Editor's note: This post has undergone minor changes since it was first posted.

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Quote of the Post: "Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian." - Lee Simonson

Random Playlist Song: Prokofiev - Toccata Op. 11

Toccata is the most tolerable piano work of Prokofiev's that I've heard. There's actually a vaguely discernable theme, though it only appears thrice, and briefly at that. Comparing his symphonies and piano concertos with his works for solo piano, the difference is apparent - the former sound like random notes strung together, but at least they don't sound bad per se, while the latter sound like someone is banging randomly on a piano.

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Orientation camps are an excuse for everyone to indulge in acts mass stupidity, for by humiliating yourself together with everyone, inhibitions and barriers are broken down and friends are more easily made (NB: There is nothing wrong with engaging in juvenile acts, but one does not need to have the excuse of a camp to do so). Orientation camps are mostly similar, but I hadn't been to one since J1, and that wasn't a residential one, so I wanted to break the monotony of bumming, have fun, soak in some atmosphere and of course make the observations which I am now throwing into the public domain.

I was actually eyeballing 2 other orientation camps - the Arts and the Union ones, but I gave the former a miss because it started the day after I returned from Tasmania, and a source - the incomparable Critic 1 - informed me that the latter involved much running, and was 5 days long too, so running not being my cup of tea, I declined to attend that one too. In any case, orientation camps mostly follow the same format and have a similar itinerary, except that ODAC ones involve mostly outdoor activities like hiking and canoeing, and religious camps naturally have a religious component, so there's no point going for too many. I heard that the former was palpably more fun than the USP camp, though, except for the night when they played disco music overly-loudly. Not surprising, really.

One of the eternal mysteries of life is why post-NS guys are reluctant to go for orientation camps. This is not just based on my observations and informal surveys of NS friends (maybe I hang out with an anti-social bunch, since so few of them went for the camps) - I am told by one Union Camp organiser that historically, most camp participants are girls. One would think that, having been deprived of the company of attractive (or otherwise) females for the greater part of 2 1/2 years, they would be leaping at the chance to ogle at younger girls in wet T-shirts and grope them in various games mandating guy-girl interaction. There must be other extenuating factors militating against the boost NS gives to their libido. Perhaps they feel poor after losing their slave pittances, but retain the extravagant spending habits they picked up as slaves. Possibly in previous years some hadn't ORDed yet, but they did have leave and days off, and that still cannot account of all of the shortfall. Maybe it is just the drain of vitality, energy and motivation that slavery engenders.

In boys schools, orientation camps tend to be a more torturous experience, involving seniors unleashing their frustrations on their juniors, and perpetuating a vicious circle of torture. Also, there is a touted element of "male bonding", which inevitably involves rolling in mud or dust while being screamed at. However, the tale we will hear today is a happier one, for activities involving females can never be too intense, for reasons that I do not feel like expounding on.


The NUS USP Orientation Camp I went to was held at Costa Sands Pasir Ris, and not the NUS hostels as most other camps were. Though this limited the length of the camp (due to budgetary constraints), it allowed more interaction, since people didn't have personal rooms to retreat to.

THe camp was called "Kinigi", which we were told is the Greek word for game (actually, it means "hunt"), and nebulous associations with the Olympics were conjured up, but the only things Greek about it were the names of the Orientation Groups (OGs) and plots of most of the skits which ended the camp. Usually when camps have themes, said themes will be loosely woven into a storyline: there will be stories behind the various station games, for example, like how the group's crossing of an imaginary river represents their overcoming of an obstacle in their quest to reach the Holy Mountain. This was strangely absent during the camp.

Day 1

I was in the OG "Corinth" and the others were Argos, Athens, Delphi, Olympia, Sikyon (frankly, I'd never heard of Sikyon, so now I am suitably chastened and most aware of the depth of my ignorance), Sparta and Thebes (which almost no one could pronounce correctly). My OG had been assigned the "gods" Periander and Poseidon (incidentally we were the only ones assigned 2 "gods"). Now, I'd never heard of the former, but it seems he was one of the tyrants of Corinth, so calling him a god would be a very far stretch. Sparta was assigned the "goddess" Helen (presumably of Troy), Sikyon got Prometheus (he was a Titan, but I'm feeling benevolent) and Thebes had Asopus (couldn't they have found someone less wimpy than a mere river god?!). Unforgivably, Apollo got Argos, not Delphi, and Delphi was assigned "Hellas" (perhaps they meant Helles, who fell off the Golden Ram) - something is rotten in the state of Greece.

