I iz back! With an event to boot! That and I will now try my best to keep this page of mine active.
Have I mentioned the holidays are officially here? Or that I'm free from the exam plague? Either way, my first year of Pharmacy has come to a close. It would seem very cliched now but I'll just reiterate how fast the year has gone by. :'(
Today was the day for the Pharmacy Inter-School Cycling Treasure Hunt, or rather it was more of a race but I'll get into that later. As the name of the event implies, it involved participants from Monash, Taylor's and SEGI, all of whom were pharmacy students. Think of it as a large scale mingling session amongst the undergraduates. SEGI Pharmacy was the main organizer of this event.
Scheduled meet up time was 7:15AM at Monash prior to departing. Being Malaysians, we were to adhere strictly to Malaysian timing, which involves leaving at 8AM or not showing up at all. *coughcough* If my memory's any good, there were 19 of us, from Year 1 to Year 3.
Destination?
Taman Pertanian (not Taman Negara) Seri Alam.
As if on cue, the sky darkened and the rain started to pour. Way to.. Rain on our parade. *dak dak, ting* By the time we reached and disembarked, it turned into a full scale downpour and we were all huddled in the bus stand.
Nevertheless, we were unfazed and some of us came prepared *brandishes umbrella*. It's times like these I wished I brought along an actual cap and not a visor. So we waited, for the SEGI students and for the rain to stop.
We push on!
As we entered, the rain began to die down. Some of us were already soaked then, but it still felt nice for it to stop as the event began. As I headed back towards the general crowd, I was approached by someone holding coloured ribbons who went "Take one!". So I took one, and got sorted onto Red team.
A quick scan around, and I found some of my would-be-teamates. I had 2 fellow Monashians with me, Devi and Sin Nah. The teams were all sorted out then and gathered, and we got acquainted with fellow pharmacy students who were also on Red. All in all, there were 7 of us. I was the only guy in Red, so it was no surprise I got elected leader. I wasn't a very good one. Hhahaa. :)
Once the teams were all acquainted with each other, everyone headed off towards the bicycle sheds. It was a cycling event after all. In essence, this event is a race ala Amazing Race style only that we were confined to one road and traveled on bikes. We were to travel to each station and perform a task in order to obtain our next clue which would lead us on so on and so forth.
Each team also had a coordinator, or facilitator who is in charge of handling all the stations and clues for their respective teams. Red team's coordinator was Matthias. Quite the fun guy. :D Managed to test my bike out for a bit before everything began. It's been almost 2 full years since I last cycled, ever since I got my driver's license. It felt rather nostalgic to get on one and started pedaling again. However, I wasn't really a big fan of the bicycles there, not the most comfortable to ride. Then again, what did I expect?
SO WE PUSH OFF!!
First up? Egg toss. (In my head: Yay! Get to test dexterity LOL).
Teams were to split themselves up into 2 groups on two platforms. One side was to toss eggs towards the other whose job was to catch it. Obviously. I was le catcher. *thumbs up*
The first few flew way over my head. After about 2 catches, I was tasked with catching everything. Well, why not? T'was fun. 5 Eggs later we received our next clue. One that brought us a little further down the trail, to the second station.
Here we had to wait for a group who had reached there before us before we were allowed to begin. The task at hand? Transport 5 rubber bands from the first member to last (aligned in a row) using only your mouth and a straw. LOOPHOLE. Didn't say we had to do it one at a time, which I think was what the previous group did since they literally took AN ETERNITY there. True, we had time to pose for pictures then. Our strategy? Take the whole bunch )about 10+ bands, and just transport everything at a go.
The third station was a game I never liked to play. Squish everyone onto 3 pieces of newspaper which acts as a makeshift bridge, to cross a makeshift river. Never did like the game, still don't.
Now that that's settled.. On to the forth station! *pedals at lightning speed* *crack, crack, BOOM* Bicycle shudders and jams. One glance later, I saw that my chain had come off. Oh nuts. Signaled everyone else to go ahead as I did some makeshift fixing. The oil stains are still on my hands as I write this post, in those ridges between your nails you just can't reach with soap. Lucky for me, Devi was there and she had hand sanitizers! :D
We press on!
Watch out for these little critters! First time I've seen either sign. Mind you, I was fascinated enough to stop and take pictures of both. Frankly, I'm just very easily.. Fascinated. Heh. :D
*pedal pedal pedal* Have I ever mentioned how much of a pain it is to cycle up an incline, or up a hill? Even in low gear, it's a physically exhausting fatigue-inducing task.
