Hello hello (: Going to make this post as short as I can without skimping on the details since I aim to finish some lit work today (left over from the holidays).

Yesterday was the sec 1 orientation campfire and as usual. the guides were in charge of setting up the whole shebang.

It started to rain around 1230 yesterday and I thought to myself: nevermind we're not setting up the campfire till 1500-ish. If it rains now it probably won't rain later. So I just continued with my lesson, not particularly anxious about the weather.

The rain stopped.

However around 1400, it started to rain again! It was still raining when school ended 30 mins later and since everyone still had to eat lunch, the rain technically hadn't impeded on our plans yet. Around 1500, the rain stopped again and we were quickly chased out of the canteen by Mrs Lim who wanted us to quickly set up the platform before it started to rain again (I didn't believe her). After all had it not just rained twice already?

We were at the last stage of setting up the platform when it started to rain again -.- We were running around frantically because the platform couldn't get wet but I had already taken out a canvas sheet to cover the platform with earlier, the only problem was that the canvas sheet was now missing. Then Yihui said something about a construction worker taking the bright yellow canvas just now (they didn't know it was our's) and she and Jamie ran off to look for the fella. Meanwhile the platform got more and more wet.

Finally Jacqueline, Grace and I spotted them carrying the yellow sheet from a distance and when the sheet was about 3m from the platform, Jacky and I flipped the zinc sheet over so that the top wasn't wet anymore.

We all then ran for shelter. Mrs Lim assigned us all different work (which included checking all the gadget poles in the den for termite bites - there were plenty :( and sorting the bitten poles from the unbitten) and well, I got the work mentioned inside the '( )'.

I was feeling pretty depondent around 1700 when the rain still continued to pour viciously and there was talk that the campfire would be cancelled but still continued to do my work silently. At 1730 the offical cancellation came from the teachers. I got even more upset and took my anger out on a odd pole that was lying around and after I came back from cleaning it: everyone was gone.

I wandered out to the campfire and grabbed a pole that had been left out on the rain and christened it 'Sticky' and went about poking random stuff on the ground. The rain was petering out by now and I was staring at the campfire desolately when suddenly I saw Mrs Lim trying to get my attention on the 2nd level (I was in the quadrangle). I went upstairs to her and she said that they campfire was on again: if we could rush everything in time!

All of us worked through dinner just to prepare everything and this were really looking up for once in the entire day. However when I was testing out the microphones around 1920 with Yihui (and making strange noises into the mike) when Mrs Chen (my horrid ex-math teacher that totally annihilated any interest and fondness of math) ran in a most comical fashion to tell Miss Tang who was with us that it looked like it was going to rain – again!

We all ran out and I stood in the middle of a grass patch and started up at the sky: the sky was covered almost completely in dark rain clouds and I started to pray as hard as I could and the wind started to blow the clouds, but whether away or towards us I couldn’t tell.

After praying we (the guides) all went to stand nearby the campfire where Mrs Yap and Mrs Chen (Kok Peng) were debating whether to let the campfire proceed and just when Mrs Chen said that the drizzle was getting less and less, a big angry cloud came and dumped a whole load of fat raindrops on the lot of us. Teacher and student alike ran for cover.

Everyone was really upset, as you can imagine. The teachers sent us off for dinner and the sec ones all were diverted into the auditorium for their ‘campfire’. Irony of ironies.

Over dinner we all decided to ask Mrs Lim if we could have a small fire or else we’d have to throw away the kerosene soaked rags and the soaked fireball (actually a ball of rags) and I started to cheer up, in fact everyone was visibly happier. After dinner (and when the rain died out) we went to remove the excess firewood from under the canvas and I looked up at the sky for the thousandth time that day and this time the whole sky was clear. The clouds that were visibly were those cirrus clouds which enveloped the moon creating a pretty and extremely ironic sight. It was as if the sky was mocking us.

Anyhow Mrs Chen (Kok Peng) mentioned earlier that she would like to see us release the fireball (: so after we arranged everything some of us went into the audi to tell her that we were ready and she said a few magical words “how about a few minutes from now? Then we can include all the sec ones” hooray for Mrs Chen!

In the end we had a small campfire that lasted about 30 minutes plus and when Mrs Yap declared the campfire closed, all the sec ones protested by saying ‘hah?’, so cute (:

When we were packing things up we found a kerosene torch that we had forgotten about earlier and we showed it to Mrs Lim and incredibly she told us to burn up the torch! She even let us use the fire extinguishers! SO COOL :D:D:D

What was scary was that the first fire extinguisher located outside the guide den didn’t work even after the safety pin was removed. The guide den is a time bomb waiting to go off with the tins of kerosene and the singularly most concentrated spot of wood in the entire school. Talk about scary!

Anyway we got to play with the fire extinguishers which coated the floor of the linkway in a white powder when it flew up into a cloud. It was very cool and super fun :D

Wow this is 3 pages long now. Have a nice weekend!