come with me where the fire burns bright
March 18, 2012 @ 1:16 PM
this year's march camp didn't have the magic last year's did, but it was a different sort of wonderful. so many times during camp i was overcome with exhaustion and all i wanted to do was sleep. like really the drop onto the ground wherever i am and fall asleep kind of sleep. but nevertheless it was amazing.
being in ot is a very different thing i guess. it was so fun during campfire just thinking "yay i know all the answers!!". the whole planning process was quite fun for me i guess? although sometimes i was just so sian and i had so many other things to do and i just wanted to sleep and throw everything aside. the day before camp was just filled with rushing things, packing, running around like a desperate kid but- yesterday night at campfire everything became incredibly worth it.
(i was trying to go by days but i realised that's pretty much not possible now because i just ended up staring at the blank space below the heading so i'm just going to type whatever comes to my mind)
the blindfold game was fun! i have no idea why this is the first thing that popped to my mind but yeahhh. it was somewhat scary and disorientating initially but after that it started getting really fun- not having sight for a while isn't that bad, we're all adaptable people.
night surprise was...not much of a surprise but it was fun nevertheless. hahaha mae and julia and i walking around #likeaboss with the rest of the group just huddling behind us, the sec ones perpetually locked in some sort of 4-person half hug. it wasn't as scary as last year's i think (third night surprise after all) but it was still really fun. and after that at night in the tent the five of us were talking about WHAT WE WANT IT TO BE LIKE NEXT YEAR and it was very exciting.
talking about tents, i think the absolute best part about sleeping in tents is the time you get with your tent mates, and i think i'm very very lucky to get tent mates that i love very much and pretty much trust with everything (: talking till late both nights until liyin the duck starts going eh shh i want to sleep is very funny- how we get random fits of laughter at the randomest times because one person starts laughing.
...and of course, the actual sleeping.
i think i have developed some strange obsession with pushing in/pulling out tent pegs. but it's fun okay! and i have no idea why people insist on using hammers when it's a simple matter to pull it out from the right angle.
outdoor cooking was so fun. finally FINALLY 13atch gets to do actual outdoor cooking, thank goodness it didn't suddenly start raining like it did for the past 2 years. belle and her chocolate banana was just epic. from the "is this even edible?!" to that look of utter bliss on her face :D and pasta (kind of) worked- cooking pasta and just dumping on tomato sauce, making soup in cups and flasks and in the end rather than starving we ended up with so much to eat that we were all stuffed.
and patrol lunch was awesome too. i think we're the only strange patrol that will ever go to plaza sing for gongcha, find that gongcha is "closed" and take mrt (1 stop!) to 313 and buy gongcha, find out from ayemon later that the gongcha at plaza snig was actually OPEN just relocated and being all like WHAT IS THIS. mm but it was fun and i feel entirely comfortable with sunflower now!! there is still a certain something i miss about mynah but sunflower is amazing it really is. jingyi is a very interesting PL (hahaha oh this makes me think of station games when she was being whiny to all the station mistresses hahhaha goodness) i don't know how i used to find her scary ehehe. celine is just- celine. the sec twos are just extremely funny with their constant bickering and vivian is really really cute and belle is uh, really funny and somewhat crazy xD.
day three while unpitching tents sitting in the canteen with liyin was fun, despite feeling useless sitting there in the canteen. talking to her was wonderful, in the way that it's so difficult to have an opportunity to talk to someone without being interrupted nowadays way, even if half of it was just random conversation that i can't really recall now it was a very welcome break (:
campfire- the hour before campfire was filled with nothing but rushing around desperately trying to sort everything out and feeling completely dehydrated because i'd lost my bottle and had no time to drop by the water cooler anyway. but when the fire was started and started burning, it was so beautiful and mesmerizing and i just couldn't tear my eyes away from it. just staring at the campfire and the people around it and the knowledge that i'd helped in some way to make this possible made everything completely worthwhile. the fire burning in me was just so- wow. last year's campfire was the one that hit me really really hard and showed me how much guides was a family, this year's was awesome in the "wow i planned this for everyone" way, in the i made this happen way (: and even though helping campfire prep clear up after everything was exhausting and foo and i were pms-ing like crazy it was still wonderful.
i don't know how much of 13atch actually enjoyed march camp this year, i know i did, but i also know it was very draining on us. it just shows that we're stepping up more than ever, it'll be us taking over in just- 4 months. this year- sec three- we're all so tired, all of us coming to camp more jaded than we were last year, i'm not sure if that hindered our enjoyment of the camp. many of us were so tired of cleaning toilets/carrying things around/setting up while the sec ones and twos are eating supper and the sec fours are meeting but hey, someone has to do it anyway right? while people keep asking me "but why does it have to be us" when i tell them this, why not us? i think somehow it's this weird logic that pulls me through everything we had to do. it felt good to step up though, and i have no idea how many of us are actually excited to be sec four and leading the whole of guides. it's a very daunting prospect, but also very very exciting and two years ago i don't think any of us would have thought we'd have come this far. granted, we still have a lot to improve on, many things we can do and i don't think we're ready yet but we will be. i see the potential in us and although it is extremely frustrating sometimes to work with the batch i still love 13atch very much. this year's march camp may have made some of us more tired and weary of everything, but for me all it did was cement my love for guides. i love guides. guides is one of the most amazing
communities families that i've ever had the fortune to be in.
come with me where the fire burns bright
we can even see better by its own light
we can find more meaning in a campfire glow
than we've ever done in a year or so
