Delta Experience 2007

Back from Delta Experience(DE) Camp. Why is it called delta experience? Beats me. haha... COURAGE! Thats the name for my group. My groups Student Instrutors(SIs) are Yi Ting, Evadne and Eric... It's a super fun grp with common goals. The camp was really fun despite the pumpings and burpies we had to do for punishments. Food is something that REALLY needs improvement... The oil in it is so much that each packet of food that we eat, the oil that remains can cook another meal... Other than the rice, the rest of the food were mostly not finished... It's so sad the camp ended... But the happy memories will definitely stay forever... There will be an outing for COURAGE this friday... Really looking forward to it. Here's the break down of the camp.

Day0:
Had to gather at the Multi Purpose Hall(MPH) at 6.00p.m. Guess what, I just found my group, mark my attendance, put down my bags only, we have to get into pumping position. Some ppl jus don't understand the need of punctuality. So we stayed in that position until the last person came. Thats about 20 mins. A VERY nice welcoming present for us DE campers. Later on we went to our bunks, put our things and ran to the hall to listen to VP's welcoming speech and blah blah... Had supper...Then we went to bath and sleep.

Day1:
Woke up at 5.30am to avoid queues for the toilet. Most of the people in my bunks were still asleep. But the ppl in the other bunks woke up already... So, still have to queue. Decided to visit the toilet 1st... Almost fell asleep again... Anyway... after wash up we went to have breakfast at 6.15... After that pack and get ready to leave for Labrador Adventure camp(LAC)... Slept for most of the Journey to LAC... Our first activity was Rock Climbing... I didn't get to try since there was time constraint. The next one was challenge Pole where u stand on a pole and jump to catch the bar... I sort of fell before stabilizing myself on top of it... Quite sad though... Wanted to try again lah... But I don't think got time to spare for me to go and jump again... Anyway, won't be able to catch the bar even if I tried again, but just want to be able to stand up there. Think we had lunch after this. After that we had Visions workshop. We had to identify problems in our class... Then we watch a movie called Coach Carter. Later we have conflict management workshop. The SIs put up three skits on different problems faced in class and we were split into groups to discuss about how we can solve the problem. I think we had dinner after this, not so sure but anyway, not important. Then we had Service Learning Project briefing. My group joined with group 7, Gallant, to do our project, and our targeted agency was Institute of Mental Health (IMH)... I got a bit scared when I heard this... I remember in Sec1, my class visited the Tampanies Home, where we spent a day with the intellectually disabled people. I remember vividly my friend got pulled away by one of them and that person refused to release her no matter how the nurse coaxed her... She only got returned after about 1 hour later I think... So when I heard that we are going to IMH... I got scared... The discussion wasn't very smooth i guess, not much was done during the discussion. Later we had Sandcastle building discussion with the AB campers. It was obvious that our suggestions weren't taken into considerations. They kept saying " I THINK IT IS POSSIBLE"... thinking it is possible is not enough lah. what if it fails on that day? Muz have back up mahz... Anyway, it was obvious that AB campers were domineering... We DE campers decieded to shut up after a while... Sigh... Then we had suppper... Then it was time to bath... The guys toilet on the 2nd floor of the bunks also belong to the girls so I went in there to bath... The "cubicles" were separated by canvas only... Feel so insecure... Anyway after that was time to sleep... There wasn't enough beds so me and 2 of my friends shared 2 beds. We lay out our sleeping bags on the mattress... I slept in the centre... Luckily the metal frame was just under my spine... So not that bad.. Jus that one mattress was higher than the other so I have the tendency to "fall" to the lower one... Anyway, it's better than sleeping on the dusty floor.

