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HELLO I WILL UPDATE THIS THING SOON (:
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Saturday, December 6, 2008
Ah well. After dragging my feet for ages and ages, I finally sat down and resolved to write my blog entry for OIP.
Crap, I'm already forgetting what happened on what day, but I still have the general idea in my mind. Better write it down before i forget entirely.
And to think that at the start, I was apprehensive about going on a 14-day trip without parents. It’s the longest time I spent out of Singapore, plus I wouldn’t have naggy reminders from my parents to do stuff, which means that I would have to be more independent than I usually am. Yes, I’ll admit it… I’m a guai mummy’s boy, forever forgetting my stuff, leaving them behind and letting my parents clear up my mess.
But enough about that. In the end, I did sign up for OIP (obviously) and hey! I was posted to Vietnam! I was hoping for either Korea or Vietnam, seeing that I have never been to these places before. I looked forward to going for the Vietnam trip, amidst seniors saying that they… got a lot of contacts there, know what I mean?
So, Preparations! We prepared on mainly performances, such as the super-addictive High School Musical dance, and because of that I ventured into breakdancing, and developed an interest in it. Now, I just want to work on toprock and attempt to learn Flare/windmill, hopefully before holidays end. We spent a lot of time together rehearsing, and our OIP group bonded quite well during this period, at least for those who turned up for rehearsals.
Why do I get the feeling that this will be a pretty long post?
Hrm. I shall continue.
OIP!
Well, I packed 2 days before I left. HAH. Pro huh. I was early! I remember we left in the afternoon, so I continued to practice my dance routine at home in the morning. Then legs ached from all the slamming on the floor after doing handstands.
Left for airport! I really love my parents, taking half-day leave so that they both could see me to the airport. And mum dapaoed Breadtalk! So nice. But I was super-full so I ate half and let my dad eat the rest. (:
Reached the airport! Met Firdaus there. He’s my buddy for the entire trip, so I’ll be mentioning him a lot later. Took some pictures with my cool new cool blue Cybershot THAT I JUST GOT THE DAY BEFORE I LEFT HRMPH.
Checked in the plane! A handful of parents showed up to say their bye-byes. *cough tingwei cough* And we met the TV group as well! We took the same plane, but that was it. At the airport, I could see that many of them were quite excited to go too. Fine, fine, I admit I was pretty happy about the thought of going to a mixed school for the first time in 8 years.
Left! When we were about to board the xray thingiy detected a scissor in my pencilcase in my hand carry luggage. Irritating luh, considering that I didn’t even know it was there. Had to throw it away. And it was a nice scissor! ):
Reached VN. The air there was abit hazy, definitely dirtier than singapore’s. The whole place smelled like a busy expressway. There was the smell of exhaust and coal, not so much that it was unbearable, rather a more subtle ‘eh, something’s cooking!’ kind of thing. Either it faded off, or we all got used to it after the first day, because it didn’t seem that invasive after that.
Ming met us at the airport, I think. At then I was not sure of anything… I only remember that apparently we got flowers, and a student and teacher from NTT came to meet us. Sorry that we were so cold to you at the start.
Oh, to get used to the air we opened the windows of the bus headed to our guest house, and since the bus was going fast, the wind was just a blast! (Rhyme yay!) And basically took ugly pics of eyes tearing and hair in weird styles due to the wind. All pics will be posted up later.
Anyway, when we reached the guest house, I got my roommates, Chen Wei, Ben Goh, and Firdaus. I’m quite happy to have them as roommates, I can open up to them easily and plus it helps that I more or less knew Chen Wei and Ben before starting the trip.
Anyway, First Day!
I was like OMG it’s a mixed school!!!!
Heh. Got to know the hosts. They are REALLY REALLY REALLY SUPER FRIENDLY. I really liked how many of them were being very outspoken, to encourage us to come out of our shells. It worked, because I was already quite.. urhm. Ice-broken? by the second day.
It was my birthday too, and this was definitely one of my better birthdays. I mean.. class ob! The Vietnamese students were definitely very excited to meet us, and I wish we could do the same when they visit us. Sadly, we don’t.
