Words from the wise

Teachings From Al: Why All The Freakin Impossible Tasks??

August 5, 2009

Okay, this is gonna be an easy blog from me since forever I havn’t write anything here… (I feel sorry for my own blog, hahaha)

Think about some student activity called “Englink” short for Engineers Linkage or something like that, which is some thingy relating to IEM (a “club” for professional engineers). A program that includes an Explorace… some ice breaking games… a fancy buffet dinner… and motivational talks. Now imagine your friend Albrecht here just F*cking join that activity, (hold that picture in your mind)

**** P.A.U.S.E. ****

and let’s see wether it matches with my description. ;p

They had this team working activities for groups for the 1st day and we had to do stuff like carrying ping pong balls with strings.

pros: team working

cons: It is a pain in the ass because the damn ball doesn’t wanna be easily carried away.

Here’s also one of the earliest activity we did for Englink, as you can see I’m showing a face like I’m gonna kick someone’s ass, thinking to myself I look freaking cool with a gear (I think that’s what it is… a gear half of it at least).

pros: My team mates are so happy I made cute paper bracelets for them. We had a cool “team spirit shout” which was more or less like the All Blacks thingy.

cons: 1st of all… they didn’t justify why on earth we had to do all of this, but it was understood it’s suppose to “break the Ice” which actually worked in the most awkward way could be done. 2nd… I really don’t look that cool

Owh, this one is fun too! 10 people on 3 chairs…

The determination..

The Strategy…

The Stance…

It’s can’t be more cooler than this when you have nearly broken chairs and men over 70kilos each which adds up to 700Kilos standing together closely for 10 seconds.

Pros: It was fun knowing that it was possible and no one was injured because of any falls or whatever which makes men believs in miracles even more.

Cons: 10 seconds felt like a lifetime… (enough said…)

Alright that’s most of the fun part for the 1st day. Let’s look at the 2day now

Okay, this is my team for the damn Explorace, despite me having no long lasting energies and taking into account that I’m not athletic… I can be happy to be in 2nd place for the whole race.
This race includes F*cked up, energy draining, brain sapping and soul ripping activities designed to make those who witness pity for you and make you feel like you wanna kill the person who created all these damn “games” in the race.

1st activity was all easy-peasy, asking us to find bottles burried under the sands…

*yaaaawn*

Then, comes the 1st challenge for my team which was really F*cked up. we had to fill a long pipe with sea water… sounds easy? The pipe is full of holes hundreds of holes… not only the waves was knocking the pipe again, and again, and again… all the water poured in using a miniature pail was flowing out the pipe in mini-seconds from the holes.

We eventually learned that if you fill the pipe with 80% sand and 10% water and the rest seaweeds and seashells… you still could win the challenge. (We were the only team to complete this challenge) yes, I wanna brag about this.

After that, we had this lego challenge… we build and they (the ‘judges’) destroy.

after building a “fort” using some blocks, it will be barbarically assaulted with pebbles and papers to see wether it was durable enough for their justifications… *YAAaaaawwWWWNNNnnn*

What!!! What!! crazy stuff again??

Okay, compared to this thing… I prefered the pipe challenge more… and one more thing eating raw stuffs are alright if it’s sushi…

The experiance to eat a raw ‘Peria‘, drink a very very veeeeeeeery Kaw Kopi O and gulp down a raw egg… is so f*cked up, you’ll begin to think that your uni’s orientation day was a more beautiful time and feel confused about the relation about eating those stuffs and becoming a future engineer…

The other challenges were as f*cked up as the other f*cked up challenges where we actually had to search hidden tools around bushes… being blind folded and walk through a series of fallen trees… passing a puzzle made of ropes (can’t touch the ropes)… doing a marathon on the beach and finally burying a team mate…

But… the last challenge was soooo f*cked up, anyone failing to complete the last challenge we were doing would feel like an idiot…

If you think assembling this B-Daman toy would be easy… then you should join my team that day and we could win the whole Freaking race…

But, it was cool to scramble your hands with the pieces of the B-Daman body parts thinking you can do it in the 1st place… The sucky feeling kicks in when you can’t even differentiate between it’s feets and arms… and 8 people think they “got it” and do different things at the same time making the B-Daman dude looked like some crap toy from Mars.

Okay, we got it we lost the “brain chellenge” despite being dominating in the mental and physical challenges…

Makes you think back that as engineers… It takes a TEAM to make a SOLUTION to survive in various shitty situations
After the Explorace and all, we finally had some fun at a dining hall in a hotel, it was a buffet set and various fun activities were installed for everyone.

I finally believed that the poco-poco moves was possible to be followed. I also learned my lesson that… If there is a gift exchange activity… don’t expect to get a vogue gift when you give one (like a picture frame)… because you might just get a free cup from Kraft Cheese as a gift.

In the end of the day, you kinda forget that all those F*cked up Explorace thing was damn tiring etc. and begin to reflect on it while saying

“That Was Freaking Fun”

Before I end this blog entry, I just wanna share something very important I learned from the talks in Englink.

Two Freaking cool Motivational speakers!!!! WOOO!!!

THOSE WHO COMPLAINS OVER SOME “BUMPS” AND GIVES UP, WILL NEVER GET THE JOB THEY STARTED DONE… BECAUSE THEY BLAME EVERYTHING ELSE WHERE THE ONE THAT SHOULD BE BLAMED IS THEMSELVES!!!

NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN DECISIONS!!! SO CHOSE WISELY

So, to everyone who is kind enough to read this,

1) Stop being an ass if you meet some bumps along LIFE, just learn from it and move on.

2) If you’re a guy, and you’re bitchy… you better just un-ball yourself for awhile and keep your balls somewhere else, until you realise that in the end of the day it takes ACTION and DETERMINATION to make things go your way in LIFE!!

3) Don’t forget to have fun, at the same time… don’t forget what you’re suppose to do and never get tooooo carried away with fun.

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