Sec 3 Camp Resilience 2017

Smartphones have become an inevitable part of our life, so much that we become too over-reliant on them. Have you ever imagined yourself not having a smartphone with you for 4 days and 3 nights? It might seem horrible at first, but in the end, you might realise it isn’t as bad as what you'd expect. You might be wondering why would we not have our phones with us in the first place.

Well, we (the Sec 3s) embarked on our first ever camp in school! 4 days and 3 nights might seem like a really long period of time but it isn’t. In fact, it felt pretty short. I remembered asking myself the day before the camp if I would be able to get used to sleeping in a tent, and needless to say, will I survive without my phone by my side? The absence of my phone meant that I would lose any connection to the world for 3 whole nights.

However, it was actually not as bad as I expected!

One thing I learned over the course of the 4 days was to appreciate the nature around me -the starry night, the moon that we gazed at, out from the tent we were sleeping in and in the morning, the leaves budding on the tree, the birds going about their early morning business sailing from the branches, deep in their conversation... Most of the time, we are so engrossed in our phones that we become oblivious to our surroundings - the beautiful mother nature, the people around us.

On the 1st day, we went on our land expedition covering a shocking distance of 18 km without any device to navigate our way. We only had a map which was not very detailed. The aim of this land expedition was to cover as many checkpoints using the map given and find the shortest route to reach as many checkpoints as possible within the time allocated for us. As mentioned, since the map wasn’t detailed enough, we had to rely on our friends who were familiar with the neighbourhood to navigate our way through. That wasn’t the end.

Upon reaching the various checkpoints, we had to complete an activity and search for a numbered sticker.

On the 2nd day, we had our high elements at Christ Church Secondary School and we travelled there by foot. You must be shocked! It was indeed a test of our resilience as the name of this camp suggested. The high element was a once in a lifetime experience for us. It was nerve-wrecking for us to overcome each obstacle during the high elements but after completing them, we would feel a sense of accomplishment.

On the 3rd day, we finally had our kayaking activity at Kallang which we greatly anticipated. I could still recall myself having difficulties trying to maintain my balance when I was on the kayak. I had a hard time trying to figure out how to manoeuvre the boat with my partner but at last, we still managed to catch up with the class. On that very night, we had a campfire where we had to showcase our own performance as a class. I was glad that every class cheered for one another and joined in the fun.

The 4 days 3 night ended off with a high note with my class being awarded the title of the most resilient class. It wasn’t easy going through the 4 days of camp but I know it would definitely be a memory that the Secondary 3 students would never forget.