Sunday, April 26, 2009

Campfire!

Hey my first post on this blog :D
So last night was the 75th Anniversary Campfire for 01 Raffles Scout Group, but preparation started way before hand. On Thursday the ventures went to load poles to be transported to Sarimbun but I wasn't there, so I have no idea what to write about that.
Then on Friday, there was an activity after school for one last prep before the campfire started. The haka people took the bus to Sarimbun while the souvenir comm members (Rong Jun and I) stayed in school with the others to rush the final few souvenirs.
Souvenir comm is easily one of the most saigang comms in the process of staging a campfire. This year was even worse; not only did we have to prepare 15 group souvenirs for the scout/ guide groups who would be attending, we had three guests of honour who needed special souvenirs, as well as ONE HUNDRED old boys who would be attending. For the groups, we made hourglass towers, with decorations, while the VIPs' souvenirs were bigger (like twice as big) versions of those. Then for the one hundred old boys' souvenirs we decided to use bottles of sand, with a nice scroll inside.
By that Friday, we had finished making all of the smaller hourglass towers, but were left with the three VIP souvenirs, the Most Enthu Group award and the foaming old boys ones. I decided to make the award first, and came up with a random plaque which looked like this:
Haha, nice font eh? The rest of the time was spent lala-ing around the third floor atrium and filling the sand into the bottles. And supervising the rest of the comm, which was pretty much quite bored by all the saigang. Then we discovered that the glass tiles on the ceiling cast a nice rainbow effect on the wall and Jeremy was busy positioning a souvenir for an artistic effect:
Oh I just discovered I took a picture of one of the certs which was stuffed into the bottles. We had to stain them with coffee to give them a vintage kind of look, which came off pretty successfully:In the end, we ran out of sand and had to stop filling bottles, but continue to stuff/tie certs inside the bottles until the act was over. (We still had 1/2 the bottles and the VIP souvenirs to do.) Then after packing up the foamy logistics some of us headed over to J8 with the J1s for dinner. After that, all of us took the MRT to Kranji and then hailed three taxis to go to Sarimbun. This part was quite funny, because all three had no idea where the place was. In the end, Yan Wei took the first taxi and directed the guy, while the other two were just told to 'follow the cab in front'. The first cab ended up making a turn and disappearing from sight, causing the second cab (which I was in) to foam, because the driver didn't know where to go. Naturally the third cab also followed us. In the end Yan Wei called us and told us where to make the turning.
The road to Sarimbun is quite scary at night. Very dark, long and ulu; Chuyong kept commenting on how scared he would be to walk along this road at night. Then Trach turned around and told us that we might be walking along here for GTC...
After we got there, we unloaded all the logistics from the back of the cab and trudged into the MPH, where Rong Jun and I joined the rest of the ventures to lala around. I can't exactly remember what we did then, but I suspect it was mostly cock-talking. Then washed up in the Sarimbun toilets (which all smelled like urine, for some reason) and lay out our groundsheets in the MPH to sleep. Some of us ended up in the A-huts, which was quite shuang but I decided to sleep in the MPH because we could play cards there. I was quite shagged then so don't remember much apart from Sups' 'Picassos' and 'Picassios', which turned out to be 'Pistachios.' Which are incidentally quite addictive to eat until I ended up crunching an unshelled one ><
After that I fell asleep on my groundsheet and woke up the next day...
Since it's quite late now (though not for Jack xD) I think I'll finish the next two days another day.

