Monday 19th October 09
Had a really heavy breakfast before reaching on time. I saw in the front row with one half of the DJians (they were split) and then we had the introduction to IBM and IGN.I.T.E.. I saw a few familiar faces during the break but only managed to register Rhonwyn, who turns out to be in BU's choir team. Ryan Khong was there too.
After that was a game session, in which Gheek gained recognition in. After that was an ice-breaking session where we introduced ourselves with an adjective in front of our names. We were introduced to our project of the week, which was to build a robot to perform environmentally helpful functions. We were split into 5 groups and I ended up in group 5 with Shu Wen , Soon Len, Dafinah, Chin Yang, Hariz, Ee Vonne and Rhonwyn; Soon Len being team captain. We called ourselves NanoDiversity.
There were subgroups within each team consisting of 2 persons each. We were in charge of different things:
Hardware (building the robot) : Soon Len and Hariz
Software (programming) : Chin Yang and Dafinah
Industrial (designing city) : Rhonwyn and Ee Vonne
Marketing (talking nonsense) : Shu Wen and I
Lunch was held in One World Hotel's buffet restaurant, Cinnamon. I was supposed to be very full, but the food was so good that I ate my dinner in advance as well. Lunch remained as 1-2 everyday for Shu Wen and I, the sad presenters of team 5. We created our IBM "pass" after that before exploring the IBM interfloor office tour. After a long day, we were quite tired when given a talk about how to go green and how students can contribute. I only regained enthusiasm after Shu Wen started on solar flares and I continued the nerd talk.
Overall, not much interaction with other IBMers yet.
Tuesday 20th Oct
We started with Games Session, whereby group 5's answers were epic fail. That was followed by a break. The mentors were introduced after that and we proceeded to play Power Up, an online game to save the environment.
Now, the worst thing about Power Up was that it was in 3D. And Shu Wen and I suck really badly at games like that. We were supposed to play it for 1 and a half hours and the pair with the highest points win. Shu Wen and I played this game for one hour and our points remained as ZERO. Other people had more than 2k points by this time. Then, Kendrick started walking around randomly as he had a headache. Long story short, he helped us and in 25 minutes, we had a score of 3180. Yay us! Thanks, Kendrick!
We enjoyed our glorious lunch before heading off to prepare our project (which lasted well until we went home).
Wednesday 21st Oct
I started getting to know other people today, as a result of my quirkiness. We were split into 2 big groups; one group would start with the canopy walk first (the BU and BU4 gangs), the other (Taman Tun Dr Ismail and DJ peeps) would start off with stream sampling first [which is very bad in this case, because we would get wet first]. We found that this was quite untrue, as the stream was only deep enough to cover our feet. We were further split into 4 groups to ease the job of the poor woman in charge of us. I caught an extremely big water spider which turned out to be a nuisance to my team (consisting of DJ stereotypes who were still shy of mixing around). Someone had to keep watch over the damned spider in case it escapes.
Then we started the climb to the canopy walk (which was only 150m in length; very anticlimactic). Shu Wen and I attempted to irritate our guide to make her bring us there faster. Hint : "Are we there yet?" Unfortunately, we missed our target and irritated a fellow camper instead. We spotted a centipede on the way and scared a bunch of foreigners. There was this cute English boy who kept saying "Konichiwa" at us.
There was a horrible climb to the canopy walk and I lagged behind with Sofea. In case you didn't know, both of us were enjoying the scenery while you were struggling with all your might. =)P. Anyway, we reached there to find that everyone was still lining up and wishing that they hadn't climbed up so fast. (I know, I'm mean). I was talking a lot of nonsense with the campers behind the line, who were mostly TTDI people, with the exception of Gheek, Soon Len, Naomi and Mona (the gamemaster-cum-ex-disciplinarian).
Gheek started telling Jian Min (from TTDI) and Siti the Ping Pong Ball story, which we lied was a "joke". Their anxiety level kept increasing as there were many interruptions during the storytelling (we were walking on the canopy walk that time). Gheek finished the story at a resting site. Both Siti's and Jian Min's reactions were worth watching, though not as bad as Gheek's own reaction when Sha Lynn told him the story.
On the way back the H3, our resting headquarter, I somehow ended up stuck with Sutheshan and Jian Min, both from TTDI. The jokers were debating on whether this person in front of us was male or female. "It" had long hair but was dressed like a guy. Sutheshan (somehow, more commonly called "T") guessed it was a girl while JM said it was a guy. The 3 of us then tried to make the poor soul turn behind so we can judge "it" better. Then, I got ditched when both JM and T ran away, but I guessed that it earned me the excuse of being able to walk nearer to "it". After much investigation, I came to a conclusion that it was a girl. I managed to find the nuts and reported my findings. Not believing me, they started walking really close behind the English people (could identify their accent). They found that I was right and started laughing like maniacs. Sutheshan crapped about the air being "too fresh" that we must "breathe all we can". Oh goodness, what an impression we must have left on the 2 Englishwomen.
There was a treasure hunt after lunch (more like Answer hunt). We were somehow split into 4 different groups again. My group was *ahem* the BEST group ever! Considering how much we've done during the treasure hunt (we didn't do anything, actually), it's still a miracle we managed to get points. Our team's name? Awesome Laziness! (courtesy of yours truly!). We didn't came up with a name until the last few seconds before we were supposed to hand in our answer sheets. What were we doing when other teams were scourging for answers? Walking backwards to make ourselves taller and trying to slide down a steep slope. Yay us.
It started raining drizzling at the end of our discussion, so we couldn't present our findings of the stream sampling. It is quite ironic that while we remained completely dry throughout the day (except our feet), we got drenched the moment we reached the hotel. To put it literally, we were all wet at the end of the day.
Thursday 22nd Oct
Started with a talk about careers in IBM which lasted up until 10. Break. Project preparation and lunch, followed by a very interesting game session. We had to entangle ourselves by holding other people's hands randomly. Apparently, Gheek and Chin Yang didn't know the rules of the game. Both of them held each others hands and formed a circle of their own. Another time, 3 people had another mini circle and detached themselves from the bigger picture. We kept restarting again and unfortunately, due to unknown reasons, I had to keep squeezing in between other people's hands. Very smart planning, people! (Spot the sarcasm). Surprisingly, we won 2nd place. Considering how sucky we were, it's considered a great achievement.
The day ended with project preparation again.
Friday 23rd Oct
Doomsday. Long story cut short, NanoDiversity won!! Our prize? a Sony Walkman for each person in the team. *Jaws detach* Kendrick from team 1 went back early to fly off to Turkey.
There were many photography sessions after that. I won't elaborate much on this, except that this is the best camp I've ever been to. Not only were the activities fruitful and fun, the people were highly interactive and we established many new friendships. Aaaaaand, to prove Chin Yang wrong, we're all still keeping in touch on Facebook!
Since I'm eating up a lot of space on blogger (thanks a lot, pictures), I will just give the link to the IBM pics. Click HERE.
But amusingly, this was not the end. I just earned a new title called DipABRSM on Saturday morning. *Grins*
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