SC Survivor

I Say "We Miss!" You Say "Camp!"
"wemisSCamp! wemisSCamp!"

The very words I'd been echoing around blogs and messenger the past 2 days. The words probably have to be agreed by most of the people that have seen and understood what I was talking about (No, Sara, the "SC" there does not stand for your name.) It only took a few minutes after stepping down from the train to know how much we wanted to stay at Kuala Lipis - To carry on our cheers, our games, our 2 minute showers, our tired chats, our tough treks, our leech-slaying. Our camp.

Really, words don't begin to describe such experiences, as no length of vocabulary or overpriced dictionaries contain the right words to relive what we've been through as a family. Perfection can never be captured.

Yet stopping2think isn't smart enough to know, and sure is willing to give a go at returning the tears to our eyes, our smiles to our mouths and the frowns to our foreheads by simply going through what I saw happened during the camp. Take your time, because I did when I typed this.




Day 1 - "Give me an SC cheer!" 

I had breakfast at a friend's house with my mother before I was fetched to our campus for the camp. A few of us who just arrived spotted the growing crowd at the Foyer's speakers corner and naturally joined in the chatter after dropping our bags off.

Before long, the Exco had us lock our bags away in the Lecture Theatre so that they were safely out of the way before the camp officially started.

Up first, as always, is Ice Breakers. This time though, it seemed almost customary to some of us, as we already knew most of our groupmates as a council. It was still interesting, learning about favourite foods, birthdates, loves and hates. Tong Wei did get the shorter end of the stick this time, since everyone now knows her rather embarassing astonishing feat of get her head stuck in between rungs. Gosh, did I just type that on my blog? Well I guess it doesn't matter. Nobody reads this junk anyway.

So the icebreakers passed without much fuss, and we picked up quite alot of new cheers that we'd soon be echoing for days on end. Then came the - well - talk. For some reason, I got stuck here for a few minutes, before coming to the conclusion that I cannot find a suitable adjective. Sorry and to be honest, I wasn't sure what we were supposed to get from the "Tongwei Kiatshing Gillian Sara" talk (Notice the initials), but some of us did manage to have a fun time. At Kiat Shing's expense.

Then came the dialogue sessions, possibly the last the year 4s will have with us. I thought the tone was meant to be formal at first, but somehow, it felt like the year 4s really didn't like the fact that it was a "Dialogue Session" word for word. Behind the speech-like words that they picked to say lay strong, pure emotions that had to be held back just for now.

We resumed the camp with games after that, and then... Disaster struck. (Cue DUMDUM-DUM scary music.) The water tug of war was our first game against Lula. I happened to be in the geh-kiang mood, and volunteered to stand first since I also happen to hate being blindfolded. Did I regret my decision.

Through the game, I felt like I got attached to Optimus Prime's leg and he was ready to fly after the allspark at full speed. No big surprise, to rope burns the size of 5 cent coins had appeared shortly after the game, and the station masters decided to make everyone wear gloves after our round. The sacrifices of being pioneers.

The next game was thankfully relaxing. We had to create a net with a ball of string and our hands. Aeldra did great at this game, hitting the ball up to eight times even. From now we knew we were going to be great as a tribe, and boosted our confidence, trust and camaraderie with each other.

I clearly remember the next game, where we had to hold up chairs for one person to crawl past as we built a pseudo-bridge in the air with the chairs. Yu Siang volunteered, and I guess we're all glad that he did. When the game went underway, it soon became clear to us that it wasn't Yu Siang keeping up with us, but the other way round. Even when we were running he still had to wait for us to move the chairs up.

The more distance we covered the faster we went, and this was quite a moment to remember. A drive fuelled by and motivating ourselves and each other. Trusting our chair holders and the one person who trusted us too. Giving each other the support they need. Working as one. One tribe.

The last of the 4 games we played was the bucket-holding one where it was a test of cooperation and determination of each and every member. Oh the agony of it, when every single moment I felt like I was going to (pun on the way) kick the bucket. Get it? Geddit? Nevermind...

So we completed the first four games of the day, and now was the *shudder* Nature Rumble. I guess one time or another, everyone from DHS has walked past the road built specially for the container classroom students, linking it all the way down to the parade square. Occasionally we do have a look at the trees or grass around, admiring how they add to the slightly vintage and olden look of the school. However, on the 4pm sun of 16 June, that area turned into a warzone.