Ok now it's the next day so let me start again. After a restful night's sleep, on a groundsheet in the multipurpose hall, we all woke up at around 6 to wash up and get ready for the day. Actually I woke up a bit before that, feeling quite jack; the previous night I had spammed Rongjun's insect repellant on my body, which worked quite well. What I forgot was that the soles of my feet went unsprayed so I woke up in the middle of the night frantically scratching at my feet, which were then covered with mosquito bites.
At six thirty a horseshoe was blown and we ate breakfast. At first, there was no spread and we only had plain bread to eat. According to Amos, it tasted like chicken rice. Then Chuyong found out that our kaya had been in the trash and gave it to us, after describing his experience of the previous night where he also had to search through garbage to retrieve his handphone.
After that we were broken into commitees and finished up our stuff. I joined the rest of the ventures at the gateway, which had thankfully been mostly erected the day before. All that was left would be to tie up the walkways (or the ladders, as they were called) up on the pythons and inset the handrails. We did this pretty quickly and I had fun climbing the thing to secure a bowline or something. All this while we had random suans flying around; the previous night Rongjun brought some shortbread biscuits, which I said were for me. Then Ziheng walking around without his shirt, and some others followed suit.
At seven or eight the lower sec people arrived and assembled in the multipurpose hall, and the ventures were mostly done so I joined the souvenir comm from this point onward. The other ventures went to set up the AV tent and rehearse for haka. It was at this point that someone discovered the ice machine. ( I think it was yiming, who somehow overheard the lock's code as well.) Within moments people had discovered the ability to fill entire water bottles with little bits of ice, as well as just crunching the ice directly from their palms. This proved to be a trend, as during break times there would always be a rush of people at the machine, which everyone also knew how to unlock. (The code, incidentally, was 114.) Haha ok will continue this another day, quite late already.
Ok back again for the third edit to this post. Hmm so we were all stoning and making the souvenirs at the dining area. The dining area is quite a cool place, being very conveniently close to our beloved ice machine (which explains why Rongjun's bottle was almost always filled with ice), but also the toilet and sinks. That area has many benches and tables on which we worked. The previous day, we had run out of the nice colourful greenblackwhite sand, and Jeremy being so neow didnt like our other bucket of sand, so we sent a group of people out on an epic journey to find sarimbun beach and bring back the sand.
After their return, we opened their plastic bags to find them - shock and horror - empty. Turns out that their epic journey was a wasted trip. They had walked quite far to the seashort, but then came to a locked gate. The only way around this gate would be to walk along some breakwater, next to a fench with barbed wire. So they ended up with no sand. Luckily Nigel spotted some in Sarimbun and they later brought it back, where we used John's pouch to filter the chunky bits out. (This sentence hardly makes sense, I know.) So anyway yeah we finished all the old boys' souvenirs, and later started on tying all the guest of honour. In the middle of all of that we had lunch, which was with our patrols and the other ventures. The food was quite nice. And surprisingly filling.
Anyway yeah we finished all the stuff that we needed to do by four o'clock, because we needed to clear up for the campfire which was starting in a few hours' time. We were given a briefing on the various usher commitees and sorted out; I found out that for the first part, I was a VIP usher and was supposed to spot for VIPs coming into Sarimbun and escort them about. After taking a quick shower (because I didn't want to stink in front of the VIPs), Kenneth and I proceeded to the entrance area and met the welcoming/road commitee.
We came up with this weird system where Kenneth would spot a VIP car by number plate, and then I would run up to it when it went to park and escourt the VIP in. Needless to say, cars travel faster than humans so I had to run up and follow each to its eventual stopping place.
After everyone was seated for the campfire, Chee Yeow asked me to help paint his face/ chest. So I start experimenting with the various face paints and ended up with quite a nice design on him, with all four colours.
Then the rest of the batch came and I painted them. This one really went wild, playing around with the patterns and the colour combinations. I distincly remember trying out a lot of weird styles like whiskers... Ok will update another day.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Campfire's drawing nearer, drawing nearer

First things first.

The product of today's effort and the effort of the past few activities can be summed up in one sentence.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=94378820990

Well technically its a hyperlink, but why bother getting all "technical" and stuff. Its a sentence. Yes, because i say so.

So ya. The day started with many people at the annual ORA walka-jogathon. However its spelled. More like a walk-a-talk-a-jog-a-lala-a-go-a-just-a-to-a-get-a-a-a-new-a-free-a-shirt-a. xD Have fun reading that.

People like Kenneth, Alvin and I (francis), ponned the 2.4km walk halfway through cos honestly it was boring and damn waste time. The rest went the whole distance then came back for campfire prep. We assembled at the drama room and readied ourselves for the transformation into maori (warriors?).

