Pharmacised!

After a terrible weekend I wasn't sure what sort of weather to expect, seeing as it was shocking in the weekend. Fortunately though Monday morning was bright and sunny. I got to the city about half an hour before I was supposed to meet outside the Grafton campus for the pharmacy camp.

When I got to the campus there were already people waiting around. I didn't recognise anyone as they were all first years, and as far as I could see, mostly girls! I just ended up talking to Mimi, this 2nd year pharmacy student who is one of the exec's of the APSA (Auckland Pharmacy Students Association) who were running the camp. I had already met her on the day of my pharmacy interview so at least I sorta knew her! She then introduced me to this other girl who was a 2nd year pharmacy student. Eventually our group got bigger and the guys all got round together to talk for a bit.

All in all, there were only about eight guys out of roughly forty students who went on camp, with only about four of us being 2nd year students! Also, the majority of students were Asian as well!

We got to Clarks Beach Holiday Park by bus, and I mean posh fancy bus with air conditioning, footrests and curtains!! I sat next to this guy called Michael and got to know him during the ride.

Once we got there, we had to find a cabin to be in, and we were told there had to be a few guys in each cabin, but most of the cabins were full so five of us guys ended up taking the last cabin with five other girls. That's when Cabin E was formed!

We ate our own prepared lunch before getting into activity groups to play some team-building and getting to know you games. I was put in Group A, which was soon renamed as 'Jay Jay Shorties' (J & J = Jack and Judy, the execs looking after us, and Shorty, the nickname of this girl Tanya who is pretty short). We were so confident in the untangle your arms game that we challenged all the other groups to beat us! They actually did and we were left as the last team who couldn't even complete the task! We then went down to the lower field to do three-legged races and play games of soccer against each other. I ran together with the exec Jack in the three-legged race, but we came last after we couldn't get our steps co-ordinated!

Soccer was more interesting though. We had to take our shoes off which wasn't so great though. The game was going all right for a while till the goalkeeper threw the ball to one of the girls and I came charging to intercept it but kicked her in the shin and she went down injured! She had to limp off the field with a big bruise on her leg while I was apologising profusely! Hopefully she knew it was an accident! Well I soon subbed myself off with guilt weighing me down, but we went on to win the game 1-0! The other two teams faced off against each other. There was supposed to be a final sometime soon but that never eventuated.

We now had free time and so I jumped in the pool with a few others and we played a bit of Marco Polo before we got too cold and jumped out. We played a bit of snap before people wanted to play something a bit more fun like this game involving spoons. It's supposed to be a drinking game but no one had any alcohol on them at the time.

I went for a shower which required one token=5 minutes. The tokens were actually just those old 20c coins. I was having my shower when I dropped my soap and it slid all the way across the shower cubicles, so I had to finish my shower before walking over to the other shower, bend over and reach for my soap!

Our group Jay Jay Shorties had to prepare dinner that night and so we went to the kitchen to prepare the barbecue. I have to admit I didn't do a lot of work, as these two girls Kristine and Diane came over to me and started talking to me! Kristine used to go to the same intermediate school as me! I didn't notice at first till her friend pointed it out to me. I felt a little bad for not helping out so I regularly offered my services, and soon found a job in guarding the food from flies! ;) I sat at this table with these other girls and a few guys for dinner. It was so unstable that when someone sat down or got up, the other side would go up or down accordingly! So it was a little fun. We had a little fun jumping up and down on the seats! Another Calum moment was when someone asked me to pass the tomato sauce to them, I grabbed the bottle, but because it was covered in sauce it slipped out of my grasp and I spilled some on the table!

After dessert we had to get dressed in our worst clothes, for we were going on a Burma trail! We were blind-folded and told to follow this rope which took us around buildings, past tables, through bushes and right underneath the cabins, where you could hear people walking above! Throughout this time as well the execs were chucking and squirting stuff at us! It was all part of becoming a pharmacy student...apparently! By the time we got to the end of the trail and were allowed to lift our blindfolds, it was completely dark! An hour (which surely didn't feel like it) had passed!

