Camp Challenger

Day 1

A single, sharp whistle sounded, and I strung my bow, notching an arrow. Stretching it too its maximum capabilities, I pulled, sighted down the target, and fired. The first time I went archery was at this same archery range. I had gone with my CCA- the Boys Brigade, as I was doing now. In the past, hitting the target was very much an obstacle I yet had to overcome; much less hit the bull's eye.

Perhaps I had improved, or perhaps it was through sheer luck, but I hit it. The arrow flew straight and true, whistling through the air at a high speed, before smashing into the yellow section of the target board. A few inches from the bulls eye, I thought to myself, as relief flowed over me.

This was a mini competition, set up to make the archery session more exciting. It certainly did its job! Different groups cheered as their members succeeded in making the requirements.

Although our group did not win a medal- we were not one of the top two groups, I still had a rather enjoyable session. We took a different mode of transport on the way back- our two legs. By the time we reached back to school, we were exhausted.

Day 2

Today was by far the most strenuous yet unique day of the camp. Gearing up, we set off from school at dawn, with our 9kg bags on our shoulders. Setting off with a Sec 2 senior navigating our way with the more primitive equipment- a compass and a topographic map, we headed for our first checkpoint- King Albert Park. As we were fresh after a good night's rest, our group started off at a brisk pace, soon overtaking the first group. However, this was just the beginning. Already, the sun was beginning to peak out from behind the clouds, the morning heat blazing down on us. Sweat trickled down my forehead, and the straps from my bag bit into my skin as we continued on towards our second checkpoint- Gleneagles hospital. The difference in the distance between these two checkpoints was by far the greatest. The route we took- the Ulu Pandan road- was just as torturous. To begin with, the road was beside the main road, thus the view was far from fascinating. Secondly, the road simply stretched out in a straight line, to an end we could not see. Lastly, the route was peppered with hills, making our trek even tougher. We stopped at various bus stops along the way for water breaks. These short respites allowed us to rest our aching muscles, as well as quench our thirst. This part of the journey probably was the greatest obstacle to us.

Our trek to our third checkpoint- Fort Canning probably was the second most enjoyable part of the journey for me. Along the trip, we had to pass through the heart of shopping in Singapore- Orchard Road. We passed through familiar buildings such as Ngee Ann City, and Ion Orchard, before reaching the entrance to Fort Canning park. The walk from Fort Canning park to Mount Fable Park was yet another killer. For easier navigation and due to construction, we could not follow the park connectors, but rather were forced to follow the MRT stations. We were still quite a distance from Mt Fable Park when I started to have an urge to use the toilet. Knowing that the only toilet nearby would be at the peak of Mt Fable Park, I could do nothing but control. At last, after 45 minutes which seemed like a few hours to me, we reached the base of Mt Fable Park. Here, we readied ourselves, to hike up the hill, which was full of spiraled roads. Already pumped with adrenaline, and with a goal at the top of the hill, I raced up to the jewel box, with the rest of my group in hot pursuit.

Well, two rewards were awaiting me at the top of the hill. Firstly, the toilet, and secondly, a breathtaking view. From the top, we could see the distance we had been travelling, and imagine how great our achievement actually was.

The remainder of our journey; from Mount Fable park to Kent Ridge park, to West Coast park was less boring and less tiring, as we were trekking through the park connectors, and thus the view was very scenic.

The trip through the park connectors was more familiar to me, as I had trekked through the trails with my family before. We walked from Mount Fable to the Henderson waves, to Hort park, before Kent Ridge park, our second last checkpoint.

The rest of the journey, we traveled using the West Coast Highway as a guideline, as such it was quite a bore.

Fortunately, we reached our destination and campsite in the evening, and came in third! Tired and weary, we rested on the grass patches before building our make shift tents, called bershars(don't know whether this is the right spelling). We did outdoor cooking and ate maggi noodles for dinner. As there were no shower facilities at West Coast, we had no choice but to have a powder bath, using snake powder.

