The Opera Populaire

Yes, Jenn is trying hard to hold on to this promise in Psalm 23. Always get the jitters the night before the release of exam results. I must admit that I could have put in more effort in the sem, but it's too late to worry abt that now. Yeah I believe that God will see me thru and I accept watever results He gave me.

Let me write abt something else to take my mind off worrying abt results. NUS Red Cross had made up a large part of my life here.

I din join RC as a 1st choice. I had actually decided to be different and join a martial arts CCA. Kendo and Wushu were high on my list. I went with Yvonne Wang to Kendo, Wushu, Nan Hua Pai, and fencing welcome tea and the Combined Martial arts Display of that 1st yr 1st sem in NUS. I can't rem why I ended up not joining wushu, but I rem that I din join Kendo becos, as I told Wens before, the price of that gear is very, very ex! I went for a session of fencing but decided that it din interest me much. I wanted to join archery becos I had some background in it but they were so elitist to say that only those who made it to national team could join.

I went to RC welcome tea that din struck me as particularly well-planned or that it interested me much. Think I was a very mong cha cha gal back then, new to NUS and trying to forget certain unpleasant aspects of my JC days. Yeah so I joined RC. I met Stephen during e Welcome Tea, who was showcasing CPR. I can't believe now why back then he reminded me of my idol Vincent Ng, his voice and certain mannerism. Hahahaah...now that I know Stephen for longer, the impression no longer holds! Far from it! I mean, who can come close to Vincent in e first place? Hahahah...

Ok I got carried away :p Anyway I started taking part in lots of activities and got to know e ppl better. But these ties din bec strong till our FOC, which Kelvin chaired. He made me e Vice-Chairman. Eh this wasn't nepotism ok, we weren't tog or even close to likng each other yet then! Anyway, the committee met every Tue evenings. The sad thing was that nobody really had the expertise to execute and admin an FOC. Only someone, and one day, there was a stand-off btw 2 members of the committee as a result of a big disagreement. I won't elaborate exactly why cos it will take too long. I happened to be the only 1 unaware of the plan till the actual stand-off and so I think I was more impartial in judgement. I dun think it was too much to say that I was e 1 who helped defuse e conflict. The result was to bring me and Kelvin a step closer. I oso learnt conflict resolution, being the middleman.

It still amazed me how we, a rag-tag team without much experience and having gone thru so much disagreement which killed some of our morale, managed to pull off e FOC camp. Can anyone actually believe that at e start of the camp, we found out that the no. of facilitators outnumbered that freshmen by 10:1??? I was already shaking with fear b4 the camp and prayed that God just intervene in the way that only He could. I believe that God was faithful and He was pleased to answer my prayer. So, we made the facilitators be the participants as well. All of us had to take on last min neccessary tasks. I doubled up as emcee as well as game master at the last min. I screwed up my job asking Stephen to come to teach 1st aid; I won't say how and wat exactly was the result. I couldn't put in my all becos then, my poor bro was going thru a 2nd op for retinal detachment. I ran out halfway thru to see him, neglecting other tasks.

Thank God for some very experienced and good individuals like Chris, who helped execute games and songs tho he was not part of the FOC team. And praise God for Bee Khoon, who cooked for us in that dilapidated kitchen of the camp site, a former school. We oso must thank our good President of RC, YaoXiong, for being the perfect logistics officer. I remember his fren driving us out with the van to buy beef kway teow in Geylang for dinner.

The finale, our campfire, capped it all. I was the emcee with Stephen, holding a soup laddle as my "microphone". I think I have that pict, a scene that tickled ppl. Stephen showed off his "network", by calling a fren who was supposed to be a DJ to teach me how to do public speaking. Chris led with his suggestive jokes, so typical of him!

We had a very interesting prize presentation, suggested by Alex. We had a Durian award, Jackfruit award and some other fruit award. The objective was to give them to the ppl who fit the characteristics of the fruit perfectly! For e.g. Wee Su was the winner of the Durian award becos he got nan ren wei hahahaha! We oso had the Mr and Miss RC FOC. Our Poh Sham made very nice crowns and sceptres from some plants he got at the campsite...very very nice! The participants oso had to do a skit, which I want them to base on the life of Henry Dunant, the founder of RC. Supremely hilarious! For instance, Chris acted as e flirtatious Henry Dunant, away from public eyes. CPR is his fav 1st aid skill becos it allowed him to kiss gals! I laughed until peng, knowing my easily tickled nature.

We went home very happy, thoroughly enjoying e camp. Of course I took part in other activities as well. Did some public duties, blood donation drives etc. The ppl I got to know r e ones that occupied a large part of my time in hall, being e ones who visited me a great deal.