Day2:
Woke up at 5.30am again... My friends alarm clock went off for like one whole minute and all the while I thought it was part of my dreams until my other friend crawled over me to shut the clock up... Haha... blur me... Anyway, we then went to wash up together... We had PT after that in the hall... stretching, running then push ups... Some of us were stung by bees... We had flag raising with the AB campers then it was breakfast... The food was as usual, too oily... I think I barely finished half the pack... I didn't want to waste it, but if I continue... I will be a "merlion"... After which we had movie screening on Ghandi, talking about servant leadership... Actually, I don't really know what it was talking about... But the teacher, Mr Seng was quite interesting, though most of us were falling asleep... Next we had General stations... Our group did bouldering wall... Only 2 successfully completed the task... Needless to say I failed lah.. I only manage to stay up there for less than a minute... Expected this so not that sad... I always had problems doing rock wall, apparently, my hands weren't strong enough to support my weight... Then we did trolleys, half the group went first. I was in the 2nd group. The station master, who is also one of our SIs, made things difficult by blindfolding 2 of us, and for me, I had to face the opposite directions... My group wanted to help me by changing the command to 1,2,1,2... But it was better to stick with left,right,left,right... Coz the 2 blindfolded ones will be confused even more... I guess it was still ok for me lah... Later on we had lunch then about an hour to rest. COURAGE and GALLANT took this time to discuss our SL project. This time round more constructive things were done. Then we had visions workshop2, continue watching coach carter part 2... We cheered along with the movie when the team scored... It was funny lah... Luckily we didn't get punished for that, apparently, we weren't allowed to cheer during the camp until the last day... After that we did high elements. My group did Barrel hug... Most succeeded, me again failed... Fell off half way... My hands were too tired to pull me up no matter how much work my legs put in so... had to come back down to the ground... This time round our group cheered really hard for our group mates. Then we had dinner... Then we had SL project discussions again... Things were going quite smoothly, but some problems surfaced too... They were more or less settled. Then we had supper I guess... Then wash up... This time round I used the girls toilet, wanted to see the difference... although the cubicles are separated by walls, the canvas was translucent unlike those in the guys toilet. Further more, some had holes... so we had to use towels tissue papers to cover them up... And have to look away from the canvas... If not u will b able to see what the person inside is doing... Haha... Anyway, it's bedtime after that... This time round I got a bed to myself coz my friends grp mate left... Though I had a bed to myself, don't know why I woke up in the middle of the night with a SUPER bad headache... My head was like going to burst liao... Couldn't really sleep after that...

Day3:
Woke up at around 5.30 am... Somehow I manage to fall asleep again despite the headache... Washed up and had flag raising... Then we had PT in the basketball courts in LAC... After the stretching etc... We had to do the make up punishment of 20 or 30 burpies... Cannot really remember bcoz we do stop do stop... In the end we did much more than the actual amount we were supposed to do... Sigh... Anyway, we had breakfast after that. Then we did general stations. First was See Saw... We have to balance on top of it for a few seconds... We failed many times but finally succeeded in the end.. Then we did Mohawk Walk... We completed it but then the station master said the fastest group did it in much shorter time so we decided to challenge it... And we succeeded in becoming the record holder. Our safety was compromised lah... And you can see the SIs faces turning not so nice... So Sorry... I think our group wanted to succeed too much... So it was during the facilitations that we started to see that what we did was quite dangerous... Must remember safety is most important! Then during our facilitations earlier in the day, I over heard the teacher saying we have to end earlier.. And it came true... Sigh.. Abseiling was CANCELED!!! I was so look forward to it because I didn't get a chance to do it in the previous camps I atttended... Looks like I am not fated to do abseiling... So we moved on to do cleaning and the camp commandants commented that we did a good job... Then we gathered at the open area near the abseiling station to have our lunch then a short break while we wait for the bus to come to bring us to East Coast Park(ECP) to do sandcastle building... The task was to build AJC in 2037.. It was a combined effort of the AB and DE campers. There were lots of confusions... Some ppl only know how to walk around and give comments and do nothing... It was really great that the SIs from both camps joined in... Our group was doing the Research and Development buildings... But the final product was very different from the one we planned... Still, we were quite happy with the end product... After that we had facilitation, dinner and back to school. Then we had SL project discussion and finally things are getting into place. I had fun dancing the macarena dance and the singing... Then we had supper reflections blah blah blah and finally sleep...

