Sunday, January 28, 2007
Originally posted on Wei Zhong's Online Diary. All work contained in this post that is the original creation of the author is licensed under a Creative Commons License.It was just beautiful and miraculous that my JC class, 08S05B, could go out again as a class. This time, we went out to East Coast Park, and Ian, Zheng Gang, Victor, Hien, Meiyi, Weiren, Samuel, Qiongye, Fizah, Nadiah, Syaz, Lin Xi, Pei Zhi, Kaiqi, Lorraine, Wei Zhi and I managed to attend. That's 17 out of 27 people at the class outing, which was held yesterday.
Just one month ago, I would never have been able to conceive the sort of activities we engaged in (bowling was the only predictable activity), or even the fact that we'll go out on two mass outings within the first month of school. To me, the class outing was really a concatenation of surprises that emerged as we proceeded.
Open-space activities
While waiting for Kaiqi to join us in learning how to cycle, we decided to play in the open spaces of East Coast Park after lunch at McDonald's. We played soccer and Captain's Ball, and spontaneously invented some simple games for our own purposes. This is the first time I've gone out to a public place to play such games outside of camps and school.
Because certain members of the group loved forfeits so much, even our game of frisbee was modified such that someone (that someone happened to be me) would have to do a forfeit. We stood around in a circle for our game. The person with the frisbee had to call out someone else in the circle who was not directly adjacent to him/her to catch the frisbee. Should the designated catcher fail to catch the frisbee, the group would determine whose fault the botched throw was. The first to eight faults would have to perform a forfeit for the rest of the group.
Near the end of the game, Ian resolved to sabo me into performing the forfeit. He succeeded, and I was made to spell
frisbee with my butt, by a nearby lamppost. Someone was bored enough to video my little performance down.
This brings the count for forfeits done by me and videoed by the rest of the class up to two. It seems to me that some members of the class find my performances entertaining enough for them to expand energy to make a video recording. I wonder why; perhaps my neural centre for amusement is somehow deformed. In any case, I'm not worrying too much about a public dissemination of the videos, since I don't trust that they have enough motivation to get down to uploading the videos onto their computer.
After this round of forfeit-performance, we played a few more games—whatever we could think of, with whatever we had—before we headed for the bicycle shop. At the bicycle shop, however, we decided to postpone our bicycle rental plan due to the slight drizzle. We went to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, where Pei Zhi joined us, for a drink. Six of us proceeded for bowling fifteen minutes after we arrived.
Bowling was a rather boring affair, with my bowling a sad score of 39. We had dinner at a coffee shop nearby, and I had my second plate of chicken rice for that day. After this, we finally proceeded for cycling and blading.
Cycling
I, along with Kaiqi, was learning how to cycle. This isn't my first attempt at learning how to cycle; Alex tried teaching me two years ago
during the fourth 2M class chalet, but I don't recall making much progress then. This time, it was mainly Victor and Lorraine teaching me how to cycle (with Qiongye chipping in quite a bit as well).
I still can't cycle by myself for long distances. Yesterday night, Victor would grab the spine of my bicycle and I would propel it forward. He would run forward as I went forward as well. After he ensured my balance, he would release the spine. For a couple of times, I would lose my balance and place a foot on the ground. But for others, I would continue cycling for a few metres before stopping.
In one instance, Qiongye ran backwards, and I walked on the bicycle to pick up speed (to facilitate my achieving of balance), seemingly to charge at him. My legs reached for the peddle, and I cycled for a few metres before stopping. After this small success, I reached a plateau trying to kick off by myself and cycle on, but always not being able to proceed after the kick-off. The rental expired a short while after.
Among all the activities of the day—outdoor games, bowling, the meals, etc.—cycling was a personal highlight. I felt very good during those few seconds during which I was peddling myself for the few metres. There was plenty of encouragement too, and many people with whom I could share those baby steps and little victories.
It was also wonderful being able to build up rapport with Victor and my new-found acquaintance Lorraine. I especially appreciate being able to see Victor in his more sincere, more helpful, more wacky, more forgiving, more encouraging and in all, nicer side. It was a side of him not tainted by the f-words and other delinquent tendencies, for which I remember him.
Truth or Dare
Supper was from 10.00 pm to 11.00 pm at Burger King. Intermittently during our chatting, people were leaving the place. In the end, only Ian, Lin Xi, Hien, Meiyi, Wei Zhi and I were left. Seeing Ian and Wei Zhi there in our group, you could probably guess that the six of us ended up playing Truth or Dare.
The same
problems that plagued our session last week—the lack of creativity, the awkward questions, etc.—affected our session this time as well. However, this session was slightly different from our previous session. After we ran out of questions relating to crushes (which Ian tried to excuse in the name of fitting the game to our age group), we went the opposite direction and quizzed people about
the least preferred dating candidates.
Certainly, there was nothing wrong in conceiving and stating least preferred dating candidates. But going through that session has made me a lot more insecure. The names that turned up in response to this question were of rather nice guys, really, just that a certain quality they have makes them slightly repulsive. The game just reminded me of the fact that I'm not remotely safe from ending up on other people's least-preferred lists. And even as I have no intention to date anyone in class, I somehow don't want to be on anyone's least-preferred list.
Oh, and the game taught me that if I receive an invitation for a date from someone in class, it might just be Ian's idea of a dare. During the game, Ian named me two girls in class (both their names start with the same character!) and dared me to go on a date with either and not tell them that it's a dare for 24 hours. I must say that it's a rather bad idea of a dare since its implementation was delayed too much. I raised some objections to his suggestions on the grounds that we shouldn't go overboard with using others for our forfeit. I nibbled on Wei Zhi's ear as an alternate dare.
At least now, after my attention was brought to the possibility that date requests and dates might be part of a dare during the game, I won't feel as cheated should someone call me up to ask me out just to fulfil Ian's brilliant dare.
In all, the day, with its fair share of fun and physical activity, was rather well-spent. We emerged from the activities as slightly closer friends. In this respect, my progress in learning how to cycle seems to matter less.
By the end of the day, I was already craving for the next class outing, one in which the rest of the class can participate, in which I can continue learning how to cycle, and most importantly, in which we can continue to have more fun together. But I doubt that a third outing would be likely.
Wei Zhong @ 9:25 pm
