Art in the blog

Art in the Heart Blog

Yeah, it's over. Five long, arduous days are finally behind us as we suffered shine (no rain strangely), dancing, screaming and a whole ton of fat, unhealthy lot of tidbits. After all that, I am glad to declare that I have finally escaped from the *shudder* level camp.

Yeah right.

A year or two ago, that may have been the 50 words summary of my level camp experience. Thankfully, unlike last time, I do not just know the meanings behind words like meaningful, art, culture and bonding, but rather I believe I understand them now.

So this is going to be one long post on my personal ups and downs of the camp, the long bus rides, the short happy moments, the big events that everyone took part in, and the small gestures, words and rare things that I look out for. Really, there's no point in going over what happened over the camp in general - everyone did the same thing. It's the details that make our experiences unique, don't you think?

Day 1 - Are we there yet? 

A bath, light breakfast and quick goodbyes later, I was set to leave for level camp. As always, I found it weird that I wasn't really excited for a camp or overseas trip. I call it "looking forward", not really being so excited to the extent that I can't even sleep. Thankfully, my father was able to send me to school, so I didn't have to take the MRT and drag my bags along.

I reached school and was greeted by a sea of yellow shirts, with the occasional white PE shirts here and there. Met some guys from my class and 3L, and took quite some time before we got organised into our classes. Mrs Bok asked me to do a headcount, and, like all the others in 3M, we all predicted a certain classmate will be late -Nicholas. He didn't disappoint.

So we left as the last bus, and when boarding the coach, Nicholas was called to take the what would be called and feared as the Osim Chair (cue "DUMDUM-DUM" scary music).

The early part of the bus ride was pretty slow. It was basically sharing of whatever portable technology was available - DSes, PSPs, phones, you name it. We were feeling the effects of being away from home (or rather really just our computers). So the bus ride went by uneventfully, as we whiled time away with card games, chatting, music and the like.

But then, such trivial forms of entertainment can only last so long, and before long most of us were sleeping already. Not me, I was still plugged into my playlist, and going on strong. After listening through the playlist on my phone two whole times, we finally arrived at the lunch place. Amazingly, despite Nicholas' amazing feat in the morning, we somehow made it there first. Our driver appears to be an Initial-D junkie.

So we happily got our food first and settled down at our respective tables. Sean was still sore at his PSP being unable to play memory card stored games, and was swearing while me, Sherman and Han Ping were talking about materia fusion. No we didn't mean to agitate him. Yes, it was fun.

After shunning the toilet by a mere look and sniff, we continued on our seemingly never ending journey by bus to Legend Resort. Games and miscellaneous forms of entertainment were underway once again, as we made our way to the next stop - Orang Asli village.

Frankly, the village seemed a little too small. 5 huts was the total count. I felt quite humbled by looking at their living conditions. The kitchen, dining room, living rom and bedroom took up the space of 1 of the rooms in my house. And I complain I need more space sometimes.

We read about these seemingly far away places everywhere, where the people live with minimal technology and money, and have almost zero awareness of what's going on in KODE5, the US Presidential elections, the Olympics - Every single thing that we deem as important knowledge. We see this everywhere - Reader's Digest, Time Magazine, even the Straits Times, but how many times have we seen it up close? How many times have we experienced it for ourselves? How many times have we appreciated our Pentium III computer? How many times have we thanked our parents for giving us an air conditioner in our room? How many times have we felt lucky to have that phone is also a walkman, camera, and reliable mode of communication? How many times have I said "How many times"?

We boarded the bus after less than half an hour. That was it. A touch and go thing, something that seemed more of like as a formality, there was no need for us to understand their way of life, and in that way look at ours more closely again. Hopefully the SC trip will provide that chance.

Most of us were getting bored fast, since cards and batteries can only last so long. Well, maybe phones might serve a better purpose, and Vanessa seemed to have found a pretty entertaining method of killing time:



When I stared out the window, it's just trees, trees, old hut, trees, trees, more trees, old huts, trees, broken down car, trees, unfinished building, trees, trees, Legend Resort signboard, tre- Wait, we're here? You mean we actually made it? 8 hours in the hot, stuffy, supposedly air conditioned bus have finally brought us to the promised land.

