Wednesday, June 09, 2004
at 11:29 PM

Hi all. Back from ATC.

Maybe i can talk about the camp...

Day 1
I reached school at 6.10 with yong wei, hong hui and ying hao in yong wei's father's car. So we proceeded to the multi storey carpark and met a few of our squadmates. We chatted. Most of us were a bit worried about the camp, although well prepared. Okay, so we waited for the arrival of the CI. He finally came at about 7.10. So did the bus. After taking the attendance, we boarded the bus to changi.

When we reached the jetty we took a boat to pulau ubin and assembled at a badminton court over there to take attendance. That was when a dog came along(one thing you'll notice about pulau ubin is that there are a lot of dogs), it looked happy to see us. It stopped in front of our squad, then it settled down and fell asleep.

After some half an hour on the court to wait for the other schools, we walked a great deal to the npcc campsite. When we first reach there we sat according to our groupings in rows. We had to surrender our wallets, watches and bus passes over to the CIs. Suddenly, thomas sir(the CI in-charge of our group) came back with the bag of items holding a watch in his hand. Yeah, that watch looked familiar. It belongs to me! So i raised my hand, and thomas sir passed the watch to me and assigned me the IC of the group. I was totally unprepared for this. Then we did some introduction(it was when i found out that our group name is foxtrot), what we do at every camp, followed by flag raising, camping style. Then came tent pitching. It was a nightmare. The girls were to pitch 8 tents in an hour, while the boys, 17. That's an average of 3 to 4 minutes a tent! Almost impossible. So we took 2 hours, and still have a tent unpitched. We were scolded by the CIs, before we went for our lunch. It was a simple lunch for me. maggi mee in a mesh tin and a cup of instant lemon tea.

After lunch there were other games and activities. First is map reading and orienteering. We revised(most of the other schools have not learned orienteering) on how to use a silva compass to take bearings, set the map, etc. After that we had some ice-breaker games. They were rather fun i should say. Next, dinner time. Again i ate the simple stuff i had for lunch. After dinner was campfire preparation, when we discussed our campfire item and practised it. I found the item kinda suck, our group was like singing very unenthusiastically since most of us did not know the song we are performing(pass it on). But thanks to the NY girls in our group, they taught us the song patiently. The second part of campfire preparation was to practise the cheers. We did it with the CIs.

After the campfire preparation there came the most fun part of the camp. Candle warfare! It was kinda fun, we played with fire. Actually not really, we used candles to burn other groups' twine tied on tripods in their territories. I shall not elaborate more i guess, but it really was fun compared to the other activities, well at least for me it was.

After the candle warfare the day has came to an end. There was a short debrief and we went to bathe and prepare for sleep. I reached my tent at around 11.45, and tried to sleep. Somehow i couldn't. I looked at my watch every now and then. 12 am. 1 am. 2 am. 3 am. 4 am. 5 am. Soon it was 5.15. I still did not sleep a bit. I was kinda worried that i might faint due to tiredness. I went to wash up and was ready for day 2.

Day 2
After a chat with my squadmates as we gathered in from of the canteen, we started off with flag raising at 6. Next is the most dreaded PT. It was 5bx. We did hundreds of pumpings, crunches and half-squats and many others, before running 2 rounds of at least 300 metres. Still okay for me, though a bit tiring, especially for the crunches part as i got a spine problem. After PT was breakfast, i ate a few biscuits plus a cup of lemon tea.

After the 'sumptuous' breakfast, foxtrot did treasure hunt. It was quite fun, although i think our group has got the toughest route, thanks to the lot drawn by me. One question goes like this: 'Can you see what the _____ is cooking?' Surprisingly, the answer is actually a big rock in the campsite, otherwise known as 'The Rock'(the rock is that guy in WWE, and when we think WWE we think entertainment, and entertainment is cooking?). After that we had a game of untangling, that game in which all of us form a circle, hold hands and start untangling. After which we had a rest. We did not really rest, i got the group to revise the campfire item and refine it(i had to). That was when lunch came.

It was horrible. Before lunch started, one CI summoned all the group ICs. Guess what he said? He ordered us to clear up the mess made when a dog toppled a rubbish bin. He ordered us to clear a drain with bits of maggi mee. He ordered us to pick up rubbish from the field. Okay, i felt that i had been treated real unfairly. But i had to do what i was told. Worst still, out of the 8 group ICs, only 3 did what they were told, including me. I was especially impressed that two NY girls actually volunteered themselves to help clear the drain. Maybe they just wanna help their IC, but i'm still impressed nevertheless. After clearing all the rubbish, i had a quick lunch.

After lunch is basic survival skills for foxtrot. We walked all the way to mama beach. There, the CIs demonstrated certain survival skills(that's what the while thing is about), including how to start a fire with natural resources and how to obtain water suitable for drinking. We even tried starting a fire, although we failed on both two attempts as the fire died out very soon. The CIs even used the other groups' fire to roast a chicken, which they had taught us 'how to kill a chicken' with. We did not have a go at the chicken later though.

After that we went back to the campsite, and we rested at the canteen. Before long we were off again, for some really lame walk around pulau ubin. We went to visit a quarry at first. It was really, really beautiful. The water is real blue, the reflection of the rocks in the background 'floating' on its surface and all the trees around. Blue, green, orange, brown in one picture. Can't really describe it. After that we climbed up a small hill through a thin forest. Near the submit we saw a real big rock. At least 2 metres long and high. On it was a picture in the colour of blood. It was the picture of a lion head. It's really really cool. We heard that it was painted centuries ago.