We went through the rounds of visualisation, solemnisation, respiration, concentration, execution, distraction, revision and finally PERFECTION!

Amid the chorus of "PERFECT!"s, Chee Yeow and Jonathan Kenric Trachsel watched with a trained eye, looking out for every little mistake, ready to pounce and gobble up any one who made a wrong move.

Ok fine i'm exaggerating. They were lying at the back and watching us practice in our pairs and triplets. I think they were bored.

And our guest for today was: YAN ZHI!!

He randomly came in and took videos of us. Even all the sad and unglam moments. All stored in his phone, on that little memory card. Oh the scandals of the stick performance. The multitude of sticks rolling aimlessly on the floor, the clatter of sticks on the ground, the random flying STICKS that can't seem to stick to our hands. Yes, even the one that dropped on my head. Some how...

I was practicing with Kenneth Lam and Jack in the triplet move. I think we improved tremendously. Ok, we didn't shout "PERFECT!" like the rest. Cos we are modest people. =D But we did do a lot of perfect ones. 4 perfects ones in succession. =D Must show off a bit mah.

Of course, in the clan of maoris, fights would obviously break out. This would explain the random "TAU POK!!!" warcries that occured, and the sudden appearance of a mass of bodies piled atop of each other, with a hint of a voice at the bottom.

Soon, it was time for us to leave the comforts of our cave and to venture out to the real world. Also known as the gym hall atrium. We were to show off our newly acquired talents in hand-eye coordination and our new maori selves.

First we watched the sec1s and 2s do their performances. I shall not comment on that. And then the sec3s performed for us their "Chu Yong choreographed" dance. I shall not comment on that either.

And then finally it was our turn. The stick dance was pretty well done. Not that many screw ups.
We heaved a sigh of relief when we finished. Then the sticks went aside and it was time for our manly side to take over.

O PEK!

And the haka began. I think we did quite well. The volume can be improved. And i guess sharper actions and stuff. But other than that, it was pretty good.

Then we had some coffee thing.

And then off to lunch. On the way to J8, we saw a bunch of cub scouts. Being the idiot i am, i waved at them. And they waved back. And then everyone started waving. And the cub scouts went crazy inside... All become hyper or something. Haha.

And then Sup suddenly became damn lame. And something about differentiating Jack came up.

So to differentiate Jack.

dy/dx= 1(Jack)^0 = 1.

So the gradient of Jack is 1. Whatever that is supposed to mean. Sup damn lame lah... Differentiate Jack from Jim.

Both still equal 1. Haha.

Lunch at food court of J8. We talked about stuff.

Then Amos, Zhong Jun and I camped at Bishan library to waste time until River Valley camfire started. The campfire was damn fun. But i want to sleep now and so i shall not write about it.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Sitck Performance! (15/04)

Hi all,

Kenneth Lam here!

This will be my first blog post on this blog:D I'll be blogging on Wednesday's Scout activity, which was basically campfire prac.

We did about 36 pushups (separate from the SU) to start off the day.

Then, the dance commitee, basically the haka and stick performance group, gathered at the area outside the second level of the hall, close to the gym, to practice our stick dance. We started off showing chee yeow the full routine, ("level 1", then "level 2", then "level 3") but our "mission failed" and so we decided to practice (and perfect) our level 1, which was basically forming 2 single files and thrusting and catching the sticks. (Personally, I feel that stage 1 and stage 3 are the hardest parts to master). I think it was here when hiok yang injured his finger slightly and the teacher i/cs were to be informed. Then Jun jie came in and i think his region became the new "hot spot" where he held like 7 sticks at one go (although he said it was sup - who was later found out to be a good thrower).

It wasn't long before the decision had to be made - our position when we were performing. Chee Yeow recommended a pose for us, basically kneeling down and sitting on your heels (?!). But we decided it looked too unmanly (??). We tried it out, and Chee Yeow said we looked okay (well, not *** at least), but looking back at his pose, we were highly doubtful. So this was the time when we spent like eons deciding which pose to take. Amos apparently came up with quite a good pose (not the one where you put your leg behind your head). We tried it but it was unbearable on the ankle for most of us, after a few minutes (or seconds) as we were bare footed.

