It's MY story, and it's nothing like yours.

bA freshman camp 2005

Day 1
I dreaded the day, cuz' for some reason why Linnette was afraid of too, and partly cuz' I didn't really had a great night before camp. So, we approached our team after our searching eyes darted left and right, looking out for people in orange/white tees...
There was awkward silence when I sat among the whites and I could only pretend to look through my hp inbox to avoid looking pathetic and lost. As the respective groups settled down in the exam hall, I highly suspected that I looked like I was going on a week's hike instead of a 3day2night camp with my BIG bag. Anywayz, the group wasn't all that hyper like the others, coz' we were the smallest in no. (others had 14/15, we only had 10), and the grp leader was absent. So while others had 2 leaders (cuz each grp has a leader and an assistant leader), and bigger groups to 'xia 4 ma 3 wei 1' with their cheers and size, we had nothing. To top it off, we were apparently losing at all game stations...and I vividly remember how Ernest (yes Linnette, Shadow's leader) was laughing at us and going,"Cannot make it... Try harder" and I was like cursing him cuz' I found it insulting. Lunch was horrible as well. Fortunately, dinner made up for it (coz' there was chicken wings and veg) and I enjoyed it thoroughly as I joined my fellow groupmates in using our hands. Pitied those girls who could only stare at the chicken wing and try to slice off the flesh with the fragile plastic fork and spoon...muahaha...oh, and Yeting (the group leader) turned up despite being sick. But the group didn't become bigger bcoz' of that as another member of the group fell sick at night and was sent home...

Day 2
Woke up early in the morning cuz' some idiot's phone rang at 6.15am (we weren't even supposed to report for breakfast till 8am!). Ringing tone was the 'wake me up inside' song by Evanescance, (how do u spell her name?). Played the amazing race, which was literally amazing cuz' white peacocks again got stumped at the first clue and was given a 30-min penalty and was stuck looking for some stupid fire hydrant. Others were already at Bukit Batok while we tried to figure out which was the combination of the 2 fire hydrants that the headquarters wanted as answers! lolx. Then at Turf City's Giant Supermarket, our super 'suay' group unsuccessfully msg-ed 3 wrong answers to the headquarters before realizing that the bread that they wanted had been sold out! And the boys couldn't resist the burgers they saw, and downed one just before we headed to MacRitchie Reservoir for our lunch break. They really can eat! At MacRitchie, the rain poured heavily and we got stuck seeking shelter at the boys' toilet. Well, not literally inside. cuz' there was a changing room beside it and we just sat there and had lunch... Yucky...haha. The girls said it'd be a memorable part of the camp, I couldn't agree more. You don't usually take meals at places where boys change do you? haha... so after lunch, we proceeded to Heeren and again got stuck there for about 2 hours or so, cuz' the guy who helped read the e-mails for our next clue couldn't get put it across to us what he saw on the map in the form of a powerpoint presentation. In addition, we were soaked to the skin again after having dried ourselves on the bus during the journey to orchard and got frantic when we saw a few groups proceed to the next stop while we were left waiting once again. Helpless, we waited at Taka while the boys tried looking around while we sat behind the board, which shows how you get to shops around Taka. It was so comfortable there with the air-cons that a few of them fell asleep. Took a relatively long rest before a security guard chased us off from behind the board. lolx. Embarrassing, but no one gave a damn cuz' we thoroughly enjoyed sitting there, doing nought. Anyway, the boys eventually found what they needed to and not long after, we were on our way back to school... we knew that we were going to lose. But we won't end up last- we had a common goal: to be second last. So when we alighted, we made a mad dash for the hall and white peacocks scrambled to set foot in front of the headquarters before the group, who had also been racing beside us at the bus stop. That was hilarious. And we were like, 'Yeah, high 5! second last! we made it!!!' So exhilarated, like being second last amongst 12 groups was the best thing that could happen to White Peacocks! HAHA...
Then at night, we had campfire. well, camp torchlight, Joel was saying, cuz the leaders used torchlights in an attempt to set up a 'campfire' indoors. A lil' disappointed it was raining. But no matter, cuz we had so much fun! Struggled with the skit and stuff and the banana dance (cuz the 'banana people' pulled up whoever they saw sitting infront of them). Then we did the 3 cheers for every group before they performed their respective skits, and amazingly, their 3 cheers weren't your normal 'hip hip hoorays'. They were those 'whokeshaka times 3' then a 'whoosh'. and the farni rounds that you had to do with your hands infront of you. Ernest was a real clown, cuz he played a female teacher in his group skit and had balloons for breast. He tripped and burst a balloon and stood up with only 1 side remaining. Those playing the students laughed and asked if they were real, and his reply was, "of coz' real one la. the missing one will grow back later." oh my god! everyone laughed till their sides ached! Then for the first time, I actually played along and jumped while the did the 'father abraham cheer'. It goes like this: 'Father Abraham has 7 children. 7 children and Father Abraham. Some of them are tall and some of them are short, but none of them were: raise ur right raise ur left step ur right step ur left shake ur head shake ur butt.' something like that.. so fun! everyone was jumping and jumping. And we sang songs, which were horrendously out of tune, and I sorta got squashed in between 2 people who were swaying in different directions. Next up was the friendship dance: 'as we... ___ to the left, as we ____ to the right...blah...' they filled in the blanks with different adjectives each time, but that really made no difference to me. How do you actually glide/ swing/ whatever? Haha. I was too busy apologising for having stepped on people's toes... and relatively bothered by a runny nose...
When it came to bathing time, we were like !!! when told that we had to go all the way to Kismis to bathe! That meant walking across the overhead bridge connecting Ngee Ann and Kismis and going somewhere relatively 'ulu'. Since it's further compared to bathing at the school's sports complex, we were dismissed a bit earlier than those groups who were going to bathe at the complex. Some of my fellow group mates decided that since we were dismissed first, we might as well rush to the complex and bathe and save ourselves the trouble of going all the way there. I must say that's quite unfair to the group who had gone to Kismis the day before, and I refused. Might seem a lil' 'out', but I really couldn't care less. Whatever~ I found 2 other girls who thought the same way and together with some other people from other groups, we made our way to Kismis... By the time we had supper and stuff, it was already 1+ am. Some stayed up to play the 'animal game'/ blackjack etc, while others (like me) tried to sleep amidst noisy people. They fell quite quiet for 2 hours or so (or was it because I managed to fall asleep?) and the noise suddenly rose again at 4+am. Like wt*? Ugh. So I tried again to return to dreamland with a tee over my eyes and ears, but to no avail. The fan whirling above me and the hard surface we were sleeping on didn't make things any better. Anyway, after 2 hours' plus of tossin' and turnin', I awoke again, and found a member of the other group beside me. I was like huh?! Did I actually roll off to some other person's sleeping bag?! Then I realised that it was my partner's friend from the other team...haiz. Scared myself...

