Back from Guide Camp! The whole guides contingent got PWNED by a S peg. Chessa got PWNED by a car :(

Warning: very long post ahead.

Day 1
I reached school around 7:45AM and found a very angry Grace (over the changing of schedules), after dumping my stuff in the Concourse, I left with her and Yihui to drag stuff out of the Guide Den (which STILL smelled of kerosene despite all the airing out we did during the GB campfire) and found lots of nice new stuff :D Mrs Lim used some MOE grant to buy some nice new gadget poles, wires, pegs, mallets and changkoes, basically the lot. We rejoined the guides after taking out all the nice new gadget poles and everyone moved their stuff to the bamboo courtyard.

After placing our stuff down, everyone went to help carry the things from outside the den to the small field outside the Home Ec. rooms, we got to boss around the other guides for a change (: (the non-committee guides) and after the seniors (ie: the ones that left years ago, the youngest of the lot was Caroline, a girl who was Sec 4 when I was Sec 1) demonstrated how to erect a tent, everyone went to erect the other 3 tents. Just my luck that the tent i was assigned to had to be one surrounded on one side with long grass :( I think it was around there that I got bitten by some strange bug. My right ankle started to swell up into a ball and it was itchy like hell >.< It's still a little swollen now, but not itchy as before.

The girls in my group, Rosa Parks (I’m still happy with all the names I gave the groups), were Stephanie, Vicky, Ee Leng, Elishea, Serena and Elizabeth.

After that we did some gadget making, I completely forgot how to do square lashing and Marina had to teach a bunch of us how to tie the lashing again, we mostly slacked a lot and used up almost all of my ‘macho twine’ (my dad’s words, not mine: it was the dark green army sort).

We had some sort of food for lunch, can’t remember what it was exactly, all I remembered was Stephanie kicking up a huge fuss over her food which was repeated again for every meal in the next 3 days, breakfast excluded. My goodness, that girl sure is picky and complains a lot when it comes to her food >.< I ended up finishing my food the last of all the guides.

After lunch we had pioneering training again, just like the last guides camp and to add to the sense of déjà vu, the SAME instructors (the seniors) taught the SAME things. I finished my sawing and axing quite fast and all that work with the changkoe for the Outdoor Cooking Competition paid off when I finished my turfing fast, but I was tired out all the same.

Tired as I was, we all had to attend the COH which was quite um, quiet. Nevertheless I found out to my horror that there was nothing planned for the Craft session the next day (!!!). After the session I had a short discussion with the other planning girls and ended up calling my Grandma to bring coloured paper from home for tomorrow’s mosaic activity.

During COH the other guides also got to bathe and I was all stinky and sticky while the other guides looked so happy and GLOWED in their nice freshly soaped skin (oh dear, I sound like some pervert) and I was left to be miserable and sticky >.< at I least I got to bathe right after dinner, unlike the 2nd night.

Then we had orienteering. The same thing as last year with the SAME time slot. Thank goodness there were 3 other sec 3 guides in my patrol who also took Geog (Steph, Serena and Elizabeth), I was far too tired to concentrate adequately, much less teach the younger ones to do map reading.

After the initial lesson, the seniors gave us a map of the school and an instruction sheet and we had to read the map to find the clues planted at the sites. It was late at night and the school was very dark, plus we were only allowed to bring one torchlight around: worse still, some of the clues were planted on the 4th level! Eeeek. It was pitch dark and the seniors disabled the mains so we couldn’t switch on the lights.

We went to the 3rd level and met Grace’s group (Grace Kelly) in the open space outside the audi when 3 seniors, Tracy, Stacey and Caroline I think, arrived at the scene and proceeded to ask questions. Grace’s group got off because they got such an easy question while we got stuck “What is Guide Law No. 4?” and ended up being tied up to each other at the wrist, or rather I volunteered and got tied to Serena and Ee Leng.

On the 4th level outside the old P6 classrooms, we were gathered in the open space and I was looking around, the place was slightly lit up from a spotlight facing the ground level at the end of the wing and the quintessential ‘Exit’ sign. I looked towards the upper level of the Primary school hall (the area which connects to the 2005 secondary class wings) and to my horror (yes the same word again) I saw the doors swinging mysteriously. I quickly turned around and didn’t say a word, but my mind was racing trying to find a plausible reason which included telling myself to ignore it. However 10 seconds later Ee Leng said “why are those doors swinging?” and I totally lost it and started screaming. Cue everyone else screaming and everyone running down the stairs (about 2m away from where we were). It was so scary :(

After running around the lower levels some more, we gathered up the courage to go to the 4th level again and we found 2 seniors hiding behind the short wall in the primary wing, I think it was this time that Vicky got tied to Ee Leng. We walked towards the passageway where I saw the door moving I was just about to run ahead (or struggle ahead depending on how you see it) and kick the door as hard as I could when we all spotted 2 seniors, Caroline and Shamita hiding behind the wall. Grrrrrr.

