LLTC- Part 1

I'm back from LLTC. I believe it was the most inspiring and interesting camp ever. I've learnt alot about myself through the reflections they gave me and understood the true meaning of Lasalle's Dreams. However, the road to Lasallian Leadership wasn't quite easy as we all thought it would be. It then dawned on me that Leaders have to go through hardships and stress before they can even lead a team. The journey started with 6 SJI guys and 6 St. Patrick's guys, a facilitator who always like to suan me, and another facilitator who was busy with other OT (Organising Team) jobs.

Day 1:

Reached there half asleep. I saw loads of my classmates including a huge bunch of unknown St. Pat's guys. I wasn't really sure what they planned for me during to last me five days, but since I'm here, I thought that I won't really wanna waste my $100, so I was ready for whatever they planned for me. We first "checked in" to our hotel, which was actually my class. 3G2-2. We were really shy if not thanks to our Facil, Axel, who make us do ridiculous forfeits in order to make us break the ice. For example, Jason Tay have to kiss another guy's hand and I had to hug a St.Pat
s guy half-naked (Thanks to Axel). This made us lessen the tension a little and we started chatting a little bit. After this was a welcome to the LLTC by Kenny, one of the chief organisers for LLTC, and we had to complete what I think was the most challenging tasks throughout the whole of LLTC.

We had to walk, I mean literally walk, from SJI to Saint Anthony's Primary School (My Alma Mater). I wasn't too familiar with the route since I have not walked from SJI to SAPS before. I had to rely on my teammates to ask for directions. A big thanks to Mahdi for the directions asking and Axel for the mentos. I could only help when we reached Bukit Timah road, where I followed the bus route of 985, a bus which goes to CDANS. There were times were we reached crossroads and I had to decide which way to go. Thank God I managed to make the correct decision as majority of the groups lost their way. We were the first team to reach there after overtaking a group that had a 30 minute headstart. The walk was really long. About 15km I think. We were sweating like pigs after the walk. I wasn't too tired during the walk but my ankles started to ache really bad when we were resting. Curse the lactic acid. I must say that the food LLTC served was really horrible.

However, the good news is that we do not have to walk back to SJI. We took an MRT and a bus back and arrived at around 2:30pm. Since we were the first team to arrive at our destination, we had the priviledge to bathe! A big relief for us. We had a very very special bath in a very very comfortable place. Now, for those who are interested to know, you can ask me personally. Let us not waste time imagining things here. We had to attend a talk by Bro Mike on Principles and Paradigms. I must say that Bro Mike is a very talented speaker. I was really focused when I listened to his lecture as he has this style of mixing humour with knowledge. I shall elaborate on that later on.

Then came the games. I must mention particularly an incident where guys make a fool of themselves in front of girls. We were playing this game called Star Wars, where one person from each team is the "Jedi" while the rest are just.... "non-jedis". It's like a game of dodgeball with tennis balls, and the Jedi cannot be killed by tennis balls but can be killed by the other team's Jedi. The game is won when the Jedi dies or all of the other team's member are eliminated. I guess we were too focused in the game and we threw the ball like barbarians. I could imagine the look on my face when I threw the tennis balls until my hand became sore. That, I think, was a little too harsh for us and the gals from the other team brought up that point.

We felt really embarrassed and wanted to apologize. It was a mistake to send Mahdi as a representative. He tried to act really cool about it but screwed up real bad. Another mistake was that we actually thought we could make up for it by going to them individually. We ended up embarassing them instead. That day was really really bad for us. It got worse when we discovered the amount of reflections we had to write for the camp. 33 pages of reflections. And for me, as the Scribe/Secretary, my job is doubled as I had to record everything my other group members said on a piece of paper. It was very tiring. As the whole LLTC experience was really enriching and I want to record every single moment, this will be split into parts.

I shall end this by giving you a preview. Day 2 for us begins at 5:45am.