Sec 1 camp

There was a sec 1 camp during the last 3 days before school holiday. St Johns island was the campsite.

On the first day, we gathered in school for the coach to take us to Marina South jetty. When we reached there, the Aphelion consortium classes took the ferry (a 20-30 min long ride) to St Johns. It was raining when we got there. The wind was tremendous. Some umbrellas were turned inside out. Soon, the wind died down and we went on to the campsite. Sadly, our campsite was the furthest away. Carrying a big hand-carry was definitely not a good idea. (Tiring like hell!) Luckily, we were sleeping in a dorm that day, so there were beds : only framework and dirty mattress with dust and whatever with dirty pillow cases and bedsheets but PROPER beds. We ate lunch in another 'canteen' dorm, where everyone said the "Hungry Cheer" before digging into our food. After that, we were told to assemble at the basketball court, converted into a main meeting area. All the classes were there, waiting for the speech by Mojo (chief of camp) and Mr Tan, teacher in charge.

There were some miscellaneous games and the preparation for campfire later in the day. We were the duty group for that day's dinner. We were supposed to collect the food as it was ferried in from mainland Singapore. However, we waited for almost 2 hours and still nothing in sight. We played a game of 'Truth of Dare' while we waited. The breeze at the beach was magnificent. The food was heavier and more difficult to carry than expected. I could hardly carry the 20 packets of rice assigned to me up the hill. There was a complaint from 1a1 when we got here. "So slow one..." Slow?!! Lunch came in later than this, and you still call us slow?! Wah Lau! Damn angry! Ungrateful people lah! (By the way, the duty group for lunch was a1)

Don't care them, let's go on with the story...

After dinner, we were sent on a scavenger hunt for our friend, Kendrick, who had been 'kidnapped'. We were supposed to do some activities to gain chances to get keys, which can open the 'padlocks' and 'chains' bundling our friend, freeing him. We were so lucky. 2 tries, 2 keys. Most groups took longer than that. We were the first to find Kendrick too. He was located in a rubbish dump behind basketball court 2 (another one), with some trainers and other 'kidnapped' people. We soon got him back and talked about our experiences. Kendrick said that the trainers thought bundling them with chains and padlocks was too cruel in a way, so there were none. He had slept while waiting for us. We then had some time to do some puzzles.

Bedtime, the other students made noise, causing the teachers and instructors to keep coming in to reprimand us. It was after i went out for toilet and came back in that i could finally get some sleep.

The next day, was woken up by Anthony if i don't remember wrongly. We had breakfast in the gathering site: fried rice. I licked the box clean before dashing off to get the hot milo. Luckily I got it quickly, If I had been any later, i would have gotten stuck in the long queue for milo. Games by the beach were up next. This was the first time we were able to play near the sea. We were given 1 min to explore the beach. I got quite a bunch of seashells and dried sponges washed up along the shore. We had lunch in the same canteen dorm.

Campfire was up next. By then, it was already evening. The campfire was burning very strongly. The flames rose like the deepest pits of hell. The music was playing while everyone was dancing. The classes, one by one, came up to perform their cheers, dances, or whatever they had. After the big campfire, was the mass debrief and sleeping time. We were sleeping in the tents this time. My tent mates: Aloysius, Ethan, Zhong Zhi and Ye Kai. We sub-divided the tent into sections where we slept. It was so hot in the tent that I had to actually go outside for several minutes to cool off. However, it was very cold outside. Hence, I went back into the tent to warm up. Around perhaps 0000h-0100h, I dozed off.

The next day was more relaxed. Nothing but eating and getting the ferry home. But it was just not the day for me. You see, my bag had a BIG hole. I had trouble getting the bag here and there without enlarging the hole. We had nasi lemak for breakfast. I added too much chili and ended up burning my nose and throat. We (half of the class: we couldn't fit the whole class!) were able to take the open air ferry back, so I got to see the waves and feel the breeze. But the waves were so loud I could hardly hear what my friends were saying. We got off the ferry and got back to HCI. I took a taxi home to reduce inconvenience.

On the whole, the camp was rather fun!

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