SJAB March Camp — Part 2

Day 2: March17th, 2009

Today was the main part of the camp, the NCOs said. Because it was:

The Leadership Journey.

So we had to walk together as a squad to a certain place, accompanied by some NCOs and a zone officer who would give us clue where to go next.

Our first clue was a photo, which I couldn’t figure out where the photo was taken. Luckily we were going as a squad. My squadmates knew that it was CCAB area as in the photo was NUS. So we went there.

By bus? No. WALKING.

That’s why this was a leadership journey. We couldn’t leave anyone behind us too far. If the gap between squad members were too far, we should close it up. We must be an effective team person as well as effective leader.

After quite a long walk, we reached the first checkpoint. Our second checkpoint was…

I didn’t know. Only our Zone Officer said that he would lead us to the second post without telling us. So we followed him. Unexpectedly, by the time he stopped walking, he told us that we had reached our third checkpoint. Nice.

Our fourth checkpoint was very clearly stated on the photo: Raffles Institution. So we had to go there, but none of us knew how to. So?

We tried our luck on a bus stop. No, not to take a bus! We looked for a possible route to RI, and we found it. So we went there.

Then it was our fifth checkpoint, another photo which none of us could figure out. Our Zone Officer said that it was a photo of a school very “close” to us (close in both meanings — distance and relationship). Some of us guessed CHIJ and SCGS but he said that it wasn’t a girls’ school. Some tried CJC but it wasn’t. It turned out that…

It was SJII. So we went there. Then we took a bus (we were asked to do so by our Zone officer so it didn’t break the rule) back to NUS. After a short walk, we reached our sixth (and last) checkpoint.

The next program? The Road March.

As a whole squad, we had to march along the road in a constant (but fast) speed while maintaining the distance between squad members. If we were too far each other, we would be told by whistle.

I said that this was the hardest part of the whole program. Maintaining distance while walking in a high pace was not an easy thing, after all!

What’s more, after we finished our Road March, a quite heavy rain fell. We rushed back to SJI (luckily we were allowed to take a bus). Upon arriving, we were told to change our wet clothes into dry clothes in ONLY 5 minutes. Oh, nice….

So don’t even think of taking a bath.

Because we were heading to the next program which was still a part of Leadership Journey. Four of the NCOs were pretended to be casualties. We had to evacuate them by carrying them round the floor 2 Sec 3 block thrice. It was all about leadership and teamwork, they said, and I also believed it was.

Then, after a long break (including lunch break), we were going for group games.

The first group game was “Virus”. So, some of us would be the virus and the rest would be healthy cells.. The virus had to make more colonies by catching (actually, just touching) healthy cells. The infected cell must assist the virus by holding hands with the virus that infected him. So, there would be chains of virus on the field.

This game was about coordination because, let’s say, if the chain was already consisted of many viruses, and the rightmost virus had different movement from the leftmost virus, the chain might be broken. (kata siapa gitu: kasian yang di tengah — bener sih).

The next game was “grabbing the flag” — we were divided into groups of 5. One would be a defender, one would be a king, and the rest three would be neutrals. We must guard our flags so no one could touch them, and our objective was to grab as many flags as possible from other groups. Only the neutrals could grab the flag — the king could help but couldn’t touch the flag. The neutral could either attack or defend.

But it wasn’t that simple. If the attacking neutral was touched by the defender (after all, they were defender), he must go back 50 steps and do 10 push-ups to recover. If a king touched a neutral (except for his group’s), the neutral must do 10 push-ups directly to recover. The king couldn’t punish the defender and vice versa, but the king could guard the defender from defending using body.

One last rule: if a group’s flag was grabbed, the group would lost its king and defender and those two would be downgraded into neutrals, and all 5 neutrals would help the thief’s group.

So it was the game.

At night, we were doing a survey about “Personal Leadership Test” to test us about what kind of leader we were. There were 4 — Dominance (who had the power over others), Influential (who influenced others to be a good team person), Steadiness (who moved steadily with his members), and Conscientious (who would find details and organizing everything before going on). I was Conscientious-Dominance and I strongly agreed.

Then we did a night reflection and slept.

Day 3: March 18th, 2009

Today was the camp closing, in a very typical way: watching a video of the camp, followed by mega summary and reflection. The whole camp was finished at 11.30 AM (approximately) — faster than expected. We went home and arrived at CJC…

only to find that the back gate we usually used was closed (due to school term break, of course).

What??? So we had to climb the gate? Luckily, no. We walked along the grass patch and we reached the CJC’s main gate which led to the Hostel.

So that’s the end of the SJI-SJAB Secondary 3 March Leadership Camp.