I am Blessed...

Yeah, a Sunday. Finally.

Oh, hi there. Pardon me, I'm just tired after the past two days. I must admit, the Class Residential Camp was fun and even more necesary for the class. But I think it was a mistake for me to come. An extremly grave mistake.

It starts off with me and my dad being dropped off at Changi Airport by mom: dad because he's going to Melbourne with Uncle Peter to look after uncle while he goes through treamtment for his cancer tumour; me because I'm suppose to meet Mr. Tay here to help him welcome some Indonesian scholars to our country and school, along with a few other members of my class.

When daddy and I went in, he recieved a call from Aunti Alice saying that they were going to meet him at the next terminal, while I recieved sight of JKit a few pillars ahead of us. We exchanged farewells, and parted to our respective meeting points.

Jkit and I then continued aroiund the airport until we met up with Snil, followed by Tim. After some time, we decided to eat breakfast at Burger King while waiting for Mr. Tay's call. After finding a seat, we took turns to buy our stuff, and also took the opportuniy to top up our ez-link cards ahead of our traveling on the later part of the day.

After our meal and a few rounds of card games, we decided to ride the Skytrain back and forth Terminal 1 and 2, taking turns to call Mr. Tay until he responds every few stops. It ended when it got to my turn to call, when a sleepy Mr. Tay answered the phone to tell us to meet him at the Arrival Hall at the Terminal we were about leaving.

After reaching our destination, we met up with Mr. Tay and a few other members of the school, where we recieved instrutions to await for the scholars. To cut the long and eventless wait short, we helped to carry the luggages of our guests and boarded them on the bus, although this compared to the amount of translating the teachers did and the distances the scholars had to walk with their luggages without our help proves to be nothing much.

We all then rode the bus to school, where Mr. Tay told us to accomodate our classroom first while he settles the scholars into the Boarding School. We went and set up everything: the lights, airconditioning, tablets, xbox - everything.

Eventually along time, other classmates started streaming in. I also got the chance to obtain my new battery daddy bought for my tablet! Thanks dad! And JKit tried to introduce us to some anime about a boy who turns into a butler to a young girl to pay off a debt. There were many small things that happened during these few hours, but soon Mr. Tay called us up to meet him at the SpaceFrame for our departure to Plaza Singapura to watch a movie.

Changed and geared up, we proceeded as a class for the last time to the theatres to buy ourselves tickets to watch Stardust! But since the show was later in the night, we decided to go out our separate ways to entertain ourselves during the wait.

Toj wanted to go to a particular LAN centre, but in the process almost got half the class lost in the middle of the city. Not willing to go out just to get lost, I decied to turn around, but Tim suggested to go to Peace Centre instead, a centre a couple of blocks away from his Church. It proved to be useful, and so those who wanted to play LAn got their wish, while those who weren't game-tuned had a go at the arcade and billards.

When it was time to head back, we journeyed our route and collected our tickets before splitting up again to grab a quick dinner. At Subway, we took things slowly and chatted along our meal. I even tried proposing my hike to thosewho were sitting around me, and got a rather fruitful response. Once our meal was finished, we proceeded up to get ready for the movie, of which Kirby was still softly beging Mr. Tay to allow him to watch Halloween instead.

The movie was a lot better than I expected, I must say. True, it is a young fantasy, but the movie is rather suited for a wider age group. Shouldn't reveil too much, but I must admit I was stunned by one of the stunts in the show: how can swords fights be done lieing backwards?

The rest of the night outdoors was spent shopping for snacks and drinks, followed by finding the underpass to the MRT station, where we took a train back to school. People were competing on how late they can stay up playing with the xbox, while ZWei and Raam were teaching me certain drills they practice from their respective Uniform CCA Camps (NPCC[Sea] and NCC[Sea] respectively).

I also attempted to draw a scene of an island beach just to get the classroom into the holiday mood. I also wanted Peter to draw his 'Dan 'shroom' on the island so we could call it a class picture, but then I thought I better not disrupt his record of still being awake on Halo. Soon, I felt the drousiness upon me weighing down, and decided to quickly wash up and sleep.

Now, camp was suppose to continue the next day (or should I say 'that present day') with a cycle and picnic at East Coast Park through till the afternoon, when everyone was then free to go.

But unfortunately I still have Canoeing training in the morning to attend, followed by D.A.R.E. in the afternoon. And intending to gain more experience to survive in both my Ubin Race and my D.A.R.E. Group, I didn't want to sacrifice these two. Besides, Mr. See wouldn't allow me to skip for something like this, and there was to be a mini-briefing on the Encounter Jesus III Camp after D.A.R.E. service, so the more I shouldn't skip.

Wking up only 3 or 4 hours after I fell asleep, I quietly washed up and changed into my canoeing attire, packing my stuff into my bags before leaving for MacRitchie. When I arrived, I decided to drop a couple of bags behind the shed first, while bringing only one bag to the chin-up bars, just to avoid any comotion on why I look like I'm going on a water hike.

After doing a few sets of chin-ups (which I was surprized I could do despite the lack of sleep and breakfast), I went ahead of the team to place my bags into the Bags Shed before anyone saw my cargo, proceeding to prepare my boat and equipment with TWei as if I didn't bring in anything out of the ordinary.

Training was bareable (Thank God!), and I managed to get ome after training with all the weight of my bags in addition to the tiredness from both training and my lack of sleep. But it hasn't ended there yet, so I plopped my stuff on the floor, had a quick shower and lunch, and armed myself for another exciting D.A.R.E. service!

Well, the D.A.R.E. service was exciting. But I was so tired to get excited, I've no idea how many times I've fallen asleep during the sermon. Even during praise and worship, I was jumping by flesh but was begging for the music to stop by mind. I was desperately thinking of ways to get myself to stay awake: eating Clorets, pinching andscratching my arms, strangling myself with my crucifix necklace. All tried, and all failed.

I can't even remember what the sermon was about, just that it had something to do with worship.

So now I've learnt a very valuable lesson: As a canoeist, I must NOT participate in activities that ensure I'm awake the previous night of a training session.

And from this, I can also conclude that the Class Residential Camp was indeed one of the WORST mistakes I could possibly paticipate myself into. (Note: I said 'I could possibly participate myself into', not 'the class could possibly participate into'. The class definitely needed this last opportunity to be together, and I'll be more than grateful for that.)

Ah, well. No point blabering about it now that its over. God allowed mistakes so we could learn from them and make sure they never happen again, and if anything He's still our forgiving Abba Daddy no matter how severe the mistakes can get! So we'll just have to move on...

2 Chronicles 15:7!!! God bless y'allzzzzzzzzzzzz..........