Ferlin's Reflection

Settling proposal, patrol name, patrol flag etc. was such a headache but I knew the worst nightmare had yet to come – The Annual Training Camp. My precious March holidays had been partly sacrificed as a result of the camp. Nevertheless, I must say that this is an enriching experience which comes by once in a lifetime. Who noes when would there be such an opportunity again?

I was out the night before camp to sort off “celebrate” my departure with my parents and godparents because I wanna have a good meal before setting off. We had buffet dinner at this restaurant. But even so as I was eating my meal, I couldn’t cast my mind off camp. The thought of eating grass instead of real proper food kinda irked me. Haha.
*fast forwards*

Pitching tent was tedious. I remembered having sweated profusely, undoing and redoing the procedures because the guidelines of my patrol’s tent kept intersecting with Venturaz’s tent. However, I really do think that my patrol members are cooperative and diligent in pitching up the tent even though we took donkey years. :)

It’s been raining most of the time but I think it’s rather fun and romantic to have our initiative games in the rain. Lols. Nightwalk was one of the highlights in camp. The path was great, basically becos there’s lots of slopes, drains.. which requires us to be climbing up and down at all times. During the solo walk, I wasn’t scared initially, but later on I started imagining things cos I tot heard this rattling sound of a snake or sum creature. Oh well, but gladly I managed to overcome my fear and pulled myself back by looking at the stars in the sky.

There comes the sleeping part for the 1st night. I had a 1st-hand experience sleeping with my patrol members. Being a heavy sleeper, I fell asleep in like less than 5 minutes and the next thing I knew was that I had been woken up at 5.30am to do punishments. The morning breeze was extremely cold and my teeth were chattering as I was doing punishments. We had sum games later on. I like the “slapping, ouch, obi obi” game best.

During breakfast, sum of my patrol members related to me abt my humorous sleeping behaviour the nite b4. I simply luff out loud. Lunch was on outdoor cooking. Building up the fire wasn’t as easy as I thought, esp the blowing part. I inhaled lots of smoke and fumes, my eyes turned watery too. At last all was ready. I was looking forward to eating the “Bell Chicken”. My patrol members were so excited abt it, they had alr cut the chicken and were discussing who to eat which part of the chicken when the seniors came by and took it away. We watched with heavy hearts as our delicious chicken drifted further and further away. haha

Night game was being carried out late late into the night and by then most of us were feeling dog-tired. My 1st station was the toilet. The mirror was stained with words “dun look back” and I find it damn freaky! I din expect myself to cry oso, and looking back now, I find it funny and a bit embarrassing to actually cry. hahas. And apologies to my patrol members becos I think I scream a lot during night game. And it seemed like my screams were the ones which made the game even scary. After the 3rd station, I was the only sec3 left in my patrol. I wasn’t really confident of leading but thanks to my patrol members’ support, I managed to carry on till the end of the game. I was happy that I did not back out, if not I did be deprived of this unique experience.

Everyone slept at around 3am the 2nd night. I din get to bath on the 2nd day due to time constraints as my patrol were the cooks for dinner that day.
Finally the 3rd day arrived, I was really really looking forward to going home. I missed all my family and friends! Perhaps it’s the urge of wanting to go home asap, the whole company managed to strike off all the tents within 30minutes.

No doubt, even after the whole camp had ended, it was extremely exhausting. However, I learned a lot from this camp, being a Patrol Leader isn’t as simple as ABC. Most of all, I came to appreciate the ppl around me more than ever.

And I SURVIVED the camp! Wad a great accomplishment. lols

“ what doesn’t kills me, makes me stronger”

I believe I had grown stronger in that sense. (:

Ferlin.