Friday, December 08, 2006 11:07 PM
Just came back from camp today. It was quite interesting.. It started on tuesday morning when brandon came to my house for breakfast at 6 something in the morning. It was so funny~ He was driving the ambulance up the slope to my house with the emergency lights on. If he turned on the siren the entire street will wake up. The level of discipline on the first and second day was rubbish but it improved after that~ Basically everyone did not have enough sleep. The campers had the most 6 hours each night. Instructors at max 4 and officers around 2.
I went in to try my best to give and contribute whatever i knew but i ended up learning so much more. I guess it's so true when people say you learn the most when you teach.
I don't know what to say already and i don't want to write out the whole thing but there are some things i will remember. On thursday night it was the farewell thing for the sec 4s. The teacher in charge went up and sang while playing his guitar. He started with tong hua which was so nice. Then he went on to do something which was unprecedented in history. He sat on the stage and worshipped God on the stage in front of the entire corps. Then he went on to share the importance of having a relationship with God. The entire atmosphere was so changed and i've never seen so many people cry as compared to past events. My almost full tissue box was empty within a short while. A seed no matter how small was definately planted in their hearts.
After that something happenned which taught me the importance of proper effective communication. I gave instructions which clashed directly with that given by another officer because he decided not to follow the standard procedures.
The hierachy goes like this and each one reports to the one below.
1. Trainees
2. Group ICs
3. Camp IC
4. Duty NCO
5. Duty Officer
6. Senior Officers
7. TIC who is not really present a lot
Instructors go between 2 and 3 while junior officers go between 3 and 4. He decided to skip the duty officer and nco and go right to 2 which made things quite messy. In the end it was cleared up and he took the trainees for a round of intense punishment. It was alright la since they've been so slack for the first and second day but i was a bit worried for their safetly. Soon casualties started to fall out one by one..
Another thing i learnt is the importance of leading by example. It's so clear that the lack of proper discipline was because of the lack of the same thing on the part of the instructors. So in the end the instructors got screwed quite badly by us as well.
I also found out more about myself but it's hard to say here so nevermind. I'm also further convinced about the fact that i'm a very light sleeper. We slept on the canteen benches at night. I couldn't sleep because
1. the pond and the fridge were making too much noise
2. one bench was higher than the other
3. the bench was hard
Everyone else around me slept either like a pig or a log. In the end i realised i could go to the car and sleep -_____-''' After that others took my
revelation and did the same. Another was even smarter and went to sleep on the ambulance stretcher.. haha~
Oh yar, speaking of the ambulance.. On thursday night we drove it out to eat supper since ambulance = free parking and ambulances can speed + beat red lights if the sirens are turned on. haha~ no no no nothing like that happenned on that day. The sirens were never touched that day. Have to be very careful what i say since this is the internet. In the end smoke came out of the engine cos i think the fan belt was fried. Good that no one saw it.. haha~ We quickly took it back and switched to a car.
And i learnt a lot of cheers! haha~ The campers are so creative.. *clap bloop bloop bloop sotong!*
I'm going to cook my swedish meatballs now. Yum~ They remind me of ikea furniture. =)