CCA Camp

Hey ChocoLand~

I'm back!! Like I've said, I decided to write about a camp. Maybe I should make things clear... Clear enough. I am from this place called Singapore and as a teen, I'm am currently in my secondary education. We have Co-Curricular Activities (aka CCA) every single week and honestly, it can get quite tiring. My CCA is a uniformed group called NCC. So yeah... :D

Beware, this is gonna be a super long post. I really shouldn't be doing this since I have a Japanese test tomorrow. =.=

The camp lasted for 2 days and 1 night. We booked in the HQ on somewhere in March, at around 7:50pm. OMG the day didn't exactly start out right and I was reluctantly dragging my backpack and wearing the uniform on the train to HQ. Bloody hell to all the people who stared at me weirdly. =.= I mean, the society's just too stereotypical. Why can't a girl wear a uniform meant for guys? Hmph!!

Anyway, I met up with Holly :) and this other girl called Kaylisson (not her real name but close enough anyway :D) at the train station. So we walked and talked on the way and Kaylisson was hanging behind us staying silent. I mean, sometimes I feel bad, but really, I don't know what kind of conversation I can strike with her. She's socially awkward, maybe only to us... Sigh... The main reason we can't really talk to her is because we don't freaking understand her. She mumbles and jumbles all of her words and they sound like a bunch of crap. No kidding.

Anyway, when we reached the HQ, we saw our mam'n <-- IDK how to spell. Apparently we arrived just in time and she was waiting there for god knows how long. =.= And then we witnessed Kaylisson being chided by Mam'n because she didn't hand in a consent letter/form/whatever you call it, and nobody knew whether she was coming. Well, basically they were all panicking - Mam'n, Sir, Master Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Staff etc. Talk about irresponsible, though she claims that her cellphone was spoilt. =.=

Anyway, we entered the HQ and then our very own mam'n s who recently graduated from our school met up with us. (Yep, they're students aged 17) Truth to be told, they had this perfect and intimidating aura that makes you feel inferior. They are very pretty and were good enough to become cadet officers. The Mam'n told me that I was in Platoon 2. :D Alpha 2, to be exact and Kaylisson was in 1, and Holly in 3. the three of us were the only ones in Alpha company and thus we were assigned similar bunks, thank god. Though we were separated, at least we'd meet up at night. :D

Anyway, we settled down and shortly after, reported to the reporting venue. We then marched into this huge hall and sat down and listened to the-guy-in-charge (IDK what you call him) give his opening speech. Boringgggg~ The only part I remembered was when he told us about his army days and how his platoonmates would "talk cock" <-- basically talk crap.

He said:

One of my Malay friends asked: "Hey... We talk cock, kay? Let's be racist."

-pause-

The Malay friend spoke again, "You know we Malays like everything to be lively. Our weddings, any happy occasion. But y'all Chinese people uh, very weird leh. When y'all have wedding, y'all like to hold them in restaurants and only invite few people. But when got funeral, I see people from everywhere coming. Why? Y'all like sad occasions ah?"

Haha. If you've been to Singapore, that's the way the natives speak. :D After the whole speech thinghy, we went to play some icebreaker games. It was really awkward, really, since not even the Sirs who took us knew what to do. Haha if I'm not wrong the Sirs are Sir David and Sir Kelvin. Hilarious duo... Anyway, the games were alright, but even if they were fun, I practically just sat there, not doing anything. Yup, I was the only girl there. =.= There is another girl, Alice <-- yup her real name, but she went to get her boots changed. So I sat there alone... for around, 2 hours... being picked on by the sirs to choose a group name and war cry...

When Sir Kelvin asked me, I just stoned there and said I can't think of anything... Then he made everything super AWKWARD by asking the guys to applaud to give encouragement. -.-" So I became even more speechless... I really should stop being to introverted...

Anyway, Sir David got fed up that no one came up with a war cry, so he threatened us, "If ya'll don't come up with a war cry and name soon, I'm gonna call you guys 'Sexy Ladies' and your war cry shall be 'Hyaaaaaaaarghhhhhh~' *cue super high-pitched voice" And you know what? The boys said it was a good idea... *Facepalm*

Eventually, we settled for "Where got time" and "Walao eh~" for our war cry. Basically, we screamed "Where got time" when the sirs said, "Alpha 2 on your butts.... down!" (Basically to tell us to sit down) and "Walao eh" when they said "Alpha 2 on your feet... up!"(Basically to tell us to stand up). It was pretty good... :D

After that, we went to have our lunch. It wasn't that bad, actually... Rice, vegetables, and as much as I can't take it, curry. Oh gosh... I just don't have a high tolerance of spicy foods... Anyway, I traded my curry for Alice's vegetables, since I'm so health-conscious (not). :) Then we went for orienteering... Basically, we were taught how to use a compass during orienteering, or NAVEX~~~~ as one of the sirs called. That sir was super hilarious. He told us a ghost story, but I shall post it next time.

