miserable and magical

THANKS YOYO FOR THE BIRTHDAY BLOG #birthdayblogsarefire #foreverfifteen WE WILL HANG OUT SOON TRUST.

anyway i opened blog and as expected no blogs about CLC. and especially since everyone blogs about almost every Camp possible CLC feels incomplete. so! even if things weren't great, i decided to still blog about it so that we acknowledge everything that went wrong and give CLC a proper closure and THEN move on. why? because #lifegoeson and so will we but that doesn't mean we ignore our problems and mistakes like they never happened. not everything we plan is gonna go well at all times but life is like a trampoline. we fall but we need to bounce back up. #birthdaywisdom hence TW: possibly emo blog. don't blame me.

but before i begin i would like to say something. thank you so much Euphrosyne Ma'ams for helping us out before and during our CLC. i don't think our Camp would have been possible without your help. we really appreciate it and we promise we'll improve and do better next time which is AC 2024 #blindfaith #optimism

CLC 13/03/2024

MY BIRTHDAY. it was very rush tbh like everything we did just felt like life was zooming past at an unacceptable rate. it was so overwhelming we were highkey clueless and did not know what to expect. one thing we DEFINITELY learnt was that we need to prepare a lot more for our Camps. there's actually way more preparation required than what we did. we definitely underestimated it. so:

learning experience #1: never underestimate the amount of preparation required for Camps. if anything, OVER prepare. never go unprepared or under prepared.

a lot of us fell sick. some vomited, some almost collapsed and we still tried to keep going because well one of our goals we wanted to achieve by the end of CLC was improve our perseverance. im pretty sure all of us were super tired especially during and after the Fire Drill. we ran so much goodbye it was worse than napfa training i haven't ran that much in a while. CLC was honestly like SO QUICK yet so exhausting and during our Camp itself it felt like forever. and we also realised we had to be way more responsive if we wanted to get on with our schedule and actually carry out our activities (which we did not btw). so:

learning experience #2: must take initiative. A LOT.

our Team Building Games and Recreational Training were cancelled. so was our Campcraft session. because

1. not prepared enough

2. not familiar with schedule

3. everyone panic

4. did not have a good sense of urgency

5. not responsive so that took up a lot of time too

all of these contributed to how our Camp turned out. so:

learning experience #3: have a better sense of urgency and stay calm. familiarise schedule really well so that no need to keep referring, print out schedule, must inform Higher-Ups about changes made during Camp itself. PROMPTLY. no dilly dallying and must stay alert.

Opening Muster Parade was.... NOT GREAT but not disastrous. i was so scared because we couldn't drink water before it and my throat was so dry i felt like vomiting partially because of my nervousness and we had no Rehearsal as well. and i stumbled during Ke Belakang Pusing. and the Drill Cane wasn't parallel and apparently we aren't supposed to adjust in the middle of the Muster Parade. but hey at least i didn't forget the Commands right because that would have been absolutely 💩💩💩💩 i mean yea it was first time and all but it could've gone a LOT better. but #lifegoeson so anyway yea that's that.

then for lunch i just sat on the floor beside the place where we kept our Uniform Parts bc i was too tired to get up. too tired to walk or stand or do anything at all. just sat there for a good 20 minutes or so. then after that yoyo and i went to prime to get cup noodles yayayayyayayay but tbh didnt feel like eating. so yea that's that too.

HO/CI Time was very worthwhile. learnt a lot. like a lot a lot a lot and i couldn't have possibly learnt all that anywhere else. it was honestly great except my legs cramped up a lot and i couldn't walk 💀💀

i don't think i have anything more to say about Day 1.

well, that's one way to celebrate your fifteenth birthday. didn't even feel like a birthday hahahahahah (not funny im not laughing) ive had better days which weren't my birthday. it wasn't even just another day it was one of the more worse days ive had. and after coming back home some of us cried. we were super tired and what was even more tiring was that we had a second day to survive! sorry don't get me wrong im not portraying CLC in a negative light you can actually learn SO MUCH after going through it but it's just how it was for our squad.. please don't get me wrong.