Finally after the Orienteering and Supper, the committee had a short meeting about the next day’s murderer game and for some reason, Yolanda had decided to come to camp to spend a night. After everyone left leaving only me, Jamie and Yolanda, she kept on talking cryptically about some grand prank. I grabbed my things and lugged the lot upstairs to the classroom (P2.6, a class that I would not have stepped into in my wildest dreams) where we were sleeping and I went to wash up. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep AT ALL and I didn’t feel tired at all so I joined Yolanda, Jamie and Vanessa in the next classroom.

We played some games and uh, after the prank (I’m not sure how much I should say) I went to sleep, it was around 2AM. Jacinth woke up but we got her to shush up. It was so fun even though I didn’t really participate except to follow them all around.

Day 2
Stephanie woke me up at 6:50. I jumped right out of my sleeping bag and ran around trying to get ready and both of us ended up running down the stairs for devotions and exercise.

After breakfast we had a short rest period and I started to prepare for the craft session and did a small bit of a mosaic for an example, it was quite fun and mindless (:

The craft session went relatively well with me passing comments to every group on how the craft made me feel I was “in Kindergarten” oh well, it was fun playing with the glue (:

When everyone was done we all went to have out lunch which was Nasi Lemak. I think Stephanie threw away 80% of her food >.< I was last to finish again.

When I was finally done, Grace, Yihui, Jacqueline and Me went to the guide den to take out the materials for the night’s campfire and some guides pitched in to help carry the things and there was a dolly outside the guide den which we also used to transport things down to the quadrangle, things got done pretty fast. Then Yihui and I left the rest of the girls to their devices (including some lazy people who used EYE POWER to help us do work -.-) and loaded up a dolly with firewood, punk and sticks for the afternoon’s session out outdoor cooking. Pushing the dolly was a whole adventure in itself because the wheels were screwy and the dolly tended to steer itself towards the right more than anything else. Still it was fun (:

During the session I was going to do the turfing for my patrol but Elishea (also another alumni of the Outdoor Cooking Competition: 1st Company) decided to take over when she saw how small my hole was >.<

I went off to change into track pants so I could sit on the grass and to grab some insect repellent and by the time I came back, Elishea had already started up a nice fire and I went to gather suitable firewood and fanned the flames which come to think of it, is the only thing I’m actually good for, for outdoor cooking. The food came out quite alright, the bell chicken was delicious but the pizza was very bad >.< oh well. I had a stomach ache this morning, a very bad one at that. Stephanie said it was because of the outdoor cooking the previous day, and that it was probably the sweet potato I ate because I was the only one who was willing to eat it. Now that I think of it, I have a sneaky suspicion that the sweet potato wasn’t washed at all.

It was also around this time that my patrol began making geeky jokes, ‘PWNED!’, ‘ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US’ (this is a geek cult flash, ask me if you want the link or something. It’s also used as a cheat for Warcraft III and Starcraft, and ‘THERE IS NO SPOON’, basically the cheats to blizzard games. The other groups must have thought we were über com geeks or something.

COH again and we all told the seniors that we were still hungry after outdoor cooking (this was at 7PM) because the food wasn’t sufficient, hahaha. The committee also stayed behind to discuss the murder case game with the seniors (in terms of our safety) and they just decided to patrol the area.

We had the campfire after COH which was pretty uneventful. My group did a silly skit while I’m sure the other groups didn’t understand and ended with Stephanie saying ‘ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!’ in a mechanical voice, looking back I’m wondering if the skit was done with the sole purpose of messing up the “guard’s” hair, which was my role, and being pushed around. We were supposed to be those red bedecked guards who stand guard outside Buckingham Palace and don’t move despite provocation -.-

Anyway the committee stayed behind to go put out the campfire so we missed the powerpoint :( how sad. Nevermind, I’ll find a way to get my hands on that powerpoint, I heard it was very funny. After we put out the fire, Jaishree and I fetched a pail of water from the toilet and we both went off to our places, waiting for the girls to come. The linkway was quite dark in certain areas so I hid in the darker parts waiting for the girls to come.

