my mind wanders... on a thought of a green sunset

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Prop, Plan and Camp

I still have a lot of things to do - create a chemistry notebook because mine was lost and create a whole thesis to be passed on March 20. Since I engaged in a lot of activities beyond this Sunday, let’s saturate the events held ever since Wednesday.

Wednesday was the last day of prop-making. The people who managed the play in our section wanted all the props be prepared on Thursday. We all agreed to go to Manila at 9 am, so that we’ll have enough time to finish the props. However, as Filipinos, most of us came really late. I did too, in fact, because I came10:30 (I woke up at 9) and the props people already there finished Maria Clara’s room.

After finishing the room, we all had lunch. However Mary, Lorraine and I planned to bring the team to SM Manila. However they said it was too far and we needed time to finish the props. So, under the feeling that I really wanted so, I decided to go on myself.

I reached SM Manila alone and did Para Para, with the usual mixes of songs available. I played DDR, but since 1 credit (or 2 tokens) accounts for two players, Lechie (the fat girl who is so boastful of her skills in DDR back when we started playing it) stepped into the scene and said that it was a waste if I played alone. I did not talk to her, and she pressed the two start buttons of DDR. I chose versus, for the sake of respect, even though she herself was a typical person not to be respected. I had control of the songs, so she just had her own options of playing. After 9 songs (the fifth was whacked, and I would not want to wait for the Quantum guy to fix it and play another set), I left the place.

I went to Ace hardware and bought a large paintbrush and then bought paint in National Bookstore. I then withdrew some money because I just used my money in buying the paints and I wouldn’t have my commuting fare back home. I then went to Tokyo Tokyo to get some beef misono, red tea and green tea lychee ice dessert. After paying, I just realized that something was missing. The paints! I returned to the ATM Machine, there was nothing there, I checked Tokyo Tokyo, I checked the counter in National Bookstore, and I checked almost the whole floor of SM in search of textile paints. With hope and time lost and my ice dessert melting, I bought another set.

I returned to Lorraine’s condo unit and found the props finished painting the boat, and were already singing using the Magic Sing. I ate lunch using chopsticks, which was nice, however the rice wasn’t sticky enough because the sauce poured all over it and loosened the grains, so chopsticks were a bit unreliable. After my lunch I gathered the cheesecloth, the textile paints and the spray paints so that we could finish the silhouette background and climbed the stairs to the roof deck.

We were copying the dusk scene from Trixia’s calendar, and had a pink and purple sky. Spraying the whole cheesecloth with white was impractical, so we just imbued the pink textile paint first, and used it all up. We needed more pink to create purple because the paint that I bought contained dark blue. The wind speeds rose and soon enough we were lying on the cheesecloth being weights to avoid our background from flying into Padre Faura. Then we were back to the paint problem, so Loribelle and Angel gave some money and I ran (literally) to Robinson’s Manila and even encountered some familiar faces of our batch. I was dismayed with my travel, because they did not have pink or purple, I bought red and white textile paints. I rushed back to the roof deck of Astral Tower (we preferred doing the backdrop at the roof deck).

We soon found out that the red and white textile paints mixed as if they were ketchup and mayonnaise, and did not produce colors close to pink. So we mixed white and dark blue and formed a cuter form of blue but not purple. So, we just used the paint water (pouring water over the textile paint and transferring the liquid unto a separate container) and brushed the cheesecloth with it. It worked! After brushing the places in blue paint water, some areas of pink became instant purple! We then just used blue for the remaining part. I was wearing my Juniors and it was stained with textile! Fact: Textile paint is irremovable, and is used on materials, etc. especially on cloth. No! My Juniors shirt!!! After finishing the sky, Lorraine used up the black spray paint and put a simple silhouette in it. The job was finished.

Thursday was a not-so-bloggable day except for the practices. We (the props people) soon found out that there were a lot of props needed. It was a bit irritating because the play fest was the next day and they just popped up and said “We need it tomorrow!”

Friday was the busiest day of the week for us. From the morning, I was late for 15 minutes because my dad had to get me a bunch of coconut leaves as grass for the play fest. I then reached school and the third year batch was under the frenzied effect of the “rush mode”. We then planted the coconut leaves unto Styrofoam and agreed upon the transitions. When the time came, the play fest of the celebrated Noli Me Tangere began.

The first performer was Darwin. It was short; it was less than 15 minutes. The next section was us. We began the play which became very dramatic, but the very good dialogue was inaudible. The transitions became hasty, and our oh-so-great Filipino teacher even ordered me to hold the microphone. We performed for 25 minutes, so had a 10-minute deduction. The next performance was Calvin’s musical Noli. The fourth was Ptolemy’s. The fifth was Mendel, which surprisingly came in 15 minutes exact. The next was Linnaeus, with Iric having an intermission and he being Jose Rizal. The seventh was Berzelius. The last was Burbank, and they had dry ice which made the tinola cold but steamy.

