Ok, I just came back from a 5 day camp, so I guess I have lots of stuff to talk about… 进修营二○○四年, 加默罗圣母青年区团圣母军 Annual Camp 2004, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Junior Curia of the Legion of Mary (Mandarin speaking) Oh, our camp has a theme, namely Rebond, Rebirth, Reconcille 1 December 2004, Day One, Organizing committee arrives at 8.30 am at St Anthony’s Canossian Convent Primary School in Bedok North Avenue 4. I came at 9 am cause I was eating breakfast with Dad. ^_^…..So we cleaned out the rooms and the toilets that we were using. Then we moved the gym mats into the rooms. They were used for sleeping. Then we cleaned the gym mats. We continued our last minute preparation. Pet was quite pissed off about so much last minute work that needed to be done. As a result we had to endure much lecturing. Campers started to come in at around 6 pm. We had our opening program, which involved a very last minute skit. The reason Pet was being so pissed off was that the opening program was planned last minute. So as the day ended, we had to get the campers to go sleep. Damn! Crazy fellows didn’t keep their gaps shut till 4 or 5 am! Basket, I want to stay awake and talk cock also cannot, have to sit for debriefing until 4.30 am! Wah lao…So anyway, we had debriefing for the first night and prepared for the next day. Went to sleep at 4.30 am. 2 December 2004, Day Two, Rebond Damn it, should not have slept at 2 am on Day Zero. Felt like shit on Day 2 morning. Woke up at 6.30 am or so. We had our morning prayer and then morning exercise. We had breakfast, then some games, Shit, I can’t remember what they were. Anyway after that was a talk by Angela entitled “How intimate are you with God?” Her talk was okay to me, but some of the campers were not really listening. Then there was rosary then lunch. Then there was a Brother from St Patrick’s School to conduct a talk. I wasn’t there. I was eating air with Robin outside. After the talk was a break, then a talk on conscience by Angela. Whoa! So many talks! You should have seen Day Three….I planned plenty of talks… So there was a Bible Treasure Hunt. It was station games or something. Ah shit! My head is so muddled that I can’t remember! Then there was bathing time, followed by another talk on Reconciling with your parents. That one was terrible. Nobody had the mood to listen. It was so bad that Angela had to give up halfway. Oh rats. Then there was the night activity. I forgot to mention, my brother Justin and my best friend Joshua were at this camp to play guitar. None of us committee can play for nuts, so we had to deploy these two professionals. I was hesitant on inviting them, because traditionally 进修营 does not allow non-legionaries to attend. But they relented because, really…….can you imagine praise and worship without guitar to lead? I really can’t, so yeah, we decided to call them. Anyway, their performance was really fantastic. They were really into the mood of the songs. After P&W, there was a night walk to lead them into reflection. We had different stations with voice acting of certain scenarios, that hopefully will lead them into reflection about self, others, God blah blah. There was supper, then sent them off to sleep at around 12 or something. Debriefing for the 2nd day and prepared for the next day. Went to sleep at 4.30 am. 3 December 2004, Day Three, Rebirth Woke up at 6.30 am or so. Today was my group’s day. We had our morning prayer conducted by me. They were so sleepy! I didn’t know what to do. Fortunately Eugene came to the rescue and got them to do some action song. But I had cut short their happiness by immediately going into reflection after that. Ooops! Then we had our morning exercise in the hall. That one was a bit sian for them, cause it was dragging far too long. This was because breakfast wasn’t ready. As a result we were 45 minutes behind time! Was that bad? Not necessarily! It reduced the discussion time for my next program and reduced the time allowed for them to doze off. Yeah!! So after breakfast, we had our program entitled “The Sacraments and You”. Self-explanatory, it is about Baptism, Penance and Eucharist. We began with a skit about Baptism followed by explanation by Kellina, then skit about Penance followed by explanation by Clare, then a story telling on Eucharist with explanation by me. I was surprised to have them give a good response during their discussion session. It really made me happy. Moved on to lunch, followed by a quiz on the Legion prayers and the handbook. Basically we wanted them to unscramble the prayers which had been cut up and reassemble them. The quiz involved some questions about the organization, That activity was a bit messy, because we couldn’t decided who stood up first to answer the question. Anwyay, we had a program on contact work after that. The skit was really good. Special Thanks to Gary, Eugene, Gabriel and Luke! I think the campers really enjoyed it. We had station games after that, then dinner and group time. The groups were supposed to come up with a skit and a collage on a cloth for the last time. The collage is supposed to represent what they have learnt in the camp. At night we had Firefight, which was Eugene’s program. It involved searching for coloured paper flags all over the place, using lighted candles, blowing