Then Ms. Alicia Goh came, initially to look at Hiok Yang's finger, which I think was rather ok by then. After a thorough examination of his finger, we asked her to determine if the chee yeow's position looked ok. Her sentiments were same as ours, thus we eventually adopted the "zi heng's stance" (i think he came up with it right). It turned out to be the most viable alternative to sitting, so it was then decided (or was it tentative?) that the front row was to sit down (yay us) and the back row was to adopt that posture. Ms. Goh asked us to sit up straight (not too straight) though, for the front row, as it would look distasteful slouching. She also commented on our faces when we were doing the stick dance-performance. It was then we decided to show her all the 3 levels of our performance, which she took a video of our expressions (which I knew must have been rather dull).

Thanks to Ms. Goh's resourcefulness, we managed to get the drama room (which I have never been into before) with a big mirror to look at ourselves as we threw the sticks. I think this was th e point where we showed a marked improvement. Ms. Goh asked us to set targets as we couldn't just spam throwing aimlessly, hence she timed us for 3 minutes and counted the number of mistakes we made (mistakes were mostly dropping the sticks). Chee Yeow counted an approximate 60-70 mistakes. This meant about 0.36 mistakes were made per second, or one in every 3 seconds [which wasn't exactly positive]. Ms. Goh then found out that we were only to do this (stage 1 as I call it) one time during the actual performance, hence she reduced the time span to 1 minute, and set us an aim for 15 mistakes. We made about 12 mistakes, which was a marked improvement. (0.2 drops per second, 1 drop per 5 seconds). Ms. Goh then did some psychological training on us, asking us to imagine the beautiful moves perfected and executed nicely, and she asked us to close our eyes, and open only when we were 100% ready). We did the performance again, and we only made about 7 mistakes. (0.12 mistakes per second, 1 per 9-10 seconds). Our first performance was usually free of mistakes, which was a positive sign. Ms. Goh got different people to share their views on our AOIs (area of improvements) and this allowed mutual learning. [What are the key ingredients of a successful performance? I would say the right attitude is the key. (a calm state of mind, a willingness to exceed). Of course, chemistry between you and your partners is also important.] We repeated our stick dance several times, till about 650, then we shared on what we thought were the strengths and AOIs of the group. Thanks Ms. Goh!

As we left the room thinking about the performance, we were greeted by music by the string ensemble (or was it CO?) we were mesmerized by the melodious music for a while before going to the field outside the 'gym hall atrium' for dismissal. I think that this act was one of the most fruitful, as many of us perservered till the end and really concentrated on practicing on our performance, despite the temptation for 'soccer!'.

一份耕耘,一份收获

As the Chinese saying goes, you reap what you sow. I believe our hardwork will lead to the success of our performance!

go 01!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Campfire Prep 13/4 (special day!)

special day's blog done by special person. its also (e)specially late.

Attendance was all here except for leonard who had some leadership thing, marcus who didnt go sch and of course, not forgetting firdaus for reasons only he knew.

As you can guess act was campfire prep as usual, and this post will be on sec 4 performance. After attendance taking, we did 32 pushups despite having only 4 count. After that we went to the audi/gallery level and demonstrated the haka to yanzhi, who made a special appearance today. Thankfully we only had to do the haka once, and our thighs were spared. And yanzhi, being himself, could not control the laughter that was stuck at his throat and so desperately wanted to get out. However, us being trained maori warriors, resisted the contagious laughter zhi tried to spread.

after the haka was done, we "officially" started the stick performance (ill try to avoid stick dance, sounds too last year). First we went through the whole thing, with Chee Yeow showing us and forgetting some parts of it. Then after a lot of time wasting and very little actual work, we got down together and started practicing the first part of the performance, which was the solo/group part. we thought it was QUITE ok, but apparently from today (wednesday), we found out there was lots more to improve on. so we took only a very short time for the first part, before proceeding to the pairs part. at some time around here or maybe before this, the j1s had to leave for a meeting with the teachers, and they pangseh-ed us for the rest of the act.

