~.*Credo in Deum, patrem omnipotentem, creatorem caeli et terra*.~

Saturday, June 11, 2005

*[[ YOUTH FORUM 2005 ]]*

Youth Project 2005 rawks! The last three days had been really fun, especially the visit to Raffles Museum, mass games, and the outing on the last night! =) haha, oops. I realise that the 3 things I mentioned above are all the fun segments, and not the main part of the forum, but it is these things that hype up the mood of the forum =p

Day One was quite disappointing actually, because the discussions were extremely unfruitful. Basically we just stared at each other the entire time in the classroom listening to the fans, and waiting for the day to end. Veronica, RenYi and I were the facilitators of the participants in E4, and I'm really thankful that I had Veronica and RenYi with me coz I knew I couldn't handle such a situation myself. When we asked a question, no one would respond until we started calling names - which was a last resort to "breaking the silence". But even when there was a response, some people would just give a one-worded answer, which wasn't very encouraging to us, as facilitators. Well, I have to thank Sherene, KangJie and Benjamin for speaking up the most and contributing most sensibly. Hai~ Many of them were looking dao1 and bored. I don't know if it's because it's just the participants' lack of interest, or the facilitators' faults. When we asked, KangJie was the only one who chose to enter the environment subcomm on his own accord. The rest were forced into it, so I guess that explains their attitudes. =(

DAY TWO started off with me being ridiculously absent-minded coz I took the train to SIMEI when it was supposed to be CLEMENTI. So while I was "supposed" to be early and reach Clementi at 7.45am, it became 8.40am coz I had to travel backwards again. Goodness gracious! I spent the entire morning just riding the MRT for over 30 stops. Hai~So embarrassing. I guess I took for granted the fact that I was early and assumed totally that I would arrive at Clementi without checking which direction I was taking to. So I happily sat in the train reading the materials I had, in order to prepare myself for a more fruitful discussion today.
Hm, so anyway I waited for the rest at NUS canteen, while they were at the Ulu Pandan Incineration Plant. Yeah, when we finally got to the Raffles Museum, I was rather taken aback to find out the wide diversity of species that Singapore and the South-East Asia (SEA) region has. The works of the taxidermists were considerably impressive, and many of the stuffed animals (with real skins) looked very real. The guided tour around the museum which has been greatly expanded over the past few years was very enlightening, and I think the guides (from the "TobbyCats" I think) are very inspiring with their countless fascinating stories which I don't think I'll be able to hear eslewhere!
We returned to school thereafter for 3 talks - the first by LiewQi's 17-year-old cousin, Lim Jun Ying, from the GVN (Green Volunteers Network) and NJC's Green Club, the second by Ms Ng Sock Ling from NPARKS, and the last by SEMPCORP. haha I think many people got restless and bored after a while...but overall it was interesting to hear their experiences... I think I enjoyed the numerous photos which they showed us, and the multimedia presentation. =) It gave us a little more help for the discussions later as well.
We finally managed to get a focus area for our group - ENERGY CONSERVATION, which we thought was much more important than the 3Rs because it was a more urgent international phenomenon which we had to work on. In Singapore, as Tim feels, the implementation of the 3Rs is already considered quite successful compared to some other countries. However, energy usage is something which directly affects the whole world at the same time. Anyway we got started on the FEEDBACK PAPER. I thought that Tim did a very impressive job. WELL DONE! haha I really appreciate any effort made...Zhan Wang and Kang Jie also contributed to the Feedback Paper... which I compiled late into the night (or rather early in the morning). Gosh. One person I must really thank is Kang Jie. I think he's the most committed and responsible person in Group E4. Yeah thanks for staying up till 2am to work on the proposal. It really lightened our workload the following day. THANK YOU AGAIN!!! =D

oh yes I musn't forget our mass games~! haha...We had a hell of a time throwing (and pouring?) flour and water over each other. HAHAH. Margaret was the most tortured! *evil laughter* hahah..then there were the 4 HCI guys (Mark, Shi Wei, Kang Jie, Xuan Yi) + their beloved Catholic High guy (Jun Yong) who caused so much havoc. ok,erm some playful facilitators MeiLing, Margaret, RenYi, YaWen, and I just lost ourselves and joined in the fun. ahahha. I feel quite guilty la. The entire carpark was covered with hardened flour in the process - It's such pressure on the LOG comm. =p OK BUT WHAT FUN WOULD IT BE WITHOUT THIS? ahaha... I thought it was very amusing to see Environment Subcomm being the most "flour-filled"..and that the UWC people were LITERALLY CLEAN! hahaha. ok oops. =X I thought that only the UWC people were very playful, but it turns out that in times of FUN, we get too carried away and our playful is revealed. =p ok well, at least we all stayed back to clean up, including the guys. Ya we give 5 of you credit for that. HEHH. =D

DAY THREE
I was surviving on only 2 hours of sleep today after completing the proposal and feedpaper paper last night/this morning. *yawns* ok it was quite difficult working on the proposal in a large group..not v fruitful again, but still managed to get things done with the help of KangJie, Sherene and Benjamin. LOL. (always the same few people.)
Hm, as for the feedback paper, everyone was very impressed by it. (haha, ya probably impressed by the length, but duno about the content. =p) Anyway E4's feedback paper got chosen as the best...which was unexpected haha. Our proposal got chosen as the second best. AHAHHA. I thought that it was the biggest joke in the world lar coz our group didn't deserve that. Only a few people put in their genuine effort. oh well... but looking at this from a different perspective, that "few people", esp KangJie, deserve a big pat on their backs!!
Concert was fun! But we screwed it up quite a bit compared to the rest of the sub-committees..lol. Luckily we did an impromptu on stage of singing "tong2 hua4"...haha. ok nvm nevertheless it was fun la! And the Log Committee's dance rocked! Almost every one of them seem to have a real talent for dancing!!
Anyway our day ended only at 12midnight. I don't think I'll ever forget that night. First and foremost I must say that I'm very touched by Mark, KangJie,XuanYi, and JunYong who got each facilitator a present each. The gift I got was a flying horse/unicorn in block of glass..I think it's a very beautiful gift! ok but no matter what gift it was, I think it was very sweet of them to even give us something. Frankly, I didn't expect anything from them...goodness... and they even wrote us a card.... Ahhh. Yeah ok maybe "Environment" may not be a very impressive subcomm..but we have such loving members =p *Awww...* =p ahahh. =D IT'S SO SWEET OF THEM! hahah. I feel so pampered...
After we had dinner at Cineleisure, we wanted to watch a movie, but we figured that it was more worth (the time and money) sitting around together and talk. =) So we sat around in TAKA eating Venezia ice-cream and got fed with a large dose of jokes by our famous joker, Eunice TOK...(no wonder she TOKs so much - she really lives up to her name.) haha...ya we had a great time laughing over really lame jokes. But while it was getting late we started sharing a few porn jokes and freaky stories (or rather "story" coz we didn't want to hear anymore after YaWen told hers). =p hahah.

I'm still feeling very HIGH after this youth forum =p Although Youth Project '05 has ended, I hope that our friendships forged during this short period of 3 days will continue like a circle that never ends. I feel very elated and satisfied that I had participated in the forum. Although the preparations were quite time-consuming, everything paid off very well. heh, THANK YOU Environment Subcomm for hyping up my busy life with these three days of joy. =D Life's more meaningful this way too =)

~.*hUiYiNg*.~ says Amen. @ | Saturday, June 11, 2005

~.* Jesus is LOVE *.~