Sean, Seng Wai, Xue Xun, Ron and I were overjoyed (and I mean overjoyed) to find that we had connecting rooms. Double the space, 5/2 the people, double the fun. Kind of. So we quickly did the same UNPACK process as I mentioned for Cairns trip - Un-Nicely Pile All Carried (insert synonym of luggage starting with K. Kargo?)

Really now, I don't want to talk about how I really felt about the games that we hard to learn, so here we go - Model answer style:

*Ahem*
We had a chance to experience first-hand various malay traditional activities. It was a refreshing eye-opener, and I was truly amazed at how ingenious all these games were. Simply by digging holes in the ground and using a number small pebbles, we can enjoy a fun game of "Congkak", a traditional malay game. The Sepak Takraw challenge was fun too, and allowed us to bond. Although we all weren't able to win the challenge, I'm sure we all had fun as we tried our best together as a class.

Now may the Good Lord forgive me for lying online.

The kite-flying was basically... non-existent. No wind, no breeze, no cyclone, no hurricane. So everyone's highly anticipated chance to take great photos went down the drain. Even after a whole hour nobody could get their kite up for more than a minute. No guesses for whether I bothered to try.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for dinner to start, and we didn't even get more than one kite up at the same time. I'm not complaining really. I was too busy trying to get the clock to move faster.

So we walked over to the dinner area, which is located outdoors on the grass patch. We chose a table near the buffet table, which also happened to be near to the (cue DUMDUM-DUM scary music) *gasp* - Light.

What's so scary about a light you may ask? After all, it'll be easier to eat your food. But the downside to that is just like bringing your PSP to a children's birthday party, and whipping it out, hoping to enjoy a game of Final Fantasy: Crisis Core (lol@sean), only to find that you're attracting all the fat, disgusting, pesky kids flies.

I gave up after some time, when I found 3 flies in my food in less than a minute. It's amazing how the flies can just keep flying into our food and on our tables, only to die over and over again. Maybe we should help them set up a contact network.

Time flies by (pun intended), and dinner was over. I sighed that damn-we-have-a-boring-activity-now sigh, and once again boarded the bus for another boring ride. Really now, something had to be done about these long journeys. But that's a story for another day. For now, let's get on with the turtles.

So when we first arrived at the pathetic excuse of a turtle sanctuary headquarters (You all know what I mean), I think I speak for all of us when I say that sitting down does not seem like an appealing action. What with lizards, flies and miscellaneous pests about, the place could do much better as an insect cum random disgusting domestic creature sanctuary.

Turtle watching was not much better. The place was beach dark, and we could hardly see a thing. Frankly, if a freakin' Blastoise came coming out of the sea and starts shooting Hydro Cannons at everyone, I doubt we'd still be able to see what's going on, let alone turtles half the size of our palms. I mean really. Can't we just release turtles in the day? They need light just like us too. Preferably from the sun instead of the torches. It's more convenient both ways, and we'd be able to dodge Hydro Cannon attacks more easily.

We finally made it back to our rooms at around 11:30pm, but that was when the real fun started. Remember, double the space, 5/2 the people, double the fun. For sure. We started off by once again making fun of Sean's PSP firmware, and the four of us decided to play Big 2 in our room while Sean stuck to his Ark of Nephitism. The following conversation sounded much, much better in real life, but then again, it's the best I can do. Note Sean that was fighting a boss battle, explaining the Gamer's Rage.

Ron: 10 Clubs.
Xue Xun: Jack Spades.
Me: Queen Hearts.
Seng Wai: Ace Diamonds.
Sean (From other room): Bring it on, faggotsxz!@#@#*^$!!!!

We collapsed into laughter, and it took quite awhile before we could carry on with our game. Good memories, good memories indeed...

Day 2 - Joy Luck Bus


stopped2think @ 2138hours may 24. look out for the joy luck bus next!