Leadership Training Camp

Okaaaay. I did not really get tanned, at all. -.-

It was tiring, but fun in a way. :D

Nanyang was split up into two sub-camps, namely Camelot and Excallibur. I am in Excallibur. This was following the concept of King Arthur and his knights around that round table of his. Each sub-camps have 6 groups, named after knights. My group is Sir Dagonet.

We left school at noon, after lunch, on Friday to Labrador Adventure Training Centre. :) We went there, got assigned into a room (I was in the same room as Ying Xuan!), chose a bed, got our day harvesacks and off we go for our land expedition.

We walked quite alot that day. We started at base camp, and we walked to Kent Ridge Park. Worse, it's a hill. There are some parts which are super steep. When we're walking downhill, there's a part where if you really trip, you can literally roll down the hill. Lol.

We walked around for quite a while, looking for answers to solve our questions. We passed and went back around some places twice or thrice.

After Kent Ridge, we went to NUS, through a small entering along the road on the hill. We had to walk for half an hour to our next point, which is the Business school. And we're not allowed on buses. -.-

We didn't complete all the stations at NUS. So we left for West Coast Park and set up camp there. I think we walked more than the 10 to 15 km they said we walked, cos we had lots of detours. We pitch tents and all. Then we had debrief for the land expedition and Nasi Lemak dinner. After that we had Knight (Night) Quest. We were all blindfolded initially, and Mr Tony Lim was reading from a script to us. Then we were supposed to follow his voice. Then we stand there, while he pair people up. I'm the first to be selected. And then he chose my partner while I was standing there, blindfolded. Then he told my partner to remove his blindfold. My partner was told to be mute. So basically, we can't really communicate verbally at all throughout. So there I was, blind and scared for myself with a supposedly mute partner. He whispered to me while waiting at one station. LOL. Then there's this station called the 3D spiderweb, where my partner had to lead me across. We cannot touch the ropes while crossing, if not bells would ring. When I passed, I touch minority of the bells, maybe one or two. But we did badly, cos my partner kept touching. LOL. At the end, we had to think of our partners' strengths and weaknesses. He said my strength was that I'm flexible. LOL.

The night was bad. It was super hot in the tent. Then the next morning, it rained. We ran to the nearest concrete shelter, outside Macdonald's, while waiting for our Nasi Lemak breakfast to come. We then boarded a bus to Changi for our kayaking.

We had a briefing there. Then we wear our buoyancy vests and went to the waters, while holding hands in a circle, and lie on water, to ensure our buoyancy vests were walking. We also carried our kayaks to the beach. I heard the teachers telling the instructors not to let us use the trolleys. Then the instructors told us that the trolleys were spoilt. -.- While doing so, the non-swimmers returned with our lunch of Changi Village famous Nasi Lemak and coconut drinks.

Then the expedition began. I was with Yanyu. It's her first time kayaking and my second. Then we were super, really, super slow. We were the last of the pack. Then in the middle of the sea, we swopped partners. But there were no more guy-guy kayaks, left one with the faciliators. But they are J2 councillors lah. Then I came out of the boat, into the sea, swam to the other kayak, lift my butt into the kayak first then my legs. I won't deny that I'm scared. I mean, there's nothing for me to step on! But I relaxed after awhile.

Luckily, my new partner was fun and talkative. I was damn shy at first lah, cos I never spoke to him before. Then I was super unglam then - in dirty specs with messy hair. But it turned out fine and fun. :D We kayak to Pulau Ubin, passed the main channel and back. Along the way, there were supposed to be some rocks that supposedly looked like a frog. But I don't see any frogs or tadpoles for that matter. It just looked rocky to me.

After that, we had a short showering time. The showers were so crowded that a few girls and I showered with our clothes on at a shower outside and went to a corner in the toilet to change into dry clothes. Then we were bused back to camp.

At the campsite, we showered and all. Then during the evening, we had debrief and a rehearsal for our finale noon on the last day. Our group (Sir Dagonet) was paired up with Sir Pellinore, another group. Then we were further split up. Cos we're doing 4 scenes, namely the land expedition, sea expedition, knight quest and high elements. I was in high elements. We were going something of angel and devil. Javier was the devil, and I was the angel. LOL.

The third day, we had high elements. I surprised myself alot. For instance, I realised I had a phobia of heights while on top one of the stations at the high elements there. I was on a station called Hanging Logs, where there were 3 separate logs, held on by ropes and we had to cross the 3 logs.

And I was scared to bits lah. I fell, but managed to sit back on, and later, had to stand up. HA. My facil made me sing a song while on top. -.-

I think the most satisfactory was the zipline, aka flying foz. I jumped while standing. HA. I squatted first during Sec 3 camp. And no, I didn't try out any high elements stuff then.

Another surprise was that I couldn't climb the rock wall! Not can't climb, but, well, i need an awful lot of time. Last time, during the rock climbing lesson at Safra, I can reach near the top lor. But with encouragement from my groupmates, I managed to reach the top :), after hanging there for an awfully long time. -.-

At night, we had a last rehearsal and then we had a long long debrief session. It ended at 1.20am. Then I can't sleep, cos I got sentry duty at 2am. So we girls returned to our rooms and had a gossiping session. LOL. Then Jing Yi and I left for our sentry duty. We met Yi Long and Yong Cheng outside. Then we started making a sword from straws we collected during the Knight Quest.

Our duty was supposed to end at 3am. But we continued doing. Well, I fell asleep on the table for a while. When I woke up, Yong Cheng went back to his room already. Then left the 3 of us. We continued doing till 4am. Then we finally go back to sleep.

But we had to wake up at 5.20am! Cos flag raising was at 5.50am. We had to queue to use the toilet what.

We had a last last session with our beloved facils after breakfast. Then we had to do area cleaning. It sucked. Our group was in charge for the toilets. It was damn disgusting lah. Shi Pei was talking about shit found on the floor of the squatting toilet. It was damn damn damn disgusting.

We had to clean the toilet 3 times before it was said satisfactory. And the whole camp was scolded lah, for some reason.

After that was finale noon. Our skit was a success, especially the one on high element. We had no skit, and everything was impromtu. Javier brought a toy sword from home, and I borrowed Shrek's ears from Hui Li for him and a yellow hairband from Ya Ying for myself. Ha. It was damn funny to me. I was caught surprised at the last part when we were doing slowmo fighting. LOL.

After that, we had our best KNYGHT (Ya Ying :D) and hugs for everybody. Then we were on the bus back to school. :) It was nice nice nice. The people I met are all seriously nice people. :D Thanks Sir Dagonet groupmates, for making me change my mind about camp. I was quite apprehensive about going at first, but right now, I'm glad I went (Although I'm still looking forward to going home. Ha.)

I was not quite tanned. :( I only got one sumburn, on my nose. HA. But nvm, I don't mind. :D

Today, we had mass lecture. I was damn damn damn tired. But I really tried not to fall asleep. And I didn't. Okaaay. I let my mind wonder abit during Chemistry SPA briefing. Ha. But that's all lah. They will post the powerpoint slides online anyway.

Novell, Wei Ling and I went to Ang Mo Kio Hub after school to buy tickets for Harry Potter, and we managed to buy them!! It's on Thursday! Can't wait. :D And we had subway lunch. :D

I need sleep.