(Firstly, sorry for taking so long. I have no idea why im being pestered anyway. Lol)
Back from one of the BEST camps i have ever had!
TRM Service Leadership Camp 2008!
Organised by our fun and lovely Year 2 seniors for us.
Start off with the name of our group
BIRDO!
Day 1Met in school earlier to celebrate Oliver's birthday
Had a cake bought by Matthew, and we waited for him to
make his grand (yet untimely) appearance.
I didnt eat much of the cake cos i didnt have much of an appetite.
Gave him the Prelude to my present.
So after that we gathered and met at the atrium. Kinda surprised that Zhixiang, one who has been totally MIA for all the group meetings or contactable, arrived! Kinda imagined him as the type who doesnt care abt the camp and just wanna slack at home. Guess i was wrong...haha...cos he participated super actively during the camp. And had some kind of love for the much acclaimed World's most unhealthiest snack, Nutella! At least there are 4 guys now.
Spent the remaining time waiting for the bus and outlining the word Birdo on my flag. Recieved nice comments. thankyou
Journey there was err...boring? Somehow had nothing much to do..so i fell asleep for awhile and the next moment we've reached! (It was super ironic when the bus passed by Changi General Hospital, cos i just passed that to come to school =.=) Seriously sld have just went to Changi Coast Adventure Centre straight. If weren't for oliver's cake. Lolll
[Skip skip]
When we reached, we played ice breakers!
First was 'I love my neighbour'.
It's another version of blow wind blow. Where we sit in a big circle, and when the person names a characteristic of his/her 'neighbour', those with the characteristics have to get up and change places. Eventually one person will be left out of the circle and he/she has to name another characteristic and the cycle goes on.. I didnt get caught outside the circle for the whole game (Although i admit during one round, when darren me carina and Jt were grp-ed for the 4by4 round, we didnt move even though we had the characteristics. HAHA. We just stood and sat. Super funny.)
Next was some Scissors paper stone game. When u lose, u go to the back and hold the shoulder of the person u lost to. And it will results in chains of people standing behind u when u win group by group. I won like 4 times in a row! Until sophia cut in and won me. ZZZ. Even if i won her, it wont add alot to the line lol..
Next was teambuilding games. Birdo is really starting to like..work tgt quite well. And we're alrd like joking here and there alrd. The first one we did was apparently the blindfold game where u need to lead your grp thru an obstacle course. I was the first one to lead them. And our tactic was rather unique i must say. Because the leader cannot speak words but can use sounds to indicate commands. So what we did was to get one blindfolded member to ask a series of commands like "Walk left? Right? Go up? Down? Crawl?" And when he say the correct thing, the leader must make a sound
Correct - Arh.
Wrong - Tsk
So from our side u cld just hear "tsk tsk tsk tsk Arh" all the way.
Next was the Wrecking Who game.
As soon as chilung zhixiang and me saw the waterbombs we were like running already.
We just LOVE waterbombs muahahhaz. Rais is too nice.
In the midst of the filling and everything, we managed to kope quite alot of empty waterbomb bags and zhixiang hid it back in the bunk. [For subsequent usage x)]
This station is alot like battleship, where we're separated from our opponents (Bowser) by just a canvas sheet. We cant see where our opponents are sitting, and we are to lob over water bombs to hit them. Sounds fun eh?
Vivyan helped to tell us where our opponents were. We hit quite a few i think. My first shot was a total malu. It didnt even cross the wall. I underestimated the weight of the bomb Lolll. I forgot who we hit, but i only remember that vivyan said i hit that Xianshi directly haha!
3rd game was T-E-D-I-O-U-S
It's called Pole and Tyre. And we were supposed to slot a REAL tyre into a pole that looks like a Giant curved finger sticking out frm the ground. We were made to imagine that we're putting a ring into a giant's finger so we're not allowed to touch the finger at all. It wld be easy, IF, the pole wasnt like almost two times our height (2 and a half times amy's height) So in the end, we had to lift our grp members up to slot in the tyre, which was still damn hard cos it's so heavy, and we cld only lift girls up. THIS station is the mostt problematic Lol..but at least, we made an effort to carry them Lol. We sort of failed? But nevertheless we slid the stupid 'ring' into the 'giant's finger'. But we bonded quite alot in this game bah.
