~May Your Light Shine :D~

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Yes I'm back from camp and surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Somehow the homesickness didn't really hit me and time passed pretty fast too.

Makes me wonder why i spent the first half of last week crying my eyes out and worrying.

Before I start off proper though, I should mention that we had great weather that day, no rain, so we could pitch the tent properly.

Along with that, the teachers in charge we really nice and even offered to leave the coridoor lights on for us so that it wouldn't be so scary.

Pitching the tent was quite fun. A big thank you to all who came and helped us! I'm eternally grateful to you. Together, we managed to get the tent up before nightfall so that was good. Dinner was next.

And since it's a Sec 3's camp, and Sec 4s are facilitators, all Sec 4s then went to help out with the next activity, which was the Nightwalk. In this activity, the Sec 3s are blindfolded and then separated into pairs. The Sec 4s will initially lead each pair for a walk while other Sec 4s try to scare them. I didn't really try to scare them because firstly, I know what its like to be frightened out of your wits. And secondly, it's already scary enough to be in total darkness.

Supper was next, and I didn't have any appetite even though I did drink something hot, since I was feeling kind of nauseous(from what I don't know), and sure enough, the nausea went away!

Being facilitators of the camp, we can sleep whenever we want and take as long as we want to bathe so that was good. I didn't bother bathing but I did use wet wipes and I changed out of my sweaty clothes. It felt a bit better but a little sticky.

So then came the time for us to sleep, or rather, crawl into our tent. We managed to get 2 other people in the tent with us. Thank goodness! We left one side of the tent completely open because it was so hot and stuffy and we couldn't sleep anyway, so we sat up and talked and read magazines and listened to music. It wasn't that scary really, once you get used to the school at night, it feels quiet cool. HG was the first to run out of the tent, saying that she needed fresh air and some cool wind. She took out her homework(math) and went to a nearby bench to do(it was totally bright there). I followed suit, except I didn't know how to do my homework without my notes so I just read and listened to music on the bench.

But then we started worrying about whether we'd get caught, so we went back into the tent. However, the other 2 people couldn't stand the heat as well, so all 4 of us went out and tried to sleep atsome tables and chairs outside the general office, not that it worked for me. I don't sleep that easily, and I was tired, but not sleepy. Not even at 2am.

Though that plan backfired as well, as we were scared we would get caught for not being in the tent. So all 4 of us had to go back into the tent and try to get some shut-eye, not that it worked for me. The nearest I came to being asleep was that phase between sleeping and awake and I got woken up by my CL's phone call informing me that there would be a fire drill at 3.30am.

Sure enough, we got up earlier for the fire drill and watched as the poor Sec 3s stumbled down the stairs, like how we did in OUR Sec 1 induction camp. HG was pretty pissed because she really wanted to sleep but for me, it didn't really make a difference since I wasn't exactly sleepy. The drill ended at 4am, and we crawled back into our tent. I don't know if I slept or not, I think it was just a light nap, so in total, I couldn't have gotten more than 1 hour of sleep, yet I had the most energy in the morning out of the 4 of us. Incredible,. HG would call it. I say its due to the joy that camp was son going to be over.

And I scored like a million buig bites in the tent. And I'm not even the type of person bugs like to bite. I'm the type who can go out in a rainforest wearing shorts without insect repellent and comeout without a single bite. The place was really SWARMING with evil blood sucking flies. Even tohugh I was wearing track pants, they still got to my feet and now it looks like I've got some serious form of skin disease. Imagine, you're waking up at night just to SCRATCH your big bites.

I mean, seriously, if those bugs wanted my blood tht badly, they could've asked. I'd willingly drain a litre of it for them to enjoy. Stealing it from my blood vessels like that is simply unacceptable. But yes, we survived and morning passes really quickly.

We had breakfast, then 4 of us were allowed to sleep upstairs since we were all tired out from sleeping in the tent and then when the time came to unpitch the tent, we all went to help out.

Thank goodness we managed to finish doing it by 9.20am, so I could go home by then and take a shower, then go for my math tuituion(even though I fell asleep and my teacher caught me).

Now I'm out of camp, I RELISH my freedom. I went to check out the CD store after my tuition, and went to the library just beacuse I felt like it and I got a book too. It feels great to be abelt o do whatever you want.

When I came home, I ahd some lunch and then wento sleep for about 3 hours. After I woke, I felt pretty terrible, maybe because I might possibly have had some horrible dream(not a nightmare) that gave me a panic attack and made me wonder where my mum was, since she went out when I was asleep. I got really homesick suddenly and cried a little but then I thought about it and I didn't really know why i was homesick. I mean, I was home, my mum was going to come home later. What's there to be sad about?

So i figured that I should blog to get my mind off it and it has really helped.

Anyway, a big thank you to all who helped me through this really difficult time:

1. CL of guides Coy 1 and 2(thanks for putting up with my persistent questions about it) and for organising this for us to get he badge.
2. My church friends for giving me lots of encouragfement and support.
3. Shen Moo for cheering me up
4. XinLin who taught me that I should learn to sirvive a night out of home
5. HG for not being pesimisstic
6. All the guides who helped us to pitch the tent
7. The teachers for allowing us to pitch the tent and leaving the coridoor lights on
8. The other 2 people who joined us in the tent

Really, this couldn't have been possible without all of you.

My Kitchen blogged at Saturday, March 08, 2008

May your light shine...
in the darkness...