Day 3
Had breakfast, at 9 instead of 830, and I was looking forward to going home to my comfy bed and coffee... breakfast was kinda different from the last. They switched something else (I forgot what) for chocolate peanut better. Anyway, majority of my group preferred kaya with bread, and it was always the guys who helped us with the spread. Lolx...(I'd always thought it was the other way round', they really proved me wrong this time...) So while others had Kaya, Joel (again) had the chocolate peanut butter all to himself. He had 2 slices while others only took 1. That guy is extremely comical- he sorta provided all the entertainment during our stay... [first night, he had to do a forfeit- going around tables during dinner doing the chicken dance with Gabriel coz' they both lost 3 times in a row during 'animal game'; second night he came up with this jellyfish gesture which made us all go bobbing up and down during 'animal game'; he alone did the re-cap for the peacock skit which really was hilarious during rehearsals (not that funny during the actual skit though); he did another forfeit for the 'animal game' the same day which was to lead our group cheer, which was unsuccessful coz' he forgot what came after the 1st cheer in our combo 3-in-1 cheer.] Gabriel was another clown too- he insisted that his animal be a kangeroo of some sort and that we should jump while gesturing his. He himself ended up missing a beat instead and had us all going, 'See la! your jumping jack la...'orh bi'...' Anyway, back to day 3...after breakfast we were back at the exam hall where the leaders were counting the total scores for each group (coz' we had a point system). Turned out that they had a different way of doing things: Usually, the group with the highest score gets the better prizes right? But we had to auction for our own prizes with whatever points we had... Interestingly, the catch was that big presents might not contain good stuff. Through this game, I fully understood what 'Looks are deceiving' really mean. Many of those bigger packets wrapped in coloured bags actually contain loaves of gardenia bread/ rolls of toilet paper while others that aren't so eye-catching actually contain better stuff like sweets and potato chips, even bottles of drinks. Green Pasture had a weird group leader who auctioned at 'yi 4 kou 3 jia 4', and lost his points rapidly. He ultimately ended up with 14 loaves of gardenia bread and had the other groups mocking at him. The highlight was when the camp leaders suggested that groups combined with groups to pool whatever scores they had left and bid for the last 5 items, Green Pasture and Blue Ocean were left fending for themselves as a pair while the others all stood as one against them. The pair had only 700 points while the others had 2000+ combined. Seeing that there was no way they could emerge victorious, the pair settled on a package of bread yet again with the meagre 700 points. That was so lol...so, the prizes that the rest of the groups had were shared amongst everyone, and we all did a final bA cheer before going home....

posted by yz @ 3:15 PM