Most of the people went into their cabins and prepared for bed, with some going to sleep as early as 8pm! I ended up sitting outside with a few people, Ruby, Lisa, Lucy Michelle and Michael just talking for a while before it was just down to Lisa, Michelle and me until some of the execs came out and we just talked about pharmacy and where we would be ending up. It got cold and late soon so we all went off to bed.

Day Two

The next morning I got up, had a shower and joined the group of people I had dinner with the day before for breakfast, which was just the typical cereal or toast. We were to have free time till midday, so the guys wanted to go down to the soccer field once again for a game of soccer. This time it was 1st/2nd years vs the 3rd/4th years! We were leading at first, thanks to a deflection off one of the 4th year girls standing near the goal. I stayed back as I was a bit weary of injuring anyone else! Unfortunately the 3rd/4th years went on to score two goals (including one that just nipped me!!) and win the game 2-1.

Quite a few of us then spent a bit of time in the TV/games room where people played pool, table tennis, read magazines or just watched TV. I didn't really do much there but watch.

It was now lunchtime and so we went back down for it. The pharmacy course co-ordinator Sanya Ram was there to introduce herself and tell us a little about herself. Once she finished and sat down she saw me and told me she recognised me from a few weeks ago when I went in to see her about my timetable! We had burgers for lunch and I was sitting at this table all squashed up with these other girls. One of the girls Lucy thought her chicken pattie (is that what it's called?) was undercooked and that got me scared for a little while! I haven't had to vomit any time soon though so mine must've been cooked properly then!

After lunch our group Jay Jay Shorties were to do kayaking first so we went down to the nearby lake, did a quick lesson on how to paddle before jumping in and kayaking around the area. Most of the people just went around in a big circle, while a couple of the execs got stuck in the bushes in the lake (I'm sure there's a word for this...my brain's just blocked!). The guy taking us kayaking got the guys to do a short race where we had to kayak to one of the trees to the right side of the lake before kayaking to the other side of the lake to grab a leaf from the other tree. I was coming third out of four at the start, but after one guy got caught and started going around in circles, I managed to jump into second place just behind another guy. He got stuck in the bushes though and so I managed to win!

That's when the guy told us to have a race backwards! We were too tired so us guys just held our kayaks together and relaxed. We did a few activities like climbing across kayaks and changing the order of the kayaks before we finished. When I got out of the kayak my skin was peeling and stinging a little. I went straight to put some sunblock on!

Our next activity was archery. We went into this classroom to do archery where four of us fired arrows at a time. When it was my turn I aimed at this target that was loosely stuck to the wall. I shot an arrow at it, and the whole target fell right off the wall! Yeah I wasn't too good at archery, but this girl was and because she did the best, she went into the finals.

After kayaking we walked along to the mini-golf course where we played a bit of mini-golf. It was a bit run down with some of the fake grass material peeling which blocked some of the shots. There was a shortage of golf clubs too so I shared with Himesh. I'm not too sure who won but it probably wasn't me!

Once we had finished, we went back up to the cabins before the guys wanted to play a bit of soccer, so we went back down for another game of soccer. This time it was mixed teams. Our team only had three while the other team had four members. We were leading for most of the beginning before Ahmed, the president of the APSA joined the other team and they started winning! It was soon 9-7 but we had to go back up soon, so it was golden goal time. Whoever scored the next goal would win the game! Well guess what? We scored the next goal!!

Dinner this time round was Spaghetti with some toppings and mince. It tasted really good! Michael, this other 2nd year student couldn't find his fork so he ate most of his dinner and dessert with chopsticks. Wow is he skilled!!