Our OG had 9 freshmen - 4 guys and 5 girls, and 6 seniors, one of which was PaRaDoX [!@#$%^&*()]. Obviously, not everyone could sleep in the small air-conditioned bedroom on the second floor, even discounting the seniors. No prizes for guessing which gender got the bedroom on the first night and which got to sleep on the floor, and no prizes for guessing if there was a swap on the second night.

The camp program started out with the obligatory ice-breakers. Unusually, I managed the game where you have to name everyone in the circle, appending the adjective (the first letter of which is the same as the first letter of their names) they choose to describe themselves with to theirnames. For example, I chose "Gregarious Gabriel" - though that's not totally accurate, especially not when I'm in large groups of unfamiliar people, it beats "Gay", and someone, short of adjectives, called herself "Horrible". I also played Polar Bear for possibly the first time (somehow, I'd only played Murderer before).

The next activity was coming up with cheers. There's no point making up new cheers, really, for cheers are all in the public domain, and other groups are liable to steal yours (as ours were later). After that we dressed a mascot up for the parade later. I got the task of making a beard, and spray-painting Poseidon's beard, crown and trident, but I forgot to take off my watch so it has golden specks on it now. Oh, and I inhaled no small amount of spray-paint. I'm sure that can't be good for health. After my task was done, I left for my Basic Theory test (yes! After so many calamities, it is finally over and done with) so I missed the parade of mascots, Night Games and the first of the activities involving cross-gender interaction - the Secret Pal pairup.

Now, the Secret Pal game involved everyone being blindfolded and then seated beside someone else from another OG (of the other gender, naturally). They then had a short chat, were given nicknames (eg Princess Peach and Super Mario, Aragorn and Arwen, Popeye and Olive, Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nu, Harry Potter and Hermione and worst of all, Mona Lisa and Leonardo Da Vinci [!@#$%^&*()]. There was also Sylvester and Tweety, but I'm not I want to consider the implications of that pairing). They then had to write 2 letters or notes to each other in the next 24 hours before their next meeting (this time sans blindfold).

Anyhow, after I returned and the Night Games ended, PaRaDoX led everyone (except one, who had fallen asleep) to a nearby coffeeshop to eat Bak Chor Mee (minced meat noodles), and we returned to the chalet sometime past 2am, and slept.


Coincidentally, there were some ex-42SAR workshop people at a chalet opposite, and seeing the USP banner, they made some remarks about me being a "scholar" (...) Actually, that deserves more ellipses. (.........)

Day 2

We awoke to rain. Happily, this meant we could sleep in instead of playing a "Mass Participation Game". After a breakfast of Nasi Lemak, the others started playing the dumb pattern-recognition games (think 'Petals Around The Rose' and 'Black Magic') that I'd first encountered in J1, most of which I had never gotten and all of which I'd never liked. They later moved on to the game where one person poses a scenario which the others have to guess by asking questions to which the answers can only be "yes" or "no", and I was more enthusiastic about this, even contributing a scenario of my own (though some didn't think it was a very realistic one). I think that there aren't many of these scenarios, though, since of the 3 that others posed, I'd heard of 2 (Romeo and Juliet being found dead in a pool of water with glass shards around them and the man being found dead with glass shards around him in the middle of some scorched trees). The one of the man eating penguin meat and then shooting himself was new, though.

We then had station games around the resort. Some games were tried and tested (squeezing people onto a poncho) but some were new, or variations on old themes: forming words by giving each person 2 letters on cardboard linked by raffia - one hanging in front and one behind, forming a human train with each person holding up a balloon by pressing his chest to the back of the one in front of him (I cheated a bit by pressing my arms together instead) and then traversing various obstacles and one called "Baby In The Air", a Dog-and-Bone variant where the person catching bone would take 3 steps and then throw it at the lower legs of someone other than his counterpart; I scored 3 points for the OG in this, maybe because I didn't run fast (and thus far) enough and people thought I was a bigger target. We were fortunate, for at the last station we were scheduled at, we were just behind another group, so when the station master suddenly threw a bucket of water and a plate of flour at that other group, all our members but one escaped unscathed; it seems previous groups engaged in some game with guy-girl interaction, but maybe the station master had gotten bored after making 6 groups play that game.