the rest of the time was spent at the pair part of the stick performance. at first we just lala-ed around and practiced with our own individual pairs (except for amos who was the odd one out), then after that we got more organised and did it together, with someone to see and comment. the rest of the time was spent doing that, and we got better at the 2nd part.

after act was soccer with, firstly, 01 dudes only. then after a while 01 dudes + a couple of random ppl. then after a while was many people + few 01 dudes. hooray!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

the day started off for some at like, 9.30? that was inter-ug soccer against red cross. apparently we won 4-1. go 01!

for me, the day started when we had our nyaa lesson. today's lesson revolved around our homework from the last lesson, which was to prepare a 2-3 min speech on any issue. i talked about comics, and why i liked them. since we couldn't use the projector, i ended up drawing the comic strips on the board, so it was quite epic fail. in case anyone was wondering, here are the comics i was referring to.



yeah. so here's what everyone else spoke about:
- rongjun (time)
- joel (cars)
- takwei (conflict management)
- leonard (lies)
- anurak (AMD)
- hiok (being a good listener)
- sup (movie review)
- zhi xuan (life)
- amos (leadership)
- kenneth kuan (his 156 bus journey)
- kenneth lam (pastimes)
- jack (animes)
- francis (why he wants to be a doctor)
- alvin (er...shit...what did alvin talk about?)
- zhongjun (pen-spinning)

after our nyaa lesson, we went for lunch. some of us went to s-11 while the others went to foodjunction. subsequently, we bought bubble tea and walked back to ri to work on our haka. the first few tries were damn fail, since everyone kept laughing, what with all the "TAUPOK" and other random stuff. haha. then when we tried to do the haka again in a louder and more manlier voice, hiok suddenly zao xia'ed, making us all ROFLMAOZEDONG.

after some haka practice, we sat down for a while to discuss a possible 01 magazine/handbook thing, the hillary challenge, and some ymca stuff.

so that's it for today. lol.

jon ed
(still can't figure out the author thing)

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Campfire Prep 2!

Please note that I will be writing from the perspective of a haka group person, so not everyone's experiences will be covered! =) Yesterday was yet another campfire prep session, and the first thing we did was our haka. Think all of us would agree that this time we were more familiar with the haka than before! So I think as a whole we have done pretty well in remembering the lyrics and actions! But Zhi Xuan and Chee Yeow said that we still need to work on our style, like the basics, the VOLUME (which I dont know what to say about myself), the straight face (NO smiles, and again, the same for me), our postures, and the firmness of our actions, among others.

So we split into 3 groups, of which 2 of them joined to become one, haha. This was the lone group:


Anyway, after some practice sessions in groups, and correcting each others' mistakes, we again did once as a whole, before moving off. Kenneth Kuan's voice was really man! Haha.

Yea so after that, we moved to the space outside the audi, so that we could really let our voices out and shout! See this nice, windy place?


Haha, we practiced our haka more times here, and we got better everytime, making some modifications along the way, especially to the ending. Scary faces vs Jump? Haha. And please dont remind me about my 'scary face'... Lols, my 'towel' was seriously saturated from wiping all the smiles by then, every time before we started. Although it was meant as joke, I find this method rather effective for me, haha. =)

After a while, at about 5.30pm, most of us were restless already, and wanted to go play soccer, haha. Inter UG is this Saturday! But then it was decided that preparing for our campfire was more important...(hm...or was it that certain matches dont need training...? sorry!) So some people suggested gym instead, but then we didnt have towels! (or all of ours were already soaked from the smiles by then, lol) Someone said I have a Chiken mouth--->(denotes because)Foul mouth--->My 'towel' was really dirty and wet--->Wiped too many smiles, and some even required 'soap' to remove. Ok, understand? haha.