off opponents’ candle, protecting your own candle, pasting the flags onto the leader, and escorting him/her to the finishing point! Wow! Yeah, this activity looked so fun that I wanted to play it myself. Instead, I had to look out for fantastic tactics and strategies. I saw 2 people gang up on one opponent, and I also saw a Multikill, being, several candles getting blown out at one shot! We had our night activity. It was quite messy. The so called P&W was totally impromptu! We got so panicked that we used songs that we did not plan on using. And surprisingly they found my commentary to be very appropriate. Wow! Then the pledge for renewing their vows did not go too well, for they were not really in the mood for it. Oh well, that aside, I’d say it was a good day. Debriefing for the 3rd day and prepared for the next day. Went to sleep at 4.30 am. Oh, Joshua and Luke left early to go to the airport. Joshua went to Sydney and Luke to New York. Michael aka Waxy left early too. 4 December 2004, Day Four, Reconcile Today is games day by Eugene’s group, him and Gary. Today very senang for the campers. Waking up was at 8.30 am!! I had 4 hours of sleep. Great! We had our morning game called Knock the tower down. It involved constructing a tower with biscuit tins and water bottles and tape and a classroom table. The original plan was to use really soft and squishy balls to demolish the towers, but they turned out to be too strong. So we introduced military grade missiles of 1.5 litre water filled coke bottles (Were you expecting VX binary agent or a plastic explosive warhead?). The next game was Free for all Captain’s ball. Really cool. Very messy, but still damn fun. I was in charge of controlling the people who were throwing in the water bombs. Had to cart off the buckets to the toilets for refilling. Yeah. Fun game. After lunch we had station games in a carnival setting, which allowed to them free rein to choose where to go, at what time. At night we had the night party, in which we invited some parents and senior members to take a look. The skits and collages were very well done. I really enjoyed it. But we had a bit of problem trying to find English songs relating to friendship. We had too many Chinese songs and we couldn’t find any. As a result, they only got to sing Chinese songs. Ah well, what can I say? They still loved it.. We had a fairly short debriefing that ended at 2 or something. Went to write my letters to the others and also helped to control the noise level. Lol the number catch phrase used in the camp is like, “SHHHH!! The nuns are sleeping!!!” About the letters….We gave each one of them a letter box to decorate so that they can send mails to one another. How lovely. Oh, it was really good to see Michelle and Veronica after sooooooooo loooong… Went to sleep at 6.30 am on Day Five. 5 December 2004, Day Five, Go home! At bloody last! The last day! I woke up at 8 am. We had mass at 8.30 I think..by Father Timothy from Holy Trinity. Amazingly I did not fall asleep. After that we had breakfast and then cleaned up the place. We concluded the camp by returning them their boxes and revealing their secret pals. A secret pal is someone who you perform nice things for such as making breakfast and sending drinks. Little things like that. So we sent them off packing at 1 pm I think. I think they couldn’t bear to leave. Awww…… So we facilitators cleaned up, returned the gym mats and had lunch, courtesy of Madeline’s mother, Adeline’s mother and Kellina’s mother, who incidentally is the same mother for all of them. Ahhhhaaahah!! Kellina, please thank your mother for us again.. Mum came to pick Justin, Eugene, Gary and I home. Reached home at 4pm. Conked out at 4.30pm. Did not recover consciousness till 9 am the next day. 6 December 2004, No more camp already lah! Woke up at 9 am to check SMSes but went back to sleep and woke up at 12pm. Packed the stuff I brought bag from the camp, chucked the dirty clothes into the machine and all.. I even had some time to read my mails. I’m rather happy to read the mails. Shit! I thought that Veron had forgot to write to me but guess where I found her letter? In the refrigerator with the sweets my friends stuffed into my box! Lol…. I can feel my years in legion starting to reward me, with many damn good friends. Yay. Went for band sectional in the evening. Shit, I was so tired that I tripped over the chair and almost caused all the cymbals on the right of the drum set to fall apart. Lol, they were so amused. Went for dinner with Mum. I dunno why, but I actually decided to strike up a conversation. I had lots of things to talk about. I finally got a chance to talk about the older brother I never had. It turns out that I was supposed to have TWO older siblings and One after me followed by my living brother Justin. Oh my God. Like which woman can tolerate 2 miscarriages before having a son, then having another one before having another son? Oh my God. I think I should offer a mass for my siblings that never were. My mother seemed to take history very well. It seemed like she got over it or something. 世上只有妈妈好….Damn I don’t know how the rest goes. Wah lao! I’ve been typing this out for dunno how many hours man. Gee… I’ve lots more to say, but really, I prefer to sleep. It’s close to 3 in the morning HELLO???? ^_^