Dark knight's a great production so much so that it even beat the opening sales for spiderman 3! Heath Ledger's role as the Joker was simply awesome acting. I won't deem it to the extent of acting anymore especially when he's able to bring out the joker's crude humor and pyschopatic nature to near perfection. The batman was rather a shadow of his past, and a lost guardian being tested to his limits of conduct.





Well..just before catching the movie, I was rushing on my way to the cinema. As usual, my wandering line of sight caught the eyes of yet another salesperson, and just as I thought I could weave pass him, I was approached. I was rather baffled by his request to sell me a small candy without disclosing his selling price. The market rate was claimed to be around $2, which seemed overly-priced to me even in the current midst of inflation. What triggered my attention the most was that he wasn't from any organisation when I asked for who he represented. He claimed that his objective was to compete with his group of friends in a game to see who can sell the most sweets in the shortest possible time.

I couldnt imagine myself going around and gathering public funds to satisfy my entertainment needs with a group of teenagers on a Saturday night which could be better spent in town. Who is going to be so naive as to buy the sweets from them when their rationale is purely a personal indulgence with no official accountability? I had no time to question this young boy any further, all the more I won't want to miss the dark knight.

Nueve FOC 2008!!(Recalled with the best of my memory)



Day 1:



Fighting strength: 22/22

The 21 of us, consisting of 17 freshies and 4 GLs, met up at Jurong point Mac and proceeded to hall 8, where we checked in. We regrouped with Numemon in the hall and that made up our full strength! Once we had settled down, the usual ice-breaker games kicked in and as usual, some of us, including me, had reasonable difficulties in matching names with faces! I was amused by the wide variety of games and riddles that were made conceivable to us, yet annoyed by my inability to solve some of them haha!

I won't go into the core of the games, fearing that the cows would have driven home and the snails would have scaled the tree if I had otherwise.

Next, we shifted our belongings into our allocated double rooms. Things didnt seem right for me with 4 guys having to spread ourselves comfortably on 2 beds! Area cleanliness standard was a C grade! I couldnt bother much with that either since my purpose was just to sleep through the 4 nights!

The boring part came next, with a series of lectures lined up and held in the comfort of a lecture theatre, a perfect and proven bed for rejuvenation. I had it enough of the insurance talks and magazine subscription when I was in army. I would have gladly called up their insurance agent if I need a policy, but not when I had a few already. The last part of the lecture really woke me up into darkness with the focus on the screen. Snippets of the SP night were previewed, very much to our anticipation!

I hope I got my sequence of activities right haha

Then, we had station games that brought us through the whole afternoon! The most memorable part had to be the most tiring one, in which we had to run with a watermelon up the steps of the School Of ADM

That night was a long one, and beautiful as well:) I recalled walking a long distance to some area near the forested area where each of the OG took a group photo. I guessed there was an activity planned for us, but had to be cancelled due to the ongoing drizzling.

Initiaiton night was next and it just marked the beginning of a long night! We were blindfolded in hall 6 and were led to certain places to get real dirty and wet...the most disgusting thing happened in the toilet, where I had to suck up a coin from a pail of milo tucked into the toilet bowl..lol It was really a long night, bushes were tickling me from all corners...milo powders and flour were poured on me randomly. Number of hours blindfolded: 4

KO: around 3am


Day 2:

Fighting Strength: 22/22

Pool games were the highlights of the morning at the Sports and Recreation Centre(SRC). The captain's ball game was interesting though energy-sapping. I didnt get to throw the ball at all! All I did was to push the float with the girl on top while trying to stay afloat! The first sign of tiredness unrolled before me and before I could realise anything, it was time for lunch.
After lunch, I think we continued to play some dry games at the SRC. Since it has already been 2 weeks after the camp, all I could recall was playing captain's ball, chucking dried biscuits and a flour-flavoured mentos into my mouth and also piggybacking a girl while blindfolded!

That night really wore me out to the bones. I got really excited to know who my SP was through our first skin-to-skin interaction. The session lasted rather long and I actually spoke to 3 supposedly freshies, 2 girls and 1 guy. Wth brought me to the guy?? lOL..

Just as I thought the 2nd day would have ended with the "lab safety talk", I was wronged. That's the bridge to our exhilarating Fright Night! Never in my life had I experienced such awesome real-life thrills that could only be seen on horror shows. We went through about 8 stations where we had to gather clues and information to help solve a murder case, or a few of them. Actually, I felt the main objective was not in solving the mystery, but rather concentrated on scaring us! My task was a daunting one, having to protect 2 girls at the same time!!! Overall rating is unparalleled and i felt the programmers put in a great deal of effort in making this fright night a successful one.

KO: around 3am again

Day 3:

Fighting strength: 22/22

Started the day with a long bus journey to Sentosa and the thought of doing some body maintenance was quickly overwhelmed with games and riddles. The sun was bright and the mood was right for a day of beach games, but unfortunately these only lasted until lunch time when it rained. Nevertheless, lots of taupoks and watermelons and throwing raw chickens!

Next, we proceeded to Aloha Changi where the SP night was to be staged. It turned out to be a really lovely dining place under the night sky overseeing the sunset along the coastline. SDU must have been really busy yet thoughtful in planning out these events during this season of matchmaking in FOC camps. Food sucks though haha

The last event of the night ended with ice-skating at Jurong Entertainment Centre. We booked the whole skating ring just for our usage! I shall move on since skating on ice or even ground isn't my forte to begin with.

We rested early for next day's amazing race that we so dearly wanted to win, which we did eventually.

KO: 2am

Day 4:

Fighting strength: 22/22

We started the race with full of confidence and spirits which brought us far-ahead even before the 2nd team to finish the last station at SRC. The running part from SRC to innovation centre and from orchard MRT to Dhoby Ghaut MRT was madness haha..but it was worth the effort anyway. I didnt like the station where we had to search through the maddening crowd Bugis Village for someone whom we didnt even know!

After the race which we completed at around 9pm, we got back to wash up and went for supper at the nearby food centre. 1 x prata+chicken porridge+iced-milo would be good for a night's sleep.

Relevation night came to us as a surprise when the fake freshie was revealed to us!!! Was a girl so we couldn't taupok!

KO: 3am to 4am

Day 5:

Some games and a cheer competition followed by the grand finale, in which rules were no longer regarded when we started dumping water bombs at the opponents.

I had dinner with my OG after the end of FOC...reached home at 1130pm...KOed!

Really enjoyed this camp and the friends made..

Now i will just look forward to my hall FOC!

I have been wanting to blog since last week but just couldn’t find the time to do so! Anyway, I am back to my dark and overly tanned complexion, thanks to nueve camp and the sun! I looked into the mirror when I reached home last Friday and that’s it, my skin-whitening efforts have been washed down the drains. You could be wondering why should I be lamenting about my crisp brown skin with a radiating tan when others are having difficulties trying to look tan and some end up getting sunburned.

In fact, I don’t yearn for a white complexion, but just a lower tone of brown. Unfortunately, my skin is highly sensitive to the sun such that black pigmentation could raid my skin easily even with sun block applied! Just this evening, I was greeted by a PRC cashier at fairprice in English…when I was expecting her to do so in Mandarin as she did to her customers queuing up in front of me. I am used to it anyway since young and I could hardly recall any instances in which I was not mistaken as Malay.

Back to the highlights for the past 2 weeks! My trip to Macau and her mainland border was an eye-opener, so much so that I could see the importance of the casino industry and understood why our government is ever so eager to start the dice rolling despite the social woes it can potentially stir up.

If I could go back to the scene I was in, it was a lavish setting with hundreds of game tables fitted with the latest technology and tracking system. I saw middle-level Chinese citizens stomping the casino in hordes, rich and elegant looking tai tai pumping in chips like water flowing down the stream, casino crew serving free flow of juices and drinks, and scantily clad European( I guess) girls in their slyest look performing pole moves in the free-to-see cabaret shows. One thing I didn’t enjoy had to be the choking feeling I experienced in the smoke-filled, air-conditioned casinos. No choice, the casino managers couldn’t stop them, if not how could they rake in billions of annual profits?

Another testimony of my youth and boyish nature was shown when I was stopped by the casino security guards at the entrance, not once, but a few times! Age limit is 18, but I am almost 21…I don’t whether I should feel sad or happy about this.

Besides, I noticed Chinese prostitutes soliciting in the Venetian. Omg..was that allowed? They did not gather in clusters, but they stationed themselves around different corners of the casino. One even came up to me and asked me whether I would want a massage or not! Physically, they beat our geylang liu2 ying1 hands down…lol but I am only interested in winning money!

I wouldn’t say that I am lucky to win a considerable sum of money when all odds are against you no matter which game you play in the casino. I developed my own system of gambling right on the spot and it was just for the game “big and small”. I didn’t touch other popular games like baccarat and blackjack because I wasn’t very sure of the way it was played. Nevertheless, luck is still needed in all games and it is important to time your entry in accordance to your onset of winning streaks and know when to pull out when it is time to do so. I shall not go further into the technical and psychological aspects of gambling, which can take up more of my precious time doing other things.

Next stop was in Zhuhai city, China. Shopping was awesome in terms of price, uniqueness and service! I bet not many people actually thought of shopping in this unknown place of China. If you guys happened to run out of ideas where to fill up your shopping list or are just tired of visiting chatuchak market or mongkok district again, check out Zhuhai!

That’s all for now, tune in to nueve camp in my next post soon!