130807 (Monday)
Spent half the day doing last min shopping in preparation for SMUX camp. Got home and packed my bags. Being me as usual, last min packing is always a norm. Ended up with many bags going to school to continue packing, since I was going to be late for the briefing. And I had to rush to get my papers~! %$%^#!@# Cab down to school and arrive at 2000H on the dot. Nice. Perfect for Wei Bin at least. BUT it only started at 2100H. Cos most ppl were late. Oh wells, nothing surprising since SMU activities never start on time. Esp SMUX's. WAHAHA
Ok so we did the decorations of the sporks that JJ got fir us as a gift to our freshies. Briefing covered everything that we should/have to/might need to know as GLs over the next 3 days. Ended around supper time and we headed for Rochor Beancurd for supper. Headed back school for sleepover and KO till the next morning. Damn freaking cold in school with the air conditioning.
140808 (Tuesday)
Come Tues, we drag our half awaken asses to breakfast and we saw freshies arriving already~! OMFG, the joke at that time was that the GLs are taking their time for breakfast and half prepared while the freshies are already geared up and ready to rock. WTF... ahahaa.. .
And so it was to the Admin building for the registration of attendance for camp. Had some ice breaking there whilst waiting for the opening address by James and Adrian. After that, it was lunch. Timing was a little tight though and the skies seem to set themselves against us. Dark clouds and drizzle was what that greeted us when we started out trekking segment. And no thanks to the huge mess inside choo choo trek. Being the 1st group, we took a little more time to get through the 'newly opened' trek and allowed the following groups to catch up with us. But it is ok since we made the trek a little easier for the rest. Snap a few shots as we were on the bridge. We made our way to Pandan for dinner. Collected our bike and rested for the night to come. Biking was overall ok. The traffic conditions were rather good for my group as we don't need to fall back into our contingency plans.
Arrive at JEC for ice skating. Perfect end to the hectic day. Everybody had great fun there in the air con. Camp site was West Coast Park again. Luckily it was dry when they were pitching. Helped the fellow sections which were cycling there to pitch also. Kaixiang stayed over at WCP and we talked cock all the night till 8am the next day. Actually it was fucking shag. But some how I managed to survive the next day.
150807 (Wednesday)
Waking up after some very little sleep for all, everybody was literally stoning while waiting for the bus to take us for the dive tryouts and underwater hockey. The day is damn hot la! Scorching sun. Sun block saved the girls from the burn, while the guys suffered for their garang-ness. Dive tryout was quite sucky imo. Jacky/ie is damn TU la. Trying his very best to crack some lame shit that is both time wasting and irritating. He thinks he is cool with those shit nonsense, but come the time when he realised he doesn't have enough time, that is where he got his act together and let his diving skills do the talking. OMFG, and I am glad he realised. Should have done it from the start la. Waste so much time. People come SMUX camp to try the stuffs la, not listen to your crap.
Underwater hockey was after lunch and Ix Shen was there. Damn blardy shag mans for 1st timers. Hahaa I told them it was worst than running a 5k. Finally they had a proper bath and I am sure all of them welcomed that. :) Waited for thebus to take us to Changi. Arriving there, it is tent pitching again! Woots! As there was some delay with the kayaking prog, they had to rush for the washing up. So we pitch more tents lo. :) A little pre-dinner game before the cooking itself. After that was the usual performance night. Some groups were damn hilarious mans! The night ended with supper at Changi Village and some trannies watching. Nothing spectacular though. Hammock up and it is sleeping time.
160807 (Thursday)
Last day of camp! Eeekkks.. Skating was the first event. It is a damn short thingy cos of some screw up with the vendors. And it rained as we were returning the skates. My heart goes out to all those helpers and org comm who was still keeping the skates in the rain while we took shelter at Water Venture. Of course, the rain and storm meant that we cannot start the kayaking segment. Almost had to cancel it and do rafting. When I saw the disappointment on some of their faces when the news was out, omg. Damn sad can. Ok so I think the prayers work as the skies cleared towards lunch. The freshies had a little theory lesson and break for lunch. We launch off shortly after lunch and since timing was tight, we did not proceed to Loyang. We paddled till somewhere around Hendon Jetty and u turned back. This double rammed into my right as i was talking to another double on the left. Shag. Lucky was slow, never capsize. Else is bye bye Canon.
Returning was much easier as it was with the current. Beached up and slack around in the water. Returned the kayaks and washed up a little. Changed into the camp shirt and waited for the finale. Of course, there is always time for a little food at Changi V. Wahahaa. Finale games started after the long briefing. The ZZZ monster took many prisoners during the briefing though. Nothing surprising la. Haha. Finale was alright la, and we did not win, thank you. All hell broke loose after that. I shall not go into details. Hahhaa..
Washed up a little and we headed to Xin Wang at Cine for dinner. My grp insisted on wearing the dirty camp shirt to town~! Hahaaa damn interesting la, this bunch. Not bad a session. Cab home and washed my clothes. Damn gross some of them. Bio hazard waste. Gave in to my bed at around 0230.
Headed down to school to pay my fees for the coming sem. Nothing much for this Friday.
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All in all, I thought this camp was rather ok. Expectations were met on many occasions, of course there were come instances where much could be improve.
Being a group leader is definitely different from being a participant. There are so much details that you gotta take note of. You have a responsibility towards them and your every decision might affect them a lot. It is our job to ensure they had an enjoyable time at camp. Afterall, that is the main takeaway for them, besides trying to get them interesting in SMUX. Being a freshie, there is nothing more shag than sleeping very little and enjoying all the activities~! :)
And during the psot camp dinner, I felt really great when many of them told me it was their best camp among all the camps they went. I must say first that I am very slow-to-warm person, not those ra-ra type that can instantly bring up the atmosphere. So I am really glad that they enjoyed the camp. I left the most of the interaction with the group to Yulin. Because I more or less know the expectations of the org comm, so I guess it is better if I handle them instead of Yulin. In a way, I feel I have neglected my group in some ways. Perhaps our relationship could have gone to a greater height. Perhaps, I won't know.
But initally, I did have my doubts about this group. The guys can be quite, how do I put it, themselves? Clicking together as 1 group while the girls another. I got quite disturbed sometimes, seeing the 2 distinct factions during the free time that they had. I mean, wouldn't it be strange if u see a group of ppl sitting in a circle, but the conversations are not going across to each other, rather it is only to the people by your side? And ultimately you realised that there are like 2 seperate groups sitting in to form 1 circle? I don't know mans. Perhaps the fault is in me.
Signing up as a GL, I did have my doubts about it. What if I had a difficult group? What if my group members are also like me? All the endless what ifs. I am really happy it turned out ok in the end.
And also, certain things that came across me was all too familiar. They have so many similarities between them that I found it very hard to ignore. But this time the odds are a lot higher. So much higher against. So much so that I am already quite negative about it already. I don't know much about it, but I am willing to find out. All of it seem so perfect. And most importantly it felt right. I have to tread carefully here, but I have absolutely no idea how to start. Someone please show me the light.
Last of all, I really hope some, if not all, of them can become good friends after this camp. Last year, I made some very good friends from SMUX camp. I will never forget the MOnday Dinner Gang that we had during our Term 1, before all the work consumed us for term 2. I was always looking forward to dinner every Monday. And even though Louis was a man with too few words as a GL, we had great fun..
But it was like one of the earlier camps last year, so I am not sure about it this year. But I really wish for that to happen. After all, I always feel that if you are willing to come for SMUX camp, there has to be certain attributes in you that you can click with the others coming for it. So all the best to you peeps of Group 1.
Photos to come later when I get back home.