So it was decided that we would practice our stick dance instead, and i went to get the sticks, while the funk people, funked. Gosh, nearly switched the letter 'n' with something else. Anyway, its really cool to see them dance, haha! Hope their funk can be a success too! Anyway, when we were ready, Chee Yeow demonstrated the actions in the dance, and got us to try it. Surprisingly, it wasnt as hard as it looks! Think most of us got the hang of it rather quickly. Just loved the continuous left right throw thing. So fun. Haha. Especially when we get excited, counting the no. of times we can do it before anything falls. We even tried different variations, such as throwing the sticks from a greater distance, speed throwing, quad throwing-via stagger method and up-down method. Lols, sounds so complicated, but you should be able to get it, lol.

Yep, so after all the practicing, we had some fun, like taking group photos, and tow-poking/towing-pok! Haha. Then we were dismissed. No time for soccer today! Jeremy commented that Im too cute for haka. Could that be a compliment? Hmm...

Lets go on and make our performance and the campfire a success! =D

photos!








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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

8 Days Ago - Campfire Prep 1

Yeah, the title says it all, the act happened 8 days ago, so sorry for the mega lag, no one told me the need to do this blog until quite recently. So lets begin quickly to what happened 8 days ago.

First of all, Marcus was back, and we were all happy to have him back!!! RE ended early (again...) so that made us go to the den early to slack off. By the time act started, we were waiting for SU to form horseshoe, then followed by attendance taking, where due to dismal attendence, led us to pump the count down. Ventures however, were doing it as a batch and this was, naturally, done much faster then when we were with SU. We then went on to pull up bar to do more pull ups, 8 days ago

After which, CY took us to around Artspace where we began the rehearsal for CF 01's stick dance. At first, CY just told us to wait for the Maori sticks to be found by Jack and Ziheng, which turned out to be bomb long, so basically talk kok, like what to put on our bodies with paint during the performance. Then came the sticks, which were small sticks, maybe the size of the axes that the Troll Warlord throws. So CY told us to imagine about what the campfire was going to be like (like how Kirk says 'let me paint you a picture...'), and then told us to work hard to ensure that what we thought of does happen. Then, we officially entered 'Practice Mode', 8 days ago.

CY started of with lyrics, which were damn hard to say at first, but everyone soon got the hang of it. Then, he began doing actions, which looked damn easy to do, but we realised after a few throws, that for everyone to do it perfectly, it just will screw up by 3 throws or something. So we split up to two groups, thinking that the smaller numbers means higher chance of success. This proved otherwise, where the group will still screw up by 3 throws. But like Maple (the REAL ONE, not the Private Server), you grind like nutz, you will own like nutz and that was what happened to us. Throw after throw, we gained experience and slowly began entering perfection. Then, came the part where two becomes one, and the two groups began to combine again, 8 days ago

This time, we didn't screw up that fast, but the effect was unavoidable, and one 'clang' sound of the stick touching the ground leads to laughter and many more 'clang' sounds. This basically went on for so many times, we decided to call the first person who screw up 'hotspot', which resulted in hotspot galore left right and center. With hotspots, screwups and constant switches, we just practised the basics until CY stopped us to go through the next stick throw movement, which he perform with Jon Trec. Again, that looked damn complicated, but i'm sure we will learn it somehow. By then, it was time for dismissal, so CY called Venture Call in the Gym Hall Field, 8 days ago.

By then, CY and Zhi Xuan debriefed us and told us about spiritsticks, which were the symbols of leadership some long time back, and we shouldn't play with it like it was a poking stick or scratching stick or something along those lines, and then dismissal. Time now, 5.30pm, 8 days ago.

