Day 6:

Second last day before we leave on Wednesday. I was quite sure that when we left the country, it would be a matter of hours before we missed the experience altogether. So I woke up, wanting to take a shower. Taking a shower with cold water in a cold morning in the girl's toilet was excruciating. Can't believe that I had to pour water from a bucket to bathe. So then we dress up and head over for a mountain breakfast, probably the first and the last we would have on this mountain. Mountain breakfast is really cool man. Like unlimited toast with sunny side up eggs with fruits and milo and coffee blah blah blah. We leave for the English camp soon later. I slept in the van and when I woke up, I realised the driver had dropped us in the wrong side of the school, the primary school side instead of the high school side. But we finally get our bearings right and we are dropped at a school that looks pretty much like any other school in Singapore, but the facilities not so modern. Students stare on as we make our entry into the lecture theatre of Prince's Royal College. It's just different in the way that we had to take our shoes out in the school building and I guess that many of us were not familiar with this, since we walk around our ACS campus with our shoes on. We await the arrival of the Thai students and at about 9 plus 10, they had all arrived, with the majority wearing track pants and only the PRC students wearing their full PRC uniform. We then start the briefing on the day's activity for the English camp with Daryl giving a rather short (the shortest I should say) speech for the activity, as I/C of the day. Intro speech by an ang moh, saying English is important because 90% of the world's knowledge is in English. I cannot help wondering what would have happened if the Cultural Revolution had not occurred and books not burnt or Cao Cao not burning medical books. Groups are defined according to their rows and Me, Kia and Fab took Group 5, a rather quiet group at first, but after we talked to them, starting talking more and more. We were glad and of course, for a group that we had met for just 10 minutes, this was a good sign for the hours to come. A group photo came first and we spent about 15 minutes to take a huge and large group picture. Tea time, and wth lah! Tea after like 20 minutes of briefing and what have you? or is this just a way for us to interact over a cup of red and green drink and pastries? Then we go to the IT lab in the school for our next activity, finding the answers to 14 questions on Singapore that we pose to them. The school IT lab is really like ours, with websites blocking my access to games online, leaving me cursing and swearing at the power of the firewall. It was really cool looking at Thai students trying to find out the answers to "Who is the first president of Singapore" with weird answers like "Zubir Said" or Ong Teng Cheong... blah blah blah. Then the Singapore netball team name? Weird answers. Then Rekha claims mooncake is our national food, and I really can't help but burst out laughing. No. Really. Next game is Oral Charades, and I leave the beautiful comfort of the freezing cold IT lab that ah... is really nice and spacious. Back to that @#$%%@!@% LT that is more like an aircon playroom for kids than an LT with tables blah. Oral charades (or Taboo as many of us would know it as) was pretty dammed fun since most of the Thai students could guess our words without using nouns or Thai blah and they found the words pretty easily. On to round 2. Much harder words like urinal and journalist and detergent that the students are stumped. Cannot answer. So my group gets 15 points, 1 point deducted for using Thai, and out of a total of 22 points, I think that was a rather decent score. blah. blah blah. Stupid free round of 5 points for spontaneous guessing of words, and my group loses the lead like Salmons getting lost in the water. @#$%@#$! Afterall my group was dammed good and the PRC students were quite pro in their English. Andrew! how the @#$%@ did that look like an astronaut???!!! but the Thai students too pro, can guess the correct answer. So like blah, we go down for lunch, and I try to encourage the group with cries of "We can do better!" Lunch with a kway teow frier and fried rice is a new experience. Sitting on rattan mats and eating is a funny experience. The School must have some fascination for feet without shoes, as we are required to take of our shoes while sitting on the mat. Wesely encourages us not to sit on the mats and look pretty (though we are and the PRC students in the classroom are staring at us as we eat lunch like wow we definitely must be pretty when we eat) and interact with the Thai students instead. So I find a table with Yang Jian and the students are so hospitable that they bring us a plate of fruit with the special salt and ask us to share the fruits. We finish eating and go back to the !