Monday, July 10, 2006
Today I will wrote about the reason why I haven’t been writing for the past month or so. I know it’s the holidays and you expect that a lot of stuff happens during holidays, more than term time at any rate. Yes. True. I’ve just been so preoccupied by stuff that I haven’t had time to write about it.
My blog isn’t even one of those that people read for deep and interesting and well thought out arguments or fully developed theses about life, the universe, and everything. Its one of those that people read to amuse themselves by my silly exploits and extreme good luck (how many times have I lost my wallet?) or to update themselves about my life. In other words, it’s probably interesting only to those who know me. Therefore if you already know me you will probably already know what I busy my little self with. Therefore I am tempted to conclude that this post is unnecessary and terminate it here.
But anyway. I feel like blogging about camp. So you’re just going to have to indulge me.
USC FOC abbreviates University Scholars Club Freshman Orientation Camp. FOCs. We all know what those are. I had great fun at mine, and I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that this year’s will be at least as good. I think I’ve sold my soul for camp. I’ve had fights with my parents AND boyfriend/domineering Boss about camp related stuff. I’ve forgone a perfectly good and nicely-paying holiday job because I needed the time. I misplaced my social life somewhere along the line. I’m tired.
What sane soul would want to spend a perfectly good 3 months worth of slack time in meeting after meeting after saikang work after meeting? It doesn’t make sense, even to me, but nevermind how it happened, there are (at least) 6 of us who for better or worse fall in the above category, and we’re sticking it through to the end. Forget the fact that we’re all overworked and underslept and thoroughly sick of the Pacific Coffee at Citylink, and that we have a week left to go and everyone’s just rushing for time.
We’re doing it and the end is near.
If you’re a camp-planning virgin, I can assure you that a 6-person committee is MINISCULE. We’re not a 6-person committee of specialized planners or saikang warriors. We’re a 6-person committee of planners moneycollectors photographers gameplanners excelsheetcreators secretaries doers thinkers scriptwriters filmproducers phonecallmakers everything all in one. USP (uni scholars programme all say we’re not scholars!) is a tiny faculty. We’re as small as say, medicine or law. BUT while doctors and lawyers get to devote their entire lives to their home faculties, USP-ers (yes I refuse to call us scholars!) divide their time between USP and their home faculty, like arts or whatever. And since we’re small to begin with we end up never having enough people to do stuff. I mean, think about it…6 people would be the size of some obscure sub sub committee in Arts. But on the other hand, USP’s smallness makes it somehow nice. Arts camp had OGs with 40 odd people in them. We have weeny OGs with maybe 12 people. Its nice to be able to get to know everyone personally.I think I like the people here. Uni life just wouldn’t be the same without the bunch of crazy people I know (pals. frogs. whatever you may call them). As a matter of fact our camp com is totally nepotistic. We signed up as one massive bunch. We are first and foremost friends. We just happen to work together. In idealistic moments I like to imagine that because we all met through orientation (more or less) and PGP and because we all love each other so much, we all decided to embark on a shared mission to spread the love and propagate the friendships we formed in USP to the freshies. Oooh feel the love!
*dances around tossing flower petals and flashing a peace sign while John Lennon plays in the background*
I probably sound silly. But it must be true to some degree that to get a faculty to bond as a faculty there is essentially no other way to work other than the bottom up. Especially if it’s a small faculty like ours. People as a general rule do not feel sudden urges to declare undying love for an organization. They do, however, tend to form bonds with people that they share something in common with. The main reason I’m so attached to USP is because most of my closest(ish) uni friends are here. I’ve no impetus to move my affections elsewhere.
(Gosh.Tthat was a weird sentence!)
But in any case. I’m happy with how I spent my hols, and it’s been a (gut-wrenching hair raising heartbreaking) experience. Kudos to all the nice com people who’ve worked so hard on this. To quote Jae, the weirdest thing about the camp so far is how people are fighting to get more work given to them because they think everyone else is doing too much work. Dominic thinks I work too hard. I think Dominic works too hard. Aileen thinks SzeHan is overworked. SzeHan insists that he’s doing Ok. And Jaesson can’t find enough stuff for us all to do.
Surreal but true. Such are the days of our lives
I love Jaesson Dominic Aileen Victoria Szehan.
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