Day4:
Same as previous day, woke up, wash up... No PT for today as we need to do our SL project... Not very nice to go there smelly so 'nice'... Anyway, we had our breakfast, then we had about 20 mins to do up some last minute prep before setting off for IMH on bus... Shiv, one of our grp mates may not be able to make it in time for the performance, but his the singer for the macarena dance so he copied down the supposedly lyrics of the song and both groups were busy memorizing it... Especially Regina, another member in our group... She was tasked by Shiv to sing if he can't make it... She really sounded like Shiv... Haha... Anyway, we reached at about 9.20, 10 min to spare before the respective personnel, Mdm Lim came and fetch us... Well, it was a very long walk just to reach the lift that goes to the ward... IMH really look nice outside, huge corridors... Imagine how many classrooms we can have there, what a waste of space... Then someone suggested that maybe it was built purposely so that the patients won't be stressed out or run away... Actual reason? Actually no one noes... So we went there then we had some interaction with the people there. At first when we go in, we had to put our valuables in the office, then Ka Kei, one of our grpmates commented... " What's wrong with AJ, the people here are living fine here and we come and disturb them..." Apparently, he was quite scared... The SIs and us have to try our best to comfort him before we went out again to interact with the people. Shortly after that, we were asked to go to a seminar room to listen to a talk about IMH, its history, what it does... I was like so tired, so my eye lid was so tempted to shut itself up... but too bad, I was in the front row, and we have to respect the speaker... So forced myself to keep awake, but I was quite sure I must have slept for a few seconds here and there during the talk... I think the speaker sensed our tiredness and sped through the slides... At the end of the talk, she also commented that we look really tired some fell asleep... Sigh, apologies for sleeping, but we were real tired... Anyway, after which we went back to the same ward and moved on to singing session... The plan was actually for us to teach them a song and we sing together, in the end, the patients were so enthu that they kept coming up to sing the song they like, so well, we didn't teach any but enjoyed their singing... Halfway through the session, they wanted to sing 'shi shang zhi you ma ma hao' Together with the nurse, we joined in the song... Seeing the smiles on their faces, somehow I felt so sad... Luckily I was able to hold back my tears... In the past, I they would have fallen straight down... Haiz... I am kind of too emotional at times... Watch TV dramas can also cry like mad... Sigh... Anyway, it was lunch break after that... The SIs actually wanted to bring us to some where else to eat, but it looked like it was going to rain, so we suggested that we eat in the cafeteria while they go out to get the things we need for performance later. They were so nice to treat us to bubble tea... Something nice to eat after so many days... Thanks SIs... We really appreciate the drink... After lunch we went back to have a short interaction then it was our turn to perform... 1st up we had skit... then we had singing or dancing... either one... can't really rmb... I did the friendship dance and the macarena dance... kind of funny dance... And ya... Shiv made it in time to join us... Thanks Shiv... After that we presented the gift our log team made to the mdm Lim and off we go, back to AJ... We assembled in the foyer... then we had to finish the bananas bought so as not to waste it... But they were super black le... and at that point in time... I really needed to go toilet to do Big B... And I kind of went a bit quiet... I stood there, waiting and waiting for dismissal to our bunks... Finally it came and I sped off... Yiting commented before I set off as to y I never raise the issue... haha... Like how am I going to say I need to go toilet very badly to do big b? haha... Actually can la... but i think i will laugh at myself before I even say it... haha... anyway, after that we had some emotional sos workshop i think... Then it was SL project sharing... Then we moved on to have our Land expedition at 11pm... It was really fun... I think we read the map the wrong way or smth like dat, first we were on the wrong way, then everything went fine... Suddenly, Eric, one of our SIs, got injured by the light stick that burst or something like that, his vest was stained with the chemical... His right eye I think, also got some, we paused awhile to let him wash his eyes, we haven't even reached the first checkpoint and we got a casualty... Sigh... Bad start... anyway, he said it was fine and we could carry on... so we moved on... Then we ended up on the wrong side of the road and almost had to go one big round back... Our SIs decided to give us chance this time round and we did it at somewhere else... Thanks!!!... We were caught up by the next group behind us... Halfway through the task... Haha... Anyway, we kind of slowed down abit when travelling to the next check point... But the front ppl kept suddenly walk faster then slower then faster... I was like sigh... At first we ran to keep up... Then, we got tired of it and just shouted for them to slow down... Then we reached the second checkpoint... And you know where it is... It is just opposite somewhere I will live in soon... Sigh, but just looking at it makes me a bit sad... So near yet so far... Anyway, we rested a while while the SIs prepared the task... The task was really difficult at the sound of it... By the end of the task, all of us were flat on the ground... The ground was quite sharp and rocky... It kind of hurt having to lie on all fours... Anyway, our goal was to finish it and move on... The rest of the path to third checkpoint and even to Sembawang park is so familiar to me... I take this road almost every week... Something I know is good... Haha... But I think it defeats the prupose of the land exp mayb... Anyway, the third checkpoint was near Chong Pang... We were supposed to do reflections... Mr Ng was also there to let us replenish our water supply... We were too tired to reflect... So we slept till the SIs woke us up to move on to the final destination... We were on the look out for toilet... The chips made us thirsty and we drank lots of water and you know, the digestive system is something like a one way thingy, what goes in will have to come out somehow... So after about one third of the journey, we went into SPC petrol station to relieve ourselves... The SIs took this chance to catch some sleep... Yiting and Eric were quite fast to sit and rest, so poor evadne have to open her eyes big to look after us... Thanks!... We kind of go crazy after the toilet break... The guys commented that they can now 'fly' haha... They must have felt very light... haha... For the rest of the journey to sembawang park we were kind of crazy laughing away... Then as we approached sembawang park, Mr Seng told us that there were dogs in front... Oh... Now after all the journey, we have to run for our lifes... jjus joking... He escorted us quite a long distance until it was considered safe before he left... And all we saw were 'MEOWs'... haha... jus two cats... so lucky... Later we came to know that Mr Seng had leg cramps for driving slowly to escort the groups into the park... Thanks and sorry... Finally we reached the park at around 4.30am... We went to the area near the beach, and slept... I just hug my bag and sleep... Woke up around 5.30am... Realising all the others were lying flat on the ground with their backpacks as pillows... Think I was the only one sleeping 'straight'... So I slowly, shifted my bagpack to the back to become my pillow and sleep... Somehow I can't get back to sleep so I just stare into the sky, the sea... Blah Blah... Occasionally seeing my other groupmates changing their sleeping positions... It's nice to be able to enjoy the scenery... Then around 6+, we were told that Gallant have not arrived... and were just coming in so we all went and welcome them... They looked really tired... Then we moved back to collect of things and prepare for breakfast...

