I'm currently very stressed up because of the IPW presentation during the Ande Open House, like those people who can't go and I can't find the poster/presentation board. But I shall just detach myself from all those c*** and blog about the ATC camp before all the tiny details slip out of my mind (part of it was already gone when I had an afternoon nap hours back).
Heh, actually I wanted to post in chronological order but I lost the camp booklet and you know I forget things easily so I'd have to post according to the activities. :)
Let's start off with the daily activities.
Oh, and the activities are NOT in chronological order.
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Food
The lunch and dinner is so so so much better than I expected. I expected the food to be like plain and bland fried rice/fried noodles/beehoon/chicken rice, but instead all the packs of lunch/dinner were all very different and it's super delicious. I finished all of them, and even the peas-carrot-corn gravy, despite hating the taste of peas. :D We had bread, biscuits, London choco roll, cornflakes for breakfast and tea time (and surprisingly there was tea time!). However, no drinks was provided during any of the meals except for the 'barbeque' in Day 2.
Sleep
Really difficult to fall asleep on the first night 'cause of the hard and cold cemented floor and most of us needed some time to get used to sleeping bags I guess. I started sleeping with unzipped sleeping bag, my shirt+jacket as my pillow and my frog as something to grab (?), but night turned really cold so I was wrapped up like a cocoon by the time I woke up. Oh, and some people (whom I assume is either kiasu or they can't fall asleep) started waking up at like 6am, when we're only supposed to gather at 7.30am, and of course I was affected by them. (Like seriously do you need 1.5h to brush your teeth?) Woke up with back aches cum muscle aches.
Shower
Shower on Day 1 - Alright, because people would be doing project prep when other groups are bathing, so no time wasted and we could shower at our own pace (just don't hog the bathrooms la).
Shower on Day 2 - Horrible. People are all rushing to allow others to bathe because we only had 30 mins for everyone to bathe before gathering for project prep again.
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Workshops
Vocal workshop - Quite fun.
Movement workshop - I kind of liked the dancing part. So fun looking at people 'dressing up'. :D
Improv. workshop - What I thought I'd dread the most, because I can't come up with ideas/stories spontaneously. But it was pretty fun also 'cos we got to form shapes+circles+things with a random partner/group of people.
Storytelling workshop - Was told to think about a story during the first night, but I didn't 'cos if I did I think I won't even fall asleep already. But anyway, I told the story about a frog that was deaf, which I think most of you have heard before?
Movie
Watched A Series of Unfortunate Events which I found really nice because of the whole setting and their acting was really good.
Ballroom dance + 'barbeque'
Exco taught ballroom dance while the food is being prepared. Darrick sounded real angry when he was telling us to pair up with an opposite sex so I just picked George. Both our hands were sweaty so it was rather disgusting... :/
The reason why the word is in apostrophes is because we didn't barbeque. It is supposed to be (as shown in the camp booklet) but we actually ate cooked food prepared by Mr Smith and some ATCians. Veg, patties etc. were provided, so we just had to stuff them in the burger bread.
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With the Coolios...
Still not very bonded on the first day. Just formed the group (COOLIOS!) and had a group cheer. The name 'Coolios' (<-- I kept typing 'coolies' :X) was actually by Sakinah, a random name she came up with while telling us, 'Come up with a group name before I start suggesting lame names like Coolios~', and we actually ended up having Coolios as our group name. Had group games like Ball-in-the-hole (Oh yay I remembered the name) and the skipping rope one. Bonding games were not bonding. Yet. :/
Project preps & performance
Managed to come up with a performance piece that was the shortest among all the groups'. Had to include various things in the performance, like 15 secs of silence etc. Nevertheless, I think we've really bonded from this performance.
Obstacle maze
Extremely tired from all the running, but we enjoyed it. Sakinah's station was the most meaningful of all, as we had to each say what we feel about our group members. Was really glad that we were all happy with our grouping. Coolios! <3
Nightwalk!
Best part of the whole camp!
I was paired up with Wenbin, and the Coolios were surprisingly unafraid. First station was actually the 3/3 classroom, in which we have to climb stairs under dim lights. So we were walking until we reached the 3/3 classroom. We realised there was like nobody, so we started going, 'Anybody?' The classroom is like total darkness and I was afraid of ambush (I wasn't afraid of the dark places and stuff, I just hated people/things popping out and shocking me -_-), so Wenbin went in and checked out the classroom to see that there was nobody. Then we saw Zheshuo up on the 3rd floor and he signalled us to go up. He was telling us the next next station will be very dark and that we'd have to hold hands all the why till the end. Oh, and he was telling us they saw something somewhere (which I still don't know what) and that's why they actually changed the route. Praveena's station was the couple-dancing one, but we didn't really dance 'cause she got a call halfway and she let us off as a result. We gladly hald each other's hands and continued to Sakinah's, in which we had to go down a staircase with back-to-back interlocked hands. We had to walk past an open lift, and it was completely dark at the corridor and in the lift. It was super creepy! After that was the duet/couple-singing one, so we sang Jay Chou's song. So while singing, I actually spotted flickering lights (not electrical lights, it's those flickering lights when you have fire) at a corner of the corridor. Was told that we had to walk down the stairs and we'll reach soon. Wenbin and I were aware that there might be ambush near the stairs (it was a common place for ambush), so we walked and walked, and then we saw 2 guys standing there. They lighted a matchstick each and stoned there when we walked past them and we actually said, 'YO!' I mean, these 2 guys from another CCA are complete failures man. They should have at least boo-ed us when they realised they failed right? Oh, so anyway, we walked to the global village place and heard laughters. O_O There was people chatting and laughing away when I think they're supposed to scare us... Heh, so we silently ran to the end and completed the nightwalk!
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A word of THANKS for the teachers, the excos and all the enthusiastic ATCians who made this camp a success, and for the Kinder Joy, ice cream, plastic folder and food!
Honestly, I did not look forward to the camp the day before the start, but at the end of the camp, I felt really bonded with the AndersonTheatreCampers, and especially the Coolios. When Zheshuo asked Wenbin and I if we had thought we would be this bonded during the nightwalk, Wenbin shook his head and said no. Neither did I. That feeling is really... indescribable. I bet none of us have thought so too. I hope that all of us have gotten back more than what we've put in (like the sweat while running for the maze, or the time taken to just pack our bags...). I really hope this will be an annual event!
I shall end off this post with the ATC group pic and the pic with the Coolios. :)
COOLIOS! <3