4th game! Nitro Crossing.
Consists of a 'river' and a log and platform on both sides and a rope. Chilung played this game before so we somehow could get the rope easily to us by tying our identity (pink shoelaces) to a shoe and swinging it at the rope to hook it. Brilliant idea really. We had an additional task! To transport a cup full of water to the other side, without spilling. (Apparently we cannot use shirt, shoes, or anything! To transport it. And the cup has to go on it's own. But somehow later we found out that it was allowed for other grps.) What we did was ingenious. Credits to Zhixiang. (We're lucky he got dabao teh tarik before) We tied our pink shoelaces in a way that resembles how they tie those cans of teh tarik. Then we tied it to the rope and swung it over. Success!! The money we spent on the shoelaces are like really well spent man. We got our whole team over to the platform after that and completed the game.
Last game was Super Mario.
Which involves all the groups.
It's like the typical war games you play in camps.
Only that this time, u have to shoot at a quidditch like hoop covered in newspaper (Like a lollipop) Unfortunately, it RAINED. Damn sian. We alrd assembled nicely all our ammo (waterbombs)
They later changed the game to a shooting range kind of variation, where the flags are in a empty space, and grp members are to stand at both sides of the empty space. We can innovate our flags to prevent it from being hit and wet.
For birdo...we used our shoelaces again! Credits to me! Haha! Cos i remembered we had a cone previously. So i put the lollipop into the cone, and made it like freely rotatable. Then we connected shoelaces to both ends of the hoop to make it like controllable. Tadahh! Our flag was the only one that was capable of escaping bombs at will.
And the shooting started! Everyone aimed at the other flags cos they were like almost stationary. One was on the top of a flag pole, one was suspended in midair and could only bob up and down, another was covered in poncho which was totally unfair.(But i guess the interior is damaged)
Troopa's flag 'died' first. It was placed in bricks but one shot from someone and it flipped. And
the rest were just exposed to free fire. Actually i didnt dodge much bombs. Cos my hoop was facing them in a angle that made it hard to hit. I just had to correct it when it turned. The ending of the game was really funny. Cos only a few people had bombs left, and Matthew i noticed, had been at the side preparing himself to target my flag. So, i braced myself, and waited to dodge. The people around him also looked on intently to see if he succeeds. What happened next was really funny. He rammed the waterbomb into a door that was quite far off target from my flag. And he became super malu. In the end Birdo won i guess. Cos the judges were commenting that "Wah birdo's so dry." Then they said the poncho covered one quite unfair so will get lesser points...then they shoo-ed me away.
After the end of everything..was dinner. Although how much i heard people complain...i think the food was acceptable, in comparison to other camp food i had.
Then it was night walk!
Started off with a long journey to a yellow beacon on top a breakwater not far away from the camp. It was both a sort of starting point and a place to spend time watching the 'sunrise' that was pleasantly located behind a bunch of thick clouds. -.- Nevertheless it was great bonding with my class. (We sat together)
The sound of the waves, breeze in our faces and beautiful surroundings was really an experience not to forget. Some of the people wasted it by sleeping but i guess the fatigue got into them.
As the sun slowly set and darkness slowly set in cockroaches started to emerge from the crevices in the breakwater. This gave rise to occasional screams and a surprisingly coordinated kallang wave here and there whenever one appeared. Fion appeared surprisingly calm and didnt even siam and that's when i remembered shes not scared of cockroaches. Haha! Respect.
After a long period of stoning the night walk began, and after a briefing, groups were set off towards the forest 2 by 2. Birdo was unfortunately, the 2nd last group to be dispatched. But we made good use of the time by discussing our skit, which in the end resulted in abit of a singing session and crapping session. I think it's through such times when bonding really take place.