After lunch we had beach games, and whenever there are beach games, you know that there are going to be sea games. One of them was Captain's Ball in the water. The twist was that the goal had to be a girl, and of course there were no chairs for them to stand on, so they got guys to be human chairs. I was picked to support my team's goal for what was probably the better part of 3 minutes, but felt more like 10, and my back was sore for a time after that. Another was the Limbo Rock, where the station mistress made us sing the Limbo Rock ditty (doh!), and where I managed to sort-of cheat my way under the pole. A third original (or relativly original - maybe I haven't been to enough orientations) game was Table Soccer, with a grass patch replacing the table, raffia on the ground the poles and humans the figurines. There was also Dog and Bone. This would not merit comment, except that I had the same number as one of the taller girls from the other group, and when we both went out, she said it was "very scary". Looks like the Big Friendly Giant image isn't being properly projected.

After everyone had washed up, there was the Secret Pal Revelation. Most people being bright sparks, they had long ago figured out the identities of their Secret Pals, but there was a semi-formal ceremony where the male (...) entered the chalet, announced his nickname and real name and then attempted to identify his secret pal. Some looked inquisitively at me as I entered without announcing anything. Maybe I should have said: "My nickname is Agagooga and I have no secret pal!"

I still feel too anti-social (or introverted, if you prefer) to mingle freely in large crowds, so the barbeque that followed was slightly uncomfortable. Though PaRaDoX BBQed some good satay.

As the barbeque was dying down, most of us played a game of Indian Poker, but with water instead of alcohol. Basically, everyone drew a card and placed it on his forehead so everyone but he could see it. Each person in turn had the choice of changing his card or staying his hand, and the persons with the lowest and highest cards had to drink, with the amount being drunk increasing with each time he lost - 1 of the small white plastic cups the first time, 2 the second, 4 the third and so on. At first, the others wanted the forfeit for girls to be reset after 4 cups, and guys after the whole bottle (1.5l), but when I hit what was to be 8 cups, they decided to reduce it to half the bottle (5-6 cups). In the end, I ended up drinking slightly more than one 1.5l bottle and another guy drank slightly less than 1 1/2 1.5l bottles. Our main OGL would have drunk the most, due to her unlucky hands, but we helped her greatly by advising her to change her cards, and once even let her change her card again when she got bad cards twice in a row. At the end of the session, slightly less than 10 of us (1 left towards the end, and another was out for a while to remove her contacts) drank 7 1.5l of water - good hydration for our island-wide games the next day!

It was then time for the preparation for our skit. This being a Greek-themed camp, it was decided to base the script on Greek mythology, as well as thread it around the themes of jealousy, divine intervention and war (?) which we had chosen by pickig cards at random. Not wishing to engage in the wilful murder of Greek mythology for our own ends with plenty of corniness, campiness and crappiness, I declined to contribute ideas for the script. Lachesis was unkind to me, unfortunately, and I got cast as a lustful Poseidon opposite a friend of Geraldine's as a bimbotic Athena. In the skit, I was to pursue Athena, who was pre-occupied with her city of Athens. In a fit of jealousy, I would then order Athens to be razed, and a war of ten months would then rage, only for Zeus to interrupt our petty squabbling, us reacting like petulant children, and Zeus dictating that the conflict be settled via a Talentime contest. Yes, I deserve to have the Furies hounding me for the rest of my natural life, but we all must make sacrifices for our OGs! Oh, and I got to utter the phrase, "Come forth, my minions!" with an outstretched hand.

Some time later, I found a corpse in our chalet, sprawled on the floor, with its head resting on a mattress. The corpse was in a most inconvenient position, making it hard for the rest of us to lie down, so after wondering, "What shall we do with this corpse?", I had to bulldoze it across half the room, but it didn't stir. Half a bottle of Chivas Regal and PaRaDoX make for a killer combination (luckily I missed the vomit in the sink).