The awards were nice. Calvin had the best script, Mendel had the best actor, Luis (their Ibarra), and of course, Josha was the best actress, being Sisa. They fourth placer among all the plays was Linnaeus, and I forgot the third and fourth placers, but I’m sure which play was entitled the best. It was the fifth. Congratulations, Mendel!

After the play, there were no more classes and everyone was permitted to go home in preparation for the Science Camp later in the afternoon. I spent the afternoon preparing the Sci Dama boards.

I was surprised to find the Philips Room open. I went in and there was Sasaki-sensei. She asked me if there was something to ask, and I said I was thinking of it. I realized I forgot what was it, and I busied myself of thinking what to ask. I asked what character was correct, and 2-tailed “Oni” (devil) or 1-tailed. She chose the one-tailed, and soon I used up all the questions asking the Kanji of this and that. She said that she was amazed, asides from the fact that I learned up to Level 2 Kanji by myself, what she said was amazing was the importance I was giving it and the way I wrote it. I wrote correctly, with the designated strokes. I thanked her and left the place, finding that everyone had been gone. It was 3 pm already.

I went to McDonald’s and bought a Coke float for lunch. I then walked to UN Avenue and crossed it to Times Plaza, where I figured Bea would be. I saw Christian, Ronald and Bea playing the usual DotA, and I joined for an hour. After a monstrous kill, I went to PhilAm Life and went to my aunt. I borrowed her phone so I could contact my parents about my things for the Sci Camp. She even gave me water bottle and P100 for snacks. Thanks!

I returned to school for the registration. Everyone was in civilian clothes, and I was still wearing my uniform. I registered with Royce; she made skip a whole line to the registration. Another bout of gratitude! Then my parents came with my things, in the blue bag which I used when I was a sophomore. My mom bought me some snacks and batteries at Mercury Drug Store, and I rushed to Astral Tower to ask a big favour. I encountered Lorraine and others going to school already, and I asked Lorraine if I could take a bath at the condo. She said yes. I rushed there and Nikolai was there too, he was playing Final Fantasy. I took a quick bath and got ready for the Sci Camp.

I went to the school’s quadrangle and looked for our group. I saw Maritoni and Ronald there, and I sat down with our group and talked for a while. Then, Mr. Monkey King Mendoza was there as an emcee. He then told us the first instructions in the Sci Camp. The first was nook-making.

Meeting the group was a bit quick. We immediately got some blankets and some rope, and chose the area beyond the basketball court as our nook. I saw familiar faces in our nook, like Angelica, Raphael, Jeff of Calvin, Stefen and Marc of last year’s Sci Camp. We got our nook fixed, and the second year people did our number on bond paper, and we posted it on the court.

After nook-making, the instructions were given for the team-building. There were 6 stations, each with a corresponding task. We needed to finish everything within 1to 2 hours or so, and each has point equivalents. When the signal was given to choose our first station, we first did the station near Maceda. It was like a Bingo game consisting of squares with statements such as “Has surname that starts with the letter B” and stuff. We did the black out - we just used everything truth and nearest to the truth that was available to our group members. We got 100 points!

The next station was the Feathers effect, and it was a task of making a wad of cotton stay airborne for the longest period of time. We did it in about 6 seconds.

The next station was the Break. It was taught by Danikko, and the task was to do Break 6 to 10. It was a little bit fun, because everyone was clapping their laps. We then finished our task and we did the Drop the Bomb.

Drop the Bomb needed some team members to pull ropes from a circular ribbon to get a can and put in a pot. It was played versus by two teams. The fun part was we never got to get the can. The other team dropped the can early in the game making them the losers with 75 points and us the winner, for 100 points.

The next station was the Polygon something. The team interlaced hands, arranged ourselves in a circle and closed our eyes. The task was to form a polygon while our eyes were closed, so we have to rely on our senses and a strategy to get this right. The facilitators were too busy to get to us, and we planned about doing it. This is how it works: Get a limited amount of people (back then we were 24, which were good because it was divisible in so many ways) and have the people count off. The strategy was to make certain people move whenever a shape is given. If an ellipse is given persons 12 and 24 needed to move. If a triangle was given persons 8, 16 and 24 needed to move. If a quadrilateral was given persons 6, 12, 18 and 24 needed to move. It was making the people as points and pulling certain points makes a shape.

We were assigned to form a square. So I shouted the instructions.

