ccal camp was fun.

In every camp there would be some assholes in any group. This time there isn't in my group. Either that I am lucky to be in a group of nice people, or that this is a ccal camp and assholes generally don't become ccals. Everyone else in the group is a nice person.

In the beginning our group A1 was really very quiet. Probably only Nanett and Chloe was talking quite a bit. But that was because then in our group Lincoln, Alvin Nat and Chia Qi went for founder's day. Quite a lot of quiet peoplein the group(Joel, Yiwen, Jingwei, Me). So quiet that Amy, a J2 who decided to stick with us for a while almost couldn't stand it. We were supposed to do high ropes, but it rained :( so we did other stuff. Not say very fun, but not a waste of time either.

Oh, I must comment that the camp food is very very nice. Every meal, yes. I think its because I like fish, and I like spicy stuff.

But that awkward silence didn't last too long, as Lincoln, Alvin and Chia Qi came and joined us, and Lincoln and Alvin made a huge racket teasing each other, making everyone else laugh in the process. For the night camp out Lincoln the chef made spaghetti! My first time eating spaghetti, and it tasted good. Alvin toppled the hot water twice and Lincoln capitalised on that. Later Lincoln toppled over the hot water himself, and... the whole scene was pretty interesting, and Alvin and Lincoln going on about each other and Nanett cutting in whenever Lincoln mentioned something about Alvin's country of origin. And we roasted marshmellows to eat. I ate quite a lot.

At night it was hard to go to sleep, because it was quite warm in the tent, so we spent some time outside looking at stars and talking. Okay I didn't talk, was largely listening to Amy, Lincoln and Alvin. When Amy was tired we went back to the tent to sleep, but Alvin was like "Eh I don't think I can sleep leh, I'm damn wide awake now!" but when we went back to the tent he was the first one to fall asleep. I found it hard to sleep, as there was a small piece of stone at my back. But I managed to sleep a little anyway.

Next day, our group was the one of the first to be prepared. I think A1 is very efficient. Even though we woke up last we finished packing first. And the first activity for the second day we had was sea kayaking. I declared myself as a non-swimmer, and Yiwen the school swimmer volunteered to pair up with me to sorta protect me. When we were about to go out to sea, it rained and lightning flashed and we had to go back. As our bodies were already in the sea, we were all wet. The wind blew and it was really cold. So it started off with 3 guys huddling together for warmth(Me Lincoln and Issac Long), and then more guys joined in and we formed a small circle. Then there were three girls huddling outside, and Lincoln asked them to come in, and so there were like 7 guys in a ring and 3 girls in the centre. So more and more people joined in, until the girl's centre was also quite big, so Lincoln asked that the small girls go into the centre. Then more girls joined in, such that there were not enough guys to form a ring around them. Then 2 big guys (Alvin and Chia Qi) joined in, and the girls squeezed inwards, so we formed a tightly packed circle, with the guys forming a ring outside, the girls forming a ring inside, and the petite girls standing in the centre. The scene was really quite cute, it reminded me of a picture I saw of penguins huddling together in the storm, with the weak and young staying in the centre and the strong ones taking turns to be in the outermost ring. Then we huddled together and sang some songs. We sang school song, rj batch song, ri batch song, rgs batch song, and the barney "I love You" song etc. It felt warmer than being alone. Tourists were looking at us in amazement, and probably taking photos, and perhaps thinking that this is some indon culture or something. Anyhow, we had to be broken up and briefed. The weather turned better and we got to kayak! And so we hurried to sea because the sea water was warmer than land. I took the front and Yiwen took the back. Yiwen is really powerful, you can tell that because everytime she paddles you can really feel the kayak moving faster. I bet all the other guys were jealous that I had Yiwen as a kayaking partner. Haha, she's really so good that for a while I kinda needed reassurance that I did contribute to the kayak's speed. And she did give me that. Kayaking was so fun that even though we were one of the fastest, we didn't want to stop so soon, so we went back and forth trying to make the most of our paddling time. There was once when we turned, I leaned too much and the kayak capsized. Being non-swimmer I almost panicked, but I kept calm, and made my way back into the kayak. It was fun.