Day 3

After returning from West Coast using the more direct road(around Pandan Reservoir and through Jurong East), we started preparation for the BBQ dinner with our parents. However, this was not really part of my highlights for the camp, and so I shall skip the details.

Day 4

For this day, I shall skip the details of our punishments and go straight to the fun part- Combat Skirmish.

Combat Skirmish

Game 1

I sighted the enemy through the scope on my Scorpion. I had selected this gun due to its lightness, which enabled me to dart around swiftly, yet unobtrusively. As the cross-hair locked onto his chest, I pulled on the trigger, preparing to fire. All of a sudden, gunfire sounded all around me. I had been spotted! The enemy snipers locked onto me and shot me simultaneously as I sought cover. My heart pumped furiously in my chest as adrenaline coursed through me. The veins in my temple throbbed at a ferocious intensity. I had one heart left, this game would not be in my favour, I thought to myself, feeling disheartened. A lucky shot put me out of the show. Quickly, I raced to our base to respawn...

Game 2

Title: Medic

Rules: Each player can respawn 5 times, apart from the medic, who can do so  20 times. When team members lose a life, they have to call for the medic, and cannot from from their death-point until the medic respawns them.

Objectives: Team who has the medic still alive wins.

It was a stalemate, or so we thought. The hallway was guarded from both teams, neither of which was willing to give in. It was a waiting game. Sir Gabrielle was out in front, with no reinforcements. The opponent was not willing to give us a chance to assist him. Someone had to do something. Sir Gabrielle whispered to me out in front "Caleb, go in front. I'll cover you." At his signal, I charged in front,while he distracted the opponent team. Success. Now, like hurricanes, we destroyed the remnants of the 'rebels' and charged down the staircase together. Empty. The entire block was empty. Rounding the building, we searched for the enemy.

Then we saw them. A group was lumped together at our original starting point! Not knowing that their medic was in their midst, we opened fire. The enemy was caught by surprise. Just as we we had appeared we rushed behind a war to reload our weapons. Changing the gun mode to semi-auto, I rushed in again, spraying bullets through the metal bars separating us from them. Success! The enemy retreated into the shadows.

Trying to ambush them from behind, we rounded the building, spotted them, and pounced. However, fate had  decided that our time was up. Somehow, the enemy had full health again, while we were close to death. Sir Gabrielle was down, while I was surrounded by 4 enemies. Knowing that our battle was lost, we surrendered.

The second level of our school was a melee of boys, shooting at either side. Our medic was up there, seemingly fighting a losing battle... 

Approximately 20 minutes had passed when the battle had to be ended. Both medics were still alive, but as the battle was taking too long, the people in charge had decided to end it earlier. Counting the number of hearts each medic had would determine the winner. 

"And the winner of this game is..." Silence hung around the crowd as we waited impatiently for the results...

"The red team!" We went wild as we realized that we had won the battle. However it was close. We had only won by two hearts.

All in all, I enjoyed the Camp Challenger. The combat skirmish certainly was a brilliant ending to the camp, and certainly a reward for the 50km trek we had to cover throughout the camp.

Two days of our holiday

Day 1
(Ice Skating Trip)

"Vroom..." A unique looking truck trundled into the ice skating rink. Wondering what it was, I stood up  in my seat, to get a better view. From far, I could only see the watery path it created as it moved. The once rough, uneven ice soon became a smooth, clear surface, almost equal to a glass panel. I continued watching, intrigued. As the rear of the truck faced me, I observed water being sprayed out onto the ice on the rink. This was what caused the glassy surface.

Patiently waiting...

This truck, was in fact used to make the surface of the ice more smooth, as such, make it easier to skate. It also helped clear away the excess snow caused when people skate.