Nature Rumble was the game, and Aeldra was up against Lula again. We had the luck to start second and watch how Lula had to got through the obstacle course. After we had our laughs, and Lula their embarassing moments, we were to go next.

I remember the course quite clearly till now, since my run was a little more eventful...

"Ladies and Gentlemen, here we are with a replay of how Samuel made it through the obstacle course!

He's now waiting for the person in front to pass the first mark and... He's off!

Look at how he throws himself on the ground, tearing through the grass under the ben - Ouch! I think he knocked on the third bench! On his head too! Judging by how much the chair moved, it's gotta have hurt a bloody lot, and let's not hope that will turn into a pun.

So he makes it over the balancing beam comprised of chairs with ease, no entertainment falling here, and runs up to the stack of 3 chairs.

He starts to scale ove- Wait, he's being stopped. That dumb kid is doing this wrong! Go under, over, then down! Is it that hard to remember? Maybe it's the knock on the head.

So he finally gets this right, and dashes for the second stack, and - Ouch, that knock has gotta hurt, and right on the same spot too. This guy here doesn't seem to do so well on crawling.

He finally gets to the detergent mat, and watch how he throws himself onto it, and seems to be slowly but surely moving up. Mostly slowly.

But yes! He makes it and squelches his way onto the flour! But wait, he's getting out! I think it's those blisters on his hand, those nasty little things don't mix too well with cleaning agents, no. Crikey, that's gotta hurt. You'd wonder how he's going to survive the rest of the camp."

Yes indeed, I wonder how.

So finally the ordeal was over, and fortunately we'd won. If not, somebody's going to pay for what happened to my palm.

Fast forward past the pretty dull tree game and dinner (I wouldn't want to talk about the weird uncle who accused me of ogling at somebody while I ate. Damn, did I just talk about it?), and we arrive at the controversial night games.

Freaky Fetching was the name of the game, and down right freaky it was. Our group stuck together for the whole duration of the game, and I guess it was quite a good bonding session for each other covering our backs, intimidating smaller groups into "peace treaties", and taking a hell lot of time to find all our lightsticks, but we were proud to end up eventually as the only group who had accomplished that task.

The next game was much more entertaining - the famed, legendary Candle War. Yes, we were playing that in the dead of the night, and were warned very very specifically that if our voices reached anywhere above a scream, the game would be cut immediately.

We were saved solely by the safety point in the first game against Eke, and made good of that chance in sudden death overtime by quickly breaking their string. From then we were able to overcome our fellow Major tribe Dyaruu to finally get the chance to play against the exco.

That game really could've went either way, but we had nothing to say since we were beaten only by experience. Really, none of our tribe members had ever played the game before, and a score of 2-1 is nothing to be ashamed of. Another moment of unity our tribe shared, something that strengthened our bond for the next few days.

After a quick (and I mean quick) shower, we had a short debrief, and we drifted off into blissful slumber...




Day 2 - "Got 2 Supreme Court one ah?" 

... But not for long

Sometime around 3am, I heard somebody's voice calling me to wake up, and a slight shake on my shoulder. I can't be sure, but I thought for a moment it was Wei Jie calling us. Thinking I was having some kind of weird dream since no one would wake us up at such an ungodly hour, I fell back asleep.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Now Jun Jie was the one getting me to wake up, and I had no choice but to drag my half asleep body to the area outside the LTs. So we had a rather simple nightwalk in pairs, where the most challenging part was that we had to hold each other's hands.

We were made to go last, therefore held in suspsense and our state of fatigue for the longest. We were trying to sleep while sitting on the floor, but sadly and obviously to no avail. So we were glad when we finally finished our walk and were able to return to our sleeping bags.

A few hours later, we recieved the real wake-up call, and there was a flurry of packing, washing up and eating a very delicious and nutritious breakfast of the classic, well-known Peanut-butter and Jam sandwiches. We were eager to get started on our Street Chase as a level!

So our group turned out to be the one without a year 4 SF, and I was given the clues and travel guide which I was not to reveal (tempting, tempting...) Our group set off pretty soon after solving our first clue. We found a very interesting couple at the Singapore Flyer to do a 十连拍, then went to Raffles Place to do push ups at the MRT station. Finally we got to the pit stop Marina Square to find out we were there 5th.

