The past 5 days had indeed been pretty crazy for me. from wed-fri (25-27 June'08), i was doing Guangyang Sec 2 leadership and adventure camp. it was special in a way as it was kok choy's 1st camp as a CIC. in addition, it was nice going back to Guangyang Sec as i had done their Sec 1 day event back in March. when i was walking down to the canteen, i heard someone shout "Potato!", and i looked back, it was my favorite female camper from my group during the day event, called rachel. she was together with another few more people, whereby some of them were from my group that time too. it was really nice to see them again, especially when they still remembered me after 3 months. when i was sitting in the canteen having my breakfast, i saw many eyes looking at me, giving me the "do i know you?" look. haha! nevertheless, it was really nice to see the Sec 1s again. =)

When i finally met my group at the hall, the 1st impression that the entire group was really bad, as the majority of them gave me the "i don't feel like coming to camp" look. i was really blessed by God for the time as a camp facilitator as He always gives me a group whereby they will be obedient and listen to me, and can be gelled together very well and display very good teamwork. when i look at my group, then i asked myself, will this be the 1st camp that i will be cui? (cui=lousy campers+no teamwork+add in all those negative stuff in a lousy group) then i told myself, never mind, no matter how bad it may be, it will not be that bad.

Upon reaching the campsite, what can make things worse->having campfire preparation as the 1st activity after safety briefing. what a way to kick-start the camp! as usual, they did not come out with something constructive, so i just carried on with kayaking and rafting. lucky for my group, as our kayaking is the 2nd slot, so we need NOT carry the kayaks down, and we need NOT carry kayaks up; thus, in this way, we saved quite a lot of time. kayaking was really nice, as my group managed to all stand on the raft-up kayak, and sing twinkle twinkle little star while clapping their hands. when they were singing the song, i could slowly sense a little bit of teamwork spirit in them le... after kayaking, we did rafting. as time was pretty tight, they did not manage to finish tying the barrels to their raft, so i decided to simulate like what i did for Kent Ridge Sec camp, asked all of them to sit on their raft, and imagine that they are out at sea, while i spray water at them. it worked perfectly well for Kent Ridge Sec camp, whereby my campers practically went crazy. initially, i was afraid that it may backfire for Guangyang Sec, fortunately, it worked well for me and the campers went crazy too! =) with the magic combination of kayaking and rafting, it was able to unleash the teamwork spirit in my group and slowly, strong bonds of friendship are forged.

During their 1st dinner at jbac, i requested them to shout 'POTATO!' after the hungry cheer, which is actually my test on them whether they will support me or not, willingly or unwillingly. they did a pretty good job and shouted 'POTATO!' loud enough to make an impression. after dinner, it was KIDNAPPED! although my group did not come in 1st, they displayed very good teamwork spirit and perservered throughout the activity. to me, KIDNAPPED! is always a turning point for the group; whereby if they enjoyed the activity and showed very good teamwork, it will work well for the group, but if they do NOT enjoy the activity and did not show any good qualities, then the group will have a very hard time to gel together and put up something decent for campfire.

The first 2 activites were general stations and low elements. we managed to attempt golden finger, all-on-board, rebirth, high and low wall, broken bridge and 2-line traverse. throughout all the stations, my group managed to display very good and commendable teamwork spirit, whereby they were willing to help and encourage one another to complete the stations and most importantly, overcome the time challenges i had set for them. after lunch, we did challenge rope course; whereby i managed to clear half of my group. after that, it was abseiling; whereby i managed to clear ALL of my campers, except for Joshua who had a backache. after abseiling, it was campfire preparations again. in the end, as they really got nothing constructive or decent to perform during campfire, i decided to teach them Tarzan and Jane; whereby i was kinda sad when Charles and Kelvin (from Grp 10) decided to not do the dance. however, as i said, it is challenge by choice, if you do not want to do, i will respect that. after the dance, i taught them about 6-7 cheers, which is my standard i set for my campers after performances. during campfire, they really went crazy for me, and put up a very good performance and cheered really loud for me. it was pretty obvious which group's cheer was the loudest. judging from the performance, my group really deserved the treat from me - potato chips and Coke! =)

My group got to wash the staff toilet, while Grp 10 cleared the campfire pit. luckily, my group listened to my instructions to how to wash the toilet, and they cleaned the toilets with a smile on their faces. it was really very touching and heartwarming when they could actually work together as a team to wash the toilets, especially when they all come from different classes. i nearly teared when they gave me their PE t-shirt as a memento. overall, it was a very good and nice camp =)))