Just went for the second leap camp and I can't wait to share it. Last year's leap camp was Leap-foundation. This year was one step up: About mentoring. What I'll say is that it was so much better than last year's and it is the most successful and best camp I've been to. It was both fun, meaningful, and irreplaceable.

Train Ride
We went to Ipoh, Malaysia, by train. It was a 9-hour ride but it was a freaking train! The real one. Okay, judge me or whatever, but trains are amazing. Slept for the first hour or so, and went to the lunch area to eat and hang out for most of the rest of the journey with MJ, Matin, Wai Meng, Zhao Yi, Hamka, and my buddy Chun Ming. It was relaxing and nice. Got to see some nice sceneries and stuff as well as understand more about Malaysia. Matin tour-guided us a little, and kept telling us stuff like "we're near the end of Johor", and most of the time he was wrong :/

We really ended up in the same train as Afiq, so we of course hanged out and chatted. He and some of our DTVM seniors went for some road trip and went around Malaysia. Sounded exciting, maybe my friends and I can do that sometimes :) Besides, it's not very expensive.

This almost wraps up day one of the camp :S The rest are context setting, like some introductions and stuff.

Team and Buddy
I was in group 3 out of four groups. We named ourselves DORAAA. Wanted to have a cheer that go like "which part of us do you like the most? I like that too" but decided to keep it simple and normal in the end.

Throughout the days, got to interact with one another pretty comfortably, unlike most of my other camps. There was also this "Buddy system", in which we had to form pairs and stick to the pair for the most of the time and mentor one another, since the camp is about mentorship. I paired with Chun Ming. Shall talk more about this later on.

Earth Camp
So our area was an Earth Camp. Used to be a greenhouse kind of place, but they converted it into a camp area. Nice dorms, with beds and fans. The toilets were pretty good too, considering that it's a camp in the middle of the forest. Actually had toilet bowls. The only thing lacking is lights in the toilets, which was basically a group of containers containing toilet bowls in the middle of the trees.

It was a pretty nice and comfortable place, with rivers and stuff.

Truck Ride
The first activity was "Swift Water Rescue". Before that, we had to head up the mountain to go upstream the river. Had a super fun truck ride up. Two groups squeezed in one open-air truck and we were standing up, so the wind was strong and cool. There were low branches, so we had to shout "duck" when approaching one so everyone knew to duck the branches (by bending down). The whole duck thing was pretty fun.

Swift Water Rescue
Basically this activity was about how to handle ourselves when we got thrown into a river. It was kind of divided into two. The first part was the defensive swim. Basically we put on life vests, lie on the rapids, and let it bring us to the low-speed area while trying to use our hands to steer ourselves away from the rocks. Hurt my back on the rocks at the river bed. Ouch. But it was fun, getting carried by the water and all. It was cold but it's nice.

The second part was the real swimming. Had to swim from one side of the river to the other with the strong currents. It was pretty challenging but it was fun. Then at the other side, we had to literally jump into the river and swim back to the shore. It was so cool. I mean, it's not a common thing to get to swim in a river and even jump into it and stuff.

By right this activity was meant to get us to practice 3 habits from the 7 effective habits which was the focus of the camp: Being proactive, having the end in mind, and setting priorities. We were pushed out of our comfort zone and took risk to do things we would've easily skipped due to fear.

Flat Water Kayaking
For this activity, we were divided into smaller groups. I grouped with Chun Ming, Zi Yan, Hamizah, Wai Meng, and Fahmi. Group dynamics were pretty fine. Chun Ming was appointed as the leader. Everyone was supportive of one another and stuff. So each group was given a raft to row down the calm parts of the river. At first, my group's raft just kept spinning round and round because we couldn't control it well. Quite funny. Also kept on getting stuck on shallow areas. Had a race and we ended up doing pretty fine. First time doing this kind of boat activity.

That wrapped up day 2. Each activity was very long, which is why two activities could take out one day. But there was this intense moment about food. The first three teams who ate took too much food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the fourth group and stuff had very little left to eat. We were told about it during lunch but it happened again during dinner. The trainer, Lye, was disturbed and lectured us about it, leading to us feeling rather upset as well.

