Stories of Summer: 3 Weeks, 3 Trips

My concise, condensed summer travel-highlight-log. If I don't remember it, it's not here!

KL, 22 - 24 July (Weekly Affair) 

• Destination Camp5! Largest climbing gym in SEA situated in Petaling Jaya's 1 Utama Shopping Centre.
• Highest effort put into bouldering in a very long while. Attempted to piece a 6C route on an awesome low roof.
• Shaved off more than a fair amount of skin. Hardly makes sense to describe raw fingers as feeling burnt, but that's really how it was. And before lunch on the first day at that.
• Shouldn't have bouldered so much.
• Corner routes!! Crack wall!!!! Nice to be able to find the flow through these, and then every move fits. Lost more skin from other limb parts.
• Weird toprope roof routes though, do they really expect us to campus?
• Too humji to lead anything more than one 5C route (excuse: raw fingers).
• Ate Cinnabon coz it was cheap and sugary.
• Watched Star Trek Beyond coz it was cheap. Spock and the Malay subtitles were hilarious ("Diam lah!").
• <Too busy climbing/too tired to take photos>

Bali, 30 July - 2 August (Sleepy Cats)

• First time having a fried chicken dish where everything could be eaten, save the beak. Bones felt like love letters.
• Villa was like a lush jungle chalet, complete with shower-side greenery and frequent visiting creepy crawlies.
• Set off for Lovina sunrise dolphin tour at 3.30am accompanied by a Cheshire Cat smile and a generous helping of stars.
• Sat shaking on a spiderboat (the outriggers looked like legs) due to the cold and fear of toppling over the short, narrow hull. The dolphins made everything worth though, and so many of them! Afterwards we discussed that they were probably scared and annoyed by the crowds chionging into their breathing space.
• Rafting was... ok. The most fun part was when I got flung into a 四脚朝天 position coz we were too engrossed in splashing the raft in front to notice the rock face speeding up behind.
• Watched 中国新歌声 on a tiny screen in the nights. Always funny, always more fun to watch with this bunch.
• Loved unleashing creativity in the Upside Down World. All those sticky/Sadako/falling photos!
• Didn't have much chance to feel hungry throughout the trip, car rides not being the best activity for expending energy+inherently small appetite. All that food wasted D: 
• Last dinner was on the beach. Having to discern the edible anatomy of a fish, post-sunset, by candlelight, made for an intense experience => what phone lights are for.
• Then it was time to go home, but Rinjani on neighbouring Lombok had other plans. I very much wanted to be annoyed at something, but it is very difficult to be annoyed at a volcano. The extended holiday hence became a weird cocktail of amusement and sianness. 

Taiwan, 4 - 9 August (姐妹们)

• Had to wake at 3am to catch transport for the 2nd time in days. Budget timing yea.
• Never expected to have to use so much climbing muscle in the first 2 days:
• Experienced varying levels of centrifugal force while getting dragged around at sea on inflatables of varying shapes - the banana boat was the LEAST 刺激 and I have no idea what the English names of the rest are. Always thrilling and terrifying to get lifted off during sharp bends, attached to the inflatable only by my locked grip on the holding thingy. Great one-hand-catch-dyno training!
• Went for a jeep ride with complete ignorance, zero expectations. Best description of this would be standing on a small roller coaster with my hands as my only safeguard, again. Was (a sadistic kind of) fun hanging on for dear life (no sea for cushion here) while trying to read the titles on each of the manoeuvres along the route. Chinese ain't that good, but "龙卷暴风" was pretty apparent. Ended with driving into a river and getting all soaked, again.
• Always a good idea to marginally over pack.
• The scenery in Kenting was AMAZING. Green rolling hills + Blue endless waters = best of both worlds.
• For those who know how little I eat, I'm not the worst with this bunch. Even after forgoing lunch and going 14 hours without food, we bailed out early at the 夜市 on the first day. All it took to fill us (6 girls then) was 2 串 of sotong, 3 hotdogs, and 2 large cups of 珍奶. After a few bouts of food wastage, we eventually identified 4 persons' worth as our ideal ordering capacity.
• NOTE: bad idea to go for any kind of ocean transport after lunch. Seated in a "viewing boat" submerged under the surface of Kenting's choppy sea, I found myself fighting seasickness while aiding those of my friends who succumbed. 50% casualty rate.
• Alishan was nice and cool, although a little underwhelming. This I attribute to high expectations, so I should prob treat every holiday destination as I did the jeep ride.
• While I like the feel of misty places, they make my specs seem perpetually dirty.
• Laughed my heart out watching variety shows on TV at night. Getting the saboteur card 4 times in a row: FUN ==> shag. 
• Did more shopping than I'd expected back in Kaohsiung. Pretty satisfied with what I've got now! Aside from the sister stuff, got myself a new pair of comfortable formal flats (which has since been praised :)), and TiinLab headphones. Considering that the latter cost less than half of their sg price, and that they feel like ear pillows, I'm glad my friends were willing to make those extra MRT trips with me to get them.
• Taiwanese people are extremely friendly and helpful, and they go out of their way to make clueless visitors feel at home. [although i've heard that they may scam angmohs] 
• Was having much trouble reading all the 繁体字 and asking for specific things in Mandarin. Like I couldn't even begin to read certain words, coz 有边读边 but wth is the 边 in the first place. Good thing my friends were all Higher Chinese students xD
• Had a great time! 10 years of friendship provides many happy times to treasure :)

7/8

Additional: I'm not the best person to invite to catch sunsets. Must be 5 or 6 consecutive fails to date sorry friends.