So only one thing to do, BATCH SOCCER!!! Sup went to take the ball as we left to the Raffles Square, 8 days ago...

hakka1

i'm screwed up. Its 7.58 in the morning and I'm writing this on my phone in school. Anyway, yesterday, we had hakka practice or campfire prep. I came for act, unable to recall more than half of the moves we learnt on wednesday. As a result, i had to depend heavily on the pros such as sup and hiok to help me remember all the moves of the hakka.
so after the horseshoe we proceeded to the 3rd level admin block (the place where we used to paint banners) to practice the hakka. we were first unofficially split up into groups by sup, with me in the all blacks which included jon ed franis and i. (surprisingly soham pang seh-ed. just joking.)we practiced the hakka together as a full batch (excluding you know who) and we ran into some problems. first of which was that we didnt have enough of the hakka spirit and secondly marcus and tak didnt come for the previous act so they didnt really know the moves. because of that kenneth, the one with the hakka spirit embodied in him went to teach marcus and tak and the rest had to be more maori-ish.
throughout the course of practicing, some moves had to be changed. this was because we forgot some of them and implemented a mix of tee yong style and morris-junjie style, ending up with the 0106 remix of the hakka. after the change, it took me quite a while to adjust cause i was still quite unsure and still mixed up the v 1 and v1.2+0106 remix hakka. now, this was while we were being officially split up into groups with h!ok sup amos and i in 1 group. i was screwing up. i had to rely on hiok's moves. and when he made a mistake, i also made a mistake and i killed everyone. sigh. some fail. after the 3 groups had done the hakka in front of everyone, the ones who had been imparted the hakka spirit returned with kenneth, we were again split into groups with our respective teachers. they included hiok [who was sabo-ed], francis, kenneth, and sup [who sabo-ed himself]. amos and i were thought by hiok.
we went to the semi circular area of the 3rd level atrium to practice together. we immediately went into problems (caused by me). the problems can be sumed up by saying that i didnt show enough of the "hakka spirit" + i wasnt very clear with the moves, what came after the other. hiok and amos were helping me to try to get rid of this fear of 'screwing up' by encouraging me to do it alone. but i let them down. hiaz.. but in the end, after what zhi xuan had reminded me of about self motivation made me do it. honestly speaking, it wasnt so bad.
from then onwards my attitude towards the whole thing totally changed. i tried my best to remember what i had been thought and what i was told.enough about that. moving on, at about 530 we went to the gym (jim) field where we lined up in the v formation and took off our glasses and did the hakka. i must say it was quite okay, the strange thing is that in my row, i could only hear myself and not the rest despite having takwei behind me (maybe cause he's sick). according to the manly ram, we didnt look manly enough cause we basically, didnt look like the (real) all blacks.
nevermind about that. after that act ended and there was soccer training which, as usual, hiok tried to escape from and pangseh the rest.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Pioneering Act

Pioneering Act started as usual, at 8 am at the den, and we lugged even more stuff to Braddell Westlake. This time we brought a lot of pegs. Like seriously bomb lot of pegs. By this activity, the design was suppose to be finalized, and the structure should work out. This time, the damn fun mound of some construction crap was take away, so it was some distance from the top of the fence, to the ground. The gate that's suppose to keep people out also changed. Due to the pass few weeks of people climbing over, a small hole in the gate became a big hole, and we could fit through that hole.
Being the number X pioneering act of the year, most of the parts were already settled and only needed tightening. As usual, by the first 2 hours, I ran out of sweat, so I was technically sweat free for most of the pioneering act. Which is some miracle. The usual things happened like tying stuff, finding poles in the pole shed, etc. This time, cause most of the time was spent setting up stuff, there was a new part of pioneering act, which involved avoiding/stepping into some sick muddy shit. Sadly, nobody stepped in, cause the marshland so sick that it emitted a sick aura, so everyone knew when they were about to step in.
In the end, the ground too fail, so for the front panel, the pickets all fail, so we couldn't bring up the bridge, which was suppose to be the coolest part of the act. After lifting up half the bridge, we took it down again, packed up again, and went to eat. And as usual, my shirt was foaming.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Pathlight Songs Session 2

today, after school and remedials and meetings, we went to pathlight for the second (and last) song teaching session.

after the first session, we of course learned from our mistakes. lets review what we should have learnt.