Mountain School
Day 3 started with high elements. here were three high element courses, each of different difficulties. It was up to us which ones we wanted to do and we had to do each element with the buddy. I heard that some people didn't have a choice to run away from the most difficult elements because their buddies wanted to do them. Have to support one another, I guess. That's the whole point.

I was pretty scared of the one that my buddy chose to do - the most difficult one, but I did want to do it too. So he mentored and pushed me out of my comfort zone and got me to overcome my fear. It was super tiring and I was seriously shaking my whole way through. Matin and his buddy was in front of me and he described my facial expression of fear as "priceless" :/ The element ended with flying fox, which was fun :)

Tried the easiest on as well and it was kind of interesting too. A lot about climbing.

White Water Rafting
This activity was the same as Flat Water Kayaking, just that this time we did it on the rapids at the upper course of the river. So, the water was super fast and it was really exciting. Wai Meng and Fahmi ended up in a different group because this time we had one raft guide coming with us and we couldn't have too many people in the group. The water kept splashing in and we had a lot of almost-falling-out-of-the-raft moments. Different groups kept splashing water on one another. But to spoil the sport, our boat had to get stuck on shallow parts countless of times. Anyway, I accidentally pushed Chun Ming into the water during one of the jerky moments o.o

The activity dragged for hours and soon we became tired and the real challenge of persevering till the end came. My team ended up last.

By the way for this activity, I volunteered to lead, but I did nothing besides saying things like "let's continue" when we stopped. We did a capsize drill, though, and it was pretty fun :)

Ipoh Town
Here comes the best part. We were brought to Ipoh Town for free and easy time. Hanged out with Matin, MJ, Wai Meng, Chun Ming, Zhao Yi, and Hamka. Ate at the hawker area. Ordered and shared satay and ate nice food. It felt so warm and fun even though it was so simple. Walked around in Tesco as well. Wanted to by souvenirs but ended up not doing so. There were some pretty cute One Piece figurines, but they were expensive. Spent the money on snacks instead xD

Closure
Today was the last day of the camp. Quite sad right now because I just miss most of the people :/ Can't wait to meet up with them or something! Anyway, there were two parts to the closure: Reflection and Appreciation.

For Appreciation, we were to give marbles to people whom we appreciate in the camp. It was a pretty touching moment :)

Three things I learnt
I genuinely learned 3 things, from the most important to the least important.

1. Synergy
I've always felt that in life, we have to be independent because we cannot expect other people to take care of us. We are responsible for ourselves and only we can give ourselves what we need and want. Through this camp, I realise that working with others become so important and so much simpler. For example, if not for my buddy, I wouldn't have gathered up enough courage to actually choose to do the most difficult high element. Without helping one another, we would have showered and pee-ed in complete darkness (we were shining torch lights for one another from outside the containers). I learned that leadership is thinking about everyone, caring about everyone, and taking the initiative to show the care. Maybe this realisation will make me a less detached person.

2. Intimacy
I won't say that I was being really intimate with my camp mates, but my level of intimacy was at my best. If you know me, you know that I don't hug people, I keep a distance and stuff, though most of the time it's due to mostly insecurity. This camp made me change. I hug, keep close, depend, let others depend, compliment openly, and stuff. It's a lot about "us" and stuff. It feels like I've let a new kind of love into my life, and that's great. This is why I miss the camp. I wasn't being really touchy and stuff though. But I'm afraid that once I return to my daily life this will change. I don't know.

3. Overcoming limits
As I've mentioned, I overcame my fears in high elements. I was at my bravest at the point, as in I didn't chicken out. It had been so so long since I pushed on in such intense fear. Maybe this is a life lesson for me: I may be scared, but if I push on I can reach the end.

And then there was the rafting. It was tiring but we just had to keep going without stopping because we were last. Once again, I was going outside the comfort zone.

I would love to post photos but I didn't take any. My camp mates did take a little though. Maybe I can do a photo essay kind of thing when they upload the photos. For now, I miss home and I want to enjoy living at home again :D

Labels: overseas, things that happened