Soon, it was our turn! Like finally. I was with vivyan for the night walk. Rais with Chilung, Zhixiang with amy, Shimin with Xinyu, Seetoh with Gladys. For the night walk, we are to walk along a NATURAL forest, in the dark, to look for poker cards scattered on the ground. Our purpose is to collect 2 of the kinds, or 3 of the kinds of the same card. Our path was apparently set with light sticks around. And i felt it was really cool how everything came together. I never imagined myself to be walking in a forest. Often i imagined walking in a forest to be frustrating and irritating cos there will be thorns, lots of insects and tall grass. However this forest was very clear somehow. Looks like those forests you see in movies like Lord of the Rings and such x) However...we cldnt find any cards in the first forest trail. Because apparently all the people in front collected all the cards. Never listen to instructions tsk. But that's human nature for you.
2nd trail was amusing. At the start of the trail, theres like more than 20 poker cards lying on the floor. Then it was then i found my 2 of a kind. And i had the help of my torchlight! Cos just nice hanxiang was returning back and he returned a really sticky and dirty torchlight. He put it on the forest floor la! ZZZ.
After that we reached back to camp quite late. And bathed! Omg. Bathing was damn shuang ok. I never felt so happy bathing before. Now i know, one must-have in a camp, is to have cleansers that give an cooling minty after effect. It was so soothing i used it for my body also HAHA. Then come out super refreshed. Especially after the forest walk and everything. And i slept happily for the night. HAha!! ^^
Day 2Woke up at 7 although meeting time was 8. Cos i want to like freshen myself up first. Afterall..it will be a long day.
My grp got High Elements as our first activity. We're considered lucky..cos i dont want to get water activities first, go and bathe, and then do high elements and get sweaty again, then go campfire.
High elements was FUN. Although Birdo got separated. Everyone looked funny with tucked in shirts and a helmet. Some looked like Bob the builder while some looked really noob HAAH. I think i looked like a combination of both. Noob bob the builder.
Billaying was quite interesting. Your life of your friend is in your hands. HAHA. *evil* But no la..seriously...their life is in your hands, as well as the other way round. And i really appreciated seetoh for being our main belayer. Haha she really knows how to belay. As well as amy, but i think she never belay for me before.
First high element was a walking on a single line rope, with only 5 far distanced ropes to hang on to. In the end i was like swinging myself to another string. I wont be able to complete it without
the belay string. Everyone completed it!
Then after that was an easier one. To walk on a cable with two cables as support for the hands. The part to get onto the cable was hard though...cos got to bend down..Then i was swaying. Cos very unstable at some points. Lol. The MADlearning guy even took a video of me crossing. I think alot of people overcame their fear in heights for this high elements thing haha.
Then came the station we all wanted to try. The trapezium thing. It's like this pole hanging in mid air. And we have to jump from a wooden log a distance away to grab onto it. Quite cool yea. Cos it requires u to jump and hold something with nothing below you, and u can sure expect to fall down, unlike the others where u can dont fall. Yongliang felt that many ppl wont pass that stage cos he hasnt seen anyone hold before. So he set a point system. Hold on to the bar 1000 points. do 10 pull ups 2000 points. And i did it! Haha 2000 points for Birdo. Zhixiang tried also but i guess he was sick so he didnt complete 10. I heard aaron did 20. Crazy guy. Many girls didnt complete this station. But i heard Jt did! Super impressed haha. [Dont get cocky miss 'superstar' x) ]
After that was abseiling. Really a cool experience! Too bad i didnt dare to do the commando jump. It being my first try and all...But it was really hard to keep my body in a L formation. But nevertheless, fun!
Haii but after that. It freaking RAINED. I missed my chance at flying fox. Although ppl comforted me by saying it didnt last very long. Oh wells. Didnt get to try rock climbing also.
Now...After lunch is......Water Activities! Assembled at the flagpole area there for the briefing. The instructor was some guy who is quite well built and all. But what caught my attention at first glance was...a black outline around his eyes. Eyeliner? Like omg. And he does dragonboating and such. Even seetoh and some others agreed it looked like eyeliner. Ok putting that aside, we went to find lifejackets of our sizes. I got a M sized one and started buckling up. It was then i realised mine was loose no matter how i hooked it, and i kept tightening it until i heard some tearing sounds then i stop. Then that shaun or smth pointed out i buckled the wrong straps together...so one strap was still unbuckled. So malu -.-
We set off after getting our oars/paddles(There was some confusion with them. Apparently the instructors also said differently from each other.) The rain just ended quite a while ago. And the seas were still choppy and unrested due to the winds. Are you sure we can paddle in this conditions? Then someone commented that dragonboats were hard to capsize. On the way, then i noticed that, the instructor wasnt wearing eyeliner, but he had unusually thick and long eye lashes for a guy. Haha!
Split into our groups after that. Each to take a different dragon boat. Chilung was being snatched around. Cos by right he belonged to our grp, but the other team needed more ppl so they grabbed him over. In the end we left the decision to him LOL, with Mike aptly ending off with a threat. So he came back to us haha!
We started off with a buoyancy test. (Testing if our life jackets are in the condition to save our life). We hooked arms and laid back in the sea, letting the sea throw us up and down. It was cool in the way that we're like playing in a Wave Pool only that this one was saltier and we didnt have to threadwater to stay afloat. It was then when i realised i had 80cents in my pockets. Super random but i think it was the money hongwei asked me to pass to jianfei. HAHA.
After the buoyancy test and everyone confirmed they werent drowning earlier, we boarded the dragonboat! Zhixiang and me went first so we were the first in line at the bow of the boat. The rest subsequently boarded at the back. Suddenly quite a large wave swept towards us and SPLASSHHH entered our boat. I was like "Is being knee deep in water ok?" Then for some apparent (and untimely) reason, the back started to shout the chant "Row Row Row" Then with the weight of the water at the front, we plunged deeper into the water with every "Row." It was only when the boat started to tilt left, throwing ppl off, then people start to realise we're capsizing HAHA.
Quoting an experience from weiwei. "I saw jieting fall off and i was laughing. Then later after some struggling i felt and thought i was on the seabed and out of the boat. But i was actually still in the boat, and i started laughing again!"
Then eventually all of us were out of the boat and we begun a combined effort to turn the boat back and carry it to shore. That ENDED our dragon boating experience. Partly because they saw some lightning in the distance. Some guy commented that "the lightning wont reach us that fast" And the instructor turned back and gave the 'MAN-you-have-NO-idea-what-you're-talking-about' look.
(Skips the waiting)
Ah hah! And the lightning clouds cleared and we were allowed to continue our water activity! However this time we did the rafts. We were to build our rafts out of 4 big blue barrels, 4 pipes and alot of rope. At the started, we spent around 10 mins trying to think of how to design our raft. (We had 40 mins) THEN, the gamemaster told us to assemble into two different groups, one infront of our raft, one at the back. And then, they did a very 'pleasant' thing. They SWITCHED the front ppl with the group to our right. With no idea why they did that, we just changed. And we continued to work with the other group's members, asking what they had in mind, and went on with it. When we were making significant process, the gamemaster asked us, this time the whole grp, to switch with the next group and work on their raft. And after that, i was greeted with the raft that from the start i was smirking at cos i knew it couldnt work -.-
It's like everyone's raft looked like a.........well.....raft? Like squarish and stuff..But this one looked like...in terms of vehicles, a Motorbike. So we worked desperately on the crap (seriously) that was left to us. It was super insecure.
At the end of the game. The gamemasters told us the reason why they switched us. In work or in projects, we are bound to work with people we dont like yet we cant escape it, and sometimes shitty work will be thrown to us out of no where, and we have to make these shit work. Well..that's how i percieve the moral of the game.
The instructors then wanted us to lift our rafts, to check for stability. On the count of 3, what i witness was almost immediate demolision of everyone's rafts. It was a really funny sight. Rafts you think would work didnt. And those that you think wont work....really didnt work. So from there i conclude another moral : You cant save shit work in just 20mins. You'll just end up with more shit.
