Lexis-Nexis Treasure Hunt 8 Sept 2007

This hunt was our first after the "small victory" at the Atmah Hunt (two posts below!), when we got a good boost of confidence for becoming the "best of the rest".

We were not quite prepared for this hunt in the very beginning. I would not say that we were not ready because we were the same, with a twist... this time, I was driving. About exactly a year back (in fact Sept 1st 2006 - very memorable), Toyota (this is how I refer my cars by) had an awful accident with myself in the driver's seat, exactly on the day I was promoted. My colleagues took it on me that it was time to change my car. I was just glad I escaped unscathed. After that, Toyota was never the same again, and even no internal engine parts were replaced, it just sounded horrible after that, and when I bought a new car in Jan 2007, I had not driven too much the Toyota (passed it onto Dad) until the day before this treasure hunt.

My fears were unfounded, as the handling of the car and the manual drive was easy for me to adjust to. It was like cycling, just get back into the groove.

The same was not to be said for our maiden threesome event for this hunt! WY, JS and myself took on this with enough gutso that we were convinced that we would not be far off, but when I saw the "creme de la creme" of names in the hunt briefing, I knew it was going to be tough going.

The hunt started off in Subang Mewah (where Timeout Solutions was), and circled there about 3-4 rounds - by the time I passed the breakfast shop almost 3-4 times, I was exasperated! I never caught onto the style of questions from Dominic, the CoC, and coupled with that I was driving, it was almost a 2 person affair for WY and JS, who each felt as though they were doing two person's task!

In conclusion, we ended up with 9o something points out of 145 and the last prize offered was for position 22nd at 106 points - so we walked away with no prizes but a sore ego! I did not feel too uninspired by this episode - I guess I am a real marathon runner, I felt it was a good lesson learnt on what did not work. But I guess my two fellow competitors felt a bit deflated from the non prize winning position.

In fact, I was up from 5am to 5pm for the hunt, and reached home at 5pm after fetching my fellow competitors back, and then only to head out again at 630pm for a concert, and the next day, ran 10km. Phew!

Though I did say I found this CoC difficult to adapt to, I am game to be challenged again! The only thing I did not like was that I felt they recycled questions - I was sure I had hunted through some of the questions (2-3 questions) before, despite our virginity in this sport - we only had taken part perhaps 5-6 hunts.

Come on, team, be motivated, we were 3 novice females (and with a manual car!!) !

Lessons learnt from this hunt :
1) Some people can think and drive at the same time. I cannot. I can look and drive, but cannot process what I see, as I prioritise the traffic, people and road ahead of the puzzle processing. Amazing capability, huh, the unconcious brain?
Lesson - Keep to the roles, I cannot drive.

2) If we really wanted to do with 3 person in the team, the roles has to be pretty interchangeable. We should've kept the navigator in the front, as writing down the answers did not help WY, it distracted her and reduced her looking time, whilst JS had to lean forward each time as navigator and she was the only one who solved treasure clues.
Lesson - Need to define clearly the double roles and adjust accordingly if 3 persons

3) Listen to the briefing on the day - we missed one clue because we did not hear the organiser's name.
Lesson - Be alert for briefing tips and also goody bag tips

4) Adjust and learn from each CoC's style, but do not be too cooked up by their approach. The free mind is able to adjust faster than a mind conditioned by rules.
Lesson - Prepare, but also be prepared to adapt

5) Enjoy and Stay Motivated
Lesson - This lesson we had learnt much earlier and this is why I never mind losing, I always enjoyed and is motivated by competition, you can always target to beat them later!