I Love You. I Forgive You

This post is about the STE program.

We finished our AS exams two weeks ago, and by right we were suppose to have holidays last week.

I was suppose to be in Kuching eating tomato kueh tiaw and acting like a total princess around the house again last week. But no.

No holidays for us because our beloved sponsors sent us on a motivational camp called Soaring The Eagle (STE), which ate up our entire holiday. Petronas spent RM4000+ per student, which will accumulate in our statement, thus increasing the amount of money that we have to pay back after we finish our degree.

Wonderful right?

No seriously. It was wonderful of Petronas to do something like that for us. STE was the most amazing experience I have ever had!! PETRONAS I LOVE YOU!!!

Before we went there, I knew it was going to be fun. But fun was a huge underestimation of what STE really was.

We first gathered at KLCC, and waited hours for the bus because of a miscommunication. And because of what I believe to be another miscommunication, we had to wait a while longer for the second bus to come. BUT, alls well ends well because KDU conquered the second bus!!! Muahaha

We had the whole bus to ourselves while Taylors, UTP, Nottingham and one Cyberjaya squeezed in the first bus

The place was not that bad. My only complains were that there is no sink in the toilet at all. And the water was eeewy brown. I had to steal bottles of mineral water just to brush my teeth.

No sink............ The boy's toilet.. Mine was bigger :p

Not forgetting the horrifying fact that we need to climb a steep slope/stairs (depending on which path you take) just to get to the classes at least twice a day.

AND my terrifying encounter with a centipede and a scorpion!!!

Stupid centipede! It was huge!! The boys told me to kill it, but I did not dare.

Evil......................

Stupid scorpion!!! It was HUGE!!! I have never come so close to one and it was life threatening! No, it was not dead. It was charging at us and I practically ran down the stairs! Luckily the boys were with us and they tossed it aside. That was on the second day. After that I had trauma of taking the stairs and opted for the slopey slope...

We saw a lot of other creepy crawlies as well. A huge praying mantis, grasshopper, frogs, and so on.

That is all the complains I had about Agrotech Hulu Langat. Other than that, the place is beautiful, and the Indon employees there are super friendly. They can easily put Malaysians to shame when it comes to hospitality.

Agrotech Garden Resort!!

One of its many amazing landscapes

Nice right?

The view from the top of the hill at 8am

The food there was nice!! BUT, fate was not kind as I had a huge and horrijible ulcer and they were serving food 6 times a day!!!

Maybe the ulcer was a good thing. It helped me control my eating and prevented me from being a total glutton because the food was sooooo nice!!!!

We were served a variety of food every single day. It depended on the theme of the day. We had Indian, Malay, Western and Chinese. One of the best part about the themes was that the employees serving us will also get dolled up in their best costume that went along with the theme. Great service right?

One of the best dinners. I did not care about my ulcer that time. Lolz Oh no no, this is not my plate. It was Ah Siang's plate. Soooo greedy...

I love love love the rice!! Can I go back to Agrotech just for the rice??

BBQ Lamb!!!

I love teh tarik :p

At first I was not sure what we were going to do during the camp. I had bits and pieces of information, but not enough to paint a picture of what STE is about.

Unexpectedly, we have classes everyday.

"What?!?! You say STE fun but got class everyday?? You ki siao ah??"

YES... One of the reasons STE was fun is because of the classes!!

It was very interactive with a lot of bonding and sharing moments. It is this type of thing that brings us all closer to one another. We learn so much from each other and from there, we can soar like an eagle!

On the first day of class we had a fun ice-breaking game where we came up with adjectives to go along with our names. The results are:

We also got the chance to come up with our own punishments. They gave us an egg each to take care of for 5 days. But mine broke, and I blame Mr Nordin from ESU (it broke during his session and I have no idea how it happened), and the second egg I got broke as well. Up to now, I have no idea what Arsyad did to it. Doesn't matter anyway :p

Da rulez

Some of the stuff on our walls

We also had loads of group discussion and presentations. This was a major learning experience because we were able to voice out our opinions and overcame our fear of public speaking. In fact, I enjoyed the presentation part :)

On of our many group discussions

Synthium's group presentation.

There were times when they made us do really weird things that seems stupid and pointless at first, but after that we came to realise the significance of the activity and learn from it. Whoever came up with such activities should be a psychologist!

We were divided into three groups. Mine was Primax. At first we got our butts kicked by Sprinta, but in the end, we prevailed and victory was ours!! Lolz

Primax!! Me, Felisberto, Khoo, Raymond, Sarah and Jon

Our facilitators were Joyful Jalil and Thoughtful Tasnima. They rock!! They look old and boring, but whoa are they fun!! Before taking a picture, Pn Tasnima will always and forever say, "Make sure you can see my lipstick yea!" Lolz

Coolest facilitators ever!!

STE was the only time when I was able to practise my drawings! They asked us to draw a picture of what we will be like 15 years from now. We all came up with funny yet inspiring things such as conquering Mt Averest, owning our own company, private jets and huge mansions.

The collection of our amazing work of art.

Yes. Go ahead and laugh. Lolz

My interpretation of the following words. My favourite is anger and hatred :p

We did alot of other things as well. I would really love to go into detail as to how STE was, but there is a risk of future STE goers reading my blog, and it will spoil the surprise and ruin their fun. And also because if I did go into detail, this post will be super long you will fall asleep reading it.

So here is a short recap of some of the things we did in class:

Therapy and relaxation session:

Comel!!! Hadi terkangkang.. hahaha

Perempuan Melayu Terakhir (Yvonne)

They gave us free sarongs and let us sleep for 30 minutes!! It was actually a suggested method to relax ourselves.

SOS:

Group 2 (Mach 5).. We rocked!!!

The only outdoor activity we had. It was fun and another huge lesson we learn from it, just like our XY Game: We are ONE Petronas!!!

STE Idol:

The two miserable judges and dashing Paula!! Hadi, Sarah and Irfan

The fans giving their support

The poster my group made for me. I love love love it!

We had a singing competition in class. It was not just a chance for us to sing. There was actually a big lesson to learn from it. Not so much the singing, but the comments given by the judges.

Words That Hurt:

Syafiq and Irfan (from Synthium) acting out the words.

It was fun converting mean words into nicer words or a nicer way to say those words. And we had to act it out as well. Sprinta was the best. Daniel's bra size. Haha Classic...

Public Speaking:

1st Night, Group 2

Among all the other activities, I dreaded this one before I went for it. Mariam, Raymond and I were so nervous!! Now, I wish that we were given 5-8 minutes to speak, not 3 super short minutes. It was a bonus that I got my facilitators that night :)

Ah Long:

Devil and the angel. And Raymond

Ah Pek Hadi

Yvonne, Obie and I: Ah Longs terrorizing Mariam and Nurul!!!

We split into two groups and acted out a scene. Poor Mariam got raped! And sorry Nurul!! I kinda abused her a bit. Hehe. But the best Ah Long was Khoo :)

The things we did outside the classroom:

Chicken dance!!

Almost everynight, we will do the chicken dance and pocoh-pocoh voluntarily. Lolz

Ah Siang, Jeremy and Chan. Jeremy can always be seen up on stage doing a funny dance... Hillarious....

The infamous karaoke sessions we have. We did not care how we sound, we just sang!

Guys from Taylors and Jon from Sunway :)

We also played UNO at night when we did not have anything on. Poor Raymond kept getting caught because he did not say "Uno" or "Uno game". Lolz...

Mandi air sungai!!

If we have the time, we would swim!! Some of them were crazy enough to do backflips and what nots into the river. At first I was really hesitant to go in because:

1. It was not as clean as I thought it would be, especially after it rained.
2. My facilitator said he saw a snake in there once!!
3. THERE ARE STUPID FISHES NIBBLING EVERYONE'S TOES!!! I have a phobia of tiny fishes biting me since I was young...

But in the end, Mariam and I decided to go in anyway and join in the fun. Hehe

The last night was fun. We had another idol competition and the dinner was whoa... Some of the employees dressed (or rather undressed) like red-indians and played with fire for our entertainment.

Idol competition!! Nordin and I got second. Nyahaha

Overall STE was an amazing journey of self-discovery. From it, we expanded our network and befriended loads of people from other colleges. I found my future classmates from Taylors, and I am excited!!

The people there are amazing and it was nice to know them on a more personal level. Right Yvonne? :)

And it was also fun to hear from the international students about their life in UTP.

STE was an amazing adventure that really helped to build our character. We learned to love and forgive one another. And also heaps about teamwork and leadership. Apart from that, we learned to not be judgemental and the importance of sharing our problems with one another.

I love STE.

We want another one.

I really hope that our BTN will be with the people from Sunway and Taylors as well!!

I miss them all and I cannot wait to see them again!

My next post will be about the people that I met in STE.