So we shall begin today's first post where we left of, back ALMOST TWO MONTHS AGO (!!!!!!!!!) at camp. Sigh. Well.. better late than never right? (My heart is hurting!)
So Camp Momentum. Wow.. It seems like ages ago! Ok. For the first day, I remember traveling there in the bus. Pretty awkward let me tell you. Just looked out the window and kept to myself most of the time. Sad right? But I can't really complain I guess. Get used to it, loner! I remember the weather wasn't too bad, as in wasn't too cold because bad weather, to me, is cold. I wore THE Body Glove shorts Tur and I bought together. Yay! I was SO EXCITED that the camp was next to the beach. But still the beach was a pretty long walk away. Long as in like 5 minutes or something. On the way there, I remember spotting the sparkling vast sea. It was so pretty. I was wistful as I remembered all the times I spent at the beach back home but never really looked at the aesthetic side of it. How I wish I could go to the beach more often (well.. not when it's cold. Seriously!). So as it was the first day, we had all these introductions, rules and everything. We had these ice breaker games which weren't too useful, in my opinion as a total newbie who almost didn't know anyone. Then we were introduced to the Lifesaver-Surfer system. Everyone is assigned a Surfer, thus making you a lifesaver. But at the same time YOU are someone else's Surfer. So it means that everyone is a surfer AND a lifesaver. So the thing is you have to subtly get to know your surfer and make sure they are doing fine and everything. Everyone was put into groups, naturally. I was in Bondi. The other groups were like Anguilla, Bora-Bora, Tulum etc. We had this cool 'mailing system' where every group had a bucket. So to send 'mail' (just notes and stuff) to give to your surfer or anyone at all, you just drop your 'mail' into that person's group's bucket. They also had this 'canteen' where they sold instant noodles, chips, Oreos, drinks and stuff like that.
My surfer was a guy named Hans. He's like kind of quiet and stuff. It was pretty hard to subtly get to know him because he doesn't really mix with anyone I know, but I did it. Just like went up to him and introduced myself. Hahaha. Bought him food and drinks and stuff like that. Wrote him notes. It was pretty cool. So my lifesaver turned out to be a guy called Chris. And apparently I introduced myself to him. Hah. We were all eating dinner and I was chatting with Kai who was sitting behind me. There was someone else sitting beside me.. but I don't remember who. Or maybe it was just me. And Chris was sitting beside Kai and he joined in. So yea we all just chatted and then after that I introduced myself. Haha. Pretty cool right? Thumbs up! =D
The beach. Wow it was so beautiful. Seriously! They had Sunrise groups every morning. I really wanted to go but my willpower wasn't enough, so I only went on the last morning. But it was worth it. So good. It was so beautiful. My first ever sunrise. =) I was half dead but wow, was it worth it. So we just hung out there (not that I really talked to anyone. At all.) until the sky got bright an it was almost breakfast time. The funny thing was that they had this car thingy that cleaned the beach. It's like a giant sieve. It just drives around the beach and scoops up sand (!!!! struggling to explain!). Means, this machine just lowers down a plane thingy that allows sand to go into the machine. Then the sand goes through.. Well, the end product is just sand without big pieces of rubbish ok. Phew. In my defence, I saw this machine from far and never got a close look. And plus I don't really remember. SO ANYWAY, the beach cleaner, we assume, 'cleaned out' one of the pastor's slippers. Hahahahaha. He took them of and left them in the middle of the beach to feel the sand under his bare feet. As we were walking back he was looking for it. We were all looking for it and we only found one side. Haha. Funny!!! His souvenir for the camp: a lost slipper. =D Chris, my lifesaver, was playing his guitar and everything while we were down there thus letting us listen to Jay Chou songs. Haha. The sunrise was good. It was good.
(PHOTO NOT MINE!!!) The food we had was typically western food (catered by the camp). It wasn't too bad. Mashed potatoes and everything. I was utterly shocked! I always thought Maggie was for supper only, but these guys.. they ate it EVERYDAY for almost EVERY MEAL. Seriously! Tsk tsk tsk. But I can't really blame them. OOhhhhhh we had chocolate mousse some days, it was quite good but I don't really like chocolate mousse generally. They also served us banana cakes, apple muffins and stuff like that for breakfast/snacks. They were pretty good. Ok, they were really good. Then... THEN, they gave us THE MOST AMAZING COOKIES ON EARTH!!!!!!!!! It was SO GOOD! Chocolate chip cookies which were normal on the outside but soft on the inside. Like they were those soft types of cookies, a bit chewy more than crunchy. The chocolate chips were AWESOME! And they had bits of white chocolate in them too. It was SO GOOD. Granted, it was a bit too sweet, but oh well. It was good. So good. I kept eating them! Crazy!!!!
