A Reflection on Outdoor Adventure Camp

Even though the tough Outdoor Activity Camp days have been over a year ago, its good old memories still leave a fresh, deep scar in my heart. Nobody will believe that such a challenging and fruitful camp is free-of-charge, but our school has answered everybody's doubt. I am proud to have turned up for this year's annual camp despite a lot of discouragements from the seniors because our school is one of the only two schools in Singapore which organize such activity. Never mind of the badly sun burnt parts of the skin, you will learn that whatever you have gained from the camp is much more worthy than your skin.

After being away from home for two nights, there have been a lot of changes in me. Besides my skin which has become more tanned, my personal character has also been developed. For instance, if you ask me not to bath and shampoo my hair for days and that these activities have to be done in a dirty and dilapidated toilet, I will not mind, unlike my immediate response of a big 'No' if you have asked me this question before the camp. I do not mean that I have become a less hygienic person after the camp. In fact, I still bath twice a day and shampoo my hair once every two days. It is my level of toughness that has increased. Frankly speaking, I had taken the camp too lightly initially because I had been a tough girl who did not have the phobia of facing challenges. However, the camp had proven me wrong. I was disgusted over the dirty toilet and had lost confidence before even trying out the high elements. You may think that I had become a total failure throughout the camp, but all the obstacles had made me persevere, and I finally succeeded! Most importantly, from then on, I do not dare to take things lightly before getting a try on them.

We were very slow and did not do well on the first day of the camp. We took a long time to complete the first and second obstacles and there was no co-operation among all of us. We cheered very little and my little incident of falling down from a tyre in the low element area had caused the whole group to be reprimanded by the leaders. We were not used to calling our fellow schoolmates by their positions. Often, we misinterpreted the leaders as the instructors. Our permission to enter some of the places where we had been assigned to go was often not granted as we did not ask in unity. Late that night, the leaders kept on picking on us for our low standard performance of the day. By then, we were too sleepy to listen to their words carefully as we were anticipating for the bedtime. I got a little angry by the leaders' comment as I had tried hard for all the obstacles and they seemed not to notice at all. However, before I went to the dreamland, I took a while to ponder about our overall performance of the day. Yes, I must admit that out of a team of 12 people, only three to four tried out most of the elements. Moreover, there were three team members who felt unwell and did not continue doing the obstacles. After the short reflection, I had determined myself that no way we should do the next few elements the next day with this kind of spirit. I did not want the leaders to nag a lot at us during the next debrief session.

Talking about the food, I was satisfied with whatever that was served. I had caught several classmates complaining about the horrible taste of the food and could not help shaking my head a little. I felt lucky I had got used to the food as my hostel served the similar types of food. The field cooking was nice. Everything was cooked properly and we managed to finish every little scratch.
The second day of the camp turned out to be one hundred and eighty degree different from the previous day. I had become a hero for two occasions and some of the unexpected team members had gathered up their courage to try out the dangerous high elements! I could see clearly their uncertain expression before trying out the elements, but with our encouragement as well as their determination, they could make it. I myself had ever been in their shoes before on that day. There was an obstacle in which there was a thin cable about 5 meters above us and there were two ropes crossing over each other above the cable. I had to hold the two ropes together to balance myself and it was difficult to reach for the ropes. In the middle of the cable, I had fallen more than five times because I could not balance myself well. My teammates had thought that I would give up. Their prediction was wrong. Under our Physical Education teacher's instruction as well as everybody's support, I was able to balance myself and finish the obstacle. When I reached the ground, my teammates called me a hero due to my determination. Another occasion in which I had emerged as a hero was during the rehearsal as well as our class presentation for the campfire performance. A few minutes before our rehearsal, we faced a big problem -nobody read the skit script and thus no one was prepared to perform anything. Thanks to a simpler idea suggested by a classmate, we were able to figure out the story line. When we were about to discuss on how to narrate the skit, we had already been called to perform our item in front of the leaders. Without any script on my hand, I tried to narrate the story according to our discussion. Even though the skit was a little messy and long winded, we had gained their interest and thus were able to perform our skit during the campfire. Performing in front of a lot of people was a difficult job as they had their full attention in you. Moreover, I had to cut some parts of the skit so that it would look just nice. We succeeded and some people congratulated me for being a good narrator. That was the happiest moment during the camp.

I was baffled when our form teacher told us that the number of people who did not attend the camp could form a class. I took pity on them except for those students who were physically unfit. They had practically missed the best part of their life in secondary school. I considered myself successful too because not only had I developed my personal characters, it was the first time I actually took part in outdoor activities. Indeed, I begin to find some truth in the message of a popular snack advertisement-once you pop, you can't stop. I really yearn to take part in such activities in future.