Well, was away during Nov, so I missed all the precamp trainings. Haizz... wished i could witness those trainings and see our juniors' progress from nov til camp.

Dunno why but i usually have this really weird/ happy/ satisfied/ etc feeling right after camp... anyway here's how it went.

7 am - 8am: Reported an hour earlier at 7 am to prepare stuff for camp. Though we went back on 1 dec to pack our logistics, we still had some things to settle like ensuring we had everything, preparing the classrooms to store the campers' (sec 1 and 2s) bags and stuff. The campers were told to come before 8am to put their bags, so they did :)

8am - 8.30am: Reporting and briefing. We collected the first aid kits and e-call lists too! haha I still rmb when how i had to go around searching for first aid stuff and the telephone numbers of the guiders and clinics near nygh. Then cos i could not print, I asked my PL if she could help me to. But she mixed up the reporting time and arrived later. haha.

8.30 am - 12 pm: Setting up of campsite. was kinda slow... but it picked up later. My patrol had to pitch a canvas tent which was a lot harder than a normal A-frame/ dome tent, and cos many did not come for precampt training due to overseas trip, they were pretty unfamilliar. Seniors and Sec 3s helped so they would have time for their gadget. Luckily they were  pretty good at their gadgets, so they managed to complete it on time, before the mdms and seniors came to judge. They were one of the few patrols that remembered to put a poncho on it in case of wet weather ;)

12.00pm - 12.45pm: LUNCH! Though i did not do a lot, i was kinda hungry by then. haha. The food was nice! before lunch ended, shiya and i went to find ms teng to get the gym mats for an activity cos we could not get the permission of the tr before that.

12.45pm - 1.45pm: song session! Most of the sec 3s excluding the song session ics were runing around to prepare for our treasure hunt orienteering activity. Shi Ya and I were getting gym mats, but the gym was locked (quite expectedly) and miss teng said we should get the permission of the tr-i-charge before we took the mats. Thus, i was calling my gym fren if we could borrow the mats, while shiya an zeke went to check the classrooms for testwork session that was going to be held after treasure hunt so see if the comps and visualisers were working. After quite a few calls here and there, I managed to get the names of the tr-in-charges for gym but not their nos. ms teng said she's going to call the tr-in-charges first so we went to prepare for treasure hunt. Luckily, Zeke and my station did not require a lot of equipment and we set it up pretty quickly.

1.45 - 3.15 pm: treasure hunt. Well, we just waited for the patrols to come. Our activity was to retrieve part of a map that was stuck to the top of a long spar without tilting it. Meaning, it had to stay vertical. One of the patrols was rather amusing. ( i sound so mean haha) They intended to get it from the second level while a few members held it upright from the first level but the spar was to short. Then, they accidentally hit the spar on a beam of the ceiling i think and ling2 ji1 yi4 dong4, decided to rub the map off the spar using the beam. It dropped eventually, but the map dropped into a whole of the beam. One of the members had to climb onto the table to retrieve it. Though that was not the correct way we had expected them to retrieve the map, they succeeded anyway. the correct way was to hold it upright near a staircase while one of them climbs the stairs to retrieve it. sound pretty simple, but you'd have to think of it first, or quite a few other methods would have been unsuccessful. we were also only allowed to borrow one gym mat in the end.

3.15 - 5.15pm: Testwork session. Sec 3s only had to sit for axemanship practically supposedly, unless you had other testworks undone from lower sec. Surprisingly, i managed to pass although my axemanship isnt very good. phew. I took super long to chop notch deep enough into the wood. For splitting, I also had a bit of problem. in the end i had to change the piece of wood to wnother one to try. was successful in the end. haha. sawing was usually the easiest for me but during the session, i also took a pretty long time. I kept the sawn off wood like i always do haha. Then, i went to help huijun with the testwork item, topo map practical,  she was holding for the sec 1s and 2s so she could go take her axemanship testwork. It was chaotic. I mean, there were like almost 20 ppl taking at the same time but only 3 maps. There were 3 parts to the test and only 1 part needed a map, but they quickly finished up the other 2 parts, so a crowed waiting for the maps formed. In the end, we had to allow 2-3 ppl to share a map although there was a chance that they could see other's answers.

5.15 - 6pm: bath time for campers, briefing time for us.

6 - 6.45pm: dinner

6.45 - 9pm: TRUST AND COURAGE! haha, the activity shiya, jingyi and i planned. Basically, shiya and i went around trying to ensure things were going on smoothly. We had to blow the whistle too to tell them that it was time to go on to the next station. It was rather "oh man..." cos the stations were too far apart so the whistle could not be heard clearly. Whistling can be rather stressful ok... you needa make sure you are on time and that everyone can hear you and all that. haha

Trust fall: cos the mat was not allowed to be dirtied and stuff, we changed our venue from the field to an indoor area. The ICs of that station were super safe. They use 2 ground sheets and folded them into more than half, so there were more than 4 layers to let the person fall on. Quite a few were scared to fall onto the ground sheet but all did :)

Newspaper stretcher: This station basically required you to make a stretcher newspapers and have one person lie on it at a time. Then, the patrol members will have to raise the stretcher and walk from one check point to the next. The person lying on the stretcher will be changed from check point to check point. For this one, most were generally having fun. Some were a lil afraid, but not as much as when they did trust fall i think. Got kinda worried when they moved too near the edges of the corridor cos they might all fall onto the flower bed below near the quadrangle. We missed out the point that the corridors might be dark cos it was at night too, so the venue might not have been too appropriate.

Obstacle course: haha i think this was the least scariest since they just needed to pass a web of twine and get blindfolded while relying on 2 sec 1s lead them through a maze.

Human ladder: For this station, they had charades first, then climb a ladder formed by having patrol members hold spars. Could see some were nervous, but they all tried :) Was a little scary when some rushed through or when some could not hold the spars firmly enough though.

9.30 - ???pm: COH. Basically talked about the camper's and sec 3s performance.

Pioneering: Followed my patrol as they went from station to station. Some basic skills still have to be worked on, but they tried ;) Don't think i ve been up to standard too, especially at the river crossing station. I couldnt even teach them how to carry the structure and stuff properly... was so dangerous... the structure could have hit someone. In the end the seniors had to help a lot. Thanks a lot!

Outdoor Cooking competition: Was with the food prep :) My partrol had nice food haha. Loved the marshmallow one. But I thought some of them could be a little less harsh on ___ when she was a little blur or not sure what to do. After all, we are all learning right. She needs to put in the effort of course, but we can all still help her along. They were the last to finish due to all the things they had to prepare, but i m glad they pressed on ;) It's great to see other patrols helping them too, by lending them their pits and stuff so they could cook faster. 

Craft: Wasnt at craft session since we were preparing for sports and games. After preparing, we started discuss about night trail and campfire for a while. Then, we started playing floorball. It was fun, but we should not have done that la... cos there were still quite a few things we had not prepared.

Sports and games: It was FUN! haha. loved watching the juniors play. I think they loved watching the sec 3s play with the seniors as well. haha. Was quite amusing to me at the part where we followed the floorball until we were all crowding around anthea... then she screamed. o wells. The seniors were good... haha. we got trashed 3-0. But it was all good fun.

Movie screening: werent watching with the juniors cos we were preparing for night trail. Was quite a headache trying to dress shiya up cos she had to look like mulan.haha! but we managed anyway. Linxi and i just tied plaites cos we were her attendants. I looked so xiao hai zi lol.

Night trail: hm.. my station was kinda boring la. but it was quite fun seeing the juniors coming up with ways to form a word using their bodies.

COH

Batch bonding games: ANOTHER ACTIVITY SHIYA, JINGYI AND I PLANNED :)))) haha! They all had fun (hopefully!)

bottle game: I think they enjoyed this the most. It's also my favourite activity cos it needs a lot of cooperation, concentration and it is also very fun. Not all of them got it in the end but they were all quite eager to learn it ;)

broken telephone: Could have been more enthu about doing all those silly movements cos thats what makes it fun but o wells.

chain chair: Ok... it was quite scary seeing them stand up at different times and almost falling down at times. but i think they did quite well la... managed to tahan sitting on each other song after song.

human tunnel: was kinda worried when they could not hold up their own weight cos ppl were also crawling underneath and they might hurt themselves as well. Personally i think this is a rather physically challenging activity so they had to persevere. Some one got hurt by cutting herself on the quadrangle tiles. Wasnt there at that time but i heard from the station ics it was quite um... bloody. Luckily it wasnt considered a very deep cut or big cut according to peiling. This activity was changed quite a lot by the station ics cos there were some inappropriate things we planned at first. They added in a session where they shared about each others' strengths and weaknesses. Some of them seemed a lil uncomfortable talking about it as a batch and came up with things like "you are tall".Was hoping for a hear to heart talk kinda thing, but i think they are learning to open up to each other and bond :)

Wide game: Shi ya and I had to rush to our stations cos we left later due to our involvement in batch bonding games. on the mrt, we were quite shocked cos a man fainted suddenly. luckily there was an mrt staff that came to help. We alighted and went to elephant tooth relic temple. while we were waiting, we called to ask if the first station were coming. they were getting lunch first so we thought we could go get ours too. caused a lot of stress to huijun cos she did not see us when she came to check the stations. sorry! All went pretty well and the juniors were very well-behaved in the temple ;) none finished the whole activity so sense of urgency was a lil.. yea. At the end of the game, we were coming back with the last patrol that came to our station. they were late by a few minutes after much rushing but they werent the latest. I rmb last year it poured so heavily almost all of us were late.

Campfire: Quite a few crop ups. firstly the torch wouldnt light up properly, then the campfire structure could not light up properly. but everything went fine after that until it started to rain. so we had to move in and prepare the indoor campfire. Then it stopped, so we decided to move out cos we wanted the campers to have a real experience. Then thunder and lightning came, so we had to move in again. For me, it spoilt the atmosphere a bit but we managed to stay positive :)  Could see the juniors put in effort into the items haha. A few awkward pauses here and there, but i think that was pretty good considering it was hard to meet up as a subcamp to prepare everything. Sang songs and and the atmosphere was pretty good :)

COH: had the normal debrief. after that, we discussed about the awards for the campers like best PL and all that. was quite hard to decide who to get what. haha.

After that, the sec 3s had an informal discussion about guiding and life while waiting for our turn to bathe. some things were kinda depressing, some were ok.... hopefully the next time we talke about this, it will be much more positive! :D

Strike camp: Was running around doing random jobs and helping to prepare for water games. My patrol managed to dismantle the canvas tent too :) I think we were all working quite busily, though we overan the time frame.

washing up, area cleaning: I was helping to bring stuff up to guides room and also preparing for wide game. The juniors were cleaning the tents... which can be a tough job.

Water games: It was like an obstacle thing and then a water bomb game. I think they all had fun... even the seniors haha. Sec 3s were like splashing water at each other and i was soaked within a minute. haha. some juniors tried to hug me when i was dry too. LOL

camp debrief: I think it was a pretty good ending to our camp ;) lots of sharing of thoughts expectations for next year and cheering each other on. I liked listening to what the juniors had to say about camp. Thanks for giving us sec 3s "3 cheers" too ;)

Packing of logistics: The sec 3s and sandy stayed behind to pack up our logistics. something not too happy happend.. shall not talk about it here.

Overall, I think we all have gained a lot from this camp. for me, it was about planning an activity, trying to ensure things run smoothly, but at the same time, trying not to forget about relating to the people and showing your concern. Having a senior-junior relation based on trust, respect and warmth, and not fear and dislike. I think this camp is unique in a sense that it was quite focused on bonding nygg together, as one family, rather than just improving skills.  Not saying that discipline and skills are not important, but people to people relations are also very important. It will be hard to balance all that, no doubt.... but our batch will strive to achieve this :)

I'm proud of us ;) This may not have been the best camp in nygg ever, we were a little unprepared in some areas, we made mistakes big and small, but it has certainly been the most special to me. This was our second and last camp we planned as a batch. Facing challenges, improving and learning as a batch was a great experience for me. there were parts i dint do well in, or areas i was not up to standard, but i m glad and grateful i have my batch mates with me.

I m proud of my juniors too ;) Especially when i heard their genuine reflections. Don't wanna sound mama-ish but i really think what they had learnt were not just skills, but also things like caring for each other, showing concern and supporting each other. Could see some were apologetic for not doing some things right...some were thankful.... some just felt happy to have gone for the camp... whatever it is, i think we have all learnt valuable lessons through simple, ordinary activities. They have grown closer to their batches/ patrols too :)

I have a pretty good feeling for NYGG 2009. We have a long way to go still... whether it is about improving our standards or having a more bonded NYGG, but I think connect(ed)'08 was a good headstart. Although it was held at the end of 2008, i prefer to think of it as a start ;) Hopefully, things go well :)

Mdms: Thanks a lot for looking through our proposalsa and guiding us along all the way. There were times we didnt meet the expectations disappointed you, but thanks for giving us the chances and encouragement we needed to improve.

Seniors: Thanks for vetting our proposals! For my activities' activities, they were sandy, iris, zihui and yenjin. haha yenjin, seems like you are fated to vet my (and shiya + jingyi) proposals even after council. Sorry for sending them late and so near the camp cos i was away for 4 wks while shiya was away for 3 ><>