@#$#@! LT. In the mean time, I break my fan by tossing it around. The demise was soon to come. Chong Wee tells me that this fan is held together by a string of super glue and the impact must have broke it. I was like "are you sure it's super glue" and he then changes his mind saying "forget what I just said" like lololololol!!! You know I love ice-cream and I could not resist going to the local canteen to search for colourful food. And I find ice-cream. I get some toffee flavour with choco chips and lime ice. 10 Baht! 50 cents! Scrabble is the next game and with the points available to them after the last round of games, they are supposed to form words using the points that they already have. 1 point for consonant and 2 for vowels. Along the way, the rule changes and it gets so complicated my group is lost. They form funny words like freezing, physics, lyrics, procrastinate and what have you. So the twist is that they have to form a story with the words they have and significantly, it was going to be hard. But my group really gave its best, and we as group leaders have to be proud. Tham with a good job acting as the boyfriend. Other groups put up funny performances, Andrew's group with some sort of funny spiderman performance and rescuing girls but even though there was a winner, everyone had done well. So the camp ends. Prize presentation and certificates, with Mr Mike Hock saying that the attendees could use these certificates to register for a lesson with them free, but they would have to go through a placement test first... so.... i hate tests. Mr Chiam somewhat a guest of honour, gets the honour of presenting the certificates to them. Bookshare and we give out our books to the Thai students, a moment to remember. Then follows the pin-share and I swap badges with Tham, surely one of the names that I would never forget, since Tong has that same name too. Performance and after almost one month of work, we could present our mass dance and our vocals to them following a performance. Han An's solo with Vic was really good, with Han An claiming before the performance that he forgot the moves. Yah right. I then swap badges with another Thai friend for a different looking badge, she looks apprehensive without an ACS badge, but I change with her and she definitely looked happier. Photo taking and where the hell is my group?! Everyone disappeared! But with the remainder, we attempt to register our emails to register a long-lasting friendship that I am sure everyone would remember. Try to interact with the remainder of the students, saying "I hope you enjoyed yourself" and flashing a nice smile. But I am glad that all of them had enjoyed themselves as they had answered yes, to the director's question of "Did you enjoy yourself today?" University introduction for us and the senior Y6 Thai students and Morgan and what's her name introduced where they studied and what they were doing. Fraser is not convinced by US universities superior to UK universities and starts questioning Mike on all sorts of universities. Mike says he would discuss over dinner, which of course, he never managed to do since there was a shortage of time. Thai PRC students give us copies of their newspaper and we admire it, since it's much better than Ink! which is full/foo of crap. Career opportunities test and I try to find a better name for it, as a result of my considerable distaste for something called tests. Quiz and we go down to the IT lab once again. Handed out pieces of paper that can fly away easily and I struggle to differentiate between a zero and an "O" on the piece of paper. Thai students also struggling. Quiz is like bullshit la... if someone makes up his mind what he wants for his future, then surely the test is biased beyond comparison. Daryl makes funny comments about politics and how his potential job might lead him to an ISD cell. Finish that 240 plus question quiz and then play games on the computer. I land up playing hearts and trying to fish for online games, which the server blocked. Get out of the IT lab for the Farewell Dinner, which I was sure was going to be unforgettable for many of us. That night we sang songs like never before, Chen Fye goes crazy when he sings Bohemian Rhapsody and starts dropping the hotel roses all over the place... and karaoke session. Mike stops the party and tells us that it was late. Singing all the way back to the cabins where most of us attempt to stay up late, but many fail terribly. I comment that it is not long before we go back to Singapore, and Daryl says that at least there are a few more hours. I learnt that trying to take a shower at 12 am in the morning is not a good idea. Eat cup noodles, last minute photos and bridge games... and finally, fall asleep. A very deep and good sleep that I have been deprived of for months.