MSA FOC 2015

Greetings to my readers out there. First of all, I want to clarify the reason that this post comes late is due to the fact that lessons have begun and the ECA week was from Wednesday to Friday. I was rather busy with attending classes and fulfilling my duty at the Heritage Club's booth for the ECA week. Barely have time to take my usual afternoon nap during study week and I'm falling sick now because of not enough rest. Nothing serious and I hope for a speedy recovery.

Going back to the topic, the MSA FOC 2015 was held from 6 August to 11 August and I was part of the programmer sub-committee for the camp. As I'm writing this, I feel slightly sad that I actually did not write about my own MSA FOC when I was a freshman last year. The experience for my first MSA FOC as a freshman should have been the most memorable one but being the exception, my whole beginning at NTU was not one that I would love to cherish. It does feel disheartening that my bad beginning contributes to the shit life I'm having now in my university. Couldn't change much now and I can only wave through the challenges and emotional storms. Sorry for being a bit sentimental and let's move on to MSA FOC 2015. =/

Day 0
One day before the camp, I got to know about my OG members and had a couple of traditional "MSA FOC" games to foster bonding. Then, we had dinner together before we went to draw our OG flag. The whole flag drawing time wasn't really that exciting for me as I wasn't too involved in it since we should let the freshies do it. One freshie named Rachel is an ADM student and she was in charged of drawing up the ideas and working on our flag. 

Gilgamesh!!!

Meet my 2nd OG friends =D

Day 1

The 1st of day camp began with dinner at the pavilion in North Spine. To my surprise, a Korean guy named Kang Pyo who I met earlier (I have no idea how he managed to find MSA) and whom I did not expect to join FOC did join us for the entire duration of the camp. The reason that I did not expect him to join us is the difference in culture because the FOC is heavy with Malaysian flavor. I think he did enjoy the camp nonetheless. 

Anyway, we next moved to LT19 to have the opening ceremony. From what I am able to recall, they have a video and some live acting at the front stage by the main comm introducing the title of the camp: Raiders of the Lost Artifacts. A few laughs and there for some of the hilarious scenes of the video. They also did something different for this year by bringing in a few graduated seniors from MSA to show their feelings about their respective FOC. My first SP in university, Fei Yin was one of the featured seniors. The opening ceremony also included introducing the main comm, singing the theme song and OG flag raising ceremony. Some photos during the opening ceremony:

Can spot which is the Korean guy? Hahaha

Haha nicely captured!!! (My first SP, Fei Yin)

GLs raising the OG flags. (Kar Soon, 2nd from right, is one of the Gilgamesh's GLs)

After the opening ceremony, we moved back to pavilion to have some ice-breaking game before going for the station versus game. Nothing much exciting for me throughout the session as I was just tagging along and the freshies were the one playing it. What was indeed exciting is that Gilgamesh managed to win all four station versus games (KUDOS!!!). 

Acting cool while everyone's listening to the instruction attentively =P

V Boom cheer after winning one of the station versus game

Let's taking selfie first while waiting for the other OG.

Day 2

The second day's first programme was the Amasing Jalan-Jalan in which I was the programmer for the Orchard station with Poh Ai. Just for the record, the game at my station was reading mirror image puns sentences which I posted about previously. Anyway, things did not go perfectly well as there were rains during the Amasing Jalan-Jalan. Poh Ai and I were forced to change the exact spot of our station many times. Moreover, it was rather boring at the beginning as the OGs were late to depart from NTU due to lack of buses during public holidays (It's the SG Independence Day period). 

Let the picture do the talking here:

Catwalking in front of ION Orchard, one of the mini tasks at my station

Group photos with my Gilgamesh-ians. =D

On a side note, while waiting for the OGs to arrive, I went to the ION Art Gallery inside ION Orchard. Here are some of the art photos I was able to take before I was called back to duty:

After closing the station, I went to have dinner with the rest of the Gilgamesh at Malaysia Boleh in Jurong Point. Back to NTU, we next have the SP pairing session. Basically, the freshies were blind-folded and paired up with other freshies of the opposite gender (most pairings). The only eye-catching thing about the SP pairing was that one of the Gilgamesh's freshies, Jimmy danced animatedly with his SP, Vivien, the most ON freshie (like out of control ON) this FOC. 

Me, Mei Theng, Kuan Yao and Wen Ling during the SP pairing

Day 3

The third day began with the combined game with AMSICA. I was involved as a programmer for most of the session. First game was the Zombie Run game in which I was the zombie and my job was to tear the paper on the freshies' wrist. The not-so-fun thing was that the freshies can use the water bottle to spray the zombie. 

There you go =.=

Next up was the station game. I was stationed at Hall 6 with one AMSICA people named Kelvin as the programmer for Malaysia Boleh. Basically the freshies had to put the Chinese calligraphy pen in between their faces and write Malaysia Boleh within a period. It was lunch after the station game was concluded. 

After lunch, we proceeded to the first Mass Activity which was Amoeba in which we threw various types of stuffs on the big field for the OGs to collect points to buy building materials for the second mass activity which was Tower Defence. The scene was quite funny as the other programmers and I had fun littering literally in Singapore. 

The Tower Defence was quite fun because the programmers got to splash buckets of water onto the freshies while they were building their respective iconic buildings. I did well to keep my excitement in check in case people complain I was too aggressive. 

