AYC, Day 8

3rd August 2010

Good Morning. For once I woke up early today, you know! 

...

HAHAHAHA! I can't even type that with a straight face. XD

So, after struggling to get out of the soft and cushy YMCA hotel bed, we all headed over to Cedar Girls' Secondary School and back into it's incredibly FREEZING Plush! Auditorium. Today's broad topic would be on ASEAN's Culture-Socio issues, mainly focusing on Social Provision.

The first speaker was nice gentleman named Han Hai Kwang. He's been involved in a few projects to raise Social Provision in under-priviledged communities. I forgot the exact name of the place, but his project was about providing means of access to clean water through a nifty sand filter idea. He's also personally involved in an organization called Bina Mandiri, which right in Indonesia.

I wasn't feeling completely sleepy throughout the lecture (I'm such a liar XD). But I did learn a few fundamentals when it comes to forming a project. Purpose, Realistic-ness, and Sustainability, are some the things that I will keep in mind, in the near future.

After that, we had another lecture/presentation on another existing project, called Food from the Heart. The founder of this organization was Ms Christine Laimer, who thought it was such a sad thing to see how much food/leftovers gets thrown away by bakeries/restaurants/food stores. So she put out an ad in the newspaper to invite said possible contributers to collect their leftovers to be sent to those would need them more.

The amazing thing about her organization, is that it is completely SELF-SUSTAINABLE. She didn't ask any funds from the government or anything. She started with what she had, and found ways to find regular income to further assure the sustainability of the project. Pretty inspiring, right?

After that we had a really cool PANEL DISCUSSION on the topic. Our honorary speakers, were Ms Penny Low, an active member of the Parliament of Singapore, and Ms Elim Chew, who is the founder of 77th Street, a trendy youth streetwear fashion chain. In short she's an avid enthusiast in youth entrepreneurship. We passed a 77th Street store later on, and when I saw it I was totally amazed. The items in there were so cool, I wanted to fill my closet with them!

If there has to be a reason for me to go back to Singapore, it would be just to go shop at that store >_<

Anyways! This was a really lively kicking and entertaining panel discussion. I was all-ears as i listened to their inspirational stories, as we all jabbed a few jokes. Best moment? A little game I like to call, "GRAB THAT OPPORTUNITY!". Ms Elim Chew, held out a $10 note, and guess who grabbed it? Our own, Gregorius Erico XD.

Next on the agenda would be celebrating: ASEAN DAY! It's supposed to be on the 8th of August, but since AYC was happening now, we just had to celebrate. So we al headed over to J8, Junction 8.

We went up to an open rooftop space, with a stage and a playground. First we had a few minor games to kick of the event, hearing corny jokes and playing limbo. Not to mention taking a lot of photos! We also played, "Pass the Pong", where we had to pass a pingpong ball with only spoons held in our mouth. My group, "WOW!", aka J3, won hands down ;)

Another memorable moment! THE AWESOME AIRBAND by the EXTRAS :)
The song American Idiot played as Boon, Vivian, Uly, David and Nicole, rocked out! There's a video up on facebook, and man it's fun to watch! Uly even did a STAGEDIVE, like he said was a dream come true. XD. 

I was in the front, jumping and singing along, since GREEN DAY is a favorite of my as well. And when Uly stage-dived, he almost fell on top of me LOL. 

After that crazy time, we had the "OUR ASEAN" activity, which was to create a symbol of what ASEAN/AYC means to out group, by using colored rice. We had a great, J3, and we came up with something that can only be described as "abstract art" XD

After that was Cultural Night :) So most of us, who had brought traditional costumes, changed into them. I wore a bright green kebaya (Green's my favorite :D) and a brown, batik skirt. We had a fashion show, and I went on stage with Odi. Favorite pair? More like favorite trio was Evan with Sharleen and Natasha. 

We also had our country booths up before hand. Even though we hit a few rough patches in the start, the Indonesian delegates came together to produce such a wonderful stand. We sang some songs, danced to some tunes, but more importantly, we all had a great time as one AYC family.

I for one, went back to YMCA, very happy :)

--Karin Novelia

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