Highlights of the camp (outside of activity)
– Before start of camp when we found oac song books! Rachel found the song book and we just decided to start singing… ok… it was alvyn really. He flipped the book and was unable to sing so many of the songs so he kept going “this one how to sing?” and Claire and I and practically everyone who came in the store after that was singing old tunes from campfires and old movies like sound of music. After that we just went nuts and started singing and singing and singing before the juniors arrived. J
– Senior-junior bonding time at the most unexpected time e.g. at 12 o’clock when I joined 4 jnrs, including phong (a very smart, bukit panjang govt high robotics club student), kuan loong (a rv-ian athletics) in talking about all sorts of stuff, like guessing of schools (they thought I was from a mixed school!) and cca (they took forever to guess art club!) haha. Plus a gross end to the discussion, sadly. Ekk.
– the really funny sleeping arrangements!!! I came back from my bath to find a group of people in all direction and sleeping positions in the basketball court! And when Jillian, Weiling and I went to the grandstand to sleep, we were met by neat layers of sleeping people on the benches. It was like rooms for rent, no wait… beds for rent and they are decked! It was hilarious to see as everyone was in neat columns! We ended up joining them with many others joining us. I found it funnier when going around with Jessie to wake people up…
– which brings me to the next highlight… people are clueless about what they say when they just got up! The two of us went around waking them up and Jessie kept asking “what is 2 + 2?” to check if they are awake. The answers we got are so funny! “10” and benedict’s reaction was the funniest, he was like shifts to a different sleep position, looks blurrily in your direction, stones, and tries to think but no answer comes out. Jessie with her four fingers out, “let me give you a hint”. He finally mutters a “4” then goes back to sleep. Hahaha!!!!
– the seniors bonding. awesome (in the language of alvyn)! I remember waiting for the juniors to sleep, I brought the tin of biscuits out to the bball court where we were sitting and it just seems to run out so fast. I pass the tin around… everyone has nothing better to do but munch so we do just that! Even the guys who were playing bball in the other court would come to our court every so often and I would be like *shoves biscuit tin in their direction, their reaction? Jinxian: “wah… how you know?”, weiwen’s reaction: *grabs a whole stack of biscuits and starts munching. Oh and we celebrated grace’s birthday!! (:
Low points
– The night before the camp and during the camp, I got a lot of last minute sms-es, messages that informed me (a bit late) that they were not going to be there all the time, they are going to leave at ____, or worse, they are going to leave NOW. I hate such last minute requests.
– despite going smoothly with only slight hitches in timing, there were some incidents we could not avoid. The solo night was one very good example.
– there weren’t as many juniors as I had hoped for but nevertheless, I think they were very enthusiastic and I could ask for higher energy level. But of course, I wished there were times when they could have listened more to our briefings, or that I had an as loud voice as Kevin.
– It seemed that many juniors did not enjoy the amazing race as much as we hoped they will due to the limited time, lack of sense of urgency and lack of sleep.
– And on the personal level… my legs ache and I did not have enough sleep, at all. (a sentiment shared by many of the seniors)
Activity by activity:
– Icebreakers: a big big big mess at the start that it was absolute chaos due the unrestricted space. It ended up being more effective after the cut down in space and many juniors expressed that the game was fun. However, it was not how the oc comm, especially icebreakers ic, mervyn, pictured the game to turn out.
– tent pitching and outdoor cooking: a good demo by terence and benedict except the little hitch during the fire-lighting. The picking of wood was good as many juniors willingly helped out. The turfing was ok but the cooking was done mainly by the seniors (at least for my group) that we might have failed in the objectives of the activity. But we got our stomachs filled!
– night games: very smooth. I only met with two groups but they need not visit all. Spent my time drawing and reading up on QA. Juniors feedback that this activity could have been extended to allow all groups to finish.
– wet games: by far the most successful part of oc! The milo got everyone sticky, the sweets got everyone grossed out and the water bombs… got everyone wet! Chaotic but all in good fun. After all, it was before wash up! I managed to stay dry and milo-free with wai kit, jinxian, benhong and Claire… but we all ended up wet at the last game.
– solo night: it would have been better if everything went to plan but the change in route halfway due to the barking dogs (really not within our control if you ask me…) and the police car was quick and shuwei did a good job with the reallocation. Good job! My station with alvyn and Claire at oac land was cancelled so after the long talk with the two of them (about J1 chem, alvyn’s weird calling habits)… I joined wai kit at TC block. Some juniors were so playful (this is really no the right time…) that they ran off and we couldn’t find them. Hmmpf!
Amazing race: the last thing on the second day when everyone is already half-dead. The groups lacked the sense of urgency and we as seniors did not enforce it strongly (we kinda gave up after a while) that many did not get to go to many stations. But the activities proved fun as feedback on fun-level was good, I was especially happy with my group’s scavenger hunt! Yay!
Debrief.
Thanks:
I think the camp was a huge achievement and I really have to thank the enthusiastic juniors and the really helpful seniors who lent their hands (like octopuses, so many hands!) in making this camp a success! Super duper thanks to Wong Ying, Claire!!! For coming down to camp even when you are so sick that you couldn’t come to school for lessons. But you still made it to camp, thank you! And of course Jessie who really guided me (and probably knew the proposal as thoroughly as all the oc comm. members!) and prompted me to keep to all the timings. Yay! Thanks to oc comm for being such good comm. members, planning all your activities so well (improvising when things crop up as if it was all part of the plan), and sending your changes to me on time! Thank you so much! And last but not least… Char(!!), for being so on task and co-organising this camp, I think you did so much work and I’m sure my name appeared so many times in your sms inbox as much as yours appeared in mine. Thank you!
ramblings. 