Overall it was very fun acting as the butler and I didn’t have to act that much since the butler’s personality and actions were very much similar to my own when I’m in one of my moods. Equipped with an acid tongue I also managed to get the girls to laugh when they asked stupid questions like:

Girl: How big was the house?
Me: I’m a butler, not a property agent.

Girl: You look pretty young to be 61
Me: Well you look pretty young to be a police cadet.

It was fun being mean and not offending anyone at the same time (: another thing I also found amusing was when one group’s girls said I spoke very ‘cheem English’, hahahaha. They should go meet Suat then they’ll know what ‘cheem English’ really is. In the end someone had to translate for the poor girl because I wasn’t going to give my act for her. Yet another group was commenting on the accent I used during the game, they said it sounded mildly British which I found to be very funny because I really didn’t bother with what kind of accent I used at all. Oh well.

In the end, none of the groups solved the case; the answer was really hard and not obvious at all, but one group was a little close to at least 1 part of the answer.

After that we had nice sandwiches for supper which the seniors prepared for us because we said that we were hungry (as in the whole Guides contingent was served) and I went off to shower in super cold water before going to bed.

Day 3
Woke up late today, 30 mins late in fact and ended up dashing down the stairs to the Home Ec. Rooms because I had cook duty. I didn’t even stop to brush my teeth :( and waited for Stephanie to come down (she also overslept) before I went to wash up and keep my sleeping bag.

I went down after I was done to check if they needed my help and found out that Adeline’s patrol and mine had already finished up so I returned upstairs to keep all my things (or rather stuff them) into my bag.

We had breakfast and then had the usual camp duties and cleaned up the areas that we used and I brought my bag down from upstairs. After cleaning some of us were free so we gathered around and talking and I took some pictures and a video of Steph fighting with Maxine, hehehe. When everyone was done cleaning we played games which were quite fun and totally retarded. Oh well (:

Around 11:30AM the tents were dry enough for us to take them down and pack them up. I was taking the pegs from the campsite to the holding area at the bomboo courtyard for Steph, Vicky and Elishea to clean and then turned my attention to other matters when to my dismay Steph appeared to tell me that there were 15 Small (S) pegs, 14 Medium (M) pegs and 12 Large (L) pegs and to make things worse my group was cleaning up the Guide HQ tent and pegs :(

We told the seniors and after everyone spread out and searched the miniscule field like how the Police search when looking for a piece of evidence; that is everyone standing in a line and walking forwards, combing the area. The peg was nowhere to be seen :( In the end Shasmita did something which I shall not state here because some scary HQ people might read this or something >.< still all the pegs are accounted for and everything was folded up nicely.

Mrs Lim ordered Macdonald’s lunch for us all (it fitted into the camp budget, didn’t want to ask questions) and Stephanie, Ianthe and I stayed in school till 2:15PM just talking and eating (:

Speaking of PWNAGE, as I mentioned earlier, Chessa got PWNED by a car :( it was on the first day of camp and she was running late and saw her bus coming so she tried to run across the road, however she didn’t see a car coming from behind the bus (overtaking), the same car which ran her over, for lack of a less crude term.

We were all so worried :( I’ve never seen Jacqueline cry before. Poor girl. But we heard that Chessa was alright, that is still alive, not in ICU and still retaining her memory, however she did forget what happened from the screech of the car tires to the time she woke up in NUH (she was conscious at the time and was able to give the driver some sort of number). So after I returned home I quickly took a bathe and left the house for Buona Vista MRT.

I was on my way to Buona Vista MRT when I heard an American accented voice go: “F**k you!” and I looked up and saw this American teen sticking his head out of a speeding white cab that was driving past the bus stop. He was laughing. I had half a mind to scream after him “Yeah I know you want to!” but instead opted to chuckle to myself. The other lady at the bus stop didn’t seem too amused though.

At the Hospital Jacqueline and me found Chessa in the Children’s Ward of all places and we were soon joined by Vanessa, Jaishree, Yihui (Huang), Grace and Jacinth, the birthday girl (: She’s back on solids and she might be discharged tomorrow from Hospital, hope she gets well soon and um, gets her specs fixed up (they got spoiled in the accident).

Still, it’s kind of scary and weird when you realise what happened and how many more ways things could have gone much more wrong. I guess it’s God’s Will.