Date : 25-27 February 2011
Why do we go to schools, colleges, universities or learning institutions? Is it to study and get good results? Learn a trade? Meet people? My ex-principal once said, “Boys, you come to school to learn how to be human. We don’t want students who just know how to solve difficult problems, or know every formula in the text book, for then you’ll just be robots, processing what we feed you. No, you come to school to learn how to be humans.” By being humans he meant honing the social and personality aspect of a person, making them humans that are not socially awkward. The 35th INTIMA Council Camp did just that.
When I first stepped on that bus that was to take us to the camp venue, Awana Genting, I only knew about a handful of people on that bus. Everybody was still sticking to their comfort zones, not mingling around much. However, as soon as we reached Awana Genting and were separated into groups, it began, 3 days and 2 nights of laughter, joy and mindless fun.
The participants were separated into 6 groups, with 2 groups sharing a villa. Well I can’t speak for the other villas, but the people in my villa, crazy! After a round of what’s your name, programme and crap, it was like we knew each other for years. We were singing together, sharing dumb stories, and poking fun at each other. Talk about super glue bonding!!
Soon we were called out for some games the INTIMA committee had prepared for us. So we all headed out to the field for a game of Pass the Poison Parcel. Basically the game involved us passing a big paper ball to the music. When the music stopped the person holding it at the time had to tear out the top layer where there will be either a task (usually humiliating) or a reward (probably something they bought at the dollar store XD). Some of the tasks were, Dance like Michael Jackson, Propose to a guy/girl, Act like a bodybuilder and Act like Justin Bieber(Oh the HORROR!) The other game they prepared didn’t actually have a name, but involved a lot of running, chasing ALEX TAN, more running and tackling random guys.
Being a low budget camp, the INTIMA council cooked for us. So for the 1st night we had spaghetti which tasted strangely like porridge. After dinner, each team was told to come up with a team name, cheer and performances. My team choose the name Neon Beams due to the yellow neon lanyards that we had. Then after a lot of brainstorming and nonsense talking, we finally came up with a yell at 12.30am. What happened next was phenomenal. Imagine a bunch a people suddenly storming into your room in the middle of the night and shouting some incomprehensible gibberish straight to your face, for that was exactly what we did. Epic times.
The group performances were very entertaining. All the groups did something musically based, which songs involved throwing teams off mountains, catching grenades, jumping in front of trains and low hanging boobs??
After a round of laughter we started the barbeque. The barbeque produced it’s fill of smoke, fire and carbonated sausages. Overall we had fun time barbequing fishballs, sausages and wings. At one point there were so much leftover fishballs that someone actually suggested that we spray the balls white and dump them at the golf course.
The night then passed with a lot of talking, singing and dancing. There was this time when the song “Tong Hua” came up on the mp3 and everybody in the room suddenly started to sing along! Wow!
All good things have to come to and end and soon it was time to start packing and leave. Overall it was a wonderful camp, I made a lot of new friends and bonded really well with them. As one of my roommates said, “We came as strangers and now we’re leaving as family”. This year’s INTIMA camp really met it’s mark of bringing the members of the various clubs of INTI together. Kudos to the committees for a job well done. I will always remember this camp.
The night then passed with a lot of talking, singing and dancing. There was this time when the song “Tong Hua” came up on the mp3 and everybody in the room suddenly started to sing along! Wow!
All good things have to come to and end and soon it was time to start packing and leave. Overall it was a wonderful camp, I made a lot of new friends and bonded really well with them. As one of my roommates said, “We came as strangers and now we’re leaving as family”. This year’s INTIMA camp really met it’s mark of bringing the members of the various clubs of INTI together. Kudos to the committees for a job well done. I will always remember this camp.