OKAY. This is so getting out of hand. I’m gonna stop at 1k words. That’s 130 more words.
Thus, I shall summarise.
Class Observation
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OH MAN. THEY ARE SO SO SO SO SO SO SO NICE.
Seriously. They make you feel like celebs. The teacher also drops proper lessons to play games and involve you in the class. Makes you feel really sad when all the Vietnamese do in RI is stone in our classes. Our teachers have too tight schedules to follow, I guess. No time for fun and games.
Oh, and their standards are lower too. (: Like, according to Firdaus’ friend, “Omg they actually LIKE you there!”
I got a lot of contacts, and met a lot of fun and interesting people in their lessons. Their lessons are in essence like Singapore’s, but they sometimes play games like drawing or just random stuff. A few students told me they have games usually, not just to entertain us RI boys on our short trip over there.
One person who left a strong impression on me from the class obs was Phuong, who was just so nice. She gave me a present and a note even though I only said at most 10 words to her before that?
Oh and Hoang Nam too, though I didn’t talk much to him. After all he’s a guy and I wanted to make the most of my time to recover my deprived childhood of single-sex schools, so I didn’t talk to him a lot. However, he was really friendly and caring, and when I was posted to his class for camping I neglected him quite a bit, and for that I’m very sorry.
Ohoh and Hai Yen as well, who was really nice to me and exchanged notes and stuff in class, and also gave me a nice gift (though i have no idea where to put it.) And the imba-long note. Haha. It's people like you that give me a warm fuzzy feeling when i think back to my OIP trip.
There's a whole lot of people I haven't thanked yet, but you get the idea.
1.1k words. Oh wells. I’ll just finish off asap.
Host Family
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Duanh (that’s how you spell it right?) and family were just immensely hospitable. They smiled whenever they saw us, the parents were practically forcing food at us, and oh. The kid.
‘Don’t wriggle so much.’ Classsiccc.
Urhm. Yeah.
AND WHY IS HE VEGETARIAN. TT
Nah. just joking. You made me like veggies more! Thanks in advance for saving my cardiovascular system.
I really thank him and the two huongs who always brought us out to fun places, they were just so super hospitable and nice and looked for places where we could be entertained. They’re really cute too, the three of them.
Oh oh and I bought skate shoes! But because I was stupid and bought a shoe with cloth sides and I didn’t do my ollies properly the side of my left shoe is abit torn. Ah well. Let’s just call it style. For now I’ll practice with normal shoes until I get the jump right.
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VISITS N' STUFF
Sword Lake, Temple of Lit.
Urhm, not much comments here. It was normal, i guess. Only thing that stood out from the trip was the oh so super super cute kids walking in one line.
Hope Centre
I was really touched here. I cried for the first time in a long long time. Well, 2 tears to be exact. It's just kind of sad, ya know? And the athmosphere was just so bleak, with all the Vietnamese crying and the RI boys tukying around. Plus there's the...
oh shit i forgot.
Yeah. I think 40+ year old person with the mental capability of a 3 year old. She kenaed some nerve gas or something during a war. And to think all of the people there are just so happy so see us when all we brought were sweets. Makes you think, really.
SOS Village.
This is like a whole giant place for orphans, which is very organised. I was not part of any main team who interacted with the kids there, so i can't say that I was touched. I know that i zaosiaed like crazyyy for the performance though. like 3-4 seconds of supersonic zaosiaing during Happy Birthday.
HA LONG BAY
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This place is be-au-ti-ful. It's like.. just incredible. I sat at the front of the boat just watching the scenery, while the rest played cards inside. I don't know why, but i was a little ticked off at how they didn't appreciate the beauty of nature and chose their cards over this. Anyway, this really gave me much-needed time to think and reflect on my whole purpose of coming to Vietnam in the first place. It came a little late though, so at the start of the trip i was more than a little... overexcited? yeah.
Host Students
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I love you guys, all of you. Really.
Yes I cut it short. (:
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PICTURES LATER!
3:17 PM
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