“Ang gagalaw lang 6, 12, 18 at 24! Yung iba magpadala lang sa paghila nila. 6, 12, 18, ung movement ninyo backward lang step by step (ako kasi ung 24)”

We were even taunted by the facilitator. “Square na ba yan? Baka nga 4 sided nga yan pero di naman square.” She was right - if the tension was not right we might form a rectangle.

We did a square and got 100 points. ^ ^

Our last station was at the UCB (Under the Computer Science Building). The task was to make a tableau. However Randolph Francia closed all stations and we only got 25 points for the last station.

After the team-building, Maritoni, Angelica and I did the Survivor’s Challenge. The first task was fishing. For about the whole time we thought we were eating the fish we caught. It was a lie; all we needed to do was catch the fish. I was assigned to catch the fish, and I used up all the time available to catch 2 (it was the instructions). When Ms. Correa signalled the start I and almost everyone immediately got 2 fishes. Iric and I just stayed a little longer and caught more fish.

After the fishing was the egg cooking. The materials were a makeshift stove, barbecue sticks, a safety pin, 2 eggs, the instructions for the pledge, the lyrics and 2 Rubik’s Cubes. Maritoni, Angelica and I were talking about the size of our stove. I suggested the large one, but she said it would take a longer time to heat a large stove. If we take the smaller one the egg grilling would be difficult. So we took a medium-sized stove.

We got a lot of help with this one. Raphael did the Rubik’s cubes and helped with keeping the embers alive by fanning the stove, with the fan courtesy of Maritoni. Ronald bored holes into the eggs (the task was derived from Extra Challenge) and Maritoni pushed the barbecue sticks in it. Angelica and I started fanning the stove. Ronald arranged the embers so that every coal inside it was burning. After about 10 minutes of grilling the task was to eat the eggs. Maritoni loved eating it, and I helped Angelica in eating it because she doesn’t eat eggs. I have to say, grilled eggs were tasty.

Jeff, Angelica and I got the food for dinner. We got early and 29 food stocks were given to us, however we were 32 on the team. We needed to go to Ma’am Hedia and let her sign the stub and follow-up the food. Angelica and I returned to the canteen.

There was a problem - the line of people was not even moving. The food stocks were used up and were being prepared for the moment, and a lot of teams were starving. There was even an announcement like “Team 13, diet daw kayo!” Angeilca and I were starving too, however we needed the 3 remaining food for dinner. James Andal even followed the line encountering the same problem except for the number of food he needed (he needed only 2). Now we were talking starvation. We asked Sean to help us (because he was already near the line) and gave our stubs to him. After he got 5 food stocks we got our follow-up and rushed to eat dinner.

While Angelica and I were eating (we guessed the remaining food was for Laurence), Ronald came inside the nook with a deck of cards. He did some magic tricks for us while we ate. Our food was bland vegetables on dry rice, with some cold potatoes and chicken and adobo. I ate Angelica’s serving of vegetables because she said that she only eats vegetables cooked by her mother. By the time we ate it was already 12 midnight.

After dinner, the camp was officially a slumber party.

It was then announced that the people who did not have dinner will be provided food from outside the school. I was preparing the Sci Dama with the arbiters. From the 30 teams only 22 representatives came. It took us a lot of shout-outs fro the stage to get the representatives. After 30 minutes of relentless shouting, the Sci Dama began.

The arbiters and the Science teachers agreed that the winning team representatives will receive 100 points and the losing teams will have 75 points. The teams with absolutely no representatives will have no points.

Philippe and I played Sci Dama. Jermaine joined us and we were eating Pringles and we were hanging out the Maceda lobby playing and talking. We even tried the game without the usual arrangement of pieces.

I rappelled for the first time and it was a bit scary (I’m acrophobic) but it was swell. My hands felt burned because of sliding down the rope and Royce even gave me moral support (thanks again!). Now I would want to remember to put a hand near my waist, another hand above me, legs open and straight, jump away the wall and release.

The Science Games began. However the other team members did not join most of the games. Ronald, Raphael and I played the word-building. The game was a physical task of spelling out words using letters in the boxed provided and travelling around alternately in empty bottles of coke and sprite. We got 2 points (we won the game) and received 100 points.

The Amazing Race was then about to commence. I really wanted NOT to join this, because I want to play Sci Dama with Philippe and hang out for the morning or rappel or even sleep. I was tired, and I did almost everything for the team so I wanted to rest. Now the new problem arose. Among the 32 people within our team, only 11 were available (including me). But they wanted me to go, and after a long time of argument I agreed to join the Amazing Race. Our team had no Seniors aboard, so we (the Juniors) were the guide to the stations.

