Hello everybody!!!
I know I'm like, two days late, but whatever. Well, I hope I was missed while on camp, 'cos I know I missed you guys. Even though I hardly see like, any of you AT ALL, especially my SCGS people, I REALLY REALLY MISSED YOU! I guess that when you're stranded in the middle of nowhere, without flushing toilets and other modern amenities, your mind just jumps right to the things you've left behind in the name of 'Outdoor Education'. Which brings me back to you peeps, inevitably. Oh, right, this is probably the part where I lapse into a detailed description of exactly how 'interesting' camp was. Well, I won't disappoint! I know you duckies are just SO eager to hear about my exploits!
H'okay! Starting with Day 1:
Well, the whole camp thing didn't get off to a particularly good start, seeing as how I had to get up like, super-early 'coz the bus was leaving at 7.30 a.m -.-" Didn't have much breakfast, and got called up to redo my room TWICE. Yeah, to cut a possibly-long-drabble short, the morning sucked. The bus ride took 4 hours, it was too noisy for me to take a nap, and the toilets at the halfway stop stank to high heaven. Arrived at camp thoroughly knackered, grumpy, and already hating it. I had the horrible feeling that I wasn't gonna be paired with like, ANY of my friends, so I contented myself with sulking near a carton of mandarins. Yah, the people in my camp group were kinda 'iffy', like, there was Prue, Flora, Bronte, Bonnie, Megan, Laura, Jerri-Lee, Amy, Atteya, Tobiana, Phoebe, Anisah, Amelia and Georgia. Yeah. Half of them were pretty okay, I guess, but I never mingled with them much... and I actually really disliked a few. And I was tent partners with Megan. DIAO. I guess she's not that bad, but like, not good also. Confusing, I know, but that's school politics for you! My cooking group was a bit munted (Aussie slang, and it means 'screwed up'), I guess. Like, I know me and Georgia were kinda like misfits, since we had literally no friends but each other (we didn't even know each other that well either!) in that camp thingy, and Anisah & her friends were a bit ... yeah. I was like, super pissed, because unlike the other camp groups, we had to take the bus to this 'HAUNTED' hut in the bush, and hike back the next morning. Yep, that was the dampener of the day. So, got to the hut, heard about how much the drop toilet stank, so just pissed in the bushes :P No, it's not that gross, I still had toilet paper, man! We had to sleep all cramped up in the hut, and I was like, so close to the potbelly stove that the zip on my sleeping bag melted... so... argh. Anyway, cooking was really shit. The spaghetti ragu was kinda nice, but Anisah and Georgia were on the verge of a massive catfight, all because 'Nisa reckoned that Georgia wasn't cutting the onions properly. I was like "Wtf, man.... it's just a load of ONIONS!" Thank goodness I was there to be the mediator... the way Georgia was gripping the knife... I was so scared that she was going to slit Nisa's throat! I mean, one can only be so tolerate of airheads, right? Kays. Well, I like couldn't sleep, Jerri-Lee kept kicking me in the face, and people kept waking me up... what a way to start off camp!
Day 2:
Wah, had to get up bright and early today for the hike back to base camp... 12km!!! The backpack was very light, but I was still half-asleep when we set off, and we had to go abseiling (where one climbs down a cliff face only attached to a light harness) right after, so I was pretty jittery! The track we were on was quite straight, so didn't get too tired until we reached the foothills, which were more like goddamn MOUNTAINS. I swear I was walking on a 75° angle half the time. I was having a meaningful conversation with Ms Falkner for like, the whole thing. It was quite the stupid thing to do, I admit. Then Prue and Flora came up with this retarded hiking-thingy that goes something like "I dunno what I've been told, but people are 'somethingsomethingsomething'. And the chorus is just SO cringe-worthy "Speed! Up! Move those bums!" I'm like, "Oh. My. God. SomeonegetmeoutofherebeforeIgosoinsaneitwon'tbefrickin'funny!!!" Yeah. We had to listen to them sing that little ditty over and OVER again, and they were like, so kiasu... kept pushing me and the rest of the gang to go faster 'coz they were scared they were going to msis abseiling. Haizzz, I was ready to like, just stop right in my tracks, 'coz I really can't be fucked if they miss the bloody thingymajiggy or not, okays? So.. yeah. Finally got to the base camp and had lunch. Which was this icky thing called Flatbrot. 'Tis actually wholegrain bread, but it looked like a cow pat, a.k.a cow poo. Disgusting. And it tasted like sprouts :'( K, after lunch, had to like, take the stupid bus again to abseiling, and I was like damn nervous lah! I mean, I'm pretty sure that I have vertigo (fear of heights), and I have MAJOR trust issues, so I'm (in all actuality) dead meat. Ms Falkner was trying to make me feel better about the whole thing by telling me about her own height issues. Dumb old coot. Just made me more.. eurgh. So yeah. Got to the cliff, and I was having a major panic attack. To make things worse, my ankle just decides to go bust, and while I was trembling and fumbling over the edge of the drop, my leg was bloody killing me! Michelle was being so incredibly patient with me, and I went over. YAY! Haha, felt so good after doing it, though I slipped big time on a few parts. After the whole thing was over, time to head back to camp. Ha, was actually looking forward to dinner this time, 'coz it was satay chicken. Even though it was the watered-down ang moh version, still quite nice, you know? And Anisah was much better that night. Yah, had a very nice sleep in the cosy lil' tent as well...
Day 3:
Was supposed to have Aboriginal Culture today, but the person running it (Mitch) was sick, so went caving instead. That was seriously scary. I think I've also developed claustrophobia, and the cave was called Golgotha, which apparently means 'The Skull'. Yeah, it didn't help anything when we were told the name. It was PITCH-BLACK in there, and the floor was slippery with all the limestone n' stuff, and my torch was SO weak. So yeah. Was like, terrified. I was right at the back, with only Michelle behind me, so my fumbling around in the dark wasn't holding anybody up. She was like "I know you're claustrophobic, so you don't have to go in to the crawly bit", which is like this bit where you get on your hands and knees and inch forward into irrepressible darkness with the sand chafing your knees and the rubble underneath you makes your crawl even slower and the blackness is just SMOTHERING. I did it, though, which is how I know about all those icky feelings you get. But I was sorely tempted to just give up right there and then. Anyway, we reached the very bottom and there was sand. And it didn't smell all limestoney! So all of us sat in a squircle, even Chris (the cave guide), and we had this 5 minutes of silence thing. Everyone turned off the lights and kept quiet. Except for me, of course. Hehehe, I couldn't resist, man... While everyone's faces were scrunched up in concentration I did a hand-fart. Like, with my hands, duh. And they started sniggering, then they all cracked up. I was seriously laughing so hard. Chris got pissy at us though, and had this whole 'respect for the camp leaders blah blah blah' lecture that kinda took the fun out of the whole experience. Damn. Anyway, we then had to climb back out of the goddamn thing, which was something I was NOT relishing, 'coz those that were at the back (me), had to now lead the group back. And you know me... always going at a snail's pace... So yah. I was 'leading', then Amelia cut in front of me because my torch wasn't bright enough for me to see the texture of the ground, and I didn't mind, but then Nisah cut in front, then Bonnie did, then Bronte. I mean, what happened to ME leading, huh? Doesn't anybody have the value of patience anymore? Geez! Kays, whatever. What mattered was that I got out of the cave alive. ALIVE!!! We were like, sprinting up the steps out of the hole, everyone was so glad to be out of there! And then on the way down to the bus, while running, which was a stupid idea, my other ankle just twisted. I was like. ARGH! It's like my ankles have a permanent thing that makes them go 'flop' everytime I do something involved with camp. Bad luck, I presume. Haiz. Then after the caving we had to immediately head to the river for our canoeing. The bus ride was 1 hour man! So long!!! Yeah. I was singing Stefanie Sun's 'Wo Ye Hen Xiang Ta' and Ariel Lin's 'Fei Ni Mo Shu' on the ride to myself. Pathetique, right? Okay. Then we had to pick up the canoeing instructor guy, who had actually ran 5 km from the canoe campsite to the launch point. And Ms Falkner, when the dude got on the bus like "Hello gorgeous!". We were all puking up by that time, and I swear Bonnie was green in the face. There was just this horrible silence after she said it, and the dude (Cory was his name) looked at us all and said "Well, if I had known we had mute kids to take care off I mighta learnt some hand signals!" No one found that even remotely funny. We just glared at him until he withered. Fun, eh? Okay. So we got to the canoe base and we had to walk 500m to the main point and setting up camp in the bushes. It was quite a sad affair, really, and we had to watch Flora dig the trench toilet. Michelle said that it was because we could 'poo in a row', and everyone just lost it. I mean, in the right context, it's amusing. Hahaha. K. Maybe not. So me and Megan set up the tent in a cosy little corner, and yeah. Dinner was interesting, 'coz we found out that Cory was a Kiwi (New Zealander), and them Aussies love taking the piss outta Kiwis. So we were all making rude jokes that involved sheep, and it was the BEST riverside campout ever. Okay. This 3rd day post is taking up too much space. Cut short.
