It was my first time taking part in an explorace outside school.It was actually a co-academic event for chemistry.They had the explorace and the chemistry quiz. From the four of us that represented my school that day,two of us(including me) were taking part in the explorace and the other two were taking part in the quiz.
We reached the venue for the event,SMK Taman Klang Utama pretty early as there weren't many participants there at the time we arrived.After registration,we were made to wait a little while before given a short briefing on the rules and regulations of the competition. Then,the teacher in charge instructed the participants for the quiz to move to the science labs for the quiz.
For the explorace,all the participants were randomly placed into groups. I was placed in group 3.Surprisingly and luckily,one of my friends from another school was placed in the same group as me.So,it turned out to be easy to start making friends with my group members as I already had one whom I could talk with.
The explorace wasn't like a race at all.The winner wasn't decided by who finished the fastest but the group which accumulated the most amount of points from the 10 checkpoints. I wasn't surprised at all about the slightly different rules as I knew that participants that usually took part in such activities were usually the bookworms.
The explorace was really fun.We were wow-ed by the uniqueness of the explorace at the first checkpoint itself.At that checkpoint, we had to build models of the structure of carbon compounds using plasticine and toothpicks.This is when our teamwork kicked off.It was very easy to work together with my group members because all of us were pretty much the cool type and were there just to have some fun.
Besides that,we had to solve crossword puzzles,write down chemical formula of various substances,draw carbon compounds,draw experiment set ups and even fill in the blanks.Don't be deceived by the names,especially fill in the blanks,as that was one of the trickiest challenges we had to go through.We had to fill in the blanks for the experiment to identify certain salts.Again,we managed to work as a team to group together all our knowledge and complete the challenge.
Then,at one of the checkpoints,we were penalised for bad handwriting.It was a very easy task to complete.The thing was,if we could complete the task in less than half the amount of time allocated for the task,we would be given bonus marks.So,one of my friends filled up the blanks quickly.However,the teacher at the checkpoint said that his writing was not clear and cut almost half the marks for the the task.Luckily,the bonus marks we got for the quick finish helped cover up a little for the marks lost.
After we had completed all the tasks,we were quite satisfied with our performance as a team.We were all quite happy and knew that we had given our best to enjoy that day.My group leader felt a little responsible for not propelling the team even further.But,I told her that it was OK since we had a lot of fun.However,none of us knew of the surprise that was awaiting us about 2 hours in the future.
It was the prize giving ceremony.They started off with the prizes for the explorace winners. I was expecting a 3rd or 2nd place finish.Somehow,I was feeling that 1st place was a little too far for my group.Then,when they announced the 3rd and 2nd place winners,I felt my hopes going up in ashes as my group was not called out to receive prizes.Then,as they were about to announce the winner,I was filled with anxiety as my eyes and ears were totally focused on the emcee.
When they announced my group as the winner for the explorace,I got up so quickly from my chair due to excitement and joy and shook the hand of my group member who was the nearest to me.We went up after our leader to receive our trophies.In addition to that,my school became the overall winners for the day as my other 3 schoolmates won prizes as well.
I had to admit that it was a great day in the end. One of the main reasons it turned out to be great was because I wanted to have fun and forget about the hectic school life.I won a lot of things that day.The prizes were at the bottom of the list based on importance.I learned to make new friends in a short time and I learned how nice people can be when we all do something for the reason of having fun.So next time,when you think of doing something,remember that life is short and try to make use of every opportunity you get to have fun to the max........
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