I shared a dorm with Michelle, Kim, Winnie, Grace, and Harriet. They kept talking and talking. It felt weird, let me tell you. I'm so used to sleepovers, I've been introduced to sleepovers since a young age. I'm used to pillow talk, the conversation that goes on and on and on while everyone is lying in the dark and everything. I'm used to it all, blinking in the dark, the hushed laughters and giggles, the silence as someone pauses in her story, the silence as we all think about her story at the end. But then this time, I wasn't part of the conversation. It's not their fault, I kept fairly quiet in the dark, they assumed I was asleep. I stayed up with them for a long time, but I didn't say much. Sadly, felt weird to be on the outside. But I'm used to it, aren't I an outsider in this life here in Australia? Yes yes, I am so much more fortunate than others. Grateful. =)
On one of the nights, each group had to present a short skit. All groups were given time to prepare and they were given a situation and an item that they had to incorporate into the skit. We were also required to incorporate a bible verse and also Momentum. Haha. My group had a picnic basket, and the situation was a mother persuading her kids to use the picnic basket as a school bag. Ours was pretty funny, at least that's what everyone thought. I thought it wasn't THAT funny. Hmm.. It turned out to be the reluctant kid used the basket to give Jesus the two loaves of bread and five fishes or something like that, to feed thousands of people. The process to get there wasn't too bad I guess. Passable. I LOVED Oahu's skit. They got a bicycle helmet to use. Well, think about it, it is pretty hard right? The situation was one inventor introduces an energy-generating hat. I thought they did SO WELL! It was awesome. They put a lot of thought into it. They started out with the How I Met Your Mother scene, with the two kids asking how they got rich. Then the dad is the inventor and he explains stuff about the helmet. It was really funny. And then OF COURSE, it ended with the two kids and the dad going OH That was actually not how we got rich. I'll save that story for another time etc. Haha. It was good.
On our last night at camp, we sort of had 'freedom'. We had a camp fire going, with marshmallows and everything (THANK YOU WHOEVER BROUGHT THE MARSHMALLOWS!) and the guys passing around the guitar playing songs. It was really cool. It was awesome. I took a pause and looked up at the cloudy-but-not-too-cloudy sky and it. was. absolutely. brilliant. As I said the camp was at the seaside ie. pretty far from the city. The sky was filled with STARS. Seriously man! You know how they always say 'countless of stars in the night sky' or whatever in books and movies? I always look at the night sky and I never see a whole sky of stars ever. A SKY OF stars were sort of a rare sight, a cluster you could get. So when I looked up I was totally mesmerized (well.. not mesmerized. Just really... utterly amazed). The smoke from the fire, the music coming from everywhere: the guitar, the messily united voices of immature singers, the chatter and the laughter, the amazing sky... all that was missing was the sound of the waves (we weren't THAT close to the sea). Otherwise it was indeed star-ful night, I shall call it. =D (Pfft.. starful. Hah. Please appeal to your aesthetic senses. =D). A movie was also being shown in the activity room where we carried everything out: Facing The Giants. It's an AWESOME movie. Granted, I only started watching from the middle because I was at the camp fire. But it's really good. Really, really good. It's about American football. It actually showed me some things that I never even thought of before. I think one of the things that really stuck to my memory was the fact before a game, when they prayed, they prayed that God will guide them and lead them to victory or something, (note this part) and that if they won, may they praise God, and if they lost, may they still praise God. Having taken part in many many amateur competitions before, I've never ever prayed something like that before. Now I do, with exams and stuff. I think it's a challenge. When you lose or fail, we always think negatively and things like that. I guess we just have to peel our eyes, or rather our senses open some more and sometimes just say 'I know that that is Your will'. (BUT, I DO actually agree to the point that you CANNOT just say 'Oh I know God is watching over me' and not study and things like that. Pfft!). So yea, GOOD movie.
There was this one afternoon where we held our activities at the beach. The weather wasn't looking too good. It drizzled for a while, but then stopped. So it was all good. I went out with a shirt and shorts. A SHIRT AND SHORTS! SINGULAR! IT. WAS. FREEZING.!!!!!!!!!!! Crazy man! I was going crazy standing there. If I were to walk back up, it would take more than 5 minutes, maybe 10, AND it was a pretty steep uphill as well. I was just standing there freezing, trying to psych myself to 'embrace the cold'. It was absolute torture! Haha a lot of people made the same mistake as I did. Everyone was using towels to ATTEMPT to warm themselves up. The wind was blowing and everything. Suffering! Then I went up to ask Chris, who was wearing a MELBOURNE UNI hoodie, whether he was cold. He said yes and because I'm really a nice person (I'm being serious) I said ok. I wouldn't deprive someone of their warmth just because I'm freezing. Then like a few moments later he went up to me and asked me whether I'm cold. I said yes and he offered me his jumper. It was a HUGE. RELIEF. Seriously serious!!! When I have money of my own, if I see beggars in the street in some non-equatorial country (Khatulistiwa!!!! Hahahaha), I would definitely give away my jumpers/blankets to them. Freezing is no joke. It's unbearable! Oh and the ironic thing was that I was literally chattering my teeth, with goose bumps rising and, I imagine, lips going purple, I said 'ARGH!!!! You're a LIFESAVER!'. Hah. Hah. Hah. I need to renew my sense of humour. Pfftt.
So by the time the last day of camp arrived, I was NOT looking forward to go home. I was so reluctant! 依依不舍 as they call it. Sadness man! =( Just recently though, I realized how much of a difference camp made. It really did help me be less of a loner. I THINK. I'm actually not too sure. Oh well.
So I reckon that this post is long enough, though probably not a very interesting post to end my blogging drought. But I have good news though, as in good stuff to blog about. Refined (!), new words, new movies (!!!!), exams, school, ideals, work! Wow. A lot really has changed! Well.. guys, ponder about what life was like for you last month. The change will shock you. It constantly shocks me: how much things have changed, or how far we've fallen. Think about it. See you guys in the next post! I promise that it won't be long. Promise. =D
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