{ Thursday, August 09, 2007 } 4:28 PM

Orientation Night Walk

Ok, my "tomorrow" is indeed not tomorrow. More of, a couple of days later.

Night walk. Ok, I remember the guy's name. Sim Kwang Han. Ok, so we were paired up and then we were the first pair to go. And because I was to go home after the wall, I carried my bag along. Then we found out that one of us was to be blindfolded. I didn't mind, of course, but I can't possibly volunteer myself. So Kwang Han opened his mouth, "Do you mind being blindfolded?"

Ok, so it was decided that I was to be the one. They then blindfolded me with a strip of garbage bag. So who will hold my bag? Kwang Han! LOL. His expression was kind of weird, but he didn't grumble it out loud. LOL.

So erm, he held my hand and guided me into the lift. We were supposed to go to the fifth floor. Initially, I didn't trust him. Like, I have seen chairs and tables around NUS and I was afraid of knocking into them. So I walked pretty slowly. I think KH wanted to finish it within 5 minutes (because the gamemasters hoped to see if it was possible to finish it within 5 minutes and decided to test it on us) and so he reassured me that it was open space and that I would not knock into any pillar or whatsoever.

Ok, so the first station was to make me throw a ping pong ball into a pail. Ok, I was entitled to 10 tries. So I held the ball, and positioned to throw.

Me: "How hard do you want me to throw?"
KH: "No need to be so hard. I think the pail is around 3 to 5 metres away only."

So I threw with moderate force. I heard the ball bounce on the floor twice and thought to myself, "How can I ever throw it in?" and I think everyone expected it not to enter the pail. So one of the gamemasters was about to hand me another ball when another cried, "It's in!"

Ok... So I heard some excitement and phrases like "A good head start" and such. I couldn't believe it myself if not for the sound of the ball dropping into the pail and rolling around the base. So KH led me to the end of the corridor where another guide said to climb down to the first floor. Via the stairs. I was like, what???? How long is that going to take man? KH thought the same thing too and so we decided to go down using the lift.

Then we walked on a patch of grass. So I am supposed to find 5 candles hiding in some bushes with him guiding me. Yeah, he gave excellent instructions. Haha. I didn't know that all 5 items were candles. I thought they were different objects. Nobody told me anything. So while feeling around for the second item, I felt something hard and shell-like and picked it up. No, it wasn't. I dropped it back onto the grass and felt the candle. Realising that it was a shell-like thing, I asked, "Was that a snail?" KH and those who could see laughed nervously.

Oh my. Then the 4th candle was hidden somewhat deep in. So KH offered to hold away the bushes while I felt around. I couldn't reach it still. KH told me to reach in 20 cm more. I was like, "TWENTY CM?" LOL. KH was like, "Er, just reach in." So I got it.

Then we had to walk through a carpark. So a car was like, coming head-on. KH told me to stand to the left and man, I could feel the car driving past me. LOL.

There were a couple of stations but I couldn't really remember. Climbing stairs was easy, (KH thought of the way of telling me to knock my feet against the steps, LOL) and the tough part was to climb down the stairs. But at the candles station, they mistakenly told me to remove my blindfold. So when I tried to cover my eyes, I could see a little of my feet and hence, climbing down the stairs was... Ok, I cheated a little. LOL.

Yeah then one station was at the canteen. Supposed to look for a table with a chipped tile on it. I missed it! As in, I didn't know there was a table behind that huge pillar. Yeah... That station was boring.

In another station, they told me and KH to solve some Sudoku puzzle. Man, by that time, our minds were dead! But I solved most, haha.

One last station was when we were both blindfolded. So the gamemasters were the ones leading us both. Mine made me walk on some bench. WTH. I almost fell 'cos the height between each bench was quite high. Then they made me reach into a pail of water (and some cooked vegetables and plastic Nutella container and whatever rubbish) to look for a stone. Man, I could smell the cooking oil. Kinda disgusting. Then I found it and they told me to drop it back into the pail.

Gamemaster: Ok, give me your hand.
So I reached out the one which was wet from the pail.
Gamemaster: Not, not this one! The other one.

LOL. Then he made me sit on some ramp. Soon after, KH sat beside me. They told me to bite onto some stick (turned out to be a stick of Pocky, strawberry flavoured). I was like, "Where's the stick?" Someone fed me that Pocky and kept telling me not to bite it and break it.

So I was told to turn my head to the right and face KH. I held my head higher so that KH can "hold on to" the other end of that Pocky in his mouth. Guess what? Move down the ramp together and make sure that the Pocky doesn't break nor leave our mouths. So we moved down slowly... I was sure I heard that Pocky break. But it didn't.. I think it broke in his mouth instead. Somehow, the ramp was getting narrower. I couldn't move down and was pressed against the railing. I tried to communicate with KH through muffled sentences.

Me: The ramp is getting narrower.
KH: What? Continue moving.
Me: I can't!
KH: Why?
Me: The ramp.. No space!!

Ok, so it turned out that KH wasn't moving vertically downwards... More of, towards my side and downwards. The gamemasters told him to move to the right and gave me more space. Then we were told to finish the Pocky. Yeah, so we completed the task.

Then KH got to un-blindfold himself while I was to be led to the bus-stop not seeing anything still. Then I got un-blindfolded at the bus stop. Actually, if I didn't have to leave, we would be stationed at some LT at SoC... Wonder what they did. So KH handed my bag over and I waited for my bus while they set down to work.

Only at the bus stop did I realise how dirty my palms were. I think it was from moving down the ramp. No water or whatsoever around, so I used water from my bottle. The night walk was quite fun, but actually it was pretty easy to walk around blindfolded 'cos I was closing my eyes (literally sleeping?!) and trusted KH to lead me along.

I didn't go for day 2 of orientation because they were having flag day from 7 am to 5 pm... They didn't think it made sense for me to come down to NUS to play games at 5 and then leave at 8. Yeah, so I slacked at home! Haha.