joash lee at 11:32 PM

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Hello all! It's been so long! Okay, only 3 days, but it feels so long. LTC was quite good, I got to know so many more J1s, and so many other leaders. Labrador Adventure Centre, a lil' rundown, but not too bad. My group was quite good, very on. We had to pick a famous leader for our group name, so we chose Gandhi - no violence, world peace, and serve others.

Okay, I was group IC for the first day, and Xue Li was 2nd IC. I must say she's very supportive and very helpful. First day was damn boring, we spent almost 4 hours in the hall listening to talks after talks, and my back hurt like hell. After a while it got interesting. We went down to the parade square to play tug-of-war. It's the normal kind, except this time, 5 teams are against each other, so there was a centre, with 5 ropes sticking out. We lost the first two rounds, and the third round was damn funny. We tried something different. Instead of wasting our energy, we would focus all our energy on a first jerk. So once the whistle blew, we immediately jerked with all our might, and won the third round within 3 seconds. Amazing huh. And the fourth round, we won again, this time we tried it again, but the other teams knew already. So we hung on for like 3 mins, with other teams coming so close to winning, but we always managed to pull them back, and after one last final jerk, we won the thing, and came in 2nd out of 10 teams. (:

After dinner, we had a survival thingy, where it was a situational test. Our plane crashed, and we had to choose whether or not to stay or to trek. Majority chose trek, and all died. Secondly, we had to rank our items in terms of importance, with 12 items that were left on the plane. Sad to say, I was among the first to die cos i brought along whiskey first, cos I thought it would keep me warm, but they told us whiskey would dehydrate and make the stomach more hungry. Lol. Anyway, our individual efforts were bad, but once we came together as a team, we were better off.

First night, bunked with like 16 other guys, 17 per room. Damn noisy. After trying to sleep for 30 mins, there was a fire drill. Quite fast, commandant was screwed by Mr Kwok for not ensuring full strength of camp (attendance). Then went back to sleep.

2nd day, much more exciting cos the activities were all outdoor. We played a ring toss game where we came in 4th, and after lunch, it was high ropes element. Sad to say I only had the chance to do 2 out of 10 elements cos my team was stuck at a particular station for a damn long time. But happy to say that I completed both my stations in minimal time. I did rock-climbing and hanging logs. Three logs were suspended in midair and I had to cross all three. Very very shaky. The whole activity took about 4 hours, every group trying to complete as many elements as possible. After that we went for dinner at Pasir Panjang Hawker Centre, team by team.

On the way back, Hua Hui, president of the student council was appointed camp commandant, and I was appointed deputy commandant. Quite scary at first, but after a while I got used to it. That night on, it was hell for everyone. Our lights out timing was 1215pm, and everyone managed to tuck in.

415am, there was a fire drill. Apparently all the girls heard the fire alarm and rushed down, only to find no boys there. They thought it was an all girls activity, so they didn't really care about the boys. The biggest joke was, all the boys were still sleeping, and not a single one woke up, probably because all too tired, or because our bunks were further from the command post. So after a while, Mr Kwok and Mr Loke asked Hua Hui, where were all the boys? Hahaha. They sent girls to go wake the boys up, and the whole process took 11mins plus. Lol. Really big joke. The teachers told us after the camp that this is the first time in LTC history this ever happened. HAHAHA. Anyway, we were reprimanded, and had to do it a second time (nobody knew we had to do it again), this time with proper attire and equipment - shoes, torchlights and handphones. Many others couldn't take it, once they went back, they fell asleep immediately. I told my whole bunk, wear your socks first, get ready your phone and torchlight in case they do it again. True enough, 10 mins later, they sounded the siren, and all rushed out. This time, we took 6 mins plus. Again got scolded, cos some were not in proper attire nor equipment. So we had to do it a third time. Amazingly, we took 1 min 59 secs for the third time. That wasn't the end.

After that, they told us to go pack our stuff, bedsheets, pillowcases, harnesses and helmets, and report back at the parade square in 15 mins. I was like, what the hell, it was only 5 plus! Crazy man. We managed to do it, and surprise surprise, we went for morning walk/run/climb. We walked so fast it was practically running, and we had to climb Telok Blangah Hill, which was 4 km away from our campsite. All done at around 5, 6am. Being the deputy camp commandant, I was last man, and had to keep running. Reaching the hilltop, we were just in time for the sunrise, and we sang our school song (full version) twice, and recited the school creed twice. Because the first time wasn't good enough. People looked at us like we were mad. After that, walked/ran back to campsite by 745. I was damn freaking tired by then, cos we only had 3 hours plus of sleep. Crazy I tell you. After that, we split up into our various CCA groups, like sports and games, clubs and societies blah blah blah, to discuss goals for our own CCAs. Everything took about 2 hours, and after like 20 mins of debriefing and all, we broke camp.

Went with Gandhi to eat at Vivo, Carls Junior. I was half asleep already. Then took 188 back, slept the whole journey, and came home. Slept from 3-7, woke up for dinner, and went back to sleep, from 730pm to this morning 10am. Could have slept more, but had other stuff to do. Well, it was all a blast, and I enjoyed myself. Now it's back to mugging.

Park Dae Kyung, Zuo Kun, Yingjie, Edwin, Erin, Cassandra, Constance, Xue Li, Jaslin, Eunice, Amantha and Hua Hui, thank you guys for a wonderful time. I really learnt alot of things. Thank you all.