We were not too disappointed - We had to walk quite a bit to get around. But then again, 5th was second last. So when we were waiting on the MRT to arrive at our destination, our group made a pact to finish first at the second leg.

Surprisingly, after all the extra challenges and buying the exco dinner, we managed to finally arrive at the train station first, and were we overjoyed. Our group wasn't particularly a group of very close friends, but after the day we've been through, I guess we're a step closer.

The train ride was agonisingly long, and I'm pretty sure Yiren would agree with me here. We somehow got stuck right at the back of the train together, and didn't think it was so much of a problem. And it is one of this times when the mysteries of life kick right into your face, and you'd look back and wonder how on earth could you have been so wrong.

Truth be told, while we were promised air-conditioning in the train, what the people at the back got was a ventilator instead. And it wasn't even working. For a better part of the ride I was silently drafting out the most sarcastic, offensive yet annoyingly politically correct letter in my mind that I would send to the appropriate parties the moment I get my hands on my keyboard back home where there's technology.

But I have to admit that the two of us expressed... creativity to kill time (Although I'd rather be killing the very people who built that train).  The card games, chatting by mouth, chatting by phone. Ah yes, good memories...

So after a hellish 10 hour ride we finally arrived at our destination, only to find out that it was...

Day 3 - "Raining leh, how ah?"

I heard one of the instructors say. I gave a sigh, and I guess most of us were bummed that our trip had to start off on such poor weather conditions. The rain beat down hard on each of us, and we were positively freezing ourselves to death even under shelter. But again, it's the same way how candles shine brighter in the dark, how the smallest sound is clearer in the silence, how Yiren and me found lame ways to keep ourselves from being bored to death before we had heatstroke. All of the Council were finding our own ways to entertain each other - singing, dancing, chatting, even some starting on the Tempo game.

Thus, it wasn't really a total loss, rather another chance at bonding closer, to see each other's crazy antics and play along. Despite the freezing temperature, what the overwhelming feeling I had was the heartwarming fellowship of our Student Council.

We then finally reached our hotel, where we started off playing Cheat at first. With pole-dancing on the line, only 5 of us would escape safely. Fortunately for me I finished 2nd, allowing me to spend the rest of the time laughing at how close people came to winning before having to pick up the centre pile again. I introduced poker to help try "clear off" their "debts", but like they always say - The house always wins. Most of them ended up with a bigger debt instead.

After a nap, we set off for our rafting activity. It was a short coach ride there, and it was thankfully comfortable, comfortable enough even for some of us who were playing a little too many card games to catch a short nap before reaching our destination - a beautiful, freshwater lake.

We were given a quick briefing on what we were going to do for the day, and immediately started off on our raft. There was a flurry of activity, and we worked pretty hard together as a tribe. Once again it was a chance at bonding closer without even noticing - the type that I appreciate the most.

We were also given a pretty fun water confidence test, which everyone passed without a hitch, and we were all eager to go into the water. We had some races first up, and Aeldra did well for them again, beating other tribes by a considerable margin. I could feel the team spirit on and off shore, through the cheers, and the rhythmic counting of "1,2,1,2" sounds coming from behind.

The more fun activity followed - tug of war. Our boats were tied to each other with a marker in the middle, and the first one to pull the marker past a designated string will be the winner. The first BO5 against Eke was uneventful, winning all 3 rounds, but the one against Dyaruu was worthy of mention.

In the second round, I guess most of the people on the raft were just worn out. Half the people had gone through 4 rounds straight, and they were running out of steam. So when the start siren sounded, the line for once tugged in the other direction for Aeldra. 

But what happened next was just too... cliche I should say. Just right when the marker was about to reach the line, it stopped moving. They'd caught a second wind, and started to pull further, further, further till they won. And we cheered. Louder, louder, louder. Nothing could stop us then.

We all returned to the hotel, tired and weary after the rafting. But as always, it's not over till Gillian the fat lady sings. We had to wash up in an incredibly short time, pack up and move all our bags to one room, and make our way back to the dining area for dinner.

Not surprisingly, the incredibly short time was a tad too incredible, and there were a few delays here and there. But when we finally got settled and finished our dinner, we went on to the next activity.

(I'll continue the post for sure! This is one day by day post that won't leave to rot and die, I give my word.)