Wednesday, November 17, 2004 ; anthem of love
yay. Came back from camp. Actually, I don't think that I'd mind if I had to stay on another day. Bear with me, if you want a full detail of what we did at camp :)
Tuesday
Me, Chitra, Steph, Christine, Intan came too early. The thing was suppose to start at 8.45am. No one called us. We could have slept more. I think because they cancelled the long run thing with the Outdoor Activities Club(OAC).
We then played an "icebreaker" game. It's so redundant. Like haven't we been training together, since we are in the same CCA. Although the distance and the sprinters don't really talk much, we at least still know each other's names.
Anyway, we had eight people on each team, two teams. Seven of us are suppose to stand on two chairs, the last person is suppose to bring the 3rd chair to the front. Legs not touching the ground. So we had to huddle close. I was like holding one of my senior's arm so tightly, too tightly in fact. So embarrassing!! haha. Then she look at me quizily. oops.
Anyway, had training from 10-12, in the hot blazing sun. Coach did just what I hated. We did relay. According to him, that improved our speed and something else. That was called, as he said, "killing two birds with one stone". Then, we did things like sit-ups, push-ups, hip stabiliser, 45 deg leg raise. I hate things that involve the stomach muscles. But well, I still hate relay more. After that, we had lunch. A pathetic( x3) lunch. The OAC(pronounced as odec, for some reason not oec) girls prepared the lunch for us. The purpose, Mr Juraimy said was so that every one would have a fair share. Crap. I think someone started eating my food already. My spoon looked like it fell into the curry sauce. I had no tofu, no sotong. Just curry sauce, potatoes and vegetables. No small corn, no mushroom. Thank God, all were entitled to a second helping.
After lunch, we played games. I embarrassed myself again, in front of that same senior. Me and my mouth! I sometimes hate my mouth.
Then, at 4, we did this thing, where we had to run according to the beep. I also don't know how to explain. But we did exactly the same thing when the Sports Council came to see what our talent was. This exercise sees how efficient our lungs are. I think I gave up too early.
We took sleeping mats from the gym, to class 306, and 305. We were suppose to sleep together with the OAC girls, since our camp is a little bit combined, in some parts. In the end, the OAC slept in the music room, where there was aircon. We could also have slept there, when Mrs Sim asked whether we wanted to sleep with the them, in the music room. For some reason, our seniors didn't want. Wow. 3/6 had a disco ball in their class. A mini one. So cool.
Then, it was dinner time. We had beehoon. For dinner. We should have had it for lunch. Anyways, we transfered our bags from the fitness room(or the teacher's gym) to 3/6.
I tell you, the games were boring. It was quite poorly planned. Firstly, we had to wait soooo long for them to prepare everything. Then, from one station to another, we had to wait again, cause "the other groups haven't finished". It was quite a long wait. Anyway, when we finished, it was almost 11. We had not bathe yet, because Mrs Sim wanted us to bathe at the end of the day. Oh, I suppose I haven't mention to you that as we were playing our games, we found out that our school had multitudes of cockroaches. On the stairs, railings, are common places. I mean, where else could we go? The classrooms were locked. No clues could be found inside there anyway.
When we finally got to bathe, we went to the changing room, because Mrs Sim asked us to bathe there. I think there got proper showers. It was locked. So we went to a toilet on the second floor-since the changing room was on the 2nd. I think Stephanie saw a cockroach in her cubicle. Chitra used the hose and sprayed at the it. It went into many places, before finally stopping at my cubicle, hiding behind the toilet bowl. My clothes and stuff were still inside. Victoria said there were two roaches. Oh, by the way, the toilet door, as in the door that has the sign that says 'female' couldn't lock, so Chitra put a broom across it. Anyways, I took my things from my cubicle, and then Chitra opened the door. Out there stood one more cockroach, at the doorway. We screamed. We didn't dare to go pass it, until Chitra took the initiative.
We went down to the first floor one. There were four toilets on the first floor, in that block. I suppose all of us forgot about the other two toilets. In the first one, there were people queuing for it. Me and Steph went to the second toilet. Long story. But we went there when we saw Natasha, Stephanie Lim and Felicia going there. Since there were four cubicles, Steph and me decided to share one. Just don't take out undergarments can already. That was what our seniors were doing in the first toilet. In the end, I don't know why, the 3 of them decided that me and steph go first. We used the hose and passed it between the two of us. I think we took quite a long time. Natasha was getting impatient. Then, Felicia and her went inside after us. Nat borrowed Steph's sandles. Steph Luo, cause hers were upstairs. When Nat and Felicia got out, Stephanie Lim was like, let them go lah. Haha. Because Natasha wanted us to pei her. Whoever made us use 306 classroom must have been brainless. It was on the fourth level. We could have used a sec one classroom on the second level. I tell you, there was no light in the passageway. It wasn't exactly pitch dark, but hunting our clothes from the bag, and then putting it back again wasn't an easy task. But then, we had our torches.