Group photos with Kelisa

Getting excited to throw water bombs HAHAHA

At night was The Journey of Love. As I tried The Journey of Love before during senior camp and there's nothing to do besides waiting for the SPs to go into The Journey of Love one by one, I went back to my room early to sleep and recharge myself for the next day. 

Day 4
The fourth day we spent at Terror Sea Scout in Sembawang. We gathered at HSS Foyer rather late at 11.30a.m. as everyone who was involved in the Fright Night has a late night sleep. After lunch, we boarded the bus and reached our destination around 2p.m. After slacking for a while in which every OG played games to entertain themselves, we proceeded to the field to play Clash of the Three Kingdoms. Two OGs were formed as one group and tried to prevent the other group from stealing our treasure. Each group also has five raiders in which they were required to charge to the other group to steal the others' treasure. Unfortunately, Gilgamesh and its sister OG, Odysseus lost this game. Nevertheless, it was fun seeing people throwing water bombs at the raiders.

Gilgamesh group photo before the Clash of Three Kingdoms

The water bombs

Hooray! Managed to steal the treasure even though we lost

After the Clash of Three Kingdoms, the next session is Gift of Words in which we wrote messages to freshies or seniors to express gratitude. I wrote to three freshies, Dexter and Khai Hong. After that, we had our dinner and then played some games while waiting for our OG's turn to play the I-Trust game. In the I-Trust game, the freshies were again blinded folded and the seniors brought them outside the Terror Sea Scout to explore stuffs. While the freshies were being led by the seniors, the rest of us who weren't in charge used tea branches to tickle them so as to make the experience like going through the forest. The most funny thing during the I-Trust was that Rachel was almost scared to tears when she put her hand into a box of tree leaves and other 'geli' stuffs. And also Rachel was poking fun at Veldred. 

During the blind-folding 

Me checking if the road was clear to cross

Inside the boss, the freshies were required to find the torchlight

After the I-Trust, freshies were allowed to un-blindfold themselves and then they walked through the jungle, holding on to the ropes while crossing steep heels. I joined them through the jungle walk. The next session is X-Files in which the GLs were kidnapped and the freshies were required to interview 4 suspects to find out who kidnapped their GLs and also saved the GLs. The person who kidnapped the GLs are Christy as revealed in a short video clip. I was really impressed with Christy's acting because her expression was superb.

Suspect 1

Suspect 2, Yen Nee (from Gilgamesh)

Suspect 3, Christy

Suspect 4, William Lang (also from Gilgamesh)

After the X-Files, the OGs proceeded to take bathe while waiting for the remaining OGs to complete their I-Trust and X-Files. Nothing much happened after that and I slept early.

Day 5

The fifth day began with a morning exercise in which Jan Wai conducted some simple dancing to warm everyone up since we slept in air-conditioned room the previous night. After taking shower and packing up stuffs, we boarded the bus and departed to Sentosa.

Gilgamesh group photo before leaving Terror Sea Scout

Once we reached Sentosa and settled down, we proceeded immediately to Sentosa Run in which OGs traveled around Pahlawan Beach to play station games. I was involved in only one of the game in which I had to put 5 pencils on the back of my hand and flipped it up and caught it. And if I drop it, then the whole game must begin again. I was the last person to do it and I felt calm. After I succeeded, only then the adrenaline started to pump in. 

Group photo at Pahlawan Beach

Beautiful scenery

Me and Wai Chang demo-ing one of the station game

After the Sentosa Run, we had our dinner before the Sentosa VS Games. After the Sentosa VS Games was concluded, we had a mass photo shooting and then everyone jumped into the seaside to play water. Had the most fun there and I was caught by groups of people and thrown into the water. And also during the water fun time, my last year OG, Cerberus had a little reunion. (couldn't find photo though =( )

The mass photo shooting. Try to spot me xD

Let the water fight begin!!! xD

After Sentosa, we went back to NTU for sketch performance and Cheer Fight. The sketch performance was right after cheer fight. I was mildly impressed with the sketch performance since the freshies did not have too much time to prepare for it. After the sketch performance, we had a few shows in which the GLs, the main comm, the Proggie Log, the welfare and the SA GLs performed their respective cheers or dances. The most funny one was the SA GLs, and then everyone started to pick up the "GAN" shout and hand sign. Moving on is the final showdown for the cheer fight. This was of course another entertaining one because every OGs while doing their OGs cheer, they also took shot and make fun of the other OGs during the cheer. 

When every programme was completed, it was the prize giving ceremony next. My OG, Gilgamesh won the award for Best Cheer! (YAY!!!) Then we had a dance party and everyone danced crazy. The last thing before we went back to sleep was the sharing session in which everyone in the OGs shared their feelings about the FOC. 

Best Cheer Award to Gilgamesh!!!

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And so MSA FOC 2015 was over. My feelings about this MSA FOC experience is that it's nice to be a senior and helped the juniors settling in and having fun before lessons start. Even more heart-warming is that I received some gift of words from the freshies telling me how much I helped them. I'm glad that I done my part and look forward to making more friendships and memories in NTU.

That's all for this super long post. I promise I will try my best to update my blog whenever it's permissible. Stay tune for the next post.