Finally, after a seemingly long wait, we could enter the rink. Being the first time my family and I went skating, I was a little afraid. It seemed impossible to keep once balance on the slippery surface using only a thin blade of metal. Fortunately, I soon got the hang of skating on ice.The technique of skating was similar to that when one roller-blades. As I had plenty of experience with roller-blades, I soon got used to ice skating.

As I sped along the rim of the ice skating rink, a cold, frosty breeze hit me on my face. However, I could barely feel the cold. Skating around, I darted between groups of people, around skaters who lost their balance, and glided across large open spaces of ice. This was the life, I thought to myself, adrenaline pulsating in my veins, giving me wings as a skated around the rink. I had not fallen once, until then.

It was too late before I spotted the two groups of people in front of me. Attempting to skate between them, I hit a piece of ice, and lost my balance. As I was travelling at an extremely high speed, I fell forward, and slid a few feet on the ice. I groaned in pain as hard lumps of ice hit my palms. Up till now, I can still remember that moment vividly in my mind. To a certain extent, it was rather thrilling.

Hot Milo after ice skating is always a blessing. The feeling of having a warm, sweet drink trickling down your throat, giving warmth to your body is beyond description.

Although I was aching all over, this was a good experience for me.

Day 2
(Lego land Malaysia)

Posing in Lego City

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!!" Everyone on the four-seater car screamed as it raced down the track tilted at a 40 degrees angle. My stomach felt as though it had been left behind as we zoomed down the track at a break-necking speed. Just as we hoped it would be over, the vehicle started moving around hair-pin turns. If you had not put on your seat belts, you would most certainly have been flung off! When we had finished the Project X ride, I jested "Want to give it another go?" No one replied. Everyone was too busy clutching their stomachs to notice the joke. We had a similar reaction on the Dragon's Apprentice, a downsized version of The Dragon roller-coaster. However, the Dragon's Apprentice roller-coaster ride was not as bad as the Project X ride, and after a while, I began to enjoy the ride. The wind whistled past my ear as we zipped through the course. As we rode the dragon, I kept thinking of the Dragon Rider's in the book Eragon. This probably was how they felt when riding their dragons.

My favorite section of the trip was the 4D movie. You may be wondering what a 4D movie is. Well, it basically is a 3D movie with extra animation. For example, when the movie shows a character in a helicopter, wind effects are added, so that the audience can actually feel it. Although each movie was only about 30 minutes, I still had a whale of a time.

After lunch at KFC, it started to rain. As such, we spent our time at the Imagination section of Lego land Malaysia, at an attraction called Build and Test. Here, we had the opportunity to create a car using Lego bricks, and test it out on a racing track.





We also visited Miniland. This was the part of Lego land where different buildings in certain countries were created using Lego bricks, and displayed for us to see. There was the Singapore Flyer, the twin towers in Kuala Lumpur, Angkor Wat, as well as the Great Wall of China. However, what impressed me most was that every single figure was built to the finest detail with Lego bricks. Certain objects such as boats, the Singapore Flyer, as well as a train and aircraft could move back and forth with the touch of a button.

Me at the pirate ship display section of Miniland

My favorite part of the Miniland was the Pirates scene. Ships were displayed in a naval battle against one another. The largest ship could even fire a jet of water,out from its cannon!

After visiting the Big Shop, which boasted the largest collection of Lego sets in Asia, we departed, tired, but happy from Legoland Malaysia, and headed on the 10 minute drive to the Tuas Checkpoint, and home.

Character Quest

'How did Jonah characterize God?' was one one of the questions in the paper that stumped me and my team. We were going through an intense competition- the Character Quest. The quest was being held at     Presbyterian High School."You have 15 minutes left..." the Sir in charge announced. Racking our brains, we sought out the answers for the difficult questions. Finally, at long last, we scribbled down the last answer just as the time allocated was up.  

For the past few month, we had been training long and hard for this national competition organised by the Singapore Boys Brigade. My team, as well as a few others were representing our company. It certainly was a golden opportunity as well as a privilege. There were 64 other companies taking part in this competition, and over a hundred teams of four boys.

The first segmented, being a written test, was more of a test of our bible knowledge of three bible characters- Abraham, Gideon and Jonah. The second section of the quest is more physically demanding. In two hours, we are to go to different stations located all around the school compound, play the game, and collect as many points as possible. I would like to elaborate more on this. Let me tell you about my experience...

"three...two...one..." the Sir in charge sounded a horn, and all hell broke loose. 164 different teams raced away in different directions, putting their navigation skills to good use.

Looking at our maps, and running at the same time, we carried out our strategy. "Head for the stairs, and go to the third level, on the double!" Our team leader, Sergeant Eugene whispered to us in a low tone. Racing away, we reached our first station- "Minecraft". The aim of this game was to use lego bricks to build a structure similar to the building shown in a photograph. The more buildings we created within five minutes, the more points we got. Racing away, we worked as a team, thus swiftly accomplishing the task, and earning ourselves 40 points.

Spurred on by our first success, we raced on to a few other different stations. There were a few which required modern technology(iPad), like Scrabble, and Marble shoot. Two of my favorite stations were from the air and sea dimensions. The first was a station where we had to fold paper airplanes and throw them through hoops held by fellow team members. I was appointed 'pilot' of the plane. With Adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream, I threw the classic plane. It flew straight and true. Gliding peacefully through the calm air, it flew through all three hoops, before coming to a smooth landing.

The second station(water dimension) was something like baseball, but instead of a hard ball, we had water bombs. This was far more tricky, as water bombs are delicate and burst easily when hit. The aim of the game was to throw water bombs into plastic bags, which were held by two catchers. There was a batter, and the water bombs thrown had to come into contact with the bat, before landing in the large plastic bag. Eugene and Billy, another team member were both accurate throwers, and at the start, we managed to  get a few water bombs in the bin. However, when it was mine and Yao Wei's turn, the shots began to splatter our team members with water instead(every one had to have a try at pitching, catching and batting). As we could retry the station, we did so. Thankfully we fared better, and as such gained a decent number of points.

The finale, which as an arena game was extremely fun as well. We decided to challenge another team from the same company as ours to human table soccer. This game worked exactly the same as table soccer, except that humans(we) represented the figurines. I played the defender, and as such had to continuously prevent the ball from entering the goal. For some unknown reason, I did numerous headers, and barely used my legs! Yao Wei made a joke in mirth"Caleb uses his head a lot!"

Well, although we did not win, I still enjoyed my self a lot. I would certainly like to join CQ again next year!

Church Camp

A long... tiring... road trip that lasted approximately five hours. Cramped up in the back seat of the car, I was glad when we finally reached our destination.

When I entered the large glass doors of Mariott Hotel, . I had in fact come here before, during a previous church camp when I was young

The Botanic Gardens trip

I watched my opponent carefully. Swinging the racket, he sent the shuttle cock flying into the evening sky. As I watched it's trajectory, I prepared myself to return the swing, backhand...

I was playing a match of badminton with my friend Noah. My family was on an outing together with the other members of our Cell Group(CG). I had picked a large patch of grass near the Eco Pond to play badminton. Several others were playing Frisbee. I watched the orange disk cut through the air like a blade. 

I swung my badminton racket once more, sending the shuttlecock soaring into the air, over our imaginary net. After several more minutes, exhaustion finally took over of us. After a quick break, Ian Kang, Noah and I decided to go on a duck 'hunt'. You might say it is cruelty to animals. Well, according to Ian Kang, we were simply sharpening the duck's instincts. Pretending to be the predator, we hurled sticks, and small fruit that we found on the grassy floor. Fortunately, there were no accidents. Eventually, seeing us as a potential threat, the ducks took off into the sky to a more tranquil and serene part of the pond. As the sun began to disappear behind the horizon, we returned for dinner. 

Several other matches of badminton with my friends and the day was ended. Packing up, we returned to home sweet home. 

Swiss Carnival

Come see the "Flying Cows in Action"! That, was the theme for our stall, and also the words on our banner written in a bold, striking font. Several other students from my class were in charge of mending the Milk Churn stall together with me. You may be wondering what this stall is about. Well, as its name suggests, there are large milk bottles. The objective of the game is to attempt to throw the ball into the bottles. Sounds easy, not as simple doing it.
During the Swiss Carnival, the quadrangle was bustling with people. We(referring to the people mending the Milk Churn stall) were feeling stuffy. To add on to that, we were crammed up in a small area designated for us. There was canvas roof in case of a downpour. At the beginning, people just looked, and left. Subsequently though, more and more people queued up to try their luck at throwing the balls into the small hole in the milk bottles. If at first you don't succeed, try try again. That saying certainly helped us to have business. Since throwing the balls into the milk bottles wasn't as easy as they thought, people flocked to our stall in an attempt to succeed! Finally we were having some customers! During my break, I paired up with Wen Jie, my friend and we left our stall to look around the carnival and try out a few rides and games. In the end, because of the absurd price of the rides-some were the equivalent of one whole ticket- we ended up at the food stalls and game stalls.

Let me talk a bit about my favorite game stall...

I picked up a dart. It had an intimidating, menacing looking sharp pointed tip. Built for speed, it was streamlined in shape, and had synthetic feathers at the broadest end of the weapon. holding it with sweating fingers, and sighted my target. Bringing back my arm for my power, I readied myself, aiming carefully and hurled the dart as hard as I could. Watching it's flight path, I saw it arc towards my target...

"Bang" was the sound I heard as the dart buried itself in what was left of the balloon, piercing the Styrofoam board. "Congratulations! You have won one token". A Swiss student wearing a smile on his face picked up a rather thick plastic disk and passed it to me.

Another of my favorite stall, would be the Bouncer.

I'm confident you've heard of a bouncing castle. Well, this is more or less the same. It is meant for young children at a tender age of four and above. Surprisingly, a few of my classmates and I enjoyed this very much!

You see, my class was assigned to two stalls. The Milk Churn and the Bouncer. As such, we could visit either stalls and help out here and there. Another thing was that we could play in the stall for FREE. As such, the Bouncer stall was my most visited spot. I could attempt aerial somersaults, backflips, handsprings, and forward rolls safely! We also played war games inside. There were two teams, each of which consisted of 2 or more members. The aim was for one team to try and escape from the Bouncer, while the other team had to try and prevent the rival team from succeeding to do this. This was extremely exhilarating as we could bounce, perform acrobatics, to reach our objectives.

At the end of the day, however, we all were exhausted, and were drained of all energy we once possessed. It was a tiring yet enjoyable day.

Pioneering

After a long break from CCA, I much anticipated Saturday. We were informed before hand, that we would learn how to lash logs together, to form wooden structures. I looked forward to this particular parade, as I enjoyed lashing, and had experience in this(Royal Rangers).

We first had a theory lesson on pioneering. Our officer in charge showed us pictures of wood structures that we should be prepared to build. Gateways, towers, even a drawbridge, were some of the many structures we could build. Certain knots, as we were told, were important, and a necessity for us to put to memory. The clove hitch, bowline, figure of eight, sheet bend, were some of them. Fortunately, I learned most of these knots as well, during Sailing lessons! It seems that the activities I participated in previously certainly benefited me!

The practical lesson finally arrived. Small logs were prepared together with rope. I selected two logs, and a coil of rope. Another Officer demonstrated how we should go about lashing the pieces of wood together. In order to lash two pieces of wood together into the shape of a cross, a square lashing was required. This was a little more tricky as the materials we used were bigger in size. I eventually succeeded in a rather loose cross. Well, practice makes perfect. After several more tries, I finally managed to lash together a secure cross, with the help of a fellow B.B boy.