We first did the Eat All You can station. It required 2 members and Raphael and Jeff did the task. It was disgusting, because Jeff ate a rotten bitter gourd (ampalaya). Raphael got to eat jelly with ketchup and dried cheese whiz. We then rushed to the Crawl to Death Station. Te task was to cross a garter field by crawling underneath without making any bells ring. The crawler is to get a piece of picture and cross the field back. The picture must be formed (another station). Marc, Stefen, Hannah, a first year and I did this. The floor was covered with flour, which was a disadvantage because flour is stick when wet, and we were perspiring like faucets rushing water heavily. Good thing we finished it very early, because we visualized the picture already.

We then rushed to the stage and did the Twister Game, which Ronald and Prince joined. The game had a spinner which assigns a body part to a color. The players had 4 dots of different colors to choose from: 4 dots of red, green, blue and yellow. It was a very long game, because the other teams had endured the gruelling task of balancing themselves in positions they were ordered to. We gave them moral support and Ronald and Prince won us 100 points.

The next station was the Crazy Frog. It was a noisy disgusting experience for some people especially the girls who went screaming across the net getting frogs. It needed a representative from the four year levels in our team, and our only first year stepped out and got a frog. The next person was Marc, being a second year. The next was Jeff and Raphael. Jeff got a frog to be used for the Fashionista Frog. The task lasted for 41 seconds! It was fast, and we moved on to the next station.

The next station was the Foot Loose. The task was to jump the first garter over the second without stepping or missing it 10 times. After Hannah trying it with no luck and I missing it, Raphael did it in a minute.

The next station was the Worm Relay. 10 people needed to transfer worms fro each other without dropping any worms. While we waited we practiced on some carabao grass leaves. Marc got the idea of cupping your hands and opening it to the cupped hands of the next person. We did it fast and easy.

The second to the last station was the uncovering a word through a reaction. The reaction was obvious, it needed heat. However we came there and there were no matches, so I had to rush to the Science Department and get the match. We then burned the word “intron” over the paper.

We prepared the frog’s costume at the nook, using santan flowers, bandages and the leaves of the five-finger plant. While the people rested for a while I joined the Hertz team lying down, asleep, playing the guitar or talking about such. Then the facilitators woke everyone up and started the Fashionista Frog.

Ms. Coco facilitated the Fashionista Frog. She snapped at everyone who did not follow her instructions, and within her rage the frog fashion show started. It was boring, and everyone wanted to sleep, however Luis, Bea and Julius made a fun of the frogs. Luis showed their frog with a ribbon on, with the reason “Simplicity is beauty” and Julius with the “Maria Clara” costume. Bea had their frog transformed into a mermaid and let the frog hang from the ropes.

When the pledge was initiated Ms. Coco was angrier than expected, since the things were not going within plan. After our group pledged by creating a revised version from the first and third groups’ pledge, I got my pillow and slept sitting down with Angelica.

When the pledge was finished, I was awakened by Angelica and the singing was started. I looked up the sky looking bluish lavender. It was twilight already! The environment was cold according to some people and we slept. The pledge was finished by 6 am. Maritoni slept while Angelica and I asked the people if they want to eat. Some wanted to eat, and we went to the canteen. Jeff and Stefen got the food, and we went back with eggs and sausages, packs of Milo and some bananas. Angelica and I ate and got our cups filled with hot water for the Milo.

Thea joined us in the water filling and saw a long line of people staggering for hot water. We went in line, and soon other third years were asking us to fill their Styrofoam cups with water. The dispenser’s faucet was destroyed, so a fork was used to turn the water on and flowed into our cups. After some glasses and a few stirs we enjoyed hot chocolate while walking.

After cleaning the nook and removing the blankets and ropes, we all fixed ourselves to go home. I joined Philippe and the others who reserved the whole Paco PC Internet Café and played DotA for 4 straight hours. After playing they went home, but I went up the Astral Tower to borrow a Chemistry notebook.

I borrowed Lorraine’s notebook and had lunch there at Astral. I even slept there for 2 hours, waking up because Darren was victimizing Mary for leaving her phone at the room. Loribelle and Darren were laughing at me because I slept with positions tiring for them to do, because I wasn’t sleeping in a straight manner. When the time reached 3 pm we went home.

I slept on the bus and through the travel was a hot one. The sunlight felt like fire and I haven’t drunk water for about 4 hours. I reached home and found out that no one was home. I bought a coke and drank it, ran to a house where I thought my brothers were, but I found my parents there, and I waited for about 30 minutes before we went home. I slept with the air conditioner on, and woke up 11:30 pm. I had dinner and slept again.

That’s one long post and I hope you had the patience to read all of this. Ciao~

my mind fleeted at :1:57 pm ;