Anyway, the NIE Relay, for those who didn't participate or still don't know what it is, was held at NIE Jurong West. The initial team listings were as follows:
TEAM 1: Zhiming, Varun, Ben, Guan Lin, Yeong Yang, Shi Kai
TEAM 2: Yi Yan, Matthias, Kok Peng, Samuel, Nathaneal, Cho Han
However, Samuel + Matthias were unable to make it for the race (o.O), so Chew and Wilbert fill in for them.
On the actual day, the bus left RI for NIE at 3.10 pm. Reached NIE about a half hour later.
But for now...
PEEKTURES! On the way there:
1. Seow khops WWW's X-Men comic which he has borrowed from a library.
2. Conversation going on at the back of the bus o.O
3. Guan Lin joins in the conversation. Talked til he started flapping. (I think the convo was about CCTS. Can't really remember what it was about exactly. But I do recall that part of the conversation involved pointing at Mr. Lim's car which was behind the bus, and acknowledging the vast similarity between his blue car and an adjacent blue car.)
4. Captain's "mona lisa" look.
5. Enjoying solitary time on the bus!
And as such, time flies and we soon arrive at NIE! There, we met the first obstacle of the day...
6. The stairway to the sky! A looooooooooooooooooooooooooong way up indeed.
7. Pre-race briefing by Mr. Lim.
"Aiyah, I thought I told you your team is supposed to wear the white jersery?"
8. More pre-race preparations.
9. We lug our bags to under the "shelter". Shortly after that, we drag them back to the corridor. Therefore, work done is equivalent to 0.
And so we get on with the race! Zhiming of Team 1 darts off with a good start, finishing with an incredible timing for 7 mins 53 secs for the 2.4 km. Yi Yan, first runner of Team 2, arrives exactly one minute after that. After the third runner finished his leg of the race, RI Team 1 and Team 2 were 1st and 3rd respectively. Not content with being 3rd ($100 prize difference between 2nd and 3rd places!!), RI Team 2 contends for the 2nd placing. WWW and Seow swap teams halfway through in order to close up the huge timing gap in between both teams. In the end, RI Team 2 eventually manages to finish overall 1st runner's up, losing only to RI Team 1. Whoa. (By the way, most of the 2.4km times were sub 9 mins)
In other words:
1st - RI Team 1 ($500)
2nd - RI Team 2 ($400)
More PEEKTURES! After the race:
10. Talking about the race. (Almost) everyone compares timings with each other.
11. Slacking after the race.
12. Ben is mesmerised by the band.
13. Ooh. Night falls. The mugger-ish nature of Rafflesians starts to pop out as worksheets are taken out of their respective bags, and are finished on the spot.
14. Waiting for the lucky draw to pass so that the prize presentation would come sooner.
OMGOMG. I believe this is the first ever "lucky" draw in which Raffles has won ZERO lucky draw prizes. We actually lost to the luckiest school by SIX prizes. And I actually think that the super-lucky school had won a greater monetary value of prizes compared to our $500 (1st place) + $400 (2nd place) = $900 from the race. Wow, talk about being extremely TYCO.
15. Notice Seow's drooping head in the background. Ben gets impatient waiting for the prize presentation and succumbs to the temptations of his antisocial machine.
"Wahlao, why the prize winners' number tags all start with either 'D' or 'F' one!?" (Waves number tag which begins with 'C') "Unfair!!!"
The prize presentation really didn't seem like a prize presentation. No medals were involved. "Currency presentation", anyone?
And as such, we walk off to eat dinner, where we were able to capture the picture of the day...
===> EPIC PICTURE OF THE DAY <===
Towards the end of the meal, Captain Yong rushes the team off to catch the Mens' 4x100m relay race. Jamaica owns the race, and breaks the previous world record by 0.3 secs.
And with that, I sign off with...
SINE FINIBUS.
Wilbert.