Bali 1: no

Bali 2: nuuu

Kenting: NUUUUUUUU

And so ended an eventful summer, the final one. I think I won't be taking any grad trips, I've had enough fun with some treasured groups of friends to last a while :) Now it's back to the horrors of REALity and a butchered bank account *sobs*.

Stories of Summer: Flow + Affinity = New Friends Found

Time flies, and you know it when one month passes by in a week (or so it feels like). Case in point: the newest Attack on Titan chapter came out and I was like wa so good ah, I thought the previous chapter just came out last week (it's a monthly serialisation). Turns out my feel was horrendously off and I was genuinely shocked at having 3 weeks less of summer than I'd originally thought.

Clearly I've been busy, but not entirely aware of how much time I've been investing in things. It might be coz I never had a fixed schedule and so was able to take on any worthwhile activity as I went along. It's nice to have such flexibility, and a series of "ok!"s and "can!"s later, I was left with no time to collect dust at home anyway. Fits my style!

So... what goodies has Flow brought me? Personal development aside, getting out and about has led to lots of interactions with many different people. I have seen each of my usual friends like maybe once this whole time, so most of the time has been spent getting to know new people, or getting to know people I was already aware of better. This sounds trivial but when I think about the usual school days, the opposite is more likely to be true. A large proportion of normal school time is spent with usual friends, and any interaction with people outside cliques within the course/CCA is rather fleeting/perfunctory. Even then, I hardly get to stretch beyond "friends of friends" before retreating back to the usual comfortable circles.

This summer's been very different - when Flow and Affinity collide, magic happens. Something like "there are no strangers, only friends you have not yet met." Err wait no, not exactly. Some strangers, even after they cease to be strangers, do not ascend to the rank of friend (I detest whiny guys). But what is more true is that among strangers, there exists friends waiting to meet.

So most of my last week was taken up by facilitating a camp and preparing for it. I liken signing up for this to jumping into a black hole (paid to do so). I have no affiliation with the camp organiser and the participating organisation - I just knew someone who asked if I was free to help. With the initial "setting" being as random as such, I was really starting to wonder what I'd gotten myself into. [At Ubin + cannot bathe = omg lucky 2 nights only] The camp works on the philosophy that when humans are deprived of their basic needs (like home comforts for us pampered sg kids), they turn to those around them for survival. In this process, bonds are created as everyone strives to survive together.

If I were to take the theory a little further and add this extra icing called Affinity, that's when a handful of good friends start to rise up out of the sea of bonds. Affinity led me to find someone I knew from the one-year exchange, and also another climber!!

It's kinda amazing when you meet someone for a few hours and then you're suddenly talking like 一千年的好朋友. Let's give a context. I've probably seen the same climber at previous climbing competitions, but back then she was just another face in the crowd. In a familiar setting, you're not likely to go up to random people from other schools and just start talking. It seems that a random, unfamiliar setting can be the catalyst to bond people who have inherent similarities or connections. [It also helps that most climbers are friendly ppl hahaha]. And that other person I knew? Well, I saw her and she saw me, and we were pretty excited to be meeting again! Right there on Ubin! This camp's not the first time I've experienced this, where good friends just burst from unexpected places. It's like seeing those same juniors most days in the RPR but never saying even a "hi". Until an unusual thing like IVEC came along for us to bond over hard times and a little bit of bitching haha.

Just to summarise and make sure I'm clear of my own thoughts: as we take random paths in life, beyond our usual circles and comfort zones, we meet people that we likely have met before/will meet under more familiar circumstances, but only in this new unknown circumstance are they likely to become lasting friends.

If I was slightly unnerved at my final choice not to force out an internship at the end of the last sem, I think I can rest easy now. My top strength according to Gallup is adaptability, which means I go with the Flow and make the best out of each moment I live in. This summer's been an awesome mix of experiences which I don't think I would be happy trading for one single internship hahaha. The last stretch of summer is packed with quite a bit of traveling, but I ain't gonna neglect making time for all these new friends I've made since the start :)

[There really is a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which I'm currently reading (koped off Sean's goodreads). I'm not very far into it but already I've run into lots of quotable lines, one of them being: "the best moments occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." Exactly my philosophy for RE7088 >:)]

Stories of Summer: Incredible Ventures, Extraordinary Characters

IVEC (29th May - 6th June 2016) really stands for Inter-Varsity Entrepreneurship Competition, but I think the title really captures the essence of it, at least to me. I agonised long and hard over whether or not to join and commit a solid 9 days to something I (at that point) had no inkling about. So, every decision has its consequences. I've suffered some, but overall, this was a decision I believe I made right :) Here's roughly why.

