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camp imagine! 2005 For those who requested: Recently I went for camp imagine!, and as is the norm I made new friends and met new people. The truth is that I didn’t learn that much about volunteerism, most of the information brought up I already knew. Possibly because I’ve experienced these programmes myself. But as with most new people that I meet, I learnt new things from my friends. Cultural differences, diverse backgrounds- nothing matters that much anymore when you come together and work as a group. Does it? As a minority group in the camp, of course I felt out of place at first. Imagine my surprise when almost everyone at the mrt was from the same school. I stoned there feeding mosquitos. But we got along, my group mates and I, except I don’t know for sure how many times I offended them. To tell the truth, I find it inevitable, given our different backgrounds, the amount of crap that spouts from my mouth, how rough and sometimes heck care I am, and of course, how imposing I can get. Whatever offending things I have said, I don’t mean. At least I know that. Incredibles The seven groups, with self designed shirts based on the group’s name. Day one we had icebreakers, games and a workshop by thumbs-up. Pretty funny because a lot of people liked the workshop guy shawn/shaun, but the incredible girls all think nic is funnier. Nic reminds me my friend, and I think he’s nice -.- ended with life journey – recounting significant events in your life. During which, I talked about my NCC attachment, although there were other major things which affected me these past few years. Yeah I crapped so much and didn’t conclude. Actually I thought I wasn’t giving enough justice to the experience the way I spoke about it but well, it’s over. That night, the incredible girls wrote notes for the guys and facils. Day two.. Amazing race took up the bulk of the day. Before that we had a short workshop again by thumbs up, and nic came alone, which seemingly upsetted some people haha. The person in front of me –jas I think- looked at me and said shuai-ge is here. Well we sort of discussed them the night before. (: we moved in a group of 22 for amazing race, which meant the same few people lead. But later on others took the initiative, which was good I guess, and we ended up flying kites at marina, which was the last stop. During this time Keefe joined our group, and hl (facil) never heard the end of the teasing from that time on. During debrief I almost had to do a camp sharing [I mean with the whole camp], but because the sharing session by facils kind of overran I didn’t have to. Keefe shared smth meaningful, and everyone’s quoting him. I suggested an informal chat, so the 7 of us ended up in the pavilion talking till 11. That night, the girls stayed up till 230am preparing for the next day’s item. Day 3 we had mayor’s roundtable, during which we posed questions to Mayor Heng. Interesting session in some ways. Then we had prep time for SAC time before leaving. At the senior activity center we performed and then tried to interact with the old folks. On this auntie’s rather forceful suggestion [cough] me and yt ended up suggesting k-ok singing. And lol the incredibles went up, I don’t know why. It was an inpromptu thing, we sang out of tune and all. Then most joined us in front and we sang without music! What we sang didn’t even qualify as a full song; for most we sang the chorus and hummed the rest. But it was fun and hyped up, which was a good thing as we later learnt from the old folks, because they enjoyed that session. After a bbq-ed dinner we went for our supposed nightwalk. Cute story, cute activities, cute stationmasters. After that we had 1.5 hrs free time and headed for macs, before we started gossiping again. At this point of time I had about 4 suitable candidates, all because I answered some shit question during truth and dare. (: Upon returning incredibles took up the sofa and started talking, then we did this lame mini item for our facils and resumed gossiping. Soon a lot of people were coming down to join us, including fanclubs that formed for certain cute looking guys. We moved up to the girls’ room and slept at 4 that night. Last day. I happily woke up at 840, when we were supposed to meet at 830. That, you might notice, is way over the scheduled time. Joe came looking for us while we were getting ready. After breakfast the high five chair [running for superhost champ] shared with us, then we viewed videos and pictures. We did mass dance for the last time, and broke camp. The most lasting? Hmmmm. Keefe’s wise sayings? You can be a very good volunteer outside of home, but if you don’t volunteer at home, then you are nothing. And what I was going to share, but didn’t: Can we show as much emotion as they do in expressing our feelings? Not sadness, not anger. Happiness. Could we expressively show as much joy in getting to know a fellow human being? We’re from different backgrounds, a blend of different flavours. But really, we’re the same after all, aren’t we. There are times when there really is no need to talk about any difference at all. |
