TOPS Day 5: Strength in Numbers

The Amazing Race

We started the day with a briefing on the “The Amazing Race” by Prof. Zachary in the function hall. He got us to participate in an activity about having confidence and portrayal of your personal image through body language, speech and gestures. I felt that this was extremely useful as these are the little things that are critical and yet they are simply overlooked in the context of the working world. After the activity, we were given clues as we commenced “The Amazing Race”. We were also given several optional and compulsory tasks that we had to fulfill during the activity itself. These activities include taking a jumpshot with a tourist, standing on one foot and arranged in the order of our birthdays, and coming up with a forced association and quote relating a coconut and the concept of leadership together.

It was extremely fun as we were given a chance to explore the streets of Chiang Mai with the use of a map and it also served as good exercise to shave off the extra calories from all the eating from the past few days. “The Amazing Race” was a successful activity, in my opinion, as it served as a good way to take our mind off our work-at-hand, and just simply use the time to hang out with our groupmates. Also, the aspect about the different leadership styles came into play as I worked alongside my groupmates to accomplish the tasks. We were able to tap on each other’s strengths, consolidate them as a team and work around the weaknesses we have as individuals. Nonetheless, we were fast, committed, focused and driven as we were able to make it to all 3 locations given from the clues and accomplish 11 out of the 12 tasks planned for us. As a result, we were the champions from this activity and we were given $160 worth of Andersen’s ice cream vouchers for us to use when we get back home. Hats off to Prof. Zachary, Prof Astrid, Yijie, Qin Hui and Jason for their hard work and efforts in planning this activity for us!

We had a team lunch at a nearby restaurant from our hotel and we ordered many dishes for everyone to share. After lunch, we went to satisfy our dessert cravings and had Shibuya Toast and Strawberry Cheese Cake. As we had time to spare, we decided to head to the Huay Kaew Waterfall, which was located at the base of Doi Suthep. It has been a while since we got in touch with nature and we took this opportunity to soak it all in. Climbing the slippery rock face was no easy feat, especially for Meredith who was wearing sandals and suffering from stomach flu. It was not exactly the ideal footwear or body condition to be doing such activities, but she was such a fighter. She braved the slippery slopes and made her way up to the ledge together with us. #respect.

We had our last TOPS dinner together as a cohort in the function hall and it felt really surreal to me, that our trip was coming to an end. I would never exchange this experience for anything else, because this overseas immersion trip is a defining point for our USP batch. It is because of TOPS, we learn to work with each other, we learn to interact with each other, we learn the importance of sensitivity and support for our fellow friends. TOPS is unlike any other core module we have to take, because it combines aspects of academic learning and cultural immersion together.