The Experience
It was downright exhausting. Especially because I'm an introvert, these things are really draining. But experiences with challenges and trials are the ones which provide the best lessons. No doubt the competition bit was intense, and for my team it was an exponentially increasing kind of intense. We learnt to chiong when the way was clear, to siam once we hit walls, and to just enjoy the whole process. Beer and talk cock on top of ADM included xD Oh yes, and I think my knowledge on FinTech has increased by 500%.

The People
The ones with whom I braved the challenge, the ones I chattered and laughed with at all those random times, and the ones who made it all possible. Can't totally recall what I expected when I signed up, but I remember clearly that one of my hopes was to make friends. I definitely left with more friends and more ties from places more unlikely than I'd ever imagined.

When you throw together a bunch of people from across the world, who have never talked to each other, what are the odds that all of them click? Thank you, Team 9. I never imagined that I could be so comfortable around people so different. <Inserts group picture>

Sometimes objectives aren't met, but the outcome might not necessarily be a disappointment. If we were to be honest, the strongest friendships were formed intra-uni rather than inter-. REP needs to step up its inter-batch bonding game, but IVEC is a really really good avenue! While I don't claim that we're suddenly all best friends, I do feel like I got to know people better. All relationships require effort to maintain, but I have this notion that these ties will remain strong. Coz it's not always about how long you know a person, the quality of the interactions also count. tl;dr - Bintan was fun ;)

Good times. Credits: Adeline's Facebook.

The Everything Else
Expenses covered = great time to be a tourist (mostly in my own country). There were places I'd never been, sights I'd rarely seen, and I'm glad most of the best experiences were freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ^^ [yes i know someone else is paying for it]

I barely slept 5 hours each night. Always nodding off just before lights out, then voilà, wide awake when head hit pillow. It's like the hall pillow was caffeine-imbued.

Thanks cockroach, for the visit just before bedtime. And also for loitering along the corridor and scaring other people.

Food was exceptional.

I take lessons from whomever/whatever can offer them. Just my personal thoughts but no one is really ever too old to learn something new, just too arrogant. So for those 9 days, I turned on sponge mode. Happily absorbing, quietly observing all those lighthearted/funny/serious/triumphant/sneaky/frustrating/irritating/unforgettable times. Good experiences you learn from and emulate, bad ones you remind yourself never to follow. 

Stories of Summer: Facing Walls

Summer's been eventful so far. There's been the planned and the impromptu, the fun, the meaningful, and the tiring. The only thing there's been too little of is rest... which is also my excuse for not writing. I thought I'd start with something I really like doing, but which I've had mixed feelings about lately. Other reflections will come in due time (if ever), meanwhile they're just a bunch of thoughts floating around in a cloudy space.

Yes so, climbing.

Climbing 1.0, where I improve myself and try to be effective in competitions, hasn't been going so well. At best I'm a B+ climber in my category, which really means I'm not going anywhere. Sighs, everything comes back to bite - time sacrifices and the worsening wrist. But the worst part is that the fire sort of went out. I'm always nervous (to varying degrees) before comps, but never before have I felt sian. Not until PF last week anyway, and it just got worse after the climb. Every time I know that had I trained hard, the results would definitely have been better. But good enough to get into finals? I've never been confident of that. I dunno. Compound everything and I felt like simply stopping.

Climbing 2.0, where I lure non-climbing friends to try climbing, has been better. It's mainly been within REP so far, but objectives have been met :D When we began last Dec (at the suggestion/request of a friend), I thought it was going to be a fun one-time intro kinda thing. Who knew that these people wanted more! The enthusiastic ones have really amazed me, and the talent is real. But that's more of a really nice cherry on top. What I truly wanted was for people from different batches to interact and make friends. So it might be a really small group, but I think it's working. Recre climbing is more like 50% actual climbing and 50% sitting and talking anyway haha, and then going for meals at super odd times. Through this small venture of mine, I've also found something else that's fulfilling to me. Sometimes, when appropriate challenges are set for people, and they accomplish it after many failures with the support of people around them, their confidence and ability grows. I enjoy coercing people to reach their potential xD As long as my friends go home aching badly, but feeling happy about it, it's all good.

One thing I really like about climbing is that there is ample opportunity to feel happy for others. Positive feels ==> positive energy. After watching my friend stroll to the top of 6 routes in BA just now (and thereby finally promoting to inter), I felt a small flame ignite again.