Reflections on Sec 1 Camp

Today, I just came back from my Term 1 sabbatical: Sec 1 camp

After I came back from my camp, I realise that I had learnt alot of facilitation and also soft skills that could be used in my daily life.

In fact, we the organising team had actually planned alot of interesting activities for the Sec 1s to enjoy. However, the weather was bad and it was raining cats and dogs on all the camp days. Thus, this made us very demoralised, as our planned activities had to be stopped and intervene due to the weather and we need to execute out the wet weather plan, which was not as fun as the activities played on the open field. This is actually similar to our daily life challenges. Whatever we planned to do, we must always get ready for the obstacles caused by external factors. Just like the ever-changing and unpredictable weather, we must always have a backup plan in case our original plan might not work due to unexpected dire factors.

When we let the Sec 1s had their lunch, there was chaos as the dining tentage was rather small and could not fit everyone inside. The students were loud and noisy and nobody is giving attention to the instructions, with students running everywhere and taking the food here and there, without cleaning up their mess. Therefore, we learnt our lesson from our first experience, and we all agreed to have order next time. Thus, we put safety tapes around the dining tentage except for a small opening, where people exit and enter from there. We staggered the timing, such that some went to bath while others went for their dinner and vice versa after a period of time. We also ensured that the 2^nd shift is to wait outside the opening before the 1^st shift moved in. Therefore from this, I could learnt that whenever we are managing a large group of people, we must always have order and a fixed rule to prevent chaos and getting into trouble. We could do this not just by shouting to get the attention, but also marked out a certain boundary and also people to patrol around to make sure that there are order and the people are adhering to the rules at all times.

After we set up the boundary and the safety tape, many of the students took shortcut and bent underneath the safety tapes or even cross over it. This is very chaotic, if all of them is to go up and down by the safety tapes and there was be no use in the safety tapes. Therefore, we sent some people to patrol around the safety tapes area and prevent people from crossing the safety tapes. This caused some of the students to be unhappy and one even tear down the safety tape. One of the teachers witnessed that and reprimanded that student. From this incident, I could learn that we must deal with people at the correct time and point them out individually so as to let them know their mistakes. We must also make sure that we must put ourselves in others shoes and talk to them politely, but of course not let them crawl over your head. If necessary, we could scold that student if he refuses to behave appropriately by not embarrassing him in front of the crowd, but just point out his mistakes after stopping him.

Overall, I realise that after my sabbatical (Sec 1 camp), I learnt better to act accordingly to the situation, like in the case of wet weather plan. I also learnt how to execute out my actions properly and let myself be heard in order to get the attention of the whole Sec 1 cohort. Overall, I had an enjoyable time in my sabbatical in serving the Sec 1s and watching them enjoy the camp.

In -Class Online Lesson #4

2) The lamppost's lights shone on the dark red badminton court. The trees sway according to the wind, while those dark brown leaves on the ground drifted across the court. There were no players in the court, and the court looked exceptionally lonely. Beside the court, there was a chair, waiting for people to sit on them.

4) The trees sway according to the wind, while those brown leaves on the ground drifted across the court. Beside the court, there was a chair waiting for people to sit on them, and it was not like a child waiting for Christmas.

6) There was a chair beside the court, like the only hurricane survival in the wild storm. The wind swayed the trees, and the badminton court was filled with eerie of silence.

7) The red badminton court stood out from the rest, especially under special attention by the lamppost’s lights. Brown leaves drifted across the ground as there were no occupying players on the court. The court looks lonely, as if a child waiting for Christmas.
Beside the court stood a grey chair, like a hurricane survivor waiting from response and attention of people, a fatigued person searching for rest perhaps. The wind swayed across the grass blades and the trees, and it felt exhilarating and refreshed.
There was not a single soul in sight. The whole badminton court sends a cold feeling down my body as waves of wind ruffled the tree leaves like a boy with green-dyed hair. The atmosphere was moody and I felt alone at this isolated badminton court.

Reflective writing on Camp-Steel

On the 21st Feb and 22nd Feb, i went for a camp called Camp called Camp Steel. The camp’s aim is to train us physically and mentally to be real cadets and to overcome our fear of height. To be frank, I admit that I myself was afraid of height. However, I managed to conquer my fear of height after I went through the camp.

One of the activities that I benefited is called “High Confidence”. There are ropes, logs and tyres at the 4^th storey. We are supposed to climb all the way up and either walk on the log that is 4^th storey high, or walk on the tyres that’s also 4^th storey high.

When I climb the way up, my heart was actually palpitating. I tried to calm myself down. My legs turned jelly when I looked down from such a great height. At first, I wanted to give up. However, I gave myself a chance to challenge myself and prove me wrong that I could clear the obstacle as well as my fear of height. I took a deep breath and stable myself as I walked on the log. All went well and in the end, I succeeded.

When I went down, I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment. Now, when I looked back, I realised that I really benefited a lot from that activity as it not only teach me to overcome my fears, it also taught me to persevere and never give up.

Another activity that I went through is rappelling. It was a very fun and interesting activity and I also managed to take away lessons from that activity. When I was walking down the wall, I actually was very calm as I had already managed to overcome my fear during the “High Confidence”. However, I released the rope too fast and as such, I nearly cause myself to knock against the wall. My heart skipped a beat when my harness caused a jerk and I lost my balance. From this experience, I learnt to do things one by one at a time and not to rush them. The more we wanted to rush and take shortcuts, the worse the consequences we are going to get.

Overall, I gained a lot of valuable lessons in this camp that I would never ever forget. Not only did I gain the lessons I mentioned above, I also learnt to be more sociable when I mixed around with other schools in the same platoon. I also get to step out of my comfort zone as the facilities there are not as comfortable and clean as those in our home. I enjoyed myself during the camp and I look forward to another camp at HQ if there is.

Neighbourhood photos

Influence on our life

When I was young, I met with an incident that influences the person I am today. When I was in Primary 1, my mother keep emphasizing on the important of my studies and how it would affect my future. Due to the fact that I was only Primary 1, thus I could not understand what my mum is talking. However, as Primary 1 work is pretty easy, I got 1^st in standard. I was surprised and satisfied at the same time.

As I grew up, I started to accept the fact that I’m good at my studies without even revising. When I was in Primary 3, I slack off and started to be arrogant. As such, my results dropped and I was surprised, not with the element of happy, but with the element of disappointment and shock.

My mum knew the results, and told me the reasons for my failure. I repent on it and realised that I should not be complacent and proud of such little achievements. I should instead be humble. Therefore, whenever I achieved commendable results nowadays, I would keep it to myself and tell myself to keep going.

Traits of Scout Jem

After our discussion, we found out that Scout actually is able to tolerate and withstand a lot of pressure. It can be seen from a few incidents and evidence that we discussed during the discussion. She did not submit to violence or other violent solutions easily unless she gets really provoked like the case of Scout and Francis. Scout would normally keep the troubles and things she encountered to herself and only share them with her own family members and no strangers.

We also realised that Scout does not act rashly like Jem, as she tolerated and ponder about the consequences first before she actually continue her next course of actions. Judging from the fact that Scout normally showed tolerance in her actions, we could also derived that she is not one to be provoked easily and I believed she does not provoke other people also. Last but not least, we could see that Scout has a very calm state of mind and is able to think critically before acting.

The link to our google docs is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t8M5-JW-MLUBN8aPlZ1VUECy-b2pQykPqDI8IPbGdRY/edit?hl=en&pli=1#