What shall I say? Navex sucked. Our team didn't manage to complete the whole thing, partly due to our incapability but also because it rained in the middle of it. :D So we just stayed in the lecture room sitting there doing nothing and occasionally going into diam position because we were too noisy. It wasn't even the girls' fault! Hng, but NCC HQ stands by the quote: One for all, all for one. Really sucks...
The other sucky thing is that our group lost our compass pouch somewhere... But we don't know where...

To pass time, the sir from before agreed to tell us ghost stories but the boys wouldn't shut up! They stayed silent for like, 30 seconds? And then they started talking AGAIN!! This went on and was followed by several diam commands and then finally when he was getting to the good part, my team was sent out to look for the compass pouch. Talk about bad timing. =.= But thank god we found it. :)

Then we had dinner. Already? YEP! NAVEX lasted a few hours... Dinner was not exactly special... Just the same. But what did I see? Curry again... *Sigh* That just meant more veggies!

After that we had Trainfire. Trainfire was about stripping (or 'raping' as the sirs would call it) the rifles and then assembling them. OMG I swear the rifle weighed at least 5kg! And I had to march into the venue with only ONE hand carrying it!! Grrrrr.... Anyway, I had no problem stripping the rifle, but assembling was a whole different story. I don't even wanna talk about it. :(

Anyway, it was showering time and then lights out. Never in my life have I ever felt so relieved and thankful for cold water from shower heads providing excellent water pressure. I felt squeaky clean and felt extremely comfortable. -w- But I wasn't allowed to fall asleep right away. I had to write an appraisal. =.= 30 words for each sir... But in the end, I put it off to the next day. Haha :P Anyway, we were supposed to sleep at 11pm sharp, but the sirs actually forgot to bring in our blankets and bedsheets. Fail~~ So lights out was at at 11: 30pm but everyone fell asleep at only like... 1am? o.-

OMG I still couldn't forget how some of my bunkmates started singing and talking during lights out. One of them even started mumbling-singing Taylor Swift's songs and her best friends was like, "OMG 鬼叫啊！" Haha that literally meant: ghost calling!

The next day was the one which was more exciting. We were supposed to do Physical Training (PT) but we didn't have time, so yay!! I don't like PT. :( We had lunch at the big parade square, and personally, they served us too much breakfast at only 6+. There were like noodles and a slice of banana cake. :O But I still finished everything because I didn't want to waste everything. Although it sounds really unhealthy, I was feel really bloated up to the throat which I think was due to swallowing too fast. So, I kinda flushed everything down with soya milk. :P And then I felt better.

Then we had paintball!! Which actually sucked cause of all the things we have to wear and how the sirs were rushing us. I mean like the boys did it super quickly cause the sirs could afford to help them. But I'm a girl, so naturally I can only get help from Alice. So the thing is, we wore some sort of 'armour' (not exactly, but that's what I'd call it since its mainly there to protect the boys' most valuable part) and thus huge annoying helmet which fogs up so easily. So basically during the shooting, I couldn't even see anything much less aim at a target. Gosh! And I didn't even understand what we were supposed to do, so I just hid behind some huge barrel-like thinghy. What can I say? I didn't get shot, but I didn't shoot~ :P

Next we went for rappeling. This was the most fun of all, mainly because I did well in it. At first I was against it, all because I didn't have the confidence that I could actually pull it off. But Alice urged me to do it. (Thanks, Alice) So I did. We had a dry run before we attempted the 4-storey rapelling wall. The harness was super hard to put on and so was the helmet. In the end, they didn't have enough gloves so I had to queue up at the back so that the people who attempted the real wall could pass it to me afterwards. So the dry run was horrible in the sense that I felt that the sir was making my life difficult. He suspended me from the low platform, which means my body was 45 deg. in the air, with my feet still on the platform. Of course I wasn't that scared cause I wouldn't die from that tiny drop but the sir had to think that I was scared so he suddenly jerked the rope and I was like o.0 WTH. The he told me to scream something like "Lance corporal, <Name> Platform 2" something something... (I forgot what we were supposed to scream) but anyway, I didn't scream loud enough all because he was so close to me that I had no need to. But obviously making my life hard again, he told me to scream my lungs out. =.= HMPH Oh yes, the thing we had to scream was to inform the people below that we are prepared to rappel. Anyways, yes I know I have to scream, but I'll scream only when I need to. I don't want to shout like an over-enthusiastic idiot.