Oddly, though sea water is supposed to dry the hair, when I ran my hands through my hair after our soak(s) in the sea, they felt softer. Whether it was the hair or my skin that was softer, I don't know.

Infuriatingly, army terminology was used during the camp. Our wake-up time was dubbed "reveille", the camp was described as "stay-in", people were asked to "fall-in" and there was a "luggage party" and "packets". Gah.

People commented that I was mild-mannered to everyone but I was very fierce to PaRaDoX. Ah, what more can one do to rogues? ;) I know his tricks, and besides which I think he still owed me money until I recently let him default by default (since I didn't press him for the sum).

I had thought that all the stories of cockroaches going into people's ears and not coming out, so they had to have operations to remove them, were just urban legends, but someone in my OG had that happen to him before, and he needed 2 operations to remove the insect. Argh.

Many of the activities involving guy-girl interaction seem forced and contrived. Perhaps they seek to teach post-NS guys to unlearn the habit of objectifying women and treating them purely as sex objects. Or maybe it's just an excuse for everyone to grope and be groped and get their cheap thrills while calling it good, clean fun. Or possibly it's a governmental directive to support the SDU's efforts at nation-building.

Day 3

After a breakfast of Nasi lemak (gee, that sounds familiar) and packing up, it was time for the island-wide games ala Amazing Race, a most inspired activity, given that all NUS and NTU faculty and hall camps seemed to have them too. I propose that in future camps, inspiration should be gotten from other reality TV series: WWE, Fear Factor, or Temptation Island.

After White Sands, East Point and Bedok Hawker Centre, we had lunch in Bugis, which kind of broke our momentum. At Mos Burger, someone tried to pull off the "chilli sauce exothermic reaction" trick: one person will tell someone not in the know that mixing chilli sauce and tomato ketchup causes an exothermic reaction, and the accomplices will place their hands over the mixture and proclaim that they feel the heat. When the unwitting victim places his hand over the mixture, the perpetrator of the prank will smash his hand into the mixture. Now, A tried to do it on B, a girl, but since there was no ketchup, he used iced water. It seemed that only one other girl, C, knew of this trick. Maybe it is a boys school thing. Anyhow, when D, an accomplice, placed his hand over the mixture, C smashed his hand into it, thus saving B and foiling A's plot. (Luther tried this trick on me before. I knew what was going to happen, but played along, then when he smashed my hand into the mixture, I immediately swung my hand onto his shirt, giving him apparent bloodstains. Heh.)

The clue to our last stop was "Where the no spitting rule is violated", the answer being the Merlion near the Esplanade. Being fifth in the rankings before the Amazing Race, we decided to try to adhere to our motto of "we are relaxed" by walking from Bugis to the Merlion instead of taking the MRT or running. But when we were halway across the bridge, we realised that the clue was deceptive and the real checkpoint was located beside the Esplanade and were infuriated. After taking a picture at that last checkpoint, we decided to treat ourselves to a taxi ride back to NUS, where we were the second group back.

After some rest, we returned to working on the skit, and then it was time for the performances.

A girl in one group wore a laudable imitation of the front part of a chiton, albeit only the bottom half of one, with the top half looking more like a toga, since it didn't cover one shoulder.

Another group presented what I felt was the best of the 4 skits - an adaption of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, except that in this skit Oedipus was abandoned due to his being born with a tail, he grew up in a community of women which he left after a manly woman tried to court him, there being a fairy godmother who promised to remove his tail if he killed the king, said godmother later promising him firmer buttocks if he killed the queen, and his refusal, leading the fairy godmother to reveal the truth of his ancestry, his killing of the fairy godmother and his mother, his tail returning after the fairy godmother's death due to her magic dissipating and his dying after being suffocated by his tail.

The last group, given the theme "myth and legend", "psychosis" and one other, went on to present the only skit not involving elements from Greek mythology, but instead being a melange of the X-files, Dracula, Swear Bears (Care Bears who swear), King Arthur and Smurfs. How ironic.