This was when the instructors, accepting the fate unfolding before their eyes, decided to let us continue dragon boating. Mike jimmy Weihuang and me somehow had the same idea and we rushed for the instructor's raft (They were working on one when we were doing ours) And we carried it to the sea.
The ironic thing was....We had so much problems getting onto the raft, we didnt have a chance to show how 'pro' the instructors were. We looked like monkeys jumping up and down off and on the raft only to lose our balance and drop into the water again. More monkey's joined later to try and also fell off. This was when i got my hair wet, which i totally dread. And chilung very nicely threw more water on me. In the end the girls got to sit of the raft, and the guys just pulled the raft along. It was thus, success to a certain extent.
There came dragon boating! Like finally. This time nothing went wrong, and we were moving at quite a fast speed away from shore. The sea breeze is really great! And yea...first time dragonboating.
After that we had to help to bring the 2 dragonboats onto shore. It was no easy feat ok. The boat weighs a ton. And we had to use tyres to like facilitate movement. Suddenly i heard a sliding sound and turned to see Matthew sliding down the slope. Ouch. I guess the floor was really slippery, algae and all. But at first it really looked as if Matthew was so enthusiastic to help till he slided down. Bringing up the dragonboat required alot of effort and coordination. And we did just that. hurray? Loll
Then there came dinner after bathing. BIDDING FOR FOOD. It's damn frustrating i tell you. It's like, your points are at stake, and almost always, when u get someting shitty for alot of points, you will start feeling demoralised and blame people. We kept getting potatoes. LOL. And like wow in the end we couldnt even BBQ it cos there werent aluminium foil. Yoshi, our ally, did alot to bid for food. We decided at the start to share what we bid for. But towards the end, i realised that Birdo has been really reluctant at bidding. Yoshi had their points reduced to like close to just 1000, while we had 5000 plus. But ohwells, the flag wasnt in my hands. I hate bidding lor really...so much misunderstandings arise.But at least the food was enjoyed?
BBQ was nice.. I wonder how they marinated the chicken. It's like the first time i actually liked eating chicken wings in BBQs. It's very nice. And we had like a super big stock of satays cos we kept winning it.
Me Gladys Seetoh Cabrina Wenbin
After eating quite alot Birdo went to discuss our skit. Seetoh noblely 'sacrificed' herself to be the centre of the act, which i think, if we didnt have, would be a disgrace for our grp. Then she became known as the Barbie Girl. HAha. At least it's not some bad name. Imagine if we used Barney's theme song. Thanks seetoh! So out skit actually revolves around us jumping around for some apparent reason, singing a song, followed by shouting cheers. It was obvious we didnt want to put alot of effort into the skit. Cos we didnt have time anyway. Oh wells. Had fun can le.
The Campfire was fun. Though as sijie said, the spotlight was too bright. The campfire feeling also not very strong because of that.
Of all the skits, i particularly liked Arif's(dunno how to spell) performance in his skit cos it's damn funny. And of course, Jt's mario act. Totally freestyle. I didnt know mario was such a showoff. LOL. There was campfire songs, done really well by ivan, and also mini games which involves the pokky stick biting and also the shaking duct tape off the head game. Then theres the horror food game. Where they place their hands into some black container and guess what is inside. First one was the...errr... chendol and sea cucumber i think. Then second was mashed tofu and dragonfruit. Really random and disgusting.
Soon it was time to reveal the Angel and Mortals. It was a tedious process, where they invite up a person, ask what did their angel do for them, and then ask THAT angel to come out. Then ask THAT angel, what their own angel did for them, and whre is the angel.....blah blah u get the drift. My mortal was chiayin and my angel, Azreen, who left awhile before the Angel and Mortal game started to go home. I actually thought no one wanted to claim me. HAHA. Coming to think of it all i gave chiayin was a note, like everyone did. BUT. I did help her tighten her lifejacket earlier on during water activities. So in a way i may have saved her life! Hahaa im so noble right.
My no-lights-out was....kinda wasted. Was quite enthusiastic with the idea of going to Changi Village in the middle of the night with my class people. However along the way i just lost the mood. So i just went back to the campsite. Back at the campsite, i spent around 30mins thinking whether sld i bathe and go sleep? Or sld i join the people playing hide and seek downstairs. I figured they wldnt be playing for long so i went to bathe. And when i came back i just watched them play abit longer..then drifted to sleep.