Day5:
After breakfast, we had an activity that was to write a letter of encouragement to our groupmates... After which we went back to school, collect our camp T shirt and we had time to rest till 11.45... I took this time to go and bath... We were actually allowed to use the toilets at MPH too, but the cleaner purposely said she needed to wash toilet or something like that... Whatever, I went to the underground toilet to bath... The queue was really long... All were AB campers by the time I went there... They were hurrying the DE campers inside bathing as they have lights out time while we don't... In the end their SIs cancelled the lights out time... So we just enjoyed our bath... Went back to my bunk and chat with my friends... Then fell asleep after some time... My group was supposed to meet at 11.20am to continue our activity... I kind of overslept... Woke up at 11.16... Rush to the toilet and when I was back, my groupmates were no where found and my watch reads 11.20am... So I took my things and ran to the meeting place, canteen... Then I realise no one there... hmm... So I walk to the area outside LT1 where all the SIs were gathering and saw my group's SIs all there... So we walked back to the canteen and still found no one... Oops... So I went back to find them... Then saw tracy and Melissa walking back from the other toilet... Sigh... Quickly ask them grab their things, searched the other bunks to find Regina but not found so we set off to the canteen... Hoping she is there already... Indeed she was... Slowly one by one the groupmates arrived... Most overslept... haha... Anyway, we wrote letters and finally, time for lunch... After which we went to area outside Audi to do up the majong paper on the things we have learnt in the camp... Then we have to present it to everyone in the audi... Then the AB campers joined us... It was the 'farewell speech' from VP... Then we have the screening of the photos taken during the camp and a picture of all the ABCDE campers... I doubt we can see ourselves in the picture lah... Anyway, we moved on to the gradustion tea... The teachers served us food this time round... SIs were asked to go and collect first... Some were strolling, some hesitant... haha... So we counted down from 5-1 and said " Where is your sense of Urgency!' haha... Jus for fun... No offence... haha... Then our turn... blah blah... Then we went to take photo as a group in front of the fish pond before proceeding to one of the LTs to debrief and assigning of groups to do the clean up... Our group did bunk cleaning... With only dustpans and no brooms, we swept the floor with our legs... haha... Quite clean lah... Then we went to LT2 for the farewell... Sigh... It was so sad... SIs were asked to say smth to the groups then it was the EXCOs turn... haha... Melvin the chief refused to dismiss us lah... haha... Then Jo-siah put the mike to his stomach to let him hear that his stomach was grumbling... haha... Anyway, he finally ended... And off we go... So sad... Didn't felt like going home... Anyway, we took one last group photo before we left... Sad moment... haha... But all things will come to an end...

Although the camp has ended, the things and lessons that we have learnt during the camp will always remain in our hearts and mind... The spirit of COURAGE will also stay with me... haha... We will have a outing on 8th June... Really looking forward to it...
D what?
DE!!!
D what?
DE!!!
Woohoo!!!