YLTC

it was such a BLAST, if i had a choice, i'd want to do it all over again :) never mind that there were no beds, never mind that the toilet was infested with 389712 sandflies and moths, never mind that frogs were hopping around the bunks like nobody's business, and never mind that half the time we reeked of some unidentifiable odour, the camp rocked my socks off :)

so now, for a blow-by-blow account of everything :)

Day 1: Land expedition
met up in school at 7.30, played icebreakers and conducted our first aid and compass reading briefings. then roll call, which we were made to do in pumping position on the track like OW. after lunch we set off for McRitchie! lost some ground initially because we weren't sure where our checkpoint was, and we took a longer route by mistake, but we emerged from the bushes almost 3 hours later and headed to bukit timah nature reserve to continue the expedition. did FIFTY sit ups on asphalt, bahhh. and then trekked through the nature reserve. it was harder here because of the loose gravel, steep slopes, and narrow paths. but group 8 was STRONG! yayyness :) rounded off the expedition with the guys taking turns to piggyback denise, unfortunate 'sufferer' of an ankle sprain that left her with the disability to walk, to the bus stop. hoho we have strong members!

was the fourth group to reach the adventure centre at dairy farm, but we were the only group who managed to complete ALL the checkpoints! hoorayyyy and so we were given coke after dinner as a reward :)

Day 2: Obstacle course, the high elements
while the group A people left for their sea expedition after breakfast and PT we headed down to the obs course behind the campsite. tried the high elements, zip line, challenge pole and abseiling. it all looked easy enough FROM THE GROUND but it was a different story once you climbed to that kind of height. challenge pole was a um CHALLENGE. the pole couldn't stop shaking the moment i put my first foot on it! jeanne the monkey scrambled up like she'd done it a million times before haha. then came THE GREAT LEAP for the little trapeze (and it was raining, imagine the extent of slipperiness of that thing) and we unfortunately didn't manage to make it. leonard was the first to break the record for the day! he hung on with both hands wooohoo. what did i say we're a strong team :)

zip line was hilarious, with the guys jumping off the tower only to gleeful shouts of HAPPY FATHERS' DAY from everyone below hahaha

really fun! as they say, it PUSHED us beyond our limits haha.

we slept better that night, because there were no four other people to share the second level of the bunk with hooray :) the floor was just as hard, but at least we had more space.

Day 3: Sea Expedition
YAYYY MY FAVOURITE. short PT in the morning led by mr shyam and then we packed for changi sea sports centre. it RAINED ON THE WAY boohoosmoofoo. anyway when we reached the place it was still raining on and off. got introduced to our instructors, (ooohla eye candy) charles JAMES wang jie elaine and tingwen. hahaha noreen and i were practically floating when we talked about it later. initially we planned to round ubin, but we progressed slower than charles had expected and the rain didn't do much to help, so we were forced to beach up on pasir ris at the SSC to have our lunch.

OHYES jeanne and me, despite being the only girl-girl pairing in the entire expedition, maintained our lead amongst the boy-girl and boy-boy pairings :)))) yayy dynamic duo! swapped partners halfway though, upon charles' insistence, and paired with fadhli. but yayy we still went on strong :) and fadhli really improved! didn't beach up anywhere after that, and we kayaked and stopped kayaked and stopped. rawr i really wanted to round ubin, imagine all that rowing! but we picked up pace and rowed back to CSSC, where we stayed the night. played team bonding games too, which were a laugh haha.