Our group then went down the hill and walked on. Soon we reached 'Bermuda triangle', it's really a junction with where the road is split into two, thus the thing formed a triangle. There we met another group, delta, and we sort of merged and walked on together. We came to a swing hanging from a tree branch. There we heard that it was built by two girls' parents, who did so to remember the death of their daughters after they had drowned. And they say on certain occasions even if there are no wind, the swing will move by itself... okay, enough of this, it's giving me the creeps.

Next we proceeded back to the campsite. We had a rest. Then we were given some 1 hour and 45 minutes to bathe and have dinner. I bathed first then had dinner. Somehow our maggi mee were stolen by someonw, so i had no choice but to eat pineapple slices. After dinner was the campfire. We proceeded to the council ring. Before reaching that place, we were met by this real bring light. It was actually the glow of several candles lit and placed on both sides of the path. Kinda grand. At the entrance to the ring there were 4 CIs using spars and sort of slide the spars such that they open and close and we had to get over the spars without getting our feet 'squashed'(It's something like a kind of dance where the dancers move their feet over wooden poles as some people move the poles to make them open and close. Don't know what the dance is called and don't how to describe it also). Kinda new to me, i've never experienced something like that before.

So the campfire when on, we sang certain songs and cheers before foxtrot did our item. Our item was pass it on, but we did something extra by doing our group cheer and another cheer 'when we get to ubin'. I led that cheer as no one else knew about it. But i said one line wrongly. i said 'npcc on its way now' instead of 'foxtrot foxtrot on its way now'. Kinda embarassing. But nevermind about that. We even did the friendship dance. I managed to hold three girls' hand, unlike some of my squadmates, especially 'someone' who was dying to do so(i don't think i need to elaborate...). Pretty soon the campfire ended after some more songs by the CIs. It was quite a fun and successful event i should say.

The night ended for most of us after a debrief. But our group have centric duty(not sure if spelt this way) from 1am to 2. So i managed to catch 45 minutes of sleep from 12.10 to 12.55. I think i should not say more about the centric duty, it's only walking around the site to look out for intruders and also fellow campers who were still awake. We went back to our tents at 2.10. And that's the end of another fun and enriching day.

Day 3
I woke up at 5.45 today. It was late compared to yesterday, when i went to wash up at 5.20. Somehow i manage to sleep pretty well that night. I went to wash up and managed to went for flag raising just in time before 6. But many of our fellow campers were still not there yet. Even at 6.15 a few were running onto the field from their tents. In the end flag raising started late. As a result PT was cancelled. I was real surprised and happy when i first heard the news as i would have die if there was PT(it so happened that i was real tired. Furthermore i had abrasion... Nevermind if you don't know what it is). Okay, so we had breakfast. Another simple breakfast for me.

After breakfast we began to unpitch our tents. It was done in about an hour i think. we carried the materials to the training shed. There, we were assigned group by group to the cleaning up duties. Alpha was the poorest, they had to clean the toilet, which had sand on the floor, without using water. It's just crazy. Luckily our group only had to fold up the tents' sheets after they were cleaned. But as there was a lack of people cleaning the sheets i went over to help with many people from my group as well. The cleaning up ended at around 10 i think(i can't remember all the times on day 3).

Following up was the last event of the camp, telematch. It's basically turning around a pole, running for some 10 metres, dig your face into a pile of flour, search for puzzle pieces, hold it with your mouth, run back, repeat the process 20 times among the group members, then passing of a grape with a spoon in the mouth and finally, piecing the puzzle pieces together. That's how the game went. I think our group was the fifth or sixth to finish the whole thing. But at least we finished it.

At around 12, we were all ready to go home. Some guy went forward to give a camp closing message. Then we soon set off, wearing our poncho as it was raining rather heavily and carrying our heavy bags. Most of us were a bit sad that we were leaving the tent, not because we like the camp itself but because we were leaving our new friends which we had when through thick and thin with for the past few days(at least i was and don't get the wrong idea. I know NY npcc was present). But some were dying to get home. It was a rather long route back to the jetty, and when we got there the rain had got heavier. We got onto the boat all the same. On the boat i could only think of the camp, the fun times i had at the camp. i bidded farewell to pulau ubin in my heart. Thinking, thinking, the boat reached changi. we got off and headed for the hawker center straight away. There, foxtrot separated.

I waited for the rest of the squadmates with those who had arrived. Soon, all of them arrived and i went onto the bus heading for nygh with some of my squadmates and the ny girls of course. They had offered to give us a ride. they cheered and sang on the way back, we did so too. on one occasion the chs guys sang happy birthday to ying hao, and the ny girls actually sang the chinese version too. It was quite a joyful ride back, we were laughing and sharing jokes.

Okay, we reached ny and the chs guys thanked the girls. Then we walked back to chs bus stop where we even met yixue sir. We chatted with him for a while before we all boarded 67 except for a few who boarded other buses. So i went to KAP with yh, yw, hc, tw and we met ws there. It was where we had lunch, at mcdonalds, i had chicken fillet. Haha it's like the cheer we cheered during ATC, 'Where we had lunch, at mcdonalds, we had fillet, and apple pie, and shared a cup, of lemon lime'. After lunch we took 171 home except for hc.

ATC has ended. It was much more fun and exciting then i had expected. Although i ended up with about 30 mosquito bites, it's worth it i supposed. There may still be a sec 3 ATC next year, but i doubt that it will be as nice as this. I will never ever forget sec 2 ATC.

Okay, i guess i will stop here , it has been quite a long entry(the longest entry ever, 2500+ words, perfect if it's MRP!) and it's getting late. By the way it's ying hao's birthday today(9 june), so happy birthday ying hao!

Okay, i sign off now with the letters 'ATC' etched deep into my mind. Bye.