CLC 14/03/2024

only 7 people turned up. and we had a Campfire to host and we had guests coming and we had a Skit made for 12 people not 7. we did make improvements after the first day but no.. it wasn't enough we still had to be WAY MORE prepared. im mainly just gonna talk about Campfire for this day. just saying but some of us cried before our Campfire started because we panicked a lot. and yk when we cried one thing we heard a lot was "you guys have spent so much time preparing for this and have tried your best" im not gonna deny it. we DID spend a lot of time preparing and we DID try our best. but there are times we second guess ourselves.. because even after trying our best the results never pay off so we start to think "oh, we didn't try enough" even if we really did. and it gets really tiring when the results don't pay off. but we still need to keep our spirits high because there's no running away and we need to persevere through everything.

so i would just like to say that im really grateful for the 7 people who turned up and made our Campfire happen, even if it wasn't that great or amazing or spectacular or whatever synonyms there are for these words. im so grateful to those who still kept trying to keep things going, and those who were still optimistic and tried their best to keep our spirits high when they were evidently super low. and those who fell sick please get well soon and take care of yourselves 🙏🙁

sure, our Campfire didn't go as well as we wanted it to. it wasn't the best. we might not have put up the best Campfire but what we DID do is make a lot of memories. and in a few years it won't matter how well our CLC Campfire went. but the memories will remain! as miserable as we were, it was equally magical and i mean it. im just really glad we all pushed through. i know CLC was tough for us but hey we made it through! we're still alive and breathing right? and we did try our best even though it doesn't feel like it. not saying that we did everything right, ofc there were things we should have done or prepared beforehand. but we somehow pulled off a 12-people Campfire with just 7 people 😋😋 and we've learnt our lessons. we know the do's and don'ts. now all we have to do is improve and make even more memories regardless of how happy or sad they are!

so that's how our CLC went. miserable and magical. all at the same time.

ALSO 4 OF US WENT TO WOODLEIGH MALL YESTERDAY TO GET OREO MCFLURRY. yoyo got chocolate milk with ice cream from koi because the cash machine in mcdonalds wasnt working. BUT IT FELT SO GOOD TO EAT ICE CREAM. ESPECIALLY AFTER A LONG LONG LONG EXHAUSTING DAY. IT WAS HEAVENLY. it was such a great feeling i cannot even explain it and iw to feel that way again. the absolute victory and satisfaction of surviving through our CLC was 🔥🔥 ABSOLUTELY FIRE. ik i said absolute too many times thanks.

so to conclude!

yes, CLC was tough. and we did struggle. we faced challenges. our spirits were low. we wanted to give up. we wanted to just not turn up on the second day (im not kidding). but we still turned up and tried our best to do what we could. we PERSEVERED. we made it through. we're alive. some of us sacrificed 4/5 days of our march hols for CLC helepeppepe and i don't regret turning up on day 2. i know things got super super tense especially when Campfire was nearing and we felt super demotivated and stressed but im so glad we somehow worked things out, even if it wasn't the best. good job Persephone! im so proud of us for making it through. and YAY WE GOT OREO MCFLURRY 😝😝

once again thank you Euphrosyne Ma'ams we love you we are SO grateful for your help like sosoososososososo grateful. and thank you to everyone who attended our Campfire 😋😋 your presence means a lot! we hope you enjoyed what we put up ☃️☃️ or at least the games hehehehehehe 🔥🔥

this blog is very long hope you had fun reading this very emo insightful blog hahahahahah sorry about the emo part but anyw it's 2355 im still super tired from the past 4 days and i have TERRIBLE MUSCLE ACHES EVERYWHERE OUCH hence im going to sleep. i woke up at 2pm today btw. still exhausted.

goodnight! sweet dreams.

- sam