Camps

I've just returned from 4 days of camp.

13th-15th Student's Council Elects Camp
15th-16th Piano Emsemble Camp

Student's Council Elects Camp 06

With comparison against the many camps I've attended/conducted since VS, this has to be one of the most enriching ones. Within three days, I realised I've seen myself pushed to one of my maximum, in terms of mentally, and physically. Like as mentioned by my faci, Jasmine, I've also seen for myself the meaning to be in One Council, not individuals.

The camp kinda started off bad, especially when I actually forgotton to bring my elects' nametag. It was really stupid of me, packed and checked everything, and left out one of the most important thing.

Indeed, the seniors set off the tone for the camp. Then, each of us was given a fragile item X to keep with us at all times. If broken, we will be replaced with 3 more. You've probably figured out it's an egg by now. In fact, our seniors really put in a lot of effort into the eggs. There was even an attempt to putting a council stamp onto each of them, to prevent it from being replaced.

In addition to our burden of having a high sense of urgency, we also had to account for these eggs during attendance report; this whole new concept was really fresh for me. Imagine "Elects reporting attendance, total strength 40, current strength 40. Total egg strength 63, current egg strength 17!"

Though this process, accountability and sense of responsibility was inculcated into all of us. In fact, it all makes sense. These eggs represent the image we all must uphold. Any mistakes we make will leave an ugly mark on us as well as the council, as would be represented by the cracks on the egg. In reality, the stress and pressure of upholding the expectations is clearly reflected in the 3 days by ensuring the safety of these eggs.

Ultimately, each of the egg was special to us in many ways. Take Anita for example, who actually treated hers like her baby. And perhaps maybe more would be an attempt for mother hen to sit on them for incubation. One unfortunate comedy would probably be the subconscious attempt to incubate an egg. haha. I'll touch on that later.

Interestingly, our camp's theme is Constallations, and the 6 teams have to come up with the names starting with E, L, E, C, T, S, each with its own unique colour. My team is the 2nd 'E', with a colour of pink. After doing some wonderful research, my team name's called 'Etamin', which actually's the name of a star. Also, it means Sea monster, which we quickly related to Patrick from Spongebob, due to it's pink colour and it being a sea monster. Our team identity is a pink hairband, which we wore on our necks throughout the camp.

There were like so many enriching activities. Apart from playing initiative and team building games, we were all given sessions on our expectations, project management talk, and most interestingly personal DISCcernment Inentory test. And, similar to Mansoor, I was on a high D and I (higher on D).

Dominance: People who score high in the intensity of the 'D' styles factor are very active in dealing with problems and challenges, while low D scores are people who want to do more research before committing to a decision. High "D" people are described as demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering.

Influence: People with High I scores influence others through talking and activity and tend to be emotional. They are described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic.

1st Toilet session. 40 mins for 19 guys (Darren!! Where were you? lolx) to shower and clean toilets. Supposedly teamwork and planning were to be taught. But we kindly screwed it up. All was fine until I unknowingly volunteered to be the toilet IC. Went in and to my horror found litter in the bin, strains on hair on the floor, and sinks wet. I thought we actually dried the sinks and cleared the bin. To add on to my horror, I had the first hand view of watching the seniors wipe a piece of bread around the sink area, and was questioned whether I would eat it (To test our confidence in the cleaning). I thought they weren't serious about it, until they passed me the piece of bread.
At that crucial point in time, I just wanted to quickly swallow the whole thing down and be done and over with it, so that we guys would just get through that obstacle safely. Jireh stopped me in time, suggesting that we share the piece of bread together. In the end, we didn't eat it. Clearly, this has reflected the unity in us.

And I enjoyed the night candle game. 1st game, Jared's tall. 2nd game, I was attacked from 4 sides. 3rd game, Mansoor's super tall. Statue of Liberty.

We were also given a scenario in which we were faced with difficult situation. The first was to act as waiters under the charge of two temperamental managers with different views of serving customers. Also, the customers were also very hard to please. It was pretty amusing at first to see the 'skid' in action, and I found myself quite difficult to fit into play.
Through this, we learnt how to deal with difficult people, as well as to be creative.

Second scene was for us to act as red shirts to lead a bunch of uncooperative Victorians. Having been a JL/SL in VS before, this scene doesn't feel too unfamilar. However, I realised there were still learning points. Such as the importance of learning about how the games work, and knowing when to cheer & when not to. Also, to heed Victorians advice, & not to think that you know everything.

Hike was really fun, despite having to walk 6 hours covering 17km from VJ to Pasir Ris. Etamin was really supportive of one another. Had much fun running together, hurrying one another, cheering, chatting. In fact, before the hike, I already had such a serious case of abrasion, I actually wasn't wearing my underwear for the hike. I had to be extremely careful not to zao geng. lolx. Of course, I hesistated quite a bit beforehand whether to or not to wear erm.

Well, anyway, at one of the checkpoints, our nice facis bought each of us ice-cream. Omg, that was like so heavenly, and so nice of them. As such, I put my egg into my back pocket so as to enjoy my ice cream, solemly reminding myself not to sit down.

As we were heading for the Sunflower park at Tampanis about an hour later, my legs started to beg for a rest. So I decided to take a rest while waiting for the traffic lights. Then, I heard a yet so familar crack sound. Thinking for a while, I stood up "Oh Shit!"

And the gross feeling of egg yolk and white filled my pocket, pants and legs. Considering the fact that I was without an underwear too. uggghh..

Council night was great. We elects sang Stand by me, and that darling song. The councillors gave us something in return, some nice comedy. 22 impressions they had on us the 23rd elects. Then we got to learn the council song.

We were abruptly woken up at 4am to do a solo walk. Reflections. Ended up in East Coast sleeping. And watched the sunrise together. Like what was mentioned, it was indeed a moment to behold.

In fact, I've got 2 very nice facis for my group. Apart from supporting us with engaging reflection sessions, they also supported us throughout the camp. They (esp. Yong Feng) even wore the pink hairband with us. And they've also gone through the trouble to teach us about the missing piece. Thank you facis... And we've grown so proud of the Etamin cheer we actually did it over and over again! Indeed, kudos to fellow Etamin: Yong Feng, Jasmine, Darren, Benjamin, Sheena, Zara, Shu Xie, Anita and Lubin for having gone through this with me.

After breakcamp, I simply couldn't bear to remove the hairband, and was thus spotted wearing the band throughout Piano camp and even on the way home. Indeed, the feelings for one another grew so much during the three days; the times we shared together; the fun we had together, but most importantly, we all went through it together as a team and supported one another as a council. Ultimately, we met most of our expectations; and it turned out to be a enjoyable, significant and memorable camp.

After all that has been done, it all boils down to the continuity of our passion for serving the school and the council. As many councillors have said, this is just the beginning. We all still have a long way to go! So fellow elects, let's make it happen, shall we?

BTW, does anyone have photographs of the camp?