Camp Reflections (Slightly Overdue)

Day1

I've gotta say, I can't bear to be strict with my juniors. Those idiots know what they're supposed to do, they know what we need them to do.

They just refuse to do it. It's like in NCC. Get in the squad, line up straight, and act as a united body.

They're the kind of people who refuse to take things seriously, and they'll make noise just to piss my seniors off. And since we're in the middle, we're obliged to be the kinder ones, no matter how pissed off we get.

The problem is, I find that we're not so different. We were all like that back then, except we actually knew when we had crossed the line. Our juniors are the kind of people who'd cross the line, and cross it a few more times until someone blows up.

It's technically the second day now. We're supposed to be asleep. Eh.

Our seniors are next door, watching Burn Notice. A few are here with us, waiting for McDonalds.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't have it any other way. The juniors, at this rate, will be the kind of procrastinating insomniacs that will take over, and make the camps epic.

I still worry. It's one of those weird things. Seniors one year above you will be awesome people who won't punish you. With few exceptions. Seniors two years above you will be evil bastards who everybody hates. It's like Lelouch's final fate, y'know? He makes people hate him, and unite under those feelings. It happens all the time in history. My enemy's enemy is always my friend. Well, until our mutual enemy is gone... I don't know who's gonna be the scapegoat, the target for next year's batch. Nobody wants to.

We all brought stuff. There's a guy snapping random shots, a small group clustered around a Gameboy playing Pokemon Emerald, a group talking about their PSLE results for some odd reason. I'm listening to my music now. It's so tempting, sleep. Just sleep, and reset your thoughts. We're using this camp to see who we can trust next year to fill our shoes. We're in charge of almost everything, except discipline. It's amazingly tiring, though it's incredibly enjoyable. None of us wants to sleep, even though it's more than an hour after lights out. I'm betting if anybody lies their head on the table, they'll fall asleep in less than a minute.

McDonalds isn't here yet. Dammit, what's taking 'em so long? We want to sleep too!

Huh. There's three laptops open now. Excuse me while I check on my FB apps and update myself on the world.

Macs are here. My food cost $7. It's a real mess. Some people are doing last-minute prep. One of my friends destroyed my senior's large material advantage in chess, but he still lost.

As usual, I got the Double Cheeseburger meal. Right. Imma go sleep now. It's 0115, according to my watch, and there's gonna be lots of work tomorrow.


Day2

We went for a walk after breakfast. A nice, relaxing walk. A nice, relaxing 5km long walk. Trust me, everybody enjoyed it partially. Specifically, the awesome views we got from being so damn high. We went for that walkway near Hort Park, then up Mount Faber, then down. By the time we were done, we were near Vivocity.

Came back after 3 hours. We're all tired, but we still have work to do. All those prepping last night paid off, though our juniors were still hyper. As always. We yelled. As always. We've taken a liking to some of them. One guy I like is this kid named Wen Xi. He's kinda small, so he pretty much invokes BigBrotherInstinct on me. The silent kind, and best of all, he knows his anime. His favorite is Code Geass, and he's got the same disdain for Naruto, Bleach and One Piece as me.

Yeah, I'll look for him after the camp on FB. We don't really spend much time with the juniors anyway.

It's officially the third, and final day. I lost, and found the keys to my group's dorms. I've gotta say, I think I might have succeeded.

It's always been my belief that there are too many firm instructors. They're too quick to shout, too quick to punish, too fast to criticize. Too slow to praise, too slow to give thanks.

So, I wasn't surprised when I was the least wet in the water bomb fight, excluding the juniors. I'm the one giving water bombs to them, the one pointing at the seniors and the one laughing with them.

Nobody wants to bomb the friendly girl who sides with you. It's one of those things in game theory that I can't remember the name to. Basically, people will do more if you give them a small unconditional thing, than promise a larger reward given after completion. I become the nice person who's extremely lax, doesn't yell, and help get refills. I'm more popular than my friends who doesn't grant unconditional favors, but fulfills every promise to the hilt, and nothing more.

God, I'm tired. Right. I'll sleep more tonight. It's 30 minutes past midnight. Goodnight, world.


Day3

The seniors have left us in charge. Well, that's gonna be fun. We're now supposed to be doing area cleaning, but we already got them to pack up everything, because a few bright sparks decided to wake up everybody at 5am. I'm not too happy about getting one less hour of sleep, but the fact is I'm now at the canteen, chatting with the juniors in my group.

We're talking about teachers now, and exchanging horror stories about them. Come on. We're students. We talk about schools.

Overall, this was an extremely fun, but tiring camp. My juniors beg to differ. They disliked the seniors, though they've learnt that they are all nice people who screw up all the time. We broke that impression by talking about their stupidity, inanity and general mischief.

We also explained to them the main reason behind the meanness. It's basically like a carrot and stick approach. Harshness comes from them, good news comes from us. In time, they grow as a team, and they become united. At the end of the three days, all 5 groups are now close-knit.

Still, they refuse to use the female showers. Come on! It's cleaner, emptier and much more appealing. None of them dared enter, no matter how much I reassured that I would check for girls to prevent accidents.

Ah, to hell with all that. The camp was fun, and that's all that matters in the end. We've all got great and not-so-great memories for all of them.

The whole event ended at noon. Say goodbye, exchange FB names and promises to upload pics ASAP. I lent out too much money this time. I have to get the $15 back before, you guessed it, AFA.

###

Anyway, NaNo has started. I'm on my way to 8,000 words, and I want, no, need to write on average, 2,000 words a day. I've got a nice 2 day buffer, mainly because I haven't wrote for today. That would be spent on AFA, because, depending on how well I do it, I may, or may not get Anisong tickets.

Class stuff now. We've got the designs down, so hoodies should be ready in a week or so. We're planning a class gathering.

1) Movie. Not a good idea getting all of us to gather and watch a movie. For one, have you tried getting 2 rows to yourself in a cinema? We have. That's why our June attempt to get a class gathering failed.

2) CIP. No. Just no.

3) Chalet/Cycling at East Coast or Sentosa. Thanks a lot, Halloween dude. Now our parents refuse.

4) Crash someone's place and have a BBQ. That actually might work, because we've got ideas. Kelly isn't averse to letting the class come over.

5) Restaurant. Possible. Just rather risky. We might get banned for starting a food fight. Also, there's the slight issue of all of us walking in, making a huge amount of noise, and pissing off people. Have I mentioned the trouble of catering for large amounts of people on the fly? And that means that we'll slow down a lot of people, make lots of noise, and there's a chance people will bring laptops, and set up a LAN center there. Urgh.

So, yeah. Until NaNo ends, I won't be updating much. Except for AFA, for the class outing (if it occurs) and for announcing my success, and my prizes, if any.

I'm really hoping for something simple like a shirt. It most probably won't be free, but there's always the option of asking my dad really nicely.