SIFE Regional Team Training 2011 (7 - 9th Jan)

though it was a hurried goodbye we had to say on the last day due to the delayed in schedule and our pre-booked genting express bus tickets (we actually had to arrange our own transport while most or all of them from other Universities have got their very own buses or vans there waiting for them! *jealous sial!*), everything that happened in that three days of training at Genting View resort was really, i mean really really memorable.

Day 1 

i remembered waking up very early that day to check on my luggages once more as i started packing quite late the night before and i really didn't wanna miss out on anything x) met up with the rest at One U after that to catch our bus at 10am. the journey there felt pretty short, and safe. since Jake brought a Rubiks cube along he taught me how to play, learned until the part where i can get one side of same colour and two rows of the same colour on each side! it's something already for a noob like me. btw, genting express buses are somehow always filled with uncle aunties heh. 

Rubik's cube!

as soon as we arrived at the Skyway Station, i called the genting view ppl for their shuttle van service. and then we started suspecting every vehicle that passed by to be our shuttle van, so decided to give them another call to find out that ours is SILVER. oh and did i not mention, it was sooooooo misty that day!!! :D

at lobby 1 of the skyway station waiting for our van 

loook so misty! now i'm missing the mist...

one big spider web x)

upon reaching the lobby of genting view, we were welcomed by a couple of the SIFE Malaysia people who brought us to the counter for registration and stuff. then we started checking out on our rooms and room mates. as expected, they separated all of us to different rooms with people from different Unis. some of which i don't really know of, i'm never good with public unis' names :( 

called the "key person" and went up to my room, or more like an apartment with 3 rooms, kitchen, living room, dining area. spent the extra time berbonding with my housemates who are all malays except for another girl from UTHM, Johor. my room mate's Aqilah from USIM, she's really nice and really loves Korean dramas like she can even remember the storyline of "Stairway to Heaven"! aiyo but i realised my BM's really bad la. at one point i attempted to speak in BM with them but my tongue immediately got tangled. :x

that's my bed x) 

after staying with them i really see the difference of someone who stays in hostel and someone who doesn't. my roommate woke up and started arranging her bed nicely, and when i turned and saw how messy mine was i felt so embarrassed, quickly went to fold my blanket too :p and they iron their own clothes too! 

this is the not so nice lunch...where i met Mei Yen & Zahia :)

where we spent most of our time listening to talks and lectures, the Perdana Ballroom.

and then one guy came asking "i've a very serious task for you here, can i know who has the best handwriting?" ended up we were actually only supposed to write our Uni's name on this paper LOL.

so we started writing...then drawing clouds and sun.... that's OUR BIRD on the right btw! :P

 SIFE Sunway! :)

these funny ppl, the training really brought us closer together x)

then when it was supposedly time for outdoor activities, we were told that the Flying Fox was under maintenance so we had to stay in for some games hosted by the KPMG guys. we were all quite disappointed though, suddenly no flying fox to play D:

so instead of that, we played three other games. first one was to arrange ourselves according to our birth dates WITHOUT speaking. and the ones who're not standing in the right position had to do a chicken dance in the middle of circle. 

second game was called the game of trust where one person has to fall and a friend has to support from behind. then they made it more extreme by making it into a competition btw the girls & guys, where we each form a line and we're supposed the pass ten ppl from one end of the line to the other. seriously painful! until we all got muscle aches, i even got a blue black. but it was damn chi gek! 

one girl was so scared to fall, the KPMG guy just told her to shut her eyes and he gave her a push. after the game when she was called out to say how she felt, she actually cried :/

it's so not easy to pass a human haha.

third game was the drawing game where we formed teams of 20 people then given strings and marker pen where the marker pen will be dangling in the middle while we draw. super happy with our team's first drawing - the star! which really looked very nicely like a star when compared to other group's heh. but unfortunately, our malaysian map totally failed laaaah xD so Legendary didn't win afterall :(

Datin Norela!

at night we were asked to come out with our very own mission, vision, values, goals and objectives to be presented on the last day. it was one good brain juice draining session, came out with gazillions of missions before we finally settled with one. thank you the alumni for bearing with all our weird taglines like "opportunities for You & I" though! xD 

ohh this is a card game called "taaan" (it means wait in Hokkien), a game celine's grandma taught her! played it as our dessert after dinner since watermelons have bacteria and the honey dew tasted sour xD

halfway playing "taaan" candy finally arrived! so we went to settle her registration together :)

the swimming pool by the place we eat, so beautiful~

 these chewing gums they included in our files, celine's addiction now :p

then at night after bathing we thought of meeting up to discuss on our goals and objectives & play monopoly cards but the guys got lost in the fog at night! it was too thick that they couldn't even walk out cause their apartments were very far away. some of the people who drove out to yumcha at night also said they could only drive at 20km/h.. 

it was super cold at night!