1) Don't come late

During the first session, due to 55 coming in late and us leaving a bit late, we arrived about 15 minutes late. This time, with the benefit of hindsight, we came in... 10 minutes late. The bus was late again, although we left a bit earlier... haha but anyway we came in 5 minutes earlier! improvement!

2) Don't underestimate the Pathlighters

Revising the songs with them was rather quickly dealt with, because they mostly remembered! It was great that they all could remember at least most of the actions of Gako, Father Abraham. Haha if it was me I might not have remembered so fast. lol.

i think this sessions are great for helping us revise our songs too (:

3) Stations are over too fast

like i said, they learn fast. so nothing we can do about it... for this session, even the long songs like jamaican farewell and BP spirit was finished quickly. so to compensate we had another station, which was BP spirit. i was in charge of that station... but since amos station of edeweiss before me took quite long i went to help them a few times (:

4) Sore Throat!!

quite a lot of singing today, being a station master. lol singing the same song over and over again 4 times after a while starts getting a bit sian... luckily people come and rotate and help to teach the song! didnt get a sore throat this time, but the Pathlight students must have suffered a bit too singing for an hour, so they were quite happy to go for a water break.

5) Sweets!

this time we got sweets! thanks francis. he bought around 200 sweets o.o in the end even though we give each person two each we obviously left with loads of sweets. where are they now? ask kenneth...

note: never throw opened sweet package (otherwise we tell your class...)

6) Don't believe Hiok

('SPRAINED ANKLE!) luckily we (sup, amos and i) managed to convince him to play though sheer willpower and a little phone-kidnapping. lol. but anyway he did play soccer, so good job! score like a hat-trick or something. we might have hope for inter UG! and tak wei was solid at the back too. firdaus as keeper? lol he not that bad...


overall, i think we did quite a good job with the song teaching sessions, and managed to convey the enthusiasm and fun of the songs to them! i was guide in first session, station master in second, and i feel that both are important. one thing to improve one could be the level of interaction with the Pathlighters, cos sometimes we are too focused on teaching and not on them learning.

On a related note, CAMPFIRES tmr! everyone sing loudly like today hahaz XD

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

pathlight

before i start, ive uploaded the haka video of jun jie and norris to youtube so you'all can go take a look.
on friday, we were supposed to meet at 145 at the gym hall atrium but for some reason we ended up being late for the thing at pathlight. apparently, amos had realised that sup had the slackest job and wanted sup to exchange job with him. this was despite the fact that amos only had to teach 'campfire's burning' to the students which had NO actions. so there was a heated debate on the bus.
nevermind about that. we proceeded to the basketball court at pathlight where the students were all ready and excited about us teaching them campfire songs. after everyone was introduced, while the guides (someone thought girl guides were coming) which included alvin, jack, jon ed, kenneth(s), zhong jun, and sorry if i left out anyone...were playing some ice breakers, the SSMs (song station master) went to get ready at each of the 4 corners of the basketball court.
i had to teach father abraham, amos had to teach campfire's burning (-.-). rj had to teach thousand legged worm and francis with gako. i was overwhelmed by the first group's enthusiasm for learning. to be honest, i was a little, how shall i put it...i was a little shy or not able like raise my voice at them even though i was required to cause i was a little scared that i might say something wrong. but then, all this changed when the full-of-leadership kenneth came (i seriously think so, im not suanning). instead of me teaching when his group (which was the first group) came, he took charged and did about ~60% of the talking. i tell you the truth i was like inspired by kenneth.
from then on, much of the teaching went quite smoothly, i was quite surprised that most of the students were extremely cooperative and had a good time. i also had a good time, sabo-ing the guides and making them demonstrate the song to their groups.
after the teaching ended (which was earlier than expected), we had a mass song singing session and sup promised that the loudest group would be awarded the next session. sup decided that everyone was winners and so as you would have figured out, everyone would be getting a prize. the whole session ended and we had a debrief. a pathlight staff came to tell us that he was happy with us being so open towards the students :) another debate arose from the hot spot and sup debated with hiok about going back to play/ train for inter ug. sup, "dont pang seh lah hiok"... and so the song teaching session ended.

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