After that was low elements. One that made an impression on me was the game where if you get tapped 3 times on the shoulder you can do anything. I felt like an idiot not saving others when I could have. I think it has deeper meaning than that. It felt like... I had the power to help others, but I was not helping others, instead I was just enjoying having that power. Maybe I read too much into it, but it left quite an impression on me. Another one was the electric fence game. I tried to jump over it, then when I was cruising through the air I was thinking "what if there is a rock where my hand would be placed?" (Answer: I would fracture my forearm/break my wrist.) But good thing there wasn't any rock, so the rolling breakfall turned out fine. Phew. Lesson: Look before you leap.

Then there was the amazing and adventure race. In the beginning I led the group to a place and I wasn't confident enough to walk further, so we turned back and found out that all we had to do was to walk further down. Sigh. That affected the morale quite a bit.

That day we slept in the tent at campable. Good thing the ground was nice and soft, so we slept soundly.

Next day was the last day for activities, and there was rafting. Even though A2 set sail first, we (A1) came back first, because A2 raft was slower. Then there was Wakatobi trail! Nice walk, and Alvin's bash through the jungle was a nice one, because it shortened our journey by a lot. It was really funny when Lincoln got blindfolded, cos Alvin kept making fun of him by telling him how nice the scenery was. Later, when Lincoln got to take off his blindfold, the other group came in and he stepped into a huge gaping hole. GGY took a photo of that. Word went around and even Amy heard of it.

Wakatobi trail made us quite uncomfortable, even I wanted to shower. After showering I wore my sister's FBTs. The girls commented that I have nice legs. Yay.

That night was grand dinner and campfire. It wasn't really a success, I would say. The fire was too big, so people refrained from staying around the fire. I think only Jerik's group put in a good amount of effort into the campfire item to make it look nice. And during the campfire SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED but I cannot say it here so ask me or anyone in my subgroup if you want to know.

At night we tried to organise a subgroup supper to finish off whatever food we had. Okay, technically it was supposed to be guys and girls share, but since the girls had more food, naturally the guys benefited more. One tiny detail that caught my attention was when there was only one jewel biscuit (you know, those small round biscuit with coloured sugary cream on top), jingwei and lincoln both tried to throw the biscuit into the air and catch with the mouth, but jingwei cheated and just put it in her mouth and bit off the cream. Lincoln didn't know there were no more jewel biscuits left (it was late at night with bad lighting), so he asked "Got anymore not?" Then Jingwei took the biscuit out from her mouth and gave to Lincoln. Lincoln was about to flick it, but he noticed something amiss, and he went "YYYYYUUUUCCCCCCCK!!!" and jingwei gave a very evil laugh. Really noe! You must hear it for yourself, it sounded really evil. Like in those chinese martial arts drama you watch on tv, when the evil lady gives the hero poisoned wine and the hero drinks it and she laugh a very evil laugh, then the hero would get startled, then he would grab his neck with both hands and vomit black blood. Okay thats besides the point, but man... Jingwei's evil laugh sounds very evil. Then we had to go back to tent and sleep. Later we were talking in the tent about the something that happened during the campfire, then we heard Mr Shah's voice "Eh boys, stop talking it's late." We were stunned for 3 seconds then Lincoln went "Shut up lah Indra!" Then we heard "Ah shit!" (Lincoln later revealed 'Imagine if it was really Mr Shah...') And it was indeed Indra. Then he used his Mr Shah voice to say "Eh your tent got space not, can fit in one more person?" Then we were laughing like madmen and the girls shouted "Hey can you guys keep it down?" Then Indra went "Oops sorry." and left for the night.

Next morning pack up and go! Supposed to be grand lunch, but not as grand as grand dinner (or my grandfather). Yiwen helped me carry my daypack while I carried a water tank. (Thanks!) Lincoln hit his shin against something and scraped off some skin. Then at the Bintan ferry terminal SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED AGAIN. In the ferry ride it felt like a roller coater ride for a short while. I'm used to sleeping on the rocking mrt, so naturally on a rocking ferry i would sleep just as well. It felt like a short ride.

When we reached school it was about time to say goodbye! But nobody said goodbye. I left school alone, but met Yiding on the way. It feels strange to leave a camp this way.

Reached home and took a nap. When I woke up it felt as though I hadn't left Singapore. Bintan felt like a dream, when you wake up, everything suddenly reverted back to its state when you fell asleep and you didn't know you fell asleep.

Perhaps as Wangrui said, everyone was just tired. Maybe so.