Day 2

i shall skip all the talks on the new criterion, team sustainability, positive power of business and stuff... though they were all really useful but long hours of talks like this after not sleeping too well due to coldness isn't the most enjoyable thing. had to keep ourselves awake with chewing gums and kept on looking forward to the next tea break xD

then finally it was time for some outdoor activities! at first only zs, jake, candy and i were put under the blindfold game, whereas celine, nabilah and heri were under the deSert survival (or we called it the deSSert survival - doesn't it sound much better? :p) 

but well, in the end they needed more ppl in the blindfold game, so yippy! all of us went for that :D 

and this blindfold game really conned all of us! we were assigned to groups then they told us to design a map using 3 objects provided as checkpoints. after our group's map was nicely drawn and we even practised with it, Datin announced that we we'll be using other group's map instead of our own! 

we had very little time to re-practise with the new map given, but we thought it would be okay as long as we stick to each other throughout the whole game (one of the rules was that no body contact was allowed among group members). 

so we started walking slowly, but shouting ONE-TWO, ONE-TWO very high-spiritedly so that our steps would be synchronized. who knows halfway through we suddenly lost our leader - the first person in our group just went missing out of nowhere!

then suddenly another girl in front screamed and said she lost the person in front of her. and when you're being blindfolded you just feel so lost you have no idea where on earth you're standing anymore. 

when more and more ppl got missing and as we hear more and more familiar voices shouting around, directing us to all kinds of directions... we knew something fishy was going on. 

still remember there was once when i was left to be the first person, i felt so completely lost, we had no idea where to turn to or who's directions to follow... until someone opened my blindfold! just to see that actually so many of them were already not blindfolded. that's why i say this is a game to con people! :p

where are we??

one of the tea breaks! 

with the people from UTHM! :)

after dinner was this talk plus Q&A session with Mr. Siew Chin Kiang. heh he has my middle name as his surname x) quite a fruitful session with people asking all kinda of questions.. but it really got me thinking about my future career, stuff like what do i really want to do after graduating, where would be a suitable place for me? those kinda thing... then we went up to talk to him for a while, he's a really nice and humble person although he's so experienced. 

Mr Siew and Datin Norela :)

then that night itself, we decided to just stay back to avoid people getting lost in the fog again xD supposedly plan to discuss about the presentation stuff but we all got too carried away by Candy's Monopoly cards. 

my first time playing with monopoly cards, hence Rinesh a.k.a. Rhino became my sifu! 

thank you candy so much for bringing us entertainment... we loved the cards so much that when we wanna look for candy we go "eh where is monopoly card??" :p

when Albert, the SIFE Malaysia's programme manager thought we were gambling and considered accepting our monopoly cash as under-table bribe, who then afterwards said wanna bring us to the casino LOL.

but it was really quite stressful to see the other groups sitting in corners with laptops preparing very canggih powerpoint slides for the presentation on the next day, when we were still unprepared yet playing with cards. 

so that night nabilah lent me her laptop to practise with the slides :)

Day 3

i woke up unusually early that morning, before my alarm even rang cause it was FREEZING cold i'm not joking, i felt like i was really going to turn into ice under the blanket. bathing under the warm water was the best at that time, didn't even feel like getting out of the shower, once i was out my teeth were chattering so much. suddenly i missed the hot weather so badly! 

my roommate was also telling me her palms were turning pink D: 

Aqilah! my very sweet roommate for 3 days :)

us with Sitti from Uniten and i forgot the other guy's name :p

that morning itself we were given a talk by the people from Money Tree, was definitely surprised to see Ji Kin there. they started telling us about this competition they'll be having called NEXT, where all of us got very confused whether it's real or virtual money we're going to play with. but since SIFE members were given a discount if we booked on that day and that the deposit was refundable, we decided to join. i can't quite believe that i'm joining competitions like this but we'll see how it goes... in fact things are already getting more and more unbelievable for me.

after that was the presentation! i still always get nervous breakdown when i do presentation... but i have to say everyone there were being really supportive! they clapped a lot whenever you say something nice, they gave a lot of responses to your questions, and they even correct you if you accidentally said anything wrong xD 

but it was one good experience shaking through the presentation, until after i went back to my seat i could still feel my hands shaking a lil when i was writing. overall not bad la, Datin gave pretty good comments also :)

presentation!

the MESS we created! xD

then because we told Datin we were in a hurry to catch our bus, she changed the schedule to eating lunch first before the closing ceremony so at least we get to eat. and that was really the best lunch out of the three days, it's a special BBQ lunch! too bad we had to devour everything we grabbed in such a short time. 

celine and i were sharing this little mountain of bbq chicken, lamb, sausage, mash potato, bacon, satay and i forgot what when jake told us two minutes left! we just gobbled everything without even tasting it properly :( 

then we went around saying a quick goodbye to the friends we've just met two days back... with the background music and all i really almost teared. luckily i managed to control! :') but none of us felt like leaving each other so soon, the last day's always when we already get to know each other better but that's exactly when we had to part. 

everything that has happened within these 3 days are really really memorable :) 

in the shuttle van on our way down!

waiting for the bus :p

heri spotted this lady who had the exact same luggage as his! and our crazy imagination started wondering what would happen if they accidentally swapped luggages xD

ohya..and i managed to complete the Rubik's cube before reaching One U! but a bit cheating one of course :p

thank you thank you thank you all of you for making this training so much fun!