Day 4: Ground stations
didn't sleep well because all the girls were crammed up in a classroom and slept on the floor WITHOUT a neck support of any kind save for a pathetic packet of tissue paper blah. grace and jeanne rolled over in the middle of the night and i was confined to lying really still on my back. WHICH explains the ache. had killer PT, (300 jumping jacks, 45 push ups, 75 crunches, 45 squats) and went to the beach for picnic breakfast! hoorayyyy that was fun.

talked about ambitions and aspirations haha. oh and i have been greatly INSPIRED and motivated to pursue a kayak coaching certificate :) need my 3 and 4 star certs and then WOOHOO i'm on my way. after breakfast it was back to lazing around in the SSC where people (actually, adeline and basil) started HAPPY SLAPPING. as in, scissors paper stone with the ow factor tossed in. hahah it was HILARIOUS and it had the entire group B going on about zam-buk and counter pain from which a ZAM-BUK-COUNTER-PAIN-DOVE-SPRAY cheer emerged. adeline played with charles and surrendered after three CANOEIST SLAPS as they called it haha!

went back to dairy farm and tried the ground elements, which involved a lot of carrying and pulling and BRUTE STRENGTH which was no problem at all for us because we were STRONG haha. we were the group with the best timing for the wall obstacle YAYNESS.

then we pretty much didn't do anything for the remainder of the afternoon, except to practise our skit and come up with cheers (GROUP B DYNAMITE!) and the power rangers (inside joke) perfected their zam-buk cheer haha

and then... farewell dinner!

performed our skits, did our dynamic dynamite cheer (GROUP B!) and group A shot back with their heartbeat cheer haha. dinner was the nicest we had for days, lemon chicken with sweet sour fish but disgusting veg. OH and speaking of dinner, we had unidentifiable drinks for meals every day, and our group fondly referred to them as "orange water, purple water, and brown water" orange water being the nicest, brown (milo) water next, and purple water the most tasteless and unidentifiable haha. played games, where we found out that han ern breathed the freshest air because he had 2cm nostrils hahaha. his big nostrils actually helped us win raisins for prizes! rounded the night with a combined dynamite/heartbeat cheer for NJC, and MASS DANCE!! hoorayyyy! after that we were allowed to keep lights on till ONE FREAKIN A.M how cool! the group B teams that won stuff shared them around, and we had a fine time eating till everyone conked out around 12. IN BETWEEN we were disturbed by this frog that hopped up our stairwell to the dismay of EVERYONE in the bunk and noreen and tina frantically went screaming into the night for help from the guys haha.

Day 5: challenge run, break camp
woke up super early not knowing what to expect for PT because it was going to be a friggin two hours long. teachers happily announced that we were going to have a race that stretched over 4.5km between the groups. being the last group we set off last, about 5 minutes behind group 7. but we were at our best pace and managed to overtake THREE groups! yayness! after much pushing and striding we finished the same time as group 7 did, but when the results were announced they were declared first so ohwell. everybody got a bottle of 100plus as a prize anyway so no one really pursued the matter.

then it was TOILET CLEANING TIME disgusting. swept all that fallen hair and plastic bags left behind into the drain holes YUCK MAJORLY DISGUSTING. aline had the worst job of emptying the dustbin, which was filled to the brim with urhm womanly stuff hahah

then BREAK CAMP! and presentation of certificates,. wrote in one another's reflection booklets. had our last talk with mr menon who was dreadfully funny as usual haha. I LOVE MY GROUP!

"aaaaas we...KONG to the left,
as we KONG to the right
as we KONG
as we KONG
as we KONG all night
with a PINEAPPLE and a RUBBER TREE
so we KONG and we KONG
we are LEE KONG CHIAN!"

"who is the toughest of the lot? KONG CHIAN
who is the strongest of the best? KONG CHIAN
who dares to mess with us will be like CHAR SIEW x2
na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na KONG CHIAN! x2"

"2, 4, 6, 8 ! KONG dynamite!
don't mess with KONG dynamite!
cos if you mess with dynamite,
it goes TI-TI-TI-TI-TI-TI-TI-TI
BOOM! dynamite
BOOM BOOM! dynamite!"

and of course, not forgetting, our favourite ZAMBUK CHEER

"zam-buk, zam-buk CLAPCLAP x4
z is for ZAM-BUK! Z-A-M-dash-B-U-K!
z is for ZAM-BUK! Z-A-M-dash-B-U-K!
so people people shout it out!
ZAM-BUK! ZAM-BUK x2"

hooray for YLTC! and i'm DOUBLY HAPPY because i got my new phoneeee!