After the skits, someone tried to promote Rag to us (ie compell us to join in), we watched a slideshow of pictures from the camp and finally, prizes were given out. Each group got a prize hamper, but oddly, "consolation prizes" for the most sporting group, the most spontaneous group and the like were given out before the prizes for the top 3 groups. This necessitates the question: what if the group that got third place overall was actually the most spontaneous group? Or if the group that got the first prize was also the most sporting?

Anyhow, we were wondering which consolation prize we would receive, since we were 5th before the Amazing Race started and we tried to adopt a philosophy of "We are relaxed" and "you3 qing2 di4 yi1, bi3 sai4 di4 er4" (Translation: Friendship first, competition second) during the camp, so we were stunned when we got first!


We got a survey form and one part asked us about the friendliness of our OGLs. Wth?!


Comments by others:


Respondent 1: 'frankly, i got quite sick of all the cheering. this is what happens when you're surrounded by 19 year old girls

usp camp proves to me the point that smart people are better conversationalists, but make up for it with a dearth in the looks department. am i courting controversy by saying that? hmmm

athena was cute.

my secret pal, mona lisa, thought i was leonardo di caprio and not leonardo da vinci. and she was from rjc.

orientation camps would be single-gender (guess which one) affairs if not for the poorly contrived games involving wet tshirts and grabbing of various body parts.'


Respondent 2: 'eh... seriously... the whole orientation sounds nothing short of a disaster to me... =P

i think its all one big forced interaction event where lan lan people have to go in a braver attempt to make some friends to "anchor" themselves into a social cliche before term starts.. lest they be left out in the frozen cold for the next 3 or 4 years

i think the whole greek mythology thing is over exploited by singaporeans when it comes to orientation... i know of one jc whose orientation revolved around "GREEKO GEEKO MYTHOLOGY" and whose student council president proudly proclaimed that "i wanted my juniors to have a better orientation than mine" In his valedictory speech...

no prizes for guessing which school... haha!

strangely.. maybe the reason why the guys are not heading for another "orientation camp" is becuase the word "camp" instantly kicks up gory images of green leafed vegation amidst rotting concrete buildings....unpalatable food and the three "S"s [Ed: Stupidity, Sadism and Senselessness]

anyway... i don't know why every orientation someone has to suggest that "we get the girl's t shirts wet"... damn... singapore society is really getting weirder...'


Respondent 3: "Well, can't tell for sure whether you had any fun or not ;), but hey, I made friends through making a big silly fool out of myself during such
freshman orientation camps, what with all the lame nonsensical games and cheers and the totally silly 'storyline'...

And I think many guys don't like to go for these camps because they are a) too poor b) just want to rest and relax at home after ORD c) too shy and/or socially inept after 2 years of slavery. =)

Either that or they would rather go and take part as a big group of friends, and if any of them are not keen, it is likely most wouldn't go as well."

Yes, I did have fun. And at least I haven't become that shy. No comment about socially aptitude, or lack thereof, especially since I never scored very high in that area ;)


Respondent 4: "Finished your blog. You are v diligent, but all those activities *shudder* are why I hate orientation activities.
PS: In the US, they don't waste time with that for univ orientations. They just cut ahead to socialising and getting drunk."

I don't mind going for 1 or 2 camps. It's good to be silly for a while - that's why I went ;)

Hahahahah


Respondent 5: "It would be much better if you can post this in your LJ. I am so not-used to Blogspot...

So how many girls did you grope?"

Mr theonion, who might you be?

LJ is evil :) Anyhow if you like LJ so much, I *did* make a teaser LJ post you can comment on.


Quotes:

Zeus sent Aphrodisiac down (Aphrodite)

thee bees (Thebes)

Poe say don (Poseidon)

[Me on Thebes] Yay, they pronounced the name of their OG properly

[On my apparent lunch time Mos Burger order of a small Coke and 3 snap-frizen strawberries] Is that all you're having?

[Quanxing: I thought when girls see [a] brownie, they [go]: "[High, ditzy voice] Brownie! Brownie!"] [Me:] When Quanxing sees Whiskey, he [goes]: *mimes drinking something, puking and collapsing face down, arms outstretched*

Air di piss (Oedipus)

[On Rag] Our main competitors are Law and Medicine, so all the elitist groups are going to fight it out.