Every year, the year 12s students get to go on a very special camp. It's the year 12 retreat. I just treated it as another kind of ordinary camp before it started, but it all changed on the first day. The retreat was unexpectedly fun, me & everyone else did quite a lot of activities (Mostly involving team building.) throughout the 3 day period.
Day 1
I was dropped at the front of the school chapel to wait for our Serpentine & Manjedal busses & load up our luggage. It was lucky that the camp I'm going to was with the plushier air conditioned bus (Although the lock for the toilet on the bus wasn't working. Grr......), the other group got a bus which looked like it was in an average condition. The bus ride to the camp site was an unusually short one. When we arrived there, we all got our stuff unloaded off the bus & went to check the rooms out.
To my surprise, the rooms weren't really as bad as I've expected! There were proper beds (And I didn't expect them to have bedsheets stored in the cupboard!), a ceiling light in each room & also two power outlets, which I also didn't expect. I should've brought my digicam rather than waste money on two crappy disposable cameras. Next were the toilets/ bathrooms. They were much cleaner than the ones I used during the year 9 camp & in year 11 (Year 10 was excluded because toilets were mainly the "trees", lonely water closet on the campsite, or wherever hidden places you can find.). After looking for our rooms, we had a short break, followed by the first activity.
The first activity was to construct an obstacle course. For this activity, a couple of students volunteered to go through the obstacle course while everyone else contributed their ideas & arrangements for the course. We were not supposed to laugh, talk or make sounds, but most of us couldn't help laughing at the volunteers & the course guide.
After completing all of the activities, there was a long break. After unpacking our stuffs, all of us got ready in our "How bizzarre!" costumes for dinner. The costumes I saw ranged from a guy wearing bubble wrap to a tall Santa Claus. After dinner, there was a storytelling session involving something known as a "warm fuzzy". They were mainly messages dropped into another person's envelope. Some of the messages I received were kind of mysterious, especially those from a so-called "secret admirer".
Other community building activities on the day (Please note that some of the names are not the actual names because I've forgotten some of them.);
-Escaping out of an electric fence (Obviously not a real one!). This activity sounds tricky at first (We can only get out by going on & across the fence.), but it is actually easy once you have an idea of what to do.
-Guiding a blind (blindfolded) person walking around. This activity involves a lot of trust. If you're blindfolded, you must trust the person guiding you around, otherwise you might end tripping over a rock or uneven surface.
-Running into an opening human gate. This was an interesting activity, one person in the group must run towards a group of people lined up with hands joined up representing multiple gates where we have to run through.
-Falling into a human bed. This looked easy, but I was a little too reluctant to try this. I was just too worried that I might fall off the bed of hands.
-Walking from Point A to Point B with our legs tied to each other's leg in a circle (So that everyone else in the group is tied up.) & each one of us have to tell weird things that happened in our life . This activity involves a lot balance to make sure that we don't fall off in a chain. In the end, we managed to reach point B (The other end of the room.) without falling over on our first try!
Day 2
For day 2, we did more community building activities, similar to day one. After the usual activities, we did this activity known as "smelly". In "smelly", each one of us are randomly given a different scent. Then, we have to look around for people who have the same type of scent (I think mine was violet.) to make up a group for the "Reflexions" activity, where each person in the allocated group must talk about their feelings.
Our dinner on this day was an unusual one. We were having Spaghetti Bolognaise, which was nice, but we had to eat it blindfolded. It was uneasy on the first mouthfull, but eating while getting (artificially.) blinded isn't really that bad (Well, except for the part where my partner kinda stuffed a whole piece of garlic bread.). Helping my partner was the the most interesting thing, I guided him to make sure that he doesn't mess himself up, but I decided to feed him like an over-sized baby (heh...heh...) to make sure that he doesn't waste his food.
Before the bus trip to the other camp for the bush dance, some of us prepared ourselves with our "How Bizarre!" costumes (Some chose to wear normal clothes instead.). One of the guys in camp decide to cross dress (WTF!). From my observation, he (Okay, he was a she then.) looked kinda hot till the legs..... Too much hair!
When we reached there, this also served as an opportunity to meet up with friends in the Manjedal group. Before the bush dance, there was a guest speaker who was lecturing us about relationship-related issues. Then, the big thing came, the bush dance. I was a little nervous at first, especially with the fact that I can't really dance. But I tried, and got the hang of it. The bush dance to me, is probably the activity with the most fun involved.
Day 3
Day 3 was the last day of the retreat. First off, we had a day starter/ reflection thingie, which as far as I can remember, everyone is required to have a say about the retreat & write about our opinions on a reflection sheet. Our last activity of the day is known as "Empty Chairs". Empty Chairs' where we have to select a person that one of us have not choose & complimenting him/ her.
After having our last lunch, we had a retreat closer. Basically a farewell session, each one of us has got a farewell card from the teachers, follwed by a group hug to my Information Systems teacher who's not going to teach us starting Term 2.
Lastly, we went onboard the bus to head back to the school & get picked up by our parents.
My Final Verdict
I really wished that the camp is much longer than 3 days. The school should've added 3 - 4 more days & push away the Year 12 Student Development Program on a different day.
Pictures? They'll come in a couple of days.
