IABC Fall Retreat 2010!

wow it's been a while since i last blogged! i guess i've been really busy with studying, mugging and with all the different student group and club activities. i joined iabc, a business club and i got into the consulting division. so i have to invest about 10 - 14 hours a week doing consulting work for our client. yeah this means essentially a class on its own haha, so even though im taking only 17 units, i've been REAL busy. and lacking in sleep. T.T

so yeah we went to half-moon bay for our iabc fall retreat, and lots of unforgettable things happened. in general i would say, the worst things that could have happened actually happened haha. it's what i would call 毕生难忘的经历 xD

before going for the retreat, im glad to say i finished my paper (yay finally) so i didn't have to worry about it over the retreat, and i had cookies and milk with my roommate! (pepperidge cookies <3) it was kindof to celebrate end of her midterms and end of my paper, so we exchanged the different cookies we had and had fun eating them hee.

anw it was raining when i left for the retreat, but it stopped by the time i reached the retreat house. the journey was ok and the retreat house was really nice and cosy! the first night, we watched king arthur and monty python, which was really random and bleh. it was pretty hilarious, but i don't like watching stuff with no real plot, at least not for one full-blown movie's length. it kindof reminds me of random funny youtube videos, all spliced together in a mish-mash of frames just to form a movie that has no linking theme except the recurring characters and hilarity.

i guess it's not my type of comedy.

so yeah we played some icebreakers and i did some studying and some consulting discussion, then went to sleep late. woke at 6.30am the next morning to go horseback riding which was really fun and interesting! except it's pretty expensive and it made my butt ache xD

the first bad thing that happened was that one of our drivers lost her car key. it most likely fell out of her pockets while she was on the horse, either when mounting or when galloping. so we all stayed back and helped to search for the key, but to no avail. we split into 3 teams, one searching the beach area, the other at the end of the trail, and my group was walking from the beginning of the trail till the beach. interestingly, i found out that bmw can unlock your car remotely! the driver called bmw et voila, bmw unlocked her car! it's a little scary to think about how thieves can unlock your car if they have your personal details, but at least they can't drive off with it. bmw couldn't start the car for her, only unlock the door.

anyhow, in the end she managed to get her parents to drive up from her home (an hour's drive away) with the spare car key. in the meantime, we were searching for the key along the trail which was littered with horse manure. i must say that i saw the most amount of manure in my life that single morning, and it really stinks haha.

i got kindof used to the smell though (and i prolly smelled like horse too), and i observed many different stages of manure, like freshly pooped ones which were really green and gooey (yep. twice, some horse pooped right in front of my horse's face, all while walking and splattering its own tail and legs with poo), and manure that were there for a while and has turned greyish. the poo looks like grass after it's dried up, which makes sense, since horses eat mostly grass and fibre-filled stuff. it is also interesting to note that horses don't seem to mind manure or pee so much - they bite each other's butt all the same.

so because of the lost key, we got the chance to walk along the trail and take pictures yay! cameras and electronic devices weren't allowed on horseback you see, probably to avoid having them from falling out of pockets and to prevent us from falling off the horse while trying to take pictures. it's also a great way for them to gain profit since we can only get photos of us on horses by buying the photos from them. it wasn't too bad though, we could split the cost among all of us so it wasn't too ex.

fortunately it didn't rain during the horse-riding activity. however, it started raining in the afternoon, and we couldn't go to the beaches to play (though we had more than enough view of the beach both on horseback and on foot haha). ppl who wanted to kayak couldn't kayak since it was raining :/ anyhow, the next activity was a trip to arata pumpkin farm where we went through a hay maze.

by the time we reached arata pumupkin farm, it was pitch dark. i have no idea why we actually decided to go to the hay maze at night. i think we were supposed to leave earlier but somehow it just got dragged out? anyhow we didn't have enough flashlights nor umbrellas, so we got wet, and we were slipping and squelching around in the mud trying to find our way out of a freaking maze in the dark. i just realised how stupid this is hahaha, i mean even if it were bright daylight, we'd still have trouble identifying where we're going and whether we've been to the place before in a maze, not to mention walking around in circles in the dark! i was way more focussed on not slipping on the mud, and minimising damage to my shoes and jeans (which didn't turn out all the clean anyway huh)

yeah so we got stuck in the maze for really long and we kept ending up at the entrance! after ending up at the entrance for the 4th time, we finally decided to give up and go out since we were all hungry. it felt awfully lousy though, because 12-year old kids could get through the maze in 5 minutes, and we spent 2 hours and were still stuck. we were supposed to go through 3 trapdoors before getting to the exit, but we couldn't get to the 1st trapdoor. we went by that first trapdoor once before, but for some reason we didn't think it would lead to the exit, but would lead back to the entrance instead. we should have just tried the trapdoor man!

well ever since we missed that chance, we never found the trapdoor again. and since it was all dark, we could not tell whether we have done this turn before or not, whether we have been to that spot before or not, and so we couldn't orientate ourselves at all. that must have been the worst strategy we ever had (ie. no strategy), no wonder we couldn't get out -.-"

yeah and after we got out, the exit was right next to the entrance! and as we were feeling really frustrated and pissed, we decided to go in through the exit to see where we went wrong. and yeah we found the 3rd trapdoor and the 2nd trapdoor yay, but we couldn't find the 1st trapdoor! we got lost in the maze again T.T so we just decided to give up for real and we walked out through one of the emergency exits haha.

ok so that was one bad thing, because i got all muddy and dirty, and my shoes were all dirtied and i had to wash everything. the mud wouldn't come off in the washing machine so i had to wash the mud off by hand too, so it's really bleh. and we all felt lousy for not being able to complete the maze sigh.

here's the next bad thing. as we're heading to the pumpkin farm , one of our cars slipped and rolled down the slope, denting the garage door. it was awfully loud and most likely attracted plenty of attention. now that's a big problem since we were supposed to be discreet and quiet. the landlord of the house we rented from thought that there were only 8 people, so we shouldn't attract unwanted attention when there were more than 8 of us there. so apparently neighbours saw the dented door and cars with college kids leaving, so they assumed it was a hit and run and panicked. they called the cops and blew the whole thing out of proportion.

we only found out about this after we came back from the pumpkin farm (all dirty and not too happy) haha. apparently the people who stayed behind in the house had an exciting evening too! yepp so police and fire brigade came and people who remained in the house panicked and started shoving all our sleeping bags and luggage into closets. but of course the police weren't interested in the number of ppl in the house, only whether there was a hit and run. bcos of the cops and all, the manager whom the landlord hired to take care of the house found out and got real mad that we damaged the garage door. she was going to come to the house the next morning.

now this meant that we had to depart earlier than originally planned so that the manager won't see that there were more of us than there should be. she prolly could guess that there were more than 8 of us though; the neighbours probably complained because they noticed that there were a lot of us or that we were making too much noise. ppl were really noisy even at 2+am when i was trying to sleep the night before!

well we were planning to use the story that most of us were just family friends visiting, and weren't going to stay overnight at the house. haha but it wouldn't work if the manager saw all the luggage and sleeping bags, especially if she saw us early in the morning, which means we most likely stayed over.

yeah so the worst that could happen actually happens huh. the next morning we woke at 6.30am and got ready to leave by 8. we had to stagger our departure timings so that not everyone would leave at once and cause suspicion, so the first group was getting ready to leave the house when alas! the landlord was right outside! and she brought the owner of the house along too!

that means all of us were trapped in the house and we couldn't go out and leave or anything. at this point in time, the entire atmosphere was what ycx would say "GG!" or what i'd say "we're screwed." yeah everyone hid in the bedrooms and turned off the lights, keeping quiet. we also shoved our luggage and all the extra shoes into closets. then our representative suggested that we hide in the bathroom and turn the shower on and pretend there's someone showering in there so they couldn't come in to check. i think it's a really brilliant idea for someone to think up when we're all in the panicky mood. iabc ppl really can think on their feet huh.

yeah so we stood around in the toilet for the longest time (or what felt like eternity. now i totally understand how it feels when they say that in the books i read!) we all lacked sleep (i slept like 2.5 hours, and the night before like 4.5 hours, and the night before like 5 hours?). it was also cold, rainy and gloomy, and it felt like we were waiting for something dreadful to happen. one could hardly think clearly or feel good then.

luckily for us, the landlord and owner didn't come into the house. they probably didn't want to bust us, but just wanted to check on the garage door and take pictures. they were negotiating with our representative and discussing about what happened and stuff. most likely we're paying for the replacement of the garage door and our deposit >.>

so yeah after that we were extremely relieved and glad they didn't come into the house, though it's kindof weird. why would they come so early in the morning (at 7+am!! which means they must wake at 6+am!!) if they didn't plan on catching us red-handed?? oh well i guess we should consider ourselves lucky, though we have been absolutely down on our luck in the series of unfortunate events that occurred at the retreat. we then decided to have the first car leave quickly so the next car could leave 10 min later and so on, while everyone cleaned up. it would be no good if the landlord and manager purposely waited for us to let our guard down before coming back to check >.>

overall, this retreat is one of the experiences of a lifetime i won't ever forget. it must be the most miserably exciting and interesting weekend i've ever spent in my life, the weekend where i experienced happiness, misery, anger, embarrassment, exhaustion, fear and excitement all at once. i felt like we were some kindof illegal immigrants/fugitives running around, parking cars far away, leaving in small groups at staggered intervals, sneaking around quietly...and i didn't manage to get a whole lot of work done! but at least i got to see quite a bit of half-moon bay haha.

it's also the first time i ever walked around getting lost in the dark, in the slippery and wet mud, all while being in the rain (except for ccal camp last year where it was pretty muddy, but at least it wasn't dark NOR was it raining). hmm seems like i've been living a really civilised and sheltered life all along in sg eh.

i probably can never get such an experience again in my life, esp not in sg haha! i guess im glad i have had this experience, so i can learn from it and also finally, so i can have an interesting weekend to blog about!