TRBC Youth Blog

Edit: Added "Bolly Bolly~!" video

MA says:
you should cut and paste your blog entry on the kukup trip there

MA says:
which no english or sunset youths went to because we all thought it was a kindergarden expedition

[ skinny twit ! ] [ young and idiotic. ] says:
wad the.
okok.
i will then.

Kindergraden expedition?! What were you guys thinking?

Anyway, I'll try my best and give you all a brief description of what happened la! Long entry with lots of pictures so go make yourself a nice cup of milo fuze. (drank that everyday there) Will update it with more pictures and videos soon!



Ok, so we all had to meet in church at 8 la. Nothing much happened except Shuz's cup of Mcdonald's tea spilt all over every one's bag la.

Labels: Kukup

Children's Enrichment Camp Day 3: 30 Nov 2006: Day 3 goes by in a blur of action - I'm still not used to the crazy amount of preparation that the food requires, but it's even more crazy since we're headed out for the outing in the morning at 10am today! The foodstuffs: milo drink tetrapacks and muffins.

The great thing: the muffins are very soft and yummy!

The bad thing: the muffins are very soft and squishy, which makes box-stacking impossible, or the children would eat squashed muffins! And you know how kids are - if a muffin looks at one wrongly, they'll simply refuse to eat it and go hungry the entire time.

The outing to the museum chapel (the music team was tasked with returning to the previous day's scene of the crime) was the same as before, except that this time, I was ready - I had gone out the previous day to get those cheap, red plastic tablecloths (70cents each from Cold Storage!) as groundsheets, so at least the (pampered, fussy) children didn't have to sit on the grass without coverings.

Personally, I rather like sitting on the grass because we do it so rarely in Singapore - I remember a delightful afternoon where I fell asleep on the grass while reading in Cambridge's botanical gardens (free admission on Tuesdays I think; it cost a whopping £2 (S$6!) to enter on other days!), which felt heavenly, but then again I'm often called wierd when I express such sentiments, and most people can't really understand that while the grass may not necessarily be greener on the other side, it can often be softer, spongier, more comfortable, and quite often, of a completely different variety.

Perhaps now would be a good time to relate the amusing events that occurred, its hilarity stemming from Puden korkor's popularity with the little boys and girls. (Puden can be seen on the right picture, playing chee-koh-pah with some of the boys.)

The previous day, we served sausage buns and water, which were delicious, but the water was heavy. I didn't want to waste the food, and the children needed to be fed, but most of all, I didn't want us to be carrying more than half of the meal items back when they were supposed to be consumed by the children themselves.

The breaktime was almost over, and I despaired of getting these kids to eat their snacks: many of them having rejected them, saying "I'm not hungry,". In exasperation, I half-jokingly devised a very simple means of getting the children to eat the food: I announced to the children that anyone who ate 10 buns would get to kiss Puden korkor, and whoever ate 20 buns or drank 10 cups of water (they were distributed in sealed plastic cups) could bring Puden korkor home.

I was foolish and did not expect Puden korkor's popularity; I did not anticipate the sudden rush of children at the food. There was one boy (who was of portly disposition) who ate 6 buns and drank quite a number of glasses of water; I was worried enough to ban him from eating anymore. There were many girls who also did try their best to procure a kiss from Puden korkor, but to no avail. I was VERY VERY worried that someone might fall ill from the binge-eating, and declared the contest over, but some (such as SX and Hyunn; SX can be seen on the left smiling like the mischievious monkey she is) found it extremely amusing to put a dollar-value - or should it be a bun-value on each of the music team teachers.

I was rather dismayed to find out that I was only worth a biscuit.

We had to leave the chapel early as the sky was threatening to rain, and there was another huge mess/mass. Day 3's crowd was larger than Day 2's crowd, and it was tough coordinating the headcount between 4 buses. Thank God for modern technology - one bus left too early without giving us a head count, but we managed to get the count through one of the bus drivers, who had a walkie-talkie with him. Isn't that cool? I want an island-wide-range walkie-talkie too. Without being in the army.

We finally left the chapel without further mishap, although Puden might dispute that: he was almost torn to shreds as the little girls fought to have him sit by their side. I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not - those primary 2 girls are relentless!

We had a little bit of a break between that outing and the next class, as lunch fell in between them. Remembering lull periods between sessions, I brought movies like I did the previous year, so we were in the middle of watching Titan A.E. to pass the time. The games team had also discovered that we had our own little private movie studio in the form of the music station, so they joined us to watch the movie. Titan A.E. was a hit with everyone - the youth couldn't believe that this "cool movie" was shown during "my time" - my elderly status being a source of constant ribbing among them. Puden elected to show Atlantis after that, which also enthralled them all - but we didn't manage to finish the last 15 minutes of it, which was quite a shame.

The rest of the day passed by without much incident - Day 3 of the camp always feels very routine, as the teachers have already gotten used to their children and everything seems to fall into place.

Children's Enrichment Camp Day 4: 1 Dec 2006:
There was a tangible air of excitement that day - perhaps it was the excitement that arose from the children over having to perform for their parents that night, or the almost tangible sigh of relief that the workers were storing up in anticipation of the camp ending.