So I went up to the real wall anyway and thank goodness it wasn't the sir-who-made-my-life-difficult who was in charge of helping me rappel. It was this funny mam'n. The sir from before came up to the  4th anyway since he had nothing to do, and Alice and I just sat there like ._. Dont' make eye-contact. But he just had to talk to us. -.- HAHA Alice was being really open and talking all kinds of stuff. She even whispered to me ear, "I think he's flirting with me" and I was like, "Reeeeaaaaalllly~?!" The sir heard something about flirting and he was like, "What did you say?" Alice didn't answer so he turned to me and I stayed silent. Yay, you go girl! Ignore him! But Alice was like, "OH we're just talking about how she flirted with her dog." And my face was literally like ._.

Anyway, after rapelling,  it was some High Confidence Challenge, which I didn't take part in. First things first, I highly doubt I'd be scared. It's just that I didn't go on it because It was so bloody hot under the sun. My nose was burnt enough, okay? And then I considered the fact that the harness for this challenge was even harder to put on than the one for rapelling. In fact, this one was a full-on harness. There were 2 challenges you could choose from: The Balancing Beam and The Leap of Faith.

The Balancing Beam was not hard to understand. It was this huge log suspended to a height of 4 storeys and all you have to do is walk on it until you reach the mid-point. That's it. Mid-point, not even everything. But them, what goes up must come down, so you jump down. It would feel like a mini-free fall, except that some instructor would apply force on some rope so you don't fall to your death.

The Leap of Faith requires you to climb up this long vertical pole. Don't ask me how. then standing on the top of the pole, which I think has a diameter of around 20cm [?], you leap forward to try and grab a bar. I heard the bar was super slippery and huge that you won't be able to grab it tight. So anyway, another instructor ensures that you don't die.

Since I didn't participate in it, I sat under a tree and started working on my appraisal, which I finished and i figured I did a good job. While I was working on my appraisal though, some boys were distracting me. They kept asking questions. But they weren't the annoying kinds who said cheesy stuff. One of them was like, "Hey, there's an ant on your sleeve." and I was like, "You think I'm not used to that already?" Haha, his face together with the rest was like, woah okay...

Then we had photo-taking after the people finished their challenge. Sigh it wasn't fun at all. The thing is, I just don't like pictures and we had to take like, I dunno, 2? 2 is a lot, okay? Let's just say that I'm not photogenic.

And finally, we were nearing the end of camp. All we had to do was finish bunk cleaning. I wasn't looking forward to bunk cleaning. You have no idea how harsh your seniors and sirs/mam'ns are when they have bunk inspection. Thank goodness I wasn't the bunk IC, which meant that I would not have to take the brunt of the scoldings they would give whenever something was unsatisfactory. But this time, surprisingly, we didn't get any scoldings at all. None. That was totally unexpected, though I should not get used to this. My school NCC camp is coming up soon and I'm sure as hell they'll not be lenient.

Finally, we got to go home!!! I was sweating like a pig towards the end and my face was so red I'm sure it looked hideous. I tried so hard to cool it down with wet tissues but to no avail.

This camp was truly a new experience, since it was the first time I actually went out on a camp outside of school. I had several chances to go on camps previously, but I always ended up sick. I seriously would have preferred that it wasn't a discipline camp like this one, but something that allowed us to slack a little. During this camp, I had to be really disciplined and on my best behaviour because the sirs there were really intolerant of rowdy behaviour. However, I cannot deny that there were times I truly enjoyed myself, especially during rappeling and the times where the sirs would make horrible jokes. I wish there would be more of these opportunities in the future, but it looks like there will be more courses instead, which spelt even higher standards of discipline. Luckily for me, I always think of my school and how I would not like to tarnish our image. :D

Will write back soon, especially on the sir's ghost stories.

Addio~
Mirai

P.S.
To talk cock to to talk rubbish and things completely unrelated to things you'd normally talk about with friends.

P.P.S. diam position is a corporal punishment in the way that cadets have to sit up straights, with their hands clenched into fists and placed on their laps with their arms locked firm and straight. Eye contact must be maintained at the front. No eye-balling, just staring into an imaginary dot in front of you.