Xmas Party

We had the last of a series of work-related Xmas parties on Friday. It was held in the Albert Park Sailing Club where the whole institute was invited. The weather was very gloomy with light drizzle in the morning which made us doubt whether the scheduled “Pre-Commonwealth Games Trials” was still gonna go ahead. We turned up nice and early anyway hoping to have some fun before the lunch kicks in. Luckily, there were around twenty others that thought the same way and once everything was set-up we were right to go with the games. Four teams were randomly chosen and I belonged to the yellow team with one other friend. All my other friends were scattered in the other three teams – green, red and purple. The first challenge was the tug-of-war and being a complete girl team, we recruited a guy to help us out with this event. Every one of us ended up with bruises and aching muscles everywhere and others even got rope burns that spread the whole arm. This was only the first event! Treasure hunt with a blindfold was a disaster for our team having a member not knowing her left and right. But we fought our way back into the games with the next event – hoops relay. The idea was to start off with one person in the hoop and after running up and down the track to pick up other team members, all of 4 members and a body part of the 5th member needed to be inside the hoop crossing the finish line. Again, being an all girls team, we won convincingly! Water balloon tosses was definitely my event. Having trained and skilled in cricket, catching and throwing a water balloon with soft hands was a piece of cake for me. Our team was so concentrated in this event that once the other teams busted all their water balloons, we were still tossing ours with a couple still remaining in the bucket. The last event was paddle boat racing. There were a number of things we had to be aware of with this challenge – firstly, get on the boat without falling into the lake; then, control steady paddling with partner as the chains can fall off easily; manoeuvre the paddle boat without crashing into others; and finally get off without falling and pass safety jackets for the next team members. Once I landed back onto ground, my legs were like jelly… it didn’t look like it was hard work paddle those boats but after this experience, I am not gonna do it again! So what was the overall result? We won!! The yellow team ruled!! What did we win – umm… a golden rat trophy with a full tub of chupa-chups (choice of that or a slab of VB).

The completion of the games also meant the start of Xmas lunch. The food was magnificent though I don’t remember much of it – hehe. People started to rock up and the sun decided to come out as well. The rest of the day went well but sleeping that night was difficult even though I was so tired after the games. Nearly every muscle of my limbs ached badly, even worse than 4 hours straight of badminton. So, my weekend was very relaxing indeed as I was sore and pretty much immobilised. Yet, I wouldn’t change any part of this great Xmas party. I will try to post up some pics later!