrated a little bit inside. Ms. Connie was our group's "instructor". We were told to reflect on the day: 3 things we learned, 2 questions we still have after today, 1 thing that inspired us, and what do we want to learn or achieve after the day. I enjoyed the time with my group and I had the urge of getting to know them a little bit more.
Soon enough, even the final activity of the day ended. We all took another long, long walk back to the residence. I bathed, told my good nights to my housemates, then went in my room. I turned on my laptop so I could write a blog on the first day. But guess what? The Wi-Fi couldn't work so I couldn't access my blog. I could use my phone's data to write, but I suck at typing on the phone and it'd take almost the entire night to type out what I want. I hoped the Wi-Fi could work soon, but I resolved to type it all once the camp ended if it still couldn't work. (Spoiler: it still couldn't work.) I finally went to sleep for the day.
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Wow, that was pretty long for the first day. The second and third day might just as well be as long, but I will post them up pretty soon. On the same day, if possible. But thanks for reading and hope to see you guys soon.
So hey, I have not been writing here much and I apologize. It is my final year in high school and it is pretty important to get good grades and earn a good future for myself and everyone else. Anyway, I dont really wanna weite so muxh because I am on phone, which I had to type in. The WiFi here is having problems so I am using my phone data. I just wanna tell you guys that I am not gone and wlill be writing about my experience at a university camp when I amback home. Excuse my terrible spelling because I am really bad at phone typing and I just cant get it to function properly xD. So yeah, that is all I am writing. Do look forward to my next post very soon. It is late at night right now so I gotta catch some sleep for the next day. See you guys later!
So, just last week, I was extremely bored and I was done with writing my novel for the day. And then this happened: I went to write a small side story to kill time. And now that it's finished, I'd like to share it with you. Probably the first time I shared any actual writing material and not updates.
And yeah, for the record: the odd naming of the title is intended. And no, the novel titles won't be like that. Also, this side story is non-canon. Don't believe everything it's written to be true (yet). Because everything is subjected to changes. 0:)
Anyway, here is the story.
Looking to download? If you wanna download the PDF file, click this link and click the Download button on the top right corner.
Thanks and hope you enjoy the story. Leave me comments on what you think in the comments below.
See you in the next post!
So, I've been away this whole month with school homework and management, plus spending quality time writing. At the same time, a friend of mine has been drawing out my characters and, wow, I am impressed. To be able to see my characters through my eyes instead of picturing them in my mind--it feels great. Drives me to write more. And here, I'd like to share with you his drawings. He's done two characters so far.
(Meanwhile, I'm writing like hell cause it's the Lunar New Year holidays. Expect writing updates soon!)
This one is of Cassandra Monica, the main character of the novel. Floragne is with her and so is that Celestials-damned smug of hers.
And this one is of Dyven-Mazak, the ogre of Cassie's group. For the record, yes, he is blue.
So those are the two characters so far. On the other hand, I've been participating in a lot of programs too, mostly involving those on self-development and preparation for college and universities. Anyway, that's all I'm writing for now.
Thank you for reading this post and maybe leave a comment on those artworks. Both my friend and I would love to know your thoughts on the art. See you guys in the next post!
