A new chapter is beginning...

hey hi people!

im back from ccal camp and our last two gruelling matches in the u16 competition which took place during camp and so we had to leave camp to go those two matches, feeling tired and dreary and out of energy...

haha anyway i tried to post last friday but it didnt work! i duno why stupid blogger. or maybe cos i tried copying and pasting some crap from this website http://swimming.org.sg/wpcompetition_local-2006_U16.html

haha go read the matches about ri team A vs women's team and vs great white aquatics! yeah ehh i got special mention okay! haha though they spelt my name wrongly...

haha anyway i think that the ccal camp ive experienced these past 3 days was nothing short of inspiring, because its like everyone getting togeter and having this shared experience as a batch of ccals together, and it really shows that we are not just ccas, we are all rafflesians, striving towards that common goal, which is to bring glory to the school.

it really makes me feel proud to wear that badge/crest over my chest knowing that i will do my utmost best to fulfil this privilege given to me, cos its not only a privilege, its a duty too, a duty to uphold the 183 years of excellence that ri has had. haha i guess thats a tall order but i think its good! haha

anyway let me recount the past few days...


monday

was the start of ccal camp. i reached there and got into line and did all those camp stuff like attire check and the confiscation of handphones and wallets (though i kept mine) and went to AVT to listen to alot of talks and speeches on the topic of the rafflesian spirit.

haha i think mr eng and mr magendiran are brilliant speakers, though mr eng doesnt look the like. hes like one chunky pe teacher who doesnt speak clear english, but he has a flair for making speeches and enabling people to like see the scene from what he is saying. haha i really could imagine it. and of course mr mag was as usual the brilliant speaker that he always is, and we polo guys got off at around 3 to go for our match.

i went home and did some business (a general term used here, cos business is something you have to do before every camp) and went off for the match against combined schools. i think we were very nervous or something but we kinda played quite badly and i played badly too like i wasnt totally focused on the match. maybe because of the camp but i cant give excuses la haha

anyway final score 6-9 we lost and i went back to dinner and back to camp feeling damn bloody rotten and feeling like i let everyone down. i guess everyone was feeling the same way and aha i didnt have a good night's sleep to say the least la haha i was really feeling damn damn bad

but i alleviated the feeling la hahahaha cartharsis i went to suan all my groupmates there about my great dinner i had which was long john's (while they had mamee noodles) hahahaha i xing4 zai1 le4 huo4 ohwells


second day tuesday

we woke up and started packing up before they suddenly summoned us to fall in and do pt. hah i got my mc from physical activities so me and brandon sat out and slacked so we saw them doing push ups so we faster volunteered to clear up the campsite if not we would have to go do too because our medical excuses only covered the running part. haha we damn slacker

haha then we kayaked from changi point to loyang there me and weixiang went crazy in our kayak. hahaha we would kayak super super hard until like damn damn fast to near the front, and en route banging several kayaks (not on purpose, of course) hahah and then drift to the back and chiong to the front by banging alot of kayaks again hahaha so that way we reached loyang. haha we also banged the instructor's kayaks quite a few times lol

at loyang we played some games like some game that had one of us leading all the rest of us with a new language that we made up on the spot to navigate through a maze and make it to the finish. haha and other games like seniors planting themselves in a few lines across a patch of grass and we have to cross them to win. haha eventually all the groups won lol we rock! haha i was damn sneaky.

and the last game was tug of war. haha my group got second for that one cos we got beaten by the sheer power of the titus ting and their group even beat the pe teachers! hahahaha and my hand got blistered before the match, how champ of me. haha but all for fun la

then mr adrian chng and another pe teacher drove us to changi point where we picked up our bags and brandon's mom very kindly picked us up from there and we went brandon's house to replenish our energy supply. haha. we reached there and slacked in their living room while brandon went to bathe and his mom brought all the energy food like gatorade and muesli bars and hash browns and chicken pies and alot alot more until we actually felt like we could play against acsi later hahahaha

after that we set off to toa payoh, again kindly chaffeured by brandon's mom and we reached there before realising that mr anthony lim told the guys that the match was at 7pm when it was actually at 6! but luckily we ri guys have this policy of reaching the matches 1 hour early so we called all of them and they were able to make it by 630pm, in time for warm up.

i started the match feeling quite nervous, since it was against acsi and stuff like that. but as time wore on i lost this nervousness and started getting in my stride hahahaha what acs? we went into the first quarter break with a 1-0 lead before briefly trailing in the second quarter 2-1 and then we equalised to end the half at 2-2 against acsi. haha ehh must thank me okay i made some good saves then!

anyway after the halftime break i felt really burnt out already cannot jump anymore hahahaha but i continued to play and they didnt threaten much and we never looked back, just scoring 8 goals without reply. haha i subbed myself out in the third quarter break cos i was dying already and after getting subbed out i just lay on the floor and took in deep breaths. hah camp could have killed me

after the match i was just smiling blissfully and i couldnt even walk properly just staggering from side to side hahahaha but that was really one blissful moment indeed just looking at the faces of everyone and seeing that smile on their faces, knowing that we had done it.

we went for dinner afterwards and went to brandon's house again so that he could get his stuff before we went back to school. haha i bought for my groupmates alotalot of stuff like drinks and chips and i bought for the other group that we always work with group 7 some chips too. haha i was a very popular person yesterday with alot of people coming to take food hahahha


third day today


today was last day and they had pt in the morning which we sat out again. haha they ran around and around and we sat down there talking about last night's match and woah im damn happy again man! haha i feel a true sense of achievement. but let it not blind me, nationals is next year and theres still some time to it.

after pt we had a short talk before we went to unpack all our stuff and pack up our tents. haha in the end some group koped our tent and anyhow packed so they tents were mixed up but the pe teachers didnt care they say they would sort it out later haha how nice of them

we were released at around 4pm and my group had a group debrief which ended some time later and i went to junction 8 to have "lunch". haha a real belated lunch but anyhow, still nice food. haha i miss my groupmates and GIs already!


i think this camp has taught me much la and made me real proud of that badge hanging just in front of my chest. i hope i will make myself and make the institution proud, and fulfil that duty that has been handed to me by my peers when they voted me in. haha