Whatever the case, Day 4 is always D-Day for me. Between making sure that the kids know their actions, know their standing positions for their performance, sticking down placement lines in the sanctuary to get them to stand in position, ensuring that the powerpoint slides for both parents and children are ready, briefing the teachers and helpers on the sequence of events, helping to coordinate between the entrance and exit of the children during the performance itself, it's always chaotic and a beautiful disaster.

This year was not much different, except that I think I had more fun because I was more relaxed about it. There was a distinct lack of urgency about getting it right (as I was slightly obsessed about with the previous year) and more a sense of making sure that everyone had fun and wasn't stressed out over it, which I think was more important. There's no point in burning/stressing/pissing everyone off/out and forgetting the ultimate goal of this camp: the children's spiritual education, which often comes in the form of the feelings and emotions that the camp evokes when they remember the time that they spent with us. This includes teachers and pre-teen/teen helpers as well!

I think that was the day that Jacob joined us, uplifting everyone's spirits by performing a rather NC-16 version of the Arctic Edge theme song:



Everything went well that day - it was chaotic, but there were no major injuries nor crying fits nor anything. The concert started off slightly off due to a technical fault with the slideshow, but that allowed me to tell very bad artic-related jokes (How do you put a polar bear into a refrigerator? How do you put a walrus into a refrigerator?), and after that it all ran like clockwork. The carpark was clogged though - see the photo where cars are triple/quadruple-parked in the church compound in the picture below!

After the concert, many kids wanted to take pictures with (who else) Puden korkor, which embarassed him to no end - but hey, he was the celebrity of the camp! :-) Mainly due to my advice about the little kids: on stage, smile a lot, and if they don't smile back, just keep looking at them personally, and smile at them until they smile back! I suppose this made his charm simply irresistable to a generation which is starved of good, solid, male role models.

The concert ended half an hour later than expected at 8pm, cleanup took slightly over an hour, and people were already leaving by 9pm! This was highly unexpected, especially since I was waiting for the debrief, but there was some miscommunication and sadly, the debrief did not occur (it had to be done remotely via email, which isn't as effective as it could be.)

The ungodly early hour at which the camp terminated was a shock for the youth, and we headed out to United Square to have our own little dinner at the newly-opened Jalan Kayu Prata Shop, joking to Puden that he wouldn't be able to show his face in United Square for a while, or he would be mobbed by his screaming legions of fans (United Square being, of course, a shopping mall completely devoted to children, and where a lot of the kids at our camp hung out with their parents.) It was there that X decided to have Hyunn's penguin perform the Arctic Edge theme song, which will forever be immortalized in a YouTube video:



Nothing untoward happened to him at JKPS, but as we left for the bus stop, there was kids in the next door Swensens that waved frantically at him and ran out to say goodbye to him. After they returned to their parents in Swensens, Puden shook his head in rueful despair and admitted that it looked like United Square really was going to be off-limits to him for a while.

And on that cheerful note, we closed the chapter on CEC2006, departing for a good scrub and rest at home.

Labels: cec2006

(Updated!) Some people are sooooo demanding. Here is an accounting of how I spent/will spend this week, just to put this entire Children's Camp into the context of my life.

Sun 26 Nov 06 - Studying + Friend's wedding dinner
Mon 27 Nov 06 - Sick (mild food poisoning) + Studying + Exam at 6:30-9:30pm
Tue 28 Nov 06 - Children's Camp Day 1
Wed 29 Nov 06 - Children's Camp Day 2
Thus 30 Nov 06 - Children's Camp Day 3
Fri 1 Dec 06 - Children's Camp Day 4 (last day!)
Sat 2 Dec 06 - Soo Jin+Van's Wedding
Sun 3 Dec 06 - StanChart Run (10K)

This is the tail-end of my Oct/Nov craziness, but the work week from 4th Dec onwards is packed with back-dated appointments with people who wanted a piece of me but couldn't get it during my exam period.

Children's Enrichment Camp Day 1: 28 Nov 2006
Once again, I find myself in charge of the music station - I was involved in 2004, in charge in 2005 (last year), and again in charge this year (2006.) My lovely team this year comprise Beverly Tan, Puden Tsang, Huiyun, and Mandino Tan on P.A. Bev, Puden and Huiyun are amazing - they gave up Sunday after Sunday of lunches just to learn the actions for all the songs that we had to teach in the camp. How great is that? (And we have VIDEO FOOTAGE, all thanks to Miss.Chee.Vious.!

Same start to the camp like every year - everyone blur-blur dur-dur, some younger kids crying from the parent separation, the carpark dropoff area is a complete mess, parents coming into the music hall and blocking the entrance and then suddenly it's 830am already and we're all thinking ZOMG HOW COME THERE ARE SO MANY KIDS and IS THERE ENOUGH AIR IN THIS ROOM and IS IT TOO LATE TO BACK OUT and I HOPE THEY DON'T URINATE ON THE FLOOR and HOW ARE WE GONNA PULL THIS OFF???

