华岗剧坊常年露营-Chinese Drama Annual Camp

A chance to get to know my CCA-mates better and a change from the monotony of holiday life. Albeit fun, the camp was one sweaty affair. Day one, we had 编导活动 hosted by three or four groups of Sec 3s. This is said to be a chance for the Sec 3s to show their leadership qualities and let us have a gauge of their abilities when we cast the ballot to elect the 29th Chinese Drama EP3 Exco. A chance to push our threshold for boredom to new extremes. The usual 编导活动 during Fridays are already enough to make us restless, and a few consequent (don’t know how many exactly, mind too numbed to keep count) ones are enough to make most of us glassy-eyed by the time they finished. Not that the Sec 3s did not do a good job, but 编导活动 had never aroused much real interest in us.

And as per usual arrangements, we had sports and games. And as usual, we played soccer. And as usual, the team I was in lost. After the uneventful sports session, we were allowed to go and take a shower (Ah, finally!). I managed to be one of the first to reach the SALT centre and snag a cubicle for myself. A few others had to wait, hehe. But two courageous Sec 1s opted to shower outside the cubicle in full view of the rest of us. -_-

The dinner for the first day was good relative to usual camp food. But it is only normal compared to the buffet we will have on the second evening.

Now, for the highlights. At around 0230 hours, I was woken up by somebody. The lights in the classroom we were sleeping in were already on. I thought “What the hell! Its already 7pm??”. But a glance at my backlit watch confirmed what my sleep-deprived body told me. Somebody told me that we were supposed to have some sort of abbreviated “Solo Night”. We will walk through the school compound, sans flashlights. Not too scary.

This walk is carried out in the form of a trail through many stations and we had to get a password from one station in order to proceed to the next station. Something like “The Amazing Race” without the race against time and the missions.

First stop, Science Lab. Station masters are Moxiang and Li Xiang. No trouble, the place is very brightly lit.

Second stop, Library. Completely void of light except the twin spotlights that light up Lee Kong Chian’s bust, making him seem like a Station masters are Huang Pei and somebody else whose face I cannot see in the dark. I stepped right off the high ledge in front of the library after obtaining my password for the next station. A loud “Crack” snapped through the dead silence. Shit. I sprained my ankle, for the quadrillion time. No chance for a break, I wanted to go on.

I limped on to the squash court. Augustine and Hong Ye was seated in a unobservable location from my direction. Presumably to frighten unwary passerbys. But they didn’t seem to notice my arrival. Maybe I did not walk as heavily as normal because of my ankle giving me hell. I was told to walk towards the canteen and that the password is “green plate”. At first I thought I was supposed to go to the green plate stall. Haha.

And another attempt to scare people by Ming Yang and Zheng Hao flopped. I saw them before they saw me although they had their black T shirt-clad backs to me. Hehe. But I heard afterwards that they did manage to scare a Sec 1 quite badly

Last stop was third floor on the Drama Center building on a dark platform. Station manned by Jonathan Li and another Sec 4 senior I forgot. Now, mission accomplished. I have to walk back to the terraces where we started off. On the appointed route beside the staff room. I saw a security guard that presumably was supposed to be patroling lean sleeping near the toilet. Hehe. Slacker. I approached him from behind and walked with heavy steps despite my painful ankle. Eventually, when I was almost ready to give up to trying to wake up this sleepy old man, he stirred from his deep slumber, looking around for anything that could be making that sound. I turned on my heels and walked away and I think he did not see me.

So that sums up my experience during the improvised “Solo Night” of 华岗剧坊。

Now on to the second day of the camp. This day is almost fully dedicated to “The Amazing Race”. A standard activity for camps. But this was rather large scale. It spans over the entire Singapore. The various stations are Junction 8, Plaza Singapura, HDB Hub and the National Library @ Bugis. It was great fun but extremely exhausting. We managed to have a lot of fun tracking and chasing the station masters in Plaza Singapura and Junction 8. Ming Yang and Jonathan Li were easier prey while Augustine and Hongye was a greater challenge due to their agility. We did not manage to complete all stations but managed to do most of the missions sportingly. Something I liked most was taking off our shoes and using them as cell phones. A Caucasian passerby was staring at me as if he was stunned. Hahaha.

All in all, the 华岗 camp was rather fun and excitement filled apart from the 编导活动. Kudos to Shijia and our new President, Zhi Hao.