After dinner most of us guys took a shower. This was when I put in a token, but the shower wouldn't turn on! I had to quickly dress myself and go back to the cabin to grab my spare token, run back and take the shower! By the time I had finished, the others were already starting to get dressed in their costumes for the party that night. Himesh and Yerin from our cabin dressed up as a pirate while this girl Eliza dressed up as a ninja, Liam dressed up as Legolas from the Lord of the Rings (he really suits it!), Ruby as Little Red Riding Hood, Michael as a cross between Bruce Lee and Michael Jordon, Lisa as Snow White, Kristine and Diane as super models, Dickson as Harry Potter, Hannah as Juno, and me....well I was a road worker - you know one of those road workers you usually see in the background of movies? Yeap that's me! I was fretting the night before camp because I couldn't find anything to dress up as, so I just reused my road worker costume for the movie character dress up party. I got a few people calling out to me asking me what I was supposed to be!

The party started off with a quiz. We got into groups. Our group was called Bash, the nickname of our one of our cabin members as our group was made of Cabin E members! We did pretty well in the quiz and would've won had the execs listened to our answers and given us the right amount of points! Boy was it noisy! Different groups were trying to call out at the same time which was driving the execs insane as they couldn't hear! A few had already started drinking so that could explain things. There was also a noise limit for late at night at the holiday park so we had to try keep it down. Anyway the other team won and we came a close second. A couple of the APSA execs got chucked in the pool by their fellow members. I also got tapped by one of them during the quiz who warned me to be prepared as I was going to get chucked in too!

In the middle of the quiz, a couple of the other APSA guys who were sorta acting as the bouncers called out saying I was making too much noise, lifted me up and were about to chuck me in the pool! That's when I asked if we could just pose for a photo (of course!) then I got chucked in! Boy was it cold!! Fortunately I emptied my pockets as soon as I was warned! I quickly ran to the cabin to get changed. I was also starting to run out of clothes!

When I got back the tables were moved to the side and it was time to dance! A bit of a shame that the speakers were so quiet though! That didn't stop some from dancing and singing really loud! Diane was quite a dancer and a few of the girls got on tables and started dancing!

As soon as it hit 10pm, sorta a curfew at the park, we had to stop the party and return to the cabins where we could continue drinking if we wanted. Most of my cabin group wanted to go for a walk down to the lower park though so we walked all the way down the driveway to the playground and played there for a while before the rest of the people came spilling onto the lower field. We rejoined them to play a few drinking games. I was drinking water of course though! One girl, Lisa, drank quite a lot though and so she was quite tipsy!

When it started getting cold and more and more people needed to go back up to go to the toilet, the rest of the people at the park decided to go up as well. When I got back up to the cabins I joined a group sitting outside our cabin playing spin the bottle. That's when a few truths were revealed...which I won't disclose here! One of the execs chose dare though and ended up getting make-up put on him by one of the girls! In return though, he got to try put make-up on the girl when it was her turn!

We soon had to go back into our cabins, and so our cabin group went inside and just kept on talking since none of them were tired yet, except for Caroline who had already gone to sleep! They talked for a while before it was time to call it a night at 3am!

Day Three

I woke up early to go for a shower and this time it worked!! When I got back the rest of the people in the cabin had woken up and we all packed our bags before going for breakfast earlier than everyone else. We all sat together this time, and left together to hang out in our cabin for a while. We completed packing and cleaned the floors and then sat around talking and sharing contacts. After an hour, we were called outside where everyone sat on the deck while the execs made some presentations. There was the drunk in denial award (not exactly what it's called!) which went to this girl Lisa, the best dressed guy at the party award to Liam who dressed as Legolas, the best dressed girl at the party went to Eliza who dressed as a ninja, the funny guy award went to Himesh, the up-and-coming photographer award went to me, the tidiest cabin award went to the one and only Cabin E(!!!!) and then the top awards the most pleasant guy award went to Dickson while the most pleasant girl went to Eliza!

We had to wait a while before the bus finally arrived. Our cabin group sat in adjacent rows with me sitting next to this girl Hannah who was in our cabin. I talked to her for a while before we joined the group. The bus ride didn't seem to last long and soon we found ourselves back at Grafton! After unloading the bus, we shared contacts with others, said our goodbyes, and that was the end of Pharmacy Freshers Camp 2008!