Natasha came up with the key and then opened the door. So when we on the light, the passageway wasn't that dark. By then, it was 11 something. We then went down to eat supper. Since the first toilet was very near the stairs, me and Steph went there. The door was opened. So Gretl, Alicia, Xiu Wen, Victoria, Chitra, Christine, Intan were bathing together. One of them, told us that the seniors took a long time. Then Miss Nooryati, very rude, she just opened the door like that. And obviously saw them bathing. They weren't bathing inside cubicles. They all bathed between the sink and the cubicles.
Then Miss Nooryati very fed up, because she could not bathe since they were bathing(i think she's scared of roaches also), den report to Mrs Sim that they were using the staff toilet.
Anyways, we ate our supper, just a few biscuits, milo and went to sleep. Lights were suppose to be out by 12.30am.
Breakfast was at 8am. I couldn't sleep *.* kept on drifting in and out of sleep.
Wednesday
ok.. my entry is quite long already.
Anyway, I woke up to see a half bright sky. It was 7.15am. Almost everyone was still asleep. I closed my eyes, but couldn't get back to sleep. I just laid on my bed.
During breakfast, it was ok. The food came from what we earned yesterday. Last night, we had a food hunt(when we saw the cockroaches) around the school. Finding paper that would say a clue and the food we earned. We had bread, tuna, jam and milo. Yesterday afternoon, the games also earned points for us. We didn't even use it. There was no "extra food" left. Group 1 took away the orange juice. A big carton too. Group 5 took away the Vitagen. Group 2 took the Bandung.
Then, we went East Coast for Kayaking. We walked all the way to the Bedok Jetty. Xiu Wen said that was 8km altogether, going and coming back. When we walked there, it seemed like eternity. When we were about to reach, Chitra looked back, and she was like:" the odec girls would have died by now". We were all laughing. I know this is mean but hey, they were really behind. Only a small dot.
I think overall, kayaking is okay. Me and alicia were suppose to partner to share a kayak. But then, there were only 6 doubles, and so the seniors took all. I got a seasick. The kayak was like bobbing up and down the sea. I felt like puking all the way. Especially when it first started, and in the middle part. I didn't really know how to paddle the thing. Until I 'researched' it myself. By that time, I wasted a lot of energy, not getting the most speed out of it. In the middle part, it was horrible. I realised that people were far away from me. I wanted to go back to shore. I paddled. I moved. After a while, I came back to the same place again. This happened a few times. I don't know why. If I was tired when I first started paddling, wouldn't I be even more tired as it goes on. Yes. Halfway, Mr Juraimy teached me how to paddle. My head was like "Shut up lah". This is rude, I know, but when I was seasick, I find it diffcult to look at instructions. To concentrate. It didn't really help that much anyway.
Towards the end, I really felt like giving up. Just let the current bring me. Then there's this stranger who was like "you can do it". When I finally reached the place, I was like so relieved. I found out that it was Chitra who ask Mr Juraimy go find me. She said I was like a dot, and the wind was pulling me faster than I could paddle. No wonder I was at the same place time and time again. Because sometimes, I didn't paddle, I just let the wind drift me, and then the wind pulled me back, together with the fact that I didn't paddle fast enough. Then Chitra also said that they thought I was crying cause I couldn't come back. lol. My head was down because I wanted to throw up. So she told Mr Juraimy, "Mr Juraimy, Charmaine is stuck." And that figures why Mr Juraimy knew my name the second time he came. The first time, he was like, girl, blah blah.
We had free drinks, dunno who paid for them. I think Mrs Sim. Before that, she was scolding the seniors, cause they didn't wear life jacket and went into the water. When we walked back, it didn't seem so far as before. Maybe because sometimes, we walked across the soil instead of walking on the surrounding pavement. It was about 12.40. The thing is suppose to end at 2. Without lunch provided. When we went back to school, we put the sleeping mats back in the gym. Halfway through, a OAC girl was beckoning me to go out. I was like.. huh? me? It turned out that she gave me the key for the 305 classroom, to put the mattress back. Intan was like.. isn't it their job, cause they were suppose to take the sleeping mats from there to the music room. The odec girls like very unreasonable like that. Mrs Sim came in, then she held out her hand. I passed her the key. Then she was like "girls, I need some helpers to move the mats. The O level exam is starting soon."
Then, I went with Chitra and Christine to Macdonalds, but first, I put my bag in Chitra's house, since it was near East Coast Parkway. Then went home.
Gosh. A super duper long entry. I have never typed in this long an entry. It's dinner time anyway. Bye
7:11 pm