Day 4:
Got up so early today to go canoeing, and it was raining. That really sucked. Ok. Anyway, we had to lug the bloody canoes down to the launch point, and the ground was steep and muddy, and yeah. I was stumbling around like a drunk in Cory's wetboots and yeah. Bad start. Then I got paired with Ms Falkner, which mighta been a blessing in disguise, since she'd canoed before, and was kinda interesting to talk to. We crashed a total of 17 times. Yup. But not serious ones, at least, not until we hit the rapids. We kept getting beached on the rocks smackdab in the middle of the bloody river. Very stupid. But we had a very animated discussion about me. Why I kept adapting personas to suit the social situation, my family, life in S'pore compared to Perth n' stuff like that. Not the most meaningful talk, but it was reasonable enough to divert my attention from the dismal state of our manoevering skills :) Well, not really that much to say about today, except that the whole experience was rather interesting. We got back to the base camp quite early, and the original plan was to go to the beach and have dinner there, but we were so tuckered out we couldn't be bothered. Dinner was a pretty quick thing, and we had a very nice pudding dessert. Yummm. Okay, this is starting to get boring...
Day 5:
Haha, last full day of camp, man!!! Yeah, everyone was so bloody cheerful. We had Aboriginal Culture at 9-ish in the morning, and it was super fun!!! We got to throw spears and boomerangs, but mine never came back... Diao... but yeah. It was pretty good. Then we were split into groups, and I was in this dude called Mason's group, and he was built like Shrek! Haha, what a way to be mean... But he was! It was quite amusing, and he carried this axe and like, a dagger around. We were seriously pissing ourselves!. Then Mitch said that we had to make Aboriginal weapons, but we had to collect, wait for it, wait for it..... KANGAROO POO!!! Yeah. Roo shit. Disgusting, right? Hmph. Most of the people, including Prue, got REALLY into it, and she had a pocketful of the dried kanga shit. Gross, man! Yeah. My main goal was to make a walking stick, like the one Mitch had, but my glue paste didn't work out well, and the stick wasn't a good one, so I walked away from the thing with nothing. Hmmm, what did I have after the culture thing? OH. The dreaded HIGH ROPES COURSE. I was really really scared of that one. It's like, this course that we have to walk on, like, really thin ropes, 20m above the bloody ground, strung up between trees, attached to an abseiling harness. It was SERIOUSLY SCARY. Which is why I didn't do it! Haha, so smart. I couldn't even complete the little tutorial they had. Sad work, man...
Okay. Too lazy to write anymore about camp. That was the last activity anyway. K. So now I'm at my cousin's house on the com, listening to N*Sync. Haha, see the depths to which I have sunk to? Yeah. It's almost depressing. Oh, hope you like the new look. It might look a bit skewed in Safari, for those Apple users, but whatever. I kinda like it!
Okay, I'm done here. Peace out, dude :P
Toodle-pip!
Oh, and I like chocolate. (: