echo In celebration of Sunway’s Friendship Month, Student LIFE organized ‘Viva La Friendship 2.0’ to foster new relationships between students from different courses.
With hearts filled with excitement, approximately 40 participants gathered at Function Room 2 at 6:30 p.m. on 19 August 2020. The participants were met with friendly smiles at the entrance and were given a tiny, coloured sticker to stick on their shirts. Free food vouchers were also given out which brought smiles to the participants’ faces because who doesn’t love free food?
Upon entering the function room, participants were greeted with a lively atmosphere of people talking enthusiastically. There were participants from various courses in both college and university getting to know one another’s names and interests. Just as the conversations were getting more interesting, the emcee, Ms. Amanda picked up the mic and gave a word of greeting, with this the event had officially begun.
Ms. Amanda introduced her colleague, Ms. Shazria and the game facilitators for the day – Ken and Hao Wei. The game facilitators introduced the ice-breaking game which was an upgraded version of ‘Hot Potato’. A category such as celebrities, plants, car brands etc are given to the participants, then a beach ball is passed to whichever participant in the circle and the participant has to shout out something which fits in the category. If a participant fails to catch the ball or fails to shout something out within 5 seconds upon receiving the ball, the participant will be disqualified. As the games began, participants waited nervously for someone to pass the ball to them, some even squealing softly when the ball was passed to them. One by one, participants were eliminated until only 5 were left. The losers had to do the chicken dance in front of everyone as their punishment. One would expect the losers to be rather shy in dancing in front of so many people, however, the losers danced with all their might and were enjoying themselves!
Moving on, participants were separated into groups of six based on the colour of the stickers they have received during registration. The rules of the game were simple: each group had to accumulate points by playing games and the three groups with the most points were crowned to be the top 3 winners. The fate of each group lied in Ms. Amanda and Ms. Shazrina’s hands as they were the judges for the games.
In line with the importance of social distancing, the next game was called the ‘social distancing photoshoot’ game. Participants were given around 10 minutes to brainstorm what they thought best symbolises the current reality of social distancing. After a session of intense discussion, the teams came up with some never-before-seen poses which surprised both the judges and participants.
After the first two games, the participants were gradually getting to know their teammates better, that’s when the next game ‘Who’s the Best?’ was introduced. Teammates were required to choose one teammate who is the best at something, for example, best at flirting. Then, the teammate will represent his/her team to compete with other team representatives.
Best at Sports
First off, they had to choose a teammate who is the best at sports and the team representative had to last the longest at doing a plank. As the famous saying goes ‘If you think a minute goes by really fast, you’ve never done a plank’, this game was pure torture (in a good way because they were building them abs) to the representatives. At first, most people expected them to give up after 1 minute, however, almost all of them lasted longer than that. Moved by how determined the representatives were, the judges agreed to give one point to those who lasted longer than 4 minutes. At last, 3 people managed to go past the 4-minute mark.
Best at Style
Yves Saint Laurent once said: ‘Fashions fade, style is eternal’, the teammates with the best style were chosen to do a catwalk and strike a pose of their liking. Ranging from the awkward I-don’t-know-why-I-signed-up-for-this catwalk to the iconic victoria secret catwalk, each representative gave their best and showcased their own personalities which were all unique in their own way.
Best at Flirting
Thereafter, the best flirt in the team had to try to win over the judges with the most creative pick-up lines they could think of. One of the most memorable pick-up lines was when the team representative took out his phone with a picture of a QR code displayed and asked the judge to scan it. After the judge had scanned it, he said ‘Okay, now u can enter my heart’. His pickup line left the whole room roaring in laughter and cheers at how relevant and funny it was to the current times.
Best at Words
The game was simple, team representatives had to read out the tongue twister as quickly and clearly as possible. Those who mispronounced a word were automatically disqualified from getting a point.
Best at Moving
Lastly, the team member with the best moves was chosen to perform a funny dance for 30 seconds. Each team representative bent their bodies in weird angles and hit the moves with such precision that their performances left both the audience and judges at loss with choosing their favourite dance. Once again, this brought fits of laughter across the room as the representatives brought out their inner goofiness through their dance moves.
‘Ping pong ball and Spoon Race’ was the name of the following game. Every group lined up and each participant took turns completing the designated route while holding a spoon with a ping pong ball in it. The first team with all the team members completing the route won the competition. With a determined face, each participant ran across the room as quickly as possible without dropping the ping pong ball.
Afterward, participants were given some time to rest and bond with one another as the game facilitators hid snacks all around the room. Then, participants were given a stack of newspapers as their ‘road’ to build towards the 3 different snacks with their team colour sticker. In order to test the group’s teamwork, the team had to move as a unit, always having at least one hand on the other person’s shoulder, similar to a human caterpillar. The best part of this game is that the snacks obtained were all eventually given to the team as a gift! Nothing feels better than having some sweet snacks after a period of “hard” labour!
In a flash, the games came to an end. The top 3 winners were announced and each of the teams received a food hamper(more food yay!) as a reward for their brilliant teamwork. The organisers were extremely generous with the food they gave out as rewards as the first team managed to win a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates along with other tidbits!
At the end of the day, happy smiles could be seen plastered on each of the participants’ faces as they not only had a good time but also had the opportunity to make new friends who could potentially be a gem in their life in the future. Seeing the positive reactions from the participants, Ms. Amanda gave a hint of the possibility of organising such an event once again very soon! Those who are interested can head to Sunway University Clubs and Societies Facebook Page to look out for future events!
Written by: Pei Zoe
Edited by: Wen Qi