Day 3Congratulate yourself for reading that far!
I shall jump immediately to the SLA project. For nothing much happened in the morning i guess.
It was only on that day itself when i was informed Yoshi will be joining us as well. And i told the person in charge there was only about 12 people coming. Lol. The coach journey there was...well...i dont know i was sleeping. Haha i guess we're all really tired. Really good luck to the other groups, who were like doing cleaning up of the beach, cleaning up ACMI, cleaning up a Paralympic sailing boat. All under the hot sun. Ours was quite effortless, yet meaningful.
What we did there was to, first, bring out their resting chairs to wash and dry. There was like 8 or 10 of them i think. And i felt we did a good job at that. At the same time some of us (Mostly the girls) went to join in the Tai Chi session. Funny look on their faces. Haha! Amy and Peizhen they all went to clean the windows. And they finished surprisingly fast. It's like they only had a few panes to clean -.-
After that was karaoke session! Where we tried to get the old folks there into the mood. We succeeded in some. One sang enthusiastically when we asked her to, although it was quite off tempo, and we had difficulties clapping along, but personally for me, if u ask me to sing like that suddenly, i wouldnt dare. Got to admire her for that. Then there was another old folk that could sing Qing Tian! (By Jay Chou) Super impressed sia. She knew the lyrics and the rythm. Seetoh even managed to get one of them dancing and everything. Then in the end we formed a choo choo train with her inside and ran around the Home. I didnt expect to be able to do that haha.
Quote from Chilung on this experience "50 years from now and we'll be like that. I would rather jump sia! " Lol of course, he was joking, or he'd really be stupid, but yar...the semi-stoning expression u see in their faces, the look of uncertainty of what tomorrow or the next second will bring. It'll be really sad to go thru all that. Even when they are sitting next to each other, some made no advances to talk or communicate or anything. My dad told me that some of the people there are waiting to go for operations, or just came back from there. (He knows cos he went there to teach them computer skills before. That's how i got the contacts) So it's up to us volunteers to brighten up their day!
Soon it was time to leave..and we gave them two new tins of biscuits (leftover from our camp =x)
And we set back to school.
(On the journey back, i saw a funny sight from between two chairs. Seetoh was munching on her Marble Cake, when suddenly......she....drifted....off....to....sleep...still holding the cake, half eaten. HAHA super funny ok )
Yay we're the first to reach school! And a spread of food was waiting for us outside the LT. We quickly put down our bags and rushed for the buffet and had nice food like finally after 3 days. After eating we went into the LT to enjoy the slideshow of pictures. Super candid i tell you. Many funny faces. Got people ZHAO GENG (expose undies) and people in all sorts of weird poses. But nevertheless they show the joy in our faces thruout this 3 days. The videos also showed quite alot of funny stuff. Especially Arif's act during the campfire (I liked the part he shook from top to bottom, to signify he is in love LOL)
Then it was prize presentation! Birdo got 3rd! Very happy achievement already, since i can say we've really bonded together from almost strangers at the start. Also, from the camp, i got to know more people, some more jokers, great people, and i can say soon the whole TRM will know everyone by the time our cruise comes. Really great people in TRM. GREATER people in Birdo.
Now i just want all the photos! Those mad people from MADlearning better send us soon.
Tr03! I shouldnt have looked at Oliver. Thats why i look like im having a tough time controlling not to laugh in this pic.
FINALLLYYY IVE ENDED. Camp was soooo much fun. All that time spent dreading it, looking for a SLA, doing the flag, organising meetings, was all worth it! Of course...thanks to the Marios, we can have such a successful camp. (Not to mention the 28k cost. Like wth?) And yea...Miss Ng. LOL
Sorry i forgot to reply alot of tags. And i cant reply all of them at once. Lol! I'll reply the next few ones from now. x) Lazy laa. Ahaha but thanks everyone for tagging.
