School's going to start in about 2 weeks' time!

Trying hard to get back into the studying state of mind, mainly by telling myself that I love study and I'm gonna make this an even better term than the last and have a blast while I'm at it.

I looked up my timetable and to my (ahem) pleasant surprise I am attending 8am classes at least 4 out of the 5 weeekdays so yay hooray for me. On the bright side Wednesday seems to be relatively free so I might be able to cram some general knowledge stuff, which I haven't had a chance to touch, on that day.

I probably ought to be revising some JC statistics and some of semester one's notes, but at the moment I am happily procrastinating by watching some Sex and the City (gah some scenes were pretty touching and I was tearing), plus some other miscellaneous shows on Veoh, such as Nobuta wo produce and Zettai Kareshi.

Anyway, I've gotten new stuff to try to start off the semester with more of a bang, and that includes: clothes (for school), new bag, new comfy shoes (my muji pair which would be great for labwork), new file folders (in 5 spanking colours to differentiate the modules), new pens (I love pilot 0.4 nibs!) and a new mechanical pencil (from borders with cute red and blue skulls on them).

So yep dreading and preparing for the Day 1.

This kind of reminds me of the orientation week which we would have to go through. Gee, I hope all the preparations get finished on time.

In the meanwhile I shall try to enjoy whatever is left of my holidays and start making plans for the december break so that I can use that next break to the fullest. At the moment I am thinking of either squeezing in a december exchange or plan a vacation to somewhere in the region to go with friends. Preferably a place with cheap beer and good shopping.Throw in a good hotel and spa and that would probably be perfect.

Any more ideas, anyone?

Feeling a little like a squeezed sponge lately. One that is only slightly damp but people still inisist on wrenching out that imaginary last drop.

Not that I'm not having a good life, but the feeling that I should be having a little more out of it.

Maybe it was all that broken promises? That sometimes the only promises you keep are that of what you make.

I shall start making more of them to myself.

I promise to go for a swim this week in this nice and cool weather.

I promise to finish all the books I wanted to read but got sidetracked by all the unimportant things.

I promise to sit in a nice coffee shop or cafe to pass my time and people watch because I need a pseudo-vaccation and because I hate people at home nagging about what I should or should not do with my time.

Seriously, this is my vaccation. I've earned my spending money. Please let me have a break. My next holidays will probably be spent standing behind some counter the entire day for $5 a day for 6 weeks.

Which is just short of slave labour.

Too tired to get myself worked up. I need all of my energy for the next semester.

It seems too early in life to be disillusioned, but there is just this tingling feeling that I've been cheated.

Happened to find this really great song by Gnarls Barkley, called smiley faces. Not a very new song, but there's just this really groovy feel to the entire thing. Check out the MTV and see if catch all the iconic music references.

But what did you do? What did you say?
Did you walk or did you run away?
Where are you now? Where have you been?
Did you come alone or did you bring a friend?
I need to know this cause I noticed you're smiling
Out in the sun, having fun and feeling free
And I can tell you know how hard this life can be
But you keep on smiling for me

What went right?What went wrong?
Was it a story or was it a song?
Was it overnight or did it take you long?
Was knowing your weakness what made you strong?
Or all the above, oh how I love to see you smiling
And oh yeah, take just a little pain just in case
You need something warm to embrace
To help you put on a smiling face

Don't you go off into the new day with any doubt
Here's a summary of something that you could smile about
Say for instance my girlfiend, she bugs me all the time
But the irony of it all is that she loves me all the time

I want to leap whenever I see you smiling
Because its easily one of the hardest things to do
Your worries and fears become your friends
And they end up smiling at you
Put on a smiley face

I need to make up for the lost sleep, so I slept from one yesterday till one today, then hit the sack again at four and got up at around eight plus. Had funny dreams about stacks and stacks of paper. Post-traumatic stress from the event? No idea hhaha.

Fantastic. I am asleep the number of hours I would be awake on a normal day. Anyway I would sleep again soon. Feeling a little tired already.

Anyway the camp was pretty much alright. Got the money stuff to settle though so yes will see how it goes. Need to count receipts and all.

Ok the above was not a very good description of the camp. Maybe I should start from the top and give a detailed account.

I joined the organising committee of the department's freshman orientation week as the treasurer and we just held our camp this week from monday to friday at changi beach. Had about seventy plus juniors, which is probably a record in itself. Twenty four guys and about fifty girls. The ratio of the department has always been something like that.

So yes being a com member means you don't really play games and yes generally doing what needs to be done. I don't have any photos taken anyway all camp photos are unglam so haha. I shall give an abbreviated day to day breakdown since I do all sorts of work during the camp so I cannot define my role in anyway.

Day 1 was quite a relaxed day for me as the freshmen had a food hunt game which overran quite badly. Since I was not involved in it the day consisted of moving stuff up and down the bus to bring over to chalets. Then it was slack all the way till night time. We then had SP night and introduced people to their sps and made them dance on like a small sheet of newspaper blindfolded haha. I really think half the fun was for me to listen in onto their conversations hahah.

Day 2 started with milo making and general breakfast preparation for me, and then sorting of SP letters. They had beach games in two parts, the first which consisted of 6 stations. Lunch was hectic for me because I was running up and down to and fro from changi village to get vegetarian lunch as some people didn't indicate their food preferences properly. After lunch we had like 3 concurrent games which I think the the freshmen and the seniors enjoyed quite a lot; captain fruit ball, modified hockey and modified softball. After dinner there was another SP game in which I was the game master of sorts for the third station, where I had to ask them to tell each other an embarrassing incident. Pretty interesting what people told each other hahah. Met Joshua and his church mate who was a freshee at the camp and ate a little around changi village area.

Day 3 was tiring but really quite fun. Started the day doing the breakfast prep again and then we had this game which was called catch me if you can. The groups had to collect melon seeds which we scattered all over the courtyard in front of the chalets to be used as currency. Then then had to ask all the random seniors all around the courtyard if they had these cards which belonged each specific group, which they have to redeem using melon seeds. However, when the gong sounds (pot and ladle gong haha) they have to be back in their own chalets or risk being caught and brought to jail by the seniors. The really sadistic part comes because the jailers would then scatter horrible stuff on the caught people. I think we mixed left over yam, onions, oranges and potatoes etc with fish sauce, soya sauce, chili, tomato and other condiments in water. Then they would sprinkle flour all over just to make it all stick haha. Had some fun catching people to bring to jail.

Then after lunch was wargames which I wasn't again involved in to prepare for fright night. Fright night was quite a success and I think a lot of the guys were really spooked hahah. Some girls cried but those accompanying the guys seemed a little braver than their counterparts hahaha. The seniors had a great time laughing about it later on anyway. You get all sorts of funny people and reactions apparently. Slept really late at about 5 to 6 am after cleaning up and all.

Day 4 was the castle cum water bomb games. Was pretty much absent for the first part but all of us had fun after the capture the flags part. The seniors joined in the game impromptu at the second half to basically disrupt the entire game hahahah. We threw water bombs in the thousands literally. Got wet with sea water haha. Then we had campfire night and then all the freshees probably didn't sleep after that and all probably went to changi village to eat.

Day 5 was camp breaking, but we had the SP event at some pub in bugis. It wasn't too bad and had I think the first outing outside of school with people from my year in my department. Went for a beer and relaxation and it was all pretty cool I guess.

Yep I wanna go bathe and sleep already this is a very long entry.