After the river station, we were directed towards the dam. By that, I mean those large man-made structures made to impede and divert the flow of water in order to harness electricity through nature. You catch my drift? The only thing was the station was ALL THE WAY AT THE END OF THE PATH. It was horrible to cycle all the way there, by now my butt already started to hurt from the ever so comfortable seats. It was a far cry from my own bicycle at home. It's times like these I wish I had my personal bicycle.
After what seemed like forever, we finally reached the place. We were rather taken aback when we read the instruction sheet saying "You may get wet" and when other participants mentioned "blindfolded".
Turns out those were 2 seperate stations. One was to walk across an array of platforms that divided what seemed to be a pen for fish rearing (I'm not sure about the actual terms to use), which were more than wide enough to fit me. The catch was that you had to make a turn every time you reached a crossroad. Simple enough though. It also only required 2 of us to play it.
The following one was a bit harder, it involves 3 people (the previous 2 are not allowed to take part). 3 people were to play the roles of the "Eye", "Mouth" and "Blind". The eye could see the blind but the mouth could not. The blind had to make his or her way towards some steps from a nearby hut (blindfolded of course). The eyes can only see but cannot speak, and the mouth has to face the eye at all times, meaning the mouth's back is to the blind. Only the mouth can well.. shout out instructions on how to proceed. The nature of the task really requires one to exhibit teamwork.
Well, you can pretty much guess which role I found myself in. Well, I made a mental note of the path before starting just in case. Right before we started, I got spun around in circles. BAHHH. Then people spoke, easy enough to redirect myself from where their voices came through relative positioning.
Yes I am well aware that I have an odd manner of typing out my words sometime.
Halfway down the path, I heard a "STOP!" from the side. It was actually pretty hard to listen to your teammates as the 'mouth' didn't actually face you, so whatever commands that came out were voiced in the opposite direction. I immediately froze, and waited for what to do next. I reached out instinctively and sure enough, my team had just prevented me from walking facefirst into a tree. Mental imagery fail.
DO ZE ZOMBIE *hop hop hop*
The only good thing about having a station at the very end of the path? The only way to move from there was back. Which was exactly where we went, back down the path we came. Only this time..
More bike problems! This time it was one of my teammate's bicycle. The plate-like thing separating the gears from the wheel just got splintered, and broke off, taking out the gear with it.
Another 5 minutes setback.
Our next station, loved the architecture of it. Though we weren't actually in it, just beside it where we were supposed to climb ropes and stuff. Just some physical stuff. So long as you touch the beam at the top it counts. Being tall and having long arms ftw. :D
Ze station of plants came next.
Definitely the most tedious task among the 10 stations we had to go through. Each team was to decipher a clue that described a plant, and figure out which plant it was before taking a picture of it and showing it to their respective coordinators.
I have no idea how we managed to get this one.
By now, I was deadbeat tired. Just cycled for fun at this point, the flame of competition has died out. Might as well enjoy every moment of the race while it lasted. After all, it's not everyday you get to do things like this. :D
Our road then brought us to this place, Menara Pandang Jauh. Literally translated into Tower See Far. LOL. Anyways, we were supposed to count the number of steps that ran along it's structure. As I counted and recounted going up and down, I managed to get different figures and my mind flashed towards a scene in "Twilight Town". Fellow KH2 fans would know what I'm talking about.
Anyways it was 59. Did I ever mention how I disliked heights?
Photo time! Red Team! Devi, me, Sin Nah, Tze Mei, Jia, EeMay, and LouRene. Our coordinator, Matthias, is the dude in the mushroom. Hahaha.
Final station!!
Just had to count these little critters. Darn they're cute. :D
That concluded the day. Like how it was before we started off, the rain began to pour as we came to a close. Didn't make the top 3 spots but we thoroughly enjoyed the day. It's been really fun to have participated, meeting new people and old friends alike.
In line with every event, the end always call for a photoshoot session!
Monash-ians!
And everybody else. This picture made me realize how many people actually took part that day. That's a pretty big number, seeing how small everyone looked in this picture. Heh.
All in all, it was a good day. :)) I'm looking forward to more events like this. For now though, it's time to sink into the holiday persona again, and turn into a sloth.
Kinoc, signing out.
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