Now that PW's FINALLY off my back, I can start blogging anew again, w/o having to look at the Oral Presentation powerpoint on the task bar and go 'shiiiiittt....'. If you guys really want to know, OP was fine today. I can only say, thankfully we only had 2 examiners.
I believe I once mentioned a Primary 4 school camp (actually my alma mater's camp) where I signed up to be a facilitator. Partly because of CIP, but more for the experience since I MAY be doing psychology - which can come in the form of child psychology. Initially, a coupla of friends from my group went to sign up together. More specifically, just ZH actually. For some reason, she didn't get past the interviews *EDIT: ZH wants to clarify that she DID go through the interviews - it's just that her team leader called her at the last min (few days b4 the actual camp i believe.) END EDIT*. And from then on I kinda regretted signing up, 'cos most of the people who signed up came in HUUGE groups and they all knew each other! I dragged my heels for a bit and dawdled through the decision of whether to drop out or continue. Let's just say I continued in the end.
As a facilitator, I had to attend both the pre-camp and the camp itself. Met up with my team members - Wei Kheam (Ah Kheam), Vanessa Lum (Van), Shi Han (SH) of course, Mathias (Mat), Reynold (G.G), Jasmine, Fei Ting - all from Dolphin House. I've talked about Pre Camp before, so on to the real thing.
Kheam was my partner for the actual camp, and when we first walked up to the kids we were assigned to, I kind of backed away. 16 pairs of eyes were just staring back at us when we walked up to them. Quite intimidating. Believe me, today's kids are not to be trifled with! So from the very beginning, we laid out some ground rules (and they were just broken later.) and introduced ourselves. That's when we were reminded that kids at this age just HATE the opposite sex to bits! They just REFUSE to sit to a fellow member of an opposite sex, much less talk nicely to them! They engage in all sorts of name-calling, shout at each other.... basically you get the picture. Then when we sat them down and said, 'You know, seriously, you guys are going to change your perception later in life.'. Just when we thought we'd won the argument, they shot back, "Later then later lah! Now is now!" "!!!"
Ok - So after convincing them that sitting next to each other would not have any dire consequences (I actually told them - if anything happens between you guys I'd take full responsibility. They started listening. Not for long. Later on during the Amazing Race I was UBER irritated! Just imagine. I was leading all 16 of them (when Kheam was away finding some clues) and trying desperately to keep them together - by shouting (GET INTO 2 LINES. TWO LINES.) They just refused to keep in 2 lines! Once we reached a checkpoint they scattered around the area, and when I asked them to gather, they actually walked further away! Tell me lah, what kind of monsters am I handling! At one point of time I actually exploded, because they didn't listen to my warnings and went down to the beach area. Pissed, I called them back, 1 by 1, and started shouting at them - about how their parents have entrusted them to me and whatnot. Total crap, to be honest. So after the Amazing Race itself (which was one of the less fun activities) we went back to school to play station games. Frisbee, Touch Rug, Rockclimbing, Pushball... blah blah the like.
That's when I encountered my 1st crybaby kid. It was a NIGHTMARE dealing with him. He's from the gifted education stream. And not to be offensive or anything - I've always thought people from the GEP stream are on different frequencies from people from the rest of the streams. Perhaps this boy was too smart for his own good. Whatever it was, throughout the camp he was really putting on this defiant attitude. Occasionally displaying weird and eccentric behaviour as well. My immediate response to his outburst was to ask him why he was crying. And he was telling me something about being ostracized (REALLY!). And then. Guess what. He said, "By coming to this camp I won't get to play my Xbox for 3 whole days!". Dude. I'm an avid gamer myself but I don't think of my PLAYSTATION during camps! Following that he gave really monosyllabic answers to my questions. So I thought - Oh okay. He's just feeling homesick. Right? WRONG! I mentioned he's quite an oddball right. During one of the checkpoints in Amazing Race, he found a small hole amongst the bushes - and what did he do? Crawl in. And squat there, not moving. Kheam, flabbergasted, hauled him out and told him to follow the group closely. During dragon boating, he was at it again. He wormed his way into a small storage area and balled up. Fortunately Rey was there to notice, and again hauled him out of the area. Thankfully, he didn't pack himself into his bag. He seems to have a liking for small spaces.
2 other crybaby kids came wailing to me towards the end of campfire. But that's cos they were homesick. I said something to pacify them- probably a first-time attempt - and hehe, succeeded.
I would say the kids I was in charge of were generally okay. There was only 1 boy who was really adorable (from choir. Hahaha!). The rest weren't that outstanding. Some girls (and guys) were quite pampered - which was what I really expected. Some nitpicked at the food, the tents (they refused to sleep until I told them to PRETEND to sleep. Which worked!), and complained endlessly. Unfortunately their complaints fell on deaf ears lah. I just tuned out the moment they started complaining about this and that. Very often I would retort, "You think this is a 5 star hotel? It's a CAMP! (for crying out loud!)" And a word of warning when you deal with kids - when one starts asking questions, be prepared for a barrage of questions from the rest. They never know when to stop and give you air.
And you know, naughty kids can be divided into 2 categories - 1 would be cute naughty, the other would be monstrous naughty. I had 1 belonging to the 2nd category. Quite a jerk actually - he was very violent - and he had this burning hate for all girls on earth (HA! Let's see how that will change in a few years' time!) - including me. So you can imagine how idiotic he was behaving towards me throughout. Damn rude. But, aiyah. It was just him. And to be honest he could be all right at times. So I rest my case I guess.
Other than getting to know the kids, I also bonded with the rest of the facilitators. Because they were a really fun bunch. They were genuinely enthusiastic and used their brains when making decisions (not like some others.) Got to know more people in TJ, and also CJ and 1 from MJ :)
So - guess who won the best house? Dolphins (my house)! Haha. For that I got a teddy bear souvenir. Damn cute.
To end this entry -rather abruptly actually - I'll leave you guys with a nice pic of all the facilitators:
