mocha-choco-lata ya ya

Wednesday, December 28

warning: this is going to be a long post.

just got back frm odac leadership camp and it's been an amazing experience. today is mr tan's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR TAN!

Brief Summary
The Teams: Peripinkle and Cheaterbug-chocobos[my grp ^^]
The Task: Race to complete challenges and make it to the checkpoint in time for the deadline
The 4 Focuses of the camp: Leadership, Puntuality, Discipline and A Sense of Occasion.
Camp Rule: No using of phones and wallets. No using of any other information except those given to us by the sec 4s. which means no looking at the maps on the signboards etc.

1st Day, Mon
set off from sch, our first checkpoint was climb adventure. did climbing and abseiling there. whoo! abseiling was fun (: but long time nvr climb le and i missed it. after doing some bouldering my rght ankle started having the ache again so wynne helped me wrap it. thanks! :D after our challenge we went shopping for dinner for 2 nights with a budget of $24. amazing how we managed to come up with reasonably decent food lol. then we raced to pulau ubin, where we hiked all the way to maman campsite. our group made a wrong turn and got side-tracked and missed the deadline so my watch got confiscated ): haha but we started cooking while some of us pitched the tent. oh and when we were cooking it threatened to rain but lucky it didnt. and apparently a rat crawled onto viv's lap and she shrieked and scared us all. our food smell too gd mah (: haha sleeping in the tent was cool, cant wait to do it again though it was quite squashy! hahah and siti was funny! she kicked ollie's face, slept on her and kept harrasing her in her slp. poor ollie! hahaha oh and i slept next to the door, so i got sand kicked onto my face whenever someone came back to the tent. hahah i awoke spitting sand out of my mouth. yucks!

2nd Day, Tue
woke up at 6.25 and cleared up. breakfast was ok cept my biscuits were soggy thanks to the bread. we set off for our ubin trek where we were suppose to hike all around ubin to find and complete 7 stations. hahah ubin trek was tough- physically punishing but rewarding the same time. we had to hike all around with heavy bagpacks tt weight at least 5 kg. and we kinda sidetracked our way a few times. heh me and viv were the navigators! hahah in the end we completed 4 stations. not bad larh but the other grp won. oh and midway the pet and gayle, who were following us, made siti pretend to have heat stroke and wynne to have a open arm fracture and closed calf fracture. which means we "lost" 2 of the 3 sec3s in our grp and the 2 most experience d. we handled the situation reasonably well lah but there's a lot of room for improvement. but because we lost the race on ubin, the other grp got a 10 min headstart on the other leg of the race which was at kent ridge park there. i run the 90+ bend road so many times before but i nvr noticed there was a forest trail entrance there -.- and tt's wht they made us hike. but whoo it was fun! and i loved playing charades! hahah cool man. me and joce had got All Children Exercising Simultaneously Day Work-out [ACES Day Work-out]. LOL quite difficult but we did it! hahaha and it was damn funny. esp ollie's action. and we WON tt leg of the race. like finally! we were the first grp to reach pasir panjang!!!! (: and our reward was ice cream frm west coast park's "golden arches". mr tan is nice :D we set up camp at weat coast park like usual lah. and we were about to cook when lo and behold, it started pouring -.-" we just lit the fire lor. then have to put it out and bring everything into the shelter. plus our tent wasnt quite done yet haha. we ended up cooking in the shelter on the stone bench! haha. and the field where our tents were were completely muddy. there was like squelchy mud everywhere. when i tried to get to the tent to retrieve my clothes, my foot sank into mud and i just spent 2hrs in my backyard scrubbing my salomons with a toothbrush and soap. ahahah and our tents were slightly damp cos of the rain so we slept on damp tent bases. i finally got to somewhat bathe also.

Day 3, Wed
woke up at 6.20 and started packing up cos we were suppose to be at macritchie at 8.45. but cos all the tent and groudsheets were muddy so we had to wash them and took quite some time. we ended up leaving at 8 only and reaching at 9.15 which was 30 min late. but we did kayaking at macritchie. im so happy i havent forgotten how to kayak haha! omg it's so nice there! and plus it's freshwater and not saltwater so it doesnt sting your eyes. :D and we played CANOE-POLO in our kayaks! omg so fun ok! and cheaterbugchocobos won! we won the game lalala. after washing up and eveything we had a celebration at the pavilion cos it's mr tan's bday today! oh and the seniors cooked the food which i might add was GOOD. wow our seniors can cook! (: and we had debriefing as usual which was esp touching and insightful for me. nearing the end we lined up and gave the seniors each a hug. i hugged them all for really long. omg im alr missing their presence. it's a bit foreign to imagine odac without them. ms cheryl had a really nice poem by rudyard kipling for them...tt i think is very suitable.

What we did: abseiled, climbed, cooked, pitch tent, stepped into mud, hiked 30+ km with bagpacks, had fun tgt :D

Thoughts:
lead camp has been similar but quite unlike any camp ive had, even with odac. there were trying moments, esp during the pulau ubin hike where we hiked around the whole island and the frustrating times when we sidetracked and didnt know where we were and couldnt really decide where we wanted to go, and also the time when it started raining everywhere was muddy. but we never gave up and never blew up at each other. which is wht i love abt odac. we accept each others shortcomings and no one complains so no matter how tough it is, u just grit your teeth and push on. it does make a huge difference cos it spurs u on. i bet obs will be diff cos a lot of ppl will complain. ppl were alr complaining during nyaa camp cos the tent was stuffy. it wasnt even wet and muddy then lor! xiaoting's right. odac is a very condusive environment for leadership. because whtever mistakes tt you make as a leader will never be held against you. you will not be judged by the mistakes tt u made but by the person u are. and everyone will support whoever the leader is.
"Every failure is a failure forward. There is no such thing as uneccessary failure" - Ms Cheryl
And then consider the three qualities you think a leader shld have. concern.initiated.encouraging.
And then consider your self awareness. awareness of your weaknesses and strengths.awareness of situation.awareness of people.

IF. By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a [Wo]Man, my son!
[ms cheryl's adaptation: And--which is more--you'll be an ODACian!]

"Nobody expects a leader to know everything" - Pet

really?

`wordsofthecynical
8:23 pm

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