And then we breathe, and then we pray, and it's okay.

For our station, it's just music, music, music all the way. Our schedule's tight and we always don't have enough manpower for this, but the kids dancing and singing is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS worth it, especially the pre-schoolers because they're just too adorable for words. Unfortunately, even the adorable-ness of the kids couldn't help Beverly clear her foggy head, so we had to send her off after lunch to visit the doctor and concuss on knockout drugs.

This was really bad for us because the first day is the only day we have two sessions with the kids - and this means we'll all be standing and dancing for nearly the whole day, stopping only for lunch and teatime. By the end of the day, waist-sour-back-pain doesn't even begin to cover how our lower limbs felt. But praise God! Everything went according to plan, although - and I am not kidding - one poor girl did urinate on the floor. Someone joked that my station was "too exciting liao."

One thing that really impresses me during the camp is the task of providing food for everyone in the camp. It's ALWAYS a military task to coordinate everything, although in the previous two years, it was a lady doing the work. This year, things definitely looked military-style, as Uncle Andrew took over from Aunty Anne in the cooking department. Because he's also in charge of logistics, stocks were ordered weeks in advance, and everything was delivered the weekend before the camp started. Boxes of the same size were put together, gunny sacks of rice were stored on top of boxes so that rats couldn't get to them, and physical barriers were put in place to prevent hungry mobs from overwhelming the kitchen staff.

A section was set aside for workers to eat and run, and Uncle Andrew was always around to remind us to eat more, and the daily menu was printed out and pasted in numerous locations to prevent parents and children from asking the same "what are we having for tea/lunch today?" question ten billion times over. How expert is that? And check out the amazing stacks of disposable cutlery we got - it's definitely NOT environmentally-friendly, but we tried the opposite last year - only to have it backfire on us as the kitchen staff were too stressed out by the washing up to concentrate on the cooking! Ergo, the decision to use styrofoam. We're still looking for solutions to this problem, and we welcome suggestions.

Debrief occurred at 6pm, and we all vamoosed by 6:30pm, tired and achy and having the theme song bouncing around in our brains.

Children's Enrichment Camp Day 2: 29 Nov 2006
The day started out with me not seeing the camp committee as we met to pray at 730am. Turns out that they were hiding in an obscure corner while I was wandering around church for 10 minutes. I got there just as the last "Amen" sounded, and after that it was a mad rush again to get to the music station to set everything up.

Praise & Worship, rest, teach, tea, rest, EXCURSION! This year, we went for two outings - the camp was split up into two groups, one to Changi Memorial Chapel and one to the Botanic Gardens. The groups would swap locations the next day, but yours truly was assigned to distribute tea at Changi Memorial Chapel.

Loading up the buses itself was a huge problem, because there were more butts than buttseats on each vehicle. Thankfully, the kids were squeezable, so we managed to hope on the two buses and head out to Changi. The bus took a wrong turn somewhere near the prisons, and we wound up staring at some airplanes, which woke everyone up and got us all quite excited. Too bad we were going to the chapel, and not touring Singapore Airline's hangars instead.

Changi Memorial Chapel is a very quiet, unassuming place. A dignified rememberance to the suffering that occurred during WWII and during the years of Japanese Occupation, it is situated in a pictureque little corner of Singapore, with an open-air bar/cafe at the side of its entrance.

(TBC, but I'll post this up first. Too sleepy to continue.)

It's a solemn place where you can go to remember the heros of the Japanese Occupation and see how Singapore fit in the greater context of WWII. Everything went well, although the rotating was kind of difficult due to the (1) massive number of children (2) the fact that we didn't really have a "holding area", and (3) the restriction that the kids couldn't make noise.

My duties were to distribute the water, cookies, and buns to the kids who were scheduled for tea break. The kids didn't seem very hungry, and the food/water boxes were so heavy that I decided to try and do something about it. I started selling kisses to Puden for 20 buns - all in jest, of course. But this soon spiralled out of control as I underestimated the love these kids have for their dear old 'Pooooden kor kor'. Kids really did start coming up to us and getting more buns from us, until we got quite alarmed that the kids would make themselves sick and vomit on the bus from the crazy force-feeding. One (rather fat) boy actually ate 6 buns and a lot of water, which pushed us over the edge from "amused" to "so cute" to "weird" to "ZOMG TAKE THAT BUN AWAY FROM HIS MOUTH BEFORE HE PUKES."

Herein lies the genesis of the Puden Fan Club, which is a post so hilarious that it deserves its own post, so hold tight while we all gather more incrimiating evidence.

Plus, I'm sleepy again.

Labels: cec2006

The music team this year comprised Puden, Huiyun and Bev, and I have to say that they have worked extremely hard, and come through for the kids in a most fantastic way!



Of course, this wasn't done without substantial rehearsals... which Celesta "kindly" video-ed for posterity.

Some people of course, think that they can do the moves without putting in the time. The results are... side-splitting, of course! Especially if your initials are E.K. or J.L. Have a look: