Thursday, December 27, 2007
dude.....haven't been blogging for god knows how long
got help from rishi bringing my blog back to life
anyway....been off the malaysia and back in the past two months
two camps to go to and it was damn fun to go into the "wild" and live for a few days
the first one is too far back that i don't feel like blogging about it
the later one....haha...EAGLES
more fun
alittle info first...
my groups project there is the study of insects...
i love insects...
fun fun fun
i will be posting my reflections here for all to read...haha
as well as pictures to add some colour to this red blog
this is the day one's reflections
enjoy........
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Before the 6 days of the camp, we got ready the equipments and researched on our given task. We had to research on the insects found in and around the farm area and their interaction with the environment. I had an interest in insects since I was young and found this a wonderful experience to research on something I love. Before the trip, we researched on traps to use to catch the insects with and also went to get the materials needed to make the trap. All these materials was stuffed into a large suitcase and brought to the camp site. For a group that deals with little insects, we packed the most materials to the camp site.
Day 1
On the first day of the camp, we arrived in CJC foyer and got ready for a long trip to the camp site. It was time to meet up with friends from the mawai camp and also new people joining us for this trip. I also saw a sight that was so common on trips like these, a mother hugging her child as if the child will never come home. This is, sad to say, very common and tells me a lot about the current mindset of the people. These children are so used to the easy life at home and viewed this trip to the rice farm like going to off to somewhere far away never to return again. What is only a 6 day trip to most of us is a 6 day period for them to be away from the comforts of home.
As we board on the bus that will take us to Singapore customs, it has never occurred to me that that day was Saturday, the day where most people might go to Malaysia. When we reached Singapore customs, the place was filled with people, like us, going off to Malaysia. It took me 15 mins to clear myself to the other side and another 10 mins to wait for the rest of the school to clear before we boarded the bus and went across to Malaysia customs. Other at Malaysia’s side, it was the same thing with everyone waiting in line to get their passports stamped and approved to enter Malaysia.
After the change in bus, we took a 30 mins ride to a small break house to have a 15 min break to eat and stock up our supplies of snacks and sweets for the trip to the camp site and for the camp itself. But what I saw along with stocking up on snacks was what some people will do to get what they want as fast as possible. This girl took a hand full of potato chips and sweets and asked a guy in front of me if he could pay her stuff along with his. He agreed and the girl placed her items on his hands, she goes on to get more snacks and placed it on the poor guy. I feel that this is very unfair for the people behind the guy as they also want to get their items as fast as possible but are now held back by this girl’s needed to get her stuff first. This reflects on her character and also the character of some Singaporeans who do the same thing. Disregarding the feelings and needs of others just to fulfill what they want.
The bus ride to the camp site took a little below 3 hours and most people were sleeping by the time we reached there. The moment I stepped out of the bus, I was greeted by a strong wind and a wonderful view of the pond that we will be carrying out our water activities along with the cook house where we will be having our meals. We also had a good view of the area where we will be pitching our tents to sleep at night, giving us some time to plan out with whom we will be sleeping together with and where we will be pitching our tents. Walking to the hall was a great change from the near 4 hours of sitting down in the bus.
We then had lunch there at about 2 pm, the lunch was organic brown rice with some vegetable, fish and dragon fruit with soup. I was given the task to serve the soup to the other campers. While watching people collect their food, I wondered if this was what we will be eating for the next 6 days, the food was not really bad, but I was hoping for food that was similar to the food that was served at mawai. When I finally served everyone, I took my own share and went to eat with friends. I saw what looked like soya bean milk being served and I went to get a cup of it. To by surprise, what looked like soya bean milk tasted like barley water. Due to the fact that I dislike barley water, I did not touch the cup of “barley” throughout my meal. After consuming everything on my late, I braced myself and finished the cup of “barley” in one shot and got a cup of water to wash it down. Later I found out that what looked like soya bean milk and tasted like barley was in fact brown rice milk made from grounding brown rice another with other stuff together to form this drink. I learned from then on not to get a cup of what looks like soya bean milk.
After the late lunch, we went to pitch our tents at a spot of our own liking as long as it is within the area given to each gender. It was not the first time I pitched a tent and therefore it only took a friend and me to pitch our tents. The tents given to us were 4 man tents and each tent was to hold 3 boys and all our bags. To my surprise, the tent allowed me to lie down nicely, considering the fact that I am 1.82 meters tall; allowing me to lie down without any problems gave me a wonderful feeling for the nights to come. Next we placed our bags in the tent and prepared of the briefing of the camps activities for the next 5 days.
The briefing was about how we will act and what we will do for the next 3 days of our own activities. We needed to understand what the farm does and also the safety measures that must be taken while doing some activities. We were asked to do a tetra mapping of our characters to determine the element that was the strongest in our characters. The mapping was a few lines of characters that we have to rate from 1 to 4 whether they were in our characters. Adding up the scores and finding the row with the highest score will determine the element we belong to. I am under the element of earth. Even thought I believe that all this is based on unproven claims, it seems that this element mapping has some truth in it when it did manage to pin point some facts about my character.
With the briefing over and done with, the camp moved to have a run around the farm to let us know the how the farm is like and know our way around the farm over the next 5 days. For my group, we must run around with the rest trying to find an area that we can place our traps to catch insects, along with finding areas where we can find insects to catch.
Coming back from the run, I went to take a shower. As I turned the tap to have a shower, what greeted me was a wave of cold water that refreshed me as well as shocked me. With cold water raining down on me, I made the shower a short one and quickly dried myself and went for dinner. Dinner was the same brown rice and some vegetables and meat. I was relived not to see the brown rice milk being served but was orange juice. As I was still getting use to the meals there, I did not really enjoy the dinner.
I was thinking that our project will start the next day where we will do active catching of insects. Little did I know that the active catching started and the first day when a hawk moth was resting in the cook house netting just above where I had my dinner. Getting my net, I caught the moth without any trouble only to face the problem of where to store the moth as our luggage has not been given to us yet. To add on to our problems, we found a green beetle also resting on the netting of the cook house. After one of our group member went to get our luggage into the hall, did we solve our storage problem and caught both insects. But that was not all we caught that night. On the walls and floor of the hall was filled with insects just crawling around and soon we have caught ourselves a mole cricket, a cricket, a grasshopper and a damselfly. These were the start of our collection that grew over the next 2 days into a museum like collection in the hall for everyone who wanted to take a look at the insects of the farm.
With the insects caught, we went on the making our traps to get ready to be set up the next day or the night itself. The light trap that I was asked to make has been pre-made back in Singapore and only needed aluminum foil to be wrapped around the cardboard to be completed. The light trap was made such that the insects will be attracted to the light and fly towards the trap and be caught in it.
Soon it was time to head back to the tents and rest up for the following day’s activities. Inside the tent was stuffy and rather warm due to the combined body heat of three people in a small area. With that in mind, I went to sleep in shorts and a T-shirt. But late into the night, the temperature dropped around us and I was forced to put on long pants, socks and a jacket to keep myself warm enough to sleep through the remaining night time. With a little more than 6 hours of sleep, I woke up to the ringing of classic music from by tent mate’s alarm. This was the start of the three days of self planned activities to catch insects to understand their impact on the environment and the environment’s impact on them.
damn long...haha
died at
19:20
