Today I am feeling very camping-ish. it must've been the chat with Jit Shiong about going camping that ignited my fire! So the time machine shall teleport itself back to...1998...11 years ago. WHAT 11 years has passed since my 1st camp????!!!!! Well it wasn't really my 1st camp per se...but it was the very 1st combined camp I went to in high school.
EYTC with 1st South...i don't even remember what it stands for anymore...T = Training and C = Camp. And I absolutely reminisce those memories with a wide smile and a chuckle or two. Or drinks to splatter all over the table over mamak when laughing about it with the gang. My, those stories could really get the conversation started.
All those memories really made all of us active Girl Guides and Scouts grow so much... Traplex with 7th South...CTC with 8th South...and Talents Camp with 11th South (haha CLHS Scouts please correct me if I'm wrong)...
Let’s see...
1) countless patrol meetings that make “mak beh jin kia” (mom cant recognize child) and “kia beh jin mak” (child cant recognize mom)...not to mention being chased out of homes...and i can certainly name a few more friends that had the same thing happening to them... this tested our endurance which is so important in this cruel working world where shit is being dumped at us everyday but hey we ex-Guides and Scouts say what????? Say what???? Nothing. We just eat all of them, endure and plot our secret little revenge in dark.
2) drilling under the sun for hours practicing formations and fancy drilling steps...kirip kirip kirip kanan kirip...in those times we’ve tried so many types of fancy drillings...with gloves, prancing about, dancing ones, skipping ones...which all required concentration, synchronization and of course teamwork and cooperation among team members
3) Items...practicing dances and sketches...my personal favourite has to be 60s dance and Egyptian dance...the hours we’d put in, and making our own costumes too. This of course promoted teamwork, creativity and the silly sketches we make to move and touch the hearts of our “evaluators”...enhanced our shamelessness/thick skinned faces which serve us very well till now especially in this world where we must be thick skinned to survive
4) Chopping stupid bamboos till our hands shook like senile old people afterwards. Not to mention tying those gadgets – houses la, shoe racks la, tents la, bridges to have fatso excos stomp them down just to prove their point that “YOU CAN NEVER DO ENOUGH”. So you get the shit you get today, your boss throwing the bunch of paperwork to u and ask you to get those redone!!!! Back in those days...yeah whoever said that you can rest....you get to spend the rest of the camping days retying those gadgets middle of the night and falling asleep while tying them (hah – sorry lah i’m a Guide, not a Scout...you Scouts would know what i’m talking about)
5) Since we spent so much time doing logbooks, paperwork for camp preparations, till all the patrol members look identical... neways it means spending time together wont be fun if we don’t talk right...so of course we spend it cracking disgusting, dirty silly jokes, sharing laughter and tears if your ideas gets torn apart by the excos – it really made our bonds so strong, which i treasure till now. We’d encourage each other and keep feeling positive for the sake of your patrol members...It’s hard to forget THOSE friends...especially those who pee on you if you got sting by a jelly fish while swimming in the sea (Ahem you know who you are!!!! The pee-er and the pee-ee hahahahaha)
6) The silly songs that we made up and all in cryptic codes so that certain patrol members that we dislike wouldn’t know who and what we were singing about...while digging up sand by the drain...and picking worms and whatnot.... hahahaha
7) Looking like hionghamuis aka village girls to buy stationeries and accessories for our camping stuff. We were so tanned and dirty from all those walking, drilling, dancing, planning...not to mention midnight adventures to celebrate patrol member’s birthdays...Hello!!! We were a bunch of 13-15 year olds...in those times we don’t have such canggih things yet...i’m not sure if we even had mamak then or not...but i think got lah... that tested our bravery because midnight adventures just weren’t our thang :P
8) Drooling over the cute guy in the next patrol!!!! Its unfortunate that i’ve never wound up with cute guys in my patrol (hahaha just joking-lah) but i remember those times when me, Lin, Janice would go crazy over Mr.BS – Broad Shouldered....our knees would go wobbly...
Ahhhh those times...time to go to sleep... to be continued....but i know that there are so many of you that agree (since 80% of the ppl i know back in high school were actually scouts/guides)...and I'm sure all of you have your very own unforgettable moments with your patrols :)
