My Game of Life

Sunday, August 27, 2006

This post is overdue for 2.5 days already since i came back from camp. Was too busy with catching up on lost sleep and going for the muar exchange activites that i didn't have time for blogging, so finally, here's my (extremely long) take on the Sec 2 Annual Camp *cheers*

The Sec 2 Camp was filled with much...
Nevertheless, it was fun.

Camp trainers always say, "Since you are already here, might as well make your time and money well-spent and have a positive attitude so you can enjoy the camp." Some people go in with a positive attitude and have fun, other go in with a pessimistic attitude and complain about everything, and even complain to their parents or the school after the camp, while others go in with a fairly negative attitude but cheer up after some games and activities. However, there is a very isolated type of people, to be precise 1/26 of the population, who go in with a optimistic and perhaps overly-enthusiastic attitude but emerge emoionally shattered at the end of it. Why? This is because they lack the physical and emotional stamina, strength and maturity to face the hardships present in camps.

One of the (supposed) objectives of any camp is the toughen you up. True, it forces you to live outside of your comfort zone, blah, blah, blah. But then again, it might bring about new fears or show your weaknesses. If one were bitten by a horsefly, it might bring about a fear of horseflies and perhaps even houseflies, butterflies, flyers, etc. As a rather imaginative classmate of mine said,

Once bitten by a snake, you will be scared of ropes for ten years.

A horsefly bite is rather painful. However, there are 2 possible reactions to it.
1. You are brave and simply whack the fly off, then scoff at the blood left behind from its bite and shrug, "That was nothing, just a little pain."
2. Your legs become jelly and you stand there petrified, screaming "Help! Help! There's some insect on my leg! Its very painful! AHHH HELP! I'm going to die!!!" as the horsefly sucks out your blood and happily flies away.

Unsurprisingly, both types of people exist in this world and in our class, although i do believe the first type outnumbers the second. 2 people were bitten, the former had the second reaction, while the latter was smiling and laughing away (at the first person) even after seeing the blood from the bite.

Camps can also show your weaknesses. One groupmate, after climbing up the low wall (in the Standard Obstacle Course) with much assistance, sat down on top of it and looked down at the ground below, but not daring to jump off. This was despite the camp trainer just beside him and consoling (or perhaps niaoing) him. He was also so feeble that he had to apply mosquito repellent (which smells quite a bit) every night in the tent and didn't dare sleep for he was afraid of mosquito bites. Thus we can see that the "toughening" in camps can go both ways; if you are brave enough, you can overcome your fears, but if you are too weak, it will only heighten your fears.

Similarly, another objective of camps is to increase maturity levels. Perhaps people do become more mature after being cut off from civilisation and MapleStory (eew) for a few days. Yet, there is often a display of immaturity during camps. Such actions include calling your mother every night, "reporting to authorities" (as quoted from one's handphone conversation with his mother) who don't listen to you anyway, whining about feeling "redundant" becos one did not take part in our activites in the first place in the first place, and bitching about being barred from activities because you didn't follow the rules and pissed the trainer off.

Yet, these problematic people can also cause much inconvenience to the other campers and hinder them from enjoying themselves, in their own selfish desires to run away from their fears and weaknesses (instead of overcoming them.) For example, when our camp trainer put one such person to lead the group during the Nature Ramble (which was basically a trek through nature), that person, who was also coincidentally very much afraid of insects, simply made a U-turn back to camp, thus we did not get to have the experience of wading through mud pools and the like. While other groups emerged all muddy and dirty, we came out largely clean (except for julian, who fell into some mud :P) Although pessimistic people and muggers would have been glad that they did not need to get down and dirty, most of us were very angry and disappionted that our fun was cut short all becos of him.

These people waste their time in camps. Not only do they not gain anything from the camp other than more phobias, an unstable mind and lots of niaoing from their groupmates and even trainers, but they also cause others to not have fun. These people are the black sheep, which is why everyone hates them. Thus, they are excluded from activities, but they complain that they are isolated when they do not contribute to the group themselves. Camps are made much worse by these people.

I must say the sec 2 camp would have been much better had it not been for those pessimistic, unenthu, weak and bitchy people.

Not sure who that certain person whose actions are featured in this post is? i already said, the Sec 2 Camp was filled with much...

For further reports, do visit Yi Yong's, Bing Heng's and Kuan Yue's blogs.

'Twas teh winnar at 10:20 am.