An open (and extremely long) letter to the greatest 8-month relationship I could ever have. #foc15

T+11 days since camp.

T+10 days since fried chicken.

T+9 days since FOC is not over.

T+8 days since FOC is not over part 2.

T+6 days since FOC is never over.

And T+7 hrs since I officially close the account.

Is it finally... over?

It's been quite some time since camp ended (for most of us), people are more or less settled into their daily routines; for me personally it's a year of huge responsibilities, and the pressure's already piled up (haiz venues). Find it easy to start penning down my thoughts, my thank you's and sorry's, but extremely difficult to finish them. Yes I have been writing this for the past 5-6 days.

But the past 8 months have been something really special, and I cannot not write a tribute to all the wonderful things that happened during the past 8 months. After all, as a man of very few (and generally incoherent) spoken words, all the stuff I'd been saying to everyone is never enough.

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When I was still loving the black-white combination...

To Tuấn em aka Chris Phan aka Chris Fabulous aka Peachy Bakey aka whatever you are trying to call yourself, thank you for so graciously lending your talent to our team, and for the left-overs that I was always the first person to take (can't imagine the damage I would have done to my body if I wasn't running).

To chị Ánh, thank you for bringing our sweet treats outside our internal circle of friends. Pretty sure your friends would feel the same too when they were enjoying your gifts.

To anh Sơn, thank you for inspiring me to step up, for your experience which has been one of our most important asset. And of course, thank you for that idea. I have said it already, without that idea I would have to do the same thing you did last year; and because of that idea, I wouldn't have to.

To chị Thục & anh Thịnh, you guys are two out of the only three persons who didn't get into your first choice of teams for our FOC. You guys didn't get to experience all the fun of being a proggie or a GL, while I did, being a GL as my parallel duty. Might be the reason why you guys didn't go for camp, didn't get to interact with our freshies; that's the best of camp experiences gone for both of you. For that, I'm terribly sorry. Despite that, you guys were always there for our team, for me, no questions asked. For your time, your effort and your dedication, I'm always thankful.

To chị Trang & Phương Anh, you guys would never know what you've missed out from not joining our team! To be honest I was rather sad when not just one but both of you decided to pm me on very sunny days with not-so-sunny news. But I understand your reasons for dropping out at the last minute and I always respect your decisions. Thank you for supporting and encouraging me, from when I started this journey - you guys were among the first to sign up, not just for my team but for the whole of FOC - and even when you guys were no longer with us.

To all my fellow Bizmaggies, many heartfelt thanks. You guys are the first team I have ever led; I might not be the kind of leader you guys would have expected, but nonetheless I hope you had an incredible time with me and more importantly with one another. Could never have done anything without you. If I recall correctly, I have never officially declared that we are standing down... so this is it guys, it's been long overdued, but WE ARE DONE FOR THIS YEAR.

Looking forward to our final affair.

The most random jumpshot in the history of jumpshots. Perfectly represents our spirit.

To tất cả các đệ tử Thiếu Lâm, thank you for 4 (and more) days of insane fun. Honestly speaking, I had my reservations when I came down to outing day after finishing a half-marathon still looking more lively than you all. Told some of my fellow seniors that this batch was too down, that they would not make it. I'd never been that wrong in my entire life - those 4 days you guys just exploded together. Our cheers were yours. Our finale performance was yours. Our spirit was yours. We as GLs had the lightest of workload - making sure you guys drink enough water, have decent food and rest and spam pipagao. Even the cheer sheet I'd prepared before camp was largely unused (come to think of it, almost everything we'd been using since day 1 was a part of our signature cheer. Which is yours anyway). Personally for me everyday was just a few rounds of the same "boring" phrases.

Thiếu Lâm ơi!

Thiếu Lâm ơi!

Thiếu Lâm Thiếu Lâm!

The very phrases that made up our rallying call.

To chị Potter & chị Tiên, 2 cô cô yêu quý from team Thiếu Lâm, thank you for always allowing me to lead the cheers on my own even though sometimes I messed up big time. Thank you for just taking care of everything so I didn't have to take care of anything when I got summoned for my higher duties.

Most importantly, thank you to everyone for allowing me to be myself for camp. That is the single greatest gift you all have given me, and I could not ask for a better team. Small team, but big heart.

