House Deco: A participant’s point of view

It’s that wonderful time of year again, a week of back-to-back sports. Roughing it up in the sun and on the court, getting weird tan lines due to the many house slogans painted on our faces, hands and legs, losing your voice just for the sake of cheering on your house. In other words, bliss.

The annual games carnival kicks off with house decoration, whereby houses will depict their theme for the year in anyway they want. The themes for this year were Michael Jackson [Beruang House], High School [Harimau House], Jungle [Helang House] and Spirit of The Game [Seladang House]. The rules are simple, each house is only allowed to use recyclable items [i.e cardboard, newspapers] with the exception of certain items provided by the judges which have to be used. Every house can only have three colours in their colour scheme and no itemsTo make the competition even more interesting, every year, a mystery item is given out. Last year’s mystery item was a computer keyboard, which most houses took apart [they pulled out the keys] or used it as it is. It was only natural for everyone to be expecting some sort of tangible mystery item. When we were told that the mystery item would be us, the participants, we were pleasantly surprised and frankly, quite relieved.

With the worry of the mystery item off our shoulders, everyone proceeded to pile all their supplies onto the field for an inspection. It was a cloudy morning with the sun making it’s way higher and higher into the sky. Despite the feel of mud squelching beneath the soles of our shoes, we prayed that the day remained cloudy, or at least for the sun to keep it’s harsh rays to itself. After several pictures, courtesy of the YJC photographers, Dr. Rizal announced that we would be starting soon. Everyone readied themselves, grabbing as much as they could to sprint -or walk very briskly- across the field. Before we knew it, the countdown had ended and everyone was making several trips back and forth to get all their supplies to the other side of the very large field.

Spending 5 hours painting, constructing and decorating is no easy feat, let alone under a sun that seemed to be baking you to a very burnt crisp. I believe I speak for all the participants when I say, you could actually see yourself getting more tan by the second. Nevertheless, we braved the weather, muddy field and very itchy insect bites, all for the sake of doing our best to achieve first place. The whole process actually started out pretty slow. Everyone seemed to think, “Hey. We have five whole hours, let’s take it slow..”. By the last hour, many people were seen stressing out, running around, touching up their decorations and doing last minute prepping for their presentations. Everyone was prepared for when the judges blew the air horn - some teams had even finished before the air horn was blown.

As everyone gathered under their respective house-coloured umbrellas to await the judging, one could almost hear the same thoughts going through everyones heads. “I hope we pull this off. Please let it go smoothly. I hope nothing falls apart during the presentation.” A tension so thick hung in the air as the judges approached, that I wondered if you could even smash it with a jack hammer. The evaluation started with Cheras Seladang and finished with Damansara Seladang. Everyone was anxious for their turn, getting more jumpy by the second as they heard the occasional burst of laughter from the judges, or maybe a passing comment on how good the decor looked.

After all the houses had been seen, the first thing everyone did after those grueling 5 hours was satiate the thunderous growling of their stomachs. Walking by any table in the canteen, one could hear snippets of the same discussion. Who was going to win the house decoration competition? Obviously, the lethargy from a tiring day had not diminished anybody’s competitive spirit.

After about half an hour, the judges had tabulated their scores and gathered all of us to announce the results. ‘Nervous’ was hardly an adjective sufficient enough to describe the atmosphere just then. Nearly everyone wore looks of either anxiety or impatience. Dr. Rizal gave us a brief summary on the good and the bad of the day, a little advice for the seniors next year. Finally, he announced the results. Seladang house and Helang house tied, for the first time ever, for first place, followed by Harimau house and Beruang house. ‘Congratulations’ and pats on the back were passed around a lot within the next couple of minutes. Some houses even started their house cheers to celebrate. In a nutshell, despite the fact that all of us were dead-tired, everyone thought that it was definitely a great experience and something worth their time and effort.