Both my camp groups won their respective best OG awards, but I have to admit it's so much more fulfilling to win it with you guys.

To my fellow GLs, thank you for cheering your lungs out for each other. We only have 9, but we have 9 of the biggest mouths in the whole of VNNTU. And a literally endless supply of pipagao to maintain that reputation for 4 days.

To anh Tô Huy & chị Foodie, we took on the responsibility of ending the camp on a high note, we had a vision, we carried out that vision, and ultimately the camp ended on a very high note. It was rough, but it was worth it.

To all programmers, thank you especially for your ingenuity. As a GL, I had the responsibility to help you guys out with your weekly games session; I missed most of them unfortunately, but as the person in charge of funds, I entertained most of your logistics requests and through that I got a rough idea, an expectation in my head of how the games would play out. But when the games really played out, they were more dramatic that whatever I could have imagined. At that point I really understood how much work and how much thought has been put into the games that we so thoroughly enjoyed; and for putting in so much time and effort into a great camp, thank you.

To the person in charge of us all, Phan Huy, Head of Camp, there's one section for you later on so keep reading.

Our first photo together...

To anh Fabio, Head of PnP, sorry to say this, but you are very useless ah. Hopefully you could learn from this experience and please don't be so useless next time. But thank you for allowing us to work with the more useful, if not extremely wonderfully useful folks from your team. At least our pubs are not dead.

To Long, Head of Ori aka thằng roommate yêu quý, dm ông chém gió ít thôi =)) anyway thank you for allowing me to help out whenever I feel like helping out - from contacting freshies to guest speaking - even though you are the type of people who prefers doing shit on his own (me too). Besides work, thank you for your companion during this tough journey; you don't just simply have two Heads in the same room and that was a blessing.

To Giang Trần Truồng, Head of Opma, thank you for helping us with everything under the sun, from the smallest of items to the largest of orders for our camp. It's a thankless job, and we are here to thank you.

To Phan Huy, Head of Camp (finally), also known in other camp terminology as the fusing of Chief Proggie and Chief GL into one body that weighs only 65kg (is my estimation correct?), can't say thank you enough for leading our awesome team of proggies and GLs. Myself included. You're one of the reasons why the costs of running camp this year were so bloated - you need to book anything and everything, and whenever you could not book you just moved on to a different venue and the process repeated. But because of that I was always assured that things would run smoothly and we would never get into any trouble. Thank you, for the 4 days of insane fun is your hard work.

To Hoàng ve chai aka Vice-Chair(man), thank you for being the vice-chair that no one expected you to be. After the top two posts were announced, I was rather disappointed when I didn't get to support our awesome chair(man) who was my running-mate. But after 8 months, I guess everyone knows just how capable and creative you are. Don't think I could have done any better if I was actually the vice-chair instead. Thank you for tanking everything, for tending to every team and for being such a great person to work with every time.

Most of all, thanks for taking up that position so I could work my magic in a more suitable one.

To chị Tâm, the most handsome Chair(man) FOC has ever produced, I actually don't have much to say. For we have been supporting each other since like forever?
Just want to say thank you for trusting me with Bizmag; hopefully I didn't let you down. Thank you for providing everyone the assurance that we could do it together, and for giving us the strength to just carry on.

To all maincommers, more commonly known as Big7 or "MẸ MÌN VÀ 6 đứa em =))", thank you for working so hard together since day 1. Personally, thank you for... alluding to any and all my requests for receipts, claims and explanations. Thank you for supporting all my team's fundraising efforts. Thank you for all the good days and the bad days; all the joy and fun, all the sweat and tears, all the oh my's, oh god's and sometimes oh fuck's. Thank you, for all the things we've been through in the past 8 months have shaped who we are today in one way or another.

...and certainly not our last.

To the main comm of FOC14, thank you for inspiring us to continue the legacy. Thank you for your vote of confidence that allowed us to be where we are today, and thank you for coming back to support us despite your busy year 2/3 schedule. Without you, there would be no FOC15.

To the people who will be doing FOC16, you guys have our vote of confidence. And the assurance that no matter how busy we are, we will definitely be there to support you.

And last but not least, to the 50-odd people who made FOC15 happen, and to everyone who has been supporting FOC15 since the beginning, we have done it, and we have done it together.

This camp is definitely one to last.

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